LEARNING DAILY

 

Exodus 23:31-33, “And I will fix your boundaries from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the southern deserts to the Euphrates River. I will help you defeat the people now living in the land, and will drive them out ahead of you. Make no treaties with them and have nothing to do with their gods. Do not even let them live among you! If you do, they will infect you with their sin of idol worship, and that would be disastrous for you.” God (New Living Translation)

 

As you read the account of Jericho, you will see that God had Israel go into the city and destroy everything that was in it. The Bible tells us in Joshua 6:21, “both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey” were destroyed by the sword. For those who want to find something to fault the Bible on, they question why God would do this. But knowing the entire Word of God is important; one cannot take verses and make doctrine or their belief on them.

 

In chapter 23 of the Exodus, God is giving instructions to His people on how to live within His boundaries – boundaries that would keep them safe, honor Him, and protect them as they entered the Promised Land. God’s instruction to His people commanded them “not to adopt the religions or to conform to the morals of the societies around them. If they did not follow this, they would not be fully protected by the Lord” (LSSB). This goes back to God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15. His judgment of the Canaanites was because of their gods and their way of life.

 

Let’s take a minute to understand who the people were who inhabited and polluted the Promised Land. They were descendents of Noah, by his son Ham and grandson Canaan. Go to Genesis 9 and you will find that Ham messed up and Noah cursed Canaan because of his father’s sin. Canaan and his descendants would settle in the area promised Abraham and his descendants and now faced Joshua and Israel who were coming to take the land. The Canaanites were now a large force who had proven to be fierce warriors; as we have seen Israel needed God to be with them to defeat them. “The Canaanites had polluted the Promise Land with their debased practices and would corrupt the people of Israel if allowed to remain in the land” (DJSB). Let me summarize the people who inhabited the Promised Land. Their society and religion was evil including sexual perversions, often associated with fertility cults and child sacrifices. They were sinful people and God did not want the people of Israel to have anything to do with them. The war on the Canaanites was divine judgment of these people.

 

This may not make much sense and seem out of character for a loving God. The accounts of God’s people taking the Promised Land is not enjoyable reading. I’m not sure it is supposed to be. It seems to me the taking of the Promised Land is about the establishing of God’s Kingdom and to do that, sin and disobedience had to be driven out of the land. God told Joshua to be strong and of good courage and obedient. Do not conform to the ways of the world! Under the new covenant established by the Lord Jesus Christ, we too are to drive out sin and unbelief and disobedience from our lives. We are to be Christ-like at all times. You and I are to separate ourselves from the ways of the world. You and I must walk on a narrow way that leads to God’s kingdom not on a wide way that is filled with the sinful ways of the world. If we do not separate ourselves, we forfeit the promises and the protection that God gives us as His people. Not one of us can have God’s blessings and presence in our lives while participating in the sinful ways of the world. It is a choice each of us makes every day! Make the right choice!

 

From now on DJSB will be used to note information or quotes from the David Jeremiah Study Bible and LSSB will refer to information and quotes from the Life in the Spirit Study Bible.  I have added Jimmy Swaggart’s Expositor’s Study Bible to be referred to from now on as JSESB.