Deuteronomy 7:22 And the LORD your God will put out those nations before you by little and little: you may not consume them at once… As you read this Scripture you will instantly remember the position occupied by the Jews at the time these words of promise were spoken to them. The forty years of wilderness wandering had run their round. The narrow stream of Jordan was all that lay between them and the land of promise, and in a few days they would cross the swollen flood, and take possession of the goodly country in the name and for the glory of that God who had given it to them for a heritage forever. In prospect of the work, the warfare they would have to carry on in their conquest of Canaan, these words of exhortation were addressed to them, teaching them a two-fold truth. First, God would be with them; God would work for them. Therefore they might cherish the utmost confidence of ultimate success. Secondly, God would be with them, but not to complete the work for them at a single stroke. He would do it surely; but He would do it slowly also. Therefore they might have quiet contentment as well as unfaltering hope. They must "rest in the Lord, arid wait patiently for Him." This was no new arrangement on the part of God; it was no new revelation to the Jewish people. The Lord had spoken to them forty years before in the self-same strain, As in the words of the text, so in those of the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, He impressed this truth upon them, that they must both labour and wait, The words then set before us: Work done at God's command, work done with God's help, work done successfully, and yet work progressing slowly towards its promised perfection; the slow progress not because of human indolence and faithlessness, but because of Divine ordinance. Why did He not do it all at once? How easily with the breath of His mouth He could have swept the land clear of the last polluting remnant of the Canaanites and their idolatries! The reason for the delay God gives. It was no use for the people to gain the country faster than they could fully occupy and properly cultivate it. This was one reason, though doubtless there were others which God has not made known to us. Let us now turn from Jewish history to our own Christian circumstances, and to our own work. This ancient story throws light on the principles and processes of Divine providence in all ages. It is one practical proof of the truth that, even in the destruction of wrong and the re-establishment of right, our God often works with what seems to us a strange slowness. In His warfare against the power of evil which is so alien to His heart, so hurtful to His creatures, so contrary to His will, the All-holy One does not annihilate it with a word, but He gradually crumbles it to fragments, and He casts it away little by little. There is the work of individual sanctification. A Christian man does not find his nature a blank sheet, on which he can at once write all manner of holy sentences. Nay, but it has already been written upon. There are unholy words, which to deface is his work, and which to entirely remove requires more than human skill. He finds that his nature is anything but an empty country, in which he has just to plant his standard of heaven, and of which he has just to take possession in the name of God. It is full of inhabitants — evil passions, thoughts, desires, habits — and they have all to be cast out, that their place may be taken by thoughts and desires and habits, pure and holy, God-pleasing and God-like. And this expulsion of the Philistines, this filling of the land with the children of God, is in every case a lifelong work. It is only done by little and little. This is one of the mysteries of our present position. The false is often so much, and the true is often so little; the wrong is often so easy, and the right is often so difficult. The evil, the worldly, and the devilish, is often just yielding to nature, just floating with the tide. The good, the heavenly, the God-like — to follow it is often to go against tide and tempest, against flesh and blood, against all manner of opposing forces. Why are we taught to see the beauty and to appreciate the blessings of hell. ness, and yet are left to wrestle so continually with sins and doubts and fears? Could not our God come, and at once sweep every defiling thing out of our heart forever? We know that our God could do this if He saw it to be wise and best; and this must be our comfort under the fact that He does not do it. He does not abstain because of His weakness. He does not abstain because of His unwillingness. He sees that the discipline of weakness and tears, and not unfrequent failures, and success only partially secured — He sees that His discipline is good for us. He knows how it will prepare us for higher service and for holier joys in heaven; and so, while we are sighing for instant redemption, He grants us only gradual deliverance. (C. Vince.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. |
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