Good morning, church. Would you turn with me to 2 Chronicles chapter 20. That is page 346, I believe, in the Pew Bible.
! 2 Chronicles chapter 20, page 346. We are going to look at one of the most exciting stories in the book of 2 Chronicles today.
But this story, it's a story that has a lot to say to us today because it's a story that's all about fear.
It's about fear. Many human hearts today, most people, I think, are a wellspring of fears and anxieties and worries.
You know, some of our worries are kind of like familiar friends, aren't they? We carry them around with us wherever we go.
But sometimes our fears kind of spring up on us, unawares. They surprise us out of nowhere, and they shake our sense of security and stability and our sort of sense of control.
Many of our fears get played out in the public square, after all.
Is not the increasing anger of our public discourse, those shrill and condemning tones, is that not a great sign of just deep-seated fear?
We're angry because we're afraid.
Many of our fears haunt us privately.
These are the ones that only come out in the quiet moments, perhaps, those moments of solitude.
We live with the fear of loneliness.
We live with the fear of personal failure.
Soren Kierkegaard once said that anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
He meant that as modern people, we have almost limitless freedom to choose and to become.
But with such freedom comes more choices, which means more opportunities to get it wrong.
And we live in fear.
And underneath all these fears, there perhaps kind of yawns the greatest fear of all,
the fear of death and what may or may not come afterwards.
2 Chronicles was written over 2,500 years ago.
But it was written to people like us, people who live amidst great fears.
And what 2 Chronicles 20 aims to do is to recount a particular moment in Israel's history when God met His people in their fears
and showed them what it meant for Him to be their God and for them to be His people, even when they were afraid.
So we're going to walk through this passage together and see what helps it gives to us today in the midst of our fears.
So let me pray for us.
And then we're going to walk through the passage section by section.
Let's pray together.
Father, as we turn to this ancient story,
we trust that it is the word that You've spoken,
not just to Your people many years ago,
but the word You continue to speak today.
For You, God, are the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Lord Jesus, help us to see Your abiding truth and goodness and beauty in this passage
by the help of Your Holy Spirit.
In Your mighty name we pray. Amen.
All right, well, let's read verses 1 through 4, and let's set the stage.
2 Chronicles 20, verses 1 through 4.
After this, the Moabites and Ammonites, and with them some of the Mayanites,
came against Jehoshaphat for battle.
Some men came and told Jehoshaphat,
A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea.
And behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar, that is, En-Gedi.
Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord
and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord.
From all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord.
Okay, context.
So at this point in Israel's history,
Jehoshaphat is the king of what we've come to call the southern kingdom.
After the golden age of David and Solomon, you'll remember,
the kingdom split under the reign of Solomon's reckless son, Rehoboam.
And then we've seen over the last few weeks,
some of the kings down through the line.
After Rehoboam, there was Abijah, and then Asa, and now Jehoshaphat.
And we looked at the first part of Jehoshaphat's reign last week,
when he entered into an unwise alliance with the northern kingdom.
And that alliance led to this spectacular military defeat
that almost cost Jehoshaphat his life.
So in chapter 20, or excuse me, in chapter 19, after that great failure,
in chapter 19, Jehoshaphat's rebuked by the prophet Jehu,
and in response, Jehoshaphat does what?
Well, he actually fears God.
And he begins in chapter 19 a series of reforms in Judah and in Jerusalem.
He calls the people back to God, and he begins establishing faithful judges in the land.
He starts to do what's right.
But in verse 1 of our chapter, we see these words,
After this, the Moabites and Ammonites and with them some of the Maonites
came against Jehoshaphat for battle.
Now, this was an alliance of three kingdoms located to the east of Judah,
across the Jordan River, across the Dead Sea.
And this Moabite alliance, we're told, has come around the southern tip of the Dead Sea
and advanced all the way up to En Gedi, which was a small oasis about halfway up the western shore of the Dead Sea,
which was only about 25 miles southeast of Jerusalem.
So you see, Jehoshaphat was now doing all the right things,
and still the danger, still the threat, still the trials came.
