The Power Of Your Worship Series

God’s strategy was clear . . . the worshipers went first into the battlefield, and . . . the Lord miraculously defeated their enemies. - Mike Harland(1)

If the Lord has ever asked you to do something for Him and you struck out early, then this message is for you! We’re going to find out that whenever we struggle with God, it’s not because the Lord has failed to keep His promise, but because we have slacked off in worshiping the Lord and in keeping our eyes fixed solely on Him.

This morning, we’ll examine an account in the life of the Old Testament character Jehoshaphat. He was the son and successor of Asa, king of Judah, and his name means, “Yahweh establishes justice.”(2) Hebrew names often determined a person’s life-direction, and Jehoshaphat’s destiny was to be utilized by the Lord to establish God’s justice within the kingdom.

Jehoshaphat fortified Judah against Israel to the north, and against its notorious leader King Ahab; and he set himself to the task of cleansing the land of idolatry (1 Kgs 22:43). In the third year of his reign he sent out priests over the land to instruct the people in the law of the Lord (2 Chr 17:7–9), and as a result of his actions he enjoyed a great measure of peace and prosperity, and the blessings of God rested on the people.(3)

Do you realize that when you start getting serious about the Lord and His work that Satan will begin attacking you? Allow me to share from The Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: There’s a tale that a demon once instructed his subordinates on an ancient and very effective piece of satanic strategy. He told them, “Insert yourself into the simple situations which call for plain and obvious duties, and complicate them, and complicate them again, until at last no one involved in them can make sense of the confusion.”(4)

Satan loves to make situations which require simple faith and obedience complicated and confusing in order to get us off track; and in this morning’s message we’ll observe how the devil complicated Jehoshaphat’s task of reform in Judah, and how he tried to rob him of his peace and prosperity.

We’ll also examine how Jehoshaphat was able to overcome confusion, doubt, and ultimately defeat; and discover how believers can win against the devil and overcome his spiritual attacks. This morning we’ll learn four helpful keys on how we can defeat the enemy through our worship.

Seek God When the Enemy Attacks (vv. 1-4)

It happened after this that the people of Moab with the people of Ammon, and others with them besides the Ammonites, came to battle against Jehoshaphat. Then some came and told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea, from Syria; and they are in Hazazon Tamar” (which is En Gedi).

And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord; and from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord (2 Chronicles 20:1-4).

The first key to overcoming spiritual attacks through our worship is to seek God when the enemy attacks. Jehoshaphat was doing a good thing in Judah by sending priests throughout the land teaching people the law of the Lord, and by casting down idols; and here we see trouble coming upon Jehoshaphat immediately. The Bible doesn’t come right out and say that Satan was the culprit, but from what we know about the devil and many of his schemes we can presume that he was behind this event. Satan always seeks to foil God’s plans by attempting to frighten believers, and by instilling doubt within their hearts.

The people who had arrived to attack Jehoshaphat were from Moab and Ammon, and a few other places (2 Chr 20:1). These would-be attackers, if you look down in verse 10, were the people that God “would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and did not destroy them” (20:10). Judah was being assaulted by the same nations they had spared en route to Canaan from Egypt.(5) In other words, the people who came against Jehoshaphat could have been considered allies.

Satan likes to turn allies and friends against us. If you’ll recall, he used one of Jesus’ friends, Judas Iscariot, to betray Him to be crucified. Whenever a friend turns on us it can be one of the most hurtful experiences of our life, and when we’re hurting the worst is when we often think irrationally and begin to blame God for the bad things that are happening to us. In such a time it can be easy to forsake the Lord and the task that He’s set before us.