Joshua chapter 9 reading from
verse 1. 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 Amorite and the Canaanite
and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite heard thereof
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
wilyly, 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 upon their feet,
and old garments upon them, and all the bread of their provision
was dry and mouldy. And they went to Joshua unto
the camp at Gilgal, and said unto him, and to the men of Israel,
We become from a far country, and 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 come 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 Sion king of Heshbon, and to Og king of Bashan, which
was at Ashteroth. Wherefore our elders and all
the inhabitants of our country speak 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 for
our provision out of our houses on the day we came forth to go
unto you. But now, behold, it is dry and
it is mouldy. And these bottles of wine which
we filled were new, and behold they are, they be rent, and these
are garments, and our shoes are become old by reason of the very
long journey. And the men took of their victuals,
and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord. And Joshua
made peace with them, and made a league with them, to 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 that they were their neighbours, and that they dwelt
among them. The children of Israel journeyed
and came unto their cities on the third day. Now their cities
were Gibeon, and Shephira, and Beroth, and Kirjath-ji-Aram. 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 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 very far 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 sore 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 he unto them, and
delivered them out of the hand of the children of Israel, that
they slew them not. And 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. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Now with the fall of Jericho
and Ai, It became very clear to the inhabitants of Canaan
that they could not withstand the children of Israel, city
by city. Jericho had tried to withstand
and had fallen. Ahai had tried to withstand and
had fallen. So they realised that city by
city, if they simply allowed the children of Israel to continue
to take them city by city, soon all the country would be overwhelmed. Even the nations knew that they
could not stand before Israel as individual nations. And so
we find that the nations of Canaan, and there were many, there are
seven usually quoted, although there are only six mentioned
here. The Gagashites, I think, are
the ones not mentioned. But these nations got together. and they agreed that they would
all have to fight together because they would otherwise fall one
by one. So the kings of these nations
had a meeting and they agreed to an alliance. They would merge
their armies together and together they would fight against Israel. And I think it's interesting
that that happened. I'm sure that most of these nations
did not trust one another one little bit and I suspect that
they often fought amongst themselves and made little agreements between
two to attack a third and just struggled to keep peace in that
land. But now with Israel knocking
on the door, as it were, they set aside all their old disagreements
in order to fight against the people of God. And this is a
pattern of opposition to the work of God and the person of
Christ. We see this pattern happening
over and over again in scripture. When the Lord was on earth, for
example, Herod, the king of Israel, and Pilate, the governor of the
Romans, they were enemies. But they became friends in order
to be rid of the Lord Jesus. The Sadducees and the Pharisees
were two different religious groups and they couldn't stand
one another. They were foes, but they got together to get
rid of the Lord. The Jews were happy to work with
the Romans and other Gentiles in order to disrupt the preaching
of the Gospel. And we discover in the Acts of
the Apostles that young churches were attacked by groups who had
no more in common than hatred for this new faith and hatred
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So let that be a lesson to us. There will be times as we grow
up that it will seem as if everyone is against us. Maybe your friends
are doing something that you know you should not be doing
and you have to stand alone. Maybe your teachers are all teaching
you something that is inconsistent with what you have learned from
the Word of God and what you believe. Or maybe the government
requires us to act in ways that are opposed to Bible principles. Then sometimes we have to take
a stand, alone, even against the combined forces of all that
are around us. Throughout history, the Lord's
people have often had to stand alone and it may well happen
again. The Lord Jesus Christ and the
true gospel will always be opposed. However, that's not the main
story today. The main story today is not the
combined nations of Canaan They have to wait for another day,
and we're going to come to them. But rather, it is a little incident
about four little cities just a short distance from Ai. In fact, so short, it may only
be a few miles from one city to another. And there in these
four cities, a group of Hivites called Gibeonites lived. And these people realised that
they were next in line for attack by Joshua. And they knew that
they would be completely wiped out, just like the inhabitants
of Jericho and Ai. What were they to do? Well, we
read together what they did. We were told, actually, that
they did work wily. I thought that was a lovely phrase,
that's why I took the opportunity to repeat it. They did work wily. What a lovely phrase that is.
They made a plan to trick the children of Israel into making
an alliance with them so that they would not be attacked and
destroyed. Now we've read the whole story
together and I wanted to take time to do that, so there's no
need to go over it piece by piece too closely, but what we do notice
is that the Gibeonites were successful in their working wilyly. Their
story was good and all the stuff that they brought with them,
their shoes and their bread and their wine vessels and their
old clothes, they made their story look really good. We're
also told that the children of Israel did not inquire of the
Lord concerning the matter of the proposed alliance. and we're told that in this matter
the Hivites were successful in saving their lives. So I just
want to make a couple of little applications here from this story
and perhaps the Lord will bless them to our heart. The first
thing then is that indeed these Gibeonites were well prepared
in their deceit. Now let me just say something.
