May it please God to bless us
together this evening as we meditate in his word. Let's turn to the
second book of the Chronicles, chapter 20, and we'll read verse
17. The second book of the Chronicles,
chapter 20, and reading verse 17. Ye shall not need to fight
in this battle. Set yourselves, stand ye 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. As we read such an account as
this, we know the result. And we know, of course, there
was a wonderful victory. And we know that the Lord gloriously
appeared for Judah and the residents of Jerusalem. But we should recognize
that, of course, when there was the appearance of these Moabites
and the Ammonites coming to battle with Jehoshaphat, He knew not
what the outcome would be. And it appeared a very difficult
situation, a very difficult scene. But we should be very thankful
that we have in the Word of God an example of how we should behave
ourselves. Now, we should not always anticipate
that the result will be the same as it was here In the case of
Jehoshaphat, it may be. But nonetheless, we have a good
example on how to behave ourselves. Because Jehoshaphat feared, and
what did he do? He set himself to seek the Lord,
and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. He didn't begin to
think how the battle should be fought. No, he turned first of
all to the Lord. And that should be a wonderful
example for us today. In whatever scene we find ourselves,
whatever battle there may appear to be before us, as there may
be enemies rising up against us and we may be tempted to try
and plan a solution. Well, behold what Jehoshaphat
did. He set himself to seek the Lord
and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. That means everyone
was involved in this situation. And so how important it is to
realize that you and I today, faced with any difficulty, are
to immediately come and to seek the Lord. And therefore, we're
told, Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord. Even out of all the cities of
Judah, they came to seek the Lord. It must have been a wonderful
situation, mustn't it? See, all those people coming
together with the one object of seeking the Lord, and seeking
for his direction, his guidance, and his blessing. And a Jehoshaphat stood in the
congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before
the new court. And what did he do? He prayed
to God. And the people were there, young
and old, to hear his prayer. And said, O Lord God of our fathers,
art not thou God in heaven? And rulest not thou over all
the kingdoms of the heathen? In thine hand is there not yet
power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Art not thou our God? Who didst
drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel,
and gavest it to the seed of Abraham, thy friend, forever? And they dwelt therein. and have
built this sanctuary therein for thy name saying. And it's good you see because
what does he do? He refers to the time when the
tabernacle was erected and God was with them and then perhaps
when the temple was erected and God was with them and how there
were those prayers put up. And those prayers really came
like this. if when evil cometh upon us as
the sore judgment or pestilence or famine, we stand before the
house and in thy presence, for thy name is in this house, and
cry unto thee in our affliction, then they will hear and help. It's a good thing to be able
to come to God and to remind God graciously and humbly of
his promises. Sometimes we forget the promises
of God, perhaps to ourselves, and also recorded in the Word
of God. But those promises are there to be pleaded. And you and I should come and
plead the promises of God, that he were indeed here. And having
pleaded that, Jehoshaphat then points out the problem. 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 that come to cast us out of
thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit." He's almost
chiding God that they weren't allowed to actually fight them
then, and now they've risen up against us. He says, O our God,
wilt thou not judge them? For we have no might against
this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what
to do, but our eyes are upon thee. And that's a very safe
thing to do, to come looking to the Lord. And it's wonderful
to read that it wasn't just Joshua, we read, and all Judah stood
before the Lord with their little ones, their wives and their children. You see, the little ones, the
babies, the small ones, were not exempt. They weren't saying,
well, you're not old enough, you better stay in your tent at home.
