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Good morning everybody. Turn to Amos Chapter 5. Amos Chapter 5. Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos Chapter 5. Starting in verse 1. Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel. The virgin of Israel is fallen. She shall no more rise. She has forsaken upon her land. There is none to raise her up. For thus saith the Lord God, The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel. For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live. But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba, for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to naught. Seek the Lord, and ye shall live. Lest ye break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel. Ye who turn judgment to Wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into morning, and maketh the day dark with night, that calleth for the waters of the sea, and pour of them out upon the face of the earth. The Lord is his name, that strengtheneth the spoil against the strong, so that the spoil shall come against the fortress. They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. For as much as therefore as your trading is upon the poor, and you take from him burdens of wheat, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink wine of them. For I know your manifold of transgressions, and your mighty sins. They afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their from their right. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time, for it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil that you may love, and so the Lord the God of Hosts shall be with you as you have spoken. Hate evil and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate. It may be that the Lord God of Hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. Therefore the Lord the God of Hosts, the Lord sayeth thus. Wailing shall be in all streets, and they shall say in all the highways, alas, alas, and they shall call the husband men to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing. And in all the vineyard shall be wailing, for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord. Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord. To what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a let him, shall not the day of the Lord be darkness and not light, even very dark, and no brightness in it. I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though you offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them, neither will I regard the peace offering of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy vowels. But let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as mighty stream. Have you offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch, and shewn your image, the star of your God, which you made to yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts. Brother Jerry, you want to pray for us? All right, amen. Well, we're going to start a new series today. As many of you know, last Monday my dad died, and so I'd been writing down ideas, you know, over the last couple of years, what I would do or what I would say or, you know, different things that we learned from that process of taking care of him in the final days of his life. The series is called Lessons from Living with a Zombie. Okay, now it's kind of a harsh thing to say, but it's reality. It's what it was, you know. If you could take a, I don't know, take a zombie from Hollywood and put them in your living room, you know, put them in your house, that's pretty much what we went through on a daily basis. And so a lot of good things came out of that, though, you know, at the end of the day. And, you know, it's strange, you know, after he passed away, I realized, you know, all that anger and bitterness I had just went away. It was very strange. And so I'm thankful for that, but I'm also thankful for the lessons that he taught us, not even realizing that he was teaching us those things. And so this series will go on. I'm not sure how long it's going to go on. It'll be interrupted next week and for, well, actually, yeah, for the next three weeks because we're going to do another series about fathers. And I believe that's starting next Sunday, right? I think that is two weeks. Okay. I don't know, man. I think it's just kidding. Just kidding. I'm just messing with David and Jeff. It's all good, but we'll get that all figured out. So let's look at verse number 18 here. We'll get into the title. So verse 18 says, won't you that desire the day of the Lord to what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness and not light. You know, it does kind of sum up today's attitude. You know, people, someone called me on, what was it, on Friday. A lot of people called me on Friday, but apparently people don't like that reptilian sermon. I don't know what, I don't know why not. I thought it made a lot of sense and thought it was edifying it. Why some new evangelical grandmother would call me. But you know, she basically told me that if Jesus were to come back or when he does come back, he's going to condemn me to hell. But what she doesn't realize is she's going to fit this bill here. But look at verse number 19. It says, this is how you would describe the day of the Lord for those who are not saved, those who have rejected Christ. It says, as if a man did flee from a lion and a bear met him or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall and a serpent bit him. So really, we're going to stop right there. You can leave your place there in Amos and go to Mark chapter number 11. Mark chapter number 11. But the first part of that verse there where the Bible describes for us what the day of the Lord is like, it says as if a man did flee from a lion and a bear met him. What would you call that situation? Well, you'd call that a catch 22, and that's the title of the sermon. Catch 22. A catch 22 is a situation where you do not think you can get out of it, okay? So in other words, it's being stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's something my dad always used to bring up, you know, being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I always thought that was interesting. He was like, what are we going to do? We're stuck between a rock and a hard place. You know, your grades are going to get you stuck between a rock and a hard place, and you're never going to advance. Now going back to the title of catch 22, you know, does anybody know where that even comes from? Yeah, I was kind of surprised to learn this, but it just comes from a novel that was written in 1961, and it's about a pilot during World War II and his struggles with fear. You know, he goes through his training. He's doing his missions. Up to a certain point, he was fearless, and then one day something happens to this