Gooding, David: 18 - Details of Section 6

This is the last time that I shall have the pleasure of being with some of you. So let me express my gratitude to you for your presence and for your brotherly kindness and the stimulus you are to my own spiritual life. May God bless you as you return to your assemblies, to your families, to your workplace, and other areas of work for the Lord. Amen. If you can, from time to time, when you have run out of things to pray about and have five minutes over, uh, pray for us who work in Eastern Europe. A great door and effectual is open to us. But as Paul would say, there are many adversaries, and many uncertain circumstances. So pray for us, if you will, that God's work may proceed, and God's s- son- the name of God's son be much glorified. Now we come to the sixth and final section of the book of Joshua. It is composed of three elements, three chapters indeed, and I have listed them for you, eh, in the overhead film, and I think you have copies in front of you. The three stories in this final section are, one, the near battle between the tribes settled west of Jordan and those settled east. Secondly, Joshua's first address to the leaders, and finally Joshua's second address to the leaders of his people. I shall be suggesting that these three stories deal with three difficulties, you may call them, in the way of Israel's serving the Lord. And those three difficulties we may sum up under the first heading, undue, hasty, and unjustified charges of heresy between one set of brethren and another. Secondly, Secondly, second difficulty in the way of serving the Lord, Israel's perilous tendency to idolatry. And thirdly, a difficulty, a very serious difficulty, when Israel professed their determination to serve the Lord, Joshua replied, you cannot serve the Lord. Why? For he is an holy God. He is a jealous God, and he won't put up with your unfaithfulness. Three difficulties, therefore, in the way of the nation serving the Lord. The cure for those three difficulties, the cure for the hasty and unjustified charges of heresy between brethren would be the use of the pattern of the altar as the test and witness of orthodoxy. The cure for the tendency towards idolatry was the deliberate cultivation of love for the Lord, a love that was near not mere sentiment or emotion, but deliberate love that leads to keeping the Lord's commandments and of being loyal to the Lord. And the final difficulty, knowing that the Lord is a holy God and a jealous God. Then the overcoming of the difficulty must be the definite choice to serve the Lord, confirmed by a covenant and witnessed to by a memorial stone, the stone being called Aeth, which is Hebrew for witness. These then are the elements that now in this next hour we must consider. So first of all, the near battle between the tribes settled west of Jordan and those settled east. Once more, we come to the topic that we discussed this morning, the two and a half tribes that had been given their inheritance east of Jordan. For when God brought the Israelites finally into the land, he did not bring them up the route that he first proposed when first they came to Kadesh Barnea, which was to go straight up through the foothills of Judea into the country. Instead, he took them a roundabout way, south a bit, uh, to Edom, and then through the narrow space between the two parts of Edom, and up the other side past Edom, then past Moab, bringing them to the plains of Moab on the east of Jordan. From there they were attacked by sundry enemies, and under Moses' leadership and the Lord's guidance, they confronted those enemies, fought them, and destroyed them, and took over their cities. There were two enemies, so that by the time the enemies had been overcome and their cities taken, quite a large swathe of land east of Jordan was now in Israel's possession. And two and a half tribes, since they had a lot of cattle, and there was much grass in that particular part of the countryside, asked Moses the favor that he would give them eventually that part of the country as their inheritance. As we saw this morning, Moses bristled at that request, thinking it meant that the two and a half tribes were wanting to settle down in ease now and were refusing to go across Jordan to join in the war with their brethren. So choosing to take a leisured, easy life as distinct from fighting with the Lord's people. And secondly, that they were beginning a split, a splinter group, so that Israel would no longer be one united nation before God, but would be split into two groups that should progressively become more alienated, the one from the other. When Moses had exhausted his fury at their suggestion because of his misunderstanding, the two and a half tribes were mercifully given chance to explain that they had no intention of thus settling down and avoiding the war. They were prepared to leave their wives and families and cattle in stockades and themselves go over our- over Jordan, armed and in the vanguard of the armies of God. And not would they return east of Jordan till the war had been accomplished and fulfilled. So now in chapter twenty two, we find Joshua addressing these two and a half tribes, the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh. And he begins by complimenting them that they have kept all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, and have hearkened unto my voice in all that I commanded you. You have not left your brethren these many days unto this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the Lord your God. So now that the Lord your God hath given rest to your brethren as he spake unto them, now Joshua gives them his commander's permission to go back over the Jordan into the land of their possession. Notice how he describes their land, verse end of verse four: to the land of your possession which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you