The God of Second Chances

Dr. Kevin DeYoung, Senior Pastor

Joshua 8 | October 6, 2024 - Sunday Morning,

Sunday Morning,
October 6, 2024
The God of Second Chances | Joshua 8
Dr. Kevin DeYoung, Senior Pastor

Father in heaven, we pray for open eyes that we may see, open ears that we may hear, open hearts that we may believe, and as I venture to open my mouth, would You speak through it, not the mere words of a man but the Holy Spirit speaking through the Scriptures that we might know the voice of Jesus, our Good Shepherd, in whose name we pray.  Amen.   

Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Joshua, Joshua chapter 8.  As we make our way through this book, Joshua chapter 8.  Last week we left off with a bit of a cliffhanger.  Now you can see in your Bible that there’s a heading.  Those are not inspired but they’re helpful.  Above chapter 8 it says “The Fall of Ai.” 

Somebody did ask me this week about my theological assessment of artificial intelligence and I said, “Come this week.  We’re learning about the downfall of Ai.”  Different Ai.

So you can see right there in your Bible we know, all right, the surprise is out.  Ai is going to fall.  But if you were just hearing this word read, you would have gotten to the end of chapter 7 and you would have wondered, well, what now?  There’s a heap of stones, the burning anger of the Lord has been spent, but there’s a Valley of Achor upon Achan, the troubler of Israel.  You might wonder, do God’s people fail?  Is this the end of the story?  Is this all that they have?

They go into the Promised Land, they leave Egypt, they go through the Red Sea, they go through the Jordan River, and they have a great victory at Jericho and is this all the Promised Land that they get?  They did all of that wandering in the wilderness for this.

Well, now we find out that no, chapter 7 is not the end of the story.

Verse 1:  “And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear and do not be dismayed.  Take all the fighting men with you, and arise, go up to Ai.  See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land.  And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king.  Only its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves.  Lay an ambush against the city, behind it.””

Now pause right there.  I love how the Lord addresses Joshua.  Do you recall there in 8:1, this is the same language that He spoke to Joshua back in chapter 1 verse 9:  Be strong and courageous, do not be frightened and do not be dismayed.  The Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

You couldn’t have better news at the start of chapter 8.  Just like He said at the beginning of this adventure, now He says again, “Look, I’m with you, Joshua.  I haven’t left.  You’ve taken care of the sin in your midst and I’m telling you don’t be frightened.  Don’t be dismayed.”

Now notice this time He says I want you get all the fighting men.  Last time he only took a few thousand fighting men and perhaps that was evidence that they were a bit too confident as they came up against this little settlement of Ai.  And it is a lesson for us – we needs God’s power even for the little Ai’s in your life.

It’s easy to come to Jericho and think, oh, well, we better pray and we better ask the Lord and seek His help, and then you have lots of things in your life that you think, well, of course, we’ll get this. 

But perhaps it was some of their downfall that that were overconfident before the Lord.  He said, “No, no, no.  I want you to get all your fighting men and you’re going to take this city.  The Lord will give it to your hands.” 

Isn’t that wonderful that we hear, right in this opening paragraph, that defeat is not the last word for Israel.  I want you to hear that this morning.  Failure does not have to be the last word in your life.  Sin, even catastrophic, egregious sin, does not have to be the defining part of your identity.

Sometimes we think that when we have a really big sin or it’s intractable and you think for the rest of all time, whatever good I might do, I will always have in my own mind that scarlet A, or whatever your sin is.  I will always be an alcoholic, I will always be an adulterer.  Sin does not have to have the defining part of your identity.

The Lord then instructs Joshua to lay an ambush.  The basic plan is to take 30,000 mighty men of valor, hide some of them away from the city, and He says, now, most of your forces are going to attack the city.  This is a classic military strategy in the ancient world, down to the present, you’re going to go and because last time remember they ran away like scaredy cats and they were killed as they went down the slopes, so you’re going to do it and they’re going to think the same thing’s happening again.  They’re going to say, “Ah, this is what we get with Israel’s army.”  You’re going to turn and they’re going to chase you and we’re going to wait until every last man comes out of Ai to chase you and then the ambush that we have, you’re going to give the signal and they’re going to come and they’re going to take over the city once it’s emptied of all of its defenders.

