Through the Bible Study — 2 Kings 11–12

Matthew chapter 2, verse 1 and 2 says this. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east, and we have come to worship him. And that's why we have come this evening, is to worship Jesus. You know, it's not just in our singing.

It's in our fellowship. It's in our praying together. It's in hearing the word. It's in lifting our praises. All of these are encompassing of our worship. So, Lord God, we ask you to bless this time this morning and this evening, Lord. We ask you, Lord, that you would fill our hearts. Lord, and just teach us how and give us a heart to worship you. In Jesus' name, amen.

My sins redeem me to fencing flood. Hurt about of his cleansing power.

And somehow Jesus came and brought to me the victory. My saving chance.

You know, sometimes it's good to sing the old hymns, you know? Sorry, if you'd like to continue to stand, please do. If not, if you feel more comfortable sitting down, please do. My servants of the righteous gain.

Say, bless your soul.

And so my soul, my soul.

So good. Lord, that you gave your life for us. And all you ask from us is that we give you ours. And we just pray that you could teach us how to do that. Give us a heart that desires to do that. And we just praise your name. We give you all of the glory. In Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated.

Good evening. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of 2 Kings, chapter 11. 2 Kings, chapter 11. Well, the last time that we were together, at least the last time that I was here with you guys, we looked at Jehu. And God had used a man by the name of Jehu to be an instrument of judgment, in particular on the house of Saul. But the two main kings that he took out was Jehoram in the northern kingdom.

And then he took out Ahab's grandson, Ahaziah, in the southern kingdom. And then as we finished all the way through chapter 10 of 2 Kings, we saw the end of Jehu's life. He started off so good. Unfortunately, it didn't finish very well. But we came all the way to the end of Jehu's life. Well, in chapter 11, we sort of rewind a little bit back to the history of the southern kingdom

after the death of Ahaziah. And so we pick up. There's really two things we'll cover tonight in the two chapters that we're going to go over. We're going to look at Athaliah, queen of Judah, and then also Jehoash, the king. So picking up in chapter 11, verse 1, it says this. Now, in Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead. She rose and destroyed all the offspring or all of the royal offspring.

Now, just to build a little bit of background here so we understand who this was. This Athaliah was, first of all, the mother of Ahaziah. She was the wife of Jehoram, but she was also the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. And I bring that up because what's going to take place? Tonight is really the finishing off of the judgment of the house of Ahab. And what we're going to find is that this queen, Athaliah, was an incredibly evil woman.

She took very much after Jezebel. And so when she saw that her son, Ahaziah, had been killed, she made her first power play. And the first power play that she made is she began to kill all of the royal offspring, all of the people that would have been her grandsons. She began to take all of those boys. She began to take all of those boys out so that no one could take over the throne from her.

And so, again, a pretty evil lady that we see begin to rule here. Man, I'm sorry. My allergies, ever since we've been back, I was free of them in Colorado. And then I came back here, and it was like, hey, welcome back. So I've got a little stuff going on here. Now, the one point that I want to make is this. With Athaliah, what we see is the problem of power.

We see the problem of control. When somebody wants power and when someone wants control, oftentimes they will stop at nothing to take that. And we see that in lots of leadership issues. We see that in national issues. We see that in governmental issues, that when someone wants power, they will stop at nothing to take that power. When someone wants control, they will stop at nothing to take that control.

They don't care who they hurt. They don't care what kind of damage it brings. They're willing to do anything that they can to take control of whatever it is that they're wanting to have power over. And all of us look at that, and we go, that's evil. No one should act that way. But I want to remind you that while you may not be a governmental official that's seeking to have control or power over a particular group of people,

you can still be someone who wants control. And sometimes when we are ones who want control over our lives, we don't always care how much it hurts our relationship with the Lord. We don't always care how much it hurts our relationship with other people. When we want control, we want control. And the one thing that God calls us to do is to continue to surrender.

The control of our lives to Him. Because when we continue to seek control over our lives, there is no limit to the damage that it will do not only to us, but to the people around us. And so we see this with her. This is what she does. She makes this power play, and her desire for power and her desire for control are incredibly destructive. It says in verse 2,

But Jehoshibah, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons who were being put to death and placed him and his nurse in the bedroom. So they hid him from Athaliah, and he was not put to death. So he was hidden with her in the house of the Lord for six years when Athaliah was ruling and reigning over the land. Now I love this because you have this almost no-name sort of a person other than these verses.