beyond Jordan. This is constantly emphasized, both at the end of Numbers and now in the sundry chapters of Joshua, where it recurs. As though the special emphasis was needed, as indeed it was, that this inheritance east of Jordan was not a second best, a kind of a half-worldly option. It was given them by God, given them by the servant of the Lord Moses, with the Lord's approbation. And what is more, the condition upon which it was given, namely that the menfolk in these tribes should leave their families and cattle in stockades and go over armed before the rest of the nation and before the Lord to fight the battles. The two and a half tribes had kept it, uh, literally and word for word they had kept it, and had fought valiantly in the vanguard, and had not attempted to go home before the land had rest and the enemies were overcome. But now that the other tribes were having their p- inheritance distributed to them, as we have read in those middle chapters, the tribe of Judah and the Joseph tribes first, they had their inheritance, and then the seven tribes, they had their inheritance, and the two and a half tribes had waited patiently. Now, at length, Joshua gives them permission that they can go back home east of Jordan and enjoy their possessions. He gives them, of course, one final exhortation, verse five: only take a diligent heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went unto their tents. Now forgive my emphasizing again that their inheritance had been given them by God, and God himself approved of their going back east of Jordan. Forgive my emphasis, because I personally was brought up by godly men and women, very godly. But on this matter, they held that the two and a half tribes were what they called world borderers. They want to be part of the people of God, but they wanted to settle down as near the world as they could possibly settle down. They were prepared to do a bit of fighting, but not too much, and they wanted to take life easily. And there was invented a little story, uh, to us in my youth to press home this point. Uh, we were told of a little girl who was put to bed by her parents, and presently they heard a bump on the floor, and when they went upstairs to investigate, there was the child. She'd fallen out of bed onto the floor. And when the parents put her in bed, the little child explained what had happened. She said she'd kept too near the part where she went in, so she'd fallen out. And this little parable was applied with much effect to our infant minds, that these two and a half tribes had had stayed too near the point where they got in, and how dangerous and worldly minded that was. With all due respect to my dear elders, that was nonsense and contrary to scripture. The Lord that gave them, and the servant of the Lord Moses gave them. And what is more, that part of the world was part of the original covenant given to Abraham and to his seed in Genesis fifteen. It was not unworthy. It was not a symptom of worldliness. And these men had proved their worth and their faithfulness all these years in fighting with their brethren across in the west, in Jordan itself. Now they were going back. And Joshua, uh, as is fitting for the elderly statesman, e- exhorted them to be diligent, to keep the Lord's ways and words and commandments, and so forth and so on. Blessed them and sent them away. As they went, and they came near to Jordan. You know, Jordan, as you will know, geographically, is a very deep chasm in the Earth's surface. Down parts of the Dead Sea, it's the, it's the deepest part of the world, I believe, unless somebody else has invented a deeper part in America. But, uh, you'll see, uh, it used to claim to be, uh, the deepest part in the world, some cavern. How easily such things are made a point of division. So as they were going back, the two and a half tribes thought up an idea, and they built an altar, exactly the same pattern and proportions of the altar in the court of the tabernacle at Shiloh. And they built it on the western bank of the Jordan, and then went on into their inheritance. So we read subsequently in that chapter, verse twelve, for instance. Oh, when the other tribes in the west heard of it, woof, when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered themselves together at Shiloh to go up against them to war. Are so ready to go to war? Against men who had so recently risked their own lives to fight with them and protect them and help them to gain their own inheritance. So ready to go to war, without first inquiring why they had done it and what its significance was. Of course, if they had built it to offer sacrifices upon it as an alternative altar, then they would have seriously breached the law of Moses and the commandment of God. That would have been very serious. The other, the major tribes jumped to the conclusion that this is heretical. And so they prepared to go to war. And they sent, we're told, a juicy embassy there to them. Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the priest, and with him ten princes. One prince of a father's house for each of the tribes of Israel. And they were, every one of them, head of their fathers' houses among the thousands of Israel. They were official dep- uh, deputation. And they came unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and they spake to them, saying... But now you notice, not, my dear brethren, we are perturbed at what we hear you have done. We can't quite understand it. Can't actually believe it you've done it. You must have some special reason, surely. Why have you built this extra altar? It's most unorthodox, isn't it? Do you really mean to depart from the Lord and break his word? No, not that. What trespass is this that you have committed against the Lord, the God of Israel, to turn away from following the Lord, in that you have builded you an altar to rebel this day against the Lord? They take it for granted it's rebellion. I haven't even talked to them yet. Perhaps it was the seriousness of the thing, if it had turned out to be heretical, that had got them all on edge and steamed up, so to speak. Let's try and, uh, speak up for them a little bit. But look at verse seventeen. Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we have not cleansed ourselves unto this day, although there came a plague upon the congregation of the Lord, that you must turn away this day from following the Lord, and it will be saying that to rebel today against the Lord, that tomorrow he will be wroth with the whole congregation of Israel. Oh dear. And now suggesting that what they've done is as bad and wicked and immoral and heretical as what the nation had done when they committed whoredom with the daughters of Moab and went and worshipped the gods of the Moabites. That is to cast an aspersion on the two and a half tribes, isn't it? Well, you say they were worried. They thought it was, uh, heresy, and they'd got the, uh, they got them very worried. Then they say, how be it if the land of your possession be unclean? Oh, dear, dear, dear, whoever said it was unclean? The Lord had given it to them. If the land of your possession be unclean, pass over to us. So by definition, they weren't unclean, I suppose. Only rebel not against the Lord, nor rebel against us in building you an altar besides the altar of the Lord our God. Come over to us where the Lord's tabernacle dwells. Did not, oh, and they're not yet finished. Wow. Did not Achan, the son of Zerah, commit a trespass in the devoted thing, and wrath fell upon all the congregation of Israel, and that man perished not alone in his iniquity? They were afraid, apparently, that this heretical action on the part of the two and a half tribes, as they judged it to be, would bring wrath not merely on those tribes, but on the whole of Israel. And then they'd blown themselves out of steam. Mm-hmm. And given the chance to talk, I'm amazed at the grace of the two and a half tribes. Of course, they'd had an experience with Moses, hadn't they? When they first made their suggestion, and he had denounced them as being particularly wicked, and when he'd finished, they said, yes, we understand, but uh, we weren't intending that anyway. We were intending really to go, go across and fight for our brethren. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, were you? You know, why didn't you say that before? And all that kind of thing. You see. When the two and a half tribes got the chance to speak, then the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh answered and spake unto the heads of the thousands of Israel, the Lord, the God of gods, the Lord, the God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he too shall know, if it be in rebellion or if it in be trespass against the Lord that we have built this altar. And if that is so, they inter- inter- interpass a a prayer, save thou us not this day. We deserve judgment if we have built it out of heretical motives. We we have not done so. We have not built this altar to turn away from following the Lord, or to offer thereon burnt offering or meal offering, or if to offer sacrifices of peace offerings thereon. If we have, let the Lord himself require it. We stand open to God's judgments. He knows our hearts, but we have not built it to offer sacrifices on. This is how we've done it and why we've done it, and if we have not rather out of carefulness done this and of purpose, saying, and this was their motivation. They were afraid that in time to come, with the passing of the generations, the children of the Westerners might come and say to the Easterners, children, what have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? You live in this other part of the world, across this divide. You've nothing to do with us. You've no right to come to our tabernacle in Shiloh. That was what they were afraid of. Afraid that the Westerners would say, for the Lord has made Jordan a border between us and you, you children of Re- Reuben and children of Gad. You have no portion in the Lord. So shall your children make our children cease from fearing the Lord. That is their fear. And if history is any judge, how easily divisions of that kind spring up between generations, don't they? Unjustified divisions, wrong concepts, wrong presuppositions. And taking guard against that, they had built this altar, they said. Therefore we said, let us now prepare to build us an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice, but it shall be a witness between us and you, between our generations afterwards, that we may do the service of the Lord before him with our burnt offerings and with our sacrifices and with our peace offerings, that is in Shiloh, and that we won't be shut out and excommunicated and not allowed to take part in it. That your children may not say to our children in time to come, you have no portion in the law. Therefore, said we, it shall be when they so say to us in our generation in time to come, we shall say, behold the pattern of the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made, not for burnt offering nor for sacrifice. It is a witness between us and you. God forbid that we should rebel against the Lord and turn away this day from following the Lord to build an altar for burnt offering, for meal offering, or for sacrifice besides the altar of the Lord our God, that is before his tabernacle. They built it then as a witness, that in times to come, if such arguments arose, and they were excluded by the Westerners from coming to Shiloh, not allowed to take part, they would appeal to this, this altar made exactly as the altar in Shiloh, to show that they knew all about the tabernacle. They were Israelites like the rest. They had a right to that altar in Shiloh. They