guy, and all of a sudden he's struck with fear, and he wants to get out. So he's trying to declare himself insane, but in the process of doing that, he realizes, well, there's a process for people who are insane in the military, and he doesn't like that road. So now he doesn't know what to do. You know, now he can't fly because he's trying to declare himself insane, and now the military's got this policy. Well, if you're insane, you have to go through all this special treatment and stuff, and he doesn't like that. So he doesn't know what to do, right? That is what I am talking about today. This is the situation that I found myself in, that our family found ourselves in for the last two and a half years. We've learned a lot. So just for those of you who may not know, like, how did I wind up in this situation? How did our family wind up having to take care of a person that has dementia and Alzheimer's? Well, there is a difference, by the way, between the two. Somebody who has Alzheimer's basically loses, you know, their ability to remember, whether that be long-term, short-term. You know, eventually it all goes out the window. Well, dementia, who's ever heard of a cat or, you know, had an animal that had dementia, you know, and it just attacks you. We've had that, you know, and I remember we had a cat when Jessica and I were first married. What was that cat's name? She's like, I'm not talking to him. It wasn't CG, was it? No, it doesn't matter. Chloe, that was the cat's name. See, it's the look. When you've been married long enough, you know, those looks will just communicate things to you. It's really bizarre, but it works. So this cat's name was Chloe, and we kind of, you know, going through the process of raising this cat, and, you know, we didn't realize the importance of taking it down to, you know, get its treatments or whatever. I didn't know the cat's got dementia or whatever, and, you know, one day, lo and behold, this cat just started, like, attacking me, you know, just like a cougar, you know, just leap on your face and just and I'm like, we got to get rid of this thing. So we wound up getting rid of it, you know, but that's basically what happens to a human when he gets dementia. They get very violent. They get very aggressive. They want to attack, and, you know, living with him, he attacked every single person in the house, verbally and physically, but again, how did I get in the situation? Well, it all goes back to when he started first displaying these signs, you know. He started calling the police on me for smuggling Mexicans through Canada, okay. Yeah, that got some attention, you know, believe it or not. That got some attention, you know, and then after the second or third, you know, week of him calling the police on me, you know, they would be like, hey, you know, your dad's at it again, you know, so we're like, okay, well, we got to do something. Eventually, he decided to try to cook corn dogs on a stove, okay, meaning not no pot, you know, no nothing. Just put corn dogs on a burner and turned the burner on to high and almost burnt his house down, and that's what basically led to us moving him in with us, but we moved him in with us. He would leave, run away, and the police would find him, you know, a few hours later, and we just couldn't control him at that point. This was probably 2015, 2016, so we didn't know what to do. One day, I came home from work, and he decided he was going to try to pull a steak knife out and kill me, okay, so I was like, you're done. You're out of the house, and I put him into an assisted living facility, because at that time, he would come out of these little episodes, and he would be kind of normal again. He would know who I was. He would know who the kids are. He wouldn't remember what he'd done, so we put him in there. You know, one thing leads to another. He gets kicked out. I'm like, okay, well, we have to move him somewhere else, so we're moving him in and out of these different places and finally find a memory care that's able to take care of him. Well, as time goes on, he's not able to, you know, feed himself very well, do other things for himself very well, and so the price goes up, you know, and lo and behold, the price went up to 10,000 bucks a month roughly, you know, and who makes 10,000 bucks a month? You know, not very many people, even people who are considered rich, the one percenters, you know, a lot of them after they retire, if you will, you know, they don't make that kind of money in their, even in their retirement. It might be like seven or eight, but nonetheless, not too many people make that kind of money, and then the question is now, well, what about Medicare? What about Medicaid? What about the state taking care of him? Well, the problem is he declined Medicaid when he was like 60 something years old, because he's like, I don't need that. I'm going to die real quick anyways, you know. He just always had, I'm just going to die, so he just neglected to do that, okay, and so that's the situation we found ourselves in. His money runs out. We have to go get him, bring him in with us, try to do the Medicaid thing. It is a nightmare, okay, and by the time we brought him to live with us, you guys know he used to sit back in the service. He'd be okay once in a while, then he started bothering Mike, and then, you know, eventually he had to move into there, and then eventually he had to, you know, stay in there, and never come out, and want, you know, just a downward spiral, and then eventually we had to take him to the hospital because he was just extremely bad. I mean, it was just getting really bad. Losing weight, I'm giving him weight gainer shakes, all this different stuff. He's just not, he's just not having it, you know. He's in here, you know, just trying to get at me, and, you know, anybody who comes in, you know, Kate and David go in there to count, and he's in there trying to, you know, just talk trash to them, and he's trying to attack the care workers now, which is something he'd never done before, and so I talked to the doctor at the VA, and they said, you need to bring him to the emergency room, like, like, how are you even taking care of him? I think this is not normal, right? We didn't know that. I just figured, well, this is my punishment for being a crazy kid, and, you know, it's what I deserve, you know, or this is a trial from God, so we take him down there. One thing leads to another, and eventually he wound up passing away. It was just a sign that he was at the end. He was done for, so that's how I wound up in that situation, but it was that two and a half year process that we found ourselves in, I mean, literally stuck between a rock and a hard place, and we're sitting there wondering as a family, how are we going to get through this? How are we going to get out of