Gooding, David: 5 - The Captain of Our Salvation

So now let us begin our study this evening by reading in the book of Joshua and chapter eight. Chapter eight of the book of Joshua, beginning in verse twenty five. And all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai. For Joshua drew not back his hand wherewith he stretched out the javelin until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the Lord, which he commanded Joshua. So Joshua burnt Ai and made it an heap forever, even a desolation unto this day. The king of Ai, he hanged on a tree until the even tide. And at the going down of the sun, Joshua commanded, and they took his carcass down from the tree and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city and raised thereon a great heap of stones until this day. God bless to us the reading of his holy word. Now, as you have heard, this is the fifth of our six studies together at this time in the book of Joshua. And if we are going to make any sensible progress whatsoever, then tonight we must, if possible, cover the third and final objective that Joshua achieved for Israel as they entered the land. That will bring us to the end of the first half of the book. And tomorrow, God willing, we shall have to content ourselves with a very brief survey of the second half of the book. So then tonight we shall have to concentrate on the third objective, but alas, we are already in debt. Well, last night, the preacher here last night was very long-winded, but even so, he didn't manage to get through all the passage that he should have got through. So we must attempt to do better than that this evening. So, now here again, I find a delightful difficulty that some people are here tonight who weren't here last night. So what's to do then, but simply to recap as briefly as we may what we were considering last night, and then add a very brief comment to complete that particular section of the book. Then we shall take a break and sing a hymn, for which some will be very grateful indeed, as it will give them opportunity to stir themselves and to prepare themselves for the second half of the meeting. So then last night we were considering the second great objective that Joshua achieved as he led the people of the Lord into their inheritance. And for that purpose, we were considering together chapters five and six, seven and eight. And what the objective was, we soon discovered. For it is described in some length at the end of chapter eight. it was nothing less than the establishment of the law of God in that erstwhile evil and wicked country. That immediately set us thinking about ourselves. We reminded ourselves that we have a vested interest in the story of Joshua, for he it was who led Israel into the fulfillment of the promise that God had made to Abraham in Genesis fifteen, when God promised inheritance to Abram and his seed. And reminding ourselves that if we are in Christ, if we are Christ's, then we too are heirs according to the promise made to Abraham, we immediately picked up this matter of the establishment of the law, and we put the question to ourselves, when it comes to our inheritance, what is exactly the relation of the law and the keeping of the law to our inheritance. Is it so that, uh, once we have inherited, we then have to keep the law in order to please the Lord? Or is it so that we have to keep the law as a condition for entry to our inheritance? And we found an immediate answer to our question as we studied together the epistle to the Romans in part, and more particularly the Epistle to the Galatians, where it is explicitly told us that the promise that we should be heir of the world was not made under the law or conditional upon the law, but solely by faith through grace, utterly and solely by faith in the Lord Jesus and in value of his death for us at Calvary. With that assurance in our hearts, we then turned to the two major stories in the second part of Joshua. The destruction of the city of Jericho, and then, as we should have done, the destruction of the city of Ai. And saw them, of course, as the two cities that had to be destroyed if Joshua was to make his way through the mountains to Mount Ebal and Gerizim, and there do as Moses commanded and establish the law among Israel. We ask ourselves, therefore, as we face these two stories, what would the establishment of the law of God involve in the land of Canaan? So we drew near and read again the story of Jericho. And as we drew near, we became conscious, as Joshua became conscious when he approached Jericho, of a great, solemn, exalted figure coming announcing himself as the captain of the host of the Lord, coming with sword outstretched and double-edged. And we discovered it was none less than the pre-incarnate Son of God, come to execute the judgments of God upon that evil city of Jericho. We paused solemnly to consider the sweeping judgment, the totalitarian judgment that fell upon that evil city. Not a man, not a woman, not an infant spared. We found it spine chilling. But we couldn't afford to dwell too long on it because our thoughts were racing back to the New Testament, of course, and asking ourselves if the law of God has to be established, then what would the law of God being established mean for us? And we saw the even more sweeping judgment pronounced in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter three and verse twenty. We know that whatsoever things the law says, it says to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God. We pondered that, reminding ourselves, of course, if ever we would enter into the joy of our ass- our salvation, its assurance, and all those lovely benefits that are wrapped up in that delightful word inheritance, we too must first stand here. It is for lack of courage, I suppose, or repentance or what have you, and refusal to stand here and acknowledge the justice of God's law that many people fail to enter into their salvation. I remember reading a book so a few years ago entitled Christ Among Us, and as I read its pages, I thought what a delightful book it was. It was explaining to its readers what sanctifying grace is, at least according to its authors. And they said, you know, the whole secret of salvation is a personal relation to the Lord Jesus. I said, this is marvelous. They said, after all, you know, sanctifying grace is exactly that. Really, sanctifying grace is a person. It is as the blessed Lord Jesus comes and dwells in your heart, that you are thus sanctified, day by day increase in sanctification, and as the years go by, of course, if in ch- per times you sin and come short, yet can you renew this sanctifying grace and thereafter continue until the great day shall dawn, when you shall be perfectly like the Savior. I say, what a delightful book, but I obviously hadn't read far enough into its pages. For as I came to the end, I found there was a chapter there, and it was, uh, eh, about the topic, what will happen when we come to die? And this is what the book said. Now, when we come to die, few of us will think that we've ever done anything worthy of being damned. I said to myself, wait a minute, you haven't got the re- you haven't read that correctly, surely. Ah, let me read it again. When we come to die, said the book, few of us will believe or feel that we've ever done anything worthy of being damned. I said, but, but that can't be right. Why? God's word says that all have sinned and all have come short of the glory of God. Worthy of being damned, I said, that's precisely what I am anyway, in and of myself. Then I discovered what the book meant. You see, it held that when you are baptized as a baby, if you are baptized as a baby, that washes away the taint of Adam's sin, and that sets you on the road to glory. Then, by faith in the Lord Jesus and his sanctifying grace, you gradually improve and improve and improve and improve until you come to the end of life. And at the end of life, as you look back, you will be able to say, according to the book, well, that's good. I myself never did anything worthy of being damned. And at that point, I nearly threw the book on the fire. For instead of it being a delightful exposition of the salvation of God, it was denying the very first basis of salvation and entry to our inheritance, which is radical, utter, thoroughgoing repentance that stands before its Jericho, before the exalted judge of all the earth with his outdrawn sword, about to execute the judgments of damnation upon Jericho, and says, yes, Lord, I too deserve to be damned. And after I'd read that much in the book, I wasn't surprised to read its next sentence, and it says, you know, when we ca- ca- it said, when we come to die, none of us will feel fit to enter the presence of God at once. I said, what a lie it is, for I shall. And how could I possibly? Said the book, when we first see God, we shall be tormented by the sight. I said, what a fearful thing. The Bible says that when I see him, I shall be like him. And the book had made two mistakes, hadn't it? First, it had avoided repentance, and admitting that we have all sinned and are worthy of damnation. And then it had bypassed faith as well. For instead of trusting the work of Christ and being instantaneously justified, the book was preaching a way of salvation by gradual improvement by the sanctifying grace of God, till in the end, one day, who knows when, you could be l- released from purgatory and received into glory. How necessary it is. We stand by the gospel as God's word declares it in both Old and New Testament. The figure with a drawn sword out of over Jericho reminds us of what it means if God must uphold his law. The wages of sin is death. All the world is worthy of damnation. Of course, Rahab was saved. Then we went on last night to think about her, how Rahab was saved. How was she saved? Says the Epistle to the Hebrews, by faith, of course. She was saved by faith. Ah, says somebody, but wasn't she saved by works as well? She was indeed. At least she was justified by works, to be correct in our terminology. That James tells us in James chapter two. And he means, of course, that when A- Rahab repented and believed, then she didn't just do it as a matter of theory, but in actual practice brought forth works meet of for repentance and changed sides and came over from loyalty to the king of Jericho and came over to God and the people of God and showed by her conduct that she had really repented. But of course, her repentance didn't merit salvation, did it? On what grounds then was Rahab saved when all the walls of Jericho came tumbling down around her under the judgments of God? Once more, the epistle to the Romans told us, God passed over Rahab's sins when she trusted