2 Chronicles 20:15 “And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the LORD unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.”
Three enemy armies were marching on Judah. Moab, Ammon, and Mount Seir had joined forces and were coming to wipe them out. Jehoshaphat had no army big enough to match them and had no strategy strong enough to save them. So he did the one thing he could do. He gathered the whole nation, proclaimed a fast, and stood before the LORD.
He prayed a public prayer that ended with these words in 2 Chronicles 20:12 “we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee.”
That is where God stepped in. He sent His answer through a Levite named Jahaziel and gave Judah a battle plan unlike any battle plan they had ever heard.
2 Chronicles 20:15b-17 “Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s… Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the LORD with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the LORD is with you.”
The battle is not yours, but God’s.
Notice the three verbs God gave them.
- Set. Set yourselves apart. Take your position on the Lord’s side and let the world know whose side you are on.
- Stand. Stand still. Do not run when it looks like you are losing and do not celebrate early when it looks like you are winning. Just stand.
- See. See the salvation of the Lord. But there is no seeing without setting and standing first. When we try to deliver ourselves, we never see God’s hand move.
The question is, how do we stand? Judah shows us three ways.
1. We Stand in Faith
2 Chronicles 20:20 “And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.”
Two things to believe.
Believe in the Lord your God. Trust who He is, His power and His character. This is faith in God Himself.
Believe His prophets. In Jehoshaphat’s day, that meant believing the fresh word Jahaziel had just delivered from God the day before. The promise that the battle was the Lord’s. The instruction to march out and stand still. For us today, the prophets have already spoken and their words are written down in the pages of the Bible. To believe His prophets is to believe His written Word.
Two results: Believing God establishes us and believing His Word makes us prosper.
2. We Stand in Holiness
2 Chronicles 20:21 “And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the LORD, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the LORD; for his mercy endureth for ever.”
The Levites went out dressed in their priestly garments, praising the beauty of holiness. What is the beauty of holiness?
Holiness means set apart: Clean, consecrated, and devoted to God. The beauty of holiness is the loveliness that comes when a life is fully separated unto the Lord. It is the opposite of the ugliness of sin.
Judah did not march into battle in the dirt of their sin. They marched in the clean garments of holiness. That is how we stand. We cannot stand in the day of trouble if we have been living in compromise. Holiness is not a bonus for spiritual people. It is the ground we stand on when the enemy comes.
A Christian who tolerates sin during peacetime will not stand during wartime. The set-apart life is the standing life.
3. We Stand in Worship
2 Chronicles 20:21b-22 “Praise the LORD; for his mercy endureth for ever. And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten.”
Look at what Jehoshaphat did. He put the singers in front of the army. Not the swordsmen or archers. The praise led the march.
That is a strange military move. But it was God’s plan. And notice what they sang. “Praise the LORD; for his mercy endureth for ever.” They were not singing about their own strength. They were singing about His mercy.
Judah was standing on mercy and singing about mercy at the same time. They were not deserving of victory and had no right to demand deliverance. Every one of them knew they were only alive because the mercy of God had kept them. The fuel of true worship is groomed in gratitude for mercy we did not earn.
And notice when God moved. “When they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments.”
That should change how we think about worship. Worship is not something we do after the victory to say thank you. Worship is something we do before the victory to say we believe.
As Christians, we should always be leading the charge with praise on our lips as we head in the direction God sends us!
The Result: God Fights and God Provides
2 Chronicles 20:22-24 “And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another. And when Judah came toward the watch tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped.”
The three enemy armies turned on each other. Ammon and Moab wiped out Mount Seir first, then turned on one another. By the time Judah arrived at the watchtower, every enemy soldier was dead on the ground. Not one person escaped.
Judah never had to swing a sword.
That is what happens when we stand where God tells us to stand. He fights the battle we could never win.
And God did not stop there.
2 Chronicles 20:25 “And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much.”
Three days of gathering riches and jewels and it was more than they could carry. God provided protection and provision at the same time!
Ephesians 3:20 “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”
We do not stand in order to get the spoil. We stand because God told us to. But when we obey, the spoil follows. When we set, stand, and see, God fights and God provides. The people asked for protection and as God always does, He provided much more than they asked for.
The battle is not yours, but God’s. Judah proved that when followed the plan God gave them.
The question for every one of us is simple. Will we follow the Lord the same way?
Following the Lord is not about doing what makes sense to us. Judah’s plan did not make sense. Putting singers in front of soldiers did not make sense. Marching out and standing still did not make sense. But it was what God said, and they did it.
That is what following the Lord looks like. Doing what He said even when it does not match what we would have done. Trusting His plan when our own plan looks better on paper.
Luke 9:23 “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
Following the Lord means we stop fighting battles our way and start standing the way He told us to stand. It means we set ourselves apart, stand in faith, walk in holiness, and worship Him with a thankful heart no matter what the day looks like.
The battle is not yours, but God’s. Follow Him and see what He will do.
