Answers in Genesis--Fall 2016--Lesson 1, God Calls Joshua

, let's go ahead and pray. We're, we're starting in on our new quarter. Some of the, classes are gonna review. They're doing like Jeopardy games and stuff like that.

I was trying to figure out how we were gonna play Jeopardy, but I just figured we'll just move into the next quarter. We'll start lesson one. But let's go ahead and, and pray. Lord, thank you so much for this a beautiful morning to study your word.

We ask you to fill us with your Spirit. thank you that just for the things that you've taught us, as we've been studying, just the Pentateuch. Thank you so much for the blessing of hearing from Pastor Milton last week just on Genesis 4. we just pray that you guide us and help us to grow by your word.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right. so, one of the questions we're gonna try to address today is, who is our perfect example of obedience?

You guys know the Sunday school answer. Jesus. Yeah, so it's Jesus. We'll talk about why that is.

And let's just review our purpose for the adult equipment school. We haven't talked about this in a while. Our adult Sunday school, I'm actually trying to get used to saying adult Sunday school, is a para-family ministry designed to come alongside of our families in their journey from brokenness to wholeness through the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, we're not trying to replace what you guys are doing.

In fact, parents are the primary disciples of their kids, but we just wanna come alongside. I hope you guys are Able to take advantage. And so, the new quarter that we're moving into is called obedience and disobedience. We're gonna be studying judges, Joshua, Judges, and then we're gonna actually move into a little bit of 1 Samuel over the next 13 weeks.

So, we're very excited about the material. This, again, it fits within the whole, sequence of our curriculum. that we're actually taking 4 years to go through, but it's the seven seas of history. We spent time, talking about the one on the left, which anybody remember what that means, the left icon, creation, and then what's the next one?

Anybody remember? Corruption And then. Catastrophes, that's where we dealt with the flood. And the 4th 1.

Confusion, OK. And that's really, the confusion one is a big part of what's going on during this time of redemptive history. And, especially when we get to, that starts the Tower of Babel, but we'll see it in the Book of Judges, we'll see it in the divided Kingdom, we'll see it in the exile and things like that. So, in this particular quarter, this is an overview of what we're going to cover.

We're gonna be introducing Joshua today, at least Joshua as leader of Israel. Then we'll be talking about Rahab, Battle of Jericho, the disobedience of Israel and the Book of Judges, particularly, to talk about Gideon, God's faithfulness. we'll be talking about Ruth, Samuel. we'll be talking about David, Saul.

And then, I don't know, maybe you guys can help me do a jeopardy review at the end of this quarter, if he wants to help me. Exactly. You got it down, man. Great job.

All right, so we're gonna be talking about God calling Joshua. Let's do a little bit of, of review of what we covered up to this point. we've covered 3, actually 4 different quarters now of material. And the big idea is, is we've studied Genesis through the, creation of the universe, earth, and all those creatures, including mankind, all the way to the exodus of the Israelites as slaves.

That's the big Idea of what we've covered. We've, we've basically covered the pinnauch. so I'm gonna come back to this in just a second. we hit here recently, the Israelites failed to trust God.

that God would lead them out of the promised land. And so we've got this 40 years of wandering, we've got people dying that are 20 years and older. The younger generation is going to go in and take the land, according to Abrahamic promise. Let's ask a couple of questions.

why is Joshua allowed to enter the promised land? Larry? Because 1 Awesome. So we've got Joshua and Caleb.

These guys are the two. We know their names. Can anybody remember any of the other 10 that we talked about last week? no, the other ones.

Yeah, the, the bad guys. I can't even remember their names. I just studied it last week. So that shows you what happens when you go down in infamy, right?

So, let's see here. from whom was Joshua taking, oh, I had edited that. I don't know what happened. from whom was Joshua taking the reins of leadership?

Moses. That's where we're gonna be kicking in this morning. So it passes from Moses to Joshua. And, Moses had been the servant.

Now Joshua is, is stepping into his place to lead Israel. let's Once you guys open up to Joshua chapter one. As you do so, I'm gonna remind you of a couple other things that we. Didn't cover.

Via our curriculum. OK, so you have creation, we have God. Making this. the, the, the people of the earth, Adam and Eve rebel.

but then God has grace upon Adam and Eve. Cain rebels, God has grace on Cain. And then the whole earth begins to be filled with violence. God promises that he's gonna destroy the earth, but he raises up Noah and his family as grace on Noah and his family, but he ends up destroying the whole world via flood.

