We're going to be taking another look at Joshua 8, 30 through 35, which really is another expression of how high and wide and lavish God's love and His grace is, even on a national level. Joshua 8, beginning to read at verse 30. 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 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 commanded, 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." Amen. Father, we thank you for your Word, and I pray that as we take another look at this paragraph, that you would open the eyes of our understanding and help us to apply it to the lives that we are living today. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the passage we just read is one of several passages in the Bible where an entire nation covenants with God from top to bottom to live out the God's law by His grace, and believe it or not, over the last 2,000 years, There have actually been a number of tribes and nations who have done exactly what was being done here in Joshua 8. Now last week we looked at the rich symbols of grace, a grace sufficient to sustain even a national covenant, and I want to give a little bit of review what we went over. The cursings of Deuteronomy 27 were read up on Mount Ebal. Half the tribes were there, half on Mount Gerizim, and the people on Gerizim would answer amen to each of those curses. And then the blessings of Deuteronomy 28 were read on Mount Gerizim, and the people on Mount Ebal would cry out amen at the end of each of those blessings. And in the valley in between the two mountains was the Ark of the Covenant, which represented God's presence and the presence of his angels in Israel's midst. And we saw that God's presence in their midst produced either cursings or blessings. How does a nation receive the blessing rather than the curse? It's not by the works of the law because we see all through history nations break God's laws just like individuals break the law. The gospel to the nations that Jesus commanded us to preach in the Great Commission is not a legalistic gospel. Nations can only have God's blessing through redemption, a redemption that goes far as the curse is found, to quote the Christmas hymn, Joy to the World. For there to be a Christian civilization, redemption must be applied to absolutely every facet of everything that we do. Anyway, we saw that Christ's redemption was symbolized by the sacrifices in these verses. And interestingly, the altar where all those sacrifices was made was not on Mount Gerizim. It was put up on the Mount of Cursing, Mount Ebal, which represented the fact, since those sacrifices pointed to Jesus, that Jesus had to bear God's curses in our place before we could be at peace with God. And the Samaritans, well, let me just, before I go on to that, God commanded Joshua to make the altar of sacrifice with stones taken from the field without any iron implement fashioning them. And those uncut stones symbolized the fact that they can contribute nothing to their salvation. We saw that the Samaritans worshiped on Mount Gerizim. After all, who doesn't want blessings rather than cursings? But Jesus in John chapter 4 rejected the worship of the Samaritans because they were seeking to have the blessings of the covenant while rejecting the sacrifices. Another way of saying it, they're trying to have the blessings without acknowledging that Jesus alone could bear the curses in their place. Well, that means that they're going to have a works righteousness kind of salvation. that robbed them of any blessing. Without both mountains, you have an antinomian grace or a graceless law. In contrast, God had Joshua write the whole law on those stones of the altar. They're whitewashed, and then he wrote all of these words of the law on there to make it clear that both are united in Jesus. We also saw last week that this whole event was a national covenant, just like the Scottish national covenant. And so last week focused on the nature of the grace that is needed for there to be a Christian nation. And we're going to park on these six verses for three weeks. Next week, Lord willing, we'll look at all of the other elements that are absolutely essential to becoming a Christian nation, which, by the way, is the goal of the Great Commission. Make disciples of all nations, right? But today we're going to be looking at all of the agents of a truly Christian nation. England still claims to be a Christian nation, believe it or not. We've long ago given up claiming to be that here in America. England still claims to be a Christian nation, but because the people of England have abandoned their roles in the National Covenant, God has abandoned the nation. It is no longer a Christian nation by any definition given in the Bible. And this is true of a lot of other formerly Christian nations. So we need to examine, who is it that covenants with God within a Christian nation? Is it only the leaders? And I believe the answer is no. Verse 33 begins, then all Israel with their elders and officers and judges stood on either side of the ark. Notice that it's all Israel, and the all are distinguished from the leadership. So this speaks of the individual. It refers to the first of four governments that we saw are absolutely essential to a Christian civilization. Those four governments are self-government, family government, church government, and state, okay, state government. And unlike many statist counterfeits of Christian nationalism, the first and most important government is not the state. Not by a long shot. The first and most important government is self-government that God established with Adam in Genesis chapter 2. The next most important government is the family that God established