by Shannon Tillman | Nov 27, 2023 | Bible Study
We see angels discussed often in the Bible. An angel guards the way to the Garden of Eden. An angel blocked the path of Balaam’s donkey. An angel came to Elijah and fed him. An angel closed the mouth of the lions for Daniel. An angel came to Zechariah to let him know that he and Elizabeth would have a baby in their advanced years. An angel came to Mary to announce that she would give birth to Jesus. An angel came to Cornelius and told him his prayers had been answered and to send for Peter. An angel freed Peter from prison. An angel struck Herod down and he died. An angel strengthened Paul when on a storm-tossed sea. And there are many other angel accounts in Scriptures.
Angels have done the bidding of the Lord throughout history. Usually, we see one angel on these different assignments. Notable exceptions are when the angels went up and down the ladder at Bethel before Jacob. Also, a group of angels showed up to praise God after one angel delivered the message about the birth of Jesus.
However, there was a time when two angels were placed on assignment. We see the account of these two angels in the book of Genesis. These two angels were sent to Sodom and Gomorrah, the evil cities the Lord had determined to destroy. Yet, when I read this passage, I wondered why God sent two angels. One would have definitely been enough for the job. Why were two angels placed on this assignment? I believe the answer to this question reveals the heart of a loving and merciful God.
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” (Genesis 19:1-2)
Lot was Abraham’s nephew. Abraham had asked the Lord to spare these cities if ten righteous people were found. Sadly, there were not ten. God, in His mercy, still chose to rescue Lot and his family. The two angels, who had form of men, came into Sodom and were welcomed into Lot’s house. That night, the angels warn Lot of what is to come.
The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.” (Genesis 19:12b-13)
Lot had a wife and two daughters. His girls were betrothed to two men in the city. Lot tried to convince them to leave, but they thought Lot was foolish. Lot knew the cities would be destroyed; he believed the message of the angels. The next morning, the time had come for Sodom and Gomorrah to be annihilated.
With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished. (Genesis 19:15)
The angels exhort Lot to leave immediately with his family. However, Lot does not move quickly.
When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. (Genesis 19:16)
Here is the reason I believe God sent two angels to Sodom and Gomorrah. Only one angel was needed to destroy the cities, however, two angels were needed to grasp the hands of four people who were hesitating to leave the area. One angel took the hands of two people, the other angel grasped the hands of the remaining two. Together, the two angels pulled four people out of the cities marked for destruction. How merciful is our God!
Whatever difficult situation you or your family may be facing, the Lord already has a plan to send exactly what you need to “yank” the ones in need out of the situation. He is not short on resources or supplies. He does not need extra help. He has already determined what is needed to have a successful rescue plan. He will take us by the hand and save us from the situation even if we do not readily or speedily cooperate. He is so good to us!
by Shannon Tillman | Nov 20, 2023 | Bible Study
Kevin and I walked through a season of loss after loss. I cried out to the Lord and He took me to a surprising place to find comfort.
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (Revelation 6:9-10)
Even in the perfection of heaven, there are prayers and questions concerning God’s timing. This realization brought great comfort to me. God completely understands our confusion about His decision on when He will answer prayers on earth.
We do not need to feel guilty in our cries of “how long” but we do need to think correctly about God’s character. The martyrs in these verses brought their question confidently before the Lord because they knew and trusted His character. God is sovereign, meaning He reigns over all. God is in charge. He is the Lord. He is the one who rules and reigns. God is holy. He is perfect, there is nothing that taints His character or diminishes His word. The Lord is true, there is nothing false in Him. Thus, He is completely trustworthy. Because the Lord is trustworthy, we can approach Him with our questions and know He will answer us.
Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, (Revelation 6:11a)
Even in heaven, a specific timetable to prayers is not always shared. However, the Lord gives each one of them a gift and encourages them to hold on for a “little longer”. God does not abandon us in our time of waiting, in our time of wandering when the answer to our prayer will finally come. God gives us good things in the meantime and encourages us to wait until the answer does manifest.
God is your comfort and strength in the waiting. He will bring you close. These precious martyred saints were under the altar, near the throne of God. Our pain and loss draw us near to the Lord. He is concerned for us. He understands the hurts of our hearts. God knows all you have been through. Hold on a little longer. The Lord will answer our prayers in His time, His perfect time, His undisclosed time to us and even to heaven, but known by Him. His day of deliverance is coming. Hold on.
by Shannon Tillman | Nov 13, 2023 | Theology
I like the basic movie plot of the good guys win and the bad guys lose. I despise dramatic twists and turns that do not end up with the good guys on top. I hate when the movie character I like the best somehow dies saving others. I am not alright with that. I want all the good guys to have the happy ending and all the bad guys to face justice.
I think my good guy/bad guy movie ending struggles with a particular verse in Psalm 37:
…people succeed in their ways,
…they carry out their wicked schemes. (Psalm 37:7b)
What? Wicked schemes succeed? Evil plans prevail? God basically tells us to know that this will happen at times. It is not that the bad guys have a day in their favor, but they actually succeed! The enemy wins! I want to rewrite the script!
