Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has
for us here today.
If you have been with us, you know that we're in the book of Joshua.
So we're in Joshua chapter 20.
We studied last week a long passage of scripture detailing the
inheritance of land given to each one of the tribes and obviously
all the tribes except for the tribe of Levi.
And that was obviously the.
The inheritance of having a relationship with God and communing
with Him.
But now we've got to Joshua chapter 20, and we have a very interesting
passage here.
It's a.
It's a short chapter, only nine verses.
We're going to study this this evening.
This is actually Joshua following God's plan.
That was actually commanded through Moses all the way back in
Numbers chapter 35.
And so if you've gone through the Book of Numbers, certainly you
know that that was a major portion of the Book of Numbers is
obviously a God working through Moses with the people of
Israel.
And there was a time in which God told Moses in Numbers Chapter
35 to appoint six cities of refuge for a specific purpose.
And what we actually see In Joshua chapter 20 is those six cities
being placed in the nation of Israel, the.
The land that God had provided for them.
And we're going to study this this evening because at first glance,
this is an interesting passage just to be put in here.
It doesn't seem necessarily to line up with everything else because
of.
Of many different reasons.
But also it would be tempting to just read this passage as a historical
account just to see, yes, there was a place for people to run
when certain things happened.
But I do believe that there's a greater spiritual impact and lesson
that we can learn here in Joshua chapter 20, even about our
own salvation that we find in Jesus Christ.
So let's go ahead and read through this passage here.
We're going to talk about specifically these six cities of
refuge, what they were there for, how the individuals that would
live within this land could access these cities of refuge and
what that means for us within our own Christian walk.
So let's look at verse number one.
It says, and the Lord also spake unto Joshua, saying, speak
to the children of Israel, saying, appoint out for you cities
of refuge, whereof I spake to you.
By the hand of Moses.
So there's that reminder there that this has already been brought
to Moses.
Joshua gets to be the one who gets to see the blessing come to
pass.
And we actually see that as a theme a lot in the book of Joshua
that God had spoken to Moses.
And certainly Moses got a lot accomplished in the will of the Lord.
But Joshua now gets to see a lot of the fruit of those promises
given back, and really the commandments given back earlier on
in the.
The ministry of Moses.
And so he says that there is a call to create these cities of refuge.
And then he says in verse three, the purpose of these cities
of refuge.
He says that the slayer that killeth any person unawares and unwittingly
may flee thither, and they shall be your refuge from the avenger
of blood.
Now, this is interesting because some people think that this
is a passage of scripture, basically to let people get off for
murder.
That's not what this is saying.
If you catch it and just read what it says there, there.
It's for those who kill somebody unawares and unwittingly,
meaning accidental deaths.
And we know that with a lot of people, there are going to be instances
where there are some accidental deaths.
And so there's actually here a plan that God gives to the people
of how these individuals who accidentally kill somebody, how they
can find refuge, and actually how they can find a place of a fair
trial where they can be treated fairly and not just have
the person of the family that is deceased come and take revenge
and be the avenger of blood.
So there's this reference to the avenger of blood.
And a person who was the avenger of blood needed.
They had this responsibility.
Now, the Hebrew word for this phrase is goel.
And it was in the context of someone being a representative for
the victim's family.
So someone dies.
There was someone in that person's family that passed away.
It was upon them as a responsibility to make things right,
to.
To avenge the blood of that person who had been killed.
And that was in the sense of murder, right?
And it was the avenger of blood who would go take that person,
take them to the leadership, and ultimately there would be the
death penalty.
But in the case of manslaughter, here, in the case of
an accidental death, there wasn't a death penalty for a person.
And so this was to protect the person from having some sort of vengeance
against an individual who really didn't need to go and face
that.
That punishment.
And so what we see here really is the heart of God and the truth
of God protecting those who did not need to face death when it
came to the accusations that the family might have.
And so this is a way so that there could be a clear state of affairs,
an orderly fashion in which people could have a fair look when
it came to an accidental death.
And so there are aspects in the Old Testament that speak to capital
punishment.
We see that in Genesis chapter nine, and even in Romans, chapter
13, we see that one of the roles of the government is to punish
those who do evil.
And so there is the heart of God that does show that there should
be some type of discipline, there should be type of judgment
upon those who are acting in evil.
But at the same time, we know that as humans, sometimes we can
be passionate about something, we can be emotional about something.
And a person who loses a loved one might want to avenge the blood
of their loved one, even if that's not the right thing.
So the question would be, is this person someone who murdered
someone, or is this person someone who accidentally killed somebody?
And so since the avenger of blood might see themselves as a person
who needed to take things into their own hands, instead of doing
the right thing, they might actually do the wrong thing and go
further than they should.
So the city of refuge was established to protect the person
who was innocent, someone who did not commit murder, from facing
the judgment of a murder.
Okay, so with that being said, let's go a little bit further and
let's see kind of what that was supposed to be.
Verse 4.
