In Difficulties, Seek The Lord First! - [2 Chronicles 20:1-30]

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My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole.
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What would have happened if only part of it was nailed to the cross? Tell me, what would have happened? What kind of salvation would that be?
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There would be none because all it would take would be one sin to our account and we would be banished from God's presence and banished from heaven forever.
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You consider that author of that hymn, Mr. Spafford, and the difficulties, if you ever read the story behind that hymn and his business financial struggles, but as we heard this morning of the news of the
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DeSimone family of losing their son, Mr. Spafford lost his daughters.
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I think there were four children that were lost. And his son too was at a different time.
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And it's difficulties that come the way of the child of God and what are you going to do? Do you cash it in?
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Do you throw in the towel? Do you stop ministry? Stop prayer?
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Stop reading the Bible? It just doesn't work. It's just not worth it. We're just going to give up.
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Mr. Spafford writes a hymn attributing that all is well for his soul because God is with him and for him and on his side.
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And when it comes to the life of the believer, difficulties are going to come. And if you haven't experienced them as a child of God, they will.
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They will happen. And what is it that we do? How is it that we are to face them?
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And I'd like to share with you something out of 2 Chronicles chapter 20. So if you'd take your Bibles and turn there, 2
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Chronicles in chapter 20.
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We have this account here in the history of the children of Israel.
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It's under King Jehoshaphat that there's a great invasion that is coming against Israel.
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Moab and Amnon come against Jerusalem. We see this in verse 1.
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And it came to pass after this also that the children of Moab and the children of Amnon and with them other besides the
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Ammonites came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Verse 2, there came some that told
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Jehoshaphat saying, there cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side
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Syria. And behold, they be in Hazazon, Tamar, which is in Gedeh.
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So we see here at the very beginning of this chapter that there is an attack of a great multitude coming against Jerusalem, against God's people.
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And particularly here, King Jehoshaphat gets this news. And what is he going to do?
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Well, right from the very beginning, we see in the first point of my message this morning is,
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I mean this evening is, in our difficulties, what is it that we ought to do?
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And first and foremost, I believe that before we go anywhere else, we need to go to the
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Lord and ask for help. Before we go anywhere else, we must go to the Lord first and ask for help.
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We see in verse 3, Jehoshaphat feared and set himself or turned his attention to seek the
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Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So we see the king here, what he does not do is he does not do the typical, the conventional.
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He does not call his joint chiefs of staff. He does not call the military commanders.
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But he goes to the Lord first. Not man, not human strength, not human reasoning, not his own intellect, not his own past, not his own thinking, the things that have worked for him in the past, but he goes to seek the
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Lord first. And I think that if we think, if we, I mean, when it comes to the Christian life,
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I mean, what happens many times is, here's the motto, when all else fails, go to God.
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And we get in trouble when that happens. We get in trouble, you've heard me say this before, but we get in trouble when it comes to buying something at the store and bringing home the package and opening up and trying to put it together.
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And when all else fails, we do what? We pull out the instructions, don't we? I know that in my
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Christian life, there have been times in the past when I am hitting my head against the wall.
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When I am trying to get over a hurdle, I'm trying to get through some difficulty, and it might be something that's big, it could be something that's very small.
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Sometimes it's putting something together in the garage or working around the house, and I haven't committed it unto the
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Lord. I'm trying to do it in my own strength. And it isn't until I stop and I acknowledge that everything is to be done unto the
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Lord and for the glory of the Lord and I commit it to the Lord, then, like the king and Daniel, I get a little bit of wisdom.
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And you can go on and get the job accomplished. Well, Jehoshaphat, he does not rely upon the arm of the flesh.
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He seeks the Lord. And notice the example of this. In seeking the Lord, first and foremost up here, it says in verse 4, that Judah gathers themselves together to ask help of the
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Lord. Even out of all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord. I think that's very interesting here because we see that because of the good example of King Jehoshaphat, the leader, that the people follow his example or the people follow suit.
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And doesn't that give us a little principle in the Christian life when it comes to those in leadership?
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Maybe an elder, maybe a pastor, maybe someone who is teaching, or maybe a leadership in the home when it comes to the father, the husband in the home, or if you're at work and you're the boss and you have those that are working for you, maybe you have a
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Christian business together, that first and foremost, what we ought to do is seek the Lord first.
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And we do that, then we'll see that others will gather along with us to seek the
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Lord. It is so, so important. Rather than when all else fails, go to God.
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The biblical thinking ought to be when things are failing, go to the Lord. And go to the
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Lord immediately, quickly. We see here as the story goes on, as the account goes on here in verse 5,
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Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah in Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court.
