Today’s Reading:  2 Sam 22:1–51, Jude 1–16, Ps 147:1–20

Today’s Theme: FIGHT!

Today’s theme is all about us fighting for the glory of God, using the weapons of humility, praise and truth. We have all been called to contend for the faith.

One of the best ways to fight spiritually, is to declare the truth about who God is.

2 Samuel 22:1–51

I will pull out the odd verse here and there, but there are wonderful lessons to learn in this song of David, if you have time to read and meditate on it today.

God, my stronghold

He said, “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence. 2 Samuel 22:2–3 (ESV)

As believers we are constantly at war and always under attack. We begin the study of the fight that we must engage in, from the only place we should, hiding behind God as our fortress, shield and stronghold.

David was a man of war and knew how important a good fortress was in a battle. He likens God to a fortress and a rock, because God is steadfast, dependable and does not change. He is well able to protect His people collectively, when they come under attack.

As a warrior, David knew how crucial a shield was to fend off personal attacks. A weak shield would not do the job of saving the fighter. We hold our faith up against the attacks of the enemy. God is our shield. Ephesians 6:16

David makes this song of praise personal by constantly saying ‘my’, he can’t speak for anyone else, he just knows that this is true in his own life and we should be the same, knowing who God has proven and declared Himself to be, to us.

‘God is my stronghold’ – this is so powerful in the fight. 2 Corinthians 10:4 tells us that a stronghold is a way of thinking, a thought, belief, philosophy or idea. So the truth of God’s word becomes a stronghold in our minds, in a positive way, which is where we retreat to, refuel and attack from.

God’s arrows

And he sent out arrows and scattered them; lightning, and routed them. 2 Samuel 22:15 (ESV)

David gives an amazing and striking image of God as the great warrior of the heavens, the mighty God who fights and responds to his plea for help (7 – 14).

Here David speaks about God sending down arrows to scatter the enemy, now we must remember that this is a poem and so the imagery should be taken in that form, which means the arrows are not mere arrows, they represent something.

The previous verse told us that God uttered His voice and in the book of Revelation, we read about Jesus fighting against the enemy with the sword of His mouth. Revelation 19:15.

So the arrows that God sends to scatter the enemy, are His words found in the bible and His voice heard through the Holy Spirit.

God’s word as the King of all creation, is so powerful that it goes and accomplishes all that God intends it to. We can rely on God’s word today as we fight.

God, my rescuer

He rescued me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. 2 Samuel 22:18 (ESV)

We are not stronger than all our enemies, in our own strength we would surely lose the fight.

We need to humbly depend on God to rescue us from enemies that are too strong for us.

We will go on to read in Jude that even the Angels did not contend with Satan, knowing that Satan is an accomplished and strong enemy and once held the regal angelic office of the cherub that covers before he sinned. See Ezekiel 28:14

We must not be presumptuous as we fight, or have a false sense of confidence. We should not really address Satan in our prayers, other than to do what Michael did, which is to say ‘the Lord rebuke you’.

As we fight, we address our prayers  past the enemy to the God who is stronger than all our enemies, and is able to rescue us from them and defeat them.

Humble people

You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down. 2 Samuel 22:28 (ESV)

God has called us to be a humble people.

Humility is the attitude we must have as we fight, if we are proud, arrogant, harsh and unteachable, then God will have to humble us Himself and may even need to fight against us.

This is why we must humble ourselves like David did, then we will see God come through for us.

When we are in humble submission to the Lord, we can say with David that by God’s power, we can run through a troop of attackers and leap over the enemies walls of defence.

Fight with humility. Philippians 2:3

God, The Rock

“For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God? 2 Samuel 22:32 (ESV)

God alone is God. One of God’s unique attributes is that He is immutable which means He does not change, this is where the rock imagery comes from. We also see God as dependable, stable, enduring and strong, as the rock.

Jesus said that the revelation that He was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, was the rock on which He would build the church. Matthew 16:18

Jesus also said that those who obey His commandments are like those building their house on a rock. Matthew 7:24

So we see that the unchangeable God has an unchangeable word that we can totally rely on as we fight.

You can stand today in the assurance that God by His very nature, as faithful and unchangeable, will fulfil His word. We can boldly put our faith in God, our rock, as we fight.

Jude 1–16

We only have time to look at one verse here, but there is a lot more to dig into if you can.

Contend for the faith

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Jude 3 (ESV)

The body of Christ cannot be passive, we are called to fight for what we believe. We are constantly at war with false teaching, false believers, the influence of the world, etc.

The faith handed down to us must be preserved personally, but more importantly, corporately as a church.

Jude is moved by the Holy Spirit to call the church to spiritual and mental arms (like calling soliders to fight against an encroaching enemy) against the onslaught and schemes of the enemy.

We should embrace apologetics and the studying of God’s word so that we can stand and defend the truth of our faith. We are not post modernist or relativist, we have a firm, absolute, central, single, historical faith, which can be articulated and defended consistently from age to age.

Our faith is not novel, it is old and true, it was handed down and must be preserved so beware of strange or new teachings. Jude spends time describing false teachers who come to challenge the truth and lifestyle of the gospel.

Contend for the ancient, pure and true faith today.

Psalm 147:1–20

A wonderful and encouraging Psalm, take time to mediate on this today.

Hope in God’s love

but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love. Psalm 147:11 (ESV)

We once watched the moving and inspiring account of Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh who were imprisoned for their faith in Iran but were used by God’s grace, to lead many to the Lord and have since been released.

The Lord takes pleasure in His people, who like these two women, fear Him and put their hope in Him.

As we hope in God’s love, we bring God pleasure and win the battle, as we humble ourselves before Him.

Most of the above post is a copy of the original notes from the same date in 2014.

Additional resources

The Gospel Coalition on Jude 1