IT would have been of no avail for Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, or Josiah during their respective reigns, and in the days of Israel's and Judah's revival history, to have aimed at Solomon's glory for themselves, or for the union of Beauty and Bands in the hand of Jehovah, as regards the nation. Any such attempt would have been only a further proof of inability to recognize their proper places before God, and would, in fact, have been an impeachment of His righteous government, which had inflicted these outward judgments upon Israel and the kings, on account of their disobedience.
A very different path and a far happier one was opened to their faith, and this they followed. They counted upon Jehovah to come down in grace to him that was humble and of a contrite spirit, and who trembled at His word.
Jehoshaphat was publicly chastened and taught on the battle field of Ramoth-Gilead that his affinity with Ahab was weakness and wickedness before God, whatever it might appear to be in the eyes of the gathered hosts: so God broke it up.
It is well to note the difference in all respects between Jehoshaphat's disgrace at Ramoth-Gilead, in the midst of the four hundred prophets of Ahab, who cried " Go up" (how like to the multitudinous guides of modern Christendom), and the honor which God put upon him when the hosts of the Ammonites and the Moabites, etc.,. came against him to battle at Hazazon Tamar. He takes in hand other weapons of war and of victory, and proclaims a fast throughout Judah, and sets himself to seek the Lord. He wins by prevailing with God as the secret of strength-" art Thou not our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of the land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham forever?" -Thus, Jehoshaphat girds himself with the power of the Almighty, and, in the perfectness of his own weakness and insufficiency asks, " O our God, wilt not thou judge them, for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. And all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives, and their children." What an appeal to infinite grace, and so in accordance with the mind and heart of God before Christianity came in, and the chariot and horse, and the bow and the spear were superseded. " The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down reasonings, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ."
Faith, when coupled with obedience, whether then or now, puts everything in simple dependance into the hand of Almighty power and grace; and the answer to faith from the excellent glory is, " Be not afraid, nor be dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God's; ye shall not need to fight; set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you." The nation's glory had long been tarnished by the judgment of God upon its rebellion; but it never shone brighter than in the subdued light of the moral beauty which envelopes this scene at Engedi. " And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah with the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshipping the Lord." Jehovah comes out as in olden time, in the greatness of His majesty, and strength, so that the fear of God was in all the kingdoms of those countries when they had heard that the Lord fought against the enemies of Israel.
Jehoshaphat is thus the witness to us that separation from an arm of flesh, and, in truth, from all evil and natural confidence, is the path which leads to shelter under the wings of the Almighty; just as Hezekiah's subsequent history is the further witness to us of a yet deeper principle, and its necessity in a walk with God" Be ye holy, for I am holy." The service of Jehoshaphat was relative in its character, and had to do with Jerusalem in its external relations with the kingdoms of that day: " so the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for his God gave him rest round about." The service of Hezekiah was personal and had to do with Jerusalem, but in its internal relations to the Temple, and the worship of God in Israel. Thus, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and repaired them. His work was not so much to separate himself from evil, and from Ahab,. like Jehoshaphat, but to separate evil from the place where Jehovah had put His name and His glory; and this is immensely important as raising the standard of holiness, and what becomes us in our relation to God as such, whether then or now (see Rev.
Observe that this character of cleansing must begin from within, as in later times between the Lord and the angels of the Seven Churches, or with Hezekiah and the priesthood of Israel; " and the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord, into the court of the house of the Lord; and the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron." It is of great moment to see that Hezekiah made no effort to assume the original ground of Israel's national integrity, in keeping the passover unto the Lord God of Israel; but, on the contrary, recognizing the nation's failure, counts upon God in grace to come down upon the lower platform which he had provided to meet such an emergency (see Num. 9:1010Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the passover unto the Lord. (Numbers 9:10)), by legalizing the feast on the fourteenth day of the second month.
How gracious is the Lord in meeting His people where they are and as they are: " I know thy works; behold I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it; for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word and hast not denied my name." Or, as we read in the more ancient chronicles of Israel, " they could not keep it at that time (the fourteenth day of the first month) because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently; neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem." Truly encouraging is this grace for a day like this, towards any whose hearts and consciences are alive to the condition of the professing church, and seek to recover real Christian worship: "Then they killed the passover, on the fourteenth day of the second month; and the priests and the Levites were ashamed." They, or we, must own the state in which our corporate failure has brought us, and put off our ornaments, so that God may take that as the opportunity of showing that He is superior to the emergency, and makes His restoring love sweeter to us than even the strong hand of His delivering power. " So there was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, there was not the like in Jerusalem: then the priests arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to His holy dwelling place, even unto heaven." What a place for Hezekiah. between Jehovah and His people! and is there no such opportunity in the deepening declension and apostasy of Christendom? yea, is there no such thing to one who has the opened ear and the anointed eye?
The service of Josiah, the last revival king, had other characteristics of equal though peculiar interest; for in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, and they brake down the altars of Balaam in his presence. Hezekiah cleansed the temple of the Lord, and established the worship of God in Jerusalem, according to the law of Moses the man of God; but Josiah purged the whole land from its idolatry and false worship. He burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem; and when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel he returned to Jerusalem.
Perhaps the most interesting point of difference between these three kings, and which has most to do with a real positive action for God in the present day was when Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law in the house of the Lord, "and Shaphan read it before the king; and it came to pass when the king heard the words of the law that he rent his clothes." It is a solemn thing when our distance and departure from God are estimated by no less a standard than the word of the Lord; and this was Josiah's measuring line. " Great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book." Jehoshaphat was the example of how God deals with a man who has affinity with evil; and what a note of warning, we may say in passing, for the alliances and associations of our clay! Hezekiah witnessed of the manner in which God encourages and works with the man who knows what the Lord's name is rightly connected with on earth, and, therefore, cleanses the house from all filthiness, and intelligently prepares it for the glory of God and the true worship of His people. Josiah, however, like John the beloved disciple, goes back to " the word which ye have heard from the beginning," and there he reads what is true, and accepts nothing else for his practical walk and service. He passes over the fathers, or only knows them as not having kept the word of the Lord; just as the apostle warns us of " the traditions of men," or " a vain conversation received from your fathers." None can tell the deliverance of soul but the man who is bold enough in our God thus to go back to " the word which was from the beginning ' for his guidance, and so passes by councils, creeds, and the fathers, with faith's simple watch-word and warrant, " let God be true, but every man a liar." What other course would suit the closing up days of Israel, before its Babylonish captivity in Josiah's time, any more than in these last days of a more fearful apostasy, and judgment upon " Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots, and abominations of the whole earth." Josiah then, like the man of God of to-day, was owned of the Lord, in the positive refusal of things as they were, which neither suited God, nor the word of His truth, nor an awakened conscience; so that Josiah's feast of the passover exceeded on all respects that of Hezekiah; for it was held on the fourteenth day of the first month, nor was there any passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept.
The wretchedness and break down in a former dispensation, was, whenever nationalism was accepted and followed, instead of the law, of Moses, the man of God. And now that Christ is come, and Judaism passed away, the misery of this time is in the acceptance of a national religion by law established, instead of a pure Christianity founded in grace upon the finished and perfect work of Christ for life and salvation to every one that believeth.
Again, this king Josiah not only found guidance into peace and blessing, through the book which Hilkiah discovered in the house of the Lord; but there was wrath declared upon all disobedience as there is now-"in the time of harvest He will separate the wheat from the tares." How encouraging are the words of Huldah the prophetess, to the soul of Josiah-" because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God when thou heardest His words against this place, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me, I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord; and behold I will gather thee to thy fathers, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place."
Turn we again to " the Revelation of Jesus Christ, Which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John." How few of the Lord's people have formed their expectations according to this book which God gave unto our Lord when in heaven, although it is commended to us, " Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written herein, for the time is at hand." When John turned to see the voice which spake to him he fell at His feet as dead; and, oh I did but Christians of the present day consult this last book given by the Lord " to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass," how would their judgments of all around them be changed as in a moment. Instead of encouraging each other by the delusive expectations of the world getting better by what they are doing in it; how would they be humbled, and rend their clothes, and weep like Josiah, or John, to find that the professing church itself is under inspection in the Apocalypse, and rejected by Christ as worthless for any purpose, "because thou art neither hot nor cold, I will spire thee out of my mouth." -.Where can Christians turn after this judgment upon the Seven Churches?-these very agencies, these gathered candlesticks, by whose means light and blessing were gradually to be introduced (as they think) and disseminated till the dark places of the world which were full of the habitations of cruelty, should be dark no longer. Were the Lord's dear people to consult this book, as Josiah did the lost or neglected book which was found in his day, they would be delivered, as he was, froth the delusions which are all around. How vast the difference when one discovers a falling away-a man of sin—the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, which exalts himself above all that is called God or is worshipped, whom the Lord shall destroy with the breath of His mouth, and the brightness of His coming. Instead of wide spreading light, there are the lengthening and deepening shades of darkness discovered on every hand; when, instead of good, increasing evil is prevailing, and, finally, all the world worshipping the Beast, and saying in proud defiance " who is like unto the Beast?" Instead of blessing from God on account of the spread of Christianity, the heaviest judgments of the vials, the trumpets, and the thunders are heard because of the wrath and indignation of God!
Yet how gracious is the assurance now, as to Josiah by Huldah, and to the Christian by John-" because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth." Again, Paul to the church of the Thessalonians, " now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled," &c. Our hope is to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and to be taken out of the coming judgments; for peace and a time of blessing there will never be till after Satan is cast into the bottomless pit, and all the enemies of Christ have been made His footstool. " The winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs." " Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep these things which are written therein, for the time is at hand!" J. E. B.