Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: The Greatest Love Story

As mentioned in the previous post, we are bringing this series on the book of Joshua to an end with the sermon on Jos. 24 in this post. I hope you have enjoyed this book and learning about living the Christian life as much as I have. I hope God has used it to bless your soul as much as He has used it to bless mine.

To introduce this sermon, let's review ever-so-briefly: This book shows us the Kingdom of God spreading physically into the land of Canaan as the people follow Joshua and Joshua follows God in the conquest of the Promised Land. And, again, as we have said almost every week as we have gone through this book, they had to fight by faith in God who truly fights for them. Well, in a similar way, our lives are mirrored but spiritually; not physically. Today, we’re following Jesus—the Commander of the Lord’s army to whom Joshua points us—we’re following Him as He spreads the Kingdom spiritually in our hearts and throughout the world. Yes, for us it’s spiritual and our enemies are not literal people like they were for Joshua and the Israelites, but our battles are no less real. And, their battles, just like ours, rested on spiritual principles—fighting by faith—and those principles are the same throughout space and time. So, we’ve learned a lot so far about faith and living by faith from this book as we’ve worked our way through it, and here the story of this book ends with God’s people coming together before God one more time to renew the covenant. And, this covenant renewal shows us the greatest love story of all time—a love story that not only draws us to Jesus but motivates and compels us to live for Him.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it and this whole series to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Recounting the History of God's Grace

Well, we have made it through the book of Joshua. This Sunday, the sermon posted will look at the final chapter and see how God and Joshua end this wonderful book that teaches us how to fight the good fight of the faith.

In the previous sermon, we saw Joshua's final words to the leaders of Israel that teach them about living by faith. In this final chapter of the book, Joshua leads the people in renewing the covenant with God, which is an act of rededicating themselves to His service before Joshua passes into glory and they are on their own. The way the covenant renewal ceremony is laid out in this passage is very similar to the covenants of the other peoples of the ancient near east surrounding Israel. God chose to make His covenants with them in a way that would be familiar to them (in and of itself and act of grace!).

The ceremonies generally opened with a preamble where the parties making the covenant introduce themselves, and then they go on to a "historical prologue" where the history of the relationship between the parties is recounted (i.e. everything that is leading up to the covenant ceremony). The covenant renewal ceremony in Jos. 24 follows that pattern, and it is the historical prologue that I want to focus on for this devotional. We will talk about it a little Sunday, but we will not be able to go into detail there. So, here are a few theological highlights from the recounting of the history of God and His people to this point (reading Jos. 24:1-13 first would be helpful):

• Unconditional Election: Joshua starts out by reminding them that God took Abraham from Ur while Abraham was still a pagan. And, Abraham was chosen; not his brother Nahor, yet Abraham deserved it no more than Nahor. Abraham was no saint when God found him. He was plunged into pagan worship probably just as much as the Canaanites. Abraham did not become a believer because he was somehow inherently better than his father or brother. Abraham did not deserve it any more than anyone else. No, it was because God "took" him and "led" him. God loved Abraham when he deserved only wrath. The fact that Israel exists at all is simply an act of God's free grace and unconditional election. And, this is consistent with the rest of Scripture. The Bible constantly reminds us of who we were, but it is not to bring us to despair but to show us the incredible grace of God. Francis Schaeffer once wrote:

Whether studying the Old Testament or the New, we are reminded that we are not where we are because of a long, wise, and godly heritage. We come from rebellion. Individually, we are children of wrath. After we are Christians, we must look at others who are still under God's wrath and always say, "I am essentially what you are. If I am in a different place, it is not because I am intrinsically better than you, but simply because God has done something in my life." There is no place for pride.

• Slow growth: Joshua tells us that God multiplied Abraham's seed, but it was really, really slow. He only gave him Isaac. Isaac only had two sons, one of which would not produce people of God (i.e. Esau). Finally, with Jacob's twelve sons, things start to speed up. So, we see from this that God does what He promises, but sometimes it is so gradual that we do not notice until it has been going on for a long time. We need to keep this in mind and walk by faith; not by sight. As one commentator says, "We easily lose sight of what Yahweh has done by demanding too much too soon."
• Rough spots: Joshua also points out that Esau and his people (not God's people) get their inheritance right away but Jacob and his sons (God's people!) go to Egypt and become slaves. What? Why do the covenant people get slavery while the others get their land? Sometimes history seems to conflict with God's design, which is, again, why we have to walk by faith and not by sight. God always accomplishes His design, but sometimes it is not at all when we would expect it (cf. e.g. He. 11:32-38). The Scriptures are realistic about this and do not hide the "rough spots" from us, and that shows God is honest, realistic, and always faithful. God showing us the "rough spots" and confusing parts of history is not to make us relish the difficult aspects of the life to which He has called His people but to show us that He is faithful to hold us in and bring us through the "rough spots."
• God's power: In vv. 5-12, Joshua recounts God's incredible power to deliver His people from Egypt (the greatest power in the world at the time), conquer the kings east of the Jordan, and conquer the Promised Land. Joshua sums it up with telling the people that it was not by their sword or bow that all this was accomplished but by God's mighty power. Time and time again God's people are outnumbered, outgunned, or even completely helpless, and God fights for them by His mighty power. This shows us what Jonah learned in Jon. 2:9: Salvation is of the LORD. Paul also tells us this in 2 Co. 4:7. This is not to say that we just "let go and let God," for God uses our struggles, as we fight by faith, but it does show us that our struggles would be nothing, useless, futile without God's mighty power. (We will talk more about this in the upcoming sermon.)
• God's provision: If we look at vv. 7, 13, Joshua shows us God's provision in necessity and abundance, but also note that His provision is the basic stuff: manna, grain, towns, houses. It, with the exception of the manna, is ordinary stuff that we take for granted every day, but it is all of God's grace. God always provides for His people, but we need to remember too that God isn't some kind of genie that just grants our wishes. He gives us our needs; not necessarily our desires. And, most often He does it through the normal, ordinary means of a job, a family, etc.

You see, Joshua does not recount their history just to show them their past but to show them the great God whom they serve. That is the basis for the rest of the covenant renewal ceremony, which we will talk more about on Sunday. Until then, think about your own history, and I bet if you think long and hard enough, you could find some very similar displays of God's grace, faithfulness, power, and provision even during the rought spots, and if you do that, it will refresh your soul.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Living by Faith

In the previous post, we talked about calling in the Christian life and how God has called the vast majority of Christians to ordinary but faithful lives that glorify Him and bring them joy. In today's sermon, we are going to look at Jos. 23, which addresses a similar topic: living this Christian life by faith. Really, this has been the topic of this whole series: fighting the good fight of the faith, but in this chapter, Joshua sums up living by faith for us really, really well.

