to 2 Chronicles, and if you opened it to the passage in the Bulletin, you opened it wrong. You're the right chapter, chapter 14, but I don't know where my fingers were. but it is not 18 through 12. That would be reading backwards. In Hebrew, they do read backwards, but in English, we read forward, so it is not 18 to 12. I'm actually gonna start with verse eight, even though I told Casey I was gonna start with verse nine. So let's start with verse eight. And read verses 8 through 12. And Asa, who is the king of Judah, the southern kingdom, Asa had an army of men that bear targets and spears out of Judah, 300,000. That's a lot of men. each one of them bearing a target and a spear. Out of Benjamin that bear spears, that bear shields and drew bows, 204 score thousand or 280,000 soldiers out of Benjamin, all these were mighty men of valor. And there came out against them, Zerah the Ethiopian, with an host of a thousand, thousand, and three hundred chariots, and came unto Mereshah. So you've got five hundred and eighty thousand against an army of a thousand thousand, plus three hundred chariots. 300 chariots could easily mow down thousands upon thousands of men. So they got 580,000 against 1,000,000. plus 300 chariots. They are grossly outnumbered. They don't stand a chance. The best thing they've got is men that bear the shield and that shoot an arrow. So it's arrows against chariots. It's kind of like taking a knife to a gunfight. Some of you have heard that expression. They were outnumbered big time. Humanly, they didn't stand a chance. Humanly, they were about to be annihilated. Humanly, to go out and fight would be the height of ignorance. you don't go against an army that is more than twice your size, plus all of the chariots that they had. But in verse 10, then Asa went out against them, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zarethath and Moreshah. And Asa cried unto the Lord, his God and said, this is his prayer, Lord, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many or with them that have no power. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God. Let not man prevail against thee. So the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah, And the Ethiopians fled. Father, we come this morning and we stand before your people. And I pray that the words we speak will encourage us. So many times we feel like Asa. We feel defeated. We feel outnumbered. We feel like we're wasting our time. We feel like that we really can't do anything anyway. May you open our eyes, not to what we can do, but to what you can do. May you challenge us. May we accept the challenge. May we change our attitudes. May you change our hearts. May we determine, Lord, to go forth, not in our own strength, but in the strength of the arm of Almighty God. In Jesus' name, amen. There's a song that I have heard sung much of my life. I can, you know, even as a young man, I can remember hearing this song sung. And I'm not going to read the first verse, but I am going to read the second verse. No, I'm not going to sing it. I will read it so that you can hear it, hopefully enjoy it. The second verse goes like this. There is no night for in his light you'll never walk alone. You'll always feel at home wherever you may roam. There is no power can conquer you. when God is on your side. Just take Him at His promise. Don't run away and hide. How many of you know the song already? Let me read the chorus. Wow, none of you. It is no secret what God can do. What He's done for others, He'll do for you. With arms wide open, he'll pardon you. It is no secret what God can do. How many of you recognize it now? Ah, quite a few of you, good. We're often tempted to complain We murmur, we complain because, you name it. We're not growing as much as we would like to. We're not seeing people saved as often as we would like to. We're not seeing people baptized as often as we would like to. And it's so easy to complain because we're not accomplishing what deep down we think we should be and what we know we can be. But we're not. We're just not doing it. Satan often tells us that we're hopeless, that we're useless, we're too small to do anything. I mentioned several weeks ago to a couple of people One of the things I said, and there were other people standing around, I said, I would like to see us get our choir started back. We used to have choir was almost full. I said, I would like to get our choir started back. And immediately, Before the words were barely out of my mouth, I started getting 50,000 excuses why we can't do that. That's actually what kind of got me thinking about why can't we do that? Why can't we do this or that? Why can't we reach out? Why can't we do more than we're doing? Why can't we? Well, I can't sing. I like what Bill said in Sunday School. In fact, I like a lot of things he said in Sunday School. Show me in the Bible where God uses these phrases. And he listed several phrases. Show me in the Bible where God said you have to sing like Sandy Patty. Don't, just get to your nose. who Sandy Petty is. Oh, no. I am really telling my age. Show me in the Bible where I have to sing like Ernie Haas. Y'all know him? Boy, either I'm listening to the wrong music or you all are, one or the other. Show me in the Bible that I have to sing like some famous singer. But we can't. We can't do that. And here's 50 excuses why. Satan says you can't. Paul said I can. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Now, let me say upfront, before I ever get into my outline, that God does not, will not use people who willingly reject the truth and stubbornly refuse to serve God. Bill talked about, you know, serving God and counting the cost and the price of serving God. People that say, I know, but, I know what the Bible says, but, I can't, I won't. God is not going to bless those people. Well, I'm not doing any of that, and God's blessing me. Don't forget that Satan also has the power to give wealth. and power. Satan has the ability to give a job or to, you know, give us, you know, power and prestige. So even though you're making, what, $100,000 a week, doesn't mean that God is blessing you. It may be that Satan is blessing you because he knows he can get you out of church, away from God, away from God's service, and get you preoccupied, you know, with 50,000 other things. So God will not use people who refuse to obey Him. But if we're truly, genuinely striving to serve God and obey His word to the best of our ability, there is no limit to what God can do. The problem isn't that God can't. The problem is that we won't. We used to sing, God can do anything, anything, anything. God can do anything but fail. Now it's, I'm not gonna give God a chance because I can't do anything. It's not a lack of power on God's part. It's a lack of commitment. lack of dedication, and it's a lack of obedience on our part. I want to give you eight examples. They're very simple. Most of them are fairly short. Eight examples of people and things that God used that we would have said is impossible. And yet, God did it. Now, I start off with the first one because it is not a person. It shows that God can use anything. Certainly, most of what we will look at will be will be people. But did you know in Numbers chapter 22 that God used a donkey to preach? Please tell me you all knew that. See in chapter 22 we meet a man by the name of Balaam. He was a prophet. He was a prophet of God. But he was a prophet of God who was willing to sell out if the price was right. And so there's Balaam way over there. Over here, there is a king named Balak. Balak knows the children of Israel have come out of Egypt and they are coming to conquer the land of Canaan. And so Balak hires Balaam to come over and curse the children of Israel. Balaam tells the messengers, let me pray about it and seek God's will. God said, do not go. Do not go. Well, the messengers go. And they come back and offered Balaam even more money, more power, more prestige. And he says, let me pray about it. And God said, all right, you've made up your mind to go. Your mind's made up. You want to go more than anything. You know what? I'm going to give you permission to go doesn't mean I approve. I'm just going to allow you to do what you want to do anyhow. And so Balaam is, oh, thank you, God led me. Yeah, well, I worry when people said, God led me. Was it God's biblical decreed will, or was it his permissive will? Huge difference. So Balaam's going along, riding on his donkey, and you know, and the donkey smashes his foot against the wall, crushes his foot. The donkey just stops dead still. And then the donkey completely ran out of the path, ran out off of the road, ran over the hill. Each time Balaam hit that donkey with this rod. Finally, the donkey looked up and said, why are you beating me? I've been your donkey for years. Have I ever just stopped dead in my tracks? Have I ever crushed your foot against the wall? Have I ever ran off of the road, over the hill, into the brush? Have I ever done that? Balaam has to say, no, you've never done that. But my point is, God used a donkey to get his word to Balaam. Number two, you remember the story of David and Goliath, I hope. Goliath was roughly if my measurements are correct, Goliath would have been as tall as that seam in the wall with the ceiling and the wall meet that little seam right there. That would have been about as tall as Goliath would have been. Here's little bitty David, 12, 13, maybe 14 years of age, Brady, how old are you? 14. Can you stand up for just a second? Now, picture him, which David was a little ruddy kid, picture him going against somebody as tall as the wall. And he's tall. David would have been much shorter, thank you. And Goliath comes out and challenges the army of Israel. And they all run and hide, steer to death. We can't fight Goliath. Oh, he's too big for us. He's a trained soldier. You know, we're just little soldiers. And so every time he came out, the army of Israel ran and hid and they're thinking we can't do anything. Here comes David. Chapter 17, verse 44, Goliath looks at David and said, why are you insulting me? Sending this little ruddy Snotty nose kid out here to fight me a trained armed well-prepared soldier He was insulted David said and I'm paraphrasing you come to me with your sword and your spear Humanly I am no match for you Humanly I don't stand a chance. Humanly, you could stomp me in the ground, but I come to you in the name of the Lord, and me and God make a majority. David took a slingshot. Someone convinced me a year or so ago To buy a slingshot, in case they confiscate all of our guns, you can still shoot them with the slingshot. It's one of those nice ones, you know, it braces around, you know, you brace it, you adjust it, and you pull it back and... I can't hit the broad side of a barn with it. David had one of those that you don't aim. You swing it around and around. It had two handles. You put the rock in the middle, hold the handles. You