The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - Nephilim, Giants, & Oath-Taking

00:00:00.000 Again, we'll be dealing in the sermon today with the entirety of chapter 9 of the book

00:00:04.120 of Joshua, but we'll read Joshua chapter 9 verses 1 through 10.

00:00:08.500 When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, this is the word of the Lord, at which

00:00:12.420 point I would appreciate very much if you would be able to respond by saying thanks

00:00:16.780 be to God.

00:00:17.800 This is Joshua chapter 9 verses 1 through 10.

00:00:21.600 The Bible says this, as soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country

00:00:27.640 and in the low land, all along the coast of the great sea toward Lebanon, the Hittites,

00:00:34.000 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites heard of this.

00:00:40.660 They gathered together as one to fight against Joshua and Israel. But when the inhabitants of

00:00:47.240 Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, they on their part acted with cunning and went

00:00:54.880 and made ready provisions and took worn out sacks for their donkeys and wineskins with worn out

00:01:01.800 patched sandals on their feet and worn out clothes and all their provisions were dry and crumbly

00:01:09.000 and they went to Joshua in the camp of Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel we have come 0.90

00:01:16.400 from a distant country so now make a covenant with us but the men of Israel said to the Hivites

00:01:23.500 Perhaps you live among us. 0.96

00:01:25.500 Then how can we make a covenant with you?

00:01:28.780 They said to Joshua, we are your servants.

00:01:31.520 And Joshua said to them, who are you and where do you come from?

00:01:35.340 They said to him, from a very distant country, your servants have come because of the name

00:01:41.080 of the Lord your God.

00:01:42.780 For we have heard a report of him and all that he did in Egypt and all that he did to

00:01:48.300 the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to Sihon to Sihon to the king of Heshbon

00:01:55.460 and to Og king of Bashan who lived in Ashtoreth this is the word of the Lord

00:02:01.760 all right please be seated let's go ahead and dive right in in your notes the first thing I've

00:02:07.920 written in regards to these first 10 verses of Joshua chapter 9 is this in the same way that

00:02:14.440 Rahab. Think of Israel going against their first enemy after crossing the Jordan River, that being

00:02:21.440 Jericho. In the same way that Rahab distinguished her and her own household from the rest of the

00:02:28.040 city of Jericho, now we're seeing that same concept play out at large. So Rahab distinguished

00:02:35.000 herself from the rest of her people, Jericho. Now we see the Gibeonite tribe distinguishing

00:02:41.120 themselves from the rest of the tribes of Canaan. Both actions are done in faith. We should

00:02:48.020 understand this as an act of faith. The faith is, at the very least, Rahab recognizes that at the

00:02:54.980 end of the day that Israel is going to win the battle because they have the Lord. It's not

00:03:02.020 because of any practical circumstance. Jericho was a superior. They had the position that was

00:03:08.620 advantageous over Israel. Israel was coming in. They were nomadic. They had been wandering in the 0.93

00:03:15.280 wilderness for 40 years, an entire generation, whereas Jericho was strategically positioned.

00:03:20.960 They had a fortified city. They had walls that stretched the heavens, as we see in the book of

00:03:27.180 Deuteronomy. That's the way it's described. And so Jericho had the upper hand in every practical

00:03:32.880 regard, and yet Rahab recognizes that ultimately the Lord, the God of all gods, lowercase g, gods, 0.50

00:03:41.420 king of all kings, Yahweh himself, is with Israel. And so even though Israel doesn't have some of the

00:03:47.520 physical provisions and weaponry, what they do have that gives them the victory is that they have 0.95

00:03:54.400 Yahweh. And so she recognizes that if she sides with her own people, Jericho, she's going to lose 0.96

00:04:01.280 the battle and one of the signs that she looks to that in order to confirm this conclusion this 0.78

00:04:07.860 realization that Israel will emerge victorious in this battle between Israel and Jericho is that

00:04:15.020 everyone in Jericho her own people the Bible says she says this to the Israelite spies she says all

00:04:22.240 their hearts have melted within them like wax that they are overcome and overwhelmed by fear

00:04:29.580 She recognizes that this supernatural dread upon all of her people is a sign that the Lord Yahweh

00:04:38.880 is with Israel and not with Jericho, and that Israel will be victorious over Jericho. And so

00:04:47.160 she makes a treaty. She says to the spies, I know that you are going to inherit the land.

00:04:53.260 No matter what we do, it doesn't matter how tall our walls are. It doesn't matter what provisions

00:04:58.340 we have on deck. At the end of the day, you're going to conquer because Yahweh is with you. So

00:05:05.280 please remember me and my family. And the spies make a covenant. They make a treaty with Rahab

00:05:12.600 and her household. They say, hang a scarlet thread out of your window. Have every member of your 0.78

00:05:17.760 household in your home, in your physical home, as we come to decimate Jericho and you will be spared. 0.99

00:05:26.080 Why? Because of your faith. She's believing in Yahweh. She's saying that the gods of the Amorites,

00:05:32.320 the gods of the Canaanites, the God of Jericho, the God of Ai, these are false puny gods, right?

00:05:39.180 It's like the Hulk taking Loki. You say, it's not that he's not a God. He's just a weak God,

00:05:44.480 puny God. And he starts smashing them back and forth. That's what Jesus does with all the false 0.99

00:05:49.960 gods of our world. And that's what we see Yahweh do in the conquest of Israel in the land of 0.97

00:05:55.880 Canaan is one by one, he topples all their gods. And that's the exact same thing that Yahweh did 0.97

00:06:02.120 in Egypt with each of the 10 plagues that we see transpire as God is delivering his people from

00:06:08.580 bondage and slavery. Each of these 10 plagues signify the superior power of Yahweh over each 0.97

00:06:15.580 of these false gods, whether it be Ra, the sun God, or the God of the Nile river and fertility 0.96

00:06:21.280 and all these different things, we see Yahweh proving time and time again that he is a superior 0.92

00:06:26.940 God. And for the record, I don't believe that Jambres and Janus, who are the henchmen, the two

00:06:33.700 right and left hand henchmen of Pharaoh in Egypt, the magicians who are performing signs and

00:06:40.260 competing with Moses, I don't believe that they were competing by just smoke and mirrors and

00:06:46.180 sleight of hand. I believe that they were using true dark arts, that they were actually performing

00:06:51.900 not just tricks or sleight of eye, but they were actually performing real dark magic by a,

00:06:59.500 not divine, but by a supernatural source, namely Satan, the prince of darkness. So they're actually

00:07:08.060 doing real signs. So it's not that one God is real and the others are fake. No, it's that these

00:07:14.900 other deities, lowercase d, they're not actual deities, but lowercase gods, they're actually

00:07:20.540 real and they actually do have some degree, some measure of power. But the point is not that God

00:07:27.080 is real and these other guys over here are fake. It's that God is infinitely superior to all these

00:07:34.080 other false gods. And so that's what we see is God in the book of Exodus and the deliverance of

00:07:40.100 Israel out of Egypt with the 10 plagues, we see God proving his superiority, his infinite superiority

00:07:46.800 over false gods. And we see him doing it again in the book of Joshua as Israel is coming into 0.96

00:07:53.080 the promised land of Canaan and driving out all of these Canaanite tribes that are pagans

00:07:59.200 worshiping, again, false gods. Rahab has faith. She sees this. She picks up on it. She realizes

00:08:07.180 here's a true God. My people, our God is a false God. And I know that Yahweh is a superior God

00:08:15.180 and therefore his people will emerge victorious. And one of the ways that I can tell is not by

00:08:20.920 looking at the physical level, looking at Israel and their victuals, their supplies and all these

00:08:27.560 kinds of things. And then looking at Jericho and our walls and our armory and our artillery.

00:08:32.500 No, at that level, it looks like we have the upper hand. 1.00

00:08:36.080 But the reason I know as a confirmation, as a sign that Israel will emerge victorious 0.99

00:08:41.640 is because all the men in my city are cowards. 0.98

00:08:45.880 That's how you know. 0.96

00:08:47.820 You know because everyone is overcome by what only could be described as a supernatural sense of dread.

00:08:56.900 Remember when I preached this a few months ago, I said that fear is not only a sin.

00:09:01.620 and it is a sin. We have the utmost sympathy for fear, right? We're not very sympathetic when it

00:09:08.500 comes to other people's pride. When we see pride, we're like, that's nasty. That's bad. That's sin.

