Ps 68:1 Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also that hate him flee before him. ________________________________________________________________________

Our text in the book of Psalms is perhaps a familiar one to many of you. Even if you have never heard it before in just a few moments you can memorize at least the first half of this verse: "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered." Perhaps one day you will forget where exactly it is found. Perhaps you will remember that it was somewhere in the "psalms" but will forget that it was the first verse of the 68th Psalm. But even when your memory for numbers fail, from this day forward I urge you to never let this simple phrase ever go away. "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered." Let it resound in your brain for a moment until you can recall it. Never mind the second half of the verse. But before we go any further get the first half engrained within your soul: "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered." That simple phrase is more than just a quaint psalm or catchy slogan: it is the key to being victorious in Christ Jesus in your everyday life. One more time, say it with me: "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered."

Now that you have it, let me show you the power of what you have. Just like a military instructor issuing an automatic weapon to a new recruit, let me show you how to use it. It will do you know good until you realize the capabilities of what you now hold in your spiritual hands.

The book of Psalms is a collection of songs written by Jewish authors. For the most part, the tunes and melodies or "musical" part of the compositions are lost. We don't really know what most of them sounded like and now the words are a part of the canon of scripture. To us today they are more like poetry than songs. The Psalms tend to make good prayers and many Christians have learned to pray by reading the psalms. They are good teachers of how to approach God and chances are if you feel sad, happy, mistreated, pampered, successful, a failure, or whatever you feel like on a particular day, you can find a psalm that was written by someone who was feeling the same way. Some of the most famous applications are the 150th when you feel happy, the 23rd when facing death, and the 91st when you are experiencing fear. There is power in praying the spoken Word of God and so it's handy to know which psalms apply to which situations. Simply put, these old songs make great outlines of prayer.

But the 68th psalm that starts out "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered" didn't start out as a song and then turn into a prayer. It began as a prayer to God. David wrote the song, but he based it upon a prayer that was commonly prayed by Moses when he was leading the children of Israel out of Egypt through the Wilderness to the Promised Land. We learn this from the Book of Numbers:

Every time God would tell the children of Israel that it was time to move, and they had face a new obstacle and a new area in which they had never been before, Moses would always say these words: "Rise up Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered." When it came time to go somewhere where the enemy was strong and powerful and that had never been conquered, Moses would always begin the journey with those same words: "Rise up Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered." And that was how Moses was able to lead millions of people through desolate desert and against strong enemies and how that the children of Israel were able to conquer the Promised Land under Joshua: by praying "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered."

It's not a magic phrase like "Abracadabra." It's power lies not in the letters but rather the principle that it expresses. Moses understood something that we must learn: "if we are to get to where God wants us to be, then we will have to go through deserts and have to face enemies that hate us and would rather see us fall." "And if we are to get victory, we will never get it relying on our own source of strength." "We'll never achieve in God what we need without the Lord's help, so why lean on our own understanding?" Moses understood that victory was dependent upon one variable and one variable only: "If God will arise." If God would fight their battles. If God would move on their behalf. If God would arise in their situation then that alone was the determining factor whether or not they could win. It mattered not how big the enemy or giant or army. It mattered not how big the walls or river. It mattered not how fearful the people were. Those things don't have anything to do with winning in God's kingdom. All that mattered was this "if God will arise, then we will be victorious because it doesn't matter how big something is, it is nothing compared to God standing against it! And so when it was time to move on, Moses ALWAYS made sure to pray "Let God arise; let His enemies be scattered!"

In our humanity we tend to look at our situations and judge whether or not it is "hard or easy" for God to do. We'll trust God for healing for the headache, but aren't quite sure about the cancer. We know God can help us get a few cent's wages, but are a little scared when it comes to putting all of our finances in God's hands. We'll look at our predicament and see how bad it looks before we decide how and what to pray. But we all need to learn something so basic and yet so neglected: "to God walking through the desert is no different than walking on the water." It really doesn't matter the particulars of your situation or whether you view it as small or huge. What matters and determines if you will get victory or not is whether or not you will allow God to rise up and take care of the situation. The key to your victory, then, is simple: "let God arise." Allow God to take over! Allow God to stand up and against what you are facing. Then victory is assured!

