Prayer Leads to Victory

 

    Prayer is the most powerful act that a person can do.  When you are battling something it humbles you to know that you can't win on your own.  At the same time it strengthens you because it focuses the eternal anxiety on the eternal power of God who is fighting for you.  

    When it comes to war it is easy to ask for victory and want to destroy the enemy.  The hard part is facing the fact that your enemy may be praying the same things.  The real enemy is Satan and his army.  All humans are God's creation.  He wants all of us to be His people.  Too many chose not to be, but He does not give up on them.  The winning side will always depend on what will serve God's purpose for the long term future.

    King Jehoshaphat was a king that brought his people to God.  He had them to to Him in prayer and he prayed for them too.  When a vast army came to destroy Judah, he sought God and had his nation fast with him.  He was transparent with his people and in return he had their loyalty and trust.

    The Holy Spirit came to Jahaziel during the king's assembly.  Jahaziel spoke where everyone could hear.  He told them not to be afraid even thought things appeared hopeless.  God had ordered them to go to the battlefield and watch God work.  He would deliver His people from evil and be with them.  The Judah nation praised God.  They did not wait for the proof. 

    The next day, Judah went while still praising God.  The enemy heard them singing their praises to God.  The enemy thought they were in an ambush, so they began to fight once another.   Judah never had to get involved in the fight.  There were only bodies that remained over a great distance.  

    It took them three days to collect all the plunder.  The fourth day, they came back together and celebrated God.  God rewarded King Jehoshaphat with peace.  He was 35 when he became king and died when he was 60.  For the most part he was a good king. 

     In his later years he did make an alliance with the evil king Ahaziah of Israel, like his father.  This did not make God happy.  Why would the holy ever align themselves with evil?  His alliance was only for commerce, but God wanted no alliance.  A little evil finds a way of corrupting everything it touches.  God wanted to stop the corruption, so He destroyed the cause of the alliance.  

2 Chronicles 20