You please turn with me in your Bibles to the second book of Chronicles, chapter 20. We'll read the first 13 verses and then the first two verses of Hebrews chapter 12. Let me just set the scene for you in case you're unfamiliar with this portion of God's Word. We're in the early years of the ninth century before Christ. Jehoshaphat, the king that we will be reading about, is the fourth king of the southern kingdom, Judah. He was a good man, he had a good heart, but he had strayed badly from the Lord. In chapter 18, he enters into an alliance with that godless, wicked king of Israel, Ahab, and the Lord rebukes him. And in the following chapter, Jehoshaphat sets about instituting some kind of reform in Israel. Many of the reforms were pleasing to God, but he didn't go as far as he should have gone. But he was a good man, albeit a deeply flawed man. And when we come to this 20th chapter, we find King Jehoshaphat in extremis. Enemies from the north, from the east and the south are encircling little Judah. And he is beyond himself. He sees no help around him. And so in his prayer, he says, Lord, there is nothing we can do, but our eyes are upon you. And that will be the focus of our reflection this evening, that in the extremity of life, when we don't know what to do, there is one thing we know to do, and that is to fix our eyes upon our God. Second Chronicles chapter 20, the first verse. After this, that is after the tragedy with Ahab and the reforms that Jehoshaphat then instituted, after this the Moabites, the Ammonites, and with them some of the Munites came against Jehoshaphat for battle. Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, a great multitude is coming against you from Eden, from beyond the sea, and behold, they are at Hazazon Tamar, that is in Gedi, that is they're 25 miles or so from Jerusalem. Then Jehoshaphat was afraid, and there are times, brothers and sisters, it's right to be afraid. He was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord, and from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord. And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might so that none is able to withstand you. Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham, your friend? And they have lived in it and have built for you a sanctuary for your name, saying, if disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you, for your name is in this house. And cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and say, and now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy. Behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit. O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? for we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. Meanwhile, all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives, and their children. And these, I'm sure, are very familiar words, Hebrews chapter 12. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking a way to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God. Father, you've given us your word as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. You've given us your word to make us wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. You've given us your word, Lord, that by it we may be led through the gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit into everlasting communion with yourself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We come, Lord, with weary souls, tired bodies. Perhaps we come dispirited, even forlorn. but in coming to you, we come to the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. So meet with us, we pray, holy, heavenly Father, by your Spirit, to the praise and glory of your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen. Well, please turn with me in your Bibles, the second book of Chronicles, Chapter 20, and these closing words in the 12th verse. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. Earlier today, Joan and I were having lunch with dear friends and their children. It was a delightful time. We were talking about all manner of things, and as we sat and chatted, I noticed some books piled just by my left-hand side, and there was this little small book at the top, and I was immediately arrested by the title. the still hour, or communion with God. I don't know the book. I had never heard of the book. And so as we talked, I just quickly opened the first page. You can tell a lot about a book from the first sentence or two. And as I read the sentences, I thought, I'm going to use this tonight as we begin to reflect on these words of Jehoshaphat. Lord, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. This is how the writer begins this brief little book, The Silent Hour or Communion with God. If God had not said, blessed are those that hunger, I know not what could keep weak Christians from sinking in despair. Many times, all I can do is to complain that I want Him and wish to recover Him. Many times. all I can do is to say I want Him and desire to recover Him. When I was a young Christian with no background in the Bible or the church or anything, I came across some fine older Christians who were telling me that the normal Christian life, and there was a book of that title that they were commending, that the normal Christian life was not a life of trial and trouble. It wasn't a life of anxiety and difficulty and battle. It was a life that lifted you out of that. It lifted you into the higher life. I was a young Christian. I wanted the higher life. I wanted to know God more clearly, to love Him more dearly, to follow Him more nearly. I wanted to be lifted out of the trials and the troubles and the difficulties and the exigencies of life. And for a brief time, a very brief time, I would go along to various meetings that they were holding. But as I went to those meetings, I began to realize, I