This is a very troubling passage to some people because it describes God's entire destruction of every man, woman, and child in the country of Heshbon. It's brutal. It's a genocide. And people wonder, "Why on earth would God include this in the Bible?"

The Hebrew word that is used in verse 34 to describe this unusual kind of warfare is the Hebrew word חֵ֗רֶם (cherem), and because Israel was only allowed to war like this against the Canaanites whom God Himself had consigned to destruction by special revelation, commentators distinguish this cherem warfare from Israel's normal warfare. This was definitely not normal warfare.

But it still troubles people. In fact, it is one of the most consistently criticized features of Deuteronomy and Joshua. And interestingly, evangelicals who get queasy about this don't seem to have the same problem with believing in hell - because the New Testament also teaches it, but they somehow feel the need to explain away this cherem warfare as if it seems to be inherently unjust. But if punishment in hell is a just punishment for those who reject God, then I see no reason why earthly destruction would be unjust. And you might wonder about babies. But Psalm 58:3 says that they are estranged from God in the womb and they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. That's why we pray for the salvation of our infants. They are not innocent. They need His grace. In any case, today's message will kind of be an introduction to the topic of cherem warfare. And by the end of the sermon, I hope you gain a huge appreciation for this topic. It's a very practical topic.

Introduction - the typological meaning of cherem warfare, and why it was different than standing laws on warfare

The Hebrew word cherem simply means dedicated to destruction. And it describes God's use of Israel as His instrument of justice to destroy certain Canaanite populations. Since Joshua was a type of Jesus (and a type was simply a visible picture that prophetically foreshadows the work of Jesus - but if Joshua was a type of Jesus), Biblical scholars believe that Joshua's conquest also has to stand as a type of Christ's spiritual conquest of this world. And I agree. But before I apply it, let me try to tease apart the various ways that this Hebrew word cherem is used. Tremper Longman is a theologian who gives five stages of God's cherem warfare principle. He says that:

1. Phase 1 is seen in this book and in the book of Joshua, and it shows that God fights His flesh and blood enemies using Israel as a tool of conquest. That's the most obvious stage of cherem warfare.
2. Phase 2 is when God used cherem warfare against Israel (interestingly), using Babylon as His instrument of justice. God's point in using that term was that when Israel looked no different than the Canaanites they could not expect God to treat them any differently. And God even likens apostate Israel to Sodom, Gomorrah, and various Canaanite tribes.
3. Phase 3 is when God will come in Israel's future as a warrior to fight against all evil. So Joshua's warfare is used by the prophets to speak of God's total warfare against all evil. For example, Isaiah 34:2 speaks of God declaring cherem warfare against all evil in all nations. But Tremper Longman especially applies it to the post-exilic prophets.
4. He says that phase 4 is when Jesus Christ fights against spiritual powers and demonic forces in the church age. This word is used of His total warfare against Satan. Christ's goal was to destroy Satan and all that Satan stands for. So Tremper points out that the Bible very clearly treats Jesus as the second Joshua - this time fighting against Satan and his demonic hosts. (I would apply it further, but hey, at least that is true.)
5. He says that phase 5 is the final battle on the final day of history when Christ leads His angelic hosts to fight against the resurrected enemies and casts them into hell.

That's fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. There really is a Christocentric focus on all God's cherem warfare throughout the Bible. And the most important phase of God's cherem warfare (which Tremper Longman misses) was when God declared war on His Son, when His Son took on the evil of His elect people who deserved God's cherem warfare. God destroyed Jesus as our substitute so that He could save those whom He saw as united to Jesus - the elect. This also helps to understand how 1 Corinthians 15 can apply the word "destruction" (the Greek equivalent to cherem) to all enemies who are outside of Christ. And 1 Corinthians 15 makes it clear that He destroys some of those enemies through conversion. Without seeing God's cherem as ultimately being poured out on Jesus on cross, none of that would make sense. And the only way that the Good News of the Great Commission can go forward successfully is if people by faith embrace Jesus and the cherem that Jesus bore as their substitute. All of this explains why the New Testament can apply Joshua's conquest point-by-point to the success of the Great Commission. Either people are judged in Christ (in which case they are saved) or they are judged in themselves (in which case God's wrath remains on them). And so the New Testament uses the conquest of Canaan as a typological picture of Christ's conquest of the world via the Great Commission. And we will get into this in more detail next week.

