SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, choir and congregation, for a beautiful time of worship.
SPEAKER_01: Turn with me in your Bibles to Joshua chapter 9.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to continue moving forward.
SPEAKER_01: Last week we talked about the Battle of Ai, and we were grateful for Pastor Matt preached and unpacked that passage of scripture for us.
SPEAKER_01: And this is a great run right here in the book of Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: As we've talked about, the book of Joshua is an Old Testament history of how the nation of Israel stepped into the land of Canaan, the promised land that God had given them, how they became as a nation God's people.
SPEAKER_01: We've also talked about how it is an Old Testament picture of our New Testament walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And it is a picture from the Old Testament as they go through those struggles of becoming God's people and being established as a people who coherently and together followed him.
SPEAKER_01: It is a picture for us in the New Testament of how we walk with Jesus, how we experience the inheritance that is ours in the Christian life, which includes what Jesus described as the abundant life in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said in John 10, I've come that you might have life and you might have it more abundantly.
SPEAKER_01: So what should the Christian life be for us?
SPEAKER_01: It should be that abundant life.
SPEAKER_01: It is the birthright that we have that Jesus bought for us on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: But it is something that we grow into, that we learn, that we mature and go through the process of becoming a person in the transformation into the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: As we know, what happens when we get saved is I'm over here, I'm a sinner, I confess my sin, and I trust Jesus as my Savior.
SPEAKER_01: I surrender my life to him.
SPEAKER_01: But in that moment, when I got saved, I still think and act and behave a whole lot more like lost Greg than I do like the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you give your life to Christ and you're saved, you begin this journey towards the person of Jesus in which he is transforming us to be like him.
SPEAKER_01: He is taking out things, he's putting in things, and in that journey, we become more and more like the person of Jesus as we go through these lessons and these learnings.
SPEAKER_01: And so these battles that the children of Israel are going through as they are becoming the people of God, or an Old Testament picture for us in New Testament life of becoming that person of Jesus and learning to follow him.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is a great stretch right here because these three battles set the pattern and the tone for how this occurs.
SPEAKER_01: The first was in Jericho, where they followed God's plan and he showed himself to be mighty.
SPEAKER_01: He was fulfilled his promises and they defeated Jericho.
SPEAKER_01: Last week, as Matt talked to you about the battle of Ai, they came to this place, and Jericho was mighty with these mighty walls, and Ai was this little pipsqueak, nothing sort of place where just these sort of people lived.
SPEAKER_01: They weren't very smart and they weren't very good and they just didn't know what they were doing, and it was kind of a problem, and they were kind of wimpy, and we just kind of thought terrible of them.
SPEAKER_01: And so they disrespected them because they weren't really worthy of respect.
SPEAKER_01: If you need a modern day example of AI, think Oxford, Mississippi.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all got that.
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all from Mississippi, you can talk to me afterwards and I'll apologize, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Um, but here so they lose that battle, then they get it together, and they come back and repent, and they follow the Lord, and then they win that battle, right?
SPEAKER_01: And now you come to another type of battle.
SPEAKER_01: And I think this battle may be the one that the most Christians struggle with.
SPEAKER_01: This is the one that we see happen the most time.
SPEAKER_01: This is the thing that I think most people struggle with most of the time.
SPEAKER_01: So here I want to talk to you about how to make wise biblical decisions in an unbiblical world.
SPEAKER_01: Now, before we read this passage of Scripture, let me give you a reminder of the pattern that we see unfolded in every one of these battles.
SPEAKER_01: When they do it well, they follow these principles, and when they mess up these principles, one or more of these are broken.
SPEAKER_01: So let's remind them before we read through this passage and see if you can't begin to trigger an understanding of these battles.
SPEAKER_01: First is understand and pursue your inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Our life should be pursued following Jesus and who he is and what he has for our lives.
SPEAKER_01: That is our primary focus in all of what we do.
SPEAKER_01: We need to trust God for victory over every enemy and obstacle.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that happened in the AI battle that broke down was they thought, well, that's just this wimpy little city, and we can do that on our own.
SPEAKER_01: We can just take care of that for the Lord on our own.
SPEAKER_01: Third, we recognize the reality and the necessity of God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: We must have Him in our lives for things to work as they should.
SPEAKER_01: And then we immerse ourselves in and obey God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Those things must happen.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the context we find ourselves in after the victory at Ai, when they got it together and they came back and did it at the end of chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: We won't read it, but here's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: They re-identified how vitally important it is for them to follow God's word.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua follows the plan of Moses and he sets up an altar.
SPEAKER_01: And then the Bible says that afterwards Joshua read aloud all the words of the law, the blessings as well as the curses.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, he's reminding them God set a choice in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: You follow him, he blesses.
SPEAKER_01: You don't follow him, he judges, like Achan and his family.
SPEAKER_01: All of those things are happening.
SPEAKER_01: According to all that is written in the book of the law, there was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read before the entire assembly of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And so he read in front of everybody.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible even says to illustrate everyone in Israel, including the women, the little children, and the foreigners who were with them.
SPEAKER_01: So there are people who are watching God work, like Rahab, who began to repent to follow the Lord because they are the example of him.
