#191 God Before Us Be For Us

20 “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. 22 If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you.23 My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.24 Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices.You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. 25 Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, 26 and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.

27 “I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. 28 I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. 29 But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.

31 “I will establish your borders from the Red Sea[a] to the Mediterranean Sea,[b]and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you. 32 Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. 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.”

Who is the messenger that God sends with Israel? His name is in Him, and later Paul will write in his epistle: 9 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. 1 Corinthians 10:9. 

The evidence of a man's faith is his obedience, his actions are not built upon current situation, but rather he is fixed upon the promise of the One who goes before him. His heart is set to do what God has asked, and though he may encounter enemies along the way, His mind is stayed upon the Sovereignty of the God he has believed. God will certainly see our discomforts, and those who oppress us, but if we ourselves are in rebellion then have we actually believed? Israel's greatest enemy time and time again was not their neighbors, but rather their desire to be like them, to participate in idol worship and to assimilate to those things consistent with their own depravity. So many times they witnessed the hand of God against their enemies, and His final judgment on sin. We ourselves, in the age of the church, have many enemies. Anyone who is an enemy of God, the gospel, Christ, are they not also our enemies since we belong to Him whose blood has purchased us? 

For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Romans 11:28

4 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

4 You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us[b]? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud

but shows favor to the humble.”[c]

7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister[d] or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?James 4

We have not been physically removed from this world and we have been directed to go out into it and preach the gospel. We are told to let our light shine among men, and so it is not a physical retreat; it is not a legalistic separatism, but rather that our thinking, our living, our morals are God's. We share the love of God and the testimony of a changed heart with a dying world that will hate us, but we have been set free to not return evil for evil. There is still leaven in the church, and as we are being drawn closer to Christ it is in the midst of powers and principalities that continue to this day.

1

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths

for his name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk

through the darkest valley,[a]

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord

forever. Psalm 23

God, let me walk with You, let my heart be fixed upon you, and change the heart of my enemy that he become my friend. Help me to forgive as you have forgiven me.