Have you ever thought about what you want your final words to be? We probably don’t think about that often, if at all, because that means thinking about our death, which we don’t like to do. But, in order to die well, perhaps we should. The Puritan, Edmund Barker, summed up the Christian life by saying, “Every Christian hath two great works to do in the world: to live well and to die well.” Our last words in this world before we cross over the Jordan River Jesus has parted for us are our greatest and final opportunity to glorify God by impressing upon those around us what’s most important in this life. Moses’ final words, for example, encouraged God’s people in His promises, “Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph! Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread upon their backs.” Right before he died, Moses reminded the Israelites that they had been redeemed by God and God would fight for them as they entered the Promised Land.

In our passage, we have Joshua’s final words to the leadership in Israel. They’re not technically his final words before he died, for in ch. 24, he will lead the whole nation in renewing the covenant with God, but they are his final exhortations to the leadership that will succeed him—his last opportunity to impress upon them what’s most important. In fact, this passage is very similar to Paul’s final words to the Ephesian elders before he left for Jerusalem or the book of 2 Timothy—his final words to Timothy before he died. Just as Paul told the elders in Ephesus and Timothy what’s most important in leading the church, so Joshua here tells the elders, heads, judges, and officers of Israel what’s most important in finishing the settling of the Promised Land and establishing the Kingdom of Israel. And, what’s so amazing about Joshua’s final words (as well as Paul’s), is that they aren’t what we might expect at all.

Joshua was a military general who’d been leading God’s people in the conquest of the land of Canaan for years, and yet his final words weren’t about military strategy or leadership skills, as we might expect. They’re about remaining faithful to God and warnings of temptation. So also, Paul was the greatest church-planter of all time, but his final words to the Ephesian elders or Timothy weren’t about church-growth strategies or theories of church leadership, as we might expect. They too were about remaining faithful to God and warnings of temptation. This, I think, should surprise us, yet it should also show us what’s truly most important for God’s people, whether they’re trying to finish settling the Promised Land by faith—like the Israelites—or simply to live faithfully in everyday life in a hostile culture like all of us. For the Israelites, the most important thing wasn’t military strategy, and for us, the most important thing isn’t appeal in the eyes of the world or culture. It’s maintaining a healthy relationship with the Lord—living by faith in God.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Fighting in Ordinary Life

As we have gone through to book of Joshua, we have been talking about living this Christian life and fighting the battles of this life--fighting the good fight of the faith (1 Ti. 6:12). And, while this book has given us a lot of great teaching from God on the Christian life, it certainly cannot cover it exhaustively. One particular part of this Christian life that we have not addressed because it does not come out of the text of Joshua is vocation--our calling in this life; what God would have us do as our career in this world. But, in God's providence, He has had Ed Stetzer of Christianity Today start a two-part series on it called: "Jesus on the Job: How Faith Mixes With Work." Part 1 is up, and it is a great start. I would particularly recommend you watch the video at the bottom. It is about six minutes, and it is a great, short explanation of how God calls His people to all sorts of vocations in this world and all are equally valuable, necessary, and dignified for the people of God. (Edit: Since I wrote this devotional as an email to my church, the second part of the series was posted.)

The article and the video are a good counter and cure for bad theologies that are being spread through the Church these days--theologies that say if do not do something "radical" or "missional" for God, then what we do is not honoring to God; is not good enough. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of God's people are called to glorify Him through ordinary, mundane, faithful lives, and this pleases God far more than chasing a new, radical legalism. One quick example: read the book of Ephesians through in one sitting some time, and I think you will notice this. The first three chapters are an incredible, God-exalting exposition of the supremacy of Christ, the glories of God's eternal plan of redemption, and how Jesus came into this world to redeem a people for Himself. It is an amazing and glorious exposition of God's grace that is difficult to rival, even in the rest of inspired Scripture. After that, in chs. 4-6, Paul tells us how to respond as God's redeemed people. After telling us of the incredible, radical grace of God, if Paul were a modern preacher, he might have told us that this means we all need to give all our money away, become missionaries, go to seminary, or do something like that.

But, no. What does Paul say under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? What does he tell us to do after giving an imcomparable exposition of God's amazing grace? He tells us to live with one another in patience (4:2), to grow in Christ (4:13-22), to work hard (4:28), to watch our speech (4:29-5:4), to be kind to each other (4:28), to be sexually pure (5:3-7), to walk in light (5:7-17), not to get drunk (5:18), to give thanks together (5:20), to worship together (5:19), to model our marriages after Christ and the Church (5:22ff), to love our children (6:4), children to obey their parents (6:1-3), employees to work hard for their employers (6:5-9), and to fight against the attacks of the devil (6:10-20). Huh... that sounds like an ordinary Christian life to me.

It sounds like living the Christian life for the glory of God in whatever He has called us to do in this world, and it sounds like whatever that is, we can glorify God in it by striving to be Christlike at home, at work, and at church. It sounds like what Paul says to Timothy later on in 1 Ti. 2, where he tells Timothy to pray for leaders and government, and the result of that prayer is that Christians might "lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." That is not really "radical" or "missional" according to these new theologies being taught today. In fact, it is quite ordinary, but it is God-glorifying and what God calls us to as His people in this world.

For some more resources on living a God-glorifying life in whatever vocation/work He has called you to do without creating a new legalism, I would recommend these books:

• Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will by Kevin DeYoung and Joshua Harris
• The God Of The Mundane: Reflections on Ordinary Life for Ordinary People by Matt Redmond
• Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World by Michael Horton

I hope they bless your soul and help you to glorify and enjoy God in your ordinary life where you live, work, and worship. 

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Refuge!

In the last devotional post, I discussed some reflections on God's dividing up of the land of Canaan--the Promised Land--among the tribes, which is a section that we are going to skip almost completely (except for this one sermon). By ch. 12, God’s people have essentially taken the Promised Land. They have broken the backs of the enemy and destroyed all the strongholds, so the land is essentially theirs, but the individual tribes have to do the “cleanup work,” we could say, of killing or driving out the remaining Canaanites. That means, the land has to be divided between the tribes, which is what chapters 13-22 are all about. And, again, as I mentioned in this past Friday’s post, this is not just a list of territories but a demonstration of God’s redeeming nature. He knows that we are sinful people, prone to fight among ourselves, and inheritance and property is one thing over which even families can become quickly divided: “I want this land,” “I don’t have enough because my family is bigger,” etc., and God cuts through all that by dividing the land proportionally Himself. No one can argue with that.

Now, part of the dividing up of the land is the giving of certain cities to the Levites. The Levites were the tribe tasked with serving God in the Tabernacle, Temple, and for the whole nation, so they did not get a specific territory, for, as the Scripture says in several places, their inheritance was the LORD Himself. However, they did need a place in which to live, so God allots them 48 cities distributed throughout the Promised Land on both sides of the Jordan, which also shows us God’s redeeming nature: He is concerned about the pastoral care of His people. By distributing the Levites throughout the land, He makes sure they are near to all peoples in all the tribes for care like marriages, funerals, circumcisions, and any spiritual guidance the people might need.

