Charge of Joshua, Part 2

Introduction: Joshua's Charge to Achan

0:06 For the benefit of those who do not worship with us on the Lord's Day mornings, for some ten Lord's Day mornings, we have been considering some of the revelation of God's mind and will as found in the seventh chapter of the book of Joshua. Joshua chapter 7, in which chapter there is recorded the sin and the subsequent fruits of the sin of a man named Achan, a man whose only claim to fame was the sin that he committed, a sin that brought great reproach to God, brought crippling to an entire nation, a sin committed at a very strategic point in the history of the nation of Israel, a point at which God was underscoring some very vital lessons. It would be utterly impossible to try to give you the overall thrust of what ten expositions have sought to lay out, and therefore I will not even make an attempt to do so. I will simply say that in our study we have come to Joshua chapter 7, verses 19 through 21, in which we have the record of the charge of Joshua to Achan

1:29 after he has been sovereignly discovered by God's understanding, unusual providence in ordering the disposition of the lot until it fell upon Achan, and Achan was taken and now is solemnly charged by Joshua in the following words, verse 19, And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and make confession unto him, and tell him now what thou hast done. Tell me now what thou hast done. Hide it. Not from me.

2:05 And Achan answered Joshua and said, Of a truth I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done. When I saw among the spoil a goodly Babylonish mantle and two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge or tongue of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them and took them, and behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it. This morning, as we began to consider these words, we saw that there were two things of concern to us in verse 19 in this charge of Joshua to Achan. First of all, there was the manner of Joshua's charge, and then there was the matter or the substance of Joshua's charge. And we noted that the manner of Joshua's charge was one of compassionate tenderness, and gracious restraint, indicated in the use of the words, My son, I pray thee. Not you scoundrel, I command you. You traitor to Israel.

The Substance of Joshua's Charge: Vertical and Horizontal Directives

3:17 You apostate from the religion of Jehovah. But, my son, I pray you. And in his manner, Joshua is both a pattern and a picture. A pattern to every civil magistrate.

3:31 A pattern to every spiritual leader. And a picture of the greater Joshua, who does not break the bruised reed, and who does not overflow with judgment when he deals with men, but tempers his judgment with mercy. And then, we began to consider this morning the substance of Joshua's charge, noting that there were four specific things that he was charged to do by Joshua, two of them having to do with vertical perspective, and two with horizontal. Our time permitted only a consideration of the vertical.

4:10 Joshua says to Achan, My son, give glory to Jehovah, the God of Israel, and make confession unto him. In the owning of his sin, Achan was to have, first of all, respect to the honor.

4:30 And we deduced from this charge of Joshua, the great principle, that no person, no confession is true biblical confession unless paramount in its perspective is the recognition of what sin has done to God. All sin of God is a measure of the glory that is due him. And therefore, all true confession is an attempt on the part of the sinner to acknowledge that he has robbed God of glory and now seeks to render the glory to God, which is his due. All have sinned, and the great crime of sin is that we come short of the glory of God. Sin is a negation of God's glory, and the beginning of restoration of that glory from the sinner is true confession, which gives glory to the God of Israel in genuine confession unto him. Now we come tonight to consider the two horizontal directives. And you will notice that they are couched in these words.

The Necessity of Achan's Public Confession: Three Reasons

5:42 Achan, you are not only to Jehovah, the God of Israel, and make confession to him, but Joshua says, and tell me now what thou hid it not from me. See what you have done, and then the negative, hide it not from me. Joshua was the appointed leader who initiated these proceedings. God showed Joshua and the nation that Achan was the guilty one.

6:17 But not by what means. He left this to Achan himself, and Joshua now demands in the name of Jehovah an immediate confession. The very moment that Achan had feared when he took the forbidden substance, and he took that which belonged unto God, and thought he had covered his sin very neatly and very conclusively, the moment he feared, the moment of exposure, had finally come, there was no desire on Achan's part to own up to his sin after that frightening mandate recorded in verses 13 to 15. The realization that throughout that entire night after Joshua spoke to the nation that God was going to discover the sin, none of this prevailed upon Achan. He was always able to say, later, later, later, if ever, but now Joshua says with all the authority of Jehovah, the God of Israel, in time, the moment of unmasking has come. Here is a charge to an immediate confession. And then in the negative statement, hide it not from me, is the demand of a full confession.