don't find this in the Bible. I find that my Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect man of faith, the sinless Son of God, I find that the whole course of his life, as he described it himself, was a course of trial and trouble. Here we find Jehoshaphat and the people of God at a time of deepest trial and trouble. They don't know what to do. They're surrounded by enemies to the north, to the south, and to the east. They are in extremis. But what we need to understand as we reflect together on this drama that occurs in the early years of the ninth century before Christ, what we need to understand that this little pericope of drama is part of something vaster. You see, the life of faith is lived out, not only in terms of its individual circumstances and situations. Not only is it lived out within its own congregational trials and troubles and joys and sorrows, the life of faith in the living God is lived out in the midst of a cosmic drama. A cosmic drama that God himself instituted, and we read about it, you will know, in Genesis chapter three. Satan, in the guise of the serpent, has seduced Adam and Eve into rebellion against God. They have preferred to believe the lie of the serpent. than the word of the gracious, loving, kind, generous-hearted God. And as the Lord God addresses the tragedy that has come into the midst of His good creation, you'll remember how in Genesis 3.15, He addresses Satan through the serpent. And God says, this is the first gospel sermon in the Bible, and it comes from the mouth of God himself. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. You will strike at his heel. He will bruise your head. And the whole Bible is really an unfolding, escalating exposition of this drama that we find initiated by God in the Garden of Eden in the third chapter of the book of Genesis. There is an elemental conflict. that runs through the length and breadth of human history, and that will not end until the Lord Jesus Christ returns in power and in great glory, and initiates a new heavens and a new earth, casts the wicked into hell, and gathers the redeemed of God into the everlasting blessedness of His nearer presence. So what I want us to see tonight is that whenever we read the Bible and wherever we read in the Bible, we're in the midst of cosmic conflict. This is not simply a little geographical drama that is happening in the Near East between three or four little, almost insignificant states. It is that, but it is something vastly more than that. All of us, believer and unbeliever, have been caught up into a cosmic conflict, kingdom against kingdom. Behind all that we see with our eyes in this world, there is an elemental conflict between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. Between those who walk the narrow way that leads to life and those who are running headlong in that broad way that leads to destruction. And the great purpose of the gospel of God in Jesus Christ is to bring us out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son of God's love. And so while we'll be thinking tonight about Jehoshaphat, and the exigencies that brought him and his people to an end of themselves, we need to see it within that broader panorama. And that's why I read those few words from that little book, The Silent Hour or Communion with God, because right at the outset, and this struck me as being so healthy, so spiritually healthy, right at the outset, the writer is saying the life of faith, is a life that knows trouble and trial and darkness. Too easily, I think, we are seduced in our thinking away from the manifest realities that the Word of God page after page after page impresses upon us. in this world, you will have tribulation. You don't need to look for it. It inevitably will come to you. Because if you belong to Jesus Christ, you belong to a kingdom that is embattled. You belong to a king who has triumphed, absolutely. But His kingdom knows toil and trouble and trial and tribulation and will do so until He rends the heavens and comes down and establishes the kingdom of God in a renewed cosmos, having banished from that cosmos into eternal outer darkness. everything and everyone who has refused to bow the knee gladly and willingly to the Lord Jesus Christ. So the normal Christian life is not a life that lifts you out of the trials and troubles and tribulations of life. If that were so, you would live a life contrary to that of the prototypical man of faith, Jesus Christ. The whole course of his life was a course of trial and trouble and tribulation. Perplexity, bewilderment, uncertainty, despondency is woven into the very fabric of the normal Christian life. I've been teaching in the seminary these past few days and will do so in the coming week. One of the things I've been seeking to impress on the students and upon myself is this very reality because we see it so magnificently, if bewilderingly, portrayed. in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His own psychology and in His own self-understanding of His life and ministry and mission, do you know that the Lord Jesus Christ said, my life has amounted to nothing? It has accomplished nothing and is full of vanity. Did you know that? Isaiah 49 verse 4, the second servant song. My life has amounted to nothing. Full of vanity. Tochu hebel, tochu, my life's been formless. And he takes the word that Solomon will use in Ecclesiastes vanity of vanities. My life is just a vanity. Here is the sinless Son of God, and he's experiencing despondency, sinless despondency. He is the man of faith, and yet he finds himself surveying his life, and it seems to him, and if he could not have said that, he would have disqualified himself from being our Savior, because it would have meant he was a superman and not a true man. The point I'm simply trying to make is that when we