God’s Sovereign Mercy (Joshua 9:1-10:15 John Lasken)

Happy Independence Day. We actually do have a patriot among us. Kyle Robinson has volunteered to defend the

Constitution of the United States, and he has signed up for the military, the Army, and he will be going to boot camp in August.

So thank you. We have a few announcements.

Actually right now, there is a women's Bible study going through the Book of Matthew. That's every

Sunday during a second service. Also, there is an overflow tent outside during a second service, if you're more comfortable outside, but the main purpose is for overflow, but you can join that if you'd like that.

Tonight at six, we have prayer at the church. That is at six o 'clock. Father, we recognize through your word,

Lord, that you are a consuming fire, that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of living

God. We thank you, Lord, for your grace and mercy, that your mercies are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

As we worship you, Lord, we just look unto you, the author and finisher of our faith. Father, we pray for Kyle Robinson, Lord, as he goes forth to defend the

Constitution of the United States, that your hand be upon him and cause him to be a light among the military,

Lord. Thank you and bless this time, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Can we stand together?

For all you've done Because of your love

We're forgiven Because of Lift you up Remember Because of your love

His love is so amazing, isn't it?

And he sent his son to pay the penalty for all the things that we've done, all the sins that restrict us from access to his throne.

The selfless act of Jesus brings us forgiveness and favor with our

God. It is so undeserved, isn't it? We are so unworthy.

In response, we don't boast in anything that we've ever done to gain access to his throne.

But we do boast in Jesus Christ and in his gospel. Let's sing together,

How Deep the Father's Love. How deep the

Father's love for us A man is only son

To make a wretch his treasure

Halfway up searing walls

The Father turns his face away

As wounds which mar the chosen one

Bring many sons to glory

Ashamed, lost in anything

In Jesus Christ's resurrection

Why should I gain from his reward?

I cannot give an answer

But this I know Why should

I gain from his reward? I cannot give an answer

But this I know His wounds have paid my wrath

Pray with me, Lord, thank you so much for paying the debt that we could never.

Thank you for being that that bridge and that great divide.

Lord, you are all we need, our Savior and our

Redeemer. And we look to you for every bit of salvation because we are a lost people.

Thank you, Lord, for setting us free, for being our Redeemer.

On a hill of Calvary The light of all the world

The world on his shoulders The weight of all our shame

On him who knew no sin A holy surrender

The sky went dark The angels wept

The Father looked away The final breath

He bowed his head The Lamb of God was slain

By his wounds I am set free

By his blood I've been redeemed

The great divide he crossed for me

Free On a hill of Calvary Into the

Father's hands He surrendered

A borrowed tooth His mother wept

And there his body lay But the stone was moved

He conquered death And rose up from the grave

By his wounds I am set free By his blood

I've been redeemed The great divide he crossed for me

Oh praise the God of Calvary And if I never, never

Lose sight of his place I will never, never

Lose sight of your grace The cross is all, all

I need to see Oh praise the God of Calvary And if I never, never

Lose sight of his place I will never, never

Lose sight of your grace The cross is all, all I need to see

Oh praise the God of Calvary By his wounds

I am set free By his blood

I've been redeemed The great divide he crossed for me

Oh praise the God of Calvary By his wounds

I am set free Been redeemed

The great divide for me

Oh praise the God of Calvary The cross is all, all

I need to see Oh praise the God of The cross is all, all

I need to see Oh praise the God of The cross is all, all

I need to see Oh praise the God of Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.

And the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called.

And the house was filled with smoke. And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. So if we're celebrating communion in the

Lord's Supper today, why am I reading from Isaiah chapter 6? Well, let me explain. Jesus instituted two sacraments, or ordinances, for the church.

The other is baptism. Today we celebrate communion. Those two were set apart for the church only.

But for communion, we're instructed in Scripture to examine ourselves as believers.

It's appropriate that communion was established through the Passover Seder, because Christ is our sacrificial lamb.

My Scripture, our Scripture, my Jesus, our Scripture teaches that God came down, became flesh, and died on the cross for our sins.

Isaiah also teaches that his resemblance was so beaten beyond recognition that you couldn't tell he was a man, that he went as a sheep to the slaughter.

Communion should have a weight to it, a heaviness, an awe, an anguish to it. As you look through Scripture, when you see individuals that came in the presence of divinity, they basically fell down at the feet of the

Lord. Peter, for example, when he realized who Christ was, Peter realized who he is.

And Peter said to the Lord, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. A prayer that we are all thankful that the

Lord doesn't answer, because the Scripture says that he will never leave us nor forsake us. But as we come to the communion table, we need to examine ourselves as believers.

And Corinthians says that we should examine ourselves that we don't partake in an unworthy manner.

It doesn't say unworthy, it says unworthily. So are you unrepentant? Are you bitter?

Are you apathetic? Are you routine? We need to get our hearts right before the

Lord before we partake of communion. So how do we do that? As I look back at Isaiah, in verse 6 it says,

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.

As we look in the Hebrew, we might miss something in our English -speaking world. If we wanted to show emphasis in our world, in writing, we would underline things, we would make them italics, or exclamation point, or make it bold, or all caps.

That's how we would show emphasis. In the Jewish world, they use verbal repetition.

Jesus used it as he taught, and he said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, or Amen, Amen, I say unto you.

But there's only one attribute of God that is raised to the third degree of repetition, and that's his holiness.

In scripture, we don't see that the scripture says God is mercy, mercy, mercy, or God is love, love, love.

Scripture records that he is holy, holy, holy. And also in Revelation, you see too, that the four living creatures never ceased crying out,

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.

So as we examine ourselves, we look. There was nothing Isaiah could do to approach the throne.

It was something that God does for us, as we sang, you know, the cross of Calvary. There's nothing that we can do physically to become righteous, to come before a holy

God. He has saved us from his self. He has saved us from his wrath.

So as we examine ourselves, let's repent of any bitterness. If there's any compromise in your life, as a believer, prepare your heart for the

Lord. And if you're not a believer, now is a great time to have your first communion. Repent. Ask him to forgive you.

Ask him to fill you with his spirit, to wash you in his blood. So as we have the men come forward, we're going to pass out the elements, and I ask that you wait for everyone to have their matzah and grape juice, and we'll take them together.

He said, come to the table.

Come join the sinners who have been redeemed. Take your place beside the

Savior. Sit down and be set free.

Come to the table. Come meet this mighty crew of misfits.

These liars and these thieves. There's no one unwelcome here. That's an insane that you brought with you.

Prisoner and the soldier. To the young and to the old. Be set free.

Come to the table. Into this mystery.

Say, take this bread, take this wine. How the simple made divine.

Pour any to receive. Mercy, we come to your table.

Thanks, you are making us faithful. We respond to your invitation.

Being able to stand up here on a Sunday morning, especially after what we've already had.

The spiritual food that we've had as Michael has led us into song and just concentrating on the love of God and on his blood shed for us.

As Rob has led us into communion and we've been able to concentrate on the holiness of God.

To be able to in your mind maybe consider the angels and the seraphim holy, holy, holy.

As Rob brought out, that's the attribute of God that's emphasized three times.

Holy, holy, holy. I find myself spending time considering attributes of God and what that means to me.

I might meditate for a while on his holiness, on his love, on his righteousness, his justice, his omnipotence, his omniscience.

There is so much about God. We know that in the future his children will spend eternity in the new

Jerusalem and we will be worshiping God and never get tired of it.

I imagine if I stood up here and preached for an hour and ten minutes, some of you would eventually get tired. Can you imagine there is so much about God, who he is, that for all of eternity we'll never get tired because we'll be seeing more and more of him.

Recently, God has led me into a time where I've been reading in Psalms and concentrating and meditating on his sovereignty.

I have a tendency to want to control my own life, control my own destiny, to understand situations and to be able to discern what's the right path.

God is sovereign and being able to rest in the truth that God is sovereign takes a lot of pressure off of life.

Instead of having to fix things, God is sovereign. Instead of having to have all the answers,

God is sovereign. Friday at our board prayer, one of the men prayed the following, walk daily,

I pray that we would walk daily with God, listening to the

Holy Spirit, to be able to surrender what

I can control to walk daily with God. What I am able to generate, what

I'm able to surrender, listening to his Holy Spirit.

In the upper room at the end of what we know as the upper room discourse in chapter 17,

Jesus prays to his Father in the presence of his followers so that they would hear what he has to say.

One of the things that he says is, I don't pray that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.

Knowing that God already knows and is the answer to everything, relieves all the stress of being in control and then failing.

To help us, God has given us his word and his Holy Spirit. The word is active, living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing as far as the division of thoughts and marrow, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

By his word my very thoughts are made clear, made exposed, opened up.

