Let's turn to 2 Chronicles chapter
20. I'm going to read verse 30. 2 Chronicles 20 verse 30. It
says, So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet for the cause his God
gave him rest round about. I've titled this, His God Gave
Him Rest. For the sinner who comes to God,
the sinner who comes to God confessing our sin, our nothingness, our
worthiness, and comes to God confessing we are entirely dependent
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. For that sinner, the battle is
not yours, the battle is God's. And He will give you rest. He will give you rest. Let's
go back up to verse 1 and let's work our way down and see how
Jehoshaphat was given this rest by his God. Verse 1 says, It
came to pass, after this also, Things happened before this.
It came to pass after this also that the children of Moab and
the children of Ammon, and with them others beside the Ammonites,
came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Then there came some that told
Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee
from beyond the sea on this side, Syria. And behold, they be in
Hazen-Zantamar, which is in Jeti. Now, Jehoshaphat was a child
of God. He was a godly king. He was a
believer. That's who Jehoshaphat is. And
then the enemies here represent the enemies of the believer.
Now, we've seen this before that God left us in the midst of enemies,
but the chief enemy, the number one enemy that you and I have
to contend with is that old flesh within us. That's our number
one enemy. In fact, these various people that came up against Jehoshaphat,
they were all his flesh. They were all his kinsmen. They
were Esau's children and Lot's children. They were all his children. All his kindred after the flesh. And that's a picture of this
enemy we have with us. It's of our flesh. That's the
enemy we have. This enemy we have. And the Lord
Jesus prayed and he said, I pray not that thou shouldest take
them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from
the evil. And that's the evil we have to
contend with. It's right here with us. It's our old man of
flesh for the believer. Verse 3 says, And Jehoshaphat
feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast
throughout all Judah. Now these enemies came because
of something that Jehoshaphat had done already prior to this,
which displeased the Lord. It displeased the Lord greatly.
Prior to this, Jehoshaphat had erred by giving help to his enemy,
Ahab, the king of Israel. He gave help to Ahab. Ahab hated
God. He hated God. He was the enemy
of God. He was Jehoshaphat's enemy. brought
Jehoshaphat to see him. And he flattered him greatly.
He gave him this big feast and just entertained him. And then
he said, will you go with me and go up and let's wage war
against Ramoth Gilead. Would you go with me? Let's do
this. Well, Jehoshaphat said, call on the prophets. Let's hear
what they said. Call on the Lord this day, he
said. And they called all these prophets and they all said, go,
go, the Lord's going to deliver them into your hand. And then
Jehoshaphat said, you got any more prophets? Nahab said, yeah,
I've got another prophet. He said, but I hate him. I hate
him. He said, because he never prophesied
good unto me. He never preached smooth things
to me. He always told me evil things. And they brought him
in. He reluctantly called him. They
brought him in. Even the messenger that went to get him Micaiah
was his name, the messenger that went to get him. He said, now
listen, all the prophets that have come before Ahab have all
told him he's going to succeed. You better go up there and tell
him something good. And Micaiah said, I'm going to tell him whatever
the Lord gives me to tell him. That's what I'm going to tell
him. And so Micaiah came in and sure enough he said, the reason
these prophets are telling you you're going to succeed is because
the Lord has sent an evil spirit into them because the Lord's
against you. And you're gonna die when you go up there. You're
gonna die. And you know this story, Ahab
was the man where that fellow fighting on the battlefield drew
back his bow and took a shot at a venture. Ahab's the one
that he killed. Because God said it would happen.
God said it would happen. But the last words that Micaiah,
God's prophet, God's prophet, the last words he said, Jehoshaphat's
sitting right there, he's sitting there in all his kingly regalia
and there's Ahab in all his kingly regalia and the last thing And he's talking to Jehoshaphat
too. And he said, hearken. You better hear what the Lord's
saying. Hearken to the Lord. But Jehoshaphat didn't hearken.
He didn't hearken. He joined Ahab in this war. And the Lord was displeased by
this greatly. He went back home after the war.
