Thank you again, Mark, for leading us this morning and those good hymns, such rich meaning. Good to see you all this morning. Little rainy and dreary, but the sun's coming. The sun looks like warmer weather coming next week, so we're looking forward to that.

We're continuing our study this morning in the book of Joshua, chapter 8. And last time we were together, we saw the children of Israel defeated at Ai because of the sin of Achan. Sin, disobedience to God and His command to leave the accursed things, the banned things in Jericho, caused the Lord to allow Israel to go up to Ai in her own strength and be defeated. 

You remember that Joshua and Israel became confident in themselves, sending just a few soldiers up to Ai to fight, and they were defeated in their own power, and 36 men died. We saw the seriousness of sin. We saw the need for obedience and trust in the Lord in order for there to be victory, for there to be fruit, as God intends for our lives for His glory. Achan was drawn away by his lust for the riches of the world. He failed to believe God, he failed to trust Him and obey Him, and he brought reproach on the whole nation.

What we're going to see today is that God is a God of grace and of second chances. God will work out His plan and His promises through His people. And His grace is sufficient for today and for each day as we seek the Lord and His power in life in and through us in order to accomplish His will for us. We'll also see that repentance brings restoration and that God is ever willing to exercise grace and mercy toward those who are His by faith.

We're going to see some disturbing things in our text today as we see often in the book of Joshua. Sometimes these things are difficult to wrap our minds around. In the battle of Ai, 12,000 men and women are destroyed by the edge of the sword. As Israel, by the will and power of God, takes the promised land and drives out the inhabitants, we see that Israel consistently destroys every man, woman, and child in these cities, and this by the instruction of God. 

This is a question that's very difficult for us to deal with, to understand, to come to terms with. But it is fundamentally a lack of understanding on our part of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. And so I want to deal with this issue in our message this morning as well. In the story of a second chance of repentance from sin, of the wrath of God and the grace of God, of victory and a response of the people in worship in the Word, we learn a lot and we find much application for ourselves even as we live in this new covenant time of grace.

So, we're going to read this whole chapter again, and I know it's a long chapter, but be thankful because Joshua went and read to them the first five books of Moses, right, which would be a lot longer. 

Let's read chapter 8 again. Now, the Lord said to Joshua, do not be afraid nor be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you and arise, go up to Ai. See I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its cattle you shall take as booty for yourselves. Lay an ambush for the city behind it. 

So Joshua arose and all the people of war to go up against Ai, and Joshua chose 30,000 mighty men of valor and sent them away by night. And he commanded them saying, behold, you lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready. Then I and all the people who are with me will approach the city, and it will come about when they come out against us at the first that we shall flee before them. 

For they will come out after us till we have drawn them from the city, for they will say they are fleeing before us as at the first. Therefore we will flee before them. Then you shall rise from the ambush and seize the city, for the Lord your God will deliver it into your hand. And it will be when you have taken the city that you shall set the city on fire. According to the commandment of the Lord, you shall do; see, I have commanded you.

Joshua therefore sent them out, and they went to lie in ambush and stayed between Bethel and Ai on the west side of Ai, but Joshua lodged that night among the people. Then Joshua rose up early in the morning and mustered the people and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. And all the people of war who were with him went up and drew near, and they came before the city and camped on the north side of Ai. Now a valley lay between them and Ai. 

So he took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai on the west side of the city. And when they had set the people, all the army that was on the north of the city and its rear guard on the west of the city, Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley. Now it happened, when the king of Ai saw it, that the men of the city hurried and rose early and went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people at an appointed place before the plain. 

But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city, and Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them and fled by the way of the wilderness. So all the people who were in Ai were called together to pursue them, and they pursued Joshua and were drawn away from the city. There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel, so they left the city open and pursued Israel.

Then the Lord said to Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand. And Joshua stretched out the spear that was in his hand toward the city. So those in ambush arose quickly out of their place, they ran as soon as he stretched out his hand, and they entered the city and took it and hurried to set the city on fire. 

