We welcome you to the Via Zion Sermon podcast.
We are a church based out of Chennai, India.
We are thrilled that you're tuned in today and hope that you
will be refreshed, revived, and energized by what you hear.
Our desire is that you will live life with a renewed sense of
purpose that stems from a vibrant faith in Jesus.
The year 2025 is 1 where we will be positioned by God to possess
our promise. We are believing that God is
bringing us into our place of promise.
It is now time to take the land and to do so we need to get our
spiritual posture and place and stop looking back so that we can
face forward with courage and faith.
Let's get going and possess our promise.
God bless you. It's so nice that you know we
get to look at the book of Joshua together.
Like we've been telling you, this has been our manual when we
planted the church 7 years back. And it can't be an accident that
as we step into a new season, a new era of seven years, God is
preparing us for what is to come through this book.
And today we're looking at Taking the Land Part 3 and I've
titled today's sermon Demolishing Deception because
the two instances we're going to be looking at in this this part
of the series are basically 2 mistakes that Joshua made.
Joshua was an exemplary leader. He was an exceptional military
leader. He was, he followed in the
footsteps of Moses. God lifted him up in the at the
Jordan River like he did Moses at the Red Sea.
He established his leadership to the people.
He was so in tune with God. He had the commander, the Angel
armies would come and met him. He had battle strategies in
place. And yet there were times when
Joshua, like us, had failures. And we're going to be looking at
two of those failures today. And I believe they can be
combined and placed under this larger topic of deception,
things that we sometimes overlook thinking, you know
what, it's not a big deal, but they actually are tactics from
the enemy camp to pull us down, to keep us trapped and shackled.
And I believe God is calling us to demolish these things that
are deceptive in our lives. Anything that is deceptive does
not come from God. It comes from the father of
lies, the one who is the ultimate deceiver himself.
God, on the other hand, is truth personified.
He dwells in unapproachable light.
He is holiness, nothing unholy. I think dark or or deceptive can
stand in his presence. And so we need to establish that
before we start. So today we're going to be
looking at how we can demolish deception.
We're looking at Joshua Chapter 6.
I just want to read verses 16 to 19 to set a bit of context for
today. Joshua chapter 6, verses 16 to
19 says this the seventh time around.
We're talking about the battle of Jericho when the priest
sounded the trumpet blast. Joshua commanded the army shout,
For the Lord has given you the city.
The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord.
Only Rahab the prostitute, and all who are with her in her
house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.
But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not
bring about your own destruction by taking any of them.
Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction,
and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold and the
articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go
into His treasure. Clear instructions.
God has told Joshua, this is what you want to say.
And so He passes this instruction on to the people so
they know exactly what is expected of them after the
battle of Jericho. Now look at Joshua Chapter 7
verse one. It says, but the Israelites were
unfaithful in regard to the devoted things.
Eakins son of Khami, the son of Zimri, the son of Zara of the
tribe of Judah, took some of them.
So the Lord's anger burned against Israel.
There's a command and there's a direct disobedience.
And The thing is, it says the people of Israel, the Israelites
were unfaithful. It wasn't the whole camp.
It was a, it was a small family. And yet the whole, all of them
collectively, I said it, it riled up God's anger.
And I want us to look today at what that means.
The devoted things. It is not stuff that was pure
and spotless. It was stuff that was designated
for punishment. It was stuff that was designated
for annihilation. These were the the flocks of the
enemy people. It was those, it was the people
of the land. Nothing was meant to be kept
alive. All the stuff that could pass
through fire was to be put through fire.
The metals, the gold and the silver was supposed to be put in
a treasury. Very clear instructions and yet
this family decided to go against the norm, right?
When something is devoted for destruction, it means it's meant
to be destroyed in our lives. This does not apply to us and
people. We don't get to annihilate any
people group. We don't get to harm a person.
Based on this chapter, not at all.
What it's talking about is in the New Covenant, So the things
we fight are not flesh and blood, but principalities and
powers. And there are things in our
lives that are devoted to destruction.
Certain habits, certain terrible lifestyle choices, certain
addictions, certain frames of reference, certain ways of
thinking and being. And God is saying those are
things that don't please me. I wanted it to be devoted to
destruction. We have to be avid about
destruction. These are not things we can
covet and put into our lives and assimilate.
Instead we need to single it out and destroy it.
What were the repercussions? Was God seriously angry with
them? Yes.
What happens after this is that they were supposed to go take a
small little city called the City of I.
They were supposed to go and capture it.
And the people just went. There were two couple of guys
who went there, checked the landlord and said, you know
what, we just need a very few number of our soldiers.
