Housecleaning: Give No Quarter
My hamster liked to pee and poop; there, I said it. Lol.
So anyway, I'd empty the urine-soaked litter into the trash. The hamster's sleeping quarters were a bit more tricky, because -- being nocturnal -- she was sound asleep in her little house she'd stuffed full of litter and food, and most of the time, she would sleep right through my cleaning of her cage.
Her sleeping house was on the third floor of the wire cage, and her house roof could open up, so I'd unsnap the lid of her house and lift it off. Then I'd poke her out of her cozy nest so I could empty her house and clean it. The problem was -- before I could unsnap the house from where it attached to the cage wires, she'd go right back into her dirty, smelly nest and curl up again.
So when I finished unsnapping the house, I tilted it, using gravity to help me dislodge her from her nest, but her little claws would grip the opening and she'd hang on for dear life. It was her nest -- smelly, gross, and disgusting as it was -- and I was not going to take it away from her.
I did anyway. And she wasn't happy about it. It always took her several hours after I'd cleaned her cage for her to accept her new, clean litter, to remake her bed, and to lie in it.
And that was most of the chapter!
There was one little interesting part I found buried in the middle of Joshua 15 that I hadn't known, or at least had forgotten: Caleb, son of Jephunneh, that I wrote about in my blog post yesterday (Into the Deep End), had a daughter who married his nephew, a man named Othniel -- who was later the first judge of Israel.
Anyway, that tidbit was hardly enough to rescue me from my realization that I'm really not great at pronouncing ancient-sounding city names, but I got to the last verse of the chapter and stared at these words:
"Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah" (Joshua 15:63).
But Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem.
Why not?
The Lord promised this. It was supposed to happen. It was a whole thing. But along with that promise, and many, many follow-up repetitions and reminders of that promise -- the Lord was super-duper crystal clear about one thing: The Lord would bless His people, He would go before them and fight for them, as long as they honored the Lord their God.
When I tilted my hamster's little house, it was almost pitiful to watch her cling to the edges of the opening while I pulled her gently free. She wanted to stay in her stinky, gross nest so badly. But while I felt sorry for her, I knew what needed to be done, and it was the easiest thing ever to detach her. I was way bigger than she was, and also, I have opposable thumbs.
But... it's conditional. If His people, who are called by His name, would humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways... then He would hear from heaven, would forgive their sin, and would heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).
In Judges 1:8, Judah tries again: "The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem also and took it. They put the city to the sword and set it on fire..." but in 1:21 -- it appears that they did not take all of Jerusalem (commentaries say the city was divided into an upper and a lower portion, with the upper portion -- Zion -- remaining undefeated).
After Judah, the Benjamites come to conquer Jerusalem (Jerusalem sits on the boundary between the land of Judah and the land of Benjamin). "The Benjamites, however, failed to dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day, the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites."
Sound familiar? (Compare to Joshua 15:63).
Neither Judah nor Benjamin are able to drive out the people they've been promised they'll drive out. This doesn't happen all in one night. Or in one week. Or on a weekend cleaning spree where they dump out the stinky litter and put in fresh, new cedar chips.
This is over the period of years and years. The accounts in Judges happen after the death of Joshua.
Why can't they drive them out? It's hard to narrow down to one verse, but these verses take a pretty decent stab at the reason: Judges 17:6 and 21:25 (both verses are identical): "In those days, Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit."
Israel, like a frog sitting in a pot of water slowly heated over a stove, gradually release their loyalty to their covenant pact with the Lord, and rather than continually refreshing themselves in God's presence, returning to Him and worshiping Him... "everyone did as he saw fit."
The Jebusites don't get driven out of Jerusalem until David's time, which is recorded in 2 Samuel 5:6-7: "The king [David] and his men marched to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites, who lived there. The Jebusites said to David, 'You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off.' They thought, 'David cannot get in here.' Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion, the City of David.
I remember hearing the term "besetting sin" as a kid without having any idea what it really meant, but as I've grown, I've come to understand that it means something that you keep returning to, even though you know it's wrong. A stinky, smelly mess that you just can't quite... let go.
Peter, in his second letter to the church, has some strong things to say about those who are continually caught in besetting sins. "If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: 'A dog returns to its vomit,' and, 'A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud'" (2 Peter 2:20-22).
The Israelites, historically and Biblically, continued to return -- over and over and over and over -- to their stinky mess. They'd worship the Lord, and then forget Him, worshipping idols. Their enemies would demolish them, so they'd cry out in repentance: Save us, Lord! The Lord would save them, and they'd worship Him... and then forget about Him. Tempted by the allure of the ones they'd let remain in the land they'd conquered, a.k.a, the Jebusites... they'd turn again from the Lord to worship the idols of their pagan compatriots.
It's why the Lord had instructed Joshua to totally destroy the enemy.
But Benjamin didn't. They didn't dislodge the Jebusites.
It wasn't until David, who wholeheartedly served the Lord, came... that he conquered Zion and established his throne in Jerusalem.
I feel like this applies to so, so many areas today, right? Nationally -- our nation has largely forgotten the Lord, or have deliberately turned away from Him. Spiritually -- many of our churches have become those frogs sitting in the pot of water on the slowly-heating stove. Globally, the national and spiritual state of us has brought us to these words of Jesus in Matthew 24 -- "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains" (Matthew 24:6-8).
What smelly bed are we clinging to? What dirty nest do we keep coming back to in order to curl up and continue to sleep?
We give no quarter. We don't sleep with the enemy. We don't return to our vomit.
Jesus is coming back! Are we ready?
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