Faith Reformed Church Stevensville, Ontario July 31, Text: II Kings 12 Sermon: The Temple Repaired and Stripped

Transcription

1 Faith Reformed Church Stevensville, Ontario July 31, 2011 Text: II Kings 12 Sermon: The Temple Repaired and Stripped

2 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; AMEN. Our lesson tonight begins with a formula that we have heard before. In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba. Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him. The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there. There is a statement about a king of Judah and the length of his reign. In this case it is Joash and forty years. The king s mother is named. Here it is Zibiah. There is an assessment of whether or not the particular king did right in the eyes of God. In this case he did. There follows a qualification explaining in what way the king s reign fell short. So we learn that in Joash s time the high places were not removed; forbidden worship was tolerated. The exact formula is found with Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat and Ahaziah. We will find it again as we continue our travels through II Kings. Seems sort of boring and repetitive, doesn t it? But think of this: Given all that has happened in Judah over the previous decade, boring is a blessing. Let me put this familiar formula in context. Some ten years earlier Jehoram had become king of Judah. As he was married to a Baal 2

3 worshiping pagan he introduced idol worship into Judah. Pagan inroads grew so deep there was actually a temple to Baal erected in Jerusalem itself. After consolidating his power he set about to execute all his brothers for he didn t want to countenance any possible threat from a pretender to the throne. After he died, his son Ahaziah became king. He, too, allied himself with the Northern Kingdom and the ways of Baal worship. He was mortally wounded by Jehu, the rebel king of Israel. After his death some 42 members of the royal family were killed by that same Jehu. And when news reached his mother Athaliah that her son was dead, she decided she would reign as queen in Judah. To take the throne she had every male in David s line killed or at least so she thought. By God s grace one was missed. Joash, a babe in arms, was rescued and put into hiding for six years. When he reached the age of seven he was declared king and placed on the throne by the high priest Jehoiada with the backing of the palace guard. To hear now of the fact that his reign lasted forty years and that he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, boring as it might sound, should make us want to shout Hallelujah! The dynasty has once more been placed on a regular footing. The covenant has been upheld; it still works. In his book A Bridge Too Far Cornelius Ryan tells the story of Colonel John Frost s 2 nd Battalion. It was getting battered by a German 3

4 barrage as they were defending the bridge in Arnhem during the Market Garden offensive of World War Two. Ammunition was nearly gone. Casualties were high. Frost s men had been fighting for fifty hours without a break. During this time one of the battalion chaplains, Father Egan, met Colonel Frost as Frost was coming out of a bathroom. A smile lit up the Colonel s grubby, dirt-covered face. Father, he said, the window is shattered, there s a hole in the wall and the roof s gone. But it has a chain and it works. Amid the ruin, devastation and death there was a welcome bit of ordinary life. The toilet still worked. That is the testimony of our first three verses. And here is why it is important. We need to grasp the marvellous nature of the ordinary or else we will lack gratitude. Many of God s gifts come wrapped up in brown paper and tied up with kitchen twine not fancy, but they are still gifts for all that. Mundane mercies are still mercies. Daily bread is still a miracle of grace. Just ask somebody in Uganda who has been reduced to one meal every day or two because of the drought they have been suffering through. Listen to Paul instructing Timothy in his First Letter about who and what to pray for: I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone for kings and all those in 4

5 authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Saviour (2:1-3a). Peaceful, quiet lives lived in godliness and holiness that is what we are to strive for. Peace, order and good government is a phrase found in the BNA Act of 1867, our founding constitution. It outlines the task of our government what they are charged with providing. Peace, order and good government sounds boring. It doesn t have the cachet of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity or of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. But peace, order and good government are exceptionally rare and blessed gifts and they are to be received with joy, thanksgiving and praise. We don t know in what year of his reign it was, but Joash decided to refurbish the temple. Joash said to the priests, Collect all the money that is brought as sacred offerings to the temple of the Lord the money collected in the census, the money received from personal vows and the money brought voluntarily to the temple. Let every priest receive the money from one of the treasurers, and let it be used to repair whatever damage is found in the temple. There are three categories of sacred offerings here. The first money came from the tax of a half-shekel that was owed by every adult of military age. This provision is found in Exodus 30. This half shekel is an offering to the Lord. All who cross over, those twenty years old or more, are to give an 5