Jehoshaphat did went back home to Jerusalem in peace. But look
over there at chapter 19 and verse 2. It says in Yehu, the
son of Hanani, the seer, went out to meet him and said to King
Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that
hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee
from before the Lord. You see, the Lord The Lord will
chase in His people. He will. And that's what He was
doing with Jehoshaphat. But the Lord is teaching Jehoshaphat
and He's teaching us. And this is what I want us to
get tonight. This is the message. This is the lesson. He's teaching
Jehoshaphat and He's teaching us. The only way for a believer
to be established, I'm talking about eternally established,
and in this world, the only way to be established is to believe
in the Lord. To believe Him. And, the only
way to prosper is to hearken to the Lord's prophets. Hearken
to His prophets. That's it. Now this time, God
ordered everything that's taking place and He sanctified this
to Jehoshaphat's heart when he sees his enemies coming up. And
so, therefore, verse 3 says, Jehoshaphat feared. And he set
himself, he set his face to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast
throughout all Judah. He proclaimed to all Judah, he
said, it's time now for everybody to turn away from your everyday
food, your bodily food, turn away from your jobs, turn away
from everything that you're doing. No matter how important it is,
it's time now to drop all this stuff and it's time now to seek
the Lord. It's time to seek the Lord. That's
what a true fast is. A true fast is simply turning
from this body, turning from our earthly food, turning from
our earthly things, our earthly work, and seeking the Lord. That's what a true fast is. So
the first thing we see, this is the first thing we see. The
Lord uses our enemies to draw His child to Himself. Look at
verse 4. And Judah gathered themselves
together to ask help of the Lord. Even out of all the cities of
Judah, they came to seek the Lord. Now, what do I mean when
I say the Lord uses our enemies to make us, to draw us to Him?
I mean that until God gives you and me a need, we're not going
to seek God for salvation. Until He gives us a need, we're
not going to seek Him for salvation. He has to reveal our sin in us. That's where we're going to seek
Him. When God reveals to one of His lost children that He's
a sinner, that's where it starts. He's going to reveal that He's
a sinner. And then for you and I who believe, we go, we get
to being like Jehoshaphat. We get to thinking that we know
what's best and we stop listening to God's prophets and we stop
listening, and by that we stop listening to the Word of God.
And the wrath of the Lord comes upon us. His chastening hand
comes upon His child. So the Lord uses our sin and
our rebellion He brings it to us. He shows us. He reveals it
to us. Just like those enemies came up over the horizon and
somebody came and told Him about all these enemies coming. The
Lord makes us see our enemies. And it's in us. It's what we've
done. It's our sin. It's our flesh. And we see three
reasons here that He does it. He does it to gather His children
together. Verse 4 said, Judah gathered themselves together.
For believers, the sufferings that we endure individually,
they're going to gather us together with the Lord's people. You see,
Jehoshaphat declared this fast, and this was a national political,
I mean, a fast declared by the king. But whenever Christ is
dealing with His child and the Spirit of God is teaching us
in our heart, we don't need a fast to be declared. because He speaks
in our hearts and He makes us to see our sin and He turns us
from everything else and brings us together with His people.
You know why you came here tonight? Why are you fasting tonight from
your jobs and from being at home and from all the other things
you do during the week and you come here? Because God has revealed
something to you of your sin and made you to see something
of your sin. Those of you that have come here to truly worship
Him, And that's what he does. That's how he gathers his people
together. And any other trial that comes
upon one of his children, God's tempered the body together. He
put it together that the members should have the same care one
for another. And so if one suffers, all the
members suffer with it. And if one member's honored,
all the members are honored with it. So we're of the body of Christ
and we're members together of one another of that body. Members
in particular. So this is how He reveals our
sin. He reveals our trial. He gives
us trials to keep us gathered together. And then God reveals
our sin and He sends trials to make His child individually.
Each of us asked the Lord for help. Verse 4 says they asked
help of the Lord. You won't ask help of the Lord
until you see that you can't save yourself. That's just simple. You know, believer, we did not
ask God for anything until God made us see we couldn't help
ourselves. We couldn't, we were absolutely,
totally helpless to help ourselves. That's when we asked God for
help. And it's true of every believer. We go through this
life and we really don't seek the Lord and we really don't
pray to the Lord and ask for help until God brings us again
in to see we can't help ourselves. We can't get out of this. That's
when we really ask the Lord then. And then when God sanctifies
the trial in our hearts and He makes us to see our sin, to see
our need, to see this great trial to come upon us, He turns us
from this world to Him. Look at verse 4. They came even
out of all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord. They
came out of those cities. Whatever it was they were doing,
whatever was so important, they dropped it. and they left those
cities and they came to seek the Lord. That's a picture. When a worldly man faces his
sin, when he begins to see something of it, or he comes into a trial,
you know what he does? He gets himself extra busy. He
just takes on more of a load. So he can put it out of his mind
and forget about it and not think about it. Because he don't want
to think about God, he don't want to think about his sin,
he don't want to think about the future when he's going to
face God in judgment. And he puts it out of his mind.