Let's just go. We'll take it down.
You know, in in Indian terms, it's Juju P.
It's very easy. Let's just do that.
They send a small and that The thing is, in this moment, Joshua
didn't check with the Lord. That was Joshua's mistake.
Did Joshua sin by taking anything?
No, his hands were clean, but he forgot, probably to check with
God because it felt like such a small city in comparison to
Jericho. You have to understand, in the
ancient times, Jericho was the center of this.
The strength of the promised land it was.
It had walls that were almost 20 feet thick in some places.
For the walls to fall, it had to have been supernatural.
So the fall of Jericho symbolized that God was with
them. So obviously they thought, I is
a small city. This is nothing for us.
We've got skilled warriors. We'll we'll finish it in half a
day and we'll be back home. They went out there.
They get routed by the land and come get chased back to camp.
When they come back devastated, Joshua and his leaders lay
before God. They lay before they they told
their clothes and they wept and said, God, what just happened?
Why did you bring us here if you were going to be defeated?
You've allowed us to look bad before other people. 36 men were
killed in this one attack. Joshua 7 verses 11:50.
The Lord said to Joshua, stand up.
What are you doing down on your face?
Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenant
which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the
devoted things they have stolen. They have lied.
They have put them up with their own possessions.
That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their
enemies. They turn their backs and run
because they have been made liable to destruction.
I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever
among you is devoted to destruction.
This one line really got to me. It said over there.
That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their
enemies. Have you ever seen in your life
that you seem to be under attack constantly?
You seem to not be able to kick that habit.
You don't seem to be able to establish those good
relationships. It's like, you know, you feel
like you're up against a wall again and again.
You fight down 1 and you feel like another one comes up.
And I wonder if it's because in our lives there is an element of
sin that is deeply rooted because of which we are not able
to stand up victorious against the enemy.
You have to understand that in Jesus we we fight from a
position of victory, not for victory.
The victory is 1. We fight from this position.
But what happens when we have been made liable to destruction?
That means there's an open door in our life.
There is a sin. There is an an ungodliness.
There is something that is compromising us and allowing us
to be open season for the enemy, and I believe God is asking us
to destroy what is destroying us.
What is it that is destroying you?
What is that one element that destroys your joy?
What is that one element that is destroying your peace?
What is that one thing that you do which is destroying your
marriage? What is that one thing which is
destroying your blissful state of singleness?
You need to identify what is destroying that, and you need to
destroy it. When I say destroy, I don't mean
destroy a person or a but it might mean stepping out of a
relationship that is toxic to you.
It might mean saying no to certain friendships in certain
circles and saying yes to God and His Holy Spirit's power in
your life. Sin causes us to become
susceptible to the enemy's work in our life.
It's a chink in the armor, it's an Achilles heel.
It's a door left wide open for the enemy to all sin and have
his way. Many times we wonder when as we
get older we have children who are growing and we just see one
thing after the other coming at them and then you need to go
closer to God and say God, is there some chink in my armor?
Is there some door I am leaving open?
That this is happening to us. Self examining is very important
in the Christian life and it's not looking at us with ourselves
with condemnation and guilt and shame and regret, but it's going
to God and his through his word and saying, Lord, reveal to me
the areas in my life which are so destructive that you want me
to remove and destroy so that I can live at peace with God and
with man. Will you destroy what is
destroying you? Interestingly, the man who
actually did this akin, he's the man who committed this grave sin
and he didn't come forward. He didn't come clean.
You know, maybe we don't know how the story would have turned
as if as soon as they were going to head out to I the city, if
Aiken had come in, come clean with Joshua, they could have
averted that disaster or maybe even when they came back and
fell before the Lord. If Aiken had a major for
conscience, he could have said maybe this is because of me.
Somehow Aiken didn't see the ramifications of his sin in such
a broad scale. So let's look at Joshua Chapter
7, verses 14 to 21. OK.
And this is what happens in this in the morning.
Present yourself try by try. The tribe the Lord chooses shall
come forward, clan by clan. Verse 15.
Whoever's caught with the devoted things shall be
destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him.
He is violated the covenant of the Lord and has done an
outrageous thing in Israel. Now I just want to pause that.
So this happened the previous night, right?
God has given this instruction to Joshua.
There was still time for an Aiken to have had conviction and
come forward, but he didn't. Verse 16 Early the next morning,
Joshua had Israel come forward by tribes and Judah was chosen.
The clans of Judah came forward. The tribe of and the Zehrahites
were chosen. The Zehrahites came forward by
families and Zimri was chosen. Joshua had his family come
forward man by man, and Akin son of Kami, the son of Zimli, the
son of Zera of the tribe of Judah, was chosen.
