Sunday Sermon explores Joshua 9, where Gibeonites deceive Israel into a covenant sworn by Yahweh's name, contrasting their faith with King Saul's later breach that caused a three-year famine. The speaker identifies Nephilim giants like Og as descendants of fallen angels, noting their supernatural strength before God judged Canaan after 400 years of wickedness. While Jesus condemned manipulative Pharisaic oaths in Matthew 5, the sermon argues invoking God's name remains valid for public dealings with unbelievers due to human depravity. Ultimately, families must cultivate such trust that internal oaths become unnecessary, aligning with confessional standards on lawful vows. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Faith in Jericho's Conquest00:05:26
Again, we'll be dealing in the sermon today with the entirety of chapter nine of the book of Joshua, uh, but we'll read Joshua chapter nine, verses one through 10.
When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, this is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would be able to respond by saying, thanks be to God.
This is Joshua chapter nine, verses one through 10.
The Bible says this.
As soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country and in the low land, all along the coast of the great sea toward Lebanon, The Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites heard of this, they gathered together as one to fight against Joshua and Israel.
But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, they on their part acted with cunning and went and made ready provisions and took worn out sacks for their donkeys and wineskins with worn out patched sandals on their feet.
And worn out clothes, and all their provisions were dry and crumbly.
And they went to Joshua in the camp of Gilgal and said to him, And the men of Israel, we have come from a distant country, so now make a covenant with us.
But the men of Israel said to the Hivites, Perhaps you live among us.
Then how can we make a covenant with you?
They said to Joshua, We are your servants.
And Joshua said to them, Who are you, and where do you come from?
They said to him, From a very distant country, your servants have come because of the name of the Lord your God.
For we have heard a report of him and all that he did in Egypt, and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon, to the king of Heshbon, and to Og, king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
Let's go ahead and dive.
Right in.
And your notes, the first thing I've written in regards to these first 10 verses of Joshua chapter 9 is this.
In the same way that Rahab, think of Israel going against their first enemy after crossing the Jordan River, that being Jericho.
In the same way that Rahab distinguished her and her own household from the rest of the city of Jericho.
Now we're seeing that same concept play out at large.
So Rahab distinguished herself from the rest of her people, Jericho.
Now we see the Gibeonite tribe distinguishing themselves from the rest of the tribes of Canaan.
Both actions are done in faith.
We should understand this as an act of faith.
The faith is, at the very least, Rahab recognizes that at the end of the day, that, uh, that Israel is going to win the battle because they have the Lord.
It's not because of any practical circumstance.
Jericho was a superior.
They had the, uh, the position that was advantageous over Israel.
Israel was coming in.
They were nomadic.
They had been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, an entire generation.
Whereas Jericho was strategically positioned.
They had a fortified city.
They had walls that stretched the heavens, as we see in the book of Deuteronomy.
That's the way it's described.
And so Jericho had the upper hand in every practical regard.
And yet Rahab recognizes that ultimately the Lord, the God of all gods, lowercase g gods, king of all kings, Yahweh himself, is with Israel.
And so, even though Israel doesn't have some of the physical provisions and weaponry, what they do have that gives them the victory is that they have Yahweh.
And so, she recognizes that if she sides with her own people, Jericho, she's going to lose the battle.
And one of the signs that she looks to, that in order to confirm this conclusion, this realization that Israel will emerge victorious in this battle between Israel and Jericho, is that everyone in Jericho, her own people, The Bible says, she says this to the Israelite spies.
She says, all their hearts have melted within them like wax, that they are overcome and overwhelmed by fear.
She recognizes that this supernatural dread upon all of her people is a sign that the Lord Yahweh is with Israel and not with Jericho, and that Israel will be victorious over Jericho.
And so she makes a treaty.
She says to the spies, I know that you are going to inherit the land.
No matter what we do, it doesn't matter how tall our walls are, it doesn't matter what provisions we have on deck.
At the end of the day, you're going to conquer because Yahweh is with you.
So please remember me and my family.
And the spies make a covenant.
They make a treaty with Rahab and her household.
They say, Hang a scarlet thread out of your window, have every member of your household in your home, in your physical home.
As we come to decimate Jericho and you will be spared.
Proving Yahweh's Superiority00:02:49
Why?
Because of your faith.
She's believing in Yahweh.
She's saying that the gods of the Amorites, the gods of the Canaanites, the God of Jericho, the God of Ai, these are false, puny gods, right?
It's like the Hulk taking Lodki.
You say, it's not that he's not a God, he's just a weak God, puny God.
And he starts smashing them back and forth.
That's what Jesus does with all the false gods of our world.
And that's what we see Yahweh do in the conquest of Israel in the land of Canaan, as one by one he topples all their gods.
And that's the exact same thing that Yahweh did in Egypt.
With each of the 10 plagues that we see transpire as God is delivering his people from bondage and slavery, each of these 10 plagues signify the superior power of Yahweh over each of these false gods, whether it be Ra, the sun god, or the god of the Nile River and fertility and all these different things, we see Yahweh.
Proving time and time again that he is a superior God.
And for the record, I don't believe that Jombris and Janice, who are the henchmen, the two right and left hand henchmen of Pharaoh in Egypt, the magicians who are performing signs and competing with Moses, I don't believe that they were competing by just smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand.
I believe that they were using true dark arts, that they were actually performing not just tricks or sleight of eye, But they were actually performing real dark magic by a, not divine, but by a supernatural source, namely Satan, the prince of darkness.
So they're actually doing real signs.
So it's not that one God is real and the others are fake.
No, it's that these other deities, lowercase d, they're not actual deities, but lowercase gods, they're actually real and they actually do have some degree, some measure of power.
But the point is not that God is real and these other guys over here are fake.
It's that God is infinitely superior to all these other false gods.
And so that's what we see God in the book of Exodus and the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt with the 10 plagues.
We see God proving his superiority, his infinite superiority over false gods.
And we see him doing it again in the book of Joshua as Israel is coming into the promised land of Canaan and driving out all of these Canaanite tribes that are pagans worshiping again false gods.
Rahab has faith.
She sees this, she picks up on it, she realizes here's a true God.
My people, our God is a false God.
And I know that Yahweh is a superior God.
Supernatural Fear and Rahab's Faith00:02:37
And therefore, his people will emerge victorious.
And one of the ways that I can tell is not by looking at the physical level, looking at Israel and their victuals, their supplies, and all these kinds of things, and then looking at Jericho and our walls and our armory and our artillery.
No, at that level, it looks like we have the upper hand.
But the reason I know, as a confirmation, as a sign that Israel will emerge victorious, is because all the men in my city are cowards.
That's how you know.
You know, because everyone is overcome by what only could be described as a supernatural sense of dread.
Remember, when I preached this a few months ago, I said that fear is not only a sin, and it is a sin.
We have the utmost sympathy for fear, right?
We're not very sympathetic when it comes to other people's pride.
When we see pride, we're like, that's nasty, that's bad, that's sin, how dare you?
Right?
But when we see someone who has fear, we're like, you poor thing.
But biblically speaking, fear is a sin.
