Well, this evening, I'd ask you to take up your copy of the Word of God and turn in it to 2 Kings 11. As together tonight, we're going to be taking a look at 2 Kings 11 and verses 13 through 21. 2 Kings 11, 13 through 21, as we continue to see what happened to Athaliah after Jehoiada's successful coup to replace her went forward. But before we turn to God's word, let's turn to the God who gave us that word and let's ask for his blessing. Please join me. Well, sovereign Lord, we need your help. We need your help to understand your word and to apply it. Lord, there are lessons here, not just for people thousands of years ago, but for us today. All of these things are still just as relevant. And as we learn about tyrants and how you overthrew this tyrant, Athaliah, by your providential working, Lord, remind us that all of us are born into this world with a tyrannical rule over us, oppressing us. And that would be the rule of the prince of the power of the air. I do pray, Lord, therefore, that we would be looking to overthrow that particular tyrant if we have not already done so by your power. And if we have, O Lord, to not let him encroach upon the freedoms that Christ has granted. Help us now, O Lord, to understand this word. and apply it, and we pray this in Jesus' holy name, amen, amen. Second Kings 11, I'm gonna be reading verses 13 through 21. I do remind you, this is the word of the Lord. Oh, my mic. It's trying desperately to get my attention, no doubt. This is the word of the Lord. Now when Athaliah heard the noise of the escorts and the people, she came to the people in the temple of the Lord. When she looked, there was the king standing by a pillar according to custom. And the leaders and the trumpeters were by the king. All the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets. So Athaliah tore her clothes and cried out, treason, treason. And Jehoiada, the priest, commanded the captains of the hundreds, the officers of the army, and said to them, take her outside under guard and slay her with the sword, whoever follows her. for the priest had said, do not let her be killed in the house of the Lord. So they seized her, and she went by the way of the horse's entrance into the king's house, and there she was killed. Then Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord the king and the people that they should be the Lord's people, and also between the king and the people. And all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They thoroughly broke in pieces its altars and images and killed Matan, the priest of Baal, before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord. Then he took the captains of hundreds, the bodyguards, the escorts, and all the people of the land, and they brought the king down from the house of the Lord and went by the way of the gate of the escorts to the king's house. Then he sat on the throne of the kings. So all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet, for they had slain Athaliah with the sword in the king's house. Jehoash was seven years old when he became king. The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. A tyrant, to paraphrase the wisdom of Webster, is a despotic ruler, a cruel master, an oppressor. He notes they use power to oppress their subjects and exercise unlawful authority or lawful authority in an unlawful manner. Athaliah certainly was just such a ruler. She seized the throne via a murder of its rightful claimants. She killed her own grandsons in order to ascend to the throne. And then completely disregarded the laws of God that should have constrained her as a ruler of Judah. Those laws were meant to guide her and not just her subjects. and yet she threw them all behind her back. She not only ignored God, she blasphemously worshipped the false god Baal and encouraged her subjects to do the same thing. Now, there's a state motto that prevails to this day of Virginia, sic semper tyrannis, and that was supposedly the phrase that Brutus proclaimed after taking part assassination of Julius Caesar. The Latin phrase means, thus always to tyrants. And what that meant to us today is the tyrannical leaders will inevitably be overthrown. Now, sometimes it takes a while for that to happen, but generally speaking, that is the way that the Lord usually works it. In his commentary on Isaiah, as Calvin was commenting on Isaiah's words predicting the downfall of Babylon and its tyranny, he said, the heavenly judge cannot endure tyrants who are abhorred by the whole world. Hence, we ought to conclude that though under the sway of tyrants, unhappy men are silent and do not venture to open their mouths, yet the Lord listens to their secret groans. Let us not wonder, therefore, that tyrants come to such a dismal end, for God, who is a witness of the injuries which they have inflicted, must, in the exercise of his justice, assist the innocent. God will not spare tyrants, though he may wink at them for a time. The same destruction awaits them as we learn Bethel Babylon, for the Lord is righteous and is always like himself. And here we see that the Lord heard the groans of his people, just as surely as he had heard their grains, groans, not grains, groans in Egypt under the tyranny of Pharaoh, and he once again delivered them. In this case, he delivered them through the agency of his faithful high priest, Jehoiada, and his wife. He used them not only to safeguard the life of the true king and thus preserve the line of Jesus Christ, but also, He removed Athaliah from power, and he put Prince Jehoash on the throne. Now, by the time Athaliah, obviously, as we see in these verses, realized her power was being threatened, it was too late. Jehoiada's coup had been brought to