Joshua 22 When Johnny Comes Marching Home

Jimmy discusses the impact of Charlie Kirk's death, highlighting his positive qualities and criticizing those who celebrated his passing. He emphasizes the importance of decency, integrity, and patriotism in today's divisive society. discusses the book of Joshua, specifically chapters 22-24, focusing on Joshua's final challenges and the renewal of the covenant. He shares personal anecdotes and reflections, urging simplicity in life and faith. The return of soldiers from the Transjordan tribes is likened to celebrations after World War II, highlighting the consequences of disobedience to God's plans. The importance of following God's will and the joy of coming back to one's rightful place are emphasized. Jimmy stresses the significance of aligning with God's plans for a blessed life. Good morning. Good to see you guys. It's been a long week, hasn't it? A lot of tragedies. I need to say a word about Charlie Kirk. Us older people, many of us may not know who Charlie Kirk was, but I can tell you this, if your grandkids love the Lord that are in college, they know who he was. My grandson is telling me the impact he had in his life. We learned something about ourselves this week. If someone I really disliked died, I would not celebrate it. But there were celebrations all over the internet, in many locations celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk, not because of what he meant, but because they didn't like him. He was considered to be a racist. He was considered to be evil. He was none of those things. He came on college campuses and just had conversations. And he preached the gospel. And he shared about patriotism in the country where it's what it ought to be. And the very idea that people who would be opposed to him would celebrate the fact that he's gone, certainly tells us a lot more about them than it does about him. And we learned something about ourselves as a country. We've come too far. When is enough enough? Words do matter. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can never hurt us. There's never more untruth than that. Words can hurt. And the rhetoric that takes place in the public square is despicable with nearly everybody that's there. I'm not a Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I'm a Christian Independent. I've been close to two governors in my lifetime, one in Oklahoma and one in Texas, both of them Democrats. Had both of them in my church. It's not partisanship. It's decency and it's honesty and integrity and patriotism. And all of those words are now bad words, according to many in the public square. So we need to pray for our country. I hope you heard his wife's speech. Well done. Firm. Remarkable lady. But you can only imagine how she felt coming 36 hours after his assassination to speak publicly. So we need to pray for the family. But most of all, we need to pray for ourselves and for America. He was killed because he's like us. He loved the Lord, loved the gospel, loved the church, loved integrity, loved this country. That's what we would all hope that we could be known for. That was Charlie Kirk. He never raised his voice when people disagreed with him, though he was called terrible names, even face to face when he talked on student campuses. He would always smile and never react the same way. We've lost someone that's very valuable to the country. But the good news is good people never really die. They know the Lord. We know where he is. We also know that many are affected by him and there'll be many Charlie Kirk's arise all over the country. And we all pray for them. And praying for the country and for integrity and for decency and for faith and for God ought not to be things to be despised. And we're in a country that is deeply, deeply divided. And I think you can see now how close we could be to civil war. When Obama said that you come with knives, we come with a gun. We didn't think much about it. But we're in that kind of battle now. And we're not going to win with bullets, by the way. We're not going to win with bombs or knives. We're going to win with integrity and character and with witness in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's what the church is all about. And we all grieve deeply today for what Charlie Kirk's death tells us about this country and about ourselves. Now for that. Okay. I'm going to do chapter 22 in Joshua today. And then I'll do chapter 23 next week. And then the next week, Brother John will do chapter 24. And that will end up Joshua. That will get us through this month. And we're now in the final stretch. This is the home stretch of the book of Joshua. All three of these chapters describe a very carefully designed plan by God to conclude the leadership of Joshua. This is wrapping up his ministry. And Joshua, in these three chapters, is issuing his final challenges, first to the Transjordan tribes, those who chose to be east of the Jordan River, and then to the nation itself. And then again to the nation, this time leading them to chapter 24, to renewing the covenant. So it's been a good study. And these