The Bible says, be anxious for nothing, dot, dot, dot, except for things that are legitimate.
And, you know, and if you're a mom, you can't help but worry.
It really just means you love your kids.
No, there's no exception clause.
It's just be anxious for nothing, which means to be anxious for something is going against God's command.
Therefore, sin.
But not only is fear sin on biblical terms, but it's also.
At times, a sign of God's corporate judgment.
When an entire nation, when an entire people are overwhelmed by what only can be described as supernatural fear, an extreme sense of dread, that's one of the signs that not only do you have individual people sinning in regards to choosing to be fearful rather than have faith and believe, but you actually have a corporate judgment, a confirmation of God's corporate judgment over a people.
Their hearts have melted like wax.
So, all that being said, Rahab has faith.
She sees the signs.
She sees, you know, she's clued in.
She realizes something supernatural is going on here.
It's not just that our men are a little bit scared.
No, they're overcome by dread for no practical reason.
At every level, in the practical sense, we have the upper hand.
But no, this is supernatural.
Clues of Divine Deliverance00:07:23
It's because Israel has Yahweh and He is the superior God.
He will fulfill all of his promises.
And one of those promises is to decimate us and to give his people an inheritance in the land.
And so she makes a treaty.
She makes a covenant because of faith.
That's what we now see in our text today, the same principle now applied at a larger level with the tribe of Gibeon.
So you have all these tribes.
In verse one and verse two, what we see right off the bat in our text today is you have all these different tribes in Canaan saying, okay, If we go up against Israel one at a time, we're going to lose.
Our only chance is to have an allegiance, to come together as one so that we can take out Israel.
Because if it's just Jericho, Israel was victorious.
If it's just Ai, right, we've had two battles now so far in the book of Joshua, and Israel again is victorious.
Well, maybe it's because Israel is having the luxury of facing each of these tribes, Canaanite tribes, one at a time.
But what if we all went up against Israel together simultaneously?
Well, then maybe we would have the advantage.
And even with this plan, which again makes practical sense, in the practical sense, it is a reasonable plan.
It's a strategic plan.
But even with this plan, the tribe of Gibeon says, we'll still lose.
Why?
Why so much confidence that they'll lose?
Well, it displays some level of faith in the God of Israel, in Yahweh.
And so what they do is the exact same thing that Rahab did they go to Israel, they go to Joshua and say, We want terms of peace.
We want to form a treaty.
Quick, make a covenant with us.
Now, there's one main difference.
The main difference between what Gibeon did and what Rahab did is this Rahab lied to her people in order to make a treaty with Israel, whereas the Gibeonites lie to God's people in order to make a treaty with Israel.
Remember, Rahab, she lies to her own people, not to Israel, but to her own people, the people of Jericho.
When they say, Are you harboring the spies?
She says, Oh, no, no, no.
They went that way.
Quick, run.
You can catch up with them.
And we got into this, and we don't have time to discuss it today, but a whole doctrine of the lie of necessity, right?
What is a direct falsehood?
What is deceit at an objectively sinful level versus the lie of necessity, which there would be biblical permissibility for?
You think of, for instance, the Egyptian midwives who were tasked to go when the Hebrew women were giving birth and if it was a son to drown it in the Nile River.
And they lie to Pharaoh.
They say, man, those Hebrew women, they're strong, right?
They're on it with their birthing game.
We can't even get there in time.
They're already holding the baby.
The baby, you know, it's already done.
They've hidden it away.
And they're lying.
They're lying to Pharaoh.
And the Bible even says they're lying because they're deceitful, because they have a low amount of character.
No, it says they lied because they feared God.
So their lie to Pharaoh represents fear of God.
And likewise, I would argue that Rahab would fall into a similar category.
But again, the major distinction between Rahab and the Gibeonite tribe is that Rahab lies to her people, in this case, namely Jericho, about the Israelite spies and where they were, those kinds of things, in order to make a covenant, a treaty with the people of God and ultimately God Himself, Yahweh, so that her and her house would be spared.
Whereas Gibeon, they actually lie to Joshua and Israel themselves.
And they say, hey, we've come from a far off distance.
Right?
They kind of tatter their outfits, you know, their clothing, and they take wineskins and they take bread that's really old and already stale, and they make it look at a visible level as though they've come from a very long distance.
And we've only come really just to pay tribute because we've heard of all the different things that your God, the God of Israel, the one true God, Yahweh, the things that he has accomplished.
And the things that they cite, they give three main examples.
One is we've heard what Yahweh did to Pharaoh and Egypt.
So, in this regard, they're speaking of God's deliverance of Israel from bondage and slavery in Egypt.
This would be the 10 plates.
And this would also be even including the parting of the Red Sea.
When Israel's Egypt, Pharaoh hardened his heart, doubled down again.
At this point, you know, it's not just doubling down, but it's doubling down for the 11th time.
All right.
He's already said, you can go, you can go, you can go.
And then changing his mind, this supernatural hardening of heart, that Pharaoh hardens his heart.
But there's also a very real sense where God, in his sovereignty, God hardens Pharaoh's heart.
And Pharaoh does this for the last time after already losing his firstborn son.
And he sends.
You know, the militia of Egypt to chase down Israel that he's already finally let go, and they end up drowning in the Red Sea parting miracle.
That Israel, through faith, crosses on dry land.
The Egyptians then attempt to do what they just saw Israel do, but it's not done in faith, and they are swallowed up by the sea.
So Gibeon is saying, We know about that.
We've heard the tale of what your God did in Egypt.
The other two examples cited by Gibeon is we've also heard about the two kings and tribes that you defeated among the Amorites.
Now, this is not speaking about Jericho and Ai.
Jericho and Ai would be Canaanite tribes, Jericho and Amorite tribe, but they're talking specifically about two other Amorite tribes before Israel crossed the Jordan River.
Whereas Jericho and Ai are two different tribes that Israel conquered after having, they're the first tribes to be conquered after getting into the land of promise, Canaan, after crossing the Jordan River.
So, what are these two tribes?
That they're referring to, the Gibeonites, saying, We saw what your God did to Egypt and these other two Amorite tribes on the other side of the Jordan.
So let's read just a little bit about this.
And this wouldn't be underneath Joshua's command.
Joshua was alive.
He was probably integral in many different ways, but this is still when Moses is leading Israel.
That there were moments, most of the conquests and battles with Israel, it comes through Joshua once they enter the land of Canaan.
But there were certain battles that happened underneath Moses' leadership.
During this 40 years of wandering in the desert on the other side of the Jordan River.
And here's a couple examples.
Let's look at Numbers, chapter 21, verses 31 through 35.
It says this Israel lived in the land of the Amorites, and Moses sent to spy out Jazer, and they captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there.
Then they turned and went up by the way to Bashan.
And Og, the king of Bashan, came out against them, he and all his people to battle at Adriai.
The Giant King Og's Iron Bed00:03:12
But the Lord said to Og, the king of Bashan, or said to Moses, Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand and all his people and his land.
And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Hashbon.
So they defeated him and his sons and all his people until he had no survivor left.
