2 Kings 12: Joash’s Reign AUGUST 19, 2026 Pastor Steven L. Anderson

Man second Kings chapter number 12 the Bible reads in verse number one in the seventh year of Jihu

Jehoash began to rain and 40 years reigned he in Jerusalem and his mother's name was

Zibia of Beersheba and Jehoash did that which was right in the side of the Lord all his days

We're in Jehoiadah the priest instructed him and so what you see here is that this King Jehoash

Remember from last week seven years old when he began to rain and so obviously he's not just coming in and

Taking all the power and just making changes as a seven-year-old

Rather there's someone else who's really doing the ruling and this is called a regency

When you have a child that's too young to rain

So you have someone who's older who's doing the raining for him and that is Jehoiadah the priest and the Bible says that as long as

Jehoiadah the priest was in charge of this guy as long

As he's instructing him and guiding him

He actually did that which was right in the side of the Lord and so he grows up and he becomes an adult and even raining as an adult

He continues to serve God as long as Jehoiadah is instructing him now

What's funny is that here in second Kings?

It doesn't really tell the story about what went wrong after Jehoiadah died

But we get that story from second Chronicles 24. We're gonna look at that a little bit later

but the main point here is that there are a lot of people who will serve God as long as they have an authority figure over them

Making them serve God

Right as long as they're living in their parents home and you'll see kids

Teenagers young adults living with their parents and serving God and then as soon as they get out of their parents home

They go off the deep end right because they don't have a root in themselves

Right. It's they're relying on the faith of their parents

They're leaning on other people's faith instead of having their own personal right walk with God

And so Jehoiadah was a great man

You know and and the fact that Jehoiadah was able to keep him straight

The whole time that Jehoiadah was alive

Shows that Jehoiadah is a good leader a good instructor a good ruler over Joash

But unfortunately, you know once Joiadah is gone

Joiadah has got to make his own decision and he ends up making all the wrong decisions and becomes very wicked and we're gonna look at that elsewhere

but the Bible says in verse number four and

Jehoiadah said to the princes all the money of the dedicated things that is brought into the house of the Lord

Even the money of everyone that passed at the account the money that every man has said at and all the money that

Coming into any man's heart to bring into the house of the Lord

Let the priests take it to them every man of his acquaintance and let them repair the breeches of the house

Wheresoever any breach shall be found

But it was so that in the three and twentieth year of King Jehoash the priests had not

repaired the breeches of the house

Then King Jehoiadah called for joy to the priests and the other priests said to them

Why repair you not the breeches of the house now therefore receive no more money of your acquaintance

But deliver it for the breeches of the house

So here's the thing not only is Jehoash

Serving God and going through the motions as long as Jehoiadah is in charge of him

But he also seems to actually have his own zeal for the house of God because he's sitting there and saying look

Let's fix things. This is not Jehoiadah's idea. This is Jehoiadah's idea

He's saying look let's fix things the house of God has problems

Now obviously what this is referring to is the building was physically breaking down and

Obviously we kind of maybe just think about oh they built the tabernacle lasted for hundreds of years

They built the temple lasted for hundreds of years

But the reality is that everything needs maintenance

Right, you know that in your house if you just ignore things

Problems are going to stack up things break things get old and then combine that with the fact that there was a previous regime in

There that's worshiping bail. So because they're doing bail worship. They're neglecting the house of God

They're possibly damaging the house of God or repurposing it for their heathen worship

So the house of God is damaged physically

The temple is damaged and he wants to get it fixed and so he's saying look

Go out collect all the money collect the offerings from the people and then use that money to actually fix things

In the house of God and unfortunately the priests are dragging their feet on this years and years are going by

You get 23 years in and he's just saying hey, what is the deal?

Why are we not fixing things in the house of God?

And so the other thing I want to point out is that even though this guy is

Gonna go bad later when he doesn't have Jehoiadah over him

He's actually you know pretty zealous for God seemingly while he has that authority figure over him and

So what we have to understand is that some people can handle a lot of freedom and some people can't

You know and a guy like Jehoash as a second in command. He's a great guy as

A guy who's under Jehoiadah's tutelage

He's actually a pretty good guy and he's even doing good work for God

And he's even excited about things and he's even kind of lighting a fire into Jehoiadah because maybe Jehoiadah's an older guy

And so maybe he's slower about things and so even though Jehoiadah is steady

Serving God and keeping everybody straight, you know the young guy kind of brings that zeal to the table

Hey, let's get this done and let's make things happen

And so what we have to understand is that you know

There are people who are young and zealous for God, but unfortunately, they're not all gonna pan out in the long run

You know because some of them they just have to have somebody

Making them do what's right and let me give an example when I was about 18 years old

I had this really good friend at church and you know

What happened was this kid showed up on a Sunday night

He was like 17 years old showed up on a Sunday night

And I just kind of just greeted him on his first time at church and just instantly kind of befriended him

Took him under my wing. He needed a ride home

I gave him a ride home that night and we just kind of instantly became buddies

Well, this guy had had a really troubled background. He'd been sent to like a brat camp and his parents had shifted away

I think he'd been to juvenile Hall

I mean this kid had lived a messed up life

But he'd gotten saved and he wanted to serve God

He wanted to be an independent fundamental Baptist and so, you know

I was really zealous for the Lord at that time and so I took him under my wing and

You know mentored this guy and we became best buddies, you know

We were about the same age and so I'm taking this guy out soul winning every week

I'm talking to him about the Bible and you know, he was really truly

I believe sincerely zealous for the things of God

You know, I don't think he was pretending. I mean his parents weren't even taking him to church

He's taking the initiative to go to church on his own as a 17 year old boy

He really wanted to serve God. He really wanted to go soul winning

But he kind of had me there

almost every day pushing him and I'm motivating him and

Challenging him and we're going soul winning together. I'm giving them rides to church and and you know

It was going great going great going great, but then what ended up happening was, you know

