Our Eyes Are on You, Lord

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“For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

2 Chronicles 20:12

Main Readings: 2 Corinthians 1 & 2 Chronicles 20:1-30

Supporting Readings: Psalm 46 & John 16:16-33

This has been a hard week. Perhaps the hardest and most challenging week in the history of this little church.

Some of our friends are gone and our little group is even littler. I guess our future looks uncertain to say the least. Like the Apostle Paul once said, ‘we’re hard pressed on every side’. That’s how it feels anyway.

Let’s be clear, our friends who have departed are not our enemies - they are our brothers and sisters, and we love them very much.

Our enemy, rather, is Satan. He’s powerful. He’s proud and he is very pleased with his work this week.

Last week we were stronger than we are now. This week we’re like a boxer on the ropes - we’ve taken some heavy hits, and we don’t know what’s coming next.

But one thing’s for sure we don’t feel very strong or very confident in ourselves.

Where will we look? To whom shall we go?

Well, there are some options. We can rely on ourselves for the answers. Or we can rely on others for the answers. But neither of those options supply any power - just more of the same really.

But I think we can take a lesson from the Old Testament king, Jehoshaphat this morning to help us in this time of need, and to direct us through the next week. So that we can know where to look and to whom we should go.

I think if we do what he did, then we will be really helped in the face of this sad moment.

King Jehoshaphat was confronted with an overwhelming challenge also - ‘a vast army’ it says in verse 2. No less than three separate armies had lined up against him, and they were as one. They lined up just a stone’s throw from his border, and with deadly intentions.

That kind of enemy meant business in those days. They didn’t come to bloody some noses; they came to conquer - completely.

You can often tell how the odds are stacked can’t you? You can tell from the way people emotionally respond to a situation. If the odds are in their favour then they display courage; and if not, then dismay.

Verse 3 says Jehoshaphat was ‘alarmed’. That’s how the odds made him feel. In verse 9 he admits their ‘distress’. Verse 15 points to their ‘fear’ and ‘discouragement’. The vast army made them feel the odds were against them. It made them feel afraid, and hopeless, and distressed.

And when you think, it’s the king who feels these things. He’s the one who’s meant to be courageous. He’s the one who’s meant to give hope to the people. But he’s just like they are at the end of the day – he’s unequal to the task before him.

Since Sunday last week I have felt all those things I think: alarmed, distressed, fearful discouraged - just like Jehoshaphat.

I’ve said to a few - I don’t think I can do this without Paul. He’s been here with me since the beginning. And Satan with his vast army is still lined up against us. He hasn’t gone anywhere. The job isn’t finished yet.

Along with Jehoshaphat it’s just good to admit our inability. The odds are against us. We’re on the ropes. The storm clouds are overhead. And the enemy wants yet more from us.

It’s good to say with Jehoshaphat, we’re alarmed, we’re distressed, we’re afraid and discouraged at this moment in our Christian lives.

So, what does Jehoshaphat do? There’s no strength in himself against such a terrible set of circumstances, but there is strength to be found, nonetheless.

Verse 3 says he ‘resolved to inquire of the Lord’. That means he chose to pray. He told the people to fast from food and ‘the people of Judah’ then ‘came together to seek help from the Lord’ in verse 4. They came from every town in Judah, the chronicler says.

Having admitted their need, they turned to Almighty God for help by praying to him. Sometimes when we’re so overwhelmed with the circumstances, it’s hard to find a clear thought, never mind a prayer.

But Jehoshaphat did find a prayer. So, let’s see if we can get some help from him for our own prayer this week in the face of our own difficulties.

This is his prayer pattern that we can one hundred percent adopt:

First, he tells God who God is: ‘are you not the God who is in heaven?’ God is above and he sees what’s going on below. That’s a good place to start - it gets his eyes off the situation on earth and onto God in heaven.

But not just where he is, but also what he is. He’s powerful and he’s mighty, and no one can withstand him. Even a vast army like the one lining up against Judah!

Next, Jehoshaphat tells God that history reminds him that God fights for his people. ‘Didn’t you drive out the inhabitants of this land before us’. And ‘didn’t you give it to the descendants of Abraham your friend?’

Who ever said history was useless. You can pray history apparently – when it’s what God has done for you in the past.

Not only is history good. God makes friends with people on earth - that is both amazing and hugely encouraging. God is not distant from his people.

God’s favour rests on his people - those who trust in his Son. And so, God is our friend today. And tomorrow. And he will drive out and he will bring in. He will fight for his friends.

The next thing Jehoshaphat prays is to confess their pledge to him. They promised to stand in his presence and cry out in their distress, and they were promised a hearing and a rescue from him when they did.

It’s like they’re saying: ‘Here we are calling out to you Lord - confessing our need of you in the face of what seems like impossibilities - please hear us, please rescue us’. God likes that prayer.

