Stand Up Against Them
II Chronicles 28:6-14
6 For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men; because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers.
7 And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew Maaseiah the king's son, and Azrikam the governor of the house, and Elkanah that was next to the king.
8 And the children of Israel carried away captive of their brethren two hundred thousand, women, sons, and daughters, and took also away much spoil from them, and brought the spoil to Samaria.
9 But a prophet of the Lord was there, whose name was Oded: and he went out before the host that came to Samaria, and said unto them, Behold, because the Lord God of your fathers was wroth with Judah, he hath delivered them into your hand, and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up unto heaven.
10 And now ye purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem for bondmen and bondwomen unto you: but are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God?
11 Now hear me therefore, and deliver the captives again, which ye have taken captive of your brethren: for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you.
12 Then certain of the heads of the children of Ephraim, Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, and Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai, STOOD UP AGAINST THEM that came from the war,
13 And said unto them, Ye shall not bring in the captives hither: for whereas we have offended against the Lord already, ye intend to add more to our sins and to our trespass: for our trespass is great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel.
14 So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the congregation.
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Historically, political and religious leaders have sought to keep the Bible from the hands of the people. This is true of the Roman church as well as the American government.
Why? What would drive religious and government leaders to NOT want people to have access to the one Book that can set them free from their bondage of sin into the glorious liberty as the children of God?
Possible answer: The Bible mandates that God’s created people owe allegiance first, foremost, and only — to Him as supreme Sovereign.
Notice God’s claims over all nations:
Psalm 22
27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
28 For the kingdom is the Lord's: and he is the governor among the nations.
And —
Psalm 47
2 For the Lord Most High is to be feared. He is a great King over all the earth.
7 For God is the King of all the earth.
8 God rules over the nations. God sits on His holy throne
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These verses present a problem. They declare unequivocally that God is the Supreme Ruler, not man. Therefore the rulers of this world, controlled and manipulated by the prince and power of the air, are constantly engaged in their attempt to dethrone God. —
Psalm 2
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
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God reigns over all the kingdoms of the earth, absolutely. When the Bible is kept from, or taken away from, the hands and minds of people, they become open, vulnerable and susceptible to forces that seek to manipulatively control them for their own nefarious purposes.
The ultimate goal: The generational attempts of man to rebuild the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:4) and dethrone God.
The reality: This is a war — spiritually and physically — against God and, by extension, His people. Now when I say a war, I mean a war. And we need to look at it like that.
The problem is that we, God’s people, don’t look at it like that. We have kept ourselves, on our own, away from the only Source Book that can help us perceive the unseen forces swirling around us waging a war that has been going on since the Garden.
Sadly, Satan hasn’t had to work all that hard to keep us (let alone the world) from the Word of God. We’ve lost our spiritual perception and cognitive abilities to look, see, and discern.
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What I love about the passage in II Chronicles is that it lays out before us what we’re supposed to do in times such as the ones we’re in now. And since the information we are allowed to get from the Internet, Google, and the like is monitored, censored, controlled, distorted and slanted in an increasingly alarming way — where can we look?
NOWHERE. And that’s planned.
It appears to me that God is “forcing” and directing His people back to a single source for our instructions, insight and inspiration — The Bible.
We need to realize once again that we don’t need to be up to date with the latest technology and information. We don’t have to scour the news sources to learn what is going on so we can know what to do.
Here’s what I’m wanting us to grasp.
If we are full of the Word of our Eternal God, then as we see the developments around us in real time, His Spirit will give us the real time insight and wisdom to know —
*What to do
And …
*How to stand.
I’m talking about a heart and mind that is prepared in advance through our intake of God’s instructions and training.
II Chronicles 12:14 — And he [King Rehoboam] did evil, because he prepared NOT his heart to seek the Lord.
Ezra 7:10 — For Ezra HAD prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.
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Back to our passage:
Resistance against those seeking to mislead and seduce a people from the ways of God stems from two things:
*A man in place and ready to SPEAK God’s Word to the people: Verse 9 - “A prophet of the Lord was there … and SAID unto them.”
*A people that will heed the Word and STAND up against those that would bring down the wrath and judgment of God upon them. Verse 12 — “Then certain of the heads … Stood up against them ….”
We have some serious soul searching to do. We no longer can talk with a sense of bravado because we really don’t think we’ll have to actually STAND UP AGAINST.
Days are coming upon us that will soon challenge our faith and obedience to God and His Word like we’ve never encountered before in this Country.
Will you be counted among those that in the final end will -
STAND UP AGAINST THEM?
You need to answer that sooner than later.
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Lester Roloff 1977 sermon: They Stood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frm-4ORT864&feature=youtu.be