Decisions, Decisions...

As a church, we are in the middle of a sermon series, entitled restart. During this series, we have been looking at the frustration, the tension and the trouble that we can experience when we try to restart our lives. So, during this series we have been looking at a letter in our Bible, called the book of Joshua that records the frustration, tension and trouble that the Jewish people experienced as they attempted to restart their lives as individuals and as a nation. And as we pick up where we left off last week, we see the results of God's grace on the nation's that inhabited the Promised Land, beginning in Joshua 9:1:

Now it came about when all the kings who were beyond the Jordan, in the hill country and in the lowland and on all the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, heard of it, that they gathered themselves together with one accord to fight with Joshua and with Israel.

Chapter nine begins with some background information that provides the context for what is going to occur next. When the nations and cultures that lived in the land of Canaan saw the evidence of God’s activity through the Jewish people as they conquered Jericho and Ai, they responded by deciding to unite together in an effort to repel the Jewish nation’s advancement into their land. These nations decided to form an alliance and pool their resources to attack the invading Jewish nation. One culture and society, however had a different response to the Jewish people, which we read about as the story continues:

When the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they also acted craftily and set out as envoys, and took worn-out sacks on their donkeys, and wineskins worn-out and torn and mended, and worn-out and patched sandals on their feet, and worn-out clothes on themselves; and all the bread of their provision was dry and had become crumbled. They went to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, "We have come from a far country; now therefore, make a covenant with us."

While the other nations and cultures that lived in the Promised Land began to unit and formulate a battle plan, the residents of Gibeon had a different strategy. Instead of relying on military might, the residents of Gibeon decided to rely on cunning deception. The residents of Gibeon decided on a plan to send out a group of its residents to travel to the Jewish people disguised as envoys or ambassadors.

These envoys were given the mission to attempt to deceive the Jewish nation into thinking that they lived in a far away country that was not a part of the Promised Land. And to help achieve this cunning deception, the envoys from Gibeon went out of their way to look as though they had traveled on an extended journey by wearing their oldest shoes and clothes. In addition they packed their weeks old and moldy bakery goods and their water bottles that they had thrown in the trash earlier.

The envoys, after preparing their appearance to fit their deceptive strategy, traveled to Gilgal, where the Jewish nation was camped at, and approached Joshua and his leadership team. Upon arriving at Gilgal, the envoys from Gibeon request to meet with Joshua and his leadership team in order to make a covenant agreement between the two nations and cultures. We see Joshua and his leadership team respond to the envoys request with a question that is recorded for us in verse 7-8:

The men of Israel said to the Hivites, "Perhaps you are living within our land; how then shall we make a covenant with you?" But they said to Joshua, "We are your servants." Then Joshua said to them, "Who are you and where do you come from?"

Now to fully understand what the envoys of Gibeon were attempting to accomplish and why the Jewish people responded the way that they did, we first need to understand where the Gibeon society and culture was located. You see, Gibeon was located smack dab in the middle of the land that God had commanded the Jewish people to possess. The Gibeon culture recognized that they were next in line to be destroyed and decided to attempt to save their culture through an act of cunning deception.

In another letter in our Bibles, called the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 20, we see that while the Jewish people were commanded by God to utterly destroy all the societies and cultures of the Promised Land, they were not forbidden to enter into agreements with nations that were outside to boundaries of the Promised Land. God had communicated to the Jewish people that in the event of war with a nation outside the Promised Land, that if that nation agrees to make peace that they were to make peace and take the inhabitants of that nation as forced laborers and servants.

The leaders of the city of Gibeon had become aware of this and decided to attempt to exploit this loophole, so to speak, in God’s command to the Jewish people through an act of deception. So the men of Gibeon responded to Joshua’s question by stating that they desired to enter into a covenant peace agreement to serve and fall under Jewish rule and authority. And as the story continues, we see the envoys from Gibeon continue to spin their web of deception as they were questioned further:

They said to him, "Your servants have come from a very far country because of the fame of the LORD your God; for we have heard the report of Him and all that He did in Egypt, and all that He did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon king of Heshbon and to Og king of Bashan who was at Ashtaroth. "So our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us, saying, 'Take provisions in your hand for the journey, and go to meet them and say to them, "We are your servants; now then, make a covenant with us."' "This our bread was warm when we took it for our provisions out of our houses on the day that we left to come to you; but now behold, it is dry and has become crumbled. "These wineskins which we filled were new, and behold, they are torn; and these our clothes and our sandals are worn out because of the very long journey."

In this conversation, we see all the elements of effective deception at work. We see deception tied to flattery: “we have come from a far country because of the fame of the Lord your God”. We see deception tied to truthful and accurate history: “we have heard the report of Him and all that He did”. We see deception tied to falsified evidence: “this is our bread, look at it now; these are our wineskins, look at them now”. And we see deception tied to a possible requirement for the deceived to follow: “we are your servants, come make a covenant of peace with us according to God’s command”.

And now Joshua and his leadership team had a choice to make. Place yourself in Joshua’s shoes. What would you be thinking and asking? “How do they know we would attack them? What city are they from anyway? They seem genuine enough". Who would you consult? Would you make the decision yourself? Would you ask the opinion of the leadership team? Would you have a congregational meeting to take a vote?

What would you do? How would you decide? Tomorrow, we will see how Joshua decided to make his decision.

So, what decision are you facing? And how are you deciding to make that decision?