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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.
The Agents of a Truly Christian Nation
Series Joshua
| Sermon ID | 6523200212453 |
| Duration | 52:30 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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