Joshua 1:8 Pt 1

0:01 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. What did I just hear? Okay, wasn't just I heard it a few minutes ago? Well maybe fifteen twenty minutes ago. It's been a little while, but in a sense, as far as this broadcast is concerned, what did I just hear? I'm still baffled by it, confused, perplexed. It makes me question everything I've ever understood about Christianity. You see, just a little while ago, I was on the Sermons two point oh app because you remember, you know, if you happen to have forgotten, this is the year of the Sermon's two point oh app sermon Challenge, Right, we're supposed to be using that app as much as possible.

0:55 So I was on the app looking at all the current wabcast. I clicked on a webcast and there was a group of young people standing on the platform. Most of them were They were all around a piano. Some of them had handheld microphones, and they were singing different songs. And they sang a particular song I've never heard of, but there was a lyric in the song that made me go, what in the world is that? Like? What what is it? And well, before I tell you what I heard, I guess I should do this. Welcome everyone. It is Sunday, June the twenty third, twenty twenty four. It is currently six h nine pm Central time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. So what did I hear? What was being sung? Or? Well? I had to write down the lyrics, I mean, because I couldn't believe it. I the first two times they sang the lyric, I thought maybe I was hearing it wrong. So I listened to it a third time and I'm like, you've got to be kidding it. This is being sung in a church. Now, some of you may agree with it. I've got problems. I've got problems with it.

2:23 And if and look, if you agree with it, I would love to hear your perspective. If you disagree with it, I would love to hear your perspective. But here is what they were literally singing, Are you ready? And I quote, God must have seen something worth saving when he saved me. God must have seen something worth saving when he saved me. Now, on one hand, that sounds very very monegistic. God does the saving. But if God does the saving, well, then God saved me because I'm worth saving. But he didn't save other people because they weren't worth saving. So now, if this is not coming, I don't believe the church is a monegistic church. But whenever you say God does the saving, you're saying it's a work of God alone. But if it's a synergistic church, then you're saying God's part in saving me. He decided to save people because they were worth there was something about us that was worth saving? Was there a goodness in us? Well, look, what do you mean that there was something in us that was worth saving? My typical understanding is that God did not save us because of anything of value or worth in us.

3:50 But he saved us out of grace and mercy, unconditional grace, unconditional mercy. He did so, not that we there was nothing in us of value. Now some may say, well, we're a creation of God, so therefore there is intrinsic value in that. But we are sinners, we are rebels against God God. We don't do there's nothing worth saving because we deserve hell, what we're worthy of is condemnation because we are sinners. Well, first we're guilty in Adam, then we're sinners, and practice we're sinners by nature. So the lyric literally was God must have seen something worth saving when he saved me. I couldn't believe. I think that that's I think that that's problematic. It would be interesting to see how much disagreement there is in the Christian world on this. So whatever your opinion is of this lyric, please email me newsif at yahoo dot com, news if at Yahoo dot com.

4:54 What I think some are going to do is someone's going to argue of the intrinsic value in us. But I say, whatever intrinsic value you think exists in us, we are rebels, we're sinners before a holy God. The only thing we're worthy of is condemnation, wrath, and judgment. God doesn't save us because he sees something worthy to save. He saves us because of grace, mercy, because of unconditional grace, because of unconditional mercy, unconditional love. I don't know. I could well, well, which way would scripture go? So I don't know, but I saw that, and I'm just saying there, what what in the world. But we're not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about Well, something else that is confusing, and that is Joshua one eight. Well, I mean, I don't really think it's confusing, but it appears it seems to be very confusing, all right, Joshua one eight. Let me read the verse Joshua one eight. Are you ready? Joshua chapter one, verse eight. Let's see here. Let me find it in this Bibleoshua chapter one, verse eight.

6:00 This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then for then you will you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Joshua one eight. It should be clear, it should be easy to understand, especially if you read it in its proper context. But for some weird reason, the proper context of Joshua one eight gets obliterated and Joshua one to eight becomes about us and a recipe for us to have prosperity and good success.

6:51 But there's a lot of problems with that, because this would be conditional, and what would you have to do to have prosperity and good success. Well, according to this, this is what you would have to do. Number one, the book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth. In other words, it should always be in your mouth. I guess you should always be discussing it, always be talking about it. We need to figure out exactly what that phrase means, but we'll just go with that. You know, simple explanation. The word of God should always be in your mouth, always, always, always, always. You may be able to think you can pull that off. But the second one, you shall meditate in it day and night. Now, don't even try to pretend that you meditate on God's word day and night. Don't even try to pray. You can try to say, well, I have my devotions in the morning, and so that gives me something to think about all day until you're thinking about other things and meditating on other things, and talking about other things, and discussing other things, and getting frustrated by other things, and either being happy or sad or discover there's a million other things that dominate your thinking and dominate your conversation that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein well The third that would be required is perfect obedience. Well, no one's going to pull this off. So you're not going to pull off any of these, So then you're never gonna have prosperity or good success unless you try to grade this on a curve, which then destroys the meaning of the verse.

