“The LORD your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes;” (De 1:30 AV)
I know this verse or ones similar to it have been used in my devotions in the past. But a different thought occurred to me reading the above passage. Moses is referring to the failure of Israel to take the promised land the first time around. He is recalling the twelve spies and the evil report of ten of those spies. He rehearsed how they felt and their perception of the likelihood of overcoming what seemed to be insurmountable odds. The verse above is not meant for encouragement to face a battle. Rather, a reminder of why their lack of faith was such a big deal. They refused to trust God to do the impossible through them. They put success squarely on their own shoulders and correctly assessed if they were to take the land, they would be defeated. They did not calculate God’s power in their assessment. This was why God was so displeased with them. But that is not the thought that occurred to me this morning. Nowhere does God promise to make the battle smaller. He does not promise to shrink the enemy. The nature of the battle is still the same. With or without God, the enemy is what he or it, is. They are still giants. They are still innumerable. They are still impenetrable. Having God fight our battles does not shrink the enemy.
Recently, I finished a sermon entitled, The Undesirable Will of God. It comes from the prayer of Jesus in the garden. There is much argument over this prayer and for no good reason. Too much metaphysics and philosophy and not enough Bible. It is plain that in His weakened human flesh, the Savior asked the Father for any other way by which mankind could be redeemed from their sin. He saw the cruel death before him and the temporary estrangement of the Son from the Father and cried out that the cup that lay before him might be replaced by a lighter one. Jesus raised the hypothetical of a small mountain. A light load. An easier trial to endure. It wasn’t that He was seeking to avoid the goal of the trial altogether. He was not. It was the joy that was set before Him. What He raised as a possibility was God might lessen the battle that He might endure what lay before Him. Yet, the LORD did not. The Father required of the Son all that we predetermined before the foundation of the world. The plan of God was set. It was written from eternity. Nothing was going to make the cross lighter to bear. Yet, the Spirit and the Father strengthened Him in His hour of need so that the payment for our sin could and would be paid in full. The load did not decrease, but it did get lighter.
Having God involved doesn’t shrink the enemy. We will still have to face what we have to face. The mountain before us will still be just as high. Wishing for something less is only stating if it were, we could face it without God. The trial doesn’t diminish. The challenge does not ease. What does happen is God gets involved and strengthens us to overcome what we cannot face ourselves. Wishing for an easier life is unrealistic and unbiblical. Wishing it to all go away is immature. Hoping to lessen the trial so that we can handle it on our own is not how God designed our steps of faith. Rather, the battle is as large as it is because He wants to get us over the mountain. He wants to prove Himself strong on behalf of His children. He wants to be the God we need Him to be. Praying that God would take away the trial is not what God intends. That is not what He promises. He promises to make a way through it so that we can endure the entirety of it. The enemy is still tall and of great stature. But our God is greater. This is the point!
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