This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day five, week three of our look through the book of Joshua. We're
ending chapter six, which is just filled with spiritual principles for how to
win in the battles of life. And in the last of this chapter, one of the most
amazing things, worship services, that happens in all the Old Testament occurs.

It's not familiar to many of us. This is not one of the most familiar passages
in all the Bible, but there are amazing spiritual truths in this passage. Let me
read for you what happened first in verses 30 to 35 and then talk about what it
means for our lives.

"Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal. He
followed the instructions that Moses, the Lord's servant, had written in the
book of the law, 'Make me an altar from stones that are uncut and have not been
shaped with iron tools. ' Then on the altar they presented burnt offerings and
peace offerings to the Lord.

And as the Israelites watched, Joshua copied the law of Moses onto the stones of
the altar. Then all the Israelites, foreigners and citizens alike, along with
the leaders, officers and judges, were divided into two groups. One group stood
at the foot of Mount Gerizim, the other at the foot of Mount Ebal.

Each group faced the other, and between them stood the Levitical priests
carrying the ark of the Lord's covenant. This was all done according to the
instructions Moses, the servant of the Lord, had given for blessing the people
of Israel. Joshua then read to them all the blessings and curses Moses had
written in the book of the law.

Every command Moses had ever given was read to the entire assembly, including
the women and children and the foreigners who lived among the Israelites. " This
is an amazing worship service. After their first two battles, they have this
long, long worship service.

Look at what happens here. First they are to build this altar on a mountain
called Mount Ebal, and they follow God's instructions for building that altar.
It's out of uncut stones.

It's not what man has made, it's what God has made. They build this altar.
They're building it not to impress people with what they've made, but to
remember, remember who God is and to make sacrifices to God on that altar.

And then, did you see, while everybody watched, Joshua copies the law of Moses
onto the stones of this altar. This isn't just the Ten Commandments, by the way.
This is all that God told in Deuteronomy.

The whole law of Moses is copied. Can you imagine how long this took? They stand
and they watch, well, with chink after chink after chink, he copies out, he
carves out this stone, and all of a sudden, they begin to see, if they're close
enough, this law unfold before them.

What an amazing worship service. Joshua here does what God told him to do, and
it took a while to do it. That's amazing to me, by the way.

He could have said, "I don't have enough time to do this, God. I mean, I'm a
general now. We've got battles to fight," but he copied the law onto those
stones.

He could have said, "Moses is dead. I'm the leader now. This is what you told
Moses to do, not what you told me to do.

I've got to establish my own leadership," but instead, he did what God had said.
It's a very amazing lesson in humility, humble leadership, servant leadership.
And then, after it's all copied, they divide to Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim,
stand on the two sides, and the entire law of Moses is read to all of the
people.

What a worship service. And what happens here, I've got three questions. Three
questions that, as we look at them, the answers to these questions teach us some
amazing spiritual truths about worship, about ourselves, about what God wants to
do in our lives through His Word.

Question number one, why the two mountains and the ark in the middle? Now,
there's a practical reason. These two mountains were near each other, so at the
bottom, they form sort of a natural amphitheater at the base so that if you
actually stood there, you could hear on both sides.

But that's not the reason. The reason they do it is because of what Moses had
commanded. Let's go back to Moses' command.

It's in Deuteronomy chapter 27, 11 to 14. Listen to the command when it was
first given. This is the command they're fulfilling on this day.

On the same day Moses commanded the people, "When you cross the Jordan, these
tribes shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, Simeon, Levi, Judah,
Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these tribes shall stand on Mount Ebal to
pronounce curses, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. The Levites
shall recite to all the people of Israel in a loud voice.

" Now, these two mountains with the people standing on either side and they're
reading the law of God. These mountains are pretty much in the center of Israel.
And the reading of the Word of God was centered between these two mountains.

So before we get to the blessings and the curses that were read on the two
mountains, just realize the central nature of God's Word that's being taught
here. This is a huge object lesson. You know those little object lessons we do
for kids sometimes where we use paper and we cut it up and we make something out
of it and it teaches them about God's love or about joy?

This is God using mountains, things that He's made. This is God using all the
geography that He can to teach them the lessons about life. And He's teaching
them that everything centers on Him.

Everything centers on His Word. Everything centers on His presence. We need
these moments in our lives.

That's what worship is all about. When we're reminded that it all centers on
God. Maybe you've been missing worship lately, or maybe even though you've been
to worship, you've been missing it.

