“When the LORD
your God shall bring you into the land where you go to possess it, and has cast
out many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the
Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations
greater and mightier than you; and when the LORD your God shall deliver them
before you, you shall smite them, and utterly destroy them. You shall
make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them; neither shall you make
marriages with them. Your daughter you shall not give unto his son, nor his
daughter shall you take unto your son. For they will turn away your son from
following me, that they may serve other gods. So will the anger of the LORD be
kindled against you, and destroy you suddenly” (Deut. 7:1-4).
Such were the
instructions given by Jehovah to His people. They were clear and explicit.
There was to be no mercy for the Canaanites, no covenant with them, no union,
no fellowship of any kind, unsparing judgment, intense separation.
We know, alas!
how soon and how completely Israel failed to carry out these instructions.
Hardly had they planted their foot upon the land of Canaan before they made a
covenant with the Gibeonites (Josh. 9:15). Even Joshua himself fell into the
snare. The tattered garments and moldy bread of those wily people beguiled the
princes of the congregation, and caused them to act in direct opposition to the
plain commandment of God. Had they been governed by the authority of the Word,
they would have been preserved from the grave error of making a league with
people who ought to have been utterly destroyed; but they judged by the sight
of their eyes, and had to reap the consequences.
Implicit
obedience is the great moral safeguard against the wiles of the enemy. No doubt
the story of the Gibeonites was very plausible, and their whole appearance gave
a show of truth to their statements; but none of these things should have had
the slightest moral weight with Joshua and the princes; nor would they if they
had but remembered the Word of the Lord. But they failed in this. They reasoned
on what they saw, instead of obeying what they had heard. Reason is no guide
for the people of God; we must be, absolutely and completely, guided and
governed by the Word of God.
This is a
privilege of the very highest order, and it lies within the reach of the
simplest and most unlettered child of God. The Father’s word, the Father’s
voice, the Father’s eye, can guide the youngest, feeblest child in His family.
All we need is the lowly and obedient heart. It does not demand great
intellectual power or cleverness; if it did, what would become of the vast
majority of Christians? If it were only the educated and the deep-thinking that
were capable of meeting the wiles of the adversary, then most of us would give
up in despair.
But, thanks be
to God, it is not so; indeed, on the contrary, we find, in looking through the
history of the people of God in all ages, that human wisdom and learning, if
not kept in their right place, have proved a positive snare, and rendered their
possessors only the more efficient tools in the enemy’s hand. By whom have
most, if not all, of the heresies been introduced that have disturbed the
Church of God from age to age? Not by the simple and the unlearned, but by the
educated and the intellectual. And in the passage to which we have just
referred in the Book of Joshua, who was it that made a covenant with the
Gibeonites? The common people? No, but the princes of the congregation. No
doubt all were involved in the mischief, but it was the princes that led the
way. The heads and leaders of the assembly fell into the snare of the devil
through neglect of the plain word of God.
“You shall make
no covenant with them.” Could anything be plainer than this? could tattered
garments, old shoes, and moldy bread alter the meaning of the divine command,
or do away with the urgent necessity for strict obedience on the part of the
congregation? Assuredly not. Nothing can ever afford a warrant for lowering,
even by the breadth of a hair, the standard of obedience to the Word of God. If
there are difficulties in the way, if perplexing circumstances come before us
as to which we are unable to form a judgment, what are we to do? Reason? Jump
to conclusions? Act on our own or on any human judgment? Most certainly not.
What then? Wait on God; wait patiently, humbly, believingly, and He will
assuredly counsel and guide. “The meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek
will He teach His way” (Psa. 25:9). Had Joshua and the princes acted thus, they
never would have made a league with the Gibeonites; and if the reader acts
thus, he will be delivered from every evil work and preserved unto the
everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.