Then Joshua said to Akin, My son, give glory to God, the God
of Israel, and honor him. Tell me what you have done.
Do not hide it from me, Akin replied.
It is true I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel.
This is what I have done. When I saw in the plunder a
beautiful robe from Babylonia, 200 shekels of silver and a bar
of gold weighing 50 shekels. I coveted them and took them.
They are hidden in the ground inside my tent with the silver
underneath. He's had a direct, direct
disobedience to one of the laws in the 10 commandments.
Thou shalt not covet. He had broken a very fundamental
law. Not just that, he had lied over
and above it. He had hidden it.
And before we start judging Aiken, I think you and I are so
similar to Aiken in so many ways because first of all, synth
thrives in hiddenness. Synth thrives in hiddenness.
You know, as a biology student, we used to study a lot about,
you know, microbes and fungi and other things.
And all of these grow in dank, dark places, right?
Of course, bacteria and viruses grow in living organisms and all
of that. But when you look at stuff that
is left in dark, dingy places where the air is moist and it's
not, it doesn't have sunlight. It doesn't have, you know, good,
fresh, clean air, nothing good grows there.
We have terrible molds, cerebral fungus, funguses that, you know,
grow in these places. And so I wonder if sin is any
different. Nothing good comes in darkness,
nothing good comes in hiddenness.
And obviously Aiken thought it was hidden, it was done, it was
dusted, He and his family covered it up.
They thought they could move on with their lives.
But private sins, hidden sins always have public consequences.
When you look at this thing, it says over there came back man by
man, Aiken, son of Kami, son of Zimri, son of Zerah, tribe of
Judah. Meaning that he was not just one
individual, he was part of a larger 'cause he was part of a
larger tribe, an important tribe at that.
And in spite of that, he could have thought it was hidden, he
could have thought it was just confined to his family.
But the whole of the Israelite camp went through judgment
because of their actions. Your hidden sins have public
consequences. Let's not kid ourselves.
You know, the beautiful thing about the way the enemy works,
when I say beautiful life, I mean it sarcastically, is that
he'll convince you that what is hidden cannot harm anyone.
He'll say, who's going to know? Your wife's not going to know,
your husband's not going to know.
You're doing this in private. You can deal with it in private.
You can get rid of it in private.
But the thing about living in the in the Kingdom of God is
it's a Kingdom of light and the king is his is the light
himself. And when he's in our life, his
light shines on every part of us.
Even the dark hidden things will come into the light.
Nothing stays hidden forever. What you think is is hidden and
and kept, you know, really stuffed down.
We'll find the light of day when we walk in the Kingdom of light,
things come into the light. Ephesians 5 verses 8 to 13 says
this. For you were once darkness, but
now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.
For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness,
righteousness, and truth. And find out what pleases the
Lord. Have nothing to do with the
fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in
secret. But everything exposed by the
light becomes visible, and everything that is illuminated
becomes a light. You'll be surprised at what
happens when you expose your hidden sins to God.
It's amazing when you come clean before Him and say, Lord, you
saw what I was watching last night.
You saw who I was texting. You know what I have been up to?
Help me, help me. When we bring it into the light
of God, we can truly walk as children of light.
We can put on the armor of light, stand against the enemy
and be stand victorious. The reason many of us are unable
to climb out of those pits of despair and out of those those
shackles of addiction is because we haven't brought the hidden
things to the light. We are assuming that it will
just die with us. But I have to tell you this, we
have a God who sees everything. We have a God who sees
everything. He knows what you and I do.
He knows what we are thinking and the Christian life must be
marked by 1 of repentance, periodic regular repentance
where we keep bringing things to the surface and saying Lord, you
saw how I reacted today. That was terrible.
I'm sorry, Lord, that I just cussed on the road when I was
crossing Lord, and forgive me for those words which which trip
out of my mouth. Forgive me for the way that I
react to my child, to my spouse. You see the anger, you see the
lust, you see the grid. Bringing it to him, bring it
into the light changes it. It could have changed for Akin
had he brought the hidden things to the surface, but he didn't.
The second thing about sin, which we look from the story is
that sin thrives where compromise exists.
We live in times of compromise. Even people who know the Lord
live in compromise. Bribes are common.
Infidelity is very common. Sexual immorality has become
rampant. Gender identification has become
complicated. Pronouns which were just he,
she, or they used in the in in the connotation of literature
has spread into all of culture. In the name of inclusivity,
people have decided to let go of convictions.
