January 6, 2016
Deuteronomy 33:25-27 (Modern King James Version)
(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)
Let’s finish our blogs on Facing The Future. Our Scripture is Deuteronomy 33:25 through 27:
Your shoes shall be iron and bronze. And as your days, so shall your
strength be. There is none like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the
heavens to your help, and in His majesty on the clouds. The eternal
God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. And He
shall throw the enemy out from before you, and shall say, “Destroy!”
We saw in verse 25 that with shoes of iron and bronze, we will be shod with protection that can continually cover our feet and help us walk through anything that the future can bring!
In verse 26 God called Israel Jeshurun – meaning upright. And we also are upright before God, because Jesus Christ provides His own righteousness with which we are clothed when we accept Him as our Savior!
In the last blog, we started on verse 27 – “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” God Himself protects us! And His everlasting arms are always there, even if we feel like we are in free fall! He will not let us go!
• Now, the last part of Deuteronomy 33:27 – “And He shall throw the enemy out from before you….” Who is our enemy? I Peter 5:8 (Good News Bible) tells us, “Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” But in I Corinthians 15:26 Paul tells us, “The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.” These two ideas go together! Satan is the author of death through sin. There was no death until Adam and Eve succumbed to the tempter in the Garden of Eden. And, as Paul says in Romans 5:12, “…through one man [Adam] sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned….” We have been in bondage of fear toward sin, Satan, and death until we are released by faith in Jesus Christ! (See John 8:34-36; Hebrews 2:14, 15). “…thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Corinthians 15:57).
We must never forget the victory is God’s doing! “…He shall throw the enemy out from before you….” We are not strong enough in ourselves to stand up to the devil. Jesus told His disciples in Mark 16:17 (KJV), “…these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils….” The victory is always in His name – in His person!
• Deuteronomy 33:27 – “…and He…shall say, ‘Destroy!’ ” Yes, He does it! But we have a part in God’s victory! While “…He shall throw the enemy out from before you…,” God also tells us to “…Destroy…”! Do you realize that we have power over Satan? It says so in I John 4:4, “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them [those of the spirit of antichrist – Satan], because He who is in you [Jesus Christ] is greater than he who is in the world [the devil].” James tells us in James 4:7, 8, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” As Jesus resisted the devil with the Word of God (see Luke 4:1-13), we also can successfully resist him by using the sword of God’s Word against him! This is part of the spiritual warfare we are admonished to learn. (See II Corinthians 10:3-6; Ephesians 6:10-18. Also study the 21 blogs from May 6 through June 21, 2013 – Know Your Enemy!).
But there is an ultimate fulfillment of Deuteronomy 33:27 – God saying to us, “Destroy! ” For it is written in Romans 16:20: “And the God of peace shall crush Satan under your feet shortly.” We will someday – and perhaps very soon – see complete victory over the devil and his temptations in our lives! You see, we now have two natures:
• The old sinful nature, the one with which we are born, also called “the flesh” in many Scriptures.
• The new godly nature that the Lord gives us when we are born again, having accepted Jesus Christ into our hearts and lives (see John 3:3-7; II Corinthians 5:17).
The godly nature cannot sin, according to I John 3:9 and 5:18. The flesh can do nothing but sin! As Paul confessed in Romans 7:18: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.” Since we have both natures within us at this time as we dwell upon the earth, there is a battle going on between the two – described in Galatians 5:17: “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not the things that you wish.”
The Holy Spirit has access to the new nature, and Satan has access to the old – hence the battle. But there is coming a day – when either we leave this body through death, or when “…in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet…we shall be changed…” (I Corinthians 15:52) – we will leave behind the old nature and possess only the new nature! And we will never sin again! We will never be tempted again! The devil will never have access to us again! Praise God! It is at that time that to ultimate fulfillment of Romans 16:20 will occur: “And the God of peace shall crush Satan under your feet shortly.”
Until then, may we experience ever-increasing victory over Satan and his pull in us toward sin. May we always know the truth of Deuteronomy 33:27: “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”