But I first of all want to point out that if this genocide was intended to be typological (which most commentators agree that it was), then it means that it was not God's standard policy for warfare. This is not a pattern for our civics. Later passages in Deuteronomy will give God’s normal warfare patterns. Eugene Merrill rightly says,

“Biblical genocide was part of a Yahweh-war policy enacted for a unique situation, directed against a certain people, and in line with the character of God himself, a policy whose design is beyond human comprehension but one that is not, for that reason, unjust or immoral. Those very limitations preclude any possible justification for modern genocide for any reason.”

That would include the use of nuclear weapons against a civilian population. That is not allowed in God’s normal warfare.

In any case, what I want to show this morning is that the Gospel itself is hidden in this gruesome warfare. It is the good news of rescue painted on the black canvas of total judgment. If this is the case, there is a lot we can learn from these passages concerning the success of the Great Commission.

God's offers of peace (even when God knows they will be rejected) are genuine offers (vv. 26-28)

Let's start with the offer of peace in this passage. This passage shows that God offered peace to those who would ultimately end up in hell. The free offer of peace in verses 26-28 is in some ways analogous to God's free offer of the Gospel to all. When they rejected that free offer (which they certainly did not deserve), then Christ could not justly bear God's cherem on their behalf, and it is perfectly just for God to predestine genocide of them on earth and eternal torment in hell. Let's go through this passage verse by verse and see if we can't learn some lessons from it.

God Himself sent this offer of peace (v. 26)

Verse 26 says, "And I sent messengers from the Wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying..." - and then He gives His offer of peace. God Himself made a genuine offer of peace. Heshbon did not deserve peace, just as none of us deserve to have God's peace offered through the Gospel. But no one will be in hell who can say that they wanted God's peace and that they wanted to live by God's law. The offer can be sincere even when human hearts are hard and will reject it. And God's offer today is a just offer because if humans put their trust in Jesus, God's justice against them has already been met on the cross. If these Amorites had put their trust in Jesus, then God could have spared them based on the same cross of Jesus - which was future to them.

In any case, no one can say that Sihon or his soldiers wanted peace with God, or that God did not offer peace. No. This was a genuine offer of peace by God Himself.

God offered the ideal of free travel (v. 27)

Second (and I think this can be literally applied to civics), this peace included the ideal of free travel between nations. Though Heshbon was deeply evil, God still expected Heshbon to follow His laws - laws that allowed for free travel on the main artery roads of nations to any that were not hostile to God and to His law. So verse 27 says, "Let me pass through your land; I will keep strictly to the road, and I will turn neither to the right nor to the left." God would not have allowed idolators to travel through Israel (a subject that we have already addressed), but Israelites here were not idolators or criminals. So nations should not have kept these believing Israelites out when they committed themselves to peace. They should have treated them like the Amorites 400 years earlier had treated Abraham’s army. There was no Biblical law to prevent law-abiding citizens from traveling main artery roads in any nation. Free travel for law-abiding foreigners is the ideal in God's law. But we saw that the law specified that they had to be law-abiding and not idolators. Idolators are at enmity (or war) with God, and cannot misuse the principle of free travel.

It was an offer for free trade (v. 28)

Second, God made a genuine offer of trade. Verse 28 says, "You shall sell me food for money, that I may eat, and give me water for money, that I may drink; only let me pass through on foot." The fact that God authorized Israel to buy products from an evil nation indicates that righteous nations should be able to engage in free trade with unrighteous nations. The fact that God knew Sihon would not allow it does not make the offer any less sincere. So again, I am an advocate of free trade among nations. And people might object, "We can't have free trade with nations that impose tariffs." Well, that's true; that's not free trade, is it? That's a one-way street that only benefits the other country. But this is one of many verses that indicate that the government should not be involved in limiting genuine free trade.

