Dennis Tuuri

Joshua 24:29-33

Please stand for God’s word.

And it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun the servant of the Lord died being 110 years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath Sarah which is in Mount Ephraim on the north side of the hill of Gaash. And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel, and the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, and buried they in Shechem, and a parcel of ground, which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for 100 pieces of silver, and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.

And Eleazar, the son of Aaron, died and they buried him in a hill that pertained to Phinehas his son which was given him in Mount Ephraim.

We thank God for his word and we pray that he would illuminate to our understanding.

Well, this may be my last sermon of the book of Joshua. I don’t know yet. May decide to before we get into Acts, go a review sermon or two through the book or we may just—this may close it off.

It’s interesting of course that the story concludes the book of Joshua concludes with death. Matthew Henry commenting on this said that the book which began with triumphs here endeth with funerals by which all the glory of man is stained. So there is that aspect to what we’re reading now. The book comes to its conclusion with an account of the death of two people and the burial of three. The two people of course being Joshua and Eleazar and the third being the burial of Joseph’s bones carried out of Egypt.

Now it’s interesting because it actually begins the book does with death also in chapter 1 verse one. It is specifically stated in the first phrase it was after the death of Moses that these things took place. So death precedes and concludes the story of the book of Joshua.

To put this in its literary structure, however, it’s important to recognize what Joshua has been about. So, we want to remember that just a little bit here as we get into this last section. It helps us to understand why the book ends this way. By now, hopefully you recognize the big theme of the book of Joshua is God’s sovereignty, of course, and victory and deliverance of his people. And he gives them two things. Remember, his word doesn’t fall to the ground. It goes out and impacts the world for his promised for the impacts the world for his elect people, his chosen people. And remember what the two big themes are that he gives his people.

He gives them land and he gives them rest. And land is associated with the presence of God. It isn’t just any land. Land in itself has no value. It only has value because God is there. So God is going to place himself in a particular place in a particular land. He wants his people congregated around him. So they get to essentially live in his throne room in his land in his parcel of ground. And he gives them rest as well.

What’s rest? It’s not what we think of. It’s not physical rest necessarily. Has that connotation. But in the book of Joshua and throughout the scriptures. Rest has to do with the conquering of our enemies. It’s a fact that the Christian world fails to recognize that we have enemies and that they’ll be conquered by the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so we preach a gospel that is extremely truncated and twisted almost to the point of being a different gospel from the scriptures.

The good news of the ascension of the Savior King to the throne brings with it condemnation of all who refuse to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s no fun to live in the Holy of Holies if you’ve got serpents in there and If you’ve got the offspring of Satan living in the context of the promised land, you’re not supposed to like that much. And so here in America and in Oregon and in Portland, we’re not supposed to like the fact that there are pagans in the land round about us.

And in fact, that our land is dominated by pagans and by philosophies that have nothing to do with the word of God. Actually, they do have something to do with it. They’re twisted perversions of what was the Christian beginnings of this country. And you shouldn’t like that. Should make you pray to God that he would either convert these people or remove them from off the land.

Now, God gives us reminders of this even in contemporary history. He gave it to us last Thursday morning with the great shaking of the earth that occurred here. That shaking should remind us of our need to fear God. You know, when I woke up at 5:30, I don’t know about you, but I was fearful. I was amazed at what was happening. And we don’t have the same fear of God that fears that he’s going to not love us. We know that he loves us, but God, as Otto Scott has said, and I’ve quoted so often, is no buttercup.

He is as it were a train whistling down the tracks. And if you’re near to that big huge locomotive coming down the tracks and the ground shakes, while you know that his hand toward you is love and grace, you also should fear his very presence. Earthquakes are a reminder of the presence of God. As I spoke of a couple weeks ago in the gospel account of the earth quaking at the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And we should recognize that we all need a healthy fear respect of God’s authority and power. And we may not want shakings to occur, but they occur. And We should rejoice in them because they’re God’s way of shaking this earth, shaking men and nations until he gives us rest till the land settles once more. When it settles, the things he wants moved out of the way are now gone. Dust in the sand. Ozymandias great tribute to himself reduced to dust in the sand.