God. How could he righteously pass by her sins? Because of the great propitiatory work of the Lord Jesus. Jesus died for Rahab as much as he died for you. Oh, marvelous story. Rahab, justified by faith, saved by faith in the word and the glorious oath of God, and covered by the blood of the Lord Jesus. And Rahab, instead of losing her life and losing her part in Canaan, do you know what? She became a fellow heir with the saints, didn't she? Good old Rahab. Ha! She got a bit of the inheritance as well. Praise the Lord, and became a fellow heir with the saints, Jew and Gentile, and not to exaggerate things, she got a privilege that many of them didn't get. She became an ancestress of our blessed Lord, all by faith and through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. And having noted that, we then spent a little while over the technical terms that Joshua uses for the judgment of God on Jericho. Jericho was the only city where it was thus executed with such severity. Namely, the whole city was put under a ban so that everything that breathed had to be executed, and the gold and silver and valuables had to be put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. Technically, we found in Hebrew that is called cherem, a ban. Then we noticed with great interest that in the Greek, the Greek of the Hebrew cherem is anathema. And we were interested because of this. When the troops were going into Jericho, God warned them, now don't you touch anything, for if you take any of that spoil for yourself, you too will fall under the ban, and you will trouble. Then we read how there was an Achan who, through covetousness, took of the spoil and brought the ban on Israel herself and troubled Israel. With that, of course, our New Testament minds went working nineteen to the proverbial dozen, because we remembered in that same epistle to the Galatians, this very judgment is pronounced on certain people. Anybody comes to you and preach another gospel that I have not preached, says Paul, let him be. And here comes that terrible word, anathema. The New Testament equivalent of the judgment that fell on Jericho. And why was Paul getting so, eh, seriously disturbed about what was happening in Galatia? For this simple reason, there were some who were perverting the gospel of Christ. There are some, says Paul, and the echoes reverberated in our memories, there are some that trouble you. How trouble you. By preaching that somehow the ceremony of circumcision was necessary to salvation and could help to effect salvation. Why was that serious? Why, if you accepted that doctrine, that circumcision could help to effect salvation, you were in saying that part of the law was necessary to, and the keeping of that law could effect salvation, in direct opposition to the basic gospel of Christ. For the gospel of Christ says that they who are of the law are under a curse. How cursed? And why cursed? When with good intent they have performed their ceremony on their eight-day-year-old year-old son, and he's done his best to keep God's holy law. How can you say the man is cursed? Why? Because the law standards are these. Cursed is he that doesn't continue in all that is written in the book of the law to do it. Hard pill for a Jew to swallow, wasn't it? Such as Saul of Tarsus, with his circumcision, his law keeping, his honest intention at moral effort, to have to come to this point, that when it was all added up, circumcision included, it merited solely God's curse because of a broken law. And to first profess faith in Christ and only in Christ for salvation, and then go back and try to salvage the right of circumcision out from under the curse of a broken law, and say that that circumcision, eh, can help to save somebody and contribute to salvation, and indeed is necessary to salvation. That is to do exactly what Achan did as he tried to salvage some pleasant thing out of the cursed ruins of that cursed city. Hence the vehemence of Paul's denunciation on any who would say that circumcision, or any other right for that matter, can effect salvation or is necessary to salvation. If anyone says that, says Paul, on him be the curse that descended upon Jericho, for he troubles Israel. Oh, why have you troubled us, says Joshua to Achan? Anybody preach a different gospel, let him be anathema. And while we were in Galatians, we couldn't help, uh, uh, calling in at the conference that they held at Antioch, you know, even in those days they held a conference, eh, conferences, and this particular one we remember. So Paul tells us, uh, Peter was there at the conference, you'll see, and he'd been eating with the Gentiles quite merrily, like Peter did, because he liked his food. But one day they came down some people from Jerusalem, and Peter withdrew. He pretended it was for this cause or the other, but really it was because he, being afraid of the people from Jerusalem, was now acting a little bit of the hypocrite, pretending not to believe what he did believe. He was now pretending to believe that somehow Jews that had been circumcised were more saved than Gentiles who hadn't been circumcised. And Paul wouldn't have him. And he said, no, Peter, that hypocrisy won't do. If you really believe that salvation is solely by the grace of God and not by some such ceremony as circumcision, then, Peter, you'll have to learn to walk uprightly, one