Well, as we come to the throne of God, He speaks to us faithfully, and we're going to continue in Joshua 11, now verses 16 through 20. Thus Joshua took all this land, the mountain country, all the south, all the land of Goshen, the lowland and the Jordan plain, the mountains of Israel and its lowlands, from Mount Halak and the ascent to Seir, Yeah, I guess that is right. Even as far as Beoghad in the valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon, he captured all their kings and struck them down and killed them. Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. All the others they took in battle, for it was of the Lord to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might utterly destroy them, and that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them as the Lord had commanded Moses. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. It is perfect, it is sure, it is inerrant, and we submit to it, and we rejoice in it. And we pray that as I preach it, you would enable me to faithfully bring out those things that you have laid upon my heart. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, I think this little section that we read beautifully brings out both God's total sovereignty over every area of life, as well as still maintaining, and amazingly, maintaining a men's free agency and maintaining their choices as being real choices. And so the question comes, how can God control all things? including the choices of men, and yet do it in a way where men's choices are real choices, right? They're responsible for their choices. For example, God predestines the destiny of every human being. A lot of people freak out when they first understand this, but yes, He elects some people to glory. He predestines other people to damnation. And yet He does so in a way where men will freely choose to believe in Jesus when God's grace is at work in their heart, and they will freely choose to rebel against Him when God's grace is not at work in their heart. So God destines them to one destiny or another, and yet men freely choose what God has destined them to choose. And we're gonna be seeing how both are possible. By the way, it's not just human actions that God predestines. He predestines everything that happens in human history, everything. You cannot breathe a particle of dust or a virus into your nose unless God has destined you to do that. You really cannot. The solar flares, the meteorites that randomly seem to come around are not random at all. Scripture indicates God is the one who brings those. Hebrews 1.3 says that God is constantly upholding all things, including your enemies, by the word of his power. Isaiah 46, 9 through 10 says, I am God and there is none like me. declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose. Nothing can thwart God's plan. Paul told the Athenians that God created men to, quote, inhabit the whole earth, and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live, Acts 17, verse 26. Proverbs 16.33 says, every time you throw dice, every outcome of that dice comes from the Lord. In other words, there's no such thing as chance. And as I've said, this section beautifully illustrates the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. We'll pick up some other lessons as we go through it as well. But let's begin with the first two verses. This highlights the general area that was conquered. Thus Joshua took all this land, the mountain country, all the south, all the land of Goshen, the low land in the Jordan plain, the mountains of Israel and the slow lands from Mount Halak, and the ascent to Seir, even as far as Baal Gad, in the valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon. Now, if you don't know the geography of Israel, that might sound like Greek to you, not knowing what that is. That's why I've put a color-coded map into your outline so that you could see exactly which areas of Palestine were controlled now by Joshua and which areas were yet to be conquered in future generations. There, it was not God's purpose at all for everything to be conquered. He wanted later generations to conquer some. In fact, some of the land of Israel was not conquered for another 400 years, which is 10 generations, 10 times 40. Both numbers are very symbolic in typology, but that was going to be, and we'll draw that out a little bit. But a generation before, he had already predicted under Moses, hey, this next generation's not going to take all the land of Canaan. That was never his plan. Conquering the whole land actually would be contrary to his plan. And there are various reasons. One of them is given in Exodus 23, verse 29, which says, I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. That's very interesting. Of all of his different reasons, one of his reasons for not conquering the land overnight was an ecological reason. He is saying that it would not be good because the beasts would overrun the land, the land would become wild, and being wild is not a good thing. This is one of several verses that would indicate that President Biden's policy to pay farmers not to farm their land is a foolish policy. The Wilderness Act is an act of folly. The entire environmentalist movement is an act of folly. God intended Adam, what did he say? This is even before the fall, to subdue the earth. It needs to be subdued