Mon.’s Devo - The Plan of Salvation

Read: 2 Chronicles 17:1-18:34; Romans 9:25-10:13; Psalm 20:1-9; Proverbs 20:2-3 Asa’s son Jehoshaphat became the next king. He fortified the towns of Judah against any attack from Israel. God was with Jehoshaphat in his early years because he followed after him and did not worship the images of Baal. He removed the pagan shrines and Asherah poles from Judah causing Judah to prosper. In his third year, he sent priests to the different towns to teach them the law and God’s ways. This caused the other nations to fear Judah and not attack it. He had over a million in his army stationed in fortified towns around Jerusalem. Jehoshaphat made an alliance with Ahab of Israel and had his son marry Ahab’s daughter. A few years later Ahab invited Jehoshaphat to come to one of his feasts. He enticed him to join him in recovering Ramoth-gilead. Ramoth-gilead had once belonged to Og and Bashan so it was a high place to worship Satan before Israel took it. Jehoshaphat first wanted to ask the Lord what He thought about taking Ramoth-gilead. Ahab called in his occult prophets and they all gave him the thumbs up. Jehoshaphat asked if there was a prophet of God in Israel. Ahab told him there was one but he never had anything good to say to him. Jehoshaphat insisted on asking him. Micaiah came and agreed sarcastically with the false prophets. When Ahab told him to stop teasing and tell them the truth, he told him that Israel would be defeated and he, Ahab would be killed in battle. Ahab had him thrown in jail and went anyway. When they went to battle, Ahab decided not to dress as the king but told Jehoshaphat to go in his kingly robes. The king of Aram had told his men to only fight the king of Israel. When they couldn’t find him, one of the men randomly shot his arrow and it landed right in the kink of Ahab’s armor. Ahad died propped up in his chariot watching the battle. God will not be mocked or tricked. In Romans, we read that the Gentiles who were once God’s enemies would now be his beloved people. Only a remnant of true Israelites would be saved, though God had made them like the sands of the sea. They had rebelled over and over and now God’s sentence was being made. The Jews tried to please God by just following the law without having faith in him. They tried to do it on their own merits. God wanted them to trust in Him instead. Paul longed for his fellow Jewish brothers to be saved. He explained the way to be saved was by openly declaring the Jesus is Lord and to believe in their hearts that God raised him from the dead. Then they would be saved. Lord, thank you for the wonderful plan of salvation.