this? I mean, we know that God's in charge. We know all of these things, but it just doesn't seem like anything is helping, and when we think back during that two and a half year time frame, you know, God was definitely there the whole time, definitely helped us out. Everything worked out absolutely perfect as always. So, if you ever find yourself, and you will, stuck between a rock and a hard place, I hope you listen to what I have to say this morning, because I believe it's going to help you out. So, you're in Mark chapter number 11. Let's take a look at how the world handles being stuck between a rock and a hard place. How does the world react? What do they use when they're in a similar situation? So, Mark chapter number 11, you're going to read about how Jesus' authority is being challenged by the scribes and, you know, these Sadducees and these chief priests, and I want you to notice what they do here. So, they're trying to put Jesus on blast. So, again, they're trying to put him in a hard situation. So, let's pick it up in verse 27. Look what it says. Mark 11, look at verse number 27. So, it says, and they came again to Jerusalem, and as he was walking in the temple, there came to him the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. So, these guys can never leave him alone. I'm just like, okay, now we're going to get them. Look at verse 28. And say it to him, by what authority doest thou these things? And who gave thee this authority to do these things? Verse 29, and Jesus answered and said unto them. I like how he does this. You know, I've used this piece before on how to flip the script on somebody, but Jesus says, I will also ask you one question and answer me. And I will tell you by what authority I do these things. And so, he's going to pose a question to these people and see how they like being put in between a rock and a hard place or a catch-22. So, verse 30 says this. Jesus says, the baptism of John, was it from heaven or of men? Answer me. I like that. You know, sometimes people think I'm too harsh when we're out soul-winding and somebody wants to really aggressively, and I'm like, answer me. You know, answer my question. You know, it's not harsh. Jesus did it. Right? Right. Answer me. Tell me right now. No, no, no. You're not going to sidetrack me. No, you tell me right now the answer to my question. That's what he's saying here. The baptism of John, was it from heaven? So, in other words, was it from above or was it from below? Okay. And he says, answer me. Look at verse 31. And they reasoned with themselves saying, right? So, here's the catch-22. Here's now the elders, the scribes, the chief priests, if you will, the Pharisees, all these people. Now, they're in a catch-22. And look what it says. And they reasoned with themselves saying, if we shall say from heaven, he will say, why then did ye not believe him? But if we say of men, they feared the people for all men counted John that he was a prophet indeed. Right? So, their reasoning among themselves are like, man, well, we can't say this. If we say this, he's going to do this and blah, blah, blah. Like, we don't know what to do. Look at verse 33. And they answered and said unto Jesus, we can not tell. And Jesus answering saith unto them, neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things. Leave your place there and go to James chapter number three. James chapter number three. We're going to get to this bottom line here in a second. So, what wisdom did the elders and the chief priests and these scribes and these Pharisees and these Sadducees and all these people that wanted to challenge the authority of Jesus, what wisdom did they use? Because they did use a type of wisdom and you'll see that here in a second. Was it from above or was it from below? Look at what James says here in chapter three, verse 14. James says this, he says, but if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. Well, I think we could all agree that that sums up the attitude of the scribes and the chief priests and the elders in Mark chapter number 11. Now look at verse 15. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual and devilish. Okay. So again, what wisdom did they use? Well, obviously they used the wisdom from below. So, when the world is stuck between a rock and a hard place, all they can do is look down. And you know what? That's us also. You know, we have a tendency to want to do that. Like there's no way out. How am I going to get out? You know, down represents man. It represents man's hands. Human achievement, if you will. What can I do to get myself out of this situation? I have to do something. I've got to get out of this. And so, I want to say this statement here and hopefully you remember this. And I'm sure I didn't make this up. I'm sure this isn't original. I didn't even bother looking on the internet to see if anybody else has said this because it's so common, but it's this. When you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, the only way out is up. Okay. When you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, the only way out is up. So, think about it. You've got a rock to your left. You've got a hard place to your right. You're completely surrounded. You can't go forwards. You can't go backwards. All you can do is spin in circles. Well, you're certainly not going to dig your way out. How do you get out of this? Well, obviously you get out of these situations or you cope with these situations from the wisdom which is from above. Okay. And no one ever said it was going to be easy. No one ever said it was going to be gravy. Okay. And that's the thing about our society today. You know, go to 2 Chronicles chapter 20. 2 Chronicles chapter 20. You know, our society today says, oh, well, you know, no matter what problem you have, there's definitely a solution and you can get out of it very quick. You're just not thinking smart enough. You're just not thinking fast enough or it's your fault. Well, for the believer, that doesn't always work out too well, does it? Because a lot of times God allows us to go through these things to see what we're going to do and to sharpen us and to make us stronger and to be a testimony to those that are around us. So, if you could just remember this, though, if one of these elders would have just said, you know what? Why don't we just put the pride aside here? Why don't we just put all the challenges, all the human achievement aside and just actually listen to Jesus? You know what? They would have found themselves relieved from the position that Jesus put them in. You know, it's funny. Everybody thinks they can put God in a box, right? They can put, they can frame God in between a rock and a hard place. And it never works out because He's God. You cannot do that to Him. And guess what? We're in the kingdom of God. So, can