Thursday, March 31, 2011

Consequences of Failing to Resist the Temptation Toward Procrastination...

This week, we are unpacking the timeless principle that to restart requires resisting the temptation toward procrastination. And Joshua 18-19, we see several timeless consequences that can occur when we fail to resist the temptation toward procrastination. We see a second consequence that can occur revealed for us in the lives of the tribe of the Jewish people that was chosen in Joshua 19:17:
The fourth lot fell to Issachar, to the sons of Issachar according to their families.
The tribe of Issachar, who was the ninth of the twelve sons of Jacob, was chosen fourth. In Genesis 49:14-15, we discover that Jacob described Issachar as being strong, but also docile and lazy. And as is so often the case, this temptation toward procrastination was passed down through the family tree of Issachar. And the reality is that the same thing often occurs today. And we know this to be true; we have seen this in the lives of others. Unfortunately, we often cannot see this reality in the mirror, however. The reality is that the temptation toward procrastination is a trait and characteristic in our lives that can be taught and caught by future generations.

A little further in the story, we see that the tribe of Dan ended up being chosen last when it came to receiving their portion of the land that God had promised the Jewish people. However, there was a problem with the tribe of Dan when it came to their possession of the land, which is revealed for us in Joshua 19:47:
The territory of the sons of Dan proceeded beyond them; for the sons of Dan went up and fought with Leshem and captured it. Then they struck it with the edge of the sword and possessed it and settled in it; and they called Leshem Dan after the name of Dan their father.
In this verse, we see revealed for us the consequences that the tribe of Dan faced for their procrastination when it came to occupying and settling the land that God had promised and provided for them. The phrase “proceeded beyond them” literally means that it went out from them. In other words, the land that God had promised this tribe was passed from the possession and control of the tribe of Dan. This tribe never fully occupied and possessed the land. In another letter in our Bibles, called the book of Judges, we read that it was the tribe of Ephraim, not Dan that ended up occupying and settling this land. In the 18th chapter of the book of Judges, we read that instead of occupying the land that they were supposed to possess, the tribe of Dan eventually ended up traveling all the way up to the northwest corner of the Promised land, where they ended up capturing a city named Leshem, which they renamed Dan. So instead of possession all of this territory, the tribe ended up only possessing one city.

And as we read through the Old Testament, we discover that the tribe of Dan repeatedly introduced idolatry into the midst of the Jewish people. And by the end of God’s story in the Bible, we discover that the tribe of Dan is omitted in the description of the 144,000 Jewish people that God protected so that they could serve Him during the Great Tribulation. In essence, the tribe of Dan faded into oblivion; they disappeared from being identified as part of God’s people. And this process of fading away into rebellion and failure began to be revealed by their procrastination.

And in the same way today, as followers of Jesus, our procrastination when it comes to doing the right thing when it comes to following God and restarting our lives can serve as a sign of a much deeper and far more significant spiritual issue. Whether it is procrastination that is fueled by idolatry; or it is procrastination that is fueled by rebellion, procrastination can serve to reveal the true nature of our spiritual condition.

So how are you doing when it comes to resisting the temptation toward procrastination? Are you missing opportunities to experience God’s activity when it comes to restarting your life because of procrastination? Are you suffering an identity crisis as a result of procrastinating when it comes to pursuing a growing and maturing relationship with Christ? Are you passing down procrastination as a trait and characteristic to future generations? Does procrastination serve as a sign of a much deeper significant spiritual issues? Because the reality is that to restart requires resisting the temptation toward procrastination.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Missing Opportunity and Identity...

Yesterday, we discovered another timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our lives in that to restart requires resisting the temptation toward procrastination. And in the rest of Joshua 18-19, we see several timeless consequences that can occur when we fail to resist the temptation toward procrastination. As chapter 19 begins, we see the first consequence that can occur as a result of procrastination revealed to us:
Then the second lot fell to Simeon, to the tribe of the sons of Simeon according to their families, and their inheritance was in the midst of the inheritance of the sons of Judah.
The tribe of Simeon, who was the second of the twelve sons of Jacob, was chosen second. What is interesting is that the territory that was given to the tribe of Simeon was actually located in the middle of the land that had been previously settled and occupied by the tribe of Judah. Instead of receiving an independent portion of land in the Promised Land, Simeon was given land that was surrounded by the tribe of Judah. Now you may be thinking “why is that so interesting”? Why this is so interesting is that this development was actually fulfillment of a statement made by a man named Jacob, who was the father of the twelve sons that would eventually become the twelve tribes that formed the Jewish people. Some 500 years earlier, in Genesis 49:7, as a result of the sinful actions of Simeon and Levi that resulted in the deaths of an entire adult male population of a village, Jacob predicted that these two tribes would end up dispersed and scattered among the Jewish people after arriving in the Promised Land.

The tribe of Simeon’s procrastination was predicted over 500 years earlier. In addition to fulfilling this amazing prediction, this tribe’s procrastination would eventually result in the loss of their identity as a tribe. The seventeen cities that are described in verses 1-8, over time, would eventually come to be identified as being a part of the tribe of Judah. We see this reality reinforced to us in Joshua 19:9:
The inheritance of the sons of Simeon was taken from the portion of the sons of Judah, for the share of the sons of Judah was too large for them; so the sons of Simeon received an inheritance in the midst of Judah's inheritance.
Unlike Simeon, who had procrastinated in following God’s command to come and receive the territory that they were to occupy and settle, Judah faithfully showed up and followed up on their desire to restart their lives in the Promised Land. And as a result of faithfully following God’s commands, the tribe of Judah was in a position where they had more land than they had people to occupy the land. And the tribe of Simeon’s procrastination did not stop here. Over time, this tribe’s persistent procrastination resulted in the tribe of Judah having to assist in occupying and settling this territory. And eventually, the tribe of Simeon became absorbed by the tribe of Judah to the point that their possession of the land was lost.

And in the same way today, persistent procrastination can result in missed opportunities and a loss of identity. When we persistently procrastinate when it comes to our relationship with God and one another, we can miss out on opportunities to experience God’s activity in and through us. In addition, when we persistently procrastinate, we can lose the opportunity to experience the identity that we were created and called to live with Christ and one another. We can fail to live our lives in the identity as the husband, wife, father, mother, son, or daughter we were created for. Instead, we can find ourselves having an identity crisis. You see, procrastination can often cause a failure to understand and embrace our identity that flows out of a growing and maturing relationship with Christ.

So are you missing opportunities to be a part of what God is doing in the world as a result of procrastination? Are you experiencing an identity crisis as a result of procrastinating when it comes to pursuing a growing and maturing relationship with Christ?

Tomorrow, we will see a second consequence that can occur as a result of our failure to resist the temptation toward procrastination.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

To Restart Requires Resisting the Temptation Toward Procrastination...

