33 Do not let them live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.”
The Lord knows our tendency to turn aside from completely following Him. There are very few people who are dedicated 100% to a single task. Olympic athletes come to mind. But even they have distractions. They train for years for a few moments of competition. But after the competition is over, their focus moves to other things, like getting an advertising endorsement to pay their bills. As the Israelites move into the land it would be easy to not be fully obedient to the Lord. Once it the land, it would be easy to forget the past. It would be easy to think it was their strength that brought them to the Land. But the struggles over those years of taking the land gave them the opportunity to exercise their trust in the Lord. If there had been no struggle their faith would not have been strengthened. With each new act of trusting, their understanding and engagement with the Lord grew. If the Lord had not trained them to trust, they would have failed to receive the strength they needed to drive the inhabitants out of the land. Allowing gods to stay would create split loyalties. Were they going to trust the Lord or some god made of stone or wood? Sometimes we need to do an inventory to discover who or what we are trusting. Where do we turn first when we need help?
The Arnold Journey 