Latest / The Bible Explained with Jenn Kokal / 2 Chronicles 27:1-9 - The King Who Refused the Great Commission
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Life Audio. Good morning, faithful listeners. This is Jen with
- 0:05Speaker 1: the Bible Explained podcast. We are in Second Chronicles twenty
- 0:10Speaker 1: seven today talking about a very short passage, but it's
- 0:14Speaker 1: discussing this king named Jotham, who we really don't know
- 0:18Speaker 1: a lot about because Scripture mentions almost nothing about him,
- 0:22Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about why that might be,
- 0:24Speaker 1: and also a fatal flaw that Jotham ends up doing
- 0:28Speaker 1: to Judah, even though Jotham himself was a religiously devout man,
- 0:34Speaker 1: and unfortunately that flaw that Jotham does is something that
- 0:37Speaker 1: many many Christians to this day also do. So we
- 0:41Speaker 1: will get into that in just a moment as normal,
- 0:49Speaker 1: faithful listeners, Here is a quick word from a sponsor.
- 0:52Speaker 1: Then we can get into today's episode right after that.
- 0:57Speaker 1: All right, grab your Bible and also your kupacne or
- 1:00Speaker 1: your cup tea this morning, and we're going to read
- 1:01Speaker 1: this tiny little passage of scripture, Second Chronicles twenty seven.
- 1:06Speaker 1: It's only nine verses long, so this is a rare
- 1:09Speaker 1: short chapter from the book of Second Chronicles. Normally the
- 1:13Speaker 1: books of Second Chronicles are quite long, but there's not
- 1:15Speaker 1: a lot of information about King Jotham. Here, so we'll
- 1:18Speaker 1: get into why that is in just a second. As usual,
- 1:21Speaker 1: I'll be reading from the web version, but of course
- 1:24Speaker 1: feel free to grab the version of the Bible that
- 1:26Speaker 1: you prefer this morning, and once you grab that, let's
- 1:29Speaker 1: go ahead and read Second Chronicles twenty seven together. Jotham
- 1:34Speaker 1: was twenty five years old when he began to rain,
- 1:36Speaker 1: and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother's name
- 1:39Speaker 1: was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadik. He did that which
- 1:42Speaker 1: was right in Yahwei's eyes, according to all that his
- 1:45Speaker 1: father Uziah had done. However, he didn't enter into Yahway's temple.
- 1:49Speaker 1: The people still acted corruptly. He built the upper gate
- 1:53Speaker 1: of Yahway's house, and he built much on the wall
- 1:55Speaker 1: of Ofel. Moreover, he built cities in the hill country
- 1:58Speaker 1: of Judah, and in the forests he built fortresses and towers.
- 2:02Speaker 1: He also fought with the king of the children of
- 2:04Speaker 1: Amine and prevailed against them. The children of Amin gave
- 2:08Speaker 1: him that same year one hundred talents of silver, ten
- 2:11Speaker 1: thousand cores of wheat, and ten thousand cores of barley.
- 2:14Speaker 1: The children of Amin also gave that much to him
- 2:16Speaker 1: in the second year, and in the third, so Jotham
- 2:19Speaker 1: became mighty because he ordered his ways before Yahweh his God.
- 2:23Speaker 1: Now the rest of the acts of Jotham and all
- 2:25Speaker 1: his wars and his ways behold, they are written in
- 2:28Speaker 1: the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. He
- 2:31Speaker 1: was twenty five years old when he began to reign,
- 2:33Speaker 1: and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. Jotham slept with
- 2:37Speaker 1: his fathers and they buried him in David's city, and
- 2:40Speaker 1: AHAs his son reigned in his place. Considering the fact
- 2:45Speaker 1: that Jotham seems to be such a good king, it's
- 2:47Speaker 1: kind of curious why there's very few verses about him
- 2:50Speaker 1: in scripture. Even in Second Kings fifteen, there's only a
- 2:55Speaker 1: few short verses about King Jotham. And my best guess
- 3:00Speaker 1: for why there's such little information about him is because
- 3:03Speaker 1: he more so just maintained what his father had started.
