The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - Godly Grief, Confession, & Repentance

00:00:00.000 We're picking back up with our series through the book of Joshua. Our text for today is Joshua

00:00:04.120 chapter 7 verses 10 through 26. Joshua chapter 7 verses 10 through 26. It's a larger text and so

00:00:12.240 for the reading portion I would like to focus our attention on verses 10 through 15. So that's the

00:00:18.800 portion of the text that I'm going to read today. Would you go ahead at this point and join me in

00:00:22.580 standing for the reading of God's Word. I'll read the text in its entirety. When I finish reading

00:00:26.940 the text, I'm going to say this is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much

00:00:31.700 if you would respond by saying thanks be to God. Again, the entirety of our text today is Joshua

00:00:37.720 chapter 7 verses 10 through 26. I'll be reading Joshua chapter 7 verses 10 through 15. The Bible

00:00:45.440 says this, the Lord said to Joshua, get up. Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned.

00:00:53.560 They have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them. 0.99

00:00:57.520 They have taken some of the devoted things they have stolen and lied

00:01:01.720 and put them among their own belongings.

00:01:05.160 Therefore, the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies.

00:01:08.640 They turn their backs before their enemies 0.99

00:01:11.640 because they have become devoted for destruction.

00:01:15.740 I will be with you no more

00:01:17.580 unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.

00:01:20.740 Get up, consecrate the people, and say, Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow.

00:01:26.780 For thus says the Lord, God of Israel, There are devoted things in your midst, O Israel.

00:01:33.740 You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you.

00:01:39.960 In the morning, therefore, you shall be brought near by your tribes,

00:01:44.600 and the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come near by clans,

00:01:49.040 and the clan that the Lord takes shall come near by households and the household that the Lord

00:01:54.980 takes shall come near man by man and he who is taken with the devoted things shall be burned

00:02:02.580 with fire he and all that he has because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord and because

00:02:09.980 he has done an outrageous thing in Israel this is the word of the Lord all right please be seated

00:02:19.040 In your notes, I've written the following. 0.98

00:02:22.440 The first thing that Joshua does after Israel is defeated by Ai

00:02:27.300 is to humble himself before God and mourn.

00:02:33.100 Still, it is not long before God tells him that his mourning,

00:02:37.960 that is his grief, is enough.

00:02:41.020 God does not delight in the grief of his saints merely for grief's sake.

00:02:47.200 Rather, godly grief is granted by God as a gift

00:02:51.340 and as a means to a glorious and good end.

00:02:57.200 I could not help but think,

00:02:59.500 as working through the text this week

00:03:01.300 and preparing for the Lord's Day

00:03:02.800 and preaching God's Word,

00:03:04.160 of a correlation between verse 10 and 11 of our text

00:03:09.320 and 2 Corinthians 7, verses 9, 10, and 11,

00:03:15.300 which says this,

00:03:45.300 what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. If you're familiar with that particular text in

00:03:51.720 2 Corinthians, it is very likely that the Apostle Paul, who is the human author inspired by the

00:03:58.200 Holy Spirit of God, is referring to what he previously wrote in his first letter to the

00:04:03.860 Corinthians regarding a particular man who was caught in sin. And the church at Corinth was

00:04:10.880 boasting. Now they weren't boasting in this man's sin in and of itself. Very likely, instead, what

00:04:19.660 was going on is that the church at Corinth was boasting in regards to their tolerance,

00:04:26.800 charitableness, graciousness, in light of such an outrageous sin. So the church in Corinth very

00:04:34.760 likely was not saying this particular sin that this young man has committed with a member of

00:04:41.420 his own family is wonderful and we're proud of it. No. Instead, what they were likely saying is

00:04:49.460 it's horrible and look how charitable we are. Even in the case of outrageous sin, we, the church at

00:04:58.980 Corinth, we welcome all sinners. You belong here. Love is love. No judgment here. Judgment-free zone.

00:05:10.100 The church at Corinth welcomes everybody. This young man, you might notice, next to the cross,

00:05:15.720 we also have a rainbow flag. That's what was going on. The church at Corinth wasn't boasting

00:05:22.380 in the sin, what they were boasting in is their position theologically of antinomianism.

00:05:30.000 We're not under law here. We're under grace, which is precisely what the Bible does in fact say,

00:05:38.040 but under grace and no longer under law, in what regard should be the question that we ask?

00:05:44.980 We are no longer, for those who are in Christ Jesus, there is now therefore no more condemnation.

00:05:49.680 you are not under law insofar as judgment, insofar as condemnation. You are under rather grace

00:05:59.200 afforded to you through faith in Jesus Christ alone, his person and his finished work. But that

00:06:07.220 does not mean that the Christian is not under law in regards to a moral obligation. David said,

00:06:14.660 as a Christian, as one who is trusting in his ultimate heir, the Christ, that there would be

00:06:21.520 a greater king who would sit one day on his throne of the increase of his government. There would be

00:06:26.940 no end that he would rule with an iron scepter. David, as well with all the other Old Testament

00:06:33.220 saints, was saved in the exact same manner that you and I are by trusting in Jesus. They saw in

00:06:40.440 shadows and types, we see in substance, looking back with more clarity on this side of the cross.

00:06:48.680 But the point is that David was a Christian, and David of the law, he says, I delight in the law.

00:06:56.200 And it is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. It illuminates for me the path

00:07:01.880 to salvation. No, it illuminates to me the path from salvation. I'm saved by grace alone through

00:07:10.180 faith alone. Abraham believed God, and it was accredited to him as righteousness. But as Connor

00:07:16.080 so faithfully just taught, as he was working through the liturgy this morning, David, he believes God.