had not built this thing to be a substitute or another altar to offer sacrifices on, but to a witness that they knew the altar, they knew the exact pattern, they wanted to adhere to that altar in Shiloh, and they and their children had a right to it. Behold the pattern of the altar of the Lord, the evidence that they were orthodox in their thinking and practice. I don't know what you say if people accuse you of being heretical, or schismatic, or refuse you fellowship. I think one good answer still is what the two and a half tribes said. Well, you think we're schismatic? Behold the pattern of the Lord. This is what we adhere to. If you ask me evidence of my orthodoxy, I could well reply to you in the same terms. Behold the pattern of the altar. Not a physical altar, of course not. Only in the sense that Hebrew says we have an altar. I'll be referring to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. You've a right to know what I believe about that. It's absolutely crucial. What do I believe about him who died on that cross. This is what I believe. Being in the form of God, he thought it not a thing to be grasped at to be on equal terms with God, but made himself of no reputation. He emptied himself. Took upon him the form not merely of a human being, but of a servant. From being God, whom all serve, to being a servant. And being found in fashion as a man. Now that was a deeper step, because angels are servants. And mankind are below angels. He became a servant. And then coming lower, was found in fashion as a man. But then he emptied himself. Not that he gave up his deity, it does not mean that. It means what Isaiah fifty three means. He poured himself out in his service to God and to us. Became obedient. And obedient unto death. And that not just any ordinary death, but to the death of the cross. My brethren, you must judge whether I am a heretic or not. Behold the pattern of the altar, my altar. This is it. What I believe about the person of Christ, who there died for me, on that cross. And God hath highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Jehovah to the glory of God the Father. I bow my knee to that too. Would that be orthodox enough for you? Ah, but wait a minute. Behold the pattern of the altar. I'll tell you something else I believe about the altar. Whereas at the Jewish altar in Shiloh and in the temple at Jerusalem and elsewhere, the priests stood daily, offering oftentimes the same sacrifices that could never take away sin. This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin forever, sat down on the right hand of God. Having perfected forever those that are sanctified. And that is not our imagination. The Holy Spirit himself has gone witness to this fact. You'll see, because the Holy Spirit inspired the terms of the New Covenant. And the terms of the New Covenant say not merely that God will write his laws on our hearts, but the final term is this: their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. Now we need to, uh, bear in mind that the term remember in this context is a legal term. It does not mean that God will forget we have been sinners, you know. And you won't forget it either. Not as long as eternity lasts will you ever forget you were sinners. You won't find yourself sit s- standing in the choirs of heaven and singing with the throng, unto the Lamb that was slain be honor and glory and power, and have to nudge your companion and say, why was he slain? I I don't get that bit. Nor will God ever refi- nor will God ever forget why he was slain. What the term means, I will not remember their sins, it's a legal technical term. In an ancient royal court, the king would have sundry officials. There was the major domo, as he's called, the man over the house. He was in charge of the royal apartments and all that came in and out of the palace. There was, of course, the captain of the hosts, field marshal in charge. Among the other officers was a man called the Remembrancer, or in Old English, the Recorder, which means the same thing. His job was to keep a record of people's behavior, both the good things they had done and the bad things they had done. And if the king one night had a troubled sleep and couldn't, uh, woke up and he could call for the recorder in the middle of the night and tell him to open the books and to read. Now, Joe blogs, he's done this and this and this and this and this. Hm? The man, the recorder, was remembering it before the king, calling it to the king's mind. Yes. Has he been rewarded? No. Well, get on and reward him then. Joe Smith here. Well, he's done some foul things. Tried to assassinate m- m- me, in fact. Has he been dealt with? No. Well, deal with him then. That is the process of remembering sins, calling out the book of records, going through the lists, and sentencing the criminal to punishment or the good man for reward. In that sense, when the book of the Revelation says that Babylon was remembered before God, in that technical legal sense, Babylon was destroyed forthwith. That's what it means for God to remember our sins. What a magnificent assurance, backed home by the Holy Spirit himself, is this. Their sins and iniquities. I will remember no more. You know it well, but shout hallelujah you do. Never again will the books be opened, the crime revisited, and a sentence passed of punishment. And the conclusion is, says the writer to the Hebrews, that where you've got forgiveness like that, there is no more offering for sin. Now, again, we have to be careful about the translation. The Greek word in question is prosphora, and it can mean one of two things. It can mean a present that you offer somebody. So if I could make a present of this book to you, I offer it, and this is my offering. Yes. Because the sacrifice of Christ is absolutely sufficient. I don't need another sacrifice. I don't need to offer any other thing, no other