Date: November 8, 2018 ()

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How is your life going today? Is it going great? Are you saying, “Oh, you wouldn’t believe what is going on in my life and I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Life is like that, is it not? In this world, you will have tribulation. One time I was out in my yard working and something really hard was going on. I thought, “Lord, I love you, serving you, I’m trying to do everything you want me to do. Lord, what’s the deal? What’s going on?” I do not know if you have ever had this happen to have a word of a song go through your mind sometimes when you are thinking about things. I think it is the Lord talking to you. This song, “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” Have you ever heard that song? It just started going through my head and I thought, “That’s right.” The Lord said, “In this world you will have tribulation but cheer up. I have overcome the world.” What a wonderful, wonderful God we have. He says, “I am there with you. You are not going to be by yourself. I am going to help you. When you go through the fire, I am going to be there. When you go through the water, I am going to be there. You are not going to drown.” Jesus wants to be with you in the most difficult times of all.

There is someone watching this show right now and you are sitting in a hospital waiting room. You have just been given some devastating news. You think, “I don’t think I’m going to make it. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.” The Lord says, “I am going to help you and it is going to turn out okay. But you have to trust Me.”

I do not know if you have the privilege of knowing rulers of countries, but can you imagine the burden they carry? Can you imagine the pressure they feel? The people they have to deal with? Can you imagine being a Christian leader of a country and have your enemies trying to stop you? You are trying to run the country by the Bible and they do not believe what it says. There are a lot of people today who give advice and it is completely contrary to the Bible. When you say, “No, I’m going to do what the Bible says. They have never even read the Bible.” The Bible is around. They do not believe it has any validity at all. It is like, “who cares what that says? So it says that. Other books say something else. I decide what I think I ought to do.” When you are running a country, you could not have any greater help than to have the God of the universe on your side. You should do some reading about what Abraham Lincoln and George Washington did when they had to make major decisions that affected the lives of people. They were on their knees.

We are going to study a king in the Bible who did the same thing. His name was Jehoshaphat. Think about a hard decision or great battle that you are going through. Would you have done what this man did? Will you do what this man did? If you do, you will see amazing things happen in your life and in the life of the ones you love. Get your Bibles. I hope you get your Bibles every time when you come and watch this show and I hope you watch this show every week. In the next group of twelve lessons is a series called “Walking Free from your Past.” Would you like to be free of everything that has held you back from your past? You do not want to miss any. You can watch this series by going to the Betty Swann Ministry website, www.bettyswann.com. I do not want you to miss any of the teachings. I am excited to get to do this and grateful to God that He has let me do this. It is a desire of my heart and a joy. Actually, I never thought about doing this much on television. I am discovering it has still been the desire of my heart to reach people all over the world and teach them that God is for them, wants to help them and Jesus is real. He is alive today. You can talk to Him. He will talk to you and you can see amazing miracles and signs and wanders happen in your every day life if you will just open up to Him. I thought I was just going to be going all over the world by airplane and traveling in person. Instead God is sending me all over the world with God’s Learning Channel. Is that not amazing? Sometimes His answers are not what we think they are going to be. You are going to find that out in this lesson, too.

God will always find a way to help you when you depend on Him, when you are totally dependent on Him. He always has a plan for His enemies, too. He has a plan for your life and He has a plan for His enemies. It might surprise you what method He uses. It is going to surprise you in this story, I bet.

There were so many kings in Israel that were wicked, wicked, wicked. They worshiped shameful idols and did shameful things. The people were hard-hearted. Their ears were stopped up. The king’s ears were stopped up. The kings only thought about themselves. One king even was told, “It’s not going to happen in your lifetime but it is going to happen afterwards because of what you’ve done.” He did not fall on his face and say, “Oh, God, help.” He went, “Well, okay.” In the middle of all of that God had some godly kings. You know, God did not want the Israelites to have a king. That was not His plan, but they kept saying, “Give us a king like everybody else. Everybody around us has a king. We want a king.” God was saying, “I am your King.” “Oh, no, we want one like everybody else.” God will give you what you want if you push hard enough, but sometimes it sends leanness in your soul. The Bible says, “You get what you want, but you have leanness in your soul.” Then came Jehoshaphat, a good king. He tried hard to serve God. He was not perfect. He still made some mistakes late in his life, but he tried hard.

