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Simple thought from this name,
the Lord of Hosts, which actually, as I was studying this name,
I was surprised to find how often it is found in the Bible, particularly
the New Testament. But before we go into a study
more of this name and what it means and how we can apply it
to our lives, I want you to be thinking tonight
as we begin about the great task it is to have the responsibility
of commanding an army. You know, a man, a general, or
a colonel, or a lieutenant, a man who has soldiers under him, he
has a responsibility for training, leading, and organizing the men
that are underneath him so that victory is accomplished in the
end, right? They want to win whatever war they're waging,
whatever campaign they're going for. Well, one man who's probably
one of the most famous generals in American history is Dwight
Eisenhower, who later went on to become President of the United
States. Well, Eisenhower, if you study up on the history of
Eisenhower, you know that he had many exploits in World War
II, many different campaigns, but perhaps the one he's most
well known for is the invasion of D-Day on June 6th. 1944, otherwise
known as Operation Overlord. And Eisenhower did a lot to train
and plan in preparation for this grand attack on the European
continent, on the Nazi forces that were holding France at that
time. Well, Eisenhower, he did a lot
in preparation for this. He had one driving motivation. Eisenhower quotes, we will accept
nothing less than total victory. That was the one thing that drove
him. That as a commander, as a general, as a military man,
he was gonna accept nothing less than total victory. And full
victory was what he got. As the Allied forces on D-Day
were able to make their way through the German command, get through
France, get into the European continent, and eventually win
the war. Well, do you know that we have a God who is wiser, stronger,
and far more superior than the US military. And our God is the
Lord of hosts. That's the name we're going to
be studying here tonight. Before we get into how it applies to
our lives, let's look at some basic definitions. If you study
this name, especially in the Old Testament, you will find
this, that it's really the Lord of hosts is a compound name.
Many times you'll find Lord as all caps in your King James Bible,
which as pastor preached about several weeks ago, is the name
Jehovah, Yahweh, right? Which is the idea that God is
the all sufficient God. He is always there. And he is always what we need
him to be. I'm not going to re-preach that message, but it's very significant
that right at the beginning, we can see that this name has
significance because it's the most personal name of God that
we see in the Old Testament. And it's connected to this name,
the Lord of Hosts. If you were to look through the
rest of your Bibles in the Old Testament, you would find a couple
variations of this name. You'd find the God of Hosts or
Lord God of Hosts, a lot of different variations like that. But this
is kind of the one that's most prominent in the Old Testament,
Lord of Hosts, and of course it starts with Jehovah. But the
idea of hosts Sabah, I believe is the way you'd pronounce that
in the Hebrew. It's a Hebrew term which means a mass of persons
especially regularly organized for war, in parentheses, an army. And the idea here that God is
really pictured as a general with an enormous, massive army
at his command. We can take the name, really
the Lord of Hosts, we can almost rephrase it as God is the God
of armies. That's what host really means.
It's just a mass, a body of people organized for something. And
in this case, it's particularly for war. So we see in the Old
Testament, you have that idea of God being the one who is in
charge of what? God having full control, full
power, full authority over what? Well, in the Old Testament, mainly
it's the nation of Israel. That's what he has command over.
That's who he's in charge over. But even more than that, God
is in charge of all the armies of the world. And you know, regardless
of the men who control squadrons or platoons of soldiers, God
is in control of all of them, whether they realize it or not.
And that's a very significant thing, because you can look throughout
history and find wars and battles of all kinds. And you realize
that in the background, in the scenes, is God himself controlling
all of these events. None of these things are out
of his hand. He controls all of them. And he allows these
things to happen. He's sovereign in that way. So
that's very interesting that these two ideas are coming together. Jehovah, the self-existent God,
the eternal God, the one who is always what we need him to
be, And yet he's a god of hosts, a god of armies, a god who controls
things. And really what I want you to
see as the idea of hosts is that God has power. That's the picture
being conveyed. He has authority, he has power
over events, over people, over things in history. And not only
is God in control of earthly armies, but we'll see in a minute
through our first text here today in 2 Kings, he's also in control
of heavenly armies. We'll find out what that's, how
God pictures that in the word of God for us later on. But kind
of to put together from the beginning, these first two terms, Jehovah
and hosts. The God who is all we need him
to be, the God who is a God of armies. What does this look like?
Well, a very simple definition, certainly not the only definition
that we could come up with, but I would say the most substantive
that involves everything that these names represent. The God
who has all the power and authority to overcome every obstacle and
enemy that his people face. So there again, you have the
idea of power, authority, and overcoming. the enemies of God,
the enemies of God's people. Again, you look in the Old Testament,
you find the Lord of hosts, the God of armies, getting rid of,
destroying all the nations, the Canaanite nations that were trying
to stand in the way of Israel taking the land of Canaan. And
you find all these different events in all the Old Testament
as well in the prophets. You find it in the Psalms, talking
about how God is superior over something, over someone, over
some nation, over an enemy, over an obstacle. And because he's
in control of that, I can trust him. It goes back to the idea
of his people. You know, that's our God, that's
the God that we have. The God who controls armies.
Now this kind of gives us a very basic idea of what this name
means, but again, we have, since he's Jehovah, he's always what
we need him to be. And since he has all the power
in the world at his disposal, no obstacle is too big for him.
And take those ideas with you as we look at a couple of Bible
examples. Turn, in your Bibles if you would, to 2 Kings chapter
six. If you're not already there, that's our first passage that
I want you to see. representing and picturing the
God of armies that we see in the Bible, the Lord of hosts.
2 Kings chapter 6. We're not going to read the entire
story that's accounted here, but I'll just kind of give you
a very basic idea of what's going on. We have there in 2 Kings
6, you have the nation of Israel and their king who is being oppressed
by the nation of Syria. The king of Syria finds out that
Elisha has basically been giving the king of Israel secrets about
the Syrian kingdom and some of the moves and military plans
that they have. And the king of Syria wasn't
too happy about that. So he finds out where Elisha
is, he finds out the city he's hiding in, and he basically sends
an enormous horde of his soldiers, his Syrian soldiers, to go and
capture this prophet Elisha. Now Elisha's servant wakes up
in the morning, looks out of his window, and guess what he
finds? An enormous army that he knows is out to get his master,
the one that he serves, Elisha. And he tells Elisha, Elisha,
there's this huge host outside waiting to get us. What are we
going to do? Elisha's response is fascinating. He says here
in Verse 16, 2 Kings 6 verse 16, and he answered, fear not,
for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that
he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes
of the young man and he saw, and behold, the mountain was
full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Amazing. So here, This servant
could only see what was on the physical level. All he could
see was there's a huge army out there that's out to get just
one man, and humanly they would get him if they could. They had
the power, the authority to do it. But Elisha helped this servant
understand something, that the God of armies controls the host
of heaven, which the Bible tells us are actually innumerable.
The Bible says tens of thousands and thousands. The idea is you
couldn't count them if you wanted to. God's hosts, God's support,
the campaign that God would wage against Satan, against the enemies
of God, those are so big and so massive, you couldn't even
count it. And this is exciting because you know what? We often
fear what Satan, what the world is trying to do to us, what they're
trying to do to the church, what they're trying to do to Christians
in other parts of the world. You know, we don't have to be
afraid because we have the heavenly host on our side. We have, I
mean, that's a simple picture, but I can't imagine what that
servant saw. That'd be another clip in the
Bible that I would love to see. Think of that, to see the host
of angels. And here, all Elisha did was
pray. He said, God, open this servant's
eyes. Help him to see that you're in control of the situation.
And you know what he did? That servant saw, got a glimpse of
the heavenly realm, what's going on up there in a world we can't
see because it's God in control of it. And you know what, Elisha,
the story goes on to say Elisha prayed and asked for that army,
those chariots, those horses, to blind the Syrian soldiers. And you know what, they were
made completely blind and Elisha was able to go through safely.
