One-hundred Percent Conversion Rate

“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.” (Ps 46:10-11 AV)

 

There is a chance, perhaps, that my devotions of the past centered around the very first phrase above.  The commandment to be still is one that I have often taken to heart.  The context of this psalm is the suffering of Israel in the later days.  Especially at the hands of the heathen.  The writer, in this case, David, assures his nation of the later days to be still.  Keep calm.  Eventually, the Messiah will come and make all things right.  What I wish to contemplate is that second phrase of verse ten.  The promise of the conversion of the heathen can be seen in several places.  David speaks of it elsewhere in the book of Psalms. Isaiah speaks of it often.  There is coming a day when the heathen will turn to Christ through the ministry of Israel.  What every child of God desires is a world full of righteousness and holiness.  We are tired of the filth in which we live.  We desire an earthly abode wherein Christ reigns and all people live in unity and harmony because we are all the children of God by faith.  The saint of God wishes to traverse this world with no offense seen nor heard.  All those he encounters he wishes knew the LORD and sweet fellowship around the grace of God can be had at any moment.  We yearn for that world.  And, that world is coming.

This leaves us to tie these two phrases together.  The colon between the two phrases gives us a deeper understanding of why the saint is not still.  He is not still because God is not exalted.  He cannot be content because God is a byword.  Or worse, a curse word.  So, the promise above is particularly important to the saint who is struggling with how wicked of a world we indeed do live in.  Note also the underlined phrase is a statement from God and not a mere statement of fact.  God is promising that He will be exalted among the heathen.  He is making the promise that He will be exalted in all the earth.  This is great news.  This is wonderful news.  Note also we are not to take the failure of mankind personally as though we alone can affect it.  This is another reason the saint is disquieted.  He sees the wickedness in all the world and somehow has convinced himself that the body of Christ is to blame for the condition of the world.  As though if we tried all the more, we could bring the world to repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ.  We cannot.  First, conviction and conversion is a ministry of the Holy Spirit.  He may use us as a conduit of that ministry, but He is the one who does the work.  Secondly, the phrase above is an emphatic one.  God is the author and finisher of His work.  Not us.  It is He that will cause Himself to be exalted.  No matter how hard we try, we cannot win the world to Christ.  This is a work of God Himself.  We should feel bad that we are not as assertive to share our faith as we should be.  We ought to fall to our knees and ask forgiveness for our quiet lips.  We should very well be embarrassed if we are ashamed of the gospel of Christ.  But let us be comforted to know that even if we spoke to every soul on earth, the vast majority would still reject.  Should we speak to as many as God allows.  Absolutely.  He commands us to and it is one of the best ways in which to show our love for Him.  But remember, it is His hand that will cause all the world to exalt Him.

Every time I watch or go to a production of Handle’s Messiah, the Hallelujah Chorus always brings me to tears.  To get the full effect of that one piece, the listener should start at the beginning of the work and follow along with the thought process of the one who arranged the scriptures being sung in the order in which they are laid out.  The entire work tells of the fall of man, his rejection of Christ, redemption that is found in Christ, then the return of Christ in which He will be acknowledged as the King of kings and LORD of lords.  That one chorus wraps up the thought above.  There is coming a day when the entire world will be willing under the rule of Christ and all will worship Him with a pure heart.  We can cast our eyes on our wicked world and realize it will all come to pass.  It will not remain.  All creation will be consumed by a fervent heat and recreated in righteousness and true holiness.  No more sin.  No more hurt.  No more consequences from wickedness.  No more rebellion.  It will all pass away and Jesus will reign eternally.  It is, for this reason, that we can be still and know that God is still God and will always be God.

Praise God for Prying Eyes

“If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.” (Ps 44:20-21 AV)

 This is not a bad thing.  For the LORD to search us out may be uncomfortable, but it is most necessary.  Strange gods begin with forgetting God.  This suggests the LORD confronts our forgetting Him before He confronts us again with going after strange gods.  I for one am so thankful I have a God that searches the secrets of my heart.  Those secrets could be secrets I am withholding for plain view.  They are secrets from others.  Or, they are secrets from me.  I don’t always see the reality of my own heart.  This is to what I think David is referring.  One thing is clear.  To God, there are no secrets.  He sees them all.  He knows exactly where my heart is at any given moment.  He knows if I have forgotten Him long before I realize that I have.  He knows long before I get there that I might be going after strange gods.  God does not search out the secrets of my heart for His benefit.  He already knows.  He uncovers them that I might discover what I do not realize.  God is infinitely more concerned with our spiritual well-being than we are and will work without stopping to see to it we enjoy the blessings of walking with Him.

