As you can see, the message is entitled, A Tale of Three Women. The Lord Protects the Davidic Covenant. And we're taking our text primarily from verses 10 and 11. And again, I'll read that. And I'm reading from the English Standard Version in 1 2 Chronicles 22. It says in verse 10, now when Ataliah, The mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead. She arose and destroyed all the royal family of the house of Judah, verse 11. But Yehoshabat, the daughter of the king, took Yoash, the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king's sons who were about to be put to death. And she put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Thus Yehoshabat, the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of Jehoiada, the priest, because she was a sister of Ahaziah, hid him from Ataliah so that she did not put him to death. That's the word of the Lord, who most certainly had his abundant blessing to the reading of his holy truth. And let us go before the Lord in prayer. Most blessed and gracious Father in God, that I seek your power to be able to speak your word, and I ask that not just for my sake, but also for the sake of the hearts and the souls, the hearing ears of your congregation. That as we're here to worship you, Lord, through the exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we ask, Father, that in doing so, with an audience of one, yourself, that We know that your abounding blessing will come forth as you give us attentive ears to hear and faithful eyes to see. And we may glean from even this portion of scripture of history from many years ago. We ask Father that you will give us application from it that we may lead our daily lives from your word, and that also, Lord, more importantly, that Christ will be exalted in your word, that we may be the people of God. In Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. So these 12 verses, as far as a breakdown of the chapter, I know that attempts to follow the details can get confusing. 1st and 2nd Kings is like that, 1st and 2nd Chronicles also. Chronicles is a little easier since it basically follows the kings of Judah, whereas in 1st Kings and 2nd Kings, it goes back and forth between the northern kingdom in Israel after the split and the southern kings of Judah. Many names are familiar. Right around this time period, many names are familiar in them. I sometimes, I made up a cheat sheet when we were in Kings to try to keep them straight. Because sometimes when I think I got them straight, and there were times when I was younger, I did have it down. I could tell you which Ahaziah or Achziah was, because there were two Ahaziahs. There was one in Israel at the same time, Ahaziah for the one year in Judah. was king. And we have an overlap among the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah. And in Israel, you had Omri and Ahab. There's also Tibni in there, but I'm not even gonna throw that in there, because he was a rebel, who tried to usurp Omri. But Omri was the father of Ahab. And during their reign in the Northern Empire, in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, there was Asa, He reigned from 911 to 870. And then Ahab and Ahaziah, his son, and Jehoram, his son, reigned in Israel while Jehoshaphat reigned in 873 to 848. And we covered that in 2 Chronicles. Jehoram in the north reigned during Jehoram in the south and Ahaziah in the south. From 853 to 841 is when Jehoram in Judah reigned. And then Ahaziah in 841, he reigned for one year. And that's who we're reading about in 2 Chronicles chapter 22. Wicked Jehoram in Judah died with a two year bowel disease as we read last week in 2 Chronicles chapter 21 and verse 19. And so, yeah, even with me saying that to you, there's probably a deer-in-the-headlamps look with, oh, man. Unless you get yourself a piece of graph paper, which I recommend that you do. Get a piece of graph paper and line them out, and it's fun, and you'll see, oh, okay, these are how the guys are settled. And as we see the empires unfolding, there's a lot of gospel illustrations there. Now, as far as for the breakdown of the chapter, In 2nd Kings we see a parallel, 2nd Kings chapter eight verses 25 through chapter nine verse 29, a parallel of what is going on here. Ahaziah reigns in Judah and this rascal is crowned king in verses one through four after Jehoram or also, and see another thing that's confusing, Jehoram is also called Joram. Not just the one in the south, but the one in the north because, you know, Like every good Jew, you have two names and three opinions. So there we go. He's crowned king in verses one through four. And the Arabians killed all the older brothers as we read last week after 21 in verse 17. And in verse two, this is very interesting, because if you have the English Standard Version, it says that he was, Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began to reign. The King James Version says 40 and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign. And what is the difference there? Well, some commentators will suggest that For example, John