The word of God, and that it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work.

He gives us his word as an instruction manual, but has his very word of truth while the world is trying to give us all kinds of things.

There's one truth. He gives us his word. He also gives us the Holy Spirit so that we can understand this word, so that we can be led on a path, so that we can be convicted when we need to.

He even prays for us when we don't know how to pray. Now here's a couple of observations for my life.

Maybe they are yours too. Sometimes I believe I really understand.

And then I find out I don't. Yeah, just a real practical one.

My wife might have a need and I think I got it, but I don't. Well, sometimes

I think I understand life, but God really does. And sometimes I think I've been there before.

I've experienced that before. I know how to fix this. I know how to deal with this situation.

But here's the third observation. God is sovereign. I am not. And if I will only surrender to him, there is promises.

It says in Matthew 4, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

Jesus said that I have the wherewithal. Just follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

God knows it is his plan. He is sovereign. And in fact, he knew all of this from before the foundation of the world.

The book of Joshua is often considered an analogy for the

Christian walk. You think about it. They eventually get into the river, across the river, salvation.

And then they're dealing with all of these obstacles, life. So if we follow this trail leading up to where we are, we're going to be in chapter 9 today.

It starts out actually just before the book of Joshua, 40 years before the book of Joshua, at Kadesh Barnea, the nation of Israel is at the door ready to go into the promised land.

They've been led out of Egypt. They've been delivered across the Red Sea and they're heading basically a path directly to the promised land to Kadesh Barnea.

And now they've got to look at what are they going to do. So they send 12 spies. 10 of them say it's a land flown with milk and honey.

This sounds really good, but the people are like giants and we're like grasshoppers.

They had the opportunity to respond, but they allowed the deception of Satan of the world to hold them back.

Caleb Joshua said let's go. The others said no. Majority ruled and so that entire generation over the next 40 years dies in the wilderness.

40 years later they're in camp at Shittim. It's on the eastern side of the

Jericho. And this is now at the brink. It's at the brink of do you respond to God or not?

He's giving them direction and he's saying cross into my land.

And so they send spies. They go to Jericho and so now they're going to be counting the cost.

What does it look like? Can we do this? And we know that God promises Joshua I will be with you.

And so they follow the ark out of camp. And this is letting

God's grace lead the way. Salvation doesn't happen without God's grace leading the way.

And so they follow as the ark goes to the river. At raging flood that river is huge and flowing.

And it will remain that way until the priests put their feet on the water.

And then the water is stopped and the land is dry and they cross into stepping out in faith.

Finding God's grace leading you, stepping out in faith, finding that point of salvation. And so now they are in the land.

Now you are walking in the Lord's way. And the first thing they do is take 12 stones out of the river and they set them up at camp at Gilgal as a memorial.

And this is an encouragement for us to always look back to that time of salvation.

The time when God opened the eyes of your heart and you said yes and look back to that faith and that cleansing release that you get.

And so they set the stones up. And within the land there are kings and there are mighty fighting armies.

These are the obstacles. Just because you cross over the river Jordan doesn't mean that God removes everything.

He said don't take them out of the world but protect them from the evil one.

And so they go into camp at Gilgal and they re -consecrate themselves. They had not celebrated

Passover in over 40 years. And so they do this. They remember and they re -consecrate themselves.

They choose in their life to be following God through that very act of Passover.

And then Joshua meets the captain of the hosts of the Lord. He said are you for us or are you against us?

See he wanted to be able to negotiate with God that God would help them.

That God would go with them. He wanted to know that as Joshua goes with Israel that God would go with them.

But that's not God's way. God is sovereign. Not Joshua. And so he says neither.

I am with the Lord. And the reality that our life is understood and our life is experienced when we let

God be sovereign and we quit trying to do it ourselves. And so the battles begin.

Jericho. They surrender to God as he gave them marching orders and they walk around the city and then they blow trumpets and the walls fall down and it's a great victory by God.

But Achan takes some stuff out of the city. Hides it. And so they come up into a smaller city,

Ai, and they're defeated. Because they never realized. They never sought after God.

Then they did seek after God. They cleansed. Achan was punished. And they had a victory at Ai as God fought for them.

From there they go to Mount Ebal. There's two hillsides. And on one side, it's an antiphonal response.

