Dennis Tuuri

Sermon text is Joshua chapter 9. Please stand for the reading of God’s command word. Joshua chapter 9 and our subject is the covenant with the Gibeonites. And it came to pass when all the kings which were on this side Jordan in the hills and in the valleys and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon the Hittite and the Amorites, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite heard thereof, that is of the story of Ai and its conquering, that they gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua and with Israel with one accord.

And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai, they did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old and rent, and bound up, and old shoes, and clouted or patched upon their feet, and old garments upon them. And all the bread of their provision was dry and moldy. And they went to Joshua into the camp at Gilgal, and said unto him, and to the men of Israel, “We have come from a far country.

Now, therefore, make ye a league with us.” And the men of Israel said unto the Hivites, “Peradventure ye dwell among us, and how shall we make a league with you?” And they said unto Joshua, “We are thy servants?” And Joshua said unto them, “Who are ye? And from whence came ye?” And they said unto him, from a very far country. Thy servants are come because of the name of the Lord thy God. For we have heard the fame of him, and all that he did in Egypt, and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond Jordan, to Sihon, king of Heshbon, and to Og, king of Bashan, which was at Ashtaroth.

Wherefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spake to us, saying, “Take victuals with you for the journey, and go to meet them, and say unto them, we are your servants. Therefore now make ye a league with us. This our bread we took hot from provision out of our houses on the day we came forth to go unto you. But now, behold, it’s dry, and it’s moldy. And these bottles of wine, which were filled, were new, and behold, they be rent.

And these are garments, and our shoes are become old by reason the very long journey. And the men took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord. Joshua made peace with them, and made a league with them, and let them live. And the princes of the congregation swear unto them. And it came to pass at the end of three days after they had made a league with them that they heard they were their neighbors and that they dwelt among them.

The children of Israel journeyed and came under their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon and Chephirah and Beeroth and Kirjath Jearim. And the children of Israel smote them not because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel. And all the congregation murmured against the princes. But all the princes said unto all the congregation, We have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel.

Now therefore we may not touch them. This we will do to them. We will even let them live, lest wrath be upon us because of the oath which we swear unto them. And the princes said unto them, let them live, but let them be the hewers of wood and drawers of water unto all the congregation as the princes had promised them. And Joshua called for them, and he spake unto them, saying, Wherefore have ye beguiled us, saying, We are from a very far off from you, when ye dwell among us.

Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God. And they answered Joshua and said, Because it was certainly told thy servants, how that the Lord thy 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 so afraid of our lives because of you, and have done this thing.

And now behold, we are in thine hand, as it seemeth good and right unto thee to do unto us, do. And so did unto them, and deliver them out of the hand of the children of Israel, that they slew them not. Joshua made them that day hewers of wood, and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the Lord, even unto this day in the place which he should choose. We thank God for his holy word, and pray that he would illuminate to our understanding.

Okay, we continue now going through our series of sermons in the book of Joshua. And this will be the last one for probably about five weeks. I’ll be going up to Seattle to preach there next Sunday. And Richard will be going back to his series of sermons through the book of Ephesians next Sunday. And then the following Sunday, Kim Frasier will be down from Seattle, one of the young men from up there, and continue his series on the Holy Spirit.

And then Dave H. will be preaching here on July 5th. And then Richard will be back on the 12th and the 19th—the 12th doing another sermon from the book of Ephesians and the 19th taking his communion talk from last week that we didn’t have because of the service being together instead of divided, and expanding that into a sermon leading up to communion on that day on July 19th. So this will be the last one until I think July 26th, and then we’ll go through—we’ll pick it back up in Joshua 10 and move through a number of more chapters before we break again.

So we’re going through Joshua. This is Joshua chapter 9, talking about the covenant that they made with the Gibeonites. I hope you’re enjoying this and it’s as profitable to you as it has been to me. I love these stories from the Old Testament, and particularly early on in the Old Testament—Joshua, of course, immediately following the Pentateuch. They are so fraught with meaning throughout them, and all of course we’re trying to move through it quickly to give you the overall flow of the book of Joshua and relate that to the book of Acts.

Next year when we get into the book of Acts, but there’s so much material in each of these chapters. It’s really kind of primordial stuff, if you know what I mean. And a lot of things, themes throughout Scripture, spring from these first few books of the Bible. And Joshua is the first application of that entire Pentateuch in terms of the conquest of the land, and of course shows us in terms of our salvation and the conquest of the whole earth to come in the times of the New Testament.

So it’s tremendous lessons for us, and this one is no different. And I’m going to use the model that we’ve used now for several Sundays where I’m going to do an overview of the text first to make sure we all understand what’s going on here. And then we’ll draw out a couple of points of application—very obvious ones, I suppose, many of these are from these texts, and yet they’re so very important and vital to us in our Christian walk, and particularly in terms of seeing that walk and the necessity of it linked to the reordering of the political organization of the land around us.