MacArthur says it's a quote, copyist error. And he might be right. Some others say that Matthew Henry says that the 42 years he's speaking of the mother of Ahaziah, which may not have been Athaliah. I think that Athaliah was, it may have been one of the other mothers, but that's still a stretch. And as far as Matthew Henry, that might be true. My own idea, this is what I'm gonna give you. I suspect that it actually is 42 there. And second King says that he's 22 years old, which is his actual age. But God allowed for it to stay in there, even if it is a copious error, for his own purposes. And I have some inklings of why it might be, but I haven't been able to grow the whole idea so I totally understand it yet. But I'll just leave that with you. I suspect that, I believe that in the Hebrew scriptures, because of what we have, what's called the Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is as God wants it. He is a sovereign God and he put it together. And if there's something that looks like there's an error, I think it's something that's drawing our attention to something else God's doing. Because he maketh, as it says, he maketh no mistakes. So that's just my opinion, and we'll leave it at that. In verses five through nine, we have the ruin of two kings by God's design in his providence. We have in verse five, Ahaziah confederates with Jehoram, king of Israel, in order to battle Haziel, the king of the Syrians at Ramoth Gilead. And so he joins with them. And this is something that we've already read through 2 Chronicles. Jehoshaphat, he confederates with Israel. And then his son, Jehoram, confederates with Israel. Now it's gotten, they're deep into Israel by this, especially with the influence of Ataliah. who we find out is Omri's granddaughter, Ahab's daughter. She is an idolater that is probably, in my humble opinion, more wicked than Jezebel. Jezebel is considered by many Bible scholars the worst of the worst. I tend to lean towards Ataliah, even though there's not as much said about her. She's so, in fact, my theory is, she is so wicked, God doesn't want you to know how wicked she was. He told you how wicked Jezebel was. Ataliah, he says, she's so wicked, I'm not even gonna tell you everything about her. And we'll see a little bit more of her next time when we get to 2 Chronicles 23. So there's a confederation in verse six, Jehoram is wounded and flees to Jezreel. And being in Jezreel, Ahaziah goes to visit him to bring comfort to him. Oh, the king in Israel, he's my brother. Let me go check on him and see how he's doing. But most of you, if you remember Jehu in second Kings chapter, Nine, Elisha the prophet is told by Jehovah God to go to Yehu, go to him and give him a message. So he sends, Elisha sends his messenger to him and knocks on the door. He's around, he's a general in Israel in the Northern Kingdom. He's like Ahab's right hand man. but they're having like a card game or something. They're out around with some of the other captains and under generals. And so the guy, so Elisha's servant comes in in 2 Kings 9, says, I have a word for you. So they go into a private room and Elisha's servant anoints him with oil and says, thus says Yehovah God, that you will be king. in place of Ahab and that you will be the destruction of Ahab and so forth. And so he anoints him with oil and then runs out because Jehu's looking at him like, oh, maybe Jehu's gonna kill me. So he runs out. And when Jehu comes out of this room, all the commanders, well, what was going on? What was this weird thing that was happening? He says, ah, you know how these babblers are. They just say some things. Well, what did he say? Well, he says, I'm gonna be king. And they all bow down to him. And so Jehu, he said, well, let's go ahead and bring this to pass. And Jehu ends up, you know, he starts riding towards Jezreel and messengers are sent out from the king. They go, is it peace, Jehu? What have you to do with peace? You get behind me. And so instead of coming back as a messenger, they ride behind Jehu, a second messenger comes out. Well, anyway, These things take place with Jehu's life in 2 Kings 9. He ends up killing Jehoram, undoing that house. He ends up killing Ahaziah, who is there. He meets with a council of men from Judah, Ahaziah's brother, and they say, yeah, go ahead. It's like he gets permission in order to go ahead and kill Ahaziah, because he's wicked. And we see in 2 Chronicles, that it was by God's design. It says in verse seven, but it was ordained by God that the downfall of Ahaziah should come about through his going to visit Jehoram. And then in 2 Kings, then he goes and kills Jezebel just as Elijah before Elisha prophesied that she would be the downfall of her, the dogs would lick her blood and that nothing would be left of her but really to bury. And so that whole thing was going on as Isaiah dies. So Athaliah, she rises up as we see as destruction loomed over the house of David in verse 10. And she intends to wipe out the Davidic dynasty according to Matthew Henry's commentary. And perhaps set up her own. and restore Ahab in the south, because since Ahab has died, Jezebel is put to death by Jehu. Well, she's so wicked, let's just bring Ahab's dynasty down here, because she is, after all, the daughter of Ahab, the granddaughter of Omri. But divine providence saves one son alive in verses 11, 11 and 12. Athaliah, She kills all the sons but one, but Joash is taken by Yoshabat, and she takes the nurse also, this is the third woman who's unnamed, takes her, puts them in one of the bedrooms. Now, remember that the temple in that day had many rooms. If you read Ezekiel, in the latter chapters of Ezekiel, it gives dimensions and so forth, and we recognize that there were, in fact, even the prophecies speak of a lot of wickedness that was taking place in some of the chambers many years later. But in those other rooms, there were plenty other rooms and there's probably a room that the nursemaid could be there. And she was there for six years until Joseph's about seven years old. And that's how we know that because the next chapter we'll see that he's seven years old. So he's about, he's one year old when he's taken, he's kept for six years. So he's seven years old when he does reign as king and is anointed king in the next chapter in chapter 23. So where does this lead us? Well, I'm glad you asked, because I'm gonna tell you. The blessing emphasized from our primary text. Now, we have three women here, two of them named Athaliah and Yehoshabbat. And in 2 Kings, her name is Yehoshavah. So her name means Yehovah swears or Yehovah gives an oath. And Yehoshabbat means pretty much oaths plural or swears plural. And not swear as in a bad word, swear as in a promise. And then there's the unnamed nurse. And I would present the unnamed nurse as just being part of Yehoshabat's character and having the same character of Yehoshabat. So we see the wicked traits first of Ataliah. In chapter 21, verse six, this is where we first get an inkling of who she is. Her husband was Jehoram. And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done. For the daughter of Ahab was his wife, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. This is, you know, that the high places we spoke of in the last couple chapters that Asa, king of Judah, would tear them down and people would build them up again and tear them down and they'd be built up. Yehoshaphat, same thing, they'd be torn down and built up again. See, the high places were, it was a most insidious type of idolatry. Because it wasn't just building idols where they worship. sexual immorality was going on as we read last week in 2 Chronicles 21. Because these gods, they thought that they might stimulate their activity in their worship through their fornication. Just to put it simply, that their sexual immorality was a part so that if they got the gods excited, then they would be blessed. And this is what was so insidious about this. And she, through her husband and her influence to her children, apparently her children weren't as influenced as her husband was or as the one son, Ahaziah was. So by the time that Ahaziah comes along, you know, she kills all the others. Why? Because they more than likely weren't worshiping Baal worship and doing the harlotry, the adultery, the sinful, perverse practices against Yehovah God. They weren't doing that. And so maybe that's why she had them killed, which is what we see. First, she's idolatrous and the perversions of the high places with all the sexual immorality that's going on. Then she's selfishly ambitious, which we see in chapter 22, verse 10. This is more than likely these other sons of hers, some of them either through her or through others, were not worshiping as she would like. Now when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the family of the house of Judah. When she saw he was dead, her hopes of raising an idolatrous nation may have been dashed. So she is selfishly ambitious by wanting the kingdom for herself. And the second part of it, second part of verse 10, we see how she is murderous. We looked at a passage just last Sunday night from James 3, verses 14 to 16. It says, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. Verse 15 says, this is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. And you can almost take those verses from James 3 and verse 15 and apply them to these three characteristics of Athaliah. She's idolatrous, which is earthly. She is selfishly ambitious, which is unspiritual. And that she's murderous, which is outright demonic. And then verse 16 of James 3 says, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there will be disorder and every vile practice. And so in the New Testament, if you take that and kind of fill that in between the lines, you can understand how corrupt had Judah become at this particular point in its history. We're looking at, but six generations from Solomon, seven generations from David, and from David who was a man after God's own heart in seven generations, it had completely fallen into religious immorality. It should be sobering for us. But wonderfully, there is a