Our text for this morning is found in the portion of God's Word that we read together from Joshua chapter 9. We may take verses 14 and 15 to concentrate our thoughts on because they sum up the main teaching in this chapter. And the men took of their victuals and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord, And Joshua made peace with them and made a league with them to let them live. And the princes of the congregation swear unto them. The whole chapter hinges on that second part of verse 14, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord. these words in their context and as the spirit of God, we'd be pleased to help us in our meditation this morning. The title we give our sermon is quite simply a warning of neglecting prayer. They asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord and got themselves into a predicament. A warning to us all. of the dangers of neglecting prayer. We know, of course, that the Holy Spirit of God is the author of Scripture that is inerrant, that is inspired, that is perfect in its detail, but the Holy Spirit of God has also directed the structure of Scripture, the way that the redemptive narrative is recorded for us. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, so there are no incidental events, and the order in which they are placed is not incidental either. So the when this incident took place, this rather strange incident with the Gibeonites, is also as informative to us as the what the incident is about. When did it take place? Well, if you remember from chapter eight last week, it follows after several great encouragements have come from the hand of God. They have just enjoyed a very easy conquest of AI. They have been blessed with spoils and provisions that the law permitted them to take from Ai. They enjoyed a wonderful act of public worship where there was covenant rededication and submission to the law between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. They had known God's blessings. They had known God's presence. They had known God's provision. Everything was going really well. So this chapter is here placed to warn us all that when things are going well, when the Lord is blessing us, not to neglect our prayer lives, not to neglect the public means of grace. not to neglect the gathering of ourselves together to worship and to pray. This chapter is placed here to warn us against letting our guard down. Our enemies are fierce, enemies outwith, but the greatest enemy, in my opinion, for the church today is a lack of commitment from God's people. Very easy. not to be in your place on the Lord's day and on the weekday. Self-reliance, self-dependence, thinking that you can do without God, without praying, is the Christian's greatest enemy. A warning of neglecting prayer. Paul reminds us forcibly, Let him who thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." If any Christian thinks they can stand on their own, that's the moment they're about to fall into the pit. An old elder in Lewes, they used to have this debate and one man prayed that the Lord would keep him in the center of the road. And after the man prayed in fellowship, he said, you know this, he says, I pray that the Lord would keep me on the precipice. Because the nearer I am to the precipice, the more I depend on the Lord to keep me from falling off. When I'm in the middle of the road, I think I can manage myself. And he's got a point. When you think that you can handle your own life, is the moment that you're in the greatest danger. Because you know why? You'll drop your intensity in prayer. You'll slacken your fervency. You'll lose that total dependence upon God. You'll not ask counsel at the mouth of God. You'll either forget or you just won't do it because you think you know better yourself. It was when things were going well that they neglected prayer, maybe not deliberately. Maybe not intentionally, but instinctively, carelessly, casually, foolishly, and this led to these unnecessary circumstances, these awkward and strange circumstances taking place. So what does this teach us? It teaches us not to neglect prayer. Four things we see from this chapter. First of all, we see the deceit of God's enemies. And remember, God's enemies are the enemies of the Christian, the enemies of the church, the deceit of God's enemies. God's enemies have every trick in the book, every tactic they will use. We see two particular tactics recorded for us in this chapter. Firstly, in verses one and two, we see the six kings. of the heathen peoples in the land of Canaan. They've heard the intelligence reports. They know what's going on around them. They know that this mighty horde of Israelites, greatly blessed coming out of Egypt, are now invading Canaan and have destroyed Jericho. They've destroyed Ai. They've crossed the Jordan on dry land. And instead of surrendering, They think they can take them on. So they go on the attack. As we saw when we studied Psalm 2, they join together and plot against the Lord's people. They gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua with one accord. That's one tactic of the Lord's enemies. But these Gibeonites, which this chapter is chiefly concerned, they adopt another tactic. ingratiating deceitfulness. They devised this elaborate plan to fool Joshua, to fool the princes of the children of Israel into thinking that they are not indigenous peoples, that they're not neighbors in Canaan, that they've come from outside Canaan. They've traveled from a very far country. Verse 17 tells us that Gibeon was these four cities. to the West of AI. Children, if