By Theodore Epp

      2 Samuel 5:1-10

      So impregnable did the Jebusites think their fortress to be that they jeered at David and his men, saying that the blind and the lame could hold it against David's army. "Nevertheless," we are told, "David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David" (2 Sam. 5:7). David then moved into the city and made it the headquarters for his government, and later on it became the central place of worship for God's people. Eventually Solomon's great temple was erected in Jerusalem. From this city the Lord Jesus Christ will rule in the Millennium and establish His New Jerusalem of which the Prophet Ezekiel spoke.

      There is a rich spiritual lesson for us here. Some habits of sin are so deeply entrenched in our minds and bodies that we have struggled in vain against them from the day of our new birth. We may have felt it was no use to try to overcome these habits and that we might as well give up. What we need, of course, is to let the King, the Lord Jesus Christ, lead us in the battle against this entrenched sin. We can never defeat the Enemy by ourselves. It must always be done through the strength of Christ.

      "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31).