The Old Covenants.
God’s Angel to Prepare the Way. Written By: Londa Boone
Exodus 23:20-26 NIV
“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.
We read in our studies that the appearance of God or The Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament is the second part of the Godhead — the “pre-incarnate Christ” (before Jesus “took on flesh”). How amazing is that! He comforted Hagar, He stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac in Genesis, He appeared to Moses as a burning bush in Exodus, and many more examples in Judges, Zechariah, Numbers, 1 Kings, and the Psalms.
This passage runs parallel of what Jesus does for all of us as we walk out our faith and in the time of His return. Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel said it best: “Now in this we find the principles of God’s victory and the way He brings forth victory in our lives. These Jebusites, and Hivites, and so forth, are a type of the giants in our flesh; coming into the promised land is coming into the life of the Spirit, and the victory of the Spirit. The overcoming life, coming out of the wilderness, out of the yo-yo Christian experience, where you’re up and down, and up and down, into a beautiful, victorious overcoming life in Christ Jesus. A life of victory, a life after the Spirit, not after the flesh. These enemies that were in the land represent those aspects of our flesh, where it so often has defeated us and conquered us. But God is promising victory over anger, over anxiety, over fears, over temper, over any area of the flesh where you are in bondage to your own flesh. God is promising you the victory, but it comes one area at a time. God doesn’t just give you instant perfection. But we’re growing in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So, the processes of God’s victory are reiterated for us here. “Until we inherit the land.”
Can I get a Halleluiah? I think about my temper, the struggle with my job, my emotional eating… Why am I struggling with these things when Jesus paid it all and “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free”? Everything we need has already been given.
I think about what Jesus has done for me and how everything I lack has already been given… The fruits of the Spirit are already in me because Jesus is in me. Love, Joy, Peace, Forbearance, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. My temper can be overcome with love; the struggle with my job with Peace, and my emotional eating with Self-Control. So how do I access these things that were given to me when I received the Holy Spirit? First, I have to believe that I really was given these gifts and they are in me already, then pray thanking Him for always giving what we need and lastly, die to my flesh, choose Jesus and walk out how He would have me react. Less of me, more of Him.
Join me in remembering that we are no longer oppressed by these things of the flesh; we only need to believe and step out of the broken chains, lying at our feet into freedom.