pass, and although it isn't mentioned specifically, it can be assumed that she heard in the palace the commotion that was going on with the enthroning of this king, his coronation, She would have heard the shouts of, long live the king, or God save the king. There was also the jubilant blowing of the shofar that no doubt was happening, that the ram's horn, the priests would have been blowing that. And she would have gone running from the palace out to the temple courtyard and to see what was causing all of this hubbub. And there she would see the young king, seven years old, standing by the pillar. She would know immediately what was happening. Long live the king are the shouts. And she sees him there in the official place where they were to stand between the two pillars, Boaz and Jachin. And then she recognized, no doubt, her own crown upon his head. That would have been the final clue to what was happening. And of course, she yells out, treason, treason. But she was the one who was the traitor. She had betrayed her people. She had betrayed her God. She herself brought all of this evil down upon her head. Jehoiada the priest then gives orders to put her to death. This is righteous. She was an idolater, and she led the people into idolatry. She was also a usurper, a murderer, and an enemy who would not have left the kingdom at peace were she to remain alive, and so he rightly sentences her to death, but note that he also says she is not to be killed in the temple, and that out of reverence for the holy place. The temple must not be stained with the blood of human beings. The Lord God never called for human sacrifice. and anything that came close to it would be an abomination. So she is dragged from the temple and she is taken back to the palace, but she is not brought by the way of the gate of honor, the front gate. is the way that the king is brought into the palace. Instead, she is brought by the horse gate. This is the gate that the cavalry, or people traveling by horses, would have traveled through the back. No doubt it was covered in horse manure, so it was rather an ignoble way of traveling to the palace. I have no doubt that Jehoiada intended for it to be an insult to this wicked, wicked woman. She was the one and only queen who ever reigned over Judah, or Israel for that matter, and she made a horrible, horrible hash of it by turning it against the Lord and against his people. Now, what happened after this is very, very important. In fact, I dare say it's one of the most important things in the entire section, not just the removal of Athaliah, but what happens in verse 17. You see, often after a coup removes a tyrant, what happens is they get replaced by someone worse. We have seen that happen, for instance, in the Middle East. You ask yourself, how could you possibly get anything worse than guys like Muammar Gaddafi? I was about to say the people of those countries have said, hold my beer, and have proceeded to put in place these failed governments in Syria, putting in place in the space of Bashar al-Assad, An ex-leader of ISIS and an ally to the jihadist forces that have been fighting there, al-Nusra and so on. I do not expect good things to come out of this. Certainly, Jehoiada in this particular situation did not want to have a continuation of the misrule that had been happening. Instead, he wanted reformation within the nation. He wanted a renovation as well to the government. And so a restoration of what would and should have been the case had the kings continued to rule according to the pattern set for them by King David, a God-honoring rule, a rule according to the law of God. So they begin with this renewal of the covenant In verse 17, there we read, then Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord, the king, and the people that they should be the Lord's people, and also between the king and the people. So we see a covenanting here. It's not the first time that the people of Judah had covenanted with their God, obviously. Covenant renewal is something that happened frequently within the Old Testament. We see that happening whenever, for instance, there was an important new, of redemption coming to the people of God, or when they had been unfaithful. So, for instance, Matthew Henry points out, king and people would then cleave most firmly to each other when both had joined themselves to the Lord. In other words, by covenanting with God, they would be also reaffirming their the significance of his rule over the people and therefore the king whom they had given to him. And that's not just true in government, that a people who are faithful to their God will be faithful to the rulers who have been put over them. But it's also true in all of the spheres. A people who are faithful in their covenants in the church will be better associated with the men who rule over them. And they will, God willing, have wise elders and a wise session and a wise pastor. And they will, both sides, both the session and the people in covenant with God will produce the best relations. It's also true in marriage, isn't it? We make covenants before God with our wives, and wives make them with their husbands, and they stand, and we say before God that we will do these things. We are covenanting with the Lord, and that strengthens the covenant that we make with one another. The covenants were reaffirmed when they were broken. For instance, you remember the people of God in Exodus 24, and as I've said before, You're the night crew. You're the people who I'm going to put the Word of God before. So go ahead and open up your Bibles to Exodus 24, starting with verse 3. We have here the covenanting of God's people that occurred at Mount Sinai. And this is really an extension of the covenant promises, of course, that God had made going all the way back to Abraham. And before that, of course, the covenant of grace in which the Lord had promised that eventually the seed of the woman would crush serpent. But the Lord had said that from Abraham He would raise up a mighty nation. And there is this mighty nation that's been called out of Egypt there at Mount Sinai. And then we read starting in Exodus 24 verse 3, So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words which the Lord has said we will do. And And note when they made that promise, they're not just binding themselves, they're binding their posterity. They're binding those who come after them. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord and he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of Israel. Then he sent young men of the children of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, all that the Lord has said, we will do and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, this is the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you according to all these words. And we see blood as central in all of the covenants that God makes with his people. In this case, Moses took the blood of these animals and sprinkled it on the people. Of course, the blood that's sacrificed there hearkens forward to the blood of the only real covenant keeper. You know, it's sad. You read all the words which the Lord has said we will do, and you want to answer immediately in your head, oh, really? Yeah. They didn't, obviously. The only true covenant keeper, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ. The new covenant that he has kept on our behalf is the one that we depend upon. But again and again, when the people of God, for instance, when they're in the plains of Moab later on in Deuteronomy, They are about to enter into the promised land, and the Lord reminds them again of the covenants that they had made, and again they covenant. Then Moses and the priests and the Levites spoke to all Israel, saying, take heed and listen, O Israel. This day you have become the people of the Lord your God. Therefore, you shall obey the voice of the Lord your God and observe his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today and then after. Joshua is about to lead them into the Promised Land after they pass over. They once again circumcise themselves, those who had not been circumcised in the wilderness, and they swear another national covenant again and again after they fail to keep the commandments of the Lord. They covenant. They say, okay, we're going to once again reemphasize the covenant, the promises that God had made to them, and say, we will be true, we will keep your commandments and do them. They promised to be faithful, but again and again, unfortunately, they failed to keep those covenants. The covenant that was made here in 2 Kings 11, in due time, the people will fail to keep that as well. And so, of course, we needed a true covenant keeper, a better covenant keeper, Hebrews 8.8. Turn there, if you will, and we'll see the identity of the better covenant keeper and the better covenant. But the Lord had promised that the day was coming when there would be a new covenant. There would be a covenant keeper who would keep the promises of God on their behalf. And that, of course, is our Lord and Savior. Here in Hebrews 8, we are seeing quoted Jeremiah, because finding fault with him, he says, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I disregarded them, says the Lord, for this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. I will be their God. and they shall be my people. That's the grand covenant that God makes with his people. And of course, the one who keeps the covenant on our behalf and who keeps the law of God and who forgives us for our sins is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Peter is able to say to the people of God, but you are a chosen generation. This is first Peter two, starting in verse nine, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people. that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." And the wonderful thing about the New Covenant, of course, is it's... My tongue is not working this evening. It's extensiveness, that's the word that I'm looking for. The way that it was not simply given to a particular people in a particular land, but the blessing of the nations, that covenant promise that God had made to Abraham. comes forth with the coming of Jesus Christ. And now those who were not part of the covenant are now included in it. We see that in Ephesians chapter 2. And I would encourage you to open up there, Ephesians chapter 2, this mostly Gentile church. The Lord is rehearsing now the promises of God and what He has done. And He writes, therefore, remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation. That middle wall of separation, incidentally, that's being referred to was a small, it was a kneeling wall, they would have called it, that separated the court of the Gentiles from the court of the women in the temple in Jerusalem. And the point of that wall was it was a warning to Gentiles. Do not cross this wall. There was a warning in three different languages. So they couldn't mistake it because you will be subject to death if you step over it. Because you were strangers. You're Gentiles. You're not part of the chosen people. You're not part of the covenants. But now Paul is saying, God himself has broken down that separation. There was once hostility between you and God, and not just hostility between you and God, but hostility between God and his people. But now you are included in those gracious covenant promises. The