Study the Word

Guest (Male): Convincing arguments can lead to compromise. Here's Pastor Thom Keller.

Pastor Thom Keller: Beware of convincing arguments. Most of us get in the most trouble when someone gives us a convincing argument and it's so convincing that we don't think we need to pray about it. If there was a hint of deception in it, we'd probably say, "Let me think about this. Let me pray about this."

But when it's all laid out in such a convincing manner, I find myself, that's when I tend to get myself in trouble. The test for that is if any decision you ever have to make involves any kind of compromise at all, it's not God.

Guest (Male): In an age when there's little concern for right and wrong, there's even less concern for compromise. But its impact is real with lasting consequences. Welcome to Study the Word. We're continuing in the Old Testament book of Joshua.

We'll meet you in chapter 9, where we find the story of the Gibeonites and of compromise. God's people fall into this error, in part because they didn't consult the Lord. Let's join Pastor Thom Keller.

Pastor Thom Keller: I want to start by telling a story and I'd like you to decide what you're going to do. Let's say that you plan to buy a house. You find a house that you really like, but you want to be in the Cedarcrest School District. That's a must.

You go look at the house and you interview the people that own the house. You talk to them a little bit and you say, "Now, we'd like to be in the Cedarcrest School District." They say, "Well, this is. This is in the Cedarcrest School District." What about the taxes? The taxes are $600 a year. What about heating? We have oil. It takes about $1,000 a year to heat the place. Do you have an inspection report? Oh yeah, we have one right here. You don't need to pay for it; we've already had it done. You look it over and it's just perfect. Everything's clean.

So you go ahead and you buy the house. After you buy the house, you find out that it's in Northern Lebanon. You go to sign the papers at closing and you find it's in the Northern Lebanon School District. You find out that the taxes are actually $4,000 a year, not $600, and that it's going to take about $3,000 a year to heat the place. In actuality, a report was done on the house and it's termite infested. Do you buy the house? Do you make the commitment and go through with it?

Let's read chapter 9. Again, as background, we started with Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. When they crossed the Jordan, Joshua takes over. Moses dies in Mount Nebo. Joshua takes over and they go in and they take Jericho. They're going to be in this region right up in and around Jerusalem, the line of the Canaanites.

Joshua chapter 9, verse 1: "Now all the kings west of the Jordan heard about what had happened." In other words, the defeat of Ai and the defeat of Jericho. These were the kings of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Mennonites, and Jebusites. I can never resist that; it just fits so well in there. Mennonites are very good people, but it just fits in there.

"Who lived in the hill country in the western foothills and along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea as far north as the Lebanon Mountains. These kings quickly combined their armies to fight against Joshua and the Israelites." Now, these are the southern kings of the region that are going to be coming to fight against them. As we read through this, I'd like you just to try to keep one little fact in the back of your mind.

In Exodus 23, God told Moses this: "I will send my terror upon all the people whose lands you invade, and they will panic before you." We saw that already. The people are living in panic. But He ends it with this sentence: "I will send hornets ahead of you to drive out the Hittites, Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites."

"I will send hornets ahead of you to drive out." Again, have any of you ever been chased by hornets? That's a scary thing. It's not a real nice thing. You run. As we study this, keep that in mind. That was God's plan. Maybe it happened here, maybe it didn't. You decide. The people, anyway, are in terror. They were in terror before Jericho.

This is really an important piece as people say, "Why was there all the bloodshed? Why all the killing? Why all the murder in the Old Testament?" It's a valid question. But again, remember, there are very few stories in the Bible that we know for sure was God's plan A all the way through. For instance, have you lived out God's plan A in your life in every regard?

At every turn, have you followed God? No. Well, that doesn't mean God can't take you to wonderful places and do a lot with your life. It just means that none of us have chosen God's plan A at every turn. So too with the children of Israel. We read their story and it all worked out, but remember a lot of plan A's were refused by the children of Israel.

With that in mind, consider this. Remember they sent the spies into Jericho to Rahab the harlot and she says that everyone's terrified of you. We've heard about the Red Sea parting; that was 40 years ago. We know this God is a powerful God and He's working and defending and fighting for you. We all live in terror of you.

