The Rage of the Doomed
Introduction: The Unavoidable Offense
The gospel is not a peace treaty with the world; it is a declaration of war. When the kingdom of God advances, it does not do so quietly or apologetically. It advances with the sound of trumpets, with the collapse of impenetrable walls, and with the righteous judgment of a holy God. And the world, when confronted with this advance, does not simply shrug and go about its business. The kingdom of darkness is never neutral. When the light shines, the darkness does not merely recede; it reacts, it rages, and it rallies.
We see this principle laid bare in the conquest of Canaan. Israel was not engaged in a simple land dispute. This was a collision of two antithetical kingdoms, two opposing faiths, two futures. On one side was the covenant people of God, led by Joshua, bearing the promises of Yahweh. On the other was a collection of pagan tribes, steeped in idolatry, child sacrifice, and every form of sexual perversion, whose cup of iniquity was now full to the brim. God had been patient for centuries, but the time for judgment had come.
The news of Israel's victories at Jericho and Ai was not just a military report. It was a theological earthquake. The report that went out was that the God of the Hebrews was not some petty, local deity. He was the God who controlled rivers, flattened cities, and laid bare the secrets of men's hearts. This kind of power, this kind of exclusive claim to sovereignty, cannot be ignored. It demands a response. And in our text, we see the world's first, most predictable, and most futile response: a panicked, godless ecumenism. The world's religions and philosophies will tolerate one another quite happily, right up until the moment the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ are brought to the table. Then, and only then, do they discover their profound unity.
The Text
Now it happened when all the kings who were beyond the Jordan, in the hill country and in the Shephelah and on all the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, heard of it, that they gathered themselves together with one accord to fight with Joshua and with Israel.
(Joshua 9:1-2 LSB)
The Demonic Report (v. 1)
We begin with the catalyst for this unholy alliance.
"Now it happened when all the kings who were beyond the Jordan, in the hill country and in the Shephelah and on all the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, heard of it..." (Joshua 9:1)
Notice first the scope of the reaction. This is not a local squabble. The report of God's mighty acts has spread throughout the entire land. From the central mountains ("the hill country") to the rolling foothills ("the Shephelah") to the shores of the Mediterranean ("the coast of the Great Sea"), the news has traveled. God did not perform His miracles in a corner. The testimony was public, it was clear, and it was terrifying.
And what did they hear? They heard that the Jordan River had been stopped in its tracks. They heard that the massive, impregnable walls of Jericho had fallen down flat without a single battering ram touching them. They heard that the city of Ai, after an initial hiccup caused by Israel's own sin, had been utterly devoted to destruction. They heard that the God of Israel was a God who keeps His promises and judges sin with terrifying holiness. They had all the evidence they needed to fall on their faces and beg for mercy, as Rahab had done. The evidence was not the problem. The problem was the rebellious disposition of their hearts.
This is always the case with unbelief. Unbelief is not an intellectual problem; it is a moral one. The world is not lacking for evidence of God's existence and power. Creation itself screams His name (Romans 1:20). Their own consciences bear witness to His law. But they suppress this truth in unrighteousness. These Canaanite kings were not atheists; they were rebels. They knew there was a powerful spiritual being behind Israel, but their response was not submission, but rather a doubling down on their defiance.
And look at the list of these kings. Hittite, Amorite, Canaanite, and so on. These were not natural allies. These were petty tribes who had spent centuries fighting one another for land, for water, for preeminence. But the advance of God's kingdom has a remarkable way of clarifying things. It forges a false unity among God's enemies. They may hate each other, but they discover that they hate God more. This is the principle of Herod and Pilate, who were enemies, but became friends on the day they united to crucify the Lord of glory (Luke 23:12).
The Unity of Rebels (v. 2)
The reaction to the report is immediate and unanimous.
"...that they gathered themselves together with one accord to fight with Joshua and with Israel." (Joshua 9:2)
They gathered "with one accord." The Hebrew is literally "with one mouth." They found their common voice, their demonic harmony, in their opposition to God's people. This is the counterfeit unity of Babylon, a unity built on rebellion, fear, and a shared hatred of the light. It stands in stark contrast to the true unity of the Spirit, which is built on a shared love for the truth, for the Word, and for Christ Himself.
Whenever the church is faithful, this is the reaction we should expect. If the church is preaching a gospel that the world finds palatable, inoffensive, and reasonable, it is not the gospel of the apostles. The true gospel is an offense. It tells the world that its wisdom is foolishness, its righteousness is filthy rags, and its kings are illegitimate usurpers of the throne that belongs to Christ alone. When that message is proclaimed clearly, the kings of the earth will set themselves, and the rulers will take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed (Psalm 2:2).
Their target is explicit: "to fight with Joshua and with Israel." They understood that to fight Israel was to fight Israel's God. And they understood that Joshua was God's appointed leader. Joshua, whose name is Yeshua, is a type of our Lord Jesus. He is the captain of the Lord's host, leading God's people into their inheritance. This battle, then, is a preview of the great spiritual war of the ages. It is the seed of the serpent gathering to make war against the seed of the woman.
But what is this gathering but the height of folly? What is this grand alliance but a suicide pact? The Psalmist goes on to say, "He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision" (Psalm 2:4). These kings are plotting their grand strategy, sharpening their swords, and arranging their chariots, all the while being completely oblivious to the fact that their doom has already been written. They are raging against the very one who holds their next breath in His hand. Their united front is nothing more than a gathering of cornstalks for the thresher.
Conclusion: Two Responses to the King
This chapter sets up a crucial contrast. In these first two verses, we see the world's default response to the victorious King: form a committee, build an alliance, and fight. It is the response of proud, unrepentant rebellion. It is the way of Cain, of Pharaoh, of the Pharisees, and of every secularist regime that has ever set itself against the church of Jesus Christ.
But immediately following this, we will see another response. The Gibeonites hear the exact same reports. They have the same data. They know about the Jordan, and Jericho, and Ai. But their response is entirely different. They don't gather an army; they devise a ruse. They don't prepare for war; they prepare to beg for a covenant. Their methods are crafty, deceptive, and born of sheer terror, but their fundamental motivation is correct: they know they cannot win a fight against the God of Israel, and so their only hope is to find a way into His mercy.
These are the only two options available to mankind when confronted with the claims of King Jesus. You can either join the doomed confederacy of rebels, puffing out your chest and declaring that you will not have this man rule over you. You can stand with the kings of Canaan, with the rulers in Psalm 2, and with the mobs that cried "Crucify Him!" That is one path. It is a path that feels powerful for a moment, but it ends in the winepress of the wrath of God.
Or, you can recognize your own desperate situation. You can see the walls of your own sin-city of Jericho for what they are: doomed to fall. You can acknowledge that you are a Canaanite, under a righteous sentence of destruction. And you can throw yourself, by whatever means necessary, on the mercy of the conquering King. You can come, like the Gibeonites, with the worn-out clothes and moldy bread of your own pathetic righteousness, and plead for a covenant of grace that you in no way deserve.
The kings of the world gathered with one mouth to defy Joshua. Let us, as the church, gather with one mouth to praise the greater Joshua, our Lord Jesus. For He has already fought the decisive battle, He has conquered sin and death, and He is leading us into an inheritance that can never be shaken. The rage of the doomed is loud, but the laughter of heaven is louder.