Josh 7:13, Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, 'Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the Lord, the God of Israel, has said," There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst." 
This morning’s reading highlights just how much is involved in our obedience to God and to His covenant with us. While we are reading about the Children of Israel under the Law, it is vitally necessary to understand that God has not changed in His view of how we are to honor and to obey Him as He blesses and sustains us in our walk on this earth. We are still, even in Christ Jesus, required to honor the Word of the Lord with full joy and with the desire to please Him in the lives that we live today. What was true then is still in force today in the heart of service that should be characteristic of our walk with the Lord. As we stand in Him during this time of chaos and pandemic confusion and civil strife, we need to search our hearts as to the depth of our consecration unto the Lord God Almighty.
Yes, we know that Jesus fulfilled the Law and eternally met the need for the sacrifices and all those physical implications and requirements that the Old Testament fathers could not precisely maintain. The stipulations of the Law showed the need for Jesus, Who perfectly and fully became our justification and sanctification and redemption through His death and His glorious resurrection.
Because of that wondrous salvation in Christ, we should now want to serve the Lord with gladness and to obey Him in order that He will be blessed with the work that Jesus has accomplished by giving us a brand new life in Himself. With the Holy Spirit indwelling us, we now choose to obey and to rejoice in the full measure of God’s grace and mercy and love.
Especially now, we revel in the joy of the covenant which God deemed to make with humanity, as stipulated in Ex 19:5-14. For us to consider that the Lord God Almighty, The Creator of Heaven and earth, chose to so deal with the humanity whom He created, is a splendor of worship and adoration that should completely resound in the hearts of those whom He has called unto Himself in Jesus Christ.
Ex 19:5-14, 'Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel." So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words which the Lord had commanded him. And all the people answered together and said, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do!" And Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I shall come to you in a thick cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe in you forever." Then Moses told the words of the people to the Lord. The Lord also said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments; and let them be ready for the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, 'Beware that you do not go up on the mountain or touch the border of it; whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. 'No hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through; whether beast or man, he shall not live.' When the ram's horn sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain." So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people, and they washed their garments. 
    	Inherent in this choosing of a people is the call for being consecrated unto the Lord. That is the focus of this morning’s passage as the people had to deal with Achan, who broke the covenant of the Lord and thus put the entire nation under the curse of disobedience before God. The nation then and the Church, the Body of Christ, right now, this very day, are to be wholly consecrated unto the Lord, both individually and corporately.
If we were to take this to heart, if we were to be completely immersed into what it means to be so consecrated unto the Lord, we would find our entire outlook on life being transformed into something that takes our placement into the family of God into a far deeper and greater and manifestly serious frame of reference. 
	God requires that His people are to be as serious and as committed to our relationship with Him as He is to us! This is not a one sided type of relationship. God knew, from before the very creation of time, what this covenant would require on His part. He would literally die our death on the cross for the sake of making Himself our Redeemer. The Eternal One, The Glorious One, The Perfect One, The Altogether Holy One, The Supreme Lord God Almighty, Omnipotent, Omniscience, Omnipresent, was so invested into this covenant that He took upon Himself, through His Only Begotten Son, the death that was our just and righteous judgment. That was the detailed scope of His commitment to us in this covenantal relationship. Therefore, it is not unjust nor overbearing on His part to require that His people be wholly consecrated unto Him in utter obedience and absolute honor and supreme praise and worship.
	Therefore He holds His people to the standard of consecration unto Him all the days of our lives. Consecration is a serious manner of searching out that in our beings which would hinder our relationship with the Lord and earnestly beseeching Him to remove it. It is a matter of seeking to live our lives in the course of our sanctification, our dedication, and our devotion, and our commitment unto Him. It encompasses our loyalty to Him and our enthusiasm to please Him. To be consecrated is the matter of being holy and set apart unto Him. It is the course of dealing with those sins that so easily sidetrack our walk with Him, leading to a deliberate revolt against Him and His Word. 
	This aspect was detailed in the account of Dathan and Abiram, in Num 16:25-33, when they tried to instigate a revolt against Moses and his leadership. The Lord showed the whole nation exactly how seriously He took this breech of covenant among the people. 
	Num 16:25-33, Then Moses arose and went to Dathan and Abiram, with the elders of Israel following him, and he spoke to the congregation, saying, "Depart now from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing that belongs to them, lest you be swept away in all their sin." So they got back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram; and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the doorway of their tents, along with their wives and their sons and their little ones. And Moses said, "By this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these deeds; for this is not my doing. If these men die the death of all men, or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the Lord." Then it came about as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground that was under them split open; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah, with their possessions. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. 
   	Conversely, we can deal with this utter obedience unto the Lord in a most positive vein, as recorded in Josh 3:5. Here, we have the preparation of the nation to cross the Jordan and inhabit the Promised Land. The decades of wandering and longing were at an end. The culmination of the centuries old promise was upon this generation. What did the Lord require of them before they could be led across the river, but to wholly consecrate themselves before Him? 
	Josh 3:5, Then Joshua said to the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you." The nation needed to search out their hearts and their minds and their desires as to eliminate anything that would hinder their entry into the land of Promise. They had to commit themselves to the hand of the Lord upon them and to His leadership through Joshua and to the obedience of the Lord as represented in the priestly conduct of holiness and reverence. Their tents and their possessions needed to be purged of any offensive thing before God. Only then would the Lord stop the flow of the Jordan and allow them to cross that river on dry ground as their fathers had crossed the Red Sea.
