Ewald Frank

1985-05-29 19:30, Krefeld, Germany 

broadcasted on 2025-01-22

Subject: 2 Chronicles 14:10: “LORD! To help, with you there is no difference between a strong man and a weak man!”

Praise the Lord.

We know that everything is possible with him. He alone can preserve us, he wants to be with his own. That's what the holy scriptures say. When we read it, we see that all those, who have placed their hope in him, have not been put to shame, but have always emerged victorious.

And I believe, that this is also for us, for this time, that we put our trust in him, and that we will not be put to shame, but may also emerge victorious.

I would perhaps like to read a word on this, before we pray, from 2 Chronicles 14, verse 8:

And there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian with an host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots; and came unto Mareshah.

Then Asa went out against him, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah.

And Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee.

So the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled.

And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them unto Gerar: and the Ethiopians were overthrown, that they could not recover themselves; for they were destroyed before the Lord, and before his host; and they carried away very much spoil.

And they smote all the cities round about Gerar; for the fear of the Lord came upon them: and they spoiled all the cities; for there was exceeding much spoil in them.

They smote also the tents of cattle, and carried away sheep and camels in abundance, and returned to Jerusalem.

Perhaps another passage from chapter 15:

And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded. And he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.

Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law. But when they in their trouble did turn unto the LORD God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them.

And in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries. And nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city: for God did vex them with all adversity.

Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.

Up to here this precious and holy Word of God. It is something marvelous.

Personally, verse 7 in chapter 15 struck me so powerfully, and I thought on us. And may God grant us grace that we too may not let our hands hang down.

And then it says, "for your work shall be rewarded."

That is quite powerful.

We have already said it, and here we see the fulfillment of what happened to the people who cried out to the Lord. He did not leave them alone, but heard the cry of His people.

And indeed, with God it does not matter how many or how few there are; what matters is how they stand with Him. Because God went ahead, and the people were allowed to follow behind, and victory was on their side.

Brothers and sisters, it may look like the people of God are the losers, but don't worry, with our God we will achieve victory; with our God we may go ahead, just as they went ahead.

"The Lord is with you," proclaimed Azariah, this man of God, "as long as you stand by Him."

And I don't think we want to renounce Him either, but we want to hold firmly to Him and to His Word, because we know that we all have need of patience. The Bible says so in the New Testament. It is written here, when we read Hebrews 10, here it says in verse 35:

Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.

For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.

Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

I think these words are perhaps very familiar to all of us. But the question is, what is it like in practice? What does it look like in practical life?

We may know the words by heart and we may have read them umpteen times. But when it comes to persevering, beloved, then we need one. And that is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then we need His strength. Then we need His Spirit. Then we need Him to go with us. And He has promised that He wants to be with us.

We have nothing to do with drawing back, for that leads to perdition.

We see that they should have been frightened because a whole million had set out against them. There were only 300,000. It is a great difference, a great superiority.

We have also experienced it in our day. Little Israel, the great superiority. But when God is in the plan, dear brothers and sisters, then things look different.

"For God is in control and everything must be subject to Him," as the song goes.

And so we are glad and grateful that we have also come this evening to call upon His glorious name in faith, to praise Him, to glorify Him, to offer Him honor and praise.

Asa proclaimed here, and "Asa cried unto the Lord his God and said, Lord, it is nothing with Thee to help, whether with many or with them that have no power."

Praise and thanks that these words are written.

Help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude.

Yes, that is the marvelous thing.

In the name of the Lord they went out against this multitude, and the victory was on the side of God's people.

We have read what they captured. We have read that the enemies were defeated.

Brothers and sisters, the victory is on the side of God's people.

It requires that we persevere, that we do not cast away our confidence, for it brings with it a great reward. [Hebrews 10:35]

And so we are thankful that we are allowed to worship.

Now let us rise to pray together.

Faithful God, we thank you from the depths of our hearts, even for this day and for this hour.

We thank you already for the precious songs. We thank you for your Word, Lord, which you have given us.

Lord, if your Word had not been given to us, what should we hold on to? What should we look to, Lord?

But you are our power and our strength. At this hour of the evening, we too do not look to men, not to princes and mighty men.

No, what can people give us? What can people do us, O Lord?

We look up to you, the Living One, the True and Faithful One for you were and remain faithful, Lord, whether in the Old or New Testament. You remain the same yesterday, today and forever.

We thank you, Lord, that you have always helped your people and you have also helped us.

