40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Joshua 7:1-26 (Episode 187)

Episode Date: October 17, 2019

Jericho has fallen but it isn't all smooth sailing going forward. Someone has "broken faith" and all of Israel feels the consequences. Joshua is questioning everything. A process of elimination reveals the man responsible and the judgment is stern. Yet there is hope in words of Hosea and John the Baptist. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Live-Stream Signup Life of Christ Academy Class Houston City Event Las Vegas City Event Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. you can go to 1517.org slash podcast check out all the other podcasts that are living over there also while you're over there you can go to the events page check out all the events we got speakers going out to all kinds of things and one of the things you'll see is going out to is city events guys will be in houston and we're going to be in las vegas come hang out with us in february and march we'd love to see you there those events are free all the information is on the events page and you know you just sign up we need to sign up so we know how many people to

expect but that's all it is just you signing up and then coming and getting all the stuff for free chad when this releases we mean you're going to be in san diego yeah i know it's like right down to the wire i know man it is coming upon us we're recording this uh a little earlier than we usually do so we can release it on time and when if you listen to it when it first comes out here we still stand will be on the verge of launching it'll be just later that day if you are there you're probably not listening to this you're probably doing all kinds of other things but if you are listening to this and you're not there and you're feeling kind of this FOMO creep up you can stave off a little bit of that by getting over there and watching the live stream so go over to 1517

click around you can find the live stream and you can you can watch the sessions you can watch all the talks you can watch my talk on on thursday night you can watch chad's devotions on friday and saturday morning you can watch all of it uh and we'd love for you to do it it's also free so go over there and and check that out i'll put a link to that live stream in the show notes all right chad so uh so jericho has been overthrown and uh what do we got going on now i mean it's probably just smooth sailing now right oh yeah i mean it's just like all downhill there's no problem whatsoever trying to figure out what the rest of this book is about considering that everything's done i guess it's all sweetness and light that's all it is yeah every israel yeah just poetry uh

israel has finally gotten past sin and they're totally holy completely devoted to the lord i figured they go to the promised land and then the sin thing is just done oh yeah yeah yeah no no similar use of sepulchre going on here. And they're just all justified and righteous, except for a little problem, a little bump in the road that we've got here in chapter seven, actually chapter seven and eight. I don't know if we're going to get to all of eight today or not.

It's, but it's all, it's all one unit. And it's, it's about our friend Aiken, who is going to cause some problems. he's gonna Achan is gonna call some a core yeah is the is the word play there in Hebrew so yeah it's it's not a repeat of Jericho let's put it

that way so he's not gonna do something that he was explicitly told not to do is he no no it would never happen amongst the Israelites or of course among Christians either yeah this is a this is one of those stories that

I appreciate for a number of reasons only because it pulls together a whole lot of biblical themes that are expanded upon in other places. We've got, for instance, we've got coveting going on. In fact, the word that's used in the Ten Commandments for not to covet is used here as well. The verb is chamad, and I'll talk a little bit more about its background once we get to that verse. But you've got the theme of Coveting, which of course is made explicit in the Ten Commandments and is played out here in narrative style in the case of Achan. You also have a pretty major theological theme that's

illustrated here, and that is a corporate personality or corporate responsibility. because as it turns out one guy just one guy sinned and yet that one sin of one particular guy had corporate consequences and we see that also played out in lots of other places in the old testament of course the one that we that at least immediately jumps to my mind goes all the way back to genesis in the sin in the sin of adam but there's other instances of this as well but that's another one of those themes here that comes out. And one more, or two more actually, one more that is explicit here is the idea that we've seen already multiple times in Joshua, and that is that the only way the Israelites are going to win is because God's on their side. They don't have

superior military technology. They don't have superior military experience. All they have is the Lord on their side, the one fighting for them, the one who is giving them the victory. And as we see here, even though they go up against a city that is not as well defended as Jericho, a city that's not as big as Jericho, they get beat up, they get defeated, they lose men. And the reason is, of course, it's because the Lord is not fighting for them. So we see that also illustrated here. And then one more thing before we actually get to the text itself, and this is going to come up at the end. I want to save that for the end, but in this chapter, it's all about a lot of negatives. You've got rebellion, you've got sin,

