So we are in Joshua chapter 5 tonight, but I want to begin by reading a portion of Numbers chapter 14. In Numbers chapters 13 and 14, you have the rebellion of the nation at Kadesh. They have come to the border of the promised land. And 12 spies have gone throughout the land of Canaan for 40 days looking at God's promises. A land flowing with milk and honey. A land that God has said they will be able to move into and that He has given them already the victory. And yet at the end of the forty days, ten of the spies come back with a report full of fear that says, we cannot do this, there are giants in the land, the cities are great and fortified, there's no hope, we need to go back to Egypt. And because of their unbelief and the disobedience that it prompts, God sentences that generation to die in the wilderness. They accuse Yahweh of planning to do harm to their little ones. But the Lord says, no, no, you will fall in this wilderness, and your children will suffer because of your sins, but your children will inherit the blessing that you have rejected. I want to pick up the reading in verse 26 of Numbers chapter 14 and read down through verse 35. Numbers 14, 26 to verse 35, And Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against Me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against Me. Say to them, As I live, declares Yahweh, what you have said in My hearing I will do to you. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and all of your number listed in the census from twenty years old and upward who have grumbled against Me, not one shall come into the land where I swore I would make you to dwell, except Caleb the son of Jethunah and Joshua the son of Nine. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure. I, Yahweh, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die." Now, why is that important? Because tonight we are in Joshua chapter 5, which in my judgment is perhaps the most important chapter in the entire book of Joshua. It's certainly very important to the book as a whole. The covenantal implications of Joshua chapter 5 are extraordinary. You have three main sections in a very short chapter. You have the circumcision of the second generation in the first nine verses. You have the celebration of the first Passover within the boundaries of the land of God's promise. And then you have the appearance of the commander of the army of Yahweh before whom Joshua will worship. you don't get more theologically or covenantally significant than Joshua chapter 5. And I want you to be able to see Joshua chapter 5 in the context of Numbers chapter 14. And before we turn to Joshua 5, let me direct your attention one more time to verses 33 and 34 in Numbers 14. Your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness." I think the King James Version says, "...your whoredoms until the last of your dead bodies lie in the wilderness. You shall know," verse 34, "...my displeasure." That's key. That is key to understanding what's happening in Joshua chapter 5. So let's turn over there now. Joshua chapter 5. Take a sip of water, and then we will read that chapter also. Joshua 5, beginning at verse 1. As soon as all the kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites, who were by the sea, heard that Yahweh had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts melted, and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of Israel. At that time, Yahweh said to Joshua, make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time. So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeoth Haraloth. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them. All the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt. Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished, because they did not obey the voice of Yahweh." Yahweh swore to them that He would not let them see that land that Yahweh had sworn to their fathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So it was their children, whom He raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised. For they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way." Now this is a curious passage. I mean, just right at the outset, you say, wait a second. In the book of Exodus, when God calls Moses to act as His ambassador and deliverer to Egypt to bring the children of Israel out from under the control of Pharaoh, when Moses' own son is not circumcised, the Lord appears in the way, on the way to Egypt, and threatens to kill him. Perhaps the child, but in particular, and more probably, Moses. This is how seriously Yahweh takes the command of circumcision. In Genesis chapter 17, when Yahweh instituted circumcision as the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, He said, if anyone is uncircumcised, if any male among you is uncircumcised, he is cut off from My people. He is cut off from blessing. He is not part of the community of faith. And if God takes circumcision that seriously, how have we gone 40 years without circumcising any of these covenant sons? And the text is very explicit that while all of the men who had come out of Egypt had been circumcised, they did not circumcise their male children in the wilderness. This is where we have to speculate a little bit in a careful and sanctified fashion, because some people would say, well, here is another sign of the sin of Israel. Not only are they not believing Yahweh and not obeying His command to go into the Promised Land, not only are