Well, so that’s the what’s happened in this book. The book began with death. It began with a call to Joshua to be strong and courageous and to cleave to the word of God. And then we have all these pictures that is essentially in the whole book the picture of God’s sovereignty in giving his people blessing and giving them the land of his possession with him in the middle of it and giving them the conquering of their enemies and then it ends with what it ended with three sermons remember that the three sermons in chapters 22 23 24 by Joshua to various groups of people he changes from being a military leader to being a preacher to being a prophet bringer of God’s word and sermons to exhort people to faithfulness look what God’s done for you he says and we can look at Joshua and say 21 chapters of what God did for the people and then three chap is exhorting them to be faithful to him.

And so Joshua preaches these things. And then it closes off just as it opened up with death. And we’ll talk about the reason for that, one reason for that as we go along. But it’s important to notice that it’s a very distinctive style. This is here for very important thematic reason. He could have ended with the exhortations. He could have returned to the theme of God’s sovereignty. He didn’t. He chose to focus that is God through the secondary writers of the book.

He chose to focus at the end of it on death and burial. But some other things mixed in there too, which we’ll talk about. Now, I might just mention here, I was going to mention this when we talked about the third of Joshua’s sermons, covenant renewal a couple of weeks ago, but one of the Puritans uh that commented on Joshua’s book said that he preached as a dying man to dying men in these last three sermons we talked about.

And indeed, that’s what the context of all those sermons was, that he was old, stricken in years, and he wanted to preach then and short people to faithfulness. And here the dying man actually dies and others die as well and are buried. So that’s the context of what we’re going to talk about and now we’ll talk about the text itself.

We essentially have here the deaths of two people, the burial of three and three different places where these burials occur. The three people that are buried of course are Joshua and Joshua is explicitly called the son of Nun. Remember nun means propagation to propagate from a chute. Joshua means that Jehovah saves It’s essentially the same name as Jesus, the Greek form of the New Testament. So, it’s always a picture, of course, the greater Joshua, the Lord Jesus Christ, son of Nun. Jesus is the is the sprout that comes out from the root of David and causes a great plant of life to be planted in the context of the land.

Joshua is referred to in verse one, not just as the son of Nun, but the servant of the Lord. Very important phrase. This is the first time it’s applied to Joshua. Up to now, Joshua had been called the servant of Moses. And then Moses was repeatedly referred throughout the book of Joshua as well as many other places in scripture as the servant of the Lord. Moses was the preeminent servant of the Lord in the Old Testament.

And Joshua here is now compared once more with Moses, the man that he took over for as Moses was leading the people into the promised land. Moses couldn’t enter in because of his sin. Joshua could, not that Joshua wasn’t sinful, but it’s a picture of course of death, burial, and resurrection as the passage we have today in front of us is. So Joshua now is given the title, the exemplary title, the servant of the Lord.

When we get to the New Testament and we read about people, ministers and Christians being servants of the Lord in the New Testament, we read that, they oh yeah, it’s no big deal. But if you realize that phrase and the tremendous connotations to it, the fact that we are called ministers of the gospel and then Christians as well in the New Testament, servants of the Lord. That’s a big deal. It’s a very important title.

We’ll talk about that later on as well. But Joshua here is the servant of the Lord. And Joshua dies and it tells us explicitly that he was 110 years old when he died. Sign of God’s blessing on him. What’s the average lifespan of man according to God’s word? Three score and 10. What does Joshua get? Five score and 10. Long life extended out. And what is the key to long life? It’s honoring your parents. And really, it isn’t honoring your parents so much as it’s honoring God.

And he works in your life through your parents and through the other authority figures that God places you in the context of. When we rebel against the authorities that God has placed in the context of our lives, we shorten our lifespan. Simple as that. That’s what the scriptures tell us. Joshua was submissive to God. He did have conviction. He did have courage. He did have a devotion to God’s law and what he did and what he thought and in his heart.

He meditated on it. And we can tell that because of the extension of his life here. But you know, he didn’t get it quite extended as much as Moses. Moses is still has preeminence over Joshua in this regard. Moses died at the age of 120. Six score instead of five score and a half. So, Joshua doesn’t quite get that length of life. And plus, you know, Moses, he was strong in his old age and Joshua is explicitly said to be stricken and weakened in his old age.

We can see examples there of course the greater Joshua, the greater Moses, the Lord Jesus Christ who is smitten in the last years of his life, but of course he’s strong as well. Well, anyway, so Joshua is buried. Joseph’s bones are also buried. I hear Howard’s here. I can’t see him out there, but Howard, I always think of Howard. I read about these verses because early on it was a big deal to Howard in terms of burial.

