Joshua Chapter 9:1-19

If you know somebody that knows everything, not only knows everything, but knows not only the past but the future, why wouldn't you ask them?

Why wouldn't you inquire? But sometimes we don't. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. In life, we need to be discerning about the information we receive. Today, Pastor David discusses the importance of making decisions carefully and prayerfully as he continues in the book of Joshua chapter 9. But first, when you're in trouble, where do you turn most often?

Do you look to yourself or the advice of your friends or do you go straight to God? We want to help you experience the hope that comes from looking to the Lord when your life turns upside down by sending you Pastor David McGee's CD series titled Lessons from the Wilderness. In this encouraging resource, Pastor David looks at one of the most difficult periods of King David's life to show you how you can wait confidently on God no matter what you're facing. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others. So please visit crossthebridge.com for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness.

Now here's David McGee with part two of his teaching, Decisions. So, let's turn to Joshua chapter 9. Joshua chapter 9 verse 1. It came to pass when all the kings who were on this side of the Jordan in the hills and in the lowland and in all the coasts of the great sea towards Lebanon, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hittite, and the Jebusite heard about it, that they gathered together to fight with Joshua and Israel with one accord. But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, they worked craftily and went and pretended to be ambassadors. And they took old sacks on their donkeys, old wine skins torn and mended, old and patched sandals on their feet and old garments on themselves.

And all the bread of the provision was dry and moldy. It's about six miles, six and a half miles from Ai. So, it's not very far from Ai.

It's right in that area. So, they didn't have a long walk. But of course, what did they do? They took out and we're going to deceive the children of Israel.

Let's see how it goes. Verse 6, and they went to Joshua to the camp at Gagal and said to him to the men of Israel, we have come from a far country, now therefore make a covenant with us. Then the men of Israel said to the Hivites, perhaps you dwell among us, so how can we make a covenant with you? Verse 8, I wish they'd have gone with verse 7 and the chapter would end it, but it didn't, so let's continue. Verse 8, but they said to Joshua, we are your servants. And Joshua said to them, who are you and where do you come from? So they said to him, from a very far country, your servants have come because of the name of the Lord your God, for we have heard of his fame and all that he did in Egypt.

Verse 10, and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan who was at Ashtorel. Now, keep in mind, they're flatter in Joshua, they're flatter in the group. And understand, flattery can, it can mess with your sense of discernment.

It can. If you remember, they tried it on Jesus a lot, didn't they? They'd go up and go, oh master, you're such a good teacher. Oh, we know you're from God because nobody could do the things you've done unless they were from God.

And then they would say something really silly. It didn't work on Jesus. The sad truth, it works on us. It works on you and it works on me. I've kind of learned a little bit and my guard carefully goes up a little bit because sometimes people will butter you up to let the ax fall. Do you ever notice that? Is that just me? Has that ever happened to you?

Nod your head, two people, three, four. Okay, there we go. Been there, done that. That can ruin your sense of discernment.

So be careful because it, again, it's a way the enemy can get in. Verse 11, therefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us saying, take provisions with you for the journey and go to meet them and say to them, we are your servants. Now therefore make a covenant with us.

These guys are liars. This bread of ours, we took hot for our provision from our houses on the day we departed to come to you. But now look, it's dry and moldy.

You know, at this point they really should be suspicious. These guys are pointing out their moldy bread, which even in that day, if they were really ambassadors, think about it. If their bread had gotten dry and moldy, what would they have done?

They would have had flour with them and they'd have made more cakes, but they're carrying around. Look, see, dry, moldy. It's a little suspicious, but it comes right after the flattery. So they're like, oh yeah, yeah. We're great guys, dry, moldy bread.

Okay. You know, and then they're just eating it up. They're just swallowing it. And these wineskins, verse 13, which we filled were new and see, they're torn.

And these are garments and our sandals have become old because of the very long journey. This is, their buzzers and bells have to be going off at this point, but they're not listening. They're not listening. When your buzzers and bells go off, listen to your buzzers and bells. Don't disregard your buzzers and bells because it can save you from a lot of stuff.

You know what I found? And I'm probably going to get in trouble with half of you right now, but that's okay. What I found is that certain times in certain situations, it's a qualifying statement. Women seem to have a sharper sense of discernment about things, about warning things, about things that could possibly go wrong. My wife has said to me, hey, you know what? You need to be careful of this or that or that situation. And a lot of times I'm like, really? What? She's like, no, seriously. You need to be okay.

