Taking Back the Land

Exodus 23:20-33; Joshua 23:6-13 When the children of Israel went into the promised land, they were told to occupy it and to drive out and completely destroy the enemy, men, women and children. In Exodus 23 Moses tells the people that God will not root out the enemies all at once; but as they expanded in number and able to populate the land, God would drive the enemies out. In this way the land would not become desolate and the wild animals be too numerous for them. To the extent that they compromised in driving out and destroying the enemies, their relationship with God and their general wellbeing was flawed. When we come to Christ our minds and our lives are basically under the control of the enemy. We need to occupy the “land”. We need to brutally root out the enemies of habits thoughts and possessions. We need to take the sin in our lives very seriously. To the extent that we don’t, or compromise in the process of getting rid of the old baggage, we continue to be crippled in our walk in the kingdom and in our relationship with God. Just as it was important to fill the land with people as the enemy was driven out, so we need to replace sinful habits with godly habits. We need to replace sinful speech with wholesome speech – sinful thinking with Christ honoring thinking. And corrupt knowledge with the Word of God. In short, we need to replace the acts of the sinful nature with the fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5). Ultimately this is God’s work in our lives. He reminds us as He did them in: Deut. 7:17-18 “You may say to yourselves, these nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?” But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt” He will only do it as we are in surrendered obedience to Him.