He said, “Boy, they carried Jo Joseph’s bones around for 30 some years 40 years in the wilderness they brought those bones out of Egypt and they pretty important to bury them in the right place and indeed Joseph’s bones were buried Joseph also by the way was five score and 10 he was 110 years old as well when he died and then the third death recorded in the final verse is Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest very important here we tend to overlook this just as we think of Moses dying prior to the entrance of the promised land and forget about Aaron in the book of numbers it’s Aaron’s death that is immediately followed by the armed combat against the people in the Trans Jordan area.

So the possession of the promised land really occurs in the context of not just the death of Moses but also the death of Aaron. And that’s tied off thematically here for us in the death of Joshua but also the death of Eleazar. Now why is Eleazar important or Aaron important? Because they’re the priest. All these things are a picture of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the true servant of the Lord, the true priest, the true king, the true conqueror, the true ruler of Egypt who takes the Egyptian masses as Joseph did.

preached to them the gospel and I believe they converted and then they apostasized from the faith as it so often happens. So all these things are pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ and of course the Lord Jesus Christ is the great high priest whose death as our sacrifice himself being the priest himself being the altar stone himself being the offering itself laid on that thing for our sins that’s the signal for our victory as well and that precedes then his command us to go into all the world into all of Egypt now converting men and nations so all the things are pictured for us here in the death of Eleazar as well, the son of Aaron.

There are three burial places listed in this text as well. Joshua is buried in Timnath Sarah, place of abundance. That’s what that means, house of abundance. It’s explicitly described for us as being in Mount Ephraim on the north side of the hill Gaash. And that’s important for last Thursday because Gayash means trembling. Hill of trembling is where this happened at. So that’s where Joshua is buried is in this hill of trembling.

In fact, the Jews their legend say that it was called the hill of gaash, trembling hill, because the hill actually trembled when Joshua was died and was buried there. again, I don’t know if that’s true or not. We don’t it might be true. God does these things. Things happened last Thursday here. Things trembled. But God certainly may have given us an indication of the great trembling, the great shaking, the earthquake that would come when the Lord Jesus Christ died and then when he was resurrected as well.

So Joshua is buried in the hill of Gaash, hill of shaking and Mount Ephraim. Remember what Ephraim means? doubly fruitful. Doubly fruitful. And he his inheritance is Timnath Sarah, place of abundance. A lot of blessing pictured for us here in the context though of death and burial.

Joshua’s Joseph’s bones rather are buried in Shechem. And this is very important for us because it shows us a movement of history. Why do I say that? Because the text explicitly tells us in verse 32 that uh excuse me, verse 32 that the bones of Joseph which the children of were brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor. He had to buy that parcel of ground for the true inhabitants, the true owners of the of the land. But now we have many years later, they own all the land and they didn’t have to buy it.

They were given it by right of the true owner of the land, the their father in heaven, Jehovah. So we have a movement in history here from kind of buying places from pagans and in a sense you’re still on their land to history moves where eventually the pagans are destroyed off the land and you’re given grant to it. And that’s what the history of the church is all about as well. And that’s what our future entails.

Even if we buy land in the context of the city of Portland, for instance, we’re still kind of like Joseph’s uh ancestor or the patriarchs rather, Jacob buying the parcel of land for the sons of Hor and Shechem, the Sheckchammites. So eventually the day will come when the land will be owned outright by the people of God and will be truly inhabiting the earth. And that’s what Jesus tells us to do is to go into all the earth seeing it as his possession.

Eleazar is buried on the hill of Phinehas also in Mount Ephraim, the place of double blessedness. Again, all these graves actually are in Mount Ephraim and that in that in that area in, in Ephraim’s territory and so for that reason, it’s important to us to see the blessing that’s pictured for them in the name of that tribe itself. Okay. So the text tells us these three men, two of them dying, three of them buried in three graves. One commentator called this section of the book of Joshua three graves in the promised land.

It’s a nice picture emphasizes the graves, the men involved, and that it happened in the context of the land that was promised to them. Joseph was a man of faith. He said, “My bones will be taken up.” He put his children under oath to do it. And then he said, “You will do it.” He wasn’t a man of the emphasis here is not on his own faithfulness. but on the faithfulness of God that Joshua that Joseph knew would eventually see his bones planted back in that promised land as the children of Israel are brought back into possession full possession of the land of Canaan.

And so all these things are pictured for us. By the way, that’s mentioned several times in Exodus 13 and other places where Joseph’s bones were being carried around. Moses did it, Joseph commanded them to, etc. So it is a pretty important thing.

