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There was a car chase in Los Angeles this morning that I'm sure some of you may have seen on the news, where a couple were driving in their Nissan Altima at frantic speeds through Santa Ana, California, southern Los Angeles, at 5.30 in the morning, running from phantoms who were chasing them. The last line of the news story was, police are unsure if drugs or alcohol are involved. I'll go ahead and say yes, they were definitively. I don't need to wait for the toxology results in this one. They were zigzagging back and forth across the road at a high rate of speed. They collided with the median, launched their Nissan Altima into the air and into the second story of a house. There are lots of pictures. They survived. Nobody was seriously injured in this, which is phenomenal. When you see the pictures, don't look now. Put your phones away. I mean, come on. But at home tonight, you should see this picture, a car wedged into the second story of a house halfway through. And so I guess the good news is that the chase was over. The bad news is they're stuck in the second story of a house. That's similar to what we find tonight in 2 Kings chapter 12, where it seems in Israel, history was getting out of control and out of control. It seems that they were zigzagging all over the place. It seems like the car was on fire, so to speak. And lo and behold, they hit a median, launched through the air, and find themselves wedged in the second story of a house that chases over. There was a wicked queen, if you remember, who was trying to eliminate all of David's line. She was trying to snuff out the whole line of David, wicked queen of Thalia, and she failed. She failed. Israel had begun to worship the Baal gods. They had begun to forsake Yahweh. Well, that had been their custom for almost two centuries now, but in earnest now they had begun to forsake Yahweh and worship the Baal. And that it all came to a screeching halt in a way that nobody would have anticipated. It was the high priest who saved the last remaining descendant of David, this little boy that the queen didn't know was born yet, and hid him in the temple where he lived for seven years. And when he was a seven-year-old son, perhaps having never seen the light of day outside of the temple, he was unveiled as the king of Israel. And so the chase is over, so to speak. What we see tonight in 2 Kings chapter 12 is that they're still wedged in the second story of the building. All is not well at this point of the story. Now, as I mentioned, there's a lot packed up in this chapter. But I think one of the keys to this chapter, to kind of back into it a little bit, is to talk about giving, financially giving. It's often a criticism of pastors that they can see the need to financially give to the church in any passage, but hey, it's in every passage, so what can I do? Now you know that I don't often talk about But it is a prominent theme throughout this chapter. And so before we get into 2 Kings 12, I think it's helpful to back up and ask yourself what the teaching is for Christians giving money to their church. And even we understand as a church that there's expenses that are different. You know, there's building expenses. We pay for this atrium that we're sitting in, for example. And we pay for personnel expenses. So we pay for the missionaries we have in Thailand that we prayed for earlier. We pay for my salary, for example. So the money goes to all that things. It goes to the roof and the lights and translation in Thailand and to this jacket I'm wearing. And thank you very much for it, by the way. That's the concept of giving to the church. People often, it is a complicated concept, and people often refer to it as tithing to the church, but that's not a line that is helpful, and you're going to see why it's not helpful tonight. Tithing is an Old Testament concept. Tithe just means 10%, and it's something the Israelites were commanded to do. Tithes were collected annually, and there were three different tithes in the Old Testament, of course. Farmers paid a tithe, merchants paid a tithe, shepherds paid a tithe, and they were all paid to the temple. Israel was a theocracy. It was run by the priests. The royal class really ran the society. Of course there was a king and there were laws, but the priests were in charge of interpreting those laws and bringing God's word to bear on the people. And so the priests were fed by the income given to the temple and there were multiple tithes and repeated in Deuteronomy 12, for example, Deuteronomy 14, Leviticus 27, and Leviticus 27 expands it even to include your livestock. You have to give a tenth of your livestock to the temple as well. And you could get out of the tithes in different ways by giving the firstborn, you know, the firstborn of your livestock to the temple or whatever, dedicating your firstborn to the temple and then getting him out of that service by purchasing him back. That was common practices in Israel. That's the tithing system. By the time of Jesus in the New Testament, tithes were people giving 10% of their income. And they gave 10% of everything. Income is kind of generic. Now you get a paycheck, and your wages can be docked. And the Israelite system, that's what they would have done, just kept 10% of your wages. But they tithed everything. You bought spices. You gave 10% of your spices to the temple. You, of course, tithed on your livestock and all of your income. And that's how the Israelites functioned in the New Testament. And it was not good. It was not good. And that's why we don't refer to giving in the church as tithing. We don't invite the ushers forward to receive the tithes. We invite them forward to receive the offering and the gifts because tithing was very much an Old Testament concept. The Baker Bible Encyclopedia says this, quote, tithing is mentioned in the New Testament only critically. And that's a staggering line. The only mentions of tithing in the New Testament are critical. In other words, they're being rebuked for tithing. Jesus rebukes the Israelites for how they insisted on tithing. The fact was the Pharisees of Jesus' day loved the tithe, and we're going to end our time in the Word this evening by looking at one of Jesus' rebukes to them for the tithe, by the way. But tithing, the Pharisees loved it because it was easy to