Revering the Word
Joshua 20 The great hope we have in the refuge of heaven.
Good morning everyone. This morning we are in Joshua 20 and in Joshua 20 we have a designation of the cities of refuge. I just want to read briefly verse 1, "Then the Lord spoke to Joshua saying, 'Speak to the sons of Israel saying, 'Designate the cities of refuge of which I spoke to you through Moses that the man's slayer who kills any person unintentionally without premeditation may flee there and they shall become your refuge from the avenger of blood. He shall flee to one of these cities and shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city and state his case in the hearing of the elders of that city and they shall take him into the city to them and give him a place so that he may dwell among them.' Now if the avenger of blood, now this would be like a blood relative who says, 'You know what, that guy killed my family member.' Now if the avenger of blood pursues him, then they shall not deliver the man's slayer into his hand because he struck his neighbor without premeditation and did not hate him beforehand. He shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment.' So the cities of refuge seem to have been a place that God is providing for safety of someone who was a part of an accidental death of somebody else and it seems as though in their society, although murder was something that they were not to do, when someone, if someone, murdered your family member, it was almost as if the responsibility of the other family members were, you know, life for life, like coming and killed a person who killed your family member. So that made it a very dangerous situation if somehow you were a part of the death of somebody else, but you didn't mean for it to happen, you didn't intend for it to happen, but someone may assume you did, so then you needed a safe place to go, so God provided for a city of refuge in order to provide protection until it could be further decided whether you really were innocent or not. This was not for someone who premeditated the murdered someone else, but again, for an accidental death. So interesting, right, that they had these cities of refuge and, you know, I was taking in this passage this morning and I'm trying to think, you know, like, God, what do you have for me to teach on today in regards to this? Some of you may know that one of my inspirations for teaching through the Bible, and I don't think I ever thought I would actually do it, because it just seems like, wow, you know, teaching through every chapter of the Bible is kind of an insurmountable task. At least that's the way it appeared to me, but I was drawn to it and the reason that I was drawn to it was Vernon McGee. Some of you may know Vernon McGee and some of you may not, but Vernon McGee has went home to be with our Lord, but he is someone who taught through the entire Bible. One of the things that's really neat about Vernon McGee's teaching, and I use an app called Blue Letter Bible, that's my number one research app, Blue Letter Bible, that's something I, you know, give a little bit of support to, too, just because I think it's just such a great, biblical app. But on that app, not only can you look up, you know, words and Hebrew and Greek, and there's a lot of places to do that nowadays, but they also have both written commentaries and also audio commentaries of people who have taught through the Bible in the past, and somehow they obtained rights or got permission to have those fellas teaching on their website. So you can go to any passage of Scripture and then go and click on, like, the audio video part of that, you know, website, Blue Letter Bible, and then it'll give you options. Well, one of the people that, you know, I turn to quite often is Vernon McGee, and one of the things that's cool is they've taken his teaching, so he may have taught, like, on a whole chapter, like I'm doing, but then someone went and, like, broke down, and if his teaching was on a big chapter with a lot of verses, they would maybe take a set of, like, five verses, and they broke down his teaching so that you can go to his specific teaching on those five verses to see what he had to say. So it makes it kind of convenient to be able to go and listen to maybe a five or six minute message on average of a certain set of verses. So I really enjoy him and, you know, he was a pastor for many years, but then later in his career, he just talked through the Word of God, and he was on the radio in many countries, and many people got good teaching through him. But nonetheless, so this morning, you know, I'm kind of like, well, you know, what do I teach on for cities of refuge? And I went to listen to Vernon McGee, and I was kind of surprised because he had like a, I don't know, was it 19 minutes today, a 19 minute message on this chapter of Joshua chapter 20, and he really brought some interesting insight, and I just wanted to kind of give him credit for what he had shared. But what I want to share with you is that there's something this is interesting. So the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament was written in Greek. The Roman Empire and the Greek influence of the Roman Empire took over the land of Israel in the, you know, say two, three hundred years before the coming of Jesus. And as a result of the fact that they had control over that region, and Greek was the common language, there was an effort to, for the Jews, the Israelites, to learn Greek to kind of come part of culture. And there was also then an effort to say, well, why don't we take