We know nothing about her in Scripture, and yet she is going to be used in an incredibly powerful way because this young lady, Jehoshibah, who is the sister of King Ahaziah, saw what was going on and saw that she was going to stop at nothing to destroy all of the royal offspring. Now I want to remind you of something. The royal offspring of Ahaziah, while he married into the family of Ahab and Jezebel, the royal offspring of Ahaziah flowed directly through the line of David. So in other words, there was going to be no one left of the line of David in order to rule and to reign.

Now, whether this Jehoshibah was a godly woman, whether she knew the promises, or whether she just cared about human life, she took a step of faith, a bold step of faith, and said, I'm going to step in and I'm going to do something to stop what I see that's so wrong that's going on. I'm going to step in and stop an evil that I see taking place. And I love that someone who is so little known did such a great work that had such a historically, powerful impact on a nation and honestly on all of us. Because she was willing to take that step.

Because she was willing to stand up for what was right. She is remembered in the history of the Bible. But she is also remembered in the history of our Lord. Because she made sure that the line of David would continue. And can we also say one thing? The plan of God will never be thwarted. How often did Satan try to destroy the line through which God, would bring the Messiah?

How often did Satan try to destroy everything so that the Messiah could never be born and yet God's plan would always continue. It could never be thwarted by any attack of the enemy. And so she steps in and she does this brave thing. And so they hid this kid for six years. Now, as a sidebar, this has nothing to do with anything spiritual. It's just an observation on my point,

on my part. Can you imagine hiding a one year old? Better yet, can you imagine hiding a three year old? Right? Like, I remember when my oldest daughter turned three, we, we coasted through the twos and we were like, oh, this is, this is great. So far, so good. The twos weren't too bad. And then we hit three and we were like, what the heck? Right? And we read this article that said three is two with intent.

Right? And so, so like, how do you hide a three year old? Like, they don't know how to keep their mouth shut. They don't know how to be quiet. They can't do anything quiet. I don't know how, this was a miracle from God, clearly. Anyway, it's neither here nor there. Something that I thought about today. So they hid this kid for six years. In the temple. And notice what it says in verse four.

Now in the seventh year, meaning when, uh, when this kid, when Jehoshibah was, uh, uh, seven years old in the seventh year, when Jehoiada sent and brought the captains of the hundreds of the Karaites and of the guard and brought them to him in the house of the Lord. And he made a covenant with them and he put them under oath in the house of the Lord and showed them the King's son. And he commanded them saying, this is the thing that you shall do. One.

Third of you who come in on the Sabbath and keep watch over the King's house. One third also shall be at the gate of sir. And one third at the gate behind the guards shall keep watch over the house for defense, two parts of you, even all who go out on the Sabbath shall also keep watch over the house of the Lord for the King. And you shall surround the King each with his weapons in his hand.

And whoever comes within the ranks shall be put to death and be with the King when he goes out. And when he comes in. So the captains of hundreds did according to all the Jehoiada, the priest commanded, and each one of them took his men who were to come in on the Sabbath with those who were to go out on the Sabbath and came to Jehoiada, the priest, the priest gave to the captains of hundreds, the spears and the shields that had been King David's, which were in the house of the Lord. Now we're introduced to another man, another man by the name of Jehoiada, and we're told that Jehoiada was the priest, a priest of the Lord.

And this guy again, is going to be the priest of the Lord. And this man is going to do something very brave because remember Athaliah is reigning and she has a reign of tyranny because she's already wiped out all of the Royal family, save this one kid that had been protected and hidden in the temple this entire time. And he decides he's going to plan a coup to overtake the kingdom. Now remember who Athaliah's mother was, it was Jezebel and Jezebel was known for her cruelty and she was known for ability to rule with an iron fist.

And so this man Jehoiada decides it's time now. To plan this coup, to plan this overtake of the government, because he knew a descendant of David was the one that was supposed to be on the throne because of the promise that God had made. And so he chose the exact right time, the day of the Sabbath, because on the Sabbath day is when the temple guard would change. And so he would have the old temple guard that was going out, the new temple guard that was coming in.

