BEHOLD, I SEND MY ANGEL BEFORE THEE

I recently read a passage of scripture out of the book of Exodus which blessed me greatly.  It is from the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, verses 20-33, and is some of the words that God spoke directly to Moses when the latter went up to Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from the Lord.  They are especially precious to me because they contain many great promises for God’s people and hold such relevance for today.      

 

·         20 “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.”

 

God promised to send an angel before the Israelites to keep them and guide them to the place which He had prepared for them to be.  What a wonderful thing to know that God has prepared a place for us!  Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2).  The Angel of the Lord appeared in a pillar of cloud and of fire to Israel, and the cloud led them through the desert toward the Promised Land.  If it moved, Israel moved; if it stood still, they made camp and waited.  In much the same way, God’s Holy Spirit is with believers today to keep them and to guide them in the paths or righteousness.  We must learn to follow His still, small voice as He speaks to our spirit to tell us how He wants us to live, and what He wants us to do (or not do). 

 

Besides preparing for us a place in heaven, God has also prepared a place here and now where He wants us to be.  He refers to that place in Psalm 91 as “the secret place of the Most High” and “the shadow of the Almighty.”  Jesus spoke of it as “abiding in the Vine,” and Paul describes it as “walking in the Spirit.”  It is a place of safety and security in Christ Jesus our Lord.  It is where all the promises of God are “yes” and “amen” to the glory of God (2 Corinthians 1:20).

 

·         21 “Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for My name is in him.”

 

Obedience is essential for every child of God to learn.  Scripture tells us that it is better than any sacrifices that we might make to God in place of our obedience.  God couldn’t care less for what we give Him if it isn’t the thing that He’s asking of us.  Neither can God pardon our sins if we aren’t willing to abandon them. 

 

·         22 “But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.”

 

Psalm 34 tells, “The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” (Psalms 34:7).  If we obey the Lord and listen carefully to the voice of His Spirit, then He will be a defense to us against all those who would rise up against us.  Our battles will become God’s battles, and He will defeat our enemies for us.

 

·         23 “For Mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.”

All of those nations that stood before Israel when they entered Canaan represent all of the enemies that we must face in our lives in order to become more like Jesus.  Pride, lust, greed, hatred – they all will be cut off, and the ground that they once occupied in our lives will belong to the Lord!

 

·         24 “Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.”

 

People worship a lot of strange things.  The world reverences that which should not be, and ignores that which should.  Whatever we give our labor and time to can be said to be our gods.  If you love what the world loves, beware.  There comes a time in every believer’s life when he/she must break down the image, or bow down to it.  We must make sure we’re on the right side!

 

·         25 “And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and He shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.”

 

·       26 “There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.”

 

God will bless our bread and our water if we serve Him.  We won’t have to be anxious over where our next meal is coming from.  Just as God cares for the sparrows, He will also care for our needs.  He knows what we need even before we ask!  There are many promises in the Bible regarding physical healing that we would do well to give heed to.  Truly, the Church today has yet to learn some things about divine healing, but the closer we walk with the Lord, and the more we cling to His promises by faith, the more these things are going to become clear to us.  Faith is the victory!

 

Compare verse 26 to these promises: “Notwithstanding she [a godly woman] shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.” (1 Timothy 2:15).  “With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him My salvation.” (Psalms 91:16).  “For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they [God’s commandments] add to thee.” (Proverbs 3:2).

 

·         27 “I will send My fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.”

 

The fear of the Lord, the Bible says, is clean and will endure forever (Psalms 19:9).  “Clean” in this case also means pure and is compared to the animals that were without spot or blemish that were offered for ceremonial sacrifice by the Israelites.  Many Christians are put off by the notion that we must fear the Lord.  They say that we should love the Lord, not fear him.  These two work hand in hand, however, and are necessary for a healthy relationship with God.  Consider the relationship between a father and his child.  If the child is raised without discipline and only love, then they grow up spoiled and without boundaries.  They become self-willed and rebellious, showing no respect to the parent who has sacrificed for them.  On the other hand, with discipline and consequences for wrong choices, the child grows up to both love and reverence the parent.  Fear is the beginning of wisdom, and we all need more wisdom!    

 

There is a story about the great evangelist Charles Finney that I think illustrates the power of the fear of God and its positive effect on the soul.  On one occasion, Finney was holding a series of meetings at New York Mills, New York.  One morning he was asked to tour a large cotton mill in town.  As he walked into the mill God’s presence began to convict the people immediately, without Finney having to say a word.  As he walked into a large room where the young ladies working at the looms were laughing and joking, the room grew quickly still.  One of the girls looked into his eyes and started to tremble.  Her finger began to shake and she broke her thread.  Speaking of the event, Finney himself wrote: “She was quite overcome, and sank down, and burst into tears. The impression caught like powder and in a few moments all of the room was in tears. The feeling spread through the factory. 

 

One historian described the events with these words: The owner heard the equipment stopping, and came in to see what was going on. When he saw that the whole room was in tears he told the superintendent to stop the mill, for it was more important for souls to be saved than for the mill to run.

Up to that point Finney had not said a word.

 
God’s presence was so powerful on Finney’s life that all he had to do was walk into the room and people repented without him even saying a word to them. Within a few days almost all of the employees of the mill were saved. This unusual display of the power of God was surprisingly common in Finney’s life.

 

When our very presence can inspire the fear of God in others, then we know that our witness is effective. 

 

·         28 “And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.”

 

·        29 “I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.”

 

·         30 “By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.”

 

·       31 “And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.”

 

It is important to remember, and I can’t overstate it, that this Christian walk is a process.  We do not step into our fullness in Christ overnight, in a year, or even in ten or twenty years.  By little and little we put on Christ.  We read in Colossians that “In Him [Jesus] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.  And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.”  Some would take that and run with it thinking it is inferring that there is nothing else to accomplish in our walk – Jesus has done it all.  While this is technically true, there is a very big difference between theoretical faith and practical faith.  God had said that the entire Promised Land belonged to the Israelites, He even defined the borders of it in verse 31, but the people had to physically take those cities and countries one by one until all their enemies were defeated.  This would take years.  Still, the land was theirs, they just needed the faith to keep moving forward.  This is true of us as well.  We simply need the faith to keep moving forward knowing that we are completed in Christ.   

 

·         32 “Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.”

 

·         33 “They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against Me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.” (Exodus 23:20-33).”

 

God’s people must be a separated people!  “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.”