"The Kindness, Justice and Mercy of the LORD" Joshua 5:13-6:27

The Old Testament reading is Joshua 5, 13 to 6, 11.

And Joshua did so.

Thus you shall do for six days.

So Joshua the son of Nun called the priests and said to them,

Take up the Ark of the Covenant and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the Ark of the Lord.

And he said to the people, Go forward, march around the city, and let the armed men pass on before the Ark of the Lord.

And just as Joshua had commanded the people, the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the Lord went forward,

blowing the trumpets with the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord following them.

The armed men were walking before the priests who were blowing the trumpets,

and the rear guard was walking after the Ark while the trumpets blew continually.

But Joshua commanded the people,

You shall not shout or make your voice heard.

Neither shall any word go out from your mouth until the day I tell you to shout.

Then you shall shout.

So he caused the Ark of the Lord to circle the city, going about it once.

And they came into the camp and spent the night in the camp.

Late spring 2018, I had the opportunity to visit a friend who was in Jerusalem.

He was a Canadian missionary trying to get back onto the mission field.

It was, I think, the first time I was really away from my family since having children.

So it felt like a throwback to Bachelor Daniel a little bit.

Anyways, we were having a great time.

We had a car.

We drove up to the Galilee.

We stopped in Awadi.

It's like a desert oasis.

And we swam in this beautiful water.

We ate on the Sea of Galilee.

And we drove into the old city visiting a friend of his and a friend of mine.

It was a really wonderful time.

So where he was staying was just outside of Jerusalem in Judea or what is also called the West Bank.

And we could, to get into Jerusalem proper, take a giant roundabout way to avoid some contested areas.

Or we could drive through them.

Now, my friend, he's 10 years older than me.

He has five boys.

He is a cowboy.

He doesn't give a rip.

So he's just like, we're obviously driving straight through.

You know, it's not super dangerous.

But if you can avoid it, avoid it.

Okay?

There's different license plate colors.

A yellow license plate, the Israeli license plates.

They're not exactly welcomed in that area.

There's a bunch of white license plates.

That's the Palestinian Authority license plates.

Why am I telling this story?

Every day when we drove through the contested area, we drove by Jericho.

It was the old city.

One of the oldest cities in the entire history of the world.

We drove by it every day.

And every day, this giant, maybe 20, 25 foot sign, massive, right at the entrance of the city.

It read this.

This road leads to Area A under the Palestinian Authority.

The entrance for Israeli citizens is forbidden, dangerous to your lives, and is against the Israeli law.

And it was written in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

In bright red.

Unmistakable.

Do not enter into Jericho.

Every single time we would drive by it.

And I was, the sign was a bit of a shock.

I mean, imagine if you're driving just before you hit the Champlain Bridge.

Giant 30 foot sign.

Do not enter into Quebec.

It is dangerous.

You might die.

Stuff like this.

Or say, like, you're on the way to Carleton Place.

You're on Highway 7, and just as the highway slows down,

do not enter Carleton Place.

These people will kill you.

Or something like that.

Like, it would be shocking to see.

And it was shocking to me to see that.

I mean, Canada is this incredible place.

It's also a very insulated place from a lot of danger, right?

So I thought about the sign a lot as I studied Joshua 6 this week,

because this is the story of Jericho.

If you have been in church for any length of time as a child,

you would have come across this story.

It's a kid's ministry favorite.

It's not exactly PG, though.

So I drove by this giant sign in this ancient city,

and I considered how 3,500 years prior to us driving,

Joshua and the nation of Israel began their conquest there.

This was their Juneau beach, so to speak.

This was the first conquest into this foreign land that was really their land,

given by God as a gift,

and they were about to take on the Canaanite people.

So I mentioned it's not exactly a PG story.

It's a tough one, actually, I think, for our Canadian sensibilities.

Again, we're an insulated country from a lot of the crazy, difficult, dark things in this world.

Although Canada, of course, is not immune.

We just like to keep it a foot or two beneath the surface so we don't see it.

But it nevertheless will disturb our Canadian sensibilities

precisely because of a specific command God will give to the Israelites.

And this command that he gives has the potential to call into question his goodness,

and more importantly, his trustworthiness.