And when he doth flee unto one of those cities shall stand at the
entering gate of the city and shall declare his cause in the ears
of the elders of that city.
So most of the ancient cities would have had gates, obviously to
protect them, but in those gates there would have been something
like a bench that the elders would have sat at for most of the
day.
And they would be the ones that would make decisions about different
conflicts.
And they would be the ones that would be there to give advice
and judgments upon things.
And actually, it was really neat.
When we went to Israel, there was one of these gates, and they
had a little bench, and they said, all the pastors come down and
sit at the elder bench.
And so we sat at the bench and took a picture.
And so I've definitely seen this with my own eyes.
There's a place there where people would come in.
And that's what that's talking about there.
There would be elders sitting at the gates, and they would hear
the person's case as they would Come into the city.
So let's say someone accidentally killed somebody.
They didn't mean to.
They run to this refuge city, they talk to the elders and they
state their case.
So basically they're getting a fair chance, a fair trial.
And so they stated to the ears of the elders of that city, and they
shall take him into the city unto them and give him a place that
he may dwell among them.
So what would happen is the elders would listen to the case.
They would hear the evidence.
If it was a justified sense in which they weren't murderers, they
would bring them in and they could live among them.
Then.
Verse 5.
And if the Avenger of Blood.
Remember, the Avenger of the Blood is the one who's coming back
to get vengeance.
He's the one who's coming to make things right because of a murder.
And did the Avenger of Blood pursue after him.
Then they shall not deliver the Slayer up into his hand.
So basically what would happen is that the Avenger of Blood would
get to the gate of the city and say, turn over so.
And so, because he killed my brother or whatever, they would not
turn that person over to those people who came in.
The Avenger of Blood.
And it says, because he smote his neighbor unwittingly and hated
not before time, meaning this.
The motivation was not at the heart of hatred.
The motivation wasn't revenge.
The motivation was no motivation.
It was an accident.
And so they would make a decision.
They would say, okay, this person accidentally or unwittingly
hurt someone.
There was no hate involved.
And a lot of times with even the Jewish law, there was a lot of
focus on the motivation of the problem at hand.
And so they.
They would make a decision.
They would say, okay, it was on accident.
There was no motivation.
He did not hate him.
And so therefore we're not going to turn him over to you.
Verse 6.
And he shall dwell in that city.
So not only is he protected for a.
For a short amount of time, but he actually could live in that
city.
And it says, until he stand before the congregation for judgment
and until the death of the High Priest, that shall be in those
days, then shall the slayer return.
So there is a point in time, and it doesn't give us the exact
time, but it says until he could face judgment or until the
death of the High priest.
That was in those days.
Then after that they could return, as it says there, the slayer
could return and come into his own city, unto his own house, unto
the city from whence he fled.
So there was a plan for A person to be protected and then return
back to his original place.
And so, according to the custom, the elders would take in
the information.
They would be the ones who would make the decision.
And after explaining the case, the person who was fleeing could
expect to find a few different things.
Protection, a life.
And ultimately they can enjoy that type of safety for a period
of time.
And it says that the leaders of the city would give them refuge.
They were obliged to give protection to those people.
And they had no legal standing to give them over to the avenger
of blood.
And so this was a way in which someone could be fairly judged, fairly
tried, and not be misunderstood, tried when it came
to emotions or anger.
So to be protected against the avenger of blood, the person who
accidentally killed another person could live within the walls,
could find refuge there, and then give the him or her a proper
chance to talk to the authorities and give their case,
or until the death of the high priest.
And so after that, there could be a declaration of innocence, and
then they could go back to their life that they lived in before.
So we see verse 7, 8, and 9.
Basically, those cities defined.
And it says, and they appointed Kadesh and Galilee in the
mounts of Naphtali and Shechem in Mount Ephraim and Kirjath Arbo,
which is in Hebron in the mountain of Judah, on the other side
of Jordan by Jericho, eastward.
They assigned Beezer in the wilderness upon the plain, out of
the tribe of Reuben and Ramoth and Gilead, out of the tribe of Gad
and Golan and Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh.
These were the cities appointed for all the children of
Israel.
And and for the stranger that sojourneth among them, that whosoever
killeth any person at unawares might flee thither and not die by
the hand of the avenger of blood until he stood before the congregation.
So verse nine essentially restates the purpose of this refuge
and the purpose of why they're going to create these six cities.
But also we see something very interesting in verse nine that we
might not think would be the case, that this isn't just for the
children of Israel.
But what do we see in verse nine?
It says this.
These are the cities appointed for all the children of Israel and
for the stranger that sojourneth among them.
So what the Bible actually tells us is that this refuge for
these people who accidentally kill somebody was not just for the
people of Israel, but even for people that were outsiders, that
were traveling through.
And so this is a very unique element of these refuge cities that
would be unheard of at the time to not only give these types
of blessings for your own people, but also for people that
were not part of your tribe or not part of your community or not
part of your nation.
But this is speaking of the fairness and the nature that God
is not a respecter of persons.