you've got guilt, you've got punishment, you've got death, and it ends with a reference to the valley of Achor, which means the valley of trouble. In the midst of all of this negativity, you wouldn't think that there'd be any hint whatsoever of grace or gospel, but actually there is. And I want to show you that once we get to the end by jumping from Joshua to the book of Hosea chapter two, where there is like 700 years after all this happens, Hosea references this particular incident and he twisted around as a prophecy of what the Messiah is going to do when when he comes so a lot of good stuff to get to and i guess we better get to it let's do it man let's get right in it so let me read uh the first five chapter i mean first five first five verses

and that'll it'll set the set the scene for us it says but the sons of israel acted unfaithfully in regard to the things under the ban that's the harem that we talked about last time for aiken the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah from the tribe of Judah, took some of the things under the ban. Therefore the anger of the Lord burned against the sons of Israel. Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-Avon, east of Bethel, and said to them, go up and spy out the land. So the men went up and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said to him, don't let all the people go up. Only about two or three thousand men need to go up to eye. Don't make all the people toil up there because they are few. So about 3,000 men from

the people went up there, but they fled before the men of eye. And the men of eye struck down about 36 of their men and pursued them from the gate as far as Shevarim and struck them down on the descent. So the hearts of the people melted and became as water. All right. So what's happening here, just as far as the structure itself goes, is kind of interesting because we, as the readers of this story, already in verse one, know what the problem is. So it's like the storyteller has brought us into the story, and he's revealing more to us than was known by Joshua and the rest of the Israelites. So he's setting up the story for us by already telling us what the problem is. Of course, the Bible doesn't always do this.

Sometimes it kind of gives us this heads up before the story is actually told as to what the problem is. sometimes it saves it for the end and just kind of lets the story unfold and you figure out what's wrong as you're reading the story. But in this case, already in verse one, we're told what the issue is. So we're privy to the problem before Joshua and the Israelites are. So we have this perspective that we're entering into the story with already. So we know what the problem is and we're going to figure out what the solution is as we go on. There's two things that are interesting about those first verses. In the ESV, it translates that first verse as, but the people of Israel broke faith, which I think is an interesting term. It's not something

that you see a lot. It's maybe a term that we understand, but it's not a term you hear a lot in the Bible. So they broke faith with God. We know what this is. So we expect people to act in good faith, or if we make a commitment to someone or a promise, and they've broken that. The agreement is damaged, so they have broken faith with God, which also means that they've ceased to trust God, because this is what faith is, is trust. And so they've broken trust with him. Yeah. And then it's interesting that what this results in, of course, we see is that things do not go well in this battle that even Joshua thinks is not going to be a big deal. And then when you've broken faith with God, when you no longer are trusting God,

you might think, well, is it really that they're not trusting God, or is it just that they did the thing that they weren't supposed to do? Well, in doing the thing that they weren't supposed to do, in this case, keeping some of these material things, it is an explicit way of saying to God that I don't trust you to give me the things I need. I need these things, too. If I accumulate these things to myself, these things will help me get other things I need. I mean, you accumulate these riches to yourself, so presumably you can have more possessions or more whatever it is.

And so you are then not depending on God to provide for you. And all of this results in this reversal, and it's interesting that it uses this term at the end of this, that their hearts melted, which is something that we heard previous was like the people of Jericho. that Rahab said that the people's hearts had melted, and then after the battle or when they're marching and going across the sea and all these things, we see over and over again that the people's hearts had melted. And this switches, and so you break faith with God,

and then it's not your enemy's hearts who are melting, it's yours as your enemies are trampling all over you. Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, the tables have completely turned. And I checked, it's the exact same expression that we find in chapter 2 it and in chapter five both in translation as well as in the in the original and uh another thing that just kind of accents how much the tables have turned is this metaphor that you see at the end of verse five not just that their hearts melted but became as water this is the

only place in the old testament where that particular analogy occurs it's pushing the envelope even further yeah when you hear something melted like a term that you hear a lot it's like melted like wax this is telling you that their hearts were much thinner than that yeah exactly yeah and that i wasn't aware of the esv translation i'm working with new american standard on this but i like the translation of broke faith uh in the in the hebrew what you often have is you'll have a noun and a verb that are paired together that are basically the same word except one is a noun form one is a verbal form so literally in the hebrew would be something like the the israelites acted unfaithfully by doing unfaithfulness something like that anyway

so you have a repetition of the verb and then the cognate noun but in english of course that sounds very weird and very wooden to us but broke faith i think captures it i mean that that really is the essence of what's going on here yeah i mean it seems what god is upset about here is that he's made this all pretty easy i mean it's i'm going to take care of everything just don't do these things it's it's very simple i mean i'm going to give you the victory i'm gonna i mean i'm gonna make this i'm gonna i'm gonna march around you're gonna march around stuff and the walls fall down israel may have not lost one single guy in this battle yeah we're not told about any deaths right no on the part of the israelites none no losses right god is like