read here of Jehoshaphat, surrounded by enemies and filled with fear, This is the normal Christian life. So let me just reflect with you briefly this evening, looking especially but not exclusively at the latter words in the 12th verse. Notice first of all, and I just want to reiterate this point, there are times in life when believers just do not know what to do. Jehoshaphat confesses it, doesn't he, in verse 12. We do not know what to do. They're surrounded by enemies. They're called a great horde, did you notice? A great multitude, verse 2, is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea. And behold, they're within 25 miles there at Angedi. And Jehoshaphat looks around him, looks at the resources he has, and he says, Lord, we don't know what to do. We don't know where to turn. You see, in the life of faith, the Lord has not given his people a playbook. Now, I know very little about American football, thankfully. We play rugby in our country and don't have big shoulder pads and helmets. We're real men. But I do know, and I think this is true, I do know that in American football, there is a playbook, and in one situation, page 32 happens, and in another situation, page 49, and you need to know the playbook. In the Christian life, God's not given us a playbook. You lose your job suddenly, God doesn't say, ah, yes, page 39. Someone you love dies. Your heart is breaking. The Lord has not given us a book that says, yeah, that's covered in page two. You don't know whether you should stay or leave where you live. You're not sure if this is the right man or she's the right woman. And the Lord has not given us playbooks that we can simply, ah, yes, that's dealt with in such and such a page. The life of faith can often experience such uncertainty that all you can say is, Lord, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. God can seem far off. His ways can seem so impenetrable, so bewildering. We're asking, Lord, Why am I in this situation where I just don't know what to do? Lord, why? You know, sometimes we read the Bible in a very flat way, as if it were a flat, almost desert-like landscape. Let me try and illustrate it in this way. I was preaching a little time ago through the book of Habakkuk. And most people know very little about the book of Habakkuk. They should. It's one of the great high points in prophetic literature. But most Christians know at least two verses in Habakkuk. Chapter 2, verse 4, the just will live by faith. And then chapter 1, verse 13, God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. But actually, in chapter 1, verse 13, what Habakkuk is saying is this. You are of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, but you're raising up the Babylonians to come and overwhelm us and grind us into the dust, carry us off into exile. We are your people, Lord, your covenant people. How can you be of purer eyes to behold iniquity when you're raising up the iniquitous Babylonians? Habakkuk is perplexed with God. He can't get his head round the ways of the Lord. There are times in the life of faith when God seems far off. when the ways of God seem impenetrable, even to the point where Isaiah chapter 45 says, Lord, you are a God who hides himself. Deus absconditus. God has absconded. We don't know what to do, Lord. We don't know what to do. That experience is not, by its very nature, antithetical to the life of faith. It doesn't mean that you're a poor Christian, a bad Christian, a disobedient Christian. Now, it may mean that, but essentially, in essence, it does not mean that. It means that God in His gracious, wise, impenetrable, loving, kindly sovereignty has brought you into circumstances where you come to an end of yourself. And all you can say is, Lord, I don't know what to do. But notice secondly, and this is really the focus of our reflection tonight, when believers don't know what to do, they know what to do. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. We don't know what to do, Lord. We've come to the end of ourselves. We've reached the end of our hoarded resources. We don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. I want to notice with you four things as we seek to unpack what that little phrase means. What does it mean? What did it mean for Jehoshaphat and for God's people at that time to have their eyes upon the Lord? Well, it meant first of all, do you notice in verse 3, that Jehoshaphat set his face to seek the Lord. He set his face to seek the Lord. And then we read that he proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord. From all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord. When you don't know what to do, you set your eyes upon the Lord and you pray. That's what Jehoshaphat is doing here. He's saying, Lord, we don't know what to do, but we're going to pray. I think it was John Bunyan who said, you can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed. Maybe some of you are here tonight and you don't know what to do. Life seems bleak, impenetrable. Your circumstances seem to be so against you as to leave you in this quagmire of uncertainty. My friends, seek the Lord. Come to Him. Cast yourself upon Him. Pray. It's very basic, isn't it? It's Christianity 101. Why is He saying this to us? Because I need to say it to myself. And I guess most of you are much like me. We need to make prayer the priority that the Word of God makes it. Prayer should never be tangential. It should always be central. It should never be peripheral. It should always be fundamental. And that's true individually, familiarly, and congregationally. My beloved friends, if prayer is not fundamental and essential in the life of this congregation, it will die. It may have a name that it lives, but in the sight of God, it will die. And so that's what Jehoshaphat means when he says, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you. We're looking to you, Lord, because you are our help. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heavens and the earth. Secondly, to fix your eyes on the Lord means here in this context to remind the Lord of his covenant commitment to his people. And that's what I think Jehoshaphat is doing in verses five through 11. When he says, O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the nations, the kingdoms of the nations. in your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you? Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of the land before your people, Israel, and give it forever to your descendants, to Abraham your friend?" What is Jehoshaphat saying to the Lord? He's saying, Lord, do you not remember? Do you not remember who we are? We're your people. Now this is very bold. Does God ever need reminding of anything? No. But he loves for his people to come and remind him. Lord, we are yours not because we first chose you, but because you first chose us. I think in essence he's saying, Lord, you have made us your own. You've established us in the land. We have lived in it and have built for you a sanctuary for your name. What animates Jehoshaphat is the honor of God. It's your name, Lord, that's at stake. Do you not see that? You know, sometimes the prayers of the psalmists in particular are breathtaking for their effrontery and boldness. I wonder if you know the 44th Psalm, it comes to mind. In the latter three or four verses, the psalmist four times with intensifying Hebrew verbs commands God to do things. You ever commanded God? I wouldn't dare to do it, you say. Well, the psalmist did. Lord, awake, awake. And it's a very strong Hebrew verb with, if you know it, a suffixal intensifier. It's really awake. Are you sleeping, Lord? Do you not see the extremities your people are in? Do you not see and know? Do you think the Lord is offended by that kind of praying? He loves to hear it. He loves to see His people come to Him and plead His covenant faithfulness. And that's what Jehoshaphat is doing. And we need to learn to be as courageous and bold in our praying. Lord, we are Your inheritance. Your name is at issue. Come, Lord. You've promised to build your church. I will build my church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. Lord, come and build your church. You've promised it. May I remind you of the promise. But then thirdly, he acknowledges his and God's people's helplessness. That's what he's saying when he says, Lord, we don't know what to do. We've come to an end of ourselves. We're being threatened from the north, the south, the east, the west, of course, is the sea. God loves his people to acknowledge and confess their helplessness. I think it's probably true that in every Dutch Reformed church throughout the world, every Lord's Day service has begun with these words, our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heavens and the earth. Brothers and sisters, we are helpless. We have no resources of our own fit and adequate to face the exigencies, the trials, the troubles, the tribulations, the oppositions of this world. But then fourthly, and this really is what I want to focus on up till now is introduction. he confesses his faith. Lord, he says, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. And there are two things in particular in these verses that I think illustrate what it is that Jehoshaphat and the people he represents what they're looking to in their God. First of all, in verse six, our eyes are upon you, the sovereign Lord of the nations. He begins his prayer, O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. The sovereignty of God is not a reformed distinctive. It's not a Calvinistic shibboleth. It's a fundamental foundational truth in Holy Scripture that is presented to us, commended to us as a comfort for our weary souls. our distempered minds and our distracted hearts. It's a pillow to lie your weary, distempered soul upon. Lord, You're the sovereign Lord of the heavens and the earth. Remember how in Acts 4, Peter and John have been arraigned before the Sanhedrin, and they've been commanded no longer to speak in the name of Jesus. And they return to the little flock of Christ. You remember how their prayer begins? You remember? Tom can tell us. Sovereign Lord. Everything's put into perspective. They've only done what your will and purpose decreed and determined. And then they go on to illustrate that in their prayer in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, behind all the machinations of godless, wicked men. The Lord was sovereignly, decretively exercising His eternal will and gracious purpose to save a lost world from a lost eternity. And that's where we fix our eyes when we don't know what to do and life seems to be hemming us in, and we don't know whether to turn to the right or the left or to turn back or go forward, and we remember, my God, our God, is the King of the nations, the Lord of the heavens and the earth. But then notice in verse 7, our eyes are upon you, the gracious God, the Savior God. Look at the words in verse 7, did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people? Notice those two little words, our God. How did they become the people of God? Was it because they were superior to the other nations? Was it because they lived lives that elevated them above the godlessness of the times? Remember how in Deuteronomy, is it chapter seven? Hope is chapter seven. God says, don't think that I chose you because you were the greatest, the most powerful. You were the weakest, the poorest, and the feeblest. How did they come to be able to say, our God? By the gracious, good pleasure, love, kindness, and mercy of the Lord God Almighty. That's where we cast our eyes. When all around our soul gives way, when