the Hebrew Old Testament and let's translate it into Greek so that people who are Greek speaking can read the Old Testament in Greek instead of in Hebrew. I mean, if you didn't know Hebrew, then you couldn't read it, right? So aren't we glad that we have an English translation? Now, this was a kind of a controversial thing, because anytime you translate the Bible into a different language, you lose a little bit of culture. It's just, it is true. You lose a little bit of culture, and that's why it's really important to try to look at the Bible in context, and try to look at it as to what it meant to a Jew in this case in that day, because then we're seeing it more for what it really meant in that day. But so anyways, the Jews were a little bit concerned. Some of were against putting the Bible in the Greek language, because they thought they might lose some of their authenticity, culture. Nonetheless, it happened though, in the Bible, the the Hebrew Old Testament got written in Greek. That's called the Septuagint. Septuagint is the name. It's also known as the lxx, and it is basically those two phrases, lxx or Septuagint, is what refers to a Greek copy of the Old Testament Bible. So that's interesting, because now in that Greek copy, and because the New Testament is in Greek, sometimes it allows for parallels to be made between the Old and New Testament, almost on an easier basis, because the same word used to translate something in the Hebrew Old Testament is the same word used then in Greek. So sometimes you can draw connections, even a little bit easier, Lord willing accurately, because so there was apparently 70 Jewish scholars who took part in around 2300 BC before Jesus to translate the Bible Old Testament into Greek. Well, there's an interesting passage in Hebrews chapter 11. No, excuse me. Hebrews chapter 6, and in verse 18. Hebrews 6, 18, and I'll read that for you now, and it says this is regarding God's promise to Abraham, his oath to Abraham to bless him and give him the land. So it says so that by two unchangeable things, God's covenant in his oath that he made. It is impossible for God to lie. And then it says this, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. We who have taken refuge. Now, in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and then now we have the New Testament in Greek, the same word there for taking refuge is the word that we just read from Joshua chapter 20 for the cities of refuge where a man slayer who was innocent in a sense, he didn't kill any, he didn't premeditatively kill anybody, he could go to this place of refuge. And in Hebrews 6, we're learning that we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. And when you put this together, and it's also, this is in John MacArthur's study Bible as well regarding Hebrews 6, 18, that in the Septuagint, these words are the same. And the idea is this, think about this, we who believe in Jesus, we have sinned and fought short of the glory of God. And we would pay the penalty for our sin, right? Our sin separates us from God and sinners don't make it to heaven, but forgiven sinners do. The ones who have placed their trust in Jesus, who died by the way, who was slayed by the way, in order that we could be forgiven, he was the ultimate sacrifice. And as a result of faith in Jesus, the one who was slayed on our behalf, we now have refuge. We have the hope of eternal life. We've taken refuge in God because we're not going to pay for the penalty of our sin, because Jesus paid it for us on the cross by taking our sin for us. Therefore, we have great hope in eternal life because we've taken refuge in the cross of Christ. We've taken refuge in the forgiveness of sins. And just as someone in the Old Testament could take refuge so that our life wouldn't be taken from them, we now, through faith in Jesus, receive refuge. And we don't receive what is due us for our sin because we have faith in Jesus who was slayed for us. Isn't that incredible? Isn't that beautiful? We have a great refuge in our Lord. We have the great hope of eternal life set before us because of the fact that we know Jesus died for us. Hallelujah. What a beautiful linkage of Old and New Testaments. And just as the innocent man-slayer who did not intend for someone to die could take refuge and be saved, we now, even though we have sin, can take refuge in Jesus and be saved. And we have the hope of eternal life. Isn't that just glorious? So this morning, you know what? I'm thankful for Vernon McGee. I'm thankful for the notes in the study Bible. I'm thankful for the understanding of the Septuagint. And most of all, I'm thankful to Jesus. Amen? Because we have refuge from our sin. No matter what you've done, no matter what you've done, you can be forgiven and promised eternal life. Have you placed your hope in Jesus, the one who was slayed on your behalf, the one who shed his blood? If you confess with your mouth, Jesus's Lord, in believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved. And you can know now in this life, you have protection and you have refuge. And one day you will enter in to the eternal life fully that God has prepared in advance for you because you've taken refuge in Jesus. But listen, you got to take refuge. You got to take refuge. Otherwise, that sin that is in your life will, we will pay the penalty for it. But if we take refuge in Jesus, we will not. What a great hope we have set before us. Place your trust in Jesus Christ. And if you have, then just be grateful for the refuge you have in Him. Amen and Hallelujah. God bless you all.