CLEAN BREAK
50 The LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho. He said: 51 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images, all their molten images, and demolish their high places. 53 You must dispossess the inhabitants of the land and live in it, for I have given you the land to possess it. 54 You must divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families. To a larger group you must give a larger inheritance, and to a smaller group you must give a smaller inheritance. Everyone’s inheritance must be in the place where his lot falls. You must inherit according to your ancestral tribes. 55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, then those whom you allow to remain will be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your side, and will cause you trouble in the land where you will be living. 56 And what I intended to do to them I will do to you.”
The children of Israel are at the plains of Moab. They have a big job ahead of them. The Lord has brought them to this place. He knows where they have been and where they are going. Moses will not be going with them when they cross the Jordan, but the Lord does have one other job for Moses before he dies. I would say that Moses is going to give his people a pep-talk, but that does not sound serious enough to explain what Moses will say in today’s text. It is more like a mission statement. In these few verses, Moses outlines the mission for the nation of Israel when they cross over into the Promised Land.
The people themselves have changed since they left their slavery in Egypt. One whole generation has passed. They are not the slaves that they were when they cried out for God to deliver them. This body of people has grown up in transit. They don’t know Egypt. They have only stories passed down to them about how life was back under Pharaoh. But they don’t have any history as warriors either. They have a task before them, but they don’t know exactly what to do or how to do it.
As we read these pages from the Old Testament, we learn something about our God. We learn that if God wants us to do something, he will make sure we know exactly what we are to do and what we need to watch out for.
Some people are sure that these Old Testament stories are here to prepare us for eternity, but I don’t think that is the case. Think about it. Will we be fighting the Canaanites when Jesus returns and sets up his eternal kingdom? No, we will not. The conquest of the Promised Land is written in the Bible for our benefit. But it is not to teach us how to do battle in the future. The time for our spiritual warfare is not when Jesus comes again; it is going on now.
The New Testament teaches us that our warfare is not with flesh and blood but with the supernatural forces of evil in the unseen realm. God has provided supernatural armor to protect us against these enemies. By faith in God’s word and prayer, we are able to withstand their attacks. The purpose for this spiritual warfare is very much like that of the conquest of Canaan. God wants us to take over territory currently held by the enemies of Christ and his coming kingdom.
God has a plan for us to take dominion of that territory – not just at the coming of Christ but now. We begin by submitting to God and his will now. We continue by encouraging others to submit to his will and the commands of our King, Jesus. The devil will try to keep us from doing that, but we must resist him. He will try to set up strongholds in our families and communities where he reigns. We are commanded to demolish those strongholds. God’s kingdom and Satan’s kingdom must not be allowed to exist in the same territory. God’s will is our complete victory over Satan – not just later but now. The devil is looking for someone to devour but it is our responsibility to keep him from having his lunch in our territory.
Today, we will examine Moses’ mission statement for the people of God as they advance into the Promised Land. We will find three specific commands and one warning. The people would never be able to complain that they were unaware of what God wanted them to do, as Moses would spell it out for them. He will also warn them against being lazy, as laziness in the mission would mean disaster for them in the land.
The command to drive out the land’s inhabitants (52a).
The first command is not necessarily to commit genocide. They are to drive out all the inhabitants of the land. The only people they must kill are those who resist their possession of the land. That reinforces some things we already know about why God sent the Israelites to this land. God is the judge of all. All the land belongs to him. If he should decide that a certain people no longer deserve to live in this land, he is under no obligation to tolerate their presence there.
Some look at stories like this and reject the Bible because they think it depicts God as cruel and unforgiving. They feel that a holy God should be able to love everyone and that a holy people should be able to exist alongside everyone. But that idea is not consistent with what we know about God from either Testament. The Old Testament commands the Israelites to drive out God’s enemies from the land, and the New Testament tells us that when Jesus returns, he is going to destroy all his enemies.
A world in which everyone lives together regardless of the state of their hearts is impractical. It is absurd. When our ancestors rebelled in Eden, God did not accommodate their rebellion. He chased them out of his paradise. When the people of the ancient world became utterly sinful, God chose to destroy them, saving only one family by his grace. Noah’s flood was necessary because God could not tolerate sin. He had to destroy the sinners. When Sodom and Gomorrah became so wicked that God could not accept their continued existence, he sent the destroying angels. That is what God does to sin.
