FBC Daily Devotional – February 24, 2022

Well, a good Thursday morning to you. Good Thursday. I hope your day has gotten off to a good start today. Have you been able to get into God's Word yet this morning? I hope so. If you're reading along in our Bible reading plan, you're in 2 Chronicles chapters 24 and 25 today.

Joash’s Reign and the Danger of Weak Leadership

The saga of the kings continues. What a strange lot they are. The king that we look at today, actually, there's two of them in our reading, and I'll just touch on the second one, but this one king, Joash, is quite the contradiction, isn't he?

So, Joash ascended the throne when he was very young and had a mentor over him, Jehoiada, the priest, had a very godly mentor who made sure that Jehoiada, or that Joash, walked the straight and narrow and put him on that right path.

And Joash was good with that path, and he did a lot of good things. One of the things he did.

Was.

Re-establish the worship at the temple and to really, you know, kind of rebuild it. It had been fallen into disrepair and decay through some of the previous administrations. Baal worship and idolatry had dominated and so forth, and the temple of the Lord had become derelict.

I mean, it was just a mess. So, he undertook a remodeling project, a rebuilding project, to fund this. He established a special fund, a big offering box, if you will, and seemed to really have a heart for restoring the temple to its previous glory.

And this was a great thing, and the people appreciated it, and they gave generously, and he made sure it was done. But then, at the beginning of the Chronicles account of Joash's reign, we have this little qualifying statement that's a foreshadowing of, is there something coming here?

And here's what I'm talking about. You remember the kings Asa and Jehoshaphat? There was a statement about them that just said, and Asa did what was right in the sight of the Lord. And Jehoshaphat followed in the steps of his father, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord.

Right? End of sentence. Not so with Joash. What we read regarding Joash is that Joash did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and then you got this qualifying statement. All the days of Jehoiada the priest.

So you're getting the indication that maybe once Jehoiada's influence is removed, Joash is going to go in a different direction. You known people like that that are, you know, they're just very weak. And as long as they're around certain people, good people, they'll behave in a good way.

But get them out of that environment and they follow in the path of the environment that they're in. A lot of people fall into that trap. Joash seems to have done so. In fact, he did. The text goes on to tell us that after Jehoiada died, some of the elites of the of the area, they came to Joash and started giving him counsel.

These had been the wealthy people, the people with the wanted to pull strings because of their wealth. And it's very flattering for Joash to have these kinds of people coming to him and wanting to rub shoulders with him and befriend him and give him some counsel and direction.

And he followed their counsel. He followed their advice, but in a very tragic way. So what he ended up doing was listening to their advice, making idols, wooden idols and images. And it says that when he did so, wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of their trespass.

And if that isn't bad enough, God in his grace sent prophets to warn the people.

Zechariah’s Warning and Joash’s Rejection of God’s Word

But.

Zechariah and Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest that had raised Joash and had been such a positive influence on Joash, his son Zechariah came to confront Joash with this idolatry, saying, what in the world are you doing?

It's like, my dad taught you better than this. You know, this isn't the right way to go.

But.

It says that when he came to Joash and said, thus says God, why do you transgress the commandment of the Lord so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord. He's also forsaken you. So what did Joash do?

He saw to it that Zechariah, Jehoiada's son, was executed. He didn't humble himself and repent.

He.

Had the guy executed, had the prophet executed. Get rid of this word from the Lord. I don't want to hear it. So verse 22 summarizes and says, so Joash the king did not remember the kindness which Jehoiada, his father, his really stepfather, had done to him but killed his son.

The net result for Joash is that he, too, died a miserable, a miserable death. The Lord executed judgment, we read in verse 24, against Joash. An interesting verse 25 tells us that when Joash the king died, it says they buried him in the city of David, but they did not bury him in the tombs of the kings.

Why not? Because all the people got it. They saw what a travesty this man's life has been. And so we're seeing in the book of Kings that in every individual king that comes on the throne is responsible for the course of life that he takes and the direction that he takes the kingdom in.

Everyone is responsible for his own actions and his own deeds, and this is brought out again in the life of Joash. What a challenge to us to watch the pattern that we are establishing and to pay attention to whom we're listening.

A Prayer for Wisdom and a Closing Blessing

Our Father and our God, I pray, help us to be attentive. Help us to learn from the successes as well as the failures, from the good things as well as the wicked things some of these kings have engaged in.

You've provided these things for our instruction to be examples to us, examples to avoid, examples to follow. Give us wisdom to accept what you've revealed to us, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. All right.

Have a good rest of your Thursday. I trust that God will bless you in it. Good day.