I went to Germany for three months and of course, you know, the rest is history

That's where I met my wife and everything

But while I was in Germany for those three months this guy just completely fell away like he just he's not in church

He's not soul winning. He just kind of just flaked out

Which made no sense to me because I was like, bro

I thought you and I were like right there. We're both super zealous. We're both really excited

but it turned out he's kind of leaning a little bit on my

Zeal or my faith a little bit and so as soon as I was gone

He went for a couple weeks and then he just quit going. I was like what in the world

So then I got him back in you know

And I'm like, hey, let's get back into this and then I got him back

But then it was like, you know, then I ended up getting married and then you know, obviously I can't just

Be buddies with this guy all the time for the rest of my life. It was more like, you know, I'm growing up

I'm moving on I got married

Eventually I went off to Bible college and this guy just ended up just in the long run

Totally getting out of church, but he while he had somebody there like holding his hand and and helping him

He was zealous for God and he was doing great

Fast-forward like 10 years my mom and my sister are walking out of a grocery store and this guy is just like a homeless person

Outside the grocery store literally because he's just addicted to drugs, you know, and I had I had actually

Tracked him down because I had like searched for him and found him

Maybe five six years before that and I had offered him like hey, let me get you a job at the company

I work for let's get you back in church

Let's get you on the right track because he was living in some house with a bunch of drug addicts and idiots

You know, that's what a lot of young people do they move out of their house

And they just move in with a bunch of friends and it's just obviously a dent of iniquity

But then you fast-forward. Yeah, and my mom and sister just run into him

He's just outside the grocery store just a dirty homeless person. They're like wait. Is that so-and-so and

They went and talked to him, but you know, it's funny when I talked to him when they talked to him

Here's the thing this guy never had any doubt that he was saved

He had a New Testament in his backpack even as a homeless person. He's like I still love the Lord

He's just like I'm just back to it. I've screwed up my life like he knew that he had screwed up his life

And he felt bad about it. It's not that he was unsaved or anything. It's just that he

needed

Somebody to do it for him or to at least push him or motivate him and you know

That's how some people are sadly and you know what the moral of the story is don't be that guy

You know, you need to be able to stand on your own two feet as a Christian

Because you're not always going to have somebody there doing that for you and maybe right now mom and dad or pushing you to serve God

Or maybe like with my friend

Maybe it's just a buddy at church and you know what?

I hope you do have close friends at church and I hope your buddies at church do provoke you to good works

And they do exhort you and and and be a good influence on you

But you know, you just have to realize that someday you might not always have that

Jehoida in your life to lean on his spirituality and so you've got to develop your own

Personal walk with God that's rock solid where you can do it alone if necessary

None of us wants to do it alone

But you got to be able to do it alone if you need to you got to be solid on your own

And it's good to have role models friends

Heroes mentors, but you've got to also develop your own foundation so that you can stand up on your own if you need to

And not just be helpless without somebody walking you through everything and that's what I see in this story

And I've seen it in my life too, you know people that constantly have to be dragged to church and they come and here's the thing

Like I said this guy was very zealous, and I think Joe ashes zealous. I think he's excited

I think he wants to do what's right and fix things, but he's not the kind of guy that can do it on his own unfortunately

So he's a great second man, but he doesn't belong at the helm

You know unfortunately and so we see that he really wants to fix things the priests are kind of dragging their feet

And so it says in verse number seven then King Jehovah's called for joy to the priest and the other priests and said of them

Why repair ye not the breeches of the house now therefore receive no more money of your acquaintance

But deliver it for the breeches of the house and the priest consented to receive no more money of the people neither to repair

The breeches of that so here's what's funny is like he's telling him look don't just don't just hoard the money

Don't just collect the offering and sit on it

You got to take the money that you're taking in you got to use it to actually fix the house of God

And he said look quit taking offerings and start spending the money

So then they're just like well, you know what?

We're just not going to take offerings nor are we going to spend the money

What you know, so it's like they're basically just not wanting to do the work

So they're just like well, we'd rather just not take in any more money then you know

It's it's sad when people are laxadaisical and lazy about the things of God and here's the thing about our church is that our church?

You know we've thankfully

21 years of our church. We've never had financial problems

So we've never been in a situation where we ran out of money. We've never had a fundraiser

We've never had a big, you know push for offerings or anything like that, you know

Thank God he's blessed us and we've just never really had to worry about it

But we've also had this philosophy the entire 21 years of spending all the money

Which on the surface seems a little bit irresponsible?

Just blow all the money spend it all

But here's the thing it's actually not irresponsible because you know my philosophy has always been

You know why I take the Lord's money and we want to get it out there doing the work of the Lord

We don't want to bury the talent in a napkin under the earth

But we want to get God's money out there doing the work

So we don't need some big rainy day fund and and you know just kind of just saving up hundreds of thousands of dollars

No, no, I would always rather just spend the money and just get the work done

And that's why we're constantly funding missions trips

We're constantly funding the trips to the Indian reservations and small-town soul winning and whatever

Projects and whatever we can do to get the gospel out to get the word of God out. We're donating to other churches

We're donating to conferences

Missions trips missionaries, you know, that's what I do because we don't want to just sit on the money and

This is what Jehovah's saying is like don't sit on this money use it to do the work

There's a well

Let's just take in less money no take in a lot of money and spend a lot of money

And I think that if God sees us spending the money on good things and

Being generous with the money to do the work of the Lord and to you know

Equip people to do the work of the Lord and to give people the tools that they need to get to the mission field or to get to

Conferences soul winning marathons, whatever, you know, I think then God wants to bless us with more money

So that the show can go on and you know what whenever our bank account has gotten low over the last 21 years I

Always pray the exact same thing. I always just pray to God and I say listen God

If if we run out of money, I'm just gonna have to slow things down

If you want us to slow down we'll slow down, but if you want things to go full speed ahead God

Send us a little more money and then the money just always comes in and it's just always full speed ahead

We virtually never have to slow down on anything

But but there's the thing if we ever ran out of money, that's what we would do if we ever got low on money

What would we do? We would slow down. We would have less missions trips less of the small-town trips

You know, we we could lay off staff or whatever we could do what we have to do and it'd be fine

We'll figure it out. Amen. I mean God, you know, whatever God provides. That's what we're gonna do

But here's the thing. I'm always praying to God God. Let us go full speed ahead

because I want to go full speed ahead and I want to take all the money that's coming in and spend it on

Soul winning trips missions, whatever and you know, what's funny in 2025?