8 people come off of the ark, as you guys remember, and then they're told to go out and multiply. And they don't completely go out and spread out, and so eventually we get to the Tower of Babel. It's so we're not talking about too many generations before you already have people that are worshiping either an alternative version of Yahweh or a marred version or a completely different God. and so God spreads the people out again.

He has grace and judgment. And so we see the people getting spread out, and then he focuses attention on Abraham. We have this Abrahamic promise that's made, which involves land, seed. And blessing, right?

Land seed and blessing. And. And so, Abraham goes out and that blessing is transferred to Isaac, which is transferred to Jacob. Jacob has 12 sons, and those 12 sons are all really righteous guys, right?

No, we have some guys that are just not all that admirable, but they're underneath this covenant. And, and so you have rising up of Joseph, you have Joseph sent up into the land, into Egypt. Joseph ended up saving the people of God, and, then they're being brought out of the land by a great and mighty hand of the Lord. We've got the pillar, we've got the clouds.

we have the, the 10 commandments that are given. Eventually, the people rebel. God promises that they're gonna fall in the wilderness before they take the land. What we did not cover is the fact that there comes a day when it is that all of the people had died, and now we're left with what we call the second generation of Israel.

those that survive beyond the young ones are Moses, and his wife, and you have Aaron and, and Miriam, and then you have, Joshua and Caleb, right? so then you come to this period that is called Deuteronomy. Why do we call it Deuteronomy? What is Deutero?

Second, what is Namas? Anybody know? Say it again. Not close.

That's, that's a good guess. Namas law. It's the second giving of the law. So Leviticus, sometimes you read Leviticus and Deuteronomy and you're like, man, this, so much of this stuff overlaps.

Well, Leviticus is the law given to the first generation. but the, the first generation dies off, and so Deuteronomy is the second giving of the law. It's reminders of everything that was getting in Leviticus and it's reminders to this new generation that's about ready to go in, cross the Jordan and take the land. And so that's why there seems to be a lot of overlap, but there's also some new information.

And so that's, we didn't really get into a whole lot of Deuteronomy, but basically that whole book. Happens in a fairly short period of time, and it's just the second giving of the law to God's people before they go over and take the land. And so that's what, that's what brings us to the book of Joshua. So, in moving into Joshua, we've now moved in to a different section of scripture.

We're now leaving the Torah or the Pinatuch behind, the 1st 5 books of the Bible, and we're moving into historical or, some of the prophetic, narrative. In the Jewish division of the Old Testament, you have the law, the prophets, and the writings. And so, Joshua would fit into the, what would be called the prophets. All right.

And so that's, where we're moving with this. So, let's go ahead and And let's do some reading here. In the very first part of Joshua. I'm gonna start right there in verse 1.

We'll read to about verse 9. I'm reading from a New King James, by the way. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun. Moses's assistant saying, Moses, my servant is dead.

Now therefore rise and go over the Jordan, you and all these people to the land which I am giving to them, the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness of this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the great sea of toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life.

As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you.

Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you?

Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid nor dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you in whatever, in, in wherever you go. This is the word of the Lord. Let's ask a few questions of the text before we, make some applications.

When is this taking place? What is the The time context, yep. So Moses has died, and so Joshua is getting direct divine revelation. It'd be easy for us to think that this just happens all the time, because we're reading about it in the Bible.

But it seems if we're, if we're gonna apply the full context, when God spoke to Moses directly on Mount Sinai, How did the people react to God's speaking and thunderings and revelation? Say it again. Yeah, they were in abject fear. they were very content.

They say, Moses, you go talk to God. We will stay away from the mountain lest we what? Die. They're afraid of dying.

So there's this real sense of holiness and separation that they aren't really wanting to be in the business of receiving direct divine revelation because there's this sense that they will not survive it. And so Moses, while he did speak to Adam and Eve in the garden, and we even see him speaking directly to Cain in the garden, as redemptive history moves forward, there seems to be this distancing where God is choosing to speak through various prophets. and while this is mysterious to us, it's, it seems to be for the protection of the people.

That God's holiness is so amazing that His holiness will cause the death of sinners who do not come to Him through a mediator.

who is speaking to whom in this context? God's speaking to Joshua. This is, it's a very straightforward question, but you don't know how many times I've had family devotions where we read the text and I just ask our kids, OK, who's talking? Jesus.

So, OK, what's the context? No. God, so God's talking here to Joshua. how much land was being given to Joshua?

Yeah, quite a bit. So there's various boundaries that are laid out. Some of this is not very easy for us to discern, but this is the same basic land area that was promised to Abraham, right? And so this promise is being reiterated to Joshua.