I'll be careful. And because I don't, I don't see it. You know, I pray for the Lord to give me discernment.

And guess what? Sometimes that voice sounds a lot like the voice of my wife. The voice of the Holy Spirit sounds a lot like the voice of my wife. Elbows are flying all over the room. Gonna buy this tape.

Gonna buy six of these tapes here. This is good. I love Pastor David. But you know what we do is sometimes we disregard that. We disregard it. It's almost like, you know, you're in a plane and guys, you're the pilot, you know, and you got somebody up in the observation tour, you know, and it's your wife.

And she's going, hey, we got mix coming in at three o'clock. Let's be careful. And you know what we do sometimes guys?

We're like, oh, honey, you know, cut out the chit chat, leave the radio alone. You're going to hurt yourself. Be quiet.

I'm trying to fly the plane. And we've been warned. Amen are on me. Yeah. That would hurt a little bit.

Didn't it guys? I love you. Okay. Our one, but watch, watch the, uh, watch the buzzers, watch the bells and you know what next life lesson, be aware of compromise, be aware of compromise. Now I understand in a relationship compromise can be a good thing.

You know, if you're trying to decide what restaurant to go to or where to vacation or those things compromise is a good thing, but when it comes to spiritual things, it can be deadly. Compromise can be deadly. It's interesting that there's a couple of definitions for compromise, but you know, one of them is when the security, a system or a location is no longer secure and is perhaps an immediate or imminent danger is one of the definitions for compromise. You know, when they say that the system has been compromised or security has been compromised, well, that's telling in it. See, because sometimes when we compromise, we place ourselves in danger. Our security system, if you will, has been compromised and notice that they're looking, but the guys are going, look, see, look, look, see, see this stuff, they're getting their eyes. Do you understand that, like the story with the illusionist, do you understand we cannot trust what we see?

That sounds bizarre, doesn't it? We cannot trust what we see. Movies would be out of business if this was not true, but you watch a movie and they show like some disaster and you're like, oh my goodness, the whole building got wiped out there. Do you understand there's probably a little miniature building that just, somebody just knocked over. That's not a real building.

I know I'm shocking some of you. What do you mean it's not real? It's like a little model thing or a digital imaging thing. It's not real. Movies aren't real. They're predicated. They're based on the fact that our eyes can be deceived. And especially in faith, spiritually speaking, you can't trust your eyes. You cannot trust your eyes because sometimes you'll look around in your circumstances and your circumstances will lie to you.

Your circumstances will suggest that you're not going to get out of that situation, that you're always going to be stuck there. Your circumstances are lying to you. Your eyes, if you will, are lying to you. Perhaps your history.

Oh, I've been in this situation before and it never worked out. If you're going to doubt something, doubt your eyes. Don't doubt your faith. Don't doubt your Lord.

Believe Jesus and doubt everything else. So they trusted in what they could see. Verse 14, then the men of Israel took some of their provisions, but they did not ask counsel of the Lord.

You know what's amazing to me? It was just a couple chapters ago. Remember when they were going against AI and they got very overconfident in themselves and they didn't inquire of the Lord? They didn't ask the Lord and they got in trouble. And here we are a few chapters later and they're getting in trouble again. Why?

Because they didn't inquire of the Lord. See, we're not the only ones that learn the same lessons more than once. This is so important. It's so important for us as individuals to ask counsel of the Lord. Do you understand God is intimately interested in every detail of your life?

Every bit, every piece, every hour, every minute of your life. He's interested. That's an amazing thing to me. And when you have a situation, He wants you to ask Him. Now let me ask you a question. If you know somebody that knows everything, and some of you may think you know everything, but you don't know everything, but if you know somebody that knows everything, not only knows everything, but knows not only the past but the future, why wouldn't you ask them?

Why wouldn't you inquire? But sometimes we don't. Sometimes we base decisions on us, on our wisdom. And sometimes we can get in serious trouble like that. That's what leadership here at the church and myself included will pray, will inquire about anything that we do. Some of the decisions that we make, some of the decisions I have to make, let me be honest, are difficult.

And sometimes they're unpopular. But I have to pray and I have to ask the Lord, Lord, what do you want me to do in this situation? And hear from the Lord and then move on that. And I want to pray and I want to bathe it in prayer. I want leadership to bathe it in prayer.

Some of the guys, they'll say, hey, why don't we do this? And I go, well, let's pray about it. Let's pray about it. It's a good answer.