with Adam and Eve. And those two are the only governments that were established before the fall, contrary to the Christian nationalism book. the only governments established before the fall, and they had by far the most liberties and freedoms. After the fall, God established church government and state government, but he hugely restricted their scope. And yet sin makes those last two governments grow and grow and grow, always at the expense of the individual and the family. Anyway, God starts with the individual citizen. Citizens have a huge impact upon the character of a nation, and so to the degree that the individuals within a nation are sincerely committed to the true gospel and the comprehensive claims of God's law, well, that nation is likely going to move in a good direction. When the citizenry as a whole becomes pagan, it's likely that the institutions of that nation will become pagan as well. So this speaks to the priority of evangelism and discipleship of individuals into a comprehensive worldview. Without evangelism and Christian education, a nation is lost. It is. America slid down the slippery slope into lostness when it established non-Christian public schools, okay? And we saw last week that God intended Israel to be a paradigm to make the Gentiles jealous of the blessings of the gospel, jealous of the blessings of the law. And was he successful in doing that? And I say, absolutely, he was successful. Later on in the sermon, we're going to be seeing there were a lot of Gentile individuals that were making covenant with God right here. And you can see that with the word strangers in verses 33 and 35. Okay, in chapter nine, we're gonna see an entire Gentile nation that covenants with God because they see God as real. His laws are good. Now, they didn't do it the right way. We'll look at that in the future, but they did covenant with God. In any case, it is critical that the individuals within a nation hear and believe the gospel and then get discipled and taught on how God's word applies to everything they do. Christian education, not government education. We'll see in verse 35 that these individuals included even the very young children. They are never too young to start learning But here it's enough to say all Israel became immersed in the law of God during this massive conference But verse 33 goes on to mention the leadership of Israel and the first part of that leadership is summarized with the word elders Now I may be wrong I'm not going to be absolutely dogmatic. I may be wrong, but it is my studied opinion that the word elders usually in the Old Testament refers to the elders of the synagogue system, a system that was established in Exodus chapter 18 and in Numbers chapter 11. Now, if you wonder why we have the particular form of Presbyterian government that we have, just look at the synagogue system. There is a one-to-one identity between them on every level. There was no change in church government from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Now, the temple passed away and all the ceremonial worship passed away, but the synagogue system continued on, and the New Testament even calls the church the synagogue, okay? That's why the first time that the word elders is used in the New Testament to describe church officers is in Acts 11 verse 30, and that verse indicates that those elders had always been there. Okay, where did they come from? Okay, we have no record of the apostles setting up anything new, any kind of new office, you know, some kind of supposed new church office before Acts 11. They were just there. Well, the church started with the remnant of Israel, and the synagogue system was transferred right over into the New Testament church. Now let me give you one other little hint about that. Jeremiah 19 verse 1 is one of several verses that distinguishes two orders within the office of elder. Jeremiah 19 verse 1 speaks of the elders of the people, that would be ruling elders, and it speaks of the elders of the priests, that would be teaching elders, but They all had equality of authority within the synagogue, okay? And if you want a very detailed analysis of how our Presbyterian views on church government are founded in the Old Testament, they're illustrated profusely in the New Testament, I would encourage you to read Douglas Bannerman's book, The Scripture Doctrine of the Church, Historically and Exegetically Considered. It's a marvelous treatment. Or if you like some heavier reading, just read some of the Scottish reformers like Gillespie or Rutherford. All of the elders in the synagogue system were operated in graded courts from the local level, what we call a session, all the way up to general assembly. And interestingly, in Numbers 11, it says only 70 of the elders were picked from the presbyteries to be at the general assembly. So enough by way of background. If I'm right, And again, not dogmatic, but if I'm right, and the word elders here refers to church elders, which I am pretty much 100%, I'm as dogmatic as you can get. I'm about 100% convinced it does. Then it means that the church is not just under a ministry of grace, the church is also committing itself to live out God's law. And I think it is shameful that the modern church hates God's law so much. This is such an anomaly. The church used to revel in God's law. That's like throwing out the blueprints for a skyscraper and trying to build a skyscraper. Or it's like, you know, wandering through the wilderness without any map to guide you. As we saw last week, people misunderstand the gospel if they separate law and grace. Romans 3, verse 13 says, And so the church officers were committing themselves to live out biblical blueprints