History

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The Gibeonites of Joshua Chapter 9 have always presented an interesting study in contrast.   They were a clever people who saw the "writing on the wall" and deceived the children of Israel into a covenant that saved their skin.  It didn't matter to them that they would live on as the slaves of Israel, carrying water and cutting wood for the rest of their existence.   They valued their physical lives more than their own liberty.   Unlike those throughout human history who would have rather died fighting for their freedom than to endure servitude (including our own founding fathers in these United States.), the Gibeonites displayed a different,  more calculated and pragmatic spirit. This, however,  is not the spirit that Revelation tells us can overcome evil.  "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony,  and they did not love their lives to the death. "

Could it be that there is a "Gibeonite" movement in the western church today?  Is there a willingness on our part to make treaties of peace with the enemy to preserve our own skins and prolong our ocomfort , rather than risk an all out fight using our God-given authority against the encroaching evil that we see? It seems so.

Woodrow Wilson once said that he would rather fail in a cause that would ultimately succeed than succeed in a cause that would ultimately fail.  For the Gibeonites  whose primary cause was their own survival at any cost,  it was the opposite.  Success for them was that they were still breathing and eating, it didn't matter in what state or to what compromise of conscience it might lead.

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