It was an identical offer as had been given to Edom (v. 29a)

Next, he says that this offer was an identical offer that had been given to the believing nation of Edom. That's very interesting. Verse 29 begins, "just as the descendants of Esau who dwell in Seir and the Moabites who dwell in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land which the LORD our God is giving us." But didn't both Edom and Moab prohibit Israel from passing through the middle of their country on the King's Highway? Yes, they did prohibit that. So what is going on here? Moses seems to imply that Israel passed through parts of those two countries. Well, several commentators have pointed out that Edom and Moab did permit them to travel on the road that was on their eastern border until they crossed the Wadi Zered and the Wadi Ar, and the citizens were allowed to trade with them. And it is that free trade that is being highlighted in this comparison. In fact, free trade continued for some time between those nations. As J. A. Thompson words it,

While both Edom and Moab opposed the transit of Israel through the heart of their territories along the King’s Highway, they made no attempt to prevent their passage around the outskirts of these lands or through areas under their ‘protection’ (2:2–8).¹

So I conclude that free trade with all nations is the ideal, not tariffs. It doesn't address what a nation can do if other nations want your free trade but they have already imposed hostile tariffs on you. All bets are off when that happens. But at least it highlights that free trade is allowable with even an ungodly nation.

And by the way, this is just one small data point for civics. In order to figure out all the ins and outs of godly international relations there are a lot of data points that need to be taken into consideration, and it is sort of like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle of 1000 pieces. No one piece says it all, but each piece is needed in order to be able to have a consistent system of civics. In this sermon series I am just pulling out pieces of the puzzle one-by-one as we go verse-by-verse through the book. In my civics book I will hopefully be putting all the pieces into their place to show the beautiful picture of civics that God paints in the Bible. The point is that I can't get into every detail of civics this morning. I just want to insist that God's ideal is international free trade. Isaiah 11 shows the use of highways for free trade between Egypt, Assyria, and Israel in our future - when those nations are converted. But Abraham is an illustration of free trade with the Amorites.

If Sihon had accepted the offer, Israel would have restricted their territory to the Western side of the Jordan River (v. 29b)

But moving on, the next phrase in verse 29 further highlights the sincerity of God's offer to these people. God has the messengers say, "until I cross the Jordan to the land which the LORD our God is giving us." If the two kings of the Transjordan region had accepted this offer, then Israel would have restricted its land to the explicitly promised portions of Canaan that were West of the Jordan River.

All of this language that is related to a sincere offer helps to answer the objections of those who claim that this genocide was not just. Even though these two kingdoms deserved the genocide, God had Israel make a sincere offer that would have left those two nations unmolested. And since cherem warfare is typological, I believe this speaks to the sincerity of God's offer of amnesty to those in the church age if they will believe the free offer of the Gospel.

God's sovereignty and closed doors (vv. 30-33)

But in verses 30-33 we have a clear description of God's predestinating sovereignty over all of history (including salvation, and who believes and doesn't believe), and how human responsibility is consistent with God's sovereignty. But we will start with the human responsibility side of the equation first.

Human responsibility: Sihon closed the door (v. 30a)

It's clear in verse 30 that Sihon closed the door to mercy. He acted with hostility. And he was responsible for his action of unbelief. Verse 30 says, "But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through..." Sihon closed the door. It was indeed his decision.

Divine sovereignty: this door was closed by God (v. 30b)

Yet the same verse gives the reason that Sihon closed the door: God's sovereignty ensured that He would close the door. Verse 30 goes on to say, "for [So here is the reason - "for"] the LORD your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him into your hand, as it is this day." So it is clear that God ensured that the door would be closed by hardening the king's heart.

