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In his last letter, the apostle Paul told his protégé Timothy that he had fought the good fight. He had finished the race. He had kept the faith.(1) He had completed what God had set before him. His life is an example to us to not stop short of the goal . . . to not give up . . . but to finish strong!
Sadly, the Israelites demonstrated to us what it looks like when we give up and don’t finish strong. The LORD had led them to conquer the individual lands that He had given them to possess. And He said, “I have given you victory over the land.”(2) But repeatedly throughout the first chapter of Judges we read, they “failed to drive out the people living” in the land.(3) The tribe of Judah failed to drive out the people living in the plains who had iron chariots. The tribe of Benjamin failed to drive out the Jebusites. The tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali failed to drive out the Canaanites. The tribe of Dan failed to drive out the Amorites. Each of the tribes stopped short of the direction the LORD had given them, and the long term result was catastrophic.
Why did they stop short? God had assured them of victory, and He had never failed them. He had told them to utterly destroy the people. And yet, each of them failed to obey, albeit for different reasons.
The tribe of Judah feared the iron chariots of the people living in the plains. They obviously had confidence that God could overcome the giants – because they had seen Him do so.(4) But for some reason, the enemy convinced them that God was unable to defeat chariots. At the time they did not have these written words from the prophet Isaiah to remind them: “Woe to those who… rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the LORD!”(5)
And the psalmist later wrote, “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.”(6) But what they did have was God’s assurance of success – without any exception! He didn’t say – “I have given you victory as long as you avoid the chariots”, OR “I am able to overcome every enemy you will encounter, except the chariots, so do not engage with them.” He had repeatedly shown them that He was able to overcome every enemy or circumstance they would encounter – including an advancing Egyptian army of chariots across a parted Red Sea – and they had heard from their parents how that had turned out.(7)
They stopped short of the goal because they allowed their fear to prevail over their faith. They bought the lie, instead of the truth – “If God is for us, who can be against us? … We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. … Neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God…”(8) Nor are those forces able to keep us from completing what He has called us to do!
The tribe of Benjamin lacked the resolve to drive out the Jebusites. They started strong, but then gave up. We don’t know why. Did they become distracted by something else? Did they allow something or someone else to seize their attention? Somewhere along the line was their attention diverted by the ungodly, or simply by the “good” over the “best”? Did they fail to keep themselves physically, emotionally, mentally and/or spiritually charged and therefore just ran out of juice? Or was their resolve faulty from the first? The fact of the matter is that as Paul reminded us, “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it….”(9)
The tribe of Manasseh did not make any attempt to drive out the Canaanites. They were content to go their own way and make the Canaanites slaves instead of drive them out. They chose not to hold fast to what God had told them but rather to do what was right in their own eyes.
The tribe of Ephraim compromised and negotiated a deal with the Canaanites which allowed them to keep a quiet settlement in Gezer. That way they would only be giving the enemy access to a portion of their land – not all of it. All the rest of the land would be Canaanite-free. They could easily say that they had been obedient to the LORD in all of the cities. It was just Gezer where they were disobedient. It was easy for them to justify their compromise in their own minds – they were ALMOST fully obedient. But ALMOST fully obedient is disobedience!
The other tribes may have failed to be obedient for those same reasons, or it could have been driven by their own laziness – being unwilling to make the effort; or their own covetousness – desiring the things that living with the Jebusites, Canaanites or Amorites had to offer.
Every tribe failed to be obedient because at some level they lacked the dread and detestation of the idolatrous worship practiced by the Canaanite peoples (which included human sacrifice). They apparently lacked concern or conviction of its abomination to the LORD, to their own souls, and to the potential of compromise among the Israelites.
And every tribe, through the reasons outlined above, expressed an unbelief in the promise of God, a distrust in the power of God and a lack of fear in the person of God.
What was the result of their stopping short of the goal? The angel of the LORD said to them, “…I will no longer drive out the people living in your land. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a constant temptation to you.”(10) When the angel finished speaking, the people realized the consequence of their sin, and they began to weep. “So they called the place Bokim (which means ‘weeping’).”(11)
Too often you and i have the propensity to stop short of the goal of what God has given us for the same reasons. Fear. Distraction. Succumbing to temptation. Choosing to go our own way. Compromise. Laziness. Covetousness.
And underlying in all of it, we have lost reverence for a Holy God. We have become numb to the spiritual blindness and darkness of the world in which we live. We no longer care that the majority of the people on our planet today are dead in their sin and bound for a Christless eternity. And we live as if we no longer believe God’s promises, trust His power, or fear His Name. And even more – unlike the Israelites – i fear we no longer weep over our sin.
May we heed the admonition of Paul: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”(12)
And as a result, may He find us faithful to not stop short of the goal, but rather to “press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,”(13) . . . and finish strong!
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You’ll find that the primary text surrounding the Israelites’ disobedience is found in the Book of Judges, chapters 1 and 2.
i have excerpted portions of this post from chapter 41 of my book, Possessing the Promise. For more information about the book, click here.
Also, if you have not yet done so, i invite you to read my book about the life of the apostle Paul, entitled Through the Eyes of a Prisoner. For more information about that book, click here.
(1) 2 Timothy 4:7
(2) Joshua 1:2 (NLT)
(3) Judges 1
(4) Joshua 14:5-15; 15:13-15; 21:43-45
(5) Isaiah 31:1 (NKJ)
(6) Psalm 20:7 (NKJ)
(7) Exodus 14:26-31
(8) Romans 8:31, 37, 38 (NLT)
(9) Philippians 1:6 (NKJ)
(10) Judges 2:3 (NLT)
(11) Judges 2:5 (NLT)
(12) Romans 12:1-2 (NKJ)
(13) Philippians 3:14 (NKJ)
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