That's the power that God has. And at an instant, Elisha also
prayed, Lord, would you open the eyes of the Syrians when
the right time came? And their eyes were opened. Now, we may
never get to see what that servant saw here on earth. But I think
in this simple story, God is wanting us to understand that
he has control over a heavenly host far bigger than we can imagine. And because he controls that
host, I don't have to be afraid of whatever obstacles I face
as a Christian. Whether it's the world, or Satan
tempting me, or my flesh tempting me, none of those obstacles are
too big for God. Because he has that in his control.
He has that massive army under his command, and he will use
it for his people individually. And he knows your need exactly
when you need that backup, that support to be there for you.
That's the kind of God we have, the God of armies. Now you don't
have to turn there, but I'll turn there in my Bible. 1 Samuel
17, another biblical example of the Lord of hosts being used. We know the story of David and
Goliath very well. David, a young man, comes to
the camp to visit his brothers and finds out that this Philistine
is mocking God, mocking the armies of Israel. And he dares to challenge
this giant when trained Israelite soldiers, none of them would
take him on. For 40 days and 40 nights, none
of these soldiers would take Goliath on this challenge. But
David, a 17-year-old kid, was willing to do it because he trusted
in the Lord. And when he stands before that
giant, it's very interesting what he says. You're gonna hear
this and you're probably gonna recognize it, but notice what
he says about God. So David's before Goliath, he
says, then said David to the Philistine, thou comest to me
with a sword and with a spear and with a shield. but I come
to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies
of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver
thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee and take thine head
from thee, and I will give the carcasses of the host of the
Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air and to the wild
beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there
is a God in Israel. Notice the name of God that he
used there, the Lord of hosts. Why? Because here's a giant,
a military man. I mean, perfect picture. You
have a Philistine military against an Israelite military. And guess
whose side God is on? God is on the Israelite side.
And none of these soldiers, none of the men of Israel, not even
King Saul, their leader, recognized that God was in control of the
situation. But here, David, A 17-year-old man was so in tune with the Lord,
so in tune with what God was doing at that battlefield that
day, that he said, you know what, Goliath? I stand before you,
and I'm way shorter than you are, and I have no capacity on
my own, no physical capacity to take you down, but I do know
one person who can take you down, and his name is the Lord of Hosts.
You know, as I was studying this, I noticed something about David.
Do you know that David had no Bible verse to claim there? Do
you know that David had no other believers rallying around him?
He had no other Israelites who were like, yeah, yeah, go on,
you can do it, you know, we're trusting the Lord. No, all of
them were fearful. All of them were trembling. He had no encouragement
from other people whatsoever. But he could stand on that battlefield
alone and say, I'm alone here on this ground, but I've got
the God of armies on my side. I've got the God who controls
the hosts of heaven. The God who controls your army,
Goliath, he controls the Philistine army too. And David so believed
it that he could stand in front of that giant and say, I'm gonna
kill you and I'm gonna take your head off. That's what he said.
He had that boldness because he was trusting in the name of
God. He knew God so well, all he needed
was to trust in a name. You know, you and I here, we
sit, we're here in the New Testament times, the church age, and we
have a Bible loaded with promises. We have Christians all around
us who can encourage us and cheer us on. We have a pastor, other
men of God who are in our lives who encourage us, who build us
up in our faith. And yet, so often, it's easy
for us to doubt the power of God, isn't it? Oh, you know,
that person can never get saved. You know, I can never see victory
in my family. I can never, you know, be consistent
in my Bible time. It's just, it's, these are obstacles
I can't overcome. But God says, I'm the God of
armies. And I can deal with any enemy that you face. And here
we have, again, another instance where the God of armies, the
Lord of hosts, is used for just one person, one individual. And
we're gonna see another, one last Bible example, also in the
book of 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter one, the story
of Hannah and Hannah's prayer for a son. You know, Hannah was
like any woman in Israel at that day. She was desperate to have
a child. You know, that's what was expected of the ladies at
that time. And the Bible says that the Lord closed up her womb.
