" ... no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the LORD your God." (Exo. 34:24 NIV)
"All the men of Israel were to go up to appear before the Lord. But how could this be, when Israel was surrounded by enemies? If the pagan neighbors across the river saw the men leaving, would they not swoop down and take advantage of the situation? God promised that if Israel would be faithful in keeping His law, no one would even covet their land while they were gone. Surely this means that God has the power to stop even the internal sinful desire of covetousness. So why does God not stop all coveting, since it is obviously in His power to do so? The only answer is that He has a purpose in what He allows. And surely one must immediately ask the obvious question: What about the "free will" of the pagans that had been coveting the land, but stopped coveting it when the faithful Israelites left to go appear before the Lord? Was this not a "violation" of their "free will"? Such passages force us to recognize the difference between the biblical concept of man's creaturely will and the philosophical concept of autonomy that is held in the majority of man's religions, in Roman Catholicism, and in most non-Reformed Protestant theologies."
~ James R. White
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