In the New Testament, Peter writes and he says that the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, not slack like other men, but essentially when He says a thing He brings it to pass. I could go to the Old Testament and take Jeremiah's words and say the same thing. Because we've been camping out in the Old Testament a lot I want to make sure that some of you haven't lost the pulse of what I've been saying through the New Testament and I always try to bring these two things together. It is a battle and we must stay vigilant in God's word. The Scripture, both Old and New says, “The just shall live by faith,” and the book of Hebrews specifically says that if a person draws back from that life of faith, the author speaking as the words of God, “My soul shall have no pleasure in him.” That's to say God does not take pleasure to see people draw back. We're not talking about backsliding, we're talking about people who, it's so tough they just completely let go because it's so impossible. The thing that is in front of you, the challenge that is before you, maybe it's multiple challenges. For some people, they don't really need something that's gigantic or gargantuan in size, it could just be being able to pay your rent may be your greatest challenge. So I don't want to seem like, and I said I'm preaching for me, but I'm sure that there's a whole bunch of you here that will be comforted by the words that I'm going to speak. As I said, there are dynamics in God's book; God's fidelity as I've been saying for weeks now, God's faithfulness that when we stand on His word of promise He will bring it to pass. Now it doesn't say how quickly or how slowly. I've mentioned many times I take great comfort in the fact that God took 25 years after He told Abraham that He was going to change his whole life by making him father of many. It took 25 years for God to make it come to pass, so you know, I feel, yeah, there's hope for me. You know, I've only been at this 10 years, so you know, God can take His time. No problem. But Abraham speaks to me specifically and should speak to you specifically because he's a type and pattern of faith and, in fact, the most, one of the most remarkable things is as I've been rereading many of the passages that I've been dealing with and teaching and studying in my devotionals, Abraham seems to leap out again and again, called out of a strange land, and the book of Hebrews says called into a land, called in to a place where he knew not. And you know, I think that's true of most of us. We're, we take a step of faith, we don't necessarily know, forgive me for saying this, it's going to sound a little funny, where we're going, how's this thing going to work out? Now that's not to say that you start on a course and you don't falter; Abraham did falter. That's why I love him, he faltered, he went into Egypt, he lied, he did a couple of other things and eventually we see the faith of this man blossoms so that singlehandedly, he's not only called “friend of God,” but a man whom, in Nehemiah 9, is memorialized as God having found his heart faithful before Him, which is not said of any other individual in that book let alone most of the Old Testament; very few of these. So Abraham to me is a pattern. I love what Romans 4 says that when God spoke to him and gave him the promise that “he staggered not at the promise of God,” but he had strong faith and he, he amened that and God imputed to him, put, placed in him His righteousness. He was made in right standing with God for his faith. So I think I'm not facing the things that Abraham faced. I'm not facing the super-impossibility like, let's just say, he was at his age being told, “You will have a child, a seed, a child of promise who will be the seed who will be the promised seed to repopulate as stars in the sky and sand on the sea and land given to you and abundant land”" I'm not confronting those type of issues, so maybe I need to fix a little bit of my attention on this man to make sure that I'm not exaggerating the things that seem impossible to me, because we know with God nothing's impossible, right. That's what I said. So he is indeed the pattern of faith. My message is not on Abraham, by the way. I'm using him to go somewhere. I mentioned the fact that he is memorialized in Nehemiah 9 as a person who was found, heart faithful before God. So guess what? We're going to Nehemiah. I think this is Nehemiah 19━not, there is no chapter 19, message 19. Although who knows at the rate we're going how long we'll be here; it doesn't matter. We'll just keep, keep preaching until something penetrates and sinks into this hardhead and some of you hardheads out there with me. Nehemiah 9; praise the Lord. Nehemiah 9, what we wouldn't do if it wasn't for God. So Nehemiah 9 I've said is a mosaic of sorts. It's, it's got Scripture, history; it's got everything that you could possibly reflect on and, as I said, interesting that this is a prayer that begins with a blessing, an exaltation of the Lord, going on to creation, going on to God who called Abraham out of Ur of Chaldees, gave him his name, changed his name. And this is the only person memorialized here in verse 8 of chapter 9, Nehemiah 9:8, which is, “And foundest his heart faithful before thee, made a covenant with him to give him the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Girgashites, to give it, I say, to his seed, and hast performed thy word: for thou art righteous.” And let me just stop there for a second, because I said in one of the earlier messages that this chapter is primarily dealing with the concept of the land. These people have returned back, they're in the land, but there's one problem. Although they're in the land, they're still not free people. They've returned back, but they're still not free people. We'll get to that, but the point underneath this message today is that when God says something, when He declares something, “God is not a man to lie.” God doesn't say, “Let's see if this works. Let's see if.” When He says something, it is. And when we take Him at His word exactly like that, I'm not suggesting that Abraham immediately took God at His word, but he was called out of a country. As I referenced Hebrews 11, speaking