And what promises did God make to the children of Israel in verse 5? What do we see In verse 5 OK, good. Nobody's gonna be able to stand before you. Yeah, I'll be with you.

Will be a 3rd 1. And I will not forsake you. So no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. just imagine for the sake of argument that you're And, we'll use some less serious analogy.

you're playing on a football team, you joined a football team, freshman year of college, you get some, your coach gets direct divine revelation from God Almighty, and he says, for the next 4 years, no team shall be able to stand before you. You will win all of your games. That'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it? You're like, wow, all right.

But, Joshua and the, and they're knowing, they're walking in knowing that God is giving them the land. Yeah, he is giving them the victory over their enemies. We'll come back to this question in a little bit. Let me, I'll raise the question, we won't answer it.

if God is promising them that they're going to have victory, is there anything that they have to do to go out and attain the victory? Right. Yeah, so God is giving them commands. He's saying, be strong, be very courageous, meditate on the law.

and so we're gonna again see this concept in the book of Joshua of divine decree and human responsibility, that God's saying, hey, the victory is yours, it's already been established. Nobody's gonna be able to stand against you. Therefore, meditate on the word of the Lord, day and night, be strong, be very courageous, and the Bible is very comfortable with these promises and commands. Divine compatibility, that God is in control of all things that human beings are responsible.

and so, let's look at those commands. so we see basically three different, there's a repeat of a command or, basic phrase in verse 6, in verse 7, verse 9. what command did God repeat 3 times? Be strong and very courageous.

So 3 different times he's saying, be strong, courageous, be strong, courageous. we see some other commands here to not turn from the commandments to the left or to the right, to meditate constantly on the book of the law. Let's see what else. that Joshua would prosper.

Let's look again back at verse 7. Only be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to all of the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn to the right or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. So, there's this promise that Joshua and the people are going to prosper as they come into the land.

So, trust the Lord, obey the Lord, be strong, courageous, you're going to prosper. So let's, let's make some deductions here. Let's see Let me ask you guys this, what does it really mean to meditate upon the law of God? Say it again.

OK, so focus. So focus on it. Can I just take like maybe a, a a phrase that we see in the Bible? Let's say we see a phrase that says, Love the Lord your God, and do I just sit there and love the Lord your God, Love the Lord your God.

Love the Lord your God. Love the Lord your God and just say that over and over and over again. Is that meditating? Is that what it means to meditate in the Word of God?

OK, so meditating can involve, of trying to assemble and, and really think through the scriptural connections. Yeah, good, Larry. OK, so good. So, meditation can involve, we look and we're seeing the word and you're thinking through how, God, how do you want this reflected in my life?

How should this be applied in my life right now? Good. What else? Yep.

Excellent. So right there in the context, it gives us some clues about what meditation is, and part of that is not letting it apart from our mouth, which means that the word of God is always on our lips, right? To say, don't let it depart from your mouth is basically say, don't stop talking about it. sometimes you, you, you'll, you'll pick up on somebody's hobby horse, right?

You just poke them a little bit in a certain area and all of a sudden, they wanna start talking, they'll just keep talking about that particular topic, right? You find somebody or, yeah. Right. And actually that's, that's part of the literal idea is the chewing.

The, the, some people, they suggest some Hebrew scholars that the word behind the word meditate, it actually means like it's got this, what do they call it, onomatopoea. It sounds like the thing it's describing, so it's like this the word has this chewing sound to it. And so to meditate is really to chew on it and mull it over, really get all the nutrients and juices out of the word. That's, yeah, that's a good point.

So, yeah, so we're, we're really trying to milk the word for what it means, look for its applications, That it's not departing from our mouth, so that means that we're just, we're talking about the word a lot. So in whatever context, whether it's with friends or family, we just find ourselves wanting to talk about the Lord, wanting to talk about his commands. if you poke us, it's like Spurgeon says, if you poke, you poke me, I'm gonna bleed ble bleen, gonna, I'm gonna bleed Bible, right?

And, And so that's part of, and that's a choice.

It's, it's, there's both a promise here that God is making to Joshua, but also there's these choices that we're making that meditation of God's word is gonna be Something that we're making a high priority. and you guys know this, you, you, you talk to somebody who's got a, a new crush or something and, and you just poke them a little bit. What are they talking about? Talking about that guy, that girl, right?

Or if all of a sudden, something's going on politically. And they're big time into Trump, you poke them a little bit, and there they are, they're ready to talk about it, right? so that's, that's the way that God is commanding Joshua to be with, with the Bible, with his word. Let's, let's make a couple other deductions before we look at the other passage.

