Good morning, church. It's good to see you all this morning. Would you turn with me to the book of 2 Chronicles?
!
Father, as we draw near to your Word now, we think of those words from the psalmist when he says,
You have put more joy in our hearts than they have when the grain and the wine abound.
Lord, indeed, we are deeply satisfied in you because you have met our every and eternal need.
So as we come now to your life-giving Word, would you continue to feed our souls?
Show us again your goodness, your mercy, your power, and your grace, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.
Practices.
He built the upper gate of the house of the Lord and did much building on the wall of Ophel. Moreover,
he built cities in the hill country of Judah and forts and towers on the wooded hills.
He fought with the king of the Ammonites and prevailed against them, and the Ammonites gave
him that year 100 talents of silver and 10,000 cores of wheat and 10,000 of barley. The Ammonites paid
him the same amount in the second and third years. So Jotham became mighty because he ordered his ways
before the Lord his God. Now the rest of the acts of Jotham and all his wars and his ways,
behold, they're written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. He was 25 years old when he began
to reign, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. And Jotham slept with his fathers, and they buried
him in the city of David. And Ahaz, his son, reigned in his place. So I recently saw an interview with
Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, and he was talking about a recent study about spiritual influence on
children. And for a long time, sociologists have sort of known and studies have shown that the single
biggest predictor of what sort of faith or religion kids will grow up to have, the single biggest
influence is their parents. And according to Brooks, the father in particular has perhaps the greatest
statistical impact on the faith of the kids. Now, if you're a parent, these sorts of studies can be both
encouraging and terrifying. It can be somewhat encouraging because there are myriad influences
in the world on our children, friends and teachers and social media and movies and TVs and music and
sports. There's a whole host of voices that seek to capture the attention of the next generation,
shape their outlook on the world and on themselves. But the good news is that amidst all those voices,
parents still have the greater and more impactful role. So parents, don't live in fear. Loving and
serving your kids is still going to be the most clear and influential voice in your kids' lives.
But at the same time, isn't that reality somewhat terrifying? I mean, what parent among us is sufficient
for these things? Most parents I know, myself among them, regularly realize how far we fall short in loving
and serving and teaching and being a godly example for our kids.
But, but, as big as the role of the parent most certainly is, even their influence is not the final say.
Our passage today, 2 Chronicles 27 and 28, shows us that your spiritual upbringing
doesn't determine or guarantee your spiritual future.
And that makes our passage a passage both of hope and of warning. It's a passage of hope to those
without a good spiritual heritage, and it's also a warning to those with a good spiritual heritage.
So let's consider first the message of hope. The story of Jotham in chapter 27 that we just read
essentially tells us that no matter how bad your spiritual upbringing was, you can still be
spiritually strong. No matter how bad or inconsistent or ungodly your spiritual upbringing was, you can
still be spiritually strong. Now, how do we see that in the life of Jotham? Well, consider verse 2,
where it says,
Now last week we saw how at the height of his strength,
Uzziah, who was Jotham's father, grew proud to his own destruction. In other words, Uzziah set an example
of pride before his son Jotham. An example that said,
the good limits of God don't apply to those in power. An example that said,
the correction of others doesn't apply to those in power.
But the poor spiritual example that Jotham saw in his own father did not determine his future.
The chronicler tells us that Jotham did not enter the temple of the Lord. In other words,
he remained humble before God.
And he remained humble even though the people in his day didn't follow the Lord. The end of verse 2
says, but the people still followed corrupt practices. In other words, and even though
his contemporaries were all going astray, even though his own father had failed to model true godliness,
Jotham still did what was right in God's eyes.
And he remained humble even though, like his father, God granted him success. Verses 3, 4, and 5 recount how
Jotham flourished as a king, both internally as he kind of advanced the infrastructure of the kingdom
and externally as he brought in more and more tribute from the surrounding nations.
You see, unlike his father, who in his strength grew proud and whose pride led to destruction,
Jotham stays humble and does what is right in the Lord's eyes.
Verse 7 is the summary of his life.
So Jotham became mighty because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.
His father had left a crooked path to follow, but Jotham ordered his way before the Lord his God.
And because of that, he became strong. He became mighty.
In fact, he became one of the few kings in 2 Chronicles of which the chronicler has nothing negative to say.
Now, friend, I wonder, I wonder if you need this encouragement, this hope today.
I don't know what sort of upbringing you've had.
