Gooding, David: 8 - We Will Serve the Lord

Now we have come in our study to the last section of the book of Joshua, beginning in chapter twenty three and verse one. Like all the other sections, it is composed of three major episodes. It concerns the dismissal of the two and a half tribes to go to their God-given inheritance east of Jordan, and what happened to them when, for certain reasons, they built an altar on the banks of Jordan. And then in chapter, uh, uh twenty four, Joshua's address to all the tribes, uh, sorry, chapter twenty uh three, Joshua's address, in particular to the elders and the heads and the judges and the officers of Israel. And finally, in chapter twenty four, Joshua's address to all the tribes, his farewell address to the tribes of Israel. As in all the other sections of the book, so in this last and sixth section, the three episodes have a common theme running throughout them. That common theme is the maintenance of the service of the Lord uninterrupted. You will see that in the first story, as you listen to the two and a half tribes explain to their irate fellow Israelites why they have built this altar. They have built it to try and prevent later generations of Israel coming to the two and a half tribes and saying, you have no right to serve the Lord. Please, never you attempt to join us in the service of the Lord. God meant Jordan as a barrier to exclude you from serving the Lord. And the two and a half tribes, anticipating that eventuality built the altar in order that they might, throughout the generations, continue to serve the Lord in spite of the exclusive tendencies of the rest of the tribes. Then the second episode, the speech of Joshua to the elders and officers of Israel. A long exhortation to them that they should not go and serve other gods, but that they should love the Lord their God. And finally, Joshua's appeal to the nation, choose ye this day whom you will serve. So then these three episodes that form the last section of the book are concerned with the maintenance of the service of the Lord. And of course, there is a certain logic in the development, isn't there? If we come back to the basic history for a moment. Look at the objectives once more that are as, uh, in these, each of these sections. The first great objective when they entered and developed their inheritance, the first great objective that was achieved, the setting up of the tent of meeting at Shiloh. The second objective that was aimed at, and in large part achieved, the provision of the cities for the salvation of accidental homicides, for the purpose of keeping God's inheritance free of the pollution of blood. And the provision of cities for the Levites, that the service of God might be maintained. And now, in this last section, the objective to be aimed at, not put before us as one that was achieved, the objective to be aimed at, which would have to face all kinds of obstacles and difficulties from within and without. This indeed would be the gravest danger that would beset Israel in their inheritance. That the service of the Lord, instead of being carried on, would be interrupted, and in some some occasions brought to a complete standstill. And hence now the concern of these three last episodes, each of them, that the obstacles may be overcome and the service of the Lord continue throughout the generations unimpeded. What were the obstacles in the way? In chapter twenty two, as I have already hinted, the obstacle to the continued service of the Lord on the part of the two and a half tribes would be the tendency to unscriptural and unauthorized division and exclusivism. My dear good brethren, one of the things in the history of the church that has been such an obstacle to the continuation of the service of God has been a tendency to unscriptural and unauthorized division and exclusivism. In chapter twenty three, the obstacle to the continued service of the Lord was a danger of worldliness of heart, a danger of settling down, and instead of driving out the enemy to be attracted by their way of life, their civilization, their culture, and in particular their daughters, to intermarry with them, and thus find their love for the Lord was compromised, as drawn by their affection for their Gentile wives. They lost the love for the Lord and went and worshipped other gods. The final difficulty put before us by Joshua in his farewell speech of chapter twenty four, the final difficulty, the final obstacle in the way of serving the Lord, is this difficulty of the service of the Lord because of the stringent demands of God's holy jealousy. Joshua said unto the people, you cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgression nor your sins. And because of the stringent demands of God's holy jealousy, service to the Lord, service of the Lord will, Joshua warns them, be found to be a difficult thing. Are you sure you can serve the Lord, says he? At least before you make up your mind to serve him, do beware what his stringent demands are, so that when you choose to serve him, you are aware of what you are doing. For he is a jealous God, and if you pretend to serve him and prove unfaithful to his service, his jealousy, which is the other side of the coin of his love, will discipline you rigorously and unrelentingly. Three difficulties, therefore, in these three episodes. Three obstacles to the continued service of the Lord. Let us then examine them one by one. And in chapter twenty three we have once more the story of the two and a half tribes. It is the interesting fact that they bulk so large here in Joshua. As we have noticed, they stand in that very first division of section one where Joshua exhorts them and reminds them of Moses' command that they were not to settle in their inheritance east of Jordan until they had gone over with the rest of the nation and fought the battles of the Lord till the enemy were subdued, and only then might