Deuteronomy 32:28-33 They are a nation without sense,there is no discernment in them. If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be! (Moses, upon hearing the future, dire consequences of the people who have been entrusted to his care as the Lord led them out of slavery and into the Promised Land, consequences that the Lord has just spoken over His Own people when they will choose to disobey Him in the future, is saddened and incredulous as he also denounces those who will dare to come against God's people. He understands only too clearly how willfully disobedient God's people are and how eager their enemies are to try to conquer them. He also understands how foolish are those who try to come against God's Own.) How could one man chase a thousand,or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them,unless the Lord had given them up? For their rock is not like our Rock,as even our enemies concede. (Because the Israelites' enemies worshiped hand-made idols, Moses knew any victory on their part would be due to the Lord having lifted His hand of protection from His people. Normally, the people of the Lord would be supported by His supernatural strength and abilities. Moses knew the only reason that God's people would experience defeat by their enemy would be the result of the Lord's discipline that would allow them to reap the consequences of their unfaithfulness.) Their vine comes from the vine of Sodomand from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison,and their clusters with bitterness. Their wine is the venom of serpents,the deadly poison of cobras. (In their rebellion, God's people had turned back to the evil of their ancient forefathers. Though the Lord had planted His people as a vine that grew out of the soil of His presence and love, the people had become an aberration that only produced poison. The idols to which they and we too often devote ourselves, born of the enemy that comes against us, have their roots in the age-old evil that has plagued mankind since the beginning. They are not new. They merely have different names. Their source is the same. While the idols that we allow to invade our hearts and minds and steal away our focus on the Lord promise the wine of success and freedom, they only serve hidden and deadly poison and bitterness and bondage.)