Among the Levite cities, God creates a subcategory: cities of refuge. There were to be six of them--three on either side of the Jordan, one in the north, middle, and south (see the map of the Promised Land above). And, these cities are the subject of the chapter for today's sermon: Jos. 20. They were the only place of refuge for someone whose life was being sought--someone was trying to kill them, and they had no place to flee except the cities of refuge. And, while this is still part of the dividing up of the land, which I have mostly skipped, it is a very special part. These cities, in particular, point us to the gospel and the work of Jesus Christ.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Some Reflections on the Dividing of the Promised Land

As I mentioned in the last devotional post in this series, we are moving ahead at warp speed through the last half of the book of Joshua, but, fortunately, Joshua lends itself to that. By the end of ch. 12, the Israelites have essentially taken all the Promised Land. They have broken the backs of their enemies, destroyed the strongholds, and basically won the war, but there is still a lot of "cleanup work" to be done. So, God divides the land between the twelve tribes of Israel and commands them to go into their various regions and kill or drive out the remaining Canaanites. That is what chs. 13-22 are mostly about, so we are going to summarize and skip almost all of it, with the exception of ch. 20, on which this Sunday's sermon will be.

However, even though we are skipping most of the dividing up of the land, that does not mean there's nothing for us to learn from that section. There are probably many theological and spiritual truths we could glean from it--too many to put in one post--so let me just hit a few highlights from these chapters.

First, one of the things that comes out in these chapters is that God gives the Israelites more land than they can possibly settle, at least at this point, but that should not surprise us at all. Our God is an abundantly gracious God. Christ Himself is far more full of grace than we are of sin and folly. When we go to the fountain of God's grace, it is kind of like taking a drink from a river. We can drink all that we can possibly hold and not even begin to drain the river of grace.

Second, God distributes the land to the tribes Himself, which is an important act of grace on God's part. Think about what would have happened if God had just said to the Israelites, "Here's the land, now go divide it up among yourselves." Do you think they would have done that without fights, without disagreements? Not hardly. Nothing can cause a family to turn on one another faster than dividing up an inheritance--"I want this land," "We deserve more because we're a bigger family," etc.--and the Israelites were no different. God knows their sinful hearts. He knows that if He had just sent them into the land with no instructions on dividing it up, they would have turned on each other, and there would have been a huge civil war that might have destroyed them. So, in His grace and wisdom, God divides the land Himself and proportions it as He sees fit. Therefore, when they go to settle the land, their property lines are clearly marked by God Himself, and no one can argue with that.

Third, the Levites do not get a specific territory. They are the one tribe that does not get a plot of land solely to themselves. Instead, they get allotted 48 cities distributed throughout the entire Promised Land. Why is that? Well, the Levites are the tribe specifically tasked with the service of God in the Tabernacle, later the Temple, and for the whole people of God. So, God does not put His ministers in one region but spreads them out throughout the whole land. This shows us that God is very concerned for the pastoral care of His people. If the Levites had one territory, say surrounding Jerusalem, then the tribes in the North would have to travel very far simply to get a circumcision or a funeral done. Instead, God distributes His servants throughout the land, so that they are close to all Israelites for weddings, funerals, circumcisions, or any other spiritual guidance that the people need. God loves His people and wants them to be cared for spiritually, and we can see that even in how He divides up the land!

Fourth, the dividing up of the land revealed a tension in which the Israelites would have to live for a time: the Promised Land was theirs--they had won the war--but there was also still a lot of "cleanup work" to be done to purge the land of Canaanites. So, the war was over, but the losers were still there and those Canaanites weren't going to be done away with easily. This is a kind of spiritual picture of how we live in the Christian life. For us, Jesus has won the war: sin has been defeated, death has been defanged, and the devil has lost. The war is essentially over--Jesus has won. Yet, we live in a tension like the Israelites. Though sin, death, and the prince of despair have been beaten, the losers still fight. We still must die a physical death, though it no longer has the sting of hell for God's people. The devil can still tempt us, but he must flee at the name of Jesus. And, while we are no longer slaves to sin, there are still many, many "Canaanites" in our hearts that need to be purged. Even though the war has been won, this life is still a battle that we have to fight by faith in Jesus each and every day, just like the Israelites had won the war but still had many, many Canaanites to get rid of.

But, God has not left us to live in this tension and fight these battles alone. He has give us His Word, prayer, worship, His people, and, most of all, the Holy Spirit to give us the strength to fight. As Paul says in Ro. 8:11, "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." Because the Spirit dwells in us, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us--resurrection-power working in us. So, while there is much work to be done--many more "Canaanites" in our hearts to be purged--we can know that "it is God who works in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."

Those are just a few spiritual highlights from this section of Joshua. I would encourage you to read through it yourself, even though it may seem boring and repetitive, and see what the Spirit shows you about Jesus and the battles we fight for the Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: The LORD is Victorious

As we continue our way through the book of Joshua, we come to ch. 10, and, as I mentioned in the previous post, after this passage, we will skip ahead at "warp speed," covering twelve chapters of material in two posts: last Friday's and next's.In this story, we learn something important about the Christian life: God is always victorious, but sometimes His plan of achieving victory is quite peculiar.

If you have read much about Church history, you have probably read about the great persecutions of the Church in the first few centuries AD. There are many, many stories of the brutality that Christians endured, but in my opinion, one, in particular, stands out. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, persecution was not yet empire-wide, but it was quite heavy in certain areas. One of those areas was Gaul (the geographic region that would later become France). From that area, the church historian Eusebius recounts the story of a slave girl named Blandina, who suffered unthinkable tortures over the course of several days because she would not deny Christ. Eusebius reports:

Blandina was filled with such power, that those who tortured her one after the other in every way from morning till evening were wearied and tired, confessing that they had been baffled, for they had no other torture they could apply to her; and they were astonished that she remained in life, when her whole body was torn and opened up, and they gave their testimony that one only of the modes of torture employed was sufficient to have deprived her of life, not to speak of so many excruciating inflictions.

He goes on to describe how Blandina was next thrown to the beasts in the arena, along with a boy, whom she encouraged to remain faithful to his death. Finally, Eusebius says, “And, after the scourging, after the wild beasts, after the roasting seat, she was finally enclosed in a net, and thrown before a bull,” and that is how she died.

