Maybe you feel like you don't deserve to come to the Lord with your
problems. You realize that the reason you are in your present situation is
because of your own decisions. Mary brought her problem to the Lord Jesus
because she knew He was the only one who could make things right. The
sovereign God of this universe delights to work out all things for your good
and His glory. Bring your failures to Him. Confess that you have made a
mess of things. Ask Him to reach out to you in your situation, like Mary did
that day. You will be surprised at what a sovereign God can do.
Joshua 9 is the story of how the Gibeonites deceived Joshua and his men. In
obedience to a direct order from the Lord, the Israelites were conquering
and destroying the inhabitants of Canaan. They were told not to make a
treaty with the Canaanites but to slaughter them lest they be a stumbling
block for them in their walk with God.
The Gibeonites were afraid. They knew that something needed to be done if
they were to survive as a people. They also knew that they could not stand
up against the might of the Israelite army. They decided to resort to lies and
deceit. Dressing themselves in old clothes, and taking old bread and
wineskins with them, they went to meet Joshua. When they arrived at his
camp, they told him that they had come from a distant land to make a peace
treaty with the Israelites.
Because Joshua believed these people to be from a distant land, and not
Canaanite enemies, he signed a treaty with them. Joshua 9:14 tells us,
however, that the Israelites did not consult the Lord in this matter. Only
later did they realize that they had been deceived.
Obviously Joshua had made a bad decision. He should have consulted the
Lord before making such a treaty. The story does not end here, however.
Because Gibeon had made a treaty with the Israelites, the king of
Jerusalem, claiming that the Gibeonites were traitors, allied himself with
four other kings of the south and declared war on them. Gibeon pleaded
with Israel to help them against this coalition of kings. Because of the treaty
he had made with them, Joshua came to their aid. God gave him victory and
he defeated all the kings of the southern region of Canaan.
Joshua made a bad decision to ally himself with the Gibeonites. God used
the situation, however, to give His people victory over southern Canaan.