of Abraham, he didn't really know where he was going. That doesn't mean he was confused, it just means there was no guarantee. And there's no guarantee with us down here as we go on this walk of faith. There is no guarantee. There is no guarantee that everything's going to be a certain way or that there won't be certain things happen and that's why I said it's almost one of those things that when you read it and you carefully read it that you recognize he's the only one here. The rest of the record is of God delivering His people, hearing their cry in their affliction in bondage, which, by the way, He told Abraham these people will go in and in the fourth generation they will come out. That's Genesis 15, He tells him that and here's the fulfillment. This whole passage is saying, if I was speaking like a chapter and verse, “I am God. I do not lie. I am faithful. When I say a thing, you will take the land, you will take the land. I will make a way for you where there is no way.” Abraham, “Well, is Eleazar my steward supposed to be this heir?” And God says, “No.” And we, of course, have seen many times the carnal idea of Hagar that produced Ishmael and that was a disaster. And I mean it was a disaster because God gave His word and said, “I will do this thing.” The problem is, “Ugh, God, hurry up. I'm running out of time.” But whose time is it anyway if you think about it? What happens, let me ask you something, what happens if you are sick or you have needs, things that you've been hanging onto God and His word about and they don't come to pass in the now? You wake up, you're eyes are open standing before Him. That means you crossed what I've called the beautiful yellow tape finish line, like the picture of the runner crossing through the finish line, saying, “Lord, I'm claiming it now.” There's nothing wrong with that and I think a lot of time is spent down here lamenting about what God has not yet done, when in fact, we're just told to claim something and stand until God brings it to pass. If it's fulfilled in this lifetime, you'd better start looking for something else to claim in God's book that He may bring it to pass. So here we have a record of the children of Israel that having been brought out of Egypt's bondage, having had Pharaoh and his whole crew disposed with nicely, having been able to cross the Red Sea on dry ground and then close up the sea. And this is a record of everything that God did, how He led them, how He led them by day with a cloudy pillar and by night by a pillar of fire, came down, spake with them from heaven, made known unto them everything that God wanted them to know, supply of not only food and drink but supply of the knowledge of, at least in part, who God is and what He desires from His people. And in verse 16, it says, “But they and our fathers dealt proudly, hardened their necks.” They wouldn't listen, they refused to listen, “they refused to obey.” And, of course, you keep reading on and you read that God gave His “good spirit to instruct them,” 40 years God sustained them in the wilderness so that they lacked nothing, their clothes waxed not old, their feet swelled not. Now I don't want to talk to you about feet swelling, because I'm not sure that I could claim that, but I can say in the time that I've trusted God, no, I haven't had, you know, like some people say where you trust God and you'll, you'll get exactly what you're hoping for, but I've said, “I have enough,” I've managed. And the things that I used to desire, I don't desire them anymore. I see the things that I would desire for God's benefit, for God's people, and God has been faithful. I can say with these, for me personally, I have lacked nothing. That doesn't mean over abundance, it just means He's seen that I and my needs are met. Now let's move on to verse 22, because verse 22, strangely enough, all of this was introduction to my text and to my message to get you to this point. And you're going to say, “You're going to preach a message out of verse 22?” Yup! “Moreover thou gavest them kingdoms and nations, and didst divide them into corners: so they possessed the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.” “That's the craziest message I ever heard! Are you sure, Pastor, you got enough sleep last night?” Yup. So here's the interesting thing. You could read right by this and you could say “king of Zubazuba,” and it wouldn't matter, right? Unless you took the time to go back and focus on who these people are and then you realize there's a good reason why Sihon, who is a king━this, the way it's phrased here doesn't━it says “the land of Sihon,” but Sihon is the king and he is the king of Heshbon, who seized the Moabite territory, made it his, and Og king of Bashan. Now what's so important about these people is you've got to go back and know a couple of things, the background. So let me first start with, we'll go way back there. These are Amorite kings and if you know who the Amorites are, good and if you don't, I'm going to tell you. When Noah cursed Ham's son, Canaan; he didn't curse Ham, he cursed his son, Canaan. Canaan begat children and of the children he begat, if you're looking in Genesis━don't turn there, but you can look it up later, you will read that the Amorites came out of Canaan, came out of that line, and these people who were a cursed people from that line also appear to be in a multiple, myriad number of passages, also appear to be giants; not all of them, but some of them appear to be giants. Now this is what is so crazy. When you start to read about Sihon, king Sihon, who was an Ammonite as I just━an Amorite as I just said, you go back and you read about the line that he came out of, and if you are looking, write these Scriptures down and you can read them for yourselves. Amos 2:9 tells us the destruction of the Amorite, which is way later, “whose height was as the height of” the Caesars━“the cedars, and he was strong like the oaks.” I'm going to read that again, “whose height was as the height of the cedars,” very tall trees, “strong like the oaks.” We're talking about mighty big people. And how big would you say these people are? Well, Deuteronomy 3:11 records that at least one of these, Og king of Bashan, whose name means “gigantic.” His bed, Deuteronomy 3:11 says, if you want to translate it into our language had to be about 13-point; 13 and a half feet long by six feet wide, which makes the man probably somewhere about 12 feet tall and who knows how wide. Now come on Mr. carpenter here, what's the height to the bottom of that screen? (the bottom of the screen feet is ten feet) Ten feet. Now you know if, if Og was standing in front of me I might be ogling him. Leave that one alone. Don't even try to touch it. Whew! What do I want to tell you about these people, because this becomes truly important? You could just read over this verse and not get the essence of what's going on here. You have two kings who are basically very strong, very powerful; undoubtedly these are also part of a very giant people, who, if you know your geography━we'll find out, because we're going to read about it today. We're going find out that both king Sihon and Og were essentially guarding, and not in a good way, the gateway into the Promised Land. You will find their territory if you were looking at━oh boy, here she goes━brace yourself. So if you were looking at the territory per se, you'd find, let's do a little squiggly here and let's, let's point to this as the Jordan and let's just say that Jericho is over here, hypothetically, and this whole territory here is formerly Moabite territory, but it is definitely the land of the Amorites. Now these kings, first from Heshbon and you've got a whole area here, Edrei; you've got a whole bunch of areas that are━but this whole territory here is basically controlled by these two kings, and we're not talking about little bitty things. King Og of Bashan, for example, he ruled 60 cities that were fortified cities. We're talking big time here. So the children of Israel, they have to get by these folks to cross over the Jordan and into Jericho, which would be what we know happens eventually in the book of Joshua. They eventually cross over the Jordan, they enter into Jericho, but there's a blockade there and the blockade is by these giant people. Now here's the strange thing. When I started looking up Sihon and Og, I realized that there were so many references to these two kings that seemingly, you know, if something's being repeated in the Bible over and over and over again, you'd better pay attention. God's trying to say something and it wasn't abundantly clear to me, even though I'm familiar with the history of what was being said. But here are these people on their way, and as I said, you have to keep in the back of your mind these people are Amorites. So I want to, stay where you are, I'm going to do so much page turning you won't be able to keep up with me, but I'd like to read one thing that God did say to Abraham way back there when He promised him the land and then He said they'll go in, into Egypt, four generations, come out, and then it says, “For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” And if you remember when I taught on these lessons I first said the Canaanite was in the land, and then it's the Canaanite and the Perizzite, and then suddenly you've got a full fledge bunch of -ites living in the land. Well, these are all, by-and-large, enemies of the people of God and there's great animosity. And if you keep traveling through Genesis you find that we have an increasing amount of these people appearing, until the time where the people are going to try and pass through a territory that is very hostile. So we first begin with looking at what happens before these two kings, before the children of Israel try to enter this land before these two kings, they must come through one other territory and that is the king of Edom's territory. And here's what's strange. God recorded this, two different places about the children of Israel under Moses leading them, coming through the land of Edom and needing to pass through the borders. One record says they went through but the longer record says they were denied entrance and they turned back. Now let me ask you a question. Does that sound like God's people, turning back? (No ma'am.) I'm going to ask that because only like three people answered. Does that sound like God's people, turning back? (No, ma'am!) But yet they did. And so no wonder why they're having to come through this territory, which is down here, the Edomite territory. And no need to explain that too long. There's another wonderful picture for you of the children of promise versus the children of works. The Edomites from, we'll call it the Esau and that whole Seir, that whole line of Horites and other -ites that are against the children of God, which if you read the book of Galatians, you see the clash between the promise child, Isaac and Ishmael, who was mocking him. And this is age-old. People tend to think, “Well, this is something new.” This is age-old to be hated without a cause, to be hated for your commitment and the children of Israel weren't that committed, we know that. But they were still hated, so you know, take comfort right there. But let's, let's go to the passage that I want us to first read that tells a little bit about this event, and that you'll find in the book of Numbers, so please turn to the book of Numbers, chapter 21, and if you're just remotely curious, what I just referenced about them wanting to enter into and go through Edom's territory happens in Numbers 20. You can read that in your own time, but Numbers 21, beginning at verse 21, “Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, saying, Let me pass though thy land: we will not turn into thy fields, or into thy vineyards; we will not drink of the waters of the well: be we will go along the king's way, until we pass thy borders. Sihon would not suffer Israel to pass through his borders: but Sihon gathered all his people together, went out against Israel into the wilderness: he came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel. And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, possessed his land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon,” you're talking about a big clear swath of land here. “Israel took all these cities: and Israel dwelt in the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, in all the villages