How to Praise Your Way to Victory

Known for his unique ability to simplify profound truth so that it can be applied to everyday life, Adrian Rogers was one of the most effective preachers, respected Bible teachers, and Christian leaders of our time. Thanks for joining us for this message.

Here's Adrian Rogers. Would you turn please in the Old Testament, 2 Chronicles chapter 20, and I'm going to rush through this message tonight, but I pray God he will cause it to sink into your heart. Now, there had been a mighty revival under King Jehoshaphat, but there was an enemy that came against him. And when an enemy comes against you, that does not mean that God has forsaken you, or that God is not with you. The enemy may come against you because God is with you, and when God opens the windows of heaven to bless you, the devil will open the doors of hell to blast you, and you're going to know trouble if you serve the Lord Jesus Christ. But when that trouble comes, it will draw you closer to him, and you can turn praise into victory. Now, let's study this thing and see what happened to King Jehoshaphat so long ago. But this is not history. This is devotional literature because the Bible says all these things happened to them, for examples to us.

Okay. Now, notice in 2 Chronicles chapter 20, verses one and two, and notice what Jehoshaphat did. He encountered a problem and came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab and the children of Ammon and with them, other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.

And then there came some that told Jehoshaphat saying, there cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side, Syria, and behold, they be in Haazan, Tamar, which is Ein Gedi. Now, do you have a problem? Are you about to have a problem? Well, that problem is a blessing in disguise. James said, count it all joy when you fall into divers, trials, or tests. That's a very hard thing for me to do. Now, you say, well, Adrian, you never have any problems.

Well, I do. And I have to remember that problems come to the children of God. And James told us, count it all joy not if, but when you come into these divers, trials, and temptations. All right, first thing he did, he encountered a problem. Now, here's the second thing he did. He established his purpose.

It's very important that you establish your purpose when a problem comes. Look, if you will, now in verses three and four. And Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord.

May I stop right there and ask you this question? Have you ever, really one time in your life, ever just set yourself to seek the Lord? To say, with all of my might, every inch, every nerve, every fiber, with my total being, I am set to seek the Lord. And he proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord, even out of all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord.

Would to God that America would do the same thing. Out of all of our cities, just come to seek the Lord. Now, this man's first thought was not his last resort. He didn't turn to the Lord after he tried everything else like so many of us do. The very first thing he did, when trouble came, he set himself to seek the Lord. That's what Jesus told us to do.

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Now, a lot of us want to be counselors. And some of us fancy ourselves as counselors. May I tell you that if you're a counselor, you may do a bad job if you solve the problem for the individual that you're counseling with. Did you know that that problem may be God's way to bring that individual to the Lord?

And rather than trying to solve his or her problem, the best thing you could ever do as a counselor is to encourage that individual in his or her problems to seek the Lord, to seek the Lord. When a problem comes, that is an opportunity to seek God in time of trouble. Good verse.

Here it is. Hebrews 4, verse 16. Let us therefore come boldly into the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We have times of need.

We can come boldly to the Lord like Jehoshaphat did and establish our purpose to seek him. Here's the third thing he did. He examined his past. Now, when you come into a problem, look back over your shoulder and see what God has done for you in the past.

That's what this man did. Begin now in verse five. And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, Oh Lord, God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven and rule is not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen and in thine hand is there not power and might so that none is able to withstand thee. Art not thou our God who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel and gavest it to thy seed Abraham and to thy friend forever. Now what he does, he says, now God, you're so awesome.

You're so great. You have power and might. There's nobody who can stand against you, none whatsoever. And Lord, you gave us this land. Lord, you put us here. You solved our problems in the past. Now folks, whenever a problem comes, seek the Lord and then turn around and think what God has already done for you.

Now I have reached some mature years. And as I look back over those years, I can see time after time after time after time after time where problems, heartaches have come. You say pastor, I didn't know you ever have any problems.