and to do so by His grace. So, do you want to have a Christian nation reestablished before the Lord? Well, start with the church. Don't wait for the state to do anything. You can start with the earlier government, self-government, family government, church government. Seek to influence them, convince them to embrace all of God's blueprints in the Bible. Now, interestingly, the civil officers are also committing themselves to both law and grace. And I think we need to think about that because some people mistakenly say that grace should characterize the church and law should characterize the state. It's actually a false dichotomy. If you read through 1 and 2 Kings, you will see that if there are kings that have not experienced God's grace, they're not saved, they automatically lead the citizens into sin. Rulers, too, must pray. They must experience God's grace if their rule is to be blessed. Psalm 125, verse 3 says, anytime unsaved rulers rule, Citizens reach out their hands to iniquity. It's just the way the covenant works. The state too must be redeemed by Christ and submit to Christ's laws. Now there are some people like Stephen Wolfe in his new book, who insists that the civil government only follows natural law and the church follows biblical law. But what do we see here? We see each of the civil officers committing themselves to the law of Moses as well. And here it mentions officers and judges, but Joshua and his assistants were, in context of the whole paragraph, they were in covenant as well. So let's spend a little bit of time looking at each of the agents of civil government. Each one is needed in a Christian nation. Joshua acted in the capacity of the chief executive officer. The executive office is the office that wields the sword. That's the office that Romans 13 refers to. Already in the time of Moses, the clerical and the civil offices were separated into Aaron and Moses, and some people have misrepresented theocracy or Christian civilization as if it means the church ruling over the state or the state ruling over the church. No, neither is true. In the Bible, there was a jurisdictional separation of church and state. Very, very important to hold to that. Now, it was not a separation of God and state or Bible and state or grace and state. No, it's a separation of two quite distinct jurisdictions of government. from each other, and both of them need God's grace and his law. Now, Joshua here represents the chief executive office. And even though there are slight differences between Joshua, later judges, and later kings, they all held the office of civil rule. And David later made it clear in 2 Samuel 23.3, he who rules over men must be just ruling in the fear of God. and God's law defines justice. When America threw out God's law, it broke covenant with God. Stories of first and second kings illustrate that without a godly ruler as the chief executive, a nation could go downhill very, very quickly. Now, John Jay, who was a signer of the American Constitution and the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, said this. Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers. Does that surprise you? of our first Chief Justice. Let me give you a tiny peek into a forgotten history, the history of the first two centuries of America's states. In 1645, John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts, established a covenant for all of the civic officers and the citizens, and he stated this. The covenant between you and us is the oath you have taken of us, which is to this purpose, that we shall govern you and judge your causes by the rules of God's laws. Massachusetts has sure changed a lot, hasn't it? It started off covenanting with God just like this nation did in Joshua 8. And by the way, if we had about four or five hours, I could give you quotes from many governors of various states in America in the first 200 years of their existence that said very similar things. over the years. So did presidents of the United States. Sometimes they were sincere, other times they were hypocrites, but the presence of a strong Christian culture made many of those in America's executive offices in the past affirm that God's laws were over the nation. And let me just read you a tiny sampling, some of which may surprise you. George Washington, the first president, said, it is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible. In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson, hypocrite, but anyway, Woodrow Wilson said, America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture. In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge said, the foundations of our society and our government rests so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country. President Harry S. Truman said, the fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. Now, did our country always rightly understand how God's law was supposed to apply? No. Did they always perfectly live it out? No, they did not. And some of those presidents were absolute hypocrites, but they had to be hypocrites to get elected because it was still a largely Christian population. They had to pander to the Christian population. But the point is, Even those presidents were not embarrassed to acknowledge God's law. Nowadays, it's hard to find any Christians that are willing to affirm God's law within the nation, within a Christian republic. Romans 13 envisions a civil government, again executive office, so in tune with God's law that each and every resistance to the civil authority is a resistance to God and God's word, God's law. Now, the only way that could happen is this, every law within the nation was biblical law. Okay, it says