And please stand with me if you're able to in honor of God's word. I'm going to be skipping around for our reading here in chapter 9, verse 1. This is God's word. As soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country and in the great lowland all along the coast of the great sea toward Lebanon. He mentions these kings and city-states. Verse 2, they gathered together as one to fight against Joshua in Israel. Verse 3, but when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they on their part acted with cunning and went and made ready provisions and took worn-out sacks for their donkeys and wineskins and worn out and torn and mended with worn out patched sandals on their feet and worn out clothes and all their provisions were dry and crumbly. And they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, we have come from a distant country, so now make a covenant with us. But the men of Israel said to the Hivites, perhaps you live among us, then how can we make a covenant with you? They said to Joshua, we are your servants. And Joshua said to them, who are you and where do you come from? Look at verse 14. So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord. And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live. And the leaders of the congregation swore to them. Lord, this is a passage that is your word. A chapter that is all your inspired word. And while there are many lessons, I pray that you would help us to learn the lessons that you want us to learn. Help us to appreciate what you appreciate. Help us to love what you love. And help us to be people who are careful to seek counsel from You. Lord, would You bless Your people through the preaching of Your Word, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. I love what I get to do. I was even telling Alex Strauch this week, we were talking on the phone and I just said, I was in, what are you doing? He says, I'm in chapter nine of Joshua and I just, I love it because of the complexity of this chapter. You know, the saying, there's two sides to a story and that is very true when we come to Joshua chapter nine. There are two ways to view this story. It is like life, complex. And I love it for that reason. So we're gonna see a story that has two very different sides to it. This chapter, we're gonna see the deception of the Gibeonites, but also the salvation of the Gibeonites. And that's the title of this message, the Gibeonite Salvation. I'm a little bit envious of Rick Carmichael's title at the other site, Trick or Treaty. Wish I would have come up with that, but it is what it is. The Gibeonites' salvation. This section, this chapter really has three very basic simple points in terms of movements of the story. The deception, the failure of Israel, and then the consequences. Very, very easy outline for us. What I wanna do is move fairly quickly through the story, then come back and fill in some of the details. So the deception, verses one through 13, see that in the first few verses these neighboring city-states sort of band together they've obviously heard about what the Lord has done through the Israelites to Egypt they've heard about Jericho they've heard about AI maybe there's a little bit of confidence and a little bit of fear because they they heard about how just a few men of AI caused a defeat to the men to the army of Israel. In any case there's a confederacy that is made here and they decide to band together to come against Israel. I imagine these were not friendly city states but now they have a common goal to put Israel to death. Verse 2, they gathered together as one to fight against Joshua in Israel. Verse 3, but when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they acted with cunning. Now, what did they do? We read part of this. They made worn-out sacks. They had worn-out wineskins they had worn out sandals they had stale bread and they masquerade as a a group of long-distance travelers who are on the verge of starvation but they've heard about the one true God and they asked to be in a covenant with Israel in verse 8 Joshua says to them are they say to Joshua we are your servants and Joshua says who are you now let me pause right here Before Israel even came into the Promised Land, Moses told them how they were to treat these various kings and city-states they would encounter in the land. They must totally destroy the population in all these cities that would be near to any of Israel's future settlements. However, there was a clause in there that settlements or cities that were far off were to receive more merciful terms. Let me just read Deuteronomy 20, you don't need to turn there, but it says, when you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. So there is mercy available to these city-states. So these people claim to come from a very distant, far-off country. Why do they come? Verse 9, this is very important. They said to him, from a very distant country your servants have come because of the name of the Lord your God. For we have heard a report of him and all that he did in Egypt. Then they reiterate, we are your servants. Come now, make a covenant with us. A week and a half ago I was at CCU. get the privilege of speaking there maybe once or twice, once a semester and I had chapels on Tuesday and Thursday and I was able to jump into a