I just don't talk about them very much. But folks, you couldn't be pastor of a church like this without meeting problems every day, many of them, some of them king size. But folks, when I turn around and I look back to the past, I can tell you that God has been faithful. God has been faithful over and over and over again. Joyce and I have seen the hand of God as God has moved in in the past. And I want you to remember that what God has done, he will do because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. And God did not save you to abandon you.

So examine your past. Now next, he embraced a promise. And I want you to find a promise in the word of God. Look, if you will, beginning in verse eight. And he says, and they dwelt therein, that is in the land that you gave them and have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name saying, if when evil cometh upon us as the sword, judgment or pestilence or famine, we stand before this house and in thy presence for thy name is in this house and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou will hear and help. And now behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and destroyed them not. Behold, I say, how they reward us to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou has given us to inherit.

Now, what's he doing? He's saying, oh God, you gave us this land. It's the promised land. God, you brought us here. And this bunch, he has come to try to take away from us what you have given us, dear God, the promise that you have given to us. Now folks, I've learned this about God. You are not going to embarrass God by standing on his promises. When trouble comes, do like old King Jehoshaphat did and set yourself to seek the Lord. Look back in your past and see what God has done, how God has brought you thus far. Then find a promise in the word of God and stand on it.

Let me give you a good one. Hebrews 13, verses five and six, let your conversation, that means your behavior, be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have, for he has said, listen to this, I love it.

I love it. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Now friend, these are promises in the word of God. They are great promises and they're not mottos to be hung on the wall.

They're checks to be carried to the bank in cash. You can stand on the word of God. Now what Jehoshaphat is saying is, look God, this crowd has come to take away the possessions that you've given us. And I want to tell you that Satan wants to drive you out of the land of victory. Satan wants to keep you from possessing the land that he has given you, your spiritual Canaan, and you don't have to let him do it. And when problems come and they are originated of the devil, you can boldly say, the Lord is my helper.

I will not fear what man shall do to me. And you can say, Satan, I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. I am his purchased possession. My sins are under the blood. You have no right, no authority in my life.

You're trespassing on my father's property. And in the name of Jesus be gone. You say, well, is that like praying to the devil?

And I pray into a cat when I say scat. I'm telling you something folks, you listen to me, you get a promise and you stand on that promise. Find a promise in the word of God. He embraced his promise. Next, he exposed his powerlessness. He exposed his powerlessness. He didn't strut.

He wasn't cocky. Look beginning now in verse 12, if you will. Oh, our God, wilt thou not judge them for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us.

Neither know we want to do, but I love this next phrase friend. I prayed it so many times. Our eyes are upon thee. Our eyes are upon thee. And all Judas did before the Lord with their little ones, their wives and their children.

Can you see them? God, we don't have any strength. Lord, we don't know what to do. They take their little children and they look up and say, God, our eyes are on you. Friend, do you think God's going to forsake a people like that? Do you think God is going to let a people like that suffer when they say, God, if they kill us, our eyes are on you. Lord, no matter what they do to us, oh God, our eyes are upon you.

We're trusting you and you alone. Our eyes are not on ourselves. Our eyes are not on our enemies.

Our eyes are not on our circumstances. Our eyes are upon you. Then here's the next thing he did. He enlisted his protection. Begin now in verse 14 and look. Then upon Jeheziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of G-i-l, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph came in the spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation and he said, harken 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. Now, friend, that's a great verse for you to memorize right there. The battle is not yours but God's.

Tomorrow, go ye down against them. Behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz and you shall find them at the end of the brook before the wilderness of Jeor-el and you need not fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand ye still and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem.

Fear not nor be dismayed. Tomorrow, go out against them for the Lord will be with you. And what he did, he got a promise from God. And friend, I've been there and if you've been a Christian very long, you've been there.