So, Let me ask you this. Josh was being told that if he If he is strong and courageous and he observes the law of the Lord not to turn left or to the right, then he will prosper wherever he goes. so can we apply this? Do you think we can apply this directly with the fullest extent?

If Mike Barry meditates on the Bible, if I try to not depart from the left or to the right. Is God gonna prosper me in everything I put my hand to? Is this a command that, a promise that no matter what I put my hand to, as long as I'm being strong and courageous and that I'm, I'm gonna prosper. You would say no.

Why not? Say it again. Everything? You don't think I'm gonna prosper in everything?

What's wrong? Don't you believe in me? You don't believe me, Brian. What do you guys think?

So let's stick with the, yeah, yeah, sir. OK, good. OK. OK, great.

Yeah, let's turn to Psalm one. That's a very good connection. So, Sarah's making this connection to, to Psalm one and, it doesn't necessarily mean that in the, at least in the Joshua context, if I do what Joshua does, then every time I get in the boxing ring, I'm gonna defeat my enemies. If I play a baseball game, we're gonna win all of our games.

everybody's gonna like me, nobody's gonna hate me. But there's, yeah, there's a very similar context here that seems to be delivered. To the people of God, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the godly, nor stands the path of sinners, sits in the seat of scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. He meditates in it day and night.

He shall be what? Like this tree planted by rivers, he's gonna bring forth fruit. And whatever he does shall prosper. So as long as, if we have the idea of what, what does it mean for the people of God generally to prosper, there does seem to be a promise here that if, if my thoughts and my priorities align with God's thoughts and God's priorities, then I can expect a prospering in the biblical sense, right?

And so to prosper, it seems to me in the broader biblical sense, would be that I'm growing in my glorification of God. I'm, I'm growing in my understanding of the Creator-c creature distinction, my relationship with the Lord, finding my happiness in eternal things and so on and so forth, taking joy in the things that God provides for me physically, But we would argue from this passage and other passages that that doesn't necessarily mean I'm not gonna get sick. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna have tragedy.

But there does seem to be a generic principle that if I'm, if I'm coming into this, these blessings that God has for me via his word, that there's going to be life consequences for me, right?

And if I, if I come outside of the umbrella of His word, there will also be consequences to that. The difference in the Joshua context though seems to be Joshua is being commanded as a prophet to go lead the, the only people of God on the earth at that time to go and actually execute God's judgment on a wicked people. We're gonna talk about that in a moment, and to be a primary in the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant at that point in redemptive history. And so there does seem to be a promise for Joshua that when you put your hand to the sword and you go into battle, you are going to prosper.

And so, there seems to be, you can correct me if you guys think I'm wrong, there seems to be maybe a, a generic principle that we can apply to all of us generally, especially when we look at other contexts like Psalm one and other places, but then there's a specific principle that's given to Joshua himself that we can't necessarily claim for ourselves. Cause I'm not Joshua. I'm not the prophet Joshua. God didn't command me to take the people of Israel into Canaan and go into battle, but he did command Joshua to do that.

And so I, I do have to draw a line between myself and say a person in redemptive history that's called to be a prophet. And so I, but I do think that we can, we can learn lessons that when God makes these promises. In a prophetic form on the page of scripture to people in, in history that God fulfills those promises, and we do see that as Joshua goes into battle, the same crazy miraculous support that God was giving the people of Israel is now being applied to Joshua. We'll, we'll look at Jericho in a few weeks.

There's just scientifically, there's no, it's just a crazy story. It just doesn't seem like that should be possible. But God comes in and he's the one that is fighting these battles. And so it gives us, it gives us great hope as the people of God that when God's making these promises, like when the Bible says to the church at large, the gates of hell shall not prevail, we can look to passages like this and see how God treated Joshua at this time.

And realize the church will also not fail in our time, right? We're not gonna come to a place where all of a sudden the church is demolished from the earth because Christ has promised that would never happen. Does that make sense? So does that mean that you can't, put Joshua 1:89 on a t-shirt and claim it for yourself?

No, I think if we understand the basic principle that there's ways in which it applies to us and there's other ways in which it wouldn't. When my son was playing baseball when he was younger, he got plunked a couple of times, got a little hesitant in the box, and with his undershirt, we like wrote on Joshua, the whole text of Joshua 1:89. And that was pretty encouraging until he started to use it as a What do you call it? Like a good luck charm or it, it almost became one of his superstitions.

