Alright, would you open your
Bibles to 2nd Chronicles and we'll begin reading at verse
5. Then Jehoshaphat stood up in
the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the temple of the Lord in
the front of the new courtyard and said, O Lord, that's of course
our Lord's name actually, O Jehovah, God of our fathers, Are you not
the God who is in heaven? You rule over the kingdoms of
the nations. Power and might are in your hand,
and no one can withstand you. O our God, did you not drive
out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and
give it forever to the descendants of Abraham, your friend? They
have lived in it, and have built in it a sanctuary for your name,
saying, if calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment
or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before
this temple that bears your name, and we'll cry out to you in our
distress, and you will hear us and save us." But now, hear our
men from Amon, Moab and Mount Seir, whose territory you would
not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt. So they
turned away from them and did not destroy them. See how they
are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession
you gave us as an inheritance. O our God, will you not judge them? For
we have no power to face this last army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do. But
our eyes are upon you. All the men of Judah, with their
wives and children and little ones, their babies, stood there
before the Lord. Without warning, the enemies
of Judah had conspired to come against Israel. There were three
groups. The Amorites, the Moabites, and
the, and I don't know that I'm pronouncing this right, but the
Munites. Likely, these people had seen
the prosperity of the Jews. and had heard of the tremendous
wealth that was stored in their temple. And they thought they
would go take it for themselves. And the news came to Jehoshaphat,
the king, that these three armies were approaching the land. And in one moment, He went from
a secure king, a king settled on his throne, to a trembling
man, not knowing what was going to happen or what he could do
about it. And in response to this, Jehoshaphat
called for a general fast and a time of prayer to their God. And in response to this, God
answered them with encouraging words from a prophet. And God
himself met their enemies and eliminated them. Every last one
of them was gone or in flight, and the Jews did not have to
lift a finger. Now we who believe suffer troubles. We suffer troubles of all sorts.
We can suffer all the troubles that are natural to man. There's
not a thing that can happen to normal man, or shall we say unbelieving
man, that can't happen to a believer. And don't let anybody else convince
you otherwise. There is not a tragedy that cannot
befall him. There is not an injustice in
this world that cannot crush him, there is not a sin with
which he cannot be tempted, and there's not a sin to which he
cannot fall. I, at one time, maybe was among
these, but I certainly have run into a good many people who think
that there are certain sins a believer cannot do. that somehow by the
act of regeneration, God removed any tendency to this, that, or
the other sin. And of course you know that the
ones saying that are saying that about sins with which they do
not have a problem. I've never heard that said by
someone who afterward said, so I must conclude that I am lost.
I've never heard that. I'll give you one example. There
are many who believe that suicide, is a sin which a believer simply
cannot commit. That's not so. It's a tragedy
when they do, just like it's a tragedy when an unbeliever
does that. There is no sin, except maybe
this one, that sin which the Lord referred to as blasphemy
of the Spirit. And there's some real question
about what the Lord meant by that. I tend towards the opinion
that it would be absolutely impossible for anybody in our day to commit
that, because I think that could be committed only in the time
when the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was there and the Spirit was
testifying as to who He was right there in everyone's presence. Anybody who could open a Bible
and be the least bit honest about what they read, about what they
saw the Lord Jesus Christ doing, they would have to conclude,
this Jesus is the Christ. But instead, from their pride
and arrogance, from their heart of rebellion, they attributed
the works that the Spirit of God did through Christ, attributed
them to the devil himself. And the Lord Jesus said, that's
not going to be forgiven now, it's not going to be forgiven
later. But if there is any such sin in our day, it must simply
be this, unbelief. Now everyone here who is a believer,
does feel the urge to say what that one man did, Lord, I believe,
help my unbelief. But in the midst of all your
feelings of unbelief, you still believe, don't you? See, nobody but a believer understands
a believer. You try to explain that to an
unbeliever. In the midst of your unbelief, you believe? Yeah.
And I say that, and I understand what I'm saying, and most of
you, if not all of you, know exactly what I mean when I say
that. But any of the standard transgressions
of men, even the weird ones, as we might call them, a believer
can be tempted by them and fall into them. We have trouble, and every believer wants deliverance. With Paul they say, O wretched
man that I am, and they go on to say with Paul, Who shall deliver
me? from this body of death. Our deliverance from all our
troubles follows the pattern of this trouble and deliverance
which came to the people of Judah under Jehoshaphat. Now while
this pattern can apply to all of our troubles, I'm going to
apply it primarily to that trouble of sin, and here's why. Sin is
the root of all our troubles. And I'll explain this again.