God-fearing Yehoshabat there whom God had raised. You know, he destroyed, God destroyed the entire planet with a flood and saved eight souls alive, Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives. Now they come to one. And though there are many righteous there, there's Jehoshabat, there's the nursemaid, there's Jehoiada, the priest, who is Jehoshabat's husband. And we see this godly character in order to preserve one son so that the covenant that God made with David, Messiah would come through that line, that God is faithful to that covenant. And it brings us great application for our lives as well. But looking at this first, this God-fearing woman, that she feared the Lord in chapter 22, verse 11, the first part of it. And in your notes, it says verse 11A, it should read verse 11A,D, because the last part of verse 11 also applies to this of her fearing God. She is the daughter of the king. And it says it two times. It says it in verse 11A, 11 towards the end. And Yehoshabat the daughter of King Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest, because she was sister of Achaziah, and she hid him from Ataliah, so they did not put him to death. And because it's coupled with that, with being married to Jehoiada the priest, being at the beginning and the end, We see Yehoshabat married Yehoya to the priest according to the high priest, according to John Gill's commentary, and also according to Kyle and Delitch, their commentary that he is the high priest. And his name Yedah means to know and Yeho is Yehovah, is short for Yehovah. So Yehol Yedah means Yehovah knows. And this is who is said to be the high priest. You could just write this down, but I want you to hear this and draw a parallel. She's the daughter of the king. She doesn't go along with things, being married to the high priest. In Hebrews chapter 11, this is the reference, Hebrews chapter 11 verses 23 to 28. And I thought of this parallel when I was bringing this about, looking at her character and what she did. She took Joash, or Yoash, the son of Ahaziah and hid him for six years. And I thought of another child that was kind of hid for three months and then set up in bulrushes and daubed with pitch so that he could be floated down the Nile River, which was Moses. In verse 23 of Hebrews 11, it says, by faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king's edict, verse 24. By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Verse 25, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. Verse 26 says, he considered the reproach of Christ's greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. Verse 27, by faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. Verse 28, by faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood of that destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. The parallel there is that here is this woman that Athaliah As wicked as she is, doesn't sound like she's dumb. And that this child is missing. And though she destroyed all other children and sets herself up as queen mother, she's gotta know that where is this child? And here is the fear of the Lord. Part of what, you know, we had that series on the fear of the Lord. One of the elements of the fear of the Lord is to not fear man. And though your life may be in peril and in danger of death, that Yehoshabat still hid this child because she feared God more than she feared men, or in this case, feared a woman, Ataliah the wicked. Another thing, in godly fear, Yehoshabat considered, as I mentioned, the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Ataliah's court. She was set up to be able to enjoy all the pleasures and all the benefits of being a daughter of a king. And though the queen mother was in charge, she could have gone easily into that just as Moses, but the reproach of Christ was greater riches. And so that is also what shows the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 8 and verse 13 says that the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. The fear of the Lord, Proverbs 8 and verse 13 says the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. And she saw the wickedness of Athaliah, and that she hated the evil thereof. She was faithful, as we see in the second part of verse 11. We see the faithfulness of Yehoshabat. What was she faithful to? Certainly she was faithful to Yehovah God, but she was also faithful to the covenant itself, to the covenant and the promise of David by Yehovah God. In other words, she was faithful to God's word. God promised that through the line of David may Messiah come. And so she took and stole him away among the king's sons who were about to be put to death. to risk life and limb to take this youngest son and hide him away so that the line of David would be preserved. She took the youngest son, which I'll talk about in a minute. There's some wisdom there. Yehoshabat was faithful to the covenant of David, for from his line the Messiah would come. And we recognize also that among those that fear God and are faithful to his word, Jesus presents a parable in Matthew 25. In