← Cornerstone Chapel - Audio Podcast
Cornerstone Chapel - Audio Podcast
God’s Strategy for Spiritual Battles
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2 Chronicles 18:28-20:21
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We are in Second Chronicles, chapter 18. I'm going to pray first and then we'll dive in where Austin left off last week in my absence, and I'll try to clean up stuff that he said. And no, I thought they both did a good job as I've been gone the last couple of Wednesday nights. Yeah, they did do a good job. Thank you. They did. Father, thank you for this time. We can share together in your word. Thank you for a beautiful day that you've given us. We ask you to bless this time now as we open up your word together to study what you would have to say to us tonight. And I thank you for all those who are here. I thank you for those who are watching online. We just want to open up our Bibles and hear from you tonight. So thank you, Lord, for your word. We give you praise and glory in Jesus name. And everybody said Amen. So just to orient ourselves here, because we left off right around verse 28 in Second Chronicles, chapter 18. So let me just kind of summarize what you heard last week in my absence. And here is the map that I like to go to to just kind of have a visual. This is not the whole extent of the nation of Israel. The, the southern part is cut off just for the sake of zooming in on the, the midsection and the. And the northern part of the nation of Israel. But this is the time that they are divided now. So you have Israel to the north and you have Judah to the south. You have Philistia off to the west. That's really Philistine territory, by the way. It's very similar to the Gaza territory today, the Gaza Strip. And then you have two capital cities. You have Samaria is the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel, and Jerusalem is the capital city of the southern kingdom of Judah. And here in chapter 18, these are the two kings who are presently in power. King Ahab to the north and King Jehoshaphat to the south. Now, these two guys are actually related by marriage because Jehoshaphat's son will marry Ahab's daughter. Now, that was common in those days because you would form alliances with your disagreeable neighbors. But this was more than that. Here they are both, you know, Jews. They're part of the tribes of Israel. But Jehoshaphat's son marrying Ahab's daughter is a terrible thing because Ahab has been most influenced about idolatry because of the wife that he married, Jezebel. And Jezebel introduces all of this paganism to Israel at a high level. She isn't the first one. I mean, you see paganism back in the days of Solomon, before the divided kingdom. But it really comes to its highest time during the period of the reign of King Ahab. And Jezebel that he marries, she's not even a Jew. She's a pagan woman from another country who does not worship God. She brings her paganism into the country. It influences Israel. And so when Jehoshaphat, who's a relatively decent king, when his son marries Ahab's daughter, of course, she grows up in a home that is highly influenced by such idolatry and paganism and occult worship and all of this. So we're going to find later that this marriage is not a good thing because Jehoshaphat son does some pretty evil and wicked things. So this is a marriage, but this is not a good alliance at all. And what. What they end up doing, these two, Ahab and Jehoshaphat is forming a friendship because, you know, they're like, they're in laws now, and they form this alliance against the king of Syria. So on the map, if you, you know, you look to the. To the northeast, you have the country of Syria there, and there's this big dispute over this one town that is right on the border between Israel and Syria. And I'll put it on the map for you. It's Ramoth Gilead. And so King Ahab wants to get Ramoth Gilead back into his kingdom because the king of Syria has attacked and has taken besieged and taken Ramoth Gilead into the kingdom of Syria. So Ahab calls on his relative by marriage and says to Jehoshaphat, you know, our kids are married. Why don't we just join forces together and we can go fight the king of Syria, and I can get back Ramoth Gilead. What do you think of that? And so Jehoshaphat goes up to Samaria, the capital city there in the north. He meets with Ahab, and he says, all right, well, let's discuss this a little bit further. And Jehoshaphat says, because Jehoshaphat is more of a godly man than Ahab. Why don't we ask God what he thinks? Why don't we inquire of the Lord? And so how about you ask, you know, the prophets of God, what they think? Ahab says, all right, gotcha. Let's do that. Ahab parades 400 prophets in front of the two of them to try to get the word of the Lord on this. The problem is when You're a pagan king who's married a pagan woman, and you've introduced paganism into your whole country. You can't trust these prophets. These 400 prophets are lying prophets. It's a nonprofit organization, ladies and gentlemen, okay? They're all lying prophets. They're not going to tell the truth. And every single one of them say, yeah, you ought to go on up to Syria. Attack, you