In Our Meditation on II Chronicles this month, men of God focus our attention on three divine principles.
- If we fight against the Lord we will not succeed
Abijah’s words on Mount Zemaraim would seem to state the obvious. But to Jeroboam and “the worthless scoundrels” who supported him it was far from obvious. They had established a religious denomination or “fellowship” which was the result of division among God’s people. Furthermore, they had a big plan for advancing its interests. Unfortunately, it was based upon’ pride, discord, self-interest, and numerical superiority, not truth and the “requirements of the LORD God”. So it became, in consequence and in reality, a “a plan to resist the kingdom of the LORD”. By so doing, they had “forsaken the LORD”. So their plan came to naught, as it always will.
Numerically, Jeroboam’s schismatic “fellowship” was twice the size of Abijah’s, but “it did not succeed”. Abijah called out, “All Israel, listen tome!” But as so often, Jeroboam’s faction refused to do so, and two-thirds of them perished.
From my own experience I know it is very easy for brethren to be like Jeroboam and provoke a war of words to justify separation and promote their private faction, often based on some notion, dogma or practice which God has never required for salvation. So we must continually ask ourselves: are our plans and schemes really advancing God’s kingdom or only our own interests?
The prophet Azariah Ben-Oded also said, “Listen to me!” And he gives us our second divine principle:
- The LORD is with us when we are with Him.
He also gave a consequence of this: if we seek the LORD, He will be found by us. Ben-Oded’s words are quoted by our Lord Jesus, “Seek and you will find”. Solomon expands on the idea in Proverbs 2. Those who seek for the truth “as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure” will find it. This is a very comforting promise, and personally I have found this divine principle to have been true in the lives of many brethren and sisters who are close to me.
The Chronicler himself includes a very important word: “They sought God eagerly, and He was found by them”. I do think that this “eagerness” is a part of real conversion. There are some stubborn, brave men in Guyana called porknockers (I am not sure if I have spelt it right). They spend their whole lives in the wilderness, sieving mountains of sand in a search for a few grains of gold dust. They endure incredible hardships in their search for hidden treasure. A few people are porknockers for truth.
Hanani the seer gives us our third divine principle.
- The eyes ofthe LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.
For me, there are two wonderful things here. Firstly, God is not snooping on us. His searching vision has a purpose — to observe our commitment, to watch over our safety, and to strengthen our resolve. Once I rode an XPT (high speed train) in Australia for 700 miles, and then found out it had no driver (engineer). But the conductor consoled me, “Don’t worry. You are quite safe. There’s a man in a control tower at Broadmeadow (300 miles away) who monitors all the XPTs wherever they are”.
The second wonderful thing is that God’s vision extends throughout the earth. I am content that He sees my daughter on the other side of the earth with the same loving gaze as He sees me. I remember my late father commenting that if tens of millions all over the earth can watch a man walk on the moon on television, then everything about us is seen by God Almighty. It is really amazing how many of us hide parts of our lives from our brethren and sisters and even from our closest family (sometimes only until we are exposed!), stupidly oblivious of the uncomfortable fact that God sees everything.
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