Whispers of Victory — Denny Kenaston

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Trusting Christ Beyond What We Understand

Greetings in Jesus' name this morning. And what a blessing it is for us to be gathered together with the saints to join our individual walks with the Lord in a corporate praising and learning and growing together.

I'm grateful for that opportunity. Christy and I are also grateful for the months that we've had to bring our lives together with yours on furlough and you will see us one more Sunday, but this is probably my last opportunity to speak to you and I do want to take the opportunity to thank you for the encouragements and blessings and support and prayer that we've received from all of you during these months.

It is kind of a strange cycle of life that missionaries live here and then gone for two and a half years and then here again. And when we're here, we try to be here and that means that we start joining our hearts with yours and that makes it somewhat hard to leave again.

But on the other hand, our hearts are also in Africa and so it's difficult to be here. And we are very much looking forward to going back to Ghana and continuing with God's calling on our lives there.

But thank you again to each one of you for what you've meant to us during our time here. I'd like us to sing another song. Sorry if you just finished one, but I'd like us to sing number three hundred and twenty nine.

This song fits very much the heart of what I'd like to share this morning and I'd like for us to sing three hundred and twenty nine. I'd like for us to focus while we sing this song, focus on all the things that we know not and then focus on the chorus.

What we do know. Three hundred and twenty nine.

I know not why God's one dress great to me. He hiding on this song again this morning, sort of as a lead into the message that's on.

My heart. You know, sometimes when I'm in prayer, I realize that we have a tendency to fight the devil by trying to answer the questions that the devil throws our way. I don't know your own experience, but there are times where I almost feel like I'm up against the wall and the devil's throwing rotten tomatoes at me or something like of that nature.

And they're just coming one after another. Questions, doubts, fears, unanswered questions, things that I do not know how to respond to. And the devil keeps throwing these questions. And sometimes I think we feel like we must of necessity answer those questions.

I was thinking about this song this morning and the fact that instead of attempting to answer those questions, it simply acknowledges that we can't answer those questions. I know not why. I know not how.

I know not what. I know not when. You're right. I don't know. I don't know the why's and I don't know the how's. I don't know the what's and I don't know the when's. But I know the whom and you don't need to know the why's, how's, what's, and when's if you know the whom.

And the fact is, is that the devil can beat us day by day with the why's, how's, what's, and when's. But the whom gets him every time. Doesn't it? Think about it in your own experience. When you finally acknowledge that you don't know the answer to those questions, and you're, so to speak, up against the wall, you find that you're up against Christ.

And you know the whom. I don't know the answers to all those questions, but I know the person to whom I've committed my life, and I believe and have a settled opinion that He is able. And because I know the whom, I don't need to know the what's, why's, when's, and how's.

Because I know the whom. That really lifted my faith this morning as I meditated on it. Because I don't know. I don't understand. I cannot explain to you in a philosophical way how God's grace works. I don't know how that saving faith was made known and imparted to each one of us.

I don't know what of good or ill is coming. I don't. Sometimes the devil attacks us with that. I don't know when the Lord is coming. I don't know whether I'm going to be one of those who gets to be picked up into the clouds, still alive, or if we're going to die and be resurrected.

I don't know that. And I really do not need to know that. Because I know the person to whom I've committed my life. And I know that He's as good as His Word. And I know that every single promise that He has made to me, He will fulfill.

Try answering the devil that way. Don't try arguing with him. Don't try showing him that you actually think you do know the what's, why's, when's, and how's. Don't try that. Tell him I know the whom. And because I know the whom, all those other things really don't matter.

What is faith? What is faith? Faith is that confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. Faith is that confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of the things that we cannot yet see.

That's faith. We'll refer back to that later on. Let's turn to 2 Timothy 1. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 7. Very familiar verse. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. I've been meditating on this verse again this week, thinking towards this message and realizing that one of the great temptations of my own life, and one of the temptations that the devil places in front of the church in this generation, is for us to give in to a spirit of fear or a spirit of despair.

And the Bible tells us here that God is not the one who gives us that kind of a spirit. God has given us a spirit, but it is not the spirit of fear. It is rather the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

I think every one of us here this morning would say, we have a sound mind. If you don't have a sound mind, that means you're not normal. Right? That would mean that you're not able to think. You're not in control of your mind.

