Would you turn to 2 Kings chapter
12. And after we read 2 Kings chapter
12, I would like you to turn to 2 Chronicles. So you might put your finger
there, 2 Chronicles chapter 24, but 2 Kings chapter 12. In the seventh year of Jehu,
Jehoash began to reign. This is that man that was hid
in the temple for six years and became king when he was seven.
And 40 years reigned he in Jerusalem, And his mother's name was Zibaha
of Beersheba. And Jehoash, sometimes his name
is spelled J-O-A-S-H, sometimes J-E-H-O-A-S-H. I'm not sure why the translators
do that, but it's the same person. And Jehoash did that which was
right in the sight of the Lord all his days, wherein Jehoadah,
the priest, instructed him. As long as he was under the influence
of this man, he did right. Now turn to 2 Chronicles 24, beginning in verse 15. But Jehoiada, that's the priest
that influenced Joash so much, But Jehoiada waxed old and was
full of days when he died, and 130 years old was he when he
died. And they buried him in the city
of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both
toward God and toward his house. Now after the death of Jehoiada
came the princes of Judah and made obeisance to the king, King
Joash. They worshipped him. They made
a big deal out of him. They put him up on some kind
of pedestal. Then the king hearkened unto
them. He liked this flattery. Men like
flattery. And they left the house of the
Lord God of their fathers, Joash, and these men, and served rogues
and idols. And wrath came upon Judah and
Jerusalem, for this their trespass. Yet he sent prophets to them
to bring them again unto the Lord, and they testified against
them, but they would not give ear. And the Spirit of God came
upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest, the man who had just
died, which stood above the people and said unto them, thus saith
God, why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord that you cannot prosper
because you've forsaken the Lord, he's forsaken you. And they conspired
against him and stoned him with stones at the commandment of
the king in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash
the king remembered not the kindness with Jehoiada his father had
done unto him, but slew his son. When he died, he said, the Lord
look upon it and require it. Let's pray. Lord, we come into your presence
in Christ's name and we're so thankful for thy son. We're so thankful for the salvation
that's in him. We're so thankful for your justifying
grace, your redeeming blood. We're so thankful for the forgiveness
of sins. Lord, we pray that you'd give
us grace to believe, to love you more and love one another
more. Grant us your presence and speak accordingly to your
will. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Now this is a, I don't know if
interesting is the right word, but It's interesting in that
this man, Joash, whom the Lord had blessed so much, he was preserved
from Athaliah. If you'll remember, she was trying
to destroy the royal seed and he was preserved. And the first
six years of his life, he lived in the temple in hiding from
Athaliah while she reigned. And then Jehoiada, when he was
seven years old, had him declared to be king. And he was the king
over all the land. And he was influenced by Jehoiada,
the priest. And we read when he died, he
died in honor and so on. The Lord had blessed him. But
after Jehoiada died, he went bad. He actually ordered the
stoning of a prophet. This man became apostate. After
he left the influence of Jehoiada, he acted out what really was
in his heart all along. And that is a sobering thought
to think of this man who was given such advantage, such blessings
of grace, and yet it was all because of the influence of this
one man that he acted in a positive way, and as soon as that influence
was gone, he acted out how his own heart really believed. Now let's begin in verses 1 and
2, back in 2 Kings 12. In the seventh year of Jehu,
Jehoash began to reign, and forty years reigned he in Jerusalem.
And his mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba, And Joash did that
which was right in the sight of the Lord all his days wherein
Jehoiada the priest instructed him. Now that the Holy Spirit
has that pointed out. He did right as long as he was
under the influence of this man Jehoiada. But verse three, this
demonstrates where something was really wrong, but the high
places were not taken away. He tolerated the high places.
The people still sacrificed and burned incense in the high places. Now, these high places, what
do they represent? There's only one place sacrifice
was allowed. The temple, the tabernacle. And what that represents is there's
only one place where God will hear us. in Christ. That is the meaning of that.
That is the purpose of that. And these high places, people
said, well, we don't need to go to the temple as long as our
hearts right. We can offer sacrifice in these
high places, these groves, why we can even burn incense. Now,
who is the only one who could burn incense? The priest. The
priest. This represents, once again,
our need of Christ. I can't come into God's presence.
God can't accept anything about me or my prayers apart from my
great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. But they tolerated. Through this man, they tolerated
these high places to keep going. Sometimes they would do this
under the name of Jehovah. Sometimes it would go into Baal
worship. But whenever you read of these groves and high places,
they shouldn't have been tolerated. They're good kings who just had
them all destroyed and wiped out, but not Jehoash. Now, what this represents is
a spirit of toleration. Now, in some respects, we need
to be tolerant, don't we? In many respects, we need to
be tolerant. But when it comes to the things
of the gospel, toleration of that which is wrong betrays two
things. Number one, I don't really love
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why I would tolerate that
which is contrary to Him. That's the reasoning behind it.
