Men, 2 Kings chapter number 14,
if you recall last week in chapter 13,
we kind of stepped away from the southern kingdom of Judah
and we're talking about the northern kingdom of Israel.
That's kind of how the book of 2 Kings is.
It'll go back and forth between northern and southern kingdoms.
So we're picking up now where we left off.
And if you remember that Joash was the young boy
who started raining when he's eight years old
and he did what was right on the side of the Lord
until the death of Jehoi to the priest.
And then after Jehoi to the priest died
who was his greatest spiritual influence,
his main leader, his mentor,
once Jehoi to the high priest died,
remember all those flatterers came and made obeisance to him
and then he led the nation into idolatry
and he ended up being murdered
and not being blessed by God.
Well, what's interesting here is that in chapter 14,
we hear about his son.
It says in verse number one in the second year
of Jehoi, son of Jehoi, king of Israel,
reigned Amaziah, the son of Jehoi, king of Judah.
And what we're gonna see about Amaziah,
the son of Jehoi, is that he's basically,
just like his dad, where he starts out doing good.
He starts out doing right in the side of the Lord
and then later in life he falls away,
gets into idolatry, screws up his life.
And what's interesting too is that they both
end up dying the same way
because just as Joash is murdered by a conspiracy
within his own kingdom,
it's exactly what's gonna happen to Amaziah,
kind of just showing you that history repeats itself
and if you do the same stupid things
that other people did, you're probably gonna end up
the same failure and having the same problems.
And so what we need to understand is that
there's a big problem with people not making it
all the way to the finish line in the Christian life.
I mean, how many people have we known
in our lives that used to be doing great things for God?
They used to be faithful to church, soul-winning,
maybe pastoring, preaching great sermons
and one way or another they go down some dark path,
they get back slidden, they become a bozo,
whatever happens, they end up ruining their testimony,
their work for God, their trajectory as servants of God.
I mean, we've gotta make it to the end, folks.
We've got to finish and make it to the end.
You look at the Apostle Paul, he said,
I've finished my course, I've kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness
which the Lord, the righteous judge
shall give me at that day and not only me
but unto all the most of the love is appearing.
DMS has forsaken me having loved this present world.
There are so many people who fall out under casualties.
We wanna be like the Apostle Paul
where we make it to the end.
I fought a good fight, I finished my course,
I kept the faith.
And you know, sad to say it's a rare thing.
Most people, even when they're doing great things
for God, younger in life, will ultimately backslide
and become lame or crash and burn, whatever, okay?
And we see that in both Joash's life
and in his son, Amaziah.
So look what the Bible says in verse two.
It says he was 25 years old when he began to reign
and reigned 29 years in Jerusalem
and his mother's name was Jehovah Dan of Jerusalem
and he did that which was right in the side of the Lord
yet not like David his father.
He did according to all things as Joash's father did
and really what the Bible is actually saying
if we compare the two stories
is really that they did right for a while
and then they did wrong afterward
because what you have to understand
when you're reading Kings and Chronicles
is that God is sort of grading everybody
on a past fail kind of a grade.
It's like you either did right in the side of the Lord
or you did evil in the side of the Lord
as far as just overall looking at your kingdom.
In this case, there has to be this caveat of like,
well, he did right in the side of the Lord
but it wasn't like David
where he's worshiping the Lord all the way to the end.
It was more like his father Joash
and we know that that was a situation
where he did right until he stopped doing right, okay?
And I'm gonna prove this to you
as we go through the passage, okay?
Look at verse number four.
It says, how be it, the high places were not taken away
as yet the people did sacrifice
and burnt incense on the high places.
And so another lesson here
is that when you start out
being kind of half in, half out,
you're not that zealous,
you're not really going all the way
in your service for God.
Well, then, you know, a lot of times
you just end up falling all the way
out of church later on.
So, you know, you're more likely
to actually be in it for the long haul
if you get all the way in.
People who already have one foot in the world,
people who are already not really that committed,
not really that zealous in their Christian walk
in the early days or in their youth.
You know, if anything, the fire
is probably only gonna cool over time.
You got a lot of people that are super zealous,
super fired up, super excited
and then they kind of, you know, taper off.
But at least if you start from a place
of being really zealous
and then you slow down,
you're still doing pretty good.
Whereas if you start out
and you're already just barely hanging in there
and just half in, half out,
well then, as soon as you get back to them,
you're probably just going all the way off the cliff.
And I think that that's what we could say
about both Joash and Amaziah.
Neither of them were ever awesome spiritually.
Therefore, it was easy for them to both
crash and burn spiritually.
Now, there's a guy like King Solomon
who was awesome spiritually,
who was a very great man of God
with a great walk with God
and he still crashed and burned later in life.
But how much more when you're a Joash or an Amaziah
that's really not even that into it?
Look at verse number five.
It says that it came to pass
as soon as the kingdom was confirmed in his hand
that he slew his servants
which had slain the king, his father.
Because remember, it was a conspiracy
within his own kingdom,
within his own household
of the servants that slew his father.
So the first thing he does
is he executes these people, right?
He slew his servants
which had slain his king to father.
And here's the thing,
is that the Bible teaches the death penalty.
The death penalty is biblical
and it's not just biblical in the Old Testament,
it's biblical in the New Testament as well.
Jesus reiterated the death penalty.
Also, the epistles of Paul reiterate the death penalty
because in Romans chapter 13,
God talks about the fact
that he ordained human government
for the punishment of evil doers.
And the Bible says,
if thou do that which is evil,
be afraid,
for he beareth not the sword in vain.
He is a revenger.
He's the Avenger of God, the minister of God,
a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
So the Bible says that when violent criminals
are executed,
that the one who executes them
is doing the Lord's work,
he is the minister of God,
a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
And you say, well, how do you know
how to talk about the death penalty?
Because it says he beareth not the sword in vain.
Okay, the sword is only used for one punishment
and that's death.
They don't spank people with a sword, okay?
They kill people with a sword.
And so he bears not the sword in vain.
That is capital punishment.
It's taught in the Old Testament.
It's taught in the New Testament.
