Finishing up Deuteronomy chapter 2, and I'm going to begin reading at verse 26. And I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying, let me pass through your land. I will keep strictly to the road and I will turn neither to the right nor to the left. You shall sell me food for money that I may eat and give me water for money that I may drink. only let me pass through on foot, just as the descendants of Esau who dwell in Seir and the Moabites who dwell in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land which the Lord our God is giving us. But Sihon king of Heshpon would not let us pass through, for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate that he might deliver him into your hands as it is this day. The Lord said to me, See, I have begun to give Sion and his land over to you. Begin to possess it, that you may inherit his land. Then Sion and all his people came out against us to fight at Jahaz, and the Lord our God delivered him over to us, So, we defeated him, his sons, and all his people. We took all his cities at that time, and we utterly destroyed the men, women, and the little ones of every city. We left none remaining. We took only the livestock as plunder for ourselves with the spoil of the cities which we took, from Haror, which is on the bank of the River Arnon, And from the city that is in the ravine, as far as Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us. The Lord our God delivered all to us. Only, you did not go near the land of the people of Ammon, anywhere along the river Jabbok, or to the cities of the mountains, or wherever the Lord our God had forbidden us. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word, and I pray that you would enable me to faithfully preach it, and for each of us to grow as a result of it. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Maybe he did. This is a very troubling passage for some people because it describes the total annihilation of every man, woman, and child in the country of Heshbon. It is brutal. It is genocide. I don't think that's too strong a word for it. And some people say, how on earth would God allow this to be included in the Scriptures. The Hebrew word that is used in verse 34 to describe this unusual kind of warfare is the Hebrew word haram, and because Israel was only allowed to war like this against the Canaanites, whom God himself had consigned to destruction, and he had done so by special revelation, Commentators distinguish between this Karam warfare from Israel's normal warfare. This was definitely not their normal authorized warfare. But it still troubles people. In fact, it's one of the most consistently criticized features of Deuteronomy and Joshua. Now, interestingly, evangelicals who get queasy about this don't seem to have the same problem with the doctrine of hell, because the New Testament talks about that as well, right? They somehow, though, seem like they need to explain away or apologize for this harem warfare as if it is inherently unjust. But if punishment in hell is a just punishment for those who reject God, I see no reason why this kind of destruction would be unjust either. And you might wonder, well, what about babies? Well, Psalm 58 verse 3 says that babies are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. That's why we pray for the salvation of our infants. They are not innocent. They need His grace. In any case, today's message is just going to be an introduction to the topic of harem warfare, and by the end of the sermon, I hope you have gained a huge appreciation for this topic. It is a very practical topic. Now, the Hebrew word harem simply means dedicated to destruction. And it describes God's use of Israel as his instrument of justice to destroy certain Canaanite populations. Now, because Joshua was a type of Jesus, and let me explain, a type is simply a picture that prophetically foreshadows, symbolizes Jesus and his work, but because Joshua is a type of Jesus, Biblical scholars believe that Joshua's conquest also has to stand as a type of Christ's spiritual conquest of the world, and I agree. But before I apply it, let me try to tease apart the various ways that this Hebrew word harem is used. Tremper Longman is a theologian. who gives five stages of God's harem warfare principle. He says phase one is seen in this book and in the book of Joshua, and it shows that God fights against his flesh and blood enemies using Israel as a tool of warfare. That's the most obvious stage of harem warfare. Phase two is when God used harem warfare against Israel, interestingly, using Babylon as his instrument of justice. God's point in using the term harem for that whole warfare against Israel was when Israel began acting like the Canaanites, then they shouldn't expect to be treated any differently than God treated the the Canaanites. In fact, God explicitly calls Israel Sodom and Gomorrah. That was a kind of Karam judgment, wasn't it? And he calls them by the names of the Canaanite tribes. Phase three is when God will come in Israel's future as a warrior to fight against all evil. And so, Joshua's warfare is used by the prophets to speak of God's total warfare against all evil. For example, Isaiah 34.2 speaks of God declaring Charum warfare against all evil in all nations. Now, Tremper Longman just primarily applies it to the post-exilic prophets. But I think it applies to all of the prophets. He says that phase four is when Jesus Christ fights against spiritual powers and demonic forces in the church