Introduction

In the last paragraph we saw the beautiful shepherding heart that God had as He helped His people deal with their inward fears - because they were going to be facing some pretty scary nations that were greater, stronger, and more firmly established than they were. And we saw that God did not ask them to deny the reality of the problems they were up against. Instead, He warned them not to draw godless conclusions from accurate observations. We saw that fear is often an arithmetic problem that adds up the problems right, but subtracts God from the equation. Instead, Israel was to remember what God had done to Pharaoh, trust that He continues to work through providence, and believe that the great and awesome God was present among them. The answer to the greatness of Canaan was the even greater greatness of God.

But that raises another question. If God is truly with Israel, why doesn't He just give them the entire land immediately? Why not destroy every enemy in one decisive campaign? After all, Joshua was a man of faith. So was Caleb. Why did God not bless them with a more thorough conquest in their lifetime? Why did He make it take so long?

And this may be a question that nags in the back of your mind with the conquests that God has called you to. Why can't I have instant sanctification rather than having the frustration of constantly having to root out bad motives and constantly fighting against bad impulses? Why can't we end abortion this month? Why does missions take so long to take root in some countries?

Beginning in verse 22, God gives an answer that is enormously important for our personal sanctification, our families, our investment strategies, the church, cultural reformation, and the advance of Christ’s kingdom. I can't deal equally with all of those applications, but I think you will get the point by the end. He says, “The LORD your God will drive out those nations before you little by little.”

God promises victory, but not instant victory. Many Christians find that combination difficult to accept. We like promises of victory, but we do not like the phrase “little by little.” We want immediate transformation. We want instant sanctification without the daily habits and the tough spiritual disciplines that God connects to that victory. We want the besetting sins to be gone today without the frustration of fighting them. We want sudden cultural renewal. We want one election, one Supreme Court decision, one revival, one piece of legislation, or one decisive battle to settle everything forever.

But that is not normally how God works. God often works little by little. That phrase gives us realism without defeatism and patience without compromise.

God’s people must trust God’s gradual timetable — verses 22–24

In verses 22-24 God wants them to trust His timetable. If we expect instant victory over every enemy within and without, we will eventually become demoralized when it doesn't happen.

And actually, it is a very good thing that every enemy is not instantly defeated. The continued battle forces us to exercise our spiritual muscles. It keeps us watchful, prayerful, humble, dependant on God, and spiritually fit. So let's looks at each clause in verses 22-24:

Gradualism does not deny God’s total providence

Verse 22 begins, “And the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you little by little…”

The first lesson we see is that the gradual character of the conquest does not mean that God is absent, or that God is weak, or that His promise is uncertain.

The text explicitly says that the Lord Himself will drive them out — but He will do so “little by little.” That is a crucial balance. We may interpret slow progress as divine inactivity. But here gradualism is not divine inactivity. It is divine strategy. God is not doing less than He promised. He is doing exactly what He promised, in the way and at the pace He knows to be best.

We need this lesson in many areas of life. • God often sanctifies us little by little. • He reforms families little by little. • He grows investments little by little rather than through a get-rich-quick-scheme. • He builds self-discipline and character in our children little by little. • He builds churches little by little. • He matures leaders little by little. • He advances cultural obedience little by little

Are there exceptions? Yes - Nineveh was an exception - but we have seen in the past that Nineveh's reformation only lasted for 45 years. We must not despise gradual progress simply because it is gradual. If God is directing the pace, then patience is not unbelief. Patience is faith submitting to God’s wisdom.

And I will hasten to say that there is a false gradualism that becomes an excuse for compromise, and we will look at that later. But there is also a godly gradualism that recognizes that God frequently accomplishes His total purpose through progressive stages. And as we go through this passage I will try to tease apart the differences between false gradualism that lacks faith and ignores facets of the Bible and godly gradualism that is founded on faith and takes every detail of the Bible seriously.

Gradualism allows God’s people to mature

Second, Moses says, “You will be unable to destroy them at once…” Notice that God’s promise does not erase Israel’s creaturely limitations. Israel was not God. God promised victory, but He did not pretend that Israel had no limitations. Israel could not handle everything at once. Nor can we. They were not ready to occupy, govern, cultivate, defend, and steward the entire land immediately. God’s promise did not transform them into omnipotent beings. They remained creatures. They remained finite. They remained in need of training, discipline, time, experience, and growth.

