It helps when you turn your microphone on yet again.
Second time in a row.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes
God does unexpected things?
Yeah.
Have you ever had something happen to you
that was unexpected?
Maybe it was a new relationship that happened.
Maybe it's a financial blessing.
Maybe a result that you wanted that you didn't think
was gonna happen happened.
But sometimes it can be bad.
Sometimes the unexpected is difficult.
Certain diagnosis that wasn't expected.
Maybe a doctor's appointment that wasn't on the calendar.
An accident, maybe a betrayal.
One thing that's true that all of us deal with
is that we all have to deal with not knowing
what will happen in the future.
Have you figured that out yet?
We don't always know what's going to happen
and often what we expect to happen doesn't.
And the things that we don't expect to happen often happens.
Here's what I know.
I know one thing for sure.
I know Jesus is coming back.
And I know that the rapture could happen at any moment.
The rapture of the church is imminent.
It could happen at any time.
And the truth though is that there were things
that happened to me and for me in the past year,
I did not expect.
Anybody have anything like that happen to you?
Just something that, yeah.
Brother Dave Fawcett raised his hand.
We all experienced that, didn't we?
I had an agenda for that service and it did not happen.
Miss Dawn helps to schedule a lot of the service planning.
She helps pick out the music and stuff like that.
And I told her on Monday after that Sunday
that I didn't like her plan.
That was not a good plan.
That was not a good thing.
For those of us who are guests,
Brother Dave Fawcett had some kind of hard episode
three or four weeks ago.
And that was, we did not expect to have 30 minutes of prayer
praying for him to live, but yet God answered our prayer,
didn't he?
And some amazing things happened.
And here he is tonight still with us
and we're so grateful for that.
God doesn't always work the way we expect him to work.
And the scriptures are filled with God working
in ways that surprised people, right?
God used unexpected means.
Most of what one of the greatest examples of it is
he became flesh and dwelt among us.
He revealed that to us, but it was definitely not something
that would have been expected.
Isaiah 55.8 says this,
For my thoughts are not your thoughts.
Neither are your ways, my ways say it to the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
We've already seen, we were doing a series
called the battle belongs.
And we're looking at all these battles
in the Bible, different times where God
and the children of Israel were fighting and having battles.
And in the first sermon, Pastor Corey
taught us about the unexpected
when we looked at the unexpected that happened
in the battle of Jericho.
God again asked the children of Israel
to walk around the city, to blow trumpets,
to yell just at the right time.
And we all, who understands, and Pastor Corey did teach us,
did a great job teaching us,
that the yelling and the trumpets
weren't the thing that knocked over the walls.
God did it, right?
He asked his people to obey him, to show faith in him,
but he did it, he brought them to victory.
God was the power behind seeing those walls come down
and the people of God getting the victory.
In the second sermon, Pastor Miles taught us
about the battle of AI, where the people of God
thought that they would defeat this tiny army of AI.
And because God's hand had left them, they were routed.
There was sin in the camp that had to be dealt with.
And then God gave them the victory once they dealt
with that sin.
And again, that was unexpected.
What we see is that God doesn't always do things
the way I think he's gonna do them.
And it makes me wonder, how often do I
work with God in that way?
How often do I expect God to work a certain way?
How often do I have a plan that I'm working on
that doesn't include God at all?
Right, anybody in the boat with me?
Do you feel that way?
You ever go and do something, make a choice, make a decision
and it's like, you don't even think about including God in it.
You don't pray about it, you just go and do it.
I thought about this, do I fight battles in life,
trying to achieve things that God wants to do for me
if I would just ask him?
I'm not talking about a health and wealth kind of way.
God's not our genie in a bottle,
but there are times where maybe I'm trying to work real hard
to do something and God just wants to provide,
but he also wants me to ask for it.
You have not because you ask not, you guys are on it.
Today we're gonna look at a battle that happened.
Actually it's a battle that didn't happen,
the battle that never happened.
And it's found in the second Kings,
chapter six, looking verse eight through 23.
And in this particular story,
we can see God's wisdom on display
and that battle does really belong to him.
The battle belongs to the Lord.