Compromise has come in. You know, it's, it's so
interesting here. Akin had must have heard the
instruction that Joshua got from God.
Everything is devoted to that destruction.
Don't take anything. This whole of Jericho has to be
destroyed. The reason being Jericho was
steeped in idolatry and God didn't want any of the artifacts
from there to come into the Israelite camp and corrupt them.
God has an intention behind every law.
God has a the most loving of intentions in giving us rules
and boundaries when we compromise.
God, when we say, you know what, I don't think I can accept the
scripture for what it is. I will do as I like.
I have to remember what Paul says.
Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.
Compromise comes in when it realizes, when it decides that
you know what, This is beneficial to me, so I will make
it work. We live in such a relative
culture. People have this hashtag of
living my truth. I want to live this kind of
lifestyle. It could be a homosexual
lifestyle, it could be a lifestyle of an open marriage.
This is what I will choose to live because it works for me, it
works for my spouse, it works for my boyfriend, it works for
me and my kids. Whatever it is, what works for
you is not the truth. The truth is a person and to
discover the person you need to get into his word because why do
you need his word? We've been, we're going to be
talking about the word a lot over the next two months because
without this, you don't have a blueprint for God's plan for
your life. It is not enough to say, I just
heard God say something. If it doesn't line up with this
word, you got it wrong. You could say I feel like I
should do this, but if the word doesn't back it up, it's just a
feeling. And the problem is compromise
has come in because we're going more with our feelings than what
the Word of God says. Compromise is coming because,
well, I need to fit in and I'm sure Jesus wanted us to love
everyone and just be one with the crowd.
So let me just do what works for everybody else.
But that is not the Jesus that I know.
Jesus lived an uncompromised life.
He sat at tables we may never be able to sit at, but he lived
uncompromised in every situation.
The way you count a compromise is by having conviction.
And not just any conviction, not just beliefs in the things you
believe. But godly convictions,
convictions that are based on the word of God, convictions
that are based on what Jesus has said, Jesus has instructed that
what the Holy Spirit has breathed through the Word of
God. I love this verse from One
Thessalonians chapter 1, two to five.
I'm reading from the message translation.
It says every time we think of you, we thank God for you.
Day and night you're in our prayers as we call to mind your
work of faith, your labor of love, and your patience of hope
in following our Master Jesus Christ before God our Father.
It is clear to us, friends, that God not only loves you very
much, but also has put His hand on you for something special.
When the message we preached came to you, it wasn't just
words. Something happened in you.
The Holy Spirit put steel in your convictions.
You paid careful attention to the way we lived among you and
determined to live that way yourselves.
In imitating us, you imitated the Master.
Although great trouble accompanied the Word, you were
able to take great joy from the Holy Spirit.
Taking the trouble with the joy. The joy with the trouble
compromises very dangerous territory.
You you see a cat on the wall. You're in the grey.
But you know what? Eventually, you'll have to pick
a side. We can't live compromised in
comprom in a compromised world. We need to live with
convictions. You need to know what you
believe. You need to know who you
believe. You need to know what you
believe because it will change your life in the best way
possible. Compromise can only be countered
by godly conviction. It talks here about the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit putting steel in
your convictions, what does that look like?
You know, up until now, your convictions may have been
flopping around you. You give in to the whims of your
friend circle at church, and then you give in to the whims of
your friend circle at office. You're playing both sides, but
God's going to put steel in your back and say you need to pick a
side, sweetheart, you need to stand for me.
You need to live for me. What you put into your body,
what you allow to be fed, fed upon, all of that matters to me
steal in your convictions. And it's interesting that once
the entire, you know, land of Israel, the people of Israel are
exposed to what has happened. God gives the judgment.
He says stone them and then cover them up and burn them,
them and their property. It feels very excessive, but it
it's an inkling of how God wants us to deal with sin in our
lives. Be ruthless about the sin in
your life. If it is your gadget that is
create causing you to sin, that is causing you to wander, get
rid of it. If it is a friendship that has
taken you off track, put you in a ditch, left you alone there,
you need to dust yourself off, get up and get better friends.
You need to find a godly community.
You need to find people who will mentor you and shape you in the
ways of God, who will speak the truth and love to you.
You don't need friends who only speak what you want to hear.
You need people who will call you out.
What are the changes you need to make?
We need to be ruthless about the sin in our lives.
What happens after that is they settle down for a bit.
Joshua reads the word of God to them.
It's probably the 10 commandments.
He reads it. He engraves it on stones, right?
And after that they as a community read the blessings and
the curses. It's almost like that event of
dealing with the sins so violently and so physically must
have been a strain on the people.
