Exodus 23:20–33

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you today. Why don't we have some coffee?
We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have blessed us with this day. We thank you that you have given us your word and that you are our God. Father, we pray that as our covenant Lord, you would teach us to have fidelity towards you, that your spirit would apply your words to our hearts this morning. In Jesus's name, amen.
All right, so here we go. We're at Exodus chapter 23, Exodus chapter 23, beginning at verse 20, and we'll finish up the chapter this morning. Behold, I will send an angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of him and obey his voice. Do not provoke him, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him. But if you indeed obey his voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
For my angel will go before you and bring you into the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I will cut them off. You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works. but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars. So you shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sicknesses away from the midst of you. No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.
I will send my fear before you, I will cause confusion among the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beast and the field become too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you until you have increased and you inherit the land. And I will set your bounds from the Red Sea to the sea, Philistia and from the desert to the river. For I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand and you shall drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest you make, lest they make you sin against me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.
Well, we need to ask ourselves our three normal questions. A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words? So what's this passage about? This is God telling them when they're going to come into the promised land, which in their minds is coming soon. When they come into the promised land, I'm going to send an angel.
You need to obey him, right? There's almost this personification of God in this angel, in this powerful one that they need to obey. He's not going to put up with a bunch of junk. He's not going to be okay with them going and serving other gods. No, if you don't obey him, if you don't follow his marching orders, he's not going to forgive that. Some people will say that this angel, and we actually find this angel, Joshua crosses over the Jordan River. And while he's at Jericho, he goes out by himself and he finds the angel of the Lord, just like God had promised. But this is decades later. We'll get there someday.
But anyways, he says, are you for me? Are you for us? Or are you for them? He says, neither. He's for the Lord. And so Joshua meets him face to face, but here is the first promise. Some people speculate that this is a Christophany, right? This is a sign of the pre-incarnate Christ. I'm not so sure. I wrestle with that. I'm not so sure, right?
Because the book of Hebrews says that Jesus is not like the other angels. For which of the angels did God ever say, sit thou here at my right hand? Today I have begotten you, right? Nobody. No other angel has this and I'm so I'm not I'm I want to pull back a little bit because Jesus isn't an angel right some people say Michael the archangel is Jesus and stuff I'm I don't I'm not I'm not there yet right I don't think that that's the case I think Jesus is is different than an angel but no matter what here is the angel And this is the one that's going to go before them and he's going to give them victory. God is giving them his battle plan. He's saying, here's what I'm going to do ahead of you, right? I'm going to send my angel. You're going to follow him.
And when you go in, I'm going to do all these different things, right? I'm going to send the hornets and they're going to buzz around and they're going to chase everyone out. But I'm not going to do it all at once. I'm going to slowly do it. It's going to be an infestation and, and they're not going to be able to stay in their homes because hornets are going to get in their homes. They're not going to want to be in their, in their barns because the hornets are going to get in the barns. But if I do that all at once, well, the land's going to be desolate and then you're not going to have the houses and the fields and everything that are cultivated and ready.
So it's going to take a while, but I'm going to do that ahead of you. But when you get into the land, You are not to enter into covenant with them. You are not to enter into covenant with their gods. You are not to take on their practices. You are not to worship them, right?
It is the Lord. This is where these promises come in. It's the Lord who is the God of the harvest. It is Jehovah who's the one who will heal their diseases. It is the one who redeemed them up out of Israel who is going to give them water and bread. It is he who will care for them. And while I think this is somewhat hyperbole when he's saying your children will not miscarry and things like that, what he's saying is I'm going to be the giver of life. I am going to protect you. I am going to love you. I am going to care for you. Keep my covenant.
They were supposed to keep the first commandment. They were supposed to love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. And he was going to bring about the fulfillment of his covenant promises that he gave to Abraham long ago. So what is this about? This is God's plan for what's going to happen as they enter in to the land of Canaan. They're going to wipe out all the foreign gods because they are to have one God alone and his name is Jehovah.
So what's the best verse to summarize this? Well, I think in my Bible, I would probably I would probably underline, I want to say verse 32, you shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you. Right? I think that's, that's a good one.
You could look at other things and, you know, wrestle with How do we show fidelity to God? How do we cling to him? How do we love him? How do we hold to his promises? How do we make sure that he's the only one in our hearts and that we don't have idols?
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day and we pray that you would rid our own hearts of idols. We're not going into the land to conquer, but Father, we pray that we would love you and follow you in Jesus's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you and I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.