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: Turn with me in your Bibles this morning to Joshua chapter 20.
SPEAKER_01: And as we continue through our study of Joshua, I want to share with you one of my favorite passages of Scripture and one of my favorite pictures of salvation in all of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Remember growing up in church and my pastor preaching from this passage of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And so it has been something that I have lived with for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: In a few moments, we're going to take just a moment and we'll also see some real breadth and underpinnings to this passage of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: It is a very significant moment in the life of Joshua, in the life of the children of Israel, in the planting of the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: What we have seen now through the battles are they have been victorious.
SPEAKER_01: They have conquered a base amount of territory.
SPEAKER_01: They have begun to divide the nation out with the inheritances of the children of Israel and the different tribes.
SPEAKER_01: And so the tribes are going to begin moving out into their areas.
SPEAKER_01: They've defeated a lot of the major evil kings and enemies to the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: But there are still others to be defeated in each of those lands, and they're sending them out in their inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: So what's happening now is Joshua is literally establishing Israel as a nation and a country.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as a part of that, God has given them the laws of the country and established how the nation will function as they begin to step in and function as a people.
SPEAKER_01: And a major part of that we'll read right here in Joshua chapter 20.
SPEAKER_01: It's something called the cities of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a reason, I believe, that this particular aspect of Jewish life is celebrated and highlighted in such detail.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what the Bible says in Joshua chapter 20, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord spoke to Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: What is it?
SPEAKER_01: He reminds us, so that a person who kills someone unintentionally or accidentally may flee there.
SPEAKER_01: These will be your refuge from the avenger of blood.
SPEAKER_01: When someone flees to one of these cities, stands at the entrance of the city gate, and states his case before the elders of that city, they are to bring him into the city and give him a place to live among them.
SPEAKER_01: And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they must not hand the one who committed manslaughter over to the avenger of blood, for he killed his neighbor accidentally and did not hate that victim beforehand.
SPEAKER_01: He is to stay in that city until he stands trial before the assembly, and until the death of the high priest serving at that time, then the one who committed manslaughter may return home to his own city from which he fled.
SPEAKER_01: And then it goes through to explain what the six cities are.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's what I want you to think.
SPEAKER_01: What God is doing is he is establishing the nation of Israel as a nation.
SPEAKER_01: So he is putting in place the laws by which this new nation will function.
SPEAKER_01: And that is incredibly important.
SPEAKER_01: If you remember, we have seen all throughout the book of Joshua that God has created this Israelite nation to be the conduit and the path that he brings the Redeemer into the world.
SPEAKER_01: His purpose in Israel is to bring the Messiah to the world.
SPEAKER_01: His purpose is always redemption and seeing people saved.
SPEAKER_01: And so, even in the way he structures the nation, he builds into it these incredible pictures of salvation and redemption.
SPEAKER_01: And this picture of a city of refuge is a beautiful picture of redemption and salvation through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It is an Old Testament picture of Jesus, but it is also a picture of how God established the nation to be the lighthouse to call other nations to redemption.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to stay there in Joshua 20, but I'm going to read to you from Deuteronomy chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is where God talks about how he establishes the nation.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to just listen to this for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to follow, so that you may live, enter, and take possession of the land Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the children of Israel, they go into the inheritance that God has promised, the land of Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: It becomes the nation of Israel, and he is saying, This is how you live there, and experience and appropriate the inheritance I've given you.
SPEAKER_01: You must not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God I'm giving you.
SPEAKER_01: Your eyes have seen what the Lord did to Baal, for the Lord destroyed every one of those who followed Baal.
SPEAKER_01: But you who have remained faithful to the Lord your God, you are alive today.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen what he says.
SPEAKER_01: I have taught you the statutes and ordinances as the Lord my God has commanded me, so that you may follow them and uh follow them in the land you are entering to possess.
SPEAKER_01: Carefully follow them, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of all the peoples.
SPEAKER_01: When they hear about these statutes, they will say to themselves, these other nations, when they see Israel living by these laws, they will say to themselves, This great nation is indeed a wise and understanding people.
SPEAKER_01: For what a great nation is there that has a God near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call on him.