So he would have the maximum amount of military personnel in order to pull this off. And I want to remind you that even though there was a lot of corruption within the government, there were still people who knew the promise of God. There had to have been, otherwise, how could he have convinced all of these military men to do what he was calling for them to do? They would have had to known the promise of God.

And so he sets up this plan essentially just to surround Jehoshibah so that he can be protected this entire time. And so he sets this plan up and then I love what he does. He even gives them the swords and the spears and the shields. That had belonged to the army of David. He gives them that which had been proven trustworthy. And so it says, so verse 9, all the captains, excuse me, verse

11, the guard stood each with his weapon in his hand from the right side of the house to the left side of the house by the altar and by the house around the king. And he brought the king's son out and he put the crown on him and he gave him the testimony, meaning the law, and they made him king. And they anointed him and they clapped their hands and said, long live the king. And when Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and of the people, she came to the people in the house of the Lord and she looked and behold, the king was standing by the pillar according to the customs with the captains and the trumpeters beside the king and all the people of the land rejoiced and blew the trumpets and Athaliah tore her clothes and cried out treason.

Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains. The captains of hundreds who were appointed over the army and said bring her out between the ranks and whoever follows her put her to death with the sword for the priest said let her not be put to death in the house of the Lord. So they seized her and when she arrived at the horse's entrance of the king's house, she was put to death there. Isn't this a perfect picture of what's about to come for us?

Isn't this a perfect picture of what's about to take place right now? Satan is ruling and reigning in the world. We just have to understand that. He's the prince of the power of the air and he is in control of the things that are going on to an extent with God allowing it, but he is the one who is the ruler of this earth. And so God is going to at the right time set up his guard and

do away with Satan just like Athaliah was done away with and bring in the rule and the reign of Jesus. It's a perfect picture for us of what's about to take place for us right now. But this is the way that the history went down. They went in. They brought him out. She sees what's going on. She cries out, cried out treason and says, take her, take her away and execute her.

And if you will, in this moment, they finish off exactly what needed to take place with the judgment of the house of Ahab. I love the next thing that Jehoiada does. It says, then Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord and the king and the people that they would be the Lord's people also between the king. And the people, all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and they tore it down and his altars and his images and they broke in pieces thoroughly and killed Matan the priest of Baal before the altars and the priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord.

I love what Jehoiada does here with them because if you will, this is a time of renewal for the nation. They've been living under the tyranny of someone who has never intended to be to be queen and they had been living in sin. And when they realized that they were living in sin, the first thing that they did is they pulled away from the leader that was leading them into sin. But then they recommitted themselves to the Lord.

And after they recommitted themselves to the Lord, they made a covenant to do away with anything that would keep them from following the Lord. Now listen, there comes a point in time in the lives of believers in Jesus Christ where we find that sin begins to rear its ugly head once again in our lives. Maybe, maybe we know what we're supposed to be doing. Maybe we know how we're supposed to be living.

Maybe, maybe we've heard the truth. Maybe we've lived according to the truth, but there comes a point in time where we begin to erode away from what God has called for us to do. We begin to erode away in our lives and we allow the compromise in and we know what happens when we allow compromise in. Compromise eventually leads to sin, which leads to rebellion, which leads to us going, where am I?

And what have I been doing this whole time? But we are reminded in this story of exactly what we're supposed to do when we find ourselves having backslidden, having fallen away from the Lord and fallen back into those things of sin. Put the sin to death, recommit ourselves to the Lord and do away with anything in our lives that would pull us back into that sin. Sometimes in the Christian world, we call that rededicating our lives to the Lord.

I've actually heard people say this before. They're like, well, you know, the Bible never really talks about rededication.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what that said. Because when we fall into sin, when we fall into rebellion, there must be recommitment in our lives to get back to doing what God has called for us to do. And this is exactly what happens with the Southern Kingdom. They make this rededication to the Lord. They make this recommitment to the Lord and they follow the

Lord wholeheartedly once again. And so notice what it says. It says, he took captains of hundreds, the Karaites and the guards and all the people of the land and they brought the king from the house of the Lord. He came by the way of the gate of the guards to the king's house and he sat on the throne. Of the king. And so all the people of the land rejoiced and the city was

quiet for they had put Athaliah to death with the sword at the king's house. Can I once again make two quick points of application here? There can be no peace in your house until sin is put to death. There can be no peace in your life until sin is put to death and there can be no peace in a nation until sin is put to death. The reason why we see a lack of peace in our country right now is

because we are torn between following the things of God that we know are true and following the things of the flesh that we desire so strongly. That's why there's a lack of peace in the country right now. That's why there's riots. That's why there's issues that take place is because people want to be torn between the things of the flesh that they know are wrong and the things of God that whether they want to admit it or not, they know are right and until sin is dealt with until.

