Sermon: Spiritual Strongholds (Part Two): Faithful Trust
#1663
Martin G. Collins
Given 23-Jul-22; 76 minutes
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transcript:
In my last sermon, I pointed out that the first attempt by the Israelites to defeat the city of Ai in the seventh chapter of Joshua apparently proceeded without divine instruction leaving Israel in the dark regarding its compromised standing brought about by Achan's disobedience in stealing and hiding the spoil from Ai, and that resulting defeat was very, very costly to the Israelites. If the story of Achan and the defeat of the Israelite armies at Ai mean anything to us, it must mean that sin cannot be tolerated in the life of a Christian. But although this is a story of judgment, it is also a proclamation of hope for the blessing that will come again when sin is repudiated and overcome.
Sin brings judgment and this is the teaching of the Scriptures from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation and therefore we must never take sin lightly. But judgment is not the whole story. Sin does bring judgment, but God often graciously uses His judgment to bring about change in us that enables Him to turn His judgments into blessings and hope.
Jeremiah 17:7 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord."
Only trust in God motivates confident obedience in times of trouble. And when we are sure the circumstances are from God, we are enabled to declare our hope in Him and ask Him to deliver us from our sins and to take away the discipline.
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
In Joshua 7:6, God awakens Joshua from his dejection after the defeat at Ai and tells him to march a second time against Ai with the main body this time. Prior to that there was a smaller army that was used. Ai was just a small city yet the discouragement of the people believed it unwise to send a second small detachment against it. And it appears that the people of Ai had military help from Bethel and possibly from other places as well, which meant that the forces in Ai had grown compared to what defeated the Israelites earlier.
The eighth chapter of Joshua recounts the successful defeat of Ai in response to explicit divine instructions. Now it was beneficial too that all the Israelites witnessed with their own eyes the joyful consequences of having faithfully put away sin that had separated them from God. Joshua instructed the people not to be dismayed and emphasized the assurance of God's steadfast presence. Although they had sinned, He was not going to abandon them, but He did have to pass judgment on that sin—and then He brought blessing upon them.
Many mainstream Christians question and even despise the Lord's commands of war and the annihilation of whole cities. However, God has the right as our sovereign Creator to determine the nature and extent of destruction in any given instance. His judgment on people is always righteous judgment. In Deuteronomy 20, for example, the prescribed treatment of cities outside the land of Canaan is less severe than that of cities within the land of Israel or in the land that Israel was to occupy. Now here in the Deuteronomy 20 we are going to read verses 10 through 18 to see what the Lord's instructions are concerning warring against other nations for the Israelites and the instruction they had through Moses,
Deuteronomy 20:10-18 "When you go near a city to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace to it. And it shall be that if they accept your offer of peace, and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you, and serve you. Now if the city will not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the Lord your God delivers it into your hands, you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword. But the women, the little ones, the livestock, and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself; and you shall eat the enemies' plunder which the Lord your God gives you.
Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you [It is critical there to remember that: "that are very far from you." That is what this instruction is talking about right now.], which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God."
Verse 18 gives the reason why God's instructions are so finite and so total in what they had to do to carry them out.
Battles were sometimes won more by clever and deceptive military strategy than by brute military force, as is attested not only in the Bible, but also in ancient Near East Greek and Roman sources. Now, unlike the earlier case of Jericho, the divine instruction for the defeat of Ai depend less on total miraculous intervention than on clever strategy. The key in both instances is that the Lord's instructions are to be heeded.
In contrast to the first attack on Ai, in the second attack in the eighth chapter of Joshua everything is done according to the word of God—everything. Now, Joshua is given the assurance of the Lord's abiding presence. Despite breaking faith in chapter 7, Israel is then restored to God's favor and given a second opportunity here in chapter 8. Verse 1 begins the fall of Ai.
Joshua 8:1 Now the Lord said to Joshua: "Do not be afraid nor be dismayed; take all the people of war with you, and arise and go up to Ai. See [He is not just saying look or see or use your eyes, He is saying, understand this, have confidence in it. Trust in this.], I have given into your hand, the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land."
So, God is giving a guarantee there.
After the Lord judged Joshua and the Israelites for Achan's sin, He again blessed them with success and continued to honor the covenant He had made with them. God's covenant was continuous but the Israelites, because of Achan's sin, had broken faith with it. And now it was being restored and God was once again blessing them. As it was with the Israelites in their physical battles, so it is with us in our spiritual battles. God has our back. God watches out for us. He makes sure that we have success unless there is sin that is committed within the church.
Now, the Lord made a covenant with them as His nation and He has made a covenant with us as His church. So there are parallels there in the way He carries out judgment and also the way He carries out or offers and gives blessings.
II Corinthians 6:17 Therefore "Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you."
I want to continue with that story in Joshua 8, but I am going to pick it up again in in verse 8.