So, longer intro.

Have grace with me.

We'll run through not every chapter, or every verse, rather, but a good chunk of it.

But turn with me to Joshua chapter 5 on page 24.

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

And we're going to take a look at this story,

this familiar story for the majority of us,

and actually see that it is going to communicate something to us

about the kindness, the justice, and the beauty of God.

Okay, step one, point one.

The kindness of the Lord in his self-revelation.

So, just to catch everybody up on the narrative,

Israel crosses the Jordan miraculously.

Read about it.

They renew the covenant with the Lord.

Read about it.

And now they are posed to take on the conquest of the land.

And Joshua, he looks up.

He's the commander.

He's been affirmed.

He is the successor of Moses.

He is the man in Israel.

And he looks up, and he sees this warrior with a drawn sword in his hand.

And we are not told about the appearance of the warrior,

but the implication seems to be that this guy is something else.

Okay?

Is he tall?

Is he broad?

Is he glowing?

We're not sure, but there's something about this warrior

that draws Joshua towards him.

And he goes over to see,

is this guy for us or is he against us?

Is he a friend or is he a foe?

Verse 13.

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked,

and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand.

And Joshua went to him and said to him,

Are you for us or for our adversaries?

A legit question when you're going to go into war

with a guy in front of you with a drawn sword.

Okay?

Good question to ask.

The response.

No.

Weird response.

No.

Option A or option B?

Option C.

He just says no.

It may seem like a bit of a non-answer.

But let's continue on and see the follow-up to that reply.

Or to that response, rather.

Verse 14.

No, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord.

He's using the covenant name of the Lord here.

Now I have come.

So we see that this isn't a mere human warrior.

This is some kind of heavenly or angelic warrior.

And this warrior is tasked with doing the Lord's will.

Not Joshua's will.

Not the Canaanites' will.

But the Lord's will above all.

And what is implied here is that Joshua,

he's actually asking the wrong question.

It's not, are you for us or against us?

The real question that Joshua should be asking is,

am I on the Lord's side?

Am I following the Lord?

Am I doing God's will, God's way?

Am I on the Lord's side?

You know, it's a very important question for us to consider.

Are we on the Lord's side?

I mean, it's remarkable.

I'm not going to get into it.

But there is something to be said about somebody attempting to follow God's way

without using God's strategy.

Or not consulting the Lord in prayer, searching his word.

We can think and deceive ourselves into thinking we are doing God's will

without it being God's way.

And this is an important thing for us to consider.

Are you asking the question,

is God for me?

Or are you asking the question, am I for God?

Totally different question.

Changes everything.

It really does.

I think, Christian or not, this is a question that everybody wrestles with.

Christian or not, we want God or the universe or a higher power or just good vibes

to be on our side, to be doing what we want, our way.

We fashion ourselves as the sun with everything else as a planet rotating around us.

But this question helps us to have a proper posture for life.

In fact, God and God alone is the sun.

And we are planets.

I mean, we are whatever.

But we are rotating around him.

The center of our galaxy, of our universe, is him, not us.

Therefore, the question has to be, friends,

am I on the Lord's side?

Ask yourself that question if you can.

This morning, this evening, when you wake up every day.

Am I doing your will?

Am I following your ways?

Lord, I want to please you with my life.

I am your servant.

You see, what ends up happening, if we ask this question,

is we cease to be the center of the universe,

which what we'll see is really being an enemy with the Lord, right?

It is swapping a place with the Lord.

God isn't the king of all things.

The ruler, the sovereign over the created universe, I am.

Puts us in a bit of an adversarial position with God.

But when we ask that question, it changes.

It shifts so that we no longer become enemies,

but we become worshipers of the Lord.

And we see this in the next section,

because look at how Joshua responds to the response of the commander of the Lord's army.

Verse 14.

And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him,

What does my Lord say to his servant?

Verse 15.

And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua,

Take off your sandals from your feet,

for the place where you are standing is holy.

And Joshua did so.

See how that one question flipped around.

It makes Joshua have a completely different posture.

He is not preparing in the same way for war.