We may say this here and offer you honour and worship. We praise your grace, we praise your wonderful name and know that you will continue to be with us.

Bless with us all your people everywhere in all places and continue to be with us and continue to speak to us through your precious and holy Word.

To your name alone be honour and worship.

Amen.

Br. Frank 

Praise the Lord for his grace and faithfulness.

We have already heard marvellous words of God. We are immersed in them and are already looking to the end.

We must look to the end. We must look up so that we are not put to shame.

In the meantime we may have to overcome many battles and hurdles, but at the very end it will have become clear that the Lord has emerged victorious and we with him.

Not only him, but also us with him. This has not yet become so obvious, but the holy scriptures already report this.

And the beauty of it is that it is true and that it will be exactly as it is written. God has already had all things written in advance that are still a thousand years away.

Or if we look back, they were three thousand years away – God has already written about the new heaven and the new earth, about the new Jerusalem, about everything, as if it already existed as a divine fact.

So, basically, we have nothing to worry about, although I must admit to being very worried sometimes.

I often wish I had a carefree mentality, that I could get over everything better. So, I hope there isn't a dark-colored man here today, but the dark race has a terrible advantage. They are always happy, God knows about what, but they are always happy, as if everything is always fine and we seem to be so inclined to the opposite, but maybe only sometimes.

My brother Arthur, is he here tonight? No. I have to say something: He is always full of humor and he says, "Listen, Ewald, God is for me. Anyone who is against me, he must be insane."

And I thought to myself, "He is right." He said it so simply and straightforwardly. He says, "God is for me. Anyone who is against me, he can't be normal."

Sometimes there is great truth in such statements.

But I tell you: Who is against us, that is the devil. And he becomes more and more insane. You can no longer take him seriously. And the longer time goes on, the worse it gets.

But if we hold on to the fact, or can hold on to the fact, that God has decided in our favor. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, God is for us. [Romans 8:31] He has proven that. He has not just said that.

And he won't change that either.

Brother Schmidt has already said, that I am often ungrateful, and I have to admit that.

I am also sometimes ungrateful for sermons that are a great blessing to others. And God still has to change that in me. I never want to become complacent, never. But I don't want to be ungrateful to God.

God has revealed his Word to us in a marvelous way.

Sometimes, when I experience people turning away from the truth, I am almost thrown off balance. Not because I become insecure, but out of inner pain.

From the pain that people who have walked the path of the Lord, the path of truth, have walked it for years, and then suddenly no longer walk it. That causes me a very deep pain.

But with God's help, we will also have to get over this.

After all, the Lord experienced very roughly that many left him, who first followed him, and then later got offended and went their own way.

Blessed is he who remains in the Word of God to the end, remains in the ways of God, in the absolute certainty of being in the Word of God and then being in the will of God.

There are many people who think they are in the will of God and are not in the Word of God. How can a person be in the will of God and not be in the Word of God?

That is impossible.

God has revealed his will in the Word, and only when we are in the Word are we in the will of God and not otherwise.

It is just marvelous. God is faithful.

And as we heard in the opening word, with God we form the supremacy because God is omnipotent. Everything else is defeated, only raises its head to do or say something. But before God it is all a perfect victory. Only the enemy still gives us a lot of trouble.

But if we can understand, if we can believe, that the victory of God is ours and that it is true what the Lord said, "I give you power over all the power of Satan." [Lk 10:19]

We don't need to pray for it at all, but to thank God that he has given it to us, that he has given it to us, this power over the power of Satan, and he has fought very hard for it and won it.

He didn't just take it and pass it on, but through Golgotha it became possible.

We hope and believe that we can go forward with the Lord.

It will always be like this.

If we were to ask here today, then everyone would have needs, problems, difficulties. People would tell you that. If only people had the opportunity to speak out, then perhaps there wouldn't be anyone here who isn't carrying some kind of burden, has some kind of sorrow, has some kind of need, whether it's personal, whether it's close by, whether it's in the family, wherever it may be.

Somehow everyone is carrying something.

But I believe we must learn to turn away from ourselves and from the distress that may surround us or even want to take us over and trust the Lord who said, "Call upon Me in the time of trouble." [Ps 50:15]

He did not say, "Go around and lament in trouble and speak of trouble and lament the trouble so that the trouble feels comfortable."

No, but "Call upon Me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify Me."

We must, as I must also learn, turn to the right address with everything. And when we turn to the Lord, it is always the right address because He is able to help and His will must and will be done in heaven and on earth.