And we're gonna see that he's gonna do what he wants his way
and that might give us some encouragement
to help us to get on board with what he's doing
rather than trying to get him on board with what we're doing.
We're gonna see that by four miracles
that we see in first Kings, chapter number six,
looking at verses eight through 23.
There's four miracles I wanna point out to you
and hopefully this will be an encouragement to you tonight.
Number one, we see the first miracle here
of supernatural knowledge of the enemy.
We're gonna see this in the story
and then I'll have a few points of application
at the end here tonight.
Look at second Kings, chapter six,
look at verse number eight, here's what it says.
Then the king of Syria warred against Israel.
So who's at battle at Syria and Israel?
These people were at battle.
And this king took counsel with his servants
saying in such and such a place shall be my camp.
Now you have these two guys, they're battling,
they're strategizing where to go in and to fight.
This is not so much a battlefield kind of thing,
they're going and trying to take out different places,
different people.
And so he's saying, he's taking counsel with his servants,
these are people that are his advisors
and he's saying, and this isn't a quote,
in such and such a place shall be my camp.
So this is giving us this idea of over and over again,
this happened.
I'm gonna go over here, I'm gonna go over there
and we're gonna take out the Israelites
and that's what he said.
Now look at what happened, verse nine.
And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel.
Now who's the man of God?
If you look back at the beginning of the chapter
in verse one, it says,
and the son of the prophet said unto Elisha,
behold now the place where we dwell with thee
is too straight for us.
We know here, and I'm gonna show you in a few minutes,
go down to verse 12, it says,
and one of the servants said,
none my lord, O king, but Elisha.
So the man of God here is,
good job class, it's Elisha, one of the prophets.
And it says in verse nine,
the man of God Elisha sent unto the king of Israel saying,
beware that thou hast not such a place for thither,
the Syrians are come down.
What's happening here is Elisha, the prophet of God,
the king of Syria says, I'm gonna go over here and fight
or I'm gonna go over here and fight.
We're gonna go over here and create a problem.
And what's happening is Elisha as a prophet
receives supernatural knowledge from God.
And he goes and tells the king of Israel,
who is the enemy of the Syrians,
hey, this is where they're going,
this is where they're headed, right?
Verse 10, and the king of Israel sent to the place
which the man of God told him and warned him of
and saved himself there not once or twice.
You know what that means?
That means over and over again,
what kept happening is the enemy makes a plan,
he wants to go take out Israel,
the man of God Elisha tells the Israel about the plan
and then the king uses that information
to go stop the king of Syria from hurting the people of God.
Isn't that a good, that's pretty cool, isn't it?
God's protecting his people.
So in this way, the king of Israel, who is Jehoram,
was thwarting the plans of the Syrian king
trying to pillage and plunder the towns.
It didn't just happen a couple of times,
it kept happening over and over again.
They didn't have to fight because God was protecting them.
Now look at what happened.
Now if you're the king of Syria, are you excited about this?
Are you happy about it?
Not at all, look at verse 11.
Therefore, because this is happening,
the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled
for this thing and he called the servants
and sent it to them, will you not show me
which of us is for the king of Israel?
You know what he's saying?
Okay, which one of you stinking advisors
has opened your big mouth and likes the king of Israel
and pretending to like me and keeps telling the king of Syria,
or sorry, keeps telling the king of Israel,
where we keep playing in our fights?
Where we keep playing in our battles?
Which one of you is the rat?
Which one of you keeps telling us,
telling them what's happening, right?
Verse 12, and one of the servants said,
none my lord, O king, but Elisha,
the prophet that's in Israel,
telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest
in thy bedchamber.
Okay, what is he saying?
It is this advisor saying, hey, Elisha's under your bed.
Is that what he's saying?
No, Elisha doesn't have a bug.
Remember those old movies where the police
have put bugs in the room?
I'm not thinking of any particular movie,
but you see in detective movies, police movies,
where people have put a microphone somewhere
and who keeps knowing what we're doing?
There must be a microphone somewhere.
This is what he's saying, hey, this is what's happened.
It's Elisha.
He knows even your most private conversations.