00:07:22.600 He is trusting in Christ alone. He acknowledges that he is a sinner, and that God is a thrice

00:07:28.240 holy God, and the chasm between God and him is infinite, and that he can only be saved by an act

00:07:35.740 of sheer grace alone, and yet, having been saved by grace alone, he delights in the law of God

00:07:42.840 and sees the law not as something that shows him the path to merit salvation, but it shows him the

00:07:48.600 path of how to respond in gratitude for salvation. That is the biblical view. But the church at

00:07:57.180 Corinth is not thinking in those terms. See, they have abandoned legalism, good, but overcompensated

00:08:05.420 into the realm of antinomianism.

00:08:09.380 That is a picture, I believe,

00:08:11.320 of the evangelical church as a whole

00:08:13.940 in the West today.

00:08:15.840 We are not legalists.

00:08:18.580 Okay, and what does that mean?

00:08:20.440 It means we hate obedience.

00:08:23.860 Wait, what?

00:08:26.420 We never preach law in this church.

00:08:29.680 Wait, what?

00:08:31.080 You're bragging about that?

00:08:32.240 brother i don't think that's a brag you want you want to rethink that

00:08:38.080 no we preach law we do the question is how do we preach obedience to the law of god as a means of

00:08:48.860 earning salvation no that's legalism but do we not preach law at all pretending as though

00:08:56.500 obedience doesn't even matter? No, that's antinomianism. Both are a failure.

00:09:04.720 So the church at Corinth is bragging, not about the particular sin of this young man, but bragging

00:09:09.780 about their antinomian, against law, disposition regarding his sin. And so Paul writes to them in

00:09:19.400 1 Corinthians, his first letter, chapter 5, and says, purge the immoral man from among you.

00:09:26.500 take the sin seriously. But then he writes back to the very same church in his second letter,

00:09:34.220 and he actually says, and I believe it's the same man, this would be 2 Corinthians chapter 2,

00:09:39.560 he says, welcome him back in, lest he be overburdened by unceasing sorrow. He's repented.

00:09:47.480 You've done your job. The point was not to condemn him indefinitely, but to convict him that he might

00:09:55.420 repent. And so welcome him back in. And then later, in chapter 7 of 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul

00:10:02.680 says, now you, speaking about the church as a whole in a corporate sense, quit mourning.

00:10:11.440 Grief is good insofar as it is a means to accomplish God's predestined end. And that end

00:10:21.620 of grief in many cases, if not virtually all cases, is repentance. And so what the Apostle

00:10:30.360 Paul is essentially saying to the church in Corinth is this. He's saying, you've been grieved

00:10:35.640 by the sin of this man, and your grief has produced zeal, commitment, vigilance towards holiness.

00:10:47.340 Ultimately, what it's produced is repentance.

00:10:50.660 It's been used by God to produce individual repentance for Him,

00:10:55.120 which is why you should welcome Him back in.

00:10:57.120 But it's also produced corporate repentance for you as a church for your sin,

00:11:03.240 which was tolerating His sin.

00:11:06.860 You too have repented of your antinomianism.

00:11:10.820 He's repented of His sexual immorality. 0.81

00:11:13.800 You've repented of your antinomianism.

00:11:15.940 And guess what? Now that the zeal has come, now that the repentance has been accomplished, quit crying.

00:11:27.180 And what I want you to get here, right up at the beginning of our text today,

00:11:33.120 God does the very same thing with Joshua. Get up. It's enough. And what I want you to see is I want

00:11:39.940 you to see the mercy of God. God does not subject his people to more grief than necessary.

00:11:50.460 God is not capricious in his grief giving. Grief, that which is true godly grief, and there is a

00:12:00.680 distinction, as we just saw in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, between worldly grief, which leads to

00:12:07.100 death and regret versus godly grief that brings about repentance. There is a distinction, but in

00:12:14.180 regards not to worldly grief, but rather godly grief, it always is granted by God with a particular

00:12:21.740 end in mind to bring about change, to bring about repentance, to bring about holiness, to bring about

00:12:30.020 reconciliation, restoration, and when that has been accomplished by God's grace, then the grief

00:12:37.860 should cease. God does not grieve his children pointlessly. God is not going around trying to

00:12:47.240 make kids cry for the fun of it. That's not his nature. It's not who he is. Just as a good parent

00:12:56.080 would try to help their child see the severity of their sin. And in doing so, the child may

00:13:04.360 feel sad. The child may cry. It is not the intention of the parent to grieve the child

00:13:11.820 for grief's sake, but to grieve them into repentance, to produce change, godly change.

00:13:20.880 For the glory of God, first and foremost,

00:13:24.020 that His name and character might not be reviled,

00:13:27.240 but also for the good of the child.

00:13:31.500 Because sin brings sorrow.

00:13:34.900 Sin leads to destruction.

00:13:37.800 And repentance leads to righteousness.

00:13:40.360 And righteousness brings blessing.

00:13:44.200 So at the very outset of our text today,

00:13:46.400 that's what we see. 0.58

00:13:48.060 They just got their booties whipped by the men of Ai,

00:13:53.280 which was supposed to be a fairly easy battle.

00:13:57.480 If you were with us last week,

00:13:59.760 Connor did a wonderful job preaching that text.

00:14:02.640 Joshua chapter seven, verses one through nine.

00:14:05.500 They see that there's just a few thousand men.

00:14:07.560 Is that right, Connor?

00:14:09.400 12,000 men of Ai. 0.65

00:14:11.700 And they're like, hey, we don't even need to take

00:14:13.340 the whole army of Israel up there. 0.64

00:14:14.820 Let's not waste our time. 0.88

00:14:16.140 Let's let some guys rest.

00:14:17.180 We'll go up there. We just, I mean, we just, we just stamped out Jericho. Jericho was like a

00:14:22.940 capital city. It was a juggernaut in the land of Canaan. We just took out Jericho. So surely 0.99

00:14:29.480 this will be small potatoes. And they go up and they get whooped. They get whooped in a, they,

00:14:37.120 they demolish Jericho, a hard, what should have been a hard battle, and then get whooped in what

00:14:45.020 what's supposed to be an easy battle. And so Joshua has the right response. Not picking on

00:14:50.720 Joshua here. Joshua goes before the Lord immediately. It's his first response. He falls

00:14:55.600 on his face. That is to signify humility and a contrite spirit. And it's not just humility and

00:15:04.000 reverence of kneeling or falling prostrate, but it also is weeping, mourning before the Lord.