It's biblical.
Now, obviously, it's only very serious crimes
that are punishable by death.
It's not minor crimes and it shouldn't be.
But here's a crime
that is for sure punishable by death,
first degree murder.
And what does it mean when we say first degree murder?
Because you have second degree murder,
you have manslaughter.
First degree murder is premeditated murder, okay?
As opposed to you had no plans of killing someone
and just in a heat of passion,
in the heat of the moment,
you lose your temper and attack someone
and it's like, oh, what have I done?
I've accidentally killed this person or something like that.
You know, that's a second degree murder.
The Bible uses this wording
to describe second degree murder.
It says that you did not hate him in time past,
meaning that there was no thought in the past of,
oh, I hate this guy, I want him dead.
Whereas premeditated murder
is something that's thought out and planned.
And obviously there's a big murder case
in the news right now of this woman,
Lindsey Clancy, who has murdered three of her children.
And you know, I'm not following the case,
so I don't have the details of the case.
It's kind of hard to ignore it.
It's one of those things
that just kind of people talk about it and hear about it.
But one thing that did come to my attention,
and you can correct me if I'm wrong,
but that there was evidence
that she had planned this murder
as far as she had Googled things
and she had purchased things
and arranged logistics for her husband to be gone
or whatever.
And you know, my understanding is
that she planned and premeditated
the murder of her own children
and then she slittered her wrists
and threw herself out the window
and that's why she's in a wheelchair.
And people are saying, oh, she's innocent
because she's crazy,
but you know, somebody pointed out,
well, isn't everybody who murders their own toddlers crazy?
Is there such thing as a person
who murders their toddler that's not crazy?
It's like, yeah, obviously you're crazy,
but if you're that crazy where you're killing people,
well, sorry, you just need to be removed
from this planet.
Okay, and the thing is that first degree murder
is punishable by death,
not prison, not the loony bin,
not the nut house, it's punishable by death, okay?
And so, you know, we'll see what happens with that trial,
but I don't even think death
is necessarily even on the table.
They can't even figure out
whether they even want to find her guilty or not.
You know, I guess apparently there's three guys
in that jury box trying to mansplain
to the other nine women,
you know, what's going on, I'm just kidding.
I don't know, maybe it's probably,
it could be the dudes for all we know.
These days, you know, they're just white nighting
for this, you know, paraplegic
who murdered her children or whatever.
That wouldn't surprise me at all
if it's actually the women who want to convict
because things are so crazy right now,
anything's on the table.
It's just a weird time that we live in
when people are even wondering, you know,
whether you could just get off the hook
for murdering your kids.
Well, I had postpartum depression.
I had postpartum psychosis.
And here's the thing, postpartum depression's real.
Postpartum psychosis is real.
Anybody who's married knows that women,
when they have children, you know,
it's a hormonal roller coaster.
And obviously as a pastor, I've been exposed to this
a lot because I've counseled with a lot of people.
I've counseled with husbands and wives alike
who have gone through like severe postpartum depression.
And I've even personally dealt with multiple cases
of postpartum psychosis in the last 21 years of fasting.
And let me say this, my wife never had postpartum psychosis.
Let me just give that disclaimer.
When I say that I dealt with it,
I'm talking about people that I counseled with
and helped in our church and other churches.
So I understand that this is a real thing.
I understand that women can get severely depressed,
they can get upset, they can go crazy, hormones,
they get confused or whatever.
But you know what, when you're sitting there
and planning a murder and you're going on the computer
and planning a murder, it's just like, bro, no.
She needs to be put to death.
It's that simple.
So I have now spoken about women's issues as a man.
I just wanted to check that off my list
of things to do today.
So it says in verse number five that he killed
the servants who killed his father.
This is a righteous judgment because he's giving
the death penalty to people who committed
premeditated murder, amen?
But look at verse six, but the children of the murderers,
he slew not.
According unto that, which is written
in the book of the law of Moses,
wherein the Lord commanded saying,
the father shall not be put to death for the children,
nor the children be put to death for the fathers,
but every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
Now let's look at that in the Bible.
Go to Deuteronomy 24, actually go to Ezekiel 18.
Go to Ezekiel 18, I'm gonna read for you
from Deuteronomy from the law of God.
But this is expounded more in Ezekiel.
It says in Deuteronomy 24, 16,
the fathers shall not be put to death
for the children, neither shall the children
be put to death for the fathers.
Every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
And so the Bible is saying it is not right
to punish the parents for what the children do,
or to punish the children for what the parents do, right?
This is part of biblical justice.
Everyone is accountable for their own actions.
And boy, is this something that is missing
in 2026 America, being responsible for your own actions.
Everybody always wants to blame everyone else
for why they did the things that they did.
And you know what?
When people are serial killers
and when people go out and do all these horrific crimes,
they'll go back and look at their childhood and say,
oh, it's because they had this bad teacher
and they had these bad parents
and they had these bad neighbors
and they had the gay uncle that molested them
and whatever.
It's like, okay, you know what?
I'm sorry that those horrible things
happened to that person.
But at the end of the day,
for every serial killer and maniac
who went through those things,
you can find a whole bunch of other people
who went through those same things
and came out and did right, right?
Hey, I've known people who were abused, molested
and raped and whatever that turned out to be great people.
You know?
And then I've known people who had bad upbringings
and came from a bad neighborhood and turned out great.
And then there are other people
who use those things as an excuse
to become wicked themselves.
And you know, at the end of the day,
we're all gonna go through bad things in our lives.
We're all gonna go through things
and obviously some of us are more privileged than others.
And I'll be the first one to tell you
that I had a super privileged upbringing
because both of my parents are saved Christians.
They're both great people.
I had a great childhood.
And so I understand that I'm more blessed
and privileged in my upbringing
than probably 99% of people on the planet.
And I thank God for it.
So I'm not sitting there saying,
hey man, I came from the same streets that you came from.
No, I didn't, okay?
I didn't come from those streets.
I came from, you know, suburbia,
living the dream in the 1980s with my BMX bike
and my Nintendo and a glass of Ovaltine
and, you know, being home
when the street lights came on or whatever, okay?
