Little By Little
A Meditation on Deuteronomy 7
One of the problems in the world of sports is unreal expectations of a team’s owners and fans. When an NFL team finishes at or near the bottom of the league, all kinds of things happen to turn the team’s fortunes around. They fire the old coach and hire a new, more glamorous one. They get to draft the best of the college football stars. They often will spend money to lure players who have been on better teams.
Does all of this activity produce a Super Bowl champion the next season? No. In fact, it might produce only a minimal climb in the standings. These results leave fans disillusioned.
This sort of disillusionment sometimes creeps over into the spiritual realm. How often do Christians get hyped hoping for immediate transformation into spiritual maturity? We hear a great sermon. We enjoy a wonderful time of prayer and Bible reading. We read an inspiring book. We have amazing fellowship with the brothers and sisters. With each of these we commit ourselves more and more to being made into the image of Christ.
Then our three headed opponent pops up on our playing field, and we realize that we have fumbled again. That opponent is the world, the flesh, and the devil. Just eyeballing these foes makes us realize that we are outnumbered and overpowered. On our own we cannot and will not stand against them.
Let me hasten to say that the Christian does experience ultimate victory because Jesus has already defeated all enemies. But in the time between the cross of Christ and his ultimate return, we will usually make progress little by little.
In fact, the Israelites in Deuteronomy 7 found this to be true of their taking possession of the promised land.
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you.
—Deuteronomy 7:1
We like this opening verse of the chapter. God clears away many nations before you. In fact, these nations actually outnumber and overpower the Israelites. For the Lord to clear them away means we have an amazing God.
By the time we get to the 22nd verse of this chapter, we notice that God’s work isn’t an immediate striking down of the enemies.
The LORD your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you.
—Deuteronomy 7:22
The Lord would surely clear away the nations who were currently in the land of promise. These nations were enemies of the Lord and of his people. Yet Moses warned them that the Lord’s work of clearing them would only take place little by little.
Why did the Lord choose this method of war? In this case, the Lord knew that wild beasts would fill the void left by the Canaanites before Israel could get settled.
I hope you will take the time to chew heartily on these verses. But I hope that you will be satisfied with the progressive growth in your Christian life. God probably is not going to make you fully into Christ’s image by tomorrow. But that image of our Savior should become more apparent tomorrow that it is today.
The first line from the 95 Theses,
When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent'' (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.
—Martin Luther
Our entire life is to be one of repentance and faith. Year by year and day by day. We repent of our sin and we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This will keep the wild beasts at bay.