A very good morning to you my precious friends
Proverbs 18:10 says “The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous man runs into it and is safe”
Is our faith and trust in self, things, other people or the name of the Lord Whom King Solomon describes as a "strong tower" where we can run to and be safe from hurt, harm and danger?
The little book of Proverbs is overflowing with great truths, which if taken to heart by believers, and applied to our every-day Christian life, would turn the tables on the trickery of the wicked one, whose evil desire is to render the witness of born-again believers as impotent.
When you are afraid, what kind of a tower do you want for protection and safety? The LORD is a strong tower in fearful times. You can run into it and be safe, whenever you need it. Nothing can breach it. His name is the LORD, and there is no other place for such protection from danger. Lay hold of this proverb by faith; it will save your life.
Sometimes, God uses storms, fiery furnaces and troubled waters to get us sailing in the direction we should have gone in prior to the storm. Sometimes it takes a storm to know we are in need of a shelter. It is in the storms in life where we are reminded of our desperate need of God. When the storms of life come, we need a shelter, a sure foundation called "Jesus" to calm our storm.
It is not merely the LORD’s name that is a strong tower, for His name has no magical properties for wicked men. It is the God by Whose name men know Him that is meant. It is the LORD Himself, with all His glorious attributes and perfections, that is meant. He is the living and true God, Creator of heaven and earth, Father of the fatherless, and Judge of the widow. Yes, it is that God. His name is the LORD. The challenge is how well do we know Him?
What is that LORD with all capital letters? We must consider this carefully, as believers who love the LORD. Those four capital letters stand for the sacred tetragrammaton of Israel. God revealed Himself to Moses as I AM THAT I AM. The Jews regarded this name unspeakable. They wrote it as a tetragram of four consonants, JHVH. It is pointed up with vowels from other Hebrew names of God, Elohim and Adonai, to be written and pronounced as Jehovah! The capitalized LORD means Jehovah, which is the God named I AM THAT I AM.
God identified His name to Moses as: I AM that I AM, for He is everything that we need, in every area of life. One beautiful picture of the Lord can be seen as a Strong Tower, where the righteous runs to Him and are safe. What a precious promise for all God's children.
The Lord began to unveil His holy name and perfect attributes from the first verse of Genesis, where we discover Him to be the all-powerful Creator. To Adam He became his relational Lord and Abraham saw Him as the Almighty God, Who was His Master and Provider. To Moses, the friend of God, He became our Banner and our Sanctifier, while Gideon finds Him to be our Perfect Peace - which passes all understanding.
David discovered the Lord was his Tender Shepherd, Who laid down His life for the sheep, and Ezekiel worshipped the Righteous God - Whose name is JESUS, and all of us who run to Him as their Creator and Redeemer, discover Him to be our Perfect Peace, our Gracious Shepherd and our Everlasting Righteousness - and to myriads of men and women the Lord has proved Himself to be the Righteousness of God, in Christ - for God made Him Who had no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God - in Christ.
This God a strong tower. There is no other God but Him! The gods of the nations are the devilish imaginations of ignorant pagans. They are stumps, stones, animals, and insects. They must be carried about from place to place. Jehovah ridicules them repeatedly in the Bible, and He considers those who worship them to be just as stupid.
How strong is the tower? Isaiah 26:3-4 says “Trust ye in the LORD forever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength”! Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew Him as the Almighty God, but He revealed Himself further to Moses in Exodus 6 verse 3. Hagar in Genesis 16 verse13 named Him, “You are the God who sees me”. Psalm 68 verse 5 calls Him “A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, is God in His holy habitation”. My friends, know that none have ever been lost who put their trust in Him!
Let David be our example. David said in Psalm 18:1-2, “I will love Thee, O LORD, my strength”. Call upon the LORD in your troubles, and let Him rescue you. He was David’s rock, fortress, deliverer, God, strength, shield, horn, and high tower.
Psalm 18:7-11 reminds us that He rescues the righteous like this: “Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because He was angry. 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 darkness was under His feet. And He rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, He did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness His secret place; His pavilion round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies”. Everyone needs to personally answer - Do you know this glorious God? Do you delight and trust in Him?
When fallen man can look beyond his rebellious, prideful short sightedness and recognise that by God's eternal power the worlds were made, he can start to glimpse into the very character and heart of God, Who loved the world so much that He sent His only begotten Son to pay the enormous price for your sins and mine, and His name is Jesus.
There is one Man the devils fear more than all gods, angels, and men combined. It is the Man Jesus of Nazareth. When He was on earth in a state of great humility, they ran and worshipped Him repeatedly, and they begged Him not to torment them before their appointed time of judgment. Now exalted at the right hand of God, He is far above all of them, preparing to use them as a footstool and consign them to an eternity in hell
Real Christians also do not pray to saints, for they are dead and buried to this day. They cannot help. They are no tower of safety.
There is only one name by which any man must be saved; there is only one name that is above every name; there is only one name that is a strong tower. Philippians 2:9-11 reminds us that it is the name of Jesus, before which every knee shall bow.
When a Christian closes their prayers to God “in Jesus name,” they invoke the highest name in the universe. For we are using the name that means the LORD Jehovah is salvation. Now that is a strong tower! You will be safe in it!
So fellow believer, let it be forever known that Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel, the Christ of God, is Jehovah Himself, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, the Blessed and Only Potentate, Immanuel, the Word of God! He is LORD, and He is Lord of all! Jesus is indeed our hiding place. He is described in Psalm 46:1 as our refuge, our strength, a very present help in time of trouble.
There is only one living and true God – Jehovah. He wants us to know Him. He has made us for Himself. So Worship and live for Him.
Although there are times I don’t feel it, it gives me comfort to know that His protection and love for us is splashed all over the pages of His word. God is, and will always be, my safe place
So let us run to Jesus, our strong tower, knowing that in Him alone will be found our refuge and strength - our peace and our safety.
Let us pray.
All-powerful God, teach me to run to You and trust You when times are hard. Father God, thank You that that I am covered by the righteousness of Christ Jesus my Saviour, Who is my secure tower of refuge, our shelter in all of life’s storms and in Whom is everything I need, in every area of my life, and in Whose name I pray, AMEN.
Much love and blessings from Maurice and Margaret