The ladder doesn't reach all the way, some people say. In Africa, we refer to people who are not mentally sound as being crazy. Mentally handicapped. This verse says that God has given us the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

A sound mind is a mind which is able to think through things and arrive at conclusions based upon facts. That's a sound mind. It's stable, it's sound, it's all there. God has given us not a spirit of fear, but rather a spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

I'm still leading up to the message here, if you'll just follow me a few more moments. I was thinking of how often fear is based on the opposite of a sound mind. Because God says He has not given us a spirit of fear, but on the opposite side of a spirit of fear, He has given us a spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

And I was thinking about how much those two are related, as in being opposites. If God has given us a sound mind, the ability to make right decisions based upon things which are true, that counters the spirit of fear.

I was reminded of my childhood during the first war in Iraq. I think it was referred to as Desert Storm. I was a young man. That was around 91, I believe. My father was in Africa, visiting Africa when that Desert Storm broke.

And that was the first war that I had known in my life. And I remember as a young man, I think I was probably 12 or 13, I remember the unsettledness that came into my heart as I realized that America was at war.

And I remember being outside mowing the lawn and seeing military planes going overhead, and thinking in my mind, I wonder if those are Iraqi planes. I wonder if maybe Saddam is going to bomb the United States of America.

And there was an element of fear which came into my mind. Now, several of you chuckle, and all of you would chuckle if you would realize that Saddam did not then and did not in the current war have any planes capable of flying to Europe, definitely not to the United States.

Which shows us that the fear which I was experiencing was not based upon facts. It was in fact a fear based upon disinformation. If I would have known that he didn't have any planes that could fly as far as the United States, then there's absolutely no fear that those planes were Iraqi planes.

Think of another example. The Africans in my village, the Konkomba tribe, are absolutely terrified of toads. Now, there is fear which is based upon right information, a respect which comes, for instance, from knowing that snakes can be poisonous.

But sometimes there are fears based upon superstitions that have absolutely no ground at all. In the village of Bumbon where we live, Christy is known as being, my wife, is known as being one of the brave women in the village because she's been known to pick up toads with her bare hands.

They like to come to the light during the rainy season and we'll have 50 or 60 of them just clustered around the front of the house and we get rid of them. We pick them up and we throw them over the wall.

But the children will stand there and watch my wife and they'll chatter among themselves and say, wow, madam is a brave woman because she's not afraid of toads. You know, it's not that my wife has overcome a fear for toads.

We have no fear for toads. Sure, we don't like them. Nobody likes them. But we don't fear them because there's no such thing as a poisonous toad and toads don't have teeth and we've never heard of anyone who's been bitten and hurt by a toad.

So we don't really overcome our fear there. We simply have a sound mind based upon the facts which tells us toads do not have poison and they do not have fangs. So when you pick up a toad, you don't need to overcome your fear by bravery.

You need to overcome your fear by a knowledge of the truth. But our village people soundly assure us that toads are poisonous. They believe them to be poisonous. We don't believe them to be poisonous.

We're not overcoming fear when we pick them up. Well, God has not given us a spirit of fear. He has given us a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind able to think based upon the facts. And that casts out fear.

Confidence in God's Promises

I stood in the Ephrata National Bank the other day and when you stand there at the teller, there's little plaques that are placed at every bank teller's window that I've been in anyway. They're placed there by the FDIC.

Do you all know what the FDIC is? Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation. That is the federal government's corporation that they have set up to back up your bank deposits. And for many years, they have backed up your bank deposits to the tune of $100 ,000 per depositor.

About a year ago, a year and a half ago, when the financial situation in America started to shake and people started, you know, banks started closing down and people started losing money, in an effort to shore up that confidence in the banking system of America, the FDIC changed their rules.

And I think for about one more year from now, they now back each person to the tune of $250 ,000, which means that if you have $250 ,000 in the effort of National Bank, and the effort of National Bank goes bankrupt, the federal government will step in and pay you back your money.

In an effort to shore up confidence in the institutions, the banking institutions of America, they raised that deposit guarantee to $250 ,000. That really doesn't make any difference to me and it probably doesn't make a difference to most of you here.

The fact that it's now guaranteed to the tune of a quarter of a million instead of $100 ,000. But the fact remains that I stood there at the bank counter and looked over and read that little sticker and realized that they have guaranteed this money to a degree which is way far above anything they'll ever need to guarantee for Daniel Keniston.

But they did that to shore up my faith and to encourage me to believe that the money that I have placed in the effort of National Bank is safe and secure. That goes back to the song that we just sang.

I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able to keep and safely maintain and protect all that I've committed unto him against that day. The federal government doesn't want people like you and I showing up at the banks and saying, I'd like everything I have in cash, please.

That would ruin the banking system overnight. You realize that? If all of you showed up and said, I want it in $100 bills, it's going into my mattress this afternoon. The banking system would fall apart in one day.

So in order to encourage people to continue trusting their banks, they've upped what the FDIC insures. And I'm not at all holding up the federal government as an example of real security. I am holding up the Lord Jesus as an example of real security.

