The NXR Podcast - DAILY TRUTH - What To Plunder & What To Burn

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00:00:27.500 There are many treasures of Babylon, or in this case, Canaan, that are ripe for the Christian

00:00:34.340 to plunder. Greece is ours. It belongs to the Christian. Rome is ours. It belongs to the

00:00:43.900 Christian. Babylon is ours. It belongs to the Christian. And Canaan, it belonged to covenant

00:00:52.960 Israel and all that was there. There were certain things that God specified. These devoted things

00:00:59.700 belong to my house or these things should be burned with fire and destroyed. But most of the

00:01:06.320 plunder God permitted Israel to take for themselves. And so what we find as a principle is this. There

00:01:14.160 are many treasures in Babylon or Canaan that are ripe for the Christian to plunder. Why? Because

00:01:20.440 all truth is god's truth so whatever is true is true whether the church believed it or whether

00:01:29.480 babylon believed it if it's true it's true two plus two being four is true no matter what time

00:01:37.500 or what place because it's god's truth and if a particular place in a particular culture

00:01:45.080 is good at engineering and Christians discover some of the things that they have learned and

00:01:53.400 developed over decades or even centuries if those things are in fact true we should take them

00:02:01.200 so what we find at the end of verse 6 of our text today is unique and I want you to hear

00:02:09.860 the disclaimer. This is not a general, universal commandment to Christians in all places, in all

00:02:17.520 times. Never use the resources of unbelievers. That's not the message from the text. This is

00:02:32.100 a unique commandment. This is a particular specific commandment given to Israel in this place in this

00:02:40.600 time. Because Israel did in fact, as we find later in our text, Israel did in fact plunder the

00:02:49.800 treasures of all these northern tribes in Canaan. There's only one thing that God says they can't

00:02:58.380 have two things to be precise one is the city of the first king the king of hazer who is the one

00:03:09.500 who deliberately decided to rally all the other kings to come against israel all the other kingdoms

00:03:18.800 in joshua chapter 11 right because they all join together it's not just one kingdom it's it's many

00:03:25.080 kings, many kingdoms, many tribes all at once so that their number is like a great horde

00:03:30.480 and all of the cities, all of them, spare one. Israel is allowed, permitted by God to go inhabit

00:03:39.960 those cities, which is actually a fulfillment. It is a fulfillment of what God had already

00:03:45.220 previously spoken through Moses to Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 10, that you will

00:03:51.040 live and inhabit cities that you did not build. This is a sign of God's grace and kindness.

00:03:58.200 Another one of his gifts to his covenant people Israel. Not only will I give you land, you won't

00:04:04.020 even have to build some of your cities in the land. You'll just kind of walk in. Oh, there's

00:04:09.820 my house. I get the land. I get the house. I get this. I get that. Not even just the house. I like

00:04:15.400 look at the appliances. And these Canaanites were doing well for themselves. Thanks God. It's mine

00:04:20.620 now. And that's the lion's share of what God does. It's the minority report throughout the

00:04:30.060 book of Joshua when God says, no, you don't get to plunder this. You don't get to have this.

00:04:35.920 So in the case of Joshua 11, there's only one city, one king, one specific place that they're

00:04:42.100 called to burn, to completely and utterly destroy with fire, not just the inhabitants, but the stuff,

00:04:48.080 their wealth their resources and it's the resources of the city of the particular king

00:04:54.860 who devised this rebellion against Israel and ultimately against God and so it's fitting God

00:05:03.080 is saying something in that he's saying you can't have this city this city can't just be redeemed

00:05:08.100 this city needs to be destroyed because the rebellion of the federal head of this city namely

00:05:15.240 the king was so great that I want to wipe it off of the map so that not even a stain of its history

00:05:23.700 remains. And that's one of God's greatest judgments, by the way. It's not just death,

00:05:33.400 destruction. One of God's greatest judgments that we find out through the entirety of

00:05:38.820 scripture is this. It is to completely erase the heritage and future lineage of a people

00:05:47.900 or an individual person. So that their line is cut off. One of God's greatest judgments

00:05:57.920 is to end the line of a family, a household, a man, or a nation.

00:06:04.280 that there's no posterity, no future descendants to remember their heritage, to continue

00:06:13.120 what they've done. And so what God is doing in the case of Jabin, king of Hazor, because he's the

00:06:21.860 one, all the kings were wicked, but he's the one who devised the plot to come against Israel,

00:06:27.700 ultimately signifying his rebellion against God himself is to end his lineage, end his heritage,

00:06:35.120 and to, in a sense, add insult to injury. Not only wiping out his descendants, his people,

00:06:43.220 but even the place that they once inhabited. That it would be a desolate place, a forgotten place.

00:06:51.140 So in Joshua 11, there are two, as I said, two instances where God says, you can't have this

00:06:56.740 to his children, Israel. In every other instance, God says, it's yours. Plunder Babylon. All truth

00:07:05.080 is God's truth. The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous. Not only will you get the

00:07:11.780 land, you get the house, you get the stuff. It's all yours because God is gracious. See point A

00:07:20.180 all the way back to verses 1 through 6. God is gracious. You can't out give God. He is generous,

00:07:28.560 abundant in kindness. But the two things that God says you can't have, these must be destroyed with

00:07:34.860 fire. One is the city of the original king who devised the plot against Israel. Two, the horses

00:07:44.900 and the chariots.

00:07:47.220 The horses don't get to be redeemed.

00:07:49.640 They don't get to be plundered.

00:07:50.940 Not in this instance.

00:07:53.260 Again, not a universal rule

00:07:54.640 for all times and all places.

00:07:56.760 God's not against horses.

00:07:59.180 But these horses he was.

00:08:00.840 These horses had to be hamstrung.

00:08:03.580 And these chariots,

00:08:04.840 God is not universally against chariots,

00:08:06.820 but these chariots had to be burned.

00:08:14.900 We'll see you next time.

The NXR Podcast - September 18, 2023

DAILY TRUTH - What To Plunder & What To Burn

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