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Most of us have never heard of
Dorothy Anderson Tormoehlen and that’s
not surprising. She was hardly known out of her own Indiana community a
long time ago. Yet at one time, her image was one of the most familiar
images in the United States. You see, Dorothy was the Morton Salt
girl. Some of you remember what I’m talking about. There were actually
several along the way; but Dorothy was the one with the pretty yellow
dress and the ribbon in her hair on salt containers in the twenties and
the thirties. About that time, the Morton Salt Company introduced a
phrase that continues today and it continues to be the philosophy of
many people. Can you guess what that is? “When it rains, it pours.”
Life seems to be that way, doesn’t it? Kind of like in the Peanuts
cartoon, Schroeder is telling Charlie Brown, “Do not be discouraged.
These early defeats help to build character for later on in life.” “For
what later on in life,” asked Charlie Brown? “For more defeats”, says
Schroeder. Today I want to continue in a series of sermons I’ve been
preaching on How God Meets Our Deepest Needs. I want to talk about what
to do when the odds are against us. Last week I shared with you one of
my favorite images of God, how God said to Abraham, “I am your Shield”.
In fact in the bible, one of the ways God is described is Yahweh Nissi,
His name plus this word which means I am the God who defends you. I am
the God who protects you. Literally, I am your banner. Today I want to
read to you a fairly long passage of scripture. There could be many,
but it is a story rarely read in church. It comes from 2 Chronicles,
Chapter 20; and, in that story, we find King Jehoshaphat being told that
three armies are coming after him and Judah. They are going to destroy
them. Here people are ganging up on Judah; and, in this wonderful
story, we find this King declaring a fast and declaring worship, the
first thing he does. In this story we find things we can do,
particularly one thing we can do to have God meet our deepest needs. I
want you to see if you can guess what it is as we read it. Again, a
fairly long passage from 2 Chronicles 20. I’ll do my best to get all
the names right. (2 Chronicles 20: 1-23)
After this, the Moabites and
Ammonites with some of the Meunites came to make war on Jehoshaphat.
Some men came and told Jehoshaphat,
“A vast army is coming against you from Edom, from the other side of En
Gedi. Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he
proclaims a fast for all Judah. The people of Judah came together to
seek help from the Lord; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to
seek him.
Then Jehoshaphat stood up
in the assembly in front of them all and said:
“O Lord, god of our
fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the
kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one
can withstand you. O God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this
land, before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants
of Abraham your friend? They have lived in it and have built in it a
sanctuary for your Name, saying, ‘If calamity comes upon us, whether the
sword of judgment, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence
before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our
distress, and you will hear us and save us.’
“But now here are men
from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow
Israel to invade when they came from Egypt; so they turned away from
them and did not destroy them. See how they are repaying us by coming
to drive us out of the possession you gave us. O our god, will you not
judge them? 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 upon you.”
All the men of Judah,
with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the
Lord.
Then the Spirit of the
Lord came upon Jahaziel, son of Zechariah, a Levite and descendant of
Asaph.
He said: “Listen, King
Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the
Lord says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast
army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s. Tomorrow march down
against them. They will be climbing up by the Pass of Ziz, and you will
find them at the end of the gorge. You will not have to fight this
battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the
Lord will give you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be
discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow and the Lord will be with
you’”
Jehoshaphat bowed with
his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem fell
down in worship before the Lord. Then some Levites stood up and praised
the Lord, the God of Israel, with very loud voice.
Early in the morning they
left for the Desert of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and
said, “Listen to me! Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be
upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful. After
consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and
to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the
head of the army, saying;
“Give thanks to the Lord
for his love endures forever.”
As they began to sing and
praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and
Mount Seir, and they were defeated. The men of Ammon and Moab rose up
against the men from Mount Seir to destroy and annihilate them. After
they finished slaughtering the men from Seir, they helped to destroy one
another.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!
Would you pray with me?
God in heaven, we each face enemies
in this world. Some are within us, some are with out. We are challenged
and we are tempted, Lord, to lose faith and hope. Teach us Lord to come
to you. Teach us now as we hear this word in our hearts and our minds.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
A few years ago I had a great
opportunity to go spend two weeks at Brook Army Medical Center which is
down in San Antonio. At BAMC, as we call it in the Army, there’s a
great program for chaplains. They take you there, teach you some things
in some classes and then, in the evening, you get to pull a shift in the
trauma ward. BAMC is not only an Army hospital; they bring in people
from San Antonio who are in car wrecks, shooting one another, all kinds
of things. It is a program to help you get used to the smells and the
sights of people getting hurt in case you have to go to war. It’s
interesting, in the training that you do, it’s quite unique. You as a
chaplain are a pastor and get to stand at the head of the table while
all the doctors and nurses are working on somebody and stand and say to
that person, “I’m Chaplain So-and-So and I’m here to pray for you and
talk with you.” You know what you’re supposed to say right after that?
