Let us now go to the scripture reading, which is 2 Kings 12, 1-16. 2 Kings 12, 1-16. In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king. And he reigned 40 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zebiah of Beersheba. Jehoiash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. But the high places were not taken away and the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. And Jehoiash said to the priest, all the money of the dedicated gifts that are brought into the house of the Lord, each man's census money, Each man's assessment money, and all the money that a man purposes in his heart to bring into the house for the Lord, let the priests take it themselves, each from his constituency, and let them prepare the damages to the temple, wherever any dilapidation is found. Now it was so. By the 23rd year of King Jehoash, that the priest had not repaired the damages of the temple. So Jehoash called Jehoiada the priest, and the other priests, and said to them, why have you not repaired the damages of the temple? Now therefore, do not take more money from your constituency, but deliver it for repairing the damages of the temple. And the priest agreed that they would neither receive more money from the people, nor repair the damages of the temple. Ben Jehoiada, the priest, took a chest, bore a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side. As one comes into the house of the Lord, And the priest who kept the door put there all the money brought into the house of the Lord. So it was, whenever they saw that there was much money in the chest, that the king's scribe and the high priest came up and put it in bags and counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord. Then they gave the money, which had been apportioned, into the hands of those who did the work, who had the oversight of the house of the Lord, and they paid it out to the carpenters and builders who worked on the house of the Lord, and to masons and stone cutters, And for buying timber and hewn stone to repair the damage of the house of the Lord. And for all that was paid out to repair the temple. However, there were not made for the house of the Lord basins of silver, trimmers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets, any articles of gold or articles of silver from the money brought into the house of the Lord. But they gave that to the workmen and they prepared the house of the Lord. Moreover, they did not require an account from the men with whose hand they delivered the money to be paid to workmen, for they dealt faithfully. The money from the trespass offerings and the money from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the Lord. It belonged to the priests." So may the Lord bless this reading to our good understanding this morning as we look at this passage. Now we've gone in this passage of 2 Kings from talking about all the political affairs that were going on, and you remember all of the chaos that we've talked about lately and how the Lord had brought some blessing out of that chaos. We've talked about the chaos of politics, the chaos of modern politics, really the chaos of men's hearts. And we've looked at that, but now today there's this sharp turn where the boy king Jehoash, and remember he is, as the passage began, it talks about in the seventh year of Jehu, but remember the king Jehu had been anointed, he was the king, he was the king of northern Israel. Remember, he had been anointed by Elisha for any number of tasks, but also he was anointed to be king. So in the seventh year of his reign as king, we see here that he speaks, or he goes and he speaks to the priest, or he speaks, it dates the thing by him, but then he goes on. Now, the thing I wanted you to remember is that young Jehoash, also just called, just called or pronounced Joash, that he was a young king. But remember at this time, how old was he? I'd ask the children of the church if they remember. You don't have to yell it out. But how old was Joash when he became king? It started to rain. He was only seven years old. I know that some of our kids are either just about seven or just past seven years old. They aren't very old either. Can you imagine? Any of you children that are here, that are younger, can you imagine being king of a country? Now, this passage brings out how the high priest Jehoiada was the counselor of the king. It reminds me back of Scottish history and King James I He was Mary, Queen of Scots' son. And he was made king when he was only a child. And so it was some of the men that had paid attention to John Knox, were very influenced by John Knox. It was some of them that were made his teachers. And today, I'm sure, I don't know whether Tim went to the castle in Sterling and saw that room that you can see where it was King James study room up there, but it was almost the same case. And King James was rather, from his early instruction, he was much more godly than he turned later in life or in his adulthood after he left his youth. He became more corrupt and did some things that weren't the greatest. But there's a real parallel between Jehoash here and King James as an early monarch there in the Stuart dynasty of Scotland. But whatever we see in this passage is about these early years. Now what we see happening here is that under Jehoiada's influence, I remember he was the high priest, he was the high priest during a time when things were not going very well, but he stepped forward under the