Consequences of Unfaithfulness

Transcript

GRS 205
6/27/2021
Consequences of Unfaithfulness
Joshua 6:22-7:26
Gil Rugh

We’re going to the book of Joshua. We’re in chapter 7. As I’ve mentioned, we’re doing this in more of a survey, in the sense we’re not going through every verse. So, I’d encourage you to take time to read through these chapters. We’re not skipping because what’s here is not important, but part of it, it’s just the narrative unfolding the story. And you can read that yourself. And that will enable us to cover largest sections. In case you wonder why I didn’t he talk about this or that? Some of that, I think, is self-explanatory, but it’s all very important.

Judges chapter 6 was a key chapter because Israel has moved into the land. They’ve crossed the river, the Jordan, miraculously by the intervention of God. They have conquered the city miraculously. It wasn’t a military style operation. The angel of the Lord met Joshua. Joshua bowed; it was an acknowledgement that God was sovereign. Joshua was under another authority. So, what they did was, went out for seven days, marched around the city in silence, nobody spoke. We noted, they were carrying, the priests were carrying the ark. They had soldiers fore and after. Their trumpets, the trumpets could sound. Nobody could say a word. It’s like a parade and yet a parade without anybody saying anything, quiet. The trumpets are used in the Old Testament, you can read in Numbers 10, where they announce a special feast. They announce the presence of God, the nation. That’s what’s going on. They are carrying the ark, the trumpets blast, but the people don’t say anything because this is God’s work. And everything is focused on Him and His presence in Israel. For seven days they go around once every day. Go up, get everybody in order and they walk around the city. Then they go back to the camp. On the seventh day, they walk around seven times, doing the same thing, nobody is talking. But then, at the signal of the trumpets, everybody shouts, and the walls just collapse. The army, military men move in, and they kill every man, woman and child in the city.

Look in chapter 6:17, we’ll talk a little bit more about this in a little bit here. The city shall be under the ban. That word translated ban, the more modern commentators aren’t as comfortable with it; it’s a word that, to be devoted or be destroyed. It doesn’t matter particularly what, it’s a ban in that the people were banned from taking anything for themselves. So, everything in the city is devoted to destruction or to God. In that sense, it’s all God’s. Some of it, He says, will be totally destroyed. And that’s the way it’s devoted to Him. Nobody else gets to use it. And in that, saying God needs nothing, so the destruction of it shows that it was God’s. And none of us have any right to any of it. So, the city is under the ban and all that is is it belongs to the Lord.

The exception is Rahab and her family members. Because of her faith in the God of Israel. It demonstrated in the treatment of the spies as we talked about. She is spared. The warning in verse 18, very important because of what’s coming up in the next chapter. You keep yourselves from the things under the ban, so you do not covet them and take some of the things under the ban and make the camp of Israel accursed and bring trouble on it. So, you note, there is a corporate connection here. We’ve been talking about this in the New Testament with the church. It’s the same in the Old Testament, the church is not Israel. But when God worked, He works not only through the individual but with the group. In the Old Testament it was the nation Israel. And they were bound together, and a sin of an individual had an impact on the whole group, the whole nation. There’s a similarity to that because the sin, individuals in the body, the church, has an impact on the church. So, this corporate identity becomes important here. The warning, anybody who does such a thing will bring God’s judgement on the nation and trouble. But, verse 19, the silver, the gold, the articles of bronze, the iron are holy to the Lord. They are set apart for Him. They go into the treasury of the Lord. Down the road, Soloman will have a special place in the temple, but right now, with the traveling tabernacle. But there was a treasury, items that were set aside for the Lord. And here, these items that wouldn’t be consumed in the fire, and do have value, they belong to the Lord. Everything else is destroyed. You say, well we could save some of that, maybe use it for some way for the Lord. No, it’s the Lord’s. He tells you what to do with it. It must be destroyed. And all the people are devoted to the Lord. That means none of them can be spared.

