We'll be looking in Joshua 2
and a few other chapters in Joshua. I've titled this message, Hope
for Harlots. Hope for Harlots. A harlot is someone that's unfaithful,
and we certainly are unfaithful, aren't we? Yes, it's literally
a prostitute and different things like that. Do we prostitute ourself
against the things of the Lord, offering ourself up unto this
world, doing the things that we would not do, as Paul mentioned,
not being faithful to our Lord, an adulterer. That's what we
are by nature. So we need a substitute, and I've titled it Hope for Harlots. In chapter one, Joshua was bringing
the children of Israel across the Jordan River. And that is
a picture of our Lord bringing his people through his death,
through his burial, through his resurrection, and bringing them
safely and presenting them unto the Father. And we find here
in Joshua chapter two, in verse one, that Joshua sends out two
spies to spy out Jericho. It says in chapter two, verse
one, and Joshua, the son of Nun, sent out of Shittim two men to
spy secretly, saying, go view the land, even Jericho. And they
went and came into an harlot's house named Rahab and lodged
there. Joshua sends out two spies. Now
don't forget the first hour we heard that Joshua's name means
Jehovah is salvation. So why would Joshua send out
two spies? Obviously he felt impressed to
do so of the Lord or he would not have done it. And obviously
it was of the Lord because of the victory that the Lord give
them. But it was also done for you and I to have an insight
or a, type and a picture of what the Lord has done for his people.
The Lord sent two spies, if you will, in the Old Testament, didn't
he? And it's called the Law and the Prophets. When we studied
the number two, we saw that it had several different meanings,
but the law and the prophets were two of those. And so this,
these two spies are indicative of the Lord showing mercy unto
someone in that city. If these two spies had never
came into the city, Jericho, then the entire city of Jericho
would have been destroyed. But the Lord delights in mercy
and therefore sends these two spies into the city and they
land at the house of a harlot named Rahab. The, Interesting
part to me of this is that judgment had come upon Jericho already
at this point. The Lord was going to destroy
Jericho because he promised that the children of Israel would
have the land of Canaan. So every inhabitant that was
present there, the Lord was going to conquer. So the only explanation
that we can have, and we know this is the truth by the New
Testament and what the Lord has affirmed by faith, Rahab the
harlot believed God, the scripture says in Hebrews, and we'll get
to that in a brief moment. She was elect of the Lord. That's
the whole reason the two spies came to her. That's the only
explanation we have is that the Lord wanted to show mercy to
a woman named Rahab because she was his. So Our hope is the same. Rahab didn't even know that there
was any danger. She had heard of the children
of Israel coming and there was definitely fear that gripped
the people of Jericho, but they didn't really realize or think
that God was going to come and destroy the whole city by dropping
the walls. They felt protected in their
walls. Do we see that? They felt there was a wall encompassed
around Jericho. They felt safe behind the wall.
So they had barricaded themselves in, so to speak, as we see here
in chapter two. Our only hope is that the Lord
comes and visits us, even though we are confident in our walls
that we've built and in our sin and our trespasses, thinking
that we're doing something and that we're safe from the wrath
to come. Our only hope is that the Lord would send these two
spies, the fulfillment of the law and the prophet in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ and arrest us and show us that we
have a need. Rahab found out she had a need
to escape the wrath of God, that wrath was going to come and fall
upon Jericho, it was going to be destroyed. And so let's look
here in verse 17. I'm sorry, yes, chapter two,
verse 17. And the men said unto her, we
will be blameless of this thine oath, which thou hast made us
swear. Behold, when we come into the land, Thou shalt bind this
line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us
down by, and thou shalt bring thy father and thy mother and
thy brethren and all thy house, all thy father's house, home
unto thee. And it shall be that whosoever
shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his
blood shall be upon his head, and we will be guiltless. Whosoever
shall be With thee in the house, his blood shall be on our head,
if any hand be upon him. Understand, this is a perfect
type and picture of Noah's Ark. It's a perfect picture of the
Lord bringing in his people into a city of refuge and protecting
them against the one that would destroy them, the law that demanded
justice. It is a picture of us, the Lord's
people, escaping the wrath of God, being found in Christ, having
the blood applied, the scarlet thread. It's not by happenstance
that it was scarlet. It was the color of blood. The
Lord did that on purpose, didn't he? The Lord doesn't make accidents
or do things unintentionally. Everything comes to pass as we
read from Jeremiah 32, I will, and it came to pass. And so he
tells them here, They tell her here, bind that scarlet thread
in the window. And what did the Lord tell the
children of Israel in Exodus, whenever the death angel was
to come the night? When I see the blood, I'll pass
by you. That's what the scarlet thread
here represents. It's the blood that's been applied to the heart
of the believer. It's the blood that's applied
to the lintel and the doorpost and all that are inside behind
that blood that the Lord has put in himself are perfectly
safe from death. perfectly safe from the law.