He's like, oh, I can't find my shirt. I can't wait, where's my shirt? Oh, I'm gonna have a terrible game today. It's like, no, no, that's not the point.

The point is, it's, it's not a, it's, it's not a lucky rabbit's foot, right? It's just what's on that shirt. That's what matters. Think about that.

Yeah, Allison. Totally. Totally. Awesome.

Yeah, so Alison's just reminds us of the Abrahamic covenant that God's, he's already made this promise, and so God's gonna be faithful to the promise and he's bringing Joshua in to help fulfill that promise. That's great. Yeah, so Abrahamic, yeah, Alvin. Oh, good.

Yeah, I like that. Right. Right. That's a good point.

As Alvin is just pointing out that Joshua, this is really his burning bush experience, like that Moses experienced back in Exos 3. And so we wouldn't apply the burning bush directly to ourselves, although we could see God's stuff about God's name and faithfulness in that context. Same thing here. There's certain aspects of it that would apply to us because God is God.

But there's other aspects in which this is Joshua interfacing with God in that burning bush type of way. So that's, that's good. I like that. Let me raise another thorny issue before we turn to Matthew, and that is this., the question gets raised.

Why, Christians are supposed to be worshiping this loving God and, we, we serve Jesus, who's supposed to be this loving guy. And here's God. Promising to be with Joshua as his nation takes up arms and goes into a land to do battle and war and just annihilate other people groups. and so, what God is this that is commanding one people to go in and annihilate another people?

And what's to say that Christians won't do the same? Well, is, is the church have the same mission? Will people in the church rise up and start doing battle with people of other faiths? And would God say, hey, I'm gonna be with you as you battle these people?

what do we say to the fact that in church history, some people did view themselves as taking on the same role as Joshua and the people. There were, some of the crusade language during the Crusades was, hey, God has delivered them into our hands and just like Joshua when their battles, we're going in to battle for the Lord. Even the whole concept in our history in the United States of manifest destiny, you guys I've studied those concepts, there was this feeling of God has delivered this whole land into our hands and we can just move across the continent because it's manifest destiny.

what do we do with that?

Yeah, Nate. OK. Well, isn't the United States God's people? What's that?

OK. Well, you guys just blew me away right there., in the history of Russia. Russia had a very strong sense, the, being Eastern Orthodox, growing up with Peter as their patron saint in Eastern Orthodoxy. But there since, we're talking about 1700s, 1800s leading into the 20th century was we are God's people.

A very heavy sense of patriotism, but not, not just that, but we are the people of God. And, and then in the United States, there has been different periods in our history where we have identified ourselves as Israel and we are God's people. Let me just point out, Let me see, I'm just gonna throw these particular verses out and then you guys can look them up on your own in the gospels. Do you guys remember when Jesus was with his disciples?

And there becomes a point in which Jesus says, somebody, if you previously you did not have a sword, now I want you guys to go get a sword. And, My early onset Alzheimer's is kicking in again. Say it again. Yeah, sell your cloak and go buy a sword, right?

OK, well, hold on, hold on. Don't go there. He He tells them to go get swords. Who, who, who tells the disciples to get swords?

Jesus does. Peter comes running up and he says, Here's, here's two swords. Is this enough? Jesus says, yeah, that's enough.

So Jesus commands them to go get swords. And then when they come get them, he's like, he commends Peter and says, that's enough. Then when they come to arrest Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, and, and this, this narrative, you have to assemble two different gospels to, to get this. But they come to arrest Jesus, and who cuts off the ear of the soldier?

Peter, then Jesus turns to Peter and says, put away your sword. He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. If I'm Peter, I'm like. Lord, you just commanded me to go get a sword.

You said, we're gonna need swords now. I used the sword you told me to get, and now you're telling me to put it away. So what's going on, Lord? Are you, did you not get enough sleep last night or what's going on?

And I really, when we look at the New Testament context, and the way things are developing in Christ's life, remember when, when Jesus is having this interview with Pilate, Pilate says, Are you the king? And he says, I am. And if my kingdom were of this earth, my servants would rise up and fight. But my kingdom is not of this earth, right?

And so Jesus right here is setting up a paradigm. The, the, his disciples were fully expecting the Messiah to come and have a civil war, a physical battle against the Romans, and to deliver them from the Romans and to establish the kingdom on earth. Jesus comes along and starts saying things to the disciples that are like, just not computing. Remember Peter takes them aside and rebukes them and says, no, this isn't gonna happen to you, Lord.

