Fears

Posted on by korgrocker

“So one night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city.”
2 Kings 6:14 NLT

Elisha was in trouble. The king of Aram was annoyed with him, because every time the Arameans made a plan to defeat Israel in the war that was going on, Elisha, “the man of God” got to hear about it and he warned Israel’s king accordingly. The Aramean king was convinced that he had a traitor amongst his officers and we read their defence, ““It’s not us, my Lord the king,” one of the officers replied. “Elisha, the prophet in Israel, tells the king of Israel even the words you speak in the privacy of your bedroom!”” (2 Kings 6:12). Eventually the Aramean king found out where Elisha was staying, and in the night he sent a “great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city“. Their intent was to capture him and, I suspect, do him harm. Surely a time for fear and a dilemma for the inhabitants of Dothan, where Elisha was staying. 

Fast forward to 21st Century Planet Earth. News headlines of wars and threats abound. Just this morning the aftermath of the Israel/Iran spat continues with doomsday reports of Iran’s nuclear capability. The attempts by Israel to eliminate Hamas terrorists continues. The war between an aggressive Russia and Ukraine rumbles on into its third year. Press reports in the UK highlight the pitiful state of our nation’s defence capabilities. Tensions between different ethnic groups living in British occasionally boil over into strife. There has even been advice saying that households should keep a sum on money in cash available just in case there are problems with the banking system. Surely a time for fear and a dilemma for the inhabitants of the British Isles, where we stay. 

In Israel back in Elisha’s days, and in the UK today the problem is the same. We have a world riddled with evil and wickedness and the sins of mankind seem to have no bounds. And law-abiding citizens would be forgiven for quaking in fear and trepidation about what might happen next. So how should we pilgrims react in such a febrile world? The key is in what happens next in the story of Elish and the Arameans.

Elisha had a young servant and we read in 2 Kings 6:15, “When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. “Oh, sir, what will we do now?” the young man cried to Elisha”. And then we read in the next two verses, ““Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!” Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes and let him see!” The Lord opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire“. 

A quote from David Pawson: “I think sometimes we panic because we are only seeing what’s happening in the world that everybody else sees; if only we could see God’s point of view and see what’s happening in his sight. God is still on the throne. He is at peace, not worried about what is happening. It’s all going his way and he will end it all. When we read all the stark headlines in the press we get panicky. We say, ‘It’s coming to an end, it’s dreadful!’  Lord, open their eyes that they may see the real situation from God’s point of view“. On the face of it, world events at the moment are potentially scary in their outcomes. And on many people’s lips, even Christians, there is a plethora of “what if’s”. What if Russia attacks Poland? What if Iran develops a nuclear missile? What if …. (put in you own particular fear). But as David Pawson said, “God is still on His throne”. In His High Priestly prayer, Jesus said, “And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come” (Matthew 24:6-8). The world is going through a birthing process just now, and has been for centuries. 

So, how should we pilgrims feel and respond. This is a time for God’s people to rise up and counter the stories of anxiety and worry, “what if’s” and hopelessness, fear and panic. We note two things from our experience as children of God. Firstly God has said, “So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you” (Deuteronomy 31:6). Jesus Himself said “ …  And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20b). Secondly, we are on a mission to tell others of God’s saving grace. A dog-walker I spoke to recently confessed to feeling hopeless and fearful in a world she thought was out of control, but at the same time she refused to believe that God had a remedy. People around us are without hope and it affects their ability to function as God intended, leaving them paralysed with anxiety and fear. 

We pilgrims stand on the promises of God. I recently saw a YouTube clip of a very emotional news report filed by a young Israeli journalist who had found many recent testimonies of miracles in the lives of Israeli men and women. And at the end she was asked how people should pray for her nation. Her reply was for people to pray Psalm 91 over Israel. The Psalm starts, “Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him”. We pilgrims rise up and echo the words of the writer to the Hebrews, “So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?”” (Hebrews 13:6). One day, sooner or later, we will be called to our Heavenly home, where we are assured of a tremendous welcome. So rather than worry and stress over the state of the world, we echo the words at the end of the Book of Revelation, “Come Lord Jesus”. 

Dear Father God. We thank You for Your presence in this world, holding back the forces of evil that would destroy everyone, given the opportunity. But we are not a people who hide their heads in the sand and hope everything will get better. We pray for world events with a passion fired and fuelled by our faith and trust in You and we worship and praise You today. In Jesus’ holy name. Amen.

God is Faithful

Posted on by korgrocker

“Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:7-9 NLT
“God is faithful; you were called by him into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:9 CSB

In his build up to “God is faithful” Paul sets out how much God has done for the believers in Corinth. As one commentary puts it “Christ does all the work, and we receive all the benefits”. A very lopsided relationship, I think we must agree, but it is true that God in His Grace has done so much for us. In fact, when we consider God’s faithfulness we come to see more clearly what it means because none of the sins of mankind will keep God from being faithful, through His grace, to any person who has come to Him by faith in Jesus. God put into action His plan for the salvation of mankind. It was many years in the making because it started before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), and with a cross and the crucifixion of His own Son, the plan was finally implemented. God was faithful all the way through and His faithfulness continues today. 

As we read through the Bible, we see example after example of how God’s faithfulness has lasted even though there were many seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the way. Abrahan and Sarah had a son in their old age, in response to God’s promise in Genesis 15:4-6, “Then the Lord said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!” And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith“. Sadly, Abraham and Sarah tried to make things happen with a Plan B, resulting in Ishmael, but God was still faithful, as we read in Genesis 17:19, “But God replied, “No—Sarah, your wife, will give birth to a son for you. You will name him Isaac, and I will confirm my covenant with him and his descendants as an everlasting covenant”. The story continued and we read in Genesis 21:1-3, “The Lord kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised. She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. This happened at just the time God had said it would. And Abraham named their son Isaac”. A miracle birth to an old couple and an example of God’s faithfulness. 

To the Corinthian church, and referring to the things He was doing for them, Paul wrote, “God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says”. Day after day, God’s faithfulness is present in our daily lives. After the Flood, God said, “Yes, I am confirming my covenant with you. Never again will floodwaters kill all living creatures; never again will a flood destroy the earth“. And we are still living in the light of this promise. In Genesis 8:21 we read, “And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things“. Today we are living assured of this promise, and all those who are afraid of being destroyed in a nuclear holocaust would do well to stand on this promise of God because He is faithful. The next verse in Genesis 8 gives us another promise from God, “As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night“. The climate doomsayers would say otherwise, but God has promised that the world will continue in the form we know, and we, His people of faith, believe that.

In the New Testament we read some more promises about God’s faithfulness. In Genesis 24:14, we read what Jesus said about the events preceding the End of the Age, “And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come”. Good progress is being made at reaching the world with the Gospel, but there is still many people yet to be reached. Another promise of God we know well, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life“. Paul picked up this theme in Romans 10:9, “if you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved“. God has promised that we will be saved and we will spend eternity with Him.

But the one thing about God’s promises is that they need faith to believe them. In the same way that God is faithful, so must we be. Paul was convinced about God’s faithfulness and he wrote, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). We believe God’s promises because He is faithful, in spite of our doubts and lack of faith. Paul wrote, “If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is” (2 Timothy 2:13). And that sums it up really. God is not only faithful, He is faithful because that is who He is. Isn’t that tremendous?

Dear Father God, we thank You for Your faithfulness, so gracious and loving. Through Your faithfulness, Your promises will come to pass, as we are eternally grateful. Amen.

Guard, Hide and Protect

Posted on by korgrocker

“Guard me as you would guard your own eyes. Hide me in the shadow of your wings. Protect me from wicked people who attack me, from murderous enemies who surround me. They are without pity. Listen to their boasting! They track me down and surround me, watching for the chance to throw me to the ground. They are like hungry lions, eager to tear me apart— like young lions hiding in ambush.”
Psalm 17:8-12 NLT

Five verses this morning, all focused on David’s prayer for God’s protection in the face of his attackers. But we get the sense that these are not foreign nations, attacking David and his people. These enemies of his seem intent on causing David harm personally, and he describes them as being wicked, murderous, pitiless, boasters, and like hungry lions, “eager to tear [him] apart”. 

The Amplified version of the Bible translates Psalm 17:8 as, “Keep me [in Your affectionate care, protect me] as the apple of Your eye; Hide me in the [protective] shadow of Your wings”. The phrase, “as the apple of your eye” is a lovely expression of love and care that conjures up a picture of how much the Lord thought of David, and the dictionary definition refers to something or someone that one cherishes above all others. It signifies a person who holds a special place in someone’s heart. That was what the Lord thought of David. During a conversation between the prophet Samuel and King Saul, Samuel said to him, “But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command” (1 Samuel 13:14). 

The NLT version of the Bible interprets Psalm 17:8 from a different perspective. We all know what happens when something is heading for our eyes. A reflex action results as we endeavour to protect our eyes from damage. And so David is once again praying for God’s protection from people around him, probably his own people, who are verbally and physically guilty of assaulting him. It may have been during the rebellion of David’s son Absalom and we read in 2 Samuel 15:13, “A messenger soon arrived in Jerusalem to tell David, “All Israel has joined Absalom in a conspiracy against you!””. Sad days for David, when even his own son became one of those people intent on overthrowing his reign in Israel. 

