Jehoash Repairs The Temple

Q: What does the Bible say about King Jehoash?

King Jehoash began his reign with a commitment to repair the temple but fell into idolatry later in life. The Bible details the life of King Jehoash in 2 Kings 12, highlighting his initial devotion to repairing the temple and restoring proper worship in Judah. He took office at a young age and was instructed by Jehoiada the priest, who guided him towards righteousness. However, after Jehoiada's death, Jehoash shifted towards idolatry, allowing the people of Judah to forsake Yahweh, which ultimately led to God's judgment upon him and the nation. His life serves as a cautionary tale regarding the dangers of superficial faith and the consequences of abandoning God after having once known Him.

Q: How do we know the importance of temple repairs in Jehoash's time?

The repairs of the temple symbolize the restoration of true worship and devotion to God. In Jehoash's reign, the repairs of the temple were not merely about physical restoration; they represented a deeper need for the spiritual renewal of the people. The temple was the focal point of worship for the Israelites, and its deterioration paralleled the spiritual decline of the nation. Jehoash's concern for the temple's condition illustrates that true worship requires a focus on God and His dwelling. His actions underscore the importance of dedicating resources to maintain and honor what God has established for His people. Ultimately, Jehoash's neglect after Jehoiada illustrates the need for continual vigilance to ensure the worship of God remains pure and undiluted.

Q: Why is it important for Christians to stay faithful to God like Jehoiada advocated?

Faithfulness to God is essential for true peace and divine favor in our lives. The character of Jehoiada serves as a model of faithfulness and integrity in guiding others towards God. His mentorship of Jehoash emphasizes the necessity of having spiritual guides who encourage steadfastness in faith. For Christians, staying faithful in a world full of distractions and temptations is crucial because true contentment and peace come from a personal relationship with Christ, not from external influences or success. As Jehoash's retreat into idolatry shows, neglecting the wisdom of godly mentors leads to spiritual ruin. Thus, Christians are called to seek accountability and cling to the teachings that draw them closer to God, ensuring they endure in their faith in all circumstances.

Q: What lessons can we learn from the decline of King Jehoash's faith?

Jehoash's decline warns against compromising faith after receiving spiritual guidance. King Jehoash's decline is a potent reminder of the dangers that accompany spiritual complacency. Initially, Jehoash displayed a strong commitment to God during Jehoiada's life, eager to restore true worship and temple maintenance. However, his faith depended heavily on the presence of his mentor. Upon Jehoiada's death, Jehoash succumbed to the persuasive voices around him, opting for idolatry over the true worship of God. This decline showcases how easily one can drift away from faith if its foundation lies solely within external influences rather than a personal conviction and relationship with God. Thus, believers are encouraged to cultivate their faith independently, recognizing the importance of a personal commitment to remain steadfast in their walk with God.

2nd Kings chapter 12 And I am aware that these are sometimes difficult passages to read with all of the killing and the murder and the terrible things that go on. And some people might say, well, are they appropriate for young people to be confronted with all the time?

Well, I guess not all the time, but I do believe that the word of God has a message to all ages. And I trust that there will be a familiarity granted to us all as we read these passages together. And whether we are older or whether we are younger, the word of God, if it has an entrance into our lives, will surely do us good. So we trust that there will be a blessing granted to young people and those of us who are older alike as we consider these Old Testament passages. Our reading today is 2 Kings chapter 12, and we're going to read the whole chapter together. Well, we'll read down to verse 18, actually.

This is the word of the Lord. and his mother's name was Zebiah of Beersheba. And Jehoash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. All his days were in Jehudiah, Jehoiada, my apologies, the priest instructed him. But the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places. I'm sorry, I'm struggling with these pronunciations.

Jehoash said to the priests, all the money of the dedicated things that is brought into the house of the Lord, even the money of every one that passeth the account, the money that every man is set at, and all the money that cometh into any man's heart to bring into the house of the Lord, let the priests take it to them. every man of his acquaintance, and let them repair the breeches of the house, wheresoever any breech shall be found.

And it was so, that in the three and twentieth year of King Jehoash, the priests had not repaired the breeches of the house, Then King Jehoash called for Jehoiada the priest and the other priests, and said unto them, Why repair ye not the breeches of the house? Now therefore receive no more money of your acquaintance, but deliver it for the breeches of the house. And the priests consented to receive no more money of the people, neither to repair the breeches 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, as one cometh into the house of the Lord.

And the priests that kept the door put therein all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord. And it was so, 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 the work, that had the oversight of the house of the Lord. and they laid it out to the carpenters and builders that wrought upon the house of the Lord, and to masons and hewers of stone, and to buy timber and hewed stone to repair the breaches of the house of the Lord, and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it.

How be it? There were not made for the house of the Lord bowls of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, any vessels of gold or vessels of silver of the money that was brought into the house of the Lord. But they gave that to the workmen and repaired therewith the house of the Lord. Moreover, they reckoned not with the men into whose hand they delivered the money to be bestowed on the workmen, for they dealt faithfully. The trespass money and sin money was not brought into the house of the Lord, it was the priest's.

