ISRAEL'S & OUR ENEMIES (Part 9) The spirit of the Jebusites

The spirit of the Jebusites

The word Jebusite means: Condemnation; accusation and intimidation.

The Jebusites were the last enemy subdued before Israel got peace and their stronghold was in Jerusalem There is always a constant battle to establish peace in the heart of a believer.

The root word is found in Isaiah (14:19), and it means to tread down with the feet, to pollute and defile and the Lord used it to describe Satan or Lucifer. The word ‘underfoot’ is the root word where we get the name Jebusite.

This spirit carries to us condemnation, accusation, intimidation, it treads down, it pollutes and it defiles the holy ones of God. Those who have been called, sanctified and made clean by the regenerating work and the sanctifying work of the word of God.

In type, Jerusalem is called ‘the holy city which Yahweh has chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to give his name a home there’.  (1 K. 14:21).  Jerusalem is called the city of the king and in the Psalms David often refers to it as Zion.

When Abraham returned from defeating the five kings, Melchizedek who was the King of peace, the priest of God and the king of righteousness, came out to minister unto Abraham and they had communion. There he sustained and encouraged him after the time of battle, to comfort and strengthen and refresh him.

In the book of Judges we know that something tragic had happened to Salem and a terrible change had taken place. No longer was it called Salem the city of peace, but it now bore the name ‘Jebus’. The name had been altered.

 ‘But the man would not stay there; he got up and set off and came within sight of Jebus¾that is Jerusalem’. (Jud 19: 10).

 

In the day of Joshua we find a man by the name of Adoni-Zedek, whose name means: justice of the Lord or the Lord of righteousness and he is ruling in what was Jerusalem but which was now Jebus. This man was a counterfeit of Melchizedek; he was a child of the devil, because he was a Jebusite. So here you have a man setting himself up as the Lord and no longer is that place called Salem the city of peace and no longer is there a person who is like as unto the Son of God ruling in that place. Now there is this Jebusite there who calls himself Adoni or Lord and he is reigning in that place and making himself lord over the dwelling place of God. He sets himself up as a self-righteous lord, but all the time he is treading down, he is polluting and he is defiling the holy place that had been chosen by God to give his name a home.

 

Zion, the Heavenly city is a type of our bodies, which are the temples of the living God. ‘Your body, you know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you since you received him from God. You are not your own property; you have been bought and paid for. That is why you should use your body for the glory of God’. (1 Cor 6:19-20). So now, our bodies, individually and collectively are the Zion of God. Now we are the living stones making a spiritual house where God lives by his Holy Spirit.

This is the spirit that attacks our bodies. This spirit of the Jebusite is the one that tries to destroy the temple of God. It is this spirit that wants to lord and to rule it over our bodies with infirmity; with sickness and disease; with habits and addictions so that we cannot glorify God in our bodies, which are the temples of the Holy Spirit.

How does this spirit begin to work?

It is this spirit that tries to cast down our bodies with sickness and disease. It is this spirit that tries to find strongholds in our carnal bodily appetites and desires. Once we let this ruling spirit in through our bodily appetites and desires, then that appetite will become, the lord over one’s life. Whether it is alcohol or tobacco, whether it is drugs or gambling, whether it is gluttony or immorality that rules over that person. This enemy will come into that fleshly appetite and take over control. And by doing so, begins to rule and to reign in Zion; begins to rule and to reign as lord over the temple of the Holy Spirit which is our bodies. If you take a simple example from television. You switch it on and you watch an episode of one of the ‘soaps’. It’s presented in such a way that you are ‘encouraged’ or ‘stimulated’ to watch the next episode to find out what happens next, and before you realise it, you are hooked. That’s how people become addicted, it only takes a cigarette or two and before you know it, you no longer have cigarettes but they have you.

How subtle this enemy is and here is what it does. In the same way it tempted Eve, it always presents the temptation as something good. We know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and this enemy will ‘sift you out’, to come into your body so that it can become the Adoni-zedek over your life.

That’s why Peter warned us, ‘to keep yourselves free from selfish passions that attack the soul’. If this enemy can get control of our bodies, then that in turn will affect our soul. Because once we lose our peace of mind and our peace of heart, then that is ruling and weakening our spirit.

Because’ Grief of heart wounds the spirit’ or as another translation puts it ‘where the heart is sad the spirit is broken’. (Pro 15:13).