How wonderful when the Holy Spirit of God takes some promise from the Word and makes it real to you and God says, look, Adrian, just trust me. It's not your battle. It's my battle. Adrian, you don't have to pray for victory. You pray from victory. I have already won the victory. Do you know what your victory depends upon? Not your ability. That's not your responsibility. It is your response to God's ability, which is your greatest ability. You just simply say, Lord God, our eyes are upon you and God says, that's right, my child. The battle is not yours.

It is mine. And so here is Jehoshaphat. He enlists his protection and then he engaged his preparation.

I want you to see how he prepared now for this strange battle. Begin now in verse 18. And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. And the Levites of the children of the Korthites and of the children of the Korhites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high. Now this is what he's doing now. He's getting ready just to praise the Lord.

He just falls on his face. Now he's going into battle, but nothing will prepare you for the battle like worship. The man who can kneel before God, truly kneel before God, can stand before any problem. And it will be a great day when we learn that worship comes before either work or warfare, when we worship the Lord. So many times we just want to get at it without worshiping God. I remind the little boys of playing ball and they only had one ball and they lost it and they were out in the weeds looking for it.

And after a while, one of them said, forget the ball, let's get on with the game. I think sometimes that's what we do as a church. We forget worship and think we can just go on doing what we do. So what he did, he engaged his preparation and then he expressed his praise. Notice beginning in verse 20. 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 Jerusalem and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God.

That's another good one to underscore right there. Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established. Believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper. 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 to say, praise the Lord for his mercy endureth forever. And when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah for they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir utterly to slay and destroy them. And when they'd made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, everyone helped destroy another.

That is, they got so confused, they turn on one another. When God's people began to praise. Notice verse 24.

And when Judah came toward the watchtower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude and behold, there were dead bodies fall into the earth and none escaped. Now, the battle is the Lord's, but God says, you're going to have a part. Well, what is your part, Jehoshaphat? You are going to praise. The battle is mine, but I'm not going to do one solitary thing until you praise. So get a choir out there and start marching and start singing. They would say, perhaps, well now Lord, as soon as you give us the victory, we're going to sing. He says, no, I'm not going to give you any victory until you start singing. Well, Lord, I can't praise you yet because I can't see the victory.

Then just go ahead and live with the problem. Friend, are you willing to praise God in the midst of your problem? I mean, in the face of your enemy. When you don't have anything but the promise of God who says, I will not leave you nor forsake you. The battle is not yours.

It's mine. Now get out there and praise the Lord. You see your lack of praise is really unbelief. And the Bible teaches that when we praise the Lord, when we praise the Lord, we're really expressing our faith in God. Prayer and praise go together. Colossians 4, verse 2, continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving. Prayer and praise are the two wings of spiritual power.

Prayer infuses us with the energy of God and prayer confuses the enemies of God. You know the devil is allergic to praise. If there's any kind of a problem and you know it is satanically caused. By the way, if the problem is the cause of your sin, don't go around praising the Lord. Just repent, okay?

Just repent. But if you know this is obviously an attack from the enemy, then you just begin to praise God. And do you know what will happen when you praise God?

I've seen it happen so many times in the Bible and in my own life. God sends confusion into the camp of the enemy. The devil is distracted. The devil is confused by praise and we just need to praise the Lord. I don't care what the difficulty is, if it is satanically caused, not your own personal sin.

If it's your own personal sin, you need just to repent. But if it is an attack of the devil, just begin to praise God and I'll promise you God will send confusion into the camp of the enemy. But not only did he express his praise, he enjoyed his provisions. Look in verses 25 and 26. They come up there and these people have decimated one another. And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance, both riches with the dead bodies and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves more than they could carry away. And they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much. And on the fourth day, they assembled themselves in the Valley of Barakah where they blessed the Lord.

Therefore, the name of the place was called the Valley of Barakah unto this day. Now, what they did, folks, is just go in there and pick up the loot. The battle was God's.

Confusion came into the camp of the enemy and they loaded themselves down with silver and gold and jewels. Now, if the devil attacks you, you praise God and you're going to find out that the devil is just going to be God's messenger, boy, to bring you riches. God will make Satan your servant when you begin to praise the Lord in the midst of great difficulty.