are really the final words of Joshua. They're simple. They're very clear. He first blessed the people, then he challenged them to be faithful to the Lord. And then he warned them the consequences if they weren't faithful to God. Pretty simple. By the way, I'm really not an obscure person. Life is pretty simple for me. My dad told me, he said, if something's good, you need to be for it. If it's bad, you need to be against it. That's pretty simple. It's not complicated. And it's not hard to figure out what to do. And life is just not difficult for me. I feel sorry for people whose lives are so complicated. Life shouldn't be complicated. Either you're a believer or you're not. And if you're a believer, you ought to act like one. You ought to behave like one. You ought to share the gospel. You ought to pray together and have good friends that can be encouraged by you. And it's just simple. Jesus made it even simpler. He said that you can't come after me unless you're willing to deny everything and take up your cross and follow me. That's not complicated. It's really simple. And the church in America today can be characterized by one word, apathy. Our church has now 10 or 12,000 members. I don't even know how many we have. But only about 30% of them come to church with any regularity. We've not really taken seriously what Jesus said. There were some things involved when you got saved. You got a new life. You got a new Savior. But you also got a new assignment. Anyone's in Christ, it's a new creation. Either you are or you're not. So, enough of that. But we're in the final stretch on this with Joshua. By the way, there are no new instructions, particularly, in these last three chapters. God's promises have all been fulfilled. Joshua has accomplished everything he set out to accomplish. And now he is focused on the loyalty and obedience and the covenant relationship that people have with God himself. Now that I entitled this today, When Johnny Comes Marching Home. Now, that goes back to the Second World War. And what made me think about that was that it had been seven years since the soldiers from the Transjordan group, Reuben, Gad, Manasseh, crossed over to help the other tribes win the Battles of Cana. Now then, that was finished. And so, God said, and Joshua told them, look, you've done what you said you'd do. Now, time for you to go home. Can you imagine the celebrations that must have broken out when those soldiers came home? I can identify with it because I was in Judsonia, Arkansas, where my granddad was pastor of First Baptist Church when I was nine years old, when Germany signed the peace treaty and the surrender and World War II was over. I was there when the announcement was made, war is over. Now, you've got to think back all those years. Every church had a bell in their tower over the church. And I mean, when that announcement came out, every church bell in the country started ringing. There was a celebration. Now, I was just nine years old. My granddad, I asked him, I said, can I go ring the church bell? He said, of course. So, I went to ring the church bell. One of my most vivid memories, I couldn't reach the rope, but I could jump up and get it. And I'd get it and my weight would pull it down. Then when that bell would change locations, it'd pull me back up right off my feet. Then it'd come back down on my weight. I mean, we had a celebration. I know that must have been something like what happened when these soldiers came home from fighting the battles of Canaan. Even though they made some bad decisions, the people of Transjordan voted not to enter Canaan. That was God's will was for them to all be in Canaan. And so, it was not, they had a lot of difficulties and challenges. God planned for all the tribes to be in Canaan. You understand that because in Numbers, when Moses was talking to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, the West Manasseh tribe, that if you don't go and fight with your brothers, then you're not going to be able to have your inheritance over here that you want. You're going to have to have your inheritance in Canaan. God had planned for those tribes to be in Canaan, but the tribes chose not to go to Canaan. That wasn't just a business decision, though it was a good decision from that standpoint because the lands east of the Jordan were lush with great grazing areas for cattle. Those two tribes and half-tribe had a lot of livestock. It would be a perfect place for them. It was a good business decision, but it was a decision they made in direct disobedience to God. Now, we'll talk a little bit more as we go through this, but just think of that moment when all the Johnnys from the east of the Jordan River came marching home. What a celebration time that it must have been. The Israelites approached Canaan from the land east of the Jordan, so their family stayed there. They had gone, and now they were returning. It was a choice they made. Now, let me just give you a little picture here. Back in Numbers, representatives of those two tribes came to Moses and to Eliezer, who was a priest, and asked them for permission