Let God arise, let HIS enemies be scattered. Realize what you are saying. Not YOUR enemies. The prayer is not "let God arise, let MY enemies be scattered." But "HIS" enemies. You see, when you try to fight your own battles and you try to dictate your own life and you react with vengeance or under your own power, then you are facing YOUR enemies. But when you step back. When you cool off. When you back down. When you decrease and allow Him to increase. When you allow God to arise in your life, then those things opposing you become HIS enemies. And there is nothing that can stand against God Almighty!

The problem is that sometimes we tie his hands fighting against OUR enemies! God has never lost a battle. Go through the scriptures and find ONE battle in which God was fighting that He lost! You cannot find it! God cannot fail. He is victorious because He is all-powerful! There is nothing in heaven or earth or this universe that can stand against Him when He pulls Himself to His full height! When God gets up and arises in a situation, then victory is certain!

Think about what that means. That means when I lose a battle it is proof that I was fighting it myself! Let me repeat that. If I lose a fight, then that is proof that I was fighting it by myself. We are so quick to react and so quick to act and so slow to pray and so slow to trust God. When we ever learn? If I want to succeed, then I must decrease. I must "magnify the Lord." God must arise, and when He does, whatever the obstacle, it will fail. He really is "Jehovah-nissi" the Lord who fights our battles, but we've got to let Him! Remember the next time you feel as if you are losing the fight: it's time to stop acting and reacting like I always have and it's time to do it God's way! Let God arise; let his enemies be scattered! Somebody learn the lesson that kept Moses all of those years and that David obviously learned as well: Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered! With God on your side, victory is certain!

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In our other text we read a familiar prophesy of Isaiah. Everyone has at sometime heard about the prophesy that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. But very few people ever take it in context. Very few ever bother to study out the story that brought the prophetic utterance.

Israel had been split for hundreds of years. At Solomon's death, the top ten tribes had ceded from the country to form their own nation called "Israel" or "Ephraim." The bottom two tribes had stayed together around the capital city of Jerusalem and was called by the name of "Judah." As always happen when a union is formed in rebellion to the will of God, the northern kings were quickly and often horrifically killed and replaced. Not one of the kings of the north served God and so the "handwriting was on the wall" so to speak, and it was only a matter of time until God allowed Assyria to come in and wipe out the whole bunch. Rebellion to the Word of God is the same as fighting your own battles and vice versa. When you rebel you are telling God "I'll fight my own way, thank you." To which God always responds "go ahead." But God will always make sure that you come up against something in which you need His help. Remember it was to a land of giants that God led His people, and it will always be the will of God for you to go forward in an area that's just beyond the comfort zone of your ability, because then you must trust Him!

Anyway, some of the kings of the southern two tribes did serve God and that combined with a promise that God had swore to King David that one of his descendants would always sit upon the throne of Israel kept the lineage alive throughout the years in Judah. In the time of this writing, we find that the king is a man named "Ahaz." Ahaz is not well known to most Christians because he was an extremely evil king. He did not believe in the one, true God Jehovah of the Israeli people but chose to worship the idols of the surrounding countries. He is infamous because he believed that some crazy idol of another nation had blessed him and that the God of Israel was just one of many gods. He set up an altar to an idol in Jerusalem and did many other horrible things during his reign.

"Ahaz" means "possessor" and despite his evil actions, Ahaz did possess a lot that was given to him by God. He was an idolater but he was in the lineage of David and so God had already given His Word that the throne would go to no one other than Ahaz's son. Despite his idolatry, Ahaz possessed a promise from God that his son would reign over Jerusalem.