sacrifice. But then, of course, the Greek word prosphora can also have an active meaning, not so much what is offered, but the process of offering. And which does it mean here? The context shows it. Every Jewish priest stands daily offering. The process goes on, never ceases. Offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin. This man offered one sacrifice forever, sat down, and such is the complete forgiveness that comes from it, that there's no longer any process of offering. That is offering for sin, of course. There are other offerings that we have to offer, the sacrifice of praise, to do good and communicate, and all such other processes of offering sacrifices to the Lord, but no more process of offering a sacrifice for sin. It is well known that in some quarters in Christendom, offerings are constantly made on the altar, supposedly the body and blood of Christ. The process of offering is repeated in order to gain for the people forgiveness of sin. That is not orthodox. That is not true New Testament doctrine. My brothers, I don't believe that either, you see. I believe that by one sacrifice, one offering, he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. And there is no more process of offering sacrifices for sin. Behold the pattern of the altar. Orthodox enough for you? Well, there's another pattern in the altar, isn't there? Runs like this. If one died for all, then all died. But they which live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again for them. If you are examining my orthodoxy, you better apply that to my pattern. Do I believe it? Yes, gentlemen, I believe it. And I try to do it. I can't say I succeed as I ought to. Thank God for a merciful high priest. But I own his claim over me, and I own his right to say, in in view of the mercies of God, I should offer my body a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is my reasonable and spiritual service. Behold the pattern of the altar. It settled the dispute in those far off days, and everybody went home happy. Even the boys from the West went home happy. You fancy that? And, uh, do see, um, they had been rightly perturbed, for had it been an alternative alst- a- a altar, that would have been serious false doctrine indeed, and would have brought, as they said, condemnation from God on the whole nation for allowing it. So they were relieved to find out what the truth was. Pity they hadn't made a little bit more well-mannered inquiry before they talked of those wicked other things and going to war, but never mind, they went, all went home happy. We mustn't speak lightly of the seriousness of unorthodoxy and heterodox views, particularly when they affect the fundamentals of our faith. God help us from jumping to conclusions and making the criterion of loyalty to Christ our insistence on our particular view of this or that or the other, treating matters of interpretation over which believers rightly differ as though they were fundamentals of the faith. The next difficulty in the way of serving the Lord would be, as Joshua pointed out in chapter twenty three, to the elders of the nation, their perilous tendency to idolatry. Now, idolatry, of course, is no light matter. It challenges the very fundamental of the universe. There is one God. It is very serious. And how serious it is, is to be seen in the space Paul gives to discussing the topic in one Corinthians, where the question arose whether it was all right for believers to eat food sacrificed to idols. It was a question difficult to define its limits. If you went down to the market and bought some meat, for all you might know, the meat had come from the temple and had first been offered to idols, and then the priest had sold it to the butcher down in the shambles, and and you went and ate it. Well, that was nothing to do with you, what it had been used for before, says Paul. Though, of course, if somebody pointed out to you, look, that's been offered to idols, and he obviously had a conscience about it, then you were to refuse it, lest you would stumble him. But that was one thing. To go along to the cafeteria in the temple and eat the meat that had just been offered to the idol and now put on your plate, that was another thing. To go to the be- meeting of your business guild, and at their dinner party, the food being first offered to the idol in the corner, and then put on your plate. Was it okay to take part in it? It is at that point that Paul becomes very serious in his warning. The Lord your God is a jealous God, he says. Don't you provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? Note the warning in that question. God expects us 100% loyalty. That is what love means. Love is not just an emotion making us feel warm inside. Love is loyalty. And love for God is loyalty to God. So, Joshua exhorts them in this chapter. Here is the cure against their tendency to be disloyal to God and take part in the idolatry of the surrounding nations. Verse eleven of chapter twenty three: Take good heed therefore unto yourselves that you love the Lord your God. Notice the advice is not saying take heed to yourself and work up a few emotions. It's saying take good heed to yourself that you love God in the sense that you are utterly loyal to God, and not compromise his, uh, unique worth and position. That's what love means. How does God produce such loving loyalty to his dear son? John gives us a clue, doesn't he, when he says we love him because he first loved us. With what tremendous wisdom did our Lord ordain that we should remember him, not simply by reciting the Sermon on the Mount that would recall him to our mind as a moral teacher, nor even by reciting some of his miracles that would call him to our mind as a miracle worker. He commanded us to remember him by taking bread and wine. And remember he died for us. He died for me. How can I be disloyal to the one who