Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Joshua and the General

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

Many of you have probably heard of the battle of Jericho. But you probably didn’t know about what happens in these first three verses. These verses make all the difference. Jericho was a huge city, a fortified city, and humanly speaking, an impossible city for the Israelites to handle. It’s important to remember that this is not the first time Joshua has been to Jericho. In this passage, Joshua goes out all by himself and looks at it. He’s remembering something that happened 40 years before. When he gets out there, he has this amazing encounter with God. There are three lessons we draw from this passage: 1) this is Jesus, 2) Jesus is absolutely holy, and 3) Jesus had a drawn sword. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 22, 1996. Series: Daring to Draw Near. Scripture: Joshua 5:13-15, 6:1-5. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. Throughout the Bible, we see accounts of people who have had direct extraordinary encounters with God. In today's sermon, Tim Keller is teaching through one of those extraordinary encounters, what happened, and what it means for us today. After you listen, please take a few seconds to rate and review our podcast. Your review can help others to discover our podcast and experience the hope of the gospel. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller.

The passage is printed in the Bible. Part me from the Bible printed in your bulletin. The Holy Bulletin. So, please open your holy bulletin to Joshua 5 verses 13 to 15. And I'm going to just to make sure you put it in context and you realize where this happens. I'm going to read into chapter 6, but we're really just looking at these two verses, three verses in Joshua 5. Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up, and he saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went up to him and asked, are you for us or for our enemies?

Neither he replied, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. And then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence and asked him, what message does my Lord have for his servant? And the commander of the Lord's army replied, take off your sandals. For the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so. Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites and no one went out and no one came in. And the Lord said to Joshua, see, I've delivered Jericho into your hands,

along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men, do this for six days. Have seven priest-carry trumpets of rams, wharms in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times with a priest blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound, a long blast in the trumpets have all the people give a shout, a loud shout. Then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in. This is God's Word. We're in a series here in the evening service, which I've called Daring to Draw Near, and it's about the, we're looking at the places in the Bible where human beings came into,

I guess you could put it this way, had a close encounter with God, came in close, actually met God, came into the presence of the Holy. And today we're taking a look at this extremely interesting incident. And one that I would imagine many of you who probably heard of the Battle of Jericho, largely through the music, I'm sure, but also maybe through Sunday school classes or other sorts of sources. Probably whenever you heard the story told, whenever you heard it sung about or heard it related in any particular way, you didn't know about this.

And these first three verses actually are absolutely critical. If you're going to understand the Battle of Jericho, without these three verses, the Battle of Jericho is nothing but an imperialistic venture. These verses make all the difference and they really tell you the meaning. It's so important. So, let me give you the background. As usual, with these talks, the sermons on figures like this, you don't understand the incident.

The incident is always a very climactic thing. It's always a, God shows up in some ways. He shows up when all the lines of a person's life are converging. You see this in Jacob, you see it in Job, and you see it here. We've been looking at these three guys over the last three weeks. Why is this so important?

Now look, it says, when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him. Now, what is it says now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up. What was he doing near Jericho? The people of Israel had just crossed Jordan. The people of Israel had been in Egypt slaves for a very long time, centuries. Originally they had gone from Canaan and the people of Israel were the descendants of Abraham

Isaac and Jacob, a very large group even when they left. And they came down into Egypt as a kind of refuge, a place to have refuge from the great famine. But as the narrative goes, after they'd been there for a while, a Pharaoh arose who knew not Joseph, Joseph being the one who brought them down, the son of Jacob. And eventually, the Israelites were enslaved, and they were put into slavery for years, for centuries. But God led them out, and that's a different sermon and a different story, actually, earlier part of the story, I mean. And they were brought out through the Red Sea

and they came through the wilderness and they came to their ancestral land. The land that was theirs, but while they had left, a number of other people had come in, and they've been away for quite a bit of time and they'd come in. And God says, I'm going to lead you in there and you're going to take up the land. Now, what's so interesting is as soon as you get in, at least the way the Israelites came

in, as soon as they got in, they passed through the Jordan. As soon as they got in, Jericho was the first place. Jericho was a huge city, a walled city, a fortified city, and humanly speaking an impossible city for the Israelites to handle. And Joshua went out and looked at it. And the reason he looked at it was because he was remembering something that happened 40 years before. This was not the first time Joshua had been to Jericho. Very important to remember that if you're going to understand the story. If you go back into the book of Numbers, what I did was I put together, in Numbers chapter 13 and 14,

