There was not a city which made peace with the sons of Israel except the Hivites living in Gibeon; they took them all in battle. For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, to meet Israel in battle in order that he might utterly destroy them, that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.In these verses, we see that for every culture and society that inhabited the Promised Land, God hardened their hearts in order that they would engage the Jewish people in battle, which led to their destruction. Now when the Bible talks about the concept of a hard heart, it is referring to a person who is in a state of persistent and hostile rejection of the person and message of God. A person who has a heard heart not only refuses to hear the word of God but also refuses to respond in submission and obedience to God. Instead of viewing God as God and living life in light of that reality, a person with a hardened heart worships something other than God as God.
In this story, we are confronted with the statement that the Lord hardened the hearts of the nations and the cultures that lived in the Promised Land in order to destroy them. Now a natural push back that often arises when people see this statement in the Bible is “well that does not seem fair. God made it impossible for them to come to Him. That seems like an angry wrathful God who flipped a coin to decide who will come to Him and who will reject Him and be destroyed. How can these nations and cultures be held responsible when it was God who hardened their hearts?”
If you find yourself pushing back against this statement, I just want to let you know that these are great questions to be asking and wrestling with. Here is a question that I would like us to consider that can help us resolve the push back that we can feel when we read this statement in the Bible: What was the condition of the hearts of these nations and cultures toward God before the Jewish people entered into the Promised Land?
As we discussed in an earlier post, many historians and archaeologists describe the Canaanite society as being perhaps the most wicked society that ever lived. In another section of the Bible God made it clear to the Jewish people that they were not receiving the Promised Land because they were especially good; they were receiving the Promised Land because the inhabitants of that land, including Jericho, were exceptionally evil. And for 400 years God endured the incredible wickedness of this culture that inhabited the Promised Land. God extended grace for 400 years in order to provide this society the opportunity to change their evil ways.
You see, the nations and cultures that lived in the Promised Land did not have soft hearts toward God that were then hardened by God as an angry wrathful God. The nations and the cultures of the Promised Land’s hearts were already hard toward God. God’s hardening of their hearts simply confirmed the selfishness and rebellious hearts that resulted in their unbelief and rejection of God. After 400 years of extending grace, their time to respond to grace was up. God hardened their hearts in order to accomplish His purposes in His story, which was to use the Jewish people as an instrument to exercise His justice and judgment on the people of the Promised Land, who had refused to change and were left with no excuse or defense for their wickedness.
And in the same way, for those who consistently rebel and reject against the grace of God, the claims of Christ, and the message of the gospel, there does come a point of no return. At some point in time, for the person who has been given chance after chance and has rebelled against the truth, or has suppressed the truth, there must be some “point of no return” at which time God will respond to such selfish rebellion and rejection with a righteous response of judgment. The timeless truth is that all of humanity will stand before God and answer for how they responded to His claims and His message. And as the Jewish people persisted in restarting their lives by following God’s command and plan, we see them overcome a part of their past in Joshua 11:21-23:
Then Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab and from all the hill country of Judah and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. There were no Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod some remained. So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Thus the land had rest from war.Here we see the Jewish army persisted in their attempts to restart their lives by defeating the Anakim. The Anakim were the Land of Canaan’s oldest culture and society, going back to the book of Genesis. The Anakim were large and formidable in size, stature, and reputation. The Anakim were so feared that, 47 years earlier, their very presence in the Promised Land caused the Jewish people to rebel in the desert, which is recorded for us in another letter in our Bibles called the Book of Numbers 13:28. Upon returning from the Promised Land, the twelve spies reported the presence of the Anakim, which caused a wave of fear and panic to rush trough the Jewish people to reject God and rebel against His promise to enter into the Promised Land.
And now, 47 years later, we see the next generation of Jewish people, whose parents feared would be destroyed by the Anakim, respond by facing that fear and persisting in God’s promise by defeating these giants and possessing the land. Only a remnant would escape the Jewish army to reside in the cities of Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod, who would later become a part of the Philistine society and culture. You see, as a result of the persistence of the Jewish people to trust God and faithfully follow His commands and His plan, the Promised Land was now under their possession and control. After years of persistently participating in God’s activity, the Jewish people were now resting in the land that God had promised them free from conflict and in relationship with God and one another.
And in Joshua chapter twelve, we see recorded for us God’s activity in the lives of the Jewish people during this time. During the five to seven year campaign to conquer and control the Promised Land, the Jewish people participated in God’s activity by conquering and capturing 33 nations and cultures; 2 nations and cultures that were located east of the Promised Land, which were given to the tribes of Rueben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh; 16 nations and cultures that were located in the southern half of the promised land; and 15 nations and cultures that were located in the northern half of the promised land.
But to achieve and accomplish so much when it came to restarting their lives required persistence. The Jewish people needed to exercise a persistent and confident trust when it came to following God’s commands and plans over the years that it took to possess the Promised Land. And the Jewish people needed to exercise persistence when it came to facing the fears that come with past failure. And in the same way today, to restart requires persistence. To restart our lives requires a persistent and confident trust in God to do the right thing even when it is not the easy thing or the comfortable thing to do. Because restarting our life is a marathon and not a sprint.
So this morning, where do you need to exercise persistence when it comes to restarting your life? Where do you need to exercise a persistent and confident trust in God to follow His word and do the right thing even when it is not the easy or comfortable thing?
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