But the believer, when God forces the believer to confront his
sin and confront our trial, he forces us to hit our face. He
forces us to come to him. We don't come, it's not that
we don't come willingly, we come willingly, but it's only because
He has forced us to do it. He shut up our way, hedged us
about with thorns and forced us to do it. And then we'll come
to Him, and we see that nothing in this world is more important,
and we'll drop everything and come to Him. So when our sin
becomes obvious to us, and when we face trials, brethren, don't
try to become busy. Don't try to put it out of your
mind. Instead, hear God's voice in it. Hear God's voice in it
and drop everything and set ourselves to seek the Lord and ask help
from Him. That's the end of it. That's
why God's given it. Alright, secondly, if we would
receive salvation, if we would be saved of the Lord, there's
only one place this salvation is going to be found and that's
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot expect salvation any
other place but Christ. God will not hear us except we
come in the Son of God, God the Son, the God-man, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look at verse 5. And Jehoshaphat
stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the house
of the Lord before the new court. Drop down to verse 8. He said,
when God delivered them into the land, this is what happened.
Verse 8. They dwelt therein, and have built thee a sanctuary.
A sanctuary, the Holy of Holies in that house. And he said, therein,
they built a sanctuary therein for thy name. For thy name, saying,
If, when evil cometh upon us, as the sore judgment, pestilence,
or famine, and we stand before this house, and in thy presence,
for thy name is in this house, and we cry unto thee in our affliction,
then thou wilt hear and help. This house, this temple that
had been built, within it, it had a holy of holies. And within
that holy of holies, there was an ark of the covenant. There
was the broken law in there, and Aaron's rod that budded,
and the manna that came down. But over that broken law, there
was a mercy seat. And that's where they put the
blood. And God said, that's where I'll meet you. I'll meet you
on that mercy seat. Right there, from above that
mercy seat is where I'll meet you. And that's why this house,
I'm telling you, is a type of Christ. Because that holy place,
that holiest of holies, is where Christ is. It's in God's presence. And He's there with His own blood
that He shed. And He's there as our mercy seat.
And that's the only one that God will meet us. He'll meet
us in Him, but only in Him. Only in Him. Christ is the true
temple. He said, destroy this temple.
Speaking of Himself, destroy this temple in three days, I'll
build it again. He's the true temple. And then Hebrews 8.1
says, of the things which we've spoken, this is the psalm, we
have such a high priest who sat on the right hand of the throne
of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary.
That's the sanctuary. That's the Holy of Holies where
he is. And he's a minister of the true tabernacle which the
Lord pitched and not man. So these things were pictures.
This house was a picture. It was to show us an example
of heavenly things. And so Christ is the believer's
mercy seat. That's where God meets with His
people. That's where He justifies His people. That's where He makes
His people righteous. That's where He sanctifies His
people. That's where He communes with His people. That's where
He helps His people is in Christ the Lord. Look at verse 9. If,
when evil cometh upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence,
or famine, if we stand before this house, and in thy presence,
for thy name is in this house, and cry unto thee in our affliction,
then thou wilt hear in hell." That's something along those
lines. Close to that is what Solomon said when he dedicated
the temple. This was the word of the Lord.