And, and I think that there could be so much to be said just
about the principles that God has ordained here.
Number one, God doesn't want people to be tried unfairly.
God is a God of truth.
And so there were obviously cases in which people would be tried
for something that they shouldn't be tried for.
And ultimately we know that God wanted these people.
And by the way, people had to have proof of all this.
There had to be a case tried.
And so what he says here is this.
He says that the person who kills someone unawares might flee
thither and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood.
So the avenger of blood, he might be doing the right thing, or
at least trying to do the right thing, but go above and beyond
and go too far, and this is a way to protect them.
Similar today, I mean, in our country we have things that are limiting
people from just taking the law into their own hands.
That's essentially what this is.
This is obviously allowing for people in authority and ultimately
God to make a plan for people, not just to take the law into their
own hands.
And so there's a right to a fair trial.
We even see here that God would give a person of that right
and if they were found guilty, then they would have to face the
punishment.
But in this case, we see that this is designed for people who did
not mean to do something evil.
And yet there are some things that obviously in our own society
today that we could think about.
Motivation, right?
Motivation's key when it comes to certain things.
I mean, obviously accidents happen, and it doesn't mean that
we get off scot free.
There are definitely some things that we have to deal with
even with accidents.
But what the Bible is saying here is that someone that commits
this in a way of accident should be treated differently than
someone commits it willingly, premeditated, with anger and with
bitterness and with hatred.
And so that's what we see here in this case.
And so he restates this principle.
He says that basically the end of verse nine, he says that the person
could, as it says here, until he stood before the congregation.
It's basically giving someone a chance to plead their case.
And so the appointment of these Six cities gives us the opportunity
to see that God had a heart for his people to be tried fairly,
and even not just for his own people, but for the people that were
coming into that area.
And so if you were to look at these cities on a map, we would see
that the cities of refuge were really spaced out through the whole
country.
So it gave an opportunity for people all over to have some type
of hope that they could flee there.
And so no matter where you were in the lands, you are not really
far away from one of these cities of refuge.
And so this speaks of God's provision for the people.
And we even know that in other places, like Deuteronomy, chapter
19, it tells us that there were roads to be built to be maintained
in these cities of refuge.
And so basically, it was a given opportunity for someone to
find this type of assistance, to find this type of salvation.
And so we come to verse number nine, and we see that purpose.
And so the cities of refuge were not only there for the benefit
of the Israelites, but they were there also for the strangers
that were coming around.
And so what we see here is that God's justice was really applied
without partiality.
And we know that God is.
Is not a respecter of persons.
And so that's a beautiful picture of this.
But then I thought about this, and I would say, okay, well, what
does this mean for us?
I mean, obviously we weren't around at that time.
What.
What could this mean?
Well, I think that there's also some parallels to these cities
of refuge as a picture of what Jesus Christ does for us.
And.
And I think that we can take a few different aspects of that.
Think about Psalm 46, verse 1.
Some of, you know, Psalm 46, verse 1, and it's a verse that, you
know, I've often come to in times of my life when I feel overwhelmed,
and times of my life where I don't have the strength.
It's a.
It's a very classic passage of scripture that I think we all should
know in our lives.
Psalm 46:1 says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present
help in trouble.
Now, sometimes we face trouble in our life, and it's trouble that
we've caused in our own life.
Okay?
Sometimes it's because of a bad decision.
Sometimes it's because of a lack of discernment.
We have trouble in our life.
The Bible says that even though we have created some trouble
in our life, we can go to the Lord and he can help us in that.
But other troubles that we face in Our life are beyond us.
I mean, maybe it's trouble that someone's bringing to us.
Maybe it's trouble that we find with someone that's against
us.
Or maybe it's just a.
A situation in which trouble has come our way through.
Maybe a sickness or maybe, you know, we would say violence against
us.
It could even be that verse one, God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
So we need to go back to this concept of just as someone who found
themselves in trouble back in the book of Joshua, with maybe this
accidental killing, they could flee and find refuge in one of these
cities.
We as Christians, when we find trouble, we can flee and find refuge
in the Lord.
And the Bible says that we can find refuge and strength and a very
present help in time of trouble.
He says, what's the result of that?
Therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed and though
the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the
waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountain shake
with the swelling thereof.
Selah.
Then he says, there is a river, the streams whereof shall
make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of
the Most High.
God is in the midst of her.
She shall not be moved.
God shall help her.
That right early the heathen rage, the kingdoms removed.
He uttered his voice and the earth melted.
The Lord of hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our refuge.
So the Bible tells us that we can find refuge in the Lord.
And there's other passages of scripture, some in the New Testament,
that speak of God and his salvation to us is.
Is our refuge.
It's.
It's where we can flee to.
We can try to go to a lot of places in our life.
I. I know that, you know, just knowing other people and knowing
myself, that oftentimes we try to find peace and refuge and strength
in all the wrong things.
You've seen people.
Sometimes I've often wondered, how can someone turn to a substance
or how can someone turn to.
To an illicit relationship?