SPEAKER_01: And so all of that, so what you have here is a people who've reaffirmed their love for the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: They have affirmed that the Word of God is the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: They have affirmed that we believe in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: They have affirmed that we should follow the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: But then let's read and see what happens.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 9, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: When all the kings, these are the pagan kings in this whole area referred to as Canaan, when all the kings heard about Jericho and Ai, those massive victories, those who were west of the Jordan in the hill country, in the Judean foothills, and all along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea toward Lebanon, the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I'm not going to make the old preacher joke about mosquitoites and Luddites and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I would never do that.
SPEAKER_01: They formed a unified alliance to fight against Joshua and Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Now, just a word here.
SPEAKER_01: From the beginning of God's establishment of Israel as their chosen people, there have been people and cultures and nations that have set themselves against the people of God, and they have set themselves to destroy the people of God, the work of God, because they hate the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: That will always be the case until Jesus returns and ends all this and ushers in eternity.
SPEAKER_01: And we see it have seen this played out through history, and we see that played out now, even in our modern day.
SPEAKER_01: There are people who will always hate the people of Israel and the nation of Israel and the underpinnings of that, because they are the people of God and they hate Jehovah God.
SPEAKER_01: And so you see that, and it's just played out.
SPEAKER_01: Now he says in verse 3 that there's a different nation that responded in a different way.
SPEAKER_01: When the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, they acted deceptively.
SPEAKER_01: If you underline your scripture, if you're looking for key verses in this, that's one of the key points right there.
SPEAKER_01: They acted deceptively.
SPEAKER_01: They gathered provisions and took worn-out sacks on their donkeys and old wineskins cracked and mended.
SPEAKER_01: They wore old patched sandals on their feet and threadbare clothing on their bodies.
SPEAKER_01: Their entire provision of bread was dry and crumbly.
SPEAKER_01: Now these are people who live not very far from where the children of Israel have been established.
SPEAKER_01: So what they're doing is they're trying to make it look like they came from a long way away, and they're not one of the nations that God has pronounced judgment on in the land of Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: So they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal, and they said to him and the men of Israel, We have come from a distant land.
SPEAKER_01: Please make a treaty with us.
SPEAKER_01: The men of Israel replied to them, Perhaps you live among us.
SPEAKER_01: How can we make a treaty with you?
SPEAKER_01: So they have, you know, some wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: They understand, you know, we're living amongst all these pagans who are fighting against God, they're plotting against God, and so they asked that question.
SPEAKER_01: They said to Joshua, We are your servants.
SPEAKER_01: Then Joshua asked them, Who are you and where did you come from?
SPEAKER_01: They replied to him, Your servants have come from a far away land because of the reputation of your God.
SPEAKER_01: So they're lying.
SPEAKER_01: They've come a long way, and we've heard about how awesome your God is, and they're buttering them up and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: For we have heard of his fame and all that he did in Egypt, and all that he did to the two Amorite kings beyond the Jordan.
SPEAKER_01: So our elders and all the inhabitants of our land told us, take provisions with you for the journey.
SPEAKER_01: Go and meet them and say, We are your servants, please make a treaty with us.
SPEAKER_01: This bread of ours was warm when we took it from our houses as food on the day we left to come to you.
SPEAKER_01: But take a look.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's dry and crumbly.
SPEAKER_01: These wineskins were new when we filled them, but look, they're cracked.
SPEAKER_01: And these clothes and sandals ours, they're worn out from the extremely long journey.
SPEAKER_01: Then the men of Israel took some of their provisions, here's your next key phrase, but did not seek the Lord's counsel.
SPEAKER_01: So you have these people who are against God, they see the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of repenting and turning to God, they work to deceive the people of God, and then the people of God don't seek God's wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua established peace with them and made a treaty to let them live.
SPEAKER_01: And the leaders of the community swore an oath to them.
SPEAKER_01: Three days after making the treaty with them, they heard that the Gibeonites were their neighbors living among them.
SPEAKER_01: So the Israelites set out and reached the Gibeonite cities on the third day.
SPEAKER_01: That's how close they were.
SPEAKER_01: Now their cities were Gibeon, all that list, but the Israelites did not attack them because the leaders of the community had sworn an oath to them by the Lord the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Then the whole community grumbled against the leaders.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, all the Israelites were looking at Joshua and his brain truss, like, what do you guys do?
SPEAKER_01: You made this treaty with his people, and God says we're not allowed to make treaties with all these pagans, and we're supposed to exact his judgment on them if they don't repent and all that.
SPEAKER_01: What are you guys thinking?
SPEAKER_01: What are y'all doing?
SPEAKER_01: All the leaders answered them, We have sworn an oath to them by the Lord the God of Israel, and now we cannot touch them.
SPEAKER_01: This is how we will treat them.
SPEAKER_01: We will let them live, so that no wrath will fall on us from God as judgment for breaking the oath we swore to them.
SPEAKER_01: They also said to them, Let them live.
SPEAKER_01: So the Gibeonites became woodcutters and water carriers for the whole community as the leaders had promised them.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, they put them in a very subservient role.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said to them, Why do you deceive us by telling us you live far away from us, when in fact you live among us?
SPEAKER_01: Therefore you are cursed and will always be slaves, woodcutters, and water carriers for the house of my God.