00:15:12.220 grief. And that too is proper, a right response. So it's humility and grief.

00:15:20.960 But again, I don't want us to miss at the very outset of our text, the response of the Lord.

00:15:26.680 Because it's not a condemning correction, but it's actually an incredibly

00:15:32.540 encouraging consolation.

00:15:37.200 The Lord sees Joshua's humility and grief

00:15:40.780 and He does not allow Joshua

00:15:43.380 to unnecessarily or indefinitely

00:15:47.780 linger in that state.

00:15:50.840 But rather, the implication from the text

00:15:53.600 is that rather quickly,

00:15:56.240 the Lord comes and meets Joshua

00:15:58.240 and says, it's enough.

00:16:01.200 Stop your crying.

00:16:02.540 wipe away your tears, stand up, get up. It's okay. It's okay. And that's not saying you shouldn't

00:16:12.660 have been grieved. Notice that the Lord is not saying continue to grieve, nor is he saying you

00:16:19.820 should have never grieved at all. The word of the Lord is not grief was wrong, you shouldn't have

00:16:26.680 done it at all, nor does the Lord say your grief is not enough and you should continue to grieve

00:16:33.660 indefinitely. It's neither of those responses. Instead, the Lord says the grief, by way of

00:16:39.960 necessary inference, the word of the Lord is your grief is sufficient. It was proper, it was right,

00:16:45.920 and now it's time to stop. And stop grieving for what purpose? Because the sin is trivial and it

00:16:54.460 doesn't matter, and the Lord doesn't really care for holiness? No. No, I want you to stop grieving

00:17:00.680 because I want you now to deal with sin. You've been grieving to repentance, and now it's time

00:17:11.080 to put on your big boy pants, to spiritually gird yourself, and to mortify sin. Relentlessly,

00:17:22.020 unashamedly, to go to war with the sin of Israel. And again, this is a mercy of the Lord. And this 0.95

00:17:33.080 applies. It applies to us as individuals. It applies to us as families, households. And it

00:17:40.140 applies to us as churches. It applies to us even as nations. I believe that. And here's the

00:17:48.520 application. Let me connect the dots. The application is this. God is not capricious.

00:17:57.400 So whether it be a nation like America, God does not at random begin to withdraw His hand of favor

00:18:05.420 and blessing. Now, if the Lord was to manifest Himself here today, which don't hold your breath,

00:18:14.440 It's not going to happen.

00:18:15.440 But if he were,

00:18:16.960 and he was to tell us a message for America,

00:18:20.120 it would not be this.

00:18:21.740 It would not be,

00:18:22.620 I'm a capricious God,

00:18:24.620 an arbitrary God.

00:18:26.560 I blessed this nation for a time,

00:18:28.480 and then I just stopped feeling like it.

00:18:32.320 No, he would say the very same thing

00:18:34.160 he said to Joshua.

00:18:36.020 He would say,

00:18:36.720 you, my children,

00:18:39.440 those who have faith in Jesus,

00:18:41.460 you should be grieved.

00:18:42.820 Okay?

00:18:44.380 You're grieved. Now that's enough. Get up. There's sin. The hand of blessing has not been randomly

00:18:54.180 pulled back. No, there's sin. Why has God abandoned America? Because America hates God.

00:19:06.720 It's not random. God is not arbitrary. I don't know what's going on. I don't understand why we

00:19:13.640 have such bad rulers? Bad rulers, the Bible explicitly says, tells us the answer. God gives

00:19:19.520 bad rulers as a judgment for bad nations who've turned their back on him. I don't understand

00:19:29.080 what's going on. The economy. You voted for that economy. I know you didn't. God bless you.

00:19:37.160 But someone did. Well, I don't have time to get into how many people actually voted for

00:19:43.580 But the point is, we earned God's judgment.

00:19:48.140 We did. 0.99

00:19:51.880 It seems like China is a threat 0.70

00:19:54.320 and we used to be a superpower. 0.94

00:19:56.860 70 million murdered babies.

00:20:00.660 You earned it, America.

00:20:03.960 You worked hard for this judgment.

00:20:06.580 You earned it, champ.

00:20:10.160 But again, the point is,

00:20:11.980 God is not capricious.

00:20:13.580 is not arbitrary. It is not random. God did not allow Israel to get whooped by AI right after

00:20:21.260 giving them such a miraculous victory against Jericho for no reason. Look, they won against

00:20:28.820 Jericho because there was purity and devotion to the Lord. They lost in the next battle because

00:20:35.900 there was compromise. There was sin. And before they were going to be able to stand before their

00:20:42.660 enemies and succeed again in the future, they needed to deal with sin. Grief, not for grief's

00:20:51.600 sake, but grief for the purpose of repentance. That's the first point as I see it in the text

00:20:58.580 today. Let's now focus our attention on verses 14 and 15. Let me read those once more so that

00:21:04.120 they're fresh in our minds. Beginning in verse 14, the Bible says this, in the morning, therefore,

00:21:09.720 you shall be brought near by your tribes. And the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come near

00:21:15.880 by clans. And the clan that the Lord takes shall come near by households. And the households that

00:21:21.800 the Lord takes shall come near man by man. And he who is taken with the devoted thing shall be burned 0.94

00:21:28.720 with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because 0.94

00:21:35.660 he has done an outrageous thing in Israel. And it was indeed, brothers and sisters, an outrageous 0.50

00:21:43.680 thing. The Israelites were not permitted to take of the spoil. To the victor goes the spoils, 0.61

00:21:53.760 you may have heard. Not in this instance. They were not permitted to take of the spoil

00:21:59.300 of Jericho.

