Now, if you would turn with me
to 2 Chronicles chapter 13. 2 Chronicles chapter 13. In the 18th year of the reign
of Jeroboam, Abijah. In reality, that is probably
pronounced something like Abiyah. The name means My father is the
Lord, or Jehovah is my father. Abiyah, Abijah became king of
Judah. And he reigned in Jerusalem three
years. His mother's name was Meaca,
a daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. There was war between Abijah
and Jeroboam. Abijah went into battle with
a force of 400,000 able fighting men, and Jeroboam drew up a battle
line against him with 800,000 able troops. Abijah stood on
Mount Zimriah in the hill country of Ephraim, and he said, Jeroboam
and all of Israel, listen to me. Don't you know that the Lord,
the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David
and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt? Yet Jeroboam,
son of Nebat, an official of Solomon's, son of David, rebelled
against his master. Some worthless scoundrels gathered
around him and opposed Rehoboam, son of Solomon, when he was young
and indecisive and not strong enough to resist them. And now
you plan to resist the kingdom of the Lord, which is in the
hands of David's descendants. You are indeed a vast army and
have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made to be your
gods. But didn't you drive out the
priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and
make priests of your own as the peoples of other lands do? Whoever
comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams may
become a priest of what are not gods. As for us, Jehovah is our
God, and we have not forsaken him. The priests who serve Jehovah
are sons of Aaron, and the Levites assist them. Every morning and
evening they present burnt offerings and fragrant incense to the Lord. They set out the bread on the
ceremonially clean table and light the lamps on the gold lampstand
every evening. We are observing the requirements
of the Lord our God. but you have forsaken him. God is with us. He is our leader. His priests, with their trumpets,
will sound the battle cry against you. Men of Israel, do not fight
against the Lord, the God of your fathers, for you will not
succeed. Now Jeroboam had sent troops
around to the rear so that while he was in front of Judah, the
ambush was behind them. Judah turned and saw that they
were being attacked at both front and rear. Then they cried out
to the Lord. The priests blew their trumpets,
and the men of Judah raised the battle cry. At the sound of their
battle cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah
and Judah. The Israelites fled before God,
and God delivered them into their hands. Abijah and his men inflicted
heavy losses on them, so that there were 500,000 casualties
among Israel's able men. The men of Israel were subdued
on that occasion, and the men of Judah were victorious because
they relied on the Lord, the God of their fathers. Abijah
pursued Jeroboam and took from him the towns of Bethel, Joshanna,
and Ephron, with their surrounding villages. Jeroboam did not regain
power during the time of Abijah, and the Lord struck him down,
and he died. But Abijah grew in strength.
He married 14 wives and he had 22 sons and 16 daughters. The other events of Abijah's
reign, what he did and what he said are written in the annotations
of the prophet Ido. Now the history of Israel reads
like a soap opera. There are a lot of characters
and a lot of intertwining storylines, and sometimes it's hard to keep
track of all of them. But if we give ourselves to paying
attention, we will find some wonderful things about God and
the way he works among men in this world. Now, the scripture
that caught my eye and which will provide the central point
of what we say this morning is this one, Verse 18, the men of Israel were
subdued on that occasion, and the men of Judah were victorious
because they relied on Jehovah, the God of their fathers. Now
this story has some history behind it, which would be good for us
to know. We realize that David, the man after God's own heart,
ruled for 40 years over the house of Jacob, over the Israelites. And he mostly did that which
was pleasing in the eyes of the Lord, his king. He had some notable
failures, but that's pretty much like us, isn't it? But he was
known as one who served the Lord faithfully. And God had promised
to him to have one of his descendants sit upon the throne, and that
came about through his son Solomon. Now David had several wives and
probably some concubines to go along with it. That's not the
way God designed for things to be, but that's how it was. And
David had a lot of sons. He had sons which were born before
Solomon, but Solomon was the one of whom the Lord said, my
love will never depart from him. And so Solomon rose to be king
over all the twelve tribes of the house of Jacob. Now it's
remarkable that God says my love will never depart from him because
Solomon did many things which if God had been like us certainly
God would have removed his love from Solomon. Among the things
Solomon did was, I mean, his father may have had multiple
wives and concubines, but Solomon made his father look up like
a piker in these things, for Solomon had, if I recall, 300
wives and 700 concubines. Now, Benjamin, by the way, without
any consultation between us, he read about Solomon, and Solomon
prayed for wisdom, and God gave him wisdom, but it was obvious
Solomon didn't exercise much wisdom when it came to marriage.