The bedchamber's the place where he was sleeping,
his most private place.
So he's saying, he knows what's going on supernaturally
because he's a prophet of God.
That's what he's saying.
Now the works of God through Elijah
must have begun to be known.
There was a captain of the host of the king of Syria.
You may remember this story,
just a couple of chapters before chapter six.
Back in chapter number five, the guy's name is Naaman.
Who remembers the story of Naaman and Elisha?
What happened to Naaman?
He had leprosy, right?
And God healed Naaman through the word of Elisha.
And so that was an amazing thing.
We also know in chapter number four, before chapter five,
that Elisha was used by God to make poisonous food harmless.
You know in chapter six,
that Elisha was used by God to make an axe head float,
which is kind of a cool story.
But basically notoriety about Elisha's
being used by God in supernatural ways
had gotten to the people in Syria,
probably from a place from people like Naaman.
And so this servant says to the king of Syria,
hey, God is getting, he didn't say God,
he just says Elisha is this prophet
who keeps knowing what's going on even in your bedroom.
He knows your plans.
Verse 13, so this is what the king of Syria says.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to go and spy where he is.
Okay, go find out where Elisha is.
Now, if you know this, think about this part
this much in the story, what's the problem with this plan?
How are you gonna spy on a guy who keeps finding out
all of your stuff, right?
Who thinks that would be a hard, there may be some,
that's what's going on.
Go spy where he is that I may send and fetch him.
I wanna go get that Elisha.
He's gotta stop.
And it was told him saying, behold, he is in Dothan.
They've figured out where he's at.
Verse 14, therefore, send he hither horses and chariots
and a great host.
You know what horses are.
You think about, it seems as if in the text,
these are war horses.
They're pulling what?
Chariots, this would have been
some of the best battle technology they had.
We've heard tonight about war in Ukraine and rockets
and all of this other stuff.
This is as good as they had then.
And it says, and a great host.
That word host is this idea of an army.
So when he finds out Elisha is at this place called Dothan,
not Alabama, this is in the Middle East.
Yeah, anybody been to Dothan, Alabama?
Or is it Georgia?
I don't know.
Why do I go off on this?
Okay, anyway.
The point is they get there,
and where does it say in verse 14,
and they came by night and compassed the city about.
Now God had been protecting Elisha
and the king of Israel and the people of Israel.
Now they find themselves in this very difficult spot.
What would seem difficult?
Who agrees that if we all got dismissed tonight
and we were about to go out to our cars and they said,
oh, actually there's an army outside with tanks and guns.
Right, and they're all around this domed building here.
They're all the way around.
Who agrees that would be maybe some kind of,
we'd probably send Dave Curtis out to talk to him, right?
That's probably what we would do.
Let's get the biggest guy we got,
the meanest looking guy we have,
and let's send him out.
We gotta figure out what's going on, right?
And so they're pretty, I mean, this is a difficult spot.
Here comes this whole army, and they're around the whole city.
Verse 15, and when the servant of the man of God
was risen early, so here they, when did they come?
By night, verse 14, where are they at?
They're all around the city.
And so here is the servant of the man of God.
This would be an Elisha's servant who wakes up,
and when he wakes up and gone forth, verse 15,
behold, I love that word behold.
You know what that word behold means?
It means, here's my reading between the lines.
He wakes up, I get some coffee, right?
They probably didn't drink coffee, but are you with me?
And he goes out to the front porch and, uh!
Behold!
What's going on, right?
Behold a host, there's an army compass about the city,
both with horses and chariots.
How many times do I have to bring up horses and chariots?
Do you understand, this is difficult, this is hard.
And his servant said unto him,
who's him, to Elisha, alas!
You know what alas means?
Ah!
Alas!
What shall we do?
How shall we do?
How are we gonna get past that?
How are we gonna deal with this?
Elisha, man of God, what are we gonna do?
Now, when you look at what's happening,
who agrees that in man's way of thinking,
this is a difficult spot to be in, right?
It's difficult.
And the servant kind of stands in the place
that we would stand in when we see this visible army
who obviously is against us,
who has obviously caught us off guard.