they grumbling in the wilderness and dying for their sin, but they are also neglecting the sacrament of the Old Covenant. They're neglecting circumcision. And that's one possible reading. That is not my reading of it. I think that they are not circumcising their sons on purpose because Yahweh does not want them to do that. I think it is imminently appropriate, in fact, that they are not circumcising their sons. But to understand why that is, we have to get a redemptive historical perspective on the movement of the people from bondage through the wilderness into blessing. The children of Israel come out of the nation, out from among the nation of Egypt, out of the land of bondage, to Mount Sinai, and God makes covenant with them. He inaugurates covenant with them. Right? He establishes His presence among them in the place of the tabernacle. He ordains the Levitical priesthood. Sacrifices are offered. The people receive the law. They commit to the covenant. They celebrate the Passover. They celebrate the Passover. But from that point forward, they are essentially under God's judgment. They move from Sinai to Kadesh, for 40 days the spies look at the land, and then they say to God, we do not want your promise. We do not want your blessings. We do not want the fulfillment of this covenant. What we want is to return to Egypt. Circumcision does not belong to a nation that says such things. Circumcision is a sign and seal of God's covenant grace. His promises to Abraham. What is circumcision indicating? What does it typify? It typifies the circumcision of the heart. It typifies the promises that God made to make of Abraham's seed a great nation to give them a land and to bring blessing upon all peoples through Christ. Israel has said, we don't want that. We don't want to be our own nation. We don't want the land of Canaan. We're not interested in some far-off blessing. We want to go back to Egypt because, you know, they have onions and leeks. Circumcision doesn't belong to a nation like that. Were there faithful people in the midst of Israel, in the midst of this unbelief? Absolutely! Caleb, Joshua, Eliezer, Phinehas, there are people who are faithful, and yet the text says that nobody's been circumcised. Now, I'm going to speculate here for just a minute, but I think that God has indicated to them that He doesn't want them circumcising their sons. Otherwise, I think He would have had some families with circumcised children and some without. The only way I know And this is speculative, I recognize, but the only way I know to explain the universal neglect of this sacrament is that God makes a point to the nation and says, you cannot circumcise your children, which indicates what, according to Genesis 17? That you are cut off. What did we just see in Numbers chapter 14? Your children will suffer for your faithlessness. And you will know my displeasure. God's covenant grace, God's signs and seals do not belong to people that say, we don't want you. They don't belong to them. They're not to be circumcised. They're not to eat the Passover as we're about to see. God's covenant belongs to people of faith and to their children. I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah. And so God takes this away. Now, I believe we're going to see this in different ways during the course of redemptive history. I mean, for instance, 1 Samuel chapter 4, when the people put their trust in a box rather than in the true and the living God. When they think that they can manipulate and coerce Yahweh by means of this box. God takes the Ark of the Covenant away from them. How significant is that? How significant is it for the nation of Israel to recognize we're not circumcising any of our sons for 40 years at the same time that Moses is writing the history of Abraham? When does Genesis get written? Well, if we believe Jesus, that Moses is the author of it, then it gets written during this wilderness wandering. Almost certainly. And he's writing the history of Genesis chapter 17 as an entire generation is not circumcising their sons. And why not? Because circumcision doesn't belong to them. This is something I need to step aside here for just a second and deal with a question that I get frequently about infant baptism, and then we'll resume. People ask, well, if you believe in infant baptism, then do you believe that you just baptize any baby? I say no. That's Roman Catholic. There are churches that would do that. There are churches that would baptize a child regardless of the faith of their parents because they attribute to that baptism the actual washing away of original sin. And if I believed that's what baptism accomplished, you better believe it. I would be finding kids all the time. I'd go around town with a squirt gun, right? And start, you know, washing away original sin. But that's not what baptism does. That's not how it works. We don't baptize infants outside of the covenant community. We require of those children that we baptize that their parents be believers. And if their parents are unbelievers, baptism doesn't belong to them, just like circumcision doesn't belong to them. We don't baptize unbelievers, but we baptize believers and their children the same way in Israel. Do you see that parallel? Now, we come back to Joshua chapter 5. Think about how special this is then. For 40 years, you have had children being born who have not been given the sign of the covenant. Think about the parents who die in the