Our Prayers are with all of those at Peace
- who have found war and violence
- who have found war and violence
This is not new in the Bible.
David knew this as he watched his father's flock.
Lent is Preparation. Preparation for Life in Jesus Christ. Preparation for walking with God daily. Preparation for believing the Word of God. Preparation for deepening our life in the Body of Christ - Community - Church - bringing more Heaven to earth. Preparation for our own eternity - today.
We talk a lot about stopping bullying. Nothing wrong with this.
We do our part each day to provide mercy and justice. Because we see in the History of the world - times of peace. Peace time exist, bringing in times of more Faith, more Hope, more Love.
Realistically, you cannot stop the mouths of what God calls the two natures of mankind. With more compassion to all and more belief in the structures of Love and obedience to God - we can see times of Awakening and Refreshing. David knew this time in the midst of his 23 year struggle in the 'Anointing' of God. This Anointing is, of course real, and was a great deal of work - like the Exodus. Not surprisingly, Works of God take continual Hope, Faith and Love.
God calls the two natures of mankind wheat - sustaining, nurturing, workable. And chaff - what blows around, isn't edible, doesn't sustain us, generally an irritant. Chaff the husks of corn or other seed separated by winnowing or threshing.Chopped hay and straw used as fodder - trash. Today we sometimes call Chaff 'talking trash'. Chaff will annoy someone in a less than patient mood. Chaff will stick to someone not properly prepared. Chaff can get in your eye.
The Christian Church grew in a time of great wealth and power. In these 'Glory Days' oppression happened. And in these days, medical care was hard to obtain. People knew to comfort, sustain, protect each other from what lurked out there. A time when people would pray for healing, pray for protection. People knew to pray their faith for each other. Place a hand on a shoulder, bow a head and pray for one another. "God Bless You" was something meant. Part of the culture of Christ Jesus.
We need to be able to say "God Bless You" and "I will pray for you". "Can I pray for you now?"
It's Ten O'clock - Have you Prayed for Someone Today?
Good. Do they Know You Prayed???
Luke 18:1
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
Mark 9:29
Jesus replied, "This kind can come out only by prayer."
Ephesians 6:12-18
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces
2 Chronicles 20:15
Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's.
1 Samuel 17:47
All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's
In times where the enemy numbers 100 million and the remnant is 3 million - God is still very able to win. God's hands and God's feet - are God's. In distinct words - when hope appears almost gone in times of violence - God is Perfectly Able. Do not lose hope. Violence happens in the Bible to the good and the evil. Hope is within God as a viable and real event - today. Victory belongs to God.
In all generations - we recognize the hand of God shapes our world. Our prayers are a good thing. God's works are God's. The Battle is God's.
In “Recollections of Washington”, George Washington Parke Curtis wrote of Washington's amazing survival.The coat in the painting is close to the uniform worn by General Washington in 1755 during the Battle of the Monongahela. There are four holes according to Washington’s account. There is no doubt his adopted children did know the story because George Washington Parke Curtis wrote this book.
After the Battle of Monongahela, George Washington wrote from Fort Cumberland to his younger brother, John Augustine Washington, July 18, 1755:
“But by the All-Powerful Dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!”
The United States and President Washington had a miraculous escape. Psalm 91.
The Ship with Paper Missiles
The year was 1956. Israel had been a modern nation for eight years, surrounded by hostile enemies who were planning wars to destroy the Jewish state. The navy of Israel was for all purposes, almost nonexistent. The main enemy of Israel was the Egyptians, under the leadership of President Nasser. The Egyptians had several battleships and Nasser gave orders to move one of the large ships toward Haifa, in Israel.
The Israelis had one beat-up hull of a ship. They immediately painted it and put huge paper Mache missiles on the deck. When the Egyptian ship arrived, the Israeli’s sent a smaller boat out to meet it and warned them they had a new ship with very large missiles pointed at the Egyptians. The orders were given for the Egyptians to surrender immediately, or be destroyed. Oddly enough, the Egyptians surrendered their battleship, to a hull with fake missiles!
The Miracle of the 67 War
In May 1967, Egyptian and Syrian troops massed on Israel's borders, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and Egyptian President Gamel Abdal Nasser filled the airwaves with calls to drive the Jews into the sea. The mood in the 19-year-old-country of Israel was bleak. Facing five well-equipped, Soviet trained Arab armies, Israel's defeat was virtually a foregone conclusion.
The black humor on everyone's lips that Spring was: "The last one out, don't forget to turn off the lights."
Everyone knows that instead of defeat, Israel achieved a stunning victory. On June 5 at 7:46 AM, Israeli planes destroyed the entire Egyptian air force on the ground. In six days, Israel tripled its territory, gaining the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and -- most precious of all -- the Old City and the Temple Mount.