Because one is all we're supposed to have, and he over, you know,
way overreached that boundary. But there was something even
worse about what Solomon did. And it's amazing that one given
such great wisdom as Solomon could fall to this particular
error. Having all these wives and concubines, he listened to
them, and when they would ask him to build a shrine to one
of their heathen gods, he did it. And therefore, idolatrous
shrines were built right there in Israel. Solomon, this man
whom the Lord said, I will make you wiser than anyone who's come
before you, and there won't be anyone who comes after you that's
any wiser than you. Yet in all of that wisdom, he
introduced a fatal flaw into the house of Israel. He brought
idolatry in. Now, it wasn't as though those
people weren't prone to idolatry anyway. They were. Solomon provided
them a means for doing it. Well, right there within the
household of Solomon, that is within his court, was a man named
Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. And Jeroboam rose up against
the household of Solomon. And a prophet came to this fellow
named Jeroboam, and this prophet had on a brand new coat. But
he took off this coat, or this cloak, and he tore it into twelve
pieces. And he handed ten of them to
this Jeroboam, son of Nebat, and he said, Thus saith the Lord,
I will give you ten of the tribes of Israel. I will rip them from
the house of Solomon and give them to you. But of course this
wasn't to happen yet. The Lord said, according to his
promise that his love would never depart from Solomon, he says,
I won't do this in Solomon's day. He said, I'll wait till
Solomon's gone, then I'll tear it from his household. And so
Jeroboam ran down to Egypt, probably for safety, because
if word got out what was on his heart and mind, He would have
been killed. So he runs down to Egypt to hide,
and he stays there until such time as news comes that Solomon
is dead, and then he goes back up to Israel. And with clever
words, he entices 10 of the tribes of Israel to follow him. Now,
Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, was the one who was going to
become king. And Rehoboam was not nearly so wise as his father,
and he did what really divided the kingdom. Solomon had inflicted
heavy taxes on the people because Solomon was engaged in huge building
projects. including building the temple,
building the city of Jerusalem, building his own palace. All
these things were expensive and he taxed the people heavily to
pay for them. And so after Solomon was gone,
the people gathered to Rehoboam and they said, now will you reduce
this burden upon us? And Rehoboam said, let me think
about it. And he spoke to the elders, and
the elders said, yes, you ought to reduce it. If you want their
heart, if you want them to follow you and love you, reduce this
burden on them. And then he went and talked to
the young men, and these were probably men of his own age,
who had been his friends growing up in the court, and had probably
done some battles with him and things like that. And he said,
what do you think? And they said, lay heavier burdens on them.