And by political I don’t just mean the civil government. I mean the way that things work around us. I think that the Scriptures clearly show that we are now under the greater Joshua, the Lord Jesus Christ. And as Joshua went into all the land of Canaan, wherever his foot went, God was with him and he conquered. So Jesus has told us that we’re to go into all the world and that he is with us even until the end of the age, and we’re to disciple the nations.

So this is very instructive for us in terms of how we go about doing that. And today’s lesson is no different, involving a very important set of truths for us to apply to our Christian walk.

Okay, but first an overview of the text. And there’s different ways of course to organize these chapters, but I’ve basically looked at it. First is the strategy of the Gibeonites, and that is the strategy of Israel. And the chapter begins with two verses that I don’t have in the outline under point one.

And these first two verses are really an introduction to chapters 9, 10, and you might even throw in chapter 11. What’s happening now is we’ve reached a transition point in the book of Joshua. We’ve read up to now about the conquest of two cities. People of God drive a wedge into the land splitting north from south. And what we’ll read of the next two chapters, 9 and 10, and into 11, is the conquest of the southern kings and then the conquest of the northern kings as well.

So they go south and then they go north. So now they’ve successfully taken the two major cities. Now they may have taken a few more cities. There’s disagreement over whether—remember last chapter ended with the covenant renewal at Shechem, and there’s some disagreement as to whether or not that renewal actually took place chronologically there or whether that’s placed there for theological reasons, and I don’t want to get into all that. But what we know is that many battles happened and not all of them are recorded. For instance, Bethel—last week we talked about Bethel, and how later in the book of Joshua, Bethel was talked about as being conquered. Well, it seems that Bethel was probably conquered at the same time as Ai, but there’s very little mention of it made in that chapter. But in any event, we go now from an account of them capturing two individual cities to now massive campaigns against the south and massive campaigns against the north.

And so this is a transition verse here, verses 1 and 2 of Joshua 9. And what happens is, of course, these verses tell us, they play out for us a scenario along the line of Psalm 2. Why do the kings of the earth imagine a vain thing and rage against God’s son? Well, that’s what happens here. When they find out what’s going on, instead of just being shaking now in their boots, they take together.

It says in verses 1 and 2, and it says that all the kings gather themselves together. And it gives two different descriptions. It gives a geographical description showing the width of the area from which these kings were coming together to defeat God’s people. And it also shows the different races or cultures that were involved as well. So the whole of the land is pictured as now rising up against Israel and God’s people—to come together in one accord is what it says at the end of verse 2.

And so that’s what happens when God’s people get on the march. The enemies of God tend to congeal themselves together when they finally realize the great threat is upon them. And so, of course, we don’t have to worry about that because Psalm 2 says, you know, this is humor to God. God laughs them from heaven, has them in derision. And God’s people also should not be afraid when all the forces of the earth rise up against the church, and it has not been afraid for the last 2,000 years.

And that’s happened in history because they recognize that they are walking behind the greater Joshua, the Lord Jesus Christ, and victory is theirs. That’s what’s going on here.

Now, very important point of this as well, and we won’t read the verses a little bit later, but when we get to chapter 11, verses 19 and 20, we’ll find out there a piece of information that’s probably good for us to know now.

And that is that the reason why these kings have now made a change from just being afraid to banding together against God’s people—we can see that is, you know, the threats imposed, etc.—but in Joshua 11, it says explicitly that God hardened the heart of these nations. He caused them to stiffen and to come together and start fighting against Israel to the end that they would all be wiped out. So actually, behind all of this, the sovereignty of God is being played out and causing the kings of the earth to rise up against the son, Jesus, in the being pictured of course by Joshua and the people of Israel here—for the purpose of God destroying them and having them in derision and defeating them.

So God hardens their heart that he might wipe them out from off the land, and that brings God’s peace, God’s order to the land. We’re talking about the Christianization of this particular portion of the world, and that means getting rid of evildoers and covenant breakers and bringing in covenant keepers. And that’s very central to our text today.

Okay, so that’s the introduction. But now we have the Gibeonite strategy that goes from verses 3 through 15.

And this is an emphasis on the Gibeonite side of the thing, what they’re going to do. And then we’ll see the second half of the chapter deals with Israel and what they’re going to do. First of all, the Gibeonite strategy. Then we see that they hear of Israel’s victories at Jericho and Ai. That’s verse 3. And this knowledge of what God has done through Israel to Jericho and Ai results in them devising a plan or strategy. Verse 4 says they worked wilily—craftily—and that word can be either a good or bad word.