- 3:07Speaker 1: So even though he was notable in the fact that
- 3:11Speaker 1: he didn't let things fall apart, he also didn't accomplish
- 3:15Speaker 1: a whole lot on his own. Like he accomplished some things,
- 3:19Speaker 1: which is what our passage for today mentions, but he
- 3:22Speaker 1: didn't go out of his way. It seems like to
- 3:24Speaker 1: accomplish much more. More so, he maintained the state that
- 3:28Speaker 1: Judah was already in. In fact, it kind of alludes
- 3:32Speaker 1: to that in verse two where it says he did
- 3:36Speaker 1: that was right in Yahwah's eyes, according to all that
- 3:38Speaker 1: his father Uzaiah had done. However, he didn't enter into
- 3:41Speaker 1: Yahway's temple, but the people still acted corruptly. So that
- 3:46Speaker 1: shows right there that the sickness that was in Judah
- 3:50Speaker 1: was still growing and Jotham was doing nothing to stop it.
- 3:54Speaker 1: Even though Jotham in his own personal life walked in
- 3:58Speaker 1: the ways of Yahweh, he was not a good spiritual
- 4:02Speaker 1: leader for his people. Now, don't get me wrong. We
- 4:05Speaker 1: just talked on Monday about how the king cannot be
- 4:08Speaker 1: the high priest. We know that because we mentioned how Uziah,
- 4:12Speaker 1: Jotham's father, had gone into God's temple tried to take
- 4:17Speaker 1: that power for himself. You know, he was insolent against
- 4:21Speaker 1: God because he became so prideful since he was such
- 4:25Speaker 1: a powerful king, that he thought he could go and
- 4:28Speaker 1: get more power for himself by becoming the high priest.
- 4:33Speaker 1: And then God struck him with leprosy and pretty much
- 4:35Speaker 1: took everything away from him and gave it to Jotham
- 4:39Speaker 1: who were reading about today. The king could not become
- 4:41Speaker 1: the high priest that was reserved for the tribe of Levi,
- 4:45Speaker 1: which the king was not part of that tribe. But
- 4:49Speaker 1: a king did have to be a good spiritual leader nonetheless,
- 4:53Speaker 1: because he was leading his nation. We can see that
- 4:57Speaker 1: the best kings in Israel's and Judah's history were the
- 5:01Speaker 1: ones that followed Yahweh and encouraged the people also to
- 5:05Speaker 1: follow Yahweh. For example, the prime guy David. The reason
- 5:11Speaker 1: he was considered to be such a good king and
- 5:13Speaker 1: the standard for which all the other kings are supposed
- 5:16Speaker 1: to follow, was because David had a heart for God
- 5:20Speaker 1: and he wanted his people to also follow after God.
- 5:23Speaker 1: And we can see all of the things that David
- 5:25Speaker 1: did to achieve that. He set up worship services, he
- 5:30Speaker 1: set up singers to praise God at the ark of
- 5:33Speaker 1: the Covenant day after day. He did things to encourage
- 5:37Speaker 1: his people to worship Yahweh. And then Solomon, his son,
- 5:40Speaker 1: also encouraged the people to worship God as well by
- 5:42Speaker 1: building the Temple to God, giving them a place where
- 5:46Speaker 1: they could come and worship. And Solomon himself was a
- 5:49Speaker 1: very successful king. Also, however, towards the end of his life,
- 5:53Speaker 1: he also encouraged the people to worship other gods as well,
- 5:57Speaker 1: because he built a lot of altars and temple to
- 6:01Speaker 1: his wives' gods that were not Yahweh, which led the
- 6:04Speaker 1: people astray and that actually caused a civil war in Israel.
- 6:08Speaker 1: Directly after Solomon died, Israel was split in two, Northern
- 6:13Speaker 1: Israel and Judah the southern tribes. And then at that
- 6:16Speaker 1: point Israel had no good kings and Judah had a
- 6:20Speaker 1: few here and there. The next best king after Solomon
- 6:23Speaker 1: was Asa and what was he known for. He was
- 6:27Speaker 1: known for the religious reform he did in Judah. He
- 6:31Speaker 1: went and pretty much destroyed I think it was the
- 6:34Speaker 1: Asherah cult if I'm remembering correctly. He destroyed one of
- 6:38Speaker 1: the cults that was going on in Judah, and he
- 6:40Speaker 1: encouraged his people to worship God. And God gave Judah
- 6:44Speaker 1: success at that point in time because there was a
- 6:47Speaker 1: king that was a good spiritual leader. So the point
- 6:51Speaker 1: I'm trying to make is that the best kings in
- 6:54Speaker 1: Judah's history were the ones that didn't just follow Yahweh themselves,
- 6:59Speaker 1: but also encouraged the people to follow Yahweh as well.
