Jehoahaz Series

Three Kings- 1

CCCAG, September 11th, 2001

Scripture: 2 Kings 23:30-35

Today we are going to begin a short series of three messages detailing the lives of the last three kings of Judah that ruled after Josiah died.

I say 3 and not 4 because I’m not including Zedekiah as he was not a true king, but a vassal king or a governor of Babylon.

A quick background of this period in the Old Testament-

After King David died, his son Solomon rose to power. Solomon grew the kingdom far beyond the borders of the promised land that God had given the nation of Israel.

It grew to encompass most of modern Lebanon, some of Syria, Egypt all the way to the Nile River, and eastward to include what would be modern Jordan. It was by far the largest known empire in the western world at that time.

After Solomon died, there was a civil war in his family with one of his sons taking over the northern area of the empire, and one taking the southern area. The northern area became known as Israel but did not have Jerusalem as part of its territory and set up its capital in Samaria, and the southern Kingdom which had Jerusalem in it became known as Judah.

Because of this split, the two nations had difficulties ruling over their respective areas and defending them, and eventually northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria, and about 120 years later the Southern Kingdom of Judah was conquered by Babylon.

All of Israel’s kings were evil. There was a minor spark of religious zeal in Jehu but it was mostly self-serving and they all tolerated evil and idolatry up to and including child sacrifice.

Judah’s kings were a mixed bag. You’d have a decent King who at least would try to follow God, followed by three or four wicked kings.

With one exception, the one huge stain on all of their records is that they tolerated the high places. These were areas where people could go to God’s church on the Sabbath, and go and worship other gods the rest of the week.

The last good king, and probably the best king since David was a man named Josiah. Josiah was a child when he became king, and stumbled across a copy of the Torah which was their bible and had it read to him. When Josiah heard the Word of the Lord, he repented for his nations actions and lead a full nationwide revival and purged the entire land of any pagan influence like no other king had done before him. Josiah was unique in that even the high places were removed under his rule.

Josiah then went to meet the King of Egypt in battle where he was killed. We pick up the story in -

2 Kings 23:30-35

30 Josiah's servants brought his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.

31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. 32 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his fathers had done. 33 Pharaoh Neco put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 34 Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah and changed Eliakim's name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, and there he died.

Prayer

Premise

It’s a bit ironic that I’m starting this series on September 11th, 21 years after those terrible attacks that cost this nation her soul. This doesn’t have anything to do with the message, but I’m acknowledging those attacks as the catalyst that started this nation on the path that it is currently on.

There are several things that we can learn from the last three kings of Judah that directly apply to what has happened, and will continue to happen in our country today, so these messages may be a bit prophetic in that they will expose some of the spiritual truth that led us down this path.

Saying that, I do want to make one thing very clear-

In these messages, I’m not going to call out specific people. If you are looking for me to criticize one political party over the other, you will be disappointed. I believe our current two-party system is simply two sides of the same evil coin and neither really have our best interests in heart.