WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.500 Okay, we're going to turn back to Joshua chapter 6 but before we do that I'm going to read the end of Joshua chapter 5. 00:00:09.500 --> 00:00:16.000 Sorry, I meant to change the reading on the screens and for Corey but if I forgot. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:20.500 Okay, so the end of chapter 5 which is quite important at the beginning of chapter 6. 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:34.000 Remember the story of Jericho in our morning worship we're looking at children's Bible stories and kind of giving them, I was going to say a makeover, that's not the word I was looking for. 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:42.000 But we're looking at them again from a slightly different angle maybe and it's the story of the walls of Jericho coming tumbling down. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:50.000 I could sing a song to you at this point but you wouldn't want me to but I'm sure many of you know a children's Bible song about the walls of Jericho coming tumbling down. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:56.500 But at the end of chapter 5 we have this amazing introduction to the story in verse 13. 00:00:56.500 --> 00:01:04.500 When Joshua was by Jericho he lifted up his eyes and looked and behold a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. 00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:08.500 Joshua went to him and said to him, are you for us or are for our adversaries? 00:01:08.500 --> 00:01:13.000 And he said, no, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:14.500 Now I have come. 00:01:14.500 --> 00:01:23.500 Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, why does my Lord say to his servant, what does my Lord say to his servant? 00:01:23.500 --> 00:01:31.000 And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take off your sandals from your feet for the place you are standing is holy. 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.000 And Joshua did so. 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:43.000 So as we've been looking at these Bible stories thus far and right forward towards Christmas time it will be from the Old Testament. 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:48.000 There is one central theme in them and there is one central theme actually in the whole Bible. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:53.000 God, it's a very simple theme. 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:57.000 And right from the beginning to the end of the Bible God is absolutely central. 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:10.000 And so whenever we worship together or whenever we read the word or whenever we think about spiritual realities, God needs to be absolutely at the center of our thinking. 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:19.000 And what we think of God therefore is very important and the Bible is there to reveal God to us and reveal our need for God in our lives. 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:25.000 And we often speak to God as believers. 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:33.000 And also as unbelievers people speak to God or wrestle at some levels with God. 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:39.000 And I think often we begin our dialogue with God asking the wrong question. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:43.000 We come to God from the wrong vantage point. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:03:01.000 And so what we have in the Bible is we find the Bible challenges us, exposes us and encourages, commands us to turn from the way we think about God naturally and look at Him from His own revelation. 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:03.000 Even Joshua did it here. 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:08.000 When he met with the commander of the Lord's army who we see and I'll say a little bit more about this later. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:14.000 There's clearly a revelation of God here and he asks the wrong question. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:16.000 He says, are you for us? 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:18.000 Are you against us? 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:21.000 Are you for us or are you for our enemy? 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:28.000 And very often we ask the same question of God in our lives when we think about and we think God, are you in my side? 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:30.000 Are you for me? 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:32.000 Or are you for others? 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.000 Are you actually against me in my thinking? 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:38.000 And often that question stems from us being at the very center. 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:42.000 Is God with me in my life or is He an enemy to me? 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:43.000 Is He someone who's against me? 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:45.000 God, are you on my team? 00:03:45.000 --> 00:04:00.000 Do you stand beside me or am I going to have to ditch you because you're old fashioned and I can't simply agree with your revelation of yourself which is so barbaric in the story. 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:03.000 I can't possibly believe in that kind. 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:09.000 I want and understand a God of love and gentleness and grace and forgiveness. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:16.000 This is barbaric nonsense that we have in this story, even if it is a children's story from the Bible. 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:20.000 And so often we come to God with a me-centric question. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:22.000 God, are you for me? 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:24.000 Are you in my side? 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:29.000 Do you understand me and who I am so that everything kind of revolves around me? 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:35.000 It's amazing isn't it, in this world of seven billion people we can all ask that same question of God. 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:38.000 God, are you for me? 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:41.000 Are you going to be in my back pocket? 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:51.000 And yet the claim of the Bible is to exclusive truth and also to a God-centric universe. 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:54.000 Not a me-centric universe, but a God-centric one. 00:04:54.000 --> 00:05:02.000 That is a huge, a huge, a massive change for us to think about because by nature we all think, 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:10.000 maybe not scientifically and maybe not philosophically, but in our own thing we all think we're the centre of our own universe in many ways, don't we? 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:16.000 And yet what we have in the Word is the author of creation, God. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:26.000 The God who authors and who creates goodness and is goodness in humanity and good is in and is his being. 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:29.000 Love, morality, justice. 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:35.000 This God who always exists as a being, who never began, who never had to be born, 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:39.000 who has no start, no finish, no edge, no limitation. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:48.000 The one to whom we are accountable because we're made in His image, each one of us, every single one accountable to this living God. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:51.000 And He communicates with us. 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:57.000 In love He communicates with us and He changes the question, doesn't He? 00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:58.000 He changes the question. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:00.000 He even does it here. 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.000 The commander of the Lord's army says, 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:09.000 Are you with me or are against me? And He says, No, I'm the commander of the Lord's army. 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:11.000 Joshua bows down in worship. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.000 That's why we know it's God. 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:17.000 He worships and the commander of the Lord's army doesn't stop this worship. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:19.000 And it's an awesome revelation. 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:27.000 There's an Old Testament theophany here of God, a revelation of God revealed in the person of this commander of the Lord's army to Joshua. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:29.000 And it changes everything, doesn't it? 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:37.000 When Joshua meets with God in this remarkable way, it leads Joshua to reverential worship. 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:45.000 And that's the one thing nobody here, even though we're gathered for worship, is the one thing none of us here can do naturally. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:47.000 None of us can worship God. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:49.000 It's the reason Jesus came. 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:57.000 Jesus came to redeem us to deal with our disordered lives and our disordered worship, as Corrie was speaking about last week, 00:06:57.000 --> 00:06:59.000 which has led to spiritual death. 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:03.000 So we worship everything and everyone except the living God. 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:06.000 We're spiritually dead by nature to Him. 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:11.000 And that death denies God His rightful question. 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:15.000 It leaves us under His just and fair judgment. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:24.000 So that we naturally, without grace, recoil from worship, we misunderstand God and sin. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:39.000 And we recognize that the chaos of our disordered lives, this world of evil and hatred, is because we have not given God His rightful place. 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:49.000 We see goodness and beauty and joy and love and justice in this world, and it hints at the revelation of God. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:56.000 It hints at something better, it hints at something urgent that we need to know the living God. 00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:02.000 And so these Old Testament stories are about God and about His character and about His revelation. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:06.000 Now this is a particularly difficult story. 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:18.000 And it doesn't fit, this whole concept of destruction, it really doesn't fit in well with our 21st century's expectation of God and of who we are 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:21.000 and of how civilized we are. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:23.000 God has no right to do this. 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:26.000 God has no right to judge the way He does. 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:31.000 And can I just throw this out before we look at the story? 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:41.000 It seems that society would be absolutely, today's society would be absolutely outraged by this story and by the apparent genocide that happens in this story. 00:08:41.000 --> 00:09:00.000 And yet at the same time, the society in which we live seems to feel it's their right, and their right to destroy the lives of millions of unborn children. 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:16.000 Those innocents that are the most vulnerable, that have no protection, that have the greatest potential, that is unrealized in this world, and it is done as a right. 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.000 It is done as something absolutely civilized. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:37.000 And there's a searing irony there that a society which will allow such destruction will also at the same time hold its hands out in horror against the God of justice and the God of love. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:40.000 So let's look at this account of Jericho. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:43.000 It can be disentangled from the Bible's central theme. 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:49.000 It can be isolated, it is all part of the revelation of God, nor can it be argued away. 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:55.000 There's two things I want to say about this story. One is God's destruction, and one is God's victory. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:58.000 And then ask the question, how do we know God? 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:03.000 What does this tell us about God in our own lives and for today? 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:10.000 God's destruction, clearly this is a story that challenges us at the very greatest level. 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:19.000 In verse 21 of these words, then they devoted all in the city of destruction, men and women, young and old oxen, sheep, donkeys, with the edge of the sword. 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:26.000 It's hard reading. It's tough to look at. It's tough to see this description. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:28.000 What can we say about it? 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:33.000 With their sophisticated 21st century sensitivities. 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:39.000 Well, we recognize that what is happening here is not random or indiscriminate. 