About three years ago, my wife and I embarked on a journey whose end is still not known.  My doctor is the best clinician there is.  He orders lab work upon lab work.  I had been complaining of MS-type symptoms and because brain issues run in our family, he ordered several tests.  I met with a neurologist who also order several tests.   I went through some cognitive tests.  I had several MRIs.  With and without contrast.  There was a test for epilepsy.  There were compression tests.  There were bone scans.  The short of it is, through all these tests we discovered I had cerebral small vessel disease.  It is a disease common among much older adults than I.  My case is hereditary.  What this means is my brain does not get as much oxygen as someone my age would normally enjoy.  There is no cure, but there are several treatments.  One is to reduce bad cholesterol.  Apparently, the ratio of good to bad cholesterol is what the doctors look for.  The closer these two numbers are, the better the situation.  I didn’t have bad numbers for bad cholesterol, but my good cholesterol is habitually low.  Another hereditary feature.  So, on to a statin, I went.  As the medication did its magic, I noticed a return of cognitive function and balance.  One of the best treatments is rest.  A good night’s sleep.  Normally, I am a very light sleeper and my mind is instantly awake and working.  So, the doctor prescribed this awesome medication which is a non-habit-forming medication that is used for another condition but is used off-label for sleep assistance.  I haven’t slept this good in my whole life.  But here is the point.  I was totally unaware of what was causing my issues.  To me, it was a secret.  It took someone who knew a whole lot more than I did to reveal the secrets of my health that explained the symptoms.

The same is true with the need for the LORD to do some diagnosis of His own.  We don’t know ourselves well enough to self-doctor.  We need someone who knows us better than we know ourselves.  We need our Creator to examine the secrets of our hearts to reveal the root causes of some of our problems.  We cannot see what we do not know.  It takes someone who knows all things to show us what we cannot see.  This is so very important.  As long as our souls are sin-sick, we need the great Physician to examine our hearts and show us what is causing all our problems.  I, for one, am so thankful I have a Creator who will not give up on me.  I, for one, and so grateful God does not lose His patience and continues to illumine to me all those secret places of my heart.  This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the Word.  By the word of God and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the saint learns things about himself he would otherwise never know.  How we choose to respond determines God’s actions on our part.  Praise the LORD He cares!  Praise the LORD He will not abandon us to ourselves.  Praise the LORD He continues His searching ministry that we do not remain the same as we always have been.  Praise the LORD for the divine investigation that reveals the secrets of the heart.

It's The Little Things

“Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.” (Ps 42:8 AV)

It might be this psalm was written by David as he fled from Saul or Absalom.  The places to which He refers by name, some writers believe those places were places of refuge as he fled.  Our beloved Psalmist desires the presence of God through the hardships of life.  He also knows it is only the presence of God that will get him through it.  In our passage above, we see the result of the presence of God in difficult times.  God commands His lovingkindness to David as he battles in the day, and when the day comes to a close, he has the song of God in his heart and prayer to God on his lips.  David was a man of emotions.  He wore them on his sleeve.  He was a man of principled passion.  He was not an angry or envious man.  He was not a malicious man.  David was a man who felt things and when he did, he processed it.  He didn’t sit on his emotions.  He was a humble man who was not afraid of mentioning his weaknesses.  When he was afraid or weak, he wasn’t afraid of telling the LORD.  He poured out his heart and soul to the LORD.  This meant the LORD could minister to his heart and strengthen him in a deep time of need.  What we see above is David’s testimony of the practical workings of his walk with God.  The LORD is good to him and he makes prayer a constant habit.  It is this interaction between the Psalmist and his God that gives him the strength to endure through the calling of life that his Creator has assigned.

