Please open your copies of God’s word to 9th chapter of the book of Joshua. Joshua chapter 9. We have before us an unusual text, which seems to be something of a recurring theme in Joshua.
With many parallels to the story of Rahab in chapter 2, today’s text has military enemies, cunning deception and bold-faced lies, we have the giving of a curse and significant consequences, and we have very surprising mercy.
But even though this text seems so foreign to us, separated by both the distance of time and geography, we’ll see many familiar things in it. We’ll see the response of the world to God’s mighty deeds, we’ll see the people of God stumbling along and falling short again, and we’ll also see the blessed mercy of the Lord being shown despite his people’s unworthiness.
Let’s begin by reading our text, starting at the beginning of Joshua 9, and running through the end of the chapter.
As soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country and in the lowland all along the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, heard of this, 2 they gathered together as one to fight against Joshua and Israel.
3 But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, 4 they on their part acted with cunning and went and made ready provisions and took worn-out sacks for their donkeys, and wineskins, worn-out and torn and mended, 5 with worn-out, patched sandals on their feet, and worn-out clothes. And all their provisions were dry and crumbly. 6 And they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant country, so now make a covenant with us.” 7
But the men of Israel said to the Hivites, “Perhaps you live among us; then how can we make a covenant with you?”8 They said to Joshua, “We are your servants.” And Joshua said to them, “Who are you? And where do you come from?”
9 They said to him, “From a very distant country your servants have come, because of the name of the Lord your God. For we have heard a report of him, and all that he did in Egypt, 10 and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon the king of Heshbon, and to Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth.
11 So our elders and all the inhabitants of our country said to us, ‘Take provisions in your hand for the journey and go to meet them and say to them, “We are your servants. Come now, make a covenant with us.”’ 12 Here is our bread. It was still warm when we took it from our houses as our food for the journey on the day we set out to come to you, but now, behold, it is dry and crumbly.
13 These wineskins were new when we filled them, and behold, they have burst. And these garments and sandals of ours are worn out from the very long journey.” 14 So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord. 15 And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.
16 At the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors and that they lived among them. 17 And the people of Israel set out and reached their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim.
18 But the people of Israel did not attack them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel. Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders.19 But all the leaders said to all the congregation, “We have sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel, and now we may not touch them.
20 This we will do to them: let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath that we swore to them.” 21 And the leaders said to them, “Let them live.” So they became cutters of wood and drawers of water for all the congregation, just as the leaders had said of them.
22 Joshua summoned them, and he said to them, “Why did you deceive us, saying, ‘We are very far from you,’ when you dwell among us? 23 Now therefore you are cursed, and some of you shall never be anything but servants, cutters of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.”
24 They answered Joshua, “Because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you—so we feared greatly for our lives because of you and did this thing. 25 And now, behold, we are in your hand. Whatever seems good and right in your sight to do to us, do it.”
26 So he did this to them and delivered them out of the hand of the people of Israel, and they did not kill them. 27 But Joshua made them that day cutters of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord, to this day, in the place that he should choose.
We will begin today by noticing in the first 6 verses Two Responses to God. Two responses to God.
Our text begins right on the heels of God’s mighty judgement of the city of Ai in chapter 8. In light of the success that the Lord had granted Israel in the previous chapters, the surrounding peoples responded in 1 of 2 ways. And each of these two responses typifies how the unbelieving world always responds to the news of God’s mighty deeds.
The first response is seen in verses 1 & 2, and that is the response of hostility. The various cities and groups heard about the mighty deeds of the Lord and banded together. They rallied the troops. They prepared for a fight.
Outright resistance is the most visible, and probably the most common response to hearing about God’s mighty deeds. We see this all around us today. If you tell of God’s word, unbelievers don’t respond by thanking you for the effort, appreciative of the concern that you’re showing for the condition of their soul.
They usually scoff.
They ignore. They come up and argue. They tell you all the reasons why you are an idiot for believing in all that fairy-tale religion stuff. Or they call you hateful, or a hypocrite, or a bigot.
I’ve always found it funny how often atheists are not content to continue quietly in their atheism, but they feel the need to be hostile toward others who believe the truth.