Instead, he is worshiping the Lord God,

which is interesting because now we are starting to get a clue

into the real identity of this commander of the Lord's army.

He is not some angelic person.

He is, it would seem, the Lord himself.

So Joshua falls prostrate in worship.

And he's worshiping the one true God.

And we know this also, I'll just mention this really quickly.

We know this because there's other parts of the Bible

where an angelic being shows up and people fall down.

And the angel's like, no, no, no, no.

We don't worship angels here.

Stand up.

I am a servant of the Lord.

But there's none of that.

It is the right thing what Joshua is doing.

And he is not encouraged to change.

In addition to him taking off his sandals

because truly he's in the presence of the Lord.

And what we're seeing here is God revealing himself to Joshua.

It's an act of kindness.

Okay, when I say kindness, I'm not meaning niceness.

God can be nice.

God can also not be nice.

But this is kindness.

This is grace.

This is a deep, undeserved, I mean grace for lack of a better term,

being extended to this man who needs it in this moment.

He's revealing himself to him.

It's a really actually beautiful thing.

It is further likened to the Lord.

Again, if you're not quite convinced that this commander of the Lord's army

is in fact the Lord himself.

But if we continue on verse 2,

try to remove verse 1 for the moment

and read the end of chapter 5 into chapter 6, verse 2.

And then we see the Lord himself is speaking to Joshua.

See, I have given Jericho into your hand

with the king and the mighty men of valor.

Again, consider how reassuring this would be.

Let's just take a pause, a step back,

and consider that Israel is a group of former slaves

that had experienced decades of nomadic wanderings.

Okay?

They get into the promised land,

not because of some incredible engineering feat,

but because God does a miracle stopping up the Jordan.

They go through,

and now they see a fortified city that is impregnable.

Okay?

There's no ladders that they can construct.

They don't know how to fight siege warfare.

They have no idea how to get in here.

And then all of a sudden,

in addition to all this, by the way,

the Lord has commanded them to take the city.

And then the Lord himself shows up

and reveals himself to Joshua,

and by extension,

the rest of Israel through Joshua.

And he says that the victory's already won.

The victory's already won.

This near impossible task ahead of you,

verse one, that's the purpose of verse one, by the way.

It's to kind of state that Jericho

is an impossible city to conquer for this people.

But the victory's already won.

I have shown up.

God is displaying his kindness to his people

by revealing himself to them.

It's a remarkable thing for the Israelites to experience

on the eve of their first battle, is it not?

And not only does God reassure them

that the victory's already won,

but he gives them the strategy for that victory.

And here's what he says.

He says, listen,

this is how you build ladders.

This is how you kind of get some flaming arrows to lay.

No, none of that, okay, right?

Like, he doesn't give them military strategy.

He says, listen,

get the priests, get the ark,

get some trumpet shofars.

This is the ram's horn.

And for seven days,

you're going to walk around the city once

and blow the trumpet and not say anything.

And you're going to do that for six times.

And on the seventh day,

you're going to go around seven times,

blow the trumpet,

and then shout.

And then the walls will fall down.

It's not a military strategy at all.

It is so outlandish to consider

unless we consider that God is doing a miracle

to prove that he is fighting for his people

and that ultimately the victory is his.

And that the glory for any conquering of Canaan

is his in his alone.

I mean, this is a ridiculous thing

to ask the Israelites to do.

And yet that is the strategy of the Lord.

Seven days, seven priests, seven trumpets,

and then on the seventh day, circle seven times.

Why all the sevens?

It's a good question to ask.

Maybe you're asking, maybe not.

Why all the sevens?

Whenever you're reading a story

and there's repetition like this

or there's some kind of,

you might think,

is there some symbolism?

On one hand, be careful

because people can find symbolism

in all sorts of different things.

And they can be wrong, myself included.

But sometimes symbolism is actually very important.

It draws our attention to something

that's not explicit,

but so wonderful and beautiful.

And seven here is very symbolic

and is put in the story,

not haphazardly,

but very importantly,

the Lord is drawing our attention to something.

Not to get into it, deep into the weeds,

but seven, you think,

on the seventh day,

God rested from his creation.

On the, every, every 49 years,

well, really it's the 50th year,

but seven times seven,

there's a year of Jubilee in the Bible.