This was one of them after all, and God was now restoring them
to a place of joy, restoring them to a place of contentment
through the reading of the Word. And He also reminds them of the
blessings and curses. If you choose life, you choose
these things, you choose death, you choose this.
He was giving them their options.
Again, I love that we serve a God who gives us options.
He says choose life or choose death.
It's up to you. I want to remind you today, it's
up to you whether you will destroy that which is destroying
you or whether you choose to cohabit with it.
That's on you coming down to the second kind of deception.
Like I said, I titled this as demolishing deception, right,
demolishing deception. And I love the the movie that
Transformer movies and I don't watch all of them, but I watch
some of the old ones. And I remember I was asking my
son to find the clip of this. We couldn't find it, but the
pictures probably going to come up on the screen of this cute
little enemy bot, right? And his name was Frenzy.
And Frenzy has this remarkable way of being hidden and suddenly
transforming into this terrible, terrible villain like Bot,
right? And as his name indicates, he
causes chaos, right? This tiny little thing, much
like the hidden sin in our lives, camouflage into the neat
spaces of our life, tends to take over our lives and
completely destroy us. And like I was saying, hidden
sins have public consequences. Compromise is a problem because
we need to have convictions. And when I look at this, when I
was watching a few clips of this particular bot frenzy, I
realized that that's what hidden sense do.
And it actually fights with this the, you know, the lead actor,
the guy called Sam, they had this huge fight with him and
this little robot. And he's a tiny guy.
The robot is really small, but he's, he's powerful and he's,
he's creepy. So when he's fighting with him,
he actually drags this guy on the ground and removes his
clothing, his pants, you know, and he's running with his
boxers. And I was thinking when I was
watching it, this is what the enemy does through deception.
When there is hidden sins in our life, when there is compromise,
when we're least expecting it, he will RIP us off our dignity.
He will publicly humiliate us, point at us and laugh.
And that's what hidden sins do to us.
They leave us completely susceptible to the world with
judgement who hatred to slander. And I want to ask you today,
would you come clean with a hidden sense, expose it to the
light so that the enemy has no foothold, so that he has no
point of entry, so that he cannot do to you what is not
what God does not allow. The second kind of deception
here we're going to be looking at the Gibeonite deception.
It was another mistake that Joshua made and it's interesting
because you think Joshua would have been smarter than that,
right? You would think, well, OK,
Joshua knew better. Joshua consulted the Lord.
He had the, you know, angelic commander on his side.
He knew he probably knew everything.
Well, he didn't because God had called him in the promised land
on for a day by day by day dependence.
It was not once a month. I need to the commander.
I get the, you know, plans for the month and then I move on
with my life. No, it was an everyday thing,
which is why in Joshua chapter 1 he says meditate on the Word of
the Lord constantly by night and day.
Let it not leave you. Which meant in today's context
for us in the times of the new Covenant, the Word became flesh
and made His dwelling among us. We have seen the glory, the
glory of the Father through the Son.
So I have Jesus with me, and I can constantly be in meditation
and connection with this Savior who's my friend, who's my
counselor as I commune with him. I had this constant dependency
on Him. Joshua had the word deeply
hidden. He knew God, and yet this
deception touched him. Let's look at Joshua Chapter 9,
verses 1 to 14. Now when all the kings West of
the Jordan heard about these things, the kings in the Hill
Country, in the western foothills and along the entire
coast of the Mediterranean Sea as far as Lebanon, the kings of
the Hittites, Hammerites, Canaanites, Perisites, Hivites
and Jebusites, they came together to wage war against
Joshua and Israel. However, when the people of
Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and I, they
resorted to a reuse. They went as a delegation whose
donkeys were loaded with walnut sacks and old wineskins cracked
and mended. They put worn and patched
sandals on their feet and wore old clothes.
All the bread of their food supply was dry and moldy.
Then they went to Joshua and the camp at Gilgal and said to him
and the Israelites, We have come from a distant country, Make a
treaty with us. The Israelites said to the
Hibais, but perhaps you live near us, so how can we make a
treaty with you? Let's just pause that.
This was a very momentous situation because the Israelites
are suspicious, rightly so, because these guys did come from
close by. What was the follow up to that?
If you have a gut feeling you have a suspicion, the next step
is not to proceed rushing into getting to know the situation
better. This the the best situation.
The the best solution would be to step back and say, Lord, can
you please display to me or explain to me what's going on?
I feel like I'm getting conned. Most of us do exactly what
Joshua and his team did. Let's go back to that.
It says we are your servants. They said to Joshua.
But Joshua asked who are you and where do you come from?
