Latest / Journey Elgin / Journey Through Scripture - 2 Kings 9-12 & 2 Chron 21-22
Transcript
- Phillip Thomas: It's good to see you today. Thank you for joining our journey through Scripture. My name is Philip Thomas, pastor of Journey here in Elgin. And as we're going through the Scriptures, what we are seeing is we're in the time of the divided kingdom. We are seeing good kings and bad kings, ⁓ kind of this constant political ⁓ intrigue that is going on. And we see the people are moving further and further away from God. This is a fascinating account that we're going to be looking at today. We're going to be looking at 2 Kings, the end of chapter 8, through chapter 12, and then we're going to throw in there also 2 Chronicles, chapters 21 and 22. Remember, the Chronicle focus more on the Southern Kingdom than the Northern Kingdom, and so we kind of combine those at times. If you remember, we spent a lot of time talking about King Ahab and his wife Jezebel in the Northern Kingdom, how bad that they were. The end of that line is going to be a major focus today. So in chapter 8 of 2 Kings, verse 16, we see Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, has died, and now his sons are going to start taking place. And the son that comes is ⁓ Joram. And it says, let's see, he was 32 years old when he became king and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem and he walked in the ways of the king of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done. For the daughter of Ahab was his wife and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. ⁓ So... What you have is King Ahab is ⁓ infecting even the Southern Kingdom. So King Ahab's daughter is now married to Joram ⁓ and ⁓ Atalia is her name. ⁓ And ⁓ Joram does a horrible job, kind of follows in the path of his father-in-law, not his father. And the power of influence and who influences you ⁓ is so important. And then ⁓ we get to verse 25 there of chapter 8. says, Ahaziah begins to reign in Judah. That is Joram's son. ⁓ And of course, his mom is Athaliah. That is the daughter of Ahab. So there's a connection there as well. So that gets us to 2 Kings ⁓ chapter 9, and this is Jehu is anointed king of Israel. Elisha, remember we talked a lot about Elisha last week. He is called by God to go and to anoint Jehu as the next king of Israel. Jehu's main role is to punish the line of Ahab. It says, "'Thus says the Lord, I have anointed you king over the people of the Lord over Israel. You shall strike down the house of Ahab, your master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants, the prophets, the blood of all the servants of the Lord at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish, and I will cut off from Ahab all the males in Israel, both bond and free. So I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat." The dog shall eat Jezebel on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her." And he opened the door and fled. So that was the messenger who was giving that message. And it's like, okay, it's time to get out. So Jehu is now anointed king. And there is a current king of Israel at this time. It's still Joram, ⁓ who remember he is His mother is the daughter of Ahab. So he is connected or, I'm sorry, he's in the line of Ahab. He's Ahab's son. so Jehu goes and confronts him. And it's kind of interesting you'll read there starting in verse 16, 17, there of chapter 10 of 9. And what's going on is Jehu has kind of approached the city. And Joram sends out his messengers to say, are you coming in peace? What's going on? They knew that there was ⁓ obviously tension building. And Jehu would say, what have you to do with peace? Turn around and follow me. That's what he would say to the messengers. When the messengers, they realize, ⁓ you know, the guy that we're following is not good. It kind of appears that this Jehu may be ⁓ taking power. So they actually would join Jehu. And so after about the third one of these, then Jehu, as well as he is with the king of Judah, ⁓ Ahaziah, who again, Ahaziah is related to Ahab. ⁓ So they are there together and Jehu confronts them and Joram, you know, turns around to flee and it, man, it's just fascinating. Some people don't. They don't like this stuff in the Bible, but this is real life. ⁓ And you know what, when punishment comes, it's not always pretty. ⁓ says, Joram turned around and fled and said to Ahaziah, treachery Ahaziah. Now Jehu drew his bow with full strength and shot Joram between the arms and the arrow came out at his heart and he sank down in his chariot. yeah. pretty good, and then they just threw him off to the side of the road. This is the king of Israel. Jehu has now exacted some revenge. And then same thing with Ahaziah of Judah. So Jehu, not only does he kill the king of Israel, he kills the king of Judah, both of who were tied to the line of King Ahab and Jezebel. So very much God's vengeance is being taken on those who were so evil. Now, then we have Jezebel's violent death. It's hard to find, you know, feel too much sympathy for Jezebel. She tries to, she stays kind of in the top of this tower, tries to proclaim peace, right? You know, and isn't it amazing that the people who ⁓ are the exact, the least amount of peace whenever their coroner, they call for peace. But that wasn't going to happen. So Jehu just looks up at the window where she is at the top of the tower. He says, who is on my side? Who? So two or three eunuchs looked out at him. Then he said, throw her down. So they threw her down and some of her blood splattered on the walls and on the horses. And he trampled her underfoot. And when he had gone, he ate and drank. And then he said, go now, see if this accursed woman and bury her for she was the king's daughter. So Jehu was actually going to bury her. So, but when they went to bury her, they found that no more than her skull and the feet of the palm of her hands were left because they had been eaten by dogs. Just, oh, and of course, remember that goes all the way back. Elijah made that prediction. Ahab didn't like that. Jezebel certainly didn't like that. They tried to kill Elijah, but it's sure enough, it came true. Jehu's work was not done. Chapter 10, he kills 70 sons of Ahab. Ahab was a very busy man, but all of his sons now are killed. ⁓ Ahaziah's brothers are killed, that's in Judah. The rest of Ahab's family, all the worshippers of Baal are killed, so vengeance is taken out. And this, again, this wasn't all that uncommon in that culture, ⁓ but Jehu truly took his calling very seriously and wiped out. all remnants of Ahab. ⁓ Verse 29 of chapter 10 says, However, Jehu did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam who had made ⁓ Israel sin, that is from the golden calves who were at Bethel and Dan. And the Lord said to Jehu, because you have done well in doing what is right in my sight and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in my heart, your son shall sit on the throne of Israel for the fourth generation. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, for he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam who had made ⁓ Israel sin." So this is kind of an interesting reality and a tough one. You sometimes we think that the people that God uses ⁓ are always ⁓ righteous and humble and walking with the Lord. Well, you know what? Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Jehu... ⁓ That was not who he was. He did what the Lord called him to do, but then he did not walk with the Lord. ⁓ He kind of picked and chose what parts of God's desires and God's decrees that he followed. And you know, before we get too hard on Jehu, maybe we should look at ourselves. Do we pick and choose the aspects of God's word that we like? that are comfortable and we follow those and uplift them, but we don't acknowledge the others. Yeah, something we should be thinking about. So Jehu now passes away. Now I want to jump to second Chronicles. So second Chronicles 21 and 22, this is kind of mentions what Jehu did and how it impacted the kings of Judah, remember? The chronicler is much more interested in Judah, and so it does bring that out. says, Joram reigns in Judah. It talks about how Joram did not follow his father, but that he followed more from Ahab, because again, he was married to Ahab's daughter. And I love this in verse 20 of chapter 21 of 2 Chronicles. two years old when he became king. He reigned in Jerusalem eight years and to no one's sorrow departed. So when he died, ⁓ no one cared too much. To no one's sorrow he departed. ⁓ Then we have Ahaziah ⁓ reigning in Judah. Remember, his mom is Thaliah ⁓ and Ahaziah is killed by Jehu. ⁓ along with the northern king, King Joram. ⁓ And so that actually opens the way to 2 Kings chapter 11, where Ahaziah's mother, who again is related, is the daughter of King Ahab, she actually assumes the throne of the kingdom of Judah. Now, this is something that you don't hear a whole lot of, right? ⁓ that a woman is now assuming the control in Judah. ⁓ Culturally, women definitely had a, you know, were subservient, ⁓ but within the Jewish people, and we've talked about this before, God's Word is very progressive in its view of women, ⁓ and it seems that the people adopted some of those as well. Now, the thing that we don't... We don't hear many people elevating Athalia as the first king or queen, excuse me, queen of Judah is because she was horrible, right? I hate to break it to you, but both men and women can be just as evil, right? If we don't follow the Lord, our sinful nature will lead us to... to be siding with those things that are against God. It doesn't matter if you're male or female. And so one of the worst queens of Judah is ⁓ Athalia. And she actually ⁓ began to try to wipe out all of the Davidic line. Remember, the Davidic line is who the kings have, everyone that has been a king of Judah has been part of that line. Well, she is not. and she's part of Ahab's line, she starts killing ⁓ all the ⁓ possible heirs to the kingdom that are part of the ⁓ Davidic line. And so there was a young, ⁓ very new ⁓ baby born named Joash, who was the son of Aaziah. So he was the son, he was in the Davidic line. ⁓ but he was stolen away and hidden in a bedroom so that he was not killed. He was kept in hiding for over six years ⁓ while Athalia reigned over the land of Judah. ⁓ And then you have Jehoi, who was a priest who basically starts a coup against the queen. and gets people to support ⁓ this new ⁓ child king. so, ⁓ Joash actually becomes king at a very young age. I believe he was eight. And then at that time, confront, Johada, the priest, commands the captain of hundreds of the officers of the army and said to him, take her outside. This is Queen ⁓ Athalia. Take her outside under guard and slay with the sword whoever follows her. For the priest had said, Do not let her be killed in the house of the Lord. So they seized her and she went by the way of the horse's interest into the king's house and there she was killed. And then, Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord, the king, and the people. there was a, ⁓ Joe Ash was seven years old when he became king. And then there began a movement back towards God. Chapter 12, Joash repairs the temple. The temple had basically been allowed to just begin to crumble. Thought this was kind of interesting. Joash said, ⁓ all the money that is given to the priest, that those are supposed to be going to rebuild the temple. ⁓ Well, after the 23rd year of King Joash, the priest had still not repaired damages to the temple. It's nearly like organized institutions and governments aren't necessarily good at fixing problems. Just leave that there. so King ⁓ Joash sees this and you can tell is like what is going on. says, why have you not repaired the damages to the temple? Now therefore do not take more money from your constituency, but deliver it for repairing the damages. The priest agreed that they would neither receive more money for the people nor repair the damages of the temple. So it's like, okay, priest, you're done. You're ridiculous. You're only in this for yourself. And so then there was private money that was began to come in and the temple started to get repaired. We're going to read for next time, we're going to read more about Joe Ash. And so if you'll start reading 2 Kings 13, We'll go probably 13. see. 13 and 14. Yeah, there you go. Second Kings 13 and 14, but also Second Chronicles 23, 24 and 25. So Second Chronicles 23 through 25 and Second Kings 13 and 14. All right, we'll see you. Have a good week.