thereof. For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab, and taken all his land out of his hand, even unto Arnon.” He dispossessed the people, took over the land. “Wherefore they that speak in proverbs say, Come into Heshbon, let the city of Sihon be built and prepared: there is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon.” Now keep reading down, because it says here, “Israel,” verse 31, “dwelt in the land of the Amorites.” Nothing wrong with that, by the way, because if you figure, go back to my great little drawing here, if you figure now they are encamped here. And we'll read in another reference in Deuteronomy, well, I'm not turning there yet. I'm not done with Numbers, but you'll read in another reference in Deuteronomy where it says it was the fortieth year, the eleventh month, the first day of the eleventh month where they were encamped there. We tend to spread the books out and think, “Wow, this happened over a long period of time,” but the events I'm talking about, they happened relatively quick, because we know 40 years elapsed. Eventually after Moses' death and the mourning of Moses, they cross over under Joshua's leadership. And all of this happens very quickly. We, you know, we tend to kind of stretch the events out. It happens very quickly. So we have them encamped here and then it says Moses sent, “And Moses sent to spy out Jaazer, and they took the villages thereof, they drove out the Amorites that were there. They went up by the way of Bashan: and Og,” whose name, by the way, means “gigantic” or “long-neck giant,” the king of Bashan, imagine having a name like that. Some of you get it. Some of you don't. It's okay. I love you anyway. Okay, so here we have “they turned and went up by the way of Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he, and all his people to the battle at Edrei. And the LORD said unto Moses, Fear him not: for I have delivered him into thy hand, all his people, and his land.” I want you to think about this. Moses and his band, regardless of how few or how many, would have been like ants. Forget about the term they use as “We are like grasshoppers and they are like giants.” They would have been like ants in comparison to these men and their army. And God says, “Fear not. Fear him not: for I have delivered him into thy hand, all his people, his land; thou shalt do to him as thou didst unto Sihon the king of the Amorites, which dwelt in Heshbon. So they smote him.” Don't you love the word “smote”? “They smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left alive: and they possessed his land.” Now I want you to think about this for a minute, because what this says is very profound. God made a promise. He said, “You're going to enter into that land. You're going to go in. This is the land I've promised to give you.” But there were giants that were not even yet in the land. They were on that border and God says, “Go get them!” Okay, hold on. There's another passage which references, and by the way, now that you're looking, you're going to find so many of these references you're going to say, “Wow, there sure are a lot of references to this.” Turn to Deuteronomy 2. You've got a second record in Deuteronomy 2, which tells about, in Deuteronomy 2, beginning at about verse 8, which is the second account, which I expressed. And listed here, by the way, in Deuteronomy 2, beginning at about verse 10, you've got people listed like the Emims that “dwelt therein in times past, a people great, many, tall, as the Anakims.” These are all giants, sometimes called Zamzummims, sometimes called━there's just, there's a host of these names. But if you can imagine, imagine God saying to you, “Go and possess that land.” I mean, you know, there's something cartoonlike when I, when I say this so there's no reality to this, but “Go in and possess the land.” It's bad enough if you've encountered somebody who's the size of Shaquille O'Neal, and that's pretty big, but that's not 12 feet tall, “Go in and posses the land.” Just even to stand in front of Shaquille O'Neal would be like, gulp! Right? So there's, there's this great sense on God's part. He didn't think, by the way, that the children of Israel were able, but He knew He was, and as long as they went according to what He said, “Fear not,” they would get victory over their enemies. So here again in Deuteronomy 2, we have a second and more, if you will, detailed account, which, by the time you read beginning at verse 24 you're going to see now many of these, Sihon king, “the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, contend with him in battle.” God said, “Go, kick his battle ground!” And God is still telling us, by the way, so you can begin to start making an application. The Promised Land to us, we talk about Canaan, Canaan is not a type of heaven. Canaan is the faith life, and God said, “Go in there and possess it,” which is living the life of faith. And during this walk down here, we are living the life of faith from faith to faith and we will encounter these things that seem impossible. They are the Sihon and Og and Annak and Enon, and Zamzummims and whatever else you want to call them, of your life and of mine, whatever that may be. And they're overcome only one way, by God making a declaration which He gave as a word of promise and His people acting on that; not independent, not works, not, “Hey, I can do this in my own strength,” but that God would send them. He says, “Go to possess the land, contend with him in battle. This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and fear of thee upon the nations.” And we know this came to pass, by the way, the dread and the fear, because when Joshua goes into the land, he encounters more Amorite and hostile type kings, who, it says when they heard that they were coming, their hearts melted. They don't look so big after all, because they'd heard of the great things that God had done for these people. So everywhere you go you're seeing God saying, “This is what I'm going to do,” and He makes it come to pass, and “This is what I'm going to do,” and He makes it come to pass. And by the way, God said He would not remove the enemies in one day. Many times over He says, “I'll do it little bit by