that God instituted the executive office to be a terror to evil works, not good works. That is certainly not describing Nero. It's describing an ideal civil government. The civil magistrate is called by Romans 13 forward to be God's minister to you for good. And so Romans 13 is affirming a continuing need for the sword wielding executive office to be in covenant with God just as they entered into covenant in Joshua chapter eight. The next word in verse 33 is officers. It is the Hebrew word, which is the general word for all civil officers, administrators, those who functioned under the chief executive, whether it was national or a tribe or even smaller. As John Winthrop said in the quote I gave earlier, they too are subject to God's law and they administered God's law within a very limited God-ordained sphere of jurisdiction. There are actually numerous officers that I could quote from early America who mistakenly thought that our Constitution actually committed us to God's law. But there are many parts of our Constitution, I think, go way beyond what the law of God would allow in the civic sphere. But certainly when you go earlier, when you look at the states, it is clearly true. I think that Connecticut's first Constitution in 1639 is a fine example of what it means for civic officers to be in covenant with God. Let me read you the first four articles. Article 1 says, that the scriptures hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of all men in all duties which they are to perform to God and men, as well in families and commonwealth as in matters of the church. So it was committing the civil officers to rule by the word of God and nothing but the word of God, but it was also acknowledging the God-ordained legitimacy of the other three governments, self-government, family government, and church government. Article 2 states the regulative principle of government rather well. It says that, So likewise, in all public offices which concern civil order, dot, dot, dot, and we'll read the rest in a bit, but I'm just going to pause there and comment. What Connecticut's first constitution is saying is that the civil government is just as constrained by the word of God as we all know that the church is supposed to be constrained by the word of God. Now another way of stating this regulative principle of government is that just as the church is restricted in its authority to only do what God's word has explicitly authorized it to do, so too in the civil sphere the civics is restricted to only do what God has allowed it to do. Well that makes for a rather limited civil government. And if you look at the civil government of Connecticut back in those days, it was 99 point something percent smaller than Connecticut's government today. Article two goes on, as the choice of magistrates and officers making and repealing laws, dividing allotments of inheritance and all things of like nature, they would all be governed by those rules which the scripture held forth to them. So again, it's a beautiful declaration. The state can only do what the rules of Scripture allow it to do. By the way, this was not some new doctrine, some strange doctrine. Connecticut was just reviving the long-established principles that have been held by Christian nations over the previous thousand years. This was at the heart of the Christian Commonwealth, and it was that England had backslidden away from that. This was a revolt against England's backsliddenness. Article 3 says that all those who had desired to be received free planters had settled in the plantation with a purpose, resolution, and desire that they might be admitted into church fellowship according to Christ. So it was stating that its immigration policies preferred Christians in good standing in a church. It was assuming that if it was to have a Christian civilization at the state level, then every citizen must be a member of a church. Now in saying this, it was actually being a bit more strict than Joshua 8 was. Joshua 8 allowed Gentiles or aliens to stay with Israel so long as they're willing to abide by Israel's laws. And most states in America allowed that too. But I mention this because it is possible for a Christian state to be explicitly trying to be Christian and yet be too strict or to be too lax. Okay, and this is why more exegetical work needs to be done on the boundaries and the functions of the state. Article 4 states, that all the free planters held themselves bound to establish such civil order as might best conduce to the security and peace of the ordinance to themselves and their posterity according to God. In other words, the citizens themselves had a duty to ensure that the civil government was following God's word. Now, do they keep it perfectly? Obviously not, but they were seeking to do the best that they could according to their ability. And this is why grace needs to precede law, not just on an individual level, but on a national level as well. When a nation puts its trust in Christ, it can have God's favor, even when it is not totally consistent with God's word. I mean, which of you perfectly lives out God's word? None of us do, right? And so don't think that nations can't be Christian nations unless they perfectly conform to Scripture. I mean, there's a tendency for us to be perfectionistic when it comes to politics. And I think we need to avoid that. We should be striving to be more consistent. That's the direction we should be going. But grace comes before law. Now let me give you another example. Until 1868, The North Carolina Constitution said that no person who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Christian religion or the divine authority of the Old or