It's an answer that we should give more often. You should make your decisions in your life. You should make them carefully and prayerfully. That's the next life lesson. Make decisions carefully and prayerfully. Don't hasten into something. You understand that we can be manipulated in that way by hasting into something?

You know, I've watched the, I've never ordered anything, I've never ordered anything, but it's real interesting that TV shopping thingy, you know. Man, do they play on that immediate thing or what? It's getting ready to be gone. It's getting ready to be gone. It's getting ready to be gone. And we've only got three left. It's getting ready to be gone.

It's getting ready. Oh, I need one of those. Well, 30 seconds ago, you didn't know that you needed one of those. And now you're ordering four of them for family and friends for the holidays, you know.

And why? Because they manipulated you into making a decision very quickly. Be careful of that. Be careful of rushing in the stuff. Carefully and prayerfully make decisions. Proverbs chapter three, verse five and six. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths.

It's an awesome couple of verses, isn't it? Don't lean into your own understanding. That's a difficult thing for us to do. Why? Because we tend to lean into our own understanding.

We can be deceived then. Lean into the Lord. They took some of the provisions. Now, in Eastern cultures, in other words, they broke bread with them. In Eastern cultures, when you make a covenant with somebody and it's accompanied with the breaking of the bread or the drinking of the wine or something, it's even more significant and more binding. That's part of what makes communion so special is there's the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine in that relationship, or the grape juice, in that relationship with the Lord.

It's a binding peace covenant. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be back with more powerful insight from God's Word in just a moment. But first, no matter how wise you are, listening to your own advice when you should be trusting God is dangerous. That's why we want to send you Pastor David McGee's CD series called Lessons from the Wilderness. Journey through one of the darkest times in King David's life and discover how you can wait confidently on God no matter what struggles you're facing, because his plans are perfect and he always comes through for you. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others. So please visit crossthebridge.com for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness.

Now, back to today's message. Verse 15, So Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live, and the rulers of the congregation swore to them they messed up. You know, it's interesting, you realize how they messed up. They didn't necessarily, it didn't start with what they did.

It started with what they didn't do. They didn't seek the Lord's counsel. See, this is the thing, guys, so often we think of sin, we think of sin as stuff that we do, don't we? I mean, if I say, hey, tell me how you sinned today or this week or this month or whatever, immediately what comes to your mind is what you did, the bad things you did, right? Those are called sins of commission. Do you understand the sins that really mess us up are not sins of commission?

Now, this is going to rock your boat. It's not sins of commission that really mess us up. It's sins of omission. It's what we don't do that gets us in real trouble. The sins of omission lead to the sins of commission. Do you understand?

And this is wild, but do you understand it's going to be what we don't do. It's going to be what somebody doesn't do that has them in an eternity without God, what they don't do. They don't receive Jesus as their Lord.

They don't ask for the forgiveness of their sins. It's what we don't do that often gets us in trouble. As a matter of fact, what happens sometimes is we are so focused on the sins of commission or what we commit that it happens more and more and more and more.

Why? Because we're forgetting about the things we're not doing. See, if there's things that you do, if there's things like reading the Bible and praying, having a devotional time, those things will help you with stuff you do that you shouldn't. They'll help you with those sins of commission, but you can focus on those sins and keep repeating them, or you can focus on what you're not doing and implement those and implement those things. James 4 17 says, Therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. The life lesson there is sin is far more often what we don't do. It's what we don't do. First Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 17 tells us, Pray without ceasing.

Pray without ceasing. Now is Paul suggesting, who wrote the book of Thessalonians, is Paul suggesting that we just pray all day long, that everybody quits their job and we just meet and hear in the sanctuary and pray seven days a week? I think that's exactly what he meant. No, I'm kidding. Just making sure you're awake.

No, that's not what he's talking about. He's saying stay in an attitude of prayer. Stay in an attitude of knowing that you're in the presence of the Lord.

Stay in an attitude of prayer and in communication with the Lord. And that there's a time in your day when you're pressed for a decision, you're not sure what to do, take time to pray. If you don't have time to pray, don't do it. Don't do it.

I mean, tell somebody, you know, I can't do this right now. I'm going to have to pray and seek the Lord. And the Lord will speak to you.

The Lord wants you to ask him about these things. They made a deal with their enemy. You can't make a deal with the enemy.

Here's an unpopular thing. You ever heard the saying, you're your own worst enemy. Do you know that's true in Christianity? We talk about Satan. We talk about demons.

We talk about all these things, but do you understand the person that you struggle with in your faith the most is not your kids. It's not your parents. It's not your husband. It's not your wife.

