“…for the Lord your God… is a great and awesome God.”

                 How the world can take what is sacred and bring it down so low!  Perhaps this is no truer than its use of the word awesome.  Like another abused word, love, we can hardly recognize it from its original meaning.  Though awesome has always been in the Bible and always used to describe God, its meteoric rise in popularity undoubtedly was fueled by Rich Mullins’ 1988 song, “Awesome God.”  While the song went on to become a Christian classic, awesome possibly became the most used adjective in the ‘90’s, first by the church, then by the world.  Of course, in time Christians became just as guilty of minimalizing and/or distorting the word’s meaning.  Awesome pizza?  Awesome performance?  Awesome date?  I don’t think so.  Some words used to describe God ought to be left for him alone.

To say the situation was critical was to greatly underestimate it.  Moses was older now.  He had lost the redemptive generation, his peers who, as adults, saw the terrors of the Lord unleashed against Egypt, walked through the parted sea, and saw God lead and sustain them through 40 years of desert wanderings.  They were now dead and gone, having failed the test of faith at Kadesh-Barnea (Numbers 14).  Moses, however, was back, at Arabah, with the generation that had seen God’s wonders through younger — and therefore, more impressionable — eyes.  But how was their collective memory?  Would they remember how awesome God still is?

Their job was the same as before: the nations in Canaan had to go…literally and entirely.  They remained stronger than Israel, still outnumbered them, and still had the advantage from a practical and military standpoint.  They were fighting in territory that was familiar to them.  Israel wasn’t.  The same question haunted them as it did their dead parents: What did they have going for them?  Were they familiar with fighting, raiding or killing?  No.  Moses knew this.  The issue wasn’t what they were familiar with or what did they know, but who had the knowledge and who did they trust?  That was the needed reminder.

“You may say to yourselves, ‘These nations are stronger than we are.  How can we drive them out?’  But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the Lord your God did do to Pharaoh  and to all Egypt.  You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the miraculous signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the Lord your God brought you out.  The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear.  Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished.  Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God” (Deut. 7:17-21).

Notice that Israel was in fear of those nations.  Moses said they needed to be in greater fear — in awe — of God who was “among” them.  Why?  Because the outcome of failing God was far worse than falling into their enemies’ hands.  “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31).  “Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men” (1 Cor. 5:11).

Notice something else.  “The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little.  You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you” (7:22-23).  So God could wipe them out all at once, but didn’t because the lower human population would increase the animal population.  But couldn’t God have trimmed down the animal population while he was wiping out the nations?  Yes, but what would Israel have missed?  They would have missed the experience of walking day in and day out, until the weeks turned into months and years, with this awesome God who is more powerful and dreadful than anything else.  They also would have missed watching God “deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed … [and] give them into your hands” (vs. 23-24).  In other words, they would have lost the opportunities for growth of character, for maturing of trust, and for developing that sensitivity of knowing God’s will that only the battle-intensive life can produce.

This same awesome God is faithful enough to be among us, too.  Are you close enough to him and involved enough in the battle to see him conquer your enemies while keeping you in awe?