So, the people shouted, verse 20, the people blew the trumpets. Chapter 6:21, they went ahead, the men of the military capability move in. To verse 21, they utterly destroyed everything in the city. Both man and woman, young and old. And then all the animals as well go under the sword. This causes some people great trouble, the God of the Old Testament. Here you go in, you destroy, it doesn’t say all young and old, the young over this age. And the old well, what are you doing? You going to kill babies? Yes. You going to kill young children? Yes. You going to kill women? Yes. Going to kill old decrepit people? Yes. Why? Because God said do it.

I’m reading a book, I was going to bring and read you some excerpts, but that would take time. It’s an interaction book, all of the four different writers, they all claim to believe in the inspiration, full inspiration and authority of the scripture. Starts out in the introduction. The first man who writes, believes the God of the Old Testament can’t be connected to Jesus Christ and what He teaches. So, he believes there is a total disconnect. There must be another explanation. Well, I thought you believed in the full inspiration and authority of scripture? Well, yes but we’ll have to redo it. I believe that a man would write and say, I believe that the book of Joshua was an allegory of spiritual warfare because Jesus said He came to bring peace. That’s what God wants to bring. We begin to remake God the way we think we would be more comfortable with Him.

This is God as He is, and the judgement is complete. The only ones spared are Rahab and her family. Down in verse 24, they burned the city with fire. All that was in it, only the silver, gold and articles of bronze and iron they put in the treasury of the house of the Lord. Rahab and her household and so on, continued to live within Israel to that day. There was mercy-grace, but only there.

Verse 26, before I say more about the ban, there’s a curse put on Jericho. Jericho is, if you read in your bible dictionary, noted as one of the oldest cities in the world. And there is a curse on anyone who rebuilds Jericho. He will build the city with the loss of his firstborn in verse 26, when he lays the foundation, when he sets up the gates he will have the loss of his youngest son. And you have a marginal note, if you’re using the New American Standard Bible, 1 Kings 16:34. You don’t have to turn there for time. But in the days of Ahab, remember Ahab who was married to Jezebel? A wicked king. Well, we’re around 1400 here in Israel, going into the land. Just rounding numbers off now. Hiel is a man that, in the days of Ahab the king. Ahab the king will die in 851. So, we’re 500 plus years away, after Joshua pronounces this curse. And he becomes the first man to formally attempt to rebuild Jericho. And you know what it says? He laid the foundation with the loss of his firstborn. And if you go and read that, it’ll give you the name of his firstborn. And then when he put up the gates, his youngest son, and they’ll give you the name there. And at the end of 1 Kings 16:34 says, this is to fulfill what was written by Joshua. So, it doesn’t matter, 500 plus years go by, who’s thinking about it? God’s judgement on Jericho is serious.

What about this, some would call it a holy war? God sends the people in, and you destroy every man, woman and child. Well, it’s time for God’s judgement. And God’s judgement is brought on the land of Canaan. We know truth had pervaded the land because Rahab says, well the whole land is in terror because we know, we know what God did 40 years earlier, when He delivered you from Egypt. Dried up the Red Sea and all that took place there. And then He killed those great Kings that were in your way, that tried to stop you. Why didn’t they believe like Rahab? They didn’t. So, we say well, that’s fine. But what about “the innocent children’? Well, we want to realize, we don’t want to make more problems for ourselves as believers in scripture. It’s not unusual for the youngest to die in God’s judgement. Think about the flood in the days of Noah. Only eight people are going to survive. How many of those killed in the flood were newborn babies? Young children, everybody on the face of the earth died in the flood of Noah, except Noah and his immediate family. Was God jealous? Yes. Sodom and Gomorrah, did God tell the angels that went to Sodom and Gomorrah, would he tell Lot, you’ve got to get out of the city and gather up all the babies or children under a certain age, cause they need to get out too? No, they’re going to be destroyed. What happened to the Egyptians on that last devastating plague? The firstborn in every household was going to die. What about that young couple, Egyptian couple that just had that new baby that they’re so proud of? He’s dead. It was said there wasn’t a household in Egypt that wasn’t devastated by a death. When you get to the tribulation in Revelation 6-19, billions of people are going to die. The judgements of the tribulation will be indiscriminate. You know, it just that we could give other examples. This is not unusual. What may seem unusual to us, is the intervention of God using the army of Israel to go in and actually use a sword to kill these people. That gets more personal, but it’s still God bringing it about.