SPEAKER_01: The Gibeonites answered him.
SPEAKER_01: It was clearly communicated to your servants that the Lord your God had commanded his servant, Moses, to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land before you.
SPEAKER_01: So they understand what's happening.
SPEAKER_01: They know that God is God, they know that the Israelites are the people of God, they understand the judgment of God, but unlike Rahab, they do not repent and turn and trust in God.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, they go through this deceptive deal to get a treaty to get to live as they are without repenting to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We greatly feared for our lives because of you, and that is why we did this.
SPEAKER_01: Now we are in your hands.
SPEAKER_01: Do to us whatever you think is right.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Joshua did to them.
SPEAKER_01: He delivered them from the hands of the Israelites, and they did not kill them.
SPEAKER_01: On that day he made them woodcutters and water carriers, as they are today for the community and for the Lord's altar at the place he would choose.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a really fascinating story that goes on here, but I think there's an incredible amount of application for us as we begin to think what's going on here as the children of Israel enter into this moment and they find themselves duped into this treaty with a worldly people group.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me give you uh let me give you a thought.
SPEAKER_01: I want to just tell you this right here.
SPEAKER_01: Uh when I am teaching people how to teach a Sunday school lesson or young guys, and we're talking through preaching and all of that, I always tell folks this you need to have, before you sit down and write your sermon out and all that, you need to have encapsulated the theme and the foundation of your sermon, the biblical message of your lesson in 50 words or less.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I thought today I'll just show you my fifty words or less.
SPEAKER_01: I do this in every sermon.
SPEAKER_01: It's important because it does a couple of things.
SPEAKER_01: It helps us be sure that we are anchored on a truth from God's word, because if we're not anchored on a truth from God's word, we're just wasting our time.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: And so now what it does is here's the central truth from that passage of scripture, here are the things that support that and where we're going.
SPEAKER_01: If you think about it, all communication is better when it's clearer, when you're clearly communicating what you're doing.
SPEAKER_01: If you think back to your English classes or your writing classes in your middle school or high school days, and everybody started out with a five-paragraph theme.
SPEAKER_01: Do y'all remember that?
SPEAKER_01: You had to write a five-paragraph theme.
SPEAKER_01: And what is the structure of that?
SPEAKER_01: There are five paragraphs, and they're teaching you the structure of a lesson how to communicate correctly.
SPEAKER_01: There's an introduction in the first paragraph.
SPEAKER_01: There are three supporting arguments why your point is correct, and there is a conclusion with your point.
SPEAKER_01: The best and first activity that you do in that is you write a theme sentence.
SPEAKER_01: The theme sentence is in the introduction, and then the three points support the theme sentence, and then the theme sentence is repeated as if you have proven it in the closing paragraph.
SPEAKER_01: If you think about when you have communication models, verbal communication models, many of you have heard them say this.
SPEAKER_01: Tell them what you're going to say, tell them, then tell them what you told them.
SPEAKER_01: What is that model trying to do?
SPEAKER_01: It's trying to be clearer in the point that you're communicating.
SPEAKER_01: And so we could go on and on and on with those communication models, and so it's important that you grasp that thought.
SPEAKER_01: It's just so important to get this major thought that I wanted to give you my 50 words or less.
SPEAKER_01: Because we live in an ungodly world fundamentally opposed to us as believers, we must recognize how culture seeks to oppose and or deceive us away from Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We must.
SPEAKER_01: We must, we must.
SPEAKER_01: If I'd have had a few more words, I would have repeated that more often.
SPEAKER_01: We must own and obey Scripture so it shapes our views and directs our choices.
SPEAKER_01: We must do that.
SPEAKER_01: This is such a powerful lesson here.
SPEAKER_01: You come right off the fact that someone had sinned, violated God's instruction, Achan and his family, God had warned them if you sin, then what will happen is you will bring trouble on all the people.
SPEAKER_01: And that happened.
SPEAKER_01: And then they repented.
SPEAKER_01: They followed God's plan.
SPEAKER_01: He gave them victory at AI.
SPEAKER_01: And to make sure that everyone understood that, Joshua brought them back.
SPEAKER_01: He reiterated the point of what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01: We are following God's word.
SPEAKER_01: They read all the law.
SPEAKER_01: God's people affirmed the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: So they are in a position and a mindset where they love the word of God, they affirm the word of God, they are positive about the word of God, they believe the word of God, but then they find themselves in this spot and they rely on their own wisdom instead of seeking counsel from God.
SPEAKER_01: And because they do that, they find themselves trapped in a treaty with the world.
SPEAKER_01: And there are so many Christians in our life today where we just flow with the culture and we allow things that the culture tells us to be how we develop our perspective of things.
SPEAKER_01: Even people who love the word of God, who affirm the word of God, who are glad when the preacher and the other leaders, like Joshua, read the Word of God, but we get in the decisions of life, how we do relationships, how we do money, how we do people, how we do work, how we do deals, how we do our planning for the future, how we do everything, and we rely on our own wisdom and some maybe of the affirmed biblical principles that we might remember, but we come to these decisions and we make these decisions without the counsel of God.
SPEAKER_01: And we end up in treaties with the world.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you these three points, three truths, I think, help us as we prepare through this.