Take all you can. Well, you know which one Rehoboam
listened to. It's a shame that young people rarely ever listen
to old people. And I didn't do it very much
when I was young. And as much as I might hope that
some of you young people would listen to some of the wisdom
of the olders and take it to heart soon, you will probably
do like all the rest of us did, and you will go out and make
your own mistakes, and then you'll say, oh, that's what mom and
dad meant. My dad once said, good instruction
doesn't keep you from making mistakes, just hopefully good
instruction will make it so that you only make them once. and
then you'll learn from the instruction given to you. But Rehoboam didn't
listen, and he went back to those Israelites, and he says, no,
I will not reduce the taxes. In fact, he says, my little finger
will be like my father's waist. What do you mean by that, with
a little finger small? And he's saying that the taxes and the
burdens that my father laid upon you, well, my little finger will
be just as powerful as his whole body was. Well, you can imagine
the people didn't like that. It was easy for Jeroboam to entice
10 of the tribes to swear their allegiance to him, and thus the
land was fractured. Rehoboam sought to get the 10
tribes back, and God said, no, no. You just go back to Jerusalem. I give you Judah, the tribe of
Judah. He said, God said to him, I'll
give you one tribe. But the tribe of Benjamin is
completely encompassed in the tribe of Judah. So in giving
him Judah, he also had Benjamin. So the tribes of Judah and Benjamin
came a separate nation from the 10 tribes in the north. And this southern nation became
known simply as Judah. And the northern nation retained
the name Israel. Now Jeroboam went on and he built
two calves, that is golden calves, for the purpose of worship. Does
that sound familiar? Do you remember that when Moses
went up on the mount to get the law? While he was up there getting
the law, the people grew impatient and they said to Aaron, the high
priest, make us some gods. And so Aaron had them bring all
their gold together and out of gold he made them the likeness
of a calf and he said to them, Behold Israel, this is your God
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And they made,
what they said was, a feast to Jehovah. And they began to fall
down and worship before this golden calf. And they began to
add to it all the corrupt activities associated with pagan worship. And in doing so, they said, we're
worshiping Jehovah. Well, you know, Jeroboam did
exactly the same thing. He went up there and he said,
here are these two calves, and that's probably because the land
was large enough. He didn't figure he could get
them all to worship in one place, so he probably put calves in
two different locations. And you could go to whichever
one was according to your convenience. And there were priests chosen
by Jeroboam to oversee the worship of these golden calves. And I'm
sure, at least at the beginning, that Jeroboam said that this
is the way you worship Jehovah God. Because he did say, behold
the gods which brought you out of Egypt. And the people were
drawn into this idolatry. And in the same place, or at
the same time, they drove out those priests which had been
chosen by God. God chose the tribe of Levi to
be the tribe of priests, and out of that tribe, He chose the
household of Aaron and those descendants to serve as the high
priests within His tabernacle. Well, you know, you cannot bring
in false religion without driving out the true. And so Jeroboam
had all the priests of God, all the true priests of God, driven
out of those 10 tribes, and they went down south to Jerusalem,
and there they lived and carried on their work under, excuse me,
Rehoboam the king. Now, Rehoboam eventually died,
and in his place there was this king called Abijah. And Jeroboam
up north is still in power. And Jeroboam says, all right,
I've got these 10, I want the other two. And therefore with 800,000 men,
he marched against Judah. And Judah met them with 400,000
men. Who do you think is going to
win? Outnumbered two to one. Now I'll give Obijah credit. Whatever problems he may have
had, and in whatever ways he may have strayed from serving
the Lord with all his heart, on this day, He showed some remarkable
wisdom and the faith that goes with it. For anyone else not
possessed of that grace of faith would have looked at those 800,000
men and then looked at his own 400,000 men and would have said,
we've got to find a way to negotiate with these people. Because there's
no way that in the field of battle we are going to win. Now, who is this Abijah or Abiyah? Jehovah is my father. Well, we
know who fulfills that name. There is one who was born some
thousand years later who said, God, Jehovah is my father. And in his day there were people
like those of Jeroboam who'd made an idolatry out of the worship
of God. And they stood up against him
just as they stood up against the Abijah of this day. I'm talking about our Lord Jesus.
We pronounce it Jesus, it was Yahshua. Jehovah is salvation. Abiyah is known to us as Yahshua,
Jehovah, my salvation. And our Lord was a man of faith. You say, well, wait a minute.
Isn't He God? How can God have faith in God?