We had a little bit of a crisis where we were gonna be out of our building and we didn't know what we were gonna do for a building and

You know, this building was like a last-minute thing and this building is awesome. I mean, what a blessing from God

I love this building even though it adds 20 minutes to my drive every service like it's worth it

Because it's such a cool building. I love it. I'm happy. Praise God. It was a blessing in disguise

It's a lot better than our old building. It's cheaper. It's bigger. It's nicer. Everything's better about it

Except the neighborhood

But hey all the neighborhoods are rough these days because we had just as many weird things happening in our old parking lot

Is this parking lot? So it's at the end of the day. God worked it out

but at the time we didn't know what was gonna happen and

so we were nervous because we were gonna be out on the street because

you know, we weren't gonna be able to stay in our building and

You know, I remember people were talking about hey, maybe we should just finally bite the bullet buy a building

Save up by a building. But you know what?

We had like a six months notice that we knew we were gonna need to be out of our building

And I just told brother say Gora and I told everybody I said we're not raising money. We're not saving up for a building

We're not gonna buy I said, you know what we're gonna do

We're gonna take all our money and we're gonna blow it like we always do

Greatest year ever because we had we had made that pronouncement like that

We wanted 2025 to be the greatest year ever

We wanted to just have huge soul winning numbers huge missions numbers just unprecedented missions

And I was like, you know what if we get all absorbed in this building thing

Then we're not going to be able to give a hundred percent

to the actual

Mission of greatest year ever souls saved mission fields everything like that

So I just said, you know what if God lets us be out on the street, then we're gonna be out on the street

That's God's problem, but this train doesn't stop

And we're just gonna just keep spending the money and do everything full speed at and that's what we did in

2025 and we were just going gung-ho

Just smashing records, but then you know eventually it came time where it was like yeah

We're gonna be out of our building in like a few weeks, and it didn't seem like God had come through

And then we were stressing out and we were my brother say gore and I are up at like midnight one in the morning

Preparing financial documents for realtors and trying to get into buildings and we're calling places

And we had this realtor that was really slow and dragging his feet and we were stressed out

But then finally we got you know brother Eric to be our realtor

He just did more in two days than the other guy did in two weeks and he found us this building got it done

You know what do I regret?

the fact that we

Spent all the money on the work of the Lord and didn't sit around

You know worried about building funds and stuff no because I've always wanted to prioritize

The work and the people then a physical building now you say well pastor Anderson

I thought we're reading a story about a physical building yeah

That's because it's the Old Testament in the Old Testament

There was a physical building that mattered the temple of God, but in the New Testament

What does the Bible say the church is the house of God the people and that's not the building

It's the people now, so we got to shift our focus. Yeah, obviously when we read an Old Testament story

We've got to update that to the New Testament and say okay in the Old Testament

It's a temple in the New Testament. It's the congregation

It's the church and so that's where we're going to emphasize and so when I think about

The breaches in the house of God as far as being like physical problems with the structure

I think of that as problems with the church

So here's the thing over time in churches bad doctrine creeps in that could be like a breach in the building and

so every generation has to kind of come along and

revisit things and re-examine things and

Actually fix things that have become a problem in the house of God

So like for example, I grew up as an independent fundamental Baptist

And you know the independent fundamental Baptist of the previous generation did a lot of great things for God

But when I was coming up, you know, I noticed some breaches. I noticed some problems

And so when I started a church, I saw it to fix some of those problems

You know like for example the wrong doctrine on the rapture the wrong doctrine on Israel, you know

You go down the list that obviously the the reprobate doctrine was something that was being neglected

You could go down the list of all of the things that were problems and just gaps that you see or you'll see things

That are kind of hypocritical and don't make sense like for example, you know

When I was growing up in church, they would preach the part of the Bible that says that men should not have long hair

You know, the Bible teaches that men should have short hair and women should have long hair

But then you would just have so many women in the church with really short hair

And it was just considered fine like the pastor's wife will have short hair

You're just like well if it's wrong for men to have long hair. Why do we have all the women with the short hair?

What's up with that?

You know, so it's like we we all kind of can develop blind spots or

Hypocrisy or just gaps. None of us is perfect. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect

We're all going to have these areas that need to be tightened up

And when an institution goes on for years or decades just like your house gets old and things start breaking

It's the same with the church if you're not doing regular maintenance and fixing things

It's gonna decay and you've got to tighten it up and sometimes young people can come in and fix things

So a lot of times you'll have a church. It's kind of a dead church and then they'll get a young pastor

So the old pastor dies the young pastor takes over and now the young guy has that vision of youth

And a lot of times we'll fix things tighten things up and that's what we see here. That's what we want to see

Because the house of God, you know, sometimes it needs some repairs when things are allowed to decay

And so it says in verse number nine, but Jehoi to the priest

So because it's not really Jehoi to that's the bad guy here. It's the priests that are dragging their feet

Jehoi wants to get things done. So Jehoi to comes up with a solution

He took a chest bored a hole in the lid of it and

Set it beside the altar on the right side as one comes into the house of the Lord and the priests that kept the door

Put there in all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord

And it was so when they saw that there was much money in the chest that the king's scribe and the high priest came up

And they put it and they put up in bags and told the money

That means counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord and they gave the money being told

Into the hands of them that did the work that had the oversight of the house of the Lord

And they laid it out to the carpenters and builders that wrought upon the house of the Lord to mason's hewers of stone

Etc. And so basically what they end up doing is they end up just putting like a collection box

Putting a hole in it and just taking all the money and just publicly

Sticking it in this box counting the money publicly and then just kind of cutting out the middle man giving it straight to

The carpenters the mason's whatever putting it in the hands of the people that are actually doing the work that needs to be done

Cutting out the bureaucracy a little bit and making sure that the offering money

Actually gets to what it's supposed to be spent on and that nobody is you know skimming off the top or just

Sitting on it wasting it whatever

So Jehoi had ultimately ends up being the one that fixed the problem along with Joe Ash

But Joe Ash has taken the initiative as a young man and that's good

They gave to the workman verse 14 repaired there with the house of the Lord more over

They reckon not with the men into whose hand they delivered the money to be bestowed on workmen for they dealt faithfully now

Don't miss verse 15. Why did they not reckon with the men into whose hand they delivered the money?

