Image: Light & Darkness, 2019, Severna Park, Md
2 Chronicles 10:16 Now when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying: “What share have we in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to your tents, O Israel! Now see to your own house, O David!” So all Israel departed to their tents.
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C. S. Lewis' thought provoking book, The Great Divorce, teaches that there is a large difference between the "truth" of our existence in this world and the way we "understand" it. People, in their willful sinfulness, live in a delusion, they are "divorced" from the truth... the truth about themselves, the truth about what is real and the truth about what they and the world can be. People live in a grey "town" of ordinary life that is actually a stage or level of Hell itself. The journey to heaven is undertaken in the spirit and by the spirit, in a manner similar to Christian in The Pilgrim's Progress, and as the journey continues the spirit becomes more and more flesh. The journey actually takes place in the "real world" where light has shown what that world truly is. Lewis scholars will probably take issue with my paraphrase of the story but let's go with it as it is.
In these two chapters of 2 Chronicles we read of the "Great Divorce" between Israel (Samaria, the Northern Kingdom) and Judah (the Southern Kingdom). We are given few details of the events leading up to this schism, indeed the authors expect us to know many things which were written elsewhere (e.g. ch. 10, vs. 15 with its reference to 1 Kings 11:29-39). The authors, like Detective Joe Friday ("Dragnet") are interested in "the facts, ma'am, just the facts." They want the readers to understand the historical event that ruptured Israel into two kingdoms though the sordid details of Rehoboam's and Jeroboam's roles are left out.
What is emphasized in these chapters is that this "divorce" was from God. God had determined to rip the fabric of Israel into two parts, the larger share going to Jeroboam and the lesser share, though more beloved of God, to remain with Rehoboam. (cf. 10:15 & 11:4). "This thing is from Me," God declares and therefore we and the first readers are to shut our mouths and be silent before Him. The people of God are His people and He can do with them as He pleases but He never does so in an arbitrary manner... there is meaning and purpose to His actions. We remain silent because of His august sovereignty but also because we, through faith, understand that what ever He is doing is right and just. It is not always easy... but it always the right thing to do.
Like Lewis' main premise then we must step back from the "grey world" of the physical events themselves and see these things with our spiritual eyes... as they really are. We must look at the truth of this "great divorce."
What God is doing is revealing to us that both Israel and Judah were ripped apart because of sin. The sin in Rehoboam's heart lead him to arrogantly reject the good advice of his elders and impetuously alienate the majority of his subjects. Like a domineering husband he did not love his wife as Christ loved the church. He sought to abuse her and humiliate her. He, in effect, drove her out of his house.
The sin in Jeroboam's heart lead him to rebel against Rehoboam. His pride and ambition completely obscured his spiritual vision. There was no seeking after God and no desire to submit to God's ways. Like a lustful wife (cf. the story of Hosea and Gomer, Hosea 1) his heart was inflamed with lust for idolatrous worship and gods who would indulge his passions. He would go down in history as the king who lead Israel astray. Jeroboam thus became the unfaithful wife who ran after other lovers and gave herself in prostitution to demonic gods.
God hates divorce (Mal. 2:16) but He sometimes ordains / decrees it. He hates idolatry and evil perversions even more.
So, what we see here is God bringing about divorce in His People. Judah remains relatively, and only relatively, faithful though her kings vary a great deal in faithfulness. God remains the offended Party and it is against Him that the true insult is registered. This is the overview that our spiritual eyes reveal to us as we look at these events. God has put His "wife" (Israel) away because of her adultery.
But there is more. We see Lewis' insight into "hell on earth" before us also. We see both nations to some extent but particularly the Northern Kingdom being immersed in darkness and cut off from the light of truth. Israel, in particular, "thought themselves wise but became fools." They pursued power and amassed wealth but then these very things took possession of their souls and drove them into misery. Hell is being given over to sin and to experience its consequences. The people of Israel would be constantly in agony, either internally or at the hands of foreign powers. There would be little relief. The Word of God would come to them through the mouths of prophets, but as we read in the Revelation given to John, they would not repent. They loved the darkness more than the light.
This is the great divide between the "real" world and that "world" as perceived by those who are dominated by the flesh. They cannot see their own peril nor can they conceive of a better world than that which they inhabit, and yet, their world is the one they choose.
God brought judgment on His people in the division of the kingdoms in these chapters. One day He will bring judgment on this world again and he will begin with the household of God (1 Peter 4:17-18). As long as we can call today "today", we must earnestly seek God's grace to give us eyes to see and ears to hear so that we may repent and be saved.
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