It’s used in a good sense and a bad sense throughout Scripture. But in any event, they work with strategy here. They’re trying to figure out what can we do. They don’t think it’s going to work to defeat them militarily. They’re going to get wiped off the land. They think the only way to do it is to sue for peace. But they know apparently that Israel won’t be able to sue for peace with a nation that is close to them from those people.

So they come up with the ruse to convince Israel that they’re from very far off. They say that they’re going to put bad clothes on their backs and patched up shoes. They’re going to bring wine bottles that are all patched up and cracked. They had some laying around apparently. They had some moldy, dry bread laying around. They picked that up and they said, “We’ll tell them when we get there. This stuff was fresh when we started.

So we’ll convince them that we’re from a far off here. You can make a covenant with us.” Now, see, like I said, this material is sort of primordial in a sense, and it’s like archive files in computer terms. You can unpack an awful lot of stuff from this. I mean, consider what they’re coming with here. We hear about their clothes and their clothes on their back and their shoes. And you remember the children of Israel had just gone through a real long journey, hadn’t they?

And what had happened to their clothes and shoes? Are they all worn out? No. God supernaturally caused their clothes and shoes not to wear out for 40 years in the wilderness. Okay. So there’s a real distinction being drawn here. It would surprise the nation of Israel probably. They’d say, “Well, we didn’t have to go through those kind of problems like these guys did.” It appealed to their pride. The other thing they bring with them is dry bread and wine skins that are all cracked—bread and wine.

And there’s correlations there throughout the Scriptures. These are the things the sustenance of life, of course, but more than that, the sustenance of our spiritual life as well in terms of communion. And we can talk a lot about that, and you can think about it maybe and meditate upon it in your night watches as we meditate, as David would meditate upon the temple. And we meditate upon the great story of God of redemption history throughout the Scriptures.

And these are some things to think about. Well, in any event, they come up with the plan, they plan this strategy in the next couple of verses, and then in verses 6 through 13, and 14 and 15, they work the strategy successfully. They plot it first and then they carry it out. And in your outline I’ve got verses 6 through 13, and then verses 14 and 15. Verses 6 through 13 is a dialogue, kind of like a play, if you will, in this piece of literature that God has given to us that describes the play that happened between the Gibeonites and the Israelites when they came up and began to work this strategy.

So it’s by way of dialogue. And then the last two verses, 14 and 15, tell us the conclusion of the matter. Okay, so we’ve got a little dialogue being worked out here before us. Then verses 14 and 15 tell us what the end result of it was. And it was success to the Gibeonites. It worked. They begin in verse 6. So they come to Joshua and they say, “We’re from a far country, far away.” In verse 7—we’ll get back to this in a minute—but very importantly, the men of Israel said unto the Hivites. Okay, remember that, stack that away in your memory.

We’ll get back to that a little bit later. But it doesn’t refer to them here as Gibeonites. Talks about them as Hivites. They say, “Well, make of that. Maybe you’re close to us. Maybe you’re really one of these tribes that are real these nations that are real close to us, and we can’t make a league with those guys. So where are you really from?” And they say, “Well, we’re really from a long way away, you know, and we’ve heard what God has done here.

We’ve heard that you got a great God who’s wiping people out.” And specifically, they make reference to Egypt, deliverance from Egypt, and the two kings that were defeated on the other side of the Jordan. What don’t they mention? They don’t mention the crossing of the river Jordan itself. And they don’t mention the defeat of Jericho and Ai. Why don’t they mention it? Well, they’re supposed to have been walking along for some time here, from a far country to come to Israel, to make a covenant with them.

And they tell Israel, we also heard what you just did to Jericho and Ai. They’re going to say, “Now wait a minute. You wouldn’t have known that knowledge if you were left your land and now been traveling to us from afar.” So they very carefully developed this ruse, and part of the ruse is giving limited information about their own knowledge about Israel’s situation. But at any event, they then say, “We’re from a far land.” They point to the dry bread, you know, and people of Israel are a little bit suspicious at first.

Joshua says, “Well, I don’t know about this.” And they say, “Well, no, wait. Our bread’s dry here. You know, this is hot. We had this bread hot from the oven when we left. Look at this stuff now. It’s all mold. These wine skins, they were new. These clothes were new. Look at us now. Boy, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Look at us. Have your eyes look at us here. It’s obvious that we’re from a long way away.” Joshua says then in verse 14 that the men took of their victuals and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord.

So they take of the victuals. What does that mean? Well, people don’t agree on what that means. Could be they just looked at that food. They tasted the bread. They tasted that dry moldy bread to make sure it was really dry and moldy. You know, you don’t want to just rely on one set of physical senses. You want to rely on your taste as well as your sight. But they didn’t rely upon the counsel of the Lord.