So yeah, I had a great upbringing
but you know what?
I went through stuff later that sucked, okay?
Well, like much later.
And so we all in our lives are gonna go through
nightmarish, terrible things.
If you don't go through it as a kid,
you'll go through stuff as an adult.
It's life.
This world is a messed up place.
The Bible says the dark places of the earth
are full of the habitations of cruelty.
Psalm 74 verse 20, right?
This world's messed up.
And so therefore everybody is gonna go through
these traumas and difficulties and hard things.
But you know what?
You can use those things as an excuse to do wrong
or you can decide that you're gonna do right
in spite of your parents or grandparents
or your faggot uncle or whatever, problems, okay?
Those are wicked things.
I'm sorry for the things you went through.
But you know what?
Even as a kid, even though I consider my upbringing
super great, you know what?
Obviously, even as a kid, there were times
when I got bullied and stuff, when I was in seventh grade,
I went to this really rough school
and went through some things.
It's funny, I didn't even think about that until just now.
I was like telling you how great my childhood was
and then it just dawned on me.
Yeah, I guess there was that year of bad school.
But you know what?
I didn't even think of it.
It's because I don't sit around thinking about it
because I don't care because I'm 45 years old
and so I'm not fixated on something that happened
when I was 12.
It's like get over it.
It's time to move on.
But you know what?
The entire psychiatry industry is based on one thing
and one thing alone, which is blaming your parents.
Which is why virtually, and maybe this is just
a big coincidence, but virtually the exact percentage
of people who go to therapy on a regular basis,
it's the exact same percentage of people
that are estranged from their parents in 2026.
Because think about it.
When I was a kid and we would do an impression
of a psychiatrist, what would we always say?
You know, you'd lay on the couch at your friend's house
and your friend would come up, pull up a chair
and say, tell me about your mother.
That was the big joke because that's what it all is.
It's all blaming your parents,
blaming your mom, blaming your dad.
Well you know what?
I think it was my dad's fault,
but I think that it's his dad's fault
that he is the way he is.
And then you know, if you look at my dad's,
dad, that guy was one mean SOB.
Let me tell you, okay?
One time he went to a restaurant
and he was given ketchup and he had said no ketchup
and he ended up throwing the ketchup bottle at the waiter.
That's my great-grandfather, okay?
Later he ended up after his mother died
and after he had a heart problem diagnosis,
he ended up shooting himself with a shotgun, okay?
Great guy.
So I'm gonna blame that guy for why my grandpa was the way,
but you know what?
I'll bet it wasn't his fault, I bet it was his dad's fault.
He is some messed up guy from Sweden.
The Andersons, you know, it goes all the way back
to Anders, you know?
Because he was Anders' son.
Literally, there's a guy.
I went back far enough to where I got to Anders Andersson,
you know?
Eventually, you go back far enough
and we could keep blaming our dads until we get to Adam.
And then here's what the Bible says,
we're forced by one man, sin entered into the world
and death by sin and so death passed upon all men
for that all have sinned.
I mean, it's just so dumb.
We could just all blame our parents
and then pretty soon we could just blame everything
on Adam and Eve.
It's all Adam and Eve's fault,
but you know what?
It's not just Adam's fault
because Adam was the son of God
and so we're gonna blame God.
It's God's fault.
Because you know what?
People who go through life blaming parents
end up hating God because they blame God
because you follow that train far enough
you end up at the Lord himself, the Creator.
And he's responsible for all of our problems.
And you know what?
It's a stupid, God-hating evil Jew
who invented this psychiatric crap
his name's Sigmund Freud is a pervert and a weirdo
and virtually all of his theories
have been discredited by 2026
but you still have a bunch of bozos
following and quoting that Christ rejecting
Christ-hating Jew Sigmund Freud.
But beloved, what I would like to say
is that your parents are not an excuse for bad behavior.
Nothing is an excuse for bad behavior
because you know what?
I can do all things to Christ which strengthen me.
The Bible says when my mother and father forsake me
then the Lord will take me up.
Right?
You got a father in heaven
that's the greatest dad of all time.
So why don't you just be happy about that
and praise God for that.
And so you always have all this blame on other people.
The Bible's teaching personal responsibility.
Everyone is responsible for their own sins.
We're not gonna blame the parents for what the kids do.
We're not gonna blame the kids for what the parents do.
Every man is gonna take responsibility
for his own actions and his own sins.
The New Testament says every man's gonna bear his own burden
at the end of the day.
And so this idea of always blaming other people,
and look, people commit adultery and then they say,
oh, it's my spouse's fault
because they weren't the right kind of spouse.
It's like, look, here's the thing.
We all should be the best husband that we could be as men.
You ladies should be the best wives you can be.
And obviously, yeah, if you're the best husband
you can be and women are the best wives they can be,
that's gonna be your best case scenario
for having a good marriage that's free of adultery.
Obviously if you're a bad wife or a bad husband
that could exacerbate things and make it worse.
But you know what, at the end of the day,
there's another guy who has a wife just like yours
and he's not committing adultery.
And there's a woman out there that has a husband
just like yours and she's not committing adultery.
Everybody's got their challenges.
Everybody's got their cross to bear.
And there's no excuse for committing murder.
There's no excuse for committing adultery.
There's no excuse for shoplifting and drunkenness
and all of these other things
because at the end of the day
we are responsible for ourselves.
Go if you would to Ezekiel 18 there in verse four
and this concept is played out further.
It says, behold, all souls are mine.
As the soul of the father
so also the soul of the son is mine
the soul that sineth it shall die.
Now, let me just explain to you
that in the Old Testament the word soul
is often what's called a metonymy for the person.
So we're not just talking about specifically
the part of the person that's the soul.
We're talking about the person or the individual.
The Bible will often use the word soul
just to refer to the individual.
Like for example, in the book of Genesis
very early on in the Bible
talks about how Abraham's packing up all of his stuff
to go into Canaan and it says he's packing his gear
and this person, that person
and all the souls that they had gotten inherent.