Lord's influence and took more and more, he put himself forward more and more as a director for the land of Judah and for their spiritual operations. And as he did that, there were many blessings. One of the things that he saw was that the temple had become very dilapidated. The temple, David's temple that was finished under Solomon, that had become, that had worn down. Now what happens when people aren't that interested in religion? They aren't that interested in the house of the Lord. When a church, you can tell sometimes if a church, if you visit a church and the church looks dilapidated, it's, you know, you see dust in the corners, you see it's not really being cleaned very well. You see things that are falling apart, maybe some problems with the drainage in the ceiling. You might see leaks and that sort of thing. If you go to Scotland today, like Tim did, you can see how the whole cathedrals have fallen in, because they demanded so much upkeep at the time, these great stone buildings. Well, when people are interested in God, They're often not interested, or they don't even notice the decay of his buildings, his church. Now when we look at America today, we see, we can make the same observation. There are, by contrast, there are many new church buildings that have gone up. But in so many cases those church buildings don't really reflect what God said. The worship inside is not God's worship. And so even though they look better, they are dilapidated in terms of doctrine and creed and worship in that kind of thing. And then there are many churches that are just wasting away in nothing and they're being sold as community centers. Church buildings that were old and had somewhat of a glory to them in almost every city are passing out of existence. We're becoming, like I said, community centers, places where people play games and do all kinds of things not associated with virile worship to God. Now we say, well, how can this be? How can there be so much dilapidation on one hand? And on the other hand, where we do see newer buildings, we see newer doctrines too. And we see a decay in the things that the church is supposed to focus on. namely glorifying the living God and his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. How can these things be? Well, it's because people have lost affection for the Church of God. So when we come to this text, we see where the people of God are newly affected And it takes a while, because even this command is made early on in Jehoiada's term as high priest with the young Joash. But Joash is young. He doesn't really drive this program himself. And so the announcement is made, but then it comes to nothing. And so this text brings us some years later when Jehoiada, or when When Jehu and Joash say to the priests in verse 4, well, there are a number of different verses through here, early on in the middle, where it just shows that this money was not being spent well. As Joash, as he approaches the years of his majority, as they say, or as he grows up and he becomes a young king, he says in verse 4, all the money of the dedicated gifts that are brought into the house of the Lord, each man's census money, each man's assessment, and all the money that a man proposes in her to bring, let the priest take to themselves. And in verse 6 it says, now it was so by the 23rd year of King Josh. So this is 23 years later. These funds had still not really been used for their purposes. And Jehoash is a young king. The Holy Spirit must have worked upon him, and he must have noticed this, and maybe Jehoiada came and talked with him about it. So then he goes back and he talks with Jehoiada about resuming the work on the church. It works actually one way or the other. If our doctrine and our love of God wanes, then we will probably stop taking care of the church. If we start taking care of the church and put energies in at that point, then that will probably enhance our devotion to the Lord. And so that's what we see happening in this section. And so as I looked at the section, I thought of a title for the sermon. I thought, well, this is nothing more Then one of the many examples in the Bible where the people of God turn back rekindle their love for God, and put their efforts into rebuilding the Church of Christ. And I thought, how appropriate for our day. We really need a revival, not just the people going about, prancing to and fro, talking about how touched they are by God, but we need a revival of a commitment to the Church of Christ. We need a revival within the ministry, and with the leaders of the Church, a revival to the doctrines of the Church. and to more spirituality, true exhorting of the people to follow the Lord, to become more intimate with God. We need more exhortation about that. We need more pastors that are in flame for the Lord. So they bring that into the worship services. So people are just not sitting there like during math sessions where you're doing your times tables or your division tables. And you know, you're recanting these phrases and these numbers over and over and over again so you can learn them. Well, the religion of Christ is not like that. The religion of Christ should be vibrant. It should show forth from our hearts that we're aflame for the Lord Jesus Christ and for His Kingdom. And so in this text we see an occasion where That process is reversed. We see a recommittal of Israel under the church. Now the first point of my outline there is let us compare