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And we're going to see here as we go to the Lord and before we go anywhere else, as I've said, and we ought to go to the
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Lord first, I want you to see how they go to the Lord. How is it that they approach
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God? And we see here in verse 6, first in this sub -point of point number 1, and when
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Jehoshaphat goes in the house of the Lord and he seeks the Lord, he says, O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou
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God in heaven? And rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? And in thine hand is there not power and might so that none is able to withstand thee?
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And the first thing that we see Jehoshaphat do here, and I need to just stop for just a moment,
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I usually try to do this at the beginning of my message, but this outline I had seen many, many years ago in some book that just had an outline in it, and it was from Spurgeon.
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He had laid this out, and I thought, wow, you know, he did a whole lot better of an outline on this than I could ever do, and I've borrowed, adapted, and just am going to preach from that outline.
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I just need to make sure that I give that credit up front. We see in verse 6, though, that what he does as he's seeking the
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Lord is that he expresses his complete confidence in the Lord. When he goes to the
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Lord, he's not going in doubt. When he goes to the Lord, he is expressing an assurance and a confidence in God, and notice he says, you know, he speaks to the sovereignty of God.
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God, you rule over all the kingdoms of the heathen, and who is that? He rules over the
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Moabites, and he rules over the Ammonites that are coming after him, that are gathering together, that are conspiring to attack
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Jerusalem. And not only that, he says, and in thine hand is there not power and might so that none is able to withstand thee?
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What attribute of God just shines out of that? God's omnipotence.
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God is all -powerful. There's power in his hand and power and might with the
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Lord, and no one can stop the Lord. And then not only does he express his confidence in the
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Lord, notice what he does in verse 7. Art not thou our God, who did strive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people
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Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham, thy friend forever?
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And what we see here that he's doing is, not only as he did before he expressed his complete confidence in God, but in verse 7 he is pleading the past acts of God's mercies.
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He's looking to what the Lord has done in their past, in their history, and he said,
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Lord, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land? And you gave it to Abraham.
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And when we think about that in our lives, brethren, isn't it so true that at times when we are faced with a difficulty, so many times we can say the
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Lord has been so faithful. So much so we can kind of think of a hymn like, Great is thy faithfulness.
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And we think back upon how good and how faithful the Lord has been to us in every past trial and in every past difficulty.
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And that kind of assures us, and it bolsters our faith as we look back and we see if God was faithful to us then, and his thoughts towards us have not changed, he will be faithful and remain faithful to us, not only in this new and present difficulty, but all the days of our lives.
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God has not done anything to any one of his children that would ever cause us to doubt his faithfulness towards us.
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He will always remain faithful. And it is something that as Jehoshaphat goes to seek the
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Lord's face, to seek for help in this situation, not only is he expressing confidence that God is able to do this and he is sovereign over all, but he is one who has done good to them and has been faithful to them in the past.
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And then just briefly in verses 8 and 9, I won't touch on them too much, but you can go in there and you can see that what he does is he goes back and reminds and brings before the
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Lord God's promise to them in the dedication of the temple that if evil ever came against them, in verse 9, as like a sword or judgment or pestilence or famine, and they stand before this house and in God's presence, for your name is in this house, it says, and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou will hear and help.
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And he is just calling to mind what it is that God has said in the past,
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God made a promise and he is a covenant keeping God, that God said that if they were in difficult situations, dire straits, back against the wall,
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I mean, they are getting hit right in the face with this one. I mean, it is coming right at them.
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And you know what I am talking about in your life as a child of God when all of a sudden you get that phone call or you get that person who walks in your presence with that news or some news, some information comes to you and it is right in the face.
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It is a trial. It is a difficulty. It is, yes, of course, goes across the desk of the
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Lord, getting his stamp of approval, but it comes to us with great weight and heaviness and many times with great grief and sorrow or, as in this case here, the enemy attacks and great fear, no doubt, arises in the hearts of Jehoshaphat and the people.
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I mean, there is anxiety. There is a great multitude coming. And what they do is they plead the covenant mercies of the
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Lord. God, you promised that if we were in difficulty that we could cry unto you and that you would hear and help.
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And if you promise that to us, we are going to trust in you. We are going to do that. And we are going to look to you to be strong on our behalf.
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And we are going to see what the Lord does. Notice what it says in verse 10,
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And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom thou wouldst not let
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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, which thou hast given us to inherit.
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He is just saying here, Lord, they are coming to displace us, to displace us out of the land that you gave us.
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Hear us and help us. But not only when we go and seek the Lord when there is difficulty, should we express confidence in the
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Lord, and should we plead his past mercies, and we can also call up the
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Lord's covenant promises to us to hold and to cling to and to plead the
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Lord to be faithful as he has in the past been. But notice what he also does in verse 12.
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As they go before the Lord, they say this, O our God, wilt thou not judge them?
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For we have no might against this great company that comest against us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee.
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And here they confess their true condition.
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They confess their true condition. They say we have no power or we are powerless against this enemy.
