DEUTERONOMY 7
The “seven nations greater and mightier than thou” represent spiritual powers that are opposed to God, and to the blessing of His people. “Our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against principalities, against authorities, against the universal lords of this darkness, against spiritual power of wickedness in the heavenlies” (Ephesians 6: 11). We have to recognise that there are evil powers greater than man whose influence is being exerted upon men to darken and pervert all that is of God. The possession and enjoyment [p. 76] of the inheritance is dependent upon the overthrow of these powers.
When Paul spoke of “the universal lords of this darkness” he was referring to powers which God would dispossess and displace so far as His people were concerned. Divine light was to shine in holy brilliance where the darkness had been. Instead of “spiritual power of wickedness” holding sway, His people were to possess and enjoy a God-given inheritance. So that “the land” as possessed by the people of God is contrasted with certain former conditions, and is the divine answer to those conditions. Light is relative to darkness, reconciliation is contrasted with enmity, reigning in life stands over against the reign of death, the reign of grace through righteousness to eternal life is contrasted with the reign of sin in the power of death, eternal life as the act of favour of God comes in as the contrast with death as the wages of sin, quickened with the Christ is said of those who had been dead in offences and sins, the putting on the new man is contrasted with the old man of our former conversation, sharing the portion of the saints in light is set over against being under the authority of darkness, the expression “the only true God” derives its force from the existence of the many false gods of idolatry, “the truth” stands out in distinctiveness in contrast to all that has the nature of a lie. The inheritance is where the power of the enemy has been, but it is now to be held for God through the victory of faith.
The inheritance as typified in “the land” has relation to the sphere in which the enemy had operated; it is the fruit of God’s victory over every form of the enemy’s power. And it is easy to see what a great place this has throughout Scripture.
But the “heirs” have something which is even more precious than the inheritance; that is, their own relationship to the One who in love gives the inheritance. “Ye are sons of Jehovah your God” (Deuteronomy 14: 1). Eternal life is the inheritance as set forth in “the land”; the Lord speaks of eternal life as being inherited (Matthew 19: 29); and this was understood by others, for more than one said, “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10: 17; Luke 10: 25). But the relationship of “sons” is for the satisfaction of the heart of God; He marked the saints out for sonship to Himself “before the world’s foundation”. This stands connected with eternal purpose, when God had nothing to consider but how He would provide for the satisfaction of His own love. The heirs of the inheritance have their own personal relationship with God as sons, and this is even greater and sweeter than the inheritance. Indeed the inheritance derives its true blessedness from being taken up by those who are personally in the relationship and affections of sons. Eternal life is the gift of God for men, but sonship is for the delight of God. Revelation 21: 7 gives the two sides:-”He that overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will he to him God, and he shall be to me son”.
Every darkening influence — whether it be lawlessness, hatred, corruption, pride, idolatry, philosophy, self-righteousness, infidelity, superstition, or whatever has the character of a lie or of antichrist — has to be overcome and displaced. The power of the enemy lies in “reasonings and every high thing that lifts itself up against the knowledge of God”. These things have their origin in heavenly places: they proceed from spiritual powers of wickedness — the universal lords of the darkness that is here. The thought of this is intensely serious. There are great powers standing against the knowledge of God, and they have to be cast out, so that all that God is, as known through promise, may be enjoyed by His people. God would displace every thought that the enemy has brought in by what is of Himself, [p. 78] meeting every evil by a corresponding good, and meeting every lie by the truth, so that His people may stand in an inheritance that is wholly of God in the very region that has been held by the power of evil.
Every darkening influence is to be overcome, and the armour in Ephesians 6 shews us the moral features with which the saints need to be invested if they are to stand as victors in the conflict. Paul used spiritual weapons — weapons that no power of darkness could stand against — and he used them as one who was personally invested with “the panoply of God”, and who was “strong in the Lord, and in the might of his strength”. Acquaintance with truth in terms is not sufficient; the loins must be girt about, with it. The breast-plate of righteousness must be put on, the feet shod with the preparation of the glad tidings of peace. The shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, must all be there. And the soldier in this warfare must pray “at all seasons, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit”.
It is indeed a “deadly fight” between the light of God and satanic darkness, and the enjoyment of the inheritance depends not only on victory, but on the maintenance of absolute separation from what is of darkness. “Then thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them. And thou shalt make no marriages with them: thy daughter shalt thou not give unto his son, nor take his daughter for thy son; for he will turn away thy son from following me” (verses 2, 3). There must be the uncompromising refusal of every principle which is not of God, especially when it takes a religious form. “But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and shatter their statues, and hew down their asherahs, and burn their graven images with fire”.
Satan’s great object in the world is to darken souls as to God. He does this not only in the gross form of heathen idolatry, but by the perversion and corruption of Christianity, and the introduction of what is idolatrous in principle, or in direct opposition to the truth. We must never allow ourselves to be persuaded that religious error is a small matter, or that earnestness or zeal in connection with what is untrue makes it worthy of respect. Everything opposed to the true knowledge of God and of Christ, and to the enjoyment of the inheritance by the people of God, is satanic in origin, and no terms are to be made with it. At the present day the spirit of compromise is everywhere in the air. Even when things are judged to be evil there is a great tendency to make covenants with them. A protest against evil has not much force if we go on with the things we protest against.