Because they knew that these guys are dealing faithfully. So here's what I take from this is that when you?

Actually give someone a responsibility and they do it faithfully

Then you are building trust with that person and then pretty soon

You don't have to just check up on every single thing that that person does

You can just kind of trust them and you don't have to worry too much about it, right now look

I don't know about you, but I love freedom

You know, I love freedom. I always love jobs that gave me a lot of freedom

We were kind of talking about this before the service, you know, some jobs

They're just watching you and micromanaging you and telling you every little thing

It's not that they just tell you what to do, but they're telling you exactly how to do it

I've never really enjoyed that kind of an environment

I kind of liked an environment where I can make my own hours and I can choose how to approach things

And where my boss is just like get it done and he just wants results. He just wants production

You know, I thrive in that environment, but here's the thing in order for that to work

The guy that you give that freedom to has to not abuse the freedom

The only way it's gonna work to tell your employees. Hey, just go get this done. I don't care how you do it

I don't care when you do it is if the guy is responsible

Because if he's a bozo, then you're gonna have to sit there and hold his hand and say hey

You got to get here at exactly eight o'clock, you know

This is when you're gonna have lunch and do it this way and you know, but here's the thing

I think that most people would probably like to have the freedom

Well, let me tell you something. Here's how you get freedom in this world is by being responsible

Right and here's the thing, you know, the United States of America has been one of the freest countries in the world

But part of the reason why it works for America is because you started the country with a basic culture of

Protestant Christianity

Baptist Methodist whatever even if everybody's doctrine wasn't perfect, of course

Even if some of them are wrong on the gospel, you had a basic just fabric of biblical

Christianity as the basis for our country and so people in general are literate

People have a certain level of wisdom and intelligence that comes from meditating on the word of God

And there's a certain morality where you have a high trust society

Right, you know, it's sort of like when my wife and I travel and she's really into

You know her frequent flyer status and and her she gets access to the lounge

You know at the airport which I've never even done these lounges until I hung around with her

But because she has the access she gets me in as a plus one

Into the lounge. So I'm kind of you know living that, you know airport lounge life

Okay, which even when I used to fly all the time, you know, I I guess my I guess united

What was it?

US Airways just wasn't taking care of me like that apparently so but but for some reason, you know my wife

She takes these big trips to Germany. She racks up the mileage

She's got the status so she's got free lounge access for her and a buddy

So I bring her with me on a trip. She gets me into the lounge and here's the thing see when I go in the lounge

You know, I'm like keeping my backpack with me and keeping my suitcase with me and because I'm just like super paranoid about being robbed

Just because I've had stuff stolen and once you've had something stolen you're paranoid about it for the rest of your life

You know, I mean I as a as an electrician I had tools stolen before

And it's just it's frustrating and I've had people break into my car and steal stuff out of my car

So now I'm super careful. I never leave anything out in the car

Like I always put a towel over it so nobody sees any valuables or anything like that

But my wife, you know, she basically is just she'll just put her laptop and bag over here

And then she just walks away and she just goes and gets the food and gets a drink and get it

And it's just and the bag is just over there and I'm just like I'm like, what are you doing your bag?

You know, you're just gonna leave it

But that but she feels like well the people that are in here, you know, this is like a this is like a high-end deal

They're people like me. It's not the it's not the general public or what I sometimes called gen pop

You know, we're not dealing with gen pop in here. You know, this is like sophisticated airline travelers

They're not trying to like rob your backpack

All these like business travelers in the lounge or whatever and she's probably right. It's probably safe

But you know, that's what I'm saying like you could have like a high trust society where you're kind of just leaving your car unlocked

Leave the front door unlocked

Lee you go to use the bathroom in the lounge and just leave your backpack behind

I'm like wearing my backpack. I got my suitcase right with me while I'm getting food, you know

But it's a difference between having that trust and not having the trust

You know and wouldn't we all love to live in a high trust society? Well, here's the thing

It's called a Christian society, right the more Christian it is

the more of

Comfort you're gonna have in just feeling safe and you can have more freedom and whatever. Here's the thing

Even our founding fathers when they found our country said that this republic is only in a work

to govern a

moral and religious people

Like this will work and you know what I always wondered my whole life

I always wondered why don't other countries just copy and paste our constitution because it's worked so well for us for

250 years, I mean think about 250 years of just having an awesome country

Thriving succeeding, you know, and then you hear about these other countries having all these violent revolutions

And they try this government, you know, France is on like their fifth Republic

We're on the first one and then it's like you see Mexico has gone throughs of people's different governments

And you just think to yourselves like bro

Why don't you just copy and paste the entire US Constitution?

