The Instruction No One Likes to Hear

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He wouldn't win any prizes for being the best of Judah's kings, but one incident in Amaziah's story, contains a lesson many people choose to ignore.

Friction between neighbours in the Middle East is nothing new. Amaziah felt that he needed to bolster the number of soldiers he could call on if he was attacked, so he hired a hundred thousand fighting men from Israel (2 Chronicles 25:6).

And got his knuckles rapped for doing it.

God's prophet arrived on the scene and said: "O king, these troops from Israel must not march with you, for the Lord is not with Israel—not with any of the people of Ephraim. Even if you go and fight courageously in battle, God will overthrow you before the enemy, for the Lord has power to help or to overthrow" (25:7, 8, NIV).

The New Testament would call this an "unequal yoke," an instruction given to us in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 that begins like this: "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?"

Often these verses are used to try to dissuade believers from marrying non-believers. The advice is usually not well received and basically ignored—everyone thinks their relationship is the exception to the rule. But here in the Old Testament text we see the principle applied to a military alliance. There are other examples—plenty of them—that apply to political alliances as well as marriage relationships. It is worthy of note, that even though Israel was just as much God's chosen nation as Judah, He did not want Judah to make an alliance with her northern sister. If we carry that through to our circumstances today, we understand that there is even a danger in making alliances with those who call themselves believers but are not walking with God—as was the case of Israel.

The message to Amaziah was clear—an unequal yoke meant defeat. It meant that the Lord would actually orchestrate Judah's overthrow.

The king lost the money he had invested in these soldiers. But the man of God made Amaziah a promise: "The Lord can give you much more than that" (25:9b, NIV).

An unequal yoke, whether it be in business, in politics, or in relationships, is a yoke that excludes God. It's a recipe for disaster. The promise of blessing in response to obedience remains in effect today just as it did for Amaziah.

And the rules apply to everyone.