Whenever we go to the waiting room of a doctor’s office or a shopping mall, our little daughter, Jerusha likes to say “hi” to everyone and very often the people will strike up a conversation with her in baby talk and they’ll ask us “what’s her name?”. So we’ll say, “Her name is Jerusha.” Usually they will make a face and reply “Where did you get a name like that?!” So, we tell them that it is from the Bible and that she was the mother of a king. We’ve told this to people who read the Bible fairly often explaining that its in an obscure portion of scripture so they won’t feel bad. To make matters worse there’s very little written about her son either. Her son was one of the good kings of Judah and yet very little is written about him. But we do have enough to know what his secret of success was and why God deemed this man a good king.
So we’re going to look at this secret of success and just a little bit later on we’ll see how this secret of success can help us in relieving one of the very destructive problems that we have.
The king’s name is Jotham and there are only 17 verses in the Bible about Jotham’s life. In fact they are in 2 places and many of them are repeats. Ten times more is written about Jehoshaphat and 15 times more is written about Hezekiah. In fact more is written about some of the bad kings like Ahab (11 times more written). Let’s look at one of the short accounts of Jotham’s life and see why he was judged good. Its found in II Chronicles 27:1-6.
“Jotham was twenty and five years old when he began to reign and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem and his mother’s name also was Jerushah the daughter of Zadok. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD according to all that his father Uzziah did: howbeit he entered not into the temple of the LORD. And the people did yet corruptly. He built the high gate of the house of the LORD, and on the wall of Ophel he built much. Moreover, he built cities in the mountains of Judah and in the forests he built castles and towers. He fought also with the king of the Ammonites, and prevailed against them. And the children of Ammon gave him the same year an 100 talents of silver and 10,000 measures of wheat, and 10,000 of barley. So much did the children of Ammon pay unto him, both the second year, and the third. So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the LORD his God.”
He Became Mighty
That was what he did. He prepared his ways before the LORD his God. And unlike other kings or other people who have good intentions to do something, Jotham acted and he became mighty. He was a man of preparation. So, preparation was his secret of success. There’s nothing really bold or revolutionary about preparation. In fact, there’s nothing really secret about preparation either. You can’t really call it a “secret” of success; everybody knows preparation is important. School and business certainly teach this. Before I went to college I took a course on how to study because I was uneasy whether I’d make it through or not. The main point of the course was that “there’s no substitution for daily preparation.” This was harped into us in every session. The large company I worked for spent loads of money preparing us. We took trips to this factory and that factory to prepare us. They spent a lot of money on it because they knew it was important. And I think this has a lot to do why there’s not a whole lot said about Jotham. A person who’s prepared would make a very poor script for a movie or a novel because when a challenge comes their way they can handle it with no problem . . . they weather life’s problems very well. So there’s not a whole lot you need to say about a man who’s prepared.
His Problems Controlled Him
Take the case of Ahab, who was one of the most obnoxious kings in the Bible . . . he commands 11 times more verses than Jotham but most of this is his problems which he was reacting to. A problem hits him and he’s totally unprepared for it. His problems were controlling him. Even a good king like Asa. . . more is written on him because in the latter part of his life he made a league with Syria when there was a threatening army coming at him. He wasn’t prepared to let God defend his nation. So what can we say about a person who is prepared? Let’s look at Romans 2:7 because it says all we need to say about a prepared person.
“To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life.”
Now that we have seen the example of Jotham, is there a way that we can look at ourselves and see if we’re prepared or not? Is there some gauge or test we can make to see if we’re prepared. Let’s look at another example of a prepared man to find this gauge. The man’s name is Daniel and I think this account will tell us what it is like to be prepared, and give us an example that we can look at our own lives with. We look at Daniel chapter 6 for this story. We are all familiar with Daniel and the Lion’s Den. In verse 3 we see that Daniel was preferred above the other rulers because he had an excellent spirit. Knowing this, his rivals devised an evil plan to destroy this man and get him off their ladder to success. So, they made a law that anyone who made a petition to any other than the king would be thrown into the lion’s den. No doubt, if you were Daniel you would know this was a threat to your life. It would be certain death to you to have this law made because you would know that you couldn’t serve your God in the way that you should and stay alive. So Daniel knew that this was going to be certain death for him. The question I’d like to ask is “What did Daniel do different in the face of this danger?” How did he change, now that his death certificate was practically written for him?” The answer is that he did absolutely nothing different! Absolutely nothing different in the face of this danger. Verse 10 shows us what Daniel did.
“Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”
He Did What He Always Did
This is the point. He just did what he always did before, even in the face of danger. This is the way that a prepared person is. When dangers or troubles hit us, we don’t need to change because we’re ready for them. What’s the use of reacting? We’ve already committed our lives and this is the way we want to be . . . prepared for anything . . . to trust in God. So Daniel was prepared to trust in God no matter what came his way in good times or bad times. We can tell if we’re prepared in the same way, by how we react to problems. Are we ready for them? Do we have to change our life drastically when something bad happens to us ? . . . or do we just continue life as is?
I’d like to use our imaginations now to help get more specific with regards to your life. Maybe it will help us shed some light on how prepared we are. Try to let your imagination run loose in these two scenes I’ll describe for you and try to listen to your feelings.
Thirty Days To Live
First, imagine you had a pain in your chest . . . you went to your doctor . . . he made some tests and found that you had 30 days to live. You were terminally ill. Putting yourself in this situation, would you pray more during those days? Would your prayers be more fervent than before ?
Let’s try the second one which is completely different. Imagine that you heard on the radio or through the news media that Russia had just swept through Iran and Turkey and was preparing to invade the Middle East. In this situation would you make sure to attend meeting? Bible class ? or Evening Lecture ? Would you make an extra special effort to do your Bible readings, taking the time to gain the true sense of each portion of Scripture ?
You see, with these two situations, if you didn’t need to change, then its showing that you’re prepared . . . able to live life as before because you were ready. But if you did feel that you might react some to these situations then you can’t say the same thing that was said about Daniel . . . that he did “as he did afore-time.”
We Let Things Go
I think what happens when we react, we are reacting with a common fallacy that’s been taught to us all our lives. This fallacy is that you can wait until the last minute and somehow you can make things happen right. Somehow everything will work out okay. We let things go right to the deadline, then push everything together and somehow everything falls into place and turns out happy . . . a last minute syndrome. Let’s examine this fallacy because its deeply ingrained into us in our society. First, the word “prepare” is totally against this idea. The “pre” means we have to do it beforehand. We don’t wait until everything is on us then suddenly try to handle the situation. Secondly, remember the parable of the ten virgins. Five of them had oil in their lamps and five of them held this fallacy in their minds that when he comes we’ll quick go to the store and fix everything up at the last minute. Remember that this fallacy did not work for those five virgins because they were left out. It didn’t work. God is showing us that he won’t baby us. He won’t let us wait until the last minute and then try to pull things together. Our parents unfortunately have helped to teach us this fallacy. They’ve given us some chores to do and for some reason we didn’t get around to them so they say “Okay do them first thing in the morning.” They are teachings us we can get away with it. Our teachers have taught us the same kind of thing too. When we have a report to turn in and we’ve been sick the past few days . . . they may say “Okay, I’ll give you another couple of days.” Our employers have taught us in the same way by letting us miss deadlines without consequence. You see, we’ve been taught this and unfortunately it sometimes works in our natural life, but it won’t work with God. God expects us to be prepared beforehand and if we prepare our ways before our God we will be ready for whatever happens.
A Side Benefit
Now, besides just being prepared, I mentioned earlier that there’s a side benefit to preparing. Turn back to Daniel chapter 6 and lets look at this side benefit of being prepared. What was Daniel’s attitude toward his problem ? We’ve already seen that Daniel just went on as usual. It didn’t seem to change his life at all. But let’s look at the attitude of the King who had allowed this law. See Daniel 6:18.
“Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of music brought before Him, and his sleep went from him.”
Now if you asked me to describe this situation I’d say that it was a classic case of worry. The king was worried. He couldn’t sleep and didn’t want anyone to bother him. He wouldn’t let the musicians come by but fasted and tossed and turned all night. You’d think that if anyone should have been worried in this situation it would have been Daniel, not the King. Daniel’s life was being threatened not the King’s. Why should he be worried?
