“When Jehoshaphat king of Judah returned safely to his palace in Jerusalem, Jehu the seer, the son of Hanani, went out to meet him and said to the king, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD? Because of this, the wrath of the LORD is upon you. There is, however, some good in you, for you have rid the land of the Asherah poles and have set your heart on seeking God.”” (2Chron 19:1-3NIV)
Why was King Jehoshaphat confronted by Jehu the seer with such strong words, as we see in the above text? It was because he had gone into battle to support that wicked King of Israel, Ahab. And he did that against God’s instruction. God had revealed through Prophet Micaiah that Israel would lose and that Ahab their king would die, should they go to war against Ramoth Gilead. But Ahab did not believe the words of the man of God because he was confident in his ability. Jehoshaphat, however, being a godly man, knew that Micaiah had spoken the mind of God. Yet, in order not to appear weak before Ahab and his officials, he ignored the Lord’s warning and went into battle in support of his friend, Ahab. And if the Lord had not been merciful to him, he would have perished for his foolishness and disobedience in that battle. (Cf. 2Chro 18)
At any rate, when this man came back safely to his own kingdom, God sent a prophet to let him know that He was clearly against him for going to help Ahab and that His wrath was already upon him. But why? It was because Ahab was an idolatrous and wicked king. So, in the eyes of God, to support him meant nothing other than to support idolatry and wickedness. And that could have cost Jehoshaphat his life.
Now what are we to learn from this? It is simply that God does not want His righteous people helping the wicked in promoting their wickedness. And don’t miss my point here. I am not saying that God does not want righteous people to help unrighteous people or do good to them at all. He wants us to help all men, both good and bad, and do good to them, for He Himself is continually helping all men, both good and bad, and doing good to them. (Cf. Matt 5:43-48; Gal 6:10)
But then, we have to be discerning in the way we help or support people, especially those who do not know the Lord. When we are certain that the help that we give to them will do nothing but promote wickedness or unrighteousness, we must not give it. Otherwise we will be participating in their unrighteousness and sinning against God. That, of course, may expose us to afflictions, if we are not shown mercy. And only God knows how many of His people are suffering at the moment because they, at some point in their lives, helped the wicked or those who hate God to do wickedness.
Therefore, learn to pay attention to the way you relate to unrighteous people, so that you don’t foolishly promote their unrighteousness. And to say the fact, if all of us who know God and believe in righteousness begin to take these things seriously, wickedness will begin to drastically reduce in our world. At least, we all know that, regardless of how smart a wicked man may be, there is a limit to what he can do alone, if he does not get help from others. So, we all can, to a great extent, paralyse the wicked in our world by refusing to help them steal, cheat, oppress, cover up evil or do any kind of wickedness.
Unfortunately, because many of us don’t know or understand God’s stand along these lines, we are continually sponsoring evil in our neighbourhoods, offices, schools, business centres, markets and so forth. Yet we complain all the time about the corruption and wickedness in our land and how they are ruining us. The truth is that these things will continue to grow and to ruin us unless we all who claim to know the Lord and to believe in His righteousness stop feeding them in people’s lives. But are we going to stop feeding them? Are we going to stop feeding wickedness and ungodliness? Well, I pray that we all are strengthened to stop, for our good and for the good of our nation.
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