And they possessed his land.
Now, who was Og?
Let's read one more cross reference to get a little bit more details over this King Og.
He's the king of Bashan.
Deuteronomy chapter 3, verse 6 through 11, or I'm sorry, just focusing on verse 11 says this now For only Og, the king of Bashan, was left of the remnant of the Rephaim.
Behold, his bed was a bed of iron.
It's because he's really heavy and it needs to be strong to support him.
It was a bed of iron.
Is it not in Rabah of the Ammonites?
Nine cubits was its length and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.
Now, a common cubit, just for reference, is about a foot and a half, 18 inches.
So when it says nine cubits was its length, we're looking at 13 and a half feet, 13.5 feet, and four cubits as its width, we're looking at six feet wide.
And again, the substance of the bed, not just its size, but its substance is made of iron.
What the Bible's telling us, right?
And a lot of evangelicals are too sophisticated to believe the Bible, but we do.
We believe the Bible here at Covenant Bible Church.
What the Bible's telling us is this there's a really big bed because Og is a giant.
Not in the metaphorical, proverbial sense, he had a giant intellect, or, you know, a titan among men in terms of his, you know, psychology and ability to contribute.
No, no, no.
I'm talking a giant, an actual giant.
So we don't know his exact height, but we know that his bed, again, was 13 and a half feet long.
So you think of that and just apply the same kind of concept and principle with our beds today, right?
If you have.
You know, a typical bed, whether it's, you know, in terms of length, whether it's king or queen or full or twin or whatever it might be, it's usually about 6.5 inches long.
Or I'm sorry, 6.5 feet long.
Six feet five inches, something a little bit over six feet.
And a lot of people, not all, but a lot of men, are usually around 5'9, 5'10.
That's a pretty much a common height for men, 5'11.
So you're only looking at a few inches longer than the height of the man who would be sleeping in that bed.
It's very possible, very likely that Og was a man who was about 13 feet tall.
13 feet tall.
Now, when you take that proportionally and put it in terms of weight, if you got a guy who's 13 feet tall, he's not going to weigh twice the amount of somebody who's six and a half feet tall, right?
Six and a half times two, 13 feet.
Well, he may be twice the height, but he's going to be four, five, six times the weight of a man who is six and a half feet tall because it's It's not just that he's double the height, but he's the same, you know, slender.
Nephilim Giants and Ancient Judgment00:13:39
I mean, that would, you know, that'd be a bean pole.
That'd be somebody who could just fall over with a gust of wind.
No, you're talking about a man of renown.
You're talking about somebody who is one of the descendants of the Nephilim.
That's what the Rephaim actually are.
They're a particular tribe that were descendants of the Nephilim.
The Nephilim, as we already talked about two weeks ago, they were the hybrid demonic offspring of watchers.
Fallen angels who saw the daughters of men were beautiful and came into them and produced children.
So you have angels that rebelled against God.
They fell from heaven in a great cosmic war.
The archangel Michael cast them down to the earth.
These fallen, rebellious angels now attempting to pervert the messianic line, right?
Underneath the command of Lucifer, who would be their commander, the devil, the one who was there in the garden that day, the serpent who knew that the promise was that there would be a seed of the woman who would crush his head.
He knew the game plan.
God told him ahead of time, This is what I'm going to do.
You can know about what I'm going to do.
I don't have to pull a fast one.
I don't have to do it in secret.
I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm going to do, and you're not going to be able to stop it because I'm God.
So God tells both Adam and Eve and the serpent in the garden, Genesis chapter three, when we have the fall take place, what is going to happen?
The serpent and his offspring will strike the heel of the seed of the woman.
But the seed of the woman, namely Christ, the Messiah, he will ultimately, in the end, crush the head of the serpent.
So Satan knows from that day forward that his ultimate end is going to be the serpent crushing seed of the woman.
So, what is he trying to strategically do?
Among many things, one thing he's trying to do is to corrupt the line of the woman.
He's trying to corrupt it.
One of the ways that you corrupt the line of humanity is by hybrid, half fallen angel, half people, cryptid, weird, wacko, perverted DNA.
That's one of the ways you do it.
It may feel a little bit on the nose, a little bit too simple, but that's one of Satan's strategies.
And so what you have is you have these fallen watchers.
Angels now in rebellion against God who see the daughters of men that they are lovely and that they take them as wives.
They produce a hybrid offspring that's not really human.
This is the Nephilim or the Nephilim.
And then the Nephilim, one of the descendant tribes from them, is the Rephaim.
And King Og of Bashem is one example of the Rephaim, a sub-tribe of the Nephilim.
And he's a giant because he has watered down at this point.
It's been multiple generations, but he still has this fallen angel.
He's not 100% human.
He's not 100% in the image of God.
He has this watered down fallen angel DNA running through his blood, giving him incredible, almost supernatural strength and stature size.
And one of the things that God uses Israel to do in their time of wandering in the desert underneath the leadership of Moses is to hunt these guys down and kill them.
And that's also what God uses them to do under Joshua's leadership after crossing the Jordan River and going into the land of Israel.
Of Canaan.
So back to the Gibeonite tribe in the beginning of our text today, they're saying it's not small things.
They're saying the known superpower in the world at the time, Egypt, Egypt, your God conquered.
And not only that, but your God also took out two kings, two Amorite tribes.
One of them, and I would argue both, but I don't have time to go into the other one.
But one of them we know for a fact was Rephaim, a descendant sub-tribe of the Nephilim, and he was a giant, King Og.
So, your God has empowered your people, Israel, to take out Egypt, to take out this other Amorite tribe, and now to take out a second one, Og, who was a giant Raphael king.
Yeah, we don't stand a chance.
It's cute, you know, but this plan of all these tribes, you know, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, and the Hivites and the Jebusites, they all want to come together and think, well, maybe if we have enough, if we have a majority, if we're all on the same team working together, we'll have the ability to conquer Israel.
No.
Now, Israel couldn't be conquered by Egypt.
They couldn't be conquered by Og giants.
They're not going to be conquered.
Our only chance is to use the Rahab strategy, which is to go to Israel and quickly make a peace treaty.
So that's our text today.
That's what they're doing.
Now, in order to do that, they know that Israel will not accept the terms of a peace covenant with the Gibeonites if they know that the Gibeonites live next door, right?
Is specific.
They can't make a covenant that directly contradicts what God commanded Israel to do.
And what God commanded Israel to do is to drive out all these Canaanite tribes because they were pagan.
They worshiped false gods.
Many, not all, but many of them also had corrupted bloodlines, as I've already covered.
And I mean that in the literal sense corrupted bloodlines.
So some of them were bad people and some of them were bad kind of people.
They weren't even fully image bearers of the living God, they weren't entirely human.
And even the bad people that didn't have corrupted bloodlines, even in their cases, they were pagans worshiping false gods.
They had filled up the fullness of their iniquity.
That's what God says earlier to Abraham in the book of Genesis.
Abraham is, he left the land of his father.
He is wandering as a sojourner, and it uses that word in the book of Genesis.