New Testaments or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the state shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this state. After 1868, they changed the wording. It was still pretty good after 1868. You know, for over 100 years after the ratification of the federal constitution, Connecticut continued to be an explicitly Christian state. And the same was true of other states. Because of government school brainwashing, we have forgotten this history. We think Joshua 8 just cannot be applied today, but it can. And there are good books out there that show the Christian character of America. When you read them, you realize a revolution has taken over America. The seeds were planted in the Constitution, but it was really not until my lifetime that the nation has fallen faster and faster down the slippery slope into an anti-Christian philosophy. Just a couple more quotes. Maryland's Toleration Act of 1649 doesn't seem very tolerant by modern standards. It stated, be it therefore enacted that whatsoever person or persons within this province shall from henceforth blaspheme God or shall deny our Savior Jesus Christ to be the Son of God or shall deny the Holy Trinity the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or the unity of the Trinity, shall be punished with death and confiscation or forfeiture of all of his or her lands." In other words, unbelief was kept private. If there was a Buddhist there, they're not going to build a Buddhist temple, right? Delaware's constitution stated, every person who shall be chosen a member of either house shall make and subscribe the following declaration. I, blank, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forevermore, and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old Testament to be given by divine inspiration. By the way, a lot of these people, when you read their writings, they reference passages like Joshua 8, and Nehemiah, and other passages to justify why they're covenanting with God. Now I bring all of those quotes up because there's going to be skepticism in people's mind that we've actually backslidden as far as we have, but I bring them up because there have been legitimate differences of opinion among both the founders and scholars since that time on whether America was a Christian nation. Some said yes, some said no. The people who said yes, we were a Christian nation, like John Jay, they emphasized the fact that America was only supposed to be an imperfect confederation of Christian states. In other words, Christian nations, plural. Not one nation under God, but a confederation of nations or states. Okay? And the states continued to have strong Christian foundations long after the Constitution was ratified, and that's true. But here's the thing, you'd be hard-pressed to find any biblical basis for most articles in our federal Constitution. It goes way beyond the Scripture. So the true view of whether we were a Christian nation is really somewhere in between those two opinions, I think. We were a confederation of Christian nations. But once this world is fully Christianized, civic officers will once again affirm belief in the gospel, will covenant with God, will submit to His Lordship, will be bound by His laws, and will find empowerment by His grace. That's what we can be looking forward to. Now the next word in verse 33 is judges. The Shaphat judge was a judge who settled cases in court. Now, by coming into covenant with God in this grace law covenant, the judges were committing themselves to judge all of their cases according to the law of God, not man's law. Only God's law reflects God's unchanging, perfect justice. And a lot of people say, yeah, but that's just impossible nowadays. Did you know that American courts started off by upholding biblical laws? And as late as 1943, H.B. Clark reported that, quote, many provisions of biblical law are still seen in American statutes and court decisions. That was 1943. Prior to that time, American courts would frequently cite the Pentateuch for their various decisions. Let me give you one of the last examples prior to 1943. I read the 1939 decision of Ex parte Curth, and it cited Deuteronomy 1, 16 through 17, Deuteronomy 16, 18 through 20, Leviticus 19, 15, and several New Testament passages as the basis for their decision. OK? Enough said on that. I do want you to notice, though, that in this list of civic officers that there is a very clear absence of congressmen or senators because lawmaking is the prerogative of God alone. The laws of a nation reveal the God of that nation. And sadly, even Christian nations have repeatedly been tempted to introduce lawmakers. Inevitably, what happens when you've got lawmakers is they make laws. New laws, hundreds of thousands of new laws. And what happens then is the citizens exchange the perfect law of liberty given by God for the heavy, heavy yoke of man's law. Interpretation of the law, yes. There is a basis for experts to be interpreting and applying it to new cultural issues. It's popular in Christian circles today to disparage God's civil laws as being heavy-handed. After all, God's law calls for the death penalty for adultery. That is, if the victim asks for the highest penalty, his victim's rights, and people say, oh, that's just way, way, way too strict. God's law calls thieves and vandals to pay up to 400% to the victim. How antiquated is that? I mean, forget about the victim. Every enlightened person knows that the vandal should be housed at the victim's expense for a minimum of $35,000 a year for year after year where he can learn more criminal behaviors from other prisoners. That's the enlightened way, right? Of course, I'm speaking facetiously. The