God Will Clear Away These Nations Before You Little By Little

So this morning we're going to be continuing our study of Deuteronomy chapter 7. Last week we read a pretty intense passage where God's commands to Israel was that they would go into the land, the land of Canaan, and that they would consume all of the nations, that they would exterminate them, that they would commit genocide, really. It was an extraordinary command, and this passage this morning brings that command into more detail. In our passage today, we learn how God will go before the Israelites to accomplish the command to exterminate the Canaanites. And as we study this, my hope is that God will help us to trust him, that his ways are good. And it may seem strange, but I also hope that he teaches us patience, because I think that that's one of the themes that's prominent in this passage, is patience over the long haul in obeying God.

Our text this morning is Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 20 through 24. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? It says, You will not be able to put an end to them quickly, for the wild beasts would grow too numerous for you. But the Lord your God will deliver them before you and will throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. He will deliver their kings into your hand so that you will make their name perish from under heaven. No man will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

In our text last week, as I mentioned, God commanded the Israelites to consume the inhabitants of Canaan. And in this passage, God says basically that he will finish the job, that he will back clean up, that he will come in afterwards, and that he will see to it that these nations are wiped off of the face of the earth and their names perish under heaven. And so this is a command for them to commit genocide, to kill every man, woman, and child of these nations until no one remains. And the Lord promises himself to see to that fact. I don't know that we can grasp how severe or extraordinary of a command this is. Whenever we think of genocide or the eradication of a people, a complete annihilation, we think this is a bad thing.

And many of the tragedies in our world have occurred with this end in mind, to exterminate a people group, to get rid of them, to destroy them. This sort of behavior, this extermination, can only come from the mouth of God. It is never appropriate, it is never appropriate for a man to take up this kind of command, this type of destruction. and to declare it to be necessary. It is always wicked and sinful, okay? It's always wicked and sinful because it is a command when it doesn't come from the mouth of God. It is an act of mass murder. That's what it is. Now this, you're like, well, how can this be different? The difference is God has the authority, having created all mankind in his image, He has the authority to both create and to destroy. This is what Paul teaches us in Romans, right? Does not the potter have authority to make vessels for sacred use as well as common use? Did you ever think about that verse as regards the conquest of Canaan and the destruction of these nations? Do they not belong to him? They do. Which is to say, they don't belong to anyone else.

And it is God alone who has the authority to command this sort of thing. And whenever a man takes this up or a nation takes up this work on their own initiative and by their own authority, they depart from the will of God. It is wrong. It is a violation of the sixth commandment and it should not be done. And when it is done, because it has been done, and I don't expect that this desire won't show its hideous face again in our world, it ought to be opposed by Christians. Simply and flatly, it ought to be opposed by us. Okay? That does not mean that Christians ought not to support any just killing or taking of human life. This is often an argument that will be brought up with regard to death or murder and the distinctions between them. How can you be opposed to, say, abortion?

but in favor of capital punishment. Well, here's the reason. The right to live belongs to God, and he's given us his word, and he's distinguished between those who are innocent and those who are guilty. And those who are guilty of crimes rising to the level of punishment by death deserve punishment by death. But those who are innocent, Those who have not done something, not violated a law or committed a crime deserving death, ought never to be killed indiscriminately. And so the child in his mother's womb or the old person who's near death or to the one who's of diminished capacity have committed no crime, have done nothing worthy of capital punishment, having their life taken from them.

even by themselves. And yet the one who murders deserves to die for his actions. And so we as Christians have to be able to sort out these sorts of commands that we find here in Deuteronomy where utter destruction, not just of enemy combatants, not just of the men, not just of those who put up a resistance, but all of them. We have to understand this as an extraordinary. command from God, and one that we simply do not have the authority as creatures, as created beings, to take up of our own free will, either against an individual or against a group of individuals. And I realize as I've spoken thus far, it can make it seem simple. Christians should be opposed to genocide. They should be opposed to the unjust killing of people.