that really be done to us? We'll see the answer to that. So, we're going to study a little bit this morning about a king and his king's name is Jehoshaphat. We've talked about him before in the past. Many of you are familiar with him. If you aren't, I'll just give you a quick rundown here. Jehoshaphat, he did love the Lord, okay? He was a king of the southern kingdom in Israel, which was referred to as the kingdom of Judah. And Jehoshaphat had a little problem. And his problem is he liked to pal around with the new evangelicals of his day, okay? And if those of you who don't know, I think new evangelicals are extremely wicked people. And the new evangelical that this guy, this king liked to pal around with, his name was Ahab, okay? Ahab was the king of the northern kingdom of Israel and he was a wicked king. He did not love the Lord, but yet he had his own prophets, didn't he? He had his own religious system, didn't he? You know, he would talk about the Lord, but really he just wanted to surround himself with people that would tell him what he wanted to hear, right? It's like a Joel Osteen guy. That's kind of how I see Ahab or a Steven Furtick kind of guy, okay? And so, we're going to learn what Jehoshaphat did when he found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place, when he found himself in a catch-22. And you'll see that this bottom line proves to be true even in his life. So let's start this off here, 2 Chronicles chapter 20, look at verse number 1. It says, And it came to pass after this also, and we'll talk about that here in a minute, that the children of Moab and the children of Ammon and with them, other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Verse 2, 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 Hazor-ont-Tamar, which is in En-Gedi. Okay, so let's stop right there. Go back to chapter 18, if you would, because the chapter starts off and says, It came to pass after this also, okay? So, we just read two verses here in 2 Chronicles 20. We find that Jehoshaphat is now, he's learning that he's about to be attacked by several nations, okay? And what you may not realize is that this nation here, the southern kingdom of Judah, is not as strong as it once was. It's not the powerhouse that it was under David. It's not the powerhouse that it was when it was under Solomon, okay? This kingdom is broken. So they don't have the same kind of resources. They don't have the manpower. They don't have the ability to take on this army by themselves, okay? And that was another big problem with Jehoshaphat and Ahab, you know, trying to team up, you know, to together. It wasn't right, but they figured, well, if we could put our resources together, maybe we could defeat these enemies, you know, and we could go out and we could conquer and win these wars. But what does it mean it came to pass after this also? Well, if you go back to chapter 18, look at verse number 28, and we'll see, because this guy is definitely going through some stuff here. Second Chronicles 18, look at verse 28, it says this, so the king of Israel, which is Ahab, so the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth-Gilead. So they're going up here to battle, to fight wars. So they've teamed up together. They've taken a liking to each other, if you will. They're friends, and they shouldn't be. But look at verse 29, it says, and the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself and will go to battle, but put thou on thy robes. So the king of Israel disguised himself, and they went to the battle. So they've got this grand plan here. Now stop and ask yourself here. Right now, if you know the story, we don't have time to really bring it to fruition, but they're in a catch-22. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place, okay? And at one point, Jehoshaphat does tell Ahab, or he says, hey, you know, isn't there like a prophet of the Lord that could kind of give us some help, you know? And there's that whole story where Ahab's bringing out all his prophets, and they all say, oh, you're going to win the battle. We're going to destroy the enemy, this and that. And Jehoshaphat's not really buying it, you know? He's like, I want to see a real prophet here, right? And then what do you think Ahab does? Do you think he believes the real prophet? No, he doesn't. He just rejects. He's just like, ah, put him back in prison. We don't need this. So they're using their own kind of wisdom here to fight this war, but jump down to verse 33, okay? So after this battle is going on here, verse 33, it says this. It says, and a certain man, Jew, a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness. Therefore, he said to his chariot man, turn thy hand, that thou mayest carry me out of the host, for I am wounded. Look at verse 34. In the battle increased that day, howbeit the king of Israel stayed himself up in his chariot against the Syrians until the even, and about the time of the sun going down, he died, okay? You say, well, what does that mean? What's the significance there? Go to chapter 19. Well, basically what you have to understand is that Jehoshaphat lost a friend. You know, Jehoshaphat's sin, his trouble here was that he was relying on this wicked king for help. He should never have done that, okay? And you're going to see that in this next chapter. And it's important to understand these things when you read chapter 20, because you get the full picture of the amount of pressure that Jehoshaphat is under being the king of the nation of Judah. So again, Jehoshaphat loses a companion. Now look what happens to him here in chapter 19. Look at verse 1. It says that Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem, okay? So he goes back in peace, you know, obviously probably thankful to God that he didn't lose his life, that he wasn't the one that was shot through. But look at verse 2. It says this. And Jehu, the son of Hanani, the seer, went out to meet him and said to king Jehoshaphat, shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord. Now who here would like to lose a friend? Now obviously I'm not saying that their friendship should have been, but it was, okay? Obviously Jehoshaphat should have never been friends. Jehu confirms that here. Jehoshaphat should have remained separate from Ahab, but nonetheless he had an attachment. And you see that later on in Jehoshaphat's life, because he starts palling around with Ahab's sons later on, okay? So he's hurt. He's physically hurt. He lost a friend. He lost a companion. And now he's being rebuked by someone in Israel, okay? Now were the Israelites during this time, were they gung-ho for the Lord by and large? No, they had their own religious system, right? They had the sins of Jeroboam. They had the golden calves, right? The one in Dan, the one in Bethel. And that was their system. And