Sermon Central
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How To Make The Right Decision? Series
Contributed by Shine Thomas on Sep 6, 2018 (message contributor)
Summary: This sermon deals with the concept of right decision making from Joshua 9 & 10. A brief look at the Gibeonite deception and how we can make the right decisions in life?
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Do you know that the decisions we make are very important? We can be influenced or tricked to make decisions in life? I am sure we have all made some terrible decisions in life and we regret them.
Life is full of such decision makings. Studies say that on an average a person makes 35000 decisions every day. We do small decision making like what to eat, which way to take and so on. We also do big decision making like which career to take, where to settle down, whom to marry and so on which can have some lasting effects in our life.
Today I want to speak about how to make the right decision with the Lord’s help or how not to be deceived in our decision making.
The people of Israel have defeated Jericho and Ai. Now they are preparing to march deeper into Canaan as they claim their Promised Land. They have seen some great victories; however, before they could win another victory, the Israelite leaders were deceived into a very wrong decision making.
Joshua 9:3-6 3…..when the people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, 4they resorted to a ruse: They went as a delegation whose donkeys were loaded with worn-out sacks and old wineskins, cracked and mended. 5They put worn and patched sandals on their feet and wore old clothes. All the bread of their food supply was dry and moldy. 6Then they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the Israelites, “We have come from a distant country; make a treaty with us.”
Joshua 9:15-16 15Then Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath. 16Three days after they made the treaty with the Gibeonites, the Israelites heard that they were neighbors living near them.
Joshua 9:22 Then Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said, “Why did you deceive us by saying, ‘We live a long way from you,’ while actually you live near us?
Here we find God’s people being deceived into making a peace treaty decision, which they bitterly regretted. Let’s look at some life principles from this passage.
1. Battle in spite of Devotion.
In Joshua 9:1-2, six kings had allied together to fight against Joshua. Joshua 9:1-2 1Now when all the kings west of the Jordan heard about these things—the kings in the hill country, in the western foothills, and along the entire coast of the Mediterranean Sea as far as Lebanon (the kings of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites)— 2they came together to wage war against Joshua and Israel.
After the victory of Ai, Israel had gathered to worship in Joshua 8:30-35. They were worshipping God, they were rededicating their lives to God but at the same time her enemies had gathered to plan an attack on Israel. I want you to notice that sometimes your worship to God and battles against you can occur at the same time. You may be doing everything right yet facing challenges.
I don’t know if you are sitting here facing a lot of battles in life. But I want to tell you that when you worship God there can be a battle. When you dedicate yourself to God and advance in God, the enemy can sometimes plan a battle against you. If you are facing a challenge today, don’t be afraid. Your enemies maybe mightier than you, you may not know their plans but if you continue to worship God, He will fight the battle for you.
So don’t be surprised if you are facing a battle in spite of your devotion.
2. Beware of Deception.
What is deception? The Wikipedia defines deception as an act of deceit or bluff to propagate things that are not true.
One on side there was a confederation of Kings who secretly united themselves together to wage war against Joshua, on the other side, another nation, the Gibeonites decided they can do warfare with Israel through inward deception disguising themselves as friends. They will hide their true self in order to win the sympathy of Israel.
The Gibeonites decided on a different course of action. They selected old clothing; stale, dry bread and cracked old wineskins. All of this was done to try to give the impression that they had traveled a long way to reach the camp of Israel. They wanted to deceive Joshua about their origin. We do not know whether they knew that God had told Israel not to make any alliances with the people of Canaan or that just drawn a natural conclusion that that Israel was destroying all the inhabitants from the Promised Land, so they stool no chance to win. So they decided to cheat on them.