SPEAKER_01: First, we are twice-born people in a once-born world that opposes our pursuit of Jesus through persecution andor deception.
SPEAKER_01: This twice-born people, this is a phrase my pastor Rodgers used to use.
SPEAKER_01: And he'd say, we are twice-born people in a once-born world.
SPEAKER_01: What does a twice-born people mean?
SPEAKER_01: When you realize that you're a sinner, you realize that God must judge sin, and you understand the gospel, and somebody shares with you that Jesus loved you so much that he died for you on the cross to pay the price for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: And somebody helps you understand, someone is going to pay the price for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: You will pay the price for your sin unless you come to Jesus and trust him to do it.
SPEAKER_01: His life, his death, his burial, and his resurrection to pay the price for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: And you realize, boy, nobody ever loved me as much as Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And you take your life, everything you've been, you are, and you ever will be, and you surrender it to Jesus, you trust his death, burial, and resurrection, and you make him the Lord of your life, and you follow him.
SPEAKER_01: At that point, you are saved.
SPEAKER_01: Bible uses the phrase, born again.
SPEAKER_01: There was a man who came to Jesus named Nicodemus in John chapter 3, and Jesus tells him, you know, you have to be born again, and he's trying to understand what that means.
SPEAKER_01: It means that we were born alive spiritually that second time.
SPEAKER_01: When you give your life to Jesus and you give him your sin and you trust him to pay the price for your sin, he in returns give you his righteousness and his life, and you are made alive spiritually to live for all of eternity with him.
SPEAKER_01: And so we are twice-born people in a once-born world.
SPEAKER_01: The world that we live in is a world that is tainted by sin, and it it gr the Bible says it groans under the effect of sin, physically on the planet that we live in.
SPEAKER_01: The people that we walk around with are people who've only been born once.
SPEAKER_01: They were born physically, they have a human life, but they're dead spiritually, and they are sinners, as the Bible refers to.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, they walk around doing what sinners do.
SPEAKER_01: They sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so we are literally living opposite of the world and culture that we live in.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is transforming us from being a once-born person to a twice-born person.
SPEAKER_01: He is literally changing our mind, our heart, our goals, our perspective, how we think, how we function, what we feel, what we prioritize, who we are.
SPEAKER_01: He is transforming all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And we are living in the land of Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: We are surrounded by people who are under judgment.
SPEAKER_01: We are surrounded by ungodly culture.
SPEAKER_01: We are surrounded by all of this sin, and we are called to be transformed to be God's people and to live out the gospel in front of once born people as a twice born person.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that is not a process that is without opposition or adversity.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus made it clear that people would oppose him until he deals with all of it at the end of recorded human.
SPEAKER_01: History and eternity begins.
SPEAKER_01: And then he told us listen, if they're going to persecute me as the master, why wouldn't they persecute my servants as well?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus described the situation of salvation this way.
SPEAKER_01: He said, There is a wide road, and it is easy, and it is smooth and it is straight, and many are the ones who go down that road because of that, but the end of it is destruction.
SPEAKER_01: But there is a narrow road that is hard, that is difficult, and at the end of it is life.
SPEAKER_01: What is he trying to illustrate?
SPEAKER_01: You can go with the flow with everybody else, be a once-born person, walking with all the once-born people, and not have to face the transition and the conflict of being transformed.
SPEAKER_01: But if you follow Jesus as your Savior with life and eternity and salvation at the end, then you are swimming upstream.
SPEAKER_01: You are going against the current.
SPEAKER_01: You are changing from that culture into a different person.
SPEAKER_01: That's why there's always been persecution against the people of God, and there always will be.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the Bible says that the gospel is a stumbling block.
SPEAKER_01: It says in the book of 1 Corinthians that we who are being transformed, we who are Christians, twice-born people walking with Jesus, he says, uses this illustration.
SPEAKER_01: We are the aroma of life leading to life to those who are being saved.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, to those who are lost, we are the aroma of death leading to death.
SPEAKER_01: That's who we are as twice-born people to a once-born world.
SPEAKER_01: I remember when I was a kid, our garage all of a sudden started smelling funny.
SPEAKER_01: And then our garage started smelling funnier.
SPEAKER_01: And then our garage started stinking.
SPEAKER_01: And then our garage started really stinking.
SPEAKER_01: And it was so bad mom wouldn't go in it.
SPEAKER_01: And dad drugged me out there one time, and we're trying to figure out stuff, and we're cleaning stuff, and we're spraying the wall.
SPEAKER_01: And it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse.
SPEAKER_01: My dad was one of those, man, the garage is for cars.
SPEAKER_01: Store your junk out in the backyard or the shed or somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01: I'm putting my car in there.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not scraping windows in the winter, and I am not getting into a hot car in the summertime.
SPEAKER_01: The air's going to be running.
SPEAKER_01: And yet we began to park our cars in the driveway because nobody would go in the garage.
SPEAKER_01: It was so bad.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, my dad got us masks and clothespins.
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, we drug everything out of the garage.
SPEAKER_01: We had already done that twice, and we were trying.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, back in some nook and cranny, back in somewhere, some cat had died, crawled in there and died.
SPEAKER_01: And there was about half cat and half larva in there.
SPEAKER_01: It was horrible.
SPEAKER_01: It was death.