And then Jesus says, get thee behind me, Satan. And so Jesus is just breaking up this paradigm. That doesn't mean that the Old Testament paradigm was wrong. It's now new.

We're moving into a new covenant. We're looking, we're moving into a very new period of the history of redemption. And so, I really think that the reason that Jesus told Peter to go get the sword just to teach him an object lesson. Go get these swords.

He knew that Peter was gonna use the sword. Again, this is the crazy cre creator creature distinction stuff. Peter uses the sword. Jesus rebukes him as the, the one who's gonna be the main pastor of the starting church and says, don't, you're not gonna live by the sword anymore.

We did that back with national Israel. This is a new thing. This kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. And we're not doing warfare, at least at this point.

Now, we do know that when Jesus comes back in his Second Advent upon the white horse, he is gonna come as a warrior, right? And he will whip up on his enemies. There will be warfare again. But in this period that we're in, this, this dispensation called the church, we are commanded to not take up the sword.

And so what happens when Pentecost comes, the Holy Spirit falls, and then persecution begins to rain down on the church. Guess what? They're not taking up arms to fight the Romans. they're either running for the hills like they do in the dispersion, or they're willing to receive persecution and be persecuted for righteousness' sake.

so when it comes to the gospel ministry, when it comes to the church's ministry, we're living in a very different era. The church really should have never taken up arms for church purposes. In the, in this time of of, of, of redemptive history. So what happened with post-Constantine era, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and popes commanding armies and things like that, in my view, and a just, a lot of people's, I'm not saying this in isolation, but is the church was never meant to take up arms in this dispensation.

We were meant to lay down arms. Now that, now, yeah, Barbara. Yes. No Totally.

Right. Yeah, totally. Yeah, so Barbara's just reminding us, it's not like the Canaanites and the, the Hittites and these people that are being attacked where some angelic people like the noble savage concept that's become very popular in our culture. No, these people were burning their children.

Think of the Aztecs times 10. These people were burning their kids to their false gods. These were abject immortal immorality. And just look at the history of, of, of redemption up to that point.

It's like God was very, very, very patient, and then the world was so filled with blood and violence that he floods the whole world, right? and this happened several different times. He's very patient with Sodom and Gomorrah. God, Abraham pleads for Sodom and Gomorrah, pleads for Lot.

God does deliver a lot, but then he rains down fire and brimstone. And so, in this point of redemptive history, in Deuteronomy and other places, I think actually we can turn to Deuteronomy 18 if you would. we'll hit this in a second. I think it's Deuteronomy 18.

19. Let me get the exact verse for you. Yeah, Deuteronomy 18:9. We'll read this in just a sec.

But at this point, redemptive history, God has risen up or raised Israel. For several different purposes, but one of the purposes he's raised them up is to execute his own judgment through them, not because they are righteous people. He said that many times. But he is bringing them into lands to do just what he did with Sodom and Gomorrah through fire, just what he did through waters and flood.

He did that and he is raising them up to bring warfare upon a wicked, wicked people. And God, we might not like that, we're not, might not be comfortable with that, but he has the prerogative to do that. So as we understand the creator creature distinction, God can raise up kings and lower kings, and he has risen up Israel for just such a time to come in and execute his judgment upon a very wicked people. And so if you look at 189, when you come into the land which the Lord your God has given you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.

there shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, and one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer or one who conjures spells, or a medium or a spiritist or one who calls up the dead. This is, this is what's going on. In this area of the world. we're talking about sorcery, we're talking about witchcraft, we're talking about putting their own children, we're talking about full-on demon-controlled areas.

And from God, God, who is God looks upon this area and he says, their cup is full and there is no redemption value. We've seen the history in the past that if there was someone that could be saved, he saved Noah and his family. If there was someone that could be saved, he saved Lot and his family. From God's perspective, there's no one in this area that can be saved.

He's bringing judgment from Israel to wipe them out because this is a wicked, wicked area. That does not give, us the prerogative to take up the sword and say, oh, we're the new Israel, we'll go wipe out some other. It doesn't mean that there aren't in God's decree and sovereignty, other wars that happen that God, I think has been with us in our past, i.e. World War 2 and so on.

But it's just we're not Israel. We don't, we don't have that same command to go out, hey, we're gonna execute God's judgment because he's given us divine revelation to go out and do so. I think Jennifer had something or Great. Yes, that's a fantastic question.

So the question is, are we therefore called to just lay down our arms or should we be willing to fight as individuals? It's an excellent question. What I'm talking about is the role of the church. And there is a difference between church and state and even church and individual.