I'd like to remind us in Matthew chapter five, verse 17, that
Christ didn't come to destroy the law and the prophets. He
came to fulfill them. And he did, didn't he? He perfectly
kept the law and he was the incarnate of all the prophecies that had
been made. He fulfilled every prophecy, every single thing
that was spoken. The Lord did, the Lord kept.
Now understand, as we heard the first hour, that the law is the
knowledge of sin, but the prophets are the knowledge of a savior.
And these are the two things that we see that she brought
into her home, that she kept in her home, that she hid. She
hid from the guards that were coming. The king got word that
two spies had came into Jericho and he said, go and find them.
And when they got to her house, when they got to the house of
Rahab, All she had to do is say they're up on the roof, but she
hid them on purpose. This is the same thing as David
said in the scripture, your word hath I hid in my heart that I
might not sin against thee. This is the law in the prophets
of the Lord that we hide in our heart, knowing that they pointed
unto Jesus Christ. We love the Lord's law. We don't
try to keep it, we look to Christ our substitute who did keep it,
who fulfilled the law perfectly. We look into the prophets knowing
that Christ is the fulfillment of those prophecies. We see Christ
is in all the fullness of scripture. Because she hid these in her
heart, she had knowledge of the scarlet thread. What do I mean
by that? I mean that if she had never
hid the law and the prophets in her house, If she had never
hid these two spies in her heart, so to speak, or in her house,
she would have never gained knowledge of the scarlet thread. There
would have been no covenant made. The only reason that you and
I love the Lord's law and delight in it, the only reason that we
love the law and the prophets, and the only reason we love the
Lord Jesus Christ is because he had first loved us. He had
given us a ransom in his blood. He hath given us knowledge of
the need of a scarlet thread. That's what the law has done.
As it said, you must have the blood applied. You must have
the blood applied or the Lord will not, the Lord will not see
you as righteous. We must have the blood applied.
So our hope is found in verse 19. And it shall be that whosoever
shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his
blood shall be upon his head and we will be guiltless. What
does that mean? That means if anybody breaks
this covenant, if they go outside of the house, then we're guiltless
and their blood is upon their own head. Aren't you glad that
you didn't get in Christ on your own merits and on your own works
and you trying to do something? Because if you can get in something,
you can get out of something. Am I right? I'm thankful that
we were placed in Christ. It was not by your works. It
was not by my works or your hand or my hand. We were placed in
Christ. before time ever began. We can't
mess this up. Our blood will not be upon our
own head because we know we must stay in this house. This is the
only place to be when the wrath of God comes. We must be found
in the ark. We must be behind the closed
door with the blood applied to the doorpost and the lintel.
The Lord has given us this knowledge by the law and the prophets.
And we have great desire to be found in Christ because of this
knowledge, don't we? This is how he reveals it by
the preaching of his gospel. And the good news is continuing
reading in 19, whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his
blood shall be upon our head. What does that mean? That means
everything that we've said is a lie. If somebody dies and they're
in the house. If somebody dies and they're
in the house, then everything that we've said is a lie, but
God cannot lie. He cannot lie. The prophets prophesied
of Christ and were fulfilled in Christ. The law of God is
perfect and holy and it is not wrong. So everything that the
law points to is the person of Jesus Christ and those who are
in the Lord Jesus Christ, justice has been satisfied for them.
