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NOT ALL AT ONCE: THE GOD WHO CLEARS THE WAY STEP BY STEP

KEY TEXT: Exodus 23:28-30 (AMP) – “²⁸ I will send hornets ahead of you which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite before you. ²⁹ I will not drive them out before you in a single year, so that the land does not become desolate [due to lack of attention] and the [wild] animals of the field do not become too numerous for you. ³⁰ I will drive them out before you little by little, until you have increased and are strong enough to take possession of the land.”

The land of Canaan was good and spacious, flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8). It was a land filled with brooks of water, fountains, and springs that flowed from the valleys and hills (Deuteronomy 8:7). The land that the Canaanites were dwelling in had wheat, barley, fig trees, pomegranates, and olive trees (Deuteronomy 8:8). It was a land of abundance with scarcity of nothing. It also had valuable and useful minerals such as iron and copper (Deuteronomy 8:9). The spies sent reported that the land was exceedingly good (Numbers 14:7–8).

The Promised Land that the Israelites were going to was Canaan. The people living in Canaan at that time were the Canaanites, who included groups such as the Hivites and the Hittites. The Canaanites were cursed people as Noah placed a curse on them regarding what Ham did to him (Genesis 9:25). In other words, cursed people were living in a blessed land. The depth and breadth of God’s goodness and mercy are unfathomable.

Despite the curse, the Canaanites were allowed to live in the land for many centuries. In Genesis 15:16, God told Abraham that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. This means that the Canaanites were not yet ripe for judgment. God allowed them to remain until their wickedness reached a point where His judgment was due. Don’t wait for God’s judgment. Repent now.

God did not wipe them out at once. This shows us that even cursed people can prosper for a season, until God’s purposes are complete. The curse of Canaan pointed forward to Israel’s eventual conquest, not an instant punishment. The prosperity of evildoers does not last long. It is only for a season. The prosperity of believers goes all the way to eternity. Therefore, be patient and allow God to work on and in you.

God promised the Israelites that He would send hornets ahead of them. He would send hornets before they arrived in the land to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan and make room for the Israelites to dwell there. A hornet is a stinging insect, like a large wasp. Rashi, an 11th-century famous Jewish commentator, describes the hornet as a flying insect that strikes the eye and injects venom. According to the Talmud, the rabbis taught that the hornet was a supernatural creature that attacked the Canaanites ahead of Israel. One tradition says the hornet “spit venom into their eyes and made them impotent,” weakening them so Israel could conquer.

God is so good to the Israelites that He even tells them how He would deliver them. The Israelites might have viewed the Canaanites as a mighty and unconquerable people. God was going to show the Israelites that the Canaanites were not as potent as they thought them to be by driving them out of the promised land by using small insects. When one disobeys God and is under His curse, that person will be defeated by very minor things. They will be defeated by things that they are supposed to defeat.

Ellen G. White illustrates this point further.

“Under the curse of sin all nature was to witness to man of the character and results of rebellion against God. When God made man He made him rule over the earth and all living creatures. So long as Adam remained loyal to Heaven, all nature was in subjection to him. But when he rebelled against the divine law, the inferior creatures were in rebellion against his rule. Thus the Lord, in His great mercy, would show men the sacredness of His law, and lead them, by their own experience, to see the danger of setting it aside, even in the slightest degree.” – Patriarchs and Prophets, Page 59.4, Ellen G. White.

When you disobey God’s law even in the smallest degree, you create a loophole in your soul. The loophole might be very tiny, but not too tiny for an injection needle to fit in. Satan comes and uses his venom-filled injection and injects your soul with evil. As a result, your entire body, mind, and soul become corrupted.

God intended to drive out the Canaanites not by a large, mighty, well-trained army but by a swarm of insects.

How would God drive them out?

Exodus 23:29 (AMP) says, “I will not drive them out before you in a single year.” Instead, God would drive them out little by little until they are increased and strong enough to possess the land (Exodus 23:30). When God says strong, does He mean physical strength? God’s emphasis here is not really on physical strength. Instead, it is on spiritual strength. This is because, the Israelites were not going to use their physical strength to fight the Canaanites. Instead, God was going to drive out the Canaanites using divine means.

God wanted the Israelites to be spiritually potent so that they would not divert from Him once they entered the promised land. This is because a diversion from God is a diversion from life and blessings. You might be praying for something, and God seems to have delayed in giving you that thing. God wants you to grow spiritually so that you can have the ability to handle that which He wants to give you. It might be a sickness that has been troubling you for a long time. It might be a dire financial situation. It might even be a certain sin that you are struggling with. Be patient with God; He is not slow concerning His promise (2 Peter 3:9).

God was not going to drive them out at once. He was going to drive them out little by little. God may not always bring His blessings to you at once. He brings His blessing to you little by little. Satan and the forces of evil work the same way. Sin does not always destroy you at once. It destroys you little by little. Rahab was a Canaanite, and she was saved (Hebrews 11:31) because she feared God, moved by faith, and hid the spies. She did not perish with the rest of the people who did not believe in God.

God, in His mercy was expecting these Canaanites to repent. If He drove them out at once, it would not be fair to some. He would wait till the iniquity was full on a certain individual or a certain group and drive them out. Those who witnessed God driving them out would repent and change their ways so that the same judgment would not befall them. Unfortunately, many of them did not.

