2nd Chronicles takes a look at what can happen to men and a nation when what began as worship becomes a mere ritual of religion.
In 2nd Chronicles we see a religion that in the end denies the power of a relationship that God has established! It is then that the religious man is obligated to maintain what is utterly worthless!
No matter how close a person dwells next to the temple if on its alter is nothing more that our service then in the end, religion may not say as the unbeliever, “We can manage without God” but it only drops the word “without” and says instead, “We can manage God” and the outcome is the same!
Listen carefully to the words of G. Campbell Morgan as he wrote over 100 years ago in his commits about this book. “The Bible knows nothing of the establishment of the Church by the state, but it teaches forevermore that the Church must establish the nation.
In order to do this, formal religion is infinitely worse than none. By formal religion, I mean high Church doctrine without full church life.
What is high Church doctrine without full Church life? The doctrine of the Church that is forevermore arguing for the correctness of its views and cursing the man who does not share them!”
“If the Church is not what it ought to be, we have a nation without salt and without light, a nation rushing headlong to Godlessness…If that be the national condition, the blame is with the Church of God. “
”A world that means business is never going to be influenced by a Church that is playing. What we need is the Church, the temple, filled with the presence of God, flaming in His glory!”