Sin is put to death. There's really no peace in someone's life and there's no peace in someone's house and there's definitely no peace in our nation. I hear lots of things about what the root of the problems are that we deal with as a country what the root of the problems are that we deal with as the world. I sat with a group of kids about a year or so ago and I said, okay, I want you guys to tell me everything that you think is wrong in the country in the world right now.

We're the biggest issues that they that we face and so they start naming off all these different things. Hunger or poverty, racism, all these different kinds of things. And I said, no, I don't disagree with any of those things, but I would tell you that there's really only one problem that we deal with. It's the biggest problem that everybody in the world deals with and unless you deal with this one thing, there can be no peace in any of those other areas and they were a little confused about what I said.

I said the one problem that we have is sin because at the root at the core at the heart of every single thing that you all mentioned is sin. And until that's dealt with you can never deal with all of the other problems in the country. You can never deal with all of the other problems in a nation. You can never deal with all of the other problems in a culture because you can treat symptoms, which is exactly what all of those things are.

But until you get to the root of the problem, you'll never really deal with it. You can eliminate a symptom, but it will rear its head in some other ugly way. And they were like, ooh, and I was like, yeah, I didn't come up with the Bible did because that's the root of the problem. That's why if you want peace, deal with the sin. And so Jehoash is brought to the the throne as the king at the

ripe old age of seven. So now we come to the reign of Jehoash the king. It says Jehoash was seven years old when he became king in the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king and he reigned 40 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zabeah of Beersheba and Jehoash was the son of Jehoash. Jehoash did right in the sight of the Lord all his days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him.

Only the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burn incense on the high places. So just we're giving just a little quick summary about this young man about this kid. The first is that he came to rule when he was seven years old. Can you imagine that? Like, I don't know if anybody here has a seven-year-old right now or somewhere in that range, but can you imagine putting a

crown on their head and saying, look, the country. Right, but that's what he gets to be. He gets to be king at seven years old. I don't even think seven-year-olds should choose their haircut, but this guy gets to be king, right? And so so he starts off at a very young age, but there was someone who was really important in his life that was helping to guide him and that man's name was Jehoiada the priest.

He did a lot to help guide Jehoash. As a matter of fact, we're given the commentary that while Jehoash reigned for 40 years, which is a pretty long reign based on what we've seen for a while, right? Although that's only two years older than I am right now. So maybe really wasn't that long of a reign, but we know that he ruled and reigned for that long, but we're given a little commentary that he did really, really good as long as Jehoiada was alive.

Now, second Kings isn't going to give us the rest of the story. We'll deal with the rest of the story. We'll go Paul Harvey and just a little bit on that and we'll get the rest of the story on that. But as long as Jehoiada was alive, he did good because he pointed him in the direction of the things of God and like many of the other kings. We'll see in 1st and 2nd Kings and in 1st and 2nd Chronicles.

There was always one issue, no matter how good the king was. It seemed like there was always one issue and that's that they did not tear down the high places. Now the high places that are mentioned here were used for two different things. Sometimes they were used for idol worship, but a lot of times when it was a good king, they weren't necessarily used for idolatrous worship.