How could someone be so far away from God knowing that that's
wrong?
It's because sometimes we believe that those fleshly decisions
that bring us temporary pleasure are the refuge that can
give us some sort of satisfaction and some.
Some sort of delay from the pain or even subsiding of the pain.
But what the Bible says is that all of those things in which
we feel are going to bring us some sort of immediate blessing are
not going to bring us full satisfaction and full refuge.
We can't hide in the cleft of any of those rocks for very long
because eventually our sin will find us out.
But the Bible says that we can go to the Lord where we are and find
refuge and strength in time of trouble.
And so just as these cities were places of refuge for people
who found themselves in trouble, so Jesus is the refuge that
we can find in times of trouble.
There's times in my life in which I've looked at a situation.
I've.
I've said.
I've literally said these words.
I don't think I can get out of this one.
This one.
This one's going to get me.
This is too much.
I can't do this.
All those words, right?
All those phrases that maybe some of you have used as well.
And in our human perspective and the trouble that we're in, we
can truly say, yeah, this one I can't get out of.
But there's a time and a place where we have to give ourselves up
to the Lord and say, lord, you are my refuge.
Lord, you are my strength.
Lord, I have to come to you and find satisfaction.
And that's really what these people are all about.
Think about this.
Think about you or that person.
I don't know.
Let's get a hypothetical scenario.
You're out working.
It's you and a couple other guys out working as a stone worker
on a wall, and you accidentally slip and the rock falls
and kills a person.
Okay?
And that's a sad thing.
That's a terrible thing.
But now, though you didn't mean to.
You, you are going to be seen as a murderer.
And now your life is in risk and you have nowhere to turn.
You can't turn to your friend.
Your friend goes, I.
Well, you know what?
It's your problem.
I'm leaving.
I'm not going to help you out.
You ever had that happen?
You ever had someone say, I'm going to be there with you through
it all?
And then your first problem comes and you turn around and they're
gone.
Like, hey, where'd you go?
That.
That's sometimes what might be.
And so these people are finding themselves in trouble.
I didn't mean to do that.
No one's going to vouch for me.
And so the only place they can turn is this city of refuge.
They run.
They say, I got to get there.
That's my only hope.
That's the same thing for us when we find ourselves in that place
where nobody's there to help us other than God.
No one has any answers for us.
We can't Figure this out on our own.
We have nowhere else to turn.
That's that place.
What we would call is being so vulnerable and so needy and really
humble in the place that the only place that we can find salvation
is finding it in Jesus Christ.
That's.
That's the spirit of these refuge places.
It was a place in which these people could run to find some kind
of salvation.
And really, we know that Jesus is the only place that we could run
to for salvation.
So Jesus, just like these refuge cities are available to those
who are at rock bottom, who have no other place to turn.
And really, I would argue that that's the best place to find the
Lord is when we have nowhere else to turn, when we don't have
any alternatives.
I've heard some people say, just try Jesus.
Just try him.
Just add him into your life.
And I would say that's not a complete understanding of really
what it means to have a relationship with God.
To have a relationship with God means I don't have any other
backup plans.
To have a true relationship with the Lord and walk as he's.
My master is not well, Lord, if you fail, I've got this other
backup contingency plan here because that's not really faith,
right?
Faith is not saying, okay, Lord, I trust in you, but I've got
like three other paths that if you fail me, I'll go to that.
No, faith is saying, lord, you are the only way.
I can only turn to you.
You are my refuge.
You are my strength.
And so Jesus was the only way.
But also, we see, as I mentioned before, think about the
location of these cities.
They were close.
Person didn't have to travel, you know, a year to get to the refuge
city.
And just as these cities were close to these people who were in
need, so God is close to us.
I think a lot of times we think that we have to jump through
hoops and clean up our life.
And I've heard people even say, well, I can't come to church
and trust in the Lord because I'm just.
I need to clean up my life first.
No, no, no.
That's the wrong perception.
Come to the Lord with all of your filthy rags.
Come to the Lord with all of your struggles and your pain and
your baggage.
And as the Bible says in First Peter five, seven, right?
Micah, casting all our care upon him because he cares for us.
Right?
We.
And.
And that.
That passage is not talking about this.
It's not talking about, well, you know what?
I. I got a little situation today.
So, Lord, if you have time.
Let me just cast a little care over to you.
That.
That idea of casting my care upon the Lord in First Peter, chapter
five is this.
It's casting our anxieties, casting our pain, casting our sorrow,
casting our hopelessness and saying, lord, I need you.
It's throwing it over to the Lord.
Why?
Because he can bear those burdens for us.
There are certain burdens that we are bearing in our life that we
are not designed to bear, but God can bear those burdens.
And so we lay those burdens at the foot of the cross.
And if we're in fear, if we're in anxiety, if we are in a place
of doubt, if we're in a place of confusion, we can come to the
Lord and we say, lord, you take care of this for me.
You can bear this weight.
You can answer my struggles.
You can come to a place in my life to clean me up.