For the past several months we have been looking at a letter in the 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 jump back into this story we come face to face with another timeless principle that is necessary in order to restart our lives so that we would be living in the relationship with God and one another that we were created and called to live. Let’s pick up again beginning in Joshua 18:1:
Then the whole congregation of the sons of Israel assembled themselves at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there; and the land was subdued before them.
This story begins with the Jewish Nation moving their base of operations from Gilgal, which was located on the outskirts of Jericho, approximately 20 miles to Shiloh, which was more centrally located in the Promised Land. And just as we saw last week, while the Promised Land was controlled by the Jewish people, it had not yet been fully occupied and settled by the people. Moving their base of operations was designed to assist in maintaining a sense of unity and community amongst the tribes as they branched out to settle the land that God had promised them. After the move, the Jewish nation gathered together to address a problem that had arisen in their midst. We see this problem exposed and another timeless principle that is necessary to restart our lives revealed for us, beginning in Joshua 18:2:
There remained among the sons of Israel seven tribes who had not divided their inheritance. So Joshua said to the sons of Israel, "How long will you put off entering to take possession of the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you?
As the Jewish nation gathered together for a congregational meeting, Joshua exposes to the nation the reality that seven of the twelve tribes that formed the Jewish people had failed to begin the process of occupying and settling in the land that God had promised and provided for them. Unlike the tribes of Judah, Ephraim, and Manasseh, these seven tribes failed to send representative to the tabernacle to meet with Joshua and his leadership team in order to receive their portion of the territory that God has promised and provided them.

Joshua responds to this situation with a question: “How long will you put off entering to take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers has given you”? What is so interesting is that the phrase put off literally means to sink or relax. Instead of responding to God’s gracious gift of territory in the land that He had promised them, these tribes were sunk back in their lazy boys relaxing. Instead of confidently trusting God and following God’s command to occupy and settle in the land, theses tribes were procrastinating and showing a lack of gratitude for all that God that done to give them the land.

And it is in this situation that we see God reveal for us another timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our lives. And that timeless principle is this: to restart requires resisting the temptation toward procrastination. Instead of faithfully moving forward by doing what God had commanded them to do when it came to restarting their lives, the Jewish people were procrastinating. And this morning, if we are brutally honest, don’t we all have a tendency to be tempted to do the exact same thing when it comes to restarting our lives? “Yeah, I know I need to lose weight and work out more. I’ll start tomorrow. Yeah, I know I need to stop smoking, I’ll stop tomorrow. I know I need to stop watching pornography; I’ll get the filter for my Internet tomorrow. Yeah, I know I need to go to church and read my Bible more. I’ll start next week. I know that I should join a small group to help me grow in my relationship with God and develop relationships that encourage and support me. I think I’ll try one next week”.

But here’s the thing: tomorrow or next week never comes, does it? So we end up walking through life singing the song “tomorrow, tomorrow, there’s always tomorrow, tomorrow’s just a day away” while wondering why our lives are filled with hurt, pain, disappointment, and failure when it comes to changing and restarting our lives. I mean if we are brutally honest, in the vast majority of cases, it is not as though we do not know what the problem is. The problem isn’t the problem. And usually the problem isn’t that we do not know what the solution to the problem is. Usually, the problem is that we do not act on the solution to the problem-we procrastinate. And this is exactly what these seven tribes were doing when it came to following God’s command to occupy and settle the land that God had promised them. We see this revealed as the story continues in Joshua 18:4:
"Provide for yourselves three men from each tribe that I may send them, and that they may arise and walk through the land and write a description of it according to their inheritance; then they shall return to me. "They shall divide it into seven portions; Judah shall stay in its territory on the south, and the house of Joseph shall stay in their territory on the north. "You shall describe the land in seven divisions, and bring the description here to me. I will cast lots for you here before the LORD our God. "For the Levites have no portion among you, because the priesthood of the LORD is their inheritance. Gad and Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh also have received their inheritance eastward beyond the Jordan, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them."
Here we see Joshua respond to the seven tribe’s problem of procrastination by commanding them to get off the lazy boy that they had sunk into and fulfill their responsibility to follow the commands that God had previously given them when it came to occupying and settling the land. These seven tribes were to form a committee of 21 members, three from each tribe, who were to walk through the parts of the Promised Land that had not yet been settled and occupied.

This committee was to divide the land that had not been occupied and settled into seven parts or pieces of territory. This committee was also to write out a comprehensive description of each of these seven pieces of territory that were to be divided amongst the remaining tribes. Joshua also commanded the tribes of Ephraim, Judah, and the ½ tribe of Manasseh, who had already participated in the process and received their territory, to remain where they were at. Once this committee returned with a comprehensive description of the land that they had surveyed and divided, lots would be cast to determine which tribe would receive with piece of territory that remained.

As we talked about earlier, casting lots was a process that would be similar to picking names out of a hat. A representative from each of the tribes would pick from two urns. One urn had the name of the tribe, while a second urn had the land that was to be given to that tribe to possess. These lots were drawn simultaneously drawn and would determine which land each tribe would be given to occupy and settle. This process, however, was not simply a random act of chance. Since the Jewish people were without the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence and the Bibles guidance, casting lots was a way that God used to guide and direct the decisions of the Jewish people to determine the distribution of the land to the twelve tribes that formed the Jewish people. And as the story continues, we see recorded for us the response that the tribes who had procrastinated had to Joshua’s strong rebuke:
Then the men arose and went, and Joshua commanded those who went to describe the land, saying, "Go and walk through the land and describe it, and return to me; then I will cast lots for you here before the LORD in Shiloh." So the men went and passed through the land, and described it by cities in seven divisions in a book; and they came to Joshua to the camp at Shiloh. And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD, and there Joshua divided the land to the sons of Israel according to their divisions.
The committee that represented the seven procrastinating tribes responded by compiling a comprehensive description of remaining territory that had not been occupied and settled. And in the rest of chapter eighteen and nineteen, we see how God distributed the remainder of the Promised Land to these seven procrastinating tribes. And in these two chapters, we see several timeless consequences that can occur when we fail to resist the temptation toward procrastination. We will spend the rest of this week looking at those consequences.

So where do you find yourself failing to resist the temptation toward procrastination?

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Practice that leads to impact...

As I have the opportunity to talk with people, one of the common comments that I hear about Christians is that they are hypocrites. And while in some cases, this claim is made without a true understanding as to what a hypocrite is and does, in many cases their claims are quite accurate.

But here is the question: What leads people to come to such a conclusion? What leads many people who would consider themselves far from God and skeptical of Christianity and the church to come to the place where they feel the church and Christianity is irrelevant and that those who attend church are hypocritical?

I believe that the answer to why people come to this conclusion can be found in the midst of a story that is recorded for us in a letter in the Bible called the Book of Ezra. In the midst of this story, we see a man named Ezra described for us in Ezra 7:10:
For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.
Notice that Ezra did not simply set his heart to study the Bible. And Ezra did not simply set his heart to teach and tell others about the Bible. Ezra also set his heart to practice what the Bible had to say.