If it ain't broke don't if it works for us use it for you guys

But see what I was missing is that the problem is that it's only gonna work

For a moral and religious and educated people

so if you have a if you have a country

Where more than half the population is illiterate meaning that they cannot read if

You have like 60% of the people can't read

85% of the people can't read

Okay, you it's not gonna work to give them a bunch of freedom

You have to treat them like a child

Because they're irresponsible because they're uneducated because they don't know better. They need someone to rule over them

Versus mature adults that are educated and moral can take care of themselves

Everybody understand what I'm saying? So you get freedom by being responsible

If you go to your job and prove yourself responsible

Your boss is not gonna breathe down your neck as much as when you're constantly screwing up

And he feels like he has to hold your hand and watch you and whatever

Now in our country as our country becomes more sinful and more de-christianized we're gonna lose freedom

Everything's gonna get stricter and now, you know, you hear the thing in the news out

They're just putting cameras everywhere nationwide right these flock cameras. I don't follow the news. So I don't really know what it's about

But it doesn't sound good, but I'm just thinking to myself having a surveillance state

losing rights losing freedoms is the result of having an

ungodly low-trust

De-christianized society that's where we're headed and the more ungodly we become the more freedom

We're gonna lose and you know what if we bring in a bunch of third world

Derelicts and a bunch of Muslims and a bunch of people that don't share our values

Well, then next thing, you know

We're gonna have to start babysitting everybody because we can't trust them to basically live our lifestyle

And it's just gonna get stricter and then you got to have more police more rules and nobody wants that

I don't want that. I want more freedom

Now how about you teenagers out there you teenagers want freedom?

Here's how you get more freedom teenagers. You show your parents that you're responsible

Because you know what let me tell you something that I would love to do for every teenager that I ever raised

I would love for every teenager to have a driver's license a job a cell phone and

Why because it's just it's it's it's convenient and nice for everybody if my kids have driver's licenses

Then guess what they're doing errands for me

They're driving places for me. They show for me around and I can sit in the back like I'm a big shot

You know, I'm at the lounge with my wife at the airport next day. I got you know, my daughter driving me around

It's like where to Mac

Hey, I don't want to drive. I want somebody else to drive

Hey go to the store go pick this up for us

It's super convenient to be able to and guess what teenagers like to drive

They're not you know at this age. We're like, yeah, I'm sick of driving

But you know what teenagers they don't mind hop in the car go to the store. They just they like to drive

They join when I was a teenager. I love to drive

You know and when they have a phone it's more convenient to be able to get a hold of them to talk to them and

and be able to you know

Coordinate with them send them a meme every once in a while, you know and just have a good time

Here's the thing. You know, we want our kids to have freedom

But the problem is when the kids abuse the freedom and then it's like dang it now

I got to take the t-bird away. You know now we got to take the phone away

Now we got to take that. Oh now you're grounded now you lose this now, you know because it's like we can't trust you

And it's irritating and you know what that's probably the same way god feels god wants to bless us

God wants to be good unto us god wants to give us all the desires of our heart

And give us all these privileges, but then we stupidly go out and sin and screw things up and abuse the privilege

And then god has to tighten us up

You know, here's the thing some people if they get money

It'll go to their head and ruin their life

So then you're like, man, why does god always keep me living paycheck to paycheck?

Why is god always keeping me so poor? Well, because he knows as soon as you get some money, you're going to be an idiot

He's got to keep you a little hungry

To keep you running scared

But I think god wants to bless us more, but we got to be responsible

Your parents want to give you more freedom

They want to let you do stuff. They want to let you go. You know look

Obviously the easiest thing would be to just let our kids just run wild

And just let them go play

And let them go on just endless bike rides and let them go to the mall and let them go drive and

Call and have fun and be at a friend's house. Look

Look as our kids get older

We don't want to be spooning food into their mouth and wiping their bottoms. Do we it's like you do that when they're a baby

Because you have to but what you want them to do is you want them to grow up and start taking responsibility for themselves

And start becoming an asset not a liability and you want to give them freedom

You want them to be able to drive

And go places and do stuff and plus you know what you want them to have a good time because you love your kids

You want them to have a good time. Look when I was a kid when I was a teenager

I was just like the teenagers of today

You teenagers of today, I know what you guys like to do more than anything else

You know what you like to do you like to hang out with your friends

That's what you like to do more than anything else is to hang with your friends

Well, guess what when I was a teenager guess what my favorite thing to do was hanging out with my friends

You know and I wanted to be dropped off at the mall with my friends

And I wanted to be on my bike riding all over creation

And you know when the when the but here's the thing there are certain rules though

When the street lights come on you got to go home

You know my mom used to do this wolf whistle and I can't do it

But she did a wolf whistle that you could hear like probably a mile away like maybe that's an exaggeration

But she did this incredibly loud wolf whistle

So I'd be like in some distant part of the neighborhood and I'd hear way off in the distance just this

And I don't know how to whistle, but it was like a

You know this kind of noise and I just tell my friends up got to go home

But you know what I was having fun at the park with my friends

So I'm fun on my bike

But here's here's the thing when they caught me getting in trouble though

Then it was like I would lose privileges

And then when they catch you being good when they catch you being responsible when they see you

Not abusing the privileges now all of a sudden they're giving you more rope

They're letting you have a longer leash. They're letting you have more freedom and get out and do so

You know and so here's the thing it's easy as a teenager to just complain like

Oh, I lost my car. I lost my keys. I lost my phone. I lost my job

Oh, my parents are so strict. Oh, my parents are just you know taking away all the privileges

Well, it's like you did that to yourself

By being irresponsible and the way to get those privileges back is by actually

Showing your parents that you can be responsible. It's sort of like you know when when

In the parable where the master of the house gives

You know just a little bit of money to his servants and then he leaves

He's like here take 10 talents

Take five talents take two talents take one down

He's giving them just a little bit of money to see what they do with it

And then the ones who did good with that little bit

He says well, you've been faithful in a little bit

So now I'm going to trust you with a lot

I mean he's like, okay, I gave you 10 talents now be thou over 10 cities

You know, he's like, okay, you turn one talent into 10 talents be thou over 10 cities

You know if you're faithful in the little things then you'll be entrusted with bigger things

And so the way it is is that your parents are constantly testing you

By giving you a little freedom and seeing what you do with it

If you if you're given a phone and then you use your phone to send inappropriate text messages

You're just you just want to tell dirty off-color jokes or you want to be just you know doing whatever