And Paul explains why that is the case in Romans 1: they know that there is a god, that he is eternal and powerful, but they are suppressing that truth in unrighteousness.
Or as the apostle John says: they love the darkness and hate the light because the light exposes their evil deeds, which they love.
They like living in the darkness of their sins, and when you put a little light into their lives, it angers them. They want their sin more than truth, and speaking truth to them angers them. Anger and hostility are often seen in response to God’s word.
But that’s not the only response of the unbelievers. We see a second response to the news of God’s mighty deeds, and that response is seen in the Gibeonites. It’s seeking deceitful accommodation. It’s deceptive compromise.
That’s the important principle for us: If Satan can’t defeat the people of God through outright frontal assault, he’ll try and sneak in through the side door.
If he can’t undermine the people of God through bold lies, he’ll use cunning and shrewdness to try to twist and contort the truth.
That’s why some of the most damaging attacks on the household of god are those wounds which come from the inside.
It wasn’t the Roman army which brought so much damage to the early church. In fact, the church blossomed and flourished under that physical persecution, both numerically and geographically.
The greater damage came through the divisions and fighting brought about through compromise. Through heresy. Through divisions and false teaching.
Deception and lies are the tested and tried tools of Satan. He used them from the beginning, and he still uses them today. Remember what he asked back in the garden to Eve, “Did God Really Say?”
That’s what we have to watch out for in every generation: the undermining of God’s word. Forgetting what he has said. Letting our guard down. Not testing everything according to what has been revealed to us in His word.
We can’t just go by what we see, and what we feel to be correct, or even what appears to be “common sense.” We must test everything according to the bedrock of God’s truth. That was where Israel failed, which leads us to the second point:
The Danger of walking by Sight. The danger of walking by sight. This second point is seen in verses 3-15.
The Gibeonites, which were part of the clan called Hivites, concocted a plan. They had heard of the success that the Lord had given Israel, and of their victories over Jericho and Ai and others, and they decided to take action.
They made up a plan, where they put on worn-out clothes, and frayed sandals, and packed dry crusty bread, and dried-up water bottles, all in an attempt to make it seem that they had come from a far off place. That they had been on a long journey.
Why would they do this? Apparently they knew something about the word of God. God’s word to Israel had been that they were to wipe out all the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. But they were also given different instructions for foreigners outside of the land.
In Deuteronomy 20, God’s word tells them that they can make peace with cities that are not part of the land. They were permitted to make pacts with peoples from outside of the land.
So, by acting like they had come from very far away, the Gibeonites were trying to take advantage of this part of Deuteronomy, seeking to strike a non-aggression deal with Israel. That’s in verse 6.
But the people of God aren’t complete idiots, they ask a few questions. Verse 7:
But the men of Israel said to the Hivites, “Perhaps you live among us; then how can we make a covenant with you?”8 They said to Joshua, “We are your servants.” And Joshua said to them, “Who are you? And where do you come from?”
Joshua seems to suspect something.
9 They said to him, “From a very distant country your servants have come, because of the name of the Lord your God. For we have heard a report of him, and all that he did in Egypt, 10 and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon the king of Heshbon, and to Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth.
11 So our elders and all the inhabitants of our country said to us, ‘Take provisions in your hand for the journey and go to meet them and say to them, “We are your servants. Come now, make a covenant with us.”’ 12 Here is our bread. It was still warm when we took it from our houses as our food for the journey on the day we set out to come to you, but now, behold, it is dry and crumbly.
13 These wineskins were new when we filled them, and behold, they have burst. And these garments and sandals of ours are worn out from the very long journey.”
But then we come to the Heart of the problem for Israel.
14 So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord. 15 And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.
Israel needed wisdom. The people of Gibeon came with tangible evidence to back up their story. What they were saying seemed plausible. They had no reasonable way, humanly speaking, to disprove the claims. There were no visas to check, no passport stamps to verify.
And these people were crafty. Notice the story that they Gibeonites give as to why they want to make a covenant. They claimed that they were compelled to come make a treaty because of what they had heard about Yahweh’s work in Egypt, and when he had wiped out Sihon and Og on the eastern side of the Jordan river.
