Well, I wondered if you'd turn
with me to the seventh chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. I
want to talk to you a little bit about some things in this chapter.
Deuteronomy chapter seven. I'll read it. A few verses beginning at verse
one. This is the Almighty Jehovah
God speaking to Moses, words of instruction that he
is to teach or say to the nation Israel. It says, When the Lord thy God
shall bring thee into the land, the land of milk and honey, when
He brings you into that land that He hath promised to bring
you into, whither thou goest to possess
it? And hath cast out many nations
before thee, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the
Canaanites, the Perzites, the Hevites, the Jebusites, seven
nations greater and mightier than you. All these nations are more powerful than you, Israel. And when the Lord thy God shall
deliver them before thee." God has made arrangements in His
providence to so direct these other nations to the right place
and at the right time. He said, When I deliver them
unto you, now here's what I want you to do to them. And when the Lord thy God shall
deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them." These
nations. Now, Moses, this is what I want
you to tell the people. Tell them they're going to have
to contend with seven nations here, these Canaanites, and I'll
deliver them unto you, and I want you to rise up, this nation Israel,
rise up, smite them. He doesn't mean now just to take
a yardstick and smack the back of their hands. He wants them to smite them in
such a way that they'll kill them. smite them and utterly
destroy them." And he said, thou shalt make no covenant with them. You're not to bargain with them.
You're not to make any agreement with these nations. Don't make
no agreement with them. There can be no compromise on
this now. You remember I told you that
the Scriptures of God, it's all true. all truth, make thee wise,
make thee wise now unto the day of glory. And our responsibility
is to have a lowly heart that we might obey what God has said. Now, don't misunderstand me.
I'm not going to tell you that you're to rise up against all
the heathens in this country and kill them. I mean, that would
be contrary to Christianity. That's not what I'm leading up
to, but I'm trying to, I think, impress
upon me and you that obedience unto the revealed Word of our
God is greatly to be desired of His children, to believe what
God said and to act their own. But anyhow, he said, thou shalt
make no agreement with them. That is, if there's a certain
group comes up there with a white flag and says, we surrender,
he said, don't make no agreement. Now that seems kind of harsh,
doesn't it, Wayne? Kind of harsh? A fellow holding
a white flag up who said, we give up. Well, that's not likely
that they're going to do anything like that because they're a stronger
nation than Israel is. And anyhow, he says, you can't
make no agreement with them. Now listen to this, nor show
mercy unto them. Don't show any mercy unto these
people. And he says something else. He
says, neither shalt thou make marriages with them. There'll
be no matrimonial alliances with any member of these seven tribes. Surely I can marry who I want
to. Not in this case you can't. Not
in this case. I'm attached to this man or this
woman. I'm attracted by them. I can't
help it. I may not. Well, listen now. No matrimonial alliances, agreements,
consents, none of that. Thy daughter thou shalt not give
unto his son. You're not to give your daughter
unto the son of one of these Jebusites or Canaanites, nor
his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. It works both ways
here. For they will turn away thy son
from following thee. Oh, this is important instruction
in regard to Christianity, in regard to the
believers. Hard, even now. You join up. You know, with an unbeliever. You're asking for trouble. And he says, here's the reason
why. He said, don't give your daughter, or don't take his daughter. For they'll turn the children
away. They'll turn away thy son from
following me, that they may serve other gods. So will the anger
of the Lord be kindled against you and destroy thee suddenly.
And ye shall deal with them, deal with these people, ye shall
destroy their altars, break down their images, cut down their
groves, burn their graven images with fire. I'll stop right there. It's needless for us to say that
the opening lines of chapter 7 of the book of Deuteronomy,
that in these opening lines we are to understand that the Canaanites
were to receive no mercy at the hands of the Israelites. For
this reason, their iniquities and their abominations, wickedness and their evilness
had reached a boiling point, had reached a climax before God,
and nothing remained except stern execution by divine judgment. His instructions to Israel is
very clear here, no mercy, no covenant, no union, no fellowship
of any kind with these people. Very clear, isn't it? Very clear.
The language here now, listen to me, the language here would
be quite unsuitable for believers now. since we're taught to love
our enemies, aren't we? We're taught to love our enemies.
