May I please God to bless us
together this morning as we meditate in His Holy Word. Let's turn
to the second book of the Chronicles, chapter 25, and we'll read verse
9. The second book of the Chronicles,
chapter 25, and reading verse 9. And Amaziah said to the man of
God, But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have
given to the army of Israel? And the man of God answered,
The Lord is able to give thee much more than this. We should be very thankful that
we have the Bible that gives us many very helpful illustrations
of the power and might of Almighty God and to be a follower of the
Lord God and not a follower of man. In this 25th chapter of
the 2nd Chronicles, which we read together, we see it's an
account really about Amaziah. Amaziah really was quite a sad
case. But nonetheless, we have in this
chapter the illustration of the power and might of God. And we
see that Amaziah was gathering together his army to fight the
Edomites. And he gathered 300,000 of his
own men, which was quite considerable. And then he considered clearly
that he wanted more. And he thought he needed another
100,000. So he went to Israel and he paid them 100 talents
that these men might come and be with them and fight for them. Well what we have to realise
is if we look to man for help then God does not get the honour
and glory and we should realise that naturally and also spiritually
God brings things into our life where God gets the honour and
the glory and so In this account, we see that there was a man of
God that was sent to speak to Amaziah. And he tells him, O
king, let not the army of Israel go with thee, for the Lord is
not with Israel to wit with all the children of Ephraim. He was
telling him that God wasn't with the Israelites. And so he said,
but if thou would go, do it. Be strong for the battle. God
shall make thee fall before the enemy. For God has power to help
and to cast down. And we should realize that, that
God is able and God does give power to help and also He gives
power to cast down. We must realise that we have
a great God to deal with, a holy God, a righteous God. Well, Amaziah
then answered the man of God, just in a very carnal way. What
does he say? He says, but what shall we do
for the hundred talents which I have given to the army? And
obviously a hundred talents was considerable value and he'd given
it to hire the hundred thousand soldiers from Israel and now
he was being told send these men back well obviously he couldn't
send them back and then ask for his money back so what he was
going to do is he's going to lose all that money all those
talents that he'd sent well the and he said the man of God answered
very simply, very concisely, very positively. The Lord is
able to give thee much more than this. And we note then that Amaziah
listened to what the man of God had said and separated them to
wit the army that was come to him out of Ephraim to go home
again. Wherefore their anger was greatly
kindled Against Judah and they returned home in great anger
well, we can understand can't we the natural bent of man to
do just that but nonetheless we see that Amaziah Was at fault
in looking to Israel to support him instead of coming to God
and we know that God is able to to do far more exceedingly
abundantly than we can ask or even think. And it's a lesson
really for all of us to realise naturally and also to realise
spiritually that God is able to be kind and gracious and merciful. And we are therefore not to look
to man really to help. We are to look to God. because God is able and God is
willing indeed to give so much more. Now the great benefit of
that is this. God then receives the honor and
glory. You see, if Judah had been able
to go to war with these Israelites, they would have probably, Amaziah
would probably have claimed glory himself, that it was his plan,
that he paid for these soldiers and therefore they got the victory
because of that. But you see, God will not allow
that. God will only get honour and
glory for himself. But we are told then about the
outcome of this situation. We're told, Amaziah strengthened
himself and led forth his people and went to the valley of Saul.
And smote of the children of Isaiah 10,000. Another 10,000
left them alive. The children of Judah carried
away captive and brought them unto the top of the rock and
cast them down from the top of the rock that they were broken
in pieces. So you see God granted them the
victory. they'd gone not in their strength
they'd really gone in the strength of the Lord and Amaziah had listened
to what the man of God said and was prepared to accept that advice
to realise the Lord is able to give thee much more than this
so it's an important lesson for us today these things are not
recorded just by chance just of interest they are recorded
for your and my instruction and it really directs us very simply
to this we are to be found looking to the Lord looking to the Lord
for help looking for the Lord that He will give us understanding
looking to the Lord that He will deliver us that he will appear
for us. And if you and I read through
the word of God, and as you well know, especially young people,
I do encourage you to read through the whole Bible and to not turn
away from the Old Testament because in the Old Testament, there are
so many wonderful accounts of God's amazing deliverance. I was reading earlier this morning,
I just can't remember exactly where it was. But it was about
the Lord appeared, and there was the army against God's people. And the Lord, one night, slew,
without any effort, from God's people, a hundred and eighty-five,
I think, a hundred and sixty, a hundred and eighty-five, a
hundred and eighty-five thousand, I think it was. They didn't have
to do anything. The Lord graciously and gloriously
appeared. And of course, we've got the