And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended to heaven. So they had no power to flee this way or that way, and the people who had fled into the wilderness turned back on the pursuers. Now when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that the smoke of the city ascended, they turned back and struck down the men of Ai. 

Then the others came out of the city against them, so they were caught in the midst of Israel, some on this side, some on that side, and they struck them down so that they let none of them remain or escape. But the king of Ai they took alive and brought him to Joshua. And it came to pass when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field and the wilderness where they pursued them, and when they had all fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.

So it was that all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai. For Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the spear until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took as booty for themselves, according to the word of the Lord which he had commanded Joshua. So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation to this day. 

And the king of Ai, he hanged on a tree until evening. And as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take the corpse down from the tree, cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raise over it a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Now Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal. As Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones over which no man has wielded an iron tool. 

And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings. And there in the presence of the children of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses which he had written. Then all Israel with their elders and officers and judges stood on either side of the ark before the priests, the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant to the Lord, the stranger as well as he who was born among them. Half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded before that they should bless the people of Israel.

And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them. 

I've given you four points on your outline this morning for our message: first the wrath of God, second the grace of God, third the God of second chances, and fourth worship and the word. 

Well, in our text this morning, we see the wrath of God implemented against the city of Ai through his people Israel. And this kind of record, this historical account whereby God uses His people, instructed, commanded His people to kill all the people of Canaan as God drives them out before Israel in order to give them the land can be a very difficult thing for us to understand. 

It may be that we have compassion for people, that we have the God-given desire for men to be saved and not to perish. That may be part of our difficulty. Or maybe that we are grieved knowing that death and damnation was not God's will for man in creation. And it's sad to see men perish. The greatest reason, I believe, is an influence from the world, particularly the philosophy and principles of secular humanism, specifically the pervasive lie that man is basically good. 

From the time we're old enough to pay attention, certainly throughout our education in the public school system and into the university, we are inundated with this lie that man is basically good and that somehow in us resides a flame of divinity. And this is reinforced in philosophy and religion. Every works-righteous, man-centered religion teaches us that man has good in him and that his good just needs to be fostered and the flame fanned in order for man to come to his full potential and establish his own righteousness. 

And because we are basically good, we deserve to be treated as such. Our sins are reduced to mistakes and our good works are amplified into sainthood. After all, no one is perfect and I am a good person. I don't deserve to die. Well, this is humanism, this is religion, this is the delusion of the man and Adam, but I fear sometimes that this pervasive lie in our culture and world creeps into the heart and mind of the believer as well. 

And partly because the truth concerning man is so hard for us to believe, to recognize, and to admit. Listen to the words of Psalm 5810. It says, "The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." This psalm speaks of perspective. When we are glorified, when we are in heaven with our Lord, when sin has been removed from us entirely, we will see the righteousness of God. We will truly understand the sinfulness of men and we will know the righteous judgment of the Lord. 

It says, "We will wash our feet in the blood of the wicked." It's difficult to understand now. It takes a real focus on the Word of God, a rejection of all that the world seeks to conform us to in a way of thinking and a proper putting in place of our emotions. A choice to believe God, to trust that He is good and righteous, that He always does what is right, and faith in what the Word of God says about the man in Adam.

But my friends, this is also evident all around us in this world. Shall we talk about Stalin or Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Hitler, or maybe we should bring it a little closer to home, like the woman who drowned her four children in the bathtub in Minneapolis because they stood in the way of something she wanted. Or just last week, the young boy who killed the little girl in Chippewa Falls. God knows why. 

But my brothers and sisters, that's the point. God judges according to truth. He does know the truth. He does know why. And all the details and contingencies. I remember when Guy and I flew into Chennai, India about ten years ago, as we came into that city of ten million, we looked down and saw what looked like to me pig shelters, rusty metal roofs over structures made of sticks, as far as the eye could see, the slums of India. 