there was this big fight and all this beef going on between the two, right? Because the Israelites by and large were like, well, why do I have to go down to Jerusalem to worship the Lord? Why can't I just do it up here? Why do we have to have the Levites follow this strict protocol? Why can't we make the lowest people of the land Levites? Why do they all have to be the sons of, or why do they all have to come from Levi? And why do priests have to be the sons of Aaron? They're new evangelicals, right? Because that's what they do today. Yehath, God said, only men could be pastors. This is exactly what you have going on today. So, I mean, think about this. Jehoshaphat loses a friend, comes back, obviously he's thankful that he didn't lose his life, but now he's confronted by someone from Israel who he can tell by his statement loves the Lord and is rebuking him and says, hey, the wrath of God's on you. You know, talk about getting bad, you know, talk about when it rains, it pours. That's the situation that Jehoshaphat is in right now. You know, he just lost a friend. Now he's just like, I shouldn't have been doing this. And all the wrath of God is upon me from the Lord. Look at verse three. Gee, who says this? Nevertheless, there are good things found in thee in that thou has taken away the grows out of the land and has prepared thine heart to seek God. Very important there, right? He prepared his heart to seek God. Is that what we are doing? Is that the type of people that we are? Because without that, without you preparing your heart to receive the hard truth from the Word of God, you're not getting out of these catch-22s because your focus is going to be down. How can I use these to get myself out of this situation? And guess what? God puts us in these situations sometimes where you can't use these. You can't use this. You have no other choice but then to look up, okay? And that is the situation that Jehoshaphat is in. So you ask the question, why did God allow him to go through this? I mean, he was, you know, he had his companion. You know, they could go to battle together. They could combine resources. Now he's not sure how the new leadership structure in Israel is going to affect that, right? So why did God allow him to go through this? Well, one thing that you're going to learn here when we read verse 4 is this, and this is kind of a point that I want to make, is that God doesn't strip something from us that we're going to need in the future, okay? So, you know, going back to the situation that I found myself in, that our family found herself in with my dad, you know, this whole time where we're complaining about our time because he was a huge, oh, not, I don't want to say a waste of time, but he took up a lot of our time. I mean, this guy would keep us awake all hours of the night, okay? He's, let's see, it was about two, three weeks ago that he, yeah, maybe, yeah, about two, three weeks ago that the VA said, you know, you're no longer qualified to take care of him. He's just too much, he needs too much care, okay? So we went from the VA hospital over to a, I don't know what they call it, a memory care hospice facility over in Caldwell, you know, and it wasn't until then that our family actually got to sleep through the night, all five of us. Now Jessica is a little different, she takes her a while to, you know, let the mind calm down, but nonetheless, I mean, for two and a half years, this guy is keeping us awake. You know, I'm working 11 hours a day, except for on Wednesdays, I'm trying to write these sermons, I'm trying to run a church, we're trying to do all of this stuff, and I'm wanting, we're wanting to do all this extra soul winning, we're wanting to go places, people invite us to preach at places and we can't go because, you know, it's like a thousand dollars a minute for someone to take care of the guy, you know, and we're like, what in the world? You know, and then looking back and studying the story, what I realized is I didn't need all of those things at that time, right? So God may have taken away some of my time, but looking back, I was still able to do some of that, I still got to go to some of the Red Hot preaching conferences, I still got to go to some of the other churches, I still got to do some, some stuff here, we still had soulings, the mission still went on, you know? But guess what? God doesn't take things from us in the present that we're going to need in the future, and just to show you the result of that, look at verse number four, okay? Look at this, I mean, this, this here is amazing, and people say, oh, soul winning's a new concept, you know, soul winning's something that you Baptists made up, you know, that is a lie, it is absolutely false and not true, write this down, remember this, don't ever forget this. So look at what happens here, Jehoshaphat's in that situation, lost my friend, I'm getting rebuked, the wrath of God's on me, look what happens in verse four, you know, how am I going to go on? Well look what he does here, verse four, and Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem, and he went out again through the people, from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim, and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers. So think about that for a second here, he finds himself in his own mental catch 22, right, he's probably wondering, how am I going to defeat the enemies, I don't have the king of Israel, I don't have this, I don't have that, the wrath of God is on me. What does he decide to do? Serve the Lord the best way that he can, and what does he do? He goes to Israel, to the northern kingdom of Israel, right, he goes to the people that are going to temple, if you will, to worship golden calf, you know, he's going to the people that have the lowest of the land as priests and teachers of the land, and what does he do? He preaches them the gospel, he preaches them the good news, he brings them back to the Lord, look at that, he goes, what does it say, Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem, and he went out again through the people from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim, and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers. So that's the result of understanding that when we lose something that we think that we need, you know, guess what, when we can realize, you know, I guess we just really don't need it. In that two and a half year span, we lost a lot of time, at least we keep saying that, but at the end of the day, we didn't really need it. God looked down and said, I'm still helping you out. There were still tons of blessings, we had tons of victories even during that time, and at the end of the day, in five years, in 10 years, if the Lord even lets me live that long, lets our family live that long, guess what, all that did was help to