Yet, I know that we have all experienced this at times. There have been moments when evil won, the wicked got their way, the demons celebrated. We are left with the questions of why a good God allowed the bad guys to win. It leaves us feeling disappointed, disillusioned, and downcast.
The Lord knew there were times that this would happen in all of our lives. That is why He gave us a five-step process to help us in these times.
Be still before the LORD
and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.
Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
(Psalm 37:7-8)
1. Be still
When evil attacks, we want to come up with our own plan of defense. Yet, we are told to be still. Rest. It is time to come before the Lord. Stop rehearsing the enemy’s attacks. Quit complaining and slipping into self-pity. Silence the negativity. Instead, sit before the Lord and focus on who He is. We are not to maneuver in our futile attempts to take care of ourselves. We are to invest our time with the only One who can truly help.
2. Wait patiently
We want things done on our timetable. We want resolutions now. We want the enemy destroyed in this instant. But the Lord tells us to wait. Hold on. His timing is His timing. This can only take place after we have been still before the Lord. It builds our trust in His character. Because we know that God is good, God is for us, and God loves us; we can wait on His timetable to intervene in our difficult situations.
3. Do not fret
Stop worrying for it enlarges the focus on the enemy and minimizes the focus on God. We need to keep our eyes on the Lord. That is why we are to be still and to wait patiently. Worrying will not alleviate our suffering. Instead, it consumes our time and energy rehearsing the “what ifs” of the situation.
Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? (Matthew 6:27)
Worry does not add to life, but takes away. This is part of the enemy’s strategy. He already has attacked us with the situation. If we choose to worry about our circumstances, the enemy knows he can steal even more from us mentally, emotionally, and physically. This keeps us from our source of strength which is staying before the Lord. Worry puts the enemy’s situation before us instead. Stop the worry. We must refocus our minds and emotions on the Lord.
4. Refrain from anger
What happened was wrong. It was unjust. But the anger towards the situation does not change our circumstances. The anger depletes us and does not change the events. God is just. He knows what happened are “wicked schemes”. However, if we continue in our anger, we have the potential of doing evil ourselves and hurting others. The anger builds and often comes out in different ways, and sometimes erupts on others who are not even involved. Then the enemy receives more out of the situation than the original wrong because we stooped down to his wicked level. Refraining from anger protects us from contributing to even more evil.
5. Turn from wrath
When we do not refrain from anger, it will eventually grow into wrath. We want to punish those who have done wrong to us. We feel justified in our pain to harm others. However, wrath is never to be our response. We are not called to inflict our idea of justice.
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (Romans 12:19)
The only wrath allowed is God’s wrath. He is good, perfect, righteous, and true. Allow Him to judge. We are not called to be an instrument of His judgment. If we do, then we have sinned. Our sin has not made room for God’s wrath so the Lord will not intervene. It is when we obey and do what is right, then the Lord will move on our behalf.
For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land. (Psalm 37:9)
When we are still, wait patiently, refuse to worry, refrain from anger, and turn from wrath; we demonstrate our hope in the Lord. God has promised that the evil will be destroyed and those who hope in Him will inherit the land.
Whatever difficult situation we are going through, we must hold onto this promise. God will act on our behalf. Evil will be dealt with. We will inherit the land. In other words, our situations will be worked for good and made right.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
God will work this for our good. Keep hoping in Him. His version of a “movie” ending is always God wins and the enemy is defeated! That is my kind of story!
by Shannon Tillman | Nov 6, 2023 | Bible Study
God gave me this word for all of us who have heard His promise to us yet seem to be living in only loss and heartache, not even close to the word He had spoken over our lives. God led me to Joshua 24 which took me on a journey of reminding my own heart to hold onto hope when all seems lost.
Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. (Joshua 24:1)
Joshua gathered the entire nation of Israel at Shechem. The nation of Israel had been freed from Egypt over four decades earlier. Due to sin, they wandered in the wilderness for over forty years. Then for seven years they fought to conquer the land. It was after this time when the land had been settled that Joshua gathered the people before God.
Hundreds of years before, Shechem was the place of significant events in the lives of the early patriarchs of Israel. The city of Shechem is a place of promise and devastation. We first discover Shechem with Abram, the father of the Jewish people. Abram had been called by God to leave the land of Ur and come to the land of the Canaanites. He had been promised to become a father of nations, even though at the time Abram had no children. Once Abram came to the land, God renewed His promise to Abram.
Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him. (Genesis 12:6-7)
Shechem was the place of a future promise. Abram, whose name was later changed by God to become Abraham, was promised that one day his children would have all the land. In response to this amazing promise, Abram built the first altar to God in the Promised Land at Shechem. Twenty-five years later, Abraham had a son named Isaac. Abraham held the first baby of promise, born in the land of promise, which one day become a nation of the promise.
