When a crisis comes and you are afraid, what do you do in your fear? Panic? Run? Cry? Curse? Doubt? Compromise? Surrender? Something else? God wants you to turn to Him!

How do you handle a crisis? Is the way you deal with sudden difficulties any different than the people you know who are not Christians? Does the Bible give us any particular guidance in how to manage or respond to a crisis?

God’s written word gives us guidance in several ways. Sometimes it gives us commandments. Sometimes it gives us principles to apply. Then in other cases it gives us examples of what others who were approved by God have done and leaves us to follow their actions as a model.

It is this last category – following the examples of men and women who were approved by God – that gives us such a rich deposit of truth and guidance found in the stories of the Bible. We read and study an historical account and distill out the truths that are valid for us today.

"Now these things happened to them," Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:11, "as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come." The Greek word for "example" in that verse has as its root a word that means "a model for imitation."

Are you facing a crisis and don’t know where in the Bible to go for answers? Would you like to prepare for such an eventuality so that when it comes, you are ready? Then find the story of someone God approved of in the Bible who faced a crisis similar to yours and learn how the even was handled. You’ll find the answers you need.

Today we’re going to look at a crisis faced by a man named Jehoshaphat. This man with the funny (to us) sounding name was one of the kings of the tiny nation of Judah during the divided kingdom period of Israel’s history. His story is contained in four chapters of 2 Chronicles – chapters 17-20. His hour of crisis is described in chapter 20. We’ll focus on that. Please turn in your Bibles to 2 Chronicles 20.

Jehoshaphat was one of the best kings in a succession of the monarchs of Judah in the period of Israel’s division. He received an excellent heritage from his father, Asa, who was also a godly king. Perhaps the most concise statement of the goodness of Jehoshaphat’s reign is in 2 Chronicles 17:3-6. There is says, "And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he followed the example of his father [read "ancestor" – D.R.] David's earlier days and did not seek the Baals, but sought the God of his father, followed His commandments, and did not act as Israel did…. And he took great pride in the ways of the Lord…."

During the 25 years of his reign, Jehoshaphat drove out some of the idolatry that had infiltrated his nation. He sent out teachers across the land of Judah to instruct the people the word of God. And he reinforced godly values in the nation’s judiciary, instructing the judges of the land to deal justly and fairly with the people, and not to take bribes. While most of Jehoshaphat’s reforms were excellent, he was not a perfect king. He made some very poor alliances with other nations that caused him grief and displeased God. He seemed to be plagued with insecurity at times. Probably the worst of these was when, for political reasons, he allowed his son to marry the daughter of the notoriously wicked Ahab and Jezebel of the northern kingdom. When the consequences of that blunder had played out, Ahab was dead and God dispatched his prophet, Jehu, to personally rebuke Jehoshaphat for his foolishness.(1)

Despite his shortcomings, though, Jehoshaphat and his father, Asa were, as someone has said, "bright lights against the dark paganism that existed during their time."(2)

It is important to note, too, that Jehoshaphat’s crisis came after some of his godly accomplishments, testifying to us the truth that even people who serve God with their whole heart must face troubles in life. You knew that, right? Even though you have served God faithfully for many years, you still may have to face a crisis at some point. It’s quite common for those of us who care about our relationship with God and work hard on it to get the mistaken notion that we are somehow above or immune to such troubles in life. Not so, according to this passage and many others like it. You and I will face difficulty in life whether we serve God or not. The difference, of course, will be that those of us who serve God will have a great reservoir of help available to us from God. We will also have the promise of His providence, that is, the assurance that all things, including a crisis, will work together for good. Unbelievers and those who do not apply themselves to the things of God will have to face their problems alone.

Our story in 2 Chronicles 20 begins with the report of a pending military invasion of Judah.

The king had done some military buildup earlier in his administration. If my calculations from chapter 17 are correct, he had over a million men in uniform.(3) Yet his response upon hearing this report was one of great fear. This combined force of Moabites, Ammonites, and Meunites must have been huge to elicit such fright from Jehoshaphat. Whatever their size, he knew either that he was outnumbered or that he could not mobilize his forces soon enough to repel the attack of such a multitude.

So what did he do? How did he handle this crisis? That’s what we’re asking this portion of God’s word this morning. Verse 3 says he was afraid. I can understand that, can’t you? Wouldn’t you be afraid if the city you lived in was about to be overrun by a powerful enemy bent on your destruction? There were no "rules of war" in those days that spared non-combatants.

The verse we just read said he was afraid. How did he handle his fear?

The very first thing Jehoshaphat did – and we should do this too when facing a crisis – is:

1. Refocus Our Fear on Seeking God.

Fear is a natural response to a crisis. Danger appears and adrenaline pours into our bloodstream as our body mobilizes for fight or flight. Our thought process clears. Muscles tighten. Trivial considerations drop away. Suddenly we’re serious and all business.