And the fact is that as Scripture tells us, there is a sure recompense of reward. There is a sure guarantee of blessing and reward for all that you've committed unto Him against that day. So cast not away your confidence because it has a sure recompense of reward.

Don't pull your money out of your local bank. The government insures that your money will be there for you. Well, that promise can be pretty empty these days. But cast not away your confidence, the Bible says, because there is a sure recompense of reward.

Never once has God failed. And I thank God for that. Let's turn to the book of Judges in chapter 7. We'd like to share this morning from this title, Whispers of Victory. Whispers of Victory. I think you're familiar with this story.

Gideon's Three Hundred and the Whispers of Victory

This is the story of Gideon. God is raising up Gideon to deliver the children of Israel from the oppression of the Midianites. And God desires very much to be glorified by the battle which is just about ready to follow here.

And God is weeding out the numbers so that Gideon will be left with a number which God will use to glorify Himself and give victory to the children of Israel. And God has gone through a few processes here with Gideon removing people.

And as we break in here, there are 300 people left. We'll start reading in chapter 7, verse 7. And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the 300 men that left will I save you and deliver the Midianites into thine hand, and let all the other people go, every man unto his place.

So the people took vittles in their hand and their trumpets, and he sent all the rest of Israel, every man, unto his tent and retained those 300 men. And the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley.

And it came to pass the same night that the Lord said unto him, Arise, get thee down unto the host, for I have delivered it into thine hand. But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Purah thy servant down to the host, and thou shalt hear what they say.

And afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto the host. Then went he down with Purah his servant unto the outside of the armed men that were in the host. And the Midianites, verse 12,.

And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude. And their camels were without number as the sand by the seaside for multitude.

And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream. And lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian and came unto a tent and smote it that it fell and overturned it that the tent lay along.

And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. For into his hand hath God delivered Midian and all the host. And it was so when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and the interpretation thereof that he worshipped and returned unto the host of Israel and said, Arise, for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.

And we'll stop reading there. You know the story. You know how he gathered those 300 men. The instructions that he gave to them and the victory that God also gave to them in the rest of that chapter. It's a beautiful story.

But it's from this story that I draw the title, Whispers of Victory. My desire this morning is to whisper to you what God has been whispering to me. You know, you sit with the Lord and you're reading your Bible or you're meditating on life and you just hear the Lord sort of whispering into your heart.

Whispers of Victory. And that's what I would like to share with you this morning. I'll also draw the title from the fact that God had Gideon and his servant kind of sneaking down there to the outskirts of the enemy camp to listen in on the nightmares of the Midianites.

And I'm sure that it was done in quiet. We can notice several things from these verses. We can note that Gideon had a need for a strengthened heart. And I think if you put yourself in Gideon's shoes, you won't have any hard time acknowledging that you would also need a strengthened heart in Gideon's circumstances.

Gideon is taking on an army which is spread out in the valley like grasshoppers. And he thought that he had a tiny army to begin with, and then God took the paring knife and just sort of started eliminating his numbers until he's down to only 300 men.

And then God says, okay Gideon, with these 300 men, I will give you victory. And God says, get up, Gideon. Tonight's the night. But, if you need to be reminded, He says here, but if thou fear to go down.

But, if you fear to go down. And Gideon did fear to go down. Surely he had seen God's hand in calling him. He had seen the hand of God in gathering the tribes of Israel around him. He had had the dry fleece and the wet fleece.

But now God is asking him to step out with only 300 men. And God says, tonight's the night. But, if you fear to go. Yes Lord, I fear to go. You see, Gideon's need for a strengthened heart. Secondly, you see the heart of God desiring to encourage Gideon and us.

You know, God could have said to Gideon, you know Gideon, I've given you about four different miracles. I've showed you My hand in various ways. Now, I'd just like you to get up and do what I say. You know, God looked at Gideon.

He saw that He was stretching His faith. And He said, Gideon, if you're still afraid, I will arrange a private viewing for you. I will arrange a private showing. I will let you listen in on the dreams of the Midianites.

And your heart and your hand will be strengthened. Do you ever feel like you're taking on the Midianites with 300? Whether your challenges are the challenges of shepherding God's people. Whether your challenges are shepherding your own family.

Whether your challenges are taking on those Midianites, those enemies of your own personal walk with God, which seem to be, yes, stretched out in the valley like grasshoppers. Whatever your challenges are, do you ever feel like Gideon?

Lord, I'm supposed to take on this enemy with these 300 people. Lord, the odds seem incredible. Do the odds ever seem incredible to you? You look at yourself. You look at your own abilities. You look at maybe the grace of God that you sense on your life.

