Remember The Victories

“If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the LORD thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt;” (De 7:17-18 AV)

This is exactly what they would eventually say.  They would eventually be faced with enemies whom they considered too much for them to face.  In fact, it wasn’t that much later when, indeed, they said this very thing.  When the twelve spies returned from spying out the land, they reported the inhabitants were too numerous and large for their little nation to conquer.  Because of their lack of faith, the wondered in the wilderness for forty years until the faithless generation passed away.  What they forgot was the great victories of the recent past.  What is surprising was the victories were rather recent.  Within a few years.  Yet, it doesn’t take much to forget what God has done for you.

Recently, I visited a physician’s assistant for an issue related to my heart.  She wanted a complete medical history.  From memory, I tried to recall all that had happened in my 54 years of life.  As my wife and I were leaving, I began to recall one thing after another that I forgot to tell this faithful health worker.  My mother kept a small diary for each of her children of their health issues until age 18.  I think when she got to her fifth of eleven children, the task became a little too much to carry on.  Specially when eight of those were boys.  She would have to make come sort of entry multiple times a day.  Depending on which of her children lost a battle with common sense.  I have that little book.  When we got home from the appointment, I entered all those things that I could remember.  As I was entering those, it occurred to me how many times I was in trouble and the LORD watched over me.  In several of them, my life was a bit in jeopardy.  But God is faithful.

The enemies of the child of God are the world, the devil, and the flesh.  The flesh being the hardest of all.  By way of application, let us consider a few questions.  Why is it that we think a particular sin is impossible to defeat when the LORD has given us victory over so many already?  Why is it that we allow the flesh to tempt us to failure when the LORD has already given us the victory?  Why is it that we have forgotten the victory of many other areas of life and assume this one battle is impossible to win?  Why is it that when the number of victories already received outnumber the one that has us in defeat and we still think by God’s grace we cannot overcome?  The sin that doth so easily beset us is nor greater or less than the other monsters God has defeated.  We just think it is.  Yield to the Holy Spirit and the giant will fall.