8:13 So there's a problem right there. The way this should be understood is this is law. We can't do this, So how are we going to be prosperous or have good success? Well, Jesus Christ, the word of God never departed from his mouth. He meditated on day and night, and he observed everything written in the law, and by faith. Guess what his obedience is imputed to my account. So in Christ, then I have prosperity, spiritual prosperity, and spiritual success. That's the only way to even make any sense if you're going to make it about us. But the real issue is Joshua one eight is not about us. Joshua one eight cannot be understood apart from Deuteronomy twenty eight and following, which comes right before Joshua. And we talked about this. In fact, I did an entire message entitled Joshua one eight, a new interpretation. You can go listen to that. But Joshua one eight is just as kind of frustrating and perplexing to me as listening to kids sing a song that says God must have seen something worth saving when he saved me. I don't understand that from a philological perspective. But guess what, when it comes to Joshua one eight, I don't understand half, probably ninety percent of the sermons preached on Joshua one to eight. They leave me perplexed and confused because they seem to completely obliterate the textual context, the historical context. They seem to just completely be oblivious to the fact that we can't do those things and nobody ever will. So this entire week, this entire

9:50 week, it's all about Joshua one eight for the sermons two point zero app sermon Challenge. Your challenge for this week is to do nothing but listen to sermons on Joshua one eight. That is what you're spouting. You can find if you want, You can listen to sermons on Joshua chapter one. Then you can go to specific verses. But Joshua one eight, that is yours. That's the challenge this week. And what I want you to do is if you can just let me know if you can find a sermon that explains first our inability to obey Joshua one eight, and secondly, it connects Joshua one eight to Deuteronomy twenty eight and makes it very much about Israel and not about us. And we know even Israel didn't obey this. Even Israel did not accomplish this. That's your challenge. But if I give you the challenge, I try my best to participate in all of them. So do you want to listen to a sermon on Joshua one eight? Well, I grabbed the sermons two point zero app typed in Joshua one eight. The first sermon that showed up was was mine Joshua one ate a new interpretation? Right?

11:05 That doesn't help. The second sermon was the Secret of Spiritual Success, which is the sermon that sparked this Joshua one eight challenge in the first place. And then I don't know was it. I'm assuming it was the third one It said a survey of the New Testament, And I'm like, wait, what how is this a sermon on Joshua on a survey of the New Testament. So I was intrigued. So I looked and it says Joshua one eight a survey of the New Testament, and I'm like, I think it's a survey of the New Testament, part two Joshua one eight. So I'm like, I'm intrigued. I'm thinking, hmm, is he going to say that Joshua one eight is law and we have to look to Christ and he's going to show us that in the New Testament, Christ fulfills all of the demands of Joshua one eight. Well, that would be fast, and that would be an ought. We would be off to an amazing start. I don't know, because I haven't listened to it yet, but are you ready to listen to it? It's relatively short, so that gives me a you know, at least for the first one. I don't like the first one to turn into five hours of review, so this one is relatively short. We may even have the ability to finish it before this broadcast is over. So does that sound like a good thing? Does that look? As confusing as the lyrics are, God must have seen something worth saving when he saved me.

12:31 I'm still perplexed by that. But you may not be. I'm just as perplexed and confused by many sermons on Joshua one to eight, even though you may not be. So you may disagree with me about the lyrics, and there's a high probability there's gonna be a lot of disagreeing with me on Joshua one eight. But that's okay, all right? Are you ready? I don't know anything about this sermon. I don't know you know what to be. I'm really nervous because I did not check the volume level. Typically I checked the volume level, but I think I was just in a hurry to try to make sure I get something in for what would be typically our Sunday evening service at Victory of Baptist Church, and so I forgot to do that. So if the volume is too low, I apologize. I'm oh, I'm nervous. I'm nervous. I'm nervous. I'm nervous, some nervous.

13:22 I think I think I got all discombobulated and frustrated by that those lyrics. I was like, what is this? But we'll jump in now for those who may be new to what we're doing again or challenging you to download the sermon's two point zero app And what you're supposed to be doing is each day finding the most random sermon. You're not choosing a certain broadcaster or a certain kind of church. You're just choosing a random sermon. You're supposed to listen, write it down in a notebook, the name of the sermon, the name of the church, the broadcaster, and then write a one sentence summary of the sermon you listen to. The goal was by the end of twenty twenty four, you would have a sermon for every day of the year.

14:03 That was the goal. Now, I don't know how far behind you may be, doesn't matter. Just start now, because can you believe this? We're almost to July. When I was driving to church this morning, I come out of our residential area, there's a stop sign. I turn left, just barely go half a block. Turn right. There's the access road. The access road is going to take me to Highway what eighty three eighty four, it's going to take me towards Tuscola slash O Vala, Texas, where the church is located. Well right, when I turn right, right there in the access road, right there to the side on the right hand side, of the road is well, they're setting up a fireworks stand.