Maybe you look at your parents or your grandparents or whoever was most influential in your life,
and maybe you don't see much help there.
Maybe you don't see much of an example to follow.
And sometimes maybe you wonder,
Am I just bound to repeat the past?
Will my parents' failings be mine too?
Or maybe lacking a good example, you think,
Am I going to stumble into just different but equally languishing fields of spiritual failure in my life?
Friend, take hope from the story of Jotham.
Despite a bad upbringing, Jotham became mighty because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.
His spiritual vitality was not determined by the failure of the preceding generation,
and yours need not be either.
And if that's true of us individually, it's also true of us corporately as a church.
The spiritual dryness, the lack of prayerfulness,
the doctrinal waywardness, or the moral failings that we might be able to see
in preceding generations of the church, whether here in America or abroad,
those need not be what determines our future.
Rather, we can order our ways before the Lord our God and be strong.
The Spirit can blow upon the faintest coals and light a fresh fire, you see.
Revivals often come when the prospects look most dim,
when the fields seem most dry or overgrown from a previous generation's neglect.
There God gets the glory.
He gets the glory when new growth shoots up through dry ground,
and when a new work begins amidst the ruins of the old.
This, I wonder, I wonder if this is what the chronicler wanted his generation to hear in the story of Jotham.
Because remember, his generation and a couple generations before his,
they had all returned from exile.
The exile, which was the biggest marker of spiritual and moral failure in all of Israelite history.
And you have to wonder if the chronicler's generation was asking themselves,
would we repeat those same mistakes?
But the chronicler saying, no, we can be like Jotham,
ordering our ways before the Lord our God, and as a result, growing strong.
We are not destined for failure.
The Lord our God is a God of new beginnings,
of revival and renewal, of cities rebuilt,
of families restored,
of children walking in the paths of holiness and wisdom,
even if their parents did not walk those paths before them.
That's who the God of the Bible is.
The God who can take a valley of dry bones and make it live again.
So this is a message of hope.
No matter how bad your spiritual upbringing was,
you can still be spiritually vibrant and strong.
But our passage continues with a warning.
If our spiritual heritage cannot determine our future for ill,
neither can it guarantee our future for good.
Let's pick up at the end of chapter 27 and continue into chapter 28, verses 1 through 7.
The chronicler ends chapter 27 saying,
And Jotham slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David.
And Ahaz, his son, reigned in his place.
And Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign,
and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem.
And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord,
as his father David had done.
But he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel.
He even made metal images for the Baals.
And he made offerings in the valley of the son of Hinnom,
and burned his sons as an offering,
according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out
before the people of Israel.
And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places,
and on the hills, and under every green tree.
Therefore the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Syria,
who defeated him, and took captive a great number of his people,
and brought them to Damascus.
He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel,
who struck him with a great force.
For Pekah, the son of Remaliah, killed 120,000 from Judah in one day,
all of them men of valor,
because they had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers.
And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim,
killed Maseah, the king's son,
and Azrakam, the commander of the palace,
and Elkanah, the next in authority to the king.
It's a great gift, isn't it?
It's a great gift to have a godly father or mother.
Many of us in this room can give thanks for the example of faithfulness,
or courage, or perseverance, or prayerfulness that we have seen in those closest to us.
But if that is you today, realize that there is also a danger,
a danger that your heart might think that because those who came before you follow the Lord,
then your faithfulness will be guaranteed.
But look at Ahaz.
Ahaz's father was a godly man,
and yet in the same number of years,
both he and his father reigned 16 years,
over the same number of years,
look at how different the outcome was.
No matter how good your spiritual upbringing,
you can still fall prey to idolatry and be ruined.
Do you wonder how it all started for Ahaz?
I mean, did it start as just outright rejection
of the ways of the Lord that his father had modeled so clearly for him,
these ways of the Lord?
Did Ahaz just reject them outright?
Or was it more gradual?
Did Ahaz begin to think of himself as a bit more of a cosmopolitan ruler
than his father was,
a bit more open-minded,
a bit more pluralistic?
You know, did he think at times,
surely the northern kingdom has something we can learn from?
He might have thought,
yeah, surely the gods of the other nations can't all be wrong,
can they?
Why not build some bridges?
And then the attraction of power,
the attraction of wealth,
the attraction of worldly respectability
starts to grow.
And suddenly he finds himself saying,
surely the Lord isn't the only God worthy of worship.
