Transcription of the Video: First Fruits

The ancient land of Israel is a testimony and evidence, if you will, of the greatness of what God did in that country, a testimony to the truth of the words that we find in the pages of the Bible.

Israel is a country that is very mountainous. Because of that, there are not very many places that a person can enter the land of Israel from the east. One of those places, one of the very few in fact is a mountain pass near the northern end of the Dead Sea. Standing at the opening of that pass is the ancient tell of Jericho, the oldest city known in the history of the world. It was to that city the Israelites first came as God gave them the land as it were a gate - a gate opening the way into the land he promised them.

We're sitting on the highest spot of a large mound or tell named Tel Jericho. There are several distinctives that this city has. One, it's the lowest city in the world. It's more than 1,000 feet below sea level and that makes it the lowest city. The second thing is, it's actually as far as we know, the oldest city in the world. There's a tower over there that's dated at least 8,300 B.C., maybe as much as 9,000 B.C. Now, the way we look at that is, is by the time Abraham came through here, that tower was 7,000 years old already. 

If you look around, though, I think you understand why people came here. The climate is like this year around. Lots of sunshine. There's a source of water down here, a large spring we refer to today as Elisha's Spring. It runs just on the east side of the tell over here, and that provides the water for this lush area of a couple of miles square that we refer to as the Oasis of Jericho. It was also significant because it's a crossroad site. You can hear the busy traffic going by on the road for a lot of the same reasons that city stood here in ancient times. 

To the east of the River Jordan, which is just out here a ways, you can see in the distance the mountains that are Moav or the country of Jordan today. Just up above in those mountains is one of the alternatives of the trade route called the Kings Highway. 

To the west of us back behind these huge mountain cliffs here to our west is the Via Maris, that great road that connected the two empires. Now right in this spot, there's a place where those two roads can be joined - one of very few places in fact. So that city stands here not only because of the water and the lush. But the city stands here also because of the importance of this road. 

It has an interesting history. Like I said, it dates back to more than 8,000 B.C. It's just an incredibly old city and the remains around here represent that very old city. But it also enters into Bible stories and Bible events and can teach us some significant things, I think, as we look at particular Bible stories. 

The Israelite people had been wandering in the desert to the south here at the edge of the Negev desert and down further into the south of the Sinai Peninsula, and they came upon the Kings Highway the Bible tells us until they got across from Jericho. Then they came down to the river bed out there in the middle of this rift valley here, and you know the miracle of crossing the river. Then they came up against Jericho. And it's at that point about that the Bible picks up with the story and the context of those Israelites coming down out of those mountains and realizing that in front of them lay the land God had promised to their ancestors and the places where Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had taken care of their sheep up there in these hills, and they came here.

The first story, of course, that the Bible picks up with is the story of Rahab. The two spies are sent out and they come here, probably looking for strategy. Why would they come here? Well they're going to try and get into the country, and this time, instead of coming from the south, they're going to go here from the east. So they need this road, they need this entrance to the Judaean Mountains just west of us here. And naturally, Jericho stands in the way, so you send out your spies to discover what Jericho's like. 

Living in this city was a woman that, from the best information indicates, was a prostitute. But the spies felt it was the best to go to her place. I'm not exactly sure why, but maybe it had to do with nobody would find that surprising. And when the king received word that the spies has come, or at least, some strangers had come to town, he went asking for them and somehow ended up at Rahab's house and requested of her, "Where are the spies?"

And she said, "Well they're gone. They already left and they went on looking for other things." And she had hidden them on the roof of her house. Because of her faith, there's an interesting passage here. She said to the spies, "When we heard you were coming, our hearts sank and everyone's courage failed because of you. For the Lord, your God, is God in heaven and on earth."

Here, we're back to that same theme that we've heard so often. By their conduct, the Israelites were showing people that God is God, and Rahab caught it and so did the people of Jericho. For her faith, she's saved. In the New Testament is a genealogy of Jesus. There are four women in it. It's kind of unusual in a way in those days. One of those four women was Rahab. The second thing I think about is as I sit here, I need to remember whose struggle it is in impacting my world. God wants to reclaim his world. He made it, he created it. It's his world, it's his creatures that are in it and I'm simply his tool, his instrument in that process. And that's really helpful to me to understand that, as Joshua discovered, the battle is the Lord's.

I'd just like to have you reflect on that before we apply that in a faith lesson. You can see the city isn't very large. It's just a couple of acres from the southern edge over there and the northern edge just on this side and the width, you're really looking across the whole width of the town. So you really can't be talking about something too terribly enormous. 