You see, Ezra put into practice what he learned from the message and the teachings of the Bible. He did not simply settle for telling others what the Bible had to say for their situation. Instead, Ezra looked in the mirror and applied what the message and the teachings of the Bible had to say to his life. Ezra did not simply settle for reading the Bible. Instead Ezra allowed the Bible to read him.

And because Ezra practiced what he preached; because Ezra allowed the message and the teachings of the Bible to influence and change how he lived his life; Ezra was a man who was able to have tremendous influence and impact on the culture that he lived in. Ezra was able to speak into lives in a way that impacted others because he not only had a great deal of knowledge about the Bible. Ezra was able to speak into lives because he put into practice what the Bible taught in a way that could be caught as well as taught by others.

However, when we simply settle for reading the Bible instead of allowing the Bible to read us; when we simply settle for talking about what the Bible says instead of walking what the Bible says, we lose the ability to influence and impact those around us because our personal walk with God does not match our talk about God. The men and women that God has used throughout history to influence and impact our culture, however, do not simply settle for studying the Bible or teaching about the Bible. Instead the lives that God uses to influence and impact culture also put into practice the message and teachings of the Bible.

So are you content about studying and telling others about the message and teachings of the Bible, but not practicing what the Bible teaches in your own life? Or are you striving to practice the message and teachings of the Bible, so that it's message is caught as well as taught?

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

To Restart Recognizes that Partial Obedience is Total Disobedience...

Yesterday, we looked at a section of a letter in our Bibles called the book of Joshua and discovered that several tribes of the Jewish nation were failing to follow God's commands when to came to occupying and settling the land that they had received. Just as the tribe of Judah did not care enough to fully follow God’s commands and instead were satisfied with doing the right thing 99.9% of the time; Just as the tribe of Ephraim chose to be pragmatic problem solvers who bent the rules in a way that would benefit and make their lives easier; the tribe of Manasseh failed to fully follow God’s commands when it came to restarting their lives.

While these three tribes followed God’s commands most of the time, they were able to rationalize a reason why they did not have to follow God’s commands all of the time. And it is the story of these three tribes that we see God reveal for us another timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our lives. And that timeless principle is that to restart recognizes that partial obedience is total disobedience. The timeless reality is that partial obedience is total disobedience.

And intuitively we know this to be the case, don’t we? Intuitively, we recognize that our lives are often guided by this principle. That is why parents do not ask their children to unload the dishwasher and then say “I’m so proud that you partially unloaded the dishwasher”. No, what we usually say is “why didn’t you unload the dishwasher like I asked”, because partial obedience is total disobedience. That is why our employers do not give us pay raises and bonuses when we accomplish 75% of what we were supposed to do on the job. Instead, employers usually fire people who accomplish 75% of what they were supposed to do on the job, because partial obedience is total disobedience. That is why doctors do not say to their patients “I’m so glad that you took your high blood pressure medication 50% of the time”. Instead, the person who took their high blood pressure only 50% of the time dreads what they are going to hear from their doctor, because intuitively they know that partial obedience is total disobedience.

Now I have a question for us to wrestle with. And the question is this: if we intuitively know and recognize the truth of this principle in other aspects of our lives, then why do we tend to discount this principle when it comes to our spiritual lives? Why do we have a tendency to want to dismiss the principle that partial obedience is total disobedience when it comes to the message and teachings of this book? Why are we o.k. with not being uncomfortable or even disturbed when we are satisfied with doing the right thing most of the time, but not all the time? Why do we have a tendency to want to be pragmatic problem solvers in order to bend the rules to make our lives easier instead of following God’s rules and do the right thing even when it isn’t the easy thing to do?

You see, just like the Jewish people, our default mode apart from Jesus work and the Holy Spirit’s activity in our lives is to rationalize away and excuse partial obedience as being o.k. with God. We see the tribe of Manasseh’s attempts at rationalization and excuses for their partial obedience revealed for us in Joshua 17:14:
Then the sons of Joseph spoke to Joshua, saying, "Why have you given me only one lot and one portion for an inheritance, since I am a numerous people whom the LORD has thus far blessed?"
Here, the tribe of Manasseh tries to excuse and rationalize their failure to follow God’s command to occupy and settle that land that was given them by blaming Joshua and his leadership team. The phrase “One portion for an inheritance” literally means one piece of territory to possess. In other words, the tribe of Manasseh was blaming Joshua for not giving them two pieces of territory in light of how large their population was. The tribe of Manasseh wanted to sidestep taking the right and obedient course of action to instead take the easy path of least resistance.

The reality, however, was that Manasseh’s rationalizations and excuses fell short on credibility for two reasons. First, while Manasseh claimed to be a numerous people, their population was around 20,000 less than Ephraim, who was the other tribe from the sons of Joseph. In addition, there were other tribes that were even larger than Manasseh. Second, as we discovered earlier, the tribe of Manasseh had already been given two large pieces of territory. And just like Manasseh, if we are brutally honest with ourselves, often our attempts to rationalize and make excuses for our partial obedience when it comes to following God’s word fall short on credibility and factual reality. We see Joshua’s response to Manasseh’s excuses and rationalizations revealed for us in the verse that follows:
Joshua said to them, "If you are a numerous people, go up to the forest and clear a place for yourself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim, since the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for you."
In other words, if you are a numerous people, you have no excuse for not being able to occupy and settle the land that you have been given. So, get to work, clear some additional land and settle down. But don’t think that you are not responsible for following God’s command. And, just like we often do, Manasseh is able to come up with another excuse for their partial obedience. Here is what Joshua heard from the mouth of the tribe of Manasseh:
The sons of Joseph said, "The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who live in the valley land have chariots of iron, both those who are in Beth-shean and its towns and those who are in the valley of Jezreel."
I would love to have seen the look on Joshua’s face at this point. While we are not able to see his expression, we do have his response recoded for us as this story concludes:
Joshua spoke to the house of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh, saying, "You are a numerous people and have great power; you shall not have one lot only, but the hill country shall be yours. For though it is a forest, you shall clear it, and to its farthest borders it shall be yours; for you shall drive out the Canaanites, even though they have chariots of iron and though they are strong."
These verses, if this letter was written today with the language of our culture in 2011, would sound something like this: "Quit whining. You are the fourth largest tribe of the Jewish people. And yet, even though there are three tribes larger than you, you didn’t get just one piece of land for your tribe; no you received two pieces of land for territory. You have more land than any other tribe except Judah. So quit whining. Instead of trying to take the easy path, the path of least resistance; do what you are supposed to do. I don’t want to hear about trees and chariots. You are quite capable and have everything you need to follow God’s commands and dispossess and destroy the inhabitants of the land so that you can occupy and settle the land like you are supposed to."

