A distinguished, prominent big city pastor cruised through a small town. As he did his eyes fell upon a child not more than two feet tall at the door of one of the houses. The boy was on tiptoes valiantly attempting to reach the doorbell. Amused and wanting to help, the pastor parked his car and went over to assist the boy. He reached up and pushed his finger onto the button and the chimes rang inside. Satisfied that he had done his good deed for the day, the pastor turned to the child, “Okay, what happens next?”
With a smile the child replied, “Now we run!”
Another story: This lady goes to the doctor. She has been in serious pain for quite a while. The doctor asks her where it hurts and what is the matter. To which she replies, “It hurts when I touch my temple; it hurts when I touch my side; it hurts when I touch my arm; it even hurts when I touch my nose.”
“I think I know what the problem is”, the doctor says, “your finger is broken.”
Today we are going to talk both about being tricked and the pain associated with pulling against a covenant. The covenant we are talking about today is the one with the Gibeonites referred to in Joshua 9 and it is one of the most important in the Bible for understanding the workings of covenants.
Covenants are important and how we live in our covenant relationships have significant implications. We know what the Hebrew word for covenant means? Berit[h] literally means to be shackled together, to be bound. The Lord promised His people that He would never break His covenant with them. As such, we are not released from our covenants simply for disobeying them (Ro 7:2) and there are often significant consequences that result from trying to break an unbreakable bond (see Num 33:55; Jos 23:13).
This is important for us as Salvationists to remember because we are a covenanted people; we have the opportunity to enter into rich and strong covenant relationships with the Lord in the form of our Officers’ and Soldiers’ covenants. It is important for any of us living in the so-called ‘First World’ too where litigation, broken contracts, and divorces occur on a daily basis both inside and outside the churches and thus people miss out on the benefits of covenants. Because of this, we should all know to what we are agreeing to when we enter into a covenant with the LORD as either a partner or a witness.- be it a marriage or a Soldiership pledge or anything else. These next few weeks our focus in the Army world is Call and Commitment. This is when we ask you to consider responding to the opportunity to enter into a covenant with God as either a soldier or an Officer.
Covenants made with and before God are good things. The Lord uses covenants to give us direct access to strength, security, and blessing. The Lord made a promise to Abraham (Gen 12) that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him and - even though Abraham and we have been unfaithful - God's promise is still fulfilled through Jesus Christ. The only reason any of us are saved is because the Lord is keeps His word. He is bound to us through His covenantal ties that will not be broken.
Even though God doesn't cancel a covenant because we disobey it there are still some serious consequences for pulling against it. In Joshua 9, Israel were disobeying an earlier covenant that they made with God to not make a treaty with the Canaanites and even to destroy them (Dt 7:1-6; 20:16-18). Also, in our passage inotice that the Canaanites lied to Joshua and the Israelite leaders: the leaders were tricked when they made the treaty with the Canaanites (Jos 9:15). They did not first discuss the matter with God and in making this covenant they disobeyed their earlier covenant with the LORD.
Betraying a promise to YHWH is not a trivial matter. In the book of Judges alone generations of people suffer as a result of this broken promise to God. For hundreds of years their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even more than that experience the consequences of continuing in rebellion against this covenant and this promise. The natural results of not respecting our covenants with or before God - whether or not we are tricked into them, whether or not we consult God before we call Him as a witness (Jos 9) - can be devastating.
The Israelites were tricked into making this covenant agreement with the Gibeonites (who are Canaanites). They didn’t realize that in so doing they were defying their previous promise to God. They entered into this new agreement under false pretences. The Gibeonites lied to them but that doesn’t change the fact that Israel is now bound through the covenant her leaders made with the Gibeonites before God. The leaders themselves are well aware that they are bound to keep this covenant (9:18). When the Israelites find out that they have been tricked, they don’t nullify the agreement: they realise that it is not within their authority to do so; Israel does not attack the Gibeonites. They don’t attack the Gibeonites because –even though they have been lied to, even though they have been tricked, even though they have been deceived – they are still bound to God and the Gibeonites via this treaty. Simply disobeying a covenant does not render it void. There are consequences for disregarding a promise but disobeying a promise made before God does not render that covenant void .[1] God says, through His angel, Judges 2:1: “I will NEVER break my covenant with you.” The covenant with or the covenant before God is not nullified; the ties are not severed just because one disobeys God.