And so like as a church, Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church, we're not called to take up arms and go to battle against the Islamicists in our neighborhood, right? We're not called, if Pastor Milton stands up here one Sunday and says we're raising a militia, there's a lot more Mormons that are moving into town, and we'd like to get all those militia going so we can go kill all the Mormons. You run away and go to another church and call the police, right? That's not what the church is called to do.

But now you start talking about what is the state called to do. You have to look at different passages of scripture like Romans 13, the state is called to bear the sword, so that evildoers would have fear and to reward good. Then there's also what are you called to do as an individual person. when Jesus says, if somebody slaps you on one cheek, turn to him the other cheek.

I personally, it, it depends on the context. I interpret that largely within a gospel community setting, like, if somebody's coming and persecuting me for my faith, I may very well just turn my cheek and let and let them slap me on the other cheek. I'm not gonna like try to defend myself as a Christian. what I don't think that means is that he's saying, hey, all fathers, let anybody just break into your house and rape your wife and take your kids.

Or go ahead and just let anybody babysit your kids regardless of background, yeah, I know there's a lot of people that are in our community here with Megan's Law. I'm gonna let them all watch my kids. Oh, that's silly. We're called as individuals to protect ourselves, protect our families, and I think, I think something like what Abraham did with Abraham in that setting, that we talked about this last week in Genesis 14.

You're, you're, you're looking at a period of history where Abraham clearly was not commanded as the leader of Israel to go wipe out a group for judgment's sake, right? This was just Abraham living in a city-state or more of a village type of economy. There's no such thing as nations at that point. There's no police force, there's no standing army.

And so a lot of people have talked about the time that Abraham was living in there in Genesis 14 would be very akin to Native Americans here in North America, around the 17, 1800s. That if you were part of the Cherokee Nation and your nation, you, you wanna make sure that your tribes are protected. Guess what? All of your young men are learning how to fight.

They're riding horses, they're learning how to shoot, bows and arrows because, sooner or later you're gonna get attacked, right? It's just gonna happen. And so you gotta be able to protect yourself, protect your property, protect your families. And so, it does seem like, in my, in my view, a Christian individual would have the right to protect himself and his family, but we would not necessarily wage war on behalf of the church, and we may not resist persecution from those that come to get us because we're Christians.

yeah, go ahead. I think it happened at the time of Christ, once we move into the new covenant. So Jesus Christ, again, he says to Pilate, if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would rise up and fight. As soon as Jesus says that, he's telling everybody, we're in a new era.

Because that's not the way it worked in Israel, right? In Israel, if something was happening, right? If, if, if Israel was walking righteousness before the Lord, God would command them to go out and execute judgment, or if they were attacked, God would say, I will be with you. And he would even sometimes direct them on the field of battle.

Remember, sometimes David would ask the Lord, what should I do? If I go on a frontal attack, are they going to, is this gonna work out? And the Lord says, no, don't do that, go around the side. And so the Lord's actually helping David through direct vine revelation with his attack plan.

Or remember that one time, we'll probably hit this later, where David says, if I go into this area, if I go to the Phil, I think it's the Philistines, no, yeah, the Philistines, are they gonna deliver me into Saul's hands? And he says, yes, they will deliver you. And so then David says, OK, I won't go there. And so God, that's very interesting because God is telling him what would happen if he went there, which was never in God's divine decree because it never happened.

Oh, Doctor Who. It's like. So anyway, so, so anyway, I just think it's a, it's a very important topic for us to get our minds around because it becomes an apologetics topic. You're, you're sharing the gospel with your friends or family.

If they've done, watched a little bit of the History Channel or they've been thinking about some of this stuff, then we're like, oh yeah, your God's so great. He sends all these, people to go kill everybody there in Canaan or, whatever, and then you guys have the crusades and you're killing everybody during the Crusades. So what we say is we go, Yes, on the first part, and here's why, you might not agree, but here's why. No on the Crusades, right?

We don't affirm the Crusades necessarily. We don't affirm some of the things that were happening in the name of the church, since Christ basically said we don't live by the sword as a church. Yep. Oh yeah.

Yeah Right. Problem of evil, yeah. Yup. And that's a whole another, that, again, I think gets into the, some of the mysteries of where the Bible says God has revealed certain things to us and our children that we may obey them, but the secret things belong to the Lord.

