Well, tonight, if you would turn to 2 Kings 14, we'll be looking at verses 1 through 22. I also want to say I will be referring several times in this sermon to 2 Chronicles 25 as well, because 2 Chronicles 25 actually gives us a more in-depth study on the life of Amaziah, the subject of tonight's text in history. And as we look at this particular passage, I'm going to ask you a question. I often do that. The question tonight is, what are you a fan of? Now, you might have a favorite sports team. Those that go to my house know I have one. You might have a certain hobby. It might be anything from reading to cooking to bowling or to whatever it might be. You might be a fan of a particular kind of food. Maybe you like Italian food or maybe you like sushi or something like that. Maybe you're a fan of those things or a fan of a particular type of entertainment or a particular company or a particular movement in our society. Whatever it is, if you know anything about the term fan, fan is short for fanatic. Fanatic, we often say, is someone who is crazy and is sold out or zealous for someone or something. In one sense, God desires for us to be a fanatic, not half-hearted, but devout followers, whom the world would consider crazy because we are not half-hearted in doing so, but we are completely devoted to the Lord God. Unfortunately, that is not the case for this king tonight. His name is Amaziah. He's the son of Joash. Remember, Joash was the boy king. He became king at seven years old. And as time went by and his mentor died, it turns out that his faith was just on the outside and on the inside. When his mentor died, he turned to evil. And Amaziah is his son. Let's read what the scriptures say about this king. Chapter 14, in the second year of Joash, the son of Joahaz, king of Israel, Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, began to reign. He was 25 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jehoadim of Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not like David, his father. He did in all things as Joash, his father, had done. But the high places were not removed. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. And as soon as the royal power was firmly in his hand, he struck down his servant, so it struck down the king, his father. But he did not put to death the children of the murderers, according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses, where the Lord commanded, fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers, but each one shall die for his own sin. He struck down 10,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt and took Sila by storm and called it Jocphil, which is its name to this day. Then Amaziah sent messengers to Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, Come, let us look one another in the face. And Jehoash, king of Israel, sent word to Amaziah, king of Judah, a thistle on Lebanon, sent to a cedar on Lebanon, saying, Give your daughter to my son for a wife. And a wild beast of Lebanon passed by and trampled down the thistle. You have indeed struck down Edom, and your heart has lifted you up. Be content with your glory and stay at home, for why should you provoke trouble so that you fall, you and Judah with you?' But Amaziah would not listen. So Jehoash king of Israel went up, and he and Amaziah king of Judah faced one another in battle at Beth Shemesh, which belongs to Judah. And Judah was defeated by Israel, and every man fled to his home. And Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Jehoash, son of Ahaziah at Beth Shemesh, and came to Jerusalem and broke down the wall of Jerusalem for 400 cubits. from the Ephraim gate to the corner gate, and he seized all the gold and silver and all the vessels that were found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasuries of the king's house, also hostages, and he returned to Samaria. Now the rest of the acts of Jehoash that he did in his might, and how he fought with Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And Jehoash slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. And Jeroboam, his son, reigned in his place. Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, lived 15 years after the death of Jehoash, son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel. Now the rest of the deeds of Amaziah are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? And they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. They sent after him to Lachish and put him to death there. And they brought him on horses. And he was buried in Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David. And all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was 16 years old, and made him king instead of his father, Amaziah. He built Elath and restored it to Judah after the king slept with his fathers. As we consider this reading of God's word, let us bow briefly in prayer. Lord, help us to learn what you would have us learn from this scripture. For all of your word is true, shall never fall away, shall not come back void, but is eternal. Lord, I pray that what his son said here, done here, thought here, would be pleasing in your sight, would be consistent with your word or else pass away, never to be heard from again, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. So I want to ask you, which is better? There's an either or here. Is it better to live in an area in which folks generally deny to be Christians, or is it better to live in an area where folks generally claim to be Christians but show no evidence? There are a huge number of people now who claim to be Christians but do not commit to a church. There are a record number who call themselves evangelical Christians, but if you were to ask them on any given Sunday, they would come to a higher