We might look at that and think, “Is that really worth it? What good does enduring that suffering bring? Wouldn’t Christ’s blood cover her if she gave in?” Absolutely, for Christ’s blood covers all our sins, but Blandina’s suffering was worth it, for Eusebius tells us that several of her tortures turned to Christ after they saw her unwavering hope in the gospel. And, who knows how many more thousands of pagans came to Christ because of how Christians, like Blandina, showed them hope in suffering. This is why Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” God used their hope in suffering to draw those who assaulted them to Himself. And, while that plan of God seems quite strange to us, His victory was complete. William Durant writes in his 11-volume work The Story of Civilization:

There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials by a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the Word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has ever known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena and Christ had won.

God’s plan may have been strange and His methods foolishness to the watching world, but they worked and His victory was complete: the Roman Empire died but the Christian Church continued to grow.

As remarkable as it is, that basic story is not unique in the history of God’s people. In fact, it is really quite common. We see it in our episode of Joshua for today, and, as we talk along the way, we will see it in our own lives. Again, this is why this book is so applicable to our lives today: It is a story of God’s redeemed people having to fight by faith in God who truly fights the battles for them, using God’s ways to possess rest in the Promised Land, which is exactly a mirror of our lives today, although spiritually; not physically.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Warp Speed Ahead!

We have been proceeding through Joshua at a pretty good pace so far already, but in order to finish the book in eleven sermons (which is how many I had over the summer), we need to speed up even more. We are about to do that at proverbial "warp speed" because in this Friday post and in the next, I am going to cover twelve chapters worth of material, with the noted exception of Jos. 20, which will be the text for the next sermon.

Fortunately, the book of Joshua lends itself to that pace in second half of the book because most of the content of chs. 11-22 is summaries of the final conquests and the dividing up of the land between the tribes. So, this week I am going to cover some historical issues from these chapters, and next week we will look at some theological highlights from that section.

You might not notice historical issues at first when you look just at the book of Joshua itself, but when we get to Judges, some have said that these two books present contradictory views of the conquest of the Promised Land. Voltaire was one of the first to make this claim and use it as a reason not to trust the Bible, and many have attempted to say the same thing since. Voltaire claimed that Joshua describes a period of "unstoppable progress" in taking the land--that the Canaanites were all wiped out and the cities were left empty for settlement. Then, he claimed that the book of Judges makes it appear that the conquest was a gradual process with many setbacks and ultimately incomplete. That, he claimed, is a contradiction. So, from a historical perspective of Scripture, how are we to take this challenge?

First, read more carefully: When you think you have a problem with Scripture, ask for God's help and read more carefully. In Jos. 13:1-6, the LORD tells Joshua, "There remains yet very much land to possess," and Joshua tells the people to go to their allotments and proceed with the gradual, cleanup work of driving out the remaining Canaanites. So, the book of Joshua does not teach that Israel took the entire land with "unstoppable progress." You see, what the first twelve chapters of Joshua describe for us is not a total defeat of the enemy but the cropping of the leadership, the destroying of the strongholds, and the breaking of the back of the enemy. One can think if it kind of like the difference between D-Day and V-Day in WWII. On D-Day outcome of the war was essentially decided, but there was still lots of work to do before V-Day finally arrived. For Israel, once those strongholds were taken and great powers defeated, the land was won for them, but the tribes still had the task of driving out the remaining Canaanites in their areas. (That is what was supposed to happen in the book of Judges, but Israel failed because of their sin.) Voltaire's challenge comes from making unfounded assumptions based on a cursory reading of the books.

Second, the books of Joshua and Judges use language that helps us to see this difference, though it is somewhat hidden in the English language, so let me try to expose it. In Joshua, the verb predominantly used for the defeat of the Canaanites and the taking of the land is lakad, which means "to take, to gain control," which is indicative of what Israel does in the book of Joshua: they delivered the devastating blow against the Canaanites and gained effective control of all the land. In the book of Judges, however, the word dominantly used for what they are commanded to do is yarash, which means "to possess (for yourself), to dispossess (from others), or to drive out." (In fact, this is the verb God uses in Jos. 13:1 where He tells Joshua there is much land "to possess," i.e. what the tribes are now to do in the book of Judges.) And, that is what the tribes are commanded to do in Joshua 13-22 and what they were to do in Judges: to occupy completely the defeated territory and either kill or drive out the Canaanites that still remained in the land they controlled. What has been taken (lakad-ed) may still need to be dispossessed of remaining Canaanites (yarash-ed). The alleged contradiction between these books fades when we expose the careful distinction the authors make between what Israel did under Joshua and what they were supposed to in their own allotments in the book of Judges.

So, again, these books are historically accurate and consistent, and chs. 11-22 give us the details of the taking of the control of the Land and the distributing of the Land to the tribes for the final driving out of the remaining Canaanites, which is what was supposed to happen in  the book of Judges. This is another example of how God's Word is entirely trustworthy in all its assertions, whether theological or historical or scientific.

By His Grace,
Taylor

What do Christians do now?

No matter what your personal feelings are about our recent election results, we cannot deny that in our nation frustrations abound, emotions are confused and conflicted, confusion is rampant, and division is evident. Facebook is full of individuals trying to express to the world how they feel, one way or another. Peaceful demonstrations and rioting are happening in many cities throughout the US. America is divided by the celebration of some and deep fear and anger of others. And, Christians might be wondering, "What do we do? How do we respond?"

Well, I cannot tell you everything that you need to do to respond, but here are several biblical guidelines to help us process what is running through our heads and help those around us in our sphere of influence.

Pray for our nation, President-elect, and other government officials: Christians are called to be in submission to the governments under which we live and to pray for our leaders. As difficult as it may be for some to hear this right now, that is what we are called to do by God, and no matter your feelings about this election, you cannot deny that we are a deeply divided nation and prayer is desperately needed. You may be confused, you may be hurting, you may be angry, or you may be celebrating but none of that exempts us from the call to prayer. If you do not know how to pray for our nation, I would recommend reading this article by my senior pastor on eleven ways to pray for the new President-elect and the nation. Pay particular attention to the last way. And, note also that, while in this article he does express some of his emotions about our current situation, he does so in a way that fears God and is honoring to our leaders (see below), as well as brings us back to praying for the good of our leaders and nation.