He's a sojourner in the land of Canaan, but then eventually they're taken out of Canaan because Abraham goes to Isaac, goes to Jacob, goes to Joseph.
Joseph is sold and betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery in Egypt.
Then there's a great famine in the whole of the land.
And so Joseph, his brothers, and his father Jacob are driven because of hunger.
To Egypt.
They live and settle in the land of Goshen.
Eventually, that Pharaoh who Joseph had favor with dies, and a new Pharaoh comes to power who does not remember Joseph or think kindly of him and his household.
And then Israel prospers in the land of Egypt, specifically Goshen.
They multiply greatly.
The new Pharaoh over Egypt sees Israel as a potential threat.
So they then enslave Israel, and they're enslaved there for 400 years, exactly 400 years, and then delivered under Moses to be led into the promised land back to where.
The Amorites are.
Now, what God spoke to Abraham when he was in the land of Canaan before they transferred to Egypt because of the famine through Joseph, when Abraham was in the land of Canaan after having left his father's land to go to the land that the Lord promised to show him, the Bible says he was a sojourner, a stranger, and an alien.
But notice Abraham is not a sojourner, stranger, and alien in the land of Canaan waiting for God to just beam him up in a rapture to heaven.
No, he's a sojourner in the sense that this is not his native land.
But what's he waiting on?
To be delivered by God from the land?
No, for his descendants to be empowered by God to take the land.
You are a sojourner, Christian, waiting to be raptured, beam me up, Scotty, out of the lit.
No, you are a sojourner waiting to take the land.
It's your land because it's God's land.
And we're not going to take it the same way that Joshua did.
We're not going to take it by force, but we are going to take it by force.
The tip of the spear, the way that we take it, the strategy God has given us is the Great Commission by discipling nations and baptizing them into the name of the triune God and teaching them, which includes also their civil rulers to obey obedience to all Christ's commands.
So these are all the things that are happening.
The point that I wanted to make with Abraham briefly is this, that Abraham, when he's in the land of Canaan, before, you know, it goes down all the way to Joseph and then the famine comes and then they're in Egypt and 400 years of slavery and bondage there, one of the things that God says to Abraham is this.
He says, You will die at a good old age, but there's going to be strife.
There's going to be warfare.
What's going to happen is that all these people, you're a sojourner amongst a pagan people in the land of Canaan.
All these pagan Canaanite tribes, your descendants will drive them out.
But God specifically says in the book of Genesis to Abraham, It's not going to happen for a long time.
And God actually goes even further, more specificity, and says, 400 years.
And he says this he says, Because.
The fullness of their iniquity, these Canaanite pagan tribes, is not yet full.
That God is slow to anger.
He is long suffering.
He is abundantly patient.
God is waiting.
These Canaanite tribes, they're pagan.
They're idolatrous.
They're worshiping false gods.
They're doing all these terrible things.
And yet God is patient and slow to anger.
And He waits intentionally, none of it by accident.
He waits 400 years.
So while Israel is in bondage for 400 years in Egypt, God is patiently waiting.
That would be approximately 40 years as a generation in biblical terms.
400 is 10 generations, 10 generations of rank pagan wickedness with the Canaanites in the land of Canaan before God finally fits them the bill and says, All right, it's time to pay the piper.
You've been wicked long enough, and now you're going to receive my judgment.
And he brings this judgment through Israel, through conquest.
And I say all this because we have to have a true biblical understanding.
God is not sending Israel to go and slaughter women and children who are just these sweet, Kind, wonderful people, and isn't God mean and a bad guy?
That's not what's going on.
God is bringing judgment, not even swiftly.
God is bringing judgment after 400 years of pagan idolatry, worshiping false gods, and not just that, but violent, sexually immoral, child sacrifice, adult human sacrifice, polygamy, all these different things, slavery.
All these wicked things are happening with these tribes in Canaan, and God lets it happen.
Let's anyone say that God is rash or that God is cruel.
He allows their wickedness to take place for 400 years.
And then, and only then, does He finally bring the consequence.
He says, That's enough.
And He gives the same stipulations to His own people, Israel, and says, Don't think that you're somehow unique.
If you live the way that they lived, Then the land will spew you out also.
The same kinds of judgments will come upon your head if you don't continue in keeping steadfast covenant with me as the only true God.
So these are the things that are taking place.
The Gibeonites take the hint.
They see, whoa, Egypt, superpower.
They went down to Yahweh.
Og, giant.
Raphaim from the Nephilim might even have healing powers.
It depends on your interpretation.
The Rephaim, that's where we get, you know, that Hebrew word, you also get the word healer.
So it's even possible that these giants with, you know, there are multiple different sub tribes from the Nephilim watered down.
The Nephilim would be first generation of fallen angels and human women.
So you have this 50%, you know, fallen angel, 50% human.
That's your Nephilim, Nephilim.
Then sub tribes from the Nephilim, there are multiple different ones.
Rephaim is one of them.
And it's possible that the Rephaim, that particular tribe, might have even had some kind of Healing properties or healing abilities, perhaps taught to them, could have been in their DNA, right?
It could have been that the specific fallen angel or watcher that produced that subtribe of the Nephilim might have had healing properties.
That might have been one of their powers, or it could have been a technique that was taught by a fallen angel to this subtribe of the Nephilim, namely the Raphaim.
So the healer word is there.
I'm not saying that that's a direct, a perfect interpretation, but that is a possible interpretation.
That sound, some sound biblical scholars would take.
So you got guys who are giants, they're renowned, they're strong, they're violent, and if you don't mortally wound them, if you don't kill them, they heal somehow, some way.
But Yahweh takes out that guy too.
And notice in the text, as I was citing earlier, we were looking at Numbers 21 31 through 35.
It says this, verse 35 So they defeated him, that's Og, and his sons and all his people until he had no survivor left.
That's key.
Again, putting this, not just taking it in a sophisticated way, you know, we're sophisticated, you know, 21st century Westerners and we don't believe it.
Like, no, we live in a magical world.
Covenant Breaking and Gibeonite Lies00:09:08
We do.
The world is not just stuff.
Materialism is wrong.
It is a false religion.
Darwinism is wrong.
It is a false religion.
The reason why they take out Og and his sons and all his people until he has no survivor left is one, because God commanded Israel to do so, and two, because we're talking about the Rephaim that have supernatural blood from a particular corrupted DNA line that produces wicked hybrid giants.
That hate God and hate his people.
It's part of, again, all the way back to Genesis 3 in the garden, part of the serpent and his strategy to corrupt and infiltrate the line of the seed of the woman, which would ultimately crush his head.
This is the backdrop of all the things that are going on.
Again, the Gibeonites, they see you conquered Egypt, a superpower, conquered a giant in his Rephaim line, King Og of Bashem with the Rephaim, and then this other Amorite tribe.
And all this under Moses, before you even crossed the Jordan, they don't even mention, but they probably had knowledge, had heard you also conquered after crossing the Jordan, Jericho and Ai.
And so we don't think, even if we team up with all the remaining tribes that are still alive in Canaan, all these other guys, they're forming an alliance, but we know that that is not going to pan out.
