Welcome, friends! Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Revelation 7:9-17 is a vision of the end and a glimpse of the enduring and unending love which will be in place forever. Until that time, however, we need God’s present love to help us endure and persevere to the end. Click the videos below and be encouraged with the ways we can spiritually thrive and flourish till the end…
The armies of Moab and Ammon, together with the Meunites, went to war against Jehoshaphat. Messengers told Jehoshaphat, “A large army from Edom east of the Dead Sea has invaded our country. They have already reached En-Gedi.”
Jehoshaphat was afraid, so he asked the Lord what to do. He then told the people of Judah to go without eating to show their sorrow. They immediately left for Jerusalem to ask for the Lord’s help.
After everyone from Judah and Jerusalem had come together at the Lord’s temple, Jehoshaphat stood in front of the new courtyard and prayed:
You, Lord, are the God our ancestors worshiped, and from heaven you rule every nation in the world. You are so powerful that no one can defeat you. Our God, you forced out the nations who lived in this land before your people Israel came here, and you gave it to the descendants of your friend Abraham forever. Our ancestors lived in this land and built a temple to honor you. They believed that whenever this land is struck by war or disease or famine, your people can pray to you at the temple, and you will hear their prayer and save them.
You can see that the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Edom are attacking us! Those are the nations you would not let our ancestors invade on their way from Egypt, so these nations were not destroyed. Now they are coming to take back the land you gave us. Aren’t you going to punish them? We won’t stand a chance when this army attacks. We don’t know what to do—we are begging for your help.
While every man, woman, and child of Judah was standing there at the temple, the Lord’s Spirit suddenly spoke to Jahaziel, a Levite from the Asaph clan. Then Jahaziel said:
Your Majesty and everyone from Judah and Jerusalem, the Lord says that you don’t need to be afraid or let this powerful army discourage you. God will fight on your side! So, here’s what you must do. Tomorrow the enemy armies will march through the desert around the town of Jeruel. March down and meet them at the town of Ziz as they come up the valley. You won’t even have to fight. Just take your positions and watch the Lord rescue you from your enemy. Don’t be afraid. Just do as you’re told. And as you march out tomorrow, the Lord will be there with you.
Jehoshaphat bowed low to the ground, and everyone worshiped the Lord. Then some Levites from the Kohath and Korah clans stood up and shouted praises to the Lord God of Israel.
Early the next morning, as everyone got ready to leave for the desert near Tekoa, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Listen my friends, if we trust the Lord God and believe what these prophets have told us, the Lord will help us, and we will be successful.” Then he explained his plan and appointed men to march in front of the army and praise the Lord for his holy power by singing:
“Praise the Lord!
His love never ends.”
As soon as they began singing, the Lord confused the enemy camp. (Contemporary English Version)
King Jehoshaphat and Judah were about to be attacked. War was imminent. Anxiety was high. The people were on edge. What were they going to do in the face of a combined army that seemed as if they’d steamroll over the nation of Judah?
Here’s what Jehoshaphat did: He admitted his fear, sought the Lord for help, and proclaimed a national fast for everyone in Judah. Then, the king prayed, and God responded.
A most unconventional method of defeating the enemy was put into motion. The king and the people of Judah put together a praise team and a worship gathering to go before the army; they believed God was good for divine promises and would deliver them.
The king’s prayer was a deeply felt and sincere belief that God could and would answer, according to ancient promises to the people. The meat of the prayer affirmed both the powerlessness of their situation and the power of God to transcend even the most difficult of circumstances. They didn’t know how deliverance was going to come; they simply believed it was going to happen.
This is, indeed, the kind of prayer God delights to answer! It was a prayer born of great need and desperation – a prayer upholding the name of God and discerning that unless the Lord showed up, all would be lost.
The foundational basis of all prayer to God is the recognition that we do not know what to do, other than look to the Lord.
We pray because we desperately need God to show up and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
We cry out to God in our affliction and believe that the gracious ears of the Lord will hear and save us from our terrible plight.
And once we pray, we are to stand firm, hold our position, and see the salvation from God on our behalf.
If we need some inspiration for prayer and find ourselves in need of faith to believe what God can do, then take the time to read carefully and prayerfully over today’s Old Testament lesson several times.
Then, let the prayers arise to the God of deliverance so that our stressful and worrisome pressure is transformed into praise for the Lord’s steadfast love.
Almighty God, you rule over all the nations of the earth. In your hand are power and might, so that none are able to withstand you. My eyes are fixed on looking for you to act on my behalf so that I might declare that your steadfast love endures forever, through Jesus Christ, my Savior. Amen.