In our text, we find that Ahaz is in a bad situation. The king of Syria has joined together with the king of the north tribes of Israel to come against Jerusalem. It doesn't look good. Their armies far outweigh the numbers of Ahaz. They are joining together and have decided to overthrown Jerusalem and take over the city. Ahaz is panicky and looking for help from anywhere he can get it. He worships his idols and begins to look for answers there. In the middle of this, God sends the prophet Isaiah to tell him "don't worry, I've already made a promise to David that his descendants would rule in Jerusalem. That means that despite your evil and idolatry, these kings will not be able to conquer Jerusalem." Then God through the prophet Isaiah told Ahaz to ask for a sign that His Word was true. God would do any miracle for him to show that His Word to David was real and unbreakable.

This put Ahaz in a "catch-22" situation. If he asks for a sign, and God does it, then he will have to admit that the one, true God of Israel is the real God and all of his idols are false. So Ahaz twists a scripture. He uses religious exactness and "piety" to escape. Remembering that the scriptures say "tempt not the Lord thy God" Ahaz looks at Isaiah and says "oh, I don't want to see a sign." "I would never ask of a sign from the Lord." And in our text, we find that God gets mad. He gets ticked. He says through Isaiah "do you think that you will wear me out!?" You see God had already given His Word about the situation and was trying to "arise" in Ahaz's life but Ahaz wouldn't let him.

And God says "I will give you a sign that my word is true whether or not you want it: a virgin will conceive and she shall bear a son and he shall be named Immanuel and he shall eat "butter" literally "milk and butter" and honey before he is old enough to know right from wrong. Every prophecy in scripture has an immediate fulfillment and a distant fulfillment. This morning I preached to you the distant fulfillment and that was that Jesus Christ was born of a woman and he ate honey from the lion when He defeated Satan at Calvary. But there was an immediate fulfillment of this prophecy. What God was saying is "Ahaz, you are saying that it's all over and nobody can save you from losing the kingdom, but I'm telling you that there is somebody that is not even married right now that will soon get married and have a baby and she will call his name Emmanuel and he will eat milk" which is only given by contented undisturbed cows, "and honey" which can only be collected after many months of leaving the bees alone. In other words, God was telling Ahaz that he would hear of a baby named Emmanuel and before that child was old enough to know right from wrong, the enemy kings would be long removed from their thrones. And it happened just like God said it would!

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Some of you are wandering what this story has to do with "Let God arise; let His enemies be scattered." I want you to realize something about the Ahaz story. The miracle of the defeat of his enemies had nothing to do with his faithfulness or faith. The whole crux of this story is that God's Word had already decreed that the take over of Jerusalem and Ahaz losing his throne would never happen by another Jewish king. And because God had already decreed it, it made Him mad, when someone didn't want to see proof that He could and would do it. And it made God mad when somebody said "I don't know if it's His will or not."

Let me preach to you. God has already declared some things in His Word. And it aggravates God when we question whether or not He will do something that He has already said that He will do. Too many times we pray "if it be God's will" to things that God has already said is His will and really our praying "if it's God's will" is nothing more than a religious way of hiding our doubt if God can really do it.

Don't misunderstand me, I know that when we pray for spiritual direction for our future that the book of James commands us to always pray according to God's will and teaches us that when we pray about future plans we are to say "if God will, I will do such and such." I understand that. But some things are ALWAYS God's will because they are promised in His Word.

Let me give you an example so you really understand what I am saying. I've got a book of sermons and articles by a man who lived at the turn of the century named John G. Lake. Lake was a bold preacher before bold preachers were cool and he was known for having a phenomenal "healing" ministry. I've had the book for a couple of years and every now and then I will pick it up and read some of it. He has a sermon in there entitled "Have Christians the right to pray 'if it be thy will' concerning sickness?" His point is that you and I don't have the right or commandment to pray "God heal them if it be your will." When I first read it I thought he was a little extreme. But after a few years of study and prayer I think he has a major point.