After this, the chronicler says, that is after Jehoshaphat was trying to bring reform,
after he was calling his officials to fear God and exercise justice,
right when he was doing the right thing, the good thing,
right when he was obeying God, the trials came.
The enemies invaded.
They showed up right in his backyard within striking distance of the Capitol.
Now, the same can be true for us today.
You know, obedience to God does not guarantee a trouble-free, a fear-free life.
And trials aren't always a sign of discipline or disobedience.
Living in a fallen world means that trials will come.
Fearful things will come flooding in, often unawares.
And look at verse 3.
The chronicler says,
Are you and I able to admit when we are afraid?
Or do we pretend that kind of nothing can shake or rattle us?
You know, we often think that if we ignore our fears, they'll go away.
But that's actually not what we see in Scripture.
In the narratives of Scripture like this one, we see the acknowledgement of fear.
If we ignore or deny our fears, they'll often grow and then begin to control us.
But when we acknowledge our fear, then we can rightly respond.
And that's what we see, actually, in the rest of this chapter.
2 Chronicles 20 invites us to acknowledge that we live in the midst of a great spiritual battle
with many and great fears.
But in the midst of these fears, this chapter gives us three things.
Three things in the midst of our fears.
First, it gives us a prayer to pray.
Second, it gives us a word to trust.
And third, it gives us a victory to remember.
Here's how we as Christians can rightly respond in the midst of fear.
A prayer to pray, a word to trust, and a victory to remember.
So let's look at that first thing, a prayer to pray.
We see this in verses 5 through 12.
So let's look at those verses together, and I'm going to read them.
Let's start back in verse 3, actually, and kind of pick up the context.
So back in verse 3, we'll read through verse 12.
Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout
all Judah.
And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord.
From all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.
And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before
the new court and said,
O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven?
You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations.
In your hand are power and might so that none is able to withstand you.
Did you not, our God, 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 have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name saying,
If disaster comes upon us, the sore or judgment or pestilence or famine, we will stand before
this house and before you, for your name is in this house and cry out to you in our affliction
and you will hear and save.
And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade
when they came from the land of Egypt, whom they avoided and did not destroy, behold, they
reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit.
O our God, will you not execute judgment on them?
For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us.
We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.
We are powerless.
We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.
The prayer that Jehoshaphat prays turns our eyes away from ourselves and puts our gaze
fully on God.
First, you'll notice it's a prayer that highlights God's sovereign power.
O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven?
You rule all the kingdoms of the nations.
In your hand are power and might so that none is able to withstand you.
The threat is knocking at the door.
The great horde is encamped at En Gedi.
That sounds pretty gnarly, doesn't it?
There are massive worries in your life.
But what are they compared to the Lord?
Are they too great for Him?
Are the challenges that face the church today any match for the God who made heaven and earth
and who rules over the kingdoms of the nations?
You know, sometimes Christians can speak about the latest cultural trend or the latest technological
advance or the latest political headline as if this were the issue that's just going to upend
everything and make or break the church.
Have we forgotten what we mean when we say the name God?
In your hand are power and might so that none is able to withstand you.
God upholds the universe by the word of His power.
In Him we live and move and have our being.
Friends, God is God, the sovereign Lord.
So, Christian, pray passionate prayers about the greatness of God
and the fears of our hearts will begin to be put into perspective.
But this prayer doesn't just highlight God's sovereign power.
It also highlights God's faithful promises.
Verses 7 through 9 speak of God's promises to Abraham and to Abraham's descendants
to establish them in the land.
And it speaks of how God made good on that promise and how God continued to promise that
if they called out to Him, whether in times of sword or judgment or pestilence or famine,
if they called out to Him, He would hear them.
And so, in verses 10 through 11, Jehoshaphat does just that.
He brings the current situation before God.
And what does he talk about?
He says, you know, the nations that Israel didn't attack when they left Egypt and traveled
to the land of Canaan, those nations that Israel refused to attack,
the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, they're now attacking them.
Some way to return the favor, right?