Well, that's part of the mystery of the incarnation. That is,
that's part of the mystery of God becoming man. He says, I
am God. He made that clear in all uncertain
terms. He declared himself to be the
great I am that spoke to Moses long ago. And yet, it says of him in the
book of Hebrews, quotes an Old Testament scripture and puts
those words in the mouth of the Lord Jesus, I will put my trust
in him. Even though the Lord Jesus Christ
is Jehovah God in human flesh, as a man, he was a believer in
Jehovah God and trusted his life, his soul, his destiny into the
hands of the one he said, who is my God and my father. Of all the things we may learn
from our Lord Jesus Christ, let us learn this, to trust God our
Father completely. That no matter how great the
difficulty that lays ahead of us, no matter how impossible it may
seem, that in the end we shall stand without sin in the sight
of God. No matter how great the enemies
led by Satan himself may seem to array themselves against us,
no matter how hopeless our case may appear, let us trust God
with all our hearts, completely, implicitly, explicitly. For our God is able, and they
who trust in Him will succeed no matter the odds stacked against
them. Let us, like the 400,000 in Jerusalem,
line up behind the heavenly Abijah and know this, so long as that
one is in front of us, no one shall ever get to us. Now this speech that Abijah gives
is remarkable in the way it expresses their reliance on God. Beginning in verse 4 it says,
Abijah stood on Mount Zemariam in the hill country of Ephraim
and said, Jeroboam and all of Israel, listen to me. The Lord
Jesus Christ stands in the face of this world. He came into this
world and he said, listen to me. I am God's appointed king. I am the leader of God's people.
So you need to listen to me, he says. Now I stand up here
week by week and I hope that while I'm preaching you give
some careful attention to what I say, but not because it's me
saying it. In fact, everything I say, compare
it to the scriptures which are open before you. and test my
words according to these words. But if what I speak is consistent
with what is written here, then it is as though the Lord is saying,
listen to me. When God's truth is spoken, God
is saying to all the world, you included, listen to me. Not me, Joe, me, the Lord. All my. When we turn a deaf ear
to the truth of God, we are turning a deaf ear to God himself. And that never works out well. Never. Listen to me. Don't you know that Jehovah,
the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David
and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt? Now a covenant
of salt was a binding covenant. And I suppose that salt being
a precious commodity at that time, I'm assuming this is the
significance of it, that when salt was given in suretyship
of a covenant, that it meant pretty solid covenant. But the
important stuff to note here is that the Lord, the God of
Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants. And that is true. except it is
more true in this, or its ultimate fulfillment lies in this, not
that it be given to his descendants, meaning plural, but rather it's
his seed, meaning one, the Lord Jesus Christ. The throne of God's
Israel belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many who would
like to take it. Satan himself would love to have
it. But of course, he shall never get it. But all of Satan's minions
upon the earth, well, they like to take it, or at least some
of the lesser thrones. You've got people that want to
take, you know, the authority of the world's powers to themselves.
You've got folks rising up, grasping after political power. You know,
it is a shameful thing when the people of God, the people who
claim to have confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ, think that
they can go to Washington and somehow or another grasp the
reins of powers there and by that benefit the kingdom of God. I want you to understand the
kingdom of God is a kingdom that exists over the whole universe.
The kingdom of God is ruled by the Lord Jesus Christ and it's
of little consequence whatever who happens to occupy the White
House or the Capitol or the Supreme Court or any of the other hundreds
of places of authority and power in this world. Every one of them
sits under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ They don't
get up in the morning unless He gives them breath to do so.
They lay down at night and rest in peace because God grants them
peace. He sets them up, He takes them down, He rules over them,
and never shall they be able to bring any real and lasting
harm to the people of God. We may have some concerns about
the way our life's gonna go, our day-to-day lives, depending
on who ends up in the White House or something. Yes, it could be
that we lose some freedoms that we cherish. It could be we gain
some, I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen,
but I know this, I know how it's gonna end. I know that everyone
who ever raised their fist in the face of God shall be put
down. And all God's people shall be
delivered safe and secure into the presence of God. Not one
of them shall be lost. This past week I went and watched
that movie called Sully. If you recall the story of that
jet that took off from LaGuardia Airport and it ran into some
birds and both jet engines were destroyed by those birds. And
so there they are, a jet 2,800 feet in the air and no power.