Jehoshaphat wanted to have a lot of peace in his lifetime and in his reign, anybody would. In 2 Chronicles 20 it says, “The armies of the king of Moab, Ammon and the Ammonites declared war on Jehoshaphat and on the people of Judah. Word reached Jehoshaphat that a vast army was gathering against him beyond the Dead Sea and they were coming from Syria.” That is the Syria that is in the news today. This stuff has been going on forever and ever. Jehoshaphat was badly shaken by the news because he was not prepared. The combined armies was much greater than his army and he was not ready. It happened unexpectedly. What did he do? What would be the first thing you would do? When you get news of something horrific is getting ready to take place in your life, what is the first thing you do? It says in verse 3, “He was determined to beg for help from the Lord.” That is the first thing you have to be, determined. My help comes from the Lord. “Lord, I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do. I’m going to do what you say.”

Jehoshaphat was determined. How determined are you? The next thing he did was fast. You can fast too when something is really, really serious. Do you know about fasting? It is going without food. He announced to the whole nation, “We are going to fast and we are going to do it in penitence and intercession.” What does penitence mean? First of all, when you are fasting, start confessing all your sins and start saying, “I am so sorry,” and I can tell you the Holy Spirit will tell you this and this and this and this, are stopping the move of God in your life. Get it out of your life. What does intersession mean? It means praying for others. “God, if you don’t help our country, if you don’t keep us safe, if you don’t keep our little ones safe, what’s going to happen? Lord, please help.” Do you pray for your country like that? I do not care where you live. Maybe you think, “I don’t know that God you are talking about.” Well, He knows you. He loves you. He is waiting for you to talk to Him. That might be your first step to Him. “Lord, my country is in a mess. Please help.” Go without food to pray for your country. How about that one?

Jehoshaphat stood right there in the big middle of all of them. He did not try to hide and say, “I am a big leader. I cannot look like I’m emotional. I have to look unemotional to be in charge.” He did not care what anybody thought. He was there before God. What a witness that is when you see leaders who are so pure-hearted before God. They do not care what anybody thinks. They are not thinking about other people and their opinion. They are thinking about God and His opinion. They watched Him do this. People came from all over the nation to plead together.

When your battle is really great, get people to unite with you and pray. There is power in united prayer. It is more powerful than you by yourself. God listens. Carefully sit down and say, “Now, what is it we’re going to pray about? What’s the situation here? Let’s all agree on it and pray.” It says in 2 Chronicles 20:6-9 that Jehoshaphat stood out from the big middle of all of them and he prayed out loud this powerful prayer. When things get desperate, you get desperate. It is just amazing. He said, “Oh, God, oh, God. You are the only God in all the heaven. You are the ruler of all the kingdom of the earth.” They had rulers, some ungodly and some total unbelievers. But he said “You are the ruler over all the kingdom of the earth. You are so powerful, You are so mighty. Who can stand against You?” The first thing he did in this great prayer, this powerful, important prayer, was he reminded God of who He is. Did God need to be reminded? No, He needed to be honored and Jehoshaphat honored God. He said, “This is who You are and I know who You are. It does not matter what our enemies know about You. I know this about You. Oh, God, You did not drive out the heathens who lived here when we arrived.” Do you wonder why God did not drive out all their enemies when they came into the Promised Land? It tells in the Bible why. God said, “You could not handle all of that.” It is the same for you. You might be going through something right now and you have walked with the Lord a long time. Maybe this issue has been in your life a long time. God said, “Now, we’re going to deal with it.” He reminds God of His promises.