As we mentioned this morning, there's nothing that we can do to
clean up ourselves.
We can temporarily try to clean up ourselves.
I don't know about you, but there's been times that I've come
into a situation, whether it be church or whether it be work or
whether it be just like the time where I'm getting together with
people and I'm in, the last place I want to be is there.
Okay?
My mind's in a different place.
I'm struggling, and I try to put my happy face on, and I try to
present myself in such a way that I want to be there, but really
I need to be somewhere else.
At least in my mind, I think I need to be somewhere else.
That's sometimes how we come to the Lord.
We come to the Lord thinking, okay, Lord, you're going to handle
this.
But the whole time we are in church, we're thinking about all
the problems that we have to face on our own.
Instead of just saying, lord, I'm going to turn it over to you.
And so we see similarities to the fact that God is close.
He's.
He's imminent.
He's.
He's personal.
He's not far away.
We even saw that in the Book of Romans.
It says that you don't have to ascend into heaven or go down into
the pit of the earth to find God.
God is there, and so Jesus is accessible.
So were these refuge cities.
Another thing that we could say is that Jesus, as well as these
refuge cities, became a place where not only we could come and
find salvation, but we could live right.
That person could go and be saved from the Immediate problem
of the avenger of blood.
But the Bible says here in Joshua, chapter 20, that they could
dwell in that city and live with comfort, live with some sort
of comfort, knowing and confidence, knowing that that avenger
of blood wasn't going to get them in the middle of the night,
that there could be some sort of security.
And as a believer, we can, like the people that fled to these
cities, could, can, and will find security in our relationship
with God.
We can find comfort in a relationship with God.
We don't have to live looking over our shoulder and worrying about
what's going to get us next.
We can live with peace knowing that, yes, I have problems on the
outside, but inside of this relationship with Jesus, I can find
peace and comfort and satisfaction and confidence in him.
One of my favorite words, and I'm weird like that.
I've got words that I like.
One of my favorite words is confidence.
And if you really break down that word confidence, in the Latin,
it's two words.
Confide with faith.
To live with confidence doesn't mean confidence.
And it could technically, like, if I said to you, I've got
confidence in myself, that would mean I'm living with faith
in myself to do something.
But biblically speaking, our confidence is not in ourselves.
It's in our relationship with God and what he is going to do for
us.
So the confidence is not in ourselves.
The confidence is in the protection around us.
And so there's that aspect of this.
There's the aspect of living without any fear.
It's living with confidence.
As a Christian, I don't know about you, but there's been times
in my life, particularly when I was living at home with my parents,
that I would have done something, whether it be at school
or whether it be with my friends.
And I knew it was something that my parents didn't want me to
do.
And my biggest hope was that they wouldn't find out.
So I would be living with that fear.
I would be living with that burden, that weight.
And I was the type of person, I wasn't a good liar.
Still not a good liar.
That's why, you know, I gotta be honest.
I'm just gonna tell the truth.
The.
The idea would be that I would be sitting there and struggling,
and my parents would be sitting there, and I'm like, they
know.
They obviously know.
They're acting different, they're acting strange.
And I could never live with peace.
I wouldn't eat my food.
And they're like, what's wrong?
What's going on?
And I'm Like, I just, you know, they're like, you're not yourself.
I'm like, yeah, I know.
I'm just, I'm just not feeling good the whole time.
I'm just getting eat up with, with, with conviction, with guilt.
I'm thinking like, they're going to find out eventually.
It's going to get worse and worse and worse.
And I remember one particular time my parents confronted me on
something.
I'm like, I knew they knew and they let me, they let me just like
struggle with it for so long.
I think that's sometimes how we live as Christians.
We live with this type of like condemnation and guilt and it's like,
ah, I know I should get that right.
I, I know maybe my sin will find me out.
I can't be living as a double minded person, but yet I'm living
a double life.
And I don't want anyone to know this.
I don't want anyone to know that.
It's such a liberating feeling to say, Lord, I've got everything
out before you, Lord.
Like David said, search me, oh God, know my heart, try me and know
my thoughts.
See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
Folks, I, I know that you know this, but when you're living in that
type of transparency before the Lord.
By the way, I couldn't hide things from my parents.
They knew me, they could see right through me.
Same thing with the Lord.
We, we think maybe that we can hide things from him.
We might be able to hide it from someone that's close to us.
We might be able to hide it from a friend, we might be able to
hide it from a family member.
But folks, we cannot hide what's in our hearts before the Lord.
And so when we say, search me, oh God, it's not giving him permission
to search us.
He's already searched our hearts.
It's opening ourselves and recognizing, Lord, I'm confessing
everything to you.
I'm getting everything ahead of you.
And so what we see here is that when they lived in these cities,
there was nothing they had to hide.
They didn't have to go into the city and say, well, I'm going
to go under a different name and I'm going to live in a way in
which I can't live publicly.
They could live within these refuge cities freely knowing that
there's confidence that I'm going to be okay.
And that's the same thing as a Christian.