wilderness, not seeing their children circumcised. Think about the parents who die in the wilderness because of their sin at Kadesh, but who are repentant. who are saved. You talk about bittersweet? Moses looking at the promised land from the mountain and not being able to enter because of his sin. Bittersweet, right? A father and a mother dying in the wilderness, knowing that their child will be circumcised one day, but will not be in their lifetimes because of their unbelief. Bittersweet. God does something significant here. God doesn't say, okay, now, as individual families within the nation repent of this sin, then we'll let you circumcise your sons, but if you're not repentant... I mean, He could have done that. He could have kind of dealt with this on a case-by-case basis and let the priests or the elders evaluate the families, but that's not what He did. He brings them across the Jordan. They have now left the place of judgment. And they have entered into the place of blessing. Notice that circumcision is not the means of passing from judgment to blessing, any more than baptism is the means of passing from judgment to blessing. But guess what circumcision and baptism are both correlated with in Scripture? Passing from judgment to blessing. They are rites of initiation. They're rites that signify that a relationship has been established. It's being recognized. It's being visibly affirmed. Right? And so here, the children of Israel are passing out of judgment into blessing, and what's the first thing we're going to do? First thing we're going to do is disable the nation. Do you recognize that? Now, there are warriors in Israel who are circumcised at this time. Because if they were under 20 when they came out of Egypt, but over birthday, right, over 8 days old, they've been circumcised. So you've got some warriors who are circumcised who are not having to be circumcised at this point. But guess what? You've got a huge number of men in the congregation who are all incapacitated. Now, let's think back to our study of the book of Genesis for a second. because we've been here before. Remember what Jacob's sons did in the incident with Dinah? Shechem rapes Dinah, keeps her in the city, and then goes to her daddy's house and says, I'd really like to marry your daughter. And Simeon and Levi say, we'd really love to see that happen, but you've got to be circumcised first, the whole town, all of you. Shechem says, great. The whole town receives circumcision because they think this is going to be our opportunity to take Jacob's wealth. Instead, Simeon and Levi go through and butcher every man in that city. You know why? Because you can't fight two days after you're circumcised as a grown man. You can't do much of anything except lie in bed and hurt. I want you to think about the point that God's making here, because there are multiple layers to it. There's a covenantal point being made, right? Here, a generation that has been born and raised under God's displeasure is now receiving the sign of God's favor. Your parents were cut off, but you I receive. Your parents fall under judgment, but you I will claim as my own. There's something special about that. So there's a covenantal point being made. But there's also a point being made about God's sovereignty and providence in this conquest. Because if just from a strictly military standpoint, we kind of talked through the sequence here, you've got to think that somebody in the nation would be saying, time out, this is a really bad idea. Why? If we're going to be circumcised, I'm all for that. You know, religion's important and all that. But let's do this on the eastern side of the Jordan. Right? Let's do this in a territory that we've already secured. And let's kind of do this in stages. So, you know, this week we'll circumcise these guys, and in two more weeks we'll circumcise these guys, and let the first group recover before the next group gets it, so that we don't get overrun. Is there a better time to attack this nation than this moment in Joshua chapter 5? This is the prime opportunity for the Canaanites to end the conquest before it begins. You know what God does? He says, I want you to come to the Jordan River while it's in flood stage. I don't want you to wait until after the floods when it could be easily forded. No, no. I want you to come at the very time of year when you can't get across it, and I'm going to bring you across it. And then once you get across it, I want you to camp out in full sight of the enemy, and I want all of your youngest, strongest, fittest warriors to undergo a medical procedure that's basically going to make them worthless for a week or two. That's what God does. And of course, you remember the stories about the Canaanites that tried to attack Israel during this time. No, you don't remember that, because there were none. In fact, look at the beginning of the chapter again. Verse 1, when the kings of the Amorites and when the kings of the Canaanites heard about the crossing of the Jordan, the text says, their hearts melted and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of Israel. They are terrified. God puts the fear... of himself and of the Israelites into the hearts of these Canaanites. By the way, if you are reciting your history from Genesis, you may remember another point of similarity. After Simeon and Levi destroy the city of Shechem and all the men in it, Jacob says, you have made me offensive to the Canaanites. They're