and turned into a garden just like God modeled for him in the Garden of Eden. And so any impulse to go in the opposite direction and say, no, we need to turn the land back into wilderness is a demonic impulse. It's completely contrary to God's plans. Anyway, that's one reason God did not have the Canaanites kicked out overnight. Another reason Scripture gives is that the gradual conquest of the land with all of its ups and downs, you read the book of Judges, which I'm going through right now in our devotions. Wow, there's a lot of ups and downs. And yet all of those ups and downs over the next 400 years, 10 generations, was a typological picture of the new covenant conquest of the world with the gospel. that would also be destined to take many, many generations, where there would be times of downgrade and times of upgrade. None of this that we've been discouraged about right now, where the West has really gone downhill. That's not a surprise to God. This is the pattern that God set in place. But Judges 3, 1 through 4 gives a third reason why God did not drive out all of the Canaanites in one year. And I think this has some interesting lessons, too. Let me read that. Judges 3, 1 through 4. Now these are the nations which the Lord left, that he might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan. This was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formally known it. Namely, five lords of the Philistines, all of the Canaanites, the Sidonians, the Hivites who dwell in Mount Lebanon from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath, In other words, it's good for us to have to do hard things and to need to depend upon God's grace. I'm not positive about this, but I think when our kids were teenagers at least one of them had a t-shirt that said do hard things It matures us, you know trees that are never tested by wind and storm are much more easily uprooted when a storm comes along and Individuals who have not had hardships in the past Many times they can be easily momentarily diverted from what God's calling in their life is when they do face hardships, okay? And so here's one reason he says he wants to test them and he wants to have them know what it means to be mature. So he left plenty for later generations. Now back to Joshua 11 verse 17, the last sentence says, he captured all their kings and struck them down and killed them. Were humans involved? Well, absolutely. But Deuteronomy 7.24 prophesied of this killing of the kings as being the work of God. It says, he will deliver their kings. Did he use the Israelites? Yes. He will deliver their kings into your hand. and you will destroy their name from under heaven. No one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. So God delivers the kings, but he does so into Israelite hands. God is sovereign, but he expects humans to be responsible. And he alone is the one that could enable their wars to succeed. But he does it in a way that human actions, or for that matter, their inactions, definitely impact the outcome. I mean, how could both be true? That's what we're going to be looking through today. You'll notice another interesting thing about this verse. And actually, you see it all throughout the book. Most frequently, this book credits the battles and the victories to Joshua. It doesn't ignore the Israelites who fought. Even verse 19 says they took them in battle. But frequently this book will focus on these being Joshua's battles and Joshua's victories. And I think the reason is, as Hebrews says, this was supposed to be a type of the Lord Jesus who was going to enable us to engage in worldwide conquest of the gospel. And Hebrews 4 says, but it's not going to be with a physical sword. It's going to be with the sword of the Word, with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it's going to be so successful that eventually There will be a reign where there will be peace and righteousness, and the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the ocean beds. Jeremiah 31, verse 34 says, no longer will they have to engage in evangelism. Literally, it says, no longer will they say, know the Lord, because everywhere they look, they will know the Lord from the least of them to the greatest of them. Hallelujah. I mean, that's the kind of victory that Jesus anticipates in the future. And so the books of Joshua and Judges are typifying this up and down gradual progress until finally what is typified by Solomon's reign, there's going to be a reign of complete glory and victory. Now, the length of time it took to even take as much as they did take is hinted at in verse 18. It says, Joshua made war a long time with those kings. How long was it? Well, most commentators say it was seven years, which is also a beautiful symbol in the Bible, which we're not gonna get into this morning. Seven is number of perfection, right? But anyway, they arrive at this figure by simple logic and mathematics, and I'll just outline the basics for you. Deuteronomy 2.14 speaks of 38 years of wandering. After the time that the spies went into the land of Canaan, they brought back a bad report. That was at Kadesh Barnea. Joshua 14.7 says Caleb was 40 years old when those spies came back. Three verses later in Joshua 14.10, it says he was now 85 years old. So you add 38 plus 40, you subtract it from his age of 