I do not mean that every time you suffer some hardship, it's
because of some particular sin you did, and God's getting you
back for doing something wrong. I don't mean that. You know,
I was brought up on that, and to this day, and I'll be 60 in
about three weeks, and to this day, I still wrestle with that
concept. I get sick, and I wonder what I did wrong to deserve that. It's a hard fight the whole time
to get away from those things which our minds were wired with
when we were young. So I'm not saying that every
one of our troubles can be attributed to any particular sin that we
have done. I'm just saying all troubles in the world come because
there's sin in the world. And our deliverance, our ultimate
deliverance from all our troubles comes when we are delivered,
in an ultimate sense, from all sin. We will be delivered from
the punishment of it. We will be delivered from the
curse of it. We will be delivered from the very presence of it.
It will no longer be a part of our being or existence, whatever.
That day is coming. And the glory of such a prospect
is worth whatever we have to endure in this life to get there. Our endurance won't earn us that
blessedness, but we'll never get there without enduring what's
going on. Without enduring all the troubles
of life that come our way. Without standing firm in the
gospel, in the face and teeth of all of our sin. Now, let's notice a few things
about the trouble which befell Jehoshaphat and the nation over
which he ruled. First of all, he kind of came
out of nowhere. Have you ever noticed that about
trouble, most of it? Certainly the serious stuff,
you just didn't see it coming. Sometimes it falls upon you just
as you were thinking you had everything in order. And for
once you could go, And then just out of the clear
blue sky, something falls on you like a ton of bricks. Jehoshaphat felt settled. He felt that he had established
his kingdom. And he was solidly the king.
And now he can rest upon his throne. And no sooner than he
does, three armies join together to bring him down. I don't suppose there is any
trouble so disheartening as that trouble which comes upon us just
as we had thought that things were clear sailing from now on. Just when we had weathered another
storm and it had come through it, and said, good, I got through
that, now I can relax, and no sooner do we let our guard down
than here it comes, maybe a bigger wave than the one we had just
endured. So it was with Jehoshaphat. He
had faced some troubles. As the king, he had endured some
difficulties in establishing his kingship. And setting up
the nation, according to his administration, had been work,
been difficult, but he got it done. Now's the time to relax. Everything's in place. Now, you
know, we've built the engine, let's just turn it on and let
it run. And no sooner is it turned on than
it looks as though someone wants to destroy it. Secondly, notice
this, trouble with sin often increases as we try to draw near
to God. It says in verse 1, very first
two words, after this. Well, after what? Well, Jehoshaphat
had gone throughout the land, and he had seen to it that the
idols were torn down, that there was no worship of false gods. He had established judges in
various places, set up a system of justice, a means to administrate
that which was right. He had done all that he knew
how to do to set up Israel as God would have wanted it to operate. Jehoshaphat was one of the good
kings of Israel. He didn't do everything right, but he got most of it right. And just as he's trying to get
this done, and in his heart he wants Israel, or Judah actually,
at this time the nation has been split into two nations, Israel
in the north, Judah in the south. He's king of Judah. Just as he
thinks he's got them on a firm footing, here comes the enemy. Paul put it this way, when I would do good, Evil is
right there with me. And brethren, the more you try
to do the right thing, the more effort you give to draw near
to God, the more trouble you're going to encounter. He that would live godly in Christ
Jesus shall suffer persecution, trouble, distress. It's just
the way it is. This world is no friend to God
and is no friend to anyone who loves God. So Paul's words ring true in
the hearts of all believers. When I would do good, evil is
present with me. And as near as I can tell, and
if you want to just keep your finger there and turn over to
Romans chapter 1 verse 28. If you want to be free, of being troubled by your sin. If you want to have a conscience
that says, I'm okay, I'm alright, here's how you can get that.
Forget God altogether. You drive Him out of your mind.
