Gibeon Under God’s Protection

6The men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp at Gilgal, saying, “Don’t abandon your servants! Come up to us quickly and save us! Help us; for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the hill country have gathered together against us.” 7So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he, and the whole army with him, including all the mighty men of valor. 8Yahweh said to Joshua, “Don’t fear them, for I have delivered them into your hands. Not a man of them will stand before you.” 9Joshua therefore came to them suddenly. He marched from Gilgal all night. 10Yahweh confused them before Israel. He killed them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth Horon, and struck them to Azekah and to Makkedah. 11As they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth Horon, Yahweh hurled down great stones from the sky on them to Azekah, and they died. There were more who died from the hailstones than those whom the children of Israel killed with the sword. 12Then Joshua spoke to Yahweh in the day when Yahweh delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel. He said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still on Gibeon! You, moon, stop in the valley of Aijalon!” 13The sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Isn’t this written in the book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the middle of the sky, and didn’t hurry to go down about a whole day. 14There was no day like that before it or after it, that Yahweh listened to the voice of a man; for Yahweh fought for Israel. 15Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp to Gilgal.

We whom God has forgiven must do all we can to live within his grace, because even though he has released us from all the torment we would have suffered in hell, the end is death if we keep grace in one compartment and the world in another. People experience the miracles God works and live on their benefits, but instead of spending their lives repaying his grace, they set out once more to seize whatever chances the world offers. Brought from death to life, lifted from poverty to plenty, healed of their diseases, they abandon God and go back to the world.

Abraham’s nephew Lot followed Abram out of Haran. Like Abram, he left his country and his father’s house, giving up his homeland only to follow Abram’s faith. Abram, who had been blessed to become the father of many nations, would have taken Lot with him wherever he went and told him in detail how great God is. God blessed the faith of Abram, who never doubted his word, and gave him great wealth. Because God walked with them and protected them, they lived in peace. And through all this, Lot too was richly blessed.

Yet when the herdsmen of Abram and the herdsmen of Lot quarreled, it showed how much their possessions had grown since they left home. Abram said to Lot that they were kinsmen, and asked whether they should be quarreling. Wherever Lot wished to go, Abram would give way, so Lot should choose his place and part from him. Lot chose Sodom and Gomorrah, which looked like the garden of Eden. He seized on that attractive land almost before Abram had finished speaking, and his haste tells us how poor his character was. Abram was the man who had brought him this far and helped him gain such blessing, yet Lot did not step back and invite him to choose the better land first. Instead, he picked out land to suit his own greed and left.

After Lot had gone, God told Abram to lift up his eyes and look from the place where he stood, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land he could see, God said, he would give him, and he promised to protect and bless Abram always. Had Lot begged Abram’s forgiveness, admitting that the quarrel between the herdsmen was his fault, and promised to stay with him to the end, he would probably have shared in Abram’s blessing to the end. But Lot was not so big-hearted a man.

In Sodom, Lot suffered the disgrace of being carried off by another people, he himself along with his goods and his household, but Abram rescued them without asking anything in return. This is how it is: the people God blesses are blessed for a reason. When Abram learned that God had sent angels to judge Sodom and Gomorrah, he prayed with all his heart that Lot would be spared. In the end the angels answered Abram’s prayer, and in still greater love they graciously brought Lot’s family out first, to the city of Zoar.

Lot’s family had every blessing this earth can give. They knew Abram, a man of faith; they were given wealth; they met angels; and through the intercession of a man of faith they were saved from judgment. Whoever keeps company with a person of faith cannot help but be blessed, because God’s attention rests on them as well. When hardship comes to those who stand beside a person of faith, they share in the trouble, and so God protects and blesses them too. This is why fellowship with our brothers and sisters in the faith matters so much. If you are at peace today, it is because the prayers of someone in the church beside you have reached God. I hope you, in turn, will intercede for your brothers and sisters in the faith.

Abram showed Lot grace upon grace and gave him love without expecting anything back. All he wanted was for Lot to live well by faith. But Lot was not grateful to Abram. He never let go of the belief that he was prospering because his own judgment had been sound, and in the end he was left empty-handed.

He believed it was his own wisdom that had led him to follow Abram away from home, his own hard work that had built a great fortune without hardship, and his own eye for the world that had picked out Sodom and Gomorrah, a land like the garden of Eden. Human judgment of that kind has no gratitude in it, and that is why in the end it loses everything it has. On the day Lot left Sodom, he had only his wife and two daughters. Perhaps they came close to losing their lives as well, but Abram’s earnest prayer saved them.