they go home. They announced their complete readiness, indeed their determination to do what Moses said, and not to settle down, but to go over in the vanguard of the Lord's people and fight with them valiantly until every enemy had been put down. At the beginning of the second half of the book, the first thing that is noticed in the distri- distribution of the land is that the two and a half tribes were given their inheritance. It wasn't Joshua that gave them that inheritance, it was Moses. And of course, Joshua, being an obedient, uh, servant of the Lord, required at the very first breath of the book to do everything that Moses has commanded. Joshua was meticulous in his carrying out of the command of Moses that the two and a half tribes were to be given their inheritance east of Jordan. Anybody that says that the two and a half tribes shouldn't have been given an inheritance east of Jordan would be in danger of contradicting Moses himself and breaking the law, of course. And, uh, now finally, in the last section of the book, the, the two and a half tribes head the section. This is the story how, the battles all being over, Joshua sent them away. Notice that, uh, s- simple elementary observation. It wasn't that they themselves got tired of fighting and slipped out of the back door before the conference was ended, you'll see. And without making up their beds or cleaning the bathroom or anything like that and slipping home, letting somebody else do it. They stayed until Joshua himself gave them permission and command to go and enter into their inheritance. On the way, as I have already said, they came to Jordan. This is verse ten of chapter twenty two. And When they were come into the region about Jordan, that is in the land of Canaan, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh built there an altar by Jordan, a great altar to see to, great altar to look at. Let us therefore consider first their motives in building this altar. Their motives were, as they subsequently explained to their fellow brethren. Let us read it from verse twenty one onwards. Then the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh answered and spake unto the heads of the thousands of Israel. The Lord, the God of gods, the Lord, the God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know, if it be in rebellion or if in trespass against the Lord. And notice, uh, the way they spoke. The very mention of rebellion and trespass against the Lord were, they were such dark and ominous and ugly words that as they mentioned them, they interjected with a parenthesis. The very mention of rebellion and trespass. Well, if that were true, they say, save thou us not this day. If there has been any rebellion in our heart, if there has been any trespass against the Lord, then save us not. So set were their hearts against trespass and rebellion of the Lord. But now, after the interjection, let's go back and read the flow of the speech. If it be in rebellion or if in trespass against the Lord that we have built us an altar to turn away from following the Lord, or if to offer thereon burnt offering or meal offering, or if to offer sacrifices of peace offerings thereon, let the Lord himself require it. May the Lord discipline us. And if we have not rather out of carefulness done this, we've done it deliberately and of purpose, saying, in time to come, your children, that is the children of the rest of the tribes who live west of Jordan, your children might speak unto our children, saying, what have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? For the Lord hath made Jordan a border between us and you, you children of Reuben and children of Gad. You have no portion in the Lord. So shall your children make our children cease from fearing the Lord. Therefore we said, let us now prepare to build us an altar, not for burnt offering nor for sacrifice, but it shall be a witness between us and you and between our generations after us, that we may do the service of the Lord before him with our burnt offerings and with our sacrifices and with our peace offerings, that your children may not say to our children in time to come, you have no portion in the Lord. Therefore, said we, it shall be when they so say to us or to our generations in time to come, that we shall say, behold the pattern of the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made, not for burnt offering nor for sacrifice, but it is a witness between us and you. God forbid that we should rebel against the Lord and turn away this day from following the Lord to build an altar for a burnt offering, for meal offering, or for sacrifice besides the altar of the Lord our God that is before his tabernacle. Marvelous speech. And marvelous men. Men with tremendous foresight. We'll see the first big difficulty that would arise, since they lived geographically east of Jordan. They feared the time would come that when they or their children went up to the tabernacle of the Lord, whether it was still in Shiloh or had been moved elsewhere, when they went up with all the other tribes to the tabernacle of the Lord in Jerusalem, they would be met by their brethren at the door and saying, I'm sorry, you cannot come in here. You don't belong to us. You live the other side of Jordan, and the Lord himself has put Jordan between us and you, and you have no right to worship with us. I ask you to ponder, question, brethren, whether those two and a half tribes were imagining things that were never likely to happen. Or were they realists? Foreseeing the tendency that some people will take hold of all sorts of things and without any basis in Holy Scripture, make it a cause of division between the people of God. You'll notice that they didn't intend to offer sacrifices on that altar and set up an apostate shrine, like Jeroboam did in the subsequent generation. We have not made this altar to offer sacrifices on it. Nor were they intending