But what isn't as simple is knowing what is just and what is not just. And we live in a time that's very flat. And what I mean by very flat is I mean we don't have hierarchy. We don't live thinking that's somebody else's decision. In fact, we live sitting in judgment of those who actually have the responsibility to make decisions. And we often think, oh, I know what I would do in your shoes. Your job is easy. It's just so simple. Don't you kids think that about your parents? Don't you think that you know better than them? Don't you wives think of your husbands? Well, he just needs to do this. If he'd just do that, it would all be better. Don't you employees think that of your bosses or your politicians? You see, we sit and we live in a world and our hearts are wired to have no...

sitting in judgment of those who actually have the authority and the responsibility to lead and to make decisions. And so when it comes to an issue of taking life and who's guilty and who deserves death and who doesn't and what was an appropriate way to pursue that death, these are hard decisions. I mean, you who are parents, can you figure out when to spank your kids? Like, it's easy to figure that all out. It's just like, well, yeah, this is clearly. And when they do that, then we just spank them and it's all better. And it's just, there you go. It's that easy, isn't it? No, because all of a sudden you want to figure out like, okay, well, what happened first? And what else is going on? And am I mad and angry and having a bad day and just being a little more grumpy and less patient than I should? There's just, there's a lot of complexity to something as simple as whether or not to spank your child. How much more so when you're dealing with life and the finality of death?

We ought to be humble as Christians, not taking upon ourselves the pride and arrogance of thinking we would know how to make these sorts of decisions. As I was preparing, I was debating in my mind about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, dropping the bombs on them, and whether or not that was just or unjust. And I'm sure if I asked you, was it just or unjust, some of you would go, yeah, it was just. And some of you would be like, no, I don't think it was just. But those of us who are just so sure we're right are fools. And we would do better to say, I don't have enough information to be confident that I have any idea what was right or not in that particular instance. I don't concern myself with things that are too weighty for me. But we live in a society where we're invited to and expected even to make judgments about everything, to have opinions and to think we're right. And so when we come to the Word of God, we just pass our judgments without carefully considering what's actually going on. The weight of...

of the commands. So instead of sitting in judgment over those who make decisions and who are tasked with the weight of judging and executing judgment, we ought to pray for them as well as defer to them because they've been given the authority to carry that responsibility. Last week I mentioned this genocide and I talked a little bit about bloodlust. And I said, you know, I think we come to this passage and we just kind of go, oh well, God said to do that, so there it is. And some of us thought, well, they're just getting what they deserve. But bloodlust in whatever form it takes, whether it's indifference toward the taking of life or the delight in taking of life, is a sin. It's wicked and it's sinful. This command required that every man, every woman, every child, no matter their age, whether they were young or whether they were old, their capacity, whether they could fight for themselves or whether they were weak and invalid, whether they...

wanted to fight or not, were to be killed. It's a weighty thing. And so we ought to be careful as Christians, whenever the idea of death or capital punishment comes up, you ought to be tenderhearted about that sort of thing and fearful, doubting yourself and your own judgments about what's right and what's just and what's good and what's bad. Because you're prone to make the judgments. You're not prone to withhold your judgments. You're prone to make the judgments. And so you have to be careful in how you just say things as though there aren't consequences. All you have to do is put yourself on the other side of it and ask, how would you want people to consider your life being taken? Would you want them to be as flippant as your being? Or would you want them to be a little more conscientious and a little more careful? I think many times we understand this argument, given our priorities, we understand this.

The weightiness of this as it comes to abortion. We think, well, that's wrong. Well, what if the people are poor? And we go, well, then they're poor, but their baby doesn't deserve to die. What if the babies have diminished capacity? What if they have a chromosomal disorder? What if they won't be able to live a normal life? And we say, that is tragic. And that baby doesn't deserve to die. And you say, well, what if the woman was raped? And we say, that again is a tragedy. And the man who raped her ought to be pursued to the fullest extent of the law. And the baby doesn't deserve to die. What if it was incest? Again, justice to the full, but the baby doesn't deserve to die. What if it's the life of the mother? What if the mother's going to die? You say, hold on.