Go down to verse 10.  

“Joshua arose early in the morning and mustered the people and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai.  And all the fighting men who were with him went up and drew near before the city and encamped on the north side of Ai, with a ravine,” remember last time they killed some of them as they went down that ravine, “between them and Ai.  He took about 5,000 men and set them in ambush between Bethel,” another city, “and Ai, to the west of the city.  So they stationed the forces, the main encampment that was north of the city and its rear guard west of the city.  But Joshua spent that night in the valley.”

So they’re getting their men stationed, 30,000 mighty men of valor.  The main forces are setting up north and then there’s this ambush.  There would have been many rocky terrain and lots of good places to hide this part of the army, and they are going to give the signal when to attack.

Go down to verse 18.   

“Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.”  And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.  And the men in the ambush rose quickly out of their place, and as soon as he had stretched out his hand, they ran and entered the city and captured it.  And they hurried to set the city on fire.”

So as you can see from a long distance across this ravine on two high points, they see that Joshua has the staff raised in the air.  The trap works and the men of ambush come and they overtake the city.  They pretend to be beaten and then when they flee, the people empty out and then the ambush comes.  This is Joshua.  You can see enacting the part of the new Moses.

Remember when they were fighting the Amalekites and they had to hold Moses’ hands up, or even more significantly with the staff at the banks of the Red Sea.  As soon he held aloft his staff, the waters parted.

Well, Joshua now is doing the same thing with this staff in his hand.  He signals for the ambush and all told 12,000 people fall from the city.

Go to verse 26.   

“Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction.  Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took as their plunder, according to the word of the Lord that He commanded Joshua.  So Joshua burned Ai and made it forever a heap of ruins, as it is to this day.  And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening.  And at sunset Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised over it a great heap of stones, which stands there to this day.”

Notice this time Israel is allowed to take some of the things.  They weren’t before.  Perhaps it’s God’s way of providing for them.  Remember when they left Egypt they plundered the Egyptians.  That’s how they could come out of Egypt with clothes and gold, that’s the gold they had to make the golden calf, unfortunately.  So just as they plundered the Egyptians, they are allowed here to plunder the Canaanites.  God’s not going to provide manna from heaven anymore, so they need livestock, they need food. 

And this defeat of Ai ends.  For the third time in the book, we have a heap of memorial stones.  There was a heap of stones at the Jordan River to commemorate their passing through on dry land, at the end of chapter 7 a heap of stones over Achan and his sin, and then here a heap of stones over the king of Ai and there at the entrance of the city.  Three times a heap of memorial stones to signify that as they would see this mound of stones, it would be a reminder to Israel, and it would be a warning to the nations, this God of Israel is a powerful God.  He can part the water, He judges the sinner, He can overthrow the cities of the Canaanites.

Then we come to this last section.  It may seem like a bit of an extra addendum, just a little bit of information before we come back to the main action, and you may have noticed this is how the book of Joshua works, that there’s action, there’s fighting, there are spies, and then sort of go back and there’s a memorial, or there’s action and then we have some kind of ceremony.

Well, this is, I think, the real point of the passage.  As we’ll see in a moment, I think this last section tells us the point of this whole first section of the book of Joshua.  So listen carefully as I read this last paragraph, these final six verses. 

“At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the people of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, “an altar of uncut stones, upon which no man has wielded an iron tool.”  And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings.  And there, in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written.  And all Israel, sojourner as well as native born, with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded at the first, to bless the people of Israel.  And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law.  There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.”

I just said that this final paragraph is the most important part of the chapter and in fact it tells us what this whole section in the book of Joshua is about.

Let me show you what I mean.  We need to zoom out a bit and get a basic outline of this book.  Chapters 1 through 11 deal with the conquest.

Turn over to chapter 11 at the very end, the very last verse, the last sentence in chapter 11, says:  “And the land had rest from war.”

Now there are still some lands to be conquered, as we’ll see, but at the end of chapter 11 the land had rest from war.  So the first 11 chapters are about the conquest, Israel going in, fighting the people, and then now we enter into the second section in chapter 12.  And we’ll get to chapter 12 one of these weeks and we’ll move through a bit more quickly because we have many chapters of lists.  You see chapter 12, the kings defeated by Moses, the kings defeated by Joshua, land still to be conquered, the inheritance.