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:45.000 It's not just a capricious God throwing out the dummy and being raging and angry. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:51.000 It's not racial genocide. It is not ethnic genocide that we have here. 00:10:51.000 --> 00:11:01.000 He has clearly stayed his judgment from much of the nations of the world around at this time. 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:04.000 He has limited it to this specific situation. 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:13.000 And his judgment is not only meted out here on the Kenanites, but in other places it's also meted out on his own people, the Israelites. 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:20.000 And we see a greater judgment and a greater responsibility being poured out here. 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:28.000 It's a spiritual judgment and particularly against evil in its vilest form. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:41.000 The Kenanite people as represented by the people of Jericho here had snowballed their love for destruction and evil into the vilest forms. 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:49.000 And it was an incredibly brutal and wicked nation where parents offered up their children for human sacrifice. 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:54.000 It was a particularly violent city. 00:11:54.000 --> 00:12:03.000 God's judgment here wasn't capricious. In Genesis 15 and 16, have we got that for the screen? No. 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:17.000 Okay, Genesis 15 and verse 16 has God making a covenant with Abraham and he says in verse 16 when he speaks about the Amorites, the people of Kenan. 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:23.000 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:29.000 400 years before God had said, I'm giving this people 400 years to turn to repent. 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:34.000 Their wickedness is not yet full. They had many opportunities to turn to God. 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:42.000 They knew if you read some of the earlier chapters about Rahab and the way she spoke about the city, they had talked about, they discussed the people of God. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:47.000 They discussed the Lord's revelation and his release of the people from slavery. 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:54.000 They discussed his power that he was the God of heaven and earth and yet they knew about his redemption. 00:12:54.000 --> 00:13:06.000 But they would rather tremble within the city and take their chance with the power that they trusted in themselves, all except Rahab and their Rahab's family. 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:11.000 It was an irrational rejection of the living God by this time. 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:21.000 And they lived in what was the pinnacle of human strength. It was a huge fortified city with double walls. 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:30.000 It was impregnable. It was like the Titanic of cities of its day to go backwards with an illustration. 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:40.000 And it was completely safe and they felt they could at least resist the Israelites who were quite small and insignificant in comparison. 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:48.000 But they rebelled consistently against the living God. They would not have him rule over them. 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:56.000 And they were devoted therefore for destruction. And I believe for some it would have been a temporal destruction. 00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:08.000 That is death not necessarily meaning eternal judgment. I think particularly for the children who may well have been the lords. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:16.000 The wider perspective of this destruction was as a warning to the wider people. 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:25.000 It was a recognition that evil couldn't be allowed to flourish because the potential for darkness and bleakness was unlimited. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:37.000 It would have been a catastrophic liaison for God's people to live with this people of Jericho and to fuse their lives with lives that were utterly and completely dark and rebellious against God. 00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:49.000 And it was a recognition that the land was being reclaimed from the powers of darkness and given to God who was the one who had promised it. 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:53.000 So we see God's destruction. We'll come back to that briefly at the end. 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:57.000 We also see here in this story God's victory. 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:07.000 Verse 2, we have these words, the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given Jericho into your hand with its king and mighty men of Valar. 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:14.000 So the Israelites were used to work this victory, but it was God who worked in and through them. 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:24.000 This was clearly an act of God. This was not a freak militaristic victory for a small people against a great people, 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:28.000 AKA David and Goliath, although there are many similarities. 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.000 This was God at work here on bringing victory. 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:36.000 There were impossible odds. It was an impregnable fortress. 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:41.000 Israel didn't have a mighty army, but God was here. 00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:46.000 The commander of the Lord's army in verse 14, 15 of the previous chapter speaks. 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:48.000 He comes in judgment here. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:55.000 And he is working a strategic victory here as a gateway city to the promised land. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:00.000 The victory is assured. Before it happens, the victory is assured. 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.000 God says, I have given Jericho into your hands. 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:10.000 And the strategy is not militaristic in human terms. 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:17.000 So we have the fighting men of God, the Israelites, at the beginning and at the end. 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:20.000 Then you've got the priests with the trumpets. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:26.000 And in the middle of all of it, you've got the Ark of the Covenant, which is the symbol of God's presence. 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:33.000 And within this, the military men are silent. 00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:40.000 It's the priests of God who blow the trumpet, and the ark is prominent. 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:43.000 It goes round the city once every day. 