How narrow,
how provincial.
Let's build an altar to Baal.
And tragically,
Ahaz's heart begins a rapid decline.
And before he knows it,
he's free-falling
into the depths of apostasy and corruption,
not just following the practices of the wayward northern kings,
but taking up the evil practices of the nations
that God had driven out hundreds of years earlier,
sacrificing his own children to false gods.
And so, desiring to be strong,
desiring to be respected,
desiring to be a man of renown,
Ahaz becomes weak.
And his people pay the cost.
Verses 5 through 7 tell us of a war,
a war when the northern kingdom joined forces with Syria
and attacked Judah, the southern kingdom.
And they were attacking Judah to try to force Ahaz
into a joint alliance
against the growing threat of the Assyrian empire,
this massive empire that was waking up from its sleep
and beginning to churn its way down south into their land.
And Ahaz tries to stand his ground
against these petty kings
trying to force him into an alliance,
but the sad tragedy is
he's actually forsaken the only real source of strength,
which is the Lord God.
And Ahaz is defeated.
And some of his closest family members
and even his own son and his advisors
die in the battle.
But you know, here's the problem with idolatry.
Idolatry is like a whirlpool.
And the more you kind of swim in its current,
the harder it is to get out,
the deeper and deeper down it pulls you.
You would think that after the defeat
of verses 5 through 7,
Ahaz would come to his senses.
But tragically, no.
Let's see how he responds a few verses later.
Let's pick up the story in verse 16 of chapter 28,
jumping down a little bit.
2 Chronicles 28, 16.
At that time, King Ahaz sent to the king of Assyria for help.
For the Edomites had again invaded and defeated Judah
and carried away captives.
And the Philistines made raids on the cities
in the Shephala and the Negev of Judah
and had taken Beth Shemesh, Ijelon, Gederoth, Soko
with its villages, Timnah with its villages,
Gimzo with its villages, and they settled there.
For the Lord humbled Judah
because of Ahaz, king of Israel,
for he had made Judah act sinfully
and had been very unfaithful to the Lord.
So Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria,
came against him and afflicted him
instead of strengthening him.
For Ahaz took a portion from the house of the Lord
and the house of the king and the princes
and gave tribute to the king of Assyria,
but it did not help him.
In the time of his distress,
he became yet more faithless to the Lord,
the same king Ahaz.
For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus
that had defeated him and said,
Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them,
I will sacrifice to them that they may help me,
that they were the ruin of him and of all Israel.
And Ahaz gathered together the vessels
of the house of God and cut in pieces
the vessels of the house of God,
and he shut up the doors of the house of the Lord,
and he made himself altars
in every corner of Jerusalem.
In every city of Judah,
he made high places to make offerings
to other gods,
provoking the anger,
provoking to anger the Lord,
the God of his fathers.
Now the rest of his acts and all his ways,
from first to last,
behold, they're written in the book
of the kings of Judah and Israel.
And Ahaz slept with his fathers,
and they buried him in the city in Jerusalem,
for they did not bring him
into the tombs of the kings of Israel.
And Hezekiah, his son,
reigned in his place.
You know, it's a bit like,
it's a bit like taking a piece of metal
and bending it,
and curving it round and round a staff.
You keep curving it and bending it
and molding it around this object
until eventually the twist
and the curve of the metal
just can't be undone.
That's the heart of Ahaz.
And that's how idolatry works.
We go to it for help,
like Ahaz went to Assyria,
but it doesn't help.
We're in trouble,
we're in pain,
we're in distress,
we're in affliction,
so we turn to money
or alcohol
or sex
or hard work
or professional accomplishments.
We seek help
in some project
or some object
of our own choosing.
And maybe at first
it sort of makes sense.
Ahaz,
going to Assyria,
was actually kind of clever
on the surface.
The Assyrians were bigger
and stronger than everybody else.
Why not cut a deal with them
while he could?
But ultimately,
it didn't help.
It didn't help.
And then comes
one of the most tragic verses
in the whole of 2 Chronicles,
verse 22.
In the time of his distress,
he became yet more faithless
to the Lord,
the same King Ahaz.
At this point in his life,
Ahaz does the unthinkable.
He takes everything of value
from the temple,
cuts it up,
melts it down,
shutters the temple completely
in order to take
all of that precious stuff
to make even more altars
to false gods.
And how long did it take?
How long did it all take?
