I'm so glad to have Jack and Jennifer with us today and what the partake and what the ministry is all about. All about planting churches through teeth like that, literally roots out of root canals. getting churches rooted and built up in the Word of God. And what they're doing now is what they're venturing into will actually cause it so they can minister even more. Was it just a few weeks, years ago you were talking about feeling old and retiring and and getting tired of everything, but now they're going to be ministering even more. And that's the way God gets you to retire, by refiring. Amen. So, Brother Jack, come on up. We're running early, so you have another three, four hours. Is that on? Yeah, it's on. Thank you. Well, it's great to be here. And it's nice to meet new people. We're always excited when we return to a church and we meet new people that we haven't met before. We meet the gods at work. And so we're excited about what's going on here with you all. Pastor Bob asked me to explain a little bit about what we're doing. And we're thankful. We've been now 23 years in this ministry of using dentistry for the Lord. In fact, when we started 23 years ago, we were praying. We started the mission, Grace Dental Mission at the time it was called. We started that 23 years ago, and we started praying right then that if that was something that God was that he would bring it to the place where it would be able to continue without us. What I had in mind, what I was thinking was more that we would either stop ministry or God would take us home or whatever it was, that we wouldn't be able to do the ministry anymore, that God would bring it to the place where it can continue without us. Well, that's where it's at right now. And we're very thankful for that. Thanks to the federal medical mission, we feel strongly that it's at the place where it can continue without us. And over the last few years, I've been feeling led to focus more on restricting those countries. places where there are unreached people and that we could use the dental and medical avenue to get into some of those countries. So we've been praying about how best we could do that in the years ahead. Now, I know I look very young, but my next birthday I'll be 70 years old. And I never thought I would be able to be in this place where I could continue this kind of ministry at this age. And I feel that that's because of God allowing us to have help that we can continue to do this. So anyway, we started praying, and the Lord showed us what to do. And we have been familiar, acquainted with GFA Missions, Gospel Fellowship Association Missions, since we started actually. They had a medical doctor with that mission, his name was Dr. John Griesbach, who was kind of a pioneer with medical missions. We actually served with him in the middle of the jungles in Cameroon, West Africa, several years ago. He was in his 80s at the time. Still wanted to serve the Lord through medicine. And that was an inspiration to us. And so GFA missions has been kind of a part of our ministry life, we'll say, from the beginning. And so it was kind of a natural move to us to change to that mission. It's a bigger organization, and they have missionaries all around the world in some of these places that we're We're hoping to be able to have ministry, and so we feel that this is what the Lord would allow us to do. And they also have part of the organization where you can get into a country that's actually closed to missionaries, fully closed, but open to professional people. And you can do it under that kind of organization, not be identified as a missionary, but be identified as a dentist. And so that's another avenue that could be open to us if we felt that we were able to do that. So anyway, we're trusting the Lord as we go forward. We're thankful for Grace Medical and Medical Missions and for how God has then using it, and we know we will continue to use it and we're thankful for the people that he has put in place that can run it now without a life device. So that's exciting to us. So anyway, so we do have new cards. I look a little bit younger in the picture, so you probably want to take one of these cards. There's some up here. And if you're interested in getting our regular Still Tooth Tales newsletter, you can sign up if you're not getting it already. And something different, we started, actually this was probably several months ago, we started this website. called God's Tooth Tales. And what we are doing with that is we're putting stories of some of our past trips that we've done. We call them inspiring tales from the field, how God worked during those times. And because people are always asking us, tell us some stories. And so here are some stories that are on that site. Our Tooth Tales newsletter is also up there as well. And this little booklet is a compilation of, I think, six or seven stories related to ministry we had in Russia and Ukraine in the year 2000, and just how God worked during that time. And so we have some of those booklets here. But also, there are some more stories on that site, gods2details.com. And also, there's Jack and Jennifer Mitchell, that's our Facebook name. And if you friend us on Facebook, we usually post pictures of ministry as it's happening. I don't cook, so I don't put recipes there. You might see a few pictures of grandchildren from time to time, but mostly it's about ministry and pictures from where we're working on the field. Our next trip out of the country, we just came back from Lebanon, well just, it feels like we just came back, but it's probably been almost a month now. from Lebanon, and I'm going to show you some pictures in a minute of that. But our next trip will be to the country of Myanmar. It used to be called Burma. And we will be working amongst the Buddhist people. And we'll be going in January, first part of January. We were there last January. Prior to us going there, the pastor that we were working with, a young man with two small children, he emailed me and he said, this people, they're called Dawei people. They're unreached people. They feel that there's only about 100 of these Dawei people that have been saved out of 6 to 700,000. So only 100. And so very, very strongly Buddhist people. In fact, the