The enemy that faces Israel in chapter nine of Joshua is a subtle foe, a wily adversary, a cunning and crafty power, and unless we look well to distinguish this opponent we too may fall prey to this trickery. For the picture given to us here shows how the people of God have been tricked into defeat, for God commanded Israel to make no league or pact or treaty with their enemies but to utterly and ruthlessly destroy them all till the inheritance should be theirs. It is when we get two or three victories under our belt, as we say, that we begin to see that when God fights for us we shall not be overcome in battle, and in this confident knowledge we may then become careless, and forget that we may ne overcome by subtler means. Indeed, were it not for this chapter nine of Joshua, such a thing would never enter our minds as a remote possibility, so let us be warned in advance, and consider this chapter most carefully.
The story is simple enough. The men of Gibeon, knowing that their overthrow is a certainty, come to the children of Israel as though from a far country to make a league or treaty with them. Such things were common in those days, weaker nations depending for their survival on the leagues they could make with stronger nations. The trickery is that the men of Gibeon appeared to have journeyed from another land entirely, from a place some great distance away, and they produced the most convincing evidence to support their case, so that the people of God were completely taken in by their story and entered into a covenant with them not to fight against them. God is not deceived, but they did not ask God, and as we shall see Joshua is not deceived but he allows the thing to be so, and by a simple trick the people of God have lost another battle.
Now the men of Gibeon are Hivites. “And it came to pass, when all the kings which were on this side Jordan, in the hills, and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof:”—that is, heard of the victories of the children of Israel—“that they gathered themselves together, to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord.” There is no mention here of the Girgashites. The Girgashites are things in ourselves which fight against us, and literally speaking all of these six nations can be seen to be things in ourselves which either singly or in combination will fight against us. As we saw in Deuteronomy, the Hittite represents our life patterns, the Amorite our desires for peace and love in our lives, the Canaanite our spiritual pride, the Perizzite our natural way of thinking, the Hivite our inherent fears and inhibitions, and the Jebusite our wish to quit, our inability to keep on. When these come together with one accord to fight against us they could be put under one heading, “Girgashites,” things in ourselves which are opposed to our conquest of the inheritance. Now our objective ahead of us is clearly Gibeon, the territory of the Hivite, if we are to make any further progress, for our aim is to eventually overcome and destroy all the things within ourselves which are opposed to Jesus and to us as we seek to claim the inheritance. But our own hearts are deceitful, above all things, and dreadfully wicked, and if we trust them we can be tricked into defeat. We dare not trust our own hearts, we must put all our trust in God alone as we follow Jesus our Lord. We will find that our hearts are false, wicked, deceptive creatures that seek our downfall by deceiving us—who can know them indeed?
So we may not assume that we know our own hearts! Only God knoweth the heart, only God is not deceived. The enemy we are called upon to face now is the Hivite, our own heart, with all its deceitfulness. A day will come when we too shall know even as also we are known, but meanwhile we are up against latent fears, inhibitions, and inherent weaknesses in us known only to God. Yet we have just overcome the Amorites at Ai, and we look into our hearts and see no fears there, no apparent weaknesses that we can detect, therefore we are filled with confidence, not realizing that we may deceive ourselves thus. Inside us, hidden from our gaze, are age-old fears that go back to times of superstition, inhibitions that go back to childhood days beyond memory, and inherent weaknesses we never even suspected ourselves of possessing. (Now Jesus can make us whole every whit if we follow Him closely enough, He can save to the uttermost all who rely only on Him.) We look into our hearts and we see no fears there at all, and if we suspect that our hearts deceive us, the fears and inhibitions and weaknesses will appear to us old, as though they were from a land far away. These are the Hivites. They do not seem to us to bear any relevance to our present conquest of the inheritance. “How could that old superstition inherited from a great grandfather be my enemy today?” we think scornfully. “That childhood inhibition is something from my distant past,” we say, “and it is now irrelevant.” “That old fear couldn’t harm me now,” say we, “and that old weakness looks as though it were about to die of old age alone.” Thus the Hivites of Gibeon, disguised as if from a distant land, deceive the children of Israel.
How many of us are as great as Peter? Are we too on the house-top above the cares of this life, absorbed in prayer and meditation and leaving to others the preparation of our daily bread while hunger gnaws our vitals? How splendid an example that great apostle showed us of daily living! Are we greater than he? It was then that God in a vision let down before Peter a great sheet full of all manner of creeping things and commanded him, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” And what did Peter reply? “Not so, Lord.” Not so, Lord, I will not do as you command me! Why? Because of an inhibition he did not know was opposed to God, a tradition he had had since childhood, a Hivite still there from way back. Most of us in Peter’s place would have assumed we were being tempted by Satan, for we have never learned God as the great apostle knew Him, but we must see that we too can be held back from the inheritance by an old fear, an old tradition in our lives, an old inhibition. Now Peter overcame the Hivite as scripture tells us, and the result was the bringing in of the Gentiles, for Peter was the great apostle, the Lord’s right-hand man, God’s greatest agent, but if Peter could be held up by the Hivite for even one hour think how careful we must be in our dealings with this enemy. Do not be deceived by the fact that the Hivite’s things look so old, or that the Hivite seems to come from some land far away. The Hivite is one of our most relevant foes, the Hivite is with us in the land, the Hivite is very loath to be destroyed, and the Hivite is a liar, a deceiver, a cunning and wily opponent of all those who seek to gain the full inheritance of God.