00:09:15.260 How dare you, right? But when we see someone who has fear, well, you poor thing. But biblically

00:09:22.940 speaking fear is a sin the bible says be anxious for nothing dot dot dot except for things that

00:09:32.620 are legitimate and you know and if you're a mom you can't help but worry it really just means you

00:09:36.920 love your kids no there's no exception clause it's just be anxious for nothing which means to

00:09:42.600 be anxious for something is going against god's command therefore sin but not only is fear sin

00:09:49.900 on biblical terms, but it's also at times a sign of God's corporate judgment. When an entire

00:09:58.140 nation, when an entire people are overwhelmed by what only can be described as supernatural fear

00:10:05.920 and an extreme sense of dread, that's one of the signs that not only do you have individual people

00:10:13.280 sinning in regards to choosing to be fearful rather than have faith and believe, but you

00:10:18.880 actually have a corporate judgment, a confirmation of God's corporate judgment over a people. Their

00:10:25.640 hearts have melted like wax. So all that being said, Rahab has faith. She sees the signs. She

00:10:33.200 sees, you know, she's clued in. She realizes something supernatural is going on here. It's

00:10:39.340 not just that our men are a little bit scared. No, they're overcome by dread for no practical

00:10:45.100 reason at every level in the practical sense we have the upper hand but no this is supernatural

00:10:52.380 it's because Israel has Yahweh and he is the superior God he will fulfill all of his promises 0.91

00:10:59.440 and one of those promises is to decimate us and to give his people an inheritance in the land and so 0.98

00:11:07.820 she makes a treaty she makes a covenant because of faith that's what we now see in our text today

00:11:14.160 the same principle now applied at a larger level with the tribe of Gibeon. So you have all these

00:11:20.960 tribes. In verse 1 and verse 2, what we see right off the bat in our text today is you have all

00:11:28.220 these different tribes in Canaan saying, okay, if we go up against Israel one at a time, we're going

00:11:35.900 to lose. Our only chance is to have an allegiance, to come together as one so that we can take out 0.96

00:11:43.160 Israel? Because if it's just Jericho, Israel was victorious. If it's just Ai, right, we've had two 1.00

00:11:49.020 battles now so far in the book of Joshua, and Israel again is victorious. Well, maybe it's because 0.98

00:11:54.480 Israel is having the luxury of facing each of these tribes, Canaanite tribes, one at a time. 0.70

00:12:02.040 But what if we all went up against Israel together, simultaneously? Well, then maybe we would have the 0.98

00:12:09.220 advantage. And even with this plan, which again makes practical sense, in the practical sense,

00:12:15.160 it is a reasonable plan. It's a strategic plan. But even with this plan, the tribe of Gibeon says,

00:12:22.180 we'll still lose. Why? Why so much confidence that they'll lose? Well, it displays some level

00:12:31.100 of faith in the God of Israel, in Yahweh. And so what they do is the exact same thing that Rahab did.

00:12:37.140 They go to Israel, they go to Joshua and say, we want terms of peace.

00:12:43.480 We want to form a treaty.

00:12:45.560 Quick, make a covenant with us.

00:12:48.040 Now there's one main difference.

00:12:50.540 The main difference between what Gibeon did and what Rahab did is this.

00:12:54.640 Rahab lied to her people in order to make a treaty with Israel. 0.76

00:13:00.520 Whereas the Gibeonites lie to God's people in order to make a treaty with Israel. 0.97

00:13:06.840 Remember Rahab, she lies to her own people, 0.99

00:13:09.800 not to Israel, but to her own people, 0.95

00:13:11.840 the people of Jericho.

00:13:13.000 When they say, are you harboring the spies?

00:13:15.560 She says, oh, no, no, no.

00:13:17.120 They went that way.

00:13:18.280 Quick, run, you can catch up with them.

00:13:20.440 And we got into this.

00:13:21.400 We don't have time to discuss it today,

00:13:22.920 but a whole doctrine of the lie of necessity, right?

00:13:27.260 What is a direct falsehood?

00:13:29.220 What is deceit at a objectively sinful level

00:13:33.520 versus the lie of necessity,

00:13:35.300 which there would be biblical permissibility for.

00:13:37.600 You think of, for instance, the Egyptian midwives

00:13:40.140 who were tasked to go when the Hebrew women were giving birth

00:13:43.300 and if it was a son to drown it in the Nile River 0.92

00:13:45.980 and they lie to Pharaoh.

00:13:47.540 They say, man, those Hebrew women, they're strong, right? 1.00

00:13:50.840 They're on it with their birthing game. 1.00

00:13:52.920 We can't even get there in time.

00:13:54.340 They're already holding the baby.

00:13:55.540 The baby, you know, it's already done.

00:13:56.780 They've hidden it away and they're lying.

00:13:59.260 They're lying to Pharaoh.

00:14:00.340 And the Bible even says they're lying

00:14:02.060 because they're deceitful,

00:14:03.220 because they have a low amount of character?

00:14:05.840 No, it says they lied because they feared God.

00:14:10.260 So their lie to Pharaoh represents fear of God. 0.94

00:14:15.740 And likewise, I would argue that Rahab 0.99

00:14:17.660 would fall into a similar category.

00:14:19.800 But again, the major distinction between Rahab

00:14:22.880 and the Gibeonite tribe is that Rahab lies to her people,

00:14:28.260 in this case, namely Jericho,

00:14:30.400 about the Israelite spies and where they were,

00:14:33.220 those kinds of things in order to make a covenant,

00:14:35.500 a treaty with the people of God

00:14:36.960 and ultimately God himself, Yahweh,

00:14:39.360 so that her and her house would be spared. 1.00

00:14:41.900 Whereas Gibeon, they actually lie 0.85

00:14:44.140 to Joshua and Israel themselves.

00:14:46.660 And they say, hey, we've come from a far off distance, right?

00:14:50.960 They kind of tatter their outfits,

00:14:54.420 you know, their clothing and they take wineskins

00:14:56.520 and they take bread that's really old and already stale

00:14:59.520 and they make it look at a visible level

00:15:02.680 as though they've come from a very long distance.

00:15:05.020 And we've only come really just to pay tribute

00:15:07.540 because we've heard of all the different things

00:15:10.540 that your God, the God of Israel,

00:15:12.860 the one true God, Yahweh,

00:15:14.380 the things that he has accomplished.

00:15:16.440 And the things that they cite,

00:15:18.160 they give three main examples.

00:15:19.540 One is we've heard what Yahweh did to Pharaoh and Egypt.

00:15:23.780 So in this regard, they're speaking of

00:15:25.620 God's deliverance of Israel

00:15:27.540 from bondage and slavery in Egypt. 0.94

00:15:29.200 This would be the 10 plagues.

00:15:30.720 and this would also be even including the parting of the red sea when israel's uh egypt uh pharaoh

00:15:37.420 hardened his heart doubled down again at this point uh you know it's not just doubling down but

00:15:42.120 it's doubling down for the 11th time all right he's already said you can go you can go you can

00:15:47.100 go and then changing his mind the supernatural hardening of hearts that pharaoh hardens his

00:15:51.940 heart but there's also a very real sense where god in his sovereignty god hardens pharaoh's heart

00:15:57.120 and Pharaoh does this for the last time

00:15:59.260 after already losing his firstborn son

00:16:02.160 and he sends the militia of Egypt 0.71

00:16:05.080 to chase down Israel

00:16:06.520 that he's already finally let go 0.93

00:16:08.260 and they end up drowning

00:16:09.580 in the Red Sea parting miracle

00:16:11.460 that Israel through faith crosses on dry land 0.97

00:16:14.780 that Egyptians then attempt to do 0.66

00:16:17.200 what they just saw Israel do

00:16:18.760 but it's not done in faith

00:16:20.220 and they are swallowed up by the sea.

00:16:22.940 So Gibeon is saying,

00:16:24.300 we know about that.

00:16:25.140 We've heard the tale of what your God did in Egypt.

00:16:29.300 The other two examples cited by Gibeon

00:16:31.540 is we've also heard about the two kings and tribes

00:16:35.740 that you defeated among the Amorites.

00:16:38.600 Now, this is not speaking about Jericho and Ai.

00:16:43.220 Jericho and Ai would be Canaanite tribes,

00:16:46.640 Jericho and Amorite tribe,

00:16:48.240 but they're talking specifically

00:16:49.900 about two other Amorite tribes

00:16:52.200 before Israel crossed the Jordan River.

00:16:55.140 Whereas Jericho and Ai are two different tribes

00:16:58.640 that Israel conquered after having, 0.99

00:17:01.160 they're the first tribes to be conquered

00:17:02.800 after getting into the land of promise, Canaan,

00:17:05.980 after crossing the Jordan River.

00:17:07.920 So what are these two tribes that they're referring to?

00:17:11.240 The Gibeonites saying, 0.79

00:17:12.160 we saw what your God did to Egypt 1.00

00:17:13.740 and these other two Amorite tribes 1.00

00:17:16.260 on the other side of the Jordan.

00:17:19.040 So let's read just a little bit about this.

00:17:21.220 And this wouldn't be underneath Joshua's command.

00:17:23.500 Joshua was alive.

00:17:24.440 He was probably integral in many different ways, but this is still when Moses is leading Israel. 0.88

00:17:30.160 That there were moments, most of the conquests and battles with Israel, it comes through Joshua 0.64

00:17:35.500 once they enter the land of Canaan. But there were certain battles that happened underneath

00:17:40.340 Moses's leadership during this 40 years of wandering in the desert on the other side

00:17:46.320 of the Jordan River. And here's a couple of examples. Let's look at Numbers. Chapter 21,

00:17:51.160 verses 31 through 35 says this, Israel lived in the land of the Amorites, and Moses sent to spy

00:17:59.160 out Jazar, and they captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there. Then

00:18:04.760 they turned and went up by the way to Bashan, and Og, the king of Bashan, came out against them,

00:18:11.560 he and all his people to battle at Adreai. But the Lord said to Og, the king of Bashan,

00:18:19.060 or said to Moses, do not fear him for I have given him into your hand and all his people and his land 0.96

00:18:25.580 and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites who lived at Heshbon. So they 0.99

00:18:31.640 defeated him and his sons and all his people until he had no survivor left and they possessed his 0.98

00:18:39.720 land. Now who was Og? Let's read one more cross-reference to get a little bit more details 0.95

00:18:45.320 over this King Og, he's the king of Bashan.