Joshua 8:8 "And it will be, when you have taken the city, that you shall set the city on fire. According to the commandment of the Lord you shall do. See [understand, trust] I have commanded you."
He is commanding them to do this. He is not saying "I'm asking you to trust Me." He is saying, "You trust Me." You see this, you understand this.
Joshua 8:9-13 Joshua therefore sent them out; and they went to lie in ambush, and stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai; but Joshua lodged that night among the people. Then Joshua rose up early in the morning and mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people of Ai. And all the people of war who were with him went up and drew near; and they came before the city and camped on the north side of Ai. Now a valley lay between them and Ai. So he took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city. [He had at least 30,000 soldiers in all, at least that. And he was only using 5,000 at this point.] And when they had set the people, all the army that was on the north side of the city, and its rear guard on the west of the city, Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley.
Notice the strategy in verse 13 of the Israelite armies rear guard. Sometimes God gives us the ability to have our own rear guard, but He is always acting as our rear guard, whether by empowering us or intervening directly on our behalf.
(I mentioned in a previous sermon that God has our back. And I mentioned that, I think one time at the beginning of this sermon. This was a thought that was sparked by Alma Reagan. Her mind is wonderful and she can get into some things deeply. This was something that she mentioned to me about the Scriptures. It mentions in Scripture that God is our rear guard, which she brought to my attention and it just really stuck there and as I was putting together this sermon I thought it fit well within this. So I wanted to bring that to your attention, which is what I am going to talk about for the next few minutes.)
In Isaiah 52, God calls His people into a new era of blessing. He calls His exiled people to leave Babylon as pilgrims and they had to stake everything on His promises. It is interesting that the Israelites were not to bring any defilement with them when they took over the Promised Land at the beginning of their conquest in Canaan. And hundreds of years later the Lord told them the same thing as they left Babylon and returned to rebuild the holy city and to restore the holy vessels to the Temple service. And the Lord surrounds His Jerusalem-bound people as their protecting escort.
Isaiah 52:12 [this is identical in both the New King James and the ESV] For you will not go out with haste [keep that in mind, they were not to rush out, they were not to go out in haste], nor go by flight; for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
The Authorized Version says rereward. It is wordy and it is almost a tongue twister, but in many of the translations, it is just rear guard.
So the Israelites were not to rush out as if driven out or compelled to flee. They were not to go out as panicky fugitives but in confidence, and they were not to leave Babylon as their fathers went out from Egypt in a rapid flight and in a frantic manner.
Deuteronomy 16:3 "You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for you came out of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life."
When they left Babylon they were not to do that, they were not to go out in haste.
Isaiah 52, verse 12 suggests that they had time to prepare themselves to go out and to bear their vessels of the Lord when the Israelites left Babylon and they did it carefully and had plenty of time to plan and make the necessary preparations. And God will very likely do the same for us. The Lord conducted the Israelites as a general advances at the head of an army. The picture here is taken from the march of an army and it describes the Lord as the leader or head of the host in the march through the desert between Babylon and Jerusalem. The God of Israel will be your rear guard or your rereward. He will gather you up. The Hebrew word means to collect or gather together, and it refers to the act of bringing up the rear of an army and means to be a rearward guard by collecting and bringing together the stragglers and defending the army in its march from an attack in the rear.
God had the Israelites back, in the modern vernacular. God has our backs because we are members of God's church.
Go forward just six chapters for me, please in Isaiah 58. This also is the same in the New King James Version as well as the ESV and the King James Version. Again, it says rear guard.
Isaiah 58:8 Then your light will break out like the morning, and your recovery will speedily spring forth, and your righteousness will go before you; the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
So if they were faithful in the discharge of their duty to God, He would bless them with abundant prosperity, and the prosperity would come on them like the spreading light of the morning. Their righteousness would guide them as a leader does. Living God's way of life gives you the right direction. Their conformity to the laws of God would serve the purpose of a leader and guide to conduct them in the ways of peace, joy, and prosperity.
The reference to the glory of the Lord being their rear guard is a reminder of the fiery pillar of cloud that protected the fleeing Israelites from behind when they were being chased by the Egyptian army
Exodus 14:19 And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them.
So God has our back. God had the Israelites back. But we have a requirement of obedience and God will bless us. We are not perfect. We are going to make mistakes and we are going to sin, but we better be ready to repent and overcome them and be working hard at it.
By this sign of the pillar of cloud, the Lord showed Himself as their leader in general and He was the unconverted Israelites rear guard, even the unconverted Israelites. But Israel was, by covenant, His people. God had their back because they were His chosen people. How much more does He have our backs as the spiritual church of God as we go through trials?