Let's get a second opinion and let's see before we just destroy this life. Let's see what's actually going on. Let's not let our fear consume this baby's life. You realize I didn't say let's let the mom die. I didn't say that. What I said is it's actually quite difficult, quite difficult to make these sorts of judgments in our own lives where we actually have the authority and the responsibility to make these sorts of decisions. It's weighty. Nobody wants to make them. Nobody wants to do these things. But when you're tasked with them, you start to feel the weight of it. And so we oughtn't be so flippant when any life is being taken. We ought to value every life, whether young or old or diminished capacity or however they were conceived or whatever their life will end up looking like due to their disability. We ought to see value in it.

Now, I think you're probably with me to this point. Yes, we're for that. But then the question becomes, what if they're Muslims? All of a sudden, it's like, well, they're dangerous people. Yeah, let's grant they're dangerous. Let's grant that their religion is a violent religion and teaches them to harm people who aren't Muslims. Then what? Then all bets are off and it's okay? Well, it's easy to say, but you do realize not all Christians would agree with tapping the brakes here. But some of them would say, well, got to break eggs to make omelets. People, you know, they're just a problem. They just cause a problem. They're just a problem. Isn't that the same argument people make for the unborn? They're just a problem. They're just inconvenient. They're just, they don't belong here. They're going to mess things up. They're going to harm my life.

So the answer is to just kill them. We say no. And I say, okay, well, why? Well, because they have the image of God. From conception, they have the image of God. They bear his image. And because of that, they deserve to have their lives protected. Well, what if their life's going to be miserable? What if it'll be a terrible inconvenience? What if, fill in the blank, you say they bear the image of God. We're not at liberty. We don't have the authority to take their life and call it just. Now, war is a separate, I'm not talking about war. I'm talking about the innocents, the ones who are innocent, the ones who have done nothing worthy of death. You do realize that we're all inclined to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, and to say, well, there's just trouble, so we'll just, the way to fix it is just, and it's wicked. It's wicked. And you go, well, what's the other option? We have to live in this constant tension and potential danger as a result. And I say, yes, you do.

And you have to live by faith in Jesus Christ in that tension. And if you succumb to your fears and you give in to your bloodlust, and that's what it is, it's murder. And as Christians, you may not do it, desire it, or advocate for it. Human life is precious in God's sight, whether it belongs to... A Muslim or belongs to a Jew or it belongs to an old person or a retarded person or a baby who's not yet viable outside the womb. We as Christians honor and protect the image of God in man in every situation, realizing that that one we're protecting is a sinner. It may well cause us problems later in some way or another, but we are constrained by the word of God not to take life indiscriminately.

And so it's quite extraordinary here in this passage that the Lord says, you go and consume them. You destroy them. You get rid of them. You erase their name from the earth. And I'll come behind and take care of the ones that hid from you that you couldn't find. God alone is the one who has the authority to make such a command. Man never has the authority to do these sorts of things carte blanche against those who have not done something worthy of death. You see, men can only... take another one's life if they've done something worthy of death as regards them? Why can God take their lives, the innocents, because of their sin and because of their rebellion against him as their creator? He's able to take their lives because all sin deserves death. And so he's just in taking the lives of those who have sinned and rebelled against him. And he's just in commanding his people in this instance to be his instrument of judgment.

But those women and those children, they hadn't done anything to Israel and they weren't going to be the ones fighting against them in the battle. And so if it had not been for God's command, they ought to have left them. This is a difficult thing for us to bear up under because if we were to move away from the intensity of murder and death, just come to normal everyday conflict in your life. How long does it take before you start looking for the red button? The thing to say that will end it. Not necessarily fix it. Probably not ever fix it. But end it. You get frustrated with your kids. You get frustrated with your spouse or your coworkers. And you sort of use lust in your heart about what to say or what to do. And if it gets a hold of you too much, you do say it. Or you do do it. Have you ever fixed a problem that way? Like, have you ever actually resolved anything? You haven't even resolved it. And if I were to modify resolving it to say, have you ever fixed it to God's glory?