They were used for the worship of God, but not in the purest way possible because you see God had told them. You enter the land. You can't worship me just anywhere. You want to worship me. If you're going to worship, you have to go to the place where I will put my name, which is Jerusalem at the temple. And yet throughout the history of the nation of Israel, while

they wanted to worship God, they oftentimes still wanted to do it their own way. They still wanted to do it with their own spin on it, if you will. And so they would still sacrifice and worship at these high places where they still worshiping God. Yes. Were they doing it totally the way God wanted for them to know? It's an interesting commentary on the way that we can be in our

lives as we can say, Lord, I want to follow you as long as it's kind of with my own spin on it. As long as it's kind of with my own twist on it, Lord, I'll do what you want me to do ish. For the most part, as long as I can kind of do it my own way. This is exactly what the nation of Israel did. God was still merciful. God still, God still moved. But I still think that they always missed out on the blessings

that God would have had for them had they followed God wholeheartedly. And so we're giving this little commentary, this little summary of the life of Jehoash. Pretty good king. At least that's how he's remembered till we get towards the end. It says in verse 4, then Jehoash said to the priests, all the money of the sacred things, which is brought into the house of the Lord

and current money, both the money of each man's assessment, and all the money, which each man's heart prompts him to bring into the house of the Lord. Let the priest take it for themselves, each from his acquaintance, and they shall repair the damages of the temple, wherever any damage may be found. But it came about that in the 23rd year of King Jehoash, the priests had not repaired the damages of the house. Then King Jehoash called for Jehoiada the priest and for the other priests and said to them.

Why do you not repair the damages? Of the house, take no more money from your acquaintances, but pay it for the damages of the house. So the priest agreed that they would take no more money from the people nor repair the damages of the house. Now the first like if you will reform that Jehoash makes is he decides he wants to repair the temple. Now, there's a reason why the temple needed repaired.

Remember when Athaliah was the queen, she was very opposed to the things of God, built altars to Baal. We're also told in second Chronicle, I think 22. We're told. That she actually vandalized the temple that that she she brought great reproach upon it and did things to damage the temple because she was so opposed to any of the things of God. So Jehoash the first thing he says is hey, let's let's repair the

temple. And so the people started bringing money and they brought kind of the regular tide. They brought everything that their heart desired to bring and they're bringing money into the temple and the priests were taking the money and listen, there's a little debate on exactly what the priest did with the money at this point in time, depending on who you read. The priests were either really unwise and that they kept the money for themselves or they were really unwise and that they were just hoarding the money for the temple and not using it for any of the repair sort of sort of building up the bank account if you will and not taking care of any of the repairs that needed to be done.

I'm not really sure which it was all when we get into second Chronicles. I didn't study it enough to know if it indicates one way or the other and since I it would kind of went both ways on the commentaries that I read not really sure if there was evil intent or just poor management of the money. But either way that it was they were not being good stewards of what had been given after all. They've been given a directive take the money and repair the temple.

Well, the 23rd year of Jehoash is 30 years old by this point in time. He comes into the temple one day. You can imagine it and remember this is where he grew up. He grew up in the temple because that's where they hit him was inside of the temple in one of the rooms there walks into the temple his house and he's like, why does it look exactly like it did 20 years ago?

Why have we done nothing to this place? I thought we were taking money so that we could do all of these repairs. So he calls a priest is like what's going on there like well, so yeah, anyway, and he's like don't take any more money because the money that's been given needs to be put into the repairing of the temple. Well in order to make sure that things continue happening as they're supposed to when she knows what happens verse 9, but Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid and he put it beside the altar on the right side as one comes into the house of the Lord and the priest who guarded the threshold put in it all the money which was brought into the house of the Lord when they saw that there was much money in the

chest the King's scribe the high priest came up and tied it in bags and counted the money which was found in the house of the Lord and they gave the money which was weighed out into the hand of those who did the work who had the over. Side of the house of the Lord and they paid it to the carpenters and to the builders who worked on the house of the Lord and to the Masons and the stone cutters for buying timber and hewn stone to repair the damages of the house of the Lord and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it, but they were not made for the house of the Lord silver cups snuffers bowls trumpets any vessels of gold or vessels of silver from the house of the Lord which was brought into the house of the Lord, but they

gave that to those who did the work and with it they repaired the house of the Lord. So Jehoiada had this idea. If it's not being managed very well, let's set up an accountability system. So he takes this box. I love Chuck Smith called an agape box. He took this box. He put a giant hole in the top of it that way money could go in but nobody could take any out.

So whether there was mismanagement in that nefarious things were going on or whether there was just mismanagement of it though. Everybody knew the money that was going in there. And when the box. Would get full they would come along and they would empty it put it in a bag and they would take it and give it to those who were doing the work so that things would be managed properly.