Okay. So, that’s basically an overview of the text. Of course, there’s one other section in the text which is verse 30 or verse 31 rather. Verses 29 and 30 talk about the death and burial of Joshua. Verse 32 talks about the burial of Joseph and 33 the burial of Eleazar. And right in the middle of these five verses, verse 31, we have this statement. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua and which had known all the works of the Lord. that he had done for Israel. The context, the thematic conclusion of this book, right in the center of these five verses is the statement of the obedience of Israel to serve the Lord in this context.

Now, you’ll remember when we had the renewal of the covenant spoken of earlier in this chapter. Do you remember what happened? Joshua told him, “You can’t serve the Lord. It’s an impossible thing to do.” And here they are doing it. See, and the power of God, they can serve the Lord. And their faithfulness is recorded for us here to make sure we understood what Joshua was really saying to them before. He wasn’t saying it was impossible.

He was saying it was impossible generally to do it perfectly. He was saying that people who are sinful and don’t want to serve the Lord shouldn’t pretend that they do want to serve the Lord. But certainly service to the Lord is emphasized here as being capable of the people of God who he’s called to salvation. So at the conclusion of this book, we have an emphasis upon the faithfulness of Israel and their covenant loyalty of the covenant they had taken in Joshua 24.

Four, the faithfulness of Israel is pointed out to us here in big bold letters. Now, it’s interesting because the reasons for this are given to us. Why did they serve the Lord? It says it connects it to the days of Joshua, the days of the elders that lived with them and which had known all the works of the Lord. Central to the obedience of the people, their covenant loyalty is a recognition of the works of the Lord in their lives and in their hand in their deliverance from Egypt and in their entrance into the promised land.

Central to our fulfillment of our covenant loyalty is remembering the works of the Lord and bringing us out of bondage to sin and slaver in slavery to death, our salvation and into covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ into the land of blessing. And I think for many of us there are other points along the path we want to remember too that God brought us out of an improper understanding of that we had somehow obtained our own salvation through our own free will and brought into a fuller concept of the sovereignty of God.

Brought into an appreciation of the law of God. Brought into an appreciation that history flows in terms of God’s love for the son. and those that are covenantally linked to him. These are wondrous works that God has performed in our lives, leading us out of bondage to sin and then bondage to improper and faulty doctrines of what the scriptures teach. So, he brings us into maturity and we’re supposed to remember these things.

It’s important for our covenant loyalty. Joshua had followers who were loyal and served God in the last 40 or 50 years of his life or 60 or 70 years. It’s important here that to mention briefly that when it says they knew all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel. You know there were things historical events here that this is talking about the deliverance from Egypt the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea the provision even in the wilderness wanderings the shoes didn’t wear out and they had manna from heaven and the rock was split open picturing the breaking of the Lord Jesus Christ and redemption for us.

All these wondrous works really for his people are one work of redemption that is accomplished in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. It wasn’t the miracles that was the big deal here. It was God’s work of redemption in terms of moving historically, moving in the hearts of people, moving in physical provision as well at times. But primarily, we’re talking here about the work of redemption of God, buying his people, purchasing them, and then providing for them.

And all those things are really one work of redemption focused on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ who own death accomplishes our redemption by God. And so, we’ve got the same thing told to us. If we’re going to be covenantally loyal to God, if we’re going to serve God all the days of our lives, we have to focus upon a remembrance of the redemption purchased by Jesus Christ’s blood. And that’s why every Lord’s day here, we come and confess our sins.

We say we’re not good enough. It’s the redemption of Christ wrought 2,000 years ago, applied to our own lives individually in the last whatever it’s been in your life, whenever it was that God applied that redemption to you. that’s the basis for our covenant loyalty to God. In every Lord’s day, we have communion here. Reminder of the blood of Jesus Christ, his provision of his body for our deliverance.

I think before we move on from this and talk about in the context of obedience now, Calvin had this to say in terms of this particular verse. He says, “It’s not strange therefore if in the present day also when God furnishes any of his servants with distinguished and excellent gifts, their authority protects and preserves the order and state of the church. But when they are dead and havoc instantly commences and hidden impiety breaks forth with unbridled license or he says after that’s what happens.

He says frequently but when they are dead then havoc instantly commences and hidden impiety breaks. worth of unbridled license. Now, in this particular version of Calvin’s commentary in the book of Joshua, the editor put this remark in. When these words were penned, the venerable writer, though it could scarcely be said of him that he was like Joshua, old and stricken in age, was however like him visibly going all the way the way of all the earth.