Doesn't mean we live perfectly, but it means that we're
living before the Lord, and we have nothing hidden before him, that
we can live freely and confidently, that we are walking
in his truth.
So there's that aspect of these, and so there's the accessibility,
there's the availability.
Why?
Think about this.
The refuge city was open to all.
It wasn't just the people of Israel.
It was open to everyone.
That's the same thing with salvation today.
We talked about it this morning.
It's not just for one type of people.
It's not just for one person, for one nation, for one socioeconomic
class, for one culture.
The gospel message is available to all.
The city of refuge is available for all.
Jesus is the Savior to the person who is in.
Living in squalor, in a.
In a mud hut, and to someone who's living in a mansion.
And I would actually argue to say that there's probably people
in this world that are living in tiny little shacks that have more
confidence and more gratitude and more thankfulness than someone
who's living in a mansion.
I'm not saying that that's the case in every situation, but what
we've seen throughout history is that there's a lot of people who
believe that we need more than what we actually do.
Because what we see is that materialism is something that just
keeps pulling and pulling, and we never get satisfied when we're
looking at that perspective.
And so we see that there's the accessibility, the availability.
But then we also see that Jesus as these cities of refuge were
like this.
It was.
It was the final point.
It was the bottom line.
It was the only alternative.
There was no other ways to see it.
And so Jesus and these cities of refuge were the opportunity to
find it on.
On the terms of the Lord.
Like, so, for example, let's say someone accidentally killed someone,
and they say, well, I'm not going to go to a refuge city.
I'm just going to go try to make my own refuge city.
Okay, well, that wouldn't have worked.
The refuge city was defined by God under the parameters of God.
Same thing with salvation.
Salvation is defined by the parameters of God by faith.
Right?
It's.
It's by grace, by faith.
Okay, so what that means is this.
There are people in the world today that might be saying, well,
I know I need salvation, but I want to define it on my own terms.
I want to come to God in my own way.
I want to find salvation through my comfort zone.
And basically defining salvation on their own.
Well, a person who was running from the avenger of blood could not
make it on their own way.
They had to go on the way that God had ordained it to be.
And so that's the example there.
But then I think that there is one difference.
One commentator put it this way, that the cities of refuge were
only there to help people who were innocent.
Really, technically, they were innocent of murder.
So they were coming to be fairly tried.
So if they were murderers and they got to the door and they were
truly guilty, and they were trying to talk to the elders and
say, hey, elders, you know, I didn't do it.
I promise I didn't mean to.
And then five other people came and there was witnesses, and
they say, no, we all saw you killed him and you said you were
going to kill him and you had plans to kill him, and we found,
you know, scrolls in your.
In your room there, and it said that you were going to.
Then at that point in time, that person is no longer innocent.
Now they're guilty, and now they can avoid the judgment.
But the distinction between what Jesus does for us and what the
cities of refuge did is that the cities of refuge allowed for
innocent people to stay in a place of fairness.
But what we get in Jesus Christ is that we're the ones who
are guilty.
Now, we might not be physically the murderers, but all
of us stand before the Lord, not innocent, looking for protection.
We stand before the Lord guilty, needing salvation.
And so, yes, there is a sense of God being our refuge, but he's
also our Savior.
The Bible says in the book of Hebrews that he's the author and
finisher of our faith.
He's not one that just extends our faith.
He's not one that just helps us in our faith.
The Bible says that he's the author and finisher of our faith,
therefore we come to him guilty.
We mentioned this at some point within our studies here that,
you know, Jesus took the standard and moved it further.
Because if I stood up here tonight and I said, you know what?
All of you are murderers.
Hope none of you are literal murderers within the building, okay?
But the truth is, is that if I got up here and just said, hey, guys,
you guys are murderers, you would say, well, I've never killed
anybody in my life.
Well, what did Jesus say?
Jesus said, it's not just about physically killing somebody,
but it's about hating your brother in your heart.
Jesus took the standard and moved it further, saying this.
It's not just about your actions, it's also about your motives.
Though you might not have killed your brother with your hands,
you've killed your Brother, with your heart and your mind, and
that's a sin.
And others, you know, he, Jesus goes further.
He talks about adultery, he talks about lust.
He talks about all these things that many of us think that
we're not guilty of.
Think about this.
I, I, I don't sit around thinking, well, I'm, I'm a murderer,
okay, well, literally, I haven't murdered somebody.
But if you take it from Jesus's perspective, we've all at
some point in our life struggled with hate, we've struggled
with bitterness.
And so in our heart of hearts, we do have a heart of rebellion.
And so what we do is we come to Jesus and we ask him for salvation.
It's nothing that we earn, like we talked about this morning.
And, but in that, isn't that a beautiful thing, that we can find
refuge and strength even as people that are guilty and no longer
do we have to pay the price for our guilt.
We know the Bible says the wages of sin is death, but Jesus
comes and he pays that price for us.
It was the death of the high priest.
It was the death of the one who came and sacrificed himself for
us.
