Influencing God to Work for You

Introduction

Good morning. Do I have to do that? There we go. Hey. Good morning. Hey, now you can hear me. I want to say, if you’ll allow me, right at the very beginning, just how much I appreciate the invitation to come and spend a few days with you. Uh this family in Christ has uh been a part of our family for a long time. In fact, as I was just sitting here, uh, I think it’s been twenty years. Uh 20 years that the Whitmans have been coming over to Melbourne when we first moved uh to this area in 1997, and then Bob and Arlene were always a part of uh our family’s life. They actually uh Bob performed the wedding ceremony for my in-laws, and so there’s a connection there.

And then you go off and you hire a guy that I went to FC with a guy who married way over his head. Wouldn’t you agree? Way over his head. So love can indeed draw a lot. But I’m gonna say more, more of uh introductions and thank yous to our our time uh a little bit later this morning. But for now, I want to jump into our study. Hopefully you have the heavenly library with you. If you don’t, please grab one out of the pew, and I want you to take down the book of 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles, and if you would please go to 2 Chronicles chapter 20. I want to set the stage for you before we get into this specific passage. This story is about a king, and his name is Jehoshaphat.

And I’m not sure why, but for some reason, when he first became king, and he was relatively a young king when he took the throne, he decided that he was going to go up and hang out with the northern kingdom, and and and maybe he was just a little bit ambitious. Maybe he was hoping that maybe he could be a uniter to bring the southern and the northern kingdom together. If you know anything about your biblical history, we’re in that time period that the kingdom is divided, and there is a northern kingdom that is called Israel, a southern kingdom called Judah, and the northern kingdom struggled greatly with idols and never really had a good king who would eventually be destroyed. The southern kingdom every now and then would have a good king.

Well, Jehoshaphat is one of the good kings. But for some reason, somehow, someway, he thought, you know what? I’m going to go hang out in the northern kingdom and get to know these guys a little bit better. Maybe we can become friends. But here’s the problem. The king in the northern kingdom was a fellow by the name of Ahab. Alright. And even today, you know, if it’s named Ahab, you don’t want to go near it, right? You don’t hear of too many children named Ahab today or daughters named Jezebel. Nothing happened. Why? Notorious bad guys. Notorious bad guys. But Jehoshaphat thought, well, we’ll strike up a deal. We’ll hang out together. Ahab, they got together. Ahab said, you know, let’s just go to war. And Jehoshaphat’s going, war?

1. Seek Help From the Lord

Really? He goes, shouldn’t we talk to a prophet first? Ah, I don’t do prophets, says Ahab. Well, and so you have this big, big, you know, kind of conversation, and eventually they go to war. They ignore the man of God, and it almost cost Jehoshaphat his life. Alright. So, lesson number one, a few days really, barely a year, maybe or so into his kingdom, he’s going, okay, don’t need to be hanging out with Ahab. Don’t need to be going to war. Alright, this isn’t good. Let me just go back home and thank God I’m alive. So that brings you up to date. You ready? Alright. 2 Chronicles chapter 20, verses 1 to 4. After this, the Moabites and Ammonites, with them some of the Minuites, came against Jehoshaphat for battle.

Some men came and told Jehovahaphat, a great multitude is coming against you from Eden, from beyond the sea. And behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar, that is in Geti. Then Jehoshaphat was afraid, and he set his face to seek the Lord. And he proclaimed the fast throughout all Judah. And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord from all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord. And let me just stop right there. You gotta see this picture. I think one of the things sometimes we do too often when we’re reading passages of scripture, we go through it too quick and we fail to really soak in the scene. So I want you to just soak in the scene for a moment. You’re a king.

You’ve learned your lesson, you’ve come back to your people, and you want to lead and do what’s right. In fact, if you were to look even a little bit further into chapter 19, you’ll find that Jehoshaphat was doing a lot of good things. He had set spiritual leaders at every city, so that any time there was a squabble or a debate, a lawsuit, any kind of squabble going on between people where it was civilly or legally or whatever, a spiritual man decided what was right or wrong. Pretty good thing to do. Can you imagine? Wouldn’t that be cool? Wouldn’t that be cool that if every decision in the nation was established by somebody who served the Lord and feared the Lord? But now. But now there’s this great enemy coming.

And what the text doesn’t tell us is why. Why? Why all of a sudden are these three nations, and if you know anything about this history, even these three nations getting together is odd. Why would they get together? And why in the world would they go to Judah? What is it they want out of Judah? What are they trying to get out of Judah? What are the resources that they would want to get out of Judah? Well, the text doesn’t tell us. It may actually be, it may actually be that they just wanted to go get slaves. And so they were going to attack a weaker nation and just make them all slaves, and that’s the resource you get out of them. I don’t know. The text doesn’t tell us, but here’s what’s certain.