SPEAKER_01: You got that?
SPEAKER_01: The aroma of death leading to death.
SPEAKER_01: That's who we are as believers in a dying world.
SPEAKER_01: That's who the children of Israel are to all of these nations.
SPEAKER_01: And some of those nations oppose them and go to battle.
SPEAKER_01: We'll see that in the next chapter.
SPEAKER_01: We saw that in the last two battles.
SPEAKER_01: And some of them will try to oppose us and try to protect their world by deceiving us and getting us to be duped into a treaty to allow them to function with us.
SPEAKER_01: And when we begin to do that and allow the world to live in us, around us, and have treaties with us, it affects us.
SPEAKER_01: And it hampers our battle.
SPEAKER_01: Now let me tell you this.
SPEAKER_01: Here's another truth I want to give you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a conspiracy theorist guy.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are nodding your head, and some of you are going.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, now let me tell you about my conspiracy theory.
SPEAKER_01: Satan is the evil in the world.
SPEAKER_01: I don't believe there's some Illuminati or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: There are times that lost people get together and they plan things and their strategies or whatever, but ultimately the conspiracy is Satan is the conspiracy of evil against good and against God.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a world where Satan is alive and well.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible calls him the prince of the power of the air.
SPEAKER_01: And he is always trying to take this once-born world and put his thumbprint on it to guide people who don't have the wisdom of God, who are not saved, who are once-born people going that way, and to mix that culture against the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: He does not want you to give your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He does not want you to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: If you are saved, he does not want you to take anybody else with you.
SPEAKER_01: And he does not want you to live a life of victory and gaining your inheritance because he does not want God to receive the glory of his transformation in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And so he is directly opposed to the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: What does this look like?
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you just three references.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have time to go through them.
SPEAKER_01: They're regular scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: If you go back, let me just show those references one more time.
SPEAKER_01: The first is two scriptures in Ephesians.
SPEAKER_01: This is what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians chapter 4 says this that in the church we are to equip the saints for the work of the ministry to build the body of Christ till we all come to the full measure of the stature and maturity of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says this, so that we are no longer tossed about and driven like a leaf in the wind by the wind of trickery and human deception.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, we're supposed to be serving the Lord, growing in the Lord, impacting each other's lives, so that we are not susceptible to these winds of culture that are being dominated by the principle of the power of the air.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: He says this put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the scheming of the devil.
SPEAKER_01: The devil is scheming, he's using this culture, he's planning these things, any idea that he can come up with to distract the people of God, to create a culture that opposes the culture of God, the presentation of the gospel, all of those things.
SPEAKER_01: He is putting his thumbprint on all of that, making that work.
SPEAKER_01: The result of that is all of these people who are once-born people who are following all that culture, they may not even believe in God, they may not even believe in Satan, they may not even believe in all of that, and they're just doing life and they're trying to figure it out on their own, but they are lost, they are deceived because they've not seen the gospel, they don't understand the word of God, and so they come up with all these ridiculous, crazy ideas so that they can live life their way and they can oppose the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Romans chapter 1 says.
SPEAKER_01: It says there are people who have seen the fullness of God in creation and all of that, and what happens is they reject the creator and they start to worship the created.
SPEAKER_01: And then the Bible says they begin to desire things that are evil that are against the natural creation of God.
SPEAKER_01: And it uses the illustration of homosexuality.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, listen, it is clear that God has created man and woman, he's created this, and then you have this situation.
SPEAKER_01: And so once they've made that choice and they follow that, the Bible says they've given themselves, he has given them over to a reprobate mind because that was the choice that they had made to reject him.
SPEAKER_01: And then the results after that are Katie bar the door.
SPEAKER_01: They go into every kind of evil and all that they possibly can because they have rejected absolute truth, they've rejected God, and that's the world we live in.
SPEAKER_01: That's the world we live in.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there are two areas where we are often deceived, and I'll sort of structure them this way for you.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's what I want to do.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to run off into preaching about all these things and getting into all of them.
SPEAKER_01: What I instead I want to do is give you a thoughtful way for you to begin to understand what happened when they did not consult God's counsel.
SPEAKER_01: And begin to recognize that there are these issues, and I need to be thoughtful as a believer.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's go to that next string.
SPEAKER_01: I kind of categorize them these two ways.
SPEAKER_01: They're existential issues.
SPEAKER_01: These are the fundamental questions of all time.
SPEAKER_01: This is the existence of God.
SPEAKER_01: Who is the creator?
SPEAKER_01: How did creation occur?
SPEAKER_01: Human identity.
SPEAKER_01: God made man in his image, he made male, and he made female.
SPEAKER_01: And I know that seems to be controversial in our world.
SPEAKER_01: The reason that it is controversial is because exactly what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Exactly what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 1.
SPEAKER_01: The result of Satan putting his thumbprint on culture.
SPEAKER_01: And absolute truth.
SPEAKER_01: If I can do away with absolute truth, then I don't have anything that I have to be obedient to.
SPEAKER_01: Absolute truth is an absolute follow of the existence of God.
SPEAKER_01: If God is the creator, then it is his creation.
SPEAKER_01: And if he created it, he has the right to make the rules.
