April 25, 2010
Scripture:
Prayer
1 Samuel 11
King Nahash attacked Jabeshgilead and wanted to poke out all their right eyes, so the people sent messengers throughout Israel to see if people would come to help them.
Our right eye is a type of faith, or trust. The Bible tells us to live by faith, and to trust in the Lord; but we have an enemy who wants to take away our faith. Once there was a daughter of a missionary that wanted a doll. So she prayed, and the Lord gave her a doll in some supplies that people sent to help the missionaries. Satan wants to make us doubt that God will hear our prayers, but God wants us to have faith when we pray.
Psalm 84:12. May we be encouraged to believe that the Lord will hear and answer prayer.
So the messengers come to Gibeah, where Saul lives, and Saul is working in the field. Even though he was the king, he was working. It is good to work hard memorizing verses and such when we are young, so that the Lord can use us when we get older.
The Spirit of the Lord falls on Saul when he hears what is happening, and he is angry. He calls all the men to come and fight, telling them that he will kill their oxen if they don’t come. This wasn’t very nice, but it was effective. All the people came, and there were 330,000 of them. Saul sends the messengers back to tell the people of Jabeshgilead that they will have help.
The next morning Saul and his army attach King Nahash and his men and won the battle. They came upon them “in the morning watch”, which was from 3 o’clock to 6 o’clock in the morning. Saul got there early and was able to win. If we are going to win against our enemy, then we must get up early to read the Bible and pray. That way we are ready if he tries to take our faith.
Now, when Saul was first made king there were some people who didn’t think that Saul would be a good king. Now that Saul has won this battle, some of the people want to kill these people. However, Saul gives the Lord the credit for the victory and says that nobody will be killed. So the people, Saul and Samuel go to Gilgal to renew the kingdom, offer peace offerings and rejoice.
May we be encouraged to do right, not let Satan steal our faith, and give glory to God for helping us fight our enemy.
In Ezra, we read about the dedication of the temple and the altar; now, we are reading about the dedication of the wall. What is dedication? It is very similar to sanctification, which is to set something apart for God.
In v. 1, we see that those who first came back with Zerubabel are listed here. It isn’t apparent why they are listed here, but it is pointed out that they were priests and Levites. They had the job of thanksgiving, v.
V. 9: this census includes the watchmen; they were probably the men up on the wall, watching for enemies. We have an enemy who wants to get in at out weakest moments. May we remember to be on guard.
V. 22: Eliashib is the last high priest mentioned in the Old Testament; sadly, he was not a very good one. We’ll see in the next chapter that he was a partner of Tobias, the enemy.
V. 24: we saw people giving thanks earlier; now both thanks and praise are mentioned, in connection with David. We know that David wrote very many psalms of praise and thanksgiving. Although we don’t know if David wrote Psalm 107, it repeats “Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!”
V. 25: Now we come to the porters who kept the gates.They were responsible for who came in and went out. We have that same responsibility in the meeting, although it’s not always easy.
And this is all recorded; God keeps track of those who are faithful to Him.
Hymn 234 - Saviour, lead me lest I stray
Prayer