It is a universal reasoning that any person that is described as a fox is skilled in deception. Deception is like an orange fruit which has many seeds. We believe that you know that there are different breeds of foxes. For instance, there are red foxes, white foxes, blue foxes, to mention just these. In the same vein, there are numerous breeds of human foxes which I will not be able to exhaust in this write-up.
Foxes are predators that do not hunt in packs. Each believes in its ability to successful prey on its prey that it does not need the support of others to hunt successfully. Let us examine the different breeds of the human foxes.
A person that makes others believe what is untrue is a fox; he is a deceiver, a trickster. An example from the Bible is King Herod who wanted the three wise men to believe that he was happy to hear about the birth of Jesus. Meanwhile he was so troubled when they did not return to tell him about the whereabout of Jesus, ‘…he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under’ (Matthew 2 vs 16).
Another breed of human fox are the false prophets. This is seen in Ezekiel 13 vs 3-9. They are false prophets, who profess to speak the message from God but are not; rather they speak according to their whims. God said, ‘Woe unto the foolish… that follow their own spirit… they have seen vanity and lying divination …and the LORD has not sent them. They are like foxes in the deserts.’ They are deceptive and liars too.
The third set are the destroyers of good things, especially godly ventures. The Bible recorded in Nehemiah 4 vs 3 that while Nehemiah and the people of Israel were busy building the temple of God, Tobias the Ammonite said, ‘What are they building- even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!’ Unfortunately, we have a lot of Tobias in the church today.
The fourth breed of human fox are the image breakers. When Naboth, the Jezrealite refused to sell his vineyard to King Ahab, Jezebel his wife wrote a letter to the elders in the city to ‘set two men to bear witness against Naboth’ (1 Kings 21 vs 5-11). This breed actually exists in church today; they have forgotten that ‘God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil’ (Ecclesiastes 12 vs 14).
Closely related to image breakers are the iconoclasts. Iconoclasts attack beautiful ideas and destinies. They deceive others into believing that their talents and ministries are not relevant to the building of God’s kingdom. Jesus referred to them as pigs that you cannot afford to give your pearls to, else they destroy them, and then turn around to destroy you as well (Matthew 7 vs. 6).
Murderers are a breed of human foxes. They kill their victims with the words they speak and the prideful attitude they put up. They hinder their victims from using their God-given gifts from blessing others. A Pharisee once told Jesus, ‘Leave this place and go somewhere else, Herod wants to kill you’. But Jesus replied, ‘Go tell that fox, ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal’ (Luke 13 vs 31-32).
This piece concludes that every person who transgress moral or civil law backslides into a decadent state, and can be rightly described as a fox. We pray that the Lord will ‘take away from us the foxes, the little (tricky) foxes that spoils the vines (our lives/destinies); for our vines have tender grapes’ (Songs of Solomon 2 vs 15). As children of God that have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into light, we should endeavour to do only those things that will glorify God, and not things that will make even the heathen to doubt our relationship with God.
Author: TM Odion
