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Sermon, July 5, 2026, 2 Chronicles 24:20-22, Mike Archer #gbcny † gbcny.org
"The Seeing Avenger"
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I'd imagine most of us would agree that we live in an age of surveillance, right? All around us, even in our hands and pockets, maybe even right now, are cameras, recording devices, and security systems, each sort of amounting to what's known as one's digital footprint.
And whether or not one considers this a gift or a curse depends largely on who you ask, or even when you ask. For instance, whenever an injustice occurs, whether it's a robbery, a brokery, or some sort of assault, what are some of the first things people tend to wonder?
They wonder, was there a camera? Was there footage? Did someone catch this guy? Did anyone see what happened? Well, scripture introduces us to a being who requires no video evidence, and a judge who needs no eyewitnesses.
He is the Lord God, and nothing is hidden from him. One of his Hebrew names, his many Hebrew names, El Royi, which means the God of seeing, or the God who sees. And he sees our public acts just as well as he sees our secret and hidden motives, or so we think they are hidden.
And because he sees perfectly and objectively, he also judges justly. And though at times it may seem as though his eyes have maybe turned away from a certain matter, or that his justice feels like it's far off, maybe not coming, his silence is never blindness, and his delay is never indifference.
And the passage of scripture that we're going to be looking at today deals with precisely this. We'll be looking today at 2 Chronicles chapter 24, verses 20 to 22. So if you would, please turn with me there in your Bibles.
There as is custom with me, we're going back to the Old Testament, and particularly to a brief snapshot in biblical history to which the Lord actually directly refers, as we just read it. And as he himself says in John chapter 5, for instance, that all the scriptures speak of him, point to him, and bear witness about him, we would be remiss if we would not endeavor to learn what he has to say, and what these scriptures have to say as well.
But amen. Again, we'll be in 2 Chronicles chapter 24, verses 20 to 22. Just those three verses. And if you're with me there, we'll read. Verse 20, then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest, and he stood above the people, and he said to them, thus says God, why do you break the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper?
Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you. But they conspired against him, and by the command of the king, they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash, the king, did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah's father, had shown him, but killed his son.
And when he was dying, he said, may the Lord see and avenge. Father, Lord, Lord, in this time, as in every time, we desperately need you, O God. We need your spirit's empowerment, we need your grace, O Lord, to move and press your word upon us, O God.
Lord, to use me to that end, O Lord, that your people would be edified, that the lost would be evangelized, and that Christ above all else would be exalted, O Lord. And we pray that, Lord, you would do that, O God, for your glory, and we pray this in your son's name, amen.
Title of this sermon is The Seeing Avenger, and my primary aim for us this morning will be to show, or hopefully show, how the Lord sees everything, right? He sees everything both in our rebellion, but also in our rebellion, the wrongs that we committed against people, but also in just everything that happens under the sun, right?
And because of that, we would do well to heed his word, we would do well to remember his grace, repent of our sin, and also entrust all judgment to him, knowing that he is just. And we'll expand upon this sort of central point using a simple two-point outline.
And point number one will be the solemn pronouncement, and that's what we're going to see in verse 20. And then point number two, the sobering promise in verses 21 to 22. So the solemn pronouncement and the sobering promise.
But jumping right in with point number one, the solemn pronouncement, again, we read in verse 20, then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest, and he stood above the people and said to them, thus says God, why do you break the commandments of the Lord?
So that you cannot prosper. Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you. Well, for context, our story begins around the latter half of the ninth century B .C., so this is 800 plus years before Christ.
The Holy Land remains a divided realm, split between the northern kingdom of Israel, and I refer to that as Israel primarily, and the southern kingdom of Judah. And on the throne of Judah sat a child just seven years old.
His name was Joash, and Joash had just been coronated in what was a spectacular turn of events. You see, his grandmother, Queen Athaliah, daughter of one of Israel's most wicked kings, King Ahab, had for six years fraudulently and maliciously ruled over Judah.
Her son, Joash's father, King Ahaziah, had only reigned for a single year before the Lord decided and determined to bring about his demise by the hand of Jehu in Israel. And Jehu, though not yet a king in practice, had just been anointed king by the prophet Elisha.