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:47.000 Eight times it's mentioned in this chapter, the Ark of the Lord. 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:50.000 The Ark of the Lord, the Ark of the Lord. 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.000 This great symbol of God's presence among the people. 00:16:54.000 --> 00:17:02.000 And it seems a strange thing, one day after another, once round the city, and then stopping. 00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:06.000 And the trumpets, which sound both for worship and for war. 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:14.000 And the number seven, which biblically and in God's numerology is a significant number, 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:16.000 one that speaks of perfection. 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:21.000 And then on the last day of the day of rest, seven times seven, 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:28.000 where the people rest, as it were, on that day, recognizing that they are to trust in God. 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:32.000 And lastly, the shout that involves all the people. 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:34.000 That's all they do. They simply shout. 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:38.000 And these astonishing walls collapse miraculously. 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:43.000 And there is very strong archaeological evidence today that that is the case. 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:48.000 And the people go in and they complete their work. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:50.000 This is God's victory. 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:58.000 And within that, there is this huge slice of mercy for Rahab, the prostitute. 00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:06.000 Rahab, the prostitute who had put her hope and trust in God, unlike the rest of her people. 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:10.000 She recognizes where salvation will come from. 00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.000 Read what she says if you have time in chapter three, what she says to the spies. 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:20.000 She recognizes who the Lord is and she recognizes Him as the God of heaven and earth. 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:23.000 She wasn't asking the question of God, who are you? 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:25.000 Are you on my side? 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.000 She says, I need to be on His side for who He is. 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:35.000 And she trusts against all the odds she trusts in Him and she's rescued. 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:42.000 She's rescued her and all her family and Rahab, the prostitute. 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:46.000 Is channeled into the genealogy of Jesus. 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:48.000 She's the mother of Boaz. 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:52.000 Remember Boaz who we looked at in the life of Ruth? 00:18:52.000 --> 00:19:03.000 She becomes one who reminds us that all of the Old Testament stories have this element of protection of the seed of the woman. 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:10.000 That it's promised in Genesis 3 that we'll go right through to the birth of Jesus and Rahab is part of that. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:16.000 And it's great that she, like so many of the others in the Old Testament, are unlikely recipients of grace. 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:22.000 They are the kind of people that society would have chosen, not the good upright moral people, 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:32.000 but those that God had chosen not by merit, but because they simply trusted in the word that God had said. 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:35.000 So we've got this remarkable story. 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:41.000 So children's Bible story, walls of Jericho come tumbling down. 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:46.000 We struggle with it or maybe we simply don't think about it. 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:51.000 But what is it that it speaks to us about God? 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:54.000 What is it for your life as you leave here today? 00:19:54.000 --> 00:20:05.000 What about for your life as you sit in here today and your understanding of God and your understanding of what is centric in your universe? 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:07.000 What matters and what is significant? 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:09.000 What is it that it says to us? 00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:14.000 We remember that this is not the final revelation of God, don't we? 00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:22.000 The Old Testament progressively reveals what God is doing till we get to the pinnacle of Jesus Christ. 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:25.000 This is a piece of the whole. 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:27.000 But what do we, what are we told? 00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:29.000 Well, four things very briefly. 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:34.000 Justice on His terms is inescapable. 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:35.000 Okay? 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:38.000 Justice on His terms is inescapable. 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:42.000 Now, we all want justice, don't we? 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:47.000 And we all get swept up in our longing for evil to be destroyed. 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:54.000 And we have our own concept of heaven which will be free of badness and evil and death and tears. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:57.000 But sometimes it's on our terms. 00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:07.000 But yet the reality is that justice on His terms is inescapable if we understand and believe who God is. 00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:15.000 And if He is God at all, rather than the one that might we pull out of our back pocket when we need a genie. 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:17.000 God is the standard. 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:20.000 God is the measuring line. 00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:27.000 And God is the one to whom we are accountable and we all fall short. 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:30.000 He makes the call. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:43.000 And He is the one who judges and death, or physical death, is a representative, is part of the spiritual death that stops us naturally from worshiping Him and giving Him His rightful place. 