In some conversations recently I’ve found myself reflecting on my childhood and upbringing. I was raised in a home with believing parents, who encouraged me to listen to the sermon on Sunday mornings, read my Bible, and pray. I met a friend in the fifth grade who was really intent on living a holy life. He stood out, interestingly enough because he didn’t use profanity and really would keep a secret if you shared one with him. And I’m not downplaying those holy actions, for he really stood out to me and his example had a life-changing impact on me. I went to church camp with that same friend each summer, sitting around camp fires, singing church camp songs, and really growing in my affection for the Lord. All of this really set the stage for me thinking the Lord was leading me to pastor, eventually pursuing a Christian college in Jackson, TN, and joining this church, which was meeting in building that had been used as a country dance bar prior to us moving in and taking up residence.
Anyway, as I have reflected on these things this week, I realized how much we grow up and leave behind from our childhood and early teenage years. There’s not really church camp for people in their mid-thirties (that I know of), and I can’t remember the last time that I sat around a campfire singing “church camp songs.” But not all things that we leave behind are good to leave behind, are they? It shouldn’t be encouraging for us to have to look back across several years of our lives to find a time when our hearts burned with love and affection for Jesus Christ. We shouldn’t outgrow a desire for the Lord to take up our lives and use them entirely and utterly for his purposes. We should not move beyond a childlike faith that looks at huge needs or gigantic obstacles in our way and simply trust that the Lord can provide or deal with these if we simply trust and obey. Perhaps some of what we’ve decided to label as childish naïveté in our youth is closer to biblical faith and faithful obedience that may have sadly fallen to the wayside as we’ve moved into more of our adult years and begun to deal with “real life.”
These were the thoughts rolling around in my head as I began to write down observations from the large bulk of text we’re looking at this morning. The reason these thoughts occupied my mind as I studied the text is because I found myself repeatedly thinking as I’d write down one observation after another, “You know, these thoughts used to occupy the forefront of my mind when I was in my youth in a way that they don’t seem to now.”
Now, maybe I’ll find out this morning that this is unique to me and that these things occupy everyone else’s minds continually in the present. However, for the few that may find themselves in my shoes, I want to remind you of some basic truths that you may have begun to lose sight of or forget. And for the others, I want to encourage you by reminding you of truths that you are holding on to tightly so that you might continue to remember these things and hold ever more tightly to them.
The first of these truths is this:
Making this point will allow me to give you a bit of a summary of these chapters since the text we’re looking at this morning covers a good bit of space and time. As we saw last week, 2 Chronicles 1-9 covers the reign of Solomon and focuses mainly on his reign in relation to the temple. Well, beginning in chapter 10 and going through the rest of the book we find summaries of the reigns of the kings after Solomon, all the way to the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians and the consequent exile to Babylon. Though we are looking at twenty-seven chapters, you’ll notice that the chapters are relatively brief, and reading these chapters, therefore, feels like you’re moving quite rapidly through the reigns of numerous kings in Israel’s history.
And for the most part, the kings are given to us within a prescribed template. We hear about the king, when he began to reign, how long he reigned, whether he did good or evil in the sight of the Lord, and then what happened in his reign in regards to his obedience or disobedience before the Lord. So, for example, we read in 21:5-6, “Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.” Or again, in 24:1-2, “Joash was seven years old when he began to reign in, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba. And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest.” Sometimes this will be at the end of the king’s narrative, as we find with regard to Rehoboam in 12:13-14, but the pattern is typically there. And this description is pretty consistent across twenty-seven chapters.
But throughout the description of these kings’ reigns, there is a constant theme that comes through. Namely, it is more dangerous to disobey the Lord than to obey him. One of the first examples we see of this is during the reign of Abijah. After Solomon, Rehoboam became king, and the kingdom split in two so that you had the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Over the northern kingdom, Jeroboam reigned, and after the death of Rehoboam, his son, Abijah, reigned. Well, in the northern kingdom of Israel, Jeroboam completely disregarded the Lord’s commands. He casts the Levites and the priests out and appointed priests who weren’t of the line of Aaron, and he led the people in the worship of false gods.
Eventually, he took to war against Abijah and the southern kingdom of Judah. And it looked like he would be victorious. After all, he had amassed an army of 800,000 “chosen mighty warriors” (13:3), while Abijah had half that number. Therefore, you’d think this would be a safe bet for Jeroboam and prove disaster for Abijah. However, you’d be wrong. Why? Abijah himself tells us. He says to Jeroboam in 13:8-12, “And now you think to withstand the kingdom of the LORD in the hand of the sons of David, because you are a great multitude and have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made you for gods. Have you not driven out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made priests for yourselves like the peoples of other lands? Whoever comes for ordination with a young bull or seven rams becomes a priest of what are no gods. But as for us, the LORD is our God, and we have not forsaken him. We have priests ministering to the LORD who are sons of Aaron, and Levites for their service. They offer to the LORD every morning and every evening burnt offerings and incense of sweet spices, set out the showbread on the table of pure gold, and care for the golden lampstand that its lamps may burn every evening. For we keep the charge of the LORD our God, but you have forsaken him. Behold, God is with us at our head, and his priests with their battle trumpets to sound the call to battle against you. O sons of Israel, do not fight against the LORD, the God of your fathers, for you cannot succeed.”