It need hardly be said that the conflict is not with persons. “Our struggle is not against blood and flesh”; it is against evil influences which operate through persons. As to the persons we desire that they may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. “For a holy people art thou unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be unto him a people for a possession, above all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth” (verse 6). We are called to be vessels to honour. See 2 Timothy 2 “Wooden and earthen” vessels would represent those who are of fleshly or natural character, but “gold and silver vessels” would represent those who are spiritually formed for the pleasure of God. If we wish to be vessels to honour we must purify ourselves from vessels to dishonour in separating from them. A vessel to dishonour would be one who gave a wrong impression of God, or who in some way perverted the truth. “A holy people ... unto Jehovah ... for a possession” must [p. 80] necessarily be entirely separate from what is of darkness, cherishing the precious light of God, and enjoying the portion of the saints in light, so that they may be a holy possession for Him.
Verses 7, 8 are a touching reminder that we owe all to sovereign love, and to God’s faithfulness to His promise and oath. But if it is ever true that He is “the faithful God, who keepeth covenant and mercy to a thousand generations with them that love him and keep his commandments” (verse 9), covenant conditions on our side must be maintained, and no faithful heart would wish it to be otherwise. Those that hate Him will be repaid “each to his face”. God’s ways in government secure blessing to those who love Him and keep His ordinances, but they are solemnly retributive to those who do otherwise. If God gives light as to His love and faithfulness it is a most solemn thing not to be affected by it. If He gives any spiritual light and we do not come into accord with it, we may expect to find that His ways are retributive. When any God-given light has been, in principle, hated rather than loved, the result has been that souls have lost what they once seemed to enjoy. We have seen Christians refuse divine light, and go back into things which they once judged. One would not say that any true believer could be spoken of as a hater of God, but the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, and a true believer may practically be influenced and coloured by something which is, at the moment, utterly opposed to the mind of God. It is quite possible to admit the rights of God abstractly, and to profess the truth in a general way, and yet be much opposed to what is of God as sought to be worked out practically. We are tested when it comes to the application of what is of God in a practical way to our walk and associations, because increase of light involves displacement of certain elements of darkness which [p. 81] have been there, and we are not always prepared for this.
Conditional upon the obedience of His people God pledges Himself to them in faithfulness. “He will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee, and will bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, thy corn and thy new wine, and thine oil, the offspring of thy kine, and the increase of thy sheep, in the land which he swore unto thy fathers to give thee” (verse 13). Every kind of spiritual increase is secured to a faithful people by God’s sworn covenant and mercy. Barrenness and unfruitfulness can only be regarded as a special and serious exercise. Abundant increase is the normal experience, and the absence of all sickness in a moral sense — “the evil infirmities of Egypt, which thou knowest”. We have known painfully what those “evil infirmities” were. “For we were once ourselves also without intelligence, disobedient, wandering in error, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another” (Titus 3: 3). Such “evil infirmities” are not with those who “become heirs according to the hope of eternal life”. Where God’s love is complacent there will be spiritual health and increase; it will be proved that, as Solomon said, “There has not failed one word of all his good promises which he spoke through Moses his servant” (1 Kings 8: 56). God verified every word which He had spoken. Nothing could be more blessed than to have continual experience of spiritual increase. Christendom is on the line of seeking material increase — increase of numbers and influence in the world, an enlarged status here — but the true answer to these promises lies in spiritual increase.
Paul speaks of the glad tidings as “bearing fruit and growing, even as also among you, from the day ye heard them and knew indeed the grace of God in truth”.
He speaks of “Bearing fruit in every good work, and growing by the true knowledge of God”. He speaks of “The head, from whom all the body, ministered to and united together by the joints and bands, increases with the increase of God” (Colossians 1: 6, 10; Colossians 2: 19). This is the kind of increase which should be our great object of desire.
God would greatly encourage us to pursue a course which leads to unlimited expansion and fruitfulness in a spiritual sense. He would encourage us to be without fear as to every hostile power (verses 17, 18). God can use apparently insignificant means — “the hornet” — to discomfit the adversaries. “Thou shalt not be afraid of them; for Jehovah thy God is in thy midst, a God great and terrible” (verse 21). The powers of evil and darkness are, indeed, greater than we are, but they are not greater than God, and with Him we may move into the conflict with calm confidence. Every darkening influence is to be overcome, and every thought led captive into the obedience of the Christ. We need not fear. Our danger lies, not in the power of the enemy, but in the possibility that we may see something attractive in what pertains to that enemy, and take it to us (verse 25). There is to be no appropriation even of what may seem valuable in itself if it has acquired through idolatrous use the character of “an abomination to Jehovah thy God”. Everything connected with idolatrous worship is to be detested and utterly abhorred, “for it is a cursed thing”. God’s curse is not only now on material images, but on everything that perverts the glad tidings. “But if even we or an angel out of heaven announce as glad tidings to you anything besides what we have announced as glad tidings to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1: 8, 9).
The Galatians when they did not know God “were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods” — they [p. 83] had been poor idolaters. But in turning to Judaism, circumcision, law-keeping, and observing days and months and times and years they were turning “again to the weak and beggarly principles to which ye desire to be again anew in bondage” (Galatians 4: 8 - 11). They were going back to that which was as great a darkening bondage as that of the heathen world. It is an important instruction for us in a day when so much that passes for Christianity is not at all in accord with Paul’s glad tidings, but is rather Judaism with Christian terms attached to it. Instead of illuminating men with the light of God revealed in Christ it darkens their souls by putting them on the line of works, prayers, sacraments, and all kinds of activities which never perfect their relations with God. It is all part of the influence of “the universal lords of this darkness”.