A special kind of rejection

“And, behold, God himself [is] with us for [our] captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of Israel, fight ye not against the LORD God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper.” (2Ch 13:12 AV)

These words are spoken by Abijah, king of Judah upon the siege laid against Jerusalem by the ten northern tribes of Israel.  Abijah, although severely outnumbered, reminds Israel that God is with those who are with Him.  Jeroboam, the king of Israel, led his nation down the path of idolatry.  They turned their backs on God.  The priests of Jehovah fled the north and came to Judah.  Jeroboam rejected the temple Solomon built for all Hebrew people and built two temples to golden calves.  The last severe reaction of rebellion against Jehovah God was to invade Jerusalem and destroy the temple.  As long as the temple stood, it would be a draw from those in the north who wished to follow Jehovah.  As stated before, Israel severely outnumbered Judah.  They had completely surrounded the city, and there was no expectation of a positive outcome for Judah.  Unless God fought for them, that is.  And that He did.  The Bible isn’t specific because the initial attack is not declared.  What we do know is that after the first attack, Judah could kill 500,000 northern Israelis and Abijah could capture several border cities.  What strikes me is how far from God the people of God can become.

It is one thing to leave off one’s relationship with the LORD.  It is quite another to fight against those who have a relationship with the LORD.  I haven’t seen this much over the years.  But it does happen.  Nothing can explain this.  Someone who has grown up with the LORD as central to his or her identity has seen much.  He or she has seen God do some spectacular things.  Unfortunately, the people of God become a disappointment.  They fall from the pedestal upon which the rebel has placed them.  They make mistakes, sometimes serious ones, that are unforgivable.  Those who taught them absolutes are suddenly abandoning them for pragmatic reasons.  There is truth without adequate defense.  Pastors, teachers, and parents do not know their Bibles well enough to give a reason for what they say is true.  Disillusionment sets in.  Then comes scoffing.  What might be a minor flaw becomes a major one.  Questions without complete answers give cause to throw out all revealed truth.  Abandonment is understandable.  Destruction is something on a whole different level.

In the book of Revelation, Satan is given two names.  Both of which means destroyer.  It is the endgame of his existence.  He cannot win.  He does not have the illusion of beating God.  That was defeated when the LORD kicked him out of heaven.  He knows he cannot cause the saint to lose his or her salvation.  He knows the bible well enough to know that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.  He cannot destroy the church.  So, what is his endgame?  What is his objective?  It is to do as much destruction against that which God loves as he can.  This includes mankind, the church, and the individual saints.  Jeroboam had no chance.  Judah loved Jehovah, and God would defend them.  His rebellion, jealousy, and anger against the LORD drove him to his satanic destructive impulse.  There is no other explanation.  To desire the collapse and destruction of all that God loves is not a neutral or natural impulse.  It is satanic at its core.

Coming Out to Stay In

“And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto the LORD God of their fathers.” (2Ch 11:16 AV)

After the death of Solomon, his son Rehoboam assumed the throne.  Because of his idolatry, the LORD informed Solomon that the twelve tribes of Israel would be divided into two nations.  Ten tribes coalesced around a man named Jeroboam, a servant of Solomon.  As more of a statement of being different, and the fear the ten northern tribes would reunite because of shared worship in Jerusalem, Jeroboam went all in with idol worship and the worship of devils.  As Israel (the ten northern tribes) committed to devil worship, the priests of Jehovah found no use.  Their ministry was lost among wicked worship, so they left and came to Jerusalem.  It was a pragmatic decision.  If Israel were going to abandon Jehovah, they were not going to support His priests.  They had to leave in order to live.  What might be interesting here is that the bible stipulates who it was that left.  “Such as set their hearts to seek the LORD” suggests some did not.  There may have been priests who had such a situation that returning the Jerusalem was not necessary or desirable.  Perhaps their situation was settled and ministry did not matter.  How sad.  What we do know is that those who desired to follow the LORD and serve Him went to where the LORD would be worshiped!

Someone might think this as a reverse missions devotion.  Are not the people of God supposed to go out into a lost world as share the gospel to the lost?  Yes.  But this is different.  Israel had the word of God.  They had a relationship with Jehovah.  God would send many prophets into Israel.  Isaiah, Jonah, Elijah, and Elisha to name a few.  When the priests left, this did not create a silent vacuum from God’s truth.  God still sent messengers.  Rather, when the priests left, they left because there was no ministry for them.  The people of God did not want the hear the word of God taught.  It was too bad for them that they didn’t want to hear it at all.  The prophets of God made sure that they did.  The priests of God had to leave.  They lost their purpose.  They lost any hope of a purpose.  They could always return.  If Israel would have gotten right and desired the LORD Jehovah, the priests could have returned.  What is worth noting is that those from Israel who desired to remain faithful to Jehovah either made the trip to Jerusalem or relocated there.  The congregation to whom the northern priests were sent came to them.  In relocating, they condensed their ministry and continued.