God's justice, wrath, has been put away. It's been absorbed
into the person of Christ. Death cannot say anything against
the child of God, as we heard the first hour. Hell hath no
claim upon us. The wrath of God hath no claim
upon us. And the grave cannot boast that it will hold us because
it had to release us in the Lord Jesus Christ when the Lord was
resurrected. It takes faith. It takes the
faith of God to see that we have a need to put the scarlet thread
in the window. Now, I don't mean that we physically
put a scarlet thread in our window, but we have a need, don't we?
And the only way that we have a need is if the Lord's given
us grace and the faith to believe him. If he's given us repentance,
because the law came, sin revived. But thanks be to God, he hath
put away our sins, so the law cannot speak against us. The
only way that we can see that we need the blood applied, that
we need this scarlet thread, that we need to be in this house
to escape the wrath of God, is by the faith that he gives unto
us, the faith of Christ, by the preaching of his gospel. Hebrews
11, verse 30 says, By faith the walls of Jericho fell down. after
they were compassed about seven days. By faith, the harlot Rahab
perished not with them that believed not when she had received the
spies with peace." I understand, brethren, this faith that is
mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11, I've heard it, Hebrews chapter
11 mentioned as many different things, all the patriarchs and
people in the great hall of faith, they called it, I think, in religion.
And that what they meant by that was is we need to be more like
these men and women. We need to do what they did.
We need to boister our faith a little bit more and exercise
our faith a little more. We need to hear more preaching.
We need to crucify the flesh more. That's not what God's talking
about here. Every time you see faith, you could put the name
Christ right in its place if you want to. And it would mean
the exact same thing, because it comes from Christ. It is his
attribute. Faith is an attribute of Christ.
You and I can't produce faith because we don't have that attribute,
but faith cometh By Christ, it is his faith that we are justified
by. I'm gonna read that again to us. By Christ, the walls of
Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days.
By Christ, the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not
when she had received the spies with peace. God gets all the
glory in this faith, doesn't he? He gets all the glory in
saving his harlots, the ones that are unfaithful. He gets
all the glory in salvation and the Lord's people love it that
way. Faith is Christ. I wrote an article on faith in
your bulletin. I don't know if you've had a chance to read it
yet, but I would encourage you to do so. One of the lines says
that faith is Christ's given in eternity. That means it was
before time. Faith is Christ. It belongs to him. He's the one
that produces it. It's his. It's given in eternity
before time ever began to his people. And it's bestowed at
the appointed time in time by grace. That's not a contradictory. That's not a contradictory. If
the Lord, if we're in Christ, we've always had the faith of
Christ to look to him. But in the fullness of time,
the faith is bestowed upon us by grace. You are saved through
faith. It's that simple. Men would say that some of this
sounds kind of foolish. I've heard somebody actually
mentioned that to me, the way that I believe faith. Somebody told me this,
well, the way that you believe faith, that's foolish. Faith is something that
we do. And I'm like, Well, I guess I'm thankful for the verse that
says, God hath chosen the foolish things to confound the wise.
He chose the weak things to confound the mighty. He chose the things
despised. Those are the things he chose,
despised things. He chose the things that are
not to bring to naught that which is. A good example of that is
finding out that Rahab the harlot, according to Matthew chapter
one, was the great great grandmother of King David. Rahab the harlot
was the great-great-grandmother of King Davis, Boaz's mother.