class that Derek Zeller who attends here was teaching and he said, hey you and Mike Terpshire, why don't you come and just tell some stories from college. So we were telling, they were asking us different stories, we were telling stories and one came to mind was when a friend We're really into pranks in these days. And a friend came back, he was working for Freeway Ford, and he said his boss was about to throw away about $10,000 worth of banners. And he said, whoa, don't throw those away. I'll take them. And so he puts them in his truck, drives back to our dorm room, and says, guys, I have about $10,000 worth of banners for sale signs, markdown stickers. He says, tonight, 4 AM, we're going to wake up. We're going to turn this parking lot into a used car lot. So we did, 4 AM. We're on the tops of trees. We're hanging banners. We're covering up signs. We're marking down literally every car in the lot. And then we set our alarm a couple hours later and look outside and sure enough people are walking through and looking. In fact, Jim McCormick, the Vice President of Student Life is telling me, oh, their phones were ringing off the hook. people wondering if they could uh... purchase these cars there was another story though that that didn't end as favorably and and uh... our rules were we always wanted to be ethical and not cost the university any money or damage but we thought about overflowing the pond And so we had this elaborate plan, and we had about 15 people involved, and we had guys in neoprene suits, wetsuits, we had walkie-talkies, we had a whiteboard out. Everything was strategized, everything was planned. And the plan began to unfold perfectly. And everyone was lined up on hilltops, and everyone was on the lookout, and we were so proud of this plan. And finally, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a security guard shows up seemingly to know everything that we had planned and busts up the entire plot. People are hiding in the grass for a couple hours. Everyone comes back and retells the story with jubilation and excitement but dismayed that this happened. Well, a couple months pass and I was home for Thanksgiving. I had a couple college friends with me and we were retelling this story at the dinner table and one of my friends finally interrupts and says, that security guard was me. And we looked at him. My one friend was actually really mad. But we began to appreciate that we called it the great counter prank. of Operation Overflow. The feeling, I'll never forget it though, is a feeling of just utter deception. And that's a little bit what the Israelites, only in a more severe sense, are feeling here in just three days from the point of the story. We see the next point, the failure of Israel. Verse 14, here really is a major point. Verse 14 says, the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord. and verse 15, Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them and let them live. That's a key statement. And the leaders of the congregation swore to them. There's a bit of irony, I think, that here Israel tricked the city of Ai in chapter 8. Now they themselves are tricked in chapter 9. The prankers become the pranked, so to speak. But certainly one of the main points of this chapter is really verse 14. They did not ask counsel from the Lord. This was a major presumption. Their entire decision is based on sight, not faith. It's based on feelings, intuition, observation. It's a terrible way to make decisions. They don't seek the Lord and in verse 15 they make a covenant with the Gibeonites. Now let's look at the consequences starting in verse 16. Three days pass and we find some interesting news. Israel finds out that these people are their neighbors. They live among them, verse 16. but are they reach their cities but they can't attack them because they've made an oath with this group now the question that that comes up at least it comes up in my mind is why honor the oath I mean, they lie, they deceived us. We don't need to honor this. Verse 18 says, the people of Israel did not attack them because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel. Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders. So why honor this oath to begin with? This is a great example of, I think, something that is just so far off from our culture and context. It's particularly hard to grasp this. But an oath could not be broken. In short, Israel essentially swore to them by the Lord, the God of Israel. Those are the words used. I think this is similar a little bit to Genesis 27, where Jacob deceives his father into thinking that he's Esau. He pretends to be Esau. He dresses himself in fur. because Esau is that hairy. And Isaac unknowingly blesses Jacob. And we might be tempted to think, well, is it permanent? Can't Isaac take it back? I mean, is it that permanent? Well, it is. The oath in the covenant is actually tied to the faithfulness of God. So in the case of Jacob and Esau, just by way of illustration, the fact that Esau was willing to trivialize his birthright for a cup of soup shows his disregard. And even though Jacob didn't do it in the right way, he does display faith that he wants to be blessed by God. He wants the promise. So Joshua and the leaders really do the right thing and the honorable thing by sparing these people. But