Jehoshaphat adds some detail then. He explains the current set of circumstances they are facing. ‘We have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us’. ‘We don’t know what to do’. ‘But our eyes are on you’.

If there’s one phrase that could sum up how I feel coming into this service, this morning, it is Jehoshaphat’s phrase - ‘I don’t know what to do’.

I turn to the right and there’s impossibilities. I turn to left and there’s impossibilities. So, I’m taking Jehoshaphat’s words for my own this morning and saying to God: ‘but my eyes are on you’.

There is simply nowhere else to look. Where could we look and find answers right now, except to our great God?

This is how the whole community prayed to the Lord, not justJehoshaphat. Men, wives, children and little ones all stood before the Lord and prayed this prayer with Jehoshaphat.

It’s not a prayer only for me, it’s a prayer for you too. Children and little ones, it’s a prayer for you too. God is your friend too in all this.

You can say to the Lord, ‘I am sad. I am frustrated Lord. I am afraid. Save us. Our eyes are on you’. You can pray that with confidence if you have trusted in the Lord Jesus and he has saved you. Jesus makes you God’s friend, and so God will hear you.

So far Jehoshaphat has admitted his need and prayed for help. What next? Well, it’s a word from the Lord that comes from a prophet in verse 15.

The word of the Lord says what God will do. It also says what they must do. And it encourages their hearts to respond to the promise of what he will do.

The first and last thing God says is ‘don’t be afraid; don’t be discouraged because of this vast army’. And you’re tempted to think, ‘but Lord it’s so fearful and it is so discouraging’.

And the answer comes back, ‘not when your eyes are on me’. God says, ‘the battle is not yours it’s mine’. God says, ‘you will not have to fight this battle’. Why? ‘Because I’ll fight it’. For, he says, ‘see the rescue that the Lord will give you’.

God promised Jehoshaphat that he would rescue Judah from this vast army. Our foes are vast - Satan and his vast army does not want Riverside to succeed.

He does not want the gospel to be shared with this community. He does not want little ones to hear the good news about Jesus. He does not want faith to blossom. He wants us gone.

But God has said to us, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you’. He has said, ‘I will work all things together for your good’. He has promised to deliver us from all evil for his is the kingdom and the power and the glory.

Ok then! Now we’ve got some hope, where before there was gloom. Now it sounds like we’re not on our own. It sounds like though we are weak, we have a friend who is mighty. One who promises us deliverance and is working for us against this vast enemy.

It means that we face the foe with God in our corner. That’s what he says doesn’t he? In verse 16, ‘he says march down against them’. In verse 17, he calls on them to ‘stand firm’; and also, to ‘go out and face them tomorrow’. And when you do, he says, ‘the Lord will be with you’.

One of the lies the devil wants God’s people to believe is that their weakness means God doesn’t want them to do anything. Satan wants us to believe that God would have us sit back in Jerusalem whilst he goes out and sleighs the enemy.

It’s the old Eve tactic from Satan - ‘did God really say you mustn’t eat’. Only here he whispers perhaps, ‘did God really say you must march down? Did God really say you must go out and face the enemy? Did God really say you must take up positions?’ Those are the things God told Jehoshaphat to do, but I bet he was tempted not to do them. They were scary things.

But it’s as if the Lord says, ‘no, I want you to see first-hand what I will do for you. And you won’t see it if you stay back in Jerusalem’.

So, here we are in a very challenging position as a church - looking into the unknown full of fear and trepidation.

We admit our need of God. We pray to him for his help. We hear his promise to us. And we hear his instruction also. We stand on his promise with both feet, and we move forward trusting him - trusting his promises are true. And we do what he has told us to do.

What we’re going to find when we do what he tells us to do, is that nothing that we do alone accomplishes what he has promised, but we get to see firsthand what he has promised to do on our behalf and is in fact doing.

That kind of scheme of things will massively boost our faith - not only for this chapter of our lives but for future chapters too.

This chapter will become part of the history that we recite in our prayers to God and remind him how he worked for us in the past, and how we need him to work for us now again.

The future looks so daunting right now, but God is with us. His promises are our promises and what he calls us to do with his promises is what Jehoshaphat calls the people to do with God’s promises.

Because, when they all woke up the next morning the vast army was still there.

It’s not like tomorrow, this week will all feel like a bad dream, and the blue sky will have returned. Satan will still be there, and the challenges will still be before us.

But, like Jehoshaphat in verse 20, God says, ‘Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld’.

I guess you know, like me, how easy it is to hear God speak and forget what he’s said before the words have barely touched down on our hearts.

But ‘have faith’ means trust God and trust his promises to you. And if you do, you will be upheld.

So, as we wake up tomorrow faced with the same challenges - maybe feeling the same way we do this morning - we have to take hold of his promises again and trust that he will be faithful to them. And he will be.

Through that faithful dependence on him we will be upheld. God will uphold us with his mighty right hand.