saying is to be Dawei is to be Buddhist. So anyway, this pastor emailed me before we went. And he said, these people do not like Christians. And he said, so when you come, there may not be anyone that will come and see you. And so we started to pray. And I've never prayed this way before. Lord, we're praying that all these people will have toothaches when we die. So anyway, God answered that prayer. I'll tell you, we were so busy. After a couple of days, I said, Lord, OK, enough. But it was excellent. In fact, the first place that we worked, the pastor previously had a regular Bible study in this location with a goal of starting a church in that location. And they were using a couple from their church for opening a home for this Bible study. And then one day, led by a Buddhist monk, People, men from the village came to this house and they started digging up the boundary line of this man's property and said, if you continue to allow this Bible study in your home, we are going to take your property from you. And so he discontinued the Bible study. And then when we went, the pastor brought us to that home to have ministry. as we were setting up our supplies in the upstairs part of the house, we'll call it. There's no windows, it's all open, so we could see coming down the road to where we were was a Buddhist monk and several men. coming towards where we were, and they came up the stairs where we were setting up our stuff. And the pastor said to us, I'm not sure what's going to happen here now. And so his band came up the stairs, and what they wanted to do is they wanted to see the dentist. They came to have dental work done. And they all had to sit down upstairs and listen to the gospel. So praise the Lord that God works in amazing ways. And after we had ministry there, after we left, they were able to not continue the Bible study, but they were having children's meetings from time to time. So the prayer is that they'll be able to have Bible study. We're willing, we'll probably be back in that same building in January. So that's our next overseas trip. Between now and then, we'll be traveling in the States. We'll be leaving next Saturday for Iowa. I hear it's warm in Iowa in October. Is that true? I don't think so. We're going to be going to Iowa for a Missions Conference there at our private school. Then we come back for a few days and go to Pennsylvania. And then we'll be home for most of December. getting ready to go early January. In March we have a trip scheduled to the West Bank of the Palestinian area. We've been there once before. We're looking forward to how well we'll use that trip. And we're also planning a trip to the country of Zambia in summer, July, I think it is. And we don't know what's in between, but the Lord, we have several opportunities in other places that trust the Lord and continue to guide us in that. If you have any questions about what we're doing now, feel free to ask my wife. She knows all the answers. And we'll be, obviously, here after the service, and we can answer questions. But I want to show you some pictures now before we open, because we're in a recent ministry that we had in Lebanon. We've been to Lebanon now, I think, five times. And mostly, most of the ministry there has been to Muslim Syrian refugees from Syria, obviously. because of the war and most recently now a new war coming to Lebanon, some of the hostility in the northern part. But God has brought a lot of these refugees into Lebanon, actually more than the country can handle. A conservative estimate is that there's probably a million and a half refugees, Syrian refugees in Lebanon, a country of only four and a half million people. That's a conservative estimate. I've heard estimates up to three, three and a half million refugees. There's a lot of them up on New York City. And so it's been really overwhelmed by these refugees. But the thing is, it's the Christian churches that are reaching out to the refugees. And they know that, they see that. And in Syria they've been hearing a lot about, a lot of negative about Christians. They've come to Lebanon and they're hearing a lot of positive, they're seeing a lot of positive about Christians because it's the Christians that are reaching out to them. and providing for them with food and housing and clothes and things like that. And so along with that, we're working through a church there that is providing us as a means for them to get dental care. And so it's been really a very fruitful ministry. We're very, very thankful for that. Just in the last few days, I don't know if some of you might have seen on the news, there's a lot of problems in Lebanon right now, a lot of unrest related to the people's frustration with the government of Lebanon. It might be something that we should consider here. There's a lot of unrest here. I mean, a lot of disfavor here with the government. But anyway, Lebanon, the people are actually, in some places, rioting against the government. Lebanon is a very corrupt country. It also has a lot of different factions of organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas that you've probably heard about in the news. And so it's a unique country. And I spoke while I was there. We were there in September. I spoke at a church. And the pastor said to me, at 12 o'clock, the power is going to go out. And I said, why does the power go out? He said, well, there's, you know, People do not pay their electricity bills. And so they have to ration the electricity. So at 12 o'clock, the power goes out. From 12 to, I forget what time it goes back on, maybe 4 o'clock or something. I don't remember what it was. But anyway, so they have a generator at the church, you know, so when the power goes out, they switch to the generator. But anyway, what he told me was that the southern part of the country, is controlled by this group, Hezbollah, and they do not pay electricity bills. They just don't pay them. That's why I said to him, can't the government do anything about this? And he said, no. And he said, they don't have the power to do anything because Hezbollah says they're not paying, so they don't pay. He says, in the north, we have a lot of politicians. And families of politicians, and they don't pay for electricity bills. And there's