POINT A CROSS
The perfect plan that God had for his people was
beyond escape their bondage from Egypt, it was entrance into the Promised Land
in Canaan.
As today, the perfect plan of God is beyond our
deliverance from the bondage of sin, it is entrance into his promises of favour
and prosperity in a fuller life. Many people are content in staying in the
wilderness.
The GREAT ENEMY
The two types of herding civilizations in
history have been those of wandering livestock, like the Hebrews, and settled
livestock like the Amalekites and
Canaanites.
History has shown that they have
not, for the most part, been in competition with each other. There was no
economic reason to go to war against the Hebrews unless this was motivated by
something else.
Indeed Satan against God. The only difference between the
fighting armies, at any given time, was that:
(a) Satan merely used the different peoples to fight with God. On the
other hand God was the creator and had a relationship with his people; they
were more than just soldiers to Him.
(b) While the pagan Canaanites did not know on behalf of who they were
really fighting, the Hebrews knew who their Father was.
Evil has existed far and wide throughout history. Evidence for human sacrifice, for instance, has been found in the royal tombs at Ur, in Mesopotamia (c 2500 BC) as well as China during the Shang Dynasty (1558-1048 BC).
PRAISE & WORSHIP
“Blessed be the Lord God above every god that is considered great; above every god that is held in high esteem by those who are great in the eyes of the world.”
Ex. 18:10. Trevor M Chase
GOD'S PLAN of CONQUEST
Turning to
the supernatural for direction has, for the greater part of humanity, has been
a normal undertaking. It is only with the carnality and spiritual void of
modern society in the last 100 years that people have forgotten. The fact that
95% of our timeline has shown a greater reverence towards a superior being
should say something about us and it should make it harder for us to accept the
view that, all of the sudden, modern society has discovered the truth and done
away with the need for godly direction all together.
Oracle
bones and turtle shells were used in China and other parts of the world to see
into the future. Later it would be bird entrails in Egypt and the
Mediterranean. This was used by rulers for discovery of the outcome of military
campaigns among other things.
The Hebrews were in the wilderness, prepared to
take the Promised Land of Canaan, during a time in history where the empires
were all, each to a different degree, in turmoil. Canaan had always been a
coveted area to powers such as the Egyptians, Hittites and Assyrians because
of:
(a) it’s geographic position between, or at the frontier, of these
empires;
(b) It’s fruitful land with enough rainfall to sustain larger
populations.
Canaan
constituted the far reaching zone where these cultures mixed and empires
converged; geopolitically the centre of that known world. Other
regions like Canaan with this quality were, for instance, Ethiopia and
Southeast Asia.
Since at
this point in history the empires may have been at their weakest they did not
send vast troops to protect it. So basically, Canaan was more open at this
point in history than at most other times.
Nevertheless
there were independent populations there to pose enough of a threat to the
Hebrews. God promised occupation of the land of the Amorites, Hittites,
Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and their destruction. These had
originated from migrants had landed from
parts of the Mediterranean and had defied Egypt, eventually settling in Canaan,
particularly on the coastal area called the Land of the Philistines (later
Palestine).
God is
careful not to drive out these forces in a single year, as the land would
become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for the Hebrews. Instead the
occupation would take place little by little so that the Hebrew population
could increase.
You can
have land with territory but you cannot have a nation without population.
Borders are
planned: from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean; from Sinai to the Euphrates
River.
A key command
is given in which the future of the people for the next millennium depends:
they were never to intermarry with their enemies or make a covenant with their
gods, even during peace time. The boundaries would have to be observed, neither
would their enemies be permitted into Israel’s land nor the Hebrews live among
them. Ignoring this most important warning would be a snare to the people.
GOD is NOT a MEGALOMANIAC
Why of the
holy wars that God had Israel fight in Canaan? Well, the Canaanites were a
wicked people full of evil, depravity, idol worship and child sacrifices to
Molek and other gods. Molek was either practised (as a sacrifice) or worshipped
(as a god) by the Canaanites, Phoenicians, and related cultures in North Africa
and the Levant.
For God to
allow his people to live among this would be the same as Him allowing us to
live in Hell.
At this
point God was preparing the way for his son Jesus, the Messiah. He could not
have this child be born among a tribe/family of such wickedness. Such evil
could not be tolerated to exist in the same geographic area. Hence the Hebrews
would wipe out all iniquity from the promised land to make it receptive to the
proper genealogical foundation for the Christ.
If this
were not so there would have probably been more millennia of wars to get us to
year 0. Even as it is we can see what a mess the Middle East still is in.
THORN in the FLESH
If the
Hebrews did not deal with the Canaanites God said this would become a thorn at
Israel’s side (Numbers 33:55, Joshua23:13, Judges 2:3). This problem would carry through to the New Covenant
long after Jesus death and resurrection.
Indeed,
thousands of years later, when the apostle Paul talks how his “thorn in the
flesh” torments him this is exactly what he is referring to (2 Corinthians 12:7)
Paul was
referring to the Canaanites which bothered his ministry everywhere he went.
They had the right to be there doing Satan’s work until Jesus returned. God had
warned people that this would be the result because the early Hebrews chose to
disobey God cohabiting with them.
