GOD SHALL BRING THEM INTO THE LAND

Proverbs 25:

2 ¶ It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

3 The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is unsearchable. {is…: Heb. there is no searching}:

4 ¶ Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer.

5 Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness.

God is concealing His handiwork because it is an internal work, and it is the glory of us as kings to search out what He is doing – to get understanding of His ways – so that we can walk in them and allow Him, in turn, to foster and grow His seed in us. In this way, we can become the revelation of His Holy Spirit and His power in the earth. And He will be revealed in a people at a time of His choosing, if we will only seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

He will bring us into His Promised Land, for that is His plan and purpose for those who have not only accepted the call – but are determined to diligently aim for The Higher Calling in Christ Jesus. But He has work to do in us – and we must be open to letting the Holy Spirit do that work. But if we are not open to it, He will move on to people who are. There will be no condemnation – indeed there will be a blessing still – but He will have His plan and purpose fulfilled. There is no doubt – God shall bring thee [or some ones of His choosing] into the land.

Deuteronomy 7:1-11

1 ¶ When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:

3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

And if we turn from Him who is 'all in all in us', 'that they may serve other gods', then we cut ourselves off from Him 'suddenly' – in the twinkling of an eye. And when we realise that those 'other Gods' can be simple passions - “well that's not doing anyone any harm, is it?” - they take us away from being 'a mind stayed on Him', then we place ourselves in such jeopardy in our relationship with Him, that 'suddenly' ['in the twinkling of an eye'], we can – no, we will – be cut off...and destroy thee suddenly. But...

5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cutdown their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. {their images: Heb. their statues, or, pillars}

6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be aspecial people unto himself, above all people that areupon the face of the earth.

7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than anypeople; for ye were the fewest of all people:

8 But because the LORD loved you,...

Song of Solomon 1:

2 ¶ Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is betterthan wine. {thy…: Heb. thy loves}

The wine represents His life, His Holy Spirit, but His love is better!

There is His life lived in His love – which is higher and deeper and more intimately perfecting than His Spirit. Despise not the gifts of the Spirit. Of course not, but we must realise that there is a fulness and a passionately fulfilling life beyond the gifts – in Him!

The gifts of the spirit are gifts – His Spirit was given to us to lead us into His love – beyond the gift realm into the fulness of a union with Him.

...and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

And of course Pharaoh is a type of Satan and Egypt of the world.

9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

10 And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.

11 Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.

We know that God is looking for is a people in which His Spirit may dwell – so His purpose in bringing us into the land is create a habitation for Himself. The land is the 'Promised Land' that is talked of, and that spiritual dwelling-place is the seed of Christ planted in each one called of God. A seed planted corporately in a people – a people that He is gathering into His church – to become the temple of the living God. We know this from these familiar verses.

1Corinthians 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. {defile: or, destroy}

1Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

We are not 'our own' having accepted the LORD into our lives. We belong to Him. But we are not 'holy unto the LORD' when we go to find the 'promised land' – we have to be made holy – for God cannot dwell in an unclean place. We have to keep 'this temple which we are' clean. We have to let Jesus turn over the tables in our temple – cast out those things which are impurities and that offend Him.

Deuteronomy 23:14 For the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee. {unclean…: Heb. nakedness of any thing}

God must – to be true to His nature – turn away from the unclean thing. It is the same as when we looked at the 'suddenly' just now. We have been setting other Gods into our lives – we have become unclean.

Ephesians 5:5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

So we must work with Him – by seeking to be perfected, matured, made whole in the life of Jesus Christ – drawing closer to Him as He draws us to Himself – hearing the Holy Spirit speak to us in the inner parts that we might understand how we are to be.

