The men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to strike and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons; for they said, Surely they are struck down before us, as in the first battle.
And now they fasted and prayed and cried unto the Lord. Now, I must confess at this point I have confusion. Why would God send them into a battle, say, "Go into battle" in which they are gonna get defeated? I don't know and that confuses me. But the first two days they went in, they got whipped and though God had said go, even said the tribe that was to go first, I don't understand that. You say, "Oh well, that's horrible you don't understand." Well, perhaps so. But I don't know everything and God said, "My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord. My ways are beyond your finding out."Even as a woman this morning asked me after the service, she said, "Why would God choose Samson if in His foreknowledge He knew he was gonna fail?" That's a good question. I don't know. However, as I say, there are a lot of things I don't know about God and I'm sort of glad I don't know because that causes me to respect God. I know He's smarter than I am. Now if I knew everything God knew I'd be as smart as God and how could I respect him? Not only that, it gives me a chance to exercise faith, which I don't like, but I'm forced at times to exercise it. You see, to believe what I don't know is faith. To believe what I do know is reason, intellect.Now I know a lot of things and I believe them because my intellect tells me, "Well, that's right." I can balance in my intellect. I can rationalize it." So I say, "Well, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God," great deal. There's plenty of historic proof for that. "I believe Jesus rose from the dead," big deal, there's plenty of historic truth for that and proof. If you can prove anything in history you can prove that Jesus rose from the dead, if history has any value for proof of past events. If you want to prove that Hannibal crossed the Alps, you can prove that Jesus rose from the dead just as much as you can prove that he crossed the Alps or that Washington crossed the Delaware. So big deal, I believe Jesus rose from the dead. I can prove it historically. It is the things that I can't prove that I have to just believe by faith that God honors. I say that I believe Jesus is the Son of God, great. The devils believe that too. What does that make me? Nothing.But when you come to those areas of faith or belief where there is not the proof and I have to just believe in faith that this indeed did happen. That he died, yes, that's a historical fact but that He died for my sins, that's something I accept by faith. That God laid upon Him my sins when He died, I accept that by faith. That He rose, that's a historic fact, but in His resurrection He provided justification for me, that's faith. That's what makes me saved, is believing what I don't understand. I don't understand how or why He would die for me. I don't understand how I can be justified by His resurrection but I believe it because the Bible declares it.