00:22:02.700 But as you'll see,

00:22:03.960 as we continue this series

00:22:05.100 through the book of Joshua,

00:22:06.380 they were permitted to take and take 0.95

00:22:08.480 and plunder and plunder

00:22:09.520 all these other treasures

00:22:11.500 of every other major city and battle

00:22:14.380 that they encounter. 0.96

00:22:15.900 It is only Jericho

00:22:17.540 right up front at the beginning 0.92

00:22:20.580 that Israel is commanded

00:22:22.340 to entrust those things to the Lord, 0.98

00:22:24.160 to devote much of it to destruction 0.99

00:22:26.160 and the devoted things within Jericho,

00:22:30.520 those things of gold and silver,

00:22:32.880 to take those things and devote them to the Lord,

00:22:35.500 to bring them into the treasury of the Lord.

00:22:37.960 They are not allowed to personally increase in their wealth

00:22:42.620 because of their victory of Jericho.

00:22:45.820 Part of what we're meant to take from that

00:22:48.080 is the principle of giving first fruits to the Lord.

00:22:51.820 here they are at the beginning of their conquest into the land of promise

00:22:58.340 long been wandering in the wilderness as sojourners now crossed the Jordan River

00:23:06.100 entering the land of promise also I might add still as sojourners but not sojourners

00:23:12.320 waiting for God to beam them out but sojourners strangers and aliens waiting to conquer the land

00:23:19.480 they've just now entered into the promised land their inheritance and the first victory that God 0.99

00:23:26.840 grants to them he says give it back to me not because God won't let them have anything

00:23:34.440 in fact as we see throughout the book of Joshua as a whole God allows him to receive virtually

00:23:42.540 everything except for the first and this is the same principle that we have even for new

00:23:49.340 testament christians today that the first fruits of our labor belongs to the lord because it

00:23:54.600 demonstrates a recognition an acknowledgement and a gratitude to the lord that he is the one

00:24:01.600 ultimately who makes our work fruitful man waters and plants but god makes it grow

00:24:09.280 this is true when it comes to ministry that which is spiritual but also that which is physical

00:24:15.200 and practical. In every regard, man will work diligently as unto the Lord, but it is the Lord

00:24:23.580 himself who gives the harvest. And so, in acknowledging that God is the one who grants

00:24:30.780 success, that God is the one who makes our work fruitful, we give not the last leftovers, but

00:24:38.060 rather the first fruits to him. And so the people of Israel were commanded to do in this new land,

00:24:44.640 this new inheritance of Canaan 0.51

00:24:46.140 with the first city they conquer,

00:24:48.160 namely Jericho.

00:24:50.160 And to do otherwise,

00:24:52.540 after having been brought into a good land

00:24:55.660 flowing with milk and honey,

00:24:57.700 after miraculously crossing over the Jordan River,

00:25:01.320 supernaturally the waters heaped up,

00:25:04.240 after miraculously conquering

00:25:06.080 one of the most formidable enemies in this land

00:25:09.020 without having to lift even a single finger,

00:25:12.500 and for the Lord to merely ask

00:25:15.720 that you take everything

00:25:17.860 but just this one time

00:25:19.920 give the firstfruits to Him

00:25:21.500 in acknowledgement of His mercy

00:25:23.460 and provision and kindness

00:25:25.160 and to refuse that

00:25:26.800 is an outrageous thing in Israel.

00:25:31.640 It is an outrageous thing. 0.63

00:25:34.540 God is not cruel.

00:25:37.580 God is not unfair.

00:25:39.900 And the punishment prescribed 1.00

00:25:41.380 for Achan is a just and appropriate punishment 0.99

00:25:46.100 for an outrageous sin that he committed 0.94

00:25:49.660 against the Lord and against his people.

00:25:57.420 Matthew Henry, the late great Puritan,

00:25:59.660 and commentating specifically on verses 14 and 15

00:26:02.580 of our text says the following.

00:26:04.800 All this Joshua, though a wise and vigilant ruler,

00:26:08.500 knew nothing of, till God told him. Who knows all the secret wickedness that is in the world,

00:26:15.360 which men know nothing of? God could at this time have told him, that is Joshua, who the person was

00:26:22.400 that had done this thing. But God does not. Okay, this is old English, so let me break it down.

00:26:28.760 What Matthew Henry is saying is this. God could have immediately, when Joshua was grieving and

00:26:34.000 falling face down before the Lord, asking Him for help, asking Him for guidance right after they

00:26:39.960 just lost against the men of Ai, God could have said there's sin in the camp, and this is the

00:26:46.100 name of the guy who did it. But God doesn't. Now listen, here's the point. God does eventually

00:26:53.580 reveal this. God gets all the way down, right? Tribe by tribe, clan by clan, household by household,

00:27:00.880 man by man. So God eventually reveals the most minute details of this particular sin,

00:27:08.040 but He does not reveal these things up front. So the question that Matthew Henry is begging,

00:27:16.640 and I think the text itself begs, is why? Why does God, in this instance, choose to progressively

00:27:22.860 reveal the details of the sin. Matthew Henry provides two reasons. Number one, to exercise

00:27:33.520 the zeal of Joshua and Israel in searching out the criminal. Again, this reminds me of

00:27:41.020 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 9 through 11. In verse 11, it says,

00:27:48.420 For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear

00:27:56.860 yourselves, to consecrate yourselves, to make yourselves pure, to put sin to death, to rid

00:28:03.820 yourselves of that which is defiled. What indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal,

00:28:09.480 what punishment. And so it is with Israel. That God could have said, as Joshua goes and consults 0.99

00:28:16.960 with the Lord. This is the sin and this is the man. But instead, he says, this is the sin

00:28:23.620 and I am giving to you a process for discovering the man. And this process will require some

00:28:35.500 diligence. All of Israel is going to have to consecrate themselves. They're all going to 1.00

00:28:40.700 have to come out and get ready for tomorrow. And they're all going to have to come forward,

00:28:44.800 tribe by tribe, clan by clan, family by family, man by man. The whole nation will be involved.