age. The word is used of his total warfare against Satan. Christ's goal was to destroy Satan and all that Satan stands for, and so Tremper points out that the Bible very clearly treats Jesus as a second Joshua, this time fighting against Satan and his demonic hosts. Now, I would apply it further, but hey, at least that is true. He says that phase five is the final battle on the final day of history when Christ leads His angelic hosts to fight against the resurrected enemies, and He casts them into hell. Now, that's fine as far as it goes, There really, though, needs to… I don't think it goes far enough because there really needs to be a Christocentric focus on all of God's Charum warfare throughout the entire Bible. And the most important aspect of God's Charum warfare, which Tremper Longman completely misses, was when God declared war against His Son, and He destroyed His Son on the cross because Jesus took in His body, He took our sin, the sin of all of His elect, Where we deserve Charim warfare, Jesus suffered in our place. Okay? So he was destroyed as a substitute for his elect. And this helps to understand how 1 Corinthians 15 can apply the word destruction, the Greek word for Charim, to all enemies who are outside of Christ. And 1 Corinthians 15 makes it clear that some of those enemies are destroyed by being converted. by being converted, right? Without seeing God's harem as ultimately being poured out on Jesus on the cross, none of that would make sense. And the only way that the good news of the Great Commission can go forward successfully is if people by faith embrace Jesus and the harem that Jesus bore in their place. If they think, No, I'm not going to believe that this is in any way just. You can't be saved. You cannot be saved unless you believe that Jesus bore that harem on your behalf. And all of this helps to explain why the New Testament can apply Joshua's conquest point by point to the success of the Great Commission. Either people are judged in Christ, in which case they're saved, or they are judged in themselves, in which case God's wrath remains on them. And so the New Testament uses the conquest of Canaan as a typological picture of Christ's conquest of the world via the Great Commission. And we'll get into this a little bit more next week. But I first of all want to point out that if this genocide was intended to be typological, which most commentators agree with, then it means that it was not intended to be God's standard policy of warfare. This is not a pattern for civics. Later passages in Deuteronomy will give God's normal warfare patterns. But Eugene Merrill rightly says, biblical genocide was part of a Yahweh war policy enacted for a unique situation directed against a certain people and in line with the character of God himself, a policy whose design is beyond human comprehension, but one that is not for that reason unjust or immoral. Those very limitations preclude any possible justification for modern genocide for any reason, and that would rule out using nuclear war against a civilian population. That would violate later principles of biblical justice and warfare. In any case, what I want to show this morning is that the gospel itself is hidden in this gruesome warfare. It is the good news of rescue painted on the black canvas of total judgment. If this is the case, I think there is a lot we can learn from these passages concerning the success of the Great Commission. Now let's start with the offer of peace in this passage. This passage shows that God offered peace to those who would ultimately end up in hell. The free offer of peace in verses 26 through 28 is in some ways analogous to the free offer of the gospel to all. And then when they rejected that free offer, which they didn't deserve, then Christ could not justly bear God's harem on their behalf, which means they have to bear it. It is just for God to be destined genocide for them on earth and eternal torment in hell. Now let's just go through the passage verse by verse and see if we can learn some lessons from it. Verse 26 says, and I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace saying, and then he gives his offer of peace. God himself made this offer, a genuine offer of peace. Now, Heshpon did not deserve peace, just as none of us deserve God's peace that is offered to us through the gospel, but no one will be in hell who can honestly say that they wanted God's peace and they wanted to live by God's law. The offer can be sincere even when hearts are hardened and they reject it. And God's offer today is a just offer because if humans put their trust in Jesus, God's justice against them has already been met by Jesus on the cross. And if these Amorites had accepted the peace offer, if they had put their trust in Jesus, God would have spared them based on that same cross of Jesus, which was future to them. In any case, no one can say that Sihon or his soldiers wanted peace with God or that God did not offer peace. No, this was a genuine offer of peace by God himself. Second, and I think this can be literally applied to civics, This piece included the ideal of free travel between nations. Though Heshbon was deeply evil, God still expected Heshbon to follow his laws, laws that allowed for free travel on the main artery roads of nations to any who were not hostile to God or to his law. And so verse 27 says, let me pass through your land. I will keep strictly to the road and I will turn neither to the right nor to the left. God would not have