Deuteronomy 7:22-23

LITTLE BY LITTLE!

‘And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little,’ etc.

Deuteronomy 7:22

I. There can be no doubt that these passages represent the Jewish nation as bound to a perpetual conflict with idolatry.—The resistance was primarily an internal one. The members of the nation were never to bow down to natural or human symbols. But they were not merely to be tenacious of the true worship and watchful against the false; they were to go forth against the idolatrous people of Canaan, to break in pieces their gods, to destroy their altars and high places. And not only the idol or the idol temple was to be destroyed; the inhabitants of the idolatrous country, their wives, their children, their sheep, and their oxen, were to be put to death.

In explaining these facts, we must remember that the Jews were the one nation that might not go out to win prizes for themselves; they were simply the instruments of the righteous Lord against those who were polluting His earth and rendering it unfit for habitation.

II. We have surely not learned from the Sermon on the Mount that there is not a righteous Being, One whose will is to all good, One to whom injustice and wrong are opposed.—Neither did our Lord say that men were not to be the instruments in doing God’s work, in carrying out His purposes. The Gospel must be quite as assertive and intrusive as Judaism. Idolatry was more directly assaulted in its high places, received more deadly wounds, in the three centuries during which the Gospel of the Son of God was opposed by all the swords of the Roman empire, and when it had no earthly sword of its own, than by all the battles of the Israelites. The punishment of the idolater is not now the most effectual means of extinguishing idolatry. Our Lord shows us that the proclamation of Himself is a more perfect one.

III. These distinctions are deep and radical; they must affect all the relations between the magistrate and the herald of the Gospel, between the nation and the Church.

If we have learned to believe that the spirit of love is a consuming fire, which must destroy the idols and high places that we ourselves have set up, and then all those which are withdrawing men anywhere from the living and true God, we shall find that the command to drive out the debased people of Canaan is an utterance of the same gracious will which bade the disciples go into all lands and preach the Gospel to every creature.

Rev. F. D. Maurice.

Illustration

‘The reason assigned for gradual conquest in regard to Israel was that if the nations of Canaan were consumed “at once,” before Israel had time to settle the land, wild beasts would increase and take possession of depopulated wastes. In like manner, if we were to obtain complete victory over our spiritual foes at one blow, the probability is that we should be so elated at our success as to be filled with pride and self-confidence. Hence it is needful that victory should not outstrip occupation. In Joshua 10:40 we see the process exemplified. The inhabitants of the country and their kings were smitten, and concurrently therewith, the land was taken possession of.

The manner in which the gradual conquest was effected in the case of Israel, and may be effected in our own, is revealed to us as clearly as the need for it. In Deuteronomy 7:23, God promised to deliver the nations and their kings into the hand of Israel in order to be destroyed. In Joshua 11:19, we read of the fulfilment of this promise. Influenced by God (we cannot say how, nor is it necessary for us to know), the doomed nations marched to attack Israel, and in so doing merely brought about their own overthrow. So, when the forces of evil assail our spirits, let us take courage by remembering that their attack is but the indispensable prelude to their overthrow, if we face them in the name and strength of God.’