You're Never Alone

Series: The Battle After the Battle

Leslie Basham: Feeling powerless today and outnumbered? You're not alone. You're never alone. It's Monday, February 17; and you're listening to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Many times we feel the opposition is too hard and we are too weak. We may even think that God is asking too much of us--that we can't possibly live victoriously in our circumstances. That's not an uncommon feeling. Fortunately for us, the Bible deals with it specifically. Let's listen as Nancy tells us about the courage one man found through faith.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: I think sometimes when we present the Gospel to people, we do them a disservice by suggesting that the Christian life, when you come to Christ, you're going to have joy and peace and happiness and wonder. Though we wouldn't say it this way, the suggestion is that your life is hard now, but when you come to Jesus your life will be easy. You'll get delivered from these problems, from this pain, from these difficult situations.

People do then come to trust Christ sometimes under a wrong or false impression and discover before they've been a Christian very long at all that they have plopped right down into a middle of a battle. I think if they're not prepared for the battle, this can be really disillusioning. The battle takes place on many fronts, but there's a lot of warfare imagery in the Scripture.

If you're a child of God, the Scripture says that you are in a battle. You may find yourself at times on the front lines of that war. We need to understand something of what the battle entails, who is involved, what the sides are and how it works. We're not going to go into great detail in that in this session, but I want us to look at a passage in the Old Testament that gives us some insight into some of the enemies that we face and some of the ways and means that God has given us to face and to defeat and to overcome those enemies.

Let me ask you to turn in your Bible to Genesis 14. As we go through the passage, we're going to see that Abram, which is the name for Abraham before God changed his name to Abraham--he has been chosen by God. He has been taken out of his pagan, idolatrous background and chosen by God to be the father of a new people, a nation set apart for God, the Jewish race--out of whom would come the Messiah. So that's who we're talking about--Abram, one of the first major characters in the Old Testament and one of the most important.

In this passage that's a fairly obscure passage in Abram's life, he faces two battles. Now there is one that is described in some detail that is the obvious battle. It is a major battle. Enabled by the power of God, Abram scores a decisive and impressive victory in that battle.

But that first major obvious battle is followed, as we'll see later this week, by another battle that I call the battle after the battle. That second battle was more private than public. It was more subtle. But I believe the outcome of the second battle was even more strategic and critical than the first. So we're going to spend a couple of sessions looking at the first battle, and then I want to move to the battle after the battle. From both of those we'll gain some insights for our walk with God.

Beginning with verse 1 of Genesis 14, verses 1-12 give us the background to the major battle, which is fought beginning in verse 13. But let's just overview the background, the first twelve verses. In verse 1, there are four kings from the east--kings of city-states or city-nations--who confederated themselves together. So this is a confederation of four kings.

One of them, you'll see his name is Chedorlaomer. It's a long name and I don't know how you pronounce it. I'll call him King Chedor when I read through this passage. So we'll just talk about King Chedor and his troops. He is the most prominent king in this confederation that's in verse 1. Four kings, headed by King Chedor.

Then verse 2, they made war with five kings. These five kings included the kings of two cities that you will recognize, Sodom and Gomorrah. So there's a battle between the four kings and the five kings. King Chedor and the four kings, and then the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and three others--these two confederate groups come against each other. King Chedor and his allies win the battle and conquer the five kings for twelve years.

Then in the thirteenth year--we read this in verse 4--the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and their allies rebel and decide, "We've put up with this long enough. We're not going to be vassals of King Chedor anymore." They rebel.

Well, King Chedor is not going to take this lying down. He and his allies arm themselves and they start a massive series of battles. They swoop in from the east. Really, what you see in verses 5-9 is that they conquer everything in their path. They were victorious. I mean, this is a powerful military alliance that conquers everything. Finally, they come to these confederate nations that includes Sodom and Gomorrah and they overcome those nations as well. They are victorious.

Now why am I going through all this detail? Why does the Scripture go to all this detail? Because when Abram gets involved, we're going to see that the task he faces in taking on King Chedor and his armies is a formidable task. It's an impossible task. King Chedor and his allies, who have just conquered the whole region--I mean, nobody has been able to put up any resistance against them.

King Chedor and his group take over the king of Sodom and king of Gomorrah. They take these city-states hostage. They take their men as prisoners of war. They go off and celebrate, have their party. They've got all these prisoners of war. That's what happens in verses 1-12.

Verse 11 says, "Then they [that's the four kings, King Chedor and his group] took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all the provisions and went their way."

