Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Well, we're going to talk about angels today. But I want to turn you to the book of Joshua and introduce you to the story, as it were, halfway through. I'd love to go back and start at Chapter 1, but I'm not going to. We're going to be in Chapter 5, and I will fill you in a little bit of the background before we begin.

This particular story of Joshua might not be one of the most famous and most familiar stories to you. I think every time you say Joshua, you think the battle of Jericho, right? And we will be talking about the battle of Jericho. But as you have your Bible open at Chapter 5, let me just fill you in a little bit of the background. Joshua was a teenager when he lived in Egypt as a slave. And he knew what it was to make bricks without straw.

One of the things that Pharaoh did to the slaves, the children of Israel, was to punish them by telling them they had to find their own straw, which doesn't sound much to us, but meant incredible heartache and labor for them. Up to that point, Pharaoh had provided the straw. And so this strong young man built his body under the hot sun, slaving. And he was obviously extremely strong physically, extremely gifted physically. He was to become the leader of Israel's army for 40 years and to take the children of Israel into the promised land.

So his roots were deep in his history of the captivity in Egypt. He had also been part of the redemption of the Passover, of that incredible night when the Passover lamb had been slain and the firstborn in Egypt in each home had died, and in desperation Pharaoh let them go, a million and a quarter of them. And Joshua was at Moses' side as his aide, his young aide. So not only was he physically incredibly gifted and able, but he was spiritually in tune with everything that was happening.

And so he experienced coming out of Egypt and the Red Sea parting and the whole of the Egyptian army being drowned in the sea. He saw it with his own eyes. And then you come into that period of 40 years where he was very close to Moses. He was on the mountain when Moses received the Ten Commandments. So here is a man steeped in everything that God has in mind in his purposes for the world.

And then you come to the awful 40 years of rebellion in the wilderness. And God at one point saying to Moses, "This whole generation will die in the wilderness. Not one of them will set foot in the land that I brought them out to possess because of their behavior, because they've gone away from me." And Moses, what is more, nor will you. Now, I don't know whether Joshua knew that God had told Moses he would not go into the promised land. Probably he had, but I don't think Joshua had ever reckoned that he would be the one to stand in Moses' sandals.

And if you can imagine yourself in that position, yes, second in command, but I'm going to stand in Moses'? I'm the one? I mean this whole Exodus had been towards overcoming the enemies in the promised land, and now here is Joshua, overwhelmed. I want to just reread 1, 2, 3, and 4, then it will bring you up to where we are. But in Chapter 1, he is overwhelmed with inadequacy. And I think all of us can relate to that. I'm sure there's been times in your life, there certainly has in my life, when I have felt totally inadequate. Standing in Moses' sandals, it's not a pretty place to be. God encourages him and says, "I've commissioned you." In fact, the commissioning had happened in Moses' time. Moses had brought Joshua out and laid his hands on him in sight of all the elders and the whole of Israel, and God had given him that physical exposure, that visible sign to Israel that he was to be the leader.

But here again at the beginning of the book, Moses is dead. God again reaffirms, "You're my man. Be strong, be of good courage, don't be scared," which tells you he was scared and he didn't have courage. So they are feet on the River Jordan. The other side is the promised land. God does a Red Sea again, and the Jordan splits, which is a pretty hefty river at that point incidentally. It's a big river, it's a deep river. But as the priests take the ark of God and their feet touch the waters, it stands up on either side and Israel moves ahead.

And they arrive within the sight of Jericho. I have stood there and you come into this plain of the desert from a hill, not too big a hill, but you're up here and you look down into this shimmering desert where the ruins of Jericho are. And I can just imagine Joshua coming to that hill where our bus stopped and we all got out and relived what it must have been like for him to see the first, well actually, the biggest battle of his life because it was the first. It was the symbolic thing here.

And again overwhelmed, he was totally overwhelmed. Israel had prepared themselves. They had not been marked with the sign of circumcision in that whole generation that had fallen away from God. And so he does a very uncommander-like thing. He circumcises every male and puts them out of action. I mean, it will. That'll do. However, he does it because they need to get the mark in their flesh which speaks of the mark in their heart, Paul says in the New Testament. A Jew isn't a Jew because he's circumcised in his flesh. It's a mark of the heart, of the character that shows a Jew is a Jew. And so what was happening here was God was saying, "You really got away from me in the desert. Let's get everything sorted out."