allowed idolaters to travel freely through Israel. We've already looked at that in previous passages, but Israelites here were not idolaters. They were not criminals, and so nations should not have kept these believing Israelites out when they had already committed themselves firmly to peace. They should have treated them just like the Amorites 400 years earlier treated Abraham's army. Okay, and there was no biblical law to prevent law-abiding citizens from traveling main artery roads in any nation. Free travel for law-abiding foreigners is the ideal in God's law. But we saw that the law specified that they had to be law-abiding and not idolaters. Idolaters are at enmity with God. They're at war with God. They cannot misuse the principle of free travel. Second, God made a genuine offer of trade. Verse 28 says, you shall sell me food for money that I may eat and give me water for money that I may drink. Only let me pass through on foot. The fact that God authorized Israel to buy products from an evil nation indicates that righteous nations should be able to engage in free trade with unrighteous nations. The fact that God knew Sihon would not allow it does not make that free offer of trade insincere at all. And so again, I'm an advocate of free trade among nations. And people might object and say, hey, yeah, but what if they put tariffs on our products? Well, it's not free trade then, is it? That's a one-way street that only benefits the other country. But I think this is one of many verses that indicate government should not be involved in limiting genuine free trade. Next, he says that this offer was an identical offer that had been given to the believing nation of Eden. That's very interesting. Verse 29 begins, just as the descendants of Esau who dwell in Seir and the Moabites who dwell in Ar did for me, until I crossed the Jordan to the land which the Lord our God is giving us. Now I can immediately see some objections that might come into people's head. They might, wait a minute, didn't Edom and Moab prohibit Israel from going through the center of their nation on the main King's Highway, and yes, they did prohibit that. So what's going on here? Moses seems to imply that they traveled through their territory and that they permitted free trade with them, and they did. Commentators point out that there was another road. Those two nations were nervous about them passing through the middle, but there was another road on the, let's see, the east side of both of those countries that went up and enabled them to go past the Wadi Zirid and the Wadi Ar, and they engaged, permitted them to travel that and permitted free trade. And that free trade actually is what is highlighted here by comparison, and that free trade continued for quite some time between those nations. J.A. Thompson says this, While both Edom and Moab opposed the transit of Israel through the heart of their territories, along the King's Highway, they made no attempt to prevent their passage around the outskirts of these lands or through areas under their protection. And so I conclude that free trade with all nations is the ideal, not tariffs. Doesn't address what a nation can do if other nations want your free trade, but they're imposing hostile tariffs to you, I say. All bets are off when that happens. But at least it highlights that free trade is allowable with even an ungodly nation. And by the way, this is just one small data point of civics. In order to figure out all of the ins and outs of godly international relationships, you've got to look at all of the data points. And it's like putting together a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. It takes a lot of work to do that, and in this sermon series, I'm just pulling out a piece here, a piece there. In my civics book, hopefully I will pull together all of the data pieces where you can see, okay, this is a beautiful puzzle. It all fits together and makes a beautiful picture. But I can't get into every detail of civics this morning. I just want to insist, God's ideal is international free trade. And there are many scriptures along those lines. Isaiah 11 shows the use of highways for free trade between Egypt, Assyria, and Israel in our future when those nations are converted. I think Abraham's another illustration of free trade with the Amorites. But moving on, the next phrase in verse 29 further highlights the sincerity of God's offer to these people. God has the messengers say, until I cross the Jordan to the land which the Lord our God is giving us. Now, if the two kings that were on the Transjordanian region had accepted this offer, then Israel would have restricted itself to the land that had been explicitly promised to them on the west side of the Jordan, okay? All of this language that's related to a sincere offer, I think, helps to answer the objections of those who claim this genocide was not just. Even though these two kingdoms deserved the genocide, God had Israel make a sincere offer that would have left those two nations completely unmolested. And since Karam warfare is typological, I believe that this speaks to the sincerity of God's offer of amnesty to those in the church age. you know, if they will believe the gospel, the free offer of the gospel. But in verses 30 through 33, we have a very clear description of God's predestinating sovereignty over all history, including salvation, including who will believe, who will not believe, and how human responsibility is totally consistent with divine sovereignty. And