2 Kings 14: Amaziah’s Reign SEPTEMBER 2, 2026 Pastor Steven L. Anderson

Men, 2 Kings chapter number 14,

if you recall last week in chapter 13,

we kind of stepped away from the southern kingdom of Judah

and we're talking about the northern kingdom of Israel.

That's kind of how the book of 2 Kings is.

It'll go back and forth between northern and southern kingdoms.

So we're picking up now where we left off.

And if you remember that Joash was the young boy

who started raining when he's eight years old

and he did what was right on the side of the Lord

until the death of Jehoi to the priest.

And then after Jehoi to the priest died

who was his greatest spiritual influence,

his main leader, his mentor,

once Jehoi to the high priest died,

remember all those flatterers came and made obeisance to him

and then he led the nation into idolatry

and he ended up being murdered

and not being blessed by God.

Well, what's interesting here is that in chapter 14,

we hear about his son.

It says in verse number one in the second year

of Jehoi, son of Jehoi, king of Israel,

reigned Amaziah, the son of Jehoi, king of Judah.

And what we're gonna see about Amaziah,

the son of Jehoi, is that he's basically,

just like his dad, where he starts out doing good.

He starts out doing right in the side of the Lord

and then later in life he falls away,

gets into idolatry, screws up his life.

And what's interesting too is that they both

end up dying the same way

because just as Joash is murdered by a conspiracy

within his own kingdom,

it's exactly what's gonna happen to Amaziah,

kind of just showing you that history repeats itself

and if you do the same stupid things

that other people did, you're probably gonna end up

the same failure and having the same problems.

And so what we need to understand is that

there's a big problem with people not making it

all the way to the finish line in the Christian life.

I mean, how many people have we known

in our lives that used to be doing great things for God?

They used to be faithful to church, soul-winning,

maybe pastoring, preaching great sermons

and one way or another they go down some dark path,

they get back slidden, they become a bozo,

whatever happens, they end up ruining their testimony,

their work for God, their trajectory as servants of God.

I mean, we've gotta make it to the end, folks.

We've got to finish and make it to the end.

You look at the Apostle Paul, he said,

I've finished my course, I've kept the faith.

Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness

which the Lord, the righteous judge

shall give me at that day and not only me

but unto all the most of the love is appearing.

DMS has forsaken me having loved this present world.

There are so many people who fall out under casualties.

We wanna be like the Apostle Paul

where we make it to the end.

I fought a good fight, I finished my course,

I kept the faith.

And you know, sad to say it's a rare thing.

Most people, even when they're doing great things

for God, younger in life, will ultimately backslide

and become lame or crash and burn, whatever, okay?

And we see that in both Joash's life

and in his son, Amaziah.

So look what the Bible says in verse two.

It says he was 25 years old when he began to reign

and reigned 29 years in Jerusalem

and his mother's name was Jehovah Dan of Jerusalem

and he did that which was right in the side of the Lord

yet not like David his father.

He did according to all things as Joash's father did

and really what the Bible is actually saying

if we compare the two stories

is really that they did right for a while

and then they did wrong afterward

because what you have to understand

when you're reading Kings and Chronicles

is that God is sort of grading everybody

on a past fail kind of a grade.

It's like you either did right in the side of the Lord

or you did evil in the side of the Lord

as far as just overall looking at your kingdom.

In this case, there has to be this caveat of like,

well, he did right in the side of the Lord

but it wasn't like David

where he's worshiping the Lord all the way to the end.

It was more like his father Joash

and we know that that was a situation

where he did right until he stopped doing right, okay?

And I'm gonna prove this to you

as we go through the passage, okay?

Look at verse number four.

It says, how be it, the high places were not taken away

as yet the people did sacrifice

and burnt incense on the high places.

And so another lesson here

is that when you start out

being kind of half in, half out,

you're not that zealous,

you're not really going all the way

in your service for God.

Well, then, you know, a lot of times

you just end up falling all the way

out of church later on.

So, you know, you're more likely

to actually be in it for the long haul

if you get all the way in.

People who already have one foot in the world,

people who are already not really that committed,

not really that zealous in their Christian walk

in the early days or in their youth.

You know, if anything, the fire

is probably only gonna cool over time.

You got a lot of people that are super zealous,

super fired up, super excited

and then they kind of, you know, taper off.

But at least if you start from a place

of being really zealous

and then you slow down,

you're still doing pretty good.

Whereas if you start out

and you're already just barely hanging in there

and just half in, half out,

well then, as soon as you get back to them,

you're probably just going all the way off the cliff.

And I think that that's what we could say

about both Joash and Amaziah.

Neither of them were ever awesome spiritually.

Therefore, it was easy for them to both

crash and burn spiritually.

Now, there's a guy like King Solomon

who was awesome spiritually,

who was a very great man of God

with a great walk with God

and he still crashed and burned later in life.

But how much more when you're a Joash or an Amaziah

that's really not even that into it?

Look at verse number five.

It says that it came to pass

as soon as the kingdom was confirmed in his hand

that he slew his servants

which had slain the king, his father.

Because remember, it was a conspiracy

within his own kingdom,

within his own household

of the servants that slew his father.

So the first thing he does

is he executes these people, right?

He slew his servants

which had slain his king to father.

And here's the thing,

is that the Bible teaches the death penalty.

The death penalty is biblical

and it's not just biblical in the Old Testament,

it's biblical in the New Testament as well.

Jesus reiterated the death penalty.

Also, the epistles of Paul reiterate the death penalty

because in Romans chapter 13,

Romans 13 · chapter mention

God talks about the fact

that he ordained human government

for the punishment of evil doers.

And the Bible says,

if thou do that which is evil,

be afraid,

for he beareth not the sword in vain.

He is a revenger.

He's the Avenger of God, the minister of God,

a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

So the Bible says that when violent criminals

are executed,

that the one who executes them

is doing the Lord's work,

he is the minister of God,

a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

And you say, well, how do you know

how to talk about the death penalty?

Because it says he beareth not the sword in vain.

Okay, the sword is only used for one punishment

and that's death.

They don't spank people with a sword, okay?