SPEAKER_01: And his rules are absolute and truthful.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why when Achan sins, God creates judgment, when all these nations that are against the Lord and they are evil in their worship practices, they have temple prostitutes, they're sacrificing babies, they're doing all these horrible things, and they are fighting against the people of God, and they've set themselves against God, is because they have rejected absolute truth, because they have rejected the creator, and they have rejected him as the creator and his right to make the rules.
SPEAKER_01: Those are fundamental existential issues of how life works.
SPEAKER_01: If God makes the rules, and he is because he is the creator, and then he has given us his word as truth to understand what the rules are, understand what the punishment is, and understand what salvation is through Jesus, that is absolute truth, and that's what the Word of God is.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm so important that it guide us.
SPEAKER_01: Then we have experiential issues.
SPEAKER_01: This is how we take the definitions of the existential issues, the fundamental questions of life, and now we live in a practical way on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Friday nights and everything else.
SPEAKER_01: How do those definitions apply in how we live our lives?
SPEAKER_01: It is how that truth affects our choices in regular things.
SPEAKER_01: Family and marriage, how relationships function, money, stewardship, and wealth.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture speaks to all of that.
SPEAKER_01: It is a very fundamental thing to be a pastor in a third world country and to be a pastor in a first world country.
SPEAKER_01: In a third world country, there are matters of faith when it comes to money and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And most people don't have any and they're looking for a job, so there's a different way that's structured.
SPEAKER_01: In a first world country, this is a major experiential definition of life.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible speaks all throughout the New Testament about giving.
SPEAKER_01: It challenges pastors to tell people who are wealthy not to place their trust and their wealth and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Stewardship, tithing, all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, when we're tithing, when we're passing the plate, we are not trying to raise money.
SPEAKER_01: The budget is not how God builds the church.
SPEAKER_01: Tithing is how God builds Christians to understand how to be a twice-born person in a once-born world and to set our pursuits on the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: That's what that is.
SPEAKER_01: Human desires, we deal with these things.
SPEAKER_01: Sex, food, drinking, greed, handling emotions, all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Those are how those definitions apply themselves.
SPEAKER_01: And when we get into our experience, how do we answer those questions?
SPEAKER_01: Do we, as Joshua and the leaders did, rely on their own self-effort and their own wisdom and knowledge?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they weren't stupid.
SPEAKER_01: They applied themselves.
SPEAKER_01: They tried to be diligent.
SPEAKER_01: They loved the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: They had just gone through reading it all to everyone and making altars to it.
SPEAKER_01: But when it came time to make a decision, what they believed did not affect how they chose to proceed.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we've got to understand is these definitions are vital because we are making them in a culture that is deceiving us as a part of its opposition to us.
SPEAKER_01: It is trying to pull us away from the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you just one example on this list.
SPEAKER_01: Just follow with me.
SPEAKER_01: Don't push back.
SPEAKER_01: I want to use this as an illustration to think through this.
SPEAKER_01: You think about the issue of drinking alcohol or not in American culture.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: If you take the word of God and you list all the scriptures, drinking never is affirmed.
SPEAKER_01: It's never affirmed.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, in the book of Proverbs, you are literally called a fool for focusing on it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we live in a culture that pushes that, pushes that, pushes that, pushes that.
SPEAKER_01: Why does the culture push that?
SPEAKER_01: How many products do people spend hundreds of millions of dollars advertising for you to not use?
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: I want you to use my product, but I'm going to warn you it'll kill you if you drink and drive.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we take the cultural issues out of that and you just look at that as a base decision, read in Proverbs, read all the verses, do not be drunk in Ephesians, do not be drunk with line, be filled with the Holy Spirit, put on the arm of God, stand against the schemes of the devil.
SPEAKER_01: You read all that and you think people are dying all the time in these car wrecks and being maimed.
SPEAKER_01: You think about how many abortions occur because people were drunk and not making good decisions and had pregnancy and you just go on and on and on.
SPEAKER_01: You think about how many marriages are destroyed because somebody got drunk in a bar and tempted and weren't making decisions and weren't fully in favor of their faculties and all that.
SPEAKER_01: I've been pastoring long enough now that I can just tell you it does nothing but be destructive.
SPEAKER_01: And I come from a culture where I practice the law for six years.
SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you what, I was in that environment.
SPEAKER_01: I understand it in a business sense, I understand it in a cultural sense, I understand and all that.
SPEAKER_01: But you think about, you look at all this, even now, you go to Instagram, it is filled with all of the medical studies that are continuing to come out.
SPEAKER_01: I read another one this week.
SPEAKER_01: People who drink, even social drinking, by 20% you increase your possibility of death by any and every cause.
SPEAKER_01: 20% increase.
SPEAKER_01: Over a 20% increase to have early onset dementia and all that.
SPEAKER_01: Not saying that it causes it, but I'm saying it increases your susceptibility to it.
SPEAKER_01: On and on and on.
SPEAKER_01: How many brain cells it kills, all of that.
SPEAKER_01: We look at the science, we look at scripture, who would come to that and think, this is a really good idea?
SPEAKER_01: Who would think that, I mean, just take it from an objective standpoint.
SPEAKER_01: So why does it become something that Christians argue about?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's a decision that we struggle with in a culture that is trying to deceive us.