00:28:55.860 And so God is, again, in mercy, providing an opportunity for Israel to care deeply about

00:29:05.200 repentance. To care and demonstrate diligence in regards to holiness. And this is a grace.

00:29:16.240 This is a grace from God. That's the first purpose of the process of finding Achan. 0.99

00:29:25.080 Instead of God simply supernaturally revealing this to Joshua all up front. The second reason 0.98

00:29:31.420 for a process in discovering the man who would send against the Lord. Matthew Henry says this,

00:29:38.560 to give the sinner himself space to repent and make confession. So for Israel corporately to 0.99

00:29:47.920 exercise zeal for the things of God, but also in God's unparalleled mercy for Achan individually 0.88

00:29:57.520 to have a chance to repent.

00:30:01.740 To give the sinner himself space to repent 0.87

00:30:04.760 and make confession. 0.97

00:30:07.000 Joshua no doubt proclaimed it immediately

00:30:09.340 throughout the camp

00:30:10.340 that there was such a transgression committed.

00:30:13.540 So immediately Joshua,

00:30:14.780 all of Israel, listen up. 0.96

00:30:17.040 This has happened. 0.64

00:30:19.020 Someone has taken of the devoted things of Jericho

00:30:22.220 that were supposed to go into the treasury of the Lord.

00:30:25.360 He has taken these things for himself, directly defying a divine decree from God. 0.57

00:30:33.280 Achan heard that. 0.50

00:30:35.740 Achan, he knows.

00:30:37.560 He's talking about me.

00:30:39.580 That's me.

00:30:42.460 And God, if he had revealed all the specificities to Joshua,

00:30:46.400 then Joshua in the very same breath would have said, 0.98

00:30:48.380 this is the sin, and Achan is the man.

00:30:51.520 but it is a mercy of God that he did not reveal the man he revealed the sin but not the particular

00:30:58.620 man and he did this so that Israel as a whole could be vigilant towards the things of God 0.78

00:31:04.740 namely holiness and repentance but also so that Achan Achan who deserved no mercy from the Lord

00:31:13.040 whatsoever but because God is exceedingly kind and merciful God is providing Achan with time

00:31:20.220 they don't have to go tribe by tribe clan by clan household by household man by man

00:31:28.320 at any moment a can come forward and say i was the guy

00:31:34.000 forgive me lord forgive me that's part of what god is likely doing providing an opportunity

00:31:44.740 not just for Israel to repent, but for Achan to repent, which is a very merciful thing.

00:31:53.000 Moving on now, let's focus on verses 19 through 21, which say this, 0.99

00:31:58.800 Then Joshua said to Achan, My son, once the lot had finally fallen on him,

00:32:05.640 once Achan had been singled out, unfortunately not by volunteering to confession himself,

00:32:11.200 but rather throughout the process and the providence of God, the lot eventually fell

00:32:16.780 squarely on him. And now Joshua addresses Achan by saying, my son, give glory to the Lord God of

00:32:24.280 Israel and give praise to him and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me.

00:32:32.740 Achan answered Joshua, truly, I have sinned against the Lord of Israel. And this is what I did

00:32:38.280 when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar

00:32:43.060 and 200 shekels of silver

00:32:45.880 and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels.

00:32:49.080 Then I coveted them and took them.

00:32:52.080 They are hidden in the earth inside my tent

00:32:55.140 with the silver underneath.

00:32:59.940 Matthew Henry, again,

00:33:02.060 in commentating on these particular verses of our text,

00:33:05.000 says this,

00:33:05.660 note in confessing sin as we take shame to ourselves so we give glory to God as righteous

00:33:15.980 owning him justly displeased with us again old language but what this late great Puritan is

00:33:26.340 essentially saying is that one of the ways we glorify God is by way of consequence the way of

00:33:34.360 consequence being by owning our sin. When we own our sin, we exonerate God. In the objective sense,

00:33:48.140 God needs no exoneration. Let God be true, and every man a liar. But there is something to be 0.73

00:33:56.860 said subjectively when a man confesses his sin as David does in Psalm 51 verse 4 against you

00:34:06.740 and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that I'm confessing that I did it

00:34:16.780 only I did it and I did it against you so that you may be justified in your words and blameless

00:34:25.140 in your judgment. God would have been justified whether David confessed his sin or not. He would

00:34:32.040 have been blameless whether David repented or not. But there is something to be said outside of the

00:34:39.060 objective ultimate truth category within the subjective interpersonal confession and repentance

00:34:45.860 realm that when we say I sinned in our hearts we are saying God is exonerated. I think of the book

00:34:57.880 of James. Let no one say when he is tempted I am being tempted by God for God cannot be tempted

00:35:07.480 nor does he tempt any man, but each man is led astray by his own desire. Desire, if not dealt

00:35:16.660 with, sin at the level of desire, eventually gives birth to sin, and sin, when fully grown, brings

00:35:22.600 forth death. James is saying a lot in that particular passage, but one thing that he is

00:35:29.620 certainly saying is that God is not to blame. One of the things that we do, brothers and sisters,

00:35:36.360 when we confess our sins before the Lord

00:35:38.980 is we exonerate Him.

00:35:41.160 Or, as Joshua says in our text today,

00:35:45.420 My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel

00:35:49.260 and give praise to Him.

00:35:53.560 Joshua recognizes the two birds

00:35:57.660 that are killed with a singular stone.

00:36:01.120 Or, for the Californians,

00:36:03.240 the two birds that are fed by one scone. 0.96

00:36:06.360 Joshua recognizes that in the confessing of Achan's sin, 0.95

00:36:12.540 he is indicting himself and simultaneously in one foul swoop, 0.99

00:36:18.480 giving glory to God.

00:36:20.900 I'm responsible.

00:36:23.380 God is blameless.

00:36:25.380 It's just as what David does,

00:36:27.140 so that you may be justified in your words

00:36:29.600 and blameless in your judgment.

