Deuteronomy 20:3-4He shall say: “Hear, Israel: Today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be terrified by them. 4 For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”
Serving in the military during a time of war is a different sort of thing from serving during peacetime. Trust me, I know. Those in the military, for them most part, do not cherish the thought of combat. They do it because they are told to do it by a civilian Commander in Chief. They would rather be at home with their families, just like us.
I have served with some true heroes. They rarely talk about the things they did in combat. They don’t boast about their actions. They recognize the grace of coming home alive. For many, friends did not.
I am always wary of those who boast about what they did. I have questions about the facts and whether they are conveying the facts or a work of fiction. Boasting is not part of the military ethos.
Unfortunately, war is part of the human experience. Ever since the first fruit adventure in the Garden and the sibling rivalry murder of the first brothers, war has been part of what humans do to each other. Now we have perfected the ability to kill each other. We can be thousands of miles removed from our enemy and bring lethal force to bare.
Even for ancient peoples, war was a dangerous endeavor. Casualties happened. And for them, even small wounds could be fatal because of infections. War has always been a life and death experience.
So for this newly formed nation, war was in their future. They needed to know how to prepare their hearts and minds for battle. The first instruction dealt with the realization that they were not the ones doing the winning of the battles. The LORD was the One winning.
And as we read the stories of battles that are later in our text, we read how the LORD won the battles, both with and without human intervention. And if the LORD was the One doing the fighting, then the soldiers didn’t need to be afraid.
So the first instruction to them is found in our text. The leaders are to tell the people who will be entering the fight that they should not be afraid. And if they are, they are allowed to return home and not fight. Even when the LORD is doing the fighting, fear gets in the way of His victory.
But it can be hard to hear this message when facing an enemy. The unknown can play havoc on our emotions, and battle is about the unknown. But there is more to fear in this instance than just the natural emotion when facing danger.
That something more has to do with trust. They have experienced the LORD’s deliverance repeatedly. They have seen His visible presence all along their journey for forty years, lighting their path by night and shadowing them during the day.
So it should be easy to say “I trust the LORD,” since they have this firsthand knowledge of His faithfulness. And it is He who is calling them and promising them protection. They should be able to rely on the past faithfulness of the LORD to carry them through. But they have a problem remembering!
So do we! How quickly we forget the faithfulness of the LORD in our lives. We have His Word more sure in Christ. We can read His history. We can see the changes made in our lives and the lives of those who follow Jesus at our sides around the world.
We should be able to trust His promises to us.
The Arnold Journey 