GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
2 CHRONICLES 25:7-12
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7 But a man of God came to him and said, “O king, do not let the army of Israel go with you, for the LORD is not with Israel; he is not with any of these Ephraimites. 8 Even if you go and do this thing, and you are strong in battle, God will bring about your downfall before the enemy, for God has power to help or to overthrow.” 9 Amaziah said to the man of God, “Then what shall I do about the hundred talents that I have given to the army of Israel?” The man of God answered, “The LORD is able to give you much more than that.” 10 So Amaziah discharged the army that had come to him from Ephraim. He sent them home again, but they became very angry with Judah, and returned home burning with anger. 11 But Amaziah took courage, and led out his people. He entered the Valley of Salt, and struck down ten thousand men of Seir. 12 The men of Judah captured another ten thousand men alive. They took them to the top of Sela, and threw them down from the top of Sela. And all of them were dashed to pieces.
Amaziah’s plan was to attack with mercenaries from Israel, but a prophet warned him against this attack. The Lord was not with Israel; if Judah allied herself with the Lord’s enemies, any attack would fail. The prophet’s words, “God has power to help or to overthrow” is well worth remembering.
Amaziah wasn’t opposed to sending away the Israelites, but he wanted to know about the money. Hiring the men of Ephraim had cost him a hundred talents of silver. The prophet’s answer was also worth our remembering: “The Lord is able to give you much more than that.” These words apply to anything we can imagine losing in this life. Consider, for example, the losses of the patriarch Job. He lost his possessions, his health, and all ten of his children. But when he persevered in his faith, the Lord restored his earthly fortune and actually doubled it, restored his health, and then he did something that gets past some readers. Not only did God give Job ten additional children, but he permitted Job, who was a faithful believer, to be united with all twenty of his children in heaven forever. “The Lord is able to give you much more than that,” indeed.
When the Ephraimites were discharged and sent home, they complained, and they even “burned with anger.” This didn’t stop Amaziah or make him change his mind. It happens all the time today in our orthodox churches when we practice correct church fellowship. We do not offer the hand of fellowship with those who reject the doctrines of Scripture; with those who clearly and by their own admission teach differently than we do. The angered visitor who insists that our doctrine of fellowship is wrong has by definition placed himself or herself outside of our fellowship. Why would they insist on joining with us when they disagree so vehemently with us? Send them away angry if you must, just as Amaziah did.
It also happens when we show from Scripture that the church must not become subject to human authority. The church cannot call on a civil government to assist in the work of the church. As Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom if from another place” (John 18:36). And Paul says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5). If the church submitted to human authority, it would be a sin. “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men” (1 Corinthians 7:23). And therefore even if the state were to make overtures to the church to help our ministry in some way, we would have to refuse. And equally, we must not beg the state for help, or submit to any government about the proclamation of the gospel. Peter and John said together, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God” (Acts 4:19). Reformed Christians have demonstrated in our current political arena that they believe that the kingdom of God should be realized on earth through the means of our government; that they can essentially shoe-horn unbelievers into looking moral and acting moral by legislating them into the guise of what they think a Christian should look like and act like. It is the worst form of bullying, and it is condemned by God. “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29), especially when those men, or women, are working outside of the means of grace. Send them away angry, if you must, just as Amaziah did. If you lose their support in some way, do not forget: “The Lord is able to give you much more.”
After this, Amaziah led out his little army against the warriors of Edom. They captured a cliffside fortress called Sela, which is also described in Isaiah 16:1 and in Obadiah 1:3 (“cliffs”). It is not the same as the Nabatean stone-city of Petra, although they are sometimes confused with one another. Amaziah killed ten thousand in the battle and then killed another ten thousand by throwing them from the clifftop. There is no question but that this was a different time, a bloody and cruel time. It was a time when no prison could ever have held so many, and retribution by escaping warriors would have meant the destruction of equally as many or more people of Judah, including of course Amaziah himself. The Lord destroyed them by Amaziah’s hand.
Applying this bloody scene to our own lives reminds us that God was using Amaziah to carry out his will in the world. “God has power to help or to overthrow.” What role do you have in God’s kingdom? It might be extraordinary or it might seem quite ordinary. But what is ordinary to one person can be extraordinary to another. Consider doing something as ordinary as being a paraprofessional at a school– what in my mother’s time was called being a teacher’s aid. This often thankless and too often ignored work can mean all the world to a single child. Make all the difference. Who will that child be in the future? Do you feel that you have missed something, lost something, forgotten something, by serving your Savior? You have not. Not at all. “The Lord is able to give you much more.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 2 Chronicles 25:7-12 The Lord is able to give