They kill people with a sword.

And so he bears not the sword in vain.

That is capital punishment.

It's taught in the Old Testament.

It's taught in the New Testament.

It's biblical.

Now, obviously, it's only very serious crimes

that are punishable by death.

It's not minor crimes and it shouldn't be.

But here's a crime

that is for sure punishable by death,

first degree murder.

And what does it mean when we say first degree murder?

Because you have second degree murder,

you have manslaughter.

First degree murder is premeditated murder, okay?

As opposed to you had no plans of killing someone

and just in a heat of passion,

in the heat of the moment,

you lose your temper and attack someone

and it's like, oh, what have I done?

I've accidentally killed this person or something like that.

You know, that's a second degree murder.

The Bible uses this wording

to describe second degree murder.

It says that you did not hate him in time past,

meaning that there was no thought in the past of,

oh, I hate this guy, I want him dead.

Whereas premeditated murder

is something that's thought out and planned.

And obviously there's a big murder case

in the news right now of this woman,

Lindsey Clancy, who has murdered three of her children.

And you know, I'm not following the case,

so I don't have the details of the case.

It's kind of hard to ignore it.

It's one of those things

that just kind of people talk about it and hear about it.

But one thing that did come to my attention,

and you can correct me if I'm wrong,

but that there was evidence

that she had planned this murder

as far as she had Googled things

and she had purchased things

and arranged logistics for her husband to be gone

or whatever.

And you know, my understanding is

that she planned and premeditated

the murder of her own children

and then she slittered her wrists

and threw herself out the window

and that's why she's in a wheelchair.

And people are saying, oh, she's innocent

because she's crazy,

but you know, somebody pointed out,

well, isn't everybody who murders their own toddlers crazy?

Is there such thing as a person

who murders their toddler that's not crazy?

It's like, yeah, obviously you're crazy,

but if you're that crazy where you're killing people,

well, sorry, you just need to be removed

from this planet.

Okay, and the thing is that first degree murder

is punishable by death,

not prison, not the loony bin,

not the nut house, it's punishable by death, okay?

And so, you know, we'll see what happens with that trial,

but I don't even think death

is necessarily even on the table.

They can't even figure out

whether they even want to find her guilty or not.

You know, I guess apparently there's three guys

in that jury box trying to mansplain

to the other nine women,

you know, what's going on, I'm just kidding.

I don't know, maybe it's probably,

it could be the dudes for all we know.

These days, you know, they're just white nighting

for this, you know, paraplegic

who murdered her children or whatever.

That wouldn't surprise me at all

if it's actually the women who want to convict

because things are so crazy right now,

anything's on the table.

It's just a weird time that we live in

when people are even wondering, you know,

whether you could just get off the hook

for murdering your kids.

Well, I had postpartum depression.

I had postpartum psychosis.

And here's the thing, postpartum depression's real.

Postpartum psychosis is real.

Anybody who's married knows that women,

when they have children, you know,

it's a hormonal roller coaster.

And obviously as a pastor, I've been exposed to this

a lot because I've counseled with a lot of people.

I've counseled with husbands and wives alike

who have gone through like severe postpartum depression.

And I've even personally dealt with multiple cases

of postpartum psychosis in the last 21 years of fasting.

And let me say this, my wife never had postpartum psychosis.

Let me just give that disclaimer.

When I say that I dealt with it,

I'm talking about people that I counseled with

and helped in our church and other churches.

So I understand that this is a real thing.

I understand that women can get severely depressed,

they can get upset, they can go crazy, hormones,

they get confused or whatever.

But you know what, when you're sitting there

and planning a murder and you're going on the computer

and planning a murder, it's just like, bro, no.

She needs to be put to death.

It's that simple.

So I have now spoken about women's issues as a man.

I just wanted to check that off my list

of things to do today.

So it says in verse number five that he killed

the servants who killed his father.

This is a righteous judgment because he's giving

the death penalty to people who committed

premeditated murder, amen?

But look at verse six, but the children of the murderers,

he slew not.

According unto that, which is written

in the book of the law of Moses,

wherein the Lord commanded saying,

the father shall not be put to death for the children,

nor the children be put to death for the fathers,

but every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

Now let's look at that in the Bible.

Go to Deuteronomy 24, actually go to Ezekiel 18.

Go to Ezekiel 18, I'm gonna read for you

from Deuteronomy from the law of God.

But this is expounded more in Ezekiel.

It says in Deuteronomy 24, 16,

the fathers shall not be put to death

for the children, neither shall the children

be put to death for the fathers.

Every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

And so the Bible is saying it is not right

to punish the parents for what the children do,

or to punish the children for what the parents do, right?

This is part of biblical justice.

Everyone is accountable for their own actions.

And boy, is this something that is missing

in 2026 America, being responsible for your own actions.

Everybody always wants to blame everyone else

for why they did the things that they did.

And you know what?

When people are serial killers

and when people go out and do all these horrific crimes,

they'll go back and look at their childhood and say,

oh, it's because they had this bad teacher

and they had these bad parents

and they had these bad neighbors

and they had the gay uncle that molested them

and whatever.

It's like, okay, you know what?

I'm sorry that those horrible things

happened to that person.

But at the end of the day,

for every serial killer and maniac

who went through those things,

you can find a whole bunch of other people

who went through those same things

and came out and did right, right?

Hey, I've known people who were abused, molested

and raped and whatever that turned out to be great people.

You know?

And then I've known people who had bad upbringings

and came from a bad neighborhood and turned out great.

And then there are other people

who use those things as an excuse

to become wicked themselves.

And you know, at the end of the day,

we're all gonna go through bad things in our lives.

We're all gonna go through things

and obviously some of us are more privileged than others.

And I'll be the first one to tell you

that I had a super privileged upbringing

because both of my parents are saved Christians.

They're both great people.

I had a great childhood.

And so I understand that I'm more blessed

and privileged in my upbringing

than probably 99% of people on the planet.

And I thank God for it.

So I'm not sitting there saying,

hey man, I came from the same streets that you came from.

No, I didn't, okay?

I didn't come from those streets.