can get back. Ramoth, Gilead. God will give you victory. This one guy, even this one false prophet, even parades out with two horns like a bull, and he's like, this is what you're going to do to Syria. You're going to spear them like a bull. And so Ahab says, okay, we ought to do this. But Jehoshaphat is a wise man. He's more discerning because he is basically a decent king. He's got a few asterisks by his name, like Mark McGuire, but it's a different reason. But that's a baseball joke. But anyway. But Jehoshaphat says, I tell you what, all these 400, I don't believe them. I don't think they're telling us the truth. Do you not have one prophet in all of Israel who can tell us the truth? And Ahab goes, well, there is this one guy, but I hate his guts. And his name is Micaiah. He never tells me what I want to hear, right? Like, the prophet was not intended to just tell you what you wanted to hear. He's supposed to tell you what God says. But because Ahab is in rebellion to God, of course, Micaiah's always going to be saying things to Ahab he didn't want to hear. So Ahab says, yeah, yeah, there's this one guy, this one kid named Micaiah. We can go ahead and call him. Jehoshaphat says, all right, let's call him up. Micaiah comes before the two of them, and at first he is sarcastic because he knows that Ahab doesn't really want to hear the truth. And so Micaiah just plays along, and he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys just go on up. Fight, fight the Syrians. And Jehoshaphat's like, no, really. Like, I can tell you're just playing with us. Like, what do you really want to say? And Makai's like, you really want to hear? Okay, here's the deal. You guys go up there, you're going to get slaughtered. You shouldn't go. And Ahab's like, I told you, this guy never tells us what we want to hear. But he was telling the truth. And Ahab gets so furious that he has Micaiah thrown in prison. He says, give him the bread of affliction. Like just, you know, the whole just rice and water kind of a deal. Just give him that, and I'll let him out when I come back. And Micaiah says to him, if you end up coming back after this battle, then I'm not really a true prophet of God, because you aren't coming back. And Ahab's going to die in this battle. And that's the word of Micaiah to him. And this is where we left off now in verse 28, and says, and so this is 2nd Chronicles 18, verse 28. And so the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat. So this is Ahab and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth, Gilead. And the king of Israel, Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself and go into battle. But you put on your robes. Let that sink in everybody. And so the king of Israel. So Ahab disguised himself and they went into battle. All right, now, that should give you pause right there. All right? Ahab is saying to Joshua, they're both kings. They both are wearing their royal robes. It was very customary in those days that kings went out to battle with their armies. They didn't just stay back and strategize. They went to war with them. Okay? And who do you think that the enemy wants to take down first? It's the king you want to chop off the head. So Ahab says to Jehoshaphat, tell you what. You stay in your royal robes, wear your shiny crown. I'm just going to get dressed up like a common soldier. Okay? Does this sound good to you and Jehoshaphat? Yeah, sounds fine to me. Okay, now, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Jehoshaphat, why are you saying this sounds okay? I tell you why. Because the fact that he's already. Jehoshaphat has already gone up to Samaria to make an alliance with this wicked king, Ahab, Okay? I don't care that you're related by marriage. That marriage shouldn't have even happened. The fact that it's happened doesn't now make this alliance any better. You're going up to Samaria, and you are now joining yourself in alliance with Ahab, a wicked king. You're basically a decent king, Jehoshaphat. You have no business going up to the north, making an alliance with this wicked king to do this. And in Addition, you know, Micaiah has said you shouldn't go, and you're going to go, but now you're actually agreeing to yourself wearing the royal robes, while Ahab tries to just be discreet and look like he's like one of the common soldiers. So here's what happens, because Jehoshaphat has already compromised himself by going up there to begin with. That's when self deception sets in. And so it's a point from chapter 18, folks. Compromise leads to self deception. You know, the worst thing about self deception is you don't know it. That's the definition of it. You're self deceived, so. So you don't even know you're being deceived. And so Jehoshaphat is agreeing to something that he shouldn't be agreeing to. He's putting himself out there like the biggest target. He's gonna be the only one in royal robes, wearing a crown. I thought they were supposed to be going together into battle, but this is slick, sly, Ahab's way of just trying to let Jehoshaphat take the arrows so that he can try to fly under the radar and still go to battle and get back Ramoth, Gilead, and he doesn't care if Jehoshaphat loses