enforce. It's easy to enforce. There's no heart issues involved with tithing. You look at how much money you received for your work, you give 10% of it to the temple, and you're done. Imagine how easy that would be if that was the church's approach to giving. And some churches have that approach. I don't even know of some cults really, but where you bring a paycheck every year and they look at your paycheck and make sure that you were giving 10% that year. It's so easy to enforce. And the Pharisees loved it, of course, because they only had to give 10% also, and they were the recipients of it. They were giving it to themselves. So they won on both sides of this. But Jesus rebukes that, because it doesn't deal with the heart. It doesn't deal with the heart. The other drawback to tithing is it propagates the idea that everything you have belongs to you, and you get to give some of it to God. And that's really a backwards way of viewing your resources. To think, oh yeah, I earned it. It's all mine. It belongs to me. And I'm going to, because of how generous I am, Lord, praise Jesse for his generosity. I'm going to give a small part, 10% of what I have to you, God. That's just how thankful I am. 10% of what I have. The 90% is for me. The 10% is for you. It's just a very backwards way of viewing our stewardship over things in this world. The right way of viewing our stewardship is understanding that God owns everything. that all that we have is God's. We're stewards. We're stewards. We're not owners. We're stewards. I may technically own my house, but I recognize that the Lord owns it. I'm a steward of it. And that's the idea here, that God owns all that we have. And so we use it all for his work. Now, you don't obviously give all of your money to the church. That would be ridiculous. And then the church would have to pay for you because you'd be impoverished now. And that's a backward cycle. That's not the design of scripture. impoverish everybody and then live off the rest. That's communism, not Christianity there. The design of the church is for you to recognize that God owns everything and He's made you a steward of it, and you're looking for strategic ways to invest it. Strategic ways to get the Lord's work done on earth. And I hope the most strategic way you know of is the church. I hope that when you look at giving, you think, you know, there's no place I'd rather put my money than in a manual Bible church, because what they do with it is expanding the kingdom of God. It's a good investment. I'm buying stock in eternity, so to speak, by giving to Emmanuel and you reap the dividends in glory. That's the idea. But you also understand that not every church is equal. Not every church or every non-profit organization uses its resources in the same way with the same effectiveness. So giving to one church might not reap the same kind of eternal awards as another church. And that's going to be an important theme as we look at the text tonight. The New Testament, by the way, does command for Christians to give money. It doesn't lay out a tithe, but it tells you to give what the Lord lays on your heart. Give generously, give hilariously, give with a cheerful attitude, that's in 1 Corinthians 9, Galatians 6, 1 Timothy 5, commands you to give for your pastors. So those that are preaching the Word of God don't have to work a vocation outside of the church. That's the command in 1 Timothy 5, verse 18, and also I think Galatians 6, 6. 1 Corinthians 16, verse 2, says that the offering should be taken weekly from the congregation for the purpose of the ministry of the church. And so that's the practice of just about every church in the world, including Emmanuel Bible Church. Somebody has asked me before, do pastors give? Do pastors tithe? And I love it when they ask it like that. Do pastors tithe? No, tithing's Old Testament. Better question. Do pastors give to the church? And yes, we do, because we have the same motivation. The same motivation from our hearts is we want to use our resources to invest in eternity. And so we also give, and we give to the church. And so you could say, oh, it's just like the Pharisees who gave to themselves. Well, not really. Not really. Because of the generosity of the congregation, it's not like I'm paying my own salary or anything. When I'm giving to church, I know it's being invested in missions. And even in the building in which we all meet so we can do things like gather tonight, there's things that are being done for the kingdom that I want to be part of in that way. in short, and the concept of tithe belongs to Old Testament Israel and the theocracy that died with it. But even that's not fair. And this is why the point of this whole long introduction here is that when you get to 2 Kings 12, what you're going to see here is that the idea of tithing in the Old Testament had the same flaws it does now. And that giving 10% of your money to priests that aren't doing anything with it does not advance God's kingdom, does not earn you an eternal reward, even in the Old Testament. They saw through this in the Old Testament. That's where we jump in tonight in chapter 12 verse 1. In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash began to reign. Jehoash was the boy that had been squirreled away in the temple and he was revealed when he was seven years old. His mother's name was Zebia of Reshiva and Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, one of the few kings who gets this commendation, all of his days. Because Jehoadiah the priest instructed him. Now a little word on the ESV translation here, I think that it has a comma and a bad place here. If you're reading the New American Standard, I think you see this in a more, the NIV, you see it in a more natural way here. It says that Jehoash did right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of his life that Jehoadiah the priest instructed him. So the comma kind of messes up the flow there. The idea is that as long as Jehoadiah was alive, the king did right. The implication, which we'll find at the end of the evening, is that when Jehoadiah the priest is removed, the king does poorly. Nevertheless, verse 3, the high places were not taken away, and I think that's connected to when the priest is removed, the people continue to sacrifice and make offerings on the high places. If you remember, the high places were idolatry