It was profound. And I remember Guy leaned over to me, looking out the window, and he said, "I wonder what's going on down there." We could speak of endless evil in this world. We could tell graphic stories that would turn our stomachs every day in every city and town all around the world, not to mention what those in power do to the masses in places like Ukraine and Shanghai today. 

Or I could look at my own sin, my life before Christ. It's not very pretty. My brothers and sisters, the biblical truth, the evident truth even in our world in the history of humanity is that man is basically evil, dominated and controlled by sin. He hates God and he hates his people and is at enmity with God and His truth and His Son. 

Think about the parable that Jesus told to the Jewish leaders about the man who owned the vineyard and he sent his servants to harvest the vineyard and they killed his servants representing the prophets and he said, well, I'll send my son, right? What'd they do to his son? They beat him and they killed him. That's what they did to the Son of God. 

Turn over to Romans 3 with me at verse 9. Romans 3:9, Paul's been talking about the Jews and the advantage of being a Jew, which he says chiefly is they were given the Word of God. Verse 9, "What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands. There's none who seeks after God, they have all turned aside, they have together become unprofitable, there's none who does good, no, not one." 

As if Paul would point to the back of the room and say, "No, not you either." "Their throat is an open tomb, with their tongues they have practiced deceit, the poison of asp is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." 

That's what we see in our world today. There is no fear of God before their eyes. They approve of those who do wickedly. This is an accurate assessment of mankind from the omniscient God of the universe. There's none righteous, no, not one, all deserve wrath. We all, every man born in Adam, born a sinner, who manifests that sin in our lives continually deserve the wrath of God in the lake of fire forever. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and thus all deserve the penalty for sin which is death. 

This is the truth. This is who man is and God is right and just to punish sin, to judge men, to destroy them and to send them to hell. It's not easy for us to take because we long in our humanity and our flesh for the opposite to be true. And that's why we, the lie of humanism is so effective. But it is the truth. God is holy. God is just and He must punish every sin. 

The people of Canaan were wicked people. We read this before, living in all kinds of debauchery and wickedness, even causing their babies to pass through the fire in the worship of Molech. They deserve the wrath of God and God was right to command Israel to wipe them out from the face of the earth. 

My friends, God is also love and He desires to exercise grace. Look at Romans 3:21 with me, please. Romans 3:21 is the great adversity of the contrast of Paul shifting gears here from 3:1 to 20. "But now, the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time at the cross His righteousness in order that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." 

We love this truth, we rejoice in the cross, we are thankful for the grace of God. But I wonder how often we really ponder what it cost God to provide this gift of salvation, this redemption by grace. God set Jesus forth as a propitiation. That word means a full satisfactory payment for the sins of every man. Romans 3 is so interesting because it explains to us so many crucial truths that we must understand in order to understand the gospel and understand our salvation in Christ. 

Paul says there's no way for a man to be justified by the works of the law. God did not give the law for us to keep it in order to establish our own righteousness, He gave the law to show us our sin, that we might all become guilty before a holy God and His perfect standard of righteousness. By the law is the knowledge of sin, he says in verse 20. But in verse 21 we see the great news, the tremendous words, "but now," he says we cannot establish our own righteousness, there's nothing good, nothing redeeming in us, but God who is rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us gave His only begotten Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

In order that through faith alone in Jesus alone and what He accomplished on the cross, the work that He finished in His one time death in my place for my sins, I might receive the very righteousness of God. In order for me to be saved, and what we mean by saved is saved from the wrath of God for our sins, saved from the wrath to come. 

In order for me to be saved, the man in Adam lost, dead in trespasses and sins, wicked in my heart of hearts, an enemy of God, controlled and dominated by sin. In order for me to be saved, God had to enter my world. I could not ascend into heaven to bring Him down. God had to descend to the lower parts of the earth, condescending, becoming a man, taking on flesh in order to suffer for my sake. 