giving you a complete victory and all he wants you to do is is not do something yeah right and you can't not do that thing and this is why like faith is broken but look what i've done i mean you've marched across the jordan and we did this whole thing with the marching around the walls everything came down you had this complete victory like how can you not trust me when i say don't do this thing and then that's the one thing that you go and do and what this also shows you is it does tell you that there's this one guy who's doing this thing of a stark picture of, oh, this sin wouldn't affect anyone but me.

Like, it's just me. I'm the only one who's really disobeying God here, which, of course, is always a lie. I will tell you from experience that your sin never just affects you. Yeah, never. I mean, that is one of the lies. It's like we constantly tell ourselves,

and even though we know it's not true, we still believe it. I'm going to do this, and it's only going to affect me, but that's just not the way. You can't put boundaries around sin and say, okay, this is just going to affect me. No, because it leaks out, always does. Even if it doesn't, in a way that you can tell, it affects you and your interactions with other people. So, yeah, sin is always corporate in that way, and never individual. You know, we see that.

I was going to point this out. uh just slipped my mind but we see that already in the opening words of the chapter because notice the way i'm just gonna look at it here in the hebrew because i forgot to check this before we uh before we started but in the english translation anyway it starts out but the sons of israel yeah yeah it doesn't say but aiken did yeah yeah so we we see well we see it there verse one if you skip ahead to verse 11. This is God speaking now. And he says, Israel has sinned. And then it goes on to say, they have taken some of the things under the van and they have put them among their own things. So that's one of the ways in which we see this language of corporate responsibility or

corporate personality here, that even though it's one guy, it affects the whole body of Israel. I mean, it really is, as I made reference earlier, it really is a continuation of something that begins Genesis 3 and continues on. And, you know, we see this, this isn't just kind of a biblical truth. If you stop to think about just your own life, your family's life, or national life, a church life, we can come up with example after example of how one person's wrongdoing affects a whole family or a whole city or sometimes a whole nation. That is the way that sin works. It spreads out to either a small group of people or sometimes to a very large group of people. So this theme of corporate responsibility and the corporate nature of sin

is throughout the scriptures, but we see it in our own lives. I mean, the example that always comes to my mind, and maybe it's because my Monday through Friday job is being a truck driver, but all of us have seen this. You're out in the road, and especially if you live in a city like I do in San Antonio, one guy screws up on the road. Maybe he's texting, maybe whatever happens with his vehicle. and if it's bad enough thousands of people are affected by that one decision on the road you

know you're it's backed up for who knows how long because of the mistake that one person made so we we see that in cases like that and we see it on the the moral or the theological level all over the place yeah yeah okay so we we see what's kind of what's happening here in these opening verses and uh let's let's go on and and see what happens after that this because the section that follows it i mean even though it's serious it's also kind of humorous too when you look at how joshua reacts and especially how god reacts to joshua's reaction so i'm going to read uh with verses six and following then joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the lord until the evening both he and the elders of israel and they put

dust on their heads. And Joshua said, alas, O Lord God, why did you ever bring this people over the Jordan, only to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been willing to dwell beyond the Jordan. That sounds familiar, doesn't it? O Lord, what can I say since Israel has turned their back before their enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and they will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name? I'm going to stop there before we get to God's response. I heard, I forget where I was at. I was speaking somewhere and talking about various illustrations of people from the Old Testament who have messed up in big ways. And I was talking about Noah and his drunkenness and

abraham lying about sarah and david with his uh adultery or to whatever you call it and and and murder and all these other illustrations and and someone asked me what about joshua you know joshua seems to come out with a pretty uh pretty good record i mean he didn't really ever ever mess up and and i think here is a good illustration of the fact that yeah joshua might not have quite as long of a rap sheet as some of these other folks in the old testament but here we've already encountered one situation with him back in in the torah with his dispute with moses about who should be receiving the spirit and prophesying but this is a classic example of joshua basically being just like the murmuring and complaining israelites

all the way back at the red sea right i mean it that was the first thing that leapt to my mind as as i heard his words here why uh why did you deliver us why did you ever bring us over the jordan if only we've been willing to dwell beyond the jordan i just that's classic israelite there yeah i mean as if god had ever told them that they should be content to dwell there that they weren't content to dwell there because it's not what god had promised yeah yeah i mean way back at exodus 15 the israelites were saying oh that we had just stayed in egypt yeah right why Why did you ever bring us out of the land of Egypt only to deliver us into the grave? Every time these guys pass through a body of water,

they start talking about how they should have stayed on the other side of the water. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's just the way the Israelites have been. So Joshua does not come out as some sort of pure specimen of righteousness here because he's acting like a typical Israelite, basically blaming God for what just happened. And as we'll see in just a second, when God addresses him, he realizes that God's going to make him realize that he's not to blame.

