It’s easy to feel discouraged by the state of the church.
The state of our church: Why can’t we be bigger?
The state of the national church: Why are we such a laughing stock in the media, portrayed as out of date and in decline?
The state of the church around the world: Why are Christians in places like Iraq subjected to such horrendous persecution?
God knows how we feel, and he’s given us many passages in the Bible to encourage a despondent church. And 2 Chronicles chapter 17 is one of them.
Chronicles was written for the people of Israel in their flat period. The discouraging era.
In a nutshell, the history of Old Testament Israel went in three phases: Going well, going badly, going nowhere.
Things were going well during the reign of David and Solomon. Good kings who brought prosperity to the people. Things were going badly after that. Bad kings, who turned aside to other gods, until the whole nation was exiled to Babylon under God’s judgement. Then the people were allowed to return home, but things were going nowhere. Tiny numbers. No army. No king. No ark. Fragile walls around the city.
The people were trying to rebuild the kingdom. But it was a discouraging era. Flat. Despondent.
And during that period, Chronicles was written. It tells the people their history, the kingdom they’re trying to rebuild. It tells the people of the plans God has for the future.
And 2 Chronicles 17 is in there to encourage them. And to encourage us.
It’s a story from the going badly period. Bad kings, leading the nation astray. But there’s a shaft of light. Jehoshaphat. For the first half of his reign at least, things went very well indeed. He shows the people that they can know God’s blessing and security once again. And so can we.
We’re meant to learn from him. Be encouraged by him. So let’s look and see how greatly blessed he was. Then let’s look and see what it was he got right. And then let’s learn the lessons for our own day. How can we get things right? How can we know blessing and security from God again?
Blessed Jehoshaphat
Let’s start, then with blessed Jehoshaphat. Blessed Jehoshaphat.
It comes out in a number of ways.
First, he built fortifications. Verse 2: He stationed troops in all the fortified cities of Judah and put garrisons in Judah and in the towns of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured. The nation was secure against invasion.
Second, he built barns and silos. Verse 12: Jehoshaphat became more and more powerful; he built forts and store cities in Judah and had large supplies in the towns of Judah. The nation was secure against famine.
Third, he enjoyed the support of everyone. Verse 5: The Lord established the kingdom under his control; and all Judah brought gifts to Jehoshaphat. The key phrase there is “all Judah”. Few kings enjoyed having all their subjects loyal to them.
And fourth, he became very wealthy. Verse 5: All Judah brought gifts to Jehoshaphat, so that he had great wealth and honour.
And finally, he enjoyed international security. Verse 10: The fear of the Lord fell on all the kingdoms of the lands surrounding Judah so that they did not go to war against Jehoshaphat. Some Philistines brought Jehoshaphat gifts and silver as tribute, and the Arabs brought him flocks: seven thousand rams and seven thousand seven hundred goats.
In today’s terms, we’d say he built up the nation’s infrastructure. The HS2 rail line was completed. The road network was upgraded. Unemployment hit zero. The food supply chain was streamlined so that shelves were never empty, and food was affordable all year.
If any government did that today, we’d ask how they paid for it. It’s usually either paid for by debt or taxation. Borrow the money to pay for it. Or put up the tax rates so the people have to pay. Jehoshaphat did neither. There was no such thing as government borrowing. And he didn’t need to raise taxes. Instead the money just came rolling in. People trusted him, people admired him, so they gave him all he needed for his fantastic programme of improvements.
How the generation that wrote this would have loved for all that. Security against invasion, security against famine, total unity, unbelievable wealth, and the respect of the surrounding nations so they stop invading and start donating.
How we would love this. Not so much the political and financial prosperity – although we’d love that for sure. This is about the people of God being secure, knowing the blessing of God. How we’d love not to be a beleaguered, small church, in a nation where the church is looked down on.
Jehoshaphat’s a shaft of light. In the going nowhere period of Israel’s history, he shows that even when things were worse, when things were going badly, it is possible to know God’s blessing and the security that comes from that.
The question is: How? What did Jehoshaphat do right?
Bible-Loving Jehoshaphat
If you read this casually, you’d think it was his military skill that achieved such great prosperity. The chapter starts by telling us how he stationed his troops. The chapter ends with a count of his battalions – just over a million soldiers, which is a huge army!
But then look more closely. The soldiers in this chapter are never presented as the way he gained his security. They’re a consequence of it. Not only did he have the money to take care of city walls and food. He had the money to fund the biggest army ancient Israel ever had.
In our own day, the government is having to cut back on spending. And one thing to be cut back are the armed forces. Do we need to replace those aircraft carriers? Do we need so many regiments in the army? Big debates about how to spend a tight budget.
In Jehoshaphat’s day, there was enough money to grow the army. But they were not the cause of his success.
So what did he do right? We don’t have to guess. The narrator tells us. Verse 3:
The Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he followed the ways of his father David before him. He did not consult the Baals, but sought the God of his father and followed his commands rather than the practices of Israel. And verse 6: His heart was devoted to the ways of the Lord; furthermore, he removed the high places and the Asherah poles from Judah.
Why was he so prosperous? Because God was with him. It always helps if God’s on your side, after all!
Why was God on his side? Because he walked in God’s ways.
Notice the details.
First, he sought God. He sought out his advice, his opinion. He always asked the question: What will please God in this situation. It tells us that he prayed.
Second, verse 6: His heart was devoted to the ways of the Lord. He didn’t just go through the motions of living God’s way. If you peeled away the layers, like an onion, until you found the real him right in the middle – he was devoted to God the whole way through.
And furthermore, verse 6, he removed the high places and the Asherah poles from Judah. The Asherah poles were objects used to worship the female pagan goddess, Asherah. The high places were little sanctuaries that people had set up all over the countryside. They were to worship the one true God, but not to worship him in the place or in the way he said. Lots of other kings had got rid of pagan worship from Judah. Jehoshaphat was the first one to get rid of the high places too.
That’s what he did right. He wanted above all to live God’s way. It’s what he did – getting rid of worship that did not please God. It’s who he was to the core of his being. And it’s how he led the nation.
I read an article this week on body language. It was particularly looking at smiles. How can you tell if someone’s smile is sincere? Apparently there are all kinds of clues to tell a fake smile. Too many wrinkles on the forehead. Too many bottom teeth visible. Nothing like an article like that to make you self-conscious, I can tell you. Personally I think it’s far more important to be sincere yourself than to spend time trying to read the signs in others.
But the fact is, we’re none of us wholly sincere. At times, we’re fake smile Christians. We go to church. We help others. We read the Bible. We pray. But it’s just what we do. We’re not passionate for God and his ways, deep down. At other times, we’re good intention Christians. Full of happiness inside, but the smile never breaks out. We think God’s really important, but you’d never know it by what we do.
Jehoshaphat was sincere. His heart and his actions matched up. More than anything, he prized what God said.
Verses 7-8 list a whole load of people with long names. 5 officials. 9 Levites. 2 priests. They were given copies of the Bible – well, the bits of it that had been written by this point – and send on a tour of all the towns and cities. And they taught the people. It wasn’t just the king who needed to walk in God’s ways with all his heart. It was everyone.
The king loved God. He loved him in terms of who he is. He loved in terms of what he did. He wanted his people to love God. Here’s why he was blessed Jehoshaphat. He was Bible-loving Jehoshaphat. He was Bible-living Jehoshaphat. He was Bible-teaching Jehoshaphat.
Blessed and Bible-loving Jesus
The lessons for the first readers of Chronicles are pretty obvious. They can know God’s blessing again. Jehoshaphat shows them the way. Love the Bible. Have their leaders teach the Bible. Live the Bible.
But what about us?
Jehoshaphat anticipates another king who would come, who would be everything he stood for and so much more. Somewhere about 25 generations down from Jehoshaphat was Joseph, and he was the one who brought up a boy called Jesus.
Jesus loved and lived his Bible. He loved it more than the Bible-experts of his day, the Pharisees. He said that our righteousness had to exceed that of the Pharisees. They were experts at external observance. Jesus loved God from his heart.
He didn’t do a bad job at living it, either. At his arrest, Peter stepped forward, drew his sword, and cut off the high priest’s servant’s ear. And Jesus said this: Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?
Jesus went to his death willingly. He could have stopped the execution at any point. But he went through with it because he had read his Bible – the Old Testament half, obviously. If everything God had promised there was to come true, he had to die. He loved the Bible; he lived the Bible.
And he taught the Bible. On earth, he sent out 12 or 72 men to preach the good news. He then appointed 12 to be his special apostles. After Jesus went back to heaven, they carried on as his teachers. Jesus gave them the spirit so that they could teach about him accurately. And then today, Jesus does what Jehoshaphat did. He sends people to his church who can teach, people who can take what’s in the Bible, and pass it on.
Even more than they did with Jehoshaphat, we have a Bible-loving, Bible-living, Bible-teaching king.
Learn from him
So what do we learn from what did Jehoshaphat did right?
The original readers of Chronicles were too early to enjoy Jesus as their king. The best they could do was to learn from Jehoshaphat’s Bible-loving, Bible-living, Bible-teaching ways, and so find God’s blessing in a temporary way.
We can do so much better than they could. Everything Jehoshaphat anticipated is here. We can do what the first readers could not do – we can come to Jesus. And if we do, one day the kind of blessing and security these people enjoyed for a season will be ours forever.
But Jehoshaphat is also an example to us in how we should follow Jesus.
Like Jehoshaphat, we should read our Bibles, love our Bibles, live our Bibles, and make sure the Bible is taught. It’s why we have sermons. It’s why we meet in each other’s homes during the week to read and study the Bible. It’s why the Bible sets the agenda as we seek to pass the Christian faith onto our children.
But Bible study on its own isn’t enough. Jehoshaphat didn’t just study and teach the Bible. He shaped his life around what it said. He reformed the nation based on what he read.
The Bible points us to Jesus. He’s the one who can truly bring God’s blessing. The Bible needs to direct our hearts to Jesus. To love him more. To live in his ways. To shape our lives around what he says. To reform our church, to reform our nation, based on what we read there.
Conclusion
Jehoshaphat was meant to encourage the first readers of this chapter. In the doldrums, they could read of a king who brought God’s people back to a period of blessing, security and stability.
It wasn’t a neat recipe, but they were shown quite clearly how things turned up.
The whole Bible tells us of our king, the Lord Jesus, who truly brings God’s people back to blessing, security and stability. Jehoshaphat shows us how to respond to him. Love him. Live for him, as directed by his word. Teach others of him.