2 Chronicles 20:17 - Sermon Bible Commentary

Bible Comments

2 Chronicles 20:15 , 2 Chronicles 20:17

I. The history of the Church is full of instances of this law of Divine procedure. An old saying of the German Reformers was this: "One with God on His side is a majority." Every cause which God originates starts with only Gideon's three hundred.

II. From this law of God's working it is clear that in spiritual affairs the balance of power does not depend on numbers. Votes have very little to do with it. It depends on spiritual forces. It depends on insight into the spiritual wants of the world, on consecration to God's service, on the power of prayer, on spiritual discovery of the side on which God is, and specially on intensity of Christian character.

III. It is a great thought on this subject that the human race furnishes but a small part of the holy ministries of this world. The ministry of angels probably swells what we call minorities to secret majorities.

IV. Success in spiritual affairs often loses the character of a conflict, so overwhelming and so easy is the working of Divine auxiliaries.

V. Minorities of honest and earnest men, devoted to a great cause, should never be opposed heedlessly. Let us be on the look-out for such men. Let us greet them with a "Godspeed" when they make their Divine credentials clear.

VI. Within the Church of Christ itself is to be found a minority of believers whom God regards with peculiar complacency. As a spiritual power, they are the vanguard of the Church. They are the spiritual aristocracy of Christ's kingdom.

A. Phelps, The Old Testament a Living Book,p. 21.

2 Chronicles 20:17

17 Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the LORD with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the LORD will be with you.