turn to two passages at this time, Deuteronomy 27, and the first 14 verses, and then Joshua 8, verses 30 through 35, from which we will preach the history, the sacred history of the meeting of Israel and their God at Ebal and Gerizim. First of all, Deuteronomy 27, where the orders are given for the Joshua and the host to go to Ebal and Gerizim and do some strange things there, which would be very God-glorifying and worshipful things nevertheless. But Deuteronomy 27, now Moses, with the elders of Israel, commanded the people, saying, keep all the commandments which I command you today. And it shall be on the day when you cross over the Jordan to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall set up for yourselves large stones and whitewash them with lime. You shall write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over that you may enter the land which the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord God of your fathers promised you. There it shall be, when you have crossed over the Jordan, that on Mount Ebal you shall set up these stones which I command you today, and you shall whitewash them with lime. And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. You shall not use an iron tool on them. "'You shall build with whole stones "'the altar of the Lord your God "'and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. "'You shall offer peace offerings and shall eat there "'and rejoice before the Lord your God. "'And you shall write very plainly on the stones "'all the words of this law.' "'Then Moses and the priests, the Levites, "'spoke to all Israel saying, "'Take heed and listen. "'O Israel, this day you have become "'the people of the Lord your God. Therefore, you shall obey the voice of the Lord your God and observe his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today. And Moses commanded the people on the same day saying, these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people when you have crossed over the Jordan, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these shall stand on Mount Ebal to curse Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. And the Levites shall speak with a loud voice. and say to all the men of Israel, and what follows is what they are to say of cursing and of blessing. But we'll stop at that point. You get the setting for the narrative to which we would turn now in Joshua, as we continue our series in Joshua, the last verses of chapter 8, verses 30 through 35. Remember the setting here, they've just taken Jericho, the people of God had, by a wonder of God's grace, and then Ai, after some hindrances by their own sin, and now they are ready to go to Malibu. Now Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal. As Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the Law of Moses, an altar of whole stones over which no man has wielded an iron tool. And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings. And there in the presence of the children of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written. Then all Israel, with their elders and officers and judges, stood on either side of the ark before the priests, the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, the stranger, as well as he who was born among them. Half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel. And afterward, he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses had committed, which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them." Thus far we read this wonderful passage of the history of the events at Mount Ebal. I want to remind you of this history that we've been considering, the history of the conquest of Canaan. And that, of course, we know to be gospel history. This is the story of the Church led into the promised land, the Kingdom of Heaven. The story of the Church triumphant over her enemies. The picture there is similar in the wilderness wanderings, but here this is viewed in the land of promise as the place of victory and the final resting place of the people of God. It's a picture of just how their victory is attained, and that's through Jesus and grace. The mighty hand of God witnessed the falling of the walls of Jericho. There's the picture of Jesus in the captain of the host, and in Joshua, and the Ark of the Covenant that is everywhere seen prominently in this fighting. There is a true gospel picture here of our salvation in Jesus and just how we are saved and unto what we are saved. So this is the picture, first of all, but as always with the story of the church, even in the Bible, nothing is glossed over even of the sin of the people. So there's the sin of Ai, front and center for Israel to remember at all times and for us. This history, therefore, is the history of that attribute of God so precious, long-suffering. It is the history of the long-suffering God with his people in history. And AI, the people, for all that we can discern, jumped the gun. There's no record of their praying in order to take AI. There's no record of their confiding in God. They just went on their own faithlessly and showed that without God they can do nothing. And besides that, Achan took of the accursed thing, and Israel was involved in this, rather proud about