You see, we must understand that God did not have to save anyone. He would have been right and just to send every man to hell after the fall. And God is just. We see in Romans 3, God is just. He must punish every sin of every man. That's why as Romans 3 explains, God's righteousness was called into question before the cross. Why? Because in His forbearance, He had passed over the sins that were previously committed. 

Men sinned in the Old Testament before the cross, and yet they lived on. God did not exact punishment on them for their sins. But at the cross, we see in this marvelous text that God demonstrated. He showed Himself to be righteous by punishing all sins on Jesus. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 

If indeed Jesus' sacrifice, His atonement was limited, then God's righteousness would not be demonstrated at the cross. Because the men who lived at the time of the cross, who did not believe, continued to live. God would continue to pass over their sins. God demonstrated His righteousness at the cross by pouring out His wrath fully on Jesus, the full satisfactory payment for sins. And God showed that He was satisfied with this payment by raising Him from the dead with power, according to Romans 1:4. This was the cost for redemption. 

Romans 5 says this, "For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." 

For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. What a great promise, what a great truth. He says, "and not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received the reconciliation." 

And the Scriptures are clear that the way that a man can be justified, can be made right with God, can receive His righteousness through imputation is by faith and faith alone in Jesus alone. This marvelous, wonderful plan of God, a plan that only God could conceive and only God could carry out, God remains just, punishing all sin. 

And He is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. But please be clear, note this, it is only the one who believes God, who trusts in Him alone, who exercises faith that is justified. We only receive His righteousness, it's only credited to our account by faith. This is the glorious grace and love of our God demonstrated at the cross. 

And this is the wrath of God, the justice that we see in Joshua 8 at Ai. It's the love of God, the mercy and grace of God that we see in Israel as we see that God is a God of second chances. Israel repented and turned to God in faith and obeyed Him because of their faith and He exercised grace toward them. This was not the end of the story. 

You know, they were separated from the fellowship, from the grace and power of God in battle against Ai the first time because of Achan's sin. And they experienced defeat and they experienced death. But this was not the end of the story for Israel, for God's plan. Listen, the unfaithfulness of Israel did not affect the faithfulness of God. Israel put away the sin from them, they repented and sought God by faith and in Joshua 8 we see grace, we see a second chance, we see victory at Ai. 

Aren't you so thankful, so glad that God is a God of second chances? That His grace is sufficient, that it's super abounding toward us, particularly in this New Covenant time. It's grace upon grace, Paul says. And we no longer live under the law, but we live under grace. It's not obey and I will bless you. We don't sit and read the blessings and the cursings, right? We have been accepted into the beloved, we are in Christ by faith, we have been conveyed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love. 

It is in this New Covenant age, I have blessed you, I have saved you, I have completely transformed you, I have destined you for heaven with me for eternity. Now obey me in faith, a walk of faith, abiding in me. And my friends, isn't the love of God a much more powerful motivator than the law? You know, a stranger could call me at 2 in the morning and say, "Hey, I'm up and hurly and my car broke down, you could give me a ride." I'd be like, "Who is this?" This is Ralph, I'm from Ishbeming. I'd say, "Ralph, I don't know you." 

"Yeah, I just thought maybe you'd give me a ride" and he's drunk. "Ah, Ralph, I don't know, you know?" But if Mark called me and said, "Hey, my car broke down, I'm on 51 down towards Mercer, could you help me out?" Then I'd just be getting on my pants, wouldn't I? Why? Because I love Mark. Because Mark and I have a relationship. It's a powerful motivator.

We have a relationship with the Father God, He's our Abba, He's our Papa, He's our Daddy because we believe through Jesus Christ and have access to the throne of grace to find help in time of need. We want to serve Him. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 that the love of Christ compels us, constrains us. He says we judge thus, that those who died with Him rose with Him so that we might now live for Him. 

Our greatest heart's desire is to obey our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And we so often fail. But God's grace super abounds. Sin is serious, as we've seen in our study of AI. And there's no place for sin in the life of a believer. 