Take seriously God's Word through Paul and Peter in Ro. 13:1-7 and 1 Pt. 2:12-17: Christian, this may be hard to hear for you right now or it might be too easy for you to hear, but we are called to be subject to and honor the governing authorities. Please take a moment and reread Paul and Peter's words in these passages, and, in fact, if you do that and do not come back to this post: fine, for they will do you more good than anything else I can say. I want to highlight in particular Peter's final command in that section in v. 17: "Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor." We need to take that very seriously, for as Peter says in the beginning of the passage, "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation." So, what does that verse mean? Well, let's look at the couplets:

• "Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood." First, this means in our interactions in person or on social media, we need to honor everyone, even if we disagree with them. We may feel compelled to speak truth, but we should always speak the truth in love, which means at least that we are "quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger"; we do not berate; we do not mock; we do not antagonize; we do not resort to name-calling; we do not gloat; and we also seek peace, not quarrels. The tongue is a dangerous tool that sets ablaze a world of unrighteousness, and we can do that by gloating or by being angry. Second, this means we need to be especially careful with how we interact with other believers. All of the above still applies, and we need to remember that the world knows we are Christians by our love for one another. The other side of that is that when the world sees us fighting among ourselves, the gospel and cause of Christ is maligned. Please, remember we are to glorify God in all we do and not give unnecessary offense.
• "Fear God. Honor the emperor." First, remember that both Paul and Peter wrote under the rule of Nero when they composed these works of God's Word, and both remind us that we should honor the rulers. I know for some that is hard to hear right now, but we need to bring our emotions into submission to God's Word and honor the rulers who are taking office. That means that we can disagree with them and we can even point out their immorality (we will get to that in just a moment), but, like above, we do not berate, we do not mock, we do not resort to name-calling, we speak in love and not anger, and we do not join with those who do. We show them the respect and honor their office is due. Second, do not gloss over the command to fear God. Fearing God means being subject to authorities, but it does not mean covering up their sins, making light of their sins, or defending their sins. Sin is sin, and Christians are never to cover up, condone, make light of, or defend sinfulness. We are "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God." Part of honoring our leaders and everyone is not letting sinfulness and injustice prevail and loving those who are needy, persecuted, and have no voice.

Remember that God is in control of all this: Christian, we know something that the non-believers in this world do not: God is in sovereign control of all that is happening right now, the leaders are in His hands and He does with them as He wishes, all kingship truly belongs to Him, and He has placed all authorities in their places. And, even though we may not be able to figure out why, we can know He has done it for the good of His people. These are His promises from His Word, so we need to keep them close to heart and walk by faith; not by sight in times of confusion, pain, and fear. And, even in times of celebration, we are not to place our faith in our leaders, for they are just tools of God; not any time of savior for this nation.  

Remember that this nation is not our true home or our true hope: Christian, while yours and my earthly home may be in America and we may even be citizens of this nation, our true citizenship is in heaven because when we were united to Christ, He transferred us from kingdoms of this world into His eternal Kingdom. Now we are spiritual exiles in our physical homes. So, while we do want our nation to prosper (see below), we can also know that this nation is not really our home or our hope, and the like the great "cloud of witnesses" of Christians past, we are looking forward to a heavenly city "whose designer and builder is God." We do care about our nation, its people, and we grieve injustice, division, and conflict, but our hope should never be here or in any nation for all of this will one day pass away. Our hope should be in the new heavens and new earth that Jesus has secured for us. The world desperately needs to see that hope right now because it is what causes them to ask questions and gives us the chance the share the gospel. 

Seek the welfare of our nation: Christian, while this nation is not our home and we really are citizens of God's Kingdom, we are still here right now, and He calls us to seek the welfare of this nation. In fact, the passage to which I just alluded deserves full quotation:

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Our spiritual exile currently in whatever nation we occupy is mirrored in the physical exile that Israel experienced in Babylon, and that is actually why Peter calls us exiles in the first place in 1 Pt. 1:1, so God's commands to them apply to us as well. We need to conduct ourselves, live our lives, use social media, work our jobs, communicate with politicians and leaders, and do whatever else we do in this life in such a way that it contributes to the welfare of our nation. It does not matter how we feel about our nation or the government, we are called to seek its welfare. As Paul says in Ro. 13:2, "Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." Now, that does not mean we cannot peacefully protest or call out the sins and injustice of our leaders, for those can be ways of actually seeking the welfare of our nation, but we should not be involved in or condone activity that undermines peace, safety, justice, and the welfare of our nation. We also need to do it in such a way that we continue to honor our leaders, as mentioned above.

Be careful how you conduct yourself at times like this: Christian, there are a lot of emotions rolling around right now. Some are celebrating, and others are hurting, angry, and fearful. When such emotional ups and downs run unchecked, it creates conflict, division, and even some violence, as the recent news has shown. Christians are ambassadors for Christ, are called to be instruments of reconciliation, should have gracious speech, and need to be careful never to add to that strife, unrest, division, or quarreling in the way we conduct ourselves in our conversations and especially on social media. (Here is a great post about general rules for posting on social media.) Let me try to give some guidelines that might be helpful:

• If you are angry, confused, or even celebrating, take that to the Lord first, just as the psalmists did with life's ups and downs. If you are celebrating, remember that no mere man is a savior who will solve your problems. We have only one Savior and Shepherd who can solve our problems, and it is Jesus Christ. All other men are fallen and will disappoint us, so keep your celebration moderate, always looking to God alone for your peace, hope, and confidence. If you are angry, hurting, or confused, again, take those to God first, using the psalms of lament as your guide. A few examples are Ps. 44; 60; 74, and note in particular that, while these psalms express deep feelings of pain to God, they never accuse God of wrong-doing and they move to praise for His goodness even in the midst of hardship. That should be our pattern. 
• If you have spent time in prayer, and you still need "to get it out," start with personal conversations with friends or family first, please! This will help you process whatever you are feeling and get a handle on your emotions.
• If, after all that, you still feel like you need to say something publicly on social media or in some other fashion, speak only the truth and do it in love and let "your speech always be gracious." If you are celebrating (and with how much pain there is out there right now, I honestly cannot imagine a good reason to celebrate publicly but perhaps you have one), do not "rub it in," especially when you know others are hurting, for that is provoking and pride at its ugliest, and, again, do not elevate a mere man to the position of a savior. Jesus is our only Savior, and all our leaders in this world are fallen instruments in the hands of God. If you are hurting, make sure that your grief is not the grief of a world that has no hope but the grief of a Christian who has certain hope in Christ. And, if you are angry too, be angry but do not sin, as Paul commands us. An example of sinful anger might be if we do not follow the above guidelines from Paul and Peter about honoring our leaders and everyone, as well as not loving our brothers and sisters and Christ as we should. Hopefully, if you have expressed your pain and anger to God first and close friends and/or family second, by the time you get here, you will be ready to be angry without sin. 
• No matter how you feel about this election, remember that we are called to "weep with those who weep." If you are celebrating, the Christ-like and loving thing to do would be to set aside your celebration and acknowledge that there are those who are hurting around you, validate that, and weep with them. In that pain, you can offer them the hope of the gospel, but validate their pain, enter into it, and uphold them through it. If you are hurting too, it seems hardly needful to tell you to weep with those who weep, but perhaps you need to hear that in your weeping, you need to weep as one who has hope in the gospel and pass that on to others. Sometimes in our emotions, we can forget that our hope is not in this world or in the leaders of this world but in God's sovereign control of it (see above) and in the new heavens and new earth (see above). Remember that and lead others who are mourning to that hope.