00:18:49.560 Deuteronomy chapter three, verse six through 11,

00:18:52.400 or I'm sorry, just focusing on verse 11 says this now.

00:18:55.820 For only Og, the king of Bashan,

00:18:58.220 was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. 0.97

00:19:01.780 Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. 0.99

00:19:05.180 It's because he's really heavy

00:19:06.320 and it needs to be strong to support him.

00:19:08.160 It was a bed of iron.

00:19:10.680 is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites, nine cubits was its length and four cubits its breadth,

00:19:19.160 according to the common cubit. Now, a common cubit, just for reference, is about a foot and a

00:19:24.060 half, 18 inches. So when it says nine cubits was its length, we're looking at 13 and a half feet,

00:19:30.140 13.5 feet, and four cubits as its width, we're looking at six feet wide. And again, the substance

00:19:36.680 to the bed, not just its size, but its substance is made of iron. What the Bible's telling us,

00:19:43.740 right, and a lot of evangelicals are too sophisticated to believe the Bible, but we do.

00:19:48.860 We believe the Bible here at Covenant Bible Church. What the Bible's telling us is this.

00:19:53.000 There's a really big bed because Og is a giant. Not in the metaphorical proverbial sense. He had

00:19:59.860 a giant intellect, you know, a titan among men in terms of his, you know, psychology and ability

00:20:04.540 to contribute. No, no, no. I'm talking a giant, an actual giant. So we don't know his exact height,

00:20:11.900 but we know that his bed again was 13 and a half feet long. So you think of that and just apply

00:20:17.420 the same kind of concept and principle with our beds today, right? If you have, you know, a typical

00:20:23.480 bed, whether it's, you know, in terms of length, whether it's king or queen or full or twin or

00:20:27.240 whatever it might be. It's usually about 6.5 inches long. Or I'm sorry, 6.5 feet long. Six

00:20:35.180 feet, five inches, something a little bit over six feet. And a lot of people, not all, but a lot of

00:20:40.760 men are usually around 5'9", 5'10". That's a pretty much a common height for men, 5'11". So

00:20:47.780 you're only looking at a few inches longer than the height of the man who would be sleeping in

00:20:52.240 that bed. It's very possible, very likely that Og was a man who was about 13 feet tall, 13 feet

00:21:01.040 tall. Now when you take that proportionally and put it in terms of weight, if you got a guy who's

00:21:07.480 13 feet tall, he's not going to weigh twice the amount of somebody who's six and a half feet tall,

00:21:12.880 right? Six and a half times two, 13 feet. Well, he may be twice the height, but he's going to be

00:21:19.160 four, five, six times the weight of a man who is six and a half feet tall. Because it's not just

00:21:25.760 that he's double the height, but he's the same, you know, slender. I mean, that would, you know,

00:21:29.680 that'd be a beanpole. That'd be somebody who could just fall over with a gust of wind. No, you're

00:21:33.380 talking about a man of renown. You're talking about somebody who is one of the descendants

00:21:39.400 of the Nephilim. That's what the Rephaim actually are. They're a particular tribe that were 0.99

00:21:46.320 descendants of the Nephilim. The Nephilim, as we already talked about two weeks ago, they were the

00:21:51.760 hybrid demonic offspring of watchers, fallen angels, who saw the daughters of men were beautiful and 0.92

00:21:59.260 came into them and produced children. So you have angels that rebelled against God. They fell from 0.91

00:22:05.760 heaven in a great cosmic war. The archangel Michael passed them down to the earth. These fallen

00:22:11.080 rebellious angels now attempting to pervert the messianic line right underneath the command of

00:22:17.860 Lucifer who would be their commander the devil the one who was there in the garden that day the

00:22:23.220 serpent who knew that the promise was that there would be a seed of the woman who would crush his

00:22:28.260 head right he knew the game plan God told him ahead of time this is what I'm going to do you

00:22:33.900 can know about what I'm going to do I don't have to pull a fast one I don't have to uh to to do it

00:22:39.100 in secret. I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm going to do, and you're not going to be able to

00:22:42.840 stop it because I'm gone. So God tells both Adam and Eve and the serpent in the garden, Genesis

00:22:49.140 chapter 3, when we have the fall take place, what is going to happen? The serpent and his offspring

00:22:55.000 will strike the heel of the seed of the woman, but the seed of the woman, namely Christ, the Messiah,

00:23:02.720 he will ultimately, in the end, crush the head of the serpent. So Satan knows from that day forward

00:23:09.480 that his ultimate end is going to be the serpent crushing seed of the woman. So what is he trying

00:23:16.920 to strategically do? Among many things, one thing he's trying to do is to corrupt the line of the

00:23:22.400 woman. He's trying to corrupt it. One of the ways that you corrupt the line of humanity is by 0.93

00:23:29.860 hybrid, half fallen angel, half people, cryptid, weird, wacko, perverted DNA. That's one of the 1.00

00:23:38.740 ways you do it, right? It may feel a little bit on the nose, a little bit too simple, but that's

00:23:44.860 one of Satan's strategies. And so what you have is you have these fallen watchers, angels now in

00:23:50.620 rebellion against God, who see the daughters of men, that they are lovely, and that they take them 0.97

00:23:55.620 as wives, they produce a hybrid offspring that's not really human. This is the Nephilim, or the 0.99

00:24:01.060 Nephilim, and then the Nephilim, one of the descendant tribes from them, is the Rephaim, and King Og of 0.54

00:24:07.820 Basham is one example of the Rephaim, a sub-tribe of the Nephilim, and he's a giant, because he has

00:24:15.800 watered down at this point. It's been multiple generations, but he still has this fallen angel. 0.96

00:24:21.160 he's not 100% human. He's not 100% in the image of God. He has this watered down fallen angel

00:24:28.960 DNA running through his blood, giving him incredible, almost supernatural strength and

00:24:35.980 stature size. And one of the things that God uses Israel to do in their time of wandering in the

00:24:42.580 desert underneath the leadership of Moses is to hunt these guys down and kill them. 0.60

00:24:47.520 and that's also what God uses them to do under Joshua's leadership after crossing the Jordan

00:24:54.920 river and going into the land of Canaan so back to the Gibeonite tribe in the beginning of our text

00:25:01.880 today they're saying it's not small things they're saying the known superpower in the world at the

00:25:08.320 time Egypt Egypt your God conquered and not only that but your God also took out two kings two

00:25:17.260 Amorite tribes, one of them, and I would argue both, but I don't have time to go into the other 0.95

00:25:21.580 one, but one of them we know for a fact was Rephaim, a descendant sub-tribe of the Nephilim,

00:25:28.980 and he was a giant, King Og. So your God has empowered your people, Israel, to take out Egypt,

00:25:36.440 to take out this other Amorite tribe, and now to take out a second one, Og, who was a giant 1.00

00:25:43.100 Raphaim king? Yeah, we don't stand a chance. It's cute, you know, but this plan of all these tribes, 1.00

00:25:50.760 you know, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the

00:25:55.040 Jebusites, they all want to come together and think, well, maybe if we have enough, if we have a 0.97

00:25:59.680 majority, if we're all on the same team working together, we'll have the ability to conquer Israel. 1.00

00:26:04.400 No. No, Israel couldn't be conquered by Egypt. They couldn't be conquered by Og, giants. They're 0.81

00:26:11.720 not going to be conquered. Our only chance is to use the Rahab strategy, which is to go to Israel 1.00

00:26:18.240 and quickly make a peace treaty. So that's our text today. That's what they're doing. Now, in 0.90

00:26:24.080 order to do that, they know that Israel will not accept the terms of a peace covenant with the 0.99

00:26:29.900 Gibeonites if they know that the Gibeonites live next door, right? Because the commandment of God 0.99

00:26:35.680 is specific. They can't make a covenant that directly contradicts what God commanded Israel

00:26:40.020 to do. And what God commanded Israel to do is to drive out all these Canaanite tribes because they 1.00

00:26:46.600 were pagan. They worshiped false gods. Many, not all, but many of them also had corrupted bloodlines 1.00

00:26:53.700 as I've already covered. And I mean that in the literal sense, corrupted bloodlines. So some of

00:26:58.660 them were bad people and some of them were bad kind of people. They weren't even fully image

00:27:03.760 bearers of the living God. They weren't entirely human. And even the bad people that didn't have

00:27:09.260 corrupted bloodlines. Even in their cases, they were pagans worshiping false gods. They had filled

00:27:14.920 up the fullness of their iniquity. That's what God says earlier to Abraham in the book of Genesis. 0.86

00:27:20.500 Abraham is, he left the land of his father. He is wandering as a sojourner and it uses that word

00:27:26.380 in the book of Genesis. He's a sojourner in the land of Canaan. But then eventually they're taken

00:27:31.640 out of Canaan because Abraham goes to Isaac, goes to Jacob, goes to Joseph. Joseph is sold and 0.79

00:27:37.720 betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery in Egypt.

00:27:41.080 Then there's a great famine in the whole of the land.

00:27:43.980 And so Joseph, his brothers and his father, Jacob,

00:27:46.840 are driven because of hunger to Egypt.

00:27:49.200 They live and settle in the land of Goshen.

