Dear Missionary Lady,
Greetings in the name of our powerful Deliverer. We are so weak, but He is so strong. As we face the battles of life, we inevitably find our own strength inadequate.
It’s hard enough when there is a single enemy, but how often do our enemies ever come singly? Do we not often face multiple battles at the same time, and armies so numerous that they stagger us? Sometimes when we are barely hanging on, one more enemy appears, and what already seemed impossible is magnified even more.
This week I pondered the idea that the number of enemies does not matter to God. The addition of one or ten or one hundred enemies renders Him no less able to handle our situations. How many enemies can God face at the same time? Following are a few answers.
God can handle one really big enemy, like He did for young and inexperienced David with Goliath (I Samuel 17).
In fact, God can handle a whole tribe of giants, as He did for Caleb, who was then past 80 years old (Joshua 14).
God can manage three crafty and influential enemies, like Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem (Nehemiah 2).
God can handle a garrison of 20 men, as faced by Jonathan and his armor bearer (I Samuel 14).
God can handle 30 men (Judges 14) … or 1000 men (Judges 15) … or 3000 men (Judges 16), as He did for Samson.
God can defeat 450 false prophets who oppose one of His servants (I Kings 18).
God can manage 600 men, as he did for Shamgar (Judges 3).
God can defeat 31 kings (and their respective armies) one after another in a steady string (Joshua 12) or five kings all at once (Joshua 10).
When intolerant oppressors tried to eliminate the Jews, God oversaw the deaths of 75,000 of them (Esther 9).
When God intervened, an army large enough to surround the city inexplicably fled for home instead of attacking (II Kings 6).
Several armies joined in a coalition, numbering a great multitude, and God took care of all of them (II Chronicles 20).
In addition to its own army, Ammon hired 32,100 soldiers, and the total size was enough that over 40,000 were killed at God’s intervention (II Samuel 10).
How about a large army numbering 185,000? It was no match for God, who sent His angel to kill them all (II Kings 19).
What if there was a super-coalition? Say, 32 kings all joined together? There were so many opponents that God disposed of 100,000 plus 27,000 (I Kings 20).
Can you imagine a massive million-man army? That’s what came from Ethiopia to threaten, and God defeated that army, too (II Chronicles 14).
One day all the kings of the earth, together with their armies, will join together against God, and even then they will be no match for Him (Revelation 19).
Truly we could say along with Elisha, “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them” (II Kings 6:16). It matters not how many the enemies are, they cannot be a match for God.
As we recognize our vulnerability and insufficiency, how truly we can echo the words of Asa: “LORD, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O LORD, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee” (II Chronicles 14:11).
One of the great wonders of God’s ability to conquer any enemy is that He is not at all limited in His means to accomplish that. “There is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few” (I Samuel 14:6). God can use the unusual or the very usual to carry out His desires. He can use seeming coincidence, the actions of men, or clearly divine intervention, according to His desire. In the stories mentioned above, God used a slingshot, an old man, a king’s decree, an unsanctioned venture, a sense of outrage, an ox bone, a falling building, fire from heaven, an ox goad, hailstones, self-defense, an unexplained noise, internal dissension, contagious fear, direct divine action, and a collapsing wall, which is certainly not the entire extent of His arsenal.
Can I encourage you, in whatever battle you might be facing and in the face of however many enemies there might be, “Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (II Chronicles 20:15)? Trust the One who can do for you what you could never do for yourself. He is able!
Love in Christ,
Peggy Holt
member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA
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