6 offering to the Lord. The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less (30:13b-15a). The offering required was half a shekel. In our terms it was about a dollar or two, what we would call small change. Now the payment was required. There were no exemptions allowed. There were no excuses entertained. A rich man could not pay more to puff himself up and appear important; a poor man could not pay any less. A rich man might think it was a trifling amount, but he could not neglect it. And no man was too poor to be able to pay it. Each man had to pay alike. This teaches us that God is no respecter of persons. In matters of redemption, and this was an offering of thanksgiving for the redemption won from Egyptian slavery, he sees us as all being alike. We are all, in and of ourselves, only lost and perishing sinners stumbling along the path that leads to condemnation. The second type of money coming into the temple treasury was that received from personal vows. The provision for this is found in Leviticus 27. It worked this way. A person could dedicate possessions to the Lord s service things like servants, animals, houses or lands. For example, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, dedicated her son into the service of the Lord. There were, however, provisions that allowed a person to substitute a 6

7 monetary gift for the person or thing that had been vowed. A man between 20 and 60 could be redeemed at a price of 50 shekels. A youth between 5 and twenty could be redeemed for 20 shekels. These vows were offerings made over and above the regular and expected sacrifices and were given as expressions of particular thanksgiving and praise. (Just as an aside, there is a difference between dedicating something to God s purposes and devoting things to God. Everything devoted to God became God s irrevocably. If you devoted your house to God, for example, you could never redeem it at any price. Achan s sin was so serious because the things he stole were not dedicated to the Lord s purposes but devoted to the Lord.) The third stream of revenue came from voluntary gifts. People would give simply because the Lord had prospered them and they wanted to express their gratitude for all the Lord had done. It was from these three streams of income that monies for needed repairs were to be made. Now as it happens in churches, occasionally at least, things go slowly. As I mentioned, we don t know when Joash first gave the order for repairs to be made, but by the 23 rd year of his reign, when he was thirty years old, nothing had been done. The king wanted to know why. 7

8 Therefore King Joash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and asked them, Why aren t you repairing the damage done to the temple? Take no more money from your treasurers, but hand it over for repairing the temple. The priests agreed that they would not collect any more money from the people and that they would not repair the temple themselves (vs. 7, 8). The king moved to Plan B. The priests wouldn t have to collect the money from the people. The priests moved to their own Plan B. They wouldn t do any of the repairs. We don t get a sense of it in the report before us, but I would guess that the meeting was pretty heated, with accusations, excuses and justifications flying back and forth. In any event, things were straightened out and progress was finally made. The equivalent of a building fund was set up. Jehoiada cut a hole in a box and set the box beside the altar. Anyone passing by could put money in the chest. When it was full the money was counted and used to pay the expenses of the temple workers the carpenters, builders, masons and stonecutters. It was also used to pay for the building supplies needed the timber and stone and other necessities. It wasn t, however, used to pay for temple furnishings things like silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls [or] trumpets (v.13). These items were paid for from general revenues. We do the same thing here at Faith Church. We have a building fund. It goes to pay for the mortgage. It also pays for things that are part of 8

9 the building. For example, if we were to need a new furnace it would come from the building fund. It does not go to pay operating expenses salaries, electricity, natural gas, hymnbooks, tables, chairs, Bible study supplies. All those things come from the general fund. We also have a separate missions fund so givings can be designated as the members feel moved. In any event, under this new system things were done with scrupulous honesty, repairs were undertaken and the needs of the priests were met. One wishes the story could end there, but it doesn t. After 13 verses depicting the refurbishing of the temple, two verses report how it was emptied. About this time Hazael king of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem. But Joash king of Judah took all the sacred objects dedicated by his fathers Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah and the gifts he himself had dedicated and all the gold found in the treasuries of the temple of the Lord and of the royal palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram who then withdrew from Jerusalem (vs. 17, 18). We need to be clear, here. The writer is not commending Joash for a smart move that avoided war. He is bemoaning the king s actions. Giving up temple treasures for political or military security is never viewed in a positive light in I or II Kings, whether under the regimes of Rehoboam, who gave the temple treasures to Shishak, king of Egypt (I Kings 14:25, 26), Asa, 9