Is it wrong to be afraid? Is initial fear an ungodly response to danger? I don’t think so, provided we deal properly with the emotion. Jesus said in Matthew 10:31, "Fear not…" On the surface we might get the idea that all fear is wrong, but upon closer inspection, we learn that the tense of the verb Jesus used there for fear is continuous present. "Do not continue fearing" might be closer to the meaning. We are not to continue in the initial response of fear. Fear in a crisis is understandable at first, but as our conscious mind begins to resume control, we need to do something with that fear. All that adrenaline needs to go someplace. This is where Jehoshaphat’s story instructs us. He refocused his fear away from those things which would only end in futility and toward God who had promised to help him. He "turned his attention to seek the Lord…"

When a crisis comes and you are afraid, what do you do in your fear? Panic? Run? Cry? Curse? Doubt? Compromise? Surrender? Something else? God wants you to turn to Him! In Psalm 50:15 He invites you and me to do just that. He says, "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me." God delights in helping us in the time of distress because when He does, it brings Him the honor that is due Him. Oh, and don’t worry. The New Testament says essentially the same thing. In 1 Peter 5:7 we read, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." (NIV)

Perhaps, more than at any other time, in a crisis we learn where our faith lies. When danger comes, consider the thing you turn to first. That is the real object of your faith.

In a crisis, when we are alarmed at what is coming our way, we need to refocus our fear on seeking God. That brings us to the second thing we can do in a crisis:

From all over the nation of Judah, as word reached their cities, people left their homes and streamed into Jerusalem. It was a massive rallying of God’s people. "They gathered together to seek help from the Lord." We will see here that the power of God was tapped in prayer and there was special effectiveness in these numbers of God’s people joining together to seek God’s help.

Does this principle of gathering together to pray hold in the New Testament age also?

The very familiar words of Jesus in Matthew 18:19-20 come to mind: "Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst."

That this principle of the church coming together to pray in time of crisis carries over into the New Testament is also seen in that story told by Luke in Acts 12 concerning the arrest of Peter.

Christianity had turned the city of Jerusalem upside down. Tens of thousands of Jews had accepted Jesus as Messiah. Even many of the priests were obedient to the faith. Peter had taken the gospel to the Gentile house of Cornelius. All of these events had the heads of Judaism and the authorities of the Roman Government fearing they would lose control. So the king of Judea decided to act. He arrested some of the leaders of the church, including the Apostle James, whom he put to death with the sword.

This was a real crisis for the early church. One Apostle is dead. A power-mad king, seeing that his action garnered approval from his constituency, arrests another – this time Peter. Presumably he was also planning to kill Peter, then perhaps others from among the Apostles. So were the early Christians powerless against such blatant abuse of power?

In Acts 12:5, Luke tells us, "So Peter was kept in prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church of God." The church gathered to pray! In the rest of the account, we read that God dispatched his angel and brought Peter out of the jail, right past the sleeping guards, and to the house of John Mark’s mother, Mary where, according to Acts 12:12, "many were gathered together and were praying."

Here we have in the New Testament exactly what we have been reading about in 2 Chronicles 20. God’s people gathered together during a crisis to seek God’s help and God answered their prayers.

In a time of crisis it is appropriate and effective to call the church together to pray – to enlist the help of your brethren in this very special privilege of calling upon the Lord.

Back in our text, the people of Judah have done just that. So with the people present with the King, they began to pour out their hearts and their needs and their fears to God. That’s the third thing we need to do in a crisis:

3. Pour Out Our Hearts to God.

The Psalmist put this principle to music in Israel’s songbook. Psalm 62:8 says, "Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us."

Listen as the king and all the people pour out their hearts to God.

Jehoshaphat pours out his heart before God on behalf of himself and the people. This principle is also valid in the New Testament.

1 Peter 5:7 instructs us: "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

Cast it upon the Lord! Pour out your heart to Him! He cares for you!

"But I wouldn’t know what to say."

Well then, let this story in 2 Chronicles give you some guidance. What did Jehoshaphat say as he poured out his heart?

Let me paraphrase that for you in a way that you and I might pray: "Lord, you are God in heaven. You rule over every kingdom on this earth. There is not a king or kingdom that can stand against you."

Folks we can invoke and pray to the very same God all-powerful God!

As we pour out our hearts in time of crisis today, we can also rehearse God’s deeds. "God, you are the same God who saved Judah from destruction back in the days of Jehoshaphat. Your are the same God who rescued Peter out of that jail in Jerusalem. You’re the same God who caused the phenomenal spread of your church in the first century and did many other mighty deeds among your people. We know you can do the same for us!"

A time of crisis is not a time for vague generality of prayer. It’s not a time for "saying prayers" or repeating a rosary or the Lord’s prayer by rote, supposing that God will hear us if we just repeat it enough. This was not a "now I lay me down to sleep" kind of memorized prayer. Neither was it a "Lord, bless all the missionaries in the world" kind of prayer. It was specific: "O our God, wilt Thou not judge them?"