to set up a different center. They were still determined to obey the law and go up to worship at the tent of meeting, wherever the Lord was pleased at any one time to put that. They were not schismatics. Their fear was the very opposite. They intended to go up, to be one with the people of God, and not to set up an alternative center. Their fear was that the majority of their brethren would eventually try to stop them going up. On the ground, because they lived east of Jordan. God himself had put in a barrier to exclude them. Ah, but you will be aware that the two and a half tribes have had a very bad press. It is not only that their brethren, on hearing this, the two and a half tribes on hearing that the, uh, sorry, the, the, the nine and a half tribes on hearing that the two and a half had built this altar. It's not only that they raised an army and went to destroy them, root and branch, without listening to them, before even they had heard what they'd got to say, before they'd examined their motives. No, they were sure from the start, without even speaking to them, that they were utter heretics and wicked men and should be cut off and excluded, and they raised a big army to go and annihilate them. It wasn't only they who did that, but multitudes, I'm afraid, of God's people since have denounced them uphill and down dale, and continue to do so. Ha, they say. Yeah, ha. It was unscriptural, what they did. There's nothing in the Bible to say that you have to build an altar on the banks of Jordan. That was unscriptural. And you see, it all started wrong. World borderers they were, who settled down east of Jordan when they should have gone into, over Jordan, into the Promised Land. And that's what comes of world bordering. I admit it makes a nice sermon, uh, and you can illustrate it, ah, with the story, much loved of such preachers in this context, of the little girl who was heard to fall out of bed. And when the parent went up to put her back in the, the, and said, what's, what's, what's happened, the girl murmured through her sleepy eyes and mouth, oh mummy, I stayed too near where I got in. And that's a very effective illustration to bang home the truth, isn't it? That these two and a half tribes were world borderers. They stayed too near where they got in. Indeed, they didn't get in at all, according to some. Uh, they, they stayed just outside. And they, they shouldn't have been there. And the Promised Land was west of Jordan. And what happened was that these people tagging along with the Lord's people and as worldly minded as they could possibly be, you'll see, uh, came to Moses and said, Moses, look, we'd like to stay east of Jordan. This is a beautiful land full of grass, and we've got a lot of cattle. Please let us stay here. And that shouldn't have been done at all, really, but they so pleaded with Moses and plagued the life out of him and so plagued the life out of God himself, that in the end the Lord said, well, have it your way, and he gave them the desire of their hearts and sent leanness into their soul, and they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Is that true, my brothers, or is that something we've made up? How did the two and a half tribes get this territory east of Jordan? Perhaps we better be at our books. It's always safer to hear what the Bible says, isn't it, really, on the whole? Numbers. And now we're looking to see how Israel came into possession of this, uh, land, we'll say. And the chapter is Numbers twenty one, beginning at verse twenty one. Israel were walking through the desert. God did not allow them to attack Edom because Edom nationally was their brother. Israel sent messengers to Edom, please let me go through, but Edom would not let them go through, and they had to take the tiresome route all around the border, skirting the borders of E- borders of Edom. That made life difficult, and they ran out of water, and that was a test that they almost broke down under. And they came to Moab, and Moab was even worse. The king of Moab hired Balaam to come and use his, uh, black magic and his demonism to try and curse Israel. Going norther, mo- nor- more northerly still, they came to Ammon, and verses twenty one onward tells us what happened. Zion would not suffer Israel to pass through his border, but Zion gathered all his people together and went out against Israel into the wilderness and came to Jahaz, and he fought against Israel. And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword and possessed his land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even, uh, the- unto the children of Ammon, for the border of the children of Ammon was strong. And Israel took all these cities, and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, in all the towns thereof, and so forth, and so forth. Verse thirty one: thus Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites. Then Moses spent out to s- sent to spy out Jatza, and they took the towns thereof and drove out the Amorites that were there. Uh, verse thirty four: and when Og king of Bashan went out against them, he and all his people to battle at Edrei, the Lord said unto Moses, fear him not, for I have delivered him into thy hand and all his people and his land. Who gave the Israelites the land east of Jordan, gentlemen, according to scripture? Is it true that these world borderers, the two and a half tribes, saw this greeny country and said, we, this is suit us, we don't want to go on into, into Canaan. And they played the life out of the Lord to give them this land because they wanted to settle down and be world borderers. That is not true, gentlemen. The Bible itself says the Lord gave them the land, and the two and a half tribes hadn't even asked for it yet. And never would have dreamed of asking for it. No one in Israel would have asked for it. It was simply that these lists of kings here in this part of East Jordan came out and fought