After the separation between Israel and Judah, it was impossible that there could be true peace and amity between the two kingdoms. Jeroboam immediately discerned where his danger lay. Judah had the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, where God dwelt between the cherubim, and where alone the perpetual burnt-offering as well as the other sacrifices could be presented, and where only the divinely-appointed priests could draw nigh to God on behalf of the people. The ten tribes were aware of this fact as well as their king, and fearing lest the kingdom should return to the house of David, Jeroboam said in his heart, “If this people go up to sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their Lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, it is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” (1 Kings 12:26-28) This was a bold and clever, though selfish, project, but one which, reminiscent as it was of the apostasy of Israel in the wilderness, ought to have excited their determined opposition. But so far from this being the case, they readily fell in with the thought of the king, and straightway they had priests and feasts after the pattern of those which had been divinely instituted. The new religion of Israel was one of imitation, leaving God out of the question.
Henceforward there were the two religions side by side-the one founded upon the word of God, and the other, whatever its pretenses, simply idolatrous. In the reign of Abijah, the son of Rehoboam, there was war between him and Jeroboam, and on the eve of the battle Abijah appealed to the consciences of the men of Israel, and used with great force the argument, that whilst Israel had forsaken Jehovah, Judah still clave to Him, and had the true priesthood and sacrifices. Jeroboam answered his appeal by strategy; i.e. by seeking, through human methods in the art of war, to accomplish the overthrow of Judah But Judah cried unto the Lord, and the priests sounded with their trumpets (see Num. 10), and God delivered the Israelites into their hand. (2 Chron. 13:4-20) The Lord’s presence was thus the source of Judah’s strength and victory. And it should be carefully noted that no pretensions, however lofty, and no human wisdom, however clever in its method, can either command the presence of the. Lord, or deliver in the time of danger.
Passing now to the reign of Asa, the son of Abijah, another striking lesson is recorded. Asa, on the whole, did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God (1 Chron. 14:2), and blessing therefore marked the time of his reign. Listening to the exhortation and counsel of the prophet Azariah, the son of Oded, “he took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the Lord, that was before the porch of the Lord. And he gathered all Judah and. Benjamin, and the strangers with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon; for they fell to him out of Israel in abundance, when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.” This is what we have termed the attraction of power. As before pointed out, Judah had the temple which was the dwelling-place of God, the divine priesthood and the sacrifices. They were, in a word, on the true ground, and had the truth; but it was not this which drew so many to them from Israel, but the fact that the Lord’s presence and divine power were displayed in connection with the truth. So now it is not enough to say that we have the truth; for we shall find that the truth as truth will never win souls. It has been said, for example, that you cannot meet Satan with mere truth; that unless the truth is held in communion with a living Christ you will be powerless against Satan’s devices. In like manner, unless, in combination with the truth, the Lord’s presence is seen working with it, and on behalf of those who hold it, there will be no. power to deal with souls, or to attract them to the truth presented; for indeed Christ is the truth, and if therefore He is left out the truth becomes only a formal creed, which, while it may contain nothing but the truth, has neither life nor power.
It is therefore a mistake to expect others to be drawn to us because we have the truth. It must be seen that the Lord is with us; for He is the magnet of His people’s hearts. How then may we ensure the Lord’s displayed presence? Azariah proclaims the condition: “Hear me,” he says, “Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is with you, while ye be with Him.” (v. 2) So it ever is. If we are with God-with God in His judgment of ourselves, of everything round about us, in true separation from evil, and in subjection to His word-if we are thus walking with Him, He will never fail to show that He is with us. And just in proportion as His presence is thus manifestly with us, will there be the outgoing of power to attract the hearts of other believers. Our dependence then in our service, position, and conflict, should not be on the possession of the truth, but on having the Lord with us and working for His own glory in bowing the hearts of others to acknowledge His truth.
E. D.