It's not going to work.
So what we're going to do is under the art of deception, because we know you won't let us live if you know we live in the land, because God commanded you to drive out everyone in the land.
But we're going to lie underneath a cloud of deception.
We're going to pretend that we're coming from a far off distance.
We're going to get you to bind yourself to us through an oath.
You're going to make covenant with us.
And here's what we know about you, Israel, because you serve Yahweh, that you are an oath keeping people because you have a covenant keeping God.
And so even if you make a covenant underneath a false pretense because of our act of deception, we know that you'll be bound to keep it.
You are a people that are forced.
By your God to keep your word.
Because he is a God that does not change his mind.
He is not a man that he should lie.
He is a covenant keeping, oath keeping God.
They know all this.
My point is the Gibeonites, everything that I've just said, the Gibeonites had better theology and a better understanding of God and more faith in Yahweh, the God of Israel, the one true God, than a lot of people who profess to be Christians.
So, yeah, I'm going to call it faith.
The Gibeonites, I believe, were spared because of faith.
They knew Yahweh.
They knew his character.
They knew his people.
They knew his law and what his people were bound to.
They knew Yahweh in terms of his power, his omnipotence, his achievements and accomplishments.
And in all that faith in Yahweh, they go to make a covenant.
They do it deceptively, but they do it nonetheless.
And that covenant holds.
And later on, generations later on, that covenant is eventually broken.
And there is a consequence from God to his own people, Israel, for not keeping their word.
There are consequences, judgments from God for breaking a covenant, even a covenant made rashly underneath a pretense of deception.
Even under those circumstances, when a covenant is not upheld, when an oath, even a rashly made oath, is broken, God, who is witness of every covenant, who is witness of every oath, He brings judgments to those who become covenant and oath breakers.
And that's what we see in the latter part of our text.
So let's look at that now.
This is verses 14 through 27.
So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord.
Right there.
Let's pause.
Not a good start.
They did not ask counsel from the Lord.
That's their first mistake.
And then, right on the heels of that statement, Israel, Joshua, the leaders in Israel, they did not seek counsel from the Lord.
Verse 15 now, and Joshua made peace with them, that is the Gibeonites, and made a covenant with them.
So, we're not going to ask the Lord.
We asked the Gibeonites, hey, where are you from?
Oh, we're from a really, really, really, really far away place.
Okay.
They didn't ask the Lord, they just asked the Gibeonites.
We'll take your word for it, and we're not going to consult with the Lord.
We're not going to ask for his counsel.
And then, immediately after hearing the Gibeonites' testimony, Joshua and the leaders in Israel choose to accept the Gibeonites' testimony, and they make a covenant rashly to let them live.
And the leaders of the congregation swore to them.
At the end of three days, after they had already made a covenant with the Gibeonites, they heard that they were their neighbors and that they lived among them.
Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders.
But all the leaders said to all the congregation, So now the congregation that's of Israel, they're saying, Oh, no, they live next door.
They're going to be a thorn in our side.
They're going to be a potential perpetual threat to Israel.
We can't let them live.
It's one thing if they just come to pay tribute because they've heard the tales of Yahweh being the one true God.
And then they go all the way back to their far distant land and live there.
And we're just making a covenant that we won't hunt them down.
We won't pursue them.
We won't go after them because we're going to live here in the land of Canaan that God has promised.
That's one thing.
But now we've made a covenant with these people to spare them, and they're our next door neighbors.
They're going to be living in the land among us, and we're going to be sparing them, which is directly in contradiction to the very thing that God called us to do to drive out all the inhabitants of these wicked people, wicked tribes in the land of Canaan.
No.
So the congregation, the people of Israel, are now groaning and complaining.
And they're saying, Joshua, why'd you do this?
Leaders, leaders in Israel, why did you do this?
Even though the people did it too.
Just real quick, this is not, you know, doesn't have to exclusively apply to leadership in the context of the church.
It could be in the realm of business.
Maybe you're a supervisor, you're a boss, or whatever it might be.
Notice this, this is just fun.
Verse 15, and Joshua made peace with them.
That's the Gibeonites, and made a covenant with them to let them live.
And the leaders of the congregation swore to them.
Right?
So Joshua and the leaders of the congregation, they make this covenant.
But it seems really clear that the people of Israel, they're aware of this, they're cognitive of this, that they are even involved in this.
It's not like Joshua and the leaders of Israel are doing something and the congregation saying, No, no, no, don't do it.
Now the congregation seems to be like, Okay.
And then once they find out, That these people, three days later, the Gibeonites actually live next door.
Then the congregation begins to groan and say, Oh, our leaders, they're so foolish.
Can't believe that they made this unwise and rash decision.
And this is just a tale as old as time.
This is part of leadership and it applies to all of you.
If you're in any position of leadership whatsoever, whether it be in your home, whether it be in the marketplace, whether it be that you're a leader in some civil political office or a leader in the church, you just need to know.
That every victory, this is what I've learned in pastoral ministry, especially every victory is a team victory.
Every failure is an individual failure, always.
Like anytime I made a good decision when I was pastoring before in California, it was like the elders.
And you would hear the whole card, the elders.
And I was like, the elders didn't contribute anything.
I came up with that plan.
I wrote it down.
I did all the work.
I did this.
I did that.
I briefed the elders 15 minutes before the service and got their approval.
But like that, I mean, that was it.
It was like the elders were so grateful for the elders.
And then anytime there was a mistake, Joel.
You know what I mean?
That's just the way it goes.
And I'm not even complaining about that.
I'm not saying, hey, and there's a solution.
There's no solution.
Right, just suck it up, buttercup.
That's just life, right?
When you win, the team wins, right?
You make a wise decision, and the whole team is like, man, we really thought that through.
It's like, we?
I call it the we disease.
People, especially Christians, the we disease is prevalent, it's an epidemic among Christians.
We disease.
Like, we, we, we.
It's like, you didn't even know.
What do you mean we?
And then there's a failure, and it's You, you.
It switches from we disease to you disease.
You, you, you.
And that's exactly what's happening in Israel.
The Burden of Sworn Oaths00:09:54
You made a covenant, Joshua.
You said, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Five seconds ago, we were making a covenant.
No, You made a covenant.
If you want, sometimes people, they don't acknowledge leadership at all.
They don't acknowledge authority.
If you want, whether it be in your home, whatever context, the Lord has given you a position of authority, if you want authority, there to actually be a distinction between those.
Who you're assigned to lead, and you yourself as a leader, if you want authority to be distinguished by the people you're leading, all you have to do is fail.
That's all you have to do.
Make a mistake.
And then all of a sudden, everybody perfectly understands there's a difference between the leader and those who are following, right?
Whereas before, it's like, well, no, no, no, there's no such thing as real spiritual authority.
All you have to do is fail, and people understand authority perfectly.
Perfectly.
You're an authority.
You represented us.
You bear responsibility.
All those kinds of things.
So if you're wanting people to get the concept of authority, lead poorly.
If you want them to think that authority is nothing, and it's just we're all on the same team, we all did it together, teamwork makes a dream work, then just lead wisely.