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:45.000 How can we be sure of that? 00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:50.000 Doesn't that sound horribly judgmental and desperately bleak and dark? 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:56.000 How can we be sure that justice on His terms is inescapable? 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:59.000 Because of Christ. 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:01.000 Because of the cross. 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:06.000 Christ isn't simply for us a nice, good example of how to live. 00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:15.000 Christ is the one who Himself died in order that our sentence could be remitted. 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:17.000 God faced death. 00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:20.000 You know we say, well God's terrible life, capricious, He's evil, He's wicked. 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:23.000 He kills and destroys lives. 00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:30.000 And yet we can't get away from this reality that He Himself took that death. 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:39.000 He Himself is the recipient of His own justice, or the one who goes into the dock Himself, because He sees we can't put it right ourselves. 00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:53.000 Rachel, Rehab, sorry, Rehab was singing Rachel, the hymn, tune, but Rehab is redeemed because of what Jesus was going to do. 00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:03.000 Everyone who comes to faith, everyone who knows the grace of God is in that place because of the fact that Jesus Christ died in our place. 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:11.000 God the Father at that point was silent, God the Son shouts and cries out, why? 00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:20.000 But it is God's love that drives Him to provide the only answer to inescapable justice. 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:27.000 The one that He takes our death, our just judgment on Himself, we sing about it. 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:38.000 We understand it, we wear crosses because it speaks about this inescapable reality of a just God and a merciful God. 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:45.000 That is why, can I say to you this morning, knowing God as He reveals Himself absolutely matters. 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:50.000 It's not just a matter of opinion, a swinging of ideas here and there. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:57.000 How He reveals Himself, which is clear throughout Scripture on these important matters, is so significant. 00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:01.000 It matters what you do with Him. It matters how you wrestle with Him. 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:12.000 It matters that you experience His overwhelming love for you and that He would do this on your behalf. 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:22.000 Because He rose from the dead victorious, justice is mixed in with His victory, but He will return in judgment. 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:29.000 Romans chapter 2 at verse 5 tells us that, oh here we are, 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:33.000 but because of your hard and impenetent heart, you're storing up wrath for yourself. 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:39.000 On the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed, His righteous judgment, 00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:46.000 those who will not turn, those who will not recognise His revelation of Himself. 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:54.000 What a huge challenge that is for us. Huge challenge that justice is on His terms. 00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:57.000 Our justice at best is only ever shadowy. 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:04.000 But also secondly, His mercy is incompatible. His mercy is incompatible. 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:10.000 And what He asks you today to do, old Christian or young Christian or not a Christian, 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:16.000 is to trust in His love, to trust in His commitment and what He has done for us, 00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:21.000 that He has rescued redeemed all who come to Him by faith. 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:27.000 And we are asked to trust Him and recognise Him for who He is. 00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:31.000 It isn't for us about how good we think we are. 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:34.000 It turns that, doesn't it? Doesn't it? On its head. 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:39.000 It doesn't matter how bad we are. That's quite good to be honest. 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:45.000 A rebellion is quite nice because you probably know your own heart better sometimes. 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:50.000 When you compare yourself with others and think, I'm rubbish. 00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:53.000 But where we need to get to is where we all get to that place where we say, 00:25:53.000 --> 00:26:01.000 lead before God, His outstanding forgiveness and love. Accept Him. 00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:05.000 Simply, that's what He says. Oh, you're all really intellectual. 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.000 You're all really bright. You wrestle with philosophical realities. 00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:15.000 You're at university, some of you are at the top of the cream of society's intelligentsia. 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:20.000 But I'm asking you to accept His truth like a child. 00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:27.000 Not in a childish way, but in a childlike way, recognising He paid it all. 00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:35.000 So you might know forgiveness, life and an unimaginably great heaven. 00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:40.000 Second thing, His mercy is incomparable. Unmatched. 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.000 Nothing and nobody can touch it. It's great. It's brilliant. 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:50.000 Thirdly, the obedience of faith is inescapable. 00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.000 Hebrews 11, I went out, did you read that, Corey? 00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:57.000 Yeah, I went out to Sunday School, our kids church. 00:26:57.000 --> 00:27:01.000 Hebrews 11 links what happens in Joshua, in Jericho to faith, 00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:04.000 the great faith chapter 11 of Hebrews. 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:06.000 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down. 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:09.000 By faith Rahab the procedure did not perish. 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:13.000 Those who are disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. 