What do we do with the darkness of a sinful and fallen world?
! It's often said today that we live in unprecedented times.
! The perception is that the rising tide is that of darkness and that the world is getting worse.
We feel political instability. We feel economic stress. We look around the world and we see war and famine and suffering.
And here in the U.S. we have a sense that our society is growing meaner, more divided, more stressed.
Now, I don't know if this is true. I've lived long enough, and some of you have lived longer than me, to know that the world has ups and downs.
In the 70s, there was an economic downturn and potential of nuclear war with Russia.
In 2001, there was 9-11, and it felt like the world was an unsafe place.
In 2008, we had an economic crisis. In 2020, we had a global pandemic.
So, we've certainly not necessarily gotten into something new and different.
Maybe its forms are a little different, but certainly the tide continues to come in and out.
But the darkness still seems to be there. And we don't like that because we want things to be getting better.
We have this hope that there is… that we live in a world that there is progress, that the trajectory is better and better.
But careful view of history might say that this is not necessarily true. Certainly, we have gotten better.
I'm really thankful for indoor plumbing, refrigeration, and antibiotics. You know, these are great progresses that didn't exist years ago.
But the world has continued in darkness. Humans continue to be selfish. They continue to start wars and to hurt one another.
They continue to fight for their own goodness and gain.
And friends, it's not just in the world that we live in we feel this, but in the community of the church as well.
We feel these ebbs and flows. At one level, the church is bigger and more global than it's ever been.
The church has advanced in all sorts of places, and the gospel is being heard across the world.
And yet we also see the worst of the church, don't we? Sexual abuse, financial misconduct, doctrinal compromise.
How much we feel at times like the church broadly is the proverbial frog in the kettle, becoming more and more like our culture rather than being distinctive as God's people.
So, how do we manage this? How do we think about living with God in light of this?
Well, I believe that our passage today will address this. We're in 2 Chronicles. We'll be in chapter 21 and a little bit in 22 as we look at the stories of the next kings.
And as you turn there, if you want to turn there in your Bible, it's page 347, 2 Chronicles 21.
But remember the context that Chronicles was written not during the time of the kings of Israel, but after it, right?
After, in fact, the exile of Israel when Jerusalem was destroyed and the people were taken away, and then the return from exile.
And Chronicles was written to those people who had come back, and they knew about God's judgment on the sin of Israel in the exile.
God had seen that His people had forsaken Him.
They had not trusted Him politically.
They had not worshipped Him as He called them to.
They did not. They worshipped other gods instead, and they failed to show the kingdom ethic that God had called them to live.
And for all these reasons, God said, enough, I'm going to send you into exile.
And yet He brought them back, and now the people then are wondering, what now?
Now we live in a world that seems much less glorious than the kingdom before.
We're not a kingdom now. We're a vassal state of Persia.
We don't have a king on a throne. We are led by rulers and priests, but we don't have independence.
How can they be God's kingdom in that world?
How can they live as God's people in the face of such disappointment and such uncertainty?
The Chronicle writes in the chapters we're going to look at today about a time of great darkness in the kingdom before the exile.
And He gives answers to that post-exilic community and to us as how we live.
So let's pray together and ask God for help as we look at His Word this morning.
Let's pray together.
Lord, we thank You for this morning. We thank You for Your Word.
And Lord, we thank You that Your Spirit, Your Spirit that has inspired this Word to be written down,
that has preserved Your Word through the centuries,
that Lord, now Your Spirit that now illumines Your Word, makes it clear to us so that we might understand it.
Lord, we pray for Your help this morning.
I pray that I might speak clearly. I pray that Your Word would speak to us by Your Spirit.
And Lord, that You would turn our hearts to You again this morning.
We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
So as we read this story, it's not a particularly uplifting one.
We're going to look at three things.
We will see the darkness of sin, the consequences of sin, and then the remedy for sin.
So there's your outline if you're an outline taker, the darkness of sin, the consequences of sin, and the remedy of sin.
And rather than reading through the whole story at once, I'm going to read it in chunks as we go through it.
So first, we're going to look at the first six verses and also verse 11 of chapter 21.
