Father in heaven, we ask as we come to another portion of Your Word, which on the face of it may seem uninspiring, yet we know Your Word teaches that all Scripture is breathed out by God so You have something for us. You may even surprise us this morning with how You mean to correct, rebuke, encourage, train us in righteousness. So we pray that You would give us ears to hear, for we know that if we leave this place unaffected, it will not be the fault of the Word, but it will be the fault of our hearts and our ears. So we pray that You would make us good soil. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Please turn in your Bibles to Joshua, chapter 16. We come to these two relatively short chapters, 16 and 17. Next week, perhaps mercifully, you think, we’ll be taking a break from land allotments during the Christmas season and we’ll start a three-week series from Matthew 1 and 2 which will take us up to Christmas, and then the week after Christmas, so a short, three-week Christmas series.
But this morning we are still in the book of Joshua. The first half of the book is entering the Promised Land, the conquest, the battles, and then the second half of the book we have the division of the land. Twelve tribes, each receiving their allotment. The word translated in the ESV is allotment. The King James uses the word “lot.” That is, it’s good to keep in mind, what is actually taking place, some sort of lot was drawn.
Now that’s not the way that God means for us normally to make decisions in life. We have the Holy Spirit, we have His Word now. But in the Old Testament often this is how God would determine things. So as best as we can figure, scholars think maybe there was some kind of urn and maybe stones, or some kind of objects, and one by one they were drawn out, the 12 tribes. Two and a half tribes already had received their inheritance on the eastern side of the Jordan under Moses and then nine and a half tribes now are receiving their inheritance in the Promised Land proper.
So we started with Judah and then we come to Joseph, which is divided into his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Follow along, Joshua chapter 16.
“The allotment of the people of Joseph went from the Jordan by Jericho, east of the waters of Jericho, into the wilderness, going up from Jericho into the hill country to Bethel. Then going from Bethel to Luz, it passes along to Ataroth, the territory of the Archites. Then it goes down westward to the territory of the Japhletites, as far as the territory of Lower Beth-horon, then to Gezer, and it ends at the sea.” That is the Great Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, in the west.
“The people of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, received their inheritance.”
So remember, Reuben, the firstborn, should have received the extra property, the extra blessing and the promise, but way back in Genesis he sinned by sleeping with his father’s concubine and so the promise has gone to Judah and the blessing of the inheritance has gone to Joseph and here to his two sons. So we started with Judah, and now to Ephraim and Manasseh.
“The people of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, received their inheritance.”
“The territory of the people of Ephraim by their clans was as follows: the boundary of their inheritance on the east was Ataroth-addar as far as Upper Beth-horon, and the boundary goes from there to the sea. On the north is Michmethath. Then on the east the boundary turns around toward Taanath-shiloh and passes along beyond it on the east to Janoah, then it goes down from Janoah to Ataroth and to Naarah, and touches Jericho, ending at the Jordan. From Tappuah the boundary goes westward to the brook Kanah and ends at the sea. Such is the inheritance of the tribe of the people of Ephraim by their clans, together with the towns that were set apart for the people of Ephraim within the inheritance of the Manassites, all those towns with their villages. However, they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites have lived in the midst of Ephraim to this day but have been made to do forced labor.”
“Then allotment was made to the people of Manasseh, for he was the firstborn of Joseph. To Machir the firstborn of Manasseh, the father of Gilead, were allotted Gilead and Bashan, because he was a man of war. And allotments were made to the rest of the people of Manasseh by their clans, Abiezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher, and Shemida. These were the male descendants of Manasseh the son of Joseph, by their clans.”
“Now Zelophehad the son of Hepher, son of Gilead, son of Machir, son of Manasseh, had no sons, but only daughters, and these are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. They approached Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the leaders and said, “The Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance along with our brothers.” So according to the mouth of the Lord he gave them an inheritance among the brothers of their father. Thus there fell to Manasseh ten portions, besides the land of Gilead and Bashan, which is on the other side of the Jordan, because the daughters of Manasseh received an inheritance along with his sons. The land of Gilead was allotted to the rest of the people of Manasseh.”