little bit.” Have you ever read that where He says, “I'll do it little by little; I'll do it little by little”? Why? Because if He emptied them all at one fell swoop, there'd be other problems, but He says, “Little by little I'll do this thing.” So you know while you and I are here, and I could go off on messages like “Fret not,” and what are you worried about, I'd say, “Little by little.” Now I cannot tell you, but I've got a good track record all of these years of things that just seem to, you know, come my way and at the first they seem like, “Oh my!” It's just the beginning of the year; how could I have something, you know, again, how, how do these things happen? But I'm praying that this actually brings encouragement to you who are still looking at the things which seem too gigantic and too impossible, to recognize when God sends us, when God calls us, Dr. Scott used to━we looked for the chapter and verse, we couldn't find it, but “Whom the Lord calls, He enables,” right? It's still a good chapter and verse. It's the first book of Scott, all right? God makes a way, He gives you not only the ability, He gives you the strength and the might; not yours but His. So take a second look at this. We have God now entering in a little bit more detail in Deuteronomy 2 and verse 30, it says that the king “Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him: for the LORD thy God hardened his spirit.” Doesn't that sound a little bit like Pharaoh? That tells me that when I'm dealing with people who are enemy-like mean, maybe God is hardening them. Maybe God━you know, it's time for me to kind of just turn to the reality that maybe God is doing the very thing that He did with Pharaoh and He did it with this king and He's done it with others where He hardens the heart; He doesn't soften it; to show, after He's done doing the hardening that He's still in control and this, all of this was by His hand to make something else come to pass. When you start putting things in perspective, you go, “Well, maybe it's not so gargantuan. Maybe it's not so difficult. Maybe it's not going to be so terrible after all.” As long as the Lord's there, as long as the Lord's going to go with me, I'm okay. I just don't want to go by myself, because if God's not with me, I know I'm going to get my butt whooped, right? You just speak it plain, because there's too many people that like to say, “Well, you can't say that.” Well, I just did, and that's the reality, that's the reality of living the faith life. “Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz,” verse 32, “And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all of his people.” Not only did they wipe them out, they took all of their possessions and all of their good stuff. So, you know, God's got a way of saying, “Hey, I'll take care of your enemies and make sure that you don't want by the wayside either.” Now let me keep going here, because the detail I gave you about Sihon and God saying He hardened his spirit, the same thing will be repeated in chapter 3 of Deuteronomy towards Og the king of Bashan, because he came out now against God's people with all of his people at a battle, the battle at Edrei. “And the LORD said unto me, Fear him not: for I will deliver him, all his people, his land, into thy hand; and thou shalt do unto him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon. So the LORD our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all of his people: and we smote him until” there was not left, there was no, none remaining. Now what's interesting is that if you were, if you have a concordance at your leisure, you can look up how many times this reference to this battle, king Sihon and Og is referenced; it's referenced in Deuteronomy 4, it's referenced━I mean you can just go through Deuteronomy and see over and over and over and over again that this is being referenced and it's going to be referenced clear into Joshua's day because it was such a great victory over these giant Amorite kings that it was memorialized. Now you know, you go back and you read Nehemiah 9 and you say, “Well, I would have just read right by that,” right? Right? “I would have just read right by that.” But even the person who was praying in Nehemiah 9 recognized how important the victory over these two kings to penetrate, these two guardians, gate guardians who were hindering God's people to enter into the Promised Land were to record them. Now I'm going to add something to this, lest you think I'm going to go too long, I'm not going to go that much longer, because I want to start making the point and making application. It's interesting that God has these words that He uses to describe what He's going to do to people. And concerning these kings and the enemies of God, three times and only three times in the Old Testament, does the word “hornet” or “hornets” appear, and these three times they are in connection with two, with these two kings and one time making a general reference to Pharaoh or other enemies of God's people. And I began reading that, which brought me to the Firstfruits promise, Genesis━Exodus 23, and it says, “I will send hornets before you, to drive them.” Now you know, when you start thinking about this, it's like God's saying, “Before you get there I'm going to start doing something. You need to get up and go there by faith,” like God said to Moses, “You've tarried at this mountain too long; you've waited too long. It's time to move on.” God is also saying, “Before you get there, I'm going to send a little 'love gift' their way.” There's only three times that that occurs and it's three times in conjunction with these enemies of God's people. So put that in your cap as something when you go back to read the Firstfruits passage out of Exodus 23, remember that God is saying He's going to send a little something in the direction of your enemies just to say, “Hey, I didn't forget about you,” but you still have challenge of getting up and going in that direction. The Lord will be there, not only will the Lord be there, but I have a few verses I want to now read with you to say this is how the battle is won. Throughout this whole book God is saying the same thing, which I began by saying the life of faith, the