00:27:51.920 Eventually that Pharaoh who Joseph had favor with,

00:27:55.560 he dies and a new Pharaoh comes to power

00:27:57.940 who does not remember Joseph

00:27:59.660 or think kindly of him and his household. 0.63

00:28:02.540 And then Israel prospers in the land of Egypt,

00:28:05.060 specifically Goshen. 0.96

00:28:06.100 they multiply greatly. The new Pharaoh over Egypt sees Israel as a potential threat. So they then 0.89

00:28:12.620 enslave Israel and they're enslaved there for 400 years, exactly 400 years, and then delivered 0.99

00:28:19.280 under Moses to be led into the promised land back to where the Amorites are. Now, what God spoke to 0.54

00:28:25.760 Abraham when he was in the land of Canaan, before they transferred to Egypt because of the famine

00:28:30.640 through Joseph, when Abraham was in the land of Canaan after having left his father's land to go

00:28:36.380 to the land that the Lord promised to show him, the Bible says he was a sojourner, a stranger,

00:28:41.680 and an alien. But notice, Abraham is not a sojourner, stranger, and alien in the land of

00:28:48.280 Canaan waiting for God to just to beam him up in a rapture to heaven. No, he's a sojourner in the

00:28:55.240 sense that this is not his native land but what's he waiting on to be delivered by god from the land

00:29:01.360 no for his descendants to be empowered by god to take the land you are a sojourner christian

00:29:09.560 waiting to be raptured beam me up scotty out of the lit no you are a sojourner waiting to take

00:29:17.480 the land it's your land because it's god's land and we're not going to take it the same way that 0.74

00:29:23.500 joshua did we're not going to take it by force but we are going to take it by the tip of the spear

00:29:28.660 the way that we take it the the strategy god has given us is the great commission by discipling

00:29:34.140 nations and baptizing them into the name of the triune god and teaching them which includes also

00:29:40.500 their civil rulers to obey obedience to all christ's commands so these are all the things

00:29:46.980 that are happening the point that i wanted to make with abraham briefly is this that abraham when he's

00:29:51.460 in the land of Canaan before, you know, it goes down all the way to Joseph and then the famine

00:29:56.420 comes and then they're in Egypt and 400 years of slavery and bondage there. One of the things that

00:30:00.840 God says to Abraham is this. He says, you will die at a good old age, but there's going to be

00:30:07.520 strife. There's going to be warfare. What's going to happen is that all these people, you're a

00:30:11.840 sojourner amongst a pagan people in the land of Canaan. All these pagan Canaanite tribes, 0.99

00:30:17.940 Your descendants will drive them out. 1.00

00:30:20.420 But God specifically says in the book of Genesis to Abraham, 0.97

00:30:23.380 it's not going to happen for a long time.

00:30:26.140 And God actually goes even further, more specificity,

00:30:28.620 and says 400 years.

00:30:30.340 And he says this, he says,

00:30:31.680 because the fullness of their iniquity, 1.00

00:30:34.860 these Canaanite pagan tribes is not yet full. 1.00

00:30:40.240 That God is slow to anger. 0.97

00:30:41.940 He is long suffering.

00:30:43.520 He is abundantly patient.

00:30:45.500 God is waiting. 1.00

00:30:47.020 These Canaanite tribes, they're pagan. 1.00

00:30:49.400 They're idolatrous. 1.00

00:30:51.040 They're worshiping false gods. 0.96

00:30:52.920 They're doing all these terrible things.

00:30:55.300 And yet God is patient and slow to anger.

00:30:57.980 And he waits intentionally, none of it by accident.

00:31:01.580 He waits 400 years. 0.54

00:31:03.840 So while Israel is in bondage for 400 years in Egypt,

00:31:07.200 God is patiently waiting. 0.97

00:31:08.660 That would be approximately 40 years as a generation

00:31:11.100 in biblical terms, 400 is 10 generations. 1.00

00:31:14.480 10 generations of rank pagan wickedness 0.96

00:31:18.480 with the Canaanites in the land of Canaan 1.00

00:31:20.820 before God finally fits them the bill

00:31:23.220 and says, all right, it's time to pay the piper.

00:31:26.800 You've been wicked long enough

00:31:28.260 and now you're going to receive my judgment. 0.95

00:31:31.660 And he brings this judgment through Israel, through conquest. 0.91

00:31:35.760 And I say all this because we have to have

00:31:37.760 a true biblical understanding.

00:31:40.540 God is not sending Israel to go and slaughter women and children

00:31:44.680 who are just these sweet, kind, wonderful people

00:31:48.100 and isn't God mean and a bad guy.

00:31:51.620 That's not what's going on.

00:31:52.760 God is bringing judgment, not even swiftly. 0.96

00:31:57.600 God is bringing judgment after 400 years of pagan idolatry, 0.98

00:32:04.020 worshiping false gods and not just that, 0.99

00:32:05.960 but violent, sexually immoral, child sacrifice, adult human sacrifice, polygamy, all these 0.99

00:32:16.940 different things, slavery, all these wicked things are happening with these tribes in Canaan and God

00:32:23.720 lets it happen. Let's anyone say that God is rash or that God is cruel. He allows their wickedness

00:32:30.720 to take place for 400 years and then and only then does he finally bring the consequence said 0.97

00:32:39.860 that's enough and he gives the same stipulations to his own people Israel and says don't think 0.76

00:32:46.080 that you're somehow unique if you live the way that they lived then the land will spew you out

00:32:53.400 also the same kinds of judgments will come upon your head if you don't continue in keeping steadfast

00:33:00.660 covenant with me as the only true God. So these are the things that are taking place. The Gibeonites,

00:33:08.080 they take the hint. They see, whoa, Egypt, superpower. They went down to Yahweh. Og, 0.96

00:33:16.260 giant. Raphaim from the Nephilim might even have healing powers. It depends on your interpretation.

00:33:22.720 The Raphaim, that's where we get, you know, that Hebrew word, you also get the word healer. So it's

00:33:27.900 even possible that these giants with, you know, there are multiple different sub-tribes from the

00:33:33.020 Nephilim watered down. The Nephilim would be first generation of fallen angels and human women. So

00:33:39.440 you have this 50%, you know, fallen angel, 50% human. That's your Nephilim. Then sub-tribes

00:33:45.980 from the Nephilim, there are multiple different ones. Rephaim is one of them. And it's possible 1.00

00:33:50.400 that the Rephaim, that particular tribe might've even had some kind of healing properties or

00:33:56.500 healing abilities, perhaps taught to them, could have been in their DNA, right? It could have been

00:34:01.300 that the specific fallen angel or watcher that produced that sub-tribe of the Nephilim might

00:34:06.820 have had healing properties, that might have been one of their powers, or it could have been a

00:34:10.580 technique that was taught by a fallen angel to this sub-tribe of the Nephilim, namely the Raphaim.

00:34:17.320 So the healer word is there. I'm not saying that that's a direct, a perfect interpretation, but

00:34:23.220 that is a possible interpretation that sound,

00:34:26.040 some sound biblical scholars would take.

00:34:28.180 So you got guys who are giants, they're renowned,

00:34:31.220 they're strong, they're violent.

00:34:33.560 And if you don't mortally wound them, 0.99

00:34:36.700 if you don't kill them, they heal somehow, some way. 0.99

00:34:40.620 But Yahweh takes out that guy too. 0.58

00:34:42.760 And notice in the text, as I was citing earlier,

00:34:45.540 we were looking at Numbers 21, 31 through 35.

00:34:48.560 It says this, verse 35.

00:34:50.220 So they defeated him, that's Og,

00:34:51.840 and his sons and all his people until he had no survivor left. That's key. Again, putting this,

00:34:59.980 not just taking it in a sophisticated, you know, we're sophisticated, you know, 21st century

00:35:04.540 Westerners and we don't believe it. Like, no, we live in a magical world. We do. The world is not

00:35:09.960 just stuff. Materialism is wrong. It is a false religion. Darwinism is wrong. It is a false

00:35:16.840 religion. The reason why they take out Og and his sons and all his people until he has no survivor 1.00

00:35:24.520 left is one, because God commanded Israel to do so, and two, because we're talking about the 1.00

00:35:30.940 Rephaim that have supernatural blood from a particular corrupted DNA line that produces 0.93

00:35:39.100 wicked hybrid giants that hate God and hate his people. It's part of, again, all the way back to 1.00

00:35:47.180 Genesis 3 in the garden, part of the serpent and his strategy to corrupt and infiltrate the line

00:35:54.780 of the seed of the woman, which would ultimately crush his head. This is the backdrop of all the

00:35:59.800 things that are going on. Again, the Gibeonites, they see you conquered Egypt, a superpower,

00:36:04.820 conquered a giant in his Rephaim line, King Og of Basham with the Rephaim. And then this other 0.94

00:36:12.420 Amorite tribe and all this under Moses, before you even crossed the Jordan, they don't even mention,

00:36:18.220 but they probably had knowledge, had heard you also conquered after crossing the Jordan, Jericho

00:36:23.500 and Ai. And so we don't think, even if we team up with all the remaining tribes that are still alive

00:36:30.760 in Canaan. All these other guys, they're forming an alliance, but we know that that is not going

00:36:36.340 to pan out. It's not going to work. So what we're going to do is under the art of deception,

00:36:41.540 because we know you won't let us live if you know we live in the land, because God commanded you to

00:36:46.560 drive out everyone in the land. But we're going to lie underneath a cloud of deception. We're going

00:36:52.340 to pretend that we're coming from a far off distance. We're going to get you to bind yourself

00:36:56.660 to us through an oath. You're going to make covenant with us. And here's what we know about

00:37:01.780 you, Israel, because you serve Yahweh, that you are an oath-keeping people because you have a

00:37:08.480 covenant-keeping God. And so even if you make a covenant underneath a false pretense because of 0.80

00:37:15.200 our act of deception, we know that you'll be bound to keep it. You are a people that are forced by

00:37:23.380 your God to keep your word because he is a God that does not change his mind. He is not a man

00:37:30.580 that he should lie. He is a covenant-keeping, oath-keeping God. They know all this. My point is

00:37:37.260 the Gibeonites, everything that I've just said, the Gibeonites had better theology and a better

00:37:43.000 understanding of God and more faith in Yahweh, the God of Israel, the one true God, than a lot of

00:37:48.460 people who profess to be Christians. So yeah, I'm going to call it faith. The Gibeonites, I believe,

00:37:54.640 were spared because of faith. They knew Yahweh. They knew his character. They knew his people. 0.64

00:38:01.500 They knew his law and what his people were bound to. They knew Yahweh in terms of his power, 0.89

00:38:06.200 his omnipotence, his achievements and accomplishments. And in all that faith in Yahweh,

00:38:13.180 they go to make a covenant. They do it deceptively, but they do it nonetheless.