with Israel, and Israel had no option to fight, else they had been destroyed. And what is more, the Lord then encouraged them and said, fight them, and I will give you them, the people, their kings, and I will give you the land. Let's stop myth number one then. It was God who gave them the land. And he gave the land to Israel as a nation, just as he gave the land west of Jordan to Israel of a nation. But while it was given to Israel as a nation, it wasn't yet distributed. It wasn't yet decided who would have what. Somebody would be given the land east of Jordan. They wouldn't just leave it empty, for the Lord had given it to them. Some tribes would be given it. The question would arise, which tribes should be given it? And the two and a half tribes came and said, uh, we'd like that bit. And they were given it. You say, well, that that that that were great sinners, they were. Anyway, that shows the point. They were sinners. Bad lot, world borderers. Fancy coming and asking for it. Yes, like Caleb. He was a bad sinner as well, wasn't he? I don't know what he bordered, but he was a bad sinner because he came and asked for a bit, didn't he? And as for A- Axar and Othniel, they asked for more. That's outrageous. Nowhere is it said that the Lord, against his will, gave the two and a half tribes that bit of land. When Moses first heard their request, he was alarmed, and without letting them, isn't that funny how sometimes people treat each other like that? They don't let them explain, they just jump down their throat with two feet all, two feet all at once, without letting them explain and jump to conclusions. Moses jumped to the conclusion. You said, you race of vipers, you're risen up like that earlier generation of apostates who refused to go into the land, and here you are now refusing to go into the land, and you will weaken your brethren. And when he ran out of steam, did Moses. They graciously replied. I do admire their grace. They said, please, sir, you've mistaken us. We have no intention of settling down yet. We are prepared to go over with the rest of Israel and fight to the very last drop of blood and fight to the very last enemy is destroyed, and we will not come back till the war is over. Could you get more obedient people than they? The scripture is everywhere going out of its way to tell you all the way along that the two and a half tribes said to Joshua, Joshua, if any of our boys try to run away and go back to our inheritance without first fighting, we will ourselves put him to death. And the record is how manfully they fought and never dreamed of going back east of Jordan until Joshua said, it's time to go, gentlemen, the war is over, the land has rest, you may go to your inheritance. My dear brethren, we have here before us a little exercise, don't we? You say this is ancient history. But if we jump to conclusions about our brethren in ancient times without listening to them and without being very careful to see exactly what the law- word of a God says about them, and we denounce them as being worldly and word- world borderers, and our judgment goes against what, in fact, scripture actually says. The danger is we could bring that same attitude to our fellow brethren today. What a vast evil exclusivism has been. So they had a right to be in the land because the Lord gave it to them. But when the, uh, rest of the tribes heard it, they gathered their army without listening, without consulting, without saying, dear brethren, this, uh, this surprises us. I mean, this disturbs us, we have to confess. Why are you doing this? No, no, no, no, army, whoa, go and destroy them. And you'll see what the rest of the tribes thought was as, as they put it, you see. Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we have not cleansed ourselves unto this day, although there came a plague upon the congregation of the Lord, that you must turn away this day from following the Lord. This is Joshua twenty two seventeen following. And it will be seeing you rebel today against the Lord that tomorrow he will be wroth with the whole congregation of Israel. Howbeit if the land of your possession be unclean, then pass you over unto the land of the possession of the Lord, wherein the Lord's tabernacle dwelleth, and take possession among us, but rebel not against the Lord, nor rebel against us in building you an altar besides the altar of the Lord our God. Did not Achan, the son of Zerah, commit a trespass in the devoted thing? And wrath fell upon all the congregation of Israel, and that man perished not alone in his iniquity. So haunting the memory of the rest of the tribes was the terrible and all too real apostasy of Baal Peor, and the terrible thing that Achan did, and the effect that both these iniquities had upon the people as a whole. And they were rightly concerned with that, very rightly concerned. Baal Peor was a terrible apostasy. Achan's was a terribly evil thing, and the nine and a half tribes were right to remember it and to try and make sure that no such thing ever happened again. And in their zeal for the Lord and to stop further apostasy, they now felt that this was apostasy and were going to jump on it with all their power. Gentlemen, do you recognize something that works even in our hearts? We are aware that apostasies in the past have been very bad. We're determined to stop all apostasy in the present, and then we jump to conclusions, and we see apostates everywhere where there are none. So when at last the two and a half tribes were allowed to speak, then, as we have already heard, they explained themselves. Brethren, we are not apostles. Our motive in building this altar was not to offer sacrifices on it. We are absolutely biblically correct. The tabernacle of the Lord, where he has put his name, that and that only is the place to offer sacrifices. We're absolutely clear. We shall never use this altar here for sacrifices. Nor do we