the people are mad. Verse 18, the congregation murmured against the leaders. They're mad because they wanna kill the Gibeonites, regardless of the treaty. But even though the leaders had failed to seek the Lord, even though they failed to seek the Lord about the Gibeonites, even though they trusted in their own intuition and judgment, they did not fail again by rejecting the covenant they just made. They did the right thing, I believe. So what now? The leaders proposed something in verse 20. This we will do to them, let them live. That's again an important phrase. Lest wrath be upon us because of the oath that we swore to them. So here's the proposal and let me just read this entire thing. Starting in verse 21, look in your Bibles. And the leader said to them, let them live. Third time in this chapter it's mentioned. So they became cutters of wood and drawers of water for all the congregation, just as the leaders had said of them. Joshua summoned them and said to them, Why did you deceive us, saying, We are very far from you when you dwell among us? Now, therefore, you are cursed, and some of you shall never be anything but servants, cutters of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God. They answered Joshua, because it was told to your servants for certain for certainty that the Lord your God commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you so we feared greatly for our lives because of you and did this thing and now behold verse 25 we're in your hand whatever seems good and right in your sight to do to us do it So he did this to them and delivered them out of the hand of the people of Israel, and they did not kill them. But Joshua made them that day cutters of wood and drawers of water for the congregation for the altar of the Lord, to this day in the place that he should choose." So now the Gibeonites are actually the servants of the Israelites. That's the story in a nutshell. But the question that just kept coming back in my mind that was wrestling with this week is what is the main point of this what what's the theological point of joshua chapter nine there's a number of minor points which i think are accurate and we're gonna look at those but i want to sort of lead up finally to the the main point i think of chapter nine but there are some observations that are important we can draw out of chapter nine the first one is this There's the lesson of faith, not sight. This is just fundamental for the people of God. Not only did they not seek the Lord, they based their decision on observation. They based their decision on their senses and their intuition. I can think of no better verse to counter this thinking than Proverbs 3, verse 5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Lean not on your own observation. Lean not on your own senses. Trust in the Lord, lean not on your own intuition. Trust the Lord. Believe what the Lord has said. Alan Redpath, the great British preacher, maybe overstates this a bit, but I'll read it nonetheless. Never, never, never trust your own judgment in anything. When common sense says that a course is right, lift your heart to God. For the path of faith and the path of blessing may be in a direction completely opposite to that which you call common sense. Be strong enough and brave enough to dare to stand and wait on God, for none of them that wait on Him shall ever be ashamed. That is the only way to outmatch the devil. Let me just give you a modern example of this, of walking by sight, not by faith. I think of the case today of morality. Today, morality is almost entirely based on preference and feeling. But again, feelings are a terrible way to make decisions. There's a story that I know I've told before, but Ravi Zacharias tells about a famous debate between two philosophers. One had a Christian worldview, Frederick Copleston, and the other was the famous British atheist, Bertrand Russell. And so he tells the story of this famous debate, and at one point in the debate, Copleston said, Mr. Russell, you believe in good and bad, don't you? And Russell said, yes, I do. How then do you differentiate between them, challenged Copleston. Russell shrugged his shoulders as he was wont to do in philosophical dead ends for him, and he said, the same way I differentiate between yellow and blue. Well, Copleston graciously responded and said, but Mr. Russell, you differentiate between yellow and blue by seeing, don't you? How then do you differentiate between good and bad? It's a good question. Russell, with all of his genius still intact, gave the most vapid answer he could have given. He said, on the basis of feeling, what else? And Zacharias says, now I must confess, Mr. Copleston was a kinder gentleman than many others. The appropriate logical kill for the moment would have been, Mr. Russell, in some cultures they love their neighbors, and in other cultures they eat them, both on the basis of feeling. Which do you prefer? And Ravi is making the point, and Copleston is making the point that if there's a moral law, there's a moral law giver. He makes a good point, sort of a sub-point, that the secular person, the atheist, ultimately makes up his or her morality on the basis of feeling or intuition. But that's a terrible way to make decisions. Might makes right is a horrible motto. Any criminal with a