“Then the men of Israel took some of their provisions; but they did not ask counsel of the Lord.” - Joshua 9:14 (NKJV)
I am writing this essay on August 18, 2025; my fifty-sixth birthday. I’ll probably write an article (or fifty) on the mysteries of the human aging process someday but for the purposes of this article, I want to reference one inescapable feature that comes with aging: reminiscing
Like most people my age, I am astonished at how differently my life played out from the life goals I laid out for myself forty years ago when I was a sixteen-year-old dreamer. Looking back, the existential roller coaster that has been my life (so far) appears to have been designed and engineered by a blind, deaf, and drunk chimpanzee.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered I had been that chimpanzee all along.
I say this with absolutely no pride or arrogance: I am not Biblically illiterate. While I am not a Biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination, I am quite familiar with the contents of the Holy Bible. I understand the complexities of the Old Testament Mosaic Law, the multiple covenants God made with people and nations, and the New Testament instructions of Christ, just to name a few theological considerations. My comprehension of the Bible’s instructions for living in a spiritual relationship with my divine creator is not sparse.
And so I have absolutely NO excuse for the multiple times my spiritual, emotional, psychological, and physical life’s roller coaster went completely off the rails. I just know that every time I left those rails, it was for the exact same reason.
And that reason is perfectly identified in Joshua chapter nine.
The context of this chapter is fairly simple. Joshua had led Israel across the Jordan river into their long awaited “promised land”. God had given them an incredible supernatural victory over Jericho and, after a short hiccup with Achan’s hoarding problem, another victory with the much-smaller-than-Jericho city of Ai (I will refrain from making a series of AI jokes here).
Joshua chapter nine picks up Israel’s journey of conquest with the promised land’s remaining kingdoms forming an anti-Israel alliance in an attempt to stop Israel’s march into their territories. All of those kingdoms joined this alliance except for one of the smaller kingdoms. The people of Gibeon had a better idea than fighting the Jericho-toppling Israelites.
The Gibeonites (or “Hivites”, as mentioned in Joshua 9:7) decided to pull the trigger on a “Trojan Horse”-style strategy. They appointed a small band of men as “ambassadors”and clothed them in rags, supplied them with moldy bread and old, patched wineskins, and sent them to parlay with Israel. This group of ragtag Gibeonites/Hivites made their way to an audience with Joshua and sold him and the Israelite elders on the idea that they had come from a far away country to make a peace treaty with the conquering Israelites.
Joshua 9:14 tells us Joshua saw their moldy provisions and agreed to the treaty without bothering to ask God what He thought about the situation. As a result, Israel made a covenant in the name of God with the enemies of God and His people. And, as Joshua 9:16-18 tells us, once the covenant was made, it was unbreakable.
This covenant would be a source of many problems for Israel as the years passed.
I bring this to your attention, dear reader, because of the phrase, “...they did not ask counsel of the LORD.” in verse 14. This phrase needs to be permanently burned into the hearts and minds of every Bible-believing, born again child of God because within those eight words lies the answer to the “why” question that is always asked when our lives careen off “the narrow way” into a ditch.
Please understand, I’m not talking about negative situations and tragic circumstances that are outside of our control. I’m speaking specifically about circumstances and situations that are the direct consequence of the compromising choices we make, especially as professing “followers of Christ”. I’m talking about the troubling fruits we reap from the sinful seeds we sow into our lives.
I’m referring to the life choices we make without seeking the counsel of the LORD.
Had Joshua bothered to ask the LORD for His opinion, God would have undoubtedly informed him of the Gibeonites’/Hivites’ true identity and their attempted subterfuge. Consequently, Israel would not have allied themselves with one of the pagan groups of people God had explicitly instructed them not to make covenants with. Instead, Joshua made a decision that seemed like the right thing to do but completely contradicted the clearly expressed will of God.
Obviously, this contradictory decision-making is hardly indigenous to Old Testament Israelites. Even 21st century American Christians find themselves struggling with the fruits our contaminated seeds have produced. And at the center of our life struggles we can often find the root cause is the same as Joshua and Israel’s - spiritual compromise.
It seems that every generation of humans enters the world believing the universal rules and truths of God’s word do not apply to them. Of course it is easy to predict the consequences of the life choices professing agnostics and atheists make, but it never ceases to amaze me when professing Christians are shocked when they reap those same consequences after making similar life choices.