The crucial strategy of destroying the Egyptian air force while their planes were still on the ground opened the way for the Israeli victory. The success of the maneuver is generally attributed to the Israeli planes flying below the tracking altitude of Egyptian radar. Many other factors, however, contributed to the success of the air strike and the subsequent battles. In fact, the coincidences and unlikely happenings at precisely the right time were so plentiful that, as we learn the details of the victory, the details are astonishing.
For example, a few days before the war, the Commander of Egyptian forces in the Sinai was ordered to change commanders in most of his brigades, putting in charge officers who didn't know the terrain or their forces.
On the very morning of June 5th, three hours before the Israeli air strike, Egyptian intelligence did, in fact, issue a warning that an Israeli air attack would begin "within minutes." At that point, Egypt still had time to get its planes off the ground and save them. The message reached the command bunker in Cairo. An aide-de-camp signed a copy, but no one bothered to look for the Commander in Chief.
On the same morning of the attack, Egyptian officers stationed at the radar station in northern Jordan picked up the scrambling Israeli aircraft and sent a red alert message to Cairo. The sergeant in the decoding room of the supreme command tried to decipher the message using the previous day's code and failed.
And where was Egypt's Commander in Chief? The night before, he and most of his top officers attended a party at an air force base in the northern delta area, at which a renowned belly dancer performed. Early the next morning, he took off for the Sinai, where he had ordered all his top commanders to assemble in order to meet a high-level Iraqi delegation. When the Israeli strike happened, not one senior officer was at his post.
These amazing stories clearly demonstrate “The Battle belongs to the Lord!”
Winston Churchill's Grandson - Winston Churchill was in Israel for the War as a War Correspondent.
Among the rank & file, there was deep anxiety, even fear. My Israeli reservist escorting officer, a lawyer in his mid-forties, recently married with a small daughter, told me in all earnestness that, in the event that Israel was being defeated, he would have no hesitation killing his wife and daughter, rather than let them fall into the hands of the Arabs. It would indeed have been a second Masada.
For my part, I found myself wondering what I – a Goy and a Brit – should do in that event, given that I was from a foreign land and had no direct involvement in the quarrels of the Middle East – beyond a Grandfather who had been a strong supporter of the Balfour Declaration!
Without hesitation, I concluded that I would grab whatever weapon might come into my hands and fight at the side of the Israelis. From that moment onwards, though I avow the right of the Palestinians to have their own independent state within the confines of Biblical Palestine, which has been their homeland over the centuries, I have counted myself a Zionist, firmly believing in the justice of the existence of the State of Israel.
Just after dawn on 5 June 1967 – just as the world was beginning to believe that Israel’s days were numbered – Israel made her lightning strike, destroying the Egyptian Air Force in 2hrs50mins & four Arab air forces in the space of 36 hours. It was one of the most instant and dramatic military victories of all time. To many, it seemed to be the ‘war to end all wars’!
"...if you examine the days leading up to the war, you will see that the feeling among the Israeli public, and even among many government ministers, was that of the eve of a holocaust."
Menashe (Muni) Ben-Ari
"Every one of the hundred million Arabs has been living ... to see the day Israel is liquidated"
Cairo Radio’s Voice of the Arabs broadcast, May 18th, 1967.
"For Israel, the waiting was excruciating and debilitating. Israel's citizen army had to be mobilized. As its soldiers waited on the various fronts for the world to rescue the nation from its peril, Israeli society ground to a halt and its economy began bleeding to death. Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, later to be hailed as a war hero and even later as a martyred man of peace, had a nervous breakdown. He was incapacitated to the point of incoherence by the unbearable tension of waiting with the life of his country in the balance, knowing that waiting too long would allow the armies of 100 million Arabs to strike first his country of 3 million." Charles Krauthammer
There were also the grim preparations that had to be kept secret: the parks in each city that had been consecrated for possible use as mass cemeteries.- Golda Meir
“The Battle belongs to the Lord!”
Abba,
Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
But with you, there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word, I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord, there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
We thank You, Abba,
For Your Blessings, You willingly give ever day of our lives.
We thank You, Abba,
We are Israel today to You as well.
We thank You, Abba,
For Your forgiveness All Your prior Love and Care.
We thank You, Abba,
For Your Love, for those we Love and lift up their cares to You.
We thank You, Abba,
For Your Preparation in Lent and in solemn times in our life. For health, hope and provision.
We thank You, Abba,
You save the world in Jesus Christ.
We thank You, Abba,
You fulfill Your Word and Your Promises. Always.
Just as we love to hear Merry Christmas, let's be brave to say "God Bless you." With the same joy. Let's be brave like Diane and Marc who say, "I will pray for you." And usually receive a glad thanks and sometimes "I will pray for you now." Let's be brave for 60 seconds together.
Our Amen in the Name of Jesus.
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