I came from, you know, suburbia,

living the dream in the 1980s with my BMX bike

and my Nintendo and a glass of Ovaltine

and, you know, being home

when the street lights came on or whatever, okay?

So yeah, I had a great upbringing

but you know what?

I went through stuff later that sucked, okay?

Well, like much later.

And so we all in our lives are gonna go through

nightmarish, terrible things.

If you don't go through it as a kid,

you'll go through stuff as an adult.

It's life.

This world is a messed up place.

The Bible says the dark places of the earth

are full of the habitations of cruelty.

Psalm 74 verse 20, right?

Psalms 74:20

This world's messed up.

And so therefore everybody is gonna go through

these traumas and difficulties and hard things.

But you know what?

You can use those things as an excuse to do wrong

or you can decide that you're gonna do right

in spite of your parents or grandparents

or your faggot uncle or whatever, problems, okay?

Those are wicked things.

I'm sorry for the things you went through.

But you know what?

Even as a kid, even though I consider my upbringing

super great, you know what?

Obviously, even as a kid, there were times

when I got bullied and stuff, when I was in seventh grade,

I went to this really rough school

and went through some things.

It's funny, I didn't even think about that until just now.

I was like telling you how great my childhood was

and then it just dawned on me.

Yeah, I guess there was that year of bad school.

But you know what?

I didn't even think of it.

It's because I don't sit around thinking about it

because I don't care because I'm 45 years old

and so I'm not fixated on something that happened

when I was 12.

It's like get over it.

It's time to move on.

But you know what?

The entire psychiatry industry is based on one thing

and one thing alone, which is blaming your parents.

Which is why virtually, and maybe this is just

a big coincidence, but virtually the exact percentage

of people who go to therapy on a regular basis,

it's the exact same percentage of people

that are estranged from their parents in 2026.

Because think about it.

When I was a kid and we would do an impression

of a psychiatrist, what would we always say?

You know, you'd lay on the couch at your friend's house

and your friend would come up, pull up a chair

and say, tell me about your mother.

That was the big joke because that's what it all is.

It's all blaming your parents,

blaming your mom, blaming your dad.

Well you know what?

I think it was my dad's fault,

but I think that it's his dad's fault

that he is the way he is.

And then you know, if you look at my dad's,

dad, that guy was one mean SOB.

Let me tell you, okay?

One time he went to a restaurant

and he was given ketchup and he had said no ketchup

and he ended up throwing the ketchup bottle at the waiter.

That's my great-grandfather, okay?

Later he ended up after his mother died

and after he had a heart problem diagnosis,

he ended up shooting himself with a shotgun, okay?

Great guy.

So I'm gonna blame that guy for why my grandpa was the way,

but you know what?

I'll bet it wasn't his fault, I bet it was his dad's fault.

He is some messed up guy from Sweden.

The Andersons, you know, it goes all the way back

to Anders, you know?

Because he was Anders' son.

Literally, there's a guy.

I went back far enough to where I got to Anders Andersson,

you know?

Eventually, you go back far enough

and we could keep blaming our dads until we get to Adam.

And then here's what the Bible says,

we're forced by one man, sin entered into the world

and death by sin and so death passed upon all men

for that all have sinned.

I mean, it's just so dumb.

We could just all blame our parents

and then pretty soon we could just blame everything

on Adam and Eve.

It's all Adam and Eve's fault,

but you know what?

It's not just Adam's fault

because Adam was the son of God

and so we're gonna blame God.

It's God's fault.

Because you know what?

People who go through life blaming parents

end up hating God because they blame God

because you follow that train far enough

you end up at the Lord himself, the Creator.

And he's responsible for all of our problems.

And you know what?

It's a stupid, God-hating evil Jew

who invented this psychiatric crap

his name's Sigmund Freud is a pervert and a weirdo

and virtually all of his theories

have been discredited by 2026

but you still have a bunch of bozos

following and quoting that Christ rejecting

Christ-hating Jew Sigmund Freud.

But beloved, what I would like to say

is that your parents are not an excuse for bad behavior.

Nothing is an excuse for bad behavior

because you know what?

I can do all things to Christ which strengthen me.

The Bible says when my mother and father forsake me

then the Lord will take me up.

Right?

You got a father in heaven

that's the greatest dad of all time.

So why don't you just be happy about that

and praise God for that.

And so you always have all this blame on other people.

The Bible's teaching personal responsibility.

Everyone is responsible for their own sins.

We're not gonna blame the parents for what the kids do.

We're not gonna blame the kids for what the parents do.

Every man is gonna take responsibility

for his own actions and his own sins.

The New Testament says every man's gonna bear his own burden

at the end of the day.

And so this idea of always blaming other people,

and look, people commit adultery and then they say,

oh, it's my spouse's fault

because they weren't the right kind of spouse.

It's like, look, here's the thing.

We all should be the best husband that we could be as men.

You ladies should be the best wives you can be.

And obviously, yeah, if you're the best husband

you can be and women are the best wives they can be,

that's gonna be your best case scenario

for having a good marriage that's free of adultery.

Obviously if you're a bad wife or a bad husband

that could exacerbate things and make it worse.

But you know what, at the end of the day,

there's another guy who has a wife just like yours

and he's not committing adultery.

And there's a woman out there that has a husband

just like yours and she's not committing adultery.

Everybody's got their challenges.

Everybody's got their cross to bear.

And there's no excuse for committing murder.

There's no excuse for committing adultery.

There's no excuse for shoplifting and drunkenness

and all of these other things

because at the end of the day

we are responsible for ourselves.

Go if you would to Ezekiel 18 there in verse four

and this concept is played out further.

It says, behold, all souls are mine.

As the soul of the father

so also the soul of the son is mine

the soul that sineth it shall die.

Now, let me just explain to you

that in the Old Testament the word soul

is often what's called a metonymy for the person.

So we're not just talking about specifically

the part of the person that's the soul.

We're talking about the person or the individual.

The Bible will often use the word soul

just to refer to the individual.

Like for example, in the book of Genesis

very early on in the Bible

talks about how Abraham's packing up all of his stuff

to go into Canaan and it says he's packing his gear

and this person, that person

and all the souls that they had gotten inherent.

He's not collecting just souls.

What does that even mean?

When it says the souls that he got inherent

he's talking about he's collecting

people, individuals, people.

And I'm a big foreign language guy.

You guys know I love to study foreign languages

and everything and it's interesting

a lot of foreign languages will use the word soul

this way even today where you'll talk about like

hey this minivan is for seven souls.

If you said that in English you'd sound like

you were being like super spiritual

when you're talking about like yes

we have a passenger van that holds 15 souls.

Amen.

It sounds like you're like doing a hyper spiritual thing.

But in other languages that's just what it is.

It's just like yeah 15 souls, seven souls.

This is a five soul vehicle, okay.

So that's what it means here it says

basically when it's saying the soul

that Sineeth it shall die it's saying hey

the individual who sins is the one who's gonna die.

The individual not the group.

It says in verse 20 the soul that Sineeth it shall die

the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father

neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son

the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him

and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

That's what the Bible says.

And you know what's funny is that I could have a son

grow up, move out of my house, right.

And then that grocery store security guard

gets up and makes a video and says well you know

why don't you take responsibility for what he did.

I'll tell you why I'm not gonna take responsibility.

It's because I didn't do it.

Because when an adult that's out of the house

doing their own thing whatever they do is on them.

Right and so we're not gonna sit there

and punish the righteous for what his wicked son does

or punish the righteous for what his wicked father does.

And so the Bible says the righteousness of the righteous

shall be upon him and the wickedness of the wicked

shall be upon him.

The father shall not bear the iniquity of the son.

Here's another word for that.

The father's not gonna be responsible

for what his adult son is out there doing.

That's not the way the Bible works.

Now here's the thing.

If you have people living in your home

well then you know you're supposed to rule your house

and make sure that things are right in your home.

So therefore in my home it's like as for me in my house

we will serve the Lord.

You know and so it's not the church

is not optional in our home.

Serving the Lord is not optional.

Okay it's not like well you know what can you do

when the teenagers and the young adults

are bringing home drugs and alcohol

and growing their hair long and you know whatever.

No in my house it's my rules.

You know I'm gonna have a certain standard

of righteousness that I'm gonna enforce in my home.

And look I remember I preached this back in 2007

and had a whole family leave the church

because I got up and preached it is not right

for you to have your adult children

fornicating in your home.

You should not be allowing fornication

to go on in your home.

It's your house you're paying the bills

fornication's not allowed in my house.

Now is that a wild thing to preach?

Is that just really crazy stuff?

I think that's pretty reasonable to say

my house is not gonna be a house of fornication.

It's not gonna be a place where adultery

takes place under my roof.

You know I'm not gonna have somebody

smoking a doobie in my backyard.

Right it's gonna be a drug free, alcohol free

fornication free home.

Okay and you know there was a fundamental

Baptist preacher of the 1980s who once said

I'll kick you out of my home if that's

the clothes you're gonna wear.

I'll kick you out of my house

if you don't cut that hair.

Okay actually it was the BC boys.

But you know it just goes to show you

that even a worldly song is telling you

hey there's some standards to live in your parent's home.

But today that's so just taboo to get up and say

hey I'm not gonna allow those things to go on in my home.

I literally preached a sermon in 2007

you can't have fornication in your house.

And a whole family left the church

because one of their children is just

living in fornication in their home

and they're just fine with it.

Well sorry, bye, see you later.

It's amazing how we're still here.

Even losing that family in 2007.

Somehow the church still survived.

Go back if you would to 2 Kings chapter 14 verse 7

2 Kings 14:7

and we'll get back to the story here.

So again the father

shall not bear the iniquity of the son.

So it's like you need to, you're responsible.

You need to answer for what you're,

it's like no I don't.

And you know what, here's the thing.

My mom and dad don't need to answer for what I do.

You know if I say and do things it's not their fault.

Now thankfully my mom and dad are both very proud of me

and I have a great relationship with both of them.

I love them both dearly, we get along great.

But here's the thing, you know

they can't be held responsible

if I were to go out and do something terrible

it's not like what have you done Mrs. Anderson?

You know what have you done brother Anderson?

It wouldn't make any sense.

Because here's the thing

is that if you're gonna be held responsible

I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent

but I wanna make this point

cause I think it's so important.

If you're gonna be held responsible

for someone's behavior

then you have to have the power to curtail that behavior.

True or false?

Like if somebody tells you, if somebody told you this

you can't correct and discipline your children

but you're responsible for what they do.

It's like what, how does that even work?

Because if I'm gonna be responsible for somebody

then I have to be able to tell them what to do.

So like for example, you know

the boss at work, the owner of the company

he's responsible for what you do

when you're on the job, am I right?

Because look if he sends you out to the job site

and you go there and you're stealing things

from the customer's home or whatever

isn't the company gonna be liable

cause they sent this criminal into their home

and you know if he's out driving the company vehicle

and he ends up hurting someone

or if he goes to the job site

and he's up on the ladder goofing around

and falls off and gets hurt

isn't the company gonna be held liable for these things?

Absolutely.

The company is responsible for the employee.

This is why the company has a bunch of rules

for the employee.

And they're enforcing these rules

and saying you have to do things a certain way.

Here's how you're gonna drive the vehicle.

Here's how you're gonna use the ladder.

Here's how you're gonna behave in people's homes

because they're responsible when it goes bad.

And so if you're gonna be held responsible

for someone's actions,

you have to be given the power

to actually curtail those actions.

Okay, that's common sense.

But anyway, look at 2 Kings chapter 14 verse seven.

2 Kings 14 · chapter mention

It says he slew of Edom.

So this is Amaziah while he's doing the right things.

He killed the murderers

but he didn't kill their children

because he really wanted to follow the Bible.

And he wanted to do it the right way.

There were obviously people that were telling him

or suggesting that he also put their children to death

but he's like, no, we're gonna follow the Bible.

The Bible says the soul that sineth it shall die,

not these other people, okay?

I realized that Ezekiel's written later

but Deuteronomy was there.