Seven is this idea of completeness or wholeness,

but also of rest.

And I think what's happening here

is God is saying,

listen, seven with seven with seven,

and then on the seventh day,

seven times around,

he's saying this victory will be complete,

will be whole,

it will be finished,

and by the way,

I will do the fighting,

you will rest in me.

And it's a beautiful picture.

If that truly is the purpose

of incorporating the sevens,

for us to read this,

this is all the Lord,

and none of Israel, okay?

God in his kindness is showing up

to this former slave,

former nomadic,

kind of semi-broken,

semi-put-together people,

and he is saying,

my victory will be complete.

I am, I'm on your side.

I'm in your corner all the way.

Once again,

the Lord will break into the natural world

in a supernatural way

to initiate the victory,

to draw people to himself,

to fight for his people,

and it's an act of great kindness.

But how can it be true kindness

when the kindness that God extends

to one people group

comes at the expense of another?

I mean,

he is extending kindness to Israel,

but it will lead to the downfall of Canaan.

Would it be kindness for my family

if I just lavished my love and attention

with material things to one child

at the expense of the other?

It wouldn't make me a good father.

That would make me something else,

but not good.

That wouldn't be kind.

It would be leveraging one child

to punish the other.

What is happening then?

How can we understand God's kindness

in light of what is to come?

How are we to make sense of the next section?

This leads to our second point.

Second point is the justice of God punishing evil.

So this is,

I set up,

we're going to go through the whole section.

This is the part I'm going to sum up

because God has given instructions

to Joshua for Israel

and the next section,

verses 6 to 15,

really just detail Joshua

telling the information to the people

and the people obeying, okay?

So that's what's happening.

And then it culminates in the final blast

of the ram's horn or the shofar.

And actually,

we brought a shofar today

and just imagine before,

Tyler's going to blow it.

And Tyler's blowing it because he's a trumpeter

and he has the chops for it.

And every time I try it at home,

the kids laugh because it's like squeaking.

It doesn't quite work.

But just imagine a whole troop of people

with this box in the middle

going around

and all you hear is the sound.

What kind of psychological warfare

might it be for the people?

And in addition,

one more thing before you blast this, Tyler.

This is also talking about symbolism

or what it represents.

It represents, in a sense,

the victory of God.

We'll see this especially

in the book of Revelation.

Just before this returns,

there's the blast of the shofar.

The victory's won.

So give it a shot if you're up for it.

Wow.

Well done.

Give me a hand.

Thank you, Tyler.

I don't know.

It did something.

It always gets me.

Like, I don't know.

It kind of rattles me up a little bit.

Imagine hearing that.

Okay?

Imagine hearing that

if you're in Jericho.

But imagine hearing that

if you are an Israelite.

Wow.

God is on our side.

So that's what you're hearing

as the people are going around,

as the priests are going around.

That's the best I've ever heard

the trumpet blasted, by the way.

So victory's at hand.

But then comes this passage

that I warned you guys about

at the beginning.

I'll read verses 16

and then 21 is the tough one.

And at the seventh time

when the priests had blown the trumpet,

Joshua said to the people,

Shout!

For the Lord has given you the city.

Actually, we'll jump verses 17 to 20.

Then they devoted all the city

to destruction.

Both men and women,

young and old,

oxen, sheep, and donkeys

with the edge of the sword.

Now, sometimes in the Bible

when it says

there is,

the whole city was destroyed,

it's an idea of saying

that it was a total victory.

In this case,

it means what it says.

It means what it says.

So it's a difficult passage.

And like I said

at the beginning of our sermon,

at the beginning of our sermon series

in Joshua,

the commitment for us

is to walk towards

these difficult passages,

not away from them.

So let's walk towards it together.

So it's a difficult passage

for us.

I mean, it implies that

children are being slaughtered

and they're being slaughtered

because God has said so.

But it's important for us

to consider the utter evil

of the Canaanite culture.

Canaanite culture was barbaric.

It was evil.

I will try to...

Anyways, you can read about it,

but it was full of murder,

full of abuse

abuse and exploitation

of the worst kind.

There was sacrifice

and not of animals.

