Inability to Excise

No, I said it right, "excise" not "exercise." I remember a time when my daughter was about two years old, and had the biggest splinter in the history of mankind, save the one in this picture, in her foot. We had to read her a story, do everything we could as we prepared to hold her down if necessary, as I worked with a razor blade for an hour to slowly get it out. A similar story happened to the people of God in the Old Testament with the opposite result.

In the story of the people of Israel, God had given them the land, they just needed to go and make that a reality. There was a conquest. They were to divide the land among the tribes where they would settle. However, before that could happen, they must take the land.

God gave them specific instructions that they were to drive out the peoples that inhabited the land. The Lord promised his presence, and his power to fight on their behalf to ensure that all the "-ites" were gone. A couple of reasons necessitated the removal of the nations. First, their sin demanded justice, and it was God's timing to meet out his wrath upon them. Second, God knew that the gods of these peoples would draw the hearts of the Israelites away from purer obedience and love for Him.

As I read the story again this morning, I saw a pattern of disobedience to God's command. In verses 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 33 of chapter one, the bible explicitly states in each verse that they did not drive out the inhabitants of the land completely. Names and places were given, tribes were called out, but their disobedience to drive out the nations was widespread. Made me wonder the reasons, why the children of God did exactly what he told them not to do? Many of the remaining tribes were turned into forced labor (probably in exchange for remaining in their homes). Israel probably saw an opportunity for free help in a new land to become prosperous on the backs of others. Maybe spoils of cities and women? Just speculation. However, when they stayed so did their idols.

So God said, "...you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? 3 So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you." -Judges 2:2-3. His judgment was that they would be a recurring pain in the neck, a chronic snare, a source of continual suffering to the people. This judgment came to pass then and continues to come to pass today. Over and over Israel was led astray by the gods of the nations until the point where God judged them with destruction from the king of Babylon. They spent seventy years on the banks of the river, crying to God to let them go home to their holy city, which was flattened and burned.

Sin in our lives destroys us, yet most of us attack it with the goal of obliteration. We use peashooter regulations in our lives as check boxes to see if we can avoid outward expressions of sinful behaviors. We feel bad about not reading our bibles, and not praying "enough," but we never examine what might be the underlying cause. Rarely are we willing to cut off the hands and gouge out the eyes to drive out the sin and its roots from our walk with Christ. Israel was disobedient, yes, but the root cause of their sin that brought them to destruction was their lack of love for the Lover of their souls.

Like the people of God then we who are the people of God now, still have a love affair with many idols because we leave them in the land of our hearts. The reason that we have no victory is neither a lack of time nor a lack of discipline, nor too many engagements and commitments, it is a lack of love. We must fight worldly pleasure with a greater one, the pleasure we gain from our love with the Shepherd of our souls.

When we find immense and ultimately satisfying pleasure in Him, the things of earth (including the sin that you lazily fight) will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Not only that, but a watching world will see the true worth of Christ as your treasure and glorify your Father in heaven even when they don't know him. So turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full at His wonderful face and pursue it, knowing with confident assurance that satisfaction and victory over sin lies in Him.