his life in the process. That's how evil and wicked Ahab is. But it's just sad to think here that Jehoshaphat's not even standing up to him, saying, you know what? I'm not sure I like this idea. How about we both wear our crowns and our robes, or neither one of us does, but he agrees to this. So they go to battle. It says in verse 30. Now, the king of Syria had commanded the captains of the chariots who were with him, saying, fight with no one small or great, but only with the king of Israel. See that they want to cut off the head. So he's like, look for Ahab, look for the King of Israel. And so it was verse 31 that when the captains of the chariot saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, it is the king of Israel. Okay, now he's not. He's the King of Judah, but he's the only one wearing a crown and royal robes. So they naturally think, this guy must be Ahab. And therefore they surrounded him to attack. But Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him, and God diverted them from him. See, Jehoshaphat, you know, he knows when to get serious. And he cries out to God, and the Lord helps him, diverts the enemy. Verse 32. For so it was when the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel that they turned back from pursuing him. So God spares Jehoshaphat's life here. Now, a certain man drew a bow at random and struck. The king of Israel hits Ahab between the joints of his armor. And. And so he said to the driver of his chariot, this is Ahab speaking, turn around and take me out of the battle, for I am wounded. The battle increased that day and the king of Israel propped himself up in his chariot facing the Syrians until evening. And about the time of sunset, he died. So, you know, when God says something and he's definitive about it, you can try, try all you want to disguise yourself or to somehow hinder or thwart the plans of God, but God's going to do what God says he's going to do. And he's taking out Ahab here and he's using the Syrians to do it. Ahab is a wicked king. This is God's judgment against this king. And Micaiah had told him so, don't even go into battle. But this is his custom. He just denies the word of the Lord. I don't care what the prophet says. I don't care what God says. I'm going to go do what I, what I want to do. And you know, look, this arrow pierces somewhere between whatever exposed parts of his body that his armor was not covering, which had to be, you know, a God sent arrow for this to happen. Now, it's interesting, it says a certain man shot this arrow and he's unnamed here in the text when, when you look at the midrash. The midrash is ancient rabbinical commentaries on scripture. It was compiled over a few centuries. The midrash suggests we don't know this, it's not here in the Bible that the certain man who shot the arrow was Naaman the Syrian. Now you might remember the name of Naaman the Syrian because he also showed up in Second Kings, chapter five, and he's the guy who was the commander of the Syrian army. The Midrash says that because Naaman so strategically hit and killed every Ahab in the way that he did, which again, was not really a strategic shot, it was really God's design to move that arrow where he wanted to. But that the king of Syria made Naaman the commander of the Syrian army. But if you remember in Second Kings, chapter five, Naaman had leprosy and God was merciful to Naaman, Assyrian, a gentile, because the Word of the Lord came to Naaman to dip himself seven times in the Jordan River. If you remember that story, Naaman at first balked. He's like, this is a filthy, dirty river. I've got better rivers, you know, back in Syria that I'd rather swim in. And the Lord spoke through the Prophet and said to Naaman, go dip yourself seven times in the Jordan river and you will be healed. And thus he was healed. So God had mercy on this guy. But again, we don't know for sure if that's who this really is. But here Ahab is struck by this arrow. It's not immediately fatal. So he says to his charioteer, like, just prop me up in the chariot so I can pretend to be brave and strong here. But he's dying. He's bleeding out. And by sunset, he dies. And so the Word of the Lord came to pass here, as it always does. And Ahab dies. Now, Jehoshaphat, his life has been spared by the Lord here. He should not have gone up. He should not have been a part of this alliance. He should not have even gone to war after Micaiah said, don't go. And yet God was merciful and spared his life. And he goes back to Jerusalem. Here's chapter 19. And then Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, returned safely to his house in Jerusalem. And Jehu, the son of Hanani the seer, went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat. Now, before we read what he says, I want you to note these two guys. Jehu, the son of Hanani. Now, just a little background, because this context is important to what this guy's about to say. Jehu is the son of Hanani, the seer. So the seer is a different word than a prophet. A seer actually sees or has visions from the Lord and then is used by the Lord to speak truth into somebody's life. A prophet doesn't necessarily see visions, but hears the word of the Lord. And then