14:46 They set that up every year so people can buy fireworks. It's right there, close to my house. A bunch of people go there to buy fireworks. I don't know why they sell fireworks in Texas because usually, especially in parts of West Texas in July, it's usually a desert and a drought, and you shoot one firework, the whole state burns to the ground. Okay, but the point is, it's right there. And when I saw it this morning, I'm like, man, I can't believe it's already July. It's already July. It feels like it was yesterday that I was like, hey, it's December and it's you know, Christmas time, and trying to do broadcast around that, and what are we going to do in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty four could be a really bad year, and all my concerns about twenty twenty four and the future of Victory Baptist Church and the future of this podcast just a lot of things. And well, here we are in the month of July. It is crazy. So before we know it, the year is going to be over. So I don't know where you are and doing the sermon's two point oh app challenge. But hey, let's finish the year much stronger than we maybe we started. I still the next the rest of twenty twenty four is going to be crazy. So I don't know how it's all going to go down for you. I know I've got there's a lot of uncertainties for me. But we will see. Are you ready? In the meantime, we can't worry about we can't worry about tomorrow right because we've got today. So let's worry about today. Let's listen to a sermon on Joshua one. Somehow this is a part of a survey

16:18 of the New Testament. I have no idea what's about to happen. Fingers crossed. That's not actually going to help us, So you can crush your fingers. It's not actually going to help, so just don't waste your time. The point is, let's hope that this turns into something good. Here we go on the air, so we'll just give a we've had some technical difficulties this morning, so we will turn to Joshua chapter one. Okay, just a moment. We're not ready to go yet. If you want to turn us off please and erase that fellas. We're not ready to go yet, so if you'll turn it off. And okay, oh no, I hate that for any pastor. I hate that. What you want to do is preach. What you want to do is teach. What you want to do is broadcast. And then there's some technical mess up, something happens.

17:19 Internet stops working, the computer needs to do an update, software not opening, something's not connecting. And it's so frustrating because all you want to do, all your mind is like preach, teach, ready to go, and then all of these other things happen, and it is so frustrating, right it drives me absolutely crazy. I mean, you can hear my frustration. Okay, my neighbor's car alarm was going off on You're about to hear my frustration right now. Okay, But how many times when I'm doing a broadcast does my daughter FaceTime me, like right in the middle of a broadcast, they're like, oh, there's nothing, And I don't know if you're going to be able to detect it in his voice, but you can hear can hear that he's getting a little frustrated with it or at least. I mean, he he handles it really well. But I just maybe it's just me projecting my own frustration because I feel bad for the guy. So this is not starting out good, like here we go okay, okay, oh boy, I feel bad for him because other people think it's funny. But when you're the pastor, it's not funny. Okay, when you want to tell everyone, Oh, you think it's funny, you come up here. Okay.

18:52 So, and I think he's getting ready to say he just gets ready to say Lord. I think he like, Lord, help me. I think he's about to say something like that. I think he gets interrupted, but he's he's just standing there like so. And I don't know. I mean, because it's so short, this may indicate the reason it's so short. It may indicate that they had been having technical problems for a very long time, and now they're trying to get started, and he's probably looking at the clock, going, I got how much time left? Now? What do I do? I've been I've been there trying to get everything ready to go, and then you're hours now down to thirty minutes, and you're like, what do I do do? I even try to teach what I was going to teach, do I now just improvise. Maybe that's why this is called a Survey of the New Testament, Part two. And we're gonna end up in josh Maybe maybe he's frustrated. I don't know. Let's see what happens. Okay, let's take our bibles. We're turning to Joshua one in verse eight, and I'm sorry about the technicalities we've had problems with. At least maybe we'll have our Sunday or morning service ready, but I just want to give you an introduction to the introduction. Now we're looking at New Testament introduction or the introduct survey of the New Testament. And so let's turn to Joshua, chapter one and verse eight. And of course, this is God's promise about the word. This book of the Law shall not depart out from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you

20:25 may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Now we see that the Lord tells us then that we are to know this book. Now, of course this was to Joshua, and this was a promise, though, that is a universal promise if we okay, so he's acknowledging us to Joshua. Really it's ultimately Joshua to Israel. But okay, from God to Joshua. All right, we could get into a discussion there, could We could read the context here and see it the right way to word it. So, but whomever it's too, he's immediately applying it to us. He says it's a universal promise. It's universal promise? Is it universal or is it universal meaning only to those who are saved? Or can a lost person just put the word of God in his mouth right, know it, be able to speak about it, meditate on it day and night, and obey the scriptures, and then he will be prosperous and have good success. And what about people who seem to be prosperous and have good success who don't know God's word, who never meditates on it and doesn't obey it.