And so they are circumcised, then they are consecrated, and then they have the Passover. This is all before they tackle Jericho. And now they're ready. And they're all having a sleep because tomorrow they're going to win the battle. Verse 13: "When Joshua was near Jericho," maybe on that very place that we stopped to look down on that hill to have a look at what was ahead and the challenge that faced him. "When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, 'Are you for us or for our enemies?' 'Neither,' he replied, 'but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.' Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence and asked him, 'What message does my Lord have for his servant?' The commander of the Lord's army replied, 'Take off your sandals, for the place where you're standing is holy.' And Joshua did so."

And then verse 2, the Lord says to Joshua. This conversation goes on, ignore Chapter 6, that's just there. The whole story hangs together right into the next chapter. This man with the sword is the person we're going to be talking about. Now, for some of us, life is a battle. Everybody in the world is facing a battle of some sort. Some have a little tiny Jericho and some have a great big Jericho. Maybe it's a battle simply to stay alive.

When we were in Hong Kong a few years ago, we were in there with the Salvation Army actually, the only safe way to go in. And we were in there with some officers of the Salvation Army. And we went into some places where people have lived and died and will, the whole of their family for a few generations. 40 people on a king-size bed. That's how much space they have to live and die their whole life. You have to sleep in shifts. It's an incredible situation and that isn't just one little piece. That's a whole city. And so there are places in the world, many places in the world, where people are having a Jericho just to stay alive.

And for others, they are battling perhaps with sickness. That's their Jericho. For others, the battle might be a relationship, a broken marriage or a breaking marriage. Life is a battle. For some, it might be age. Well, that's a battle. It really can be a battle. I was looking in the store the other day and saw a great big advert for turtle cream. Who wants to look like a turtle was my immediate question of the salesgirl. This beauty cream, I mean, they should have chosen a more nice animal I guess, but anyway, I didn't buy any. But for some, it is a battle. Age is a battle and all that it brings. For some, losing a job. That's their Jericho. For some, it is a personal passion. For some, it is temptation that they cannot overcome. And all their lives they've given up. They've just been going round and round and round Jericho all their lives. Too big, too strong, so they'll just live their lives and let it be there in the middle of their life.

What Joshua needed to realize was that this was a bigger battle he was about to fight than the battle of Jericho. And when he saw this angel, he walks up to him and he says, "Who are you for? You on our side or you on their side?" And the man with the sword simply said, "I'm not on your side and I'm not on their side. There's a bigger battle that I've come to tell you about. Little Jericho's part of it, but I haven't come to take sides. I've come to take over. I haven't come to take sides. I've come to take over."

And there is a battle going on in the universe that is far bigger. And our little Jerichos just happen to be in that big plan. We're living in a war zone, folks. We're living in a war zone that is far more than this little problem that I have in my life. When I was a small child, I lived in Liverpool in the middle of a war. And night after night, we were bombed. And as a little girl of five, that was it for me. That was the war. My war was confined to my experience and my war was confined to my problem, and my Jericho was to avoid getting killed every night.

So we'd run down the tennis court and burrow underneath where my dad had built an air raid shelter under the ground and sit there. And so for probably two years of the war, I never slept in a bed. I'd sleep on the kitchen floor until the first air raid siren went, which was about 7:00 as soon as it got dark, and that would be it for the night. And down we'd go and we had all our little rations and we would sit there and try and sleep until we came back again. But of course there was a lot bigger war than that going on. As far as I was concerned, if you said to me, "Where's the war?" I would have said, "The war is here in this little square foot." But out there, there was a battle of the whole world against Nazism at that point.

And what we need to realize is that yes, it's pretty grim being bombed. It's pretty grim sitting in your little air raid shelter. That's a big war. That's a big Jericho. But hey, there's a far bigger war going on. It's the battle between God and Satan. It's the battle between good and evil. It's the battle between the devil and the fallen angels. One third of the angels fell and followed Satan in his rebellion. And the battle against God and the good angels, the two thirds, the zillions and zillions and zillions of angels. It's a battle against what the Bible calls principalities, powers, rulers, and authorities on the good side and on the bad side. This is the bigger war. And when Joshua was met with the man with the sword, the first thing he learned was he was in a bigger war than he ever realized. He was in a bigger war than he ever realized.