covenant of grace has been opened to you. You enter into it. and you become God's covenant people just as much as Jewish Christians are. And now there is no separation between you. Jewish Christians are Christians in the covenant and Gentile Christians are Christians in the covenant. There is no first class citizen, no second class citizen. We are one in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our covenant keeper, the covenant keeper, not just for the Jews, but the covenant keeper for the Israelites. having abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace. Now, when are we reminded of all of these covenants that we have entered into that the Lord keeps on our behalf through the Lord Jesus Christ? When are we reminded of that covenant? We are reminded, I dare say, whenever we come to the table. Once again, we renew the covenant. Where do we do that? In 1 Corinthians 11.25, we read in the same manner, and these are the actions of Jesus. He also took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes." This is a very important thing. It's one of the reasons why we say children should not be, that is infant children, should not be coming to the table. They can't proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. They cannot enter into this conscious covenanting with the Lord. They don't understand the symbology of what's happening here or the symbolism. They don't understand that the bread represents the body of Christ given for them, that the wine represents the blood that was poured out to cleanse away their sins, and they cannot declare the Lord's death. They cannot make that proclamation in faith. When you come to the table, brothers and sisters, you are proclaiming, I am the Lord's and he is mine. We have entered into a covenant, and that because He came near to me. He loved me first, and He graciously extended these covenant promises to me. And my heart being changed, I was full of love to Him, and I accepted them. That's what you're doing when you come to the table. You're once again declaring your fealty to Christ. You're once again bowing the knee before Him. and saying, He is my gracious Savior, the one I love and the one who I know will deliver me safely in heaven. It is because He has kept the covenants on my behalf that I can stand before the Lord. And so coming to the table is not something we can do in ignorance. It's not some quaint little tradition, not a little snack that the Christians have given. It's a symbolic renewal of our covenant, the promises that God has made to us. He reminds us, I did this for you, my child. You are mine. And so they, back to the verses, they are reminded once again that the Lord is their covenant-keeping God, that he has not forgotten them. He delivered them from Athaliah just as he delivered them from Pharaoh. Matthew Henry says, it is well with the people when all the changes that pass over them help to revive, strengthen, and advance the interests of religion among them, and those are likely to prosper who set out in the world under fresh and sensible obligations to God in their duty. By our bonds to God, the bonds of every relation are strengthened. Covenants are of use, both to remind us of and to bind us to those duties which are already binding on us. That's something important to remember. They weren't covenanting to do anything that they weren't supposed to be doing, that they weren't already obliged to do by God. They merely renew. They say, yes. And once again, by symbolically binding themselves within that covenant, they are reminded, this is who we are. This is whom we serve. And this is what we're supposed to do. But that renewal produces then a response within them. Okay, they have just renewed their covenant with Yahweh and their covenant with the king that Yahweh has placed over them. But in the midst of their city is a temple of Baal. That can't stand. So what do the people do? They immediately destroy that temple and then they strike down Matan, the priest of Baal. It is worth noting that there is no purge of the Baalists within Jerusalem. They don't extend the bloodshed beyond him. But they do destroy the temple. They break it down. Since no remnants of the temple of Baal have been found within Jerusalem, it's very likely that unfortunately the Temple of Baal was somewhere within the Temple grounds. And those portions of it were ignominiously carted off and thrown probably into the Valley of Hinnom. So this is the end of Athaliah. This is the end of the false worship that she had instituted in Jerusalem. And wouldn't it be nice if we could simply stamp, and they lived happily ever after, and then moved on. But unfortunately, as we continue on through 2 Kings, we're gonna see that this reformation and this restoration, while it's glorious, while it was occurring, unfortunately, it is self-lived. Now, I do want to give you an application, something that I mentioned before. While we don't have, by God's grace, an actual Queen Athaliah ruling over us and forcing us to worship Baal, there is a tyranny we are all born under, and I don't mean the tyranny of the IRS. What I mean is the tyranny of the devil. We remember this, that the natural man in his fallen estate. gives his allegiance, not to God, unfortunately, but to one who is not worthy of it. Jesus said to the Jews, who were constantly asking him, as we saw this morning, if you're the Christ, tell us plainly. But he explains to them why it is they're not listening to him, and they don't believe in him. He says in John 8, 44, you are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. And it's not just the Jews who are afflicted with that particular tyrant who controlled them, that despot that was