Mensa Otabil - There Is a Deliverer
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Judges chapter 2, verse 16: Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. There's a lot we can learn about God's dealings with biblical Israel. Although Israel was God's covenant people, they didn't always obey Him. Many times they would disobey God and do something very wrong, and when they did, some crisis would come into their lives. There' d be a famine, they would be attacked, and then they would cry to the Lord. The Lord would hear their prayer, and when the Lord heard their prayer, He would raise deliverers for them - people who were called judges. The deliverers that God raised for Israel were ordinary people, yet God used them to do extraordinary works for Him. Some of the deliverers were farmers, others were housewives; they were just ordinary people. But when God raised them as deliverers, they did extraordinary things for Him.
You know, it's a lesson we can learn: when we get into trouble, God knows how to raise deliverers for us. The deliverers that God raises for us may not be extraordinary people. Yes, of course, God can raise people in high places to be your deliverer, but He can also raise people in so-called low places. He can use somebody you never thought could really help you; that person could be the deliverer God has raised for you. So many times, Israel's enemies would come against them, and they would plunder them. The Bible calls them, in this passage, plunderers. A plunderer is somebody or a system or situation that comes to try and take away from you, plunder you, render you hopeless, useless, and dispossessed. And when that happens, God will always raise a deliverer.
So if you are at that point in your life where you think, "Maybe I've done wrong, and that's why this bad thing is happening to me," or maybe, like Elijah, "I'm still obeying God, yet bad things are happening to me," remember God has deliverers, and the work of a deliverer is to deliver you from the plunderer. Whatever has come against you to steal your joy, to steal your peace, whatever has come against you to make you feel miserable, to steal your health, God has an equal measure of a deliverer to set you free and to minister to you. The way to embrace that is not to assign special qualities to a person that God can use to help you. If you determine, "Oh, it has to be a major pastor with a great title and a big congregation; that is the only one God can use to help me," you will be mistaken. God can use just someone in your church, just a church member, to pray for you, and you will receive the help that even a pastor's prayer cannot offer for you. It could be a song you hear in church that the choir sings that becomes your deliverance, and that song just lifts up the burden.
It could be just somebody you don't know whom God places a burden on their heart to intercede for you. God does not use special people to do His special works; He uses ordinary people to do His special work. Because guess what? He is the special one; He is the extraordinary one; He is the mighty one, and He can use all kinds of people to achieve His purposes in your life. So if you are in trouble, deliverance is coming your way, and there is a deliverer somewhere near you-maybe in your office-and God will use that person to bring help to you today. I pray that your deliverer will come to you from wherever they are to perfect the purposes of God in your life.
Let us pray. Say with me: Heavenly Father, You are my deliverer. I trust You to raise the right kind of deliverance for me. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Deliverance is your way; receive it now. I'm Pastor Mensa Otabil. I'll catch you again. Shalom-peace and life to you.