85, you get seven years of warfare. It's pretty straightforward. But it would take even longer to gain control of all of the land that God had given. Some of, well, especially the land of the Philistines was not conquered until the time of David. Now, we're going to move into God's sovereign election illustrated in these nations. Verse 19 introduces the vessels of mercy and the vessels of wrath. It says, there was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon, all the others they took in battle. Now we're going to be seeing in a moment that it was God's intent. It was a part of his plan that the Gibeonites be saved. They were the vessels of mercy. But that verse we just read says that God's mercy was spurned by most of the cities. None of them made peace, which implies they should have made peace. And if they had pled for mercy, God would have given them mercy. So there's no excuse whatsoever when they did not receive mercy. Indeed, they attacked Gibeon when Gibeon sought mercy, right? We saw that in chapter 10. And verse 20 reminds them that they attacked Israel as well. So rather than repenting and seeking God's mercy, they hardened themselves against God and against God's people. And verse 20 explains why that happened. It was God's sovereign will for that to happen. But here he's simply pointing out, hey, it's their fault. It's their fault that that happened. They did not seek for mercy, but instead opposed Israel. They have no one but themselves to blame. But I do want to reiterate what I've said in previous sermons, that God intended for mercy to be given to Gibeon. This was not a fluke accident. God did not say all of a sudden, you know, when they come along and Israel believes them, like, oh rats, my plan is completely ruined. Now I'm gonna have to show them mercy. I had no intent of showing, no, that was not his idea at all. Now here it doesn't mention the deception because all he's highlighting is the fact that Gibeonites received mercy, the others did not receive mercy, right? But we've seen earlier that there were many individual Gentiles whom God willed to be saved. Some of these Gentiles, they came, back we saw in Joshua chapter 8. They believed, and God made a covenant with them just as surely as he made a covenant with the whole of Israel. And all the way up to Joshua chapter 20, they are blessed. These are called strangers in the midst of God's people. They're saved. Now, some went even further and they became Jews. Caleb is one example of that. They got circumcised, they went through all of the rituals to becoming Jews. Caleb is called a Kenizzite, who had become a Jew, who later became a hero among the Jews. And he was adopted into the tribe of Judah. But either way, it was faith in God that saved them, not how good they were. None of those strangers from the covenants were good. They were all deserving of judgment, just like Gibeon was. But Gibeon alone, as a nation, was chosen to be a vessel of mercy. And verse 20 indicates it was God himself who determined that to be. It says, for it was of the Lord to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might utterly destroy them, and that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them as the Lord had commanded Moses. It was God who predestined those people to not make peace so that He would not have to show them mercy, so that He could utterly destroy them. And we call this the doctrine of reprobation. It's not, you almost never hear it preached from the pulpits, but we're going to preach on it today. Doctrine of reprobation. Let's break this verse down. First of all, it is crystal clear that God hardened their hearts. Now did they harden their own hearts? Certainly they did. But it was because it was of the Lord to harden their hearts that they hardened their own hearts. And so this is a head-scratcher for some people. They wonder how on earth can both of those things be true? They seem contradictory in their minds. That's why we're going to park on this a little bit. And I'm going to use this pen here as an illustration. I got the illustration actually from A.W. Pink's book that's listed in your outline. If you don't own that book, you haven't read that book, you've got to buy it. It is an amazing book. The Sovereignty of God by A.W. Pink. Now he used a book as an illustration. I'm just going to use this pen. So the thing that is keeping this pen from falling to the ground is the restraining power of my hand. The moment I take away the restraining power of my hand, that pen drops to this podium, right? And it's just the nature of how gravity works on a pen. I don't have to actively throw it down to the ground for it to go to the ground. I just remove the restraining power of my hand. It's going to drop to the ground of its own accord. Now that makes sense, right? In the same way, God's restraining grace holds sinners up and keeps them from sinning worse than they are already sinning. I should actually take a moment to address some reform people would get on my case for talking about common grace. They say, no, no, no, grace is only for the elect. I say, of course, grace is always for the elect. But God gives common grace for the sake of the elect so that life will not be intolerable. We've already seen in the past, God had already promised that he was going to make sure that these