I'll tell you a little story that happened to me and then I'll be finished with the message. When I was down in Florida and Brother Whitmire and I were ministering together at the First Baptist Church of Merritt Island, there was a newspaper reporter, a feature writer, who hated God, hated Christians even more, hated Baptists even more, hated Baptist preachers even more, and hated me the most. And he did not like what I was doing, what I preached, what I stood against, what I said. And he told me one day, he said, I've gotten permission from the newspaper to write a feature article about you. And he said, you can cooperate with me if you want to or else I'll just do investigative reporting. I guess he thought I was some sort of a shyster or a crook or whatever. I said, well, I don't have any secrets. You want to do a report on me, you can follow me around. You can come sit in my office when I talk if you want to.

My life is an open book. He followed me around. He was a scruffy, shabbily dressed man who went out of his way to be rude. And I tried to show the love of Jesus to him. But I had friends in the newspaper office over there said, Pastor, that man is writing a terrible, horrible article about you.

They said, nothing he's saying is true, but the way it's slanted, it's terrible. But what I did, I told Jesus on him. And then I got a promise from the Word of God. Now, God will take a word out of a word and he'll give you a promise. Here's the promise God gave to me. Isaiah 54 verse 17, no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. And every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.

And their righteousness is from me, saith the Lord. I reminded God of that promise day after day. My people said, Pastor, it's going to be a terrible article.

Get ready, get ready, brace yourself. I got a phone call from that man. He said, well, I'm going to give you the news.

They fired me. And he said, they took the article from me. And somebody is rewriting that article.

And he said, I know that you're going to like it. And they gave us the most glorious article in the newspaper. I was on the front page of the Sunday supplement.

The title of the article was Reverend Rogers and His Island in the Sun. And we could not have bought that kind of publicity for our church. And I was just reminded one more time, if when we praise the Lord, when we take a promise of God and stand upon it, God moves in. Let me just quickly remind you of 10 things if you have a problem.

And here they are, I'm just going to rattle them off. Number one, you learn to see all satanic opposition as an opportunity to be blessed. Number two, you seek the face of God before you take any action whatsoever. Number three, you remind yourselves of those times when God has already been faithful to you. Number four, go to the Word of God, look for a promise to stand on it. Number five, let the Holy Spirit of God make that promise a burning reality in your heart.

Number six, refuse any confidence in the flesh, none whatsoever. Number seven, give yourself to praise, to worship. Number eight, begin to praise the Lord in the face of that opposition. Number nine, expect God to send confusion to the enemy. And number 10, get ready for a blessing. We serve a mighty God.

Amen and amen. Now, I've been talking to the children of God. Now, if you're not a child of God, the devil may not oppose you at all. As a matter of fact, you're buddies. I tell people, if you've never met the devil, it's because you and the devil are traveling in the same direction.

You turn around, you'll have a head-on collision with him. Now, I'm wondering today, had you rather be in collusion with the devil or in collision with the devil? Do you want Christ as your Lord and savior? Do you want to say, I know that I know that I'm saved. I know that I'm heaven-born, I'm heaven-bound.

You can know it by receiving Jesus Christ. God loves you. Jesus died for you. Your sin has been paid for. You can receive him tonight by faith and be a part of the family of God. May I lead you in a prayer right now?

You pray this prayer, dear God, just pray it in your heart. Dear God, I'm a sinner and I'm lost. Thank you, Jesus, for dying for me. Lord Jesus, I turn from my sin. I turn to you.

I take myself off the throne of my life. I enthrone you into my heart. Come, Lord Jesus, forgive my sin, cleanse me, save me. Take control of my life tonight and begin now tonight to make me the person you want me to be. Save me, Jesus.

Did you ask him? Then pray this way. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for doing it.

Thank you, Jesus. I believe you've done it, and I'll make it public. I'll not be ashamed of you. I'll make it public. In your name I pray. Amen. Thank you.