I also rejoiced in another village in southern Germany. Years later, brothers and sisters came to the house where I had come to very often and sat around the old table and listened. It's always both joy and disappointment, but it all balances out and God will certainly make sure in the end that He doesn't confirm us, and I want to make that very clear, but His Word. His Word will God confirm.

As God lives, He will have nothing to take back, nothing to correct. He will stand by His Word and all interpretations and explanations, everything will come to an end, but the Word of God will remain forever.

And I don't know, but we have certainly realized over the years that this is not just about church services, not just a bit of religious church politics, but about God's Word.

Nothing has become as precious to us as the Word of God. And we carry it in our hearts and keep it and move it and it moves us and keeps us.

Amen!

We carry it and are carried by it.

We keep it and are kept by it.

It is always an interaction.

God is not a God of theory. He knows what He is doing. Praise be to His wonderful Name.

In the end, we will not be fools. Don't worry, fools we are today.

There are two days in the Bible that we are told about. One is the day of salvation and in this day we live and this is the day that the Lord has made for us.

I rejoiced at the expression. It is our day, my day, your day, our day. There was a day that others perceived; this is the day that the Lord has made that we can perceive, that God perceives with us, the day in which we have been scheduled into God's program.

Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 as the day of salvation, as the acceptable time.

2 Corinthians 6, verse 2:

For it is written, I have heard thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation have I helped thee.

Behold, now is the accepted time.

Behold, now is the day of salvation.

The day of salvation includes everything that God has promised us.

This day had a beginning; it will have an end. And then comes the day of calamity, the day of wrath, which is also mentioned in many scriptures, but in Malachi in particular. In the German Bibles you find only 3 chapters. There it is, verse 19. In the English Bibles we have 4 chapters. There it would be verse 1.

There is always a day for everything.

Noah had his day.

Moses had his day and his time.

And this is now our time, our day, the end of the day of salvation, the finishing that God is now making with us by grace. And we can rejoice that he has informed us about everything and has not left us in the dark, as he writes to the Thessalonians, "But ye brethren are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief."

We can read about this in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 4.

But ye brethren are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

No, God has given us light by grace. And we may glory in this, not boast, but we may glory, because through it we have experienced the grace of God and can see as Moses could see when he said, "If I have found grace in thy sight, let me know your ways."

People who have been pardoned by God will know the ways of God now, today.

They will know the ways of God with the church now.

And we may say in faith, in accordance with the Word of God, that the Lord will purposefully go back with his people to the beginning, so that the end may be like the beginning.

Just as John had to do his ministry at that time, it was in accordance with the Word of God. But then came the replacement with another ministry, namely the ministry of Jesus Christ, our Lord. And then it continued with the apostles, with the church. It was a continuation in the kingdom of God until all the promises find their fulfillment.

And if we look since the reformation, God has always gone further –justification, sanctification, baptism in the Holy Spirit, now the revelation of his Word and his will, the opening of the seals, the significance of the name of Jesus Christ, in general everything that others have passed by, this we can now see by his grace.

It is not our merit, but a providence and guidance of God.

In the opening word that was read, we clearly understood what is important. Here it says, we read along, 2 Chronicles 14, verse 11:

And Asa cried unto the Lord his God and prayed.

I think this is also a very great lesson for me and for all of us.

He prayed, he saw the multitude, he saw what was coming upon him and his people, but he turned to the Lord and he prayed.

He didn't close his eyes to what was, but he knew who to talk to, he knew who was able to help him.

(10) And Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee.

You see, it was not a prayer as we are sometimes used to.

Most, excuse me for saying this, but I find myself doing it too. Most believers pray until they reach a dead end and sink into unbelief.

And then they stop.

That's how most believers pray. That's how most believers pray – until they reach a dead end, sink into unbelief, and then despondent and despairing they rise up. And it is only by the grace of God that they are not put to shame.

This man did not make long prayers.

He did not wrestle and plead.

He spoke to God.

He expressed his trust in God. He expressed his trust in God. And that's the thing. That is the secret.

Not "Dear God, now you see all this trouble, dear Savior, this and that." No, he has expressed his trust in God, in prayer.

It says here, "Lord, there is no difference with you to help."

He didn't pray for an hour, "Dear God, help."

Instead he says, "Lord, there is no difference with you between the strong and the weak."

He wanted to say that both are dependent on your help – "Both need you, the weak and the strong."