Now just remember here these famous daughters of Zelophehad, these five daughters. We have their story in the book of Numbers, that their father Zelophehad had no sons and so they come forward to Moses, quite boldly, full of faith, and say some day we are going to be in the Promised Land and when we get to the Promised Land, it would not be fair for our father’s inheritance to be swallowed up and so can the daughters, this was not the way you did things normally in the ancient world, can the daughters inherit the land? Moses consults and the Lord says, yes, the daughters shall inherit the land so long as they marry within their tribe of Manasseh so that their father’s inheritance does not go as they marry with another tribe to some other tribe.
It’s worth noting that any time so far we have had a woman or females named in this book, they have been examples of great faith. Rahab, of course, in Jericho in chapter 2. Then as we saw Caleb’s daughter Achsah, she also is tenaciously holding to the promise, asking for more from the Lord’s hand. Then being reminded here of the daughters of Zelophehad. Every time we’ve had some named female character in this book it’s to say, “Look at them as an example of holding onto God in faith.”
Verse 7.
“The territory of Manasseh reached from Asher to Michmethath, which is east of Shechem. Then the boundary goes along southward to the inhabitants of En-tappuah. The land of Tappuah belonged to Manasseh, but the town of Tappuah on the boundary of Manasseh belonged to the people of Ephraim. Then the boundary went down to the brook Kanah. These cities, to the south of the brook, among the cities of Manasseh, belong to Ephraim. Then the boundary of Manasseh goes on the north side of the brook and ends at the sea, the land to the south being Ephraim’s and that to the north being Manasseh’s, with the sea forming its boundary. On the north Asher is reached, and on the east Issachar.”
These are other tribes.
“Also in Issachar and in Asher Manasseh had Beth-shean and its villages, and Ibleam and its villages, and the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, and the inhabitants of En-dor and its villages, and the inhabitants of Taanach and its villages, and the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; the third is Naphath. Yet the people of Manasseh could not take possession of those cities, but the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. Now when the people of Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not utterly drive them out.”
“Then the people of Joseph spoke to Joshua, saying, “Why have you given me but one lot and one portion as an inheritance, although I am a numerous people, since all along the Lord has blessed me?” And Joshua said to them, “If you are a numerous people, go up by yourselves to the forest, and there clear ground for yourselves in the land of the Perizzites and the Rephaim, since the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for you.” The people of Joseph said, “The hill country is not enough for us. Yet all the Canaanites who dwell in the plain have chariots of iron, both those in Beth-shean and its villages and those in the Valley of Jezreel.” Then Joshua said to the house of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh, “You are a numerous people and have great power. You shall not have one allotment only, but the hill country shall be yours, for though it is a forest, you shall clear it and possess it to its farthest borders. For you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.””
What is this sermon going to be about, you wonder. It’s going to sneak up on you what God has to say in this sermon. Let me tell you up front what this sermon is about. The point of this message and I trust the point of these two chapters, is captured wonderfully from this paragraph from C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity.
Listen to it: “Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest act of good today is the capture of a strategic point from which a few months later you may be able to go onto victories you never dreamed of. And an apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.”
Well put, as you would expect from C.S. Lewis. The smallest acts of good and evil in your life increase, and notice he uses two metaphors. First he uses a financial one, they increase with compound interest. Now some of you, this is your life, so hopefully I explain this in layman’s terms correctly. Compound interest is interest upon interest. Now this is good news if you’re talking about an investment because it means that as your investment put away in some kind of investment vehicle makes money, that return then its interest then accrues to the principal plus the new interest and then it gets more interest. It’s interest upon interest. Compound interest. That is very good if it’s talking about money that you have invested.
It also means it’s bad news if it’s talking about money that you owe on a loan that accumulates interest monthly or yearly so that you owe $10,000 but then you owe $11,000 and $12,000, and if you don’t pay down the principal on that mortgage or on that credit card, then it continues to multiply interest upon interest. It means if you just think about it as a graph here that with compound interest, whether an investment or a loan, it doesn’t just go in some kind of straight line like this but it goes with one of these big hockey stick curves, that for a time it may look fairly shallow but as the compound interest grows and grows, then pretty soon after 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, it is shooting almost straight up vertically into the sky.