this, and Ai was an indictment upon the whole lot of them. But God is longsuffering, as we've seen and as He always is, and I hope as we come into this house, you understand that God is longsuffering towards you. as I know he is certainly of me. And he forgives our sins, he works repentance, and he works holiness, and he works so that we can gain victories once again, where before all we had was the prospect of the dismal defeat again at the hands of sin. So we want to learn today of gospel history, of the long suffering of God history, that this history of the conquest of Canaan is. But now we want to learn something that begins here in this history of Ebal and Gerizim. It's the history of the altar. There's an altar history here. The altar is built, first thing. There's no fortress that's built by Joshua and his peers, no rival city to Jericho or any such thing, no walled city, but an altar is built and must be built to show the priority of the people of God and that they would obey his commandments not only, but delight in just his salvation in Jesus. And so there's things for us to learn here about life in the kingdom around the altar, first thing around the altar. So we want to consider Ebal and Gerizim. And first of all, let's review the history of Gilgal to the altar on Ebal and draw out some salient points there. And then the blessings in that strange amphitheater ceremony at Ebal and Gerizim of blessing and cursing, when half the tribes, representing half the tribes, the leaders of the tribes, stand on Ebal and pronounce cursing, and the other half stands on Gerizim and pronounce blessing. And it's heard by everyone, and there's amens that are said. And this resounds throughout the valley in that amazing antiphony of blessing and cursing. So we want to consider that there's blessings there, blessings through these blessings and cursings also for us today. Then we want to consider the fact that the Levites here were shouting, led the way, They shouted out the requirements of blessing. They shouted out to the praise of God by the Ark of the Covenant as they were in the valley between the two mountains. And then the people shout amen. And there is this amazing communication here of the word of faith and the gospel in Jesus Christ. So right after Ai is defeated, Israel marches into the center of the land of Palestine. They'd been on the coast, really, by Jericho, by the fords of the Jordan. They'd gone inward a little bit into Ai. And then now they're about 20, 30 miles, and they go up a highway that was used in those days along a mountain range. They head northwest. They stop when two mountains appear on the left, Ebal to the north, separated at the base quarter mile or so to the south by a valley, and from another mountain, Mount Gerizim. A couple of things about this. This is right after Ai. Some people believe no. Some people believe that what occurs here in chapter 30 and so on is only after they took much more of the land. After all, why would they march inland when there's so many enemies still around them? But the fact is, there's nothing recorded of that. And it makes sense that they're going to just listen to God, who had told them that they should, the day they cross over the Jordan, or very soon, at that time, first thing, they should perform this sacred ceremony at Ebal and Gerizim. So it's first thing here that they're doing, right after Ai and Jericho have been taken. The second thing is, this is according to the command of God. That's what Joshua is told here. He built an altar as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the children of Israel. And that is what we read in Deuteronomy chapter 27. So there is this very decided and deliberate direction that they're following here. There is marching orders from God through Moses. There is nothing dark about what they're doing. There's nothing of their personal preference. They're following the will of God. And that, beloved, is always a good thing to do, isn't it? And children, you learn the will of God from the Word of God that you're able to read now, not only, but from your parents. And so it's safe to say when you're following the will of your parents, you're following the will of God. Not always marked out in detail that what your parents are saying is biblical, but you can trust that God leads you through their commandments for you and their leadership of you. But here it is for the mature people of God. And what they do there, the first thing, in Mount Ebau, is they, having gone there, take great stones. There's these stones again. They were building stone memorials at the shore of the Jordan. Some were left in the Jordan as a memorial of what God had done. There were memorial stones for the tribes of Israel, the 12 tribes also at the Camp Gilgal, where they had been circumcised and celebrated the Passover. Now there's going to be these great stones, and they're not mere memorial stones, but they are an altar. a place for burning and sacrifice. They pile them together, and none of them can be chiseled out. There can be nothing of the work of man showing itself in this altar that's built with these stones. And then there's plaster that's wiped all on them, some limestone sort of thing, some