Reading from Joshua chapter 8, verses 24 through 29, hear the Word of God. And it came to pass when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they pursued them, and when they all had fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. So it was that all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai. For Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the spear until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the livestock and the spoil of that city, Israel, took as booty for themselves according to the word of the Lord which he had commanded Joshua. So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation to this day. And the king of Ai, he hanged on a tree until evening, and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his corpse down from the tree, cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raise over it a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word, and it is our glory to study it, and to seek to obey it. We pray that you would anoint my lips and enable each one of us to be hearers and doers of your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Even though this paragraph looks super brutal, it needs to be read in light of the incredible patience that God has had with these people over the past 400 years. These people were evil way back in the time of Abraham. And yet God was incredibly patient with him. I think that's what we should be astonished over, is the depth of his patience. In Genesis 15, God told Abraham that his descendants would live in Egypt. And he said, in the fourth generation, your descendants are going to return here because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. So the iniquity of the Amorites was well known to Abraham. And yet it would be 400 years before they would get dispossessed under Joshua. From Genesis 21.8 to Exodus 12 is 400 years. And over that time, the Canaanites' iniquity got progressively worse and worse. Now what had the Amorites witnessed during those 400 years that would leave them without excuse? Well, way back at the beginning of that 400 years, they had witnessed the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, and yet they did not repent. They knew better, but they did not repent. Nobody could deny the supernatural nature of that judgment. They had the witness of Abraham and the patriarchs. They had heard what God had done to the Egyptians when the Israelites came out of Egypt. They had heard what the Israelites had done to the kings Sihon and Og. They had seen the miracle at Jericho, and yet, unlike Rahab, They did not repent. Okay, another background thing that I think helps to understand the judgments in this book are the practices that these Canaanites did in the name of their gods. And I honestly do not recommend that you study the archeological digs that have been uncovered in Canaan. God buried them on purpose. They are gross, very gross. I felt defiled even reading the academic summaries of what they had discovered. But even apart from archaeology, we know enough from the book of Deuteronomy to make plenty of good conclusions. Deuteronomy says that both the men and the women in Canaan engaged in bestiality, pedophilia, adultery, and incest. They sacrificed their children to be burned alive to their gods at their altars. They engaged in trans surgeries. There's really nothing new in this world. Sadomasochism, gender fluidity, all of the things that's making America slide faster and faster downhill. They deserved the death penalty. America deserves the death penalty. And yet God gave those nations 400 years to repent. To me, it gives a little bit of encouragement about America. Our God is an incredibly patient God. And when judgment did come upon Canaan at the hands of his servants, the Israelites, the Canaanites had absolutely nothing to complain about. Nothing. Okay? The book of Revelation portrays Jesus as being just as much as a sword-swinging soldier of judgment as Joshua was. There's one more background point that I want to bring up, and that is You've heard that word a lot. Typology simply means the Old Testament had a lot of symbols that pointed forward to Jesus and to his kingdom. And we've seen in the past that the book of Hebrews, New Testament book, portrays Joshua as a symbolic type of Jesus. The word Joshua in the book of Hebrews is spelled Jesus. It's really the same name. Joshua is the Hebrew pronunciation. Jesus is the Greek pronunciation. But the book of Hebrews is quite clear. Joshua was a symbol of Jesus bringing all enemies under his feet. And so what I'm going to do this morning is I'm going to apply each of these points to Jesus And I think until we apply the book to Jesus, we have not completely, fully mined the meaning of the book. So first point, just as Joshua was determined to destroy all of his enemies, Jesus plans to destroy all of his enemies. And I want you to look at verse 24 and notice how extensive this destruction was. And it came to pass when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they pursued them, and when they all had fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. Nothing was spared. Well, in the same way, the goal of Christ's kingdom is not peaceful coexistence. That's the way some Christians are quite content to have peaceful coexistence, but rather than peaceful coexistence, Christ aims for replacement. By the way, so do demons. Demons are not content to have peaceful coexistence. That's why we're seeing some of them advocating persecution of Christians. They want to get rid of every vestige of Christian influence in this culture. They're playing for keeps, and so is the Lord Jesus. We cannot be naive. This is a battle for keeps. One side or the other will lose. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 25 says, for he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet. Notice that word must. He must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet. So the kingdom of heaven is designed by God to invade planet Earth, and through grace and through judgment, either way, Jesus will eventually win and turn wilderness into paradise. Verse 25 shows that the people destroyed were counted. They were numbered. Statistics were kept. So it was that all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai. Well, in the same way, there are many scriptures that indicate that God keeps statistics. He has an exact number of who is elect and who is non-elect. They're known to God. And here's how the Westminster Confession of Faith words it, by the decree of God, For the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death. These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished. And so the point is, God is sovereign in judgment. He's sovereign in salvation. And on the issues of salvation and judgment, of hell and heaven, they're not left to chance at all, okay? God determines their number and he has a total right to do so. We cannot say that's not fair. What would be fair is everybody to go to hell, right? Because we're all sinners, we're all rebels. So he is sovereign. The next symbol of Christ is given in verse 26. For Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the spear until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Now commentators point out that Joshua is credited with the killing, but he's up on the hill. He's not down there on the field with the fighting. He's up on the hill with his sword, well, not his sword, his rod of iron, his javelin pointed at the city of Ai while the soldiers are doing the killing. And so he is authorized, he has led the killing, but he did so symbolically. For him to be holding that rod all day long is a very obvious and very deliberate symbol. It was a similar situation to the battle with the Amalekites in Exodus chapter 17, where when Moses held up what he calls the rod of God, And the Israelites prevailed. When his arms grew weary and his rod went down, then the Amalekites prevailed. And then he'd raise his rod and his hands up again, and then the Israelites would prevail. Well, finally, he called over Aaron and Hur, and they held up his hands. Now, it may have been the case here. We're not told. And I just want to read, though, in terms of the symbology of of that rod, three passages from Revelation about Christ bearing the rod of iron. Revelation 2.27, he shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessels as I also have received from my Father. And so that verse is saying that Christ's rule involves not just the salvation of nations, but also the judgments of nations. So sometimes he's ruling the nations positively, sometimes dashing them, smashing them through the rod of iron. And if you keep reading in Revelation, you'll see some of the smashing involves sending plagues, diseases, disasters, wars, financial crises, things like that. Let me read the next verse. Revelation 12.5, she bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron and her child was caught up to God and his throne. Revelation 19.15, now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword that with it he should strike the nations and he himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. So all three passages show that Jesus will not stop His battle against Satan, the flesh, the world, sin, until He has total victory. Now, contrast that imagery with the over-realized eschatology of full preterism. There's just no comparison. Full Preterism sees the millennium as lasting from A.D. 30 until A.D. 70, at which time, supposedly, Jesus gained the victory over all of his enemies, completely finished his mediatorial reign, and handed the kingdom back to the Father. There's now no longer any mediatorial reign of Jesus over the nations of our planet Earth. Well, that doesn't make for much of a kingdom, does it? When you dig into it, full preterism is really an empty system. It minimizes who the enemies are. It minimizes the nature of His victory. They do not see Jesus as engaging in His mediatorial reign right now. That's done. According to them, it was a 40-year period. But in the symbolic typology of Jesus from the Old Testament, the war isn't finished until the last of the Canaanites is put down. So Joshua didn't end his battle with Jericho. He didn't end it with Ai. Year after year, he continued to fight. And Canaan was still not conquered at the end of Joshua. It goes on into the book of Judges, and every one of the Judges is also a type of the Lord Jesus. And even after that, it goes into the reign of David, and then finally into the reign of Solomon, when there's complete victory and complete peace. And he's the last of the symbolic kings that typified the Lord Jesus, which is symbolic of the final period of Christ's kingdom, still future to us. Okay, so that's a much fuller image of Christ's kingdom. But even in this verse, we get hints of Christ's perseverance with this symbol of Joshua holding up that rod all day long. Joshua did not stop fighting as long as there were enemies to be conquered. That's the point. And in the same way, Jesus will not stop his gospel conquest and or judgments until all enemies are either converted or destroyed. I think it's a marvelous symbol. It's amazing that Joshua's arms did not grow tired. Maybe they did. I wish there was sometimes more in the story that we could know. If so, was somebody holding up his arms, which, you know, it would be supernatural to be able to hold up your arms with a rod of iron in them all day long. So I suspect it was similar to Exodus 17, in which case, you know, it's talking about the prayer support that goes into this. But even in this verse, it's clear Joshua used the entire army, and in the same way, all of us must be involved in bringing all things under the dominion of King Jesus. In any case, the symbolic javelin of iron in Joshua's hands is representative of the rod of iron in Messiah's hands in Psalm 2 and in the book of Revelation. Okay, I think I've developed that enough. There's another symbol in the next verse, verse 27. Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took as booty for themselves, according to the word of the Lord, which he had commanded Joshua. Now, unlike Jericho, which was purely destructive, this war resulted in every Israelite inheriting something. Proverbs 13.22 says, the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. Here's the thing. God doesn't do that for His church when the church is unfaithful. You know, in the previous battle when there was unfaithfulness, they didn't inherit anything. In fact, they lost a bunch, right? The condition, according to Psalm 58, There is a condition for this, and the condition is that the nation follow God's principles of justice exactly, not being more severe or harsh or less severe or harsh than what God's justice lays down. So all capital crimes must receive capital crimes. That's why I believe we need to be demanding that civil magistrates bring capital punishment against the baby-torturing, baby-murdering doctors Let's say it like it is. It is murder, it is torture, it is heinous, it is deserving of the death penalty. And they need to hear this over and over again. So Psalm 58, 11 says, when you do that, when the nation finally cleanses the blood of the land through proper execution, it says, then men will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely He is God who judges in the earth. In context, Christ is judging through His representatives, the civil magistrates, similar to Romans chapter 13, where civil magistrates are said to be ministers of God, of His justice. They're His ministers. Let me read that whole psalm. It's a psalm which makes even jellyfish squirm because it takes real men, men like Joshua, to be used for the advancement of the kingdom in civics. Okay, it's civics in particular. We're not allowed to do this kind of stuff on our own. It's civic officers. Psalm 58 is a scolding of cowardly civil magistrates. It says this, Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones? Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men? No. In heart, you work wickedness. You weigh out the violence of your hands and the earth. The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent. They are like the deaf cobra that stops its ear, which will not heed the voice of charmers charming ever so skillfully. Break their teeth in their mouth, O God. Break out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord. Let them flow away as waters which run continually. When he bends his bow, let his arrows be as if cut in pieces. Let them be like a snail which melts away as it goes, like a stillborn child of a woman that they may not see the sun. Before your pots can feel the burning thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, as in his living and burning wrath. The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, so that men will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely he is God who judges in the earth. Are you willing to pray a psalm like that? A lot of Christians think, no, no, no, we're not praying any of those imprecatory psalms. Well, then don't expect God to judge. Don't expect God to change things in the earth if you're not willing to pray for him to do so. Are civil magistrates willing to press for that kind of civil penalty? If not, they cannot expect God to bless their efforts in civics. Capital punishment must once again be reestablished in our land before our land will be cleansed of its blood guilt. And when Christians reject God's justice in civics, God's going to continue to say to them, OK, you're going to continue to be defeated, defeated, defeated. You're not going to have cultural victory. You simply will not. Christ doesn't work despite His representatives. Christ works through His representatives. And when they come into agreement with the Lord Jesus Christ, we have seen in history over and over again that awesome things can happen in history. So don't even run for public office if that kind of a psalm does not grip your soul. Civic officers have to have a passion for God's justice. Verse 28 reiterates the idea that nothing of the old life can remain. God's goal is replacement. So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation to this day. Now the word heap is tel, and if you've done much study in archeology or geography, you'll recognize the word tel in front of names occurs over and over in the Middle East. Tel-Abib, tel-mella, tel-harsha. Anyway, here's what the New American Commentary states. The NIV's Heap of Ruins translates Hebrew Tel. Ancient cities usually were built on high points of land near water supplies. And when a city was destroyed, the new city was built on the same site atop the packed and settled debris from the former city. Thus, over time, high mounds arose topped by the current city. AI was not rebuilt, and it remained a heap of ruins. So it symbolizes the fact that nothing of pagan culture can remain in Christ's kingdom. And it's not just pornography that must be buried. Evolution, science falsely so-called, pagan glorifying literature, which many Christians actually revel in, it needs to be buried. The idea that anything in life can be neutral, even mathematics. needs to be replaced with a Christian mathematics. Christ's goal is to have the kingdom of heaven invading the earth, establishing the kingdom of heaven on the earth, and it will eventually be a 100% Christian culture, not a syncretistic mix. Let AI be buried. Let it be buried. The last lesson that we're going to look at today is in verse 29. It says, and the king of Ai, he hanged on a tree until evening. And as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his corpse down from the tree, cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raise over it a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Pagan kings often spared their conquered kings kind of as trophies. You know, it was like bragging rights. Look at all the kings that I've conquered, you know, and I've shown mercy to these kings. I've let them be alive. Well, that was not the way with God. No one, not even kings, were above the law. Second, that God's judgments are the upholding of his laws, hinted at when it says this. As soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his corpse down from the tree. Why did he do that? He was just following the law of God in Deuteronomy 21 which mandates this, and let me read verses 22 through 23. If a man is committed a sin deserving of death and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree his body shall not remain overnight on the tree but you shall surely bury him that day so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for he who is hanged is accursed of God. Third, so they're following the law. Third, the law I just read makes it