Which is why everyone who cares about your financial portfolio is going to tell you on the one hand invest money when you’re very young, early put some money away, it’s going to multiply, and it will be worth a lot more than you think 30 years from now.
Likewise, they will tell you debt is not good. Debt is bad. I didn’t need to have any special seminar to know that. Compound interest especially.
C.S. Lewis says your good deeds and your bad deeds. They don’t just go in a straight line, but they accrue so that every time you choose to do what is good, the next time it’s a little easier to do what is good, and that months and years from now the accumulation of those small decisions of good, of virtue, of obedience, can allow you to have victories and a character you never thought possible and it is the same in the opposite direction. Every time you choose to do what is wrong, it becomes easier to do the wrong thing. Sin is never satisfied with a little sin; it wants bigger and bigger sins. Compound interest.
The other analogy he uses in that paragraph, you notice, is a military one. Military strategy would tell you that, for example, if you could gain the high ground it would put you in a position for military victory and if you cede the high ground, you are in a position no matter how strong your forces may be, you are in a position of vulnerability.
The most famous example in our country’s history may be the Battle of Gettysburg when the Union forces took Cemetery Hill, took the ridge there, took the high rocky ground going up to famously Little Round Top. If you’ve ever read the book Killer Angels or you’ve seen the Gettysburg movie, they depict this very dramatically with the Union soldiers. We won’t say who we were rooting for in that, but we’re just all living with it now as the Union soldiers look and they see, “We gotta get up on that hill. We gotta take that ridge.”
Military historians, of course, always debate these things and how essential was it, and yet you can make a very good case that because on the first day of the battle the Union soldiers were able to take the high ground, that it meant they were able to withstand the valorous Confederate attack up the slopes, and because of the high ground they won that battle, and because they won that battle, you can make the case that they won the war.
So, well, all right, thank you, Nate.
In that military strategy, C.S. Lewis tells us that when you in a seemingly small moment look upon that hill and say, “We must take that ridge,” when it seems but a small thing from that position, you can then win great victories or if you give up that position, you have set yourself up to great catastrophic defeats.
This is the story of Joshua 15, 16, and 17. Let me show you what I mean. There are three examples of increasing failure on the part of the tribes of Israel.
Go back to the very end of chapter 15. Remember when we looked at that and I said the very last verse is an ominous little postscript. You see verse 63. After all of these good things Caleb has set forth in chapter 14, he’s the example of what you’re supposed to do in the Promised Land, you’re supposed to say, “Give me Hebron, I will take that hill. I will drive out the giants. The Lord will be with me. I can do it.” He’s the example.
And Judah has all of these cities, all of these villages, but there’s this one ominous postscript in verse 63: “But the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people of Judah could not drive out. So the Jebusites dwell with the people of Judah at Jerusalem to this day.”
So the very first tribe, Judah, ends on that somber note, and yet there was one city, the city of Jerusalem, that the Jebusites maintained and could not drive them out.
Now look at verse 10 of chapter 16. So that’s with Judah, then we come to Ephraim. At the end of Ephraim’s allotment, we have a similar statement, verse 10: “However, they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites have lived in the midst of Ephraim to this day but have been made to do forced labor.”
So we have one note of failure with Judah at the end of chapter 15. Here is the second note of failure with the second tribe, Ephraim, and then, yes, we have the same thing with Manasseh. Look at chapter 17, verse 12: “Yet the people of Manasseh could not take possession of those cities, but the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land.”
Now notice not only do each of the first three tribes end with a similar refrain, but each one has gotten a little bit worse. So with Judah it’s a city, the city of Jerusalem, Jebus, could not get rid of the Jebusites. Then with Ephraim again it’s a city, Gezer. But did you notice by the time you get to Manasseh, it says, “They could not take possession of those cities.” Plural. All of the cities that were listed before. So it’s not just one city, it’s many cities.
Notice also, I don’t think this is reading too much into the text, to notice the different way in which this failure is described. Back in verse 63, chapter 15, it says, “The people of Judah could not drive out.” Could not. The implication there is it sure sounds like they tried, they put in effort, they couldn’t do it. They just, it was too much for them. They couldn’t see how it could be accomplished. They failed in this regard. They could not do it. They had inability to do it.