In such circumstances, can we doubt that these words contain a presentment of the fearful decline which after his own death was to take place in the church of Geneva? these very words that are used in the book of Joshua to stress the covenant loyalty of the people of God while Joshua was around and while the elders who knew Joshua were around become later in the book of judges a picture of the failure of the people.

In other words, after the departure of these elders and those who had known the great works of God, the decline is swift and fast. And so Calvin said in his day, “When I’m gone, things are going to slide off real badly.” Perhaps it frequently happens. And indeed, it did happen at Geneva. In Judges chapter 2, we read in verses 6 and following. This is from the book of Judges. Now, and when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel, when every man into his inheritance possessed the land, the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, all the days of the elders that all Joshua who had seen all the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel.

And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being 110 years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath Harris in the mount of Ephraim on the north side of the hill ga and also all that generation were gathered under their fathers. Now that’s essentially almost a verbatim recitation of what we read in the book of Joshua in the book of Judges in chapter 2. But listen to what happens in the second half of verse 10 of Joshua or Judges chapter 2.

And there arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of God and served Baal. And they Bali rather and they the various bales and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers which brought them out of the land of Egypt and followed other gods of the gods of the people that were round about them and bowed themselves under them and provoked the Lord to anger and they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Asheroth.

So these same very words that are used to describe the faithfulness of the people in Joshua the same historical occurrence the death of Joshua and the elders that were in the context of his life are then used to describe the perversion of the people as they fall away from God. after the death is over and after those men are gone, a generation that arises that knows not the Lord. Just like in Joseph’s state in Egypt, a gener a Pharaoh rose who knew not Joseph.

And a generation in Israel arises that knows not Joshua and knows not the Lord. That generation is Pharaoh. It is apostate Egypt. That’s the correlation we’re supposed to make in our mind. And so that’s what happens here. And it this thematic illustration becomes then a condemnation in the time of the judges. But in the time of apostasy, these words from the book of Joshua are used for a new generation, having lived in the context of a generation that knew not God and his mighty works to recognize that is the key to covenant faithfulness on our part.

What I’m saying is we live in a time of judges, not in a time of Joshua. But the book of Joshua is extremely important when we live in the context of a church that has been judged by God and essentially expelled from positions of authority in the land and his presence has for the most part departed from America. It’s important for us to recognize that again that God will give us land and rest from our enemies.

But he does it in the context of understanding the importance of his work of redemption, the mighty works in the Old Testament being prefigurements of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And as we focus upon that and as we focus upon leaders that understand that redemption and apply it to all of their lives, then we have the victory that returns us to the golden age of Joshua when men obeyed God and were covenantally faithful to him.

The theme of choice is rampant throughout the book of Joshua. While the emphasis upon the sovereignty of God, choice is emphasized over and over and over again. And as I said last week in terms of the marriage ceremony, maybe a better word today is commitment. To choose with significance for the future is what the choices that Israel makes in the book of Jo Joshua are all about. They’re all based upon the work of redemption of God, but they’re a response to an antipal response, as we practice with our psalms and our proverbs and other portions of scripture.

Our antipal response to understanding the redemption of Christ is to choose and to commit ourselves to faithfulness to him and to his word. One of the great themes of the book of Joshua is the application of redemption in our choosing the right course of action, the importance of our actions. I was talking to a g this week from another church and saying she I don’t understand the sovereignty stuff. I know it’s real difficult stuff to understand she’s election and all that stuff.

I said it’s not difficult. Francis Schaeffer wrote a letter we used to use 10 years ago. I don’t even remember how we got a copy of it. It was a letter to somebody and the title of it was God is God and man is not a zero. It’s as simple as that. God is sovereign and in his sovereignty he brings people to make choices and those choices are significant. Now we may not be able to put that all together intellectually in our head but it’s a simple thing to acknowledge morally.

It’s a simple thing to say amen to. Yes, God is sovereign. He’s ordained whatsoever comes to pass. I can put my amen to that. And yes, my choices are real. I’m not a zero. My life has consequences. And if I decide to shoot somebody, they’re dead. And it’s my fault that they’re dead, not God’s fault. That’s what the scriptures teach. Well, Joshua is about a bunch of choices. Remember back in chapter 2, God told Joshua to cleave unto him, and Joshua chose to obey God and commit himself to the obedience of his word to have courage and conviction and to have God’s word in his mouth at all times so to speak in his thoughts and in his heart.