swing it around and around and around. And at the precise moment, you let go of the other handle, and it shoots the rock out. and it hits Goliath right smack in the forehead, knocks him unconscious. David goes up, takes Goliath's sword, and cuts off his head, and so Goliath died. Goliath had a spear that was like a weaver's beam. David was no match. But David trusted God. David won the battle. You may remember a king called Jehoshaphat. In 2 Chronicles, Jehoshaphat is being attacked by the Amorites and the Moabites. Grossly outnumbered. They don't stand a chance. Humanly, there is no way possible for Jehoshaphat to win. Doesn't stand a chance. But in verse 15, Jehoshaphat says, as he addresses the nation of Israel, hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem. I'm sorry, this is the prophet talking to Jehoshaphat. And thou, King Jehoshaphat, thus saith the Lord unto you. Be not afraid. If we stopped right there, we would cover most of us. Be not afraid nor dismayed. Wondering, scared, how are we going to do this? Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours. but God's. You see, like many of us, Jehoshaphat was thinking, oh, what can we do to win this battle? And the prophet came and said, you can't do anything. This is not your battle. This is God's battle. What you need to do is get out of the way and let God handle it and He will take care of the Moabites and the Ammonites. You need to just turn it over to God. let it alone, let it go, put it in God's hands, and God will take care of the Ammonites and Moabites. You can not do it on your own. It's impossible. And yet so many times we look at a problem And I know y'all do it, because I do it. We look at a problem and think, what am I going to do? First and foremost, make sure you're really serving God. As I said in the intro, God does not bless people that are rebellious, disobedient, hard-hearted. But then, if it's too big for you to handle, stop trying and let God handle it. When I first moved up here, I drove a school bus for Kenton County for several years. That was a lot of fun, let me tell you. But I got a lot of field trips. I would drive a bus. Hey, we're taking our class over to Indianapolis to the Children's Museum. You know, we're taking our class to Columbus to the Children's Museum. I got to go lots of places. And there was one place, and I'm 90, I'm about 90% sure it was over in Indianapolis. it was showing the effects of gravity, and not only gravity, but it was also showing the effects of, you know, being, you know, what difference does it make if I'm here trying to lift something, or if I'm here trying to lift it? The one thing that I remember, they had a car, a real car, full-size car, and I want you to picture that. And they had that car on kind of like a seesaw, kind of like. And they would have it to where you could stand in the middle of that seesaw and try to lift that car off of, or pull the car down. You know, it's on the ground. You're trying to pull it down from the middle. Can't. It's impossible. It's impossible. So then you back up, and you try to pull the car down, and close. But finally, you get all the way over. I have to be careful. I don't want to fall over. to get all the way over at the end, and they had it measured out, and even a child could take that and pull that car all the way down by himself, a little child. I said, that's impossible. That's what I thought until I saw it several times. See, in the middle, you're trying to carry all the weight. But when you get away from it and let gravity and whatever else they had involved, a little kid could do things that seemed impossible. Same thing is true. When you're in the middle of a battle, it's hard to believe that anybody can pick that car up. But when you get out of the way, you get out of the way, you say, OK, God, I'm here. You are going to have to do it. God says, it's no secret what I'm going to do. You want me to pick that car up? No problem. but you gotta get out of the middle of the situation. You gotta get away from the center of it. Well, you recall Jonathan. Jonathan's dad was Saul, who was the king of Israel, the very first king that Charles talked about this morning. The Philistines have invaded. The Philistines have conquered Israel. And Saul is back over here wringing his hands Worried, sick. Oh, they've got a mighty army. I've only got two or three thousand men. Oh, what are we going to do? Oh, we can't win. We can't fight. You know, and Saul is over there just wringing his hands, doing nothing. In 1 Samuel 14, Jonathan looked at his young armor bearer And there was a platoon of philistines right across from him. Two against a whole, I think there was about 20 or 30 philistines. Two men against the philistines. And Jonathan said, let's go over under the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us. Two against 20 or 30? Nah. Then Jonathan went on to tell his armor bearer, there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few. Jonathan and his armor-bearer crossed over the gully, got over on the other side, and two men killed every one of those Philistines. Sound impossible? Humanly, it was. But Jonathan understood that God doesn't need a mighty army to win. He just needs a few good men. There's a song, and I love the song, never heard it until after 9-11, you know, where it talks about God is looking for a few good men. He only needs a few today. How many do we need to step out? How many do we need to do more? Just a few men and women who are dedicated to serving God. Well, then I thought of Gideon. Gideon was the son of a nobody family. You all know what a nobody family is. They're not famous. They never will be. They're poor. They, you know, and he was the least of a nobody family. So one day God appeared to Gideon and said, Gideon, I want you to go fight the Midianites. Now the Midianites, The Bible said they were without number as the sand by the sea sighed for multitudes. Gideon raised an army of 30,000, which was still like 60 to 1 or something. God said, you need to get rid of some folks. Not all of that 30,000 are dedicated. I don't want people that are not dedicated. Get rid of the ones that are not dedicated. 