00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:17.000 And this story is one of obedience. 00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:21.000 You see, when we've become recipients of His love and of His grace, 00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:26.000 to obey is the unqualified response. 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:30.000 Now, it's often not easy. 00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:32.000 The challenge of grace isn't easy. 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:34.000 The challenge for the Israelites wasn't easy to obey. 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:35.000 It was very difficult. 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:38.000 But the challenge of grace, the challenge of forgiveness, 00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:41.000 the challenge of repentance, the challenge of humility, 00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:46.000 the challenge of depending on the spirit of God is not easy. 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:52.000 It often requires patience, silence, opposition, 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:59.000 difficult associations, but it's inescapable. 00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:03.000 Because with that obedience comes deeper faith. 00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:08.000 It's a spiral upwards, as it were, not a spiral downwards. 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:14.000 As we obey because we love, then our faith grows. 00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:19.000 And as our faith grows, so we receive His blessings more. 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:25.000 Simply because we are living in that place of gratitudinal obedience. 00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:28.000 It's not obedience to make ourselves right. 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:31.000 It's out of gratitude to what He has done. 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:34.000 It's not quid pro quo. 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:39.000 We don't say, okay, God, if you give me blessings, 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:43.000 if you give me my answered prayers, I'll be more obedient. 00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:45.000 It's not that way round. 00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:48.000 It's that simple trust and obedience, 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:51.000 even when we don't necessarily want to or understand, 00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:53.000 it's inescapable. 00:28:53.000 --> 00:28:58.000 And lastly, in terms of responding to what we have here 00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:03.000 for ourselves, victory in Him is unassailable. 00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:05.000 And we see that. 00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:07.000 It's important that the commander of the Lord's army 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:08.000 is at the beginning of this. 00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:10.000 And it's important that he makes the promise 00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.000 before anything happens that he has given Jericho 00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:16.000 to the people of God here. 00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:18.000 The promise is sure. 00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:21.000 And that is a shadow of what we have 00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:24.000 in the promises of God for us in Jesus Christ. 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:28.000 As we come to Him by faith, as we fall at His feet 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:30.000 and worship Him for who He is, 00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:33.000 and entrust our lives to Him forgiveness, 00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:36.000 and life is guaranteed. 00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:38.000 Why? There's a great seal. 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:41.000 It's the great seal of the resurrection, isn't it? 00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:46.000 It's a huge, big seal on all that God promises 00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:49.000 because His work has been completed 00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:51.000 and God is happy with what has happened. 00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:56.000 And He has defeated sin and the grave and evil and death 00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:58.000 and will one day destroy it. 00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:00.000 Victory is guaranteed. 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.000 I know it doesn't seem like that in 21st century Scotland. 00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:06.000 And it doesn't seem that God is... 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:08.000 Jesus is going to come back one day 00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:10.000 and usher in the new heavens and the new earth. 00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.000 And it doesn't seem that justice will be done. 00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:16.000 But that is where faith comes in, 00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:18.000 that we believe in His promises, 00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:23.000 that Satan is already defeated and will be destroyed. 00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:25.000 When Jesus in Revelation 22 says, 00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:30.000 I will wipe away every tear, do you believe Him? 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:32.000 Or is He lying? 00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:34.000 Or is it fanciful? 00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:40.000 Or is it based on the promise that His word is true? 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:43.000 Now today we face spiritual battles. 00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:46.000 We're not asked, thank God, to do anything 00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:48.000 in the way that there's the likes we're to do, 00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:52.000 who were in that temporary period, instruments of God's judgment, 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:53.000 nothing like that. 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:58.000 That has finished God, accepts the Kenanite today by grace, 00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:00.000 and did so in the New Testament. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:02.000 But we do face a spiritual battle. 00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:05.000 Ephesians 6.12 tells us that, that we face a battle 00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:07.000 for we don't wrestle against flesh and blood. 