Worry Destroys
Worry is a very destructive problem that we have. It creates health problems and as in the King’s case makes it hard to sleep. But worst of all, it can erode our spiritual life. Brothers and Sisters, we of all people are the only ones who have no need to worry. But the world is doomed to worry because they cannot prepare their lives like we can. I’d like to explain this with an example. Lets say we want to go on a road trip in our car. So, to be prudent, the people in the world would make sure their car was in top condition and ready for the trip so there wouldn’t be any problems. Then they plan their trip so they drive at times when they’re most alert. They wouldn’t want to drive all night long. In case there’s some bad weather ahead they plan alternative routes. So there’s no need to worry because they’ve prudently planned their trip. Unfortunately that’s not right. There are things you can still worry about. You could have a bad accident. Somebody could plough right into the side of you without you having a chance to see him. You could be driving on a narrow mountain road and a landslide could bury you. You could stop at a rest stop and somebody could stick you up and take your car and money. So there are many things you can worry about that are beyond your control and that’s why the world is doomed to worry. They don’t have that extra ingredient to keep them from worry and that is trust in God. That was the ingredient that Daniel had. That’s why he didn’t toss and turn all night long. He trusted that God would look after him for his good.
We Are In God’s Hands
That’s the way we are when we plan a safe trip too. We plan all the same things the people in the world do, but we put the rest in God’s hands, that he will take care of us for our own good.
So if we are prone to worry we should look at ourselves right now. Are we worried because we are not prepared for Christ’s return? Then, as in the parable of the virgins, the time to buy oil for our lamps is right now, and not at the last minute. Are we worried about little things that confront us in life, like making ends meet in this inflationary economy; like bad health which might come upon us; or our children’s safety. Then we should trust in God. These things are out of our control. We should know that God will do what’s best for us. In fact, our worries should be danger signals to us and we should try to get rid of them and prepare our ways before our God.
Let us review how we get rid of worries. We’ve heard these answers many times before. Philippians 4:6-7 tells us the way to get rid of worries.
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
As you know, the words “be careful for nothing” would be better translated in the 20th century, “Don’t worry over anything.” But its not just saying, “Don’t worry.” It tells us what to do instead of worrying and that is in every thing to give prayer and supplication.
So we all know that its true that prayer is the way to get rid of worries but what I’d like to emphasize is let’s pray sooner rather than later when our problems build up. To illustrate this: just recently we’ve had problems with mud slides from the rains in our area. If we lived near the foothills and it started raining really hard we might just slightly worry that this could turn out to cause some damage. But we won’t do anything about it, we’ll just have that gnawing feeling in the middle of our bodies. The rain then keeps coming and coming and soon we see some of the houses up the street are getting washed with mud. At this point we might start to get a little more worried . . . but still we just hold it in. Then the rain really comes down hard and all the houses around are being threatened with mud and all are being evacuated. By now its gotten so bad that we get on our knees and pray that God would help and do what’s best for us and give us the strength to handle this situation.
Pray First
The point is that we know prayer is the answer but let’s start earlier than when all the houses around us are filled with mud. Let’s start when the first worry pops into our head. We could save ourselves so much grief if we’d started in the beginning to trust in God. But unfortunately we wait until it comes to such a terrible situation that the only thing we can do is pray. So every time a worry pops into our head it should be a signal to us to bow in prayer and put it into God’s hands.
David did this same thing. Psalm 51:10 says “Create in me a clean heart . . .” This would be a heart that’s free from worldly worries. Then it continues “. . . and renew a right spirit within me.” In the same breath he prays for a right spirit also. The word “right” is the exact same word in the Hebrew as “prepare” that was used for Jotham. He is also praying for a prepared spirit. So, David in a sense is praying to be prepared and to be worry-free. Both of these require prayer to have. It takes prayer to be prepared and it takes prayer to be worry-free. Therefore the root of Jotham’s success and David’s success and Daniel’s success was prayer. Prayer was their secret of success. A little jingle that might help you to remember this is: It takes prayer to prepare. The point of all this is we need to pray to be prepared and this must be why Jotham was said to have prepared his ways before God.
We know the life of Jesus was completely prepared before his God and is a perfect example for us. Because he was prepared and lived his life in perfect obedience we have a wonderful opportunity to have hope. A verse that is rarely used in Christadelphian circles but is really a wonderful exhortation is found in John 14:1-3.
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
It is so comforting to know that as we’re preparing and struggling to make our lives right before God that our Lord Jesus Christ is at this very same time preparing for us places in His Kingdom.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One