Now, the heart of the Old Testament law is Deuteronomy and in the heart of Deuteronomy is the list of blessings and cursings (or curses) found in Deuteronomy chapters 27 through 30. Deuteronomy presupposes the unconditional covenant of God with Abraham by which the Israelites were chosen to be God's people. But it moves on from this fixed point to show that blessing or lack of blessing depends upon obedience to the law and will of God. On the one hand, there is a list of curses for those who disobey God's law there in Deuteronomy 27-28. On the other hand, there is a list of blessings for those who adhere to it in Deuteronomy 28. These sections are followed by two chapters that call for a renewal of the covenant and end with a call to the people to choose the way of God's blessing.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them."
This is the last challenge the people heard before they crossed over the river Jordan into the Promised Land.
Ai stood at the high western end of the approach to the hill country from the Jordan. To conquer Canaan the Israelite armies had to control the mountain road running north and south through its highest regions, and to take the road, they had to move upward to it past Jericho and past Ai. Jericho controlled the approach from the east from the lower area of the Jordan River and Ai controlled the higher western end of this approach.
After their victories at Jericho and Ai, an observer might have expected the Israelite troops to proceed immediately with the conquest of the country by moving south along the mountain road to attack the most heavily fortified cities of the region. And this is what the people did do eventually, though not at once, because they took a detour of about 25 miles north and a few miles west to a valley situated between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim.
Now this is a particularly beautiful area, the mountains which are about 3,000 feet above sea level or 1,000 feet above the valley between them are quite barren, but the valley is often green and at one place where the mountains come close together, there is a natural amphitheater. This amphitheater was the people's destination. And it was here that they camped out for the renewal of the covenant ceremony.
One feature of the place between the mountains is its fine acoustical properties. A person on one mountain can easily hear a person on the other and both can clearly hear what goes on down below. This is what the Israelites did at Ebal and Gerizim after defeating Ai and assuming control of the country's high road. They did it in precise obedience to the earlier commands of Moses.
Deuteronomy 27:12-13 "These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, when you have crossed over the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin; and these shall stand on Mount Ebal to curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali."
So Mount Gerizim was to bless the people. Mount Ebal was a curse.
The Levites were to read the curses. The first eleven are directed against special sins which are selected by way of example. The last comprehensively sums up in general terms and condemns all and every violation against God's law. All the Israelites had to verbally respond to the hearing of the each curse with the agreement, "Amen!" The whole congregation of Israel had to say "Amen!" to each of these because they were to recognize them and acknowledge them and accept them as part of the renewal of the covenant.
Here is a sample of the curses. I am just going to give you three. Verse 16: "Cursed is the one who treats his father or his mother with contempt." "Amen!" Verse 24: "Cursed is the one who attacks his neighbors secretly." "Amen!" The theme of secrecy there shows that even if a person's crime may be undetected, that person remains under God's curse. And then verse 26: "Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of the law." "Amen!" And they continued that for each of those curses. Then the blessings were to be read.
Deuteronomy 28:1-2 "Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God."
Then there is a short list of blessings in verses 3-6 but I am just going to read verse 7.
Deuteronomy 28:7 "The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways."
Translate that to our spiritual lives and this holds true for the spiritual principalities that are against us: Satan and his demons and the influences of the world, and even our fight against our human nature.
It is an interesting feature of this listing of curses and blessings that it was not only preached to the Israelites by Moses before the beginning of the conquest of Canaan, but it was also repeated in a special ceremonial way once they were in the new land. Moses had never been in Canaan but he knew something about it, either by report or revelation. So he said that when the people of Israel came into the land, they were to read these blessings and curses at a special assembly on the sides of Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. So Joshua did this.
Joshua 8:30-32 Now Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal [remember curse is connected to Ebal], as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses: "an altar of whole stones over which no man has wielded an iron tool." And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord, and sacrificed peace offerings. And there in the presence of the children of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written.
So this is what Joshua enacted on the slopes of these mountains—the renewal of the covenant with the people of Israel.
Joshua 8:33-35 Then all Israel, with their elders and officers and judges, stood on either side of the ark before the priests, the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, the stranger as well as he who was born among them. Half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them.
So it was a congregation much larger than what we have, but very similar in that the children were also there to hear it, and they should be. They should not be outside during services going through another program. They should be here with us, worshipping with us, and they hear from early age. They hear the sermons, they hear the messages and it sinks in. And I know reading (it must have been 40 years ago but I have never forgotten it), a statement by a Catholic priest. He said, "You give us your child up until age five and we will have him forever." So they knew, even from their experience, that children are learning all the way up until they turn five and things are setting in as a permanent habit, a good habit.
It must have been an impressive and moving experience. Curses upon curses if you do not obey the law, blessings upon blessings if you do.
This sermon was originally preached by Moses before the people entered the Land and then it was acted out a second time after they entered it and were camped on the sides of Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. This suggests that the principle of blessing for obedience and cursing for disobedience was a lasting principle grounded in the very character of God to be seen always in His relationship to His people. It had already been demonstrated in the case of Achan and the defeat of Ai. When the people entered the Land and commenced their attack on Jericho in strict obedience to the commands of God, the result was unprecedented blessings. And when the people moved up from Jericho to attack Ai and suffered an ignominious defeat, it was apparent immediately that something had gone wrong.