He's not collecting just souls.
What does that even mean?
When it says the souls that he got inherent
he's talking about he's collecting
people, individuals, people.
And I'm a big foreign language guy.
You guys know I love to study foreign languages
and everything and it's interesting
a lot of foreign languages will use the word soul
this way even today where you'll talk about like
hey this minivan is for seven souls.
If you said that in English you'd sound like
you were being like super spiritual
when you're talking about like yes
we have a passenger van that holds 15 souls.
Amen.
It sounds like you're like doing a hyper spiritual thing.
But in other languages that's just what it is.
It's just like yeah 15 souls, seven souls.
This is a five soul vehicle, okay.
So that's what it means here it says
basically when it's saying the soul
that Sineeth it shall die it's saying hey
the individual who sins is the one who's gonna die.
The individual not the group.
It says in verse 20 the soul that Sineeth it shall die
the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father
neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son
the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him
and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
That's what the Bible says.
And you know what's funny is that I could have a son
grow up, move out of my house, right.
And then that grocery store security guard
gets up and makes a video and says well you know
why don't you take responsibility for what he did.
I'll tell you why I'm not gonna take responsibility.
It's because I didn't do it.
Because when an adult that's out of the house
doing their own thing whatever they do is on them.
Right and so we're not gonna sit there
and punish the righteous for what his wicked son does
or punish the righteous for what his wicked father does.
And so the Bible says the righteousness of the righteous
shall be upon him and the wickedness of the wicked
shall be upon him.
The father shall not bear the iniquity of the son.
Here's another word for that.
The father's not gonna be responsible
for what his adult son is out there doing.
That's not the way the Bible works.
Now here's the thing.
If you have people living in your home
well then you know you're supposed to rule your house
and make sure that things are right in your home.
So therefore in my home it's like as for me in my house
we will serve the Lord.
You know and so it's not the church
is not optional in our home.
Serving the Lord is not optional.
Okay it's not like well you know what can you do
when the teenagers and the young adults
are bringing home drugs and alcohol
and growing their hair long and you know whatever.
No in my house it's my rules.
You know I'm gonna have a certain standard
of righteousness that I'm gonna enforce in my home.
And look I remember I preached this back in 2007
and had a whole family leave the church
because I got up and preached it is not right
for you to have your adult children
fornicating in your home.
You should not be allowing fornication
to go on in your home.
It's your house you're paying the bills
fornication's not allowed in my house.
Now is that a wild thing to preach?
Is that just really crazy stuff?
I think that's pretty reasonable to say
my house is not gonna be a house of fornication.
It's not gonna be a place where adultery
takes place under my roof.
You know I'm not gonna have somebody
smoking a doobie in my backyard.
Right it's gonna be a drug free, alcohol free
fornication free home.
Okay and you know there was a fundamental
Baptist preacher of the 1980s who once said
I'll kick you out of my home if that's
the clothes you're gonna wear.
I'll kick you out of my house
if you don't cut that hair.
Okay actually it was the BC boys.
But you know it just goes to show you
that even a worldly song is telling you
hey there's some standards to live in your parent's home.
But today that's so just taboo to get up and say
hey I'm not gonna allow those things to go on in my home.
I literally preached a sermon in 2007
you can't have fornication in your house.
And a whole family left the church
because one of their children is just
living in fornication in their home
and they're just fine with it.
Well sorry, bye, see you later.
It's amazing how we're still here.
Even losing that family in 2007.
Somehow the church still survived.
Go back if you would to 2 Kings chapter 14 verse 7
and we'll get back to the story here.
So again the father
shall not bear the iniquity of the son.
So it's like you need to, you're responsible.
You need to answer for what you're,
it's like no I don't.
And you know what, here's the thing.
My mom and dad don't need to answer for what I do.
You know if I say and do things it's not their fault.
Now thankfully my mom and dad are both very proud of me
and I have a great relationship with both of them.
I love them both dearly, we get along great.
But here's the thing, you know
they can't be held responsible
if I were to go out and do something terrible
it's not like what have you done Mrs. Anderson?
You know what have you done brother Anderson?
It wouldn't make any sense.
Because here's the thing
is that if you're gonna be held responsible
I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent
but I wanna make this point
cause I think it's so important.
If you're gonna be held responsible
for someone's behavior
then you have to have the power to curtail that behavior.
True or false?
Like if somebody tells you, if somebody told you this
you can't correct and discipline your children
but you're responsible for what they do.
It's like what, how does that even work?
Because if I'm gonna be responsible for somebody
then I have to be able to tell them what to do.
So like for example, you know
the boss at work, the owner of the company
he's responsible for what you do
when you're on the job, am I right?
Because look if he sends you out to the job site
and you go there and you're stealing things
from the customer's home or whatever
isn't the company gonna be liable
cause they sent this criminal into their home
and you know if he's out driving the company vehicle
and he ends up hurting someone
or if he goes to the job site
and he's up on the ladder goofing around
and falls off and gets hurt
isn't the company gonna be held liable for these things?
Absolutely.
The company is responsible for the employee.
This is why the company has a bunch of rules
for the employee.
And they're enforcing these rules
and saying you have to do things a certain way.
Here's how you're gonna drive the vehicle.
Here's how you're gonna use the ladder.
Here's how you're gonna behave in people's homes
because they're responsible when it goes bad.
And so if you're gonna be held responsible
for someone's actions,
you have to be given the power
to actually curtail those actions.
Okay, that's common sense.
But anyway, look at 2 Kings chapter 14 verse seven.
It says he slew of Edom.
So this is Amaziah while he's doing the right things.
He killed the murderers
but he didn't kill their children
because he really wanted to follow the Bible.
And he wanted to do it the right way.
There were obviously people that were telling him
or suggesting that he also put their children to death
but he's like, no, we're gonna follow the Bible.
The Bible says the soul that sineth it shall die,
not these other people, okay?
I realized that Ezekiel's written later
but Deuteronomy was there.
So it says in verse seven,
he slew of Edom in the valley of Salt 10,000
and took Sila by war
and called the name of it Jock Teal until this day.