It's rather the Israelites who are to blame. But you notice the extent to which Joshua goes to illustrate just how upset he is. I mean, you can kind of see this on a psychological level too, because so far everything has been going according to plan. he was selected to replace moses god actually appears to him as the commander of the armies and puts a stamp of approval on joshua when they cross the jordan god says now i'm going to show israel that the basic i'm with you just like i had been with moses so this is one of these examples of just how devastating it can be when everything seemed to be going your way and you just have

positive outcome after positive outcome, victory after victory, and all of a sudden it feels like just the rug has been pulled out from underneath your feet. It's devastating to Joshua because it's so shocking. There was nothing that, as it were, prepared him for this, at least in his past experiences. So he reacts the way he does. He puts dust on his head. He tears his clothes. He falls to the earth. He expresses this disappointment and lament in a very typical Israelite fashion, and he turns around and basically blames God for the events that have just transpired, as if as if it were God's fault that they were defeated by the people of Ai. So that takes us through verse 9. Let's see how God responds to him. So the Lord, verse 10, so the Lord said to Joshua,

rise up why is it that you followed on your face israel has sinned and they have also transgressed my covenant which i commanded them and they have taken some of the things under the ban and have both stolen and deceived moreover they have also put them among their own things therefore the sons of israel cannot stand before their enemies they turn their backs before their enemies for they have become accursed that's literally they become as harem so it's a repetition of that word we've seen before. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy the things under the ban from your midst. Rise up, consecrate the people, and say, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, there are things under the ban

in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst. And then he goes on, in the morning you shall come nearby your tribes, and it shall be that the tribe which the Lord takes shall come near by families, and the family which the Lord takes shall come near by households, and the household which the Lord takes shall come near man by man. And it shall be that the one who is taken with the things under the band shall be burned with fire, he and all that belongs to him, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has committed a disgraceful thing in Israel. So going back to verse 10, God's response to Joshua is basically, why are you doing what you're doing? Why have you

fallen on your face? And why are you saying what you're saying? Because it's not as if I have somehow failed you. It's rather, we have this whole string of verbs here in verse 11. Israel has sinned, transgressed, taken, stolen, deceived, and put. So there's six verbs that God uses to describe what not just Achan but Israel has done so they've taken whatever it is he doesn't spell it out he just says they've taken some of the things that were part of the harem that were to be destroyed by fire and not only taken them but they have put them among their own things as it says there and God goes on in verse 12 to say that until this is dealt with until those things are destroyed, then your enemies are going to continue to defeat you. And then he lays out for Joshua

what he's supposed to do. So the people are to consecrate themselves, and then we're going to have this gradual narrowing down from tribe to family to household to man. We're not told exactly how this is going to be done. Some of your translations will say in verse 14, it shall be that the tribe which the Lord takes by lot. It could be that by lot is added. That's not in the original, but it could be that they were chosen by lot. It could be that they used the Urim and Fumim from the breastplate of the high priest to determine this, which were forms of lot too. we don't know exactly how this was done anyway whatever whatever method was used that's how they narrowed it down from tribe to family to household to man so that's that's what the lord says is

going to be the process by which they determine the guilty party so what's going to happen well verse 16 picks up from there and says basically that joshua did exactly that joshua gets up early in the morning, and he brings Israel near by tribes, and the tribe of Judah was taken, and then he brings the family of Judah near, and the family of the Zeraites are taken, and then he brings the family of the Zeraites near man by man, and Zabdi was taken. Verse 18, he brought his household near man by man and Achan the son of Carmi the son of Zabdi the son of Zerah from the tribe of Judah was taken so just kind of trying to put myself into this situation and I don't think you can read this without asking yourself what was going on with Achan during this whole narrowing down