Let's read those together.
This is the story of Jehoram.
So this is what God's Word says.
2 Chronicles 21, verse 1.
All these were the sons of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah.
Their father gave them great gifts of silver and gold and valuable possessions together with fortified cities in Judah.
But he gave the kingdom to Jehoram because he was the firstborn.
When Jehoram had ascended the throne of his father and was established, he killed all his brothers with the sword and also some of the princes of Israel.
Jehoram was 32 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.
And then skipping down to verse 11.
Moreover, he made high places in the hill country of Judah and led the inhabitants of Jerusalem into whoredom and made Judah go astray.
Well, here's a king that we're not going to try to emulate, are we?
The sins of Jehoram were clear from the very start.
As he ascended to the throne as one of the many sons of his father Jehoshaphat, he was given the special task of being the king over the whole nation of Israel.
Now, remember, historically, there's the southern nation and the northern nation.
And the southern nation is sometimes called Judah, and sometimes it's called Israel.
The northern part is always called Israel, and we have to figure out when Israel means the northern kingdom and when it means everybody.
But, so he was the king over in Jerusalem ruling over it.
And he looked at his brothers, the ones that God had blessed through his father with riches and wealth and fortified cities.
There was seemingly a sense of God's presence with them or blessing on them.
And he saw them only as rivals.
And following in the footsteps of the world around him, in insecurity and fear, he murdered them.
He wiped them all out.
And though this tactic never seems to work throughout history,
killing off all your rivals seems to be a common theme of those who are insecure
and those who are fearful when they take the throne.
And not only did he do that, but what we read in verse 11,
he also forsook the true worship of God.
He rebuilt the high places.
Now, in Canaanite religion, the high places were places where people would go up,
literally up mountains, hills, whatever, to find places of worship,
to worship the Canaanite gods who lived in the area.
Israel was surrounded by people that worshipped pantheons of gods.
But God had called Israel to be unique.
Remember the first commandment that God gave to Moses.
You shall have no other gods before me.
And yet here is the king of God's people building places to worship other gods.
Why would he do this?
Well, the story goes on and it says,
because he walked in the ways of the house of Ahab.
Now, if you've been here, you're starting to pick up on this.
The northern kingdom during this time was ruled by a guy named Ahab,
who was the worst of the worst.
In all ways.
And Jehoram's father, in an attempt to make peace with this unrighteous ruler,
said, let's make an alliance and let me marry my son to your daughter.
So Jehoram's wife was the daughter of Ahab.
So they were covenanted together in marriage in a unique way.
And do you know what Jehoram did?
He followed his wife in worshiping her gods.
For her mother was Jezebel, who worshipped Baal.
And so through this, all of the Canaanite worship,
all of the worship of other gods in the area were brought in.
Now, the rite of Chronicles contrasts the house of David,
that which is, though imperfectly, faithful in worship,
trusting in politics, obedient to God's law,
with the house of Ahab, idolatrous, unfaithful, self-reliant, disobedient.
Verse 11 says, he led them into a whoredom.
Why does he use this word?
Well, because the whole covenant relationship between God and his people
was viewed through one lens as like a marriage.
It was a covenant between two people committed wholly to one another.
And yet Jehoram broke that covenant by going to worship these other gods.
And you know, you should know, if you don't know this,
the Old Testament picks up this theme over and over again,
how adultery is…language is used for the unfaithful worship
or turning to worship other gods, the idolatry of the people of God.
And so Jehoram violated the marriage of God and his people,
and the betrayal was profound.
He was like a man who would bring home prostitutes into his own home
and parade them in front of his wife and family.
In this era of Judah, the sin was great.
And any righteous person would ask, how do we live in such times?
Now, before we go on and continue to answer that question,
we need to think about the question, how do we learn from this account?
Because our instinct often in the first hand is to look at this and to say,
Jehoram was terrible.
He was the worst.
I can't believe that anyone would do something like that.
But friends, this is not how we are to read our Bible.
Because we are reminded again and again by the Bible that,
but for the grace of God,
our hearts have the same seed of sin in it that was in Jehoram.
