“the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand …” (1 Kings 18:15, NKJV)
When Elijah and Obadiah meet and Obadiah is afraid that Elijah will disappear again, the prophet makes it clear to him: “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely present myself to him [Ahab] today.”
By now we know that Godly authority is not nestled within a person, but rather within the “power of God”. The statement Jesus makes in Matt. 26:64 makes it very clear: “hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven”.
From the teachings of Day 575-577 we learnt that the Holy Spirit is the Source of power, but is not power itself. In Matt. 6:13 we learn that the power belongs to God; the kingdom of God comes in power, not words (Mark 9:1; 1 Cor. 4:20); someone like Elijah moved within the power (Luke 1:17); power is something you own and which can also depart from you (Mark 5:30; Luke 6:19); this power can remove demons (Luke 4:36); it brings healing (Luke 5:17); it protects you (Luke 10:19); it brings about signs and wonders (Acts 6:8); all works of faith are made complete by power (2 Thess. 1:11); it brings about all things that “pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3); the talents are meted out according to your capacity for power (Matt. 25:15), and more.
This “power of an endless life” (Heb. 7:16) is obviously something every believer would very much like to obtain. But apart from the fact that we receive it through the working of the Spirit of God, what exactly is it? We know that power comes from “on high” (Luke 24:49), in other words from the spiritual realm. Rom. 1:16 then provides this secret key: “the gospel of Chris … is the power of God”!
If Elijah thus contends that he is standing before “the LORD of hosts” (in Hebrew: Jehovah Sabaoth), it is a positioning in terms of all spiritual powers that form part of the cloud of witnesses. This includes everyone who has died in Christ (see Day 578-580), also all angels and spiritual beings, those “who excel in strength, who do His word, heeding the voice of His word” (Ps. 103:20). But it also includes all rhema-words! [Read Dean Howson’s symbolic explanation of “Roman soldiers” in his book Metaphors of Paul, for more on this.] For this reason 1 Sam. 4:4 speaks of “the Lord of hosts, who dwells between the cherubim” (cherubs = typology of the Bride); and Ps. 48:8 refers to the New Jerusalem (= Bride – Rev. 21:2) as “the city of the LORD of hosts”.
In 1 Chr. 11:9 we read that “David went on and became great, and the Lord of hosts was with him”. When anyone righteously moves within the Bride of Christ, he/she moves in the cloud of witnesses and enlarges his authority. What an immense privilege this is.
- Selah: Establish this teaching within your heart, in the light of Ps. 27:1.
- Read: John 11.
- Memorise: John 11:40.
