Now we're going to talk about obedience. We talked about sin in the camp. We talked about forgiveness. Now we're going to talk about obedience. Obedience. Now the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you and arise and go up to Ai. And see, pay attention, I have given into your hand the king of Ai and his people and his city and his land. And you shall do to Ai and to his king, as I told you to do in Jericho, and his king, you shall only take his spoil and his cattle as plunder for yourselves. Now, he says, you can have it. You can have the plunder. You can have the cattle now. I saw that you were going to be an idiot, now be obedient now. And if Achan had lived till this day, he could have taken things. But he was disobedient. So Joshua rose with all the people of war to go up to Yai, and Joshua chose 30,000 men, valiant warriors, and sent them out at night. And he commanded them, saying, see, you are going to ambush the city from behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready. Then I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. And it will come about when they come out to meet us at first, that we will flee before them. We're going to act like we did before. And they will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say they are fleeing as before the first, and so we will flee before them. And you will arise from your ambush and take possession of the city, for the Lord your God will deliver it into your hand. Now he's going to use strategy here. This is war strategy. Then it will be when you have seized the city that you have set the city on fire. You shall do it according to the word of the Lord. See, I have commanded you. Be obedient. Obedience is what happens. Now they were afraid now because the city whipped them before. But now you do what I tell you, and you are going to conquer. And not only that, but I'm going to give you the spoils of the city. You couldn't have it before, but now you can. So Joshua sent them away, and they went to a place of ambush and remained between Bethel and Ai, in the west side of Ai. But Joshua spent all night among the people. And Joshua rose early in the morning and mustered the people, and he went up with the elders of Israel before the people of Ai, that all the people of war who were with him went up and drew near and arrived in front of the city and camped on the north side of Ai. And now there was a valley between him and Ai. And he took 5,000 men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai on the west side of the city. And so they stationed the people and all the army that was on the north side of the city and its rear guard on the west side of the city. And Joshua spent all the night in the midst of that valley. And it came about when the king Ai saw it, that the men of the city hurried and rose up early and went out to meet the Israel in battle. And he and all his people in the appointed place before the desert palm, but he did not know that the Lord was in ambush against him behind the city. And Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten before them and fled by the way of the wilderness. And all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them, and they pursued Joshua and were drawn away from the city. And not a man was left in the Ai or Bethel who had not gone out after Israel, and they left the city unguarded and pursued Israel. Then the Lord said to Joshua, Stretch out the javelin that is in your right hand toward Ai. And I will give it into your hand." So Joshua stretched out the javelin in his right hand toward the city, and the men in ambush rose quickly from their place. And when they stretched out his hand, they ran and entered the city and captured it, and they quickly set the city on fire. And when the men of Ai turned back and looked, behold, the smoke of the city ascended into the sky. They had no place to flee, this way or that way, for the people who had been fleeing in the wilderness turned against them, their pursuers. And Joshua and all of Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city, and the smoke of the city ascended, and they turned back and slew the men of Aon. And the others came out from the city to encounter them and they were trapped between the midst of Israel. Some on one side and some on the other side and they slew them until not one was left of those who survived or escaped. They took alive the king of Ai and they brought him to Joshua. Now it came about when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness where they pursued them that all of them were fallen by the edge of the sword until they were destroyed, then all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. And all who fell that day, both women and children, were twelve thousand, all the people of Ai. For Joshua did not withdraw his hand from which he had stretched out the javelin until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. And Israel took only the cattle and the spoiled city as plunder for themselves according to the word of the Lord, which he had commanded. Obedience, obedience, obedience. Now, the other cattle in the other cities were evidently very much diseased, but now God said you can keep these. God saw beforehand that these are okay. And Joshua burned Ai and made a heap forever, a desolation until this day. And he hanged the king of Ai. He hung him. on a tree until evening. At the sunset Joshua commanded and he took his body down from the tree and they threw it in the entrance of the city gate. And he raised over it a heap of stones that stands to this day. And of course he's not talking about 2024, he's