truth is the exact opposite. God's law is the perfect answer to demotivate criminals and to protect future victims. And the only things that can be considered as crimes by us are laws in the Bible that have a specific penalty attached to it by God himself. Well, wow, that means that there are not very many criminal laws in the Bible. Let's contrast that with a heavy yoke of man's law that has arisen ever since God's laws were thrown off. It is so heavy that even the agency responsible for full-time printing of the federal laws says that it's impossible to calculate how many statutes at large, resolutions, agency regulations, edicts, and other forms of law there are. In 1982, the Justice Department started a full-time project. They were commissioned. Find out how many criminal laws are on the books. They said, don't even look at how many regulations and edicts and other things are out there. Just try to find out how many criminal laws are on the books. That was their task. After two years, they gave up in frustration, saying that calculating the number of criminal laws is absolutely impossible. Ronald Gaynor, who headed up this well-funded and well-staffed research project, reported, quote, you will have died and been resurrected three times, unquote. And then he goes on to say, and you're still not going to come up with an answer. OK? I asked OpenAI if it knew how many federal criminal laws there are. You know, it knows everything, right? And it said, as of 2021, which is, I guess, its information cutoff date, it said, no one has any idea. Well, if no one has any idea what the criminal laws are, how on earth do you know if you've broken one of those criminal laws or not? And so just for fun, I asked OpenAI, how can it be fair to be held accountable to these laws if no one knows what they are? And here's what it said. The vast and complex nature of the Federal Criminal Code makes it difficult for individuals to know if they have potentially violated a specific federal criminal law, especially if they're not legal professionals or have access to legal resources. However, ignorance of the law is generally not considered a valid defense if someone is charged with a crime. The legal principle of Ignorantia Legis Nunnum Excusat, ignorance of the law excuses no one, holds that individuals are expected to be aware of and abide by the laws of their jurisdiction, including federal laws. And it went on to say, just trust the agencies and the experts. So my further question to AI is, well, since you already said that none of the agencies knows what the criminal laws are, doesn't know all of them, isn't everything up for grabs? You can have a little bit of fun poking around in OpenAI. Now let's contrast that with the easily accessible open book policy of biblical law. In this passage that we read, Every civil, ecclesiastical, family, and personal law was read to the people during the time of this conference. Every law was read. Look at verse 35. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded, 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. And the civil portion of God's law is a very, very small portion of the law. God's laws are honest. They're open book. They bring liberty. America's laws are so numerous that they cannot be known, and they are so intrusive that it is likely, according to one federal agent, that every American has unwittingly broken some federal law without knowing it. I mean, IRS code alone, they say it's impossible for any accountant to be fully familiar with everything that's in the IRS code. And so it's likely that every one of you at some point in your life is going to have violated the IRS code. Keep that in mind when the news media accuses some politician of tax evasion or violating tax code. Anybody could be accused of that, but it's worse. How could it get worse than what I've just described? Well, it's worse because every agency also makes laws and regulations, and there are 443 official federal agencies. Now, you may not have realized it, But Article 1, Section 1 of our Constitution prohibits every one of those agencies because it makes it very clear that the Congress may not delegate its legislative function. And yet that's exactly what it's doing when it sets up these agencies. And so They're clearly unbiblical and they all negatively impact every citizen in our nation and have been doing so for every year since I was born. Man's law is suffocating and yet they have the gall to criticize biblical law as oppressive. What is God's law oppressive to? God's law restricts the state. God's law is oppressive to the state. God's law keeps the state from doing everything that it wants to do, okay? God placed huge limits upon the power of every branch of civil government because God knows how dangerous the civil government really is. In contrast, both Republicans and Democrats very self-consciously call the people who oversee the agencies czars. Czars were the dictators in Russia who had almost unlimited powers and no accountability, and both Democrats and Republicans admit that the modern czars, such as the drug czar, the intelligence czar, the cybersecurity czar, have broad powers entrusted to them that are not specified in the law. Okay? George W. Bush appointed 33 czars. Barack Obama appointed 38. Very little difference between them. Now again, I bring all of this up to show that we have long ago ceased to be a Christian nation, but also to help you to appreciate how beautiful the biblical system is in comparison with what we have today. The more our nation has drifted from the God of our forefathers, the more it looks like it is trying to be God. Okay, statism almost unconsciously tries to be the