Jehoshaphat king of Judah returned to his home in peace. Then Jehu son of Hanani the seer went out to confront him and said, “Do you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD? Because of this, the LORD’s wrath is on you. However some good is found in you, for you have removed the Asherah poles from the land and have decided to seek God.”   2 Chronicles 19:1-3 HCSB

If you read my blog often, then you know that the battle of Jehoshaphat is one of my favorite. But if you read the entire story of Jehoshaphat it has its ups and downs. He started strong as a king who honored and glorified God. He had a strong army. In 2 Chronicles 17:3 we are told that the LORD was with him because he walked in the former ways of his father David. He didn’t worship false Gods, but sought God and obeyed His commands.

But there was a little hiccup in Jehoshaphat’s reign where he aligned himself with King Ahab. He went to visit his buddy Ahab. Ahab rolled out the red carpet for him. Then he asked a little favor. He asked him to go to war with him against Ramoth-gilead. Jehoshaphat agreed, but asked that they see what God’s prophet, Micaiah had to say. Micaiah told him not to fight this war because they would not win and Ahab would not return alive. Ahab was so mad that he threw Micaiah into prison and ordered that he be fed only bread and water and decided to fight anyway. But, he must have put at least a little faith in what Micaiah said.  He decided to disguise himself, but instructed Jehoshaphat to wear his royal attire into battle. Dumb move on Jehoshaphat’s part for sure. The enemy wanted to kill the king. They went after Jehoshaphat, but even though he had made a dumb mistake and followed the advice of a bad influence, he cried out to God and God saved him. Ahab was not so fortunate and just as Micaiah had predicted, he was fatally wounded in battle and died at sunset.

God saved Jehoshaphat but it wasn’t quite over. You see, Jehoshaphat had been a man of God, but he followed a hair brained scheme set by someone who did not love the LORD. He aligned himself with someone who was not a Christian and allowed this person to influence him. Sound familiar? We like to think of peer pressure as something that only children and teens deal with, but the problem is we all deal with it no matter how old or wise we think we are.

Jehoshaphat went into war unequally yoked (2 Corinthians 6:14) with someone who did not fear God and love God as he did. This caused him some problems. When we go against God we bring his wrath upon us. But praise God, He is a merciful God.

Jehoshaphat had messed up, he had made a huge mistake by following Ahab. But after Jehu rebuked him, he immediately set himself straight. He turned to God and began turning his people to God. Now as he was trying to make everything right again, these two huge armies came against his land. He could have felt doomed and thought, “Oh well, I messed up. This is my punishment. Nothing I can do now.” But he didn’t do this. He cried out to God in faith. He gathered all of his people together and they fasted and prayed to God and God answered them. God delivered them from these two massive armies.

We all make mistakes. Romans 3:23 tells us that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. The important thing is that we learn from them. We should all take a page out of Jehoshaphat’s play book. When we mess up, we must immediately pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and cry out to God. If we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us (1 John 1:9). ,

When we make things right with Him, He will fight our battles for us, we need only to sit back and watch Him deliver the enemy into our hands. Doesn’t that sound much better than fighting and struggling and loosing the war? Align yourself with God. He won’t let you down. He will never leave you nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6), even when you make a mess of things.

Have a great day!