Daily Thoughts from Numbers: Sin Like Weeds (33:50-56)

And the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places. And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. You shall inherit the land by lot according to your clans. To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance. Wherever the lot falls for anyone, that shall be his. According to the tribes of your fathers you shall inherit. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”  (Numbers 33:50-56 ESV)

God can’t be more clear that Israel’s future depends on clearing out all the enemies of Canaan in obedience to Him.  He is using Israel as the tool of His judgment on these nations.  The issue is idolatry.  Israel must destroy all their idols and elevated shrines for worship and all the idolaters.  Otherwise their influence will become an irritant that Israel will be unable to ignore and she will fall into the same sin and receive the judgment God had reserved for the Canaanites.

Our greatest problem is being caught up in the thinking of the world, its idolatry, and succumbing to viewing God as just one among many sources of life, or no source at all.  We must “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we [must] take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5).  If we nourish any sin in our thinking it will demolish us.

It is said that many years ago the small farmers of Scotland were a very superstitious people. They would leave a corner of their fields uncultivated in order to pacify certain evil spirits. They believed that by sacrificing this one corner to the spirits, the remainder of the field would be left undisturbed and yield good results.  But what happened, in fact, of course, was that the uncultivated corner produced a crop of weeds and when the wind blew, it scattered those weeds across the whole field.  The whole field suffered because of weeds in one corner.  And so with the Christians life. One sin which is allowed to dominate can infect a man’s whole life, ruin his character, and negate completely his witness for God.  The Hidden Hand, International Bible Encyclopedia, Thomas