nothing we can do about it. So 50% of the people do not pay for electricity bills. And nobody does anything about it. Anyway, the people right now are very frustrated with the government because the government wanted to raise taxes. I don't know if you're familiar, some of you are more tech savvy than I am, but there's It's called What's App. Have you heard of that? What's App? Well, in Lebanon, everyone uses What's App. Everyone uses it. And they use it to call on, they use it for messages and so on. One of the main problems with the people is the government wants to tax What's App. They want to tax the use of what's not. And the people there are really angry about that. So anyway, if you think of it, we can pray for Lebanon. It's been a lot of kind of glory here. But we were there, again, in September. And a big part of our ministry is reaching out to the Syrian refugees. And on the last time we were there in March of this year, And now in September, we also were ministering to a group of people called Druze, D-R-U-Z-E, Druze. They're kind of a small sect of people. They believe in reincarnation. And so they believe that while they're on Earth, they want to do good works. So that they can be reincarnated at a higher level. So that's kind of the emphasis on that. not a lot of emphasis on heaven. They really, they don't believe in that. They don't believe in an afterlife because they believe that we're going to come back and reincarnate as something else. And so we cannot convert to being Jews. We're either born Jews or we're not. And so it's a very difficult group of people. Traditionally, they do not like Christians. When they had the civil war in Lebanon a few years ago, the Muslim people recruited the Jews to kill the Christians in the area that the Jews call. And so we work with a ministry right in that section of Lebanon where the Jews are concentrated. We work with a ministry there that is planting a church among the Jewish people. So while we're there, we have to kind of be just visitors. So the grace of the Lord, the Lord gave us a number of opportunities to share the gospel with Jewish people, as well as the refugees. So I'm going to quickly go through some of these pictures here to show you. My wife and I, we think that this is probably what was the best ministry I don't want to say blessing. I don't know what the right word is. But we saw God answer more specific prayers than we've ever seen in ministry. We would pray in the morning for specific things to happen than they would have to. It was just amazing. I'll explain some of that as we go through this picture. So it's just a wonderful ministry. We're planning to get back there. Sometime in 2020, we're not quite sure just yet when that will be. So the first part of the time there was in this area of where the Druze people are. And we were staying in the hotel. So from our hotel window, this is the city of Beirut in Lebanon. And it's a little bit hard to see in the picture. It's kind of hazy there. But there's kind of a line there. The darker part here is the Mediterranean Sea. And then this is the sky. So Beirut is right on the coast. It's a pretty large city there in Lebanon. And so the first part of the ministry was among the Jewish people. So the first day in that area was a Saturday. We had the opportunity to share the gospel, to do an evangelistic message among a group of people, but it's kind of a mixture between Jews and Syrian refugees. And so it was really a wonderful time to be able to share the gospel with this group of people. This is the church clinic. This is the ministry. trying to plant a church among the Druze people. This is their building that they used there. And so that was on a Saturday that we had that service, and then on Monday we started treating some of these people. Again, it was a mixture of Muslims and Druze people. So unfortunately, what we were doing was taking out a lot of teeth. and a lot of problems with their teeth. And so, we did that. And God brought a number of different people to us during that time under really different circumstances. This man was a Mussock young man who, before we came, had a real serious problem in his mouth. And, in fact, he was told he had cancer. And what his symptoms were was he had, on this side of his mouth, his cheek was swollen, very pronounced swelling in his cheek. He went to a local clinic or something, and they told him he had cancer. So they cut his cheek here, as you can see, to drain out the infection there. And then they put a skin graft there. And his problem was not cancer. His problem was a bad tooth. Axis tooth. And so here he had x-rays. So I'm looking at his x-ray. He had two axis teeth on one side and two on the other side. And so we actually took out, the first day we saw him, two teeth on that one side. We'll never have him swallowed there again. He didn't have cancer. We were sad because he was a young man. But he had two teeth on the other side that were abscessed. So we asked him to come back in a couple of days. We would do the other side. And so, again, this was a Muslim man, I forget, Shia, Sunni Muslim. And so, we prayed specifically. When that man came back, we would have a chance to share the Gospel with him. And so, he came back a couple of days later. And here I am, sharing the gospel with him. This was after we had taken out the other two teeth, talking to him about salvation. And I was a little bit nervous as a Muslim man, but he was very kind to jump out of the chair. And he gave me a big hug. I mean, obviously, I thought he was going to attack me. I thought, what was going on? But he was just so appreciative. I don't know what exactly. I didn't know if it was just because of the ground care, or I seemed to care about him, or what it was. But praise the Lord. And so now the ministry there is, I know, ministering to him. And so we're praying for his salvation there. And then this man came with his daughter. So this man came with his little girl. She had a lot of medical issues. She had a seizure disorder. It was a little bit hard for me to figure out exactly what her medical state was. But from a dental point of view, she had multiple access teeth. And this man is a refugee from Iraq, actually. And he had told this lady who was