I've put together an abridgment. This is a series of the verses sort of paste together to give you an idea of what happened. But 40 years before, the Israelites had gotten near, gotten very near to Canaan. They'd come very near. And Moses sent 12 scouts. Now some people would call them spies, and they were called, they called them, they called

scouts, I guess, or explorers. One from every single tribe. Two of those spies, two of those scouts were Caleb from the tribe of Judah and Joshua from the tribe of Ephraim. And they went in with 10 other guys. And they actually went and they saw Jericho, they stood in front of Jericho, they looked. And they went all around the place and they came back.

And it says, when they came back, this is what the spies began to say. They said to the people, we went into the land and it does flow with milk and honey. But the people who live there are powerful and the cities are fortified and very large. But then Caleb and Joshua said, but let's go up and take possession

for we can surely do it. But the rest of the spy spread a bad report. They said to the people, the land we explored will devour us if we live in it. All the people there were of great size, and we seem like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we look the same to them. And the people cried out against Moses,

oh, if only we had died in Egypt. Why is the Lord bringing us here only to die of the sword, our wives, and our children will be taken as plunder? Then Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes and said, listen, do not rebel against the Lord by being afraid, for the Lord is with us. But the whole assembly talked of stoning them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared. How long will you treat me with contempt

in spite of the miraculous signs I have performed among you? And then Moses prays for God's forgiveness, and God says, I have forgiven them, but as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the earth, not one of those who saw my glory in miraculous deeds in Egypt, not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who treated me with contempt will ever see it.

And then God turns and promises the Caleb and Joshua alone of that entire generation. We'll come into the promised land. And when Israel heard the words of the Lord, they mourned bitterly and they said, we sinned, now we will go up and take the land the Lord promised. We will go." And Moses said, this will not succeed. You're disobeying the Lord's command. He's not with you. But in their presumption, they went up, though neither Moses nor the Ark of the Lord's covenant moved from the camp.

And the amalakites and the canonites that lived there came down and attacked them and beat them down all the way to Horma, Horma, and God kept them out 40 years. They wandered around till every one of those people and particularly every one of those spies except Caleb and Joshua were dead. 40 years later they come in and Joshua, an old man now, a very old man, we're not sure how old Joshua is but Caleb was 85. And so Joshua, you know, most likely would have been something like 80 anyway. So he comes and he's a general, he's the general.

And he stands before that, he goes out all by himself. Why would he do that? Because he's looking at Jericho and he's sitting there and he remembers all of that amazing time 40 years ago. He remembers standing there with the spies. And the spies looked and said, we are slaves. We are freed slaves.

And because we were slaves, we were oppressed in Egypt, and we were shut out of the educational institutions. We were shut out of leadership. We have no military skill. We don't have people with military training. We have no technological skills. We cannot, cannot take that city. And if we don't take that city, we're dead.

It's the first one. It's the first place. We're lost. Our children will be taken and wives are taken as plunder. I see. We will die by the sword. And Joshua comes out and he looks up and he remembers all this. And he also remembers that God, in a sense, had a wipe that entire generation out, that first generation had a wipe it out if he was going to plant a new people in the land of Canaan.

But he looks up and he remembers what God has said. Back then, God said, fear is rebellion. See, Joshua and Caleb even said that. They said, do not rebel by being afraid. This is a very exciting thing for us to hear. Most of us think of our cowardice and all of us experience that. We see something and we say, I can't do it. We're scared.