People were trafficked.

Think of the worst possible atrocities

that you can think of,

and it happened in ancient Canaan.

And not only that,

but the people gleefully

participated in such acts.

It was a part of their ethos.

It was a part of their very worship.

It was their very way of life.

So we might struggle

with the idea of the Lord

commanding an entire people

to be devoted to destruction,

but we need to understand

how evil, evil truly is

and how important it is

that it is dealt with justice.

But what about the innocence?

What about mercy?

Listen, these are very important objections.

I'm going to address them

when we get to chapter 7.

So it'll be in two or three weeks from now.

I'll address that,

but it will get addressed,

I promise you.

But if we consider back to the,

if we get back to the evil

of the Canaanites,

if we consider just how evil

things really were,

let's maybe approach

the whole situation

with a different question.

What if the Lord

didn't execute justice?

What if he allowed evil

to continue on and fester?

What if the policy of God,

the official policy of God

was live and let live?

You do you

to the Canaanite people,

allowing their culture

to form the way they want it

for them to believe

what they want to believe

and practice whatever

they want to practice.

What if that was God's policy?

And therefore,

evil continued to fester,

continued to grow and evolve.

Let me give you an example

of what that might look like.

This past week

marked the three-year anniversary

of the October 7th attacks.

And the glee and the joy

of 6,000 Gazans,

both military and civilian,

participated in the massacres

that day,

and 1,200 Israelis,

both Arab and Jews,

also some foreign nationals

as well,

they were killed.

And it was chilling

and hard to comprehend.

One such example,

it's still haunting.

There was a young man

and they captured the audio

of his call to his father.

And with glee and joy,

he talked about how

he murdered 10

and mutilated 10 Israelis.

And his father responds

with joy

and thankfulness

and pride.

And although only 6,000

of say 2 million

of these people

participated in the massacres,

when the hostages

were brought back into Gaza,

the streets filled up

and people cheered

and candy was handed out

to children

and there were shouts of joy

heard everywhere.

This is what evil looks like

when it is allowed to fester.

A culture

is designed

and is used

to not promote the good

or the flourishing

of humanity

but to exploit

and to murder

and to kill

and to maim.

But I'll say this,

the problem

isn't inherently

with the people of Gaza.

It's not as though

Gazans are defective.

Whatever family

they come from,

whatever religion

they practice,

they're just defective.

No, no, no.

The issue is

with a culture,

not a people,

but a culture

formed by a death cult.

Listen,

I bring this up

not to debate

the war that happened

over the next

two plus years.

I have my opinions

about that.

It is incredibly sad

and I wish it didn't happen.

If you guys

want to talk about it

afterwards

or you find it offensive

that I even use this

as an example,

please come talk to me.

I'm like,

I don't even own

boxing gloves,

all right?

Like,

we can talk.

It'll be civil.

It'll be okay.

I promise.

But I use this

as a very concrete

and a very current example

of what evil looks like

and how reprehensible

it truly is

and how Canaan

looked a lot more like that

than we might see

in the scriptures.

I could have talked

about the Taliban.

I could have talked

about the Mexican

drug cartels.

I mean,

barbaric,

barbaric,

barbaric culture

in both of those examples.

You know,

I could even talk

about our culture.

John Paul II,

I think rightly,

called the West

participating

in the culture of death.

Okay?

What I'm trying to say,

and please hear me

when I say it,

I'm not advocating

for a view

that people

are inherently bad,

but that cultures

aren't equal.

Okay?

Cultures aren't equal.

And also,

please hear me

when I say

I'm not advocating

for genocide

or indiscriminate killing

or meeting cruelty

and barbarism

with cruelty

and barbarism.

What I'm not doing

this morning,

hear me when I say it,

I'm not somehow

commending a method

on how to deal

with this at all.

But I am saying

that we cannot be

indifferent

or excuse evil

when we see it.

Evil always needs

to be opposed.

you know,

the Bible itself,

and we'll see this,

especially with Rahab,

also doesn't attack

and condemn

a people group,

but again,

a culture.

Rahab confesses

her sins

to the almighty God

or puts her allegiance

to the almighty God

and is treated

like an Israelite.

