Jump Start # 4099
2 Chronicles 20:12 “O our God, will You not judge them? For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You.”
Our verse today comes from a prayer of a desperate and scared king. Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, was facing approaching armies from the coalition of Moad, Ammon and Meunites. The situation was bad. The king turns to God. He has the nation appeal to God. And, in this most honest prayer three things are noticed. First, he realized that the coming threat was real. This wasn’t something that was just going to go away.
Second, he understood that his armies were powerless. It would be a slaughter and he knew that.
Third, their only hope was the Lord. “Our eyes are on You,” acknowledging that God was the help.
Now, from this we ought to learn some lessons.
First, especially among us men, we do not have all the answers. There are times when we are backed into a corner and we simply do not know what to do. Many have trouble admitting this. “It’ll work out,” would not have helped Jehoshaphat. “We do not know what to do,” are words foreign to many people. And, because of that, there is a resistant to call upon the Lord because we believe we can get out of this mess on our own.
There are troubles in the family in which “we do not know what to do?” Call upon the Lord is what we do. People can get into trouble so quickly and so deeply and it can take a long, long time to get out of the messes that they have created. Divorce. Estrangement. Financial troubles. Those storms clouds can gather quickly and the storms can last a long time.
Second, the king realized that they were powerless. In the movies, this king would have gone into battle, fighting to the death, while dramatic music played in the background. Life is not like the movies. Had the king done that, he would have died and his nation would have been taken over by the invaders.
I need help is hard for many to say. I’m one of those. I don’t like to bother others. My recent troubles with my sciatic nerve has reminded me daily that I should have called someone to help me. There is no shame in needing others. This is one of the upsides to fellowship. Need someone to just listen to you, call them. Need someone to answer your questions, call them. Need someone to bring some food, take you to the doctor, call them. Some would rather suffer alone than to reach out to get help.
Third, the king understood that the help he needed had to come from Heaven. He didn’t live in a fantasy world which denies any troubles. It’s not that bad. Oh, yes it was. He didn’t reach out to Egypt to send troops. That’s happened in Biblical history. Only God can help. This is a great place that our faith will take us. I need the Lord. I need the Lord to get me out of this mess. Only the Lord can make this right. Only the Lord can forgive and help me.
Fourth, the king took action and prayed. It’s one thing to say, “Only God can help us,” but then to do nothing is not a sign of faith. He needed help from God, so he sought the Lord in prayer. He fasted. He told others. Being a king, he wasn’t ashamed to confess that he needed God to get him through this.
God came. Victory belonged to the Lord. And in the slaughter of Ammon and Moab, there was also the killing of pride, independence and self reliance. Don’t you expect after this, more people would have turned to the Lord as the king did. Don’t you think more people would admit that they were powerless to the problems that they faced, yet God was greater than any problem.
And, don’t you think when we have done the same thing as the king, we are more quickly to turn to the Lord instead of trying to figure things out ourselves. Generations later, we find a shadow of this same story. There was no coming armies, but there was a storm. The apostles thought for sure that they were going to die. They were powerless. They did not know what to do. They turned to the Lord and Jesus calmed the storm. God prevailed. God is greater than any of our troubles.
A king recognized the situation he was in and a king sought Heaven.
Roger