We think of courage as something that either you have or you don't. If you don't have courage, well, there's nothing you can do about it. Yet Joshua says, Caleb says, and God says, your fear, your lack of courage, your unwillingness to do, this amazing thing, your courage is a sin, it's rebellion. And you know, we do have this very disconcerting line in the book of Revelation where it talks about all the people that are thrown into the lake of fire. And there's a lot of people that you kind of expect to go in there. You know, it talks about murderers,

and you talk about the oppressors, and it talks about all that stuff. But any of you remember that verse? You know what else is thrown into the lake of fire with the murderers and the oppressors and the unjust? No, not just that. The cowards. Good.

Some of you have seen that. Misery likes company, and I'm miserable when I see that. Think about this. How is Joshua now going to succeed this time? Joshua says, how in the world are we going to do it? How are we going to get the courage to do it? How are we going to get the way to do it? And when he goes out there, he has this amazing experience. To his surprise, he saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. And he saw a man of war fully armed with a drawn sword ready to attack. And Joshua, now I, even though there's not much to say about this,

I think it's really remarkable. If the man is standing in front of him with a drawn sword, that means the man is ready for action. Some 80-year-old guy, Joshua, sees the man with a drawn sword, that means the man is ready for action. Some 80-year-old guy, Joshua, sees the man with a drawn sword and wants to do, he goes up. Man, when he went up, went up, look carefully, it says the man was armed to the teeth, the man was ready for action. This man, as we're going to see in a minute, must have been pretty impressive looking when we see who he is. And yet Joshua, 80-year-old Joshua, gets his hand on his own sword,

and when it says, when up, that means God in his face. I mean, the man was before Joshua anyway, so what does it mean when up? That's a metaphor. That's a way of saying, Joshua went up and challenged him. There's, you know, that's great. And he says, the battle has begun. We're about to take this.

Therefore, choose this day whom you will serve. I give you two options. Are you for us or against us? In other words, he's saying you have two options. You can either fight me to the death or bow the need of me and be part of this battle because I'm the general. Either you can fight me to the death or you can submit to me. You're either for us or against us, but there's no neutrality. The battle's begun. We don't have any observers

or we have no onlookers. Joshua steps up and says, are you for us or against us? And this man looks and says, no. And of course, you know, that's a non-sequitor. Joshua says, I've given you two choices, and the man says, I reject them both. While you for us are against us, he says, I'm not the kind of person who's for against anybody. People are for against me. And you cannot relate to me unless you choose before or against me. But to ask me, he says, whether I'm for or against you is the wrong question. You see, the translation here says neither. But I like the old,

a mere one, I'm not the one who's for or against you is the wrong question. You see, the translation here says neither. But I like the authorized version, the old King James version, where I first read this years ago. Are you for us or against us, says Joshua? And the man said no. But as commander of the Lord of hosts, I am come. And Joshua hits the dirt.

And he says, command me. See when he says, do you have a message for me? What does my Lord have a message for me? In other words, Joshua immediately understands and he says, command me. And the man says, cleanse yourself. Get your shoes off. Why do you get your shoes off? Because they're dirty, you see.

You are in the presence of the Holy. Now, what does this mean? Well, here's, I'm gonna give you a say, there's four lessons we have to draw out from it. Very important. From the highest theological down to the most practical. First of all, this is Jesus. Another way to put it is,

this reveals that God can and will come to earth in human form and deliver His people. What you have here is something very mysterious. And many people over the years have said, this is an angel. Now, angels are very hot right now. They are very hot. And everybody's into angels and the TV's into angels and certainly hallmark cards are into angels. They always have them, but they're more into angels and the TVs into angels and certainly hallmark cards are into angels and they always have them, but they're more into angels.

And it's a big deal. And I guess a year or so ago, I even got interviewed for a television show asking some questions about the significance of angels and angels are hot now. And I think I was fairly patient with the silliness of the question because really, we don't know much about angels at all in the Bible.