Your mind just hasn't been engaged. It's a time to remind yourself that
everything centers on God. Every command was read to every person because every
one of us needs to remember that it all centers on God.

Question number one, why the two mountains and centered on God? Because it all
centers on God. Question number two, why Mount Ebal for the curse?

Did you notice the curses were read on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim for the
blessing? And why did certain tribes stand on the curse side and other tribes
stand on the blessing side? We're not told in Scripture why which mountain
represents which.

And we're not told in Scripture why certain tribes had to stand on which side.
What a bummer if you stood on the curse side. You'd rather stand on the blessing
side.

We're not told why they got chosen for that. We are told that there were two
mountains. And we are told that the people of God were standing on each.

And we are told that blessings were read on one and curses were read on the
other. And in this huge object lesson, God is saying to him, to them as a
people, you can choose. You as my people can choose.

You can choose a blessing or you can choose a curse. In fact, he's saying to
them, you will choose. Many of you will choose a blessing.

But many of you will choose a curse. Many of you will choose to follow me. Many
of you will choose to follow your own selfish ways.

Now, there's a third question that you have to sort of dig a little bit deeper
into Scripture. Those of you who love Bible study, we're into Mount Ebal and
Mount Gerizim today. These are the in-depth kind of Bible studies that you love.

Well, if you want to go even a little bit deeper, the third question is this.
Why did Joshua build the altar on the mountain that would represent the curse?
Did you notice that?

We read earlier that this altar was built and it was built on Mount Ebal. And
then we read that Mount Ebal is where the curses were read. Why wouldn't you
build the altar on the mountain where the blessings were read?

Now, again, we're not told why. And we have to be careful not to read too much
into the Old Testament. But this is one of those places that's pretty obvious
what God is teaching us here.

The place of curse is actually the place of worship for them. It's actually the
place of sacrificial worship for them. They make sacrifices on that mountain
where the curses are read.

There's a spiritual lesson here that we need an altar on the mountain of the
curse, not the mountain of the blessing, because we're all in desperate need of
God. Here's what W. A.

Criswell said about this passage. The fact that the altar was built on Mount
Ebal is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that it is.

I agree with him about that. Remember, the New Testament tells us, we're quoting
the Old Testament, speaking of Jesus, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. "
The New Testament tells us that Jesus became our curse for us so that we would
not have the penalty of sin in our own lives.

So just as the Passover is a picture of Jesus looking forward to the fact that
Jesus would give his life for us, the blood spread on the doorpost is a picture
of his blood spread on the cross, spilled on the cross. This picture of an altar
built on this place of a curse is a reminder that one day Jesus would take the
curse of our sin and he would sacrifice his life, he'd give himself for us so
that that curse could once and for all be done away with. Now, you may have
noticed we've talked a lot about Jesus this week.

We've talked a lot about the cross this week. As we walk through this place of
victory in our lives, the story in Joshua at first glance seems to be about
Jericho and Mount Evil and Mount Gerizim, but when you take a closer look you
realize that it's all looking forward to Jesus. It's all looking forward to the
cross.

You want to live in a place of victory in your life. The ultimate place of
victory for the believer begins at the cross of Jesus Christ. It looked like a
defeat, but it was God's victory in our lives.

Victory over sin, sin defeated. The ultimate place of victory is in the cross
and resurrection of Jesus, so let's thank him for it right now. Jesus, thank
you.

Thank you that so much of the Old Testament looks forward to what you were going
to do on the cross and thank you for giving your life for us so that we can live
a new life in you. Lord, we all know that we have the curse, we have the stain
of sin in our lives, but we thank you for your sacrifice, your sacrifice that
once and for all covered over that sin, your sacrifice that brought us to a new
place of living so we can live based on the blessings, the promises that you
want to give in our lives. So Lord, we don't want to live on Mount Evil.

We don't want to live remembering the curses of the past. We don't want to live
letting that accuser Satan bring us down by accusing us again and again of what
happened in the past. We want to live on Mount Gerizim, that place of blessing,
a place of promise, a place of realizing Jesus, you have forgiven us and so
because of that we can live a new life in you.

Let us live there today. We ask this in your name, Jesus, amen. Next week we're
going to look at how we move from understanding God's promises or from beginning
to enter into God's promises, how we move from those places to truly possessing
God's promises in our lives.

See you next week.