Keep the first things first: Christian, at the end of the day, we are called to be salt and light in this world, make disciples of Christ, work our jobs as to Christ, love God and our neighbors, worship together, etc.; all so the gospel can spread because God "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." And, Christian, we can do that no matter what government we have. As Paul says in 1 Co. 15:3-5, what is of absolute first importance is the good news of Christ's death and resurrection. At this time and at all times, the world needs the gospel more than anything else. Please, bring the world back to that over and over again. There is only one Savior, one Lord, one Master, and one Hope, and that is Jesus Christ. The world needs to see Him always but especially in hard times. Display that hope before the world, keep the gospel central, and then be ready to explain that hope to those who see it in you.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Folly and Faithfulness

In the previous post, we talked about some highlights from ch. 8, which finishes off the episode that began with Achan's sin and Israel's defeat as a result. With the sermon in today's post, we continue forward through the book of Joshua with Jos. 9, and we are going to look at the effects of human folly on the battles of the Christian life, and yet, in the wake of that foolishness, we also see God’s glory and redemptive nature in how He handles our folly.

In the last sermon, the Israelites were taught a hard lesson: They had already grown spiritually lazy—the great victory over Jericho had left them thinking that they had God in their proverbial “back pocket”—and within that context, one man thought his sin would not make a difference, so he stole from God. Yet, his sin had implications that affected the whole nation and nearly derailed, at least from a human perspective, the fulfillment of God’s promises in the land of Canaan. The failure of the whole people had found its focus in the sin one individual, and it nearly cost that generation the Promised Land. So, after they finally defeated Ai in ch. 8, they renewed the covenant—they had become spiritually lazy and so they needed to wake themselves up by renewing their minds in the covenant God made with them. And, after that, if we were reading this book for the first time, we would probably think they had learned their lesson, but then we get to ch. 9.

When we read ch. 9, we might be tempted to scoff at them and think, “Seriously? You just renewed the covenant and didn’t learn your lesson?” Yet, if we slow down and take a look at our own hearts, we will not judge the Israelites too quickly. How often do we say to ourselves after repeating an old sinful pattern, “When am I going to learn! What’s wrong with me? Why do I keep doing this?” In fact, this episode might be a tragic comedy, if it didn’t hit so close to home—if we weren’t able to read and say, “I do the same thing.” But, this episode also shows us the faithfulness of God and the power of His sovereignty in an amazing way, which will point our eyes back to Christ to say, “I’m such a great and foolish sinner, but I have a gracious, wise, and powerful Savior!”

Unfortunately, a technical issue kept this sermon from being recorded when I preached it back in the summer, but you can still read the transcript here, if you like.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: After Sin

Because we had a limited amount of time in the book of Joshua over the summer, I needed to skip some content. Ideally, we would have work through every passage on Sunday mornings, but we did not have the time for that, as I have described in past devotionals. But, as I have also mentioned before, what I could not cover on Sunday mornings, I tried to cover at least briefly in the Friday devotional emails that I sent to my congregation over the summer. Those emails I have turned into these devotional posts, and that is what we are going to do with Joshua 8 in this post.

Two Sundays ago, I posted the sermon from Joshua 7, where we saw the destructive power of sin in the camp, both individual and corporate sin. Sin is far more deadly than we often think it is, and it must be dealt with. This next part of that episode--ch. 8--tells us the story of how God restored the people after the sin of Achan was dealt with and how, even though Achan had sinned and they had sinned, His plans could not be derailed by anything. The sin of God's people cannot overcome the glorious plan and work of God.

Again, I did not have time to look at ch. 8 specifically in a sermon, so let's look at a few highlights from ch. 8 in this post:

First, note how God encourages Joshua right from the start: "And the Lord said to Joshua, 'Do not fear and do not be dismayed.... I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land.'" With such a devastating loss because of sin fresh in his memory, Joshua may have thought that they had blown it and God was done with them, but, again, the sin of God's people cannot mess up the plan of God. Two quick points from that:

• Think about our battles against sin in the Christian life. When we give into sin and temptation, satan is often right there with us as the accuser of God's people, whispering, "You've done it now. God's done with you now. You might as well go on and keep on sinning." He may also say to us, "God's name will be dragged through the mud because of you. You're such a scumbag!" Those are lies from the pit of hell, and they smell like smoke. Conviction of sin is never intended by God to drive us down into the dust simply to stay there bemoaning our sinfulness. The conviction of the Holy Spirit is meant to bring to Him in repentance, hear His words "Do not fear and do not be dismayed," and then move on in gratitude to serve Him again. Sin should never spiritually paralyze us. As the old hymn goes, "Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all my sin." Or, as the modern hymn says, "Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here. Sin would reduce me to utter despair, but through Thy free goodness my spirit's revived, and He that first made me still keeps me alive." Learn from this episode and do not listen to the lies of satan: once you have repented of your sin, move on to serve God again in gratitude for His great mercy.
• Think also about our battles to share the gospel with friends, neighbors, and family members. Again, here satan attacks us and says, "Your sin is going to drag God's name through the mud. No one will listen to you because you're such a sinner, so get it together before you go out and try to share the gospel." That too is a lie from the pit of hell and smells like smoke. Just as God dealt with their sin and then brought them to victory over Ai, so God deals with our sin in Christ and sends us out as His messengers for the gospel. And, listen: your sinfulness is part of your witness. You are a great sinner going to other sinners and saying, "Look, I have nothing for you personally. I am big sinner whose only hope is Jesus Christ, and He's your only hope too." If we give into the lie of satan and think, "I really do need to clean up my act before I witness to my friend," what subtle message does that send to them (i.e. our friends)? It sends them the message that they have to clean up their act before they come to Jesus, and that is not the true gospel. Jesus doesn't say to anyone, "Clean yourself up some and then we'll talk." No, He says like God says here, "Do not fear and be not dismayed: there is more grace in me than there is sin in you."

Second, note the sad ending to Achan's story. It is subtle, but it is in v. 2: "...its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves." When they "fought" against Jericho, all the plunder was to go to God, and Achan stole from God for himself. The sad ending of Achan's story is this: if he had just waited for a little while, he would have had all the plunder he wanted. But, Achan let his desire override his devotion to the LORD. Church family, often times our desires are not the problem. Often those desires in and of themselves are good desires. The problem comes in when we let those desires get out of order and we go after them before seeking God. For example, the desire for money to meet our physical needs is not the problem because God knows we need that for our physical needs. It becomes an idol when we go after it more than God, thinking that it will fulfill our needs. Or, the desire for sexual gratification is not in and of itself a bad desire because God created man and woman to be one flesh in marriage. That becomes a sin and an idol when we go after it more than God, seeking to fulfill it before God's timing and outside of God's plan for us, which is fulfillment in the context of marriage between a man and a woman. The sad conclusion to Achan's sin is that if he had just waited on God; if he had just sought God first, he would have had the plunder in God's timing. Is this not the OT equivalent of Jesus' teaching in Mt. 6:25-33 (cf.v. 33)?