holding the girl, she was our translator. She's a Christian, former Syrian Muslim. And now she's a Christian in Lebanon. She worked with the ministry there, too, as our translator. This man called her. A couple of days before we came, he said, I took my daughter to a dentist. They want to put her to sleep. They want to take out all her teeth. And I don't have any money. I can't do this. Can you help me? And she said, well, it just so happens. There's a dentist that's coming on Monday. Why don't you come? And so he came and bought this little girl. And she did have multiple problems involved. And if she was in the United States, they probably would have recommended the same thing. But we couldn't do that, so what we did was we took out, obviously, abscess teeth, which were seven teeth we took out, right at the same time. So we saw this girl go three times. during that week. But she was a little bit frightened. And so when we treated her, she actually had to be on her father's lap in the dentist's chair. And I am, in this picture, giving her the anesthesia. And she's crying, and he's crying. And I'm trying to figure out, it's just sad. It's heartbreaking to be in that situation. But once we gave her the anesthesia, she was fine. We took out two teeth each time that she came. She came three times. So that doesn't add up. But anyway. Anyway, so we saw her. So again, same thing. We pray. And we want to have an opportunity to see her in the hospital. And so here, that's what I'm doing there, sharing the gospel with this man. Very, very, again, anti-Christian sect of Islam that he belongs to. But he was very appreciative of what was done for his daughter. So again, he frequents this ministry, so it's very important, his salvation. Now, some people say I'm addicted to coffee. And they probably are not far from the truth when they say that. So we were staying in a hotel in this area, but they didn't have a good coffee place there. So I found this one right down the street. So my wife and I went the first day, and we were there, trying to see if they had American coffee. And they did. It's kind of patterned after Starbucks. And so the guy behind the counter was very friendly, and actually gave me a coffee for nothing that first day. And so I went back again. the next day, and the next day, and the next day. And so one of those days, he said to me, I would like to talk to you. Can you come some night? And I was like, sure. Again, this is in the Druze area, and they don't like Christians. So I was nervous. My wife was even more nervous. And so I said, why? Why do you want to talk to me? And he said, I like to talk to older people. They have a lot of wisdom. I'm like, how old do you think I am? And he said, 40. I said, really? You're right. I said, you're right. Anyway, I was a little bit nervous about going back. And so I'm like, here he is. Out of seats, I think. Anyway. I sat down at the table. Obviously, we were praying. I wanted to be able to share the gospel with this man. I felt sure that's why the Lord had him ask me that. So he says to me, the first question he said to me was, tell me something about yourself. Oh, OK. So I shared my testimony of salvation. Prior to that, I asked him. I didn't know, but he was bruised. I asked him, are you Jews, or are you Christian, or are you Muslim? And I tried to make it multiple choice, you know, so I wasn't targeting, it didn't sound like I was targeting. Anyway, he wouldn't tell me. I was a little bit nervous about that, but, and so, just in talking then, it turned out he was Jewish, and he wants to be a nurse, he's actually a nurse in school, and he wants to be able to help people. And again, it's good works. It's all about good works. And so that's what he's into. But his demeanor towards me was noticeably changed after I shared the gospel with him. He wasn't quite as friendly after that. But we trust the Lord that he'll use his word with his mission. So we stayed at this hotel. We had stayed there in March, and the man that owns the hotel was also used. But he spent a number of years in Venezuela. He grew up in Venezuela. He had a business, multiple businesses in Venezuela. And he was financially well off when he was in Venezuela. But he's Lebanese. His family, his parents and so on, lived in Lebanon. And several years ago, I think it was 2006, somewhere around there, the government tried to kidnap one of his kids. I say the government, but I don't know exactly who it was. But it was government initiated because of socialism there. And he was rich. So they tried to kidnap one of his children. They failed. They didn't go into detail, so they failed. But he sent his family back to Lebanon at that time. And then he kind of finished up stuff there and escaped to Lebanon. But while he was in Venezuela, his children were going to Catholic school. And I was raised Catholic, so I had an opportunity to talk with him about spiritual things. This was in March. And so we knew we were coming back, and we wanted to stay at this place again. And so we prayed, Lord, give us an opportunity to talk to this man again. And we were there for a week's time. Nothing was happening the first several days. But I noticed one morning that he came to work about nine o'clock in the morning. And usually they picked us up to go to the United Ministry about the same time. And so we prayed this one morning, Lord, we want to share the gospel with this man. And please bring him to work at the time we were waiting for our ride so we could have a chance to talk. So we went down a little bit early hoping to have that opportunity, and I got a text, well, a message through WhatsApp that people that were going to pick us up were going to be late. And I said, oh. As I get reading that text, he pulled up right where we were sitting. We were sitting outside. He pulled right up there. He gets out of his car and came over to where we were. We had a wonderful, extended period of conversation with him. Shared the gospel with him, gave him the gospel tract. He's very open to it. And so we're trusting that what would bring us back to this place, we have continued opportunity. I do have his email address. We have correspondence on it, so we're going to grant that opportunity. And so here he is, here. I'm