This is what the Lord said. I'll meet with you here. I'll
meet with you. The glory of the Lord filled
that house. Well, the glory of the Lord fills Christ. That's
where He is. And sinner, when God brings you
into judgment, these four things here picture judgment. And when
God brings you into judgment and begins to give you some spiritual
discernment, He's going to show you the sword of His justice. He's going to show you that sword
that demands that you must pay up You owe eternal death. That's
what you owe. Eternal death. The wages of sin
is death. And then you're going to see
the judgment of God. He's going to make you to see
the fierceness of His wrath against sin. He's going to make you to
see that what you owe God is eternal suffering. for our sin. He's going to make you see the
pestilence of your own sin that's eating up everything before that
you thought, oh, look at this wonderful robe of righteousness
I've weaved out for myself. You know a little moth will eat
that up. A little moth will eat up fabric. And whatever we've woven out
for ourselves, God's going to make us see that our sin is the
pest. It's the pestilence that has
eaten up the whole fabric of our little robe of righteousness
so that it doesn't count for anything. And God's going to
make us see that we have a famine of true bread. We're without
Christ. We're without hope. We're without
God in this world. That's when That's when you'll
come to Christ. When God makes you see these
things. And God's name's in Christ. God's presence is in Christ.
We've got to come in Christ. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among
men whereby we must be saved. God has freely chosen His people
in Christ. God has freely justified His
elect in Christ by grace apart from any works or any merit in
His people. Christ has come forth and done
the work and put away the sin of His people. God is righteous. He has satisfied His own justice,
the justice of His own law by Himself in His Son. And God is now just. to show
mercy to his people. That's the righteousness of God
revealed at the cross. That's the gospel. That's not
part of it, that is it. That is the gospel. That's the
gospel. That's what this whole book is
declaring. God has set forth Christ to be a propitiation,
to be a mercy seed. Saying this is where I'm going
to meet with you and the only way I'm going to meet with you
in Him is through faith in His That is to say, I believe what
you've been telling me, Father. I believe He put away my sin.
I believe He justified me. I believe I'm righteous in Him.
I believe I'm complete in Him. I believe everything you've said
is true. I'm the sinner. He's righteous.
And by your grace, you've saved me and your son. And God will
meet with you. He'll meet with you. He'll commune
with you. Right there. Because the only
way God can commune with us is in righteousness. Our sins have
got to be dealt with. And we've got to be made righteous
and holy to come to God, for Him to have communion with us.
God's holy. He's righteous. And He can't have communion and
fellowship with somebody who's unholy and unrighteous. Therefore,
this is what I can assure you, if God's given you a willingness
to come to Christ and a willingness to cast your care into His hand,
then most assuredly when you cry out to Him with all your
affliction, God will hear and God will help. That's certain. The same is true of you and I,
believer. In our trials when we sin, He brings us to Him.
Look at 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2. Look at verse 1. My little children,
these things write unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin,
don't sin, but when you do, We have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous. And He is the, you see this next
word, propitiation for our sins. He's the mercy seeker. He's the
place of mercy. He's the reason God can forgive
us of our sins and have mercy on us when we sin, because He's
put them all away. He's put them all away. And not
for ours only, but also for the sins of His elect people all
over the world. all over the world. Let us therefore
come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help in time of need. Come to Christ. They
came to that house. They said, Lord, you promised.
You promised. We come to Christ. We say, Lord,
you promised. Alright, here's the third thing
we see. We see what a true broken heart is. We see what a true
contrite heart is. Right here. This is the cry of
the heart that God has broken. The cry of the heart God has
made contrite. First of all, it's this. It's
acknowledging God's holiness. Look at verse 6. And this is
what they said. And said, and said, O Lord our
God, O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? You know what they just said?
They said what the Lord Jesus told us to say when we come to
His presence. They said, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name. You see, when He makes us to
see our sin, He shows us His holiness. And then when we start
praying to Him, we stop coming in and speaking as if we're somebody. We come to Him acknowledging
He's holy and we're sinners. Remember that publican? He wouldn't
even as much as lift up his face, his eyes to heaven, but smote
upon his breast. He knew something of the holiness
of God. And then, secondly, it's a cry which praises God's sovereign
will to do as He pleases. Look at verse 6. He says, "...and
rulest thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? And in thy hand
is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand
thee?" You see, all the things that made men reject God before,
We thought we were righteous. Now we come and we confess we're
sinners and He's holy. We didn't want God to have His
will. Now we come and say, Lord, You can do what You please. You're
sovereign. Your will is sovereign. You rule
the kingdoms of this earth and over the heathen. In your hand
is power and might. None can stop it. We come before
confessing, Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven
and in earth and in the seas and all deep places. And we say
what the Lord said in the Garden of Gethsemane, Not my will, but
Thy will be done. That's a broken heart. Alright,
here's a broken and contrite heart. We come pleading This,
His everlasting covenant grace. Look at verse 7. Let me see here. Verse 7, Are it not thou our
God who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people
Israel? We come confessing that our God
has accomplished our redemption. He's driven out the enemy. And
He's done it simply because He made us His people. He's our
God because He made us His people, thy people Israel, not based
on any good or evil in us. You go home tonight and you read
Romans 9. Those two twins, Jacob and Esau, they were in their
mother's womb. They hadn't done any good or
evil. They hadn't done anything whatsoever whereby they might
be said, well, this one's going to be better than that one. Nothing.