And the question that some have had is, "How can both be true?" It tends to be Arminians who ask this question. These Arminians insist that it is an either/or equation. They insist that either man is free to choose and therefore God is not sovereign or God is sovereign and therefore man is not free to choose. But that is a false dichotomy. God is sovereign over everything, including the free actions of people. And some object, "But doesn't that involve God in sin?" And the answer is a clear "No."

And I love the illustration that A. W. Pink used. He contrasted a book being thrown to the ground and a book falling to the ground of its own accord. The book gets to the ground in either case, but one is by the use of the energy of my hand (slamming it down), and the other is solely by the energy of gravity (when I withdraw my hand). If gravity represents our sinful propensities, you can see how apart from God's restraining grace every man, woman, and child would always be prone to sin and attracted to sin just as this book is prone (by gravity) to fall and is attracted to the ground. When God withdraws His restraining grace from king Sihon (or, let's make this personal - when God withdraws His restraining grace from you because you have spurned His grace for so long), He is just and righteous when He condemns you. You didn't deserve the restraining grace to begin with, and God doesn't have to tempt you to sin before you fall anymore than I have to throw the book to the ground before it will fall. All I have to do is remove my hand and the book will fall. All God has to do is remove His restraining hand from a person, and that person will fall further and further into sin. And each individual desire and action can be controlled by God in this same way. Scripture is quite clear that God doesn’t tempt any person to sin. He merely withdraws the restraining grace which has been spurned in unthankfulness anyway, and the person's heart will automatically be hardened. By withdrawing the grace God determines the sin, but men do it freely of their own accord without any coercion whatsoever. This is how God can be sovereign over everything in this universe - even sin.

With this as an explanation, we can make sense of many Scriptures: Three times Scripture says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (8:15,32; 9:34). So he is responsible. Yet there are fifteen verses that say that God hardened Pharaoh's heart (cf. 4:21; 7:3,13; 9:12; 10:1,20,27; 11:10; 14:4,8). Which is correct? Both are. If God hardened his heart by withdrawing His restraining grace, God didn’t have to work upon his heart to make it hard. That would make Him the author of sin. God merely withdrew His restraining grace.

The same is true of evil wars. God moved nations to declare war and then condemned them for their wickedness in doing so - and I have a whole bunch of Scriptures in my notes that show that (cf. e.g.. Deut. 2:30; Is. 19:14; 26:12; 14:24-27; 44:21-45:23; 46:9-11; Hab. 1:6; 2 Sam. 17:14; Josh. 11:19,20; Judges 14:4; 1 Kings 12:15; Jer. 13:13-14). Wars are not an indication that things are out of control. Proverbs 21:1 affirms, “the king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, like rivers of water, He turns it wherever He wishes.” God is in control. However, if God forced them or even tempted the nations to declare war in ungodly ways He would be guilty of sin. But Scripture affirms that all God has to do is to give men up to their carnal desires and they will automatically plummet into sin of their own accord. Romans 1:24 says, "Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lust of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves." He gave them up. The mystery is not why men sin. The mystery is why men don't sin more. Unbelievers can do an amazing amount of good because God’s common grace not only restrains those unbelievers from sin, but also positively gives them graces to do good - graces that they don't deserve. We call that common grace.

But here's where it gets personal - even believers can have God’s restraining grace withdrawn from them when they become presumptuous and despise His grace. Let me give you an example. 2 Samuel 24:1 shows that God got angry with David and He moved David to number Israel. But how did He do that? He did it by removing His protection from David’s life. And the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles 21:1 tells us that Satan then became the active agent who tempted David. When God removed His hedge of protection, Satan moved in and took advantage of that. God guaranteed this sin and subsequent judgment because of David’s presumption, but He did so only by removing His protection and allowing Satan to work in David’s heart. 1 Samuel 2:25 is another example. Speaking about the sons of Eli it says, “Nevertheless they did not heed the voice of their father, because the LORD desired to kill them.” So you can see that there is nothing that God is not sovereign over.