“And oh, by the way, you’re going to live and you’re not going to die.”
Because it’s funny, when people hear the words ‘chaplain’ and ‘prayer,’
they think they are not going to make it. Isn’t that the way we do
about prayer? It’s almost for us, sometimes, the last resort. It’s
what we do when we’ve tried everything else. It’s kind of like the
illustration I’ve told you before about the woman who went to her doctor
and was told that she didn’t have any hope except prayer; and she said,
“My, my, has it come to that?” Prayer often is the last thing we do.
Contrast that with King Jehoshaphat. Now, for those of you who are
familiar with comic books, the first time I ever heard the word
‘Jehoshaphat’ was out of the mouth of the Superman comic character, the
editor of the Daily Planet, “Great Jumping Jehoshaphat!” he would say.
Somebody could tell me what that means, I haven’t figured it out.
Jehoshaphat was one of the few good kings of Judah. There weren’t that
many; but he was a very good one. It’s interesting that the first thing
he does is go to the Lord, is to seek the Lord. He calls the people
together for a time to worship because his hope was in the Lord. Right
off the bat, we’re learning something here. You know, people who trust
in themselves or the world usually wind up in a hopeless state.
Hopelessness is a killer. It is shown pretty much by research that
people who pray tend to live longer. Patients, who are given a bad
diagnosis, if they have hope, often make it; whereas people, who have no
hope, usually don’t.
The first thing we do is seek the
Lord and the second thing we do is talk to the Lord. Now this is basic
stuff, I know it is. But we really do forget. It seems to be part of
our nature just to drive on and take care of it ourselves; and then, as
a last resort, “O.K. God, I’m in trouble now.” So Jehoshaphat calls the
people together and he says a prayer out loud. Now I find that kind of
interesting; and just as an aside, I want to say something to you. It
may be something practical that if you have trouble with prayer, you
should pray out loud. Now I don’t know about you; but whenever I’m
praying in my own mind, it doesn’t seem like thirty seconds later I’m
thinking about something else. Then maybe three or four minutes later,
I’m half asleep. I think Satan doesn’t want me to pray. It’s all his
fault. Not really. But, sometimes if I want to focus, I pray out loud
in the car, or some place. I don’t care if people accuse me of talking
to myself, it’s all right. I talk to the Lord out loud. But that’s
what Jehoshaphat did, he talked to the Lord. He said some very specific
things. The first thing he said, “Oh God, how great you are! Aren’t
you the God of the universe? Aren’t you the God who is in control of
all things? You are the ruler of everyone.” That’s what we have to do
in prayer, is remind ourselves of some things. You see, you have to
remember that prayer really isn’t for God. You know, God is not like
the kind of God that we read about. You sort of have to cajole into
doing something. You have to do the right things, the right formulas.
You sort of have to say “Please help me,” and you have to hope He does;
but maybe He won’t. We have to remind ourselves of who God is; that God
is great; that God is big. I was talking with someone the other day who
was sharing with me a situation in which they were talking to someone
who was involved in the occult. Their friend said, “You shouldn’t talk
to that person, it’s dangerous.” This person said “I don’t care. My
God’s bigger than that.” And I said “That’s it! That’s great! That’s
exactly right.” We have to remind ourselves of God’s greatness and
bigness. That God can handle it. And not only that, we remind
ourselves what God has already done. That God has already helped us.
Almost all of us can remember situations in our lives that turned out
O.K. but probably shouldn’t have. You think you just did that
yourself? God was helping you. Well you might say, “Well I don’t have
any things like that.” Maybe you have some friends that have good
things happen to them that shouldn’t, that God was helping them. But
even failing that, just look at the scriptures, every page is the same
thing. God helping people. You look and say, “God, haven’t you done
this before?” as Jehoshaphat did. Then you remember not only who God is
and what He’s done; but as Jehoshaphat did again, “Won’t you do it
again? Won’t you help again, oh God?” After we’ve reminded ourselves
of who God is and what He’s already done, it is helpful to say “Won’t
you do it again?” and believe that. To be confident that God is going
to lead you and guide you and be with you. So those are really the
three things we have to remind ourselves about, and pray about. “Won’t
you do it again?”
The third thing we can do is tell God
how we feel. I like Jehoshaphat, here’s the king of Judah, and he says,
“Lord we are powerless to stand in front of these armies.” I know this
is something that kind of goes against the grain of our modern world.