Isaac had a son named Jacob, who grew up and had twelve sons and one daughter. Jacob was the first to buy usable property in the land. (Abraham had bought a burial site for Sarah.)
After Jacob came from Paddan Aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in Canaan and camped within sight of the city. For a hundred pieces of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent. There he set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel. (Genesis 33:18-20)
This purchased piece of property seemed to be the beginning of answers to the promise given to Abraham. They were starting to own pieces of the land. Once again, an altar is built at Shechem. Jacob’s name had been changed by God to Israel. Here he builds an altar to the God of Israel which seems to even further indicate the closer fulfillment to the promise.
However, it was here at Shechem that devastation came upon the family. Jacob’s daughter is raped by a man named Shechem. In response, two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, killed all the men of the town and took captive all the women, children, and animals. The place of promise turns to a place of defilement which led to evil attacks, to utter loss, and to eventually overwhelming fear.
Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.” (Genesis 34:30)
The altar Jacob had built on this land, before all the terrible events of his daughter, had been called “El Elohe Israel”. God, the Supreme or Mighty One of Israel, now seems to be unfaithful as the enemy had now violated his house and his sons had retaliated by killing even the innocent with the guilty in such terrible and wicked violence. The place of promise is now defiled. Even now the name Shechem, which had been attached to the place of altars built by Abram and Jacob in the land, becomes a painful reminder of the name of the man who raped Dinah.
Jacob moved away from Shechem but this city would play a part in another crime against one of his children. This time it would be upon his son, Joseph. The ten older brothers of Joseph hated him due to Jacob’s favoritism. The older brothers had gone to Shechem for their sheep. Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers.
When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”
He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”
“They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” (Genesis 37:15-17)
When Joseph arrived in Dothan, the brothers decided to get rid of Joseph and sold him to slave dealers who later sold him in Egypt. The last city that Joseph experienced freedom was in Shechem. It would not be for many years that Joseph would regain his freedom and rule in Egypt.
Through a series of events, his family leaves the Promised Land and come down under the care of Joseph in Egypt and stay for the next 400 years. The family had become a multitude by this time. God delivered the people through Moses, they escaped Egypt, wandered in the wilderness due to sin, and then conquered the Promised Land under Joshua. It was here, at Shechem, that Joshua had the people renew their covenant with the Lord.
Joshua brought the people to the place where the promise had been given to Abram, that his descendants would possess the land. They could look around and see that the promise had been fulfilled. They were the fulfillment of that promise, hundreds of years later. The pain, turmoil, attacks, loss, enslavement, and sin did not have the final say in Jacob’s family. El Elohe proved faithful and true.
It was here at Shechem that Joshua renewed the covenant between God and the people.
25 On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he reaffirmed for them decrees and laws. (Genesis 24:25)
Joshua reminded the people of hundreds of years of history from Abram to the time of conquering the Promised Land.
Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago…I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, 4 and to Isaac I gave Jacob… 5 “‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out. “‘Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you…but I gave them into your hands (Genesis 24: part of verses, 2-5, 11)
A multitude stood where Abram stood alone. A multitude was set free from bondage where Dinah had been taken captive and abused. A multitude conquered the people of the land where Jacob had feared retaliation and attack. A multitude knew that Joseph who was sold into slavery became the leader of Egypt which set into motion the growth of the nation. When Joseph was on his death bed, he made them promise that his bones would be returned to his last place of freedom before he was forced into slavery.
And Joseph’s bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. This became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants. (Genesis 24:32)
Everything promised at Shechem, invested at Shechem, lost as Shechem, stolen at Shechem, is restored at Shechem. God is faithful to His promises.
Shechem means “back” or “shoulder” in Hebrew. The ultimate promise of redemption spoken in the Garden of Eden when man first fell into sin was given to mankind. Jesus bore on His back the lashes for our sin. Jesus bore on His shoulder the cross that He carried. And when He bore the fullness of our sin, the “Back” of the father was turned on Him. The Promise died. The innocent was violated. The enemy of fear was unleashed on His followers. Freedom was lost, hope was gone. Then, three days later, Jesus triumphed over the grave. The place of loss and pain became the place of eternal hope and life. The grave of Joseph proved God faithful over the hundreds of years in Egypt, the wilderness and fighting in the Promised Land. The empty grave of Jesus proves God faithful for eternity.
His promise is guaranteed! He will take every heart ache, every loss, every violation and work it for a greater good for even more people.
And Joshua…took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the LORD. “See!” he said to all the people. “This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.” (Joshua 24:26-27)
The stone was to serve as a witness of the covenant between God and His people. We also have a stone of remembrance of our covenant. Our stone was rolled away from an empty grave! Praise be to El Elohim! He is mighty to save.
Hold onto your promise. God is faithful. He has seen the ways the enemy has violated you, harmed you, sold you into slavery, defiled, and devastated you. It is not the end! The promise will be fulfilled. You will stand in your Shechem and declare the victory of God!