It's a problem, it's a difficulty,
it's an unexpected thing.
God had been delivering them, and yet here they are
with yet another difficulty of a different kind.
We get to the same place when difficulty comes.
God has been delivering, God has been providing,
God has done some amazing things.
Then something new, something difficult happens.
Then something different happens,
and we're tempted to be dismayed.
Dismayed.
Alas, what shall we do?
Horses, chariots, hosts, we're surrounded.
What happens?
Well, here's where we see a second miracle.
The first miracle is the supernatural knowledge
of what God, of what the enemy was doing, number two,
is a supernatural vision of God's protection,
a supernatural vision of what God had been doing.
Look at verse 16, it says,
and he answered, this is now Elisha answering the servant.
What was the servant's question?
How shall we do?
What are we gonna do now?
How are we gonna get through this?
And he said, verse 16, and he answered,
say the next two words with me.
Fear not.
Okay, say it again, ready?
Fear not.
You know the Bible says fear not a lot, doesn't it?
I'm so glad for that message.
Fear not, why?
Why do I not be afraid, Elisha,
for they that be with us are more than they
that be with him?
You like that?
We got more on our side.
Probably in quantity and in quality, right?
And Elisha prayed, I love this.
What a good thing to do.
What a great thing to do when you're in trouble.
You should probably pray before you're in trouble.
Who agrees with me?
But when you're in trouble, you ought to pray.
And Elisha prayed and said,
Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see,
and the Lord opened the eyes of the young man,
and he saw and behold.
You like that word again?
Another kind of behold.
The guy, he has no more coffee left in his mug.
He just, oh, behold.
The mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire.
Round about Elisha.
Elisha had seen chariots of fire before.
He knows who they are.
The Lord of hosts had sent his hosts.
God was already on it.
God was already working.
God's power was greater.
Than the king of Syria.
Now, one of the things that you gotta be really careful of
when you preach the word of God
is you don't wanna take a narrative passage
which says this is what happened, okay?
And make that narrative passage mean
that this is what always happens.
This is what God always does, right?
Do you remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
when they stood before that fiery furnace,
what they said to King Nebuchadnezzar?
They said, Nebuchadnezzar,
we believe that our God can deliver us.
We believe that God will deliver us,
but even if he doesn't, we will not bow
to the idol that you set up.
Why?
Because they had something written, right?
They had something written.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt have taken any graven image.
They had a written word that they could depend on.
So, what I'm saying is this,
God doesn't always deliver the same way.
God doesn't always do what we expect,
but here's what I'll tell you.
Our God is a God who delivers.
And sometimes we're faced with adversity
and the adversity is the biggest thing
in our lives, it's the easiest thing to see.
Sometimes the adversity is very visible, right?
It's the government official, it's the diagnosis,
it's the job that I just got fired from.
That's, I'm very aware of the difficulty and the problem.
And sometimes that adversity will cause us
to be tempted to disobey God.
It tempts us to run in fear.
It contempt us to doubt if God's even real.
And in those moments, we must decide
to keep our faith in God.
The visible adversity, get this,
the visible adversity is not bigger than our invisible God.
The visible enemy is not more powerful
than the host of the angel armies at God's disposal.
And if God chooses not to deliver
the way we think He will or the way we think He should,
we must trust the plans that He has
and trust that His plans are best, amen?
So what happens next?
Check it out, miracle number three.
You think, well, to be really honest with you,
can I be transparent with you?
I got this whole text wrong when I was thinking
about what I was gonna end up saying until I act.
You know what you should do before you preach?
You should read the text, right?
Corey and Miles and I got together and said,
hey, we need to come up with a series to deal
on Sunday nights.
And we prayed about it and said, okay,
what are some of our options?
And we said, what about, we gotta do something
that's gonna get all the junior boys excited.
And they look real excited over there, you know?
Yeah, we gotta talk about violence and battle
and all that, right?
And I remember as we were talking about that,
that's how we kind of came to the idea and we started,
and we were like, we're looking at the different battles
in the Bible.
And I, for some reason, remembered that,
okay, yeah, those that be with us
are greater than that be with them, right?