They had done nothing that the purpose of God, according to
election, might stand. Not of him that willeth, but
of him that calleth. It was said, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. God chooses whom He will. And
look at verse 7. He says, and you gave it to us. You gave it. We come confessing
that this salvation that God has given us is a free gift of
God. He gave it. He gave it. We didn't earn it.
We didn't merit. He gave it. And then look at
verse 7. You gave it to the seed of Abraham,
thy friend. We plead His covenant promise.
This is what He promised Abraham. I'll give it to your seed, Abraham.
And specifically that He gave it to Christ. He gave the inheritance
to Christ, the seed. And Christ gives it to all the
children of promise, all the elect. He divides it with us.
And if you be Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs
according to the promise. That's how we're children of
God. Look down at that last little word in verse 7. Forever. We're
pleading His covenant grace. His covenant grace is forever.
Because He purposed it. He made it. He made His counsel,
this covenant, in eternity. And it's as eternal as He is
eternal. It wasn't based on anything in
us. It's based on what He would do. It's as eternal as He is.
So it's forever for His people. And we plead God's glory. We
plead His glory. Now listen to this carefully.
We plead His glory. If our enemies destroy, if they
take from us the inheritance God's given to us, if they steal
away our inheritance, drive us away from our inheritance, they
first destroy God's possession and then take it from us. Now
look at verse 10. And now behold the children of
Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom thou wouldst not let Israel
invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned
from them and destroyed them not. Behold, I say, how they
reward us to come to cast us out of thy possession." You see
that? They come to cast us out of thy
possession, Lord, which thou hast given us to inherit. So
we plead God's glory. This is a broken heart. We're
not pleading anything about us. We're pleading His holiness.
We're pleading His sovereign will. We're pleading His covenant
grace. We're pleading His free electing
grace. We're pleading His mercy. We're
pleading His glory. We're saying, Father, if they
come and destroy us, if my sins turn me from You and drive me
out of this inheritance, it's Your glory. It's Your glory that's
going to be tainted by this. And then look, we plead our total
inability, our total inability, and we plead that we're totally
trusting God. Look at verse 12. Oh our God,
wilt thou not judge them? Will you not take care of our
enemies? For we have no might, we got no power, we got no strength
against this great company that cometh against us. Neither know
we what to do. We don't have any wisdom either.
We don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee. Now that's what we're going to
pray if our hearts are broken. If He's done this work and broken
our heart. I'm talking about me and you
believer, as well as you who don't know Him yet. If He breaks
your heart, if He's broken ours believer, this is how we're going
to come to it. This is what we're going to come,
how we're going to come. acknowledging His holiness, pleading
His grace, asking His will be done, pleading and acknowledging
we have no wisdom and no strength, and we're going to depend solely
upon Him to save us. And that sinner who comes that
way in Christ Jesus, you know what's going to happen? God's
going to hear him. God's going to hear him. We're saying, we
trust you. We trust you. So sinner, don't
be like those enemies. The Lord passed by them and didn't
destroy them when He sent His people into the land. And there
they got space now to repent. But did they? No. They come and
wage war against God and against His people. And I'm telling you
this, as long as you are sitting there right now, every minute
that you're sitting there thinking, I'm not all that bad." Or sitting
there thinking, well, I've done some pretty good things. That
ought to count for something. Or sitting there thinking, well,
you know, I was baptized way back yonder and I was sitting
under a freewill Armenian religion and didn't hear God. I was hearing
about a stump. Or sit there and think that,
well, I just think I'm a Christian. You take his name in vain. And every minute we do these
things, looking to a God that can't save, looking to the God
of our imagination, every minute we do that, we're waging war
against God and against His people. Every minute. That's what Christ
said. Christ said this. He said, He that's not with me
is against me, and he that gathers not with me scattereth abroad.