Then for many chapters it’s the land allotments.  Well, where did the various tribes go, what are the cities for the Levites.

So chapters 1 through 11, first section, that’s the conquest.

Chapters 12 through 21 are some lists, some land allotments, where do we go, what cities do we have.

And then chapters 22 through 24 we might call final instructions.  That’s where we have some added ceremonies, exhortation, another service of covenant renewal.

So those are the big three sections – conquest, land allotment, final instructions.

Okay.  Now that you have that in your mind, I want you to think about chapters 1 through 11 and look more carefully at these 11 chapters.  Because this story of conquest is told in five sections.

Chapters 1 through 4 – entering the land.  You can think of this as a prologue to the actual conquest.  They’re not actually fighting, but you have the story of Rahab and the spies and the consecration of Joshua, and you’ve got to get through the Jordan River and set up the stones.  That’s 1 through 4.

Five through 8, where we’ve been these last number of weeks, are the first steps of conquest.  These twin battles of Jericho and Ai.

Chapter 9 is stage three, dealing with the Gibeonites.

Chapter 10 is the fourth stage, defeating the southern kings.

And chapter 11 is defeating the northern kings.

Now you say, well, that’s all very interesting and I can see that’s the way that scholars, commentators might want to divide it up, but it’s more than just something that commentators come up with.  There is a very deliberate pattern and I want you to notice it.

Go back to chapter 5, verse 1.  You’ll notice it once you see it, you won’t forget it.  Chapter 5, verse 1 – As soon as all the kings of the Amorites were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan.

So here’s this marker that’s indicating a new section.  So chapter 1 through 4 is the prologue, now here in the first stage of the conquest, and it’s marked out with this language that when the kings of this region heard about what the Lord had done.

Now flip over to chapter 9 because this is the next stage.  Chapter 9, verse 1:  As soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country and in the lowland all along the coast of the Great Sea, all of those people, heard of this, they gathered together as one to fight against Joshua and Israel.

So chapter 9 begins with that same language.  The kings heard about that victory over Jericho and Ai and so they marshaled their forces to fight.

Look at chapter 10, verse 1:  As soon as Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, heard how Joshua had captured Ai and had devoted it to destruction, what he had done to Jericho and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace he feared greatly.

So you see what’s happening?  This is building on each other.  Each new section there’s some new king yet to be conquered, who hears of what Israel has done.  Jericho, Ai, now the Gibeonites.

Then one final section of the conquest.  Look at chapter 11.  This should sound familiar:  When Jabin, king of Hazor, heard of this, and he marshals all these other kings now of the north to fight against Joshua. 

So four times; at the beginning of chapter 5, at the beginning of chapter 9, chapter 10, chapter 11; we have this deliberate language, “and when the kings of this next land heard of what Israel had one,” sometimes it says their hearts melted, other times it says they marshaled the kings to fight against them.  In other words, 5:1, 9:1, 10:1, 11:1 are giving to us these four deliberate stages of the conquests, and if we count the prologue in chapter 1 through 4, then there are five steps in the conquest.

Why does this matter for how we understand the end of chapter 8?  Because it means that chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8, though it seems to us like a whole series of stories from Jericho to Ai to Achan’s defeat back to Ai, this is all one unit, the first stage, the first step, in the conquest of the Promised Land.  We see that clearly marked out, the language in 5:1 to 9:1.  So 5 through 8, one unit.

Now notice, with that understanding, how this unit is bookended.  So look at the beginning of chapter 5.  You remember if you were here several weeks ago, chapter 5 begins before they actually get to Jericho with you need to be circumcised and then they celebrate the Passover.  So that’s how this section of the conquest starts.

Now go to the end of chapter 8, the verses that I just read, and notice how the section ends – he renews the covenant and now it is the reading of the blessings and the curses and the writing down of the law of God.  In other words, the story of the conquest and this first step of the journey, is very deliberately, begins and ends, with worship.  Begins and ends with the covenant.

