"Divine Strategy: Joshua's Faithful Response to Canaanite Threats" Joshua Series Part 7 Chapter 9

We are back in Joshua, the book of Joshua. And this is the seventh part to the series. We're going to be in chapter nine, and we'll start out with a little bit of a review. Joshua and the children of Israel have been given the responsibility of crossing the Jordan River into the land of Canaan, conquering all the nations of Canaan, and receiving their promised inheritance. And that was the specific command: to conquer the whole land. And the warning had been that, you know, whoever is left, if you don't do this thoroughly, they're going to become snares to you.

And this is a daunting task, to say the least. These nations in the land of Canaan are well-established nations with fortified cities and mighty, battle-hardened men. These cities have been here for hundreds or thousands of years. But Joshua and the people have been promised by God that He would help them defeat these nations.

And in Deuteronomy 28:1, we have an example of one of these promises: "Now it shall come to pass, as you cross the Jordan to the land the Lord your God gives you, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to be careful to do all His commandments I command you today, then the Lord your God will set you high over all nations of the earth." This would have been fresh in their memory. This is Deuteronomy, just right before Joshua. Right? This is Moses speaking to the people just shortly before his death. And then in verse seven, same chapter: "May the Lord your God deliver 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." These are great promises. So is God just going to go in there and wipe out everyone in front of them? Is that what— is that the promise? God's saying, "Hey, you know, I'm going to go in front of you guys.

Just give me my space. I'm going to wipe out everyone, and then you'll be good to go." Is that what He's saying? Well, no, not really. Let's look at that previous verse again.

"Now it shall come to pass, as you cross the Jordan to the land your Lord the Lord your God gives you, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to be careful and do all His commandments I command you today, then the Lord your God will set you high over all nations of the earth."

This promise was conditional on the faith and obedience of God's people. God required their obedience and their participation in the battles to conquer Canaan. God wasn't going to do it Himself. And they didn't have to do it themselves if they would obey His commands and do all that they were told to do. And on top of everything, He required them to be true to the covenant that they had made with Him. And we're going to come back to that later. But that's a key point that we're going to be looking at, that there had been a covenant established between God and the people. And God was very particular that they hold up their end of the covenant, that they stay true to that.

Victory and success would depend on faith and obedience. And it doesn't take long until this is proven.

We're just going through a review here. Joshua reinstates circumcision, the sign of the covenant, which, as a type of baptism, removed the disgrace of Egypt.

Very important details that were taken care of before any battles took place. The people celebrate the Feast of the Passover, a shadow of the death of Christ in the communion that we partake of today. Then we have the battle of Jericho.

This is their first encounter with the enemy and one of these great fortified cities. And we all know the story. It's a good example of total victory coming through faith and obedience. We even have a prostitute named Rahab and her family being rescued because of her faith and hospitality and becoming a type of the church and how we are to flee the wrath to come and find refuge within the walls of the church. Within the church, it's where we find refuge from the wrath to come.

Lots of types there and a very great victory that happened there at Jericho with, we know, marching around the city, marching around the city, walls coming down. It was just God helped them in a big way. But then we have, following right after that, we have the defeat at Ai.

The second battle in Canaan, which turns out bad for the Israelites. And we find out that one man, one man out of how many thousands and thousands of people, one man's hidden sin caused the Israelites to be defeated. A sober reminder that disobedience has its effect.

Joshua takes care of the culprit. The people go back up to the city under God's blessing, and Ai is completely destroyed.

God's commands are to be taken seriously. And I think that point was driven home very clearly to Joshua and the people that, you know, disobedience was going to equal failure. Disobedience was going to equal defeat.

So what are some lessons we've learned up so far? My choices affect the community.

We're not a lone ranger. Covetousness is a deadly sin. Victory comes through faith and obedience and repentance. And we would have talked about this last time, that when we fail and when we suffer defeat, we have the opportunity to repent and make the necessary changes and keep moving. God gives us that opportunity. It's a gift that we have. Repentance is a very precious gift. We have the opportunity to

stop and repent and move on in the right direction. And that's what Joshua and the people did. All right, chapter nine.

