Little Silver Bell

When I was growing up, every time I got sick my mom would set up a little table next to my bed, and she would set a little silver bell on it.  She would tell me that if I needed her just to ring the little bell.

So, when I got thirsty, I would ring, and she would come with ginger ale and ice chips. If I felt hungry, ring, and she would come with saltines. Whatever I needed, I would just ring the bell and she would come.  That little silver bell was the one bright spot in being sick.

 

It struck me lately that sometimes, Christians think that God has a little silver bell like that.  Every time we need something, we can just simply ring our little bell, and viola, our answer appears.

 

But it doesn’t work that way.  God doesn’t give us a silver bell.  And we get so discouraged because we think we just need to ring and He should answer.  But God doesn’t work like that.  There’s a spiritual law that we need to follow - it’s called faith.  All through the bible we read about faith.

 

In Mark 11:24, Jesus tells us,

 

Whatever we ask for in prayer, we have to “believe that we have received it, and then “it will be ours.”  (NIV)

 

Faith has nothing to do with ringing a little silver bell- faith is hard work.  Faith is believing that we have our answer before we see it. 

 

Faith is “being certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) (NIV)

 

So faith is believing in something that is invisible.  Faith is how we receive anything from God.  Faith is what pleases God.  Faith is what brings us into the Promised Land.  Faith is what moves mountains.

 

By faith Noah built an Ark before he ever saw rain – Noah believed in the invisible rain.

 

By faith Abraham and Sara were given a baby when they were nearly 100 years old.  They believed in an invisible baby.

 

By faith Moses “persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.” (Hebrews 11:27) (NIV)  Moses believed in an invisible God.

 

The story of Moses starts in the book of Exodus.  Exodus tells the story of the Israelites; how they found themselves in slavery in Egypt for 400 years.  And how they kept praying and praying for God to come rescue them from the Pharaoh. And finally, one day, God appeared to a man named Moses.

 

And God told Moses to go into Egypt and tell the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.  So Moses met up with his brother Aaron and the two of them spoke to the Israelites and told them what God had said.  In Exodus, Chapter 4, we read:

 

Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.  (Exodus 4:29-31) (NIV)

 

So, all the Israelites were very happy.  They had been praying for so many years and finally God heard their prayers. They rang the bell and God came!!  Such optimism was in the camp of the Israelites that night!! 

 

But it didn’t last long.  In chapter 5, we see opposition immediately.

Do you remember what Hebrews 11:27 told us about Moses?  “By faith Moses persevered ...” (NIV)

 

Why did Moses need to persevere?  Moses had to persevere because the Pharaoh was very stubborn.

 

In Exodus chapter 5, we read:

 

Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’”

Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”

Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword.”

But the king of Egypt said, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!” …

That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: “You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.”

…So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, “Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw.” And Pharaoh’s slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had appointed, demanding, “Why haven’t you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as before?”

Then the Israelite overseers … found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and they said, “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”  (from Exodus 5:1-21 NIV)

 

What happened to their optimism?  It was totally destroyed.  They were given an impossible assignment and then being beaten when they could not do it.  They were scared, they were disappointed, and they were discouraged.  Have you every prayed over a situation in your life and the situation got worse?  Why?

 

In Daniel chapter 10, we read the story of a time when Daniel had apparently prayed really hard for 3 weeks. As soon as he prayed, God heard his prayer and sent an angel to answer Daniel, but it took 3 weeks for the angel to get to Daniel.  The angel explained why it took so long:

 

…Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia.  (Daniel 10:12,13 NIV)

 

So the angel left immediately to give Daniel the answer but what happened?  He got blocked by the “king of Persia.”  This “king of Persia” was probably a demon or possibly the devil himself.  The Bible calls the devil the prince or the ruler of this world. (see John 12:31, 14:30, & 16:11)

 

The devil didn’t want the angel to be able to answer Daniel, so he blocked the angel for 21 days, until Michael, the leader of the army of angels, came to help.  The devil is going to do everything he can do to knock us down, beat us down, and keep us down.  That’s what he does.  he doesn’t want us receiving anything from God.  The devil acts a lot like the Pharaoh acted with Moses.  So when you enter into a spiritual battle, don’t expect it to be easy.  It’s called a battle for a reason. 

 

Is it normal to get discouraged when you get knocked down?  Yes, all the Israelites were discouraged and angry with Moses.  Even Moses was discouraged:

 

Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”  (Exodus 5:22-23) (NIV)

 

Both Moses and the Israelites were discouraged.  We all get discouraged, but the difference is how we go from there.  The Israelites gave up.  They went up against a powerful enemy, but the enemy threw the first punch and the Israelites had enough.  But what did Moses do?  He returned to the Lord.

