Standing
Still
by Wayne Dailey
Senior
Pastor,
O our God, wilt Thou not judge them?
for we have no might against this great company
that cometh against us; neither know we what to do:
but our eyes are upon Thee.
King Jehoshaphat
was a God-fearing king who had a deep love and appreciation for the things of
God. One day he got a report that he was in deep trouble: three invading armies
were on their way to attack
Jehoshaphat was
concerned about this. Realizing he was outnumbered, he knew he needed wisdom
from on high. And as the pressure mounted, he cried out, What am I going to do!
We, too, sometimes find ourselves in this same
position. Circumstances overwhelm us, and we wonder what we should do. We want
to look at what Jehoshaphat did, and see what we can learn from his example.
Jehoshaphat knew
the best thing for him to do was to get hold of God. He knew God had the
answer. He knew God could take care of the problem. So he gathered the people
together to fast and to pray - and to claim the promises of God.
That is all they
had to do: fast and pray, calling on God in faith believing. They had to believe God (or be killed by the
enemy). If they were going to get out of this alive it would only be because
they got out by faith.
They needed
something for this particular trial, something more than they previously had -
something different. Oh, they had the record of the law. The promises of God
had been given them. But, at this time, they needed something more:
And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.
Don’t be dismayed!
Don’t worry about the adversary!
Don’t get your mind on the problem!
Get your mind fixed on the Lord – for the battle is His!
It’s not yours.
The Lord knew
their faith would be hindered if they got their mind on the problem. He knew
their faith would shrivel up and give way to fear if they got their mind on the
size of the invading armies - and then they would be in real trouble!
He reminded them
that the battle wasn’t theirs, anyway: It belonged to Him. And because the
battle was His, they could put their confidence in Him to fight it.
To morrow go ye down against them: behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the wilderness of Jeruel.
Now, God is
telling them what to do - if they will only grasp it and believe. He wanted
them to stand in this battle and do as He had told them to do.
Here is a lesson for us today
in the battles we face: While we are in the battle,
God will fight for us. He will fight the battle right around about us. And
when the enemy falls at our feet, we will be standing firm.
We need to
realize that it’s not a matter of retreat. It’s not a matter of running. No,
it’s a matter of believing God - right in the midst of each battle we face.
Ye shall not need to fight in this battle . . .
How on earth do
you interpret that! There were these armies coming against them - all at the
same time: but
Well, we can come up with an
answer here if we put two and two together: They were
told the battle wasn’t theirs but God’s. And since it was God’s battle, who
would you expect to do the fighting?
If we want to
see this happen in the battles we face, then we’ll have to believe that,
somehow, God is going to fight for us - that, though we’ll be there, He will do
the fighting.
But, just about
this time, the natural mind and feelings react: I’m not going out there! Do you think I’m crazy?
Set yourselves, stand ye still,
and see the salvation of the Lord with
you . . .
This is what we
want: In everyday trials, everyday battles, in the great battles and in the
small ones - we want to see the salvation of the Lord with us.
Now, is God with
you or not? If He’s not, then His Word isn’t true - for in Romans 8 He says, If God be for you, who can
be against you?
You must be
somebody special in God’s eyes. When He is for you, you’re in a position where
nobody can be against you. Oh, they may come full force to try and put you
down, but they can’t prevail.
God said that
you were to stand still in this battle. And that is usually the hardest thing
to do when the pressures mount. It’s much easier to be doing something than
just be standing still. It’s hard to just stand there and relax - unless, of
course, you are believing God.
When you find it
difficult to turn the fight over to Him it’s because you don’t really believe
He can work it out.
So it comes
right down to this: All we are expected to do is to get out on the battlefield,
stand still - and see.
We each have been given two
types of vision: natural and vision.
God wants you to
come to the place where you not only open your natural eyes to look around and
see the circumstances you face - but you also open your spiritual eyes and see
where God is at work.
And when you
stand still and open your spiritual eyes, you will see the salvation of the
Lord with you. If God is really for you, you’ll be able to see the evidence of
it: But you must stand still long enough to do so.
Do you have any
evidence to prove to me that God is in your life? Can you show me, through
circumstances in the past, that God is for you? Did He save your soul? Did He
bring you up from the miry clay?
Anybody who
would do that certainly is for you and not against you: and, therefore, you
have no need to fear.
Now, God is not only for you - He
is also in you.
It is much
easier for you to stand still with Him in you. If someone picks on you and
tries to put you down, know that they’re also picking on God and trying to put
Him down.
God is not a god
who is far off, way off in some distant place. If you have received His Son as
your personal Lord and Saviour, He’s right there on the throne of your heart.