Moreover, Jehu had been tasked with the extermination, basically, of Israel's Amrek dynasty, which would include the sons of Ahab and everyone from Ahab's line. But it would also include his charge, Jehu's charge, the removal of pagan idol worship in Israel.
King Ahaziah of Judah, whom the chronicler describes as having done evil in the sight of the Lord, was very close to Ahab's house. And this makes a lot of sense. It makes perfect sense, actually, especially given the fact that Israel's sitting king at the time, King Joram, was Ahaziah's maternal uncle.
So there were family ties. And so after Joram suffers a critical injury in battle against the Syrians, his nephew, Ahaziah, travels north to visit his uncle, to check on him. However, unbeknownst to Ahaziah, Jehu is wiping out his uncle's entire bloodline, fulfilling God's predetermined judgment for the sins of Ahab and Jezebel.
God is bringing judgment upon them. He's seen their sins, and now he is avenging their. And so shortly after Ahaziah's arrival in Jezreel, where Joram was recovering, Jehu shows up. And Jehu shows up, and he kills them both.
Now Ahaziah, who was just 23 years old at his passing, left somewhat of a power vacuum back down in Judah, his heir still being quite young, who was to take the throne. And though he did in fact have heirs, his own mother, their grandmother, sees this opportunity for herself by assuming the throne, by assuming power.
And when she does, she summarily puts all but one of Ahaziah's heirs, her own grandchildren, to death. She kills them, just about along with everyone in that royal family. She was wiping them out. However, God in his providence, again committed to preserving the Davidic line through which the Messiah had to come.
The Messiah was going to come through a son of David, and be a son of David. He put it within the heart of Joash's older sister, Jehoshabath, to rescue her infant brother by hiding him and his nurse in the temple of the Lord.
He was going to hide them from their murderous grandmother. And being married to the high priest Jehoiada, they hid young Joash in the house of the Lord. And it was there where he would remain, young Joash, for the first six years of his life, hidden.
And we see this in 2 Chronicles 22. In the seventh year, Jehoiada, now acting as Joash's sort of guardian mentor, decided to stage a coup. He wanted to see Joash as Judah's rightful king, properly seated on his throne.
And so in order to succeed in this, he would form a coalition with powerful allies. He would gather the Levites, which was the priestly class from throughout all of Judah. And he would anoint young Joash as king, finally revealing his identity to Judah as Ahaziah's rightful heir and successor.
And upon doing so, Joash is immediately received with great joy and relief, even. I mean, put yourself in the people of Judah's sort of sandals. As it turned out, David's line had not, in fact, been wiped out.
It had been preserved, after all, and would surely continue through even this young boy. Moreover, the illegitimate usurper, Queen Athaliah, under whose rule the land had languished and they had no peace, she no longer served any purpose.
And so she was justly executed right then. Now, Jehoiada, a faithful and God-fearing man, he found himself in a uniquely advantageous position. While the king was still young, Joash was still young, Jehoiada possessed tremendous influence over him.
He was his guardian. He was his mentor. He was his instructor. And he had not only that influence, but also the authority to make decisions on his behalf. And he would start by reforming Judah. Under Athaliah's reign, Judah had re-embraced the worship of Baal, one of the pagan idols.
They had erected altars. They had built houses of worship, fashioned images, and even established a priesthood all in the name of Baal, a pagan god. But Jehoiada would have all of that torn down and dismantled, right?
And so there was a return to form there. He would then reorganize the Levitical priesthood itself. He would restore their prescribed roles in guarding the temple and also ministering before the Lord on behalf of the people according to the law of Moses.
He would also, and more importantly, he would establish a covenant between himself and all the people and the Lord that they should be the Lord's people. They were the Lord's people, but they weren't living like that.
And so he was covenanting that they would be the Lord's people, wholly devoted to him, 2 Chronicles 23. And so Joash, though fatherless, possessed a tremendously godly influence in Jehoiada. And as he grew, he would bear the fruit of that influence.
It would play out in his life. Most notably, he would prioritize the restoration of God's house, the temple of the Lord. This was, after all, the place where he found refuge during a crucial moment in his life, a crucial period.