And we would follow in his footsteps apart from God's grace.
Okay, so let me explore that a little.
Really?
I haven't murdered anyone today.
Have you?
I haven't wiped out, you know, gone in and gone postal and shot up my co-workers today.
Is that really what you mean?
No, I don't think so.
But let me ask you this.
Has your heart felt the same fear and the same insecurity and the same threat for your position?
Have you ever felt jealous of your sibling
who seems to get preferential treatment from your parents?
Have you ever felt jealous?
Or have you ever criticized with your words
one of your spouse's colleagues
because they're so dang impressive
that you feel insecure around them?
So you have to find the thing that you can critique
and try to tear them down with your words.
Have you ever felt so jealous of the person in your department
who is doing so well
that you feel the need to speak of their weaknesses and their failures
to make yourself look better before others?
Remember the words of Jesus.
You've heard it said,
that it was said to those of old,
you shall not murder,
and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.
This is in Matthew 5, 21,
in the Sermon on the Mount.
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother
will be liable to judgment.
Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council.
And whoever says,
you fool,
will be liable to the hell of fire.
You see, friends,
we may not murder our rivals
to the throne that we sit on,
but how often do we use our words
out of our fear and insecurity
to attack others,
to build ourselves up?
Okay.
And maybe you're so good,
you don't do that either.
And you think,
I don't bow down to idols.
I don't have any temples in my house.
I don't go up to high places to worship God.
Tim Keller says that an idol,
this is in the book Counterfeit Gods,
an idol is anything more important to you than God.
Anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God.
Anything you seek to give,
you seek to give you what only God can give.
Things that we love more than God.
And friends,
we need to be aware that
we might make idols out of bad things.
So we become alcoholics
or we go on,
we're unfaithful sexually,
or, you know,
we could think about those kinds of idols easily.
But what about the idols of the good things in our lives
that we make ultimate?
Right?
When patriotism becomes fanaticism,
when career success becomes workaholism,
when financial stability becomes greed,
when romantic love becomes lust,
and when we make these things our idols,
they twist us,
and they twist the way that we live
and how we relate to others,
and most importantly,
how we relate to God.
Because we have made them the functional God
to whom we look for salvation,
for justifying our lives,
for meaning and purpose,
for ultimate security.
The things that we ought to get from God alone,
we get from these things.
So, friends,
we need to recognize
that Jehoram is not so different than us,
that our hearts are prone to wander
in similar ways,
and that the darkness of sin
is right there in our own hearts
as well as in the hearts of others.
The passage goes on,
and it talks about not only that sin is dark,
but that it has consequences.
So, as we keep moving on,
the consequences of sin,
we're going to look at verses 8 through 10,
and then 12 through 20.
So, let's read this together.
In his days,
that is the days of Jehoram,
in his days,
Edom revolted from the rule of Judah
and set up a king of their own.
Then Jehoram passed over with his commanders
and all his chariots,
and he rose by night
and struck the Edomites
who had surrounded him
and his chariot commanders.
So, Edom revolted from the rule of Judah
to this day.
At that time,
Libna also revolted from his rule
because he had forsaken the Lord,
the God of his fathers.
And skipping down to verse 12.
And a letter came to him
from Elijah the prophet,
saying,
Thus says the Lord,
the God of David your father,
because you have not walked
in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father
or in the ways of Asa,
the king of Judah,
but have walked in the way
of the kings of Israel
and have enticed Judah
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
into whoredom
as the house of Ahab
led Israel into whoredom.
And also you have killed
your brothers of your father's house
who were better than yourself.
Behold,
the Lord will bring a great plague
on your people,
your children,
your wives,
and all your possessions.
And you yourself
will have a severe sickness
with the disease
of your bowels
until your bowels come out
because of the disease
day by day.
And the Lord stirred up
against Jehoram
the anger of the Philistines
and the Arabians
who were near the Ethiopians.
And they came up against Judah
and invaded it
and carried away
all the possessions
they found
that belonged
to the king's house
and also his sons
and his wives
so that no son
was left to him
except Jehoaz,
his youngest son.