I love this because Jehoiada is the guy who was not just brave. He was also wise Jehoiada was not just a guy who was willing to make bold steps. He was not just a guy who was willing to do brash things to make sure that God's will was done. He was a man who used the gift of administration. I praise God for people who have the gift of administration because they know how to handle things in an orderly fashion to make sure

that things are done the way that they should be done one of the friends that I went on vacation with this last week. He has that gift and I love listening to him talk about matters of the church matters of money and matters of the business of the church because he is such a godly man. He is so wise in the word and yet he can speak about business matters and administrative matters in such a way that it reminds you that it is a godly thing. To do to exercise the gift of administration.

I say that because I think that sometimes people that have the business mind are oftentimes given the hardest time because we're like well, I guess not that spiritual. He's a businessman. Well, no because having the gift of administration is an incredibly spiritual thing because God is a God of order and God intends for things to be orderly and I praise God for people that have been given that gift so that things can be handled in that orderly fashion. That's exactly what Jehoiada does.

So he sets up this system. And so they start doing all the work and they're paying all the workers and I love verse 15. It says moreover they did not require an accounting from the men and to whose hand they gave the money to pay those who did the work for they dealt faithfully. I love that. I love that the the men that were doing the work of the temple were so

trustworthy that they did not need to make sure that they wrote down every where every dollar was. Going not that that's a bad thing because I think it's a good thing to do but they were trusted so implicitly because they were great men of God and they handled things faithfully. I tell young people this I like to tell older people this I think anybody should hear this that if you will make yourself first accountable to God, you will not need to be accountable to anyone else. Not that you shouldn't be accountable to anybody else, but you won't need to be accountable to anybody else because if you realize that you're accountability to God comes first, then your accountability to your

accountability to everybody else will be no problem because you realize that you're held to a higher standard and that's the way that we should live our lives. Whether you're someone who's in charge of the things of the church or whether you're just in charge of yourself, you should handle yourselves in such a way that you are faithful because your accountability is first to God and then to anybody else around you and that's the kind of men that were working. On the temple and so they're doing all of the repairs. They're getting everything taken care of the money's now going to the right things and not the priest.

So how are the priest going to be taken care of verse 16 the money from the guilt offerings and money from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the Lord. It was for the priests. See somebody went back and they did a study of the book of Leviticus and when they went back to the study of the book of Leviticus, they realize how the priests were to be supported. They realize how the priests were.

To be taken care of. Isn't it amazing that in even the smallest ways when we just get back to what God's word has to say and we follow it the way it's supposed to be all the things are taken care of. So that's what they do and everything is going great and it feels like life is going awesome. And then verse 17 happens and then Hazel King of Aram went up and fought against Gath and captured it and how they all said his face to go up to Jerusalem.

Jehoash King of Judah took all the sacred things that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah his father's Kings of Judah had dedicated and his own sacred things and all the gold that was found among the Treasuries the house of the Lord and of the King's house and he sent them to Hazel King of Aram and he went away from Jerusalem. It's always hard to read sections like this. If you read about such a great guy right comes to the throne in an incredibly miraculous way by great steps of faith by great men and women of God he comes to the throne and so you would think if anybody would trust in God it would be Jehoash after all that's how he started. He started his life even at a very young age learning that trusting

God was the most important thing he could do until things got hard. You see this Hazel we've read about him before. Remember if we were to go all the way back to Elisha. We remember that Hazel was the one who came on behalf of the king of Aram to find out if he was going to be healed of his sickness is this sickness going to lead to death or will I recover from it and Elisha looks at him.

He gives him that long really awkward stare. Then Elisha burst into tears. He says yes, he's going to recover but he's actually going to die and he's going to die at your hand and my heart is broken because I know the things that you're going to do to our people. Well, if you remember and chapter 10, he was the one who came against those tribes on the other side of the Jordan Ruben Manasseh and Ruben Gad and half the tribe Manasseh and he took them out.