trying to think of his name as I'm talking, but it doesn't work. Anyway, so from there, we went to the city of Zahle. It's in the Bacar Valley of Lebanon. We've had ministry there in the past. We're at this church here, Zahle Gospel Baptist Church, it's called. And just look at this picture. Sunday. This man here was at church Sunday and he died the next day. Unbelievable, unbelievable. The church of sorrow is saddened by this. A very faithful man, he loses his husband, a refugee, who professed salvation. But that's kind of sad. But anyway, we've been here before, in this location, in 2017. This lady came for down care. She had already been saved prior to that. And she testified that she felt the Lord brought the war in Syria, so that the refugees would go to Lebanon and hear the gospel. So that was part of her testimony. She was saved. Now, this was 2017. She always wore this, a hijab and a long black garment. And so 2019, September, this is her. Without her, she's evidencing salvation. Prior to our visit, about, I don't know, three or four weeks prior to our visit, she was baptized. She was baptized in secret because she's Muslim. She was Muslim. In all the families, Muslim. She lives with two sons and their wives and so on, Muslim. And so she was baptized in secret. But she felt convicted about that. And she came to church one day, and the church has a courtyard, one of the large courtyards at the church, a lot of people, you know, kind of like a fellowship dog. Yeah, a lot of people, you know, talking and so on. And there's Christians and non-Christians in that group, Muslims and Christians. She inquired at everybody, and she told everybody that she'll be baptized. She won every one of them, and her life was different. There's a word for that. That's God's Word, working in a person. It's just a wonderful testimony. And this is one of her daughter-in-laws that lives with her. She came for Democrat. She is Muslim. She's not Christian. But we finished her Democrat and missionary work, and I said to her, recite John 3.16 for God to mention. And so she recited John 3.16 in Arabic to us, as a Muslim. She's coming to a Bible study, and so we are praying that she will not only be able to sing it, but believe it in her heart one day soon. So praise the Lord for how he's working. This lady here, kind of a sad story. She also was baptized with that other woman. She's a Christian lady. This is her husband here. Her husband took a second wife, which is very common in Muslim people. So that here is the second wife. So the first wife is living in the same home with the husband and the second wife. Firstly, she has three children. She has two children. They're all living together in one bedroom apartment. And she is Christian. And she's trying to figure out how she can live in that situation. But her husband was out of work. He had an injury. And she asked her husband if he would let me come visit and pray for him. And he said, yes. Very surprising, because he was an anti-Christian. And he said, yes. And so, we were able to visit with that, not only pray, but share the gospel with this man. So, we trust him again to be able to work in that situation. This man here, I'm sad. He's very, very, in a very difficult physical situation. And the professor's salvation of the pastor here said he's not sure that he really is saved. So we've had the opportunity to share the gospel again as well. And this is very exciting. I don't want to go into too much length with this. But this lady here has been saved. She was a Muslim. She's been saved. And she teaches in a school for refugees. And she does tutoring. And these two are her tutors. I guess that's how you say it, you know, tutors. Anyway, she tutors them. But she brought them to have dental work done and, obviously, to hear the gospel. And so here are the two students here. And so we were able, after we finished, They're gonna work here, share the gospel with them, and she translated for us. God is using this young woman here. She's an evangelist, although she's not necessarily being the one to share. She brought these two, and she brought us also. This is the same girl. She brought us to her sister's house. Her sister is Muslim, and then her mother was there, and she's also Muslim. And so she brought us specifically so we would be able to share the gospel with the sister and the mother. And in fact, in March, we visited the sister. I did share my testimony with her, and she seemed to be interested. And so we spent about two hours with her, talking about spiritual things with the mother and the sister. At one point in time, the sister went out of the room to change the diaper of the baby. And she came back in the room, and she said to her sister, tell me what I missed when I was out. So I mean, the Lord is working in this world. So we're trusting in Him for their salvation. But it showed us the value of ministry in the same place repeatedly. Establishing relationships with some of these people. And God is using that to make sure they do well. And this is kind of a sad situation. This lady brought her sister to have dental care. She's not a Christian, but she's familiar with the ministry. The sister had some dental care done. And the lady asked me to pray for the sister that she would be able to have a child. This young girl, she's a teenager, younger, has had 10 miscarriages. And she was afraid that if she doesn't have a child, her husband would make another one. And so she asked me to pray for her. Obviously, we share the gospel as we pray for her. So it's amazing what God is doing. And then lastly, you have to have this in there. This is the dentist. I got to work up there. I asked him if we could visit him. And so we did. And he said yes. He was so friendly towards us. He knew a little Christian. He was very friendly towards us. He gave us coffee and food. We were there for a long time. And again, I was able to share my testimony. He's a very Spanish Muslim. In fact, he doesn't think Lebanon is strict enough in terms of the Muslim faith, Islam. And so he wants to move his family to Iraq. So anyway, praise the Lord for that. He wants us to be with him again. Praise the Lord. You know, it's God's heart. It's God's heart that people will be saved. God uses