Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has
for us here today.
All right, we're going to continue our study in the book of
Joshua.
If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Joshua chapter eight.
We're going to conclude Joshua chapter eight.
And we have a small passage of scripture here this evening, but
very interesting.
We're.
We're following up on the victory in AI.
If you remember, Joshua and the Israelites went to AI the first
time with pride, with self confidence.
And remember, they said, there's not that many people there.
This isn't like Jericho.
We can go right into AI and do this easily.
And they didn't seek the Lord's wisdom.
They didn't seek the Lord's guidance.
And in so doing, they lost.
They lost a lot of people.
And they faced not only a physical defeat, but also a spiritual
defeat.
And we realized that the reason being is that there was sin
in the camp.
There was a fellow named Achan, and he had taken things against
what God's plan was for Jericho, and he had taken them for
himself.
He had hidden that and concealed that sin.
But we know that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we
try, we can't conceal our sin from the Lord.
And we.
Ultimately, what happened is that Achan and his family were judged
for that sin.
And when Israel got that sin right in the camp, they then sought
after the Lord.
Joshua sought after the plans of the Lord.
They went to AI again and had a wonderful victory.
And that shows that there's victory in obedience.
There's.
There's salvation in believing in the truth of who the Lord is.
And then ultimately, what we see here at the end of Joshua chapter
eight is the end of the victory.
And the end of the victory is worship.
The end of the victory is obedience.
And so in starting in verse number 30, Joshua is going to build
an altar unto the Lord.
And it's.
It's not just a spontaneous altar building.
We know that this is actually him following what God had told them
to do all the way back in Deuteronomy chapter 27.
And so we're going to look at Deuteronomy chapter 27 and 28 as
well, because it's going to tell us why they're doing what they're
doing.
And so it says in verse number 30 of Joshua 8, then Joshua built
an altar unto the Lord God of Israel into Mount Ebal.
Now, you need to know Mount Ebal, because that is going to play
a huge portion of this story.
It's going to play a big part in the story.
So you have Mount Ebal, and then Mount Ebal is located very close
to another mountain called a Mount Gerizim.
Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim are very close, and basically they
create a natural amphitheater.
So if you were to talk on Mount Gerizim, you could hear it
at the foot of Mount Ebal and vice versa.
And that's going to play a part in what they're going to do
here as well.
So Joshua builds a altar on the Mount Ebal, and as it says in
verse 31, as Moses, the servant of the Lord commanded the
children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of
Moses, an altar of whole stones, which no man hath lift up
any iron.
And they offer thereupon burnt offerings unto the Lord and sacrifice
peace offerings.
So God called them to do this.
He said, when you get to the promised land, build an altar on
Mount Ebal and do something specific.
And we're going to go back to Deuteronomy, chapter 27, because
I think we need to understand the context of what they're doing
here.
And really what it is is it's a worshipful obedience to the Lord
for his promises, but it's also a warning of the cursing that
is found in disobedience.
If you remember the Mosaic covenant, God goes through with Israel
different covenants.
Some of you know the Abrahamic covenant, some of you know of the
no Attic covenant.
Some of you know the Mosaic covenant.
There's the Davidic covenant.
There's all these different covenants, these different promises.
And the Mosaic covenant was a conditional covenant.
If you remember the Mosaic covenant, it was this.
If you follow the law, there's going to be blessings.
If you obey God, there's going to be blessings.
If you live in disobedience to God, there's going to be cursings,
there's going to be separation, there's going to be punishment.
And so Deuteronomy, chapter 27, God tells Moses, and he, by extension,
Israel, to, when they get to the promised land, to be reminded
of the blessings of obedience and the cursings of disobedience.
So Deuteronomy, chapter 27, it says, and Moses, with the elders
of Israel, commanded the people Saying, keep all the commandments
which I command you this day.
And it shall be on that day when you shall pass over Jordan unto
the land which the Lord thy God giveth.
That thou shalt see set thee for great stones and plaster with
them.
Plaster.
And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law when thou
art passed over.
And thou mayest go in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth,
a land that floweth with milk and honey, as the Lord God of thy
fathers hath promised thee.
So the idea would be that when they get to the promised land, this
is what they're supposed to do.
They have not done that yet, okay?
In the book of Joshua, all the way up from Joshua 1 to 7, they have
not done that yet.
In chapter 8 is when they do this, verse 4.
Therefore it shall be when you're gone over Jordan that you
shall set up on these stones which I command you this day in Mount
Ebal.
So they had a directive, and they knew what they were supposed
to do, and they knew where they were to do it at.
That would be at Mount Ebal, verse five.
And there shall.
And there shalt thou bind an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar
of stones that thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them.
So this is an exact fulfillment of the plan of God that's
happening here in Joshua chapter 8.
Thou shalt bind the altar of the Lord thy God with whole stones,
and thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord thy
God.
And thou shalt offer peace offerings.