I mean, here, on every page of the Bible is sin, grace, salvation, God, sin, grace, salvation, and every so often angel sort of show up, and they're always, always, they're never the center of the story. So we never learn much about them. We don't know much about them at all. It's so silly to focus on something that is just peripheral to the Bible and just miss the thing that's on every page, but important thing is we know one very important thing about angels, you don't worship angels.

Oh no, in the book of Revelation, at the very end, John says this, he says, I, John, when I had heard and seen these things, I fell to the worship at the feet of the angel who had shown me them. See, when had heard and seen these things, I fell to the worship at the feet of the angel who had shown me them. See, when I heard and seen these things, the visions. He says, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had shown them to me, but he said to me, do not do it. I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers,

the prophets and with all who keep the words of this book, worship God. You know, I've always been encouraged by that. The angel actually seems to get upset. You know, you don't usually see angels upset. And what would get an angel upset? He says, get up. Don't you dare do this. And he says, I am ultimately no different than you.

The prophets, and this is what's so encouraging, and all the people who keep the words of this book. That's everybody. Anybody, what he's really saying is, look, I'm an angel, okay? I'm pretty powerful compared to you. I'm pretty great compared to you, but when it comes right down to it at the end of the day, I am created.

If you worship any created person, if you worship any created thing, anything, you will ruin yourself. It's the most destructive possible sin. Get up. Ultimately, I'm no different than any old person out there reading this book. That's for encouraging thing for an angel to say.

But then he says, worship God. All right, Joshua hits the ground. It says, of course, in your translation, our translation that we have published there, we have, it says, he bow down in reverence, which is the word for worship. He bowed down in worship. He said, command is the word for worship. He bow down in worship. He said, command me, that's worship.

And what does the angel say? Get up, no, he's not an angel. This is not an angel. He says, thank you for worshiping me. And as a matter of fact, I would like you to go one step further. I want you to worship me even more intensely. Get your shoes off, realize who I am.

You're in the presence of the Holy, the uncreated. You're in the presence of the beginningless. So who is this? This is not a hologram. You see, this is a person. This is God incarnate. This is a preliminary manifestation of the eternal Word of God,

who in the fullness of time was born of a woman, born out of the law. To redeem those under the law, you see from the curse of sin. There have never been stronger calls for justice than those we have heard in recent years. What does the Bible have to say about it? And how does God's Word help bring about justice?

In Tim Keller's book, Generous Justice, you'll discover that the Bible gives us a rich and complex understanding of what justice is and what it means to live it out. The book provides a biblical framework for justice, one that calls every Christian to a life of generous justice, fueled by grace. Generous Justice is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of the Gospel with people all over the world.

So request your copy today at GospelandLife.com slash give. That's GospelandLife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. This is a preliminary. This is not a person really who was born into this world and lived a life. This person doesn't stick around. And yet what you have here, and not just here,

a number of places, you have a number of places where there is a being that is called the angel of the Lord. Shows up all the time. The angel is not an angel. The angel does get worship. The angel speaks as if he is God. And the angel of the Lord is a preliminary manifestation of the multi-personal God.

The preliminary manifestation of the second person of the Trinity, a preliminary manifestation of the fact that within the Godhead, there is one who specialty is to come and relate us to God. There's one person in the Godhead, there is one who specialty is to come and relay us to God. There's one person in the Godhead who specialty is to come to us and to be a channel between us and the Lord. You see that? He is the Lord and yet he's also the way to the Lord.

We can talk about this as somebody wants to get into the Trinity of the question and answer time, but here we have it. We have God, He's from God, but he is God. How could that be? Only if God is more than one person inside the Godhead. In fact, Jesus Christ actually goes so far as to essentially say this. In the book of Exodus, for example, when the burning bush happens, and Moses finds, speaks to God, the holy place, he's, if you read carefully in Exodus 3, you'll see it says that the angel of the Lord spoke from the bush.