00:38:19.320 And that covenant holds. And later on, generations later on, that covenant is eventually broken.

00:38:27.960 And there is a consequence from God to his own people, Israel, for not keeping their word.

00:38:35.300 There are consequences, judgments from God for breaking a covenant. Even a covenant made rashly

00:38:42.360 underneath a pretense of deception.

00:38:45.360 Even under those circumstances,

00:38:47.540 when a covenant is not upheld,

00:38:49.700 when an oath, even a rashly made oath is broken,

00:38:53.720 God, who is witness of every covenant,

00:38:57.160 who is witness of every oath,

00:38:59.180 he brings judgments to those

00:39:01.460 who become covenant and oath breakers.

00:39:04.120 And that's what we see in the latter part of our text.

00:39:06.300 So let's look at that now.

00:39:07.800 This is verses 14 through 27.

00:39:12.360 So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord.

00:39:16.540 Right there.

00:39:17.420 Let's pause.

00:39:18.200 Not a good start.

00:39:20.180 They did not ask counsel from the Lord.

00:39:23.760 That's their first mistake.

00:39:25.520 And then right on the heels of that statement, Israel, Joshua, the leaders in Israel, they did not seek counsel from the Lord.

00:39:32.600 Verse 15 now, and Joshua made peace with them, that is the Gibeonites, and made a covenant with them.

00:39:38.380 So we're not going to ask the Lord.

00:39:40.180 We ask the Gibeonites, hey, where are you from?

00:39:42.160 Oh, we're from a really, really, really, really far away place.

00:39:45.720 Okay.

00:39:47.780 They didn't ask the Lord.

00:39:49.200 They just asked the Gibeonites. 0.97

00:39:50.500 We'll take your word for it. 0.97

00:39:52.220 And we're not going to consult with the Lord.

00:39:53.720 We're not going to ask for his counsel.

00:39:55.520 And then immediately after hearing the Gibeonites, their testimony,

00:39:59.260 Joshua and the leaders in Israel choose to accept the Gibeonites testimony. 0.74

00:40:02.980 And they make a covenant rashly to let them live. 0.94

00:40:07.300 And the leaders of the congregations swore to them.

00:40:10.100 at the end of three days after they had already made a covenant with the Gibeonites they heard

00:40:15.520 that they were their neighbors and that they lived among them then all the congregation murmured

00:40:21.300 against the leaders but all the leaders said to all the congregation so now the congregation that's 0.63

00:40:26.660 of Israel they're saying oh no they live next door they're going to be a thorn in our side 0.99

00:40:31.340 they're going to be a potential perpetual threat to Israel we can't let them live it's one thing 1.00

00:40:38.140 if they just come to pay tribute 1.00

00:40:39.680 because they've heard the tales of Yahweh

00:40:41.400 being the one true God

00:40:42.460 and then they go all the way back

00:40:44.140 to their far distant land and live there.

00:40:46.340 And we're just making a covenant

00:40:48.000 that we won't hunt them down.

00:40:49.420 We won't pursue them.

00:40:50.240 We won't go after them

00:40:51.120 because we're going to live here 0.54

00:40:52.500 in the land of Canaan that God has promised.

00:40:54.580 That's one thing.

00:40:55.780 But now we've made a covenant

00:40:57.660 with these people to spare them

00:40:59.580 and they're our next door neighbors.

00:41:01.340 They're going to be living in the land among us 0.61

00:41:03.460 and we're going to be sparing them, 0.92

00:41:05.020 which is directly in contradiction

00:41:06.520 to the very thing that God called us to do to drive out all the inhabitants of these wicked 0.97

00:41:11.820 people, wicked tribes in the land of Canaan? No. So the congregation, the people of Israel are now 0.98

00:41:18.340 groaning and complaining. And they're saying, Joshua, why'd you do this? Leaders, leaders in

00:41:23.980 Israel, why did you do this? Even though they, the people did it too. Just real quick, this is not,

00:41:31.880 you know, doesn't have to exclusively apply to, you know, leadership in the context of the church.

00:41:36.540 It could be in the realm of business. Maybe you're a supervisor, you're a boss, or whatever it might

00:41:41.100 be. Notice this, this is just fun. Verse 15, and Joshua made peace with them, that's the Gibeonites,

00:41:47.760 and made a covenant with them to let them live. And the leaders of the congregation swore to them,

00:41:53.960 right? So Joshua and the leaders of the congregation, they make this covenant, but it seems

00:41:58.100 really clear that the people of israel they're they're aware of this they're cognitive of this

00:42:04.320 that they are even involved in this it's not like joshua and the leaders of israel are doing

00:42:08.620 something and the congregation saying no no no don't do it now the congregation seems to be like 0.68

00:42:14.780 okay and then once they find out that these people three days later the gibeonites actually 0.99

00:42:20.960 live next door then the congregation begins to groan and say all our leaders are so foolish 0.95

00:42:26.900 can't believe that they made this, this unwise and rash decision. And this is just tale as old 0.98

00:42:34.000 as time. This is part of leadership and applies to all of you, right? If you're in any position

00:42:38.560 of leadership whatsoever, whether it be in your home or whether it be in the marketplace, whether

00:42:43.600 it be that you're a leader in some civil political office or leader in the church, you just, you need

00:42:50.780 to know that every victory, this is what I've learned in pastoral ministry, every victory is

00:42:58.520 a team victory. Every failure is a individual failure. Always. Like anytime I made a good

00:43:06.300 decision when I was pastoring before in California, it was like the elders, and you would hear the

00:43:10.400 whole conversation, the elders. And I was like, the elders didn't contribute anything. I came up

00:43:16.100 with that plan. I wrote it down. I did all the work. I did this. I did that. I briefed the elders

00:43:20.060 15 minutes before the service and got their approval. But like that, I mean, that was it.

00:43:24.560 It was like the elders were so grateful for the elders. And then anytime there was a mistake, Joel.

00:43:31.460 You know, that's just the way it goes. And I'm not, I'm not even complaining about that. I'm not

00:43:35.580 saying, Hey, and there's a solution. There's no solution, right? Just suck it up, buttercup.

00:43:40.440 Like that's, that's just life, right? When you win, the team wins, right? You make a wise decision

00:43:46.900 and the whole team is like, man, we really thought that through.

00:43:50.580 So we, I call it the we disease that, you know, 0.99

00:43:54.260 like people, especially Christians, the we disease is prevalent. 1.00

00:43:58.560 It's an epidemic among Christians. We disease, we, we, we. 1.00

00:44:03.480 And it's like, you, you didn't even know. What do you mean? We.

00:44:06.820 And then there's a failure and it's you, you,

00:44:09.360 it switches from we disease to you disease, you, you, you. 0.64

00:44:14.020 And that's exactly what's happening in Israel.

00:44:16.900 They're like, you made a covenant, Joshua.

00:44:18.620 And he's like, well, five seconds ago,

00:44:20.800 we were making a covenant.

00:44:22.900 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:44:24.220 You made a covenant.

00:44:26.360 If you want, sometimes people,

00:44:28.160 they don't acknowledge leadership at all.

00:44:29.980 They don't acknowledge authority.

00:44:31.380 If you want, whether it be in your home,

00:44:33.260 whatever context the Lord has given you

00:44:34.700 a position of authority.

00:44:35.420 If you want authority there to actually be a distinction

00:44:38.260 between those who you're assigned to lead

00:44:40.580 and you yourself as a leader.

00:44:42.220 If you want authority to be distinguished

00:44:44.420 by the people you're leading,

00:44:45.800 all you have to do is fail.

00:44:46.900 that's all you have to do make a mistake and then all of a sudden everybody perfectly understands

00:44:52.740 there's a difference between the leader and those who are following right whereas before it's like

00:44:56.700 well no no there's no such thing as real spiritual authority all you have to do is fail and people

00:45:00.860 understand authority perfectly perfectly you're an authority you represented us you bear

00:45:07.140 responsibility all those guys so if you're wanting people to get the concept of authority

00:45:11.140 lead poorly if you want them to think that authority is nothing and it's just we're all

00:45:16.360 on the same team, we all did it together, teamwork makes the dream work, then just lead wisely. And

00:45:21.580 you should lead wisely. And a lot of people won't learn the lesson and neither did Israel and we'll 0.91

00:45:26.020 be okay. All right. So all that being said, going on verse 16, at the end of three days, they had 0.99

00:45:31.460 made, after they had made a covenant with them, that's the Gibeonites, they heard that they were

00:45:36.220 their neighbors and lived among them. Then the congregation, they murmur, they're complaining

00:45:40.840 against the leaders. But all the leaders said to all the congregation, we have sworn. So now what

00:45:46.880 the congregation wants to do is they're saying, let's break the covenant. And the leaders, it's

00:45:51.720 Joshua and the leaders of Israel saying, no, no, no, no. We gave our word. And that means something.