You see, as far as Joshua was concerned, partial obedience is total disobedience. And throughout the pages of the Bible, we see this principle affirmed over and over again. And what this story does not tell us is that the partial obedience of these tribes resulted in a gradual moral erosion in the lives of the Jewish people. We see this erosion revealed to us in the very next letter in our Bibles, called the book of Judges, in Judges 2:10-12:
All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel. Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals, and they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the LORD to anger.
These three tribes failure to recognize that partial obedience is total disobedience led to the following generation of Jewish people rebelling and rejecting the Lord. The Jewish people became influenced by the evil practices of the cultures that they failed to destroy and worshipped and served idols. The rationalization and excuses for partial obedience by one generation resulted in a moral erosion that led to full-fledged rebellion and disobedience by the next generation. They failed to recognize that partial obedience is total disobedience.

So where do you find yourself failing to recognize that partial obedience is total disobedience? Where do you find yourself rationalizing and making excuses for being satisfied with doing the right thing most of the time, but not all the time? Where do you find yourself rationalizing and making excuses for being a pragmatic problem solver in order to bend the rules to make our lives easier instead of following God’s rules and do the right thing even when it isn’t the easy thing to do?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Part Time Followers...

For the past several weeks, we have been looking at a letter in the Bible that records the efforts of an entire nation to restart their lives after forty years of wandering in a literal desert of hurt, pain, disappointment and failure. This letter, called the book of Joshua, records how the Jewish people experienced the same frustration, tension and trouble when it came to restarting their lives as individuals and in community with one another. And today, as this story continues, we see a problem revealed for us in Joshua 15:63. Let’s look at this problem together:
Now as for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the sons of Judah could not drive them out; so the Jebusites live with the sons of Judah at Jerusalem until this day.
As the tribe of Judah began to occupy and settle in the land that they had received, they were unable to drive out or dispossess the Jebusites. The Jebusites were a culture and society that lived in the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding region. To understand why the tribe of Judah was unable to drive out the Jebusites we first need to understand where Jerusalem was located in relation to the land that they had received.

Jerusalem was a border town that was located between the tribe of Judah and the land that would later be assigned to the tribe of Benjamin. And since the land was on the outskirts of both tribes land, neither the tribe of Judah or the tribe of Benjamin cared enough about this border town to take serious action to destroy the culture than inhabited the land. So in essence, the town of Jerusalem and the surrounding region became a no man’s land and enclave to the Jebusites. While they may have won victories over their part of the land, the reality was that the Jebusites were not removed and destroyed as God had commanded; instead they remained present and in close proximity of the Jewish people.

Now a natural response to this could be “well sure they didn’t get rid of the Jebusites, but look, they took care of everything else that they were supposed to. I mean they occupied and settled in 108 cities; that a 99.9% success rate. And anyways, Jerusalem is just an outpost in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of their territory. It really belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. It’s their problem, let them deal with it. It’s not that big of a deal, so let’s just move on in the story”. As the story continues, we then read of another tribe’s response to the land that they were given to occupy and settle in Joshua 16:10:
But they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites live in the midst of Ephraim to this day, and they became forced laborers.
As the tribe of Ephraim began to occupy and settle in the land that they had received, they were unable to drive out or dispossess the Canaanites that lived in a city named Gezer. The Canaanites were another culture and society that inhabited the Promised Land that God had commanded to be removed and destroyed. To understand why the tribe of Ephraim was unable to drive out the Canaanites, we first need to understand where Gezer was located in relation to the land that they had received. The city of Gezer was located on the very southwest corner of the land that the tribe of Ephraim was to possess.

Similar to Jerusalem, Gezer was an outpost located far from the heart of the land that the tribe had received. And while the king of Gezer had been defeated as the Jewish army conquered the Promised Land, the residents of Gezer remained and dwelt in the land as a result of the failure to fully occupy and settle in all of the land. Instead of following God’s command to remove and destroy this society and culture from the land, the tribe of Ephraim chose to use the Canaanites as forced laborers. The tribe of Ephraim decided that it would be better to be pragmatic and bend the rules in a way that would benefit and make their lives easier, instead of doing what God had commanded them to do when it came to restarting their lives.

And just like the tribe of Judah, one could argue that this really was not a big deal. Sure, while they did not follow God’s command, they did something that seemed, at least at first glance, even better. They were still able to settle and occupy the city and at the same time were able to get some really cheap labor. I mean, is that really that big a deal? They could just as easily be celebrated as pragmatic problem solvers, couldn’t they? Some of you may even be thinking “Can we just move on in this story and not dwell on this little detail”. So let’s move on and look together at another tribe’s response to the land that they were given to occupy and settle.

In Joshua 17:1 we are introduced to a man named Machir. Machir was actually the only son of Manasseh. And Machir was a man of war; in other words he was a capable warrior who led his tribe to take possession of the land that the tribe of Manasseh would possess, occupy, and settle east of the Jordan River, which we looked at last week. This was the land that is referred to here as Gilead and Bashan. The land described in Joshua 17:2-11 was actually a second piece of land that was given to the tribe of Manasseh.

In addition to the territory that the tribe was given east of the Jordan River, which we talked about last week, the tribe was also given this large piece of land that was located north of the land that was given to the tribe of Ephraim. This piece of land was also quite large. And you would think that the tribe would be satisfied and happy about the land that they had received. However, that was not the case, as we see in the verses that follow:
But the sons of Manasseh could not take possession of these cities, because the Canaanites persisted in living in that land. It came about when the sons of Israel became strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but they did not drive them out completely.
You see, as the tribe of Manasseh began to occupy and settle in the land that they had received, they were unable to occupy and settle five cities that were located in the North and Northwest regions of the land that they had been given. Instead of destroying the cultures and societies that had lived in the land, as they had been commanded, they allowed these cities to be enclaves where the evil and wicked cultures were allowed to continue to exist and more importantly coexist with the Jewish nation that was inhabiting the land.

Just as the tribe of Judah did not care enough to fully follow God’s commands and instead were satisfied with doing the right thing 99.9% of the time; Just as the tribe of Ephraim chose to be pragmatic problem solvers who bent the rules in a way that would benefit and make their lives easier; the tribe of Manasseh failed to fully follow God’s commands when it came to restarting their lives. While these three tribes followed God’s commands most of the time, they were able to rationalize a reason why they did not have to follow God’s commands all of the time. And it is the story of these three tribes that we see God reveal for us another timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our lives.

Tomorrow, we will discover this timeless principle and the implication that this principle can have as we live our lives.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

To Restart Requires the Desire to Finish What We Start...