god of the people. When you think of the extensive unconstitutional powers of the federal agencies, think of the divine attribute of omnipotence, trying to be all powerful. When you think of the surveillance of the federal government, including it's trying to bring this summer, which we need to resist it, but they're trying to bring in digital currency that can be tracked. So they know exactly, they have more information on you, where you spend all your money. Just think of the divine attribute of omniscience. When you think of how intrusive all of the regulations of the various agencies trying to regulate everything that you do, think of the attribute of omnipresence. The state is omnipresent in your life. When you think of welfare, think of the attribute of God's grace and his provision. The modern state is seeking to be as God, and what does God do with anybody who tries to take his rightful place? He declares war upon them, just like He declared war upon the Canaanites, the Pharaohs, the emperors of the past. And if we're to avoid the judgments that the Canaanites received in this book, our nation will once again have to bow its knee before King Jesus. Our money says in God we trust, but it's a lie. It's an absolute lie. Now let me quickly comment on each of the other parts of this Christian civilization. Verse 33 mentions the priests, the Levites who bore the Ark of the Covenant. Now these were not the priests and the Levites who were scattered throughout all of the tribes and clans of Israel teaching in the synagogues. Those were called elders. These Levitical priests are specifically said to be the ones who carry the Ark. In other words, they functioned in the tabernacle and later in the temple. That whole temple system was ceremonial, it passed away. Now, it teaches us things though, if the Ark represents God's throne, which it does, And the priests and the Levites who bore the Ark represent his heavenly kingdom, and this represents the presence of God and his angels within the nation. The warrior angels were carved onto the Ark of the Covenant to represent the angels of heaven warring on our behalf. They were at the center of this massive assembly, not at the periphery. And they were at the center to symbolize that everything must be patterned after heaven, empowered by heaven, and in submission to heaven. So, if everything that I've been describing seems like a hopeless cause to you, just realize we've got massive numbers of angels, and we've got God's very presence who is willing to fight on our behalf if we are willing to follow him, submit to him, and trust him. Verse 33. Then all Israel, with the 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." Now, as mentioned, the ark of the covenant represented God's throne room in heaven. When heaven invades earth, which is what we pray in the Lord's Prayer, isn't it? Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. How well is God's will being done in heaven? It's being done perfectly, right? Because at Christ's ascension, Satan, who accused the brethren in heaven, like he did in the book of Job, he was cast out, and all the demons were cast out of heaven. So if that's the pattern, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, wow, we've got a long ways to go, don't we? Long ways to go. Why do we not see more advancement in our lifetime? We've seen huge advancements in the past, and actually we are seeing advancements in other parts of the world, but why are we not seeing it here in America? It may be because we as individuals don't want His kingdom advance that far in our lives. If there are certain pockets of our lives that are untouched by grace and unsubmissive to His law, then don't expect God to answer our prayers for culture. Second, it may be that we are not praying in faith that God's kingdom would come and his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. If you don't believe that the promises of scripture, that the nations will be converted, that's eschatology, right? If you don't believe the Great Commission will be fulfilled, we're gonna be just as unsuccessful as the previous generation was utterly unsuccessful under Joshua. Hebrews says it was because they lacked faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. And so eschatology is critical to faith. When a nation is given the faith that this generation had in the book of Joshua, in one generation, you can have advancements of Christian civilization and examples abound. In the Old Testament, Nineveh went from being a thoroughly God-hating culture to a culture in submission to God's law and did so almost overnight. In the next chapter, we'll see an entire nation of Gibeonites converted, and in later history, we're gonna be seeing that those Gibeonites remained more faithful to God than Israel did, okay? In the last 2,000 years, numerous examples, some of them more biblical than others, but Roman Empire converted in 83, 13. Ireland underwent a Christianization process in the 5th century, men like St. Patrick. England Christianized in the 6th through 7th centuries under men like Augustine of Canterbury. Conversion of Norway, Sweden, Denmark took several centuries, but by the end, the results were sweeping, sweeping. Poland converted in 89-66. Russia also converted in the 10th century. And there have been a number of modern conversions that I've mentioned to you in the past of tribes in India. And you know, the two tribes that I grew up with, completely Christian. And they're willing to apply God's law to their cultures. All of those conversions looked impossible because every conversion is a miracle of God's grace. And our God is a God of miracles. And I would encourage you to really