2 Samuel 22:26-30 “To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd. You save the humble, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low. You, Lord, are my lamp; the Lord turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.” This episode discusses why we see God in all these different lights. Also, how powerful we are when we are with God. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
With My God I Can Scale a Wall
2 Samuel 22:26-30 “To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd. You save the humble, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low. You, Lord, are my lamp; the Lord turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.”
I was only going to use the last part of this verse because I like how it talked about what we can do with God. However, I thought reading the verses before that part would be a good idea also. The first part of this verse shows us who God show’s Himself to be. If you are faithful you will see a faithful God. If you are blameless you will see a blameless God, and if you are pure you will see a pure God. I think there is something to be said for this. I think this is kind of a universal truth. Stephen R. Covey says, “We don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are.” This means that we all experience the world through a filter. Our filter is made up of all of our experiences as well as all the things we have been taught up until that point. This is why two people can go through the same event and yet view it very differently. They both have had different experiences. For instance, two people can be sitting at the airport waiting for a plane and there is a screaming baby. The person who has had a lot of experiences with screaming babies, will react differently than someone who hasn’t had any experience with them.
We see the world through this filter and sometimes that filter is adjusted by our emotions. If we are in a really bad mood we will look at a situation very differently than if we are in a good mood. Why do you think kids are always offering to help out before they ask for something? They know we are more likely to say yes when we are in a good mood. Our filter is also adjusted according to our habits and personalities. If we are typically someone who judges others or is cynical, then we will view situations differently. We will most like be looking for something to judge. We will be waiting for someone to mess up or something to go wrong instead of enjoying the situation we are in. On the contrary, if we are usually someone that goes with the flow and enjoys where they are in that moment, then we will have a very different view.
This verse is saying if we are faithful God will show himself as faithful. If we are pure God will show Himself as pure. It is not saying God is sometimes one way and sometimes another way. As it says in Hebrews 13:8, “God is the same yesterday, today and forever.” I think what is meant in this verse is if we are faithful we are able to see God as faithful. Meaning we can see clearly and nothing is getting in our way. Almost like our eyes are wide open. When we are blameless we are free to see God as blameless. There is nothing clouding our judgement. Think about when you give your child a consequence because they did something wrong. How do they react afterwards? Are they able to see you are giving them the consequence so they learn a lesson and do better next time? Most of the time I would say no. They just know that you gave them a consequence and they probably don’t like you very much at the moment. However, the sibling that is not in trouble because they didn’t do anything wrong, can see you are not to blame. Does that make sense, the blameless child can see you as blameless.
The very next part of the verse says, “ but to the devious you show yourself shrewd. You save the humble, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low.” To the devious God appears shrewd. When I looked that word up it said, “showing sharp powers of judgement.” Again I go back to the child analogy. Of course God would look judgmental to someone who is devious. God teaches us a certain way to live and being devious is not a part of the way He is teaching us to live. When people know they are doing something wrong they feel judged by those who are not doing what they are doing. Then it says, “You save the humble, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low. Do you know what haughty means? It means arrogantly superior or disdainful. God is calling us to a life of humility. I heard someone say the other day, humility doesn’t mean you think less of yourself, it means you think of yourself less. God is calling us to put him first in our lives. He is calling us to think of Him more than we think of ourselves. So, can you see why he would be watching those that are arrogant and why He would be trying to bring them back down to earth?
Now we get to my favorite part of the verse. It says, “You, Lord, are my lamp; the Lord turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.” First, I love anytime scripture talks about God turning our darkness into light. There is so much darkness in the world and I like to picture God just flipping a big light switch and all the darkness leaving our world. I know that is not how it usually happens, but isn’t it a great visual? I like how this verse is illustrating for us how much we can do with God on our side. It says we can advance against a troop. Scripture is full of victory stories where God’s people went up against great armies, where they were far out numbered and yet they still one the battle or they one the war. Every time the leader of God’s people stopped and turned to the Lord for direction He protected them. Sometimes God told them to go to war and He would hand their enemies over to them. Sometimes God told them not to go to war and if they listened He protected them.
Are we turning to God when we have to fight our enemies? Did you know you didn’t have to attend every fight you were invited to? Sometimes God wants to go before you into battle and defeat your enemies for you and sometimes He wants you to avoid the war altogether. The only way to know which you are being called to do is to spend time with God and ask Him. Every time someone was defeated in the Bible it was because they didn’t turn to the Lord. Or they did turn to Him and then didn’t listen to what He told them to do. Let’s not make the same mistake. Let’s turn to the Lord and ask what He wants us to do? Wouldn’t it be great if you knew God was charging into battle before you? Wouldn’t it be great to know before you even entered the battle that God was going to turn your enemies over to you? You can have this information. All you need to so is spend time with the Lord and listen to what He wants you to do. The verse also says with God I can scale a wall. This reminds me of a vision someone at the conference gave me. She said she saw me looking over a wall. The wall was tall, but I could see over it. I was looking out at everything on the other side and God was right next to me. He was bent over with His hands clasped ready to boost me over the wall. I recalled the memory of the vision just after reading this verse this morning. God will help you scale the walls in your life too. Words of prophecy and visions are meant to build up the church. God was not just giving this vision to me personally. He will help any one of us scale a wall. The only catch is that we need to trust enough to step into his hands. Can you trust God enough to take that step? When someone is boosting you over a fence you are putting your full weigh into their hands. Are you finally ready to step into God’s hands and give hime the full weight of your life?
Dear heavenly father I ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode today. Lord we ask you to help us be blameless and pure and faithful. We ask that you help keep us from being haughty and shrewd. Lord help direct us. Help us to take the time and sit down with you and ask you where you want us to go in our lives. Help us to ask which battles you want us in and which ones you want us to stay out of. Lord we want you to go before us and defeat our enemies. We want you to help us scale a wall. Lord help us trust you enough to put the full weight of our lives in your hands knowing you will lift us up and get us over that wall we have built. Lord you are the Light of the world. Your light brightens our darkness. We are so graetful for your love and for your light. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I am not sure who the witness will be this Wednesday but I assure you we will have one. I look forward to sharing that with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!