They answered, Your servants have come from a very distant
country because of the fame of the Lord your God.
So we have heard reports of him, all that he did in Egypt and all
that he did to the 2 kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan,
Sihon king of Heshbourne and all king of Bashan who reigned in
Ashtaroth. And our elders and all those
living in our country said, take these provisions for your
journey. Go and meet them and say to
them, we are your servants. Make a treaty with us.
Again I want to pause that many times we get conned because of
the senses being so triggered and the spirit being dead.
Here they were showing them evidence of a long journey.
Verse 12 says this bread of ours was warm when we packed it at
home on the day we left to come to you.
But now see how dry and moldy it is.
And these wineskins that we filled were new, but see how
cracked they are. And our clothes and sandals are
worn out by the very long journey.
The Israelites. Israelites sampled their
provisions but did not inquire of the Lord.
Then Joshua made a Treaty of peace with them to let them
live, and the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath.
You know, when I, when I read this, I feel comforted that even
Joshua made such a mistake. It makes you feel really like
you know you're in good company. The family of God is good
company because we have such monumental mess ups when it
comes to relationships, networking.
We make so many, you know, bad decisions based on just our
senses. Oh, I felt connected to them.
Oh, I, I just kind of connected. I felt, you know, emotionally
charged when they were talking. The vibe was right.
But hey, did you inquire of the Lord?
What was God's response to you? Can we take a day or two to Mull
this over and pray about it? That should be our usual
response. Instead, usually we just jump in
and say, let's make peace. Let's shake hands.
And the worst is in Deuteronomy 7 verses 1:00 to 2:00 to give
you background to why this was wrong.
It says when the Lord your God brings you into the land you are
entering to possess and drives out before you many nations,
those seven nations larger and stronger than you.
And when the Lord has delivered them over to you and you have
defeated them, then you must destroy them totally, make no
treaty with them and show them no mercy.
This was the basis in which God was giving them territory.
He's saying you will enter this place, people will try to make
treaties with you, people try to intermarry with you, people will
try to befriend you. Basically what all of that will
do is lower your defenses, make you susceptible to idolatry,
make you susceptible to immorality, lead you astray.
But no, you do not make treaties.
You are a people set apart. This was God's instruction and
Joshua unknowingly, unknowingly because he did not seek God,
made a Treaty of peace with them.
First thing is deception will bring you into the wrong
alliances and relationships. Simple things as we were
watching this show recently about a a guy who dates a girl,
she becomes his girlfriend. His mother keeps warning him
that she's not the one and eventually his mom's right
because the girl is really not all right.
She's a bit crazy, but it's too late.
And I wonder how many of you have gotten into relationships
which were completely driven by deception.
The person presented themselves to you as something else, That
friendship that you developed which suddenly turned toxic.
You don't know when it turned toxic, but it turned out it
started out OK. Maybe there's a business partner
who got into business with you, but now you just you're going
through hell. Deception will bring you into
the wrong alliances. When God says in his Word, I
think it's in the New Testament, one of the episodes he says do
not be yoked with an unbeliever, which means that these are not
negotiables. Once you do get yoked, you have
a different kind of consequence to deal with.
Be it business, be it marriage. Who are you yoked to?
You need to examine that in friendships.
Yes, we are called to be friends with with whoever God brings in
our life. But these alliances, which will
extend into godly connections and Kingdom influence are
important. Who are you connected to?
The Gibeonite connection. They were enemies.
They were part of the seven nations that had to be pulled
down and destroyed by the people of God to take up territory.
Instead they had come into a peace treaty, so now they would
live in their midst. What a tragedy.
Of course it turned out well. Joshua said.
You know what, we found out you cheated us.
You guys are only going to be woodcutters and and water
carriers because eventually they set up a high place in Gibeon,
which was like a temple and they would have needed water for
sacrifices. They would have needed wood for
the altars. They relegated them to
servitude. But the point is this, they were
supposed to have been cleared out so that the land would be
given to the people of God. Unfortunately, they were now in
alliance with them. Deception will bring you the
wrong alliances. The second thing about
deception, it will lead you into unnecessary battles, battles
that are not even yours. If you look in further chapters,
the other kings of of Canaan get so angry with Gibeon for siding
with Israel, for getting covered by Israel.
So they come to attack Gibeon and Joshua, because he and his
people have signed a peace treaty with Gibeon, are forced
to go and fight the battle to protect Gibeon.
Now while that turned out for good, 5 Amorite kings were
completely annihilated because of that one attack.
Joshua was able to hit literally 5 five birds with one stone.