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Not only that, he says that we have no plan. I mean, we just don't know what to do.
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I mean, sometimes my children over the years have come to me, especially when they were younger, but they still even do it now.
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And it's almost like they think you're the Bible answer man, if you know what
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I mean, husbands, fathers. You got the answer for every single situation.
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And sometimes you're put on the spot because the question is coming or even, I mean, I'm hitting and the elders can, anybody can attest to this.
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When you're in the aisle here and after a service is over, you get hit with a big mega bomb question.
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And it's like, who's going to be asking about the, you know, the super lapsarian view or, you know, some, this morning someone was coming to me, asking me questions about the lineage in the
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Old Testament. And it was like, well, I hope they work this one out as they're talking because I'm not going to be able to do this without a study.
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But it's like sometimes we just don't know. And you know what the problem is? When we don't know, we ought not to act like we do know.
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We ought not to act up in pride and say, I'm not going to humble myself before a person and tell them
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I don't know the answer. And when it comes to a difficulty, one of the worst things that we can do is think that we've got it made.
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We think that we've got it under control. We think that we have the answer for this.
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Or we think that we have the strength to be able to do this. No power, no plan, and there's nobody on their behalf.
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There's no allies. As a matter of fact, all they've got is their families. Notice verse 13.
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And all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones and their wives and their children. I mean, that's their care. That's their concern.
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They themselves and their families can be consumed off the face of the earth and wiped out by this enemy, but they don't know what to do.
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And here they are admitting their inability and their knowledge. There's humility here. They're admitting their weakness, and it is not a bad thing when you don't know what to do to say that you don't know what to do.
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I mean, one of the best things that I do at work when I have somebody ask me a question, and I try to teach the people that work for me, if you don't have an answer, dealing with some technical issue, don't bluff it.
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Tell them you don't know, and tell them I will research it, and I will get back to you with the right answer. And when it comes,
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I mean, aren't we supposed to be sincere as believers? Aren't we supposed to be transparent?
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And when we don't know, we ought to say that we don't know. And when we are without strength, we ought not to think that we have strength in our own selves, or we can, as I think maybe
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Steve Cooley, Brother Steve Cooley has coined so elegantly, solar bootstrapper, whatever that was, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
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You know, that's the thinking of this world. You can do it yourself. You can be the king of the hill. You know, you've got it made.
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But there are times, brothers and sisters in Christ, when the enemy will come and attack.
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When that difficulty, that trying situation will hit us face on, and we have absolutely no clue.
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That life is snuffed out right in front of us. That relationship is snapped in two.
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That person leaves the faith right in front of us. And it's like we haven't, it's like where did this come from?
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We get almost like blindsided because we did not see it. And it's okay when we don't know what to do to admit that.
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It's terribly difficult in a bad situation we put ourselves in if we think that we have the answer.
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I think it's more important for us to do what Peter said in 1 Peter 5, 7, to cast all of your care upon him because he cares for you.
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And that's exactly what they do here in verse 12. Notice, we don't have any might. We don't know what to do.
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There's no plan here. We don't have any strategy. We can't defeat the Ammonites. They're not even talking about weaponry or anything here.
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They're just saying we are undone. But our eyes are upon Thee.
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That's the place to be. When we don't have the answer, when we don't have the power, when we don't have any allies, there's nobody around to shore us up and to go through this with us, the words can come to us,
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I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Like David said in Psalm 16, 8,
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I've set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. I shall not be moved.
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So we see here, firstly, that the most important thing before we go anywhere else, we need to go to the
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Lord and seek his face and to ask for help. Now, secondly, when we ask for help,
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I believe that it ought to be that we expect to receive help from the
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Lord. So point number two is expect to receive help from the Lord. Don't doubt it.
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Expect when you ask. Notice as we see this in verses 14 through 20. Then upon Jeheziel, now he is a
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Levite, we see here, and I'm not going to attempt to read those names this evening. It seems like my tongue is getting in front of my eye teeth.
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I can't see what I'm saying at times here. I'm twisting some of these consonants together. But he's a Levite, prophet.
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The spirit of the Lord comes upon him in the midst of the congregation at the end of verse 14. And he says in verse 15,
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Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou King Jehoshaphat, thus saith the
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Lord unto you. First and foremost, what we see here is how they're receiving this help.
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How is it coming to them? Well, first and foremost, by the entrance of the word of God. God has raised up this man.
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The spirit of the Lord comes upon him. And he begins to speak. And he's speaking the words that God wants them to hear in this difficulty, in this trial, in this situation.
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And isn't it so important to us? I mean, when people are facing difficulties in your counseling, and you're talking to them about the situation, there have been so many times when
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I've spoken to somebody, I'd say, well, in this, I mean, what are you praying about?