But Jehoshaphat brings it back to God's own promises.
You gave us this land, God.
They're trying to drive us out of the land you gave us to inherit.
Surely you must do something about this.
So, this is a prayer that drives us to the nature of God and to the character of God.
God is incomparable in His power, and God is unshakable in His promises.
It is this sort of God-centeredness that we must seek in our prayers.
And when our prayers take us into the nature and character of God like this,
you know, our fears won't just magically disappear, no,
but they will start to lose their grip on us.
And when we start to exalt God like this in our prayers,
you know, something else starts to happen.
Then we start to admit the truth about ourselves as well.
Notice where the prayer ends.
We are powerless.
We do not know what to do.
You know, admitting our inability and our ignorance
is probably the hardest thing to do as human beings.
We are so good at being self-sufficient,
and we are often rewarded in the world for presenting ourselves as wise and capable.
But in order to really pray,
in order to have a genuine relationship with the one true God
who is incomparable in power and unshakable in His promises,
we have to admit that at the end of the day,
we are powerless, and we do not know what to do.
Now, at first, that seems like the opposite
of what we should do in the face of our fears, right?
Shouldn't we believe in ourselves?
Shouldn't we trust that we've got what it takes?
Well, that strategy works for a while
until it doesn't, right?
Until you realize that you don't have what it takes.
Until you realize that in the face of the deepest fears of the heart,
the fear of alienation, the fear of death, the fear of judgment,
before these proper fears, we are powerless,
and we do not know what to do.
That our only hope rests not in ourselves, but in God.
You see, this prayer that we are invited to pray has us admit
that we really cannot move these fears one inch in our own strength,
in our own power, in our own knowledge.
But rather than this realization casting us into despair,
it casts us into the arms of the almighty and faithful God of the gospel,
the God who made promises to Abraham
and who kept those promises from generation to generation
until the great offspring of Abraham appeared,
the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all God's promises were fulfilled.
It casts us into the arms of that God.
And that brings us to our second point.
2 Chronicles doesn't just give us a prayer to pray
in the midst of our fears.
It also gives us a word to trust, a word to trust.
This is verses 13 through 19.
Let's pick up the story there.
Meanwhile, all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones,
their wives, and their children.
And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jehaziel,
the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah,
the son of Jael, the son of Mataniah,
a Levite of the sons of Asaph in the midst of the assembly.
And he said,
Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem
and King Jehoshaphat,
thus says the Lord to you,
Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde,
for the battle is not yours, but God's.
Tomorrow, go down against them.
Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz,
and you will find them at the end of the valley,
east of the wilderness of Jeruel.
You will not need to fight in this battle.
Stand firm, hold your position,
and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf,
O Judah and Jerusalem.
Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed.
Tomorrow, go out against them,
and the Lord will be with you.
Then Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground,
and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
fell down before the Lord,
worshiping the Lord.
And the Levites of the Kohathites and the Korahites
stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
with a very loud voice.
A word to trust.
Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed,
for the battle is not yours, but God's.
Through these words given through the prophet Jehaziel,
God committed himself to fight this battle
on the people's behalf.
They were the ones who were going to march out.
They were going to stand firm.
They were going to hold their positions,
but they would not need to fight
because the battle isn't theirs.
It's God's.
God will fight in their place,
and he will do what they cannot do.
They will go out,
and the Lord will be with them.
And because the Lord will be with them,
they need not be afraid.
Do not be afraid,
and do not be dismayed,
even at this great horde.
In Romans 8, the apostle Paul says,
if God is for us,
who can be against us?
Brother, sister, what are you afraid of today?
It can be a scary thing, you know,
to really take the lid off of our fears
and kind of stare them in the face.
But listen to what God says here to his people
nearly 2,500 years ago,
and listen to what God has continued to say
to his people throughout the ages.
He says,
I will be with you.
Do you remember what the resurrected Jesus says
at the end of Matthew's gospel?
He says,
All authority on heaven and on earth
has been given to me.
There are the risen...
In the times of fear,
in the times of worry,
I'm with you always,
the Lord Jesus says.