in the same way gives a message to people. So the Lord would speak to people in those two different ways. One is a seer, more visions. One is a prophet, has more revelations or understandings, just like a word of knowledge kind of a thing. Hanani is a seer. This is his son Jehu, who's going to speak to Jehoshaphat. This father, son thing is important because Hanani was the seer during the time of Jehoshaphat's father. Jehoshaphat's father was Asa. Asa was a relatively good king. His dad was a relatively good king. He does a couple things at the end of his life, but otherwise, Asa was a pretty good king. Hanani confronts Asa about something that Asa did wrong during his reign. And what Asa had done wrong was he formed an alliance with the king of Syria to fight against the northern king of Israel. And God rebukes him for this. And God sends Hanani to Asa to rebuke him. You should not have formed an alliance with the king of Syria. You have no business forming an alliance with a foreign pagan king like you just did. And so Hanani rebukes Asa. Now here's the one thing that Asa did not do right in his reign. He decided he didn't like what Hanani said. So he had Hanani thrown in prison. And Asa reacts this way. Instead of humbling himself, he gets angry at Hanani and has Hanani thrown in prison. Now this is the next generation. So Asa's son Jehoshaphat is now king, and Hanani's son Jehu is now the seer. And Jehu is going to come and tell Jehoshaphat something that Jehoshaphat doesn't want to hear. But I want you to notice the difference. This is very bold of Jehu because Jehu no doubt knows my dad was thrown in prison for giving the word of the Lord to the king in his day. And yet the courage it took for Jehu to say, okay, Lord, I'm going to tell the king of my day what you want him to hear, what he's done wrong here. And here comes Jehu. And this is what he says. He says to King Jehoshaphat, should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord, therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you. Notice that should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord. This is just a simple principle for us, and it's a broad one. But here it is, everybody. We should always love what God loves and hate what God hates. Love what God loves. Hate what God hates. Let him define that the things that God says is good and right and honorable and pure. Love those things. The things that God says is evil, wicked, sinful, wrong. Hate those things. We should live our lives that way. We should live our lives loving what God loves. Hating what God hates. Now, the word of the Lord through Jehu was, you've aligned yourself with the wrong guy. What you just did by going up to the north and aligning yourself with Ahab was wrong. You have helped the wicked. And in helping the wicked, you are in essence showing that you hate the Lord. And he says, therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you. But notice the next word, verse three. Nevertheless, nevertheless, good things are found in you, in that you have removed the wooden images from the land and have prepared your heart to seek God. Now this is an important point. Also. What Jehu is saying to him is, God's angry. His wrath is upon you. But because you've also done noble things, righteous things in the land, you've removed the wooden images which were idols, you have brought reform to the nation of Israel. God sees your heart and so the full extent of his wrath is not going to fall upon you because he sees and knows the righteousness of your heart. Yes, you've done a bad thing, but aren't you, who here is glad I am that God does not punish us for every single thing we do. Now, in the end, if we don't repent, we will suffer for every single thing we do. But if God called us out for every single thing we did, we'd be dead before this service was over, right? And so in his mercy, he sees that there's this noble, honest part about Jehoshaphat's heart, even though he did something that was wrong. And he gets commended in the end. So here's the point to take away from this, is that God does not treat us as our sins deserve, but he takes note of a heart for him. And that's what he did with Jehoshaphat. He's like, okay, I'm angry. My wrath is upon you. However, I'm not going to treat you as your sins deserve because I see your heart and I know that you are a humble man and you are a man of righteousness and you are a man who has done good things. And so therefore you are not going to suffer the ultimate consequences for your sins. That's just a wonderful reminder of the compassionate mercy of our Father in heaven. So verse 4, verse 4. So Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem and he went out again among the people from Beersheba to the mountains of Ephraim and brought them back to the Lord God of their fathers. See how this moment with Jehu and the fact that also he had a near death experience in Ramoth, Gilead, because he could have died, this is all just kind of humbled him and like reminded him, like, okay, Lord, I need to get more serious with you. And so he goes throughout the land and he just really implements reform and tells everybody, get serious. He brings them back to