Today, we see the same dilemma with Israel facing battles similar to the ones found in Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and then continuing in Joshua and on into Kings and Chronicles and, eventually, to the Gospels and The Book of Acts. The consequences of not war are invasion and eventual war and destruction. Factions occupying the same space today are frequently called a car wreck. If Israel doesn't take the win, they face another night when murders happen in their beds, children kidnapped and displayed as items of torture, hunger/famine and mockery to violence ... and then broadcast. Grandmother brutalized and wandering bereft of hope, mockery, bleeding before murder. Israel has faced this for years.
We are not immune to understanding. We saw Poland take in Ukraine. And we are asked to foot the bill, when our economy is in Cold War by border desertion.
When we Google the protests and violent protests of our 50 states, we find documentation takes up pages and pages and pages. Americans came here fighting for their right to survive.
Exodus 3:14
God said to Moses,
"I AM WHO I AM.
This is what you are to say to the Israelites:
'I AM has sent me to you.'”
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
1 Chronicles 29:11
Yours,
O Lord, is the Greatness and the Power and the Glory
and the victory and the majesty,
for all that is in the Heavens
and in the earth is Yours.
Yours is the Kingdom, O Lord,
and You are exalted
as Head
above All.
So life is just a waste of time and we merely take up space? Enduring all the difficulties and then we pass on to Heaven? Yes, for those who have no hope in the Lord and His Promises.
Hebrews 11 tells us of the adventure and endurance in hope of Believing in The Lord. Like the Psalms of David and David's generation with his son, the Scriptures roll out the glory of seeing and believing God. He does more than we can ask or imagine.
Revelation 1:5-6
From Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead,
and the Ruler of the kings of the earth.
To Him
Who loves us
and
has released us
from our sins by His blood
Who has made us to be a Kingdom,
priests to His God and Father
— to Him
be the glory and power forever and ever!
Amen.
Revelation 5:13
And I heard every creature
in Heaven
and on earth
and under the earth
and in the sea,
and all that is in them, saying:
"To Him
Who sits on The Throne
and to the Lamb
be praise and honor
and glory and power forever and ever!"
Great Isaiah Roll
Dead Sea Scrolls
1st and 2nd Century BC
1st Century AD
Critics of the Scriptures really do not like the Old Testament. The fight to survive when the Nation wants the other Nation to be killed. It isn't about staying in your own lane. Germany wanted all the Lanes twice in the last century. And this causes war.
When we look at the wars, we find The Lord God Almighty doesn't duck His Head and turn His Face away in disgust. This is the same Father of Jesus Christ who gives His Only Son to be a Light to the Nations. Light of the world. Light of mankind. Light of Heaven. The same Savior Who said I don't trust myself to them, I understand mankind. The God of Love.
Today, we see war protests allll over the USA. This means parents won't let their children apply. But for the headlines to be eaten by war protests? 18 million people live in New York City. 400 Protest. Percentage of the population? 0.000022. Not even 1 percent. Or even close. An amazing misrepresentation of the Nation's interests.
What Hope endures?
Moses was told to listen to God. Out of Egypt I Call My Son. Hosea 11:1, Matthew 2:15
Moses held up his arms, with the help of those who cared around him, the Battle was won. Life or Death was the choice.
Balaam was at war with the Children of Israel. God sent speech to Balaam's, but actually God's Donkey because the fullness of the earth belongs to God. And sent an Angel to Balaam as well. War, serious war, was adverted.
Joshua called for the water to part, he had seen The Lord and Moses do this, and they had a dry footed entry into the Promised Land. Joshua was told to be brave and this fight was won. Life or death was the choice.
Gideon collected a few men, the Lord told Gideon how, and those 300 men blew trumpets at night and the enemy began to slaughter themselves.
Hezekiah was about to see Judah annihilated not by the Assyrian Empire, but Egypt. The two princes got into words and decided to desert the battlefield and go home and kill their father. The battle didn't even begin and never did resume.
God says He upholds the universe with the Power of His Word. He can End Any Trouble.
Nahum 1:9
What do you plot against the LORD?
He will make a complete end;
trouble will not rise up a second time.
