The Battle Before the Battle: For the Week You Did Not Choose

The Battle Before the Battle: For the Week You Did Not Choose Preview · Opening of the manuscript The hospital hallway still has last week's leftover panic sentence. After a named week this church did not choose, one office said we will handle this when we know. The room received that sentence as if waiting for a reversed Tuesday were the whole care.

A deacon two seats over printed the battle is not yours on a card. He also signed the first note that left a household under a we-will-handle-this-when-we-know file. He has a sentence about peace. He has not asked who still stands in the assembly with no might.

This is a sermon for a church under overwhelming opposition that does not know how to seek Yahweh before the outcome arrives. If you preach 2 Chronicles 20 as a map of anyone's private anxiety, you will lie. If you preach it as Jehoshaphat of Judah, a real multitude, a real report from En Gedi, a real fast, a real Jahaziel, a real wilderness of Tekoa, and a God who hears a people who admit they do not know what to do, you give this church a God who will not let leftover panic write the only care the flock is allowed to keep.

Text

Hear the report as Holy Scripture tells it, from the World English Bible: "After this, the children of Moab, the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Meunites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Then some came who told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria. Behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi).

Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. Judah gathered themselves together to seek help from Yahweh. They came out of all the cities of Judah to seek Yahweh. Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in Yahweh’s house, before the new court; and he said, “Yahweh, the God of our fathers, aren’t you God in heaven? Aren’t you ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in your hand, so that no one is able to withstand you.