00:45:57.680 Even if we gave it underneath the pretense of deception, even if we were lied to by the 0.74

00:46:01.940 Gibeonites, we've given our word and we must hold to it. We made a covenant. And God, it's not just 0.90

00:46:08.860 us and the Gibeonites. See, this is the big thing that Joshua and the leaders of Israel get. They

00:46:12.960 understand, look, covenant is not just Israel and Gibeonites. Covenant includes God. We made a

00:46:21.580 covenant. We swore, swore in what way? Swore upon who? Upon what authority? Yahweh. The name of Yahweh

00:46:31.420 has been invoked. The mere presence of a covenant, this is what we need to understand. The mere

00:46:37.160 presence of a covenant assumes that God is a part of it. That the name of Yahweh, the name of God

00:46:45.100 has been invoked. That Israel, the reason why the Gibeonites are saying, make a covenant. It's not,

00:46:50.580 hey, make a covenant, you know, oh, well, we swear by this cactus growing up in the sand over there.

00:46:55.500 No, no, we want you to swear by your God. And we know that if you swear by your God, you'll be bound

00:47:03.460 to it, right? It's kind of similar to, you know, what Frodo and Sam, you know, the Lord of the

00:47:08.300 Rings, what they make, you know, Gollum do, swear by the precious, right? And they say, why? Because

00:47:13.620 the ring is treacherous. And Gollum, you know the treachery of the ring, you know the power of the

00:47:19.400 ring, and that the ring will bind you to your oath. And Gollum is afraid, as much as he wants to steal

00:47:25.440 the ring away from Frodo and Sam, he's afraid of breaking the oath he makes upon the name of the

00:47:33.060 ring because he knows that the ring has a mind of its own. It belongs to its true master Sauron

00:47:38.800 and that the ring has a certain power and that by binding himself his word to the power of the ring

00:47:44.820 that if he breaks that covenant he breaks that vow the ring will betray him and the very thing

00:47:51.100 that he wants will ultimately overtake him and corrupt him. Well it's the very same thing that

00:47:57.340 the Gibeonites are doing with Israel. Bind yourself by the name of Yahweh. Make a covenant 0.99

00:48:04.180 to us, not just Israel and the Gibeonites, but Israel on the name of Yahweh. God is involved in

00:48:11.280 the covenant. God is involved in this oath. You're swearing, right? When Joshua says, we have sworn,

00:48:17.760 that's implicitly what's included there. We've sworn by the name of God. We have sworn to them

00:48:23.920 by the Lord. There it is, the God of Israel. And now we must not touch them. Joshua summoned them.

00:48:31.380 That's the Gibeonites. And he said to them, why did you deceive us saying we are very far from 0.67

00:48:37.340 you when you dwell, actually dwell among us? They answered Joshua, because it was told to your

00:48:42.840 servants for a certainty that the Lord, your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all

00:48:48.440 the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you. So we feared greatly for our

00:48:55.560 lives because of you and did this thing, namely lied to them, the deception. And now behold, we are in

00:49:03.120 your hand. Whatever seems good and right in your sight to do to us, do it. So Joshua did this to

00:49:10.440 them and delivered them out of the hand of the people of Israel. So Joshua is now saving the 0.89

00:49:15.160 Gibeonites from the congregation of Israel. That Israel, if they were allowed to just do what they 1.00

00:49:20.700 wanted and to lead themselves, they would have broken their oath, broken the covenant that was 0.91

00:49:26.620 just made with the Gibeonites upon the name of the Lord, invoking the name of Yahweh. Israel would 0.99

00:49:32.120 have gone back on this oath and killed the Gibeonites. But Joshua delivers the Gibeonites. 0.97

00:49:38.400 He saves them from his own people, from Israel. He says, no, Israel, no, we must not do this. He 0.99

00:49:44.060 delivers them out of the hand of the people of Israel, and they did not kill them. That being 0.68

00:49:49.280 the Gibeonites. But Joshua made them, here's the final part, that day cutters of wood and drawers 0.69

00:49:55.540 of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord to this day in the place that he should

00:50:02.160 choose. Now that covenant, again, this is hundreds of years later, but eventually that covenant that

00:50:09.000 Joshua made invoking the name of Yahweh, the one true God to be at peace with the Gibeonites

00:50:14.780 was eventually broken. It was broken by the first king in Israel, namely King Saul. This is second

00:50:21.340 Samuel chapter 21 verses one through two. It says this. Now there was a famine in the days of David

00:50:27.460 for three years, year after year, three year long famine. And David, so David is now the king and

00:50:35.200 David sought the face of the Lord and the Lord said, so David said, why the famine? God, are we

00:50:39.940 under judgment? What's going on? What have we done that was sinful in order for you to allow this

00:50:45.100 judgment of a three-year famine in our land? And the Lord said, there is blood guilt on Saul and

00:50:52.720 on his house. So before David took the throne, when Saul was still king, this is what he did

00:50:57.940 because he put the Gibeonites to death. So the king called the Gibeonites, that's the king being 0.86

00:51:04.460 David. Now the new king, he called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of

00:51:09.640 the people of Israel, but were the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn 0.82

00:51:15.100 to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.

00:51:22.180 So you're talking hundreds of years later. And I just want you guys, this is all building towards

00:51:26.460 the main point of our text today. I want you to feel the weight of this. Hundreds of years later,

00:51:31.920 an oath that Israel took, a covenant that they made, even after having been deceived, right? So

00:51:39.400 with the pretense of deception, they still, they make an oath nonetheless. And this oath, not only

00:51:45.700 is it legitimate, not only is it binding, it is binding indefinitely. So that hundreds of years

00:51:52.760 later, generations later, when King Saul and his zeal for Judah and Israel, he's overly zealous

00:52:00.860 without wisdom and prudence,

00:52:02.420 he begins to put to death the Gibeonites. 1.00

00:52:05.300 God punishes the whole land, 0.98

00:52:08.420 the whole land of Israel.

00:52:09.960 And notice most of the punishments that God brings,

00:52:12.940 they're usually brought through natural creational forces

00:52:17.020 that have to do with the physical land. 1.00

00:52:19.520 So the land will swallow up the people

00:52:22.000 or the land will be polluted with pestilence and disease

00:52:25.080 or the land there will be serpents that come into the land

00:52:27.940 or frogs or gnats or flies

00:52:29.620 or they won't produce crops, a famine, a drought,

00:52:34.780 those kinds of things.

00:52:35.860 That's ordinarily, not in every instance,

00:52:38.140 but that is a common way that God will bring his judgments.

00:52:41.200 There's a covenant, there's covenant breaking,

00:52:44.380 and then there's judgment through the land.

00:52:47.320 The very land that the people of God are meant to inherit

00:52:50.400 as a good land flowing with milk and honey

00:52:53.160 now turns against them

00:52:55.140 and the land begins to work against the people of God

00:52:58.300 because of their covenant breaking.

00:53:01.180 That's the principle.

00:53:03.420 That's the law, the general rule of thumb

00:53:05.480 that we see at play. 0.98

00:53:06.660 And this is, again, this is not Israel

00:53:08.640 breaking a covenant 15 minutes after making it.

00:53:12.620 They tried to do that and Joshua stopped them. 0.95

00:53:15.240 This is Israel through King Saul 0.98

00:53:17.580 as federal representative of Israel

00:53:20.360 underneath his kingship during his day.

00:53:22.420 This is Israel hundreds of years later, 0.61

00:53:25.420 a very long time later,

00:53:27.140 breaking the covenant that was made by Israel through Joshua where in this covenant with the

00:53:33.400 Gibeonites the name of the Lord was invoked and when it's eventually broken this covenant there

00:53:40.220 is judgment and the judgment comes through the land the earth the land itself it turns against

00:53:47.140 Israel the land that was supposed to produce good things to be a rich land for their prosperity and

00:53:52.740 benefit now becomes a detriment to them. And again, this is a covenant broken by separate people 0.77

00:53:58.940 in a separate generation, in a separate century, and a covenant that was made in the first place

00:54:05.640 under the pretense of deception. And yet the covenant holds. Here's the point. For us to pretend

00:54:14.520 that our word and our oath and covenants do not matter today is bad theology. That is a

00:54:22.560 fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of covenant and the way that our covenantal God

00:54:29.160 keeps steadfast covenant and the way that he views oaths. And this is a New Testament principle as

00:54:36.480 well as an old, and it is the confessional position. This is what I want you to see in the

00:54:42.540 same kind of language you'll find in the 1689 and also in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

00:54:47.680 But I'm going to be quoted from the 1689. It says this, this is chapter 23 on lawful oaths,

00:54:54.360 and this is going to be paragraph one, two, and three. I'll read them all together. It says this,

00:54:59.340 a lawful oath is a part of religious worship wherein the person swearing in truth, righteousness,

00:55:05.560 and judgment solemnly calls God to witness what he swears and to judge him according to the truth

00:55:13.480 or falseness thereof. Paragraph two, the name of God only, only the name of God is that by which

00:55:21.380 men ought to swear and therein it is to be used with all holy fear and reverence. Therefore to

00:55:28.360 swear vainly or rashly by that glorious and dreadful name or to swear at all by any other

00:55:35.060 thing is sinful and to be abhorred. Yet as in matter of wait and moment for confirmation of

00:55:43.160 truth and ending all strife, an oath is warranted by the word of God. So a lawful oath being imposed

00:55:51.520 by lawful authority in such matters ought to be taken.