intend to make it a place where the people gather. We shall come up to Jerusalem. Our motive is, in fact, the very reverse. We're afraid that because we live east of Jordan, when we or our children come up, your children might have forgotten the history and say that because we live east of Jordan, we've no right to come up to the tabernacle at Shiloh and worship the Lord, and we've no part in the Lord, and we must be excluded. And that's why we built this altar. Why do you suppose they built an altar? Why build an altar? Why build anything as a proof? Well, their idea was this. You still may not approve of it, for all I know, but their idea was this, that when the children of the nine and a half tribes came to their children and said, you, you can't come in here, you can't come and worship with us in Shiloh, you don't belong to us, you're not the Lord's people, you live over Jordan, it's the Lord who put that barrier in the way. Our children will be able to say, just a moment present, come and look at this altar. What do you think of this altar? Will you observe the pattern of this altar? Do you know it's exactly the same to the last centimeter as the altar of the shape it should be, and we've got a model of it here, all through the generations, to show that we believe exactly the same as you do about the altar. We'll We'll say. say they didn't have any scriptural authority to build an altar like that. All right. I'm going to leave that to your judgment. Gentlemen, when people come, do they ever and accuse you of being schismatic? And say you can't come in here and worship with us. What would you do to try and convince them that you are not schismatic? That you are one of the people of the Lord. Or perhaps it's never happened to you to be refused fellowship in an assembly. But suppose it were on the ground that you were schismatic. What would your answer be? The tribe said, you know, behold the pattern of the altar of the Lord. I think if somebody were to accuse me of being schismatic, and some do, I would want to say the same. When it comes to the altar of the Lord, my brothers, I believe with all my heart the Orthodox doctrine about the altar of the Lord. Not now a literal stone altar. I, as a Christian, think of the death of Jesus Christ our Lord. The basis of our salvation, the very heart of the gospel. Pray, well, I, I think I'd better start examining you. Perhaps you might be schismatics. A schismatic, a man who makes a division and divides up the people of God into different groups and goes off with his splinter group. Or I know you might be schismatic. Come on, prove it to me you're not. What do you believe about the altar of the Lord, my brothers? Let's see whether we, in fact, believe the same thing. As far as salvation goes, what is your recipe for salvation? Mine is this, this is the pattern of my altar, that this man, he offered one sacrifice for sins forever and sat down at the right hand of God, in virtue of which the New Covenant tells us, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Where forgiveness like this is, there is no more need of offering for sin. Gentlemen, I don't keep offering sacrifices for sin. There are parts of Christendom that do. They teach their people that every time the Mass is offered, it is a sacrifice for sin. They've got the pattern of the altar wrong, haven't they? Listen to the two and a half tribes. Our altar here is not for constantly offering sacrifices. You never offer any sacrifice on it. And they were Jews, they were Israelites. I stand in the Christian dispensation and you. Behold, my brothers, the pattern of the Lord. He by one sacrifice forever has perfected them that are sacrificed, that are sanctified, and is now sat down. Behold the pattern of the altar of the Lord. Agreed? When it comes to devotion, Philippians 2. Ah, this is a bit more difficult pattern to conform to, isn't it? The pattern of the altar, gentlemen. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, becoming a servant, and being found in fashion of man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, and that the death of the cross. Behold the pattern of the altar. How there I would have to confess how far short I come. But have mercy on me, my brothers, before you exclude me from the assembly of the Lord. I want to conform to the pattern. And if you have been more successful, show me how. Finally, behold the pattern of the Lord when it comes to fellowship. Behold the pattern of the altar. We, being many, are one bread, for we all partake of the same loaf. And as we sit around the sacred emblems, men and women, repentant of sin and trusting only the Savior and his finished work, and we take the bread, we are saying that we are one with all the true people of God. Isn't that what we're saying? Lord, we remember we are one with everyone that loves thy name. Oh God, help us as we sit in those sacred moments to mean what we say, and not to raise unscriptural and unauthorized barriers that would cut off the genuine people of God. And here I rest my case on behalf of the two and a half tribes. Element in the last section of the book of Joshua, which is found in chapter twenty three, and is Joshua's address to Israel, but particularly to the elders and their heads, their judges and their officers. Like the other two elements in this section, it deals with difficulties against the maintenance of the service of the law. The difficulty, at least the potential difficulty in the first story, came from within, from the tendency to division and exclusivism among the people of God themselves. Now, in this second element, the potential danger and obstacle comes from without, in the lure and attractiveness of the pagan civilization, cultures, and idolatry that were around the people of God. The setting, as you hear Joshua say, is this, the situation is this, the thing that will make the danger so very real. Verse three: And you