You know, Ruth and Boaz, the account there, that's the foolish
things that men don't understand. Well, you can't, you can't, that's
just, men want the glory for salvation, don't they? But to
us, to what they call foolishness, it's all our hope. Christ is
all our salvation. His electing, His calling, His
saving, it's all of Him And that's the way we have to have it as
believers, because he's given us faith to look to Christ. Why is all this? That no flesh
should glory in his presence. No flesh should glory in his
presence. I meant to mention this the first
hour, so if anybody else is listening to the message after this, they
probably, if they didn't hear the first one, they might not
get this reference. But when the children of Israel were crossing
the Jordan River. He told him to take stones with
them, didn't he? You remember hearing me say that just a few
minutes ago? And this is foolish to men, because why would you
take a stone with you, a rock, into a river? in order to cross
over it. Think about that. That just doesn't
make any sense, does it? But that's what God told them
to do, and that's what they did. See, the Lord is not like us. His
ways are above our ways. His thoughts are above our thoughts.
He's high, he's holy, he's set apart, he's separate from sinners,
and yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him who had became sin
for his people. His ways are so other, so holy,
so other than we are. The good news is, brethren, is
we have knowledge. We have a city of refuge. We
have a sanctuary, a place to hide, a hiding place in the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is the good news of the
gospel. This is also that he gets all the glory and our salvation.
Now, the spies have returned to Joshua at this point, after
this conversation, after this covenant had been made with Rahab.
And that's, brethren, that's our hope is that before time
ever began, God entered into a covenant with his son to redeem
his people, and he did, and he successfully accomplished that
covenant. That's our hope. Now these spies have returned
to Joshua, and I would like to look in chapter six of Joshua. I don't know if you've noticed,
but we looked at chapter one, three, and four, and five,
the first hour. Now we're gonna be looking at
two, We're going to be going all the
way through chapter seven is what I'm implying. And so there's so much
in this. So bear with me. We'll try to get through it as
quickly as we can. Chapter six. In verse one, now Jericho was
strictly shut up because of the children of Israel. None went
out, none came in. The Lord said unto Joshua, see
I have given unto thine hand Jericho and the king thereof
and the mighty men of Valor. And ye shall compass the city
and all ye men of war and go round about the city once. Thou
shalt do six days. Seven priests shall bear before
the ark seven trumpets of ram's horns In the seventh day, ye
shall encompass the city seven times, and the priests shall
blow with the trumpets, and it shall come to pass that when
they make a long blast with the ram's horns, and when you hear
the sound of the trumpet, and the people, all the people shall
shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city shall fall
down flat, and the people shall ascend up, every man straight
before him. If these walls are going to fall,
the Lord's going to have to do it. I heard a song as a child
and it was called Joshua fought the battle of Jericho. Anybody
else ever heard that? And the walls came tumbling down.
It says the same thing over and over again. Joshua fought the
battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down. Joshua did
not fight the battle of Jericho. God fought the battle of Jericho.
Our Joshua, the Lord Jesus Christ, did fight the battle of Jericho,
didn't he? And that's what this represents
here. Here you and I are. You and I are the children of
Israel here. walking about this world, this city that we live
in, going to and fro, did the children of Israel get any glory?
Do you think they shouted loud enough to crack those walls?
Was it their voice that protruded out so loud, just like a glass
shattering? You may have heard of singing
at a certain pitch and the pitch causes the glass to shatter.
You've probably seen that mirrors break and things. You've seen
that maybe in movies, I don't know. Certainly, this was not what
was going on here. This was not them finding enough
faith to just really give it all they got and sing with everything
within them and the walls fell. No, faith looks to Christ, remember? They just believed God. They
just believed God. Joshua told them to go march
around the cities for seven days. The first six, they were just
to march around at once. And on the seventh, they marched
around at seventh time. And at the end of the seventh time,
were to blow their horns, and they were to shout with a loud
voice when they heard the trumpet, and the walls were to fall. So if we look at this just as
a child's story, if I can say it that way, because that's what
a lot of, men can't see that this is, there's the gospel in
this, and this is, it's glorious. This is you and I knowing that
if this wall's gonna fall, God's gonna have to do it. Just as
he looked in the scripture, he asks Ezekiel, he says, can these
bones live? Can these bones live? Lord, you
know, if the bones are gonna live, you're gonna have to do
it. If this wall's gonna fall, then the Lord's gonna have to do it.
