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Judah’s Maginot Line
"And Rehoboam … built cities for defense in Judah." (2 Chronicles 11.5)The Maginot Line was a series of technically advanced, impregnable defensive forts—"land battleships"—that France built after World War I on its border with Germany. Its purpose was to keep the Germans out of France. But when Germany invaded, they simply by-passed the Maginot Line and entered France through Belgium. Ever since, "Maginot Line" has been proverbial for a shortsighted exercise in futility.
Interestingly, 2 Chronicles 11 describes an ancient Maginot Line built by Rehoboam. When you plot (as best you can) the locations listed in verses 5–10, they indicate a defensive arc across the southern part of Judah designed, no doubt, to deter or repel an Egyptian invasion or other threat from the south.
But when Rehoboam angered the Lord by forsaking His law (2 Chron. 12.1), Shishak, king of Egypt, "took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah, and came to Jerusalem." When, through disobedience, you attack the Lord, no defense you've prepared can save you from His counterattack.
I'm not saying that the Judean kings shouldn't have fortified their cities (14.6, 17.2, etc.) or built up their walls (14.7; how can you be anti-wall after reading Nehemiah?), but I am saying that Judah's fortifications were only as strong as Judah's faith. One of the things forewarned in the Davidic covenant is that if David's children broke the covenant and refused to keep God's law, He would bring their "strong holds to ruin" (Ps. 89.40). God showed Rehoboam that He meant what He said.
One of the great lessons of Chronicles is that power comes from faith, not forts. "No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death" (Psalm 33. 16–19; see Mark 9.14–29 where nine apostles lost their power when they lost their faith).
Asa, Rehoboam's grandson, also fortified cities (14.6). But when Judah was threatened from the south during his reign by an Ethiopian army twice the size of his own (14.8–9), Asa's first recourse was prayer. "LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. LORD, you are our God; do not let mere mortals prevail against you" (v 11). The Lord answered this prayer of faith by smiting the Ethiopians (v 12).
When Jehoshaphat, Asa's son, was challenged by an evil axis of Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites (20.10), he assembled the congregation, led them in prayer (20.5–12), and sent his army into battle led by a choir "singing to the Lord and praising him for his holy splendor" (20.21, NLT). When you trust God, tenors are more powerful than tanks (v 22).
No nation has ever built stronger defenses than America. But all of our mega-tonnage, Star Wars missiles, and stealth weapons will prove as useless as the Maginot Line when God judges us for our unrighteousness (Proverbs 14.34).
Remember that whatever fight you fight today against the evil one, "the battle is not yours, but God's" (20.15). Trust God!
