CH 18{In the declining days of the house of David, as we see in 2 Chron., the spirit of God occasionally visits. The Lord sends His prophets, " rising up early and sending them; " and those Prophets warned, and threatened, and counseled, " till there was no remedy," and Judah went into captivity.
The like thing, to a certain measure, is seen in the history of the Ten Tribes, or in the kingdom of Israel, as the two Books of Kings show us. Prophets warned the people again and again, till Israel was carried into Assyria.
But these visits or energies of the Spirit in Israel, distinguished themselves, I judge, from what they were in Judah. They never, I believe it will be found, brought comfort or encouragement. For Israel, at the very outset, revolted from God as well as from David—and what the house of Jeroboam began, every other house that reigned in Israel, whether of Baasha, Omri, or Jehu, continued. And the Spirit seems always to act as a. stranger, when acting in Israel. Thus at the very beginning, the man of God, sent against tile altar at Bethel, was commanded not to eat or to drink, or to tarry, or even to return by the way that he went. And much in the same way was the young man, who was sent to anoint Jehu, instructed to carry himself: And Elijah and Elisha, raised up by the Spirit in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, appear as strangers there, all through their ministries. Their walk is desultory and informal. They own no house of God in the land-and each of them furnishes the Lord Jesus, in His teaching, in Luke 4, with instances of God going outside the bounds of the elect people. I mean when He alludes, as He does there, to the widow of Sarepta, and to Naaman, the Syrian.
In Judah, on the contrary, the Spirit was at home, and had various work to do. To the end of the declining days of Judah, the Lord recognizes his house among them (see 2 Chron. 36) And though His voice in His Prophets be generally that of warning and rebuke, yet still, at times, He counsels, and comforts, and encourages.
Thus, Rehoboam is warned not to go against the revolted Tribes, with the hope of bringing them back, because that revolt had been God's judgment on the house of David. This warning was, therefore, gracious counsel.
In the times of Jehoshaphat and Amaziah, the Spirit, in different Prophets, warned the kings of the house of Judah, to keep themselves from all alliance with the house of Israel. This was gracious.
Asa and Hezekiah, and the days of Joash, in the person of Jehoiada, witness how mightily and blessedly the Spirit could help Judah at times.
And there is a peculiar form and acting of the grace of God, by His Spirit, in the days of Josiah. The Book of God is found; and then the Spirit in Huldah, the Prophetess, interprets present things in the light of the Book.
Now, all this various energy of the Spirit of God, in the declining days of the kingdom of Judah, has a voice in our ears, in this our day. But among all these instances of the acting and energy of the Spirit then, our chapter (2 Chron. 18) affords us one of the most solemn and affecting.
The whole scene is very weighty and serious. The two spirits are there, the unclean spirit, and the Spirit of God, the spirit from the Lord, and the Spirit of the Lord.
The world, or the apostate, is there, in the person of Ahab.
The involved, defiled saint is there also, in the person of Jehoshaphat.
The separated man, the witness of Christ, is seen in Micaiah.
And, beside, we get the various fate, so to speak, or the history of the different actors, in this solemn scene; at the end of it all, the king of Judah, and the king of Israel.
The spirit of delusion, the unclean spirit, is here, doing the work of dementation in the apostate Ahab, ere his destruction comes-for his measure of iniquity was now full. But the Spirit of God is here also, in the Prophet Micaiah, faithful, and, therefore, grieved and suffering- grieved, doubtless, by the evil, impure connection between the saints and the world, which that moment exhibited Jehoshaphat sitting with Ahab; suffering, even to bonds and imprisonment as from the world, by the hand of Ahab.
Striking, indeed, are the energies which are seen at work here. The spirit of error encourages the king of Israel to go on with all his projects; for he promises him, that there is only victory and prosperity before him. Zedekiah, one of the false prophets, goes so far as to make horns of iron, symbols of the strength with which Ahab was to push his enemies, till he had destroyed them. Zedekiah did not take into account the moral condition of things at that moment with Ahab, and his kingdom. This was nothing to him. It can be nothing to a false Prophet. But Zedekiah says all he can, and does all he can, to urge Ahab on his way, and carry out all the purposes and expectations of his heart, assuring him of all the honor and wealth that would attend him.
And, surely, I may say, we see much of this same thing now a days. The moral state of the world, its character under God's eye, is not appreciated. It encourages itself to go forward. "Progress," is the writing on its standard now. "Excelsior," is its motto; higher and higher still in the attempts and attainments of human skill and capability. A rejected Lord is over-looked or forgotten. The blood of Jesus may have once stained the earth, but the earth is still fruitful. Man has departed from God, but he has skill and resources to build a city and a tower. If ever there was a time when man was encouraged to go on, it is the present. Character or condition before God is not estimated. These are days, when many a Zedekiah is making horns of iron; many a deceived heart, and practiced hand is prophesying and sketching the world's sure progress.
And much of the religion of the day speaks flattering words in the ear of the world, as to all this its purpose and its expectation, not knowing its character before God. But in Micaiah, the true language is heard-vessel of the Spirit of God as he was.
He lets the king of Israel know, that Ramoth-Gilead shall witness his fall, and the scattering of that flock, which he, as a shepherd in Israel, was now gathering there. He speaks not of progress and of triumph, but of judgment.
Surely this is a word for us. Christendom presents all this. This chapter is a fruitful witness of what is now around us in larger characters. A grieved, and, in some places, a suffering, faithful election-saints defiled by evil alliances-the world in its hopes and projects of growing importance-and an unclean false spirit encouraging the world, thoroughly careless or indifferent as to its character before God. Can we not read these things in this chapter, and can we not as clearly read them in the day through which we are passing?
And, let me observe, there is something of all this to be seen ire Luke 19.
The multitude are watching the Lord on his way to Jerusalem; and they think that the kingdom of God is immediately to appear. They judge that nothing is needed but a little "progress!' The Lord was on His way to the royal city; and He had but to reach it, as they seem to have imagined, and the glory would be there, and the day of the power of the kingdom. They did not weigh present things in Israel, in God's balances-they did not appreciate them in their relationship to Him, which is the real character of everything.
The parable of the nobleman who went into the far country, is there delivered by the Lord, to correct this thought of the multitude-and after a little while, He makes His formal entry into the city, but only to expose such a condition of things there, such a moral condition, as would surely hinder God from displaying His glory there; and Jesus, therefore, instead of letting the kingdom immediately appear, retires in judgment. For the glory must have a clean vessel.
This is full of meaning—and like our chapter, has a voice for this our day. For, if there be a warning needed by the present generation in Christendom, it is this -that things must be estimated in God's light, in the face of the great wide-world fact, that Jesus, God's Christ, has been rejected here. No other estimation is divine. But this generation are not carrying that secret with them—as the multitude, in Luke 19 did not consider the moral condition of Jerusalem then, but looked for an immediate kingdom; and, as the Prophets in Israel made promise to the king in Israel, of progress, and prosperity, and triumph, in spite of all the apostate condition of things then in Israel.
Let the saints of God remember, again, I would say, that the glory must have a clean vessel: The Spirit of burning and of judgment must do its work in the cloud by day, ere the shining of the flaming fire, by night, can rest on the dwellings and assemblies of Zion, as says the Prophet (Isa. 4:4,54When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning. 5And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence. (Isaiah 4:4‑5)). The angels of the Son of Man must take out of His kingdom all that 'offend and do iniquity, ere the righteous can shine forth in the kingdom, as the Lord of the Prophets Himself says (Matt. 13:41-4341The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 13:41‑43)).
And surely do the ministers of judgment find out the subject for judgment. At the end, Jehoshaphat is preserved, and Ahab falls—though all was tending to the contrary. Ahab had sheltered himself; and the word of the king of Syria had marked such a one as Jehoshaphat appeared to be, for the sword. But God was Judge. The issue of the day was in His hand; and the eagles that He sends out know whose the carcass is (Luke 17). "Where, Lord?" asked the wondering disciples. "Wheresoever the body is," said their Master, "thither will the eagles be gathered together." Again, I say, the ministers of judgment find out the subject for judgment. The Judge of all the earth will do right. The arrow of the Almighty will surely reach its mark, as it does here, and Ahab, the apostate, the representative of the revolted world, falls.