Nov 18 2008
Tuesday, November 18th
Readings for today: Numbers 16:41-17:13, II Corinthians 3:7-8
“On the next day all the congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘You have killed the people of the Lord.’” Numbers 16:41
It’s often hard to understand why God allows bad things to happen, such as the events in Numbers 16 and 17. The Israelites felt the same way: why did God cause all those people to die? But in reality, questioning such things shows a lack of faith. It means we’re not sure God did the right thing. Real peace comes when we believe God knows best, and that He’ll always make the right decision — even if we don’t yet understand why.
The Isrealites showed a lack of faith in God, and so were powerless.
“Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.”
Hosea 7:9
Israel wasn’t even aware that her vitality and vibrancy were gone. In Judges 16, we see the same thing happen in the life of Samson. One of the saddest verses in the Bible is where we read that he stood up and “wist not that the Spirit of the Lord was departed from him” (see Judges 16:20). His hair was cut and now he was powerless - but he didn’t even know it until it was too late.
This is what’s tricky about losing our spiritual vitality. We don’t even know it until the enemy is there. We realize only too late that our strength is gone. To the people of Israel, Hosea says, “Yes, you’re celebrating your liberality right now and enjoying your material prosperity. But you don’t realize the enemy is at the gates. You’re going to stand up like Samson, thinking you’ll be able to take them on, but you’re going down. A stranger will devour you.” Indeed, just as the Philistines devoured Samson, so the Assyrians would devour Israel.
If we ignore our walk with the Lord - our devotional life, times of prayer, times of fellowship - there will be an enemy from hell on the way. When he comes, we can’t stand up to him if we have no backlog, no history, no consistency in our walk with the Lord. And we’ll go down as a result.
The disciples found this to be true. When Jesus was on Mount Hermon, the disciples below were trying to cast out a demon from a boy. But they were powerless to do so. When Jesus came down, He cast out the demon - and the disciples asked, “Why couldn’t we do that?”
“This kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting,” Jesus answered (see Matthew 17:21).
The question obviously is, “How could the disciples have known this would happen?”
And that’s the point Jesus is making. We should be living a life of prayer and fasting because we don’t know when we’re going to be face to face with the enemy. We need to have a history, a backlog, a discipline of fasting and prayer so that when the enemy does come, when the opportunity does arise, we’ll have the power to deal with the challenge.
Israel mistakenly thought that, because she was prospering, she would be invincible. Little did she know that in a matter of years Assyria would destroy her. Don’t be like Israel. Don’t find yourself sidelined by the enemy because you didn’t take seriously the message of Hosea. Don’t think that you don’t need to pray or seek the Lord with intensity but that you’ll just cruise into church occasionally. If you do, like Israel, you’ll be half-baked. Like Samson, you’ll be powerless.