21:45 Well, then, so what kind of success are we referring to? Can a lost person have spiritual success by simply knowing the word of God meditating on it? When you say universal, is that for for everyone or for every save person? But again, immediately. This is about us. Immediately, it's becoming about us. And I've told you that I think this is what we're going to hear all weak. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he's going, well, no, he's already made it univer, he's already made it about us. So I think I'm already on too. My prediction is already coming true relatively fast. But I mean that's not much of a prediction, it's not. I mean, I think everyone knows where most sermons are going to go on this. We will allow the Word to come into art, and that's what we'll be speaking about this morning, the light of the Word in our hearts. The Lord is our light and our salvation. The Word is a lamp into my feet and a light into my path. And if we will walk in it, and that's what we'll be talking about this morning and some in the service, walking in the light, walking in the revelation of the Word that God's given us, then we will find good success.

22:52 Now in saying that, I have wanted to just give a survey of the New Testament, and with that I gave you a chart of all the books. And would you get did you get a copy of this if you did, if you'll give it one to or get over with Anna, if you will give one to or two newcomers here. But I've been looking at a book that I've been thinking about getting, and in fact I passed out some but just going through this. It's called a Survey of the New Testament by Paul Binware, and it gives you the basics of the New Testament.

23:33 The reason I want to do this is because I remember back when I was a teenager and God was really getting a hold of my heart. I'd been in and out of church, but I never had really become serious with church, other than going through the activities and Sunday School everyonce a while and learning topics or so forth. But I was God was really dealing with me, and I was aarady in the I was about ready to go in the Navy at the time, and I decided I was going to read the Bible through. And I just started surveying the Bible and I found that, hey, the Old Testament is just it's all about Jews. I didn't even know it.

24:15 I mean, it was just one of those things I knew about Moses Sampson. But this whole book is about Jews. And then I get to the New Testament. You know, I look at I say, well, why is it changed? So here I was biblically illiterate, even though I had gone to church most of my I mean in and out. I didn't come up a Christian family, and so I was more of the fringe of a church. You know, I got ready, Hey, I went to church, but I was biblically illiterate. I hear that way too frequently. I went to church, but I was biblically a litle. I went to Sunday School, but I went to the activities, but I was biblically illiterate.

24:56 I cannot stated enough too many people go to church and their biblically illiterate. Because churches in many cases are not really there to teach the Bible. That's just kind of a that's just kind of an add on. They're really there to bring people together so that people can have a sense of community, friends, activities, they can do lots of fun things. They a sense of spirituality, a sense of I'm being spiritual. Throw in a little Bible, but no, but it's not really an institution of higher learning. I think a lot of people who go to church and been to church are really are biblically illiterate and philologically illiterate and clearly illiterate when it comes to church history.

25:37 And we have to ask ourselves why. That's a quick, good question. I'm getting really nervous that we heard the last of Joshua one eight. I'm getting really nervous. I don't know why they have that downs as a sermon for Joshua chapter one, verse eight, other than he quoted it right, Like, why would you put that down as your scripture reference. I don't know. Let's see what happens. I went there, but I really wasn't a serious student, and so if that's the way I am, then I'm sure that's the way many people are. Well when I say that, because I don't think I'm that out of than normal. I went to I do this Dave with your name. If I see if I go to McDonald's or someplace and I see a young person and I and They'll have Dave on their on their lapel or whatever, then I'll say, oh, David, where's Goliath? And three times since I've been here in the last few years, people will say, go eath you see they don't even know. And so our culture has pretty well expelled the Bible. And kids are growing up and they don't even know some of the Bible stories that most Americans would have known back fifty years ago. You would have heard about Sampson, or you'd have heard about David and Goliath, or or some of Noah in the Ark.

27:03 But kids don't even know anything about that today. And so what I want to do is give you a survey of the New Testament. We have looked, and we're going through the Old Testament at night, so I don't want to be redundant, but I gave you just a chart of the of the Bible, of the of the basic books of the Bible. And so we see in the Old Testament, this is what really stunned me. It's all about Jews. In fact, that's why people are saying, well, you know, the Church has replaced the Jews today, and all the promises to the Jews are to us. You won't find that in the Bible. Even in the book Revelation, we know that Daniel called those the days of tribulation, the times, the days of Jacob's trouble. Jacob is Israel's trouble, and then Jacob and Israel, or I mean Jacob was renamed Israel.