Verse one, "When the kings of the Amorites on the other side of the Jordan and those in the hills and in the low land and in all the coast of the Great Sea and those near Lebanon and the Hittites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites heard what happened, they all came together in one place to war against Joshua and Israel." And this would have been a good place for a map.

But obviously, these are kind of countries, nations, cities that are spread out over the land of Canaan.

And it's an interesting thing here happening.

And I imagine that it was written after the fact because I don't think that Joshua would have been aware of this. How could Joshua have known what was going on out there that all these nations, on seeing what was happening, on coming to the realization that there's an invasion going on and we could be next, they're all coming together. The threat is now recognized by all these nations. There's no way to keep an invasion like this secret, especially with the destruction of Jericho and Ai.

And notice the response of these nations. I find this very interesting. They start forming alliances with the hopes of overcoming Israel by strength of number. And I'm guessing these were enemy nations. They probably didn't really like each other. They probably fought each other and whatnot. But here they are coming together with the common goal of trying to stop the invasion.

And what they don't realize is that they're actually making it easier for Joshua and the Israelites because they get to engage them all at once. They don't have to go out looking for them. They're going to all be at one place, and we're going to get to engage them all at once because they're kind of coming to them. Anyway, I find that kind of interesting.

There's a similar scenario given in the book of the Revelation showing all the nations coming together in one place for that final battle. And I don't understand how that's all going to look or take place, but we kind of see that picture given in Revelation.

And that's what's happening here with Joshua and the people invading the land, and all the nations are starting to come together to one place.

Verse three, "Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded the sons of Israel, as written in the law of Moses concerning an altar of whole stones upon which an arentol should not be laid. There they offered whole burnt offerings to the Lord and a sacrifice of peace offering. Joshua also wrote on stones the second law of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the sons of Israel.

All Israel and their elders and judges and their scribes also passed by on each side of the ark. Then the priests and the Levites took up the ark of the covenant of the Lord, the resident aliens and those born among them. Half of them stood near Mount Gerizim and half of them stood near Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded when he blessed the people the first time. Thus, after this, Joshua read all the words of this law, the blessings and the curses according to everything written in the law of Moses.

There was not a word from everything Moses commanded Joshua that Joshua did not read in the ears of all the assembly of the children of Israel to the men, women, and children, and to the resident aliens who came from Israel."

So it appears that Joshua and the people are oblivious to the fact that everyone's getting ready to make war against them. Like all these nations are getting together out there and like there's this big threat of war in a big way. And instead, Joshua decides that this would be a good time to build an altar and reaffirm their covenant with the Lord and reestablish everything written in the law of Moses.

But reminding themselves who they were and establishing themselves in God's law and covenant was the best preparation for battle that Joshua and the people could do.

You know, they could have been just really all worked up about what's coming next and who are they going to face next in battle. And instead, here they are building altars and reading the law and establishing the covenant.

Why was this the best preparation? Because understanding and obedience to God's law and a commitment to His covenant resulted in them being the people of God. This was the whole point. And being the people of God would result in the Israelites having the ability to conquer the nations around them. This wasn't going to happen automatically. I think Joshua really, really understood this, that if they were going to conquer the nations, if this was going to be successful, they already had experienced a defeat, and it happened very early on. And I think that's actually the reason Joshua says, "You know, we've got to make sure that we understand who we are, who we belong to, what covenant we're supposed to be keeping, what commandments we're supposed to be keeping.

We've got to understand this." And I think he understood this and that without this knowledge of and obedience to God's commandments, this would be a failed mission. Like there was the potential to fail in this mission. And it was about being the people of God that was going to give them the ability to conquer. It wasn't about becoming a strong army or somehow developing really smart methods of tearing down walls or whatever. Like it was about being the people of God.

Joshua wrote the law on stone.

I thought something was coming up because something went across the screen and then that came. I don't know what it was.

Joshua wrote the law on stone. God writes His law on our hearts.