You know, we are so used to thinking “I have the power.” It’s like the
movie ‘Bruce Almighty’ when he’s kind of strutting around going “I have
the power,” pffft! like that. Well, you know, we’re told to have power
of positive thinking. We’re told that we can do it. There’s a good
thing to that; but you know in the scripture, the same message is given
again and again that people often are changed. They’re often at their
greatest when they’re flat on their back, and they’re looking up. They
have no place to go but up. The Israelites, the story in the Old
Testament is almost boring. They start out trusting the Lord; then they
sin. They hit bottom. They’re desperate; then they call unto the Lord
again. God rescues them. It happens again and again and again. But
how many millions of times has that happened and played out in
individual lives. I know it has in mine. The biggest lesson that I
have to learn is that I’m not in charge, again and again and again. You
know, it’s really O.K. to tell God how we feel. I think that sometimes
we’re afraid to be honest with God. We think if we tell God what we are
really feeling like that we are going to be a greasy spot after a
lightning bolt has hit us. But God can handle us. God wants us to talk
to Him no matter what. Steve Brown tells a wonderful story about a
woman who didn’t have much to do with God but her son died in a tragic
car accident. She sat in her car and just raged at God, said all kinds
of colorful things about God and to God. Finally after she sort of spit
herself in her rage, she heard a voice in her head that said something
like this. “Well, you haven’t talked to me for the last twenty years,
I’m glad to hear from you. And, oh, by the way, I love you. Can we
talk?” Be honest to God about your feelings and then trust God to
help. Trust God to help. Jehoshaphat says, “We are powerless in front
of this vast army but our eyes are on you. We put our focus on the
Lord.” Corrie Ten Boom, who spent
several years in a concentration camp, used to say that “If we keep our
eyes on the world, we are going to be distressed. If we keep our eyes
on ourselves, we are going to be depressed. But if we fix our eyes on
Jesus, we will find rest.” This is the phrase that you hear about in
this passage that you ought to remember, above anything else. The
prophet says to Jehoshaphat, “the battle is not yours, it is mine.” Oh
I wish I could learn that permanently in my own heart. So many battles
I that I try to fight myself, so many battles we try to fight with our
own resources, or the nearest expert that we can find. There is nothing
wrong with seeking help. But so often we are out there trying to save a
marriage, straighten out our kids, deal with our finances, deal with
death and dying, and deal with all kinds of problems by ourselves. The
battle is the Lord’s. That doesn’t mean we aren’t involved. We ought
to be involved. We ought to be trying hard. We ought to be working
hard. We ought to be seeking help; but the battle is the Lord’s. You
know the real issue is who’s in charge? It’s kind of like that bumper
sticker that says “God is my co-pilot” and that may sound just great.
But I’m saying to you that if God is your co-pilot, you ought to change
seats. So often we look at God as sort of a helper to get our own
agenda done. God needs to be in charge. Matter of fact, you should
probably go back into the passenger compartment. It’s really about
that. Switch seats.
In the end, thank God. It may have
sounded like the thing that meets our deepest needs is prayer; and I
would say yes that’s true, but it’s more than that. I would say in a
broader sense, it is worship. I find this very interesting as a
military person. The first thing the king does is, yes he gets his
infantry together and they start marching out, but what does he do? He
puts a choir in front of the infantry. Patton would have gone ape! He
put the choir in front of the infantry. He said let’s have a worship
service. I know that deep down inside, even for those of us who go to
church, we think that worship is a nice thing to do at best and a waste
of time at worst. To check yourself on that, I would just simply ask
you right now, are there places you would rather be, on a beautiful
sunshiny day? Fishing, a ball game, volleyball, somewhere else? Just
between you and the Lord. Worship in God’s scheme of things is powerful
stuff. Worship in God’s scheme of things puts fear into the enemy; and
the major enemy we have is not just those around us, but a certain
spiritual being is out to get us. Worship and prayer put fear in his
heart. It teaches us who we are in the scheme of things. It reminds us
of who God is. It places at our disposal resources which are much
beyond us. It is the thing that meets our deepest need. I think that
is what God is here to tell us today. To remind us of something we
already know; that, in the end, it is the Lord who is our greatest
resource, because God is “our shield and our very great reward” as He
said to Abraham.
In closing I just want to remind you
of some things. An unknown author had made a list of things they called
“Our thinking vs. God’s promises” and a few go just like this.
We think “It’s impossible”; God says
“All things are possible.”
We think “I’m too tired”; God says “I
will give you rest.”
We think “Nobody really loves me”;
but God says “I love you.”
We think “I can’t go on”; but God
says “My grace is sufficient for you.”
We think “I can’t figure things out”;
but God says “I will direct your path.”
We think “I can’t do it”; but God
says “You can do all things through Him who strengthens you”
We think “I’m not worth it”; God says
“It will be worth it.”
We think “I can’t forgive myself”;
but God says “I forgive you.”
We think “I am always worried and
frustrated”; and God says “Cast all your cares on me.”
In the name of the Father, and the
Son and the Holy Spirit.
Let us pray.
Father, we drift very easily, don’t
we? But you still love us. Thank you that you care enough about us to
draw us back. Keep our eyes fixed on you, your power and your glory.
May you be in our driver’s seat, Lord. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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