It was the very place where he was weaned as a baby, when he grew up as a young child, and it was anointed king at the age of seven. But at present, the temple was in disrepair. It wasn't in good shape.
And so as we come to 2 Chronicles 24, we see now Joash, much older, summoning the priests and Levites and commanding them to gather the prescribed temple tax for the work of the restoration. He wanted the house of the Lord to be what it was meant to be again.
He even charged Jehoiada to sort of pick up the slack, so to speak, when he found out that after 23 years, believe it or not, the Levites had delayed in actually even beginning the work of restoration.
But eventually, the proclamation was made, and Judah gave cheerfully and abundantly for that work of the restoration. And when all was said and done, the word says that burnt offerings were once again regularly offered in the days of Jehoiada, all the days of Jehoiada.
And that last part, all the days of Jehoiada, it's important. It's important. And it's important because sadly, as is common throughout much of Judah's history and much of redemptive history, really, good things rarely ever seem to last.
Jehoiada, who was instrumental in the deliverance, the coronation, and instruction of King Joash, as well as Judah's spiritual form, had now passed away. He was gone. And with him gone, things began to change.
Verse 17 tells us that the princess of Judah, i .e., her officials, her influential people, came to the king and paid homage. And that phrase, paid homage, means to prostrate oneself. It means to bow down low, as would be customary before royalty, before a king.
However, and though it isn't explicitly stated in the text, they apparently intended to do more than that. Because as the verse goes on to tell us, the king listened to them. And what was he listening to?
We'll see. For one, all of a sudden, the one godly, trustworthy voice in his life had been replaced by these nobles who no doubt employed flattery and suggestion to deceitfully influence the king, an influence which, as we'll see, was anything but godly.
And verse 18 paints a tragic picture. It records that, quote, they abandoned the house of the Lord, the god of their fathers, and served the ashram and the idols. All that time, all that capital, all that energy, all that devotion was now being undone.
It was now being undermined by this egregious breach of faith. Like a dog to its vomit, as the prophet would say, Judah was returning yet again to the very thing that they had sworn to be done with. Again.
But God was not absent in this. On account of this transgression, the verse goes on to tell us that, quote, wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs. And though the chronicle doesn't speak much of it, we see a bit more light shed in 2 Kings 12, how Hazael, the king of Syria, longtime adversaries of Israel and Judah, he comes down, he besieges Jerusalem, and he would not leave until Judah, until Joash paid substantial tribute.
Right? All of the gold in the house of the Lord, the king's treasury, all of the devoted gifts that were given not only by him, but from his father, his father before him, and the father before him, all of this was given to Syria now.
They were bankrupt. Again, a result of God's chastisement. But though God's people would abandon him and experience this chastisement, his chastisement for their error, he was not yet willing to abandon them.
Verse 19 reveals, quote, yet he sent prophets among them to bring them back to the Lord. And these prophets, they testified against them, but they would not pay attention. And so, forgive me, if you're born with me thus far, this rather long-winded introduction forms the backdrop of our text for this morning.
Because one of the prophets that the Lord would send to Judah, in fact, the final prophet in this episode was a man named Zechariah. And Zechariah, not to be confused with the minor prophet that we see as sort of the title of one of the books of the Bible, he was no stranger to Joash.
He was actually the son of Jehoiada, the same Jehoiada who, again, had been Joash's guardian mentor, even his uncle by marriage. And given the king's close familial ties with Jehoiada, it's not unlikely that the two being cousins, Zechariah and Joash, the two being cousins, would have known each other quite well.
As a young hideaway among the temple priests, Joash, it's quite possible that Zechariah and Joash grew up together. And if Jehoiada was a godly influence toward his nephew, the king, King Joash, then I'd be surprised if he wasn't the same and more for his own son, Zechariah.
And yet here, at the crossroads with both men having now lost this exemplary figure in Jehoiada, we begin to see in them a critical distinction. And it's a distinction not based upon their sort of class or their position, one being a king and one being a lesser noble, the son of a priest, but it was a distinction based upon their spiritual condition.
Verse 20 of our text begins by telling us,. Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest. And this is vivid imagery here, right? The phrase clothed, it's literally accurate, but the connotation which many of your Bible translations may render it as is just as true.