So, what are the practical implications of this doctrine? Well, it means that we as Christians ought to hold tightly to the LORD. We are completely dependent upon Him and ought never to take His grace for granted. Never grow tired of thanking God for His mercies; never despise His goodness and treat it as a light thing. You are on dangerous ground when you are not holding tightly to the Lord.

Second, be quick to repent of sin as David did. One sin leads to another sin down a slippery slope. God exalts the humble and abases the proud; He gives grace to the humble. He says, "A broken and a contrite heart - these, O God, You will not despise" (Ps. 51:17). So, if you have fallen into sin because God withdrew His grace, be quick to repent and run back to that grace.

Third, realize that when evil comes against you from others, that it is not a sign that the world is falling apart. God is still sovereign. God controls absolutely everything that happens to you. He will not allow anything to happen to you that is not for your good and for the glory of His kingdom. Nothing can mess up His plans. No king Sihon or king Og can mess up God's plans. God is sovereign, and we can trust Him with even the apparent chaos that is going on around us.

Fourth, everyone is fully responsible for his own sins. You can’t get off the hook for your sins just because God is sovereign. You did the sin, and you did it freely; and you were attracted to the sin, and you aggravated your sin by rejecting God’s restraining grace. So, both believers and unbelievers are fully responsible for their sins. There is no such thing as a victim of sin. Men who are in bondage to sinful patterns have willingly placed themselves in bondage.

Fifth, have confidence that God can help you to overcome any sin that you have gotten yourself into; and to get out of any sinful bondage. God can control everything and yet preserve and guarantee freedom. This is what gives us confidence to believe His promise, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Closed doors often lead to new opportunities (v. 31)

Well, let's move on to verse 31, which shows that closed doors often lead to new opportunities. And I love this point. Verse 31 says, "And the LORD said to me, ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to possess it, that you may inherit his land.’" It is clear that the door that Sihon slammed shut opened up a gift from God - the incredibly fertile area of the TransJordan region. And we will see next week why God gave it to specific tribes.

Anyway , this illustrates how doors that have been slammed in your face may be opportunities that God is opening up for you in some other way. Let me give you a Biblical example. When Paul, Silas, and Timothy tried to preach in Asia and Bithynia, God closed those two doors and made that impossible (Acts 6:6-7). But if God had not closed those doors, they would not have gone to Europe, and it was in Europe that their ministry rocketed forward and propelled the church’s growth far beyond anyone’s expectations. While the denied opportunities in Asia and Bithynia may have seemed disappointing, the blessing that followed was the rapid expansion of the gospel across a whole new continent.

Over the course of my life I have seen enough disappointments turn into new beautiful open doors of opportunity that I have learned to trust the Lord and His providences when things don't go the way I had wanted them to go. God is sovereign, and we can take comfort in that.

Note that Sihon was the agressor (v. 32)

But in terms of the justification for the cherem warfare, I want you to notice in verse 32 that Sihon was clearly the aggressor. "Then Sihon and all his people came out against us to fight at Jahaz." It was Sihon who declared war, not Israel. And when they identified with the Canaanites and fought against Israel, their land became forfeit.

The battle belongs to the Lord (v. 33)

Next, verse 33 says, "And the LORD our God delivered him over to us; so we defeated him, his sons, and all his people." God delivered them into their hands because it was God's will that this kingdom be devoted to genocide. And we shouldn’t apologize for that. The country was so evil that their cup of iniquity was full. And you look at some of their practices, and you will be amazed at how gross they were. And by the way, centuries earlier this was anticipated to eventually happen. God told Abraham that eventually He would give Abraham's descendants the land of Canaan, but he said it would take four generations before that would happen, and his reason was, "because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." God had given these Amorites plenty of time to repent, but they just kept getting increasingly more wicked. Without God's intervention of either salvation or judgment, this world would become so evil it would be very hard to live in it. Both grace and judgments benefit the world. They really do. And though judgments still happen in the New Covenant age, one of the thrilling things about the times we live in is that God's overall purpose is to keep reversing the curse. The cross did not institute a repeat of history. It instituted the reversal of history.

God's sovereignty and the cherem principle (vv. 34-36)

Anyway, let's dig into the conquest in verses 34-36 and apply it to the Great Commission.

This total conquest was a symbol of Christ's total conquest (v. 34)

Verse 34 says, "We took all his cities at that time, and we utterly destroyed the men, women, and little ones of every city; we left none remaining." This total conquest was a symbol of Christ's total conquest of the world with the Gospel. Christ's conquest isn't just a theoretical conquest (as full preterists make it out to be). Full Preterists claim that by AD 70 Christ conquered every enemy, put all of creation under His feet, destroyed the last enemy death, and turned the kingdom back to the Father. Wow! AD 30-70 sure was a short Mediatorial reign on their theory! It sure seems like a short 1000 years on their theory! And yes, they do claim that the millennium was from AD 30 to AD 70. And you scratch your head and think, "What???!" That is a bizzarre concept of conquering all enemies. It's mostly theoretical. In contrast, this prophetic foreshadowing is more than theoretical. It was an actual total conquest. Not one enemy was left. Were there enemies left on the Full Preterist theory? Yes, there were.

The eschatological system known as Amillennialism is a bit better. It sees a progress of all the elect (those are the only enemies in view - all the elect) being brought under Christ's feet over the course of history, and it sees a separation between the sheep and the goats on the last day, and it sees a final resurrection spelling Christ's conquest of the last enemy, death. So that fits this symbolism much better. Its still not good enough, but at least it makes some sense of the typology.

Premillennialsm is even better than that, in that in the future they see Christ coming back and establishing a 1000 year period of peace where all of creation will be literally placed under Christ's feet, and for most of the millennium, there won’t be any enemies. But they still will see a massive apostasy toward the end of the millenium and a huge army of unbelievers at the end of history. So it is still not an adequate fulfillment of this prophetic picture.

Postmillennialism fits this symbolism the best because it sees a progressive Christianization of the world until no enemies exist on planet earth. Now, granted, there are various levels of optimism among Postmillennialists. But I happen to be one who thinks that eventually every single human living on planet earth will be a professing believer, if not a real believer. In fact, Christ's grace will penetrate every facet of life so thoroughly that mankind will be living out the blueprints of Scripture for science, art, manufacturing, and every other area of life. In fact, so thorough will Christ's conquest be that 1 Corinthians 15 assures us that no enemies will be left to conquer on planet earth other than death. That's a pretty pervasive conquest of enemies. People will live much longer, but they will still die, so death is not conquered during the millennium. It is only conquered on the final day of history when Jesus will conquer death through the resurrection. But just as it took several years for Joshua to lead his people in conquering all of Canaan, it will take a long time for Jesus (the second Joshua) to lead His church in applying God's grace and law to all of life. But what a perfect symbol! Verse 34 says, "we left none remaining." And there is coming a time in history when there will be no enemies of Christ remaining. That's consistent Postmillennialism. But I think we still need to respect Premils and Amils who disagree on this area of eschatology. It’s a difficult subject.

This total inheritance was a symbol of Christ's people inheriting the earth (v. 35; cf. Psa. 25:13; 37:9,11,22; Matt. 5:5; etc.)

But moving on - notice in this passage that it was not just a total conquest; it was also a total inheritance. The inheritance is also important. This part of the symbolism is missed by the other eschatologies too. I believe that their total inheritance in verse 35 was a symbol of Christ's people inheriting the earth and all that is in it. It says, "We took only the livestock as plunder for ourselves, with the spoil of the cities which we took." In terms of prophetic symbols, Psalm 37 applies this picture to the time of Christ (in other words, our age), by saying this:

For evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the LORD, they shall inherit the earth. 10 For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; indeed, you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more. 11 But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. 12 The wicked plots against the just, and gnashes at him with his teeth. 13 The Lord laughs at him, for He sees that his day is coming... 18 The LORD knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. 19 They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. 20 But the wicked shall perish; and the enemies of the LORD, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away. 21 The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives. 22 For those blessed by Him shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by Him shall be cut off.