Canaanites dug good wells so that the Israelites could inherit them and build cities and plant gardens and develop water systems and sewer systems and other technology for the sake of the elect. So all grace is indeed for the sake of the elect. But it works in restraining the sinful impulses of pagans so that life is not utterly intolerable for us. So back to the illustration. Just as the inherent nature of gravity pulls a pen that I let go of to the ground, the inherent nature of human sinfulness pulls them into deeper and deeper and worse and worse sins. But God's common grace, working on behalf of the elect, God's common grace restrains the non-elect from sinning worse than they could. He keeps them from making life intolerable for us. That's an incredible mercy. And by the way, it's a mercy to them as well because He's restraining them from doing sins they would otherwise do and be punished much more severely for in eternity. They don't deserve God's restraining grace, not at all. Some sinners are downright nice people, but if those nice people had God remove his restraining grace, they would plummet into worse and worse sins almost overnight, almost immediately. And so who is to blame for the sinner's sin? I say it's the sinner who's to blame. The sinner wants to do the sin. God's not forcing him to sin. Like I said, I don't have to throw this pen to the ground to determine When I let it go, I know it's going to go to the ground, right? I've determined that it will go to the ground. All he has to do is withdraw his restraining grace. Did you know that God over and over says that even the sins that unbelievers commit against you have been ordained by God? Now people say, Phil, you're treading into very dangerous territory. But you know, you can count upwards of 100 sins surrounding the crucifixion that were determined from before the foundation of the world. Well, just take the crucifixion itself, the worst sin ever, crucifying God, God the Son. That was determined. It had to occur or nobody could be saved. It was determined from before the foundation of the world, but God didn't do the sin. The sinners did the sin. James says God can't tempt you to sin. God can't, he's not the author of sin. All he does is withdraw his restraining grace, a grace that they don't deserve anyway, a grace which they despise and resist, and a grace which he can very justly withdraw. very justly. And is that not exactly what Romans 1 and 2 say that God does to sinners who persist in their sins? He gives them up. Isn't that what's happening here? He gives them up onto a depraved mind. And what happens when a pen is given up to its own nature? It falls to the podium. What happens when a sinner is given up to his own nature? He's going to fall into sin. And so Romans 1 lists a long catalog of sins that immediately begin to result when God has given them up with homosexuality, being one of the sure proofs that a person has been given up onto depravity. When you see an entire culture that honors homosexuality and actually now honors what, gender fluidity, where you've got 400 genders, and they abominate us when we insist that there are only a binary, male and female gender. Some places want to criminalize us. You know that our society has been given up unto a depraved mind. This is why it's so important that we as a church get involved as salt and light in our communities in the hopes that perhaps God will grant it repentance like he did to Nineveh. We've got to get involved. I think it's really the church's fault that our nation has gone as far as it has. Anyway, when sinners sin, they want to sin, and yet God determined those sins without being the author of the sins. Both sides of the equation are true. God is sovereign over even sin, Men are responsible for their sins. And God, by the way, is grieved over those sins. Now, in this chapter, the Canaanites hardened their own hearts, and this verse explains why. God hardened their hearts by giving them up. Now, with this as an explanation, you can make sense out of all kinds of scriptures. For example, in Exodus chapter 8, three times it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. So we take that seriously. He's responsible. He hardened his own heart. But way earlier in chapter four, he begins giving 15 occasions where it says God hardened Pharaoh's heart, which is true. Did God harden his heart or did Pharaoh harden his heart? Well, they're both true. How God hardened his heart was by withdrawing his restraining grace. He didn't have to work on that heart to make it hard. In fact, that would make him the author of sin, wouldn't it? God merely withdrew his restraining grace. Well, the same is true of evil wars. I've got here a bunch of scriptures I'm not going to get into in my notes that indicate that God moved nations to battles, to warfare that were sinful, and then condemned them for their wickedness in doing so. Now, what kind of practical application can we get from this? For me, the practical application is don't think that the world is out of control and God is not sovereign when you see all kinds of weird things going on and wars going on out there. God is not out of control. Proverbs 21, verse one affirms, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord like rivers of water. He turns it wherever he wishes. This is