28:00 And so we see that the even the prophecy is centered around the Jew whether it's the millennium or it's going to be the Tribulation which is the time of Jacob's trouble, or the millennium, which is the kingdom that God has promised to Abraham, or even in heaven the new Jerusalem and the new Heaven and the new Earth with Jerusalem as its capital. The streets of Gold are Jerusalem, and of course I get them mixed up. The gates will be named after the Jews, and the foundation the foundations of all named after the Jews, and the gates will to be named after the Apostles, or the other way around. Okay, don't but I should have written it down so I would remember it. But I'll think about it and then i'll turn. Unfortunately, I think we've gotten our Joshua one eight reference. I think I think that's it. I think that this is it. I I just don't understand, maybe because this is the only verse he quoted, so they put it down as a scripture reference. See whenever, whenever you upload a sermon to the sermon's two point Oh, app there's a there's a part, a part in the dashboard where you have to put a scripture reference right now, Well you don't have to. Actually, I leave mine blank. Sometimes if I don't have really a scripture reference, I just leave it blank. You can leave it blank, so then there's no reason to put one there. Okay, yeah, you can leave it blank. I was thinking, maybe,

29:30 well they were forced to, but no, you're not. You're not. I know you're not. So I just okay. All we can do is go a little bit further. I guess. I guess what we're gonna be able to demonstrate with this one is that the first sermon that we've listened to for this week and our study on Joshua one to eight immediately applied it to us and not and said that it was a universal promise. Hey, I'm assuming he would say it's a conditional universal promise. But if but by saying it's universal, there raises some serious questions, right, like is it for lost people? Is it for like I mean, I choosing random sermons?

30:11 There are there's times where this is really fun, and there's times where I'm like, what am I doing with my life? Okay, all right, here we go put it around in my mind again. But so we see that everything has about the Jew. And yet of course we as Christians have been in our gentiles, have been ingrafted in and we talk about the church today. But in order to understand that, we have to understand that this is a book that God has written his revelation to us. And the revelation and the Old Testament came through the Jew and in the New Testament it comes through. Of course, it comes through that Paul was a Jew, and most of the New Testament writers except for Luke, was a Jew. But we see that it's still the Jewish book. But in the Old Testament, you'll notice that in the chart here that the first five books are called what the Pentitook or five Writings, and the Peditook was written by Moses. And the way that we know this is written by Moses is because the New Testament Jesus said, have you not read what Moses and the prophets wrote? Well, he never he'd quoted Genesis and Deuteronomy. So Genesis Deuteronomy, the Lord equated with Moses. So that's my that's my standard. I don't need any other standard than if Jesus said that Moses wrote it, then Moses wrote it.

31:47 And that's what we'll have an attack on that because people say, well, no, that there's different people, and some guy came up with, well, there's people that called him Jehovah, and then there's no other people that called him Elohem, and there's another and so there's five different people that wrote the peditooc and so they mess it all up, and of course that's all liberalism. But uh, but we see that. I so hate, I so loathe when immediately we disagree with someone's hypotheses, it's liberalism. It's liberalism. Hey, they they have they've studied, and they have an academic argument about the manuscripts and the compiling of the manuscripts, and they challenge the authors. That's liberalism. Or maybe it's just a very academic approach that's skeptical about some of the claims in the Bible. I don't know if I want to call it liberalism. Maybe you could call it academia. Maybe you could call it I don't know, challenging the current understanding. Now we still I still may disagree with it, and I still may condemn it, but just referring to it as liberalism, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. To challenge something does not necessarily make one a liberal. To challenge an understanding, to question something doesn't necessarily make one a liberal. I understand that mosaic authorship of the Pentitook was a very important foundational truth for early Fundamentalism. If you get the five volume set the Fundamentals, right, I've

33:19 talked about those books a million times. Tell I've told everyone to read them a million times. They one of the sections have an entire chapter on mosaic authorship of the Pentitook. So it was a very foundational issue with fundamentalism. I guess we could call it modernism. I guess you could destinarily refer to it as theological liberalism maybe, But there was a it's really an argument, guess higher criticism that was coming out of Europe. That's really what it was. So okay, it's higher, it's it's but it wasn't it. It is a very important question. If Jesus is assigning mosaic authorship to Genesis to Deuteronomy, well, then by all means, if Jesus is truly the eternal son of God. Then we have to go with what Jesus said, even if academic study, even if manuscripts study seems to say contrary, we would have to still stick with Jesus if we're going to accept that Jesus is the eternal son of God. Right, So, but all right, we're not going to get to Joshua. I don't think if God says that Moses wrote it, Moses wrote it. So we see that the law. Then you have the history, which is Joshua, Judges, Ruth second, first and second, Samuel first and second, Kings first and second, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, and Esther. Those are all historical books. Are you finding

34:54 something interesting here? This is called a survey of the New Testament. The next is Joshua one to eight. Are we not getting a survey of the Old Testament? Okay, all right, well let's continue. And right now we're in the We're in the Book of Judges. We've been going through the Bible chapter by chapter and our Sunday evening services, and we are into the distressing days of the Judges now and then and we have job Psalm, Proverbs, wisdom, and the Song of Songs, or the Song of Solomon, which is of course the Books of Wisdom, and then you have the prophetic books, and you have Isaiah through Malachi there and you can see on the chart and well, we can break those down into major prophets and minor prophets.