This helps us to not get frustrated with God's slowness. He has good purposes for it. Sometimes we imagine that trusting God means denying our creaturely limitations. But Moses openly says, “You will be unable…” That is not an expression of unbelief. That is the truth of God's Word. Israel’s inability is part of the reason God gives them victory gradually. We must therefore avoid reading biblical promises in ways that ignore the contexts in which God gave them. God’s promises never require us to ignore our creaturely limitations. Instead:

• God knows what His people can bear. And one individual may be able to bear much more than another. • He knows what they are ready to steward. • He knows when rapid success would destroy them. • He knows when a blessing received too quickly would become a burden. • He knows when we need strength to be developed through stages so that longterm habits of life can be developed.

Therefore, do not (please! do not) assume that slow progress in your life means that God is not blessing you. Many of His blessings are hidden blessings. • A young candidate for civil office may need years more to mature, to master Scripture, to learn wisdom, understand institutions, develop courage, and acquire the character necessary to sustain longterm influence within civics without compromise. Yes, he may have the strong sense of calling for civic office making him yearn for it, but he's got to prepare. If we push candidates into office too quickly, we can end up sabotaging our longterm goals. Just because they theologically agree with us does not mean that they are ready in character to serve in civics. • A young man may desire marriage and leadership before he has developed the maturity to carry out those responsibilities. It's probably God's call for most of you to get married. But we encourage teenage girls and guys to start implementing the life skills and disciplines that will help them to have a marriage that will thrive - and to implement them long before they get married. Don't put that off until you start courting or you are going to be scrambling to catch up. Start to prepare yourself for marriage even when you are teenagers. And if you need help on that, I've got checklists for both girls and guys of the kinds of things that you can put on little by little.

Sometimes slow progress is exactly how God preserves the blessing He intends to give.

Gradualism may be a blessing in disguise

Third, Moses gave the specific reason for Israel's gradualism. He says, “lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.” God is basically saying, “If the land is emptied too quickly, you will face dangers that you are not currently prepared to handle.”

This gives us a wonderful insight into providence. Israel could see the danger of the Canaanites. They could not as easily see the danger of a depopulated and unmanaged land being overrun by wild beasts. But God saw both dangers. He knew that immediate victory could create unintended consequences.

Gradualism may therefore be a blessing in disguise. • A family may want prosperity before it has developed financial discipline to be able to wisely steward that prosperity. Why would God bless you with more, when you aren't properly stewarding what you do have? • A church may want rapid numerical growth before it has enough mature leaders to shepherd those people well. • A movement may desire cultural victory before it possesses theological stability needed to sustain it. For example, I tend to think that it would be a disaster if there was to be an ecumenical council to determine theology right now. The church is not mature like it was when the Westminster Assembly met. As another example, I tend to think that it would be a disaster if Christians were immediately given the opportunity to run our civil government right now. Why? Because they don't know the Biblical blueprints for civics. Instead, they would implement another form of humanism in the name of Christ without using the Bible, and the end result would be an insult to Christ, not an honor. It's one of the reasons I am writing on Biblical civics - so that people training for office will have their feet solidly planted in the Word of God on civic matters.¹ It's also one of the reasons why our church supports Biblically transformative ministries around the world. • As another example, a nation often demands reforms from a previous administration without repentance. That's a recipe for failure.

God knows what happens when the land is emptied faster than it can be faithfully occupied. So God often works little by little — not because He is reluctant to bless, but because He is wise in the way He blesses.

Gradualism does not put the final victory in doubt

Fourth (and I love this point), verses 23-24 assures us that gradualism does not put the final victory in doubt. Verse 23 says, “But the LORD your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed.”

This is an important balance to what we have just said. Gradual success should never be an excuse for compromise with the world. We should never change God's goals for eliminating abortion completely (as one example) just because we have only been able to accomplish a liitle forward momentum. • “Little by little” does not mean “maybe never.” • Gradualism did not mean Israel was allowed to make peace with idolatry. • It did not mean that Israel was allowed to become comfortable with a strategy of permanent coexistence with what God has doomed. This is what so many Christians do in the prolife movement and in other areas of politics. But gradualism must never become an excuse for disobedience. That's the point.

Too many Christians enter politics, education, medicine, business, or other cultural institutions and become so accustomed to operating in the realm of the imperfect (which we sometimes have to do, right) that they eventually become satisfied with the imperfect. That's the danger. They no longer long for and ask for more and more of God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. How does that happen? It doesn’t have to start with comprise. They begin by reluctantly tolerating the compromises of others as a temporary limitation. Eventually they actually defend the compromise as though it were the end-goal. And we see that in the book of Judges over and over. But verse 23 states the mandated endpoint that needed to always be their goal until it was achieved. He says, “until they are destroyed.” That is the goal, no matter how many years it may take. God’s timetable of success is sometimes gradual, but His purpose is always total. The pace is patient, but the goal is uncompromised.