of convenience. The Old Testament allowed, if you couldn't travel to Jerusalem, you could make sacrifices in your own property, and that could be to the Lord, and the Lord would receive it. Well, the Israelites just took that little exception clause and made it the rule. Everybody had high places, and it allowed them to worship idols by saying that they were worshipping Yahweh. Because only you and your heart knew who you were worshipping, and so you could say, In your heart, I know I'm worshiping Baal, I hope Baal is kind to me. But when the priest asks you, hey, what's that pillar over there? You say, oh, it's for Yahweh. It's my high place. Now, there should be none of this going on in Jerusalem, which is where this is taking place, because the temple's in Jerusalem. I mean, are you kidding me? You can walk across the city in an hour, and yet there were those that had the high places there because they didn't want to go worship at Yahweh's temple. That's the background here. We're still dealing with the chase here. But Jehoash said to the priest, all of the holy things that are brought into the house of Yahweh, the money for which each man is assessed, the money from the assessment of persons, the money of a man's heart prompts him to bring into the house of Yahweh, let the priest take each from his donor and let them repair the house whenever any need of repairs is discovered. So here's the king who says this. Now this king, this is a long time after he's been king. He's not the seven-year-old boy anymore. He's probably in his mid-twenties when he declares this. And he tells the priest, listen, here's the rule. The money that comes in, the money that's given to you from these three sources, he doesn't say all the tithes, because there's more money coming to the temple than just the tithes. He says there's three categories of gifts given to you that I want you to use to fix the temple. By Joash's life here, the temple would be 150 years old. That's old. I mean, we replaced the carpet in our worship center after 30 years. It's not how long it was. Imagine a 150-year-old temple. Before there were building inspectors, practically like the Garden of Eden. Before there were fire codes. Before there was construction rules, they built this massive temple. Now, of course, it was designed by the Lord, so I don't think it was shabby construction going on. Nevertheless, 150 years have gone by. And so this boy king, and by the way, remember where this king was raised? the temple. So he's aware of, I mean if there are plumbing issues he'd know about it, okay, that's what I'm saying. Like he's aware of where the holes in the wall are. And so he tells the priest, listen, three categories of money, when it comes in use it to fix the temple. Now these three categories, you're not gonna be quizzing this later, but I find it interesting. In the Old Testament there's a census that whenever you take it, everybody in the land has to give half of a shekel. It's a very nominal gift. It's for all the men who are of fighting military age. It's described in Exodus 30. Every time a census is taken, you have to give. That's the point of it. That keeps kings from taking censuses for ungodly reasons like their pride, like David does at the end of 2 Samuel. And it provokes an actual godly stewardship. And how do they count? Not by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, but by the money that comes in. And so if a king were to declare a census, it would be a massive influx of money, which apparently Jehoash does. And he wants that money directed towards the temple. There's a second category, money from those who vowed something for the temple, but decided to cash out their vow, who said, Lord, I'll give you, you know, if you bless me with a new cow, I'll dedicate it to you. Well, sometimes the cow is born, and sometimes the farmer says, second thought, I want to keep the cow. Well, the Old Testament has a provision for that. You would give money to the temple in exchange for the cow. And the third category is the voluntary gifts. I love the way that it says it. Whatever each man, in the middle of verse four, what each man's heart prompts him to bring to Yahweh's house. And that, by the way, is the exact model for the New Testament. That's why I don't like the artificial divide between Old Testament was this way giving and New Testament is this way. Here you get a window into the transcendent principle here. That if your Lord lays something on your heart to give to His work, give it. Even in the era of tithing, you should give generously and with a sacrificial attitude. And not reluctantly. The Lord doesn't need your money, remember. You're not giving because the Lord is begging. You give him because you want to partner with what he's doing. And so here Jehoash says, hey, if people give money because they want to work with the temple, take it from them and use it on the temple. That's the design here. But this doesn't quite come to fruition. He says this should happen. Repairs should be discovered. Do it, verse 5. But verse 6, by the 23rd year of King Jehoash, So now he's 30 years old. He's been reigning for 23. The priest had made no repairs on the house. So you picture the king, perhaps on his 30th birthday, walking through the place. And he still sees the same old holes there, the same old leaks, the same old mildew, the same old corruption, cracks in the wall. And he's asking, what's going on? This door still hasn't closed in 30 years. What's going on here? All the money has been coming in. Where's the work happening? So he summons the priest. Remember, this is the priest that raised him. This is the priest that rescued him. Verse 7, King Jehoash summoned Jehodiah the priest and the other priests and said, why are you not repairing the house? Speak for yourselves. Why aren't you making the repairs? That's a good question. Why weren't they making the repairs? There's no answer given. The king doesn't actually wait for an answer. He just gives his own solution. But they don't have an answer. In the high priest defense, the high priest is at this point probably 120 years old. He dies at 130. We find out that in 2 Chronicles. He's probably 120 years old. In other words, perhaps definitive forward-thinking leadership and action is not coming from him. He's 120 years old. Maybe he thinks he is moving fast. I don't