Basically, what it means is that the Spirit of God came upon or covered Zechariah, the third person of the Trinity, active since the creation of the world, when he hovered over the face of the waters, active in revelation, active in conviction, active in regeneration, indwelling, sanctification, guidance, unity, fellowship, and intercession, was in this moment particularly engaged in empowering a particular man for a particular task.
And this was not an uncommon way in which the Spirit interacted with people prior to the church age. The Spirit, quote, came upon such individuals as Joshua in Numbers 27, 18, David in 1 Samuel 16, 12 to 13, and even Saul, King Saul in 1 Samuel 10, 10.
In the book of Judges, we also see the Spirit coming upon the likes of Gideon and Samson, these judges whom God raised up to deliver Israel from their oppressors. He was empowering them for specific tasks.
And these individuals, like many others, were empowered for those tasks. Moreover, the Spirit of God, who again isn't a force, he's not like just a force, but an actual divine person, was also inspiring what we now regard as Scripture, sacred Scripture.
And when I say inspiring, I don't mean the same way that, you know, I'm inspired by Jalen Brunson to maybe be one day an NBA point guard. I think that's not in the cards for me. But inspiration we're talking about here is different.
And you know it, right? Second Timothy 3 .16, a familiar verse. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
God breathes through these men. His word, so to speak, is the imagery. The prophets of the Old Testament were no different, such as with Zechariah here, right? They spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
And Peter tells us this in 2 Peter 1 .21. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of men, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by this Holy Spirit. And this was primarily what was transpiring here as recorded in verse 20.
The Spirit came upon Zechariah and empowered him to speak. And what Zechariah was about to express through his words wasn't mere personal opinions. It wasn't his thoughts. It wasn't his two cents on sort of the political direction of Judah.
Not at all. He had been commissioned by God to speak the words of God, the message of God. Nothing more and nothing less. And this matters because assuming it were true, which it is, this people, Judah, were not at liberty to just dismiss what Zechariah had to say.
They weren't at liberty to dismiss his words as mere grievances. You know, perhaps they might have thought that, you know, he was simply upset because he had lost influence. His father, the high priest, had died.
And now who was he? Who was the family of Jehoiada? But that wasn't the case. And regardless of what they might have thought, the text makes it clear that his concern was not about personal ambition. The Spirit of God had moved him, clothed him, to speak.
And as born-again believers, permanently indwelt by the Spirit of God. And that is one of the key distinctions between us and the New Testament is that we have much the same privileges and more. Sure, God may not be inspiring new revelation through us.
We're not speaking the new words of Scripture. Nevertheless, we can have great confidence in the Spirit's enabling power as we preach and proclaim God's truth according to Scripture. Right? As we keep in step with him, as we live according to him.
And the reason we can possess such confidence is because faithful preaching, it doesn't come from the personality of a preacher. It comes from the revelation of God. He's the source. The preacher's authority is never independent.
What do I mean by that? It doesn't come from him. It's not his thoughts, his opinions. It's the word that he proclaims. It comes from God's word. And Zechariah was clothed by the Spirit, but the message he would deliver was rooted in the commandments already laid down and given to the people by God.
The Spirit who empowers preaching is the same Spirit who inspires Scripture. Therefore, Spirit-filled preaching will never move away and should never move away from God's word, but aimed to press God's words upon the heart and mind and will of the hearers.
Now, you have to forgive me, as I'm sure I've probably said something to this effect fairly recently, but we should never ask ourselves merely whether or not a message was eloquently delivered or was interesting or maybe emotionally moving.
If it is those things, amen. If it's not, amen. Rather, what we should ask primarily is, was God's word faithfully declared? Did the message confront sin, my sin? Did it call hearers back to covenant faithfulness?
Is there a call? More importantly, did it exalt Christ's authority over human preference? Is it beyond the words of a mere man? And these are things you need to ask yourself about this very sermon, you know, things we ought to consider when sharing the gospel with others.
The congregation is in danger when it wants encouragement without conviction, right, or correction, and blessing without obedience. Zechariah understood this better than anyone in Judah, which is why he was willing to do the hard thing and declare it to them.