We don’t want to consider logistics as much as we want to note the character of these priests.  They had a heart for God.  They wanted to live for God and serve God.  They wanted to be among people who desired the same.  I imagine it took a lot for them to uproot and relocate.  They left their homes.  They left their friends.  I also imagine the hardest thing to do was to leave people with whom they had ministry, knowing they would never respond to God.  In a way, this was a mercy.  It is difficult to see a group of people turn their backs on God and want nothing to do with Him or His word.  Especially after they had invested their whole lives with them.  It took character to walk away from a failing ministry because God was more important than anything else in life.  They had the courage to come apart.  They had the faith to trust the LORD in spite of what it might cost them.  They loved God, and of that there was no doubt.

Shade For Refreshing

“The LORD [is] thy keeper: the LORD [is] thy shade upon thy right hand.” (Ps 121:5 AV)

It is interesting that the writer equates God’s keeping to shade.  This is illuminating.  Shade does not protect against all discomfort.  Shade protects from that which is immediately hazardous.  If the sun, heat, or adverse weather was the problem, then a building would address more of it.  Rather, shade will keep us from exposure to direct threats without completely removing the threat.  God can and does deliver completely from that which can cause harm.  But not always.  There are lessons to learn that can only be learned through adversity.  Shade means brings strength to endure.  It does not bring complete absence of adverse conditions.

For whatever reason, I do not like direct sunlight.  I prefer rainy days over bright skies.  I like cooler weather more than hot summers.  Whenever I am outside, I look for shade.  We grew up with neighborhood parks as a common thing.  Each neighborhood had its own little park.  They usually offered a softball field or two, a tennis court, a wading pool, and on occasion, an outdoor ice rink.  Of course, there was playground equipment like swings, slides, and a merry-go-round.  Our park did not have picnic offerings to speak of.  A couple of grills and picnic tables were about it.  The park was more for the children’s benefit than it was for socializing.  I remember our park because the trees were few and far between.  The most common tree was a locust tree.  There were three very large ones near the slide.  They were between the slide and the basketball court.  I remember them because they were huge and offered plenty of shade.  As we played, we sought out this shade as a respite from our activities.  That is where we sat and drank water.  That is where we sat when we were too hot or tired to continue our play.  The shade did not make the sun go down.  The temperature never decreased.  But as the breeze blew across the open ball fields onto our faces, being in the shade felt refreshing.

It is important to remember that God does not promise a trouble-free life.  He cannot.  It wouldn’t be good for us.  Just as we do with our parents, we allow our children to be placed in difficult situations so they might learn and mature.  God is no different.  He would be a horrible God if He removed all adversity from us, as we remained immature, faithless, and accomplishing little for His glory.  It is said of Jesus that he “grew in favour both with God and man”.  The Son of God went through difficult times to experience what it was like to be human.  He learned those things that could only be learned by living through them.  Did that make Him more divine?  No.  He is, was, and always will be infinitely God.  What Jesus did learn was that human experience comes with certain things that can only be known be going through them.  Jesus Christ suffered the worst of all.  God did not remove the cup from which Jesus preferred not to drink.  Jesus drank of the cup of the wrath of God to satisfy the requirement for sin under the law.  God asked His only begotten Son to go through the heat, but the shade would be there.  God will not always deliver completely from adversity.  What He does promise to do is to make it survivable.

To Know And To Hear

“[Then] what prayer [or] what supplication soever shall be made of any man, or of all thy people Israel, when every one shall know his own sore and his own grief, and shall spread forth his hands in this house: Then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and render unto every man according unto all his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men:)” (2Ch 6:29-30 AV)

Solomon is not so naïve as to think a building is a magical place wherein God dwells and the only place from which the voice of God can come.  Solomon is speaking to the nation of Israel upon dedicating the temple to the service of the LORD.  The entry above is part of a prayer Solomon made to God, seeking His blessing on the building.  But again, he is not so naïve as to think that God answered only from the temple.  In fact, this prayer is offered at a high place and not at the finished temple.  What struck me this morning is that every person will know his or her own sore and grief.  This is part of our human existence.  God has graciously provided prayer, and answers to prayer, as the means to navigate through it.  Don’t let the end of the passage above mislead.  The heart that God knows and the ways which He observes are the heart and ways of repentance.  There are consequences for choices.  That cannot be avoided.  But God is not going to answer prayers for mercy and forgiveness with vindictiveness.  There is mercy to be had.  There is grace to experience.  Our God knows our sores and our griefs, and He is not going to answer by kicking us when we are down!

