Deuteronomy 9
Who can stand before the sons of Anak? They were big,
frightening people, and some of them were still in the land of Canaan
at the time of the conquest. They were living examples of the
multitudes of adversaries that strive against the purposes of God
even today.
God had given the land of Canaan to Israel. But the
Anakim stood in the way of the Lord's gift to His people.
God has an eternal purpose to bring back a reunited
heaven and earth full of His people who will be perfectly directed by
the Holy Spirit, not out of compulsion, but by the heavenly renewal
of their minds. But sin, death, and hell stand in the way, enemies
that are far bigger than the Anakim.
Only the Lord could give Canaan to the Israelites. Only
God can secure the new heavens and earth for the people of the
Messiah.
The Lord wanted the Israelites to know for certain that
their deliverance did not spring from their own perfect
righteousness. It was grounded in the Lord's own covenant
faithfulness and had more to do with the unrighteousness of the
Canaanites than with any assessment of merit that could be awarded to
the descendants of Jacob. That was a humbling message that needed to
be repeated many times throughout the pages of the Law and the
Prophets.
The Israelites were not a shining example of what the
inhabitants of heaven would look like. They were stubborn. They would
not hear and obey the voice of the Lord. Their persistent
unrighteousness would eventually lead to their exile.
Were the nations of the Gentiles any better? Not at all.
Both Jew and Gentile needed a truly righteous
Substitute. Through faith in His Name we have life, peace, and a
righteousness that is not our own.
The record of the church has revealed our own stubborn
hearts. If our hope was in our own righteousness apart from Jesus
Christ it would be groundless. But our hope is in the righteousness
of Christ.
As with the history of the Jews from Egypt to the plains
of Moab and beyond, the history of the church is weighed down with
example after example of our misguided zeal, our petty squabbles, and
our prideful resistance to the ways of the Lord. Yet God has
determined to preserve a people in Christ from both the Jews and the
Gentiles.
The episode of the golden calf was a reminder to the
descendants of Jacob of their own failure to keep God's Law. As soon
as the Law was inscribed on tablets of stone by the finger of God,
Israel was already worshiping an idol.
At that time the Lord used the intercession of Moses,
their mediator, to save them, and to continue in His commitment to
them. How many times has our Mediator, Jesus Christ, interceded for
us? His blood, the blood of the eternal covenant which was shed on
the cross, still speaks a saving word for us before the throne of the
Almighty.
The Israelites also rebelled against the Lord at Massah
in the wilderness. They would not believe Him or obey Him. Our record
of faith and righteousness has not been exemplary in our days of
testing. We should yield all of our failures of faithlessness up to
the Lord. We should lay our sins again today on Jesus, just as the
Old Testament priests laid their hands on sacrificial animals year
after year on the Day of Atonement, confessing the sins of the
people. We have perfect eternal healing in the blood of the Lamb of
God.
Our unrighteousness, our unbelief, and our willful
rejection of the ways of God stand against us. These enemies within
are formidable foes. But Christ is able to destroy these “sons of
Anak” in our hearts. One day we will have no more traces of the the
enemy within. The Spirit of Christ is at work in our souls, and He
will win the battle.
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