And you should lead wisely, and a lot of people weren't learning the lesson, and neither did Israel, and we'll be okay.
All right, so all that being said, going on, verse 16, at the end of three days, they had made, after they had made a covenant with them, that's the Gibeonites, they heard that they were their neighbors and lived among them.
Then the congregation, they murmured, they're complaining against the leaders, but all the leaders said to all the congregation, we have sworn, So now, what the congregation wants to do is they're saying, let's break the covenant.
And the leaders, it's Joshua and the leaders of Israel saying, no, no, no, no.
We gave our word.
And that means something.
Even if we gave it underneath a pretense of deception, even if we were lied to by the Gibeonites, we've given our word and we must hold to it.
We made a covenant.
And God, it's not just us and the Gibeonites.
See, this is the big thing that Joshua and the leaders of Israel get.
They understand, look, covenant is not just Israel and Gibeonites, covenant includes God.
We made a covenant.
We swore.
Swore in what way?
Swore upon who?
Upon what authority?
Yahweh.
The name of Yahweh has been invoked.
The mere presence of a covenant, this is what we need to understand.
The mere presence of a covenant assumes that God is a part of it.
That the name of Yahweh, the name of God, has been invoked.
That Israel, the reason why the Gibeonites are saying, make a covenant, it's not, hey, make a covenant, you know, oh, well, we swear by this cactus growing up in the sand over there.
No, no, we want you to swear by your God.
And we know that if you swear by your God, you'll be bound to it, right?
It's kind of similar to what Frodo and Sam, the Lord of the Rings, what they make Gollum do swear by the precious, right?
And they say, why?
Because the ring is treacherous.
And Gollum, you know the treachery of the ring, you know the power of the ring, and that the ring will bind you to your oath.
And Gollum is afraid, as much as he wants to steal the ring away from Frodo and Sam, he's afraid of breaking the oath he makes upon the name of the ring because he knows that the ring has a mind of its own.
It belongs to its true master, Sauron, and that the ring has a certain power, and that by binding himself, his word, to the power of the ring, that if he breaks that covenant, he breaks that vow, the ring will betray him.
And the very thing that he wants will ultimately overtake him and corrupt him.
Well, it's the very same thing that the Gibeonites are doing with Israel bind yourself by the name of Yahweh.
Make a covenant to us, not just Israel and the Gibeonites, but Israel on the name of Yahweh.
God is involved in the coven.
God is involved in this oath.
You're swearing, right?
When Joshua says, We have sworn, that's implicitly what's included there.
We've sworn by the name of God.
We have sworn to them by the Lord, there it is, the God of Israel, and now we must not touch them.
Joshua summoned them, that's the Gibeonites, and he said to them, Why did you deceive us, saying, We are very far from you when you dwell, actually dwell among us?
They answered Joshua, Because it was told to your servants, For a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you.
So we feared greatly for our lives because of you and did this thing, namely, lied to them, the deception.
And now, behold, we are in your hand.
Whatever seems good and right in your sight to do to us, do it.
So Joshua did this to them and delivered them out of the hand of the people of Israel.
So Joshua is now saving the Gibeonites from the congregation of Israel.
That Israel, if they were allowed to just do what they wanted and to lead themselves, they would have broken their oath, broken the covenant that was just made with the Gibeonites upon the name of the Lord, invoking the name of Yahweh.
Israel would have gone back on this oath and killed the Gibeonites.
But Joshua delivers the Gibeonites, he saves them from his own people, from Israel, and says, No, Israel, no, we must not do this.
He delivers them out of the hand of the people of Israel, and they did not kill them.
That being the Gibeonites.
But Joshua made them, here's the final part that day, cutters of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord to this day in the place that he should choose.
Now, that covenant, again, this is hundreds of years later, but eventually that covenant that Joshua made, invoking the name of Yahweh, the one true God, to be at peace with the Gibeonites, was eventually broken.
It was broken by the first king in Israel, namely.
King Saul.
This is 2 Samuel chapter 21, verses 1 through 2.
It says this Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year, three year long famine.
And David, so David is now the king, and David sought the face of the Lord, and the Lord said, So David said, Why the famine?
God, are we under judgment?
What's going on?
What have we done that was sinful in order for you to allow this judgment of a three year famine in our land?
And the Lord said, There is blood guilt on Saul and on his house.
So before David took the throne, when Saul was still king, this is what he did because he put the Gibeonites to death.
So, you're talking hundreds of years later.
And I just want you guys, this is all building towards the main point of our text today.
I want you to feel the weight of this.
Hundreds of years later, an oath.
That Israel took a covenant that they made, even after having been deceived, right?
So, with the pretense of deception, they still make an oath nonetheless.
And this oath, not only is it legitimate, not only is it binding, it is binding indefinitely.
So that hundreds of years later, generations later, when King Saul, in his zeal for Judah and Israel, he's overly zealous, without wisdom and prudence, he begins to put to death the Gibeonites.
God punishes the whole land.
The whole land of Israel.
And notice, most of the punishments that God brings, they're usually brought through natural, creational forces that have to do with the physical land.
So the land will swallow up the people, or the land will be polluted with pestilence and disease, or the land, there will be serpents that come into the land, or frogs, or gnats, or flies, or they won't produce crops, a famine, a drought, those kinds of things.
That's ordinarily, not in every instance, but that is a common way that God will bring his judgments.
There's a covenant.
There's covenant breaking, and then there's judgment through the land.
The very land that the people of God are meant to inherit as a good land, flowing with milk and honey, now turns against them, and the land begins to work against the people of God because of their covenant breaking.
That's the principle.
That's the law, the general rule of thumb that we see at play.
And this is, again, this is not Israel breaking a covenant 15 minutes after making it.
They tried to do that and Joshua stopped them.
This is Israel through King Saul, as federal representative of Israel underneath his kingship during his day.
This is Israel hundreds of years later, a very long time later, breaking the covenant that was made by Israel through Joshua, where in this covenant with the Gibeonites, the name of the Lord was invoked.
And when it's eventually broken, this covenant, there is judgment.
And the judgment comes through the land, the earth, the land itself.
It turns against Israel.
The land that was supposed to produce good things, to be a rich land for their prosperity and benefit, now becomes a detriment to them.
And again, this is a covenant broken by separate people in a separate generation, in a separate century, and a covenant that was made in the first place under the pretense of deception.
And yet the covenant holds.
Lawful Oaths in the New Testament00:15:33
Here's the point for us to pretend that our word and our oath and covenants do not matter today is bad.
Theology.
That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of covenant and the way that our covenantal God keeps steadfast covenant and the way that he views oaths.
And this is a New Testament principle as well as an old one.
And it is the confessional position.
This is what I want you to see in the same kind of language you'll find in the 1689 and also in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
But I'm going to be quoting from the 1689, says this.
This is chapter 23 on lawful oaths, and this is going to be paragraph one, two, and three.
I'll read them all together.
Says this A lawful oath is a part of religious worship, wherein the person swearing in truth, righteousness, and judgment solemnly calls God to witness what he swears, and to judge him according to the truth or falseness thereof.