Jeremiah 38:31-33, "Behold, days are coming," says the Lord, "when I shall make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in the day I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not abide in my covenant, and I disregarded them," says the Lord. "For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days," says the Lord. "I will surely put my laws into their mind and write them on their hearts. I will be as God to them, and they shall be as my people."

Very beautiful words. Now, this is a good time after the book of Joshua, but Israel had just totally fallen away, disregarded the covenant, disobeyed, been taken captive just like God had said they would. And here's God pointing forward to a new covenant, a covenant He said to be written on our hearts, not one written on stones, but one written on our hearts.

The new covenant, the law of Christ, isn't just words and letters that we read on a page, but they are written on our hearts and we live them. They are a real part of us or of who we are and who we're becoming. And as such, we're ready to overcome the world and whatever Satan tries to use against us. Just like Joshua was preparing the people to face the enemy.

They didn't know what was coming next, but Joshua knew that they had to be prepared by being understanding and obeying the covenant.

We can be like Joshua and the people here. And even though the world may be conspiring against us, I don't know what's all going on out there. There's a lot of stuff going on out there. There's all kinds of possibly conspiracies against Christians and whatever. The world may be conspiring against us, and they probably are. We focus on being the church and what it was meant to be and on being the people that we're meant to be. And we don't have to fear that. We can be like Joshua and the people. We're ready. We're ready. We're actually here to conquer. We're actually overcoming. We're actually in a good place if we are actually being the people that God is wanting us to be.

That's what's important. We don't need to worry and fear about what's about the world coming together to war against us, and they will maybe. All right, verse nine.

Now, this kind of changes directions a little bit.

"When the inhabitants of Gibeon heard everything the Lord did to Jericho and Ai, indeed, they also devised a crafty plan. So they went and supplied themselves with provisions and prepared themselves. They took old sacks on their shoulders and old torn and patched bottles of wine.

The upper part of their shoes and sandals were old and crudely patched on their feet, and the clothing they wore was worn out. The bread of their provision was dry, dirty, and moldy.

Then they came to Joshua at Israel's camp in Gilgal and said to Joshua and Israel, 'We have come from a far land. Now then, make a covenant with us.' The children of Israel said to the Hivites, 'Perhaps you live among us. How then can I make a covenant with you?' So they replied to Joshua, 'We are your servants.'

Joshua then said to them, 'Who are you and where do you come from?' So they said, 'Your servants have come from a very distant land in the name of the Lord your God, for we heard of his name and everything he did in Egypt and everything he did to the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sion king of Heshbon and to Og the king of Bashan who dwelled in Ashtoroth and Edrei.'

So when we heard this, our elders and all those who inhabited our land spoke to us saying, 'Take provisions for yourselves for the road and go to meet them and say to them, 'We are your servants. Now then, make a covenant with us.' These are the loaves of bread, and we took them hot for our journey on the day we left to come to you, but now they are dried and have become moldy. These are the wine skins we filled with when new, but they are torn, and our clothing and shoes are old because of the very long journey.' Then the rulers took some of their provisions, but they did not inquire of the Lord.

Joshua then made peace with them and established a covenant to keep them safe, and the rulers of the congregation swore to them. Now, it came to pass that three days after they made a covenant with them, they heard that they were near neighbors and that they dwelled among them. Then the children of Israel departed and came to their cities. Their cities were Gibeon and Chefrah and Beeroth and the city of Kerjath Jerim.

The sons of Israel did not fight with them because all the rulers had sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel, but all the congregation complained against the rulers. So the rulers said to all the congregation, 'We swore an oath to them by the Lord God of Israel, and now we cannot touch them. This is what we will do. We will capture them alive and keep them safe so no wrath will come upon us because of the oath we swore to them.

They shall live, but they shall be woodcutters and water carriers for the entire congregation as the rulers directed them.' Thus, Joshua summoned them together and spoke to them, saying, 'Why have you deceived me, saying, 'We are very far from you,' when you are fellow countrymen of those who dwell among us? Now therefore, you are cursed, and there shall not fail to be a servant nor a woodcutter among you to serve me and my God.'