When God decides to move his presence into a place, all those who resist his will have a choice. They must move out of that land or be destroyed. That is what was taking place in Canaan. The Canaanites would have learned about God’s people, rescued by his power from slavery in Egypt, and headed their way. Their choice was simple: leave their land or face the consequences of rebelling against God’s will.
Now, some object to what God is saying on the basis that it was unfair to the current inhabitants of Canaan. But that is not true. God had already allowed many non-Israelites to become part of the community. They had merely to agree to live by the laws and regulations of the Mosaic covenant. These foreign guests were travelling along with the Israelites on the way to the Promised Land. They had a choice. If they were going to live in God’s land, they had to follow God’s rules. But the Canaanites would not agree to this. God knew that the various nations would not be able to coexist in the same land.
If we examine what is happening in the land of Israel today, we can see another example of this principle. There is constant conflict and violence, and suffering in that land today because the citizens of modern-day Israel are finding it impossible to be a unique people and also coexist with the Palestinians. The more they try to make peace, the more they are being forced to surrender their uniqueness as a Jewish state. We should not be surprised at this.
The command to destroy the land’s idols (52b).
It was not enough for the Israelites to drive out all the Canaanites from the land. They also had to cleanse the land of all its idolatry. God had already told them not to make any idols. Now, he tells them to destroy the idols that the Canaanites had already made and set up. He is particular about what the Israelites are going to discover when they get into that land.
In my travels as a missionary, I encountered many different idols in the lands where I served. There were crude idols and elaborate idols, sacred images and sacred places. There were idols people wore and idols people set up to venerate. Families owned some of the idols; others were owned by the community as a whole. Idols permeated the lands.
The Israelites were told that they would find carved images (made of wood and stone), molten images (made of metal), and high places (set apart for worship of the false gods). When they found carved images, they were to destroy them. When they found molten images, they were to melt them down and destroy them. When they found high places, they had to demolish them. They could not destroy the places, but they could reconstruct the landscape so that those places were no longer recognized as being dedicated to false gods.
The command to divide the land for an inheritance (54).
The final command involved reimagining the surface of the land. They would enter into land already claimed by cities and ethnic groups and remake its geopolitical characteristics. They would take over the cities, but these cities would now be allocated to the twelve tribes of Israel. Each tribe would be given an inheritance, and each family and clan would be given land within the territory assigned to it once that land was conquered.
Again, here, we see why it would not have been possible for the existing nations to coexist in the land with the Israelites. They claimed to own that land. But God owns the land, and he is establishing which Israelite tribe is to take possession of the territory. The tribes have dedicated themselves to the worship of one God. There could not be pockets of idol worshippers spread throughout the land devoted to Yahveh alone.
The warning if the commands are not obeyed (55-56).
The final part of today’s text is essential. It explains what would happen if the Israelites entered the land but refused to follow Moses’s prescribed mission. Those left in the land would become irritants in their eyes and thorns in their side. They would be constant sources of trouble. It would not be possible for the Israelites to live as God intended while all these others lived around them. The non-Israelites would tempt them to ignore their mission.
However, verse 56 tells us that if the Israelites chose to tolerate the outsiders, it would not be simply an irritant for them. God would judge them with the same judgment that he intended for the pagans. The holy land will not tolerate a mixed population.
If I have read today’s text correctly, it suggests that if you and I want to be obedient to God’s call, we cannot tolerate a mixed community either. We must seek to win the lost all around us. God can only bless a land where his people walk in obedience. Those of us who are saved by grace are now commissioned to share that salvation everywhere we live. If we refuse to do that, the unbelievers all around us will cause trouble for us.
But if we leave the mission undone, it will become even worse than that. God cannot bless a mixed land. He doesn’t want our children growing up in a mixed land. He does not want our towns and villages peppered with idols and temples to false gods.
The only thing that has changed in the New Testament under the covenant of grace is that the enemy is not political, ethnic, or national. The enemy is Satan and his demons in the unseen realm. We are not called on to defeat people in battle. We are called on to drive out those devoted to other gods by winning them to Christ. Jesus does not tell us to eradicate all nations but to make disciples of all nations. But success at the mission is still essential. We need to make a clean break with the old slavery and dedicate ourselves to building the new holy land. There is no third option.
LORD of our warfare, enable us to gain territory for the coming kingdom. Please help us to stop tolerating the evil all around us and overcome that evil with good. Forgive us for being such complacent creatures. Build in us a disgust for all that is unholy and a craving for all that is sacred. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
jeffersonvann 