Chaff in the Wind
Chaff in the Wind
Joshua 9:1-2 As soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country and in the lowland all along the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, heard of this, they gathered together as one to fight against Joshua and Israel.
The significant distinction between the unity found in Christ Jesus and the unity found in the world system is that one is driven by love and the other by hatred.
Christ said in John 13:36, “For the world will know that you are my disciples by the love you have for one another.” And He prayed to the Father on our behalf in John 17, “I, in them, and You in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. … I made known to them your name … that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (v. 21 & 26). And John writes in 1 John 4:7, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” The church is the only body in all the world where all races and sexes and classes are equal, because we’re held together by the ligaments and tendons and vertebrae of a love that never fails.
Not so with devilish men. It isn’t love of neighbor that leads their coalition. No—it’s hatred for the LORD and His people. It’s defiance against what is true, right, and good. In fact, these tribal kings resent one another deeply. Even if they’ve shared commodities and daughters in mutually beneficial alliance, they’ve done so for political expediency, not out of charity. No doubt they’ve been warring for generations over property and commerce and wealth, holding each other in check by rival armies. Yet now, all of a sudden, here they are, standing as one. Why? Because the true and living God is a far greater threat to their supposed sovereignty then their rivals.
Friend, consider that all the haters in all the world, all the kings and bigshots aligned, all the armies that outnumber the sands on the seashore, are just chaff in the wind to God’s gospel advance.