process yeah or just any dude can you imagine how like or anybody else yeah how nerve-wracking this whole ordeal is yeah yes i've just just in in working with this story thinking about it preparing for it i was just trying to put myself there and uh and the stress and the anxiety that must have been felt by by everyone especially if you're from the tribe of judah yeah well this this takes a little while yeah this isn't just like five minutes later and ah here we have the culprit did you start to wonder you're like did i do anything i mean i just imagine you're sitting there auditing like the entire jericho event and you're like did i do anything you check in your pockets yeah just try to figure out like is there something i was supposed to do

that i didn't do but uh especially as it got narrowed if you're still you know what you're still in that bunch you know three steps down the process and you're like oh man it's not quite the same but it's almost like uh on the night that jesus is betrayed and all the disciples are wondering who it's going to be right yeah is it is it i lord and i and ironically or perhaps not so ironically it ends up being judas whose name is a hellenized form of judah and judah ends up being the tribe from which aiken comes as well well a lot of bad things come from judah and then one good thing yeah that's right that's pretty much a that's a good description of uh of that tribe so yeah i mean i i suppose aiken was being a typical sinner here and even though i'm sure he

was sweating more and more as it narrowed down more and more probably at first he thought looking around like, you know, there are a whole lot of Israelites here. I mean, what are the chances that I'm the only one who took something? I mean, there had to have been somebody else. I couldn't be the only one that found something that was valuable and put it in my backpack when we left the city. There had to have been somebody else. So probably I'm thinking at first, yeah, he would have been nervous, but he was probably thinking, yeah, it's got to be somebody else. But then, of course, as it narrows down more and more, he comes to the point where he realizes it's going to be him. And yet, interestingly, he never does step forth and claim responsibility until

the finger is pointed directly at him. If you know that you did this thing and you're letting this process play out, either you're hoping that it doesn't fall on you and you'll get away with it, or that maybe God will be mistaken and someone else will take the fall, which, of course, is just horrific. Yeah. The repentant thing to do is to step forward. And also, maybe your only shot. Yeah, yeah.

Might be the only shot that you have is to actually step forward and to confess what you've done before everybody else is excluded except you if you come forward plead with god for mercy well there's not a lot of times in scripture where god doesn't grant it yeah but his confession comes only after right only at the end i mean there there are no more there's no more options at that point so well let's see what happens uh this is picking up with verse 19. Joshua said to Achan, my son, which is an interesting way to begin, right? I mean, this is kind of a very paternal, a lot more compassionate address than I would have expected given the situation. But Joshua says to Achan, my son, I implore you, give glory to the Lord,

the God of Israel, and give praise to him, and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me. So Achan answered Joshua and said, truly, I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I did. When I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar, which is kind of a general name for Mesopotamia, from Shinar and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold, 50 shekels in weight, then I coveted them and took them. And behold, they are concealed in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath it so joshua sends messengers and they ran to the tent and behold it was concealed in his tent with the silver underneath it and they took them from inside the tent and brought them to joshua and all the sons of israel and they poured them out

before the lord then joshua and all israel with him took achan the son of zara silver the mantle the bar of gold his sons his daughters his oxen his donkeys his sheep his tent and all that belong to him and he brought them up to the valley of acorn i'll go ahead and finish it out there's two verses left and joshua said why have you troubled us the lord will trouble you this day and all israel stoned him with stones and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones that stands to this day. And the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Therefore, the name of that place has been called the Valley of Achor or the Valley of Trouble to this day. So it's a pretty fascinating account.

And there's some ambiguity here too. I was trying to figure out exactly who all was punished this morning. And the truth is that I don't think that we can actually say with anything approximating complete confidence, because it's ambiguous. The language goes back and forth between singular and plural. You notice they bring everything out, right? They bring not only this Achan, but all of the stuff he stole, and he doesn't mention his wife. Maybe he was a widower. She's never mentioned. But his children, his sons and daughters, and his animals, they bring everything out to the valley of Achor. And then it says, verse 25, all Israel stoned him with stones. But then it goes on to say, and they burned them with fire after they had stoned

them with stones. But then it goes back to the singular in verse 26 and says, and they raised over him a great heap of stones that stands to this day. So it's a little unclear. And what's unclear is whether it was only Achan and his material possessions and animals that were destroyed, and then, you know, this heap was built up around them, or did, as we have in other cases in the Old Testament, did Achan's family also suffer the death penalty along with him? I think the best that we can say is we're not sure, because I think there is that ambiguity that's kind of built into built into the story the main point of course is that Achan himself is the one who brought trouble upon Israel and so trouble was was brought upon him now he did confess right

yeah I mean it was I mean and if if the situation had been different if it hadn't been like down just to him alone if he'd have stepped forward at the beginning and said truly I have sinned against the lord and here's what i did then yeah as a chance chances are this would have gone very differently yeah because his confession i mean as it stands as a i mean he doesn't make excuses right no it's a good confession i mean he starts he doesn't even say yeah i took the stuff he even confesses the root of the sin which said i saw it and i coveted it um so there's there's not just the act but he's saying covetousness took hold of my heart and and i did this thing and i mean The language that Joshua uses is this, you've brought trouble on us, now the Lord's going to bring trouble on you.