We can be so overwhelmed by life’s challenges that we become blind to that which God is doing in our favor.  We see the hard parts.  But we often miss the relief.  These times of relief are frequent.  We miss them because they are little things.  These little things add up.  We often forget them once they are passed.  In the south, they call them “God things.”  The Bible calls them the lovingkindness of God.  These little things don’t seem like much when they happen and even though they may bring relief, individually, the relief is slight.  I haven’t spent a great deal of my life in the hospital.  Perhaps only twice in the last forty years.  The most recent was from a heart issue.  One which the medical professionals thought I might have, but didn’t.  Spending a night in the hospital is not the easiest thing to do.  The nurses come in and take vitals or check on you or offer some kind of relief.  To some, this is an annoyance.  However, to others, this is a necessity.  They adjust your pillow.  They get some ice.  They may help you into the bathroom.  While they are taking vitals, they talk with you.  They check and recheck your meds.  The change you sheets.  They bring you your meal and clean up afterward.  The staff does everything they can do to make your stay a bit easier.  Their care may not take away all the pain.  But their care does ease the pain a bit.  We are grateful they put up with all the ill-treatment we give them because of our pain because they know that is not the real us lying in the bed.  They love their patients and care for them because they know it is not the best of situations.  All they want to do is ease that patient’s burden in any way they can.  Compassion rules in their hearts.  Praise the LORD for our patient caregivers who put up with a lot and with little gratitude in return because they have a heart that cannot say no.

David thanks God for His little acts of lovingkindness that are making his flight much easier than it would otherwise be.  David thanks God for His mercy.  To do so means our Psalmist is seeing those little acts of kindness.  His eyes are well aware of the troubled waters that he is navigating.  But not to the extent he cannot notice the simple acts of relief God sends along the way.  Maybe a smile or word of encouragement from one of the men who are with him.  Maybe someone who takes it upon himself to solve a situation for the king so the king doesn’t have to worry about it.  Maybe a kind word of encouragement from his wife.  Perhaps a well of water appeared out of nowhere when their flight was so hasty, that they could not plan for water.  Or perhaps a quick provision of game in the field as they fed the small band of men.  Perhaps the weather was in their favor.  Or, a small village gives them provision to continue their flight.  These little things along the way are the hand of God.  It is His lovingkindness sprinkled along our journey to make our journey a bit easier to endure.  These acts of God’s lovingkindness are what David sees.  They are what he is thankful for.  These acts are what produce the heart of praise and fill his lips with prayer.  Look for them.  They are all around you.  When you see just how faithful the LORD is, then you, too, will be filled with the song of the LORD and pray with fervency.

A Rest To Look Forward To

“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” (Heb 4:9 AV)

 

I know the theme of Hebrews is the rest promised to Israel through Abraham.  The rest spoken of here is not heaven.  Rather, it is the millennial reign of Christ.  However, the principle still applies to the New Testament saint.  We can be very encouraged because of the context.  The writer compares Israel’s present struggles against the promised rest.  Israel can have their eyes on the world and how it treats them.  They can wonder if it will ever end.  They can begin to lose hope that the LORD will come and rescue them from the troubles they constantly face.  But the word ‘therefore’ is a wonderful word.  Despite what they might be experiencing and the labor of soul which they suffer, there remains a rest.  Just because the majority of the nation rejected Christ does not mean the Father has rescinded His covenant.  There remains a rest.  All they need to do is to exercise faith where their forefathers failed.  The New Testament saint can apply this verse to glory.  There remains a rest for us, too.  We are promised a home in heaven.  We are promised a mansion in the house of God.  We are promised an end to all that plagues us in the horrible world in which we journey.  There remains a rest for us, as well.  By death or by rapture, we will enter into our rest.  Then this life will seem but a distant memory.