know. But nothing's happening. And the other priest, perhaps they don't want to cross him. Maybe there's indecision going on. It's not a financial issue. They have the money. It's not an embezzling issue. He's not driving around in a new chariot here. There's a hole in the temple wall, but I got a sweet house. That's not what's happening. He's not doing anything with it. He's piling the money up, and he's just carrying on with his life. He doesn't see the urgency. He's not being decisive. So the king is decisive. He says, therefore, take no more money from your donors, but hand it over for the repair of the house. In other words, stop taking money from people that want to give it to the building funds. Instead, use what you have in the building fund and fix the building. When you've fixed it, then you can come back and ask your donors again. But shut off your donors. So the priests agreed that they should take no more money from the people and that they should not repair the house. excuse themselves from this project. They don't want to be involved in it because they've been the ones that haven't been doing it. And perhaps they don't want to do it because there's a fear of a conflict of interest. This is the problem with churches that used to have parsonages. Emmanuel doesn't do parsonages, but churches used to give their pastors parsonages. And the parsonages would get run down. And how are they supposed to get fixed? So people would give money to the church, and the church would give Money to the pastor, but now who's giving money to the pastor? It's kind of himself who says, yeah, I really need a new bathroom. And it causes problems in the church. Like, we gave money to the church, and you're renovating your kitchen over there. Yeah, but the kitchen's 150 years old. The pilgrims founded this church. That was probably what was going on here, where the priest had accumulated the money, but they weren't willing to spend it on the place where many of them lived, where many of them ate in the temple. And there was lodging for them on the outsides of the temple. So they didn't want to do it. So they just gave over the project to the king and says, you do this. You take over, king. So Jehoiadiah, the priest, took a chest and bored a hole in the lid of it and set it beside the altar on the right side as one entered the house of Yahweh. And the priest who guarded the threshold put all the money that was brought into the house of Yahweh. And whenever they saw there was much money in the chest, the king's secretary and the high priest came up and they bagged and counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord." And that word bagged, it's a... It's a word that goes either way in Hebrew. It could be they put it down in a bag or it could be they melted it down. They either bagged it up or melted it down. In other words, if they brought money, if they brought gold, they melted it down and they made it liquid currency. You could say it that way. You know, that is funny. And if you don't get it now, you'll get it later. Or they bagged it up. It was cash. They bagged us what they're doing here. Real quick, I don't have much of an outline tonight, but I just want to give you a couple principles for giving so far out of this passage. I think it is right that you give what is laid on your heart, that the Lord should direct you in your giving by you looking at your resources and asking, Lord, what should I be doing with this? What should I be giving? to the church, what should be given to the work of the ministry. That's the model that they followed here, and I think it's presented in a favorable light. I know it's narrative, and you can't do everything that's done in narrative, of course, but it seems like it's presented in a favorable light. You should give to funds that are overseen by, I think, decisive leadership. That's the point in verse 7 and 8, where the high priest realizes, look, we're not exercising good leadership over this money. So the king says, OK, you don't get to collect anymore. Instead, a new fund in a new location that will be given to those who can make decisions about how it's going to be spent. There's no point in building bigger barns for yourself. Spend what you've got. And there's stories out there. Even in modern day, present time, there's churches in the, greater dc area that i know of that end up closing their doors with massive amounts of money in the bank that people have been giving money to them over the years but they just can't do anything where they can't make decisions they can't hire a pastor they can't fix their building they can't do an evangelistic program there's nobody left to make decisions and so they close their doors with with just massive amounts of money on hands and sometimes you look at the church and you know i think could i ring the doorbell and ask i mean What are you doing with it? And usually, by the way, when they close the doors, they usually do give the money to other churches. But I think that is a good biblical principle. Give what's placed in your heart first, and second, give to things that are overseen by decisive leadership. And thirdly, give where there's accountability. And that's what you see in verse 9. The priests are not responsible for spending the money, but notice the accountability they have in counting it. The priest who guarded the threshold, verse 9, they put all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord. And whenever they saw it, they would bag it. Then in verse 10, they would count it in the presence of the secretary of the king. So there's this exchange there. The high priest, his staff, and the king, his staff, they have the exchange. They count the money in front of each other. It's not, oh, here's the offering, hand it off. It's the person counts it, and the king's secretary looks, and he counts it, and they agree that that's the amount that's given. And now the king's staff takes it away. By the way, we don't live in a world with a temple, so you might be missing one of the most significant elements of the story in your mind right now, is that the king had nothing to do with the temple until this point of history. It was lotov, it was bad news for the king to go into the temple and make religious proclamations. That was something that was for the priests to do. David was not even allowed to build the temple, if