But today, we pilgrims may or may not have people around us intent on doing us harm, to our reputations, to our relationships, even to our families. But even if not we always need God’s protection from our enemies in heavenly places, those spiritual beings that propagate evil and wickedness throughout the world. There are many, of course, in our societies who fail to understand and recognise the spiritual realm. They have an internal impression, perhaps, of there being something in another dimension, with feelings that emerge during a funeral, or when they walk past a church building. They briefly pause but shrug off any thoughts of God or the devil, as irrelevant to their lives. The devil and his minions are unconcerned about such people, and instead focus their malignant attacks on the children of God, who believe in the Creator of all. The attacks can be subtle, as they were with Eve in the Garden – “surely God didn’t say …”. He introduces doubts into our minds. He seeks to divert us from our faith. He introduces error so imperceptibly and so slowly that the unwary amongst us fail to recognise the danger. But we pilgrims have all of God’s weapons at our disposal and through prayer, through reading the Bible, through fellowship with other Christians – in fact, we have all the resources we need to thwart the attacks of the enemy. With God on our side, guarding our hearts and minds, hiding us under His wings, we have all the protection we need.

We pray, “deliver us from evil” in the Lord’s prayer, and God will answer that prayer, as we are obedient to whatever He says and directs. So a sinful thought or image emerges in our minds and we immediately shut it down in our thinking. A TV programme attracts our eyes and we immediately reach for the off button on the remote. A media report promotes a particular belief and we immediately look elsewhere, back to God. As children of God we live in a different Kingdom, one in which the devil and his angels cannot enter. There is no sin and wickedness there. Yes, we have to live in the kingdom of the world for a while, but in all that we avoid being tarnished by its wickedness. Jesus prayed for His disciples, and for us by association, in John 17, “My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory. Now I am departing from the world; they are staying in this world, but I am coming to you. Holy Father, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are. During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold” (John 17:9-12). We pilgrims are protected by “the power of [His] Name”. as the song says, “There is power in the name of Jesus”, and indeed there is.

We find in Mark 3:11, “And whenever those possessed by evil spirits caught sight of him, the spirits would throw them to the ground in front of him shrieking, “You are the Son of God!”” Any inhabitants of the kingdom of darkness had no choice but to obey Jesus. Even His name was enough to cause them to flee from Him. But it wasn’t just Jesus who had the power. We read from Luke 10:17, “When the seventy-two disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, “Lord, even the demons obey us when we use your name!””

The Lord will protect us. Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 3:3, “But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” It says that in the Bible, folks, so when we feel under attack and exposed in a place we would rather not be, we look up and see the One who guards, hides and protects us. He will never let us down.

Father God. What can we say but a big thank You, to the One who loves and cares for us, each and every day. Amen.


God is Faithful

Posted on by korgrocker

“True, some of them were unfaithful; but just because they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful? Of course not! Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true. As the Scriptures say about Him, “You will be proved right in what you say, and you will win your case in court.””
Romans 3:3-4 NLT

In the previous verse in Romans 3, we read that “the Jews were entrusted with the whole revelation of God“. And we discovered that with such knowledge there comes a great personal responsibility. Paul conceded in his letter that not all Jews had been faithful to the Covenant God had made with them, but he pointed out that just because some Jews didn’t keep their side of the bargain, didn’t mean that God would keep His. 

One thing about God is that he is constant. He never changes. He provides us with a stable and far-reaching foundation, unshakeable in a world that is constantly changing around us. There are some things which it is impossible for God to do or be. One thing is that it is impossible for God to change. We read in Malachi 3:6, “I am the Lord, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed“. Another thing God just cannot do is to tell a lie. Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through“? And one thing of benefit to the Jews, no matter how they behaved, was that God was never going to be unfaithful to His Covenant. 

Paul quotes from Psalm 51:4, that Davidic Psalm of confession and contrition, “Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just“. David got it. And he knew that God’s judgement was righteous and just, and was coming one day. He kept short accounts with God and so must we. In John 3:17, John recorded what Jesus said about judgement. “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him“. But in the following verses, Jesus said, “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed“. 

We pilgrims are children of God. And as such we too have Godly attributes, increasingly important in our Godless days. We stand in the gap between God and those around us, pleading with Him for their forgiveness, because they indeed fail to realise the consequences of turning their backs on the only One who can give them assurance for their future. To those in our families and communities we exemplify God and His ways, His person, His attributes. We stand on the foundations of His Word, strong and secure, unmoved by anything that the world throws at us.

Dear Father God. To You, the immutable and unchangeable One, we give our praise and worship. Amen.