7:37 Anything less than a full display of the realities of his sin would be something less than true confession. How are you to glorify God, Achan, in your confession? You are to glorify Him by confessing what? You've done and confessing it in its entirety, hiding nothing.

8:00 Up until now, Achan had hidden the sin from man and perhaps thought that he had even hidden it from God. But the time for exposure had come. Achan must give an immediate and thorough account to Joshua in the presence of the entire nation. And if you miss that point, you miss the vital lesson of the passage.

8:22 This was all done, in the presence of the entire nation. For the entire nation was brought near to the tabernacle so that they might understand that their dealings were not with Joshua and with the elders or the high priest alone, but with the living God of Israel Himself. Now the question that ought to be in your minds if you thoughtfully listened to these five or seven minutes of simple exposition of the meaning of the words is this. Why?

8:53 Why was all this necessary? If God knew who had committed the sin, if God could have condemned him in this unusual way as He had done with the casting of the locks, why was it necessary for Achan to confess his sin immediately and thoroughly in the presence of Joshua and the entire nation? Now God is sin in His dealings, but He's never capricious. He's a wise God.

9:21 And there is wisdom and reason for the things that God does. Now He does not always reveal who He is wise in what He does. There are some things that must await that day. But in this passage there are of the wisdom of God in the proceedings of God with reference to the charge of Joshua to Achan.

Reason 1: To Vindicate God's Dealings with His People

9:45 And let me suggest that this was necessary for three reasons. Number one. First of all, to vindicate the dealings of God with His people. The nation had sinned.

9:57 God sinned. God's threats were fulfilled. God had told them as they were to enter Jericho, if you take of the accursed thing, my blessing will not be upon you. I will bring my frown.

10:08 I will not be with you. You will not be able to conquer your enemies. God had fulfilled His threat. But was the sin really that bad?

10:19 Was the nation guilty as to render her impotent before the men of Ai? Should 36 men die as a result of God's frowning? Or was the nation guilty as to bring about the displeasure? Well, you see, the nation was aware that something had happened to bring about the displeasure of God.

10:41 But was God really just in what He had done? Were the accusations of God valid? For He had said in verses 13 to 15, There is a devoted thing in the midst of you. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away that devoted thing.

10:54 I will not be with you. God had made some very sober pronouncements. But there was in the minds of many of God's people the question, Well, has God really dealt justly with us? We don't see any evidence in the camp of anyone bringing in a foreign deity.

11:10 We don't see the erection of a golden calf. We don't see the people giving themselves over to uncleanness and to other forms of deflection from the moral or ceremonial law of God. So much of God's displeasure. Well, you see, the confession of Achan in the presence of Joshua in the nation was necessary to vindicate the dealings of God with His people.

11:38 For the moment Achan opens his mouth and says, Of a truth, this is what I have done. Took of that upon which God had pronounced His curse. I deliberately and willfully took the silver and gold that was to be consecrated unto God and kept it for myself. At that moment in the minds and hearts of the entire nation would be a sigh of relief that God was vindicated in His dealings with the nation because of its sin.

Reason 2: To Demonstrate the Enormity of Sin

12:09 Secondly, this proceeding was necessary not only to vindicate the dealings of God with His people, but to demonstrate that the enormity of sin consists not in the thing committed, but in the character of the God offended. To demonstrate that the enormity of sin consists not in the thing committed, but in the character of the God offended. As Joshua singles out Achan and the entire nation hears his charge, Now, my son, give glory to God, the God of Israel. Make confession to Him.

12:52 Tell what you have done. Hide it not from me. Can you imagine the silence that must have fell upon that entire nation? What terrible crying Achan committed.

13:08 A crime that in a few short moments is going to lead him to immediate and brutal destruction. He is to be stoned to death. The destruction of his entire family and household and all that he possesses. For this is what God had pronounced in the earlier mandate for retribution in verse 15.

13:28 And now they hear from the lips of these men words of this nature. I took a garment. I took some silver. I took some gold.