Third, note that God's plan for His people is very different for this battle than it was for Jericho. Here, the whole army has to fight and they use an ambush strategy. Remember, while parts of God's plan for us in the battles of this life are constant, like using the means of grace (the Bible, prayer, and worship), we cannot put God in a box and think He will work the same way every time. We cannot think that because one strategy for evangelism worked for one person, it will work for all of them. We cannot think that because God met our needs in a particular way in one situation, that is always the way He will meet our needs. Our Lord is not a tame lion who shows up whenever we want and in the ways we want. So, we need to seek the counsel of God first, and then act after seeking godly counsel, knowing God may not work the same ways He has before (we will talk more about this in Sunday's sermon).

Finally, notice out Joshua renews the covenant at the end of this episode. This seems abrupt and even out of place in the narrative, but it is a very appropriate way to end the episode of chs. 7-8. One commentator notes: "After Israel had just experienced the curse of Yahweh’s anger (ch. 7) and the boon of Yahweh’s aid (ch. 8), what could be more appropriate than Joshua’s reading ‘the blessing and the curse’ (v. 34) of the Torah?" They have felt God's anger and seen God's blessing, and so what has happened to them in the space and time of life needs to be interpreted for them by the Word of God. But, even though it is appropriate, it is still and abrupt change: from war to worship. Yet, that abrupt changes brings back up one of the lessons we learned from ch. 1: Success for the Israelites was not primarily about defeating the Canaanites and taking the land. The land was simply a place where they could have rest from their enemies so that they could be prosperous in their relationship with God. Here, by bringing them to worship right after restoration and victory, God reminds them to keep first things first: their relationship with Him as His people. And, Church family, the same is true for us. In the battles of this Christian life, God gives us victory so that we can "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to [us]." In all the whirlwind of life, jobs, professors, family, friends, politics, struggles with sin, and everything else this life throws us, we need to keep first things first: our relationship with our Savior as His people and His Church.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Sacrificing for the Emperor: Cultural Orthodoxy and God's People

"At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals." ~ George Orwell, "The Freedom of the Press" (emphasis added)

My friends, this is a post that I have wanted to write for several years now. It has been a part of many conversations that I have had with friends, congregants, family, and many, many others over the past few years. Last year, with the SCOTUS ruling on marriage, my desire to write it has been "amped up," but yet, I have continued to let other things get in the way. One of those things is my perfectionist idolatry: there have been parts of this that I felt I was not prepared to write well and I struggle with idolizing perfection. (My idolatrous perfectionism is actually one of the things that keeps me from writing more, which I know God is working on in me but my progress is slow.) Yet, lately, it has been coming back in full-force through many conversations with graduate students in my church. In fact, I lead a graduate student Bible study on Virginia Tech campus, and we are studying the Old Testament book Daniel, which has brought this back up over and over again. We are about to finish with Daniel 6, and again, I have been reminded of this subject and felt compelled to write, whether or not I am prepared to do it perfectly. So, this post will partially be a study in Daniel 6 and partially my musings on current cultural trends in light of God's Word and history, and then, next week, Lord willing, I will write another talking about how Daniel and other believes have been faithful under harsh times.

It is no secret that our current culture is pushing Christians to capitulate on its views of sexuality and sexual identity. Any Christian who upholds a biblical view of marriage and sexuality is labeled a "bigot" and "hateful," no matter how politely or lovingly they make their stand or even if they hold that view quietly, and any Christian who refuses to use their business to support any agenda of a sexual-progressive movement is sued and most are losing those suits (in this most recent case, even actor and vocal supporter of LGBT issues, Patrick Stuart, is against the ruling). In fact, even teaching the biblical view of sexuality in a Sunday school class might soon be labeled "extremist" and suppressed in the UK. And, some are coming right out and saying that anyone who descents from the culture's view of sexuality should be forced to comply with it. It seems our society is approaching a totalitarian state, where a particular worldview of sexuality is the only one allowed in the public square, which reminds us more of the Brave New World of Huxley or Orwell's 1984 than a democracy where individuals are supposedly given human rights. Now, I am not writing this to talk about the details of this cultural issue itself, transgender ideology, whether or not same-sex marriage should be legal, or anything like that. Others have written on the subject, and many have done a better job than I could. I want to look behind this and ask the question, "What is going on? Why is this happening? Is there anything behind this cultural push?" and hopefully provide some biblical and historical encouragement for Christians to follow Christ instead of culture.

That is why I started with a George Orwell quote. Many of you have probably read Animal Farm, and if you have not, I would be willing to bet you have at least heard of it. What you may not know is that Orwell wrote a preface to it that did not end up in the published work called "The Freedom of the Press," from which I quote above. In it, he talks about what we might call "cultural orthodoxy," which every culture has had, although it has taken many different forms. That cultural orthodoxy is, as Orwell writes, a body of ideas that all "right-thinking" people are assumed to hold, and anyone who descents from them in any way is never given a fair hearing, actively suppressed, and often persecuted. Sound familiar? It should. In Orwell's time, it was communist philosophy. In our time, in the West, it is sexual sovereignty: "I am sovereign over my own body and sexuality, and no one can tell me or believe otherwise." But, I think the real issue is not actually sexuality or really even cultural orthodoxy, per se: it is an issue of highest loyalty. To whom will we give our highest loyalty? The Kingdom of God or some kingdom of man?

Let me start with Daniel. Any Christian who grew up in the Church is familiar with Daniel 6: Daniel and the Lion's Den. It is a popular children's story, but, like almost all popular children's stories, it is often taught wrongly. It is often taught as "If you obey God and do what's right, everything will turn out fine for you." There is a grain of truth to that, but it depends on what we mean by "fine." Often by "fine" people mean that life will be generally comfortable and you will avoid most suffering. But, biblically-speaking, "fine" does not mean we will not suffer in this life; quite the contrary, actually. The biblical "fine" means God will use our suffering for our ultimate good, but we will still suffer. But, even that is not the point of the story. The point of the story comes out in the decree that the king is duped into making: "O King Darius, live forever! All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction, that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions." (vv. 6-7)

We look at that and on the surface are tempted to think it is about praying and worship. That is part of it, but ultimately it goes deeper. The ESV gets the translation right because it is about making a petition not just praying. Praying is certainly in that category, but asking a satrap for tax money to fix a road would be as well, which is why they qualify it with "any god or man." So, then what are these enemies of Daniel doing? They are appealing to the vanity of King Darius--to his desire to be the highest dependence and highest loyalty in Babylon. Whatever we depend upon most will be the thing to which we are most loyal--our highest loyalty. In essence, they are saying, "Make a law, King Darius, that for thirty days no one can have a higher loyalty than you; no one can be more dependent on anyone else than you." That would be a tempting prospect to anyone, and, indeed, it is the original temptation: "You will be like God." (Ge. 3:5) They know Darius will love the idea of being everyone's highest loyalty, and they know that Daniel will not give in to that command. That is why in v. 5 his enemies say to one another, "We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God." Thus, they have set the trap: make the highest loyalty someone other than God and watch Daniel maintain his loyalty to God. It is a test of loyalty that they know Daniel will fail.