going to kill all of us. And the Bible says God put fear into the hearts of the Canaanites, which allowed Jacob to move. This is what God does. So there's a point about the covenant. There's a point about God's blessing and favor in regard to the covenant. But there's also this point about God's providence in the conquest. Think about what God is doing here. He says, you're going to cross the Jordan when it's impossible to cross. And then, you are going to do something that strategically is insane. I mean, tactically, this is just the most foolish thing that you could possibly do, and I'm going to protect you in the midst of it. And then, we're going to attack the toughest, strongest, best fortified city first, and you're not going to do anything except shout really loud. Right? I mean, that's basically the first three stages of the conquest. God is communicating a message here. Their children, verse 7, whom He raised up in their place." Who? Yahweh. Yahweh raised up their children. And Joshua circumcised them. And Yahweh said to Joshua, Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. This is a turning point. This is the tipping point. This is the day where it is decided we will never go back to Egypt. Now, you see, that hadn't been decided in the previous generation. I mean, at Kadesh, they say, let's appoint a new leader and go back to Egypt. And even after the sentence of death in the wilderness, they're saying, oh, we remember when we were Egypt, you know? We ate so well. I mean, Pharaoh kept killing our children, but nonetheless, we ate really well. See, in their hearts, they're still looking back. They're like Lot's wife. They're always looking back to Egypt. Guess what God does here? He says, Egypt is gone. The reproach of Egypt, the burden of Egypt, the guilt, the bondage, all of the baggage is gone. I've rolled it away. God raises up a generation to inherit the promise. The first generation couldn't do that. Yeah. Oh, exactly. Yeah. Genesis 32. Does everybody follow that? No, it is Jacob's story. So I've said when we talked through Genesis that Jacob's story is a story of conversion, right? Jacob knows that Yahweh exists and he lives as an unbeliever until Genesis 32. And God breaks him, physically. He breaks him. He dislocates his hip. And Jacob is left clinging to Yahweh and saying, I will not let you go unless you bless me. He cannot go back now. Laban has already drawn the boundary line. Israel's story is Israel's story, right? Yeah. So this is the kind of repetition that you see, this re-presentation of the story of God's people all through history, pointing us ahead to what? Pointing us ahead to Christ, right? Sharon, and then I'm coming over to Reena. Isn't there some point where circumcision became an infant right, though? I mean, that after so many days, Jewish babies were circumcised. Eight days. That's what the law required, actually. Yeah, but that's already in place. And so I'm going to come to this in just a second, but this is one of multiple places where we'll see that the Deuteronomic law is not being followed during the wilderness wanderings. And we'll talk about the significance of that in a minute. But yeah, at this point, already God has said, you're supposed to do this. That's one of the reasons some people would interpret this text as saying, this is Israel's sin. And I'm saying, no, I think it would actually have been sinful for them to circumcise their children. because you don't circumcise the children of unbelievers. See, little baby Ahab never should have been circumcised, right? I'm sure he was, but he shouldn't have been, because his daddy is a covenant breaker. Herod, another example, right? Randy. Yep. First Corinthians 10. Yeah. That's right. Thank you, okay, so this is now I may not be going exactly where you want me to go and if not bring me back Okay, but this is where I want us to go before we go to the Passover. I want you to think about Having a generation where everybody's been circumcised Everybody's been served And they're baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They see the plagues. They see the pillar of cloud and fire. They hear Yahweh's voice. They receive the law. They make covenant. And guess what happens? They die. Contrast that to a second generation that was born in the wilderness, granting the fact that there were some people who were children in Egypt, okay? But we're talking about the people who were born in the wilderness. They're the ones who were circumcised. That generation didn't see the plagues. didn't cross the Red Sea, didn't hear God's voice, didn't themselves personally enter into covenant, were not circumcised, and guess what God gives them? The blessing. Here is the point. The very fact that you have the signs of the covenant does not mean that you know the God of the covenant. As important as those signs are, As important as circumcision and Passover were, God, in my estimation, in the wilderness, takes it away from the people. As important as baptism and the Lord's Supper are in the church today, they are not the reality to which they point. In other words, you receive baptism, and you eat the Lord's Supper, and you live like an unbeliever, you are under greater condemnation. The fact that you've been baptized, the fact that you eat the Lord's Supper, the fact that you attend Wednesday night Bible study does not mean that you know the God of the covenant. The generation that is circumcised is