Read Time: 7 minutes2 Chronicles 25
Amaziah is summed up in a single damning clause: he did that which was right in the sight of Yahweh, but not with a perfect heart. The right action is there; the whole heart is not — and the chapter shows what the divided heart does under pressure. He hires a hundred thousand mercenaries from apostate Israel, and at a prophet’s word sends them away — but not before the sentence that gives the whole man away. But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel? Stop on that sentence: told his army is unlawful, his first thought is the invoice. He obeys, and grudges the money while he obeys. The divided heart does the right thing and asks what it cost. The prophet answers the accounting with the only arithmetic that matters — Yahweh is able to give thee much more than this — and Amaziah learns, for one chapter, the lesson Asa forgot.
And the obedience costs him anyway. The mercenaries he sent home go back through Judah in a rage and kill three thousand of his people and take much spoil (v. 13). Obeying did not buy him a quiet border; it never does. The man who wanted his hundred talents back finds that doing right cost him more than the talents — which is exactly the test a whole heart passes and a divided one fails.
But the divided heart shows its true colors after the victory over Edom. Amaziah carries home the gods of Seir, sets them up, bows to them, and burns incense to them — and the prophet’s rebuke skewers the absurdity: why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand? He worships the gods he has just defeated, idols too weak to save their own worshippers. The not-perfect heart can win a battle for Yahweh and then bow to the losers’ gods — for it never belonged wholly to Yahweh in the first place.
Pride completes the ruin. Flush with the Edom victory, Amaziah challenges Joash of Israel to battle for no reason but vainglory, is warned in a parable of the thistle and the cedar, and refuses to hear — for it came of God, that he might deliver them into the hand of their enemies, because they sought after the gods of Edom. He is defeated, Jerusalem’s wall is broken four hundred cubits, the temple is plundered, and at last he is killed in a conspiracy. The half-hearted king’s whole reign unravels from the seam of the divided heart.
The chapter is a study in the peril of the divided heart — right enough to look like obedience, divided enough to bow to defeated idols and to throw away the kingdom for pride. It is the negative of the perfect heart that Yahweh’s eyes search the earth to strengthen; Amaziah had the actions without the allegiance, and the allegiance is what holds when the testing comes. Right action on a divided heart is a house on a seam, and it splits.
Amaziah does right but not with a perfect heart — and the divided heart wins a battle for Yahweh, then bows to the gods it just defeated, and throws away the kingdom for pride; right action without whole allegiance splits at the seam.
Daniel 6
Daniel, set over the kingdom under Darius, is so faultless that his rivals can find no charge against him except… concerning the law of his God. So they trap the king into a decree that for thirty days no one may petition any god or man but the king. Daniel, when he knew that the writing was signed, goes home, opens his windows toward Jerusalem, and prays three times a day as he did aforetime. He does not advertise defiance and he does not hide; he simply will not change. The faithful heart keeps its appointment with Yahweh though the law forbids it on pain of death.
Cast into the den of lions, Daniel is sealed in with a stone, and the king passes a sleepless, fasting night. At dawn Darius cries to the sealed den, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions? And Daniel answers from the pit: My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me. The angelic deliverer in the den is the companion of the three in the furnace — the faithful kept through the trial, not spared it.
The parallel presses further than the den, and it holds. Darius spends the day labouring till the going down of the sun to deliver him — searching for some way round a law he himself signed and finding none, because the law of the Medes and Persians altereth not. An innocent man, a ruler convinced of his innocence, a legal machinery that cannot be stopped once started, and a governor who condemns the man he wanted to save and then seals the stone with his own signet. Darius is Pilate before Pilate, and the unalterable law is the law of sin and death, which took hold even of the righteous one. What no ruler can revoke, only a resurrection can answer.
The picture is a grave and a resurrection. Daniel goes down into the den of death, the mouth sealed with a stone and the king’s signet; through the dark hours he is among the lions as among the dead; and in the morning he is brought up alive, no manner of hurt found upon him, because he believed in his God. The sealed stone, the night in the place of death, the morning deliverance unharmed — the den foreshadows the tomb, and the faithful servant who goes down trusting comes up alive.