you remember. I mean, there was a separation of powers, you could say it this way. But here, with the return of the Davidic line to Israel, there's some leadership happening here and the new king wants to fix the temple. And so that distinction there is being eroded and the king is asserting himself in the matters of the temple out of necessity. I don't think he was wrong to do this, but just notice the significance of what's happening here. The king is taking control of how the temple is going to be managed. Well, that's the accountability up to the point the money gets into the king's hands. Now look what happens to it in verse 11. but they were not made for the house of Yahweh basins of silver or snuffers or bowls or trumpets or any vessels of gold or any silver from the money that was brought into Yahweh's house because it was given to the workmen for repairing the house of Yahweh with it." Jesse translation here, they did not spend this money on things for the priests. It only went to the material costs of the temple, not for the items in it. Not for the items in it. You could call it a capital asset replacement fund. That's what was going on here. And you didn't get to use it to buy. Pastors didn't buy books with this. The priests didn't have books. They were more butchers. They didn't get to buy tools for their sacrifices. It was used only as kind of capital asset replacement here as the carpenters and the masons were working. Verse 15, they did not ask for an accounting from the men in whose hands they delivered the money to pay out the workmen. For they all dealt honestly. The money from the guilt offerings and the money from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of Yahweh. It belonged to the priests. So the priests are not homeless here. Don't shed a tear for the priests. They're still getting their income from the guilt offerings and the sin offerings. But it's those extra volitional offerings that are being brought in to be used for the temple. Earlier, I just rattled off three principles for the givers. You give what's placed in your heart. to programs overseen by decisive leadership that's counted with accountability. Here's a couple principles for the spender, for those that are spending the Lord's money, to spend quickly, to spend the money Quickly, and by quickly I don't mean in an unwise way or hastily, but I mean don't build bigger barns for yourself. Spend it as it's coming in. Advance the kingdom of God. Use money for missions on missions. Use money for the building on the building, but spend it as it comes in because you're trusting. The reason, if you're in the business world you might stumble over this, but the reason it's so important in a church world is what's the motivation for squirreling away money given to a church? What happens if giving declines next year? what happens if giving falls off next year, then who will fund the pastor's salaries? It really comes from a heart of doubt, not from a heart of faith. And that's why I think it is a biblical model that you collect money every week and it funds what the church is doing and you spend it on it. You trust each other to do the work would be the second principle for the spender. You trust each other for the work. I don't have to go through Tom Joyce's, just pick the person I'm looking at right now, I don't have to go through his budget to make sure he's spending all of his money in it with accountability. I know there's elders in that ministry that do that. And I can trust their work. And that's the way a healthy church functions. It's not one person doing whatever they want to. It's elders overseeing each ministry with integrity that trust each other. And that's what you see here. What an interesting phrase. When the priest collected the money, the king and the priest counted it together. But when the king spent the money, when his people spent the money and the masons and the carpenters, they didn't give an accounting for it because they were working as much as they could. And you just trusted them. How do you count up the nails? Do you stop and count the nails? It's like you make the person in the bookstore count the pennies in their drawer. I hope we don't do that, by the way. But count the pennies in their drawer. Would Cheryl take an extra penny? I mean, are you kidding me? You trust each other with the work. And then you continue to feed the priest. Verse 16. That's an important point for me. Continue to feed the priest. Okay? They continued to feed the priest. They didn't say, hey, you had your chance, homeless now. Homeless, because you couldn't get the building program off the ground. No. Decisive people take over the building program but continue to feed the priest. That's the model here. And again, it's not a one-to-one correlation in the Old Testament to the New Testament. It's not like everything that's done here should be done in the church. But I do think those six principles do apply. in church giving. And like I said earlier, I think Emmanuel does an exceptional job at this. This is not critical of our church at all. We do an exceptional job with all these things. You are an extremely generous congregation. And we have elders that are very godly and gifted, specifically in the area of finances. And so I like preaching to people that are doing this well. It's harder in the context where it's not being done well. So that seems like all is well, right? The chase is over. The car is at rest. Everything is happy here. Right? Until you realize your car is still wedged in the second floor of a building. It's still hanging out the side of the building. And that's what we see next. You think, oh, this is so good. David's line is back in control. David's temple is being rebuilt. I mean, this is the golden age, you would think. The king was raised in the temple. You can't. This is the Iwana memory verse guy. He's done it all. And he's in charge, and he's doing everything right, and he's a godly guy, and all is well. But not for long. At that time, Hazael, verse 17, king of Syria, went up and fought against Gath and took it. But when Hazael, and remember that's up in Israel, and Hazael is always after Israel. Israel and Syria are arch nemesis. They've been fighting forever. That's Naaman, the leper, and Elisha's miracles, and all that. That was up in Israel with the war with Syria. But when Hazael set his