God's Strong Hand in Our Lives

Summer can be a very busy time.  As the temperatures rise, we find ourselves with so much more to do and often times we are working well into the evening on yard work and other projects.  Each year we have to gather firewood for the next winter.  This year we have 4 trees that we took down last fall to deal with that spent the winter under the snow.  Some people have vegetable gardens, others have flowers they grow around there place.  Some people are remodeling in some way and some people do all of these things.

 Like so many animals that gather food for winter, we find ourselves very busy with activity.  There are the many camp programs that so many of us are involved in.  You may even want to take a camping trip or some other vacation.  How do we fit it all in?  During the winter months we often hear messages about not forgetting God and following Christ when things are very dark around us. When the holy days seem miles away from where we are, and often times trials and tribulation strike us.

Well the summer time can be a distraction for a different reason.  It is one that God knew Israel would suffer from when He sent them into the Promised Land.  Turn over to Deut. 6:10-12.  Before they got to the land He warned them before they received this blessing.

Deuteronomy 6:10-12   10 " So it shall be, when the LORD your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build,  11 "houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant -- when you have eaten and are full --  12 "then beware, lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

We too want to remember God in good times and not just when we are in trouble and need rescue.  Not just when we need to be cheered up.  We need to remember Him always and look for His strong hand in our lives.  The title of this message is

God’s Strong Hand in our lives

If you don’t see God’s Strong hand in your life then now is the time to start looking for it and putting God first before the many, many, chores and activities that will certainly bog us down this summer.

All through the book of Deuteronomy, God reminds Israel of where they were when He rescued them from Bondage, and then He contrast the many blessings that He is about to pour out on them.  In great detail he talks about the ways they will be blessed. He tells them of the blessings to come in herds and flocks, in great wealth, in large healthy families. And He promises to protect them all the days of their lives.  No enemy can hurt them; no one is too strong for them as long as they do not forget their God.  Right toward the end of Deuteronomy He warns them again.

Deuteronomy 30:1-5  NKJ "Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God drives you,  2 "and you return to the LORD your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul,  3 "that the LORD your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you.

And as we know He did scatter them.  The northern 10 tribes were lost to history.  They were not all killed but their identity was stripped from them and they were scattered among the Assyrian empire.  After the fall of Assyria, those people fled north to avoid the Babylonian armies that invaded from the south.  Eventually landing in what we call the steppes.  The area north of the Black see between Eastern Europe and Russia.  If you study the origins of the people of Great Britain and Western Europe, you will see they trace their migration from this area.  Continuing on in verse 4. 

4 "If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you.  5 "Then the LORD your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.

Remember that Solomon was so rich that no one could count it all.  Israel was feared among the nations.  Those were the days when God’s strong hand was raised against Egypt and against those that opposed Israel taking possession of the Promised Land.  Each of those nations fell against God’s mighty strength.  But then, just as God warned, they forgot the Lord their God.  They gave themselves over to all kinds of evil.  They turned their backs on God and they were severely punished.  They were scattered to the far ends of the earth just as God promised and His strong hand was both seen and felt in those days.

But What About Today?

Where is God’s strong hand today?  Do you see it around you?  Do you feel it in your lives?  Do we see God working in the good days as well?

It is often times during the good times that we forget about God.  When we take for granted the many blessings that we have.  What’s even worse, we might even take credit for the blessings in our lives.

BY MY HAND HAVE I BEEN BLESSED

Kings of old have mistakenly uttered these words.  People for millennia have sought to boast about their situation and credit themselves for their achievements.  When we are humbled through trials it is easy to give God the credit for our deliverance.  But what about when we are promoted at work?  What about our achievement?  I appreciate when athletes remember to thank God during victories. 

Do we?

I have made that mistake before.  Not when I achieved a great deal of things.  I was happy to just be on the winning team.  But when someone else stole the credit, when people started to deny the accomplishments, then I got sore.  I had my feelings hurt; after all, did they not realize what I had accomplished ALL BY MYSELF.  When you are feeling sorry for yourself you can say and think all kinds of terrible things. 

Growing up the in the church I remember all of the sermons about how Ancient Israel forgot about the many miracles God performed.  The Plagues, Deliverance from Egypt, Walking through the Red Sea, watching as God’s strong hand destroyed Pharaoh’s army in the sea.  How He fed them in the wilderness bringing them water from rocks, manna and quail.  How He led them by a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day.

I remember thinking how foolish they must have been.  We certainly would not have forgotten God if we had witnessed such things?  Would we? 

I know people who left the faith over so many reasons after witnessing such miracles in their lives.  I have told many of the stories here before of instant healing, do you know anyone miraculously healed only to later leave their faith?  I have told stories of people saved from certain death only to later leave their faith.  Do you know of people that God’s hand saved from death? 

Where are they now?