We're told to do good unto them that hate us, and we're told
to pray for them that despitefully use us. Now, no intelligent,
no enlightened, believer or follower of the Lord Jesus Christ would
think for a second of calling down vengeance upon his enemies,
upon those that disagrees with him as to who God is and to who
the Lord Jesus Christ is. It would be inconsistent for
us to do so. because we are called to be living
epistles, living exponents of the grace of Almighty God. We're called, believers are called
to walk in the footsteps of the meek and lowly Jesus. We're to
suffer for righteousness sake. If the enemy asks us, let us
give. That's what we're called upon
to do. God is now, right now, here in
July 13th, 14th, somewhere, God's dealing in long suffering with
this world. That's the reason this thing
hasn't blowed up. God's long-suffering. And when, I believe this now,
when the last of God's people that He chose before the world
ever was, when the last of those that He refers to as Mine elect,
when the last one of those has been called by God's gospel unto
himself, then I believe that the longsuffering of God is over
with and he's going to deal different with this world than what he's
doing right now. The Bible says now, God, in his
dealing, his long-suffering, long-suffering mercy to this
world, he maketh the sun to rise on the evil as well as the good. He sendeth rain on the just as
well as the unjust. Long-suffering. You see, the first of the month,
is not payday with God. Now, this is our model. We are
to be perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect. That is,
and I already talked a little bit
about that word perfect, to mature. We are to deal with man as God
deals with him. How does God deal with them? He deals with them like this.
He sends the rain upon the just as well as the unjust. He causes
the crops to grow. And the most ungodly of the ungodly
people in this world, plants to crops, their crops may even
exceed the growth of the crops of the just. He maketh the sun
shine upon the just as well as the unjust, the rain falleth. That is the procedure, that is
the way that God deals with them, that's the way we are to deal
if we are to be perfect like our Father in heaven is perfect,
see? For a Christian to deal with
the world on the principle of righteous judgment would be to
misrepresent his holy Father in heaven. So we're not to do
this. It would be out of place for
us. Why? Because the Bible says those
that are redeemed and called out from this world are a heavenly
people. Now, these Israelites were an
earthly people under the government of God. And so it was right for
them to carry out these orders. They should have killed every
one of them. They should have destroyed and
broke down the altars and burned up the images. They should not
have made league with any of them and compromised for this
reason. They are under the government
of God and they are unearthly people. Now, by and by, by and
by, when the people of God have left
this earth, there's coming a time when the people of God's going
to leave here. Now, we're all going to leave.
Some of us is going to, maybe. There's already a whole lot of
the people of God that has left this earth. They left it the
natural way. They died. They died. Some of them died of disease. Some of them died of old age. Some of them died in what is
referred to as accidents. But they died and went out. But there's a lot of them left. There's seven billion people
on the face of the earth, and there's a lot of them that are
believers in Christ Jesus. They belong to Him. They was
bought. They were redeemed and purchased
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and God recognizes them,
and God owns them as His people. And our Lord Jesus Christ, to
comfort His disciples, said, I'm going away. If I go, I'm
going to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I'll come again. And when I come, I'll receive
you unto myself. And where I am, that's where
you'll be. By and by, the people of God
is going to leave this earth. And when they leave this earth,
God will deal with this world in righteousness, and he'll judge
all nations and all men in regard to their treatment of his people. We are to justify God in all
of his ways. We are to rest in the calm assurance
that all of God's ways are right. We don't understand them. It's
impossible for us to understand them. I don't understand all
this that I've read to you this morning. I don't understand those
first six verses about gathering those nations in for the killing,
gathering them just like he did the Egyptians. Remember I preached
to you here the other morning about the Egyptians, how the
Lord told the children of Israel where to go? And also it cropped
up in the mind of Pharaoh and his captains. They said, well,
we think we know where they're going to be. God put it in their
minds and also in the Israelites. So they met at the right place
at the right time. It was before the Red Sea. Mountains surrounded them and
Pharaoh's army behind them. An insurmountable barrier. and God killed every one of them. God grounded them all in the
Red Sea. Why did He do that? Well, He'd
done it for His people. His earthly people He'd done
it for. He delivered them by killing
off these other people. Now, I don't understand all of
it either. I don't. And really, I'm not going to
call them to understand it, I'm going to call them to believe
it. But I do believe it. And I do believe, as Pat led
us in that, surely goodness and mercy shall follow us. I may not always think it's mercy,
but bless God, mercy and goodness does follow the people of God
and make them wise unto salvation all the days of their lives.
