Deuteronomy 20:1 When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the LORD thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
Every life has its battles. It doesn’t matter who you are, there are battles ahead. I am here to tell you that God designed you for victory, for depending upon Him, and for facing the battles of life with complete submission to God.
There are two important lessons we can learn from God’s words through Moses as He was speaking to Israel when they came into Canaan. The first is that every scenario that Moses imagined assumed victory. This is a victory ethic. Deuteronomy 20:1 says, “When thou goes out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the LORD thy God is with thee, which bought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”
So, they were not to pray for fewer enemies, but they were to trust in a greater God. Every scenario we have here, whether directly fighting a city or laying siege to a city, assumes victory, not because these people were great, but because their God was. Therefore, they were not to fear but to hear. “Hear, O Israel, let not your hearts faint, fear not, and do not tremble, neither be terrified because of them. For the Lord your God goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you.” That is, in essence, the first four verses of this chapter.
So, remember that as Moses talked to these people, every scenario assumed victory. Friend, greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. There are a lot of bad scenarios that could play out in your day and in your mind, but realize that while there are battles, there is a God. When we fear Him, we need not fear the enemy.
The second lesson we learn is that every scenario demands planning past victory. For instance, in verse 18, when they took a city, they were not to learn the ways of the people they conquered. In verse 19, when they took the city, they were not to chop down the fruit trees and therefore starve even after they had victory over this land.
God has saved you, but you need His grace tomorrow just as certainly as you needed it yesterday. If God could save your soul for eternity, don’t you think He could help your life today? Yes! Every scenario demands planning past victory, and demands God’s guidance for the next stage just as it demanded guidance for what came before. God brought Israel out of Egypt, and God was going to bring them into Canaan. God saved your soul, and God can guide your life.
God did not want His people to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! Once again, they weren’t to learn the ways of the people over whom they had victory, and they weren’t to chop down the fruit trees. What good is a land gained by a “scorched earth policy”? When a military takes a scorched earth policy, it is because they are not certain of victory or they don’t plan beyond victory. With Israel, their victory was as certain as their obedience to God, and the future was one that they needed to plan right now. They weren’t to chop down the fruit trees because they would need those fruit trees in coming days.
In a nutshell, I am trying to say that God did not deliver you from Egypt only to defeat you in Canaan. If you have trusted the Lord Jesus to save you, that is well and good. That is wonderful! But there are battles ahead, and there are victories to be won. There is a Canaan to possess and there is a God Who is worthy of your trust in every challenge of the day ahead.