The wrong was disobedience. So it was only after the sin had been exposed and judgment meted out to Achan, that blessing returned. It was God's intention to bless the Israelites in their conquest. But that blessing was contingent on their continuing obedience of His commands. They were to involve the Lord in all their decisions. And we are too—all of them. That means we have to communicate with God on a regular basis all day long. Now, I am not talking about some simpler things that our senses can determine for us, which I will just mention coming up.
If they disobeyed, the blessing would be withdrawn and they would experience curses instead. Now this principle explains all succeeding Israelite history. It explains the period of the judges and kings, the captives under Assyria and Babylon, the Israelites return from Babylon, and the final dispersion in AD 70. It also explains many of our experiences as well. God judges and disciplines us through our sanctification process. Are we obeying or are we disobeying?
I Peter 4:17-19 For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now "If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and sinner appear?" Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.
You almost know that by heart, but it is one that we all have to have in the forefront of our minds.
The ceremony that was enacted on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim teaches more than the principle that obedience leads to blessing and disobedience to curses in life. It also teaches God's solution to the problem of sin in any life. Joshua 8, verses 30-35 tells of the reading of the law on the slopes of the mountains. This is preceded by a section that tells of the construction of an altar on which the law was written. This too was an exact fulfillment of the commands of God given to the people through Moses.
Deuteronomy 27:2-8 "And it shall be on the day when you cross over the Jordan to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, that you shall set up for yourselves large stones, and whitewash them with lime. You shall write on them all the words of this law, when you have crossed over that you may enter the land which the Lord your God is giving you, 'a land flowing with milk and honey,' just as the Lord God of your fathers promised you.
Therefore it shall be, when you have crossed over the Jordan, that on Mount Ebal you shall set up these stones which I command you today, and you shall whitewash them with lime. And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones; you shall not use an iron tool on them. You shall build with whole stones the altar of the Lord your God, and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. You shall offer peace offerings, and shall eat there, and rejoice before the Lord your God. And you shall write very plainly on the stones all the words of this law."
So you see how many times the Lord your God is imprinted on our minds as we read through it and as it was on the Israelites. The Lord your God. As you read through the whole book of Deuteronomy, the Lord your God is probably the most common phrase throughout the whole book. Joshua 8, verses 30 through 32 is the fulfillment of this command.
Joshua 8:30-32 Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the the children of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses: "an altar of whole stones over which no man has wielded an iron tool/" And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord, and sacrificed peace offerings. And there, in the presence of the children of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written.
This is an amazing thing and there is at least three reasons for that.
First, on this occasion when the Law of Moses was so forcefully and visibly held before the people (both by the writing on the stone and by the reciting of the law by the Levites and the response of the people to the Levite's reading), the altar was also constructed as the solution to the problem of those who heard the law but who had not kept it. This was God's solution to the sin problem at that time with unconverted people.
This is what God had been teaching all along. When God first gave the law on Sinai, He gave, at the same time, the regulations regarding sacrifices under a covenant with Israel. So the sacrifices were a way to express to the unconverted Israelites the real cost of sinning and that it requires a blood sacrifice to symbolically pay the penalty for sin. Sin brings judgment whether you are in the church or not. Thankfully we have forgiveness that we can receive from God when we repent and work to overcome it. The judgment of sin is death, but the sacrifices show that it is possible for an innocent victim to die in place of the sinner. In those ancient days the victim was an animal. But the animal pointed forward to the only truly sufficient sacrifice—the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Second, when the altar was constructed by Joshua in obedience to God's commands through Moses, it was not constructed in the valley between the two mountains or on Mount Gerizim, but on Mount Ebal. Why was it constructed a Mount Ebal? The answer, which we find in Deuteronomy 27, verses 12 through 13 is that the Ebal was the mountain from which the curses were to be read, while Gerizim was the mountain from which the blessings on the upright were declared. It was the Old Testament setting for the pronouncement of blessings for obeying and keeping the covenant.
In other words, the altar was for sinners. It was for those who acknowledge their sin and who came not as the righteous, but as sinners to the place of sacrifice.
It is interesting that 1,000 years later the Samaritans built their altar on Gerizim, not Ebal. So when the woman of Samaria told Jesus in John 4:20, "Our fathers worship on this mountain," she was speaking and pointing to Gerizim. "And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship." She was pointing to Gerizim, the mountain of obedience and blessings. Jesus responded by turning her away from that mountain, as well as from Mount Zion, to Himself and His coming sacrifice.
The main characteristic of the Samaritans was self-righteousness. The Samaritans, even though there was the Good Samaritan and he was a good one of course, but the well known characteristic of the Samaritans was self-righteousness. The Samaritans would not come to God as sinners confessing their need of a cleansing substitutionary sacrifice. They came with the attitude that they were a righteous people and therefore deserved blessings. Consequently, the first thing Jesus did with the woman was to expose her spiritual ignorance. John 4:22 says, "You [Samaritans] worship what you do not know." Jesus had just uncovered her sin (in verse 18), "For you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly."
