It’s amazing how the Bible seems to speak to your immediate needs. I know that the Bible has big cosmic themes that have nothing to do with Paul Carter. I know that. I know that the Bible is first and foremost about God, about people and about how God saves people through the life and death of Jesus Christ.
I know that.
I rejoice in that!
And yet, somehow, it also speaks to me and addresses me at the point of my greatest concern.
Today I feel like I need strong help from the Lord and over the last several days the book of 2 Chronicles – of all things – has been helping me understand how to position myself to receive it. This isn’t about how to get saved – this is about who the Lord helps. I’m glad that I’m saved, but today I need help and if you need help too then perhaps you will find this useful.
Over the last several days, through my study of 2 Chronicles I have learned that God gives strong help to the following:
Those who are humble
The first passage that caught my eye was 2 Chronicles 7:14-15. In that passage God is very clear about the sort of person to whom he will be particularly attentive. He says:
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. (2 Chronicles 7:14–15 ESV)
When the words “if” and “now” appear in the same paragraph wise Bible readers pay attention. In this passage God is promising to be particularly attentive to humble people.
He says the same thing in the New Testament. In 1 Peter 5:5 we read: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5 ESV).
According to the Bible there is no help from God for the proud, but he does give grace to the humble.
I wrote that down and maybe you should too.
Those who are dependent
The second passage that jumped out at me was 2 Chronicles 16:7-9:
At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. 8 Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand. 9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. (2 Chronicles 16:7–9 ESV)
King Asa was a good king, relatively speaking. He did good things, he loved God and it sounds like he was saved but it also sounds like he became a little bit self assured in his later days. He thought himself a wise and shrewd operator and when faced with a personal and political challenge he made alliances instead of seeking the Lord.
That was a big mistake.
God did not want to bless a shrewd political operator– he wanted to bless a man who was aware of his need for the Lord. Consider verse 9 one more time:
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. (2 Chronicles 16:9 ESV)
God is looking for people to whom he may give strong support – I want to be such a person! And apparently, being wise and shrewd and savvy does not commend me to his attention. He is looking for the meek. He is looking for the needy. He is looking for the weak so as to display his strength.
I found that encouraging because I have recently come to feel a lot less savvy then once I did. According to the Bible, it’s a very good thing to find yourself in that place because those are the very people who receive strong help from the Lord!
Those who are faithful
In 2 Chronicles 17:3-5 I read the following:
The Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the earlier ways of his father David. He did not seek the Baals, 4 but sought the God of his father and walked in his commandments, and not according to the practices of Israel. 5 Therefore the Lord established the kingdom in his hand. (2 Chronicles 17:3–5 ESV)
There are a couple of useful takeaways in that passage but the first one is that God gives strong help to those who are faithful. Jehoshaphat walked in the earlier ways of his father David.
That made quite an impression on me.
I find that there is enormous pressure nowadays to be novel and up to date and “with it”. Yesterday there was a blog floating around on my Facebook feed basically rebuking churches that are not up to the minute relevant with their music.
I’m 43 years old. I listen to Kansas and Tears For Fears – have mercy on me for pity’s sake!
I’m so glad that being “up to date” is not something that God is terribly concerned about. He blessed Jehoshaphat because he worshipped God in the earlier ways of his father David. Progress isn’t always good. Sometimes back is the way forward. Sometimes novelty isn’t our friend. Sometimes its better just to be faithful.
Those who are obedient
The passage in 2 Chronicles 17 also says that Jehoshaphat walked in the commandments of God. While there are many blogs warning people about the dangers of being out of date with their music there don’t appear to be many warning people about the dangers of neglecting the commandments of God.
There probably should be.
In the Book of Isaiah God says that he looks with particular favour upon people who are careful in their obedience. He says: “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2 ESV).
I like what J. Alec Motyer says about trembling before the word of God. He says that this refers to people who have a “concerned longing to please…” and who exhibit a “painstaking sensitivity to his word.”[1]
People who are painstaking in their attention to the Word of God have the eye and favour of God – why do we not heard more about this? Its in the New Testament too; the Apostle John said, “whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him” (1 John 3:22 ESV).
I would very much like to be able to say that I have whatever I ask from God. I think that having the ear of God in my prayer life would be much more valuable to me, my family and my church than being completely up to date on contemporary music trends. I think that rather than updating my iTunes playlist I will focus on learning and pursuing the commandments of God.
Those who are courageous
The passage in 2 Chronicles 17 goes on to say about Jehoshaphat that: “His heart was courageous in the ways of the Lord” (2 Chronicles 17:6 ESV).
I’ve noticed this before. God is attracted to courage. When people step out in faith and trust that God will back them up – HE DOES!
Remember David?
When everyone else in the army of Israel was quaking in their boots before the challenge of the giant – David stepped out in faith. He was a teenager! He was a shepherd boy! He was delivering sandwiches to the army but when he heard the challenge and when he heard the name of God being blasphemed by this uncircumcised Philistine he had heard enough and he stepped out in faith and he answered the bell! He walked up to that giant and he said:
You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand. (1 Samuel 17:45–47 ESV)
And guess what? God backed him up. God gave him strong help indeed!
God gave him strong help not in the tent and not in the line. God gave him strong help when he stepped out in faith.
God likes courage.
Those who are zealous
God also likes zeal and he gives strong help to those who hate what he hates. 2 Chronicles 17 goes on to say that very thing about Jehoshaphat. After saying that he was courageous it says: “And furthermore, he took the high places and the Asherim out of Judah” (2 Chronicles 17:6 ESV).
Jehoshaphat was not just a good man who read his Bible and had long hours of private devotion – he exhibited public zeal.
And God liked it.
God helps people who hate what he hates. If that sounds a little too Old Testament for you, consider these words from Jesus in the New Testament: “Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (Revelation 2:6 ESV).
Jesus hates some stuff. You should know what that is and hate it too.
Apparently he hates false teaching and any sort of deceptive doctrine that would seek to lure people into sexual immorality. He could be quite zealous about that. He warned people to repent, he said:
Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Revelation 2:16–17 ESV)
Jesus could be quite zealous and he warned us to think carefully about what that means for his churches.
I think it would be a terrifying thing to find yourself operating as a church or as a person without the strong help of the Lord. Old Testament and New, such help is not to be assumed. It wouldn’t be wise of God to help those who are headed in the wrong direction, but it wouldn’t be kind of God to leave us without some clues as to how to position ourselves to receive the help that we so desperately need.
How very like God to hide them in a place that not many people are looking.
Jesus thought this characteristic of God was absolutely marvelous. He said:
I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. (Matthew 11:25 ESV)
In the end, guess who receives strong help from the Lord? Those foolish little children who take the Bible seriously and who read each and every page! The ones who are humble, contrite and painstakingly attentive to his word.
I am encouraged by that. I am motivated by that. And I am helped by that.
Thanks be to God!
Pastor Paul Carter
N.B. To listen to Pastor Paul’s Into The Word devotional podcast on the TGC Canada website see here; to listen on SoundCloud see here. You can also find it on iTunes.
[1]J. Alex Motyer, Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 20 of Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. IVP/Accordance electronic ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 453.