00:36:32.360 confessing sin indicts us and exonerates god in the objective sense

00:36:41.020 god is always exonerated in the objective sense let god be true in every man a liar

00:36:50.260 is god responsible for sin may it never be god forbid but there is something to be said in terms

00:37:00.560 of our individual relationship with God,

00:37:03.820 for us to say that which is already true,

00:37:06.860 whether we said it or not,

00:37:08.180 it still does good to the soul of a man

00:37:11.660 to say, I was wrong.

00:37:15.220 God is right.

00:37:17.520 This is what 1 John alludes to

00:37:19.680 when he talks about confession of sin.

00:37:25.000 And he talks about confession of sin

00:37:27.120 as it relates to intimacy with God,

00:37:31.340 closeness with the Lord.

00:37:34.900 It's in part, you could say,

00:37:36.900 the verse that we use in our liturgy every Lord's day,

00:37:40.680 if we confess our sin,

00:37:43.620 right there at the beginning,

00:37:45.780 there's a criteria, a condition, that word if.

00:37:50.720 Well, think about that in objective terms.

00:37:53.660 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just

00:37:55.860 to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us

00:37:57.720 from all unrighteousness.

00:38:00.220 Logically, by way of contrast,

00:38:02.300 we could say in an objective sense,

00:38:04.420 if we do not confess our sins,

00:38:07.020 He will not be faithful and just

00:38:09.960 to forgive us of our sins

00:38:11.380 or to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

00:38:14.120 Meaning, that the Christian even,

00:38:18.000 born again, regenerate, new creature

00:38:20.160 in Christ Jesus, by grace alone,

00:38:22.580 through faith alone, in Him alone,

00:38:24.220 that that person, having sinned, but before confession of sin, is walking in a state of

00:38:32.120 not being forgiven by God. Now hear me. In the objective theological sense, that is not true.

00:38:39.980 If you are born again in Christ, you were forgiven at the moment of conversion of all your past,

00:38:46.360 present, and future sins. You have been clothed through faith, not your own doing,

00:38:54.220 but clothed through faith

00:38:56.400 with the very righteousness of Jesus.

00:39:00.440 An imputed righteousness,

00:39:02.960 accredited, transferred to your account,

00:39:05.640 not by work, so that no man may boast.

00:39:08.060 It is the gift of God.

00:39:12.380 And whether you just sinned five minutes ago,

00:39:16.520 or whether you've had the best week of your life,

00:39:20.220 you are walking in relationship with god with your sins having been forgiven in the objective

00:39:28.940 sense so then what is john getting at in first john chapter one namely verse nine if conditional

00:39:37.780 we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins there is i believe what john

00:39:44.500 is saying, there is such a thing, brothers and sisters, as the feeling and assurance of forgiveness.

00:39:51.780 Everything is intentional, for the record. The reason why in our liturgy we have a portion that

00:39:58.520 is called not just the forgiveness of sins, but the assurance of forgiveness. We say every Lord's

00:40:06.160 Day, and now for an assurance of Christ's pardon. The reason why we say assurance is what we're

00:40:11.880 saying is that if you are in Christ by grace through faith in him alone, then you've already

00:40:17.680 been forgiven. You walked in the room forgiven. You'll leave the room forgiven. You'll be forgiven

00:40:22.500 on the way home. You'll be forgiven when you go to bed, when you rise in the morning. You're forgiven.

00:40:28.040 But there is a difference in being forgiven and having a confident, knowing assurance of that

00:40:35.040 forgiveness. Even for the Christian, although, biblically speaking, he can never lose his

00:40:41.680 salvation. And therefore, he will never have God ever again as his enemy or judge. But rather, God

00:40:49.780 is, from now on, his adoptive father. Even for the Christian, who has God as his adoptive father, 0.70

00:40:58.920 that that Christian can still be, as the Puritans wrote, 0.60

00:41:02.280 in a state of being under God's fatherly displeasure. 0.65

00:41:08.120 Still father in the objective sense, but displeasure.

00:41:14.580 As we saw even in our confession of sin today,

00:41:18.140 which I believe comes from Psalm 32.

00:41:23.060 Yep.

00:41:24.720 Your hand of discipline was heavy upon me. 0.85

00:41:27.320 this is a Christian talking, that even a Christian can, by choosing not to repent, 0.91

00:41:38.460 by choosing to procrastinate in confession of sin, by choosing to hide sin like Achan,

00:41:48.040 the Christian who in the objective category has already been forgiven, past sins, present sins, 0.83

00:41:53.960 future sins. In the objective sense, has God as his heavenly Father. And there's nothing that he

00:42:00.900 could ever do to lose that. Not depths, not heights, not angels, nor demons. Nothing can separate him

00:42:05.300 from the love of God. And yet, in the subjective sense, God's hand of discipline heavy upon him,

00:42:12.460 my bones began to groan within me because I was in a state of hiding sin.

00:42:19.740 even though objectively I have been forgiven

00:42:23.880 subjectively I don't feel forgiven

00:42:26.860 and that is painful

00:42:29.820 to be in a state

00:42:31.840 as a Christian

00:42:34.040 under God's fatherly

00:42:36.320 albeit

00:42:36.780 but fatherly displeasure

00:42:40.020 when we confess our sins

00:42:43.900 we immediately are

00:42:47.440 coming back into fellowship

00:42:49.660 in the subjective sense of feeling reconciled with the Lord.

00:42:55.540 Feeling and receiving a fresh assurance of God's forgiveness.

00:43:01.660 The forgiveness that was already there,

00:43:04.380 but now an assurance, a knowing, a confidence of that forgiveness.

00:43:11.040 A closeness restored in our relationship with our Heavenly Father.

00:43:16.140 That happens in confession.

00:43:19.660 And when we procrastinate in confessing sin,

00:43:22.760 his hand of discipline will be heavy upon us.

00:43:26.540 Although we objectively are forgiven,

00:43:29.240 we will feel oftentimes as though we are not.

