Grace and peace, Saints.

We are sticking with the theme of fear.  Our memory verse for this week is Psalm 4:8:

“I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.”

I can personally relate to this verse.  Those of you who have read Chronology of Joy and God is in Control, know about the spiritual warfare I have been involved in for years, and that a major part of that warfare involves attacks upon me by the powers of darkness using electromagnetic resonance weapons and noise campaigns.  There was a time early on when, because of these attacks, I was lucky to get two or three hours of sleep at night, or any sleep at all, for that matter.

Now I know that God loves me, and that if He allows me to go through something, it is for a reason.  So, I would ask myself (and Him) why it was the He was allowing my enemies to rob me of sleep.  I realized that one of the reasons was for me to understand that God holds the power of sleep.  

Recall that there are several times in the Bible where God causes men to fall under a deep sleep.  He caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep when he took out his rib to make Eve.   He caused Abraham to fall into a deep sleep and gave him the vision of the Christian church and Israel’s future enslavement.  He caused King Saul and his men to fall into a deep sleep in the cave so that David could steal his spear and cruse of water.   And He caused Peter’s guards to fall into a deep sleep so the angel could take him out of prison. Sleep comes from God.

Besides using EMR weapons to wake me, my enemies would cause so much noise that, when I dozed off, I would awaken suddenly.  It got so bad, that I had to wear earplugs just to get any sleep at all.  Then I would wonder whether I would hear an intruder coming in the house.  

Then God asked me a simple question: Am I not God?  And if I am God, don’t I have both the power to give you sleep and to protect you while you sleep?  I understood that the answer was “Yes” to both questions.  So I took out the earplugs and went to sleep.  And I have never used them again.  Even when the enemy wakes me up (and sometimes this is several times a night) I manage to go right back to sleep; and when I can’t, I get on my knees and pray, so that even those times are used in spiritual warfare.  So I can’t lose. And that is exactly what God wanted me to understand.

So, lay yourself down in peace and fear not, knowing that the Lord will keep you during the night watches.  He will make you to dwell in safety.