under God's displeasure. The generation that is not circumcised is raised up by God to inherit the blessing. Right? Did you, you want to build on that or was that, okay, all right. And in the passage that he's talking about, he's even warning the church. Oh, absolutely. Let him who thinks he stands take heedless. They all experienced these covenant signs and blessings, and they, with most of them, God was displeased. We see the same issues in the church today, exact parallels. Ephesus, Revelation chapter 2, right? Doctrinally straight, morally pure, right? Testing false apostles, rejecting false teachers, and Jesus says, you've left your first love and I'm going to remove your lampstand. But just in case you're missing that, you don't get to be a church of the Lord Jesus Christ without a lampstand. There may still be a building there. They didn't have buildings at that time, of course. With a sign out front that says, Church of Ephesus meets here, Sunday mornings, you know. Sunday school at 9 o'clock, worship service at 10. They may still have that. But if Jesus removes the lamp stand, it's not a church. You know? This is how significant this is. You've got uncircumcised people receiving the blessing. What does Jesus say? Let's see. Jesus comes in and He says to the Pharisees and the religious leaders of His generation, you will see yourselves cast out and strangers and foreigners being brought in to sit at the table with Abraham. Seems like this is a recurring theme. God raised up those children. And Joshua circumcises them. They will receive the blessing, not because they're circumcised. They're being circumcised because they will receive the blessing. Right, Randy? This is John's gospel. Blessed are those Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe. This is John's gospel. I mean, this is the point John is making in the fourth gospel, right? Over and over. It's like the Bible is one book or something. It's like... Oh, wait. Yes. Very much so. Absolutely. You would think so, except that what ultimately Where does faith come from? Let's ask it that way. It doesn't come from the parents. I mean, we do everything that we can to encourage and teach and certainly pray for them. But why do we pray for our children to believe? It's because faith is the gift of God. Faith is the work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart. And you're exactly right. I mean, I think these children are profoundly affected by their parents. But one of the things I pray all the time, for my kids, is that they will excel me in serving the Lord. I want them to be faithful where I am faithless. I want them to persevere where I fall short. I want them to believe and trust and be obedient to the Lord in all of the ways in which I have fallen short. I want my children to be faithful, even though I, in so many respects, am unfaithful. And that's what you see in this generation, right? Now, when we get to judges, we'll see the failure of this generation. But that's not till judges do. Randy, I think, or Nanette, or ladies first, or whatever. I was going to say that you do see the baggage of the parents on this generation, the moral, ethical problems they go through are a result of that parental baggage. Absolutely. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. Absolutely. Yep. They're not perfect. They're a whole bunch of sinners, just like their mommies and daddies. But they're redeemed. God's put his sign on them, right? Nanette? It seems like Ezekiel 18 talks about this exact point. It's talking about righteous parents having an unbelieving child. That's right. And vice versa. And it's showing how salvation is of God. It has nothing to do, I mean, yes, our testimony to our King is vital. Sure. Yeah, Ezekiel 18. I mean, here are the captives saying, it's not fair. The fathers ate sour grapes and the children's teeth have been set on edge. To which God basically says, no, no, no, you're here because of you. Right? But nonetheless, this is the perfect counterexample is to say, no, no, no, look. The fathers ate sour grapes, and they died in the wilderness. And God raised up their children and brought them into blessing. And you see this over and over, especially in the divided kingdom. You'll have the most righteous king has the most lousy, unbelieving child, and then vice versa, right? The most unbelieving king will have the most faithful child. Because faith is the gift of God, right? It's the work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart. I have to hasten here because we have to at least look at the Passover in this relation. If we don't get the final unit here, that's okay because it actually connects to chapter 6. But we've got to get down to verse 12 at least. So let me read this next part and let's keep this conversation moving forward. While the people of Israel were encamped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho. And the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna ceased the day after they ate the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year." One of the things that God promised is you're coming into a land that flows with milk and honey. You're coming into a land where you're going to eat from fields that you haven't planted. You're going to live in houses that you have not built. This is one of the reasons that as we deal with the conquest narrative itself, we're going to talk about one of the criticisms that liberal scholars make is to