What Does Faith Look Like?

I wish everyone a happy President's Day weekend. Here in Minnesota we look forward to facing the latest 'snownami' expecting to see another foot of snow - yikes. Today, as I am reading through the Holy Word contained in Second Chronicles, I thought I would briefly talk about faith. More specifically, the faith of Judah's King Jehoshaphat described in this Book as he faced the battle of his life. I hope that the way he faced his challenge is helpful for us all.

So here's the scene described in Second Chronicles – Judah, which is the southern portion of the nation of Israel which includes Jerusalem, is going through a faith 'Revival'. After Solomon's ungodly son Rehoboam takes the throne, Judah is blessed with three Kings in a row who are faithful and God-fearing. These Kings are described in 2^nd Chronicles chapters 13 through 20: Abijah, Asa and Jehoshaphat. All three were faithful and obedient to God. And they all have amazing stories of their own. But in today's post I want to focus on the major challenge faced by Jehoshaphat during his reign.

King Jehoshaphat is an interesting study. He allied himself with Israel's King Ahab (2 Chron. 18) and later King Ahaziah (2 Chron. 20:35-37), even though they were described as being wicked and ungodly. He also drove out the Asherah from Judah. And he set up judges throughout Judah to resolve disputed cases. His invocation of the judges shows his strong faith: "Consider what you do, for you judge not for man but for the Lord. He is with you in giving judgment." (2 Chron. 19:6) But I want to focus on his faith when he learns that a massive army has formed to take over Judah.

King Jehoshaphat learns in 2 Chronicles 20 that a great "horde" from the Ammonites, the Moabites, and Meunites were marching against him. Now in chapter 17, we see that Jehoshaphat had built forts and supplied cities in Judah, and that he had hundreds of thousands of men in his army. But when Jehoshaphat learned of this great army amassing against him, he was still "afraid" (2 Chron. 20:3). And here is where we can learn from the faith of this great King, his first response to this news is to declare a nationwide fast and then he led his nation in prayer to God.

King Jehoshaphat's prayer in verses 6 though 12 is amazing. He reminds God that this land was promised to Judah by God, and that these pagan armies were going to take it over (v. 11). He also reminds God that Israel wanted to destroy these nations before but God did not let them do this (v. 10). He concludes his prayer by assuming that there was no way to militarily defeat this great horde, but they still sought God's help, not knowing what that help would look like. I love how the prayer ends in verse 12:

We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.

 

Sure it could have been easy for Jehoshaphat to put on a brave face, and say that his armies were going to win against impossible odds. But reality faced him. He knew this was a battle that he could not win. How many times have you faced a challenge where you can't even imagine what God's answer to prayer would look like? Where you don't even know what to ask for? If you are like me, I don't know how to pray in those situations. But nowI am going to start using Jehoshaphat's model, and in situations where the odds look impossible, I want to just pray that I don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon You, Lord God. Rather than trying to articulate exactly what I want or need in a situation, or what I should pray for someone else who was unsure of what to do when faced with this kind of trouble. I want to have the humility enough to be able to pray – I don't know what to do, but my eyes are upon You.

So how does the story end? The Prophet Jahaziel received a prophecy from God – don't worry Judah, you won't even have to fight and you'll win the battle (v. 15-17). You would think that this Prophecy might be something hard to believe, but look at what the hero of our story does – he fell with his face to the ground, and worshipped God (v. 18). When King Jehoshaphat sent out his army the next day – here is what I am talking about when I say that this is what faith looks like, he put a praise and worship team at the front of his army, singing "Give thanks to the Lord for his love endures forever"! (v. 21) Now that is what real faith looks like – facing an impossible battle, receiving a Prophecy, and believing it enough that instead of relying on the strength of your army, you rely on the prophecy and lead everyone around you to praise and worship God even before the battle has even begun. The joy shown from this kind of faith is inspiring. And what happened as the battle begun? Sure enough, the enemy mob started fighting against each other, killed each other off, and as the Word of the Lord had said – Judah and King Jehoshaphat won the day.

Praise God for the people of faith around us, and in God's Word that give us hope that one day we can have faith like them. May God bless you with increasing faith this week. /s/Tom