00:43:32.940 We will begin in these states of unconfessed sins

00:43:37.040 often to doubt the assurance of our salvation.

00:43:41.860 Even as someone who's reformed in your theology,

00:43:45.220 knowing that you can never lose your salvation,

00:43:47.200 but beginning to believe perhaps you never had it to begin with? I've been there.

00:43:54.840 But when we confess our sin, it is good for the soul. It gives us new life in the subjective

00:44:03.340 sense, feeling reconciled, feeling forgiven, and it exonerates God, again, in the subjective sense.

00:44:12.600 He was already innocent. He was already blameless in his judgments. But now we are saying it. I was

00:44:19.680 wrong. You were right. I was wrong. You were right. This is what Joshua says to Achan. My son,

00:44:27.820 give glory to God, we might read it like this, by owning your sin. Exonerate God. Praise God

00:44:36.360 is blameless in his judgments by acknowledging and owning your failure.

00:44:44.220 There's a brief lesson in the text right there on confession. Lastly, verses 25 and 26.

00:44:53.280 And Joshua said, why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.

00:44:59.900 and all Israel stoned him with stones.

00:45:03.760 They burned them with fire 0.64

00:45:05.700 and stoned them with stones.

00:45:09.340 And they raised over him a great heap of stones

00:45:12.060 that remains to this day.

00:45:13.720 Then the Lord turned from his burning anger.

00:45:16.940 Therefore, to this day,

00:45:18.400 the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor.

00:45:23.420 In your notes, I've written the following.

00:45:24.940 Some biblical scholars and theologians

00:45:26.800 think that Achan's sons and daughters

00:45:28.660 were simply brought out, which is what the text says, but only to be spectators of their father's

00:45:34.920 punishment. However, the vast majority conclude that they were also put to death along with their

00:45:42.520 father, which is my conclusion as well for the record. God commanded that magistrates should not

00:45:49.380 put the children to death for the sins of the fathers. However, God did not intend to bind

00:45:56.360 himself by this law. Therefore, God could justly command the execution of a whole household by

00:46:04.040 divine decree. What does that mean? Pausing there for a moment. It means that a civil magistrate

00:46:10.740 at any time, in any place, cannot punish the children for the sins of a father.

00:46:18.180 We must stick to the script. We don't work by a dream or a vision or some interpersonal divine

00:46:26.140 revelation from God. Well, God told me that this person is guilty. Well, do you have two or three

00:46:31.100 eyewitnesses? No, but I just know it. Well, tough. Tough. In biblical law, better for 10 men

00:46:44.880 who are objectively guilty of a crime to get away with murder than to condemn one truly innocent

00:46:55.720 man. Why? Well, because in Christian theology, we know that no one ultimately gets away with

00:47:06.440 murder. There is a higher court. There is a life to come. There is a perfect judge of the living

00:47:15.200 and the dead, and he will eventually do that which is right. So we would rather exonerate

00:47:23.640 ten guilty men, then wrongfully condemn one innocent man. And so, when it comes to executing

00:47:30.660 justice for the civil magistrate, whether it be in Israel or in the United States of America today,

00:47:37.200 we must stick to that which is written. Eye for eye. That is, justice is proportional.

00:47:44.020 Tooth for tooth, life for life. Also, justice must be swift. Also, justice must be impartial.

00:47:51.780 It doesn't matter the color of your skin.

00:47:56.120 And also, justice, it must be fair.

00:48:01.760 It must be legitimate.

00:48:04.500 It must be evidenced.

00:48:07.040 Two or three eyewitnesses.

00:48:10.960 That's the way that we operate today.

00:48:13.340 And that is the way that we should operate.

00:48:16.020 By what God has revealed in His Word.

00:48:19.220 But in the case of Israel,

00:48:21.780 there is an exception. The exception is that God was verbally speaking to Israel, namely to Israel's

00:48:31.420 commander-in-chief, Joshua. That as we saw in Joshua chapter 5, the Lord had already physically

00:48:38.780 appeared to Joshua. And so when the Lord appears and speaks, you do what he says. And for any who

00:48:48.580 would say, well, the Lord appeared to me and spoke to me and said something that directly contradicts

00:48:53.760 the Bible, our response should be, uh-uh. I believe Joshua. I don't believe you. So it's written in the

00:49:06.080 Scripture plainly that the children should not be put to death for the sin of the Father. But God is

00:49:14.280 binding his people to this law, not himself. Which means in justice, God by divine decree could say

00:49:24.340 in this particular instance, the whole family shall be put to death. That's the disclaimer.

00:49:32.260 Now here's the point. The point is, although God could justly do this, everything I've just

00:49:38.840 articulated, I don't actually think that that's what was going on. I think that more likely the

00:49:45.780 reason why Achan's whole household is put to death is because his whole household participated in the 0.97

00:49:51.760 sin. That his children were actually complicit, grown children in this instance, and that they 0.87

00:49:59.460 helped their father to hide the devoted things in Jericho. And that the Lord knew this, and that this

00:50:06.840 is precisely why, in divine decree, that He commanded the whole house to be put to death 1.00

00:50:13.600 and not just Achan, because all of them were involved. I believe that although this is not 1.00

00:50:19.780 explicit in the text, that this is a good and plausible inference.

00:50:27.340 Here's the last thing. We've answered pretty much every question that I think jumps out of our text

00:50:32.740 today. But the final question that jumped out of the text as I was studying and preparing this week

00:50:37.920 was this. Will I see Achan in heaven? And I believe that I will.

00:50:48.160 The hardest part of the text for me to grapple with this week in my study was

00:50:53.340 when Joshua says to Achan my son give glory to God and give him praise and do not hide anything

00:51:03.860 that you have done and Achan's response what he says to Joshua

00:51:10.840 let me find it because I don't believe that I actually have it in your notes but it's in our

00:51:17.440 text today. Joshua chapter 7 verses 10 through 26 verse 19. Then Joshua said to Achan, my son,

00:51:27.340 give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give him praise. And tell me now what you have done. Do not

00:51:34.520 hide it from me. Now listen to Achan's response. This is what was hard for me. It doesn't sound

00:51:40.860 like the response of someone currently in hell. Achan answered Joshua, truly, I have sinned against 0.80

00:51:48.700 the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from

00:51:55.000 Shinar and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them.