So it says in verse seven,

he slew of Edom in the valley of Salt 10,000

and took Sila by war

and called the name of it Jock Teal until this day.

Then Amaziah sent messengers to Jehoash,

the son of Jehoah's son of Jehu, King of Israel,

saying, come, let us look one another in the face.

Now what happens here is that Amaziah wins a victory

against Edom and he starts getting arrogant

and haughty and puffed up.

Like he thinks, well, if I can defeat Edom,

I'm gonna take on Israel now

because he's the king of the southern kingdom of Judah.

And so he's like, if I can defeat Edom,

I'm gonna defeat the northern kingdom of Israel.

And what does the Bible say

about getting puffed up and prideful?

Pride goes before destruction

and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Before destruction, the heart of man is haughty

and before honor is humility.

Proverbs 29, 23, a man's pride shall bring him low

but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.

So he gets cocky, he gets arrogant

and he calls out the king of Israel and says,

hey, let's look each other in the face.

He's trying to taunt him into a battle

where they go head to head.

Now it goes deeper than just pride and arrogance though

because even though verse seven he defeats Edom

and then in verse eight he's calling out Israel,

there's something that takes place

between verses seven and eight that's not mentioned here

but it's mentioned over in Chronicles.

So let's go over to second Chronicles 25

and let's get the inside scoop

about what happened between his victory against Edom

and his failure against the king of Israel, okay?

Go to second Chronicles 25 and look at verse 14.

It says, now it came to pass after that Amaziah

was come from the slaughter of the Edomites

that he brought the gods of the children of Seer

and set them up to be his gods

and bowed down himself before them

and burned incense unto them.

Wherefore, the anger of the Lord

was kindled against Amaziah

and he sent unto him a prophet which said unto him,

why is thou sought after the gods of the people

which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand?

He said, look, this is stupid, this doesn't make any sense.

So you went and defeated,

you've got the God of Israel on your side,

you've got the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob on your side.

You went and fought against the Edomites

and you defeated them

and they're worshiping a false God

and then you decided to start worshiping the false God

that they worship.

It's like, well, why didn't their God protect them from you?

You defeated them,

which is kind of an affront to their false God.

So if their God can't save them,

then why would you worship that fake God?

You know, and again, I think this goes with the theme

that we've had for this chapter

is that history repeats itself

and that what happens to one person

is probably gonna happen to someone else.

So it's like, you start out good,

you become super backslidden and sinful later in life,

you end up crashing and burning,

in this case, getting murdered by your servants.

Your son starts out good, gets into idolatry,

same sin, and then same end gets murdered.

Okay, God, Edomites, worshiping a false God, get smoked.

Adopt their false gods,

guess what, you're probably gonna get smoked.

So he's saying their God didn't help them,

why would it help you?

And so he just adopts these gods of the children of Seer.

And then it says, wherefore the anger of the Lord

was kindled against Amaziah, it says in verse 15.

And then in verse 16, it says, it came to pass

as he talked with them, that the king said unto him,

art thou made of the king's counsel?

Forbear, why shouldest thou be smitten?

He's just saying like, who are you?

Like, are you some counselor to me?

You're not important.

You're just, who are you to some preacher?

He's like, you better shut up,

or I'm gonna command for you to be beaten.

You're gonna be smitten, you're gonna be hit.

And then it says, the prophet forbear.

And said, I know that God has determined to destroy thee,

because thou has done this

and has not harkened unto my counsel.

So here's the thing, when people don't repent,

you know what they're basically telling you is just,

I'm slated for destruction by God.

Right?

You know, it's like if you saw a house

or a building or something that had a side on it

that said, hey, this building's gonna be destroyed

on this and that date.

It's scheduled for demolition on this and that, the date.

You know, these people who often reproved,

hardened their neck, they are scheduled for demolition,

is all that's shown you.

And so here's the thing, you know,

when I'm out soul winning, I have this mentality

where if someone doesn't wanna hear the gospel,

I wanna just move on.

I have no desire to preach the gospel

to people who aren't interested.

So if I'm out soul winning and I knock on a door

and somebody's just like, I'm not interested,

I can't get out of there fast enough.

Why?

Because there's somebody down the street who is interested.

You know, that wants to hear the gospel.

And so if somebody yells at me,

get your blankety blank blank blank,

I'm just like, okay, don't even have to tell me twice.

Why?

Because I'm looking for the person

who wants to hear the gospel.

Okay?

And here's the thing, you know,

when it comes to preaching,

I'm preaching in a church right now

where people have driven out here

because they love the word of God.

They love the Lord.

They wanna be in the house of God.

They wanna learn the Bible.

They wanna hear truth.

They wanna hear unfiltered preaching.

And that's what I wanna preach to.

I don't wanna go out there and, hey,

let's go preach at the queer pride parade or something.

It's like, I'm not interested in preaching

to people that don't wanna hear.

And the Bible says, give not that

which is holy unto the dogs,

neither cast ye your pearls before swine,

lest they trample them under their feet

and turn again and rend you.

He's saying, look, you're just gonna get hurt.

People are gonna physically attack you.

They're gonna physically assault you.

Why would you waste your time

giving precious truths of God's word?

People don't wanna hear it

and are only gonna hurt you.

And so this preacher, that's what he's doing, right?

He's preaching good doctrine,

common sense, Bible-based,

straight from the Lord,

spirit-filled, Bible-preaching.

And the guys are telling him,

shut up for bear.

And you know what he does?

He shuts up.

Cause he's like, well, okay, fine.

Cause now I know God wants to destroy you.

That's why you're not listening.

Bye.

See you later next door.

So this is a smart prophet

because he says if you don't,

you're gonna be smitten.

He says, why would you wanna be smitten?

You better shut up or I'm gonna hit you.

Okay?

Think about it.

This is exactly what the Bible said

that if you cast your pearls before swine,

what are they gonna do?

They're gonna turn around and rend you.

Right?

To rend someone means to tear them.

So this would be analogous to smiting someone,

tearing someone,

hurting someone in some way.

And so he says, you've done this,

you've not harkened to my counsel

because you're just scheduled for demolition.

