Second Kings chapter 14. In the second year of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, became king. He was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jehoaddon of Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like his father David. He did everything as his father Joash had done. However, the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. Now it happened, as soon as the kingdom was established in his hand, that he executed his servants who had murdered his father the king. But the children of the murderers he did not execute, according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses, in which the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor shall the children be put to death for the fathers, but a person shall be put to death for his own sin. He killed 10,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt and took Sila by war, and called its name Jokthiel to this day. Then Amaziah sent messengers to Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, Come, let us face one another in battle. And Jehoash, king of Israel, sent to Amaziah, king of Judah, saying, the thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, give your daughter to my son as wife. And a wild beast that was in Lebanon passed by and trampled the thistle. You have indeed defeated Edom, and your heart has lifted you up. Glory in your success, and stay at home. For why should you meddle with trouble so that you fall, you and Judah with you? But Amaziah would not heed. Therefore Jehoash, king of Israel, went out. So he and Amaziah, king of Judah, faced one another at Beth Shemesh, which belongs to Judah. And Judah was defeated by Israel. And every man fled to his tent. Then Jehoash, king of Israel, captured Amaziah, king of Judah, the son of Jehoash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth Shemesh. And he went to Jerusalem and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate 400 cubits. And he took all the gold and silver, all the articles that were found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house, and hostages, and returned to Samaria. Now the rest of the acts of Jehoash which he did, his might and how he fought with Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? So Jehoash rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. Then Jeroboam his son reigned in his place. Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, lived 15 years after the death of Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel. Now the rest of the acts of Amaziah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. But they sent after him to Lachish and killed him there. Then they brought him on horses, and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David. And all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was 16 years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. He built Elath and restored it to Judah after the king rested with his fathers. In the fifteenth year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, became king in Samaria and reigned forty-one years. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin. He restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Araba, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He had spoken through His servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath-Hephur. For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, and whether bond or free there was no helper for Israel. And the Lord did not say that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, but He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash. Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam and all that he did, his might, how he made war and how he recaptured for Israel from Damascus and Hamath what had belonged to Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? So Jeroboam rested with his fathers, the kings of Israel, and Zechariah, his son, reigned in his place. Thus far the reading of God's word. Let's pray. Almighty God, help us to get through the names, the dates, the people, the sons of, and understand what's going on here, what it is that you want us to learn from this section of your Word. We thank you, Father, that you are not afraid of the complexity of history, that you do not change no matter what else changes. You are still the same. Show us yourself in these stories of ancient kings, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, this chapter is just odd. Amaziah, good guy, pretty good guy, except that he was kind of a warmonger and he deliberately picked a fight with someone who totally trashed him, and destroyed a big chunk of Jerusalem, and yeah, that was his reign. Oh, next king, Jeroboam, son of Joash. Terrible guy, just awful. Did all the wrong things he could do, and God blessed his socks off. That's our chapter. Good guys doing something stupid. Bad guys receiving God's favor. What's going on? How are we supposed to understand it when we look around and we say, this is odd. Why are the bad guys being blessed? Why are the good guys being stupid? Does that sound anything? Like the times in which we live? Bad guys prospering. Good guys doing completely pig-headed things. Well, this chapter tells us something about God. That's why this entire book of Kings was