life is dark, and bewildering and complex. I remember vividly the first time I recollect reading Calvin's commentary in Romans 4, verse 20. I was a young divinity student. I think probably I'd read it before, but it hadn't registered. You know the verse, Abraham against hope believed in hope. God had promised him a son and an heir, but the years are passing. Abraham's almost at a hundred years, and the promises of God seem empty. And Calvin writes there in his commentary, if I remember, what are we to do when our circumstances are all in opposition to the promises of God? He says that He accounts us just, yet our lives are covered with sin. He says that we are His precious beloved sons and daughters, but outward signs threaten His wrath. What are we to do? Well, says Calvin, this is what we are to do. We're to shut our eyes, shut our ears, and say this to ourselves, I believe God. I would guess some people reading that would say, well, there you go, burying his head in the sand. No, says Calvin, I'm not burying my head in the sand, I'm burying my heart and head in God. In the God who cannot lie, In the God who has said, I will be your God and you will be my people. I'm burying my heart and my head in the face of all the adverse circumstances in life. In God. Our God. You know at Christmas time, We were thinking much, I'm sure, about Immanuel God with us. That's great, isn't it? I just love to sing these glorious incarnational hymns. My two favorites, number one, O Come, All Ye Faithful, better in Latin than English, and number two, Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendor. Immanuel is wonderful, but beloved Immanuel isn't enough. Oh, I want to hear God with us, but oh, my heart cries out. I need God to be for me and not just with me. I need him to be Eloheinu, not just Immanuel. I need God to be my God. And this is what he's saying, he's saying, Did you not, our God?" He's pleading the covenantal, gracious, electing love of God to his people. You know, the whole Bible can be summed up in three words. Behold your God. Why do you read the Bible? You say, well, Ian, that's a no-brainer. I'm a sinner who needs a Savior, and I have struggles and trials and troubles, and I come to God's Word every day, and I'm looking for comfort and succor and hope. Well, that's good. Beloved, that's not why you should read the Bible. In the Bible, in every page, God is saying, behold your God. Behold your God. Your greatest need tonight and my greatest need is to behold our God, to fix our eyes on Him. And that's why we read those verses at the beginning in Hebrews chapter 12. The Apostle Paul, dare I say it, is writing to comfort and courage exhort, challenge these Hebrew believers who have been tempted to turn back from Christ. And he uses all the weapons in his pastoral armory. He uses warnings, warning them of the dread, awful consequences of turning back from the Lord Jesus Christ. But above all, he lifts up the Lord Jesus Christ and shows that he is supremely glorious, greater than all that the old covenant people of God could ever have hoped for, greater than Moses, greater than Aaron. And then he comes to this stunning climax at the beginning of chapter 12. since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Don't look to the witnesses. Look away to Jesus. Fix your eyes on Jesus. He is the revelation of God. Remember, Philip says, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. And Jesus says, Philip, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I am the perfect exposition of the Father. I am the perfect exegesis of the Father. What Jehoshaphat could dimly see with the eye of faith. We who live this side of Calvary and the Ascension, who live this side of the coming of the Spirit of Christ in new covenant grace and glory to the church, we see more gloriously, more profoundly than Jehoshaphat could ever see. And so the writer says, looking away to Jesus, Our English translations are pretty feeble, I think, in the main. Looking to Jesus, well, yes, but the two parts of the verb are looking away from something, to something. And that's what we do when we don't know what to do. We look away from ourselves, we look away from our circumstances, we look away from our trials, we look away from our troubles, and we fix our eyes on Jesus. Why? He's the author and the finisher of faith. He will not only begin a good work in me, he will bring that work to perfect completion. The most significant thing about each and every one of us here tonight, you young boys and girls who are here, I love seeing you in church. The Lord, vastly more importantly, loves seeing you in his house. The most important thing about you, I don't know your name. What's your name? Owen, so it is, Owen. The most important thing about you is what you think about God. And that's true for all of us. It's true for Tom and Gail, Jordan and Chantel, and Peter, and Laura Lee. That's why our great need in these days is to be reacquainted with the Godness of God, the greatness of God, the grace of God. which we behold supremely in the face of His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Looking away to Jesus. So when you don't know what to do, you know what to do. Fix your eyes on Him. Well, let us pray. Lord, we ask that your Word, poorly, feebly proclaimed, will, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, accomplish everlasting good in each and every one of our hearts and in our lives to the praise of your glory. and we ask it in our Savior's name, amen. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters in Christ, lift up your heads, open your eyes, and by faith receive the blessing of the triune God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you, be gracious unto you, The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, give you his peace. Amen.