Do not consider who He is. Have no desires to be one with
Him. and your conscience will hardly
bother you at all. Look in Romans chapter 1 verse
28. Furthermore, since they did not
think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave
them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done. And the upshot of this, and it's
implied in what Paul is saying throughout that chapter, when
God gives them over to these things, it means they were no
longer troubled by the doing of them. Now most people, when they do
what is wrong, it bothers them. And we believers, it bothers
us even more. We have something that says,
don't do that, don't do that, and then we do it, and then we
have that which says, you shouldn't have done that. If you want to
get over that, Forget God. But know this, the closer you
draw near to God, the more you will be troubled by what you
are. The more it will bother you. Jehoshaphat gathered the people
together for a fast and prayer. Now, this fasting business, I
don't know what to tell you about it. I don't know what its value
is. And here's a simple reason, I've
never done it. I tried once. I was in, I think it was between
my junior and senior year in college. And there was something
that I thought was especially needful of prayer. And I remember
talking to my family about it, and I said, well, I'm just going
to... And this is according to what I've been taught. I'm going
to show God how serious I am. I'm going to fast. And that was
in the evening. And I went to the local college,
Marshall University, to use their library, and I was studying.
And the Ponderosa Steakhouse was not far away. I made it to
one or two o'clock the next afternoon. We don't fast to show God we're
serious. God's looking at our hearts.
He knows whether or not we're serious already. So I know it's not that. We don't fast as though we're
making some kind of sacrifice And somehow God is pleased when
we deny ourselves that which we might enjoy. I don't know
what benefit comes from fasting, but I think I know what it symbolizes.
It symbolizes this, you have renounced all other help. You've
cut yourself off from all else that might sustain you or help
you. You have come to God and to Him
alone because you're faced with something that nobody but He
can handle. Unfortunately, when we pray,
we always kind of have an ace up our sleeve, something that
we can call on if God doesn't come through. Isn't that a sad
thing? But it's true. We've all got
a plan B to fall back on. Lord God, I would like this.
And we don't say it out loud because we know better, but if
you don't do it, I got to work around. Fasting, if nothing else, proved
or showed in symbolic form, we come to you as those who have
no other help but you. We have renounced all aid, all
strength, all supply, but you. Oh, to have that in our hearts.
and in our minds. And they prayed. And where did
they pray? They prayed at the temple. Why
there? Is there something special about
that spot of real estate? No. But there's a symbolic thing
there. That temple was a representation
of Christ and Him crucified. It was there that Jesus Christ
was put to death symbolically, through the slaying of those
animals and the pouring out of their blood, and it being put
on that atonement cover, that mercy seat there in the Holy
of Holies, where God existed in a kind of typical fashion,
a symbolic fashion, and I don't know what it was. I've heard
people say it was like a glowing ball of energy. I don't know.
Never been there. But somehow or another, the glory
of the Lord descended on that place. It was a token of His
presence. And the high priest would go
in there once a year, and he would pour out the blood of atonement,
and it would atone for Israel for all their national sins. And that's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ as He, both our sacrifice and our high priest
who offers it. It says, he offered himself without
spot to God, and not in the sanctuary that men built, that temple,
ever how glorious it might have been, not there, but in the very
presence of God in that sanctuary, in that holy place, not made
with human hands, but God Himself. And so when they came to God
before the temple, that is like you and I as we approach God
through Christ and Him crucified. And we must always approach Him
that way. We never come to Him, do we?
Based upon anything other than Jesus Christ died for us. He died in our place. He absorbed
within Himself our sin and took upon Himself and endured within
Himself all the punishment for that sin. The cross is the only entryway
to the throne of grace. The apostle wrote in the book
of Hebrews, Let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that
we may find mercy to help us in our time of need. Now in all
of that, the only thing we provide is the need. The throne of grace
is God's sovereign throne. The only entryway into that throne
room is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way to
go to the throne of grace and find God's mercy is through Christ
and Him crucified. People say, if you don't live
right, God won't hear your prayers. Well, brethren, He hasn't ever
heard one of my prayers. This is not a throne of merit.
This is not a throne of reward. It is a throne of grace and mercy
and help for the needy. And that's what was pictured
by them coming before that temple to offer their prayer. And Jehoshaphat began to pray.