to have their inheritance east of the Jordan River. Moses and Eliezer, both great leaders, did not pray about it. They didn't ask God about it. They just said, okay, if that's what you want, you can do that. Then the tribes, you'll see going through Joshua, if you read it carefully, these last three chapters, you'll hear them say, we have no inheritance in Cana. They had rejected God's plan. God's plans are always perfect and always right. Anytime we don't abide by God's plans for what God says, we're asking for trouble for ourselves. That was a choice that the tribes made. It was an advantage for them financially, business-wise, to take care of their flocks, but it was against the purposes of God. They had a spot in Cana, and they deliberately refused to have that spot. There's no evidence anywhere that the decisions made about the two tribes staying east of the Jordan were not spiritual decisions led by God. A tribe, well, I'll get to this in a minute, they almost, by the way, they almost broke in the process of them coming home. They almost had a civil war. Because when those people came across the Jordan to go back east of the Jordan, they wanted to leave a monument there at that borderline so that all their children would know that we have helped the Israelites in Israel, and now we're going home. It was to be a witness of our unity was what it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a witness to the unity of the people. It was anything but that. God had already told them that their sacrifices had to be at Shiloh. And immediately, the tribes in Cana were very upset. In fact, the words used to describe them as they talked about going to war against the two tribes, the word used to describe what they wanted to do was to ravage them. That's worse than anything they had done to the enemies as they came into Cana. We're talking about a serious bloodshed here. And immediately, Phineas, the priest, the entourage from the two tribes came, met with the leaders of the tribes in Cana and explained to them, hey, this is not a sacrifice, an altar of sacrifice. We know we only do that at Shiloh. This is just a reminder to us that we're together, we're on the same team, that we helped conquer this. It's kind of interesting. They really thought that the children, you can read it for yourself here in the chapter, the children of the tribes in Cana were going to be a bad influence on their children who were east of the Jordan River and plant seeds of disunity, which they never did, but that's what they claimed. Oh, and they also blamed God. They said, well, God's the one who put the Jordan River in here. It's his fault. So they were blaming the children yet to be born to tribes in Cana and blamed God himself. And so we almost had a civil war, and we'll get to that just in a few moments, because I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, because when I do, I can't remember where I've been or where I was headed, so we want to stick on the way here. But the children of Reuben and Gad and Manasseh, taking their inheritance east of the Jordan River, they were separated from the rest of the Israelites by the Jordan River, and they were closer to their enemies. They were closer to their enemies. They were no longer part of Cana, even though God had planned for them to be in Cana. They chose to follow their own desires, what they considered to be best, rather than follow the commands of God. Their appeal was direct. In Numbers 32, 5, they had said, if we have found favor with you, let this land be given your service as a possession. Don't make us cross the Jordan. And Joshua, they're right now at the decision time. They've been told what to do. Moses had warned them about it. Joshua made a strong response in Numbers 32. He says, should your brothers go to war while you stay here? Why are you discouraging the Israelites from crossing into the land the Lord has given them? That's what your fathers did when I sent them to Cadi Spartina to see the land, because they did not remain loyal to me. None of the men twenty years old or more who came up from Egypt will see the land I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. None except Caleb, son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua, son of Nun, because they did remain loyal to the Lord. If you turn back from following him, he will once again leave this people in the wilderness, and you will destroy them all. Man, that's a heavy load to drop on all those folks. But they took it well. The response from the Reubenites and Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh was, in Numbers 32, following what they were told by Joshua at that time, we will arm ourselves and we will be ready to go ahead of the Israelites until we have brought them into their place. We will not return to our homes until each of the Israelites has taken possession of his inheritance, yet we will not have an inheritance with them across the Jordan, because our inheritance will be across the Jordan to the east. They just rejected the inheritance God planned for them. They chose the land east of the