promises of God, God's fidelity, God will do this, God will make His word come to pass, but He also says at the same time, “I'm going to be with you and I'm going to help you do the thing I'm asking you to do.” And here's where I just, I said this, for me, this is my message. I'm facing a lot of stuff and stuff that I'm even grappling with how on earth did━how is this happening? It's the same stuff; you don't━don't worry about it. It's the same stuff we've dealt with for, you know, Dr. Scott did it for 30 years, it's been 10 years my lot, so we have 40 years━you'd think 40, it would be enough already, God, right? But what I'm trying to say is that these things are going to follow you and they're going to follow me and we need to be able to say, “And this is how God says we're going to approach.” When God repeats something over and over again, I'm listening. So now I want you, we're going to turn to several Scriptures because I want you to underline, read and we'll move on so that you can say, “God has been saying the same thing over and over,” when it comes to the enemies hindering you as you enter in or try to enter in, in the life of faith, the things that are hindering you, the things that are blockading you from, we'll call it the Promised Land of promises for us, beginning at Deuteronomy 1 and verse 30, “The LORD your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes.” Well, He did that there, but what about the next batch of people: Deuteronomy 3 and verse 22. I told you I was going to spin somewhere. “Ye shall not fear them: for the LORD your God he shall fight for you.” Do you want to see it again: Deuteronomy 20; you know, when God's saying something over and over again, I pay attention, because I think to myself, “God, I really need You to fight my battles for me and I need healthy dose of hornets sent in my enemies' way to prepare them for the things that are yet to come.” Deuteronomy 20 and verse 4: “For the LORD your God is he that goeth with, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.” You want to hear it again? Of course, because when God's saying something over and over again, you say, “Yes, I think I can hear You, God. I think I'm listening.” Here we go. Joshua 23 and verse 10; you can go through the whole book like this. “One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised you.” And there's many more of these, by the way. I will close the message, when I'm done, I'm not done just yet, with the last one of these that I want to rest on that can be our promise, our comfort for the week, but I'm not there yet. So you can see there is a repetition. God is saying, “I am going to do this thing.” It still requires you and I getting up in faith. It still requires facing the giants, whatever they are, but going in the knowledge that you're His, you belong to Him; He's going to be there fighting the battle. He's going to be━He's going to be there before you get there. He asks that you still stand and face the enemy and not run away like they did the first time when they encountered the king of Edom, but rather, look at the giants that you face, whatever that is, and ask the question, “Who else but God?” And “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Who can bring us down if God is for us? That's not say we're never going to have down time or down things and things that occur, but strengthened with might from God, fortified. And some of you are saying, “But, Pastor, it's only the beginning of the year”" That's right! Get an early start, don't delay! Right? But this brings me to kind of tie all this together. See, in that prayer in Nehemiah 9 that was included for a reason to say that God had promised the land and not even these giants could hinder. And if you read on later on, you'll see they entered in, they possessed the land. In fact, there's a great passage in Joshua that kind of puts the capstone. Joshua 21, verses 43, 44, and 45, it says, the Lord God, “The LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein.” God, check there, makes good on His word. “The LORD gave them rest according to all that he sware unto their fathers: there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand,” check, “There failed not any, of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel,” what are those last four words: “all came to pass.” I didn't hear you: “all came to pass.” One more time: “all came to pass.” I think the message here is pretty plain and pretty simple: you're not going to come into the kingdom of God as a child of God and not have obstacles and some more than others. Some more than others, not everybody is a walking magnet for trouble or giants, but you and I know, especially those of you who have been here a long time, you know that it's just part of the trip. I love the messages, all of the nitro messages: “Tough shoes for a tough trip,” “Cheer up saints, it's going to get worse,” “Fret not, fret not,” but when I read this particular passage and read again of what happened to these two kings, I think, “My God will fight for me.” He will go before me. I will not fear these things that are in front of me. Why? Because God's hand is in it and just like these people where it says “all came to pass,” all, according to God's word, will come to pass, because I serve a very faithful God. You serve a very faithful God. Now let me take you back to Nehemiah, lest you think that I, I left you out there somewhere, but instead of going to the 9th chapter, I want you to turn to the 4th chapter, just so you can see that God has not changed, not through hundreds of years, now through thousands, thousands; hundreds a better statement, of years. In Nehemiah 4, while the enemies were coming against the people and hindering the work and doing whatever they could do, there is the last part of verse 20, Nehemiah 4 and verse 20, where it says “our God shall fight for us.” And I want you to think how many times, if you comb the book, could you find those words or something like those words that God is fighting the battles for His people. Nehemiah knew it in his day, whoever was praying, whether it was Ezra or someone else, knew about it in his day. We should know about it in ours. It means no matter what. I ask the