	In the Book of Job, Job 22:19-29, there is given the encouragement that we each need to take to heart in terms of our stand in the Lord and our consecration unto Him. When we set our hearts on The Lord as the primary focus of our lives and we beseech Him to reveal all that needs to be dealt with in our hearts and our minds and our actions, then we can count on Him to make our lives reflective of that seeking after Him as the course of how to live. We will know that He maintains His blessing upon us in our day to day walk with Him. Our treasury of heart needs to be Him and not the things that we can acquire on this earth through our own devices and manipulations. This brings to mind our morning’s reading with Achan and his lusting after the detestable things of this age.
	Job 22:19-29, "The righteous see and are glad, And the innocent mock them, Saying,' Truly our adversaries are cut off, And their abundance the fire has consumed.' "Yield now and be at peace with Him; Thereby good will come to you. "Please receive instruction from His mouth, And establish His words in your heart. "If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; If you remove unrighteousness far from your tent, And place your gold in the dust, And the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks, Then the Almighty will be your gold And choice silver to you. "For then you will delight in the Almighty, And lift up your face to God. "You will pray to Him, and He will hear you; And you will pay your vows. "You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; And light will shine on your ways. "When you are cast down, you will speak with confidence And the humble person He will save. 
  	We need to keep at the forefront of our minds the truth that we are merely sojourners on this earth. All the treasures and pleasures of this physical realm are not ours to grasp with tenacious lustfulness and greed. We are looking for the true treasures of eternity in the heart of God’s Promise in Jesus Christ. That is where we set our hearts and our minds and our attraction.
The Preacher, in Lam 3:39-41, reinforces how we need to examine our hearts with regard to our attitudes of complaining and whining in terms of that which we can and can not have in this age. We need to seek after the Lord to deal with us in order to cause us to delight in Him, Alone, and in our utter reverence of Him rather than feeling that we are missing something and holding onto our sin and lack of consecration to God.
	Lam 3:39-41, Why should any living mortal, or any man, Offer complaint in view of his sins? Let us examine and probe our ways, And let us return to the Lord. We lift up our heart and hands Toward God in heaven; 
    	The Prophet Joel, in Joel 2:12-19, voices the words and the heart of God with respect to this searching out in our lives everything which is dishonoring and offensive to God. There needs to be that continual examination as to what really is the desire of our lives! Do we want to be holy unto the Lord and know Him in the greater depths of this living relationship which is ours in Jesus Christ? Or would we rather try to justify our actions of disrepute and even blame and blaspheme the Lord Himself because we are like this. We cast aspersions against Him claiming that it is all His lack of concern for us which causes us to not honor Him as we know we should.
	Joel 2:12-19, "Yet even now," declares the Lord, "Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping, and mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments. "Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, And relenting of evil. Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, And leave a blessing behind Him, Even a grain offering and a libation For the Lord your God? Blow a trumpet in Zion, Consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly, Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, Assemble the elders, Gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his room And the bride out of her bridal chamber. Let the priests, the Lord's ministers, Weep between the porch and the altar, And let them say, "Spare Thy people, O Lord, And do not make Thine inheritance a reproach, A byword among the nations. Why should they among the peoples say, 'Where is their God?'" Then the Lord will be zealous for His land, And will have pity on His people. And the Lord will answer and say to His people, "Behold, I am going to send you grain, new wine, and oil, And you will be satisfied in full with them; And I will never again make you a reproach among the nations. 
    	Two more prophets add to this sense of urgency on our part to seek after the Lord to make us those consecrated members of His family who enjoy and commit ourselves to His glory in our lives. The first is the Prophet Zephaniah in Zeph 2:1-3, as he makes it known that our time to commit ourselves to this consecration unto the Lord is fleeting. We must do so now before our lives are forfeit in the fact of the our physical departure from this earth.
	Zeph 2:1-3, Gather yourselves together, yes, gather, O nation without shame, Before the decree takes effect — The day passes like the chaff — Before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon you, Before the day of the Lord's anger comes upon you. Seek the Lord, All you humble of the earth Who have carried out His ordinances; Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden In the day of the Lord's anger. 
    	And then we have the challenge of the Prophet Malachi set before us in Mal 3:10-12. Here, through this prophet, the Lord requires His people, which fully include you and me, to bring unto Him all that He is due in the course of our walk before Him as His Beloved and consecrated people. 
	Mal 3:10-12, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. "Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it may not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes," says the Lord of hosts. "And all the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land," says the Lord of hosts. 
	We close this morning with the very caution of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Matt 7:3-5. Here we have the Lord’s encouragement regarding what will happen if we try to justify our sins in the light of the sins of others. We are so prone to state that we are not as bad as so and so, while missing the truth that none of us has any place to judge the course of other people’s walk. We need to maintain the focus on our relationship and on our consecration unto the Lord. We hold our own hearts before His searching eye, thereby allowing Him the freedom to work in the hearts of all His people as only He can do so perfectly and so fully.
	Matt 7:3-5, "And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. So be it!
	Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, 'Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the Lord, the God of Israel, has said," There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst." Amen. 
			
	This morning’s benediction is Ps 71:18. And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare Thy strength to this generation, Thy power to all who are to come. Amen.