The people were then given the choice given the call to commitment on Joshua’s part in the following chapters and they chose to acknowledge God’s leadership and Joshua’s leading of them to make commitment to the Lord. In chapter 3, the people chose to enter into that land. They could have chosen as they had 40 years previous to ignore Joshua, but they didn’t. They chose to enter that land. Later on, Rahab chooses to believe in the God of Israel and become part of the covenant community and she experiences salvation.

And later, the Gibeonites decide to try to make a covenant and submit themselves into Joshua’s hand. Do whatever seems right in your mind to us. They say, “Slay us if you want. Do whatever you seems right.” And that’s when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ. We make that same choice. Rahab and the Gibeonites make choices that then have consequences in their lives and the lives of the covenant nation. Other choices are made.

However, Achen makes a bad choice. He tries to reach out for glory and weight that isn’t his. The robe of authority, money, the wedge of silver, etc. He chooses to disobey, not to believe, not to act in the basis of God’s love for him. God has done everything for Achen. He’s delivered him from Egypt. He’s brought him into the promised land. He’s given him Jericho. The walls have fallen. And Achen takes the occurs thing, the thing that was devoted to God.

He decides not to believe that God will provide for him. He must provide for himself or not to accept God’s provision. He wants more than what God will provide. Not recognizing that God provides us everything in the Lord Jesus Christ. Pictured for him in the Old Testament, the sacrificial system, the covenant mediator role of their sacrificial system. Everything was provided for him. What more could he want?

He had relationship with God. But we trade all of that away for the poulry things of earth, for the mess of p mess of porridge. poor choices and Aken’s choice had significance for himself and his family destroyed by God and people that choose to ignore God. That’s what happens. Book of Joshua is filled with choices. Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim are mentioned for us because people are to choose who they’re going to serve.

They’re going to choose blessing. They’re going to choose curse. And foolishly most people today choose curse. They trade away obedience to the covenant of God. for the sake of a mess of pottage. And they end up with tears, but not tears of biblical repentance, tears of sorrow for themselves, self-pittitying tears instead of godly tears of repentance. Caleb chose in chapter nine of this book to go and be faithful to God, to take the inheritance that he had been promised and to go ahead and whip the giants and to clean that area up.

Chapters 10 and later on in chapter 19 and 2021, the two and a half tribes choose to do obedience and to walk in faith. ness to God before they go home. They help deliver their brothers and Joshua commends them for it in chapter 22. Choices fill this book. As one commentator said, throughout the entire book of Joshua, there’s an emphasis on choice. Choice that makes a tremendous difference in history for individuals, for groups, for future generations.

The Bible insists, don’t forget who you are. You are not a puppet or a machine. You do not obey a universal law of cause and effect in a closed system. Rather, you are made in the image of God. And this Such you must choose and choose rightly at every point. Adam chose wrongly and we all bear the marks of his error. Abraham believed God and his choice was counted to him for righteousness. Joshua chose rightly too.

For those of us today, the situation is the same. Whether Christian or non-Christian, we are called upon to make choices which will have very important and significant results in our land. Personal choice. And what is the theme of the book of Joshua? When I go home now, when I go home to my house and enter the or there’s a plaque there given to me by members of this church and it says on it as for me and my household we will serve the Lord.

Joshua chooses to be covenantally loyal to you loyal to God and it comes down to that folks comes down to a choice you must make personally yes in the context of a group but you must make it. Why is it so hard for us? It is hard and the book ends with an emphasis on death and burial because it is hard to choose to do the right thing. Incredibly hard for us. I was reading this week Pascal’s pensées I’m not even sure that’s the way you’re supposed to say it series of thoughts by Blaise Pascal a brilliant man and I was struck in terms of this difficulty of choosing the right thing for us and why it’s so hard to do what’s right and I’m just going to read you an extended section here from Pascal he’s talking about self-love that’s one thing that makes it incredibly difficult to choose to do the right thing We live in the context not of just our relationship to God.

God puts us in the context of Christian community, Corpus Christi, the body of Christ. That’s what the church is. And you know, it’s it’s real hard it’s easy to say we’re making the right choices toward God. It’s real hard though and those choices have to be fleshed out in the context of the people we live in in relationship with. I’ve done a lot of, you know, self-evaluation the last six months and a lot of thought lot of prayer, a lot of thinking through, you know, what I’ve done, what I’ve done wrong, or what I’ve done right.