00:55:55.820 What they're saying,

00:55:57.520 those who wrote this confession,

00:55:59.220 they're saying that it is even a New Testament times

00:56:01.900 in this gospel church age,

00:56:03.520 it is lawful, it is permissible to take an oath.

00:56:06.020 But here's the deal.

00:56:06.760 The only name that is to be invoked is the name of God.

00:56:11.160 So an oath must be taken in the name of God.

00:56:13.640 And it really should only be taken

00:56:15.340 when it says ending all strife,

00:56:17.560 meaning that we've, we have exhausted every other, every other realm of discourse. We've tried every

00:56:26.100 other strategy and there's not peace between these two parties. And so we're going to invoke

00:56:31.740 God's name and a biblical oath. The last paragraph, paragraph three now says this,

00:56:37.460 whosoever takes an oath warranted by the word of God ought duly to consider the weightiness of

00:56:44.520 so solemn in act, and therein to avouch nothing but what he knows to be truth. For that by rash,

00:56:52.140 false, and vain oaths the Lord is provoked, and for them this land mourns. Right? So this isn't

00:57:00.140 just Joshua. This isn't just Israel. This isn't just the old covenant, the old testament. This

00:57:05.160 is even the guys who wrote the Westminster, the guys who wrote the 1689. They even recognize that

00:57:10.480 there is a connection, a correlation to the breaking of oaths and the mourning of the land.

00:57:17.460 They recognize this. This is not a coincidence. Now, how do we square, real quick, some heavy

00:57:23.120 theological lifting. How do we square the confessionally reformed position, both on the

00:57:28.420 Westminster side of the aisle, the Presbyterian, and the Reformed Baptist side of the aisle?

00:57:32.540 How do we square the biblical permissibility of taking an oath when Jesus seems to say

00:57:38.840 explicitly in the gospel narratives to let your yes be yes and your no be no and do not swear at

00:57:44.560 all. That's the difficult thing theologically to reconcile. I'm going to try to do that now

00:57:50.020 as quickly as possible. In your notes, I've written this. The concern of these verses is both

00:57:55.260 the verses being Matthew chapter five, verse 33 to 37, where Jesus says, do not take an oath at all,

00:58:01.720 either by heaven or by the throne of God or by the earth, which is his footstool or by Jerusalem,

00:58:07.240 for it is the city of the great king and do not take an oath by your head for you cannot make one

00:58:12.300 hair white or black let what you say be simply yes or no anything more than this comes from evil

00:58:18.700 so if you read the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 5 verse 37 through 33 through 37 it's

00:58:25.080 very easy to take away from that to interpret that no oath making no oath taking or covenant

00:58:31.280 making at all ever for a new testament christian that's what you would think but that's not the

00:58:38.220 traditional position when it comes to confessions with 2 000 years of church history so how come

00:58:44.220 christians for 2 000 years have said that there is a a an exception clause if you will there is

00:58:51.680 a a way or room to biblically make oaths when jesus said anything other than yes or no comes

00:58:58.620 from the evil one. All right, that's what we're reconciling now. The concern for these verses,

00:59:03.120 what Jesus was saying, what was Jesus actually getting at? The concern of these verses, Matthew

00:59:07.860 5, 33 to 37, is for both the third commandment and the ninth commandment. The ninth commandment

00:59:14.100 is in view regarding the truthfulness. The ninth commandment is do not bear false witness. Do not

00:59:19.760 lie. So the ninth commandment is in view when Jesus is saying do not swear at all. It's in view

00:59:25.660 regarding the truthfulness that humans find so difficult to uphold. The tongue is guilty of 1.00

00:59:32.000 false witness, lying, gossip, slander, boasting, flattery, cursing, and more. Oaths or promises

00:59:39.160 and contracts all have the same goal. Why do we swear to begin with? Well, what is the incentive

00:59:46.020 for making an oath at all? They all have the same goal, to bind the consciences of men to keeping

00:59:52.520 their word, especially when it is tempting not to. Now, the third commandment comes into play.

00:59:59.980 So Jesus has, as is concerned, the third commandment as well, which is, do not take the name of the

01:00:04.800 Lord your God in vain. It comes into play because in lawful oath-taking, the name of God is invoked.

01:00:11.580 In fact, it is not a lawful oath if you're taking any, if you're swearing by anything but God.

01:00:17.620 notice that what Jesus says specifically is this don't make an oath by heaven but because that's

01:00:24.440 God's throne or by earth because that's God's footstool or by your head because you can't even

01:00:30.640 make one hair on your head white or black what Jesus is ultimately getting at is this you can

01:00:36.300 swear by some created thing in the cosmos other than God but what you need to recognize is that

01:00:42.540 it all stems from God. You can swear by heaven and not God himself, but heaven is intrinsically

01:00:49.240 tied to God for it is his creation and his very throne. Oh, okay. Well, then I won't swear by

01:00:54.900 heaven. I'll swear by earth. Well, that's his footstool. Okay. Well, I'll swear by my own head.

01:00:59.420 Yeah, but God made your head. He knows the number of hairs on your head and he's the one who can

01:01:03.460 make those hairs either white or black at every single level. There is nothing to swear by that

01:01:09.460 doesn't tie back to God. That's what Jesus is getting at. So if you do swear, let it be by the

01:01:15.840 name of God alone and keep your oath because it is binding and God will bring judgments for those

01:01:23.640 who are promised breakers, oath breakers, covenant breakers. Let me go a little bit further. We're

01:01:29.180 almost done. They taught, all right, we want to look at the Pharisees now. In Jesus' day, rabbis 0.80

01:01:36.060 concocted a system that defeated the very purpose of oaths. That's what Jesus combated. See, these 0.73

01:01:42.240 rabbis were teaching that oaths might or might not be binding depending on how one swore. If he swore

01:01:49.360 by Jerusalem, it was not binding. But if you swore toward Jerusalem, oh, well then you're bound. If 0.54

01:01:55.780 you swore by the temple, your oath is not binding. But if you swear by the temple's gold, the gold of

01:02:02.060 the temple, then your oath is binding. If you swore by the altar of the sacrifice, then you're not

01:02:07.980 bound by your oath. Of course, everybody knows that. But if you swore by the gift on the altar,

01:02:12.280 oh, well, now your oath is binding. See, this illustrates the very way, this is the larger

01:02:17.120 thing that they were doing all the time, the religious rulers of Jesus' day. They illustrate

01:02:22.720 the way in which these teachers manipulated God's word in the first century Israel. When they read

01:02:29.360 a challenging law from God's word, they would reduce it to something that was manageable.

01:02:34.920 When they heard, love your neighbor as yourself, they would redefine who their neighbor was

01:02:39.240 so that everyone didn't count as a neighbor. Or they would refrain from adultery, but then claim

01:02:45.260 a right to divorce freely. Then take another woman. When they did something similar with oaths, 0.98

01:02:51.780 this is what Jesus opposes. So all that being said, what we need to understand is that Matthew 5,

01:02:57.780 33 through 37, when Jesus says, do not swear at all, but simply let your yes be yes and your no

01:03:04.340 be no, what Jesus is dealing with is false, manipulative, corrupt religious rulers of his 0.90

01:03:11.940 day who are basically like a four-year-old child. They would say, hey, I promise, and then afterwards 0.95

01:03:18.760 say, oh, I had my fingers crossed behind my back. The religious rulers of Jesus' day had the very

01:03:26.200 same maturity level of a four-year-old. Yeah, I promise. Oh, but I wasn't facing Jerusalem. I was

01:03:32.380 actually off till just a little bit, you know, north by northwest, you know, and I said the word

01:03:37.700 Jerusalem, but I wasn't facing toward Jerusalem. Or I swore by the temple, but not the gold of the

01:03:43.160 temple. Oh, I swore by this, but not by that. I swore by heaven, but not. Jesus said, cut it out.

01:03:49.920 What Jesus is angry about,

01:03:52.660 what he's opposing is not oath taking.

01:03:55.760 What he's opposing is liars. 0.84

01:03:59.440 Stop lying.

01:04:01.300 And the whole point of oaths

01:04:03.040 is because we live in a fallen world.

01:04:06.140 The whole point of oaths, guys,

01:04:07.760 by the way, the reason why it was prevalent

01:04:09.900 in the Old Testament

01:04:10.820 and why all these,

01:04:13.100 for 2000 years of church history,

01:04:15.080 wise, gifted, godly men

01:04:17.560 throughout church history

01:04:18.500 have said that oath taking covenant making is still biblically permissible. There's one reason

01:04:22.700 why. Because people are liars. That's why. Because of the doctrine of total depravity. 0.98

01:04:28.860 Why do we have contracts? We have contracts for the same reason that you lock your doors at night.

01:04:35.400 Right? You can say, well, we don't defund the police. We don't need police officers.

01:04:40.020 We don't need a wall at the border. We don't need this. We don't need that. Okay, great.