What a prayer it was. Oh Lord God of our fathers, this
is in verse 6, are you not the God who is in heaven and rule
over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are
in your hand and no one can withstand you. I've heard people say, well,
if God's sovereign, why pray? My thought is if He's not sovereign,
why pray? If He can't do as He wills among
the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth, If
there are those who can stop Him, why bother praying to Him? He is sovereign. He is in the
heavens. And that's just their way of saying, you're above it
all. What goes on down here does not affect you, O God. Not any
individual event, nor the collection of all people and all events
and all powers together can ever stop God from doing what He wants,
because they can't reach Him. Why pray to any other God than
a God like that? The one who cries out to God
for help has cried out to the one who can help. Power and might
are in His hand. And there's no one person or
collection of people that can stop Him. And he says in verse 7, Our God,
did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people
Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your
friend? And they have lived in it and built in it a sanctuary
for your name's sake, and if calamity comes upon us, whether
the sword of judgment or plague or famine, we will stand in your
presence before this temple that bears your name, and we'll cry
out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.
He's reminding God, not that God needs reminding. Most of
the time when we're reminding God of something, we're really
reminding ourselves of it. We're going through it in our
minds again because a recitation of the works of God, gracious
works of God in the past, does that not encourage us? When we
remember His deliverances in times past, does that not encourage
us to ask Him for more? And so Jehoshaphat says, are
you not the one that gave us this land? You drove out all
our enemies before us? And you did it pretty much without
us having to do anything? I mean, let's face it, marching
around a city seven times and blowing a ram's horn is not a
good military strategy. Nonetheless, the walls of Jericho
came down. And later, the walls of other
walled cities. And the Jews were able to possess
the land by the power of God. And God moved them to build a
temple for His name, and to call upon His name there in their
distresses. And they had in times past, and
God had delivered them. Jehoshaphat is saying, you hear,
or we believe that you hear us, and that you will save us. Verse 10, But now there are men
from Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not
allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt. So we turned
away from them, or they turned away from them and did not destroy
them. How much this, I think, illustrates what God
tells us to do about our sin. Leave it alone. Now, I didn't
look back to see why it was God told them to leave these people
alone. I can't remember. But I know this. I know why God
tells us to leave our sin alone. It's too big for us. We take
it on, we lose. And that's a very hard thing
for people to grasp. I told someone one time, one of my Facebook
friends, and they were talking about wanting to get over sin
and this, that and the other. And I said, where's this effect?
If you make conquering your sin your focus, you will forever
be in bondage to your sin. And in that, I said something
to the effect, don't saturate your prayers or don't keep asking
God to deliver you from this sin or that sin. Because all
you're doing then is constantly reminding yourself of your sin.
Look to Christ. Yes, endeavor not to sin. But
we know that we're going to. And when we do, lay that horrible
mess upon the shoulders of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because that's
the only shoulders that can bear them. Don't you try to fix them. And I believe that's true. That
person couldn't understand that, and they unfriended me. Call me an antinomian. No, I'm
not an antinomian in the sense that I think that God's law is
an irrelevant thing and my sin's an irrelevant thing. But I am
an antinomian in this sense. I don't think that law can help
me overcome sin. The only thing it'll ever do
is keep exposing it and keep me in bondage to it. And so they did not conquer these
people on the way into rest, and our way into the land of
rest, the land of God's grace, is not to tackle our sins and
try to deal with them. It is to leave them with God.
And yes, even when you do that, and enter your rest, that doesn't
mean those sins aren't going to pester you. And they will
come again at you. And they will try to occupy your
territory. And you know what you need to
do with them then? The same thing you did with them at the beginning. Point them out to God. Say, God,
you told me not to mess with these things. They're too big
for me. And I know it's too big for me. You're going to have
to handle this. I can't. That means in terms
of your temptation to sin, it's too big for you. That means in
terms of what to do when you fall into it, which happens just
about as often as you're tempted to it, right? What do you do with it? You point
it out to God. And you call on Him to handle
it. He's the only one that can. Verse 12, O our God, will you
not judge them? Now, that almost sounds contrary
to the point I'm trying to make. Do we want God to judge our sins? Sure we do. For you see, He has
already judged them once in Christ, has He not? And therefore, if
they come to us and try to condemn us again, they are acting contrary
to justice. If our sins and the sense of
guilt that comes with us bring us to that place that we feel
we've been cut off from God, we dare not try to shove the
sin off of us again, push it away, overcome it, and think
that when we do, we'll be restored to God. Understand this, if you
are in Christ Jesus, your sins, no matter how grievous they are,
have no right to condemn you. They have no right to stake a
claim on you or to rob you of the least of your blessings in
Christ Jesus. Because Jesus Christ has already
borne them. The penalty for them has already
been paid. And if any sin tries to rob you, point it out to God. and say, God, judge him. And then Joseph goes on to say
this, we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking
us. Oh, sin is such a vast army,
isn't it? Hundreds. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Sin outside of us, sin inside
of us. Sin we've fallen to, and sin
we didn't fall to, and the only reason we didn't is because we
thought we got in trouble, but if we thought we could have got
away with it, we'd have probably done it. What a vast army. In all the years that I have
tried to defeat sin, I've never been able to. I'm not just preaching what's
supposed to sound good when I tell you that all the sins that troubled
me in my youth continue to trouble me now. That so far as I know, not a
one of them has decreased in its intensity and I do not seem to have become
any stronger in dealing with them. I have no power against this
vast army. Brethren, our sins were too much
for us before we met Christ, and they're too much for us now. The only thing we can do is go
before the reality of that temple, Christ and Him crucified, and
there at the feet of the cross plead our wretched case once
again before Him who delights in mercy. We do not know what to do. Boy, lots of troubles might bring
us to that point. But no trouble more than our
sins. What am I going to do about this? Now here's what makes this a
prayer of faith. And not just a prayer of desperation.