Then Hazel, king of Syria, went up and fought against Gath and took it. And Hazel set his face to go up to Jerusalem. And Jehoash king of Judah 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. And the rest of the acts of Joash and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? Amen. May the Lord bless to us this reading from his word. We did read verse 19 there because it has a little reference to Chronicles and I'm going to just touch on a couple of verses in Chronicles as we progress through today's lesson.

But there are many lessons to be taken from the lives of these Old Testament kings of Israel and Judah. And that's really the main purpose of us addressing these matters. These are not simply histories. These are important lessons for us to learn. One lesson is that no matter how much wealth you have, No matter how much privilege or honour or fame or fortune or popularity, none of it by itself brings peace and contentment in life. The only way of true peace and true contentment And true wealth in life is by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. And the life of Jehoash exemplifies this very well.

Here was a young man, and we spent a little bit of time thinking about him last week, how that he became king at just seven years of age. But here was a young man who had many things going for him in life. Now, truth is that he had been orphaned at only a year old, and he spent the first part of his life hidden in the temple from his enemies. But he had people there who cared for him. And he would never have known his mother and his father, his true mother and his father. He had another mother and father. He had adopted parents in the temple who cared for him, who loved him. He even, as a child, had people willing to die for him. As we mentioned, he became king at seven years old and he was tutored in his youth by men and women who loved the Lord. His people, the people of Judah, the people whose capital was in Jerusalem, his people had great hopes for their new king and for the recovery and restoration of David's royal line.

You'll remember how Athaliah had tried to cut that off. We spent some time thinking about her wickedness last time. But here was the restoration of David's line when everyone thought that it had been broken. And it was to be a time of establishing a new age of true worship in Judah. and at first things were very positive. In fact, King Jehoash seemed to have a greater concern for the maintenance and the true worship of God in Judah and the well-being and upkeep of the temple than the priests themselves and the Levites whose job it was to do that. Idolatry had taken its toll on the temple. And the sons of the old queen, Athalia, had broken down parts of the wall of the temple, possibly to improve the temple of Baal. And Jehoash wanted these breaches repaired. And he called for money to be gathered for that purpose and to that end.

But it seems that the Levites involved were either careless or maybe crooked, because the money was not forthcoming. And for too long, the task remained undone. The repair of the breaches of the wall of the temple, the holes, the broken down parts of the wall, was not fulfilled. It remained undone.

And it was Jehoash himself, perhaps encouraged by Jehoiada the high priest, who forced the renovations through. Money was to be collected and paid to the stonemasons and the woodcutters who worked with integrity to accomplish their duties and repair the temple.

But here's the thing, Jehoash was concerned for the temple and for the honour of God only as long as Jehoiada was alive. We learn that in 2 Chronicles, when his old mentor died, Jehoash started to wander away from the things of God. We read in 2 Chronicles chapter 24 verse 17.

Now after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah. and made obeisance to the king. They bowed down before the king. They told him what a wonderful king he was. Then the king hearkened unto them and they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers and served groves and idols and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem, for this their trespass.

It's almost hard to believe what we're reading here in Chronicles. It's not mentioned in 2 Kings, in the passage that we read, but here we have another part of the story of Jehoash, which is kept for that section in Chronicles. And it seems as if what happened was that these princes of Judah, their desires were not after the Lord, but they were after idols. And they wanted to worship in idolatrous places. And Jehoash permitted that, and so began a gradual slide away from the worship in the temple in Jerusalem that he had championed in the beginning. And in the absence of Jehoiad, the high priest, we find that Jehoash started to backslide, and he started to return to the idolatry of the old times.

God's wrath came upon the people of Judah and the form of this wrath was attacks by Syria and Hazel. Do you remember Hazael? He was the one that Elisha went and visited near Damascus and told that he would kill his master and that he would be king over Syria. Because Jehoash no longer trusted the Lord, When Hazel came against him with an army, Jehoash became afraid and he tried to bribe Hazel.

He tried to buy Hazel off by giving him all the money that he could gather from the temple and from his own treasuries. He collected all the gold from the temple and all that he had in his own palace and he sent it to Hazel. And, well, with the money, what more did Hazel need to do? He took it and he left, but only for a little while. Very soon he would be back again. Jehoash thereby proved himself to be a weak and ultimately a wicked man.

Nevertheless, the Lord was faithful and he kept sending prophets to warn the king and to warn the people about their sin. And we read in 2 Chronicles chapter 24, Verse 20, and the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, so here is one of Jehoiada's sons, a man called Zechariah, and he comes with the Spirit of God upon him as a prophet from the Lord, and he says to the people, thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper?

Because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also forsaken you. And then we read this. and they, that is the people, conspired against him, Zechariah, the people conspired against Zechariah, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash, or Jehoash, 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. Jehoash slew the son of Jehoiada, a man with whom he very likely grew up in the same house. He had him killed because Zechariah warned him faithfully as a prophet and a priest ought to, as he was entitled to do. of God's displeasure at the conduct of Jehoash and the princes of Judah and the people who followed them. Well, as might be expected for this travesty, this terrible deed, judgment followed.