you ever look in your Bibles, the maps in the back of your Bibles, some of them will show you Gibeon and AI. Gibeon is just West of AI. So they were made up of four cities, an independent kingdom, we might say, collectively known as They disguise themselves to make it look as if they have come from outside the land of Canaan. That's because they've obviously got some knowledge. Now, while gross ignorance envelops our nation, we must remember that God's enemies have a certain amount of knowledge. And their deceitful actions reveal that they've got a head knowledge. They've got an intellectual knowledge. that no mercy was to be shown to the indigenous peoples of Canaan. They knew that God's command to his people was to destroy God's enemies, drive out the heathen. There's to be no alliances, there's to be no leagues, there's to be no peace treaties. But they knew, and you can check this for yourselves in Deuteronomy, I can't remember the chapter, but it's certainly in Deuteronomy, that God did permit peace treaties and alliances to be made with neighbors outwith Canaan if they surrendered prior to battle being engaged, but not for the peoples of Canaan. But their deceit also shows some religious knowledge. They've got head knowledge, and they also have some religious knowledge. It's in the head, but it's not in the heart. In verses nine and 10, they come with flattering words about the great name of the Lord thy God, the God of Israel. In other words, they're speaking nice things about the Israelites' God. Oh, we've heard wonderful things about God. We've heard he does marvelous works. We've heard that he does wonderful things for you, it's all third hand. It's impersonal, it's arm's length. They speak well of God and they speak well of his works. Now some commentators, if you study this for yourselves, some commentators are charitable. And they give these Gibeonites the benefit of the doubt that they are here in verse nine promising that they will become proselytes to the Lord thy God. Now, if I had a pound when I was doing door to door evangelism for everybody that said, Oh yes, we will come along to church. I'd be a very wealthy man. Very easy for people to say sweet words to your face, to say nice things about God. Genuine converts don't use lies. Enemies use lies. These Gibeonites are merely using a deceitful ruse to flatter, to ingratiate themselves, to charm Joshua and the princes and elders, not to look too deeply through their disguise. And this teaches us, firstly, never underestimate the enemy, particularly when they come with sweet words. Never underestimate the wiles of the devil. His first tactic was to charm Eve. We're told in Proverbs, a lying tongue hated those that are afflicted by it, and a flattering mouth worketh ruin. So strong are the wiles of the devil, and all his wily, deceitful ways that Paul tells us we need the whole armor of God to stand against the wiles of the devil. When the church's enemies, when Christ's enemies come and they seemingly say nice things and try to ingratiate themselves, we need to fall on our knees in prayer. That's when we need to ensure that we're not neglecting prayer. That's when we need to raise the guard. We need to raise the standard. Don't be fooled. Don't be lulled into a false sense of security with sweet words. Keep your radar sharp and fall on your knees in prayer. Because we see secondly, neglecting God's counsel. Firstly, the deceit of God's enemies. Secondly, neglecting God's counsel, the words of our text. Some of you might have been reading this and going, how did this happen? How did they not see through this disguise, this ruse of the Gibeonites? I wouldn't have fallen for this. Take heed lest you fall. It shouldn't have worked. It absolutely shouldn't have worked. So why did it? Quite simply, because Joshua and the princes of Israel failed to take the matter to God in prayer. Text tells us, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord. Neglect. They forgot God. all three of our Psalms, singing about the danger of not taking counsel of God. But humanly speaking, from a human perspective, their actions were quite laudable. From a spiritual perspective, they were deplorable. What do we mean by that? Well, verses seven and eight tell us that There was some level of suspicion. Peradventure ye dwell among us, how shall we make a league with you? So the princes know that they can't make a league with anyone who comes to them that dwell among them, near neighbors. And Joshua says, where is it? Where have you come from? Who are you? So it's not lack of questioning. They asked the right questions to establish who they were and where they come from. It's reiterated that it was forbidden to enter into leagues with the local indigenous people. So they weren't careless about asking the right questions or seeking to gather the right evidence. So this is commendable. But what's deplorable is their neglect in thinking that they, without God's help, could make the correct assessment of the information that they'd gleaned. You see, sin has rendered our faculties of decision-making defective. Our reasoning is defective. Our logic is defective. Our logic and reason, our minds don't work the way that we should. the way that they should. And they thought that they could come to the right conclusion without taking the matter to God in prayer. So their actions were sinful because they thought their defective analytical skills would lead them to the right decision rather than seeking define infallible direction in prayer. In other words, God left them alone to make the