The accusers are cast into the den and crushed before they reach the floor; and Darius decrees that all tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever… he delivereth and rescueth. The faithfulness of one undivided heart, unbroken even by a death-decree, ends with a pagan empire confessing the living God. The whole heart that will not change is the heart Yahweh brings up out of the den.
Daniel will not change his prayer though it means the den; sealed in with a stone among the lions and brought up alive in the morning, the faithful servant is kept through the grave by the angel of his God.
Acts 5–6
The young community meets its first deceit in Ananias and Sapphira, who sell land and lie about the price, keeping back part while pretending to give all. Peter names it: thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God — and they fall dead. The judgment is severe because the holiness of the Spirit-filled community is real; the lie against the Holy Spirit at the birth of the ecclesia is dealt with as Achan’s theft was at the entry to the land. Great fear comes on all; the holy is not to be trifled with.
The apostles, imprisoned for their witness, are freed by an angel and found teaching in the temple at daybreak. Hauled again before the council and charged to be silent, Peter gives the witness’s creed in a sentence: we ought to obey God rather than men. It is Daniel’s posture at the open window, the three friends’ but if not — obedience to Yahweh over the command of men, whatever it costs. And Gamaliel, of all people, names the principle that governs the whole spread of the word: if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it. What is of Yahweh cannot be stopped — the stone that no empire halts.
The apostles leave the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name, and do not cease to teach. The suffering does not silence them; it gladdens them.
There is a word to watch through these chapters, and it is the Name. Whosoever shall call on the name of Yahweh shall be saved, Peter said at Pentecost (2:21). Now the council complains they have filled Jerusalem with this doctrine and commands them not to speak in this name (5:28), beats them and charges them that they should not speak in the name of Jesus (5:40) — and they walk out rejoicing to be shamed for the Name (5:41). The rulers will not say it; the apostles will not stop saying it. The witness counts the shame an honor — the same Spirit-given boldness that shook the room in the previous chapter, now rejoicing under the rod.
As the word grows, the community orders itself: seven men full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom are chosen to serve the tables, and the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly. Among the seven is Stephen, full of faith and power, whose adversaries were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. They resort to false witnesses charging him with words against this holy place — and the faithful witness, like the prophets before him, is set on the road the martyrs walk.
The holiness of the Spirit-filled community is real; the apostles obey God rather than men and rejoice to suffer shame; what is of God cannot be overthrown, and the unstoppable word raises up Stephen, full of faith and power.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day sets the divided heart against the undivided one, and shows what each does when the testing comes. Amaziah does right but not with a perfect heart — and the divided heart wins a battle for Yahweh, then bows to defeated idols and throws away the kingdom for pride. Daniel, by contrast, will not change his prayer though the law threatens the den, and is brought up alive from the sealed pit by the angel of his God. And the apostles, charged to be silent, answer we ought to obey God rather than men, and rejoice to suffer shame. The half-hearted king splits at the seam; the whole-hearted servant and the bold witnesses hold, and are kept.
The thread is that allegiance, not action, is what holds under pressure — and what is of Yahweh cannot be overthrown. Amaziah had the right actions without the whole heart, and the actions did not save him when the idols and the pride came calling. Daniel and the apostles had the whole heart, and so they did not change at the open window or before the council, whatever the cost. Gamaliel speaks more wisely than he knows: the work of men comes to nothing, but the work of God cannot be stopped — the den cannot hold Daniel, the council cannot silence the apostles, the lions cannot touch the faithful.
So the exhortation is to give Yahweh the whole heart, not merely the right actions. Do not be Amaziah, obedient enough to look devout and divided enough to bow to the losers’ gods — for the divided heart fails exactly when it is tested. Keep your appointment at the open window as Daniel kept his, though the law forbid it; say with the apostles we ought to obey God rather than men, and count the shame an honor. What is of Yahweh cannot be overthrown — so set your whole heart on him, and be the servant he brings up alive out of the den.
Give Yahweh the whole heart, not merely the right actions — for the divided heart bows to defeated idols and splits at the seam, but the undivided heart keeps its open window, obeys God rather than men, and is brought up alive from the den.