Although the odds were in his favor, as it would appear to our eyes (having 800,000 to 400,000), Jeroboam was in a more dangerous position than Abijah because he was disobeying the Lord. And sure enough, we read in 13:15 that “God defeated Jeroboam.”
Similarly, in chapters 14-16, which cover Asa’s years (Abijah’s son), we read that Asa had done what was good and right in the Lord’s eyes and had seen the Lord’s blessings again and again. However, near the end of his reign, when the northern king of Israel began attempting to lay siege to Judah, Asa thought it safer not to cry out to the Lord but to give a little silver and gold to Ben-hadad, king of Syria, asking him to take care of the king of Israel for him.
And sure enough, it worked. Or did it? We read in 16:7-9, “At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the LORD, he gave them into your hand. For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.”
And we could see many other examples of this throughout the reigns of these kings, but suffice it to say, “It is always more dangerous to disobey God than to obey him.”
Now, we could look at this principle and leave it back in the Old Covenant, as if that’s a good governing principle for the Israelites under the reign of their kings but is not really relevant to us now. But if we did that, I think we’d be making a mistake. You see, at many different times in our lives, we’re going to be confronted with difficult obedience. We’re going to find ourselves in situations where obedience is going to cost us. It’s risky. It seems dangerous. It will disrupt our peaceful lives that we have formed. And the temptation is going to be to run from danger by running from obedience.
For example, some of you have come to the point where you believed that obedience was calling you to bring the elderly widow or young orphan into your home. However, you realized very clearly, this would alter your life in a manner that is difficult and dangerous. Others have sat down and considered giving more or giving at all to the Lord’s causes and his church, but you’ve worked up a budget and thought it’d be just too financially dangerous or risky to do. Still others have decided in your singleness that you’ll simply devote yourself to contentment in being single-mindedly devoted to the Lord, but you’ve asked yourself again and again if this really is the safest approach to take for your well-being. And this is just a handful of examples.
You may have even had believers around you discouraging you from trying to apply and live out the text of Scripture because they are trying to look out for your good as well and what good for you. But here I want us to realize that it is always more dangerous to disobey the Lord than to obey him. If you decide to hold on to your money, for example, instead of giving it to the Lord’s church, his people, and his work, do you not think the Lord could work things in your life to pry your hands off of your money? And on the other end of the spectrum, do you not think that the Lord can bless you though you obey at great cost to yourself?
In chapter 25, we read of Amaziah, who hired extra men from the northern kingdom of Israel to fight a battle, and he paid them 100 talents of silver to be willing to fight for him. However, later a man of God came to him and told him that the Lord wanted him to free these men from their obligation to fight for them and release them so that they would not be his soldiers, since God’s anger was against Israel.
And Amaziah had the thought many of us would have. He thought, “But if I let them go and they keep the money, I’ll be out 100 talents of silver.” Specifically, we read in 25:9, “And Amaziah said to the man of God, ‘But what shall we do about the hundred talents that I have given to the army of Israel?’” And listen to the answer: “The man of God answered, ‘The LORD is able to give you much more than this.’”
You see, I don’t want us to be people who think, “I can’t afford to obey God in these difficult, risky, and dangerous ways.” I want us to be a people who are trusting enough to say, “Lord, I will obey, whatever the cost because I know that you are good, trustworthy, and are working all for my good.” Let that be our hearts as we remember that it is always more dangerous (and damaging to our souls) to disobey God than to obey him.
There’s a second truth I want us to see in these chapters as well. It is that:
Anyone who has read the Scripture knows that man becoming proud is a bad thing. In pride, Adam and Eve first sinned. Pride is one of the things the Lord hates. And so, for that reason, perhaps we try to guard ourselves against it. And if we do, that is a good thing. But I want to note how sneaky this sin is.
There are three examples of great pride among these kings I want to point out. I’ll start with Asa, since we just considered him a bit earlier, noting that he relied on the king of Syria in battle against Israel instead of the Lord. Well, after the Lord told him that he’d acted foolishly and would not face the Lord’s judgment in the form of having wars, Asa could have humbled himself. He could have repented. But instead, he grew proud.
In fact, the very end of chapter 16 tells us that near the end of his reign, Asa became severely diseased in his feet. And the chronicler sadly notes, “Yet even in his disease he did not seek the LORD, but sought help from physicians” (16:12). His pride kept him from the Lord.
Again, in chapter 26, we read of the reign of Uzziah. Uzziah, we are told, “did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper” (26:4-5).