Praise the Lord
and pray in his name!
Tell everyone
what he has done.
Sing praises to the Lord!
Tell about his miracles.
Celebrate and worship
his holy name
with all your heart.
Trust the Lord
and his mighty power.
Remember his miracles
and all his wonders
and his fair decisions.
You belong to the family
of Abraham, his servant;
you are his chosen ones,
the descendants of Jacob.
The Lord is our God,
bringing justice
everywhere on earth.
He will never forget
his agreement or his promises,
not in thousands of years.
God made an eternal promise
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
when he said, “I’ll give you
the land of Canaan.”
At the time there were
only a few of us,
and we were homeless.
We wandered from nation
to nation,
from one country
to another.
God did not let anyone
mistreat our people.
Instead he protected us
by punishing rulers
and telling them,
“Don’t touch my chosen leaders
or harm my prophets!”
God kept crops from growing
until food was scarce
everywhere in the land.
But he had already sent Joseph,
sold as a slave into Egypt,
with chains of iron
around his legs and neck.
Joseph remained a slave
until his own words
had come true,
and the Lord had finished
testing him.
Then the king of Egypt
set Joseph free
and put him in charge
of everything he owned.
Joseph was in command
of the officials,
and he taught the leaders
how to use wisdom.
Jacob and his family
came
and settled in Egypt
as foreigners.
They were the Lord’s people,
so he let them grow stronger
than their enemies.
They served the Lord,
and he made the Egyptians plan
hateful things against them.
God sent his servant Moses.
He also chose and sent Aaron
to his people in Egypt,
and they worked miracles
and wonders there.
Moses and Aaron obeyed God,
and he sent darkness
to cover Egypt.
God turned their rivers
into streams of blood,
and the fish all died.
Frogs were everywhere,
even in the royal palace.
When God gave the command,
flies and gnats
swarmed all around.
In place of rain,
God sent hailstones
and flashes of lightning.
He destroyed their grapevines
and their fig trees,
and he made splinters
of all the other trees.
God gave the command,
and more grasshoppers came
than could be counted.
They ate every green plant
and all the crops that grew
in the land of Egypt.
Then God took the life
of every first-born son.
When God led Israel from Egypt,
they took silver and gold,
and no one was left behind.
The Egyptians were afraid
and gladly let them go.
God hid them under a cloud
and guided them by fire
during the night.
When they asked for food,
he sent more birds
than they could eat.
God even split open a rock,
and streams of water
gushed into the desert.
God never forgot
his sacred promise
to his servant Abraham. (Contemporary English Version)
This morning, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed? Or did you awake feeling refreshed and ready to seize the day?
Maybe it was neither. Seems like, most days, we are neither energized nor grumpy. We are somewhere in the middle, feeling something like “meh.”
Just as the importance of a decent breakfast is necessary to get a good start on the day, so beginning the day with some good spiritual food is a must to fortify our lives and set them on a solid trajectory for personal happiness and blessing the world.
We cannot simply rely on feeding upon God when we feel like it, for then we will succumb to all the vicissitudes and variegations of life, becoming a slave to the almighty “meh.”
As we get out of bed and orient ourselves from sleep to work, we need to tend to our spiritual selves and prepare for the day, just as we need to daily clean up our bodies and begin focusing our minds on our future tasks.
One way of taking charge of our spiritual lives is beginning the day with some vitamin-packed whole grain goodness of the biblical psalms.
Today’s psalm calls on us to:
Feeding upon the psalms will help shoo the “meh” away.
God faithfully keeps all divine promises. As we recall and remember those promises, realizing that God remembers us, praise, singing, and thanksgiving arise along with our bodies. The Lord never has a “meh” response to us.
Perhaps before even getting out of bed in the morning, we can reach over, grab our Bible, tablet, or smartphone and read these words of Psalm 105 so that our day is formed around the positive promises of God and not the negative thoughts of our minds.
And at night, the same ritual could be done before falling asleep so that our day is bookended with remembering God’s works. For the Bible is not simply some old book to adore from afar, but a living word from God to shape our minds and form our hearts.
The “meh” comes when there is a famine of God’s Word. Whenever we find ourselves saying things like, “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” or “I’m sleeping until I feel better,” then its time to cozy up to the psalmist and have a heart-to-heart.
You’ll be glad you did.
God almighty, you have remembered your people throughout the millennia with wondrous works and powerful deeds. Today I give thanks to you for giving your Son, the Lord Jesus, and accomplishing the mightiest work of all: securing my deliverance from sin, death, and hell. May the Name of Jesus be praised! Amen.
