Lesson 5: The Lord's Battle Plan
Question 4
As Christians, we must look to the Lord and learn His plan for our victory because if we don’t, we’ll find ourselves listening to the counsel of the world and just doing what seems logical to us to our own detriment. The world has no experience of death to sin and resurrection to a new life or walking with God’s Spirit so that we don’t gratify the lusts of our flesh.
The Lord might lead us to victory in ways that make no sense to the world, even as God’s answer to man’s sin problem was to hang His Son on a tree and judge Him and wound Him and kill Him. The world looks at that event and it makes no sense to them, it seems foolish and irrelevant.
A Victorious Plan for Battle
We saw above that the first battle against Ai didn’t turn out so well, so let’s now look at one that did. As we look at this story, keep in mind that we’re studying the essentials of looking to the Lord (not man) for victory when going into battle.
After this, the Moabites and Ammonites with some of the Meunites came to wage war against Jehoshaphat. Some people came and told Jehoshaphat, “A vast army is coming against you from Edom, from the other side of the Dead Sea. It is already in Hazezon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi).
2 Chronicles 20:1-2 (NIV)
Notice, this was a large army, and they are declaring war on God’s king (Jehoshaphat) and God’s people. This is what you and I face every day. Pornography and sexual impurity are a huge army with many resources, and they are coming after you and me! Soldier, what do we do? Well, let’s see what Jehoshaphat did:
Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed 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.
2 Chronicles 20:3-4 (NIV)
Ah, Jehoshaphat resolves to inquire of the Lord! In the next few verses, Jehoshaphat prays to the Lord, reminding God of His Word that promised the Israelites their inheritance in the promised land, and he ended with this statement:
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 on you.
2 Chronicles 20:12
Here Jehoshaphat freely acknowledges that the enemy was powerful and vast and that they, themselves, had no power and no understanding of what to do.
Friend, there is no shame in acknowledging that we face a powerful enemy and that we don’t know how to beat them. Sometimes we go long years in slavery to sin until we acknowledge that all our human efforts, all our plans, and fixes never actually set us free. This is the proper position before God, that of having total dependence on Him for victory.
Question 4. Please fill in the blank. “For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but ” (2 Chronicles 20:12).
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