Me: Howdy Prodigal, What a great day it is!
Prodigal: Yes, I was just enjoying the day and glad that it is peaceful.
Me: Well I just read an encouraging time that God protected His people when there was no peace.
Prodigal: I would love to hear it!
This is a story from Derek Prince in his book Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting
In 1947 the future of Palestine was brought before the General Assembly of the United Nations. At that time the British still governed the country under a mandate that had been assigned to them by the League of Nations shortly after the end of World War 1. On November 29,1947, the United Nations voted to partition the country into two separate states, allotting a small area to an independent Jewish state, and the rest of the country to the Arabs (with the city of Jerusalem under international control). The date set for the termination of the British mandate and the inception of the new political order in Palestine was May 14, 1948.
Almost immediately after the United Nations decision in favor of partition, the Arabs of Palestine, aided and abetted by infiltrators from the surrounding Arab nations, embarked on an undeclared war against the Jewish communities in their midst. Several main areas of the country were virtually taken over by armed groups of Arabs, with little or no semblance of normal civil government. By the early part of 1948 the Jewish community inside Jerusalem already presented the appearance of a beleaguered city. They were almost totally cut off from supplies of food and other commodities, and were in a condition bordering on starvation.
On the date set for the inauguration of the new Jewish state, all the surrounding Arab nations simultaneously declared war on it. Something like 650,000 Jews, with the barest minimum of arms and equipment, and without any officially constituted military forces, found themselves confronted on every frontier by a hostile Arab world, fifty million strong, who boasted well-trained armies and abundant military supplies. The leaders of the Arab nations publicly declared their intention to annihilate the new-born Jewish state and to sweep the Jews into the sea.
At this period my wife Lydia and I were living in the center of Jewish Jerusalem and together we searched the Scriptures for words of encouragement or direction from God. Each day we became more and more convinced that we were living in the period of Israel’s restoration.
This gave us faith to pray for Israel’s deliverance, based not on nationalistic prejudices, but on the scriptural revelation of God’s will.
When Lydia and I were thus brought together by the Holy Spirit concerning God’s will, our prayers fulfilled the condition stated in Matthew 18:19: “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” One day, as we were praying together I heard Lydia utter this short prayer: “Lord, paralyze the Arabs!”
When full-scale fighting broke out in Jerusalem, our house was less than a quarter of a mile from the front line, which ran more or less along the west wall of the old city. Because of the strategic location of our house, our back yard was taken over by the Haganah-the volunteer Jewish defense force that later developed into the official Israeli army. An observation post under the command of a young man named Phinehas was located in the yard. In this way we became quite well acquainted with a number of the young Jewish people.
Early in June 1948 the United Nations succeeded in imposing a four-weeks’ cease-fire, and there was a temporary lull in the fighting. One day during the cease-fire some of our young Jewish friends were sitting in our living room, talking freely about their experiences in the initial period of fighting.
“There’s something we can’t understand,” one young man said. “We go into an area where the Arabs are, and they out-number us ten to one, and are much better armed than we are. Yet at times they seem powerless to do anything against us. It’s just as if they are paralyzed!”
Right there in our own living room this young Jewish soldier repeated the very phase that Lydia had uttered in prayer a few weeks previously! I have never ceased to marvel at God’s faithfulness. Not merely did God literally answer Lydia’s prayer to “paralyze the Arabs.” He even provided us with firsthand, objective testimony from a Jewish soldier in our own living room that this was what He had done!
You might be out-numbered ten to one right now but God is going to prove his faithfulness to you!
Isaiah 43:5
Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west:
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
