4. From Man’s Strength to God’s Power! Psalm 74:8-12

Text: “Thou Wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth (trusts, and continues to trust) in Thee.”

Isaiah 26:3.

Good morning, besieged Christian!  Because you are a Bible-believing, Spiritually regenerate, Christian – and are seeking to militantly and actively serve the Christ Who has saved you: you feel constantly under the oppressions and Spiritual onslaught of the world, the flesh, and the Devil. 

Praise God for you, dear brother/sister!  Praise God for your every trial and testing!  Why?  Because the depth and consistency of your trials and temptations, your daily war with Amalek, is a proof positive of your regenerated Standing in the Christ of God, King Jesus Christ, the Captain of Heaven’s hosts.  Glory and praise to His Holy Name!  Victory in Him!

“Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim…And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword…And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah nissi: for he said, Because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”  (Exodus 17:8-16)

The world of the unregenerate, those not born again of the Spirit of God, through the one-time Sacrifice of the Living Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary’s Cross – are duty-bound to oppose all that the true Christian is, does, says, and believes.  Fact. 

The Lord Jesus did not come to make peace with the world, he brought the Sword of His Word to us, in order to grant faith to ‘His people’ and to make the separation between us and the world complete.  Check it out!

“Think not that I (the Lord Jesus Christ) am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.  For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother-in-law.  And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” (Matthew 10:34-36)

The SWORD that Christ brings is, of course, the Sword of the Spirit, His inspired Word.  “For the Word of God is quick (alive), and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (inner-being, essence of man).”  (Hebrews 4:12)

Christ’s Sword divides, in the sense that it imparts to God’s elect souls His vital gift of believing faith – that is, faith to believe (trust) and continue to believe the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified for to bear away the sins of ‘His people’. (Matthew 1:21)

Only those whom our Sovereign Lord God has chosen (elected) in Eternity to receive His gift of faith, shall ever receive it.  All others hear the universal call of the Gospel, but without God’s gift of saving faith, profit nothing from their hearing.  Salvation is of the Lord!

“For unto us (the elect) was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them (the unsaved, the reprobate): but the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”  (Hebrews 4:2)

“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” (Romans 10:17)

The Lord Jesus Christ came into this sinful world to save only ‘His people’ from our sins – all that God the Father has given Him in Eternity for Him to save in time.  All others can hear the Gospel message, but alas, can never understand its meaning – for it is sheer foolishness to their ears.

“But the natural man (unregenerate, reprobate) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are Spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Therefore, we can now understand how and why there comes this variance, this enmity, this contrary opposition in families, when once members of that family are blessed with faith to believe and receive Eternal Salvation in Christ and His full Atonement Sacrifice at the Cross, and others cannot even understand what has happened!  Immediately, the new Christian convert begins to experience opposition and often angry treatment from close family members who had loved them all their lives.  It becomes a ‘them’ and ‘us’ Spiritual division.

Verse 8. “They said in the their hearts, let us destroy them together. Pharaoh’s policy to stamp out the nation has been a precedent for others, yet the Jews survive, and will: the bush though burning has not been consumed.  Even thus the church of Christ has gone through baptisms of blood and fire, but it is all the brighter for them.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 321)

Throughout the history of the Christian church, it has been a vicious battle between the strength and might of man, and the Spiritual power of the Lord God Jehovah.

In this manner, the genuine Bible-believing, born again Christian shall always suffer reproach and often repression from the unsaved world all around him/her and from the spiritual darkness of Satan’s vile servants.  This persecution is promised to each true saint.

“Yea, and all that will live Godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (2 Timothy 3:12)

Verse 10. “Shall the enemy blaspheme Thy Name forever? The sinner never leaves his/her sin till sin first leaves him/her: did not death put a stop to his sin, he would never cease from sin.  Every impenitent sinner would sin to the days of Eternity, if he might live to the days of Eternity.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 321)

The apostle Paul suffered such attendant persecutions and sufferings from unregenerate man: “Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at I conium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me.”  (2 Timothy 3:12)

However tempted he may have been, he never sought to use his own arm of flesh to defend or attack his cruel adversaries – God’s power overcomes all human or demonic opposition.

 “…Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”      (Zechariah 4:6)

Jesus promises: “…In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”  (John 16:33) Man’s strength is no defence against God’s power.

Thought: “For God is my King of old, working Salvation in the midst of the earth.”