say, oh, there's not evidence archaeologically of this widespread Canaanite devastation. You say, of course there's not. Have you read the Bible? They didn't lay waste the cities. There are only two or three cities that are devoted to destruction. Everywhere else they're moving into the house. They're not going to burn the house down. They're going to live in it, right? They're already eating the produce of the land. They haven't planted anything yet. This is God's promise being fulfilled. Now, with all due respect, I'm going to depart carefully from Calvin here, because Calvin thinks that they celebrate the Passover in the wilderness, and I don't. I don't think they've celebrated the Passover since that second Passover at Mount Sinai, prior to judgment. Remember, they celebrate the Passover in Egypt. They come out of Egypt, go to Mount Sinai and inaugurate the covenant. They celebrate the Passover while they are there, preparing the tabernacle. They go to Kadesh and God says, go back into the wilderness and die. I don't think there's been a Passover since then. And what we see here is God brings them back to the table. If circumcision is the sign of initiation, where a person is visibly included within the covenant community, then the Passover is the sign of participation, continuation. This is for the people who are at peace with God. This is for the people over whom God's wrath has passed. Think about, just for a second, the confused imagery if we are eating the Passover in the wilderness? I mean, what sense does that make? Because God's wrath is not passing over us. God's wrath is falling on us. He is raining judgment on our heads in the wilderness. The table doesn't belong to unbelievers. Why do we fence the table every Lord's Day? It doesn't belong to them. God is not at peace with unbelievers. And I know that people who are not accustomed to that say, that's so strange. Let me tell you something, that's the only way the church took the Lord's Supper until this modern period. The idea of this general church snack that's passed out to every person who's in attendance is absolutely unknown in the history of the church. Because the table is not for unbelievers. It is for those who are in fellowship with God. It's for those who are at peace with God. And you don't partake of the table unless you've been circumcised. That's why God circumcises them and then they partake of the Passover. And it does matter. The order does matter. This is consistent through both the Old and the New Testaments. That's why we say, if you've been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and you are trusting in Jesus Christ, then you are welcome to the table. This supper is for you, and if that doesn't describe you, it's not for you. And it was not for their parents, because God's judgment was reigning upon them. It was not passing over them. Now think about the signs of covenant, right, that we've talked about in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The sign of initiation is a sign of being brought through judgment. I mean, think about circumcision, right? You are under the knife. You are at the mercy of the one who is wielding that blade. You are bloodied in that rite. Think about baptism. We talked last week or the week before about all of the ways that water appears, this recurring motif in creation, in the flood, at the Red Sea, at the Jordan Crossing, over and over and over. What is God doing in those pictures? He is bringing God's people through judgment. safely through judgment, just like Noah's family is brought through the waters of judgment into a place of blessing, so we are brought through the water of baptism, the judgment of sin, into a place of blessing. What stands on the other side of the judgment ordeal, the judgment sign? The sign of peace. You don't eat with your enemies. You eat with your friend. I mean, you know, one of the most awkward meals in the Bible, right, is that scene in Genesis where Laban and Jacob are making covenant with one another. You know, they're running the masking tape down the middle of the wilderness here, and Laban's saying, I'll stay on that side, you stay on that side, and we'll agree not to kill each other, right? I mean, Laban is, he is hot. The only reason he doesn't militarily kill his son-in-law, right, and everything that his son-in-law owns, is because the night before, God says, by the way, don't touch him. He's mine. Don't touch him. And you know what they do? They make covenant there, and they say, we'll agree to stay on our side of the line and not come past this line to harm one another, and then we eat together. Talk about an awkward family meal. I mean, I've had some awkward family meals. I know wherever I speak. But not like that, right? You know what's being signified by that meal? There's peace. There is a treaty of peace. We cannot violate that. You don't sit down across the table with someone who's holding a knife if you don't trust him. Covenants in the ancient world are sealed with a meal. God puts the sign of judgment and covenant on His people, and then He brings them to the table and says, eat, because judgment has passed over. The reproach of Egypt is gone. Judgment does not fall on your heads. You are in a place of blessing. And then what else does God do? God feeds them in the land. And the next morning, they go out, and for the first time in 40 years, there's nothing on the ground. How amazing is this? For the first