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Proclaiming Christ
It is good to ask the Lord to help us. However sometimes it is more powerful to proclaim who He is, especially in the face of discouraging circumstances. Our enemy is not so easily thwarted by our requests, but he is defeated by our proclamations.
Take an example from Isaiah 36-37 with Sennacherib (representing Satan) and Hezekiah (representing us).
"The field commander said to them, "Tell Hezekiah, "‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours? You say you have strategy and military strength--but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me? Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man’s hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him. And if you say to me, "We are depending on the LORD our God" --isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, "You must worship before this altar"?" Isaiah 36:4-7.
"Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: "O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God. "It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God."" Isaiah 37:14-20
"Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning--there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there." Isaiah 37:36,37.
Satan cannot stand up to our testimony of the truth of who God is.
"But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."" Matthew 12:36,37.
Larry Chkoreff February, 2001