sort of substance, so they could later write the law of God on them. And that's probably the Ten Commandments. They couldn't have written all of the law of Moses, as we know that given in the Pentateuch. but certainly the Ten Commandments would have been there, and maybe some other sayings. These stones, and with these stones, or perhaps others, they are to offer these altars, make an altar, and then offer burnt offerings and peace offerings. Now, burnt offerings and peace offerings are distinguished in regard to two things. First of all, burnt offerings are offerings that were to be burned up and they were to symbolize the burning up of our sins. They were an offering of an animal so that there could be the recognition that sins were forgiven. And so they were offered to God on this altar. Peace offerings were more like thankful offerings. Celebrate them, and they could even partake of part of the offering so that there could be feasting as well as Moses even prescribed in Deuteronomy 27. You are to eat there at this wonderful offering place, and you are to rejoice there celebrating the provision of God. Now here's the significance of this altar at Mount Ebal. Very crude, but it's like unto the thing that Abraham built even maybe in the very same place in Shechem between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim when he first came into the land. It was a meeting place with God. A crude place, but a meeting place. A crude little church, but a meeting place with God, and that makes all the difference. It is, in fact, the first altar. we find of the people of God in the land of promise. They have the Ark of the Covenant symbolizing God with them, and now they have an altar. So God is giving them to learn more of his nature and to learn more of godliness and devotion to him. This is why when we read the Old Testament, we learn of the central thing most of all. It's all about God with his people. And that means, beloved, it's all about Jesus Christ. Here, once again, in a type, in a picture, in the Old Testament offerings and in the altar itself, we have a picture of Jesus. This is, in fact, a picture of a people doing this thing, this crazy sort of thing, we would say, in devotion to their God by faith, believing in Him. Believing in his power. Remember, the enemies are all around still. Jerichoites have been wiped out. 12,000 people or so at AI had been taken care of by the grace of God and the right hand of God. But now there's many more around and it doesn't matter to them. With God in the midst of them. And that's what's symbolized. The only meeting place with God here is Jesus. Beloved, don't we know that? The only meeting place of God and sinners is Jesus. Jesus incarnate, Jesus given to us, Jesus offered for our redemption, Jesus who is our all in all. And here, in this sacrifice, this blood sacrifice, and then in the peace offerings, there's a foretaste of the shedding of his own blood. And this is amazing. In fact, here in this altar, on which the law is written, and then on which offerings are made, is a special type of the offering that was made on Calvary. The law was put on Jesus, you know, on his shoulders. And that is the sins of the people against the law. And then the curse of the law that was due to sinners was on him. Just as here, this altar is about this law and the offering upon the law on the basis of the law, and this name of the place called cursing. It's all signifying that Mount of Cursing, even Mount Golgotha, the cross of Calvary. So you see here, this meeting place with God, and it's all of God. The altar might not be really made with hands at all, must not be a humanistic religion. It's according to the commandment of God. There's a blessed fellowship here that's signified by the people eating and drinking, and this is exactly, beloved, what we have even in a hostile land where no water is. Blessing and fellowship, eating and drinking, Christ at the table. Eating and drinking by taking in the word now by faith and taking it in. in having it become part of our life and our way and our lifestyle. That's the glory of this altar at Ebal. And there's lessons for our worship today. And the first is that this is the first thing. As we said before, there's a priority here. The people, they march right up to Ebal. They march to this valley. They've never been there before. God said so. That's what you're supposed to do. Don't worry about the enemy. Be believing. And there's millions, remember, millions following them right into the heart of the enemy territory. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that the enemies are peeking out from the bushes somewhere here and there and their bows and arrows and their swords at the ready. It doesn't matter because the fear of the Lord is upon this land and the fear and the love of the Lord is in the hearts of the people and Joshua and the people are at a peak in their faith. They're getting it now. that God is the God who is our God in spite of our not having him as God as we ought to remember Jericho and remember God at Ai. You see, at Ai, it was revealed that the people were still sinful. Never mind, Ai said, God was still God. Do you know that sinner? Though you sin, though you mess up, though you muck up, though you muck around in bad things, God is the God who never messes up. In fact, AI, I believe, is a picture of the fact that even though the people were not in the wilderness anymore, you can take people out of the wilderness, but you can't take the wilderness out of the people. Remember that. You can be taken out of the wilderness, but you can't take the wilderness out of your breast. There's flesh there. But, A.I. says, God loves you anyway. God loves you anyway. God loves you seriously. And with long suffering. And his sacrifice of his son on the cross should say it all. And it did to Joshua, there feeling the great feeling that I get, I hope you do too, after forgiveness, the shame is no more. In the midst of the fog of the cold morning, It just dissipates and disappears, and then you see the sun coming through the leaves, and then you see that there is this beginning, this dawning of a day. It's called the day in which the Lord has made, and we rejoice and are glad in it, mercies ever new. And so Joshua and the troops and quite a ragtag bunch of troops. They march with heads held high all the way to Ebal and the altar of their redemption. They're thanking God. This is their priority. This land is a land of altars. This land is the land of a cross, or it's not the land of the kingdom of heaven. This land is the land where there must be righteousness. There must be the establishment of the justice of God, who will not behold iniquity except to punish it. And if it's not on you, it will be on his son. And praises be to God. He's punished his son instead of us. And so the people here, rather than glorying in carnal victories or thinking that their victories were carnal, are rejoicing in this truth three times, www.christianworship, worship, worship.christian. They don't want to think about anything else. God's people really don't want to think about anything else. They say, well, we need to conquer that city. We need to purchase that real estate over here. We need to have a buffer here for this country. And those Amorites, they're nasty folks. There's giants over there. They're not concerned about that, first of all. It's all about worship. Worship. Worship. Is that our concern? Even though it's so strange, that's the second thing, second lesson for our worship today. It's a priority, but it's a strange thing. So what? It's a strange thing, so what? It's strange. Heavenly things are like that. There's no carnal war campaign here, no earthly success being celebrated, but just God's being celebrated. Can't we do that for once in our life? Just celebrate God for who he is. how great He is, how wonderful, how wonderful He is, our Savior, how wonderful His love. Yeah. And then about this worship, it's obedience as Moses commanded. That's what they did. The worship is regulated as is ours. And then, of course, it's Christ-centered. That's what this is all about. Ebal, this Mount of Cursing, not the Mount of Gerizim first. The altar's not on Gerizim, the Mount of Blessing. It's on the Mount of Cursing. so that we might know there's only blessing through the way of cursing. Somebody taking the fall, somebody bearing the wrath of God and bearing it all the way. Christ, Jesus, what a pattern here. From Gilgal, the place where the reproach was rolled away, Remember when all the males hadn't been circumcised in the wilderness were now circumcised as a sign and a symbol that they were now dedicated to God, this new generation. They were the covenant people. And now there's this worship. This worship, as Abraham did 600 years before, gets into the land, builds an altar, plants the flag of Christianity, the cross of Jesus Christ in which we glory as we sung And as the apostle boasts, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom I'm crucified to the world and the world unto me. That's a good pattern to follow, beloved, the Gilgal pattern. You begin in the name of the Lord, and you have a victory, you have a defeat, and then a victory, but you're aiming toward Ebal and toward the cross and everything. And you get there, and you're glad to be there. Roman Catholic Church and other traditions of faith and various forms of unbelief have altar boys, altar girls. Maybe perhaps you were one in the former day. I don't know. They would serve in the church. Well, here, this is celebrated, altar boys and altar girls and altar men and altar women and an altar church, a Christ-centered church. If that's nothing else, nothing else could be said of us, we're a Christ-centered church. It's enough for me, and I trust for you. But let's get to these blessings and cursings, the strange things that must be pronounced, and there's detail of that in Deuteronomy 27. But if you look more closely, this would be a good thing to read tonight, Deuteronomy 27, 28, 29, the record of the cursings and the blessings that the priests were going to call upon the people. For example, and I'll just read some of them. There to pronounce blessing are the people on Mount Gerizim. And then there to pronounce cursing are the six tribes on Mount Ebo. And the Levites will be in the middle, right in the middle, the mountains on the side, and such that you could hear one another. And