percentage of saying they did not attend worship than that they did. You would find that they don't know or regularly read the Bible. You would also find that they don't really have much of a prayer life. And then their beliefs, for some reason, don't seem to be consistent with the Word of God. We have Christian institutions. We have Christian businesses. We have Christian radio stations. We have Christian schools. We have all kinds of Christian institutions, and many of them are filled with individuals who don't go to worship, don't read their Bibles, don't know the Lord, and don't live a life consistent with these things. There are those who will say, I look at the church, I'm totally blown away by the fact that the church looks no different from the world. Is this what God wants us to be? Just those who have a half heartedness regarding the Lord and his word? I don't think so. In fact, here we'll find what happens to half heartedness. In this passage, we'll see Amaziah's half-hearted obedience. We will see his half-hearted victory. And we will look at the half-hearted loyalty of the people to this half-hearted king. First of all, half-hearted obedience. Here's Amaziah. It always sounds so good right at the beginning of the chapter and these three successive kings, first Joash, now Amaziah, later on his son Uzziah. All of them, it gives us little ditty at the beginning. It says, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And we want to say that's wonderful. Here is one of the good kings of Judah. Israel didn't have any of them. Judah just has a few of them. And yet when I open up on my computer a chart, from one of the Bible apps of the computer age, I can find a chart of the kings of Israel and Judah, and I can see a list of the kings of Judah, and it has two categories. How did they start, and how did they end? And these three kings, all grandfather, father, son, all three of them, it says they started out good, and they finished evil. How can that be? Well, notice what it says here. First of all, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not like David his father, he did in all things as Joash his father had done. He was just like his daddy. His daddy was Joe Ash. Remember Joe Ash? Joe Ash, of course, the boy king. He starred out so wonderfully. He was involved in reconstructing or repairing the temple and repairing the worship process that went on there. They were giving the gifts to the repairing of the temple. As long as the mentor that he had, the priest, was alive, then he was wonderful. The people loved him, and on the outside, at least, it looked like he was going to once again turn the kingdom around. But as soon as his mentor died, it became obvious that Joash really didn't believe any of that stuff about the Lord. In fact, so much so that the son of his mentor, a prophet named Zechariah, came to call him out for what he was doing against the will of God, and he had him put to death. This was the example that Amaziah had. Amaziah had this example, and his obedience was just like his daddy. But because it was just like his daddy, we find out it was not like David. David, we're told in scripture, despite his sin, despite his unworthiness, was still a man after God's own heart. You see, when God sent a prophet to David, David didn't have that prophet killed. David listened to the prophet, his heart was convicted, and he turned from his sin and asked for forgiveness. You see here, this man did not have the faith of David. He did all things just as his father had done. Of course, what did his father do? Unlike David, his heart was not completely devoted to the Lord. Verse four tells us this great warning. We see it again and again, so much so that we might look over it and we might say this is normal for Judah, but it should not be the norm for the people of God. The high places were not removed. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. In other words, he's saying the high places were not removed. What were these high places? These were the places where they were worshiping, where they weren't supposed to worship, often to gods that had nothing to do with the God of scriptures. They were to idols, or even if they were not to idols, God had told them at this point in time they were to worship at the temple in Jerusalem with the Levitical priests under the system that God had put in place. But instead, there were those who said, well, I know better than God. I want to do my own thing. The high places were not removed. And what did the people do? They continued to sacrifice there. The sacrifices were to be for the people of God in the place of his choosing so that these sacrifices and the shedding of blood would cover the sins of the people, at least temporarily. And yet these people thought they knew better and could sacrifice in their own way, in their own place. So this king allowed that to take place in his land, even though on the outward appearance, he appeared to be following God's way and were doing right things, but in the inside of his country, he's allowing syncretism, that is, allowing false religion as well as the true religion. We're also reminded of the trouble of the times. His father, because of the way that he acted later in life, there was a conspiracy against him, the people did not like him, and his own servants put him to death, and that's what put Amaziah into office. Verse five tells us, as soon as the royal power was firmly in Amaziah's hand, he struck down his servants who had struck down the king's father. Of course, this is a natural thing to do, even King David. when the man, the king, the wicked king, the one that was rebelling against David's anointing, the son of Saul, when he rose up and he was assassinated, even though David knew God had anointed him king, yet he said, how dare you strike down the Lord's anointed? And so he put to death those who had struck down the king. So here's the right thing to do. He did not put to death the children of the murderers according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses, where the Lord commanded, this is from Deuteronomy 24, 16, fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers, but each one shall die for his own sin. Ezekiel 18 also gives us that principle. You won't die, you won't be responsible before God for the sins of your children or the sins of your parents. It's only your sin. So on this outward adherence to the law, Amaziah then is doing what looks to be a very good thing. He has executed, or by capital punishment here, for the crime of the assassination of the king of the line of David over Judah, He has these murderers executed. But as the law commands, which was not the practice of the nations around them, which was not even the practice of King Jehu in Israel, who not just took one or two individuals, but everybody, not only everybody in the line of Ahab that God wanted him to execute, but all of the people who followed Baal and all What does this remind you of? Maybe it reminds you of the rule keeper. Some of us in this room probably are rule keepers. We love to keep the rules and we know them. And I have to say there are times when I look at certain rules and I want those rules to be followed. And some of you might be those great rule keepers that go to the extra mile, not only to make sure that you're following the rules, but that everybody else around you is following the rules. You know, people don't often like rule keepers very well sometimes. because they don't like to follow rules. It's not that following rules is unimportant. It's not that they should not like rule keepers because they're asking them to follow the rules. It's because people don't like to follow the rules. But here what often happens is we get so caught up in the rules that sometimes the rule keeper forgets about the other side of following Jesus. And that is the heart commitment. It's not just the appearance, it's not just the devotion of following all the rules, although we should follow all those rules, but it's about our heart coming to worship and enjoy the living God. In fact, the first catechism question in our particular tradition from the Westminster Standards is this, what is it that we're supposed to do? We're supposed to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Now if we get so caught up in the rules, sometimes it's hard to enjoy things. And sometimes if we get so caught up in who's following the rules or who's not following the rules, sometimes it becomes about who's following the rules rather than about the Lord who made the rules. And so the rule keeper, the preeminent rule keeper, is often someone who has no heart for the Lord, not in every case. And rule keepers, often rule keepers who are devoted to the Lord, they know, they know their propensities and they know what they struggle with and they still have a love for the Lord. But there are some rule keepers who are so caught up about the rules that they don't even know the Lord. and they have no hope heart for them. This is the appearance here of Amaziah at the beginning of his reign. On the one hand, he's keeping to the letter, this rule about not putting to death those who had not been accomplices in the execution of his father. But on the other hand, he's allowing the people to worship however they want with syncretism. It's half-hearted obedience. Then by verse seven, We find out he has a great victory. Now, 2 Chronicles chapter 25 gives us even more details. This is a great victory over Edom. Edom, by this time, they rebelled under a previous king named Joram. This great victory over Edom, we're told in 2 Chronicles, the king noted, Amaziah noted the might of his military. In fact, it's told that he has 300,000 crack soldiers. In other words, he has a great force to take off to Edom. Not only that, but the scriptures tell us in 2 Chronicles that he also intended to hire 100,000 mighty or men of valor from Israel. So he has 300,000 of his own soldiers. He has another 100,000 that he's hiring as mercenaries from Israel. And a prophet comes to him and says, don't take those 100,000 people. And he obeys him. He says, what am I supposed to do? I've already paid them a hundred talents, an enormous sum of money. He says, I've already paid them to come to battle with us. And the prophet says, send them home. And Amaziah looks like he's going to be such a great king because he sends them home. Having paid them, he sends them. So he's obedient to this prophetic rebuke, probably a rebuke here to say, don't rely upon another nation for victory, especially the nation Israel, who has turned away from me. And it was served the gods that Jeroboam, son of Nebat, has put up. And so what happens? He has this complete victory. Verse 7 and 2 Kings 14 says he struck down 10,000 Edomites in the valley of salt. Second Chronicles tells us he not only killed 10,000 of those soldiers in battle that his military did, but they had another 10,000 individuals they took up on the big rock, probably near the town which was known as Petra, and they threw them off the cliff. 