In fact, it’s not too much to say that it’s the Word and sacraments.  Sacraments at the beginning in chapter 5 and now at the end of chapter 8, the Word.  There’s a reason that our worship services are centered upon Word and sacraments.  It’s to mark out the covenant renewal of God’s people.

So look at this section and I want you to notice, and I grant you our time is half over with this message, I want you to notice in this last section, now that you understand how it fits in the wider scope of what God is doing in the book of Joshua, 1 through 11 conquest, 5 through 8 the first step of the conquest, starts with passover, circumcision, ends with the Word.  I want you to notice three elements, or you might even say three artifacts, in this final section in this ceremony of covenant renewal – the altar, the stones, and the two mountains.  The altar, the stones, the two mountains.

Now these first two items go together, the altar and the stones.  And keep a finger here in Joshua and turn to Deuteronomy.  So just one book before, the last of the books of Moses, Deuteronomy chapter 27.  Because Joshua 8, you’re going to see, is in direct fulfillment of what Moses told the people to do, Moses didn’t get to see it, he died, but what Moses told the people to do in Deuteronomy 27 and 28.

So look at Deuteronomy 27 and keep in mind these first two elements or artifacts from Joshua 8, the altar and the stones, because Deuteronomy 27 tells the people what they’re going to do in the Promised Land.

“Now Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, “Keep the whole commandment that I command you today.  And on the day you cross over the Jordan to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones and plaster them with plaster.”

So they’re whitewashing these stones.  They’re making them suitable to write on.

“And you shall write on them all the words of this law, when you cross over to enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised.  And when you have crossed over the Jordan, you shall set up these stones, concerning which I command you today, on Mount Ebal,” or Ebal, “and you shall plaster them with plaster.  And there…”

So those were instructions about the stones, now the altar:  “And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones.  You shall wield no iron tool on them; you shall build an altar to the Lord your God of uncut stones. And you shall offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God, and you shall sacrifice peace offerings and shall eat there, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God.  And you shall write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly.””

Now you keep that in mind and you go back to Joshua 8 and you realize they are doing exactly as they were told:  When you get into the Promised Land.

Now they couldn’t just rush up to Mount Ebal and Gerizim, this is about 20 miles Gerizim, this is about 20 miles north of Ai, but this is where this ceremony takes place.  I’ll say more about these two mountains in a moment because Mount Ebal is where the curses are to be pronounced and Mount Gerizim is where blessings, and in between there is a valley and this valley and these mountains would form a kind of natural amphitheater to be heard for great distance.

So there is an altar.  Why do you build an altar?  If you remember, so often in Genesis the patriarchs would stop to build an altar in Canaan, even though they didn’t inherit it yet.  It was to look forward to the day when this was theirs.  An altar is a sign of worship.  And now Joshua is the first to inherit these promises and he builds an altar.

What do you do on an altar?  You do sacrifices.

Why do you do sacrifices?  Because you’re a sinful people.

So one of the first acts, so they did circumcision and Passover.  Now that they’ve conquered and they have some of this land, they go up to the mountains and they do this act to indicate we are a sinful people, in need of an atoning sacrifice.

You notice in Deuteronomy 27, and again in Joshua 8, it says “uncut stones.”  So you gather stones, you’re not doing any handiwork on them.  There’s two reasons they might have done this and it might have been both of these reasons.  One, so that there’s absolutely no temptation to make a graven image.  This is not the time that you’re going to get fancy and maybe look around, “Well, how do people do it out here among the Canaanites?  What do their altars look like?  Oh, they have some fancy altars.”  No, I don’t want you to touch it.  These are not going to have anything to resemble the idolatrous altars of the pagans.

The other possible reason is to indicate that this altar of sacrifice, this first one in the Promised Land, shall have no human contribution to it.  There is nothing that man will contribute to this altar.  Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.  It was a reminder that God’s people would contribute nothing to the sacrifice of atonement.

Can we pretty up the stones?  No, you just get the stones, uncut, no human hands, no ironwork, no tool.  You make this altar to pay for the sins of the people.

The altar, and then the stones.  As we read in both Joshua 8 and Deuteronomy 27, the stones are whitewashed, they’re made suitable for writing.  So it’s significant this first service here.  We’ve had sacraments, now we have the Word, and they are to write.  This is hard to do.  You have some sort of chisel work to write down the law.

