The Spirit of the Hivites
The word Hivite ( or Gibeonite) means: Dweller in
a village or community and it is in the context of a worldly lifestyle. It also
means: delusion or delight. It is the spirit of deception.
What does this spirit bring? It brings
the complete opposite of what the word of God promises.
Jesus said ‘I have
come that they may have life and have it to the full’. (John 10:10).
This
spirit of delusion or delight brings the opposite of life; it will cause us to
participate in those things that bring spiritual death.
The Hivite spirit deals
with our association with the world
‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him
renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to
save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find
it. What then will a man gain if he wins the whole world and loses his soul?’ (Matt
16: 24-26).
In other words what Jesus is saying is
this; in this world there is something that appears to be good, it appears
pleasant to the eye, it appears attractive because it stimulates the natural
person. But to participate in that kind of life will bring spiritual death.
Every one of us has a choice to fulfil those natural desires or we can put off
or give up those things so that we can have true treasure and true life.
There is the story of how the Israelites
were deceived after the two battles at Jericho and at Ai. The Hivites, who were
living in Gibeon, sent a delegation to Joshua. They loaded donkeys with worn
out sacks and old wineskins that were cracked and repaired. The men wore old
clothes and worn out sandals. They had bread that was dried and mouldy and they
deceived Joshua and the Israelites by telling them that they had come from a
very distant country and they asked if they could make a treaty with them. ‘The
leaders did not enquire of the Lord and they made a treaty of peace with the
Hivites and ratified it by an oath’. By the time Israel found out that they
had been deceived it was too late to do anything about it and later on these
Hivites would become a destructive force and would cause Israel to suffer
defeat. (Joshua chapter 9).
You need to understand that there are two
types of wisdom. In the letter of James we are told that there is an earthly
wisdom and there is a heavenly wisdom. The world’s wisdom causes contention,
strife, and division and is devilish. Whereas the wisdom from above is pure and
it brings peace and harmony. Everything that the world calls life the
scriptures call death. What man says is wisdom God says is foolishness. (1 Cor
1:25).
When we start to make a comparison, there
is a vast difference in what the world says and in what the word says.
If you look at the prodigal son, he left his father’s
house, went to a distant country where he lived a life of debauchery and wild
living. When he came to his senses and repented, what did his father say? This
son of mine who was ‘dead’ is now ‘alive’. This spirit of delight and delusion
is influencing multitudes of people. The world says ‘get a life, get out into
the real world and live; you’re only young once get out and live it up.
We are
told that ‘the rabble’ that had joined the people when they came out of Egypt
caused all their problems. The ‘rabble’ were not satisfied with the manna. ‘Think
of the fish we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the leeks, onions and
garlic! Here we are wasting away, stripped of everything; there is nothing but
manna for us to look at’. (Nos 11:4-6).
This spirit of the Hivite
will entice us to look away from life and will try to present to us all the
‘good things’ of this world. Notice the words ‘stripped of everything’,
that’s the delusion. Remember that Egypt speaks of the world and the Lord took
them out. Jesus said that we were in the world but we didn’t belong to the
world. The world is not your friend; the world is your enemy. And that world will try to entice you, and try to bind
you, because if the world can gain an inroad into your life, you have then
touched not life but you have touched death
‘The love of the Father cannot be in any man who loves
the world, because nothing the world has to offer¾The sensual body¾the lustful eye¾pride in possessions¾
Could ever come from the Father but only from the
world; and all that the world craves for is coming to an end; but anyone who
does the will of God remains forever. (1 John 2:15-17).
God wants us to fulfil all those natural
drives in a spirit of holiness, in righteousness and in purity; because if we
try to fulfil those natural drives according to the ways of the world, then
instead of giving us satisfaction, there will be a well of loneliness within.
When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well he told her that she had had five
husbands and that the one she was living with now was not hers. Why do you
think that many people are going from partner to partner and trying to seek
their fulfilment outside the purity of Christ? Moving from one relationship to
another does not bring fulfilment; it only creates a vacuum within that never
can be fulfilled. The more people get involved with this spirit of delusion and
delight, the greater the need is, the greater the hunger, the greater the
thirst for satisfaction and they end up carrying around a fire within that
never can be quenched. Unless we deal with the Hivite spirit we will be
touching death all the time instead of life.
‘Think of what Christ suffered in this
life, and then arm yourself with the same resolution that he had: anyone who in
this life has bodily suffering has broken with sin, because for the rest of his
life on earth he is not ruled by human passions but only by the will of God. You
spent long enough in the past living the sort of life that the pagans live,
behaving indecently, giving way to your passions, drinking all the time, having
wild parties and drunken orgies and degrading yourselves by following false
gods’. (1 peter 4: 1-4).
The spirit of deception blinds us from
the truth and it will offer to us a fruit that appears enticing to the eyes, as
it offered the fruit to Eve. We are told that Satan disguises himself as an
angel of light and that’s why we need to be on our guard against what may
appear to be from the Lord, so as not to be led astray.
‘A man who hankers after ashes has a
deluded heart and is led astray. He will never free his soul, or say “what I
have in my hand is a lie”. (Is
44:20).
‘Don’t delude yourself into thinking
that God can be cheated: where a man sows, there he reaps; If he sows in the
field of self-indulgence he will get a harvest of corruption out of it; If he
sows in the field of the spirit he will get from it a harvest of eternal life’. (Gal 6: 7-9).
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