SPEAKER_01: And what nation has righteous statutes and ordinances like this entire law I've set before you today.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, when God establishes this pattern of laws and pattern of living that speak of righteousness, of sin, of judgment, and of mercy.
SPEAKER_01: When you see those pictures lived out, he says, literally, all the other nations around you will say, What a great nation that is.
SPEAKER_01: Look at that nation, how powerful that is, and what a God they serve that has created a nation that functions according to those laws.
SPEAKER_01: It is literally the living out of those laws and the justice and the righteousness that is created that speaks of them as a lighthouse that calls people, like who is that God?
SPEAKER_01: How does that work?
SPEAKER_01: We want to know that too.
SPEAKER_01: And so now when you get to Joshua, the city of refuge, cities of refuge are one of those examples.
SPEAKER_01: He says again in verse 1, tell the Israelites, select your cities of refuge as I instructed you through Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Now, twice as he is giving the law to Moses, he explains cities of refuge in Numbers chapter 35 and in Deuteronomy chapter 19.
SPEAKER_01: Both of those lay out in detail the law that now Joshua is following with the cities of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: Now let me explain to you what the cities of refuge are and how that works.
SPEAKER_01: You will see it highlighted here, and then I'll pull in some of that information from those other two chapters.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: If someone is out and they may be chopping wood, or they may be working in the farm, or they've got a cart and oxen and all that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And if there is an accident and a person is run over or hit in the head or whatever, and they die, that is a person who has died at the hand of another but has died accidentally.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's what you need to know about Jewish law.
SPEAKER_01: Jewish law establishes capital punishment for the crime of murder.
SPEAKER_01: All throughout Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, multiple times, God explains life is precious because I'm the author of life, and if someone murders another person, they are under the death penalty.
SPEAKER_01: Now, who is this avenger of blood?
SPEAKER_01: The avenger of blood is the nearest kinsperson to the victim of murder, and they have the right and responsibility to go and kill the person who murdered their family member.
SPEAKER_01: When you hear the scripture talk about an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, and that sort of stuff, that is coming out of this law that establishes capital punishment for the crime of murder.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when you get to this idea of an accidental killing of someone else, what God is establishing here is a set of laws that He structures manslaughter, what we would call manslaughter, and you hear that English word translated here, different from the crime of murder.
SPEAKER_01: If you've killed someone, you are still under the penalty of law.
SPEAKER_01: You are still have killed someone, and you are under the penalty of death.
SPEAKER_01: But what he has created is a way for you to go to one of these cities of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: You present yourself there to the leaders of the city.
SPEAKER_01: There is a hearing, what we would call a hearing to determine if you're just sneaking in there to hide your crime, or if it truly was an accidental crime, and if it was truly an accidental crime, then they allow you to come into that city.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens is you are supposed to live in that city until both of these two things happen.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing that happens is you have a trial and they determine, indeed, this was not murder, this is manslaughter.
SPEAKER_01: Then you still have to live in that city until the death of the current living high priest, whether that's a year or whether that's 25 years.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: But what God has created in the law is an opportunity for someone to receive mercy when the killing was an accident.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's a picture of mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to that first screen and let me kind of lean this out for folks.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the plan.
SPEAKER_01: If you kill someone, you are under judgment under the law.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who kills someone is automatically under judgment.
SPEAKER_01: God has provided the cities of refuge by his plan for you to be able to receive mercy of that killing if it is determined it was an accident.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's the next thing I want you to see about it.
SPEAKER_01: These cities of refuge, by definition, in Numbers 35 and in Deuteronomy 19, are cities that are run by the Levites.
SPEAKER_01: Now, who are the Levites?
SPEAKER_01: The Levites are one of the twelve tribes of Israel, but they are the tribe from whom the priests come.
SPEAKER_01: And God has said, I'm not going to give a section of land as an inheritance to the Levites, like we're doing it with Dan and Manasseh and Gibeon and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Not doing it that way.
SPEAKER_01: The Levites, who are the priests, they need to take the message.
SPEAKER_01: They need to lead worship.
SPEAKER_01: They need to be the people who are the priests all over the entire nation.
SPEAKER_01: So what God did was their inheritance is a number of cities scattered throughout the nation.
SPEAKER_01: Every tribe gives a certain number of cities to the Levites, so that there are priests, and there is the leading of worship, and there is the ministry of the people of the men of God in every part of the nation.
SPEAKER_01: And what he says is these six cities of refuge are scattered around the country, and they are in the Levite cities.
SPEAKER_01: So what happens is now you see the law determines that you are under judgment for the killing of another person.
SPEAKER_01: But under the religious or the faith or the worship side of life in the Levite cities, God provides a way of mercy for you to come if you will go and live in that city run by the Levites, determined by the Levites, as a matter of faith in God's plan for mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what you also see about these cities of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: They are available for everyone.
SPEAKER_01: They are, first of all, scattered geographically all over the nation so that you can get to one fairly quickly before the avenger of blood comes and gets you.
SPEAKER_01: And so they are access is given and made available.
SPEAKER_01: It also says in both Deuteronomy 19 and Numbers 35, it uses this phrase Anyone who has accidentally killed someone is able to go to the city of refuge, whether they are an Israelite or they are a temporary resident in the nation of Israel, or they are an alien or an immigrant or a non-Israelite living in the land of Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: And so the cities of refuge are made available to everyone.
SPEAKER_01: How do you go experience a city of refuge protection?
SPEAKER_01: Well, if this accident has occurred and you've killed someone, the Bible says here in is reaffirmed in Joshua that you go and you present yourself to the elders of the city.
SPEAKER_01: So you have to make the choice.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to stay here and risk it, or I'm actually going to go avail myself of the protection of the city of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: And so you go and you make a choice to present yourself to the elders of that city, who by definition are going to be Levites or going to be priests because it's a priest city.
SPEAKER_01: You present yourself there before the elders of the city, and the Bible says that there is a hearing or a trial to determine if it was an accidental killing or if it was a murder.
SPEAKER_01: And so if it is an accidental killing and it is determined that, then you are allowed entrance into the city, and as long as you remain in that city of refuge, the avenger of blood cannot take your life.
SPEAKER_01: And no one in the city of refuge can push you out of the city and make you at risk of that person.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the next deal.
SPEAKER_01: So this refuge that is created in the city of refuge, it is not a prison sentence, it is a full life that you are having as long as you are living within the protection of the city of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: And then what happens is, if you have had your case tried and they have determined that it was an accident, it was manslaughter and not murder, you can live in that city until the death of the high priest, however long that is.
SPEAKER_01: And once the high priest has died, then you are free.
SPEAKER_01: You are absolved of your crime and you are free to return home to your family and live wherever it is that you are from.
SPEAKER_01: Make sense?
SPEAKER_01: That's the plan of the city of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me stop for just a moment and give you just a little bit of a history lesson.
SPEAKER_01: As I was growing up, I grew up in church, and so I heard messages like this, and we studied God's word, and then around junior high, I began to be fascinated with the law.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the reasons that I was fascinated with the law is I began to understand how the structure of our laws and the structure of the laws that we adopted from the land, the country of England, and then the places that there were underpinnings of that law that formed all of that, all of that is rooted in Jewish law as God wrote it in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we say, when people say things like we're a Christian nation or we're founded as a Christian nation, it does not mean that everyone in the country is a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: We certainly know that's the case.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we share the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: But what it means is there are certain fundamental truths of our country, philosophies of how the laws were built that are built on biblical principles.
SPEAKER_01: And this particular law is highlighted in the establishment of the nation of Israel as a nation in the book of Joshua because this illustrates this city of refuge and this ordinances created by that illustrate incredibly clearly so many ways that our laws are built on the foundation of scriptural Old Testament biblical laws.
SPEAKER_01: For example, for example, let me just show you a couple of these things.
SPEAKER_01: The difference between murder and manslaughter.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about those terms, but God envisioned them to make the law righteous and to create a process of fairness and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible makes clear the principle of mens rea, what a lawyer would say is mensrea.
SPEAKER_01: And that means the intent to commit murder.
SPEAKER_01: If you watch enough cop shows, like Janet and I love watching police shows, you've heard that term mens rea.
SPEAKER_01: They're always determining that someone intend that murder was it intentional.
SPEAKER_01: If you go back and read Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19, scripture gives lots of examples from the Lord that would allow the judges to be able to determine was this an accident or was it on purpose?