Verse 17, then Amaziah, King of Judah,

took advice and sent to Joash,

the son of Joahuas,

the son of Jehu, King of Israel,

saying, come, let us see one another in the face.

So do you see now what happened between

verses seven and eight over in 2 Kings 14?

What happened in that gap?

Let's go back to 2 Kings 14.

What happened in the gap between

verses seven and eight is that he adopted

the false gods of Edom.

He started worshiping idols

and then a preacher came and read

and rebuked him.

He told the preacher to shut up

or he was going to physically hurt him.

And then the preacher's just like, okay, bye.

And then now it kind of makes sense

why he does this stupid thing

of calling out the much larger,

more powerful northern kingdom of Israel

that he's not going to be able to defeat.

This is a much more serious enemy than Edom, okay?

But he gets puffed up and prideful

and God's just blinding him

because God's not blessing him

because he's not right with God.

And so it says in verse number nine,

here's the response of the king of Israel.

Jehovah asked the king of Israel

sent to Amaziah, king of Judah,

saying the thistle that was in Lebanon

sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon

saying, give thy daughter to my son to wife.

And they're passed by a wild beast

that was in Lebanon and trod down the thistle.

So he's giving him an analogy saying, look,

the most impressive, powerful tree in Lebanon

is the cedar.

And then you just have some little stupid weed,

some thistle.

And he's saying basically, you're that little thistle

and I'm the cedar.

And like, how dare you call me out?

You know, you're not worthy basically.

So the northern king is just kind of just scoffing at him

and acting like he's a fool.

And then he says in verse number 10,

thou hast indeed smitten Edom

and thine heart hath lifted thee up.

Glory of this, interior of the home.

He said, look man, why don't you just be happy

that you won against Edom?

You know, this reminds me of the board game

that we grew up playing risk.

Who likes to play risk or you've played risk

or you grew up playing risk?

Okay, lots of people.

So you know, there's always that guy

who he does real well on his turn,

but he just doesn't know when to pass the dice.

You know, you gotta just take your card

and pass the dice.

And you know what, I'm gonna tell you

my biggest strategy in the game of risk.

And I know this is ruining my chances.

This is against you, if I give you all my secrets.

But let me tell you something, when I play risk,

this is my rule, early in the game,

you win one battle and you take your card.

Cause you gotta win a battle to get the card.

If you don't win any battles, you don't get the card.

So you gotta do something on your turn

so that you get the card.

You win one territory and you take the card.

Not two, not three, not one.

You defeat Edom and you take your card.

Okay, you don't say, oh hey, now let's,

let's just take all of, you know, Kamchatka

and let's go into Europe and what, no, it's not gonna work.

And so the idea is that he's saying to him,

look, just be humble, be apple, God has blessed you.

But this is human nature, isn't it?

To be greedy and nothing's ever enough.

It's like God blesses you with something

and you're just like, oh, that's not enough.

I want more, more, more.

You know, and this is how we all are as humans.

We can't just eat one cookie.

We gotta eat the whole box.

You know, when it comes to Pringles,

once you pop, you can't stop.

Because people are greedy, that's why.

And so the idea is that he needs to just quit

while he's ahead.

And this is what the king of Israel

is actually giving him good advice here.

Just saying, look, you beat Edom, glory in this,

have a party, celebrate, stay home,

for why shouldest thou meddle to thy herd

that thou shouldest fall even now in Judah with thee?

Here are some other verses from Proverbs that support this.

It's an honor for a man to cease from strife.

Right?

So if there's a fight brewing

and you can get out of that physical fight, you should.

There's no glory in going around

and getting in fist fights.

Right?

Or just meaningless, pointless arguments,

vein jangling, contention, strivings.

He says, look, it's an honor for a man

to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling,

meaning that fools are going out looking for fights.

They're getting in situations

that don't even pertain to them just to pick a fight.

Proverbs 17, 14, the beginning of strife

is as when one leteth out water.

Therefore, leave off contention before it be meddled with.

Proverbs 25, 8, go not forth hastily to strive,

lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof

when thy neighbor has put thee to shame,

meaning you don't know that you're going to win every fight.

You know, and you get these guys that think they're so tough

and they're so bad and whatever,

one day they're going to mess with the wrong person.

One day they're going to mess with someone

who's armed with a weapon.

One day they're going to mess with somebody

who has three friends that they didn't see.

One day they're going to mess with someone

who's highly trained in martial arts.

Or one day they're going to mess with someone

who's a weak, pathetic, bozo

who doesn't even know how to fight

and just gets lucky.

Because the fight doesn't always go to the strong.

The race isn't always to the swift, right?

It's time and chance happens to them all.

And you know what, some people will just land a lucky,

they'll just swing the wildest haymaker

and it just happens to connect.

Stranger things have happened.

You don't know how it's going to end.

The Bible says he that passeth by

and meddled with strife not belonging to him

is like one that takeeth a dog by the ears.

You know, you're just asking for trouble.

Don't go picking fights with people.

Try to live at peace with all men as much as possible.

But no, he doesn't take that advice.

Amaziah would not hear it says in verse 11.

Therefore, Jehoash king of Israel went up

and he and Amaziah king of Judah

looked one another in the face at Beth Shemesh

which belongedeth to Judah

and Judah was put to the worst before Israel

and they fled every man to their tent.

So look, they even have the home turf advantage

and they still get smoked by the Israelites.

It says in verse 13, Jehoash king of Israel

took Amaziah king of Judah,

the son of Jehoash, the son of Isaiah

at Beth Shemesh and came to Jerusalem

and break down the wall of Jerusalem.

I mean, look, he was coming off of a victory.

He had defeated Edom, everything's good.

The economy's good, we're winning, it's great.

But because of this stupid fight

that he picks with the northern kingdom of Israel,

what ends up happening is

the wall of Jerusalem gets broken down.

I mean, this is serious damage.

This is really bad.

The wall of Jerusalem is broken down

from the gate of Ephraim under the corner gate,

400 qubits, okay, that's approximately 600 feet

of the wall is broken down and destroyed.

So it's just basically just wide open

for people to come in.