You don't really love Christ. Somebody says, well, you're being
too strict. Well, the reason you say something like that is
you find no love to Christ. And the second reason behind
toleration is you don't really believe what you say you do.
You can talk about it all you want, but if you can tolerate
that which is contrary to and His grace. You don't really believe
what you say you do. Now, let me hold your finger
there in 2 Kings. I want you to turn to Revelation
chapter 2. He's speaking to the church at Pergamos, and he says
in verse 14, but I have a few things against thee, because
thou hast them there that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught
Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel,
to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. Now, they have them there, Why did they have him there?
They tolerated this. Now, what is this doctrine of
Balaam that the Lord says he hates? Well, if you know the
story of Balaam, and I'm sure most of you do, you can read
about it in Numbers 22 through 24. Balaam was asked by Balaam
to curse Israel. And the Lord told him, don't
do it. Don't do it. And you can read throughout the
three chapters, he was actually a false prophet. And he's called
that three times in the New Testament. But the Lord said, don't curse
them. And he told Balaam, I can't curse
the folks that the Lord said not to curse. So as you go on
reading in the book of Numbers, Balaam had influenced the children
of Israel to go ahead and intermarry with the Moabites. Because he
knew that if they would intermarry with the Moabites, that they
would adopt their gods and adopt their ways and become tolerant
to that which God hated, and that would cause God's curse
to come upon Israel and cause him to depart from them. And
he taught them that. He was willing to compromise
the truth for personal enrichment. That's what he was about, and
he was willing to compromise. And look what it says in verse
15, so hast thou also them there that hold the doctrine of the
Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. And God said, I hate that. Now,
what are the Nicolaitans? I want you to understand the
only way you can, if you've got to go outside of the scripture
to understand something, it's wrong. I've heard people say,
well, the Nicolaitans were a group of so-and-so that you can read
about in history. No, the word means, the word
Nicolaitan means above the people. This is clergy laity is what
it is, above the people. You got the clergy, the ones
that are real close to God, then you got the lay people, You've
heard of lay preachers and all that kind of stuff, but what
that is, is a denial that Christ is all. It's saying there's something
about somebody that makes them more precious to God than your
regular lay people. You've got the clergy, God's
clergy, God's inheritance, and then you've got the lay people,
clergy lady. And Peter was guilty of that
in Galatians chapter two. You remember when he was sitting
with the Gentiles and then some Jews came over and he thought,
uh, this is bad. They're going to look down upon
me. And so he got up without saying a word and moved and sat
with the Jews. And Paul publicly reprimanded
him for that. as denying the truth of the gospel.
What's the truth of the gospel? Christ is all. And to say one's
more pleasing to God than another, to talk about clergy and laity,
is to deny the very foundation of the gospel. Now look in chapter
2, verse 20, he's talking to the church at
Thyatira. You have them there. Notice this is what they tolerate.
And this is what the Lord's rebuking them for. Not so much what they're
doing, but what they tolerate. And look in verse 20. Notwithstanding,
I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that woman
Jezebel. You allow her. Thou sufferest
that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach,
and to seduce my servants, to commit fornication, and to eat
things sacrificed unto idols." Now, you know who Jezebel was.
Jezebel was the one who influenced Ahab. She was Ahab's wife. And was this woman literally
named Jezebel? I don't know. Maybe she was. But I think it's
kind of a representation of what she was. And she taught, and
they allowed this. She taught the people to commit
fornication. Now, does that mean that she was teaching people
to actually participate in sexual sin? I kind of doubt it. I kind
of doubt it, maybe. But the point is, she was teaching
them to find some kind of comfort outside the covenant. And you
tolerate that. And to eat things sacrificed
to idols, well, Paul tells us there's nothing wrong with eating
something sacrificed to idols. I mean, if it's, you know, if
it's a good filet mignon, eat it. There's nothing wrong with
that. That's not sin. But what she was doing was saying
you can find spiritual nourishment in that which is contrary to
the gospel, idolatry, false religion. And that's why this church was
being rebuked at this time. So we see this spirit of toleration. That's what was going on with
Joash. He didn't get rid of the high
places. He didn't get rid of the groves.
And he really exposed the state of his heart. He didn't really
love the Lord, and he didn't really find the truth necessary? I mean, these high places are
okay. These groves are okay. And here's
another way I'd like to try to illustrate this. Is it not true that Christ gets
all the glory and salvation? Amen. We believe that with all
of our heart. Christ gets all the glory and
salvation. Now, if you can tolerate that which does not give him
all the glory and salvation, you don't necessarily agree with
it, but we'll agree to disagree, and you can have that going on.