Have you written down the promises God has made to you? I have mine on my computer. I even have them on cassette tape and I listened to the prophetic words that have been given to me. I underline in my Bible when I am having a quiet time and I know that was God speaking to me today and I put a date by it and I put a little tag there that helps me know what God was telling me on this day about this situation. That is what Jehoshaphat did. “Didn’t You give this land to Your friend, Abraham.” He threw that in, Your friend. Then he says, “Your people built a temple here for You in Your honor truly believing that when we came across times like this when we are faced with any calamity such as war, disease, famine, those big things, we can stand here before this temple and before You for You are here in this temple.” You know, God is everywhere. God is in you right here if you are a believer. But God has special houses of worship and He has said to people, “Don’t forsake that. Don’t ever think you are the kind of Christian that you don’t need to be in a church on a regular basis.” There are people in the ministry who say, “Oh, I’m around it all the time. I don’t need it.” Yes, you do because you need people speaking into your life. God can use those people to do it and they do not even know that they are doing it. You always need people in authority over you.

Before I started these lessons this time, I went to my church. The sanctuary was kind of dark and shut up, but I just sat there and quietly sat before the Lord praying about these lessons, praying for ways to help you, “God, speak through me to these people. I don’t know what to say to them but You do because You know who is listening. You know what they need to hear so speak to them through me, Lord.”

Then Jehoshaphat said, “Lord, You taught us to cry out to You in our distress and that You would hear us and rescue us.” This man had great faith, did he not? Great faith. What a wonderful thing to have a leader who has great faith. What a great, great honor. Wonderful. He determined to seek God first, next he got everybody together and they agreed on what they were going to pray about. Next, they all fasted and prayed. They agreed to go without food for a certain length of time before he asked God for anything, he praised God. Why is that a good thing to do? You know when you are worried you are just getting there to God as quick as you can saying You have to help with this. Praising God first lets God know that you know who He is, and it puts you in remembrance of who He is. It comes out of your mouth. So many times we just keep everything in our thoughts, but when it comes out your mouth it takes a faith that is more than just thinking it. You learn how to tell God who He is. How do you do this? Just read the Psalms out loud to Him. If you cannot do it any other way, read this sentence to Him out loud: “God, this is what Your Word says about You.” Then you remind God of the promises in the Word that He has made to you. Is that being pushy? No. God says, “Put Me in remembrance of My Word.” There is nothing wrong with that. “Lord, you promised to give this land forever to Abraham and his descendents.” He then goes on to say, “Lord, we even built a temple for You because we love You so much.” He reminds himself by praying. “This is what we believe. This is what I believe.” In your prayer, say to God, “Lord, I know You are the great deliverer. I know You do miracles. I know You heal people. I know You set people free. I know You do mighty work. I know who You are. I don’t just know it from reading the Bible. I know it from what I have seen in my life in the past, and I know what You have done in the lives of people I know.” If you walk with God, you can look back and remember, “He answered that prayer, He answered that prayer, He answered that prayer. He will answer this prayer.” It also helps you to remember to have faith. Usually the latest thing God is doing in your life makes you feel like, “You did it before, but can You do this one?” It is that fear that hits you. Speaking what you know God has done, reminding Him of what He promised, reminding Him of all the times He helped you. Then and only then did Jehoshaphat get to what he was really there for. A long time went on before he ever got there but he said, “Lord, look at what has happened. Look at these enemies that have come. We did not harm them, Lord, and see how they are rewarding us. They have come to throw us out of the land You have given us.” That is going on today, too, is it not? “Oh God, won’t you stop them? We have no way to protect ourselves against this mighty army. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.” 2 Chronicles 20:12 is probably one of the most important verses in the Bible that you could ever memorize and understand, because you and I both get in situations where we do not know what to do. We do not have a clue. We do not have any idea and we are scared beyond words. And, it is serious. It is a great battle. The wisest prayer you can pray is, “Lord, I don’t know what to do but my eyes are upon You.” Meaning I am listening, watching, looking and carefully observing because You are going to tell me what to do. I know it and I am going to wait until You do.