decisions themselves. What a fearful thing that is. Rather than them crying, help Lord, this is what we have. This is the circumstances that have been revealed to us. Show us thy will. Show us thy direction. Give us thy counsel. Direct us by thy counsel. And so they come to their own conclusion. As we said, every word of God is inspired. Note how verse 15 begins. And ask not counsel at the mouth of the Lord, and Joshua made peace with them. It's almost emphasizing, Joshua's all on his own here. He's not gone and asked the Lord, right, Joshua, you make peace with them. and see what the consequences of that are. Emphasizing self-reliance, the folly of self-reliance, rather than on seeking the spirit and mind of God. How would this council have been sought? Well, it would have normally been done through the high priest, who we believe was Eleazar at the time, by Urim and Thummim. You remember these? mysterious items that were kept in a pouch on the inside of the high priest's breastplate by which the Lord revealed his will to his people. So what Joshua should have done is he should have taken this to the high priest and the high priest would have sought God's mind through the Urim and Thummim. We don't know what these things were, but we know what they mean. Urim means light or illumination. Thummim means integrity or perfection. So when we read in the Old Testament, as we so often do, that prophets and kings and leaders have sought the Urim and Thummim, they are looking for the illumination, the perfect illumination from God. God's perfect judgment, God's perfect guidance. Sadly, we don't read of that here. Joshua has not done anything with the information that he's gathered, that he's rightly gathered. The neglect, the error, the mistake, the sin is not taking it to God and thinking that he could make the right decision. And I fear, I fear that too many Christians make decisions Similar to this. Without seeking God's will, God's guidance, God's revelation, they neglect God's counsel just like Joshua. They rely on their own analysis. They rely on their own interpretation. I need to do this for my family. I need to do this for me. I need to do this for that. But what does God think? And even worse, some go, I want to do this, so I'll take it to God in prayer and seek his approval for it. See how mercenary that is. This is what I want. This is what I want God to direct me towards. So I'll go to it and I'll pray about it and I'll seek God's approval. That's a recipe for disaster. That's a recipe for being left alone. So what we should do is we take it to God in prayer and we say quite simply, show me thy ways, O Lord, thy paths, O teach thy me. And the Lord will. The Lord will open up his will for you through his word and in providence. Whenever you're coming to decisions in life, particularly young people, particularly children and the young people about decisions, life decisions that you're making, don't make them without prayer, a warning of what happens when you neglect prayer. You made the wrong decision. So Joshua's made the wrong decision. What do we see next? Well, we see thirdly, maintaining God's honor. The deceitfulness of God's enemies, neglecting God's counsel, maintaining God's honor. So the deceitfulness of these Gibeonites was discovered in verses 16 to 18 when the children of Israel, their armies traveled west to continue driving out the heathens people. And they discover that a few miles away from them, here's the Gibeonites. They're near neighbors. They're not from a very far country at all. So they're enraged. They're enraged because they've been duped. They want to slay the Gibeonites as God has given them command to do. And the princes intervene and say, no, you can't. We've sworn an oath. And look what the. the armies do at the end of verse 18, and all the congregation murmured against the princes. So here's one of the consequences of being left alone, neglecting prayer, coming to the wrong decision. There's division amongst the people, there's unhappiness, there's murmuring and there's grumbling. What a cancer that is in a church when people grumble and moan, moan against the leaders, muttering under their breath. they've got a point here. They're right to murmur because they've gone to Gibeon to destroy them as they've destroyed Jericho and destroyed Ai and they can't because this oath has been made with them to let them live in peace. So the elders there in verse 18, they're forbidden from slaying, from smiting God's enemies, because there in verse 19, we have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel, now therefore we may not touch them. So this highlights to us the second part of our text, verse 15. And Joshua made peace with them and made a league with them to let them live, and the princes of the congregation swear unto them. were told four times in this chapter, verses 15, 18, 19, and 20, that they had sworn an oath. When we're told something four times in Scripture, it should make an impact upon us. The oath was to preserve them alive in peace. So there's obviously something important about this oath that was sworn. This advanced guard, this army of the people that had gone to Gibeon, they perhaps reasoned. These Gibeonites, they've elicited this oath by deceit, so it's null and void. It doesn't count. We don't need to honor it. Let's just kill them all and everything will be all right. They perhaps think like us. but they thought wrong, because we see Joshua and the princes correct God honoring understanding of this oath. Yes, they'd been duped, but it wasn't the oath that was important. It