2 CHRONICLES 18 (NOTES OF A READING)
2 CHRONICLES 18 (NOTES OF A READING)
Ques Is there not a drop down in this chapter in relation to this alliance with Ahab?
CAC Jehoshaphat evidently did not purge himself from vessels to dishonour.
Ques Would this chapter have just as much important teaching for us in remnant days as the previous chapter, I mean as a warning?
CAC I think it is just as important. It shows, I think, that we may go a long way in a right direction without really being in a state of heart that is pleasing to God. I have no doubt there are many like Jehoshaphat marked by personal piety and a measure of zeal in carrying on the work of the Lord, who do not preserve purity in their associations.
Ques Do you think this movement of Jehoshaphat with Ahab is traceable to a link formed in the past?
CAC Well, evidently, because it was years before he allowed his son to marry Ahab’s daughter, showing he had not been careful to maintain divine principles. It has always been a divine principle that a vessel to honour must purge himself from vessels to dishonour and be in separation. He allied himself first on social grounds by marriage and then he allied himself with Ahab’s project of going up to Ramoth-Gilead, and did not keep himself in holy separation; by force of circumstances he was carried much beyond what he intended to do, and in which he was far from comfortable. It is the position of thousands of saints today.
Rem In 2 Timothy we get “entanglement”; he was entangled.
CAC Yes, he formed a link, and having formed it, he had not power or moral courage to shake himself free from it, and that is often the case. People form links with those far below them spiritually and drift into a position where they are very unhappy but cannot get out of it. It is known very well that Ahab was the most wicked king that ever reigned in Israel; he was worse than all that preceded him, and he had come definitely under God’s judgment at this time for the murder of Naboth; and yet Jehoshaphat is quite ready to be on friendly terms with him and yet unhappy all the time. How many there are who recognise the evils of modernism and ritualism going on in christendom, and yet they go on with it, though they detest and abhor it in their inmost heart.
Rem Jehoshaphat could never have appreciated the rift God had brought in.
CAC Like many of us, his good nature, as it is called, overlooked all these things; no doubt he saw the position. We are all in danger of this; our desire to please people may lead us to sacrifice what is due to the Lord, and the more we go on on that line the more difficult it is to get out of it. He could not get out of it — only by witnessing the death of his friend.
Rem Yet God would keep His hand over him as we see in verse 31.
CAC It is a comfort that all the saints prove God’s help in spite of their wrong-doing, when they turn to Him. “Jehoshaphat cried out, and Jehovah helped him”. God’s wrath was over Jehoshaphat and yet He helped him.
Rem His army was useless.
CAC That is the way God had stripped him; he lost his men, and there was nothing but God for him. And many saints have to be so stripped and brought down, so that there is nothing for them but to cry to God. He is not comfortable at the first because he feels there should be some reference to God; it is his piety struggling against his good nature; we often see it going on. The associations of many are not adjusted by the light of what they know; and they detest what they are all the while linked with.
Rem “Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2: 19).
CAC That just touches the spot. Good nature is the most deadly enemy that the people of God have to contend with.
Rem I am sure that is true.
CAC I believe there are thousands of saints that would be in the testimony of the Lord, but for their good nature. I am positive of it. There is no spirituality in good human nature.
Rem We take people by the hand and seek to persuade them.
CAC If you take people by the hand, that would be to take them in the way you are going; that would be all right. Jehoshaphat had no confidence in these four hundred men. He has no confidence in any prophets Ahab would have about him; he wanted another. One prophet is enough; you do not want four hundred.
Rem Elijah is not mentioned.
CAC Elijah was for Israel. God was still working in Israel as He is in the christian profession today. Ahab was a worshipper of Baal, and married another. God has not altogether given up the christian profession, in spite of all its wickedness.
Rem “I am as thou, and my people as thy people”, Jehoshaphat said.
CAC And that is how it works if we do not separate from vessels to dishonour. We must at all costs separate from what is dishonouring to the Lord.
Rem In chapter 21:12 Elijah the prophet is mentioned.
CAC Elijah had gone to heaven and he had left a letter to be delivered on a certain date; he had been in heaven some time. God makes provision for every exigency. We have to learn today to distinguish between the prophets, four hundred against one, or one against four hundred. His good nature seems to be a constitutional defect with Jehoshaphat; but I believe he did in the end shake free. Kings tells us he overcame his constitutional defect; he was invited to join a certain enterprise and he would not. Some have more naturally kindly feelings than others and find it more difficult to shake themselves free.
Ques It is noticeable that nearly all these kings failed at the end. How are we to be preserved?
CAC All these examples are given to warn us. If there is any weakness in me that I have had the opportunity of mending for forty or fifty years and have not judged, it will come out in my old age, more pronounced. God orders it shall. It is a great warning to us, especially to those of us who are no longer young. There is a remarkable inside view afforded to us in this chapter into God’s secret arrangements.
Ques. What is it?
CAC The prophet was able to let out the secret of what was going on behind the scenes and it was such a remarkable disclosure that it should have made Jehoshaphat say at once, ‘Not another step on this road will I go’. It is remarkable that the Spirit of God should suggest to us the deliberation going on in the presence of God of what was to be brought about, that is, the execution of the judgment on Ahab. It is a question here of how the judgment passed was to be carried out. It was carried out by a spirit that proposed to be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets. The remarkable thing is that he is told about it.
Ques Would it be like the strong delusion that God sends in the last days that they should believe a lie?
CAC It corresponds with that; there is a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets, so that an apostate is destroyed. It is most remarkable that God’s prophet told them; it was not kept secret, but they were told what was going on. But in spite of it, Jehoshaphat and Ahab went on, they pursued their project.
Rem Jehoshaphat is mistaken for Ahab in verse 31.
CAC Jehoshaphat had evidently lost his military power by his unholy alliance with Ahab. I think that in the days that are past there have been men who have earnestly sought to establish the truth as far as they knew it. The early reformers and dissenters were pious and faithful men, but they lost all they had gained by their admission of worldly associations. In the last century there was a good deal of building of fortresses and military defences, but there was failure through not adopting unflinching separation from evil, so that one thing after another came in and the power was gone.
Ques Why did Micah say as the other prophets did?
CAC I think the tone of his voice indicated what he meant in a sort of sarcastic way, but Ahab discerned he did not really mean it.
Ques Do you think that the judgment of this character of good nature would bring in spirituality?
CAC There may be a great deal commendable about saints that still keep up their connection with vessels to dishonour.
Ques Would this be like Lot? What is the difference?
CAC It seems to me it was more a love of the world. When we feel uncomfortable among things, there is no security except by breaking the link; it is the only thing to save us. Ahab was not very comfortable either; he disguised himself, he did his best to avert the impending calamity. We do not find Jehoshaphat was killed. Jehovah delivered him from this unholy link with Ahab, by Ahab’s death, but He pronounced the solemn sentence upon him — the prophet met him in the next chapter and challenged him — “Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate Jehovah? Therefore is wrath upon thee from Jehovah”.
Rem Micah had to suffer; he was the second prophet to be put in prison (verse 26).
CAC What we find at the very end is that God calls His people to come out of Babylon (Revelation 18: 4). “And I heard another voice out of the heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye have not fellowship in her sins, and that ye do not receive of her plagues: for her sins have been heaped on one another up to the heaven, and God has remembered her unrighteousnesses”, showing that there are God’s people mixed up with the great idolatrous system of Babylon, and they are called to come out of her.
Rem It is remarkable that this is the last call God makes.
CAC So God is calling His people today out of all these unholy associations.
Rem “All indeed who desire to live piously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3: 12).
CAC Quite so. Jehoshaphat escaped the reproach that Micah had. Micah came into reproach under the presence of Ahab; Jehoshaphat came under reproach under the presence of God, which is very much worse. I have no doubt all this is given for instruction to the saints of the assembly; it brings out just those features that are to be avoided on the one hand, and those that are to be cultivated on the other. All that is written is instruction for the assembly.