Then Amaziah sent messengers to Jehoash,
the son of Jehoah's son of Jehu, King of Israel,
saying, come, let us look one another in the face.
Now what happens here is that Amaziah wins a victory
against Edom and he starts getting arrogant
and haughty and puffed up.
Like he thinks, well, if I can defeat Edom,
I'm gonna take on Israel now
because he's the king of the southern kingdom of Judah.
And so he's like, if I can defeat Edom,
I'm gonna defeat the northern kingdom of Israel.
And what does the Bible say
about getting puffed up and prideful?
Pride goes before destruction
and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Before destruction, the heart of man is haughty
and before honor is humility.
Proverbs 29, 23, a man's pride shall bring him low
but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.
So he gets cocky, he gets arrogant
and he calls out the king of Israel and says,
hey, let's look each other in the face.
He's trying to taunt him into a battle
where they go head to head.
Now it goes deeper than just pride and arrogance though
because even though verse seven he defeats Edom
and then in verse eight he's calling out Israel,
there's something that takes place
between verses seven and eight that's not mentioned here
but it's mentioned over in Chronicles.
So let's go over to second Chronicles 25
and let's get the inside scoop
about what happened between his victory against Edom
and his failure against the king of Israel, okay?
Go to second Chronicles 25 and look at verse 14.
It says, now it came to pass after that Amaziah
was come from the slaughter of the Edomites
that he brought the gods of the children of Seer
and set them up to be his gods
and bowed down himself before them
and burned incense unto them.
Wherefore, the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Amaziah
and he sent unto him a prophet which said unto him,
why is thou sought after the gods of the people
which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand?
He said, look, this is stupid, this doesn't make any sense.
So you went and defeated,
you've got the God of Israel on your side,
you've got the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob on your side.
You went and fought against the Edomites
and you defeated them
and they're worshiping a false God
and then you decided to start worshiping the false God
that they worship.
It's like, well, why didn't their God protect them from you?
You defeated them,
which is kind of an affront to their false God.
So if their God can't save them,
then why would you worship that fake God?
You know, and again, I think this goes with the theme
that we've had for this chapter
is that history repeats itself
and that what happens to one person
is probably gonna happen to someone else.
So it's like, you start out good,
you become super backslidden and sinful later in life,
you end up crashing and burning,
in this case, getting murdered by your servants.
Your son starts out good, gets into idolatry,
same sin, and then same end gets murdered.
Okay, God, Edomites, worshiping a false God, get smoked.
Adopt their false gods,
guess what, you're probably gonna get smoked.
So he's saying their God didn't help them,
why would it help you?
And so he just adopts these gods of the children of Seer.
And then it says, wherefore the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Amaziah, it says in verse 15.
And then in verse 16, it says, it came to pass
as he talked with them, that the king said unto him,
art thou made of the king's counsel?
Forbear, why shouldest thou be smitten?
He's just saying like, who are you?
Like, are you some counselor to me?
You're not important.
You're just, who are you to some preacher?
He's like, you better shut up,
or I'm gonna command for you to be beaten.
You're gonna be smitten, you're gonna be hit.
And then it says, the prophet forbear.
And said, I know that God has determined to destroy thee,
because thou has done this
and has not harkened unto my counsel.
So here's the thing, when people don't repent,
you know what they're basically telling you is just,
I'm slated for destruction by God.
Right?
You know, it's like if you saw a house
or a building or something that had a side on it
that said, hey, this building's gonna be destroyed
on this and that date.
It's scheduled for demolition on this and that, the date.
You know, these people who often reproved,
hardened their neck, they are scheduled for demolition,
is all that's shown you.
And so here's the thing, you know,
when I'm out soul winning, I have this mentality
where if someone doesn't wanna hear the gospel,
I wanna just move on.
I have no desire to preach the gospel
to people who aren't interested.
So if I'm out soul winning and I knock on a door
and somebody's just like, I'm not interested,
I can't get out of there fast enough.
Why?
Because there's somebody down the street who is interested.
You know, that wants to hear the gospel.
And so if somebody yells at me,
get your blankety blank blank blank,
I'm just like, okay, don't even have to tell me twice.
Why?
Because I'm looking for the person
who wants to hear the gospel.
Okay?
And here's the thing, you know,
when it comes to preaching,
I'm preaching in a church right now
where people have driven out here
because they love the word of God.
They love the Lord.
They wanna be in the house of God.
They wanna learn the Bible.
They wanna hear truth.
They wanna hear unfiltered preaching.
And that's what I wanna preach to.
I don't wanna go out there and, hey,
let's go preach at the queer pride parade or something.
It's like, I'm not interested in preaching
to people that don't wanna hear.
And the Bible says, give not that
which is holy unto the dogs,
neither cast ye your pearls before swine,
lest they trample them under their feet
and turn again and rend you.
He's saying, look, you're just gonna get hurt.
People are gonna physically attack you.
They're gonna physically assault you.
Why would you waste your time
giving precious truths of God's word?
People don't wanna hear it
and are only gonna hurt you.
And so this preacher, that's what he's doing, right?
He's preaching good doctrine,
common sense, Bible-based,
straight from the Lord,
spirit-filled, Bible-preaching.
And the guys are telling him,
shut up for bear.
And you know what he does?
He shuts up.
Cause he's like, well, okay, fine.
Cause now I know God wants to destroy you.
That's why you're not listening.
Bye.
See you later next door.
So this is a smart prophet
because he says if you don't,
you're gonna be smitten.
He says, why would you wanna be smitten?
You better shut up or I'm gonna hit you.
Okay?
Think about it.
This is exactly what the Bible said
that if you cast your pearls before swine,
what are they gonna do?
They're gonna turn around and rend you.
Right?
To rend someone means to tear them.
So this would be analogous to smiting someone,
tearing someone,
hurting someone in some way.
And so he says, you've done this,
you've not harkened to my counsel
because you're just scheduled for demolition.
Verse 17, then Amaziah, King of Judah,
took advice and sent to Joash,
the son of Joahuas,
the son of Jehu, King of Israel,
saying, come, let us see one another in the face.