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I'm not praying. What is it that the Lord is using from his word to console you, to comfort you, to help you, to guide you, to direct you, maybe in a difficulty or in a decision that you're making?
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Not reading anything. How dangerous. And how we forsake the mercies and the means of grace that God gives us because the word of God tells us in Psalm 119, 130, the entrance of thy words gives light.
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And the entrance of God's word gives light in dark and difficult times like they were facing here in this account.
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When the enemy attacks, and certainly the enemy will attack, we sang, onward,
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Christian soldiers, marching on to war. I mean, what is all that about?
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Are we in warfare? Yes, certainly. We are dropped behind the enemy lines. And there is a spiritual, invisible battle that is going on.
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And we are to be clad in the armor of God and to be marching forward under the banner of Christ to proclaim and further the gospel of Jesus Christ and to stand firm when it comes to the truth of God.
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And yet, the enemy will attack. Will he not? 1 Peter 5, where it says, cast all your care upon him, also says in that text that your adversary, the devil, walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
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So we need to be sober. And we do need to be vigilant. And we need to understand that we are in a battle as the
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Christian church in the day in which we live. The onslaught will come, and it will be continuous.
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And sometimes it is like I said, you know, in the military they have, what do they call those things?
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Somebody might be able to tell me it's a long stick with the ends on it. Is it pommel sticks? Pugil sticks.
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I knew it began with a P. I mean, that's what the idea is like. It's like in your face the attack will come.
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And when it comes, flee to the Lord, but also flee to his word.
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Don't neglect it. You think, oh, in this trial, in this difficulty, I'm just so tired. I'm so discouraged.
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I'm so depressed. I'm not going to read the word of God. But it's the word of God that is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, and will encourage us, and God will use it.
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And notice also what he says in verse 15. Not only thus saith the Lord unto you, he says this,
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Be not afraid, nor be dismayed by reason of this great multitude.
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God is saying to Jehoshaphat and the people, these words, don't be afraid.
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What's he doing? How is it that they're receiving help by the word of God, but they're also receiving help by the calming of their fears?
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I mean, isn't it so true that when the attack does come, one of the things that happens is with the anxiety that may come, there also could be fear.
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What is going to happen to my family when this attack comes? What is going to happen to my health? What is going to happen in the church?
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And these thoughts begin to fester, and it can be very trying.
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I can remember when I was younger, we used to have a game that we played in our house, and we lived in a two -story home.
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It was a basement built back in the 60s. And when my parents built that house, they built just the basement part of the house because it was the way to be able to get in, an entryway to get into a home.
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And then you were required to build the rest of the house within so many years afterwards. Well, we lived in the basement to begin with, then we moved upstairs.
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The basement was then just for odds and ends and for playing at times.
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One of the things we used to do is shut all the lights off down there and see who could go all the way to the other end of the house and come back.
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You know, you do that by yourself as a little one, and it's terrifying. But if you have your brother or sister with you, piece of cake.
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You can both go together and you can kind of help each other get all the way to the end and get back.
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And here, I mean, think about that. In this dark time, in this difficulty, in this attack that is coming from the enemy,
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God says He will be with them. Notice He says, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God.
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God calms their fears, and He makes them aware of the fact that He will fight this battle for them.
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He will fight on their behalf. What I love next is verse 16.
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Do you remember before up in verse 12? They said, We have no might, and this great company that is coming against us, neither know we what to do.
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We don't even have a plan. And in verse 16, help comes to them.
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This is God still speaking through Jehaziel, the prophet, the word of the Lord coming to them, and He's telling them exactly what to do.
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And the help that comes to them is God's well -defined plan. He says this,
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Tomorrow go you down against them. Behold, they come up by the cliff or the descent of Ziz.
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And you shall find them at the end of the brook before the wilderness of Jeruel. So, you don't know what to do, verse 12?
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You don't have a clue. And if we could kind of pull back the curtain, so to speak, and we could see as maybe they were talking to the
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Lord in prayer, and we were listening in what was being said, God speaking to them, if this were possible.
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He said, You don't have a clue, but I do. I'm the God of heaven and earth.
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I know all about your situation. I know you. I know your enemy. I know where you are and what you need.
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Somebody put a life motto. I don't know. I think I may have paraphrased this just to kind of sweeten it up a little bit or kind of more just make it a little bit more doctrinally biblical here.
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Somebody put this as far as a morning speech, speaking that the Lord could do for His people, and it would go like this.
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He said, Good morning. This is the Lord. I'm in complete control of your life. I do not need your help.
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So why don't you just trust me and have a day full of rest? And when it comes to our lives, when it comes to the life of the people here, that's what is happening.
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God knows where they are. He knows exactly what they need. He even knows where the enemy is.
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You don't know where they are, but they didn't know where the enemy was, but God does. His eyes, who goes to and fro over all of the earth,
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He knows the scheme of the enemy. He knows their battle strategies. He's been in their tents.
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He knows their hideouts, and He's going to give Jehoshaphat and the people an unmistakable, well -defined plan for victory, and because He's going to do that, do not be afraid.
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God was going to lead them. And doesn't the Lord lead us? As we read His Word, as we seek
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His face, as we pray in the difficulty, the Lord will lead us. The Word of God will give us direction.
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It will guide us. We'll have discernment as to which way to go, how to respond, how to react to the situation that has come our way.
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If it is a difficult trial and a difficult loss, we don't raise the fist and we don't shake our fist at God and say, what are you doing?
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We don't get bitter. We don't have a root of bitterness within us. We don't check out. We don't throw in the towel, but we keep pressing forward because we know that God has promised that He'll always be with us.
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We'll always be His people, that we are eternally secure in Christ, that no weapon that is formed against us shall prosper.
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And in this case here, we see that the battle is the Lord's. Doesn't that remind you of David going against Goliath? The battle is going to be the
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Lord's, and he tells them exactly where to go. I mean, this is almost like saying, you know, down 190, take such and such a street, go down such and such an alley, and that's where the enemy is right there.
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He tells them exactly where they are. And notice what he also says. Not only does the help come, he calms their fears.
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He gives them awareness of who's going to fight this battle. He gives them a well -defined plan, but he gives them a renewed assurance.
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See this in verse 17. You will not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the
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Lord with you. O Judah and Jerusalem, fear not, nor be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, for the
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Lord will be with you. Wow, what assurance. Assurance that comes from the
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Lord. And notice it says in this verse here that they will not be the instruments of victory.
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They will be the spectators of this victory. What they will be doing is standing still and seeing and beholding and watching
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God act on their behalf and win a mighty victory for them. And let's see how this unfolds as we go on.
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Jehoshaphat, verse 18. I like at the end of verse 17, too, in the part of the renewed assurance is that we have
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God's promised divine presence in the midst of the difficulty. Right there you see it. The Lord is going to be with you.
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He's with Joseph. You read that when he's in prison and all the struggles and the trials that he's going through. As God is working out his promise in Joseph's life that he will be used of the
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Lord in his lifetime, and it says God is with him. And here we see it. The people of God, God is going to be with them.
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He's with us in the difficulty. Verse 18, Jehoshaphat bows his head with his face to the ground, and all
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Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the
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Lord. And isn't it so important for us to remember that when it comes to the battle, we need to worship before there's warfare.
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We need to seek the Lord's face and we need to pray and we need to diligently look to the
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Lord for help and search his word and be still before the Lord and then to worship the
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Lord. And they do this. And the Levites, verse 19, of the children of the Kohathites and the children of the
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Korites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high.
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And I believe here that they are praising in faith. I mean, they are so confident in God's promise of victory that they've begun to praise the
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Lord before the victory has even been wrought on their behalf. And I don't know if that's ever happened to you in your life.
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It doesn't happen often. But there are times, possibly, and I've only experienced it a very few times, when you're praying about something and you are assured that God is for you and that God is going.
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It just gives you the peace about being able to go forward in it, not knowing exactly maybe,
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I'm not saying that I know exactly what's going to happen, but there's just a settledness that you are completely assured and confident that this is all going to work out.
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And it's almost like internally you smile. And you begin to praise the Lord in the situation because you're so confident that God is going to hear your cry and act on your behalf.
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So they praised with a loud voice. In verse 20, they rise up early in the morning, and they went forth in the wilderness of Tekoa.
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And as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the
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Lord your God. And what he's saying there is put your trust in God. That word believe or putting your trust in God, be firmly settled.
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Trust in him. And he's urging them on to greater faith here as they're coming against this enemy in this great difficult situation.
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Not only he says believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established or be firmly settled.
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And then he says believe his prophets, so you shall prosper. And that word prosper there means the root word means to push forward.
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It means to succeed or have success, true prosperity. When it comes, when you're trusting in the
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Lord and you're going to be firmly settled, you're going to be quiet, firmly settled, and you're going to succeed.
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Not by believing in God and believing the prophets or believing, again, God's word.
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And then we have the third point of the message. First, we saw that we need to first go to the
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Lord in times of difficulty more than anyplace else.
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Always go to the Lord first. And then secondly, when we go to the Lord, expect an answer from the
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Lord. Expect help from the Lord. Don't doubt that he will be for you. And then thirdly, we'll have when the help comes, we need to respond properly.
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When we have received help from the Lord, we need to respond properly. And we see that in verses 21 through 30.
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It says in verse 21, And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the
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Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and say,
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Praise the Lord, for his mercy endures forever.
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This is not conventional warfare. I mean, think about it.
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What does it say that they're doing? Who is going to go before this army? Well, it is not the intelligence crew.
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It is not those that are going to do surveillance. It is not the blasting bombing campaign.
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It is not as our military would do after the bombing, send in the special forces and the
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Marines go in and all the order that they take when they go in. There are no shields mentioned here.
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There are no swords mentioned here. There are no spears mentioned here.
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The singers are going to go before the Lord. Matthew Henry wrote about this text, and he said,
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An active faith can give thanks for a promise, though it be not yet performed.
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An active faith can give thanks for a promise, though it be not yet performed.
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And we saw back up in verse 19 that they stood up to praise the Lord with a loud voice, and Jehoshaphat says,
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Those that are going to go before are going to be the singers. This is going to be God's way which is above man's way.
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It is uncommon to head up your army this way. They were so confident in the Lord for victory that the choir was going to lead the army with praise before the actual promise, the actual victory was even seen.
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And that's all they were going to do. They were going to see what God was going to do on their behalf. But they praised the
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Lord. And I think this speaks a lot about having faith and believing God and trusting Him in the midst of our difficult situations and the battles, the struggles, the difficulties, the trials that come our way, to believe
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God that He will act on our behalf and do good and do right and never make a mistake and be for us and be with us and be against our enemies that attack.
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And what they do is they sing this song here, Praise the Lord for His mercy endures forever.
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So we see first and foremost their response is that they're worshiping God. They're putting the singers out first.
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And we see this unfold even more so in verse 22. And when they began to sing and praise the
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Lord, when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah, and they were smitten.
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Now, these ambushments, it's not known what it is. It is thought that possibly it could be angels that went in, or it could just be that God brought a confusion within the enemy camp, as we've seen
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Him do in the past. But nonetheless, there is this internal thing going on in the enemy's camp.
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And we see this unfolding in verse 23. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir.
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We see that those, we find out if we read elsewhere, they're the Edomites. The Edomites go against the Ammonites and the
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Moabites utterly to slay and destroy them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, when
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Edomites were all wiped out, then Ammonites and the Moabites go against each other until they're utterly destroyed.
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And what are we seeing here? We are seeing God fulfill
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His promise in verse 17. He says, you won't have to fight. Just stand still, set yourselves, and see the salvation of the
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Lord with you. And what better thing to do when we have no power, and we have no might, we don't have a plan, we don't know what to do, and we don't have anybody for us, there's no allies, no earthly allies, what better thing to do than to seek the
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Lord, and to wait, and watch, and see Him in His power, and in His might, and in His goodness.
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As the psalmist said in Psalm 68, I think it is, let God arise, and let
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His enemies be scattered. Let also all them that fear Him flee before Him. To let
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God arise on our behalf, and fight valiantly for us. And that's what they see, and that's what's taking place here.
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Notice in verse 24, And when Judah came towards the watchtower, or the lookout tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and behold, there were dead bodies fallen to the earth, none had escaped.
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I mean, this just reminds you of Pharaoh's chariots in the Red Sea. I mean, they didn't have to engage the enemy.
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There's nothing that they had to do here. God has done it all. God has been strong on their behalf. God did what
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He promised He would do. And when it comes to the people of God, when it comes to the church of God, do you think that the
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Lord thinks upon us? Do you think that He cares for us? Of course He does. The Word of God says so.
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That's why we're to cast our anxiety or care upon the Lord, because He cares for His people.
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And He cared for Jehoshaphat, and He cared for the people here, so much so that He said, I'm going to do this myself, and you watch and you see.
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And when they came to the place, they saw with their very own eyes the promise of verse 17 fulfilled.
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We serve an awesome God. We serve a God who's going to do what He says He's going to do, and He promised it to them, and it took place.
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But not only that, I mean, look what happens in verse 25. Here we see, as the people are responding, they're worshiping the
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Lord. They've responded in obedience, because notice too, though the battle was the
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Lord's, they needed to fulfill their responsibility. They needed to go. They needed to see.
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They needed to stand there, and they needed to worship, and they needed to praise and pray God and seek
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His face in all of this. And they did that. They were obedient. They see the promise fulfilled.
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What else do they do is they gather up the spoil. Verse 25, when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them an abundance, both riches with the dead bodies and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away.
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And they were three days in gathering the spoil. It was so much. I mean, think about it.
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They seek the Lord. What do they probably really want? They want this enemy defeated, or they want this enemy to flee away, the battle to be over, for them to be spared, for their wives and their children to be safe and fine, and everything will be okay, and we can go on with life.
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But just as God always does, I mean, think about salvation. When we first came to the
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Lord, did we have any... When God drew us to himself and we came to Christ, we believed in the
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Lord Jesus Christ for the saving of our souls, repenting of our sins, and God working marvelously upon our hearts, regenerating us, and we become the children of God through faith in Christ.
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Did we have any idea of what it meant to experience the glorious richness and riches of the grace of God in Jesus Christ?
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We had no clue. We are coming to find out that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think.
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God outdoes the prayers of his people, does he not? I mean, think about it in your life. Sometimes we pray about something, we forget to pray, and God still answers it.
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He's so faithful to what he wants to do for us and his plan for us. He outdoes our prayers.
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He does above and beyond what we could ask or think. Not only are we forgiven and become the children of God, but he continually blesses us every day of our life, continues to teach us the truth and continues to draw our hearts close to him, and it gets sweeter every day as we think of this fellowship that we have with God through his
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Son, Jesus Christ. And to top it all off, one day we're going to leave this world and be in the presence of Jesus Christ and see him face to face and serve him for all eternity.
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We had no clue, didn't we? Did we? And think about this. They wanted just the enemy gone here, and they're taking three days to gather up the spoil.
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I've told you about, some of you know this, about the dream that I've had in the past.
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A lot of times I don't have nightmares. The bad dreams that I have, I'll tell Deb when
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I wake up, is I've just been working a whole bunch. I mean, I'm working through some project, and it's got 16 points, and I can't remember them.
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I start at one, and I'm trying to get through that one, and two, and three, and I just can't see. I go back to one, and two, and three, and I wake up, and I'm exasperated.
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I mean, I'm just exhausted. It's like I didn't get sleep. I don't have the crazy nightmare types of dreams.
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One of the dreams that I have that is somewhat reoccurring is, and I don't know where this came from, but it's
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I'm walking down the sidewalk, and I keep finding change. And the more change that I pick up off the ground, the more that just keeps appearing.
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It means quarters, and nickels, and dimes, and I'm just picking them up, and picking them up, and I just can't get them all.
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That's what's happening here. God has not only defeated the enemy, but He's given them great spoil. He's given them all they're going to need to provide for their needs for the future, and He's done more than what they could think of.
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And what are they going to do with that? Happy now in Jesus.
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What was the song we sang tonight? Oh, join this happy throng. I think that was in there.
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Some of you have, I see the Addies are here from the past. I used to do this in the church when we used to sing a couple of songs, and there was that phrase,
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Oh, join this happy throng. And I look around, and there's nobody smiling. Wait a minute, we need to sing that verse all over again.
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We need to be singing it with exuberance, and unto the Lord. What do you think they're going to do? They've looked to the
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Lord, and He's answered. They've sought God's face, and He has been faithful, as He has in the past.
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They were confident that God would do what He said He would do. And He comes to them, and God assures them not to be afraid.
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Don't be concerned. I will fight this battle for you. You don't have to do anything. They'll be completely defeated.
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All you have to do is see it. You'll be the spectator of My magnificent power before you.
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And God fulfills His word. And the enemy is slain, all before them dead.
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Three days, picking up the spoil. And what will be their response?
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Verse 26, On the fourth day, they assembled themselves in the valley of Baraka.
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And this Baraka means blessing. For there they blessed the Lord. Therefore the name of the same place was called the
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Valley of Baraka. Unto this day. So first we see their response to it is that they blessed
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God. They give Him the glory. They're so thankful, and they're so grateful for what
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He's done. And believe me, when it comes to God answering our prayers, when it comes to the
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Lord standing strong on our behalf, and protecting us and our families and our churches, and keeping us secure, and thinking upon us, and providing for us, and defeating the enemy, we need to bless the
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Lord. We need to be a people with a loud voice, booming, praising God.
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And not only do they bless the Lord, it says in verse 27, in that valley that got its name because it's a valley of blessing.
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I mean, I think it's so important. I think this is something that's missing in our culture. It's missing in our day.
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When God defeated at one point in the life of the children of Israel, they raised a stone, and they called it
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Ebenezer. And they said, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. God got us to this point.
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It's by the Lord and by the Lord alone. When God splits open the River Jordan so that they can go across into the
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Promised Land, they take a man from every one of the tribes to take a rock out of the middle of that riverbed and to place those rocks on the other side.
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So when the children says, What meaneth these stones? What are these stones all about? You will be able to tell them what
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God has done for you. And I think we're missing something today in that we don't raise Ebenezers.
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We don't make, and I'm not talking about, you know, starting some new product line in the
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Christian bookstore, you know, Ebenezer necklaces or rings or something, but journal entries.
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It could be, and maybe you would, if God were to do something wonderful on your behalf.
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I don't know. It could be a small piece of jewelry or a plaque in your house or something that we can look back on that and we can say all glory and honor and praise unto the
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Lord for giving that baby to that barren womb to delivering me from that physical affirmity that I had that I did not think could go away, and God has acted marvelously upon our behalf.
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Or in the church here, we are praying. We're building because we need more room. For God to surprise us, and isn't
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He a God of surprises, could He not, in His great power, and He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
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He owns the hills under that cattle. Could He not plop three or five million dollars in the midst of us?