13:43 For once he looked impotent and a few shunned him as a monument of his disobedience. What's the message? The message is that the enormity of sin consists not in the thing committed, but in the nature of the God who is offended. He can give glory to heaven and earth.

14:25 The God who called him out of the heathenism of Ur of the Chaldees, committed himself to Abraham in gracious covenant promise that his seed he would form and through that nation he would bless the world. This great God, this creator God, this sovereign gracious covenant making, covenant keeping God, Achan and Israel. The enormity of sin is not to be measured by the thing which you've done, but by the greatness of the character of the God against whom the thing has been committed. Achan your sin was against the God of Israel. He had clearly said when you go in you are utterly to devote to destruction. You are to spare only the gold and precious metals and bring them back to me. There was no question about the of God's directions.

15:34 There was no question about the rightness of God's directions. And therefore the enormity of Achan's sin is not that taking a garment in and of itself was some great, it was just a hung woven cloth. When Achan heard it he was saying that it was not worthy of obedience with reference to hunks of finely woven cloth. Obedience, my own strutting down Fifth Avenue there in Canaan is worth more than obedience to the God of Israel. The colors of luxurious appearance in that garment are worth more in honor of the God of Israel. And likewise with reference to the shekels of silver and to the wedge of gold. God burned into the consciousness of Achan and in the consciousness of the nation that the heinousness of sin is to be measured not by the thing itself but by the nature of the God offended.

Reason 3: To Make the Guilty Self-Condemned

16:50 And then thirdly, God proceeded along these lines to accomplish this third thing to make the guilty one self-condemned. You see while sin is being committed there is often a subtle form of rationalization that borders on madness. May I repeat that? When your sin is being committed there is often a subtle form of rationalization that borders on madness.

17:22 You see a madman has lost touch with the world of reality. He doesn't see things as they are. He's Joe Doe, age 26, 5 foot 10, 140 pounds, $20 in the bank, 10 cents in his pocket and he looks in the mirror and he thinks he's 7 foot 6. He's a giant.

17:43 And he's a king. And he sits on a throne and he owns half the world. He's lost touch with the world of reality. That's what constitutes him a madman.

17:54 And there is in the power of sin a subtle form of rationalization that borders on madness in which we lose touch with the world of reality. What was the world of reality? A Babylonish garment there in Jericho in the presence of this man Achan who was loaded to death to which the torch must be put. The shekels of silver and the wedges of gold are that which belongs to God and must never be thought of as mine.

18:25 I am merely the hands to convey it to the temple or to the treasury of God ultimately to be used of course in the construction of the temple in the support of the priesthood. But you see what happens? In the midst of the process of temptation the mind begins to play tricks on us in the world of reality. Now in Achan's eyes that garment appeared as just some kind of an innocent thing that God didn't mean this thing particularly just meant in general.

18:56 I mean that's just one garment and all other 999 garments or 999,000 will be consumed. What is one garment among so many? And as we studied this in previous studies that form of rationalization proceeded until Achan became as it were a madman. Driven by his own lust as he later on confesses I saw and I coveted my affections became bound up with those objects and once the affections are bound up in a sinful object the mind no longer tells me the truth about those objects.

19:36 Passion debates and drives the mind right out of its reasoning and reasonable faculties until it's possessed of a form of madness. Now what is Achan forced to acknowledge? Where he may have rationalized in the commission of sin where he may have attempted to sear his conscience during that long night preceding his exposure while the process of exposure is going on it may seem that the threats of God are quite distant unreal and unreasonable but now Achan knows the moment the lot falls upon him that death is only moments away death for him death for his family death for all he possesses and not a death in which he will first of all be numbed or put to sleep but a violent death in which representatives of the entire nation will take stones and heap them upon them until pummeled and beaten into a semi-conscious and then unconscious state the stones will continue to be heaped upon him until he quivers and twitches and breathes his last then he knows that shortly thereafter there will be no decent burial but fire will be set to them and he will be consumed I tell you this drove the madness from his mind and he was suddenly back in touch