If someone were to come into our church and tells you "I need deliverance from sin and need a change in my life, can God do this for me?" Every person in here would immediately say "yes, you need to repent, you need to be baptized in the name of Jesus, then you need to receive the Holy Ghost." We know that God will do those things for that man, even though we know nothing about him because we know that God will take "whosoever will." The issue of Jesus being able to save and set people free was decided a long time ago on Calvary. We understand it's a promise in God's Word {adlib}

But wait a minute. There are other promises in God's Word that are just as solid. Jesus said to His disciples:

Peter wrote about the suffering of Jesus:

If salvation is an unconditional promise for mankind, then so is healing. Now I understand that healing is not always an instant miracle and by definition can mean a gradual process. And I understand God is sovereign. That means that He can do what He wants to when He wants to and I understand that usually a person reaches an age old enough where God allows the natural process of death to take over. I understand that there may be times that God can get greater glory by allowing sickness to remain. I understand that although Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, that he eventually died and is not somewhere walking around today. I understand all of that.

But understand that God controls all of that. He is sovereign; it is His decision. He doesn't need us to remind Him of His sovereignty! Our prayer is not what brings the healing. If it was then we would need to do it a certain way every time. But that's not our job. Our job is to express faith in God. Or, simply put, our job is to "let God arise" in the situation. That's our job as believers in prayer and nothing more.

So when you pray for healing for someone. Don't bother praying "if it be thy will" because too many times that is just a religious way of hiding our doubt of whether or not God can do what He has promised! Don't make the same mistake of King Ahaz and think well "I'm not sure" or "I haven't earned it." You are not tempting God when you pray for Him to do what He has already promised to do!

What are some things that are already commanded by God in His word? healing? We've read those scriptures.

Infilling of the Spirit? Jesus said:

Protection?

Go read Psalms 91 and tell me that God has not promised it for those who fear and serve Him. Go look up some "shall be blessed" scriptures and you will find out that God's promises include financial blessing if you will have mercy on the poor. In Malachi He said pay your tithes and offering and "try me." See if I will not open "windows in heaven and pour you out a blessing that you cannot contain." Those are promises made by God. But I think sometimes we negate the promise by religiously expressing doubt by praying about these things to God "if it be thy will."

Instead of praying "if it be thy will" on these things, we need to claim the promises of God and "let God arise!" It's not an issue if God wants to do it, it's an issue if we will, through faith and decreasing, let God do it! "Let God arise and His enemies be scattered!" If God has said it in His Word then it is a promise to you and I if we are "doers of the Word:"

We talk a lot about how that we must bridle our tongue from cursing or gossip, but what about expressing doubt!? That's just as important to avoid as other sins!? How you express your words illustrate what you believe inside. It's time to bridle our doubt and "let God arise!" He has spoken it in His Word and He is just waiting for an opportunity for somebody to let Him loose in their life. He's wanting to get up and fight for you, but you must release Him! You've got to refuse to wallow in doubt and indecision! Let God arise; let His enemies be scattered!

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The word for "scattered" in the Hebrew means "completely blown apart and destroyed." Whatever the enemy had planned for your life will completely fail and the opposite of misfortune will happen if you will let God arise.

I close this sermon in a different sort of way for me. I want to tell you a true-life story.

Bro. Tommy Gandy called me this week and gave me a victory report from his church. {tell story, emphasize that Bro. Gandy did not do what he felt like in response to the man., how that so many of the commandments of God emphasize turning to God and NOT reacting like we feel when confronted with a situation. Also emphasize that Bro. Gandy did not have to pray "God, is it your will for this woman to be delivered of these demons?" If that part of Mark 16:16-18 is true then ALL of it is true!}

It is time to let God arise in our life! "Let God arise; let His enemies be scattered!"