Doing God's will must be our ministry

Deuteronomy 1:41-42 (ESV)
"Then you answered me, ''We have sinned against the LORD. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us.'' And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. [42] And the LORD said to me, ''Say to them, Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.''

We have sinned against the LORD. Confession of sin must be followed by turning away from that sin, otherwise it was not a genuine repentance, but only of the mouth. The best that we can do when we are chastised by the Lord is to turn and be submissive to the chastisement that He is giving us. But look what this people say: "We ourselves will go up and fight", as though they had any chance of defeating these giants by their own strength. Before they were afraid because they did not trust in the strength of God, but now they are confident because they trust in their own strength and not in God's. Both are unbelief in the strength of God. Whatever they do, they don't want to trust in the arm of God, nor want to be where He is.

Just as the LORD has commanded us. Here we learn something: just because God has commanded us to do something, if the Lord is not with us in that thing, we will not be able to fulfill it. We must do what God commands, with God. We must obey God's words with the strength that He supplies. We cannot obey the commandments of God without His strength. Unless God is with us, and unless He gives us the grace to obey, we cannot obey any of His commandments.

And moreover, to these people God had already commanded them to turn around back into the wilderness. This command had overrode the commandment to go and possess the land. But they are now saying "we will obey", using 'obedience' as a cover for their disobedience. God tells them to turn right, they turn left; He turns them to turn left, they turn right. What is this picture? It is showing that they cannot submit to the Law of God, because their minds are hostile to God.

Surely all mankind's minds are hostile to God. When God tells us to do something, we do the exact opposite thing, because our hearts are evil and God-hating. How can such a dead heart be revived? By listening to a lot of "Thou Shalt not" commandments? No, because the more we hear God saying, "Thou Shalt not", the more we DO that exact thing:
Romans 7:7-11 (ESV)
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." [8] But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. [9] I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. [10] The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. [11] For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

The worst thing you can tell a unregenerate person who is overcome by lustful thoughts is to say to that person, "God says you must not think lustfully". Because of the sinfulness of the person's heart, the person will actually become more sinful because of that commandment, because his heart desires to do the very thing that God hates. What we must tell the person is not what he must do, but what Jesus Christ has DONE in the Gospel. We must tell him: Christ came from heaven to earth, He lived a sinless life, never once did He have a lustful thought. He was the spotless Son of God. But God had laid on Him all the guilt of our lust, and crucified Him on the hill of Calvary as punishment justly due for lust. Then He rose again from the dead, and is ready to come back and judge all those who have thought and done lustful things, but to save those who have put their trust in Him. This is the way we get a person to stop sinning. The Gospel is the truth that sets people free from sin, and rebellion.

Moses had clearly told this generation that "God Himself will fight for you", in verse 30. But hear what this people say: "we ourselves will go and fight". It is God who was going to do all the fighting. The conquest of Canaan wasn't going to be some 'joint operation' between God and Israel. By no means! It would ALL be God. Israel were simply the weak and pathetic rod that He had desired to use. And that Israel were defeated in the following verses show how weak indeed this weapon was. Israel did not realize just how weak they really were. They should have been like the crippled Mephibosheth, who described himself as nothing but a dead dog to David:
2 Samuel 9:8 (ESV)
And he paid homage and said, "What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?"

By saying "we ourselves will go and fight", this people were not even saying that the battle will be a joint operation with God. They are saying it will ALL be them, and God can stay behind. What perverted view did they have of their own ability, and how little did they view God? They perhaps thought all the victories that were won from Egypt and so far in the journey had all been won by their own strength. How far could they be from the truth! Their salvation was all the work of God, and none of man was mixed in it. It is as it is written:
Ephesians 2:8-10 (ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. See how Israel trusted in their weapons of war more than God, fastening each of them to their sides, as though they were what would protect them. They were not realizing that they themselves were like those weapons, to be held by the hands of God for His own battle against the inhabitants of the land. They did not realize that they should have been fastened to God's side, by clinging on to Him, in order that God may use them to bring victory to Himself. This was God's own battle against His enemies. Israel were simply the instruments to His war. Yet they did not understand, and thought to win God's war by themselves, only to miserable failure to themselves.

We learn here that we must trust in the living God, and not the dead idols that we so easily cling to. These weak things we have made with our hands can never compare with the living Creator who made us and who sustains the universe by His everlasting word. Think of it, how can the things made by men, compare with our Maker who is the Sovereign Ruler of all? Yet we so easily put our trust in the works of our hands, giving glory to them, to bring our Maker reproach, by effectively declaring and alluding that the Creator must bow down, worship and trust in the creation, that the creation is higher and more worthy than the Creator. This is the perversion and the betrayal of the ages. Thus all people who trust in idols - whether it be money, or weapons or possessions, career, house, car, technology - bring dishonor to their own Creator, by loving and serving these things more than God. It is the abomination of the highest order.