00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:08.000 You know this verse. 00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:12.000 But against the rulers, authorities, cosmic power, present darkness, 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:14.000 spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:16.000 We have a spiritual battle. 00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:18.000 We're all in that spiritual battle. 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:22.000 And yet the odds do seem stacked against us, don't they? 00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:25.000 We feel very small and unimportant. 00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:28.000 An unbelief seems so impregnable today. 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:31.000 How many years have been praying for our three friends? 00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:34.000 How many years have you been praying for your three friends? 00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:36.000 How many years have we done seven years of prayer? 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:38.000 And the unbelief seems impregnable. 00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:43.000 People don't seem to be coming to faith as we would long for. 00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:48.000 And yet we have victory in Him to move forward. 00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:50.000 You as a Christian, we as a church. 00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:52.000 We move forward in faith. 00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:57.000 We can't stand still because the gates of hell will not prevail against us. 00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:01.000 You know we look at that picture and we often think that that's a picture 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:04.000 of hell attacking the church. 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:08.000 Of Satan attacking and Christ kind of defending. 00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:09.000 That's not the picture. 00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:11.000 The picture is the gates of hell. 00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:15.000 Gates of hell are being stormed by Jesus Christ and by His victory. 00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.000 He's on the defensive and He will not prevail. 00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:24.000 It will be destroyed and we are either safe in Jesus Christ 00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:28.000 or we are exposed and under His judgment. 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:29.000 It matters. 00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:35.000 The gospel will crush all unbelief and rebellion against Him. 00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:37.000 Evil will not have its way. 00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:39.000 There will be a judgment. 00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:41.000 Where do you stand today? 00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:43.000 Where do you stand before the living God? 00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:45.000 It matters. 00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:50.000 It really matters as we battle with our hearts, 00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:52.000 as we have unbelieving friends, 00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:55.000 as maybe you today are not a Christian and think, 00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:57.000 well, yeah, Derek, I've heard it all before. 00:32:57.000 --> 00:32:58.000 It's about years. 00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:01.000 I'm going to start crying now. 00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:04.000 And we'll wait till that's over and then we'll go home 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:05.000 and we'll have roast dinner. 00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:07.000 And that'll be fine again. 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:16.000 And we marvelously can move to put the importance of the love of Christ 00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:18.000 away from our hearts. 00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:20.000 The victory in Him is unassailable. 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:23.000 Can I give you just a little personal church stroke, 00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:28.000 personal insight as we finish about God's victory 00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:31.000 and God doing what He has promised to do? 00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:33.000 He sees many people in the city. 00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:35.000 We got to the stage with Cornerstone. 00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:37.000 We had a Thanksgiving service last week. 00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:39.000 We got to the stage at Cornerstone. 00:33:39.000 --> 00:33:41.000 Where are we going to progress the work here? 00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:43.000 We have no building in Morningside. 00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:45.000 We can't provide worship in a building 00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:47.000 because they're far too expensive. 00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:48.000 How will we do it? 00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:51.000 The old schoolhouse was given to us. 00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:53.000 And I was standing in here one day 00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:56.000 and I was looking around at the pews. 00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:59.000 We'll never be able to afford to get this church renovated. 00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:01.000 We'll only be able to do the basics. 00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:03.000 And I got a phone call as I was thinking that 00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:05.000 from Rod across in the office saying, 00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:07.000 you've just received £100,000 00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:11.000 from a government fund to do the roof. 00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:13.000 The work could progress. 00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:15.000 We got to the stage where in Est Valley, 00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:18.000 we had to say to Tom, Tom, you're the assistant here. 00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:21.000 We can't afford to let you go full-time in Est Valley. 