#33 – What Communion Has Light With Darkness?

Published by Ben Stahl on May 7, 2020May 7, 2020

May 7, 2020

Now three years passed without war between Syria and Israel. Then it came to pass, in the third year, that Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went down to visit the king of Israel. And the king of Israel said to his servants, “Do you know that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, but we hesitate to take it out of the hand of the king of Syria? So he said to Jehoshaphat, Will you go with me to fight at Ramoth Gilead?

I Kings 22:1-4 NKJV

What comes to mind when you think of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah? Perhaps you remember that he was a good king. He “walked in the former ways of his father David; he did not seek the Baals” (2 Chron. 17:3). Perhaps you remember that the Lord established Judah under his rule because he feared the Lord and walked in His ways. Perhaps you remember that he removed the high places and idols from throughout the land. Perhaps you remember his great victory over Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir in II Chronicles 20 when Jehoshaphat sent the singers in front of the army singing “Praise the LORD, for His mercy endures forever” (20:21). 

There are many good things we should remember about Jehoshaphat, but there were also weaknesses and sins.  The overarching sin of Jehoshaphat’s reign in Judah was his alliances with the wicked kings of Israel. He allied himself both with Ahab as we see in II Kings 22 today as well as with Ahab’s son Ahaziah (II Chron. 20:35). With Ahab in particular, Jehoshaphat joined himself through marriage by marrying Ahab’s sister. The hearts of the people of Judah were never with the God of Jehoshaphat and perhaps this example with Israel was part of the reason. 

The Lord gave peace to Ahab for three years after he let Ben-Hadad escape unharmed. Now the treaty had been broken, all the cities were not returned, and the enemy of God was on the doorstep of Israel. At this time Jehoshaphat came to visit, and Ahab invited Judah to fight Syria with Israel. In light of the life of Ahab and the righteousness of Jehoshaphat, the answer Jehoshaphat gives to Ahab is hard to believe: “Jehoshaphat said to the King of Israel, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses” (Vs. 4). 

This unholy alliance brought shame on the name of the Lord. The alliance would nearly cost Jehoshaphat his life.

There is a temptation for God’s people to desire acceptance by the world. Christian youth often feel like they are missing out on something by not being like the world. Christian adults will often make friendships with the world, even becoming unequally yoked by marrying unbelievers. The Lord warns us to avoid these alliances for the protection of our lives and our souls. “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

Ahab was an enemy of God. Jehoshaphat was a friend of God. What fellowship has light with darkness? There is none. They are opposites. They are opposed. “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (I John 1:5-6).

Dear Christian, the world entices us in many ways. Many have been like Ahab and sold themselves to the evils of the world. Many Christians have pursued friendship with the world and temporarily have made themselves out to be enemies of God. Such behavior will only lead to the discipline of a Heavenly Father. When we meet Jehoshaphat in Heaven we can ask him about his life and what he was thinking while aligning with the king worse than all others before him.* But while on earth let us learn to avoid evil fellowship and to “cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lowness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the LORD Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:12-14).

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*There is a lesson to be learned of the way that unholy marriages lead to great sin. For an otherwise righteous king, this marriage of a believer to an unbeliever not only led to sin with the Ahab alliance but was a terrible example to a nation already tempted to idolatry and forbidden marriages. Christians who ignore the Lord’s kind instruction to marry only in the Lord do so to their own harm and potentially the harm of those around them.

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