even to this day, those who take tours of the Mount Ebo-Gerizim Valley will tell you that you can hear a pin drop miles away, apparently. I haven't tested that myself. But it's a natural amphitheater, a place where people in histrionics and in the field of theater and so on would be glad to come by because you don't need a microphone. But you have the Levites in the middle of this with a loud voice speaking cursings and blessings. For example. Deuteronomy 27, cursed is the one who makes a carved or molded image, an abomination to the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret. And all the people shall answer and say amen. And apparently, that was all the people on Ebal, the cursed mountain, they were to say amen. And then when there's cursing, the rest of the people on the other mountain were to say amen to that. I'm not so sure. It could be that in response to both the blessings and the cursings, all the people on both sides of the mountain range were to say amen with regard to blessing and to cursing. And we can talk about that later. The details don't matter. But read through this, and there's cursings upon all manner of sin, and there's blessings upon all manner of obedience. But I want to say to you, first of all, is that it's not about cursings and blessings for Israel here. It's about this. It's about blessings. And if you read Joshua 8 and 33 in our text, The whole event at Ebal and Gerizim is to be had so that they should bless the people of Israel. I'm going to read that whole verse. Then all Israel, with her elders and officers and judges, stood on either side of the ark before the priests, the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, the stranger, as well as he who was born among them. Half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel. What I'm getting at here, beloved, is that the whole event of blessings and cursings was for blessing. And I would even say this, there were blessings even through the blessings and the cursings that were pronounced. Here's how I believe this works. There was a blessing, let's get that through our mind here. When Israel went to Mount Ebal and they worshiped there at the altar that they built, and there was the Levites with the ark and all the people celebrating and rejoicing, that was for blessing. That was for their confirmation in the covenant. In fact, as we'll see, they're now constituted anew the people of God in the promised land. They had been constituted or made to be the people of God way back at Mount Sinai in the wilderness. But now they're reconstituted as this people, set aside once again, standouts as the people of God at this time at Mount Ebal and the Ebal Charism blessing. So that's the blessing, first of all. But then they go, and they hear a blessing, and they hear of cursing in the land. And should they disobey, they're going to be cursed. And if they would obey, they're going to be blessed. And this, too, is part of the blessing. Now, here's the blessing. The first blessing by the altar is the blessing of their redemption and their life and forgiveness with God in Jesus. They're justification, as we should say. But the second blessing that comes and follows hard after it, the blessing of the blessing of the cursing, the obedience that's called for, and the disobedience that's threatened, that's the blessing of sanctification. In other words, there's a revelation in this ebulgarism ceremony of the God who is our God, Savior, and Lord. justifier of sinners and sanctifier of sinners. And so that, in other words, God Himself is taking the people to be near to Him. near to him by his cross, in the light of the truth of his Son, given for sinners, so that they can be his in a very real way, and not just a theological, I believe in justification by faith way, but in a real way so that life becomes a life unto God. so that the people who go by the name of Israel are Israel indeed. And that's the blessing that we preach here and that we should be mindful of as we rise up from a table, the sacred table of the Lord. The blessing of being holy. the blessing of being forgiven and therefore holy, delivered that we might serve. That's the idea of Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. You see, the blessings and the cursings that are pronounced to upon his people and upon his church, the threatenings even, become for the children of God, as it does in the preaching, ways whereby we keep ourselves from sin. When, for example, the writer to the Hebrews says, and I think it's chapter 12, without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. Doesn't that cause you to fear God, beloved? Without holiness and sincerity, And without putting away the hypocrisy and all of the times you waste your time, no man, woman, or child will see the Lord. And that's the way even our Canons of Dort, champion of grace, remind us that the children of God are preserved when there's preaching. and preaching of the gospel, and then preaching of the requirements of the law, still there is this full-orbed gospel ministry which produces God's people who love Him, who fear Him, who live unto Him, and who are afraid above everything else of displeasing God and sinning. Now, that's your greatest