God Acts!

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This is the last chapter I'll share for awhile from my ebook From Captive to Conqueror. (I don't want this blog to be ALL about promoting my books, although I do hope some readers will be intrigued by the message and will want to buy the book Amazon.)  

Perhaps as you read these early chapters, you will remember a time in your life when you felt yourself to be in desperate circumstances and needed to cry out for help. In this chapter, along with the psalmist, we see that God is more than ready to act to rescue the one who called out to Him. In the remainder of From Captive to Conqueror, we see that God does not leave that person in a state of helplessness. Instead, He rescues, restores, and equips that person to be a conqueror.

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God Acts!

 The earth trembled and quaked,

the foundations of the heavens shook;

 they trembled because he was angry.

Smoke rose from his nostrils;

consuming fire came from his mouth,

burning coals blazed out of it.

(2 Samuel 22:8, 9)

When God hears the cry of one who has come to the end of himself and realizes his need, something extraordinary happens in heaven.  Our human minds, limited as they are, cannot begin to understand the power that is in the hands of Almighty God.  The best David could do was to paint vivid word pictures in an attempt to describe in a physical sense what happens in the unseen realm when a desperate soul cries out to God.

Here, David pictures the earth and even heaven itself trembling in the face of the wrath of God.  God’s power is limitless and incredibly awesome.  His anger, once aroused, is formidable.  How reassuring it is to know that the holy anger described here is not directed, as I used to think it was, at the soul of the struggler in distress, but at the enemies who have him bound – at the foes who hold him captive. 

When David speaks of smoke rising from God's nostrils, and fire blazing from His mouth, I am reminded of a certain type of movie and television series that is popular in the country in which I live.  These programs feature villains and heroes with amazing superpowers.  Using a variety of martial arts, they are able to fly through the air as they battle their enemies.  Often, they are able to do things like shoot beams of light from their eyes or spew fire from their mouths – all this in a mighty display of power.  Good against evil battling it out.  The parallel ends at that point.  On television, the villain and the hero are nearly evenly matched.  The power of God, however, has no equal.  Not even close.

David uses similar imagery as he describes the power displayed when Almighty God is aroused to anger on behalf of one who has called out to Him.  The special effects used to display power in television shows . . . even the most incredible special effects out of Hollywood . . . come nowhere close to demonstrating the incredible, awesome power unleashed in the heavenlies when God acts!

Questions for Reflection

Using your imagination, rewrite this passage in your own words.  What happens when God gets angry at His enemy for attacking His children?

  

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Here are links to other chapters from this book that have already been shared on this blog.

• God Captures My Attention
• In Stormy Seas - (post title "When Life Seems Desperate")
• A Cry For Help
• God Acts! - (This post)
• God Draws Near
• God's Motive for Coming to the Rescue