I don't know just just basically, you know getting in touch with people that they don't approve of or whatever

You know, then it's like, okay now you lose your phone and now nobody's happy

You know so but if you're using the phone legitimately

Well, then everybody can live happily ever after

This is a true story my friend

And obviously I'm not your parents

So I can't really speak for your parents teenagers

But I have a feeling that your parents probably agree with what I'm saying right now

That basically they will give more freedom the more responsible you are and take away freedom when you abuse the privilege

I mean, I think that's pretty universal

And so it's the same with adults with nations with teenagers

All the way around these guys

It says in verse 15

They dealt faithfully therefore they're like we don't even need to count the money

We just trust these we just give them the money and just say hey send us a bill

Just charge us whatever's right. Whatever you think is right. Just send us the bill when I'm worried about it

You know, isn't it nice when you have a mechanic or a dentist or a contractor where you can just say

Yeah, just charge me whatever you know

You know charge me a fair price and you just know he's going to charge you a fair price

Versus the guy that's going to gouge you and you have to be checking every line item and

Making sure that everything's kosher, you know, it's frustrating to deal with that

So the bible says in verse number

Uh 17

Then hezzael king of syria went up and fought against gath and took it and hezzael said his face to go up to

Jerusalem

And jahosh king of juda took all the hallowed things that jahosh fat

And jahoram and eaziah his father's kings of juda dedicated

And his own hallowed things all the gold that was found in the treasures of the house of the lord

And the king's house and sent it to hezzael king of syria

And he went away from jerusalem. So that you know, this is this is not a good thing

because

Basically instead of relying on the lord to protect him

Because he's living for god

This is later on he ends up just kind of just paying off the enemy to leave him alone

But there's something missing in the story here. Okay, because

Different books of the bible are emphasizing different parts of the story

To make a certain point. Okay

So in this chapter

It says in verse 19 and the rest

Of the acts of joe ash and all that he did are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of juda

So there's there's information that's being left out here

This is just a quick story of what god wants to emphasize for this book

Let's go over to the book of chronicles though and look at it

In uh second chronicles 24 because in second chronicles 24

We see where

joe ash goes off the rails

Because in kings all it said was like hey, he served god as long as joyada was instructing him

That kind of gives us a clue that after joyada stopped instructing him

He must have done some bad stuff, but kings doesn't tell us about it

You got to go to chronicles to get that

So if we go over to second chronicles 24

We find the same thing look at verse 2 and joe ash did that which was right in the side of the lord

All the days of joyada the priest. So as long as joyada the priest is there. He's serving god jump down to verse 15

Verse 15 says but joyada waxed old

And was full of days when he died

130 years old was he when he died

And they buried him in the city of david among the kings because he had done good in israel

Both toward god and toward his house. So this guy lived a great life for god lived to be a super old man

He kept the kingdom on track. He's mentoring joe ash great guy great leader

He dies and he's buried with kings even though he's not the king

They bury him in the royal graveyard just because he was just such a great guy and had done so much for the nation

And so it says in verse number 17

Now after the death of joyada came the princes of juda and made obeisance to the king

Then the king harkened unto them and they left the house of god

So they get out of church. They quit serving god. They get into idolatry. So look

As soon as joyada's gone joe ash just completely

Goes off the deep end and becomes a complete idiot. Isn't that amazing? I mean when joe ash is under joyada's tutelage

He is not only going through the motions of serving god. He's actually more excited than joyada sometimes like he's like

Hey, let's get this going. Let's fix this now all of a sudden as soon as he's gone

Boom, he's corrupted, but notice he didn't do this by himself

It's not like as soon as joyada died joe ash just like yeah, i'm getting out of church

Yeah, i'm gonna go out and start living like the devil

No, what happened doesn't the bible tell us here that there are other people

Waiting in the wings to corrupt joe ash as soon as joyada died because what does it say?

It says after the death of joyada came the princes of juda

And made obeisance to the king now. What does it mean to make obeisance? It means to bow down to the king

So basically as soon as joyada joyada is the righteous man of god keeping everybody serving god awesome guy

Dies and now all of a sudden as soon as he's gone these princes. They don't have the guts to do anything while joyada is around

joyada is too powerful

But once joyada's gone, they're thinking you know what joe ash they sense that he's maybe a weak target

That they can corrupt him and so what do they do? They make obeisance to him

Bowing down to him now. Why does the bible mention that? Here's the thing about the writing style of the old testament

It's a very economic writing style. Nothing is extra

Nothing in the bible is incidental coincidental or accidental everything means something. Why does it say?

Well, they came to him and they made obeisance to him

This is what the bible calls flattery

So they don't come to him and say all right, buddy. We're going to start pushing you around

We're going to start telling joyada can't protect you anymore

We're going to start telling you what to do. You're going to get on our program. No, no

They come to him and they flatter him and they bow down to him and oh, you're so wonderful

You're such a great guy. You're such a better leader than joyada

And you know you can take it a different direction and they flatter him

And they corrupt him because the bible says they made obeisance to him then the king are going under them

So a lot of times people will flatter you

And say all these nice things to you to get your guard down and then get you to do something bad

Get you to do something wrong

So they corrupt you and you know what? Obviously, it's no secret about my adult children that have been corrupted

by people

That basically while they were under my tutelage

They were all serving god. They were all doing right living in my house

But then as soon as they're out of my house, you have the princes of juda out there

Ready to flatter them corrupted. Have you ever noticed that every single one of these evil satanic people

Who does these interviews with them on youtube always flatters the crap out of all of them?

Have you noticed that?

Oh, you're such a godly young man. It's like

What?

I mean, look, I'll just give you one example. There's this channel on youtube called

proverbs guys

Now imagine having a channel called proverbs guys

And you're sitting there dishonoring your parents and helping someone else dishonor your parents

I mean out of all the books of the bible

Wouldn't you say proverbs is the one that is warning you the most?