fear, isn't it? You're afraid to sin. You're not pleased, you're gone. There's even a healthy fear, beloved, let's be real with this, of hell. A healthy fear. Not a, oh, I've sinned against, I'm surely going to hell, never be assured. Come to a point in your life, though, and it could be a thousand times in one day, rough day, where you realize if you follow that path, that's not going to be good. In fact, you say to yourself, if I go that way, I'm going to hell. I can't go that way. That's a broad way right there. That's the way I might like to go, but that's the broad way of destruction. I'm going to go the other way. Hardly anyone has that healthy fear anymore, I think. Saved by grace, kept by grace, no problem, no struggle. No. But now having said that, I stumbled across something I believe is very important for us to learn here. A lot of people think that Ebal and Gerizim represent the fact that Israel, in the land of promise even, is a people who had to meet certain conditions and keep certain laws, or they could no longer be the people of God. They were only in the land of promise provisionally. And so Ebal, with its cursings pronounced upon them should they disobey, is a picture of the fact that there are covenant breakers not only, but that all of us need to fulfill certain conditions and jump through certain hoops in order to be blessed of God. That's a mistake. It's a mistake because these covenant terms, as I would put it, or as one of our forms says with regard to baptism, are part of the covenant set forth at Ebal and Gerizim, are not conditioned so much as words of the gospel that are near to us of the importance of believing. Deuteronomy chapter 30, part of this whole narrative of the ebol, gerizim, blessing and cursing of the people, speaks of this. In chapter 30, verse 14, it says, the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I've set before you today life and good, death and evil. That would be cursing and blessing. In that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes and his judgments, as you may live and multiply. And the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear and are drawn away and worship other gods and serve you, I announced to you today that you shall utterly perish. You shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in. and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness today against you that I've set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey his voice, that you may cling to him, for he is your life and the length of your days, and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them. A lengthy explanation of this word being near them. You see, Israel, they always had the word of God near them. That was their exception as this nation, this exceptional nation. American exceptionalism is one thing. Israel's exceptionalism is an entirely different thing. They were blessed of God to have the word of God near them. But what was this word? It looks here about this word that's near to them, that that's word, that is the word of commandments, and if you don't keep them, you're cursed, and if you do keep them, you're blessed. But now, that would be the case if we did not have a New Testament interpretation of this in Romans chapter 10. And I want myself to turn there for you now, and you can turn with me as you want. But Chapter 10 of Romans says, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. And then it says, but the righteousness of faith speaks in this way. Do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down from above, or who will ascend into the abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does he say, Romans 10 verse 8, what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is, listen, the word of faith which we preach, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Beloved, what I'm pointing out to your attention is this. The word near Israel was the same word that was near in the New Testament to Paul when he alluded to it. He alludes to Deuteronomy 30, verse 14, saying this. It was always the privilege of Israel, the people of God, yes, to have these commandments and these threatenings and these promises of blessings, but principally to have the word Jesus among them. They need not go high and low for their redemption and their identity in Jesus or in somebody else because they had this word to them that made them of all of the nations that people which was Abraham's seed and children of God. This made all the difference for the people of God. This is the gospel of Ebal and Gerizim all together and in light of that central altar. the word that's near. So all of the obedience is not to earn, it's an obedience of faith. As servants of the Lord who know the salvation of the Lord and who are those who do this out of love and clinging to him and because they're his people, not to become his people. This is how we ought to look at demands and commands in the Bible as ways whereby we can show we believe. not as hoops to jump through, and if we keep this, we're gonna get out of the curses, and the more we do this, we're gonna earn more blessings, but simply out of the fullness and freeness of life with God. That's what your humble servant is trying