believe our God reigns. He is on His throne, and Jesus will not stop reigning until He has brought all enemies under His feet. That's what 1 Corinthians 15 guarantees. Guarantees. Now, the next word, stranger, is the Hebrew word ger. which throughout the Old Testament meant resident alien. Ager was never a Jew, okay? If he got circumcised, he would no longer be called Ager. He would be called a Jew. Agair was a Gentile who had decided to leave his pagan nation to live in Israel, but who remained a Gentile. And this shows to me that Joshua's conquest was more than simply judgment. It was magnetically attracting Gentiles to its cause. Citizens could always defect. They could see the difference between their pagan nation and Israel and say, we don't want to associate any longer with whatever nation that they were a part of. They could defect to Israel. We saw last week that the entire book of Deuteronomy was written onto the large white washstones to represent grace. and His law as a billboard for all to read. Okay, it's just like a giant sign. And in Deuteronomy, God gave us His purpose for this, that He wanted Gentiles to become jealous of the gospel, to forsake their gods, to embrace the liberties enjoyed by Israel. So the National Covenant included them. Even if they weren't converted, they still agreed to the civil religion of Israel. And some people say, no, no, no. As soon as you talk about civil religion, they say, oh, you can't have that. That's going to promote hypocrisy. You can't have civil religion. I say, you always have a civil religion. Civil religion is unavoidable. Every Christian state for the first 200 years had the civil religion of Christianity. Whether people were Christians or not, they adhered to the Christian civil religion. But what do we have now? We've got a humanistic, statist civil religion. It is unavoidable. It's always going to be there. In any case, based on what we see here, our own nation should be willing to receive immigrants if they are willing to affirm submission to God's laws like these resident aliens were, if they at least formally agree with the civil religion of the Bible, pledging that we are one nation under the God of the Bible, which is what was meant by the Pledge of Allegiance in earlier days. Any time an immigrant came in, They pledged allegiance, one nation under God, right? It's really not that much different. The next phrase, as well as he who was born among them, is actually one Hebrew word with the preposition as in front of it. And that word is the normal word for natural born citizen. Now you'd expect a natural born citizen to be in covenant with God. But the Gentile had to at least outwardly embrace the national covenant in the same way in order to enjoy the benefits of that nation. Now, people wonder why the early states in America absolutely insisted upon Christianity being the foundation of the nation when not everybody in the nation was a Christian. And the answer is, the moment you allow equal footing to other religions or no religions, you lose the liberties of God's laws. It's automatic. So literally this says the resident alien just as the natural born citizen. Verse 35 indicates that it wasn't just the heads of households who covenanted with God, so did the women. Okay? I emphasize this because it's one of several proofs of what I said last week, that for Christian civilization to be successful, all four governments that God established must embrace God's law and gospel. Four governments are self-government, family government, church government, civil government. Hyperpatriarchy sometimes evaporates the importance of self-government because the patriarch makes every single decision. For him to single out women and little ones shows the need for individual self-government in a Christian civilization as well. It also implies families. Yeah. And I think it's especially significant that the little ones are mentioned because they could not self-consciously come into agreement with God's law. At least most of them couldn't. I shouldn't say most of them, all of them couldn't. Yet God considers them to be citizens under His law anyway. They came into covenant with God without even having a choice. The point is that these children will benefit from the liberties of the law that we looked at last week, but they enjoy those liberties because they are citizens subject to the laws of the nation. The moment you break the nation's laws, You lose those liberties, even if you're a covenant child. Leaders cannot turn a blind eye to the rebellion of covenant children. And then finally, he mentions any stranger who happens to be visiting or living among them for a time. This is really true of any nation. To enjoy the benefits of America, visitors to America have to abide by its laws, right? It's pretty obvious. And God intended all those living within Israel to abide by his written law code as given in Deuteronomy. Now, we'll get to that part next week, but for now, let's pray for and seek to influence every form of government that was mentioned in this passage. Amen. Father, thank you. Thank you for the reminders in your Word of national covenants. We tend not to think about that very much. We tend to individualize or just apply to the family and church so much of Your Word, but we know that a lot of Your Word also calls for entire nations, entire cultures to seek to live out everything that they do according to Your Word. And I pray that You would help us more and more to press into that, not to be perfectionistic and yet to keep pressing into the upward calling that You've given to us. Bless this, Your people, as they continue to study and apply Your Word. In Jesus' name, amen.