The verse goes on to say that he stood above the people, and this is huge, right? When the spirit clothed Zechariah, he didn't just stay quiet. He didn't go off into a corner. He couldn't just sort of zip it.
He couldn't. Zechariah was compelled to deliver this message and to deliver it openly. He didn't direct this to some private focus group, right, or soften its content to try to preserve his reputation, to make it more palatable, and to therefore make himself more acceptable to the people.
No, he stood up where he could be heard by everyone, and he confronted the nation. He says he spoke to the people. He stood above the people. And what unbelievable boldness that must have required. And make no mistake about it.
It wasn't like reckless bravado. He wasn't just kind of going in there being reckless. It was spirit giving courage. Zechariah knew the spiritual condition of the king. He knew that. He knew and observed that it was in steep decline.
He knew that the princes had his ear, right, and they were increasing in their influence day by day, further just turning his heart away from the things of God. He knew that the people had consistently ignored even other prophets that were sent to them.
You know, he knew all of these challenges and all of these supposed obstacles, and yet he stood above them and he spoke. He didn't use that as an excuse to sort of back down or to think it was in vain.
Now, something we should briefly note about this is that though Zechariah stood above the people, he was not standing above them in pride, right? He wasn't elevating himself above them, supposing himself to be sort of morally superior.
You know, I'm this and you're that. Rather, he was standing before them and standing before them under the authority of God, even under the eye of God. And any preacher or pastor who, or witness, right, which would include all of us, we're all witnesses, would do well to remember that he or she stands under the authority of God.
We stand under the authority of God, and as we stand under the authority of God, that then gives us the power, that gives us the boldness to be able to stand before men because God is the highest. If we're under his authority, what do we have to be scared of?
And this is in fact why Jesus begins his Great Commission with that very fact. Remember what he says. Matthew 28, 18 to 20. And Jesus came to them and said, all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me.
That's number one. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you to the end of the age, right?
You have my authority and I'm with you, sandwiched. Go out. Now, let me also say that courage does not equate to harshness, right? Nor should it ever go there. It doesn't need to go there. Zechariah didn't speak because he enjoyed condemning people, right?
He spoke because the people he loved were destroying themselves. These were his people, his kinsmen, and God's people. But they were destroying themselves through their rebellion and through their idolatry, which reminds us that a faithful warning is actually an act of love.
Proverbs 27, five through six says, better is an open rebuke than hidden love, right? Is it even love if it's hidden? Faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse the kisses of an enemy, right? When a physician, and you've heard the analogy, tells a patient that a disease is serious, whether it be stage four cancer or what have you, he's not being cruel.
Likewise, when a watchman who's on the gate, looking out and sees the enemy approaching and warns the city, he's not disturbing the peace. They're both attempting to save lives. But what about us? Are you and I engaged in Christ's rescue mission?
Are we willing to love when love may cost us, when God may call us to do something challenging, like standing before a people whom probably won't receive us well? Are you willing to speak truth in the face of adversity, not for the fun of it, but in spite of it?
We know it may come, but we're not looking to that. We're not letting that be the obstacle that stops us. Do we look at a person or a situation and deem them a lost cause simply because they appear hopeless?
Oh, that guy's too hard, he's too far gone. He's not gonna believe it, it's gonna be a waste of time. We sort of assume that it'll go a certain way when we don't know what the Lord will do. Or do we anchor on the dynamite power, that is the gospel, the very power of God unto salvation, and preach that gospel?
Moreover, do we pray, do we earnestly pray that the Lord might use his word to penetrate hard hearts, even the hardest of hearts? Do you recall that he did this with you? When he sent that person, that brother, that sister, that relative, or however he got it to you, to you.
And if he did it with you, do you trust that God's spirit is empowering you, Christian, for this very thing right now? Jesus said to his disciples in Acts 1 .8, shortly before he ascended, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
This isn't a matter of debate. It's a matter of fact, that we can anchor on. And so we see this pronouncement's divine source being the spirit of God. We see its courageous delivery in addressing the people.
But what of its actual substance? What was he actually saying? What was this message that Zechariah was bringing? Zechariah's message has three parts, an accusation, a consequence, and an explanation.
