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by Charlie Wolcott

Jehovah Sabaoth: The Lord of Hosts

Last week I wrote about how God is the God of peace, and as a peacemaker He comes to rule and bring His government. How does He do that? As I mentioned last week, when Rome came to take over a nation or tribe, they sent an ambassador to negotiate peace before the army would arrive. If the people agreed to the terms (which were Roman terms, rarely if ever negotiated), the army would rule over them, but the people would be allowed to retain their general identity. But if they refused, then the army would still come and wipe them out.

God is the Lord of Hosts, the commander of the army of heaven. He’s got an army to which there is no comparison. In The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Aragon raced to recruit the “men under the mountain,” an army of undead because the forces of Sauron coming against the city of Minas Tirith was too big. This army alone was so powerful because no weapon other than Aragon’s sword could touch them. And this army effectively won the battle single-handedly.

We see a few glimpses of this the heavenly host throughout the Bible. The first is found in Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden. The entrance to the garden was protected by an angel with a flaming sword. Another incident is found right before Joshua advanced upon Jericho. This was no ordinary angel, but rather Jesus, fully dressed in His armor, as Commander of the Hosts of Heaven.

The first time we see an army of angelic hosts is in 2 Kings 6. Elisha had been warning the king of Israel where the Syrian army was moving and their intentions so the king of Syria sent his army to take out one man. Elisha’s servant panicked but Elisha didn’t. The prophet instead asked that God open the eyes of his servant and thus show him the countryside was surrounded with flaming chariots. We see this army show up from time to time throughout the Bible.

There is one major difference between God’s army and this undead army: the undead army was cursed because of bad choices; God’s army has always been completely faithful to the end. This army does not fight with conventional tactics or weapons, though the Bible often gives imagery related to physical war. In one instance, the Angel of the Lord wiped out 185,000 men of the Assyrian army in a single night, thus preserving Hezekiah. When Jehoshaphat faced three armies, God told him he would win the battle without having to raise a sword. When the king arrived at the place of battle, he sent his worship leaders as his front line, believing what God had said. There he found all three armies having wiped each other out. Even when King Saul and Jonathan faced the Philistines, Jonathan attacked with his armor-bearer alone and God’s army came in, causing confusion among the enemy. While Jonathan only killed about twenty men, even more died by the Philistines killing each other. When God’s army fights, His people always win.

What about our battles today? Does God fight for us today? He most certainly does. It doesn’t always come in the form of overtaking a physical enemy. There are spiritual forces we face, and the Old Testament’s physical enemies gave us a physical picture of how we should engage them. When God told Joshua to march around Jericho, He was demonstrating to Joshua that this conquest would be done by His hands, not by military talent. Likewise, that physical battle gives us a picture of how some spiritual battles need to be fought. Numerous prayer groups would march around a property they knew God was leading them to get. Sometimes they would march around a city or around a neighborhood, but the idea was to surround the territory to be claimed with a proclamation that it belongs to God.

One of the key things I am still struggling to truly grasp is that God is the one who fights God’s battles. We get to participate in them, but more often than not we are mere spectators in the battle. We are in the thick of it and we battle in prayer, but ultimately it is God fighting that battle. When God is the one fighting, He is the one who will win. He has an undefeated record and there are no ties in this war. Any time we experience a loss, it is not because God did not come through, but because we did not believe or because there was sin in the camp.

Right after Joshua’s most famous victory over Jericho, he got routed by the tiniest force in Canaan at Ai. Look back to my post on the “Effects of Sin” earlier this year. Achan thought taking a few things would not affect anyone except him. Turns out it cost Israel the battle. It wasn’t because God failed them, but because Achan’s sin prevented God from being able to bless them. Achan’s choice, which he thought would only affect him, held back the armies of God because God cannot bless sin. He told Joshua what the deal was and to go address it. In Joshua’s eyes, let alone God’s, Achan’s sin was considered treachery. It cost Israel a battle and much more.

Am I saying God’s armies can be restrained with sin, as though we have power over God? Not at all. God is still going to see what He wants done through to the end. The one who loses out is us, not God. God promised to bring Israel into the Promised Land and after hearing the spies’ report, they chose not to believe God. So, God chose to wipe out every adult in the camp except for the two spies who believed Him from the beginning. God’s plans were not waylaid. It was only delayed in seeing its fruition. It still got done. The next generation entered and then proceeded to take over the land.

God is Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts. He is the Commander of the armies of heaven, and He never loses a battle. It always amazes me how many people try to fight against Him when it is truly a futile effort. God doesn’t lose His battles. He doesn’t settle for draws either. He only knows how to win and He wins every time. And He asks of each and every one us this: “Which side are you on? Mine, or against Me?” Choose you this day whom will you serve. I have chosen to serve the Lord, albeit far from perfectly. What about you?

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