The answer is no. But we are quick to look for that red button or that nuclear option to address our problems. And so while we may not be facing the question of physical murder every day in our lives, it doesn't take too much to get us looking and lusting in that direction. Never mind that it doesn't work, that it makes the situation more difficult, more fraught, more intense in the future. We choose destruction and we ought not to. And so God says to the people, I'm going to send the hornets against them until those who are left and hide themselves from you will perish. Now, when you reach for that thing to say or do that will end it, many times the reason you're doing that is because you think there's no other choice. There's nowhere else to turn. I don't have any more patience. I don't have any more time. I don't have any more desire.

or willingness to bear this thing. God's not solving my problems, so I will have to end it myself. Did you notice just in this first verse that the Israelites were not going to be able to actually completely do what God said? Because there were those who would hide and they wouldn't be able to find him. And that'd be a problem. And so what God says is those who hide and you can't find, I'll send the hornet against them. Seems like a strange thing, right? Bees, hornets, a plague, so to speak. What do we learn from that? We learn a few things. First, that when God commands something, when God desires to see something done, he has all of creation at his disposal to accomplish his ends. He's going to send hornets. What do you do when you get around bees? You sit real quiet and stay still, right? It's not what anybody does, right?

If there were bees flying around in here right now, you'd all be losing your minds, right? You'd expose, you'd be exposed. Your fears would be exposed. And so God says, I'm going to send the hornet among them. Basically, I'm going to go scare them out of their hiding places so you can finish the job. Hornets. It's a strange way to accomplish God's will, isn't it? He's going to send bees. But when he decrees that something ought to be done, who will see it happen? And he has all of creation at his disposal to accomplish it. And therefore, when you want something or desire something, however strongly you want it, if God has not granted it, it's not because he can't. It's not because he can't. It's because he's chosen not to in this moment. That's a hard pill to swallow. Because we don't have a red button to push with regard to God. Jonah tried.

He tried to get away. He tried to, like, I'm not going to do what you want. And it didn't end well for him. And so when God intends to do something, he can use whatever means he desires to accomplish it. And so when we see his apparent inaction, I've been praying and I've been praying and I've been praying and he's not answering. Have you ever felt that way? It's not because God can't. It's because his ways are not your ways and his thoughts are not your thoughts. And his ways and thoughts are higher than yours, which means better than yours. more beneficial than yours, more Christ-honoring than yours. Have you ever thought about the conquest of Canaan and wondered how long it took? Do you know who would have been especially interested in the answer to that question? The Reubenites and the Gadites. Do you remember that earlier on in the book of Deuteronomy, as they were coming down through the land of Bashan and Og, and they're eradicating these nations ahead of time, they make a petition and they say, hey,

we've got a bunch of livestock and this is really nice land. How about we just stay here and set up shop and we'll just live here and you guys, you can have all the land over on the other side of that river. And it made Moses angry. And so Moses took the request to the Lord and the Lord answered him and came back and he says, listen, Reuben and Gad, you guys can have this land and you can settle your women and your children and your livestock here. Only the men of war will come with us. But you can't come home and be with your family and live in peace until all the rest of us are living in peace. So how long does it take? That would have been the question they wanted to know, right? When do we get to go home? What does every enlisted soldier know? He knows when his tour is up. He knows when his duty is over. He knows when it's time to leave the war zone. And so what does God tell them about the timing of this conquest? He says it's not going to be quick.

It says, the Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little, little by little. And so God accomplishes through Israel his commands slowly, slowly. Remember that Peter told us not to let this one fact escape our notice. This is 2 Peter 3.8. Do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like... A thousand years. A thousand years like one day. You see, we always want God to act on our desires immediately. Quickly, thoroughly, completely, finish it. But he doesn't oftentimes do that, does he? He works on our desires or our prayers and he answers them little by little over a long period of time.

