DEEPER STILL

There were 3 nations the new generation of Jews had passed through. God told the Israelites to not hinder them because he had made promises to their relatives.

Edom, Moab, and Ammon. These were descendants of Esau, and the two sons of Lot.

When Moses wrote about this in Deut. he only hit the high points. When you read about the same accounts in Numbers you learn that those three nations were not kind to Isreal.

Now we move to 2 other nations. These were not related to Israel, and God sees fit to remove them from their lands.

Heshbon, led by King Sihon, and Bashan, led by King Og.

Israel fights and wins decisive victories against these two nations.

For every divine promise, there is a call for human response.

Deuteronomy 3:3 HCSB

So the Lord our God also handed over Og king of Bashan and his whole army to us. We struck him until there was no survivor left.

The Lord gave, we struck him down.

As God progressively reveals Himself and our relationship with Him grows our faith is stretched. (When Israel crossed the Red Sea the water parted before their feet touched it, when they crossed the Jordan in the near future, the water parted when the souls of their feet touched it.

The first three nations they encountered were relatives, and even it was not easy, they made it .They never had to lift a hand, or fight a battle, but they did have to go… and they did have to refrain from fighting, even when their relatives were unkind.

However these last two nations required battle.

And they won decisively. I think it should be mentioned here:

The program of battle carried out both here and the book of Joshua, is to kill every man, woman, child. Goes against our modern understanding of how to do war. And it certainly doesn’t fit everything else we know about God. So why, when it came to the Promised Land did God want Israel to do this. Here are a list of the answers sometimes given.

God can do what He wants.

God is a mystery, don’t ask.

The Canaanites were wicked.. like the World in Noah’s Day; or Egypt in Moses’ Day, or the world in the end times.

Deut. 7.1 both spells out and limits who could be done this way. We should not appropriate verses like this to justify killing Muslims, Japs, or Jews, etc.

Little Canaanites grow up to be big Canaanites (Israel fails to wipe out some groups and it haunts them in the future)

God wanted a Holy People in the Holy Land.

Canaanites had 40 years to repent since according to Rahab, they knew Israel was coming.

NOW

If you notice carefully, little description is given to HOW they won the battles. How many soldiers? Where did the battles take place? What was the strategy?

Moses stays silent because this is not important: What is important is that their primary resources were courage and faith in God.

Their primary resources were courage and faith in God.

It needs to be pointed out clearly, courage and faith only works when it is in obedience to God.

These scenes are not about God blessing Israel’s plans, but God blessing Israel as they carried out His plans.

A little girl shared that sometimes she questions God as promise keeper because He let her bird die. I think there is a head answer and a heart answer to this.

The heart answer is to empathize with the little girl because we have all asked God for things that did not come to pass.

But we also need to fortify our minds that God has made no promise to save the bird… or many of the things we pray for.

God KEEPS His PROMISES, but does not obligate Himself to our finite expectations.

This is not FAITH IN FAITH, but Faith in God.

Illustration: Sick on the couch “Land before time” We just have to have faith.... It will all be ok.

Their Confidence was built small victory on small victory

Deuteronomy 3:11 HCSB

(Only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. His bed was made of iron. Isn’t it in Rabbah of the Ammonites? It is 13 feet six inches long and six feet wide by a standard measure. )

They COULD DO IT. They could conquer giants, because the Lord WOULD fight for them.

They had the bed of King OG as a tangible reminder.

Do you have landmarks, or tokens, or trophies of times when you had a tremendous victory? I’m not talking about a participation trophy, but where you WON?

How about Spiritual Battles?

IF HE LEADS YOU TO IT, HE WILL LEAD YOU THROUGH IT.