20,000 went home. God said, still too many. Wait a minute. 10,000 against 180,000, and you're telling me we've got too many? God said not all of that 10,000 are paying attention. Oh, they're here, but they're really not paying attention. So he gave them all a test. And at the end of the test, 9,700 of that 10,000 departed, leaving Gideon with 300 men against 180,000. You know who won the battle? You know who killed the Midianites? Gideon. 300 took on 180,000, and God gave the victory. See, many people think, oh, we got to get more. 30,000 is not enough. We got to get more people. We got to get, you know, we got to get more members. We got to get more of this. We got to get more of that. We need more cannons. We need more ammo. We need, you know, more bulletproof vests. We need... Gideon said, Lord, you can win with 300 just as easily as you could win with 300,000. See, the battle isn't in our strength. The battle is in our commitment. If I were to stand up and say, every single person here that is not 100% committed, get up and leave. Don't, don't leave. But I wonder how many people would get up and leave. If I were to say to those that were left, some of you are not paying attention. If you're not paying attention, get up and leave. I wonder how many would be left. Oh, our church is destroyed. Our church is dead. We can't do anything. Listen, God used 300 men that were dedicated and were alert and listening and paying attention to defeat a mighty, mighty army. See, we've been trained to think like it's discussed in Sunday school. Bigger means better. No, it doesn't. Bigger does not mean better. Sometimes to get bigger, they had to compromise to get bigger. That's definitely not better. But we have been taught this mentality at all to do anything as a church. We have to get bigger. We have to, you know, we have to appeal to this group, and we have to appeal to that group, and we gotta entertain this group. And the only thing Paul wrote is, I am not ashamed of the gospel. Are we preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ or another gospel that will lead people straight to hell? Well, I'm going to skip some and go down to the last one. Most of you have heard of the Apostle Paul. Paul was one man. He traveled, usually, in his first journey. He traveled with Barnabas, and along the way, there were others that joined and left, and they would join and leave. In other books, we find out that Paul named a whole list of people that would come and and say, hey, you're going to Cincinnati, I'm going to Cincinnati, how about I walk along with you to Cincinnati? So there were constantly people coming and going with Paul on his missionary journeys. But the one man, well, let me read it, Acts 17, verse six. Now, I'm picking up in the middle of a story, but when they found him not, they were looking for Paul to kill him. They couldn't find Paul, so they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, these that have turned the world upside down. or come hither." They were referring mainly to the Apostle Paul, one man. He had Barnabas, his first journey. at Silas's second. We know that Demas, we know that Barnabas, we know that Titus and Timothy and a host of others would journey with Paul, you know, part of the way for short distances. He had his own private doctor, Dr. Luke, traveled with him to take care of his medical conditions. But for the most part, it was Paul the Apostle, and single-handedly he was accused of turning the world upside down. Could you say that about where you were? ever hear you talk about God. One person turned the whole world upside down. One person took the gospel all over what is modern day Turkey. One man is responsible. God sent him to Rome. From Rome, he traveled to Spain. From Spain, the gospel came to America. Now, I cut out a lot of steps along the way, but the gospel came to America. because Paul the Apostle took the gospel to Spain, where from Spain it spread and ended up in America today because of one man. One man scattered the gospel all over through his spiritual children. You and I have the gospel today. How much influence do you have? Do people even know that you claim to be a Christian? If somebody were to tell your co-workers Did you know that he or she is a Christian?" And their response, are you kidding me? They're a Christian? I would have never believed it. You're either an influence for good or you're an influence for bad, all but I can't, I can't talk. That's what Moses said. You know who did most of the talking after they went down into Egypt? God gave them Aaron to be a mouthpiece, but Moses ended up doing most of the talking. I can't do that. By yourself, you can't. But with God's help, there is nothing that you and me and we collectively can't do. Father, we come.