Proverbs 18:10

THE BANNER OF HIS PROTECTION

Why study the names of God? Isn’t it enough that we know Jesus? It is true God has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the true knowledge of Jesus. But the Old Testament reveals a great deal about the essence of our God, what He is like and how He acts. God desires that we grow in our knowledge of Him.

Too many are satisfied to know Jesus as Lord and Savior without digging deeper into their Bibles and examining to see if there is any impact from the knowledge of who God is. This is the only verse in the Proverbs that mentions the phrase “the name of God.” Wise believers read and discover the value of knowing God’s names and running to Him.

We discover God is a place of safety and security for those who run to Him. Some ran to Him for salvation but forget to run to Him every day before the crisis hits. God desires to give more than protection. He also wants to give us perspective.

Solomon in this verse reveals that the name of the Lord is a strong tower. He is a place of protection from the enemy’s assaults and the storms of life. The more I know about God, the better I can stand in the day of battle! God has chosen to reveal Himself by many different names and each one teaches us something critical for our daily living.

Elohim reveals He is the God who creates. He can make something good out of our messes. Jehovah reveals He is the God who covenants. God makes promises and is faithful to His promises. His name is Adonai, the God who controls all things. When our world is falling apart, we look to His throne and know He is in complete control. These names provide a strong tower of protection.

God’s name also provides perspective. In His tower, we gain perspective on life. People ran to tall towers of refuge enabling them to get a better perspective on what was happening. We run to the tower and climb up. We understand life much better from a higher perspective. Too many know to run to Jesus but fail to don’t learn anything about who He is.

We need to climb the tower stairs and discover He is Jehovah-Jireh and learn how He provides. We must climb higher and discover His name is Jehovah-Shalom – the God of peace. We discover the peace of God that passes all understanding as we run to Him, rest on Him, and trust in His word.

These names help gain perspective on life, but only when we climb the floors of the tower. We are facing a crisis. We have an opportunity to run to the tower for protection trusting in His name. Our perspective will improve as we grow in our knowledge of our God and learn His names. We do so by faith, trusting in His revelation of Himself in His Word.

Pastor Chris Thompson

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Psalm 20

RAISE HIS BANNER

We are being told we are in a state of war with an unseen enemy. Fighting against an unseen enemy is impossible unless you trust in the unseen God. He has revealed Himself by several significant names to Old Testament saints to inspire us to trust in Him as they did. King David penned this song as a song for battle. He knew days of trouble and called on the name of the Lord. He reminds us that the name of the Lord our God will sustain us in our days of trouble.

We are facing battles in life every day in every way. Daily struggles and skirmishes that test our faith and refine it.

How do you fight the battles of faith each day? Notice what we do in verse 5 and what He will do in verse 6. We begin by raising the banners of His name every morning. As we rise in the morning, we fall on our faces before His throne. We praise Him for who He is (His name) and thank Him for what He has done consistent to His name. We call on His name, the names by which He has revealed Himself in the Bible. We can’t know His name unless we read His word and allow Him to speak to us.

What will He do? According to verse 6, He will hear and help. He will answer with His mighty arm of deliverance. The key to triumph will always be the name of our God. When we go out into battle we go out in the name of the Lord.

We fight the forces of evil in the name of our God.

Now if His name wasn’t any good, we wouldn’t ask anything of Him. But it is good. His name is great. His name is glorious. His name is the name above every other name. Jesus is the complete package of all the names of God we find in the Old Testament. We must cry out to Him for help in the battles. He will be faithful to His name.

God reaches down and brings triumph. David knew it. He had experienced it. Saul slayed his thousands but David his ten thousands. David knew victory because God had given Him victory, whether against a lion or bear, an uncircumcised giant named Goliath, or the Philistine armies. We can experience victory trusting in the name of the Lord our God.

Over the next several weeks we are going to call out on the different names of God as we battle against the societal upheaval resulting from our battle against this virus. We will lift up His banners. He will answer and deliver! Our days of troubles will become days of triumph as we trust in His name.

