"But of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 20:16-18)
And they did not drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites to this day and have become forced laborers. (Joshua 16:10)
The Israelites have forgotten about God’s
commandments! Even when these instructions are direct and non-ambiguous, these
people quickly forgot about them. It could also be worse: perhaps the
Israelites have ignored or dismissed them?
We might then question or even rebuke them
in our hearts saying, how is it that they dare to ignore God’s commandments as
though His words are nothing important! Why did they do that?
But isn’t it the same with us today?
Perhaps we do not mean it as an outright
challenge against God’s word. We definitely still believe in God and want to
follow Him. However at times, have we not also allowed certain small sins into
our life, thinking that it is okay, we
are in control, we know what the Bible says, but hey we know what we are doing
and we would not allow ourselves to cross the boundary okay?
The Ephraimites in today’s sharing probably
also felt the same. They have conquered the land and perhaps they felt superior
to the Canaanites. The Canaanites became forced labourers and perhaps the
Ephraimites felt that they have control over them, no problem at all. What can these Canaanites forced labourers do to us?
Some of them might even say, yeah! We
have God on our side!
Probably, the Ephraimites also saw the
benefits of keeping these Canaanites as forced labourers and hence decided to
keep them.
Similarly, we also often weigh the costs
and benefits of things before we decide whether to go ahead with it or not.
Even when the instructions are clear in the Bible, we leave some leeway for ourselves. Wow, this seminar is once-in-a-lifetime and
it can greatly help me in my professional development! But hey, it is on a Sabbath
Saturday.... it should be okay just to go this once?
The commandments of God are very clear: let
nothing that breathes remain alive. God knows what a little sin or a little
leeway can do to us. Leave the devil a foothold and he will grab your feet!
Every choice we make comes with a
consequence. In the case of today’s sharing, the consequence was spelt out in
Deuteronomy 20:16-18 and we see it in the later part of the history of Israel
when they continually sin against God by being led astray to worship false
gods. We cannot ignore the influence of “little sins”. We should not be haughty
to think that we have control over them and thus allow them to dwell within us.
A little drop of ink will taint the entire glass of water.
Let us strive to keep our glass of water
clear. Let us learn to drive out the Canaanites within us. For the God we
worship is a holy and perfect God. And He calls us to be holy and perfect as
well. J