- 7:04Speaker 1: And unfortunately, there's only a few kings that actually did that,
- 7:08Speaker 1: and Jotham, who we read about today, was not one
- 7:11Speaker 1: of them. He may have worshiped God himself, but he
- 7:16Speaker 1: only worshiped God to the extent that his father had
- 7:19Speaker 1: worshiped God. Is what it says right here in verse two.
- 7:23Speaker 1: He did that, which was right in Yahweh's eyes, according
- 7:26Speaker 1: to all that his father Uziah had done. However, he
- 7:29Speaker 1: didn't enter into Yahway's temple. As we know, Uziah got
- 7:32Speaker 1: struck with leprosy because he entered God's temple. Jotham thankfully
- 7:37Speaker 1: did not do that. He learned from that. And speaking
- 7:40Speaker 1: of that, you know, we don't see any particular sin
- 7:43Speaker 1: that Jotham did. There's nothing mentioned either here or in
- 7:47Speaker 1: the correlating passage of Second Kings fifteen. We don't see
- 7:50Speaker 1: a single sin that Jotham does, and yet it says
- 7:53Speaker 1: right here that he did follow God. So that makes
- 7:56Speaker 1: people wonder, like, why isn't there more written about Jotham
- 8:00Speaker 1: tying it all up in a bow? I think it's
- 8:01Speaker 1: because Jotham worshiped God but didn't encourage other people to
- 8:05Speaker 1: worship God. He allowed the corruption that was happening in
- 8:09Speaker 1: Judah to fester, and this, of course was not making
- 8:12Speaker 1: God happy. In fact, God talks about this festering wound
- 8:17Speaker 1: that his people in Judah had, how they were trampling
- 8:21Speaker 1: over widows and mistreating the fatherless and the orphans, and
- 8:26Speaker 1: murdering people, and sleeping with random women and committing adultery
- 8:31Speaker 1: against their wives. There were just so many terrible things
- 8:34Speaker 1: going on in Judah at this time that God was
- 8:37Speaker 1: so upset and angry with And unfortunately, Jotham did nothing
- 8:41Speaker 1: to try to correct some of these problems of corruption
- 8:45Speaker 1: that were going on in Judah. But he followed God
- 8:49Speaker 1: in his own personal life. It says in verse three
- 8:51Speaker 1: that he built the upper gates of Yahway's house, and
- 8:54Speaker 1: he built much on the wall of o Fell. Now
- 8:57Speaker 1: I believe the upper gate is referring to the connection
- 9:02Speaker 1: between the king's house and the Temple to God. You
- 9:06Speaker 1: may remember when Solomon first built the temple and his
- 9:09Speaker 1: own palace, he built them very close to one another,
- 9:13Speaker 1: and had this pathway going from his house to the
- 9:16Speaker 1: Temple of God. So basically easy access for the king
- 9:20Speaker 1: and for the king's household to get to God's Temple,
- 9:23Speaker 1: to worship there and to sacrifice there. This could be
- 9:27Speaker 1: what Jotham repaired was his access from his home to
- 9:32Speaker 1: the Temple of God. He repaired it and made it
- 9:35Speaker 1: beautiful again. And it sounds like he also repaired the
- 9:38Speaker 1: temple as well, to beautify it and bring it up
- 9:42Speaker 1: to date with any problems that were going on with
- 9:44Speaker 1: the temple at this time. He just beautified the temple.
- 9:47Speaker 1: And you know, this is all very good stuff. Giving
- 9:50Speaker 1: himself and his family easy access to the temple and
- 9:54Speaker 1: making it beautiful for the public. Once again, very good stuff.
- 9:58Speaker 1: It says that he also built much on the wall
- 10:01Speaker 1: of O'fell. Now, the hill of O'fell was in the south.