face to go into Jerusalem, the king has had such success against Israel that he now turns to attack Jerusalem. Jehoash, king of Judah, prayed to the Lord and put his faith in the Lord and trusted him for protection. No. It doesn't say that, tragically. Jehoash, king of Judah, took all the sacred gifts that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, his fathers, the kings of Judah, had dedicated. In other words, the treasures in the temple for three generations of kings. He took them all, along with all the gold that was found in the treasuries of the house of Yahweh, meaning the box that the high priest had bored the hole in earlier, he took all that treasure and he sent those to Hazael, king of Syria. Hazael went away from Jerusalem. Notice that it took, and I made it a long explanation, it took 16 verses with a long rambling explanation for the temple to be rebuilt. And it took two verses for it to be stripped. all of the effort, all the godly principles that went into building it, to refurbishing it, all of that godly and decisive leadership, everything that built it up over a decade it seems at least, stripped bare in a day or a week, in a moment of doubt, in a moment of unbelief, can take a lifetime to build a temple and it can be annihilated in a moment. This, by the way, is the, by my count, the fifth time the Israelites have plundered their temple in the Old Testament to pay off foreign invaders. Rehoboam does it in 1 Kings 14. The second king after the temple is built, he plunders it to buy off invaders. Asa, godly king Asa, does it in 1 Kings 15. Joash does it here. Ahaz does it in 2 Kings 16. Hezekiah does it in 2 Kings 18. And that's the one where he gets rebuked by the prophet Isaiah, and he's going to die because of it. And then finally will be the sixth time when the Babylonians destroy the whole thing. All this is just precursors to what the Babylonians will do. And by the way, it's not that eliminating the temple is necessarily a bad thing. Jesus is going to turn the tables over. When you build it up with unrighteous wealth, it gets vanquished. But here it was righteous wealth that was given away to an enemy of God because there was no sense of praying and trusting the Lord. The temple is gone now, I mean the building is still there, but all the work is gone. Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and Joash by the way is Jehoash, which is an abbreviated form of his name. And all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? His servants arose and made a conspiracy and struck down Joash in the house of Milo on the way that goes down to Sila. It was Jazkar the son of Shimeith and Jehozadad, that's a great name, the son of Shomer, his servants, who struck him down so that he died. What kind of striking was it? Striking that he died. And they buried him with his fathers in the city of David. And Amaziah, his son, reigned in his place." Well, that came out of nowhere, didn't it? This godly king who rebuilds the temple gets struck down, killed by his own servants, and died? There's got to be more to the story than that. I'm glad you think so, because there is. Turn over to 2 Chronicles, chapter 24. Go write two books. There will only be one other time. I try to stay out of 2 Chronicles when going through 2 Kings. I like each story to speak for itself. But there's only one other time when we get to Manasseh. I think it's important to do that. But this is one of those times where it's just so critical to see the rest of the story. 2 Chronicles chapter 24 describes Joshua's building of the temple. Verse 15, that's what I want you to pick up in 2 Chronicles 24. Jehoiadaiah, that was the high priest, the high priest that raised him, the high priest that killed wicked Queen Ithalia. That high priest, he grew old and full of days and died. He was 130 years old at his death. They buried him in the city of David among the kings because he'd done good in Israel and toward God and his house. I mean, he single-handedly rescued the line of David from obliteration. Now after the death of Jehoiada, the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king. And the king listened to them. Notice the undercutting current here. The princes came to pay homage to the king. They were encouraging the king to leave Jehoiada's teaching. And they abandoned the house of Yahweh, the God of their fathers. They served the Asherim and the idols. So the king now starts worshipping idols. Asherim was a goddess of fertility. It was a sex cult, really. They worshipped at these high places. They would put these phallic symbols up at their high places. That's what they start doing here now that the high priest is dead. They start worshipping in that way. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for the guilt of theirs. Yet God sent prophets among them to bring them back to Yahweh. And those prophets testified against him. But they wouldn't pay attention. Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiadiah, the priest." So the guy who died at 130, the one who raised the boy king in the temple, the one who rescued the line of David, his son became a prophet. A priest as well, but here he's going to function as a prophet. And he's going to be older than the king, of course. I mean, older than the high priest, of course. The high priest died at 130 and raised the boy from birth. And so it is likely that this guy would be, at the very minimum, the older brother kind of figure to the king, but more likely an uncle even. And he comes and says to the people, thus says God, why do you break the commandments of Yahweh? He says, you cannot prosper. Because you've forsaken Yahweh, he's forsaken you. That's a pretty straightforward message. That's repeating the Mosaic covenant with them. If you reject God, he'll reject you. Well, that's what's happening. This is what Joshua left Israel with. This is not a controversial statement here. You reject God, he'll reject you. but they conspired against him. And by command of the king, they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of Yahweh. Thus says Joash, the king did not remember the kindness that Jehoiadaiah, Zechariah's father, had shown him, but killed his son." When Zechariah was dying, get his last words here, may Yahweh see an avenge. I mean, this is irony. Joash who became king when the wicked queen was killed in the temple, he