And after all this,
the Lord struck him
in his bowels
with an incurable disease.
In the course of time,
at the end of two years,
his bowels came out
because of the disease
and he died
in great agony.
The people made no fire
in his honor
like the fires made
for his fathers.
He was 32 years old
when he began to reign
and he reigned
eight years in Jerusalem
and he departed
with no one's regret.
They buried him
in the city of David,
not in the tombs
of the kings.
So what does,
what happens
to Jehoram?
What is the consequences
of sin that come?
We see this expressed
in two different ways.
The story tells
about God's judgment,
the consequences of sin
in two different ways.
One is a passive voice
where he describes things
in such a way
that let the reader understand
this is a condemnation
of what has happened.
And then there are times
when the writer says explicitly,
this is what God did.
So passively,
the chronicler says,
there are a number of results
from Jehoram's sin.
One is,
he's starting to lose his kingdom.
Edom was a conquered territory
and they revolted against him.
Libna was a town
that was given
to the priesthood
within the confines of Israel
and this town
also revolted.
So both peoples outside
that had been brought in,
but also cities within Judah
were starting to rebel
against him.
And one of the things
you see throughout Chronicles
is that the writer is saying,
when the king follows the Lord,
the Lord honors him
by protecting the land
and expanding the kingdom.
And when he doesn't,
there is conflict,
there is strife,
there is military loss,
there's political loss
because of it.
We see in verses 16 and 17
that the Philistines
and the Arabians,
so there are multiple levels
of this rebellion
and attack against him,
and that Jehoram's foes
are triumphant.
They win.
They pillage the land.
They take away all the wealth
that Jehoram had gained,
or that Jehoshaphat
had gained a generation before.
They took it all away.
And so his poverty,
politically, economically,
were all a result
of his sin.
And when you read verse 20,
nobody laughed.
I thought someone would laugh.
To no one's regret
did he die.
No one missed this guy
after he was gone.
Other kings are honored.
They're given funeral pyres.
They are buried with David
and the forefathers
in a place of honor.
Jehoram got none of this.
It is an implicit condemnation
on his whole reign.
And in this way,
the chronicler is communicating
this is God's judgment
on this man
because of his sin.
But the chronicler also says
that God is even more direct
and active to it.
Right?
He stirs up Elijah,
and Elijah doesn't show up
anywhere else in Chronicles.
If you go back to Kings,
he has like 12 chapters.
But this is the only time
he shows up
and he writes a letter
and he speaks God's Word
directly to Jehoram.
And what does he say?
Because you have done this,
because you have sinned
in this way,
because you have walked
in the house of Ahab,
because you have gone
in this direction,
the Lord will do these things.
And then we see in verse 16,
the Lord stirred up
the anger of the Philistines
and caused them to come in
and attack Judah.
And in verse 18,
the Lord struck Jehoram
with a disease,
an incurable disease,
because he walked
not in the ways of his forefathers
who were faithful to God,
who trusted God,
who worshipped God
the way he was meant to,
but he walked
in the ways of Ahab,
the ways of rebellion,
of independence,
of self-reliance,
of evil.
We see it even in chapter 22.
Just so you know,
this is the beginning
of this next chapter
is even worse.
His son Ahaziah
is worse than he is,
and he only lives for a year,
and then God kills him,
and then his wife
takes the throne
for six years,
and she's the worst
of them all.
She destroys her offspring
and anyone who might be
a rival to her throne.
And it says in verse 7
of chapter 22,
it was ordained by God
that the downfall of Ahaziah
should come through,
and then there's a bit of a story
that I'm not going to get into,
and it says,
God raised up a man named Jehu
whom the Lord had anointed
to destroy the house of Ahab.
God was actively working
to combat this evil.
God will not allow
the unrighteousness to stand
or the sin to continue.
His righteousness requires
a response.
Now, how do we apply this
to our lives?
We need to be very careful here
because there is evidence,
certainly in the book of Acts,
we see people like Ananias
and Sapphira
who lie to the apostles
and reap an immediate
and clear judgment from God.