And so then in my mind, I was thinking, yeah,
the story probably is then that the angels wiped them out,
right?
Who thinks that that would be a cool story?
Yeah, that would be a really cool story.
That's not what happens.
Look at what happens.
This is crazy.
Miracle number three, supernatural blindness of the enemy.
Verse 18, and when they came down to him,
talking about these armies, not God's armies, the others,
Elisha prayed unto the Lord and said,
Smite this people I pray thee with blindness.
Now, when you've got God on your side
and when you've got this difficulty,
it's good to pray, right?
Here's a plan of faith.
It says, I'm going to talk to God about
and ask him to deliver.
So he says, God, please make them blind.
And it says that that's what happened.
He's smote them with blindness,
according to the word of Elisha.
So here's miracle number three.
God makes all of this army blind.
Now, who thinks fighting a blind army gets easier, right?
Than fighting the army that can see.
Verse 19, so then God does this, this is amazing.
Verse 19, and Elisha said unto them,
this is not the way neither is this the city.
Follow me and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.
But he led them to Samaria, right?
Now by going to Samaria himself, Elisha did not lie
because Elisha, they were looking for Elisha.
So he went to Samaria.
He said, don't go this way, go this way.
So he went with them and he did lead them to where
he would ultimately be found.
And he took them to Samaria.
So look at verse 20.
And it came to pass when they were coming to Samaria
that Elisha said, Lord open the eyes of these men
that they may see.
Now who's in Samaria?
The king of Israel's in Samaria.
The armies of God are in Samaria, right?
It says, and the Lord opened their eyes
and they saw, and what's the next word?
Behold.
I like it when they're doing the beholding, not us, right?
Behold, they're in Samaria.
They were in the midst of Samaria.
They were led to where they were surrounded
by the army of the God of Israel.
Let me ask you a question.
What did not happen?
Huh?
Roger said it, no physical violence.
There's no bloodshed.
There was no battle.
God had delivered them from the hands of the Syrians
without even a battle.
He delivered them without bloodshed.
And then one more unexpected thing happened.
Here's miracle number four.
Supernatural deliverance through mercy.
Look at verse 21.
And the king of Israel said unto Elijah
when he saw them, right?
Can you imagine the site?
Just think about the site.
Here comes the army of Syria
following somehow, we don't really totally understand it,
following Elisha being brought to the king of Israel.
And here comes the king out and he sees
all of them brought to him.
And he says, look at what, verse 21.
When he saw them, my father,
he's got this respect for Elisha.
And if you, Elisha's done a lot for him, right?
He has this respect for him.
My father, shall I smite them?
And then he asks again, shall I smite them?
This is the way I read it when I was studying.
Can I smite them?
Off with their head, woohoo, this is awesome.
Is it time to take them out, right?
Now look at his answer, verse 22.
And he answered, thou shalt not smite them.
What is thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive
with thy sordid, with thy bow?
He's saying, you don't even do that when you defeat them.
If you can take them alive, you take them alive.
That's how you do this.
Set bread and water before them
that they may eat and drink and go to their master.
What?
Don't smite them, serve them.
Is this a weird battle?
This is a weird battle.
What do you do?
Verse 23.
And he prepared great provision for them.
And when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away.
And they went to their master.
He fed them and he sent them home.
That's pretty cool, isn't it?
This makes me think of what Jesus told us to do.
Luke 635.
But love ye your enemies and do good.
And lend, hoping for nothing again.
And your reward shall be great.
And ye shall be children of the highest.
For he is kind and unthankful and to the evil.
Be therefore merciful as your father also is merciful.
Instead of killing them, he fed them.
And then he sent them away.
Now you might be thinking, PBJ,
you said that there was, this was a miracle here.
But in the last one, it doesn't seem like there's a miracle.
What are you talking about?
Well, look at the end of the verse.
23B, I think this is a miracle.
We can argue that's fine.
It says this, so the bands of Syria came no more
into the land of Israel.
What is he saying?
God brought peace between the two armies, how?
By mercy.
God brought peace to the two countries
without a battle and without bloodshed.
