Test of Faith Faith Series

Let me ask you a question, friend. How do you think God builds and develops a life of faith in his children? I believe he does it over time, through trying circumstances. Look at the life of Abraham, and you will see this reality in his life of God's dealings with him regarding faith.

God will often place a believer in times of adversity to test our faith, so he can develop our faith time and time again, but Jesus allowed trying circumstances to enter the lives of his disciples to try their faith. They would be placed on stormy seas, or confronted with a spiritual issue too big for them, like a crowd of 5,000 people that had to be fed with a couple of loaves and fishes. Jesus hemmed them up to a place where their human resources weren't enough to get the job done.

They needed God to show up and deliver them to work a miracle, or they were sunk. God pressed them into tight circumstances where they had to turn to Jesus for help and exercise faith. He would often respond to them with, Oh ye of little faith, or Where is your faith? Jesus was continually looking for faith in his followers, and he's looking for faith today, friends.

We are in our faith series, and today we will look at the subject of the test of faith, and our text can be found in 2 Chronicles 20. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will study the story of how a king's faith was tested, 2 Chronicles 20, and we'll be in verses 1-12.

Listen to how God tests the faith of King Jehoshaphat, and how he responds to God's testing. First, he's putting a jam he can't get out of, humanly speaking. We see this to be the case in verses 1-4.

It 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. Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There come a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria, and behold, they be in Hazanon Tamar, which is in Gedi. And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed to 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. I will pause here, friends, to say, here we see the rise of other enemies outside Israel who are used as instruments in the hand of God to test Jehoshaphat's faith.

And that's our subject today, friends. How God tests our faith. Here, Jehoshaphat's faith does not break down under the strain of sour circumstances.

Rather, as soon as he heard the bad news from the north, Jehoshaphat sought God and proclaimed to fast. He knew he stood against overwhelming odds, and he needed a God-sized miracle from God. If he were to survive, he had the faith to know he could not lose if God was for them.

The first thing Jehoshaphat does is, he recalls God's care for his people Israel in the past when he had led them to victory over their Canaanite foes. He sets a pattern here for all believers to follow when they enter their own test of faith. Notice, he first reminds God of his awesome power and utter sovereignty over all mankind.

We see this in verse 6, and said, Is there not power and might that none is able to withstand thee? This is the pattern, friend, on how to approach God in prayer. Remind him who he is, what he has declared about himself, then take it to the next level as King Jehoshaphat engages God in prayer. Notice the next thing he does, he is to remind God of his previous deliverances for his people, and then he stands on the very promises of God.

Notice in verse 7, Art not thou our God who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham, thy friend forever? And then the King, Jehoshaphat, continues to exercise his faith in the face of adversity by telling God in so many words, Look, God, you promised us that if we got into trouble you would help and deliver us. I'm just reminding you what you've already declared to be so. Notice King Jehoshaphat's words in verse 9, And cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help.

King Jehoshaphat is a man of faith whose faith is being tested by adversity, and God will test our faith as well, friends, sometimes in similar circumstances. For we may face our own army of the Ammonites, and be so shut up to God that all we can do is hope in his word and trust in his attributes and exercise our faith to where we actually believe beyond our circumstances to see God delivering us as well. Faith is moving the unseen into the visible, actually seeing God intervene to work a miracle on our behalf.

A while back in my personal life, I'd gone to my daughter's college graduation, and I was so proud of her. And the very next day, after I preached a message, I had a heart attack. I was riding an ambulance, almost dead.

The cardiologist said I almost died for my four main arteries were blocked 90%. I lay in the hospital for over two months, and I had the best team of heart specialists in my city, but they were hesitant to do open-heart surgery on me because my heart was so damaged and so weak. My cardiologist said there was a high probability I wouldn't survive bypass surgery because my heart was so weak.

That's why they were reluctant to operate on me. Well, during this time, God gave me a verse of Scripture to stand on and exercise my faith on. It was Isaiah 57, 18.

I have seen his ways and will heal him. I will lead him also and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. God was testing my faith to trust him despite what the doctors were saying.

I placed my hope in God and leaned on his promise to me. The heart surgeon went ahead and performed a successful quadruple bypass surgery on me along with another operation of putting a pacemaker and defibrillator in me. And here I am today, friends, preaching to you as a testimony to the grace of God.

God is great, and Jesus is wonderful. Once I had a word from God, I could stand upon it and activate my faith that would be realized in my life. Notice that King Jehoshaphat gets a word from God that he can stand on by faith.

We see this in verse 15 where God speaks through his prophet the following words, 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. Well, that's all King Jehoshaphat needed to hear. So he goes into action, sending his army to battle with such faith that they sing their way there, praising God all the way.

Look at verse 21, friends. And when he had counseled with his people, he appointed singers unto the Lord 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. Jehoshaphat was so sure of victory they led the way singing praises of God to the battlefield for he knew they were already delivered.

God had told him so. He stood on God's word and he saw the outcome through the eyes of faith. And when his army got to the battlefield the enemy had fought among themselves and had killed each other off.

Jehoshaphat's army found a bunch of dead bodies ripe for the pickings, ripe for the spoil. I've been put in countless situations in my life where my own faith was tested by adversity so overwhelming all I could do was what King Jehoshaphat did and remind God of his word what he had already declared about himself and stand on the promises God had given me through the years. If God didn't work a miracle I was sunk time and time again.

God displayed his power and proved to me over and over again that he is a God who delivers. His word is true and he is true to his word. Perhaps God has you, friend, in a time of trouble where adversity has come uninvited into your life and has disrupted your peace.

God may be using that circumstance right now in your life to test your faith to see what kind it is when your faith is tested, friend. That just means God is enlarging it while he receives glory from it all. I've learned the hard way the best way to respond to adversity is to say with God Lord, I'm cooperating with you you do what's necessary to make me a man of faith and a more useful weapon in your hand as a means of blessings to others.