was the fact that they had sworn it by the name of their God. the Lord God of Israel, Jehovah. They had sworn the oath by, as we have studied for the last nine weeks, they had sworn an oath in the name of the covenant God who keeps his oaths, who's faithful, The faithfulness of God to his people is the whole theme of this study, this book. So they would do nothing. Joshua would do nothing to sully the name of his God. To ignore the oath, to lay it aside, would allow God's name to be trampled. His name could be maligned. See the God of those Israelites, it means nothing. They take his name in vain. They seal an oath, they promise to let us live by the name of their God and then they kill us. Their God means nothing. You see the dilemma. You see the pickle that Joshua has got himself into. Their God can't be trusted. They say one thing by the name of their God and they do another. His name is spoken in vain. They break the third commandment at a whim, and this is all Joshua's own fault. That he's got himself, what we would say, in the horns of a dilemma. If you want to know how, we don't have time today, but if you want to know how serious oath keeping and vow making is to God's people, to God and his church, just read the confession that we subscribe to. Chapter 22, a whole chapter. And if you don't think that you swear oaths and vows, every time you sit at the Lord's table, you swear an oath in the name of the Lord. You vow. Elders take vows. Deacons take vows. Ministers take vows and oaths. It's a serious matter. The oath was given in God's name by Joshua. And this is the thing, he did it freely. The Gibeonites didn't force Joshua into making an oath and swearing by the name of the Lord his God. Joshua did it carelessly. Joshua did it because they neglected prayer. And so they put the holy name of God on a foolish oath that shouldn't have been made in the first place. But what's more important? The foolish oath or the name of God? Joshua makes the right decision. The name of God was more important to Joshua. He was right to maintain the honor of God because there was a situation of his own foolish making. It wasn't God's fault. It wasn't God who had made the oath. You see, if we have a problem with this, if we are saying, well, this doesn't really make sense. You know why? Because we have been infected, and we've just seen it, with the conclusion of the American elections. A man's word means nothing. Truth is irrelevant. It's scorned. It's trampled. And God's name It's a punctuation mark in a sentence. Trips off the tongue, trampled underfoot. It's a byword, a swear word, a blasphemy. It means nothing, not to the Lord's people. Truth is everything. Your word is your bond. Oh, in the name of God, precious, holy. So even if we have made a sinful error, Even if we have done something wrong, even if it's going to be detrimental to us, the most important thing is the name of Christ. Not our own name, not our own reputation, not what's happening to us. The most important thing is I will maintain the honor of Christ, whom I have vowed to. Who I take an oath, whenever I sit at his table, to love him with all my heart and soul and mind and strength. I will do nothing to recover my own mistakes, to recover my own reputation that would be detrimental to the name and the cause of Christ. That's the attitude that Joshua is showing here. Commendably, he will maintain God's honor. We see fourthly and finally, useful in God's service. So Joshua is now faced with resolving a problem that's of his own making. He's made this decision, he's made this oath after neglecting prayer, failing to engage in prayer, or seeking the counsel of God as to what the right decision would be. And he does it very skillfully. I find it improbable that Joshua would reach such a skillful resolution without having learned his lesson and seeking counsel of God. We're not told, and I'm speculating, but I hope my speculating has a sanctified edge to it. He makes this announcement in verse 22, or from verse 22 following, that he must let them live. to ensure that the name of God is honored because he made a league with them, verse 15, to let them live. So he must let them live. He must overrule the murmuring people and say, we must let them live. But the oath said nothing about the conditions in which we must let them live. And so he makes this wise resolution that their life would be one of servitude. They would become bondsmen and bondswomen. They would be employed in the most menial work in all Israel. And this is an idiom that we even still use in our own day, hewers of wood and drawers of water. It conveys you're going to perform the most menial tasks. Look what Joshua says in verse 23. Note the closing words there. And that's why I personally believe that Joshua has now sought God's counsel before coming to this resolution, because he makes a personal declaration that God is his God, my God, the God that I've forgotten, the God that I neglected. He's not neglected me and you'll serve him. You'll cut down all the wood for the thousands of sacrifices. You'll be responsible for drawing the gallons and gallons and gallons of water that's required for all the ceremonial washing. My God is honorable. My God is gracious. I may not have been, I may have sinned, I may have made a mistake in neglecting prayer, but my God is worth serving, and you will serve him. And that was their punishment. It was a daily task. It was a constant task. Remember, there's thousands of sacrifices made every day by the people bringing their sacrifices. The altar was continually