people. God uses us to bring the good news to people. And so we're excited about the opportunities that God gives us to do that. So we're praying as we move forward that the Lord would allow us not only in Lebanon, Myanmar, but in other countries of the world where it's really difficult to share the gospel. And so I always wanted to lie on the floor next to you. Anyway, thank you for your prayers for us. We appreciate continued prayer as we move forward. From this point, our ministry essentially is not going to change. Our address is changing. We're not going to live, but our mission address is changing, but our ministry will not change. And we're excited about the news that probably this week, this week we will have. We don't have much time, but I would like to share from the Bible with you a portion of the Bible that's been very encouraging to me over the last several months. The Second Chronicles, Chapter 20. The Second Chronicles, Chapter 20. There must have been something else there. There we go. There are a lot of Bible characters, a lot of people in the Bible. And sometimes, as you read your Bible, you become acquainted with certain of the people that the Bible tells us about. And Joshua is one of my favorite people in the Bible, but King Jehoshaphat is another one. Not so much a favorite, but I love the story of his life. And part of the reason is that he was not perfect. He was not a perfect Christian. And I know I am not perfect. And a lot of us probably would say the same thing. But we're striving to do what was right. And I think Jehoshaphat was kind of like that. He wanted to do what was right, but he made some mistakes along the way. One of the mistakes that he made is in 2 Chronicles chapter 18, but we won't go into that. But in 2 Chronicles, well, what he did in 2 Chronicles 18, you see, he joined forces with a wicked king, Ahab. fell away from what he was supposed to be doing. And God was not pleased with that. And in 2 Chronicles chapter 19, God uses the prophet to tell him, you know, I'm not pleased with what you did there. You did the wrong thing. And then he decides in chapter 19 to strive to do the right thing. In verse 3 of chapter 19, he said, that he prepared his heart to seek God. So he wanted to do what was right, even though he was struggling going back and forth, he wanted to do what was right. And in this chapter 19, we won't read it, but in chapter 19, he not only tries to get his heart right with the Lord, but he encourages all the people of Judah, the southern part of the kingdom. All the people forget their hearts broke before the war. They do the right thing before the war. And so he was turning around, he said, turning around his life, and not only his life, but the people of Judah as well. And so he was, we'll say, on the right track. We get to chapter 20, and all of a sudden, All of a sudden, in the midst of him trying to be faithful to the world, to do what was right for the world, a huge problem arises in his life. Not only in his life, but in the life of the son of the king of Judah. So in chapter 20, verse 1, it came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab and the children of Ammon and with that other, besides the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. So all of a sudden, All of a sudden these armies came against them. Verse 2, Then there came some and told the Hashefites, saying, They come with a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea at the east side of Syria. And behold, they beat you with Israel and Tamar, which is in David. So, this huge army now, a great multitude, it says, came against him and his people in Judah. And it tells him, they tell him that they are in Gizion Tamar, which is in Gedi. Which, if it's the same in Gedi as today, it's only about 50 miles from Jerusalem, where he was. So all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this great multitude of people were coming against him. And he had no way, no way to stop it. And so I read that and I said, man, this guy, he's trying hard to do what was right. And all of a sudden this huge problem erupts in his life. And I said, you know, that's not a whole lot different than our lives. And sometimes we're striving to obey God, to do what was right before God. And a big problem arises in our life. And sometimes it seems like it comes out of nowhere. Not all the time, but sometimes it seems like it comes out of nowhere. You might go to the doctor, and all of a sudden, you have a serious medical problem. You didn't even know about it. And here it is. Now you have to deal with it. Or it might be a financial problem. other kind of problems in their life. How do we deal with something like that that comes up in our life all of a sudden? And so I think the way he dealt with it, it encouraged me anyway, and maybe it encouraged all of us. But so this problem came. And so a lot of times we just throw up our hands and say, oh, how am I going to handle this? But in verse 3, he says, the Jehoshaphat feared and said himself, well, to seek the Lord, and proclaim a fast throughout all Judah. In other words, he started to pray about it. He started to pray about it. And not only him, it says, verse 4, 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 not only him, but all the people were praying, help us. How can we deal with this huge problem that is in our lives? Oftentimes, I know myself, that's not the first thing I do when I'm facing a problem. I'm like, how can I figure this out? What am I going to do? But he says, no, the first thing, pray. Seek the Lord. Ask God for help. Ask God to show you what to do. And so that's what he did. He's praying to the Lord. And it's interesting in his prayer, verse 6, he says, And he said, O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? And rulest not over all the kingdoms of the heavens. He recognized who God was. God is a sovereign God. God is a sovereign God. In other words, God can take care of any problem, any problem that comes up in our lives. He says, art not thou God in heaven? And rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heavens. God is over these kingdoms that are coming against them. And in thy hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to this land? So God has more