Yesterday, we looked at a section of a letter in our Bibles from the book of Joshua where God provided guidance and direction to the Jewish people as to how they were to divide and settle into the Promised Land. And as Joshua and his leadership team began the process to divide the land, we see a member of the Jewish nation come to the forefront with a special request of Joshua. And it is in this request and it is through this life that we are introduced to another timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our lives. So let’s meet this member of the Jewish nation again, beginning in Joshua 14:6:
Then the sons of Judah drew near to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, "You know the word which the LORD spoke to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh-barnea. "I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought word back to him as it was in my heart. "Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt with fear; but I followed the LORD my God fully. "So Moses swore on that day, saying, 'Surely the land on which your foot has trodden will be an inheritance to you and to your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God fully.'
To understand what is happening here, we first need to be reminded of Caleb and his story. As we discovered at the beginning of this sermon series, 45 years prior to this conversation, twelve spies were sent to provide a report about the Promised Land that God was going to give the Jewish people. And as the Jewish people waited at the doorstep to the Promised Land, these spies returned from their journey and described the beauty and blessings that the land would provide the people.

But instead of trusting God to overcome the obstacles that they would face on the way to the Promised Land, these spies led the Jewish people to reject and rebel against God. All of the spies, except for two, named Joshua and Caleb. Only Joshua and Caleb faithfully trusted God to bring them into the Promised Land. In another letter in our Bibles, called the book of Numbers, we see God, in the midst of responding to the selfish rebellion of the Jewish people, describe Caleb and his character in Numbers 14:24:
"But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it.
For the rest of the Jewish people, however, God responded to their selfish rebellion and rejection of Him by causing the entire adult population to wander in the desert until they died. So for forty years, between 1.5 and 2 million people wandered in the desert filled with frustration, failure and rebellion. Can you imagine how Joshua and Caleb must have felt during those forty years of wandering in the desert due to the selfish rebellion of others?

So for forty years Caleb wandered in circles, clinging to God’s promise that someday he would enter into the Promised Land as a result of his willingness to trust God and fully follow Him. For forty years, Caleb remained faithful to follow God fully while he wandered and watched as his lost and rebellious family and friends died. And as Caleb recounts his story to Joshua, who was the only other person of that wandering wilderness generation to step foot into the Promised Land; and as Caleb tells his story to this new generation of the Jewish people looking to restart their lives, we see the evidence of God’s activity in his life revealed, beginning in verse 10:
"Now behold, the LORD has let me live, just as He spoke, these forty-five years, from the time that the LORD spoke this word to Moses, when Israel walked in the wilderness; and now behold, I am eighty-five years old today. "I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in.”?
In verse 10, Caleb reminds the Joshua and the Jewish people that God is a promise maker and a promise keeper. For forty years, Caleb wandered in a desert of hurt, pain disappointment and failure as a consequence of the selfish rebellion of others. And for forty years, Caleb recognized the reality that while disappointment and death was an all too present reality all around him, it was God who let him live.

And not only did God let him live; God blessed Caleb. Caleb was an eighty five year old man living in a forty year olds body. Caleb still possessed and maintained the same spiritual, physical and emotional drive and desire to fully follow God. Caleb still possessed that different spirit; that spirit that leaned into God and swam against the current of the circumstances around him and into God’s promises and plans. And it is that different spirit; it is that desire to follow God fully that leads Caleb to make an amazing request, which is recorded for us in Joshua 14:12. Let’s look at this request together:
"Now then, give me this hill country about which the LORD spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the LORD will be with me, and I will drive them out as the LORD has spoken."?
To grasp the significance of Caleb’s request here, we first must understand where this hill country was located and its significance to Caleb and the Jewish people. This hill country was located in a part of the Promised Land known as Hebron. Caleb, Joshua, and the ten other spies had visited this hill country some 45 years earlier. We read about this land, and the response of the ten other spies to what they had seen in this land, in Numbers 13:32-33:
So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, "The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. "There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight."
It was this report about this hill country that led the Jewish people to selfishly rebel and reject God and his promises. And it was this hill country that Caleb wanted to occupy and possess. For while the Jewish nation conquered the nations that ruled this hill country, there would still be battles to be fought in order to occupy and settle this land. There would be insurgents who would try to keep the Jewish people from occupying and settling the land.

And Caleb wanted this battle. And this battle was not just any battle; this battle would be with the very people that so intimidated the Jewish spies some 45 years earlier that they failed to trust God and instead brought a bad report to the Jewish people. You see, Caleb did not want a garden spot in the Promised Land at a resort with a golf membership and a spa to retire and settle into. Instead, Caleb wanted to finish something that he had started some 45 years earlier. Caleb wanted to finish something that he recognized was filled with potential challenges and difficulties. Caleb recognized he needed to finish what he had started some 45 years earlier in order to fully restart his life.

And in Caleb’s story, we see revealed for us another timeless principle that enables us to restart our lives. And that timeless principle is this: to restart requires the desire to finish what we start. Just like Caleb, when it comes to restarting our lives, we often find ourselves faced with challenges and difficulties that must be overcome. And to overcome those challenges requires the desire to finish what we start.

If we are brutally honest with ourselves, isn’t this one on the main reasons why we fail to keep New Year’s resolutions. We begin the New Year with a desire to restart our lives through New Year’s resolutions, but as time goes on, the desire to restart and change our lives begins to weaken and wane. And usually, by March, we find ourselves faced with disappointment and failure when it comes to restarting our lives because the desire to finish what we have started is overwhelmed by the challenges and difficulties that come with change. If you do not think that this is the case, just go visit a gym in January and then go back in March. Instead of leaning into and trusting God to do what only He can do as we do what we need to do to swim against the current of circumstances and into God’s promises and plans, we give in to the desires and fears that compete with the desire to restart and change our lives.

When Caleb says perhaps the Lord will be with me, this is not a negative statement. In the language that this story was originally written in, this phrase conveys a sense of hope. Caleb possessed a hope that the Lord would continue to be present with him as He had been during these 45 years and would continue to keep the promise that He had made to Caleb some 45 years earlier. Caleb had a confident expectation that God would continue to do what God could only do as Caleb remained faithful to do what he was supposed to do when it came to restarting his life. And as this story continues, we see Joshua’s response to Caleb’s amazing request in Joshua 14:13:
“So Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. Therefore, Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite until this day, because he followed the LORD God of Israel fully. Now the name of Hebron was formerly Kiriath-arba; for Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. Then the land had rest from war.”?
Joshua responded to Caleb’s amazing request by doing two things. First, Joshua blessed Caleb. The word bless here literally means to pray and ask for God’s enabling power to be upon him. Joshua prayed that the Lord would continue to be present with Caleb and would empower Caleb to restart his life by finishing what he started some 45 years earlier. Second, Joshua responded to Caleb’s amazing request by granting the request. Joshua gave Hebron to Caleb as his possession.

And in verse 15, we see that Caleb finished what he started. Caleb faced and defeated the giant insurgents of Hebron and brought peace to the entire region. The very giants that caused the previous generation to selfishly rebel and reject God were now defeated by a man who desired to finish what he started. And just like Caleb, to restart requires a desire to finish what we have started.

So what have you started this new year when it comes to restarting your life? And how is what you started going? Do you still have the desire and drive to finish what you have started when it comes to restarting your life? Or do you find yourself struggling, or being overwhelmed, with competing desires and fears when it comes to restarting your life?