Isn’t it interesting?  I don’t want you to do anything with the stones for the sacrifice, but now I want you to write plainly for all to see.  What did they write?  Some later Jewish rabbis thought they wrote all 613 laws of the law of Moses.  Whew, that’s a big stone, there were a lot of them.  Maybe they wrote the blessings and curses.  Pretty good guess that maybe it was the 10 commandments.  But they wrote the law of Moses on these stones.

And they do in Mount Ebal, which is strange.  You might think wouldn’t you do this all on Mount Gerizim?  That’s the mountain of blessing.  But one of the thoughts is that you put this altar and these stones on the mountain of cursing because you come to God understanding that you are sinners in need of a Savior.  You don’t need an altar if your life is all deserving of blessing, you need an altar if your life is deserving of some cursing.  So here on Mount Ebal they have the altar for atonement and they have the stones that the law of God might be written down.

This is important.  It’s not just stories they’re telling each other, it is something written down.  When you write something down, it’s to signify this does not change.  We’re not just telling stories that develop like some spiritual game of telephone, we’re writing it down because this is our standard, this is our norm.

There was an altar, there’s stones, and then the last thing I want you to notice from Joshua 8 are these two mountains.  Again, this is in direct fulfillment to what the Lord instructed them to do. 

Look back at Deuteronomy 27.  You can see above verse 9 curses for Mount Ebal, and then chapter 28, blessings for obedience, that’s for Mount Gerizim.

Moses preached this to the people in Deuteronomy just before he would die at the verge of the Promised Land, so this is not years and decades later but weeks or months.  Now that they’re in the Promised Land, they’re going to do the same thing again.  Once he told them what they’re going to do and now they’re going to do it.

It tells us about the central place of worship in the life of God’s people.  Wouldn’t you think if you defeat Jericho, you defeat Ai, well, get on your business.  Got to the southern kings and then go up to the northern kings.  But they, they press pause on their whole military campaign.  They go up 20 miles to the north and they have this ceremony as they were instructed with the curses to be read, half of the tribes would go to Mount Ebal, half of the tribes to Mount Gerizim.

Look at Deuteronomy chapter 27, verse 14:  The Levites shall declare to all the men of Israel in a loud voice, “Cursed be the man who makes a carved image or cast metal image.” 

Verse 14:  Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or mother.  Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor’s landmark.  Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road.  Cursed be anyone who perverts justice due to the sojourner or the fatherless, the widow.  Cursed be anyone who lies with his father’s wife.  Cursed be anyone who lies with any kind of animal.  Cursed anyone who lies with his sister, where the daughter of his father, the daughter of his mother.  Cursed be anyone who lies with his mother-in-law.  Cursed be anyone who strikes down his neighbor in secret.  Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood.  Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.

You can see here we have about half of the 10 commandments.  The second commandment, no graven images, that’s given in verse 15.  The fifth commandment, honor thy father and mother, is verse 16.  Sixth commandment about murder is verse 24.  The seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery, well, that’s given the most space here, that’s verses 20, 21, 22, 23.  The eighth commandment about stealing is in verse 17, 18, 19, about those neighbor relationships.  And then bearing false witness, the ninth commandment, is in verse perhaps 16 or rather verse 17 moving the landmark, and certainly verse 25, taking a bribe.  That probably has to do with bearing false testimony in a court of law.  And then the summary is given in verse 26.

Now you notice in Deuteronomy 27, at the end of each of each of these curses, it says, “And all the people shall answer and say amen.” 

I want you to do this.  I’m going to give these in summary form.  I’ll condense them just a little bit.  And after each one, I’m going to lead us, and all the people shall say, and you’re going to respond, “Amen.”

Cursed be anyone who worships God according to the ways of the world, and all the people say, “Amen.”

Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or mother, and all the people say, “Amen.”

Cursed be anyone who takes advantage of the weak and the vulnerable, and all the people say, “Amen.”

Cursed be anyone who commits sexual immorality, and all the people say, “Amen.”

Cursed be anyone who harms his neighbor, and all the people say, “Amen.”

Cursed be anyone who cheats his neighbor, and all the people say, “Amen.”