Okay?

She rejects her culture

and her religion

for the true

and better God.

And we'll see

in a few weeks

there's this man

named Achan

who is an Israelite

and he acts culturally

like a Canaanite

and he's treated

like that.

It's not an issue

with people groups,

but cultures

that we see.

And more than that,

it's not just

an indictment

on cultures,

for the Bible

is clear

that sin actually

isn't an issue

that is connected

with nations only.

But that it runs

from top to bottom

in our own hearts.

This is where evil

can be found.

In the human heart.

In our desires,

in our fantasies,

in our temptations.

Evil is real.

And what we see here

is God

dealing with it.

this is in my next point,

but I'll just say it now.

Back in Genesis chapter 15,

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

the evil

and the

subsequent destruction

of Canaan

was foreshadowed.

Back in Genesis 15,

God is telling Abraham

you're going to get the land,

but first,

he says,

the sins of the Amorites

has to reach

its zenith,

its pinnacle.

Okay?

The Amorites

are again

a part of this people group.

The idea is

Canaan.

Canaan is an evil place

that practices

evil things.

That was God's judgment.

And then

500 plus years

goes by

between Genesis 15

and Joshua chapter 6.

Joshua 6 · chapter mention

And in that period of time,

there were ample examples

of God,

the one true God,

the God of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob,

the God of Israel

doing magnificent things

and making all the other gods

look petty and small.

Said another way,

there was 500 plus years

of opportunities

to repent

and to turn from the wickedness.

And even

in the lead up

to Joshua chapter 6,

Joshua 6 · chapter mention

what do we see?

God doing magnificent things

so that the people

of Jericho,

if you remember chapter 2,

their hearts were melted.

They were so afraid

of this God.

And yet,

and yet,

they did not turn.

God is a God

of justice

and he can't let,

he can't let evil persist

but he also

extends mercy.

So this will lead

into our third

and final point.

God is

a beautiful God

for he extends

mercy to those

who don't deserve it.

Listen,

they had ample time

to turn from their wickedness

and I've given you

the examples

of what that wickedness

looked like

and yet they still didn't.

Okay, why?

Verse 1

is on one hand

to tell us

and to tell the Israelites

that Jericho

was too big

for them to conquer

by themselves

but also

it is

a picture

of what's happening

in the collective hearts

of the people of Canaan.

They are shutting themselves

off to the one true God.

We see Rahab hasn't.

She will

receive mercy

but why them?

Why is it that

they have had mercy

extended to them

and they have not

embraced it?

Why did they reject God

and continue

in their horrendous evil?

We talked about this

three weeks ago

back in chapter 2

and the answer

is still the same.

I don't know.

Okay, I don't know.

I don't know why

Rahab said yes

to the one true

ever living God

while the king

of Jericho

and all his people

said no

and they shut themselves

up from God

effectively giving God

the middle finger.

Why?

I don't know.

I don't know why

some of you

have family members

that have walked

with the Lord

and then walk away

or people in your life

that you have

prayed for

and have shared

the good news with

and then they're

unresponsive

and maybe

even indifferent

which sometimes

is worse than

being hostile

by the way.

In my own family

I am the only

person on my father's side

who has come to

a saving faith

in the Lord.

Why me?

Okay?

I don't know.

Why couldn't it be

the generation before

or the generation

before that?

I don't know.

I'm not sure.

God is sovereign

and we are not.

We don't know

why some come to him

and some don't

but I do know

what is true.

Romans chapter 1

Romans 1:20

verse 20 is true.

For his invisible

attributes

namely his eternal

power and divine

nature

have been clearly

perceived

ever since the

creation of the

world

in the things

that have been

made

so they are

without excuse.

God has

revealed himself

to people

through his

creation.

He is not

going to leave

anybody without

excuse

and also

I know

that it is not

God's will

that any

should perish.

He desires

everybody to come

to a saving

faith

and he extends

mercy

and some

say yes

and some

say no

and God

is involved

in that

in some

kind of

incredible

divine

holy spirit

way

and sometimes

we just

don't know

but we know

that God

delights

in extending

mercy.

listen some

of us are

Christians

some of us

have one foot

in one foot

out some

of us

might be

out but

we just

haven't maybe

come to grips

with it.