21:03 with the world of reality and his own conscience could no longer play tricks on him that day and as it were death warrants would act as the pen saying is just in what he does and this is why Joshua said Achan my son give glory to God make confession to him tell me what you have done from me and in the very verbalization of what he had done the conscience of Achan would take the side of God against Achan and Achan would die as a man whose own conscience would vindicate the activity of God I submit that these are the three reasons there may be more but as one interprets this passage in the light of the entire teaching of the word of God there is reason to say that these were the three reasons why God demanded not only this vertical dimension of Achan's confession giving glory to God and making confession to him but this immediate and full confession to Joshua in the presence of the entire nation and now for the remainder of our study what I wish to do is to show by way of

Application to the Day of Judgment: Christ as the Greater Joshua

22:30 application that God's dealings with Achan through Joshua reflect the very pattern of God's dealings with the world in the day of judgment and set before us some of the most vital principles relative to the nature of that judgment first of all let me establish that the Lord Jesus in this sense stands in the place of Joshua Joshua was the appointed leader of Israel and in that place of leadership he was not only to bring deliverance by the conquest of his armies but here in this instance he stands as the inquisitor he stands as the judge and the scripture tells us in Acts 17 in verse 31 that God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained and that man is none other than our Joshua the Lord Jesus Christ and in that day the scripture says there will be a public demonstration of the sins of men have you ever wondered why if the state of a soul is sealed at death have you ever wondered why if the soul goes to a place of conscious torment after death as we read in Luke 16 have you ever wondered why

23:58 I say it reverently God will go to the bother of resurrecting all the bodies of the impenitent joining them with their souls and having a public day of judgment as is described in Revelation 20 11-15 as is described in Matthew 25 with the gathering of the sheep and the goats as is stated very clearly in Romans 14 12 every one of us shall give account of himself to God and verse Peter 4 5 and many other portions of the word of God has this ever troubled you or am I the only one who has got the kind of mind that asks those questions for the day of judgment among many others are precisely the same three reasons for God's dealings with Achan through Joshua in this context to vindicate his dealings with men to demonstrate that the enormity of sin consists not in the thing committed but in the character of the God offended and to make the guilty self condemned in that day first of all then see this principle illustrated in that the day of judgment will be a vindication of God's dealings with men in that day the Lord Jesus will be the Joshua who causes men to own their deeds the secret things

Judgment as Vindication of God's Dealings with Men

25:26 will be made open Luke chapter 12 there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed nor hidden that shall not be known what has been spoken in secret shall be pronounced upon the rooftops in Romans 2 16 Paul says in the day when God will judge the secrets of men's hearts according to my gospel Matthew 12 says that men shall be justified or condemned by their words for every idle word that men shall speak they shall give and thereof in the day of judgment Matthew 25 reveals that deeds that men thought were will be drawn out and focused upon in that day when saw we thee hungry and thirsty naked and the Lord Jesus said in as much as ye did it or ye did it not he said the cup of cold water given in my name shall not fail to receive its reward now what is the purpose of all this well you see the purpose is to vindicate God's dealings with men as in the case of Achan God Achan sinned God who apprehended him is the God who knew sin from the moment that sin was conceived and even before Achan's hand touched the garment the sin was committed

26:53 the moment that sin was embraced and dropped off he would have been guilty of the sin in God's eyes because he had given himself to it in his heart that's the teaching of the word of God sin is committed the moment the helm of the heart and those sins will be opened and the openly put into hell obvious tokens of impiety Revelation 21 8 the unbelieving the idolaters shall have their part in the lake of fire the way of judgment is going to reveal many Achan's people who like ourselves are surrounded with the privileges of the covenant community of God's people looking over Israel that day relatively innocent from the abominations of the nations around them there is no indication that Achan or any of his associates was given over to some of the vile practices that later on were absorbed by Israel as they imitated the nations around them there in Canaan but you see had God sent to his judgment without Achan's own there would have been questions about the righteousness

