About this sermon
Exodus 23 and Deuteronomy 7 describe the Lord going before Israel to drive out the nations and to destroy their altars and idols. The conquest of Canaan was the Lord’s holy war, a judgment on wicked nations, and Israel’s part was to serve him alone and show their enemies no pity. Grace extends to a thousand generations of those who love him, and judgment falls on those who hate him. The church now shares in that judgment through the gospel and church discipline, until Christ judges the world.
Sermon transcript
As we come to the reading of God’s Word this morning, I’m going to ask that we begin in the book of Exodus. If we could turn to Exodus chapter 23, please. Exodus chapter 23, I’ll begin reading at verse 20. and read through the end of the chapter and then we’ll be turning over to Deuteronomy chapter seven. Give your attention for this is the word of God. Exodus chapter 23 verse 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. 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. 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.
For my angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hibbites, and the Jebusites, and I will completely destroy them. 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 pillar in pieces. 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. There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land.
I will fill the number of your days. 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 enemy turn their backs to you. I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. 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. 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. You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against me. But for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.” That’s Exodus 23. Let’s turn over to Deuteronomy chapter 7. Deuteronomy 7, and there we’ll begin reading at verse 17. Deuteronomy 7, verse 17. Once again, this is the Word of God. Give your attention to it. If you should say in your heart, these nations are greater than I, how can I dispossess them? You shall not be afraid of them.
You shall well remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. The great trials which your eyes saw and the signs and the wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out. So shall the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet against them until those who are left and hide themselves from you perish. You shall not dread them for the Lord your God is in your midst, the great and awesome God. The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little.
You will not be able to put an end to them quickly for the wild beast 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 hands 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.
The raven images of their gods you are to burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, or you will be snared by it. For it is an abomination to the Lord your God. You shall not bring an abomination into your house and like it come under the ban. You shall utterly detest it and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is something banned.
Thus far the reading of God’s holy word. Let’s pray together, shall we? Our father, may you go before us now, preparing the way for your word to have its good effect. And might you, O Father, open the hearts of your people, even unto those whose hearts perhaps have not been opened before, that we might know you and love you and serve you, that we would walk, O Father, in that godly reverence all the days of our lives, confessing our God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. And may you bless now, Father, the reading and the preaching and the hearing of your word. that we might be built up in that most holy faith that is pleasing and acceptable to you. We pray in Jesus’ name, giving thanks. Amen.
In the book of the covenant produced at Mount Sinai, there was promulgated a program of conquest and extermination against the Canaanite people and their religious practice. In Exodus 23 verses 20 to 33 that we read here this morning, the Lord promised to send his angel before Israel on the wilderness track along the way and by that one to bring Israel into the place that the Lord had prepared for them. The name of the Lord was to be upon this angel, and he would go before them into the land of Canaan, and by him would the Lord completely destroy the enemies of Israel. Thereby, the ancient prophecy of Noah, pronouncing Canaan cursed, and the servant of Shem would be fulfilled. That’s Genesis 9, after the flood. The hour of divine judgment now having come. Moses, in the words of Deuteronomy, nearly 40 years after the words of Exodus, charges Israel with the execution of that program.
Everybody and everything in Canaan which was consecrated to idols, rather than to the service of the true and the living God, must be consecrated to the wrath of God, placed under the ban, if you will. In summary, when the Israelites conquered their new land, they were to destroy the old inhabitants, refusing to enter into any kind of treaty with them, either political or marital. Any kind of treaty would be a compromise and would lead to disaster. Therefore, the Israelites were to destroy systematically the physical religious objects of worship of their enemies, indicating thereby their complete refusal to recognize the gods of the enemies of those who lived and dwelt in Canaan.
The inhabitants of Palestine, whom the Israelites would meet and fight, are listed more comprehensively here in Deuteronomy 7 than normally. At the beginning of the chapter of chapter 7, there are seven nations, those seven nations making up the enemy Israel was to face. Seven nations greater and stronger than Israel. No doubt the number seven has some implications in terms of a complete number.
There was a whole raft of enemy that lay before them. But their strength and their numbers, however, were not to cause the Israelites alarm, for God would set the enemy before his people and they were then to smite them. He would deliver them into their hands and they were to utterly destroy them. Verse two of chapter seven. They were to make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. The Hebrew word translated here in this verse, chapter two or chapter seven, verse two, the word utterly destroy. There at the beginning of the chapter is the Hebrew word harem, meaning utterly destroy in the major English versions, primarily meaning to devote or hence the concept of a ban, of a complete banning from their worship and their inclusion in the things of the idols.