He took all the gold and silver

and all the vessels that were found

in the house of the Lord

and in the treasures of the king's house

and hostages and returned to Samaria.

And you know, here's an analogy

from history that comes to mind.

Adolf Hitler, okay?

Adolf Hitler comes into power in Germany

in 1933 and in the 30s,

he's basically recovering things in the economy

and he's rebuilding the military

and trying to get Germany respect.

And he also was able to regain territory

that had been lost in World War I.

So he regains territory that was taken by France

without firing a shot.

He's able to get some territory back over here

and then he's able to bring Austria under Germany.

He's voted in.

Basically, I think it was like 98% of Austrians

voted to become part of Germany

and then Hitler goes to Vienna

and they're all cheering and woo, you know,

he's just winning, winning, winning, winning, winning.

But you know what?

He just was just so greedy

that he's just never gonna stop, right?

So it's like, instead of just being like,

hey, I fixed the economy,

I got back some territory from France,

got back some territory from Czechoslovakia,

got Austria back into the kingdom.

I mean, if he would have just taken his card

and passed the dice at that point,

you know, things would have gone well for him

but instead, what did he do?

He just has to just keep going.

And you know what?

He'd already explained all this in his book,

Mein Kampf, where he'd already talked about

how he wants to go east

and take over all this territory in the East.

He wasn't going to stop.

And so he invades Poland

and then that's a bridge too far.

He invades Poland.

Next thing you know, World War II breaks out

and it's the biggest bloodbath

in the history of mankind

with like 70 million people dead or something.

You know, it's hard to even know the exact numbers,

50 million, 70 million deaths,

just this insane bloodbath.

Because Hitler is just greedy and insatiable

just like other conquerors of the past

who it's like they don't just conquer a little bit

and then stop.

He's just gotta keep going.

He's gotta invade Poland or whatever.

You know, and you look back throughout history

and you see the same pattern.

And you know what?

The Bible talks about this

with Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar.

And you know, what's funny is a lot of these modern,

like conquerors and emperors and rulers

and furors and dictators,

they'll often look back on men like,

you know, Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great

and all these different people

as like heroes and kindred spirits

and you know, Napoleon Bonaparte or whoever, you know,

and they look back on that.

But it's like, if you look at what the Bible says

about Nebuchadnezzar, okay?

In the book of Habakkuk,

it says that he enlarges his desire as hell

and is as death and can never be satisfied.

But gathereth unto him all nations

and heapeth unto him all peoples.

It's saying that Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon,

just has a desire to conquer

and just wants all nations,

wants to conquer and conquer

and keep conquering and conquering, right?

And it's like Alexander the Great

just taking his troops and just keeps going

until he's all the way in like India.

You know, he's just conquering, conquering

and all of his troops are like,

bro, are we gonna go home?

I mean, Alexander the Great led his troops.

I think it was like seven years

without going back home.

Like these people haven't been home in seven years.

But it's just like more, more, more, greed, greed, more.

You know, this is what we see, it's human nature.

It's a sinful human nature.

And so what did he end up doing?

He had all the success,

but then when he stopped worshiping the Lord

and starts, you know, doing idolatry,

now all of a sudden God causes him

to make this stupid decision of invading Poland,

AKA invading the Northern Kingdom.

And what ends up happening is

he ends up destroying his whole nation,

just like, guess what?

Germany was totally destroyed by World War II.

You wanna know who lost millions and millions of lives?

Germany.

Obviously, there were a lot of Soviet Union deaths,

British deaths, American deaths, French deaths.

But I mean, Germany got destroyed.

I mean, you know, Dresden, Germany,

even though it was used with conventional weapons,

it was tantamount to being nuked.

It was like the surface of the moon

when they were done with it.

It was tantamount to nuked, right?

And I mean, at the end of the war,

Germany is having to put teenagers

and old men in the military

because just that whole generation

is just getting wiped out.

I mean, he went from making Germany

like top of the world at the end of the 30s

where Germany is like thriving

and Austria is begging to join,

like please let us be part of Germany.

He took it from the penthouse to the outhouse

because of greed.

And that's exactly what Amaziah did.

Amaziah is literally Hitler in armscare.

But anyway, I'm saying like,

Amaziah, if he would have quit while he was ahead

and kept worshiping the Lord, it would have been great.

But instead, he bites off more than he can choose.

He ruins the whole country.

Jerusalem gets destroyed,

just like Germany got destroyed.

They lose the money, they lose the wall,

they lose everything.

They get destroyed.

And then, what happens, ultimately, verse 19,

now they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem.

Why do you think they're mad at him?

They're mad at him because he screwed everything up.

And ruined everything.

So then they made a conspiracy against him

which is exactly what happened to his dad.

They made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem

and he fled to Lakers.

So he's like, okay, I'm not gonna let

what happened to me happen to, or excuse me,

I'm not gonna let what happened to dad happen to me.

I'm gonna be smart and I'm gonna flee to Lakers, right?

But what happened?

They sent to Lakers after him and slew him there.

You know what's funny is people think they can do

the same sins as their parents,

but that they're not gonna get the punishment.

Like, I remember, I had this guy that I worked with.

His dad was a chain smoker and died of lung cancer.

And he was smoking.

And I said, well, do you think that smoking

had something to do with your dad dying of lung cancer?

He's like, no, I don't think so.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it probably did.

And it's like, it just seems bizarre to me

that like if your dad literally died of lung cancer

as a smoker, wouldn't you think like, well, not me.

I'm not gonna smoke.

But you know what they think like, well, I am gonna smoke,

but it's just not gonna happen to me.

It's like, well, if you do the same stuff

that your parents did that messed up their lives,

then you're probably gonna end up with the same results.

And so again, we should learn from other people's bad

experiences.

If we see other people that are getting out of church

and getting divorced and messing up their lives

and or we see people get into gambling.

Next thing we know, they're in debt up to their eyeballs.

We see people get into drinking.

And next thing you know, they're an alcoholic

and they're a drug addict.

When you see these things happening in other people,

you gotta take a lesson from it.

And not think, well, sure, dad got a DUI,

but I'm not gonna get the DUI.

You probably are.