And he brought that jet down in the Hudson River. An amazing
feat in and of itself. But what was more amazing was,
and they made a special point of this, and I thought it was
so great a picture of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. That
captain, that pilot, he gets off the plane and the first thing
he says is, I want to count. He said there were 155 souls. Flight crew and passengers. There's
a hundred and fifty-five souls on that plane. I want to count
And they counted and a hundred and fifty-five souls came out
of that plane alive And I thought is that not like
our Lord Jesus Christ to his hands were committed a host which
no man can number and Not one of them shall be lost He shall
bring them through unimaginable troubles, and he shall bring every last
one of them home safely. Neither the crew, which really
just made up of him, nor any of the passengers shall be lost. He is the king And he's not only the king by
name, he's the king by right. He is the king with authority
and power to carry out his will. He has been given a job to do
by his father. He has not failed, he will not
fail. Yet Jeroboam, verse six, son
of Nebat, an official of Solomon, son of David, rebelled against
his master. Some worthless scoundrels gathered
around him and opposed Rehoboam, son of Solomon, when he was young
and indecisive and not strong enough to resist them. And then
this scripture here, which puts into perspective what it was
Jeroboam was really doing. You know, Jeroboam, all he was thinking was, I want
more. I want more. Have you ever noticed
that that's the essential cry of our heart, more? That's our
natural heart. It doesn't matter what we have,
we want more. God gave this man Jeroboam 10 of the 12 tribes
of Israel, just handed it to him. And he said, that's not enough.
I want it all. I want these two tribes that
the Lord said he was gonna leave as a lamp for David's household. In so doing, what was he really
doing? Abijah goes on to say in verse
eight, and now you plan to resist the kingdom of the Lord, which
is in the hands of David's seed, his descendants. You know, those who stand opposed
to the church, which is God's kingdom in this world. When they
stand opposed to his church by persecuting it, or by trying
to infect it with false doctrine. Whenever they are not satisfied
to have the kingdoms of this world, but want also this kingdom
that belongs to God. They have set themselves up as
the special enemies of God and set themselves up as the special
objects of His wrath. I must admit that most of my
reactions to what's going on in our political and social environment
are rather selfish, because I think in terms of what these godless
men and women may do to me, but we should, if we could, out of
a heart of love, realize and pity them for what they're doing
to themselves. For if they reach out to touch
the people of God, they have risen up against the kingdom
of God. And they have gained for themselves the wrath of a
king whose power they have no conception of. Those people that trouble the
people of God, are especially marked for destruction. The book
of Revelation declares that over and over. That He will avenge
upon them the blood of His people. I'm constantly surprised by that
aspect of the Lord's determination. I can easily understand why He
is jealous for the glory of His own name. I can understand why
He'd come into this world and execute judgment against it in
order to vindicate His claims over it. But to find out, as
we find out in the book of Revelation, that at least a great part of
his anger towards this world has been raised up in him because
of what this world did to his people. He has come to avenge
them and to vindicate them. Remember, I believe it was Smyrna,
though I can't, I'm not certain of it, but Smyrna, of whom the
Lord said that those who were persecuting them and troubling
them, He said, I will make those come and bow at your feet and
acknowledge that I have loved you. Jeroboam. had brought his 800,000
against the beloved of the Lord. Not a smart decision. Jeroboam went on, excuse me,
Abijah went on, you are indeed a vast army and have with you
the golden calves that Jeroboam made to be your gods. Such idols
have been made out of these things that they thought by bringing
their idols into battle that would help them out. How foolish
the conceptions of man when it comes to the power of God. That
somehow or another some golden calf could be sure to indicate
the presence and power of God. And if you just took this lucky
charm along with you, which is essentially all it was to them,
a religious lucky charm. Boy, with these calves in our
presence, how can anyone stand against us? Verse nine, but didn't you drive
out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites,
and make priests of your own as the peoples of other lands
do? Oh, what an accusation. All this time, I'm sure, as they
went and worshipped at those calves and carried out their
worship however it was, they did it. They were doing so with
the idea that they were worshipping the God of their fathers. And Abijah says, didn't you drive
