245. Established and Prosper
2 Chronicles 20:20 And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.
If you believe you will be established and you will prosper. This sounds like a conditional promise, the condition being faith. But it is not conditional in the sense that faith is not the cause of the effect. Faith is simply the means of receiving for oneself what God has already accomplished. Faith receives the grace. The gospel is fact; the gospel is truth; the gospel is reality; the gospel is done; the gospel is finished. The outcome is already known and assured. Jesus has already died and rose again to earn for you and all people salvation, forgiveness and eternal life. That is past history, present hope, and future certainty. Faith does not make it so. Faith looks at the truth and personally appropriates it.
This is what Jehoshaphat means when he says, “Believe in the Lord and His Word.” It is already done. Now thank Him for it. The army of Judah is going into battle against an overwhelming force. They go singing and praising the Lord, not fighting because the Lord is doing the fighting. They thank God for the victory they do not yet see. The outcome is that they were established and they did prosper. The Bible says the same thing to us in several different ways; “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” “He who believes in me has eternal life.” Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” And so on. Jesus earns and gives life; he who believes it receives the gift. Faith and life go together as one complete thing.
God has established us securely and permanently in the kingdom of God, in eternal life, in the heavenly places. In the midst of uncertainly, unsettledness, fragmentation, disarray, confusion, frustration, and a feeling of unfinished living the Lord establishes us firmly on a solid foundation that cannot be shaken. Even though things do not appear so, all things really are ordered, arranged, straightened out, and established. It is, as Jesus says, all “finished.” In the immediate context it is the kingdom of Judah that is firmly established and secure. For us it means the kingdom of God is firmly established in our hearts, for Christ has done it.
God has promised that we shall prosper when we believe the prophets, that is, when we believe God’s Word spoken by the prophets and recorded forever in the Scriptures. Again, prosperity is a repeated promise for those who read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Word of God. In the immediate context the prosperity comes in the form of a decisive victory over the invading army. In our life context prosperity comes in the form of abundant spiritual and eternal life. We prosper in the riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Physical and material prosperity may come but is not promised; however, spiritual prosperity is guaranteed.