That was how it turned out. God turns these things around to
good, but many times because of the wrong alliances that have
come in by deception, because the enemy has whispered things,
lies in our ears and connected us to the wrong people,
connected us to the wrong wrong places, wrong situations.
We are fighting battles that were never meant for us.
And I wonder if we need to come clean about the deception, the
deceptive people in our lives, the deceptive connections in our
life, and we have to counter it by divine discernment and a soul
dependency on God. Why do I say divine discernment?
You know, a lot of times we think my gut is telling me
something is off. That's not divine discernment.
That is just maybe you know, like it's this street smarts,
but you need God smarts. You need the wisdom of God to
lead you in a situation, to lead you out of a situation, lead you
out of a relationship, lead you into the right relationships.
And that comes when God gives you discernment.
When the Holy Spirit gives you discernment, he will show you.
He will help you listen to certain conversations which give
you greater clarity. He will enable you to have a
dream about it. He could open any Ave. or
connect you with someone from that person's past for you to
have an idea of who they really are before you step into
something. But you need to be completely
dependent on him. The problem here was these guys
were on a high after the battle of AI.
They were they were resting easy when these guys came in and made
peace and they convinced them with their language.
They said we want to be your servants.
They feigned humility, they feigned subservience.
They feigned a love for their God.
He says your, your God. We we heard about your God.
They were taking the easy way out.
They were latching on to the mighty land of Israel, whose God
was a living God. They were latching on.
But these guys didn't read read into it.
And I want to ask you, would you be dependent on God for
everything, big or small? I have found that I've needed to
be dependent on God about everything, like even who to
hire as a cook, who to get as a driver, who to help me in
certain decisions, who to help me in certain projects or
events, who to get as a partner in marriage, who to get in
business. Everything needs dependency on
God, even if it means your your finances.
You need help with finances. You want to grow your money, you
don't know where to put it. Lord, connect me to the right
people. Lord, I want my money to grow,
but I don't know what to do. Lord, when do I withdraw money
that I have invested? Is it a good time or other
markets going to crash or are they going to go up?
I don't know a lot. Can you help me?
Can you leave me? Too many times we trust
ourselves more than we trust God, and our dependency becomes
on ourselves, our advisors, our friends, and not on the one who
holds everything together. The one who gives us power to
get wealth, the one who helps us to succeed, the one who puts us
in families, the ones one who cares so deeply about us.
The problem is that we have relegated God to either the very
huge things or only the small things.
I'll ask you for new shoes. Log that phone.
God has to be the God of even the in between.
He's not just mega, he's not just micro, He's everything in
between. He cares about everything.
That's what I'm discovering. He cares about the the stuff in
between the mundane stuff, where to invest, what to do, who to
speak to, who to text, who not to.
Will you come to a place of deeper dependence and divine
discernment? But you know, probably you're
listening to this whole thing and saying what a depressing
sermon. I get it.
I'm probably having a couple of deceptive engagements in terms
of my business or my job or a relationship.
You're making me feel bad. You make me feel bad about my
hidden sins, but I want to bring us back to this that our God is
a Redeemer and there's redemption in this entire story.
There's redemption through and through, right?
He redeems us from every deceptive relationship.
He redeems us from every wrong alliances.
He redeems us from even the hidden sinfulness that we bring
to the light. Redemption is his MO.
And you know, if you if you look at the book of Joshua and Joshua
Chapter 7 and 8. It talks about how Aiken and his
family are stoned and burnt in this valley called the Valley of
Akor, meaning the Valley of trouble, and it is remembered
for generations as the place where Israel's sin was publicly
dealt with, right? But so beautifully, God brings
redemption to this very place in Hosea chapter 2, verses 14 to
16. I want to read it for you,
Mosia, chapter 2, verses 14 to 16.
Therefore I'm now going to allure her.
I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to
her there. I will give her back her
vineyards and will make the valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day
she came up out of Egypt. In that day, declares the Lord,
you will call me my husband. You will no longer call me my
master. And it goes on.
When you read that whole chapter, it's beautiful because
it's talking about a coming Redeemer, a coming God who is
going to change this valley of trouble to a door of hope, that
who walks through him. Jesus is the door right when you
walk through. When you enter through him, you
no longer call him your master. You call him your husband.
That is the level of intimacy God was promising in Jesus.
This redemption, even in the story of Akin that you know,
even no matter what hidden sin is there in your life, when you
bring it to the light, you enter the door of hope and there is so
much ahead for you. It's no longer valley of
trouble. It is the valley of hope, right?