written. Not so we would have to suffer through Bronze Age history books. Rather so we could say, this is our God. And what do we learn about our God from this chapter? We learn that He's compassionate. We learn that He's faithful to His promises. And above all, we learn that He doesn't change. When He said that He's going to do something, He does it. When He doesn't say He'll do something, He doesn't do it. He keeps His word. All of His words, not just nice ones. And He even is faithful to His word When times are strange, when people are acting completely out of character, when you read the chapter and say, what just happened? That didn't make any sense. God is still in charge, still the same God. And when you look at your life and say, what just happened? That didn't make any sense. God is still the same God, still in charge, still faithful to everything that He said He would be for you and me. We see this really in two points. First, a strange mix of faithfulness and folly. That's the first 22 verses of the chapter. And then a strange mix of faithlessness and blessings. And that's the last part of the chapter, 23 to 29. Faithfulness and folly faithlessness, and blessing. The first thing we see is God's faithfulness. We talked last time, or two times ago, about Joash, son of Jehoahaz, or Joash, son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, and how he had some of David in him, some of Ahab in him, and ultimately the Ahab part triumphed. He did what was evil in God's sight after a period of time and he was assassinated. Why? Because God had promised to cut off Ahab's descendants to the fourth generation. But even though he was assassinated, his son became king and reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. Why? Well, I'm sure we could give political reasons, economic reasons, historical reasons. The bottom line reason is that God said he would keep David's line on the throne. And here he is, doing it. The king of Judah was assassinated. Normally, right, if you're going to assassinate somebody, it's not in your best interest to let his son become king and kill you. But that's exactly what happened here. Joash was assassinated. His son Amaziah became king. and killed the assassins. Why? God's promise was at work. So God is faithful, and Amaziah showed faithfulness too. Verse 3a, he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. And the poster example of that, verses 5, As soon as he consolidated power, he found the thugs who had killed his father, who happened to be royal servants, his employees, and he had them put to death. This is Judah. We have a law here. You can't just murder people and get away with it. And notice why he didn't execute their children. The text goes out of its way to say he read Deuteronomy, which says, fathers shall not be put to death for children or children for fathers. Each person shall die for his own sin. He read that and he said, I'm going to do what God's word says, even though it's radically countercultural. In that time and place, what did you do? How did you respond if somebody killed your father? What was standard procedure? You find that guy, you kill him, you kill his father, you kill his children, you kill all his brothers and all their children, you kill his cousins, you kill anyone who might be connected to him who might want to take revenge on you. That was how a typical Near Eastern monarch would do it. That was a best practice. in ancient Israel and there's countries around it. But that's not what Amaziah did. Amaziah said, I could slaughter all these people because I'm king, but I'm not going to because the word of God says, don't. The word of God says, only kill the person who's actually guilty. There's a lesson here for us, isn't there? Do we do what everyone around us is doing, rather than doing what the Word of God says? At times, do we say, well, everyone else watches these films, so they must be okay. Well, everyone else breaks the Sabbath, so it must be okay. Not what Amaziah said. He didn't say, yeah, everyone else slaughters to their little heart's content, so I will too. He said, well, I don't care what the rest of the world is doing. I'm gonna do what the Bible says. And he had success. Verse seven, he was like David who killed 10,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt. Well, so did Joab, or so did Amaziah. And he also succeeded by capturing this city and renaming it. Now we might look at this and say, oh, that's the worst kind of imperialism. You come marching in there, take over their city, and then tell them what its name is going to be? Bad. But this is not saying, go attack your neighbors and rename their city. It's saying, when Messiah reigns, when David's greater son reigns, the entire earth will be subject to his dominion and his names will stick. It's a little tiny preview on the coming reign of Christ as Messiah. When Jesus comes, he will assign names. He'll be in charge of that kind of thing. Well, that's Amaziah's faithfulness, and he triumphed. But Amaziah also was foolish. He was foolish in a couple of different ways. His first folly is in verse three. And four, he didn't take away the high places. And what's high places? Well, remember in that time, it was thought to get close to the gods, you go up a hill, because