 

He persevered… 

 

By faith Moses persevered because he saw Him who is invisible. (Hebrews 11:27) (NIV)

 

He returned to the Lord.  And the Lord repeated the promise:

 

“… say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.  And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’”  (Exodus 6:6-8) (NIV)

 

Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor.  Then the Lord said to Moses,

 

“Go, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country.”

 

But Moses said to the Lord, “If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?” (Exodus 6:10-12) (NIV)

 

Once again, the Israelites were too discouraged to listen and, once again, Moses was discouraged.  But again, here’s the difference.  Moses was scared, he was discouraged, but he kept going!!!  Exodus 7:6 tells us that, 

 

“Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded them.” (NIV) 

 

Of course we know the rest of the story – God sent 10 plagues through Moses, and finally the Pharaoh let the people go.

 

Winston Churchill, in WW2, said this famous quote, “Never never never give up.”  

 

When everything is hopeless, keep fighting the fight of faith.

When the enemy is stronger than you, keep fighting the fight of faith.

 

Moses didn’t lead half a million people out of slavery because he rang a little silver bell.  He led them out of slavery because he persevered.

 

I want to go back to Hebrews 11 now, where we read that Moses persevered through all the struggles.  How all the great heroes of faith persevered through their struggles.

 

Noah, Abraham, Gideon, David and Samuel - they all had struggles, just like us.  In fact, Hebrews 12 goes on to say that if we are children of God, we will have struggles.  Hebrew 12:1 tells us to “keep running with perseverance the race marked out for us” even though it’s packed with struggles.  (NIV)

 

We have to keep running our race.  We have to keep our eyes on Jesus and keep running straight ahead, even though our course is filled with struggles.

 

We can’t run away from our struggles, and we can’t just ring a little bell to make the struggles disappear. We have to run the course that is set before us.

 

Hebrews 12:10 says that God “chastens” us for “our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.” (KJV)

 

And verse 11 goes on to say that “no chastening … seemeth to be joyous, but grievous.” (KJV)  That word grievous, in the original Greek, means “sorrow, sadness, heaviness, grief.”  (Strong 1983)

 

Maybe you know what I’m talking about.  Maybe you have been through struggles in your life.  Maybe you have felt the sorrow, the sadness, the heaviness.  Struggles are not easy.  But, the Bible also promises that struggles will produce something beautiful in your life…

 

Holiness, righteousness, and peace (see Hebrews 12:10,11) (NIV)

 

That’s why, just 2 chapters later, in James chapter 1, the Bible says to be joyful whenever you face a trial:

 

Consider it pure joy… whenever you face trials … because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 

And he says that when perseverance finishes its work you will be “mature and complete, not lacking anything.”  (James 1:2,3) (NIV)

 

So next time you’re running along your race, fixing your eyes toward Jesus, and a struggle suddenly plops down in front of you and blocks your way…

 

Don’t fall down and cry, and don’t run the other way.  You have what it takes to overcome.  So consider it pure joy- start praising the Lord!  And then, use your faith to overcome it!  Remember, what is faith?

 

Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe you have received it and it will be yours!  (Mark 11:24) (NIV)

 

You will get the victory over the struggle by believing that you already have the victory!!

 

And you’re going to keep on believing

And keep on praising and rejoicing

Until you see the victory!!!

 

You’ve got to pick yourself up off the floor and take up your sword, that mighty word of God, those precious and powerful promises of God – and you’ve got to start to fight; you’ve got to start to praise!!!

 

I heard a pastor tell this story.  He said that he and his wife were going through some struggles. And he was in the living room feeling sorry for himself.  Just sitting on the couch in front of the TV sulking.  But then he heard his wife in the kitchen, praising Jesus at the top of her lungs for all of her invisible blessings.  Fighting that good fight of faith.  And he said that everything in him wanted to yell at her- “would you just shut up?”  But he knew she was right, so instead, he walked into the kitchen and he joined her in praise.

 

When the devil knocks you down don’t stay down.  You’ve got to get back on your feet and start praising!!  And remember this:  God is faithful; He will not give you more than you can bear.  (see 1 Corinthians 10:13)

 

So even when the struggle is hard and strong and comes on stronger… don’t give up – persevere!!  Even though the struggle is scary and discouraging… don’t give up – persevere!!  And you will overcome.  And not only will you overcome, you will enter into God’s holiness, righteousness, and peace.

 

 

 

 

References

 

Strong, James. Strongs Exhaustive Concordance: Showing Every Word of the Text of the Common English Version of the Canonical Books, and Every Occurrence of Each Word in Regular Order, Together with Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek Words of the Original, with References to the English Words. Baker Book House, 1983.

 

 

 

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.  Used by permission of Zondervan.  All rights reserved worldwide.www.zondervan.com.  The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

 

Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.