GOD'S GOT YOUR BACK

“The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Exodus 14:14

A few days back I was chatting on two different occasions with friends on Facebook. In one instance as I was reading the words typed, I began to feel as though God was saying to her that He was going to work things out concerning her employment. In the other instance, as we were going back and forth, I literally had the pages of my Bible blow and land on I John 5:18. This would not have been so strange except for the fact that there was no wind blowing in the stagnant office. But what was it about this verse God was speaking? Perhaps the part that reads, “…the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.”
I honestly began to think to myself, as I later shared with my wife, that maybe God was not only using me to encourage these ladies in their trials, but perhaps He was also working to encourage me in mine. As I am sure you have felt at times also, life is hard. Truth be told, the enemy is constantly working to pound us down. Remember that game Whack-A-Mole? There are days when I literally feel like I am the mole that the enemy continues to hit and keep down. But despite what the enemy does, there is one key we must remember. That key is that the Lord fights for us.
We see this truth in I John 5:18, where we are told we are kept safe and the enemy cannot harm us. We see this truth in Romans 8:31, where we read that if God is for us, who can be against us. And we see this truth in Exodus 14:14, where when standing on the banks of the Red Sea, with Egypt ready to pounce, God delivers the Israelites. “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” But what I love about this Exodus scripture is that it defines me. Why did God tell them to be still? He told them to be still because like me, they were running around in fret of what they were going to do. They could do nothing. They could not escape. And they could not redeem themselves. So because of this God told them to be still and watch His hand fight for them.
I am a numbers guy, and outside of history, math was my next best subject in school. Maybe it is for this reason that I find the next bit so exciting. It is true that when the Bible was written it was not divided with chapters and verses, yet still I think that we find the Holy Spirit at play in how we read the Bible now days with these divisions in place. That said, this promise that God would fight comes in Exodus 14:14. So then, what does the number “14” mean? To write fourteen in the Hebrew one uses the letters yod and daleth (יד), which together signify a hand on the door, or better yet, the opening of a prison door and the allowance of deliverance. It is in this verse that God states He will fight for the Israelites, and it is in the number fourteen that we find the meaning of deliverance and release. Coincidence?
Now with the number fourteen defined, let us look at a few other key “14’s” in the Bible. Numbers 14:14 shares, “And [the Egyptians] will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, O LORD, are with these people and that you, O LORD, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.” To me this shows not only God’s releasing Israel from their prison, but the power of God’s hand when on the door. Proverbs 14:14 reads, “The faithless will be fully repaid for their ways, and the good man rewarded for his.” Is it not safe to say that in this verse we again see the hand on the door, opening to God’s outpouring of blessing and deliverance?
Granted this is not true of each “14”, we can still see this definition of deliverance and release in other passages. It is in Judges 6:14 that God says to Gideon, “’Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midan’s hand. Am I not sending you?’” God again was fighting for Israel and sending His servant Gideon to open the door of imprisonment. Or how about in Daniel 6:14 where we see the king so distraught that until nightfall he was determined to rescue Daniel from the prison of the lion’s den. We may even want to recall I Samuel 13:14, where we read that King Saul had acted foolishly and already the LORD was looking for one who would open the door of imprisonment by having a heart to follow God’s command.
So what am I trying to point out here; what am I trying to make us aware of in all these verses and numerology? The answer is one thing. I am wanting us to understand that on those Whack-A-Mole days, when it seems like all we know is the prison of our situation, god has His hand on the door, opening it to our deliverance and release. There really is nothing we can do, just as there was nothing Israel could do when standing on the banks of the Red Sea. But what we must remember to do is be still and trust that God has our back and will fight for us.