March 16

The Israelites conquerored a large part of the land that God had given them and then God gave them rest and peace in the land. Remember that God said that they couldn’t take over all of the land at once, it would be too much for them. So after some years of peace the first tribe to begin to conqueror the rest of their territory was Judah. Then we have the record of all of the other tribes including Judah who did NOT drive out all the inhabitants of the land that God had given them. That will turn out to be a big mistake – bigger than they know.

It strikes me that some of the tribes got big enough so they could have defeated, annihilated or driven out the Gentiles nations that remained in their territory, but they opted to make them slaves instead. After all, someone had to go fetch the water and wood – right? The only problem with that is that God told them to completely take over the land! He also told them why – if they didn’t, then the people and their gods would become a snare to them and lead them astray from following God. So after a certain time an angel of the Lord went to Israel and said, God is giving you what you want, He will NOT drive out the inhabitants of the land and they will be a snare to you.

I would think that after they repented and sacrificed that God would say, o.k., I’ll drive them out. But as we have learned before, God means what He says and sometimes you don’t get a second chance. This is one of those times. By the way, it doesn’t say that they repented, just sacrificed and wept.

The lesson for me is to do what God is telling me to do. Don’t get comfortable in the peace and rest He gives so as to ignore what He tells me to do. IT IS FOR MY GOOD that He tells me to drive out what is comfortable. What seems like a small compromise could, as it did to Israel, mean the death of many over years of war, which God never wanted to happen. We fight wars that we were never supposed to fight. Hummmm…