Inquire of the Lord!

I was reading my Daily Bible reading today and read the story of Joshua and the Gibeonites.  These people with other nearby cities, came and deceived Joshua and the Israelite s by telling them that they were from a distant country, and  that they had heard of the Lord their God and wanted to ask to be their servants-instead of being killed, like all the surrounding cities were.  In other words, they wanted peace.  They were great deceivers.  They came with dry and moldy bread, worn and cracked wine skins, and clothing and shoes that were worn out.  It says that Joshua finally believed them.  They did not bother to ask of the Lord, but went ahead and signed a peace treaty.  Needless to say, three days later they found out these men were close neighbors.

You see, the problem with this was, that God told Joshua and the Israelites to completely get rid of all the neighboring cities.  God wanted to give them this land-it was to be theirs, and theirs alone because God knew one day this would come back to trouble them.  He was trying to make the way clear for them for the future.

It is the same with us.  We don’t ask of the Lord.  We go by what we see.  If it looks good we buy the whole lot.  I felt impressed that we are in a season now where we have to “Inquire of the Lord.”  There are always going to be those who have dry, moldy bread (stale word) and those that are going to have old wineskins of tradition, and even those whose clothing and shoes are worn from walking the wrong paths, that are going to be trying to deceive us, but all we have to do is ask of the Lord.  He wants to tell us.  The word even says, “He does nothing unless he first tells his prophets.”  So in saying all of that, I want to warn us to be very careful right now (not suspicious), but discerning because the enemy is very crafty, and unfortunately he uses the very things we would never expect to deceive us.