Yes, he prayed in faith, expressed his trust in God.

And then went on to say, "Help us, Lord, our God, for in you we put our trust."

This prayer is very beautiful. It is a prayer in faith, brief but very certain and filled with great content.

We put our trust in you and in thy name we go against this multitude.

Isn't that something marvelous?

Here a man has put his trust in God, in the name of the Lord, and said: "In thy name we have gone out. With you it doesn't matter whether someone is weak or strong. You are able to help both, and both are dependent on you."

And now comes the end of the sentence here, "Let not man prevail against thee."

He did not say, "Against me." He knew that God had placed him there. He knew that we are the people of God. Our enemies are not dealing with us but with God.

Didn't we hear that so beautifully in the film by Brother Branham? He said, "Let the devil come upon a child of God, and he gets to deal with God."

God watches over us. And that's how it's expressed here.

(10) O Lord, thou art our God. Let not man prevail against thee.

Yes, who could do that? He can try it. It is not possible.

God is almighty. He is on our side because we are on his side. He stands by us because we stand by him. And we have expressed our trust in him, and we hope that he can also trust us.

Then it says in verse 12, "So the Lord smote the Ethiopians."

Not Asa, not the whole army of Israel.

So the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled.

The Lord literally went before his people as he had promised.

We want to believe that he is still the same today, that he goes before us and even forms our rear guard, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah. [Isaiah 52:12, Isaiah 58:8]

And if he goes before us, who will be able to resist him?

"Heaven and earth will flee from him and from his presence," that's what it says in Revelation 20, perhaps verse 11, and "no place was found for them."

He is the Lord.

He is the King.

He is our God.

And then from chapter 15. These are all such precious thoughts and words that are read and expressed here.

The Lord is with you while ye be with him. And if ye seek him, he will be found of you. But if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.

May God grant us grace to stick to him, to his Word, so that he can stick to us, so that he can be with us, as he has promised. And he cannot break his Word.

But if we deviate from his Word, yes, who should he then confirm?

Us?

That's not possible.

No.

We must hold on to the word, love it dearly, carry it within us, keep it, move it, remain moved and preserved, must experience that it is the power of God through which everything has been spoken into existence.

But if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.

Then it says in the prophet Jeremiah that the names of those who forsake the Lord will be written in the sand. [Jeremiah 17:13] No longer in the Lamb's book of life, but in the sand. And he who is built on sand will not be able to stand without him.

In verse 3 we read:

Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law.

For a long time the church was without the true God. They have portrayed him in many ways and didn't know how to make him.

But we do not make God, God made us.

We do not make him, ,o, he created us in his image.

And here it says, "For a long season Israel has been without the true God."

They were still talking about God, but they had forsaken the true God. There was no priestly teaching. There was a scholarly teaching.

What was it?

One scholar interpreted it this way, another that way and the third again differently. And in the end they were caught up in the interpretations without having the true word and the real priestly teaching.

But then, it says in verse 4:

But when they in their trouble did turn unto the Lord God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them.

Hallelujah.

Praise be to God.

When they sought Him, He let them find Him.

He will also let Himself be found by us today.

Then verse 7:

Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak, [or your courage fail,] for your work shall be rewarded.

May this verse also, may this verse also find fulfillment on us by the grace of God. And as has been emphasized: Those who put their trust in the Lord will not be put to shame.

May it please God to magnify His glory in the midst of all the defeats, in the midst of all the sorrows that we all carry with us, to confirm His Word and to bring honor to His Name.

May the Lord God bless us, make us more grateful, teach us to pray, teach us to pray in faith, talk to God, talk to Him in faith, present to Him in faith what we have to say to Him, the rest, that is, He knows everything anyway, but He will do the rest.

He will see to it.

Blessed be His Holy Name.

Amen.

Let us stand up and pray.

Br. Russ 

Heavenly Father, we thank You again for Your powerful Word You have given.

We thank You that You have not yet changed. You are still the same yesterday, today and forever.

We thank You for letting us find You even today, who seek You in truth and who place their hope in You with all their heart, Lord.

Receive the praise, receive the honor and the worship, Lord.

You are still the same, Lord. We trust in You and we rely on You, Lord, for we know that You are leading Your people to their goal and soon we will come from believing unto seeing.

Lord, we thank You for all those whom You have saved, whom You have called, whom You have drawn, Lord.

Lord, we know that You will draw all those whom You have destined in advance for eternal life.

Glory be to Your Holy Name.

Amen.