Skip to main content

What is your iron chariot?

And the LORD was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.
JUDGES 1:19

At the first reading of this verse, it seems like the author of Judges is suggesting the iron may be too strong for God. In fact his point is totally the opposite. Prior to this incident the author of Judges tells us about the various victories over the Cananites that God gave the people of God, especially of the brutal Adoni-Bezek. God had done this just as He had promised the people after the death of Joshua. So there is no doubt that the God of Israel is omnipotent!

The problem is that before this incident, the people of God have been following God half-heartedly. They have been relying on their strength rather than trusting God. And this failure to trust God has become obvious with tougher opponents! When they see the iron chariots, they forget that God had promised to fight for them, instead they turn back in fear. The fear of the iron chariots has led them to quit their mission to take the land properly. Sometimes it looks like you are trusting God until we face a situation that really exposes your lack of trust in God.

What is important to remember that it is God who has allowed this opposition to test His people, as he says later in Judges (See Judges 2:20 - 23). God is full of grace and because He is gracious he wants His people to be fully obedience to Him. And part of his preferred method for making us more obedient is to allow our disobedience to play out so that we see how much we need Him and repent! Judah failure to finish their conquest because of the opposition of the iron chariot is grace in action because their lack of trust in God is now exposed so that they should turn and repent before God.

May be you currently going through a period of divine frustration. God has allowed an “iron chariot” in your life that seems impregnable. You think the chariot is the problem. Have you considered whether God is allowing that “iron chariot” to bring you to the end of your faith so that your only dependence is on God? May of us are deluded in thinking we are following God when in fact we are only depending on ourselves. So we need to carefully examine our lives and see whether the problems we are facing are as a result of divine frustration!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I Am Mother

I think it is true to say that the Netflix film I Am Mother is one the most disturbing movies I have watched for a long time. The film is set in a near future. Human life has been wiped out. An artificial intelligence (AI) called Mother is living inside a bunker where thousands of embroyos are stored. It selects an embryo and initiates a program to grow a baby within 24 hours. The AI then goes on to raise the child as its mother over the next few years.  After 16 years, the girl, who now goes by the name of Daughter (Clara Rugaard) is a teenager. She has never been outside because Mother has told her that the air is toxic. Her time is spend being home schooled in science and ethics so that she can become a perfect human being. The bond between Daughter and Mother is unusually strong. To our surprise there does not appear to be any mental or pyschological trauma of having a machine as her mother.  The strength of the bond between man and machine is tested when a nameless Woman (Hilary

What is the best preparation for preaching?

The best preparation is not to be too anxious about it. Anxious care hinders liveliness and efficacy. It leads to too little dependence on the Spirit. Be not didactic. Aim at the conscience as soldiers aim at the faces. Consider I may be preaching my last sermon. This leads to setting forth Christ as The Way, the Truth and the Life . .. Make Christ the prominent figure…Pay less attention to dear self. JOHN NEWTON

White Fragility, A Review

Robin DiAngelo has a sermon to preach. It is in form of a short popular book called White Fragilit y. Straight off the bat she tells us not to expect balanced analysis but a forceful argument “unapologetically rooted in identity politics”.  She understands identity politics as “the [political] focus on the barriers specific groups face in their struggle for equality”. The group she wants to save is black people, whom she blankets under “people of colour”.  So what is White Fragility about?  DiAngelo is sick and tired of white racism in the western world, and specifically the USA. She believes every white person, including babies, are guilty of racism by virtue of being white. So she wants to use her “insider status” as a white American woman to challenge this white racism by getting her fellow “white progressives” to force forward her thesis. In her words, “I am white...and I am mainly writing to a white audience”. I was immediately tempted to put down the book because being black Afri