28:23 of God in dealings with him and therefore to vindicate his own dealings with men that God's character may be vindicated in the eyes of the entire nation of Israel can you imagine what the day of judgment is going to be there are many people whom God knows right now are strangers to grace but outwardly they are found in a Christian church like this not just amongst God's people physically maybe even members of such churches they sing the hymns they sing the psalms they pray their prayers and their sin is hidden not from the sight of God but from the knowledge of men there is some secret lust to which they bow continually which they feed which they coddle which they fondle never once have they raised the knife of true mortification and sought to put it to death never once oh yes outwardly they restrain its visible expressions that would bring them under the frown of their peers but inwardly to use the words of Jesus they are full of dead men's bones and uncleanness the outside of the platter is clean but God says in that day he'll judge the secrets of men's hearts

29:49 and before God utters the sentence depart from me ye cursed ye will drag from the justness of the sentence and the unmortified lust that has been in the tent will be dragged out before the sight of the nations the secret pride that's been nursed and nurtured and never mortified the secret lust the secret rebellion those sins continued in willfully and resolutely the dishonesty the lies the uncleanness says in 1 Corinthians 4 5 judge nothing until the day come when the Lord shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest of men's hearts my friends when God utters the sentence depart from me ye cursed the entire moral universe will vindicate the justice of God in the sentence that he utters for those who are openly profligate and immoral there is no question their liabilities go before them and declare the justness of God in consigning the rightful thing is that many whose outward

Judgment Demonstrates the Enormity of Sin Against God

31:18 lives were externally clean will be found in that day to be if God were to sentence them without the public declaration of their sin there would be question of his righteousness and his justice and God says I will clear my character before the moral universe therefore God's dealings with Achan become a pattern of his purpose in dealing with the universe in the day of judgment but secondly God's dealings with Achan were intended to demonstrate that the enormity of sin consists not in the thing committed but in the nature of the God offended as a cloak and a few shekels of silver and a tongue of gold seemed a relatively small thing in themselves when brought forth and seen as the occasion of destruction then men could see how holy must this God of Israel be this holy gracious God who called our who preserved us in those four hundred years in Egypt who called us out with a mighty hand who led us forty years in the wilderness who brought us over on dry ground from the Red Sea and over Jordan this God who has knocked flat the walls of Jericho how gracious how holy how mighty must this God be this is why

32:46 he consigns a man and his family to death for apparently what we would call trivia a cloak few shekels of silver and a wedge of gold that God bears down upon their consciousness with this great principle and this is precisely what God will do in the day of judgment when our Lord sits upon his throne of glory as a man sinks into hell for his violation of the first command of the second of the fourth of the seventh of the tenth his indifference to the gospel sins that now appear trifles oh how trifling they appear they're the brunt of jokes from time to time just to see what the pulse of my own generation is I try to stomach listening to a general variety program for ten or fifteen minutes on the television that's all I can stomach I try ten or fifteen minutes of Merv Griffin that's all I can stomach oh how the law of God is made lighter infidelity immorality huffing stock oh what a seven commandment it's a light thing it's a light thing by existing standard it's nothing

34:07 violation of the Sabbath day that my friend when the mouth of hell is yawning and the entire moral verse sees sinners dropping in one by one suddenly the law of God no longer seems like a light thing and the majesty and the glory of God no longer seem like trifling matters and sin is seen in its enormity in the light of the God against whom its been committed and I wonder as you sit here tonight what is your estimation of sin my friend if you have any estimation of sin now that will be qualitatively changed by that day of accountability you better change your estimation of sin right here and now a Christian is a man whose estimation of sin is not qualitatively changed by the day of judgment for in a real sense Holy Ghost conviction is bringing to the human conscience and heart in time the perspectives of the day of judgment things that I did with lightness and carelessness against the majestic holy gracious

35:32 God of the Bible with mockedness I now and I say this is the estimation all men will have of their sin in that day and God will demonstrate to the entire moral universe the enormity of their sin in the light of the glory of his own character and nature then thirdly God's purpose for dealing with Achan in this way and dealing with men in the day of judgment is to make the guilty self condemned the scripture teaches us as I have earlier intimated in several verses that I have quoted that in the day of judgment men will be reminded of their deeds of their words and of their thoughts and will be made to give praise to God in the confession of them turn please to Romans chapter 14 Romans chapter 14 verse 10 and following but thou why dost thou judge thy brother for thou again why dost thou set it not thy brother for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God for it is written as I live saith the Lord to me every knee shall bow and every