What about passages like Ezekiel 18, that God says I won’t hold the son responsible for the sin of the father, the father responsible for the sins of the son? Now, obviously a newborn baby didn’t have any opportunity to commit his own sin. He was born with sin, but he didn’t have opportunity to commit his own sin. Well, there are still consequences that go. We have that today. Parents do things and it has an impact on their children. If a parent does drugs and then has a child, the child may be born addicted to the drug. Or the child may be born defective because of something the parents did. Somebody driving drunk, has an accident and kills a child. Remember the scripture says, does evil happen in a city and I have not done it says the Lord? He is sovereign in this. His judgement is severe. He’s a God to be feared because His wrath is an infinite wrath. So, yes, this has to include all the children. Well, what does that mean? That doesn’t mean that the young children are going to hell. I think there’s evidence in scripture that, I know I want to be careful how I say that, so we don’t get the wrong idea. But all the judgements of scripture are based on works. That’s included in the Great White Throne judgement in Revelation 20. The books of their works are opened, and they are judged out of their books. The book of life is there, and no one is going to heaven whose name is not in the book of life. The book of their works determines where they’re going in hell. And all the judgements of scripture, which ever ones, we’ve gone through all the different judgements, are based on works. That indicates an accountability and responsibility. So, I’m comfortable for this and some other reasons that most children who die in infancy, young age. What’s the age of accountability? God doesn’t say. When it came to judging in Israel in the wilderness, it was everybody 20 years of age and older that was going to die in the wilderness. We want to be careful; I think one of the reasons God doesn’t give us an age is, we’d all relax and think, well I started talking about the gospel; I’ve shared this to our kids when they were in the crib. I wasn’t, again say I babysat a lot, but I liked to go in when they were in their crib, and stand there and twist the whirly thing, and talk to them about the gospel. Now, I know you’re probably not understanding this, but I think it’s best you hear this early. I want to tell you, that you are a little sinner, you got it from your mother (laughing), no I didn’t say that. But walk through the gospel, so that you get used to talking to them about these things at the earliest age. And I wanted that to be a pattern. So that whenever God intervenes, they could. But I’m comfortable that the indication of scripture is that the death of Christ does cover those.

So, under the ultimate judgement and being held responsible, no one is going to die because their parents were sinners. I think the death of Christ will cover that. So, if that’s the case, those babies being killed in the land of Canaan come under a grace of God because God’s provision would have covered them in Christ. Now that’s just my scriptural speculation. Because I can’t take you to a verse that does say that. But the fact that all the judgements of scripture are based on works indicates an accountability. Things you’ve done. And that does come into play. And the death of Christ was for the sins of the world. So, I don’t see any indication in scripture, even though the sin of Adam is passed on to us, and we have a sin nature, that that doesn’t indicate we’re going to hell, not only because we have a sin nature, but because we sin. So, you can go with that where you will. Because we’re going to find this coming through the book of Joshua. The Canaanites are to die. Men, women and children. People are dying all over the world that never hear the gospel. They’re accountable for their sin. That’s Romans 1, remember. Bible believing Christians, if we begin to go soft on these matters, pretty soon we don’t want to have a hell because God wouldn’t send people to hell for eternity. And some well know evangelicals, John R Stott being one of them, as he moved later in life, decided there couldn’t be an eternal hell. That would be too terrible. I can’t imagine such an awful thing. Well, we believe what the bible says because God tells us the way it is. And Christ warns us. I think it’s true that hell is more terrible than we can even imagine. And heaven will be more wonderful than we can even imagine.

