Latest / Journey Elgin / Journey Through Scripture - 2 Kings 13-14 & 2 Chron 22-25
Transcript
- Phillip Thomas: It's good to see you today. Welcome to our journey through scripture. My name is Philip Thomas, pastor of journey here in Elgin. And ⁓ we are continuing to look through the chaos and the political mess of the Northern and Southern kingdoms. And I know this can get a little bit confusing, but I hope we're taking it in little steps. We're switching mainly back and forth between Kings and Chronicles and trying to piece together the different Kings. For the most part, the Northern Kings are all bad. The Southern Kings are now starting to get worse. If you remember, we left off with the death of King Joash of Judah, but that was in Second Kings. We're going to hit that again, the story from the Chronicles. Chronicles, remember, is always focused more on the priest and the kings of Judah, where kings tends to focus a little bit more on the kings of Israel and the prophets. So today we'll be reading 2 Kings 13 and 14, and then 2 Chronicles 22 through 25. So 2 Kings 13 and 14, and then 2 Chronicles 22 through 25. All right, so Kings chapter 13, remember we talked about Jehu. He basically came and wiped out ⁓ all the family of Ahab, got rid of all memory of Ahab and Jezebel. Well, his son comes to power ⁓ named ⁓ Jehoaz. And he also did evil in the sight of the Lord. That's in chapter 13. I do think it's kind of interesting. ⁓ Syria is a constant thorn in the side of the northern kingdom of Israel. ⁓ so, has pleased with the Lord, and the Lord listened to him, for he saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them. So, the Lord is still trying to work for the people of Israel. He desires for them to turn back to him. And so, when they are oppressed, the Lord does ⁓ intervene at times. And this is even with a bad king. ⁓ And Jehoaz is not a good king, but he did plead with the Lord, and the Lord showed mercy. But then Jehoaz does not respond and does not change his ways. And there's just something in there that's kind of important. Sometimes we ⁓ don't really pay any attention to God at all in any area of our life, and then tragedy hits or something big happens and we cry out to God and we ask for him to intervene. And then maybe when he does then we just kind of fall right back into the pattern of where we had been before We need to be careful that we don't act like many of these Kings ⁓ act and so we have Jai has then he has a son named Joe ash Which is confusing because there's a Joe ash in Judah, but this is the Joe Joe ash of Israel It says and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nabat who made Israel sin, but walked in them. ⁓ So he is not a good king either. This is Joash, the king of Israel. Joash was the king when Elisha dies. So Elisha became sick. Then Joash, the king of Israel came down to him and wept over him and said, ⁓ my father, father of the chariots of Israel and their horsemen. ⁓ He recognized, even though the kings didn't like Elisha because he told them how it was, they did recognize that he was a man of God. So here, Joe Ash is concerned with Elisha dying. ⁓ Elisha kind of ⁓ tells him to follow some certain traditions and stuff with the bow and striking the ground. And he's making ⁓ an illustration of what... King Joash needs to do to the Syrians. And Joash doesn't do it the way that Elisha desires, and so Elisha says, ⁓ you'll never fully be rid of the Syrians. And then Elisha does pass away. there's kind of, you know, Elisha did a lot of miracles in his life. Even in death, there is a miracle that is associated with Elisha. Verse 20. of chapter 13 says, Elisha died and they buried him and the raiding bands from Moab invaded the land in the spring of the year. So it was as they were burying a man that suddenly they spied a band of raiders and they put the man in the tomb of Elisha. And when the man was let down, he touched the bones of Elisha and revived and stood on his feet. Right? It's just kind of really interesting. There was something about Elisha. There are so many. different miracles associated with him. Then the end of chapter 13 talks about how Israel does recapture some cities from Syria, but they do not completely get rid of the Syrian influence. Then in the second Kings, it talks about a little bit about the kings of Judah again. So it talked about Joash. Now it talks about Joash's son Amaziah, and we see that Amaziah ⁓ He did what was right ⁓ in the sight of the Lord. However, he did not completely take away ⁓ some of the altars and the ⁓ pagan gods. ⁓ But we see that he executed those who had murdered Joash, his father. ⁓ And then he starts a war with Israel. We'll learn a little bit more about that. ⁓ And Israel actually defeats him. ⁓ And so he kind of ends his tenure in shame that he is defeated by ⁓ Israel. So now that gets us through chapter 14 of 2 Kings. Now we're in 2 Chronicles 22 through 25. We're kind of going back in time. Remember, we're trying to go in chronological order. So we're these passages as they kind of overlap. So 2 Chronicles. ⁓ 22 is beginning the story of King Joash and and remember his mom ⁓ was Athalia who she was connected with King Ahab remember and and so She actually becomes ruler of the southern kingdom of Judah Remember she wants to get rid of all of the line of David that included King Joash and And so she was starting to kill everyone Joash was saved ⁓ by Jehoiada, who was the priest, ⁓ and his life was spared. Joash's life was spared. Then he becomes king at age seven. Remember, they go and they kill Athalia and anyone who was going to follow her. ⁓ And so Joash now is king. ⁓ Chapter 24. of Second Chronicles talks about, again, remember we talked about how Joash repaired the temple ⁓ and how the Levites were not doing it quickly. So they kind of went back to the way Moses collected some of the money and funds and they did that and the temple began to be restored. It just shows you how far down the people had gone. Verse 7 of chapter 24 says, the sons of Athalia, that wicked woman had broken into the house of God and had also presented all of the dedicated things to the house of the Lord, to the Baals. So, know, they had just completely moved away from God and were worshiping the pagan god of Baal. ⁓ But Joash is repairing the temple. ⁓ However, ⁓ As Joe Ash gets older and then the priest Jehoi, who was his his main confidant ⁓ his ⁓ Person who advisor he was somebody who advised Joe Ash when he dies ⁓ as Anytime in politics and power and things like that when when there's a ⁓ missing spot That is going to get filled and so Joe Ash ⁓ He was now missing an advisor. So politically speaking, there was a group of leaders who jumped into that place and they were not godly. And Joe Ash was easily influenced by them. ⁓ So Joe Ash, while he did some good things, was not a strong leader because he was just influenced by whoever was advising him. that's, you know, there's definitely some ⁓ applications to the way that we look at leadership even today. ⁓ Who you surround yourself with, who you're advising, who is advising you, ⁓ it makes a difference. And Joe Ash was not a strong leader, even though he did a lot of good things, restored the temple, but that was really because of who was advising him and who he trusted. And then, whenever Jehoiada the priest dies and... this other group comes in, they are not godly, and Joash begins to listen to them. And it says, now after the death of Jehoiada, this is in verse 17 of chapter 24, the leaders of Judah came down, bowed down to the king, and the king listened to them. Therefore they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, served wooden images and idols. Wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of their trespass. Yet he sent prophets to them to bring them back to the Lord, and they testified against them, but they would not listen. Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada." So this is the son of the priest who had advised Joash, who had saved Joash's life. And he says, why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you. So the leaders conspired against him. And at the command of the king, they stoned him. So here, Joash is giving the command to stone the son of the priest who had saved his life. Just really ugly, right? ⁓ Political intrigue and all of that. It becomes a messy situation. And so Joash gets caught up into that because he is not being faithful to God. ⁓ Then he is killed. Joash, actually the way that he dies is Syrians come and strike a blow to to Judah ⁓ and then basically those Jewish leaders then conspire to have Joash killed. Then Joash's son Amaziah in chapter 25, interesting what it says, it says, he comes to power, Joash's son, and did what was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a loyal heart. So he did some good things, but... He wasn't really all that good of a person. He wasn't really truly faithful to God. He just did them. And sometimes you can do the right thing, but for the wrong reason. And I think that is who King Amaziah is. ⁓ You can read in there starting in verse five, talks about a war against Edom. ⁓ He actually tries to ⁓ get a huge army together. So he conscripts, hires. ⁓ man from israel to come and fight with them and a profit a man of god tells him ⁓ no god is not with israel you don't need to bring them and so he sends them back will they get mad and they actually attack some of the ⁓ cities in juda ⁓ but amaziah goes and he does defeat the eat amites ⁓ he destroys them ⁓ now this doesn't It doesn't seem that it's really from God. So he does things and destroys a lot of prisoners and things like that, pretty brutal stuff. So he achieves a bit victory, but there's not really an indication that this is what God fully desires. so ⁓ Amaziah ⁓ then gets upset because the Israelites who he had hired and then sent back, because they had kind of... ransacked a few cities, he calls out ⁓ Joash in the kingdom of Israel and wants to fight the kingdom of Israel. And so they do, they try to convince him not to, just to forget about it, but Amaziah says, no, we're gonna do this. Well, he is defeated, Israel defeats Judah ⁓ in battle ⁓ at that time. And then we see... the death of Amaziah. It's also during this time that Israel, they destroyed some of the gate, the gate and the wall of Jerusalem. So we start seeing now, we've seen the crumbling in Israel already. Now we start seeing literally the crumbling ⁓ of Jerusalem. We've seen the decay of the temple because of what Athalia had done and then some of the restoration with Joash. But now we're starting to see continued decline and the symbolism is definitely powerful as the gates and the wall is beginning to crumble. ⁓ The kingdom of Judah is beginning to crumble as well. All right. So for next, let's ⁓ read the book of Jonah. So just read all of Jonah and we will go through Jonah.