Judgment Makes the Guilty Self-Condemned

37:01 tongue shall confess to God and you'll notice the marginal rendering shall give praise to God so then every one of us shall give account of himself to God isn't that what we have in Joshua 7 Achan is giving an account doesn't say God is taking an account if he is giving an account the concept that we will be active in our own judgment those who left this life excusing their sin those who left this life making light of their sin those who have imbibed philosophical ideas which have denied the reality of sin to cut the cutting edge of to dull the cutting edge of conscience those who have submitted to various forms of liberal theology that deny the judgment to dull the conscience those have immersed themselves in drugs and in the occult and have tried out of the world of reality in that day with hell staring them in the face sentenced about to be uttered their own admissions will be self condemning and God binds himself to no laws of jurisprudence that says a man may not be forced to incriminate himself in his testimony God will force every man to do it God will force

38:30 Joshua did it with a fellow that will condemn you and as I have read that passage I have been amazed what was there that caused this man who was able to go through an entire night knowing that his sin was going to be discovered knowing that the judgment of God would fall upon him what was it and the only interpretation I can come up with is this that night was an overture of grace in which Achan was as it were given a space for repentance and when he abused that space for repentance God's sovereignty took him in hand and said now look it's my time I'll make you confess it and God powerfully operated upon his mind and heart so that his confession though it is not an evidence of grace is a model confession there is nothing lacking in his we shall see God willing next week but there was no grace conferred upon that confession because there was no grace operative in it it was an operative of sovereign power and that's precisely what the day of judgment will be an operation of sovereign power in which men during a period when the overtures of grace had gone out

39:58 have stifled the voice of conscience to use the phraseology of Romans 1 they have held down that knowledge of God in unrighteousness they've been able as it were to stop conscience as he would speak or to stop his voice and to plug their ears against his thunderings but in that day God will bind men's hands so that they cannot stop their ears and God will cause conscience to do his rightful work until the sinner stands self-incriminated self-condemned in the mouth of hell yawning before him and he knows that God is right and God is just in the sentence which he passes I submit to you that this is the reason why the command the charge of Joshua contained this directive not only to give glory to God and make confession to him but to give an immediate and a thorough confession to Joshua to vindicate the dealings of God with men to demonstrate that the enormity of sin consists not in the thing committed but in the God offended and to make the guilty self-condemned and those principles will be operative in that greater gathering when all the nations of the earth according

Call to Repentance and Faith in Christ

41:25 to Revelation chapter 20 and verse 11 the sea will give up the dead that is in it and death in hell deliver up the dead that are in them or in the imagery of Matthew chapter 25 when all nations shall be gathered before him and separated as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats in the light of that I want to press home upon the conscience of every person in this place where will you stand in that day when God's Joshua summons you to appear before him for the scripture says the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear the voice of the son of God and shall come forth my friend you're going to come out of your grave and you're going to stand before him kick and squirm fight in the pose almighty God my sovereign is going to land you there at the footstool of the throne of the sovereign Christ my friend you're going to stand there what will that day be for you are you one of these who if God were simply to utter the sentence depart from me cursed people would rise up and say but God that man prayed with us that woman went to the house of God with us that woman carried a bible that man carried a bible that one did this that one did that and God says alright

42:52 silence tell me now what thou has done from me the thoughts of the heart may bear the secrets of the heart that were carefully guarded and covered are now proclaimed to the entire moral universe then when God says depart from me ye cursed the entire moral universe will vindicate the righteousness of God in condemning that religious hypocrite who knew the law but had a heart to repent many of them are going to be preachers many will say to me in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy name lots of busy beavers for Jesus too in thy name done many mighty works

44:17 and we'll have some charismatics too they'll claim to have cast out demons spoken in tongues but when he reveals the secrets of the heart it will be evident they were strangers to the grace of God my friend will you be one of those if you're content with anything less than religious experience soaked I say it reverently soaked in its roots in the blood of atonement composed in its superstructure of the renovating work of the Holy Ghost and in its belief and plumage marked by holiness Christianity always has its roots soaked in the redemptive work of Christ and its substance and structure and plumage marked by the mighty work of the Holy Ghost and the two are always together and so called experience of the Holy Ghost that is not rooted in reposing in the redemptive work of Christ is fanatical delusion and all professed repose in the redemptive work of Christ that is isn't overlaid with the manifest operations of the Holy Ghost in his renovating power is delusion