So, it doesn’t depend on my imagination, it depends on taking scripture by faith. So, when it comes time for judgement, if the rapture would occur and we move into the seven years of Daniel’s 70th week, people are going to be dying into the numbers of the billions, as we saw in Revelation. And that’s going to take many babies. That’s going to take people all over. God is a God to be feared!

So, judgement came, the world had ripened for judgement. Canaan had ripened for judgement. Romans 1, remember you go into chapter 2? We read those, you ought to read those chapters. What’s Romans 2 begin with? Storing up wrath for the day of wrath, Read Romans 1, in light of what’s going on in our day. And see how open and defiance is when God pours out His wrath. It will be on all ages. We trust His grace covers those little ones. That’s in His hands. Usually when people have asked me, I say well, because people sometimes sharing the gospel, I have with unbelievers who know something about, why I can’t believe, what about babies? I say, what about them? Then they say, what about people who will never hear? What about them? I said, I’m willing for this conversation to leave them in God’s hands. What about you? You have heard, I just told you. No matter what God does with them, we know what He’s going to do with you if you don’t believe. Everybody wants to, well I’m concerned about babies. I’m willing to leave them in God’s hands. The judge of all the earth will do right. What about you? So, be careful you don’t get drawn into a conversation that you can go nowhere with. What God does with the babies doesn’t have anything to do with the person you’re sharing the gospel with. Doesn’t have anything to do with you sitting here thinking, wouldn’t be fair for God to send a baby to heaven or hell or whatever. Well, where are you going? What’s your excuse going to be? You’re not a baby.

I was talking to a college professor, and we got into this discussion. You’re pretty well without excuse because I just told you what you have to believe. So, whatever excuse you might think someone else has, you don’t have it anymore. What are you going to do?

So, we’re ready for Joshua chapter 7. And it opens up a way we don’t like to read. The sons of Israel acted unfaithfully in regard to the things under the ban. Now you note, the sons of Israel. There’s a corporate responsibility an impact here. Even though it was one person. For Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah, took some of the things under the ban, therefore the anger of the Lord burned against the sons of Israel. This is where we want to be careful. We’re studying the New Testament, the doctrine of the church, we don’t understand the importance of it. There’s a corporate connection. We say, oh well we’re not Israel. No, we are not Israel. God told Israel what He was doing and how He had put them together. But God is telling us how He put us together. Why did we go through that? One, one, one, one, one, I say He’s brought us together in one body. You can’t escape that identity. One person’s sin and the anger of the Lord burned against Israel.

Then they decide, we’re going to Ai now. Gotta go a few miles away here. They scout it out. They come back and say, you know, we’re good to go, but we don’t need to send the whole army. Let’s just send a contingent over there. We’ll take care of it. Then, you can understand that. They say two or three thousand men will be able to handle this. They’re confident soldiers. Well, you say, that was a foolish thing, well it wasn’t. Because they could have sent 60,000 soldiers and the result would have been the same. Because God is against them. They can’t win this battle. But it unfolds, you know what happens? They are defeated. So, they sent 3,000 men up, verse 4, and they flee from the men of Ai. Thirty-six men from the Israelite contingent are going to die. And I look at this, one man has sinned and Israel now, has suffered a defeat and thirty-six men, who didn’t commit the sin are dead. Men who probably left wives and children. You know, this is the battle. We just read thirty-six men died, oh well, what about their families, their wives? They didn’t come back from battle, what happened? We thought the Lord was on our side. Joshua, he tore his clothes, verse 6, he fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until evening. The elders of Israel, they put dust on their heads. This is the sign of mourning you wear. They tear their garments, they put dust on their heads. Lord, we’re mourning, what has happened? Joshua, alas, O Lord God, why did you ever bring this people over the Jordan, to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us? If only we had been willing to dwell beyond the Jordan. Maybe we should have never crossed the river. You know, the two and a half tribes took their land on the other side of the Jordan. And there’s land there, it goes all the way to the Euphrates where the Lord had promised them. Maybe we should have stayed there, Lord. O Lord, what can I say since Israel has turned their back before their enemies? Everybody in the land, all the Canaanites will hear the Israelites are vulnerable. We can crush them; we can defeat them. They’ll surround us, cut us off, we won’t be able to stand. And at the end of verse 9, what will You do for Your great name? We came here to declaring our God. We came to Jericho and declared our God. Now, all of a sudden the Israelites are running. We left dead soldiers. What does this say to the God of Israel, who’s going to give this land?