SPEAKER_01: And so we also see the process of due process.
SPEAKER_01: When we say in American culture, due process, that's what's happening here.
SPEAKER_01: This person who has been, who is under this penalty because a death has happened, and there is a question, is it manslaughter or is it murder?
SPEAKER_01: And they are under the penalty of judgment, and the avenger of blood is coming after them.
SPEAKER_01: God created a process for them to go and present themselves to a judge and jury to determine their fate and to determine if it was actually a murder or manslaughter.
SPEAKER_01: It's what we would call due process.
SPEAKER_01: In this picture, you see the picture of a trial by jury.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_01: The assembly determines.
SPEAKER_01: You also have the picture of the role of judges and what we would describe as judicial restraint.
SPEAKER_01: When you read in Deuteronomy 19 and Numbers 35, you see that God explains the laws.
SPEAKER_01: He gives explanations of this is murder and this is manslaughter, this is murder, and this is manslaughter.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, Do not change the law, do not add to it, do not take from it.
SPEAKER_01: And the role of the judge is to determine and lead the assembly in a determination of how that happens.
SPEAKER_01: You also have in that passage of scripture in Deuteronomy and in Numbers, where he says, This is how witnesses are to be.
SPEAKER_01: Examined.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the type of evidence that is required.
SPEAKER_01: It takes more than one witness.
SPEAKER_01: It takes multiple witnesses.
SPEAKER_01: And here's how you question them, and here's how that happens.
SPEAKER_01: And so literally, all of those things that we take for granted, that we picture, where do those come from, those are founded specifically and fully in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: They were incorporated into very in various pieces in other cultures like Greece and Rome, but never completely embraced in the way it is in our American culture.
SPEAKER_01: When you then end up in England and they begin to codify their laws, things like English common law is built on the Ten Commandments and built on some of these structures.
SPEAKER_01: And then as American culture developed and the Great Awakenings led to a part of the American Revolution, and we are beginning that journey of celebrating the 250-year anniversary of the Declaration of Penance, and then we get to the Constitution.
SPEAKER_01: The men like James Madison, who drafted the Constitution, spent untold hours in Scripture learning and understanding the truth and how laws are structured, how a society is structured, and how order is created.
SPEAKER_01: And the promise that God gives that a nation who lives under that process and lives with that pursuit of truth and justice and righteousness and mercy and examples and all of those laws and they live by that, all of the nations around them will say, What a wise and great nation.
SPEAKER_01: What kind of nation is it like that?
SPEAKER_01: And how do we have a God and serve the God that establishes that nation?
SPEAKER_01: Now, not a patriotic sermon, but if you can't connect the dots right there, then you and I need to go have lunch after church and let me explain it to you a little more.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible the truth of that.
SPEAKER_01: And as I'm studying in Scripture and I'm being in church and all of that, and I became seventh grader, eighth grader, that that started my love for the law, and I decided I wanted to be a lawyer, and I spent my education career from that point on trying to be a lawyer.
SPEAKER_01: That's how I ended up a lawyer, and that's how I practiced the law for six years, but then God called me in the ministry and brought me back into this process because the most important part of Jewish law is establishing a nation that would point people to the God of redemption and the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And so God establishes this incredibly fair and appropriate and just it just rings of truth, this legal structure of the city of refuge, but in all of that, it is a picture of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: The problem in our country is not a problem of laws, it is a problem of sin.
SPEAKER_01: And the answer does not reside in the executive branch or the legislative branch or the judicial branch.
SPEAKER_01: The answer and the hope rests in the redemption that comes through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And God structured all of this purposeful law and legal process in the Old Testament to point, everything points to that purpose of that coming of the Messiah and the redemption and the forgiveness of sins that comes through the shedding of blood in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to show you not just the city of refuge plan, you need to understand the details of that, but I want you to see how it is an incredible picture of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Every single aspect of the plan of the cities of refuge points to God's plan of redemption through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: A city of refuge is an Old Testament, beautiful picture of Jesus Christ and of salvation in his name.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, you think of this.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that all have fallen short of the holiness and the glory and the purposes of God.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore, death is our sentence.
