After charging us not to provoke the Angel of Jehovah, verse 21 says, “He will not pardon your transgressions.” From our experience we know that once we have provoked the Lord, He will not pardon us until we confess. He is strict and is troubled by even a slight act of disobedience. We should obey His voice and never argue with Him. We may provoke Him even by arguing with Him. Then His face no longer smiles on us, and we no longer have a rejoicing spirit. We may confess our wrongdoing and seek His forgiveness, but He may not pardon us immediately. It may take a few days before we sense that the Lord is once again happy with us and is smiling on us.
I am glad that verse 21 does not say that the Angel will not pardon our transgressions forever. No particular time is specified. Perhaps He will wait just a few minutes before forgiving us, perhaps several days, a week, or even longer. From our experience with Christ we know that sometimes He does not pardon us immediately. This causes us to be miserable. At such times we may try to shout, “Hallelujah, Christ is Victor!” Although we may shout and try to rejoice, the Lord is silent, still unhappy with us and continuing to withhold His pardon. Eventually, after a certain period of time, we suddenly realize that we are inwardly happy once more. We may even feel like singing, “Jesus is the Lord and He lives in me; now I’m as happy as I can be.” We are genuinely happy because the Lord who dwells within us is happy.
We need to realize that if we provoke the Lord by not obeying His voice, He may not pardon our transgression right away. In this matter we should not be careless, thinking that after we have disobeyed the Lord we can say, “Lord Jesus, I was wrong. Please forgive me.” You may think that after praying like this everything is all right, but this may not be the feeling of the Lord within you. He may not pardon you until later. This word about provoking the Lord and about not receiving His forgiveness immediately is not a mere doctrine. This is according to our spiritual experience. I can testify that my experience with the Lord corresponds to the details in verse 21.
According to the Old Testament, the Angel of Jehovah was always with the children of Israel. We know from the New Testament that Christ, God’s sent One, is with us all the time. In Matthew 28:20 the Lord Jesus said, “Behold, I am with you all the days.” However, the fact that the Lord is always with us does not necessarily mean that everything is all right. Our relationship with the Lord is a two-way matter. There are two sides, the Lord’s side and our side. There is the need for us to cooperate with Him. Cooperating with the Lord may be illustrated by a three-legged race. The partners in such a race have one leg free and one leg bound together. They must run the race with good coordination. Both parties must cooperate. In principle, the same is true in our relationship with the Lord. On His side, He always does everything well; but we are extremely poor in cooperating with Him. Because of our lack, we need to consider further details in 23:20-33 about possessing the promised land.
According to verse 23, the Angel of Jehovah would go before the people and bring them into the land occupied by the pagan tribes. Concerning these tribes, the Lord promised, “I will cut them off” (v. 23). In verse 27 the Lord says, “I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come; and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.” Here we see that the Lord promised to cut off all the pagan tribes from the promised land. I prefer the word pagan rather than the word heathen. The heathen may denote the Gentiles, whereas pagan indicates something demonic, devilish, and idolatrous. All the tribes which were frustraters to the children of Israel were pagan.
It is clear from verses 23 and 27 through 31 that God promised to defeat the pagan tribes. He even promised to send hornets before His people to drive out these tribes (v. 28). Furthermore, the Lord promised, “I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee” (v. 31).
Although God promised to drive out the pagan tribes, He said, “I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land” (vv. 29-30). Here we see that God would drive out the frustraters according to the increase, the growth, of Israel. This indicates that the degree of God’s driving out of the inhabitants of the land is measured by the increase of His people. If their growth was slow, God would drive out the tribes slowly.
In Philippians 2:13 we find a word which corresponds to God’s promise in the Old Testament to drive out the pagan tribes little by little. In this verse Paul says, “It is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.” God is working, operating, in us to cut off our natural life. Our natural life is fallen, sinful, devilish, and demonic. Whether the natural life appears to be good or bad, simply because it is natural it has these four extremely negative characteristics. Our natural life frustrates us from experiencing Christ and enjoying Him. If we check our experience, we shall see that it is not others who keep us from experiencing Christ, not our husband or wife or any member of our family; it is our own natural life. Sometimes we sense that our natural life is fallen, and at other times, that it is sinful. On some occasions we become conscious of the fact that our natural life is even devilish and demonic. Perhaps you are wondering how I can say that the natural life is demonic, that it behaves as if it were a demon. I would ask you this question: Have you ever looked at yourself in a mirror when you were losing your temper? At such a time your facial expression is not that of a gentleman, much less that of a son of God; it is the expression of a demon. Many years ago I saw the faces of some who were gambling. How demonic were those expressions!
The natural life has many different aspects. Certain aspects may seem to be quite good. But in fact these aspects are masks; they are not genuine. Even if they are regarded as true in the sight of men, they are not genuine in the sight of God.
The pagan tribes which occupied the promised land signify the different aspects of the natural life. According to the Bible, there were seven tribes in the land. But we may have many more “tribes” in us. Our fallen life is corrupted and polluted. This is true of young and old alike. A young sister may seem to be pleasant and nice. Nevertheless, the fallen, sinful, devilish, demonic element of the natural life is in her. I say again, the natural life with all its characteristics frustrates us from experiencing Christ. But God has promised to cut off all the pagan tribes, all the aspects of our natural life. He will cut them off and drive them out.
However, it is important for us to realize that God’s driving out of the natural life depends on two matters. First, it depends on our growth, on our increase, reproduction, and multiplication. The more we grow, the more God drives away the natural life. Second, God’s driving out the pagan tribes depends on our taking the initiative to drive out these tribes. In verse 29 God indicates that He will drive out the tribes, but in verse 31 He says, “Thou shalt drive them out before thee.” Yes, God promises to drive them out, but we must take the initiative.
In our seeking after the Lord we may pray, “O Lord, I hate myself. I hate my lust and my natural life. Lord, I ask You to drive these things out of me.” But the more fervently we pray in this way, the less the Lord seems to respond. In fact, there seems to be no answer at all. We pray that the Lord will clear away all the aspects of our natural life so that we may be spiritual people, but He does not answer us.
At this point the type, the picture, in these verses is clear and helpful. According to the type, the Lord will drive out the pagan tribes, the natural life, but the extent of His driving out of the tribes is determined by the pace of our growth. If we do not grow, the Lord will not drive out the tribes. Some Christians, hating the natural life, pray to be free from it. But then they are attacked by “beasts.” In the words of verse 29, the beasts of the field multiply against them. These beasts are even worse than the pagan tribes, for the beasts signify demons. The natural life is terrible, but demons, evil spirits, are even worse. This underscores the danger of being vacant in our inner being. The cutting off of the natural life must correspond to our growth in Christ. The more we grow in the Lord and increase in Him, the more He will replace our natural life. This is the spiritual significance of God’s driving out the pagan tribes according to the increase of Israel. The more God’s people increased in the land numerically, the greater would be the number of pagans God would cut off and drive out of the land. This indicates that the more Christ increases in us, the more He will replace our natural life. The degree of the growth of Christ in us determines the measure of how much the natural life can be cut off.
Without spiritual experience it is not possible to understand that the driving out of the natural life is in proportion to the increase of Christ within us. We know from experience that in our Christian life we must have the increase of Christ. This increase is what replaces the natural life. We should not expect God immediately to drive out every element of the natural life. God’s driving out of the pagan tribes from within us depends on our growth in life, on the increase of Christ in us. If God were to drive out the natural life without a corresponding increase of Christ, we would become vacant. Then something worse— the beasts, the demons—would enter in to take possession of us. Therefore, God’s way is to terminate the natural life according to the increase of Christ within us.