35:46 When you hear a major prophet and minor prophet, this has nothing to do with the status of the prophet. It has to do with the link of the book. So Isaiah is a major prophet because he wrote sixty six chapters. Jeremiah same way, but Amos only wrote a few chapters or six chapters, and so he's a minor prophet. It's kind of interesting because you know, Daniel is a major prophet, he only twelve but we see that that's the way that they were classified. And then we get to the New Testament and we're already out of time. So this is just kind of an introduction for next week, and that is you other gospels and we'll be breaking those down. Each one of those were written to different groups of people, and I mean they were emphasizing different groups of people. And then you had the Church history, the one and that is where the church is coming out of the synagogues and going and starting their own church, coming out of the Jewish culture into the Gentile culture. And that's the book of Acts that we spend an extensive time this past year on. Then you have Paul's letters.

36:59 The epistles are not wives of the apostles, now, they were the epistles, and so they were letters and from Romans to Thi Lehman. And then you have the general letters or the general Epistles, and those are Hebrews, James first and second, Peter first and second, third John, and Jude. Now except for first, second, third John, the rest of these are books that again are written with Jews in mind. Well, we're written by Jews, and especially the Book of Hebrews, because the more you know about the Old Testament, the more Hebrews comes to life. That's the reason you need we still need to study the Old Testament. And then of course the book of that is just mainline Prophecy, is the book of Revelation.

37:50 Now I would in saying that we're going to be looking at the New Testament. Three, we're going to be looking next week we'll start on just overview and uh well b B breaking down those gospels which one was which group of people were these written written to? And why? And why are there four Gospels? And so forth? But when I talk to people about uh about uh where to start in the New Testament? Start with John? Because John is the most simple writing. In fact, whenever you take I know that that's a common thing. Hey, where do I start? Start with John?

38:37 I would say, start with Genesis. It happens to be first, right, Or start with Matthew happens to be first, right. I mean, you know, like what I understand, I probably at one time used to teach that, probably a long time ago. Start with John because I was taught that my whole life. But how about you start with Genesism start with Matthew? Right? And again, when when you say where start start for which thing? Start in your reading or start in your study because you know you're there's there, or start in your devotional Like which thing are you going to Are you going to be doing extensive study? Are you going to be doing just reading? If you're just reading, then definitely. If you're just reading, start in Genesis, and then you can do like if you're gonna do like two times a day, you're gonna read. Then in the morning read Jena or starting the Old Testament with Genesis in the evening, start with Matthew. If you're just going to read straight through, just start in Genesis. Just start that way and mat If you're gonna take off on an extensive study, well then yeah, well, I mean even if you just starting Genesis, you can start an extensive study. I don't know. Everyone always says goes say to go to John. I don't know, because they say that it's a a big I think he said it's simple, but you start off in the Gospel of John with these words. I'm gonna start off with the Gospel of John, right Like, I don't know if this would be simple, if this would be easy. I don't know if I'm going

40:07 to start off my study of the New Testament with these words. I'm gonna read it directly from the text. I could, I could recite it, but I'm going to turn there. So there you go. You open up your Bible to John chapter one, and you read in the beginning was the word wait what is that? And the word was with God? And the word was God o wait wait wait wait wait, So what is this word? Thing? Is that a person? Is that not a person. See the Greek word is lagous. What does that mean? Okay? Is that a principle? Is that a concept? And how can it be with God and God at the exact same time? Okay, I like ladies and gentlemen. There's nothing simple about that, not even a little bit. Okay, not even not even not a little like maybe the reason Matthew would be difficult to get someone to start as you start with that long genealogy and you're just like, you're just kind of stumbling over the names and even how to say them correctly. So I don't know. So I can understand that, but I don't know. I don't know that. You can have your own theory there, all right, But let's this is about Joshua one aid and we're not oh boy, Greek language, the Bible Greek in the in uh school and college. You start off with John because John is the easiest to translate and yet the most he's the most profound writer of Maul. Yeah he's he's just a fisherman, but boy, he puts it down on our language for God so loved the world. You know, I mean, that's pretty simple,

41:42 isn't it. And so he that hath the son hath life he that hath not the son of God hath not. That's one syllable words. But my it changes everything, doesn't it, whether you accept it or not. So, uh, John is uh the person to begin with. Don't start with Matthew because now these books in the Bible are the order of the books is not inspired, the content of the books is inspired. Does that make sense? In other words, Matthew was probably not the first book or gospel written. Mark might have been, you know, Okay, that's a good argument. The order of the books are not inspired, the contents are.