‘Have faith’ Jehoshaphat says, ‘in his prophets’ - that is in his word to us - ‘and you will be successful’. This is how the people proceeded to do what God had told them to do - they did it trusting in God and trusting in his word to them.

Our deliverance from fear and uncertainty in all this trouble, will come through admission, through prayer, through trusting God’s promises and through walking forward faithfully with him.

None of this means Riverside will survive this huge set back - that’s in God’s hands. But it does mean that we will survive all this set back.

It does mean that, proceeding in the way God is showing us here, we will be kept in his love, we will be rescued from our fears, we will be strengthened in our walk. Even this whole episode will not cause us to flounder. Satan will not eat up our faith here.

If we are faithful and walk out tomorrow trusting him and his promises, who knows what he might do? Who knows how Riverside will look in 6 months’ time if we walk ahead in this pattern?

You can see how encouraged Jehoshaphat and the people were. Jehoshaphat in verse 18, bowed down and worshipped the Lord for the wonderful promises he had made to them. In verse 21, he appointed men to praise God for the splendour of his holiness, as they went out ahead of the army.

This is how they marched out and took up their positions - with songs on their lips and praise in their hearts for the Holy God who had given them such firm promises.

It’s hard to sing and praise when things feel overwhelming and look so gloomy. But when we put our eyes on him, the gloom fades away and his glory shines like a great light out of the darkness.

And with our eyes fixed on him, with his promises in our hearts we can walk out to meet this vast army with a song on our lips and praise in our hearts. We really can.

Tomorrow we can start the day with ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, all your works will sing your praise in earth and sky and sea’ as we move forward faithfully looking to him and what he might do for us.

They marched out like that, and the Lord set ambushes against Judah’s enemies the chronicler says. The Lord caused the three armies to turn against each other, and they slaughtered one another. Judah did not have to lift a single sword against their enemy.

When Judah arrived at the battlefield, they found dead bodies lying on the ground - no one had escaped. All that was left behind was the plunder - and what plunder it was. In fact, there was so much of it, they couldn’t take it all away.

I imagine it a little like the time the cleaner at work put fairy liquid in the dishwater. The bubbles were more than our ability to gather them.

Don’t ever be tempted to use fairy liquid instead of tablets in your dishwasher - it doesn’t end well.

This ended well though. So much plunder: equipment, clothing, precious goods. In the end it took three days to collect it all.

God is not only abundant; he is super-abundant. When he sets out to bless his people, he super-blesses them. He causes the blessing to mount up like bubble from a miss-handled dishwasher.

The blessings that we can expect as we walk faithfully in step with God’s will for our lives are: spiritual equipping that serves us going forward; spiritual clothing that makes us look more and more like we belong to God; spiritual articles of value - precious, hope-giving reminders that God will always be with us and help us.

Imagine what plunder and what encouragement Jehoshaphat and his people would have missed out on that day if they had not done what God told them to do. If they had thought to themselves, ‘God has said he will do it all so there’s nothing we can do. If we go, we will be doing it in our own strength’.

They didn’t say that. They did go and they got the blessing because they triumphed - not in their own strength but by heeding the word of the Lord and watching him perform for them.

It’s as we walk through life with God - trusting him - that we receive the blessings. If we hang back and think that doing what he says to do is pointless, we’ll miss the blessing.

After admission comes prayer; after prayer comes trust; after trust comes action; and after action comes thanksgiving.

Verse 27 says they ‘joyfully returned to Jerusalem for the Lord had given them cause to rejoice’. And, ‘that they went into the temple of the Lord with harps and lyres and trumpets’.

Having seen the deliverance of the Lord and collected all that God had given them, they praised him. I imagine they said what they said in verse 21: ‘give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever’.

Thanksgiving is the fitting response when we see God’s hand at work for us. He delivers us from our fears and gives us cause to hope in him.

The enemy is always trying to give us cause to doubt God, and to forget his promises, and to lean on our own strength. But God overcomes our enemies, and he gives us the oil of joy instead of mourning and the garment of praise instead of a spirit of heaviness.

Can God restore Riverside and make it stronger than it was before all this? He can. But that’s not what this is about - he may do that. I pray he does.

But as we walk forward as a community of believers, we follow Jehoshaphat’s pattern with confidence. And we don’t need to fret about the future.

We can admit our weakness which is very real and very evident right now.

We can pray acknowledging God’s power and his history of deliverance.

We can say to him, ‘our eyes are on you Lord’.

We can take hold of his promises in his word - trusting both him and the things he has promised us.

We can go forward into tomorrow standing firmly on those promises and walking the paths he has called us to walk faithfully.

And we can be assured that God will deliver his friends. He will deliver us from Satan. He will give us spiritual plunder along the way which richly blesses our lives.

Our hearts will praise him, and we will be glad in him when all is said and done – because he is faithful.

Let’s look to him by faith in this time of need, because Jehoshaphat did, and he was blessed.

I’m really confident we will be also if we follow his pattern.