Godward Thoughts

God kept His promise to maintain David’s descendants on the throne of Judah, but He also kept His promise to chasten them if they disobeyed Him (2 Samuel 7:12–17). He disciplined Jehoram in several ways.

To begin with, Jehoram’s rule began to disintegrate as the Edomites revolted and the Philistines invaded. Even the Levitical city of Libnah revolted (2 Chronicles 21:10; Joshua 21:13). Life starts to fall apart when you stop obeying the Lord.

Elijah’s letter warned the king and gave him opportunity to repent, but Jehoram went his own way. What a privilege to get a letter from a famous prophet! And what a tragedy to treat it with disdain. The king died in severe pain, and nobody regretted it. Yet he was the son of the great Jehoshaphat.

If you received a loving letter of warning today, how would you respond to it?

The British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge called mothers “the holiest thing alive,” but you could not apply those words to Athaliah. Imagine a mother teaching her son how to sin! She was the Old Testament version of Herodias (Matthew 14:1–12), just the opposite of godly Hannah (1 Samuel 1–2). But what else would you expect from the daughter of Jezebel and Ahab? Athaliah was the only woman to rule over the kingdom of Judah, and it was a rule of evil.

But God had another woman on the scene, the godly wife of the high priest, and she did the will of God in saving the infant Joash. At the right time, her husband orchestrated the coronation of Joash and the condemnation of Athaliah. Note the three covenants involved: with the army (2 Chronicles 23:1), with the king (2 Chronicles 23:3), and with the Lord (2 Chronicles 23:16).

We cannot escape David! He provided the king (2 Chronicles 23:3), the weapons (2 Chronicles 23:9), and the temple organization and music (2 Chronicles 23:18). But how long can Judah live on the dividends of the spiritual investments made by godly men and women of previous generations? How long can God’s church today?

Joash did many fine things, but he was a “leaner.” As long as godly Jehoiada was on the scene, the king obeyed the Lord, and the temple prospered. But after the high priest died, the king began listening to other counselors; soon he led the nation into sin.

When you truly obey God’s Word, you do it regardless of the messenger. If you lean on others and fail to develop spiritual depth, your spiritual life will be gone when those people are gone. Joash would not listen to the prophets and he even killed one of them (2 Chronicles 24: 19–21). God abandoned the people, the army was defeated (2 Chronicles 24:24; see also Deuteronomy 32:30), and the king was assassinated. The godly priest was buried with the kings (2 Chronicles 24:16), but the ungodly king was not (2 Chronicles 24:25). Joash was untrue to his friends and treated them like enemies (Proverbs 27:6, 10, 17). He refused to listen to God and became another example of a man who made a good beginning but came to a tragic ending. Henry Ford commented, “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”