question, just like the song that we━I tried to sing: If God Be For Us, Who Can Be Against Us? And I'm going to now speak to me in front of you. It makes no sense for me to say that, but I'm speaking faith to myself and saying no matter what I face, and I'm facing some things that I just can't fathom; they're nothing in God's hands, because God is with us. And all of the things that He's declared: No weapon formed against us shall prosper, that greater is He that is in me than any other power that could be lobbed at me, that the very thing that the devil might have intended to make it a crippling event for me, I will be fortified, because when I am weak, then I'm strong because it's His strength in me and by that strength I can do all things. When I wrap my mind around what this means, “our God shall fight for us,” and still yet to this day. I can think of the apostle Paul in prison alone, when he said that no one stood with him, but he said the Lord stood by him and strengthened him. And that's the same God yesterday, today and forever. It's the same God that will be with me as I meet the challenges of the week and perhaps the year, and maybe the challenges of my lifetime for this ministry. Don't fret over what I'm telling you. I want each and every one of you to recognize that the devil has been trying for years, and it seems like it just got amped up just a little bit more. Whether it's to scare some of the people off, thinking, “Well, she can't do it,” or “We're not going to make it,” or “I don't know about this,” whether it's been to attack our equipment, to attack the minds of some people, maybe it's to attack the budget. Whatever it is, I've seen it and I recognize who the enemy━the enemy is not you, the enemy is not even the people who are out there listening who aren't here attending. The enemy is the devil and as long as he can get you to be afraid, confused, not hang onto something and say, “Here, I have my focus here,” not, not, “God, You can't possibly fix this,” but “God there is no problem too great that You can't solve it.” And when you finally and I finally come to that I'm looking, I'm not being cocky about it, but I'm looking ahead and I'm thinking to myself, you know, maybe the enemy has enlarged the way I see things. You know, maybe the enemy is trying to make himself look much bigger, but there is a much greater Person. That's why I had him sing that song, Somebody Bigger than You and I; Somebody bigger than all the giants and all the demons and all the forces that come against this ministry, against you and against me. I know what to do as your pastor and I've told you many times, you “resist the devil, he'll flee from you,” you rebuke Satan in Jesus' name. You recognize that the enemy doesn't care how, as long as he's attempted. So I'm going to do exactly what I've said to you through this message today, looking at the things that appeared to me in the last few days as a king Sihon and as a king Og that my God is greater than any problem. My God will fight for me and for this ministry and all the things that God has said, just like I just read to you out of Joshua, “and they come to pass.” That will be the final words for this ministry on the day when the, and there will be a day, I don't think it will be now, but I think it will be when we all get to heaven, “and it came to pass,” God made good on all the things that He said He would. When I said to you earlier this message is for me, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, I don't want you to feel bad for me; I want you to look at me and realize that the pressure that I have has been turned up many times more and instead of going the other way and saying, “I'm not going to share it with you”" no, I'm going to tell you. I want you to pray for me, not; don't pray for me in sadness, I don't want people sending me messages saying, “Oh, Pastor, this is terrible.” No! “We glory in tribulation!” We glory in the fact that God has seen us to be more than honorable vessels to give us the challenges that He metes out and no matter how great they appear, My God will fight. And He will fight for me and He will fight for you and this ministry and we will get the victory, because the victory is ours, in Jesus' name. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California. Every Sunday morning I teach the Word at 11am. I invite you to join us. If you'd like to receive a pass, simply call the 800# that is 800-338-3030 to join us. Now, we're going to take you in to another teaching segment, not from the sanctuary which you've just been watching but from the other place I teach from during the week. We call it the Festival of Faith. Now, back to my giants. I want to share this with you because as I said, when you start looking you'll find these things throughout the scriptures. Would turn with me to Psalm 136? And I'll read the whole psalm, but I want you to take a look at beginning at verse, Psalm 136 beginning at verse 17. “ To him which smote great kings: his mercy endureth for ever: He slew famous kings: his mercy endureth for ever: Shion king of the Amorites: for his mercy endureth for ever: And Og the king of Bashan: for his mercy endureth for ever: And gave their land for an heritage: and his mercy endureth for ever: Even an heritage unto Israel his servant.” And it's very interesting you would probably pass by these things, but now that you know who these people are you recognize they're memorialized thorough the scriptures as if to say, God is saying this great thing. “Which really in terms of all the things,” God speaking “that I've done not so great, but in your eyes, because these were so great a people, pretty great.” Think about this. Now I was tempted to teach the lesson out of Nehemiah 9 verse 22 out of this psalm, and I thought no, I want to go through the passages in scripture that show God's going to fight. God's going to be victorious. We ought to not be fearful. We ought to be standing and forging forward and facing the giants that come into our realm and recognize that God as I said might send a couple of hornets to prepare the people, but He's going to do the fighting and He's going to win the battle. Let me read this whole thing and I want you to as