For example, it hardly makes sense to publicly condemn the sinful consequences associated with sexual sins like homosexuality while simultaneously and habitually ignoring God’s instructions for heterosexual conduct. In Biblical terms, this activity is known as “hypocrisy” and the fruit these hypocrisy seeds produce have caused a LOT of damage to the Body of Christ, at large.
Again, Israel’s covenant with the Gibeonites caused a LOT of problems for Israel centuries later. These problems would have been easily avoided had Joshua simply involved God in his decision-making process.
I am aware I’m entering potentially troubled theological waters here so let me be clear in what I mean by “seeking the counsel of God” in these postmodern, New Testament church times. Lest anyone think I’m giving instructions on pursuing some kind of Christian mysticism, allow me to quickly share the three primary ways we can “seek the counsel of God”:
Be Biblically Literate - This means more than simply reading the Bible somewhere other than inside a church building; it also means obeying it. Imagine how much humanity’s lives would be improved if people simply obeyed the ten commandments, to name just ONE Biblical example.
Seek Counsel From A Trusted, Biblically Literate Believer - When faced with a life decision, there is absolutely nothing wrong with going to someone you trust for good, godly counsel. Just remember, God will never contradict His written Word so choose your counselor carefully.
Pray Without Ceasing - This is a little more tricky because of the surplus of people within our current church culture that declare they have a direct hotline to God while giving “words from the LORD” (or “prophesying” things) that are in direct contradiction to the written Word of God. So allow me to elaborate a bit more on this one.
Jesus promised ALL His followers would have access to “the Spirit of truth” who would “guide [us] into all truth”, not just special “anointed” messengers. But, there are some requirements we must meet for the Spirit of God to guide us. Specifically, we are supposed to be perpetually obedient to Jesus’ instructions to “abide in Him”. If we meet this requirement, God will guide us into ALL truth, both doctrinal truth and situational, decision-making truth.
Unfortunately, most of God’s professed “followers” are much more adept at “leaning to our own understanding” than we are in “walking in the Spirit” or being “led by the Spirit”. The reason for this is simple: being led by or walking in the Spirit of God requires consistent, perpetual, and habitual obedience to Jesus’ instructions for anyone who would follow Him.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the number of professing, Bible believing “Christians” who are consistently, perpetually, and habitually “denying themselves” is not a large one, to say nothing of “taking up our crosses”. It is this daily struggle to submit to and obey God that is at the heart of our flesh -vs- spirit battle.
And the habitual choices we make in this struggle will either strengthen our faith in Him or kill it.
So, if you’re finding yourself in a “why, Lord?” situation, you may want to consider entering into a humble, sincere, prayerful Psalm 139 position. Because King David is hardly the only man who needed God’s help in identifying the areas in his daily, habitual life that needed recalibration to God and His Word.
As someone much smarter than me once said, “the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” It is our daily habits that often produce the most destructive fruit in our lives, and unfortunately for most of God’s professed “followers”, He is often blamed for those fruits. Like the believer with a life-long smoking habit who gets angry at God when they are diagnosed with lung cancer.
Again, I’m talking about the consequences of our choices, not the negative and/or tragic circumstances that occur outside of our control.
As always with God, there’s good news. Like the Prodigal Son’s father, our Heavenly Father is always ready to welcome us back home. All we have to do is surrender, trust, and obey Him. And the first step to returning to the safety of our Father’s hands is the very first word Jesus preached when he began His earthly ministry:
MATTHEW 4:17 (NKJV)
From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Yeah, that word “repent” really hits a lot of us in our pride. But, if we truly want to experience the “abundant life” Jesus promised to give to his followers, we have to actually follow Him. That means surrendering to Him, submitting to Him, and obeying Him, not just when it’s convenient or when we feel like it. But ESPECIALLY when it is inconvenient and when we don’t feel like it.
It is this posture of humble obedience and repentance that not only puts us in the position to clearly hear the counsel of God, it also puts us in the position to desire the counsel of God.
So, as always, the choice before the people of God is the same as it has been since the Garden of Eden. We can choose to follow own way, or we can choose to follow Yahweh.
For those who have chosen to follow our own way, how has that worked out so far?