If you can tolerate that, there's one reason. Actually, there's
two reasons behind it. Number one, you don't really
love Christ. That's it. You don't really love
Christ. You don't see any necessity in
Christ getting all the glory and salvation. What do I mean
by that? If he doesn't get all the glory
and salvation, that means there's some work for me to perform.
And you don't really see the necessity of the truth. It's
necessary for Christ to get all the glory and salvation, because
if he doesn't, that means salvation is by works in some way. And
if that's the case, I'm in trouble. Now that is what is behind this
spirit of toleration that Jehoash had, and he demonstrated that
even when he was under the influence of Jehoiada. Now, back to our
text in 2 Kings. Verse four, and Jehoash said
to the priest, all the money of the dedicated things that's
brought into the house of the Lord. And he's talking about
the repairing of the temple. And I got to thinking about this,
you know, he wants the temple repaired. And I believe that
he probably had sentimental value to the temple. He was raised
there. First six years of his life, he was in hiding. And the
temple had fallen into disrepair through disuse. There had been
bell worship and so on, and Athaliah, the temple had fallen into disrepair,
and he wants the temple to be repaired. And we're going to
read about that. And I think this was purely sentimental.
Hey, I was raised there. It's a beautiful place. I want
to see it back to its former glory. And Jehoash said to the priest, all the money
of the dedicated things that's brought into the house of the
Lord, even the money of everyone that passes the account, that's
the atonement money, that every man has said, and the money that
cometh into any man's heart to bring into the house of the Lord,
let the priest take it to them, every man of his acquaintance,
and let them repair the breaches of the house, wherein any breach
shall be found. Now, he wants three different
types of money, that was used to be used for the repair of
the temple. There was the tithe, the atonement
money, that every man gave the same amount, and whatever came
into anybody's heart to give, whatever they were inspired to
do. Now, I want to be somebody who, when the Lord impresses
me with something, I want to do it. I love thinking about
that. Some people, well, they gave
according to duty, their tithe, their atonement money, and then
whatever anybody in his heart felt impressed to give, they
gave for the repairs of the temple. I was reading 2 Corinthians 9
this week, and it just hit me where it says, God loves a cheerful
giver. I love that. I want to be that
cheerful giver, don't you? Don't give grudgingly or of necessity,
the scripture says, for God loveth a cheerful, a willing, a hilarious
giver. That's where we get the word
hilarious. We actually enjoy it. And that's what was going
on for the collection of these funds. Now let's go on reading.
But it was so that in the 3 and 20th year of King Jehoash, the
priests had not repaired the breaches of the house. They were
taking this money, but they had not repaired, either through
mismanagement of funds or taking it to themselves. I'm thinking,
boy, things are always the same, aren't they? I mean, people were
giving this money to this, and the priests were dropping the
ball, and nothing was happening. Verse 7. Then King Joash called
Jehoiada the priest and the other priests, and said unto them,
Why repair ye not the breaches of the house? Now therefore receive
no more money of your acquaintance, but deliver it for the breaches
of the house. Quit taking money. And the priest consented to receive
no more money of the people, neither to repair the breaches
of the house. But Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored
a hole in the lid of it. and set it beside the altar.
On the right side is one cometh into the house of the Lord, and
the priest that kept the door put therein all the money that
was brought into the house of the Lord." Now, I was just thinking
about that. I guess that's where we got the
idea of that box. You know, I hate passing a hat, don't you? Passing
a plate. I always feel so uncomfortable with that, when people start
passing a plate, and everybody's looking at what you're, you know,
just, I can't stay in that. I like a box with a bullhorn, stick it in a box,
let not your left hand know what your right hand's doing, quit
making it such a public, everybody watch me. I mean, when that plate
is passed, don't you feel pressure to put something in it? Sure
you do, sure you do. I mean, it's, I want to give
because I want to. I don't want to give because
I feel pressure to do something. I want to give what I want to.
So they made this box and put a hole in it. So that's scriptural.