And as he answers our prayers, our prayers shift and our prayers change and our desires move around. So what is he doing? Why is he taking so long to answer our prayers and to accomplish the thing that we would like to see done yesterday? Well, part of what he's doing is training us. Part of what he's doing is changing us. What he's really doing is conforming us to his image. And so when we pray and we ask God to do things for us, Very, what's the word when you're, they're like tunnel vision. They don't see, they don't see anything else. And the thing they specifically don't see is the guy in the mirror. How many times do you think that your prayers, the answer to your prayers is that God is going to change you and not your situation? That he's going to equip you to bear up under the situation you're in as opposed to take you out of it? How often?

And for how long do you resist that change? Digging in your heels, frustrated about the circumstances, saying to yourself, and maybe out loud, I'm not going to change anymore. I've done all these things. I've given up so much. I shouldn't have to do any more. I say it. We say it. And God hears us say it. And he steadily works in us and changes us. and shapes us and pounds on us, however you like to think of it, cooks us in a refining fire. And so God's going to clear these nations out from before them little by little. Now, why would Moses tell them little by little? Well, because their desires would have been in line with our desires, which would have been for this to happen quickly. And Moses tells them up front, it's not going to happen quickly. It's going to take time. Little by little, you're going to take over this land. Reuben and Gad, you're not going home soon.

Your brothers, it's a big land. There's a lot of people and a lot of work. But he says more than just little by little. He says, he's going to clear the way the nations little by little. He says, you will not be able to put an end to them quickly. He's setting their expectations. And then he says this strange thing. It's probably the strangest part of this passage. For the wild beasts would grow too numerous for you. You're like, what in the world do the animals have to do with all of this? What I think is going on here is that God is giving them a whole land. But at the point at which they enter it, they are not numerous enough to manage it. And so they're going to come in and they're going to grow and they're going to learn. Because remember, these people have never governed themselves. They were in Egypt. Many of them died. Then they wandered for 40 years, which is an extraordinary state of being.

But now they're going to go settle in a city and in towns with vineyards that they've planted, or didn't plant rather, but have to cultivate and maintain. They're going to have to live a whole new way of life. Now I just ask you, when you move houses, how long does it take you to settle in? It's just like three weeks and you're right back to it, right? It's all the systems, 12 months maybe? Depends. And that's going from one thing that's familiar to just doing the same familiar thing in a new place. It takes a long time for you to get acclimated to it. And inevitably what you find out is what you thought life in the new house would be like, it doesn't work that way. Because we thought we'd do the laundry this way, but it turns out that's not how we do it this other way, or whatever the thing is. It takes time for you to accommodate yourself to your new surroundings. How much more so if you're going in to live in lands and cities,

and permanent dwellings when you've never lived in that sort of stuff before. And so we ought to see that it's God's wisdom to remove the nations little by little. When he says that the animals are going to become too numerous for you, he's going to say, you're going to have enough on your plate. You're going to have enough to manage, to learn, to accommodate yourselves to what we don't need is cultivated land becoming wild again because you're not fit to manage it yet. Do you like being told that you're not good at something? or able or wise enough or mature enough yet to handle it. None of us really like that because we think we're, you know, we think, well, I would be good at that. The real problem is just that I don't have the thing. But if I had the thing, I would then be, I would do a really good job managing it. This is what people who don't have kids think. Just as an example, like we just think, oh, well, I wouldn't let my kids do that. Oh, well, good for you.

I would never let my wife speak to me like that. I would never put up with a man being like, oh, okay, all right, okay. Check back in a few years. We'll see. We'll see. You say, well, we're figuring out the little kids, but man, why do you let your teenagers do that? Well, find out when you have teenagers. You see, we think we're better at things and can handle way more than we're capable of. As a general rule, we take on too much. And so God is merciful here at the very beginning, telling them, It's more than you can handle, and so I'm not going to give it all to you at once. And is there a cost associated with it? Yes. You're going to have to stay away from home, Reuben and Gadot. You guys are going to have to live for years in this settling in season. God knew that they were not ready to receive the entire land at once, and so he determined to extend the conquest, little by little, giving them each nation and each land in a way that they were able to take root.