Mercy, mercy, mercy. Oh, listen. We're called to justify
God in all His ways. Though we don't understand it,
let's justify Him in it. Hell, let's say, let's God be
true in every man alive. God's true. He knows what He's
doing. What human mind? Is there a human mind on the
face of the earth that can unravel the profound mysteries of the
divine providence? Certainly not. Certainly not. How can we account for a plain
load of people falling into the swamp down there in Florida and
killing every single solitary one of them? How are you going
to account for that? I can't account for it, and I'm not called
upon to account for it. I'm not trying to defend God.
Let God be just. Let God do as it pleases Him. Let me bow to what He does. Airplane fall out of the sky
for no reason. Plunges down there in the middle
of that swamp. Takes week, week after week to
even find where the plane hit. People, parts of that human body
scattered all over that swamp. Oh, God! Behind all of it, He's
the cause of all of it. He did it! He did it. Let's justify God in all His
ways. He did it. Oh, I know, years
ago, a young fellow was telling me, well, he's about my age,
he was telling me this, he said, I said, what are you doing for
a living now? He said, I'm selling insurance.
I said, you making any money? He said, very little. He said, I was up at Parsons
the other day, up in the mountains, and come along the road and there's
a fellow down over the hill, down over the hill there. And
he said he run into a tree and it killed him. And he said it was a terrible
accident. And I said, well, it wasn't no accident. I said, God
knew all about it. It wasn't no accident. And one
thing led to another. The next time I seen him, his
dad was a member of the Church of Christ. And I said, how are
you doing now? He said, I was talking to my
dad about what you said. And my dad said that you are a blasphemer,
that you have made God a murderer. I said, well, I hope. that I didn't intend to convey
to you, something that would cause you and your daddy to think
that I was making God a murderer. But I said, the Lord give it,
and the Lord take it away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
I said, if a sparrow, who is not worth a penny, He cannot
fall to the ground without God in it. Oh, what human mind. I can't. What about these cities? There comes a tidal wave, a monsoon
combined with an earthquake and hurricane all together and sweep
a whole city away. How can you account for that? I can't tell why God permits
that. I'm not called upon to do so.
Let us notice, I've said all that to say this, how completely
Israel failed in complying with the commands of God as given
to Moses. All right? Look with me at that. The sixth verse. The sixth verse. Listen to what he says. He says
here, For thou art a holy people. A holy people. under the Lord thy God. A holy
people under the Lord thy God. Well, turn with me, if you will, to
the book of Joshua. Joshua. I think a book of Joshua
about Chapter 9, I believe it is. I will show how they completely
failed, the Israelites, to give heed
to what God had said. Chapter 9 says, and this is Joshua
now, it's Joshua that takes the people in. It's over here in
Deuteronomy, this is Moses speaking, but Joshua, Moses dies and he
doesn't go in. But he has something better waiting
for him, doesn't he? God takes Moses up on the mount,
and it's far better, now listen to me, it's far better for Moses
to see the land with God, takes him up on Mount Pisgah, is it? And lets him look over at the
land. It's better for him to be with
God and to see the land than it is to lead the people into
it. But Joshua leads the people into it. And it says in chapter
9 of Joshua, it came to pass when all the kings which were
on this side of Jordan in the hills and in the valleys and
all of the coast of the great sea over against Lebanon. The
Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perzite, the Hevite, the
Jebusite heard thereof, and what did they do? And they gathered
themselves together to fight with Joshua and with Israel with
one accord. All agreed. All agreed. He said, boy, let's do away with
these people. And when the inhabitants of Gibeon
heard what Joshua had done under Jericho, you remember they marched
out around the wall and the walls fell down. The walls of Jericho were so
solidly built that it was a human impossibility for them walls
to collapse. But God told them to march around
the walls so many times, and the walls fell down. They wasn't overcome by the insurmountable
odds of that wall. They did what God told them to
do, and the walls fell down. But here, they've forgotten about
their victory. Here now, they have hardly took
one foot over into the land of Canaan, and they're confronted
with these Gibeonites. And when they heard what Joshua
had done unto Jericho and to Ai, they did work wily. deceptively and went and made
as if they had been ambassadors. They changed their appearance
and they took old sacks upon their asses and wine bottles,
old and ramped and bound up wine to make them look like what they
was not. Old shoes and clouded upon their
feet. old garments upon them, and all
the bread of their provision was dry and moldy. Looked like
they'd come from a long journey. They'd been coming long and hard,
and they had a hard time of it. Their clothes was tattered and
torn. They had their asses in the old
and probably crippled and looked tired and wine bottles old and
so forth. Bread all moldy. This is the
way they went. They went the Joshua way. Listen
to me now. The common people didn't make
the decision here. It was the leaders, and that's
the way it generally is. It's the leaders. It's the religious
leaders of our day. that leads many into error. It's what they say. It's what
Billy Graham said. Who would dispute what Billy
Graham said? Who? Who are you to dispute Billy
Graham? You're preaching to 60 or 70
people, and Billy Graham, he has more than 60 or 70 people
in his entourage. He has more than that in his
band. Appearance is very deceiving,
very deceiving. It's the leaders. It says they
came unto Joshua. Now, it's Joshua and the princes
of this congregation, the leaders of this congregation, they're
going to make the decision. I'm sure the people, though, they
were with them, but it's initially the leaders. And they went to
Joshua under the camp at Gilgal. And they said unto him and to
the men of Israel, We come from a far country. They just come
from around the corner. We come from a far country. Now
therefore, make ye a league with us. Make an agreement with us.