When you face financial fears
and job insecurity,
the Lord will be with you.
When you face emotional and relational fears,
like when a new child is born
or when a marriage is struggling
or when a friendship is growing cold,
the Lord will be with you.
But what about when you face those deeper fears,
those fears of ultimate concern,
those fears that we're too often afraid to admit,
fears that our lives aren't as good
or as purposeful as we try to make them seem.
Fears that if the books of our lives
were opened up before a holy God,
if the movie of our life was played
before the gaze of His perfect and good judgment,
if all of our deeds were brought before Him,
we wouldn't just be embarrassed.
We'd be undone.
That fear that as sinners,
condemnation is the rightful sentence
that we deserved.
Here,
in that most ultimate of fears,
here,
the Lord Jesus also says,
I will be with you.
I will stand with you.
You know,
when that great horde of your sins
comes flooding in from behind,
though you've tried so hard
to reform yourself
and reform your family
and reform your neighborhood,
though like Jehoshaphat,
you've redoubled your effort
to do the right thing,
when the great horde of your sins
comes rushing in
and you stand powerless,
not knowing what to do,
when you stand condemned,
there the Lord Jesus says,
I'll be with you.
Do you see how this God,
the God of the Bible,
is so very different
from the God of every other religion?
Every other religion says,
if you do the right things,
then I'll be with you.
If you do the right things,
then maybe you can be with me.
But the gospel says,
you're condemned in your sins
without hope.
But God stands with you
in your sin
so that you might be rescued
by His grace
and not by your works.
And friend, don't you see,
if God is with you
in your sin and condemnation,
if He promises to take
His stand with you
in your sin and death,
if He's gone down
into that for you
and with you,
if He's made that battle His own,
then is there any other battle
that's too big for Him?
Is there any other battle
that now,
now that that battle's been won,
will ultimately be redeemed
for your good,
regardless of the outcome?
can even death itself
steal your greatest joy
if God has promised
to be with you?
What now are you afraid of?
You know, the waves,
they rise,
and the waves crash,
and like Peter,
when our eyes turn
from our Savior
to the crashing waves,
we begin to sink, right?
But Jesus' hand
takes firm hold of ours,
and He pulls us up.
Oh, you of little faith,
why did you doubt?
Why were you so afraid?
The Lord will be with you.
This is a word to trust,
a word to trust
with your whole life forever.
And that brings us
to our last point.
2 Chronicles gives us
a prayer to pray,
a word to trust,
and last,
it also gives us
a victory to remember,
a victory to remember.
Let's read the rest
of our passage
from verse 20 to verse 30.
Verse 20,
And they rose early
in the morning
and went out
into the wilderness
of Tekoa.
And when they went out,
Jehoshaphat stood and said,
Hear me,
Judah and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem,
believe in the Lord your God.
and you will be established.
Believe His prophets
and you will succeed.
And when He had taken
counsel with the people,
He appointed those
who were to sing to the Lord
and praise Him
in holy attire
as they went before the army
and say,
Give thanks to the Lord
for His steadfast love
endures forever.
And when they began
to sing and praise,
the Lord set an ambush
against the men of Ammon,
Moab, and Mount Seir
who had come against Judah
so that they were routed.
For the men of Ammon and Moab
rose against the inhabitants
of Mount Seir,
devoting them to destruction.
And when they had made an end
of the inhabitants of Seir,
they all helped
to destroy one another.
When Judah came
to the watchtower
of the wilderness,
they looked toward the horde
and behold,
there were dead bodies
lying on the ground.
None had escaped.
When Jehoshaphat
and his people
came to take their spoil,
they found among them
in great numbers
goods, clothing,
and precious things
which they took
for themselves
until they could carry
no more.
They were three days
in taking the spoil.
It was so much.
On the fourth day,
they assembled
in the valley of Barakah,
for there they blessed
the Lord.
Therefore,
the name of that place
has been called
the valley of Barakah
to this day.
Then they returned,
every man of Judah
and Jerusalem
and Jehoshaphat
at their head,
returning to Jerusalem
with joy,
for the Lord
had made them rejoice
over their enemies.
