God Will Never Let You Down

Pastor George opened with an old hymn, "Begone, Unbelief". One line in particular was written straight out of the passage we went on to read:

With Christ in the vessel, I smile at the storm.

Israel at Mizpah

In 1 Samuel 7, Israel put away their idols and gathered at Mizpah. They fasted. They confessed their sin. And then the Philistines heard about the gathering and came up against them.

Verse 7 says Israel was afraid.

That is worth sitting with. They had done everything right. They had repented, they had fasted, they were in the place of prayer. And the enemy still came, and they were still afraid.

Fear is not going to leave us alone. We will hear news we did not want to hear. Sometimes you are almost there and one phone call changes everything. Pastor George was clear about this: the worry is not going away. The question is what we do when it comes.

He also pointed out something simple about how we read the Bible. We do not have Philistines standing in front of us today. But we have the things they stood for. When Scripture names an enemy, look at what you are actually facing this week.

We do not need anyone to go for us

Israel had to beg Samuel not to stop crying out to God on their behalf. Samuel offered a lamb, and the Lord answered him.

That was then. Thank God for Jesus. The curtain has been taken away, and every believer can go straight to God. You do not need a man to stand between you and your Father.

And there is no lamb to bring either. Our offering now is our prayer. When someone says "let us pray", understand what is happening: you are bringing something to God.

The Lord thundered

While Samuel was still making the offering, the Philistines drew near. And God thundered against them and confused them, and they were beaten (v. 10).

Then look at verse 11. The same men who were afraid went out of Mizpah and chased their enemies. Nothing had changed about Israel. Everything had changed because of God.

Ebenezer

Samuel took a stone, set it up, and called it Ebenezer, which means thus far the Lord has helped us.

He did it because they had no way to write things down. The stone was the record. It was there so that when they walked past it they would remember.

We have pens and paper and phones, so Pastor George gave us something practical to do. Write it down. The date, the place, what happened, how God came through. Testimony in church is good, but keep your own record as well, and go back and read it from time to time.

Here is why it matters. When the angel came to Gideon, Gideon asked, "Where are all his miracles that our fathers told us about?" (Judges 6:13). Gideon never crossed the Red Sea. He was not there. But somebody had recorded it and passed it on, and that record was enough to give him something to stand on.

Most of us in that building did not see the Red Sea open either. We are trusting this God because of what he did for Samuel, for Gideon, for David. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Jehoshaphat's prayer

In 2 Chronicles 20 a huge army comes against Jehoshaphat, and the messengers bring the report the way frightened people always bring a report: you cannot survive this.

Verse 3 says Jehoshaphat was afraid. But he did not stop at afraid. He set himself to seek the Lord, and he called a fast across the whole of Judah.

He was an ordinary king. Not a priest. And he understood that some battles are not settled by food, or by strength, or by standing there. They go by fasting and prayer.

His prayer in verse 12 gives us three things to say:

We have no power against this multitude.
We do not know what to do.
But our eyes are on you.

That is the whole thing. Admit you cannot handle it. Admit you do not have a plan. And then look up anyway.

God's answer came back: the battle is not yours, it is God's. Position yourselves, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.

Jehoshaphat trusted that so completely that he sent the choir out in front of the army.