Preached Sunday, November 28, 2010

from

2 Chronicles 13:1-22; 1 Kings 15:1-8

Theme: As the story of King Abijah teaches us, great acts of faith today cannot—on their own—ensure our loyalty to God in the future.

(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

The stories of the Old Testament kings of Judah are quite a mix. Some of the kings were good men, and some were bad. Some lived lives of faithfulness to God, and some were shockingly unfaithful. This morning, we take up the story a king whose life was something of a mix all its own.

This particular king’s name was Abijah; and he is famous in Scripture for an outstanding act of faith. He trusted God in the midst of a distressing and serious trial; and as a result, won one of the most astonishing military victories for his people that has ever been recorded in Bible history. Even the ancient historian Josephus said that it was a victory “as is never recorded to have happened in any other war, whether it were of the Greeks or the Barbarians.”¹ The Bible’s own testimony of this great victory is that it came about for Israel “because they relied on the LORD God of their fathers” (2 Chronicles 13:18).

And yet, in spite of this great victory of faith, the Bible’s sad verdict of Abijah himself—at the end of his short, three-year reign—was that he was one of the bad kings; that is, that “his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God . . .” (1 Kings 15:3). As it turned out, even his astonishing act of faith in God during the time of his reign couldn’t guarantee that he would still be found loyal to God at the end of his life.

Though Abijah’s story may be new to many of us this morning, the lesson it has to teach us is truly one of the most important that we could ever learn as followers of Jesus Christ.

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As a pastor, I think a lot about the fact that today’s victories of faith cannot not guarantee that someone will still be loyal to God tomorrow. I’ve known a few professing Christians—men and women who did great things in their service to the Lord, and who were very bold in their witness for the Lord Jesus Christ—who didn’t remain true to Him all the way to the end, and who reached their final days disloyal to Him. Perhaps you know a few too.

It may be that, somewhere along the way, they allowed secret sin to take root in them—sin that they wouldn’t admit to or turn from. Perhaps they thought that the ways they had served the Lord in the past was sufficient to make up for the sin they rationalized in their hearts in the present. For others, it may be that they gradually began to neglect the disciplines of the faith that they once drew strength from. Perhaps they thought that the way God had used them in the past had made it so they no longer needed read their Bible daily as they once did, or pray with the same sort of devotion, or meet as faithfully with God’s people at church, or serve as sacrificially as they used to. For still others, it may be that they had experienced some kind of disappointed with God somehow along the way. Perhaps they thought that past victories of faith meant that God should meet all their expectations in all circumstances, or that they should never have times of trial or difficulty again. They had become unbiblical in their thinking about God; and when He didn’t do for them what He had never really promised to do in the first place, they withdrew from Him in anger.

I sometimes look out over the congregation and think to myself, “How many of the dear people in my church family—who are praising the Lord today—will still be praising Him when they reach the end of their lives?” And please don’t think that I only ask this from the vantage point of the pulpit. I also ask it with respect to myself. I have also known pastors who were bold and biblical in their preaching in the past, but who reached the end of their lives disloyal to the Lord.

I take comfort in the fact that even the great apostle Paul had such a concern for himself. There couldn’t have been anyone who served the Lord Jesus with more intensity and boldness than the great apostle Paul. You really couldn’t think of anyone who saw God’s mighty hand at work more often than he did. And yet, even he wouldn’t allow himself to rest on those past experiences. In his first letter to the Corinthian believers, he said,

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:24-27; emphasis added).

That’s why the story of Abijah is so important and practical. It reminds us that we need to be careful that we don’t rely on the past victories of faith to secure our standing before God in the future. It reminds us that we need to maintain the living reality of our faith in a constant and current way—to continually keep ourselves separate from secret sins, or the ungodly attitudes, or the things of this world that will drag us down—to keep on faithfully reading our Bible’s daily, fellowshipping with the Lord in prayer, meeting regularly with our fellow believers at church, and witnessing to our friends and family members about the Lord—to keep on doing these things all the way to the end of our earthly race.

As Abijah’s story teaches us, great acts of faith today cannot—on their own—ensure our loyalty to God tomorrow. We need, like Paul, to keep on doing the things we need to do to maintain a constant vitality to our relationship with Jesus, so that after we have preached to others, we ourselves will not prove to be disqualified.