So that's Jericho. Now they take Jericho and last week Dan talked about Achan steals the silver, the gold, and this clothing. Dan brought an interesting point up; it was a king's, probably the king's uniform, his outfit. Did you ever think about how stupid it is to steal stuff? Where would he wear that?

Think of showing up at Passover; the guy's got a purple robe on, gems, diamonds, the whole regalia. People would say, "Oh, did you get that at Saks Fifth Avenue?" Where would he wear the thing? When I was in high school, I broke into a closet where they kept uniforms. I and a bunch of guys stole a bunch of those uniforms—different football and just a whole bunch of stuff.

When I was 30, I went back to the high school and my college for other things I stole at college and I made all that right. I went back and confessed. But funny thing is, when I stole all those uniforms, I really was happy about having them. Where could I wear them? I couldn't wear them anywhere because the football team had to turn in their jerseys after every practice, and I'd be the only guy in the world that had a high school football jersey. It's just as dumb as Achan stealing that. Why?

He did, I did. But it wasn't God's plan A. So they go across, they defeat Jericho, but Achan steals the silver, the gold, and the clothing, and he hides it. The children of Israel go out to fight Ai. They don't know that happened. They go out to fight Ai and they're soundly defeated. This little town. It's not a big town.

In fact, Joshua says it's such a small town, "let's just send a small contingent." I think he said 3,000. We can take it easily. So they sent the men and they get defeated. They come back with their tails between their legs, running, crying. This never happened to them before. God didn't promise this wouldn't happen. They were in terror now.

But what it did do is it gave a false confidence to the other kings. They whopped Jericho, but Ai whopped them. Now they're coming after these other kings. So the other kings have this thought: "Look, if Ai beat them, if we come together, we can take them." Now, I'm back to the plan A thing.

If Achan wouldn't have stolen that silver and gold, it's just possible that these five kings would have come to Joshua and said, "We know your God is above all the other gods. We've heard what happened in Jericho. We know that the Jordan parted. We know that the Red Sea parted. We heard of the plagues in Egypt. We know that you defeated Ai. There's no point. We surrender to this God of yours."

I rarely read anything from a commentary in total, but I want to read this. This is from Richard Hess. He says, talking about Achan's sin: "Because of one person's sin, the occupation of the promised land is delayed indefinitely and many lives are lost in the process. Who can say what would have happened had Achan not sinned? Perhaps the battle of Ai could have been Israel's last."

"The other nations of Canaan maybe would have responded like Rahab and the Gibeonites with a belief in the one God of Israel, and Israel would have completely occupied the land. It is only with these verses that the reader of Joshua begins to realize the consequences of Achan's sin and maybe why God was so harsh and so severe, and why it was so critical what this one man did, because God knew the consequences were enormous."

"The following chapters introduce a transition from a victorious people of God whose occupation of land could have been the relatively simple matter of defeating those already discouraged instead to an unending history of battle, bloodshed, and idolatry that would haunt Israel. As in the opening chapters of Genesis, so also in the opening chapters of Israel's dwelling in the promised land, a single transgression has cosmic ramifications."

Isn't that an interesting thought? It wasn't God's plan A. Let's read on, verse 3: "But when the people of Gibeon heard what had happened to Jericho and Ai, they resorted to deception to save themselves." So they heard they were defeated, but now they're going to trick. They have a plan.

"They sent ambassadors to Joshua." The word there for deception, by the way, really is a word that's a variation of wisdom. It's kind of a tricky wisdom, that deception. "They sent ambassadors to Joshua, loading their donkeys with weathered saddlebags and old patched wineskins. They put on old ragged clothes and worn-out patched sandals, and they took along dry, moldy bread for provisions."

"And when they arrived at the camp of Israel at Gilgal, they told Joshua." Can you see these men riding in on their donkeys, kind of hunched over, famished, everything worn out? They come into the camp five, six million people. They told Joshua and the men of Israel, "We have come from a distant land to ask you to make a peace treaty with us."