10 who sent the treasures to Ben-Hadad, king of Aram (I Kings 15:18, 19), Ahaz, who in a couple of chapters will send temple treasures to the king of Assyria (II Kings 16:8) or Hezekiah who gave Sennacherib of Assyria temple and palace treasures as well as the gold that he has stripped from the doors and doorposts of the temple (II Kings 18:14-16). All of these incidents are pointers to the great stripping away that will take place under the Babylonians. They are portents of unfaithfulness and ensuing judgement. Burke Long explains it this way in his commentary: It is not light thing that Joash is pressed to such an extent that he takes everything from the store of holy objects. It is not a question of strict financial accounting, for monetary values are never mentioned and each of the various notices creates the impression of a new total depletion of the treasury. Rather, these riches are conventional signs of a king s piety and of his kingdom s favour with God. Despite Joash s provision for regular repairs to the temple, a grave question mark hangs over his reign. That question mark becomes all the more troubling when we consider the account of Joash found in II Chronicles. It is much more negative than the account we are dealing with tonight. It outlines what precipitated the attack of Hazael and it is clear that it was a judgement upon Joash s reign. Although he had begun as a faithful follower of the Lord, and although he had restored the temple, after Jehoiada died the king s heart turned away 10

11 from God as he followed the promptings of unfaithful advisors. The results were catastrophic. They abandoned the temple of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and worshiped Asherah poles and idols. Because of their guilt, God s anger came upon Judah and Jerusalem. Although the Lord sent prophets to the people to bring them back to him, and though they testified against them, they would not listen (II Chronicles 24:18, 19). It got worse. Jehoiada s son was a priest named Zechariah. The Spirit of God fell on him and he stood up before the people and brought this word from God: Why do you disobey the Lord s commands? You will not prosper. Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you (v. 20). The Bible records what happened next: But they plotted against him, and by order of the king they stoned him to death in the courtyard of the Lord s temple. King Joash did not remember the kindness Zechariah s father Jehoiada had shown him but killed his son, who said as he lay dying, May the Lord see this and call you to account (v.21, 22). When Athaliah was killed and rightly so she was dragged out of the temple courtyard into the streets before her execution because an execution within the temple precincts would have been unseemly. Jehoiada s son was murdered within the temple grounds. Joash had indeed forgotten the gratitude he owed. 11

12 I think it safe to say that while II Chronicles outlines the wickedness of Joash s later years, the writer of II Kings outlines the disappointment of these years. A sound beginning was marred by a bad finish. I read a story about that this week. Alberta Martin was the last surviving widow of a Confederate soldier from the Civil War era. She lived until the late 1990s. She did it by marrying an 85 year old Confederate veteran when she was in her early twenties. (After he died she married his grandson.) In any event, when her story became known an organization called the Sons of Confederate Veterans had her flown up from Florida to Richmond Virginia. She was called a living link to the Confederacy and the United Daughters of the Confederacy published a profile of her and told some of the story of her late husband who had been wounded in a battle near Richmond and had been with General Lee when he surrendered at Appomattox. On doing further research on this remarkable story a man named Tony Horwitz went to the National Archives. He found that William Martin was drafted in May of 1864, got measles, was released on a two month furlough, went AWOL and never came back. On his company s muster sheet beside his name is the notation, deserter. It took the wind out of their sails, that the oldest living Confederate widow had been married to a deserter. The story had a great start, but came crashing down with a thud. 12

13 Is there a lesson to be learned by us in this situation? Here is one. Unless we are kept by God s power we will fall away. It is not good enough for us to hold on to the hand of God; we need the hand of God to hold on to us. It is only then that we are safe. Do you know that God is holding on to you tonight? Are you fifty/fifty or seventy-five/twenty-five percent sure? Beloved, you need to be certain. In the opening verses of his Second Letter, Peter gives this benediction: Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord (v.2). It is through the knowledge of God and of Jesus that grace and peace come that the assurance that we are held savingly in the arms of Jesus is received. Peter goes on to say that God s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through him who called us by his own glory and goodness (v.3). Through our knowledge of Christ everything we need for life and godliness had been granted. Nothing more needs to be added to Jesus work on our behalf. More, we are given precious promises so that through them [we] may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires (v.4). We have been given a wonderful gift. We have been given a saving faith that unites our life and Christ s life so that we participate in his eternal life. And so we are to put 13

14 that blessed gift of faith to work, for in putting it to work our assurance and peace are nurtured and they grow. Here is Peter again: For this very reason, [that is, because God has given you saving faith and new life] make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ If you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (vs. 5-11). To have assurance, peace and joy, exercise your faith. Put it to work. It is in that way you will make your calling and election sure and your joy will be full. In Christ s name. AMEN. 14