Then the Lord told Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. When he feels the force of my strong hand, he will let the people go. In fact, he will force them to leave his land!”
And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh— ‘the Lord.’I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them. And I reaffirmed my covenant with them. Under its terms, I promised to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as foreigners. You can be sure that I have heard the groans of the people of Israel, who are now slaves to the Egyptians. And I am well aware of my covenant with them.
“Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the Lord. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment.I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt. I will bring you into the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as your very own possession. I am the Lord!’”
So, Moses told the people of Israel what the Lord had said, but they refused to listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the brutality of their slavery.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go back to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and tell him to let the people of Israel leave his country.”
“But Lord!” Moses objected. “My own people won’t listen to me anymore. How can I expect Pharaoh to listen? I’m such a clumsy speaker!”
But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them orders for the Israelites and for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. The Lord commanded Moses and Aaron to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. (New Living Translation)
We can become our own worst enemy.
In Lodi, California, in March of 2006, a city dump truck backed into a car belonging to a man named Curtis Gokey. The car was damaged badly. So, Gokey sued the city of Lodi for $3,600. There is, however, a catch to the story: Curtis Gokey was driving the city dump truck that crunched his personal car. And he admitted it was his fault. The city dropped the lawsuit, stating that Gokey could not sue himself.
Like Curtis Gokey, we are often our own worst enemies. We might get down on ourselves or on God. There are times when it’s easy for us to either justify ourselves or blame ourselves, while wondering why God and/or others keep doing things we don’t like.
When life is not going so well, it’s possible to slide into a private belief system that thinks God is not good for his promises (James 1:16-17). At worst, one can start to think that God is the problem and the source of the trouble.
To be self-deceived is to go astray and slowly drift from the truth…. It can happen to anybody. The first step is having expectations that go unmet. An expected answer to prayer goes unanswered. Somebody lashes out and there seems to be no protection from it. Some anticipated blessing does not come to pass….
Moses was downright confused. He was confident and convinced God had called him to free the Israelites from their cruel bondage in Egypt. But nothing was going right. And the people were upset with Moses for making things worse, not better.
Trusting God and not becoming discouraged when we don’t understand everything that’s happening can be a big challenge. We might wonder if we really have what it takes to do anything well. We may wonder if God is even listening, or if God is paying any attention, at all, to our terrible plight….
Questioning can help us make sense of our situations. However, questioning may also cause us to doubt that God is there and will act on our behalf. In such times, it might be tempting to blame God for a broken relationship, a terrible event, a dysfunctional family, or an adverse situation.
Yet, God has chosen to give us birth through the word of truth (not a word of deception and lies) so that we might have new life with fresh eyes of faith to see our situations as God sees them (James 1:18). That is what wisdom is – the ability to see all of life from God’s perspective.
If any of us lacks wisdom, we should ask God, who gives generously without finding fault, and it will be given to us (James 1:5). This is a promise from a good God who knows how to give good gifts.
None of us are above falling into misinterpretations that lead to the self-deceptions of questioning God’s goodness and our own God-given personhood. We need to be vigilant in watching for the false stories we might tell ourselves such as:
We are all to take charge of our lives through having a robust theology of God that discerns the Lord is always good, all the time, without exception; and that we are called by a good God to do good work.
The good news is that a good God has taken care of the sin issue once for all through the cross of Christ. The Lord has brought us the good gifts of forgiveness and grace. God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us and guide us into all truth so that we will have wisdom and humility to live the Christian life as it is meant to be lived.
For the Christian, the key to it all is faith – genuine authentic faith that places head, heart, and hands completely in Jesus Christ so that we have right belief, right motives, and right actions all rightly working together in a full-orbed Christianity that glorifies the triune God, encourages Christ’s church, and blesses God’s big world.
Don’t be your own worst enemy by sabotaging your thoughts with the double-mindedness of wondering about the true nature of God.
Explore the depths of God in Christ and discover the goodness that can result even in life’s most difficult experiences.
Lord God almighty, Creator of heaven and earth:
When evil darkens our world, give us light.
When despair numbs our souls, give us hope.
When we stumble and fall, lift us up.
When doubts assail us, give us faith.
When nothing seems sure, give us trust.
When ideals fade, give us vision.
When we lose our way, be our guide!
That we may find serenity in Your presence, and purpose in doing Your will.
Through Jesus Christ, our Savior, Lord, Brother, and Friend. Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 