now becomes a wicked king and kills the prophet in the temple. The king who rescued David's line is now killing a prophet who is preaching David's covenant. I mean everything is reversed. And that is why I said earlier in 2 Kings 12, when it started by saying, he did right in the eyes of the Lord all the day the high priest was alive. That's a very strange way of saying, well, here you see why the author said that. Because when the high priest died, he worshipped idols, and he murdered the son of the high priest. And that's why he's assassinated. We don't need to read it in 2 Chronicles 24. If you're curious how he was assassinated in 2 Chronicles 24, it tells you. You can flip back to 2 Kings, though. Why is the story here, the boy who left The boy who came to power in a queue left in a queue. Why is the story in the Bible? To remind us that Israel doesn't need a better king. A better king, just like any other kings, is not going to get the job done. They need something new. They need something different. They don't just need another descendant of David. They need the descendant of David. I mean, you think, yeah, David had his failings, but if you just got a more moral king, I mean, David was undone by his sexual immorality. Let's try something different. Let's shelter the lad. Let's raise the lad in the temple. That'll be a better king. No, that doesn't work. And parents understand this. You, of course, have a godly desire to shelter your kids from the evil in the world. I do of my kids. But you understand that at some point, they're going to encounter it. And at some point in time, I'm not going to be there to shelter them from it. And they have to be prepared. And that's the lesson of Joash, that he was sheltered from the evil in the world, he was sheltered from the idols by the high priest. But when the high priest was removed, the princes introduced idols to him, he believed them, he worshipped them, and he walked away from the Lord. So what's the right way to protect your kids? Well, you guard them from evil, but you point them to Christ. It's not the wickedness of the world that's the danger, it's the lack of love for Christ that's the danger. And that's exactly what Joash was missing. As long as the priest was alive, he kept himself from idols and he did right in the eyes of the Lord when he had the eyes of the priest looking after him. What's it going to be like when he's not alive anymore? Back to idols. Back to idols. I was recently at a church in Tamale, northern Ghana. I flew in from Accra, kind of a very rural place. You're flying over huts and everything and you're way into this this airport there. They have a really big runway, surprisingly big runway. They use it for the Ghanaian Air Force. It kind of stands out in this small village there. And at the end of the runway, there is a kind of a Spanish, you call it like a mesa, but like a cliff kind of, like a 40 or 50 foot drop off. It's down to a wash below. And as you're circling the airport, you can't help but notice out the window of your airplane that there is an identical airplane to the one you're flying in, in the ravine. And you circle the airport before you land, probably because there's no tower. The pilots circle around to check out the runway. And so out my window, I get to look at this plane that looks just like complete with the same airline name on the tail. Star Airlines, by the way, if you're wondering. Their logo and everything is on the tail of the plane that is stuck in the ravine. It looks like it crashed five minutes ago. And so we circle around. And we land with that incident. And I think, that's weird. We get back on the plane to leave. And it's kind of an empty flight out of Tamale. And the flight attendant is sitting next to me. And I point out to her the plane from the owner. She's like, oh, yeah, that plane crashed like five years ago. Oh, really? Don't they want to clean it up? Or do you tow it somewhere? Or what are you doing? She's like, no, it's totaled. We're not going to do anything with it. I think we already got the seats out of it, and the rest is junk. So you just leave it there forever? Yeah. And she looked at me like, Do you have a better idea of what to do with it? Which made me think. I actually don't have a better idea of what to do with it, really. I can't put it in my checked luggage. It's an airplane. So I was like, well, should you at least paint over the name of the airline on the tail? It might be more helpful to your customers if they didn't see that it was your airline that crashed. She's like, well, you know, we thought about that. But we like the fact that it sobers up the pilots when they're entering in. And I don't think she meant that, like, by alcohol. I think she meant that, I mean, the way I took it was not a joke about alcohol. The way I took it was a comment about, the pilots, before they land at this airport, will circle around a plane that one of their friends was flying five years ago and crashed right here. And that has a way of making your thinking get into focus, I think. When I heard that, I suddenly thought, all right. I'm happy with the plane there, then. Leave it there another generation. You go to Tamale, you'll see the plane there, I bet. The story is functioning like that in the book of 2 Kings. I mean, can't this be cleaned up? Can't you take this out of Israel's history? This is the line of David we're talking about here, where a king who did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, not some wicked guy, a guy who did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, who murdered the son of the man who raised him for rebuking him for worshipping an idol. No, it's here. in the book of 2 Kings to remind you, to sober you up, that this is the fate that awaits those who don't put their trust in Christ. Shelter yourself from evil. Run from evil. That's good, but it's not sufficient. Give money to the church. That's good, but it's not sufficient. Be the chairman of the building campaign. That's also good. We're taking applications. But it's not sufficient. It's not sufficient. Turn it over to close to Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11. This is the passage where Jesus speaks of these events. It was right after the Pharisees accused him of having a devil in him, which is ironic coming from the Pharisees. And Jesus says, how can I