We can see this wall as being what separated us from the Lord.
It could be our sin. It could be the law that separated
us from the Lord. And we can see that the judgment
of God must fall in order for you and I to be saved. But don't
forget, there's still Rahab inside of this city. inside of this
city. We can't get to God because of
this separation of this wall. That's the spiritual aspect of
it. The physical aspect of it is we are literally marching
around Jericho right now, if I can say it that way. We are
literally going around in circles, because that's all we know how
to do as human beings, just chasing our tail from the time that we
take our first breath to the last. We're just chasing our
tail, going around Jericho. Now, we get no glory in this
victory that took place, because all we're doing is following
the priests. that are going in front of us, the gospel preachers
that are, what are they doing? They're blowing the ram's horn.
Well, how is that significant? Do you remember whenever the
Lord tempted Abraham in Genesis chapter 22? He told Abraham to
take and offer up his son, his only son, Isaac. And he took
him up on Mount Moriah and he goes to slay his son, Isaac,
and the angel of the Lord says to him, bid him no harm. He knows
now that Abraham believed God. And he turns around and he sees
a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. This is the same ram's
horns that are being blown right here. This is the gospel going
forth. What does the ram's horns represent? Well, we know that
the ram represents the Lord Jesus Christ and the horns represents
the strength or the power of the ram. It's their defense,
their ability to defend themselves, is it not? The ram was caught
in a thicket. The ram was caught in thorns.
And if you recall back in Genesis chapter three, when the judgment
of God came upon Adam and Eve for the sin that they committed,
that was that was the judgment was thorns and thistles shall
the earth give forth. The ram was caught by the curse
of Adam. We see a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ there, don't we? Being caught and even being crowned
with the crown of thorns, even being crowned with the crown
of thorns. So what is the picture here? They offered up that ram
in the stead of Isaac. And we see that that is what
these priests are doing, carrying this ark, blowing this trumpet,
is just declaring, it is finished. It is finished. And we just follow
the gospel as we're going around this place, Jericho, in this
world, aren't we? We're just trying to get back to the gospel.
We just keep going the direction, wherever the gospel is being
preached, as it goes forth, we have to be there to follow after
Christ. That's where we have to be. That's
what's been placed in our heart. We just believe God because he's
made us to be thus. So we have many different aspects. We could take this, whether or
not We want to see it as a spiritual, through the spiritual glass,
or we can look at it through the physical glass. We can look at
it through different ways, but the glorious news is, brethren,
this is us just going around Jericho, getting no glory in
the finished work of Christ whatsoever, just believing God, just listening
for the sound of the ram's horn, the gospel going forth, just
that declares Christ is all, Christ is all. We just want to reflect Him,
don't we? Did you know the moon reflects
the sun? That's all that it can do. It has no light in of itself.
It has no light. The moon cannot produce anything
in and of itself, and neither can we. You know what the name
Jericho means? Moon. It means the moon. The Lord gets all the glory in
what's about to take place right here. Here we are, brethren,
reflecting, desiring, knowing that we do not produce anything
of ourself, but desiring to have the light of the Lord, desiring
to have the light of the Lord reflected off of us, radiating
off of us, that he would put it in us. Now, verse 10 of chapter
six, and Joshua, had commanded the people saying, you shall
not shout nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall
any word proceed out of your mouth until the day I bid you
to shout, then shall you shout. Now in verse 16, it came to pass
at the seventh time when the priest blew with the trumpets,
Joshua said unto the people, shout for the Lord hath given
you the city. Brethren, this is us. We do not draw attention to ourself.
If you wanna know, The most clearest indication of somebody not believing
the gospel is they declare themselves in some way, shape, or form in
salvation. I have done this. I have made
my choice. I've given my heart to Jesus.
I've done this or I've done that. That is the clearest indication
they are speaking of themselves. We, as the Lord's people, can
only confess what he has placed in our heart to confess, that
Christ is all. We don't speak. Just as Joshua
here is saying, as you march following that trumpet, Keep
silent. Don't draw attention to yourself.
