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"MAKE IT
AS SECURE AS YOU CAN" #2
SATAN'S TINKER TOYS
It's reputed to be the most wrenching, realistic 25
minutes of war footage ever shot: the opening reel in Steven Spielberg's
World War II epic, Saving Private Ryan. In the book version by Max Allan
Collins, the author describes how on June 6, 1944, Captain John H. Miller
and his troops in the Charlie Company, Second Ranger Batallion, are riding
into the very teeth of the battle of Omaha Beach. And these American GIs,
of course, are armed to the hilt. They have their rifles, their hand grenades.
Flame throwers. Explosive charges. And as they get to the landing site,
their captain gives last-minute instructions about getting out of the
LCVP, and what to do next.
Well, they drop down the protective gate so that the men can disembark,
and INSTANTLY the soldiers are raked with deadly machine-gun fire. I mean,
the Germans are simply waiting for them. The sniper's nest on the beach
opens fire on them, and INSTANTLY two-thirds of the men are dead. Just
like that.
Well, it's a sad, tragic memory . . . and what a horrible thing it is
to witness similar carnage here in 1999, and realize how little the human
race has learned in the last half-century. The war to end all wars turned
out not to be, didn't it?
And yet we're reminded again of the biblical lesson we learned yesterday.
Because it's possible for well-intentioned human beings to make great
plans, and construct elaborate defensive strategies. You can have all
sorts of guns and bullets with you in your landing boat. And yet, when
you drop down that protective gate, you find that superior forces immediately,
INSTANTLY overwhelm you. You're no match for them.
There's an Old Testament story where we discover a similar war theater.
In fact, this one happens on the beach too. A genius general named Pharaoh
has maneuvered the enemy into the perfect, vulnerable position. This ragtag
bunch of Israelites with virtually no weapons, no firepower is pinned
down. The Red Sea is right in front of them. There are mountains on both
sides. And coming up behind them is the entire Egyptian force. There's
absolutely no way Pharaoh and his charioteers can lose. On paper they've
got them. On the field they've got them. In terms of machine guns and
ICBM missiles, they've got them.
There's only one thing Pharaoh hasn't got. He hasn't got a heavenly God
who can split the Red Sea in two. But Moses does. And when the Egyptian
army gets to the edge of the Red Sea, and then tries to cross over on
that same miracle Interstate, they find themselves INSTANTLY overwhelmed.
I mentioned yesterday a certain foolish, pathetic almost amusing New
Testament sentence. A man named Pontius Pilate says to the Roman soldiers
and temple priests: "Go out there to Jesus' tomb. And make it as
secure as you can." Which, considering that their enemy isn't just
"almost dying," He's already stone-cold dead, shouldn't be a
huge task. And yet "make it as secure as you can" turns out
to be absolutely no match for the power of heaven. When God decides to
speak, a huge stone is rolled away, and a dead Savior turns into a live
one.
The intriguing book of Job has some very salient comments about the power
of heaven and about huge stones that need to be rolled away. Actually,
sometimes big tyrants and evil kings need to be rolled out of the way
too. And in chapter 12, Job makes this observation about God:
"He makes nations great, and destroys them;
He enlarges nations, and disperses them."
It's a very serious thing when the Ruler of the universe
addresses a human king, and says to him: "You know, I really don't
want for you to be king any longer." God did that to Saul, you might
recall; you can read about it in First Samuel 15. And it didn't matter
what kinds of armies Saul amassed after that, or what political shenanigans
he tried to pull. When God said it was over, it was over.
Through His servant, the prophet Daniel, God sent a message to the Babylonian
king, Belshazzar, that HIS time was up. "You have been weighed in
the balances and found wanting." You can read the whole thing in
Daniel chapter five; it's a marvelous story. And then in verse 28 God
announces, again through Daniel, the ancient, undecipherable code word
and its meaning:
"Peres. Your kingdom is divided and given
to the Medes and Persians."
When did the overthrow happen? That night. Belshazzar
ruled for maybe another half an hour before the Medo-Persian army stormed
through the defenseless city and took it. No wonder that at the very end
of this wonderful book of Job, when everything turns out all right, God's
faithful servant confesses:
"I know that You can do all things; no plan
of Yours can be thwarted."