And then third, the altar constructed on Mount Ebal was to be of natural stones with no human workmanship added to them. This principle shows that human beings cannot perfect or improve anything to achieve salvation. Salvation is a gift by grace through the work of God alone.
Now Jesus was inaugurating a new era in which people would not have to travel to a physical temple in one city to worship. But the converted would be able to worship God in every place, so to speak, that He places His name because the Holy Spirit would dwell in them and therefore God's people everywhere would be a new temple where God dwells.
We now come to chapter 9. We are going to begin by reading verses 1 and 2. This is concerning the treaty with the Gibeonites.
Joshua 9:1 And it came to pass when all the kings who were on this side of the Jordan, in the hills and in the lowland and in all the coasts of the Great Sea towards Lebanon—the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite . . .
The Hivite is especially important to this chapter because the Hivites were the ones who occupied Gibeon, so they were generally called Gibeonites. But Gibeon was the central city to several other smaller towns and the Hivites occupied Gibeon. So the Gibeons and the Hivites are mentioned there for that reason.
Joshua 9:2 . . . that they gathered together to fight with Joshua and Israel with one accord.
So all those nations I just mentioned there in verse 1 were gathering together to fight the Israelites.
But when the people of Gibeon (an important city inhabited by the Hivites or Horites was another name for them), heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, they resorted to a ruse. They went as a delegation whose donkeys were loaded with worn-out sacks and old cracked and mended wine skins, and the men put worn and patched sandals on their feet and worn old clothes, and all the bread of their food supply was dry and moldy. And then they went to Joshua in the camp of Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, "We have come from a distant country, make a covenant, that is, a treaty, with us."
The men of Israel sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord (keep that in mind), and then Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath. Three days after they had made the treaty with the Gibeonites the Israelites heard that they were neighbors, living near them. Remember way back in Deuteronomy at the beginning of the sermon (or close to it) the cities that were far from the Israelites and from the land that they were conquering were to be allowed to pay homage or pay tribute to the Israelites but the ones in the land of Canaan that they were conquering, they were to destroy entirely, which we will get into a little bit here.
The Gibeonites were residents of a mountain stronghold in Canaan, perhaps the next city in the terrifying line of the Israelites march. They had heard of the destruction of Jericho and Ai and the ruthless extermination of all who had lived there. That had to be terrifying. Could you imagine if Columbia and Charlotte were completely destroyed? The walls were gone, the buildings were gone, the people were gone, the women were gone, the children were gone. Everyone totally destroyed except for the spoil that was taken. That is a terrifying thought for these Gibeonites.
So, being afraid, they resorted to deception, judging that they would not be able to stand against the Israelite forces militarily. Keep in mind they were actually teaming up with the other cities around there, the other people around there and they were still terrified of the Israelites. The guise was an attempt to convince the Israelites that they had come from far away, that there would be nothing wrong with their being treated as allies rather than as enemies who could not be permitted to live. The Gibeonites disguise was quite good and the Israelites were probably moved by humanitarian concerns. Nevertheless, they were suspicious.
Joshua 9:7-8 Then the men of Israel said to the Hivites, "Perhaps you dwell among us; so how can we make a covenant with you?" [See who it says there. "The men of Israel" now. It does not say the leaders.] But they said to Joshua, "We are your servants." And Joshua said to them, "Who are you, and where do you come from?"
But there was the moldy bread and there was the broken wineskins and the clothes were old and the sandals were worn with so much walking. Besides, the alternative to believing and sparing these visitors was to disbelieve and kill them. What harm could there be in making a treaty with them? They seemed nice enough.
To admire the Gibeonites and sympathize with the Israelites probably is a natural thing humanly, but it only shows how far we are from doing things God's way. The Bible's judgment of the Israelites' action was that they ignored God's will and did what was right in their own eyes—and we all slip into doing what is right in our own eyes.
Joshua 9:14 Then the men of Israel took some of the provisions; but they did not ask the counsel of the Lord.
You would think after 40 years of wandering and all that God had done that they would be focused on that. But these were unconverted people, for the most part. But even Joshua, who was probably converted, was still making mistakes, as great as he was. The Israelite leaders did not always seek God's will. Such negligence always cost them dearly.
Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise.
And I will say, "He who heeds counsel from God is even wiser."
However, when they did seek God's counsel, He blessed them by having their backs. The Israelites trusted in their own natural understanding based on observation. And often we base our understanding on what we see, hear, and touch. Is that wrong? Well, not necessarily. The great error is assuming that reality is nothing more than the material.