He is closer to you than your hands, closer than your next breath. Yes, He
dwells within your vessel. So why worry and fret?
Yet, even though
we know this truth, we still find times when we tend to get anxious.
. . . fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the Lord will be with you.
That message was
spoken from the Lord. He gave them a mighty revelation - right in the midst of
one of the worst trials they had ever faced. He told them this that they might
grasp hold of it and put their faith in Him and in what He had said.
And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the
ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of
They were acting
like they believed God! They believed it would happen just as it was said
- for they recognized that it was God speaking to them.
There’s a great spiritual
lesson here: when God is speaking, we ought to
listen. We ought to believe His Word is speaking directly to us, believing Him
when He reveals Himself to us.
In the battles
that come our way, if we do what God directs us to do, we will always come out
on top. And in the midst of the battle, we’ll know how we are to react. We’ll
know how to stand and have a spiritual backbone. We’ll be able to face the
opposition without shaking and worrying, without dread or fear.
Yes, we’ll be
able to stand firmly - instead of sitting down and having a trial over it.
And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper.
There comes the
time in God’s plan when we’ve got to stop and shut our mouth long enough to
listen. The reason we should listen is that we might be encouraged to do what
God is telling us to do.
Sometimes I have
people coming to me for counsel who are so busy trying to tell me their story
that I can’t give them any help! They talk a mile a minute. I try to give them
some advice, but they’re so busy thinking of the next thing they want to tell
me that they’re not listening to a word I’m saying!
I have to wait
until they run out of words before I can try to help them out.
Now, how can God
talk to you while you’re busy talking? You’re in a battle, and all you do is
tell God over and over how bad things are. You envision the worst kind of
things in your mind. Your little world is turned right upside down, and that’s
all you can talk about. But all that imagination doesn’t help one bit.
You’ve got to learn
to get your mind off the race track and shut your mouth - and let God say
something. As long as you talk away, magnifying the circumstances, you will
get nowhere fast - nowhere, that is, except into a bigger trial!
Now,
Do you believe
in the Lord your God? Do you believe His Word? Do you believe in His Son as
your personal Saviour?
Your belief in
the Lord gets you established in Him. It brings you into the place in Jesus
Christ where you can truly say that you are a child of God. It brings you
to the place of being established in the faith. When you’re established in
the Lord you come to the place where you can stand.
Have you ever
known any really strong Christians? They stand firm in the fiercest of trials
and battles. And they come through each one still praising God. When hardships
and pressures come against them, they merely fall on their knees and call upon
the Lord. You don’t find them shaking and trembling. You don’t find them
fretting and worrying.
Well, you can be
that kind of a believer, too. That’s just the place God wants you to arrive at.
He is working to establish you and bring you into just such a place. The Word
of God tells you that you can become rooted and grounded. Yes, you can become
settled and firmly fixed.
But you’ve got
to get to the place where your Christian experience isn’t a series of ups and
downs. You have go to become consistent in your walk with the Lord.
As soon as pressures and troubles come, many decide
to give up.
Give up what? If
they’re shaky, they haven’t got anything to give up! for they had nothing to
begin with.
When you get
rooted and grounded and founded you will stand up and say, I’m not ever going to give up. This walk is too precious for me to give
it up.
But you can’t
stand in the trials and testings if you’re always feeling like you want to
throw the towel in. You can’t be crying out, What’s the use? If you’re going to be established in the Lord,
you’ve got to get some backbone about you.
You may claim
you are going all the way with the Lord: But, when you have a hard trial, are
you still going all the way? Surely those trials aren’t meant to stop you from
walking with the Lord. They are meant to make you strong, enabling you to go
on.
Without trials,
you’d be like a jelly fish. You wouldn’t have the slightest backbone. Jelly
fish can’t rise up - because they have nothing to stand up with!
God said your
trials are more precious than gold tried by fire. Just think of what one trial
is to mean to you. It is precious.
Each trial gives
you a bit more hardness, a little more backbone. It puts that firmness in your
spirit where things won’t shake you.
People get so shaky
when the pressures are on. But God wants to take that shaky, wobbly frame and
give it a backbone, enabling you to stand firm in the midst of the battle. And
He accomplishes this through many trials.
Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
In other words, be careful how you walk. Make straight paths for your feet. Walk on the straight and
narrow way with the Lord. Let that which is lame be healed, or you’ll stagger
and head into a pitfall.
You have got to
stop in your experience and take stock of things.
God wants you to
be strong. He said that the weak are to say they are strong, for it is when you
are weak that you find the Lord’s strength as you turn to Him for help. When
you feel strong and self-confident, then you are not very strong. When you
boast, I can take it! watch out -
your confidence is in the flesh rather than in the Lord.
