That I may Know HIM - A Devotional

Day 36: BEWARE, THE GIBEONITES!

Our last post in this series on the Spirit of Sudan was “The Onus of the Watchman.” The Stop Press to that message addressed the news about the Islamic delegation that had visited some churches in Kano with the message that we were all brothers, serving the same god, and that the Boko Haram jihadists were not Muslims. I cried foul at that mission, calling those Islamic emissaries Gibeonites, of whom our elders should beware and not enter into a disarming covenant. Has Islam truly begun to agree that we serve the same God, who has a Son called Jesus the Saviour? That would be great.

Shortly after publishing that caution, the same city of Kano was invaded by the Boko Haram.  The following mail from the United Kingdom caught the puzzle:

Thanks for the great work you are doing. May the Lord continue to strengthen and reveal strategies to you for the nation and the Body of Christ. The latest bombing assault in Kano, which was the place where Muslims went to churches to make ‘peace’ last Sunday, confirms your statement in the last message:

“Expect more soon, on the new ‘Gibeonitish plot’ of our foes who are now visiting churches, claiming to be friends and worshippers of the same god. Our elders should not be fooled to covenant with those ‘Gibeonites.’”

Thanks for this insight.

Sylvanus, United Kingdom

Who were the Gibeonites?  They were a very crafty tribe who, when they realized that they would be no match to the advancing force of the conquering Israelites, resorted to flattery and deceit, so as to secure a treaty of peace from the undiscerning leadership of the Israelites.  In later years, they became a concern in no small way.  The elders of Israel, taken in by their pleasant flattery and falsified ‘documents,’ let down their guards and entered into covenant with them without consulting God.  The story is in Joshua 9:3-19.

That seems to be one of the new strategies - deceit, which is an acceptable code in the theology of Islam.  It is called taqiyya:  the doctrine of deceit, according to which it is no sin to lie and deceive in the name of Allah and for the advancement of Islam (Bukhari 3,49,857).  It is in the same light I see the recent claims credited to Boko Haramin the Vanguard newspaper of January 24, 2012 (page 4), that the sect does not have “any personal grouse with President Goodluck Jonathan” but with a dead man, a dead Muslim; with carryovers from the administration of the late President Yar ‘Adua.  I stand alarmed.  Did not the leader of that sect only recently threaten the same President Jonathan, boasting that they and their Agenda were beyond him? Unless the news reports lied. Was it not their documented plot to liquidate him so that the “2nd in Command” would “take over”?  Gibeonites.  Beware of hasty covenants of ‘peace’ that put you off guard. They also have lately begun to say their goal is not to Islamise the nation but merely the freedom of their arrested folks. Taqiyya.

According to Bill Warner, in “The Doctrine of Deceit,”

·        “A Muslim is strictly forbidden to have any religious interaction with a kafir [a heathen], except attempts at conversion,”

·        “About 61% of the Koran is devoted to the kafir, and all of it is negative,”

·        “When deception advances Islam, the deception is not a sin. [It is] part of Islamic ethics” (http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/the-doctrine-of-deceit/).

In Daily Sun newspaper of January 27, 2012, the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs is quoted to have “disowned the dreaded religious sect, Boko Haram” (page 9). Why did none of them denounce or ‘disown’ these terrorists all the while they were jihading and ravaging places like Jos, until now that the name has become a retreating social reproach?   It is part of a pre-agreed game plan, to publicly condemn the agents of the armed expressions of the Agenda, while supporting them secretly. Taqiyya: the righteousness of lies in the jihadic name of Allah.