They relied upon their own ability, their sense of taste and their sense of sight. Other people have said, “Well, maybe when they take other victuals here, we have a covenant meal being described because that’s what’s going on. Joshua enters into a league with them.” And the very next verse says that Joshua made a league with them, made peace with them, shalom with them, tried to establish right relationship with people here on the basis of really inadequate or incorrect knowledge.

I don’t think the covenant meal is being stressed here. I think that verse 14 contrasts the taking of the victuals. Victuals just means like food. Taking of that food as opposed to seeking counsel from the Lord. So I think the contrast being developed here is the looking, using of our physical senses instead of the spiritual sense that God gives us in seeking his advice and counsel when entering into a covenant.

Okay? So they do that anyway. They fall for the ruse. The Gibeonites—they hear about Joshua. They develop a strategy. They work the strategy. Pieces to success. And as a result, they now have a covenant.

Now I’ve talked about this very far off thing, and I won’t read all the verses, but in Deuteronomy 20, I’ve listed these references on your outline. Deuteronomy 20:10-18. God says that when you come to a city, you can declare peace to it first and ask them to submit unconditionally. This is where Gary North got the name of that book, “Unconditional Surrender.” That’s the way that they’re to approach cities. God said according to Deuteronomy 20, unconditional surrender on the part of a city would mean you could make a covenant with them. They’d be entered into a peaceful relationship with you now.

And but it goes on to say that countries that are far off in verse 15 are the only ones you can do this with. Verse 15 says, “Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the city of these nations, but of the cities of these people.” God says, “You shall leave nothing alive.” And then he lists the specific tribes: Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites. Now, this is the same list, and it’s the only list in the Scriptures that matches up to the list that’s given to us in Joshua 9.

Deuteronomy 20 and Joshua 9 are linked together with the specific listing of the Canaanite nations here that specifically are listed out. And that means God wants us to look at these two things and understand Joshua 9 based upon these laws from Deuteronomy 20. And we’re supposed to see then that they had two groups of people they thought about when they got into the land. The ones that were near, they had to wipe out, and the ones that were far off, they could make a covenant with. And somehow—again, this is another one of those little archive pieces of information that God gives us that we could go out and spend quite some time on—but somehow the Gibeonites knew this.

They knew apparently that the Israelites’ law, which they received from God, had this provision, this difference for close, far off. And that’s why they pictured themselves, they painted themselves up as coming from afar. One other place where this is pointed out is in Exodus 34:10-12. And this is real interesting too because Exodus 34 begins in verse 10, saying God says, “Behold, I make a covenant before all the people. I will do marvels.” God makes a covenant with his people Israel. And the very next thing he says after he makes this covenant, in verse 11, is “Observe thou that which I command thee this day. Behold, I drive out before thee the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and the Jebusites. I’m to drive out these nations.”

And then verse 12 says, “Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee.” This is important for a couple of reasons.

God makes a covenant. Says he’s going to drive out these nations. Be careful. Don’t be snared by these guys. First reason it’s important because it links up grammatically or structurally, literary-wise, with what we just gone through. What was Joshua 8 at the end of it? Covenant renewal. God made a covenant with the people. And what happens next? God says—if they know their book of Exodus here, if they’re thinking about it much—they should realize the very next thing God says after making a covenant is, “Don’t be snared by these folks.”

So they’ve got every reason to be extremely suspicious and careful not to be snared by these guys. So they’re really at fault here. And they fall into this ruse of the Canaanites, or the Gibeonite strategy, the Hivite strategy, to picture themselves as a country far off that was open then to being made into a covenant relationship with.

Now all they were doing of course was applying some good wisdom. It’s interesting that Jesus in Luke 14—you know, we’re pretty familiar with the verse about counting the cost. And if you go out to warfare, you got to count the cost and see if you can win that battle. And then verse 32 after that says, “Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, the nation that you’re not going to be able to win against, you send an ambassador and desire conditions of peace.”

Our Savior really approves of that basic mentality. If you can’t beat these guys, well, you’ll make peace with them. The Gibeonites knew they couldn’t beat the God of Israel and his people. So they went to make peace with them. Okay? That’s all they’re doing here. But they do it by way of deception. They do it by way of deception. Okay?

Israel—that’s the story of Gibeon and their covenant. Now, Israel, what do they do about all this? Well, the next thing that text tells us is that this deception only lasts three days. Verse 16: “And it came to pass at the end of three days after they had made a league with them that they heard that they were their neighbors, that they dwelt among them.” Boy, you know, and it doesn’t take long, does it? Usually, we make a bad covenant or a bad deal. A lot of times before you know it, you realize, “Ooh, that was a dumb thing to do.”

And that’s what happened to the Israelites here. Only took them 3 days to discover their error. But they’re going to live with the consequences of that error for many generations to come, hundreds of years. So it’s a warning to us, and it commends to us slowness and patience before entering into covenants and making leases.