Jordan, but they kept their word. They went to battle, and a member of Joshua had warned them, said, if you don't go with us, then you will sin against God. You can be sure your sin will find you out. That's something you ought to always remember. What you do in secret one day will be shouted from the rooftops. Just think of all the things that have happened that we can report in the last several years here, of people who did things nobody will ever know. In fact, we are living in a land right now where what I say right now could be heard in Europe or the Far East in less than a minute. It is a small world. We are not going to ever get away from trying to fool God because He is not going to let it happen. So, Joshua 22 begins with what the soldiers have been waiting seven years to hear. He said, You have done everything Moses the Lord's servant commanded you. You have obeyed me in everything I commanded you. You have not deserted your brothers even once this whole time, but have carried out the requirement of the command of the Lord your God, now that He has given your brothers rest, just as you prophesied return to your homes, to your own land that Moses the Lord's servant gave you across the Jordan. It's interesting. Moses, your Lord's servant, gave you the land. Moses never prayed about it. Priests never prayed about it. But they gave them the land, so they rejected God's commands and rejected Him and chose the East Jordan property for their own. By the way, these first verses are really a synopsis of the entire book of Joshua. He is simply instructing them how they would live with their inheritance. In verses 5 and 6, he says, Only carefully obey the command and instructions that Moses the Lord's servant gave you, to love the Lord your God, walk in all His ways, keep His commands, be loyal to Him, serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul. So Joshua blessed them, sent them on their way, and they went to their homes. Seven years, Johnny finally comes marching home. They fought the battles. Now they were free to return to their families. And what an exciting celebration that must have been. I know that I think back on when the United States was constituted, one of the founding fathers said, Now we ought to celebrate this every Fourth of July with bands and parades and fireworks and all of this. That's what we celebrate about important things in our lives. And we ought to celebrate our country. We're not what we ought to be, but we're not what we will be. And there's no better place to be than here. We have to build walls to keep people out. Socialism builds walls to keep people in. We have a great land. God has blessed us abundantly. And we've made great strides in dealing with the issues that really are most dawning before us today. I do not believe this is a racist country. We're accused of that. You try to help somebody and just helping them. If you mention what color they are or what their race is, you're a racist. We've made a lot of strides in these things. We've made a lot of mistakes historically. Southern Baptists have made a lot of mistakes over the years. But we know that God has placed us here to proclaim the gospel. We need not get lost in that which is irrelevant to the gospel. And that's what's happening too much in our world today. Again, the group that came to find out what the altar or what the monument was that they built on the Jordan as they returned home satisfied the Israelites. And they blessed God and spoke no more about going to war. However, the plan itself was fueled on the energy of man's ideas, but not God's will. And when Phineas and his group who came to talk to the two tribes, the two and a half tribes about why they erected the monument, the Phineas and his group were pleased, but God was not pleased. The altar of witness did not bring, and that's what they called it, the ark, the altar of witness did not bring the tribes together. If it had served the intended purpose, it would have brought great unity to Israel. It may be called a witness to unity, but it only stoked more unrest. And God's plan was for all the tribes to be together in Canaan. And these two and a half tribes had turned against God's plan. And the altar was called a witness between us that the Lord is God. That's what they called it. But no monument can guarantee unity or faithfulness to God. The unity of the Israelites was coming apart. God had planned for all of them to be together. In fact, he described the promised land from, I'll just give you a 10,000 foot view, from the Jordan River to the Dead Sea, and for 40 miles north of the Sea of Galilee, and from there to the Mediterranean Sea. That was what was promised to the children of Israel. That was the promise. But the Transjordan tribes chose not to be in the promised land that God had planned for them. They chose to make their own decisions that disobeyed the direct commands of God. And as I said, it was a logical choice for them to make. It was a great choice for their business, as it was perfect for their livestock. But their wealth and material provision for their livestock