Then look when we come to Ephraim, chapter 16 verse 10. It simply says “they did not drive out.” Judah could not; Ephraim did not. We’re not given any indication that they put in effort. We don’t know what they did exactly, but instead of saying “they could not,” it simply says “they did not.”
Then when we come to Manasseh, it’s even worse. Look at verse 13 of chapter 17: “Now when the people of Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not utterly drive them out.”
Now you might think, we’ll, that’s a little bit better. At least they put them to forced labor. But no, that’s not the case. You see what this means? Judah could not do it. They just couldn’t get that one last city. Ephraim did not do it. Manasseh, now many cities, and at first it says, well, they couldn’t do it, but then that verse tells us there was a time when they were strong. They couldn’t use it as an excuse, “Well, we’re just too weak, we’re unable. We gave it our best shot.” No, they were strong enough to drive them out, just like with Ephraim they also put them to forced labor. So they could have.
Manasseh had the strength and yet they settled for halfway obedience, which any parent will tell you, mmm, is not real obedience. Halfway obedience. They had the strength to do something and they did not do it. They got there and said, “Okay, now that we’re strong, what do we do with all these people in these cities? Well, put them to forced labor.” They were supposed to put them to death, or they were supposed to drive them out of their cities, but they settled for halfway measures.
Then to make matters worse, look at that last paragraph, verses 14 through 18. The people of Joseph grumble. Now they do it like many of us would do, with a veneer of piety. Look at what they say, verse 14: “Why have you given me but one lot?” So in one sense Joseph had just one lot, but it was divided among the two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. They say, “One portion as an inheritance, although I am a numerous people.” Then here’s the pious language: “All along the Lord has blessed me.”
They come, “Hey, Josh, I mean, God’s been so good to us, #blessed. We are just… But notice, I mean, there’s a lot of us. Praise God, He’s just given us so many people, but we’re so blessed, Joshua, that we can’t fit in this land. It’s just not enough for us. We need some more.”
And you notice what Joshua says to them? “If you are a numerous people.” Joshua, I imagine, is about to lose his patience with Ephraim and Manasseh. Now remember, Joshua we’re told back in Numbers, he is from the tribe of Ephraim. This is his family. These are his people. So they say, “We are too numerous, we’re blessed, we can’t live in this little part of the land.” Joshua says, “Okay, if you are so numerous, you’re right. You’re a real blessed people. Then here’s what I want you to do,” verse 15, “go up by yourselves to the forest and clear it out.”
It does sound a little bit like a parent who’s just kind of at a loss. “I don’t have anything to eat.” “Do you have feet? Do you have hands? Do you know what bread looks like? Can you put something in the middle and fold two pieces together? You can do it.”
Now, that’s not good parenting attitude, but…
Joshua says, “Go.” Now notice what they say. Again they make another excuse. The people of Joseph, verse 16, the hill country is not enough, and then here’s a second excuse, the Canaanites in the plain, they’ve got big tanks, chariots of iron. They’ve got the military technology. We can’t do them.
So again Joshua says in verse 17, “Look, you’re numerous, you have great power. You can do it. The hill country can be yours. The forest you can clear it. You can go drive out. Yeah, they’ve got chariots of iron, they’re strong, but God is with you and you can be stronger.”
Disobedience here is linked to ingratitude. Thanksgiving is not just a holiday that we ought to have once a year. When you have an ungrateful heart, you are already well on your way to a disobedient heart. Joshua tells them, “Get to the hills, get the land for yourselves,” and they don’t think they can do it.
Now this seems like just a small ordeal, that Joseph’s tribes are just saying, “Ah, it’s kind of hard.” But think of what they’re doing. One – they’re questioning God’s wisdom. I don’t know. God didn’t know what He was doing with this allotment. He didn’t give us enough. He didn’t know what He was doing with the family He gave me, with the house He gave me. So God’s wisdom they question. God’s goodness. He’s not doing right by us. God’s veracity, that is, His trustworthiness. And they’re questioning ultimately God’s power. We can’t go get these chariots of iron. It doesn’t matter if God’s with us. We can’t do it. Joshua, you need to take care of it.
