During my many years of preaching, I made a point of pointing out our mortality at the beginning of every year. I would say that some of you here today won’t finish the year on earth. That goes for me, also. I might not be here at the end of the year. I would then mention those who had passed away in the previous year. This might sound morbid, but it reminded me of my mortality. If the preacher has any responsibility, it is to remind people of their mortality. That’s why pastors always officiate at funerals. It should lead us to worship God. When we humble ourselves before the Lord, we worship him. We acknowledge our dependence on Him, and He looks favorably on us. “God resists the proud but gives grace (favor) to the humble.” It begins with our declaration of dependence and ends with God’s deliverance. That was Jehoshaphat’s experience in “The Valley of Decision.” This is where he and the entire nation humbled themselves before God in the face of three advancing armies. They expressed their helplessness and their desperate need for God. And God answered them. In 2 Chronicles 20:15, we read, “This is what the Lord says to you: Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s!”
Jehoshaphat was under attack and looked to the Lord. Joshua, on the other hand, was doing the attacking. In either situation, the solution is to worship God. Joshua was on the brink of his first battle against an impregnable fortress city named Jericho. The adventure was getting to be too much for him, and he was up all night. That’s when he met the captain of the Lord’s army. They had an exchange that resulted in Joshua’s worship. In Joshua 5, 13-15, we read all about it: “When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, worshiped, and said to him, What does my lord say to his servant? And the commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so.” I need not tell you about the victory that God gave to both Jehoshaphat and Joshua! They were both miraculous, and they were both total.
When we are under attack, when we are advancing against the enemy, the most important step we can take is to worship. That’s holy ground. When we come before the Lord and declare our dependence, acknowledge our weakness and His might and power, we are indeed on holy ground. That’s when we need a miracle. When we come to the “dead end” of ourselves, God is ready to do what God is best at. No human institution, academic, economic, technological, or cinematic, can solve our problems. Religion won’t solve the problem either. Religion won’t meet our needs. Max Lucado said it well, “We don’t need more religion; we need a miracle. We don’t need someone to disguise the dead; we need someone to raise the dead.” There’s only one place to turn. John tells us in John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”