have the devil? I'm binding the devil. Are you kidding me? Luke 11 verse 19, if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they'll be your judges. In verse 23, whoever's not with me is against me. Whoever does not gather with me scatters. And he talks about in verse 24 down through 26 that the Pharisees, yeah, they might be able to cast demons out of people, but the demons just come back with seven of their friends. You know, you make the guy worse off than when you found him. That's what false religion does to people. That's what the tithes of the Pharisees do. People give money to the Pharisees thinking that it makes them godlier. It doesn't make them godlier, it makes them twice as sons of hell. And then Jesus says this, down in verse, you can skip down to verse 40, 45. One of the lawyers answered him, teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. I love that line. One of the funniest lines in Luke's gospel. The Pharisee is listening to Jesus preach and he interrupts him and says, hey, I think you're insulting us. Like, oh, you're right. This is back in verse 42. Woe to you, Pharisees. He tied the mitten. the rue in every herb, and you neglect the love of God. They say, hey, I think you're insulting us. And Jesus says, well, so do you, lawyers. For you load people with burdens hard to bear. You yourselves don't touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you. And he's not talking about lawyers like trial lawyers like we have. He's talking about the scribes who become experts in the law of God. He's saying, you become such an expert in God's law, you tell everybody what to do, but you're just putting burden on top of burden on their backs. And you don't even help them. Woe to you, verse 47, you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. And he's meaning this literally. The Pharisees were literally maintaining the tombs where the dead prophets were buried. Missing the irony that if they were alive back then, they would have been the ones that killed the prophets. But they take good care of their graves. Verse 48, your witnesses, and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I'll send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they'll kill and persecute, so the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Abel, the first prophet, you could call him that, killed in the Old Testament. Cain's brother, who presented the sacrifice to God, convicted his brother through his own obedience, and was murdered for it. In the Old Testament, the Jewish scriptures, the last book of the Jewish scriptures was the book of 2 Chronicles. Their books were not in the same order. They had the same books we do, but not in the same order. Their Old Testament closed with 2 Chronicles. The last martyr in 2 Chronicles is Zechariah, who we just read about. killed in the altar, Jesus says. In the holy place of God, they put him to death for preaching against idol worship. Jesus says his blood, that's the line here from A to Z, Abel to Zechariah, the first to the last. It's a pun on the alphabet, it works chronologically as well. From A to Z, the blood of all of the prophets will be required for those that think they can serve God by giving, but not by worship. For those that think they can serve God by obeying commands, but not with heartfelt love for Christ. That's the legacy of Zechariah. He went to his grave preaching against that kind of religion. That's the legacy of Joash. He went to his grave, murdered, Because He had no true love for the coming Messiah. That's the legacy of Jehoiadiah. The line of David would eventually produce the Savior. Lord, we're grateful that Jesus' words are crystal clear. That You will demand justice from those who reject You as their Savior. Lord, we're thankful that there's an alternative. We're thankful that you've given yourself to ransom us from the curse. We know that we're not any better than the scribes and the Pharisees. We're not any better than the king raised in the temple, Lord. We're depraved as well. We have our own sins. If we were confronted by the prophet, who knows how we would have responded. But Lord, you didn't leave us there. Instead, you rescued us. You gave us a new heart. You forgave us of our sins. And you gave someone else to stand in our place. Zechariah was not our substitute. Jehoiadaiah was not our substitute. But you are our substitute. You died in our place. You stand for us. You stand in the high place on our behalf. We will not have to stand where Zechariah was put to death because you stand there for us. You've borne the consequences for our sin. When you would speak to Pharisees saying the blood of Zechariah would be demanded of them, we know it's demanded of us as well, but you paid it. Your blood, as Paul says, speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. We're thankful that your blood forgives. Abel's blood cried out from the ground for justice and vengeance. Zechariah's last words were a prayer that you would see and avenge his blood. Yeah. This prayer to you is that your blood would be stronger than their blood. Your blood would forgive us of our sins. It would not cry out for vengeance, but it would cry out for forgiveness. Abel's blood cried out to the ground. Zechariah's blood cried out from the altar. Your blood cries out from the cross, Father, forgive them. What a joy it is to have blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel and Zechariah. no longer counting their deaths against us, although we would deserve it, but instead giving us life through the resurrection of your Son. It's in His name we pray. Amen. You have been listening to Emanuel with Pastor Jesse Johnson. You can find more resources like this at ibcva.com. Here is a parting word from Pastor Jesse. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibcva.com. If you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C. area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emanuel. We're located in Northern Virginia, and for more information about when and where we worship, check out our church website. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.
"After Light: Darkness"
Série 2 Kings
Identifiant du sermon | 422201429126265 |
Durée | 50:11 |
Date | |
Catégorie | Service du dimanche |
Texte biblique | 2 Rois 12 |
Langue | anglais |
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