By Liaf
In one of my previous messages, I made the comment that I was on a "prayer chain" at my church. Oftentimes the subject of the prayers is for healing of the people. To a lesser extent, some people feel compelled to praise God for a healing He performed. Once in awhile, other general requests are passed along. Sensing the impending war with Iraq (and maybe by the time you read this we will be at war), the downtrodden economy with many of us losing our jobs of long standing, and threats of attack, a prayer chain request was made to "pray for the shielding of our nation". This will be a short albeit important message. Oh how I wish the fearful and unbelieving would come to my Sunday school class! As always, I ask, "What does the Bible say about praying for the shielding of our nation?"
Let's turn to Genesis 15:1 in our KJV Bibles where we read:
After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
In this part of Genesis we are in the midst of a vast array of promises (covenants) that God was making with Abram. That's what this site is about. Certainly God was reassuring Abram that He was his protector, and the reward (e.g. benefit) in which Abram was living for. Yes, the Hebrew words mean just that! God made promises to Abram--- promises of a powerful earthly people for His kingdom and a Seed from which salvation would also come. We already have oodles of messages about this. This should be old stuff to you. However, when God made these promises to Abram, the understanding was that God would carry them out to his prosperity as well in order that His purpose would be fulfilled through them. Otherwise, God would have been a liar. What does the Bible say about God carrying out His promises to Abram's seed? We turn to Genesis 26:24 where we read what the Lord said to his son Isaac:
And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake.
God was going to carry out His plan "for His servant Abraham's sake". This was understood to pass from generation to generation as the "birthright" until it was to reach its fruition. Even Moses interceded on behalf of the Israelites when God was about to destroy them on their way to Canaan. Moses' point to God in his intercession was that God made promises to their fathers (the story is found in Exodus chapter 32). So even many generations later these promises were understood to be in effect. Hence, when we read prophecy concerning Israel, we can assuredly understand why God said, "But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend." This is STILL in effect as evidenced by the fact that ALL Israel will be gathered back to their land and restored in the latter days. Therefore, if God promised that He was Abram's SHIELD, and He will be with Israel until the end of time, it stands to reason He is Israel's SHIELD right now! Make sense? Who are the people of Israel? What do we teach here? Is the United States one of the great nations prophesied to Abraham? Yes, it is! Therefore, the United States also possesses that shield ALREADY. As a matter of fact, DEUTERONOMY 33:28-29 clearly says that God is our shield. This prophecy takes place in the latter "lost tribe" days.
You see, we seemingly do not have God's protection because we put down the shield, not because we do not have it. We felt we could get along fine without God. I get the sense that Christians (sincerely but ignorantly) pray, "We'll be good again, give us back the protection and blessings we once had." They probably do not know why they had them to begin with. The crude understanding is that we've been bad little boys and girls, so if we promise to be good, God will give back to us again what He took away from us in His anger. No! God took nothing away. We merely refused to tap His source of power! So we should be taking up the shield in faith and using it.
If we compare God's shield to a wall outlet with power there, we merely unplugged our appliance from the outlet. But to pray to God for protection is about as nonsensical as calling the power company to restore our lost power to the appliance we unplugged ourselves! So you see, we are praying for the wrong thing. We are blind. Instead, we should be thanking God for what He already gave to us through Abraham and as such we would have NOTHING to fear.
Here comes a hell-fire preacher that one may see on TV. "Ohhhhh, Liaf is one of those false prophets that cry 'peace, peace' when there is no peace!" Hold your horses. If we turn to the Old Testament where prophets prophesied calamity to Israel, how many times do you find it mentioned that God would repent of His anger if they turn back to Him? Quite often. That's all I am saying. The issue with the "peace, peace" prophets was that because of God's promises they felt they could do no wrong---- nothing bad would happen no matter what. That's NOT what I am saying. If we do wrong by putting God's shield down, we will reap severe correction! THE GREAT TRIBULATION!! But if we turn back to Him, we can avoid that, even if I can persuade men to do so for one more generation. Alas, I must admit I do not have the faith this will happen, at least not forever. The Tribulation will come. People will not hear me and well-meaning Christians will still say, "Pray for the shielding of our nation". OK. If you do not believe we even have a shield, then such a prayer is the ultimate act of putting of it down. In that case, you will experience what you fear the most. Make your choice.
With that thought in mind, I let you with this prophetic verse:
Israel then shall dwell in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places.
DEUTERONOMY 33:28-29