That's what He said. Don't despise the riches of His
goodness. Don't despise His forbearance
and His long-suffering. Don't treasure up because of
the hardness and the impenitent, the heart that will not repent.
Don't treasure up wrath against the day of wrath because there's
coming a day when God's going to judge this world in righteousness
by His Son. And if all I've done is deny
the truth and will not come broken and contrite, God won't have
me. He won't have me. But these enemies, they're one
more proof God's got to draw us. Christ said, no man can come
to Me except the Father which has sent Me to draw him, and
I'll raise him up at the last day. Alright, here's the fourth
thing we see in this. God promises to save those that
come to God through Christ Jesus, confessing their sin and depending
upon Him. He promises to do it. We see
here He will. Look at verse 13. All Judah stood
before the Lord with their little ones and their wives and their
children. And then upon Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son
of Benaiah, the son of Jehiel, the son of Metaniah, Levite of
the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the
congregation." God always saves by sending the good news through
His prophet in the midst of the congregation. He always does
it. Jehaziel means beheld of God. That's what his name means. And
that's the good news. God's preacher comes declaring
because of God's grace in Christ, because of Christ's redemption,
because of God the Holy Spirit's work, God's beheld you. He's
beheld you. He's been watching you the whole
time you've been in your rebellion. He's been guiding your step,
protecting you from your enemies, and now He's brought you to Himself.
And He's going to save you from yourself. And Jahaziel has nothing
to boast of because the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. He
didn't have anything to boast of. Neither do any of God's preachers. It's God the Holy Spirit that
gives the message from God the Father through Christ Jesus to
His messenger. And then it's God the Holy Spirit
that makes that word effectual in the hearts of His people when
it comes forth so that they bow and obey the Lord. But we have
this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power
might be of God, not of us. The prophet here is a picture
of Christ Jesus who teaches us through the gospel. What's all
this big to do about the necessity of hearing the gospel preached?
Why did it please God to do that? Because men like King Jehoshaphat
who go up the ladder a little more in this world, it feeds
our flesh. And we begin to think we don't
have to bow to anybody. We can come to God how we want
to, when we want to, where we want to, and to have to sit down
and have a nobody with none of your great and mighty credentials
to stand in front of you and to declare the Word of God to
you It forces you to bow. It forces you to submit. Because
the one we're really submitting to is God. We're really submitting
to Christ. And the man that won't submit
to God's preacher and hear him preach, he's not submitting to
God either. That's what Jehoshaphat did in
the beginning. He wouldn't hear Micaiah. And so he joined with
Ahab and said, this seems like a better idea to me. We'll go
up there and fight. Let's go up there and fight. Now look,
here's the good news, verse 15. And he said, now watch what he
said. This is going to prove what I
just said to you. Watch what this prophet of God
said. He said, hearken ye, all Judah,
and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou King Jehoshaphat. Now
you hearken. That's what he said to you. You
hearken. This king wasn't used to bowing to anybody. King Jehoshaphat,
he's a godly man, but I'm saying kings aren't used to bowing to
anybody. And now he said, now you're going to have to listen.
Listen. See how what I'm saying, that stains the pride of a man,
but that's good for a believer. That's good for him. Keeps us
bowed to God. Now look. Thus saith the Lord
unto you, be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude,
for the battle's not yours, but God's. Hearken ye, hear God's
prophet, and believe in God. That's what he's saying. All
Judah, ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you Jehoshaphat, wherever
God's chosen child is, whatever city, whatever condition, whatever
the situation, and whatever his station in life, no matter how
high, He says, all hear this. Thus saith the Lord unto you,
be not afraid, don't be dismayed, don't be confounded by reason
of the multitude of your sins, the multitude of your transgressions,
the multitude of your enemies. Don't fall into confusion. You
need perfect fulfillment of the law. That's the enemy you can't
conquer. You need justification from all
your sin. That's the enemy you can't conquer. You need a perfect
righteousness. That's the enemy you can't conquer.