seared conscience would agree with making their decisions based on feeling and intuition. Sight, not by faith. Salvation is another example of this. It is by faith, not sight. We are people who walk by faith, not by sight. This is a huge lesson for the people of God. Will you believe, will we believe what God has said, or will we believe what we feel, what we sense? I mean, if God says that if we confess our sins and he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, will we believe that by faith or say, I don't really feel that verse? That doesn't, intuitively, I don't feel that. Well, the whole weight of the scripture says, don't trust your feelings. Trust God. Trust His word. Cast yourself upon that, even if it doesn't feel right. We walk by faith, not by sight. The Israelites walked by sight, and it cost them, which leads to the next point, the lesson of living with the consequences of sin. This is not the main point of Joshua 9, but it is an important point to draw out. Israel sinned by not seeking the counsel of the Lord. And as a result, they were forced to live with the consequences. Now they're to absorb this new group, defend this new group. And again, this is not the main lesson, but it's practical. There may be times and seasons in life where you have to live with the consequences of your decisions, consequences of sin. The leaders of the Israelites proved to be a good model here. Even though they failed to seek the Lord's wisdom, they ended up doing the right thing, I believe. Sometimes we have to live with the consequences of our folly. And again, I think this is true of all of us. On Friday of last week, I was en route, I was at DIA on my way to Toronto to speak at a church out there. And I get to the airport and I'm there, everything's going great, and I go to the kiosk. I did not print out my boarding pass the night before, but I get there and I'm standing before the kiosk filling out my information and, you know, TOR and add my information. And then it asks me a question that makes my heart utterly sink. Please enter your passport number. And I thought to myself, oh, no. oh, that's right, I'm leaving the country, you know. And so I, in a panic, I just am shell-shocked, thinking my flight leaves in about an hour and a half, and I go to the lady working at the kiosk, excuse me, ma'am, I forgot my passport, I'm going to Canada, are there any loopholes? And she just looks at me with just pity, you know. Nope. So I call my sweet wife and say, it's 6.30 in the morning. Thankfully, she answers the phone. I would love to get a replay of this conversation, but I said, sweetheart, I need you to go upstairs and see if my passport is where it's at. Calls me back. It's there. I need you to grab the kids, I need you to put them in the car, and I need you to get to DIA as fast as you possibly can without getting a ticket. And so she does, and they tell me, well, the flight, it's an international flight, it leaves about 45 minutes before, or the flight closes about 45 minutes before takeoff. So I'm just doing the math. She tells me, all right, 7.35 is the cutoff time. So I say to Lenalee, you've got 45 minutes. That's about how far it is from our house. Well, then I'm just doing the math. I'm sitting there waiting. And I'm thinking, well, 45 minutes is not 735. It's 720. She's off by 10 minutes. And I say, I don't want to challenge you, but is this right? And she says, oh, yeah, you're right. You have 10 minutes less. So I call back Lonalee. And I just say, sweetheart, just slow down. It's too late. I'm an idiot. I'm so sorry. And I said, where are you at? She said, well, I'm at Pena Boulevard. And I said, well, let me think of this here. Boy, it's not a matter of minutes, it's a matter of seconds. If you keep going, you might be able to get here. So she comes and windows are down. And I say, I'm not going to even say hi. I'm just going to grab the passport. I'm going to run in. So that's what happens. The windows are down. Kids are waving, hey, daddy. Grab it, hey. Like Demarius Thomas to the lady. And so I get there, hand it to her, and she quickly types it in. And I kid you not, less than 120 seconds to spare. Praise God, the Lord saved me. Less than two minutes before the cutoff. But you know, sometimes the Lord saves us from the consequences of our own foolishness. But on a serious note, sometimes we have to, and oftentimes we have to live with the consequences of our poor decisions. Let me give you an example that I think for just sake of ease will resonate with many people. Let's use the example of marriage. The Lord doesn't spell out explicitly who we should marry and who we should not marry. but he gives us clear biblical principles. We don't have a connect the dot theology. I don't think that's right. God gives us principles and boundaries and we need to abide by those principles and boundaries. Add to that, God gives us wisdom. So while it may not be wrong to marry this person or that person, it may not necessarily be wise. To use our example, let's say you have a person who makes an unwise decision in regards to marriage or a sinful decision. It was obviously sinful. He or she will have to live with the consequences of those decisions. They need to figure out, Lord, how can I honor you in this situation? Just like the leaders of the