Still, human judgments based on impressions, based on the senses such as sight and smell, can be proper and reliable under certain circumstances. When we pull a piece of meat out of the refrigerator and find that it is discolored and has a bad smell, it is wrong to eat it. We do not have to ask God for counsel on that one. There is certain things He has designed into us to be able to make decisions in that way. Our senses are given to us by God to tell us that the meat is bad and that we will probably get sick if we eat it. That way of making decisions works for us every day in many situations.
But the difficulty with operating that way all the time is that reality does not consist only of the material. There is a spiritual world too and in that spiritual world, there is a powerful, devious, malicious being who is bent on our destruction. And we cannot see Satan, we cannot handle, taste, or smell his strategy. Therefore, in all spiritual and all moral areas, we need wisdom that goes beyond any we can derive from impressions based on the senses and this is what that often quoted advice from Proverbs is all about.
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
That is quite a promise. The key words are "lean not on your own understanding."
If we are to live for God in this world, we must recognize that there is a spiritual realm as well as a material one, and we must seek God's strength to be successful in the battles that take place there. You remember that Paul writes of our struggles in terms of a military metaphor. You almost have this section of Scripture memorized: the whole armor of God.
Ephesians 6:10-18 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day [I do not know if this is the evil day, but it sure seems like it is], and having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
I am worn out just reading that section because that is a lot of work and we cannot do it on our own. We have to have God's help. We have to have His Spirit. The world makes stabs at it, are successful at times, but they do not do it as a way of life.
At least four important summary principles arise from these verses.
1) As members of God's church we are involved in spiritual warfare. This was true for the Israelite armies in their conquest, even though their warfare was also physical and they may not always have been fully aware of its spiritual dimensions. It is obviously much truer of us who are commissioned to bear the gospel of the light of God in Jesus Christ against spiritual darkness.
2) To be successful in this warfare, we must be clothed with spiritual armor. This indicates that it is not only a case of our being sent to attack the enemy, the enemy is also attacking us and we must be protected against his schemes. As Paul states it, we need truth, righteousness, knowledge of the gospel, and faith. And faith especially is to fend off Satan's arrows.
3) Our offensive weapon is the Word of God. This is what Joshua and the other leaders of Israel lacked in the case of the men of Gibeon, a word from God. Up to this point, everything that the nation did was connected in some way with a specific divine revelation. God told the people when to across over Jordan, what to do after they crossed it, and how to attack Jericho, and so on. Even in the case of Ai, although there had been a sin in the camp originally, there were still divine instructions as to how the ambush was to be laid out and what should be done with the city following its capture. In Joshua 9, there is no word from the Lord at all because the people did not seek it. Do we lack a word from God in the decisions we face every day? If so, it is because we are not seeking it.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
But we say, I do ask Him. James answers,
James 4:3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
That does not necessarily mean money. It is included. It also means your intentions, your motivations, you spend it on your pleasures. We can have all types of pleasure, pleasures that are not vacations, that are not money, that are material things.
4) We are to pray constantly for the help and blessing of God. Paul says in Ephesians 6:18, once again, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for [who?] all the saints."
Sometimes we wonder: what are my gifts? Every one of us can refine our gift of praying for others by doing it and practicing it. That is just one of many, many. The people of Israel failed to do this and so erred greatly.
The Israelites found out very quickly! We do not know how long the Gibeonites spent in their preparation of this ruse or how long the Israelites spent in examining their belongings, discussing the problem, and eventually deciding to make a treaty with them. Each group probably took what it considered to be sufficient time. Perhaps weeks in the first instance, days in the second. Immediately after this, the Israelite rulers confirm the covenant with the Gibeonites.
Joshua 9:15-16 So Joshua made peace with them, and made a covenant with them to let them live; and the rulers of the congregation swore to them. [the next verse is stunning] And it happened that at the end of three days, after they made a covenant with them, that they heard that they were their neighbors who dwelt near them.
And now you understand why it was stunning to those people. They were shocked because they knew of the law that Moses had recorded (and that had been given again) that said that they were to destroy the peoples near them. Chapters 7 and 20 of Deuteronomy record that the Gibeonites were some of the people whom Israel had been commanded to exterminate completely and with whom they were to make no treaties lest they be tempted into idolatry. That is how important it is to God that we not commit idolatry! He would wipe out an entire city, man, woman, and child to prevent it from influencing others.
This is what He did in dealing with the unconverted Israelites and the promises He made to Abraham as they went into the Land of Promise. Very sobering to think about that. And when you read the things in the book of Revelation, it looks like God is going to do it again; to destroy quite a few people, and sadly, men, women, and children. God gives righteous judgment. He is not to blame. It is those individuals who have sinned in that way, who have taken on that way of life and refused to change. Their children will suffer. Very sobering.
So we should pray for people—everyone—that they will change, repent.
Three days to discover their error, but a lifetime to live with it. Sometimes, maybe often, we make what seemed like good decisions, but we suffer the unforeseen consequences for what seemed like forever. You can look at any number of types of sins, sexual sins and other sins, maybe in marriage, you know, in the way of causing a divorce or something like that, or whatever good decisions there might be. The Israelites thought that they were making a good decision, letting the Gibeonites live, but God did not think so.