drove them to reject God's inheritance in Canaan, not their desire to still be united with the other ten tribes. Now, let me just pause for a moment. Pause for a moment. If you read carefully through Joshua, you will note that it's a really good description of the Christian life. In fact, there's been much written about that in the last century. This is sort of a picture of the Christian life. They crossed into the promised land, but there were still battles to be fought. There were still obstacles to be faced. There were still mistakes to be made and restoration to occur. All of that had to take place, and we see all of that in the book of Joshua. And that's true of every Christian. Who of us could say today that I'm as close to God as I've ever been? I couldn't say that because I can remember times when God was so real that I would have been surprised to reach out and touch Him. I can remember God's hand on my life as a teenage boy when I was 17 years old, starting preaching revivals in Houston, Texas. We actually thought our theme did that we could win Houston to Christ. We really did. We actually prayed, God help us win this city to Christ. And everywhere we went, God was all over it. We were in 22 revivals and had thousands of young people saved. In fact, during the time of the first revival that we had, the church that we preached at was a small church called Mason Drive Baptist Church in East Houston, east end of Houston. It was the dividing line between Austin High School and Milby High School. And this little church auditorium was not half the size of this room. It might have seated a couple hundred people. We had packed houses every night, people standing outside, no air conditioning, just raised the windows, no PA. They had to hear us screaming for lack of any help. And then yet in two weeks' time, we saw over 400 high school students saved in that revival. And both principals of Austin High School and Milby High School called. My principal and I went to Milby and my preaching buddy went to Austin and both of our principals called us in and said, your preaching and revivals are making such an impact on this school. Please don't stop. And what was intended to be a one week revival extended for several weeks. And God just continued to move. I can remember times like that. I don't always sense that now. I'd love to feel it. I'd love to capture it again. Well, all I can say is that if we, if in our life, if any of us are disobedient to what God has clearly told us how believers ought to be, then we need to get right with God and maybe get back to where we have been in the past. But every day with Jesus ought to be sweeter than the day before. Unfortunately, it often is not because of things that we create. This was just a compromise with God. This plan to be east of the Jordan River. They never sought God's guidance and God never sanctioned it. They obeyed Moses and they obeyed Joshua, but they rebelled against God. That was a bad deal. Bad deal. Even the great leader Moses and Eleazar, the priest, never asked God's guidance in the decision. And while Canaan was conquered, the nation was now divided in spite of this monument that was called an altar of witness. And it's interesting that in this chapter, verses 24 and 25, we find out that the reason they called it the altar of witness was because they were afraid the children from the ten tribes in Canaan would someday come and tell them that they didn't belong to Israel because they were on the other side of Jordan. And this is a reminder that that wouldn't happen because it would remind them that we did come over and fight with them in Canaan, even though we were east of the Jordan. Even though we're east of the Jordan now. We actually did this from a specific concern that in the future, your descendants might say to our descendants, what relationship do you have with the Lord, the God of Israel? For the Lord has made Jordan a border between us and your descendants of Reuben and Ged. Yet you have no share in the Lord. So your descendants may cause our descendants to stop fearing the Lord. That's the excuse they gave for doing it. These two tribes basically accusing the other tribes of raising bad kids. Now, let me confess to you. When I was a young pastor, I was probably pretty arrogant. I mean, can you imagine a 20-year-old saying to a pulpit committee, my wife is not going to be on staff and she'll never be president of the WMU. And my kids are going to get in fights. My boys are going to get in fights and kiss girls. And if it's any worse than anybody else's, it'd be because they play with your kids. The first three or four churches I went to, that's exactly what I said. And I look back on it, what an arrogant thing. I mean, what on earth was I thinking? You know, God overcame it and gave us wonderful experiences in those churches. But here we have two tribes saying, your kids are going to mess our kids up. Well, my dad always said, when you point a finger at somebody, you got three fingers pointing back at yourself. So I learned something. I learned that if I couldn't preach anything, I