“I will drive them out before you little by little”

Exodus 23:20-33. NASB95
20 “Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
21 “Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him.
22 “But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
23 “For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them.
24 “You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their sacred pillars in pieces.
25 “But you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst.
26 “There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.
27 “I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.
28 “I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you.
29 “I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.
30 “I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land.
31 “I will fix your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River Euphrates; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.
32 “You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods.
33 “They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

This passage was shared on Friday night. It was used to illustrate several ideas about how God works in bringing change to an area. However, a long time ago, when I first became a Christian, the Holy Spirit quickened a part of it to me as a personal promise. I have not thought about it for a long time.

Exodus 23:29-30. “I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land.”

The Lord was promising that I would “be transformed by the renewing of [my] mind” [ Romans 12:2]. This is a process and it takes time. I want the whole land to be cleared NOW. But that is not how the Lord works. He had a lot of work to do. It was going to take time. And I needed to be patient.

CS Lewis writes, calling our bodies: “Those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that created the universe.” And this is true not just about our bodies.

I became a Christian in my mid-twenties. That “estate” had gotten pretty run-down. Its grounds were weedy and its buildings dilapidated. Transforming me from a fallen man into His image is the work of a lifetime.

One of the reasons God takes a gradual pace is that we do not get proud, believing that we somehow did it on our own. The gradual pace not only grinds down my pride, it shows me my true nature without the Lord. It shows my desperate need for Him and for His cross (last week was Good Friday and Easter). Only by repeatedly coming to Him about my needs, both for personal renewal and for what He calls me to do can I come to “experientially know” Him.

The Lord also brings me repeatedly to what seems to be the same place.

Strange play interlude:

Me: “Not the Perizzites again? I thought that we dealt with them last year.”

The Lord: “No, this is another village of them.”

Me: “OK, but this better be the last time.”

The Lord in an aside: “Bill, only 27 more villages of Perrizzites to go. But, next week there is a troublesome little village of Hivites that I have been wanting to deal with for DECADES.”

If I apply this to the Lord wanting to change the spiritual climate in a town, a county, a state or a country I realize that the Lord can take the same approach. He quietly deals with the strongholds in the life of community, until He has “broken through with a breakthrough ” [2 Samuel 6:8, margin note]. Then He can bring revival and renewal.

In church, we have something we regularly pray, that “The Lord would make it hard to go Hell from [home town].” Ideally, this will happen when the local churches (plural) are ready before the Lord to take care of all of the sheep that He has called. Or the local churches gradually “become fruitful and take possession of the land.” Of all of the land.