Israelites did. unbiblical or even sinful thinking would say, you know what, I married the wrong person, but now I found someone who is a wiser decision, so I feel the liberty to now divorce my spouse and marry this person. That kind of thinking is not biblical. That kind of thinking is not from God. The right thing to do after you've made what could be a foolish decision or even a sinful decision is to seek the Lord and say, Lord, what would you have me do? How can I honor you and glorify you in this situation? This is my lot in life, not in an Eeyore sense. This is my lot. But Lord, how can I honor you? Trust you in these things. Lord, help me to honor you in this situation. There's always a right way and a wrong way to proceed, whatever situation we're in. So bottom line is that oftentimes the right thing to do is to learn to live in the midst of difficult situations. Life is full of weird things, strange twists and turns we never saw coming. How do we live in the midst of them? And maybe, by the way, like the masses of Israel, it's because of a foolish decision by the leaders, or by a leader, or by a husband. Maybe you're living in the aftermath of someone else's poor decisions. That's common too. Life is full of dealing with consequences. The question is, and always will be, how can we honor the Lord in the midst of it? There's another lesson here, and it's the lesson of prayer, seeking the Lord's will. The words of Johnny Cash might be helpful here. I talk to Jesus every day, and he's interested in everything I say. No secretary ever tells me he's been called away. I talk to Jesus every day. if only the Israelites had done that. We need to seek Him first, always and for everything. Lord, what is your will in this situation? Constantly seeking the Lord, casting all your cares upon Him. What is the mind of Christ in this situation? The lesson honestly is pretty straightforward. We should never become so confident in our own intelligence that we fail to seek guidance from the Lord. We should never be so confident in our own intelligence that we fail to see guidance from the Lord. That was a huge failure of Israel here. We are to be people of prayer, people who seek God's counsel. It's a great lesson for leaders too. Leaders are to be people of prayer. Elders are to be people of prayer. Let me give an example of this. Not happening. It's not uncommon for churches to in a desire to have growth, church growth, they'll bring in consultants to get their thoughts on how to grow the church. And a lot of times, honestly, these consultants quite possibly know very little about the Bible, know very little about what God's Word says, but they know how to get people in the doors. And so the consultants might come along and say, well, you need to stop singing hymns, you need to get rid of pews, you need to, you know, don't teach verse by verse through the Bible, have more friendly... fill in the blank. There's a church that within the last year or so hired consultants and they said to the elders, alright, here's the plan. They hired $80,000 they gave to the consultants. Here's the plan, don't tell anybody, don't even tell your spouse. They put all these kind of banners in the church so when the people came in on Sunday morning they saw a totally new vision, totally new direction, And contrary to what the consultants thought, the people revolted. People of this church said, no way, we don't like this. And the elders later confessed, you know, we didn't really seek the Lord in these matters. The right thing to do would have been to say, what does God say about church growth? What's our responsibility? What do we need to do? Even if we lose people, we want to do the right thing. We want to honor Him and seek Him. the leader's job the the elders job the husband's job the father's job really the responsibility of every christian is to seek the lord's will first now there's a story as it relates to uh... our own detour of building when this building was built this is kind of interesting the elders were deciding what kind of chairs to have in here in the sanctuary and the elders I think almost all thought that having removable chairs would be the right thing to do you could use it as a multi-purpose room etc well one elder said you know what we really ought to get the congregations feedback on this and see so on a Sunday morning they had something like this, if I'm remembering this correctly, but maybe half pews, half chairs. And the people almost unanimously said, we want the pews. But that was a great example of making a decision that almost nobody would have liked except the leaders. Seeking the counsel of the people is a wise thing to do. Being praying men. Again, back to the elders. I want you to know that our elders are men of prayer. And I say this not in a boastful way, but just a way for you to know. Every Wednesday morning, the elders of this church come together every Wednesday evening and pray. Pray for the needs of the church. Pray for the various LBC groups. Pray for evangelistic studies that you're hosting. Pray for our youth by name. pray for our missionaries, pray for their needs, pray for new leaders, new helpers, we pray for the sermon, we pray for local evangelism, the Lord would open doors, we pray for our church plant, the Torah, the Lord would meet our