to communicate right now. Justification and sanctification because of gracification. The grace of God has overwhelmed the place. And we have beheld our God. Do you know that? Now, that's how to raise a family. In grace, you got all kinds of requirements. You need them. You need them, or the house will burn down, or something else will happen. And you always think you need more and more and more. But I think a lot of the times raising children, all I needed was a lot more grace and patience and long-suffering and a few less rules, a few more consistency in my life, much more power in everything that I would say. That's for blessing. And this included, strikingly, if you read Joshua 8, it included strangers. And verse 33 has Israel and all the elders, they're gathered together, and also the stranger as well as he was born among them. And where these strangers came might have been from Egypt, a mixed multitude that was still there, though I doubt it. But it also might have been the Shechemites, of whom we don't read, that their city was taken, though it was very close to Ebal and Gerizim. And these could have been assimilated into the people of God without a fight. like Rahab. And so they became proselytes, as the Greek language says. They became these converts to the nation. Be that as it may, it speaks to the fact that this we're not talking about is about genealogy and blood. It's not about being American. It's not about being Dutch. It's not about being Chinese. It's not about being Turkish or Italian or whatever you are. It's about being gods. And no matter what, all of the people of God's good pleasure are in this same amazing situation, this gospel situation of being God's and being God's people forever. And so the altar of Ebal, the blessings and the cursings of Ebal and Gerizim, a great blessing for the people and for us. So let's, in conclusion, consider, beloved, that we ought to do some shouting. The Levites were to shout the calling of God and the threats of God upon those who disobey, and shout the calling of God and the blessing of God upon those who obey. And the people were to shout in response, and there could be no uncertain terms and no uncertain mumbling words about this. They were to say, amen, amen. If I transgress, I should die. Amen. If I obey, I should live. And all because of the gospel of my Savior Jesus. You see, they're looking at the altar. They're seeing the smell of the altar. Still, in all of this, in the light of that altar, we'll have a sweet sense and aroma to them because this is for their salvation. We should be so certain, beloved, about these things. For example, and principally in our preaching, here's what a preacher has to do. Preachy bon. and preach Ebal before or with Gerizim. But Ebal we must preach, the cursed Calvary, the cursed blessed Calvary. Not the Gerizim without the Ebal, not the health and wealth gospel without the gospel. Striking when Jesus went to Samaria and he was worshiping or he was at the well and he saw the woman where the Samaritan worship. They worshiped at Mount Gerizim, beloved, and they thought that was pretty good of them. But I want to suggest to you that anyone who worships at Mount Gerizim has missed the cross and its curse. And there are lots of gospel-less and cross-less and Christ-less churches today, beloved, that are content with blessing on Mount Gerizim. Content with a blessing on a place which just simply says God rewards those who help themselves. We need, beloved, more Ebal preaching, and Gerizim in light of Ebal, and blessing and cursing in the light of that wonderful gospel of Jesus who wore our curse. And then the gospel, you see, itself becomes really one pronouncement. And to all who believe it's a savor of life unto life. But at the same time, among those who don't believe, even in this church or any church, it's a savor of death unto death and to their condemnation. What shall it be, beloved? As we preach Ebal, as we rise up from the table and we love the wonderful truth of the gospel of Christ who bore our curse for us, we want to be faithful. Faithful in the land, faithful in our calling, rise up, beloved. No more shame, no more guilt. Jesus takes it all away. Press on. Press on, office bearers. Press on, single people. Press on, married and those with children and those, beloved, who love the Lord. Press on. and know the peace and the righteousness of God from Jesus, who is our High Priest after the order of Nechazedek, King of Righteousness, King of Shalom. Amen. Our Father, we pray that we may have and give no uncertain sound from this pulpit or from our own hearts, that we may speak amends to what you say are true. And Lord, that we ourselves may do the Christian life. Help us to be found worthy of your trust of the name that is been given to us in our baptism, the name of those who belong to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Give us, Lord, to be those full of joy and those who are full of hope. And Father, work your love in our hearts so that more and more our whole life is a thank offering. We present our bodies as living sacrifices, which is our true and blessed religion. Dismiss us with your favor. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.