But cleverly, what do they not say? They don’t say anything about the defeat of Jericho or the success at the town of Ai. Which would make sense, because, as they claim, they were coming from a far-off land, and they wouldn’t have heard the news of those victories because they were coming from so far away, and those victories just happened.
Subtle, crafty, appearing to the eyes as being plausible. It seems as though Israel’s mistake is understandable, maybe even justifiable.
But their failure is evident to the narrator in verse 14: “but they did not ask counsel from the Lord.”
Joshua and his men should have sought the will of the Lord through Eleazar the priest. Yahweh’s direction was available to Israel, through the priest and his use of the Urim and Thummim in the tabernacle, but they didn’t seek that wisdom. God had given them in the tabernacle the means of discerning His will, and they neglected it.
They were pridefully sure that their vision, that their investigation, that their cleverness was enough to protect them from deception.
And in that way, Israel serves as a warning to us. Throughout scripture we see the warnings against relying on our wisdom. Relying upon what we see, rather than trusting in the wisdom and vision of the Lord.
Remember the well-known verses from Proverbs 3:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
Don’t lean on your own understanding. Recognize that you are fallible and your eye-sight is limited. You can be deceived.
Have you ever been deceived before? You thought something was going to happen, but then it didn’t pan out the way you thought?
Maybe you thought that somebody would do some something, but then they failed to come through? Or a business deal that seems sure fire, but it all came crashing down?
How many of us go through life making decisions and making judgements without ever consulting the lord? Whenever we’re faced with a significant decision, our first impulse should be to consult the word of the Lord, and to pray for him for wisdom.
And yet too often, in our pride, we think that our wisdom is enough. We place our security in our own understanding.
We investigate with our eyes, we ask questions of the situation and the parties involved, but in our arrogance we do not seek the counsel of the one person in the entire equation who’s opinion actually matters: the Lord.
How many of us can look back with regret on decisions we made, that were done without first consulting the word of God?
What pain and regret we might have avoided if we had first asked, “what does God’s word say about this situation?”
Young people, please go ask the older saints about this. Ask them, is there a decision you regret making because you didn’t first seek out God’s will on the issue? See what they say. I bet you every single saint in this room could tell you about a decision they wish they had back.
A decision of what company they wished they hadn’t kept.
A decision about who to date or marry.
A decision about what to put before their eyes.
A decision about what deal to agree to.
Whatever it is, we have to remember that our vision is limited, and our discernment can easily be clouded.
That’s why we need the gospel. We need to remember that God has promised that for those who trust in him, he will never leave us on our own.
Even though we don’t consult him like we should, he never takes his loving gaze off of us. He is the all-seeing, all-knowing God. He can’t be duped, he can’t be bamboozled, he can’t be deceived by crafty liars. We can only look at the outside, but God sees right to the heart of every one of his creatures.
And when he promises to protect his people in the gospel, that he will be our strength and our shield, that he will defend us from all craftiness that the world can muster, that means that we are actually secure.
And add to that, His word is an extension of his own good character. Unlike every other bit of advice or counsel you might get in this world, you don’t have to wonder if God’s word is for your good.
Every single word of the Lord proves true. Psalm 19
The law of the Lord is perfect,[c]
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
Unlike the words of man, which we have to constantly be on guard about, the word of the Lord revives the soul and makes the simple to be wise.
And the heart of that word of the Lord, is the blessed good news that Jesus has come and died in the place of sinners. Unlike Joshua, in the gospel we have a leader who has perfect vision and infallible discernment of every situation.
And, remarkably, with that perfect vision and knowledge, with complete and perfect knowledge of your and my pride and foolishness, he still willingly came down from heaven to redeem us from the curse of the law.
Even though we too often fall for the lies of Satan, and don’t seek out the counsel of the lord, even though we don’t trust God’s word like we should and we don’t pray to him and seek his will like we ought, he still came and lived the perfect life of dependence upon God, and died in the place of foolish people like me and you.
All you must do is trust in that Christ, and his protection and wisdom can be yours. You can have your soul revived, and you can be made wise. You can be filled with the very same spirit of the Lord, given a new heart that delights in the law of God, and helps you to grow in wisdom and discernment in this age.
Trust in this Christ, walk by faith and not by sight, trust that your sins have been taken from you and given to him, and that his righteousness has been counted in your place.