Now, where did this war begin? When Stuart and I were over in Utrecht in Holland with 7,000 kids from 52 different nations, all interested in missions. Can you imagine? God's cream of the crop. And we had the incredible privilege with a preaching teaching team to spend five days, 13, 14 hours a day with those kids. One of the things that they asked me to do was to participate in the track on spiritual warfare, and it was an eye opener for me. I learned a lot and had to teach a little bit as well. And there was a lot of question times. Those kids are bright. They're asking questions that I've never heard before and I've been working with kids all my life.

But one of the questions that kept coming up is, "Where did it all start?" I mean, if God created the angels to worship him, and God is holiness and do his will and be his messengers, which is what the Bible says they are, these great beings, these winged beasts the Bible talks about, these cherubim, these seraphim, who are six-winged. And the hosts of heaven who have no wings. What are all these spirit beings? And where did it begin? How could sin enter the universe? Over and over again that question came. Well, I want you to know the two passages of Scripture that talk about this. And if you turn quickly to Ezekiel 28:11-17.

Let me explain something here. When the writers were writing the Bible under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, sometimes they wrote beyond themselves and probably didn't even know that what they were doing was writing about something they didn't understand. And this is a case in point: Ezekiel 28:11-17. This oracle or message from Ezekiel to the King of Tyre is written in poetic language and it goes far beyond the human being that he begins to address. And I'll explain how and why. The word of the Lord came to me, "Son of man, take up a lament concerning the King of Tyre," who was very arrogant, very powerful being. Say to him, "This is what the Sovereign Lord says." And then the language goes far beyond this human being.

"You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty." Well, that can't be the King of Tyre. "You were in Eden, the garden of God." That can't be the King of Tyre. "Every precious stone adorned you," and then all the stones are named. "Your settings and mountings were made of gold. On the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub." This cannot be the King of Tyre. And so suddenly, a being behind, a power behind this evil king that is ruling most of the known world at that point is being addressed, is being exposed, is being talked about. There is a force influencing this world ruler, this King of Tyre. And the prophet, probably not realizing, was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit telling us about it.

"For so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God. You walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, you sinned. I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God. I expelled you, oh guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor, so I threw you to the earth," etc.

The other passage which we won't turn to, but you can look up for yourself, is Isaiah Chapter 14:12-15, where we learn this guardian cherub said at some point, used the free choice that God had created him, to choose to worship and serve his creator or to choose and worship himself. And he chose. And that's the origin of sin. Independence is the origin of sin. He never wanted to be Satan. He always wanted to be God. And in Isaiah, it says that he wanted to mount up onto the mount of the in heaven and to sit in the throne of God. "I want to be like the Most High," he said. That was the origin of sin.

And of course, the Bible tell us that Michael, a mighty angel, there are many mighty angels in the Bible. There was Michael who is the prince of Israel. He protects the nation of Israel. So we're taught in the book of Daniel and also in the New Testament in Jude, for example, Verse 6. There is Michael, there's Gabriel who came to Mary. There are many mighty angels who are named, who have specific tasks, who seem to have specific duties to care for nations. But Michael and his angels, maybe he's the warrior angel, I don't know, fought with the devil and all his angels. And Jesus said, because of course he was there, "I beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven." He was thrown out. And all the angels that rebelled with him were told one third of all those created spirit beings that were made to worship God who followed Satan and became demons were thrown out with him.

Well, where did they land? In the garden of Eden. Some people think because this says that you were in Eden, the garden of God, that could be the throne of God in heaven itself. Or it could be that Lucifer, son of the morning, this created cherub or seraphim, one of those and probably the highest and the biggest and the best and the most important, was in charge of this particular universe. Some people believe that and maybe that is so. And maybe the Eden that he was in, he was in before he fell. I don't know. But it was certainly his intent to pierce the heart of God to the below the belt would be to bring down God's pinnacle of creation, which was man himself.

