Old Sandals

Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, who stood above the people, and said to them, thuus says God: Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, He also has forsaken you. So they conspired against him, and at the command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but killed his son; and as he died, he said, The Lord look on  it,  and repay!

King Joash began his reign with such promise.  He was faithful to the Lord as long as Jehoiada the priest was alive. But when the priest died, Joash turned away from the truth he had been taught from his youth.  He that endures to the end will be saved.

And Jehoiada the priest gave to the captains of hundreds the spears and the large and small shields which had belonged to King David, that were in the temple of God.  Then he set all the people, every man with his weapon in his hand, from the right side of the temple to the left side of the temple, along by the altar and by the temple, all around the king. And they brought out the king’s son, put the crown on him, gave him the Testimony, and made him king. Then Jehoiada and his sons anointed him, and said, “Long live the king!”

Jehoiada the priest and his wife Jehoshabeath were used of God to preserve the lineage of David, and to restore righteousness to the kingdom of Judah.  They did so at great risk; failure would have meant certain death.

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord  is  near in the valley of decision.

Choices. We don’t choose the place of our birth.  We don’t choose our family. We don’t choose our looks, our smarts, or our athletic ability. But (and unless our actual interaction with God is counter-intuitive) we do choose for the Lord or against Him. The choice is ours to make.

“Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God,  for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.

“Turn to Me with all your heart.” It seems to me I need help even to do that. Repentance means honesty before God. Heart-felt honesty. Nothing in my hand I bring.

He is everything.  Everything we should be.  Everything we need Him to be. Gracious and merciful.  Of great kindness.

To repent means to turn, but it more than that.  Repentance is not a single event, a one-time alignment.  Repentance is more like walking against the wind.  It requires continuous effort to advance.  Help me, O God.

Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand; It shall come as destruction from the Almighty. Is not the food cut off before our eyes, Joy and gladness from the house of our God?

The wages of sin is death.  Idolatry is compensated with destruction.  God does not delight in these things. Death and destruction should cause us to repent, to turn away from sin and idolatry, and turn toward the light, the life, and the joy of obedience.

Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal heirs of the house of Judah.  But Jehoshabeath,  the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were being murdered, and put him and his nurse in a bedroom. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest (for she was the sister of Ahaziah), hid him from Athaliah so that she did not kill him. And he was hidden with them in the house of God for six years, while Athaliah reigned over the land.

What family intrigue!  After Jehoram died, Ahaziah, his only remaining son, became king in his place.  Ahaziah, a wicked king like his father, reigned for just one year before Jehu (the son of Nimshi) killed him.  After that, Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, became queen over Judah.  She was as wicked as her husband and her son had been before her.  She set out to murder all of her grandsons who were descended from Ahaziah, in order to secure the kingdom for herself.

Joash, the youngest son of Ahaziah, would have been murdered along with his brothers were it not for the providential intervention of Aunt Jehoshabeath (a daughter of Jehoram) who feared the Lord.

According to the Talmud, Obadiah is said to have been a convert to Judaism from Edom, a descendant of Eliphaz,  the friend of Job. He is identified with the Obadiah who was the servant of Ahab, who hid the hundred prophets from the persecution of Jezebel.

It is said that he was chosen to prophesy against Edom because he was himself an Edomite. Moreover, having lived with two such godless persons as Ahab and Jezebel without learning to act as they did, he seemed the most suitable person to prophesy against Esau (Edom), who, having been brought up by two pious persons, Isaac and Rebekah, had not learned to imitate their good deeds.

 

And a letter came to [Jehoram] from Elijah the prophet, saying, …you have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot like the harlotry of the house of Ahab, and also have killed your brothers, those of your fathers household,  who were  better than yourself. Behold, the Lord will strike your people with a serious affliction, your children, your wives, and all your possessions; and you will become very sick with a disease of your intestines, until your intestines come out by reason of the sickness, day by day.

Behold, the Lord will strike.  He doesn’t want to. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.  But He is the Righteous Judge who will judge everybody in due time.

Jehoram’s actions were despicable, especially because he was the king of Judah, God’s remnant, and because he was the son and grandson of godly kings before him.  He so displeased the Lord that the Lord killed him; he died a slow, painful death.  He was given time to repent, but sadly, it does not appear that he did so.

 It happened after this that the people of Moab with the people of Ammon, and others with them besides the Ammonites, came to battle against Jehoshaphat. …And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. …Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem…and said: “O Lord God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand You? Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever? …And now, here are the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir—whom You would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and did not destroy them— here they are, rewarding us by coming to throw us out of Your possession which You have given us to inherit. O our God, will You not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.”

Now all Judah, with their little ones, their wives, and their children, stood before the Lord.

 Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel…and he said, “Listen, all you of Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat! Thus says the Lord to you: ‘Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s. Tomorrow go down against them. …You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you.”

And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem bowed before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. Then the Levites of the children of the Kohathites and of the children of the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with voices loud and high.

 So they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa, and…Jehoshaphat…appointed those who should sing to the Lord, and who should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army and were saying:

“Praise the Lord, For His mercy endures forever.”

 Now when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were defeated. For the people of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir to utterly kill and destroy them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to destroy one another.

 So when Judah came to a place overlooking the wilderness, they looked toward the multitude; and there were their dead bodies, fallen on the earth. No one had escaped. When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away their spoil, they found among them an abundance of valuables on the dead bodies, and precious jewelry, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away; and they were three days gathering the spoil because there was so much. …And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries when they heard that the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel.

Most people know very little about King Jehoshaphat, other than he was some ancient king with a funny-sounding name which is sometimes used in a mild oath. But he was, of course, much more than that. He was a godly king of Judah; his father, Asa, had been a godly king before him.

“For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.” This is a life verse.  Like Jehoshaphat, we all face challenges that are too much for us. The key to victory—eternal victory—is keeping our eyes upon our Lord.  The more clearly we see Him, the more clearly we see everything.

Then Jehoshaphat the king of Judah returned safely to his house in Jerusalem. And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Therefore the wrath of the Lord  is  upon you. Nevertheless good things are found in you, in that you have removed the wooden images from the land, and have prepared your heart to seek God.”

Jehu’s words were stinging, as was most often the case with the Lord’s prophets. Jehoshaphat was rebuked for aligning himself with King Ahab, a very wicked king and an enemy of God.

Therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you.  What does this mean? How should we understand this? God is Love, the very definition of the word. “For God so loved the world…”  So loved.  God’s love is as fierce as it is faithful.  The wrath of God is ultimately an expression of His love.  We usually think of God’s wrath as being His righteous response to sin and wickedness. And indeed it is.  He hates sin, but He hates it because it destroys us.  Just as a parent would hate the drugs to which his son or daughter has become addicted, God hates the sinful addiction that we display in so many ways because it is so destructive; it separates us from a fiercely-loving, faithful God.