SPEAKER_01: And I hope that illustration makes sense, and I'm not trying to get on to people, I'm not trying to understand what I'm trying to explain here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to get us to take some of these things and challenge our thought processes.
SPEAKER_01: How do I think about these things?
SPEAKER_01: Every study ever been conducted that I'm aware of, and there's multiple, multiple ones.
SPEAKER_01: Living together increases your rate of divorce by 70%.
SPEAKER_01: 70%.
SPEAKER_01: Then why does culture advocate that as a good way to approach human relationship?
SPEAKER_01: You see, we live in a culture, just like the Gibeonites.
SPEAKER_01: We want to maintain our culture.
SPEAKER_01: We do not want the judgment of God.
SPEAKER_01: And in our lost mindset, the best way to do that is not to repent and follow God, even though we have the example of the children of Israel, and all of their, they run that list.
SPEAKER_01: You were victorious at Ai, you were victorious at Jericho, you defeated the kings across the Jordan River.
SPEAKER_01: All of that.
SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of people who repent.
SPEAKER_01: Rahab repented.
SPEAKER_01: Look what he said at the end of chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: They read the word of the law, include it includes in it the foreigners who are with them.
SPEAKER_01: They are people who are not Jewish, who are following God because they have seen it, they've been convicted of their sin.
SPEAKER_01: They've realized that God is the creator.
SPEAKER_01: That is the way to do life.
SPEAKER_01: It works when you do it that way.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the people of God, and they surrender themselves in faith to the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: But the Gibeonites say, we like the way we do it, we like what we have, we don't want that judgment.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna dupe my way and deceive the people of God into a treaty that allows me to live with my perspective amongst the people of God and not have to surrender to God.
SPEAKER_01: You see how that happens?
SPEAKER_01: And so everywhere, Christians are struggling with that.
SPEAKER_01: It's and it's hard.
SPEAKER_01: Some things are easy, some things are hard.
SPEAKER_01: But we are always facing these decisions in this culture.
SPEAKER_01: And the next two things are just really pretty easy in how they logically follow.
SPEAKER_01: Truth number two is this our self-effort is completely inadequate to face a satanic level of opposition and deception.
SPEAKER_01: He illustrates that here.
SPEAKER_01: They did not consult God.
SPEAKER_01: They checked their food, they listened to their story, they researched their clothes and their sandals and they assigned detectives to figure all this out.
SPEAKER_01: They took that story, they didn't just take it at face value, they tried to figure out that story and they still missed it.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible's clear why.
SPEAKER_01: Again, do not miss this.
SPEAKER_01: They did not seek the Lord's counsel.
SPEAKER_01: Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible just doesn't call him a liar.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible calls Satan the father of lies.
SPEAKER_01: He is the source of deception and dishonority and lies.
SPEAKER_01: The very first time we're introduced to Satan in Scripture is in Genesis chapter 3, at the beginning, when he lies to Adam and Eve and gets them to make the choice to sin.
SPEAKER_01: This is the most common theme that we struggle with from the beginning of Genesis all the way until we get to God finally accomplishes the complete victory at the end.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've got to understand this.
SPEAKER_01: We've got to understand, I am not smart enough to do this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not.
SPEAKER_01: I am not smart enough to do this.
SPEAKER_01: I am a sinner who has been saved by God's grace and is in the process of being transformed, and I never graduate from that maturing education process.
SPEAKER_01: There are always things to work on in my life, which means there are always gaps in my understanding.
SPEAKER_01: There are always struggles in my failures.
SPEAKER_01: There is always the opportunity for me to fall to temptation, and there is always the opportunity for my human emotions and everything else to get hold of me if I'm not careful.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it just makes perfect sense, and it is illustrated in this battle, and it is affirmed and taught throughout the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: So we're not strong enough, we're not smart enough to do this on our own.
SPEAKER_01: And we've got to recognize I am living in this world that is trying to deceive me in this culture, and I am not adequate to face that level of deception.
SPEAKER_01: Truth number three the anecdote is this.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua 1.8, he began the book this way.
SPEAKER_01: He gave Joshua his first instruction this way, and you see it in that template that we take through every one of these battles that we must invest ourselves in and have a perspective changed by the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: It must affect our choices.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he tells them in Joshua 1.8.
SPEAKER_01: This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth.
SPEAKER_01: You are to recite it day and night, so that you may carefully observe everything written in it.
SPEAKER_01: Then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.
SPEAKER_01: They did not take that word of God they had affirmed after the victory of that last battle, and then they got in a decision process, and there was no, Lord, I got to make a decision here.
SPEAKER_01: A treaty is a big deal.
SPEAKER_01: Your word has spoken to treaties.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm going to sit down with your word again, and I'm going to be careful to observe what you've said.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I need you to guide me from your word.
SPEAKER_01: If they had done with that, they never would have made a treaty with a worldly group of people like the Gibeonites.
SPEAKER_01: God would have directed them and saved them from that, but because they did not do that, they ended up in this treaty.
SPEAKER_01: So let me give you these three principles.
SPEAKER_01: We'll post them again on social media this week.
SPEAKER_01: We have message after message.
SPEAKER_01: After message of these.
SPEAKER_01: None of this is rocket science, but it is built on the fundamental belief system of what we've just talked about.