time in... I mean, this is probably a crude analogy, but have you tried to imagine what it's going to be like in the new heavens and the new earth? I mean, I don't know that we're going to actually get up in the mornings, but just kind of go with me for a second with that. You get up in the morning, and for the first time, you don't even notice it at first, right? But for the first time in 60 years, you don't have any pain. I mean, who here gets up in the morning without pain, right? I mean, yeah, anybody who's under the age of 21, maybe. Everybody else goes, ow! Right? I hurt myself while I was sleeping. How pathetic is that? You get up in the new heavens and the new earth and you say, wait a second, something's different. You imagine they step out of the tents that morning and they... something's different. I can't put my finger... oh! You know what we did last night? We ate our first meal in the land of Canaan, in the land of blessing. God promised He was moving us to a land where there was food for the taking. And we've taken it. And the bread from heaven has ceased. Now, talking about bittersweet things. What did their parents loathe? Manna. And you know what their kids aren't eating anymore? Manna. You will either be the person that loathes God's goodness in your life because you feel that it is expressed in painful or difficult or boring or whatever ways, or you will be the person that embraces God's provision in your life and you will live to see the day when that particular provision is no longer necessary. When God has brought you into the fullness of blessing, the manna was only a type. Manna is not eschatological. We won't be eating manna forever. We only eat manna while we're journeying to the promised land. Once we're there, we don't need the manna anymore. Right? You know what else the groceries would have not reminded the kids of? Egypt. Yeah, exactly. They're not comparing it. It's a great point. If God would have given them that out in the wilderness or what they wanted, they would have yearned for it. That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. Their parents never can get past it, right? God moves them past it. God moves them past it. But it takes killing a generation to do it. This is terrible, but this is true. When I have counseled other men in ministry at times, one of the points that I have made to them and I had made to me many, many years ago is that sometimes for God's work to be done, you have to wait for a generation to die. That's terrible, but it's true. We don't want to be that generation, right? We want to be faithful. Like David, Acts 13, 36, we serve the purpose of God in our own generation and we fall asleep. But God's work is going to be done. Israel is going to inherit the Promised Land. God's Word will not fall to the ground, even if it means a generation dies. And they did. The manna ceased the day after they ate the produce of the land, and there was no longer manna for the people of Israel. They ate the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. It's gotten real, right? We're here. And we have to go out into the field now, and we have to find grain, and we have to find fruit, and we have to gather for our family. There's a lot more variety on the menu now. It's a little scary, right? But it's good. It's good. All right, one more point, and then we're done. Oh, Lee, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. They don't know anything about farming. Right. Yeah, exactly. And, exactly, and God's provided it all for them. I mean, they can't look at these crops and say, look at what we did. Boy, wasn't that great. You didn't plant that. You had nothing to do with it. You went out and picked it, right? You just gathered it, right? Many. I'm sure. I'm sure. Many. One last point, and then we will pick up in verse 13 next week. I mentioned a minute ago the Deuteronomic law is not being followed in the wilderness. You say, well, of course it's not. Deuteronomy doesn't come until the tail end of the wilderness on the plains of Moab. What I mean by that is the Mosaic law. Right? Is it the Mosaic law in all its parts that's being neglected in the wilderness? No. No, we know parts of the law are being followed. There is a question as to how much of the law is being followed. I've already put my cards on the table and said, tonight, I think that God withheld the signs of the covenant from them in the wilderness. I don't think they're eating the Passover. And I am virtually certain that most of the other holy days are likewise abstained from for partly the same reason. They're signs of God's covenant. They're signs of God's provision. But also because several of those are connected to seasons of harvest. Seasons of in-gathering, right? And they are very closely connected to the experience of the children of Israel in the land. And that's why I make reference to Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy makes maybe more explicit than Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, that the law is primarily intended to serve as a governor for the people in Canaan. Not in the wilderness. In the wilderness, they're in a holding pattern. They're in a temporary kind of situation. And so not everything works as it is ultimately intended to do. Now, I think it's an open question as to how many times, how many years or generations in Canaan itself they actually kept that law with all of its requirements. I don't think that that was