You need sanctification of the Spirit into Christ. That's an
enemy you can't conquer. You need redemption from every
enemy. That's an enemy you can't conquer. You need temporal provision.
You need strength just to stay on Christ. That's an enemy we
can't conquer. Thus saith the Lord, the battle
is not yours. It's not yours, but God's. Who's going to do this? God is.
God is. As it is written, for thy sake
we're killed all the day long. We're counted as sheep for the
slaughter. But in all these things, we're more than conquerors through
Him that loved us. Through Christ. The arm of the
flesh is with our enemies, but with us is the Lord. With us
is the Lord God to help us. He said, not by might, not by
power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. The battle
is the Lord's. This may surprise you, this may
surprise some here, but God gives us something that we must do
which proves that we believe Him. He does. He gives us something
we must do that proves that we believe God. Look at the next
verse, verse 16. Tomorrow go ye down against them. Behold, they come up by the cliff
of Zis, and you shall find them at the end of the brook before
the wilderness of Jeruel." God knows right where His enemies
are, right where our enemies are. And He says, you shall not
need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand you still,
and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Fear not, nor be dismayed. Tomorrow
go out against them, for the Lord will be with you. Now listen
carefully, the works, faith itself, and the works of faith, works
which accompany faith, which prove that we believe God, works
which justify us before men, that we truly believe God, are
not works we do whereby we try to win the battle ourselves by
our works. They're works which prove that
we believe God is able that he has, he is, and he shall win
the battle for us. That's what these works prove.
They're works like this. Go down. Go down. Stand in front of your enemy,
but don't fight. Don't fight. No need for you
to fight. Set yourself and stand still. and see the salvation
of the Lord with you. You see, these are works a man
can't do unless he's got true faith. Because these works require
us to do nothing. And a man that's not born of
God and given faith cannot, there's one thing he can't do. He can't
do nothing. He cannot make himself stop working
for righteousness. He's got to do something. He's
got to put his hand to the work. But the works whereby God proves
before men that we truly believe God is, are works whereby we
stand still and wait on the Lord and see the salvation of the
Lord. This required some activity. It required them to go forward
and face their enemy. We don't just sit on our hands.
We face our enemy. But we do so trusting God is
going to conquer it. God's going to conquer it. And
then we see God makes this word effectual in the hearts of His
people. Verse 18. And Jehoshaphat bowed his head
with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. God's
effectual grace makes us submit to God. That's what they did.
This is submission of the heart. They did this outwardly because
this was their heart. God's grace works this effectually. Secondly,
God's Grace effectually makes us praise God. Verse 19 says
of those Levites there that they stood up to praise the Lord God
of Israel with a loud voice on high. Because we got no reason
to praise ourselves. We stop boasting in ourselves
and we praise God. We glory in Him. That's what
God's grace works. And in God's grace makes us obedient
to the Lord. Verse 20 says the next morning,
they rose early in the morning and went forth into the wilderness
of Tekoa. They did what the Lord told them to do. They did. They did. Beforehand, when Jehoshaphat
joined with Ahab, we see what any one of us will do if left
to ourselves. We'll ignore God's preacher,
and by that, we'll ignore God's Word. We'll ignore His Word. And by that, we'll go on and
do what we determine we're going to do anyway, and the wrath of
God will come upon us. That's what Jehoshaphat did before.
But now, in what Jehoshaphat does, we see what any of us will
do when God works grace in our heart. Verse 20, And as they
went forth, Jehoshaphat stood, and he said, They're all going
forth that morning. Jehoshaphat stops them. Something
came to his mind. He remembered something from
way back there when he was with Ahab, and he stopped them, and
he said, Boys, y'all listen to this. Hear me. O Judah, and you
inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God, so shall
you be established. Believe His prophets, so shall
you prosper." He got the lesson, didn't he? He got it. Not for
very long, because if you read out the rest of the chapter,
he did another bonehead stunt not very long from here. But,
because we got to be taught over and over. But He got it for now.
He got it for now. He got it for now. Believe in
the Lord your God. That's how we're going to be
established. And listen to the Word of the God delivered through
His preachers. That's how we're going to prosper.
That's how we're going to grow in grace and knowledge of Him.