The angel of the Lord said, take your shoes off. You're in the presence of the Holy, you're in the presence of the uncreated, you see, you're in the presence of God. When the angel of the Lord comes to Samson, comes to Samson's parents, and he tells them that Samson is going to be born, that this hero, this judge of Israel is going to be born, then he steps up into the fire of the sacrifice and goes up to heaven, and the Samson's parents

hit the ground and they say, we've seen the Lord, because it's the Lord. And the most interesting thing is, in Malachi 3, you've got this very interesting prophecy, a Messianic prophecy. In Malachi 3, the prophecy goes like this, I will send my messenger who will prepare the way before me, and then suddenly the Lord will come to his temple. Jesus, in Matthew 11, which we're looking at in the morning service, quotes this, where

it says, the messenger will come before the Lord shows up and says, the messenger is John the Baptist, which means Jesus is saying, I am the person in Malachi, chapter 3, verse 1 and 2, that is coming. John the Baptist is the messenger and the Lord will come to the temple. I'm the Lord. What's the word there? Yahweh. I am Yahweh. I am the Lord. And yet, if you keep reading, you'll see, though it actually says, and you read Malachi 3-1, it says,

and suddenly the Lord will come to his temple, the angel of the covenant, whom you desire will come. So Jesus essentially claims right there. When he says that John is the messenger of Malachi 3, verse 1 and 2, he's saying, I'm the one who is to come, I'm the angel of the covenant. This is Jesus. Jesus Christ, the Lord Himself, I'm the one who is to come. I'm the angel to come. And this is Jesus.

Jesus Christ, the Lord Himself, Jesus Christ comes to fight for us. Jesus Christ is the one through whom we relate to the Godhead, over and over and over. Secondly, second lesson is that Jesus is absolutely holy. Are you starting to get a picture here? Jacob seeks to meet God and he ends up in a wrestling match. Joe wants to meet God and he meets a tornado. Joshua wants to meet God and he meets a man of war, armed to the teeth with a drawn sword. Are you getting any picture here? There's nothing warm and fuzzy about meeting God.

And what is the holiness of God? It's His greatness, it's His superlittiveness. And if you wanna know what it means to finally see the holiness and greatness of Jesus, and not simply His love, if you don't see his holiness and his greatness, his love, really is of no transforming benefit to you. A couple of years ago, in the early days of the church, I used to do all the membership interviews myself.

And if I interviewed you as a member, you know that you were one of the very first. And I do remember interviewing a woman and I said, tell me when you became a Christian. She says, well, I don't know myself. Let me ask you, do you want to hear about when I subscribe to Christianity, when I took a class, when I learned about it in church, and I said,

yes, I'm a Christian and I got baptized and all that? Or do you want me to tell you about the time when I realized one day, it hit me like a thunderbolt? If Jesus is who He says He is, that changes everything about my life. If Jesus is who He says He is, that changes everything about my life. If Jesus is who He says He is, that means that not a single corner of my life can belong to me. Everything has to belong to Jesus. And I said, I'd like to hear about that day. Because it's not a lot more interesting. But do you know what happened to her? Here's

what's happened to her. I don't know what she got converted. I won't say that she was converted before that. I can't be sure. But here. I won't say that she was converted before that. I can't be sure, but here's what happened to her. That was the day. You see, the day that happened was the day she heard God say, no, neither. Take off your shoes. There's a very interesting incident in my life.

When I was a fairly new Christian, it happened in 1970. I went to an intervarsity camp, Bear Trap Ranch in Colorado, and I heard a woman named Barbara Boyd gave what they called the Lordship Talk. And I'm not sure if that might have been the very first time I had an experience like this myself. And a lot of you, as soon as I tell you

that some of the things that are in the Lordship Talk and I still have the notes from that, you'll realize this echoed in my preaching ever since. And that was the day she looked at us and she said something like this. She said, if you want to invite me into your house and you say, come in Barbara, stay out, boyd. I wouldn't know what to do because I'm Barbara Boyd. In fact, she says, I couldn't even say, well, this half is Barbara and this half is Boyd,

so I'll just bring this half in because I'm all Barbara and I'm all Boyd. And I'm both, so you either get me all, or you get neither of me. And then she turned around and she says, now, if you say, I would like the loving Jesus, I would like the helping Jesus, I would like the Jesus that I can ask to help me through the hard times,

but I don't want the Holy Jesus. I don't want the powerful Jesus, I don't want the powerful Jesus. I don't want the Jesus who is great. I said, you get no Jesus at all. She said, think about this for a minute. Say, some of you're gonna, if you've been around, you're gonna say, gosh, is this where he got these things from?