But rather they were to be set apart completely for God, devoted completely to God’s destruction. Thus the idea of destruction or extermination comes into play. And as we spoke last time and we continue today, many reading this portion of scripture and reading this conception of God’s command upon Israel to go into the land and utterly drive out the opponents of Yahweh, and this command to destroy the Canaanites, look at this, many look at this as though it represented something less than a Christian ethic, if you will. How could God possibly, how could Christians adopt this idea of utterly destroying the enemy? When in fact, the offense is taken at the theology and religion of the Bible as a whole.
The New Testament too warns men of the realm of the everlasting ban, where the reprobate, the children of wrath, must magnify the justice of the God whom they have hated and resisted. Indeed, the very judgments of hell at the end of the age are the harem principle come to full, to their full and final manifestation.
Since the Old Testament theocracy in Canaan was a divinely appointed symbol of that consummate of the consummate kingdom of God, there is found in connection with it a type and a shadow of the judgment that is coming. Indeed, many who question the Old Testament are those who question the existence of hell and a judgment yet to come. Israel was being called to a participation in God’s kingdom, a participation in that judgment. Not the end of the world, but certainly a destination and an end in terms of the old covenant as they move towards the promised land and the dealing with God’s enemies, particularly the Canaanites who dwelt in the land. Think about this yourselves, brothers and sisters, in a New Testament context.
Do you not know the word of the apostle Paul, where he argues for church discipline? And there in 1 Corinthians asks the question, do you not know that the saints will judge the world? That you will be participant as judges of the world and bringing the justice of God to bear. And Paul says, if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? In other words, yes, there’s a place for church discipline now, when in fact you will sit with God in the judgment to come. Indeed, that judgment, Paul says in 1 Corinthians, we’re judged now by God’s word and spirit that will not be judged then, Because there is a judgment coming, there is a hell, and the world is under condemnation. But God is patient, and he has sent us into the world to preach the good news of the gospel until the end. Paul asks again, do you not know that we shall judge angels?
Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, he says. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers shall inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t you know that?
But the world is acting as if it isn’t so. And many in the church act as if it isn’t so. But brothers and sisters, you know it’s so. and you’re a participant in a kingdom, a kingdom of holiness, a kingdom of righteousness. Here then is a call to holiness and a call to humility, to fear the Lord, to put away sin, to repent and to believe. As believers, do we agree with God and his word or do we stumble at that word? And so it was. in a typical sense, that Israel, the great recipients of God’s love, of God’s loving kindness, of his tender mercies, of his covenantal affections, have been set apart in her calling to be the true vine, the true Israel, the people of God, to a positive consecration in living sacrifice and service to God.
And as such, They are given the command typologically before the end of the world in dealing with a particular portion of geography. They were to utterly defeat the Canaanites. They were to obliterate their cultic institutions. They were to tear down their altars and burn their pillars and strip their Asherim poles and their graven images. Lest Israel through her weakness, relinquish her covenantal distinctiveness and fall prey to foreign and idolatrous allegiances and hence to her own destruction.
It is a call to holiness. It is a call to be God’s people. It is a call to be a participant in the judgment that God declares and has pronounced. The God of the covenant would grant to his people the strength, the strength for victory over their enemies.
And in so doing, Israel was not to forget the Lord, the Lord who had brought them out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. They were to fear only the Lord, their God, and to worship him and swear by his name alone. They were not to follow the other gods. any of the gods of the peoples who surrounded them. No, Israel was to be a holy people unto the Lord set apart. This was the goal of Israel’s election that was to be promoted by the elimination of the Canaanites in Palestine.
The language of Deuteronomy 7, verse 6. We didn’t read it this morning. Deuteronomy 7, verse 6. recalls Exodus chapter 19 verses five and six, the classic formulation of the unique theocracy, which for Israel, for which Israel was chosen to be God’s people, and God would rule over them as king, according to his choice and election, not because of who they were or what they had done, but according to election, that Sinai the Lord had said to Israel, now then, if you will indeed obey my voice and you will keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples, Exodus 19, five and six. All of the world is mine, but you will be my people and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
The reason then for Israel’s policy of war lay in her election and her holiness and her being set apart as that kingdom of priests. The Israelites were a holy people because of their relationship to Yahweh, the Lord, their God, a relationship which separated them from all the other peoples and practices of the nations. Of course, their holiness, their holy character does not indicate or some sense of inherent merit as if they deserved it. but rather it speaks of divine choice. God had chosen Israel to be his prized possession out of all of the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
And that, however, was no ground for pride or for boasting. Israel was instead to be reminded to glory, glory only in the name of the Lord, their God. For in his sovereign love and faithfulness alone was to be found the explanation of their election. Certainly not their size, their numerical strength.