The story tells us that when the people learned that the Gibeonites were from close proximity they grumbled against their leaders, judging them to be responsible. Presumably they wanted to kill the Gibeonites regardless of the treaty. So it was the leaders that had made the mistake and the people did not like that. That is not saying that the people were any better than the leaders, but they did remember what they had been told not to do.
But although the leaders had erred in the first place in failing to consult the Lord about the Gibeonites, trusting rather in their own impressions and judgment based on their senses, they did not err again by repudiating their covenant as the people wanted. The people wanted them to commit another sin by killing the Gibeonites after the leaders had made a treaty with them in the name of God. They recognized the importance of their oath.
Joshua 9:19-20 Then all the rulers said to all the congregation, "We have sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel; now therefore, we may not touch them. This we will do to them: We will let them live, lest wrath be upon us because of the oath which we swore to them."
The oath was made in the name of the Lord and consequently faithfulness was owed, and not to the Gibeonites, but to the Lord. The form of the oath called on the Lord to punish the Israelites if they failed to keep their agreement. So they were caught between a rock and a hard place on that one and they had to suffer because of it. This explains why the Israelites felt bound to the treaty, even though it had been made under false pretenses.
So they let the Gibeonites live and the leaders' promise to them was respected. In fact, it was respected for centuries. How would you like that for a promise that is kept for centuries? On a later occasion, when Saul, a king of Israel, broke the covenant by killing large numbers of the Gibeonites, God sided with the Gibeonites and brought judgment upon Israel hundreds of years later. II Samuel 21:1-14 records that there was a three-year famine in Israel because Saul put the Gibeonites to death, and that the judgment was removed only after the house of Saul was judged by an arrangement between the surviving Gibeonites and King David.
This is the great problem with a failure to consult God. In all matters, we must live with the consequences of our own actions. Of course, a sin in thought or action can be forgiven, but the consequences of that blunder must often be lived with indefinitely. The penalty of sin may be forgotten, but the the negative effects often lives on. More disobedience is no solution to bad consequences of an earlier disobedience. But obedience often is the solution. At least it provides conditions in which God frequently does the unexpected and negates the consequences.
This was the case with the Gibeonites. They had deceived Israel by pretending to come from a distant land when they were really from nearby. And they suffered the consequences of that deception. Their lives were spared, which was their objective. So they did achieve their objective. But they were made servants or slaves for the rest of, not just their lives, but their peoples' lives.
Joshua 9:21 And the rulers said to them, "Let them live, but let them be woodcutters and water carriers for all the congregation, as the rulers had promised them."
So they received menial duties belonging only to the lowest classes of people. Genesis 9:25 tells us that the curse of Noah (on the children of Ham) was thus fulfilled to the letter in the case of the Hivites, the Gibeonites. Remember Hivites were the Gibeonites so that curse that was pronounced on the children of Ham for whatever that sin was that was committed against Noah, was fulfilled there. I am sure that is not the only time it was fulfilled, but it was at least carried on there. But notice verse 27 of Joshua 9 where we find the same phrase with a significant addition.
Joshua 9:27 And that day Joshua made them woodcutters and water carriers for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord, in the place which He would choose, even to this day.
The Gibeonites were made servants to the Israelites. But the place of their service was specifically said to be, at least in part, at the altar of the Lord. In other words, although servants, they had the privilege, so to speak, of being brought close to where people received forgiveness for their sins. In later years, when the Israelites went off after false gods, the Gibeonites would still be standing at the altar where the true God had ordained that sacrifices should be made for sins. It was an appropriate blessing for people who had deceitfully explained their coming to Joshua.
When we compare the Gibeonites to the prostitute Rahab at this point, both Gentiles, note that the Gibeonites' testimony was not as clear as Rahab's because she clearly said "I," referring to herself.
Joshua 2:11-13 "And as soon as we heard these things [this is Rahab speaking], our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you [speaking to the spies for the Israelites], for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Now therefore, I beg you swear to me by the Lord, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to my father's house, and give me a true token, and spare my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death."
They nevertheless believed what they had heard and came because of the power of the Israelite God. In Joshua 9:9, the Gibeonites said, "We have come because of the name of the Lord your God." It was a more general request or pleading.
Joshua 9:24 So they answered Joshua and said, "Because your servants were clearly [this is the Gibeonites] told that the Lord your God commanded His servant Moses to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you; therefore we were very much afraid [we again] for our lives because of you. and have done this thing."
It is amazing to me that they had so much information, detailed information, about what the Israelites were told to do. In Semitic usage, a name is a verbalization which represents one's entire character. So what the Gibeonites were really saying was, "We came because of who the Lord God is." Similarly, they spoke of how the Lord your God commanded His servant Moses. So they were very much up on the truth, so to speak, of what was happening.