You know, there’s a time to mourn and there’s a time to man up here. And you can see how God deals with Joshua. The Lord said to Joshua, get up, rise up. Why is it you’ve fallen on your face? Sometimes we go through these things, find out, did you sin? Well, then you’ve got to get it taken care of. We’re oh, it’s terrible, what are we going to do? How are we going to handle this? God just tells Joshua, it’s all for nothing. Get up off your face! It’s not a time to be laying there on the ground. It’s a time for you to do something to fix the situation. Come to the Lord and ask Him what happened? God hasn’t failed, it ought to be obvious, you’ve failed. You fail, you need to make it right. Pretty soon Joshua would be in for counseling if we were doing it today. Get up, what are you doing on your face? Well, we just suffered defeat. Of course you suffered defeat, you did what I told you not to do. That brings My wrath.

Israel has sinned. They transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. They’ve taken some of the things that I devoted to destruction. The whole nation now, is under the Judgement of God. One person’s sin. That’s why the church has to take sin seriously. You have to deal with it. It’s not that sin can’t happen, but when it happens you better get on it. It’s not tolerated. It has an effect on the whole group. You can’t avoid it. They’ve stolen some of the things that were under the ban. That means they are devoted to Me. You took something that was Mine. You’re not allowed to do that. One of your number did it. I’m holding you all accountable because you’re a unit. I brought you over as a nation. You can’t separate out. Well, that’s only one person, that’s no big deal. Out of how many people? Two million? You’ve got one person who does something? Yes.

So, Israel can’t stand before their enemies, verse 12. That’s why I said, you could have sent the whole army, 601,000 men up, they would have all run from Ai. The sons of Israel can not stand before their enemies, they turn their backs before their enemies. Because they have become accursed. You see what happened here, God is dealing with them now, just like the Canaanites. What’s the Canaanite’s problem? They’ve sinned against the Lord. What’s Israel’s problem? They’ve sinned against the Lord. I will not be with you anymore unless you do what I told you. Lessons to be learned. Remember these things are written for our admonition. We want the blessing of the Lord, we have to handle things properly. You have to take care of it. You’ve got things in your midst that belong to Me. And I’m here to get them.

Rise up, consecrate the people. Tell them to consecrate, you set yourself now. We’re coming before the Lord. You have to get yourself ready. With the ceremonial and you’re preparing yourself according to the instructions of the Lord. There are things under the ban, verse 13, in your midst, oh Israel. You can not stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst. You know, there’s no discussion here. There’s one thing you can do to lift God’s judgement. Everything else you might come up with is plan B, it’s futile. You can not stand before your enemies until you do what I told you. It’s just that simple. Now, we complicate our lives, we massage things, we mix things in, we come with all these ideas. You know, if I’m not doing what the Lord tells me, how can I expect the Lord to bless me? That doesn’t mean we all stumble in many ways, but I can never become comfortable with sin in my life. Well, we have to be careful. I’m taken back sometimes with, sit with Christians and just say, can’t do it, I’m not going to do it. I’m in a dangerous position. These are written for, not just an interesting story. So, what you do, you gather everybody together from all the tribes and it’s going to work its way down. We’re going to start, and you come near by tribe. You’ve got 12 tribes, the tribes come near. And they are going to use a lot, cast lots, that can be done in a variety of ways. They may have a clay pot, put the name of every tribe in that pot. Then you pull it out, that would be one way they could do the lot. That’s the kind of thing going on. You get to what tribe, then you go to the tribe, and then there are different families in the tribe. You’re narrowing it down, and you can see the suspense building. And you come down to the right man, that’s what it’s going to do.