They proclaim the blessings of God, the curses of God, and in the middle is the ark as they realize that it is

God's word and it is God's lead that is going to take them into this promised land.

And they get established. And so now they're getting ready to go forward. And there is a command that has been given to them for Haram.

Deuteronomy 7, 1 and 2. When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it and clears away many nations before you.

All these ites. Seven nations. More numerous and mightier than you.

And when the Lord your God gives them to you and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.

You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.

This is Haram. And as the nation of Israel is in the promised land, they are going to run into the

Canaanites and the Amorites and the Giggashites the Perizzites. And the proclamation is

Haram. Nobody will survive. You will take them down.

God is going to give you the victory, but don't play games with it.

Complete destruction. And you say, why? This is brutal.

This is intense. Deuteronomy 20, verses 16 to 18 gives us a practical answer for the people.

But in the cities of these people that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes.

But you shall devote them to complete destruction, all the ites as the Lord your God has commanded, and get this now, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices as they have done for their gods, so that you sin no more.

Make no mistake, what is going to be going on with the nation of Israel in the land is a spiritual battle.

It is God, Yahweh, who is sovereign and it is Satan, the great deceiver and pretender, who wants to make himself like the

Most High, who has established wickedness in the land. And if Satan can work it so that these nations interact with Israel, the result will be compromise of Israel's position with God.

That cannot be. And so God says, for your very protection, so that you are not spiritually drawn aside.

Okay, well this still sounds severe.

What did they do in 1 Samuel 15? And Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people

Israel. Now therefore, listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, I have noted what

Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt.

Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have.

It is because of the way Amalek has opposed and stood against Yahweh that Yahweh says they must harem.

Psalm 77, it's a Psalm of Asaph. It talks about all life's trials that the

Psalmist is experiencing. And in the middle of it in verse 10, I will appeal to this.

Now what he's saying there is there is this stuff going on but in the midst of it all

I turn to God. That's what's going on in that particular verse. I appeal to this.

I'm turning to God. It's God's sovereign hand that will return, that will relieve, that will hold up the

Psalmist through all things. That's what's going to be necessary for the nation. Harem to protect themselves from being compromised.

Harem because God says there must be judgment here.

But it's God's sovereign hand. Lord as we turn into Joshua chapters 9 and 10,

I pray that it will instruct us on how to accept God's lead. I pray that the words will encourage us to follow

His command to accept His sovereignty above all else. Pray in Jesus' name.

Chapters 9 and 10 have often been considered a section of Scripture, the great

Gibeonite deception. That's how it's been looked at, specifically chapter 9. But we're going to look at 9 and 10.

And what I want to do first is I want to tell you the story of chapter 9 and chapter 10.

And it's the story of a people from Gibeon. They are Canaanites. Once I've done that, we're going to peel it back and we're going to understand what it says because you can look at these passages from a human perspective and it seems very difficult to accept, to understand, to comprehend and to apply.

But we're going to eventually look at it from a God -centric perspective and we're going to see what it is

He has to teach us about surrendering and relying on His sovereignty.

Joshua 9, starting at the beginning. As soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan and the hill country and in the low land along the coast of the great sea toward Lebanon, all of the iths heard of this.

Now what they heard about was the defeats at Jericho, eventually the defeat at Ai, and probably how this people have now received direct instruction at Mount Ebal and they are ready to go in the power of the

Lord. Once they had heard this, they gathered together as one to fight against Joshua and Israel.

But the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what

Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai. They, on their part, acted with cunning.

Two responses. The nations following, completely following the prince of the power of the air,

Satan, see the nation of Israel coming in and create an alliance with the kings and they say, we need to put him down.

Except for the Gibeonites who are going to look at the nation of Israel and seek protection.

Now they come to them and they come with old moldy bread, they come with wineskins that are old and falling apart, their clothes are tattered, their soles of their sandals are worn out so that they can convince

Joshua, they're not part of this land, we've come from a far away land and we ask that you would make peace with us.

And Joshua is deceived. Now, one thing that Joshua isn't doing, at least it's definitely not recorded here, is he's not seeking the

Lord. They're in the land, they're under the command for Haram and we have this people coming who are presenting themselves as a non -threat, not part of the land and so Joshua makes covenant.

So the men took some of the provisions but did not ask counsel of the Lord, verse 14.

And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.

What has happened now is Joshua has created a relationship with these people, not really knowing who they were, but with these people it's a vassal relationship.