After all of the blessings in His life, Solomon reflected on all that he had and realized that it was all meaningless because you can’t take it with you when you die.  Then in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 he gives this advice. Turn to Ecc. 12.  At the end of this book, when he explained that life without God is meaningless no matter what you achieve, he says this:

Ecclesiastes 12:1-6  NKJ Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, Before the difficult days come, And the years draw near when you say, "I have no pleasure in them":  2 While the sun and the light, The moon and the stars, Are not darkened, And the clouds do not return after the rain;  3 In the day when the keepers of the house tremble, And the strong men bow down; When the grinders cease because they are few, And those that look through the windows grow dim;  4 When the doors are shut in the streets, And the sound of grinding is low; When one rises up at the sound of a bird, And all the daughters of music are brought low;  5 Also they are afraid of height, And of terrors in the way; When the almond tree blossoms, The grasshopper is a burden, And desire fails. For man goes to his eternal home, And the mourners go about the streets.  6 Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, Or the golden bowl is broken, Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, Or the wheel broken at the well.

Solomon had God’s strong hand working in his life and he didn’t recognize it because he was too busy trying to get everything, do everything, experience everything.  He forgot God in his youth.

Has God’s hand been at work in your lives?  I have witnessed many miracles on a small scale.  Not that healing someone from a horrible disease or debilitating injury would ever be considered small.  I have watch God protect me and others from all kinds of evil.  I know you have too because I have heard and participated in many of those conversations with you here. 

But what about on a bigger scale?

Do you see God working on the world stage?  Just a number of decades after the resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem, the Jews were expelled from the Holy Land for what many believed would be the last time.  Originally called Canaan before the Exodus, it was then known to Israel as the Promised Land.  Later to be called the Holy Land.  During the next 1800 years, this land would change hands many times.  From the time of the Greeks, it became known as Palestine.  The name Palestine itself comes from the Hebrew word for Philistia.  It was the Greeks way of taking the land away from Israel and giving it back to the Philistines.  The Romans too called the region Palestine and so did every other nation until 1948. 

Now for those that remember back to 1973, what was called the Yom Kippur war, you witnessed the strong hand of God on a global scale.  On the Day of Atonement, when Israel fasted and prayed, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack from two sides against Israel.  The Arab armies had over a two to one superiority in Men and tanks.  The one area that Israel could stand evenly with them is their air force but as we learned all too well in WWII, the air force is the first to fall in a surprise attack.

The outcome was decisive, although both sides lost most of their aircraft and tanks; Israel prevailed in the loss of soldiers killing 9 for every Israeli death.

This wasn’t the first time Israel’s neighbors wanted to destroy them.  A few years earlier, in 1967, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, supported by over 7 other Arab nations; mobilized at the Israeli borders on all sides with the intent to invade and finally destroy Israel.  But this time, Israel struck first just before they were about to be attacked.   In what is now called the six-day war.  Israel defeated all five of those nations.  Just as before, the Arab countries outnumbered Israel 2 to 1.  And the outcome was a terrific victory for Israel.  The Arabs lost over 20,000 men killed to only about 900 Israelis. That is more than 20 to 1 killed in favor of Israel.  This was even a bigger victory than 1973.

Once upon a time, God fought for Israel and they could never be defeated as long as they had God’s blessings.  We know from prophecy that Israel would be a nation at the end times.  For almost 2000 years, people have doubted that Israel had any prophetic significance.  Even since the re-establishment of a Jewish state in Israel, many contend that this had nothing to do with bible prophecy and therefore, God’s hand was not in the events I just covered. 

Turn over the book of Daniel chapter 12.

Daniel is a prophetic book that contains many fulfilled prophecies of the rise and fall of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.  But it also contains many yet unfulfilled prophecies.  There is a prophetic phrase that is used only in Daniel and then quoted by Jesus in the Gospels.  It’s found at the end of the book regarding the End of Days.  After describing many of the end time events that God’s people should watch for, we read this in verse 9. 

Daniel 12:9-13   9 And he said, "Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end.  10 "Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand.  11 "And from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days.  12 "Blessed is he who waits and comes to the one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.  13 "But you, go your way till the end; for you shall rest, and will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days."  

Now some have said this was fulfilled in 167 B.C. when the Syrian ruler Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Judah, erected an idolatrous statue at the temple and sacrificed pigs on the temple altar.  Now there are often multiple fulfillments of a prophecy, but we know this was not completely fulfilled at this time because around 200 years later Jesus would quote Daniel in the Gospels. 

Matthew 24:13-16   13 "But he who endures to the end shall be saved.  14 "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.  15 " Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand),  16 "then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Now we also see a second partial fulfillment in 70 AD when the daily sacrifices were ended at the destruction of the Temple.  But what Daniel is talking about is that the daily sacrifices would end and then the end would come shortly thereafter.  Now since the daily sacrifices have not yet resumed, we can assume that at some time in the future they will.  We know that there are many Israelis who are planning on that eventuality.