So they answered Joshua, saying, 'It was reported to us what the Lord your God ordered his servant Moses to give you this land and to destroy us and all who dwell in it from before you.' How did they know all this information? 'Thus we did this thing because we feared greatly for our lives before you. Now behold, we are in your hands. Do to us as it pleases you and as it seems good to you.'

So they did this to them in this way, and Joshua delivered them on that day from the hands of the children of Israel, and they did not kill them. On that day, Joshua appointed them to be woodcutters and water carriers for the entire congregation and for the altar of God. Therefore, the inhabitants of Gibeon became woodcutters and water carriers for the altar of God until this very day and for the place the Lord chose for himself.

All right. Interesting story. A very different response from what we see the other nations doing. So we have most of the nations coming together for war. They see the threat, and their response is, 'Gear up for battle. We're going to go try to take care of this.'

But now we have a very different situation happening. While most of Canaan is, like I said, gearing up for war, one nation decides to go a different route. And I think they were smart. Honestly, I think it was a very intelligent decision. The nation of Gibeon decided to convince Israel to keep them alive.

And they accomplished this through deception. And I'm not condoning the deception, but on the other hand, they made a smart choice.

What is deception?

Deception is the act of causing someone to accept as true or valid what is actually false or invalid. It's pretty simple. And I'm sure we've all been in those places before where either we were kind of almost deceived or maybe we were deceived or we had somebody trying to convince us of that. You probably get those phone calls once in a while.

So in other words, we normally don't know that we're being deceived until after we've been deceived. And in this case, Joshua had no way of knowing that he was being deceived, and I think he did the reasonable thing of believing what the people of Gibeon were telling him. It was kind of an innocent acceptance of what they were saying.

It all looked true. Their story seemed to line up. One thing about deception is that it normally appeals to our emotions rather than to logic. If Joshua and the people would have kind of stepped back and said, 'Yeah, but wait a minute. Why don't we talk a little more about where you actually come from and maybe engage in a little more of a conversation?' They might have been able to see through the deception.

But deception normally appeals to emotions, and I think we've probably all been there too. The Gibeonites did a good job at presenting themselves in such a way that Joshua felt sympathetic towards them. Worn-out clothes and shoes, dry, moldy bread, and whatever, their wine skins kind of all worn out. And I'm sure they looked dirty and probably some tears. And of course, they were coming in the name of the Lord. That gets you every time.

And Joshua and the other rulers fell for the story. I mean, I think they did this pretty quickly. It appealed to them. They felt bad for these people. These people obviously were worried about their lives, and they knew they had a pretty good knowledge of what was going on and why the Israelites were here. They realized that they were liable to destruction along with the rest of Canaan.

Should Joshua have inquired of the Lord? We do have the verse. Verse 20 tells us that Joshua and the rulers did not inquire of the Lord. And I think we could say that that was a mistake on Joshua's part. However, we also note that God doesn't call him out for it. God remains silent on it. He doesn't afterwards say, "Well, look, this is why I'm here. I could have told you what was going on. I could have told you who these guys were."

So it's possible that God saw something about Gibeon that kept him from intervening. We don't know. Either way, God honored the covenant that Joshua made with Gibeon for many years to come. Joshua made the covenant with them. God honored that.

And God sometimes just lets us make decisions based on what we know, what the information that we have. And that's what kind of happened here. Was this a fulfillment of prophecy? Chrysostom points out that the Gibeonites are descendants of Noah's son Canaan, about whom he prophesied in Genesis 9, "Cursed be Canaan. A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers."

So this could be a fulfillment of that prophecy, that the Gibeonites were actually destined to be servants.

Servants of servants. And it sounds like they served Israel for many years to come. And there's a lot of if we would have kept going in the book of, well, I don't know which part of kingdoms it would have been in where Saul actually killed some of the Gibeonites, and that was later required of him and his sons. I think it was Saul's sons that were killed in return or something like that. Anyway, there was an incident that happened, whereas this covenant that was made held for many, many years to come. And even King David ended up honoring that.