How long did it all take
for the temple
to be desecrated and closed,
for the people to be defeated,
for the Lord to be forsaken?
It didn't take generations
upon generations.
It wasn't the work of centuries.
It took 16 years.
At the end of that 16 years,
Ahaz had so twisted his heart
around the idols of his day
that he simply couldn't unravel himself
from their ruin.
You know, we often think foolishly,
I'll live how I want
when I'm young.
And you know,
in our culture,
young just keeps getting
longer and longer,
isn't it?
30s, 40s,
we still think we're young.
I'll live how I want
when I'm young,
and then when I'm old,
I'll turn back to God.
Then I'll do right.
But friend,
what makes you so sure
that you'll even want
to turn back to God then?
After living your life like Ahaz
for the false gods of this age,
after serving them
and seeking them
and sacrificing for them
and twisting your soul around them
all of your days,
what makes you so confident
that you'll even be able
to recognize
your need for saving
on that day?
At that point,
will you even want
to swim out of the whirlpool?
Or will you keep paddling headlong
for the dark center
where there is no return?
The chronicler wants us
to heed the warning of Ahaz.
No matter how good
your spiritual upbringing was,
you can still fall prey
to idolatry
and be ruined.
Your parents' faith,
your grandparents' faith,
the faith of your friends,
the faith of your church community,
it will not avail for you.
You must choose
who you will serve.
Will you serve
the living and true God?
Or will you give your heart
to idols?
Will you worship
the gods of this age
and the gods of this age
will demand more
and more of you,
but they will never really help?
Or will you worship
the God
who ultimately revealed himself
in Jesus Christ,
the God
who fulfilled the laws
every demand
on your behalf,
and who offers his gracious help
to all who call on him
in faith?
Friend,
don't mistake
having a good
spiritual heritage
for having living faith
in the living God.
Take hold of Christ
for yourself
today.
Surrender your life
to him.
He lived and died
and rose again
so that you might
die to sin
and live to God
so that you might
be free
from the empty
idolatry
of this passing age
and live for a kingdom
that lasts forever.
Don't mistake
a good spiritual heritage
for living faith
in the living God.
And that's true
of churches as well.
The spiritual vitality
of the previous generation
will not be automatically
credited to us.
the history
of revivals
and renewals,
the love
of sound doctrine,
the sacrifice
for mission
and heralding
the gospel
to the ends
of the earth,
the care for creation
and for the poor,
the devoted prayer
for God's glory
to be shown.
These godly examples
of our heritage,
they will not guarantee
our spiritual vitality.
We must take
fresh ground.
Let's not rest content
to have good examples
behind us.
The spiritual affections
of a Jonathan Edwards,
the missionary zeal
of a Lottie Moon,
the doctrinal courage
of an Athanasius.
Let's not rest content
to just have good examples
behind us.
Let's seek God
for ourselves too.
And by God's grace,
let us leave
a good example
for those to come.
And brothers and sisters,
friends,
it is not
too late
to begin.
We've said
this passage
is one of both
hope and warning,
but it's also a call
to begin seeking God
today.
No matter what
your spiritual background,
you can heed
God's voice
today.
today
and begin again.
In the center
of chapter 28,
verses 8 through 15,
the chronicler
places a story
where we see
just that.
And I think
the chronicler
put this story
in the middle
to make it stand out.
In contrast
to Ahaz,
the bad king
of Jerusalem,
the chronicler
shows us
genuine
spiritual repentance
and renewal
in the most
unlikely place.
in the midst
of the rebel
northern kingdom,
in the heart
of Samaria,
genuine faith
is found.
Let's read
verses 8 through 15.
The men of Israel,
that's the ungodly
northern kingdom,
took captive,
they took captive
in that same war
previously described.
They took captive
200,000
of Judah's
relatives,
women,
sons,
and daughters.
They also took
much spoil
from them
and brought
the spoil
to Samaria.
But a prophet
of the Lord
was there
whose name
was Oded,
and he went
out to meet
the army
that came
to Samaria
and he said
to them,
Behold,
because the Lord,
the God of your fathers,
was angry with Judah,
he gave them
into your hand.
But you have killed
them in a rage
that has reached
up to heaven.
And now you intend
to subjugate
the people of Judah
and Jerusalem,
male and female,
as your slaves?
Have you not
your own sins
against the Lord,
your God?
Now hear me
and send back
the captives
from your relatives
whom you have taken,
for the fierce wrath
of the Lord
is upon you.