00:52:01.580 He doesn't just say, I did it. He's thorough in his confession. I coveted them and then took them

00:52:08.900 and see they are hidden in the earth inside my tent

00:52:12.140 with the silver underneath.

00:52:14.920 I like what Charles Spurgeon says in this regard.

00:52:19.780 Quote, 1.00

00:52:20.700 But I find in the Mishnah,

00:52:24.520 an old Jewish exposition of the Bible,

00:52:27.260 these words,

00:52:28.600 Joshua said to Achan,

00:52:30.100 The Lord shall trouble thee this day.

00:52:34.380 And the note upon it is,

00:52:36.640 he said, this day.

00:52:38.900 implying that he was only to be troubled in this life by being stoned to death, but that God would

00:52:46.400 have mercy on his soul, seeing that he had made a full confession of his sin. And I, too, am inclined

00:52:54.800 from the reading of the chapter to concur in the idea of my venerable and now glorified predecessor,

00:53:01.780 Dr. Gill, that is John Gill, who preached in the very same church a hundred years prior.

00:53:07.260 John Gill also held Spurgeon's opinion on this,

00:53:10.380 that Achan is in heaven,

00:53:12.000 and believing that Achan really was saved, 0.87

00:53:14.660 although he was put to death for the crime as an example.

00:53:19.380 For you will observe how kindly Joshua spoke to him.

00:53:22.760 He said, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to God of Israel,

00:53:28.860 and make confession unto him,

00:53:31.040 and tell me now what thou hast done.

00:53:34.140 hide it not from me. And you find Achan making a very full confession. It seems so full a confession

00:53:42.740 that if I might be allowed to judge, I should say, I hope to meet Achan the sinner before the throne 1.00

00:53:50.360 of God. One final quote from Spurgeon. Although he says, I believe that Achan is in heaven, 0.82

00:54:00.480 that his confession does not absolve him of guilt and the punishment in this life from the civil 0.97

00:54:07.840 magistrate, Israel, holding both offices, to be stoned and put to death under the law of God,

00:54:13.880 that he was, in fact, forgiven. Because if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to

00:54:19.640 forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. And so he was put to death

00:54:24.560 in the physical, but forgiven and saved in the spiritual and before the throne of God.

00:54:33.620 Charles Spurgeon affirms this position, but he doesn't leave it with just this affirmation.

00:54:41.280 So the final point today is this. Although it may be fair, I cannot explicitly say, but I think that

00:54:48.280 it is more likely than not that Achan is in heaven, that he was in fact redeemed. Although

00:54:54.360 it may be fair to come to this conclusion, let none of us take away from that, that it's a good 1.00

00:55:00.660 thing to die like Achan. So let's any of us take away from this, hey, Achan made it to heaven. 1.00

00:55:09.720 That's the headline of the story. I hear you loud and clear, preacher. You can do terrible things,

00:55:14.860 outrageous things in Israel, and at the end of the day, you'll be all right. That's not the headline. 0.96

00:55:22.420 So Charles Spurgeon finishes up. He follows up his, I think Achan is in heaven, quote, with another.

00:55:28.780 Here it is. Oh, to die with full assurance. Oh, to die with an abundant entrance, leaving a testimony 0.96

00:55:38.660 behind that we have departed this life in peace. That is a far happier way than to die in a doubtful

00:55:47.380 manner, lying sick, hovering between two worlds, and neither ourselves nor yet our friends,

00:55:56.160 knowing to which of the two worlds we are going. May God grant us grace to give in our lives

00:56:03.420 evidences of true conversion that our case may not be doubtful like Achan's. I think that Achan 0.99

00:56:12.880 was saved, but I cannot say with 100% certainty. But let it be said of you, brothers and sisters

00:56:21.500 in Christ, when you breathe your final breath, that there is a blessed assurance that we are

00:56:30.400 certain that we do not doubt or question like we do in the case of Achan, but rather I know him,

00:56:37.580 I know her. They are now absent in the body and we are sure that they are present with the Lord

00:56:44.720 because by his grace, they gave much evidence in their life of the fruit of the spirit and the

00:56:52.060 grace of God. It is not a loving thing for your family and your friends to be left behind,

00:57:02.640 assuming that you were actually saved and are now in the presence of God, to leave your family

00:57:08.620 and loved ones behind for years, perhaps even decades, of wandering. Why are they saying it?

00:57:16.840 was that a genuine deathbed conversion?

00:57:21.080 Was that a full confession? 0.95

00:57:23.780 Are they an Achan or are they a Judas? 0.99

00:57:28.480 First and foremost, for the glory of God, 0.99

00:57:30.980 but secondarily, for the good of those who love you,

00:57:34.480 your family and friends,

00:57:35.820 and lastly, for the good of your own peace of mind and soul.

00:57:41.940 Don't ride the fence.

00:57:43.500 don't leave such an eternal and weighty matter

00:57:47.720 within question.

00:57:49.780 Make it known.

00:57:51.340 Make it certain.

00:57:53.580 By grace, through faith, in Christ,

00:57:57.460 as evidenced by the fruit of the Spirit

00:57:59.540 in an abundant life of obedience,

00:58:01.760 let there be no question

00:58:04.340 in regard to the state of your soul.

00:58:07.720 He's a brother in Christ.

00:58:09.780 She's a sister in Christ.

00:58:11.420 oh blessed assurance oh glory divine let's pray father we thank you for your word

00:58:19.920 bless it to your people bring glory to yourself amen

The NXR Podcast - July 16, 2023

SUNDAY SERMON - Godly Grief, Confession, & Repentance

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