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Updated: May 5, 2025
They are like Jehoshaphat's soldiers, who marched to the fight with the singers in the van chanting 'Give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy endureth for ever. The Christian life should be a joyful life, ever echoing with the 'high praises of God. However difficult the march, there is good reason for song, and it helps to overcome the difficulties.
The exhortation in our text which is Jehoshaphat's final word to his army, has, in the original, a beauty and emphasis that are incapable of being preserved in translation. There is a play of words which cannot be reproduced in another language, though the sentiment of it may be explained.
Micaiah, an honest prophet of the Lord, was sent for at Jehoshaphat's request, and was urged by the messenger to prophesy to the same effect as Ahab's prophets. Micaiah replied that he should give the Lord's message, whether it was agreeable or not to Ahab. He came, and at first he spoke satirically as if he agreed with the other prophets in deeming the campaign a hopeful one.
And are not these qualities just such as will, for the most part, give similar results to us, if in our various activities we exercise them? And may we not see a sequence worth our practically putting to the proof in these characteristics enjoined on Jehoshaphat's supreme court?
Our modern way of distinguishing between religious and civil concerns is foreign to Eastern thought, and was especially out of the question in a theocracy. Jehovah was the King of Judah; therefore the things that are Caesar's and the things that are God's coalesced, and these two objects of Jehoshaphat's journeyings were pursued simultaneously.
The meaning of all circumstances that force our helplessness on us is to open to us Jehoshaphat's refuge in his 'our eyes are upon Thee. We need to be driven by the crowds of foes and dangers around to look upwards. Our props are struck away that we may cling to God. The tree has its lateral branches hewed off that it may shoot up heavenward.
Our text is the close and the climax of Jehoshaphat's prayer, and, as the event proved, it was the most powerful weapon that could have been employed, for the rest of the chapter tells the strangest story of a campaign that was ever written. No sword was drawn.
Apparently the bulk of the nation knew little or nothing of 'the law of the Lord, either on its spiritual and moral or its ceremonial side; and Jehoshaphat's object was to effect an enlightened, not a forcible and superficial, change. God's way of influencing actions is to reveal Himself to the understanding and the heart, that these may move the will, and that may shape the deeds.
A really devout man must be a propagandist. True faith cannot be hid nor be dumb. As certainly as light must radiate must faith strive to communicate itself. So the account of Jehoshaphat's efforts to spread the worship of Jehovah follows the account of his personal godliness.
An earnest Sunday-school teacher may do much to lead the children of godly parents to their father's God. Blessed is the home where the golden chain of common faith binds hearts together, and family love is elevated and hallowed by common love of God! Jehoshaphat's religion was, further, resolutely held in the face of prevailing opposition.
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