Now verse 12: "They also took Lot." Is that name familiar to you? What's Lot doing in Sodom? Well, we know from chapter 12 that Lot, who was Abram's nephew--Abram's brother's son--had made a choice, a poor choice, a foolish choice based on temporal, earthly values to go to the pleasant-looking, the seemingly attractive land. He went and parked his tent, if I might say that--pitched his tent--near Sodom and Gomorrah. Now we find out in this chapter that he has become assimilated into Sodom so much so that when Sodom is conquered, he is taken as well as a prisoner of war.

So verse 12: "They took also Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom"--by this time he is living in Sodom--"and his goods, and they departed."

Now verse 13 tells us that someone escapes and tells Abram. The one who escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew. That's the first time in the Scripture where the word "Hebrew" is used. They told him that Lot his nephew had been taken captive.

It helps us to understand in the context here that by this time Abram is in his eighties. You think of yourself in this situation. You're in your eighties. You know the news. You've been reading the headlines of what King Chedor has done and how victorious he has been and how powerful he is. Someone comes and tells you that this backslidden nephew of yours has been taken captive of a prisoner of war of these armies.

What is your natural reaction going to be? "Well, I really feel bad about that, but there isn't anything I can do." Abram is hopelessly outnumbered. He is hopelessly overpowered. Humanly speaking, you would think he would feel he just could not do anything. What could he do? I mean, as you read all these impressive names of all these kings who were so powerful and victorious, and you think, "Abram is just one lone Hebrew against this massive group of armies and kings and powers."

But we see in Abram somebody who is a man of God. He has been chosen by God. He has been selected by God for a purpose. He is conscious of his relationship with God and the fact that means he is here on earth for a reason. He can't just sit back and let this nephew of his be in this situation. He has got to do something about it. You can't just let the enemy run over the situation.

Abram knows because of his relationship with God, though he is virtually the only believer on the planet at this time--he knows that God can do anything. He knows that however outnumbered he may be in the human realm, because he is a child of God, a believer of God, that he has omnipotence at his disposal. He acts, I believe, in that faith. Abram is a man of faith.

Each time he steps out into the impossible and the unknown, it's not because he is crazy. It's not because he is blustering his way through and just thinks, "I can handle this." He knows his own weakness. He knows his own limitations. He is in his eighties. But he also knows his God. He knows that God can do anything.

He has no guarantee of succeeding, but he still acts. He has to attempt this rescue. It's the right thing to do. He can't just sit there and let evil overcome this situation. Now Sodom and Gomorrah were evil places. But here is a relative of his who is caught in the crossfire that he knows isn't where he ought to be spiritually, but he still loves this young man and his family. He is going to act redemptively. He is going to step out and do what he can to attempt this rescue.

Now when we come back to this passage tomorrow, we'll see how God supernaturally enables Abram to win the battle. Let me just say as we face spiritual battles, if we look at the enemy, if we look at the opposing forces and the armies that surround us in this world, we'll never act. We'll say it's impossible. It is impossible.

But if we remember whose we are, who has chosen us, who we belong to, who has given us His name and set us apart for Himself--if we remember that we belong to God, then we will be able to step out in faith, without any guarantee of succeeding in the immediate short term, but knowing that in the long run as we act in faith we are linking arms with omnipotence. God is going to win the battle.

Leslie Basham: God can win your battle, too, even if it seems impossible. Before Nancy comes back to pray, I need to tell you about a book that God has used to help many people rebuild their lives. The book is called Reclaiming Surrendered Ground and it was written by Jim Logan.

Mr. Logan is a Christian counselor and he has written this book to help people and families protect themselves from the relentless attacks of our spiritual enemies. If you or someone you care about needs help in overcoming bondage and enjoying the freedom that God offers, then you need to get a copy of Reclaiming Surrendered Ground.

To order it for a donation of $13, call us at 1-800-569-5959. You can order through our Web site at ReviveOurHearts.com.If you're being helped by the ministry of Revive Our Hearts, won't you consider supporting our efforts with a financial donation? A gift of any size helps.

If you like to root for the underdog, then you'll love the outcome of tomorrow's program. We hope you can be here. Now here's Nancy.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Lord, we do face so many battles here in this world. The kings and the rulers of the earth have set themselves against You. Sometimes we just tend to cower in fear and think there's nothing we can do to rescue these wayward, backslidden young people or friends or mates or coworkers from the attacks of the enemy. Thank You for the example we have in Abraham. He is a man of faith and courage; a man who knows You.

I pray that we will be women who know You, who walk with You, and to step out in faith, even when it means we're taking on an impossible task when we know that You're directing us and You're with us. We know in the long run we will be victorious. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministries.

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