hundred percent consistently with the basic gospel. For if Peter said he, you build again the city. Ah, no, I've got it muddled up with Jericho, haven't I? No, no, I shouldn't have done that. Let me go again. Let me start again and have a better attempt. For if you build again that which you once destroyed, you make yourself a transgressor, don't you? We remembered, of course, how when Jericho was destroyed under the judgment of God, Joshua placed a curse on any who would rebuild it. Oh, Christendom, oh, Christendom, why have you troubled us with all sorts of ceremonies borrowed from Judaism and goodness knows where, that tell people that ceremonies can effect salvation, when only faith in Christ can do it? But tonight we must come to AI, mustn't we, for that's our p- our our promise, you'll see. Mercifully, its lessons are soon, uh, spoken, though perhaps not so soon learned. And what shall Ai teach us? It was a very different city from Jericho, wasn't it? Jericho was large and well fortified. Ai was small, so that the lower captains and lieutenants suggested to Joshua that, uh, they be allowed to take just a small detachment of troops out to Ai. They'd soon settle Ai. But when they got to its walls, the king of Ai came out, and Israel took panic and fled. See them now, running away as fast as their little legs could carry them. And why? Because, unbeknownst to them, Israel had come under the very same ban as Jericho, because one of their number, namely Achan, had taken of the banned spoil. Oh, human heart, be it Gentile, be it Jew, how true God's holy word is, that there is no difference, for all have sinned and do come short of the glory of God. Listen to Achan, as Joshua says, Achan, but why have you done it, Achan? He said, but I saw and I coveted. Oh, wretched man. I heard another one once confess it, at least I read his confessions. Oh, wretched man that I am. For I was alive once without the law, but then came the law and said, thou shalt not covet, and sin rising up slew me. That raises an interesting point, doesn't it? What is the answer to those who say that if you believe salvation is solely by the grace of God through faith in the Lord Jesus and his death at Calvary, and you can receive justification instantaneously and be utterly sure of salvation, then that would mean that you would live carelessly and indulge in sin, uh, with impunity. What is the answer? Well, one answer is seen now before us in the story of Ai, Ai, that when Israel became involved, all unknown in this compromise of God's holy word and judgment, they fell under God's discipline, didn't they? And Israel had to be assembled, and Israel had to find out Achan. And when Achan confessed his sin, Israel themselves had to take the judgment into their own hands, and they stoned him with stones, and they built a great cairn of stones over the top of him. What will the law demand? It will demand us to repent of sin and trust only the Savior. Demand us to acknowledge the righteousness of the law that condemns us and thus drive us to the Savior to find salvation solely through Christ. But at the same time as Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, it will not lead to laxity of living. That is, if you've got hold of the right end of the stick, it won't. For they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and the lust thereof. I say, do I, that I've been justified solely by the sufferings of the Savior at Calvary. And then I say it doesn't matter if I go on sinning. How can I possibly say it? How can I possibly take bread and wine at the Lord's Supper of a Sunday morning and go on living in unjudged sin? And the Savior had to die to save me for the judge- from the judgment of that sin. A true believer, as he stands by Calvary and sees the Savior bear the judgment of God for him and her, in that moment sides with God against himself, against herself, and says, yes, God, this wretched flesh. And if I had my way, I would crucify it myself. They that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and the lust thereof. And only when Israel had thus disciplined themselves, were they allowed now to set forward to Ai, to capture it and defeat it. And how did they defeat Ai? Here we notice a very interesting difference in military tactics. When it was a case of capturing Jericho, Jericho being a big city with walls around it, there was a notable intervention of the power of the miraculous power of God, and they encircled the city in silent processions once every day for six days, with the ark of the Lord solemnly taken around, and the men of war and the priests and the trumpets. And on the last day, they encircled it seven times, and at the given command they blew the trumpets, and the almighty power of God took the walls down and let in the floodgate for his judgments. You say that being so remarkably successful at Jericho, why didn't they repeat the operation at Ai? I mean, it'd be very simple, wouldn't it? I mean, they wouldn't have even been so far to walk round Ai, Ai being a much smaller place. I mean, I mean, why desert a well-proven recipe and good strategies and tactics? Why? For truth to tell, the tactics were brilliant. They have been often used since that time, of course, in many a campaign by many a general. But for us at this moment, they are surely eloquent and significant. The first time