couldn't live. I never asked church to do something I didn't do. One of our deacons that you'd know well, used to hate it when I'd take up an offering. He said, I hated it when you took up an offering. He said, you always pulled out a check. And you said, now play some money giving music over here for a while. I'm going to fill out my check. You fill your check out. And I just sit there and fill out my check. But you know what? I decided if I was going to have a generous church, I needed to be generous. And you know what? This is one of the most generous churches that I've ever known. If I wanted our church to be a soul winning church, I had to be a soul winner. Do as I say and not as I do never has work. It's not going to start now. And so, you know, we need to realize that as a people, we belong to God. And he's given us clear instructions. So let's don't debate it. Let's don't argue with it. Let's just obey it. I've told you before, but I really believe that the nearly 70 years at Carolina that I've made together, and we look forward to a few more. I don't know how many, but we've got great kids. Our kids and grandkids all love the Lord. You know, Randy, we're proud of him because he loves the Lord. He's one of the most gifted communicators I've ever seen. He's so much better than I am. And that's the way it ought to be. My son ought to be better than me. And, you know, Bailey, both of them ordained deacons. Terry's married to a seminary professor. All the kids. I've got a grandson that's a pastor down in Austin. I mean, God has just blessed us so much with all of the kids that he's given to us. And we're so grateful. But I think it's because before we married, we got on our face before God and just said, Lord, if something happens to Carol Ann, I'm going to keep preaching. If something happens to Timmy, I'm going to keep serving you. And our answer for now and the rest of our life is yes. Whatever that means. Whatever question you ask, our answer is yes. That happened back in 1955 in a little white frame house in Waco, Texas. And I believe that whatever God has been able to accomplish, they're two very ill-equipped and pretty innocent kids. It's all because we said, Lord, we'll do whatever you want us to do. That's what being a Christian ought to be. Being a Christian ought not to be fighting and arguing with God about what we do. It ought to be saying, yes, Lord, whatever you say, that's what I'm going to do. And enough of that, I guess. But they got the Transjordan group were pretty concerned about the kids that they were going to have in the other in Cana while they were east of the Jordan. Now, God had warned them about not destroying the inhabitants of Cana. If you remember Numbers 33, 50 to 56, God gave strong commands to destroy all of the inhabitants because of the influence that the Israelites would have from those people to violate and turn away from their covenant with God. And this is precisely what happened. The Transjordan tribes were surrounded by pagan nations, and now they were separated from the other ten tribes. They were apart from the rest of Israel, and they soon fell into idolatry. They rebelled against God and were taken into captivity, according to 1 Chronicles 5. It happened just like God was afraid it would happen. Compromise is never a good thing. I'll give you a quick illustration. When Moses and Aaron came to demand to Pharaoh that he release the children, from slavery. Of course, Pharaoh, it's kind of interesting, if you'll study that, there were several encounters that Moses and Aaron had with Pharaoh. Pharaoh offered some compromises. I mean, once he said, well, you go, but you leave your families back here. You can't go. You leave your families here. You can go worship God, but your family, well, they'd come back if they did that. Well, God wanted them to believe and not come back. And so, then he said, well, Pharaoh offered several, you can go, but you can't do certain things. And he kept offering them compromises, and compromise is never a good thing. In fact, the way God solved it was with the ten plagues. And the first, the last plague was the firstborn of every family would be taken of Egypt. So, Pharaoh lost his own son because of his stubbornness in trying to attempt to compromise God's people. God does never, he's never pleased with compromise. Now, let me chase one other rabbit here. The definition of politics, the dictionary definition of politics is the art of compromise. In that sense, compromise is not a bad term. Ninety-five percent of the time, it's not a good term. But here, politics simply means nobody gets everything they want in a republic. Everybody gets some things, but not everybody gets everything. It's the art of compromise. And we live through, many of us grew up in a time where compromise was very visible in our Congress. You'd have congressmen fighting it out and duking it out on the floor of Congress. Then they'd go have dinner together and they were old friends. They never got all they wanted. They got some of what they wanted and the country was happy and we moved forward. Nowadays, everybody