What do you need to do this week when it comes to finishing what you started?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Why Christians Don't Draw Straws...

As a church, we are in the middle of a sermon series, entitled restart. During this series, we have been looking at some timeless principles on how to deal with the frustration, the tension and the trouble that we can experience when we try to restart our lives that are found in a letter in our Bibles called the Book of Joshua. And as the story of the Jewish nation's attempts to restart their lives moved forward, we discover that the Jewish people needed to do more than simply conquer and control the nations that inhabited the Promised Land in order to restart their lives. We see the additional task that was before the Jewish people revealed for us in Joshua 13:1. Let’s look at it together:
Now Joshua was old and advanced in years when the LORD said to him, "You are old and advanced in years, and very much of the land remains to be possessed.
As we enter back into this story, we are told that Joshua was now old and advanced in years. Most scholars believe that, at this point in the story, Joshua was around 100 years old. And just in case he didn’t necessarily feel old, the Lord reminded Joshua that he was old by stating “you are old and advanced in years”. Now the reason that the Lord reminded Joshua of his age was that very much of the land remains to be possessed. You see, while the Jewish nation had conquered the nations and cultures that had inhabited the Promised Land, they had not moved in to take possession and live throughout the Promised Land. They were still staying at their headquarters, which was located at a town called Gilgal. While the Jewish nation militarily controlled the Promised Land, they had not yet begun to occupy and settle most of the Promised Land. A little further in this story, we see Joshua continues to follow God’s command and plan to occupy and settle the Promised Land that was to be inherited by the remaining 9 ½ tribes in Joshua 14:1:
Now these are the territories which the sons of Israel inherited in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the households of the tribes of the sons of Israel apportioned to them for an inheritance, by the lot of their inheritance, as the LORD commanded through Moses, for the nine tribes and the half-tribe. For Moses had given the inheritance of the two tribes and the half-tribe beyond the Jordan;
In these verses, we see Joshua and his leadership team charged with the responsibility to give the Jewish people the land that had been conquered in order that it could be occupied and settled. Joshua and his leadership team was responsible to divide the Promised Land into 9 ½ sections that would be given to the Jewish people who would occupy and settle in the land that was west of the Jordan River. We are told that Joshua and his leadership divided and gave the land to the tribes by lot. Now a natural question that arises here is what is the lot and why would the Jewish people use the lot in order to divide the land?

Casting lots was a process that would be similar to picking names out of a hat. A representative would pick from two urns. One urn had the name of the tribe, while a second urn had the land that was to be given to that tribe to possess. These lots were drawn simultaneously drawn and would determine which land each tribe would be given to occupy and settle. It is important to understand, however, that this process was not simply a random act of chance. You see, as we see in verse 2, this process was commanded by God and was directed by God in order to determine the general size and area of the division of the Promised Land to the twelve tribes.

But why draw lots? Isn’t that like gambling? And why don’t we use lots today to determine God’s will as followers of Jesus? Unlike followers of Jesus today, the Jewish people did not have two incredible blessings from God. First, unlike today, the Jewish people did not have the presence of the Holy Spirit. At this point in God’s story, the Holy Spirit was only given to a few people, like prophets, and special priests and kings that God used in powerful and supernatural ways. Second, while most Jewish people knew the stories of the Bible, the vast majority of Jewish people did not have a Bible to consult. The Jewish People of Joshua’s day would have longed to live with the blessings that followers of Jesus have today.

So, without the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence and the Bibles guidance, casting lots was a way that God used to guide and direct the decisions of the Jewish people. And as the Jewish people prepare to divide the land, we see another interesting detail about this process revealed for us in verses 3:
but he did not give an inheritance to the Levites among them. For the sons of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim, and they did not give a portion to the Levites in the land, except cities to live in, with their pasture lands for their livestock and for their property. Thus the sons of Israel did just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they divided the land.
The Levites, while one of the twelve sons of Jacob who formed the Jewish people, were not given a portion of the Promised Land to occupy and settle in because of their unique role as priests dedicated to the service of the Lord. Instead, the Levites were given cities in which to live in throughout the Promised Land, in order to enable them to be able to love, serve, and minister to the Jewish people. In addition, instead of giving a portion of the land to Joseph, who was one of the twelve sons of Jacob, they gave a portion of the land to each of Joseph’s two sons, who were named Ephraim and Manasseh.

And as Joshua and his leadership team began the process to divide the land, we see a member of the Jewish nation come to the forefront with a special request of Joshua. And it is in this request and it is through this life that we are introduced to another timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our lives. We will look that timeless principle tomorrow.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Dealing with a Troubling Statement in the Bible...

Yesterday, we discovered that to live in the relationship with God and one another that we were created and called to live requires the persistence to do the right thing even when it is not the easy thing or the comfortable thing to do. In Joshua 11-12, we see that just as 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, we also need to exercise a persistent and confident trust in God when it comes to restarting our lives. As this story continues, however, we come face to face with a very uncomfortable and even troubling statement that is found in several places in the Bible:
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?

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

To Restart Requires Persistence...

Yesterday, we looked at how Joshua and the Jewish people faithfully followed God’s command to defeat an alliance of cultures and societies that were located in the northern part of the Land of Canaan. After the Jewish people hamstrung the horses and destroyed the chariots, Joshua then begins a second phase of the Jewish nation’s campaign to take over and possess the northern part of the Promised Land, which we read about beginning in verse 10:
Then Joshua turned back at that time, and captured Hazor and struck its king with the sword; for Hazor formerly was the head of all these kingdoms. They struck every person who was in it with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them; there was no one left who breathed. And he burned Hazor with fire. Joshua captured all the cities of these kings, and all their kings, and he struck them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed them; just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded. However, Israel did not burn any cities that stood on their mounds, except Hazor alone, which Joshua burned. All the spoil of these cities and the cattle, the sons of Israel took as their plunder; but they struck every man with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them. They left no one who breathed. Just as the LORD had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did; he left nothing undone of all that the LORD had commanded Moses.
After defeating the armies of the northern alliance, Joshua and the Jewish people then turned their attention to the city of Hazor and its king. The city of Hazor was significant for two main reasons. First Hazor was the largest and most prominent of the cities in the northern part of the Promised Land that had formed the alliance against the Jewish people. To provide a bit of perspective, Hazor was 25 times the size of Jericho. In addition, Hazor was located in an incredibly strategic location on an ancient highway that connected Egypt, Syria, Assyria, and Babylon. The cities location contributed to its wealth and power.

And because of its position and prominence, Joshua and the forces of the Jewish army utterly destroyed the city by burning it to the ground. The Jewish army sent a message to the rest of the cities and cultures in the land by razing Hazor to the ground. Joshua and the Jewish army then proceeded to conquer and possess the remaining cities of the kings who had attempted to form this alliance to defeat the Jewish people. Joshua left nothing undone; Joshua completed all that God had commanded Moses to do, which is recorded for us in Deuteronomy 20:16-18. Moses passed on God’s commands to Joshua as the one who would lead the Jewish people to restarting their lives in the Promised Land.