SPEAKER_01: Every person who committed, who was a part of one of these deaths, they are automatically under the penalty of law.
SPEAKER_01: And without some plan of mercy, the avenger of blood takes their life as a punishment for sin.
SPEAKER_01: Now, even when the Bible explains the punishment of capital punishment for murder, God explains why he's doing that to his children in Deuteronomy 19.
SPEAKER_01: He says, all life is precious.
SPEAKER_01: And when this person murders someone, you must avenge that death for two reasons.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, the Bible says other people need to know if you kill someone, you will lose your life.
SPEAKER_01: Life is that precious.
SPEAKER_01: And there is a deterrent value to capital punishment that prevents other people from doing that.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing he says is you do not contaminate the land with murderers.
SPEAKER_01: If you allow that to live, if you allow that to go unpunished, if you allow that to be a part of what happens, it literally taints the character and the culture and the testimony of that people.
SPEAKER_01: And what we understand is when God punishes sin, it is because, number one, we have sinned and violated God's law.
SPEAKER_01: And sin must be punished.
SPEAKER_01: A holy God must punish sin.
SPEAKER_01: And the other thing of a picture of that is sin cannot be allowed to run rampant.
SPEAKER_01: God is a holy God and he designed the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_01: He designed us in his image, and he designed us to live in that holiness and relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: What happened when Adam and Eve sinned?
SPEAKER_01: God removed them from the Garden of Eden as a part of that punishment.
SPEAKER_01: All throughout Scripture, the Bible teaches that sin must be punished.
SPEAKER_01: Death and hell are the result of sin, and God does not walk away from the punishment of sin.
SPEAKER_01: As a holy God, as a holy judge, he determines that holiness is the standard and sin must be punished.
SPEAKER_01: And that picture is all throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And anybody who walks away from understanding that sin must be punished is literally walking away from the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
SPEAKER_01: But the next thing we see about the character of God is not just his holiness, but his mercy.
SPEAKER_01: And so even though this person killed someone, whether it was manslaughter or murder, he killed someone.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, in that circumstance, I want to provide mercy, and I want to provide a picture of mercy through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And he creates a plan where mercy is available to someone who presents themselves as a matter of faith to obtain the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so you see that that mercy is available to everyone.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, specifically in Deuteronomy, specifically again in Numbers, that it is available to the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: It is available to the people who are not children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: It is available to people who are temporary residents in that land passing through.
SPEAKER_01: God makes his mercy available to everyone who reaches out in faith to receive it.
SPEAKER_01: God did not intend for anyone to go to hell.
SPEAKER_01: That is not the picture of a gracious God.
SPEAKER_01: He has made salvation available.
SPEAKER_01: And if you are hearing the gospel, God is making available to you the opportunity to trust in his mercy to take away your sin.
SPEAKER_01: There is no one so good that they don't need to be saved, and there is no one so bad that they cannot be saved through the mercy of God and through the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Every picture of salvation throughout Scripture always includes the picture of it being available to those who cry out to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, whosoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says in 1 John, the Bible says in John 3.16, the famous verse that we love, for God so loved the world, he did what?
SPEAKER_01: He made a plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: For God so loved the world, he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him will never perish, but have everlasting life.
SPEAKER_01: God is making his mercy available through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: This city of refuge is a picture of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, when you present your life to Christ, you acknowledge that I am a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: I have failed.
SPEAKER_01: I have offended Almighty God.
SPEAKER_01: I have sinned, and my sin will be judged.
SPEAKER_01: And you present yourself to the Lord as a matter of faith, a choice of faith.
SPEAKER_01: You choose whether to come to Jesus and say, Listen, I'm going to trust you to save me.
SPEAKER_01: The cities of refuge were established in the land of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: They existed and they operated.
SPEAKER_01: If you accidentally killed someone, it did not do you any good that the plan of redemption was out there unless you chose as a matter of faith to go to the city of refuge and as a matter of faith present yourself and choose to trust in the refuge that was there.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation is not automatic just because Jesus died and rose again.
SPEAKER_01: You are not automatically saved just because Jesus died and rose again.
SPEAKER_01: You have to present yourself as a matter of faith to Jesus and repent of your sin and acknowledge that He is the Savior and He is the only one who can save you, and you present yourself to Him.