Paragraph two The name of God only, only the name of God, is that by which men ought to swear, and therein it is to be used with all holy fear and reverence.
Therefore, to swear vainly or rashly by that glorious and dreadful name.
Or to swear at all by any other thing is sinful and to be abhorred.
Yet, as in matter of wait and moment for confirmation of truth and ending all strife, an oath is warranted by the word of God.
So, a lawful oath being imposed by lawful authority in such matters ought to be taken.
What they're saying, those who wrote this confession, they're saying that it is, even in New Testament times, in this gospel church age, it is lawful, it is permissible to take an oath.
But here's the deal.
The only name that is to be invoked is the name of God.
So an oath must be taken in the name of God, and it really should only be taken when it says, ending all strife, meaning that we have exhausted every other realm of discourse.
We've tried every other strategy, and there's not peace between these two parties.
And so we're going to invoke God's name in a biblical oath.
The last paragraph, paragraph three, now says this.
Whosoever takes an oath warranted by the word of God ought duly to consider the weightiness of so solemn an act, and therein to avow nothing but what he knows to be truth, for that by rash, false, and vain oaths the Lord is provoked, and for them this land mourns.
Right?
So this isn't just Joshua, this isn't just Israel, this isn't just the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, this is even the guys who wrote the Westminster, the guys who wrote the 1689.
They even recognize that there is a connection, a correlation to the breaking of oaths and the mourning of the Lamb.
They recognize this.
This is not a coincidence.
Now, how do we square?
Real quick, some heavy theological lifting.
How do we square the confessionally reformed position, both on the Westminster side of the aisle, the Presbyterian and the Reformed Baptist side of the aisle?
How do we square the biblical permissibility of taking an oath when Jesus seems to say explicitly in the gospel narratives, To let your yes be yes and your no be no, and do not swear at all.
That's the difficult thing theologically to reconcile.
I'm going to try to do that now as quickly as possible.
In your notes, I've written this.
The concern of these verses is both, the verses being Matthew 5, verse 33 37, where Jesus says, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven or by the throne of God or by the earth, which is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king.
And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
Let what you say be simply yes or no.
Anything more than this comes from evil.
So, if you read the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 5, verse 33 through 37, it's very easy to take away from that, to interpret that.
No oath making, no oath taking or covenant making at all, ever for a New Testament Christian.
That's what you would think.
But that's not the traditional position when it comes to confessions with 2,000 years of church history.
So, how come Christians for 2,000 years have said that?
There is an exception clause, if you will.
There is a way or room to biblically make oaths when Jesus said anything other than yes or no comes from the evil one.
All right.
That's what we're reconciling now.
The concern for these verses, what Jesus was saying, what was Jesus actually getting at?
The concern of these verses, Matthew 5, 33 through 37, is for both the third commandment and the ninth commandment.
The ninth commandment is in view regarding the truthfulness.
The ninth commandment is do not bear false witness.
Do not lie.
So the ninth commandment is in view.
When Jesus is saying, do not swear at all, it's in view regarding the truthfulness that humans find so difficult to uphold.
The tongue is guilty of false witness, lying, gossip, slander, boasting, flattery, cursing, and more.
Oaths or promises and contracts all have the same goal.
Why do we swear to begin with?
Well, what is the incentive for making an oath at all?
They all have the same goal to bind the consciences of men to keeping their word, especially when it is tempting not to.
Now, the third commandment comes into play.
So, Jesus has, as his concern, the third commandment as well, which is, do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
It comes into play because in lawful oath taking, the name of God is invoked.
In fact, it is not a lawful oath if you're swearing by anything but God.
Notice that what Jesus says specifically is this don't make an oath by heaven, because that's God's throne, or by earth, because that's God's throne.
Footstool or by your head, because you can't even make one hair on your head white or black.
What Jesus is ultimately getting at is this you can swear by some created thing in the cosmos other than God, but what you need to recognize is that it all stems from God.
You can swear by heaven and not God Himself, but heaven is intrinsically tied to God, for it is His creation and His very throne.
Oh, okay, well then I won't swear by heaven, I'll swear by earth.
Well, that's His footstool.
Okay, well, I'll swear by my own head.
Yeah, but God made your head.
He knows the number of hairs on your head, and he's the one who can make those hairs either white or black.
At every single level, there is nothing to swear by that doesn't tie back to God.
That's what Jesus is getting at.
So if you do swear, let it be by the name of God alone and keep your oath because it is binding and God will bring judgments for those who are promise breakers, oath breakers, covenant breakers.
Let me go a little bit further.
We're almost done.
They taught, all right, we want to look at the Pharisees now.
In Jesus' day, rabbis concocted a system that defeated the very purpose of oaths.
That's what Jesus combated.
See, these rabbis were teaching that oaths might or might not be binding depending on how one swore.
If he swore by Jerusalem, it was not binding, but if you swore toward Jerusalem, oh, well, then you're bound.
If you swore by the temple, your oath is not binding, but if you swear by the temple's gold, the gold of the temple, then your oath is binding.
If you swore by the altar of the sacrifice, then you're not bound by your oath.
Of course, everybody knows that.
But if you swore by the gift on the altar, oh, well, now your oath is binding.
See, this illustrates the very way, this is the larger thing that they were doing all the time, the religious rulers of Jesus' day.
They illustrate the way in which these teachers manipulated God's word in the first century Israel.
When they read a challenging law from God's word, they would reduce it to something that was manageable.
When they heard, love your neighbor as yourself, they would redefine who their neighbor was so that everyone didn't count as a neighbor.
Or they would refrain from adultery, but then claim a right to divorce freely, then take another woman.
When they did something similar with oaths, this is what Jesus opposes.
So, all that being said, what we need to understand is that Matthew 5 33 through 37, when Jesus says, do not swear at all, but simply let your yes be yes and your no be no, what Jesus is dealing with is false, manipulative, corrupt, religious rulers of his day who are basically like a four year old child.
They would say, Hey, I promise.
And then afterwards say, Oh, I had my fingers crossed behind my back.
The religious rulers of Jesus' day had the very same maturity level of a four year old.
They're like, Yeah, I promise.
Oh, but I wasn't facing Jerusalem.
I was actually off tilt just a little bit, you know, north by northwest.
You know, and I said the word Jerusalem, but I wasn't facing toward Jerusalem.
Or I swore by the temple, but not the gold of the temple.
Oh, I swore by this, but not by that.
I swore by heaven, but not Jesus said, Cut it out.
What Jesus is angry about, what he's opposing, is not oath taking.
What he's opposing is liars.
Stop lying.
And the whole point of oaths is because we live in a fallen world.
The whole point of oaths, guys, by the way, the reason why it was prevalent in the Old Testament and why all these, for 2,000 years of church history, wise, gifted, godly men throughout church history have said that oath taking.
Covenant making is still biblically permissible.
There's one reason why because people are liars.
That's why.
Because of the doctrine of total depravity.
Why do we have contracts?
We have contracts for the same reason that you lock your doors at night.
You can say, well, we don't defund the police.