So they also now—you know, Gibeonites had heard about Jericho and Ai. Now the Israelites, the second half of this passage that gives us the rest of the story—they find out about the deception and they then plan a strategy out in verses 17-21. And it’s interesting.

We could talk again about the people murmuring against the princes. This is the same word that’s used in the wilderness wanderings. You see, in Scripture repeatedly in the Old Testament, when you’ve got covenant renewal, when God makes a covenant with people or renews that covenant, you almost immediately see sin and a breaking of that covenant on the part of the people. We just had that great covenant renewal, the peak at Ebal and Gerizim, and God’s blessing his people, and bam, they fall into sin.

The leaders fall into sin by not consulting God. And the people fall into sin by starting to murmur against the leaders that God has ordained for them. They want to put the Gibeonites to death. That’s because what the Scriptures point throughout them is the coming of Jesus. Everything looks forward to Jesus, and then things are different. It doesn’t mean that’s a model for us. It doesn’t mean we’re going to sin as soon as we make a covenant, doesn’t mean that this afternoon you’re going to go home and sin, and tomorrow you’re going to forget the word. No, because all that pointed to the need for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to redeem his people.

But that’s what you always see in the Old Testament. That’s what we see here. People and leaders both sinning. Okay? But then they say, “Well, here’s a plan for us.” In verse 21, the princes say, “Hey, let’s let them live, but they’ll be hewers of wood and drawers of water unto all the congregation.” That’s their plan.

And they then execute that plan in verses 22-27. Same literary model here. There’s a dialogue between Joshua and the men of Gibeon. And then there’s two concluding verses that sum up the matter—just like there was in the Gibeonite strategy. They then do this dialogue, and Joshua says, “Why’d you trick us now? Therefore, you’re cursed.” So Joshua tries them, convicts them, and tells them they’re cursed by God.

And here’s the nature of their curse. They’re going to have to be—they’re not going to be free men anymore. They’re going to be bonding all their lives, and they’re going to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, menial tasks. But it is hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God. Okay.

And it’s interesting that later on in Jeremiah 41:12, we read that they found a particular person here, Ishmael, that they were looking for by the great waters, or the great pools, that are in Gibeon. And remember when we talked about the seven deadly sins, those of you who were here then—we talked about Joab. And remember Joab and Abner had kind of a calico cat and gingham dog fight where they each come together. You know, Abner’s in charge of Saul’s guys, and Joab’s with David. They come together, and they’re going to do some battle.

And so they send 12 warriors out. They say, “Well, they got these two armies here. Let’s do it by representational warfare, symbolic warfare, so to speak.” Well, each sent 12 guys out. And then they each grab each other by the beard and stick each other in the side. So all 12, all 24 of them dropped over dead. Doesn’t decide the matter. Then a big battle happens and leads to Joab sinning later on.

And well, it’s a long story, but the point is that battle between Joab and Abner that happens at the pool of Gibeon. Jeremiah 41 says they found Israel by the great bit of water at Gibeon. Excavations of the site that is probably Gibeon has shown and developed a tremendous water works that is there. See, so either they’re real good at water, and that’s what they were assigned the task to do, or they became real good at water, which is probably more probable, after they were assigned these menial work by Joshua. They took the work seriously and they did a good job at it.

So throughout Scripture, they’re mentioned as being associated with water. So in any event, their curse is involved in this thing.

Now, these two things are again pictures of us of the two different kinds of covenant ceremonies in the Scriptures. The fire—what’s the fire for? For the house of God? Well, that’s for the sacrifices that take place on the altar. They’re going to cut the wood up so that the priests, the Levites, can take it and then burn animals up to offer to God.

And they’re going to cook that meat—the meat that had to be boiled and whatnot—so the people could eat of that, the fellowship meal, the peace meal, the peace sacrifice with God. So the fire is associated with the meals. Either God eating the thing up whole, taking the smoke up to him, or the people sharing a meal with God during the sacrificial system. It talks about that stuff.

The water—what’s that for? That’s for cleansing in the temple or at the tabernacle. That’s for washing things from defilement, whether it’s the sacrifices themselves or the people—the people getting sprinkled and washed. Remember, we’ve said lots of times that Hebrews says there’s two kinds of Old Testament signs and seals. There are cleansing ordinances—water—and there are food and drink ordinances—fire, okay?—wood and water.

And so the Gibeonites here are central now, providing services for the sacrifices of God and for the cleansing rites of God. And of course that comes down today to baptism preeminently. You know, that this is now the only cleansing ritual, and of course the Lord’s Supper replacing Passover and all the Old Testament meals and sacrifices. So they get special kind of duty. It’s very interesting.