talking about back in this period of time when this book was written. And Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel in Mount Abel. Just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the sons of Israel, as is written in the book of the Law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones. Now let's think about that for a minute. An altar of uncut stones. What does that mean? An altar of uncut stones. When you cut a stone, you're manufacturing it, aren't you? We, in all of our sinfulness, in all of our Adamic nature, or by nature sinners, the uncut stones. By grace, always by grace, God has saved men. Always by grace. In other words, we don't deserve it. It's not because of what we do or what we have done or what we will do. God saves us by grace. Now those cut stones on all of those pagan altars, they had to be cut and formed in a beautiful select way. God said don't cut the stones. I made the stones. I will secure your salvation and I will secure your forgiveness. It's nothing that you can do. There's nothing you can do to go to heaven today. We are like uncut stones. We don't deserve salvation. We don't merit salvation. Only God saves us by grace. And how does He do that? By dealing with His Spirit with your heart, humbling your heart, for you ask forgiveness and believing in His Son that Jesus Christ came into this world to die. Galatians 4 and 4 says, for when the fullness of time came forth, or when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem us, those that were under the curse of the law. John 3, 16 says, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. In Romans it says, For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Also, Paul said to the Roman church, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It also says that nothing, once we have been saved, nothing can separate us from the love of God which is merited to us through Christ Jesus our Lord. Not death, nor life, nor any created thing, nor anything yet to come. Those are beautiful words. For in grace ye are having been saved through faith, and that is not of yourself, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Do we work after we're saved? Yes, we work because we love Him. We do things for God because we love Him, we appreciate what He has done for us, because we couldn't buy it. We couldn't buy it. Joshua built an altar there, the God of Israel. in Mount Abel and Moses sent the servant of the Lord and commanded the sons of Israel as it written in the book of the law. An altar of uncut stones on which no man has wilted an iron tool and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings. And he wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses which he had written in the presence of the sons of Israel. And all Israel, whether elders and officers or judges, were standing on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, the stranger as well as the native. Half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them stood in front of Mount Ebal. Just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had given command at first to bless the people of God, the people of Israel. Then afterward he read all the words of the law, and the blessing and the curses, according to all is written in the book of the law. And there was not a word of all the law Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, the strangers who were living among them." The strangers are the believers. The strangers are believers. They were cursed. But now they believed in God. Some of these probably came out of Egypt still. Some of the Egyptians believed. Some of them wandered in the land. Some of the people in Ai may have believed. Some of the people in Jericho believed. We know that. All of these things God did to show his mercy. And he said, I didn't pick you out because you were a great nation. but because you were small, you were nothing. He took Abraham when he was over 90 years old, and he brought forth great nations from his loins. He was as dead, but God made him alive. And all of us were all dead in our sins and trespassings, but God made us alive in Jesus Christ. Paul said to the Corinthian church, he said, I came to you and I preached the gospel, which I preached to you. that Jesus Christ came into this world, that He died on the cross of Calvary, that He was buried, and that He was raised after three days. And that we have seen by all of these men witnesses that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God the Son, came into this world to die for sinners, you and me. For God did not send His world to condemn the world. The world was already condemned that it might have life through Him. And afterwards they read all the words of the law and blessing and curses according to that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word at all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read to all the assembly of Israel with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them. That's why we had discovered the word missionary Baptist church. We preached the word. Preach the word. I remember one of my teachers, Dr. Hoyt Chastain, said, if you want to build a church, preach the word, preach the word, preach the word. If you want to make disciples, preach the word. That's what we do. Father, we send this message out for your honor and glory. Please use it wherever it goes. Please touch the lives of Veronica and all of these people, Donald and Mark and wherever they are in the world. wherever they listen please touch their lives with your word and help spread it build them up in the lord in jesus name we pray amen