Lot’s wife, too, believed they had lived so well and so free of trouble because her husband had strong faith. So she respected Lot, and she must have believed that with a husband who was an example to many, she could live a blessed life. A man who had chosen the good land would have seemed wise to her. And with so much wealth, she likely had few complaints even in Sodom, rotten to the core as it was, and counted herself blessed by God. Because what she thought was not faith, when the possessions she treasured were burning, she disobeyed God’s command and looked back.

Lot had learned the word from Abram. If he had told his wife and daughters that wealth was nothing and that living by God’s word came first, his wife would have trusted her husband and gone into Zoar. Even the people of faith around us cannot help us if we do not obey the word. The kind of faith a person lives by decides the course of their life.

It was not that Lot failed to see Abram’s faith and therefore left him, nor that he failed to see the filthy, shameful deeds of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and therefore lived among them. Loved by Abram and showered with God’s blessing, Lot still chose the world over faith. As a result, he became the father of Moab and Ammon, nations that stood against Israel.

He will not be able to excuse himself by saying that God failed to help him to the end, that this is why he lost all he had, and that this is how he came to father Moab and Ammon through his two daughters. Anyone can meet God, hear his word, know his blessing, witness his miracles, and live as one of his people. But whether to recognize that grace as grace and live in thankfulness, or to claim it as one’s own, as Lot did, and live in pride, is entirely each person’s choice.

Joshua 10:6

6The men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp at Gilgal, saying, “Don’t abandon your servants! Come up to us quickly and save us! Help us; for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the hill country have gathered together against us.”

Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem watched Jericho, Ai, and even Gibeon fall to Israel, and he was sure that Jerusalem, the city he ruled, would be next. So he sent to the kings of Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, proposing that they join forces and attack Gibeon, because he could not forgive Gibeon for making so abject a peace with Israel.

When the Gibeonites heard the news, they were so terrified that they sent to Joshua, begging him to come up quickly and help them. Their work in the tabernacle had taught them how precious it is to serve God and what a blessing it is to live as his people. Because they knew this, when the kings of the world moved against them, they were convinced that no one but Joshua could protect them.

Joshua 10:8

8Yahweh said to Joshua, “Don’t fear them, for I have delivered them into your hands. Not a man of them will stand before you.”

As Joshua prepared to march out to help his Gibeonite brothers, God comforted him and told him not to be afraid. God had already delivered them into his hands; no matter how the kings of the world combined their strength, they could not defeat him. The world measures its strength by the number of its soldiers and weapons, and so it gathers troops and arms in great quantity. But war is not won by the world’s strength, since victory and defeat turn on whom God chooses to help.

God promised Joshua victory as he set out, telling him not to worry and not to fear, because God was with him. This war was not fought to take the land of Canaan. It was fought to bless the Gibeonites, who had been saved. They were precious souls who had come out of the darkness of their own accord to receive God, and that gave Joshua every reason to march.

We too, before we were saved by the grace of Jesus, lived as children of darkness in a world ruled by Satan, and we did not even know it was darkness, for, like Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah, we had no idea what a clean life looked like. Those who have seen the holy light of Jesus Christ cannot go back into darkness. In the same way, because the Gibeonites had seen God’s almighty power and holiness as they worked in the tabernacle, they had no wish to return to their old life and serve foreign gods as the others did. God saw the earnest faith of the Gibeonites, who begged for help so that they would never go back into darkness, and he helped them. Joshua, with the promise of victory in hand, routed the five kings and the armies that had come up to attack Gibeon.

Gibeon had only bowed to God’s name in order to survive, yet God treated them as his children, just as he treated Israel, and protected them. Gibeon was no longer a foreign people but a true Israel, sheltered as God’s own children. We too came to God when we heard that we could live forever in heaven. We came because we wanted a peaceful life there, but God made us his children and poured out his unchanging love on us, and because of that love we could be sanctified. Such is the love of God: eternal, and never changing.

When Gibeon came under attack from the powers of darkness, it called on Joshua for help. In the same way, we must call on the Holy Spirit for help, because not even the whole world combined can overcome the Holy Spirit. As Joshua pursued the five fleeing Amorite kings, great hailstones began to pour down from the sky, and more died from the hailstones than Joshua had killed. The Gibeonites were sinners who had served idols and lived by their own will all their lives. But when they turned their hearts and received God, they witnessed the astonishing miracle of hail falling from heaven.

Those who believe in Christ live under God’s care and protection. As Jacob saw at Bethel, the hosts of heaven are at work to protect God’s people, and the many miracles that take place on this earth are a sign of it. And as a mark of that protection, God has made us members of the body of Christ and helped us become one with our brothers and sisters in the faith.

The Gibeonites saw Israel fighting for them at the risk of their own lives. They were under attack from the five Amorite kings for the crime of betraying the world, but with a God who loved them and brothers in faith who were helping them with all their strength, they would have nothing left to fear.