- 10:06Speaker 1: It was in the upper part of the old city
- 10:08Speaker 1: of David. So not only did he make repairs Jiahway's temple,
- 10:11Speaker 1: it says he also made repairs to the southern part
- 10:14Speaker 1: of Jerusalem as well. Moreover, verse four, he built cities
- 10:18Speaker 1: in the hill country of Judah, and in the forests
- 10:20Speaker 1: he built fortresses and towers. Now, when I was reading
- 10:24Speaker 1: through the works of Josephus, who is a historian who
- 10:27Speaker 1: wrote widely about the kings of ancient Judah, he said
- 10:32Speaker 1: that the fortresses that Jotham built were essentially impenetrable. So
- 10:36Speaker 1: that shows that Jotham also had an interest in defense
- 10:40Speaker 1: and making sure that Israel was protected from all of
- 10:44Speaker 1: their enemies, because Israel or Judah rather had a lot
- 10:47Speaker 1: of enemies at this point in time, especially with what's
- 10:50Speaker 1: going on in Israel at this exact same time, So
- 10:53Speaker 1: it was good at Jotham to see what was happening
- 10:55Speaker 1: up there and take preparations himself for Judah. In fact,
- 11:00Speaker 1: let's read about some of that. In Second Kings fifteen.
- 11:04Speaker 1: It says in verse thirty two that in the second
- 11:06Speaker 1: year of Piica, the son of Vermalia, king of Israel, Jotham,
- 11:10Speaker 1: the son of Usiah, King of Judah, began to reign.
- 11:12Speaker 1: He was twenty five years old when he began to reign,
- 11:15Speaker 1: and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother's name
- 11:18Speaker 1: was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadek. He did that which
- 11:21Speaker 1: was right in Yahweh's eyes. He did according to all
- 11:23Speaker 1: that his father Usiah had done. However, the high places
- 11:27Speaker 1: were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned
- 11:31Speaker 1: incense in the high places. He built the upper gate
- 11:35Speaker 1: of Yahweh's house. Now, the rest of the acts of
- 11:37Speaker 1: Jotham and all that he did, aren't they written in
- 11:40Speaker 1: the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.
- 11:42Speaker 1: In those days, Yahweh began to send resin the king
- 11:46Speaker 1: of Syria and Piica, the son of Romalia, against Judah.
- 11:50Speaker 1: And then it mentions in verse thirty that Jotham slept
- 11:52Speaker 1: with his fathers. He was buried in David City, and
- 11:54Speaker 1: that kind of ends Jotham's life in Second Kings chapter fifteen,
- 11:59Speaker 1: But that little gives us some more insight into what
- 12:02Speaker 1: was going on in Judah at this point. Second Chronicles
- 12:07Speaker 1: twenty seven mentioned that the people were still acting corruptly.
- 12:11Speaker 1: In Second Kings fifteen, it mentions one of the reasons
- 12:14Speaker 1: how the people were acting corruptly is because they were
- 12:17Speaker 1: sacrificing on the high places, and Jotham had no interest
- 12:22Speaker 1: in taking these high places away. In fact, it seemed
- 12:25Speaker 1: like most of the kings had no interest in these
- 12:28Speaker 1: high places. And these high places were places of idolatry
- 12:33Speaker 1: and idle worship. These were not places that the Israelites
- 12:38Speaker 1: or the Judaites should have been worshiping Yahweh at all.
- 12:41Speaker 1: They should have been worshiping Yahweh either at a dedicated
- 12:46Speaker 1: location where the levitical priests held a reading of some sort,
- 12:52Speaker 1: or they were supposed to go to the Temple of
- 12:54Speaker 1: God and sacrifice there. That was pretty much all they
- 12:57Speaker 1: could do. The high places where big no, no, because
- 13:01Speaker 1: that was a pagan tradition. In fact, it actually says
- 13:05Speaker 1: that when the Israelites moved in to the Promised Land,
- 13:09Speaker 1: they kept some of the high places that the Canaanites
- 13:11Speaker 1: had already set up and were still sacrificing at a
- 13:15Speaker 1: lot of those high places. So this was a pagan
- 13:18Speaker 1: tradition to put a you know, worship location on the
- 13:22Speaker 1: top of a mountain or something along those lines. So
- 13:26Speaker 1: it was not something God wanted his people to participate in.
