Tuesday, 1 October 2013

Rehoboth : The Place of Resounding Victory © .

When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him ". Proverbs 16 : 7.
In  prolonged conflicts , the  right words are needed to revive  hope , to minister peace and to give assurance . The right words are good , they are edifying  and they are soothing ; like a balm  to troubled minds.
 But , words or rhetoric  only,  however good and soothing they may be ,  would not  do much to resolve life-threatening conflicts .
Rather than hearing soothing words, persons  labouring  under  yokes of afflictions and under-dogs such as victims  of  bullying and victims of  exploitation would appreciate speedy intervention  and concrete actions   to set them free and to  give them  their  desired peace .

Wickedness is all forms of disobedience  and opposition against God .
 "The wicked say there is  no God".
 They are unrelenting in their contempt  for God , in their hatred for God's people and for anything which  the wicked know  is for   God.  Proverbs 4 : 14 -16,17.
The wicked " eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of  violence!" 
 Oppressors do wickedness against their fellow men ; because they do not  believe in God  and so they fear neither God  nor man.
Therefore the wicked see the righteous  as soft targets  for their attacks , whenever they choose to attack.  
Rather than mere words  of rebuke, swift action  by a greater power is needed  to wrest control  from oppressors because the only language the wicked understands is the language of an order given by the most powerful person. 
Oppressors would only let go of their victims when they know their  victims have  the support of a stronger deliverer ; that is a deliverer who has the name , the reputation  and the fire- power to deliver all captives of the wicked  and  to inflict heavy losses on all oppressors.

The Almighty God  and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is the  Righteous Judge.
What He says He will do for  His people, He has done it already.
"For the kingdom of  God is not in word , but in power " . 1 Corinthians 4:20. 
God remembers his Covenant to Abraham and to his seed forever , even to Abraham's present-day  seed , His Church here on earth , who are called by faith.
 God is not  " just another big talker " ; He is the covenant-keeping God ; the  Mighty God who does glorious  and terrible  deeds .
" Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him ".  Psalm 50:3. 
 Not only  will God come  to deliver  His people in the future ; He has wrought their deliverance already . He  has prepared victories for His people , even before the day of  their battles.

Isaac , the child of promise to Abraham , God's friend ; obeyed God by  relocating  and dwelling in  Gerar , in the land of the Philistines  ; the land in which God promised to bless him. Genesis 26:2-6
Isaac  prospered in Gerar , thereby incurring the envy  and hostility of  of his  once - friendly hosts  Genesis 26:12-17.
Isaac and his people were out-numbered , perplexed and sorely afflicted by the wicked. 
They faced the life-threatening  challenge of  severe water scarcity caused by deliberate and  persistent blockages of the wells which  his father Abraham  had dug. Genesis 21:25 - 33. 
Each time their enemies filled Abraham's  wells with  earth, Isaac and his herdsmen  dug these wells again and again .
Then  God intervened  and rescued  Isaac , his household,  his herdsmen  and his flocks .
 They triumphed over  the stumbling  blocks  of  his enemies who strove with them  at  Esek  and Shitnah, 
 Isaac got his Rehoboth ; he came into his inheritance of peace and increase which were his even before Isaac was born.
 
When we know  who our God is , in the day of battle when  the enemy wages war against our destiny , our testimony  at the end of the day, must be  that we overcame them.
Isaac's  detractors , were incredulous when they heard about Isaac's miraculous increase.
 To the extent that  the Philistine  King Abimelech,  his chief general and his scribe , together with their entourage , they came  to check  out and to confirm  what  they had heard about Isaac's deliverance from  starvation in the desert which was their death-wish  for Isaac . 
Isaac's enemies  came , they saw and they confirmed the glorious spectacle of  Isaac's promotion and increase by  the Rehobothic  anointing .
Great were their testimonies about the awesomeness of the God of Isaac.
 They  were compelled  to testify publicly and acknowledge the mighty power of  the God of  Isaac. Genesis 26:26-27.
 Thereafter , King  Abimelech , Ahuzzath and Phicol who had cast Isaac from their midst .realised that Isaac was destined  for greater exploits.
 The glorious testimony to the God of  Isaac was that his enemies were forced to testify that  Isaac and his household  had , indeed, received unusual mercies and deliverance  from the Lord, their  God ; the Mighty One of Israel .
Thereafter, whether they liked it or not, they had  to bow  to Isaac, to seek peace with the  man whom they had ganged up against and cast out from their midst into the hostile desert .
" And they said, We saw certainly that the Lord was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee;
29 That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of the Lord.
30 And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink ". Genesis 26:28-30 .

 May this  be our  song  of deliverance . 
" O sing unto the Lord a new song ; for He has done marvellous deeds!
His right hand and His holy arm  has gotten Him the victory !"
"......  thou art now the blessed of the Lord ".
Our portion in the land of the living is that  ; not only  our own  testimonies must  resound before the heathen, but also our enemies must testify, whether they  like it or not ,  that  , indeed , we  have THE  mighty God on our side.  Amen.

* Copyright ;  Pneumalithos Publishers UK.

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