What Happened To What You Were Against?

2 Chronicles 17:1 “And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead, and strengthened himself against Israel.”

2 Chronicles 18:1 “Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honour in abundance, and joined affinity with Ahab.”

Christian, what happened to your “stand”?

Christian, what happened to what you were against?

Today I have quoted from verse 1 of consecutive chapters in the book of 2 Chronicles… where we find out just how much of a difference a new chapter in your life can make!

In chapter 17 verse 1, king Jehoshaphat is against Israel, and in just the next chapter! he joins up with Israel through marrying into king Ahab of Israel’s family!

What a change a chapter made! What happened to his stand? What happened to what he was against?

And from his life to yours, dear Christian, what happened to your stand? What happened to what you were against?

… Maybe you began with simple faith that God’s word was truth, and right, and you trusted in Jesus to save you from your sins. Then you grew in that grace, and God delivered you from sins in your life, and you grew spiritually as Jesus taught you how to walk in the light acceptably before him… because you wanted to honour and glorify him, and see his mighty power in your life and extended to others also.

… but then that chapter ended… as did chapter 17 in the book of 2 Chronicles, a chapter in which we read all about how Jehoshaphat went about restoring the nation in righteousness according to God’s word.

…Just read chapter 17 for yourself! And you find Jehoshaphat did some really great things as the new king of Judah. He strengthened and reinforced what was right. He took away things higher than God in his life. He sent people with the book all through the country, he brought the Bible back to center of Jewish life. He returned the nation back to alignment in the details about what God said was the right thing to do, and got rid of what God said had to go. He was a great godly king. He knew God’s word was right and God’s ways worked… and they did and were doing so.

… so then what happened in chapter 18?

… well what’s happened in many many Christians today. Christians who used to be against everything God is against. Now they’ve got a “revised” position with their “revised” Bible and “revised” worship and order before God. Now instead of always being “against”… they’ve instead joined affinity with it all, and now they have more in common with the world than with Christ, now they’re more against the man of God than ungodliness!

God hasn’t evolved. Neither has truth. In Jeremiah 2, in God imploring his people to return to him he says “Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?”

… Christians who were once against sleeping around and sexual perversion, now it’s “as long as they love each other”. Christians who were once against alcohol, now it’s “Christian liberty and everything in moderation”. Christians who were against perverting God’s word, now it’s “a more accurate and relatable translation says”. Christians who were against worldliness, now they say “be like them, and be more appealing to win people to Christ”.

And this is barely scratching the surface. From women pastors to rock music posing as Christian worship to strange new doctrines found in the field and shred into young preachers meal, things have retreated significantly from where they used to, and still ought to be.

… But the thing is, this happened to a great king like Jehoshaphat, and if it could happen to him, it could happen to us don’t you think? This is why the Bible is written… to warn us, correct us, encourage us, liberate us! Jehoshaphat’s changing “stand” is a big warning to us today, because he went from strong in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ… to incredibly stupid, seduced into sin and nearly getting himself killed in the very next chapter! All because he stopped being against, and started working with people who he never should have got messed up with. But that’s what happens when rationalizing supersedes righteousness….

The word “righteousness” has become a dirty word in modern Christianity. But it should not be, because Jesus said “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

You should want to be right, I wouldn’t want to die not knowing I was right about the decisions I made. If John the Baptist had the sense to make doubly sure he had made the right move in life “behold the Lamb of God”, and there was no greater man born of women… shouldn’t you want to make sure you have got things right? Do you really want to go into eternity without being right?

But people seem to mix up Christ’s righteousness with self righteousness. Look, if you are self righteous, you need to stop it, because there’s nothing right about self. But if you obey God’s word, and hold to and do what God says is right, that’s a righteousness you, as Job did, should cling on to “My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go”. Don’t let some fruitcake looking to justify their evil by making you the bad guy talk you out of what God says is right “ For the word of the Lord is right; and all his works are done in truth.”

Look at king Jehoshaphat, he did RIGHT in standing against Israel. He knew they didn’t serve God. He knew they didn’t obey God. He knew they were bad news. He knew not to get tangled up and messed up with them. Not because he was self righteous, but because that was the right thing to do by God, by himself, and by his people. And God blessed him and his kingdom for it, read 2 Chronicles 17, they were going great!

But then something happened. Something changed between chapters… and he moved away from being “against” Israel. Maybe he got tired of the battle of being “against” everything and always being the bad guy. Why can’t you just get along Jehoshaphat? Why do you have to be so negative? Why so black and white? Why so definite?

But the thing is, if you want to follow Christ, that means you will be against anything that is not of God. It necessitates it!… when you forsake all to follow Christ, that’s you crossing the line “who is on the Lord’s side?” …read Psalm 1 for yourself… but before you begin, know this, that you are disqualified from all the verses in next 149 Psalms if you cannot handle the very first verse of Psalm 1… which starts with what you don’t do, what you’re against, what you don’t take part in!… as the source of the blessing! “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”

Pretty amazing that the man blessed God is first of all defined by what he is “not” and what is he “against” don’t you think?

And see, we know Jehoshaphat was doing this because in chapter 17, we are told “And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim;” See, and Psalm 1 is the first recorded Psalm, a book of which David is major contributor… it doesn’t get more first ways of his father David than Psalm 1:1!

And so today, I don’t say all this in the spirit of self righteousness or because I hate you. I have no one in mind as I write this nor do I hate you. I’d love to see you saved, serving God, strong in the faith, sealed to truth, making a difference as salt and light in a lost and dying world…

But God’s prophets were known by what they stood against, and every man of God worth his salt is known by what he is against “The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth”.

If you read on in 2 Chronicles 18, you see such a man of God tell Jehoshaphat God’s word, and though Jehoshaphat had stopped being “against” Ahab… the man of God hadnt! Thank God for men of God still standing for God’s word.

But because Jehoshaphat had now joined up with Ahab, affinity with Ahab in place of “against Israel” he now has begun what most professing Christians in this same position are doing today… they tune out God’s word from God’s messenger. If you are “turning off” and shutting out God’s word as a child of God, you are in a bad way. And it’s quite alarming how many Christians are so opposite to the word of the Lord they say they believe in and have obtained salvation from. What kind of salvation is one that has saved you from no sin, which has not turned your ear to your Shepherds voice? It really is nothing short of alarming.

Nowdays, there are many Christians growing up and through time who I knew or knew of… who are nothing like they were. And it’s not because God moved. It’s not because the Bible moved. They did. God hasn’t changed “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”… and “For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Look at that, double witness from God’s word… and thank God he doesn’t change or we would be goners!

And so to wrap this up, Christian, today, I ask you, not for my benefit, as I have to examine my own life, but how far have you moved? What changes did the turning of the chapter in your life bring?… yet God’s righteousness has not moved an inch. And “doing righteousness” is still one of the unmistakable birthmarks of the true children of God. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.”

May God grant us repentance where needed, and may we return to what is right “the first ways”, not what is popular, not what is accepted… what is right according to God’s word! And let’s be for what God is for, and against what God is against, because Jesus never wavered, so neither should we! Because that is what a true child of God does “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”

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