Certain chiefs
also of the men
of Ephraim,
Azariah,
the son of Jonahan,
Berechiah,
the son of Mishillamoth,
Jehizakiah,
the son of Shalom,
and Amasa,
the son of Hadli,
stood up
against those
who were coming
from the war
and said to them,
You shall not
bring the captives
in here,
for you propose
to bring upon us
guilt against the Lord
in addition to our
present sins and guilt,
for our guilt
is already great
and there is fierce wrath
against Israel.
So the armed men
left the captives
and the spoil
before the princes
and all the assembly.
And the men
who had been mentioned
by name rose,
took the captives,
and with the spoil
they clothed
all who were naked
among them.
They clothed them,
gave them sandals,
provided them with food
and drink,
and anointed them,
and carrying all
the feeble among
them on donkeys,
they brought them
to their kinsfolk
at Jericho,
the city of palm trees.
Then they returned
to Samaria.
You see, friends,
ultimately,
it's not about
your spiritual heritage.
These leaders
from Samaria,
they had a checkered past,
mostly bad,
just like many of us.
but they heeded
God's word
and they repented
and they made
things right.
These prisoners
of war
at their gate,
these women
and children
from Judah
that had been
stolen away
in the recent war,
they stood up
and they refused
to take them in.
They refused
to subjugate them
and turn them
into servants.
And instead,
they did the opposite.
They clothed them.
They gave them
sandals and food
and drink
and healed
their wounds
with oil
and gave them
transportation
back home.
You see,
for these Samaritans,
it wasn't about
their spiritual pedigree.
It was about
what they did
with God's word
and how they responded
when their hearts
were exposed by it.
When they were
confronted
with their sin,
with their guilt
before God,
how did they respond?
That's what matters.
Are you soft
and responsive
to God's word?
And that isn't
something
that a godly heritage
or an ungodly heritage
will determine
for you.
In just a minute,
we're going to take
the Lord's Supper.
And here,
in the Supper,
we see the gospel
displayed
in visible,
tangible form,
broken bread
that speaks
of the body of Christ,
the poured-out cup
that speaks
of the shed blood
of Christ.
These elements
proclaim the gospel.
His body was broken
and His blood
was shed for sinners.
Christ suffered
once for sins,
the righteous
for the unrighteous
to bring us to God.
But look, friends,
His broken body
now means
that you can eat
and be full.
And His shed blood
means that you can
drink and rejoice.
All who come
to the risen Christ
confessing their need
for a Savior,
admitting their sin,
and trusting in His death
and resurrection
for their rescue
will be reconciled
to God
and filled
with His Spirit.
They now become
family members
and have a place
at the table.
Friends,
is that true of you?
You are not just
hearing God's Word
this morning.
You are seeing it.
No matter what
your spiritual heritage
might be,
the Word of God
is before you.
The Word of God
that says,
you are a sinner
who deserves death.
The Word of God
that says,
in love,
God's Son
died in your place
to forgive you.
The Word of God
that says,
to all who believe,
God will grant
a new heart
and eternal life.
take hold of Christ
today,
and He will pull you
from the whirlpool
of sin and idolatry.
He has the power,
friends,
to untwist
your hardened heart,
no matter what
your spiritual background.
He'll receive you
as His own,
and your family
will be the family
of God,
and your future
will be the new growth
and the fresh ground
that only God's grace
can produce.
And parents,
when it comes
to our kids,
let this same gospel
be our hope.
It is not our example
that's going to save
our kids.
Our confidence
is in the beauty
of the gospel alone
and in the power
of Christ alone.
He is the one
who binds our wounds.
He is the one
who clothes our nakedness.
He is the one
who feeds our souls.
He is the one
who leads us home,
carrying us all the way.
May our kids see Jesus
in all His beauty,
and may they know
God's grace.
And by that same grace,
may we all
order our ways
before the Lord
and be strong.
Let's pray together.
Father,
we ask
that by Your Spirit
You would come
and You would pour out,
You would grant God
repentance unto faith.
Help us in this moment
to be grateful
for our spiritual heritage
where it is good.
Help us in this moment
to not
feel trapped
by our spiritual heritage
if it be
not so good.
But Lord,
let none of us
overly depend
on those
who have come before.
Let us only depend
on the One
who has come before us,
Jesus Christ.
And let us rest in Him.
Amen.