There is another interesting point about the agreement that Israel enters into here. Israel enters into a covenant with God first that says that He will give them the land and that they will not make a covenant with the Canaanites: they will instead destroy the present inhabitants of the land. Then the Israelites –without consulting God– enter into the second covenant with the Gibeonites (who are Canaanites) promising that they will not destroy them and in the process Joshua and the Israelites disobey the first covenant agreement with God.
Israel is understandably held to its original agreement with YHWH. It is understandable that Israel suffers the consequences for disobeying God by making this competing covenant. What is interesting, however, is that the Israelites are also held accountable to this new covenant made before God with the Gibeonites even though they made it contrary to the expressed command of God. The Israelites disobeyed God in making this second covenant but they are still held accountable to it. God holds them accountable to both covenants: the one that He initiated and the one that He forbade. [2]
In Judges 2 we read the consequences of breaking the first covenant with God and in 2 Samuel 21 we see the consequences the Israelites suffer for breaking the second, competing covenant with the Gibeonites many years later. God holds us to our promises. As is evidenced here, whether we are lied to, tricked, or even enter into a covenant that is against the Lord’s commands, God holds us to our covenants that are made with Him either as a witness or as one of the parties Himself.
2 Samuel 21:1-5, 13-15:
During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years [people die]; so David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.” The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not a part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah had tried to annihilate them.) David asked the Gibeonites,
“What shall I do for you? How shall I make amends so that you will bless the LORD's inheritance?”
The Gibeonites answered him, “We have no right to demand silver or gold from Saul or his family, nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” David asked.
They answered the king, “As for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel, let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and exposed before the LORD at Gibeah of Saul—the Lord 's chosen one.”
So the king said, “I will give them to you.”
13-15: “David brought the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from there, and the bones of those who had been killed and exposed were gathered up. They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul's father Kish, at Zela in Benjamin, and did everything the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land.”
Even though the Israelites disobeyed God by entering into this covenant with the Gibeonites (and suffered their due consequences for disobeying the covenant with God), when they disobeyed the Gibeonite covenant - even though it was made against the expressed will of God - God did not even answer their prayers until they made it right.
There are a couple of important things we need to know about our covenants with God, be they marriage covenants, soldier covenants, or officer covenants:
1), God does not sever His covenantal ties that bind us before Him; because
2) He is faithful to His promises even if we are faithless
This is important for us to remember. Again this is Call and Commitment time in the Army: We should not enter into our covenants lightly. I don’t believe that God says we can simply declare through secular courts that we are not happy with our partner so we are no longer married. I don’t believe God says that simply because we disobey our Soldiership agreement (by having a drink or whatever else) that we can throw out our covenant. I don’t think the tie is broken. I don’t think God says that just because we are not active Officers anymore that we are no longer have the opportunity to ‘make soul-saving the first purpose of our lives.’ I think God still supports us in these covenants. I think that this covenant referred to in Genesis 15, Judges 2, 1 Samuel 21 and here is Joshua 9 points to the fact that God doesn’t break His covenants with us but on the contrary, He will still be there for us when we need him. And this is important because if it is not true than none of us are saved; because if it is not true than God's salvation in conditional and we know that it is not - anyone who calls on the Name of the Lord can be saved.