have seen all that the Lord your God hath done unto all these nations because of you. For the Lord your God, he is he- that that hath fought for you. Behold, I have allotted unto you these nations that remain to be an inheritance for your tribes, from Jordan with all the nations that I have cut off, even unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun. The Lord your God, he shall thrust them out from before you and drive them from out of your sight, and you shall possess their land as the Lord your God spake unto you. Therefore, be you very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law, that you turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left, that you come not among these nations, these that remain among you, neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow down yourselves unto them, but cleave unto the Lord your God, as you have done unto this day. Situation appears to have been this, that Joshua had, of course, defeated all the kings in his immediate area of Canaan. That didn't mean that every single enemy had been destroyed. As the individual tribes went each to his own inheritance, he would find individual enemies and pockets of enemy that had come back again and infiltrated, or that had never been mopped up in the first place, and they were to deal with them. But in addition to that, there were other enemies on the fringes that has still had not been destroyed. There were the Philistines now coming in, the Sea Peoples in the southeast, and planting themselves on the coastal line in the southeast of the country. Enemies that were, in fact, to rise to great power in the centuries to come, so that in the time of, uh, uh, Samson, and then in the time of Samuel, Saul, and David, these Philistines would grow constantly in power and prove a very serious thorn in the sides of God's people. And there were enemies in the extreme north that were not yet touched. So Joshua is saying, gentlemen, you must be prepared to fight them. And just as the Lord has given you the territory so far, so he will be with you in fighting and subduing these other enemies, and help you too, of course, in mopping up the enemy from your individual inheritances. The danger would be that as Israel went into the country and settled on their farms and got preoccupied with tilling the soil and restoring it after the ravages of war and building their houses and prospering so, so in a way they'd never prospered in living memory. They might grow weak. And instead of being willing to fight and subdue the evil Gentile cultures around them and maintain their Hebrew identity as servants of the living God as a protest against the idolatry around them. They would come to dwell upon the attractive side of those civilizations, and instead of fighting them, intermarry with them. And as sure as the proverbial eggs are eggs. If they allowed their hearts to be thus compromised and attracted to the girls of these other cultures, then as Solomon found in another day, it wouldn't be many generations before Israel had compromised the very faith for which she stood and the God for whom she stood and was supposed to serve, and would be enmeshed in all kinds of idolatry mixed in with their Hebrew faith. That was not an unrealistic fear on Joshua's part. History showed that his fear was all too well grounded. More than that, of course, there doubtless would have been leaders eventually arising in Israel, like the Jeroboams and the Ahabs subsequently, who not only would have, uh, declined to fight the civilizations around them, but would have argued that the best way to subdue them and to evangelize them was to mix with them. Early on in the, uh, modern missionary movement, the Roman Catholic Church decided that the best way to Christianize countries was to adopt their pagan rituals and to baptize them into Christianity. And so, in, uh, Christian parts of the world, you'll have Halloween. Nowadays, sometimes celebrated by innocent Christians who don't realize what the origin of it was, and I suppose the whole thing has become disinfected because they know not what they do. Mm, but you'll see it was originally absolute pagan custom and is still celebrated as such in Japan, in Malaysia, and in other parts of the world. It is the festival when, once a year, you go to the graveyard, burial ground, cemetery, or God's acre, whatever you call it, and you invite the spirits of your departed to come home to your house for a day or two, and you light candles and things along the way to show them the path back in case they've forgotten it. And then when they come, you put out a great s- feast for them, and do them as best as you can, so that having fed upon your food for a day or two, they might be content and go back and jolly well stay there for the next year, not come fooling around and upsetting things in your house and your business. The feast of the hungry ghosts, they call it in Malaysia, to say. It is a widespread idea. We had it in Ireland, of course, before Christianity ever came, and in some remoter parts of England as well. I don't think we were quite as bad as the Irish, were we? We these English, but I leave that aside. Uh... So that sometimes you will find, uh, people, and I found Christian people, at the time of Halloween, or call it what you will, All Souls Day, not you, they get a termite and hollow out the inside and make two holes for the eyes and one for the, uh, one for the mouth, and they put a candle inside it and hang it outside the window, so that at night time, yes, it is the spirit that's come back and wants to get in. Early Catholic missionaries to these countries of set policy deliberately took over the feast of paganism, baptised and called it All Souls, meaning the souls of the departed. In good Anglo-Saxon, Halloween, the evening of the hallowed ones, that is the saints, the departed ones. And added that to a supposedly Christian ceremony