This principle applies to personal sanctification. God often conquers sin little by little, but that does not mean we make peace with any sin. We do not say, “Since growth is gradual, I will tolerate 20% of the sins in my life.” No. We fight. We fight patiently, but we fight. We trust God for progressive victory, but we never rename compromise as maturity. Many Christians give up the fight against a besetting sin because they have been knocked down one too many times. But Proverbs 24:16 says that a righteous man (notice that he is called a righteous man - he is justified and righteous even though he falls - a righteous man) may fall seven times but he still gets up again. God wants the knocked-down Christian to get back up, dust himself off, learn from his failure, seek renewed grace, and reengage the battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Nor does the phrase, "little by little" mean that sin is harmless. Sin is never harmless. It means that God trains us through repeated battles until, by His grace, territory that was once controlled by sin is brought under the lordship of Christ completely.

Verse 24 continues the thought: “And He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; no one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them.”

The intimidating political structures of Canaan could not stand before God. Kings are specifically mentioned because Israel was not merely facing isolated individuals. They were facing organized political power. They were confronting rulers, armies, fortified cities, alliances, institutions, and entrenched systems of idolatrous government. But God says that He will deliver those kings into Israel’s hand.

This means that we can never be satisfied with political structures that stand against Christ. Our goal continues to be that all enemies of Christ are placed under His feet. And we don't know the timing of when any given king or any given political structure will be overturned. So we keep bringing God's Word to bear on every political structure, knowing that His Word is more powerful than our words. When God's people live by faith, they can keep pressing into the goals that God has given without compromise. But, when we begin living by sight (what we think we can accomplish), rather than by faith, God sometimes allows us to experience defeat after defeat after defeat - until we learn to trust Him. He doesn't honor lack of faith.

And Jerusalem is a very interesting case study of that. Jerusalem had always been a place that God claimed as His own. But it went in and out of the possession of godly people over and over again because of their small compromises. The first reference to this city is in Genesis 14:20, where Melchizedek is said to be the righteous priest-king who ruled over the city. That he was a true priest can be seen by the surrounding text of Genesis 14, where he was said to be "the priest of God Most High," and where he blesses Abraham in the name of “God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth.” Abraham gave him a tithe of all of his spoils. Hebrews 7:1-10 later presents Melchizedek as a type of Christ, the Priest King. That first reference to Jerusalem is a prophetic foreshadowing of Jesus Christ.²

And I won't get into all of the typology. But by the time of Joshua, though the succession of kings may have retained some of the outward trappings of belonging to God - for example, the name of the pagan king of Jerusalem at this time was Adoni-Zedek, which means "lord of righteousness," the reality was that they had completely abandoned the true faith and fought against Joshua. This shows that no victory is permanent unless God's people are constantly on guard against Satan and are constantly living by faith. The history of Jerusalem is a back-and-forth illustration of this principle that "little by little" must never mean that we can rest on our heels. And when this sermon gets online, I’ll give some of this interesting history up to the time of Christ.* Satan is always pressing for total victory and God's people must always be pressing for total victory.* There is no neutrality. If you aren't pressing forward, you are automatically moving backward. And in my notes for online, I will put the reasons for the constant back and forth of Jerusalem being sold out to God or being sold out to the devil. It's a fascinating history. And the ground that Christians gained in Jerusalem was gradually lost because of poor parenting or other compromises. And then you see people being sold out to God regaining ground that was lost.³

Anyway, if you study Jerusalem, it illustrates the problems with compromising incrementalism. The moment God's people compromise in politics, Satan takes advantage of that, and all the ground that was gained is soon lost. We never seem to learn.

So this text helps us avoid two opposite errors: defeatism and triumphalistic impatience.⁴

It guards us against defeatism because God promises victory and wants us to press for victory. He does not say, “Try your best, but these kings will probably remain forever.” He says that He will deliver them. He says no one will be able to stand against Israel as Israel follows His commands by faith.