power than these kings that are coming against him. And then he says in verse 7, Art thou not our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gave us to the seed of Abraham thy friend forever? You promised us this land. This is the land that you gave us. He said, and these people are coming to take it from us. And Jehoshaphat is reminding God that it's there. And he says, we gave it to the seed of Abraham, my friend, forever in mercy. And they dwelt therein and have built the sanctuary therein for thy name, saying, if an evil come up upon us as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, if we stand before this house and in thy presence, for thy name is in this house, prior to the interreflection, then thou will hear and know." So, God makes a lot of promises to us in His Word. Specifically to Israel, God told them, if you come into this land, and you have affliction and you cry out to me, I will hear you and I will help you. God tells us in our days that I will never leave you nor forsake you. We can cry out to God when we have a problem, knowing that he is a sovereign God. He's over all events. He's in control of our lives. And two, that he's a powerful God, he can change any situation that we're involved in, and he's a God that has given us a number of promises in his word that he's going to take care of us, provide for our needs. So, this was this thrust of this prayer to God, and then in verse 10 he said, He's telling God the problem, as if God doesn't know the problem. Verse 10, And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom thou wouldst not let Israel invade, when they came out of the land of Egypt, that they turned from them and destroyed them not. He's reminding God, he's remembering here, that when God, when Moses led the people out of Egypt, they were headed towards the promised land. They came to this place where the Ammon, Moab were, and the people there would not let Israel pass through. They said, we just want to go down the road. We're not going to take your land or your water. We just want to pass through. But they wouldn't let Israel pass through. And Joshua said, these same people who you would not let us destroy at that time, these are the people that are coming to kill us now. They rewarded good for what? Freedom. And so he's telling that to the Lord. Verse 11, behold, I say, how they reward us to come to cast us out of that possession which thou hast given us to her. So, he's praying to God, and then he says, this is the voice that God really used in his life, this is the verse 12, O our God, wilt thou not judge them? For we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do, but our lives are upon you. In other words, we often come into situations in our life where we know, we know, we don't have the strength to deal with it, and we're not smart enough to deal with it. That's what he's saying here. We have no might against this great company that come up against us. We neither know what to do. Sometimes the trials in our life are so big, we don't know what to do. How are we ever going to get out of this situation? What are we going to do financially, medically, whatever it is? And he says to the Lord, we don't have the strength, we don't have the ability, not smart enough, but our eyes are open. That is the main thing. When we have situations in our life that we don't know what to do, we need to be focused on the Lord. Because He's the one that can change everything. He's the one who can change it. We want to be in control, don't we? We want to be in control of everything that comes into our life. But sometimes we don't have the control. We're out of control. I mean, out of the control. We can't do anything about the situation. But God can. God can change any situation. God can do good for anything. And sometimes God brings turmoil into our lives to bring us into a better place. A better place. And so that's what he says, our eyes are opened. But they still didn't know. what they were going to do. They're praying to God. It doesn't tell us how long they prayed to God, but they're praying to God. Verse 13, and all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives and their children. They're waiting for God to answer their prayer. Now, that is the most difficult thing for me, waiting for God to answer our prayer. But waiting on God is hard. It's a hard thing. And oftentimes we stop waiting. Then we start doing, and we mess it up. But no, they're waiting for God to answer. And then, out of nowhere, verse 14, comes this prophet. Then upon Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jael, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation. This man is only mentioned here in our Bible. We never hear of him. God just sent someone to help them. And often times that's what happens. God changes the situation in a unique way, a way that we never thought. Oh, now I see what God is doing. But so they sent this prophet, and he said to them, verse 15, Harken, you are all Judah, and you have to see Jerusalem. And I came to hospital. Thus says the Lord unto you. Remember, a great multitude was 50 miles from him, except to attack him. Be not afraid, nor dismayed, by reason of this great multitude. Why? For the battle is not yours, but God's. Give the problem to God. The battle is the Lord's. God is going to take care of you. And then he tells them, tomorrow, go you down against them. Behold, they come up. by the cliff of Ziz, and ye shall find them at the end of the work before the wilderness of Jerual." Remember, God is a sovereign God. God knows everything. God knew exactly where this army was. He's telling them exactly where they are. And he says in verse 17, he shall not need to fight in this battle. In fact, he says, set yourself, stand you still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you. It's always amazing to watch God do something. To watch God do something. That's the way we felt during this trip. We thought every day we were watching God do something. It was all of God. We would pray and we watched. We watched God open doors that seemed so close to us. Praise the Lord, He can do that. Set yourself, stand still, and see the salvation. Wait on God and watch Him walk. Easy to say, hard to do, but that's what He