“And the men of Israel took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord; and Joshua made peace with them, to let them live: and the princes of the congregation sware unto them.” Let us see this very very clearly and distinctly, beloved. If we are prepared to partake of their musty victuals Jesus will let them live. In any situation in which we are not sure how to act we are meant to turn to God, to ask counsel at the mouth of the Lord, and if we fail to do that we deceive ourselves. It is little use to find out afterwards, and too late, what we have done to bring on our own downfall—we must remember that the heart is deceitful above all things and dreadfully wicked, stubbornly opposed to God, to Jesus, and to us. Yes, our heart! Not the heart of our neighbor, but our heart! If we refuse God’s counsel, and partake still of the hoary old victuals presented to us by the Hivites, the result is our own defeat. If Peter had clung to the traditions of his own upbringing the Gentiles might not have been lost, but Peter would have lost his opportunity to lead them in, and Peter would have been defeated. But we are free men, people of free will, and if we partake of these victuals of the Hivites Jesus will not destroy them. He will let the Hivites live, He will let them alone, He will allow them to dwell peacefully with us. God does not take a sword and rid the inheritance for us, nor does Jesus go before us and destroy all our enemies. No, no! We must fight every battle ourselves but under His leadership, and then with Paul we can say “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Lord will deliver us, He is the Overcomer, but we as led by Him must fight every enemy to gain the inheritance.
Remember that everything is combined to oppose us. The forces we see individually as the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite are gathered together, to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord. We must keep our eyes fixed on our Leader, we must ask counsel of God. All our help must come from the Lord alone. If we partake of the things of the Hivites and enter into a league with them Jesus will let them live with us for the rest of our lives. They are cursed of God, but the most that our Lord will do is to make them our servants instead of allowing them to overcome us. Joshua makes them hewers of wood and drawers of water to serve even at the altar. If we believe them dead, let us check every detail of our next communion service when we attend church. Is that in the Bible? Or that? Or that? Certainly not, these are Hivites, traditions that appear to us ancient, still alive in Israel. Jesus has allowed them to live, He has allowed them to serve ever for the altar of the Lord, “even unto this day,” because we refused to destroy them, because we found them acceptable, because we are still deceived by them, not realizing they spring from the human heart and were not given to us by God at all. Only know this, O Israel, that at Gibeon we suffered a defeat of catastrophic dimensions. Why was the body of our Lord Jesus Christ not given proper burial? Because of the Sabbath, so we read. Rather than break the Sabbath tradition the body of Jesus must be hastily disposed of in a cave! And today? Rather than break with tradition His death is remembered in haste to this day. Why? Because the Hivite serves “even unto this day” at the altar of the Lord.
Think of the crucifixion of Christ for a moment. Why did the Jews not put Him to death? Because it was not customary. Why did Pilate not release Him when he found Christ innocent? Because of his hidden fears of offending Caesar. Why did the Roman soldiers choose to mock Him? Because of their own superstitions. Why was He first scourged? Because that was the custom. Why did His disciples flee from Him? Because of their inherent weakness. Why did Peter deny Him? Because of his own fear. Why was Christ nailed hand and foot to the Cross? Because they had a nameless fear that He could release Himself. Why did the soldiers offer Him vinegar to drink? Because it was part of the ritual of crucifixion. Why were they surprised to find Him dead so soon? Because that was a new thing to them. And why were the bodies taken down from their Crosses that evening? Because of the Sabbath. Yet none of these are logical reasons. The Jews hated Him; they should logically have killed Him. Pilate found Him innocent; he should logically have released Him. The Roman soldiers had no reason to mock Him, still less to scourge Him, as they were about to crucify Him. They did not mock or scourge the two thieves. Peter and the disciples had committed themselves to die with Jesus if He were taken, yet they fled. Christ offered no defense and no resistance, yet they had to nail His hands and His feet to be sure of binding Him to the Cross. We see it is clearly the work of the Hivites, yet it was Joshua who caused the Hivites to hew the wood, and draw the water, and serve the altar of Calvary, “in the place which he should choose.” What a Saviour!