SPEAKER_01: A person who had committed manslaughter was under the judgment of death, and the avenger of blood was always available to come and get them, and they had to present themselves and choose to accept the mercy that God had created.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
SPEAKER_01: It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
SPEAKER_01: Our salvation in Jesus is exactly the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus historically lived a sinless life.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus historically died on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus historically rose again.
SPEAKER_01: That happened.
SPEAKER_01: It is a matter of recorded fact, and it is a matter that is testified to in the infallible and errant word of God.
SPEAKER_01: But in order for you to be saved, you must come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You must, as a matter of faith, present yourself to the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Just like they presented themselves to the leaders of the city of refuge at the gate, and they said, This is what I did.
SPEAKER_01: This is the murder.
SPEAKER_01: I'm presenting myself to you, and I'm asking to be given this sanctuary of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: And when you come to Jesus, it's the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I know I've sinned and I know my sin must be punished, and I am under the judgment of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I can't fix it, I can't change it, there's nothing I can do about it, but you have provided a means of refuge and redemption, and I come and I say, I trust in you to pay the price for my sin.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, when you come and you present yourself to him, if you confess your sins and you surrender your life to him and you call him Lord, Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and you might have it more abundantly.
SPEAKER_01: Our sins are forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: A relationship is created with Jesus and we live and walk with him.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says in the book of Ephesians that he has blessed us with every blessing in heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: Just like a person who came to the city of refuge and they were guilty and they were under the penalty of death, and they are received into this land of refuge, the Bible says you give them a life there.
SPEAKER_01: When you bring your sin to Jesus and you ask for his forgiveness and you trust him as your Savior, there is life and life abundance there.
SPEAKER_01: There is an inheritance that comes by being in Jesus as your redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: We say this in church all the time.
SPEAKER_01: When you give your life to Jesus, you are giving your life lock, stock, and barrel to Him.
SPEAKER_01: It is His and it is not yours to ever take back ever again.
SPEAKER_01: When a person lived in the city of refuge, they were committing themselves to live inside the walls of that city forever.
SPEAKER_01: That's where their salvation and redemption lie.
SPEAKER_01: In that city.
SPEAKER_01: And when you come to Jesus, you take your life, everything you've been, you are, and you ever will be, and you give it to Jesus, and it is his, and it is his for eternity, because you have trusted him as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And when you trust him in that fashion, you live in his redemption forever.
SPEAKER_01: I love this picture.
SPEAKER_01: You live there until the high priest dies, and then your sins are absolved.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible talks about Jesus as our high priest.
SPEAKER_01: In the book of Hebrews, God takes Hebrew law and he uses and shows us all the different ways that redemption is woven all throughout Jewish worship and Jewish culture.
SPEAKER_01: And it says repeatedly that Jesus is our high priest.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the one who died for us.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot affect your position as being under the judgment of sin.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot do anything to change your position.
SPEAKER_01: It is only through the work of Jesus Christ and God's mercy that you can by faith present yourself and say, Lord, forsaking all, I trust you.
SPEAKER_01: And you give your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This city of refuge is an unbelievable picture of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to think just for a moment, what does that mean for us then?
SPEAKER_01: Because I think when God gives us these practical pictures, he is trying to get us to pay attention to the details of life.
SPEAKER_01: He's giving us a detailed example so it speaks to us in the normal part of our lives.
SPEAKER_01: So what is our response when we read a passage like this?
SPEAKER_01: It's more than just a technical discussion of the law.
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, you can read and see this beautiful picture of the city of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, you must trust to choose Jesus as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: It's not enough to think that Jesus is out there.
SPEAKER_01: It's not enough that Jesus actually lived a sinless life, died a death he did not deserve, and then rose again conquering death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: You must come to Jesus and place your faith in him.
SPEAKER_01: You think about the story of the rich young ruler, where he comes to Jesus and he says, What can I do to inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says Jesus looked at him and he loved him and he spoke to him in a way that taught him what his sin was.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says that he walked away sad because he rejected the salvation that only comes through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, you are allowed to make a choice and to reject salvation.