And she was desperate, she wanted a child. And she was so desperate
that she went to God and prayed about this request. And as she's
praying about this request, she invokes the name of the Lord
of hosts. She uses the name of God this way. Look at what, this
is verse 10 here in 1 Samuel chapter one. And she was in bitterness
of soul, and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore. And she vowed
a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the
affliction of thine handmaid and remember me and not forget
thine handmaid, but will give unto me thine handmaid a man-child,
then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life.
And there shall no razor come upon his head. Now this is very
interesting. This lady wanted one thing. Hannah
wanted one thing. She wanted a son. Why does she
use the name of the God of armies? Because she understood something
about that name. And what's very interesting about this particular
instance is this is the first time recorded in the Old Testament
in the Bible where someone prays this name to God. First instance,
which is amazing. We go through the whole Pentateuch,
not once used. But here we have a simple lady living in Israel.
In the days, right during the judges, And she knows God, that
he is the God of armies, that he's in control of all things,
that he has all the power in the world to give her a son if
he chose. And she says, God, if you will
give me a son, I'll give him right back to you. That's an
amazing thing. You know, we'll be going to prayer
tonight here, particularly about VBS and about our canvassing
on Sunday and even Saturday. It's easy to think that, oh,
you know, we do this every year, nothing's gonna come of it, or,
you know, we're not gonna see any growth, we're not gonna see
any increase. It's easy to think humanly. But you know, these
examples that we see in scripture, they're not thinking humanly.
They're not thinking on the physical level. Their heart is in the
heavenly realm. Their heart goes back to God
and says, God, the situation looks impossible. But you have
to do it. You have to break through. Because
there's no other way that this is going to happen. It's that
point where you come to God and you say, God, there's no control
I have over the situation. But you do. Because you have
all power to overcome any obstacle or any enemy that's in my life
right now. We're gonna go to prayer. Maybe the enemy you face
is yourself and maybe the fear of, you know, talking to people
and going out there and being in outreach. And God says, I
can overcome that fear. I have the power to do that.
I am the God of armies, the Lord of hosts. I don't know what fear
it is, what obstacle it is, what enemy that you face tonight,
but the Lord knows. And I trust the Spirit of God
is gonna apply it to your life specifically and show you, you
know that enemy, that obstacle, that challenge, that trial in
your life? I'm the God of armies. I control
that and I am able to overcome that. One thing I also see in this
story, particularly about Hannah, and even just the idea of prayer,
is that we go to prayer so often, we wonder, or maybe we aren't
sure, are my prayers even being answered? Are the things that
I'm asking God, is God hearing them? Is God gonna answer at
some point? Well, one thing could be that
we have hidden sin that we haven't confessed, but there is another
possibility. And the possibility is that in
the unseen spiritual realm, Satan himself is actually fighting
against that prayer being answered. And that's a very real thing.
It's a thing we can't see, but it's what the Bible tells us
can very well be happening in our prayer lives, where we're
asking God about this request and this request, and it seems
like, wow, nothing's happening. Could it be that even tonight
as we pray for VBS, Satan is specifically targeting our prayer
meetings so that we don't get the answers? So that we don't
see the results, the fruit? Well, I can tell you and encourage
you tonight that we have the God of armies on our side. And
as we pray, we can invoke that name ourselves, the Lord of hosts
and say, God, I don't know what Satan is gonna try to do to stop
what we're doing, what your church is doing to move forward, to
see the gospel move forward here in Corona, but God, I know that
you are in control of everything and you have all power to overcome
any obstacle in my life. So I trust it's an encouragement
to you tonight as we go to prayer.
Who Is The Lord Of Hosts? The Lord Has The Power To Overcome Every Obstacle
Series Names Of God
| Sermon ID | 625152222293 |
| Duration | 21:56 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | 2 Kings 6:16 |
| Language | English |
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