Joshua 10:13

13The sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Isn’t this written in the book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the middle of the sky, and didn’t hurry to go down about a whole day.

This passage describes a historic event that took place around BC 1400, in Joshua’s battle against the allied armies of the five Amorite kings: in the middle of the battle, the sun stopped in its course. When Joshua prayed that the sun would stand still over Gibeon, God granted that it should stay in the middle of the sky for almost a whole day. Scripture says there was no day like it before or after, when Yahweh listened to the voice of a man and acted in this way. Yahweh gave such an answer because he himself was fighting for Israel.

It was a miracle only the Creator could perform. The Creator heard a human being’s plea and moved heaven and earth at once, and a miracle like this shows plainly the purpose for which God was helping Israel.

Can you believe that the sun stayed in the sky all day without setting? If we look at this event with the faith that God created the world by his word, we have no reason to doubt it either. The reason is simple. If we believe that he parted the Red Sea and the Jordan, that God the Son came into the world in the likeness of a sinner, and that on the last day judgment will fall on a world that defied his word, then it is easy to believe that he could keep the sun high in the sky for a whole day.

Let me quote from the Korea Association of Creation Research.

“Several different cultures have legends that appear to be based on this event. In Greek mythology, for example, Phaethon, the son of Apollo, once disrupted the course of the sun for a day. If Joshua 10 is historical fact, then cultures on the opposite side of the earth ought to have handed down legends about a long night.

“In fact, the Maori of New Zealand have a legend that their hero Maui held back the sunrise before the sun came up. Meanwhile, the Annals of Cuauhtitlan in Mexico record that the night was lengthened. The Amorites of that time worshiped the sun and the moon, and to see their gods forced to submit to the God of Israel must have been an unthinkable experience for them. This would be a fitting reason why God worked such an extraordinary miracle at the very start of Israel’s conquest of Canaan.”

Only when you believe this miracle, which human knowledge and common sense can never accept, can you receive God’s absolute help as Joshua did, because the grace of God that kept the sun from setting and rained down hail to rout the Amorites with ease is a privilege his people enjoy.

Joshua 10:24

24When they brought those kings out to Joshua, Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said to the chiefs of the men of war who went with him, “Come near. Put your feet on the necks of these kings.” They came near, and put their feet on their necks.

This war was fought to save the lives of the Gibeonites, a foreign people. It shows us what a great blessing it is to lay down all our own righteousness, as Gibeon did, and become God’s people. To oppose Israel is to oppose God. Even if all the kings of the world gathered against Israel, they could never defeat it, because God is alive. Five kings in alliance or the kings of ten nations — to God they are only numbers, and no human power is any match for him. A people under God’s protection, then, has nothing to worry about.

The five kings were badly defeated, and as they fled they hid in the cave at Makkedah. When Joshua heard this, he pursued the fleeing soldiers to the end and destroyed them in a great victory. Then he brought the kings out and had their necks trodden underfoot. Treading on the neck of a defeated commander was a common custom of war in the ancient Near East, often found on the monuments of ancient Egypt and Assyria. It was normally the victor’s highest commander who did it, since the purpose was to strengthen his own glory, honor, and authority. Joshua, however, gave that place to the chiefs who had risked their lives to lead the battle to victory, and in this way he lifted Israel’s spirits.

In the kingdoms of the world, the king is the nation. His thoughts are law, and his word must be obeyed absolutely. When the king falls in battle, it is as though the whole nation has been defeated, which is why setting feet on the kings’ necks meant Israel’s complete victory. In the same way, when Jesus Christ comes with his angels on the last day, Satan and the world will face a great judgment, just as the necks of the five Amorite kings were trodden underfoot.

You too must drive out the Canaan that has settled in your heart. Greed, grumbling, and doubt attack you, make you tremble with fear and anxiety, and hide the glory of God. You must put your foot on their necks and destroy them. Even now we are at war with the powers of darkness. We must never forget that we are in a spiritual war, where the smallest lapse of vigilance can leave us open to attack.

When trouble comes, as it came to Gibeon, I hope you will always ask God and your brothers and sisters in the faith for help. Facing Satan and the world alone is more than you can bear, but with their help you can drive them back. And if you pray for the sun to stand still in the sky for the sake of spiritual victory, God will act. He will help you with his light so that darkness cannot cover your faith.

May you depend on God. If you trust that he will help you and live by faith, he will work through your brothers and sisters in the faith, just as he made Israel help Gibeon. As he granted Joshua the power of heaven, so he will work in you so that you can give yourselves to him in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. If you believe in the love of God, who never abandons his children, you will always live at peace under his protection and guidance.

May you be faithful and give yourselves to him until the last day, and live in astonishing grace as Joshua did. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.