They all came together. And it's a good directive to
us, isn't it, to remember that all should come before the Lord
and to worship Almighty God. And then you see, the Lord had
a wonderful way to deliver. And God's ways are higher than
our ways. And be sure of this, when God
appears, when God delivers, he will get honour and glory to
himself. And quite clearly, this is what
happened on this occasion, a very remarkable deliverance a deliverance
that Jehoshaphat, no doubt, and all the people could not have
imagined. And yet it was a wonderful deliverance. And the blessing was, what had
they been blessed with? Faith in God. Faith in God. My friends, may you and I have
faith in God. I want to go through this in
a moment just in a natural way, and I want to then return to
it in a spiritual way. But let's just continue the natural
way for a moment. Because then there was this man,
a Levite, Jehuziel, who was raised up to prophesy and to speak of
those things which would occur. And we read what he said, hearken
ye, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou King Jehoshaphat,
thus saith the Lord unto you, be not afraid nor dismayed by
reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours,
but God's. Well, that was encouraging, wasn't
it? And you see, that should be encouraging to us, to realize
that the battles that you and I perhaps have to face And we
may be tempted to get engaged ourselves and to try and deliver
ourselves by our own logic and our own skill. Well, let us come
like this to our God. And so here we have Jahaziel
saying, hearken ye, O Judah. and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem
and King Jehoshaphat, thus saith the Lord unto you, be not afraid,
nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle
is not yours, but God's. And really, that's always the
case. It's always the case. It's a good job when we do understand
it as such, when we leave off trying to solve the problems
ourselves. You know, we can worry ourselves
sick sometimes we're trying to solve the problem, rather than committing it to
the Lord and believing that he will appear. Quite clearly that's
how Jehoshaphat came. He said he didn't know what to
do and he committed it to God. It's good when we do that, isn't
it? We come honestly before our God and say, I don't know what
to do, Lord. What shall I do? And then you
see the Lord appeared. He'd given up hope in himself.
He'd given up hope in his own wisdom. He was the king and he
was a clever man. We see him now dispensing with
that and coming to God. And so then this direction is
given. Tomorrow go you down against
them, behold they come up, by the cliff of Ziz, and ye shall
find them at the end of the brook before the wilderness of Jerul. And then the 17th verse, ye shall
not need to fight in this battle. Really? How can that be? We won't need a fight. We've
never had a battle or we've never fought. That's what the prophet
said. You shall not need to fight in
this battle. Well, it's good, you see, when
we are blessed with faith to follow the Lord's direction. Here was the direction of God
to these people. And did they say, well, that's
ridiculous, man. We're not going to do that. How
can that happen? Well, the word of the Lord came
in this way when he said, ye shall not need to fight in this
battle. What a blessing then to have such a God. Set yourselves
You see they were to set themselves, they were to get their armor
on, get their swords ready, but then they were to stand still. They were to stand still and
see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Not a natural thing was it to
do. In battle to come, get yourself equipped, and then stand still. the direction of God. It was
what he would do. And we may ask the question,
why should it fall out like this? Well, very clearly that the battle
was to be the Lord's. He was to gain the victory. And
there was to be no ability of man in it at all. The Lord was
to get all the honour and all the glory. And it was a complete
victory. It is when the Lord fights for
us. When the battle is the Lord's, it doesn't fail. And so we see
these words, set yourselves standing still and see the salvation of
the Lord with you. They were able to look on. It's
a wonderful thing, you know, when we can look on. You may
remember it was so in the judges. when Menah and his wife, you
see, what do they do? The Lord did wondrously and they
just looked on. They just looked on. It's good
when we're able to just look on and see God and his great
and glorious work. Stand ye still and see the salvation
of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. And then he concludes
and says, fear not, nor be dismayed, to encourage them again. Fear
not and be not dismayed. Yes, because God was indeed with
them. Tomorrow, go out against them,
for the Lord will be with you. What confidence there was. There
was the word of the Lord. Now you might think, now Jehoshaphat,
what's your reaction? What are the people going to
do? What are they going to say to such a strange view and such
a strange command as this? Are they going to object? You
know, there were many occasions in the Word of God when people
have disobeyed the Lord, when they've got in their own strength
and they've failed, haven't they? But here the people were before
the Lord. And what did Jehoshaphat do? He bowed his head with his face
to the ground. And all Judah and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshipping the Lord. What a wonderful scene that must
have been. What were they? They were totally
submissive to the Lord God. It's a good example, isn't it,
for us today to realise and to be blessed with submission to
the will of God, even when it may seem naturally a ridiculous
stance to take. And yet you see God was with
them and they had grace to hear and to obey the word of God. How wonderful it is when God
gives us grace and strength and will to obey the voice of God. and not to lean to our own understanding. It's very easy for us to lean
to our own understanding, but that wasn't the visa. They were
to do the will of God and they quite clearly concurred and agreed
with it. Starting with Jehoshaphat, the
king himself, that great warrior, here he was then now, told to
stand still. bowed his head with his face
to the ground, and all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem
fell before the Lord, worshipping him. And then it's very interesting
to see what followed, what directions were then given. And the Levites
and the children of the Kohathites and the children of the Kohai
stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on
high. God had given directions, strange
directions. And did they turn and say, well,
we're not sure about this and we'll just wait and see, we'll
see what develops? No. They praised the Lord with
a loud voice on high for the position that they'd been instructed
in. They didn't doubt it, did they? How sad it is today, we so often
doubt our God. And then we are surprised when
things don't come to pass, because we doubt what God has said. Well, these Judah and men of
Jerusalem, they didn't doubt the Word of God. And they therefore
stood up to praise the Lord with a loud voice. And they rose early
in the morning and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa.
