I am constantly reading about King Jehoshaphat and everything he endured as a King in 2 Chronicles 20. A host of armies was coming against him and the people. It wasn’t just him, but it was the people that he ruled over. He was told they were armies of Ammonites and the Meunites, and we must see this as the enemy today who brings those things against us that causes fear. There may be many “ites” coming against you today, whether it is fear, defeat, or disappointment. Yet fear couldn’t control King Jehoshaphat. Fear came, but he pulled it together and set himself to seek God for a plan.
King Jehoshaphat knew that to maintain the promises which he knew belonged to him he had to seek God for His way of doing things. The first thing he did was set himself, positioned himself, to seek God’s word. He then began to tell God in prayer who He was to him and the promises that belong to God’s children without mentioning the fact that all of these “ites” were coming against him.
It was at the very end of Jehoshaphat’s prayer that he mentioned the “ites.” “Oh, by the way, here are some men coming against Your promise. We don’t know what to do,but our eyes are upon You.” This wasn’t his first battle, but we all know that there is a time when we have a vital need to seek God’s face and declare what His promises are to us. There are some promises of God in the Old Testament that are so meaningful to me. God begins to remind me of what His Word says about some things that I am standing on. It is His promises that I am believing. I used to read a chapter in the Bible all the time, and my belief in it was on another level. I believe with all my heart that it was so, but somewhere along the way I gave into the natural things of life.
Deuteronomy 28:1-14 I knew it by not reading it from the Bible. I had studied it so and read it all the time. I had confidence that what the Word said was so. I imagined it to be so. The promises of God are Yes and Amen, and what He promised in the days of old still stands today. God told me that if I diligently obeyed His voice and declared His commandments that He would set me high above all nations of the earth, and all these blessings and promises will come upon me and overtake (overwhelm) me because I obeyed the voice of the Lord. He is an overwhelming God.
Deuteronomy 28:3: “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.” God tells us first He is going to protect us no matter where we are in the city or in the field. When you trust and obey Him, there is no place you can go and His promise that He will protect you will not follow you. Everything you do in the city or in the country
shall be a success.
Deuteronomy 28:4: “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.” My family shall have the abundance of all the good things in this life. They shall be rich. Everything I own, whether crops or animals, shall produce over and abundantly, and
the offspring of my animals shall produce in wealth. Now I might not own crops or animals, but every business I own shall be prosperous. Everything that I own, cars shall not break down, homes shall be built sound.
Deuteronomy 28:5: “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading
bowl.” Deuteronomy 26:2 tells us that the first fruit of everything shall be put in a basket and given where the Lord your God abides. The kneading bowl was where the daily bread lay fermenting until ready. This represents the place God has given you for an income, whether it is your business or your place of employment. He said blessed it shall be. Deuteronomy 28:6: “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.” Psalm 121:7-8 says that the Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He
shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve and protect your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even forevermore. Evil can’t come near me because I am preserved. I am kept under the shadow of His wings. Because that is where I abide, evil can’t come near me. You have to let the devil know this by commanding your morning from the very beginning.
Deuteronomy 28:7: “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.” Seven is a perfect number meaning perfect defeat.
Deuteronomy 28:8-11: “The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk
in His ways. “Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land
of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.” Deuteronomy 28:12: “The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to
give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.” If I am lending to nations that means I have to be gaining some interest, because He didn’t say give, He said lend. Deuteronomy 28:13: “And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your
God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.” I, as a Christian walking in the favor of God, will establish some things in my household, in the city, and in the nations. Deuteronomy 28:14: “So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.” Although the New Testament doesn’t take up a lot of room about the promises of God, yet our Lord Jesus said in Matthew 6:31-33: “Therefore do not worry or be anxious (perpetually uneasy, distracted), saying, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘What are we going to drink?’ or ‘What are we going to wear?’ For the (pagan) Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; (but do not worry) for your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
“But first and most importantly seek (aim at, strive after) His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right—the attitude and character of God), and all these things will be given to you also.”