tells us. Oh Judah and Jerusalem, He said, fear not, nor be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord will be with you. The Lord will be with you. If you're a child of God, God is with you everywhere. He promises us, wherever we go, He's going to be there. He knows all about our circumstances every day, no matter where we are. We went to Myanmar, I mentioned in January of this year, and people were telling us, don't go there. Don't go there, it's too dangerous. Even our children, our daughter, our son, they were telling us, don't go there. This is too dangerous. My son asked me where the will was. I'm like, what do you mean, where's the will? You're not going to die. Besides, I just took your name out of it. But you know, we sometimes think places are dangerous. But if the Lord is there, that's where you want to be. That's where you want to be. The warden will be with you. That's a promise that we have, that we can rely on every single day of our Christian life. God knows all about our circumstances. He knows the problems in our life. He's there not to hurt us, but to help us. The warden will be with you. Tell us that. And so Jehoshaphat, verse 18, bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the Baptists of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. You know what? They already knew, at this point, they already knew they were going to win the battle, that God was going to take over. They already knew it. They were counting on it. They were counting on it. Verse 20, they rose early in the morning and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa, and as they went forth, that stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, so shall he be established. Believe his prophets, and so shall you prosper. He's telling you, God is going to take care of us, trust Him. Verse 21, And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed the singers, the singers, unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of oldness as they went out before the army. The singers went first, not the fierce warriors. It was the singers that went in the battle first. And he says in verse 20, when he had consulted with the people, he appointed the singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army. And to say, praise the Lord for his mercy and glory. They were confident of victory because they were trusting God. God had shown them. what he was going to do. Verse 22, when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Morad, and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah, and they were smitten. But the children of Ammon and Morad stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, everyone helped to destroy them. This huge multitude. Either God killed them, ambushments it says, we don't know what that exactly means, or they killed each other. The people of Judah did not have to kill anyone. They did not have to fight in this battle at all. And that's what God had told them. You will not need to fight in this battle. They won a great victory, it says it. It took them, I think, three or four days to gather up all the spoil from the victory. It's a huge victory, and they knew it was God that did it. God, God, and the Lord. They had time to do all of that. Thanks the Lord for how He takes care of His children. You know, we just need to trust Him, no matter what comes our way. It's a hard thing. It's hard for all of us to to trust God because our problems sometimes are so big and so consuming to us that we just don't think there's any way that we can get through this problem. But with God, how many things are possible? I don't think there's a possibility. And so the people of Judah won a great victory, and they didn't even have to live to find out. And praise the Lord for His faithfulness to us. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your word and how you use it in our lives to encourage us. Pray for anyone here today who is in the midst of a very serious or difficult the trauma in our lives and pray that you would help them with that. None of us have had problems in our lives. It went to you first. I trust you to be the sovereign God that has control over all things and help us either to continue to get through the problem or to solve the problem for us. So just thank you for your faithfulness to us. Thank you for your faithfulness to this church and the loving people that are with us. Let's have time together and fellowship with the Lord Jesus. As we were going through that narrative in 2 Chronicles 20, my mind went to 2 Thessalonians for a little bit. And I won't go through it. I won't take the time to do that. But I can picture the Apostle Paul reading that account while he addressed the persecuted church there at Thessalonica, that one day, be patient. God is going to take care of those that persecute you. So there it is. Go home, read that. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. But while you're at it, read chapter 2 and 3 as well. So, but it's amazing. God is, God is providential in all things and he does have his way and even us today he protects us as we go and we just pray that that the lord would continue to bless you guys and as you as you venture off in two parts known to you, and someone known as well. And something that I really appreciate too, and I say this often, what I like about, I won't say grace dental and medical missions, but I won't, but what I like about the Mitchell's ministry, is that it's truly focused with the outcome being the planting of New Testament churches in the gospel. That's something that's wrong with much of the church today. The focus is on just doing good things. You might as well be a Druze. If Christianity is just about doing good things and building a kingdom on this earth, you might as well give up. But Christianity is about eternity, about bringing people to heaven, and looking forward to those promises that God has, not necessarily to us, but those promises of eternity. Amen? So that's why I totally encourage the support of the ministry as it as a dragon, a gospel net, drags people out of those systems of religions, religious systems, into Christianity. So, I look forward to chatting downstairs and everything, and any questions you have for them, ask away. Amen.