To Restart Requires Asking God's Opinion Before Making a Decision...

Yesterday, we looked at a story in the Bible where a culture and society were attempting to deceive the Jewish people in order to survive. This culture requested that the Jewish people enter into a covenant peace agreement. And now Joshua and his leadership team had a choice to make. Place yourself in Joshua’s shoes. What would you do? How would you decide? We see how Joshua decided to make his decision revealed for us in verse 14-15:

So the men of Israel took some of their provisions, and did not ask for the counsel of the LORD. Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live; and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.

Now right about now, if we were watching this story as a DVD, there would be some dramatic music that would happen here; something like “duh, duh, duh, duh”. There would be dramatic music because the Joshua and his leadership fell for the cunning deception and made a decision that directly went against God’s command. The word swore here is the idea of making a vow, which is a covenant promise before the eyes of God that is not to be broken.

In this case, the vow, the covenant commitment that was made before God and could not be broken was to allow the residents of Gibeon to live. Joshua and his leadership team made a horrible decision that was based solely on the information and evidence they received from the envoys from Gibeon. And as a result, Joshua and his leadership team made a covenant commitment with the Gibeonites that violated God’s word and command.

And it is at this point in the story that we see revealed for us another timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our life. And that timeless principle is to restart requires asking God’s opinion before making a decision. Joshua and his leadership team made a decision that went against God’s command because they failed to even ask God’s opinion before making the decision. Instead of asking God, who had demonstrated His faithfulness and His presence throughout their journey to restart their lives, Joshua only asked his leadership team.

And if we are really honest with ourselves, how often do we do the exact same thing? How often can we find ourselves faced with a decision where we seem to ask everyone else for their opinion, yet never ask God for His? Let’s ask some hard questions this morning. When you are faced with a decision, where do you first turn for advice? Oprah? Dr. Phil? Google search? Your App on your phone? Friends? Family? At what point do you consider asking God for His opinion before making a decision?

And while we may not hear God speak to us in an audible voice if we were to ask for His opinion about a decision, we have God’s timeless principles recorded for us in the Bible. But the problem with the Bible is that we cannot use the excuse that we did not hear God right when He gives us His opinion, can we? So often what makes the Bible difficult to read isn’t that God’s opinion is difficult to understand; what makes the Bible so difficult is that, in most cases, God’s opinion is quite easy to understand, we just don’t like God’s opinion.

However, just like Joshua and his leadership team, when we fail to ask God’s opinion before making a decision, we can end up making a decision that goes against the life that He created and called us to live. And in the rest of this story, we see two consequences that can occur when we fail to ask God’s opinion before making a decision. We see the first consequence revealed for us in Joshua 9:16-18:

It came about at the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, that they heard that they were neighbors and that they were living within their land. Then the sons of Israel set out and came to their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon and Chephirah and Beeroth and Kiriath-jearim. The sons of Israel did not strike them because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the LORD the God of Israel. And the whole congregation grumbled against the leaders.

Only three days after making this covenant vow of peace with the residents of Gibeon, word reaches the Jewish people that they had been deceived. The nation responds by marching its army to the towns that the Gibeonites lived in order to destroy them. And while many of the Jewish people wanted to attack and destroy the Gibeonites because of their cunning deception, Joshua and his leadership team refused to attack and destroy them because of the covenant promise that they had made. Verse 18 tells us that as the Jewish people received Joshua’s command to refuse to attack, that the whole of the Jewish people grumbled against the leaders. Now the word Grumbled here literally means to murmur. Can you imagine what that must have sounded like?

Because Joshua and his leadership team failed to ask God’s opinion before making this decision, there was now division and dissension among the people. A timeless consequence that occurs when we fail to ask God’s opinion, is that we can make decisions that result in division and dissension. Failing to ask God’s opinion led to a failure to follow God’s word, which led to division, dissension, and leadership losing credibility. We see Joshua and the leadership team’s response to the grumbling of the nation revealed for us as the story continues in verse 19:

But all the leaders said to the whole congregation, "We have sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel, and now we cannot touch them. "This we will do to them, even let them live, so that wrath will not be upon us for the oath which we swore to them." The leaders said to them, "Let them live." So they became hewers of wood and drawers of water for the whole congregation, just as the leaders had spoken to them.
Then Joshua called for them and spoke to them, saying, "Why have you deceived us, saying, 'We are very far from you,' when you are living within our land? "Now therefore, you are cursed, and you shall never cease being slaves, both hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God." So they answered Joshua and said, "Because it was certainly told your servants 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 before you; therefore we feared greatly for our lives because of you, and have done this thing. "Now behold, we are in your hands; do as it seems good and right in your sight to do to us."

You see, Joshua and the leadership team seemed to have placed the Jewish people in a no win situation. By allowing the Gibeonites to live, they were violating God’s command to destroy all the nations that inhabited the Promised Land. However, if they broke the covenant vow of peace that they had made in order to kill the Gibeonites, they would place themselves in a position that would violate another of God’s commands. And Joshua and his leadership team recognized that failing to keep this covenant vow would place them under the wrath of God. When the Bible uses the word wrath, wrath refers to God’s righteous response to something that violates His word.

And God is a promise maker and a promise keeper. God takes the vows that we make to Him and one another seriously. And because of that reality, Joshua kept the covenant vow that he made to the Gibeonites by making them servants of the Jewish people for all of history. Instead of making a bad situation worse by making another decision that went against God’s word, Joshua followed up his bad decision by making the right decision when it came to following God’s word. And in the same way today, regardless of the bad decisions that we have made in the past that have failed to follow God’s word, we will never be able to make a bad decision better by making a subsequent decision that also contradicts God’s word.

Tomorrow, we will see another negative consequence that can occur when we fail to ask God's opinion before making a decision. In the meantime, where do you go when faced with a decision? Whose advice do you seek first?