Jesus also redeems the situations we put ourselves in
because of deception. You know, so many of us have
been cheated of things. So many of us have experienced
deceptive people, people who have stolen money from us,
people who have stolen joy out of us, people who have used us
and thrown us. People who have completely
entered your inner circle, devastated you, and left.
I'm sure you've been through that.
But my Redeemer Jesus turns even that for good.
Think about it. Gibeon is now being attacked. 5
kings of Canaan, the major cities, you know, the kings of
those major cities have come against Gibeon.
Joshua and his people go there to defend Gibeon.
They get to finish off 5 enemy kings at once.
More territory is reclaimed. More territory is taken back for
God, right? God can do that in your life
even in the worst of your situations when you turn to him
and say, Lord, give me discernment at this point.
I lacked it when I made this decision, but now I need you,
God. I want to be dependent on you
deeply, completely. He is capable of bringing a
mighty restoration. The beautiful thing is, the
restoration doesn't end there for the people of Gibeon.
When we look at Nehemiah, the book of Nehemiahs, many years
later, they've gone into exile, but a group has returned.
A remnant has returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls,
right? And in Nehemiah chapter 3, verse
7, it talks about a group of people who helped Nehemiah
rebuild the wall. Let's see that verse 7 next to
them, repairs were made by men from Gabion and Mizpah.
Melatia of Gabion and Jayden of Maranath places under the
authority of the governor of Trans Euphrates.
Look at the power of redemption. Men who were just relegated to
water carrier stone cutters, their descendants are now coming
here and helping Nehemiah rebuild the wall, making it
habitable for the people of Israel again.
This is our God. Even the worst situations of our
life, even the worst connections, the most desperate
times when we have been left in the lurch by people, by by
relationships, God meets us there.
He redeems even those things that we thought were beyond
redemption. So you and I, with all of our
baggage hidden or exposed, we have open Jesus.
God can turn everything to good. When we talk about a Redeemer,
we're talking about someone who can take the broken pieces of
our life. Maybe your life is like ash.
He brings beauty out of that. He brings such wholeness from
the battered pieces of our hearts, but it requires that you
and I live in deep dependence on God, that we will live in this
place where we keep saying, Lord, I'm exposing my life to
you. Will you shine your light on me,
on the hidden paths so that I can live as a child of light?
This week, as I was preparing this the whole time I was my
prayer had been this, Lord, that I would live from the inside out
before you, not before people because that's scary, or before
God, that I would live inside out, that what is inside would
be bad to you. God, you would know what's on my
heart. You would know my prejudices.
You would know my brokenness. You will know my my motives and
that you would keep cleansing it because it's an ongoing journey.
I've also been asking God, give me more discernment God, because
the problem is that discernment dips when my dependency is on
myself, but when I'm wholly dependent on God, He just
blesses me with the discernment I need in certain situations.
We need to stop living by our gut and start living by the
Spirit. So even as I close, I want to
just play with you. I don't know what sin you have
that is hidden deep in your life.
It's kept in that black box hidden in the back of your
closet. It could be something that you
have not talked about for years, but it still plagues you.
Maybe you're living in compromise.
Your marriage is compromised. Your sexuality has been
compromised. God is bringing you back to a
place of putting steel in your convictions if you would let
him, because that's the Holy Spirit's job.
It's not a person's job. And so, Holy Spirit, we just
welcome you. Would you come?
Holy Spirit, I pray that you would bring us into the light.
Every part of our lives will be brought into the light so that
Lord, your light would cleanse us and your light brings life,
it says. So we pray that the dead things
of our life, the things that have been growing in darkness,
will come into the light and thrive now, Lord, they will be
transformed into things that are good and pleasing and perfect.
Or Father in your sight. Father, I pray for the areas of
compromise in our life, that Lord you will make us people
with steely Holy Spirit LED convictions.
Mother, I pray right now for anyone who has been deceived,
anyone who Lord has gotten into the wrong alliance, was fighting
battles that has not even meant for them.
God, I pray in the name of Jesus that you will give them victory
over the deceiver. We bind every power of darkness.
We release the Holy Spirit of truth upon them.
We pray that the Spirit of truth would lead them into all truth.
I pray for deep dependency on you God.
I pray for Lord, a true discernment that comes from the
Holy Spirit to lead them, guide them and go before them.
We just commit all of this into your mighty hands.
Help us God, thank you, Jesus, our Redeemer.
Thank you. Father, we love you and we thank
you. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Amen. God bless you.
Even as you get into this week, I pray that you will continually
be positioned to take the land God has marked for you.
It is your time to possess that you will deal with the
deceptions in your life. You would move forward in faith,
in hope and love. Remember this that whoever finds
Jesus finds life. God bless you.
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