20,000 people killed. Now they were once again in power over this nation, Edom. He had a complete victory in that sense. Things look good. Here was a king who was a rule keeper, who was a king who followed a prophet. Here was a king who the Lord gave a great victory to. Everything looks so wonderful. But then what happens? Verses eight and following this big section of the life of Amaziah tells us there was a great humiliation before Israel. Why? Well, here were the reasons for the hostilities. The first was, there were hostilities by provocation. Why did he just suddenly decide he wanted to fight Israel? He had tried to hire them before. Well, 2 Chronicles, it tells us that those 100,000 soldiers that were sent home to Israel, on their way home, what they did was, they raided and plundered the cities of Judah and killed 3,000 people. And they took with them plunder back to Israel. So here he had obeyed God in sending them home and God permitted them to do this horrible atrocity upon Judah. So there's this provocation of the plunder by these mercenaries. And then when he decided he was gonna do something about it, he went to the king of Israel and he says, let's face each other face to face. This was basically saying, let's go to war. And, of course, Jehoash is the king by this point. He's no saint either. He's someone who is rather insignificant as a ruler. And all he does is do the same thing that all the other kings of Israel did. That is, they worshiped other gods and not the true God of Israel. And he says this strange saying about the thistle on the cedar. And the thistle saying, give your daughter to my son for a wife. And then after a period of time, the wild beast comes by and steps on the thistle. Now, what is he talking about? We could turn back to the Book of Judges and look at the speech of Jotham that is very similar to this. He's basically saying this, you think that you're a very mighty nation. But let me tell you, If you think you're so mighty and you think that you're going to be able to conquer me, let me tell you, you're so insignificant that somebody is just going to step on you and squash you like a bug. So instead of a soft answer to turn away wrath, Jehoash here gives an answer that provokes Amaziah and so Amaziah by now is even more intent on facing off Israel And so he's given this advice and by the end of it verse 10 It says this you have indeed struck down Edom and your heart has lifted you up be content with your glory and stay at home for why should you provoke trouble so that you fall you and Judah with you you see Perhaps even unknowingly, Jehoahaz has hit on one of the keys to the life of Amaziah. It's prideful. These were hostilities not only by provocation, but by pride. Evidently, scriptures indicate for us that this great victory that the Lord gave him over Edom He began to take credit for the victory and was prideful about it. He probably was looking upon those crack 300,000 troops and saying how wonderful his military might was, how great his strategy was, how an amazing victory took place because he was the commander-in-chief. He was taking credit for the victory, but the other thing that we're not told in 2 Kings and we're told directly in 2 Chronicles is this. When he had the victory over Edom, he went and he took the gods of Edom and he set them up in Judah and worshiped these gods. In fact, 2 Chronicles were told that a prophet was sent to Amaziah saying, here these gods could not save their own people. Why are you coming and setting them up and worshiping them as your own gods? And we are reminded here As he turned to these gods of Edom, the hostilities of this war coming up were, as it says, of God. They were by punishment. These hostilities, yes, by provocation. Why did God allow that provoking to take place was because it was exposing the pride in the heart of Amaziah and the punishment for his sin of idolatry. And of course, what were the results? He's defeated. It's a humiliating defeat. Not only is he defeated, they capture Amaziah and they bring some other hostages with them. You know, this is one of the unique times up to this point, the first time that anybody in Judah goes into exile anywhere. Here is the king and some others going to exile just to Israel here in the north. And they're plundered. Not only this, but the king of Israel. Remember, they've already gotten, their soldiers have gotten 100 talents for a battle they did not fight. They had plundered the people of Judah on their way home and killed 3,000 men. Now they also had come and defeated Judah so that they also went in and knocked down the wall of Jerusalem for 600 feet. A cubit, after all, is 18 inches. So here, for 600 feet, they've knocked down the wall of Jerusalem, and they've also taken Beth Shemesh, probably to encourage a pathway to control the region economically for a period of time. Complete humiliation. It's all because he's been a half-hearted victor. You see, here he is. He's given a great victory by the Lord. Edom is destroyed. Complete and total victory. Reversing some of the policies and some of the history that has taken place in recent years. It looks like now they have a king who's finally gonna do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, but instead he's turned to false gods. And he's lost everything. This is the prideful churchgoer, isn't it? Amaziah knows who the Lord is. He's heard all the things about his father and his grandfather before him. He's heard how they started so well. He's heard the things about the true God of Israel. But he's claiming credit for the victories of the Lord. You know the ones. They say, well, God answered my prayer because I prayed hard enough. God is working in my life because I've worked so hard on my own sanctification. I've done it with gusto. The gifts that God has given me, I've used them. And look how effective I am. Look at what I've done. And often out of their mouth comes all the things that they think they have accomplished by serving God. This is the prideful churchgoer. But what happens to this prideful churchgoer? There are many victories that have come into his life. He's seen things that have happened in powerful and wonderful ways, but he thinks that he's the instrument of these