And shalt thou shalt eat there and rejoice before the Lord thy God.
And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law
very plainly.
And then he's going to give them some specific things that they're
supposed to do.
And Moses said.
And Moses and the priest of the Levites spake unto all Israel,
saying, take heed and hearken, O Israel.
This day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God.
Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God and do
his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this
day.
So then he says, this is what you're going to do.
There's going to be the blessings.
The blessings are going to be on Mount Gerizim.
And Moses charged the people the same day, saying, these shall
stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people when ye are come
over Jordan.
And so we see the different tribes.
We see Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and
Benjamin.
So These tribes were to be on the side of the blessings there at
Mount Gerizim.
And then he said, on the other side, on Mount Ebal, there's going
to be the curses, verse 13.
And these shall stand upon Mount Ebal to curse Reuben, Gad,
Asher, Zebulon, Dan, and Naftali.
And then you have those two different people, those two.
Two different groups on each side.
Verse 14.
The Levite shall speak and say unto all the men of Israel with a
loud voice, cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten
image an abomination unto the Lord and work of hands of the craftsman,
and put it in a secret place.
And all the people shall answer and say Amen.
And so what we're actually going to see In Deuteronomy chapter
27 is all the curses.
It's essentially warnings, warnings of things not to do.
If you do this, you will face curses, you will face separation,
you will.
You will face judgment.
And so it goes on and on.
We don't have time to go through all the curses, but if you
have time, it would be interesting to read through that.
And then I find it interesting that at the end of each one of the
curses, they have to say Amen, which basically means they're in
agreement to that.
They understand that.
But then we see in.
In chapter 28 that the blessings come, verse 2, and it says,
and all the blessings shall come on thee and overtake thee.
If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.
Bless shalt thou be in the city, and bless shalt thou be in
the field.
Bless shalt thou be the fruit of thy body and fruit of the ground,
and the fruit of the cattle, and the increase of the of the kind
and the flocks of the sheep.
The bless shall thee be thy basket in the store.
And he goes on and talks about all the blessings that they can find
in obedience.
And so essentially, what God is telling the Israelites to do is
to be reminded of the law and be reminded of God's presence and
his power and his purpose, and then ultimately understand the blessings
of obedience and the difficulties and the pain of disobedience.
And so that was the reminder there in Deuteronomy, chapter 27
and 28.
So if you go to Joshua chapter 8 again, that's exactly what they're
doing here.
They're reminding themselves of God's presence.
The way that God had revealed himself to the people of Israel at
this point was obviously through the law.
That was God's heart for his people.
But he also had revealed himself through their provisions
and their power and the guidance and all the things that
God had shown through their wanderings.
And ultimately, as they come into the promised land.
So what they're doing here is after this victory in AI, they're
being reminded of God's promise to them.
Now, going back to Joshua chapter one, Remember, Joshua chapter
one gave us a reminder that the law of God should not depart
out of their mouths.
That was back in verse number eight of chapter one.
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou
shalt meditate there and day and night.
So the reminder was that the law needed to be before the people.
God needed to be before the people.
Verse 32.
All the way back in Joshua chapter 8, this is what happened.
He's obeying God's command.
And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses,
which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.
So the challenge was to write down a copy of the law of Moses.
Now, they already knew the law of Moses.
That's what they lived by.
But again, sometimes we have to be reminded of the things that
God has done for us.
We have to be reminded of what God has taught us over and over again.
Obviously, the Israelites needed to be reminded about God,
because many times they go astray.
And same thing with us.
We have to be reminded of the things of God.
So that's what this is.
They knew the law of Moses intellectually, but again, they needed
to be reminded, as it says here, which he wrote in the presence
of the children of Israel and all Israel and their elders and the
officers and their judges, stood on this side of the ark, and
on that side before the priests of the Levites, which bear
the ark of the covenant of the Lord, as well the stranger as he
that was born among them, half of them over against Mount Gerizim,
and half of them over against Mount Ebal.
So remember, Deuteronomy told us that half of the tribes are over
on one side, half of the tribes are in the other.
And then you had the Levites in the middle, middle proclaiming
the law of God.
So it says, as Moses, the servant of God, servant of the Lord,
had commanded before that they should bless the people of Israel.
So there's the blessings and the cursings, verse 34.
And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and
the cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the
Law.
There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua
read not before all the congregation, which the women and
the little ones and the strangers that were conversant within
them, so among, among them.
So what we basically see is this.
They come after the victory.
They say, okay, we're going to obey God.
We're going to go back to what God told us to do, and we're going
to remind all of the people of Israel God's promise to us that he
will be faithful to us and that we are called to be faithful
to Him.
And so one side of the group is there hearing the blessings, and
the blessings are good things.
We should hear the blessings, right?
Do this, and this is what's going to happen.
And then on the other side was the cursing.
Don't do this.
Be aware of this.