the Lord God of their fathers. Verse 5. And then he set judges in the land, throughout all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the judges, take heed to what you are doing, for you do not judge for man, but for the Lord who is with you in the judgment. Now therefore, let the fear of the Lord underline that in your Bibles, let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Take care and do it. For there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, no partiality, nor taking of bribes. So this is one thing that he does here, bringing reform. He's like, I'm going to set up judges. Righteous judges don't take bribes. You know, have the fear of the Lord. I want you to judge without partiality. I want you to be honest in your rulings. So this is part of just helping to manage and administrate and make sure that righteousness is a part of the judicial system there. And then he adds in verse eight, moreover, in Jerusalem, for the judgment of the Lord and for controversies, Jehoshaphat appointed some of the Levites and priests and some of the chief fathers of Israel when they returned to Jerusalem. And he commanded them, saying thus, you shall act. Here it is again in the fear of the Lord faithfully and with a loyal Whatever case comes to you from your brethren who dwell in their cities, whether of bloodshed or offenses against law or commandment, against statutes or ordinances, you shall warn them lest they trespass against the Lord and wrath come upon you and your brethren. Do this and you will not be guilty. And then he says, and take notice, Amariah, the chief priest, is over you in all matters of the Lord. And Zebadiah, the son of Ishmael and the ruler of the house of Judah, for all the king's matters. Also, the Levites will be officials before you behave courageously, and the Lord will be with the good. So he just really underscores this whole thing of, look, you know what the bottom line is going to be in order for us to really be a nation of righteousness and for us to judge without partiality, for us to just, you know, manage and govern the people in a right way. It is the fear. Fear of the Lord, number three on our list here. The fear of the Lord is necessary to lead a godly life, folks. If we don't have the fear of the Lord, we're going to be doing whatever we want to do because we don't really have a conscience and a reminder that God is holy and just and pure, and we should live in the fear of The Lord. Now, you know, look, the fear of the Lord does not mean you are afraid of the Lord, okay? He's our Father. But his holiness demands our respect and a reverence and a holiness. And it is when we have a healthy fear of the Lord, this holy reverence for God, that is a great motivator for not sinning. You know, I don't know what kind of household you might have grown up in, but, you know, when you have deep respect for your parents, you probably were not a real rebellious kid. It's when you don't really have much regard for your parents, and then you're this rebellious teenager and you just do whatever you want. But, you know, for me, just the relationship I had with my parents, it was just like, I've got too much, like, deep respect. And, yeah, there was a little edge of like, I'm going to get a whipping too, you know? So, I mean, it's just a little bit of that fear in a healthy way. Not so that they. Or in this parallel, not so that God is unapproachable. But you have just enough of an understanding that he is a holy, righteous God and He could, at any moment flick me and I'd be dead, right? So you have that conscious awareness that. But it's not the kind of thing that prevents you from approaching him because you know that he's your loving dad at the same time he's your heavenly Father. And so he receives you warmly and he welcomes you with open arms. But we must. If we're gonna live lives of holiness, we must have a healthy fear of the Lord. And this is the underpinning of the society here that Jehoshaphat was trying to instill, saying, if we lack the fear of the Lord, we are. We are going to be a nation that has gone awry. So into chapter 20. It happened after this that the people of Moab, with the people of Ammon and others with them besides the Ammonites, came to battle against Jehoshaphat. So let me put the map back up, and I circled off there to the. The eastern side of the map. Ammon and Moab. So those are two foreign countries, tribal nations. And they just one day decide to form an alliance against Jehoshaphat. They just want to, you know, go west and fight against Jehoshaphat and Judah. And they form together with other nations because it says, moab, Ammon and others with them. And verse two says, and then some came and told Jehoshaphat saying, a great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea, from Syria. And if you notice in my Bible, there's a footnote at Syria because it says that some translations say read Edom, and that would actually make more sense because Syria is to the north and it talks about they've come from the sea, from the other side of the sea. It's a reference really, to the Dead Sea. So it's probably some kind of a scribal translation issue there where it makes more sense that