Oh Thy compassions fail not, Lord; let them dawn on me. Still Thou the mighty tempest and calm this troubled sea. Yet nearer and nearer draw, Lord; what love is like to Thine! And what so full of need as this poor heart of mine! Oh clasp me to Thy bosom, Lord, and shelter me from ill, And with Thine own sweet presence my thirsty spirit fill. All other helps are helpless; I cling alone to Thee; Oh put Thy armour on me, I cannot but be strong, And praise Thee still, my Saviour, with new and earnest song. Lord, take my hand in Thine, and lead me day by day, Thus let me daily run a faster race to Thee, Leaning on His bosom who bled and died for me. And brighter be Thy light, Lord, shining through Thy child, Guiding some poor wanderer through the dark and lonely wild. Soon shall the night be passed and every cloud be gone, II THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE. 2 CHRON. Xviii. THE history of Jehoshaphat king of Judah is replete with instruction. Nowhere in the Word of God do we find a narrative more full of solemn warnings to the believer than the one we have selected for consideration. We see a child of God, called by His grace to fill an exalted position before the world, placed on a pinnacle of earthly glory, and with a true heart towards God, gradually descend from his exalted spiritual position to the low level of the world. Let us examine this solemn picture, and trace the steps of his decline; and may God the Holy Spirit write them on our hearts. Our first introduction to Jehoshaphat must be in the chapter previous to the one we have selected for consideration. "And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead, and strengthened himself against Israel. And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim; but sought to the Lord God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel." We see in these few verses that there existed between Israel and Judah an open breach—a wide and impassable gulf. Jehoshaphat, so far from healing this or bridging it over, strengthened it. He "strengthened himself against Israel" and sought not "after their doings." So far all was right and in entire accordance with God's mind. There was then reigning over Israel the vile and wicked king Ahab, and both he and his people had "sold themselves to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord." How delightful then to see Jehoshaphat's holy distance and entire separation from everything so hateful in Israel! How cheering to behold his devotedness to the Lord, his godly walk and conversation! He was then "holiness to the Lord," and the blessing of the Lord rested upon him in no small measure. These were the days of his first love, and he walked accordingly. But in what a new and sad character he is presented to us in the opening of the chapter we are about to enter upon. We can hardly believe him to be the same man. A revolution seems to have taken place. No strengthening himself against Israel now. No godly reserve, no holy distance, no wide separation now. "Now Jeshoshaphat had riches and honour in abundance, and joined affinity with Ahab." What a solemn key-note does the chapter commence with! And what was the reason for this alliance? Had Ahab changed? No, not Ahab, but Jehoshaphat. Satan is the same at all times. He may transform himself to an angel of light to trap the unwary, but he is the same still. And so was Ahab, Satan's very personification. He had changed, as we shall see, but the change was only a garment of deeper malignity, to seduce the unwatchful and unwary Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat had changed. The lapse of years had brought a chill upon his soul. There had been a secret process of spiritual decay going on in his heart that no eye had seen but God's. The sin of Ahab had become less sinful in his eyes. upon it with less shrinking. in abundance" had not helped the spiritual deterioration. The Holy Spirit has thrown a veil over the steps by which Jehoshaphat had descended. We wonder as we see the king so changed, and all at once joining affinity with the man against whom he formerly strengthened himself. Ah! let us not wonder A man falls in secret long before he falls openly and in the eyes of the world. We see not the hidden descending stages. We only see the outward act-the full blossom-the fruit ripened by the secret influences of unwatchfulness, prayerlessness, and all their serpent trail. So it was with Jehoshaphat. He fell into the very sin against He could now look "Riches and honour which it is recorded he had been most watchful. And how frequently this is seen in the history of believers. How often the very sins from which they shrink in their early spiritual history and against which they are most watchful, are those into which they slip in after-years. The holy shrinking from evil that once characterised them is lost. They can do many things at which they would have started then. If we could carry many a Christian forward only a few years in his history, and could present him with a picture of what he would be, he would start back and exclaim, "Impossible! I can never sink so low as that." Ah, the deceitfulness of sin! How it blinds the eye and sears the heart! Had Jehoshaphat been told when he was strengthening himself against Israel, that in a few years hence he would join affinity with Ahab, he would probably have started back with the same indignant surprise. Let us watch and pray. Let us distrust The moment the soul reaches that state when it does not view sin in the same light as it did formerly, it is in a downward path. The moment conscience loses its former sensitiveness to evil, that moment it has reached a precipice over which the faintest breath of temptation may plunge it. Oh how much need have we from the very first hour of our spiritual life to breathe the prayer, "Hold up my goings in thy paths: that my footsteps slip not!" "Search me, O God, and know our hearts. |