wants everything. The Democrats are not going to compromise. The Republicans are not going to compromise. They're violating the very reason why they're together. They're not there to get their way and force it on everybody else. They're there to talk about it and negotiate and just work out the details so that everybody is blessed and that America is a better place because we have different ideas that are being expressed and the government is moving forward on the results of the compromise of the people who are dealing. This is what made Charlie Kirk such a danger to the enemies of democracy. I mean, he would, with a smile on his face, he would never be loud, never be vulgar. He would never lose his smile. He would never raise his voice. He would just talk to them and say, well, prove me wrong. Tell me what you think about this. And they'd tell him, well, let me tell you, have you considered this? And they hated him because he wouldn't fight. But he fought in a way that they couldn't stop. That's just a little social thing about the American Republic. But, you know, we never, you know that most churches, and we still fire 1,500 pastors every year in Southern Baptist Convention. And do you know rarely is there a pastor being fired because of theology? Ninety-nine percent of the time it's because people just don't like what the other one likes. I mean, what difference does it make what color the carpet is in the auditorium? What difference does it make whether you have an electronic organ or a pipe organ or a guitar? What difference does it make? We're not here to please ourselves. Jesus didn't die for us to be happy getting our way and everything we want. In fact, he's trying to cure us of everything we want we need to get rid of right now. Compromise is never a good thing. And the monument they built on the Jordan River, although it was tended to be one that brought them together, actually drove them further apart. Now, how do you just then justify all the differences in Christianity? Well, you can't justify most of them. Do you know that many of my, I won't say most, but many of my good friends, my entire ministry have been a symbol of God? Nazarene. Know the letters I once addressed the triennial convention of the Nazarenes in Kansas City? Wonderful people, sweet people. Do I agree with them? No. Man never gets perfect. They think you do. But I'm not going to. They believe that Jesus is the way and they preach a great gospel. And oh, by the way, do you know the song, The King is Coming? Not your head hit me or something. Yeah, you're the king is coming. Okay. I was on an airplane getting on and I walked down first class. And for some reason, I got upgraded to first class because I've flown so many times. I think I told you that I counted all my boarding passes from 1990 to 2010. And there's over 4,100 boarding passes. So, I mean, I've been on a few airplanes, but I sat down across from him and he had his briefcase open and The King is Coming was on. He had a score of the song. And I looked down at him and I said, you don't really believe that, do you? He looked up to me and he said, well, I sure do. I wrote it. He was the Nazarene evangelist that wrote the words for The King is Coming. I mean, listen, this world's too big for us to think that we're the only ones. You know, the joke we always told as kids about the Church of Christ is when we got to heaven, we were going to have to be quiet because the Church of Christ thought they were the only ones who were going to be there. We don't compromise on theology. And there's some things we can't give up. For instance, I'm not willing to give up virgin birth or the inerrancy of Scripture or the sacrificial death of Christ. You know, everything John preached today, the critics that we were fighting in the Southern Baptist Commission would do not believe in substitutionary atonement. Now, I know you were told that the fight to the conservative resurgence was just a priesthood There were some issues. I even made an offer and gave them four or five things that if they would agree to these four or five things. I was a little devious because I knew there were some things they couldn't agree with and still disagree with us. But one of the liberals later said, they rejected my proposal just back when I was President of the Convention. And one of the liberals said, oh well, Pastor Luzana, he told all of his compatriots, he said, you will regret not accepting his proposal. And they certainly did if they don't now, they certainly did then. Compromise with things that are eternal, we don't do that, we can't do that. Man is still lost in sin, you can't work your way to heaven. Jesus died and his death is sufficient for anyone who is going to believe him and trust him. And redemption is real for all who will take him at his word and receive him in their hearts. There are some things that we have to disagree with, but we don't have to be ugly about it. And the sad thing, none of us were ever trained in how to be nice in an ugly fight. You know, we never had any courses in seminary about that. None of us, with two