- 13:29Speaker 1: It was a pagan tradition that shouldn't have been going on,
- 13:32Speaker 1: But unfortunately Jotham did not have any interest in taking
- 13:36Speaker 1: away those high places and helping the people truly worship
- 13:40Speaker 1: Yahweh the way God wanted to be worshiped. It also
- 13:44Speaker 1: mentions that God started to send Resin the king of
- 13:48Speaker 1: Syria and Pica, the son of Romolia, against Judah. So
- 13:52Speaker 1: this shows that Israel was starting to attack Judah, and
- 13:56Speaker 1: so was the king of Syria as well. Soh had
- 14:00Speaker 1: had some enemies during the days of Jotham, which shows
- 14:04Speaker 1: right there that yes, even though Jotham was a good king,
- 14:07Speaker 1: there were some serious problems beginning to happen in Judah.
- 14:13Speaker 1: Usually in the Old Testament, when we see a king
- 14:15Speaker 1: and their nation doing very well, God protects them from
- 14:19Speaker 1: every single enemy on the planet. In fact, it even
- 14:22Speaker 1: says that God would put the fear of himself in
- 14:26Speaker 1: the other nations so that they did not even want
- 14:29Speaker 1: to attack Israel or even think about attacking Israel. That's
- 14:33Speaker 1: what God would do for his people. So this really
- 14:36Speaker 1: shows that a deep corruption was happening in Judah at
- 14:39Speaker 1: this point, that God is beginning to take his hand
- 14:42Speaker 1: of blessing off of his people, the Judaites, in spite
- 14:45Speaker 1: of the fact that they had a pretty good king.
- 14:49Speaker 1: But going back to Second Chronicles twenty seven, it does
- 14:53Speaker 1: say that God gave Jotham one success in battle. It
- 14:58Speaker 1: says in verse five also fought with the king of
- 15:01Speaker 1: the children of Amin and prevailed against them. The children
- 15:04Speaker 1: of Amen gave him that same year one hundred talents
- 15:07Speaker 1: of silver ten thousand cores of wheat and ten thousand
- 15:11Speaker 1: cores of barley. The children of Amin also gave that
- 15:14Speaker 1: much to him the second year and in the third year.
- 15:18Speaker 1: So as you know, a talent is about sixty six pounds,
- 15:22Speaker 1: so if there's one hundred talents of silver, that would
- 15:25Speaker 1: be sixty six hundred pounds of silver. That's a really
- 15:30Speaker 1: good amount of silver for a nation to send over
- 15:33Speaker 1: to Israel. And then a core. It says right here
- 15:37Speaker 1: that they gave him a ten thousand cores of wheat
- 15:40Speaker 1: and ten thousand cores of barley. That would be about
- 15:43Speaker 1: fifty five point nine US gallons or two hundred and
- 15:47Speaker 1: eleven liters or six bushels. So ten thousand cores of
- 15:51Speaker 1: wheat would weigh about sixteen hundred metric tons, and then
- 15:56Speaker 1: ten thousand cores of barley would weigh about thirteen hundred
- 15:59Speaker 1: metric tons. So that show's right there that Jotham had
- 16:02Speaker 1: a very big success against the Ammonites because they are
- 16:05Speaker 1: giving him so much wheat, so much barley, so much silver,
- 16:10Speaker 1: year after year. But yet there's signs that God is
- 16:13Speaker 1: taking his hand of blessing away. But God blessed Jotham
- 16:18Speaker 1: pretty significantly. It says that Jotham became mighty because he
- 16:22Speaker 1: ordered his ways before Yahweh, his God. Jotham truly did
- 16:27Speaker 1: worship God because God is called his God. And I
- 16:31Speaker 1: really like that. You know, sometimes in scripture, when somebody
- 16:36Speaker 1: is not really in line with Yahweh, the verbiage will
- 16:40Speaker 1: be something like, he obeyed Yahweh, the God of Israel,
- 16:45Speaker 1: or he obeyed Yahweh the God of so and so.
- 16:48Speaker 1: But it specifically mentions that God was Jotham's God, and
- 16:53Speaker 1: that is why God blessed Jotham. But God is not
- 16:56Speaker 1: going to overlook this deep corruption happened in Judah, even
- 17:02Speaker 1: if Jotham the king was on the right path with Yahweh.