What that means is that the greater in this covenant is promising to protect the lesser.

So if Gibeon gets in trouble, Israel is now obliged under this relationship to come to their defense.

What's eventually going to happen is they're going to find out they really are

Canaanite neighbors. At the end of three days they made a covenant with them they heard that they were neighbors living among them.

The command to Harem now is in jeopardy because Joshua made a covenant an oath with the

Gibeonites to the Lord which means they now need to protect them but on the other side is this command that they are to be

Harem. And so they are now in a situation where they're between and again it doesn't indicate that Joshua says what should we do.

Now if we end here at the end of chapter 9 it would appear that the nation of Israel is in great defiance of God is putting things in a bad situation.

But as we go into chapter 10 we're going to now see things through a different perspective.

As soon as Adonai Zadok king of Jerusalem heard how Joshua had captured Ai and devoted it to destruction doing to Ai and to its king as he done to Jericho and its king and how the

Gibeonites had made peace with Israel and were among them he feared greatly because Gibeon was a great city.

What we've got now is these other kings of the land who are still concerned about Israel have now seen

Gibeon which was a great city is now in an alliance with Israel and so the threat has increased.

So what the kings are going to do instead of trying to attack Israel with all of the history of Israel's victories with their god they're going to go after Gibeon and so they come and attack

Gibeon. And now comes the insight that we start to see. Verse 6

And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp in Gilgal saying do not relax your hand from your servants come up to us quickly and save us for all the kings of the

Amorites who dwell in the hill country are gathered against us. So Joshua went up from Gilgal he and the people of war with him and all the mighty men of valor and note verse 8

And the Lord said to Joshua do not fear them for I have given them into your hands not a man of them shall stand before you.

These are Canaanites the Gibeonites that Joshua has established a vassal relationship a covenant that are being attacked and Joshua is going to be going to defend the

Canaanites. By the way remember back in Deuteronomy harem and God said go and fight and be with them and I will fight for you and so what happens as we go through verses 9 and beyond Joshua goes out and starts the battle.

Verse 10 And the Lord threw the enemy into a great panic struck them with a great blow at Gibeon chased them by the way of Beth Horon and struck them as far as and as they fled before Israel while they were going down the ascent of Beth Horon the

Lord threw large stones from heaven. There were more who died because of the hailstones than because of the sons of Israel with the sword.

Why did this happen? Why are these Canaanites who were under the condemnation of harem why are they now being honored and protected and actually

God fighting for them? Why is that happening? We have to ask that question.

But before we do here's the next part of that scene. As this battle is going on and Joshua is seeing

God throwing down stones upon the enemy at that time

Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites to the son of Israel and he said in the sight of Israel sun stand still moon in the valley of Ejelon and the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance on its enemies.

That's a bold move to be able in front of the entire assembly to turn to God and say stop that son with enough confidence that God is going to do the battle.

Remember it just said that before that I will be with you do not fear them

I have given them into your hands. God is fighting the fight for Israel for Gibeon the

Canaanites. So now we ask the question what's going on?

A couple of quick observations first of all Israel's relationship with God is of utmost importance it said in the beginning of Joshua in chapter 1 in the land do not fear

God will go before you the nation does have a God with a covenant relationship who will fight for them and in the land there are kings and these kings oppose

God now again this is spiritual we have God on one side who is not going to be opposed and we have

Satan on the other side who wants to do everything he can to dethrone God and be put in place we know who is going to win greater is he who is in you and so these kings they have seen what

God has done and there is great fear in their hearts and so their fervor to fight is strong and in the midst of this

Joshua allows deception to put him but you see we're looking at that from our perspective now there is a danger of spiritual of being failed in your spiritual strength but in this particular case

God's got a greater sight than we do this covenant with Gibeon that the people have made and God's decision to protect him to harem or not to harem that is the question the

Canaanites are under judgment we saw that in Deuteronomy 7 you must devote the entire every living thing to be killed nothing to be spared that's the proclamation and the

Canaanites, the Gibeonites are part of that greater but yet but yet now we need to look scripturally what happens when

Israel violates harem in 1st Samuel 15 it's recorded that Samuel comes to Saul and Saul is supposedly fighting with the

Amalekites and God says harem but he doesn't he spares the king, he spares some of the best and Saul challenges him what have you done?

and he said I obeyed the Lord well no no you didn't because of that it says in verse 26 and Samuel said to Saul I will not return with you for you have rejected the word of the