So, verse 16, they bring Israel together after the instructions down through verse 15, and it comes to one individual. Out of all the people in Israel, we’ve narrowed it down to the right tribe, to the right family, to the right clan, and you get down to the one man. The lot is cast into the lap, but the decision is of the Lord. This is the way the Lord led. He just didn’t call out Achan’s name. He had them go through a process where He would guide them. And Joshua, verse 19, said to Achan, my son, I implore you, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, give praise to Him, tell me what have you done! Do not hide it from me. Confess it, acknowledge it. And Achan does. Achan answers Joshua and said, truly I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I did, I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar, that’s Babylon. You know about Babylon, the land of Shinar, don’t lust the things for the things of Babylon, but he did. Two hundred shekels of sliver and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, I coveted them. You note, I have marked in my bible, I saw, I coveted and took them. That process that goes on. I saw them, I coveted it, I took it. Behold they’re concealed in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath it. Joshua sent, they dig it out in his tent, you say, well he confessed it. He said I sinned against God, I sinned against the Lord the God of Israel, this is what I did. Well, we’ll get that, give it to the Lord and we’ll move on. Verse 24, then Joshua and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, the sliver, the mantle, the bar of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent and all that belonged to him; and they brought them up to the valley of Achor. Achor, related to the name Achan – trouble. Johsua said, why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day. All Israel stoned them with stones; they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. They piled a heap of stones over them, and the fierce anger of the Lord turned away. That’s the same thing they did with the king of Jericho. And the other kings, they treated them like the Canaanites.

You read that and you think, wow, here’s an Israelite, you know anybody could have made that “mistake”. You’ve been in the wilderness all these years, you’ve struggled through the things, you’re in a land where you don’t have anything but the things you’re carrying with you. You say, is it that major? It’s that major. You never know what the outcome of sin is going to be. That’s why you always want to stop before. God is gracious, he’s forgiven. I don’t know that this means that this man was consigned to hell. Don’t know. He does give a confession and acknowledge that he sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. We’re not told. But he is set as an example here, early in Israel’s history. God is serious about what He says. He is serious about sin. Doesn’t matter, when Israel is made aware, Israel is responsible to deal with it. That’s severe judgement. You have your wife and your kids there with you now. Stoning, you know we’ve done away with capitol punishment, because you don’t want anyone to suffer. Stoning was an unpleasant way to die. That’s not like being run through with the sword. There were ways they could have killed people more quickly. Run them through the heart with the sword. These soldiers know how to do that, be dead. You know what stoning was? Everybody has a pile of stones, and you note verse 25 in the middle of the verse, all Israel stoned them with stones. Because they have to join together, being on the Lord’s side, meeting out the punishment. So, it didn’t just appoint a couple of men to do the stoning. Israel joins in and throws their stones. You just keep throwing stones at people until they’re bloodied and bruised, and they ultimately are dead. That’s why people read this and some of them say, this God can’t be the same God that we find in Jesus. So, they say we reinterpret all the Old Testament Christologically. By that they mean, through the coming of Christ.

Now, it’s true, we don’t do this today. Because we’re not an earthly nation. The church doesn’t have capitol punishment authority. But we just read in our passage in 1 Corinthians, God does bring sickness and death for sin that’s not delt with among His people. The church has a responsibility for disciplining sin in its midst. Not tolerating it. People have the responsibility to acknowledge their sin, there’s the opportunity given. But one thing we learned God is serious about sin. One of the things that helps keep us on track, all of us, I’m afraid if I get off track, where I will end up and what the consequences will be. You can’t control that. People, you see it all around us, they think they can do the wrong thing. But as people who bring the consequences that are the problem. And those consequences aren’t fair. God decides. You say, well I feel bad for Achan’s family. And you have to kill him and his sons, and his daughters, and his animals, and everything that belongs to him is going to be burned up? And all that’s left is a pile of stones. And you know what the pile of stones is for? To be a reminder to everyone, sin is serious, cause Ai is destroyed. Why bake this pile of stones over these ashes of people and things? It’s a reminder to Israel. It’s a statement, its serious thing. You can’t hide in the congregation of Israel. There’s no hiding from God.