It's you. It's your flesh. That's what we struggle with the most. And sometimes in relationships, we come into contact with somebody that seems to point their finger on that soft spot of the flesh and it gets all riled up, but that's just them showing us what our problem is. We need to understand that as Christians. Now I know that there's people and there's churches and there's so-called Christians that will say, you got to kind of make friends with yourself. Now what you need to do is understand there's a war going on inside of you. Romans chapter 8 verse 7, Paul put it like this, for the sinful nature is always hostile to God.

It never did obey God's laws and it never will. See, perhaps you have thought mistakenly, perhaps you thought you're the only one that has this battle going on. Perhaps you've even thought there's something wrong with me that this battle is going on. No, this battle is something that 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says is such as is common to man. All of us have this battle going on.

Sadly enough, folks in churches have gotten really good about lying about this, even in the midst of our struggles. How are you doing? Fine. How are you doing? Fine. Praise the Lord. And still going, man, I'm struggling.

Can you pray for me? There's a war. And part of any battle plan should be understanding what your weaknesses are. We all have this weakness, this weakness of the flesh, our sinful nature that we will carry around until we're in heaven. If you understand what your weaknesses are, then you can proceed with a good battle plan. But if you act like you don't have any weaknesses, that battle is not going to go well.

It's not going to go well. Now, the cool thing is God has a plan for our victory, and it's dying to our selfish nature. It's dying to the things that we want that will hurt us sometimes. And God will do the impossible in us in fighting these battles. We can't do the work of the Spirit with the arm of the flesh and the work of the Spirit is regenerating us and changing our nature, changing our very nature.

God's the only one that can do that. Verse 16, and it happened at the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them that they heard that they were their neighbors who dwelt near them. Probably felt pretty silly. Then the children of Israel journeyed and came to their cities on the third day. Now, their cities were Gibeon, Cherub, Berath, and Kergis-Jem. But the children of Israel did not attack them because the rulers of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel. And all the congregation complained against the rulers.

That's different. Then all the rulers said to all the congregation, we have sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel. Now, therefore, we may not touch them. That took a lot of integrity for leadership to do that. They had messed up and it would be easy for them to say, well, you know what?

Let's just forget the vow we made and let's wipe them out. They had made a mistake, but they didn't compound their mistake by a lack of integrity. What happens very often is we make one mistake and then we want to cover up that mistake. Then we want to cover up that mistake and that mistake and that mistake and that mistake. But repentance, repentance says, you know what? That was wrong.

What I just did then there was wrong. The life lesson, do not compound your mistakes, own up to them and repent. Do not compound your mistakes, own up to them and repent. We have kind of a rule in our house that when you're repenting or you're apologizing, it's a real simple sentence. I'm sorry for that period. I'm sorry for doing that, but you really shouldn't have done this. Because that's not an apology. You ever heard an apology like that?

Hey, I'm sorry I said that to you, but you really shouldn't have looked at me like that. That's not an apology. That's not repentance. Let me tell you what else is not. I tell you what, if there's one thing I'm really good at, it's repenting because I've messed up so much.

So let me share some insights with you. If while you're repenting to the Lord, you're explaining to Him why you did what you did, that's not repentance. If you're asking for somebody else's forgiveness and at the same time you're explaining to them why you did what you did, that's not repentance.

And let's be honest, I guarantee you everybody in here has done this. Well, I'm sorry, but after all my mother was like this, my father was like this, I wasn't held enough as a baby, I wasn't, you know, we make excuses for our sin. But when we do that, we're not really repenting. We're not repenting. See, because think of it, repenting is what? Admitting that you were wrong. What is justification? Explaining why you were right.

Those two things are at odds with one another. Let me tell you what's going to happen after tonight. You're going to have to repent for something.

Chances are good. You're going to have to repent for something and you're going to find yourself engaging in what I just mentioned. Don't waste your energy. Don't waste your air in saying why what you did was okay at the same time while you're saying what you did was wrong.

You can't do that. You can't repent and explain it at the same time. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven and I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life and I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him and He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

So many people look to their friends or within their own thoughts when faced with a problem. Even King David struggled with listening to his heart and not trusting in God's promises. Pastor David McGee wants to encourage you to wait confidently on God through whatever trial you're facing by sending you his CD series, Lessons from the Wilderness. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others. So please visit crossthebridge.com now for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness. Join us next time on Cross the Bridge as we continue in the book of Joshua. We'll see you then.