Notice what happens. This often goes together. An ungrateful heart and a passive person. It would be one thing if it was sort of grumble, grumble, complain, and then it motivated them to go out and do something and conquer the land, but it doesn’t. Instead, grumble, grumble, complain, passivity.
Joshua must have been losing his patience because God had told them so many times. Deuteronomy 7, for example – You shall not be in dread of them for the Lord your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God. The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. God had told them so many times, “I’m with you. I’ll do this.”
This is the opposite of Caleb’s request. We’re meant to see that this is the foil. Caleb, good example; the tribes of Joseph, bad example. Now on the face of it they may seem the same, They’re both asking for more. But Caleb’s request is one of faith. Caleb says, “Give me that hill. Give me Hebron or I die. I can get the Anakim. God is with me. We’ll defeat the giants.” He makes a bold request, but it’s a request of action and faith.
Here the tribes of Joseph, their request is one of passivity and complaint. They don’t like the lot that they have received so they complain and then they’re passive. These two traits that usually go together. Many, many times already the Lord had told them, “When I give you the land, don’t let the peoples stay there in your midst. They will lead you astray. You will compromise. You will become like them. So you must drive them out completely.”
We’ve seen this in Exodus 23, in Exodus 34, or listen to Deuteronomy chapter 7: “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, clears away before you many nations, more numerous and mightier than you…” So God already said, “Yeah, they’re mighty, they’re strong…” “And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them, show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for,” here’s the reason, “they would turn away your sons from following Me to serve other gods and the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you and He would destroy you quickly.”
The analogy for us is not so much living in the United States of America, because we are a pilgrim people, strangers and aliens, but it is to think about the Church, why the Church has walls, why the Church has membership, why the Church has discipline, why the Church is to be a pure people. Now part of that is a forgiven people, a penitent people, but a people walking in faith and obedience.
But here, time after time, each tribe considers lightly what the Lord had told them. Look what happens with Judah, with Manasseh, with Ephraim. Just turn to one more passage. Go to the next book of the Bible, Judges. Now if you know Judges, you know Judges is where everything goes wrong. That they did what was right in their own eyes.
Well, here in Joshua, which is largely a book where things go right, they have great military victories, they inherit the land, the massive failure in Judges, that tree which bore such bad fruit, was starting back here at the very division of the land as they sowed these tiny seeds of compromise.
So look at Judges chapter 1, verse 21. Now here it refers to Benjamin because this Jerusalem was overlapped Judah and Benjamin: “but the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem, so the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin to this day.” That’s what we saw in Joshua.
Or go to verse 29: “And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.”
Or just before that: “Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants and when they grew strong, they only put the Canaanites to forced labor.” Verse 28. It’s exactly what we’ve seen. Ephraim, Manasseh, Judah.
Now look what continues. Verse 30 – Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants. 31 – Asher did not drive out the inhabitants. 33 – Naphtali didn’t do it. 34 – the Amorites pressed the people of Dan.
This epidemic of disobedience has spread throughout all the tribes, one after another. They did not drive out the people. These seeds, tiny seeds, of laxity and lethargy that would in time yield the massive fruits of pain and disobedience. Notice those words I said there, laxity and lethargy. It wasn’t like we have record here that the tribes woke up one day and said, “You know what? Today’s a day for disobedience. Today’s a day we thumb our nose at God.” No, they simply gave up and stopped doing the right thing. That laxity, that lethargy, would eventually lead to their captivity.
Now it would take hundreds of years, but this was the formula. Small compromise plus lots of time equals destruction.
Same thing in your life. Small compromises which on the day that you make them feel like nothing. In fact, they may feel good, sort of made life easier on that day, gave you a little bit of spark, helped you get along with somebody better, gave you a little something to look forward to. Small little compromises plus time eventually yields destruction.
So look at Judges chapter 2, this very somber, sobering word in verse 11. Judges 2:11 – “And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.”
This has turned just like [sound effect] on a dime, it seems. From Joshua in Joshua 24, “Choose who you will serve” and Joshua says, “Me and my household will serve the Lord,” and it’s mainly a book of good things and getting the land, but these little seeds already bearing nasty fruit. Verse 12 – “They abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them and bowed down to them and they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord, served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord,” this is just what He had promised would happen, “was kindled against Israel and He gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them, and He sold them into the hand of the surrendering enemies so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm as the Lord had warned and as the Lord had sworn to them,” and then note this very last sentence, and maybe this describes some of you this morning, “and they were in terrible distress.”
Now we know from the book of Job bad things happen to good people. So it’s not for all of you to equate any trial in your life with the Lord’s discipline, and yet linger here on this sentence: “And they were in terrible distress.”
Sin makes messes. Sin entangles. Sin destroys. Sin makes your life complicated. You see what’s happened already by Judges 2. The tapestry of blessing, which the Lord had been so masterfully weaving together, this beautiful tapestry of blessing, from the plagues to leaving Egypt to the Red Sea to entering through the Jordan, inheriting the land, this tapestry of blessing, which they had long waited for, just one little thread here and another thread there, and that tapestry began to unravel as soon as they were already in the land.
Perhaps if you are here this morning in terrible distress, with your life, with your finances, with your relationships, with your marriage, with your kids, with your parents, with your grades, you’re in terrible distress, might it be because you thought that halfway measures with God were enough? That halfway to holiness was enough? Halfway obedience would be sufficient? That the little compromises in your life would never catch up to you?
Well, they did for Judah and Ephraim and Manasseh, and all of the tribes. What seemed at the time just wee little sins.
Remember what Jesus said? If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Not literal physical violence to yourself, but it’s a violent picture of the violence we’re supposed to take toward sin.
Sometimes I’ve talked with people struggling with, say pornography, say, “Well, I think you need to get rid of your smartphone.” “Well, obviously, I can’t do that.” “Why? Maybe you need to get a computer out of your house.” “Well, I can’t do that.” “Really? No other way? You can’t rent an office space? You can’t just get some space where you have an old-fashioned, massive tower computer that you can’t bring home with you and you’ve got a monitor and you’ve got to go there in some public place to work? You can’t do it? There’s no way?”
If you went to a doctor and the doctor said, “I have some very sobering news for you, parents. Your child has cancer. Chemo won’t work. Surgery won’t work. Radiation won’t work. There’s only one thing that will cure this cancer. You need to stop looking at pornography.” Or you need to stop your gambling addiction. Or you need to stop destroying all your relationships. Or you need to stop with the bitterness in your heart. If a doctor said that to you, you would find a way.
You’d say, “You’re telling me the one thing I have to do for my little girl, for her life to be spared,” you would spare no expense. You’d say, “What do I have to do so she lives? Do I have to get a new job? Do I have to live in a different place? Do I have to get rid of my phone, my computer? Do I have to reorient my whole schedule? Whatever it takes. Do I have to have 12 accountability partners? I will do something because I want her to live.”
Do you want to live? Spiritually live, because Jesus says it is better to go to heaven without an eye, without an arm, than to go with all your eyes and all your arms into hell.
We need to keep doing the right thing. Not just make it out of Egypt. Maybe that’s what the tribes were thinking. Not just enter the land, but drive out the inhabitants of the land. God had redeemed them, He had made them a people. The question now was whether they would live over the long haul as a faithful people.
Let me give you one other paragraph from Lewis. Different chapter in Mere Christianity, same idea. He says: “Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole with all your innumerable choices, all your life long, you are slowly turning into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature. Either into a creature that is in harmony with God, with other creatures, with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God and with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power; to be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to one state or the other.”
Which means that today matters. Your ordinary, mundane life of days and weeks and months that feel like the same thing, same taking care of kids, the same job, the same responsibilities, many of the same routines, all of those choices and decisions matter. Making the right decision always matters. Not only because God sees it, that’s most important, we don’t want to dishonor God, but Lewis points out this other reality – because with every decision you make you’re becoming a person that looks more heavenly or looks more hellish. There is no staying in one place. There is no just saying, “I’m content, I’m sort of a moderately decent person. I’m moderately obedient. I look a little like a Christ.” You’re either being transformed from one degree of glory to the next, or you’re not.
Hard things left undone do not get easier, they get harder.