temple and church here. Whenever you see in the Bible, in the Old Testament, whenever you see talk about the temple, you can apply it as an equivalency to the church of Christ because the temple was the Old Testament church. And so when you see an awakening of people to temple worship, you can make the analogy between that and an awakening of church services here in our modern day, where you see people talk about the one, you can apply it to the other. And so that's what we've done here. And we see that even though King Joash is a young king, He is blessed by Jehoiada's instruction. We see that in verse 2. Joash did, it says in verse 2, Joash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days which Jehoiada, the priest, instructed him. You see, he wasn't a genius in his youth. He didn't come to this simply by intuition, but he had an older priest who was exhorting him and instructing him in the ways of the Lord. And so young Joash did that. And yet it says in verse three, the third point is that yet this renewal was only partial. and marginal. So we have to admit that. The people, and if you can think of it this way, Jehoiada was working on trying to get the people more focused on the organized church, down on the normal altitudes of Israel. It says here, it says there that many of the people continued to sacrifice in the second half of verse 3. They continued to sacrifice and burn incense on the high places. So you see what this is. The people had a habit from their earlier days. They had a habit of going to the high places and when they were up there, on top of these hills and the mountains, some of the old places of worship that had been there. And we know the pagans, all their neighbors worshipped in the high places too. But they were totally dedicated to false things, whereas Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had worshipped in places like Bethel. They'd worshipped on the heights sometimes, but it was to the true God. But people had such a bondage to their feelings But even though the temple had been built, and even though the temple in this case was being renovated, their emotions were still tied to these places that they had worshipped on the high places, outside of the temple, alongside the temple. And in many cases, those places were half pagan. We saw where northern Israel got swept away with her devotion. to her pagan temple at Samaria and to the high places in the north. And so when we see ourselves in our day so tempted by our emotions and by our feelings, oh we want to do things this way, we want to do things that way, because we feel so good when we do those things. That's exactly what Israel was caught up with. Instead of following the teachings of Jehoiada, which brought them back to the temple as they were rebuilding, rehabbing the temple in that day. And so we see so many similarities between then and now. And we see this example of Jehoiada and his rehabilitation of the temple. We see that as a key factor. to the healthiness of Israel or Judah at that time as much as there was. And so we see that this process, even though it wasn't instantaneous, even though we see here a process, a time of 23 years between Jehoiada's first announcement of this to this young king, Joash, or by the lips of young King George, even though it was 23 years later now, we see that ultimately it brought about a renewal in both church and state. And you can see that from verses 7 to 15, because it talks about them doing the building, taking the, they went and started, Jehoiada noticed He challenged Joe Ashworth that they've been collecting money for all these years and yet the money was just going into the bureaucracy that existed at that time. We see the same kind of thing going on today. We saw with the high-tech company that Eli took over. that he had 90% of the people fired in the company and yet the company is going on now, X it's called now, it's going on just, we don't notice any lack of efficacy or any lack of progress, people can still put what they want on there and they interchange, interact with other people, so here the money was coming in for years for this project, Project was not being done. We people we human beings are are almost magicians We're being able to use more money to do less And we see that happening even here in the temple and its affairs. But Jehoiada comes with Joash and the two of them, and it's not all a common, perfect link or a project, but they work together. Now we see in verse 11, And they realized that they'd collected all this money they hadn't done, so they said, no, we're not going to collect any more money specifically for this or by program, but we're going to simply do more work. And so from 11 on it talks about the masons and the lumberjacks and the carpenters repairing the damage to the house of the Lord. And it says that there were some things that they didn't do. They didn't do a lot of works with metallurgy on the fancier ornaments of the temple in verse 13. But what they did do, they did well. In verse 14 it says, they gave that to the workmen and they repaired the house of the Lord. And it says that they didn't need to make an account of the money, verse 15, it says, because the workers, both the accountants, it sounds like, and also the workmen, they dealt faithfully, at the end of verse 15. And it says that the money from the trespass offerings and the sin offerings was not taken. In other words, the money that was coming into the temple for the temple's normal work, that was not taken. But there was kind of a happy confederation at this time, where the workers, where the money was being spent in the right way, and the workers were doing their work, and they didn't even need to make a real close accounting of it. because everything was working out positively together, and the house of the Lord was getting repaired. And so, this is a happy account of how during the years of Judah and the high priest Jehoiada, how these things worked out better. What we see in later chapters here, as we saw in verse 2 where it says that Jehoiada kept instructing young Joash, it seems like as Jehoiada aged then, his ardor diminished. And so, at that point in his life, then, Joe Ash, his ardor also flagged. And so, later on, after this project was done, they began to wander in their own thoughts and minds. And so, it led to a darker day for them, for sure, later on. But in this part of their life, as long as they committed to the Church of Christ in their day, As long as they tried to encourage themselves and work for the grandeur and the glory of the church being fixed up, things went better. And even down to the workmen who were happy doing their labor, and the people who brought the money. It seems like there was great joy amongst the people bringing the money, and Joe Ash does put out a special chest, if anybody, out of the free will offerings that people might bring in, that they would dedicate those free will offerings also to the ongoing progress of the work of the temple. And that worked too, and the chest kept getting filled, so they'd be able to use that money for this too. So we see here a happy coincidence of a godly high priest, a maturing young prince, Joash, and their focus upon the church of that day, namely the temple, and how that worked to the betterment of Judah and Israel at that time. Now what we see here, from this, we see in terms of application, we see how when time and attention is put into the church of Christ, that good things happen. It can be leaders sometimes, and sometimes it can be ruling elders in our Presbyterian ranks. But when people put effort into the church, it leads to blessing. Should we expect anything other here in Southwest Ohio than to perform Presbyterian Church here? I believe that if we would put more effort into our lives and into our efforts to build the church here, that we would do better. I think we're in kind of a cruise mode now where we're existent We're surviving. And so in a sense, we're all busy, we're all hardworking and that sort of thing. But I don't think that we have as much attention as we could have to improving our lot here in Southwest Ohio. I don't think our denomination, I think our denomination has much of that same viewpoint. We have people here and there that are putting in great effort, but we don't see it generally. So what would happen at our denomination? What would happen in our Ney Park churches generally? What would happen in our Evangelical churches if people decided to give more and not less energy to the church? Would we not be blessed like they were blessed in the day of Joash in Jehoiada? I believe that we would be. And not only would we be blessed, but our society would be blessed. I had a dream this past week where It was one of those—dreams are usually crazy—it was one of those crazy dreams where somehow I was in New York City, and I lost my wallet and my phone. I was without them, without any money, and I was in a confused state. Now, I think most of you can identify with the confused state of your pastor. It's the fact that I'm not always on top of things. But I remember, I was in this dream, and I was wandering around, and I was trying to find my way home, but I had no money, and if I had my phone, then I could have called somebody and gotten some help. It would have helped me to know where my people were, in a sense, you know, but I was cut off from all resources. And I just remember in the street, I'm wandering around, and I'm talking to people, I'm saying, you know, I need help, and they'd say, well, you know, where do you come from? And I was confused about that. And I didn't have any way to prove it to them. So I was kind of wandering around, and people aren't that interested in other people anyway. And then if you don't have a clear idea of who you are, where you've been and all, and there's just not much help. I couldn't even go to the police and say, you know, help this old man. I'm utterly confused. I don't know where, and so I just remember this dream. I'm just going, you know, going different stores and having this terrific oppression because I couldn't find my way out. I couldn't find my way home. I don't know what Susan was doing. She wasn't looking for me evidently. We don't know. But I, Colonel Dick, was definitely lost and confused in New York City. I've lived in New York City a little bit, and I know it's like a vast canyon of buildings, and so if you don't know where you are, You can have this feeling of being lost. I know, I just walk in on the street sometimes, you take a wrong turn, and all of a sudden you think, where in the world am I? And you're looking for the street that you're looking for, and you have no idea. And you say, well, there's only four directions I can walk. And you think, yeah, but if I walk in the wrong way, I'm walking further away from where I want to get. And so you can have a tremendous feeling of lostness there. I guess