Pastor Chris Thompson

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Habakkuk 3

FAITH THAT OVERCOMES THE WORLD

Habakkuk no longer wrestles with God’s plans and instead embraces His purposes. His faith leads to triumph in life and provides important lessons we must learn if we are to experience triumphant faith.

We must learn that the trials we face are not as much about us as they are about God and His glory. Sadly, our perspective asks how things affect us more so than what is the Sovereign Lord seeking to accomplish. Habakkuk finds victory in the plans of God (1-2). Habakkuk internalizes God’s truth and accepts that God will do as He pleases. Habakkuk chooses to move forward in faith. God told Habakkuk that He was working in the world (1:5) and has shown he would not die (1:12). The key to living is faith (2:4). Habakkuk affirms that God’s judgment of sinners is a fearful thing. Recognizing what God was about to do, Habakkuk cries for mercy amid God’s impending judgment.

Victorious faith remembers God’s power (3-15). Habakkuk reviews the history of God’s people, the nation Israel. Habakkuk provides a short history of what we find when we read God’s Word. God demonstrated His character, power, and wrath from the sending of plagues (v5) to the giving of the law (v3-4). God displayed His power in the conquest of the Promised Land (6-7). God led His people in victory (8-15). All these sections demonstrate how God intervened with His power at critical moments to deliver His people and ensure their salvation. The note of victory in verse 13 is critical! When you know that God has worked in the past you can trust Him as He works in the present and in the future.

Victorious faith rests God’s purposes (16-19). This is one of the greatest biblical confessions of faith. When everything around me fails – the fields, the vineyards, the flocks, and the herds, can I still rejoice in God? Habakkuk rests in the Lord (16). Though facing the frightening reality of an impending invasion, Habakkuk proclaims his faith and trust in God. Habakkuk rejoices in the Lord (17-18). Habakkuk knew about the utter destruction that Jerusalem would experience yet he chooses to rejoice in the Lord. Habakkuk will rely on the Lord (19). During distressing times, God’s true children still rejoice in Him. He will be our strength, our security, and our salvation. The Lord strengthens His people for trials and through trials. Habakkuk proclaims his strength and surefootedness in the face of distressing times.

We find ourselves in a time of crisis, but our God has not changed. We must look to Him and embrace His plans, remember His power, and rest in His purposes. Then our faith will be triumphant!

Pastor Chris Thompson

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Habakkuk 2:1-4

When Faith is Taught

In chapter 1, Habakkuk’s faith is tested as he wrestles with God’s method of judging His people. In chapter 2, Habakkuk goes to school with God so that his faith can be taught. What lessons does he need to learn? What do we need to learn?

First, we need to be in the proper position to see what God has to say (1). The prophet mounts the watchtower for God’s message to share. Those on the watchtower had a serious responsibility to ensure the protection of the city. Pastors should realize that God reveals the best way to protect His people. As the prophet patiently waits for God’s Word, he must possess a teachable spirit embracing correction if necessary.

Second, God’s Word will be clear and critical to share (2). God’s message is plain and straightforward to hear and to heed. It is amazing how many are willing to listen to the latest government mandate but unwilling to listen to God’s Word.

Third, God’s Word will not return void (3). Habakkuk is instructed that God’s Word has an appointed time for fulfillment. We must patiently wait for God to fulfill His Word. God details how He will judge the ruthless Chaldean army. This prophetic word will be fulfilled when God judges the Babylonian world system in the final days. One might think we are near to entering that time now. The book of Revelation shows how God finally judges the puffed-up Babylonian world system.

Fourth, God’s revelation provides a contrast between two groups of people (4). Either you are a humble individual who trusts in God or a proud individual who trusts in yourself. The Chaldeans were examples of those puffed up with pride and twisted on the inside (crooked or “not upright”). In contrast, humble individuals are made righteous because they live by faith. God’s declares the believing sinner righteous. God will preserve the repentant sinner but will destroy the proud unrepentance sinner. Do I know which group I am part of?