purify us, all that did was help to strengthen us, because now we have this great deep appreciation for being a family, and now I really, really completely understand the value of spending time with your children, with your spouse, and as a family. So now I hope to be in this situation here, I hope that our family stays in this situation, in this mindset, instead of being bitter about all those things, actually using that to move forward. Learning, you know what, you know, I'm not going to be bitter of all the time that I lost, I could have gone here, I could have gone there, I could have done this, could have, doesn't matter. Obviously God said, hey, I'm sufficient for you in this time, you don't need that, right? But guess what, that only comes from above, that wisdom only comes from above, it doesn't come from below. So again, when you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, the only way out is up. You know, it doesn't matter how long you're stuck physically or mentally in that situation, as long as you have the ability and the heart to look up, guess what, you will get through whatever it is you were going through. Look at verse number five, it says, and he set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city. Look, he's able to now do what? He's able to now establish truth. I mean, who would not love to have that done in America? You know, set up judges, to set up judgment, people that can differentiate between male and female, you know? I mean, think about it, most politicians, I mean most, even the ones that are Republican, oh, we love God and America and Trump and all this stuff. Guess what, most of them, if you corner them and you say, do you really think a woman's a woman? You know they're gonna give you a waffle answer, aren't they? They're gonna be like, well, you know, it just depends on the wind and the sun and how you feel, what's in your heart, and God loves everybody, and we don't want to hurt any feelings. That's how most of them are gonna be, right? I mean, you don't find that here, right? I mean, that's a blessing. And guess what, we're stuck in between a rock and a hard place, even as a church, you know? You get up and preach a sermon called reptilians and people all of a sudden starting to send you messages, I'm gonna cut your throat, I'm gonna bleed you out, blah, blah, blah, it's the same old stuff, just like clockwork. You're going to hell, blah, you know, it's just ridiculous. It doesn't matter, you keep pushing forward, go back to 2 Chronicles chapter 20, you keep pushing forward, you keep looking up, you get through that thing, and guess what, you come out better every single time. All right, so going back to 2 Chronicles chapter 20, so again, notice here, obviously now he's having some victories, but he still had to deal with the loss of his friend. He still had to deal with the fact that the wrath of God was on him because of his friendship with Ahab, and let's just also ask this question. Jehoshaphat knows in his own heart that he still has a heart for the, you know, the kings of Israel, because if you know the story, if you've read it, we don't have time to get into it, he starts palling around with Ahab's sons, you know, and starts going down that road, and it's a bad deal. So he's got all this going on, and then now he gets this news. So again, when it rains it pours, right, he gets this news, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and others are now getting ready to attack you, and this time, in this moment in time, Jehoshaphat cannot run up to Israel, right, because they're dealing with their own stuff, they're dealing with the loss of Ahab, you know, it's not trustworthy. What's he going to do? How's he going to get himself out of the situation? Look at verse 3, it says, and Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. Verse 4, 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. So now he's, he has learned from his mistakes, you know, he's learned like, okay, I'm not even going to go try to rally them, and he doesn't, right, he goes up there to get them saved, he comes back, and now he's like, look, the only option is for us to just ask help of the Lord. This is what he should have done at the first. He never should have gone up to Ahab, that should have never even been an option for Jehoshaphat, right, so everybody understand that, that should never have been an option. Jump down to verse number 12. So he's praying to God, he's asking the Lord for help, and he's acknowledging the Lord's strength, and he's, you know, talking about how they, how God rescued their nation from Egypt, and all these different things. Look at verse 12, he says this, O our God, wilt thou not judge them? For we have no might against this great company that cometh against us. Now don't miss this here. Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. So what does Jehoshaphat do when he's stuck between a rock and a hard place? He's forced to look up. He says we don't know what to do. Have we ever had a president like that, who's actually just gone on TV and said, you know what, we don't even know what to do. No, because that would be true meekness. That would be real humility, wouldn't it? No, they're just like, oh we got this under control, we'll just print some more money, and it's the Christian's fault, it's the conservative's fault, it's their fault, everything's our fault. Jehoshaphat's like, man, I've got no other options, and so he looks up. Sometimes God puts us in these situations so that you get the message, hey, look up, but our eyes are upon thee. This is a king we're talking about here. This isn't just some president. This isn't some member of senate or congress or whatever, okay. This isn't a member of the house of representatives here. No, this is a king, and his boss directly is God, the God of heaven, and he's in the situation and he admits in front of all these people, we don't know what to do, but we have no strength, we've got no might. How are we going to get out of this? And then he does the right thing, but our eyes are upon thee. Look at verse 13. And all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives, and their children. Then upon Jehoshiel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jael, the son of Mataniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation. So kind of funny here. At the moment when the king acknowledges we have no strength, we have no might, we don't know what we're going to do, but our eyes are upon thee. Our eyes are looking up. What happens? God shows up. Look at verse 15. 