So do you see now what happened between
verses seven and eight over in 2 Kings 14?
What happened in that gap?
Let's go back to 2 Kings 14.
What happened in the gap between
verses seven and eight is that he adopted
the false gods of Edom.
He started worshiping idols
and then a preacher came and read
and rebuked him.
He told the preacher to shut up
or he was going to physically hurt him.
And then the preacher's just like, okay, bye.
And then now it kind of makes sense
why he does this stupid thing
of calling out the much larger,
more powerful northern kingdom of Israel
that he's not going to be able to defeat.
This is a much more serious enemy than Edom, okay?
But he gets puffed up and prideful
and God's just blinding him
because God's not blessing him
because he's not right with God.
And so it says in verse number nine,
here's the response of the king of Israel.
Jehovah asked the king of Israel
sent to Amaziah, king of Judah,
saying the thistle that was in Lebanon
sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon
saying, give thy daughter to my son to wife.
And they're passed by a wild beast
that was in Lebanon and trod down the thistle.
So he's giving him an analogy saying, look,
the most impressive, powerful tree in Lebanon
is the cedar.
And then you just have some little stupid weed,
some thistle.
And he's saying basically, you're that little thistle
and I'm the cedar.
And like, how dare you call me out?
You know, you're not worthy basically.
So the northern king is just kind of just scoffing at him
and acting like he's a fool.
And then he says in verse number 10,
thou hast indeed smitten Edom
and thine heart hath lifted thee up.
Glory of this, interior of the home.
He said, look man, why don't you just be happy
that you won against Edom?
You know, this reminds me of the board game
that we grew up playing risk.
Who likes to play risk or you've played risk
or you grew up playing risk?
Okay, lots of people.
So you know, there's always that guy
who he does real well on his turn,
but he just doesn't know when to pass the dice.
You know, you gotta just take your card
and pass the dice.
And you know what, I'm gonna tell you
my biggest strategy in the game of risk.
And I know this is ruining my chances.
This is against you, if I give you all my secrets.
But let me tell you something, when I play risk,
this is my rule, early in the game,
you win one battle and you take your card.
Cause you gotta win a battle to get the card.
If you don't win any battles, you don't get the card.
So you gotta do something on your turn
so that you get the card.
You win one territory and you take the card.
Not two, not three, not one.
You defeat Edom and you take your card.
Okay, you don't say, oh hey, now let's,
let's just take all of, you know, Kamchatka
and let's go into Europe and what, no, it's not gonna work.
And so the idea is that he's saying to him,
look, just be humble, be apple, God has blessed you.
But this is human nature, isn't it?
To be greedy and nothing's ever enough.
It's like God blesses you with something
and you're just like, oh, that's not enough.
I want more, more, more.
You know, and this is how we all are as humans.
We can't just eat one cookie.
We gotta eat the whole box.
You know, when it comes to Pringles,
once you pop, you can't stop.
Because people are greedy, that's why.
And so the idea is that he needs to just quit
while he's ahead.
And this is what the king of Israel
is actually giving him good advice here.
Just saying, look, you beat Edom, glory in this,
have a party, celebrate, stay home,
for why shouldest thou meddle to thy herd
that thou shouldest fall even now in Judah with thee?
Here are some other verses from Proverbs that support this.
It's an honor for a man to cease from strife.
Right?
So if there's a fight brewing
and you can get out of that physical fight, you should.
There's no glory in going around
and getting in fist fights.
Right?
Or just meaningless, pointless arguments,
vein jangling, contention, strivings.
He says, look, it's an honor for a man
to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling,
meaning that fools are going out looking for fights.
They're getting in situations
that don't even pertain to them just to pick a fight.
Proverbs 17, 14, the beginning of strife
is as when one leteth out water.
Therefore, leave off contention before it be meddled with.
Proverbs 25, 8, go not forth hastily to strive,
lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof
when thy neighbor has put thee to shame,
meaning you don't know that you're going to win every fight.
You know, and you get these guys that think they're so tough
and they're so bad and whatever,
one day they're going to mess with the wrong person.
One day they're going to mess with someone
who's armed with a weapon.
One day they're going to mess with somebody
who has three friends that they didn't see.
One day they're going to mess with someone
who's highly trained in martial arts.
Or one day they're going to mess with someone
who's a weak, pathetic, bozo
who doesn't even know how to fight
and just gets lucky.
Because the fight doesn't always go to the strong.
The race isn't always to the swift, right?
It's time and chance happens to them all.
And you know what, some people will just land a lucky,
they'll just swing the wildest haymaker
and it just happens to connect.
Stranger things have happened.
You don't know how it's going to end.
The Bible says he that passeth by
and meddled with strife not belonging to him
is like one that takeeth a dog by the ears.
You know, you're just asking for trouble.
Don't go picking fights with people.
Try to live at peace with all men as much as possible.
But no, he doesn't take that advice.
Amaziah would not hear it says in verse 11.
Therefore, Jehoash king of Israel went up
and he and Amaziah king of Judah
looked one another in the face at Beth Shemesh
which belongedeth to Judah
and Judah was put to the worst before Israel
and they fled every man to their tent.
So look, they even have the home turf advantage
and they still get smoked by the Israelites.
It says in verse 13, Jehoash king of Israel
took Amaziah king of Judah,
the son of Jehoash, the son of Isaiah
at Beth Shemesh and came to Jerusalem
and break down the wall of Jerusalem.
I mean, look, he was coming off of a victory.
He had defeated Edom, everything's good.
The economy's good, we're winning, it's great.
But because of this stupid fight
that he picks with the northern kingdom of Israel,
what ends up happening is
the wall of Jerusalem gets broken down.
I mean, this is serious damage.
This is really bad.
The wall of Jerusalem is broken down
from the gate of Ephraim under the corner gate,
400 qubits, okay, that's approximately 600 feet
of the wall is broken down and destroyed.
So it's just basically just wide open
for people to come in.
He took all the gold and silver
and all the vessels that were found
in the house of the Lord
and in the treasures of the king's house
and hostages and returned to Samaria.