verse 23, I mentioned it a couple weeks ago, or I might have even mentioned it last week. But remember that there were those whom Jesus said that when he told the parable, a master had servants, and he gave one five talents, and he gave another two talents, and he gave another one talent, and to the one who had two talents. in the economy of that time, Yehoshabbat. She was married to the high priest, but she had no real say in many things. But she was given by God's providence this wonderful place in the temple and also in the house of David. So that as Matthew 25 verse 23 says that the master said to the servant, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over little, I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. And here she gets to enter into the joy of her master in this faithfulness because the covenant of David, the promise of God to have the Messiah come through that line. was precious to her. She was faithful to that, and so she took and stole away the youngest son. Revelation 17 and verse 14 says this, for he is the Lord of lords, king of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful. I love that passage. I love that there's more that went with that, if you're familiar with Revelation, but that last part of it will apply to everyone. God is saved by his grace. And so here in Yehoshabat, who is called and chosen and faithful. She's wise. We see here in the third part of verse 11 that she is wise. And she put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Well, first thing, and as I mentioned, she took the youngest one. She took the one least affected by Ataliah. She didn't take one that was, you know, she was practical. Paul, the apostle, was practical, though he believed in the grace of God and the sovereignty of God. He was very practical in his approach to ministry. And likewise was Yehoshabat as she took the youngest child, the one that was least influenced by evil, the one that could be most molded and challenged. by the things of Jehovah God, by the teachings of his word, by the covenants and promises unto Moses and David and so forth and so on, in order to bring the truth of Messiah to this child so she was wise. And by bringing a one-year-old out that she found and took the nursemaid too, didn't just take the child and say, oh no, she gave thought to this. And so she provides a wise action according to the situation, taking the nurse, taking the young child. Proverbs 31, as we all know, the Proverbs 31, woman. Proverbs 31 and verses 26 and 27, it says, she opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. Oh, what great kindness that Yahoshua had shown unto the house of David by taking Yoash and taking the nurse for this one year old child and say, come with me. and from her mouth comes forth wisdom. You two, come with me. Quite possibly, the nursemaid, her life was in jeopardy as well, being put to death nursing this child. But Proverbs 31, verses 26 and 27, she opens her mouth with wisdom and teaching of kindness is on her tongue. Verse 27 says she looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness, so she is active and wise in applying her activity to the salvation of this young prince. Oh, that we would have women that rise up. And I believe in this church we do, women that have risen up and are ministering unto those who are younger and bringing to them who are not idle, who do not eat the bread of idleness, but are active and wise. and show kindness unto the church of the Lord Jesus Christ by ministering unto the young ones. And she was discreet. I keep on closing my Bible. Good thing I got those streamer things there. And she was discreet, as we see in verse 12. And he remained with them six years, hidden in the house of God, while Athaliah reigned over the land. Sometimes a spoken word can be very dangerous. And here, it would not only have been dangerous to Yoash, but it would have been dangerous also to the nursemaid. And here, Yehoiada, the high priest, and Yoshabat, the wife of Yehoiada, the nursemaid, they all kept silent about this. They were discreet in the things of God, for the sake of God. Six years they were discreet. Proverbs 8 and verse 12 says, I, wisdom, dwell with prudence. and I find knowledge and discretion. Sometimes it's more important to keep silent than it is to speak a multitude of words. So let's draw some conclusions from this and close out our sermon. The wise conclusions we may draw and apply. First, perverse idolatry will ultimately meet with God's judgment. Ahaziah ends His life ends ultimately, and it's by God's design, but it was ordained, it says in verse seven of chapter 22, but it was ordained by God that the downfall of Ahaziah should come about through his going to visit Joram. He died there, but it's a spiritual reflection of the ultimate. Later on, we'll see the same, Athaliah will die. She'll be executed. But we see the truth of God, even from the wisdom of Proverbs. It says in Proverbs 24, Proverbs 24, verses 19 and 20, it says, fret not yourself because of evildoers. And be not envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future. the lamp of the wicked will be put out. Proverbs 24 verses 19 to 20. We saw the lamp of David in contrast and God preserves this. Last week we looked at Christ as the lamp of David and that term lamp of David or candle of David in chapter 21 last week. And now we see the contrast that the lamp of the wicked will be put out. And we recognize the truth of that because sometimes the wicked prevails. Job has presented that. No, the wicked don't always die. And we've been reading that in our McShane reading plan. The wicked don't always die, that they move on. However, Job says, they will have an end because God is good, God is righteous, God is holy. And so we do recognize this, that the perverse idolatry will ultimately meet God's judgment, and we can apply that. Well, I'm not an idolater, Brother John. Anything that is equal to or greater than the Lord Jesus Christ is an idol. And so those little things that we give ourselves over to, and we forsake the Lord for even a moment, Now, I don't want you walking on eggshells because you did, because if he saved you by his grace, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins once we confess them. And the blood of Jesus will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But we recognize that, yeah, we are weak and need Christ always. We need him not just daily, we need him moment by moment. And that power. but perverse idolatry. If that's the end for that, it's also a stumbling block for us, even the little things. And so we can be on guard for that. Next is the powerful influence of both godly and ungodly character. Verse three of chapter 22. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counselor in doing wickedly. I thank God that I'm in a church where we have godly mothers and grandmothers that are not taking your children down, well, you can be as you want, grow in the garden as you will, without weeding and tending the garden, as it were. But consider, as far as for the ungodly, consider that the godly character of Yehoiada and the influence of Yeho Shabbat, Conversely, to verse three, where we see the ungodly behavior of Athaliah. She didn't have to do much and influence Ahaziah, because he's already grown up with that, and to him it was a foregone conclusion. She had to mold and shape her husband Jehoram. Now with her son, he was already in it, and she counseled him easily. But how much greater is the character of Yehoiada and his influence to his wife. That though Yehoshabat was the daughter of the king and for many of her years until she was married to the high priest, that she had this evil influence upon her, but the influence of a godly man or woman like Yehoiada the high priest will impact much in a life. Certainly the salvation of souls is in the hand of God. but he uses the means of men in order to also bring forth his word. And Yehoiada, being the husband of Yehoshabat, and here is a woman already, she wasn't born with that godly character, she was born as a sinner. And Yehoiada, the high priest, nurtured her and loved her and brought her forth. Proverbs 13 and verse 20 says, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise. Don't you love that proverb? Walking with the wise becomes wise. Do you speak to one another about morning, the morning message? And I'm not talking about, well, how did Pastor John do, okay? I'm not talking about that. But do you speak to one another and you say, do you say, what did Christ speak to my heart today? How did I see Christ from the scripture? And how could I walk to bring glory and honor to the Father through the exaltation of Christ? Did I hear something that I could apply? Do you talk to yourselves about that? Concerning what you heard from God, not from me, but from God today. Parents, do you ask your children, do you see Christ in the scriptures today? Or how did Jesus show you heavenly truth today? in the message today, in the word that we read. Might not have had anything to do with what Brother John said, but what did Christ speak to our hearts? And we have an opportunity right after this, after the fellowship meal. How did you see Christ today? Just that simple thing, and it may spark a conversation in our homes, in our lives, and we can see revival not just creeping up, but, blowing up. Children, do you ask your parents about what you've heard that you didn't understand from the message? Have that responsibility. I speak to you young people here and over there and back there. When you hear the message and you're sitting here and some things you just don't get, but have you heard something you say, mom, dad, Papa, mama, grandma, do you say, what does this mean when the pastor said this or when we read this in scripture? Children, ask your parents that. If not, why not? Now we see the prominent importance of God's place upon the Davidic covenant. Last week we saw the lamp of David, as I mentioned, in God's covenant to David in verse seven of chapter 21. In Joram's case, Jehovah God preserved the house for the covenant's sake. There was