needs, and it goes without saying the elders are not perfect men, which is why we need to pray, we make mistakes, but we seek the Lord, and your elders are men of prayer, Hasty decisions are almost never good decisions. Even a story of a woman who divorced her husband very quickly, really in haste. And she confided later that she regretted divorcing her husband. She said it was an emotional decision. It was hasty and he ended up remarrying. now she's got to live with the consequences of all that we could go on and on but it's a very important lesson to seek the Lord's will what is the Lord want here what would he have me do this final point however I think is the most important it's a lesson of the whiteness of God's mercy let's just talk about the Gibeonites for a little bit you've gotta love the Gibeonites gotta respect them seriously nobody wants to die And they believe enough of what they've heard about Israel and her God to go and try to be saved. I mean, who's to say we wouldn't have done the exact same thing? They didn't want to be annihilated. So they come up with a rather ingenious plan of saving their next. Think about it. Verse 1 and 2 tell us that there's a band of kings forming a confederacy against Israel. The culture is rising up against Israel. But the Gibeonites, in opposition to their culture, come over to the side of Israel. Did they do the right thing in the right way? Maybe not. But don't miss what they did. They're siding with Israel. And God's mercy accepts them and engulfs them. I think this is the main theological point of Joshua chapter 9. Put it like this, Rahab is sort of the microcosm and the Gibeonites are the macrocosm. Rahab casts herself upon the promises of God even if she lies in the process. The Gibeonites cast themselves upon the promises of God even if they lie in the process. Of course, the point is not you can lie and get away with it. but what they're doing is they're displaying in their own way a trust in the promises of God. The Lord delights in saving people, and this is a major theme in Joshua. Let me just read you a few verses from Joshua. You don't need to turn there unless you're really, really quick. Chapter two, verse 12, Rahab says, swear to me by the Lord that you will save alive my family. And she lists her parents, her siblings. Chapter 6, verse 17, the story of Jericho. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live. Chapter 6, verse 25, Rahab the prostitute and her father's household, all that she had did Joshua save alive. Chapter 9, our own chapter, Joshua let them live, verse 20, this we will do to them and let them live. Verse 15, verse 20, verse 21, and the princess said to them, let them live. Chapter 14, verse 10, Caleb said, and now behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as he promised. Chapter 20, the cities of refuge, if you accidentally kill someone, you can go flee to the city so that he might not die. You know, there is a severity to the judgment and holiness of God, but there's also a wideness to his mercy. Mercy is a theme, a major theme in Joshua. Again, I want to compare Rahab and the Gibeonites. Both Jericho and Gibeon were equal under God's ban. They were to be destroyed. They were to receive God's judgment. And yet, at Jericho, an exception is made in the case of Rahab and her family. And the same at Gibeon. The whole city and all its inhabitants were saved from judgment. that was passed in all the nearby cities. Now why did Israel save Rahab? I think the answer to that question is the answer to chapter 9. Rahab, if I can remind you, is a major theme in Joshua. I mean, the very first story right after God commissions Joshua, chapter 2, is Rahab. And then in the story of Jericho, we might, you know, think of chapter 6 as the story of Jericho, but, like, half of the chapter has to do with Rahab. It's a major, major theme. Why was Rahab spared? You might say, well, I think it was the same way that the Gibeonites were saved. And you might say, well, yeah, Israel saved the Gibeonites. But no, and this is just conjecture, but I think they were saved before they even reached Joshua and the people. Their works proved them to be believers. They heard about the Lord and they responded by joining sides with Israel. In fact, the Gibeonites are also like Rahab in that they make an oath. Rahab says, promise me this. The Gibeonites do the exact same thing. In the words of David Gooding, and I wanna just read his entire quotation, it would have been very difficult for the spies to say, yes, you were very loyal to us when the police came just now, and you saved our lives at the risk of your own, and we are grateful to you for providing us with a rope to escape with through your window and down the wall, but sorry, when we come back, we shall kill you nonetheless. Our religion says we must, we cannot show loyalty to you. But the spies had another even more powerful reason for swearing an oath in God's name that they would save her and her family alive. Rahab, they found, was a converted woman. But someone may raise the objection and say, look, even on their own confession, they say that they're doing this out of fear for their lives, not out of true repentance. Well, maybe that's true. But many people have been saved in the exact same way. Many people out of fear of final