Stay away from the things of the pagan people there in the land
of Canaan.
Don't build for yourself idols.
And so this altar is built there and they offer sacrifices.
And anytime we see an altar with a sacrifice, it's linked to
worship.
And so we see appropriate acts of worship and consecration to God
following a great victory.
And that should be the same thing for us when we see victories
in our life, when we see God answering prayer, when we see God
working in our midst, we should all, in appropriate manner,
worship God in the way that he has called us to worship Him.
Now, he doesn't call us to offer animals on a sacrifice altar.
We, we're not called to do that anymore.
But he does call us to give a sacrifice.
Romans chapter 12 says, to give our bodies a living sacrifice,
wholly acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service.
And so the answer to the victory in our life should not be,
look at how great.
Mr.
So and so is, or look how this is.
So and so is.
And, or, or look at how wonderful this situation was in my
life.
It's ultimately praising God for the blessings and the gifts that
he's given us.
Because the Bible says in James chapter one that every good
gift comes from God.
And so every blessing that we have in our life, every victory that
we have in our life comes from the Lord.
So he calls us to worship him.
And so they follow God in obedience.
And the greatest act of obedience that we can do is we can
show God that we love him by following his word.
We can say that we're obeying, but the Bible says it's following
God not only by word, but also by deed.
And the way that we can worship God is by following what
he has called us to do in our lives.
And so it's obviously not drawing attention to man's work,
because that's what he said.
He said, I want whole stones not touched by any tools.
He didn't want elaborate carvings.
He didn't want any handiwork on the stones because he didn't want
anyone to look at that and say, well, hey, you know, my uncle.
So.
And so he carved that part out there on that altar.
It wasn't about pointing to man.
It was about pointing to the power of God.
And so therefore, that's why he wanted just whole stones, no carvings,
nothing ornate on it.
He wanted whole stones, which no man had any tool against it.
And so they read the blessings and the cursings.
And so it's an act of obedience.
It's an act of worship.
And we know that Joshua was called to be a man of the law, man
of the word, and so he obeys the Command of Joshua 1:8, and he
reads the law to the people.
And so this is.
This is difficult for many to hear because it's.
It's a long list of things.
And for some people, maybe they were tempted to think, why do
we need to be reminded of this?
But they just came out of this battle, and they're going into many
more battles, and they need to be reminded of God's presence in
their life.
And that's the same thing for us.
Sometimes we think about the things of scripture, and we get so
used to it, we hear the same stories over and over again.
I mean, for some of us, we grew up in church, and we heard all
the Old Testament stories, all the New Testament stories.
And sometimes if we're not careful, it can be tempting for us
just to kind of get so used to hearing it over and over again.
Yeah, I know the gospel.
Yeah, I know that Daniel was a great man of faith.
I know that all these different characters of scripture
that we mentioned are great men of faith.
But we need to be reminded of how God has been faithful to so many
people throughout all of history.
And he's going to be faithful to us, and he's going to be faithful
to the next generation, and he's going to continue on.
And that was the reminder there for them.
And so they go to this very specific place.
It's about 25 miles away from AI.
So they leave and they intentionally go to Ebal and Gerizim,
and it's a.
It's a great place to do this because there is that natural amphitheater
and because of the hills, and they go there and they're able to
do this wonderful action of worship.
And so this event at this place shows that Israel had victories
in the Lord, but ultimately they're going to continue.
They should continue to trust the Lord in everything that they
do.
And that's what we should do in our own life.
But the difference that I think that we need to take in in
our own minds is this in.
In Joshua, chapter eight, they're reminded of the blessings
of following God and the cursings of not following God.
Basically, the Mosaic covenant was a conditional covenant.
It wasn't an unconditional covenant.
Some covenants that God gives to us are unconditional, meaning
we don't have to do anything, God's going to do it.
But for them, the Mosaic covenant was this.
If you're obedient to the law, you will be blessed.
If you're not obedient to the law, you won't be blessed.
And I want to tell you here tonight that we don't follow.
We don't live in the Mosaic Law anymore.
I mean, I don't know about you guys, but there's times in my life
that, yes, I need to be reminded that there's blessings in
following the Lord.
But the truth is, is that even when I stumble, God is still faithful.
God is not going to cast us aside.
And so we live in something called the new covenant.
Jesus mentions that.
He says this blood is the.
Is the picture of the New Testament, the new covenant.
And, and the beauty is, is that no longer do we have to live
in fear of keeping 613 laws and following all of those things.
The beauty that we can find in Jesus Christ is that, yes, as God
was faithful to those in Israel, he can still be faithful
to us today.
And he will be faithful in us today because of his promise.
So it really boils down to God's promise and the type of promise
that he gives us.
And the type of promise that God gives us is the type of promise
that's an unconditional promise that if we trust in him,
he will bless us.
Now, I don't want to get off track and say that, hey, you can
live the way that you want to live.
