Like it or not, our conversion brings conflicts into life. We find ourselves battling with the world, the flesh or our carnal nature and the devil. This is illustrated by the conflicts that Joshua and Israel had in Canaan, their promised land. Immediately on entering Canaan, the first battle they had was with Jericho which is a type of the world. Jericho was a formidable and well-fortified city. But with an unusual strategy given by God, they defeated the city and the wall came tumbling down. Similarly, if we trust God and His word, we have the wherewithal to ably deal with worldly values. The next battle they had was with a small but pesky city, known as Ai. This city is a type of the flesh. They were defeated by it in their first attempt to capture it. They failed because they were over-confident and had underestimated Ai. There was an issue of a hidden greed that was in the camp. The guy, Achan serves as an illustration of fleshy greed that needed to be dealt with in our life if we are to experience victory in our battle. It was only after they dealt with and removed Achan that they overcame the city. It underscores for us the necessity to deal with our flesh, our carnal nature if we are to experience a victorious walk with God.
In Joshua 9, we come to the third foe that Israel had to fight. It is the Gibeonites. They represent the devil and his cohorts of demons. These enemies are probably the hardest to contend with in our spiritual journey. They are full of trickeries and deception. The history of the fall of mankind tells us that deception was the very method that Satan deployed to trap and cause Eve to fall. The Bible tells us that Eve was beguiled and she succumbed and took the bait dangled before her by Satan, using the serpent. Here in Joshua 9, we are introduced to the deception of the Gibeonites. They knew that it was not easy to defeat Israel because they had the backing of God. And the only way for them to penetrate the camp of Israel and get them was to resort to deception.
Israel was already warned by Moses not to enter into an alliance with any of the forces when they came into the promised land. So, verse 4 reveals that the Gibeonites acted craftily in order to penetrate the camp of Israel. What did they do? The made Israel compromise with them. The moment Joshua and the Israelites entered into a treaty with them, they were bound and trapped by the treaty and had to live with the Gibeonites.
The first strategy the Gibeonites used was deception. Verses 4-6 tell us that they “…acted craftily and set out as envoys, and took worn-out sacks on their donkeys, and wineskins worn-out and torn and mended, and worn-out and patched sandals on their feet and worn-out clothes on themselves; and all the bread of their provision was dry and had become crumbled.” They went to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, “We have come from a far country; now, therefore, make a covenant with us.” Verse 4 shows us that they resorted to deceitful wiles; verses 4-5 show us that they resorted to deceitful wares; and verses 6,9, 11-13, reveal that they resorted to deceitful words. The combination of all these three was used to ensnare the people of Israel. These are the devil’s strategies to lure us into complacency, confuse us by twisting the instruction of God and bait us into compromising with the Word of God.
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