And you know, here's an analogy
from history that comes to mind.
Adolf Hitler, okay?
Adolf Hitler comes into power in Germany
in 1933 and in the 30s,
he's basically recovering things in the economy
and he's rebuilding the military
and trying to get Germany respect.
And he also was able to regain territory
that had been lost in World War I.
So he regains territory that was taken by France
without firing a shot.
He's able to get some territory back over here
and then he's able to bring Austria under Germany.
He's voted in.
Basically, I think it was like 98% of Austrians
voted to become part of Germany
and then Hitler goes to Vienna
and they're all cheering and woo, you know,
he's just winning, winning, winning, winning, winning.
But you know what?
He just was just so greedy
that he's just never gonna stop, right?
So it's like, instead of just being like,
hey, I fixed the economy,
I got back some territory from France,
got back some territory from Czechoslovakia,
got Austria back into the kingdom.
I mean, if he would have just taken his card
and passed the dice at that point,
you know, things would have gone well for him
but instead, what did he do?
He just has to just keep going.
And you know what?
He'd already explained all this in his book,
Mein Kampf, where he'd already talked about
how he wants to go east
and take over all this territory in the East.
He wasn't going to stop.
And so he invades Poland
and then that's a bridge too far.
He invades Poland.
Next thing you know, World War II breaks out
and it's the biggest bloodbath
in the history of mankind
with like 70 million people dead or something.
You know, it's hard to even know the exact numbers,
50 million, 70 million deaths,
just this insane bloodbath.
Because Hitler is just greedy and insatiable
just like other conquerors of the past
who it's like they don't just conquer a little bit
and then stop.
He's just gotta keep going.
He's gotta invade Poland or whatever.
You know, and you look back throughout history
and you see the same pattern.
And you know what?
The Bible talks about this
with Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar.
And you know, what's funny is a lot of these modern,
like conquerors and emperors and rulers
and furors and dictators,
they'll often look back on men like,
you know, Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great
and all these different people
as like heroes and kindred spirits
and you know, Napoleon Bonaparte or whoever, you know,
and they look back on that.
But it's like, if you look at what the Bible says
about Nebuchadnezzar, okay?
In the book of Habakkuk,
it says that he enlarges his desire as hell
and is as death and can never be satisfied.
But gathereth unto him all nations
and heapeth unto him all peoples.
It's saying that Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon,
just has a desire to conquer
and just wants all nations,
wants to conquer and conquer
and keep conquering and conquering, right?
And it's like Alexander the Great
just taking his troops and just keeps going
until he's all the way in like India.
You know, he's just conquering, conquering
and all of his troops are like,
bro, are we gonna go home?
I mean, Alexander the Great led his troops.
I think it was like seven years
without going back home.
Like these people haven't been home in seven years.
But it's just like more, more, more, greed, greed, more.
You know, this is what we see, it's human nature.
It's a sinful human nature.
And so what did he end up doing?
He had all the success,
but then when he stopped worshiping the Lord
and starts, you know, doing idolatry,
now all of a sudden God causes him
to make this stupid decision of invading Poland,
AKA invading the Northern Kingdom.
And what ends up happening is
he ends up destroying his whole nation,
just like, guess what?
Germany was totally destroyed by World War II.
You wanna know who lost millions and millions of lives?
Germany.
Obviously, there were a lot of Soviet Union deaths,
British deaths, American deaths, French deaths.
But I mean, Germany got destroyed.
I mean, you know, Dresden, Germany,
even though it was used with conventional weapons,
it was tantamount to being nuked.
It was like the surface of the moon
when they were done with it.
It was tantamount to nuked, right?
And I mean, at the end of the war,
Germany is having to put teenagers
and old men in the military
because just that whole generation
is just getting wiped out.
I mean, he went from making Germany
like top of the world at the end of the 30s
where Germany is like thriving
and Austria is begging to join,
like please let us be part of Germany.
He took it from the penthouse to the outhouse
because of greed.
And that's exactly what Amaziah did.
Amaziah is literally Hitler in armscare.
But anyway, I'm saying like,
Amaziah, if he would have quit while he was ahead
and kept worshiping the Lord, it would have been great.
But instead, he bites off more than he can choose.
He ruins the whole country.
Jerusalem gets destroyed,
just like Germany got destroyed.
They lose the money, they lose the wall,
they lose everything.
They get destroyed.
And then, what happens, ultimately, verse 19,
now they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem.
Why do you think they're mad at him?
They're mad at him because he screwed everything up.
And ruined everything.
So then they made a conspiracy against him
which is exactly what happened to his dad.
They made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem
and he fled to Lakers.
So he's like, okay, I'm not gonna let
what happened to me happen to, or excuse me,
I'm not gonna let what happened to dad happen to me.
I'm gonna be smart and I'm gonna flee to Lakers, right?
But what happened?
They sent to Lakers after him and slew him there.
You know what's funny is people think they can do
the same sins as their parents,
but that they're not gonna get the punishment.
Like, I remember, I had this guy that I worked with.
His dad was a chain smoker and died of lung cancer.
And he was smoking.
And I said, well, do you think that smoking
had something to do with your dad dying of lung cancer?
He's like, no, I don't think so.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it probably did.
And it's like, it just seems bizarre to me
that like if your dad literally died of lung cancer
as a smoker, wouldn't you think like, well, not me.
I'm not gonna smoke.
But you know what they think like, well, I am gonna smoke,
but it's just not gonna happen to me.
It's like, well, if you do the same stuff
that your parents did that messed up their lives,
then you're probably gonna end up with the same results.
And so again, we should learn from other people's bad
experiences.
If we see other people that are getting out of church
and getting divorced and messing up their lives
and or we see people get into gambling.
Next thing we know, they're in debt up to their eyeballs.
We see people get into drinking.
And next thing you know, they're an alcoholic
and they're a drug addict.
When you see these things happening in other people,
you gotta take a lesson from it.
And not think, well, sure, dad got a DUI,
but I'm not gonna get the DUI.
You probably are.