Now, was Joshua allowed to make peace? No. Not if they were from nearby. If they were from an outlying region that God had not promised to them, he could, but not if they were nearby. It's absolutely forbidden. So these guys march into camp. You can almost hear that as they ride in. Everything's worn out. They got Twinkies, they got pretzels, they're all dried and rotten. It's a con.

Verse 7: "The Israelites replied"—they want to make peace—"How do we know you don't live nearby? For if you do, we cannot make a peace treaty with you." Again, it says they came in, the ambassadors sent to Joshua. They probably met with the 70 elders. So when these men come in on these donkeys, they're probably meeting with Joshua and the 70 leaders of Israel.

"How do we know you don't live nearby? For if you do, we cannot make a peace treaty with you." They replied, "We will be your servants." "But who are you?" Joshua demanded. "Where do you come from?" They answered, "We are from a very distant country, very distant country. We have heard of the might of the Lord your God, and of all He did in Egypt."

"We've also heard what He did to the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth. So our leaders and our people instructed us: 'Prepare for a long journey. Go and meet with the people of Israel and declare our people to be their servants and ask for peace.'"

And now the little show, dog and pony show begins. "This bread, these Twinkies here, were hot from the oven when we left, but now, as you can see, it's dry and moldy. These wineskins were new when we filled them, but now they're old and cracked, and our clothing and sandals are worn out from our long, hard trip." So the Israelite leaders examined their bread.

Some of it says they partook of their victuals, which means they ate, they tasted some of the bread. And it was dried and moldy. Key verse: "But they did not consult the Lord." Then Joshua went ahead and signed a peace treaty with them, and the leaders of Israel ratified their agreement with a binding oath. The trap is set, the bait is set, Joshua walks into it, and when he signed that peace treaty, the trap went off and it caught them.

"But they did not consult the Lord." How would they have known? How did they consult the Lord anyway? If you remember in the Old Testament, the instructions given to Moses were that they were to have a Urim and a Thummim, and they were two stones that were kept in the breastplate of the high priest that were supposed to give directions. The most common understanding of how these two stones worked was one would shine for yes and another one would shine for no.

They would consult these two rocks, and that would be the answer. Now, Josephus, in the *Antiquities of the Jews*, says that the way they consulted the Lord is that they would, the leader Joshua or Moses would go to the mercy seat, the place between the angels. This is the ark of the covenant and the Ten Commandments, Aaron's rod that budded is in there and manna.

This was kept in the holy of holies and the high priest would go in and consult. It's also probably reason why they took it to battle with them, with Josephus's understanding. He says that an audible voice would come from the mercy seat between the cherubim. And that's how the high priest would know the directions to go, what to do, yes or no, left or right, up or down.

It says of the Urim and the Thummim of these stones: "For God declared beforehand by those 12 stones which the high priest bear in his breast and which were inserted into his breastplate, when they should be victorious in battle, for so great a splendor shone forth from them, from the stones, before the army began to march, that all the people were sensible of God's being present in their assistance."

So the idea is that these stones that the high priest carried in his breastplate—and you could see them; there were 12 stones on his breastplate—that when they go to battle, these stones would glow and it would give the army confidence that they were going to be victorious in that battle. But anyway, it says here that Joshua never consulted the Lord, which means he neither consulted the Urim or the Thummim or he did not go before the ark of the covenant and ask the Lord about it.

There's a lesson here to beware of convincing arguments. Most of us get in the most trouble when someone gives us a convincing argument and it's so convincing that we don't think we need to pray about it. If there was a hint of deception in it, we'd probably say, "Let me think about this. Let me pray about this." But when it's all laid out in such a convincing manner, I find myself, that's when I tend to get myself in trouble, when it's just so clear the answer.

And yet Satan is a deceiver and a liar, so he's going to be very convincing in his arguments. The test for that is if any decision you ever have to make involves any kind of compromise at all, it's not God. People say, "I want to do this and the only way to do it is this way and everything about it is just perfect except this one little thing. I'm going to have to lie to this guy. But everything else, it's just clean and it's God's way." Can't be. God's way can never involve compromise.