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 whose? But God's. Now, notice what the Bible says here at the last part of that verse. Thus saith the Lord unto you. Does that mean only Jehoshaphat? Or does that mean the entire congregation? The entire congregation. This is why it's important for you to have a King James Bible. Because the King James Bible differentiates in conversation when God is talking to a specific person or a group of people. It changes, it changes the meaning. Okay? Because, I mean, we, I wouldn't even probably be using this. I might be. But if God was only talking to Jehoshaphat here, you know, because if it was just for Jehoshaphat in this time, I probably would have picked a different passage and this sermon would be completely different. But because we know that in the King James Bible, when it says ye, it means you all, or y'all, you know, or you, meaning a specific group of people. So this congregation right here that love the Lord, that are seeking the Lord, right? That's what it means. I'm like, oh wow, you know, this is perfect. This really does bring out so much doctrine because this prophet says, hey, this battle is not yours. All of you. And the reason why I'm breaking this up is because we ran into this clown yesterday. Okay? And this clown tried putting us through a catch-22. It didn't really work out, but, you know, he just started attacking the King James Bible. And, you know, the King James Bible sucks and I've read 28 Bible versions and I've been studying my whole life and I'm the best thing in the world and you need to listen to me. And he actually told me, he told all of us that we're all going to hell because we won't listen to him and his short-haired wife. That's what he said. Right? And he said, because you're not meek and the meek shall inherit the earth. And then he calls me every cuss word under the sun and wants to fight me. But anyways, I had to bring that up because it's, you know, it's important. And to also prove the point that the battle wasn't just mine. It was David's, it was Kevin's, it was Anthony's, it was Kaden's, you know, it was all of us who were there. And it's actually all of you, you know, it's all of our battle. But ultimately that battle belonged to God. You know, this individual tried to attack the kingdom of God. Right? So answering the question, is that true for us today? Well, just listen to this. You don't have to turn there. Think about this for a second. Luke chapter 17, verse 21. Jesus says this. Okay? Because what are we dealing with here? What would be another term maybe for the congregation that's mustered up here, assembled here for the Lord? Well, that's the kingdom of God. Okay? That's the kingdom of God. Well, Jesus says this, Luke 17, 21. He says, neither shall they say lo here or lo there for behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Okay? Why are you bringing us up? Preacher, huh? Well, because sometimes we forget that we are the kingdom of God. People who are saved, born again, Bible-believing Christians are the kingdom of God. And who is our King? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the God of heaven. He is our King. What happens when his kingdom gets attacked? He responds. May not be immediately. It may not be right away, but he responds. Right? He has angels who are ministers to those of us who are inheritors of eternal life. And if you're saved, that it's you, you're in the kingdom. So any battle that you find yourself in, that we find ourselves in, we need to realize it's not our battle. It belongs to the Lord. Okay? That's what the prophet's telling Jehoshaphat and the congregation. That's the doctrine that we need to make sure that we focus on here. So when we are in these situations, that's not just us. So what I'm trying to say here is when you find yourself in one of these situations, remember this. Don't feel like you're alone. Because a lot of times, you know, we'd be like, I'd be telling Jessica, I feel like we're the only people in the world that are going through something right now, going through this. I mean, this is just such a drag. It's just such a nightmare. It's a daily nightmare. I mean, I'm trying to write these sermons. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, pretty much. This guy is yelling at me in my own home. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to stab you. Can you help me? Get me out of here. And I'm trying to write these things. You know, I'm just like, how am I going to get through this? I can't focus. I can't get away from the noise. I can't get away from this guy. I'm the only one in the world going through something. That thought like constantly plagued me. But then when you really sit down and think about it, everybody in here has got something they're going through. And everybody in here has these same thoughts that, you know what, when I find myself in this situation, I'm alone. And what you have to understand is that's the devil or that's your flesh. That's a voice that is not from above. And we need to learn as children of the kingdom, how to put that voice away, how to get that thing aside. Otherwise you'll quit. You'll give up. You will completely reject that wisdom, which is from above. Now look at verse 24. Jump down to verse number 24. Second Chronicles 20, look at verse 24. So what happens when someone attacks the kingdom of God? I already said this. God responds. Look at verse 24. It says, And when Judah came toward the watchtower in the wilderness, This ain't the watchtower society. Don't go down that road. It says, They looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped. Verse 25, 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. Go to Matthew 22. We're getting very close to being done here. We're almost done. We're going to wrap this up right now. So what happened to Jehoshaphat, the king? What happened to that congregation who admitted before the Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon thee? God responded. God sent them encouragement. God delivered them and destroyed their enemies. In other words, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. You just need to know how to focus on it. Hey, that's so important for us believers today, because I showed you at the beginning of the sermon, when the world's put in a catch-22, when they're stuck between a rock and a hard place, they turn into a dog, and they just get on all fours and start digging and digging, perpetually. And it just can't stop. Right? That shouldn't be us. We have that tendency because we still have that old nature. And we're trying to figure out how am I going to get out of this thing? Right? But sometimes the answer is we don't know what to do. We have no strength, but our eyes are upon thee. That needs to be in our hearts. Matthew 22. We're going to start reading in verse 18. Very familiar passage. Love this passage here. This is again, nothing new under the sun, right? These Pharisees, these hypocrites, these scribes, if you will, now they decide, well, we're going to really put Jesus in a catch-22 here. We're going to ask him about taxes, because if he's really the king and you're really the kingdom of him, then why are you paying taxes to Caesar? What's going on with that? How are you going to get out of this? Look at verse 18. It says this. It says, but Jesus perceived their wickedness and said, why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Notice how Jesus always follows up with a question when he's the one being questioned. Look at verse 19. Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. Look at verse 20. And he saith unto them, whose is this image and superscription? Verse 21. They said unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. Verse 22. When they had heard these words, they marveled and left him and went their way. Last verse I want you to go to Psalm chapter number 61. Psalm chapter number 61. So why bring that up? Well, because Jesus gives us a very clear, powerful picture here of using that wisdom from above. Right? He is the word of God. Look at how he gets out of this. How does he get out of it? He uses the wisdom from God. He looks up. He's not going to let man put him in a box and neither should we. Everybody see that? Everybody understand that? Your only way out when you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. And you will be. If the Lord allows you to live any length of time, you will, trust me, you will find yourself in some kind of situation where you feel like there is no way out. Now some people come and visit this church and they're like, there's no way out, you know, but hopefully that's not anybody in here. Right? But what would be the way out for those people? To look up, accept truth, accept the fact that the Bible is the word of God. You know, it's the same thing for the believer. Right? When you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, the only way out is to look up. That's what Jehoshaphat did. He said, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. Psalm chapter 61, look at verse number two. This is a prayer that David wrote down. Look at what he says. It says, from the end of the earth will I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Right? That, that's it. That is my courage. That is one of the big things that we learned from taking care of my dad the last two and a half years, because it was the hardest thing that our family's ever gone through. It was the hardest thing that we've ever had to do. And I'm telling you, there were many nights, many afternoons, many evenings where we were just like, how in the world are we going to get through this? Our family is going to suffer. We're going to lose out on this. But you know what? We came out stronger on the other end. And the only reason why, the only way it was possible is because we eventually developed this attitude. We don't know what to do. You know, as my dad's behavior was just getting progressively worse, we're like, Lord, we just don't know what to do. You know, because there's another catch 22 that we had to deal with here. Now my dad's losing weight. Now he's got all these other health problems. What if he were to die and somebody were to look up online who Pastor Jones really is and what he believes and start making these accusations? You killed him. You got tired. You got caregiver fatigue, blah, blah, blah. It would have wound up, you know, I don't know, circulating some crazy rumors or something like that or, you know, ensuing an investigation. So we asked the Lord for help. What did he do? Helped us out. He lined everything up perfectly for us. And he said, are you glad your dad's dead? No. You know, it's a sad thing. You know, it's not easy, especially when you don't know where he is. I have a pretty good idea. I like to think that back in 2015, when I gave him the gospel and I gave him every by way of the heaven under the sun, you know, a part of me just really hopes that he meant what he said when he said he believed that. But I really don't know. I'm going to find out one day. That's for sure. But either way you look at it, when you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, you need to remember this. The only way out is up. God's never going to allow you to be completely covered like that. You do that to yourselves. We do that to ourselves. Okay. And so I just wanted to preach this. I just wanted to say that because it's important. And because every single one of us, I mean, you know, it's like, like, like Jacob said, you know, like, like he told, what did he tell Pharaoh? You know, he said, my days have been few and evil. You know, my days have been evil is what he told Pharaoh. And I, you know, I often think about that. Like, man, Jacob was blessed though. You know, like, like when you really look at his life, like he had resources, eventually God of Sunday, it's like, man, you have to see Joseph again. It's crazy that he would say that, but it's true. And that's going to be said about all of us. You know, we will go through evil things. We will go through hard times. I'm sure that's not going to be the last thing. It's kind of funny, you know, passes away Monday and Friday and start getting death threats again. It was like, I had a nice little break there, you know? And then all of a sudden, you know, miss new evangelical grandma wants to call and, you know, people want to, I'm reporting you. What are you going to do, man? Just, you know, the only way out is up. And I'm just telling you, it's up. Look, this life is being stuck between a rock and a hard place. This life is a catch 22. And the only way out for the believer is up, right? That's the only place we're going to get that true rest and that true joy. But that doesn't mean we can't have victories down here, right? Look at all the great characters in the Bible. They all had situations like Jehoshaphat where they, they were, they, they finally had enough and they looked up. God helped them. You know, there's no way you can read through the life of David, you know, and not come to that conclusion. There's no way you can read through even the life of Solomon, you know, and all the stuff that he did and all the crazy stuff he went through. You know, what was his end conclusion? It's the same thing. The only way out is up, right? So just remember that and it's going to be an encouragement. It's going to help you out. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, again for the wisdom that is from above that comes from your word. I just pray that you bless the rest of our day, Lord. Help us to remember these things and, uh, bring us back all safely tonight in Jesus name. I pray. Amen. All right. So for our final hymn this morning, let's turn right to the front of the book. Song number two, glory to his name. Let's sing it with all our hearts. Song number two, glory to his name. Down at the cross on the first.