And grow. So what are the benefits of being trained over a long period of time as opposed to a short period of time? What happens if your training is short? Music. You go to your music lesson and they teach you one time how to play the scale. What does every student think when they're in the music lesson? They'll think they got it, right? They know what they're doing. They're like, oh, okay, yeah, just uh-huh. And you're listening with better ears and you're like, they don't get it yet. But they think they get it. And then when they come back the next week and you're like, okay, so let's do that again. And they're like, but I did that last week. And you're like, yep, let's do it again. And they come back again. And they come back again. And they come back again. And then pretty soon they're like, well, this isn't any fun. I wanted to learn how to play the piano. I didn't want to learn how to play scales. What good are students that get grumpy at their teachers for taking longer than they think to teach them the lesson? They're no good. They're no good.

They're bad students. They don't persevere because they won't put in the work, the practice. They're unwilling to be taught. And that's always a danger. That's the danger of the Israelites. And I think one of the mercies of God in stretching out the conquest was that they would have a longer period of time seeing God wipe out these nations, preparing them to take on more and more bit by bit. He was training their faith and their obedience to him. Many times if you give someone a new responsibility, a big responsibility, and you don't train them, well, what they do is they fail. When your kids start to drive, you'll feel this. When is it okay to like let them drive? Like with you in the car, like when are you willing to sit where you don't have a gas pedal and a brake and a steering wheel in front of you and let them out in the wild? You'd want to train them.

You'd want to make sure they understand how the brake and the gas and the steering work in your car, how sensitive they are. You'd want them to get accustomed to it. And all the while, they're just like, but when do I get to drive to school? Or when do I get to drive? When can I drive? I just want to drive. When can I drive? And you're like, not yet. In a little bit. Let me see. My first car was a stick shift, so I had to learn not only how to drive on the road, but I had to learn how to take off on a hill. You learn it, but it takes longer than you think.

And all of that practice, that repetition, doing it again, getting good, getting comfortable is necessary. And so we really do have to fight against the impatience of wanting what's ours. We want the training to be over and we want to be set free. We think we're competent. We think the real impediments in our lives are those holding us back, not realizing that many times those who are putting up the roadblocks and restraining us are doing it for our good and not our harm. They're teaching us things. And one of those things they're teaching us in whatever context is, one of the things they're teaching us is patience, humility. Hebrews 5.8, speaking of Jesus Christ, says, although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered. It's a weird verse. It's the kind of verse you read and you're just like, well, I don't know what that means. And you just carry on. But let's circle back for a second and let's say, do we believe that the author of Hebrews is just lying to us?

in saying that Jesus learned obedience? No. Do we think that Jesus lacked some knowledge or some part of his deity that was insufficient? No. So what does it mean that he learned obedience? What I think it means is that he learned what we would have to endure by having to face things over a longer period of time as opposed to a shorter period of time. You see, the longer you have to bear up under something, you learn new lessons about it. You learn new ways of dealing with it. You learn how to serve God carrying that weight. That's what you and I face. And I think that when Jesus was on earth, he learned about our weaknesses. He learned how to continue to serve his father in the midst of suffering. After all, we have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses. And I believe that he learned to sympathize with our weaknesses by enduring for longer than an instant some of the burdens that we bear.

And so if it was sufficient for Jesus to learn obedience through his sufferings over time, even when he cried out, Father, if there's any other way, can you take this away from me? What was he doing there? He was learning. And so if Jesus learned by experience the temptations that we would face, we ought not to despise God teaching us in the same manner that he taught his son. Which means that our frustration at things not being the way they should be yet, is actually a fault. And not our spouse's fault or our finances' fault or the government's fault. It's a moral fault within us that doesn't trust God and rest in him the way we ought to. And so God's going to teach them by extending their conquest.