You look at your own spiritual strength and you say, Lord, You mean for me to take on this enemy, this battle, this challenge, with these 300? I think the beautiful truth this morning is that God doesn't say to you, Yeah, get on with it.

God says to you and I, like He said to Gideon, Tonight's the night. And yes, with these 300, I am going to help you to win a victory. But if you're still afraid, if you're still afraid, God has a heart to encourage us.

And I thank God for that truth this morning. The heart of God to encourage Gideon. Gideon, if you're still afraid, if these odds seem unusual to you, I'll allow you an opportunity to catch a glimpse, sort of look over the next mountain, sort of take a telescope of faith and see what's coming.

I'll let you listen in on the whispers of victory if you're still afraid. Thank God that He does that. We also notice Gideon and his servant Pura listening in on the whispers of victory. You imagine them creeping up now.

This is not 300 men now. This is two men creeping up on a camp of hundreds of thousands of soldiers down there in the valley. And Gideon and Pura, his servant, creeping down there very quietly, trying to get within earshot of the camp without obviously raising an alarm.

Can you imagine how they crept down there? Quietly. Real quiet. Hearing every stick that broke, every grass that swished. And I don't know whether Gideon heard it first or Pura heard it first, but you can imagine them.

Listen. And they heard the Midianites recounting their nightmares to each other. Whispers of victory. Listen to that, Gideon. Listen to that, Pura. A barley loaf. Dreams can be strange things, can't they?

But the Midianites knew that barley loaf is none other than Gideon. That barley loaf that just came rolling down the mountain and smashed over the tent, that's none other than Gideon. And Gideon was listening.

Yes! Whispers of victory. God let Gideon see over the hilltop. God let Gideon look ahead and know that the victory was certain. Listen, Gideon. They already know what's going to happen. They're already terrified.

They're already having nightmares. They already know about you and they already know that I'm going to use you to conquer them. Listen, Gideon. God said to Gideon, He said, you will hear, verse 11, you will hear what they say, and afterwards shall thine hands be strengthened.

Verse 15, And it was so when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped. Would you worship? Yes, you would. It would be quiet worship. Right? You're right beside a quarter of a million soldiers.

It would be quiet worship, but it would be worship. It says, Gideon worshipped and returned unto the host of Israel and said, arise! Gideon, the man who is to lead 300 men to take on a massive army. Gideon, the man who God said, you'll listen to their talking and your hand will be strengthened.

He listened to the dreams of the Midianites and he went back up to the host and said, arise! For the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian. God said, you'll listen to their dreams and it will strengthen your hand.

Do you need a strengthened hand this morning? Do you need to say to God's people, arise! God has delivered them into your hand. Whispers of victory. You know, I believe that God does this for us. I don't believe God only does this for Gideon.

There have been times in my life where maybe not in quite as dramatic a way because the battles that I fight are not with the Midianites, but certainly in just as clear a way, I feel like God has said, here Daniel, you're struggling right now.

Come and listen to this. And you listen to whispers of victory. You look ahead. Sometimes through stories or situations that God allows you to observe. Sometimes through looking at the Word of God. God points up the road ahead and says, this is where you're going.

This is the victory which is going to be won. Whispers of victory. And God strengthens our hand and enables us to go back to the host of Israel and say, arise! I desire to share with you some of those whispers of victory that the Lord has used in my own heart because I surely do need them sometimes.

Israel at the Red Sea

We're going to just flip through a few portions of Scripture here. Turn to Exodus 14. Maybe these are not very well arranged and maybe there's dozens that could be included and are not. I'm simply walking you through some of the whispers of victory that God has been putting in my ears, literally, during the last week or two.

Exodus 14. Children of Israel have escaped out of the slavery of Egypt and Pharaoh has finally released them and they're marching towards the Red Sea. And suddenly, Pharaoh changes his mind and decides to chase them.

We'll start reading in verse 10 of chapter 14. And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes and behold, the Egyptians marched after them and they were sore afraid. And the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord.

And they said unto Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, hast Thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore, hast Thou dealt thus with us to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the word that we did tell Thee in Egypt, saying, let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?

For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness. And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you today.

For the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace. And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore, crieth Thou unto Me, speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.

Have you ever felt cornered just like the children of Israel did? You've got the sea in front of you and you've got the armies of Egypt massing behind you. And God's people were just being herded into a trap.

And they saw it. And they said, Moses, why did you do this to us? You couldn't find enough graves to bury us in Egypt, so you brought us all out here so we could die here. We'd rather have been slaves than to just die and be left laying here in the wilderness.