a very common occurrence either. But within the wilderness, I think one of the things you need to recognize is that you've got all kinds of law that has already been codified. God's delivered it to the people and Moses has written it down for their edification, but the actual application of it lies on the other side of the Jordan. It waits for possession of the land. And so we see how that's connected to the two rites tonight, the two sacraments of circumcision and the Passover. But you need to be aware of the fact that there are many, many, many provisions in the law that would be included under that same heading, either because covenantally they don't have the right to that word, or because practically the law is so situated in Canaan that you can't really follow it outside of Canaan. In Psalm 50, The Lord, speaking through the psalmist, addresses the wicked, and He essentially says, My word doesn't belong to you. God's word doesn't belong to the wicked. God's word doesn't belong to the unbelieving. Unbelievers should never say, Oh my God. And believers should never say, Oh my God, unless they're talking about God or to God. But unbelievers certainly should never, ever refer to the name of God unless they are confessing that they are now believers. Because His name doesn't belong to them. And His word doesn't belong to them. And His word didn't belong to the generation that received it at Mount Sinai. Okay? Because of their unbelief. Okay. Final questions or thoughts there, Lee? You bring up the point about the law not actually being completely instituted until such time as they were in the land. And it becomes very obvious that the reason it's not is, in fact, they're not in the land because of their disbelief about how the land was going to come to them. Sure. disregard from the Lord and therefore you're going to spend the rest of the time in the wilderness. You don't need the law. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I mean, really, the law is for a covenant people who are under grace, and this is a covenant-breaking nation that's under judgment at that point. Now, again, I don't want you to think that we're saying that every person in that generation was lost. I don't believe that. I think that there were people that were saved that died in the wilderness, okay? But they only are saved if they repent, if they believe, right? Moses sins and dies in the wilderness, but he repents and he believes, okay? You've got another mirror image going up with the children in the wilderness and the remnant coming out of that. And then the loss today, you have it saying they're here to die. And that's all the children in the wilderness was just hanging on to die. And the remnant came out of them for the promise. And that's us. Yep, exactly. Exactly. That's exactly right. I think we are in the wilderness. I think that is redemptively kind of where the church is situated. Not because the church is under judgment. And this is where sometimes people push back on that. They'll say, oh, you know, we don't like this wilderness or exile motif. And I say, wait a second. The difference, and it's an important difference. I'm not saying that the church is under judgment the way that Israel was under judgment in the wilderness or Israel was under judgment in the exile. But what we're saying is that their experience in relation to unbelievers is that. It's not Canaan. We're not living in the theocracy. We're not living in the land of abundance and blessing, right? We're strangers. Pilgrims and strangers in a strange land. We are passing through the midst of unbelievers. We are the remnant according to grace that will inherit the promise, right, by God's grace. That's exactly right. This is why Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 and other passages, the Hebrews writer, whoever that is, keeps going back to this wilderness generation and says, have you paid attention to that? Each one of us should take heed, right? Beware lest there be in any of you, brethren, a heart of unbelief and departing from the living God. That's Hebrews 3, right? He's talking about the wilderness generation. So it has a lot to say to the church today, you know? Because we can't pat ourselves on the back and say, well, I know that's not me. Well, it could be. You know, they thought it couldn't be them either, right? Alright, let's close with prayer. Our God and Father, what a joy it is each time we're able to open Your Word together and study from it. We pray, O Lord, that the truths that we have surveyed even this night would rest within our hearts, that You would water them with Your mercy, that You would cause them to grow by the work of Your Spirit, that they might take root deeply within and bear the fruit that honors Your holy name. We thank You that You have called Your own people, a people for Your own possession, out of judgment, out of death, out of the wilderness, that You have placed Your covenant mercy upon them, Your love and Your name, have invited them to the table of peace, that we might eat and enjoy fellowship in Your presence. We thank You, O God, that You are a covenant-keeping God, that You are a faithful God, and that when we are faithless, You remain faithful. We pray that You would continue Your mercy toward us, that You would forgive our sins and wrongs, that You would strengthen our faith, that You would lead us and provide for us and help us even to the very end. In Jesus' holy name, Amen.