That thing back there, that's scriptural. I like that. I don't think I knew it was until
now, but it's scriptural. I just know I never have a like
passing a plate. Verse 10, and it was so that when they saw
that there was much money in the chest, that the king's scribe
and the high priest came up and they put up in bags and told
the money that was found in the house of the Lord. And they gave
the money being told into the hands of them that did work,
that had the oversight of the house of the Lord. And they laid
it out to the carpenters and builders and wrought upon the
house of the Lord to fix all the breaches. Verse 12, and to
masons and ewers of stone, and to buy timber and ewed stone
to repair the breaches of the house of the Lord, and for all
that was laid out for the house to repair it. Albeit, there was
not made for the house of the Lord bowls of silver, snuffers,
basins, trumpets, any vessels of gold or vessels of silver,
or the money that was brought into the house of the Lord. But
they had enough money left over, but they gave it to the workmen
and repaired with the house of the Lord. Moreover, they reckoned
not with the men into whose hand they delivered the money to be
bestowed on workmen, for they dealt faithfully. The trespass
money and sin money was not brought into the house of the Lord, it
was the priests. So they got everything taken care of. They
had the house repaired and money for the utensils of the Temple,
verse 17, then Hazael. And you remember Hazael. He's
the one who said, am I a dog that I should do such a thing?
And Elisha started crying when he saw him and said, you're going
to rip up pregnant women in Israel and kill them. And you're going
to do all kinds of, here he is. And he's a continual thorn in
Israel's side. Then Hazael, king of Syria, went
up and fought against Gath and took it. Hazael set his face
to go up to Jerusalem. And Jehoshaphat, king of Judah,
prayed for the Lord to deliver them." No, it doesn't say that
at all. He used complete carnal policy. He took all the hallowed
things that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings
of Judah, had dedicated, and his own hallowed things, and
all the gold that was found in the treasures of the house of
the Lord. and in the king's house, and sent it to Hazel, king of
Syria, and he went away from Jerusalem." Now, he didn't want
to get attacked by Hazel, so he thought, well, here's what
I'll do. I'll just give him everything we've got. I'll give him all
the gold and silver of the Lord's house, and Hazel took it, and
he didn't attack Israel. Now, why didn't he ask the Lord
for deliverance? How many times throughout the
kings when they're in trouble, they ask God to deliver them,
and He does, but not this man. He just gives him all that which
he had no right to give away. And what happened as a result
of this? The rest of the acts of Joe Ash
and all that he did Are they not written in the book of the
Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And his servants arose and made
a conspiracy and slew Joash in the house of Milo, which goeth
down to Siloam. They murdered him. For Josachar,
the son of Shemta, and Jehozabab, the son of Shomer, his servants
smote him, and he died. And they buried him with his
fathers in the city of David. And Amaziah, his son, was slain
in his stead." Now go back to 2 Chronicles 24. Let's read the
end of his life. because Kings doesn't give us
this detail. After Jehoiada died, verse 17,
now after the death of Joia came the princes of Judah and made
obeisance to the king. They flattered him. The king
hearkened unto them, and they left the house of the Lord God
of their fathers and served rogues and idols. That's 2 Chronicles
24. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their
trespass. Verse 19, he sent prophets to them to bring them again unto
the Lord, and they testified against them, but they wouldn't
give ear. And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the son
of Jehoiada, the priest, which stood above the people, and said
unto them, Thus saith God, why transgress ye the commandments
of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? Because ye have forsaken the
Lord, he also has forsaken you. And they conspired against him,
and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in
the court of the house of the Lord. Joash had them stoned. Thus Joash, the king, remembered
not the kindness which Jehoiada, his father, had done to him,
but slew his son. And when he died, he said, the
Lord look upon it and require it. Then it came to pass at the
end of the year that the host of Syria came up against him,
Hazel, and came to Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed all the
princes of the people from among the people and sent all this
foe unto them to the king of Damascus. For the army of the
Syrians came with a small company, just a small company of men.
And the Lord delivered a very great host into their hand because
they'd forsaken the Lord, their fathers. So they executed judgment
against Joash." This small army from the Syrians destroyed the
large armory of Israelites. And when they were departed from
him, for they left him in great diseases, His own servants conspired
against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada, the priests,
and slew him on his bed, and he died. They were getting vengeance
for him having that priest stoned. And they buried him in the city
of David, but they buried him not in the sepulchers of the
kings. He didn't deserve to be buried with the sepulchers of
the kings. And these are they that conspired against him, Zadab,
the son of Shemaiah, and Ammonitus, and Jehozabath, the son of Shemrith
Amoabitis. Now concerning his sons and the
greatness of the burdens laid upon him in repairing the house
of God, behold, they're written in the story of the book of the
kings. And Amoziah, his son, reigned in his stead. Now here
we have the example of a man who had no grace in his heart.
He was influenced, strongly influenced by Jehoiada. And as soon as Jehoiada
was dead, He did what was really in his heart all along. And we pray that the Lord would
do a mighty work of grace in our heart. And don't let us be
somebody like Joash, who could be influenced, but didn't have
the grace of God in his heart.