We’ll talk about that a little bit too. Also, one other thing here—again, just to kind of make reference to it, but you can think about it on your own. Genesis 9:25-27: When Canaan is pronounced a curse upon. Here, let’s see. We read in Genesis 9:25-27: “And he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.’ And he said, ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tent of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.’”

And so we see here playing out the Canaanite Hivite nation, the Gibeonites actually, now being this prophecy of who they were—what was going to happen from them—being brought to fulfillment. They’re going to be menial servants of their other brothers. They all came from the same lineage originally. Remember? Okay.

So now the Canaanites are in this land. A symbol of them, one group of them, are actually not going to be wiped out. They’re going to be left as servants to Ham and Japheth, so to speak, to the nation of Israel, the faithful people. So that’s being played out here as well.

Well, their answer is important. They answer Joshua, and they say, “Well, listen. We tricked you because we knew that the Lord thy God was going to give you this land and kill all the people in it. We were afraid. We maybe should have done something else. We’re not trying to make excuses. We’re telling you why we did this thing.” Verse 25: “Behold, we are in your hands. As it seemeth good and right unto thee to do unto us, do it.” They submit to Joshua’s decision. They don’t rebel. They don’t murmur. They say, “That’s right. We lied. Here’s why we lied.”

And now do with us whatever it seems right to you. I think it’s a very important turning point in the life of the Gibeonites. I think their first statements were essentially deception. Now they’re telling the truth. And when they’re telling the truth, they also talk about the Lord your God. And doth it has seemed good, and Joshua then does it. And he carries out his strategy against them successfully. Okay.

So that’s what’s going on. The Gibeonite strategy—they get a covenant. Joshua’s strategy against them—they become servants of God, menial workers for the nation of Israel, by cutting wood and by drawing water. And they submit to that. Okay.

Now, let’s talk about some applications from the text. First: The great care we should give to covenant making. Now, these are obvious, but they’re very important. Of course, what’s going on here? The central verse of this says that they took of the victuals, they observed them, they tasted them, but they didn’t consult God. And at the core of this text, again, like last week—if you believe in nothing else, leave with the awareness that common sense and our own ability to observe and make sense of the world around us will get us in trouble.

It is not enough. It’s not enough. It’s not practically enough, and it’s not covenantally enough. It’s sin against God to ignore him and his counsel in the decisions we make in life. You’re going to screw up every time practically when you rely upon your own common sense. Okay? Natural law is ridiculous. There is no natural law. It’s an affront to God. We have God’s revealed law. We cannot make sense of the world around us.

They couldn’t figure out what was going on through the use of their senses. They should have consulted God. Now, if that’s true in every decision of life, how much more true is that when it comes to covenant making? When we bind ourselves in an analogous covenant to the covenant relationship that God has revealed himself by, so important of a thing. So much are we binding ourselves to another person, a group, whatever it is, that there certainly we don’t want to rely upon our own abilities of discernment.

We want to pray and seek God’s face on the matter. We want to have great care in covenant keeping. They were prepared by now. God had taught them the strategy of how to take an enemy city. Remember the feint, the commando unit, the Navy SEALs coming in and whatnot with the green berets and some torches. They had learned about how to make warfare against somebody who’s going to shoot them. And God was now teaching them that there are other kinds of warfare.

And Satan is subtle, and he is wily, and his people will be wily as well. And people of God, you’ve got to know that your enemy, Satan—you know, I’ve talked about this before. The slothful man, he stays in bed. He says, “There’s a lion in the streets. There’s a lion in the streets.” We all laugh. That’s funny. But the New Testament tells us there is a lion who wants to devour you. It’s Satan. Now, that’s not a reason for sloth, because we serve the greater lion, the Lord Jesus Christ, who tears that lion to pieces.

But he is out there. He does want to trap you. He’s on a very limited leash now since the resurrection. But still, Paul said he’s still out there prowling around. And the way he’s going to prowl is through subtlety and deception more often than direct combat against you. And you’ve got to be prepared for that. You got to be prepared for that, and be very careful in terms of covenant making to resist the subtle enemies that God has given to us as well as the obvious ones.

Well, how do we do that? Well, the Scriptures tell us that through the word and prayer is how we seek God’s face. We hear from him in the word. We pray to him and make our requests be made known to him through prayer, and we seek direction from him in prayer as well. They ignored the mouth of Yahweh. It was there, ready to speak to them. Now they had the Urim and Thummim, and that’s probably what they were talking about here.

They had a different means of consulting God. But he’s now replaced all that with his word and with our prayer to him in terms of that word. And it would be terrible if we ignore the mouth of Yahweh in terms of his word today. James 4:2 says that you don’t have because you don’t ask. Prayer is important. In terms of James, James tells us you want wisdom on a matter, you pray to God for that wisdom. If you don’t pray, you’re not going to have it.

Not because God doesn’t love you, but because you don’t ask for it. And he wants you to ask him for it instead of relying upon yourself. Proverbs 3:5 and 6: “Trust the Lord with all your heart. Lean not into your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” How does this work?

F.B. Meyer, in his commentary on this, said that before entering into any alliance, taking a partner in life, going into business with one another, yielding ascent to any proposition which involves consideration with others, Meyer said, “Be sure to ask counsel at the mouth of the Lord. He will assuredly answer by an irresistible impulse, by the voice of a friend, by a circumstance strange and unexpected, by a passage of Scripture. He’ll choose his own message, but he will send a message.”

Well, I think that’s a bad message that Meyer is putting out. He takes these three things—an impulse, a coincidence, an unexpected happening, and a piece of Scripture coming to you—he lumps them all under this irresistible impulse that God’s going to give us to make right decisions. No. No. I don’t think that’s how it works, folks. I think that if we start trusting our irresistible impulses, we’re in big trouble. God says he may direct you that way, and he may particularly when you’re a young Christian. But as you mature, you’re supposed to train your senses to discern good and evil.

How? By applying the word of God, his corrections, his evaluations, into your life. And so Meyer is on the right track. You should consult God, and God will certainly use his means. But normally those means is going to be the word of God. And if you go praying to God and looking for some sort of sign or circumstance or some Scripture about whether or not you should marry a man who’s not a believer, forget it.

See, the word of God takes care of 95% of our questions if we take the time to study it out and take the humility to bow our knee to that word. We don’t need supernatural leading. That’s the whole point. There’s a maturation going on, and we don’t have a lot of miracles today because we don’t need them. God says rely upon that word. My spirit is in you, directing you, causing you to go this way and that. And that spirit works primarily, not exclusively—primarily—through the word of God.

And so the spirit’s going to use that word and minister that word to you. You seek God’s counsel first and foremost by reading the Scriptures. Secondly, by prayer, asking God to direct you in the right paths, that he’d open your eyes to that Scripture. And then, of course, there’s the counsel of other believers as well, as they can counsel you from that word of God. And I’m not denying that God will sometimes prompt, guide, and direct you through various circumstances.

But I’m telling you, if you know—if you have a friend who for 20 years makes decisions on the basis that this door was open and that door was closed, boy, try to convince them that’s not the right way to work in life. You make decisions on the basis of God’s word first and foremost. And then if there’s nothing—if you’ve exhausted that, you’ve exhausted the counsel of your brothers who know that word, and you pray to God and still aren’t sure what to do—well then maybe circumstances become somewhat more important.

But all too often, we’re just like, you know, Joshua here—great man. We end up just like him. We look at that bread and say, “Well, gee, doesn’t make sense. They could have came from very close. Why would they have known? How would they have known about our law, about this far near thing? They wouldn’t have known that.” Well, apparently they did. And when we start relying upon impulses or our senses, we’re in deep trouble.

2 Corinthians 6 tells us specifics in terms of how to avoid in terms of covenants—bad covenants. This is the passage that’s gotten me in trouble. I’ll tell you a little bit about that later. Says, “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What concord hath light with darkness? Or what communion rather hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?”

So he’s saying, “Don’t be unequally yoked. Don’t make covenants with Gibeonites.” And here’s the three things I want you to think of. God says there’s a couple more. First: righteousness versus unrighteousness. What is that talking about? That’s the consecration of our lives to God’s use. That’s what righteousness is. It talks about doing justice according to God’s word. If you link yourself to a person who doesn’t use the same standard of justice as you—the law of God—and who doesn’t see the necessity of everything in his life being dedicated in terms of that law to God as a good priest should—and you enter into a covenant with him, you got problems.

Okay. Secondly, he says, “What has light with darkness?” What’s his basis of understanding? Is he examining bread primarily? Or is he seeking counsel from God? What’s his basis of knowledge now? Consecration, righteousness, unrighteousness, knowledge, intellect, light versus darkness—in the Scriptures, frequently referred to knowledge of things. What’s their basis of knowledge of knowing how the world works, and what their worldview is all about?

And then third: What concord have Christ with Belial? Two different kings, dominion. What’s his concept of dominion? Who is his lord? And is he who, what lordship is he trying to emulate in his sphere?

So law, knowledge of the word of God, consecration of all things, and then a sense of dominion is important in terms of covenants. These are the things that link us together. And then he says, “What part hath a believer with an infidel?”

Now they sound bad, but there are many Christians today who have subconsciously rejected God’s law. Okay. And who have self-consciously said, “We don’t want a Christian worldview where every bit of knowledge—mathematics—is understood in the word of God, and we don’t want a view of Christianity that talks about kingdoms and kings and dominion.”