My friends, there's no excuse in the Scriptures for your sin. God has delivered us from sin. We are free from its controlling power. He lives in us. He has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. We have no excuse for sin and sin is destructive to the body of Christ and to the cause of Christ. John said, "I write you these things so that you may not sin." But if you do sin, we have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous. 

And he also wrote, "If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to restore us from all unrighteousness." When we fall down, we must keep getting back up. We must repent and confess our sins and receive with thankfulness the grace of God, the God of second chances. 

And we must also realize what that sin cost God. Perhaps in our text we see worship and the Word, Joshua 8 verse 30. Now Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal. As Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the Law of Moses, an altar of whole stones over which no man has wielded an iron tool. 

And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings. And there in the presence of the children of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the Law of Moses which he had written. Then all Israel, with their elders and officers and judges, stood on either side of the ark before the priests, the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant to the Lord, the stranger as well as he who was born among them. Half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded before that they should bless the people of Israel. 

And afterward he read all the words of the Law, the blessings and cursings according to all that is written in the book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them. 

Just a note on verse 35, it's interesting that it says the little ones were with them. We don't separate the little ones in our church, right? It's my job to preach the Word of God to the depth of my ability by the power of the Holy Spirit, but you know that Holy Spirit is able to get to each individual what they need when they hear the Word of God preached. 

I can remember when Ralph and Harriet were here and, you know, they were in their nineties and there would be little babies and there would be children and there would be people our age and older people and Ralph and Harriet, you know, and everyone interacting and what a blessing that was, what an encouragement that was, how good that was for those children to see that. 

I think it's interesting here that the little ones sat there and listened as he read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. I don't know that most of you'd still be here if I did that right now. But the little ones were there as well. 

Well, Israel had just experienced the grace of God. They had sinned against God and experienced great defeat, but by His grace God had received their repentance as they put away the sin from them and turned back to God in faith. And then God by His grace and power gave the victory at Ai. And what is their response? Worship and the Word. 

They built an altar as Moses prescribed. They went back to the Word of God and they worshiped Him with pure hearts and faith as He prescribed. This should be our response to God's continual abounding grace in our lives. Worship and the Word. We must come back to the Word of God continually, renewing our minds, worshiping Him in truth. 

Romans 12:1 says, "I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God which is your reasonable act or reasonable service or spiritual act of worship. And he says do not be conformed, actually says stop being conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." 

It's our spiritual act of worship to present our lives ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. And in order to do this we must stop being conformed by the world. Achan was conformed, shaped, molded in his thinking by the world, by the lust of the eyes, by the things of the world. 

Paul says stop being conformed by the world but rather be being transformed by the renewing of your mind to the Word of God. Let your outward actions, your walk, your life be brought into conformity with the reality of who you are on the inside because you are in Christ. This is our spiritual act of worship and it's our reasonable service. It's who we are and thus it's how we should live. 

And my friends, by this God gets the glory. He produces great abundant fruit through our lives, fruit that remains. And that's what we see in AI. What happened? They turned back to Him in faith and they said, okay God said to do this and God said to do this and God said we're gonna do this and God's going to give you the city. 

God was glorified and they worshiped Him and they went back to His Word. He wants to do the same thing with us today as Jesus lives in us in such a greater way though. Individually as we go out into this world and preach the gospel as we are witnesses to men and the Holy Spirit produces fruit through our lives. 

It's a tremendous privilege my friends to be in Christ in this time in this world. And he's going to work out his will in our lives for his glory and our good. 

Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we're so thankful for your grace. We're thankful for your justness. Thankful that you're a holy God. Father, help us to have the burden that you have for men knowing as you know what's at stake Lord. The wrath to come. Help us to love men as you love men. To tell them the truth. To lead them to Christ. That they might be saved from your wrath and that you might be glorified Lord. And thank you for using us and working through us and working out your will and all the details so that we might glorify you in all that we do. In Jesus name. Amen.