That was that same Hazel. Well now this same guy comes up against Gath one of the Philistines cities and he sees that he takes it over and now he comes against Jerusalem. Why is he coming against Jerusalem? Why if this Jehoash is such a great King is is he in a place where he's now being attacked? We'll get to that in just a second. But Jehoash when he finds himself in a place where where he's being

attacked and he's being threatened. He doesn't do what he knew to do which was to trust God. After all God was the one who had established him on the throne. God was the one who had delivered him from Athaliah. God was the one who had established his kingdom and given him this 40 year reign. Now, what does he do instead? He goes to the ways of man and he starts collecting all of the things

of the temple and he goes let's come up with a ransom payment. We'll pay off Hosea will will bribe him to leave us alone. So he gets all these things together and he sends him to Hosea. You know, the problem was it worked it worked because sometimes the things of the flesh they'll work initially. They'll work in the in the beginning. But what we see happen is this verse 19 now the rest of the acts of

Jehoash same guy as Jehoash and all that he did are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? And his servants arose and made a conspiracy and struck down Jehoash that. The house of the Millo as he was going down to Silla for Jaws the car the son of Shamia and Jehozabad the son of Shomer his servant struck him and he died and they buried him with his father's in the city of David and Amaziah his son became king in his place. Now without any other backstory, you kind of find yourself a little confused here in second Kings.

Can we all agree with that with no other backstory? You're like, whoa. How did we go from really good King restoring the temple to conspiracy against him? And he's dying and all this other kind of stuff. Well in the margin of your Bible, you might just write second Chronicles 23 and 24 second Chronicles 23 and 24 because that tells the rest of the story and the rest of the story goes a little something like this

Jehoash walked with God the entire time that Jehoiada the priest was alive because Jehoiada the priest was advising him. He was counseling him making sure that he made the right decision. Making sure that he stayed on the straight and narrow making sure that he did the things that God wanted him to do. But in about the middle of second Chronicles 24 you find that Jehoiada the priest dies and he died at a very ripe old age.

If I remember correctly is 130 very ripe old age that that he lived to and and and after Jehoiada died were given this terribly tragic commentary. The princes of Judah began to once again build up the altar. Of Baal and Asherim and they began to follow after them, but God raised up prophets to warn them about coming judgment and Jehoiada son a guy by the name of Zachariah stood face-to-face against Jehoash and he said what you're doing is sin and you need to stop you need to get back to doing what God has called for you to do. You need to get back to the pure worship of the Lord.

But rather than Joash repenting and saying you're right. I have failed. Instead. He called for the assassination of Zachariah son of Jehoiada is a matter of fact. Jesus references this. I believe it's in Luke chapter 11 when he's calling out all of the religious leaders saying that you put to death even righteous Zachariah between the altar and the temple. That's the one he's talking about and as Zachariah was dying.

He said. May God remember this and may he deal with you. Well, it was after that that Hazel king of Aram came against Jerusalem. And he paid him off but Jehoia or but Joash was wounded in the battle. And so while he was recovering at the Millo those two servants came and they conspired against him and they put him to death. It's a tragic into what seemed like was going to be such a great

story. It's a tragic into what seemed like was going to be such a great man of God who makes these reforms and he rebuilt the temple and he restored the worship and it seemed like everything was going to be great after all Jehoiada had made the covenant with the Lord and the king and the people that they were going to be God's people. And so from this I want to finish off with three little lessons. They're not going to be totally different than a lot of the other lessons we've learned.

But the three lessons that I think we need to pay attention to nonetheless lessons learn from the life of Jehoash number one. It's not just how you start. It's how you finish. It's not just how you start. It's how you finish. Listen starting good is important. You need to start good. But you have to finish well too. You have to have to run the whole race. You can't just stop halfway through you have to run the whole thing.

You can't just stop and start celebrating. There's this famous clip that usually comes around when when the Olympics are on and it's this guy who's who's running in a race and I can't remember if it's a sprint. I think it's like the 800 meter maybe and he's so far and away ahead of everybody else. They started off so well. He can't even see any competition in the background and he starts

celebrating. He's kind of hot dog and it waving at everybody right and what he didn't realize was it's not just how you start. It's how you finish and the guy that was in second place so far behind him that there's no way on God's green earth. He should have ever caught him. And he beat him and that guy lost the race because it's not just how you start. It's how you finish and tell us that because brothers and sisters.

I don't know how much time we have left on top side of planet Earth. I don't know how much time any of us has left. I think if we've learned anything in this last week is that none of us knows how long we have on top side of planet Earth and every day you need to realize that if today's the day I finish I want to know that it was strong if today's the day I finish I want to know that it was with that every ounce. Of my being pursuing the God who has called me.