The writer of the book of Joshua then provides a summary of all the Jewish people had accomplished according to God’s power and God’s plan. And in this summary we find another timeless truth that is necessary when it comes to restarting our lives, along with one of the most troubling statements that occurs in the entire Bible. So let’s look at this timeless principle and troubling statement together, beginning in Joshua 11:16:
Thus Joshua took all that land: the hill country and all the Negev, all that land of Goshen, the lowland, the Arabah, the hill country of Israel and its lowland from Mount Halak, that rises toward Seir, even as far as Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon at the foot of Mount Hermon. And he captured all their kings and struck them down and put them to death. Joshua waged war a long time with all these kings.
In these verses, we see the extent of God’s activity in fulfilling His promise to bring the Jewish people into the Promised Land. The Jewish people and its army were able to successfully defeat the nations and cultures from the Mount Halak, which is located in the far southern portion of the Promised Land, to the foot of Mount Hermon, which is located on the northern portion of the Promised Land. The size of the land that Joshua and the Jewish army conquered and controlled is approximately 1,100 square miles, which would be the equivalent to the size of the state of Maryland.

And in leading between 1.5 and 2 million people to conquer and control the land that made up the Promised Land, we are told that Joshua waged war a long time with these kings. Most scholars believe that the military campaign to conquer and control the Promised Land took between five and seven years. While all of God’s activity through the Jewish army to take possession of the Promised Land took only eleven chapters in our Bibles, it was experienced in years for the Jewish people.

And in this story we see revealed for us another timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our lives. And that timeless principle is this; to restart requires persistence. When it comes to restarting our lives, we can often view it as a sprint; as a short burst of effort and energy that will carry over a lifetime. However, restarting our life is not a sprint; it is more like a marathon. Restarting our lives requires persistent effort and energy throughout our lifetime.

The reason we often fail when it comes to New Year’s resolutions is because we fail to recognize the persistence that we will need to have in order to keep that resolution. In the same way, restarting our lives so that we can live in the relationship with God and one another that we were created and called to live requires the persistence to do the right thing even when it is not the easy thing or the comfortable thing to do. Just as 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, we also need to exercise a persistent and confident trust in God when it comes to restarting our lives.

As the story continues, however, we come face to face with a very uncomfortable and even troubling statement that is found in several places in the Bible. We will look at that statement tomorrow. In the meantime, 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?

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Temptation that Comes with Confidence...

As a church, we are in the middle of a sermon series, entitled restart. During this series, we have been looking at some timeless principles on how to deal with the frustration, the tension and the trouble that we can experience when we try to restart our lives that are found in a letter in our Bibles called the Book of Joshua. And as we jump back into this story, we will see God reveal for us another timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our lives. So let’s begin by looking together at Joshua 11:1:
Then it came about, when Jabin king of Hazor heard of it, that he sent to Jobab king of Madon and to the king of Shimron and to the king of Achshaph, and to the kings who were of the north in the hill country, and in the Arabah-- south of Chinneroth and in the lowland and on the heights of Dor on the west-- to the Canaanite on the east and on the west, and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Jebusite in the hill country, and the Hivite at the foot of Hermon in the land of Mizpeh. They came out, they and all their armies with them, as many people as the sand that is on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots. So all of these kings having agreed to meet, came and encamped together at the waters of Merom, to fight against Israel.
As we enter back into the story of the Jewish nation’s effort to restart their lives, we are introduced to the response of the nations and cultures of the Northern part of the Land of Canaan to the news of the Jewish nations’ victory over the armies of the 5 kings of the Southern part of the Land of Canaan. Upon hearing the news of the Jewish army’s total and complete victory, Jabin King of Hazor sent word to the other kings that comprised the nations and cultures of the northern part of the land of Canaan regarding what had happened to their counterparts in the south.

And as a result of God’s activity in the lives of the Jewish people that resulted in their complete victory in the south, the nations and cultures that lived in the north agreed to form an alliance in order to defeat the advancing Jewish army. The armies which formed this northern alliance came together at a place called the waters of Merom. We are told that this military force was as many people as the sand that is on the shore, with many horses and chariots.

And while this may sound like a vast exaggeration, there is extra biblical literature that gives us insight into the size of the army that the Jewish nation was facing. Josephus, who was a Jewish historian who lived during the first century, estimated that the armies of this northern alliance numbered upwards of 300,000 infantry, 10,000 Calvary, and 20,000 chariots.

What was just as significant as the sheer numbers of soldiers that this army possessed was their weaponry. The horses and chariots would provide this northern alliance an incredible strategic advantage because God had forbidden the Jewish people to possess horses and chariots for military battle in another letter in our Bibles, called the book of Deuteronomy 17:16. The Jewish army was facing a united enemy that seemed to be supported by superior firepower. We see God’s response to the enemy that the Jewish people faced in verse 6:
Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid because of them, for tomorrow at this time I will deliver all of them slain before Israel; you shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire."
Once again, we see God provide Joshua a promise and a plan to deal with the armies of the northern alliance. God explains to Joshua that there is no reason the fear this massive force that has far superior firepower because God will fight for the Jewish people and destroy the armies of the Northern alliance.

God then provided Joshua with another battle plan that involved two specific commands. First, after God leads the army to victory, the Jewish people were commanded to hamstring the horses, which would make them incapable of running or being used as a military weapon. However, the horses would still be able to be used for farming and other domestic purposes. Second, the Jewish people were commanded to destroy the chariots that were used as a weapon against them in battle by burning them.

Now a natural question that may be running through your mind at this point is “why hamstring the horses and burn the chariots? I mean, these weapons would provide the Jewish army with additional tactical and strategic support and options in future battles. So why destroy what could be used for their advantage?” It just doesn’t seem to make sense, does it?

You see, God commanded the Jewish people to hamstring the horses and burn the chariots because He did not want to Jewish people to place their trust in anything other than the Lord. The strategic and tactical advantage that these weapons would provide could easily cause the Jewish people to place their trust in those weapons and in their activity to bring them into the Promised Land instead of in God and His activity.

We see this theme of placing ones trust in the Lord instead of horses and chariots echoed by the Jewish nation’s greatest military leader, King David, in Psalm 20:7:
Some boast in chariots and some in horses, But we will boast in the name of the LORD, our God.
We then see Joshua’s response to God’s plan and commands revealed to us in Joshua 11:7-9:
So Joshua and all the people of war with him came upon them suddenly by the waters of Merom, and attacked them. The LORD delivered them into the hand of Israel, so that they defeated them, and pursued them as far as Great Sidon and Misrephoth-maim and the valley of Mizpeh to the east; and they struck them until no survivor was left to them. Joshua did to them as the LORD had told him; he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire.
Joshua responded to God’s plan and commands by leading the Jewish people on a surprise attack that occurred by the town of Merom. This surprise attack neutralized the effectiveness of the horses and the chariots of the armies of the northern alliance, as the terrain of this region was uneven and rocky and provided no room for maneuverability. With God’s deliverance of these armies into the hands of the Jewish people, the defeated armies of the northern alliance fled northeast and northwest of the battle and out of the Promised Land.