It is surprising just how weak we can become.  We don’t know our limits until we are pressed to the end of them.  Every now and again, this happens.  I remember one of the first times this happened to me.  I remember getting to a point that I could no longer continue.  I remember sitting down and not caring what the future held.  The earliest memory was while working a paper route.  Wintertime is impossible.  For a ten-year-old boy, hauling newspapers in the snow is near to impossible.  Especially the Sunday paper.  Each weighed about three to four pounds.  We had thirty to fifty of them to carry.  Most of the time it was by wagon or sled.  The blizzard of ’77 was a particularly bad one for the entire northern half of our country.  Where I lived, snowdrifts were fifteen to twenty feet high.  In the height of that storm, I was delivering newspapers.  I had gotten about two-thirds of the way through and could not go another step.  I sat down on my sled and didn’t care if I froze there.  I figured someone would do something.  Then my mom rolled up in our station wagon.  We loaded up the papers, finished, and went home.  Another time was a hunting trip.  I had to drag two deer five miles through dense woods and snow.

There are also times when sin is so pervasive that it controls us and our circumstances and we no longer control it.  It takes everything from us.  There is nothing left.  We have yielded time and again to the flesh, the world, and Satan.  Like the children of Israel in the book of Judges, we do not seem to learn our lesson.  We hope that one day we will.  We are sick of the outcome.  We are overwhelmed with sores and grief.  The saint does not expect God to fix everything.  We need to suffer for our choices.  If we did not, we would never learn.  What we can do is ask for relief of soul.  Whether we are suffering from trial or transgression, God is there to pick us up, clean us off, strengthen us once again, and put our feet on solid ground.  This was the promise of Solomon’s prayer.  God knows our works and our hearts.  He knows whether we are sincere.  He knows if we are honest with Him and with ourselves.  If we are, He will answer!

He's Not Going Anywhere

“Thou [art] near, O LORD; and all thy commandments [are] truth.” (Ps 119:151 AV)

It is easy to forget that God is near.  For whatever reason, we forget that God is omnipresent and active.  Whether we forget for nefarious reasons or simple human limitation, we forget.  God has made promises to His children.  “[Let your] conversation [be] without covetousness; [and be] content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” (Heb 13:5 AV)  “For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.” (Ps 37:28 AV)  “Fear thou not; for I [am] with thee: be not dismayed; for I [am] thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” (Isa 41:10 AV) There is ample encouragement in the word of God that we should never doubt God’s presence.  But we do.

Satan has a way of convincing us that God is just like any other relationship.  Temporary.  He would love to convince us that just as in temporal life, relationships change and end.  He would love for us to believe that as the LORD was with the children of Israel in the Old Testament, so too is He to the saint in the New Testament.  He would like us to give up hope on the presence of God because our senses are dulled by trial, trouble, tiresome activity, or transgression.  Our adversary wants us to feel as far from God as we think we can get.  When adversity comes, the Devil would want us to assume God sent it to drive us away.  When sin occurs, he wants us to believe it to be too egregious that God refuses to keep company with the likes of us any longer.  Our enemy wants us as discouraged and despondent as we can get.  Convincing us that God refuses to be near goes a long way to that goal.

Faith requires that we accept things which we cannot understand nor sense as real.  This does not mean we abandon all reason or observation.  If we do not feel God is real, perhaps there is a reason.  Perhaps there is sin at the door.  Maybe we have not drawn to Him as we should.  But if all the boxes are checked, then whether we can sense His presence or not, He is near.  We must accept that as true.  Remember when you dropped your newborn off at the nursery for the very first time?  You retired to a place unseen by your toddler, but you were only a few steps away.  He screamed for you.  He pitched a fit.  Why?  Was it because you abandoned him?  Or was it his perception that failed him?  That is what we must understand regarding the presence of God.  It is not a reality problem.  It is a perception problem.  If the word of God promises the everlasting presence of God, then we need to learn to trust it regardless of our perceptions!  He is near.  You couldn’t chase Him away.  He loves you more than you can ever comprehend.  He isn’t going anywhere.