Like at the Battle of Gettysburg. If you say, well, let’s get the high ground on the second day of the battle – too late. So any of you thinking you’ll get serious about God later, well, one, you don’t know if you have any “later.” Two, that’s presuming that good and evil does not grow at compound interest, but it does. And for you who think now is the time where I sow these seeds to do what I want, to live the kind of life that I want, I’m tired, I’m so tired of church, I’m so tired of my parents, I’m so tired of this Christianity thing, I’m tired of all of these rules, all of this __, I’ll get to it later.
Yeah, later, when those decisions have compounded one after another, and you’ve sown the seeds of compromise and you find yourself in terrible distress.
Now, cannot leave you there, because the prophets in the Old Testament mercifully do not leave God’s people there. Yes, it is the story. It is a sad story from compromise to captivity. But all along the way there is a constant call of the prophets. In fact, this is what the prophetic message is in miniature, over and over again, the prophets tell God’s people, “Turn. Come back. Repent. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Joel 2 – Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning. Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relents over disaster.
Over and over again, as that compromise bore fruit and was marching seemingly, inexorably to final destruction, the prophets came along and said, “If you would but turn, just turn.” They don’t even say, “If you would live a perfect life. If you would show for a year that your…” No, if you would just turn.
You know when you’re a kid and you play this game, or maybe you play it with your kids or grandkids, and you play Hotter/Colder and you have something hidden in the house, some great treasure, some candy, some toy, or your just torturing your siblings and so you’ve hidden it from them, but you have some treasure that’s hidden. You say you’ve got to find it and they come into the room and if they’re getting farther away, cold, colder, colder, colder, North Pole, polar bear, stop. And everyone in the room is screaming at you. They’re telling you, “You are going in the wrong direction.” That’s the prophets. Cold, colder, coldest, Antarctica.
What happens if you’re going over here and the buried treasure hidden under the couch cushions is way over there? All you have to do is stop going in the wrong direction and ever so slightly turn, and everyone who’s been yelling at you, cold, colder, coldest, suddenly says warm, warmer, warmer, hot, the sun, Alpha Centauri, just blazing. All you have to do is turn and the voices, the divine voice now celebrates.
What have you done? You may be three rooms away from the treasure, but the voices change because you’ve now faced the right direction. That’s what the prophets were calling for. That’s what God is calling for in your life. God would so celebrate over you to simply move from cold, colder, coldest, warm. You think this is why Jesus said there’s more rejoicing in heaven when one sinner repents? Why? Because that sinner who was cold, colder, coldest, North Pole… Warm. They’re facing the right direction. They’re going in the right way.
Have you ever noticed the last words of the Old Testament from the prophet Malachi? Remember that God had told the people you need to haram is the Hebrew word, ban, you need to complete, devote the people to complete destruction, get them out of the land. Here’s what the last words of the Old Testament say: ““Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will,” notice this word, “he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.””
See, God says that ban, that utter destruction that you were supposed to do to the people in the land but you didn’t and you sowed the seeds of compromise, and it so grew in this bitter fruit that I ought to destroy you because you have become like the pagan nations and so you should suffer the same fate as those pagan people, yet there is this word of hope – before that great day comes, when not another prophet but the Lord Himself will visit His people, God’s own Son would come. He said, “I will send Elijah,” we know to be John the Baptist who came in the spirit of Elijah. What was his overwhelming, resounding message? Repent. Just like the prophets of old. Turn. Turn. It doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to face complete destruction. You don’t have to be in terrible distress. Cold, cold, cold. Warmer.
You know what Malachi says just a few verses before those final words? He gives that great messianic promise – The sun of righteousness, s-u-n, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, the ultimate warm, warmer, hot, hottest. To bow before that sun of righteousness, the One who can melt hard hearts, the One who will turn your heart if you would face Him, you would acknowledge your sin, you would call out to Christ, and He would with great outstretched arms say, “You, my friend, are warm, getting warmer.”
Father in heaven, we pray that You would do this work in the lives of Your people, every man, woman, and child here, any who is wandering far from You. Maybe they’re the only ones who know it. Maybe they came in here and they didn’t even know it about themselves. Cause them to turn, set them free from their terrible distress, that they might know the living and true God, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.