What about starvation? To be held away from what is healthy. Time is taken. Sorrow prevails. Suffering is intense. And the Lord saved the day, we see in the actions of those who had no idea what the whole situation the Lord was bringing. Miracle after Miracle. This is a Two Chapter Miracle.
†
2 Kings 6
6 Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “See, the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us. 2 Let us go to the Jordan and each of us get there a log, and let us make a place for us to dwell there.” And he answered, “Go.” 3 Then one of them said, “Be pleased to go with your servants.” And he answered, “I will go.” 4 So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. 5 But as one was felling a log, his axe head fell into the water, and he cried out, “Alas, my master! It was borrowed.” 6 Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float. 7 And he said, “Take it up.” So he reached out his hand and took it.
8 Once when the king of Syria was warring against Israel, he took counsel with his servants, saying, “At such and such a place shall be my camp.”
9 But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, “Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are going down there.” 10 And the king of Israel sent to the place about which the man of God told him. Thus he used to warn him, so that he saved himself there more than once or twice.
11 And the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled because of this thing, and he called his servants and said to them, “Will you not show me who of us is for the king of Israel?”
12 And one of his servants said, “None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.”
13 And he said, “Go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him.” It was told him, “Behold, he is in Dothan.” 14 So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city.
15 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?” 1
6 He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17 Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his 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. 18 And when the Syrians came down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, “Please strike this people with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha. 19 And Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” And he led them to Samaria.
20 As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.” So the Lord opened their eyes and they saw, and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.
21 As soon as the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “My father, shall I strike them down? Shall I strike them down?” 22 He answered, “You shall not strike them down. Would you strike down those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.” 23 So he prepared for them a great feast, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the Syrians did not come again on raids into the land of Israel.
24 Afterward Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria.
25 And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver. 26 Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” 27 And he said, “If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?”
28 And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ 29 So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” 30 When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body— 31 and he said, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today.”
32 Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Now the king had dispatched a man from his presence, but before the messenger arrived Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this murderer has sent to take off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door fast against him. Is not the sound of his master's feet behind him?” 33 And while he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him and said, “This trouble is from the Lord! Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”
Waiting upon the Lord is a Good Idea. Elisha is about to show us.
2 Kings 7
7 But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord: thus says the Lord, Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.” 2 Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, “If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”
3 Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? 4 If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. 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.”
5 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.
6 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 to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.” 7 So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.
8 And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.
9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king's household.” 10 So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.” 1
1 Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king's household. 12 And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.’”
13 And one of his servants said, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those who are left here will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already perished. Let us send and see.” 14 So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying,
“Go and see.”
15 So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king.
16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians.
So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.
17 Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. And the people trampled him in the gate, so that he died, as the man of God had said when the king came down to him.
18 For when the man of God had said to the king, “Two seahs of barley shall be sold for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria,” 19 the captain had answered the man of God, “If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?” And he had said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” 20 And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate and he died.
John 6:35
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life”
Jeremiah 32:27
“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.
Is anything too hard for me?”
Luke 1:37
For nothing will be impossible with God.”
Genesis 18:14
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
At the appointed time I will return to you,
about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Jeremiah 32:17
Ah, Lord God!
It is You who have made the Heavens
and the earth by Your Great Power
and by Your outstretched Arm!
Nothing is too hard for you.
Matthew 19:26
But Jesus looked at them and said,
“With man this is impossible,
but with God all things are possible.”
Isaiah 41:10
Fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed,
for I am your God;
I will strengthen you,
I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Mark 11:24
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer,
believe that you have received it,
and it will be yours.
Job 42:2
“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
Abba, Father,
Thank You for Jesus Christ.
He is the Bread of Life.
Help us, we pray for Your Blessings,
Dwell in us
and those we love, earnestly pray for.
Help us to seek you first.
You are the Bread of Life,
Help us to have Your blessing to
have hearts pleasing to You
and the aroma of Love
Encouragement
Mercy
Hope
with all
good diligence.
Thank You, Father,
for our many blessings.
Help us to chose Your Joy
and to
see with willing hearts and eyes,
to be Blessing Seekers and Appreciators.
Isaiah 40:26
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of His might,
and because He is strong in power
not one is missing.
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