Lord and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel violating harem is going to make you involved, it's going to have

God's judgment come down upon you Achan broke harem when he took of the treasure out of Jericho and it was great punishment because of it the nation loses at Ai and Achan and his entire family are destroyed so why is

Gibeon a different story? within the

Canaanite nation there are two specific examples in the book of Joshua of God looking at the heart his sovereign will looking at the heart and within his mercy because of him looking at their heart and responding to what could only be considered faith

Rahab, she is a Canaanite woman and she stood up she's actually in the lineage recorded for our

Lord Jesus Christ and now Gibeon who acknowledges

God in their proclamation to Joshua and to the nation

I know that your God has done this great thing, this could only be through the heart and a proclamation of faith that God in his sovereign mercy says because of the faith

I will spare you from the harem in the book of Joshua you have

Rahab the Canaanite you have the Gibeonites the

Canaanites and although they're Canaanites their faith and their heart finds favor with God and in the middle is

Achan and although he's an Israelite his disobedience results in punishment

God's sovereign mercy is going to look at the heart now there's another aspect to this and that's that if you go into Deuteronomy chapter 20 if the nation encounters a city outside of the promised land verse 10 when you draw near to a city to fight against it, if a city draws near you to fight against it, offers terms of peace, they're to respond with it and in verse 15 thus shall you do to the cities that are very far off from you, which are not cities of the nation, but the second half of that is but in the cities of these people that the

Lord is giving you for inheritance, you shall save a life nothing that breathes if the city is from outside the land you can protect them, if the city is from inside the land, harem the

Gibeonites they're from inside the land, but when they came to Joshua they proclaimed we are not part of these people they claimed

God who is sovereign and they claimed not to be part of this people and because God looks into the heart and their faith and their receptivity to God, he removes harem from Rahab, he removes harem from the

Gibeonites to the point that when

Saul attempted to do battle against the

Gibeonites he punished Saul because the Gibeonites were now considered protected as part of God's part of God's sovereign will.

Gibeon is no longer a spiritual threat these litmus tests back in Deuteronomy, they no longer apply to Gibeon because their heart is soft to God.

Now we can look at God through various views, we can look at his holiness, it is who he is, we can look at his mercy

I don't deserve to stand in front of God except for his son except for his blood we sang about Calvary keeping our eyes on Calvary it's only by his mercy that he saved a sinner like me his sovereignty, he knows and he sees the heart of man, we don't he is righteous and just he is omnipotent, he is omniscient, all of this is

God, it can't be separated and it's this God who looks into the heart of man, it's this

God who looked into the hearts of the Gibeonites, you see

God sparing Rahab God sparing Gibeon from Haram just totally goes against what we would think we could understand because they're

Canaanites, it would go beyond our understanding or our experience but only rest in his sovereignty, his sovereignty is on display now in my life and in your life there are vestiges of things much like the kings in the land that don't belong now we are told to Haram, we are told those things that are that we are holding on to that don't belong there

Haram, don't let them stay because if you do they will lead you to compromise they will lead you astray his people were called to eliminate all the vestiges as are we but yet God's mercy looks into the heart of the individual he doesn't look at the kingdom he looks at the individuals the kingdom had violated they were under Haram but these individuals professed a level of faith that in his sovereign mercy we have seen an amazing influx of people that we've fellowshiped with here over the last 16 months and it is it is a joy it's a joy to be meeting so many new people but I want to put a warning out that if you've come here because you've heard that there's some strong preaching or you've heard that we don't wear masks or whatever it is that has drawn you here if this is not personal between you and God then there's a problem that has to be fixed.

God sovereignly looks at the heart of individuals. God isn't looking at Cornerstone as an entity saying everybody that's sitting here in Cornerstone is good to go he's going to look at everybody individually in your heart make your heart right with God as Rob encouraged us we were getting ready for communion this could be the first communion you take as a believer in God he looked at the heart of the

Gibeonites, he's looking into the heart of each one of us. We either turn to him or we don't and we either get rid of the vestiges that shouldn't be there or we don't this is our personal time.

We need to turn to God and we need to seek his lead because his is sovereign and we need to surrender bless him who gave his son to be as boldly in his love sing with joy now our

God is for us the father's love is a strong and mighty fortress raise your voice now your love is great stand against sing with joy now

I have set the

Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth my flesh also shall rest in hope.