Strength to All

“Both riches and honour [come] of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand [is] power and might; and in thine hand [it is] to make great, and to give strength unto all.” (1Ch 29:12 AV)

This is David’s prayer at the coronation of Solomon as his successor.  The general genealogies of David’s sons are also given.  Strength to all can be seen in one of two ways.  The first being a confident declaration of Solomon’s favor from God regardless of his position and origins.  David’s statement could be seen as Solomon, initially believed to be unable to lead, would be strengthened by God regardless of the baggage he possessed.  However, it can also be thought of as an encouraging word to his other sons.  In other words, regardless of one’s calling or responsibilities; even if it isn’t as extensive as being a king, God will still strengthen.  This is how we want to consider this truth this morning.

If one were to read thick theology books, the student would discover a general application of the imparted strength of God.  One writer might mention that God’s strength refers to life and the ability to live.  God would give that strength to varying degrees to all created beings.  It is by him we move and have our being.  Another might observe that strength is given to all that they might choose to know Him.  The purest among us would note that this statement only applies to Solomon.  Still others would point out that it would seem God has the ability to give strength to all, yet He may not.  They would point to the statement as being one of possibility.  Not one of reality.  This is discouraging and foolish.  Yes, God blessed based on need and situation.  God will not strengthen those in unrepentant sin so that they might continue it in.  God will not strengthen someone who is serving outside of God’s will and give him abilities he would not necessarily posses to work contrary to God’s will.  But we can take as a promise the statement above as it was stated by David.  We can consider his heart and motive.  We can consider what lies ahead.  We can be encouraged that the promise of God’s strength can and does apply to us.

There is a saying that is common in pulpits.  God never sends where He does not equip.  In other words, if our God asks us to live and serve, He will provide the means by which we can do this.  All we need to bring is a willing heart.  I can tell you by personal experience this is absolutely true.  This preacher has been is several tight spots where human ability was completely insufficient.  If it weren’t for the strength and grace of God, this preacher would not have survived.  This promise is particularly important to remember when strength is in small supply.  This promise above is a guarantee.  God will strengthen as He calls.

Mercy By Statute

“I intreated thy favour with [my] whole heart: be merciful unto me according to thy word.” (Ps 119:58 AV)

The writer is not seeking mercy without context.  Mercy cannot violate the holiness of God.  There are certain things that would frustrate God’s mercy.  Unrepentance would probably top that list.  Presumption might be another.  Or mercy without asking for it may not happen either.  This is a great misunderstanding among modern Christendom.  Professing believers are misled into believing that God is all grace and mercy to the extent that He takes no care over the condition or motive of anyone.  The greatest harm to blessed life is the mantra, “God loves us just the way we are”.  That is so wrong!  God loves us in spite of the way we are.  He wants to change who and what we are into the likeness of His Son.  The condition above is to seek the LORD with the whole heart.  That suggests a heart that is right with God, or at the very least, sincerely desires to be right with God.  The indication that our writer is in this frame of mind is seeking only that mercy which is according to His word.

There are certain things God does not allow when it comes to granting His mercy.  David and Bathsheba are great examples.  They had an affair, and as a result, a son was born.  The LORD struck the child with illness as soon as he made his appearance.  David responded as any father would.  He fasted and prayed.  He sought mercy for his son and his wife.  He asked the LORD for his son’s life.  This went on for seven days.  David never arose from his spot.  Every waking moment was filled with prayer.  He never ate.  He seldom slept.  He neither changed clothes nor bathed.  He remained on his knees, begging God for his son’s life.  After seven days, the baby died.  From David’s perspective, mercy never came.  He lost his son.  Why didn’t God answer David?  Even after he had repented, God still required the life of the child.  Some suppose that the LORD would not allow two people the blessings that came from adultery.  The fruits of sin are meant to be a curse.  Not a blessing.  This isn’t always the case.  Some enjoy the blessings of a birth consummated under less than righteous circumstances.  For whatever reason, the LORD does not require the lives of those children.  We may never know why.  What we do know is that David sought mercy, and God did not grant it.  Mercy was contingent on something.

The writer is not asking for mercy separate and apart from his condition or situation.  He may very well be asking for mercy and grace found in forgiveness.  What we do know is that the writer is not presumptuous.  He is not asking for the grace of God as if he is entitled.  No one is entitled to the mercy and grace of God.  What we need is the wisdom of expectations.  What is it that we want God to do, and does it violate His nature?  Exactly what is it that we are seeking, and will His character allow for it?  Mercy is the unspeakable gift from God.  But it does have principles by which it is applied.  This does not suggest mercy is earned.  If it were, then it wouldn’t be mercy.  Mercy is granted because we cannot obtain it.  That is why it is mercy.  Yet, mercy must be according to the word of God.