So, that’s the outcome. Some believers, 1 Corinthians 11, have died, because of the factions. And what’s happening when connection with the communion service? We don’t take it nearly that serious. Why did God put that down at the beginning? You go to the book of Acts 5, what happened to the man and his wife who were dishonest in their giving? They dropped dead. Why did God do that early in church history in the New Testament? To tell us how serious it is. Even when those things don’t happen, God is taking this seriously. You know, it’s easy for us to say, well you know, it’s just not that serious. In Israel, you say that’s serious. One thing I’d do, I’d never take anything under the ban. Even though it didn’t always happen that way, they’d run. You know Israel got lax, God’s wrath has still there. Don’t think because God delays it, He’s not upset. And there will be consequences, even for believers. I don’t know weather Achan was a believer or not. He gives his testimony, he believes in the God of Israel, he acknowledges his sin was against the God of Israel. Evidently, some of those who died in the church at Corinth were true believers because we’re told that God disciplined them, because they weren’t part of the world. And it His purifying purpose and that’s why we have church discipline and so on.

We come to chapter 8 and we won’t go into that. Basically, what it’s going to be is, they’re going to go and take the city, but they’re going to be allowed now, to take the spoil. If Achan had only waited. If he hadn’t wanted to get it early at Jericho, the next city God was going to let them have it. Here’s what you do, chapter 8 opens, just these two verses and you can read it and we’ll pick up next time. Do not fear or be dismayed. Now you can move on with confidence, why? The Lord is on our side. Take all the people of war with you, go up to Ai; see I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. You shall do to Ai and its king just as you did to Jericho and its king; you shall take only its spoil and its cattle for plunder for yourselves. So, all the people at Ai are going to die but now you get to keep the things. God is not a selfish God, but He must come first. So, Achan a lesson, you do what God says, you’ll honor Him. He’s not a selfish God, He could give, in fact all the cities in the land, and you want to be, I mentioned this up front here, they are not all going to be destroyed. Because He’s going to give them cities that they didn’t build, they didn’t work for. But certain ones, three in particular, will be devoted to destruction, and the city and the people and so on. But God’s going to give them some of the cities, so that Israel has places to move into that they didn’t work on. And have fields to harvest that they didn’t plant. And possessions that they didn’t earn. We’ll see that as we go through. So, God is a gracious God.

So, we don’t want to play the character of God, one thing off against another. He’s a God of infinite love. He’s a God of infinite wrath. Heaven, if you will, a demonstration of His infinite love. A provision of salvation so we could go there. Hell is a demonstration of His infinite wrath. He is an infinite God. Not a God to be toyed with. We’ll read Chapter 8, re-read these chapters because they were written for our admonition, so that we could learn, and we should adjust accordingly and appreciate the greatness of the grace of our God.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord, for Your grace, Your blessings in our lives. We’ve been reminded of the salvation You provided in the death of Your Son, the one who came to this earth for the purpose of being our Savior. How blessed we are. You are a God rich in mercy, grace, lovingkindness. But You are a God who cannot be ignored, who cannot be rejected, who cannot be disobeyed. You must hold us to Your standard of righteousness and holiness. Thank You for what You’ve provided for us in Christ. Lord, pray You’ll give us boldness in our testimony in these days, as we see it seems, the country around us disintegrating and to its defiance and open rebellion, encouragement to sin. May we be bold in bringing the message of Your salvation, and a message of coming judgement, so that You may work as only You can in lives. Commit the week before us to You, in Christ’s name. Thank You for this day. Amen.