I don't know

where you're

at okay I

don't have a

window into

your soul

I don't.

If you find

yourself like

Jericho

shutting yourself

up

okay

not allowing

God to

to peer

in

and he's

extending mercy

and you are

functionally

treating God

like the

king of

Jericho

don't

he wants

to come

in to your

very deepest

secret

and extend

mercy to it

and the sin

that you are

unbelievably

ashamed

of doing

and he

wants to

extend mercy

to it

don't shut

up your

gates to

God

do not

shut God

out of the

very places

he wants

to heal

going back

to the

story

we're going

to wrap

up very

shortly

look with

me at

verses 17

and then

down to

actually

just verse

17

and then

we'll

continue on

in verse

22

verse 17

we're on

page 28

and the

city and

all that

is

is within

it shall

be devoted

to the

Lord for

destruction

again

we'll deal

with that

in a

few weeks

only

Rahab

the

prostitute

and all

who are

with her

in her

house

shall live

because

she hid

the

messengers

whom we

sent

and then

down to

verse 22

but to

the two

men

who had

spied out

the land

Joshua

said

go into

the

prostitute's

house

bring out

from there

the woman

and all

who belong

to her

as you

swore to

her

so the

young men

who had

been spies

went in

and brought

out Rahab

and her

father

and mother

and brothers

and all

who belong

to her

and they

brought all

her relatives

and put them

outside the

camp of

Israel

and they

burned the

city with

fire

and everything

in it

only the

silver

and gold

and the

vessels

of bronze

and of

iron

they put

into the

treasury

of the

house

of the

Lord

verse 25

but Rahab

the

prostitute

and her

father's

household

and all

who belong

to her

Joshua

saved

alive

here it

is

and she

has lived

in Israel

to this

day

because she

hid the

messengers

whom God

sent to

spy out

Jericho

great lengths

are spent

by the

writer to

highlight

the kept

promises

of the

woman

who has

no

business

being

a part

of Israel

unless she

truly is a

part of Israel

because she

has trusted

in the

God of

Israel

and that's

what we

see

the ever

living God

who extended

mercy

that mercy

was embraced

and the

promise

was kept

make no

mistake

friends

God

delights

in showing

mercy

and he

delays

judgment

as much

as he

can

in order

to do

so

so

the words

of James

James 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2

they ring

incredibly

true for us

in Joshua

Joshua 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6

and this is

what it says

verse 13

for judgment

is without

mercy

to one

who has

shown

no mercy

mercy

triumphs

over judgment

in closing

this is a

hard story

for us

in the

21st

century

to

figure out

but ultimately

the story

helps us

to

see the

ultimate

judgment

and mercy

of God

found in

the passion

and death

of Christ

God

showed

mercy

to us

by pouring

out his

judgment

upon

Jesus

so even

though

we

are more

like Jericho

than we

are like

Israel

God

treated

Jesus

like

Jericho

so we

could

be a part

of God's

family

like Jericho

Jesus

was committed

to complete

destruction

he was

utterly

destroyed

and the

beatings

the

whippings

the crown

of thorns

the nails

the piercings

in his

hands

and his

feet

all of it

the crucifix

he hung

upon

all of it

was

for us

to satisfy

the justice

of God

and to

extend the

mercy of

God

all in

the one

single

act

and the

wonderful

thing about

this is

that he

did not

come down

when we

called him

but he

came down

of his

own

accord

and revealed

himself

to us

in such

a way

to identify

with our

humanity

friends

this is the

kindness of

God on

full display

but please

please

please

also see

this as a

warning

because it

helps us

to remember

that there

will be a

final judgment

one day

and God

will extend

mercy and he'll

delay judgment

but those who

ultimately will

not embrace

the one

true God

the one

true Messiah

who is Lord

and Savior

over all

there will

be a

judgment

and it

will be

final

and it

will be

swift

and it

will be

over

and there

will be

no other

options

left for

us

so friends

throw yourself

at the mercy

of God

be like

Rahab

be like

Rahab

and trust

in the

ever-living

God

Father

Son

and Holy

Spirit

may

may