Don’t be like the Gibeonites, trusting in your cleverness. Because unlike Joshua, Christ can never be outwitted. He will see through your lies. If you don’t trust in Christ, he will return, and will one day judge all the sins of the world.
Even those people who look righteous on the outside, like the Gibeonites, those that say look at my sandals and my bread, look at all the sacrifices I made for you God, look at the good things I did in your name.
Christ, our perfect Joshua, will say on that last day, Depart from me, I never knew you.
Don’t let that be you. Don’t hide behind a lie. Trust in Christ, and you can be saved today.
Now, we’ve seen the 2 Responses to God’s mighty works, and we’ve seen the danger of walking by sight.
Now let’s move on to the final point ,and that is Living with the Consequences. Living with the consequences.
We see in verse 16 that the people of God find out that they’ve been had. It’s not explained how, but the people of Israel figure out that the Gibeonites were not from a far off land, but are from just a few days journey away.
They set out in verse 17 on the journey, to go confirm the truth of what they had been told. And yes, there they find the Cities, among which are the Gibeonites.
And then in verse 18 we see the first consequence of the deception, and the failure of the leadership in Israel.
18 But the people of Israel did not attack them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel. Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders.
The leadership had failed, they failed to discern the truth, failed to lead the nation well, failed to lead according to God’s word. And because of that failure in leadership, the people are frustrated and begin to murmur. They grumble. They know this isn’t right.
The failure of the leadership didn’t CAUSE the people to sinfully grumble; the people were still guilty of their sin. But the failure of leadership did create the situation wherein the people would be tempted to murmur, which is a recurring theme among the people of God going all the way back to Egypt and through the wilderness years in the desert.
And therein we can see a lesson in leadership. A failure to lead according to God’s word and in alignment with God’s wisdom, tempts the people of God to grumble.
Proverbs 11:14 says: “Where there is no guidance, a people falls.”
A failure in leadership, produces problems among those being led. Bad leadership has consequences.
Neither party’s sin absolves the guilt of the other. That is, the failure of leadership doesn’t make it OK for the congregation to sin, nor does the congregation’s sin against the leaders make it OK for the leadership to respond sinfully either.
But, it is just a reality of living in this world, that our sinful decisions have consequences. What we chose to do, whether good or evil, has consequences.
Even in the Christian life that is the case. The gospel removes the guilt of our sin, but doesn’t remove all the consequences of our sin in this life.
You may be forgiven of the Lord for the guilt of your sinful decisions, praise God, but that doesn’t mean that you will not suffer the consequences in this life for the foolishness you chose to commit.
To use language from the New Testament, you will reap what you sow in this life. For example,
You may be forgiven in Christ for the rash words you said to someone, but you may have to live with the consequences of a damaged relationship that won’t be as close anymore.
You may be forgiven by God for your foolish financial decisions, but you may not be able to regain financial stability like you once had.
You may be forgiven by God for lying, but you will probably have to bear the consequences of not being seen as trustworthy for a very long time.
Or even, a spouse may be forgiven for their infidelity, but he or she may feel the sting of that sin for the rest of their days in their relationship to the spouse, and likely their relationship with the children too.
Consequences sting, and before you make the choice to sin, when Satan comes to you in that moment of temptation and entices you with the sweet taste of rebellion, you need to remember the part that he ALWAYS leaves out on the front end: that’s the consequences.
He is clever to bait the hook of sin very enticingly, but there is always a hook. Sin always has consequences, even if you think nobody will see you, or that nobody can know about the sin. There are always consequences.
And we can see another instance of sin’s consequences in our text. Look at verse 22, where Joshua calls the Gibeonites and questions them:
22 Joshua summoned them, and he said to them, “Why did you deceive us, saying, ‘We are very far from you,’ when you dwell among us? 23 Now therefore you are cursed, and some of you shall never be anything but servants, cutters of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.”
Because the Gibeonites chose to be liars, chose to deceive the Israelite leadership, Joshua pronounces the curse upon them that they would spend the rest of their days being slaves.
They were to spend all of their days chopping wood and carrying water. Hard manual labor. Every day, in summer and winter, rain or shine, all year long, they would be doing the hard work of manual labor.
