“Do you really think you can stand against the kingdom of the LORD that is led by the descendants of David? You may have a vast army, and you have those gold calves that Jeroboam made as your gods. [2 Chronicles 13.8]
I know this verse is awkward just by itself without supporting context, but here is the story: Abijah of Judah and Jeroboam of Israel were at war. Jeroboam had gathered an army of 800,000 troops to fight Abijah's army of 400,000. This verse was Abijah's revelation and declaration.
Although Abijah continued to follow after the erroneous practices of his father Rehoboam (son of Solomon, son of David), he obviously understood the significance of being a descendant of David. It was through Abijah's recognition of this lineage that Judah's return to God was initiated. Abijah led Judah to conquer Jeroboam/Israel and then Abijah's son Asa inherited the throne in Judah and went on to lead Judah into a full-blown return to God (eliminating all the elements of idol worship).
So this story provides the precedent for what I believe it means to us today.
Jesus Christ, identified through the same lineage of David, established a new even more powerful lineage, the lineage of faith. Jesus very openly revealed that, like Judah in Abijah's time, faith also has a lineage of significance. In fact the lineage of faith predates the lineage of David!
Although the Church, the "bloodline of faith," may be in a compromised position today (like Abijah/Judah), the lineage of faith remains an indisputable and irresistible reality. The Church must first recognize and acknowledge its lineage, and then return (through repentance) to the practices and conditions of its namesake, Jesus the Messiah (with obedience to faith).
A stumbling block to the Church's return to the Glory of Christ however is its ignorance of Who it must return to! God's people are vulnerably unaware of Who God is, let alone Who Jesus is. While people are well-educated in the world's knowledge and technology, they remain woefully clueless about the truth of the Bible. In fact, many things derived from human logic and reasoning are declared about God that find no basis whatsoever in the Bible. So perverse are these declarations that they interpret what the Bible defines as "curses for evil" as the workings of God's goodness!
It is time that God's people understand the significance of being God's people! It is time that God's people repent and purge themselves of idols and idolatrous practices! It is time!
The enemy of God's people has feigned evil dominance through political numbers, but has mistakenly underestimated the lineage of faith! Just as Goliath taunted David on the battlefield, so God's enemy is currently taunting God's people. It is not ironic then that David (whose lineage Judah claimed) faced Goliath not as the namesake of his own lineage, but as a member of the lineage of faith (confirmed in Hebrews 11.32):
David replied to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies—the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. [1 Samuel 17.45]
If, in Abijah's time, the lineage of David carried so much power, how much more power then does the lineage of faith carry (that predated David and was confirmed by Christ Himself)?
Father, help us to KNOW YOU! Help us to really KNOW YOU so that we might face our enemy with all confidence in who we are and Whom we serve so YOUR purpose for the earth might be fulfilled through our obedience to faith!
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