For God had chosen their father Abraham when he was but one, being only one. And in turn, the family of Jacob, which descended into Egypt, not because they were many, but some 70 souls. It followed from the sovereignty of God’s grace that Israel had no claim upon him that might encourage carelessness with respect to his covenant demands and sanctions.
I have chosen you, the Lord is saying, you are my people. Keep my commandments and my statutes and be a holy people and set yourselves over against the nations and their idolatry and sin. Positively put, Israel was chosen because the Lord loved them. The reason for God’s special love, though it contained within it a special purpose, remains essentially a mystery of God’s own purpose and decision, incomprehensible to us. Why did God do so other than God chose to do so? But on the basis of that love, God had called Abraham and his descendants.
He had made the covenant promise to them. And on the basis of the covenant promise, he had charted his people’s course through the events of history, liberating them from the bondage of Egypt, verse eight of our chapter seven, and bringing them to the present moment on the plains of Moab, across the Jordan, on the eve of the fulfillment of the ancient promise made to the fathers that he would give them this land. And thus does God’s love and choice of this people call forth from them nothing less than love and the keeping of his commandments.
In verses 9 to 11 of Deuteronomy 7, Moses alludes to the sanction formulations which were affixed to the second commandment. You recall the second commandment not to make any graven images. In this way, he encouraged obedience by declaring that though unmerited grace would be continued to the thousandth generation, apostate despisers of grace and holiness would discover that covenant curses were no idle threats, just as God had said. Those that openly hate the Lord and refuse to keep his commandments are inviting God’s speedy retaliation and judgment. These words no doubt apply both to renegade Israelites and to those of the surrounding nations whom Israel was to encounter in war. Let Israel and the nations be warned. After all, God does not warn in vain.
Conversely, the faithful might be confident that the promised covenant blessings were no empty promises. On the basis then of this divine love and choice and Yahweh’s covenant fidelity, the Israelites are thereby persuaded to be obedient to the whole law, the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which Moses puts before them now. and closely connected with these blessings would be Israel’s own keeping of the covenant. Just as God is covenant keeper, it is a call for them to be covenant keepers. From verse 12, it certainly appears that such obedience was a contingency if Israel were to continue to experience God’s faithfulness and loving kindness. It is this note of contingency that if you keep my commandments, I will be with you and I will keep my promises to you. It is this note of contingency that adds such solemnity to Moses’s discourse.
For although God’s faithfulness and his ability were beyond question, the course of the future would correspond generally with the people responding to their covenant obligations. We know the Bible and we know that this does not mean That obedience merited divine blessing, not at all.
But rather, that obedience maintained the proper covenant relationship with God. And this people, his people, would experience the blessing of God only when the covenant relationship, which involved reciprocal relationships and responsibilities, was properly maintained. Corresponding with his obedience would be their prosperity and their fruitfulness in the land, in their good health, attending to their military success in the conquest.
God would be with them and bless their families and bless the land and give fruit to the vine and so on. Yahweh, Yahweh, the creator, the true God of Israel, not Baal. was the bestower of fertility in field, in flock, in family, as he kept his covenant and his loving kindness. It was the Lord who had subjected man after all to nature’s curse because of sin. And it was the Lord alone who was able therefore to bless and multiply his people, to bless the fruit of their womb and their flocks, the fruit of their ground and their flocks, and to deliver the Israelites from the curse. of Egypt’s notorious diseases that are spoken of here. It was God, God alone, who would give them success in their military conquest. It was God, God alone, who would keep them from idolatry.
Thus does verse 16 summarize their marching orders. The command before them and its purpose. And you shall consume, it says, all the peoples whom the Lord your God will deliver to you, your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. This reference to military success brings back the focus to the theme of the chapter as a whole. All the blessings described earlier, family and field, all the blessings described could come to pass only after the Israelites had conquered and expelled the previous occupants of the land possessed for themselves. Here, however, it is not an injunction to fight, but a promise of military success. I will deliver them into your hands. That is, it is given, you shall consume them. It’s a statement. You shall consume all the peoples. God will deliver them to you.