And as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah,
and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God,
so shall ye be established. What gracious words they were,
and how necessary they were, and they are to us today, my
friends. Two, believe in the Lord your God. Surely we suffer
very often from that great sin of unbelief, one of the cardinal
sins, the sin of unbelief. Well here, Jehoshaphat encourages
them and says, believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be
established. Believe his prophets, so should
he prosper. It's common sense, isn't it?
And yet you see the devil turns us away. Now, this wasn't rash. This wasn't blind faith. This
was living faith, believing the word of God. What a mercy it
is if God gives us that faith to believe the Word of God. And when he had consulted with
his people, he appointed singers unto the Lord that they should
praise the beauty of holiness. The beauty of holiness, the things
of God. So they went out before the army
and to say, praise the Lord for his mercy endured forever. No clearer confidence in God
than that, was there? Testifying of the greatness of
God, bringing honour and glory to God. And that surely is the
must-be and should-be, the great desire of each one of us, to
praise the Lord and to bring honour to His name and to have
that confidence in Him. And so this is exactly what these
Israelites did. They praised the Lord for His
mercy endureth forever. And when they began to sing and
to praise the Lord, The Lord set ambushments against the children
of Ab and Moab and Mount Seir. And of course we know that they
then fought among themselves. And they were completely destroyed. Completely destroyed. The Lord gained a great victory. Jehoshaphat and the army had
nothing to do, just to praise the Lord. and to praise him for
all that he had done. Well, it's a wonderful testimony,
my friends, for us today. We may think, well, of course
we're not physically fighting the Amorites and the Moabites,
but nonetheless there are those situations in our lives when
there are those battles to fight, when the enemy rises up and we
tend to try and work things out by ourselves instead of having
and following the gracious example of the Word of God. To come,
seek the face of our God, individually and collectively, adjoining together. What a mercy it is when the Church
of God join together. There's a problem, there's a
difficulty, there's an enemy. And they come and they pray to
the Lord God Almighty. Well, it's a blessing, you know,
if we are able to do that. And then, thinking of that in
a spiritual sense, we do have enemies rise up to
fill us with dismay. The great enemy of our souls,
the devil who rises up to turn us away from the true God. His great aim is to distress
us to such an extent that we turn to ourselves. But often
think, you see, the devil goes so far and then he oversteps
himself. Because what he does, he brings
the people of God to then come and to turn away from the refuge
of lies and to turn to the Lord themselves. in all their trouble,
in all their trials, in all their sinful situation. As they may
think there's no way of deliverance, they feel to be overwhelmed by
the enemy. The waves and the billows have
gone over their head and they seem overwhelmed. Well, what
a blessing it is when then we look to the Lord We look to the
Lord for help. We look to the Lord for strength.
We look to the Lord for deliverance. And you see, in that situation,
what does it mean? It means we have to give up all
desire or affect of helping ourselves. We have to realise, just like
Paul did, in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.'
We may have tried, we may have looked, we may have endeavoured,
and we failed. What a blessing then when the
Spirit of God may have come upon us, and what have we done? We've committed ourselves unto
the Lord. And it may be We've come down
to just the words like Jehoshaphat said, when he said, Oh our God,
would thou not judge them? For we have no might against
this great company that cometh against us. We're fearful of
being overrun by the devil, put to confusion. Well, Jehoshaphat
said, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. That's a very safe place. When
we seem to be overcome and overwhelmed, look unto me, look unto the Lord. Don't look to yourself. Look
to the Lord. Commit thy way unto the Lord.
Trust also in Him. and He shall bring it to pass.