Cursed be anyone who does not do what God requires in His Word, and all the people say, “Amen.”

Now even that simple action, doesn’t it bring it home?  Isn’t there something you feel like cursing, that’s hard.  Do I want to “amen” that?

Dishonor his father and mother.  Amen.  Oh, boy.  Never harms or cheats his neighbor.  Amen, for other people.

That was a dramatic scene.  For the Levites to shout it out and all the people to respond responsively with “Amen.”  You’re right, God, may it be cursed.  Anyone who disobeys Your Word.

And then there’s blessings.  You look at Deuteronomy chapter 28, and if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, be careful to do all His commandments, the Lord your God will set you high above the nations, all these blessings shall come upon you.

Verse 3 – blessed you shall be in the city, blessed you shall be in the field, blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds, the young, blessed be your basket and your kneading bowl, blessed shall you be when you come in, blessed shall you be when you go out.  The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated.  They shall come against you one way and flee before you seven ways.  The Lord will command the blessings on you and your barns and all that you undertake.

You could look at the blessings in three things – He will bless their prosperity, their progeny, and their peace.

Now this is not to say that there was never an individual Israelite who had a bad harvest or couldn’t have children or had an accident.  It’s talking about the nation as a whole.  If you live according to My way, as a whole, you will be prosperous, you will have many blessings of children, and you will have peace.

It’s true.  We are not under the Mosaic covenant, neither as the people of God, certainly not the United States of America, and yet it is true that obedience is still the way of blessing and disobedience is the way of cursing, and things do generally go better for you when you obey.

Think of what Paul says in Ephesians 6:3 – honor your father and mother that it may go well with you.  That’s translating the blessing language.  It is generally going to go better for you if you honor your father and your mother. 

So there’s still a principle at work here.  But we need to note as we close that the old covenant has passed away and things have been modulated to a different key.  Now it’s still true that in the New Testament there are warnings, these same kinds of curses that were uttered on Mount Ebal.

See if this doesn’t sound something like the warnings from Mount Ebal.

Ephesians 4:  Therefore having put away falsehood let each one of you speak the truth, with his neighbor be angry and do not sin, let the thief no longer steal, let no corrupting talk come out of our mouth.

Or chapter 5:  Let there be no filthiness or foolish talk, but you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexual immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of God.  Let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

It’s the same idea as Mount Ebal, that there are still these warnings.  May it not be true of you.  You are God’s people, you’re a royal priesthood, you’re a holy nation.  And if there are still these threatenings and these warnings, there are also blessings.

So I want you to hear, and perhaps you’ll hear it now with fresh ears, just as God’s people gathered in this natural amphitheater and the preachers shouted with a loud voice so all could hear, and no doubt they were eager for the curses to end and for the blessings to begin, I want you to imagine if you were lined up there at Mount Gerizim, and you heard the Levitical priest proclaim these blessings over you, if our great high priest Jesus Himself were to gather His people and announce before you at the foot of Golgotha, that mountain, the blessings of God, this is what they would sound like:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.  In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the beloved.

And you notice at the end of Joshua 8 we are given this deliberate notice that all the people, not just the men and the officials and the judges and the elders and Joshua and the priests and the Levites, but the women, the children, the sojourners living among them, everyone within the assembled congregation, hear it.  Hear the warnings of the curses that come upon those who are disobedient, and hear the blessings.

Friends, the Bible is, in short, a big book about curses and blessings.  From the very beginning in Genesis 3, cursed be you to the snake as he slithers on the ground.  Yet there is the promise of blessing, that one is coming, that though he will grasp at His heel, yet He will crush the head of the serpent, and the announcement then to Abram in chapter 12 as you know it is come out of this land and I will bless you and I will make your name great and you will be a blessing not just to Israel but to the nations.

We are the inheritors of these blessings if we belong to Jesus Christ.  There are still curses, beloved, and there are still blessings.  So choose wisely.       

Let’s pray.  Father in heaven, now as we come to Your table, we pray that You would help us to feast upon the bread and the cup, that we may be nourished to life everlasting.  Lead us away from the path of destruction and lead us in the way that leads to life and nourish us in our journey.  We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.