Romans chapter six tells us that we should not live in abusing
grace.
But what I will tell you is this.
We no longer have to live in fear of memorizing all of the law
and making sure that we have to keep all the law and making sure
that we don't do certain things.
God gives us the freedom and the grace to be able to walk in newness
of life and to just trust in him and know that he's going to change
our heart.
And the Bible says that the law of God is written on our heart
now.
And the law is there to show us where we're bad and show us where
God's heart is when it comes to morality.
But ultimately, what we can understand is that we as Christians
no longer have to face any more curses because of the fact that
we live in the goodness of God and we live in the new covenant and
we live in that path that God has extended for us here in the New
Testament Church.
But again, I think that there are blessings and understanding that
there is a reward for obeying God.
Like, obviously, if someone came up to me and said, well, can
I live my life the way that I want to live it and just live free
of consequences?
No, there's.
There's earthly consequences for decisions that we make on this
side of heaven.
And what we're going to see is that the Israelites faced a lot of
those difficulties and curses because of their lack of faithfulness
in the Mosaic covenant.
But ultimately, I think that this is a passage of scripture that
reminds us just to think about the things that God has done in the
past, obey what he has called us to do when it comes to worship,
and actually apply the promises of God to our life and to
realize that God will be faithful to us as we follow Him.
And so what I will say that's very interesting, though, some people
have read the Old Testament and actually said, these are great
stories, but there's no proof that these actually happen.
There's actually some historians that will say, you know,
we can't really validate anything that happened in the promised
land.
We can't validate anything about the Israelites being in, in
Egypt and all that kind of stuff.
But I wanted to tell you something very interesting about
this passage.
I was doing some research and I had a few folks that had pointed
this out to me as well.
But back in 2000, I believe it was 2019, there was an archeological
dig at Mount Ebal and Mount Ebal, this place that's mentioned
in scripture.
Actually, the, the dig started in, back in 1980.
Back in 1980, they found an altar on Mount Ebal which matched
the same description that was found here in Joshua chapter eight.
Very interesting find.
They didn't necessarily link it back to this specific altar, but
many scholars believe that it would have been very similar, same
place.
So probably the right time.
So that was probably the altar, which is pretty cool.
But then they, when they excavate.
This has nothing to do with Bible, but I Just think this is really
interesting.
So if you guys don't find this interesting to me out.
But this is really cool because I think it really links together
history and the scriptures and to understand they're the same.
So they, they, when they excavated Mount Ebal in 1980, they
made a bunch of trash heaps because, you know, they pull out
a bunch of ground and dirt and foundation and all that kind of stuff,
and basically they don't find anything.
They just throw it into a big pile.
So I believe there was three big piles around Mount Ebal.
Well, there was another group that went back, and I think it was
in 2018 or 2019.
They had some new technology of what they call wet sifting, which
basically means they take this big chunk of dirt and rock and they
sift it through water and they pull out new artifacts.
Well, actually, they found an artifact.
It's very small, but it's a lead tablet that they found there
in the junk pile, basically.
And it was a lead tablet that would have been found right next
to this altar.
And would you believe that on the lead tablet it had the cursings,
like, basically, if you don't obey God, you will be judged, you
will be, you will be cursed.
And it was exactly, almost word for word, what we see here.
Now, they looked into it, and of course, all the skeptics are like,
let's put it under the test.
Let's.
Let's test this out.
So they tested it out and they could trace back the lead tablet
to the time period exactly when we believe that Joshua would
have been in Mount Ebal with the Israelites.
It's really interesting.
They found basically an ancient type of Hebrew that would
have matched up at the exact same time of Joshua being there with
the Israelites.
So some people would question, what was that tablet?
Well, the tablet was basically could have been what was used for
the whole nation of Israel.
Maybe there was a small tablet that they, you know, did this to
remember that the whole issue by.
But then also some people think that maybe there was an individual
that was there that basically wrote in a tablet, the reminder for
himself to take that with him and obviously left it there.
And so I just find that very interesting because I know that we
don't need archaeological digs to validate what we believe.
But it's always nice when the archeological digs line up with exactly
what the Bible says.
And so even scholars that are not Christians do count back to that
time frame when this lead tablet would have been around.
It was like the late Bronze Age, which would Line up exactly
when they were there in the land of Canaan.
So I was doing that research and I was like, wow, that's just
another reason why we know that the word of God is true.
Because there have.
There's never really been an archaeological dig or find that has
ever contradicted scripture.
Actually, it's only validated what we see in scripture.
There's other cases of this.
Years ago there was, you know, there's people in the Bible called
the Hittites.
And for many years people questioned the Bible because they
said that there was no way that the Hittites ever existed, because
there's no proof that the Hittites existed.
Well, later on they had some archaeological digs and they found
that the Hittites existed.
So again, we don't need the archeological digs and finds to validate
it because we believe by faith we don't have to see.