We must be taught to watch and wait. Faith does not look for the seen things, but the unseen things. Faith must learn to wait and believe that God will do what He says. Faith must rest in God by trusting in His nature even when the events suggest otherwise.

God promises to be a refuge for the one who trusts in Him. God declares judgment upon the sins of the wicked world exemplified by the proud Chaldeans. Tomorrow we will be instructed on behaviors deserving of God’s judgment (2:5-20). But today we are instructed to live by faith in the Lord.

Pastor Chris Thompson

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When Faith is Tested

No one likes the hickory stick or going to the woodshed. Younger generations may not understand those terms, but many know they refer to moments of discipline to correct rebellious behavior. God takes sin seriously and He instructed His people about the certainty of judgment for disobeying His commands. Thankfully, God is longsuffering and merciful.

God had warned His people through natural disasters and foreign occupation of the Promised Land to no avail. God’s patience was tested, and His judgment was about to arrive in an amazing and shocking manner. Habakkuk was instructed to look across the nations and witness an astounding sight. God’s intention to discipline is found in verse 5. His instrument to discipline is found in verses 6-11.

God’s agent of correction was the Chaldean army. He chose a nation that promoted itself, exploited others, and rejected authority to bring judgment to Judah. This chosen judgment agent confounds the prophet. God’s ways often confound us too. While we wrestle with moments such as these, we must be careful to ask the right questions of God. God’s people were more than deserving of God’s correction. God is never indifferent to the sins of His people, the nation Israel or the church. If judgment begins at the house of God, what then can the wicked expect (1 Peter 4:11)? God takes sin seriously.

The prophet expresses confusion on God’s use of an evil nation for judgment. Habakkuk asks several questions as he wrestles with God’s decisions. Why would God employ a people of iniquity (12-13)? Why use sinners to punish other sinners? Why would God endorse a people of injustice (14-15)? If God is righteous and just, how could he use an unjust nation to make His people right? Why would God excuse a people of idolatry (16-17)? God’s people were being judged for their idolatry by an even more idolatrous nation.

Habakkuk questions God’s decision appealing to His name (v 12), His nature (v 13), and His justice (v 14-17). God had purposes to fulfill through the Jewish nation and He would preserve His people, but they would experience painful trials. We must remember that the greater the light, the greater the responsibility to walk in the light. The Jews claimed to know the Lord and yet they were sinning against the very law they claimed to believe! Sin in the life of a believer is far worse than sin in the life of an unbeliever.

Habakkuk’s wrestling with God’s revelation is an opportunity to refine his faith. We are in a similar situation today. We must honestly and humbly ask some tough questions not of God, but of ourselves.

Pastor Chris Thompson

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We never are fond of the hickory stick. I know my sons aren’t. But we need those experiences in life. There is deep seated foolishness, bound in the heart, that must be eliminated. God’s desire is to bring forth the peaceful fruit of righteousness in its place. Choose to embrace the rod and the staff of the Shepherd. It will comfort us as He protects us from evil.

#SRBC

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Reading today in Joshua 1-5, we see that God fights the battles for believers who are in His will. The assurance of His presence enables one to be bold and courageous and certain of the outcome. The key is for the believer to know that he is on the Lord’s side and not standing in opposition to what God desires to accomplish.

God grant us faith for our lives to be guided by your Word so that we know for certain Your will and the victory that You will accomplish as we obey Your truth.

Joshua 1:7-9

Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

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Knowledge is power is a modern day axiom that is thought to liberate mankind to a higher state.

The enlightened modern mind however has welded that power to destroy the beauty of the image of God we possess.

The truly empowered mind is one that discovers the truth found in Jesus Christ and surrenders to Him.

Everything we need to navigate life is supplied in knowing Jesus and the power of His Spirit and Word abiding in our hearts.

We can’t know or experience that power without opening our Bibles and listening to Him speak.

When we do that, we will discover that knowledge is powerful.

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