And the accusation comes when he says, why do you break the commandments of the Lord? Still in verse 20. This question sort of exposes the irrationality of sin. Why are you breaking the commandments of the Lord?
Sin, from an objective standpoint, is irrational. Don't get me wrong. Subjectively, we can understand why people sin. It's in our nature. It's in our DNA. We wink at it. We give it passes and grade it on a curve because we ourselves, belonging to Adam's race, are compromised.
And so we can understand it. But just because we may attempt to rationalize our sin doesn't then make it irrational, doesn't then not make it rational, or any less irrational, especially when considering that it's not in anyone's best interest.
No one's, even when we think it is. And oftentimes when we sin, we think that it's in our best interest. That's the delusion, the great delusion. It's not in our best interest, not ours, not others, and certainly not God's.
Its wages are death. And may God grant us the grace to increasingly see it as such and to abhor it, especially as we look in the mirror. But the question is asked, right? And realize God through Zechariah, he isn't requesting new information.
This isn't something he doesn't know. He knows why they're sinning. He knows everything. David says in Psalm 139, verse 4, even before word is on my tongue, oh Lord, you know it all together. And so if he knows it, why ask them?
Well, he asked them because the question itself confronts them with the senselessness of their rebellion. It's the same reason why the Lord asked Adam where he was in Genesis 3, 9. Adam, where are you?
It wasn't to satisfy a lack of knowledge on God's part. Where is he? No, it was an invitation for Adam to reflect on his own spiritual state, now corrupted, and the consequences of his disobedience. Where are you in relation to me, Adam?
Look what you've done. Where are you now? Why do you break my commandments, oh Judah? Why do you forsake the God who's delivered you? Why do you abandon the worship through which you and your fathers have time upon time been blessed in times past?
Why do you exchange the living God for worthless idols that are dead, that can't speak, that can't deliver, and that serve no purpose to you but your destruction? Why do you return to the sins that previously brought judgment?
You've seen what happened to your fathers in the past, in the wilderness, how some of them didn't make it in. Why are you again doing the same thing? And understand, these are questions we need to reflect on ourselves when we're looking at our sin.
Sin promises wisdom, it promises freedom, pleasure, and prosperity, but it delivers nothing but shame, emptiness, and death. R .C. Sproul says that sin is like cosmic treason. It's not just a mistake, it's a rejection of God's rightful rule and authority in our lives.
He's made us. We're his. He has the authority. And so that was the accusation, but what of the consequence? Zechariah continues, so that you cannot prosper. Now, this mustn't be interpreted as a promise that godliness always and inevitably produces material wealth or a life of physical ease, temporal ease, right?
Were that the case, we wouldn't be able to make sense of Job, you know, a blameless man before God yet who suffered more than most of the people in the Bible. What we need to understand is that Zechariah is speaking within the covenantal framework of Israel.
God had promised to their fathers that obedience would follow, that from obedience would follow general welfare and blessing and prosperity in that sense, peace, whereas sort of turning from him disobedience would lead to judgment, horrid judgments even.
We see this in Deuteronomy 28. The word prosper relates to their ability to flourish beneath the favor and blessing of God. In other words, sort of like a branch to the vine, right? And we see that imagery even used by Jesus in the New Testament.
They could not detach themselves from that source of life, from that vine, and reasonably expect to flourish. Apart, what does he say? Apart from me, you can do nothing. And just as a branch cannot sever itself from the vine or the tree and prosper, neither could Judah reject God's commandment and reasonably expect his covenant blessing.
It just wasn't reasonable. And so sin is inherently destructive. And when we're talking about God's judgment and chastisement on account of sin, it's not simply that God just, it's not arbitrary, right?
It's not simply that just God attaches these painful consequences to something that may other ways seem like harmless behavior. And that's how people think of sin today. A lot of people, you know, like what's the harm in it?
Who am I hurting? Is this really bad? Says who? Show me how it's bad. You know, they don't truly understand why sin is wrong, but that's because they don't see that sin separates people from the very one in whom is life, peace, wisdom, and goodness, God.
It separates people from God. Again, its wages are death. And this is why no one can truly prosper in sin. It doesn't matter how much money it may earn you. It doesn't matter how many friends you'll gain or retain or how much easier it may seem to make your life.