We believe that this is the word of God.
But again, it just strengthens the argument of all the things that
we see here in scripture that these were real people dealing with
real issues at a real time, long time ago.
But ultimately we can see that all pointing to the truth of the
word of God.
And so I just thought that that was super interesting to look
at when it came to the story there of Mount Ebal and, and the
curses.
And so I. I think that one of the lessons that we can take with
us, along with some of the ones that we've already talked about,
would be essentially this.
We.
We need to take time, as we do on Sunday nights, for testimonies.
But, but the testimony should be.
Should be focused on what God has done for us in the past.
And, and then we look at what God has done for us in the past or
what he's doing for us in the present.
And we extrapolate that out to say this.
If God has been faithful to us before and he's being faithful us
now, he's going to be faithful for, for us tomorrow and the next
day and for our children and for our grandchildren.
And, and I think that so many times we're tempted to doubt whether
or not God is going to be there with us through the struggles
because of our human nature, because of our shortsighted mindset.
And so in Joshua, chapter eight, we see that it's really a
story of victory.
We, we really see it as a story of worship.
We see it as a story of being a. Reminding them of the law of God.
And we need to be reminded of the law of God, even though we don't
live by the law of God, we need to be reminded of the word of
God so that we can understand what God wants for us and so that
we can live in obedience to him.
So the end of Joshua 8 just ties that all together.
And I find that so, so interesting.
Well, we're going to Joshua chapter nine.
We have a few more minutes here.
We're going to kind of get launched off here and we're going
to look at a little bit of Joshua chapter 9.
Joshua is one of the longer books of, of the Bible.
And we're going to try to go through this book as quickly as we
possibly can.
But at the same time, we do want to give it its due diligence
as we're studying it out.
And so anytime we get to one of these strange times, I don't want
to stop and just leave off.
I want us to kind of jump into chapter A9 there.
So in Joshua chapter 9, we see the story go on a little bit further.
Joshua and the nation of Israel just come off of this huge
victory.
They come off of this time of worship.
They come off of being reminded of the power of God and
the presence of God.
And so now what we're going to see is that there's going to be a
more conflict that comes.
And that's how it always goes.
By the way, sometimes when we have victories in our life, I do
think this is a point to, to note, and we see this in scripture,
and I think we've all kind of experienced this probably in our
own lives as well, is that sometimes at the, behind the back
of a spiritual victory comes the next spiritual challenge.
Sometimes we wish we could just coast and, and rest in that
spiritual victory.
I know there's been times in my life that we've had these really
wonderful spiritual high events and we're all excited, but
that's, that's the time when sometimes Satan comes in and attacks.
And that's what we can see happening here.
So Joshua chapter nine says, and it came to pass when all the
kings which were on this side of Jordan, in the hills and in the
valleys and all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon,
the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the parasites
and the Hivites and the Jebusite heard thereof, that they
gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua and with the
nation of Israel with one accord.
So what happens?
Well, there's victory, there's success, there's the power of God,
there's the blessings of God, and ultimately they're worshiping
and there's this great unity within the midst of the Israelites.
But guess what?
Just as much as there's unity on the side of the Israelites, now
there's coming a seeming unity with evil against the Israelites.
And we know that throughout history that there have been individuals
who hate the people of God, not because they hate the people
of God, but because they hate God.
And that's essentially what Jesus tells us.
He says, they're going to hate you because they hate me.
And that's the reality of things.
Anytime we're living in a spiritual victory, anytime we see
something happening for the good of the Lord, there's going to
be those that are not on the side of the Lord that come against
that.
And that's exactly what happens here in chapter nine.
They hear of it, the testimony rings out.
And I think that's another lesson for us to also take as a lesson
in our own lives is because know, sometimes I think that we live
so insulated lives that nobody around us even knows about the power
of God.
I mean, I, I.
It hurts my heart every single time.
And it's not any of our faults.
I think it's just in general the way that our world is today.
But it hurts my heart all the time when people are like, well,
where's your church at?
I've never heard of it.
And, you know, I, I mean, I, I know that Middletown is growing.
I understand that.
But it's.
We're not living in, in a metropolis here.
Okay.
All right.
We're still relatively small in comparison to some other cities
in this world.
It's my heart, and I think it's probably all of our hearts.
And I know it's God's plan that we would, we would be a testimony,
we would be a lighthouse to our community that people, whether
they agreed with us or not, would know what Middletown Baptist
is for, what Middletown Baptist is doing.
And, and we see here that all these people, the Hittites, the Himrites,
the Canaanites, the parasites, all these ones that were in pagan
worship that were against God, they hear what's going on and they
gather together to fight against them.
Why are they fighting against them?
Because they're against good.
They're against what God has for them and, and the victory of
Israel and, and the spreading of good.
And obviously we see this in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Anytime God is doing something that counteracts what culture thinks
to be good, there's a pushback against it.