I am not going to be too critical today of these Gibeonites. I'm not going to say how terrible
they were for telling these lies. And that does not mean that I
recommend what they did. But it does show me that these
people were serious about saving their lives and the lives of
their families from the onslaught, from the encroaching Israeli
army and the judgment of God. And in a sense, I find in this
matter that their actions were actually commendable. They wanted
to live. They sought for peace. They humbled
themselves before the Lord in the only way they could. And actually, it seems to me,
the Lord overruled events to teach a lesson to the Old Testament
people of Israel. concerning this matter of the
Gibeonites that actually has New Testament implications for
us. More of that in a minute. All
I want to say here is that by means of this deception, these
sinful, idolatrous people who should have been slain, according to the word of God,
were brought into the nation of Israel. They were made to
be useful in the worship and service of God and actually they
became the means of a great victory against the Canaanite confederacy
of the six kings mentioned in verses one and two. So let this
be our first lesson from this little story today. While not
condoning or excusing the lies and the deception, God is well
able to use and overrule sin and sinful actions to accomplish
his will and his pleasure. That's the first point that I
want us to take note of and perhaps remember. The next one is this. Israel may be said to have entered
into this decision and made this alliance with the Gibeonites
without due care and attention. They took the Gibeonites at their
word without further examination Supposing that they knew what
they were doing. They did not seek the Lord's
help in the matter. They assumed that they had wisdom
enough to make a decision for themselves. And I think that
that revealed a degree of arrogance on their part. When we have a
decision to make, it is always a good idea to take that decision
to the Lord in prayer. To just pause and remember our
own weakness, our own lack of knowledge, our own dependence
on the goodness and the providences of the Lord. And not just rush
into situations without taking proper thought about what is
happening around about us. And all we can do, because none
of us know the future, all we can do is to take these matters
to the Lord in prayer. That is what the children of
Israel failed to do. Now that is not to say, actually,
that the outcome would have been any different. In fact, although
total destruction of the Canaanites was ordered by God. There were
provisions for peace made for cities that surrendered and if
you want to look that up and do a bit of research you can
find that in Deuteronomy chapter 20 and verse 10. So here are
two things being said at the same time. Not a contradiction,
I will say quickly. But while the Lord said that
all the people of Canaan were to be slain and destroyed, there
was provision made for those who sought peace. And the Gabianites
may well have benefited from this mercy of God. And perhaps
the lesson here is that having given their word and made their
promise, Israel were honour-bound to uphold their end of the bargain,
even when they learned that they had been tricked. The princes
of the congregation said, we have sworn unto them by the Lord
God of Israel Now therefore we may not touch them. The people
of Israel fulfilled their promise even when they learned that it
had been founded on bad information and deception. The lesson there
is that their testimony and God's honour was more important than
seeking retribution for their own foolishness. Our testimony
and God's honour is important in our dealings with the people
around about us. And the third little point that
I want to make is this, and maybe this is the least obvious, but
perhaps also the most significant lesson from this whole passage. You'll remember that we keep
saying when we have these little get-togethers, these little gatherings,
we keep saying that these events have meaning today because they
point to the Lord Jesus Christ. And because they point to the
gospel and prepare for us an understanding of the gospel of
salvation in Christ. And I think this is true here
as well. The insertion of these people
into the nation of Israel, the inclusion of the Gibeonites into
the nation of Israel by this alliance that was made between
them and Joshua, it was unexpected and it was even surprising. And
yet from now on, these Hivites became part of the people of
Israel. And they were even defended by
God when King Saul later massacred a great number of them. And maybe
there was that ongoing. aggressiveness between the people
of Israel and these Hivites, these Gibeonites, but the Lord
stood up for the Gibeonites and he brought famine on Israel because
of the action and the conduct of King Saul. So the point I
want to leave with you is that God showed these people mercy
when we might least have expected it. God humbled them with a fear,
the same fear that hardened the other Canaanite nations to form
an alliance to fight against Israel, humbled these Gibeonites
and brought them into the Kingdom of Israel. For Old Testament believers,
for the Old Testament church, this incident and the outcome
revealed a little bit of God's plan to bring the Gentile believers
under the covenant of grace and into the Commonwealth of Israel. Sometimes we think that there
were only Jewish believers in the Old Testament, but that is
far from true. there were many gentile believers
in God in the Old Testament and here the Lord showed by type
that inclusion in the promises was not dependent on a natural
bloodline but extended by God's grace and mercy to those who
were far off, to those who would never have been expected to be
included under the mercy of God. And this is also true for salvation
today. Many would be called to salvation
in Christ when that great commission sent out the apostles into all
the world to preach the gospel of free grace. To me the Gibeonites
are a picture of mercy. A devious and idolatrous and
a sinful people obtained grace from God. Are we surprised at
that? We ought not to be. It delights
the Lord to be merciful and the Gibeonites are a picture of sovereign
love to undeserving sinners just like us. We have no rights with
God. All we have comes to us by mercy
and by grace. And here in these early ages
of the church, Christ showed his interest in his people, in
being a light to lighten the Gentiles, as well as the glory
of his people Israel. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us. Amen.