- 17:06Speaker 1: Now it says right here in verse seven. Now the
- 17:08Speaker 1: rest of the acts of Jotham and all his wars
- 17:11Speaker 1: and all his ways, behold, they are written in the
- 17:13Speaker 1: Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. He was
- 17:16Speaker 1: twenty five years old when he began to reign, and
- 17:18Speaker 1: he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. Jotham slept with his
- 17:22Speaker 1: fathers and they buried him in David's city, and AHAs
- 17:25Speaker 1: his son, reigned in his place. Now, if you jump
- 17:29Speaker 1: back to Second Kings fifteen. There's kind of an interesting
- 17:32Speaker 1: verse here that some people take as a contradiction of scripture.
- 17:36Speaker 1: It says, in verse thirty of Second Kings fifteen, Hoshea,
- 17:40Speaker 1: the son of Elah, made a conspiracy against Peka, the
- 17:42Speaker 1: son of Romalia, attacked him, killed him, and reigned in
- 17:45Speaker 1: his place in the twentieth year of Jotham the son
- 17:48Speaker 1: of Uziah. Another reason that's taken as a contradiction, you know,
- 17:53Speaker 1: disregarding all those names that I just read, it says
- 17:56Speaker 1: that all of this happened in the twentieth year of
- 17:58Speaker 1: Jotham the son of Uzia. And yet both in Second
- 18:02Speaker 1: Kings fifteen and also Second Chronicles twenty seven it mentions
- 18:06Speaker 1: that Jotham only reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. So why
- 18:11Speaker 1: would Second Kings mention that he reigned twenty years, that
- 18:14Speaker 1: all of this happened in the twentieth year of Jotham,
- 18:17Speaker 1: the king of Usiah. Well, because if you remember what
- 18:20Speaker 1: we talked about on Monday, we discussed how after Usiah
- 18:25Speaker 1: was struck with leprosy, he was confined to a house
- 18:30Speaker 1: where he lived out the rest of his days, and Jotham,
- 18:33Speaker 1: his son during that time essentially became the king while
- 18:38Speaker 1: his father was still alive. And his father lived for
- 18:41Speaker 1: several years after first getting leprosy. He did not die immediately,
- 18:46Speaker 1: but he was still considered the king until his death,
- 18:50Speaker 1: so very well could be that. In Second Kings fifteen,
- 18:52Speaker 1: when it says the twentieth year of Jotham, that was
- 18:56Speaker 1: probably considering the time that Jotham was taking over for
- 19:00Speaker 1: his father while Usiah was still alive, essentially reigning in
- 19:04Speaker 1: his place. Because Usiah was the king in name only,
- 19:08Speaker 1: Jotham was the true ruler during that time. So that's
- 19:11Speaker 1: probably why Second Kings fifteen, verse thirty says that Jotham
- 19:16Speaker 1: reigned for twenty years, whereas Second Chronicles twenty seven and
- 19:20Speaker 1: elsewhere in Second Kings fifteen it says that Jotham only
- 19:24Speaker 1: reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. So I just wanted
- 19:28Speaker 1: to throw that out there as well. But the point
- 19:31Speaker 1: of this whole thing is to show that being faithful
- 19:36Speaker 1: to God in your own personal life is good. But
- 19:40Speaker 1: God also calls us to a mission, the Great Commission. Actually,
- 19:46Speaker 1: Jesus himself said it before he ascended up into heaven.
- 19:50Speaker 1: The last commandment he gave his disciples and effectively all
- 19:53Speaker 1: of us was to go out spread the Gospel to
- 19:56Speaker 1: every creature and make disciples and baptize them in the
- 20:00Speaker 1: name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
- 20:03Speaker 1: Jotham did not do this. He did not do the
- 20:06Speaker 1: great commission. He worshiped God in his own personal life,
- 20:09Speaker 1: but kind of was just a live and let live
- 20:12Speaker 1: kind of king. And we can actually see that Jotham
- 20:16Speaker 1: was very hands off when it came to spirituality because
- 20:20Speaker 1: of his son a Has. It mentions in verse nine
- 20:23Speaker 1: that after Jotham died, his son a Has reigned in
- 20:26Speaker 1: his place, and we're going to learn about a Has.