And so we know the story in Genesis of how this happened. And the rebellion spread to earth. And man did fall. And Satan made this world the sphere of his activity. Jesus called him the prince of this world. Now always remember, Jesus is the King, but the devil is the prince. When will it end? 1 Corinthians 15:24 says, "The end will come when Jesus hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominions, authorities, and powers." And Matthew 25:41 says, "They'll all end up in the lake of fire," whatever that is. They'll all end up in the lake of fire. So between Genesis 3:16 and John 3:16. Genesis 3:16 says, "A descendant of the woman will bruise the serpent's head. A descendant of the woman will beat Satan, will destroy Satan." And we know that was Jesus. It's what he came to do. John 3:16 tells us that he came to do it. God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Then you go all the way through to Revelation where you see the devil and his angels cast into the lake of fire and the great throne set and the judgment happens and the end of the world comes.

And so here's Joshua with a little sword in Jericho, getting it in perspective. Hey, we are part of a bigger something than this. There's a war going on and we're living in the war zone. But we still have to fight the battle. God said to Joshua, "I have delivered Jericho into your hands along with its king and its fighting men." But then the next word is, "March around the city." The war is won, folks. The battle is won. It was won on the cross of Christ. Redemption happened, if you remember. In fact, I was just thinking about that point driving down and this sort of little poem came to me. It's very hard to write when you're driving, don't tell my husband.

Redemption is a crib of wood and hay wherein the Son of God, laid bare, was laid one night. For what? For whom? You rather ask. For whom? For little me who broke the heart of God. Redemption is a cross of wood, raised high wherein the Son of God, laid bare, was nailed to die. For what? For whom? You rather ask. For whom? For little me who broke the heart of God. Redemption is a tomb of stone, sealed tight wherein the Son of God, laid bare, was laid to rest. For what? For whom? You rather ask. For whom? For little me who broke the heart of God. Redemption is the heart that loves the Lord wherein the Son of God will make his holy home. In me, in my poor broken heart, in little me who broke the heart of God.

Life's a battle, but the biggest battle has been won on the cross. That's where we're all headed. But meanwhile there's Jericho. Joshua lifted up his eyes. And when you are facing your little problems, lift up your eyes and see the man with the sword above it all. You're just part of the process. God is working his purposes out. All things work together for the ultimate good. It doesn't mean your immediate good. All things are working together for the ultimate good. What is that? Heaven! The new heavens, the new age, the new world. And Joshua lifted up his eyes and he prayed. And the help of God is to be actively sought, not just passively received when we face our Jerichos. We have to lift up our eyes and say, "I don't understand how this little Jericho fits into the big war, but my job is to fight it with all the strength that I have." It's part of the puzzle. I don't know which part, it's part of the puzzle. My job is to pick up my little sword and remember that I've got the man with the sword over this whole situation fighting the bigger war that's already won and mopping up the enemy and I'm on the winning side. Doesn't mean I won't get wounded. Doesn't mean I won't die in the battle. But it means I'm on the winning side. And as soon as we actively seek his help, he is there actively to help us.

Now, who is this man with the sword? Well, the Old Testament tells us that it's the second person of the Trinity. This is the Logos, a kind of temporary pre-incarnation of the second person of the Trinity. This angel, this special angel, is set apart from all the other angels and there are many that appear in the Old Testament. He's called the Angel of the Covenant, the Angel of the Lord, the Angel of His Presence, which means face to face, the angel that is face to face with God. Meaning equally powerful, equal in character, equal in everything, the Angel of His Presence. He's called that.

And in a remarkable manner, he is distinguished from all the other angels in his names, in what he claims about himself when he appears, in his attributes, in what he does, and in the fact that when this Angel of the Lord appears, everybody worships him. And the children of Israel and we too are told not to worship angels. We're told not to worship angels. John fell flat on his face in Revelation. The angel lifted him up and said, "We're both servants. Don't worship me. Worship God." Daniel, same thing happened to him. The angel picks him up and says, "You're not to worship me." And so we are forbidden to worship angels.

And yet every time this angel appears, Abraham falls flat on his face in front of him. Gideon falls flat on his face in front of him. Manoah falls flat on his face in front of him. And Joshua falls flat on his face in front of him. And the angel does not rebuke him. In fact, the angel says, "Take off your shoes. The place you're standing is holy ground." What an incredible encouragement that must have been by the way. I mean, he knew that same situation had happened to who? Moses, in Exodus Chapter 3 when the burning bush had been burning but not being consumed and Moses thought, "That's funny. I've seen many bushes in the desert burst into flames with the heat. I've never seen one burn and burn and burn and not burn up."