out the priests of the Lord? How can it be that you're worshipping
the Lord if you have driven out the very ones that he assigned
to be your representatives in his presence? Didn't you make priests of your
own? Does that not define all false religion? That men tried
to devise their own way to God? You see, that's what the priest
was. Symbolically, he was the way to God. The Jews in those
times, if they wanted to get to God, so to speak, they went
to the priest with a sacrifice. And the priest would offer a
sacrifice in behalf of the person who brought the sacrifice. So priests are the representatives
of the people to God. Well, everybody wants to be their
own representative to God. Everybody wants to have their
own way to God. In the book of Isaiah chapter 53, when it describes
us and our wanderings and sinfulness, it says, all we like sheep have
gone astray, we have turned everyone to His own way. The Lord was not accusing the
Jews in that day in Isaiah 53. He was not saying it's as though
you're not trying to come to me. He said the problem is not
that you're not religious. He said the problem is you're
trying to get to me by your own way. Book of Proverbs says there is
a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is death. Virtually everyone in this world
is on a way that they think will lead them to eternal life. Almost all of them are on the
broad way that leads to destruction, not the narrow way that leads
to life. You kicked out the priests, and
people kick out the one priest which God has set over his household,
even Jesus Christ. How do we get to God? Our Lord
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And then
just in case anyone misunderstood his meaning, he went on to say,
no man comes to the Father except through me." There is only one door into the
Lord's favor, but it's a good door. It's a plenty big door. It's not even hard to open. But most people would rather
weary themselves trying to open a door that the Lord has locked
than to go through the door that stands wide open and guarantees
acceptance in the Lord's sight. He goes on to say there at the
end of verse nine, whoever comes to consecrate himself with a
young bull and seven rams may become a priest of what are not
gods. In other words, if somebody wanted
to be a priest up there in the 10 tribes, all they had to do
is show up with the right sacrifice that they required. Pay it, you're
a priest. Immediately made me think about
how many people have been put in what is called the ministry. And they're in the ministry simply
because they thought it would be a good idea. And they went
through the process that their religion said they should go
through. And having gone through it, somebody laid hands on them,
said, you're a preacher, and there they were. Now I realize that we who are
called to preach in this age are not priests. Not in that
sense. But there were several kinds
of priests, even in the old covenant days. There was the high priest
who offered the atoning sacrifice. He and he alone did that. But
there were a lot of lesser priests whose job was often to teach.
And in that sense, there were these fellas who would come and
all they had to do was go through this process of offering such
and such a sacrifice and suddenly somebody says, okay, you're a
priest, you can come work at the Temple of the Calves. Well, that didn't work out so
good. Anyone can become a priest, a
prophet, in the religion of that which is not a God. But only
those whom the Lord has ordained and called are able to minister
within the temple of God. Chief among them, of course,
is our Lord Jesus Christ, who is anointed to this work by the
Holy Spirit. It says he was given the Spirit
without measure. I'm given a measure of the Spirit
for your good. The Lord Jesus Christ had the
Spirit of God without limit. Verse 10, as for us, the Lord
is our God. The northern tribes would have
said the same thing, but it was a lie. The Lord is not your God
if you're falling down before calves in worship. And we have
not forsaken him. The priests who serve the Lord
are the sons of Aaron and the Levites assist them. Every morning
and evening they present burnt offerings and fragrant incense
to the Lord. What were these things? They were symbols of
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They would present those
blood sacrifices morning and evening, which showed us how
by the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ, our sins are
put away. They had offerings of incense,
fragrant offerings, which were offered up. And they demonstrated
the interceding work of Christ. You who believe the Lord Jesus
Christ, you who have trusted your soul to His care, do you
realize He's still laboring for you? He's still doing priestly
work for you? Yes, he made himself a sacrifice,
offered himself without spot to God, but you know what he's
doing now? A fragrant prayers before the Father. You say, oh, my sins, they feel
so awful to me and I feel like they'll bring me again into condemnation.
They can't. The Lord Jesus Christ is there.
He's making intercession for you even now. You say, well,
why do I need intercession now? I'm here worshiping. Your worship
needs some sacrifice for it. Your worship is not good enough
to come before God. Your worship can't atone for
your sin. Your worship is so full of sin that the Lord Jesus
Christ must first receive it and by His own blood purify it
and offer it to the Father in your Because if it didn't, the
Lord would kill us all for what we're doing this morning. These priests, they offered sacrifices
to indicate the blood offering of the Lord. They offered sacrifices
of incense to indicate his continual intercessory prayers in our behalf. They set out the bread on the
ceremonially clean table. And our Lord Jesus Christ continually
comes to us as the bread of life to sustain us day after day. How is it that you believe even
yet today? Having gone through so many troubles,
having come to so many times when you were ready to quit believing,
the bread of life has been daily laid out for you, even the Lord
Jesus Christ. and the light, the lamps on the
gold lamp stand every evening. There was a time when you first
heard the gospel, when the light first came to you, and it was
so unbelievably brilliant, but that's primarily because you
lived in darkness up till then. But why is it you still see the
light? Why is it you have not reverted
to darkness? Because The lamps are lit constantly
by our priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I can't get, obviously
can't get to everything that Abbi just said. But look at verse
12, God is with us. He is our leader. A promise was made to Isaiah
He says, this shall be a sign to you, a virgin shall conceive,
and she'll give birth to a son, and you shall call his name Immanuel,
which means God is with us. And who is that Immanuel? But
Jesus Christ, our God among us. God is with us, and you know
if God is with us, it doesn't matter who's against us. God is a majority all by himself.
And it was of no significance that Abijah was standing there
with only half the army that Jeroboam had. Abijah could have
stood there all by himself with the same result. Because it was
not the Israelites that won the battle that day, it was God. His priests with their trumpets
will sound the battle cry against you. Men of Israel, do not fight
against the Lord, the God of your fathers, for you will not
succeed. Have you enemies? I'm talking
about spiritual ones. I mean, in your mind, do you
perceive things which rise up against the certainty of your
salvation? Do you have enemies that seem
they would quell and completely drown out the testimony of God
that gives you joy? Fear not, they stand against
the Lord, they can't succeed. They may trouble you, they may
cause you fear, but they will never succeed.
Do your sins rise up as enemies against you? Oh, this is a tough
one, isn't it? It's in my nature to remember
my sins, and when I remember them, I mean my notable ones,
I realize I can't remember all of them. Remember those that
are most notable, and it's as though I've committed them all
over again. It affects me that way. But thanks be to God. If my sins
like zombies, it seems you can't kill them. The blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ is everlasting, everlastingly in the presence
of God. And those sins, though they would
seek to condemn me, they will not succeed. Verse 13, now Jeroboam
had sent troops around to the rear so that while he was in
front of Judah, the ambush was behind them. Judah turned and
saw that they were being attacked on both front and rear. So now not only are they outnumbered
two to one, but you might say there's an army equal to them
in size, two of them, one in front and one behind. How in
the world can you get out of a mess like that? Then they cried
out to the Lord. Unfortunately, it is not our
experience and it's only when we're in really serious trouble
that we cry out to the Lord. We need to learn to do that on
a regular basis. You know, we're never in any more trouble at
one time than another. It's just sometimes we see our
troubles more clearly and we cry out to the Lord. But let
us understand that every moment, every second of our lives is
preserved by God and God alone, that there are enemies to our
souls out there much more powerful than us, whether we detect their
presence or not. I love that hymn, I need thee
every hour. I love the hymn, I wish I felt
it more. I wish I believed it more. I wish I lived it better. They cried out to the Lord, whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Not might be, not stands a good
chance of. Shall be. Without fail. Why? because the Lord will not
fail. And I can tell you this, it has
nothing to do with how loud you cry, how purely you cry. The Lord can hear a whisper.
