God of Angel Armies

Good Morning: The verse of the day is Psalm 34:7.  “The angel of The Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them.”

This verse came to me one morning as I lay in bed thinking about a wonderful evening we had at Grandma & Grandpa’s house recently listening to missionaries Leon & Lorraine Dillinger tell stories about their experiences in Papua, Indonesia.

Grandpa roomed with Leon at Word of Life camp when he was a young teenager back in the 1950s. In 1982 while waiting in the dentist’s office, Grandpa saw Leon’s picture on the cover of Time. The article told about the miraculous work that God was doing in the life of the Dani people of Papua, Indonesia. Many years later Grandpa reconnected with Leon and his wife, Lorraine, and we were privileged to eat dinner with them and hear a first hand report of God’s wonderful ministry.

One of my favorite stories was of the day that Leon set out to another tribe to bring them the gospel.  That evening, as he and his
companions prepared for bed, they went to turn on the radio but the batteries were dead.  They fumbled around, found some new batteries with which they replaced the old ones, turned on the radio, and settled down to listen to the news. The next day they packed up and continued on their journey.

It was not until many years later that they heard the rest of the story.  It seems that some of the surrounding natives who had heard about the Dillingers were afraid that their spirits would be offended by the Spirit of the Dillingers. That very night that Leon was in his tent working with the radio, some of the natives had set out to kill him to appease the evil spirits they worshipped. As they crept toward the tent with their spears in hand, they paused at the flap of the door just as the missionaries had replaced the
batteries and turned on the radio. When the natives heard the “voice coming from the box” they turned and fled into the darkness leaving the missionaries unharmed.

When they returned to their villages they told their chiefs, “There is no way we were going to kill those men because their Spirit is much greater than ours. We heard Him talking out of a box.” Fifty years later thousands of the Dani tribe have come to know The Lord as their Savior.

I was so encouraged and blessed by this story. How many times have you or I been protected by the hand of God and didn’t even know it?  For those who trust the Lord there is no need to fear anyone or anything.  Nothing can happen to us that God does not
allow.  As the popular Christian song goes, “The God of angel armies is always by our side.”