This brings me to another point: covenants are not punishments; the consequences of pulling against our covenants are the natural and logical results of our own actions. Like we said, tje origin of the Hebrew word for ‘covenant’ comes from a root word meaning, ‘to be shackled together’. The image of a covenant then is of one being tied to God through a promise. One can compare a covenant with God (be it through marriage, Soldiership, Officership) to being seat-belted into a train (or SkyTrain), with God being the train. When we are belted in the train and ride comfortably in it – following the Lord’s lead - we wind up where He is going a lot faster and a lot easier than if we walk the tracks on our own. This is the benefit of a strong covenant with the Lord. However, once we are strapped in, if we try to go our own way or try to tie ourselves to something going in a different direction, it will not be a pleasant experience. The seatbelt doesn’t break. Disobeying our covenants is like jumping out of the train and trying to run in the opposite direction while we are still belted to it. It is going to hurt but this is not God’s fault. He doesn’t throw us from the train and, because God is faithful, this covenantal tie is so strong that it won’t break but we suffer are the natural results of our own actions. This is what happens in Joshua and Judges. God, wanting the Israelites to experience the full rest of the Promised Land, entered into a covenant with Abraham and then Israel. They willing belted themselves into His train but later the Israelites also tied themselves to the Gibeonite train that was going in a different direction and they suffered the consequences of their actions. This is exactly what happens to us when we don’t respect our covenants.
But there is good news in this and that good news saved the Gibeonites - even from the zeal of the of the Israelites' king. God saved the Gibeonites and God saved the Israelites. And this is good news for us for no matter how many times we are faithless and jump off that train. No matter how many times we try to break that covenant; no matter how many times we throw ourselves onto the tracks, under the wheels of the ‘God Train,’ the Lord is faithful: the covenantal tie will not be broken; God is faithful, and Jesus himself is standing there as the eternal tie that binds us in our relationship to God; Jesus provides the eternal covenant through whom whosoever may be pulled back up onto the train of everlasting life. As this is the case, instead of rebelling against God, instead of pulling against the tie that binds, let us all give our lives over fully to the Lord, buckle up, lean back and enjoy the fully sanctified ride on this train because this train is bound for glory.
Another story: This lady goes to the doctor. She has been in serious pain for quite a while. The doctor asks her where it hurts and what is the matter. To which she replies, “It hurts when I touch my temple; it hurts when I touch my side; it hurts when I touch my arm; it even hurts when I touch my nose.”
“I think I know what the problem is”, the doctor says, “your finger is broken.”
Today we are going to talk both about being tricked and the pain associated with pulling against a covenant. The covenant we are talking about today is the one with the Gibeonites referred to in Joshua 9 and it is one of the most important in the Bible for understanding the workings of covenants.
Covenants are important and how we live in our covenant relationships have significant implications. We know what the Hebrew word for covenant means? Berit[h] literally means to be shackled together, to be bound. The Lord promised His people that He would never break His covenant with them. As such, we are not released from our covenants simply for disobeying them (Ro 7:2) and there are often significant consequences that result from trying to break an unbreakable bond (see Num 33:55; Jos 23:13).
This is important for us as Salvationists to remember because we are a covenanted people; we have the opportunity to enter into rich and strong covenant relationships with the Lord in the form of our Officers’ and Soldiers’ covenants. It is important for any of us living in the so-called ‘First World’ too where litigation, broken contracts, and divorces occur on a daily basis both inside and outside the churches and thus people miss out on the benefits of covenants. Because of this, we should all know to what we are agreeing to when we enter into a covenant with the LORD as either a partner or a witness.- be it a marriage or a Soldiership pledge or anything else. These next few weeks our focus in the Army world is Call and Commitment. This is when we ask you to consider responding to the opportunity to enter into a covenant with God as either a soldier or an Officer.
Covenants made with and before God are good things. The Lord uses covenants to give us direct access to strength, security, and blessing. The Lord made a promise to Abraham (Gen 12) that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him and - even though Abraham and we have been unfaithful - God's promise is still fulfilled through Jesus Christ. The only reason any of us are saved is because the Lord is keeps His word. He is bound to us through His covenantal ties that will not be broken.