And shortly afterwards, the Syrians came again against Jerusalem with just a small force, just a small band, and it routed a much larger army from Judah. The Lord had abandoned this idolatrous people. And we read again in Chronicles, 2 Chronicles chapter 24, And it came to pass at the end of the year that the host of Syria came up against him, that is Jehoiash the king, and they came to Judah and Jerusalem. and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people, and sent all the spoil of them unto the king of Damascus. For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men, and the Lord delivered a very great host into their hand, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers.

So they executed judgment against Jehoash, 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 priest, and slew him on his bed, and he died. And they buried him in the city of David, but they buried him not in the sepulchres of the kings.

Let me make a couple of points, a couple of applications about these verses that we've read and thought about today. Jehoiash, Jehoiash seemed to begin well. He cared for the temple, he repaired its walls. However, when he no longer had Jehoiada, we might say to look after him, he left the true path and he wandered away. And I've got a question for you. Is this what will happen to you?

You are young. These addresses are designed particularly for those who are young. You are young. and you have people around you that care for you, people who direct you in spiritual things, people who advise you. The very fact that you are here today is a testimony of the fact that there are people who are concerned for your well-being and for your soul, just as Jehoiada was concerned for Jehoash. For the present, You are happy to do as they say, to please them. You come along and you listen. You take part in the services. I am pleased that that is the case.

But what about as you get older? What are you going to do with your life then? What about when you are on your own? Maybe you get a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Maybe you go to college or university. Maybe you start working and you move away from home. What happens when people who don't know the God of your youth come tempting you to forget the old ways, the things that you've learned about, the old wisdom, your old teachers, and say to you, you just need to be yourself. You can put all of that behind you. Just be yourself and do what you want. Will you do your own thing? Will you follow their advice? Will you forget your Jehoiada and listen instead to the deceiving princes of Judah?

In truth, Jehoash was just a superficial believer. He put on an act. His faith wasn't real. It was just the faith of the system in which he grew up. He acted the part when he thought Jehoiada was watching, but he forgot the old man's wisdom when he was gone.

It is true You cannot all your life live under the shadow of your parent or your Bible teacher. No one else can live your life for you. The Lord Jesus Christ must be your own saviour, your own Lord. And it is my prayer that you will trust him and follow him for yourself.

Zechariah was the son of Jehoiada. Like his father, he knew the Lord personally. And the Spirit of the Lord was upon Zechariah and he preached to the people. He spoke to the people faithfully. He told the people about their sin and he told them about the judgment of God that would come on their sin if they did not turn to the Saviour. It is a wonderful privilege when one of the Lord's servants preaches Christ's righteousness, preaches divine forgiveness to a sinner.

And this is what Zechariah did for the people. Jehoash was blessed to have Zechariah preach to him. But Jehoash had stopped listening. When Zechariah tried to warn the king of his folly in turning from the Lord, the king would not take this justifiable rebuke. Rather than admit his sin, he had Zechariah and it seems other members of his family slain there in the temple. What a terrible man Jehoash turned out to be. killing the sons of his faithful servant, people that he had grown up with.

But let us be clear, not one of us can stay true to the Lord. unless the Lord keeps us. We cannot do it in our own strength. Never rely upon your own strength to keep you true to the Lord or to keep you from sinning. Stay away from temptation as much as possible and ask the Lord to keep you strong and ask the Lord to keep you close to Him when you encounter temptation.

As Zechariah died under the stones of these wicked men, he called out, he cried out to the Lord. He said, look upon it and require it. Basically, he was calling for justice. He was calling to be avenged on these men. and there is some justice, there is some legitimacy for his prayer under the law of God.

But how much sweeter and comforting it is to hear the words of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross when he was being crucified. Though he did no sin, though he did not deserve to die for his own sin, yet he says in Luke 23 verse 34, Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Sinners like you and me need the Father's mercy for which Christ prayed. That is what our Savior sought for his enemies. And what a fine prayer for us all. I wish we all could earnestly and sincerely pray, Lord, show me mercy and give me grace to follow you. Will that be your prayer? Will that be mine? Lord, show me mercy and give me grace to follow you.

And then just lastly, Let the history of Jehoash stand as a warning. If the Lord has blessed you with hearing the gospel, do not despise his kindness. Do not ignore his warning. These, as I said at the beginning, they're not history lessons. They are examples to be heeded and lessons to be applied. Jehoash was buried in disgrace. He ended his life in disgrace. He was murdered by his own servants. His epitaph might have read, he started out well, but he blew it. May the Lord give us all grace to trust in Christ. and strength to persevere to the end. Amen.

Jehoash Repairs The Temple

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about King Jehoash?

How do we know the importance of temple repairs in Jehoash's time?

Why is it important for Christians to stay faithful to God like Jehoiada advocated?

What lessons can we learn from the decline of King Jehoash's faith?

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Jehoash Repairs The Temple

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about King Jehoash?

How do we know the importance of temple repairs in Jehoash's time?

Why is it important for Christians to stay faithful to God like Jehoiada advocated?

What lessons can we learn from the decline of King Jehoash's faith?

Sermon Transcript

About Peter L. Meney

Comments

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