Proclamation
“And they went to Joshua unto the camp at Gilgal,
and said unto him, and to the men of Israel, ‘We be come from a far country;
now therefore make ye a league with us.”
Joshua 9:6 (KJV)
Explanation
These are the words of God which were written
by Joshua under the influence of The Holy Spirit of God. After
hearing about what the Israelites had done to Jericho and Ai, all of the kings
west of the Jordan joined forces to wage war against Israel. However, the Gibeonites decided to resort to
deception. They pretended that they were
from a far away country and had travelled a great distance. They dressed the part and Joshua fell for the
hoax. They did not go to The Lord in
prayer prior to making the agreement with the Gibeonites. (Joshua 9:14-15) Three days later the Israelites learned that
they had been fooled and that the Gibeonites were their neighbors. Israel did not attack them but made them wood
cutters and water carriers in service to the whole assembly. (Joshua 9:16-26)
Application
We should pray about all things, large or
small. In fact, we ought to always pray
and pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5:17) Bad things happen to us when we get involved
in something without first going to God in prayer. The Bible teaches us not to put our trust in
man for in him there is no hope. (Psalm 146:3) Man will lie to us, deceive us, beguile us,
take advantage of us, and lead us astray and therefore man is not to be
trusted. We should trust in The Lord and
not even in our own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5) It is much better to put our trust in The Lord
than in man. (Psalm 118:8) We will go
much farther with God than we will with man. (Isaiah 40:31)
No comments:
Post a Comment