SPEAKER_01: But if you reject salvation, you are living out in the nation under the judgment of sin, and eventually the avenger of blood will get you and will exact your punishment.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm just going to encourage you, if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want you to see this beauty, beautiful picture of the city of refuge and the forgiveness that is there and the life that is there that God has intentionally created from the beginning for you to have the opportunity to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing is if you're a follower of Christ, we need to be more grateful than we can ever imagine for our salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, we go through life and we don't mean to, we're grabbed by the tyranny of the urgent, and we have fun with this, and we do to work with that, and we do that, and we go to church and we do this, and we get busy and we do all that.
SPEAKER_01: And it's easy to kind of just get distracted from life.
SPEAKER_01: But you think about a person who has come to a city of refuge and they have availed themselves of this mercy, and they are now living within the city walls of this city, and they know every time they walk past one of those walls, praise God, I'm on this side of the wall.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God that he created this city.
SPEAKER_01: I would be dead if God had not created this city.
SPEAKER_01: Every time you walk past the gates of the city, you're on a mission, you're doing whatever, you're going to work, you're going to the grocery store, whatever it is you're doing, you're on your way, and you walk past that city gate.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot walk past that gate without remembering the time that you were rushing up to the city of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: The Avenger of blood was on your heels.
SPEAKER_01: You came to the city of the city gate, you presented yourselves to the city leaders.
SPEAKER_01: You threw yourself on the mercy of the Levites and the plan of God for redemption, and they allowed you to come in.
SPEAKER_01: And every time you walk past a gate in a city of refuge, as a person living there, you're thinking, Praise God, they let me in.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God, there's a plan for someone like me.
SPEAKER_01: When you take your children to church, you've been living in the city of refuge for a decade, and you found your wife there, and you raised your children, and you walk past that gate and you see your kids, and you think the only reason that I have these kids is because God is a God of mercy and allowed me this abundant life.
SPEAKER_01: You put your arms around your eight-year-old and you say, Hey Joshua, you see that gate right there?
SPEAKER_01: Daddy's alive because of that gate.
SPEAKER_01: Because God made a way.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua, your mom and I, your little sister, we're here because we came through that gate.
SPEAKER_01: Daddy trusted in the person of God, and he saved us.
SPEAKER_01: How often do you take time to look at the wall or the gate?
SPEAKER_01: Do we think about our testimony and what it meant that God saved us every time we walk by?
SPEAKER_01: I just think that the best citizens who live in that city are the people who are there because of the refuge.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you think?
SPEAKER_01: The people who are the kindest, the people who love the city the most, the people who are serving others around them, are the ones who are living there in the gratefulness of I would be dead if it was not for this city and God's plan of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: And it motivated every aspect of what they did, not to mention their worship when they came to worship.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
SPEAKER_01: This morning we sang, Great is thy faithfulness, great is your faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: The Avenger was on my heels when they let me in.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, no one has ever turned me over.
SPEAKER_01: No one has ever turned me away.
SPEAKER_01: God has never removed my citizenship here in the city of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: Great is thy faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: Oh God my father.
SPEAKER_01: Because I am redeemed.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to think about those as we bow our heads.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I don't know of a better picture of living outside of salvation or living inside.
SPEAKER_01: Of living outside the city of refuge or inside.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know a better picture of what it means to be outside the walls or inside the walls to understand the mercy of God that He has saved us if we've presented ourselves to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you have never trusted Jesus as your Savior, listen, I want you to see this picture of the city of refuge.
SPEAKER_01: Are you willing to live under judgment when you could go to the gate and enter in?
SPEAKER_01: If you've never asked Christ to be your Savior, I'm going to ask you to present yourself and say, God, I know I'm a sinner and I am under the penalty of my sin.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for making available a way of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: All of it 100% for however long it is on this earth.
SPEAKER_01: Give your life to Jesus and trust him as your place of refuge, and he will save you and protect you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we come and we just ask, please, anyone watching, anyone here, in the way that the Holy Spirit does with so effectiveness, in his supernatural wisdom and how he communicates, I ask that you just make this picture alive as you intended it to be, as you designed it, and speak to hearts and draw them to you today.
SPEAKER_01: And give us the freedom to respond.
SPEAKER_01: It is in Jesus' saving name that we pray in all God's people say.
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.