Now I’m not saying they’re not Christians, but when they act that way and when they reject God’s law, God’s dominion, and God’s worldview in the Scriptures, then they’re acting like infidels. I’m not saying they are, but they’re acting like him. And I don’t care if the person’s a believer or not. I think that 2 Corinthians says if he doesn’t meet these standards, if he doesn’t have some kind of shared basis in terms of consecration of what he does, understanding his world, and exercising dominion with you—you’re going to have trouble entering into a covenant. Whether it’s a marriage, it’s a business agreement—no matter what—a church membership.

Certainly, all these things God says: Each time you’re going to yoke yourself together, think about these things. Knowledge, consecration, dominion, okay? Prophet, priest, and king is the model here. I think prophet understands things, priest consecrates things, and king rules over things. If you don’t have shared perspectives in those three vital areas, then forget the covenant, or get advice and counsel from somebody else.

See, very important here. Okay, I said this got me in trouble because the immediate application that most Christian churches make of this is you don’t want to marry an unbeliever. And we’ve got that in our covenant statement. And I can’t—it’s hard to believe—but there are leaders, there’s at least one or two people that believe supposedly the same thing we believe who think it’s real bad that our church has this in our church covenant, an application of this in terms of marriage.

Well, we base that upon Nehemiah, or the book of Nehemiah, when they retook the covenant. They said we got to stop marrying these foreign wives. We got to stop being involved in marriages with unbelievers or practical practicing unbelievers. It was very important—I think that it is in our covenant, and I’m proud and I’m glad that this church has in it the application in its covenant statement to this vital aspect of the Christian life—an application, direct application, of this verse.

I think it’s important to see that we must take great care in all covenants that we make or enter into—tremendous care—and counsel: business. We have examples. I mean, you probably, if you’ve been a Christian very long in the context of many Christian congregations, you know probably yourself several examples of people that have entered into business partnerships or relationships where these three aspects—prophet, priest, and king—are not shared, where they’ve gone into a covenant with an unbeliever or a Christian who acts like an unbeliever in some of these ways, and the things fall apart. Big troubles have happened.

Business relationships are no different. Any relationship we enter into must be governed by these factors. Family—as I said, boy, if you’re single, these are vital to you to understand these and relate these to your life and gauge yourself as well: Are you will you be a good mate for a good Christian girl or good Christian guy?

Matthew Henry said that in all leagues of relation and friendship, we must first try and then trust, lest we repent at leisure. Agreements made in haste—we must first try and then trust, lest we repent in leisure. Agreements made in haste—no haste. That applies to the church as well. Applies certainly to church membership. Applies to the selection of church officers. Very important to see that covenant between the congregation and its leadership in terms of this stuff.

And you’ve got to know the leaders have to know the people that are going to select leaders. We got two churches right now, Seattle and Idaho, those two groups are, you know, forming—in the process of forming. Pray for them that they’d have wisdom in terms of their selection of officers, not enter into covenants hastily. Think things through according to these examples that God gives us. Seek his counsel through word and prayer before entering into covenants hastily.

One other thing I want to point out here before I move on to the next point: pride. Dale Ralph Davis, in his book “No Falling Words,” a commentary on this book, said, “How difficult to tell the difference between faith—Rahab—and flattery—Gibeon—especially when the flattery is so spiritual and pious. It’s all very subtle because there is always something heartwarming for most of us when we hear that God’s dealings with us are being spoken of by people at a distance.”

Matthew Henry said that Joshua and the people were proud of the honor of being courted by distant countries. Pride is appealed to by the Gibeonites, and false covenants frequently prize an essential aspect. I talked to Jim Jordan and Greg Bahnsen. They said that in their churches as well, they’ve had people come to them that they have later had to discipline and remove from their congregation who came to them with troubles from other churches and yet appealed to their pride when they came to them.

“Oh well, those guys weren’t really biblical, and that’s why we’re coming to your church now. They weren’t really reformed. You are reformed, so we like you better. Our problems are because they didn’t treat us right. They weren’t really good Christians.” And you know, I’ve fallen into that ruse. It’s easy to take that. Yeah, yeah. This is a good church. Yeah. People are coming to us because it’s a good church. And yeah, these other churches aren’t so good. So you don’t even bother to work it out with that other church.

Myself, as I said, Bahnsen, Jordan, others, many others, I’m sure most pastors have had this experience: entering into covenants with people based upon pride being one of the elements that’s used when people seek these false covenants with us. So the same thing’s true in business and all your other relationships, your covenants as well. Be very careful that the Gibeonite strategy of appealing to your pride doesn’t lead you into a hasty covenant with people.

Okay. Well, it did lead Israel into a hasty covenant. But then they now have a second opportunity, and they don’t fall. This time they do the right thing in the second half of the…