true of President Biden. Whether you like it or not, God turns his heart whichever way he wants And I think in large part, he's being used as an instrument of spanking the church. And there's other presidents before him, as things have gone down. Now, this is totally different than forcing kings to sin or tempting the nations to declare war in ungodly ways, which never happens, right? The true understanding of God's sovereignty over even sin is that the moment God gives them up to their carnal desires, they plummet into sin of their own accord. So the mystery is not Why do men sin so much? That's not a mystery at all. The real mystery is why are people so good? God's common grace to man restrains them from sin. It's an incredible gift. Now, if instead of viewing the men in these nations as just one pen that falls, you view them as a complex of millions of pens, some of which God is restraining, others of which he is not, or maybe even within a pen, he's restraining some sins and not others, you can see how he can control every aspect of history without being the author of sin or tempting them to sin. Now here's the scary part of this. Even believers can have God's restraining grace removed from their lives when they are presumptuous or when they despise His grace. God does that to discipline us. It's a scary thing, and I'll just give you one illustration of this. 2 Samuel 24, verse 1 says that this is exactly what happened when God got angry with David. It says that He moved David to number Israel. How did he do that? Well, I believe he did it by withdrawing his restraining grace. You can give me another explanation. I've looked at every explanation I can find, and I cannot figure any other way of reconciling 2 Samuel 24, verse 1, with 1 Chronicles 21, verse 1, which explicitly says that Satan moved David's heart to number Israel. So one says God moved his heart to number Israel. The other says Satan moved his heart, which is true. Well, they're both true. How did God do it? I believe they did it by saying, hey, you're despising my grace, David. You're taking it for granted. You're living in sin. You're not repenting. So I'm going to let you see what it's like to live on your own. I'm going to withdraw my restraining grace, knowing full well that Satan would immediately dart in as soon as his protection was gone and Satan would move his heart to number Israel. So God guaranteed the sin and subsequent judgment. Why? Because of David's presumption. Since David was not depending on God, God needed to show David how impossible it is to live without him. We really need to take seriously that statement, without me, you can do nothing. I don't think we live that way. Really, honestly, when you examine your lives day by day, we depend upon our own resources. We don't really believe without me, you can do nothing. Now what are the practical implications of this doctrine? Well first, as I just mentioned, it means that we as Christians need to hold tightly to the Lord. Never grow tired of thanking God for His mercies. Never despise His goodness and treat it as a light thing. Never presume upon the Lord's grace as if you can get away with sinning. No, you can't. Scripture says without Him we can do nothing. Second, be quick to repent of sin as David did. And the reason this is important is one sin leads to another sin down a slippery slope, and before you know it, you don't even recognize your sins. You're hardened to them. And so we've got to be quick to repent of our sins. God exalts the humble and he bases the proud. He says he gives more grace to the humble, saying, a broken and a contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise. Third, realize that when evil comes against you from others, That's not a sign that the world is falling apart. God controls absolutely everything that happens and he will not allow anything to happen to you that is not for your good and for the glory of his kingdom. Nothing can mess up his plans. You just need to make sure you are responding appropriately. Fourth, Everyone is fully responsible for their own sins. You can't get off the hook of your sins by blaming your parents or blaming God or blaming anybody else. No, you're responsible for your own sins. And the reason is you freely chose to do those sins. You wanted to do those sins. You aggravated your sin by rejecting God's restraining grace. And that's true of unbelievers too. Unbelievers are fully responsible for their sins. There is no such thing as a person who was a victim of Satan. Men are in bondage because they've willingly placed themselves in bondage. Fifth, have confidence that God can help you to overcome any sin and to get out of any sinful situation. He's promised that he sovereignly controls your situation such that there is no temptation that has overtaken you except such as is common to man, but God is faithful. who will, with the temptation, make a way of escape. Did I skip out a phrase in there? But with the temptation, make a way of escape, right? And so God, because He's sovereign, but because He also does it in a way that guarantees we are free agents, our choices are significant, we can take seriously promises such as, if God is for you, who could be against you? And if you want to dig deeper into God's hardening of hearts, read Romans 9 sometime. This is the passage