I'll start with the human responsibility side of the equation first. It's clear in verse 30 that Sihon closed the door to mercy. He acted in hostility. He was the one responsible for his action of unbelief. Verse 30 says, but Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not let us go through. It's Sihon who closes the door. It was indeed his decision. And yet the same verse gives the reason that Sihon closed the door. God's sovereignty ensured that he would close the door. Verse 30 goes on to say, for, so here comes the reason, for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate that he might deliver him into your hand as it is this day. So it's clear God ensured that the door would be closed by hardening the king's heart. And the question that comes up is how can both of these points be true? It tends to be Arminians who ask this question. These Arminians insist that it's an either-or question. Either man is free to choose on his own, and God is not sovereign, or God is sovereign and man is not free to choose. But I think that's a false dichotomy. God is sovereign over everything, including the free actions of people. And some people object, well, if that was the case, then would that not involve God in sin? But I would say absolutely not. And I love the illustration that A. W. Pink used. He contrasted a book being thrown to the ground versus a book just being let go, where it drops to the ground of its own accord. The book gets to the ground in either case, but one way is by the force, the energy of my hand, and the other way is just by letting go, and it's dropping to the ground of its own accord because of the energy of gravity. Now, if gravity represents our sinful propensities, you can see how apart from God's restraining grace, every man, woman, and child would always be prone to sin, would be attracted to sin, just like that book is attracted to the ground because of the force of gravity, right? And so when God withdraws His restraining grace from King Sihon—let me make it personal—when God withdraws His restraining grace from you because you have neglected or rejected or just withdrawn yourself from His restraining grace, then God is perfectly just when he condemns you. You didn't deserve the restraining grace to begin with, and God doesn't have to tempt you any more than I have to throw this book to the ground. Just let it go, right? All God does is He removes His restraining hand from a person, and that person will automatically fall further and further into sin. And each individual desire and action can be controlled by God in the same way. Scripture is quite clear, God never tempts anyone to sin. He merely withdraws the restraining grace, which has been spurned in unthankfulness anyway, and the person's heart will automatically be hardened. By withdrawing his grace, God determines the sin, but men do it freely of their own accord without any coercion whatsoever. This is how God can be sovereign over everything in the universe, even sin. Now, with this as an explanation, it makes sense of a great number of passages that have confused people. For example, three times it says about Abraham that Abraham hardened his own heart, but fifteen times it says that God hardened Abraham's heart. What did I say? Abraham. Oh, not Abraham. Abraham. Pharaoh. Yes. Correction, correction, correction. Abraham didn't harden his own. Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Three times it says. Fifteen times it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Thank you for correcting me on that. Which is correct? Well, both are. If God hardened his heart by, what, just withdrawing his grace, God didn't have to work on his heart in order to make it hard. That would make him the author of sin. God merely withdrew his restraining grace. Now the same is true of evil wars. God moved nations to declare war, and then he condemned them for their wickedness in doing so, and I've got a whole bunch of scriptures in my notes here that show him having done that. Wars are not an indication that God is not in control or that things are totally out of control. Proverbs 21.1 affirms, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord like rivers of water. He turns it wherever he wishes. He's in control. He's in control of kings. However, if God forced them or even tempted those nations to declare war in ungodly ways, he would be guilty of sin. But Scripture affirms all God has to do is to give men up to their own desires. Romans 1 verse 24 says, therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. So he gave them up. The mystery is not, why do men sin? The mystery is, why do men not sin more given their depraved nature? Why do they not sin more? And the answer to that mystery is called common grace. God restrains them from their sins. In fact, he gives them positive graces that enables them to do all kinds of good things despite their evil nature. We call that common grace. Well, Here is where it gets personal. Even believers can have God's restraining grace withdrawn from them when they become presumptuous and they despise God's grace. Let me give you an example. 2 Samuel 24 verse 1 shows that God got angry with David and he moved David to number Israel. Now, how did he do it? He did it by removing his protection from David's life because David was becoming arrogant and presumptuous. So he removed his protection, see how you can do it on your own. And what happens? Well, in the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles 21 verse 1, it tells us that Satan then became the active agent who tempted David. So when God removed his hedge of protection, Satan moved in and took advantage of it. God guaranteed this sin and subsequent judgment because of David's presumption, but he did so only by removing his protection and allowing Satan to work in David's heart. 