Consequences

March 16, 2014

Joshua:  Turning Obedience Into Blessing

Joshua 9:  Consequences                                NOTES NOT EDITED (BE KIND!)

SIS—We can avoid the unpleasant and unproductive consequences of bad decisions by avoiding bad decisions.

This week I was studying something called “avoidance therapy” and here’s what I found out:  “technically, there is no such thing as "avoidance therapy.”  However, avoidance learning is a general term referring to any situation where the correct response allows an organism to escape a negative outcome (Answers.com).

Well, I guess there’s really no need for professional counseling using avoidance therapy, anyway.  Seems to me, “common sense” works just as well.  If a person touches a hot burner on a stove, I’d think that would work pretty well as “therapy” for not doing it again!

A law in physics states, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”  That’s a scientific was of stating, “every action has consequences.” Take the motorcycle patrolman was rushed to the hospital with an inflamed appendix. The doctors operated and advised him that all was well. However, the patrolman kept feeling something tugging at the hairs on his chest. Worried that it might be a second surgery the doctors hadn’t told him about, he finally got enough energy to pull his hospital gown down enough so he could look at what was making him so uncomfortable.  Taped firmly across his hairy chest were three wide strips of adhesive tape, the kind that doesn’t come off easily. Written in large black letters was the sentence. “Get well quick… from the nurse you gave a ticket to last week.”

This week we are going to study “Consequences,” particularly the consequences that come from ungodly decisions.  We can avoid the unpleasant and unproductive consequences of bad decisions by avoiding bad decisions.  This is simply a matter of physics and common sense—make less bad decisions and get fewer unpleasant and unproductive consequences.

LET’S READ ABOUT CONSEQUENCES:  Joshua 9:1-27

Here’s some “avoidance” tips that will help you lesson or eliminate many of the bad decisions in life.

1.  Avoid Worldly Entanglements (1-2)

When all the kings heard about Jericho and Ai, those who were west of the Jordan in the hill country,  in the Judean foothills,  and all along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea  toward Lebanon—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites— ² they formed a unified alliance to fight against Joshua and Israel.

Notice that six pagan kings, who had little or nothing in common, came together to war against Israel.  A “common enemy makes for uncommon alliances.”  This is a very ancient sentiment.  A sanscrit proverb dating to the 4^th century B.C. stated, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  We saw this worked out as foreign policy with the Allies of WW2.  We fought with Russia.

This works out spiritually in the same way:  the enemies of God often become friends for the purpose of attempting to defeat God’s plan and God’s people.  Notice that there are seven kings, or “heads of state”—six pagans plus one Israel.  Notice also, there are only “two sides” those for God and those against.  God weaves this truth throughout the tapestry of His Word.  It’s either God or the Devil you will serve.  Evil and error may take a multitude of forms, but all error has the one foundation—a hatred for God. Likewise, the enemies of God have a contempt and a disdain for the truth of His Word.  There are not three categories of people:  saved, lost, and other.  It’s saved or lost, “God’s friend or God’s foe.”  The six pagan kings were very much different and lived in different locales in the Promised Land, but they all shared the same hatred for God and His people.  This has not changed, and will never change.  The Middle East remains the same, today.  Israel is a tiny spec on the map but the Muslim hoards cannot stand having Israel in their midst.  Mark this down—you cannot make friends with the world and if you try you will regret it every time.  You simply cannot make a pet out of a rattlesnake.

I read on the Internet about a 31-year-old Long Island man who was rushed to the hospital after being bitten by a pet rattlesnake. Yes, “pet rattlesnake!” It happened Thursday in a home on Oak Street in Floral Park. The man was taken to Jacobi Medical Center in fair condition. He was being treated for a bite on his left hand. Animal Control agents removed the albino diamondback rattlesnake, an Indian cobra, eyelash viper, and bamboo viper from the home. They are all described as highly venomous, deadly and illegal to keep.  The SPCA also took a 3-foot-long crocodile monitor, described as a dangerous reptile, from the home.
This goes beyond foolish to being absolutely reckless.  Likewise, trying to become friendly with the world will always lead to a loss of God’s blessing.
Now, this presents a very touchy circumstance for God’s people. How do we give a witness to the world and yet not become a part of an unholy alliance?  First, before we struggle with issues that are not so clear, we need to apply those principles clearly spelled out in the world of God.
Look at chapter 5, verse 1.  God clearly outlined who the enemy was in the Promised Land-- the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.  Here they are again in chapter 9, emboldened by the defeat at Ai.  The Word of God warns against entanglements with pagans, or non-believers.  Paul declared in 2Corinthians 6:14,

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness?