45:39 as well it's always the blood and the spirit in the application of the benefits of the new covenant what is your estimation of sin will you come to that day as one who's gone through life saying oh my sin is just a little one oh yes I indulge it I've signed a peace treaty it happens to be my weakness a little sin my friend there is no sin so little that will not damn you if it's willfully and perpetually indulged it for he that is born of God does not make a practice of sin and whosoever practises sin has not seen him neither known you better start evaluating your sin not as it is in itself but in the light of what it is before the face of the majestic glorious God of the Bible no matter how quote little that sin is the only way you can indulge it is to trample underfoot the majesty and the authority and the law of God and anything you indulge in at that price is a heinous ugly thing the day of judgment will show that that's precisely

47:06 how God evaluated it just as much as there'll be people sent to hell for abandoning themselves to lechery and to idolatry there'll be people in hell because they abandon themselves to a mean nasty spirit society may accept the one and reject the other but God accepts neither for they that mind the things of the flesh must die they that sow to the flesh shall reap corruption what is your conscience telling you tonight you got a conscience that's congratulating you that your sin is not so great that the sentence of hell would not be justifiable in your case my friend the day of judgment will change it and God will sovereignly ring from you the confession and approbation of your own conscience that his sentence is just oh my dear friend if you're a stranger to religion that has its roots in the blood and righteousness of Christ that is constructed by the mighty renovating power of the Holy Ghost how what a blessed privilege is mine to say that I have something to declare to you that Joshua could not declare to Achan all he could say

48:36 to Achan was tell me now knowing that the moment Achan spoke he'd be signing his own death warrant and Joshua could not say Achan because you've confessed I promise you mercy Joshua had no mandate to offer mercy to Achan but thank God I'm not a preacher of Moses but a preacher of Christ and I can say to every one of you whose conscience has been active tonight even to those of you whose conscience has not been active be in the dullness of your sinful blindness the only reason I have sought to lay the word close to your conscience is that I might solicit an earnest hearing for this blessed message that there is a fountain open for sin and uncleanness the sins that you've regarded so lightly God did not regard lightly and the cross is the most vivid monument of how seriously God takes human sin the scripture says he bore our sin in his own body to the tree and in bearing it means nothing less than the shrouding of the heavens in blackness the hiding of the face of God the thunderclaps of God's own righteous indignation

50:03 the pouring out of the billows of his holy wrath pressing home to the bosom of his own son the pain of a billion hells until he cries my God my God why hast thou forsaken me big sins little sins those terms all melt when you evaluate sin in the light of the cross and my friend he died that the vilest of sinners might be forgiven again I say it reverently he took the place of Achan for us he stood in our room instead and he fell until it consumed him we may now come to him and say Lord Jesus I rest upon you is my only way of escape thank God though Joshua had no mandate to proclaim mercy I do and I can say to the guiltiest to the vilest repent believe and there is forgiveness and there is acceptance and I say to you if you are a Christian what cause

Assurance and Gratitude for Believers

51:27 for gratitude you and I have for who amongst us has not felt a dozen times over in this series oh God I am the Achan oh God those Babylonish garments not the one so much that I have reached out and taken Lord you have enabled me by your grace to turn away but Lord the one my remaining option that I have consumed by the fires and purifying influences of your spirit oh dear child of God panting after a life of universal holiness esteeming your sin not by the terms little but by the terms ugly venomous heinous disgraceful seeing your sins as an affront to God's omniscience and justice and righteousness and insult to his love and authority and holiness dear child of God listen God says there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus if you're in Christ though there will be a standing before God for God to vindicate his own sentence enter thou into the joy of thy Lord and though in some way there will be a dealing of God with his own people with reference to measures of rewards this is clearly taught in precept