They’re coming. They’re coming. And it’s a great horde. And so you can imagine the news coming to the palace, and you imagine it being all over the Jerusalem Times and whatever the newspaper was and everything else, you know, uh, yeah, they’re all knowing it’s coming, and they all go to the king, and the king goes, Alright, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to pray. We’re going to pray. In fact, the word goes out throughout the entire kingdom. Not only are you going to pray, you’re going to fast. Notice in verses 3 as well as verse 4, he says, We’re going to seek help from the Lord. Well, now that’s a pretty good leader, wouldn’t you imagine? That’s a good place to begin. Verse 5.

2. I Got Nothing

And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah in Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord before the new court. And he said, O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over the kingdoms of the nations? In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham, your friend? And they have lived in it, and had built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence or famine, we will stand before this house and before you, for your name is in this house, and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.

And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Zir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came up from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy, behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you’ve given to us to inherit. Our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do. But our eyes are upon you. Now let’s stop again. I want you to see this scene. In fact, just so you kind of see this scene, I’m going to kind of describe it to you in a way that may appear crazy to you. Let’s imagine.

Let’s imagine that some great enemy was just going to attack the United States. I mean, and they were a massive enemy. Let’s just say everybody who’s an enemy and is our enemy decided to unite together. So ISIS and North Korea, that crazy guy, and all these other nations decide, here they come. And everybody goes to the president and they say, President, here they come. What are we going to do? And your president goes, I got, I got nothing. I got nothing. Y’all go pray about it. And we go, well, that’s kind of unusual. Well, we’ll go pray about it. And then everybody gathers in the national mall, you know, like it’s the inauguration day. But everybody from the nation is gathered, and everybody’s out there standing, and they’re with their families, and their whole over their families, and everybody’s praying, and everybody’s waiting, and then, and then finally the king comes out, and he leads everybody in prayer, and at the end of his prayer, he says, here’s what I got for you, people.

Nothing. Nothing. Really? I mean, you’re supposed to be the king. Aren’t you supposed to come up with a great big battle plan? All right, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to surround them on the left flank. We’re going to come in on this side. We’re going to get the football out, you know, the big nuclear code football. And we’re going to bomb them here, bomb them there, and then there. But the king goes, I got nothing. No, I gotta admit. They’re gonna whoop us. It looks bad. And this is all I got. Nothing. Now let me ask you, how would you feel? You’re standing there with your family and you’re going, nothing. We made you the leader, man. Come on, get your cabinet together.

Get all the military commanders together. Do something. Is nothing an option? Well, apparently it was for Jehoshaphat. You know what’s interesting about his name? The name Jehoshaphat actually means Jehovah is judge. And if you’ll look back at his prayer in verse 9, he actually takes a quote from the day that the temple was dedicated by Solomon, and that’s actually a line from Solomon in which they were looking to God to defend this house. And now all the people are gathered around the king Jehoshaphat, the reformer, and they’re saying, What are we going to do? And the king says, nothing. We’re going to do nothing. I’ve got nothing. But King, you don’t understand. The intelligence report says they’re all coming in, they’re sneaking up on us, and they’re going to destroy us.

And the king goes, I got nothing. Well, King, what about all of our resources and our family and our children? We’re going to lose everything. And the king goes, I got nothing. Notice if you would, verse 12 again. Probably one of the most humble statements made anywhere in Scripture. Oh our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do. But our eyes are on you. What kind of king says this? What kind of king will actually stand before the people that are looking to him for answers, looking to him for peace, looking to him for strength, looking to him. What kind of a king says this? Well, an honest one.

An honest one. We’re not going to have time in this hour to make a lot of application. We’re going to save that for our final hour today. But I just want to throw a tidbit of application in right here.

Just a life issue. Where when you were finally honest with yourself, you admitted, I had no idea what to do. I have no idea. Somebody comes to you, says, hey, what are you going to do about this? How are you going to handle this? And you go? I got nothing. Nothing. Well, the story doesn’t end here. But when Jehoshaphat says, I have nothing. I want you to grasp and understand that that was the beginning of everything. Verse 13. Meanwhile, all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, with their wives and with their children. Can you see this scene? Can you hear the sobs? Can you sense the fear?

3. The Battle Is Not Yours, but God’s

And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jehaziel, the son of Zachariah, the son of Benaniah, son of Jeel, son of Mataniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph in the midst of the assembly. And he said, Listen, listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat. Thus saith the Lord to you. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours, but God’s.

Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. And you will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf. Oh Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you. Then Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshipping the Lord. And the Levites, the Koathites, the Korathites stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice. Now, I want you to stop right here and again appreciate this scene.

All of a sudden, in the midst of this great assembly where everybody’s crying, where everybody’s worried, where the king just stood up and said, I got nothing. A man of God.

A man of God who was a Levite. He’s of the descendants of Asaph, which means he would have come from the family of singers, the ones who were the great musicians who served the Lord. And you remember Asaph was actually the chief musician that served David and wrote many of the Psalms that we have in our Bible today. All of a sudden, this guy stands up and goes, here’s the deal. God said, Don’t do anything. Just stand firm. You’re going to be okay. Now let me just ask you for a second. If you were in that city and everything was coming, and some guy that just stood up out of the blue said, everything’s going to be okay, would you go? All right. Well, that’s great.

I’m glad we got that resolved. Where do you want to eat? You know? Hey, let’s go. We’re good. We’re good. I mean, can you imagine? How would you respond? Your king, your leader, who has all the resources in the world says he’s got nothing, and then all of a sudden, this religious guy that you’ve seen before when you go to the temple, all of a sudden he gets moved by the Spirit. He stands up and goes, Ah, you’re good. You’re good. God said, Don’t worry about it. Just stand firm. In fact, go out and meet them. You’re good. Would you be going? Yeah, I feel so much better. Well, here’s what’s interesting. Here’s what’s extremely interesting about the story. God doesn’t tell how he’s going to fight the battle.

And he doesn’t give Jehoshaphat or anybody else any instructions on how you’re going to fight the battle.

4. Jehoshaphat Doubled Down: The Singers Go First

He just said, go out and meet them. Just go out and meet him. Now let me ask you, would you be willing to go out and meet a great horde when you got nothing? Just because God said, Go. Go. Well, notice what Jehoshaphat does. In verse 20, it said, and they rose early in the morning. And they went out into the wilderness of Jacoah. And as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me. Now it’s the king. The king is finally addressing the people. He says, Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God and you will be established. Believe his prophets and you will succeed. And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him in holy attire.

And notice, notice, as they went before the army and say, give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love endures forever. Now please don’t miss this scene. Please don’t miss this scene. So after the prophet stands up and says, All right, God said, don’t be dismayed, just go out and meet them. Jehoshaphat doubled down. He’ll double down on that. He’ll say, not only are we going to go out and meet them. You people, we’re only going to go out and meet them. We’re going to go out and meet them, and we’re going to go out singing. We’re going to go out singing. Alright. I’m going to share something with you here. And I don’t want you to think less of me. All right? If you promise, we’re good.

Don’t think less of me. I’m going to be a little honest. I have a son. And I think like most fathers. The cool thing about having a son is you got somebody who you can wrestle with, you know. I don’t wrestle with him anymore. My son is now about 5’10, the little punk. All right. But we will play some hard one-on-one basketball. And I’ll never forget the day that he wanted to wear one of my Texas Tech jerseys when I used to, you know, be a Texas Tech fan growing up in Texas. And then he got into sports and this and the other. I mean, if you’re a father, you just have this in that you just have this internal desire that your son is going to be some sort of athlete.

He’s going to be some sort of lawyer. He’s going to be some sort of tough guy. It’s kind of like, it’s a man thing. Yeah. That’s my boy. Yeah. Hey, he broke his arm. Yeah, he did, but he’s playing football. Yeah. You know, you just, you just had that. And don’t think less of me. But one of my greatest fears, well, one of my greatest fears one day my son was going to come and say, but Father, I want to sing. No. No. No, no, no. You’re not going to be a music drum. Like, no. No, you’re going to fight. You’re going to be mean. You’re going to get dirty. No, but Dad, see, don’t think less of me. Don’t think less of me. Isn’t that kind of what we do to guys in the band or in the chorus and the other?

They’re just not warriors. They’re just not tough. And we want tough. We want mean. We want John Wayne. We want. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whatever you have in your mind when you think of the guys in the band or the chorus, whatever stereotypical thing you have in your mind, you better throw it out right now. Because you know what Jehoshaphat does? He put the singers up front. Now don’t think he just put them up there as the easy targets. That wasn’t what he was thinking. No, he’s doubled down on the will of God. And what he said is, we’re going to go out there and we’re going to go in the name of Jehovah, and we’re going to sing the guys out first. And they’re singing the song of Asaph.

Notice there, and notice exactly what they’re singing here. And they were singing, give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love endures forever. This was a line that came from Asaph. And Asap, the chief musician of David, and it was handed down through all the generations. And here’s what’s interesting: a little fun fact for you. Every single time, almost every single time that there is a restoration in the southern kingdom, whether it’s Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, Josiah, later with Ezra and Nebrah, every single time they sing this song. Every time. Every time. And so Jehoshaphat sends the singers out first. And they are dressed in their holy attire. The army’s behind them. Get this picture. The big tough guys, the guys with swords and shields. The armies behind the singers.

5. The Lord Set an Ambush

The singers go first. And they go out to meet this great horde. And notice verse 22. And when they began to sing and praise the Lord, the Lord said an an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Zir, who had come against Judah. So that they were routed. For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Zir, devoting them to destruction. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Zir, they all helped destroy one another. Are you kidding me?

Are you kidding me? You mean just when they began to sing, all of a sudden the army turned on one another? Well, I want you to see something here that’s pretty neat when you go and look at it, the geography of the area. Moab and Ammon are going to be east of the Dead Sea. That’s where those nations were, and they team up with Mount Zeir. But instead of coming from the north and going what you might consider to be a more traditional route into Jerusalem, they decided to head in from the south. And they come in down from the south and they go up past Masada into the place called Engedi. You remember that in our story? In this valley. And what they’re going to do is they’re going to make their way up toward Tokoah.

And so what it is, is its crevices, its ravines. Well, the nation, the nation of Judah and Jehoshaphat, they come down to Dakoah, and this is where they’re going to meet them head on. And they’re actually going to meet them in this little area, this little area that is just to the west of the Dead Sea. It’ll be a place where you’re ascending up to the mountain, alright? So you’re coming up the mountain, but you’re not just coming up the mountain. You’re going to come up in this valley. It is not the most strategic thing to do if you were an army. The enemies are coming up this valley. They think it’s going to be a sneak attack. Nobody will think you’ll come this way, because you’re definitely not going what you might consider the traditional way.

You’re down in the valley. You definitely don’t have the high ground. It’s not the best place to come. And so they’re sneaking up in this valley. When the nation of Judah comes to the top of the valley, and they begin to sing. There’s actually many, many thoughts on how this played out. Some have said when the Israelites or the people from Judah began to stand up there and sing, it was so loud and sounded like such a huge army that all the enemies just panicked. Because it sounded like a multitude of people. Well, that would fit. Well, one commentator, one commentator said the word for praise here can also be interpreted in the Aramaic, shoot at times. So they heard they go, shoot, shoot! Oh, then they turn away.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.

But this is what I do know. When Jehoshaphat put his total trust in the Lord, and he went out praising God, and those singers came in first, the noise in that valley was probably so loud, and the rejoicing was so loud and strong. That when God set the ambush, set the panic button on the enemies, the enemies began to attack one another. And eventually they destroyed one another.

6. The Spoils of Victory Were So Great

Crazy, right? Who fights a battle like that, right? But there’s more. There’s more. And when Judah came to the watchtower of the wilderness, they looked toward the horde, and behold, there were dead bodies lying on the ground. None had escaped. When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their spoil, they found among them in great numbers goods, clothing and precious things, and things that they took for themselves until they could carry no more. They were three days in taking the spoil. It was so much. On the fourth day they assembled in the valley of Baraka. And there they blessed the Lord. And therefore the name of that place has been called the Valley of Baraka to this day. Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat at their head, returning to Jerusalem with joy, for the Lord had made them rejoice over their enemies.

And the spoils of victory were so great. So great.

Conclusion

Now, this is just our introduction. I want to save some application to our final hour this morning. But here’s what I want you to remember. This is the story of the Bible. And here’s what I mean by that. This is the story of the Bible. The one lesson that our Lord over and over and over again tries to get across to us in this wonderful text. When you relinquish control, when you, out of humility and meekness and submission, can say to your God, finally, I got nothing. Then and only then can his power work in your life. Only then. And if we’ll slow down and humble ourselves, we’ll find the joy and the spoils of victory that the Lord longs for us to have through his Son Jesus.

The Lord who fights the battle for us, if we’ll trust him. Everybody got that? You got that? Just let that hold right there. Set it on the shelf. Because in our third hour this morning, we’re going to make some application to this wonderful story. So that we ourselves can experience victory like this from the Lord. Let’s close with a prayer. Our Heavenly Father. Dear Lord, there’s times that we look at your word and we listen to these stories and we’re just amazed. We’re amazed at how you work. We’re amazed at how you fight. We’re amazed at what you do. Dear Lord, we’re amazed at those who trusted you like they did. Help us to learn. Help us to see. Help us to understand the principle that Jehoshaphat and the people learned.

The humility. The ability to say, I got nothing. And help us, dear Lord, to see even more. How the battle that you fought at Calvary and the battle that you provided with victory over Satan for all of us truly gives us everything. Increase our faith. Increase our desire. But dear Lord, we know that’s only going to happen when you increase our humility. Help us to see the value and understanding. I got nothing. I got nothing. Help us to grasp that. We thank you for Jesus, our perfect example. And be with us as we learn and grow this morning, for it’s in Him we pray. Amen.