it's Edom. It's the Edomites that Edom joins with Moab joins with Ammon, and they are on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. But now the messenger says, and they are in Hazazon Tamar, which is En Gedi. So En Gedi is on the western side of the Dead Sea. In fact, those of you who go with me to Israel, it's one of the spots that we stop and have a Bible study. Because down at the springs of En Gedi, En Gedi, or Ein Gedi translates Spring of the Wild Goats. There is this beautiful fresh water oasis down there in the middle of the desert, right down by the Dead Sea. And Ein Gedi has many different caves, has obviously a lot of wild goats. That's why it's called the Spring of the Wild Goats. But down at En Gedi is where David would hide for several years from Saul when he was trying to save his own life from Saul, trying to attack him and trying to kill him because Saul was threatened. Saul was a madman. So David would often hide down at En Gedi. And he wrote a few of the Psalms down there like a deer pans for water. So my soul pants for you, Lord. And just in that beautiful oasis of En Gedi. So anyway, this is where these different tribal nations, Amon, Moab and Edom, they've come now onto the western side of the Dead Sea. They're down in Engedi, and. And they pose a threat because it's not too far from Jerusalem. They're coming up to Jerusalem. They're going to attack Jehoshaphat. And so notice the reaction. Verse three. And Jehoshaphat feared. Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And so Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord, and. And from all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord. What a great response to fear. He had reason to be afraid. I mean, these armies were coming against him, and so they were threatening. And Jehoshaphat, what does he do? What does he do with his Fear. He doesn't just Google, you know, and find out, what does this mean? What does that diagnosis mean? What does this mean? You know, he gets on his face before God and he calls the nation to prayer and to fasting in order for them to seek the Lord. When you're afraid, you need to seek the Lord, and that's what he does. So this is a good takeaway for us here from chapter 20. Our best weapons against fear are prayer and fasting. You know, those are two disciplines, prayer and fasting. Why is it that I've never heard, myself included, I've never heard anyone say they pray too much or fast too much. We pray too little and we don't fast often enough. And there's wonderful power in prayer and fasting. And when we finally do it, usually it's a crisis that motivates us. There is something wonderful that happens in our souls when we drop to our knees and we get on our face before God and we just pray and we seek his face. And when you join that with fasting, at times, I love. The Puritans used to call fasting soul fattening, because when I deny myself physical food, it fattens my soul. It makes my. My soul stronger in the Lord. And I know that some people can't fast for medical reasons, and I understand that. But if you've ever been able to fast for even. Even if it's just a meal for that day while you pray or, you know, a couple days, it's just a wonderful. And by the way, there's a lot of science behind the health benefits of fasting, too, and the whole resetting of your whole, you know, biological system through fasting. But it is a wonderful way to just kind of deny yourself, seek the Lord and allow the Lord to just move in your heart in a way that without those two disciplines, it just doesn't often happen. And especially if you struggle with fear, fight fear with prayer and fasting, just really come before the Lord, ask him to help you with your fears. And, you know, he either changes your circumstances or he changes your response to your circumstances, but one way or another, he will deal with your fears. And prayer and fasting is a wonderful tool that the two of those together that he has given us. And this is what Joshua does, calls the whole nation to prayer and fasting. They seek the Lord, verse 5. And then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and 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? And do you not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations? And in your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand you? Are you not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham, your friend forever? And they dwell in it and have built you a sanctuary in it for your name, saying, if disaster comes upon us, sword, judgment, pestilence or famine, we will stand before this temple and in your presence, for your name is in this temple and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save. And now here are the people of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt. And but they turned from them and did not destroy them. Here they are rewarding us by coming to throw us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit, O our God. Will you not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us, nor do we know what to do. But our eyes are upon you now. All Judah with their little ones, their wives and their children stood before the Lord. And