Yea, the Lord may hear a cry that you yourself can barely
hear. But whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. And I like this, it says, they
cried out to the Lord, the priests blew their trumpets. Now all
I can only remember, recall at the moment one time that the
priests were called on to blow their trumpets. Actually two
occasions, but they're very much the same. On the day of atonement,
they were to blow the horn and declare the remission of sins. on the year of Jubilee, once
every 50 years, the priests were to blow the sound of the Jubilee. And when that horn was blown,
everyone who had a debt was instantly freed of all their debts. Everyone
who had pawned off their property to get money got their property
back. Everyone who is held in slavery
to pay off debts they didn't have the money to pay were instantly
set free. Everybody went home and for a
solid year, no one was to do any work. What does these horns at the
trumpets blue, what does it mean? It's the declaration of the gospel.
It's the declaration of salvation by God's grace alone. I'm out
of time, brothers. I wish I could keep going, but
I'm going to have to wrap this up. This is so blessed, though,
but I tell you, where is our victory? Our victory is in the
truth of Christ and the grace that comes by Him. This is how
we meet the enemy, and the enemy cannot succeed in the face of
the truth of Christ. The priests blew their trumpets
and the men of Judah raised the battle cry. We hear the trumpet
sound of the grace of God in Christ. We hear the sound of
the Jubilee. And from our own lips comes the
battle cry, salvation is of the Lord. Goliath stood there And he showed
such content for this young shepherd boy that the Israelites had sent
out to do battle with him. And David says, you come to me
with your sword and your shield and the names of your gods. I
come to you in the name of the Lord. Guess who fell? Not David. At the sound of their battle
cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and
Judah. You notice this, it didn't say,
and when they drew their swords and slew them all, God gave them
victory. It says, just the battle cry,
that's all they did. Whatever their battle cry was,
they gave that shout. And 400,000 men making that shout
scared 800,000 other men so that they ran and fled. God routed Jeroboam and all of Israel before Abijah
and Judah. The Israelites fled before Judah
and God delivered them into their hands. Abijah and his men afflicted
heavy losses on them so that there were 500,000 casualties
among Israel's able men. The men of Israel were subdued
on that occasion. The men of the northern 10 tribes
and the men of Judah were victorious because they relied on the Lord.
the God of their fathers. Let us rely on him in all things,
but especially on this thing, the salvation of our souls. And
let us face every threat to that salvation in this confidence,
that when we cry out to the Lord, and the priests blow that trumpet
of forgiveness and atonement, and we give forth a battle cry
of the gospel and faith in Christ, there is no enemy that can stand
before us. And in time, we shall dwell with
that heavenly Abijah. Yea, we shall all be Abijahs. We shall all be able to say,
Jehovah is my father. For John said, beloved, now are
we the children of God. and it doth not yet appear what
we shall be. But we know this, when Christ
shall appear, we'll be like him, the Son of God. Heavenly Father,
bless us, bless this word, may it be effective in our hearts.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your Son. Lord, we are nothing. We're worse
than nothing. But your Son is everything. And
so long as he is our champion, no enemy can stand against us.
Lord, work these words in our heart. In Christ's name we pray,
amen.