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
Joshua Chapter 9
December 16, 2010 — RonThe enemy that faces Israel in chapter nine of Joshua is a subtle foe, a wily adversary, a cunning and crafty power, and unless we look well to distinguish this opponent we too may fall prey to this trickery. For the picture given to us here shows how the people of God have been tricked into defeat, for God commanded Israel to make no league or pact or treaty with their enemies but to utterly and ruthlessly destroy them all till the inheritance should be theirs. It is when we get two or three victories under our belt, as we say, that we begin to see that when God fights for us we shall not be overcome in battle, and in this confident knowledge we may then become careless, and forget that we may ne overcome by subtler means. Indeed, were it not for this chapter nine of Joshua, such a thing would never enter our minds as a remote possibility, so let us be warned in advance, and consider this chapter most carefully.
The story is simple enough. The men of Gibeon, knowing that their overthrow is a certainty, come to the children of Israel as though from a far country to make a league or treaty with them. Such things were common in those days, weaker nations depending for their survival on the leagues they could make with stronger nations. The trickery is that the men of Gibeon appeared to have journeyed from another land entirely, from a place some great distance away, and they produced the most convincing evidence to support their case, so that the people of God were completely taken in by their story and entered into a covenant with them not to fight against them. God is not deceived, but they did not ask God, and as we shall see Joshua is not deceived but he allows the thing to be so, and by a simple trick the people of God have lost another battle.
Now the men of Gibeon are Hivites. “And it came to pass, when all the kings which were on this side Jordan, in the hills, and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof:”—that is, heard of the victories of the children of Israel—“that they gathered themselves together, to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord.” There is no mention here of the Girgashites. The Girgashites are things in ourselves which fight against us, and literally speaking all of these six nations can be seen to be things in ourselves which either singly or in combination will fight against us. As we saw in Deuteronomy, the Hittite represents our life patterns, the Amorite our desires for peace and love in our lives, the Canaanite our spiritual pride, the Perizzite our natural way of thinking, the Hivite our inherent fears and inhibitions, and the Jebusite our wish to quit, our inability to keep on. When these come together with one accord to fight against us they could be put under one heading, “Girgashites,” things in ourselves which are opposed to our conquest of the inheritance. Now our objective ahead of us is clearly Gibeon, the territory of the Hivite, if we are to make any further progress, for our aim is to eventually overcome and destroy all the things within ourselves which are opposed to Jesus and to us as we seek to claim the inheritance. But our own hearts are deceitful, above all things, and dreadfully wicked, and if we trust them we can be tricked into defeat. We dare not trust our own hearts, we must put all our trust in God alone as we follow Jesus our Lord. We will find that our hearts are false, wicked, deceptive creatures that seek our downfall by deceiving us—who can know them indeed?
So we may not assume that we know our own hearts! Only God knoweth the heart, only God is not deceived. The enemy we are called upon to face now is the Hivite, our own heart, with all its deceitfulness. A day will come when we too shall know even as also we are known, but meanwhile we are up against latent fears, inhibitions, and inherent weaknesses in us known only to God. Yet we have just overcome the Amorites at Ai, and we look into our hearts and see no fears there, no apparent weaknesses that we can detect, therefore we are filled with confidence, not realizing that we may deceive ourselves thus. Inside us, hidden from our gaze, are age-old fears that go back to times of superstition, inhibitions that go back to childhood days beyond memory, and inherent weaknesses we never even suspected ourselves of possessing. (Now Jesus can make us whole every whit if we follow Him closely enough, He can save to the uttermost all who rely only on Him.) We look into our hearts and we see no fears there at all, and if we suspect that our hearts deceive us, the fears and inhibitions and weaknesses will appear to us old, as though they were from a land far away. These are the Hivites. They do not seem to us to bear any relevance to our present conquest of the inheritance. “How could that old superstition inherited from a great grandfather be my enemy today?” we think scornfully. “That childhood inhibition is something from my distant past,” we say, “and it is now irrelevant.” “That old fear couldn’t harm me now,” say we, “and that old weakness looks as though it were about to die of old age alone.” Thus the Hivites of Gibeon, disguised as if from a distant land, deceive the children of Israel.
