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!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Inconsistency of Moral Progress

If morality, if our ideas of right and wrong, are purely subjective, we should have to abandon any idea of moral progress (or regress), not only in the history of nations, but in the lifetime of each individual. The very concept of moral progress implies an external moral standard by which not only to measure that a present moral state is different from an earlier one but also to pronounce that it is "better" than the earlier one.  Without such a standard, how could one say that the moral state of a culture in which cannibalism is regarded as an abhorrent crime is any "better" than a society in which it is an acceptable culinary practice? Naturalism denies this. For instance, Yuval Harari asserts: "Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in th
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

I am what I am by Gloria Gaynor

Beverly Knight closed the opening ceremony of the Paralympics with what has been dubbed the signature tune of the Paralympics. I had no idea Ms Knight is still in the singing business. And clearly going by the raving reviews she will continue to be around. One media source says her performance was so electric that "there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen as she sang the lyrics to the song and people even watching at home felt the passion in her words" . The song was Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am . Clearly not written by Gloria Gaynor but certainly musically owned and popularized by her. It opens triumphantly: I am what I am / I am my own special creation / So come take a look / Give me the hook or the ovation / It's my world that I want to have a little pride in / My world and it's not a place I have to hide in / Life's not worth a damn till you can say I am what I am The words “I am what I am” echo over ten times in the song. A bold declaration that she
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

The Shame of Worldly Joy

Only a Christian can be joyful and wise at the same time, because all other people either rejoice about things that they should be ashamed of (Philippians 3:19) or things that will disappear. A Christian is not ashamed of his joy, because he is not joyful about something shameful. That is why the Apostle Paul in [2 Corinthians 1:12] defends his joy. He says, I don’t care if everyone knows what makes me happy, because it is the ‘testimony of my conscience.’ He means, let other people can be happy about base pleasures that they are afraid to admit; let other people rejoice in riches, fame, or popularity; they can be happy about whatever they want, but my joy is different. ‘I rejoice because of my conscience.’ A Christian has a happiness that he can stand by and prove. No one else can do that. They will feel embarrassed and guilty if their happiness is found in something that is outside of themselves. They cannot say, ‘this is what makes me happy’. But a Christian has the approval of his
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →