Why Israel Failed: They Did Not Fully Conquer the Land I. Introduction A. Recognition of Israel's failure 1. Israel in the flesh, overall, a failure 2. They did not keep their obligation in the covenant 3. God first punished them, exiled them, and then entirely destroyed their religious system in 70CE (cf. Matthew 24:1-36) 4. Parable of the Vineyard shows what happens (Matthew 21:33-44, Mark 12:1-11)-- original occupants (Israel) removed, new inhabitants (Christians) enter 5. Failure of Israel due to many reasons together-- perhaps a few failures could be endured, but the combination caused downfall 6. Nevertheless, we can learn from each instance of failure B. 1 Corinthians 10:6 1. Failure of Israel is designed to be a lesson for us 2. We must learn so that we may not fall into the same temptations! C. Israel's first failure, as we saw, was that Egypt never left them 1. Always desired to turn back 2. Whole generation perished! D. Let us continue to consider reasons why Israel failed and avoid these difficulties II. Not Fully Conquering the Land A. God fully expected the Israelites to conquer the whole land and to spare no one 1. Deuteronomy 7:1-2 2. No covenant is to be made at all with them! 3. Deuteronomy 11:23-25 B. We gain the idea that God did this to preserve His people, honor His promise to the Patriarchs 1. Deuteronomy 7:3-5 2. Deuteronomy 20:16-18 C. It was therefore entirely in Israel's best interest to conquer the whole land! 1. No competition 2. The best of everything 3. No other competing religions D. Nevertheless, they did not conquer the land entirely E. First stumbling block: the unintentional sin with Gibeon (Joshua 9) 1. Israel to not make any covenant with the nations 2. Gibeon deceives Israel into thinking that they are a far-away land (vv. 3-13) 3. Israel did not consult God, and made the covenant (vv. 14-15) 4. Now they have to honor their agreement; the land will not be entirely conquered (vv. 19-21) F. Afterward, impetus not there for full conquering G. Especially after Joshua's death, people do not conquer the land 1. Judges 1:21, 27-36 2. Israel seemed content to enslave the Canaanites! H. Why? 1. We could think of many reasons 2. "Compassion" 3. Convenience 4. Opportunity to gain a resource 5. These reasons, however, do not take into account the consequences! I. Consequences of not conquering the entire land 1. Judges 2:1-4: nations left as a snare and temptation for Israel 2. Judges 2:10-12: the next generation forsook the LORD and worshiped the gods of their neighbors 3. This idolatry continued, rather unabated, until the exile many hundreds of years later J. While the sins of the generation that left Egypt could have been overcome by the next generations, the sin of this generation snowballed until the Exile 1. The generation that conquered the land could have a fresh start 2. While they served the LORD, they did not fully conquer the land and allowed for future generations to be tempted 3. Israel did not succeed in resisting the temptation! III. Lessons from Israel A. We recognize differences in covenant 1. We are not expected to destroy all non-Christian neighbors; quite the contrary (Matthew 5:39-47)! 2. We need to love our neighbors and be lights to them (Matthew 5:13-16) B. We do, however, have to walk a fine line of balance 1. Living in the world (1 Corinthians 5:10)... 2. ...but not being of it (Romans 12:2, 1 John 2:15-17) C. We can learn from Israel's example! 1. Consider 1 Corinthians 15:33 2. Just as Israel needed to remove those nations that would tempt them to sin, if we have some persons in our lives who unduly tempt us to sin, we might do very well in removing them from our lives if we are able! 3. How many have fallen away because they got involved in a bad group of friends? A boyfriend/girlfriend who was a bad influence? Excessively worldly co-workers? 4. It may require a purge if we are going to be saved! D. We can also learn from the sources of the failure 1. The Israelites made a rash covenant without consulting God 2. How often do we enter into decisions in life without consulting God? 3. We can always pray and study and gain wisdom, and thus make good decisions (1 Thessalonians 5:17, 2 Timothy 2:15, James 1:5-6) 4. How many poor decisions could be avoided! E. Consider possible reasons of Israel 1. As Israel saw an opportunity for resource gain, found it more convenient to enslave than to conquer, and perhaps felt "compassion" for the people... 2. ...do we sometimes put ourselves in spiritual danger because we could get more money, that it is easier to slightly compromise God's way than to do it fully, or we have misguided compassion for sin? 3. Let us have the mind of Christ in these matters (1 Corinthians 2:16)! F. In terms of the church and our own individual lives, we can also learn from this G. Israel stopped looking toward God but looked toward their neighbors! 1. Within one generation, Israel "forgot the LORD" and worshiped the gods of the nations 2. How often do we see people today in terms of themselves or in the work of the church no longer looking to God and His Word but see what the denominations are doing? 3. How many times do people decide to provide new ideas not based in reflective study of God's Word but based on the recent trend in the world? 4. While things are not inherently wrong because denominations do them, we should always take care that we are keeping focused on God and not on everyone else! IV. Conclusion A. Another failure of Israel was that they did not conquer the land 1. They had the opportunity to establish an environment conducive to following God and maintaining the land 2. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they did not do so 3. Instead, they opened themselves up for temptation, and future generations stumbled B. We can learn much from this example 1. If we have constant sources of temptation in life, could we perhaps get away from them and create a more conducive environment for serving God? 2. Do we sometimes rashly make decisions when we should really first consult God? 3. Do we sometimes compromise God's way just a little bit because it makes life a little easier? 4. Do we spend less time looking toward God and look instead to what others around us are doing, to our own detriment? C. Let us consider these things, and let us ourselves be fully conquered by Christ (cf. Galatians 2:20)! D. Invitation/songbook