Jehoshaphat’s Coronavirus Pandemic Crisis 

Hello First Methodist Midland Family, I’m Wade Cobb Director of Celebrate Recovery for our church. 

Scripture:
Second Chronicles 20:1-4, 12, 20-21 

V.1-4 “… Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, “A great multitude is coming against you… Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the LORD and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah assembled to seek help from the LORD; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD.  V.12 O our God, … For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.  V. 20-21 … Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be established;… he appointed those who were to sing to the LORD and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say,  “Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures forever.” 

We are presented with an encouraging story of how King Jehoshaphat led his people from being fearful to being fearless in the face of their “Coronavirus Pandemic Crisis”.  

Having a daily time alone with my Heavenly Father by reading His Word, praying and listening to Him, journaling what He is teaching me, and meditating on Him throughout the day helps me to keep my eyes on Him.   

In fact, it was through a recent struggle that I found myself led to this passage we are discussing.  

Throughout my journey as a follower of Jesus, I have used different Christian growth tools and resources to help me grow in my relationship with the LORD.  

I would like to provide some examples of what I’m talking about and then share about my recent struggle in this area. 

The workbook Experiencing God: knowing and doing the will of God by Henry Blackaby helped me grow in my faith toward God. He helped me to believe that God can and will do big things through his children for His Kingdom, if we are willing to follow Him into the deep waters of obedience. 

MasterLife by Avery T. Willis, Jr. This workbook gave me a good biblical model of how to live a well-rounded life as a disciple of Jesus. 

Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life is a book that teaches us how to live God’s five purposes out in our lives wherever we find ourselves geographically, professionally, or spiritually. It is a message of how to live a balanced, simple, and yet powerful Christian life. A word of caution about this book. Don’t expect to find your “One Big Purpose” in life. This is a book about how God calls each of His children to live one day at a time from His five purposes. 

The One Year Bible has been a great Christian growth tool for me. I have found this to be so enjoyable and helpful in my overall understanding of the Bible. 

So, my struggle came to ahead this past Sunday. I was telling the Lord just how frustrated I was becoming in not being able to find a resource to help with my Bible study time. I need something, Lord, especially in view of these days we are living in. 

 I decided to try chapter one in the Gospel of Matthew. I’m reading and the Lord nudges me, (you know what I’m talking about.) at verse 8 “and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat,”. I finished chapter one and I’m ready to move on looking for “Something earth shaking”.  At that moment, it was as if the Lord said, I have already given you something. I knew what He meant. My thought was “what in the world LORD does Jehoshaphat have to do with preparing me for today”? I had to travel back to the Old Testament to find Jehoshaphat. To my amazement, I discovered that he and his people had gone through a great crisis somewhat like our Coronavirus Pandemic Crisis.  

There are so many take–a–ways of how to move from fear to fearlessness in this story that It would take many devotions just to scratch the service.  

Here was the BIG take-a-way for me. It was how King Jehoshaphat and his people were able to move from fear at the beginning of the story, verses 1-4, 12 to fearlessness at the end of the story, verses 20-21.  

As you read through the story, you’re going to discover that Jehoshaphat led his people to do three things. They saw this crisis as a Real and Present danger. They would have to look beyond themselves to God for help to overcome this crisis. And they based their prayers to God on the Word of God.  

Here is the Chinese word for “Crisis”. Notice that is takes two Chinese characters to make our one word for “Crisis”.  

The first character means “A time of danger” while the second character means “A time of opportunity”.  Was Jehoshaphat living in a time of danger? Yes. In my links for this devotion, I have put a clip from the battle of Helms Deep from the Hobbit movie “The Two Towers”. This clip is for the youth and the adults. This is to help you to see and maybe feel something of what Jehoshaphat and his people could have experienced if they would not have called upon the LORD for help! I have put another clip from the Veggie Tales “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” for the children and the whole family to watch. Are we living in dangerous times? Yes, we are. 

It’s clear from second Chronicles 20:20 that Jehoshaphat led his people, his nation to seize the opportunity to trust in the LORD and to overcome their “Time of danger”. If we are willing to follow King Jehoshaphat’s example, we too will be able to seize our opportunity to overcome the danger of our day.  

Links to encourage us in our faith journey with God through our personal Coronavirus Pandemic Crisis: 

1.  Worship Time for the Family: https://youtu.be/N6T3klwVLBk (Move the time marker at the bottom of the YouTube video to around 3 minutes to hear the worship time) 
2. For Children: https://youtu.be/LsqtKx2NRSw 
3. For Youth and Adults (This is to help you to see and maybe feel something of what Jehoshaphat and his people could have experienced if they would not have called upon the LORD for help!): https://youtu.be/gXC-jJhFaUI

Questions for us to ponder: 

1. What are some of the personal crisis’s that you and your family are presently experiencing, feeling, undergoing as a result of the Coronavirus Pandemic Crisis? 

1. Have you moved from “A time of danger” to “A time of opportunity” putting your personal trust in your Heavenly Father to see you through this Crisis? If not, then what is keeping you from trusting in your Heavenly Father to move you to the other side? 

1. How are you being intentional about spending time with the LORD? Bible study? Prayer? Worship? Serving? Journaling? Being a Witness/Testimony of the Good News?