00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:23.000 We don't have the money. We can't do it. 00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:27.000 That week, we had a Skype phone call from a church in America 00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:30.000 that was willing to give $50,000 a year 00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:33.000 for five years to the work of the Gospel in Est Valley, 00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:35.000 which allowed us to progress. 00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.000 Neil McMillan and myself sat with Ali Sol, 00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:43.000 who started in Harrington last week kind of formally, 00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:45.000 with six days to go. 00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.000 And we said to Ali, Ali, we don't have any money for this work. 00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:54.000 You need, by the day of your licensing, 00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:55.000 if we don't have the money, 00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:58.000 and you will need to go and look for a congregation somewhere else, 00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:00.000 we can't keep you waiting. 00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.000 This is where it's got to. 00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:06.000 In that week, we got all the money we needed to allow him 00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:09.000 to be funded and housed for the first year, 00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:12.000 and since then, we've had year two, 00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:15.000 and hopefully year three as well. 00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:18.000 Now, that's only money. 00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:20.000 That's nothing. 00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:22.000 But we need to believe that God's provision, 00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:24.000 not only for these things, 00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:27.000 but for the many people that we are praying for 00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:30.000 and wrestling for and longing to come to faith. 00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.000 He is the one who breaks down the impregnable walls of unbelief. 00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:36.000 He's the one that brings people to life. 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:39.000 He has pushed us forward all the way to be church planting, 00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:43.000 because I do believe he wants these churches to be filled 00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:46.000 with souls who come to know Him and love Him, 00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:51.000 as those who have given their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:56.000 So, what question are you asking about God today? 00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:59.000 Are you asking the right ones? 00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:02.000 God, are you on my side? 00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:05.000 Or do you recognize who He is? 00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:10.000 Because the only true response today to the living God is worship. 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:16.000 Is that we bow our knee and worship the living God. 00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:21.000 Do you worship the living God in your heart? 00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:23.000 I'm not speaking about the public worship, 00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:26.000 although that's a very important expression. 00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:31.000 I'm asking, can you say Jesus Christ is your Lord? 00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:37.000 Because it is the only true response to the living God. 00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:42.000 Let's bow our heads before we sing. 00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:45.000 Father in heaven, forgive us for at best only seeing 00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:47.000 through a glass of darkly as it were. 00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:50.000 We see so little of who you are. 00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:53.000 We see so little of your grandeur, of your majesty, 00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:56.000 of your power and of your glory. 00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:00.000 We so often have you in a cage, so often make you small. 00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:03.000 We so often maybe focus on your justice 00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:07.000 without focusing on your outstanding mercy. 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:09.000 Sometimes we focus on your mercy 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:12.000 without really having any grounding on why it matters, 00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:15.000 because we recoil from your justice. 00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.000 Forgive us for not understanding you better. 00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:23.000 Forgive us for not being more urgent in our understanding 00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:26.000 of simply enjoying you. 00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:29.000 Help us to recognize that your redemption is 00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:32.000 full and free and utterly enjoyable, 00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:36.000 and a reason for praise and worship and adoration. 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:38.000 Reorder our loves, we pray. 00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:41.000 Help us to love you from the inside 00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:46.000 as we recognize the impossibility of that. 00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:51.000 But as we come to you as the one who does the impossible for us, 00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:54.000 may we entrust our lives to you. 00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:57.000 And our circumstances, Lord, today might be awful, 00:37:57.000 --> 00:38:02.000 might be bleak and grim, might make us question 00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:06.000 if there is a God, may we look to Calvary 00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:10.000 and that finished reality and the resurrection 00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:16.000 that we note today by our worship on this resurrection morning, 00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:22.000 and may our circumstances not define who we are, 00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:26.000 but may we find truth in Jesus Christ 00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:30.000 and redemption and freedom and hope and joy. 00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:40.000 Amen.