This verse is most often applied to marriage but being “mismatched” also extends to business partnerships, or any close association, when it would put us in a position to have to compromise our Christian principles.  The word referred to the Jewish prohibition of “unequally yoking” different species (donkey and ox, for example) for the purpose of plowing or other work.  It is one thing to work in a business that is not owned by a Christian—this is almost unavoidable—but it is something altogether different to enter into a partnership in business with an unbeliever. 
Even a partnership with someone who declares to be a believer can be problematic.  All partnerships in life must be entered into with extreme caution.  Notice that Joshua displays this kind of caution in verse 8:  Then Joshua asked them, “Who are you and where do you come from?”
For the last thirty years or so I’ve watched the lines between “friend and foe” become more and more blurred.  Christians individually and the church corporately has become more and more friendly with culture.  I don’t think this has been good for the church or for culture.  Take the example of marriage.  The church relaxed her stand on divorce and divorce has become almost as commonplace as marriage—but, it goes beyond just divorce.  Now, the institution of marriage has been completely set aside for a more “politically correct” view allowing for men to marry men and women to marry women.  When the church makes an alliance with culture, culture always ends up the stronger partner until the church is relegated to second class citizenship or persecuted altogether.
The Gibeonites were “Hivites” and Israel should have had nothing to do with them.  We will see that Joshua will regret the decision to make an alliance with them as we go along.  For now, know that to avoid unpleasant and unproductive consequences we should “Avoid Worldly Entanglements.”

2.  Avoid Making Decisions on Superficial Evidence (7, 14)

Israel did not follow this principle.  Verse 7 says, The men of Israel replied to the Hivites,  “Perhaps you live among us. How can we make a treaty with you?”

This is a direct violation of an admonition God made many times:  “Do not make a covenant with them or their gods (referring to pagan nations)” (Ex. 23:32, Deu. 7:2-5).

Now, what led Israel, and their leader Joshua to make this bad decision and break from what God had commanded in chapter 5 and elsewhere in the Bible?  In a word, Israel was “duped.”  What does it mean to be “duped?”  To be duped means “to be deceived, deluded, or tricked by unquestionably or unwittingly serving the cause of another.”  The Gibeonites duped Israel into serving their cause.  Look again at verses 3-6:

³ When the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai,  ⁴ they acted deceptively. They gathered provisions  and took worn-out sacks on their donkeys and old wineskins, cracked and mended. ⁵ They wore old, patched sandals on their feet and threadbare clothing on their bodies. Their entire provision of bread was dry and crumbly. ⁶ They went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant land. Please make a treaty with us.”

Israel was tricked into believing the Gibeonites (a group in the tribe of Hivites) were some neutral foreign tribe from outside of Israel that had heard of God’s fame and wanted to serve Him by aligning with Israel against the pagan kings.  Now, the Gibeonites may have been a late addition to the tribe of the Hivites (Holman Study Bible).  They do not have a king but are ruled by elders (v. 11) so they seem to be different from the other “Ites.”  So, this would allow them a cover for the ruse they used to dupe the Israelites.  How were they so easily duped?  Verse 14 gives us the answer:

¹⁴ Then the men of Israel took some of their provisions, but did not seek the Lord’s counsel.

The Devil is a great deceiver and one can easily be deceived if one trusts in empirical information—that is, information gathered by the five senses alone.  Science is roughly equivalent to the philosophy of empiricism.  Science can only deal with “stuff”—stuff that can be manipulated and measured by the five senses.  Science does use “thought experiments,” but these are largely set aside unless they can produce “hard evidence,” or empirical evidence.  Modern man has been duped by modern science into believing only in what can be “scientifically proven.” 

