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Nonetheless, it requires qualities such as loyalty, patriotism, courage, self-denial, vision, understanding, and sacrifice for us to be victorious overcomers. It is a spiritual warfare, one that takes place primarily within ourselves. It does not involve bloody engagements featuring swords, spears, or rifles with bayonets. This is one reason why the New Testament has so many illustrations and exhortations regarding Christian warfare. Christian living parallels this Old Testament instruction. These are negative characteristics left over from our pre-conversion days. They were to drive out the inhabitants even as we, in cooperation with God, are to confront and drive out old habits, attitudes, and loyalties. Their responsibility was to drive them out in cooperation with God, as He promised to be with them, enabling them to drive the people out, which they were incapable of doing without His involvement.
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They did not understand Exodus 23 as a free pass, as many do today. The episode recorded in Numbers 13-14 reveals that the Israelite spies fully expected to have to fight the Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites, etc. Their fulfillment depended on Israel's obedience, and part of that obedience was confronting their enemies, the people of the land, in warfare. We concluded that God's promises in Exodus 23 were indeed conditional. This "schooling" included tests by which the Israelites could measure their progress, and at the same time, prove to God their growth and readiness. The march through the wilderness and the conquest of the Promised Land was a school, a vast, almost fifty-years-long training ground, for appreciating, using, and governing the Promised Land. However, many other contexts show that God tests His people because He is preparing them for future responsibilities. Such submission would have undoubtedly made their course easier and produced better results. Some people draw a careless assumption from a surface evaluation of Exodus 23:20-33, leading to a shallow conclusion: that if the Israelites had just obeyed God, they would have marched into the land and taken it over without a fight. We cannot become discouraged, but must keep going on, because God will not stop. Many times our faith has failed, but God patiently continues to work with us. This ought to encourage those of us who fail from time to time. They exhibited some measure of faith, and God faithfully and duly records it. The major reason that they turned themselves around may have largely been because of faithful leadership, primarily by Moses and possibly by others as well. Hebrews 11:29 shows that these people did recover their faith in time to go through the Red Sea. God thinks of time in the same way a teacher does: “There is still time to catch this person's interest and turn them around.” Therefore, God gave the Israelites forty years in the wilderness.
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The teacher does not want to fail students, so he uses all of his time, energy, and efforts to encourage and instruct so that those who are failing will turn around, catch the vision, and begin to apply the right teaching.
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A teacher is faced with the same principle that we are involved in with God.
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He shows that He will continue to work patiently with us just as a teacher continues to work with students, even though some fail and rarely do anything well. God rescued and chastened them, but He did not dump them. What we go through when we come up against our personal Red Sea is very similar to what Israel went through. Every one of us fails repeatedly, just as Israel did when they lost their faith for a while. In principle, we all come to our own personal Red Sea. Had He not impressed their minds enough on Passover when the blood of the Lamb enabled their firstborn to live while the Egyptians' died? Had not God given them enough evidence through all His plagues against Egypt? Had He not given them enough evidence to impact their thinking, clearly dividing the Israelites from the Egyptians, beginning with the fourth plague? All of the plagues fell on Egypt, but none of them after that fell on the Israelites. The end of their lives was quickly coming within view. They thought their lives were hanging in a balance when they saw the army. The Israelites' backs were up against the sea, and they could see the death sentence approaching them as fast as a horse could pull a chariot. The Egyptians, their horses, their chariots, all the shining army and might of Egypt were represented there. How quickly their faith evaporated when fear began closing in on them! This occurs just days after they went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians, joyful that they were free. The Israelites accuse Moses of not dealing with them fairly, murmuring that he should not have led them out of Egypt.