Day 150: The God Of Heaven's Armies 3

May 30

Today's Connected Readings: 

• Deuteronomy 7:17-26, 20:1-4, 20:8-10 [Isaiah 7:3-9] 
• 1 Samuel 7:1-17 
• 2 Kings 6:8-20, 7:3-7 
• 2 Chronicles 32:1-23 
• Joshua 23:9-11, 24:11-13

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. You have made it to day number 150 of the Canon Connected, and we are so glad you decided to join us today. We are in a series on the sovereignty of God, two whole weeks of just that. And of course, that that topic, that theme, comes up many other times in many other readings, but we're laser focused on it through sub subtopics, sub-themes connected readings that uh that have very special titles. And the one we're in right now is on the God of Heaven's armies and how we absolutely need to see God this way. Um, because whether it's military, physical, you know, literal war, whether it's spiritual warfare, um, God is undefeated, and there is no chance, there is zero chance of winning um without God on our side. And truly, not even God just backing up us, backing us up, so to speak, but working through us. I mean, and truly in many of the stories that we've read, it's God doing it himself, and man doesn't even lift a finger. Um, but we continue with this idea today, not even necessarily just through stories, um, as we've seen the last couple of days. Um today we just read, you know, in Deuteronomy, God even just telling his people not to be afraid, um, not to be weak, because he's gonna fight for them. And so that's what we see really in the phrase, these first couple of readings in Deuteronomy. And he gives the logic why, Deuteronomy 7. If you say in your heart, these nations are greater than I, how can I dispossess them, of course, going into the promised land. This is exactly what happens in Numbers 13, by the way. The people were afraid because they didn't believe God was gonna fight for them. We could have added that into the connected readings, but there's just so many we had to limit it. You shall not be afraid of them, you shall remember, but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt. And just as we've seen with the other readings, there's there's a lot like Psalm 78 a couple of days ago, a few days ago, it covered so many things we'd already talked about. Well, we did this not that long ago. Um, the great trials which you saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out. So will the Lord your God do with all the peoples of whom you're afraid. Moreover, the Lord your God will send hornets among them and to all them who are left and hide themselves from you or destroyed. You shall not be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is in your midst. A great and awesome God, the Lord your God, Yahweh, will clear away these nations before you little by little. You may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you. But the Lord your God will give them over to you and throw them into a great confusion until they are destroyed. He will give the kings into your hands, is what he says. And then Deuteronomy 20 says something very similar. When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an armor larger than an army larger than your own, how many times have we seen that the last couple of days? Strong connections here. You shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people, and shall say to them, Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies. Let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory. Just like David versus Goliath, just like Hezekiah, just like Jehoshaphat. Um this is the God of Christianity, the undefeated, undisputed champion of all warfare. Verse 8, and the officer shall speak for the people and say, Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own. Didn't God do this with Gideon? Isn't this a connection? Again, in this broader theme of uh of God of heaven's armies, this could have easily been the same day as Gideon's army, because that's what happened. 22,000 gone, just like that for being afraid. But listen to Isaiah 7. This is a direct connection because um Ahaz is terrified of the Assyrians, and Isaiah is going to speak to him, and he's going to reiterate, to echo, and even directly connect this to what we read in Deuteronomy, because he says, and say to him, to Ahaz, Isaiah Ahaz, be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, these two nations coming against you, as the fierce anger of resin in Samaria, the son of Remaliah, because Syria with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah has devised evil against you, saying, Let us go against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves. This see this connection. This is what God is telling Ahaz. And of course, Ahaz didn't listen. God even gave him the miracle of a virgin getting pregnant to prove to him he was the almighty, all-powerful God. We're gonna see that more at Christmas. But this is something that wasn't enough. But God said to him, just as he said in Deuteronomy, do be quiet, be careful, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint. Because God's gonna fight for you. God was gonna fight against thee. God is the God that can make virgins get pregnant. He can win this battle, he can win this war. Don't be afraid. And yet Ahaz went the exact opposite direction. What about in 1 Samuel 17, 1 Samuel 7, 1 through 17 with the Philistines? And after we read this earlier with the Ark of the Covenant, but it said now in the verse 7, um, so they go verse 6, for so they gathered at Mitzvah and drew up water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day. And they told Samuel uh to please don't stop praying on our behalf, do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, verse 8, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines. And Samuel cried out to the Lord of Israel, and the Lord answered him. As Samuel was offering of the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel, but the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion. Does that not like sound like some of the stories we've been reading the last few days? This is what God does. He wins, he wins wars, you know, without human talent, without human ingenuity, without human you know, schemes, without human power. Um he works through us, no doubt. But God did this. Israel didn't. He threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. And again, it was the it was uh um uh God who won this battle, and that's what the rest of the passage alludes to. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. What about 2 Kings 6? This is one of the most amazing stories in the Bible. We love this one. King of Syria warring against Israel, and um the Syrians are coming down with all of their with all their great army, and the the servant of Elisha is terrified, and one of the servants, um, it says it was uh so he sent their horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city, the Syrians. When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city, and the servant said, Alas, my master, what shall we do? That's what everybody's saying in all these stories. Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, what are we gonna do? He said, Do not be afraid. This is like David talking to Saul, like David talking to his brothers. Do not be afraid. For those who were with us are more than those who were with them. And then Elisha prayed and said, Oh Lord, please open the eyes that he may see. So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. When the Syrians came down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, Please strike this people with blindness, and he did. And I included 2 Kings 7. This is interesting because when you're talking about the four lepers, it said, Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, Let us enter the city, the famine in the city is great, we shall die there, but if we sit here, we will also die. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die. So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. Why? For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said one to another, Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the king of the Hittites and the King of Egypt to come against us. Well, you know what they heard? I would almost, you know, bet my entire bank account. They heard the sound of the army that we read about, the invisible army from chapter six. That's what they heard. And it wasn't the king of the Hittites or the army of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt. No, it was the God of Heaven's armies. And that was what you know caused these Syrians, these bullies to shake in their boots and to leave, to flee. Only the God of Heaven's armies could do that. And then 2 Chronicles 32, um, this one we've read. I I put this on three different days. Often I'll put these stories together, but it was just strategically. I said, why don't we read this story of Sennacherib, king of Assyria? God gave it to us three times. Let's read it on three successive days, and we've done that. Um that's an amazing and I won't recount it if it's part of the readings for yesterday, but what God did um through Isaiah, um, through Hezekiah and their humility, but what God did and what what he said is not just what God did to Sennacher, king of Assyria. What he told him is absolutely enough to just cause any of us just to absolutely melt with fear before our God and to cause us to be brave whenever we know God goes before us and fights with us and works through us and sometimes wins battles that we don't have to lift a finger um to help. And then Joshua, a couple of times that Joshua mentions this, for the Lord your God has driven out before you great and strong nations. How many times has God done this last three days? How many times has he defeated great and strong armies and nations? It doesn't matter if it's the Assyrians, the Moabites, the Ninevites, whoever, the Midianites, God wins. Um as for you, no man has been able to stand before you to this day. One man of you puts to fly to flight a thousand since there's the Lord your God who fights for you just as he promised. Be there very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God. That's important too, by the way. This is not just to cause us to stand in awe and fear of God and to know that he's all powerful. We're supposed to love him as a result. I hope that's coming out through these readings and through this podcast. We need to love God. Um then Joshua twenty-four. And you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the leaders of Jericho fought against you, and also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, Hittites, Gergashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. We're starting with Deuteronomy with this very thing and ending with Joshua this very thing. They're connected. And I gave them into your hand, and I sent the hornet before you, and drew which drove them out before you two kings of Amorites, and it was not by your sword or by your bow. I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwelt in and you dwell in them. You eat fruit of the vineyards and olive orchors that you did not plant. This is the God of Christianity, the God of heaven's armies. Let us stand in awe of him, but let us therefore love the Lord our God as well. We still have one more day of this. I love this. I always keep thinking this is my favorite section, but then we get to another section. I think this is my favorite section, and even the the offerings and even the twelve tribes and even the priestly garments, man. When you when to me, whenever you see them and how they connect with other passages in the Bible, and that God is orchestrating all this beautifully, putting the Bible together exactly the way he wants, they're all my favorites because the word of God is a living sword, it's living and it's alive, it's a sharper than a two-edged sword, and it's cutting through, you know, daily. All right. Everything we put up to try to to make ourselves, you know, look the way we want people to see us and not the way that God sees us. But so day four of this tomorrow. Come back and be with us then. I look forward to it. Starting with with uh with uh with uh the armor bearer and uh and uh uh David's friend Jonathan. Just go ahead and think of Jonathan's name. Saul's son Jonathan and his armor bearer in that story in 2 Samuel 14. 1 Samuel 14. So come back and be with us again tomorrow as we continue to read the connections, see the connections, study the connections. Thank you.