clear that the king was hanged on a tree to symbolize the fact that both he and his kingdom were accursed of God. Now this is a critical point that thematically ties this paragraph to the next one we'll look at next time. dealing with the sacrifices, and Herschel York drew out the meaning of this verse so well that I'm going to read his exposition at length. I'm so glad I stumbled on this observation. He's the dean of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He said, Joshua knew that this king represented his people. all of their bestiality, all of their pagan pornographic worship, all of their sacrificing of children. This king represented all of the sins of all those people, and Joshua puts him to death. He hangs him on a tree. He leaves him hanging there in disgrace. There is no punishment too great. There is no curse too awful for this king, because he has been the leader of his people. He bears the mark of the sins of his people and Joshua brings him outside the city walls and hangs him there in defeat and disgrace. It's an awful picture. If you judge God for that act, you're going to have a real problem with something that happens 1,300 years later. There is another king, it's a capital K king, and his people are every bit as wicked as the people of Ai. His people are guilty of all kinds of atrocities and sins. His people deserve the same death the people of Ai received. Their cup of iniquity also is full. This king's name is Jesus, and he represents all the sins of all his people. One day, he's taken outside the city walls, and he bears the sins of all those he represents. And there he's hanged on a cross. God's judgment is poured out on him. He bears God's wrath. The same curse that Joshua inflicted on the king of Ai is applied to Jesus. But this king is different, because unlike the king of Ai, this king, though he represents all his people, though he bears all their sin, this king has himself not sinned. This king is perfect. This king is holy. Yet he takes their guilt and receives their punishment. God's judgment is poured out on him, and his people are allowed to live. I find it much more difficult to understand why God allows the people of King Jesus to live than I do to understand why God allowed the people of Ai to die. And I say, amen, amen, amen, and amen. You see, the gospel is not intended to sweep sin under the carpet. That's the way many people look at the gospel. That is a pathetic gospel. No. The real gospel does not present Jesus as a therapist who's just here to make you feel better about yourself. Not at all. He is a judge. He is a king. And He does have mercy, but He's a sovereign Savior. If anything, the real gospel highlights the curse and hell and judgment and God's hatred of sin far more than we can even imagine. It'll be symbolized by the sacrifices we'll look at next time, verses 30 through 35. Sacrifices of blood that pointed forward to the suffering of Jesus. But it's my hope, just what we've gone through in the sermon today, that this chapter on judgments makes you praise God for having saved you and makes you want to be holy as He is holy. I hope this chapter makes you wanna fight against your flesh and your sinful temptations with every ounce of strength that is in you and to never stop fighting as long as sin rears its ugly head. Never pit the gospel against God's judgment. The gospel is actually meaningless apart from judgment. If you are saved, It means you have come into agreement with Jesus's judgment. You've agreed, Lord, I'm worthy of hell. You've completely agreed with him. And if you disagree with God's judgments, you are still identifying with AI, not with Jesus. I know there are Christians who are not really saved because they disagree with God's judgments. They do not see themselves as guilty. They do not see themselves as being like AI. And I would just say, if you are one of those people, cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ and tell him, Lord, thank you for being a savior for people guilty of everything that AI has committed. Help me not to judge others who have been saved out of wickedness that I've been spared from, because I know in my heart I am guilty as well. There's one more lesson. to be learned, it's not in your bulletins. I think it's an important lesson, though, and that is that we do not need to be sin-focused. And I love this lesson. Yes, your sin is exposed by Jesus, just as this king was exposed and humiliated, but the king wasn't allowed to be the center of attention forever. Once it was clear he was dead, he was under God's curse, he was taken down. And in the same way, once our sin is exposed and confessed and put under the blood of Jesus, I say, cut it down, bury it, and move on. Don't dwell on the past. Some people are so ashamed of their past, they have a hard time moving on. But once your sin is buried, you have a new identity in Jesus. Move on by grace into the future that God has for you, and do so by faith that if He is for you, no one can be successfully against you. Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank You. Thank You, thank You, thank You for forgiving us of our sins. We who deserved the death penalty spiritually in hell, just as AI symbolically did, and yet you spared us. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for bearing the curse in our place that we might receive the blessing that Jesus deserves. Thank you for the gospel that was hidden in this paragraph. And I pray, Father, that each one of us would grow in more and more appreciation for all that you have wrought on our behalf and help us to rise up and to come into agreement with your judgments and to come into agreement with your justice, whether it's in civics or whether it's simply in terms of your view of our own sins. Help us, Father, to engage in a holy crusade against our own flesh, our own sinful temptations, and to never stop fighting against them until the last enemy is put down. We look forward to being in heaven when we'll be completely and forever freed from every vestige of sin, but in the meantime, help us to be good soldiers of the cross, to never get discouraged, but to constantly focus on Jesus, who is the author and finisher of our faith. And it's in His name that we pray. Amen.