Don't be someone who says I can coast now because after all I've done all this work. Listen, I hear this sometimes I've served all these years. I think now I'm going to relax. You better be careful because you're probably in danger of falling because the minute you think I've done so good up to this point in time. I'm just going to stop serving. It's probably the minute you're going to fall into sin.

Because it's not just how you start. It's how you finish. Number two, we have to take heed to the warnings that God gives us. You have to take the warnings from the Lord seriously. Sometimes God speaks to us through the word. Have you ever had this happen to you? And you feel it and it's like, whoa, where did that even come from? And God warned you about something that you don't even see coming

yet. You're like, why do I keep hearing about this over and over again? Why do I keep hearing this thing over and over again? God, you must be trying. To tell me something right now. You need to take that seriously because if God is preparing you for it, you're probably about to face it. And if he's warning you of an issue in your life, don't pretend it's not an issue.

If he's warning you about sin in your life, don't pretend you can't fall into it. The most dangerous thing you can say is I'll never do that. I'll never do that because pretty soon you'll find that you can never like you've never never before. Because that's what happens to us because we are not as strong as we think we are. Our flesh is weak. The Spirit's willing but the flesh is weak and we should take

every warning that we see in Scripture and own it as if it's directly for us. You're right Lord. I don't want to fall into that. I want to stay as far away from that as I possibly can. So we have to take the warnings that are given to us in Scripture seriously. Number three. Your walk with Jesus has to be your own. Your walk with Jesus has to be your own. You know what the problem with Jehoash was?

His walk with God belonged to Jehoiada. His walk with God was because of that guy. So he didn't really have a walk with God. He had a walk with Jehoiada's God. And that's not the same thing. And too many people base their walk with Jesus Christ on their parents, on their friend, on their spouse. On their pastor, on an elder, on the guy that they listen to on

the radio and your entire walk with Jesus Christ is wrapped up with them. I remember a kid telling me one time he said I need you to stay strong because you keep me strong. And I remember at first I was like, oh, that's so neat. But later I had to tell him that can't be because I'm going to fail you because I'm just a human being and I'm going to screw up and if I screw up I have to know that that's not going to affect your walk.

Because your walk can't be based on me. And I've watched this happen over and over again in people's lives that that when their spouse is walking strong and their friends are walking strong, they're doing great. But if the person that they rely on the most starts to fall away from Jesus, so do they. Why? Because it's not your walk. It's theirs. And you have to own it for yourself.

You have to own it for you. You have to do this because that's what God has called for you to do. Your pursuit of God has to be between you and him. While I was on vacation, I started reading again a book that I read a really long time ago. It's called The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. And if you want to be challenged in your life, pick up a copy of Pursuit of God by A.W.

Tozer because it is so fantastic because in it he talks about the fact that too many of us are content with second-hand information. Too many of us are content with regurgitated knowledge from the Word of God. In other words, if the only thing that you're getting, from God's Word, is what I give you, that's regurgitated knowledge of the Word of God because I consumed it, I've digested it, and I'm giving it out to you. And my goal in giving it out to you is not that this would be the only time you hear the Word of God, but it would spark in you a desire to know God for yourself.

That it would spark in you a desire to say, now I want to pursue God because I want to hear from God and I want to hear what he has to say to me. Don't be content with second-hand information. Make sure that your walk, with God, is yours and that you're pursuing him with your whole heart on your own. Because brothers and sisters, if you don't own your walk with Jesus Christ, then it can be taken away from you.

I don't know how many people I've heard say, I was walking really strong with Jesus until my grandfather died. I was walking really strong with Jesus until my mom died, but they were the one who kept me close to God and now I've fallen away. It happens because you didn't own the walk for yourself. God has so much for you. He wants you to learn. He wants you to know.

He wants you to pursue that with your whole heart. Amen. Father, we come to you and just thank you for the time that we have in your word. And Lord, thank you that that you desire for us to pursue you.

Lord, as A.W. Tozer says in that book, to have found God and still be searching for him is the soul's paradox of love. And so Lord, may we continue to pursue you and not be lost. And so Lord, may we continue to pursue you and not be lost. Be content with someone else's experience with you. But may we experience you for ourselves personal walk with Jesus Christ.

Lord, keep us strong in you. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Be blessed.