over them. It's us as well, brothers and sisters. In Ephesians 2.1, the Lord says, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. Who is that? That is Satan, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Satan's tyranny is an awful tyranny, as bad as Athaliah's tyranny over Judah was, it pales in comparison to the tyranny of the devil. Thomas Watson, whose works I cannot stop recommending to you. In fact, if you're gonna read one Puritan in the year coming, please pick up something that Thomas Watson has written. The Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, Body of Divinity, any of these things, Doctrine of Repentance, pick them up and read them. Watson is easily the most approachable, the most understandable, and I believe the most wonderfully homiletical of all of the Puritans. But he writes this about Satan's kingdom. He says, Satan's kingdom is a kingdom of slavery. He makes all his subjects slaves. The sinner is held captive under the grim tyranny of the devil. Satan is a usurper and a tyrant. He is a worse tyrant than any other. Other tyrants do but rule over the body, but Satan's kingdom rules over the soul. He rides some men as we do upon horses. Other tyrants have some pity on their slaves. Though they make them work in the galleys, yet they give them meat and let them have their hours for rest. But Satan is a merciless tyrant who gives his slaves poison instead of meat and hate, hurtful lusts to feed on. Nor will he let his slaves have any rest. He hires them out to do his drudgery. They weary themselves to commit iniquity. When the devil had entered into Judas, he sent him to the high priest and from thence to the garden and never let him rest till he had betrayed Christ and hanged himself. Thus he is the worst of tyrants. When men have served him to their utmost strength, he welcomes them to hell with fire and brimstone. I remember, or I hope you remember as well, that moment where Christian in Pilgrim's Progress is fleeing from the city of destruction, and he meets Apollyon, that is the devil upon the king's highway, and the devil attempts to turn him back, to go back to the city of destruction. And he says, you're my citizen, you come from my land, and if you return, I will give you twice your wages. What is the wages of sin, brothers and sisters? Death. The devil is offering double death. But how many people say deal and go back? How many have started on the way and yet listened to the devil's temptations and turned back? And it's not just, you know, it would be so easy if Apollyon were to appear before us, you know, with fire gushing from his belly, you know. Go back to the city of destruction. Not that dumb. And not do that. But that's not how he comes to us. He comes to us clad as an angel of light and says, turn back. And we go back to the tyranny and the misrule. He always allures us with things that seem tempting. He says, this is sweet. Sin is sweet is the way he puts it, but it's poison and it kills us. There are many, Many young ones who've set out with their parents upon that road who unfortunately are turned aside into bypass, by flatterers and seducers and deceivers. People who, as soon as they get to Vanity Fair, decide, hey, this is where I want to live. All of this stuff, all of these temptations, these baubles, these honors, the things of this present world, not considering what comes afterwards if they live for the rest of their lives under Satan's tyranny. You must dethrone him. And the only one who can do that for you is the true King, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's only if he rules in your heart that you will not be overtaken by that particular tyrant. So I love what one particular commentator says, lift up the true king and all other tyrannies will look bleak and intolerable by contrast. When Jesus said, and I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself, he was primarily referring to his death. on the cross. He is the one who has died for you. He is the one who loves you. He is the one who sets his precious promises, his covenants before you, and says, these will be freely yours. Take my yoke upon you. It's light and easy to bear. And he breaks from our shoulders the heavy yoke of Satan. That's the thing, Satan promises freedom and gives us only chains. Jesus says, take my yoke, which is a symbol of bondage normally, and it gives us freedom. To be in Christ is to be free indeed. And so I pray that if you have lived up to the end of 2024 under the tyranny of Satan, or perhaps are considering returning to the city of destruction, that this be the end of that. that you declare for Christ and that you come to him truly, that you bow the knee and call him your Lord and your Savior. Let's pray that he would do that work. God, our Father, I do pray now, Lord, that you would change hearts that have lived too long under a tyranny far worse than that of Queen Athaliah, that of Diabolus, the devil. Oh, Lord, we pray for those who are yet under his dominion and his sway. Lord, I pray that you would open their eyes to see what the end of it is and that causing them to repent of their sins, they would turn and they would flee to you and know the refuge, the safety, the love and the wonder that come from serving Christ. Help us also, Lord, not to take vacations in the city of destruction, not to go back to old sins, besetting sins. Let us put them away from us. And oh Lord, may it be that we follow you with new grace and a new desire to fulfill your commandments, knowing that we will never do so perfectly. There is only one who ever could. His name is Jesus. But, oh Lord, help us out of love to him to keep his commandments. We pray this in Jesus' holy name. Amen.