1 Samuel 2.25 is another example. Speaking about the sons of Eli, it says, So you can see there is absolutely nothing in this universe that God is not sovereign over. So what are the practical ramifications of this doctrine? Well, it means that Christians need to hold tightly onto the Lord. We are completely dependent upon him and we must never take his grace for granted. Never go tired of thanking God for his mercies. Never despise the goodness treated as a light thing. You're on dangerous ground when you are not holding tightly to the Lord. Second, be quick to repent of sin as David did. And the reason for that is one sin leads to another sin in a downward spiral. God exalts the humble, but he abases the proud. He gives grace to the humble. He says, a broken and a contrite heart, these, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51 verse 17. So if you fall into sin because God has withdrawn his restraining grace from your life, well, repent, run back to that grace. Third, realize that when evil comes against you from others, it's not a sign that this world is falling apart. God is still sovereign. God controls absolutely everything that happens to you. He will not allow anything to happen to you, and that's what Paul said, that is not for your good and for God's glory. Nothing can mess up his plans. No King Sihon or King Og can mess up God's plans. God is sovereign, and we can trust him with even the apparent chaos that is going on all around us. Fourth, everyone is fully responsible for his own sins. You can't get off the hook of your sins by saying, oh, God is sovereign. No, you did the sin. You did it freely. You were attracted to sin. You aggravated your sin by rejecting God's restraining grace. And so both believers and unbelievers are fully responsible for their sins. There's no such thing as a victim of sin. Men who are in bondage to sinful patterns have willingly placed their selves in bondage, too. I don't know if you saw the meme on Facebook yesterday, but it's got this guy, his head's on the ground, he's got a boot on his face, and it says, victim of sin, and then it pans out and it shows it's just a glove. It's his own hand, you know. We're responsible for our own sins. Fifth, have confidence that God can help you to overcome any sin that you've gotten yourself into and get you out of any sinful bondage. God can control everything and yet preserve and guarantee freedom. And this is what gives us the confidence in his promise that if God is for us, who could be against us? Let's move on to verse 31, which shows that closed doors often lead to new opportunities. I love this point. Verse 31 says, And the Lord said to me, See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to possess it, that you may inherit his land. Now, it's clear that the door that Sihon slammed shut opened up a gift from God—the incredibly fertile area of the transjordan And we'll see next week why God gave it to specific tribes. There's good reason for that. Anyway, this illustrates how doors that have been slammed in your face may be opportunities that God is opening up in some other cool way. Let me give you a biblical example. When Paul, Silas, and Timothy tried to preach in Asia and Bithynia, God closed those two doors and made that impossible. That's Acts 6, verses 6 through 7. Now, if God had not closed those doors, they would never have gone to Europe. And it was in Europe that their ministry rocketed forward and propelled the church's growth far beyond anyone's expectations. Now, while those closed doors to Asia and Bithynia may have initially seemed like a disappointment, the blessing that followed was the rapid expansion of the gospel across the whole continent. And over the course of my life, I have seen enough disappointments turn into beautiful, new, open doors of opportunity that I've just learned, even when I don't know what the opportunities are going to be, I've just learned to trust God when things don't go the way that I wanted them to go. Right? God is sovereign, and we can take comfort in that. Now, in terms of the justification for the Harem warfare, I want you to notice in verse 32 that Sihon was clearly the aggressor. Then Sihon and all his people came out against us to fight at Jahash. It was Sihon who declared war, not Israel. And when they identified with the Canaanites and fought against Israel, their land became forfeit. Next, verse 33 says, And the Lord our God delivered them over to us, and we defeated him, his sons, and all his people. God delivered them into their hands because it was God's will that his kingdom be devoted to genocide, and we shouldn't apologize for that. The country was so evil that the scripture says its cup of iniquity had become full. If you study the archaeology of that period, it is beyond gross. You feel defiled by it. There is good, good reason why God had them all wiped out. Now, by the way, God had told Abraham, what is it, 400 years before, that he was going to do this and have his descendants inherit the land, but he gave us his reason for why that would happen, because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. In other words, God had