wickedness all around, but he didn't let Joram just die. He died a miserable death, remember. He was sick for two years and then his bowels gushed out. Pretty disgusting. But in the next generation, he saved one, Yoash, and destroyed the rest to keep his covenant to David. That should be sobering. Don't think that we're living in a time where, well, you know, the Lord let it slide in that generation. He might not let it slide in this generation. And take out a whole bunch and save one. We give too much credence, we give too much weight, we give too much importance to this life when the spiritual and the heavenly is most important. Of the utmost importance, living for Christ for the eternal is what's important. And so the ways and workings of God are to bring about the truth of Christ always. Sometimes it's to bring one in. Sometimes it's to save all for his promise. And we see the contrast. We should recognize that as 2 Timothy 2 and verse 13 says, if we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. God will bring his plans, his purposes, and promises in Christ to pass. That's what the scriptures present to us and we should, as the saying goes, take that to the bank. Take that to the eternal bank. Those are spiritual riches. God will bring his plans and purposes and promises to pass. And despite my faithfulness or faithlessness, Jesus Christ is coming. Concerning you who are saved, that if God will keep his promise in this way, how important the covenant of David was, which was supposed to usher in the Messiah, but even in just this little thing, 1 Corinthians 1.9, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. God's promises are sure and steadfast. God's promises are sure and steadfast. And so that's something you could rely upon daily, even moment by moment. Final point, prudent inspection of Christ and his gospel. God saved one son to keep his covenant to David in order to reflect his sending his one and only son as the only way of salvation. Did you get that? If you've got nothing else here, you see Christ from the scripture that God saved the one son and set him aside. So it would be a picture for us that God would send his one and only son. And there's only one way, one way alone to salvation. And that's through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not by our good works, trying to be as good as we can be. It's by trusting in faith upon the work, the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and his holy perfection and his righteousness. Jesus said in John 14 and verse six, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. And so with the truth of Christ's gospel, That even through this, we see judgment all around. Men, even sons, brothers of Joash that were put to death by wicked Athaliah. There is evil and wickedness all around. But we see that also in Ahaziah's death that God brought judgment upon him for his wickedness. And there is judgment upon sin. There's judgment upon wickedness. There's judgment upon evil. and accept that we be in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no repentance of sin and no atonement for the sins that we've committed against the holy God. That through that one, Jesus, and through him alone. Robert Hawker said this. in his commentary concerning this passage of scripture, quote, how beautiful it is to see the Lord's watchful care over his people. Moses shall be hid when his life is threatened. Joash shall be secured when danger is near. Nay, Jesus shall be carried into Egypt when the monster Herod seeks his life. Reader, how evidently doth the Lord manifest himself when he hideth his people. Are you hid and secure in Christ, by Christ? This is basically what Hawker was saying, but this is what this passage is telling us, that God, through Christ, will hide you just as he did Joash, to bring about the truth of his gospel for his glory. We sang a hymn earlier that said, oh, save to the rock that is higher than I, my soul in its conflict and sorrows would fly. So sinful, so weary, thine, thine would I be. Thou blessed rock of ages, I'm hiding in thee. I got the pleasure to sing that twice, because Brother Mike and I got to sing it a little earlier. Judgment upon sin, evil, and wickedness is coming. And so I end this with asking you, are you hiding in Christ? Are you hiding in Christ? Let's pray. Our most blessed and gracious Father in God, in Jesus' name and for his sake, we thank you, Lord, for the, these 12 verses are, there's just, what a hope there is in it, that you would take the one in order to preserve your covenant, your promise to David, who'd been dead for so many years, but alive, because he is a man after God's own heart, He was a spiritual man. May we be spiritual men and women and children today and be found with our life hid in God and Christ. That you may be glorified and Christ may be exalted. Teach us your word through the Holy Spirit all throughout the day, Lord. And we thank you that we have that promise secured in the one who has saved our lives, the Lord Jesus. In his name and for his sake we do pray, amen.