And, you know, there’s something that I think one of my biggest errors, and I want to make confession of it now to this church, is something that no man’s told me about really. I think one or two have. Deacon Garrett has, I think, by way of implication, but not really hammered me on it at all. And most people who have talked about various things I think are wrong at this church have not brought this one up.

And yet, I think it’s critical to what’s happening here. I believe that I have sinned. in not exhorting, encouraging, making provision for this group of people to confess their sins one to another. As we come to the Lord’s table in the agape weekly, I have known in these past months and years of people who were angry with other people, upset with other people, and yet who had made conscious decisions not to speak with them about it.

I have known of this and I have been and cowardly and slothful. And I didn’t want people not to like me when I talked to them about this. And what I should have done is encourage them to make it right. We have very explicit warnings in God’s word about personal relationships. These choices I’m talking about today really get down to choices to obey God. And this is one of the central areas in which is extremely difficult to obey God.

And yet it’s so important. What does Matthew 5 tell us? Last Matthew 5 tells us that well, I’m going to read an extended portion here and you I’ll get to the place we’re going to focus on, but it’s important you see the context of this. Let your light so shine before men, our savior tells us in the sermon on the mount, that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven. This is part of evangelism, the shining forth of our light.

Think not that I’m come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am come not to destroy but to fulfill. For I verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or tit shall in no wise pass the law until all be fulfilled. Great verses for the right. This is what it’s all about. The extension of God’s law, continuity of God’s law between the covenants. And it’s important words, very important words.

But look at the application almost immediately that’s made. Where whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments shall teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

You have heard it was said by them of old time, “Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of judgment.” But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother, “Raqa,” shall be in danger of the of the council. But whosoever shall say, “Thou fool,” shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and their remembrance that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way.

first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou best cast into prison. Verily, I say unto you, thou shalt by no means come out of that place until thou has paid the uttermost farthing. Look at the flow here.

He says, you got to, you know, the law is the light’s going to shine. The evangelism is going to go out. How? The law of God is the key to that. That is our life before men, obeying the law of God. And what’s the application of the law? You got to be more righteous than the Pharisees. What did they fail to do? The Pharisees, they failed in treating their brother correctly. They failed when there were offenses not to clear it up.

Apparently, they walked around with their nose in the air. And don’t think that Phariseeism ended 2,000 years ago. It continues to this day. And I’ve seen elements of it. I’m not calling anybody a Pharisee here, but I’ve seen elements of it in this church where another standard other than God’s law has been used to judge people in this church. It’s terrible. And what is the what’s the solution? He says, when you go to the altar, that’s when you should be thinking about the people you’re worshiping with.

Remember what Corinthians tells us, the altar isn’t you and God in the altar and that’s it. No, it’s not a walk in the garden worshiping God. Worshiping God is going to the altar with the convocated host. We come together to the altar. And if when you go to that altar, you recognize that your brother has ought against you, go and be reconciled to him. He says, “Don’t come to the altar otherwise. Don’t come to the agape feast if you’ve not made a good faith effort to begin this.” Now, it could take a while. May not happen, you know, in 5 minutes. Could take weeks, months to sort things out, but you better be doing it. If you don’t, God is going to judge you. And I think that this is a failing of mine to encourage. I’ve not I’ve known of situations where these things have been in place and people have been fearful.

I understand the fear, the trepidation that it takes to go to people and say, “We got a problem here. We’ve got to work it through.” Other verses, Matthew 18, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. Boy, simple little sentence, right? So hard to do. So hard to do. And this is where we failed in some places. Not everybody here. I’m not saying that, but I’ve known a specific situation ations where I was afraid of the response I’d get.

People would leave or something or people get upset if I told them this is not right. You should not have long-standing anger against this brother, against this brother, this sister, and be coming to this table week after week. It’s wrong. Take care of it. I failed to do that. First John 1:9 says, “When we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins to cleanse us from all of righteousness.” We don’t experience that con that forgiveness unless we confess our sins.

You know, it’s If you take this Matthew 5 and Matthew 18 together, if your brother sins against you, work it out. If your brother has ought against you, work it out. You see, it goes both ways. Our savior tells us both ways is supposed to be operative because it’s so important to choose to com commit to the body of Christ in which you worship to work these things out. It’s hard for us to do this. It’s hard.

It’s hard to make the right choices as Joshua did. And the base This is the redemption offered in Jesus Christ that these death and burials picture it for us. Now, I’m going back to the Blaise Pascal quote. Why is it so hard to go to somebody either because they’re mad at you or you’re mad at them or sin has been involved? Well, here’s some reasons. Pascal says, “The nature of self-love and of this human ego is to love self only and consider self only.