My doctor has diagnosed me with a condition whose cure is rest.  Sleep, that is.  I don’t do well at all when I haven’t had a good night’s sleep.  Just to give you an example, this week I had to get up about an hour and a half earlier than I normally do on several mornings.  The other two mornings, I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t fall back asleep.  So yesterday was rather interesting.  My lovely wife and I had to take a trip to another town to find a place we had only been to a couple of times before.  It was not the big turns or decisions that were a problem.  It was the little ones.  Finding the right entrance to a place was a chore.  Being in the right lane for the correct turn was not the easiest of things.  We stopped at a breakfast place.  Wrong driveway.  I had to make a u-turn.  Leaving the restaurant I missed my left-hand turn, so I had to go a bit further and make another u-turn.  At the next signal, I was supposed to turn right.  Missed it.  A thousand feet down the road and another u-turn.  Making a left onto the road I was supposed to be on, I entered the wrong parking lot.  It was for the business next door.  You guessed it.  Another u-turn.  I should have taken the next entrance.  We left from there to finally arrive at our final destination.  Not being sure of whether we needed to go left or right, I chose right when we should have gone left.  Another u-turn.  I joked that I was trying to send my GPS into self-destruct mode.  It wasn’t on, but I can only imagine the voice instructions as it tried to adjust to all my u-turns.  All this because I was short of rest all week long.

There is coming a day when we can rest for all of eternity.  We will be in a constant state of regeneration, so to speak.  Our cups will be filled to overflowing.  Now is not the time to rest.  The harder we labor, the sweeter the rest.  This is Paul’s point here.  For Israel, the labor is labor unto saving faith.  For us, our labor is to labor for righteousness and faith.  Our labor is not in vain, Paul tells us elsewhere.  We labor that we may be accepted of Him, the Bible declares.  We labor that the glory of God may be seen in our lives to the saving of men’s souls, Paul tells Timothy.  Jesus tells us we should work while it is day.  Once the light of the Holy Spirit is taken from our world, no man can work.  Now is the time to do something for the LORD.  Now is the time to work hard for the glory of God.  Knowing we have a rest is the truth we need to endure through that which the LORD would have us to do.

Accustomed to Unbelief

“Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.” (Heb 3:10 AV)

When I read this, something struck me that had never occurred to me before.  Note here the LORD says the generation that fled Egypt always erred in their hearts.  They never knew the ways of the LORD.  This was before the giving of the law, so we know the LORD is not speaking of erring sinfully.  Even though the generation that fled Egypt did so, sin is not what the LORD is referring to.  If one reads a few verses later, he will discover the fault lay in unbelief.  The generation who came out of Egypt refused to trust the LORD and take a step of faith which would have led to them occupying Canaan.  The steps of faith which they had taken thus far were no brainers.  With the Egyptian army behind them and an open sea in front of them, it didn’t take a whole lot of faith to cross the riverbed.  When there was no water or food and God provided, it didn’t take a whole lot of faith and trust the LORD for daily provision.  They really didn’t have must choice.  When it came to Canaan, however, they did.  Either they trust the LORD and invade the land, or then wander in the wilderness and exist as children of God who would care for them.  After contemplating this, something struck me.  The children of Israel refused to grow up!  They were cared for, such as it was, by the Egyptians in exchange for the complete and total enslavement.  They went from one benefactor to another.  In Egypt, they did what they had to do.  And that is all.  There was no initiative.  They were not proactive.  They simply responded to the circumstances at hand for no greater reason than simple survival.  Now, they are in the wilderness and the same pattern develops.  God is now their benefactor.  They simply respond to the immediate circumstances at hand for no greater reason than mere existence.  This is what God is referring to when He says they had not known of His ways.  They made a pattern of life where faith was not a priority.  Only a necessity.

We can be conditioned to be a certain way and not even realize the harmful habits of life in which we are entrapped.  Obviously, being a ward of the state or the family puts one at a disadvantage.  Having all of our needs met destroys the ability to take risk.  Risk is necessary for maturing faith.  A child who sits at mealtime and eats what is placed before him, exercises very little faith.  A young man who needs to go out and hunt for his own food learns to pray for the LORD’s blessing while in the field.  A teenager who hops in dad’s car and drives without any care about how much gas is in the tank, what maintenance needs to be done, or even if the insurance is paid doesn’t need a whole lot of faith.  But the adult who knows what the expenses of running a household will look for employment to meet those needs.  An adolescent who has no idea of the threats that could invade his world goes to sleep at night knowing everything will be fine.  In the meantime, dad lays awake praying to the LORD all will be well as they slumber knowing many threats could come as they rest their weary bodies.  The child will take his Flintstone vitamin without any thought as to why.  His parents go to their pill dispenser and religiously take their medication knowing eventually their health will fail.  They pray for God’s mercy and for good health.  To use another comparison, the church member who comes because he needs encouragement comes with minimal faith compared to the saint who is proactive in his faith and sticks his neck out for the cause of Christ by sharing the gospel.  The one who gives because he has extra is exercising minimal faith.  The one who sacrifices and trusts the LORD to give what God has placed on his heart is someone who is growing in their faith.  The saint that lives as a victim of their circumstances, always calling on the LORD for relief is not maturing like the believer who, despite his circumstances, asks the LORD for strength that he might continue to serve Him.