Verse 16: "Three days later the facts came out. These people of Gibeon live nearby. The Israelites set out at once to investigate and reached their towns in three days. The names of these towns were Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim. But the Israelites did not attack the towns, for their leaders had made a vow to the Lord, the God of Israel."

They were conned, they were duped, they were tricked. Obvious, clear deception. Yet their response was to keep their promise. The people of Israel grumbled against the leaders because of the treaty. But the leaders replied, "We have sworn an oath in the presence of the Lord, the God of Israel. We cannot touch them. We must let them live, for God would be angry with us if we broke our oath."

Hang on to that one; we're going to look at that a little bit later. "We must let them live, for God would be angry with us if we broke our oath. Let them live, but we will make them chop the wood and carry the water for the entire communities." So the Israelites kept their promise to the Gibeonites. It's very interesting.

The Gibeonites seemed to know that once the peace treaty had been ratified, the Israelites would not break it. Think about it. They conned them, they deceived them. They knew they're going to find the truth out eventually. And they did. Yet in between the lines is kind of this understanding that once the Israelites made an agreement, they were going to keep it.

That may say something about the promises when they ratified contracts in those days, that it was just a common understanding that they were kept, they were not broken even through deception. You may say, "How do we know that Joshua wasn't overreacting? He says, 'We must let them live, for God would be angry with us if we broke our oath.'"

But how do you know he wasn't overreacting? Maybe God was saying, "Listen, I told you to go wipe out all these people. Yeah, they conned you guys. That doesn't take over my earlier command to wipe all these people out." And maybe Joshua made a mistake again. Maybe he was supposed to break this oath. Is there any way to know?

Actually, there is. 430 years later, King David goes through a period where there is a famine for three years. The land of Israel is under a severe drought and famine. David goes to the Lord about it. He prays and says, "Lord, what's the cause of this famine?" God tells him it was because of Saul, who was the king that preceded David.

It was because Saul, in his zealousness, killed the Gibeonites. God sent a famine to Israel 430 years after the contract was made with the Gibeonites because Saul did not keep the contract that Joshua made 430 years earlier. You want to park and sit and think about that for a while? Worldwide, nationalistic ramifications lasting 430 years of something a ruler did over four centuries earlier?

There's the proof whether Joshua did or did not do the right thing. He did because God did hold Israel accountable to keeping that promise. There's a big lesson here. You know that thing—rocks breaks glass, glass sharpens scissors, scissor cuts paper. It's designed to kind of mix you up because something always has trumps over something else.

Here's the way God's rock-scissors-paper thing works. If you make a promise to somebody, it comes above everything else. Everything else. So that's why people say, "I'm called to be a missionary. I really feel God's calling me to be a missionary, but I have all these credit card bills. I'm just going to let them hang because the more important thing is being a missionary." No, it's not. To God, the first pass is keep your promises. Keep your commitments.

Guest (Male): With that challenge, we'll leave you today. Thank God He keeps His commitments. May we keep ours. This is Study the Word with Pastor Thom Keller of Calvary Chapel Lebanon. We're studying the book of Joshua right now.

To hear this message again, simply go to ccleb.com and look under resources. We're at ccleb.com. If you'd rather have a CD copy, call 717-507-7862. That's 717-507-7862. For those that give to the ministry this month, we'll say thanks by sending you Pastor Thom's entire study of Daniel. There are 22 messages in this helpful series, and we've put them onto a flash drive.

Get the entire study of Daniel for a gift of any amount by calling 717-507-7862 or write Study the Word, 740 Willow Street, Lebanon, Pennsylvania, 17046. And if you live close by or will be visiting the area soon, drop on by. For our service times and more information about Calvary Chapel Lebanon, turn to ccleb.com and download our free Android app. Search Calvary Chapel Lebanon in the Google Play Store. We'll get back into Joshua next time on Study the Word with Pastor Thom Keller, and may God richly bless you as you study the Word and apply it to your life.