Sermon Manuscript Royal Reviews: The Lives of the Kings of Israel and Judah No. 12: “Jotham” (2 Chron. 27) 21 Jan 1996 • Dr. Doug McIntosh, Senior Pastor CORNERSTONE BIBLE CHURCH • 869 COLE DRIVE • LILBURN, GA 30047 Introduction: Death in the Church Chippie the parakeet never saw it coming. One second he was peacefully perched in his cage. The next he was sucked in, washed up, and blown over. The problems began when Chippie’s owner decided to clean Chippie’s cage with a vac- uum cleaner. She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She’d barely said “Hello” when— sssopp! Chippie got sucked in. The bird owner gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag. There was Chippie—still alive, but stunned. Since the bird was covered with dust and soot, she grabbed him and raced to the bath- room, turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird owner would do... she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the pet with hot air. Poor Chippie never knew what hit him. A few days after the trauma, the reporter who’d initially written about the event contacted Chippie’s owner to see how the bird was recovering. “Well,” she replied, “Chippie doesn’t sing much anymore—he just sits and stares.” It’s not hard to see why. Sucked in, washed up, and blown over.., that’s enough to steal the song from the stoutest heart. The weaknesses that plague the modern church sometimes come from the hand that life has dealt us. We recognize that the modern world is a pretty hostile place when it comes to living out your Christian faith. We sometimes feel like poor Chippie: sucked in, washed up, and blown over. But just as frequently, the things that unsettle us come not from without, but from within. We fall into a pattern of losing the same battles over and over and we wonder whether or not it is realistic even to keep up the fight when the one we are fighting is ourselves. We discover the truth from the old Pogo comic strip: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Our subject for today, King Jotham of Judah, is a wonderful example of how people can overcome major problems in their lives if they approach the battle God’s way. Let’s look at his story, which occupies the brief twenty-seventh chapter of Second Chronicles. Just to keep our chronology straight, we have now skipped down four generations from Ahaz- iah, our subject last week. Scripture 2 Chronicles 27 1 Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerushah the daughter of Zadok. 2 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father Uzziah had done (although he did not enter the temple of the Lord). But still the people acted corruptly. 3 He built the Upper Gate of the house of the Lord, and he built extensively on the wall of Ophel. 4 Moreover he built cities in the mountains of Judah, and in the forests he built fortresses and towers. 5 He also fought with the king of the Ammonites and defeated them. And the people of Ammon gave him in that year one hundred talents of silver, ten thousand kors of wheat, and ten thousand of barley. The people of Ammon paid him this amount in the second and third years also. 6 So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the Lord his God. 7 Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all his wars and his ways, indeed they are writ- ten in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. 8 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. 9 So Jotham rested with his fa- thers, and they buried him in the City of David. Then Ahaz his son reigned in his place. Jotham: The Fine Art of Judging Yourself When I read the account of the life of King Jotham, a New Testament principle comes to mind, the one put forth by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:31, “If we would judge Page 2 ourselves, we would not be judged.” This simple statement is one of the most important for daily Christian living to be found anywhere in the Word of God. In order to see what it is, and how it is exemplified in the life of King Jotham, I want to remind you of the rea- sons why the Apostle Paul made that statement. The Exposition of the Principle to the Corinthians The problem of the Corinthian assembly. There was a profound problem in the church at Corinth, one that is not at all uncommon in churches around the world. The Corinthian church had brought the cultural baggage and the moral weaknesses of its environment into the Christian faith with it. Corinth was a city given to its pleasures, and the believers there were so immersed in their practices that they were not always aware of how wrong they were, and how God detested some of the things they did.The particular case in point was their observance of the Lord’s Table. Unlike most modern churches, the Corinthians actually had a meal as the Lord’s Table, with the bread beginning the meal and the cup ending it. At least that was the way they had been taught to do it. In actual practice, the believers in Corinth had allowed the eating part of the Lord’s Table to become the important part, and the elements of remembering the Lord were sort of secondary. People would arrive at the meeting location bringing their lunches with them. Instead of waiting for each other and beginning the meal to- gether, some of them just started into eating and drinking. They ignored the limited food of the poor members of the fellowship and stuffed themselves with little concern for each other. Some of them were even drinking to excess at the Lord’s Table. As you might imagine, the Lord took a very dim view of this. He tolerated it for a while, and then took some steps to get their attention. Bad things began to happen in the Corin- thian church. There was an unusual outbreak of weakness; then people began to be ill; then people began to be seriously ill; then people began to die. The Apostle Paul wrote and told them that their illnesses and deaths were the direct result of the contempt they were showing for the Lord’s Table and for each other. Then he added an important state- ment: “If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.” The principle and its broader application This statement is God’s way of saying, “You won’t ever get in trouble with Me if you will pay attention to yourself and discipline yourself before your problems get out of con- trol. Learn from your mistakes. Learn from the mistakes of others. Ride herd on your weaknesses. Be open to the rebukes and wise counsel of others, and especially of the Word itself.” What is most sobering about this in many respects is that the church was completely un- aware of why its members were dying. They were oblivious to the problem, because they had not been subjecting their own actions to the light of Scripture. God had to judge them, because they refused to let the Word of God have the transforming impact God wanted it to. People sometimes ask me, “How often do you think God finds it necessary today to take the lives of Christians who persistently violate some basic expression of the will of God like this?” My answer usually us, “He probably does it today as much as He ever did.” Page 3 Which is to say, not terribly often. God is merciful, and allows us lots of time and a lot of gentle correction before He gets out the big rod. But He will get it out when it is called for. Far better to do our own spanking. Obviously, this is a general principle that applies across the board in Christian experi- ence. The patterns of pain that our lives become subjected to are often the direct result of our failure to address our problems and deal with them ourselves. I ran across a tongue-in-cheek description this week of a “psychiatric hotline,” a mythical phone setup designed to help people with problems. When you dial the required number, this is what you hear: “Hello. Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline. “If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 ... repeatedly. “If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2. “If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6. “If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call. “If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press. “If you are manic-depressive, it doesn’t matter which number you press; no one will answer. “If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be aware that the thing you are holding to the side of your head is alive and about to bite off your ear.” Inside that bit of humor there is an important truth.