We come to you in peace. And the men of Israel said unto
the Hebites, Peradventure ye dwell among us, 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 where did ye come from? And they said unto
him, From a far country. Thy servants are come because
of the name of the Lord thy God. We have heard of the fame of
him and all that he did in Egypt. We come to honor him. They come
to save their lives. And all that he did to the two
kings of the Amorites, Beoron, Jordan, and Sion, and Hishbon,
Og, king of Bashan, and Asheroth, Therefore our elders and all
the inhabitants of our country spake to us, saying, Take food,
victuals, with you for the journey, and go to meet them, and say
unto them, We are your servants. Therefore now make ye a lig with
us. This our bread we took hot from
our provision out of our houses on the day we came forth unto
you." Those big lines. And now behold, you see how dry
and molded it is? We're going to convince old Josh
away. We've got a sad tale to tell. And these bottles of wine,
which were filled, were new. Behold, look at this old wine.
Now our shoes became old by reason of this journey. And the men
took of their victuals and asked not counsel at the mouth of the
Lord. I didn't say anything to God about this. You remember
what God said to do? He said, kill them, destroy every
one of them. Destroy them. Kill them. Smite
them. And Joshua made peace with them,
and made a league with them, and let them live. Well, that
ain't too bad, is it? Well, it depends on what corner
you're sitting in. If you're on God's side, it's
bad. Well, there's just a few of them. The devil deceptive, he deceived
old Joshua, Joshua himself, the great Joshua that God said, fear
not Joshua, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Listen, he fell into that snare,
them tattered garments, that moldy bread, Those old wine bottles
deceived Joshua, beguiled Joshua and the rest of the leaders of
the congregation, caused them to act in direct opposition to
what God had commanded. Now had they been governed by
the Word of God, Had they been governed by the Word, what governs
you? What governs me? Had they been
governed by the Word of God, they would have been preserved
and kept from this era of making league or a covenant or an agreement
with the people whom they ought to have killed. What did they
do? They do like most of us. They judged by the sight of their
eyes, and they had to reap the consequence of it. Listen, no doubt the story was
believable that these Gibbonites told. Their appearance gave show
of some truth of what they said. But none of these things should
have altered the command of God if they hadn't remembered what
the Lord had said. They reasoned, listen to me now,
I'll quit here, I went too long. They reasoned on what they saw.
Remember, we started out here this morning talking about the
Scriptures, the Scriptures, the Bible, all truth. Whatever God
says, let's justify God in His way. Believe what He's saying.
If He said to women is to be quiet in the church, let's be
quiet. If He said that He called men to preach, Let's let the
men be the preachers on down the line. Let's believe what
God says. If He said that we're not to
be mixed up with this world, let's not get mixed up in it. See what I'm saying? Listen,
they reasoned on what they saw with their own eyes. instead
of obeying what they heard. What did they hear? They heard
what God said to Moses. Show no mercy, but they may lick
with it. Why? They reasoned. They reasoned
about this thing. Oh, it can't be that bad. It
can't be that bad. Oh, no. Oh, reason, reason, reason is
no guide for the people of God. We must absolutely, we must be
absolutely and completely guided and governed by the Word of God. The Father's Word, the Father's
eye, and the Father's voice can guide, can lead the feeblest
child in the family of God. All he needs to have is a lowly
and obedient heart.