But what will man do? He cannot prevent this object that he loves from being full of faults and wants. He wants to be great. hate and he sees himself small. He wants to be happy and he sees himself miserable. He wants to be perfect and he sees himself full of imperfections. He wants to be the object of love and esteem among men and he sees that his faults merit only their hatred and contempt. This embarrassment in which he finds himself produces in him the most unrighteous and criminal passion that can be imagined.

For he conceives a mortal enmity against that truth which reproves him. So he suppressed the truth of God and unrighteousness is we don’t like what it tells us about us and which convicts him and convinces him of his faults. He would annihilate it. But unable to destroy it in its essence, he destroys it as far as possible in his own knowledge and in that of others. That is to say, he devotes all his attention to hiding his faults both from others and from himself.

And he cannot endure either that others should point them out to him or that they should see them. Truly, it is an evil to be full of faults. But it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them. See, we’re not willing to. It’s sin that wants us to hide our faults from one another. And it’s the grace of God that tells us to confess our faults and sins one to another. And it’s grace that’s ministered to you through the very words of Matthew 5 and Matthew 18 that I just talked to you about.

God gives you the grace. You can make that choice, but you can choose one way or the other. You can choose to confess your sins. to each other or you can conf you can choose to hide those sins. But you can’t choose to hide your sins forever. Not in a church that makes you come forward and at least go through a formal or ritual confessions of sins. And not in a church where you’ve got to meet over there and spend a couple hours with people.

If you’ve sinned against those people or if you’re mad at those people and haven’t worked it out, you’re going to hate being over there and you’re not going to like coming to that table either. Or the table is ritual. We can put that in the first half of the worship service and probably clear it up for your conscience for a while at least. But you’re not going to like it long term. You’re not going to be happy here.

But that’s grace, too. It’s the grace of God convicting you of your failure to walk correctly in relationship to your brother. It’s a hard thing to do. Another reason this is hard for us to do is fear. And ultimately, I suppose we could say this is really what it comes down to. Fear and lack of trust in God. I was listening to a tape by Jim Makavoy that Chris W. loaned me. I’ve got several of them.

They’re real good, real interesting material. and he was talking about you know the age-old controversy of the spirit and the Bible. How do you know you know how do you put the why do we need the spirit if we’ve got the Bible? Why do we need the Bible if we’ve got the spirit? and then he throws the church into the equation as well. And Mr. Makavoy said this. He said we must learn to walk in faith trusting our Lord.

You see if you’re going to confess your sins or if you’re going to go to somebody else about their sins, it requires a great deal of faith to make the right choice. When you know from personal experience that you’ve got sins and you know from personal experience that people lash out at you which is what they normally do when you talk to them about their problems. So we got to trust God. We must learn to walk in faith.

Mr. Makavoy said trusting our Lord who has overcome the evil world. We naturally walk in fear and we draw the wrong conclusions walking by sight. We find error in our Bibles because we doubt the power of the spirit to guide us into truth. We fear the deceptions of men in the church. Because we doubt the power of the word to reveal that truth and their deceptions. We resort to politics. We fear the deception of our flesh.

Because we doubt the power of the church and the scriptures to keep us in the light of truth. All these things, the church, the word, and the indwelling spirit. These are all by themselves worthless to men. But taken together, they are the magnificent work of the triune God, guiding his children into the truth and the light and saving them to eternal life. Those are good words. And what he’s talking about here is sermon was about how you know man is talked about as being a tool maker, a tool user.

That’s how the evolutionists talk about us. We’ve got this opposing digit this thumbs we make and use tools. And he says that’s what man wants to do. He wants to use the church, use the spirit, use the Bible as tools to help him. But they’re not man’s tools. They’re God’s tools. The spirit is God and God’s tool in our lives. And the word is God’s word. And it’s his tool to refine us. And the church is God tool, not our tool.

It’s fear. It’s lack of trust in God. And it’s an awareness of our own sinfulness that prevents us from making the right choices relative to participation in the body of Christ in the institutional church and the covenant community. How can we in light of those great difficulties which we all know experientially quite well? We all know we cover up our sins and we all know we’re fearful to trust men and to trust the church that God will work through the church.

We all know it’s fearful to go to other people and talk to them about problems we have etc. How could we possibly make the choice to do these things? What is the basis? The basis is what these three graves are all about.