Don't draw attention to yourself until it's all accomplished.
Then you shout. Why did they shout? He tells
us, because the Lord hath given you the city. We shout for victory,
don't we? We don't shout to draw attention
to ourself. Well, how do we do this shouting? Well, we do it
by two ways. We confess Him in baptism and
we partake of the Lord's table. Those are the only two things
that we do in confession. We don't have a big show of somebody
coming up here and we lay hands on them and all things like that.
We don't dabble in such foolishness. We know that we are to keep silence.
We are to keep silence and rejoice in our heart and we confess Him
in baptism and we confess Him by taking of the Lord's table.
Those are the two ordinances, that's it. That's what we do.
We just see that the wall's fallen, don't we? We just see that the
work's been accomplished, that the wrath has fallen upon the
Lord Jesus Christ, our substitute. And here we are now, back in
Rahab's house, back in the Lord Jesus Christ. So yes, we're the
children of Israel going about this city of Jericho, but don't
forget that the wrath fell on Jericho. The wrath fell, and
we were without the wrath because we were in the Lord Jesus Christ
when the wrath fell. I hope I'm making sense this
morning. We're at both places at the same time. There's no
other explanation. This is us on this side of eternity and
what happened in eternity. We're at both places at the same
time. It can't be seen any other way. All we confess is that Christ
gets all the glory. Notice that it was the seventh
day, the seventh day whenever this was accomplished. We rest
on the Sabbath day, don't we? The men in the Old Testament
and the Pharisees, they strive to keep the Sabbath. You weren't
even allowed to walk a mile. You couldn't even walk a mile
on the Sabbath day. No work could be done whatsoever.
All of that is just pointing to Christ, that He accomplished
the work. Don't put your hand to it. Don't
add to or take away from it. The scripture says, He that adds
to the words of this book of this prophecy, the very last
chapter, Revelation 22, He that adds to the words of the book
of this prophecy, I'll add to Him the plagues that are written
in this book. He that taketh away the words of the book of
this prophecy, I'll take his part out of the Lamb's book of
life. We don't add anything to it, do we brethren? We don't
take away anything from it. We just need Christ, the I am,
as he is. We see what we are and we need
Christ. We need that scarlet thread.
We need him to have endured the wrath of God on our behalf so
that we could be set free from the law of sin and death and
his wrath. Now notice verse 17, and the
city shall be accursed, even it and all that are therein to
the Lord. Only Rahab the harlot shall live.
She and all that are with her in the house, because she hid
the messengers that we sent. Now in verse 25, it says, and
Joshua saved Rahab. I love that. And Joshua saved
Rahab. Now, The city had fallen, the walls
of Jericho had fallen, and all the men inside the city were
destroyed, but Joshua saved Rahab. Why? Because of a covenant. Because of the covenant made
with the two spies. Because of the scarlet thread
that was in the window. Joshua, Jehovah is salvation,
saved the unfaithful one. Is that our hope this morning?
Is that the Lord would save us and make us faithful dogs? His
faithful dogs. That's our hope this morning.
Joshua saved Rahab. It doesn't say Rahab took the
first step, does it? Well, since Rahab took the first
step, then Joshua. No, scarlet thread was given
to Rahab. to put in the window. The covenant
was given unto her. She got no glory in it whatsoever.