Joshua and the Jewish people then faithfully follow God’s command to hamstring the horses and destroy the chariots. After defeated the army of the alliance of the northern kingdoms, Joshua then begins a second phase of the Jewish nation’s campaign to take over and possess the northern part of the Promised Land, which we will look at tomorrow.

In the meantime, is there something in your life that you place your confident trust in other than God? Position? Possessions? Intelligence? Appearance?

Thursday, March 3, 2011

The Consequences of Failing to Ask God's Opinion Before Making a Decision...

This week, we have been looking at a story in the Bible that revealed for us the reality that 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. In Joshua chapter 9, we saw that 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. A few verses later, we see a second consequence that can occur when we fail to ask God’s opinion before making a decision revealed for us in Joshua 10:1:
Now it came about when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had captured Ai, and had utterly destroyed it (just as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king), and that the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were within their land, that he feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty. Therefore Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent word to Hoham king of Hebron and to Piram king of Jarmuth and to Japhia king of Lachish and to Debir king of Eglon, saying, "Come up to me and help me, and let us attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and with the sons of Israel." So the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, gathered together and went up, they with all their armies, and camped by Gibeon and fought against it. Then the men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal, saying, "Do not abandon your servants; come up to us quickly and save us and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites that live in the hill country have assembled against us." So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him and all the valiant warriors.
The king of Jerusalem, upon hearing what had happened to Jericho and Ai, along with the peace agreement that had been made between the Jewish people and the residents of Gibeon, responded by entering into an alliance with the kings of the southern region of the Promised Land to attack the Gibeonites. These five kings all lived in this southern portion of the Promised Land. Since these Southern kings did not want to fight a war on two fronts, they decided to quickly attack the Gibeonites in order to defeat them so that they would be able to fully focus on the Jewish army.

In response to being attacked, the residents of Gibeon put into effect the new peace treaty that they had entered into with the Jewish people and called for them to come to their aid. And because of the covenant agreement that they had committed to Joshua was bound to bring the Jewish army to the aid of the Gibeonites. And here we see that as a result failing to ask God’s opinion before making a decision, the Jewish nation’s journey to restart their lives was now much more complex and complicated.

As a result of failing to ask God’s opinion, the Jewish people not only had to look after their own interests, but also the interests of the residents of Gibeon. The Jewish army now would be forced to fight against five nations and their united armies instead of taking the land one nation at a time. Their situation had become much more complicated and complex. And in the same way today, when we fail to ask God’s opinion before making a decision, we can find ourselves making bad decisions that make our life far more complicated and complex. We see God respond to the increasingly complicated and complex situation the Jewish nation was facing in verse 8:
The LORD said to Joshua, "Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands; not one of them shall stand before you."
The phrase “do not fear them” literally means “do not fear or be filled with terror so as to fall to pieces”. The Jewish people’s failure to ask God’s opinion before making a decision resulted in a return of some familiar fears. And in the same way, when we make bad decisions as a result of failing to ask God’s opinion, the consequences of those decisions can reignite the same fears that keep us from restarting our life. And as we have seen throughout this series, God responds to Joshua’s fear by reiterating His promise and by giving Joshua a battle plan. We see that plan unfold in verse 9:
So Joshua came upon them suddenly by marching all night from Gilgal. And the LORD confounded them before Israel, and He slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and pursued them by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon and struck them as far as Azekah and Makkedah. As they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth-horon, the LORD threw large stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died; there were more who died from the hailstones than those whom the sons of Israel killed with the sword.
Joshua leads the Jewish army as they marched throughout the night the approximately 40 miles uphill from Gilgal to Gibeon in order to make a surprise attack on the armies of the five kings. And as the surprise attack began, God supported the Jewish army by confounding the armies of the five kings. The Lord did not allow the armies of the five kings to unite in battle, but instead confused them.

And as the Jewish armies began to achieve the upper hand in battle, the forces of the five kings began to flee in defeat. God then entered into the battle and pursued the fleeing forces of the five kings as the fled from Gibeon down the mountainous terrain west toward the flatlands by the sea. And as they fled down from Gibeon toward the sea, God hurled huge hailstones from the sky to kill the armies of the five kings. Can you imagine what that must have looked like? Can you imagine what it must have looked like as huge hailstones crushed the enemies of the Jewish army, while not striking a single Jewish soldier that was engaged in the pursuit? But that was not the only evidence of God’s supernatural activity. We see a second miraculous act of God in verse 12-14:
Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, "O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon." So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. There was no day like that before it or after it, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel.
Joshua, in the midst of the battle, asks for God’s intervention. Joshua prayed to God aloud in the presence of the Jewish people and asked for more daylight so that they could fulfill God’s plan and command to destroy the armies of the five kings, who could easily escape once darkness descended upon the battlefield. As we occasionally see here in the desert during the middle of a day, the sun was positioned overhead at Gibeon, while the moon was visible in the westward sky towards the sea, where the armies were attempting to escape.

Joshua’s prayer simply mirrors the language we use when we talk about the sun and the moon; instead of the sun continuing to move so that it would set; instead of the moon moving across the sky; Joshua asks for the sun to stand still. And God responded to Joshua’s prayer by doing what only He could do. God responded to Joshua’s prayer with a day like no other; a day that the rotation of the earth slowed so that daylight was extended and total victory could be achieved over the armies of the 5 kings. And in the rest of chapter 10, we see Joshua respond to God’s command, which I summarized for us as the chapter concludes:
Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded. Joshua struck them from Kadesh-barnea even as far as Gaza, and all the country of Goshen even as far as Gibeon. Joshua captured all these kings and their lands at one time, because the LORD, the God of Israel, fought for Israel. So Joshua and all Israel with him returned to the camp at Gilgal.
As a result of God’s supernatural activity and the Jewish people following God’s command and plan, the entire southern half of the Promised Land was brought under the Jewish nation’s rule. But the Jewish nation’s attempt almost failed to live in the relationship with God and one another that we were created and called to live because they failed to ask God’s opinion before making a decision. And in the same way today, the timeless reality is that to restart requires asking God’s opinion before making a decision.

When we fail to ask God’s opinion, is that we can make decisions that fail to follow God’s word and result in division and dissension. When we fail to ask God’s opinion before making a decision, we can find ourselves making bad decisions that make our life far more complicated and complex.

So what decision are you facing? And as you face that decision, whose opinion are you seeking? Where do you go; who do you ask for counsel when it comes to making a decision?

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

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?

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

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?