And that's going to happen today.
Anytime we as the church are living for good in this world, there's
going to be a pushback against us from evil.
And, and so just as much as we want people of our community to know
what we're about, there's blessings and difficulties with that.
The blessing would be that more people come to Jesus Christ.
The difficulty with that is that people that aren't for Jesus
are going to come against us.
You know, there's been a lot of people that have been very nice
to me in my life until I start telling them what I believe.
And maybe they're not as nice anymore.
Now, again, we're not, we're not hateful by what we believe, but
many times what we believe can be considered to be hateful for,
for many people in our culture.
So what I would say is this, be ready if we live boldly for Jesus,
and if we live boldly for the word of God, be expecting people
that come against us.
That's just the reality of it.
Every Christian, every person of God, from the Old Testament to
the New, when they stood up for good, faced opposition.
Okay, what we usually do in American Christianity is we say this.
Well, I don't want opposition, so I'm going to push it as far as
that line is.
And then from that line, I'm not going to cross over it because
I don't want persecution.
I don't want anyone to think badly of me.
I don't want to step on any toes.
But I would want to challenge all of us here this evening, challenge
myself, is that I think we should be crossing that line a lot
more.
I think we should be allowing ourselves to be bold in our witness
so that people who are against the things that we're for know that.
And essentially, not that we try, but essentially people would
be against us because of what we're for.
And so what we're going to see here is that's exactly what happens.
They come against the nation of Israel.
And so when the Canaanite kings hear how the Lord delivered
Jericho, which Jericho would have been a huge city at that time,
he.
He gave them Jericho and he gave them AI.
Now they have a reason to be afraid.
And they, they hear that this God of Israel.
Oh, and by the way, I didn't mention this to you guys about that,
that lead tablet that they found.
One of the really interesting things about that lead tablet is
the name Yahweh is on that tablet.
It's the first mentioned historical mention of the God of
Israel.
And a lot of times the, the skeptics would Say that they weren't
using that term until three, 400 years later after this.
And so that's the oldest known archaeological find when the name
Yahweh and actually Yahweh's on that tablet three times the God
of Israel and they say the word Yahweh on there.
So I just wanted to be clear about that as well.
I think that was kind of one point that I, I left out that I thought
was kind of neat about that, that tablet that they found.
But anyway, they come and what do they do?
It says they gather to fight against Joshua and Israel with one
accord.
And so this is a, a unified front against good.
They try to defeat Israel and they come head to head.
And so we're going to see how that works for them.
And so look at verse number three with me.
We're going to see this.
The Gibeonites approach Joshua and Israel in another way.
And this is essentially something that we're going to see
is because sometimes people are going to come us with a head
on attack, but other people are going to come at us from a different
angle.
And so the Gibeonites approach Joshua and they come in a way that's
deceitful.
And sometimes the way that the enemy hits us is he.
It's a straight on with straight up evil and we know that
it's coming.
But sometimes evil comes from another place that essentially looks
like it's not going to harm us, but it comes to us in a place
of deceit and ultimately evil.
Verse 3.
And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done
unto Jericho and to AI, they did work willily.
And that's essentially a way that we're seeing deceptful, deceitful
and, and, and they're going to come against him.
And, and then it goes farther here and it says this and went and
made as it if they had been ambassadors and took old sacks upon
their asses and wine bottles old and rent and bound up and old
shoes and clouded upon their feet, old garments upon them and
all the bread of their provisions and was dry and moldy.
And so we see that they come in a way that is deceitful.
We see that they're coming in a way.
Essentially the Gibeonites are trying to deceive Israel into making
a peace treaty with them.
And, and we know that Israel is forbidden to make peace treaties
with any of the tribes of Canaan.
That's told to us in Exodus chapter 23.
So remember God said don't make any treaties with, with anybody
in the land of Canaan.
Don't do that because that's going to allow you to leak in the
pagan ways into your culture.
And that's not what we want.
That's not what God wants.
And so they, they have these different methods of deception that
they use.
They, they were as it says there that will be is crafty basically,
or clever.
They misrepresent themselves.
They, they pretend as it says, they made as if they had been ambassadors.
So they come with deceit, they come with being, pretending to be
these ambassadors.
And they even gave a false evidence which essentially they,
you see that they, they put on a costume.
They, they, they, they put these clothes on that they pretended
to be old garments and they acted like they were in need and
they pretended like they were from a far away land beyond their
appearance.
They, they lied straight up.
They, they said that we're coming from far away land, verse
six.
And they went to Joshua into the camp of Gilgal and said unto
him, and to the men of Israel we become from a far country now,
therefore make ye a league with us.
So they take a few different steps and, and I don't want to dig
too deep into this here this evening for the sake of time, but
what I will say is this.
Sometimes evil comes through the front door and it wears evil
and it says, we're evil, we're bad, we're coming after you, we're
attacking you.