We don't need police officers.
We don't need a wall at the border.
We don't need this.
We don't need that.
Okay, great.
Then never lock your car.
Never lock your doors.
Never do this.
Never do that.
If you're going to be consistent, be consistent.
If not, then let's all grow up, let's be adults and say we live in a fallen world.
We live in a fallen world.
That's why we have protection.
That's why we have people who are armed with guns in order to protect the innocent.
That's why we have walls.
That's why we have laws.
That's why we have rules.
And that's also because we live in a fallen world.
Not just do we have measures for physical protection, but that's also why we have contracts and oaths.
Why?
Because people are physically violent and people are also verbally deceptive.
And because people are prone to lie because of indwelling sin, because we live in a fallen world, because of lying, we have contracts, we have covenants, we have oaths.
Now, all that being said, I'm going to wrap it up here.
Luther and Calvin, here are their thoughts on it.
And this is what I would agree.
This would be my same position.
They sought to harmonize the testimony of Scripture, namely what Jesus says do not swear at all, anything more than letting your yes be yes and your no be no comes from evil.
They're trying to square, reconcile Jesus' position in Matthew 5 and scripture with the way they reconcile this with still allowing for a certain context of oath taking is by distinguishing between public and private speech.
This is what they would hold.
In private, Luther and Calvin said that Christians should tell the truth so completely that the entire basis of the necessity for oaths completely disappears.
So therefore, notice as an example, I'm going to apply it here.
In a Christian wedding ceremony, for instance, A Christian wedding ceremony.
The groom and bride do not invoke oath taking.
They do not swear by God's name.
Instead, what we have them do is simply say, I do or I will.
Will you take so and so to have and to keep and to cherish and this and that, blah, blah, blah, and for richer or poorer and sickness and health, as long as you both shall live.
I call God as witness.
No, I will.
I do.
In other words, yes, it's right in line with what James says, and James is echoing what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5.
Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
So, I believe that the biblical position is this in Christian context, with brothers, with sisters, whether it be in a Christian marriage, whether it be in a Christian business, with a Christian employer and Christian employees, in all these instances, I believe that promising, oath taking, these kinds of things should be virtually non existent.
In an ideal scenario, as we mature in sanctification, it should be non existent.
You shouldn't have to make an oath.
You shouldn't have to invoke the name of God.
If you're doing business with a fellow brother in Christ, you should be able to say, Hey, I don't need to get you to do this and do that because I'm going to trust that you're not a lousy liar.
I'm going to trust that your yes actually means yes and your no actually means no, right?
If you're marrying a believer, which is the only person you should ever marry, and you're a believer, then I will or I do should suffice.
Saying yes, I covenant.
It is a covenant.
I covenant to you, but we don't have to swear.
I'm going to covenant with you, but I'm going to do so by simply letting my yes be yes and my no be no.
However, what Luther and Calvin argued is outside of private Christian affairs, in the public with unbelievers and pagans, both in terms of joining the military or in bearing testimony in a legal court of law, in those contexts, because we're dealing with people who are unreliable and who will not trust us.
And we neither trust them, it is permissible in these contexts to make an oath.
And even in our system here in America until very recently, we would swear in a court of law on the Bible.
We would invoke the name of God.
That's the only proper name that we would invoke in making an oath or making a covenant.
And one of the reasons why we believe that this is biblically permissible, not in private Christian affairs, but in public affairs, especially those that include non believers, is because God does it.
Jesus does it and Paul does it.
God does it, Jesus does it, and Paul does it.
Paul put himself under an oath, calling God as his witness in Romans 1 9, 2 Corinthians 1 23, 1 Thessalonians 2 10.
Similarly, his disciples may take vows in courtrooms or to enter military or political service.
Invoking God's Name in Marriage00:04:48
In commerce, we also can do this with unbelievers by entering into contracts which resemble secularized oaths.
Therefore, we must conclude that when Jesus said, take no oath at all, he was referring to the kind of so called oath taking promoted by the Pharisees, in which they intended to secure acceptance for what they said without actually putting themselves at risk should they prove to be liars.
In other words, if your appeal to something other than God is for the express purpose of escaping the force and sanction of your vow, then you must not swear at all.
This is the type of swearing that Jesus utterly condemns.
Okay, last thing that I'll say.
In terms of Jesus taking an oath, real quick, the biblical text for that is Matthew 26, verse 63 and 64.
But Jesus remains silent.
He's in a court with the Sanhedrin.
And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God.
So, invoking the name of God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.
Jesus doesn't say, I will not take an oath.
Instead, he actually answers it.
He's accepting that invoking of the name of God, this oath.
He's accepting the terms.
And he says, You have said so.
He answers the question.
He's saying, Yes, yes, I am the Son of God.
Exactly what you just said, that's what's true.
I am the Son of God.
But I tell you, from now on, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.
He's prophesying, looking forward to 8070 and the destruction of Jerusalem.
Here's the very, very last thing.
There's a lot of content today.
Here's the last thing.
As it pertains to our homes, so public versus private, public with unbelievers, a work contract, military.
In a court of law, these kinds of things, it is proper to invoke a biblically permissible oath by calling upon the name of the Lord and his name alone and not something else.
In our private dealings with Christians, and that certainly would, would include our own Christian households, we shouldn't have to be making promises.
And here's what I would say.
If God's oath reveals, oaths reveal that humans are accustomed to hearing lies, then oaths, vows, and promises reveal that we are also accustomed to telling lies.
We swear and promise because we are careless at best.
Listen to this, moms and dads.
If a child is regularly asking a parent to promise, the parent should hear that as an indictment, since it reveals that the child has learned that he cannot quite trust his father or mother's word.
His yes has not always meant yes.
The father's yes or the mother's yes has not always meant yes.
Ideally, a parent's word should be so reliable that their children never think to ask for a guarantee.
Instead, every disciple, Christian, A follower of Jesus should aim to be so reliable that no one ever thinks to ask him for a promise.
That's the application for Christians, and that is the practical application for homes and for parents.
Yes, it is biblically permissible to make an oath calling upon the name of the Lord alone in some kind of legal contract with unbelievers in a public setting.
But in Christian private settings, and especially in our homes, in marriage with our spouse, and in parenting with our children, If you have to regularly tell your spouse or your children, oh, I promise, and they're asking for you to make a promise, do you promise?
You promise?
What that means is that your own family knows you're a liar.
Your word is weak, your word has no weight.
Your wife is saying, Do you promise?
The reason why she's having to garnish a promise out of you is because you've broken your word so many times before.
Your children say, You promise? Is because you have set an example for your children as a father or a mother that your word is not to be trusted, that you're fickle, that you're blown back and forth.
So, can we invoke an oath?
Are all oaths bad?
No, I've already covered that.
But in our homes, there should be no need for oath taking.
There should be no need for, I promise, I guarantee.
In our homes with our children, with our wives, in churches as Christians, we should be able to say yes, and it means yes.
And say no, and it means no, because we've been sanctified by the work of the Holy Spirit to where hopefully we're not liars.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word.
Bless it to your people that it might bring you glory and do us good.