Gibeon was a great nation with mighty men capable of fighting. Okay, we find that out in chapter 10. This wasn't this little weak nation that didn't know how to fight. That's not the reason they didn't want to fight Israel. In fact, we're told in chapter 10 that when the other nations heard that Gibeon had made a covenant with Israel, they feared greatly because Gibeon was a great mother city and that all her men were mighty.

These weren't cowards.

So it's not that Gibeon didn't know how to fight, but I think they genuinely believed that they were no match for God. In fact, they basically told Joshua that themselves. In a sense, isn't this how we come to God? We recognize that we can't fight against him. We can't fight against God.

It doesn't work. And we know that when we come proud, that is kind of what happens, and it doesn't work. We can't fight against God and his kingdom, so we surrender and we give ourselves as servants and receive salvation. That's just kind of in a nutshell, but I know there's a lot more to it. But it is kind of what happened here with Gibeon. They said, "We either are going to get destroyed because we can't stand up to these guys. We're not even going to try to fight them. We're going to surrender."

They did it through deception, but they did surrender.

And then Joshua shows character when he decides to honor the treaty even after finding out that they had been deceived. I guess he could have said, "Well, this thing's null because you guys really were telling us a lie all along." And the people wanted to kill them, and Joshua said, "No, we made a covenant."

Even though the people complained against Joshua and the rulers, he still honored the covenant that had been made and kept the Gibeonites alive.

And in chapter 10, which we were not getting to today, when the other nations came, they decided, "Well, we're going to take Gibeon out. If they're going to go and make this alliance with the Israelites, we're going to take Gibeon out." And they came and besieged Gibeon, and then Joshua and the Israelites came to their rescue.

All right, so how are we doing at keeping our covenants and promises?

In the beginning of this chapter, Joshua and the nation of Israel renewed their covenant with God. And as I mentioned earlier, this is significant because what defines Israel's history was their ability to keep the covenant or not. That's what it really came down to. As long as they kept the covenant, they were good. God blessed them. They defeated their enemies. Their crops grew. They had children, and everything went well. But as soon as they rejected the covenant and they served other gods and they disobeyed, then everything completely turned around on them.

Then, in the incident with the Gibeonites deceiving them into making a covenant with them, even after learning the truth, Joshua and the Israelites still keep the promise that was made. They honored it. What about us? We live in a world where covenants and promises are constantly being broken.

It's almost like it don't matter anymore. You can make a promise. You can make a covenant. You can make a vow. And in a week, you can decide that you're not going to keep it.

Are we people who can be counted on to keep our promises and commitments?

The big ones that we make and the small ones, the everyday life ones that we make.

Examples of covenants: baptismal vows.

At our baptism, we make promises to God, such as our promise to renounce Satan, his angels, his works, and his pride. And I was remembering back to my baptism. I think I remember one where I stated that I was turning my back on the world and something connected with that. But the idea that I'm turning my back and I'm walking this way.

It was a promise that I made. It was a vow that I made before God and before witnesses.

Are we being true to those vows? Marriage vows. Very significant one for those of us here that are married and some that are heading that way.

We promise to love and cherish in sickness and health, in prosperity or adversity until death separates us. Are we keeping those vows? How are we doing with that?

The world today thinks that somehow there's a way to break those vows. Somehow the other my partner doesn't keep up their end, then it's okay for me to not do it either.

Ordenation vows. For those who have been ordained as elders or deacons, there have been promises made to lead and to shepherd and to teach and to serve this congregation and to do it in love and humility.

Sober reminders. Membership promises. For those of us who are members here, we have promised to support the vision of CCF and our brotherly agreements as long as you're a part of this congregation. How are we doing with keeping those promises?

God keeps his covenants and promises. That is one thing that we know and we have confidence in. We don't expect God to be unfaithful with the promises that he makes, the covenant that he makes. Our daily lives are made up of all kinds of commitments and promises and agreements, and we sign things and we commit to things. And I have a loan for my house that on such and such a date, I will be making a payment every month. It's a commitment, something I agreed to. Some of these commitments may seem small and insignificant, but it is very important that we keep them to the best of our ability.

The little ones and the big ones. God keeps his covenants and promises, and he expects us as his people to do the same. May we be faithful until the end.