Satan’s Other Daughter (Part B)

Anyway, we love loyalty anywhere in the cause of righteousness, but I have learned that sometimes loyalty has to be taught. Some folks, they think they have loyalty and they don't. You can only find out if you're loyal when the pressure's on. There's no such thing as loyalty when you're just relaxing and everything is fine.

It's when there's the challenge. Are you going to stick to the King or the place where God has you, or are you going to flee? This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 2 Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in the book of 2 Kings, chapter 11, as he continues his message called Satan's Other Daughter. How opposite, how utterly opposite we have evidence of how kin can be.

Well, it starts back again in Eden, well after Eden, with Cain and Abel, how different they were. But this is ridiculous that you can have this wicked Ahaziah under the influence of his wicked mother and you have his sister Jehoshaphat, devout and heroic, brave. Now again, the good King Jehoshaphat arranged this marriage with Jo-Ram, married Athaliah. They had Azariah as the son. Jo-Ram's daughter-in-law was an archangel of hatred. That's Athaliah.

She's the archangel of hatred, but Jehoshiba is the archangel of love. And this is how it is. You have these super forces in place.

It could be on a small scale in a home. You have this person that's just a devil. And the sad thing is about when a person is a devil, oftentimes using Jesus and the Bible, most folks can't see it. You can't see this person doing the evil because they lack spiritual discernment. If I said, who among you has spiritual discernment?

I would guess every hand would go up. And I would go, hmm, let me see your bookshelf. When I say, when a poet went over and said, do you know this guy?

Do you know what he writes about? It's a scenario I'm giving you. Where's that discernment? My experience over the decades of ministry is that many Christians, if not all of them should come in contact, they have spiritual discernment, but they have nothing to back that up with.

Because they'll listen to some nut job just as fast as they'll listen to some solid Bible teacher. That's not spiritual discernment. That's drinking, what I like to say, that's drinking from any mud hole you come along. If it's got a puddle in it, you'll drink. Say it that way and hopefully it stings a little bit if you're guilty. And if you're not guilty, it sits a little bit so that you can use it on those who need to hear it. I'm not saying it maliciously.

It's just a fact, just the facts. The daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, opposite godly Jehoshaphat, routinely made poor choices of friends and it affected the lives of many in future generations long after his death, and here we see it right here. It does matter how you choose your friends. You go out into the world, you get a job in the world for the first time, you're now, you know, you're not at home and the mom and dad telling you what to do and now you're out in the world, you're going to meet people that are devils. You're going to meet some that are angels, figuratively of course. And you have to learn how to say, you know, this is bad. I'm staying away from this person.

I'll go to these. It may come at a price, but it's worth it. Anyway, it says, she took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king's sons who were being murdered. Well, the future of God's promises to David, they were woven into his plan of salvation from the very beginning. Ever since, you know, the seed of a woman, that promise in Genesis chapter 3 is looking forward to the virgin birth and Satan was suspicious of these things. He doesn't have perfect knowledge. There's something in the scripture he couldn't figure out. He wasn't sure Jesus was who he said he was. And that's the trial in the wilderness. Well, anyway, we know looking at the scripture, we have the Holy Spirit unfolding these things, if not directly to us, to solid Bible teaches for us. So these promises all are now wrapped up in this little boy named Joash.

They're all centered in this single individual. Had he died, that would have been it. And Satan thought he was going to pull it off. He said, I was there. I was right there.

I almost finished him off. God said, no, you did not. He said, what about all the little children that were slaughtered in Bethlehem and the ones here? Well, what if God took them straight to heaven? They're having a better day than you criticizing God for letting it happen. I mean, you'd be applauding God. You should be saying, man, I can't believe they dodged all this stuff in this life. Well, perspective, it matters. Coming back to this, her name, Jehoshiba, Yahweh's oath.

This is big. By the heroine with this name, Yahweh's covenant oath was sustained. Sometimes the names in the Bible are incidental. Someone can have a godly name and be just a monster.

Sometimes, you know, they have an okay name, and they're just this great champion. So you have to keep it in context to the story to get something out of it. And in her case, it is right where it needs to be. Yahweh's oath, and she is the one. If it weren't for her stealing this boy, her husband was probably at the temple working as the high priest.

He doesn't say he's a high priest, but he walks around like he is, so he probably is. She's the only one that could have saved the child, and the nursemaid, too. And that's important because the nursemaid loved the little boy. She became an advocate.

Nobody in six years spilled the beans. And she, the wife of Jehoiada, who himself is a magnificent man, she is a princess. This combination allowed her to rescue and hide the one-year-old and keep him hidden for the six years. Against the wickedness of one woman, God set the compassion of another woman, and that compassion won. Well, that's Calvary. The compassion of God beats everything, but you have to receive it. Well, the righteous went underground in their resistance, and sometimes that's what the church has to do.

It has to go underground. We're not called to always stand up and charge into the machine gun fire. Sometimes it's just a poor witness to do such things.

Other times we are. Stephen was called to face the machine guns. Paul was not. Paul was, well, he did in other ways, but initially they let him out of a window in a basket. How humiliating. Well, we've only got this laundry basket, and I can't get out Jeffrey's shirt, so you're going to have to just hold your breath. All right, my little thing, but anyway, coming back to this, it is still, who would want to be lowered out of down a wall, and what if the rope breaks? Anyhow, yeah, what a way to die, right?

Death by basket. And they hid him and his nurse, a dynamic duo. Many of these heroes are unnamed in the scripture. We've got four of them. We have Jehoiada, the priest, his wife Jehoshiba, Joash the boy, and his nurse. And you know what? This little boy is going to mess it up when he gets older.

He's going to have a nice run, and that is a whole story by itself. In fact, that story, I'm getting ahead of my chapter, ahead of myself, but his story parallels to some degree Nero. When Seneca was alive, and his other teachers, Nero behaved. When Seneca died, well he actually had Seneca killed, he went crazy.

So the value of discipleship is huge. We'll come to that in future chapters. So they hid him and his nurse in the bedroom of Athaliah.

Well, actually, and this is the proper use of the word actually, because that's another abused word. It's the chamber of mattresses. Why the translators do things like this? We'll find out when we get to heaven and when the Inquisition starts. There's not going to be an Inquisition in heaven. Just line up the translators, bring them in.

It's tough work, it really is. But anyhow, this is a storeroom for mattresses and blankets, that's the idea. We have other brilliant minds that know the languages, that can use root words to get us to where we need to be, how words are used. And then there's the context, then I gotta hide the boy in her room for six years.

The English does that, the Hebrew does not. Well, this reminds us of Obadiah, who stood up to Elijah, the terrifying prophet, and said don't you know I hid 50 to a cave, 100 men of God with Jezebels killing them, and I fed them bread and water. You know what it's like? Haul enough bread and water for 50 men hiding in two different caves? Impressive story. So that he was not killed, it tells us here. This was a well thought out and executed mission of rescue and security. Again, for six years, the future of the messianic promise, all rest in this one little boy, and the others knew it. And it defeated Satan and Satan's daughters. Verse 3, you're wondering now maybe, are we going to get to verse to the end of this?

We are. So he was hidden with her in the house of Yahweh for six years while Athaliah reigned over the land. So it appears that they hide him initially, then eventually they move him to the house of the Lord, or he initially goes right to the house of the Lord with these mattresses and other things of that sort, cushions, blankets and stuff, a storehouse were kept. Don't get too tripped up on those things. It merits some investigation, but you can only go so far with the language. This concerted effort of loyalty was on the highest level.

This is high level loyalty. To get food to the boy, did he ever go outside? Did he get to get fresh air? You get questions about this.

Then there's bathroom issues. Did he get sick? Did he cry? Just all of these issues and they overcame them. It says while Athaliah reigned over the land, how many parents wept about that? 2 Corinthians 4 tells us about Satan, whose mind the god of this age is blinded. That means he's got a lot of authority, a lot of power, and he can blind people. As I mentioned, some think they have spiritual discernment. Maybe they do, but many times they do not. I think the best way to handle that is to just be cautious and rely on the Lord and don't be overzealous about your supposed gifts or gifts, whatever they may be.

You could be a gifted Bible teacher and then get carried away with it and not do what you're supposed to do because you've departed from dependency on the Lord. Never happened to me. I've been a perfect teacher all these years.

Of course not. I get flashbacks sometimes of just, why did I do that, say that? Part of the process of development. Well, I sometimes think that you who have been listening to me preach for years will get a pretty hefty reward in heaven just for that. That's kind of humbling. But anyway, the daughter of Jezebel is now the queen of Judah.

And we go through this in our life, right? We see, you know, these rotten people get rewarded with high position. I mean, Nancy Pelosi, I mean, she's just a wicked woman. I don't care what anybody thinks. Anybody that wants to slaughter babies in the past time is of hell. And it's just a fact.

It doesn't have to be personal, just a fact. You know, what, you're going to do those things and nobody can say you're doing it? Yeah. Well, anyway, back to this.

Yeah. Well, we're going to let her continue to kill the babies, but we're going to arrest you for daring to, you know, violate some nonprofit thing or something like that. Anyhow, coming back to this, this daughter of Jezebel, now the queen worshiper of Baal, she was a fanatic for Baal. We need to add that as her mother Jezebel was. And this in the Promised Land, and she has the house of God stripped, taking the things over to Baal's house.

We'll get to that in a little bit. She built a temple in Jerusalem for Baal. And within the six years time, she tore down Jerusalem as much as she could.

How could it be? Because of the apostasy and the evil amongst the people who were called to be God's people. We see the church, you know, places that have called themselves churches. Some have just trashed the word of God and are so successful at it, telling people you just need to name it and claim it and just envision yourself driving, you know, a Maserati or whatever you want and just claim it for God as though your word is sovereign.

You use the Rima, brother. How about I use a club on you for saying such blasphemous things. But the people, they believe it.

They go out there and they believe it because they're greedy. Anyway, God's temple is so deserted at this time. Look at how God works here. He lets the temple be trashed because this is what the people are doing. And then he uses the temple as a safe, as a refuge for the boy because nobody's going to look there. We're not going to the temple. We're going over to Baal's temple. All the bad people were avoiding the house of God where he was being hid.

So Corey tamboonish, you know, when they were in the prison and their barracks had fleas and the guards didn't want to come in. So they had Bible studies and things like that. Just the hand of the Lord. Anyway, the safest place to conceal the child king was the house of God because nobody was going there except righteous people and they weren't in the majority.

Second Chronicles 24 verse 7, giving us a little bit more on the story. For the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, you see, pause there. You see, when they're wicked, they call them wicked.

You don't say, well now, you know, you got to respect the office. She's wicked. I'm not talking about Athaliah now.

I'm talking about the ones about 300 miles north. Anyway, for the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken into the house of God and had also presented all the dedicated things of the house of Yahweh to the Baals. And so she was stealing all the good stuff from God's house and putting it in use in the house of these demonic gods. And Jehoiada and Jehoshiba, they knew what to do with this. Let's hide the boy or they'll never look in plain sight. Verse 4, in the seventh year Jehoiada sent and brought the captains of the hundreds, the body gods and the escorts and brought them into the house of Yahweh to him and he made a covenant with them and took an oath from them in the house of Yahweh and showed them the king's son. Now it's time. Now the story shifts. We're seven years later now and Jehoiada says it's time.

We can do this. He's been working the whole time it seems. 2 Chronicles 23 verse 2 speaks of him and these men that he makes his covenant with. They went throughout Judah and gathered the Levites from all the cities of Judah and the chief fathers of Israel and they came to Jerusalem and now they're going to get rid of this woman. Verse 5, then he commanded them saying, this is what you shall do. One third of you who come on duty on the Sabbath shall be keeping watch over the king's house. One third shall be at the gate, verse 6, of Sir and one third at the gate behind the escorts. You should keep a watch of the house lest it be broken down.

So he is setting up a safe zone for the boy, putting up a perimeter. It's around the Sabbath. Because of the heightened activity at the temple, even in these troublesome times, they would increase the Levites, the servants, the security. After the Sabbath they would go back to their regular shifts. So he's planned it when he's got all these men there already so no one, if he does it on a Tuesday, like why are you bringing in all these Levites?

But if he does it on a Sunday, well they're expected because it's the heightened activity. So it's just well coordinated. He's taking these careful measures to ensure that the death of Athaliah and the crowning of Joash take place simultaneously.

He's going to succeed. Now he's using that common three-pronged attack approach, splitting up his forces. David used it, Gideon used it, Abimelech, the self-appointed failed king of Israel did it, Saul did it, the Philistines did it. That's the military note for the night, the three-pronged attack. Verse 7, two contingents of you who go off duty on the Sabbath shall keep the watch on the house of Yahweh for the king. Interesting, the lad is their king.

He's already discussed this with him. He's let him know we've kept him alive. They're like what? The line of David is alive? I knew it!

You know, that kind of a thing. And so that's their king. They never acknowledged Athaliah as king.

The memory phrase for pronouncing her name is liar, Athaliah. In their hearts, this was just a dream come true, the six-year-old. So they had to restrain themselves for all this time.

And they did it. Verse 8, but you shall, that is the keepers and then when they told the story, the keepers had to restrain themselves for six years. Verse 8, and you shall surround the king on all sides, every man with his weapon in his hand and whoever comes within range, let him be put to death. You are to be with the king as he goes out and as he comes in. These are the bodyguards. Second Chronicles says the Levites shall surround the king on all sides. So these guys are, they are serious and nothing going to stop them. This is now a military operation and nothing is going to interfere. She's dead.

She's a dead woman walking. Anyway, verse 9, so the captains of the hundreds did according to all that Jehoiada the priests commanded. Each of them took his men who were on duty on the Sabbath with those who were going off duty on the Sabbath and came to Jehoiada the priests.

And so they had four times, you know, they had the regular shift and the shifts that were, the three on the Sabbath that were going off, so they were, they were ready. I love seeing loyalty amongst the righteous in the Bible. Who doesn't? Who does not love to hear the speech of Ruth or Jonathan, his armor bearer, saying, whatever you do, Jonathan, I've got your back. We love this loyalty when it, anyway, we love loyalty anywhere in the cause of righteousness. But I have learned that sometimes loyalty has to be taught. Some folks, they think they have loyalty and they don't. You can only find out if you're loyal when the pressure's on. There's no such thing as loyalty when you're just relaxing and everything is fine. It's when there's the challenge. Are you going to stick to the king or the place where God has you, or are you going to flee? You have to use a straight edge, you know, in life.

A straight edge is if you're cutting a piece of wood or something, you know, you put a board there to keep your saw straight to the line. Well, loyalty is that way and it comes in the form usually of a friend that can help you say, well, I'm not running. I'm going to stay. I think this is right.

It's a Passover. Let's not be so quick. Let's give the benefit of the doubt when there is doubt. I'm not talking about loyalty to known, you know, devilish work. If Ichabod, if the glory departs, then you need to go with it. But if the glory is still there and it's just a little, you know, stuff's a little ugly, just tough it out and God will straighten it out. So anyway, I've watched too many good Christians lose sight of loyalty and abandon their post over lint, dust, nothing. No one was there to demand them stick by their post saying, now's not the time to flee.

Stick to your post. The incidentals will pass. We will overcome them.

These are not grounds for desertion. And to get loyalty, if you don't have it, you have to begin with resolve and you begin in the time of peace, if you can. Before the trouble comes, you start building yourself up. You know, loading your weapon at the beginning of the firefight is not ideal.

And so go in ready. Keep the swords sharp and don't flee in the day of discord. Proverbs 24 10.

If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Sums it up for me. Anyway, he instructs the shifts to be on alert and to kill anybody that is a threat.

As soon as they come into your area, you kill them. Verse 10. These are the days.

This is how it was at this time. Verse 10. And the priest gave the captains of hundreds the spears and the shields which had belonged to King David that were in the temple of Yahweh. Well, that's in your face, Satan. You tried to destroy the king.

He's still alive. And we're going to use weapons that are connected to the very David that you despise. This was symbolic and it was powerful. The king of Egypt, Shishak, had come in, 1 Kings 14, and he took all the gold and silver shields. He ignored these. These are just common weapons.

I got better ones in Egypt or just the same, whatever. He leaves these behind. How many times did the priest go past the closet where these weapons were, the armory where these weapons were, and not know they were going to be used to save the messianic line or hope that there would be some righteous use to overthrow Athaliah? David's influence is all over this. One of the greatest men in the Bible. Oh man, just the mercy that he received from God alone catapult him to the top on my list.

Not the tip top, but the top. Anyway, Jehoi's use of these weapons symbolizes the return of the Davidic line, the Davidic heir, and this Joash here, the descendant of David. The temple was designed by David. The temple mount was purchased by David. David ordered much of the temple worship that they're benefiting now from these shifts with the divisions of the Levites. David set that up. He perfected it, developed it. It was his protocol for worship.

David wrote many of the Psalms that were sung and worshiped by these Levites. Thanks for joining us for today's edition on Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the Book of Second Kings has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. Once more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. Our time is about up, but we hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue on in the Book of Second Kings. We look forward to that time with you, so make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick as he teaches from the Bible right here on Cross Reference Radio.