the higher up the hill you are, the closer you are to heaven, the closer you are to the gods. Gods live on top of hills, think Mount Olympus. And people all over Judah went walking up hills to worship God, or whatever god of their choice. The kings of Judah were supposed to stop this and tell people, no, come worship in Jerusalem at the sanctuary God appointed. But Amaziah, like his predecessors, didn't stop it. Amaziah probably thought something along the lines of, I don't have the political capital to confront that right now. There is no way I'm going to win if I try to take on something as entrenched as high places. And so eventually his entire 29 years passed and he had never done a thing about it. Again, does this sound familiar? Is there some sin in your own life, in your family's life, in our church's life, where you say, you know what? I don't have the political capital to confront that right now. But suddenly it's 30 years down the road and you've still never said a word about it. How is Amaziah's folly? Since I can't do it now, I'll never do it. I'll just let this sin be. Easy to do, isn't it? Just let a particular sin go. Well, I definitely won't be able to stop it today. It's a small jump from that to I'll never say a word about it. That was Amaziah's first folly. The second folly, was to pick a completely stupid quarrel with his northern neighbor, Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel. He sent messengers and said, hey, let's have it out, you and me. And what did Jehoash say? No. Uh-uh, I'm not going to fight you. I'm a giant cedar. You're a little thistle. Let's not do this. Sure, you won a little victory over the Edomites. That was impressive. Good job. Woohoo. Way to go. Now leave me alone. But Amaziah wouldn't take no for an answer. He had to have it out with Jehoash. For no reason other than that he felt like fighting. So he found somebody, picked on that guy, started a quarrel. And we could relate this to any kind of starting a fight. starting a fight in the church, starting a fight at work, starting a fight at school, starting a fight wherever you happen to be, picking on your spouse and arguing with her just because you can. What happened? Well, you know, if you take Jerusalem as the place, the figure for the church, the place where God dwelled in that time, the church ended up getting hurt big time. And in fact, we're going to see that this verse 13, where 400 cubits of Jerusalem's wall was broken down, inaugurates an entire section, we'll talk about this next Sunday, of violated bodies and violated boundaries. There's all kinds of incursions into places that shouldn't be trespassed into that are going to happen, starting with this. Amaziah picked on the wrong guy. Jehoash comes down, captures Jerusalem, just destroys the wall as if to say, fine, you want to pick on me? I'll come tear up your stuff. It's going to cost you millions to put this wall back up. Takes Amaziah hostage and takes him back up to Samaria. It's Judah's first experience of exile. It's almost a warning. If you don't listen to God, you're going to be hauled off into exile. So we have Messiah, a good king, turns villainous and starts to destroy the church because he picks a fight. Because he can't be content with the glory that he has. And if you and I want to build our reputations, if we want to look good, if we want to stoke our image, guess what's going to happen to God's church? Well, God continues to show his faithfulness to his word because Jehoash, king of Israel, dies and his son reigns in his place. Just as God said, Jehu will have a four generation dynasty. Joash was the second generation of that. Jeroboam is the third generation of that. God is keeping his promises. And in the same way, Amaziah dies at the hands of an assassin. They sent after him to Lachish, killed him there. Why? Well, apparently he had offended the wrong people. In his youth, he was powerful enough to kill assassins. In his old age, assassins were powerful enough to kill him. And these assassins didn't even have to chase him down themselves. They just sent a letter to Lachish and said, hey, Lachishians, kill the king. And the Lachishians did. Why? Well, again, he's the fourth generation from Ahab. or from Athaliah, and God visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. So we had Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, who died at the hands of assassins. And then Ahaziah was the father of Joash, who died at the hands of assassins. And now we have Amaziah, son of Joash, he dies at the hands of assassins. It's all because of the curse on Ahab's line. God is faithful to his curse On Ahab's line, just like he's faithful to his promise to Jehu's line. God is faithful. When the good guys do good, God blesses them. When the good guys do bad, they suffer. But regardless, God does what he said he was going to do. We also see David's descendant prospering. Amaziah dies, but his son Azariah prospers. Verse 21, Azariah was 16 years old. The people took him, made him king. And what did he do? He had victory. He went all the way down to Elath, which is on that little arm of the Red Sea that reaches up to the southern tip of Israel. He went down there and restored it to Israel. or to Judah. He had this opportunity to expand Judah's territory and he took it. Why? David's descendant prospers. Ahab's descendant perishes. David's descendant prospers. The curse is up. The fourth generation has passed and now the blessing returns to David's line. So that's happening down south. And Judah, what's happening up north in Israel? Well, we have faithlessness and blessings. Verse 23, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, became king in Samaria and reigned 41 years. God's promise to Jehu. Third generation, here it is. Jeroboam is on the throne, and he was the greatest king Israel ever had. Israel expanded more under him, was wealthier and more powerful. And 20 years after his death, the whole thing fell apart. God was faithful during his lifetime, even though he was evil. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin. Verse 24. He led the people in worshiping golden calves at Bethel and Dan, He led the people, in other words, into idolatry, into false worship. He was bad. And yet, what did he do? Well, he was practically Israel's savior. In fact, that key word is used right there in verse 27. God saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash. This guy is a savior. What did he do? Well, he was like Solomon. He restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the sea of Arabah. In other words, he expanded Israel to its biggest extent since the days of Solomon, north and south. This guy was amazing. And how did he do it? Well, he did it through the word of God. There's really four reasons that the text gives that he was so blessed. And the first one is the prophecy of Jonah. Jonah said, Jeroboam is going to restore Israel's territory. Now, what was Jonah's other prophecy? Well, it's written in the book of Jonah, right? That he was going to go to Nineveh and say, yet 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed and they were all going to repent. And Jonah hated that prophecy, hated it. He didn't want Nineveh to repent, he wanted it to be destroyed. But here was a prophecy everyone could get behind. Yeah, we're going to prosper. Yeah, we're going to succeed. Yeah, we're going to have a powerful king who does great things for us. That was Jonah's prophecy. God said, Jeroboam, I'm going to bless you with territorial expansion. Through the word of God, he was blessed. And then through the compassion of God, he was blessed. Why did God bless them like that? Verse 26, he saw their affliction. He saw that there was no one to help him. And God cares when his people are hurting, even if their king is evil, even if all of their kings have been evil. You know, we could say God cares about hurting churches, even when they've had 10 bad pastors in a row. He still cares. He still hears their cries. And He cared about Israel, and so He blessed them with Jeroboam. And then there was God's decree. He didn't say He would blot out Israel. In other words, He hadn't decided to blot out Israel, and therefore Israel was going to survive. Israel would perish once God decided to blot it out, but Israel would flourish so long as God decided to keep it going. So again, why did Israel live? Why did Israel flourish? Because of God. And in fact, it was God's power. He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, son of Joash. That takes power to save by a wicked man. We're supposed to read, wait, God saved Israel by that guy? If God can bring this much salvation through this kind of evil character, how much greater is the salvation he brought through Jesus the perfect one, Jesus the living one, Jesus the all-powerful one? Jeroboam saved Israel, but 20 years after his death, Israel was destroyed. Jesus saved us. and he's never going to die and his salvation will never reach its expiration date. This was an amazing salvation in our text, but the salvation that we have in Christ is far greater. You know, if God saved Israel through the power of Jeroboam, what can Jesus do for us? Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, all that he did, verse 28, he recaptured for Israel and Judah, Damascus and Hamath. It seems to be saying there, perhaps, that Jeroboam's power was so great that Judah was a client kingdom. Judah was part of his empire. It's amazing. He came close to reuniting Israel and Judah. And yet he died, he rested with his fathers in Zechariah, his son reigned in his place. God saved Israel through him, but it was very temporary. It was a 40-year respite, it was like warm days in October. They're great, you enjoy them, but you know that warmth can't last long. That's what happened under Jeroboam. A wicked king who received God's blessing Well, what do we learn by looking at Amaziah, the good guy who did bad things, and by looking at Jeroboam, the bad guy who received God's blessing? Well, the first thing to learn is that a good Christian can be a fool. Someone who says, I want to follow God. Yeah, I'm committed, more or less, to obeying God. That person can do some really stupid things. like picking a fight and starting a war with someone who's guaranteed to win. Apparently, the Japanese high command in 1941 estimated that their overall chance of losing was about earned. They said that the odds of America winning were 18 to 1. And then they attacked us. What part of that makes sense? Well, they didn't intend to fight it out. They