Don't look to yourself, don't look to your own ability. Look
out of yourselves, completely trusting in the Lord that He
will come and that He will deliver. And then you see to be blessed
with this wonderful deliverance, just like Israel were here. When they were then instructed,
what were they to do? We're not to be afraid, nor be
dismayed. We perhaps are afraid, we may
be dismayed, because we're looking to our own ability, to our own
strength, and we see hosts of enemies rising up to fill us
with dismay. Yet remember, we have a God who
can appear, a God who can destroy the enemy, indeed a God who has
destroyed the enemy. The truth is, as Israel didn't
have to fight in this battle, so my friends it is to the blessed
Church of God. We do not have to fight in the
battle. We stand and we look and we observe
what has been done. The Lord Jesus Christ has fought
for us. And my friends, he's overcome.
And the evil one's been defeated. And you see, the great blessing is,
as these Moabites and Ammonites, they fought against themselves.
So often it is, the devil then, as it were, fights against himself.
And we find that we have been upon the winning side, not because
of what we've done, but because of what God has done. And that,
of course, then, is a wonderful deliverance. We stand still. We stand still, just like we
were told here, standing still. and see the salvation of the
Lord with you. What a blessing when that is
so. In our spiritual life, when we are given grace to stand still
and see the salvation of our souls, what does it mean? It
means that we look to Jesus Christ, we stand still as it were, with
our eyes upon him, and there we see the Lord fighting for
us, met great battle, and conquered, a great conqueror, a total defeat
of Satan. Nevermore to be able to overcome. What a blessing it is then, if
you and I are blessed with that faith. Like these Israelites
were, they were blessed with living faith. And we today, in
our spiritual life, need living faith to stand still and to see
the salvation of the Lord. And that means what it says.
We will see the salvation of our souls. We will observe what
Christ has done to deliver us from the wrath to come to save
our souls. We will see the wonder of it,
that Lord Jesus Christ so willingly came into this world to suffer
in our place, to fight the battle for us. We weren't able to. We weren't able to. Perhaps it
took a long time to learn that lesson. Perhaps we were often
reliant on ourselves. Look to Jesus, firm and strong. Oh, my friends, he'll never fail. And he has conquered. And as
you and I stand at the foot of the cross, by faith, viewing
the Saviour, dying for us, and gaining that great and glorious
victory. You know, what does it produce?
A song in our hearts. I hope it does. Praise to our
God for the victory that was gained. We had no need to fight
in this battle. The Lord shall fight for you.
What a mercy when God has shown that to us. so that we indeed
then stand more than conquerors through him. And all the praise
and all the honour goes to Almighty God. And surely we can join with
the song that was put up by these Israelites when they were told,
and when he had consulted with the people he appointed singers
unto the Lord and they should praise the beauty of holiness.
Well, it is, my friends, a glorious view, isn't it? The beauty of
holiness to observe the wonderful Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ,
dying for us. It's a wonderful scene to the
needy sinner. And so they went forth, went
out before the army to say, praise the Lord for His mercy endureth
forever. What is that? Surely it must
be the song of the redeemed. Sure, it must be the song of
the Church of God, as they've stood still and seen the Lord
gain the victory on their behalf. They haven't had to fight. God
has appeared. God has produced a victory. And therefore, from the heart
comes this word, this song. Praise the Lord, for his mercy
endureth forever. Is that true? And it is true. May we know it and may we praise
God for it and be thankful therefore that we have been able to observe
the victory that Christ has won. When you think that you and I
have been passive in that great fight, the Lord shall fight for
you and you shall Hold your peace. Yes, to see the Lord has fought
for us, and he has gained the victory. And it's a glorious
victory. And it's a victory which will
never be gainsayed, will never be beaten, because my friends,
the victory Jesus won is a complete victory. And so tonight, may
we be able to rejoice in it. May we be able to praise God
as he may give us that grace to hear his word and to be blessed
with that standing still and to see the salvation of the Lord. Yes, to see what it means, how
it's been done for you, how it's been done for me, because it
is a very personal battle. It's a very wonderful battle.
a battle for the whole Church of God and also individually
for you and me. My friends, tonight, may we rejoice
in what Christ has done and let us recognize the enormous cost
of our salvation and to realize what an enormous debt we owe,
a debt you and I will never be able to repay, especially when
you think we didn't have to fight The Lord fought for us and he
gained the victory, but the victory cost him his life. He bore the
punishment instead of us. Do we not come tonight and say,
what a saviour, what a saviour, that looked upon such an unworthy
sinner of the earth, a black sinner, a vile sinner, and yet
one the Lord died to redeem, died to save, so that by his
grace one day we shall be united in glory around that throne of
God in heaven, singing that new song, worthy is the lamb that
was slain to all eternity. Praise God. Amen.