And you're like, good grief, dude. That is, you are not lying. Yeah, yeah. That's all outlaw there, that's for sure. I think you're right. You can't know for sure, but as I read this, it does seem that they stone him and then they burn everything with fire. I do think there's at least reason to have pause and say what are they burning here

what's going on and it seems that it's at least within the realm of possibility that this is all his possessions that in taking that stuff they burn up everything and so kind of everything that this stuff has touched is tainted

and you see that's consistent with other things in the Old Testament that this stuff was buried underneath his tent and they just take all his stuff and all of it gets torched I mean, sort of everything that this unholy item has come in contact with, which there's reason to think does not include his family. They may not have even known about it.

Yeah, it's one of the grim stories that we have from early in the life of Israel. And we've got a couple minutes left. I just want to bring this in before we run out of time on how this sad, troublesome, literally troublesome story is taken up by Hosea and turned around. so this is from Hosea chapter 2 beginning with verse 14 I'll just read a couple of verses this is God speaking and he's talking about what he's going to do for Israel in the days of the Messiah he says therefore behold I will allure her bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her literally to speak to her heart so this is God is talking about

the future days, and he's going to bring Israel back into the wilderness, and he's going to court her as it will. He's going to make her fall in love with him again by speaking to her heart. Israel has just entered the Holy Land of Joshua, but in Hosea, he's talking about taking them back out into the wilderness for a second entrance, a re-entrance into the promised land. But notice the language he uses next then i will give her vineyards from there and the valley of acor as a door of hope and she will sing there as in the days of her youth as in the day when she came up from the land of egypt so this this is a perfect example of how the prophets will take something from early in the life of israel and they'll use it to talk about what's going to happen in the

days of the messiah but will illustrate how everything is going to be turned around so there'll be a second Exodus, a second entrance. And instead of there being this valley of trouble that was marked by rebellion and sin and death, it's going to be marked by hope and by a restoration that's going to be brought about by the work of the Messiah. So when Christ comes, we no longer have this place of trouble. Instead, we have this doorway of hope. And instead of you having aching punished and you have christ who's taken the punishment upon himself and transforming this new exodus into a doorway of hope for for the church what's interesting is that how often 30 minutes in the new testament and 40 minutes in the old testament overlap i mean

so as i record these episodes and it's not intentional but sometimes someone might if someone listens to both they might think that we have things coordinated but it's this is not the case it's just that they're over they overlap everywhere uh just and uh we just talked about this in 30 minutes in the new testament where zachariah gives his prophecy uh over john and he talks about him be you know being the one who will prepare the way of the lord and will give knowledge of redemption that is through the forgiveness of sins right now john does this by the Jordan in the wilderness. And this is exactly what, you know, as Hosea talks about this,

I mean, it's interesting that they do go, he goes outside and says that the true promise is coming. You know, we think about John as this fiery repentance figure, and he is certainly that. But his job is to prepare the way, is to speak to the people, and as Zachariah says, to tell them about redemption that is contained, not in anything other than the forgiveness of their sins. This is why he is baptizing people,

baptizing people that would think they have no need to be baptized. And so it's so interesting how we'll be over here and Joshua talking about this stuff, and then we'll be over in Luke talking about this other stuff, and it's all connected. This is where this ultimately happens, where God puts his word in the mouth of John and says, the salvation is coming.

It's amazing to me how all of these things intersect in one way or another i mean the exodus the jordan john redemption aiken they're all pulled together from a lot of different directions and they all coalesce in the work of the messiah yeah we didn't even plan it no no there's no planning it's just always it's just always there man just always there so that is it guys if the podcast has been helpful to you and you'd like to support the work of this and everything else that we do you can go over to 1517.org go to the donate page and you can become a supporter thank you so much to those of you who do that check out the live stream chad uh by the time this airs we'll be hanging out that's right see you in a couple days