2 CHRONICLES 25 (NOTES OF A READING)
2 CHRONICLES 25 (NOTES OF A READING)
Ques Does the presence of prophets and men of God after the death of Jehoiada suggest there will always be an element that will stand for the testimony in spite of apostasy?
CAC Yes, the exceeding grace of God comes out in that; even when spiritual conditions are not present. God reserves the right to speak through prophets, though in a state of departure the prophets are not listened to.
Rem This is another example of the danger of having things right outwardly but weak inwardly. Amaziah had a very good start apparently.
CAC You are referring to what it says in verse 2: “He did what was right in the sight of Jehovah, yet not with a perfect heart”. I suppose the Lord so orders things that if the heart is not right the state is exposed. It reminds one of Ephesus; they did much that was right, but they had left their first love. “But I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love” (Revelation 2: 4).
Rem Outward conditions being in order is not enough.
CAC I think we saw that last week. Joash should have been anxious to take on the features seen in Jehoiada, and to possess them himself. We are preserved by going on with spiritual persons, but then we should be concerned to take on the features we have observed in them.
Rem The outward should be the reflection of the inward.
CAC Amaziah’s first failure seems to have been in bringing these “hundred thousand mighty men of valour out of Israel”. It was really a leaning on the arm of the flesh, and nothing and nobody can be of any help to us if the Lord is not with them, they are only weakness.
Ques What is in the suggestion, “Jehovah is not with Israel” (verse 7)? Do they represent an apostate condition?
CAC Yes, they had gone away from Jehovah and gone into idolatry; so there was a lack of spiritual sensitiveness with Amaziah to think that they could be any help to him.
Rem There is a commercial basis with it.
Ques Does that not come in when we are weak; we see it in christendom?
Ques There is one here standing for God and he is called “the man of God” (verse 9); is that why?
CAC I think it has been said that the title is only used when the general conditions are bad.
Rem Like Timothy.
Rem It seems as if affection will hold the saints.
CAC And if that is not so, there will be a leaning on the flesh in some form. Happily, the king was ready to accept correction in this first instance. This passage discredits any partnership in, or co-operation with, those who are not in line with the testimony. Amaziah is on the downward grade, because he would not listen to the prophet in verse 16. It would seem even his action in connection with Edom was not a spiritual action; he took an extreme course in taking ten thousand alive and casting them down from the cliff so that they were all broken in pieces, for if the Lord is not with us we may be extreme in our actions. We are never told that Amaziah sought God so he never had God with him in anything that he did, and he came under the power of those he had apparently overcome. Instead of overcoming the Edomites, the Edomites really overcame him for he adopted their idols.
Rem Knowledge of the Scriptures does not give us the things.
CAC No. Circumstances come along to expose where we really are. I think that is God’s way with all of us. If our hearts are not perfect with the Lord, circumstances come along to expose us; God allows it to be so.
Rem Amaziah was governed, as England too has been governed, by principles that are very largely of God, and I think God has recognised that.
CAC I think so.
Rem God gives Amaziah a chance of escape.
Rem When there is a chance to have things livingly we should take advantage of it.
Rem We will have grace and own it before God and get help.
CAC He gets more and more presumptuous and self-willed as time goes on, so that he is a serious warning to us.
Rem I suppose circumstances are a range of things always occurring in the individual path or in the path of the assembly. They are really tests as to whether we are going through them with God to an issue, or going to allow them to be an obstruction.
CAC So in this case the end was disastrous to the testimony, the wall of Jerusalem was broken down and the vessels carried off. He became more and more self-willed, and if we are not with God that will be the inevitable result. If God is not with us we shall find we have no power to escape from the flesh, it becomes dominant.
Rem But God was behind it all (verse 20).
Rem The hardness of his flesh came out in the question of what Amaziah did with these captives. If in a bad state of soul what marks us is hardness and harshness.
CAC If I discover an element of hardness or harshness in my heart I always feel it is a warning that God is not with me.
Rem Paul says to Timothy, “Be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2: 1).
CAC The apostle says to him, “The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you” (2 Timothy 4: 22). It is the last word. That is a matter that is never to be missing, I feel, and would preserve us from hardness and harshness and the self-confidence that marked Amaziah. If it were so we should be preserved from extremes and from getting lifted up and entertaining thoughts that are beyond the measure of what God has allotted to us; we should be sober and sensitive to the word.
Rem Because Amaziah had no feeling, he fell under the things that had no feeling. God takes him up on that ground and judges him for it.
CAC Every part of the chapter has the character of warning, and not a constructive character. In these kings principles are allowed to be developed to instruct us. We have to consider them carefully, they are the word of God to us.