But our eyes are upon Thee. Say, God, we're looking to You.
You know, when you look to God for help, you have engaged His
glory in your defense. What will they say of God if
He allows someone who trusted in Him to perish? God has attached His glory to
His promise. He's attached His glory to His
grace. Therefore, You can be sure of
this, if indeed the eyes of your soul are upon Him, and your trust
is in Him alone, He will not fail to save you. He will not fail to save you
because He delights in doing so. I don't want to set it up
as though God is reluctant to, and you kind of have to put His
arm up behind His back over the point of His glory to make Him
do this. I'm not saying that. He delights in mercy. I think it's right to say this.
He delights in showing you mercy more than you delight in receiving
it. You know that? But we also have this confidence.
He will not share His glory. He will not allow His glory to
be tarnished. Therefore, He will not allow
to perish any whose eye is upon him. In verse 13, all the men
of Judah with their wives and children, little ones, stood
there before the Lord. Now, why does it mention that?
You know, the men, their wives, their children, and even the
little babies. Why is that? I believe this is what we are
to draw from it. lock, stock and barrel. Judah
said, you help us or we die. We're not calling on you as we
have a portion of our people looking for another solution. This is a symbol of seeking the
Lord with all your heart. Nobody was left home. Nobody
was left out. Nobody was seeking anyone else.
They were all there. And brethren, the Scriptures
say, you shall seek me and you shall find me when you seek me
with all your heart. Then the Spirit of the Lord,
verse 14, came upon Jehaziel, son of Zechariah, the son of
Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite and
descendant of Asaph, as he stood in the assembly. He said, now
can you imagine this? Here's Jehoshaphat, and I suppose
he's wearing his kingly robes. Everybody knows who this is.
This is King Jehoshaphat, and he's standing there praying towards
the temple. And how does God answer him? Does a voice come
booming out of the doors of that temple? No. A man over here in
the crowd speaks up. And he says, this is what the
Lord says to you, do not be afraid or discouraged. Oh, what lovely
words from God. They were afraid and they were
discouraged. Don't be afraid or discouraged
because of this vast army. And here it is, brethren. Here
is the foundation stone of the gospel that you and I believe
and the way that we worship God. It says, for the battle is not
yours, it's God's. I wish I could say that like
it ought to be said. Maybe that's how it ought to
be said. Just say it. We get so busy thinking we're
going to fight the Lord's battle. He won't let you. If you want
to fail, try fighting one of his battles, because he's going
to see to it that you fail, because he's not going to share the victory
with you that way. He will first gain the victory
by himself, and once he has the victory, then he'll let you share
in it. His victory, we'll be allowed to call it our victory.
Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ. You have to get pretty desperate
to hear this word. Old Jonah had to get so desperate
that he was in the belly of a great fish down in the bottom of the
ocean. And the last thing he said in
his prayer, salvation is of the Lord. David goes out and meets Goliath
and says the battle is the Lord's. Oh, what a wonderful word to
hear from God, that this whole mass of our sins, which grieves
us, which bears us down, and which often through the mouth
of our adversary the devil, speaks words of condemnation in our
hearts and causes us to fear and be discouraged. God says,
don't fear, don't be discouraged, this isn't your fight, it's mine. And he went on to give them some
instructions. He says, tomorrow march down against them. They
will be climbing up by the path of Ziz, and you will find them
at the end of the gorge in the desert of Jeruel. You will not have to fight this
battle. Oh, isn't that wonderful? You'll not have to fight this
battle. I'm not sending you to draw your
swords. I'm not sending you to shoot
your arrows. You will not have to fight this
battle. Take up your positions, stand firm, and see the deliverance
the Lord will give you. Do you remember them at the Red
Sea? There they were with the Red Sea on one side and Pharaoh's
army behind. They couldn't overcome Pharaoh's
army and they had no way to run away. And what did Moses say
to them? Stand still and see the salvation,
the deliverance of the Lord. Oh, the toughest thing you'll
ever do is stand still. They went there where God told
them to go, and they could see the army, or they figured when
we get there, we're just going to see that army. How are we
going to stand still? That's what the Lord told them
to do. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow,
and the Lord will be with you. Verse 18, Jehoshaphat bowed with
his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem
fell down in worship before the Lord. Then some Levites from
the Kohites and the Korahites stood up and praised the Lord,
the God of Israel, with a very loud voice. How do I meet my troubles? How
do I meet my sin? With shouts of praises to God.
Early in the morning they left for the desert of Tekoa, and
as they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Listen to me
Judah, and people of Jerusalem, have faith in the Lord your God,
and you will be upheld. Have faith in his prophets, which
is to say, have faith in his word. And you will be successful. After consulting the people,
Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise
Him for the splendor of His holiness as they went out at the head
of the army, saying, Who ever heard of sending an army of singers
against a battalion of men armed with swords and spears? Well,
as I pointed out before, he sent an army of men with ram's horns
against a walled city. I guess an army of singers can
handle a bunch of men out in the field. And I'll say this
to you, often the best defense for your soul in the midst of
your troubles is the songs of Zion. When we pick hymns, I try to
pick good ones that in times of trouble you can sing them
through your mind, sing them in your heart, and they bring
you strength and comfort. But it said they would praise
Him for the splendor of His holiness. And notice what they said. Give
thanks to the Lord for His love, His mercy endures forever. Here's a declaration of the holiness
of God. His mercy endures forever. And as they began to sing and
praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and
Moab and Mount Seir, who were invading Judah, and they were
defeated." You say, yeah, those Jews went out and got them. Hold
on. No, that's not what happened. The men of Ammon and Moab rose
up against the men of Mount Seir to destroy and annihilate them.
After they finished slaughtering the men from Mount Seir, they
helped to destroy one another. Imagine that now. You go out,
the Lord says, you go out and face them. You take your positions,
stand firm, and you'll see the salvation of the Lord. And I'm
sure that what they're thinking is, He's going to help us fight.
And so they stand there, they take their positions. And lo
and behold, these three armies that have come together, two
of them turn against one and wipe him out. And once they're
done wiping him out, they turn on each other and wipe each other
out. And all the Jews did was sing. And the men of Judah came to the
place that overlooks the desert and looked toward the vast army.
They saw only dead bodies lying on the ground. By the time they
got to the fight, the fight was over. And brethren, with regard
to your sin, By the time you get to the fight, the battle's
won. And yes, you'll see your sin,
but it'll be nothing but dead bodies. And I don't know about
you, dead bodies may creep me out, but I'm not afraid of them.
I don't believe they'll bring me any danger. In verse 29, so Jehoshaphat and
his men went to carry off their plunder, And they found among
them a great amount of equipment and clothing and also articles
of value, more than they could take away. There was so much
plunder that it took three days to collect it. Our Lord gave them a great victory.
And I mean literally gave it to them. He turned their enemies
against one another. And those who only the day before
had presented such a threat to Judah. became nothing but a battleground
full of dead bodies. Oh, may God teach us to trust
Him that way. To come before Him and say, we
don't know what to do. This is too much for us, but
our eyes are upon You. And the day will come When we
look on this battlefield of our life and of our enemies, all
we will see is dead bodies. Father, thank you for Jesus Christ
who won the battle for us, who destroyed all our enemies. Even that great enemy death,
it's gone. Our sins, gone. The form of them is still there,
but there's no life in them, no strength that they might kill.
Lord, we hate and despise our sin, but it's too much for us
to deal with. We don't know what to do, but
our eyes are upon you. Our eyes are upon your Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the great sacrifice he worked for us. Lord, work in us that gospel
encouragement, that gospel in confidence in your grace. In the name of Christ we pray,
amen.