He's going to teach them to trust him. You remember, and in this passage it reiterates, you shall not fear them. You shall not dread them. Do not fear them. When was their fear finally going to be done? They'd seen the destruction of the Egyptians, a greater and more powerful nation than any that they're facing now. You'd think they wouldn't fear, right? Nope. Left Egypt, went over to the border, sent spies in. What happened? Fear. Fear. captivated their hearts. Judgment, 40 years, death of the men. Now come the end of the 40 years and they're making their way out of the wilderness and down along the river to the point at which they're going to cross over. They've got to go through the land of the Edomites and the Amorites maybe. I don't remember which one it was. What was their disposition toward those kings? Fear. What did God do?

delivered them into the hands of the Israelites. They were afraid. Now they've come to the border and they're about to cross over into the promised land proper. And they're going to wipe out these seven nations. What's their response? Fear. What's their response going to be after the first kingdom falls? We got this. It's all good now. Probably fear. What about after the second one and the third one? What about when the sixth one is gone and there's just one left? Now they won't fear, right? I bet they still fear. Which means they still have learning to do. They're still in God's school being taught his lessons. And God is with them. And so Israel needed to learn obedience and faith. Not in this time, but in this time. Their whole life. And so God was merciful in walking with them. Disciplining their impatience. Teaching them to trust him.

And these are the lessons that you and I still need today. Don't you get frustrated at the way things are in your life? It's not as drastic as having to commit genocide. But don't you get frustrated? Why can't this just be better? Why can't the Lord just take it away? Brother, sister, daughter, son, you need to learn patience. And God will teach you patience and praise him for it. It's a hard lesson to learn. Patience is not... Holding your breath, gritting your teeth, and soldiering through it. That is not what patience looks like. That's misery incarnate. And you can't live your life that way, but it's miserable. Learning patience is learning to rest in the will of God today. Not when the thing that's going on today stops. And so it's a hard lesson to learn.

Because we need to both pray that God would be merciful to us in our incredible weakness and take away the burdens that overwhelm us. And we need to pray that God would strengthen us to bear up under them if it's his will that he doesn't take them away. That's tense. That's hard. And it's a lesson that we will be learning until all of our sins are done away with like those nations. So I don't want to lie to you. You're going to be dealing with this until you go to stand before him. And little by little, you have this promise from him in this passage that he will clear away your enemies. And that you can grow and it will become more familiar. I don't know if I can go so far as to say easier. But you will become more accustomed to trusting God in the face of difficulty. And that's the lesson he's teaching his people here in the conquest of Canaan. Our training will end.

When the things that we can be afraid of or be distracted by or tempted by are finally removed. And that's not going to be next week. At least I don't think any of us want it to be next week. If we understand that to mean we're gone now. And so God's people ought to be, we ought to be a sturdy people. Those who don't live their lives given to their fears, given to their short-term desires and lusts. But those who trust God to give to us. All that he's promised to us in his time and that our part is to trust and obey and wait. This is our part as Christians. I think one of the lessons that God teaches us through all of this is that this world is not our home and we ought not to be as enamored with it as we are. It's a hard lesson to learn. And it's not because the world is so worldly, it's because you're so worldly. And so God pries.

this material crap out of your hands and out of your hearts and replaces it with a desire for him and for peace with him and rest with him and communion with him and so if we have to land live as they did for a number of years in the land of our enemies which is what they did we could attribute that to their unfaithfulness but we could also attribute that to God's training of them One way to look at it is to say, are those nations still around today? They're not. God actually did what he said here. He actually got rid of those nations. But it took a long time. And his people were being taught to trust him and to walk with him and to follow him in that raging sea. And so that's the lesson for us. So don't grow weary in well-doing. Don't make excuses for yourself.

Okay, I know you have different things going on in your life than I do in mine and vice versa. But listen, it's unchristian to make excuses for your weaknesses. They're just weaknesses and faults and God knows them. And he knows his children are what we are. He's mindful that we're but dust. And he bears with us and gives us his good things, our good things. We have to wait on him and we have to teach those around us to wait on him by faith. Then you'll have joy. You'll be able to sleep at night. And you'll want to tell other people about this king, this Lord, this Savior, who gives you this peace. Let's pray.