This is a great departure from all science prior to the mid or late 19^th century.  One simply cannot arrive at truth without starting with truth and one cannot start with truth without first consulting what God has said in His Word.  And, “the Israelites failed to consult God.”

They were easily duped because “they put more trust in the so-called evidence before them than in the God Who saved them.”  They would regret this bad decision as we will see later.

The fact is that our senses can easily be duped.  We are all familiar with “optical illusions” that trick our eye.  There are many, many examples.  Here is one used by a foreign beer making company.

(SHOW SLIDE)

Here’s another one where a billboard painter appears to be using  disappearing paint (that makes the billboard appear transparent). 

(SHOW SLIDE)

There are literally thousands of examples of “optical illusions.”  Our sense of sight is not as reliable as some might think.  The fact is that all our senses can be fooled.  The “Rubber Hand” experiment demonstrated scientifically (yes, I see the irony) that a person’s sense of touch can be tricked to make the person believe a rubber hand is in fact their own.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCQbygjG0RU).

Or take your taste for example.  As impossible as it sounds, your eyes even have the power of determining how stuff tastes to you ... and we don't just mean that you get hungrier for food that "looks" appetizing. It's much stranger than that.  For instance, if you know anything about wine, you're aware of how different experts consider red and white wine to be -- they're served in different glasses, paired with totally different foods, and kept at different temperatures. Well, in one study, food scientists gathered the members of a London wine club and asked them to describe the flavor of a glass of white wine. At first, they came up with flavors normally associated with that type of wine, like banana, passion fruit, and bell pepper. However, when the scientists took the same wine and colored it red, the tasters suddenly reported flavors associated with red wine. Again, it was the exact same thing they'd just tasted, only with a different color. (http://www.cracked.com/article_20391_5-mind-blowing-ways-your-senses-lie-to-you-every-day.html)

Bad decisions lead to bad consequences.  Trusting in superficial evidence will lead to bad decisions.  All evidence must be measured by the Word of God.  If you don’t start with the Word of God you will not end with truth—unless you do so accidentally.

I want to interject something here that will likely make me seem like some Neanderthalithic (pun noted) religious zealot.  As much as I truly want to believe the evidence of science that our world is “billions” of years old, I simply cannot. I realize many professing Christians have acquiesced to what seems to be irrefutable evidence of an Old Earth.  Yet, when I “inquire of the Lord,” I just cannot accept that evidence. Such evidence is no different than the “moldy bread, cracked wineskins, patched sandals, and threadbare clothing” of the Gibeonites.

The Bible clearly states that God created the earth and heavens in six days—not six periods of near limitless years.  God created Adam a grown man, appearing to be grown seconds after he took his first breath.  I think it is impossible to reconcile the account of Genesis with the so-called evidence of science.  At best, this makes Genesis and the rest of the Bible, unreliable.  At worse, this makes Genesis and the rest of the Bible nothing more than a collection of religious myths and fables. If we cannot trust the God of Genesis, how can we trust the God of the Gospels?

Bad decisions lead to bad consequences and trusting superficial evidence without consulting the Word of God is going to lead to bad decisions.  The Bible, especially the O.T., hosts a collection of accounts in which disaster befell Israel when they failed to “inquire of the Lord” and trust superficial evidence instead.

Jeremiah, the prophet, laments over the sorry state of affairs in Israel and diagnoses the problem in this way:

^10:21 For the shepherds are stupid: they don’t seek the Lord.

Therefore they have not prospered, and their whole flock is scattered.

We must beware of making decisions based upon superficial evidence without consulting first the Word of God.

           

3.  Avoid Taking the Easy Way Out (16-19; 23-25)

¹⁶ Three days after making the treaty with them, they heard that the Gibeonites were their neighbors, living among them. ¹⁷ So the Israelites set out and reached the Gibeonite cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim.  ¹⁸ But the Israelites did not attack them, because the leaders of the community had sworn an oath  to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. Then the whole community grumbled against the leaders. ¹⁹ All the leaders answered them, “We have sworn an oath to them by the LORD, the God of Israel, and now we cannot touch them.