Herein is the principle.  We have pews that are stagnated because we simply do not understand how to live by faith.  We are not maturing.  We are sitting back and waiting to be served.  We are begging to be loved on.  The center of our world is us.  We want to be coddled, pampered, and taken care of.  There are very few Joshuas who will take the risk and charge the hill.  There are few Calebs who will ask for the most difficult of all enemy strongholds and take it on while in his advanced years.  There are few Jonathans who will singlehandedly take on a platoon of bad guys or Davids who will assault the hordes of hell simply because they blaspheme the name of God.  To mature in faith requires we take a risk.  It requires us not to be preoccupied with our immediate needs.  Yes, we are to pray for our daily bread.  But unlike Israel, we are not to be preoccupied with manna and quail.  The generation that fled Egypt never grew beyond their physical and emotional dependence on a benefactor.  They could never take the initiative.  They wasted away their lives because they were always waiting for God to take care of them.  Not until we grow up and realize God will take care of us and not obsess about it will we ever take steps of real faith that require risk.  We are one of two people.  We are either stuck in the wilderness because we are too afraid to step out on faith, or we are the risk-takers who will trust God for the battles that lie ahead.  One does not grow.  He withers away.  The other will always feel alive!

Comfort To Overcome Temptation

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil…For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.” (Heb 2:14, 18 AV)

 

If we just understood how accessible victory over sin was, we wouldn’t fall nearly as much as we do.  Jesus took upon Himself the form of our flesh so that He could be tempted in all points as we.  Declining to be enticed into sin, He is our example and power to overcome it.  The noun ‘succour’ is not a passive one.  In other words, our writer is not speaking of a natural result of salvation in a general sense of overcoming.  He is not speaking of the eternal victory we will have.  The writer is speaking of real-time succouring.  The word means more than securing.  The word means to secure by way of comfort.  The word is often used to describe what a mother does for her baby.  The understanding here is when we are tempted, the LORD Jesus Christ comes to our side with a heart of understanding encouraging us to stay the course.  He will not force our wills.  They are still free.  We still have to decide to turn down the offer of sin.  Jesus will not co-op our hearts and minds.  There must still be a yielding to the power of the Holy Spirit.  What we can know is that no matter how difficult the battle against sin is, we have an elder brother who understands just how we feel and will intercede to the Father on our behalf.

One of the bittersweet aspects of counseling people with sin issues is the ability to understand where they are coming from.  Particularly if it is a sin with which the mentor has struggled as well.  He can often offer insight into what the costs are and what it would take to overcome that particular sin.  When the counselor can empathize with the one suffering, it goes a long way.  Our health care network can gather input from its patients and sends it along to those providing care.  After each visit, there is a brief survey sent to the patient and they have the option to send their observations back to the network.  I know they have because I sent an evaluation back on several situations with input which was some criticism sprinkled with practical suggestions that would improve their care.  After one particular visit, I noticed the health care provider was too clinical and not very personal.  I felt like a lab rat.  There was no connection.  All I was to this individual was a walking test tube of data and a puzzle for his or her curious mind.  Now, this health care provider is the best in the city in which I dwell.  It is difficult to get a visit scheduled.  His diagnostic skills are second to none and with the right data at his disposal can make astounding diagnoses where most others would fail to connect the dots.  He truly is a gifted health care professional.  Following the evaluation, his demeanor changed considerably.  He was far more personal and engaging as a person.  His problem was he couldn’t empathize with patients' health care needs because he hadn’t aged to the same level of challenges.  Having understood their unique (at least to his life’s experiences) situations, he was able to adjust and succour those who were challenged with difficult health care needs.

