NO WEAPON FORMED UP AGAINST US
Isaiah 54:17
No weapon formed against you shall prosper, And every tongue which rises against you in judgment You shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, And their righteousness is from Me," Says the Lord.
A friend and myself were in the southern Missouri mountains turkey hunting many years ago. It had been a slow day with no birds being heard. We had been walking a ways, stopping and calling, waiting a while and moving on. At one point we were walking down a narrow dirt road that had been bulldozed into the side of the hills. I was leading as we walked and we had just called from one location. We came around a sharp curve in the road when just 15 yards or so in front of me I saw the end of a 12 gauge shotgun barrel pointed right at me.
The thoughts that go through your head at a time like this are not good thoughts. I fully expected to see a flash from the gun, I thought I was a goner. Before I could say anything the turkey hunter jumped up and took off down the mountain. I was shook all day and even today, 25 years later it still bothers me when I think about what might have happened.
I'm not sure about everyone else, but I know there are days when I certainly feel like there are weapons coming against me that are prospering in destroying me. I feel as though I have a shotgun pointed at me and the one holding the gun is squeezing down on the trigger. And yet at the end of the day I still stand and the Lord stands with me.
I read a short note once that said, "God never said that the weapons wouldn't form, He just promised that they wouldn't prosper". If we have a personal relationship with God and weapons come against us in life, we have the promise that they will not prosper. Our God still sits on His throne in Heaven and He is still in control.
As I grew up I was told that someday, as Christians, we would come up against those that would want us beaten back, or even dead. 50 years ago, as kids, we saw that as a scare tactic... but today it's a reality. The spiritual forces of this world seem to be coming down against us. The weapons being used against Christians are far different than what I imagined as a child. The media, our own government and so many other weapons are pressing in hard on Christians today.
Most of us, including me, would prefer to think of our nation as godly, as our forefathers meant it to be. We don't want to think that something as ugly and brutal as combat could be involved in any way with God's spiritual realm. However, would any true Christian say that Calvary Hill was not a sacred space? Yet this was a place of terrible, spiritual warfare. The enemy today is coming against us as hard as any time in the past. He doesn't want God's word out there. He wants us beaten back, he wants us silenced.
The weapons of man, a sword, a hammer and spikes, a crown of thorns, a whip, lying tongues (the greatest weapon of all) and even a brutal cross were all brought against Christ... But in the end not one of these weapons won. Three days after Christ died, He rose again... Even the weapon of death didn't stand up against Gods power. We've got that same power available to us 24/7. We know that in the end, after all the world does to us, God prevails.
The only power satan has to harm us is when we believe him. To believe him is to disbelieve the promises of God. But if we will walk in faith, we will beat back all his judgments against us.
So take on God's armor and trust that while they might be built to hurt us, "no weapon formed against you shall prosper, all those who rise up against us shall fall."
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