THE LORD OF SABAOTH STILL ROARS
Yesterday at my weapons class, while my instructor was teaching
me, the Lord Jesus was talking just as fast and pointing out the phrases that
were super important to remember. Among them was, “We don’t say we want to kill
them. What you are doing is stopping them from doing what they want to do!” Jesus
quickly said to me, “That’s the right way to think,” and I turned to my instructor
and said those exact words to him. I instantly thought about God as He is
described in the Bible many times as “the Lord of Sabaoth, “the Lord of hosts.”
If you look up the word “hosts” in the Concordance, you see that it is “that
which goes forth, army, war, warfare, host
1. army,
host
1.
host (of an organised army)
2.
host (of angels)
3.
of sun, moon, and stars
4.
of whole creation
2. war,
warfare, service, go out to war.”
God doesn’t go out to war out of a motive of hatred, but instead,
out of love for His people. He has righteous anger toward His and our enemies
and gets furious when His people get hurt, oppressed, and treated wrongfully. We
need to understand the truth about the Lord of Sabaoth.
Once in Chicago, before I knew how the Lord of Sabaoth
works, my friend Jane and I were riding in the El Train and a girl who was much
taller and bigger than me was sitting across from us. She got this evil look on
her face and she started throwing lit cigarettes at Jane. I asked her to stop,
which just got her doing it more. I didn’t hate the girl, didn’t want to kill
her, but just wanted to stop her from what she wanted to do.
A fury came up in me that was not from me. I got up from
the seat, grabbed this big tall girl by the front of her shirt and physically
pushed her up against the wall. She stopped and that was the end of the story.
We got off at the next stop.
Knowing about the Lord of Sabaoth is certainly not an
excuse for justifying anger. The only way to really know if it’s your anger or
God’s is to study the Lord of Sabaoth from the Bible and ask God to show you in
your own life experience.
There are lots of examples in the Bible of how the Lord
of Sabaoth works. Take the record of what happened with Sodom and Gomorrah as
recorded in Genesis 18 and 19, for instance. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, was living
there. He allowed all kinds of evil to take place, and he never stood against
it. Finally, it got so bad that even the earth itself couldn’t take it. The
Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, was there, and only Lot and his children
were saved. Paul states: “Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had
been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah” (Rom. 9:29).
It was the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, behind the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the saving of Lot. Do you see both sides
of the Lord of Sabaoth here? Yes! The Lord destroys the enemy and rescues His
own. The hosts in this situation were the physical elements of destruction—fire
and brimstone in and above the earth, and the angels that came to rescue Lot and
his family.
Another example is with Noah: “And God saw that the
wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Man became so evil
that he corrupted everything, including the earth itself. Man was given
dominion over the earth, and sin continues to affect it in a destructive way.
The Lord of hosts was there with the flood, to destroy the evil, and save Noah
and his family.
The following section of Psalms 18 describes to us a
spectacular record of God working as the Lord of Sabaoth to rescue David from
the oppression of evil men. He is willing to do the same for us.
David says:
“I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised:
so shall I be saved from mine enemies. The sorrows of death compassed me, and
the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me
about: the snares of death prevented [were before] me.
“In my distress, I called upon the Lord, and cried unto
my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even
into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the
hills moved and were shaken because he was wroth.
“There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out
of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and
came down: and the darkness was under his feet.
“And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly
upon the wings of the wind…. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the
Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire…. He sent from above, he
took me; he drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy,
and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me” (Ps. 18:3-17).”
Yes, there are times when things or people are too much
for us. We can’t handle everything. Some things are too much for even the
strongest of us, and God can only put up with so much abuse toward His people.
It is then that the attributes of God as the Lord of Sabaoth go into high gear.
So how does this apply today? The Lord of Sabaoth still
roars. As Christians, we have God in Christ in us. That means that every
aspect, every characteristic of God, is in us, including the Lord of Sabaoth.
David didn’t have this.
God, in Christ, in an individual, wasn’t available in Old
Testament times, but He is now. Think about it. Have you ever felt so angry
that you could hardly contain it? I’m not talking about fleshly anger. I’m
talking about a spiritual anger, a holy anger, an anger that rises up from deep
inside you, an anger that is unusual, kind of just out of nowhere. You might
even wonder, “Why am I sooo angry?” That’s the Lord of
Sabaoth.
We’ve got to get to where we recognize the Lord of
Sabaoth. If no one has the guts to allow the Lord of Sabaoth to operate, then
the devil will just continue to walk all over God’s people and hurt them and
abuse them just like with Lot, Noah, and David, and the devil will have the
opportunity to win in their lives.
In Isaiah and Jeremiah, God says we are the watchmen on
the towers of the city walls, there to watch and sound the alarm when the enemy
comes against God’s people. In Ezekiel 22:30, God said He looked for
someone to stand up for His people, but there was no one.
Philippians 2:13 says: “For it is God which worketh in us both to
will and to do of His good pleasure.” His good pleasure is to protect, save,
and deliver, as well as give hugs and kisses. Adam didn’t protect the Garden of
Eden. He was a wimp, and look what a mess became of that.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:26: “Be ye angry and sin
not.” In the notes for The Companion Bible, E.W. Bullinger explains
that the word “angry” is in the imperative mood, [which indicates a command or
strong request], and it is a positive command showing that righteous
indignation is referred to. We are to allow the Lord of Sabaoth to work in us
and not be afraid of it or second-guess ourselves. We need to just let it fly,
knowing that it is in love that we act, to defend, protect, and rescue. The
Lord is willing to teach us how to know the difference between our own anger
and His. Our part is to believe and step out in faith.
Recognizing and allowing the workings of the Lord of
Sabaoth in our lives is an important aspect of our spiritual growth.
Love, Carolyn
Here are some other places in the Bible that you can
learn about the Lord of Sabaoth:
Lord of Sabaoth, Lord of Hosts:
1 Samuel 1:11,1 Samuel 15:1-3,1 Samuel 17:45, 2 Samuel
5:10, 2 Kings 19:3, 1 Chronicles 11:9, Psalm 24:10, Psalm 46:7, Psalm 59:5, Psalm
84:12, Isaiah 1:24, Isaiah 3:15, Isaiah 9:7, Isaiah 10:33-34, Isaiah 13:4, 13, Isaiah
14:27, Amos 4:13, Amos 5:15, Zephaniah 2:9, Haggai 2:6, 8, Malachi 1:14
Watchmen:
Isaiah 56:10, Isaiah 62:6, Jeremiah 61:7, Jeremiah 51:12,
Ezekiel 22:30
Power in us:
John 17:23, Galatians 2:2, Philippians 2:13, Colossians
1:27, Ephesians 1:18-20
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