2 Chronicles 15:3 “Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law.”
The prophet Azariah stood before King Asa and gave him a snapshot of what Israel had looked like for a long season. Three things were missing. The true God, teaching priest, & the law.
But notice something. It is not that these three things were absent from their lives completely. They still had gods. They still had priests. They still had rules to live by. They just did not have the right ones.
They had small “g” gods in their life. They had priests who pointed them in the wrong direction. They had laws, but not God’s law.
And these three things are always connected. When the true God is absent from our lives, teachers of His Word are removed from our lives, and when we lack God and teachers, we lose His Word which is our direction.
1. Small Gods Replace the True God
When the true God becomes absent from our lives, we do not stop worshipping. We just start worshipping something smaller. We replace Him with idols that cannot help us and cannot save us. And most of the time, we build these idols out of things God gave us as blessings.
Family, work, activities, hobbies, and even ministry can become idols. Anything can be an idol when it sits in the place that only God is supposed to fill.
Exodus 20:3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
1 John 5:21 “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”
The problem with small gods is they cannot do what only the true God can do. They cannot save and cannot deliver. They cannot forgive. They just take up the room in our hearts that belongs to Him.
2. Wrong Teachers Replace the Right Ones
When we push God out, we also push out the people He put in our lives to point us to Him. Faithful teachers get replaced with voices who tell us what we want to hear. Voices that itch our ears. Voices that make sin comfortable and repentance optional.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
Isaiah 30:10 “Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.”
We do not always want to hear the truth. We want to hear that we are fine and that our sin is not that bad. There is never a shortage of teachers willing to tell us exactly what we want to hear.
3. The Word Gets Shelved
When God is absent and the wrong teachers are in place, God’s Word gets set on a shelf and forgotten. Our children grow up never knowing it and their children grow up never having heard it. And a generation walks away from the Lord without even knowing what they left.
Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”
Without the Word, there is no direction. Without direction, we wander far from the Lord. And wandering always leads somewhere we did not plan to go.
How Can We Tell If We Are Stuck in This?
Three honest questions can tell us where we stand.
1. Where is God in our life?
Do we seek Him? Do we want Him in our lives? Do we put Him first? If He is not first, He is last.
Matthew 6:33 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
2. Where are His teachers in our life?
Do we have people who push us toward God? Do we have people around us who tell us things about ourselves we do not like hearing?
Hebrews 10:24-25 “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
3. Where is God’s Word in our life?
Do we read it? Do we ask questions about it? Do we study it daily?
Joshua 1:8 “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
Why You Are Troubled
Sadly, when God becomes absent, His teachers become rejected, and His Word becomes hidden, He is left with no choice but to bring trouble into our lives to get our attention.
2 Chronicles 15:4 “But when they in their trouble did turn unto the LORD God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them.”
Maybe the trouble you are walking through today is God calling you back to Him. Maybe He is pointing you to teachers who will pray for you, point you, and cause you to pause the direction you are heading. And that will lead you back to His Word.
Hebrews 12:6 “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”
Psalm 119:67 “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.”
The good news of 2 Chronicles 15:4 is that God is still findable. When they turned, He was found of them. When they sought Him, He was there. He did not stay hidden.
If you are without the true God today, without a teaching voice pointing you to Him, without His Word in your life, the answer is not found in what you have been doing. The answer is to turn back to God.
Turn from the small gods, the wrong voices and from the shelf where you have left His Word. Turn to the Lord.
He will be found of you.