judgment have casted themselves upon Christ for mercy. Was their repentance genuine? Are there better motivations? Sure. And as we grow and learn more about the glory of Christ, we see how good and right it is to come to Christ. But coming to Christ merely to not face judgment is not a bad thing. Just a couple days ago, right before my daughter left for school, she asked me a few questions about Halloween, and it was early in the morning, but it was something about demons, and I said, no, sweetie, we don't worship demons, we worship the one true God. I think Halloween was the context. Well, about five minutes later, she came running up to me, I was in the hallway, and she said with tears in her eyes, it was kind of unusual, early morning, but she says, Daddy, I don't want to go to hell. Now, I didn't say to her, well, that's a foolish motivation to come to Christ. I said, no, good. I'm glad you don't want to go to hell. I don't want you to go to hell. Jesus doesn't want you to go to hell. His judgment is real and it's severe, but you don't have to. You can trust in Christ. Are there better motivations to follow Christ? Sure. But not going to hell is not a bad motivation. Not receiving judgment is not a bad motivation. So the Gibeonites, like Rahab, proved themselves, I think, to be believers in Yahweh. Listen to these statements, to use their own words. We are your servants, verse 8. We are your servants, verse 11. In chapter 10, we'll look at this next week, but when the Gibeonites, when other nations heard about the Gibeonites, chapter 10, verse 1, they heard that the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were among them. That's an interesting way to put it. God apparently didn't view their trickery as hypocrisy. I think that's a major point. God apparently views the Gibeonites as part of the redeemed now. He even defends them. Listen to what ultimately happens to the Gibeonites. This is fascinating. Joshua says that they're to carry water and wood. For what? For the sacrifices. for the worship of the one true God. Their new job was to be near the altar of the Lord, the presence of God. Think about this, they could not have been more far off. And now they could not possibly be more near to God. They could not have been in a more precarious situation. They were about to be annihilated, but now they could not be closer to the presence of God. It was a penalty in some way, but it was a promotion in many other ways. They were ushered into a situation where they were to be in the presence of God. Amazing, and learn of His ways. For centuries, the Gibeonites would serve the Lord and the people of Israel. There's never a record in the Bible that they ever introduced any corrupt religious practices to Israel, which of course you'd think would be the natural thing that would happen. Later, when the land gets divided, Gibeon was given to the line of Aaron. The town became Gibeon, a special place where God was known throughout the Old Testament. Fast forward about 400 years and David puts the tabernacle in Gibeon. The priests were in Gibeon. One of David's mighty men was a Gibeonite. Solomon made burnt offerings at Gibeon. God spoke to Solomon at Gibeon. Hundreds of years later, the Gibeonites would help Nehemiah rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. The Gibeonites. In fact, at one time during the reign of Saul, the Lord defends the Gibeonites from Israel. Saul wanted to put the Gibeonites to death. The Lord punishes Israel with a three-year famine. This is amazing. 2 Samuel 21 says, Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year, and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, There is blood guilt on Saul and on his house because he put the Gibeonites to death. Amazing. The Lord had saved the Gibeonites. Welcomed them. Such is the wideness of His mercy. You know, there's no question God is holy. There is no question He's righteous. He will judge the nations. But His mercy is extremely wide. And it's available for anyone. Anyone. There's an old hymn. It's called The Wideness of God's Mercy. There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea. There's a kindness in His justice which is more than liberty. There's a welcome for the sinner and more graces for the good. There is mercy with the Savior. There's healing in His blood. You still need to come to God on His terms, but you can still come. Whosoever wills can come. Like Rahab, like the Gibeonites, redemption is available for anyone willing to break with the confederacy of this world. So come to Him. Truly, your only hope is to cast yourself upon Him. Fear of judgment is not a bad thing, it means you're in touch with reality. Cast yourself upon Christ. Outsiders can be insiders. Come to Christ. It's available, His mercy, forgiveness is available for all. Praise God. Please stand with me as we close. Lord, we thank you very much that there's a wideness to your mercy. that even Gentiles far, far off with no knowledge of you, strangers to you, can actually be part of the elect, part of the redeemed, part of your children, part of your house, part of your family. Brothers and sisters in the family of God, amazing. Help us not to treat this theological reality with contempt. Help us to glory in this truth. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.