And Moses said, Hey, listen.

These Egyptians that ye see today, ye shall see them no more forever. Take a good look at them, guys, because you're never going to see them again. These Egyptians that ye see today, ye shall see them no more forever.

What, Moses? How? We're unarmed. These enemies which are massed behind you, which seem to be forcing you into a trap, God's people, you're never going to see them again. Ye shall see them no more forever.

The Lord will fight for you and ye shall hold your peace. God will fight for you. We don't have any weapons. God will fight for you. There's no way we can take on a trained army. God will fight for you.

There's many more of them than there are of us. God will fight for you. Ye shall hold your peace and the Lord will fight for you. This is a whisper of victory, brothers and sisters. Those enemies which mass against you, those doubts, those discouragements, those temptations, those things which make you feel like you're trapped, God wants to whisper in our hearts this morning, Hey, these Egyptians that ye see today, ye shall see them again.

You'll never see them again. You will see them again no more forever. They're about to be eliminated. God's people saw the Egyptians trapping them up against the sea. Moses and God had the sound minds.

They had made decisions based upon the facts. And what Moses and God saw was an army that was never going to be seen again. You get that? God's people saw an army that looked to God's people like they were about to be eliminated.

But God and Moses knew that the army of the Egyptians was the one about to be eliminated. You're never going to see them again. And then the Lord said to Moses, Moses, why are you crying unto Me? Tell the people to start moving forward.

Forward, really. Forward. There's water in front of us, Lord. Tell the people to go forward. It's time to stop crying, Moses. It's time to get the people moving. You're never going to see this Egyptian army again.

And of course, you and I know the story, right? We know what happened. And so, we read this and it's very easy for us to say, That's right, children of Israel, get walking. Because the sooner you get walking, the sooner God can trap the Egyptians in the sea behind you.

So, get moving. It's easy for you and I to stand on this side and say, of course, it's time for you to move out. But that's just the point, isn't it? God's people had to act in faith. And you and I also have to act in faith this morning.

Digging Ditches by Faith

Tell the people they should move forward. These enemies that are now massed behind you, you will never see them again. Turn to 2 Kings 3. Again, it's a time of war again and God's people are going up against enemies.

Lots of enemies. And the king of Moab is going up against Israel and Judah. And we'll start reading in chapter 3, verse 14. These kings have gathered together and they come to Elisha and say, Elisha, we want you to tell us what's going to happen.

We want you to prophesy over us. And in verse 14, Elisha said, As the Lord of hosts liveth before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee nor see thee, but now bring me a minstrel.

And it came to pass when the minstrel played that the hand of the Lord came upon him and he said, Thus saith the Lord, Make this valley full of ditches. For thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain.

Yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye and your cattle and your beasts. And this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will deliver the Moabites also into your hand.

And ye shall smite every fenced city and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree and stop all wells of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones. And it came to pass in the morning when the meat offering was offered, that behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water.".

Here's the children of Judah and the children of Israel gathered together out in the wilderness trying to fight, but there's no water. There's no water for the animals. There's no water for the people.

And suddenly they're terrified, not by the fact that the Moabites might wipe them out, they're terrified that they might be wiped out by thirst before they even get a chance to fight the Moabites. And they come to Elisha and say, Elisha, what's going to happen?

And Elisha says, God's command is that you dig ditches all over this valley. Ditches? No, Elisha, we already tried that. If there was water under here, we would have found it, because we've been digging.

Believe me, we've been looking for water. No, God says, dig this valley full of ditches. You're not going to see wind and you're not going to see rain. But this valley will be filled with water. That's the Word of the Lord.

You're not going to know where it comes from, but this valley will be filled with water. You're all going to need to be able to drink at the same time. I don't want to flood this valley. I want to flood the ditches.

So you dig the ditches. And they dug the ditches, and the next morning it says, there came water by the way of Edom. In this ditch digging, I see all of those faith choices that you and I must continually make to obey the Word of the Lord, though it makes no sense to us at times.

God's people are starving for water, trying to conserve their energy to fight against Moab, and God says, fill this valley with ditches. It seems to make no sense. But God says, you dig the ditches and I'll send the water.

And I don't even have to send it in the normal ways. You don't have to see a storm. It doesn't have to rain. I can send water into this valley. It says that the next morning, when the meat offering was offered, there came water.

It doesn't say how it came, where it came from. There came water. That's enough. Whispers of victory, brothers and sisters. Do you need something from the Lord? Are you crying out to God, asking for something?

God says to you this morning, dig this valley full of ditches. You keep acting upon the belief that I am going to meet your need, and I will meet your need. You dig this valley full of ditches, and then expect the unexpected.