So, in the cases of both Rahab and the Gibeonites, what they had heard was sufficient to convince them. That is all it took. Well, they had background information from sight and hearing. Rahab left the kingdom of the enemies of God for the kingdom of the Israelites. In making her decision, she pitted herself against her king and her culture. The Gibeonites did similarly. They broke with the confederacy of Gentile nations and came over to the people of God. Rahab's act means that if her old king had found out what she had done, he probably would have killed her and her family.
The Gibeonites were caught in their defection. The confederacy knew well what they had done and the confederacy therefore did come against the Gibeonites to exterminate them. So the cost was great either way for Rahab and the Gibeonites. It was mere fear which drove the Gibeonites to act as they did. They wanted a union with God's people, not for its own sake, but to save their lives. Rahab's motives were more honorable, therefore, she was adopted into Israel.
But the Gibeonites remained forever bondsmen in Israel. Once the Gibeonites had made their decision, they were loyal to Israel. And for many years after this incident, there was war between the people of the land and the invading Israelites, yet never once in the record of that long conquest do we hear of any Gibeonite defecting to his original side. So they prospered and when the land of Canaan was divided, Gibeon was one of the city's given to the line of Aaron. And the city was allotted to the tribe of Benjamin and set apart for the Levites and it became a special place where God was known. This meant that the altar and the priests were in Gibeon as well.
Approximately 400 years later, David put the Tabernacle in that city. At least one of David's mighty men—those who were closest to him in battle—was a Gibeonite. At that important and solemn moment when Solomon, David's son, ascended to the throne, Solomon made burnt offerings at Gibeon. It was there he had his vision when God spoke to him about his coming rule. And much later still, about 500 years before Christ in the time of Zerubbabel, the genealogies of those Israelites who returned from the captivity under the Babylonians included a list of the Gibeonites.
They had a long history of friendship with Israel, but they were never considered Israelites, at least as far as I could tell. This is especially interesting because the names of some who claimed to be Israelites were not found in the registry and they were not allowed to be part of the Israelite nation as part of an adopted-son-type of a situation. In the days of Nehemiah, the Gibeonites were mentioned as being among the people who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. The Gibeonites had been coming in among the people of God, and hundreds of years later they were still there. Although the Gibeonites were not sons of Israel, they were still treated as coworkers, I guess is the best way to put that, in support of the nation and remained faithful in that role for hundreds of years.
The lesson for us here is that the inclusion of the Gibeonites in God's covenant community, like Rahab, challenges any attitude of self-righteousness that we may have in looking down on people in the world who do not have this understanding. Instead, it teaches the importance of valuing all people and of representing to them a true witness of the life of Christ. If we do not witness the true life of Christ to them, we are letting them down. We are letting God down, but we want Him to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Let us begin to wrap this up. Being human, we must witness with our own eyes the joyful consequences of having faithfully put away the sin which had separated us from God. Seeing is sometimes connected with hearing as a metaphor for spiritual perception and knowledge.
Proverbs 20:12 The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both.
Sight is frequently used as a symbol of human understanding and is often applied to spiritual insight. People who do not fear God lack understanding. They lack spiritual sight or insight, and act foolishly.
Jeremiah 5:21-22 'Hear this now, O foolish people, without understanding, who have eyes and see not, and who have ears and hear not: Do you not fear Me,' says the Lord. 'Will you not tremble at My presence?'
People remain spiritually blind because they refuse to respond to God and His Word in fear.
Proverbs 3:7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil.
We must conduct ourselves in the course of life with reference to the things which are unseen and not with reference to the things which are seen.
II Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight.
The original word there for sight is actually more correctly, appearance. We for we walk by faith, not by appearance, or looking at appearance, or observing appearance. Now this is not a reference to believing the unbelievable but to living all of one's life based on confident trust in God's promises for the future, even when we cannot yet see the fullness of the coming glory. Walking by faith requires obedience and faithful trust in relation to God the Father and Jesus Christ.
The people of this world, the unconverted, are influenced by the things that are seen. They live for wealth, grandeur, applause, for the objects which this world can seem to provide, as if there were nothing which is unseen. We, in contrast, have a firm conviction of the reality of the glories of heaven; of the fact that our God and Redeemer are there; the fact that there is a crown of glory; and we live and act as if that were all real, and as if we have seen it, because in our minds with the Holy Spirit we can see it, but not visually, not materially.
In his experience, David found that the Lord is a reliable defender against his physical and spiritual enemies. In Psalm 18 is a song of thanksgiving and a prayer that the heirs of the covenant would faithfully trust the Lord God.
Psalm 18:1-2 I will love You, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust [or in some translations it is take refuge]; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
What better stronghold could there be! God the Father and Jesus Christ and our faithful trust in Them. The Lord is a spiritual stronghold in whom we must faithfully trust, so that we might carry out our God-given purpose and bring light to the world.
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