exceptions, and I'll go into that, none of us who were leading in the conservative research and started out to be a revolutionary, I was, I was trustee at Baylor University and the chairman of the academic affairs committee. And they railroaded through without any warning and violating every policy they had as trustees, a man to be the new chairman of the religion department who was a gross liberal. And I objected to it. And to this day, I'm still fascinated by Baylor, because I'm there to say, you know, this is not right. They called me down to have a meeting about it. Well, I first did, he gave me two books that he wrote, and I read them and almost vomited. I mean, it was that bad. I never had read anything like that. And I wrote a little review. They said, well, you know, I'm not going to read it. And I wrote a little review. They sent it to the president, executive vice president of Baylor. They said, well, we need you to come down here and meet with us. So I went down there one day thinking I was going to have a meeting. When I walked in, Baylor's two outside lawyers, both from Dallas, both whom I knew, were there. And I knew immediately it wasn't going to be a happy occasion. And so, but to make a long story short, the man that they had named to be the chairman was there. And I just, I looked straight at him. I said, Jack, I have, this is not personal between you and me. Because he had come up and bought my lunch at Cattleman's Steakhouse in Dallas and gave me his two books, real proud of them. I said, this isn't personal. But I said, I've read what you wrote. And I said, this is not what Baptists believe. And I said, I do not think, I want you to hear it. I don't think you ought to be chairman of the religion department. And they called a special trustee meeting just to deal with me. Good friends, preachers on that person, on that trustee meeting. I met with all the preachers before we had my meeting. They all said, we're for you. We're behind you. Well, they really were. They were so far back, they voted the other way, you know. When it came to a vote in the trustees, out of 48 trustees, only one trustee voted with me. One. He was a lawyer from Houston, Texas. Not one of the preachers, no one. Because I had asked that we consider the theological position of the books that were textbooks, not only at Baylor, but at many Christian colleges all over the country, because of their theological content. We cannot accept that which is against God's word. This is what these trans-Georgian people, they just rejected God. They disregarded what God wanted. Now, that's enough of that, because that's days long gone by. But compromise is not a good thing. When we compromise the truthfulness of God's word, compromise is a good thing. When we consider various subjects, have a decent discussion about it, join hands and move forward together with whatever the decision is. But the book of Joshua is a classic example of what's going to happen when we compromise God's will. And Israel paid the price. They didn't last long before they were taken into captivity. And you can be sure your sin will find you out. That's the message that is meant throughout the book of Joshua. Well, excuse me, Cajun Rabbits, but next week we'll look at the 23rd chapter. And then last week, Brother John will lead us through the 24th chapter. And then on the first Sunday in October, Brother Jack is going to introduce Hebrews. Because I will be preaching at a little church out here, not too far away, that asked me if I'd come preach for them on a Sunday morning. And since someone almost 90 does not get very many invitations to preach, I felt compelled that I needed to do that. And because also one of the strong members of that church is a couple who we had dinner with at our neighbor's across the street from where we live now, about four or five months ago. And they said, we were so excited to have this dinner with you because you did our marriage counseling. Said 40 some odd years ago, you counseled us before we were married. And we just want to say thank you. It's still working. We're still together. And so they're going to be there. And so I'm looking forward to be there with it. But on the 5th, I guess it's Jack's going to do the introduction to Hebrews. And then I'll come back. I guess I'm coming back. Anyway, we'll be here together when it happens. And we'll all know that we'll be in Hebrews come first Sunday in October. Okay. Well, Dr. Criswell used to say, hate to go home, but we have to go home so we can come back. So thank you for being here. Lord, thank you for your love and grace for us. Lord, thank you that your commands to us, that your will for us are not complicated and complex and very simple. You command, we obey. That's what we're to do. And you've earned the right for that because Tetelestai is still there. Jesus finished the word and our redemption is completed. And we love you and bless you for it. And we obey you not because we have to, but because we love you. And we want to honor you and want to spend our lives giving praise to you. And we thank you in Jesus name. Amen.