There's things about the problem of evil that is hard for us to understand, but we're not, we're just not God., if, if God is all powerful and if God is all good, then why does he allow any evil? And John Piper's answer is he has allowed evil and divine his decrees because it will glorify Him. This is the best of all possible worlds for God's glory. You may not like that, but God gets glory from one lump of clay and from another lump of clay, and there's things that just happen in our world.

just look at some of the stories of. even just salvation stories or something, we've got a gal in our church went through some tragic, tragic stuff. She was part of sex trafficking down in South America and got brought up to the United States with some person that she couldn't care less about and then came into contact with the gospel and got saved. And so she got saved through the process of being transferred through sex trafficking.

And you would never want that to happen to somebody and, and, but that's how she came into contact with the gospel and now she's just like, I'm so glad the Lord brought me up here to the United States, otherwise, I would have never heard the gospel. How do you explain that? it's just terrible tragedy, but God turns tragedy into salvation. It's just amazing.

let, let's end on this. We'll have to, we'll have to close this, is God, by the way, God isn't just in the business of using Israel to execute judgment on wicked peoples, but we're, as we're gonna see when Israel falls into wickedness, then God also, he brings other nations down on them. And so when we get to judges, we're gonna see these cycles of judgment. And one of the big mysteries is, Israel goes through that big civil war, the northern tribes get taken out by Assyria, you got the southern tribes that are falling into sin and all kinds of immorality.

God says, you guys better repent. I'm gonna bring down judgment upon you. They don't repent. And so Nebuchadnezzar comes down.

Babylon From through the hand of God, this is a pagan king that God brings down into sovereignty to carry Israel or Judah into captivity. And, read, what, you want a mind blower sometime, do some study in the book of Habakkuk. And, and it will just fry your brain cause what is Habakkuk's problem? Habakkuk is looking at, at Israel, Judah.

I think it's he's focused on Judah there. And he's like, Lord, your people are so wicked, they're despising your name. Why are you doing nothing? And then the Lord says, well, I am gonna do something.

I'm gonna bring Babylon down to bring judgment upon my people. And then he's like, oh, wait a second. Babylon is a pagan nation led by this pagan king. They're more wicked than Israel.

Then God says, well, don't worry, after Babylon comes down, and I'm, this is paraphrasing, and whips up on Israel, I'm gonna bring somebody down to whip up on Babylon. And he's like, What are you talking about? And, and then at the end of the book is that real famous passage where Habakkuk just says, though the deer can give birth to no more babies, and though the land may be barren and we can produce no more flocks, and everything's falling apart in our lives, we will yet praise the Lord and shut our mouths.

And he just basically says, you are God, we are not, I cannot comprehend this.

And so you see again this creator creature distinction, that God has divine prerogatives that he can righteously carry out that we could never carry out or we would be mafia bosses. If we try to do what God does, you would call me Mussolini, right? But God is able righteously to keep all of these plates turning in intention to accomplish all of his righteous purposes. And it's only a God like our God that could possibly do that.

How do you explain I've mentioned, one of my favorite characters in history, in World War II history, Mitsuo Fujita. How do you explain Mitsua Fujita? Planning for months. The attack of Pearl Harbor.

He's the lead pilot. He goes and they bomb Pearl Harbor. They kill, what was it, 2300 people, December 7th here just recently, goes back home, they get defeated and he comes upon the track. Of somebody gives him a track that was written by one of Doolittle's raiders who had hated Japanese people, but then came to know Christ.

And then before it, Mitsuo Fujita gets saved in Japan and he's running around preaching the gospel and in the 1950s shows up in Pearl Harbor and basically apologizes for Pearl Harbor and says, I've now become a Christian, would you please forgive me? I'd like all of you to receive Christ. How do you How do you explain stuff like that, other than just God's just moving things around in amazing ways and And creating all these incredible. When we're in heaven and we're able to see all of this from his perspective, we will just marvel at God's wisdom and as he's, as he's moved history along for his glory.

Let's go ahead and pray. I'll, I'll be up here for a little bit if you want to talk more. Lord, we thank you so much for just what we see from the life of just this little snippet of the life of Joshua getting kicked off with his burning bush experience and, we thank you, Lord, for just the promises that we see on the page of Scripture. We thank you, Lord, for your control, your sovereignty.

Thank you for how your word feeds us. We ask Lord, that you just feed us this morning as we continue in the book of Genesis as Pastor Milton preaches. thank you, Lord, for. Just, your marvelous sovereignty and control over all events.

I know there's been much, much sickness and there's been tragedy this week with this gal that was hit by a car over by CBU and we just pray, Father, that you'd have your hand upon her body. And grace, and we pray, Lord, that You would help us to see your hand and all of the intimate details of our lives. And, we don't always understand it, but we can trust you. in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.