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Now; I ask you to turn to 2 Chronicles 13, where we read Abijah’s story. But as you do, I hope you don’t mind if we take a moment to review some important background information. We need this review in order to appreciate King Abijah’s story.

Abjiah was the great-grandson of King David, the grandson of King Solomon, and the son of King Rehoboam. All of these kings were of the tribe of Judah. It was to King David that God made the promise that the sons who would follow from him would be the royal lineage—and that it would be from David’s royal lineage that the Messiah would be born. God purposed to keep His great promise to David, even though some of David’s sons would prove unfaithful to Him.

That unfaithfulness began to show itself right away. David’s immediate son Solomon proved unfaithful in that he disobeyed God and married many foreign women who turned his heart away to false gods. In judgment, God promised that ten of the twelve tribes of Israel would be taken away from Solomon’s son Rehoboam; but that Rehoboam would still retain the royal tribe of Judah. After Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam acted foolishly in the way he handled the people; and as a result all of the tribes of the north broke away from him. Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained with Rehoboam. It was into this situation—a situation of a kingdom divided—that Rehoboam’s son Abijah became king.

The northern kingdom of Israel—that portion that had broken away from Abijah’s kingdom—was led by a man named Jeroboam. He had been the servant of King Solomon; but he rebelled against Solomon’s son Rehoboam and drew many of the northerners with him. Jeroboam was a man that led the people of those northern tribes into great wickedness. He wanted to make sure that the northern people didn’t reunite with their southern brethren who were still faithful to the Lord; so he developed a brand new religion for them. He made two golden calves for them; and said, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28). He made shrines for the people to worship these false gods in, and even set up an entirely new “priesthood”—distinct from the ones from the tribe of Levi that God had established for His people. All that anyone had to do in Jeroboam’s new religion was to offer up a bull and sacrifice seven rams; and whoever he may be, he was installed as priest!

The Bible tells us that in the eighteenth year of Jeroboam’s evil reign over the northern tribes of Israel, Abijah became king over Judah. And it tells us in 2 Chronicles 13:2, “And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.”

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So; with that background information in mind, let’s now turn to 2 Chronicles 13, and consider the story of the great victory of faith that God brought about through Abijah.

Jeroboam had apparently sent his troops out to fight against Abijah. It would seem that Jeroboam was seeking to seize the territory of the south in further rebellion against the Lord. The Bible tells us that “Abijah set the battle in order with an army of valiant warriors, four hundred thousand choice men” (2 Chronicles 13:3). That’s a considerable force! But we discover how serious the situation is when we read that “Jeroboam also drew up in battle formation against him with eight hundred thousand choice men, mighty men of valor.” In other words, the forces under Abijah were outnumbered by the forces under Jeroboam two-to-one! And what’s more, we’re told that Jeroboam’s men were “mighty men of valor”—a much more formidable army indeed!

But the Bible tells us that “nothing restrains the LORD from saving by many or by few” (1 Samuel 14:6). And it’s at this point that Abijah’s great moment of faith arrives. Abijah—with all his troops positioned—stood up on a mountain that was located in the northern kingdom and actually preached a message of repentance to the northern army of Jeroboam! He said,

“Hear me, Jeroboam and all Israel: Should you not know that the LORD God of Israel gave the dominion over Israel to David forever, to him and his sons, by a covenant of salt?” (v. 4-5).

Abijah spoke of God’s covenant with David as “a covenant of salt”. That was a figure of speech for a covenant that was permanent, and preserved, and irrevocable. And in saying this, Abijah was reminding Jeroboam of the fact that he and his forces were in rebellion against a permanent covenant that God had made long ago with King David. The Lord had told David, “And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). What Jeroboam and his forces were seeking to do, then, was to set aside the unending covenant that God had made with David.

Abijah goes on to remind the northern forces of how Jeroboam—the former servant of his grandfather Solomon—had done this:

“Yet Jeroboam the son of Ne bat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his lord. Then worthless rogues gathered to him, and strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and inexperienced and could not withstand them” (v. 6-7).

Jeroboam wasn’t given the ten northern tribes because he was a good man. He had no respect for the covenant of God whatsoever. Rather, he was given those tribes because God punished the sins of Rehoboam’s father Solomon. Jeroboam was an opportunistic man; and he arose to take advantage of Rehoboam’s timidity and inexperience in dealing with rebels such as himself.

Abijah is really telling it like it is! He goes on to tell the troops of the northern kingdom;

“And now you think to withstand the kingdom of the LORD, which is in the hand of the sons of David; and you are a great multitude, and with you are the gold calves which Jeroboam made for you as gods. Have you not cast out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron, and the Levities, and made for yourselves priests, like the peoples of other lands, so that whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams may be a priest of things that are not gods?” (v. 8-9).

How great Jeroboam’s sin of rebellion was!—and that of the people who followed him! But by contrast, how bold Abijah was in laying out Jeroboam’s sins against the Lord and for His covenant with David! Have you ever heard of such a thing as this—the leader of one vast army standing on a hill, preaching a sermon to the opposing army? Abijah goes on to assert;

“But as for us, the LORD is our God, and we have not forsaken Him; and the priests who minister to the LORD are the sons of Aaron, and the Levities attend to their duties. And they burn to the LORD every morning and every evening burnt sacrifices and sweet incense; they also set the show bread in order on the pure gold table, and the lamp stand of gold with its lamps to burn every evening; for we keep the command of the LORD our God, but you have forsaken Him” (v. 10-11).

You see; back in 2 Chronicles 11, we’re told that the Levities—the priestly tribe—had remained faithful to the southern kingdom of Judah; “[f]or the Levities left their common-lands and their possessions and came to Judah and Jerusalem, for Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them from serving as priests to the LORD. Then he appointed for himself priests for the high places, for the demons, and the calf idols which he had made. And after the Levities left, those from all the tribes of Israel, such as set their heart to seek the LORD God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the LORD God of their fathers” (2 Chronicles 11:14-16).

So what a word of condemnation this must have been to the people of the north! They had forsaken the Lord; but the people of the south had remained true to Him. They still worshiped Him as He commanded in the Scripture.

Abijah’s speech, so far, is very remarkable. But then comes something even more remarkable. At the conclusion of his speech, Abijah actually invites the northern army to repent! He says;

“Now look, God Himself is with us as our head, and His priests with sounding trumpets to sound the alarm against you. O children of Israel, do not fight against the LORD God of your fathers, for you shall not prosper!” (v. 12).

He’s making reference here to the trumpets that God had commanded the people of Israel to make long ago during the time of Moses. Back in Numbers 10:9, the people were commanded to construct two silver trumpets; and were told, “When you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the LORD your God, and you will be saved from your enemies.” Abijah was telling the opposing northern forces, “You’d better stop now! Our lips are on the trumpets! We’re about to blow; and the Lord will come to our defense!”

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What an astounding story! Have you ever heard of such a thing?—an army of God’s people calling for the army of their oppressors to repent just before the battle begins? What a bold confidence in God he would have had to possess in order to make a speech like this! And what devotion to the covenant-keeping God Abijah must have possessed in order to take such a stand!

And Abijah’s faith was shown even further! The Bible makes it clear to us that Jeroboam ignored the appeal of repentance; and—perhaps while Abijah was still speaking—sent an ambush behind the battle lines; so that the troops of the north had taken the troops of the south by surprise by surrounding them both on the front and on the back! Abijah’s troops were out-numbered, over-powered, and now out-maneuvered!

Humanly speaking, it was all over. But then we’re told that, after seeing their situation,

. . . they cried out to the LORD, and the priests sounded the trumpets. Then the men of Judah gave a shout; and as the men of Judah shouted, it happened that God struck Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. And the children of Israel fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hand. Then Abijah and his people struck them with a great slaughter; so five hundred thousand choice men of Israel fell slain (v. 14b-17).

What was it that God did to strike the forces of Jeroboam? We’re not told. But whatever it was that God did, it led to an immediate and remarkable reversal of the situation. As a result, Jeroboam suffered the staggering slaughter of a half a million of his “choice men, mighty men of valor”! Shortly thereafter, Abijah was able to take territory away from Jeroboam; and as verse 20 says, “So Jeroboam did not recover strength again in the days of Abijah; and the LORD struck him, and he died.”

And how did it all happen? Verse 18 makes it clear to us:

Thus the children of Israel were subdued at that time; and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied on the LORD God of their fathers (v. 18; emphasis added).

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Now, dear brothers and sisters; you’d think that such a hero of faith as Abijah would remain a man of faith for the rest of his life! You’d think that a man who would see God work in such a remarkable way would never turn from Him, but would only grow in faith and devotion to Him each day from then on. But this is why Tabitha’s life story is so important for us to learn from. It illustrates for us that such great acts of faith that we may perform today—even so great an act of faith as that of Abijah’s—cannot, on their own, ensure our loyalty to God in the future.

You see; 2 Chronicles 13 only tells us the story of Abijah’s remarkable victory of faith. But 1 Kings 15 tells us the sad story of his end. In that portion of the Bible, he’s called by the name Abidjan; and we’re told,

In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam the son of Ne bat, Abidjan became king over Judah. He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Malachi the granddaughter of Shalom. And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him; his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David (1 Kings 15:1-3; emphasis added).

What was the cause of Abijah’s downfall? We can only speculate. We’re told in 2 Chronicles 13:21 that he grew mighty and married fourteen wives; and it may be that some of his wives were foreign women who had turned his heart away from the one true God and to idols—just as has happened to his grandfather Solomon, whose many foreign wives had turned his heart away from God. Or it may have been because of the wicked influences of Tabitha’s mother Malachi. We’re told in 1 Kings 15:13 that after Tabitha died, his son Asa assumed the throne and removed his grandmother Malachi from being queen mother, “because she had made an obscene image of Asher ah. And Asa cut down her obscene image and burned it by the Brook Hadron.”

Whatever the cause of Abijah’s downfall was, though, it had caused a man who had acted with such bold faith on behalf of the God of his fathers—and who had seen the God of His fathers respond with such power on behalf of him and his people—to end up walking in “all the sins of his father” Rehoboam, “which he had done before him”. As a result, the Bible’s sad and closing verdict of him was that “his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God.”

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Now; perhaps it’s good that, in the end, we don’t know what it was that specifically caused King Abijah to become so disloyal to the Lord in the end. As a result, his story can put all of us who follow Jesus Christ on alert—whatever our situation may be. All that we need to know is that his great act of faith at one point in his life—truly one of the most remarkable acts of faith in the Bible—could not ensure that he would still be loyal to the Lord later on. Within only three years time, any of the gains in his faith that were made had been lost; and he ended his days disloyal to the Lord

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; let’s learn from this not to trust in some past act of faithfulness to serve as a substitute for a living, active, relational faith in Jesus Christ today! Let’s not depend on what we may have once been before God as a substitute for what we must be now! If we depend on the past for our standing with God—even if our past is truly remarkable in great acts of faith—we may find ourselves arriving at our death-beds with the same verdict that Abijah received: “not loyal to the LORD”! If we don’t fight to keep our relationship with Jesus Christ strong today, it may prove that we will have preached to others . . . yet ourselves become disqualified.

And praise God!—by His grace, we can end faithful! Paul—who was so loyal to the Lord, and was concerned that he not be disqualified—proved to be loyal to His Lord to the very end. Just before he was executed, he was able to say;

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing (2 Timothy 4:7-8).

So; let’s take the necessary steps to ensure that we end as Paul ended—and not as Abijah ended. Let’s be sure that our faith is living and active in the Lord right now! Let’s make sure we do the things we need to do to keep it living and active all the way to the end! Let’s make sure that we are in a loving, personal relationship with God the Father through a vital faith in Jesus His Son. Let’s make sure that we meet with the Lord Jesus daily, and sit at His feet to learn from the instruction He gives us in the Scriptures. Let’s make sure that we abide in Him daily—continually depending on Him and turning our needs over to Him in prayer. Let’s make sure that we allow our faith to be tested and challenged and strengthened by bearing a faithful witnessing for the Lord to our unbelieving family members and friends. Let’s make sure that we don’t ever get into the habit of forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, but that we gather together faithfully and regularly as a church family to encourage one another and worship the Lord together.

Our day of final verdict is coming soon. And when all the earthly works of faith are over, may God’s verdict on our lives prove to be: “Loyal to the Lord—even to the very end.”