All the Philistines went up to search for David to kill him. David enquired of the Lord, saying shall I go up against the Philistines? Will You deliver them into my hand? The Lord said to David go up, doubtless I will deliver them into your hands. What would you take on this year if you heard God saying to you go for it, you can't lose?
I'm going to pick up the passage I was in (2 Samuel, Chapter 5), but I want to take it from a different perspective. [Continued from Breaking Free (1 & 2), 5th/12th Feb 2012] I want to pick up two aspects of it which is really what the message is on tonight, strength and sensitivity. Strength and sensitivity; strong and sensitive. Let's just look here and we're going to see it in the life of David and here it is, Verse 17; Now the Philistines heard that they'd anointed David king over Israel and all the Philistines went up to search for David to kill him. That's nice of them isn't it aye, real friendly like? And David heard of it and went down to the stronghold and the Philistines also went and deployed themselves in the Valley of Rephaim. So David enquired of the Lord, saying shall I go up against the Philistines? Will You deliver them into my hand? Shall I pick a fight or shall I take on the fight and will I win? The Lord said to David go up doubtless I will deliver them into your hands. That's not bad is it? Imagine having a relationship with God where He says go for it, I'm with you, you can't lose.
What would you take on this year if you heard God saying to you go for it, you can't lose? That's what He does say to us of course, go for it, you can't lose. He encourages us to stretch out - and so David went. He went to Baal Perazim and he defeated them there. There was a great battle, a great victory and then he said the Lord has broken through my enemies before me like a breakthrough of water, so he called the name Baal Perazim. In other words he said this place is the lord of breakthrough, so he changed the place.
Now I want you to see, just have a look for a moment where it was that they fought this battle. They fought it in the Valley of Rephaim. Rephaim means the giants and the Rephaim were all killed by Joshua, but these Rephaim they were giants and they were the things that frightened everyone, intimidated everyone. They were the giants who ruled the land. They were all gone. There was just the memory of them left and David turned that place of memory of giants that terrified and he turned it into a place called the Lord has broken through. Think about that, because you'll have memories, experiences, issues, thought patterns, habits, things that you need to break through this year and instead of seeing it as a giant in your life, look at it as this is where God is going to give me breakthrough this year.
Then he went on and therefore the Philistines came up again, so he didn't kill them all. They came up and had a go and they also came back to the same place. You'd think they'd have a different strategy wouldn't you aye? You'd think they'd try a different plan when the first plan failed so terribly but no, they came up to the same thing. But David had a different plan and so he inquired of the Lord and the Lord said don't go up, don't confront them. Don't go down against them like you were before, so probably they were thinking like this; they were thinking well we lined up all the army and it looked like we were going to win. Then David came out with a small group of people and gave us a licking, so this is what we'll strengthen the army and we'll get it set up even better and this time he'll never be able to do what he did. Of course what they didn't realise is David's very sensitive to the Holy Ghost. He didn't go back that way and didn't fall into the trap they set for him. He just went around behind and God said to him wait 'til you hear the sound in the mulberry trees of a wind blowing. In other words I'm going to give a supernatural sign to you that will give you a signal to have a go.
Keywords: Rephaim , Giants, Philistines, breakthrough, holy ghost, violence, strength, determination, tongues, fight mode, warrior spirit