They came to Jerusalem
with harps and lyres
and trumpets
to the house of the Lord,
and the fear of God
came on all the kingdoms
of the countries
when they heard
that the Lord
had fought
against the enemies
of Israel.
So the realm
of Jehoshaphat
was quiet,
for God gave him rest
all around.
The chronicler wanted
the people of his day
to remember this victory,
a victory when God intervened
and caused their enemies
to turn upon each other
and destroy themselves,
a victory when God
did all the fighting,
when God won the battle,
but the people
got the spoils.
God triumphed,
and the people
got the reward.
And friends,
does this victory
not point us
to the even greater victory
that God fought
for his people,
the victory that God's
only son fought
on the hillside
outside of Jerusalem.
But this battle
involved more than
turning the enemies
against themselves.
On that day,
that battle involved
God Himself
going down into defeat.
Jesus Christ
was stricken
and afflicted
for the sin
of His people.
He stood
in the midst
of the great horde
of sin and wrath
and judgment.
The sinless one
was crushed
for our iniquities,
and upon Him
was the chastisement
that brought us peace.
Jesus Christ
was crucified
and buried,
paying the penalty
of death
for all who believe.
And three days later,
God raised Him
from the dead.
The grave could not
hold the victorious
Son and King
because His death
had paid for sin.
Death itself
was undone.
And now,
even though He
fought the battle,
we get the spoils.
The battle was
not ours,
but His,
and yet we are
given the reward.
For all who admit
their powerlessness
and place their trust
in Christ,
we gather up
the greatest
of treasures,
the forgiveness
of sins,
and complete
reconciliation
with God.
Spiritual
regeneration
by the Holy Spirit,
a new heart
that desires
the things of God.
Membership
in His people,
the church,
where we live together
with Christ
as our King
and pursue His kingdom,
a purpose
and mission
to live for His glory.
And when a race
is run
and Christ the King
returns,
He will grant us
the resurrection
of the body
and the life
of the world
to come
and the healed
and new creation
where peace
and justice
dwell forever.
You see, friends,
in the midst
of our fears,
this is the victory
we must remember.
When our fears
are running high,
when our anxieties
and worries
are pressing in,
we have to return
to the valley
of Barakah,
the valley
of blessing,
the place
where God
fought the battle
and His people
got the reward.
And from there,
follow that same God
to the empty tomb
where God
fought an even
greater battle
and we received
an even greater reward.
And as you remember
this victory
and the grace
that you've been given,
as you remember
that victory,
then you can come back
to the Word.
I will be with you.
And you can know
that you can trust it.
And then you can come
back to the prayer
and you can make it
your own.
That the God
of incomparable power
and unbreakable promises
is your God.
And you can admit
that you don't
need to be powerful.
And you can admit
that you don't
have it all figured out.
Instead,
you can say,
our eyes are on you.
Our eyes are on you,
Lord,
and we will not be afraid.
Let's pray.
Father,
in this moment,
our eyes
are on you.
We pray
that by your Holy Spirit
you would allow us
to do just what
this passage
invites us to do.
to see that
you are the God
who has fought
the greatest battle
on our behalf,
won the victory,
and offered us
the greatest
of treasures.
Lord,
we take just a moment
to confess our fears
to you,
our worries,
our anxieties.
We lay them
before you.
Some of them
seem small,
God,
and we've got ideas
of how to try
to figure them out.
Some of them
seem so great
that we're not sure
what to do,
and it's easy
for us to say,
we're powerless.
God,
help us now
in this moment
to see
that underneath
all of these fears
that we wrestle with
and engage with,
the greatest fear
of all.
The fear of our exclusion
from you,
the fear that our sins
would put us forever
under your wrath,
Lord,
that that great fear
has been met
by an even greater gospel.
Lord Jesus,
help us to see you
as our rescuer
and our redeemer.
God,
draw our hearts out
in faith
and trust to you again.
Help us to keep
our eyes fixed on you.
We pray this
in Christ's mighty name.
Amen.