- 20:29Speaker 1: Turns out that a Has is the worst king in
- 20:32Speaker 1: Judah's history up until this point, the worst king. He
- 20:37Speaker 1: was an idolator through and through. He didn't care about
- 20:40Speaker 1: God to the day he died. Jotham did not teach anybody,
- 20:44Speaker 1: not even his own family or his own sons. He
- 20:47Speaker 1: dropped the ball in that area, and unfortunately Judah is
- 20:51Speaker 1: going to suffer for some of the bad mistakes that
- 20:54Speaker 1: Jotham made. So faithful listeners, the point of today's path
- 21:00Speaker 1: passage is that God requires us to spread the Gospel,
- 21:05Speaker 1: to not just keep it to ourselves, but to tell
- 21:08Speaker 1: people about it. That is one of the things we're
- 21:11Speaker 1: required to do as Christians. We are required to evangelize.
- 21:16Speaker 1: And it's scary because you know, you don't want to
- 21:18Speaker 1: get on people's bad sides. You don't want to come
- 21:21Speaker 1: across as if you're trying to force them to believe
- 21:24Speaker 1: in anything. But the Gospel is the good news. It's
- 21:28Speaker 1: the best news. It's the news that saves people's lives.
- 21:32Speaker 1: And think about it this way. You know, if you
- 21:34Speaker 1: knew that somebody was going to die if they did
- 21:38Speaker 1: the activity they were going to do that day, Like
- 21:40Speaker 1: say you saw into the future and you knew that
- 21:43Speaker 1: if this person that if this person got into their
- 21:46Speaker 1: car today and drove to work, that they'd get into
- 21:48Speaker 1: a serious car accident and they would die. You would
- 21:53Speaker 1: tell that person, don't get into your car, don't go
- 21:56Speaker 1: to work today, like take the day off, because I
- 21:59Speaker 1: know what's going to happen to you if you get
- 22:02Speaker 1: into your car. Like certainly you would tell your friend that.
- 22:05Speaker 1: Even if your friend got super mad and was like,
- 22:07Speaker 1: well I have to go to work too bad, you
- 22:09Speaker 1: would do your best to tell them of their fate.
- 22:13Speaker 1: Now we can't read the future like that. But we
- 22:15Speaker 1: do know what God tells us about the eternity of
- 22:18Speaker 1: our souls, so we do know where people are going
- 22:21Speaker 1: to end up if they don't believe in the Gospel message.
- 22:24Speaker 1: And that is why we tell our friends and our
- 22:27Speaker 1: family members about it, because we love them and we
- 22:31Speaker 1: want them to have eternal security. We wish that for them,
- 22:36Speaker 1: and we know it's going to be the best thing
- 22:38Speaker 1: for them in the long run. And that's why we evangelize,
- 22:42Speaker 1: because it's the most important thing we can possibly do. Well,
- 22:46Speaker 1: Faithful listeners, I'm going to give you a quick announcement
- 22:49Speaker 1: from a sponsor, and after that I will wrap things
- 22:52Speaker 1: up on the podcast. Already, faithful listeners, tomorrow, we're going
- 22:57Speaker 1: to be in the Book of Titus and we're going
- 22:59Speaker 1: to start wrapping up the Book of Titus actually, because
- 23:01Speaker 1: this is the last chapter we will be in starting tomorrow.
- 23:05Speaker 1: So I told you guys, I said, we're gonna fly
- 23:08Speaker 1: through the Book of Titus because it's only three chapters long,
- 23:11Speaker 1: and the chapters are not very long at all. So
- 23:14Speaker 1: definitely tune in for Titus chapter three tomorrow morning. But
- 23:18Speaker 1: faithful listeners, I hope you have a lovely rest of
- 23:20Speaker 1: your day. I will see all of you guys on
- 23:22Speaker 1: the podcast six am or whenever you choose to wake
- 23:25Speaker 1: up tomorrow morning, happy listening, and God bless. I just
- 23:35Speaker 1: want to take a second to thank the team at
- 23:37Speaker 1: Life Audio for their partnership with me on the Bible
- 23:39Speaker 1: Explain podcast. In fact, if you go to lifeaudio dot
- 23:42Speaker 1: com you will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts
- 23:45Speaker 1: in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting,
- 23:49Speaker 1: and more.