Such a situation is not unique in the history of God's people. This was also the main issue at stake when it came to the official Roman persecutions of Christians. (You can read my summary of early Church persecutions here.) The Romans were remarkably tolerant of religions, philosophies, worldviews, etc. so long as the Roman State was your highest loyalty. They deeply distrusted and hated anyone who had a higher loyalty than the State. If they ever found out that you had a higher loyalty than the State, you were persecuted, and that was exactly the issue that caused the first empire-wide persecutions of Christians from 250 AD onward. Before 250 AD, the persecutions of Christians were localized to various regions of the Empire, and they were not yet a matter of official Roman policy. Then, Emperior Decius came along. Decius issued a decree that commanded all people under Roman rule to offer a single sacrifice once a year to the Roman gods for the well-being of the emperor by burning incense before the local magistrate. When you did, you were given a libellus (the image above is a surviving libellus), which was your proof of sacrifice. If you could not present a libellus when ask for it, then you were sentenced to death. Do you see what he was doing? He was testing the loyalty of his people. If they were ultimately loyal to Rome, they would sacrifice, even if they also had other gods they served, but if they had a higher loyalty to their God, they would not sacrifice. The ones whose highest loyalty was not to the State could then be identified and erradicated. Rome was fine with your religious beliefs, so long as you were loyalty to it above all else. It was a test of loyalty that Decius knew many Christians would fail.

For Daniel and the early Christians, the test of cultural orthodoxy many have been different, but the underlying issue was the same: Who is your highest loyalty? Whom do you really serve above all else? And, what we are seeing today has the same underlying issue, even though the test of cultural orthodoxy is different. The real issue is not sexual autonomy. That is just a symptom of something deeper: a culture that deeply distrusts those who have a higher loyalty than the culture itself, e.g. Christians.

Our culture is fine with religious beliefs and "spirituality" and even encourages it, so long as those beliefs do not lead you to question the prevailing cultural dogma, so long as you pass the test of cultural orthodoxy. For, if you pass that test, it shows you are more loyal to the culture than you are your religious or spiritual beliefs. If you are willing to compromise on that one belief, it shows your highest loyalty is really to the culture; not the God of the Bible. Last year, Frank Bruni of the NY Times tipped this hand and revealed these cards in his article "Bigotry, the Bible and Lessons from Indiana." There he lays it on the line. He tells us that religious freedom is really "freeing religions and religious people from prejudices that they needn’t cling to and can indeed jettison, much as they’ve jettisoned other aspects of their faith’s history, rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity." I added emphasis to show you his bottom line: all people, religious or not, must bow to the "enlightenments of modernity," i.e. all people should be more loyal to the culture than their god, religous text, or spiritual beliefs. It is a test of loyalty: Is our highest loyalty to the culture (the "enlightenments of modernity") or to our God?

You see, friends, what we are seeing in culture is what Christians have experienced in all cultures in all times. It is just that the specifics of the test are different for us. Why do I point this out? For two reasons:

• First, we Christians need to be reminded of this so that we do not begin to think that we are going through something no other Christian community has. We are not. Our struggle is not unique. The true Church of God's people has never been on the "right side" of human history and has always been at odds with cultural orthodoxy. And, in those times where we seemed not to be at odds with the surrounding culture, I would argue that those are the times we have been least faithful to God and His Word. It was not because the test was not there but because we passed it (from the culture's perspective). I will talk more about this in the next post, but we need to remember that because then we can look back on history and see that God sustained His people during all those times and tests, no matter how bad the persecution became. He will do the same today. The gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church (Mt. 16:18). 
• Second, I want us to realize that whatever the test of cultural orthodoxy is, the issue at the base is always spiritual. The fundamental issue is not sexuality, communism, or petitions. It is always a test of whether or not we will worship God and depend on Him above all else, even if it costs us everything we have in this world. In fact, these were really the issues at stake in devil's temptations of Jesus. And, if we are going to follow Christ through these tests, we need to see them for what they really are: spiritual battles. We need to look past the arguments over sexuality and see what lies behind it: Will we trust God, believe His Word, make use of His means of grace to sustain and train us, and make Him our highest loyalty? That is the question that really matters. It was what mattered for Daniel, the early Church, and all other Christians throughout space and time. 

For now, I leave you with that to ponder. Next week, Lord willing, we will learn from Daniel and a little from Church history how we live as faithful Christians in the midst of these tests of cultural orthodoxy.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Sin in the Camp

First, this week, there is not a devotional that goes with this sermon. As I have mentioned in the past, the devotionals in this series come from emails sent to my church on the Fridays before the sermons. Generally, they have something to do with the passage or subject of the coming sermon. I like to use them to fill in gaps in the sermon series. Because my series are often for a summer, there are a limited number of sermons I can preach, so sometimes I have to skip parts to finish a book or section of a book (like with my Joseph series). This was certainly true with Joshua, for I had to fit 24 chapters into eleven sermons. But, this week, there was not anything major I had to skip to move on, so, instead in the Friday email to my congregation that preceded this sermon, I sent a link to an article about the PCA's racial reconciliation efforts. You can read that article here, if you want, but it is not really pertinent to this series, so I am not going to talk about it. Instead, we will move on to the sermon itself.

Today's sermon is on Joshua 7:1-13, 19-21, 25-26. With this text, we come to the hardest passage of Joshua, I think. Of all the episodes, this is the one to which I was least looking forward. I’d rather preach on the whole conquest of the land and the annihilation of the Canaanites than this, and, by the way, last week’s Friday post covered the tough question of how the holy war against the Canaanites fits in the biblical witness. If you have not read that, you might want to because I think it will help you with a very difficult part of the Bible. But, again, I personally think that’s easier than this passage. Here we come face-to-face with the consequences of sin not only on the individual but on the congregation of God’s people, and that’s not a subject on which I want to preach. But, this is the counsel of God, and really no series on the battle of the Christian life would be complete without addressing the issue of sin, which is probably why the author includes this difficult story in the first place.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor