And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah.
Dark shadows on a bright day
We have here shown the necessary connection between God’s service and human weal.
I. The awful apostasy. Turning away.
1. Practical atheism. “Without the true God.”
2. Deprived of priestly function.
3. Prevalence of moral disorder.
II. The terrible judgments which followed apostasy.
1. Widespread anarchy.
2. Civil dissensions.
3. General calamity.
III. The way of escape from these judgments. “The Lord is with you while ye be with Him,” etc.
1. There is a fact in Divine procedure.
2. This is a warning for the future. (J. Wolfendale.)
Inspiration and duty
I. An inspired man is qualified to give a message.
II. An inspired man will give his message fearlessly and successfully.
III. Inspired men, men taught of God, not time-servers, required now. (J. Wolfendale.)
Verses 2. The Lord is with you, while ye be with Him; and if ye seek Him.
When and how long the Lord is with His people
I. What it is for the Lord to be with His people.
1. Not His general or essential presence.
2. Nor His being with His creatures in a providential way; for so He is with all men.
3. Nor His special presence in a providential way with His own dear children.
4. But it is God’s gracious presence, which Moses so earnestly entreated: “If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence”; and of which David deprecates the loss: “Cast me not away from Thy presence.” To enjoy His presence in this sense means--
(1) To have the light of His countenance.
(2) For God to commune with them.
(3) For God to manifest His early loving-kindness to their souls.
II. When or how long will God be with His people.? “While ye be with Him.”
1. While you keep close to Him in a way of duty; while you are with Him in prayer particularly.
2. While we have communion with them that fear the Lord. God is with them that fear Him; and those who keep company with such persons may expect His presence. Spiritual conversation is like putting fuel to fire; and prayer is like the bellows which blows up the flame.
3. While ye be with Him in public worship and attend the ordinances of His house (Acts 2:1-3).
Inferences:
1. The presence of God with His people is a most amazing instance of Divine goodness.
2. There is nothing so desirable to a gracious soul as the presence of God. (J. Gill, D.D.)
When will the Lord be found by His people?
I. God is to be found by His people--
1. In conversion.
2. At the throne of grace.
3. In His public ordinances.
II. When is God to be found by His people thus? When He is sought through the Lord Jesus Christ, “the way, the truth, and the life.” (J. Gill, D. D.)
Being with God
To be with God is--
I. To preserve in our minds a reverent sense of His being, presence, and government.
II. To keep close to His laws.
III. To stand on His side against the opposite power of darkness and sin. (Abp. Seeker.)
God with us
I. What is meant by God with a Church? Luther used to say that there was a “great deal of divinity in prepositions.” This word “with” has diversity as well as divinity in its meaning. It means--
1. To be present. God present, seeing and hearing all that is said and done.
2. Blessing. A helping, gracious presence. “The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man.”
3. Divine protection.
II. What is meant by a Church with God?
1. It is a Church faithful and fearless in proclaiming God’s Word. “Strike, but hear!” said a philosopher to an angry disputant. “Laugh, strike, kill, but hear the Word of God!” is what the Church says to mockers and persecutors.
2. It is a holy Church. The Emperor of Rome issued a command that all houses, shops, and public institutions, ships or boats, named after members of the Royal Family, should be kept clean, or forego the right to the name. “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”
3. A Church with God does God’s work. A Church tries to be to men all that Christ was, the earthly organ of His Spirit, the instrument of “the mind of Christ.”
4. It means a Church in which every member lives in personal communion with God. (J. M. Gibbon.)
The happiness and condition of the presence of God
I. The happiness of the Jewish Church at that time. “The Lord is with you.” God’s presence as applied to all righteous people implies--
1. An owning and acknowledging them to be His own peculiar people. God’s love to His peculiar people includes in it all relations: that of a--
(1) Father (2 Corinthians 6:18);
(2) husband (Hosea 2:19);
(3) friend (John 15:15; James 2:23).
2. His assisting them and prospering all the works that they put their hands to (1 Chronicles 11:9).
3. His protection and defence of them against all their enemies (Genesis 15:1; Zechariah 2:5; Isaiah 4:5; Isaiah 46:7; Numbers 23:1-30; Romans 8:31).
Inferences:
1. Let us notice what are the greatest mischiefs and who are the chief authors of all the evils which can possibly befall a kingdom, even they that would rob us of our God.
2. From hence we may learn the surest way to have our tranquillity and peace secured to us.
3. If we sincerely serve God, we may comfortably and securely rest upon Him to defend and protect us against all dangers {Proverbs 18:10; Matthew 10:29; Numbers 14:9). Luther tells a famous story of a Bishop of Magdeburg, against whom the Duke of Saxony was preparing to wage war; the bishop, having notice of it, betakes himself presently to his prayers and the reforming of his Church; and when one told him what mighty preparations were making against him, he replied, “I will take care of my Church, and then God will fight for and take care of me”; which, when the duke heard of, he disbanded his forces and acknowledged himself too weak to deal with that man who had engaged God on his side (Psalms 3:6).
II. The condition upon which the happiness of God’s presence is to be enjoyed, while we are with Him. To be with God is to be a holy people. Clemens Alexandrinus speaks of a temple upon which was written, “No unholy thing must come near this place”; and this is God’s inscription (Hebrews 1:13). Conclusion: ‘Tis reported of the Prince of Orange at the Battle of Newport, that he said to his soldiers, when they had the sea on one side and the Spaniards on the other, “You must either eat up the Spaniards or drink up the sea”; so we must either conquer our lusts or drink down the devouring fire of God’s wrath. Let us apply ourselves to the service of God sincerely, and then the “Lord will be with us.” (E. Lake, D. D.)
God’s presence with His people the spring of their prospe
rity:--
I. God may be said to be with men--
1. In respect of the omnipresence of His essence (1 Kings 8:27; Psalms 139:7-12).
2. In respect of personal union. “God was with him” (Acts 10:38).
3. In respect of the covenant of grace.
4. In respect of providential dispensations. This is twofold.
(1) General; ordering, disposing, guiding, ruling all things, according to His own wisdom, by His own power, unto His own glory.
(2) Special; attended with peculiar love, favour, goodwill, special care towards them with whom He is so present (Genesis 21:22; Joshua 1:5; Jeremiah 15:20; Isaiah 43:1-2). This is the presence here intimated.
II. A people’s abiding with God is twofold.
1. In personal obedience.
2. In national administrations.
III. Observations.
1. All outward flourishing or prosperity of a people doth not always argue the special presence of God with them. The things required to make success and prosperity an evidence of the presence of God are--
(1) That the people themselves prospered be His peculiar people.
(2) That the whole work be good, and have a tendency to God’s glory, wherein they are engaged.
(3) Made useful and subservient to His glory.
2. Even great afflictions, eminent distresses, long perplexities, may have a consistency with God’s special presence. (J. Owen, D. D.)
The presence of God
I. Let our first use be to instruct us particularly.
1. What this special presence is, and wherein it doth consist.
2. What it is for us to abide with God, so as we may enjoy it.
(1) We must have peace with Him in Jesus Christ.
(2) To have His presence continued with us we must--
(a) Ask counsel at His hand, look to Him for direction in all our affairs;
(b) trust in Him for protection;
(c) universally own God’s concernments in the world. His presence with us is the owning of our concernments; and certainly He expects that we abide with Him in the owning of His. “The Lord’s portion is His people.”
II. Look on this presence of God as our main concernment (Psalms 4:1-8.).
III. Whilst we have any pledge of the presence of God with us, let us not be greatly moved, nor troubled by any difficulties we may meet with.
IV. Let us fix our thoughts on the things which lie in a tendency towards the confirming of God’s special providential presence with us. (J. Owen, D. D.)
The Divine protection promised only to an obedient people
I. A grand promise. “The Lord is with you while ye be with Him.”
1. God is said to be with any people--
(1) When He upholds among them His true religion and worship.
(2) When He causes His Word to be preached and His will to be declared to them.
(3) When He watches over them and defends them against their enemies, maintaining in a nation peace and prosperity; in short, when He grants to them all spiritual and temporal blessings.
2. A nation is with God--
(1) When true religion is seen upon the throne, when God is there served and honoured, with a spiritual and reasonable service.
(2) When those who are in authority employ it to enforce the observance of God’s laws.
(3) When they themselves observe them.
(4) When subjects obey the laws.
(5) When each person in his station concurs in promoting order, good morals, and piety.
(6) When those who “minister at the altar” preach by their example; joining pure manners with sound doctrine.
(7) When union reigns among those who are in authority, peace in the Church, and harmony in families, and when parents bestow their chief care upon making their children modest, humble lovers of truth and goodness. In short, when each person “sets God before his eyes,” and renders to Him, in public and in private, love and obedience.
II. An awful threatening.
1. There are several ways in which we may forsake God. But that against which it is most necessary to warn Christians is the forsaking of God by a wicked life, by dissolute manners, by living as if there were no God, or as if we were not to stand before Him in judgment.
2. God forsakes a people, thus unworthy of His presence, by the calamities and miseries with which He visits them. (S. Partridge, M.A.)
The prophet’s maxim recommended and confirmed
(a missionary sermon):--
I. It may tend to recommend this Divine maxim if we consider--
1. The effect it had on him to whom it was addressed.
2. The blessing it brought down on those who regarded it.
II. Let us confirm the prophet’s axiom. The Lord is with them, and with them alone, who are with Him. Consider--
1. The evils which would result from the blessing of God being on our labours while we are not with Him.
(1) God’s being with us is a proof of His approbation of our tempers and dispositions. When we are not with God we are not holy. If God were to convert the heathen by us while we are in such a state, those who were changed by our efforts would naturally infer that the tempers they see in us were those that please God. Thus God would be made to bear a false testimony to us.
(2) Were God to be with us in this great work while we are not with Him, it would be to counteract His great design in calling us by His grace. God’s grand design is to purify His people.
(3) It would be the means of propagating a kind of religion totally different from the mind of Christ. The apostles illustrated their teaching by a holy life.
(4) If God were to grant our missionaries success while they were not walking with Him, they would be totally incapable of nourishing up their converts when they had made them.
2. The pleasing results which would follow if God were to be with a people for so long a period as He was with this people.
(1) Abundant means.
(2) Aid to use these means aright. (D. Marshman.)