42:27 That's good. I still would say start with Genesis, like the order may not be inspired, but Genesis is clearly the book of beginnings. Okay, there's no way to get around that. Okay, So you can make an argument that Genesis may not the order of Genesis name may not be inspired, but the content demands it be the first book. So I would start with Genesis. I don't know why you would say don't start with Matthew. I don't know. If you want to put them in chronological order, then I guess you could start with Mark. So whatever, so and John was the last we know and so, But John is the want of the beginning, because if you look in Matthew, all these things were written, which were all these things were done, which were written in the prophets, saying in other words, he's a it's a fulfillment of the Old Testament. What does it begin with? What does the New Testament begin with? A genealogy of the Old Testament from from Abraham to Jesus. So you have to know a lot about those people, Hagar and other people that are in there, and you start seeing the grace of God of what he did in bringing through all that convoluted sinful people. From Abraham we got Jesus Christ. And so you don't begin with that because the more you know about the Old Testament, I love it, because I've you know, the more you get into the Old Tipman, more you love than you you know. It's just one of those things. And so but it's not a good book to start on. So

44:00 start with John. And another book is not good to start on is acts. Again, you're coming out of the Old Testament the Temple into the New and he's talking to people about baptism. Those Jews them what baptism meant. I mean, if you were baptized, and you were being baptized into Israel as a gentile, you were claiming, hey, I'm becoming a Jew. And even and boy, we don't have time to get into it all today, but even baptism today. I've had Jewish friends and say that they when they were baptized, their mother came to church and with a doll in her hand, and she threw it down and walked out, symbolizing that she disowned her child. I mean, that's how serious baptism is to the jew.

44:44 But we all know repent and be baptized, well, you know, to us a big deal, but to a Jew it means a lot. And so there again, the more you know about the Old Testament, the more you know about than you And then the Book of Hebrews, oh my, you've really got to know about the Old Testament because he quotes the Old Testament more than anybody. I will agree that you have to know a lot of Old Testament to appreciate the Book of Hebrews. But I would argue you need to know about seventy a d more than anything to understand the Book of Hebrews. Because the Book of Hebrew Brews was written just a few years prior to the destruction of the Temple in seventy a D. So the entire interpretation of the book is that it's being written to Jews are about to face the complete eradication and destruction of their religious system. And then some of those warnings make a whole lot more sense. But we do some very weird things when we remove it from the historical context of seventy eight D. So if you don't know what happened in seventy eight D, you should become an expert on how well what happened to the Temple in Jerusalem else. And so there again we'll get into did Paul write to the Book of Hebrews or did someone else?

46:04 I don't think Paul wrote the Book of Hebrews. Now, does that make me a heretic? No, I just don't believe that Paul wrote it. After trying to translate the thing, after translating John, excuse me, alright, translating anything that Paul wrote, you can't translate first Thessalonians, then go to Hebrew and say that's the same writer. I mean it just, I mean, I just you've got to know so much about you got to know so much more about Greek to translate Hebrews than you do for Thessalonians, and so and I didn't. And the reason I say is because I didn't even try to. We spent a whole year, now, a whole semester in grad school translating Hebrew. Where it takes you know, a couple of weeks in John, you know, or for Sean or whatever. So so it's there again. We'll get into all that. But so I hope of what did your appetite. We've had technical problems this morning, so we this is a rush job. But next week we will start on the New Testament.

47:02 And of course, in starting on the New Testament, I've got to refer to you refer to the Old Testament quite a bit, because the Bible as a whole, all scripture is given by the inspiration of God, as we saw last week. And so we'll be starting on our survey. And like I said, I've got several of these books. I'm going to order more, but I've given out several of them. But if you don't have it, it's survey of the New Testament. I'm going to be ordering several more, but I can't just hand them out because they're about ten dollars apiece. So if you want to throw an extra dollar in the kiddy or whatever, that's fine too. But if you don't have one, I've got two left in my library and I'll be ordering more this coming week. I know that several of you have them. But we'll start, well, we've got to stop here, and we'll start next week on our survey of the New Testament.

47:49 And now, Lord, we pray that you will bless this time we have together. Lord, give us a hunger for your word. Give us a great deep desire and a delight as we see that the writer of Psalms had that we made. Your word is is sweet to our taste. That we love and desire your work. Oh Lord, bless your people. We pray make us successful Christians because of what we know about you. We meditate, we obey, we honor, we love you because of what you've revealed to us through your word. For a pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

48:31 Wow, we meditate. I guess that's day and night. And we obey. It's pretty strong to tell God that you obey. I obey everything God, I obey. I am the most obedient. Okay, that's a pretty strong prayer to tell God, all right, here's my I don't even know what to say. I know what I would have done if I would have been at that church and that would have happened to my Sunday school lesson, I would have deleted that thing and it never would have appeared on the internet. I would not have done that. I don't know why that's labeled Joshua one eight. If you come across that sermon Joshua one eight a Survey of the New Testament, well you can skip it because it's not about Joshua one eight. What we got from that is this Joshua one eight. He immediately made it about us, and he made the claim that it's a universal promise.