It's echoed ever since. She says, if the distance between the earth and the sun was the thickness of a piece of paper. If the 96 million miles from the earth and the sun was a thickness of a piece of paper. If the 96 million miles, when the earth and the sun was a thickness of a piece of paper, do you realize that the distance from the earth to the nearest star would be a stack of paper, 70 feet high? And just the diameter of our little galaxy

would be a stack of paper, 310 miles high. And our little galaxy is just a speck of the universe. And the Bible says that Jesus Christ holds, this is in Hebrews chapter one, Jesus Christ holds the universe together with the word of His power. She said, Jesus Christ holds the universe together with His pinky. And then she looked and she smiled and she said, do you ask somebody like that into your life to be your assistant. Now I want you to know that everybody comes to them to Jesus initially like Joshua. Everybody comes saying, I have an agenda.

Are you going to help me with it? I'll become a Christian if you help me with it. Everybody does that. Almost everybody starts to come to Christianity when you've got a problem. I got a problem. I got a problem. I just broke up with somebody. And I have self-esteem problems. I'm having a relationship problem.

I'm having financial problems. You come with a problem and you say, I need something. What do you mean? I need someone to help me. Live the life I already know I should live. I've got an agenda. I've got a campaign going here.

And I want to know, are you for me or against me? Everybody does this. And as long as you're doing that, you don't know who you're talking to. How do you ask somebody like this into your life as a...as your assistant? How do you come with conditions? Remember, there's two thieves on the cross and one of them we call the bad thief, the other one we call the good thief. And the first guy, the bad thief, said, if you're the son of God, get us down.

I'll believe in you, I've got an agenda, I would like to live, I would like to survive. Therefore, would you please help me? The other thief said, as long as you're with me, you see the first thief said, are you for me or against me? And you see, the second thing you've said, I realize the real question is not whether God's for me or against me, but whether I'm for or against God. You can't talk to God, the commander of the Lord hosts. You see, the general, the real general, I can't talk to God this way.

When you come and you say to God, I like to believe in you, Lord Jesus, but will you help me with my problems? Will you help me do this and that? Will you help me get through law school? Will you help me get to my goals? What Jesus says, that's the wrong question. The answer isn't yes or no, really. The answer is neither.

None, none of the above, none of the above. That's what he's saying. I don't like this multiple choice question, you see. None of the above, none of the above. That's what he's saying. I don't like this multiple choice question, see. None of the above. I said, the point is not whether I am going to before you against you, but whether you're going to be before or against me. In other words, if you come to me conditionally,

if you say, I'll obey you if. You haven't come to me at all. You haven't even come to grips with me. You don't even know who I am. And you see, when I listen to that Lordship talk and she said, you don't ask somebody like that in your life to be your assistant, you have, as soon as she said it during that,

she says, if you ever say to God, I'll obey you if. If you have any ifs, that means you're not obeying it all. That's where I got that from. She says, you're still master of your life. You're still Lord of your life. You're still Lord of your life. You're still trying to get him enlisted in your army. You're the general. He's the lieutenant.

And he comes and says, I either don't come in at all, or I come in as the general. And I remember that day, I walked out and I wept. She said to everybody, I'm sure you'll have some things to think about. And she says, just be silent for about a half an hour. Just walk around. I can still remember the place I stood.

I can still remember the rocks on the path. I still remember weeping, because I remember what happened was I realized I was saying to him, are you for me or against me? And I heard him say neither. I heard him say, hit the deck. I heard him say, take your shoes off. First time.