Now, this is great, isn’t it? We have a good king, obeying the Lord, and the Lord prospers him. In fact, you want to look at this and say, “Now why don’t all the kings learn from this example?” However, look at the end of his reign. We read in 26:16, “But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the LORD his God and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense” (26:16), which led to the Lord inflicting him with leprosy so that he died as a leper.
Finally, Hezekiah’s reign (summarized in 29-32) is a great one. We read of his obedience, the great work the Lord did on his behalf, and how Judah prospered under him. But then we read in 32:24-26, “In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death, and he prayed to the LORD, and he answered him and gave him a sign. But Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud. Therefore wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem. But Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride in his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the LORD did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah.”
Now, this example ends with Hezekiah humbling himself because of his pride, but it nonetheless reminds us of the danger and destructive nature of pride, doesn’t it? And in two examples, it comes into the lives of two kings who have been obedient to the Lord, prosper, and yet are tempted then to pride. I think it’s a reminder that pride is sneaky enough of a sin that it can capitalize on your faithful obedience to the Lord.
Therefore, we would do well to pray that the Lord would keep us from pride. We would do well to have some close brothers and sisters who would warn us at signs of pride in our lives. Just this week I’ve found myself repenting to the Lord because of prideful actions I’ve taken, and I didn’t feel necessarily prideful in them. I would give anyone reasons why there’s no place for pride in my life. But as I looked back at a few actions I did or things I said this week, I could label nothing else as my motivation but my own pride.
And I want to save us from the destructive nature of this sin in our lives. If we exalt ourselves in pride, the Lord must humble us. At all times, pride is crouching at our doors, ready to master us. Even, and perhaps especially, if we really feel that we’re being used and blessed by the Lord. Therefore, we should pray as a church that the Lord would not give us over as a church or as individuals to pride but keep us from it. This should be a continual focus of prayer in our lives. This morning might even provide a good opportunity for us to examine ourselves and repent if indeed we see pride sneaking up in our hearts, for it can even attack us telling us that because we’re obeying the Lord in risky situations, we should be proud. That’s how sneaky this sin is.
And that leads to a third point I want us to see in this text.
One of the amazing things about these summaries of the king’s reign is how the Lord constantly and consistently responds to repentance with his mercy. Chapter 12 begins with a destruction of Rehoboam abandoning the law of the Lord and consequently being attacked by a number of enemies. And the Lord even let him know (12:5) that he was giving him over to his enemies because of his unfaithfulness. But then we read in 12:12, “And when he humbled himself the wrath of the LORD turned from him, so as not to make a complete destruction. Moreover, conditions were good in Jerusalem.”
Again, in chapter 30, we read of the reign of Hezekiah. He is a good king, realizes the whole kingdom has sinned in not celebrating Passover, and commands the people to humble themselves and repent, saying, “For if you return to the LORD, your brothers and your children will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.”
Again, in chapter 33, we read that Manasseh is a wicked, wicked king. Listen to some of these descriptions:
33:2 – He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
33:6 – And he burned his sons as an offering.
33:9 – Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel.”
33:10 – The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention.
Therefore, the Lord judged him. And, I think we can predict, this is going to be bad. However, listen to 33:12-13, “And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew the LORD was God.”
Now, don’t you feel like this is a little too late? I mean, he does evil his whole reign until he finally faces judgment, and then he repents? C’mon. But it reminds us of the Lord’s mercy when we repent.
In fact, this is how the book ends. Chapter 36 recounts that Jerusalem was defeated and the people taken into exile. Yet, in 36:22-23, we read that Cyrus makes a decree and frees the people to go back to Jerusalem. How do we account for this? We account for it by noting the mercy of the Lord.
You see, the Lord responds to our repentance with mercy. It doesn’t matter that you’ve walked in sin for a long time or a little time. It doesn’t matter if the world regards your sin as a great evil or minor offense. The Lord’s command is the same. Repent. And if you will, you will be met with mercy.
So, I don’t know what sin you’ve dived into or struggled with. I don’t know how recently you’ve chased after sin or how terrible it appears. The call of the Lord to you this morning is to repent, and if you do, he will shower his mercy on you.
And the reason why he’ll shower his mercy on you is because of the last point I want to make this morning.
All of these kings in the kingdom of Judah that we read of in 2 Chronicles 10-36 keep showing us that they’re not the people’s savior. Even the ones who are good and bring blessing to the people seem to do something bad. And some who are really good end up dying so that a bad king comes along and the people walk in sin.
Second Chronicles 10-36 screams to us look for another king, another of David’s sons. And the good news is that one came. Jesus of Nazareth lived, died, and was raised for us so that he might reign as our king and bless us with his righteousness. He is our representative, and we are blessed before God because of our righteous king. More than that, our righteous king lives forever so that he can represent us forever so that we can be saved forever.
And it’s because he has saved us by his life, precious blood, and resurrection, let us obey him even in dangerous situations, seek to walk in humility before him at all times, and repent whenever we find ourselves in sin. In fact, let that be the response of our hearts as we come to the table this morning. Amen.