Maybe you have had a similar experience. Maybe you have sinned in your life, and you feel like you are still under the consequences of your sin. Still chopping wood because you chose to do something foolish in your past.
Many Christians live with regret for the unwise decisions they previously made. They still carry the scars, they still walk with a limp, as it were, because of a sinful decision they made in the past.
Maybe you feel the weight of your consequences even this morning.
If that is you, I want to remember this passage, and let it help keep you from future sin. Let this be a warning to all of us to avoid every hint of sin, lest we taste of the unpleasant consequences of it.
But I also want all of us to remember, that God’s goodness and mercy is so strong and wonderful, that he can even work through the terrible consequences of our sin, to bring about our good.
Look down at verse 26:
26 So he did this to them and delivered them out of the hand of the people of Israel, and they did not kill them. 27 But Joshua made them that day cutters of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord, to this day, in the place that he should choose.
Even through the judgement and curse of the Gibeonites, where they would be slaves for the rest of their days, we see God mercy shining through. Where is that, you say?
They were to spend their time splitting word and carrying water for the congregation and the altar of the Lord. Their curse meant that they would be near the holy things of God, that they would be serving the house of the Lord, that they would daily see the picture of atonement and blessing found through the priestly sacrificial system.
Not only were their lives spared, but they had the special privilege of being daily eyewitnesses of God’s mercy and grace.
Some of the people of God who sit under the most painful of consequences for their sin, also have the blessing of knowing the mercy and grace of the Lord in a special way. Like the Gibeonites, these saints know that they deserved to die. That they didn’t deserve mercy.
And yet, God in his kindness allowed their sin to be revealed, and because of that sin’s revelation, they can look back and see how God has used the consequences of their sin to bring out their good.
They know understand mercy and grace in ways that they never would have understood if it were not for their deception being revealed.
That’s the mystery of God’s wonderful grace. His powerful grace is such that he can even bring about our good through the uncovering of our sin, even through the consequences, which God uses for the good of those who love Him.
And he used those consequences for the good of the Gibeonites too. There seems to be something of repentance among the Gibeonites. They, like Rahab in chapter 2, profess the mighty works of God in verse 24, and affirm their guilt in verse 25.
But their story doesn’t end there. They remain a part of the story of the people of God.
For many years after this incident the people of God are at war with the other inhabitants of the land, but never once to we read that the Gibeonites join sides with their Canaanite brothers. They remain in their place of service among the people of God.
And later, when the land is divided, Gibeon was one of the cities given to the line of Aaron, which was the special place where God was known. David eventually put the tabernacle there, meaning the priests and the altar were in Gibeon.
When Solomon ascended the throne, he made burn offerings at Gibeon.
And many years later, after the people were under captivity in Babylon, the genealogies of people returning from exile included a list of the Gibeonites.
In Nehemiah, the Gibeonites were mentioned as being among the people who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. The Gibeonites had come among the people of God here, and hundreds of years later they were still there.[1]
So let’s think about this. The Gibeonites set out that day in Joshua 9 to lie to save their skins. They sinned. And they suffered the consequences for it.
But God in his kindness, allowed for generations of Gibeonites to avoid the fate of the rest of their Canaanites brothers, and gave them the further blessing of access spiritual things instead. All because of a peace treaty. A covenant.
Brothers and sisters, we are the Gibeonites. We have all sinned in many ways, and that sin merits us death. And although we all feel the sting of consequences for our sin, God in his kindness has given us access to immense spiritual blessings, all because of a covenant.
One of those blessings we now have access to is clearly seen at the Lord’s table, which is a picture of a covenant. A peace treaty. But not one that was cut through deception. It was a covenant made, wide-eyed and fully informed.
Christ knew what he was doing, and yet in his love for His bride he still cut the covenant, knowing what it would cost Him. He agreed to come and suffer in the place of his people, so that they might be forgiven or their sins, and have eternal life in the heavenly promised land.
That’s what is pictured here, in the bread and the cup. His body broken and blood shed, so that his people might avoid eternal death for their sins.
[1] This section on Gibeonites quoted in: Boice, James Montgomery. Joshua: An Expositional Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006, page 76-77.