In Acts 2:

1 ¶ And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The word Pentecost is found only in the New Testament, but is really first spoken of in Exodus 23:16 as "the feast of harvest," and again in Exodus 34:22 as "the day of the first fruits". Besides the sacrifices prescribed for the occasion, every one was to bring to the Lord his "tribute of a free-will offering" (De 16:9-11). This free-will offering is, in reality, us 'of our own free will' coming before the LORD and submitting to His authority, His control, His purpose for our lives – allowing His nature to grow in us and expel all that is not of Him. We, in effect, become the sacrifice, just as Jesus did, dying to the old nature born of Adam, being renewed by the transforming of our minds into the Christ-nature.

And that nature growing within us is His Holy Spirit – and when we allow His Holy Spirit to have His way with us, then we see ‘the first fruits’ of that seed being realised in us, so that He can ‘harvest’ the people that He is taking to build His dwelling-place – and become a 'First Fruits Company' unto Him, committed, as it says in Ephesians 4:13, Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: {in: or, into} {stature: or, age}.

This does not mean that we give up our individual character, but allow the person that each of us were created to be, to be yielded to Christ and the Holy Spirit. We become 'begotten of Him', like Jesus, instead of 'created beings', and live in the love of God. And the first thing that The LORD must work in us is to deliver us from the 7 nations which are 'stronger and mightier than thou' – than each of us. These nations listed in Deuteronomy must be defeated – each represents an aspect of our natures which will not be tolerated if we are to draw nigh unto Him. He begins by cleaning out His temple. Overturning those tables....

John 2:15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;

16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.

Selling the doves – making the Holy Spirit a vessel for commerce. Turning the Spirit of the Living God to profit and money. It is just like in the middle ages when Papal 'indulgences' were sold. They promised absolution from sins – if one could pay enough for it.

17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?

19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

And of course they did destroy this temple. They crucified Him – and in 3 days He was raised up. There are in total 10 nations mentioned in scripture in the greater and mightier category – there are other nations mentioned throughout scripture too, but their significance is maybe for mention at another time.

10 is the number in the numerology of scripture, which represents the Law [10 commandments]; fallen government [or earthly government]; testing; responsibility – but usually only 6 or 7 are mentioned at any time – 7 of course being the number of completion, maturity; perfection – meaning here that if we submit ourselves to the LORD's working in us, He will rid us of ALL our sins, ALL of the things in us which will keep us apart from Him, perfecting our fallen human nature to be more like His perfect nature. And yes, this is possible this side of the veil if we will but yield ourselves to Him. So we have here 7 spiritual 'nations' that must be 'cast out'. These are:

Hittites

- means 'terror'; fear. So those who are governed by fear, must look to the LORD for deliverance from this enemy. We can be disabled by fear, ‘paralysed’ is a word often connected with fear. And we must understand that living in fear is not Godly. He does not want us to live that way. And the Good News is that He can lift us out of this trap. We all fear something or other, and by coming close to Him and allowing His Holy Spirit to work in us we can overcome this disability.

Romans 12:21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

and also:

1 John 4:2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:

3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

– ‘…greater is He that is in you…’.

Philippians 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death

1 John 3:24 And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.

1 John 2:5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

Girgashites

– means 'clay dwellers'. Those who are governed by the things of the earth – who look down to the dust and dirt instead of to the heavenly realms – I believe it also means those of us who are complacent, stuck in our own old ways. Stuck in the clay. We know the expression to be a ‘stick-in-the-mud’. ‘Stubborn’; ‘unyielding’.

Psalm 40:2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

Jeremiah 18:6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

He takes this clay and fashions it as He would desire. Our LORD wants us to know Him; be like Him; to know Him as He really is; to be in close relationship with Him, but we cannot be in that place if we persist in our ‘iniquity’. That word – the Bible uses it a lot in the Authorised Version – really means ‘to go our own way’. And if God is going His way, and we are on a different track, neither is going to meet up at any time. So He wants to turn us around to follow in His way….but we must let Him.

These nations are ‘stronger and mightier’ than anything we can handle. We need to call in He who is stronger and mightier than they are – in fact the strongest and mightiest of all – to help us to overcome these nations and win our way into the land we desire to inherit.

