Dear Missionary Lady,
Greetings in the name of our great God. Do you realize how
great God is? The biggest problems in the world, both among Christians and
non-Christians, come from not understanding who the true God is and what He is
really like.
I haven't done the Bible study, but it would be an
interesting one to compile a summary of all the mistaken ideas that heathen
people had about God. So often people said things like, "No other god has
ever been able to withstand us, so this god won't be able to either."
Wrong! God is not like any other god.
I came across one such narrative this week, and I wanted to
share it with you. Found in I Kings 20, it is regarding the nation of Israel
under wicked King Ahab. Benhadad, the king of Syria, made war with Israel and
brought thirty-two other kings along as his allies. They besieged the city of Samaria
and made monstrous demands of Ahab, asking for his silver and gold, his wives
and children. Benhadad asked for unconditional surrender, in which he would come
in and take anyone and anything that he liked.
At the counsel of the elders, Ahab resisted the increasingly
outrageous demands, and Benhadad was not happy. He was ready to destroy Samaria
until nothing remained. To the new threats, Ahab replied, "It's not the
boasts you make when you put your armor on that matter, but what the end result
is when it's time to take the armor off." Benhadad, who was drinking, was
stirred to action by this insult, and he initiated the battle.
God sent Ahab instructions through a prophet that He would
deliver Ahab and Samaria from this thirty-three king coalition, specifically
through 232 young princes and an army of 7000. Why? So that Ahab would know
that He was the LORD (v. 13). When this small army marched out, drunken
Benhadad gave the order to capture the entire army alive. What happened instead
was that Benhadad suffered a great defeat. There was a great slaughter, and
Benhadad escaped on horseback. Against great odds, the great God gave a great
victory.
That wasn't the end of the story. The prophet returned to
Ahab and told him that Benhadad would return at the beginning of the year. Sure
enough, Benhadad was plotting. Neither he nor his advisors understood who God
was. They declared, "Their gods are gods of the hills; therefore they were
stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we
shall be stronger then they" (v. 23). So they gathered another army
similar to the first and came again to attack Israel. Israel was again
outnumbered and outpowered, "like two little flocks of kids" before
an army that "filled the country" (v. 27).
God had heard the insults and misinformation of Benhadad and
his cronies. He sent a prophet to declare to Ahab, "Thus saith the LORD,
Because the Syrians have said, The LORD is God of the hills, but he is not God
of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine
hand, and ye shall know that I am the LORD" (v. 28). The result of the
battle was exactly as God had predicted. Israel's army killed 100,000 of the
enemy in a single day. And then God had a wall fall down and kill another
27,000 that had escaped.
We know it wasn't the strength of Israel's army that won
either battle. Both were daunting and impossible, but God gave the victory for
the purpose of revealing Himself to Ahab. Sadly, even with all God's
intervention on his behalf, Ahab never really got the picture. His
understanding of God wasn't much better than that of Benhadad.
The part of the story that I want to emphasize is that God
is the God both of the mountains and of the valleys. Benhadad didn't think so;
he limited God's power to the mountains only, but he was proven wrong. God is
who He is - a mighty, sovereign God of all power, who can work in every
circumstance.
We have all faced hard times in the past and have seen God
amazingly bring us through. But when we face a new challenge - maybe a
different kind of challenge - it is easy for us to forget and to doubt. We need
to be reminded that the God of the mountain is the God of the valley also. The
God of deputation is the God of the mission field and the God of retirement.
The God of the financial crisis is the God of the political crisis and the
health crisis. The God in the USA is the God in Lebanon and Spain and France
and Uruguay and Ecuador and South Africa.
You have seen God work before. You have been amazed by His
answers. Like me, you have probably even said something like, "After
seeing God do this, there is no way that I should ever doubt Him again."
Mmm-hmm. We know how that goes. Listen, dear lady (and myself), the new
situation that you face is not any harder for God than all the ones He has
conquered in the past. He can take care of this new challenge just as
effectively as He has set aside the ones of the past. Trust Him. Remember who
He is.
"For I am the LORD, I change not" (Malachi 3:6). "Jesus
Christ the same yesterday, and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).
May God encourage you this week with the wonder of His
greatness, and may He give you opportunities to open the eyes of others to see
His greatness as well. What you do today matters for eternity.
Love in Christ,
Peggy Holt
member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA
www.pressingontohigherground.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment