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CHAPTER 13

    DEGRADATION AMIDST ELEVATION

THE AUSTRALIAN PRESBYTERIAN BIBLE CHURCH  April 10 ..., 2016

CHRIST WITHOUT COMPROMISE,
THE BIBLE WITHOUT QUALIFICATION

DEGRADATION AMIDST ELEVATION
and ARISING FROM RUIN

Textual materials include: I Kings 18, II Chronicles 18:3;  19:1-3, followed by II Chronicles 20:35-37.

In these verses, there are represented three phases of the spiritual degradation of King Jehoshaphat. A reforming zealot in Judah, he yet was weak in ONE POINT - such as drinking or smoking might parallel today, the more obviously when it leads to a car accident or lung cancer; but it was greater in this, that it affected much more than one person.

In the first case, there is a near contrast. Take the famed Mt Carmel confrontation with idolatry in Israel, in some ways rather like a large scale map of an individual life, except that it does not have organic continuity of moral impact in the same way over time, nor the same guarantees of continuity.  For the nation, there was a clear case. God had caused rain to cease for some three years in Israel, used the prophet Elijah to superintend it at His word, and in the challenge from a furious king, when met towards the end of it, the prophet did not indulge in mini-pep-talks and maxi-compromise, such has been common in some recent denominations in our modern world. Instead, there was  uninhibited but ordered and effective confrontation in the word of God with power.

Let's go through a test of public kind, and show whose God is being rightly addressed, and who is but a name, was the gist of it. Rain  lacked ? good, pray for FIRE on unlit and water washed sacrifices. So prophet and harbourer of false prophets clashed, held a test and awaited the result.

The results were experimentally undeniable, almost comic, but for  hundreds of false prophets who participated, lethal according to the law in Israel. It was not a case of ONE showing the power of God, with no comparison of what the other could do, but one of competitive, comparative actions. In WHICH ONE would the nominated god or God, act, and in which such god not do so,  because it is hard to act when you are not in existence. Ahab, the idolatrous adventurer,  lost. His gods, do nothing, did not act, being absent. It is the same in creation talk now. One, God in the Bible, said this grand action of creation has stopped, It did so.  Naturalism with its evolutionism was left scurrying around trying to find how its imaginary processes would just STOP, and could not! But neither the logic nor the result is heeded.  They resembled the prophets of Baal. God stood and delivered. Their Baal of nature, did not!

CASE I

Our interest today is Jehoshaphat, a king in Judah from the 4th year of Ahab's reign in Israel. It comes at this point. Was not the humiliation of Israel's King Ahab at Mount Carmel sufficient, and the exhibition of God's intense interest in Israel's purity of heart, worship and life, adequate ? But Jehoshaphat in the time of this same King Ahab's reign, instead of abhorring any alliance with him, actually joined with him in a joint battle against enemies of Ahab. Indeed, there was even for the King of Judah, a matrimonial relationship with Ahab's idolatrous family (II Chronicles 18:1). Thus when his father in law asked familiarly for help in his battle, Jehoshaphat had the ecumenical disease, that is, stretching fellowship over idolatrous bounds, and earned the rebuke given by the prophet Jehu, son of Hanani, shown in II Chronicles 19:1, for they battled in alliance:

"Should you love the wicked and love those who hate the LORD.
Therefore the wrath of the LORD is upon you."

"Love" here implies subordinating your godly desires to their will.

After all, Jehoshaphat nearly lost his life in the battle for Ahab's wishes. Since however this same King of Judah had been such an active reformer, causing teaching and light to expand in Israel, there was the more patience with him. Now the point is this: King Jehoshaphat had been not only sharply rebuked by God for this temporary alliance with Ahab, but became in this matter, an object of His tempered but real wrath. This mismatch of the unmatched nations was an explicit and dangerously blind offence to the cause of the Lord, and to the truth of his mission in Israel.

Jehoshaphat's  score so far, in ecumania, a distillate of idolatry: 1-0: utter defeat.

CASE II

The second occasion of failure of Judah's King in this area, like a weak joint in the back, recurring in its pain, occurred as shown in II Chronicles 20:35-37. This time it was an economic and international trading matter of joint operations between Judah and Israel. It involved ship-building action, but the ships were wrecked, following a word against the work, by a prophet. Thus the  message is clear: do not engage matters of the Lord with His enemies,  idolaters; do not ally yourselves with such cross-purposes. Instead,  wake up and live (cf. Romans 16:17), and do not prostitute your ideals and morals and service to opposite alignments. Pay for your scruples, act on your principles, honour the Lord and do not seek to make money out of false alliances.

That was for the theocracy, and it is for its international parallel, the Christian Church. NO Church should make alliance even on physical grounds with the idolaters, for this then gives glory where it is not due, allows as it were, the Lord to SEE the enemy, when His heart is against it, because it corrupts, like tobacco smoking; and is alas a form of betrayal for a body in His name as such. It costs. If any country is Christian, then such matters relate to it. While currently no country is simply in fealty to Christ, some have huge backgrounds in Christian things, whilst  formally being unaligned democracies. You can of course have a Christ-tilted democracy, which will show restraint and caution. In a sense, it would be like having a partner, back in the day of Dunkirk, whose frigates would bomb the fishing boats because of a different operational system, and confusion, congestion or sly attempts to secure precedence. 

In general, the message is: Don't attempt any form of partnership with the workers of unbelief, disbelief and idolatry, with those who do not know the Lordship and salvation of Jesus Christ, since partnership involves joint direction finding and the directions are opposite in that case (as in II Corinthians 6:14). If you have opposite directions in mind at the final and top  level, then don't be partners in such a case. It is not only that it stresses the harness, but also the heart.

Score so far, in ecumania, a distillate of idolatry: 2-0.  King Jehoshaphat is failing doubly.

CASE III

Next came the case in II Kings 3, where the forbidden alliance was once again with the son of this same Ahab, Jehoram - Ahab himself being by then extinguished in the course of the battle in alliance with Jehoshaphat, whose own life was miraculously spared, while Ahab's was by the same overruling Providence of God, extinguished by an arrow. How ? it was sent at a venture,  with a statistical likelihood of reaching him, of near zero. But it both reached and killed him.

That was instructive! but what of this renewed alliance of Jehoshaphat with a different king, albeit a son of the other, immersed in the same idolatry as that of his father ? How did it start ? Having some trouble in receiving international tribute, Jehoram asked Jehoshaphat in a way that rather resembled that of his father earlier in Jehohaphat's career, Will you go with me ? Astonishingly immune to the impact of his rebuke from the prophet Jehu on the earlier occasion, when he similarly responded toJehoram's father and his own father-in-law, Ahab on a joint mission, one in which Judah's King was nearly killed, King Jehoshaphat acceded.

Not only so, for he spoke a principle which cut to the core of his folly.

"I am as you are," he said, in a display of EXPLICIT jointness of heart or purpose. This is like the earlier stages of ecumania in our modern world; and like it, it is progressive, like progressive drinking at a series of hotels. Take an example.

First the World Council of Churches looked as if it might relate to the Bible in an authentic move, then its move towards being a super-church or governor of churches, or criterion for unity developed until they found for themselves a Liberation Theology, a mixture of hollow sounding pseudo-Christian talk and revolution. Then they admitted Unitarian bodies to membership, so allowing denial of Christ's deity as a part of the type of unity involved in its affairs. It went on till it became a model for rebellion against the Bible, with a quivering tongue and a stuttering enunciation, as if to mask its divisive bent.

The only sound answer, whether for now or the day of Jehoshaphat, was just the same as it is. DO NOT START with ill-defined gabble, however ingenuous its authors, but keep to such a ringing realism that it must prove utterly offensive to all wolves, however dressed. Do not attempt to compromise or engage in clouded issues. Join where heart and tongue seem in accord not only with each other, but the Bible.

Do not let cunning slogans, like fundamentalism or orthodoxy or biblicism, mere distortions, affect you. Keep to the point, however pointed. Then you will not be disappointed; for after all, whatever the slanders, what does it matter which particular distortion enemies of the faith use ? If you believe God and not nothing created us, and that God and not man is the author of the Bible, the ONLY continually correct predicting book in the world over millenia, from the God who knows, what is that ?

As demonstrated on this Church's missionary site (http://webwitness.org.au), it is enough.  Are you to believe Him incompetent when His power drawfs man's, and logically created it WITH His given logic both in the creation to be found in laws, and in man's mind, to investigate the same, and see that it matches! Logic is neither a product of nothing nor a descendant of chaos. Does a common logic over all bespeak order or chaos, system or its absence, organisation or debacle ? If you wish to think, and usefully ascribe a causal basis to the universe, rather than sojourn in irrationality itself, and so have no power to argue, then it is necessary to note that picking what does not fit is not fitting.

There is no time for stretching agreement into contradiction for mere wilfulness; and it is not fundamentally honest in the end, to give non-reasons to account for events; rather it is indicative only of  a certain indulgence at work.

So Jehoshaphat, in line with  his weakness, en route to his third rebuff, joined with the idolatrous Jehoram, and went to seek the control of Moab so that the latter could collect his tribute. Soon in waterless environment and in deep difficulties, their invasion faltered and Jehoram felt they were about to be beaten by the enemy, in their distressed condition. They called Elisha, who in his rebuke, declared this of King Ahab:

"As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard
the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you or see you." 

The prophet then called for music, perhaps to still his shattered thoughts as he saw the foolish and repeated error of King Jehoshaphat, and gave a plan for the divine miracle that would deliver them. God DID deliver them, being merciful.

This is documented in II Kings 3:5ff., with special reference to II Kings 3:12-14.

In the ecumania score board, that was 3-0, three major failures for Jehoshaphat. In each case, the rebuke though different, was in the extreme direction. What did the prophet Elisha say when called to the threatening scene ? It was this. Except for you, Jehoshaphat, your divergent PARTNER would not even be SEEN by the prophet, would not be noticed or register, having no impact for good. It would be like a shriek in an overture of peace in music, in its score! 

An image ? The new Royal Adelaide Hospital is supposedly one of the most expensive buildings on earth in a State in profound debt. It caters for ever so much, though in the view of many protesting physicians and nursing workers, not wisely enough, being in the view of some, borne on the wings of imagination without enough expertise in the actual field of medicine to the extent needed for actual effectiveness and reasonable economy. Huge changes are being made in the entire hospital system in the State, to the concern or consternation of many. That is a parable, as well as a fact according to report on many sides.

Let us pursue the parable. There is no use in making changes to the faith as if there were no constraints, and popularity and assigned money and distortive vision were free.

As some  allege this state of health affairs can cost lives, so is it likewise in the spiritual field. The wisdom of God has sent prophets, said Christ, but they were not welcomed, yet in the end, their words were not suggestions but sovereign commands. Aborting the source of life and only way of salvation through the sacrifice of the Son of God, or treacherously commandeering His words, as if to make some of them hostages to follow, plays with life. But life is not for casinos, but Christ. Playing with its spiritual components, the word of God, is a path for torment, for truth does not alter. Change is needed (Psalm 55:19), but not in the word of God; rather it is in man, THROUGH IT, as in John 3. The godless do not change from their world-consignment, but distortion must change, ignorance retire, wisdom be embraced and regenerate hearts, better than any operating efforts, be found in the Saviour, Jesus Christ.

PART II

DEGENERATION AMIDST RESULTS!

In these ways, Jehoshaphat, zealous transformer and teacher, upright in general, soiled and partly spoiled his testimony and his leadership. It had results, it appears, on no small scale, apart from the rebukes he received. If Jehoshaphat, as the prophet declared, helped the wicked in his flawed conduct, descendants in a row seemed intent on a closer relationship with them yet, joining them in category as well!

First, consider his children. With perhaps some worldly wisdom, he had greatly enriched them, and one of them decided to kill the others, in order to reign alone, and for his trouble, was given by the Lord, through a prophet, the assurance that he would die slowly by a bowel disease. That was Jehoram, who received a letter of judgment through Elijah, as in II Chronicles 21:12ff..

Then came Ahaziah, grandson, the king who allied himself with King Jehoram of Israel, in what was now becoming a family failing. After this, Ahaziah in a fated prelude, went down to VISIT a wounded Jehoram in a salubrious area, which turned into a murder scene. Jehu, commissioned by God to deal with the idolatrously declining Judah, as Israel's coming King, killed both these Kings on the way to his own monarchy! One, Ahaziah found death in ignominious circumstances, his  bowels executing a slow departure till he died as predicted.

After this in the Judah royal-line, we find one Athaliah, who perceiving her son Ahaziah to be dead, attempted to kill all known suitors for kingship, and ruled herself, in her own name. However, one, Joash, was hidden from her and in due course, through help from the priests, became King, Athaliah being removed in her murderous rule.

Yet even this son, brought up with tenderness by the priest, Jehoiada, till he became King (at an early age), resisting after the death of Jehoiada, the ways in which he had been educated, filled the sea of events with blood. It was a particular one.

 When Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada sought to rebuke and restrain him in his now evil ways, King Joash not only resisted the son of his benefactor and protector, but caused him to be stoned to death! In due course, this murderous traitor, Joash of Judah, not only was caused to lose a battle against a small army with a larger army failing, but was killed in his bed by some of his own people!

Thus the weakness of an otherwise strong King Jehoshaphat appeared apt for far-reaching consequences, not least in the moral and  personal level, in false alliance moving to foolish depravity. 

GENTILE COPY-CATS, IMITATING,  BUT NOT WHERE IT
HELPS: LESSONS TO LEARN

Indeed, Jesus Christ mentioned this case of the murder of Zechariah in Matthew 23, and noted that the sins from that time were being inherited by Jerusalem in its fraudulent failures and parallel deeds. The Lord sent prophets and wise men, He declared, but did they LISTEN! THEREFORE results would be such that you had to listen!

So the  Gentiles came to replace the missionary and ministerial aspect in Israel until the providentially reserved time should come as in Romans 11:25, when they would realise that the death, not of Zechariah, but Jesus Christ was a thing to be repented of as in Zechariah 12, and REPENTED, returning to faith in Him whom they slew. Then, back in their place in a New Covenant, in due course, they would be grafted back into that tree from which they were taken: Israel the land, Jerusalem the city (as Christ foretold in Luke 21:24) and  the Lord their mentor and Governor. If they lost place because of lack of faith, like death, what but life from the dead would be their restoration, re-occupancy, as the negative process was reversed.

But in the meantime, the Gentile nations, as Christ predicted in Matthew 24 and  John in Revelation 19, would turn against the word of the Lord just as Israel had done before its devastation, and Christ did not even pray for this world (as in John 17), but for those who would believe and receive Him.

Thus the death cult noted by bin-Laden and practised by crazed religionists, being foretold in Revelation 6, is an omen in the Gentile world with its fantasies concerning creation, non-salvation and  gender, to take but a few. It is all  a part of what Christ specifically predicted: namely that the human  race would not be able to continue in this world, UNLESS He came back to it. The possibility of dirty nuclear bombs or active ones, an enormous power to  a besotted few, as they destroy the work of generations, are merely indicators of this fact. UNLESS the Lord is with you, there is no use seeking safety.

And His safety is not only for body, but for soul,  and not only for time, but for eternity, and He guards the spirits of His elect, so that even if murdered, it is not in vain, just as was the case with Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer, outstanding English clerics in the days of the reviving Roman Inquisition, in England. It is not comfort but mission for the sacrificial Christ which is sought by His people, and while they value life greatly, they do not value its betrayal to its  enemies, enemies of God, as were the false prophets in the day of Elijah.

Finally, there is a contrast. Just as this world's spiritual pathology leads to death, both in furious wars and spurious politics, as well as in curious religious beliefs as if force were a form of faith, so despite this world's dying splendour, the Gospel millenia, two just now passing to completion, lead as they have led, to life, eternal, vernal, victorious, guaranteed. It is both individual and in the kingdom of heaven, not only on earth but then in heaven. It is as if a husk being gone (debris burnt), the grain is stored forever, but also ... used in what it is for: LIFE.

 Just as you may be absorbed by what you foolishly partner, if not waiting on the Lord as His own, so you should be absorbed in contemplation of His will, work and ways, so that grand fiascos are avoided. Alas we can all fail in this or that or in this extent or in that, and in none of us is the warrant for satisfaction except for the grace and mercy of the Lord; but asking for calamity is a needless form of assurance, and a gross abuse of privilege. Let us then delight in the light (Luke 11:34-36, Psalm 43:3), and allowing for vagaries and errors, yet not coalesce with what fights with the word of God, as if belonging to God means you do not belong to His word.

And let no one disdain the summit of wisdom given to man in His word, any more than the Saviour from sin likewise given, for the result of that is everlasting contempt, as of what is abhorrent (Daniel 12). From that there is no escape, just as in the love of God (Colossians 1:19ff.), there is no need. God is a wonderful Creator, but impious desecration of His word and will circumvents the solace of His salvation, refusing the gift of His passion. Therefore let each one repent and live! (Proverbs 1). It is not God who would have you lost.