Ruining God’s Blessings (Part A)

Clean up the city. Why are they still doing this? You're the king. Stop this. But I've learned. I've learned how difficult it is to remove from professed believers unedifying things.

Once they grab hold of it, it is so hard to get it out. And you've got to choose your battles carefully. People can have a strong grip on wrong views on things that are not edifying. 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. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Book of 2 Kings Chapter 12 as he begins his message, Ruining God's Blessing. 2 Kings Chapter 12, Ruining God's Blessings is, I think, the dominant theme. Our attention last chapter was on the brave and heroic actions of the aunt of this king and his uncle. Jehoiada was the uncle. He's a key figure in this consideration. When the king was an infant, of course, his grandmother, Athaliah, tried to kill him, having already killed other grandchildren.

Anyone who had a legitimate claim to the throne. And this chapter turns our attention to what happened to that child that was saved, that was spared. And really, largely, this is a commentary on 2 Chronicles 24, which gives us more information than what we get out of 2 Kings. Having survived the assassination attempt, he's off to a great start.

But just a quick review, in addition to the review I've already given. His father was idolatrous, Ahaziah, killed by Jehoiada. His grandmother was the witch of the south, Athaliah.

He is of the Davidic line. He had a heroic aunt, Jehoiada, an exceptional mentor in Jehoiada. Special wives were chosen for him. When I say special, they were chosen by Jehoiada, the godly priest. And one would conclude that these women were special because they were godly women. I think they're going to come up in a little bit.

I'll bring them up again soon. In this chapter, we start off, whenever I get to it, with this moment of hope in his life when he repairs the house of the Lord. But then comes the apostasy, and it is a heavy apostasy also. He ruins the blessings of God. He doesn't finish.

He has an awful finish. Paul said, I have fought the good fight. I've finished the race. I've kept the faith. And this king, he fought a good fight for a while, but he did not finish the race.

He did not keep the faith. So we look at verse 1, 2 Kings 12. In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king, and he reigned 40 years in Jerusalem.

His mother name was Zebaiah of Beersheba. Now Jehoash is the extended name of Joash. And it would be nice if they just stayed with one name and not these alternates. They're hard enough, especially when you have duplicates.

Anyway, it is this way, and we have to just work around it. Verse 2, Jehoash, and I will alternately refer to him as Joash, Dibba was right in the sight of Yahweh all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. Well, he starts out, the historian, with this overview, and it's critical.

This is a colossal fact and statement. Jesus said, but he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this man is not going to endure to the end according to the standards of righteousness that we get from the scripture.

All the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. Character is influence. And influence makes an impact. It means something.

It is supposed to. From the perspective of the righteous, it is supposed to contribute to glorifying God. The discipleship is another word for this influence. Colossians 1, 23, If indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which is in you. I'm not going to try to explain that away to fit some theological position. It says precisely what it is intended to say, and it means just as we read it in the English to Greek or any other language.

If indeed it is conditional. Otherwise there'd be no such word as apostasy. Apostasy means to fall away. Not to stay away, but to fall away.

I mean it has saying way in it also, but that is, you have to first be there to get to that state. That going beyond backsliding into apostasy. So Jehoiada, this powerful influence for good in the kingdom. He stabilized the kingdom just by his presence, his walk with God. Having the godly wife that he did. 2 Chronicles chapter 24, the parallel passages are there.

We get more insights. But Jehoiada grew old and was full of days and he died. He was a hundred and thirty years old 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 his house. This is a priest that gets buried with the kings. When Joash dies, he won't get buried with the kings. The righteous honored the memory of Jehoiada, but Joash would trample it. Actually, he'll even kill the son of Jehoiada.

And so when Jehoiada died, Joash abandoned his spiritual compass. His direction to Yahweh was lost. Willful. This was willful.

No one put a gun to his head. This is what he wanted to do. Was he bitter towards God because he lost Jehoiada? Well, if he was, that's not excuse enough. If you lose a righteous influence in your life, don't lose your faith too.

That doesn't make any sense. Or was he happy to be rid of Jehoiada so he could blaze his own trail? He could be his own man. He's no longer accountable. This is what happened to Nero. Nero, under Seneca and Burrus, he did well. But it seems as though he got sick of their controlling influence, their philosophies, even though these are unbelievers. And you look at that Roman Empire, people were savages. I mean, they just even high class ones. But back to this.

Maybe some of that is going on. In the end, it doesn't matter. He becomes an apostate and he has no grounds for this. When Jehoiada, who was the salt of the earth in Israel, that's the testimony he left behind. This is something that's available to all of us, wherever we find ourselves, to be that righteous influence, to slow down the evil. When the salt of the earth in Israel died at this time in their history, the weasels and the rats came out from the shadows. It was not truth that made them idolaters. Truth cannot make you an idolater.

It's pleasure. It's not being held accountable. It's having a say so. This is laid out for us, what happened in 2 Chronicles 24 verses 17 through 20. Now after the death of Jehoiada, the leaders of Judah came and bowed down to the king.

It's Joash. And the king listened to them. That's what kings are supposed to do, to a point. Therefore, they left the house of Yahweh God of their fathers and served wooden images and idols. And the wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of their trespass. Yet, he sent prophets to them to bring them back to Yahweh and they testified against them but they would not listen. That's the rest of the story. The subsequent drift into idolatry and apostasy which goes together.

What a person believes ultimately determines how that person is going to behave. Jehoiada's son, Zechariah, held to what his father taught him concerning Yahweh and he stood up to Joash the king. So the Joash the king who came under the same influence had no excuse. Well, of course, Joash had Zechariah the son killed. 2 Chronicles 24 verse 22. Thus, Joash the king did not remember the kindness with Jehoiada his father had done to him. But killed his son and as he did he said Yahweh look on it and repay.

Quite different from the Lord's Prayer from the cross. Father forgive them from Stephen's death at the stoning. This is the Old Testament and the dispensation the period of time and how God operated with men is different. And so the ruining of God's blessings, there it is, thoroughly ruined.

He could have always repented and we have no record that he ever did. And so early, early in his reign, he repairs the temple. He restores true religion. He is the one that killed the Baal worship in Judah and then he's the one that revives it. Sin is sick stuff.

It's very powerful. 2 Chronicles 24. Therefore they left the house of Yahweh God of their fathers and served wooden images and idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of their trespasses. God tells us this is why the Jews suffer like they suffer and suffered in their history.

It wasn't just oops, look what happened to them. There was a reason for it. God's judgment came quickly after that in the form of the Syrian invasions, which resulted in wounding Joash the king, but that wasn't his end. The end was his own two servants finished him off because he killed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest.

We'll revisit that at the end. So that's an overview that verse 2 gives us when it says, Joash did what was right in the sight of Yahweh all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. We would love for that to have said he did right in the sight of Yahweh all his days period.

But he doesn't finish the race. He doesn't keep the faith. Big lessons for us and not only lessons for us to consider, but to look for an opportunity to share. Verse 3, but the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. Now that in itself is not a strike against the king because good kings, they tried.

It was very difficult. These were open air, hilltop worship centers that the Israelites just assumed or just took on. When the Canaanites were pushed out, they went to these places and they said, we're going to worship here.

We're going to worship Yahweh here. Well, there was some idolatry in some of them too, but not all the time. Once the temple was built by Solomon, these were made obsolete and forbidden as a center of worship. Christianity has made Judaism obsolete, so there's precedence for this. Hebrews tells us that God made the old system of worship obsolete. Christ fulfilling, of course, the rituals, the types and the requirement. But even if they were sacrificing to Yahweh at these sites, Deuteronomy 16 is where the prohibition is and then it picks up in 2 Chronicles 7 when Solomon has the temple built and says, okay, this is the center of worship now.

And so these places, they were sinning, but as I mentioned, not necessarily with false gods. When I first used to teach the Bible decades ago, it just frustrated me that these kings couldn't clean up the city. Why are they still doing this?

You're the king, stop this. But I've learned, I've learned how difficult it is to remove from professed believers unedifying things. Once they grab hold of it, it is so hard to get it out and you've got to choose your battles carefully. People can have a strong grip on wrong views on things that are not edifying.

They may say, well, what's wrong? I'll give you one. Here it comes. So if you get hit by it, I don't want to hear it. You should have said it, but I did.

And here it is. Interpretive dance. What is that in the church? Why can't you do it in your backyard or in a tent or under the bed? But don't bring it into God's house. Are you kidding me?

Who thought it? I got a good idea. Let's get the women to come up and dance in front of everybody and we'll say it's okay because they're worshiping God. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are edifying. And there are other things. We'll just stop right there. I want to read that from Corinthians because if there was a church that Paul had to deal with that would have brought such a thing in, it would have been Corinth.

Corinth, you could tell when you were in the church at Corinth because the walls were padded. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify.

Men do not need to come to church to see women dancing. I'm just leaving it there. There are other problems too. And you know the women will say, what's wrong with this? Discernment.

It's a critical feature. Now, how passionate am I about that? Well, if someone was to stand in front and start dancing, I would probably dive from the chancel and take them out. Okay, have a little fun with that. Verse 4, now that doesn't mean they're going to hell. I should point this out. It doesn't mean that they're evil people. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that when things like this, so if you're listening to me and you're saying, I'm not listening to you, I've been part of these dance teams, I like it. Yeah, that's fine. You see, you proved my point.

You can't get this stuff out once it gets in, not easily. Verse 4, and Joash said to the priest, I'm sorry, I could just hear somebody, but my mother's church does it and I love it. Anyway, verse 4, and Joash said to the priest, all the money of the dedicated gifts that are brought into the house of Yahweh, each man sends this money, each man's assessment money, and all the money that a man possesses in his heart to bring into the house of Yahweh. Now, chronologically, we are now back before the death of Jehoiada.

He is still alive. He shows up in verse 7 as a part of this. 2 Chronicles, again, chapter 24, verse 3, and Jehoiada took two wives for him, and he had sons and daughters.

Now, it happened after this that Joash set his heart on repairing the house of Yahweh. So he said, why are you reading this about his wives? Because it clearly says in Chronicles that after these two women came into his life, he sets about to repair the house of God. I get the impression that these two women were very godly and they influenced him.

They had something to do with this. When Jehoiada said, you know, these would make good wives for the king because these are godly women. When women behave like women, instead of trying to be like men, more gets done. The whole role of the helpmate is not to overthrow and become the primary. Well, that sounds like it's devaluing, and I don't want to do that at all because women and men are equal in value to God, and they are separate in assignment. And it's just as loony for a man to say, well, it's not loony, it's demonic, for a man to say, I wish I could have kids. See, this is why Christ tells us, to the pastors, not given to violence.

Because, well, how do you respond to that? And so there are lines, they are distinct, and they are to be maintained. And these women behaving like godly women is my impression from reading this, why it's put there in Chronicles just like it is, is because of their influence and the power that came out of that influence for the kingdom, for the whole nation. The whole nation was going to benefit from this. All the money of the dedicated gifts that are brought into the house of Yahweh. Well, this money is accrued from various, four sources to King, and he's going to enumerate them, he's going to lay them out. But the dedicated gifts, these are the valuables collected from defeating the enemies of the Lord on the battlefield, spoils of war. 2 Samuel 8, King David also dedicated these to Yahweh along with the silver and gold that he had dedicated from all the nations which he subdued. That would include tribute. It says here in verse 4, each man's census money, the half shekel from men 20 years of age and up, those were men fit for war, old enough to go to war.

Whenever the census was taken, which was not specified, it seems to be relatively random, although there was that event with David. Each man's assessment money, redemption money, these are sources of the income to repair the house of God, which would have been, we know it as Solomon's temple, the first temple. It says here at the bottom of verse 4, and all the money that a man purposes in his heart to bring into the house of Yahweh. Free will. This is the zeal of the Lord. I just want to give to God.

That's what is happening here. Now if I were a prosperity teacher, I'd be laying it on you right now. I'd be laying telling you how guilty you are for having no faith to give more money to the church so I can, I wouldn't say that part, but I would be thinking so I can get myself a bigger house. Prosperity teaching is wicked. It just presents, makes Christians a bunch of greedy grubbers. Just get into that house and get you some money and use faith to do it. I don't know why I have to change voices like that.

Sorry, but it's just, I don't know, the ones I know of sound like that. Anyway, money from the dedicated things, money from the census, money from the redemption and trespass assessment on the sinner and the people, and money from personal vows. 2 Chronicles 24, 10, Then all the leaders and all the people rejoiced, brought their contributions and put them into the chest until all had given. So their chronicle says that this was a welcome responsibility of the people. It wasn't forced on them. They enjoyed paying for the repairs of God's house.

This was an act of worship to them. Now, I don't know what part to put it in. Maybe I'll just do it now and get it out of the way in case we run out of time. We don't earmark money in this ministry. If you want to give, you give. Once you give, it belongs to the overseers, the shepherds of the church.

But there are some little twists that go with this. Not that it's wrong. It's not sinful. If another church wants to do that, I'm not saying they're sinning to doing it, but I am saying it can create big problems. For instance, say you say, I want to pay for a new sign for the church, like outside on the Calvary Chapel. Any of you know how much a sign like that might cost?

You can get a new car, almost. Anyway, and so you say, I want to give this money to the church for that sign. But then the church realized, hey, we've got some other bills here. We have to get these paid.

We can't stay open. And then the person comes back, I gave you the money for the sign. Well, you know, see, you create that problem. But, for instance, our teen ministry, we have people here that say, come up to us and say, I would love to sponsor a teen in camp. And so we'll work with them on that. But with the understanding, once you give the money to the church, it's the church, you have no say-so over this. Now, we do, of course, those families that would benefit from it. We most certainly do.

It's our pleasure. So I'm not saying it's wrong to do this if a person said, well, I want to give $1,000 to the new building. So, you know, you can just give to the church. Now, if another person came up and said, I want to give $5 million to the new building, we would say, you don't have to tell us what to do with that.

We know what to do with that. You see? Just lighten up.

But, you know, Christians learn Christianity in other churches, and they bring it here, and it doesn't fit well most of the time. You know, just be a new wineskin. Are you getting hurt? Are you losing anything? Are you gaining weight because we do things differently here? You go, I'm leaving that church.

They did things differently. I put five pounds on. Well, that's possible because you get all upset and you go home and you eat a whole box of cookies and then blame us. All right.

All right. So, verse 5. Let the priests take it themselves, each from his constituency, and let them repair the damages of the temple wherever the dilapidation is found. So the priests were entrusted with getting this command of the king done, and it is a command. This constituency here, the Hebrew is the acquaintances, and that would be the individuals the Levites and the priests were entrusted with overseeing. They were assigned districts, and those in their area of ministry is who it refers to in the cities of Judah. This is not the northern kingdom. And this movement initiated by the king should have renewed spiritual zeal for Yahweh here in the priests and Levites, but there seems to have something had gone wrong.

Again, 2 Chronicles, the reason why they're doing this building fund to repair the temple 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 false gods, pagans. 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 2 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 2 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.