Sure, you know, dad cheated on mom and ruined his marriage,

but if I cheat on my wife, I'm gonna be okay.

Or this pastor over here cheated on his wife,

screwed up his ministry, screwed up his life,

but I'm gonna get away with it

or something, what?

No, that's stupid.

Learn from other people's mistakes.

And you know what, when I see people crash and burn,

I'm thinking like, what can I learn from this?

And then I'm thinking like,

I'm not gonna go down that road.

Don't wanna do that.

Ain't gonna let that happen to me.

Not me, I'm not gonna do that.

And so here's the thing.

How do we know what's right and wrong?

Cause the Bible says.

So if somebody did something against the word of God

and faced consequences, we should take a warning.

Hey, I better follow what the Bible says here.

And the Bible says not to make any graven images,

so idolatry is off limits.

And so the same thing that happened to his dad happened

to him, even though he tried to escape it.

He tried to say, I'm not gonna end up like dad.

I'm gonna go to Lake-ish.

I'm gonna get out while I still can.

Nope, they just follow him to Lake-ish

and get him anyway.

And he ends up being killed.

I'm out of time.

So I just wanted to say one last thing

because I thought this was interesting.

If you jump down to verse number 24,

it says, and this is talking about the Northern Kingdom.

We went back to the Northern Kingdom.

So this is kind of like a little bonus feature.

The sermon proper is over.

It says, he did not which was evil

in the side of the Lord.

He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam,

the son of Nibad who made Israel descend.

Verse 25, he restored the coast of Israel

from the entering of Hamath under the sea of the plain

according to the word of the Lord God of Israel,

which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah.

Now this is interesting because this is the only mention

of Jonah outside of the book of Jonah.

Jonah the son of Amitai.

That's how you know it's the same guy

because Jonah in the book of Jonah

is also the son of Amitai.

The prophet, which was of Gathefer.

For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel

that it was very bitter.

Now don't miss this.

The Lord saw the affliction of Israel

that it was very bitter for there was not any shut up

nor any left nor any helper for Israel.

Now, stop and think about this.

Everything in the Bible is there for a reason, right?

This gives you a little backstory on the book of Jonah

because it's like, okay, Jonah is preaching

and ministering in a time

when things are very bitter for Israel

because of affliction, they're being afflicted.

And so this kind of explains why later on

Jonah is gonna be so bitter against the enemies of Israel

and he just wants Nineveh to get destroyed

and he wants no mercy for Israel or for Nineveh

because he grew up and is preaching

and ministering in a period

where he's watching Israel suffer, right?

And so the moral of the story here is

that we are gonna go through things in our life,

we're gonna see bad things happen to people around us,

bad things are gonna happen to us

and we can't let that make us become bitter

and hateful toward entire groups of people, right?

Because it's easy as you go through life

and you see bad things happen

and you get to a point where you just start hating

entire groups of people and just being super bitter

and super negative and that's what happened to Jonah

because remember Jonah starts out

and ends up both kind of bitter and messed up

and I think Jonah was a great man of God.

I think Jonah was an awesome man of God.

It's just the book of Jonah is an episode in his life

where he's in a messed up place and disobedient.

But it doesn't make him a bad guy overall.

He's obviously a man who's being greatly used by God

and even in the story of Jonah, in the book of Jonah,

I mean he's getting tons of people saved.

I mean, I would love to crash and burn like Jonah

and just get just thousands and thousands

of salvations along the way, sounds great.

I mean, so Jonah's not the worst person in the Bible is he?

He's a good guy who's going through a bad episode

in the book of Jonah and yeah,

the episode lasts for all four chapters

but it's still, it's a bad episode, but he's a good guy.

When I get to heaven, I'm gonna hang out with Jonah

and I'm gonna be like, I get it man.

But the thing is, you don't wanna go down this road

of being bitter and hateful because you know what?

I remember, we were just talking about this

the other day, I remember that after 9-11

there was an attitude in the US

of just, just kill all Arabs.

Do you remember that?

I mean, there were people that talked that way.

Just, and they were not joking

and they were not using hyperbole.

Who remembers people talking that way?

Just saying, bomb them into oblivion,

bomb them into the stone age, nuke them all,

destroy them all.

Now look, I remember that was the attitude

of a lot of people.

Now people cooled down after a few weeks, months, years,

maybe some people have never cooled down.

But is that really right though?

Like, look, I hate obviously Islam.

I hate every false way.

I hate Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism,

Mormonism, Calvinism.

But the point is, I hate every false way

but I'm not gonna say, hey, let's just murder

millions of people, man, woman, boy, and girl.

Because of what their relatives or friends

or co-religionists did to us.

Obviously that's going too far

and here's the thing, we want people to be saved.

We want people to be saved.

Obviously we want justice, we want the guilty punished

but here's the thing, at the end of the day though,

is that killing innocent people is not justice.

Killing man, woman, boy, and girl is not justified

because you know what, Simeon and Levi,

they were pretty mad about what happened

to their sister in the book of Genesis

and they went in and just killed the whole town.

And God said that it was wrong,

that they shouldn't have had that vengeful attitude

that said, well, we're just gonna kill everybody

because of what this one guy did.

Oh, this one guy did, let's kill everybody.

Just like Amaziah said, well, we're not gonna kill

the children of the slayers.

We're only gonna kill the murderers themselves.

And so we wanna make sure that we always stay with

biblical justice, biblical principles that we do write

no matter what and that we don't get so bitter

and negative that we're just like, you know what,

I don't care, just kill them all and let God sort them out.

That should never be our attitude.

Let's pray, it's enough water prayer.

Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter Lord

and thank you for this example of Amaziah

foolishly making the same mistakes

that his father, Joe Ash, made Lord

and ending up the same way.

And Lord, you showed us an example of somebody

who followed in their father's footsteps for evil.

But Lord, help us to realize that even if our ancestors

or fathers or grandfathers have done evil,

we don't have to go down that road.

We can always follow your word

and Lord, just help us not to get bitter like Jonah.

Help us to continue to love people

and give people a chance.

Bless us now as we go our separate ways

and in Jesus' name we pray amen.