There are also others
who seem to bear the consequences
of their sin in different ways.
But we must be so careful
as we think of this
because it is clear
that not every sickness
is God's active response
of judgment.
It is clear that not every loss,
every thwarted plan,
every opposition we experience
is God's active judgment to us.
Some of you may be prone
to think that every trial
and every sickness
is God's judgment
and you're thinking,
how did I,
what did I do to deserve this?
How did I cause God
to bring this into my life?
And you need to be careful
because that's not
the proper way to read this.
Right?
Now, some of you
are on the opposite end
of the spectrum
and you don't see God's hand
in any of it.
And when things go bad,
you think,
gosh, I don't know
where that came from.
Couldn't, you know,
that's unfortunate
and just move on with life.
Christians are called
to be self-reflective people.
The gospel is one
of continual confession
of sin and repentance.
This is what 1 John reminds us.
Right?
If we say we have no sin,
we lie and the truth
is not in us.
But if we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just
to forgive us of our sins
and cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
So, when things like this happen,
when things happen
in our lives,
here's,
or when we see them
happening in the others,
here's what I want to,
here's my counsel to you.
One,
be very careful
not to pronounce judgment
on someone else.
Just because John Hinkson
got sick
doesn't mean that he sinned
and God is punishing him for it.
I can't know God's word
or God's will
that clearly.
I don't have the power
to pronounce that kind of judgment
on what happens to him.
Okay?
So, I want to be incredibly,
I don't ever want to say,
I know what's going on with this.
But when it happens to me,
I want to ask myself,
have I sinned?
Lord, are you trying
to show me an idol
in my life
that I don't recognize?
Have I been harboring
a hidden jealousy
that's coloring my words?
Are there motives
of my heart
that I'm not even necessarily
consciously aware of
that you are revealing
through this trial
or through this sickness?
Is there a blind spot
in my life
where I can't see my sin?
Because here's the thing.
When God brought these things
to Jehoram, right,
up to the point
where he killed him, right,
there was always
a warning and an invitation, right?
The warning was,
you are doing wrong.
Don't do this.
The invitation was,
implicitly, repent.
Turn away from this sin.
Turn back to the Lord.
And we've seen kings
fail and then succeed.
And we've seen them succeed
and then fail.
There's always the invitation
of the Lord
while we have breath
to heed the warning
and to repent of our sin
and to turn to Him again.
And so we need to hear that
and to recognize that
continuing to barrel along,
cherishing sin,
defending sin,
justifying sin,
we put ourselves
under the judgment of God.
the Lord.
The Chronicle writes this,
but the Lord was not willing
to destroy the house of David
because of the covenant
that He had made with David,
and since He had promised
to give a lamp to Him
and to His sons forever.
God's plan
cannot be thwarted
by the sinfulness
and fallenness of human beings.
Jehoram's failure
could not stop
God's covenantal faithfulness.
He remembered the line
of David,
of Solomon,
of the descendants
through Jehoshaphat,
through Jehoram.
He remembered him
through this line
all the way through,
and He was faithful to it.
And He knew
that He had made a promise
that one day
a descendant of David
would sit on an eternal throne
and rule over
an eternal kingdom
where He would bring
the fullness
of His righteousness,
and that God
was so committed
to being true
to His Word
and to this promise
that even the greatest darkness
couldn't stop
that from happening.
If you look
in chapter 22,
during the reign
of Jehoram's wife,
Athaliah,
when she tries
to wipe out
any descendants
of Jehoram,
God intervened,
and God saved
one of the descendants
of Jehoram.
And we'll see that next week
as we look
in the life of Joash
and how God raises him up
to be a righteous king
in response
to all of these things.
Think about the people
after the exile
hearing this story.
They don't have a throne
to sit on.
It's not like the house
of David had been wiped out,
but there was no king.
There was no kingly line
left after this.
They were grasping
and they were thinking,
God, where are you?
This Word speaks
to God's faithfulness
to those people.
I have not forgotten
my covenant.
I have not forsaken
my people.
Follow me.
Walk with me.
Walk in the ways
of righteousness.
And I will
continue to do this.