Israel "thought it easy to go up the hill". The thing about the conquest of Canaan was not that it was just 'difficult'. The conquest of Canaan was impossible. It was not possible that a group of shepherds who had been slaves for four hundred years in Egypt could possibly go and conquer a land of giants who live in high walled fortresses. Was this possible? By no means. But because God, the Lord of the Universe, was going to do it, it was going to be possible. But see how easy they thought it would be to go and conquer the Amorites, and how they fell, as a man falls off a building according to the law of gravity! These weak people could not possibly defeat them. It had to be God, otherwise it would be utterly impossible.

Likewise our salvation was not only a difficult thing, like climbing Mount Everest, that only needed a lot of effort to achieve. Israel had more luck conquering the hill of the Amorites with no weapons, than us wicked sinners ascending into God's holy hill by our own strength:
Psalm 15:1-5 (ESV)
O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? [2] He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; [3] who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; [4] in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD;who swears to his own hurt and does not change; [5] who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent.He who does these things shall never be moved.

Have a look at above high hill of God's salvation. But there are many in the world who attempts to climb this Mountain, which is the one above every mountain, by themselves, thinking it easy to climb the steep hill called God's righteousness. They trust in their own selves, their own idols which they have made, as though that can make them right before God, through external rituals and burdening of the flesh. They realize not that it is their spirits that are imprisoned by sin, and that only Christ has the power to set them free from this spiritual bondage of the heart. They don't realize that if they have fallen short of even one of the above standards, they are fallen even before they can touch the foot of the Mountain. This Mountain is the Perfect Righteousness of God, which no man has even closely attained, not even the holiest saints in the scriptures. Sinai is the perfect picture of the Mountain of God's righteousness:
Exodus 19:12-13 (ESV)
And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ''Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.

But who is the one Man who has ascended, not into Sinai, but to Heaven, the Holy Hill of God, by His own strength, by His own righteousness? It is Christ, the King of Glory:
Psalm 24:7 (ESV)
Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
By living the righteous life we could not life, and dying the righteous death we deserved to die, and rising again from the dead, Christ has conquered to climb this impossible hill of the Righteousness of God, so that all who trust in Him will be reckoned to have climbed that Hill in Him. How glorious is the Gospel of God. In Christ we are considered having perfectly fulfilled all the requirements of righteousness. Thus the impossible God has made possible, all by His own strength. None of man is mixed in this salvation, He has conquered and subdued the enemies of our souls, and carried us in Him to the promised land. As it is written:
Psalm 118:23 (ESV)
This is the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies. God tells Israel that they do not go and fight, why? Because they have not enough weapons or manpower? Because they are shorter, and their enemies taller? No. He says, because He is not in their midst. All of our best works will eventually come to nothing if Christ is not in it. And mainly, Christ is not in anything that He did not command:
Matthew 7:25-27 (ESV)
And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. [26] And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. [27] And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."

What Christ has not commanded, however great that the work may be, however pious or godly-looking it may be, will be burnt up like stubble in the day of judgment. It will be worth nothing in light of eternity, for God was not the author of it:
1 Corinthians 3:13 (ESV)
each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

Remember that many professing Christians will say to Christ in that Day:
Matthew 7:22 (ESV)
On that day many will say to me, ''Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?''
But Christ will say to them "Depart from Me". Why? Because they did whatever they wanted, whatever they desired, and did not do the will of the Father, that is, they did not obey what Christ said:
Matthew 7:21 (ESV)
"Not everyone who says to me, ''Lord, Lord,'' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Whatever thing that we do that appears godly, but that which was not the will of the Father, nor what Christ commanded, nor what God had in mind, nor done without God is nothing but LAWLESSNESS:
Matthew 7:23 (ESV)
And then will I declare to them, ''I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.''
Likewise did this Israelites thought they were 'obeying the Lord', but in fact to God it was nothing but lawlessness. God is not with that which is not His will, nor that which is against His commandments. Though it may appear that He is with those who do such things, the Day will reveal whether it was done with God, or presumptuously.

We must strive to seek God's will in all that we do, for by doing God's will, He is in our midst, for we are being where He is. Instead of asking God to be with where we are, it is much better to go to where He is, by willing to do His will. And we must be very suspicious of our ministry, knowing that doing God's will, that is His revealed will through His word, lot of times has nothing to do with 'ministry' as we know it. Our main ministry should be being like Jesus Christ, who obeyed all God's will, even the death of the Cross. When we do those little things that are His will, such as loving our neighbours, doing our best at work, loving our spouses, forgiving enemies, then God will be in us and in the midst of us, and then we shall be properly enabled to do those smaller ministries. Doing God's will must be our main ministry. Let us serve Him, not by doing millions of ministries, but rather by obeying Christ and following God's commandments. Then God will be with us, enabling us to defeat all our enemies. Amen.