When God uses His strong hand in the Bible we never doubt the authenticity of the event.  God will tell his prophet to have the people fight and they would and if they followed God’s instruction through His prophet, then they would be victorious.  But who actually heard God say this?  Often times it was only the prophet, everyone else had to go by faith.  When God gave them the victory, the trick for them was remembering to give God the credit.  When Gideon defeated the Midianites, God made sure that this would not happen.

Turn to 

Judges 7:6-8   6 And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water.  7 Then the LORD said to Gideon, "By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place."  8 So the people took provisions and their trumpets in their hands. And he sent away all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, and retained those three hundred men. Now the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.  

So Gideon’s army was reduced from 32,000 to only 350.  And how many would they fight?

Judges 7:12   12 Now the Midianites and Amalekites, all the people of the East, were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the seashore in multitude.

So even if you doubted that God told Gideon to attack them, the victory they had left no doubt that 350 could not have defeated an innumerable army without God’s help.

But what about in your life?

What do you need to believe that God is operating in your life?  How many victories do you need to believe that God fights for you?  Having God on our side does not mean we won’t endure trials and tribulations.  And why do we endure these things?

Romans 5:1-4  NKJ Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,  2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  3 And not only that but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;  4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope.

So ask yourself this, does the fact that God has brought you through so many rough times, prove to you that His Strong hand is alive and well in your life? We often believe God works in small ways to help us out but thinking of God in a global way is sometimes harder.  In 2005, I noted in a sermon about natural disasters that many in the community started to ask if the frequency of disasters meant an involvement by God.  I read from an NBC news article where they noted how many were asking if God was involved? But then, a few normal weather years and then all was forgotten.

Do we forget?

The modern nation of Israel has never had much time to forget the last time God delivered them from their enemies.  Ever since their establishment in 1948, they have been in constant peril.  Just 3 years after the Holocaust, when 6 million were killed by the Nazis, Jews from all over Europe sought a homeland.  Countries all over the world on both sides of WWII were anti-semitic and the thought of getting a homeland was a longshot at best.  Thanks to the United States and Britain, they were given that Homeland in the United Nations.  But in a cruel twist, those same countries prevented this emerging nation from being able to defend itself.

As the date of their birth grew near, Israel had no air force, no tanks, and few soldiers who had any training.  The former WWII allies started an arms embargo to prevent Israel from acquiring weapons.  Their enemies began to gather to invade and drive them into the Sea.  Many in the Arab League knew it would be a horrific bloodbath.  Some in their leadership were troubled so many Jews would die so soon after the holocaust but they must be cleared from Palestine.  The Arabs had some of the best WWII surplus sold to them by the Allies.  They had British Spitfires, British and American tanks, heavy arms tens of thousands of trained soldiers.

In Israel, everyone who was able became a soldier.  In men, Israel cobbled together 10,000 men and women with little to no training or arms.  They were invaded from the North, South, and East all at the same time from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq with twice as many men but well trained and well-armed with Tanks, armored personnel carriers and a trained air force.   

Israel had no air force and started buying planes on the black market in the last few months before being flown by volunteer pilots.  Cargo planes from the US sold to Jewish American pilots secretly funded. 

The first fighter planes came from an old Nazi war factory from Czechoslovakia, the only country to ignore the embargo. Today, armchair generals will tell you that the Israeli victory was impressive but not miraculous.  But a study in the battle tells a different story.

On May 15th, after the declaration of independence, Egypt attacked from the south with thousands of troops, tanks, artillery and planes against a few hundred Israelis with small arms.  In one engagement, 100 Israelis, armed only with rifles, held up a column of Tanks and 2500 men for 5 days.  The Egyptians finally broke free and started moving north toward Tel Aviv in two columns through Gaza.  On May 29th, the first of the Israeli fighters went into action.  4 German ME109s flown by volunteer pilots from other countries, attacked over 500 Egyptian tanks, armored personnel carriers, and trucks. These 4 Nazi aircraft caused the Egyptian forces to scatter and lose the initiative.  This gave valuable time for Israel to mount effective counterattacks and in the months to come they won the first of many wars.

The Jews never doubted God’s role in the re-establishment of the Jewish state even though most in the world does not see God’s strong hand.  Just as God helped Israel in their first war with Egypt in 1440s B.C., God helped Israel in our time.  God is very active in this world but most people miss it because they falsely assume that God is trying to save this age.  When you understand what God is doing in this end time era, His role in human events is much easier to see.

Let’s not forget to notice how God is active in our lives; both in small ways to bring us closer to Him, and in large ways to bring His Kingdom to this earth.  Let’s look for Him now when we are busy and not let ourselves become distracted from seeing His mighty hand in our lives.