When you see someone failing because of a certain sin, try your best, with God’s help, not to get in that sin. You have seen your father, or your uncles or other relatives failing in life because of drunkenness. Why do you still drink alcohol? You want to be happily married, and you have seen your aunties and cousins not getting married or sustaining a marriage as a result of their wicked ways. Why do you still follow their wicked advice? You have seen the curses that have resulted from small practices of witchcraft (sometimes in the name of culture and tradition) in your Christian family. Why do you still want to engage in the same practices?

Joshua 2:10 (KJ21) – “⁹ And she said unto the men, “I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. ¹⁰ For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when ye came out of Egypt, and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan—Sihon and Og—whom ye utterly destroyed.”

Experience is a good teacher, but it should not always be from your own experience. It can be from the experience of those whom you have had the privilege to see their ways of life. Rahab was among the few Canaanites who learned from the experience of others. There might have been others who heard these stories but did not act accordingly. Those did not learn.

The Israelites had to keep on moving. As they neared the promised land, the Lord continued to clear the way for them. Using the direct route, it would take the Israelites three weeks to travel from Egypt to the promised land. This means that the journey was quite short. God took them through a longer journey of forty years so that they would be fully prepared to invade the promised land. What God wants to give you might not be so far away as you may often think. However, God may not give you at once because you may not be able to handle it. He wants you to grow so that you can have the ability that is needed to handle it effectively and use it to be a blessing to His people.

This point reminds me of the Karate Kid movie. Dre Parker (real name, Jaden Smith) was bullied in his new school in China. Therefore, he wanted to learn martial arts so that he could fight his bullies. He went to Mr. Han (real name, Jackie Chan) to teach him martial arts. Mr. Han was a janitor in the apartment building where Dre and his mother lived after moving to China.

One day, while conducting his maintenance work around the apartment building, Mr. Han noticed Dre Parker drop his jacket carelessly on the ground instead of hanging it up. Dre’s mother had been reminding him about it, and Mr. Han used this moment to teach him discipline. Instead of beginning martial arts training with martial arts moves, Mr. Han instructed Dre to repeatedly “jacket on, jacket off” — pick up the jacket, hang it up, take it down, drop it, and pick it up again. He did this training for Dre for a very long time.

At first, Dre grew frustrated, thinking it was pointless. But what seemed like a simple chore was actually a disguised lesson in muscle memory, discipline, and respect. Later, Dre realized that those repeated movements trained his body for martial arts blocks and strikes. The process God is taking us through might not always be pleasant, but it is building a lot in us and increasing our ability to handle His blessings, and that includes the ultimate blessing of eternal life.

Each step made by the Israelites was an act of faith. As they continued to walk to the promised land, they portrayed faith in God. The more faith they showed, the more God cleared the way for them. You should not be afraid of the obstacles that you have foreseen ahead. Keep moving. As you move, God will clear the way, step by step.

God could not clear the land all at once because He did not want the land to be left desolate. God did not want the animals of the field to be too many for the Israelites. He wanted the wicked Canaanites to continue cultivating it as the righteous rest in Him. God gives His beloved rest (Psalm 127:1) while the wicked labor in vain to build and store up things for the righteous (Proverbs 13:22).

In other words, God did not want the land to be left desolate so that the Israelites would not spend a lot of time cultivating it. He did not want wild animals to infiltrate the land so that the Israelites would not spend much time clearing them. He wanted the Israelites to spend most of their time focusing on Him, the only source of all good things. When we refrain from all secular work and rest on the Sabbath, we focus on God, the only source of all good things. When we focus on God, He will give us strategies to accomplish a lot in such a short time period. No time spent with God is wasted.

We need to focus on God and move in His direction. Just as He went before the Israelites to clear the way for them, He will also go before us today. The journey to the Promised Land was not completed in a single day, nor were the Canaanites driven out in a single year. In the same way, God often works in our lives little by little, preparing us step by step so that we can handle His blessings.

When we trust Him, He removes the obstacles before us in His perfect time. What seems like a delay is often God’s mercy, giving us the chance to grow spiritually and develop the strength needed to keep what He wants to give us. The Israelites entered Canaan not by their own power but by God’s hand. Likewise, we must walk by faith, knowing that as long as we keep moving forward with God, He will go before us, clear the way, and bring us safely into our eternal inheritance.

GOD BLESS YOU!

Prayer

Dear God, thank You that You go before me and clearing the way, little by little. Forgive my impatience and unbelief. Please help me to trust Your guidance step by step as You guide me along my life journey. Show me the next faithful step today, and give me strength to take it.
Drive out what opposes Your will in my heart, and grow my capacity to steward Your blessings. In Jesus name, Amen.

Activity

1. Read Exodus 23:28–30 aloud.
2. Name one “Canaan” (a habit, debt, relationship, or task) God wants you to face.
3. Write one 10–15 minute “hornet-sized” action you will take in the next 24 hours.
4. Set a daily reminder for 7 days: pray this prayer, take one new small step, and note how God is clearing the way.
   (If in a group: pair up and check in mid-week and at week’s end.)

Author: Mark Alex   

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