The battle really does belong to the Lord.
Isaiah 55, eight.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways, my ways say to the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
I don't know what adversity you're going through.
Probably this week, none of us,
unlike maybe some of our friends in the Ukraine,
none of us are probably going to have an actual battle.
We have difficulty that we go through,
and maybe that's part of where this principle applies.
Maybe there's things that you're dealing with.
So here's what I want us to think about,
just as we close in the way we apply this to our life.
When we realize that the battle belongs to the Lord,
it will impact, I believe, four areas.
There's probably many more,
but these are the four I wrote down
that I want to share with you.
The first one is this, our faith.
When we realize that the battle belongs to the Lord,
then we realize that our faith ought to be in the Lord.
My faith isn't in my gifting,
my faith isn't in some good strategy.
My faith is in God and His word, right?
And if I'm going to do what God's called me to do,
if I'm going to be what God's called me to be,
then I've got a trust in God's provision and His protection,
more than in some plan or plan.
Or battle strategy that I've got.
That means if He's the commander in chief,
I just got to do what He says.
And He's written down what we're supposed to do.
Our faith ought to be in Him.
And so if the battle belongs to Him,
we got to put our faith in Him.
Number two, prayer.
Prayer.
When we pray in faith, we're trusting God in real time.
What do I mean?
If you're going through something difficult,
you know, Jesus said when you pray,
don't do it on the corners.
That's what the Pharisees do.
And they have their reward.
What He's saying is they're just excited about everybody
thinking that they're religious and that's why they're praying.
And when they're praying, they're praying to be heard of men.
When they're praying to be heard of men,
they are heard of men and that's all the reward they're going to
get.
He says when you pray, go to your closet.
Go in private.
And the Lord that sees you in private will reward you openly.
You know, when you go pray,
and that prayer is not about having other people see you,
but that prayer of life is really about you going to the throne room
and saying, God, I need your direction.
I need your provision.
I can't do this on my own.
I need you.
There's something in faith that happens.
The reward isn't about what other people see and hear and think
of me as some kind of religious person.
It really is me talking to God and believing that God hears me,
believing that God will answer me,
I'm putting my faith in Him in that moment.
When we realize the battle belongs to the Lord,
we got to go to the Lord for His protection,
for His provision.
Number three, mercy.
When the battle belongs to the Lord, we recognize this.
We don't fight the way the world fights.
It's the kindness of the Lord that leads to repentance.
It's what we said this morning as we've walked through 1 Corinthians.
He says, hey, you guys are being carnal.
You guys are being fleshly when you fight and divide and argue.
That's the wisdom of the world.
The wisdom of God is Christ crucified.
Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
It doesn't make sense as the world sees it,
but as God sees it, it makes a lot of sense.
Then this last word, faith, prayer, mercy, and then victory.
Here's what I know.
If we want God's results, we must fight God's way.
If we want God's results, then we must fight God's way.
That means we submit to Him.
Here's a question for us as we walk our way tonight.
Here's the question.
Is there, I've been there.
I've been here in my life.
Is there some decision you need to make?
Is there some difficulty you're taking on?
Is there some battle that you're fighting?
And in fighting it, you're trying to do it alone.
You're not, you're trying to do it alone
in that you're trying to do it in your own plan,
in your own power, with some strategy from some book
or some human author somewhere,
some YouTube video that you watched
that goes against the wisdom of God.
Or as you're facing this difficulty,
as you're facing this battle, are you thinking about that thing,
the way that God thinks about it?
Are you saying, God, the battle belongs to you.
I'm gonna do what you want me to do.
I'm gonna submit to what you have.
I'm gonna go to you in prayer wanting you to do what only you can do,
submitting to His sovereignty, submitting to His deity,
doing what He wants rather than what I think is best.
If you want God's results, if you want God to bless you,
you can't expect God to bless you
without doing the things that God blesses.
Sometimes God blesses us in spite of us,
but I can't expect Him to bless me if I'm disobedient to Him.
I've gotta be obedient to what He says.
And I gotta depend on Him because the battle really does belong to the Lord.
I'm glad you had the pleasure.