burning, needed fuel. The laver was always full, needing clean water for washing. So this was laborious work and a suitable penalty for the deceitfulness. But yet, for the Gibeonites, it's work in God's house. They were to be employed and they would be made use of performing useful work in God's service. And so for them, this would mean that every single day they would be exposed to the religion of the true God. In whose name the oath was kept? In whose name the oath was made? In whose honor the oath was kept? They would be useful in serving the honest God, the true God, the faithful God, the covenant God, the God whose name, Joshua, would not be besmirched by doing something to cover up his own error. and every single day they served in God's sanctuary, they would be reminded that they were allowed and permitted to live because Joshua was faithful to the name of his God. What effect would this have on the Gibeonites? We can't say. We don't know. We're not told. But certainly this is a favorable outcome for them. They're heathens. In God's overruling providence, they would have a favorable opportunity that they otherwise would not have had. We're all deceitful. We're all liars. We're all law-breaking sinners. We're unworthy of the least of God's mercies, let alone to be found useful in his service. And yet, in God's mercy, here we are. We're found in God's house. We're exposed to the gospel of saving grace. Are you making the best of this opportunity? Like most of you here, I cannot remember a time on the Lord's Day that I wasn't found in the house of God, and how I wasted it, how I despised the opportunities that was given by my parents, young people and children. If you're in the house of God this morning, make the best use of it. Submit yourself to the sovereign rule of this gracious God that Joshua served. Become useful in his kingdom. Serve him and not yourself. Don't be self-serving deceivers like the Gibeonites. Serve Christ and be found useful in his kingdom. So what we see in conclusion is in God's overruling providence. See the declaration in verse 25, we are in thine hand, as it seemeth good and right unto thee, do unto us, do. They submitted, they were satisfied with this outcome. And that is what we try and do when we are all gathered here in the house of God. We seek to commend the graciousness of God to every sinner. But that's not the main teaching point of this chapter. The main teaching point of this chapter is to the Lord's people, a warning of neglecting prayer. So we ask in conclusion, rather brutally and bluntly, are you careless in prayer? Are you forgetful? Are you haphazard? Are you disorganized? Are you half-hearted? Or do you really not pray properly at all about important life decisions and all the decisions in your life? You follow your own thinking. regardless. Well, if that's your attitude to prayer, then perhaps some of the perplexing situations, the difficult providences you find yourself in are your own fault because you've taken decisions without seeking counsel from God. So the exhortation to the Lord's people this morning is ask, ask, ask counsel at the mouth of the Lord continually. We can't ask too much. Pray, pray, pray before making any decisions in your life. And if you are unconverted, If you're unconverted this morning, remember you're a Gibeonite. You're an enemy because you've never prayed. You've never prayed properly. You've never come to the throne of grace and prayed for God's mercy in Christ Jesus because you're a hell-deserving sinner. As Joshua said, my God is a great God. and He has afforded you this morning another opportunity. Cast yourself at Him in prayer without delay. Plead with Him. Plead with Him to have mercy. Plead with Him to be your Joshua, your Saviour. Plead with Him that He would save you alive from a lost eternity. Pray to him that he would bring you under his covenant blessings because he and not us are faithful. May the Lord bless his word to us. Let us pray. Oh Lord, help us to pray. Help us to pray fervently without ceasing. Help us to petition and supplicate, to plead with thee. and be the one who guides our prayers, who gives us words in prayer, that our prayers would be acceptable and a sweet-smelling savour unto thee. Forgive our neglect, forgive our forgetfulness, forgive our carelessness, and may we resolve anew this morning to be more fervent and more diligent Bless all of us as we part one from another. Pierce our hearts with arrows from thine own word. May we not be indifferent to what we have heard. May thy word change us and may it change us from unregenerate sinners to sinners who are saved by grace. Forgive our iniquities and pardon our sins. For Jesus' sake we ask, Amen. We sing in closing Psalm 73, verses 23 to 26, to God's praise. Psalm 73 at verse 23, nevertheless continually, O Lord, I am with Thee. Thou dost me hold by my right hand and still upholdest me. Thou with thy counsel while I live will me conduct and guide and to thy glory afterward receive me to abide a wise and prudent prayer that the Lord would conduct and guide us only by his counsel. Psalm 73, 23 to 26 to God's praise. Never shall this poor child be lonely, O Lord, I am with thee. Let us behold thy right hand, and still abolish me. Thy counsel, while I live, will be conduct and guide. Until I, gloomy, after worry, I am in heaven's high body, O Lord, O Lord. And in Thee, O Thine is I beside Thee, that is now. My flesh and blood doth faint and fail, but God doth fail me never. Let us stand to receive the Lord's benediction. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen.