101. The Lord Delivers your Enemies
Deuteronomy 7:2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them.
The Lord will deliver our enemies before us, and He will deliver us from our enemies. He will deliver the people from the seven nations greater and stronger than they. God promises to deliver us from evil. The nations living in the Land are pagan, idolatrous, adulterous worshipers of evil demonic gods. This kind of evil must be rooted out of the land. If they are not driven out of the land they will remain to become a temptation and a snare for the faithful believers in the Lord. And if those faithful believers become ensnared in the evil, idolatrous ways of the sinful world religions around them even they too will be driven out of the land. And this actually happened under the Assyrians and Babylonians centuries later.
In our day the “Land” is the Kingdom of God that has come into our hearts and minds. But in our hearts and minds there are still sinful, evil, worldly, idolatrous, and adulterous thoughts and strongholds. God gave us the kingdom; we shall possess it; and we must still drive out worldly religion and philosophy. When we are willing God is there to do it for us and deliver from worldly temptations. And so we pray and believe every day: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
We have the promise, along with the command, that we will smite and utterly destroy the seven heathen kingdoms that remain in our minds where the kingdom of God dwells. We may even call these the “seven deadly sins” that must be dealt with or they will rot our insides and diminish the Kingdom of God within. These seven are: anger, lust, laziness, greed, envy, gluttony and pride. Be aware of these “Canaanites” in your life and the dangers they pose. Let the Kingdom of God flourish and wield its influence and authority over the soul.