And I'm not sure. I'm not sure I was a Christian before that, no matter what. I'm not sure. And here's the last thing. He had a drawn sword. The Lord had a drawn sword. The reason that Joshua was pretty scared when he realized it was the Lord is no one can face the sword of the Lord.

Now, here of the Lord. Now here's the question, why didn't that sword come down on Joshua? Don't you know that in the book of Genesis, when God threw Adam and Eve out of the garden, it says, so the Lord banished him from the garden, and after he drove them out of the garden on the east side of Eden, he put a cherubim

and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way. He says that the wages are sin is death, and anybody who tries to get into the garden, anybody who tries to get into the presence of the holy, anybody who tries to get back into the bliss will have to face the sword. That's why when Moses said, I want to see your glory, God said, I'm sorry, you can't face the sword. It will kill you. Sinful people cannot relate to a holy God. And here's the question,

why didn't that sword come down on Joshua? The hint in Genesis 15, God said, Abraham, I'm gonna bless you. And Abraham says, you're gonna bless me. How do I know you'll do it? After all, I'm a sinful person. I'm afraid. And God said, cut a bunch of animals in half.

And he cut a bunch of animals in half. And in those days, the way you made a covenant, the way you made a promise, was you cut animals in half and walk between them. And said, if I don't obey, the words of this promise, may I be cut in half like these animals. May my bones be strewn into the desert. May the jackals eat my flesh,

and may the birds pick my bones. That's an old fashioned covenant. And when Abraham did that, he took a sword and he cut the animals in half and he sat down and it says, when it got dark, God appeared as a smoking fire and he passed between the pieces. And he said, if I do not do all the words of what I've told you, if I don't obey, if I don't bless you as I promised, may I be cut to pieces, may I go under the sword? Right before Jericho, they celebrate the Passover. Why? The little lamb goes under the sword, the blood goes on the doorposts.

What did it all represent? They took shelter under the blood of the lamb. The lamb went under the sword. What is it represent? This commander of the armies of the Lord with the drawn sword, you can meet why, because he takes the sword himself. Someday he comes in weakness, not in strength. Some day he takes the sword himself so that the sword of the Lord is now for you and not against you.

Now, don't you see what the solution is to courage? Do you know why you can be courageous? Jesus, God said, the reason these people are going to be thrown away out of Canaan. You're not going to come into the promised land. It's because you saw my miracles in the desert. You saw my miracles in Egypt and you won't believe in me now. Here's what he's saying. He says, you have forgotten the grace of God.

You have forgotten that I saved you as a miracle. And if you forget the miracle of grace, then you are going to be a coward. How do you deal with your cowardice? How do you deal with the things you're afraid of? Do you just say, be more courageous? Or do you think of what Jesus has done for you? And do you think of the miracle it is that you're a Christian?

And the miracle it is that you can stand before God. And if you can stand before God, what in the world are you afraid of? If you're afraid of anything, you're not thinking about what you've got through Jesus. The simple is that. The courage comes from understanding that. Have you come to grips with who he is? Don't you see that his love is no good if he's not holy? The Bible says, love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, but the cross shows

you. His going on of the sword shows you that he loves you with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind. And if the holy one loves you like that, if the most powerful person, if the power behind the universe loves you with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind, and you can see that on the cross, why are you afraid? Why are you ever afraid? Why are you ever afraid?

Be strong and courageous and list. If you're scared, it's because you're the general and you want him to be your lieutenant. If you want courage, see who he is and say, command me. Hear him say, neither, hit the dust. Take off your shoes, let's pray. We thank you, Father, that you've given us this insight into who you really are.

Let me, let me, Lord, remember better what you showed me that day, 26 years ago, and I pray that perhaps a few people tonight or soon will have that same experience. We all need it. We all need it several times. I pray that we might all come face to face with the one who has drawn the sword and has fallen on it. And therefore, we're safe. We can see you. We can come near. We can know

you face to face. Help us to apply this to our lives through your spirit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. We pray you were encouraged by it. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelandlife.com. That's gospelandlife.com. This month's sermons were recorded in 1996 and 2009.

The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.