The Israelite military action was to be without pity, for Israel was to refuse to serve their gods lest they violate the Lord’s first commandment. Though in respect to the privileges of election, Israel would be tempted to vanity, thinking more of themselves than they ought. In the face of their responsibility to the commission before them, they were tempted to timidity. thinking there are enemies greater than they, how can they possibly overcome them? In answer to any such rising fears, Moses reminds them of all of that wondrous experience in Egypt, in the Exodus, and what God had done to save them. He assured them that the same terrible God was still in their midst to war in their behalf against the Canaanite kings. Whom then should they fear?
The hornet mentioned in verse 20, mentioned also in the plural in Exodus 23, 28, must be seen as a figure for the terror of God, which descending on Israel’s foes produced panic and hiding in fear. This people would not be able to stand against Israel.
Beloved, we remember how God called Abraham, how he gave him victory over the kings in Genesis 14, We remember how the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt overthrowing Pharaoh and his chariots in the Red Sea. We remember in turn how God gave the promised land into the hand of Joshua and the sons of Israel led by the very angel of the Lord as predicted in Exodus 20, 23 that is. And we remember later in history, of course, how the Lord raised up David, a man after his own heart who slew Goliath, And as a warrior, King gained the victory over many armies, providing peace and rest to a unified Israel. Notwithstanding the sin, the rebelliousness, the unfaithfulness of Israel time and again, and the hand of chastisement that came upon them time and again, God showed himself faithful and a mighty warrior, able to give victory to his people time and again. in the Old Testament context.
Now, we remember that those things were written for our instruction. And I want you to take note of one difference between the text in Exodus and the text in Deuteronomy. In Exodus, there is mentioned the angel of the Lord who would go before the people of God. We come to Deuteronomy 7, there’s no mention of the angel. Instead, we have mention of God will deliver them into their hand. In Exodus 23, we have mention of the hornets. In Deuteronomy 7, we have mention of the singular hornet who would go before them and cause confusion and dismay among the peoples.
These things were written for our instruction and there is movement and progression. God himself will deliver his people. God himself will lead us to the promised land. And we remember that the types and the shadows of the Old Testament story, the stories of Abraham, the stories of Jacob, Isaac and Jacob, the stories of Moses, the stories of Joshua, the stories of David are true and real stories to be sure, a real people with whom God had dealings, but we remember that the types and the shadows have their fulfillment in God, and specifically in the person and work of Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. The seed of Abraham, the Savior King, the greater Son of David, the very Son of God, And it is he who promised, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not overpower it.
It is he who has gone before us. He is the Prince of Peace, who wields the two-edged sword of his word, taking captive the nations, conquering sin and Satan and death. that he might gather to himself a people from every nation, tribe, and tongue. He has gone before us for he has overcome the world and he’s already made his way to heaven where he now sits at the father’s right hand. Therefore, brethren, when he says to you, to the church, to the apostolic band and to those who come after, go into the world and make disciples, baptize them into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey all that I’ve commanded you. And lo, I am with you always. We are reminded that if he has gone before, he has overcome the world, that he is with us.
Therefore, brethren, we are strong in him and in the strength of his might. Put on his armor, as Paul says, put on the armor of God and do not be afraid. You did not choose him, but he chose you that you might be his people and that you might bear fruit, much fruit, and that you should show that spiritual fruit in his church and in his kingdom. And so prove to be his disciples and demonstrate his power and his grace and his love towards you.
Overcoming the world by faith in the assurance that he will not let one of his elect go uncollected and be sure there is a judgment to come and the day hastens. Therefore, get up and be about the business that the Lord, your God who saved you, has given you to do.
Amen. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, again, we are reminded even in the stories of the Old Testament people, that you were with them, that you had called them, that you had set them apart, you had placed your mark upon them, you were in their midst, you would go before them, you promised to drive out their enemies and to place them into their hands. Lord, even so, we read of the stumblings and the bumblings of that Old Testament people, but we are reminded and taught there of the faithfulness of Jehovah. who would keep his word, who would conquer the nations, who would gather a people unto himself to worship him in the spirit of holiness in the church of Jesus Christ. Our father, that day hastens, that day is upon us to go now, to gather that people, to make the conquest, to drive out the enemy that yet remains. For the day is coming when the judgment will fall and every soul will stand before the judgment seat of that great God.
We would not linger then, Father, but we would rise up and be hasty about the work that Christ has given us to do. Let us pray faithfully, earnestly, without ceasing. Let us preach and preach faithfully without ceasing. Let us call upon our God to do what he said he would do as Christ promised to build his church. We thank you for it. Even now. as you build that church, O Father, through Christ and his gospel. We pray, giving thanks to you in Jesus’ name. Amen. Let’s turn together to hymn number 270, shall we? 270. Let’s stand together, Charlie.
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