“The Lord your God shall deliver them before you.”

Deuteronomy 7:1-6, “When the LORD your God shall bring you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and shall clear away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the LORD your God shall deliver them before you, and you shall defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you. But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

People are heard to complain about why God would allow evil in the world. And when He does move against evil in a clear, dramatic and final way those same people will likely complain about His wrath! These are clear instructions to a “chosen people” about how to deal with the inhabitants of the Promised Land. As in the days of Noah, and in the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, there is a point of no return for evil practices. Peter tells us that God is not slow in keeping His promises to deal with evil; He is patient, “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” There is a day coming in our own time when He will deal decisively with evil. Why not come to repentance today?

We thank You that we can take shelter from the coming storm in the cleft of the rock of Jesus Christ!