01:04:43.600 then never lock your car, never lock your doors, never do this, never do that.

01:04:51.100 If you're going to be consistent, be consistent. If not, then let's all grow up. Let's be adults

01:04:55.800 and say, we live in a fallen world. We live in a fallen world. That's why we have protection.

01:05:00.620 That's why we have people who are armed with guns in order to protect the innocent. That's why we

01:05:06.240 have walls. That's why we have laws. That's why we have rules. And that's also because we live

01:05:10.860 in a fallen world, not just do we have measures for physical protection, but that's also why we

01:05:15.620 have contracts and oaths. Why? Because people are physically violent, and people are also verbally

01:05:22.380 deceptive. And because people are prone to lie, because of indwelling sin, because we live in a

01:05:29.100 fallen world, because of lying, we have contracts, we have covenants, we have oaths. Now, all that

01:05:37.660 being said, I'm going to wrap it up here. Luther and Calvin, here are their thoughts on it. And

01:05:42.320 this is what I would agree. This would be my same position. They sought to harmonize the testimony

01:05:47.060 of scripture, namely what Jesus says, do not swear at all. Anything more than letting your yes

01:05:53.160 be yes and your no be no comes from evil. They're trying to square, reconcile Jesus' position in

01:05:59.020 Matthew 5 in scripture with the way they reconcile this with still allowing for a certain context of

01:06:05.740 oath-taking is by distinguishing between public and private speech. This is what they would hold.

01:06:11.920 In private, Luther and Calvin said that Christians should tell the truth so completely that the

01:06:18.840 entire basis of the necessity for oaths completely disappears. So therefore, notice as an example,

01:06:26.680 I'm going to apply it here. In a Christian wedding ceremony, for instance, a Christian wedding

01:06:31.820 ceremony. The groom and bride do not invoke oath-taking. They do not swear by God's name. 0.62

01:06:41.040 Instead, what we have them do is simply say, I do or I will. Will you take so-and-so to have and to

01:06:49.420 keep and to cherish and this and that and, you know, for richer or poorer and sickness and health

01:06:54.120 as long as you both shall live.

01:06:56.520 I call God as witness.

01:06:57.820 No, I will.

01:07:00.120 I do.

01:07:01.540 In other words, yes.

01:07:04.300 It's right in line with what James says

01:07:06.160 and James is echoing what Jesus says

01:07:08.680 in Matthew chapter five.

01:07:10.020 Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

01:07:11.620 So I believe that the biblical position is this.

01:07:15.540 In Christian context, with brothers, with sisters,

01:07:19.800 whether it be in a Christian marriage,

01:07:21.880 whether it be in a Christian business

01:07:23.300 with a Christian employer and Christian employees.

01:07:26.240 In all these instances,

01:07:28.100 I believe that promising,

01:07:30.980 oath-taking,

01:07:32.540 these kinds of things

01:07:33.840 should be virtually non-existent.

01:07:37.280 In an ideal scenario,

01:07:38.460 as we mature in sanctification,

01:07:40.820 it should be non-existent.

01:07:42.600 You shouldn't have to make an oath.

01:07:44.640 You shouldn't have to invoke the name of God.

01:07:47.280 If you're doing business

01:07:48.480 with a fellow brother in Christ,

01:07:50.360 you should be able to say,

01:07:51.460 hey, I don't need to get you 0.52

01:07:53.140 to do this and do that because I'm going to trust that you're not a lousy liar. I'm going to trust

01:07:59.900 that your yes actually means yes. And your no actually means no, right? If you're marrying a

01:08:06.180 believer, which is the only person you should ever marry and you're a believer, then, then I will,

01:08:12.320 or I do should suffice saying, yes, I covenant. It is a covenant. I covenant to you, but we don't

01:08:21.280 have to swear. I'm going to covenant with you, but I'm going to do so by simply letting my yes be yes

01:08:27.680 and my no be no. However, what Luther and Calvin argued is outside of private Christian affairs

01:08:33.180 in the public with unbelievers and pagans, both in terms of joining the military or in bearing

01:08:39.760 testimony in a legal court of law. In those contexts, because we're dealing with people who

01:08:45.820 are unreliable and who will not trust us and we neither trust them, it is permissible in these

01:08:52.600 contexts to make an oath. And even in our system here in America until very recently, we would

01:08:59.180 swear in a court of law on the Bible. We would invoke the name of God. That's the only proper

01:09:06.220 name that we would invoke in making an oath or making a covenant. And one of the reasons why

01:09:11.720 we believe that this is biblically permissible, not in private Christian affairs, but in public 0.75

01:09:17.140 affairs, especially those that include non-believers, is because God does it, Jesus does it, and Paul

01:09:23.240 does it. God does it, Jesus does it, and Paul does it. Paul put himself under an oath, calling God as

01:09:31.060 his witness in Romans 1.9, 2 Corinthians 1.23, 1 Thessalonians 2.10. Similarly, his disciples

01:09:40.180 may take vows in courtrooms or to enter military or political service. In commerce, we also can do

01:09:47.300 this with unbelievers by entering into contracts which resemble secularized oaths. Therefore, we 0.97

01:09:54.100 must conclude that when Jesus said, take no oath at all, he was referring to the kind of so-called

01:10:01.440 oath-taking promoted by the Pharisees in which they intended to secure acceptance for what they

01:10:07.420 said without actually putting themselves at risk should they prove to be liars. In other words,

01:10:13.760 if your appeal to something other than God is for the express purpose of escaping the force

01:10:19.920 and sanction of your vow, then you must not swear at all. This is the type of swearing that Jesus

01:10:27.180 utterly condemns. Okay, last thing that I'll say. In terms of Jesus taking an oath real quick,

01:10:33.400 biblical text for that is Matthew 26, verse 63 and 64. But Jesus remains silent. He's in a court

01:10:40.620 with the Sanhedrin. And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God. So invoking

01:10:47.000 the name of God, tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God. Jesus doesn't say, I will not take

01:10:53.500 an oath. Instead, he actually answers it. He's accepting that invoking of the name of God,

01:11:00.400 this oath. He's accepting the terms and he says, you have said so. He answers the question. He's

01:11:05.460 saying, yes, yes, I am the son of God. Exactly what you just said. That's what's true. I am the son of

01:11:11.340 God. But I tell you from now on, you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and

01:11:16.680 coming on the clouds of heaven. He's prophesying, looking forward to 80, 70 and the destruction

01:11:22.620 of Jerusalem. Here's the very, very last thing. There's a lot of content today. Here's the last 0.77

01:11:27.460 thing as it pertains to our homes. So public versus private, public with unbelievers, a work 1.00

01:11:34.240 contract, military, in a court of law, these kinds of things. It is proper to invoke a biblically 0.98

01:11:40.580 permissible oath by calling upon the name of the Lord and his name alone and not something else.

01:11:44.920 In our private dealings with Christians, and that certainly would include our own Christian

01:11:50.240 households, we shouldn't have to be making promises. And here's what I would say. If God's

01:11:56.060 oaths reveal that humans are accustomed to hearing lies, then oaths, vows, and promises

01:12:02.640 reveal that we are also accustomed to telling lies. We swear and promise because we are careless

01:12:09.040 at best. Listen to this, moms and dads. If a child is regularly asking a parent to promise,

01:12:16.140 the parent should hear that as an indictment, since it reveals that the child has learned

01:12:21.520 that he cannot quite trust his father or mother's word.

01:12:25.900 His yes has not always meant yes.

01:12:29.140 The father's yes or the mother's yes

01:12:30.740 has not always meant yes.

01:12:32.340 Ideally, a parent's word should be so reliable

01:12:35.600 that their children never think to ask for a guarantee.

01:12:39.840 Instead, every disciple, Christian, follower of Jesus

01:12:43.720 should aim to be so reliable

01:12:45.660 that no one ever thinks to ask him for a promise.

01:12:49.800 that's the application for christians and that is the practical application for homes and for parents

01:12:55.960 yes it is biblically permissible to make an oath calling upon the name of the lord alone in some

01:13:02.520 kind of legal contract with unbelievers in a public setting but in christian private settings

01:13:08.180 and especially in our homes in marriage with our spouse and in parenting with our children 0.92

01:13:13.620 if you have to regularly tell your spouse or your children oh I promise and they're asking for you

01:13:19.800 to make a promise do you promise you promise what that means is that your own family knows you're a

01:13:27.500 liar your word is weak your word has no weight your wife is in do you promise the reason why 0.69

01:13:37.200 she's having to garnish a promise out of you is because you've broken your word so many times 0.98

01:13:41.840 before. Your children say, you promise? It's because you have set an example for your children

01:13:47.240 as a father or a mother that your word is not to be trusted, that you're fickle, that you're blown

01:13:53.500 back and forth. So can we invoke an oath? Are all oaths bad? No, I've already covered that.

01:14:00.440 But in our homes, there should be no need for oath taking. There should be no need for, I promise,

01:14:07.800 I guarantee in our homes, with our children, with our wives, in churches, as Christians,

01:14:13.220 we should be able to say yes, and it means yes, and say no, and it means no, because we've been

01:14:19.080 sanctified by the work of the Holy Spirit to where hopefully we're not liars. Let's pray.

01:14:26.780 Father, thank you for your word. Bless it to your people that it might bring you glory and

01:14:31.440 do us good in Jesus' name. Amen.

The NXR Podcast - August 06, 2023

SUNDAY SERMON - Nephilim, Giants, & Oath-Taking

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