Spiritual Warfare (Deut. 2:1-3:29)

It's important to see that Herem warfare, or holy war, is actually spiritual warfare. With Sodom and Gomorrah, God brought fire from heaven. But his purpose is to bring salvation to the earth – and fire from heaven cannot accomplish that! His purpose is to bring salvation through a man – and so humanity must become the agent of salvation: and thus of judgment also.

In Egypt it was the angel of death sweeping through the land – in order to bring Israel out of bondage – "Israel is my son, my firstborn – let my son go, that he may serve me!"

Israel is called to be the son of God – to go to the Land of Promise, where he will receive the inheritance from his Father.

And so in Canaan it will be the Son of God who sweeps through the land – destroying the wicked in order to bring salvation to the earth.

This is the holy war that Moses is describing in chapters 2-3. And in a holy war the LORD fights for his people.

And as we'll see, this points us to Christ, who has defeated all our enemies, and who is the Divine Warrior who wins the final battle for us.

How does God fight for us? I kept the four points from last time – though we already looked at the first two:

1. God doesn't fight against his own people
2. God utterly destroys his enemies
3. God requires all of his people to fight together
4. God himself chooses his general

So we're going to see how Deuteronomy tells us about Holy War, how it points us to Christ's final victory, and how it shows us how Christ fights for us today...