Sure, you know, dad cheated on mom and ruined his marriage,
but if I cheat on my wife, I'm gonna be okay.
Or this pastor over here cheated on his wife,
screwed up his ministry, screwed up his life,
but I'm gonna get away with it
or something, what?
No, that's stupid.
Learn from other people's mistakes.
And you know what, when I see people crash and burn,
I'm thinking like, what can I learn from this?
And then I'm thinking like,
I'm not gonna go down that road.
Don't wanna do that.
Ain't gonna let that happen to me.
Not me, I'm not gonna do that.
And so here's the thing.
How do we know what's right and wrong?
Cause the Bible says.
So if somebody did something against the word of God
and faced consequences, we should take a warning.
Hey, I better follow what the Bible says here.
And the Bible says not to make any graven images,
so idolatry is off limits.
And so the same thing that happened to his dad happened
to him, even though he tried to escape it.
He tried to say, I'm not gonna end up like dad.
I'm gonna go to Lake-ish.
I'm gonna get out while I still can.
Nope, they just follow him to Lake-ish
and get him anyway.
And he ends up being killed.
I'm out of time.
So I just wanted to say one last thing
because I thought this was interesting.
If you jump down to verse number 24,
it says, and this is talking about the Northern Kingdom.
We went back to the Northern Kingdom.
So this is kind of like a little bonus feature.
The sermon proper is over.
It says, he did not which was evil
in the side of the Lord.
He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam,
the son of Nibad who made Israel descend.
Verse 25, he restored the coast of Israel
from the entering of Hamath under the sea of the plain
according to the word of the Lord God of Israel,
which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah.
Now this is interesting because this is the only mention
of Jonah outside of the book of Jonah.
Jonah the son of Amitai.
That's how you know it's the same guy
because Jonah in the book of Jonah
is also the son of Amitai.
The prophet, which was of Gathefer.
For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel
that it was very bitter.
Now don't miss this.
The Lord saw the affliction of Israel
that it was very bitter for there was not any shut up
nor any left nor any helper for Israel.
Now, stop and think about this.
Everything in the Bible is there for a reason, right?
This gives you a little backstory on the book of Jonah
because it's like, okay, Jonah is preaching
and ministering in a time
when things are very bitter for Israel
because of affliction, they're being afflicted.
And so this kind of explains why later on
Jonah is gonna be so bitter against the enemies of Israel
and he just wants Nineveh to get destroyed
and he wants no mercy for Israel or for Nineveh
because he grew up and is preaching
and ministering in a period
where he's watching Israel suffer, right?
And so the moral of the story here is
that we are gonna go through things in our life,
we're gonna see bad things happen to people around us,
bad things are gonna happen to us
and we can't let that make us become bitter
and hateful toward entire groups of people, right?
Because it's easy as you go through life
and you see bad things happen
and you get to a point where you just start hating
entire groups of people and just being super bitter
and super negative and that's what happened to Jonah
because remember Jonah starts out
and ends up both kind of bitter and messed up
and I think Jonah was a great man of God.
I think Jonah was an awesome man of God.
It's just the book of Jonah is an episode in his life
where he's in a messed up place and disobedient.
But it doesn't make him a bad guy overall.
He's obviously a man who's being greatly used by God
and even in the story of Jonah, in the book of Jonah,
I mean he's getting tons of people saved.
I mean, I would love to crash and burn like Jonah
and just get just thousands and thousands
of salvations along the way, sounds great.
I mean, so Jonah's not the worst person in the Bible is he?
He's a good guy who's going through a bad episode
in the book of Jonah and yeah,
the episode lasts for all four chapters
but it's still, it's a bad episode, but he's a good guy.
When I get to heaven, I'm gonna hang out with Jonah
and I'm gonna be like, I get it man.
But the thing is, you don't wanna go down this road
of being bitter and hateful because you know what?
I remember, we were just talking about this
the other day, I remember that after 9-11
there was an attitude in the US
of just, just kill all Arabs.
Do you remember that?
I mean, there were people that talked that way.
Just, and they were not joking
and they were not using hyperbole.
Who remembers people talking that way?
Just saying, bomb them into oblivion,
bomb them into the stone age, nuke them all,
destroy them all.
Now look, I remember that was the attitude
of a lot of people.
Now people cooled down after a few weeks, months, years,
maybe some people have never cooled down.
But is that really right though?
Like, look, I hate obviously Islam.
I hate every false way.
I hate Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism,
Mormonism, Calvinism.
But the point is, I hate every false way
but I'm not gonna say, hey, let's just murder
millions of people, man, woman, boy, and girl.
Because of what their relatives or friends
or co-religionists did to us.
Obviously that's going too far
and here's the thing, we want people to be saved.
We want people to be saved.
Obviously we want justice, we want the guilty punished
but here's the thing, at the end of the day though,
is that killing innocent people is not justice.
Killing man, woman, boy, and girl is not justified
because you know what, Simeon and Levi,
they were pretty mad about what happened
to their sister in the book of Genesis
and they went in and just killed the whole town.
And God said that it was wrong,
that they shouldn't have had that vengeful attitude
that said, well, we're just gonna kill everybody
because of what this one guy did.
Oh, this one guy did, let's kill everybody.
Just like Amaziah said, well, we're not gonna kill
the children of the slayers.
We're only gonna kill the murderers themselves.
And so we wanna make sure that we always stay with
biblical justice, biblical principles that we do write
no matter what and that we don't get so bitter
and negative that we're just like, you know what,
I don't care, just kill them all and let God sort them out.
That should never be our attitude.
Let's pray, it's enough water prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter Lord
and thank you for this example of Amaziah
foolishly making the same mistakes
that his father, Joe Ash, made Lord
and ending up the same way.
And Lord, you showed us an example of somebody
who followed in their father's footsteps for evil.
But Lord, help us to realize that even if our ancestors
or fathers or grandfathers have done evil,
we don't have to go down that road.
We can always follow your word
and Lord, just help us not to get bitter like Jonah.
Help us to continue to love people
and give people a chance.
Bless us now as we go our separate ways
and in Jesus' name we pray amen.