Unseen Assistance

 

Butterflies, they are amazing, not just because of their beauty but because of the way they are created: the caterpillar becomes completely encased in a sealed “room” and in a few days emerges as a beautiful butterfly. There is no way a brainless grub could transform itself into a magnificent butterfly like that without the intervention of a super intelligent scientific God. Our “God  works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform”. We don’t see Him working, we just see the result of His work, and this has always been the case.

A good example of this was when many years ago a man called Joshua, who was in charge of the Israelites, was told by God to capture the walled city of Jericho. As he approached it he met a man with drawn sword who said he was the Captain of the Lord’s Armies (Joshua 5:14). Now those armies were invisible to Joshua however after Joshua had obeyed instructions to march around the city for 7 days the walls just collapsed. Who was it pushed those walls down? Joshua’s people didn’t even touch them! Unseen assistance.

There was also a man named Elisha, a real man of God, but the king of Syria hated him and sent a great force of soldiers to surround the city of Dothan where Elisha was staying. Elisha’s servant was dismayed by the size of the Syrian army however Elisha said “Fear not for they that be for us are greater than those that be against us” and he then prayed to God to “open the servant’s eyes so he could see” and then the servant saw that the hills were “filled with horses and chariots of fire.” Consequently there was an excellent outcome and no one was even hurt. (2 Kings 6:15) Unseen assistance!

Then there was a young man named Gideon (Judges 6) who was told by an angel (who apparently just looked like an ordinary man), that he was chosen to remove the hordes of marauding Mideonites with just 300 men to help him as God wanted to show that in the finality He was the one in charge. When Gideon’s men blew their trumpets in the night God caused the Mideonites to panic and they attacked each other. In short, 120,000 of them died, the rest ran away and Gideon didn’t lose one soldier. The bible documents many occasions when God intervened like this to assist His followers. In Acts 16:26 Paul and Silas were imprisoned, the church prayed for their release and there was a great earthquake which opened the prison doors and miraculously their bands were loosed so they were able to escape. However they chose to delay leaving so that they could first help the jailor become a Christian.

In Acts 5:19 the Apostles were released by an angel for whom the doors of the jail opened by themselves and the apostle’s chains fell off and he guided them out into the street. We are talking here of helpers from the Heavenly realm who may or may not be visible but assist those who love the Lord to achieve outcomes that would normally be impossible. Thankfully “God is the same yesterday, to-day and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). However Faith and Prayer are the “keys” needed to unlock these resources. Mark 6:5 states that Jesus could do no mighty works in His “hometown” of Nazareth because of the people’s lack of faith.  In recent times I have been looking at Australia and thinking, and (worse still) saying, that I believed that within 20 or 30 years this will be a sorry place for my Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren and others agreed with me. I now want to apologise for my part in that fatalistic attitude and believe we should ask God to intervene as he did for the people mentioned above. Jesus taught us to affirm with God (in the Lord’s Prayer) that “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” which is what we want. Some people may think that quote refers to the earth after Jesus returns (because that certainly will be the case then) but that is a pre-planned “done deal” and will eventually happen whether we pray or not, so I think that prayer is  a request to change things for us now. We should always be ready for Jesus return of course; however it may be a long time before that eventuates (2 Peter 3:8). During the last 2000 years there have been many occasions when people thought the end was close, meanwhile it would be nice to have God’s “will done on earth as it is in heaven” wouldn’t it?. Jesus also said in Matthew 21:22 “All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive”. I believe we are to use the “Lord’s Prayer” like that so God will instruct His angels to intervene and make some needed changes for us.  Best wishes, Tom.

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Giving

This map of Israel shows the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee at the top is fed by a river & the overflow goes down the Jordan River into the Dead Sea at the bottom of the map. Because of this “flow through” of water the Sea of Galilee is a “living Sea”, well stocked with fish, The water in the Jordan River is healthy too because it is flowing, however the Dead Sea which receives “in flow” from the Jordan has no “out flow” so is dead, as its name implies.

This is just a parable of life; In the New Testament, Jesus said, (as recorded by Luke in chapter 6 and verse 38) “Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over...” That is the Authorised version. To put it into modern English the New Living Translation expresses it like this: “Give and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over....” These are translations of Jesus words which describe a God given principle that applies to everything including the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River the Dead Sea and You and Me!

I started thinking about this after a lady came to me in the Mall and told me that she has become the carer for her father who has lost his ability to care for himself, and she said what a blessing that has been to her, you see she is giving her time and ability out of loving concern and is therefore blessed. When we talk of giving we often think of money, but there are lots of things to give and lots of ways to give that don’t necessarily involve money and are probably a far greater blessing to the receivers, and interestingly Jesus said (Acts 20:35)“It is more blessed to give than to receive”.  I’m not ignoring money as it too can be used to bless someone but it certainly isn’t the only thing nor is it the most important. Paul tells young Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:10 that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Oh I know it can be a wonderful thing if we are generous with it however it can also become a “god”, there are scores of people stacking it away selfishly. Peter and John were going to worship in the temple when a crippled man lying there asked them for money however these two apostles had probably already given away all they had so Peter said “I don’t have any Silver or Gold but what I do have I will give you; In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” and he took him by the right hand and the man stood up completely healed (Acts 3:6).  Now my guess is that the man who was cured didn’t give their lack of money one more thought as “he went walking and leaping and praising God”. Never feel inadequate if you haven’t any money to share, give what you do have, things like friendship, time to listen, encouragement and so on. We can all do that.

A man was on his way to church with his family and was running late when he came up to another man who had a flat tyre on his car and was having trouble changing it.  One of the children said “dad can’t we stop and help him, he looks to be in trouble” but Dad replied “I would like to son, but we are already late for church ”so he kept going. Now it was lovely that he was taking his family to church to worship Jesus, however it was Jesus who said we should “love our neighbour as we love ourselves” and if we even “give a cup of water in his name as far as he is concerned it is the same as if we did it to him” and 1 John 3:17 says that he who has the wherewithal to help someone and doesn’t do so “how dwells the love of God in him?”.

When writing to the Ephesian Christians, Paul clarifies an interesting point here when he says in chapter 2 verses 8 & 9: “God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago”. Wherever I go I see lonely people. We shouldn’t be too busy to stop and have a chat. Some day if you and I are old and looking at the ceiling, for hours on end, in an Aged Care Home we will wonder why people are too busy to come and have a chat with us, and how it was that we couldn’t spare a few minutes to have a chat to those lonely people we saw. According to Jesus, five minutes spent in loving concern would not be 5 minutes lost, but 5 minutes invested that will return with interest.

“Give and it shall be given unto you”. Some food for thought. Regards, Tom.