52:55 and in parable in the New Testament one thing I know I shall not meet him as my Joshua consigning me to destruction for there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus child of God listen don't allow the enemy to rub your conscience raw with a false sense of condemnation if the roots of your religious experience are soaked in the blood and righteousness of Christ condemnation has been born by your surety and your substitute there is not yet one stone left in God's quarry of righteous indignation to be heaped upon you for he heaped them upon his son for all who trust in him there is no torch of God's consuming fire to be put to you for it was put to his son and he exhausted it child of God in the face of a passage like this rather than bring yourself under the terrors that ought to be the portion of those who are strangers to grace let the very sobering ethos and climate of a passage like this cause you to view with new appreciation the infinite grace and kindness and mercy of God to you in the person and work of his own

54:24 beloved son and if you appreciate that with something more than a mere intellectual comprehension your heart cannot help but run out to him in love and if your heart runs out to him in love your feet will run after him in obedience and that's the only way you can tell that your heart runs out to him in love for he says if he loved me you'll keep my commandments don't tell me or try to tell God that your heart runs out to him in love when your feet run after your lost no no if the heart runs out to him in love the feet run after him in obedience not perfectly but purposefully and when they become crooked feet and turn aside they're always miserable feet and you got spiritual bunions and corns and you're restless until they're back in his paths that are paths of pleasantness paths of grace paths of kindness I submit to you tonight this is the message of God's dealings with Joshua and with Achan particularly the wisdom of God in causing Joshua to charge Achan as he charged him not only with this vertical dimension of confession to God but the horizontal dimension of confession to Joshua

55:53 immediate and full and he sets before us then these great principles of which this is but a picture the principles that will govern God's dealings with men in the last day the day in which God will vindicate his sentence of condemnation the day in which God will show men the nature of sin's heinousness because it is again so infinitely glorious a person the day in which God will bring to his side the conscience of every single condemning sinner my friend do you want to be an eternal monument of the truth of what I've preached tonight then you just go on in your impenitence you just go on loving your sin you just go on fondling and fondling your lust you just go on content to fool people but God's day is coming and God will have his day in court and when almighty God in the person of his son says tell me now hide it not that voice that commands will elicit its own response and you will tell him and the secret things

57:19 shall be declared from the housetops of every Christian sits here and says oh God how could anyone hear anything like this and not flee to Christ and I say as a preacher I wonder the same thing and I know there's only one answer the frightening power of sin and the blinding effect oh may God break through it tonight with power and cause you to flee to Christ let us pray oh Lord we stand viewing that awesome day as it were in the dim glass of our present understanding and yet even this dim and misty view strikes terror to our hearts and we cry out with Moses the man of God who knoweth the power of thine anger oh Lord what will the day itself be if viewing it through a glass darkly viewing it from afar viewing it while yet in the flesh causes our flesh to tremble for fear oh Father what will it be when that day dawns upon us

58:48 in all of its frightening reality oh Lord God seize upon some conscience tonight we pray for children for boys for girls for adults who like Achan have thought they could hide themselves amidst the masses of Israel who may be conveniently hidden in the visible church of Christ but oh Lord you know and they know there is no genuine experience of the cleansing of the blood of Christ no imputation of his righteousness no impartation of his spirit oh God seize upon them that that day may reveal that this very hour was an hour when you apprehended some in grace that they might not be apprehended in judgment and then oh God we who are your people who by your have been apprehended how can we ever praise you enough for your mercy to us you could have allowed us to go on in our blindness in our stubbornness in that moral madness of sin but we bless you that you've brought us to soberness you've opened our eyes and turned us from darkness to light and we thank you for your beloved son

60:16 Lord Jesus we praise you tonight that you were willing to bear the full brunt of your father's stoning and burning on our behalf oh we bless you for laying down your life for us help us to love you with a more fervent love with a purer love and oh Lord put new strength into our feet that we may run in the way of your commandments we plead that in this dark hour in which we live there may not be a total obliteration of vital godliness and true Christianity but oh Lord make us light make us salt oh God come upon us by the Holy Ghost we pray fill us not to make us feel good to give us experiences that we can talk about or write about but oh Lord to the end that we may bring delight to you and be useful in extending the knowledge of Christ and the kingdom of Christ in our generation hear us oh God hear our cry and dismiss us with the blessing of your own presence resting upon us we plead these things in the name and for the glory of our

61:46 Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Amen