So he turned aside to see. He lifted up his eyes. And when God saw he turned aside to see, the Angel of the Lord spoke to him from the bush and addressed him as God. "Take off your shoes," and told him what to do. "And what's your name?" he asked the angel in the bush. "I AM." God's name. So by the names he calls himself, by what he comes to say, in all these ways, we can know that this was a divine being. Only God can claim to be captain of all the spiritual beings I've been talking about. Only God. "I am the captain of the hosts of heaven that I have created. That's who I am." In the New Testament, we learn about the Captain of our Salvation. Same captain. Same captain.

He is a divine being. Secondly, he is a divine protector. He is the God of battles. He has a drawn sword in his hand. There's a wonderful phrase in the Old Testament: "the sword of the Lord." When Gideon, like Joshua, was shaking in his sandals at what God asked him to do. God asked him to take an army and go and fight against people that looked like grasshoppers, there were so many of them. And so he gets as many men as he can, thousands. And off he goes and God says, "Too many. Get rid of all but 300." Well, that's encouraging, isn't it? God says, "I want you to know that I'm going to win this battle. If you've got a lot of men, you might think you've done it. But let's get you down to 300 men." And then they surround them and they have their little lamps in their little pots, if you remember the story, and God says, "Now tell them to break the pot at a certain time in the middle of the night and to blow the trumpets." And he's got the men surrounding the army. "And to shout, 'The sword of the Lord and Gideon! The sword of the Lord and Gideon!'" And what happened of course is they woke up, they were confused, they looked around, they appeared as if they were surrounded, and they fell on each other and killed each other all off, and that was the end of the battle.

Incidentally, when my youngest son was teaching junior high kids here, he used to say to me, "What parts of the Bible should I go to, Mom?" And I said, "All the gory bits and specifically things like Joshua. They love it. They just love all that stuff." So my Pete did this series on, he looked at the goriest, most violent things he could find and he had a wonderful year with junior high kids. And I think he told me that he stayed for nearly a year in the book of Joshua and they had a wonderful time here.

So the man with the sword is a divine being. He is the God of battles. And there are many, many places in the scriptures that I could turn you. I'll just give you some references so you can do this, maybe one a day, just look up one a day. 2 Samuel 5:24 and 25. David fighting the Philistines. This is a wonderful little story. And God says, "Now, the captain of the Lord of the host's going to be with you when you hear the sound in the top of the trees, in the top of the trees, the balsam trees. Then you know that the host has gone before you. But wait!" And you know, I always think of that as the brush of angels' wings. And so the army was waiting to go, and then they heard all the tops of the trees, nothing else, just the tops rustling as that host went ahead of them. What an incredible thing. And they went after it and of course had a great battle. Look at that, the Lord fights against the enemies of the Lord. Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 20:29. Marvelous little story. 2 Chronicles 32, the story of Hezekiah. That's the best. You have to read that. Incredible thing. The King of Assyria comes and Hezekiah is told to say that the Lord will fight for us and all sorts of wonderful things happen. The angels are involved there again. And then Psalm 34:7 says, "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him." So we need to lift up our eyes and really believe in angels.

You need to know what the scripture says about angels. You need to read Ephesians 6 where Paul talks about us fighting against principalities and powers and authorities. And we don't quite know what and who these principalities and authorities are, and it's dangerous to be too specific. Only to know there are spiritual beings that we cannot possibly understand because it's out of our realm. It's like describing colors to a blind man. But they are there, the scripture says. So we need to lift up our eyes. We do not need to worship these people. And we need to see the man with the sword, the Angel of the Lord. If you've got a King James Bible, you'll find that angel is capitalized every time the Angel of the Lord, this particular, appears, you'll find a capital A. You will not find it in the NIV or any of the other things. So that's the way you'll know.