And what Jesus said is this.
He said, you know, I didn't commit any of those sins, but I'm
willing, because I love you, to pay the price for those sins.
And so I think that that's a beautiful picture of that city of
refuge is finding salvation in Jesus Christ.
But the only distinction is that we don't come innocent.
We come guilty and broken.
And really what we would see even in the book of Isaiah is that
even in our righteousness, our righteousness is like filthy rags.
Now, that's not a call for us to live unrighteous lives.
What that's saying is that we understand in perspective that nothing
that we do has earned it.
And so Joshua here is creating these cities of refuge to show the
heart of God, to show that God doesn't want people to be wrongly
accused for an accidental death.
But at the same time, we see a greater picture in the type of confidence
and security and hope and really victory that we can find in
Jesus when we come to him.
And I believe, I'm a firm believer that throughout the book
of Genesis, all the way to the book of Revelation, is a story and
a picture of the salvation that Jesus provides for us.
It's the story of Jesus and the story of redemption.
I mean, you can't read the book of Joshua and not see Jesus.
You can't read the book of Genesis and not see Jesus.
You see it over and over again.
And the book of Hebrews tells us that that's what it's all about.
The sacrificial system was not a system that was there to save people.
It was there to show us the picture of who Jesus is and what
he would be as.
As a shadowy picture of ultimately the culmination of.
Of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice.
So often we.
We don't think about that.
Often we think of Christianity and our faith in very simple terms.
And I think that Christianity and our faith is very simple to some
degree.
But in other degrees, we don't think about the greater picture of
what we're called to be and what we're called to believe.
There is a running, growing movement within the church.
It's something that I didn't come up with this term, but it's
something that I. I found and that I've studied, that I do believe
is a chronic problem within our church movement.
And that is something called moralistic therapeutic deism.
You say that's a lot of words right there.
Okay, I'll break them all down for you.
Moralistic.
A lot of times we preach morals within church, and we should
preach morals, but morals outside of the moral lawgiver is
a mistake.
Because I could sit here all day and I could tell my children,
make sure that you don't disobey your parents.
But if they don't understand the heart behind that, they're missing
the point.
Okay, well, I'm not supposed to disobey my dad, so.
Okay, why?
So there's always the question of why.
So if we only teach morals within the church and we don't teach
behind the morals, the why behind it, then we're missing the
point.
Then we see moralistic therapeutic.
Therapeutic means people are coming just to get some type of,
like, therapy, some, Some type of satisfaction from all the voices
that they hear in their head.
Maybe sometimes people feel guilty of what they do when they
come to church.
You ever heard someone say, well, I just went to church, and
I just.
I felt so much better about myself when I left.
That's good.
You should to some degree.
But frankly, there's some times where we leave church that
we shouldn't feel good about the way we've been acting this week.
Okay, I've been challenged.
I. I'm challenged throughout my week that as I'm studying the
word of God, I'm.
I'm getting the message before all of you.
And there's times in my week that I say, you know what?
I got to get this right before I Get to the pulpit because there's
a, there's an aspect of conviction within the word of God.
And if all we're doing is coming to church to get to a place
that we say, well, I just feel a lot better now that I checked my
Christian box today.
So now I can just go back to doing what I want to do.
No, the Bible says that it's not just about making ourselves feel
better, but it's about challenging us to be better in the
Lord, not being a better you.
You know, the truth is, is that there's a lot of noise today
about just becoming a better you, being the best you that you
can be.
But outside of Jesus, the best me is so.
It's so inadequate.
And so what the Bible says is that we can find Jesus.
And then so we see that there's moralistic, therapeutic deism.
Deism is that there's just a God up there separate from us.
It's some, some classic deists believe that there's the clock maker
analogy that God made the clock, he set an emotion, then he
just stepped away.
And he didn't want a personal relationship with us.
And that's what a lot of times people see is that there's this God
up there.
He's handling things, but he doesn't care about my day to day.
He doesn't want to come and, you know, hear from me.
It's not a big deal.
But what the Bible says is that God wants that personal walk
with us.
He wants us to, to know and be reminded of our inadequacies and
be reminded of his greatness and his.
In his infinite nature.
Folks, there's times in my life where I just sit down and I
want to just meditate upon the grandeur and the infinite nature
of who God is.
You ever think about that?
You ever sit down and think about how your life could have been
without the Lord?
I've done that a lot.
I've sat and thought, you know, what, what would I be?
Who would I be without the impact of the Lord in my life?
I don't want to know that person.
That, that's, that's not something that I want to be.
And that's never where I want to go.
And so what I would encourage you to do, just as we see here in
these cities of refuge, is they go to these cities of refuge,
they find peace, they find comfort, they find.
Really, I would, I.
It doesn't say this here, okay?
So I got to be very careful that this, this is not in scripture,
but I would venture to say that most people that went to find
these cities of refuge were very thankful for the people that
protected them.
Them, Right?
Like, thank you for this.
That's what really, it should be in our own hearts.
We should live in a sense of gratitude because God has saved us.
We don't deserve what we have.
I often look and.
And I. I really can get very emotional because if I look at my
life and I see the blessing that God's given me now, what.
What I could do, because you know what?
I'm.
When I'm in the spirit, I'm thankful for all the blessings God's
given me.
When I'm walking in the flesh, you know what I do?
Okay.
I say, this house, it's breaking down over here.
I could live over there and that'd be better.
Or I look at my vehicle and I say, look at that person.
You know what?
When we're in the spirit, it's not gratitude.
It's bitterness and discontentment.
It's like, I wish I had that.
I wish I was here.
I wish I looked this way.
I wish I talked this way.
I wish I had these gifts.
I wish that I had more money.
I wish I had more this and more that.
And that's where we're at in the flesh.
But when we're walking in the spirit, we're like, thank you, Lord,
for everything you give.
And every little gift is a good gift that comes down from God.
And I challenge you to think about that.
Just as those people would have seen those cities of refuge
as a blessing, a gift.
God saved us.
He didn't just come into our lives to make our lives better, though.
He does make our lives better.
God doesn't just come in to make my life better.
He doesn't just come to make me happy.
He doesn't just come to give me everything that I want.
Jesus saved me from the dead is what the Bible says.
The Bible says that he took us from lifelessness and brought us
to everlasting life.
He took us from darkness and he moved us to marvelous light.
And when we have Christians who say, you know what?
I'm just.
I just don't see God working anymore, folks.
We think about that perspective of God's working through
us and the fact that we are renewed, that we are restored, that
we're walking around in newness of life, having the Holy
Spirit living within us, that's enough to see that God is
working.
And so sometimes I look at my life and I'm.
I'm.
I struggle with dissatisfaction.
I look at certain things and say, I wish I would have done it
this way.
I wish I could have said it this way.
I wish I could be a better in this area.
But at the end of the day, God has us for a specific purpose.
And the Bible says that in Philippians 4:13, I can do all things
to Christ which strengtheneth me.
God's got you in a specific place in your life.
He's going to give you the strength to get through this.
Just as these people ran to the city.
Now, by the way, the, the, the reality would be that even as they're
fleeing, there's probably someone right behind them.
And sometimes that's how we feel.
We feel like there's someone right behind us, something right
behind us and nipping at us.
And the truth is that there is Satan and, and his minions are under
tremendous, what we would say is maybe conviction to come after
us, that they're, they're, they're convicted in this.
They want to do this.
They want to destroy the kingdom of God, not because they
hate us, but because they hate our Savior.
And so the truth is, is that yes, as Christians, we will feel
the pressure around us.
We will feel someone behind us, the accuser of the brethren,
by the way.
And when you hear those accusations that are not according
to scripture, the Bible says that's the accuser of the brethren,
that's Satan accusing us and not giving us the confidence in which
Jesus gives us.
And so we look at the contrast between what Satan brings and what
Jesus brings.
Satan and our flesh bring us hopelessness, lies, deceit.
Jesus brings us confidence, the truth, and ultimately life.
And so that's what we think about when we think about these refuge
cities.
So this isn't a passage of scripture that says that God was
letting people off the hook.
No, this is a passage of scripture teaching that God is a
God of grace.
He's a God of fairness, He's a God of truth.
And we have to understand that.
Now we'll come back and we'll study not next week because it's
Mother's Day, but we'll come back in two weeks and we will look
at some more of the inheritances given to Levi and the
cities of Aaron and some of the others.
And then eventually we will get to that great passage of scripture
where Joshua speaks to Israel and he gives them that final challenge
to choose who they're going to serve.
And I think that all of us have to get to that place in our
life where we have to draw a line in the sand and say, okay, I'm
choosing this.
I don't know what everyone else chooses.
And actually, frankly, I don't care what everyone else chooses.
I'm going to choose to follow the Lord no matter what, no matter
how hard that is around me.
You know, and that's one of the things that oftentimes people
will say.
They'll say, well, I won't use my kids as an analogy, but I'll use
me as an analogy.
Like, rewind 20 years ago, 30 years ago.
I would tell my parents, well, everyone else is doing it, so why
can't I?
Like, everyone else is doing it.
Their parents don't care.
And.
And the reality is, is that, that sometimes we.
We laugh at that because that's, you know, we laugh.
We look at kids and teenagers and they say that.
But sometimes that's how we are as people, as adults.
We say, well, everyone else is not serious about this.
No one.
No one else is committed to the Lord this way.
So you know what?
I don't need to be either.
And just as the people of Israel drifted, you would think that
the people that saw.
Think about this.
The people that saw the sun stand still.
The people that saw the Jordan river parts, the.
The.
The people that saw all these miraculous things happening through
the ministry of Joshua, they're the same people that are
tempted to turn to the false gods of the land.
Doesn't make a lot of sense to us, but what we see is it's so easy
to drift away from the truth of God when we start putting our
eyes on other things.
And so we will come back and study that in the future.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
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Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.