I'm reading this, I want you to put in the back of your mind there are 26 verses to this psalm and each verse ends with “his mercy endureth for ever” Which really the Hebrew reads ky la owlam checedoh, which is for, really for forever or for eternity or forever for forever, His steadfast love. We say mercy, but I want you to really see it as His steadfast love, His unfailing love. So every time I read “his mercy endureth for ever” I want you to think, “for forever His steadfast love.” Just think of that. "O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks unto God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever.” When I was reading that, I said “Lord of lords, King of kings.” You can see Christ in every passage, if you like to read it that way. “To him who alone doeth great wonders:” He does them. “his mercy endureth for ever. To him that by wisdom mad the heavens”" He spoke and created it all. “his mercy endureth for ever. To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: his mercy endureth for ever. To him that made great lights: for his mercy endureth for ever. The sun to rule by day: for his mercy endureth for ever:” Great steadfast unfailing never ending love in creation. “The moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth for ever. To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn: his mercy endureth for ever:” Don't you think it's interesting? It goes from praising God to praising God in creation to God blotting out the enemy. I like it a lot! “Brought out of Israel from among them: his mercy endureth for ever:” With a strong hand and with a stretched out arm, “his mercy endureth for ever. To him which divided the Red sea into parts: his mercy endureth for ever: And made Israel to pass through the midst of it: for his mercy endureth for ever:” Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? “But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea: for his mercy endureth for ever.” That's how much He loved them. Not only did he blot them out, he covered them up in the water. “ To him which led his people through the wilderness:” even though they complained. I want to say something else, but they complained. They really complained. “his mercy endureth for ever. To him which smote great kings: his mercy endureth for ever. And slew famous kings: his mercy endureth for ever: Sihon king of the Amorites: for his mercy endureth for ever. And Og the king of Bashan: for his mercy endureth for ever: And gave their land for an heritage:” If you know your Bible, you're going to know that way way back there in the promises both in the closing chapters of Genesis and then what was again repeated in Moses' blessing of the tribes, you're going to read about Gad, Ruben and the half tribe of Manasseh, which by the way got this land. And that's a whole different message which is again how incredible right down to the detail of God fulfilling His word that this promise for this particular land that wasn't even part of the promised land would become an extension of that which at least for Gad, Ruben and the half tribe of Manasseh to inherit as theirs. That's a subject for another day. But he “gave their land for an heritage: for his mercy endureth for ever: Even an heritage unto Israel his servant: for his mercy endureth for ever. Who remembered us in our low estate:” I have to tell you in my Bible, I've colored this thing, but there's two words that I've circled, “He remembered us in our low estat”" and “hath redeemed us from our enemies.” That's why I told you I was tempted to use this as the launching pad for the message, but I said no I'll read it to you. You can see it for yourself now that you know what we're dealing with. “He remembered us in our low estate:” Thank, thank, thank God. Thank you God, that it doesn't& there's no requirement here. He knows exactly where we are, where we came from and where we're going. “And he hath redeemed us from our enemies: for his mercy endureth for ever. Who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks unto the God of heaven: for his mercy endureth for ever.” So what I, when I read this, I thought you know what's so amazing is this repetition, 26 times, “forever His steadfast love” including in creation, in blotting out our enemies, and in redeeming, remembering and redeeming us and providing for us. So this is an interesting psalm. It kind of is one of those things that you go and you read and you think, “whoever wrote this had the same mindse”" which I'm very inclined to believe might be in the same vein of the timeframe of Nehemiah, some of those psalms that were penned in that time frame. I kind of think this has that same general feel to it. Much like by the way, Psalm 135 that also mentions Sihon and Og. It's very interesting, you start looking you're going to find these people all over the place, sometimes only referenced as “those two kings.” That's like God saying, “Again you people small in stature, or feeling small in stature looking at these great enemies and yet I'm greater than they are. What are you afraid of?” What time I'm afraid, I will trust in the Lord. I will trust and not be afraid of what man or any other person even the devil can do unto me. You start to see this is my inspiration. That's why I said to you, we had a theme for the music. I had a theme for the message and I want you to carry for the rest of the week a them with you, which is no matter what's going on God's in control. I think I've been saying this for years now. God's in control. He's faithful. He's going to see you through. He going to see me through and guess what. At the end of all of this, the great giants, maybe even the things I'm looking that at least initially I shook my head at. I'm going to realize they were only magnified for a moment, because of uncertainty or my lack of latching on to God and saying, “God, no matter how great you are greater than anything that can come against me, because you are God, God of gods, Lord of lords, King of kings. And with that everything is underneath You, so I put it in Your hands and I'm completely trusting You to work it out.” That's my prayer for you as well as we go through this week fighting, and fighting the good fight of faith.