then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jael, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph in the midst of the assembly. You know why it gives us that long list? He's the son of, the Son of, the son of, the Son of. Because God wants us to know He's a nobody. He's a nobody. And God loves to use nobody so that he gets the glory for it. Jahaziel's name is Yahaziel. Yaha Yah. Yahaz in Hebrew means to see. And l is God. So his name Yahaziel means God sees. And he's about to say what God sees here. So his name is descriptive of what he's about to do here. This is what he says. Verse 15. Listen, all you of Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat. Thus says the Lord to you, do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude. For the battle is not yours, but God's. Isn't that great? We have a lot of songs about that. Right? The battle is not yours but God's. Tomorrow, go down against them. They will surely come up by the ascent of Ziz. And you will find them at the end of the brook before the wilderness of Jeruel. And you will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem, do not fear or be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you. What a great word from the Lord. This is a very great passage to be reminded of when you feel weak or when you feel tired or vulnerable, you. And it's just this simple reminder. The battles we face are God's to fight. The battles we face are God's to fight. He just wants us to trust him. They didn't even have to do anything. They just, like, stand there and watch what the Lord will do. That isn't to say that God doesn't call us to action, but there are times that all he wants us to do is to simply trust him and rely on him and stop trying to fix. Fix it and let God fight the battles for us. Let's. Let's just see. How much longer do we have? It's already 7:30. Let's just see the response here. I won't read the whole chapter, but let's just see a little bit of the response here. And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground. And all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem bowed before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. And then the Levites of the children of the Kohathites and of the children of the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with voices loud and high. And so they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. And as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, hear me, O Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established. Believe his prophets and you shall prosper. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to the Lord and who should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army. So they're out in front and we're saying, praise the Lord for his mercy endures forever. So what does he do here? He puts the worship team out in front of the army. So it's point number three. The worship team is always expendable. Everybody. That's right. No, I'm sorry, that's not the right one. Let me change that. There. There we go. All right. That's better. Like prayer and fasting, worship is a weapon of our warfare. That's the real point I wanted to make. But that always does kind of little amuse me. Just like, okay, put the musicians out in front of the army, let them take the bullets first. But what he's really doing is he's like, you know, we're going to lead with worship because that is the ultimate weapon of our warfare. You couple worship with prayer and fasting. That is the powerful triune weapon that God has given us in fighting whatever we're going through, whether it's our fears or our battles or just whatever the discouragement. I mean, spend time in prayer, spend time fasting, and spend time worshiping the Lord. You say, well, I don't really have a good voice. Just put on worship music, just have it going in your car, going in your house, and just worship the Lord. Listen to worship music, pray and fast, and watch what God will do. Amen. Amen. We'll pick it up there next week, but we're going to go outside and have communion, so let's first have a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we just want to thank you for this time in your word. And Lord, we thank you that you fight for us. You're our father. You care about your children. And just like we as parents would step in to defend our kids, Lord, you do that for us and forgive us when we lose sight of that. And we try to manage everything and solve everything in our own strength, and it often doesn't work unless we really, truly rely on you. And so thank you for the tools of prayer and fasting and worship and how we can come to you and watch you work in ways that are amazing and miraculous. And so, Lord, remind us of these things. Help us to be more disciplined in the areas of prayer and fasting and worship so that we can see you work in ways that we just can't do ourselves. That you would get all the glory, all the praise and all the honor. Thank you for being our Father. Thank you for loving us and caring about everything we go through. And we just love you and give you all the glory, all the praise, all the honor. Jesus, it's in your name that we pray. And everyone said amen and amen.