What happened after that? Did the battle change? No, there was a lot more to come. Sometimes, you think because you prayed it ought to change. I ought to walk out of this room and it ought to be different. Things can be different in the spirit world before they are in the natural world. Things can be happening in the spirit world. You know there is a spiritual world. We do not just live in this natural world. There is a world you cannot see going on. In fact, the Bible says, there is war going on there with principalities and powers fighting each other.

Remember the story of Daniel. There was such a great, great problem. Daniel went to the Lord and prayed so hard. Finally an angel came to Daniel and said, “Daniel, the Lord heard your prayer the first day and sent me, but I had to fight my way past the Prince of Persia,” which is Iran. “I had to fight my way past him to get to You.” It took 21 days of fighting. We do not understand that, do we, because we cannot see it. That is what happened.

What happened in this situation? Did an angel come? No, the Spirit of the Lord came on a man who was a prophet and he said, “Listen to me, all you people. Be prepared. God is going to use other people to help you solve your dilemma.” He said, “Listen to me, King Jehoshaphat, listen to me all you people.” He was bold. The Lord saith, “Do not be afraid. Do not be paralyzed by this mighty army for the battle is not yours, but it is God’s.” Wow. We want God on our side, do we not? Here is your plan for tomorrow. “I do not know what to do, but my eyes are on You, Lord.” Here it is. “Tomorrow, go down and attack them.” He even tells a word of knowledge of about how it is going to be and it has not even happened yet. “You will find them coming up the slopes of Ziz, but you will not need to fight.”

Sometimes God says fight, knock the door down. Go for it. Sometimes He says, “You do not have to do anything. It is my battle and I am going to take care of it.” That was their direction. Take your places, stand quietly and see the incredible rescue operation God will perform for you. This is what else the Lord says, “Oh, people of Judah and Jerusalem, do not be afraid or discouraged. Go out there tomorrow for the Lord is with you.” What did Jehoshaphat do next? Did he get his armor on and get ready? No, he fell to the ground and worshiped the Lord. The battle had not occurred, the victory had not been won but he had heard the Lord and he knew it was going to happen. He fell to the ground and worshiped the Lord before he did anything else. He did that in front of all the people. Think about it. It does not say he sat down, it says he fell down on the ground and worshiped the Lord with his face to the earth. This was a humble man who loved God. What happened? They followed his example. Everybody did it, too. They all did. They all started worshiping the Lord. Then they started singing. Then they started praising. Oh, what a great story. What a great story!

Early the next morning, they went out one more time. Jehoshaphat believed the Lord and he said, “Listen to me. Do not be afraid. The Lord is going to fight for us. Believe in the Lord and you will have success.” Believe His prophets and everything will be all right. He was basing his kingdom on what a human being said, on faith and in a God he could not see. It is amazing. That is where real victory happens. Do you do that? You need to do that. That is the way it is supposed to be done. He did one more thing. This man was a man who did things carefully. He did things carefully thought out. He had great faith, moved in faith but he still thought carefully. The next thing he did was consult with the leaders. He said, “What do you think we ought to do?” They said, “We think you ought to put the praisers out first. How would you like to be on that praise team, moving into three armies staring at you or thinking it is going to happen?

They did that, but guess what God did. The Bible says, “God moved and they began fighting each other.” The enemies, the three armies, all got angry with each other. They started fighting each other and destroyed each other. Is that not amazing? They killed everybody. They did not have to fight at all. It happened just what God said. They did not have to fight at all. As far as they could see, there were dead bodies everywhere and so much plunder. They took it all. On the fourth day, they blessed the Lord and were joyful. Everybody around them said, “We’re not messing with them, God is for them.” Do you want that in your life? Do you want God to tell you how to fight your battles? Do you want to let God fight them for you? Do you want to remind God of His promises? Do it right now. Get on your face before God. Cry out to Him and do what He says to do. God bless you.

QUIET TIME QUESTIONS

1. What does the Bible tell us about the troubles that we encounter?
2. How can we look back on the story about Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles, to determine our course of action when faced with challenges/battles?
3. Why is it good to praise the Lord before seeking Him for answers to our problems?
4. What is a good way to remind God of His promises?
5. How can you ask God to fight when you need help?

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