Even though God doesn't cancel a covenant because we disobey it there are still some serious consequences for pulling against it. In Joshua 9, Israel were disobeying an earlier covenant that they made with God to not make a treaty with the Canaanites and even to destroy them (Dt 7:1-6; 20:16-18). Also, in our passage inotice that the Canaanites lied to Joshua and the Israelite leaders: the leaders were tricked when they made the treaty with the Canaanites (Jos 9:15). They did not first discuss the matter with God and in making this covenant they disobeyed their earlier covenant with the LORD.
Betraying a promise to YHWH is not a trivial matter. In the book of Judges alone generations of people suffer as a result of this broken promise to God. For hundreds of years their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even more than that experience the consequences of continuing in rebellion against this covenant and this promise. The natural results of not respecting our covenants with or before God - whether or not we are tricked into them, whether or not we consult God before we call Him as a witness (Jos 9) - can be devastating.
The Israelites were tricked into making this covenant agreement with the Gibeonites (who are Canaanites). They didn’t realize that in so doing they were defying their previous promise to God. They entered into this new agreement under false pretences. The Gibeonites lied to them but that doesn’t change the fact that Israel is now bound through the covenant her leaders made with the Gibeonites before God. The leaders themselves are well aware that they are bound to keep this covenant (9:18). When the Israelites find out that they have been tricked, they don’t nullify the agreement: they realise that it is not within their authority to do so; Israel does not attack the Gibeonites. They don’t attack the Gibeonites because –even though they have been lied to, even though they have been tricked, even though they have been deceived – they are still bound to God and the Gibeonites via this treaty. Simply disobeying a covenant does not render it void. There are consequences for disregarding a promise but disobeying a promise made before God does not render that covenant void .[1] God says, through His angel, Judges 2:1: “I will NEVER break my covenant with you.” The covenant with or the covenant before God is not nullified; the ties are not severed just because one disobeys God.
There is another interesting point about the agreement that Israel enters into here. Israel enters into a covenant with God first that says that He will give them the land and that they will not make a covenant with the Canaanites: they will instead destroy the present inhabitants of the land. Then the Israelites –without consulting God– enter into the second covenant with the Gibeonites (who are Canaanites) promising that they will not destroy them and in the process Joshua and the Israelites disobey the first covenant agreement with God.
Israel is understandably held to its original agreement with YHWH. It is understandable that Israel suffers the consequences for disobeying God by making this competing covenant. What is interesting, however, is that the Israelites are also held accountable to this new covenant made before God with the Gibeonites even though they made it contrary to the expressed command of God. The Israelites disobeyed God in making this second covenant but they are still held accountable to it. God holds them accountable to both covenants: the one that He initiated and the one that He forbade. [2]
In Judges 2 we read the consequences of breaking the first covenant with God and in 2 Samuel 21 we see the consequences the Israelites suffer for breaking the second, competing covenant with the Gibeonites many years later. God holds us to our promises. As is evidenced here, whether we are lied to, tricked, or even enter into a covenant that is against the Lord’s commands, God holds us to our covenants that are made with Him either as a witness or as one of the parties Himself.
2 Samuel 21:1-5, 13-15:
During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years [people die]; so David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.” The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not a part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah had tried to annihilate them.) David asked the Gibeonites,
“What shall I do for you? How shall I make amends so that you will bless the LORD's inheritance?”
The Gibeonites answered him, “We have no right to demand silver or gold from Saul or his family, nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” David asked.
They answered the king, “As for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel, let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and exposed before the LORD at Gibeah of Saul—the Lord 's chosen one.”
So the king said, “I will give them to you.”
13-15: “David brought the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from there, and the bones of those who had been killed and exposed were gathered up. They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul's father Kish, at Zela in Benjamin, and did everything the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land.”
Even though the Israelites disobeyed God by entering into this covenant with the Gibeonites (and suffered their due consequences for disobeying the covenant with God), when they disobeyed the Gibeonite covenant - even though it was made against the expressed will of God - God did not even answer their prayers until they made it right.