How many of us are as great as Peter? Are we too on the house-top above the cares of this life, absorbed in prayer and meditation and leaving to others the preparation of our daily bread while hunger gnaws our vitals? How splendid an example that great apostle showed us of daily living! Are we greater than he? It was then that God in a vision let down before Peter a great sheet full of all manner of creeping things and commanded him, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” And what did Peter reply? “Not so, Lord.” Not so, Lord, I will not do as you command me! Why? Because of an inhibition he did not know was opposed to God, a tradition he had had since childhood, a Hivite still there from way back. Most of us in Peter’s place would have assumed we were being tempted by Satan, for we have never learned God as the great apostle knew Him, but we must see that we too can be held back from the inheritance by an old fear, an old tradition in our lives, an old inhibition. Now Peter overcame the Hivite as scripture tells us, and the result was the bringing in of the Gentiles, for Peter was the great apostle, the Lord’s right-hand man, God’s greatest agent, but if Peter could be held up by the Hivite for even one hour think how careful we must be in our dealings with this enemy. Do not be deceived by the fact that the Hivite’s things look so old, or that the Hivite seems to come from some land far away. The Hivite is one of our most relevant foes, the Hivite is with us in the land, the Hivite is very loath to be destroyed, and the Hivite is a liar, a deceiver, a cunning and wily opponent of all those who seek to gain the full inheritance of God.
“And the men of Israel took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord; and Joshua made peace with them, to let them live: and the princes of the congregation sware unto them.” Let us see this very very clearly and distinctly, beloved. If we are prepared to partake of their musty victuals Jesus will let them live. In any situation in which we are not sure how to act we are meant to turn to God, to ask counsel at the mouth of the Lord, and if we fail to do that we deceive ourselves. It is little use to find out afterwards, and too late, what we have done to bring on our own downfall—we must remember that the heart is deceitful above all things and dreadfully wicked, stubbornly opposed to God, to Jesus, and to us. Yes, our heart! Not the heart of our neighbor, but our heart! If we refuse God’s counsel, and partake still of the hoary old victuals presented to us by the Hivites, the result is our own defeat. If Peter had clung to the traditions of his own upbringing the Gentiles might not have been lost, but Peter would have lost his opportunity to lead them in, and Peter would have been defeated. But we are free men, people of free will, and if we partake of these victuals of the Hivites Jesus will not destroy them. He will let the Hivites live, He will let them alone, He will allow them to dwell peacefully with us. God does not take a sword and rid the inheritance for us, nor does Jesus go before us and destroy all our enemies. No, no! We must fight every battle ourselves but under His leadership, and then with Paul we can say “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Lord will deliver us, He is the Overcomer, but we as led by Him must fight every enemy to gain the inheritance.
Remember that everything is combined to oppose us. The forces we see individually as the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite are gathered together, to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord. We must keep our eyes fixed on our Leader, we must ask counsel of God. All our help must come from the Lord alone. If we partake of the things of the Hivites and enter into a league with them Jesus will let them live with us for the rest of our lives. They are cursed of God, but the most that our Lord will do is to make them our servants instead of allowing them to overcome us. Joshua makes them hewers of wood and drawers of water to serve even at the altar. If we believe them dead, let us check every detail of our next communion service when we attend church. Is that in the Bible? Or that? Or that? Certainly not, these are Hivites, traditions that appear to us ancient, still alive in Israel. Jesus has allowed them to live, He has allowed them to serve ever for the altar of the Lord, “even unto this day,” because we refused to destroy them, because we found them acceptable, because we are still deceived by them, not realizing they spring from the human heart and were not given to us by God at all. Only know this, O Israel, that at Gibeon we suffered a defeat of catastrophic dimensions. Why was the body of our Lord Jesus Christ not given proper burial? Because of the Sabbath, so we read. Rather than break the Sabbath tradition the body of Jesus must be hastily disposed of in a cave! And today? Rather than break with tradition His death is remembered in haste to this day. Why? Because the Hivite serves “even unto this day” at the altar of the Lord.
Think of the crucifixion of Christ for a moment. Why did the Jews not put Him to death? Because it was not customary. Why did Pilate not release Him when he found Christ innocent? Because of his hidden fears of offending Caesar. Why did the Roman soldiers choose to mock Him? Because of their own superstitions. Why was He first scourged? Because that was the custom. Why did His disciples flee from Him? Because of their inherent weakness. Why did Peter deny Him? Because of his own fear. Why was Christ nailed hand and foot to the Cross? Because they had a nameless fear that He could release Himself. Why did the soldiers offer Him vinegar to drink? Because it was part of the ritual of crucifixion. Why were they surprised to find Him dead so soon? Because that was a new thing to them. And why were the bodies taken down from their Crosses that evening? Because of the Sabbath. Yet none of these are logical reasons. The Jews hated Him; they should logically have killed Him. Pilate found Him innocent; he should logically have released Him. The Roman soldiers had no reason to mock Him, still less to scourge Him, as they were about to crucify Him. They did not mock or scourge the two thieves. Peter and the disciples had committed themselves to die with Jesus if He were taken, yet they fled. Christ offered no defense and no resistance, yet they had to nail His hands and His feet to be sure of binding Him to the Cross. We see it is clearly the work of the Hivites, yet it was Joshua who caused the Hivites to hew the wood, and draw the water, and serve the altar of Calvary, “in the place which he should choose.” What a Saviour!
Share this:
Like this: