| |
December 3, 2006
|
Christian Disciplines
|
Pastor Brian Shimer
|
|
"The Way of Guidance"
(STAYING POWER)
2 Chronicles 20
- The odds were impossible.
Those in Judah and Jerusalem could not amass a force strong enough to defeat the armies marching toward them. Here three nations had joined together against their one. Three nations intent on destroying them.
It was an impossible situation.
There was no way out.
The doctor tells you an aggressive form of cancer has invaded your body.
The crackling sound was fire. My friend Drew awakened out of a sound sleep during a back lawn campout with his kids to the sounds of fire. He awakened just in time to save the life of the renter, but his house was destroyed by the flames.
The boss quits and your CEO wants you to take the position but it means longer hours and a bigger load of responsibility then you want to bear. Do you take it?
The house is clean, but your grandkids just arrived with five of their friends to spend the night.
All snapshots of impossible situations. For Judah, it was an impossible, God-sized problem. There was no way out. What would you do?
- In the middle of this impossible situation, King Jehoshaphat not only resolves to ask God what to do, but calls all of his nation to seek God as well by proclaiming a fast and inviting all the people of the land to come together in Jerusalem and seek God together.
He called a sacred assembly at the temple of the Lord. Sometimes what we don't do and ought to do in impossible situations is invite someone else into our world, ask them to pray, as Paul wrote to the Galatians: "Carry one another's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" (6:2).
The people gathered at the temple, that temple at which Solomon had prayed when it was dedicated, that if the people would come there to pray, turning from their wicked ways, and seek God's face, then God would hear from heaven, heal their land and forgive their sin.
So, the most powerful man in Judah, King Jehoshaphat, prays. He does not seek to amass his armies. He does not scrambled to make a pact with another nation to come to his defense. There is not time for that even if he might have tried it. But instead, he prays.
When faced with a crisis, when the news comes that is devastating, when faced with a decision that you do not know how to solve, follow Jehoshaphat's lead: pray and invite others to pray for and with you.
Here prayer does not mean to just lift up the problem to God, but through prayer the people station themselves before God. They come to God and they remain in God's presence.
After identifying just to whom he is praying, the God who is the God of all heaven, the God who rules over all kingdoms, in whose hand are power and might and after recounting all that God has accomplished in the past - it is good to remember what God has done in the past - after reminding God of His promises to their forefathers, and after reminding God that the very nations who are attacking them are those God told them to spare when coming from Egypt to the promised land, after all this, there standing in God's presence, Jehoshaphat and the people say, "we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you."
They have come to God and they are remaining in God's presence -- "our eyes are upon You."
The army is still descending upon them. Their situation remains unchanged. But they have acknowledged there is nothing else to be done and so fix their sights up onto God.
In impossible situations our eyesight gets blurred. It is like driving through dense fog. All we can see is the road just before us, and fog blurs all that surrounds us. In such driving conditions we know to slow down, but sometimes in similar life situations we try speeding up, we try to "make our way" through the fog as quickly as possible.
Unlike the people in this time, we rely upon ourselves not upon God. We push the- peddle-to-the-floor by taking rash actions.
How much wiser it is to slow down rather than speed up! How much we gain by fixing our eyes upon God, who will give us an answer to our dilemma, and will see us through the fog of our circumstance. It is like driving out of the fog into the blazing sun.
I remember mornings leaving Banks in a deep fog only to drive out the 47 and just when I hit the Highway 26 exiting the cloud of fog into blazing sunshine. The cold, damp, grey left behind and the blue skied splendor up above!
Then with the people here we can say, "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You -- upon You, the God of heaven, the King of all the earth, the Sovereign One above accidents of weather and traffic, above illness, above situations and life difficulties - our eyes are upon you.
- That is what they do in this situation and then they remain there. They abide in the attitude of prayer. They are still before the Lord-recognizing that no one can deliver but Him.
When silent, then we can hear God speak. God speaks through every means. God can get our attention through a line in a book, through TV, through a cashier at the grocery store, through a friend, Christian or non-Christian, and especially through those who love Jesus, through the Word of God, through the preached Word. Through all by the Holy Spirit, God speaks.
When you want to hear God speak, it helps to be listening. God is always speaking, but we are not always open to His voice. When we listen, as the people were listening here, when we remain in prayer in order to hear God speak, God will speak.
A couple weeks ago during our opening worship time there was a very sweet presence of the Lord in this place and then in the silence, God to Dian Punzel's heart. She wrote down what she heard God speaking and gave it to me. I then read it aloud during our time of prayer. It was a word from heaven to the people of Banks. God speaks.
The season of Advent is a time when we remember the powerful ways that God speaks. The author of Hebrews wrote of this in the opening verses of that great New Testament book: "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word" (Hebrews 1: 1-3).
God announced the coming of the Son through the Angelic messengers, through the songs of Zechariah, Mary, Simeon and the song of the angels. God spoke to Elizabeth as she praised God full of His Holy Spirit.
- So as the people stood silently intent on hearing from God in 2 Chronicles, God spoke through a man named Jahaziel. We read in verse 14 that the Spirit of the LORD came upon him and he said: "Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the LORD says to you: "Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's."
And then he gives them instruction on how they will march to battle the next day but will not have to fight.
"Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged…. The Lord will be with you" (verse 17).
So can we take this statement and own it as for us as well? Is the battle always the Lord's?
Clearly, the battle in Egypt as God fought to set gain his people's freedom, was the Lord's!
Whose battle was it when the giant Goliath defied the Armies of Israel? As David ran to meet Goliath in battle, he made it clear that Goliath was not taunting the armies of Saul but had defied not the armies of Saul but the Armies of the living God!
Whose battle was it being fought when Elisha was in the city of Dothan?
Whose battle was Joshua fighting in the promised land - was the victory up to the Lord time and again (as long as Israel was obedient to Him)?
Whose battle was fought in the Babylonian and Persian court when the three young men were thrown into the fiery furnace or Daniel was tossed into the lion's den? It was God's battle to fight on their behalf, not their own. Only God could save them from the furnace or den, and God did!
This is why David prayed, "Contend with those who contend with me O God," in Psalm 35.
This is why the Apostle John wrote that the one who is in us, the Holy Spirit, is greater than the one who is in the world. The battle is not fought and won in our own strength ever; it is God who works in and through us who makes all the difference.
The battle is not ours but the Lord's. Sometimes when there is a battle, we take it on as if it were ours to fight. But what if rather, we just took the actions God calls us to take. What if we got out of the way enough so that God could act. The people here, did so. They lifted up their eyes to the Lord, heard from God and then followed all God directed them to go, by sending those who praised God ahead of the armies.
What if we did the same? What if we took the command to heart to not be discouraged or afraid and instead trusted, wholly trusted the One who is big enough to battle on our behalf?
The king encourages his subjects the next day telling them to have faith in the LORD for then they will be upheld. And he tells them to have faith in the LORD's prophets - in other words have faith in the Word of the Lord, the Scriptures, for then, they will be successful.
The key to guidance whether we are in a battle or just in the fog of indecision is to get our eyes onto the Lord, and stay in His presence and listen for the direction to come form heaven. With God the fog clears and the way is made plain.
Hear the Lord's command to you, no matter what faces you today:
"Do not be afraid and do not be discouraged!"
"Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld!
Have faith in His prophets and you will be successful."
And as you step forward, give God praise for then the Lord is even more free to act on your behalf.
So the people listened as Jahaziel told them what they were to do, how they would stand firm and see God's deliverance and again tells them: "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."
|
|
|