Amorites

– self-elevating; boasting. What I believe this comes down to is vanity, pride and arrogance. And it is present in all of us most of the time, to some degree, and we do not realise it. We can't help it – it is a basic drive in all of us to protect the self from harm – and we do that in part by telling ourselves 'I am good at this'; '...of course, such things come naturally to someone like me'. Well, I ask you. And it is inextricably linked with so many other flaws we have – it is like Japanese knotweed, or ground elder, it creeps along under the surface and before you know it, it's everywhere – choking the good stuff you are trying to cultivate. Fortunately we know a strong and mighty gardener who can pluck this stuff up by the roots and bin it.

Canaanites

– 'lowlands'; traffickers; slavery; humiliation; subjugation. Those who subject others to humiliation, and are therefore governed by a contemptuous way with others.

Jeremiah 34:11 But afterward they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.

We are the ones to be brought into subjection, and there is someone who has the ability and the desire to work this for us and turn it around…

Perizzites

– 'unwalled village dwellers'. Think of it – you live on the plains, in a village, unprotected from wild animals, reptiles and beasts of every shape and form, all of whom are not good for you. So we are looking at those people who are governed by whatever comes along – open to any passing influence, good or bad, easily led and therefore easily led away from all God has to offer. Those who easily fall into unbelief, maybe. But we know that we have a Great Shepherd, who goes after even the one that goes astray.

Proverbs 28:10 Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit: but the upright shall have good things in possession.

Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Hivites

– 'village dwellers'; tell; make known; declare; show. Those who are governed by a need to gossip, tell tales [truth or lies] and whose tongues are always wagging – keen to expose instead of covering and protecting. Doesn’t seem like much really – but a strong and mighty nation in many lives...maybe in all of our lives. Again it is something we do without thinking, or knowing of it – but it can keep us apart from God.

Jebusites

– 'tread down'; kick out; reject. Those who are not governed, who will trample on and reject anything that comes along. It is 'iniquity'; going your own way.

Matthew 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

The implication here is that those who trample down are like pigs – and I for one have never seen a saintly porker (although P G Wodehouse and his fictional pig-loving Lord Emsworth may disagree). Well The LORD is not going to countenance that.

We cannot do anything about this ourselves – because we rarely know what it is that governs our thoughts and actions. And if...Luke 12:7 ...even the very hairs of your head are all numbered....then God knows more about us than we do ourselves. You will also notice that these 7 nations have a lot in common with one another – and you can distil it all down to one characteristic – they are not of God.

LORD, let your Spirit have His way with us we pray. Clean your house – we seek the reward of being in Your presence.

And the reward is great – the greatest. As it says further on in our Deuteronomy reading...

6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:

8 But because the LORD loved you, and because heBwould keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

It is wonderful that the Holy Spirit accomplishes such great things – when we yield ourselves to His presence. If we look at Galatians 5, we read...

1 ¶ Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

We cannot be in bondage to those seven nations we have been hearing about. We are made free in Christ, and Paul exhorts us to 'stand fast' in what we have gained through our LORD.

7 Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? {hinder you: or, drive you back}

Well the only one in God's sight to hinder us – is us!

8 This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.

9 A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

'Leaven', we know, is a type for sin. If you put leavening into the dough, it softens the bread and makes it rise. With sin in us, we become soft and puffed-up and of little use to God. There needs to be no leaven in us – the 7 nations – all of them – need to be cast out and this is part of The Lord's work in us.

13 ¶ For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. {ye…: or, fulfil not}

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like [17 of these = number of victory = in Him we shall have victory over these – and do not think “I have done none of these things”; we are capable of much we do not recognise in ourselves.]: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. {affections: or, passions}

25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

And if we live and walk in the Spirit, we abide in His love.

John 15:

9 ¶ As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.

Such love.

Deuteronomy 7: 8 But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

There are 7 nations stronger and mightier than we are. The love of the LORD will vanquish them utterly. O LORD, do that work in us. 

Bring us into thy land, Father. 

Such love.