Christ Jesus, our Lord, did all the work in saving his people
and he gets all the glory for it. Now, this portion of scripture
now brings us to an interesting parallel that I would like to
look at for a few brief moments. The beginning of chapter seven,
we know that according to verse 17 of chapter six, that everything
in the city shall be accursed. And it was to be left alone,
not touched. But it was unto the Lord and they brought it
into the Lord's service. They brought it and dedicated
it unto the Lord. And no one was to touch any of it. It was the
Lord's. He got the victory. He gets all the glory. And yet
we see in Joshua chapter seven, a man by the name of Achan. In
verse one it says, but the children of Israel committed a trespass
the accursed thing, for Achan the son of Carmi, the son of
Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed
things, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the
children of Israel." Now because of this, the next battle that
they fought against the men of Ai, they were a little overconfident
for one thing. They had just saw the walls of
Jericho fall down. They had just came across the
Jordan River and saw it divided. And now they see this little
nation of Ai and they tell Joshua when they spied out, just send
two or 3,000, we can wipe them out, it's fine. And Ai sent the
children of Israel back with their tails tucked and men died
because of this. Why? God was not on their side. Brethren, I can't stress the
importance of our need to have Christ on our side, pleading
on our behalf before the Father. We cannot approach God, He's
holy. We must honor Him, and we can't honor Him in and of
ourself. It's the Lord Jesus Christ that
did that on our behalf. We must be found in Christ. Achan takes up the accursed things,
and the parallel to you and I here is that Rahab believed God. Rahab believed God, took him
at his word and believed God, given faith, was given faith
to believe God. And Achan did not believe God,
did he? God said, don't touch it, and
Achan touched it. He took of it. He desired it. Now in verse 19 of this chapter,
chapter seven of Joshua, verse 19, Joshua said unto Achan, My
son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel and
make confession to him. And tell me now what thou hast
done. Hide it not from me. Brethren,
there's going to be a day every knee will bow and every tongue
will confess to the glory of Jesus Christ and the Father.
Whether they wanted to or whether they don't want to, they will
confess that Christ is God to the glory of God the Father.
They will. The scripture tells us that clearly. There's nothing
that can be hidden. What I didn't tell you was is
that they lined up everybody and the children of Israel and
they're all being interrogated. Everyone has to stand before these men,
Joshua included, and give an account and say, I haven't done
anything. Well, when the lot fell upon Achan, see, We can't
hide from God and His light. His light exposes our darkness. It exposes our sin. That's what the law does. That's
what the Lord does when He looks upon us. We must be in Christ
so that we are not consumed. We must be hid under the shadow
of His wing because He's gonna see everything when we stand
before Him. If we're in Christ, He will see
that we're perfectly righteous. If we're not in Christ, he will
see every sin that we ever committed. And we will have to give an account.
The scripture says we will give an account of every deed, whether
it be good or whether it be evil. Now in religion, men would say
this about Achan, the same thing, and they would do that as a scare
tactic. Well, you better be able to have a good account when you
stand before the Lord. He's going to look at your entire
life and he's going to examine every aspect of it. Not if you're
in Christ. If you're in Christ, all he's
gonna see is the life of Christ. All he's gonna see is the blood
of Christ. So we don't use foolish things like that as a scare tactic.
We declare Christ is all and flee to him. That's the message
that's coming forth here. Don't be like Achan, even though
we're clearly warned not to take God's glory, we do it anyway.
Don't do that. We don't do that, do we? As believers,
we can't. God gets all the glory in our
salvation. Now, the next verse here says, and Achan answered,
Joshua and said, indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of
Israel. Either you're gonna confess you're
a sinner on this side of eternity or you will on that side of eternity.
It's that simple, it's that clear to me. Sin against the Lord God of Israel
and thus and thus have I done. When I saw among the spoils a
goodly Babylonian garment and 200 shekels of silver and a wedge
of gold of 50 shekels weight, then I coveted them and took
them and behold they are hid in the earth in the midst of
my tent and the silver under it. It goes on to tell us that
Joshua sent messengers and they dug it up, they found it, they
bring it before Israel and they place it in front of them. I
want you to notice that this is all false religion right here,
brethren, all three of these, this is important. This Babylonian
garment represents a man having his own righteousness, his own
righteousness. Now, first of all, in all false
religion, it starts the same way as it did with Achan. desiring
the glory of God for themselves. Some way, some shape, some form,
desiring the glory of God for themselves. That's how this started.