Israel went up, tainted as they were by their compromise, and under the ban, they were defeated, and in their defeat, as the king of Ai came out, they ran away in panic as fast as their legs would carry them. How would they get the victory? You say this time they'd walk up to the walls, my chests out, huh? We're the people, you know, never been defeated, triumphing in victory. No, they didn't. By Joshua's command, the people were divided. An ambush was set behind the city without the city being aware of it. And then Joshua led his great detachment of troops, and they were under these orders, that when they got to the city walls, and once more the king came out with his soldiers, they were to turn and run away, as they did the first time. Now there was a very wonderful sight to be seen. Have you ever seen such a sight in your life? Now it wasn't just Israelites, it was the great Joshua, captain of their salvation, running away like the rest, as though in defeat. No, no, no, you say, no, no, Joshua would never run away in defeat. Ah, ah. But he was rehearsing, wasn't he? The earlier defeat. But because there was Joshua there, the moment came when he stopped, stood round and turned and lifted up the hand in which his javelin was, and the defeat was turned to victory. And they took the king of Ai and hanged him on a tree, like Moses' law said. And true to Moses' law, when the sun went down, they took him down from the tree, and they buried him. I stand there with my simple mind and vivid imagination, looking at that corpse, hanging on a tree, cursed of God, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hang on a tree. And I say to myself quietly in my heart, Gooding, you know, if you had lived in those far off days, what would they have done to you? You're an old gentile, aren't you? And if the law of God had been executed on you, Gooding, by that awesome figure that appeared to Joshua as captain of the Lord's host with his sword outstretched, Gooding, what would have happened to you? Actually, I'm glad I wasn't the, the king of Ai, for I know what they would have done to me. I know what the blessed second person of the Trinity, God incarnate, would have been obliged to do. And I too would have been hung on a tree. Ah. We can't stay there much longer, can we? Our minds go over the centuries to another city, a walled city, and outside his walls, another tree and another king, nailed, hung upon a tree. And I say, oh my soul, and who is this? Hung upon a tree. Under the curse of God. Who can it be? The answer comes back. It is the very captain of the Lord's host. Who that day appeared outside Jericho's walls with his sword outstretched and commanded its utter. I say, how did he come here? Hanging on a tree? Ah, that's a story. But I too had been tainted. I too, overcome with sin, not merely before I was converted, but after too. Oh, why wretched, my wretched compromises, my wretched covetousness, my wretched sin, oh, wretched man that I am. See me running when my back turned upon the enemy in disgraceful defeat. Now hear the story. As my little legs ran away, I was joined by another, a greater than Joshua, the sinless Son of God, his sword sheath, and he ran away with me, caught up with me in my defeat. And then instead of my being put upon a cross, God's justice put him on a tree instead of me. Is it not so? You say, what does that mean, his being cursed on a tree? And how did that save you? Mark how it saved me. Oh, it isn't so that Jesus Christ came and by his life gave me a superb example, that following his example, hereafter I should live a better life. Alas not. What good would that be for me? It wasn't even that he came and kept God's law a hundred and fifty percent so that, uh, clear himself by his hundred percent, he might, uh, then turn over the extra fifty to my account and make top up my account, so my account too came to a hundred percent. No, it wasn't that either. He found me cursed by God's law and came and shared my curse. No, indeed, he took it. Died for all to see, cursed of God. Under the curse of a broken law. My brothers, my sisters, that is my story. That's me from start to finish. Oh, and I've forgotten about Jericho now. I stood with a certain awe to see Jericho destroyed and the world crucified to me. But as I stand with my thoughts outside Ai City and see its king hung upon a tree, I think of another story. And I crucified. For if the only way of saving me was for Jesus Christ to become a curse for me, see what that says about me. When he died, I too was crucified. Will you dispute its logic or its implications? How then shall we be saved from this present evil world, this present world with all its evil? Come give me your recipes. The Epistle to the Galatians raises the question in its early open. How shall anybody be saved from this present world with all its evil? Talk not about circumcision, nor law keeping. The best it will ever get you as far as, is as far as falling under God's law and suffering his curse. What then is the recipe? For if we would inherit and enjoy our inheritance, it cannot be, can it, that we enjoy our inheritance and go on sinning. There must be some recipe for saving the redeemed of the Lord from sinning and rescuing them from this world with all its evil. Tell us what its, its recipe is, Paul, before you close your letter to the Galatians. You.