given the Amorites plenty of times to repent, but they just kept getting increasingly more and more wicked. Without God's intervention by either salvation or by judgment, this world would become so evil it would be very hard to live in this world. Both grace and judgments are a huge benefit to this world. They really do benefit the world. And though judgments still happen in the New Covenant age, one of the thrilling things about the times that we live in is that God's overall purpose is to keep reversing the curse. The cross did not institute a repeat of history, as so many people think. No, it instituted the reversal of history. Anyway, let's dig into the conquest in verses 34 through 36 and apply it to the Great Commission. Verse 34 says, we took all his cities at that time, and we utterly destroyed the men, women, and little ones of every city. We left none remaining. This total conquest was a symbol of Christ's total conquest of the world with the gospel. Christ's conquest is not just a theoretical conquest, like full preterists tend to make it out to be. Full preterists claim that by AD 70, Christ conquered every enemy. put all creation under his feet, destroyed the last enemy death, turned the kingdom back over to the Father. And it took him 40 years, you know, to do that. Wow. That makes for an incredibly short mediatorial reign, an incredibly short 1,000 years. Yeah, they say the millennium, the 1,000 years is between 80, 30, and 87. Anyway, it makes you scratch your head and think, what? That's a bizarre concept of conquering your enemies. It's mostly theoretical. In contrast, this prophetic foreshadowing is more than theoretical. It was an actual total conquest. Not one enemy was left. Were there enemies left in the full preterist theory? Yes, absolutely there were. Now, the eschatological system known as amillennialism is a bit better. It sees a progress of all of the elect. In their system, only the elect enemies are in view. All of the elect being brought under Christ's feet over the course of history, and it sees a separation of the sheep and the goats. On the last day, it sees a final resurrection, spelling Christ's conquest of the last enemy death. Okay, so that fits this symbolism much, much better. Still not good enough, but at least makes some sense of the typology. Premillennialism is even better than that, in that in the future, they see Christ coming back, establishing a thousand year period of peace where all of creation will literally be placed under Christ's feet, and for most of the millennium, there won't be any enemies. But they still see a massive apostasy at the end of the millennium, and a huge army of unbelievers at the end of history, that outnumber the elect. And so it's still not an adequate fulfillment of this prophetic picture. Postmillennialism fits this symbolism the best because it sees a progressive Christianization of the world until no enemies exist on planet Earth. Now, granted, there are various levels of optimism among postmillennialists, but I happen to be one that thinks that eventually every single human on Earth will be either a professing believer or a real believer. In fact, Christ's grace will penetrate every facet of life so thoroughly that mankind will be living out the blueprints of scripture and art, science, manufacturing, every area of life. In fact, so thorough will Christ's conquest be that 1 Corinthians 15 assures us that no enemies will be left to conquer on planet Earth other than death at the time that he comes back and ends history. No enemies left other than death. And he destroys death through the resurrection. People will live much longer, but they're still going to die. So that enemy will not have been conquered during the millennium. It's only conquered on the final day of history when Jesus will conquer it through the resurrection. Now, just as it took several years for Joshua to lead his people in conquering all of Canaan, it'll take a long time for Jesus, the second Joshua, to lead the church in applying God's grace and his law to all of life. But what a perfect symbol. Verse 34 says, we left none remaining. And there's coming a time in history when there will be no enemies of Christ remaining. I think that is consistent post-millennialism. But I think we do still need to respect premils and omils. They're godly people. It's an area that's very difficult eschatology, so we do need to respect them. But moving on. Notice in this passage that it was not just a total conquest, it was also a total inheritance. The inheritance is also important. This is part of the symbolism, I think, that is missed by the other eschatologies too. I believe their total inheritance in verse 35 was a symbol of Christ's people inheriting the earth and all that is in it. It says, we took only the livestock as plunder for ourselves with the spoil of the city which we took. Now, in terms of prophetic symbols, Psalm 37 applies this picture to the time of Christ, in other words, to our age, by saying this. For evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. yet a little while, and the wicked shall be no more. Indeed, you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more. But the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked plots against the just and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord laughs at him, for he sees that his day is coming. The Lord knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish into smoke, they shall vanish