The second thing that they do is the same thing Achan does,
is they have their own righteousness, their own garment. That's what
the Babylonian garment represents. We need his righteousness, don't
we? We need the scarlet thread of
the Lord Jesus Christ. We need his garment. The second
thing is gold that he mentions here. This represents the deity
and humanity of Christ, who he was, trying to rob God of his
glory by trying to say God is not God. In some way, shape,
or form, denying his sovereignty in election, denying his sovereignty
in every aspect of him. This is what the gold represents,
is just trying to steal God's glory. And the last is silver. Was Christ not sold? For silver? He was, wasn't he? Christ was
sold for silver. What does this mean? That men
sell out, sell out Christ for gain. They sell out Christ for
gain in false religion. Brethren, we do not sell out
Christ. We want Christ to have all the
glory. We can never sell out to him. You know why? Because
we've been bought. You can't sell out if you've been bought.
Did you know that? We're not our own. We can't sell out. We
can't sell him out because we've been sold out to him. Do we see
that? He's bought us with his own blood. So there's no way
that we can sell him out, but we're sold to him. Now in closing,
I want to mention this briefly. Believing is something that's
passive. Meaning it's not something that we do. In and of ourself,
believing is faith bestowed upon us and it happens the same thing
as a baby breathing, and I've used that example before. When
a baby is born, it's alive and then it breathes. Well, that's
the evidence. Breathing is the same as believing to the believer.
If you have been born again, you breathe and you believe by
faith passively. It's not something that You have
done in and of yourself so that God gets all the glory for it
in salvation. But to the unbeliever brethren,
it's an active response. It's an active response to attempt
to get glory for themselves. What does man do by nature every
time they're faced with Christ? We will not have this man reign
over us. We will not. Unbelief is not
passive. Unbelief is an active response
to the truth of the gospel, an active response. Man raised their
fist up by nature in an active response unto the Lord. Therefore, there's judgment.
In verse 25, Joshua said, why hast thou troubled us? The Lord
shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with
stones and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with
stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this
day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness
of his anger. Wherefore, the name of that place
was called the Valley of Accord. Now, understand the word troubled. Christ was troubled for his people.
Christ absorbed the wrath of God's fire. That's our hope as
the Lord's people. Our hope is that the Lord would
never trouble us because he troubled Christ. Last place I want us to turn
is in Joshua chapter 24 and verse 15. Men believe by nature, according
to Isaiah, they've made a covenant with death and with hell they're
in agreement, so that when the overflowing scourge shall pass
through, it shall not come unto us, for we have made lies our
refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourself. This is why Joshua says in Joshua
24, 15, and if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose
you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father
served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods
of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and
my house, we will serve the Lord. Now in religion, men say. Men believe that when he says
choose you this day whom you will serve, he's saying choose
the Lord or choose the false gods. That's not what Joshua
said. Listen to this again. If it seemed evil unto you to
serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve. What
gods? Are you going to serve besides
him as what Joshua was saying? Are you choosing the gods of
the Amorites? Are they the ones that make you feel good about
yourself? Are you choosing the gods of the Canaanites, the Amalekites? Which gods do you choose if it
seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord? But as for me and my
house, we will serve the Lord. Why will we serve the Lord, brethren?
Because we've been made to know Christ is all. We will serve
the Lord. It is a declaration of putting
our foot down and saying we have determined with all of our heart
to serve him, certainly so. But it's because in Jeremiah
chapter 32, as we just read at the beginning of this service,
I will and you shall. We are clinging to God that we
will serve the Lord. Do we see that? We are clinging
unto Him, begging Him to cause us to. We know that there's no
other gods that we will serve because He hath made us to know
the one true God, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been made to
have hope as a bunch of harlots. We have been made to have hope
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we will serve the Lord because
we've been made to believe Christ is all, the hope of harlots. Father, thank you for giving
us hope, knowing what we are, giving us hope in Christ who
hath put away our sin and who hath saved us, calls us to run
to him, calls us to flee to him, calls us to cling to and believe
on him, calls us to cling to his blood alone. In Christ's
name we pray. Amen.