Joshua was standing near Jericho. He looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword. Joshua said, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"

"Neither," he replied. "But as commander of the Lord's army, I have now come."

Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for his servant?" So Joshua discovers that the battle he was in to reclaim this part of God's world that was to begin on this very square inch was really God's battle. And that too is part of our faith lesson here - that the struggle we're in to bring the value system of God to our culture, to confront the alternatives to God's way is really God's battle. And we're a part of that process. We adopt his battle plan of course, but it's not ours that he helps us with. It's what he's all about. 

At that point, this messenger from God gives the strategy of how to conquer the city. He says it this way, "I've delivered Jericho into your hands. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of ram's horn in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout, then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight into it." 

Then the writer concludes the story like this. He says, "On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city in the same manner except that on that day, they circled the city seven times. The seventh time around when the priests sounded the trumpet blasts, Joshua commanded the people, 'Shout! For the Lord has given you the city.' The trumpets sounded, the people shouted and at the sound of the trumpet when the people shouted, the wall collapsed, so every man charged straight in and they took the city."

And then God says through Joshua, "'Cursed before the Lord is anyone who undertakes to rebuild this city Jericho. At the cost of his first-born son will he lay its foundations. At the cost of his youngest son, will he set up its gates.' So the Lord was with Joshua and his fame spread."

God says, "Don't rebuild it. Leave this pile here. Don't rebuild it. And if you rebuild it, it's going to cost you your oldest son when you start, your youngest son when you finish," and the idea is that all the sons and children in between will go in the process. 

Now I'd like to comment on that because that's, I think, an important part of the faith lesson here as well. There's a principle in the Old Testament called First Fruits. And the idea is this. When God gives someone something, as a way of saying to God, "We know you're the giver and we trust that even though you've given only part yet, you're going to give us all of it. To show you that we believe that, we're going to give you a little piece, the first little piece." In fact, there was a whole feast, the third feast on the Jewish calendar. You start with Passover, then you go to Unleavened Bread, then you go to First Fruits. And the idea was I only have a little bit ripe yet in my vineyard - just the first olives, the first grapes. And I pick those and I bring them to God as a way of saying, "God, this is all I've got. If I get a rainstorm and a hailstorm next week, I'm going to lose it all. But to show you, God, that you're the giver and I know it and that I trust you to give me the rest, I'm going to give you all I've got."

Now the Israelites came here. They own nothing, not a square inch, not a piece of real estate at all. They're just starting in the process. The first thing they manage to conquer of any size, at least on this side of the Jordan, is this gorgeous oasis, and there it lies. God says, "No. That's mine. I want you to show me that you know who's giving it to you and that you're going to trust me that I give you the rest."

That's a very, very important principle. So this city was supposed to stand here ruined like this throughout history as an indication that the people were reminded that everything they had came from God, and they were to trust God that he would provide even if they gave him the first part.

If I can speak to the students in the group, it seems to me that God is saying to you at the beginning of your career, "Give me yourself and I'll take care of the rest. I'll take care of the occupation, I'll take care of the money, I'll take care of the debt, whatever." Put yourself in my hands.

We discover in the book of Kings that a certain man came down here. His name was Hiel. He lived in Bethel, which is just up in the Judaean Mountains not very far from here, and he rebuilt this place. He took what belonged to God. And he says, "'No, God. It's not yours. It's mine. I'm going to take what belongs to the Lord and I'm going to use it for myself.' And he laid its foundations at the cost of his oldest son. He set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son just as the Lord had spoken by Joshua."

I think it would come as no surprise to you that the king who allowed this to happen had the name Ahab. And Ahab gave permission apparently for this Hiel to come down here. It's listed, by the way, in Kings as part of the Ahab story. 

So Ahab said, "I'm going to take what's God's. I'm going to use it for myself." And he commissioned the rebuilding of this city. If you've been set aside for God, the New Testament says we are a holy people. Holy means to be set apart for God's use. So if you've been set apart for God, to use who you are and what you are just for yourself seems to me breaks the First Fruits concept. 

We have not been given and gifted simply for ourselves. More than that, I think we've been given what we've been given to be used in God's service. And I think the sin of taking my money, my talents, my time and serving myself is close to the sin of Hiel coming here and saying, "So God wanted this for himself. I want it for me."

God's called us to be a very special kind of people and we show that, I think, by the practical ways every day that we serve God. I like to think that that's the lesson of Jericho.