This is the divine presence who is with us in trouble. It was the Angel of the Lord who came to Hagar, pregnant, afraid, standing in the middle of a desert, having been treated harshly by Sarai, running away to certain death. No question about it. And the Angel of the Lord found her by this well. And he said, "Where have you come from? Where are you going?" It wasn't that he didn't know. He started this dialogue. And he said, "The only way you're going to be safe is to go back to your mistress and submit to her. I'll look after you there, and the baby." She met the Angel of the Lord and she called him "the one who sees me." She had that personal encounter with God through the manifestation of this second person of the Trinity.

So take off your shoes. Lift up your eyes, take off your shoes. If you're going to win your battle, whatever it is, you're going to have to be holy. Holiness is a great weapon against whatever you're facing. That means you have to do right. You have to think scripturally about your problem. You have to do what's right according to what the Bible says about it. That's all involved in taking off your shoes. Being holy is a lot more than doing without sweets for Lent. Being holy is being like Christ. Being holy is obedient. Being holy is doing it God's way. Being holy is fighting the battle that God has said needs to be fought. And in the little things as well as the big things.

I was getting some groceries the other day and I was in a tearing rush, as usual, and piled it all in the cart and took it out. And as I took my cart to the back of the car, I looked down and on the bottom of it there was two items that I realized I had not put through. And I was late for an appointment and I just stood there wavering. And of course it was cold. You know, putting the thing back and going all the way back to the... and in the end I just picked it up and went back and said to the clerk, "I'm sorry, these were on the back. I haven't paid for them." And she looked totally... And she said, "Oh, I'm sure you did." And I said, "No, I'm sure I didn't." Actually, when I got home, I had.

However, I would rather pay the extra and I'm sure I can't be bothered to take it back. Because that's being holy. It's being truthful. It's being honest. It's not ripping somebody off. So being holy means being holy in the little things. I remember when I was first saved, I really maybe even went overboard. In England you have to pay a penny for the loo. Do you know what a loo is? Toilet. Know what an igloo is? It's an Eskimo house without a loo, but never mind. We call the bathroom a loo and you have to pay a penny for it.

And I remember I was a week old in the Lord and I knew that I had to be holy. And I went into the place and I didn't have a penny. And so what you do in England when you don't have a penny and you need to go is you wait until somebody comes out the door and then they hold it for you and you just go in and you don't spend your penny. That's where "spending a penny" comes from, that expression. That's what it means. And I remember not having a penny and doing what I'd done for 18 years as the lady came out. "Thank you," and starting to go in. And I thought, "No, I can't do that." So I let the door close and she looked at me and said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I don't have a penny." And she said, "But I held the door open for you." I said, "I can't do that. That's dishonest." She must have thought I was absolutely crazy and maybe I was. But you know, it was born in on me from the day I found Christ to be truthful, to be honest, to be clean, to be holy.

And when we do that, when we take off our shoes, when we stand on holy ground, when we think holy thoughts, when we behave holily, wholly whole. Then we're going to win our battles. Then we're going to hear the instructions of the Lord. Then we're going to know what to do. I mean, what you do with Jericho? How many times? I tell you. Standing in front of a problem that is bigger than Jericho, it seems. And the walls seem impenetrable. How, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And God begins to just lay it all out after he's taken off his shoes off his feet. So you lift up your eyes, you actively seek the help of God. You take off your shoes. And then you take up your arms. You pick up your little sword. And you remember what he said to you. Are you for us or for them? I'm not for you and I'm not for them. I've not come to take sides. I've come to take over. You submit yourself to the Lordship of Christ and you get out there and guess what? Those walls will fall.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the blessing that this story can be to us. Thank you that first and foremost, there is the Trinity on our side. There is the man with the sword, our Lord Jesus. There is the Holy Spirit, his indwelling presence and power. And there is the host of good angels who we cannot see and yet are there. Lord, I think of the story of Elisha, petrified by the army and his servant petrified by the army. And Elisha saying to him, "Lord, open his eyes." And there were the chariots of fire and the hordes of angels round about Elisha and round about him. Bigger and better and stronger than the forces of darkness. Help us to remember that. Give us the eyes of faith. Help us to take off our shoes, straighten up our lives, clean up our act, to be circumcised in our heart, to have the mark of our Christianity on our character, to be consecrated, set aside to serve God. Help us to celebrate the Passover every day. And then, dear man with the sword, strengthen us for the battle ahead and remind us that the victory is won. We ask it for Christ's sake, Amen.