SPEAKER_01: You must meditate and memorize scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Your mind must be soaked in scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Every decision you make should be made through the prism of the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Fox News, CNN, Instagram, Google, TikTok, YouTube videos, none of that nonsense ever teaches us the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: The first place that you search, your first search engine must and always be the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: My dad was great.
SPEAKER_01: I love my dad.
SPEAKER_01: He taught us all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: My dad was a chemist.
SPEAKER_01: He referred to himself as a scientist, but he was not a mechanical guy.
SPEAKER_01: Back in the days when you'd change oil and work on your cars and stuff, my son, my dad, when he bought me my first car, I was 16, and he said, son, here's what I can do for you.
SPEAKER_01: He sets out an oil filter wrench, a yellow pages phone book.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you remember what that is, right?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Son, you've got this car, you're responsible, take care of it.
SPEAKER_01: I can teach you how to change the oil, and I can teach you how to find a mechanic in the yellow pages.
SPEAKER_01: That's all I got for you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm all about learning and looking stuff up and YouTube videos, and they can teach you anything and all that.
SPEAKER_01: We have an RV, we're forever on YouTube trying to learn it.
SPEAKER_01: But listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: That is not where we go to learn.
SPEAKER_01: It is God's word.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: It is our first search engine, and it is the place that we always go first, and you go before you have questions.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times, the only reason you know there is a question to bring to the Lord is because Scripture prompted your mind.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, Greg, watch out here, son.
SPEAKER_01: We studied this on our quiet time three days ago.
SPEAKER_01: You better slow down and talk to me about this.
SPEAKER_01: Next, you need to study, develop a biblical worldview.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm all about devotional guides, I'm all about devotions, I'm all about that.
SPEAKER_01: You need to have the habit of spending 10 or 15 minutes with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You need to start your day with Him.
SPEAKER_01: You've heard me talk about coffee with Jesus and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: But let me tell you what, 15 minutes every morning is not going to get you a biblical worldview.
SPEAKER_01: You have got to study God's word and you've got to understand it.
SPEAKER_01: I hear people, they send me emails and they talk to me about politics, and Lord have mercy.
SPEAKER_01: We don't understand what Scripture says about those issues.
SPEAKER_01: I talk to generation, uh, younger generations, and they live in a world like my daughter, where all of her coaches, every one of them, was a lesbian with their life partner in the deal, and because they live in this culture and it's screaming at us all the time, we live in this deal where we think it's just not that big a deal.
SPEAKER_01: Or we should elevate.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, all of those kinds of things, money, all the decisions we make with money, it's incredible how many Christians give way more money to their university where they are teaching that God is not the creator.
SPEAKER_01: And a world's five billion years old and climbed out of the ooze and all this other kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: We give thousands to universities that teach against the person and the truth of Scripture, because we want them to win another football game, without a biblical understanding of what happens with our money.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying don't give you a university, fine, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a process of a biblical worldview that we design because we have been invested in the Word of God and it shapes how we think.
SPEAKER_01: Develop patterns of biblical behavior.
SPEAKER_01: When I do this, this is what I think.
SPEAKER_01: Develop spiritual habits, this is how I react to these things, this is what I do with these things.
SPEAKER_01: And then the biggest picture right here, again, the warning.
SPEAKER_01: These are people who love God, who've been following God, they've seen the hand of God.
SPEAKER_01: They just had worship services where Joshua read every single word of the law to them, and they get to this decision point and they did not seek the counsel of God.
SPEAKER_01: This has got to go here.
SPEAKER_01: I've got to see and hear from God and make decisions with him.
SPEAKER_01: I've got to bring those things to him because I've spent time with him to understand those things and know what that means.
SPEAKER_01: And I seek his counsel.
SPEAKER_01: And when you do that, God's word promises that he always answered.
SPEAKER_01: He promises there's always victory.
SPEAKER_01: He promises that he walks with us.
SPEAKER_01: He promises we will never be alone.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we thank you for today.
SPEAKER_01: And I just thank you for a time that we can take a little extra time and just walk through the maturity process of what you're doing in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, I pray that things I've tried to be careful about and all of that, we just trust the Holy Spirit to putty those cracks.
SPEAKER_01: That you'll take illustrations and things in your word and you'll apply those to us as a challenge to study and think.
SPEAKER_01: Not railing on this or that or whatever, but but they are illustrations that cause us to step back and say, What do you think, Lord?
SPEAKER_01: How do I need to do this in my life?
SPEAKER_01: What does your word say?
SPEAKER_01: The next decision I face, Lord, how do you want me to do that?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, apply that in our lives today.
SPEAKER_01: And the first question that people ask is, do they trust Jesus as their Savior?
SPEAKER_01: We've shared the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about how the foundation of this is we become twice-born and you begin that process.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, I pray this morning, if there's someone here listening on television or internet or here in the room, and they need to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: They want to walk with you and have you transform and do these things in their lives.
SPEAKER_01: They want to be saved from their resent.
SPEAKER_01: They don't want to try to wallow in their sin.
SPEAKER_01: They don't want a treaty.
SPEAKER_01: Man, they want to repent and follow you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I pray you'll give them freedom to respond to you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It is in Jesus' name we pray and all God's people said.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.