some of that got transmitted in this dream, where I just felt utterly lost in that place. That's a perfect metaphor or picture of where we are today. People do not realize how much they gain from an awareness of the church and the awareness of the living God and the ability to know right and wrong. As I look at this political election, I see so many examples of such confusion. There was a program on this past week. It was a news program where it had a conversation with this black judge from California who had known Kamala, our vice presidential candidate. He had known her forever. And so he was talking about all of the bad habits that he saw in her from way back, from when she was a lawyer, and from when she was in the prosecutor's office. And from when she did this and she did that, he said, it was one of those cases where you knew that this fellow worked with her, he played the game, he was not a great pure heart either, but he was recounting all of the failures that he saw along the way. And he was dedicated to remarking on what an absolute failure she was all along the way. Now, as I listen to this, I'm thinking to myself, well, if he's true, which I'm guessing he probably is, I'm surmising he probably was, all along the way, she got kicked upstairs. She kept getting promoted despite her failures. And honestly, I don't think today, with the average American citizen, If you showed success and failure in two different slides, I don't know whether the average American could pick the successful slide versus the failure slide. Most of us, when it comes down to our own case, you know, will you be poor or will you be rich, most of us can tell that, and we gravitate toward doing better rather than worse. But for so many Americans today, there's this tremendous loss of discernment But we don't ask the question, where do we get discernment? Do we not get discernment from the Lord? Is the Lord not the one ultimately that helps us to know what is the better way and what is the false way? I look at the conservative commentators, which I listen to a lot, but none of them make, hardly any of them make references to God. So is it any wonder that today we are, in many ways, a lost people without the ability to tell up from down, hot from cold, as the Bible says, right from wrong? Our problem today is not politics. Our problem today is the living God and our distance from Him and our sensitivities, our heart sensitivities to what is really right and wrong. And so the kind of situation we see here in Second Kings, where Northern Israel and Southern Israel were so confused. Southern Israel was doing a little bit better than Northern Israel, but both of them were very, very confused and being led this way and that way by confusion. We're very close to that. One of the ways out is to start investing more in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And praying to God, God, give me more discernment. Help me to learn the ABCs of reality so that I have a greater discernment. Help me to listen to people who are more informed and less confused. Today people are, they're almost listening to people that are more confused and more informed. And so there are those people that are just talking sense. I don't want to go into a long excursus on that, but you can hear people on television periodically that are very informed people. And yet they're getting no audience whatsoever. People have no appetite for the truth. If we would turn to the Lord and seek his face, I think we would find more light in society. Wouldn't it be wonderful? I'll use the Republicans because I tend to be more of that these days. But wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we heard Republican politicians talking about the need for prayer. Please pray for it. You know, talking about some of the problems I've talked about today, but say, please pray that the nation would have a more sensibility for the nation to know better what was right and wrong. And address the state of the nation before us all in their speeches. Our great need and their great need for help. We can work awfully hard and get nothing out of it because God is not behind it. Or we can do almost nothing. In this day, there wasn't a whole lot being done. There was a whole lot of confusion. But God blessed them by his presence and by his wisdom. And so they saw some very great social benefits from this at that time. They did. From a time where there was much evil being done, it says here, verse 2 it says, Jehoiash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. The high places were not cleansed, but he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. How did that happen? Say, how did it happen? It happened because of God's grace. So should we not beckon and call upon the Lord and the windows of heaven to shine upon us as a nation? It would be so refreshing to hear the leaders of our culture admit that they were not geniuses, that they needed God's help. I think it would change everything. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for this text. We thank you for where we have an illustration here of where Israel turned to the church and renewed its efforts to be blessings in their day. We pray that you would help us here in Southwest Ohio, starting with the pastor. We pray that you would help us to turn more and invest more and more of our time in the church and in its cause. to rebuild the kingdom of God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.