Sometimes evil comes from a different direction.
They, they package themselves in a way that seems to be less threatening.
That's what these people are trying to do.
The Gibeonites are trying to come in and not be threatening.
They said, hey look, we're going to try to deceive them into
coming and joining us.
And essentially instead of fighting against them, they wanted
to deceive them.
And what, what I want to warn you about here in according to Scripture,
that what we see is that sometimes Satan in his evil ways
he can masquerade in a way that seems attractive to the people
of God.
And so it's easy for us to delineate a false teacher.
The false teacher comes in immediately and starts talking about
things that are openly against the word of God.
But what happens is that sometimes Satan twists the word of
God and sometimes there's deception in ways that we don't understand.
And that's what we're going to see.
Israel coming into Israel is going to come into a place where
they have to fight against deception.
And so Joshua and the leaders of Israel are, are going to be deceived
here.
And we don't have time to get into how they fall into that.
But what I want to essentially tell you and warn you about here
before we go here this evening is be so careful about people coming
in in a way that seems to be good, that, that, that seems to be
non invasive.
That seems to be in a place where, hey, maybe they're good people,
maybe they want what's best.
What I would say really clearly is this.
Make sure we go back to the word of God and match what, what
people are saying to the word of God, match what people are saying
to what God's plan is for a Christian.
So if someone says, hey, I'm a Christian, just because someone says
they're a Christian does not mean that they're a Christian.
I, I know that that sometimes is hard for us to scramble up in
our brains and think like, well, if they're saying they're a
Christian, they have to be a Christian.
Sometimes, number one, people are confused.
They think that they're Christians and they're not.
You know, if I'm asking someone if they're a Christian, that
means different things to different people.
Sometimes people just think, well, I'm not a Muslim, I'm not Hindu,
so I must be Christian, right?
By default, I'm Christian, I live in America, I'm Christian.
That doesn't mean that someone is a believer.
So there's some people that are just, they're confused themselves
and they might lead us astray.
There might be some people that know that they're not Christians,
but they understand that being perceived as a Christian might help
their cause, right?
It actually might benefit them materially.
It might give them power, it might give them control.
And we see that happen all the time, different cult leaders and
different folks to, to that degree.
So we have to be so careful for deception.
And so what we see in verse seven, and the men of Israel said
unto the Hivites per venture, ye dwell among us, and how shall
we make a league with you?
And so they start, essentially, this is what happens
instead of just saying no, God says, we're not making a league with
anybody.
We need to be.
We, we have no compromise, no discussion, no, no entertaining the
enemy.
Instead they, they ask questions and, and they're interested
and they want to know more.
And, and they will go on verse eight.
And they said unto Joshua, we are thy servants.
And Joshua said unto them, who are ye and from what whence come
ye?
And they said unto him, from a very far country, thy servants are
come because of the Name of the Lord thy God, for we have heard
the fame of him and all that he did in Egypt.
So do we see what they did here?
They.
They essentially, they claim to be believers in the one true God,
even though they're not.
So we know that in other passages of scripture, we talked
about this this past week.
On Wednesday night, even in Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verses
3 and 4, Paul says, Beware that someone comes and preaches a
different Jesus.
Beware of accepting a different spirit, and beware of a
different gospel preached to you.
And so, as a church family, my goal is to equip you with the truths
of God's word so that we're not deceived by the world.
These, these folks here, the Gibeonites, are coming, and they
deceive the nation of Israel because of their lies and because
of a lack of discernment.
And so next week, we're going to talk more about how we can be
discerning when it comes to those folks who might be trying to
deceive us and to do things that God does not want us to do.
God did not want them to have a league or a treaty or any type
of friendship with those people there in the land of Canaan.
But because of deception, the Israelites compromised themselves.
And that's what God does not want us to do.
God does not want us to join in with the enemy here in this world.
The Bible says that we're in the world, but we're not of the world.
We cannot love the world.
We cannot want to be part of the world.
We don't want to be part of the world.
We want.
We don't want to join into that.
That's all in first John.
And so what.
What I would challenge us to think about here is that what areas
of our life are we allowing ourselves to be open to deception?
Now, some of us might not know that we're being deceived.
That's the trick of it, right?
Some of us might be saying, I think I'm completely fine.
I. I'm not being deceived, right?
The average person that's being deceived doesn't know that
they're deceived until it's too late.
And so that's what we have to be careful of.
We have to be on guard.
And the Bible actually gives us some tools to how to be on guard.
Remember what he says in, in Ephesians, Ephesians, chapter six,
he says, arm yourself, put.
Put on the armor of God.
Why?
That you may be Able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
The wiles just means the.
The deceit, the lies, the trickery.
And so the Bible.
Actually, we're going to talk about this next week, but you ready?
If you want to prep yourself, read through Ephesians chapter six
and Joshua, chapter nine, because we're going to partner the
two together.