And even if you fail,
even if you disobey,
even if you abandon me,
I will forsake you
this generation,
but I will not forsake
my plans.
I will bring judgment
on you this generation,
but I will not give up
my redemptive plan
for the world.
And we know this
because when we open
the pages of the New Testament,
we start with Matthew
writing of Jesus,
the son of David.
That there was a baby
born in the city of David
who would grow up
to establish a kingdom
that would have no end.
And he would come
and proclaim a kingdom
is at hand.
And he would establish himself
as the true light,
the lamp
that God had promised
for David
and for his people.
You see,
God hadn't forgotten
his promise
or his plan,
but he continued
to work it
and he found
its fullness
in the person
of Jesus.
And so,
when we come
to the end
of the Bible
and we look
at Revelation chapter 5,
we hear these words.
Remember,
this is a scene
in the throne room
of God
and the people
are saying,
who can open
the scrolls
and bring…
who has the right
to bring judgment
onto the world,
to bring redemption
to the world?
Who could ever
do these things?
No one is worthy.
And in chapter 5,
verse 5 of Revelation,
it says this,
And one of the elders
said to me,
Weep no more.
Behold,
the lion
of the tribe
of Judah,
the root of David,
has conquered
so that he can
open the scroll
and its seven seals.
And skipping down
to verse 9,
it says,
And they sang
a new song,
saying,
Worthy are you
to take the scroll
and to open its seals.
For you were slain
and by your blood
you ransomed people
for God
from every tribe
and language
and people and nation.
And you have made them
a kingdom and priest
to our God
and they shall reign
on the earth.
Friends,
this is what God
has done
and this is what
God is doing.
He has sent Jesus
and through his life
and his death
and his resurrection,
he has finally
and fully accomplished
the redemption
of his people
and he is now
applying it
in this world
and the proclamation
of the gospel
and the glorifying
of Jesus Christ
is the centerpiece
of what God
is doing
in this dark age,
in this dark day,
in this dark heart
of mine.
Bringing his
redemptive purposes
to call a people
out of darkness
and into the glorious
kingdom of his Son.
This is what God
is doing
in the world.
And this is our hope.
This is our confidence.
When we read
the news reports
and we think
it's unprecedentedly bad,
we go back
to God's Word
and He is
unquestionably faithful.
When we think
of our own sin
and we think
I am irredeemably evil,
God looks at us
and says,
my Son has died
for the redemption
of you
and the forgiveness
of your sins.
This is what God
is doing in the world
and He will not
surrender it.
And friends,
the church may fail
in places
and at times
and God will bring
judgment on the church
and let it atrophy
and die,
but the church
writ large,
the church of Jesus Christ
will never fail.
The gates of hell
will not stand against it.
And at the end of the day,
we will join that throng
worshiping around
the throne of Jesus forever
as His kingdom of priests,
as His people.
And we will reign with Him
over the whole world
and the fulfillment
of all the hopes
of the people in Israel
during Jehoram's time,
of the people
in the post-exilic time
wondering what happened,
of the people
in Jesus' time
who wondered,
God, where are you
and how are you at work?
And us today,
this is our confidence.
God will not forsake us.
He has made a remedy for sin
and He is calling us
to hear the warning
to forsake sin
and to hear the invitation
to come to the Redeemer
and the King of the world.
Let's pray.
Amen.
Lord, we want Your Spirit
to work in our hearts.
Lord, we pray that You would comfort
those of us
who feel defeated
and weighed down
and burdened
and overwhelmed
by our sin
and by the darkness
of the world.
Comfort us with this Word.
Lord, we want You
to warn us
if we are
cavalierly
and callously
and willfully
or even
uncaringly,
Lord,
embracing
sin,
idolatry,
unfaithfulness.
Oh, Lord,
search our hearts.
Show us
if there is
any wicked way
in us
and draw us
back, Lord,
to the good news
of the Gospel
that in Christ
we are forgiven
of our sins
and made new
so that we might live
as followers of You
as Your people
in this world.
Thank You, Lord.
We pray these things
in Jesus' name.
Amen.