died for me? But that, with that small comment, let's pass on to the final chapter, chapter twenty four, Because now Joshua is old and is given what may have been his farewell address to Israel. He is about to say to them, choose you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. But as they stand there before him, the elders of the nation, he first addresses them at some length, you'll see from verse two right down to verse, the end of verse thirteen, in which he surveys the history of their salvation, right from the time of Abraham down to the present. Why so? Well, because, you know, it easily comes across people's thinking sometimes. You talk to some bright young thirty-year-old uh, and say, how long have you known the Lord? Well, my grandparents were brethren, you know. Oh yes. And my parents are brethren, so I suppose I'm brethren really, but um, what's that got to do with it? As though people had joined up a recently formed denomination or something, or some new religion or form. How easily people get it into their heads. And need to be reminded of the fact that our salvation is rooted in centuries of history. Our salvation goes right back to Abraham. Whom God called out of, uh, of the, uh, beyond the river, where he lived amongst idolaters and was an idolater himself, and called him out and started a new nation from Abraham that it had never existed before. A latecomer among the nations, but it had never existed before. A latecomer among the nations, but a special nation. God revealed himself to Abram. Stephen had it right, didn't he, when he reminded the Sanhedrin that Abram our father dwelled where, uh, beyond the river, but the God of glory appeared to him and called him out. The self-revelation of God to Abraham, all those centuries ago, that began the great story, the messianic story, the line through which the Messiah would come. Joshua traces the history of redemption all down the years through Abram, through the time they were in Egypt, how that God brought them out of Egypt and across the Jordan, across the Dead Sea and split the Dead Sea and brought them into their land now through by splitting the waters of Jordan, trying to get them some kind of concept of the enormous historical movement of which they are part. That is an exceedingly important thing to get across. How do you know that Jesus is the Christ? Well, listen to Matthew if you want to start somewhere. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ, son of Abraham, son of David. You see, Christianity is not a philosophy. Anybody who's got enough wit can invent a philosophy. Have a go if you're inclined, you've got a free Saturday afternoon. You can't arrange to be born of the seed of Abraham and David. Unless you'll be God's son. Christianity is a full flowering of a long process within history. And the evidence for the truth of Christianity is to be found in that long history. It's found elsewhere, of course, but it is to be found in it. Listen to Paul telling us what the basis of the Christian gospel is. It's the gospel about Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, according to the flesh, declared to be the Son of God by power, by the resurrection from the dead. The long historical process. God took centuries over it. What would have been the good of God sending his son into the world and telling everybody that Jesus is my son. If all the nations of the world had believed in ten thousand gods, who've gone along to a classical Greek and said, Jesus, you know, is the son of God. Oh, how interesting, they would have said, yes. Well, yes, yes, I knew, I knew, I knew d- I knew God, gods have these kind of affairs, you see, and there are gods and goddesses, aren't there? And Zeus has several goddesses, actually, and and all kinds of sons of God, and and and and and your Jesus is the son of God? Well, how very interesting. Yes, we have plenty of them already. Not that we need yours, but we have plenty. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. What on earth would be the use of that? So God spent centuries through Abram's descendants establishing what you mean by the term God. And Israel wandered from it and compromised it all over the place and had to be pulled back by the roots of their hair by their prophets. Listen to Isaiah and those mighty prophets explaining to Israel who God is and what distinguishes him from all the idols of man's invention. And Israel's recovery will depend, says Isaiah in the first place, on their rediscovery of God. And then he points out to them in his prophetic language that it will also depend on their discovery of the Messiah and the suffering servant of God. Thirdly, on the ministry of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. That long period of history is not in vain. It is vastly important that we know it and understand the why of it. Our faith is not built on some modern sect or denomination. Salvation goes right back down the ages of history of God's deliberate planning and purposes in the education, the calling out of Israel and her education. And how successful God was is to be seen in this, that after centuries of compromise, even in the temple of Jerusalem, when Jesus Christ our Lord finally arrived in Jerusalem, there was not an idol in that temple. And there were no temple prostitutes either. Israel had been purged from that kind of idolatry and were ready now for Messiah to come and claim to be the Son of God in terms that would not be misunderstood by any pagan meanings. It is very important. So he reviews the history. Then he calls upon them to decide, you'll see. If it seem evil to you, he says in verse fifteen, to serve the Lord, choose thee this day whom you will serve. But notice the alternatives, the choices between whether the gods which your father served that were beyond the river, you could choose that, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. You could choose that. That is to say, if you're not going to serve the Lord, you have a choice of gods. You don't serve the Lord. Your choice would be those miserable, idolatrous forces of the gods that Abraham served before he got converted beyond the river. Or you could serve the gods of the Amorites and the Canaan here. What else option is there if you don't serve the Lord? You could apply the same logic to people today, couldn't you, in our modern world? You're not going to serve God, the Lord? Well, make up your mind who you are going to serve. We're not going to serve anybody. Oh, yes, you will. But you didn't happen to create the universe, did you? And you didn't create yourself. There are bigger parts than you that will control you, and if you're not prepared to serve the Lord, if you will, as the ultimate. They will destroy you in the end, and when they've destroyed you, they won't even know they've done it. You are a prisoner to mindless forces. Or you could serve some of the nonsensical superstitions of the modern day, such as Celtic Christianity and Mother Nature and all those other kind of things, you'll see, that people serve. Or the three hundred thousand or three thousand or as many thousand as you like Hindu gods, I mean. You could choose among them, couldn't you? Which are you going to serve? You'll serve something. Because the option is not serve God or serve nothing. It can never be that in a universe made by God. As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord, says Joshua. And in that context, the people have vowed their determination to serve the Lord. Joshua is not going to rest upon the emotion of a moment. It says, very good, then you make a covenant before the Lord at this moment that you are serving him. And he raised a stone as a memorial to the fact and a witness to the fact that that that day they had solemnly covenanted their decision that they were going to serve the Lord. I was brought up to believe that you shouldn't make vows, so I don't think I've ever made a vow in my life. I can't speak to you. But my brothers, there has to come a time in life, and perhaps a whole succession of times, do there not? When we say to ourselves, there's enough of dilly-dallying. It's time I decided to serve the Lord with everything I've got. And they erected the stone. They called it witness, the Hebrews A, to witness they had made the decision. How's your stone getting on? When, my brother, did you decide not merely to trust the Lord, but to serve the Lord outright? If I didn't have to decide it. I always did that automatically. What a marvelous man you are. I have to confess, having decided to serve the Lord, so to speak, the old stone has got a bit wobbly sometimes. I've had to come back and straighten it up. But that's why I like that last verse in the famous hymn, O happy day that fixed my choice on thee, my savior and my God. The last verse runs, High heaven that heard that solemn vow, that vow renewed shall daily hear, till in life's final hour I bow and bless in death that name so dear. So may God help us, and in part encourage us by these studies, what our Lord has shown us of himself, that will keep the old stone of witness up straight and not let it get in balance, but be renewed in our intention daily, by God's grace, to serve the Lord one hundred percent until he takes us home. Now I have run on till ten past eight. The authorities would remind me that I should ask, I should invite you to ask questions, and I will let them decide when you should stop asking questions. Are there any questions? Or would you prefer to go straight into a devotional response to the Lord? Over to you, my brethren. Brother, I would just like to say that, uh, so much of the time there has been just a very superficial reading of these things, and during the course of our studies here, they have now, using your term, bloomed into a more, uh, vivid picture of, of our Lord and of what he has accomplished on our behalf, what his love would demand of us, in a sense, our loyalty to him. And as I said, momentarily today and very briefly, I wanted to thank you for that personally. I just wanted to share that thought with you, that it has been of great benefit, at least to me. Thank you so very much. Hello. Back to what you were saying about Hebrews chapter ten, about the process of the offering. Could you tell me again how you phrase that every priest stand at daily offering? Um, oftentimes with process fit in there? The process is that the priest stands, his work continues, he can't sit down. He stands, he stands daily ev- day after day after day. He stands offering, that is the process that going on. The process going on. He stands with the process of offering going on. And in that sense, he's never finished. Our Lord has offered one and sat down. He's no longer, in that sense, standing. And there is no longer any process of offering the sacrifice for sin. Yes? I, I, I don't know if you're willing at this time to do this, and it's okay if you're not, but my question has to do, not so much a question, but asking for you to comment, if you might. There is no doubt, as we see here in the book of Joshua, uh, that to some degree, discipline amongst God's people within the Christian community is a real necessity and will be, not only individually, but corporately, till the Lord leads. Charlie. But surely there has been, and there is confusion, cloudiness regarding that truth of discipline. There has been much harm done in the name of discipline, and there has also been much harm done because of the past abuses of a harsh and un-Christlike exercise of discipline. Mm-hmm. There has been a reaction against no discipline. That's right, yeah. Within that scope, could you comment, and with First Corinthians five perhaps in mind a bit? Mm. Ch- godly church discipline, godly church