If the enemy can get in and rule over our bodily appetites, then it will affect our soul by causing us to grieve over things. It will cause us to grieve over our weaknesses whenever we try to stop or give up the things that are controlling us. And when we say that we will never do that again and we fail, then our grieving will rob our spirits of strength. There are many people who have made decisions to live good clean and holy lives but their bodies are bound by habits and addictions and then this spirit will cause them to feel condemned, to live under guilt, to feel remorse, to live under self pity and to rob them of that true peace of God that the Lord wants us all to have.

 

If you are grieving over your weaknesses, which is what this spirit wants you to do. If you have made resolutions and commitments and you have tried and failed, you may feel condemned, unclean, polluted and defiled. I want to tell you that your standing before God does not depend on what you have or have not done. It stands in your faith of the risen Lord. This enemy will cause us to speak perverse words against ourselves. We are to judge ourselves according to what the word of God says about us, and ‘what God has made clean, we are not to call unclean’. (Acts 10:15). This enemy will impart a sense of unworthiness and restlessness upon us. Many consider themselves to be unworthy because of their faults and failings. This Jebusite spirit will cause us to say to the Father when we approach him in prayer that we are unworthy to be called his children. God does not condemn us because of our failures. God does not condemn us because of our weaknesses. The only reason that we can stand before the throne of grace is because of Jesus and what he has done for us. In ourselves we do not have any worthiness. Our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and our faith in his atonement and in his blood is the only thing that has caused us to be worthy. That’s why the table of the Lord has been provided for us. At the table we have the only sacrifice in the whole of creation, which is sufficient and effective for our salvation. The lord has provided a table for us in the sight of our enemies and when those enemies see us going back time and time again to that table, that he has provided for us, they have a fit. How do I know that?

‘When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the walls he flew into a rage, beside himself with anger. He ridiculed the Jews, and in front of his kinsmen and the wealthy men of Samaria he exclaimed, ‘what are these pathetic Jews trying to do? Do they expect to finish in one day? Do they think they can put new life into these charred stones, salvaged from the heap of rubble?’ Tobiah the Ammonite was standing beside him. ‘Let them build, even a jackal jumping on their wall, will soon knock the stones back down again’. (Neh 4: 1-3).

 

The name Sanballat means ‘fallen branch’ that speaks of Satan and his mate Tobiah means ‘god is good’, but in a mocking and accusing way. When we go back to the table of the Lord, we are rebuilding the walls around our spirit; we are rebuilding the temple of the Holy Spirit; we may hear the voice of the enemy casting us down with words of ridicule¾ ‘ I know what you’re like; You’re feeble, you’ll never be any good, you’ll never  change, you’ll never make it, you’ll not be forgiven this time, and you’ve blown it now’.  But the truth is, Jesus says ‘Come unto me all you who are weighed down by the attacks of this enemy and I will give you forgiveness for your sins, healing for your bodies, peace for your minds and rest for your souls’. There is healing at the table of the Lord, and the Lord provided it for us because he knew we would be weak, but at his table he provides food for the journey and he strengthens us.

This spirit of the Jebusite was responsible for David numbering the people wrongly. It brought great destruction and death and when David saw the angel of the Lord about to put his hand towards Jerusalem to destroy it, he admitted to the Lord that he had sinned and that it wasn’t the fault of the people and the angel withdrew his hand. When numbering the people David should have taken a redemptive coin. The angel of the Lord stood beside the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, and David purchased the threshing floor from the Jebusite and built an altar to the Lord and it was on this spot that Solomon built the Temple. For the first time since entering the Promised Land Israel now had peace.

 

We know from the scriptures that Satan is the one who accuses us day and night before the throne of God, and that is the nature of this spirit of the Jebusite, it is a constant battle. Paul tells us ‘not to grieve the Holy Spirit’, and if the Holy Spirit can be grieved then our spirits can also be grieved and when this enemy attacks, it goes first for our bodies through our appetites. Then it goes for our souls through our emotions until we become like a city without walls where our spirits can be exposed to grief through the accusations of this accusing, condemning, intimidating, polluting and defiling spirit, so that it can be lord where Jesus should be Lord.

 ‘Bow down then, before the power of God now, and he will raise you up on the appointed day; unload all your worries unto him, since he is looking after you. Be calm but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat. Stand up to him strong in faith and in the knowledge that your brothers all over the world are suffering the same things. You will only have to suffer for a little while: the God of all grace¾will confirm strengthen and support you. His power lasts forever and ever Amen. (1 P 5: 6-11)