But the text also guards us against triumphalistic (in other words, pridefully confident) immediatism because God has already said that the victory will come “little by little.” We must not demand that God fulfill His promises on our preferred schedule. We are here to serve Him and His preferred schedule. So we must not become reckless merely because God’s promises are sure. Faith is not presumption. And certainty about the final outcome does not give us permission to disregard God’s appointed means, timing, or wisdom.

“Little by little” is the ordinary pattern of Christ’s kingdom

Sixth, the phrase "little by little" is God's ordinary pattern for Christ's kingdom. And we know that because the New Testament presents the conquest of Canaan as a typological picture of Christ's conquest of the world by the Gospel. Not by the sword, but by the Gospel.

This principle has obvious application to postmillennial hope and biblical civics. Christ’s kingdom grows like a mustard seed - slowly. It works like leaven - slowly. And actually, that double use of the typology of leaven is interesting. Both sin and the kingdom of Christ are likened to leaven, which leavens the whole lump of dough gradually and imperceptibly. All nations will eventually be Christianized, but kingdom growth is normally progressive.

You can't have a realistic longterm vision without a longterm eschatology, known as Postmillennialism. Eschatology is not just fun theory; it is foundational to faith. Hebrews 11 celebrates saints who died in faith without receiving the fullness of what had been promised. Little by little is not unbelief. Little by little is often the way of the kingdom.

God’s people must not use gradual progress to justify compromise — verses 25–26

The second major point is that God’s people must not use gradual progress to justify compromise. I know, I know! We've already talked about this point already. But verses 25–26 make it explicit.

“You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.”

The paragraph ends where the larger section began—with the danger of idolatry. (In a sermon I can't get into all the cool macro and micro structures of the book that drive my exegesis, but they really are remarkable. And there are some great books written on the structures in Deuteronomy.) But anyway, military opposition was a genuine danger, but spiritual seduction was an even greater danger. Before the battle, Israel might be tempted to fear Canaan’s armies. After the battle, they might be tempted to covet Canaan’s treasures. Moses therefore teaches them to handle both dangers. They must not be terrified by the enemy’s strength, and they must not be seduced by the enemy’s idols.

“Little by little” does not mean that Israel may gradually adopt the very abominations it was commanded to oppose. Let's look at each phrase.

The idols must be burned, not collected

Verse 25 says, “You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire.”

Israel must not preserve any portion of these images as trophies, works of art, curiosities, museum pieces (Oh, my! The blasphemous idolatry that is celebrated in some museums!), cultural artifacts, or historical reminders. They must burn them. Why? Because God knows that what is preserved may eventually be admired. What is admired may become desired. What is desired may eventually be worshiped and imitated.

And just a reminder of what I have proved before - this is not a command for Christians today to imitate Israel’s conquest in its original redemptive-historical form. We've already seen that ḥērem warfare was a unique act of divine judgment at a unique stage in redemptive history - that even Israel was not allowed to do later as if extermination was the norm for politics; it was not. But the "general equity" abiding moral principle that undergirds this text remains. There is always a general equity application. And here, it is that God’s people must not preserve idols in the heart, home, church, or culture as objects of admiration. • There are things that must not be curated. They must be crucified. • There are sins that must not be domesticated. They must be killed. • There are idols that must not be rebranded. They must be rejected. • There are institutions that are so fundamentally structured around rebellion against God that they should not merely be decorated with Christian terminology. They need to be replaced by institutions built according to God’s design. Unlike a lot of so-called “Christian Civics” books, my Biblical Civics book is structuring civics from the Bible from the ground up, starting by allowing the Bible alone to define its terms, presuppostions, and the granularity of all its day-to-day work.

And by the way, the New Testament uses equally radical language about sin:

• Colossians 3 says, “Put to death your members which are on the earth” (Col. 3:5). • 1 Corinthians 10 says, “Flee from idolatry” (1 Cor. 10:14). • Romans 12 says, “Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good” (Rom. 12:9).

There is no safe way to remain sentimentally attached to idols. People who treat the American Constitution as if it were perfect don't leave room for improvement. It was a wonderful document as far as it went, but it leaves many idols still intact.

The precious metals must not be coveted

Second, God did not want the precious metals associated with those idols to be coveted. Now, this may seem rather radical. You might think that this is wasteful. Why can't they use that gold for a righteous cause. That sounds practical, right? But I think it beautifully illustrates the lengths to which God wants us to stay far from idolatry. Moses continues, “You shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves…”

The danger was not merely that Israel might worship the idol. The danger was that they might desire the economic benefits that were attached to the idol. An Israelite might say, “Hey, I do not want the idol or the god represented by the idol. I only want the gold that is attached to the god.” But here is the thing - the economic benefit was so closely attached to an idolatrous system that the gold itself gave Satan legal ground to mess with Israel. From that point on it would be easy to let economics make us later compromise. This was Gideon's major fault in Judges 8. He only wanted to serve God and God alone, but he desired the idolatrous golden earrings of the Ishmaelites. Well , that gave Satan legal ground to start working in Gideon’s family, and it later led to idolatry. It didn't start that way, but it ended that way. The treasure was bound up with the abomination.

This is where idolatry becomes subtle. • A believer may reject an idolatrous system and only desire what the idol promises: security, wealth, influence, pleasure, acceptance, beauty, power, status, institutional access, or cultural legitimacy. Those latter things are great if they come from God, but they can subtly lead us to attribute the good to the idolatrous system over time and not to God. • We may not want the world’s theology, but we may want the world’s credentials. Why? Their credentialing system is inextricably bound to their theology. • We may not want the world’s rebellion, but we may want its applause. Why? Why do we want the applause and recognition of the world? • We may not want its idols, but we may want the funding streams, legal protections, prestige, influence, or comforts attached to those idols.

And God says, “No.”

Christian institutions must not accept benefits that require them to compromise the lordship of Christ. Magistrates must not adopt idolatrous definitions of justice simply because those definitions provide federal money, political approval, or international prestige. The gold cannot be separated from the god merely by calling it neutral.

Attractive compromise becomes a snare

Moses gives the reason: “lest you be snared by it.” The word, “snared” is very interesting. Judges 8:27 says that Gideon took the golden earings and made a memorial. He wanted the memorial to be to God's honor (it seems he sincerely wanted God’s honor), but it became a snare. It says, "Then Gideon made it into an ephod and set it up in his city, Ophrah. And all Israel played the harlot with it there. It became a snare to Gideon and to his house."

Both passages use the word "snare." A snare does not initially appear dangerous to the animal. It looks like an opportunity. It looks like food. It looks desirable. That is why a snare works. Idolatrous compromise rarely introduces itself honestly. It does not say, “I am here to enslave you.” Instead, it says, • “This will help you. • “This will enrich you. • “This will make obedience to God even easier. • “This will give you access to the movers and shakers in your community. • “This will increase your influence in Congress. • “This will make your ministry more effective. • “This is only silver and gold.”

But God calls it a snare. That principle applies at many levels. • A family that appreciates the wisdom of Classical Education (and there is a lot of wisdom there) may eventually find the thinking of Aristotle and Plato or other proponents of neutrality profounding shaping the affections of the children. And they wonder why. • A church that tolerates worldly measures of success may eventually become governed by those measures. • A Christian institution that accepts compromised funding may eventually serve the conditions attached to that funding. (And there are always conditions attached.) • A nation that tolerates non-biblical definitions of justice, rights, education, family, or welfare will eventually be ruled by the definers of those things.

Compromise becomes a snare.

You see, there is a difference between accepting the limited progress that providence has presently given and positively doing evil in the hope that good may come. We may accept a partial victory while continuing to press for full obedience. That's OK. But we may never call evil good, vote for evil as though it were righteous, or use idolatrous means to advance Christ’s kingdom. God’s pace may be gradual. Our loyalty to God in all that we do may not be divided.

The deepest issue is what God thinks

Verse 25 says, “for it is an abomination to the LORD your God.”

The deepest issue is not merely what appears to work and that appears to advance our cause on a horizontal level. That's pragmatism. The deepest issue is whether or not we have God's favor. If a Christian senator in Nebraska trades votes with liberals to get his own good bill across the finish line (and it may be a very good bill), we may think we have accomplished a win, but if God considers the traded vote an abomination, we have lost. Why? Because we have lost His favor. We have not treated as an abomination what God considers to be an abomination.

Modern Christians often need to be recalibrated at this point. We tend to evaluate sin based only on its short term consequences. • Will failure to do the compromise hurt me? • Will it damage my family? • Will it make me miserable? • Will it create problems? • Will I have forward progress?

Those are legitimate questions, but they are not the deepest question. The deepest question is this: What does God think of it? Idolatry is an abomination to the LORD no matter what form it takes. It is religious treason against the living God. That is why true holiness must be God-centered. We do not merely avoid sin because it hurts us. We hate sin because it dishonors the God we love. We do not obey merely because obedience produces social benefits. We obey because the Lord is worthy. We do not pass a bill simply because it might save a few more babies than not having the new law. We pass bills that are not an abomination to God. And Bradley Pierce is really good on this point.

Public victory can be undone by private compromise

Verse 26 says, “Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it.”

Oh, boy! This gets even more personal! This verse shows that even private sin that is hidden inside our homes still matters to God and still affects Israel. Israel might win public battles and still become corrupt within its private households. And when that happens and when it is tolerated, eventually the church as a whole suffers.

This warning anticipates the sin of Achan in Joshua 7. God had devoted Jericho to destruction, but Achan coveted and took forbidden things. He concealed them in his tent. So the sin was completely hidden. No one but God and Achan knew about it. But its consequences went well beyond Achan's home, with many Israelites dying as a result. And it was not until the sin was dealt with that Israel once against had God's favor and began to have success. This, by the way, is why we repent as a church for even the unknown sins of our members and we ask God to expose them and to sanctify them. The story of Achan shows how serious this warning is.

• Hidden compromise is not harmless. • Imported abominations are not neutral. • What is concealed in one tent may weaken an entire congregation, institution, or nation. • As an example, a father’s hidden pornography affects more than the father. • A leader’s secret dishonesty affects more than the leader. • A deacon's concealed pride affects more than the deacon. • Bitterness and lack of forgiveness in one person infects others. • A magistrate’s private corruption affects more than his household. • A church may publicly proclaim the crown rights of Christ while privately tolerating the very idols that undermine its testimony.

The kingdom advances little by little, but that long-term advance requires household faithfulness. Public reformation cannot be sustained longterm when there are privately compromised families. We must not dream of discipling nations while failing to disciple our homes.

God’s people must learn holy revulsion

Verse 26 concludes, “You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.”

So he has proceeded from Israel as a whole down to the individual heart. This is stronger than mere avoidance. God wants the affections of His people to be trained to hate what He hates. He does not merely say, “Do not touch it.” He says, “Detest it. Abhor it.” God is not content with outward distance while the heart continues to admire the idol. He wants Israel’s loves and hates to be brought into conformity with His own loves and hates. You can pass the test on Covenant Eyes or Accountable2You software and still be unwilling to cast those images out of your head. And if you don't know how to cast porn out of your head completely - even in your dreams, read my OMIT book.⁵ It will give you the steps that hundreds of people have used successfully to do so.

This is a neglected part of holiness. We often think maturity means merely outwardly avoiding forbidden things. But God desires more than avoidance. He wants our affections to be trained. He wants us to love what He loves and hate what He hates.

Psalm 97:10 says, “You who love the LORD, hate evil!” Hate it!

Romans 12:9 says, “Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.”

That is not psychological unhealthiness. It is one of the keys to spiritual health. • A healthy soul does not merely avoid poison. It learns to hate anything that will poison his family. • A faithful spouse does not merely avoid adultery. He hates anything that would destroy the marriage covenant. • A loyal citizen of Christ’s kingdom does not merely avoid idols. He detests everything that competes with God’s glory and undermines covenant faithfulness.

Of course, this hatred must be rightly directed. We do not hate our enemies with personal malice. Christ commands us to pray for them. We seek their conversion. We bless those who curse us. We do good to those who persecute us.

• But we must hate the idols that enslave our enemies. • We must hate the lies that destroy them. • We must hate the abominations that provoke God’s wrath against them. • We must hate sin precisely because we love God and because we love the people whom sin destroys.

God’s people must learn holy revulsion. Even our emotions need to be sanctified to God.

Conclusion

Let me conclude by saying that a farmer does not despise the first green blade because it is not yet a field of wheat. A mother does not despise the first word of a child because he cannot yet read the Scriptures. A builder does not despise the first stone because the house is not yet standing. He lays it carefully because he knows what it belongs to.

So it is with the kingdom.

“Little by little” teaches us to reject both despair (as we are growing) and impatience (while we are growing). We reject despair because God says He will drive out His enemies. We reject impatience because God says He will do it little by little and He doesn't want us to give up. The slow pace of obedience is not a denial of victory; it is often God’s wise way of preparing His people to possess what He gives - and to successfully possess it for the long-haul.

So do not despise the day of small beginnings: one catechism answer learned, one family altar restored, one church officer matured, one abortion clinic closed, one righteous law passed, one magistrate committed to Biblical protection of the unborn, one book written, one child better prepared than his father was. These are not the whole harvest, but they are green blades in the field.

In 1 Corinthians 15:58, Paul says, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

Amen? Amen.