2 Chronicles 20: Jesus in the OT!

Lets set the scene, Judah has enemies... LOTS of enemies... three to be exact. And these three enemy armies are coming against Judah together. The king of Judah at this time is Jehoshaphat (Juh-ho-suh-fat), and he gets a message from one of his men (v.2) "A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea... Then Jehoshaphat was afraid." The king knew he was up against a wall. There was no way out. (I can only imagine he played the numbers game in his head, weighing their armies against all the men he could spare, and I would be he saw something like the Helms Deep scene (pre-Gandolf's return) in Lord of the Rings where those guys get pretty much destroyed by the Army of the White Hand.) Jehoshaphat, knowing this, calls for a fast of Judah and says (v.9), "If disaster comes upon us... we will stand before [you] and cry out to you in our affliction." His trust was in God but he also knew a great army was coming. (v.12) "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." Jehoshaphat cried out to God in front of all of Judah; the whole country knew God was their only possible deliverance, their only possible salvation.

Then God spoke through a prophet in the crowd. (v.15-17) "and he said, 'Listen... 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... . You will not need to fight this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and SEE THE SALVATION OF THE LORD ON YOUR BEHALF... . Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you."

The next day the army went out and what did they find? Three armies were already dead in the place the prophet had foretold. The Lord had delivered them! The armies had fought amongst themselves and defeated each other; not a single man was alive.

We are Judah. We face an army we cannot defeat with the means we possess. Jesus defeated that army. He came when we couldn't fix ourselves, he saw us in our darkest hour. Jesus was the salvation we couldn't have on our own. Like Jehoshaphat, our only option in facing our army is calling out to God. In this story God saves Judah through destroying the army, but in our lives Jesus saves us from our sin through his death on the cross. #armywecantdefeat #salvationwecantproduce #deliverancebyJesus

KR