Well, friend, maybe you and I didn't serve with Private
Ryan in World War II. And so these military analogies don't mean much
to me. But I would suggest to you today that this promise in Job 42 applies
to you and me as well.
"I know that You can do all things, [Lord];
no plan of Yours can be thwarted."
In their outstanding book, Too Busy NOT to Pray, Bill
Hybels and LaVonne Neff tell the personal story of a woman who was at
Hybels' church one Sunday when another woman was baptized. And Bill met
this younger woman afterwards, and she was crying. Tears of happiness,
apparently, but still crying. And he asked her: "How come?"
As it turns out, the weeping woman was the daughter of the lady being
baptized. And she told Hybels: "I began to pray for my mom to be
converted 20 YEARS ago! And I prayed and prayed for something like five
years, and nothing happened. So I thought, This is stupid. God's not
going to answer my prayer.' But for some reason I kept on."
And she told Pastor Hybels how she kept on praying to the Lord for TEN
years. No answer. Her mom showed absolutely no interest in God, no willingness
to even CONSIDER the claims of Jesus Christ. Fifteen years. Nothing. Now
even her best Christian friends were telling her to just give it up. "People
have free will. God can't force anyone to be saved." Which is certainly
true. But this woman kept on praying. In fact, she got to 19 years with
still no results. No conversion, no baptism. "And I almost gave up
then," she told Hybels. "One year ago, I just about quit. But
for some reason I kept on."
Now, with the tears of happiness streaming down her face, she admitted:
"Now my mom is a Christian. After 20 years!" And this faithful
Christian realized that God truly WAS able to accomplish all things.
And you know, in terms of a military campaign, Lucifer appeared to have
this woman totally blockaded from the Holy Spirit's power. There was a
fort, and a moat, and tanks, and machine gun snipers, and flamethrowers,
and an entire armada of F1 fighters to keep the gospel out. Satan had
said to his evil army, "Go! Make our battle line as secure as you
can . . . because this woman is one we want to keep as our prisoner!"
And yet, just as God swept through on Resurrection Sunday and so EASILY
raised His own Son to life, when the time was right, He empowered His
Holy Spirit to simply break through all of Lucifer's defenses like they
were a bunch of Tinker Toys.
Listen, friend, don't ever once doubt the power of God. From a human perspective,
your position might appear to be absolutely hopeless. Perhaps financially.
Or in terms of a scarred, broken marriage. Maybe spiritually you feel
like Satan has you totally pinned down. We get eight-page letters from
people who tell us, with tear stains on every page, that they are completely
LOCKED into a destructive pattern: drugs, incest, gambling, embezzling.
And I'm sure Satan exults at his apparent success. "We can't be beat!"
he cries, forgetting what happened to him right outside the tomb of Joseph
of Arimathea. Forgetting what happened on his side of the battlefield
when Gideon and the tiniest of armies just 300 men linked forces with
God. Forgetting what happened to him at Bill Hybels' church on that memorable
Sunday morning.
One of the best chapters in Hybels' book, by the way Too Busy NOT to
Pray shares a powerful prayer acronym that many believers are using
these days. It goes like this: A.C.T.S. Which stands for: Adoration, Confession,
Thanksgiving, and Supplication.
We can't delve into all of this four-part prayer plan, but Hybels describes
compellingly the importance of beginning our prayers with that "A"
Adoration. BEGIN your prayer by simply praising God for His power. For
His awesome abilities. For His creative wonders. For all the things we
know He has done, and CAN do, and WILL do in the universe and in our lives.
Praise Him for the fact that on Sunday morning, Jesus came out of the
tomb with such wonderful EASE. Thank Him for the fact that all of Satan's
defenses are just Tinker Toys and kindergarten blocks when God and His
armies move in.
Now, friend, here's the point. When you begin your prayer with adoration,
with several minutes of praise to God for His great power . . . imagine
what that does to your confidence when it comes time for requests and
"supplication." If you've prayed for a friend to be saved, and
you've been at it for 19 years, keep at it! Because we KNOW that God can
and will make His move when the time is perfect and right. If a friend
is sick or if YOU'RE the one who's hurting pray with confidence, knowing
that God always CAN heal you, and that He most certainly WILL at the absolutely
perfect moment.
We've said it before: Satan is mighty, but God is Almighty!
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