This is the primary import of our text. But, when we recollect, that there is a spiritual idolatry still prevalent, and that there still exists the same contest between Jehovah and the votaries of this present world, and that his faithful servants are still greatly obstructed in their ways, and painfully persecuted too for their fidelity to him, we shall see that the encou- ragement in our text is as needful for them, as ever it was for his people of old.
I propose then to set before you,
I. The grounds which the Lord's people have for fear —
The idea of guilt and unworthiness might well come into our view, if we were treating the subject without any reference to the context: but as the fear and dismay mentioned in our text originated only in the power of their enemies, their own inability to withstand them, and the fearful consequences of a defeat, we think it right to confine our observations to those topics.
The Lord's people then have many fears as arising from,
1. The number and power of their enemies —
[It is well known that the world and all its votaries are in direct opposition to the children of God. As Gideon no sooner made a league with Joshua, than all the kings of Canaan confederated to destroy them ; so no sooner does any one enter into covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ and suhmit to him, than the whole world account him a deserter from their cause, and use all their efforts to bring him back to their standard. Even our dearest friends will be the foremost in this warfare ; and " our greatest foes be those of our own household." In confirmation of this assertion, we appeal, not to the Scriptures only, but to fact and experience. Let any man set his face to seek the Lord, and all around him will put themselves in array against him, and employ all the arts of persuasion, ridicule, expostulation, and menace, in order, if possible, to divert him from his purpose. Those who, when he was going on in the ways of sin, never uttered a single word of advice to induce him to flee from the wrath to come, no sooner behold him turning into the way of righteousness, than they express the deepest concern about his welfare, and labour to the uttermost to reclaim
him from what they account the most egregious folly .
In league with them will both the flesh, and the devil be ;