Sunday 1 July 2007

The Lord of Hosts is With Us

I was watching the 1964 classic Zulu last night and as the story goes 4000 Zulu warriors attack a post manned by 149 British soldiers. One of the Christian missionaries living with the soldiers asks the sergeant to call upon the Lord for his own salvation and the sergeant responds with a rendering of the Psalms 46:8-11.

8 Come, behold the works of the LORD,
what desolations he hath made in the earth.

9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth;
he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder;
he burneth the chariot in the fire.

10 Be still, and know that I am God:
I will be exalted among the heathen,
I will be exalted in the earth.

11 The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge

Some very strong verses indeed.

The sergeant remarks, 'it might have been written for a soldier'. Very true and as I feel, very relevant to our times even though they were probably written " on the occasion of the invasion of Israel by the Assyrian King Sennacherib and his 185,000 veteran troops." [Ref]

The first line of every verse in the section is fascinating and has a message.
Come and behold the works of the LORD.
He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the Earth.
Be still and know that I am God.
The LORD of hosts is with us.

The verses call unto us to leave what is holding our attention and to focus upon the works of the mighty One. He has the power to stop wars, He has the power to give us what we need, He has the power to lead us from a falling World Trade Center tower to safety [Ref]. He is the God of Hosts and He is with US.

There is only one question and it can be asked in many ways. Do we really want to be led unto safety? Do we really want to experience real life? Do we really want to know God?

According to 2007 Australian census data [Ref], one in every five people is an atheist and the fastest growing religion in Australia is not Christianity.

Makes me wonder.

The question that bothers me is not the number of people that are atheist but the number of people who have not yet bothered to find out about God through the Holy Bible and claim to be atheists, because they are the ones losing out when the answers are so close and so near.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is awesome... Thanks for sharing it... write more things like this too :)