Tuesday after the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on September 17, 2019 by under
Scripture: 2 Chronicles 22:1-12 (NKJV)
22:1 Then the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his place, for the raiders who came with the Arabians into the camp had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, reigned. 2 Ahaziah was forty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah the granddaughter of Omri. 3 He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother advised him to do wickedly. 4 Therefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord, like the house of Ahab; for they were his counselors after the death of his father, to his destruction. 5 He also followed their advice, and went with Jehoram the son of Ahab king of Israel to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth Gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram. 6 Then he returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds which he had received at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Azariah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Jehoram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.
7 His going to Joram was God’s occasion for Ahaziah’s downfall; for when he arrived, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab. 8 And it happened, when Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, and found the princes of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah’s brothers who served Ahaziah, that he killed them. 9 Then he searched for Ahaziah; and they caught him (he was hiding in Samaria), and brought him to Jehu. When they had killed him, they buried him, “because,” they said, “he is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all his heart.”
So the house of Ahaziah had no one to assume power over the kingdom.
10 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. 11 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. 12 And he was hidden with them in the house of God for six years, while Athaliah reigned over the land.
Devotion
The Chronicler helps us to understand the righteous judgment of God executed by Jehu against Ahaziah and his family. Though king of Judah, Ahaziah followed the wicked ways of the kings of Israel. Though closer to Jerusalem, he ruled as if from Samaria. Though he had the Word of God at his disposal, he listened rather to the word of his idolatrous parents and despised the faith of his forefather David. For this the Lord, through His instrument Jehu, put a swift end to Ahaziah’s reign in Judah.
Does it seem strange that a king of Judah would abandon the worship of the Lord in order to imitate instead the idolatry of Israel—which, itself, was an imitation of the idolatry of the rest of the world? It shouldn’t. The popular religion is popular for a reason. It fits with human reason. It creates its own path to God. It isn’t restrained by the Word of the Lord. The worship of the Lord, on the other hand, acknowledges sin and reveals the mercy of God in the promised Messiah as the only path to salvation. To live according to the Word of the Lord is to swim against the current that carries the world to its destruction.
Don’t be afraid to defy the idolaters of the world, to remain faithful while so many abandon the faith. The wicked may prosper, some for a longer and others for a shorter time, but their end is always the same. Meanwhile, the faithful quietly carry out God’s plans, like those who hid future king Joash.
We pray: O Lord, when the wicked prosper and the people of the world join together in false worship, help us to remember Your faithfulness to Your people and the blessed truth of Your Gospel. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