Don’t make a bad situation worse by making another bad decision.  Honor comes to those who honor God.  Joshua and Israel honored God by honoring their oath.

The Gibeonites clearly had lied.  They did not live far away.  They obtained a treaty under false pretenses.  This would invalidate any contract.  The Israelites could justify breaking the treaty, attacking the Gibeonites, and plundering their cities. With God, it is not that easy.

Israel had made an oath, and oaths were sacred.  Breaking the oath would have given Israel short-term gains but would have left them open to long-term consequences—particularly losing God’s favor.  So often I’ve watched people take the “short-term” blessing route only to discover that further down the road what seemed to be a blessing actually became a curse.

Take people who play the lottery.  This is a violation of an oath to trust in God.  Surely, all the good one could do with a few million bucks would justify playing the lottery, or so I’ve heard some argue.  Just think of how much more blessed you would be if suddenly you had more money than you could ever spend in a lifetime?

You've heard the stories of lottery winners whose post-jackpot lives turned sour. There's Jack Whittaker, the West Virginia man who in 2002 won the nearly $315 million Powerball jackpot. Initially, he generously gave millions to charities, including $14 million to start his own Jack Whittaker Foundation. But later, the dream turned to nightmare: A briefcase with $545,000 in cash and cashier's checks was stolen from his car while it was parked outside of a Cross Lanes, W. Va., strip club. His office and home were broken into, he was arrested twice for drunken-driving -- and the list goes on.  Or there's Alex Toth, a Florida man who in 1990 won $13 million to be doled out in 20-year-payments of $666,666. (Seriously.) At his death in 2008, the Tampa Bay Times reported on the sad direction his life had taken: Years of living it up led to a split from his wife and charges of fradulent tax returns, among other serious woes (MSN, “$550 Million Will Buy You A Lot Of . . . Misery).

Several psychological studies reveal that after the initial euphoria of receiving the first big check wears off, big lottery winners are no happier than the general population.  Playing the lottery is a modern version of “taking the easy way out.”  In the end, the easy way out seldom works out.

Joshua and Israel would have to live with the fact that they would have to live with the enemy in their midst.  Joshua and Israel had already sinned against God by neglecting the clear directives God had given in chapter 2, before Israel ever fought the first battle.  Joshua and the leaders of Israel were not willing to make things worse by “taking the easy way out.”  They would have to live with the consequences of a bad decision—but that is better than compounding it with another bad decision.  Integrity is everything in life.  The Psalms tell us:

(Ps. 15:4) A godly person “keeps his word whatever the cost.”

If the Israelites would not have sought to “take the easy way out in the first place,” they would not have had to live with the ill-gotten treaty they made with the Gibeonites.  They would have enjoyed the spoil of the Gibeonites as well as that of the other “Ites” in the Promised Land.

The easy way out seldom, if ever, works out.

The bad decision of the Gibeonites to gain favor by lying and deceit also had its unpleasant consequences.  Verse 23 says,

Therefore you are cursed and will always be slaves—woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”

The Gibeonites would save their lives, but not without consequences.  They would forever be cursed to a “servant class” in Israel.  Now, we know that both Israel and the Gibeonites learned to live with their respective mistakes because centuries later the Gibeonites are named as among those that would return from exile in Babylon (Neh. 7:25).  The Gibeonites accepted the consequences of their deceit.  Verse 25:

Now we are in your hands. Do to us whatever you think is right.”

Every decision has consequences.  Bad decisions have bad consequences.  Israel lost plunder and land, and risked the disfavor of Almighty God.  The Gibeonites lost their freedom to pursue whatever path in life they desired.  Decisions have consequences.

 We can avoid the unpleasant and unproductive consequences of bad decisions by avoiding bad decisions.  When (1) avoid getting involved in worldly entanglements; when we (2) avoid making decisions based upon superficial evidence without first consulting the Word of God; and when (3) avoid the tendency to take the easy way out of a mess, then we at least lessen, and often eliminate the consequences of bad decisions.

Bad decisions have consequences.  Avoid making bad decisions. 

<<end>>