49:24 He made no, he did not place any limits on it. It's universal, it's it's for anyone. Now I'm assuming he would have to say it's only for Christians, but it so once again, is this the idea that, hey, if you know God's word and it's always in your mouth. I mean, if it's always in your mouth, you've got to know it, right, You got to know it. It's always there, you're always speaking about it. We do need to kind of really drive down to exactly what that phrase means. Right, I don't have my other Bibles here to look at other different translations. But we won't do that now. But so in Joshua one eight, right, the book of a wall show not depart from your mouth. We got to know exactly that seems to me to give the impression we're constantly talk about it. We have to meditate on it day and night, and then we have to obey everything that's in it.

50:13 If those are the three conditions he makes it, he seems to imply that we can do it, we can pull it off. And I reject that out right. You cannot obey that. You will never even come close. Israel did not come close. We do not come close. We're always in a perpetual state of disobedience. We do not meditate on it day and night. And I'm telling you, the word of God is not always in your mouth. You think about all the things you talk about in a day, and how much of it is scripture. So but then he says it's universal. So is it universal? So first we need to just determine is it universal? Can we meet these conditions? What does it mean that it's always in our mouth basically, and then guess what he did not connect it to.

50:58 He did not connect it to do to around on me twenty eight, which is what I feel like most preachers are not going to do. I have no idea why. I guess the only reason they made that the scripture for that is because that's the one he quoted. Should have just left off scripture references should have just left off scripture reference, or the scripture reference should have been Matthew to revelation because it's a survey of the New Testament. There we go. No, it was fifty one minutes. We're off to a very rough start. We're off to a very rough start in our journey of Joshua one Pint eight. We're still working on Saw eighty three. I mean my attempts on Saw maty three this morning went relatively rough as well, So you know, but I do feel bad for him. I do feel bad that the technical difficulty clearly messed up his entire lesson. You can just tell that he's just trying to figure out. He's probably just improvising making it through that. So I feel bad for him. But man, I would have deleted that. I never would have uploaded that. Never in a million years I would have deleted that so fast, and I would have been so frustrated.

52:07 And then all I could have really what I probably would have done is I probably would have just said, Hey, we're going to be supposed to be doing the survey and of the New Testament, but let's start in Joshua one to eight, and then just taught Joshua one eight. Now, if I taught it the way I would have taught it a long time ago, then I would have said, well, we're getting ready to do a survey of the New Testament, and you whin do we do the survey of the New Testament? Because God has given us a promise that if we know the word and it's constantly in our mouth, and if we meditate on it day and night, and if we obey what we learn, then we will have good success. And I really would have driven home those three points and applied it to us. Now I reject that interpretation now outright, but that's what I would have done. I would have just turned it into a devotional message, not titled that Survey of the New Testament, and do a devotional message on Joshua one to eight, and then that's what I would have done.

52:57 But it's easy for me to say because I was in that situation. It's easy after the fact when you're in that situation and you're just like, well, all right, just go. But man, I sure wouldn't have uploaded it. I would have deleted it and then just walked around for five minutes, ten minutes before the next service began, saying I'm quit. I quit. That's it. I'm going to the liquor store. I give up. I'm never doing this stuff again. I'm getting too old for this, right, I don't know. I would have just been complaining the whole and then I would have got up the next hour and then tell everyone how frustrated I am, because then I would feel like I'm not being transparent. Yeah, and then the second hour would have probably been a disaster. Yeah, preaching technical difficulties, all right. I wish I could give you something on Joshua one eight. So I guess the question I'll leave with you Joshua one eight.

53:52 Is it a universal promise? And by that I mean if anyone simply knows the Word of God and it's constantly in their mouth, they meditate on a day or night, and they obey it. Let's just say it's possible. If it's a universal promise, then it's universally possible for everyone to obey it. That's very Pelagian. Pelagianism teaches the idea that anyone can obey because your will is I guess if you believe in a hardcore free will theology, you have to be semi Pelagian or full bloom Pallagian. So then that you do not basically have a sinful nature, or the sinful nature does not impact your will, or if your will is free of your sinful nature and the sinful nature has no impact on your will and your will is absolutely free, then I guess maybe you could argue it's a universal promise and even someone who's unregenerate, their will is free, so they can then obey the word of God. So if you took a lost person, they knew it, it's always in their mouth, they meditate on it, and they obeyed everything in it. Would they be prosperous and have good success? Now? You would that be? You would mean that they would be prosperous and have good success in this life. I'm not gonna I know, I'm gonna get emails.

55:07 You do oh you do is ask questions and you never give answers because the goal of this study is to get people participating. So what do you think about it being universal? I would love to get your thoughts. You can email me news I f at yahoo dot com. That's news, I f at yahoo dot com. And we can declare that our first sermon review on Joshua one to eight was an abysmal failure. That's what happens when you choose random sermons. But it's also the fun part of this so but it's probably my fault. I saw survey of the New Testament. I should have known, but I had to hear it, right. I thought maybe this was some something unique. I thought, oh, this is gonna be interesting, and well I was seriously wrong. All right, thanks for listening everyone, Have a great night. God bless