When God is your enemy, it is pointless to fight, because you will never win. In such conflicts, the mighty God could hire such ordinary fighters as frogs; such little fellows as locusts and lice, or fiercer regiments as hailstones and heathenish brutish Babylonians. His army could be deceptively fragile as flies and little as lice, yet, even with the backing of super-power Egypt, you will never win. Swift chariots do not guarantee a victory in every war (Proverbs 21:31).
Times of unwinnable wars are when intercessors should hear God well and be able to make distinctions between enemies on His assignment and those on their own assignment or even Satan’s; between enemies attracted by our foolishness rather than sinfulness, and armies merely passing by to a different destination, whom we should let alone to go on their way, or unfortunately die a needless death at their innocent hands, like Josiah the regretted good king of Judah (2 Chronicles 35:20-25). Being strong is no reason to get into every fight.
Sometimes we think of God as too nice to do ‘harm,’ so we persist in error and perish in it. That may once have been the case when God had to give a loud notice, saying, “Behold, I bring EVIL upon this people … I will lay stumblingblocks before this people” (Jeremiah 6:19, 21).
If you heard such a prophecy in your church during a prayer meeting, a voice threatening EVIL and stumbling blocks rather than ‘goodness and mercy,’ would you agree so quickly that that was the voice of God? Does the good God bring evil upon people? Does ‘evil’ not rhyme better with ‘devil’? When did God bring Himself so low as a mean hunter, to “lay stumblingblocks” before His own creatures?
When such days of persistent troubles come, unfortunately, it seems easier to make sacrifices than repent; sacrifices that make matters worse.
To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me (Jeremiah 6:20).
May God never be your Enemy, for that is one battle no one ever wins. To fight His soldiers in that season because they seem so fragile, is to set yourself against the Terrible One whose messengers they are.
When battles persist despite repeated sacrifices; when tender creatures like lice turn into such unconquerable foes; when rivers fight us with blood and frogs, the heavens with hails, the air with lice, and palpable darkness overtakes us at noon, it may be time, like Joshua, to fall upon our faces with dust upon our heads and say, “Alas, O Lord GOD, wherefore …” (Joshua 7:6-7). Pesticides then are a waste against the flimsy flies of God, and power lanterns will be pointless against the darkness. Swift chariots do not guarantee a victory in every war, and sacrifices can be offensive on altars that should rather have been offering obedience (1 Samuel 15:22-23). When rulers miss this, they could be about to go.
From The Preacher’s diary,
March 27, 2022