that at that time of year, people go out to the cemeteries, and with the help of the priest, they pray for the departed, and they do penances to help the departed spirits out of purgatory. That is a very widespread custom, particularly in the Latin countries. A fearful mixture of paganism and supposed Christianity. And it was done in many countries of set policy that this was the best way to evangelize the world. Not to oppose their religion, but to, uh, take it in, fumigate it a little bit, baptize it, and you'll get the natives into the church. And I'll let my missionary brethren tell you when they get a chance, Mark Mattox and others, how well it has worked. And we face a great, uh, movement in the modern church, don't we? The Pope in nineteen eighty eight called a congress at Assisi of the leaders of world religions. Since Vatican Council two, it is no longer policy to try and convert people from other religions. I have been told directly by Catholic missionaries that Hindus, for instance, do not need to be converted, and nobody should try. And about nineteen sixty eight following the Jesuit order, recalled all its missionaries from India to retrain them in the new look. You don't have to convert Hindus, they told me. If a Hindu is sincere, then he's okay. It counts as baptism by desire. I said, what do you mean, baptism by desire? My understanding of baptism by desire in your theology is this, that if, like the dying thief on the cross, you trust the Savior and you would like to be baptized, but you can't be because you're nailed to a cross, God takes the will for the deed. Are you saying that if a Hindu is sincerely in his heart, not having heard of the Lord Jesus, wants to trust the living God, whoever he is, that he's okay? Is that what you're saying? No, no, he says, uh, even a Hindu that has heard of Jesus, he doesn't have to believe him. He can carry on sincerely in his Hinduism, he's okay. Because the Roman Catholic Church, uh, and the Pope have the theory of missions now that world religion is a series of concentric circles. The Pope, of course, gentlemen, is the middle, the middle point. The first circle is the Roman Catholic Church, the second circle is the Protestant churches, the third circle is the Jewish faith, the fourth circle is, uh, uh, Buddhism, the fifth circle is Hindu- oh, sorry, got it. After the Jewish faith, then comes Islam, then comes Hindu- Buddhism, then comes Hinduism, and then come Uncle Tom Cobley and all. And that is how it should be. The unification of world religion, so long as the Pope be allowed to be the center. Some years ago, I myself received an invitation to attend the world Congress of Faiths. Not the World Council of Churches, gentlemen, the World Council of Faiths, Congress of Faiths. They sent me their literature and photographs of previous conferences, at the end of which all the leaders had stood together on the platform, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, anything you like to name, animists, they all stood together, and the young people got cords of silk and wound them round them to indicate by symbol that all religions are really the same and are one. The recent, now retired Archbishop of Canterbury came home from India a year or two ago and gave a public lecture. He said he was overwhelmed by the spirituality of India. It's time we got rid of this fundamentalist attitude of the uniqueness of Christianity. Why don't we humbly admit that we are all seeking the truth and haven't found it yet? Let's get together in working dialogue and together with our Hindu friends seek the truth at which we haven't come yet. There will come, gentlemen, a great, great Babylon. And the danger to Christendom, as to Israel of old, was such deliberate compromise. I I personally personally am much concerned about the fluffing of the gospel in some evangelical circles in the West. You will know, gentlemen, how that even the evils and wrongs inside the church at Corinth were treated by the Apostle Paul, and why he was so firm in his correction of those evils. In all cases, you will find him not getting out a rule book and saying, hi you, what you're doing here cor- uh, uh, uh, uh, contradicts rule number one thousand five hundred and sixty three. What he does is to say, you cannot, my brethren, proceed along that line. Why can't you? Because it compromises the very gospel. You must not call yourself after other names and organize yourself around big men. Why not? Because it contact- cont- con- contradicts and goes against the very purpose and method of the gospel. The cross of Christ was meant to eliminate our faith in big men, in any men in that sense, to show us that we are hopelessly dependent upon the Lord Jesus. Glorious in dependence, isn't it? To organize your churches and your groups against around big men, listen to Paul's indignation and the way and the basis of his correction. Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? Thank God, however far Christendom has so far slipped, it has never got round to that one. How wonderful it would sound. I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in the name of the brethren. Ooh. I baptize you in the name of the Lord Jesus and Wesley. What a fearful compromise of the gospel that would be. And thank God Christendom has never gone- got as far as that. Praise the Lord. Was Paul crucified for you? Certainly he wasn't. Were you baptized in his name? No, I wasn't. Well, then why add his name to your church grouping? And similarly, in chapter five where he turns to deal with immorality, on what basis does he oppose it? Because it conflicts with the gospel. Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us, and therefore we must keep the feast of unleavened bread. You cannot preach deliverance from sin in your gospel and allow glaring antisocial sin unjudged in your church, else it will deny your gospel. You cannot partake of the cut table of demons and the table of the Lord. That is to compromise the gospel itself. And what's this funny idea you've got into your head and start preaching, some of you, that there is no resurrection? Gentlemen, if there's no resurrection, it's the complete gospel that's undermined. With Paul, church doctrine is not just a collection of a few rules. With Paul, it's a question of the basic doctrines of the very gospel itself. And in all our church life, we must constantly bring our churches back and back and back to what is the fundamental gospel. And we must try to see to it that that is never fluffed or Or compromised. compromised. But gentlemen, I don't suppose that any of us here seated this morning has a God shelf in his bedroom, or on the quiet practices black magic. Are there no idols to which we might succumb? Listen to Joshua talking to his elders. Verse eleven of that chapter twenty three: Take good heed therefore unto yourselves that you love the Lord your God. Else, if you do in any wise go back and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and make marriages with them, and go into them, and they to you. Know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive these nations from out of your sight, and they shall be a snare and a trap unto you, and a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you. Take heed, good heed to yourselves, that you love the Lord your God. The heart of the secret of not falling to idolatry is not merely correct doctrine, it's a correct attitude of heart. It is possible to be an absolute Pharisee when it comes to rules and regulations, and to have a heart as icy as snow. Take heed that you love him. Gentlemen, we have many times observed now that when God brought Israel into the land, the introduction of Israel into Canaan coincided with the judgments of God upon Canaan. God made Israel the executors of those judgments that Israel might agree with him that the sin of the Canaanites was exceeding sinful. Israel were not supposed thereafter to go and live like the Canaanites lived. The first sinner we meet is Rahab. And what was her sin? It lay, gentlemen, in the area of so-called love. She was an adulteress, a prostitute. Love without pleasure without love, and love without loyalty, sex without morality. Love. And we saw when we studied her how typical of her community she was, a community gone from God, wanting all the pleasure of God's gifts, but not wanting the Lord himself, and turning from the true Lord to serve false gods. And now Israel are in the land. Rahab, good girl, she's got converted. Come here. Do you see that just as the two and a half tribes here remind us of the two and a half tribes there? Now let Rahab and her sin remind us of what Joshua is saying here. She turned from her unlawful love. That's what conversion meant. She turned from her unlawful love to serve and love the true God. Joshua is now to be heard saying to his fellow Israelites, now you're in the land, watch your hearts, gentlemen, lest you lose your love for the Lord and start loving false False idol. idols. How easily that can happen, each one of us knows. We listen to John repeating Joshua's words, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, love of the Father is not in him. It's not just the vicious and immoral things, is it? It can be the lovely, delightful things in which there is no harm per se. They are innocent things, motor car, home, career, what have you, delightful things. But if those delightful things come to take up our hearts, and our affections are centered on them, they are the driving goal of our ambition, our life's energies. Then know this, they will push out and drown out the love of the Father. For if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. My brethren, it is easy to be as orthodox in assembly principle as you could possibly be, and keep all the rules when you're in assembly, and in your heart, to be possessed of idols, loving the world, having lost the love of the Father. Then let us hear Joshua's address to his elders, the judges and the rulers in Israel. Love the Lord. And if you love the Lord, then love for him will drive out all false gods. It will not make you hard, rejoicing in judgment and bellowing judgment down the ears of the unconverted. It will make you as compassionate with the Rahabs as this world, as God was, as Joshua was, and send you out to them to tell them of a better love than they've ever known. That tawdry interpretation of love, which is but a s- expression of man's own selfishness. All that wonderful love for the Rahabs of this world, the very loyalty of the love of God, even to men and women in their sin, that would rather give his son to die than they should perish. And if only they trust him, will be loyal to them for all eternity and give them a whole heaven of delight forever. It will make us compassionate for them, but it will give us an unrelenting enmity against their false gods. God grant, as we go out to preach the gospel to the Rahabs, that in our hearts we are not guilty of spiritual adultery. The second potential obstacle, therefore, against the continuing service of the Lord, the possibility of the defection of our hearts from loving the Lord to compromise with idols. Finally, gentlemen, it is a big, big world. Whereas there are multitudes of Christians in Canada and America and Ireland, there is a big, big world out there, gentlemen, where millions grovel still in their fear of gods galore. And they call us still, don't they, gentlemen? If we love the true God, we shall find it our duty in one way or another to set forward the work of God, to bring deliverance to those who still sit in bondage to their heathen deities. These are solemn but real matters, aren't they? The Lord take my stumbling remarks, fumigate them, correct them, but apply them to our hearts for his name's sake. Let's take another break there, shall we?