This same specificity is seen in a New Testament story in Matthew 20:29-34. There we read, "And as they were going out from Jericho, a great multitude followed Him. And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, ‘Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!’ And the multitude sternly told them to be quiet; but they cried out all the more, saying, ‘Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!’ And Jesus stopped and called them, and said, ‘What do you want Me to do for you?’ (What specifically do you want?" – DR) And they said to Him, ‘Lord, we want our eyes to be opened.’ And moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes; and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him."

Jehoshaphat and the citizens of Judah wanted God to judge their attackers, so they asked Him specifically to do that: "O our God, wilt Thou not judge them?" We want you to judge these ungrateful invaders, Lord! Moses spared them in the Exodus and now this is how they repay us! We want justice!

In a crisis mode, are your prayers specific? They need to be.

One of the reasons God allows crises to come upon His people is to help us understand our weakness and our need for Him. If we are to receive help, we need to acknowledge the lesson. "Lord, we are powerless to solve this by ourselves. We need You!"

"Our eyes are on You, Lord. We’re waiting for you to act."

Ps 27:14 says, "Wait for the Lord; Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord."

"So what, in a crisis, am I just supposed to sit around and do nothing?" No. There is more.

Sometimes waiting on God takes time. That may or may not be the case with you and me. At other times it seems that God acts before we even say the last "Amen" of our prayer. In this case it the wait was short.

So what were they told to do?" "Go down against them… Station yourselves, stand, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf…." Did they do it? Yes they did! So in a crisis, we should:

In their case God’s word came through living prophets. That was God’s means of communication back then. They gave their attention to Jahaziel, the son of Zechariah. In our case, God’s word is written in the Bible so we must give our attention to that. The more we understand God’s written word (including the lessons from stories like this) the more we will know about what God wants us to do.

What a picture! Out of the city goes the army, lead by the choir! Do you think they felt a bit strange about that? It doesn’t say but I’ll assure you that this wasn’t the way that armies normally went into battle!

And did you notice all the praise? It was in advance, before the victory, wasn’t it? That is what we should do in a crisis also.

5. Praise God in Anticipation of Victory.

What follows is very important. Notice the timing.

They sang in anticipation of the victory, then God set the ambushes. That’s faith. Did the people know what God was about to do? No they didn’t. God promised them that He was going to fight the battle, but they didn’t know exactly how. They had no more advanced information than we have in a crisis. It requires faith on our part.

That brings us to the final point in dealing with a crisis (and I’ll just mention it because we’re out of time):

In a crisis then, we learn from this story to:

Before you leave this morning, I have an announcement to make. I need your undivided attention. This affects everyone here. In recent months we have detected a powerful energy field in the vicinity of the church property. This mysterious emanation is not visible to the naked eye, but we suspect it may have some dangerous effects to your health, so I wanted to warn you about it and assure you that we’re doing all we can to deal with it. Recently, through the use of sophisticated instruments, we have ascertained that this strange and potent energy field begins just beyond the front door of this building and is strongest somewhere near the middle of the parking lot. Though we have only recently detected it, we had previously known that something was wrong. This force does not act severely upon all of us, but it does have a drastic, numbing effect on some. For lack of a better name, until we can research it further in the future and properly ascertain its nature, we’ve decided this morning to give it a name. We’re going to call it the "SSH" or the "Sermon Sucking Hole." My theory is that it is a warp or tear in the fabric of the universe, through which the efforts of this pulpit each Sunday suddenly disappear without warning, never to be remembered again. Then later, when the material is desperately needed, perhaps even in a crisis, it is nowhere to be found in our memory banks. Symptoms include foolish and unchristian behavior, serious deviation from the faith, and sometimes total apostasy. Also observed are humiliating and potentially embarrassing questions like, "Duh, what am I suppose to do now?" and "The Bible doesn’t say anything about that, does it?"

Be assured that we intend to research this phenomenon more completely in the future and do all we can to counteract it. But we cannot do it alone. For now, the only protection I can recommend is paying closer attention to what is said here. We do know that short periods of sleep or inattention tend to make the field much stronger. Preliminary research indicates that this effect may be countered by earlier bedtimes on Saturday nights. Until we can learn more about this strange phenomenon, we recommend that you follow the sermons as closely as you can with your Bibles open, make every effort to take the lessons personally, and perhaps pick up a tape or printed copy for future reference and recollection. Taking your own notes may also be effective in counteracting it.

Stay tuned. I will keep you posted as we learn more about this strange "SSH" or "Sermon Sucking Hole." My prayer is that it doesn’t affect you this morning, causing you to fail in your next crisis.

Footnotes: Use "back" button on your browser to return to your reading spot

1. 2 Chronicles 19:1-3
2. Nelson’s Electronic Bible Dictionary
3. 1,160,000, according to 2 Chronicles 17:10-19.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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