Obey your parents listen to your parents honor your parents. Don't screw this up

You've got to just bind those things around your neck man. You've got to stay with your parents instruction

I mean, it's like every page

It's chapter one

It's chapter 31 both of them telling you to listen to your parents and everything in between

Imagine having a youtube channel called proverbs guys. Okay, and let me tell you some things about proverbs guys. Okay

Number one, they're just helping young people dishonor their parents

Just flattering them and and helping them as they dishonor their parents

number two

rejects

Once saved always saved

You know what that sounds like to me sounds like a false gospel

Because if you believe that salvation is by grace through faith, you believe in once saved always saved amen eternal life eternal security

So proverbs guys

surprise

rejects the eternal security of the believer

Not king james

Oh, i'm a new america standard guy

Okay, and then you know who the who proverbs guys said is the greatest

Uh man in the world the greatest preacher in the world ken hovind

Who's on his fifth wife, but that's not even true because he he now half is not his wife

He's literally like using the woman at the well story as like a checklist

Okay

And i'm telling you something

It's bizarre

to hear these people

Flatter people as they as they rebel against their parents as they do wickedly

Flattering them and every it doesn't matter whether it's jeff bourbon

Or whether it's you know proverbs guys or whether it's that satanic transvestite

Or whoever all these other people and all these other little cheerleaders off in the wings

They're all just telling them like oh you guys are so well spoken. You guys are so well educated

You have such a good head on your shoulders. You guys seem like you really love people

You really seem like you love god

I can really tell that you just love your parents as you drive a knife under the fifth rib

You know, but it's like but at the end of the day like this is so stupid and absurd these things are clearly not true

It's obvious to anyone

That these people are in severe disobedience, but it's funny how the people that are corrupting them will flatter them

Tell them how great they are. It's like. Oh, you're so you're so wonderful. You're such wonderful people

It's like well, bro, you know, maybe you should give some credit to your parents who taught you

How to be well educated and well spoken

But unfortunately you took all that quality education

And all of that quality upbringing and you decided to use it for evil instead of using it for good

Because at the end of the day

No one can live the christian life for you

And you know what I wish that I could just take the love of god and just bottle it and hand it to you

So you could drink it

You know, I wish that there was a drink I could give you and say drink this and you will love god

You know what I mean? I wish there was a sermon that I could preach that would make you love god

I wish there was something I could say or something I could do

Or some food or drink that I could administer to you that would make you love god

Unfortunately, it doesn't exist. I'm gonna drink this. It'll make me love god though

By the way, this is water

So people think some people think I'm just like caffeinating up here while I preach or something

But but here's the thing is that

You know, I cannot make anyone love god

You know, I can preach what the bible says. I can I can explain scripture to you

I can get up here and and try to be motivational

And inspirational and I can get excited and try to get you excited

And I can show you how it's done and try to lead by example and and and whatever

But at the end of the day, the one thing I cannot do for you is to make you really love god yourself

And to make you have a personal walk with god and see here's the thing

About joe ash is that obviously there was something wrong with his walk with god

He had a he you know, I believe firmly that joe ash is saved and in heaven

And I think he had a walk with god

But there was something severely wrong with his walk with god because as soon as joe has gone

He's out of church and he's screwing up his life

And he's messing things up and not only that he doesn't just stop there because you know, you think oh, whatever

You know get out of church get a little backslidden. So your wild oats in your 20s. That's not what these people do

Oh, no, that's not what they do. Keep reading. I gotta hurry for sake of time here

But as we go down through the story here

It says

In verse 19 yet he sent prophets to them to bring them again unto the lord

And they testified against them

But they would not give ear and the spirit of god came upon zekariah

The son of joe hoda. So joe hoda has a son named zekariah that actually is living for god and preaching

So zekariah comes and preaches

And he said does say of god

Why transgress you the commandments of the lord that you cannot prosper because you forsaken the lord

He also had forsaken you

Watch this they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the lord

So notice

Not only does joe hosh rebel against the lord as soon as joe hoda is not holding his hand

He conspires to murder

joe hoda's son

Super evil

Now look, you might just think like oh, whatever. I'm 18. I'm gonna get out of church. I'm a rebel against my parents

No big deal. Whatever. They're not right about everything

You know, whatever. I'm sick of church. I'm gonna go to the liberal church or whatever no church at all

But you know what though is that sin ends up taking you further than you want to go

And what we see here is that this guy he doesn't just get out of church and do idolatry that'd be bad enough

He ends up

participating in the murder

Of the son of the person who had done so much good for him. I mean think about joe hoda

He wouldn't be king without joe hoda

joe hoda is the one hiding him for six years while athelai wants to kill him

joe hoda saved his life joe hoda puts the crown on his head

Takes care of everything

Runs the whole kingdom keeps everybody worshiping the lord and then how does this guy repay

joe hoda's good unto him. He murders his son

Super evil right super wicked

And so of course god's not going to bless this now it kind of makes sense

Why you see the end of joe ash's life not going well in second kings

It makes sense when you get these other details from second chronicles chapter 24 where it says

2 Chronicles 24 · chapter mention

That you know it was at that it was at the behest of the king

In the court of the house of god that they stoned is that cari was so but look at verse 22

And by the way stoning with stones is an execution

This is not just a random act of murder

But rather what we see here is that they

Conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the lord

Does this sound like some back alley stabbing? No, they're publicly executing him

In the courtyard of god's house, which means what what do you have to do first before you wrongfully publicly execute bro

Is you have to do what bear false witness against him

So they did some trumped up charges. They cooked up a case against Zechariah, and then they murder him

Call it an execution do it in the shadow of the church

horrible

And joe ash the king

Remembered not the kindness which to hoida his father had done to him

But slew his son right just lack of gratitude lack of appreciation and when he died

He said the lord look upon it and require it

So the question is who is the he here? You could read this two different ways

You could either say when Zechariah died Zechariah said the lord look on it and require it, you know like like

Avenged me god, but I don't I don't think that's what this is. I think what it's saying