thought that we would basically cut a deal with them. Didn't happen. But surely, Amaziah and Joash had a similar situation. Amaziah had to say, oh, my chance of success is about 1 in 18. And he failed. Someone who's trying to serve God can do something stupid. Can do a lot of stupid things. But second, realize that a pagan, someone who isn't following God, can receive mega doses of blessing. I'm sure you've heard this. and come to someone and say, I'm not comfortable with these methods. I don't think that this is how the church ought to be doing it. I don't think that this is how we as parents ought to be doing it, whatever it might be. And how does the person respond? But God is blessing it. And people are getting saved and we're prospering and our financials look good and name it. You can't use blessing as a sign to say, God approves of everything I'm doing. Did God approve of everything Jeroboam was doing? No. But he blessed him. And in the same way, you can't say, well, our bank account's full, our pews are full, our cupboards are full, therefore, God must approve of everything we're doing. Doesn't work that way. Just because God is blessing it, doesn't mean he's pleased with you. Pagans can receive lots of blessings. Every pastor who's been in ministry very long will have someone come to him and say, I'm having an affair, pastor, but I know it's God's will for my life. And when you say, how does that figure? The guy will tell you, well, I just have such a peace about it. Me and the lady I'm having an affair with, both do. We just have so much peace. It feels so right. God is blessing us. Well, what do you say to that? Well, maybe God is blessing you. Maybe you have more money, more peace, more happiness, more joy than ever before in your life. But you're still sinning against God. So don't evaluate whether you're doing the right thing by how blessed you are. Evaluate whether you're doing the right thing based on what the word of God says. Well, pay attention to providential warnings of impending doom. That's another thing we can learn from this text. Judah and Israel both were right on the edge of destruction. and neither one of them seemed to care. What did they do? Waste their energy fighting each other instead of preparing for the Assyrian onslaught that would come and mow everything down in 20 years. The mini exile was a forewarning of where they were both headed. One of the commentators wrote on this passage in 2005. Here's what he had to say. In my own nation, the USA, we have had in recent years a rash of school and work shootings. A student or worker goes into their respective school or workplace and begins mowing down their colleagues. One of these happened two weeks ago 60 miles from my home. We have had on and off a rash of scandals in the highest levels of our government. We have been attacked by terrorists dramatically at home, more routinely overseas. Are these God's foreshadowings to awaken a nation that has no knowledge of God, that by its courts and legislation is guaranteed a culture of death for 30 years, that revels in rampant immorality and cuddles and caters to those who glory in their sexual perversions? Is God shouting at us and we are not hearing? Is he giving us glimpses to which we are blind? Is anyone here prepared to think that the situation has improved in the last 13 years? We can look back to 2005 and say, well, things were pretty good then. 13 years ago, somebody writing on this passage said, don't neglect warnings of impending doom. Don't close your eyes and say, oh, everything's going to be okay. Because I have such a peace about it. God is blessing me. Signs are here, folks. We need to prepare for God's judgment. Just as Amaziah and Jeroboam needed to prepare for God's judgment. Really, another way of saying that is trust all God's promises, not just the nice ones. You see, God has promised to judge those who rebel against him. He's promised that those who won't listen to him, those who say serving God is pointless, God has said, I will come and be a swift witness against you. I will come and smite you with a curse if you insist on saying that. I'm gonna scrub you with lye soap if you insist on talking like that. God is good to David and his seed forever. He's good to all those who take refuge in Christ. But when the wicked's time is up, their time is up. Those are the twin messages of this chapter. Take refuge in Christ Only in Him can we escape the wrath to come. Only in Him is there safety. Earthly rulers can give safety and blessing, yeah, for 40 years and then 20 years after that it all falls apart. We can trust in the things of this world to save us, but ultimately the only thing that can save forever is the unchanging God. The message of the chapter is don't have confidence in princes. They do tremendously stupid things all the time. Put your trust in God who keeps his promises. Let's pray. Mighty God, we thank you that the day is coming when Messiah will rule and the day is coming when his names will stick everywhere. We thank you that those who have taken refuge in Christ are safe amid all the weirdness of history. Help us to trust him to be everything that he's promised to be for us. We pray these things in his name, by the help of your spirit, and all God's people said, amen.