Praise the LORD we have a Savior who knows every detail where it applies to temptation.  Every possible temptation we could ever be confronted with, He has gone through it.  And then some.  He knows what it feels like when the flesh screams for attention.  He knows what it feels like when the flesh tries to make us believe we cannot live without some deep-seated desire satisfied to the full.  He knows what it is like to battle the mind and discipline one’s thought life to the glory of God.  Jesus knows what it is like to take on the devil.  He knows what a had to head confrontation feels like.  Jesus had to challenge the world that was against Him.  He was forced to endure hardships that we can never fathom.  This same Jesus comes to our side when like temptations plague us.  He knows how it feels.  He knows the struggle between wanting to please the Father and the flesh fighting against it.  Jesus did not have a fallen nature as we do.  He was not pre-disposed to sin.  He was created in the image of Adam.  He did not have an old nature to battle.  But the flesh is flesh.  It doesn’t matter why it desires what it should not have.  It just does.  Therefore, Jesus is always there when we want victory.  He is there to intercede for us.  He is there with an understanding shoulder upon which to rest.  All we need to do is cry out to Jesus and He will comfort us in our struggle to say ‘no’.

Only Temporary

“I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.” (Ps 37:35-36 AV)

 This has been the case for as long as mankind has been on the earth.  We fret and allow the adversary to cause us anxiety and fear over something that will not be permanent.  David has seen kingdoms larger than his rise and fall.  He has seen his father-in-law’s kingdom chase him all over the countryside, yet one battle was all it took to take him down.  The comparison with a bay tree is very enlightening.  The bay tree is a tree that grows in its own natural soil.  It is not a transplant.  If it is transplanted, it will not survive.  What a picture of all the kingdoms that have risen and fallen.  They spread themselves beyond their borders.  There may be a success for a time, but it will eventually die and return to its original beginnings.  What a picture of every offensive force that has ever taken territory.  It is one of those truths that are timeless.  Why?   “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;” (Ac 17:26 AV)  The LORD determines in His eternal plan were and when nations and kingdoms rise.  As much as they might think they can control their own destinies, the Bible would differ.

No matter what the world wants to sell, the saint should not buy.  We should not be anxious about the battles we perceive God is losing.  He is losing nothing.  The bay tree reminds me of a tree that used to grow in the front yard of my previous house.  The locals call it a water maple.  This maple tree often grows in areas that have plenty of groundwater.  They grow fast.  The problem with the water maple is the roots are shallow.  They have to be to get the water they need to grow as fast as they do.  The thing is, with the water maple, it grows so fast it cannot sustain itself.  The base of the tree and main branches often cannot contain the weight of new growth.  New growth also saps moisture from its support branches and trunk.  Eventually, the tree collapses under its own weight.  Every year I had to take my chainsaw out to the front yard and cut up main branches that had fallen off.  It made for an endless supply of firewood.  But within just a few years, the tree fell over.  Roots and all.  It grew fast and tried to sustain rapid growth.  It simply could not.  This is what happens with the wicked powers that be.  They cannot sustain their own success.  Eventually, they collapse and recede back from whence they came.

This aggression is not limited to physical force.  This temporary aggression does not necessarily mean a wicked power takes territory.  The aggression can also be philosophical, spiritual, cultural, or any other aggression against God’s sovereignty.  It simply will not stand.  Every year about this time, The Exodus with Charlton Heston is easily found on broadcast or paid TV.  The thought that the movie portrays is God’s deliverance for a people to liberty.  Although that is a major consequence of their deliverance from bondage, it is not the most pressing reason for their liberty.  They had voluntarily given up their habitation and bounds which the LORD destined for them when Jacob took his family down to Egypt for bread.  Over time, they were enslaved by the Egyptians.  When freed, they were led to the land originally given to them by God to Abraham.  The land of promise.  They had lost their borders.  God restored them more than once.  The latest was the great regathering following the 1948 agreement to re-establish Israel as a nation.  The point is, we can take encouragement that the forces that be may think they are taking ground that will never be surrendered, but the LORD is greater than them all.  What the powers that be never take into consideration is the imminent return of Jesus Christ.  He is returning and all things will revert back to where they should be.