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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.
The Book of Joshua: Ch. 5
Series The Book of Joshua
| Sermon ID | 108161122598 |
| Duration | 52:19 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | Joshua 5 |
| Language | English |
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