Alright, here's the sixth thing. God destroys our enemies just
like He promised. And He uses our enemies to destroy
our enemies. Look at verse 21. When he had
consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord,
that they should praise the beauty of holiness. That's what he told
them to do, praise the beauty of holiness. That's Christ, the
beauty of holiness. And as they went out before the
army, and they were saying, praise the Lord for His mercy endureth
forever. Picture the gospel being preached,
of praises being sung, of Christ being gloried in by His people.
This is how the victory is going to be won. And while they're
doing that, look at what the Lord did. And when they began
to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children
of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah,
and they were smitten. You know what happened? The Lord,
here they come, here comes Ammon and Moab, and here comes Mount
Seir from another direction. And the Lord put it in the hearts
of Moab and Ammon. They're looking out there and
they see Mount Seir coming, and the Lord put it in their hearts.
That's Judah and Jerusalem. That's the one we came to conquer.
And so they ambushed them. They ambushed people in Confederacy
with them. And when they did, Mount Seir
went to fight against them. And this whole battle erupted
on the battlefield. Everybody shooting and trying
to stab everybody. And this is what happened. The
children of Ammon and Moab, verse 23, stood up against the inhabitants
of Mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them. And when they
had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, everyone helped to destroy
another. They all destroyed each other.
And the children of Israel were just standing there singing,
Praise the Lord, His mercy endures forever. That's all they're doing.
And no enemies out there killing one another, right in front of
them. And thinking they're killing God's people. That's what happens
through the Gospel. That's what happens through the
Gospel. Verse 24, And when Judah came toward them, look down at
the end of that verse, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth,
and there was none escaped. None of them. Killed them all.
Everyone of them. Destroyed every one of their
enemies. And used their enemies to do it. And then here's the
seventh thing. Christ divides the spoil of His
victories with His people, and He gives us rest. Verse 25 says,
When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of
them, they found among them in abundance both riches with dead
bodies and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves
more than they could carry away. And they were three days in gathering
of the spoil. It was so much. You know what
we're doing in these three days that Christ has been gone and
we're waiting for Him to come back? We've been gathering the
spoils of His victory. He'd been loading us down with
riches. That's what He's been doing.
That's what He's been doing. Because He's destroyed our enemies.
And He'll divide the spoiled with the strong. You know who
the strong are? They're those that got absolutely
no strength in themselves. That's who the strong are. And
He's dividing the spoiled with them. And on the fourth day,
they assembled themselves in the valley of Berasha. It means
blessing. For there they blessed the Lord.
They praised Him. They thanked Him. They gloried
in Him in that valley. And then they returned, verse
27, every man of Judah and Jerusalem and Jehoshaphat in the forefront
of them to go again to Jerusalem with joy. For the Lord had made
them to rejoice over their enemies. You know where we're going, believer?
We're going to Jerusalem. We're headed to heaven's Jerusalem
right now. We're walking together. We're
headed there right now and we're rejoicing as we go because God
has made us rejoice over all our enemies. And you know who
we're going to get to? You know who we're going to see
when we get to where we're going? Look here. And they came, verse
28, and they came to Jerusalem with psalteries and harps and
trumpets unto the house of the Lord. You remember who that house
picture is? We're coming to Christ. We're
going to meet Christ. That's who we're going to meet
when we get there. Christ, who gave us that victory. Verse 29,
"...and the fear of God..." This is important. Get this verse
right here now. We've got two more verses. This is important.
Everybody get with me. You've got to get this verse. Verse 29, "...and the fear of
God was on all the kingdoms of those countries when they heard
that the Lord fought against the enemies of Israel." That's
so important. Our enemies will not fear. They
will not fear. If they hear that we won the
victory by our strength, they won't fear. They won't fear. But when they hear that the Lord
fought against our enemies, they're going to fear. That's what's
going to make them fear. So, that's why we must trust
the Lord and walk by faith and not by sight. Walk by His strength,
not by our strength. Walk by His wisdom, not our wisdom.
Because we won't accomplish our mission, our enemies won't fear. They'll never have the fear of
God put in their hearts if we're doing things by our hand rather
than trusting Him and waiting on Him. And here's the last verse. This is what we have. So the
realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet. For his God gave him rest round
about. So much different than that time
before when he looked to his own. This time the Lord gave
him rest round about. Amen.