There are a couple of important things we need to know about our covenants with God, be they marriage covenants, soldier covenants, or officer covenants:
1), God does not sever His covenantal ties that bind us before Him; because
2) He is faithful to His promises even if we are faithless
This is important for us to remember. Again this is Call and Commitment time in the Army: We should not enter into our covenants lightly. I don’t believe that God says we can simply declare through secular courts that we are not happy with our partner so we are no longer married. I don’t believe God says that simply because we disobey our Soldiership agreement (by having a drink or whatever else) that we can throw out our covenant. I don’t think the tie is broken. I don’t think God says that just because we are not active Officers anymore that we are no longer have the opportunity to ‘make soul-saving the first purpose of our lives.’ I think God still supports us in these covenants. I think that this covenant referred to in Genesis 15, Judges 2, 1 Samuel 21 and here is Joshua 9 points to the fact that God doesn’t break His covenants with us but on the contrary, He will still be there for us when we need him. And this is important because if it is not true than none of us are saved; because if it is not true than God's salvation in conditional and we know that it is not - anyone who calls on the Name of the Lord can be saved.
This brings me to another point: covenants are not punishments; the consequences of pulling against our covenants are the natural and logical results of our own actions. Like we said, tje origin of the Hebrew word for ‘covenant’ comes from a root word meaning, ‘to be shackled together’. The image of a covenant then is of one being tied to God through a promise. One can compare a covenant with God (be it through marriage, Soldiership, Officership) to being seat-belted into a train (or SkyTrain), with God being the train. When we are belted in the train and ride comfortably in it – following the Lord’s lead - we wind up where He is going a lot faster and a lot easier than if we walk the tracks on our own. This is the benefit of a strong covenant with the Lord. However, once we are strapped in, if we try to go our own way or try to tie ourselves to something going in a different direction, it will not be a pleasant experience. The seatbelt doesn’t break. Disobeying our covenants is like jumping out of the train and trying to run in the opposite direction while we are still belted to it. It is going to hurt but this is not God’s fault. He doesn’t throw us from the train and, because God is faithful, this covenantal tie is so strong that it won’t break but we suffer are the natural results of our own actions. This is what happens in Joshua and Judges. God, wanting the Israelites to experience the full rest of the Promised Land, entered into a covenant with Abraham and then Israel. They willing belted themselves into His train but later the Israelites also tied themselves to the Gibeonite train that was going in a different direction and they suffered the consequences of their actions. This is exactly what happens to us when we don’t respect our covenants.
But there is good news in this and that good news saved the Gibeonites - even from the zeal of the of the Israelites' king. God saved the Gibeonites and God saved the Israelites. And this is good news for us for no matter how many times we are faithless and jump off that train. No matter how many times we try to break that covenant; no matter how many times we throw ourselves onto the tracks, under the wheels of the ‘God Train,’ the Lord is faithful: the covenantal tie will not be broken; God is faithful, and Jesus himself is standing there as the eternal tie that binds us in our relationship to God; Jesus provides the eternal covenant through whom whosoever may be pulled back up onto the train of everlasting life. As this is the case, instead of rebelling against God, instead of pulling against the tie that binds, let us all give our lives over fully to the Lord, buckle up, lean back and enjoy the fully sanctified ride on this train because this train is bound for glory.
See also:
Ramsay, Michael, 'Rights and Responsibilities of Covenants: a look at Judges 2' in Praise The Lord For Covenants: Old Testament wisdom for our world today. Vancouver, BC: Credo Press, 2010. (c) The Salvation Army. Available on-line: http://www.sheepspeak.com/ptl4covenants.htm
Captain Michael Ramsay, "Rights and Responsibilities of Covenant -a look at Judges 2", Journal of Aggressive Christianity, Issue 56 , Aug.-Sept.2008, p.48-55. On-line: http://www.armybarmy.com/JAC/article10-56.html
Michael Ramsay, Judges 2:1-5: Covenant and the Gibeonite Dilemma (a look at Judges 2:1-5 through the lenses of Joshua 9 and 2 Samuel 21). Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on May 18, 2008. Available on-line: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/05/judges-21-5-covenant-and-gibeonite.html
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