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And I'm not talking a prosperity thing or anything. Could not the Lord surprise us that way and provide exceedingly abundantly above all that?
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I would do our prayers also, and we would have another building. Wouldn't it be great for us to raise some type of an
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Ebenezer? I encourage you to do that in your Christian life or in your family. Well, I've got to wrap it up here. They bless the
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Lord. Verse 27, they return every man of Judah and Jerusalem, Jehoshaphat, in the forefront of them to go to Jerusalem with joy.
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There it is. Not only are they blessing God, but there's great joy for the Lord has made them to rejoice over their enemies.
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The Lord did it. The Lord did it. The Lord did it. It wasn't their plan. They had none. It wasn't their strength. They had none.
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It wasn't their allies. They had none. They were completely dependent upon the Lord. God made them to rejoice over their enemies.
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They came to Jerusalem, verse 28, with the musical instruments, the lyres, the soteries, the harps, and the trumpets, into the house of the
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Lord. And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries when they had heard that the
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Lord fought against the enemies of Israel. And we see here that what
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God does is he strikes fear. The hearts of the people around them melt because what
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God has done on their behalf and for them. And then it says in verse 30, so the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet for, notice the wording specifically, so the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet for his
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God gave him rest round about. His God gave him rest round about.
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So in our difficulties, when the attack comes, brethren, first seek the
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Lord. Go to him first. Don't go to human reasoning. Don't go to your own abilities.
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Don't go to others, you know, Psalm 20, some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, some trust in the government, some trust in the physical weaponry.
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This is unconventional. This is the Lord, strong and mighty, acting on the behalf of his people.
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Go to him first and expect to receive help from him second. And when you receive that help, respond properly.
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Like King Jehoshaphat and the nation Israel, let us learn also to feel our weaknesses and needs and then go on to recognize that our
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God, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, is the captain of our salvation and he is all and over all and he has all power and all might as we serve in the
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Christian church in the day in which we live. Let us pray, bringing forth every plea and remind the
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Lord of his word and his promises. Let us appeal to God's power and promises.
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Let us believe God, put our trust in him and rely upon him and his mighty arm.
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And let us overcome every enemy that attacks, whether it be sin, self,
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Satan, society, whatever it is, with the simple prevailing faith in doing what these people did.
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In verse 12, our eyes are upon our God. Our eyes and putting our confidence totally in him, looking to him, simply trusting him every day and waiting for him to do what he said he will do.
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May the Lord God do for us what he did for Israel in this chapter. He answered them at once.
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Notice, they are praying, God answers. He calms their fears.
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He takes the battle to himself. He promises to be with them. He rids them of their enemies.
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He gives them an abundance of spoil, brings quietness and peace in their life.
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And may he be pleased to bless us the same way in our difficulties as we look to him in the same way in faith, trusting in him to be strong on our behalf.
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Shall we pray? Father, we would first ask you to please forgive us for the times when that difficulty, that attack, that trial, that affliction, that dark time, that time that could raise a lot of anxiety, we have not looked to you first.
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But we've tried it on our own and we've utterly failed. We've even looked to other people and we have not found any help.
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We may have depended upon even the material possessions that we have or what's in our checkbook or what's in the bank or the presumed health that we think that we have or the presumed wisdom that we think that we have on our own.
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And it has failed us every time. We're so grateful that you are a
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God who is strong and mighty, sovereign, caring, thinking upon your people.
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We're grateful that you have thought so much so, that you loved us so much so that Christ came to die on our behalf, to bear our sin upon Calvary, to, as we sang, my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to his cross and I bear it no more and we would say, praise the
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Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. Thank you for the wonderful gift of salvation, the way that you have visited us.
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And Lord, as we live this week, there will be times of great difficulty and yet you are greater than any one of those difficulties.
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You are so great that nobody can stop your hand.
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You know it all. You know what is coming our way, even our country when we hear of all the news and what's going on here and in Iraq and Iran, Afghanistan, Al -Qaeda, all of the different factions and all the different areas of the world that would come against the
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United States. Lord, you're in control of it all and we rest in you. We're going to put our confidence in you and not in man, not in government, not in armies, not in physical strength, but you because you will never fail us.
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How great you are. How faithful you have been. Please, as that difficulty and attack hits us square in the face,
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Lord, please give us grace that we would look to you first, that we would expect help from you as we ask for it, and when it comes and you give us just a rest and a quiet and a peace and a victory that you give over the enemy, may we be a people who worship and praise you as we should.
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May we look to you and exalt you and exalt the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
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Lamb of God who is worthy. Please be with these dear people as they leave today. Protect them as they travel and give them great strength to be a testimony of grace, trophies of grace in this crooked and perverse world.
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May they shine as lights and may Christ be honored and magnified as they live out the truth that we have heard this evening.