What Is The Limits Of God's Protection?

1 Kings 20:22-28 (King James Version)

22And the prophet came to the king of Israel, and said unto him, Go, strengthen thyself, and mark, and see what thou doest: for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against thee.

23And the servants of the king of Syria said unto him, Their gods are gods of the hills; therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.

24And do this thing, Take the kings away, every man out of his place, and put captains in their rooms:

25And number thee an army, like the army that thou hast lost, horse for horse, and chariot for chariot: and we will fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. And he hearkened unto their voice, and did so.

26And it came to pass at the return of the year, that Benhadad numbered the Syrians, and went up to Aphek, to fight against Israel.

27And the children of Israel were numbered, and were all present, and went against them: and the children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids; but the Syrians filled the country.

28And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the LORD, Because the Syrians have said, The LORD is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

I was thinking about what we had talk about over the weekend at Ryan’s and while I was thinking GOD email me a sermon. I know that you really need to hear this one. You will thank GOD afterwards.

Let us refocus on vs. 23 and 28:

23And the servants of the king of Syria said unto him, Their gods are gods of the hills; therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.

28And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the LORD, Because the Syrians have said, The LORD is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

Today, I want to encourage you to keep looking up and trust GOD in full. Know that you have the victory in Christ JESUS as a child of the Living GOD. I want to take in this though today: WHAT IS THE LIMIT OF GOD’S PROTECTION?

I know and fully aware that the enemy attacks us from many angles; and as a child of GOD we know how to fight on many grounds as long we keep the faith. I want to you look at this story for a moment. This story begins with the Syrian army seigeing and attacking Israel. Israel gathers their strength and defeated in Israel. The enemy left and plan to come later (That would be in the spring of the next year for them).

Now I want you to look at something that the enemy doing. As you will see in the text (vs. 23) the enemy had enough sense to know not to play with GOD. They gave notice to each other that GOD is strong and powerful in the hills because that was the only way could defeat them in their sight. Moreover, they were planning not to return for a long time, hoping they would relax and drop their guard. Look at this and tell me if it is true or not. The enemy knows if he comes to Mount Zion to harm you he will have to fight with directly; if he comes between you and your husband he knows that GOD bless your marriage; and if he attempts bother you while you are singing praises to GOD he knows that will not allow anything to interfere with his praises. Why??? these are the hills or high points of life when we are very close to GOD; and the devil know if he attack you then and you stand up to him he will be defeated. These are time that we recognize that GOD is with us; but what happen when the devil change his battle plans. Where is GOD when you are at the job and is seems like the everyone is harassing you; while you in the car and somebody cut you off and slow down in front of you and something slip out of our mouth because we got nervous for a minute; or where is GOD when you spouse is out on the road and we know that all kinds of stuff happens while on the road (accidents, weather delays, and/or let be real drugs and prostitution). These are the plains, valleys, or low times in our life. Why do I say this; we tend to wait till Sunday when we go to church and say, "Y’all pray for me I am going through ruff times." We make this statement with the anticipation the situation will not change soon; if GOD does not step out the church for a minute and help me outside the church. Believe it or not our distant from the church tends to symbolize our distant from GOD. As long we are in church singing, praying, and hearing good preaching everything is alright, then Monday morning comes and we say, “Hear we go again; LORD if you can get to Friday or Saturday evening I’ll be alright.” Now we are depress during the week over messy folk, yearning in our souls to get to church where I know where GOD is present.