away. The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives. For those blessed by him shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by him shall be cut off." And of course, Jesus quotes that psalm when he says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The symbolism of this harem warfare, total conquest and total inheritance, prophesies Christ's total conquest and total inheritance in history. Not just in theory, but in reality. Not beginning in the future, but beginning in the first century. Not partial victory, but total victory. It's a vision on which our faith can cause us to expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God. Moving on to verse 36, this verse shows that Heshbon, with all of its power, was still powerless to resist the advance of Israel's army. And it wasn't because Israel was so strong, it was because God was with them. Now, remember, we've seen that Heshbon was a country filled with very powerful giants, ruled by one of the last of another tribe of giants. Neither Og nor Sion were Amorites, they were Rephaim. But verse 36 says, from a rower, which is on the bank of the river Arnon, and from the city that is on the ravine as far as Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us, the Lord our God delivered all to us." Notice especially that last phrase, the Lord our God delivered all to us. Now in terms of symbolism, this foreshadows that even the strongest giants in the gospel age are powerless to stop the advance of Christ's kingdom. Isaiah 9 verse 7 prophesies of Jesus, of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this." What an awesome promise. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. It's a guarantee. But verse 37 ends this chapter by saying that Israel honored the boundaries that God had given to them. says only you did not go near the land of the people of Ammon, anywhere along the river Jabbok, or to the cities of the mountains, or wherever the Lord our God had forbidden us. We have power when we walk closely with the Lord. We lack power when we start straying from the Lord's commands. And I would encourage you to be faithful in following all of God's laws. Some of you might be tempted to ignore a command of Scripture because, hey, there's plenty of other people at DCC that ignore that command, or maybe it doesn't seem like it's relevant to you, or it's a priority for you. But I would just encourage you, forget what other people do. Follow the Lord faithfully, and he will bless you. In Luke 4, Satan tempted Jesus to command the stones to become bread, and thus to act independently of his father in one tiny little area of life. And it might have seemed like such a little thing. He had been fasting for 40 days. He was hungry. And Satan says, OK, why don't you do this? Well, that was not God's way of doing it. And Jesus' response is, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Luke 4, verse 4. Let's make that our commitment as well. Embrace, live out every word of the Bible. Let me very, very quickly, briefly, end by reminding you of four lessons taught by the passage as a whole. First, seek peace. This passage illustrates that we are called to pursue peace even when it's in our power to do otherwise. In Matthew 5.9, Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God. Now, obviously, you can't be for peace if God calls you to war or if the world is warring against you. But our first impulse as sons of God should be to be peacemakers, not troublemakers. Some people thrive on controversy and beating others up. That's not a good impulse. Our first desire should be to seek peace, to offer peace. Now, of course, it's peace through strength, right? But we are called to be peacemakers. Second, trust God with closed doors. You may be frustrated that God has closed the door to sell or to buy a home, get a certain job, get married, get healed, or some other closed door. Trust God with that closed door and realize God has sovereignly closed that door for your good. Sometimes a no is God's pathway to a far greater yes. Even if the closed doors are due to the sins and the hardened hearts of others, trust God with those closed doors. He is sovereign. Third, rely on God's strength. Victories in life are not won by gritting your teeth and trying harder. Yes, we need to try hard, but we need to try hard by God's strength. God told the discouraged Zachariah, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Every day we need his strength. And then finally, obey God's boundaries. His boundaries might be as simple as keeping the Sabbath, and you might be thinking to yourself, I just don't have time to treat the Sunday as a Sabbath, you know? I've just got way too much work to do. And I would just say trust and obey God on everything, and you will see God more than compensating you on your sacrifices. Don't cut corners. Obey God's boundaries, and may God richly pour out His blessings into your life as you do so. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for the warnings that it gives and also the encouragements that it gives. And I pray that we would be faithful soldiers of the cross of Jesus Christ, that we would fight against the sins that are within our hearts, claiming that aspect of Canaan, and that we would also fight against the sins in our culture, that you would help us to be salt and light, and by your grace that your Living waters would flow out of us, bringing healing to this world. We love you. We bless you for the privilege of serving you. In Jesus' name, amen.