case of Jehoshaphat, again, when the Lord heard his prayer, when
he didn't know what to do. But what did he tell us? We know
not what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. And that's good
for us today, to remember such a wonderful example, to look
to the Lord, Eyes up to Him, that He will appear for us, that
He will direct us, that He will guide us. Because we have a God
who is infallible. We have a God who is able to
do far more, exceeding abundantly. Like we read here, He's able
to give thee much more than this. God is in control of every single
person in this whole world. He's in control of the minds
of every single person in this whole world. And we should recognise
therefore that man cannot do anything without God's permission. And that should be a wonderful
comfort to us and a strength to us as we live in this world
to realise we have a God, a mighty God, powerful God who is able
to do great things and may it be an encouragement to us to
realize that and not only of course is it so in our natural
life which it is and I could I won't but I could tell you
a number of cases in my life where God has wonderfully appeared
and it'd be good if God has done so in your lives and if he hasn't
and if you come into difficult situations, and you don't know
what to do. Remember, God is that one who
is able to do much more than you can even think about. But
he has told us he will be inquired of. You and I are to pray to
God that he will appear, that he will do great things. And we must always recognize
that when God does hear and answer prayer, that we must give Him
the honour and give Him the praise and thank Him for it. It's very
easy to pray to God, to get answers and forget to thank Him and to
forget to praise Him. We should bring everything to
God in prayer. We might think sometimes, well
that's just too small. Nothing is too great and nothing
is too small to bring before our God. It's a great blessing. It's a great blessing for all
of us, especially perhaps our young people, to realise that
we're never too young to pray to God. We're never too young
to ask for His help. Never too young. to commit our
way to Him. It may be natural things. You
may need your help in schoolwork. You may perhaps lose things and
you need help to find them. You know we live in a day, don't
we, where many things can very quickly go missing. We now easily,
we can mislay our mobile phones. But it's a great blessing, isn't
it? If we are able to pray to God
that he directs us to find these things and when we do we should
automatically thank God don't forget that because God does
deserve and God requires us to thank him for every favor and
every mercy. Well, God appeared, didn't he,
for Amaziah? We read together the rest of
that chapter, which wasn't so honoring, and we see how Amaziah
really turned away from God very sadly, and eventually, of course,
he escaped to Lachish, and he died there. It's a sad account,
really, but the illustration, nonetheless, is good for us to
realize May we have a God who hears and answers prayer and
a God who does appear and can do for us great things. And then we can think so much
of natural things and of course we live in a world where we have
to cope with natural things and natural difficulties and we should
always bring everything to God in prayer. That hymn says, isn't
it, take it to the Lord in prayer. It's a lovely, lovely hymn. And it's good for us to remember
that. And you young people, don't forget. to take it to the Lord
in prayer, from the small things to the great things. You always
need it in our lives. We need it in our life as we
grow up, for the help we need. We need it in our life with regard
to having husbands and wives provided. We need it in our life
for provision of places to live in. We need it for God to provide
us with work, We need it for God to provide us with help in
our work. We need it in God's to help us
day by day to live an upright and a godly life and to set a
good example in the world in which we live. Well, let us remember
these simple words. The Lord is able to give thee
much more than this. And what an encouragement that
should be. So as we go about, day by day,
to remember that we have a God who hasn't changed. He's exactly
the same as He was in that day of Amaziah. And we have two texts
which tell us that. I am the Lord, I change not.
Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed in Malachi. And
then in Hebrews, where we're told, I am the Lord, the same
yesterday, and today, and forever. Remember, therefore, that's the
God that you and I today are privileged and wonderfully favored
to be able to come to. and then don't forget when God
does hear and God does answer and he doesn't always answer
perhaps in the way that you and I expect we may come to God asking
for something and expecting God to say yes but sometimes God
answers no and perhaps we're not very happy with that but
we should recognize it is from God. If we've asked for God's
guidance, we've asked for God's direction and God does answer,
in the opposite way we should realise this, that all things
work together for good to those who love God and to those who
are called according to his purpose. The truth is God never makes
a mistake. You and I, in our lives, we make
many mistakes. Many mistakes because we should
think of that word. There is a way that seemeth right
to a man, but at the end they're off for the ways of death and
destruction. We're not to follow the way that
seems right. We are to follow the way that
is right. And as I've said, that way that
is right may not always be in accordance with what you and
I want, but it will be that way which will be good for us. And
again, to remember that when you pray and I pray, we should
always pray the Lord's will might be done. That's not always easy.
It's easy in theory, isn't it? But when we're faced with a situation,
it may be a big decision in our lives, and we pray to God. When we pray, we should always
pray for His will to be done. And Lord Jesus tells us, we are
to pray like that. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thine be done. The Savior set a glorious example
for us. And that's exactly how you and
I are to come. We may have plans, they may not
be in accordance with God's plans. God has a plan, which will be
right. And if we're His children, we'll
be of benefit and we'll be a blessing. So it's a wonderful mercy. to
come to God seeking for His help and seeking for His guidance
and seeking for Him, His direction. So here we have this man of God. He was sent, you see, by God
to Amaziah. We're not told his name, not
relevant. The man of God answered, the
Lord is able to give thee much more than this. Well, it's a
great blessing to have confidence in God who is able still today
we live many years don't we after this was written thousands of
years but since that occasion God has appeared on so many many
occasions to so many of his people to instruct them and to guide
them and to direct them and we should therefore recognize that
such a word such an account is recorded in the Word of God for
our encouragement for our direction, to realize that this is the path
that God will give us and direct us in. You see, Amaziah thought
he needed a lot more men. He thought he couldn't cope with
the few he'd got. Well, they got 300,000, but he
wanted more. And therefore he prepared to
pay for it. But it wasn't God's way. And
thankfully, he heeded the instruction that the man of God answered.
And again, it's good, you know, if you do heed instruction and
hear lessons, you come and you hear the Gospel preached. You come and hear the Gospel
preached and you hear the Word spoken. And it's not to say,
well, I don't believe that. I'm not going to follow that.
You come to hear God speaking because Those who faithfully
preach the Gospel are really no more than just God's mouthpiece. They shouldn't be giving their
own ideas. They should be speaking that
which God directs them in. And therefore if you come seeking
direction, and if the direction isn't quite what you want, you
shouldn't turn away from it and say well that's not right you
should follow God's Word follow His direction you won't be sorry
for doing that you will be sorry if you ignore it if you turn
in an opposite direction well the man of God answered the Lord
is able to give thee much more than this and then perhaps turning
just from the natural side turning to the spiritual side which in
essence of course is so vital and is so necessary and important
for us all. But we do know that God is the
ruler of the universe and he is the ruler of your life and
my life. We should recognise that we are
here on this earth to do God's will and to serve him. And we are to serve him. As you
know, I read yesterday, when we had our lunch yesterday afternoon,
I read that short account in Esther, where Mordecai spoke
to her very clearly and told her that perhaps she'd come to
the kingdom for such a time as this. And you see, exactly the
same in our little lives. You might think, well, that'll
never be my case. It may not be with the same magnitude. But just recognize that Lord
May has spoken to you and that he will direct and bless you
to do something on such an occasion and you're there for such a time
as this. God places us in the world. God places us in our workplace. God places us in our schools. He places us
in our colleges, in our universities. And it may be for such a time
as this. Esther was naturally really quite
petrified, wasn't she? And at first she said she wouldn't
do it. But then she was encouraged by Mordecai. And she went forward,
and with this confidence and willingness, and she said, and
if I perish, I perish. That is surely doing the will
of Almighty God. And God was able, and did help
her, and did grant that that which she feared never came to
pass. The king held out the golden
scepter and she was accepted and able to tell the situation
that had developed in her country. And so we should be very thankful
for such an account as that and realize that you and I live in
this world today for such a time as this. God's placed you in
a place for such a time as this and what a blessing it is if
we are aware of this great truth and realise that as Esther proved
the help and blessing of God often you see we fear things
which we needn't fear about You know, the devil will try and
put fear into your heart, saying, well, you can never do that,
you can never say that. Look what's going to happen to
you. It's the same here, wasn't it, really? The king thought,
what's going to happen? He hadn't got these men. And
also, what's he going to happen to all his money? Irrelevant. The Lord is able to give the
Much, much more than this. It's wonderful, isn't it? To
think that we have such a God. Well then, turning really to
the condition of our soul, we may think, oh well, God will
never look upon me. You may think I'm just too bad. You may think, well, I've just
wandered away too far from God. Well, let's remember that no
one wanders too far from God. Thankfully, we have wonderful
accounts. The Lord Jesus went after the
one sheep that had wandered away. He left the 99 and went after
the one. And then we remember the case
of the prodigal son. He left his father and his family
and he went off into the world. and he spent all his money in
riotous living thought he was having a good time but of course
he came to the time when we're told he began to be in want well
that was naturally but what a blessing it is when you and I come to
be in want spiritually we realise the emptiness of the things of
this world You see the devil would encourage us to enjoy the
things of time which perish with the using. He'd encourage us
to spend all our time and all our money on things which do
not profit. But what a blessing it is when
the Lord touches our heart and shows us the emptiness of the
things of time and brings us to realise the great truth that
Solomon speaks of in the Ecclesiastes all is vanity of vanity and vexation
of spirit sometimes we tend to ignore that and think it doesn't
apply to us somehow that we've got an escape route and we don't
have to listen to such words as that but they are true and
they're written for our instruction for our encouragement all says
Solomon not something all is vanity of vanity and vexation
of spirit don't forget that vexation of spirit what that means is
there's no real contentment it vexes us there's no contentment
but we're told on the other hand godliness with contentment is
great gain will be brought nothing into this world and it is certain
that we shall carry nothing out. No, we won't be able to take
anything with us. We'll die and everything will
be left behind. Everything. Our most precious
treasures we'll have to leave behind. That's why we are encouraged
to set our heart and our affections upon things above. and not on
things on the earth now what a blessing it is that we have
a God who is able to do this for us a God who is able to give us that desire after
spiritual blessings you know naturally speaking you and I
don't desire spiritual blessings you and I concentrate on the
things of time the things of this world but what a blessing
it is when God gives you and me a desire after spiritual things
I sometimes think of and I have said sometimes to you when I
was younger I remember very particularly a situation where I was in a
situation where I was considering the things of eternity and I
came to the conclusion that really I didn't want to die and go to
heaven. You might think, well that's
an amazing statement. Well, I recognised that heaven
was a holy place, heaven was a place where we worshipped and
really That wasn't my understanding of heaven. I wasn't very attracted
to it. And I didn't really want to,
therefore, go to heaven. And on the other hand, I definitely
didn't want to go to hell, which is a terrible place of darkness
and gnashing of teeth and eternal misery. I definitely didn't want
to go there. So I was really in no man's land. I was in the middle. So you might say, well, so what
did you do? Well, by the grace of God, at
that time I met somebody else who in actual fact was in exactly
the same position that I was. It's always encouraging to meet people who understand,
who are walking the same pathway. And what we concluded was this. We should pray for a desire for
heavenly things. Well, that's a wonderful favour. And that really
is the work of the Spirit of God to give us a desire to pray
for heavenly things. See, the truth of this word comes
home then, doesn't it? The Lord is able to give thee
much more than this. things of time perish, the things
of time of no value, the things of heaven are those that you
and I should be striving to obtain through the grace of God and
to have our hearts therefore and our affections set upon things
above and if God then gives you that concern and that desire. It's a wonderful blessing because
what it does, when the Lord answers that, He leads you into all truth
as it is in Jesus. He then leads you to see the
necessity of knowing and worshipping the ever-blessed Saviour, the
Lord Jesus Christ. perhaps at that time Jesus was
just a name just a name as he is to millions of people just
a name and if the Holy Spirit shows us our need of a Savior
and shows us Jesus is the Savior he is the one thing needful he
is the one who has gone before He is the one that has paid the
price to take away all my sins. Suddenly, the whole picture changes. And I believe it changes in this
way. When you and I are then directed to Calvary, because
there we see The Lord showing us great truth, showing that
he is the only one that can save our souls. And in order to do
that, he gave his life, his life, that you and I might receive
life. What an exchange, isn't it? It's
good sometimes to just think about it. The Lord Jesus Christ
took upon himself our sin. Our sin was placed upon him. It's a word which we use, imputed,
put upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And in exchange, he gave us his
righteousness. that glorious robe, that spotless
robe to cover our nakedness. What a wonderful saviour we have. It's good therefore to pray that
the Lord will give you a desire for spiritual things, give you
a desire for things of glory, to reveal yourself in some measure
as you are in the eyes of a holy God, and to shine to you the
glory of the Saviour now you see if God does that I can tell
you this it's much more than you can ask or think because
it establishes you in the truth of God put another
way your feet are on the rock, that
firm foundation which will never move, the Lord Jesus Christ. What a blessing it is then for
us to be found in that situation and to realise how good and kind
and gracious and merciful God is. What will that do? Well I'm
sure it will make you very thankful and it will give you that desire
to truly praise and honor and glorify your God. And you'll come to realize that
your life, and in my case, in my life, we're here on this earth
for the glory of God. Esther was on the earth to show
forth the glory of God. It's very humbling to think the
Lord takes unworthy sinners of the earth for his honour and
for his glory. But it is so. And it's a wonderful
privilege to think that you and I are sons and daughters of the
Most High God. And when the Lord demonstrates
to us his wonderful favour, his wonderful love, his wonderful
grace, Oh you see we're a different person. All things become new. He is able to give thee much more
than this. Oh the grace of God. It's so
extensive. So wonderful and so glorious.
So as we have an account like this before us this morning to
realize The relevance it has in two ways. It has relevance
to our natural life, and more importantly, it has
relevance to our spiritual life. And may we therefore have that
confidence in God. And remember that wonderful truth
that we read in Samuel, those that honour me, I will honour.
And those that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. And let's
realize that God in his amazing love that looked upon us from
eternity past and loved us with everlasting love and with loving
kindness has drawn us, put to mercy of his, drawn us to desire
to know God, a desire after heavenly things, a desire to know the
truth. It is the work of Almighty God.
And may we be able to rejoice and bless God this morning. And
be able to say, through personal testimony and experience, the
Lord is able to give thee much more than this. Amen.