Because a lot of times we think of the armor of God to be set
up for, like an atheist coming after our church and, you know, saying
all these bad things.
And that could be the case, but sometimes the armor of God needs
to be on for deception when it comes to the things of this world.
Maybe people claiming to say that they love God.
Oh, we love the same God that you love, but if you look at their
life, it doesn't match up.
And we have to be very careful about that.
And so we have to be on guard for the Gibeon Heights of this world.
And so what I would tell you is be on guard.
Be aware.
When I.
When I played football, I'll leave with the story.
Some of you that don't know anything about football, this won't
mean anything for you.
This probably would have been more appropriate to say last week
was super bowl week.
But when I played football, our coach, we had what.
We had a lot of coaches.
We had this small Christian school, but for some reason, like,
people came out of the woodwork to coach football.
We had, like, 20 coaches on our team.
I guess everyone liked football.
These guys wanted to relive their glory days.
And we had one coach.
I was always like, he always said this one thing, and I never
knew what he meant at first.
He was like, keep your head on a swivel.
Keep your head on a swivel.
I'm like, what does that mean?
And what he was trying to say is, like, always be looking around
you.
Like, don't keep your.
Like, don't be just focused on one thing.
And so I. I was like, oh, yeah, I know what.
I know what he's talking about.
Like, I. I know where I'm at on the field, and I know what's going
on.
And I was probably like, in my 9th or 10th grade year, I was on
defense, and defense is the one that's trying to, like, tackle
somebody so you're not with the ball.
And I was running.
This guy had the ball and he was running, and I'm like, I got
him.
I'm gonna tackle him.
As I was going after him, well, I was so focused on the guy
who had the ball that I was not focused on the guy that was running
at me full speed to block me from.
That guy had the ball.
My head wasn't on a swivel.
My head was locked in on that one area, and I didn't even know
it was coming.
It just hit me.
And I thought I had gotten hit by a truck, knocked me down.
I didn't know where I was.
I was all dizzy.
And the moral of the story was, is I was so focused on one element
in front of me.
I was so narrowly focused that I was not aware for the enemy that
was around me.
And that's sometimes what happens with us as Christians.
We're so locked into one area, we're like, okay, they better not
come in and do this.
And we're not careful enough to see that there's someone that's
coming on from this side.
And that's what happens with the Israelites.
They're so focused on the people that are coming on right away
with their swords drawn.
And the people can come into the camp that are not.
They're not as.
They're maybe not as violent as those other people, but they're
just as dangerous when they come in.
And so let's.
Let's be warned about that and be aware not to compromise with our
families.
You know, I'll say it.
There are some things that we would never allow our families to,
like, watch or be around, but we're not careful enough to say,
okay, look, that's not something that we're going to be
entertained by.
And sometimes we're entertained by things that we would
never allow our family to go do in person, but we're entertained
by it because the world tells us that that's entertainment.
And, and so what I would caution you with as, As a church
family and as an individual and as a Christian is, is what are
we allowing ourselves to take into our eye gates and our ear gates?
And what do we enjoy?
What entertains us?
What are we allowing the people that we love to be entertained
by?
Because if we're not careful, the ways of the world will seep in.
And we think that.
We think that that's not going to change me.
That's not going to harm me.
I can.
I can differentiate the two, but what I would say is that we have
to just be so cautious about the things that we're taking into
our life and that we're accepting and that we're celebrating
and that essentially, by the way, biblically defining it, we worship.
We sometimes.
We don't think that it's worship, but what we spend time on
and what we love and what we elevate and what we promote is essentially
what we're worshiping.
And so let's be careful that we're not like, because sometimes
we get, I, I get upset with the Israelites.
I'm like, how on earth can you be taken out of Egypt and cross over
the Red Sea and see God's hand working and Moses goes up on Mount
Sinai and then they get lost and they build a cow and golden calf
and like, what?
What are they doing?
Like, I don't understand that.
I get so frustrated with the Israelites because I'm like, how
can you not see that?
But then, you know what?
If there was someone writing a story about us, they would be saying
the same thing.
How can you not see the power of God?
How are you so attached to this idol?
And so we, as the church, have fallen into the traps.
Maybe we don't build a golden calf, maybe, maybe we don't have
some type of idol that we build with our hands, but we allow
the things of this world to become idols for us.
And so that's something else that we're going to have to wrestle
with as well when we go through the rest of the story of
the Book of Joshua.
Well, we're at the end of the hour.
I'm going to end that.
If you're interested to know more about that, that lead tablet,
some of you may be archeological buffs and you want
to know more about that tablet, I can share with you the
link and you can read more about that tablet.
It's kind of an interesting study.
Again, archeological things don't give us faith, but they're
certainly interesting things if you're interested in that kind
of stuff.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podc.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro, middletownbaptistChurch.com
if you've enjoyed this podcast.
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Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.