that teaches that God loved Jacob and hated Esau, right? They were twins, twin brothers. Loved one, hated the other, and he said he did it before they had done any works, right? It's a humbling chapter. The unregenerate hate that doctrine. So if this morning you hate this doctrine, you better examine your own heart. The unregenerate hate this doctrine. But once you understand the sovereignty of God as a regenerate believer, it is glorious. It is liberating. It inspires faith and hope and confidence. But it is a doctrine that forces us to choose whether we will submit to the true God or not. Now, some people think, that's just not fair. It is not fair, you know, for God to predestine all this. And Paul says in Romans 9, hey, you want fairness? Then everybody goes to hell. That's what fairness, because everybody's a sinner, right? And since no one deserves mercy, Romans 9, 18 says of God, therefore, he has mercy on whom he wants, and whom he wants, he hardens. That's his prerogative. He is sovereign. No one can honestly question God's right to give or to withhold mercy. And once you come to grips with that doctrine, your life will be much more stable. Anyway, verse 20, we'll hurry on, goes on to say that they should come against Israel in battle. So God hardened their hearts, but they were the ones who engaged in the reprehensible actions of fighting against God. They're to blame. Thus, they are judged on the basis of their own sins. The next phrase says, that he might utterly destroy them, and the that points back to their sins, right? So judgment comes as a result of sin. It's never apart from sin. Our God is a just God. The next couple phrases say, and that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them as the Lord had commanded Moses. So God had this all planned out long before. In fact, he had even had a lot of this written down in the book by Moses in the previous generation. He said, each step that's in this section had to happen. So God had to harden their hearts by withdrawing his restraint, which would immediately result in their sins, which would immediately make them unwilling to be repentant and unwilling to receive mercy, because when you When you are plummeting into more and more sin, mercy is not attractive to you. You're too prideful to think of mercy. And then it says, so that their destruction and reprobation would be sure. And by the way, this is another verse that implies, and commentators say this, it implies that anyone who had cried out for mercy would have been spared, would have been saved, right? There's already examples of that. But can anybody cry out for mercy without God's sovereign grace preceding it? No, it's impossible. In fact, we're going to give you an opportunity to sing about that in the last hymn. We'll see where your hearts are at. Are you really willing to testify? Yes, Lord, I believe in your doctrines of election and predestination of all things. This could be your testimony. And yet in all of this, men are still accountable for their stubborn rebellion. If you were living back then and you were a witness to the perversion and the baby murder and the adultery, blasphemy, the other evils, I think you would testify, yeah, they deserve to die. And they could not have the excuse that they did not hear the gospel. You know, all the way back in Joshua chapter one, what did Rahab say? That all of the Canaanites knew exactly that Israel had been redeemed by God and who this God was, and they knew the gospel, and yet they rejected it. They fought against it. And so the Canaanites, they also knew that fellow Canaanites had become believers and had their lives turned upside down and become transformed by that gospel. And so as one commentary worded it, their day of grace was over. They had come to a point of no return. But even we as believers should make sure that we do not harden our hearts and ever spurn God's grace. Instead, may our hearts be drawn to love and appreciate the true sovereign God of the scripture, not the milquetoast God that is preached from so many pulpits. The true God is able to save to the uttermost. He can save homosexuals. He can save anybody. Why? Because He is sovereign. And none can resist His will, right? So study the sovereignty of God. Cherish it. Love it. Be comforted by it. I think it will give you great confidence. Amen. Let's pray. Father, in some ways, this doctrine of reprobation is a very difficult doctrine. that we might be tempted to ignore and not think about. And yet, it's a dark background against which your mercy to us just comes alive and makes us so appreciate that you have saved us. Father, apart from your grace, that's exactly where I would be. Apart from your sovereign mercy, I would still be headed toward hell. So thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you for your election, for every aspect of your redemption from eternity past to eternity future. We know it is going to come to pass. And thus, your eschatology for the ages and for the generations to the future must come to pass. We believe it, Father, because you've said it. And so we pray that as we close out the service, that you would stir up in our hearts a holy love for you and the fact that you are never taken by surprise, that you are the sovereign Lord for whom nothing is impossible. In Jesus' name, amen.