discipline is commanded by the Lord. There is no doubt about it. Some have tried to apply to it the parable of the tares and wheat, let the tares grow together, as though that applied to the church. Saint Augustine and company, uh, argued like that, but it is not true because the parable of the tares and wheat is not spoken to elders in the church. It's about the angels. It's the angels that will root up the tares, and they're told not to do it yet. It's a question of judgment. One Corinthians five is not talking about the world. The parable of the tares and wheat, the place where the tares and wheat are put, are sown, is in the world. The field is the world, not the church. The church has a responsibility to exercise discipline, and the case in point to which you refer is the man in Corinth who was a member of the assembly, supposed to be. He had sinned so immorally that even the Greeks, pagan Greeks, were horrified. It took a lot to horrify Greeks and sexual immorality, I may tell you. And if Greeks were horrified by this, it would have been utterly, I nearly said criminal, to let that man be continue as a church member. It would ruin the gospel testimony. No Greek would see any point in what they preached as a gospel if they allowed that kind of thing to be, uh, practiced by a member of a church. The man had to be disciplined, and he had to be disciplined for another reason, for his own good, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. If the only way of bringing that man to repentance was to let Satan attack the man's body and remove his bodily health, and he approached death. That might be one way of bringing the man to his senses and repentance if he is a believer, and if he's not a believer, he shouldn't be in the church anyway. So church discipline is taught. And alas, from the days of the magisterial reformers, originally Luther wanted to in- uh, uh, introduce church discipline, but then, of course, how could he? Because he owed his life to some of the princes, the German princes, and they had a reputation for being quite immoral men. How could he excommunicate them? That's a problem with the state church, you'll see. But, uh, uh, yes, church discipline is commanded by the Lord. The other side to which you refer is, we have to be careful. I was brought up in a town in England, let it be nameless. There were five assemblies, and I use that term in its narrow sense, which I think you might understand. Each one proclaimed it was the only true assembly in the town and would nothing to do with the other one. As I grew up and began to understand the situation, I felt very sorry for God. That is foolishness. And arises from making a matter of Christian fellowship depend on things that are not fundamental. We need to be very careful, not to make as a test of orthodoxy our systems of thought that may be right, but partly rest on conjecture and have no positive proof text upon which they are based. Where dear believers differ, we must not make those matters matters of fundamental importance, lest we merely add to the sorrow and sad reputation of the Christian church in this world. That I think all I can say at this late hour, but I think it is a very, very important. And hymn writers that I admire, like JG Deck, we do sing his hymn at the Lord's Supper in our part of the world. Don't know about you. Lord, we remember we are one with every saint that loves thy name. Amen. Hello. Brother, you gave some practical reasons why we saw, uh, the nation of Israel based in Gilgal continually through the first half of the book, and then later, when they settled down, we don't read about that anymore, for obvious reasons. They were living in various places throughout the land. Uh, is there also a spiritual lesson there, though? Gilgal being in particular the place where they were circumcised, cutting off of the flesh. Uh, they had great success while they were based there, while they were walking in the power of the spirit, so to speak, and uh, continued to resort to uh, Gilgal. And uh, I see a parallel in the Christian life. We are to walk in the spirit, not in the flesh, uh, put off the old man, uh, and so on. Do you see that, or? Well, I thi- I I think the idea that circumcision does, uh, symbolize the walking in the flesh rather than in the spirit, and thus they had to be, uh, consistent if they were going to be the executives of Galsroth against, uh, Jericho and Ai and elsewhere. But of course, when they moved to, to, uh, Shiloh, they still practice circumcision. The reason why it's mentioned at Gilgal is that they hadn't practiced circumcision all the forty years in the wilderness. But of course, they still practice circumcision at Shiloh. And to remain at, at, at Gilgal would have been practically impossible, if ever they were going to fan out and enter their inheritance, because some of the tribes would be seventy, eighty, hundred miles away from Gilgal, you'll see. So much easier for them to have space for a, for a tabernacle and so forth in the middle of the tribes at Shiloh. Of course, we know that things went bad in Shiloh through the corruption of the priests, and then, uh, it moved, and things were very uncertain for a long time, until eventually under David they began to recover, and recovered more substantially under Solomon. So I think, yes, the lesson is we need to, to, to observe the equivalent of, uh, the spiritual equivalent of circumcision. I don't think it was based on Gilgal, or that it was possible for the whole nation to remain at Gilgal. Uh, it was a military camp, if you see what I mean, whereas they had to, uh, go out and get their farms and houses and build, uh, plow the land and scatter the good seed on the land, so to speak, to earn their living and develop the inheritance, which they couldn't have done if they were all based at Gilgal. We're going to close it down now. Yes, good.