One of the biggest themes in Kings and Chronicles is this: Be careful who you let influence you. In 2 Kings 12 and 2 Chronicles 24 we continue in the story of the young King Joash where this theme is front and center! The account in Second Kings does not give us the details that Chronicles does, so we will look at 2 Chronicles 24’s account of the reign of Joash!

2 Chronicles 24:1 Joash was seven years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother was Zibiah from Beersheba. 2 Joash did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight throughout the lifetime of Jehoiada the priest. 3 Jehoiada chose two wives for Joash, and he had sons and daughters.

4 At one point Joash decided to repair and restore the Temple of the Lord. 5 He summoned the priests and Levites and gave them these instructions: “Go to all the towns of Judah and collect the required annual offerings, so that we can repair the Temple of your God. Do not delay!” But the Levites did not act immediately.

6 So the king called for Jehoiada the high priest and asked him, “Why haven’t you demanded that the Levites go out and collect the Temple taxes from the towns of Judah and from Jerusalem? Moses, the servant of the Lord, levied this tax on the community of Israel in order to maintain the Tabernacle of the Covenant.

Let me just stop here and put this plug in. Tithing has never been about fundraising. It is one of the oldest forms of worship to God. When the people of Israel were faithful to God in their worship – tithing included – they were the greatest nation on earth. When the people of Israel were not faithful to worship God, they were a nation of chaos. From the early stages of creation, God has used His people’s worship through giving, or tithing, to fund the earthly work of His kingdom. If you are not worshiping the Lord with all that you have and all that you are, you are missing out on the fullness of that relationship, which Israel often did. Worship God in your giving, and see the age-old truth, that you can never out give God, become real in your life!

7 Over the years the followers of wicked Athaliah had broken into the Temple of God, and they had used all the dedicated things from the Temple of the Lord to worship the images of Baal.

8 So now the king ordered a chest to be made and set outside the gate leading to the Temple of the Lord. 9 Then a proclamation was sent throughout Judah and Jerusalem, telling the people to bring to the Lord the tax that Moses, the servant of God, had required of the Israelites in the wilderness. 10 This pleased all the leaders and the people, and they gladly brought their money and filled the chest with it.

11 Whenever the chest became full, the Levites would carry it to the king’s officials. Then the court secretary and an officer of the high priest would come and empty the chest and take it back to the Temple again. This went on day after day, and a large amount of money was collected. 12 The king and Jehoiada gave the money to the construction supervisors, who hired masons and carpenters to restore the Temple of the Lord. They also hired metalworkers, who made articles of iron and bronze for the Lord’s Temple.

13 The men in charge of the renovation worked hard and made steady progress. They restored the Temple of God according to its original design and strengthened it. 14 When all the repairs were finished, they brought the remaining money to the king and Jehoiada. It was used to make various articles for the Temple of the Lord—articles for worship services and for burnt offerings, including ladles and other articles made of gold and silver. And the burnt offerings were sacrificed continually in the Temple of the Lord during the lifetime of Jehoiada the priest.

Jehoiada and Joash have restored correct worship in the Southern Kingdom! God is being praised and worshiped, and families are bringing their atonement sacrifices to the temple again! When everything lines up in our spiritual lives, everything else flourishes! That God for Jehoiada’s influence on the king! Unfortunately, he couldn’t have lived for a little longer. Well, I guess 130 years wasn’t bad.

15 Jehoiada lived to a very old age, finally dying at 130. 16 He was buried among the kings in the City of David, because he had done so much good in Israel for God and his Temple.

What a testament to his faithfulness to God, being buried with the Kings of Judah. Unfortunately, once he was gone, the poor influences moved in.

17 But after Jehoiada’s death, the leaders of Judah came and bowed before King Joash and persuaded him to listen to their advice. 18 They decided to abandon the Temple of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and they worshiped Asherah poles and idols instead! Because of this sin, divine anger fell on Judah and Jerusalem. 19 Yet the Lord sent prophets to bring them back to him. The prophets warned them, but still the people would not listen.

20 Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood before the people and said, “This is what God says: Why do you disobey the Lord’s commands and keep yourselves from prospering? You have abandoned the Lord, and now he has abandoned you!”

21 Then the leaders plotted to kill Zechariah, and King Joash ordered that they stone him to death in the courtyard of the Lord’s Temple. 22 That was how King Joash repaid Jehoiada for his loyalty—by killing his son. Zechariah’s last words as he died were, “May the Lord see what they are doing and avenge my death!”

The leaders of Judah were not concerned with the worship of God and turned the king’s heart away from the Lord and to the idols of the Northern Kingdom and the pagans. The Scriptures say that God sent them prophets, but they didn’t heed their warnings. One of those prophets was probably Elisha. He and Elijah had built a pretty good stable of prophets prior to this point.

This is just another in a long line of examples that who has influence on you is extremely important. It is so sad to see a young king have poor advisors ruin his legacy.

23 In the spring of the year the Aramean army marched against Joash. They invaded Judah and Jerusalem and killed all the leaders of the nation. Then they sent all the plunder back to their king in Damascus. 24 Although the Arameans attacked with only a small army, the Lord helped them conquer the much larger army of Judah. The people of Judah had abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, so judgment was carried out against Joash.

25 The Arameans withdrew, leaving Joash severely wounded. But his own officials plotted to kill him for murdering the son of Jehoiada the priest. They assassinated him as he lay in bed. Then he was buried in the City of David, but not in the royal cemetery. 26 The assassins were Jozacar, the son of an Ammonite woman named Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of a Moabite woman named Shomer.

27 The account of the sons of Joash, the prophecies about him, and the record of his restoration of the Temple of God are written in The Commentary on the Book of the Kings. His son Amaziah became the next king.

So, let me get this straight, the same leaders who turned Joash’s heart from God, who provided all the good times and revival, assassinated him when the consequences of his and their sins came home to roost?! Remember, the ripened fruit of sin is always gross. These guys got so lost, that the Word of the Lord felt so invasive to their lifestyle. After repeated prophets, finally the Spirit of the Lord came on Zechariah. See, repentance had been offered time after time and not accepted so Joash's heart became so hard and so dark, that he killed Zechariah. Don’t forget, he spent 6 years living with this guy. Church, sin will take you farther than you ever wanted to go.

You know me, I am always trying to figure out why these things happened, and with Joash, it was a little bit of an easy diagnosis. It was pretty clear that the spiritual renewal was led by Jehoiada, which tells me that Joash never cultivated his own personal relationship with the Lord. He depended solely on Jehoiada’s relationship with God so that it was quite easy that when that was gone, Joash was susceptible to advice contrary to the Word of God. Church, I cannot stress how important developing your own personal relationship with God is. We cannot get to heaven riding momma’s apron or daddy’s coattails. We cannot make it on the merits of our church membership or our attendance. We can only make it if we are saved by Christ, adopted into the family of God and known as His children! God doesn’t have grand-kids, only children.

We need to make our personal relationship a priority, and we need to make sure that our children and loved ones do the same! Joash didn’t develop his, and it cost him a wonderful legacy as king. Jehoiada didn’t push him to cultivate one, and it cost Zechariah his life. Let’s make our personal relationship with God a priority and make a concerted effort to help our kids develop theirs as well. That way they will be able to withstand the bad influences that they will face in this life!