things because he's faithful enough, he's good enough, he's using God's gifts enough. And it becomes not about Jesus, it becomes about himself. So that when somebody hears him, he always hears I, I, I, and not Christ, Christ, Christ. This is the half-hearted victor. What happens to half-hearted obedience and half-hearted victors? Well, they're given half-hearted loyalty. Here's what happened. Verses 15 and 16, they just tell us a recap of the life of the king of Israel, Jehoash, the one who conquered Judah. But then verse 17 picks up with the life of Amaziah. Says he lived 15 years after the death of Jehoash, son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel. Now the rest of the deeds of Amaziah are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? And they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem and he fled to Lachish. But they sent after him to Lachish and put him to death there. And they brought him on horses and he was buried in Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David. In fact, 2 Chronicles 25 said that this conspiracy This conspiracy actually started from the time he turned from Yahweh. In other words, it wasn't the last 15 years in which he outlived Jehoash. In fact, it was right after the victory over Eden when he brought these idols back to the nation of Judah and began to worship him. From that time forth, in his reign, he began to have this conspiracy formed against him. So much so that when we compile all the numbers and years of the reigns of the king of Judah, we run into this problem. If he really reigned all this time, it doesn't fit. In fact, the best thing that we can come up with is that actually when he turned from these things and this conspiracy started, it was at that point that the people put his son in charge. And so there was a co-regency for the last 25 years of his reign. So from the time he came back and turned from the living God to these idols, what had happened was the people themselves recognized how wicked and evil that was so that there were those around him who perhaps may have been faithful to God or perhaps just didn't like what was going on. They formed a conspiracy against him and they said, hey, let's put his son in charge, Azariah or Isaiah. The same king with two different names. So for the last 25 years of his reign, it appears that his son, at age 16, began to reign as his co-regent. In the last 15 years, what happens? It's almost like a second chance. You know, he's captured, and it seems to be for years, he's living in Samaria as a hostage of the king. While his son, evidently, was put in charge in Judah. And now he's given a break. The king dies. The king of Israel dies. And Amaziah is allowed, evidently, to go back to Jerusalem. We find him there. And for those last 15 years, he would think, wouldn't he turn back? Wouldn't he, after everything has happened, turn back to God? After he realized the fruits of half-hearted devotion to God, surely he would turn back to God, but no. Instead, he lived in fear during these last 15 years. because this conspiracy gained him the idea that I need to leave Jerusalem and go to Lachish. Lachish was the military center, the defense center, the fort of the kingdom of Judah. It was the place where the chariots and the horses were kept. It was the place where military was prevalent. And it was a place where they would deploy the troops from that area. And he went there out of fear. when he suffered the fate of his father. His father was killed by his own servants, and here the same thing happens. Some of his own servants follow him to Lakish, and they put him to death because of his wickedness. And then his son reigns. What a sad story. In the end, what has happened is really death by half-heartedness. And I thought here, what was that like? Maybe it's like the saint by inheritance. The guy who believes he's saved because his parents were saved. You know how it is. They rely not upon their own walk with the Lord, not upon their own personal repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. They rely upon the faith of their father. He said, well, my parents were Christians. I grew up in the church. I have all the privileges of the church. I wasn't ever anything except a Christian. And so, therefore, I know that I have no things to worry about. In the end, because of the faith of my parents and my tradition and my heritage, I will be saved. The saint by inheritance will get exactly what he deserves. It won't be the fate of conspiracy that kills him. It will be the fate for all those who don't truly believe in Jesus Christ. You see, what do the scriptures tell us about our faithfulness, about half hearted devotion? It tells us that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. It tells us where to be a new creature in Christ. We're going to have a transformed mind. Our actions are to be redeemed so that wholeheartedness only empowered by the Holy Spirit. Because we cannot be wholehearted without the Holy Spirit. We will always struggle with a divided heart because of our sin nature. But in the end, our commitment is to the Lord. Is to him because he has saved us. Let's bow in prayer. Father, I know there are many times in my life someone could have looked at me and said, you are just a half-hearted, half-devoted follower of Jesus. Lord, change my heart. Lord, we pray that you will help us to be fully committed to you, to be those who want to come to worship you, to be those who want to be in your presence, to be those who give the credit of all things to you and not to ourselves. Lord, help us not to have pride, Help us, Lord, not to be those who are simply rule keepers but not heart devoted followers. Help us, Lord, to be devoted to you, for you are the God of the universe.