HOSTILITY. 1st Kings 15. It seems to be an unavoidable consequence of departure from God, His standards, His truth, and His will that evil practices increase. Right along with them comes hostility against those who do not wholeheartedly agree with each other. There was ongoing warfare between Jeroboam and Rehoboam that continued to Abijah's three-year reign. He won a decisive victory over the northern tribes under the leadership of Jeroboam, but even so, he never stopped the evil of idolatry mixed with the worship of the Lord. Apostasy continued during Abijah's short term as king of Judah. David's great-great-grandson, Asa, must have heard accounts of David's life, and he had sense enough to trace the nation's deterioration under Solomon, Rehoboam, and Abijah, his father.
Downward trends in worship and a nation's spiritual life led to moral deterioration. The decline of morality, in turn, leads to increasing lawlessness, which leads to changing laws to suit the desires of evildoers. The changing of laws destroys the standards by which people have lived in peace, and those committed to righteousness find themselves the objects of hostility because they will not adapt to the changing social mores of a worldly system.
One of the lessons we can learn and retain is that there is great profit in passing on to succeeding generations the salient points of our forefathers' lives. Failure and success need to be reviewed as guidelines for us so we can avoid the things that brought failure, practice what brought success to them, and glory to God. Lest we despair of life being lived for the Lord, God has those He can raise up from the most unexpected sources.
For Christians, the discipline of our body, mind, and soul is needed to be what God intends of us in our service to the Lord. The rigor needed is to keep us from being disqualified as a servant of our God. The word “castaway” seems much more severe than a reprimand. To be disqualified indicates that a servant of God can spend a lot of time, energy, and money doing what is right, but if one yield to temptation or succumbs to pressure put on him or her to conform to what is not right, they can lose all that was of value in their life. One’s reputation and testimony established for many years can be lost very quickly by an action done in the energy of the flesh.
Abijah’s mother was not a paragon of virtue. The confusion of her life because of the practices of those before her and her choice to follow them led to an unhealthy spiritual influence on her household. Her son was not loyal to the Lord and was never at peace. However, despite her failure, for the sake of David, her family line of kings continued. Abijah’s son Asa, had learned enough that he was willing to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
A “lamp” is an illustration of a blessing that positively affects anyone who comes into the light that surrounds it. There was a bit of the lamp of God shining during the reign of Abijah, even though he and his father were ungodly kings. God’s light still shone in Jerusalem because the influence of David was still felt.
What we do in our lifetime will affect the generations after us. If we do what is right, our children and grandchildren will benefit. Suppose we choose to follow the path in life that brings self-centered pleasure. In that case, our failure will leave broken pieces of a life that leave them confused, uncertain, and without a commitment to the guidelines of the word of God, faith in Him, and a frame of reference for them to build a meaningful, satisfying, and God-pleasing life. If we focus our attention on what we think rather than what has been tried and proven by those before us who followed the word of God, they will likely be eternally lost because the guidelines of faith, hope, and love for God were missing.
The Holy Spirit is not limited in His power, and when a usable vessel is willing to be used by God in obedience to God, that leads to peace. Attending the services of a local church regularly and assenting to what is going on is not enough. Those things contrary to God's will and word must be removed. To continue actively in that of which God does not approve nor sanction only maintains spiritual confusion. A watered-down Gospel message and a stepped-up entertainment practice in the name of the Lord do not change anything. Removal of temptation from our lives is essential. Asa did that in Judah, although "his feet became diseased in his old age."
One can do what pleases the Lord for most of his life and still fail in old age. Old age may bring foolishness, which we allow because of an unguarded temperament. A hardness in one's spirit may make an old person cantankerous and critical of all those who look at things through eyes other than their own.
The division of Israel was never healed, even though there were occasions when some of the northern tribes went to Judah and Jerusalem. Levites who lived in the north when Jeroboam became the kings of the ten tribes, in their own souls, wanted to seek the Lord and please Him. They took what they could and left the place of departure. Another group moved south when they saw, "The Lord his God was with him [Asa].”
Baasha assassinated Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, bringing an end to Jeroboam's seed, as the Lord had made plain to him when he turned the people of God away from the Lord. The brief reign of Nadab is a lesson to us not to take anything passed on to us for granted. There were also times of war between the two Jewish nations. The Lord God stopped the one Rehoboam was about to start. Skirmishes and chronic hostility between Israel and Judah were constant during the reigns of Baasha and Asa rather than full-scale warfare. When Baasha saw that many of his subjects were defecting to Judah, he determined to stop it and set up fortifications five miles north of Jerusalem at Ramah.
Jeroboam and Nadab both did evil, and Baasha rebelled and killed Nadab. However, he did evil the same way as those before him. Israel did not improve, and the hostility between Israel and Judah continued. Jeroboam's descendants suffered and died because of Jeroboam's sins. When Baasha took back Abijah's territory, instead of seeking guidance from the Lord, Asa paid Ben-Hadad to get that territory back. Asa either had not learned to trust God or wasn't willing to act in faith in God. Much of what we know about Asa is written in the 2nd Chronicles, where we read Asa’s short prayer and the Lord’s defense.
Another positive thing about Asa was that he stopped his spoiled grandmother’s idolatry and removed her from a place of influence. It took quite a while for him to do this, but after God gave him victory, he responded to the prophet Azariah by calling for spiritual renewal. His life was a mix of good and evil, faithfulness and failure. He seemed to get farther away from God the older he got.
Years of departure, failure, and grief had plagued the nation, and the light of following God was extinguished. Darkness reigns. But wait! A young man remembers the history of his great-grandfather, which was a time of wonder, conquest, and peace. Despite lost glory, he is determined to change things in the nation, beginning with himself and leading his people right.
Through eyes somewhat blurred by the sins of his father and grandfather, he moves to remove the obvious, the immoral, the ungodly, and the evil idolatry. All associated with that must go, even his grandmother’s favorite sin. The name of the Lord is once again exalted among the people; in himself first, then in worship, then in the nation.
Nearly all the kings failed in old age. Why would a man whom God has used deteriorate spiritually in old age? It may be complacency, apathy, or pride, or we get to a place where we don’t want to make a fuss, so to please our family or the Lord’s people, we compromise the truth, keep our mouths shut, and pass the blame for departure on the next generation. That is what it is like to be “diseased in our feet,” which brings declension and departure instead of fruit in old age.
Some people may find it foolish or unrealistic to act in faith and rely entirely on God in times of hostility. When children of God become careless and not too concerned about the people of God, they will soon start taking God and the important things in life for granted. Some things that happen to us can be both a warning and a promise. We do not deserve the mercies of God, nor do we merit His saving grace or keeping grace. Just because we know what is right and think we can handle things okay does not mean this is true. Continuing to do the same things as before does not make it right. Hostility against others, on our part, creates a spirit of hostility that can bring down our testimony to where what we believe and hold because it has been passed on to us is despised by other people.
Not all change is good; it is another lesson to be learned. Change, for change's sake, is valueless. Any changes in practices should be superior to the previously accepted practice. Sin has to be judged wherever it is found, but when one's sins lead others to do wrong, the consequences of leading them astray go to the greatest extreme. The privilege of leadership is great, and the responsibility of passing on truth is far greater than we think. What we say and do has eternal consequences. In this country, real light is getting dim, though artificial light glares and exposes the counterfeit religion, political deception, and open sin of the citizens. The colorful lights of man’s making are reflected everywhere by fog that obscures the laws of righteousness and standards of conduct that long have governed with success. The candle of truth still shines among the shadows and darkness of our false day –it has not gone out. Where it sheds its light, the counterfeit fades. Truth, in its weakest time, still shines the brightest against the dark background of moral decline.
I stop and look around – up and down each street, and see subtle lights shining through colored glass to create a mood, a sensual attraction designed to entice me, and as many as possible to move from where the candle glows, to where I can find emotion; companionship with those who are not moved by what is true, but what they see.
So, I turn and walk away alone and then notice two or three others coming in the same direction, looking ahead. There, we see the glow of holy light coming from the candle of God’s truth. Both day and night, it shines above man’s false light, showing its worth. I realize there is no acceptable substitute for God’s revealed will as I make my way to where His candle is burning still. In that place of my Lord’s choosing, and where His people gather in His name alone, is where I belong.