134. Fear Not, God is With
Deuteronomy 20:1 When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
How many times has God told us not to be afraid? Fear not! How many times has the Lord told us that He will be with us? “If God be for us, who can be against us?” In this context Israel is told not to fear the enemies in the Land because God is with you in the battle.
We are always in the battle against our spiritual enemies, Sin, Death, and the Devil. And God is always with us in the battle. Therefore, we don’t have to be afraid of them. We should be afraid of our spiritual enemies indeed, for they can do some real damage to us; we have reason to be afraid since we are too weak in our own flesh to stop their attack and harm. We are not strong enough to resist the temptations to sin; we are not smart enough to resist the devil and his lies; we are obviously not able to do anything about death as it relentlessly comes to destroy.
On the other hand, we should not be afraid of our spiritual enemies, for the Lord our God is with us:He is strong enough to resist the temptations of sin; He is smart enough to reject the lies of the devil; He is able to defeat death and grant eternal life. Because the Lord is with us and He has already saved us from the evil land and brought us to the good land, we are not afraid. The promise of “withness” is more powerful than we can see. The One who is “with” is on our side to fight for us, and overcome.
Because of who Christ is and what He has done for us we are not afraid of our real enemies. That One is With Us. Christ is our power and might and strength; He is our wisdom and mind; He is our heart and soul. Therefore, He, in us, is able to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, because it is His heart and soul and mind and strength that is working in our heart and soul and mind and strength. This is the power of faith in the gospel. Jesus does it. Jesus fights. Jesus wins. Jesus overcomes. And that’s a promise. Therefore,we will not be afraid of the enemies of the soul and of the kingdom that lives there.