Believe His prophets, and so
shall ye prosper.
The prophet of
God said they wouldn’t need to fight in this battle. It was the Holy Ghost
speaking through that prophet.
Now, it was easy
for the prophet to say - but what would the people do about it? God had given
them a revelation so they could put their trust in Him and gain the victory.
But this was a
conditional promise. The only way they would find out if He meant what He said
was for them to do their part. All would be lost if they staggered at the promise
through unbelief.
God’s hands
would have been tied if they had stayed in
But God gave
them a promise through His prophet, and something happened: They realized down
in their hearts that God had, of a truth, spoken to them. And in faith, they reached
out to embrace His promise, knowing everything would come out all right.
Yes, they dared to believe God. Do you dare to believe God? Really?
Faith has got to
have something to hold on to that is sure. Faith doesn’t work in the realm of
uncertainty. No, faith gets hold on a promise from God’s Word - and won’t let
go.
How often we
stagger about in unbelief. We wonder if God will really answer. Oh, we may pray
for an answer, but our faith isn’t hooked on to anything. We are just hoping
that, by chance, it might work out for us.
God told them to
go out in the morning, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord with
them. His will was revealed to them - that they should have complete victory
without fighting.
Whenever we can
latch on to God’s will and firmly hold on to it, our faith will produce
results. God will always move when we launch out in faith.
But, Brother Dailey, this battle has been going on for a
long time. Things seem to be getting worse instead of better!
Well, maybe the
reason the battle has been going on for a long time is because you have been
wavering for a long time.
God’s promises
don’t have any dates on them. They have no time given that pinpoints exactly
when we can see them fulfilled.
What determines
the timing is our faith. When we launch out to believe God, right there is
where we set the time.
As soon as we
believe - the thing is already done. We haven’t seen it yet - but it is done.
We won’t worry one more moment, because we no longer have the slightest doubt.
How many times
God tells us something and we don’t take the time to believe it. The revelation
is there to cause us to believe and have God move on our behalf - But we need to latch our
faith on to what He has said.
When you have a
hassle with doubt and unbelief, press in some more. Get a little more concerned
about it. Then your faith will finally grasp on to the promise of God.
Now, look back
at what King Jehoshaphat did with what the prophet of God had told him. He was
going out to the battlefield on the revelation of that prophet. He was sticking
his neck out there merely on that prophet’s revelation - but note: he was doing it by faith, not by feelings.
He encouraged
everybody that this thing was from God, and if they would do as they were told
they would go out there and prosper. Then he thought, If I really believe this thing, then I had better start to act on it. This
is where we come into it. If we believe something is of God, we should also act
like we believe it.
And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord; for His mercy endureth forever.
The craziest
kind of battle was fought that day. There was no front line fighting: Instead,
there was a hallelujah crowd out in the front. Those soldiers weren’t afraid to
sing praises and shout hallelujah once in a while. They appreciated the beauty
of holiness - for they knew the Lord was with them.
God heard them
that day. He heard their praises. He heard them talking about the beauty of
holiness. Yes, He heard them, and was moved into action.
And when they began to sing and to
praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of
And when
God had told the
children of
Now, did God keep His Word?
Nothing is too
hard for Him - and He wants us to believe that fact. Having faith is what moves
His hand for us. Sometimes He gives a promise without telling us exactly when
or how He is going to fulfill it.
It may be in His
plan to fulfill it immediately. We find such promises coming to pass as quickly
as we latch hold of them. But then there are those promises where we find a
battle raging and coming against us.
We launch out to
believe God, and a battle rises against it. That battle may rage for quite some
time before the promise comes to pass. It is at such times that we must hold
tightly on to the promise of God.
Did you ever
have God tell you that He was going to do something - and then time went by
with nothing appearing on the horizon? Where
is it? Lord, You said it would happen - but I’ve been waiting for years!
Do you remember
Abraham?
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform.
God promised
Abraham a son, but he had to wait a long time - in fact, years. While he
waited, he had his faith attached to the promise of God, believing he would get
his promised son - and he did.
And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.
When Samuel said
something, you could count on it that what he said would come to pass.
And God would
want you and I to believe when He speaks to us; to latch on to a revelation
when He gives it - to know when something is of God.
And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us: and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.
If God said it,
then it is obviously His will. And if we ask according to His will, then we
will get the answer.
Why did
Jehoshaphat have such a great victory? The only way he could have missed was to
fail to heed God’s Word.
Surely, when God
speaks we have to obey, putting our faith in it - for it is more than mere
obedience:
It is faith and
obedience that brings the answer!