Is that when Zechariah died that joe ash said the lord look upon it and require it meaning like he's just kind of like

Well, you know what let god deal with me then if I if I've done wrong

Then let god because because you don't want to notice is that rebels like this. They have no fear of god

They're just like eh, I murdered somebody

The lord look upon it and require it

whatever

Maybe god will deal with me

Maybe he won't because it's like I preached a few weeks ago

People are back so they tend to think that god is aloof and not involved in our everyday lives

Whereas those of us that are walking with god

We constantly know that god is leading us and guiding us and directing us and that the very hairs of our head are numbered

But when you're backslidden and not right with god, you're just like

Eh, I don't think god's even watching. I don't even think god even cares

I don't he's got even up there listening to anything. That's how backslidden christians think

And so I think I think it's joe ash saying like well the lord look upon it and require it

God's gonna punish me whatever

Just stupid right just just just making light of the judgment of god

And so, you know, there are some morals to the story here

Moral of the story is first of all number one

Don't be like joe ash get your own

firm foundation and grounding to where you don't need a buddy or a parent or somebody to always be there

That you can actually if you ever notice people that can't come to church unless someone else comes like like if their spouse doesn't go

They won't go

Here's the thing what if your spouse is sick

You can come to church without your spouse, right?

What if I was like well my wife's sick so

I don't like to go alone

Wouldn't that be kind of like what?

You know, but but but but but look if I saw a situation

Where the guy won't come without his wife

You know what I would suspect is going on. I would suspect she's the one who loves church

She's the one who wants to go to church. She's the one that's into serving god

And that bro is kind of just going through the motions. That's what I would think

I'm not saying he's not safe

But I would say his heart must not be that in it if he can't even show up by himself

And that he'll only go with her

You know or vice versa obviously, you know as a woman you could show up to church without your husband being there

And you could show up to church on your own

You know and not just be only but I've even noticed young single guys where it's like if their friend's not coming

They won't come

It's like what the heck

Come to church on your own stand on your own two feet

And then the other moral of the story is that just because a young person is zealously serving god and doing great things for god

Does not mean they're going to pan out in the long run

Because we've seen a lot of roman candle christians

And then it's just up in smoke and it's gone and it's like it was never there

So sometimes the young and zealous

We hope they'll pan out but sometimes they don't

And then the other thing you could realize is that the fact that an adult

Child goes off to deep end after they leave their parents home. You can't really blame their parents for that

If the kid was doing the right things while in the home

And then the kid grows up and is an adult and then he gets corrupted

You can't say oh dad's a bad leader mom's a bad leader because then you would be saying jojito is a bad leader

Well if jojito is really a good leader then even after he's dead

Joash would still be serving god really

Because I think jojojo was about the pretty much the best possible high priest that you're going to expect in the old testament

And he's got an upgraded burial package to the royal garden for a reason

It's a great powerful man of god and the fact that he was able to keep an idiot like joash on track the whole time

shows these a great leader because joash sucks frankly

Murdering zekariah. What a jerk

What an evil piece of trash, but you know what it's amazing how he's doing great under jojito

That just makes me think jojito is a great leader. It doesn't make me think. Oh jojito is a horrible leader jojito needs to get his house in order

It's like well, hold up

How can you control people that don't live in your house? How could you can't control people from the grave?

And you can't control people once they're gone and not under your when they're not in your church

They're not in your home. You can't expect people to be responsible for something that they have no power over

You know, and here's the thing I think that men are responsible for their homes

But you know, I'm also preaching that men have power in their homes

So imagine if I got up and said hey guys, you're responsible for every bad thing that happens in your home

But then I said oh by the way, you can't enforce anything with your wife and kids

When that's who wants to be a leader

Where you're responsible for everything the followers do but you have no power

to

Get them under control or it's stupid

That's the society that we're moving into in america and this is why marriage rates are plummeting

And birth rates are plummeting

Because people are like why would I want to be married if i'm not even allowed to be in charge?

As a husband. I can't you know, my wife can just she can leave

You know

Why would I want to have kids if i'm not even allowed to discipline them, but i'm responsible for every bad thing that they do

Stupid it doesn't make any sense. And so we as christians we need to understand that yes, there's

freedom comes with responsibility

And authority comes with responsibility

But you can't have somebody have all the responsibility without the authority

You can't hold someone responsible for something that they have no power to control

Right, I will be held responsible for that which I have power over

You know so so here's the thing if if faithful word becomes a liberal church

And there's a bunch of heresy and false doctrine and wrong bible versions and you know then go and blame that on me

If i'm the pastor of the church i'm supposed to be making sure that doesn't happen

Okay, but can I really be responsible for some other church?

Like what about a what if I ordain a guy and send him out to pastor?

Like and you know what we've ordained some great guys around here

Here's some awesome pastors that we've ordained pastor corbin wrestle down in tucson

Pastor bruce mehia anaheim california right pastor jonathan shelly right forward take look we've ordained some awesome guys

But here's the thing about that is that they are serving god and doing right because that's what they're doing

Okay, because we've ordained another guy that we don't approve of

That is not doing awesome

But here's the thing we have no power over him because we're independent baptists

So I i'm not responsible for the dumb stuff he says and does

And you know if my three, you know

Guys that I just mentioned that are awesome if they were ever to preach heresy or something it wouldn't be my fault

Because I have no power. I've no jurisdiction now. They're not going to do that. They're real ones

You know, we believe that of course

Well, let's power it's not water prayer father. Thank you so much for this story lord

And thank you so much for these examples in the bible and lord help us not to be like joe ash

Help us to stand on our own two feet

And not listen to a bunch of flattering devils and satanists and

transvestites trying to corrupt us and turn us away lord

Help us not to only come to church when our buddy comes or our wife or parents or whatever lord help us to be able to have our own

solid walk with you

And lord god help us always to uh, you know realize the importance of your house

And the church lord and help us to be zealous and excited about it and do our best and in jesus name. We pray amen