First Banner

The first BAD, is the Banner Accompanying Defeat.

The children of God, a people under the promise of God, have been told by God that He will be with them in Power and give them victory, especially when they have to face their enemies. Presently, they are facing the Philistines, a most formidable enemy. We are told that the Philistines have camped at Aphek, a non-named religious place as it were, compared with the Israelites. The Israelites are camped at Ebenezer, a named religious place. Ebenezer in Hebrew means, the Stone of Help, God’s promise and provision of help.

I ask you this. Are not the children of God camped out in the best place, the most strategic place of advantage? Ebenezer is of God’s personal showing, if you like.

Aphek in Hebrew means riverbed, which is God’s Handiwork. Since God is Creator, all places belong to Him because He owns the earth. The riverbed is the Lord’s for He made it, but He has not placed His Person in that place. In other words, as mentioned earlier, it is not a named and known, holy, religious place. God has made no promises to the enemy, camped in Aphek.

I ask you this. Is not the enemy of the children of God camped out in the most disadvantaged and least strategic place? Aphek belongs to God yes, but it is not of His personal showing, if you accept it to be so.

It is there, from their respective campsites that these two armies march out. It is from such different beginnings that things turn tumultuously upside down. The people of the promised help of God are defeated by the enemy.

The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines. 1 Samuel 4: 2a.

A Banner Accompanying Defeat has been stretched out before us. What is your response? What words of Light has the Holy Spirit pricked you with? Whatever they are, surely, He has impressed upon your heart and mind that Light and only God’s Light reveals darkness. To stand under the banner of Light and yet live the dark ways of sin, the ways of part obedience to God’s ways and part obedience to self-ways, cannot be tolerated by God. God is Light and He cannot but dispel all darkness.

Today, the banner says:

We, the children of God, are a Defeated people.