And of course Jesus quoted that Psalm when He says, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." The symbolism of this cherem warfare's total conquest and total inheritance prophesies Christ's total conquest and total inheritance in history; not just in theory, but in reality; not beginning in the future, but beginning in the first century; not partial victory, but total victory. It is a vision on which our faith can cause us to expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God.

Heshbon's lack of power to resist is a symbol of the invincible advance of Christ's kingdom (v. 36)

Moving on to verse 36. This verse shows that Heshbon with all of its power was still powerless to resist the advance of Israel's armies. And it wasn't because Israel was so strong. It was because God was with them. Heshbon was a country filled with very powerful giants, ruled by one of the last of another tribe of giants. Neither Og nor Sihon were Amorites; they were Rephaim. But verse 36 says,

From Aroer, which is on the bank of the River Arnon, and from the city that is in the ravine, as far as Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us; the LORD our God delivered all to us.

Notice especially that last phrase - "the LORD our God delivered all to us." And in terms of symbolism, this foreshadows that even the strongest giants of the Gospel Age will be powerless to stop the advance of Christ's kingdom. Isaiah 9:7 prophesies of Jesus,

Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

What an awesome guarantee!! The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

God's boundaries being honored (v. 37)

But verse 37 ends this chapter by saying that Israel honored the boundaries that God had given to them. It says,

Only you did not go near the land of the people of Ammon—anywhere along the River Jabbok, or to the cities of the mountains, or wherever the LORD our God had forbidden us.

We have power when we walk closely to the Lord. We lack that power when we start straying from the Lord's commands. And I would encourage you to be faithful in following all of God's laws. Some of you might be tempted to ignore a command in Scripture because it is ignored by others in the church, or because you don't see the relevance of the command, or because it just doesn't seem like a priority to you. Well, God is not pleased when you disobey even the smallest of God's commands. In Luke 4, Satan tempted Jesus to command the stones to become bread, and thus to act independently of the Father in a tiny little area of life. After all, Jesus hadn't eaten for forty days and was hungry. But Jesus replied, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God’” (Luke 4:4). Let's make that our commitment as well - to embrace and live out every word of the Bible.

Lessons for today

Let me end by briefly reminding you of four lessons taught by the passage as a whole.

Seek peace first

First, seek peace. This passage illustrates that we are called to pursue peace even when we have the power to do otherwise. In Matthew 5:9 Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." Obviously we can't be for peace when God calls us to war (or when the world wars against us), but our first impulse as sons of God should be to be peacemakers, not trouble makers. Some people thrive on controversy and beating others up. That's not a good impulse. Our first desire should be to seek peace - to offer peace. Of course, it is peace through strength, right? But we are called to be peacemakers.

Trust God with closed doors

Second, trust God with closed doors. You may be frustrated that God has closed a door to sell or buy a house, to get a certain job, to get married, to get healed, or some other closed door. Trust God with that closed door and realize that He is sovereignly allowing that closed door for your good. Sometimes a "no" is God's pathway to a far greater "yes." Even if the closed doors are due to the sins and hardened hearts of others, trust God with those closed doors. He is sovereign.

Rely on God's strength

Third, rely on God's strength. Victories in life are not won by gritting our teeth and trying harder. Yes, we need to try hard, but we need to try hard in God's strength. God told the discouraged Zechariah, "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the LORD of hosts." Every day we need to rely upon God's strength.

Obey God's boundaries

And finally, obey God's boundaries. His boundaries may be as simple as Sabbath observance, and you might think, "But I don't have time to keep Sunday as a Sabbath; I have was too much work to do!" Trust and obey God on everything, and you will see God more than compensating you on your sacrifices. Don't cut corners. Obey God's boundaries. And may the Lord pour out His rich blessings in your lives as you do so. Amen.