It's killing you. Sin kills. May we see it as John Owen and as he exhorts to be killing sin lest it be killing us. Lastly, Zechariah's message contained an explanation. Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you.
And this really is the crux of the matter. You see, Judah's then-present spiritual condition, the steeping into apostasy, it wasn't accidental. It was consequential, right? He had deliberately, they had deliberately forsaken the Lord.
And to forsake the Lord is to purposefully, to intentionally just turn away from God. Just forsaking. You just don't want anything to do with him. You're not gonna go his way. You're not gonna heed his instruction.
You're not gonna delight in his presence. You're gonna turn away from him. It doesn't matter what you turn to per se, but whatever it is, if it's antithetical to who he is, you're turning away from God.
And in Judah's case, it was the ashram. It was the other idols, false gods, lowercase g, who made false promises that they could never deliver on. Promises of fertility, when God is the one who puts life in the womb.
Promises of prosperity, when the Lord is, everything comes from him. He owns the cattle in a thousand hills. He gives the very rain. And yet they were seeking from pieces of wood and metal. And so God would speak on this again and again, right?
Consider what he says to the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah 2 .14, for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
You see what he's saying here, right? God is saying that to Judah, you had it all with me. You had it all and then some, but you didn't want me. You turned away from me. And rather what you wanted was a cheap imitation of me, which you thought would satisfy you.
But guess what? It never will. It can't. And this is the very thing we engage in when we delude ourselves into thinking there's something in this life, right? That is better, sweeter, more satisfying, more fulfilling than Christ.
God gives us a lot of good things to enjoy. But the issue comes when we elevate those things to the level of Christ. Whatever it is today that may hold your affections, right, that may consume your time, your energy, your resource, your sort of, the energy that God wants you to use for him and to rejoice in him with, these things may be turning your heart away from him, may be causing you to forsake.
And I don't mean things like family or work necessarily, those necessary things that we have to involve ourselves in. But whatever it is, is it more important or rewarding to you or I than fellowship with the Lord?
You know, is it more important than pursuing holiness and desiring to please our master who has gone above and beyond for us time and time again? If so, or if you're unsure, re-examine yourself in the light of scripture.
God's forsaking of Judah was judicial. He withdrew his covenant protection and gave them over to the consequences of the rebellion. Of course, it doesn't mean that God ceased to, you know, be omnipresent.
Just because they had forsaken him and he had forsaken them doesn't mean he was like not there, he wasn't seeing what they were doing or that he wouldn't even be available should they have chosen to repent, right?
Just because he'd forsaken him didn't mean he wasn't there. Nor should it be confused with the New Testament promise to true believers, which is a great joy to us, which says that he will never leave nor forsake us.
Hebrews 13 five. In the book of Chronicles, we see this often, actually. God's forsaking describes the withdrawal of his favorable presence and protection from his rebellious covenant people. It's similar to Romans one, right?
Where God gives people over to the desires of their heart, right? To the things that they willfully choose. In effect, they were saying, we don't want the Lord's rule. We don't want that. And so God's judgment was to let them experience life without that blessing and rule.
And this highlights a terrifying reality. It highlights that there's a point at which God's judgment upon sinners is not that he so much prevents them from having what they want or having things, but rather that he gives them exactly what he wants.
But minus him. Judah wanted idols and God handed him over. He's like, okay, serve him. Judah wanted prophets' silence and God allowed the voice of warning to cease. He sent prophet after prophet, but there would be one and he would be the last.
Judah wanted independence from God, but they soon discovered that independence from God meant exposure to all their enemies now. And when we forsake God, we're not moving toward freedom. We're actually walking away from the source of life, the only source of life.
And please don't hear me saying you could lose your salvation, right? If this day you're in Christ, nothing you or anyone can do can separate you from that love. Romans eight, that's as clear as day. His love is too rich for that, too secure for that.
If you're his, truly his, you're firmly in his grasp. Not only Jesus' grasp, the Father's hand as well, John 10. But what I'm saying is this, that if you're not his and you continue to reject him willfully, you may not get another chance, though you live a thousand years.
Don't play games with the Lord. Make certain you are his. And if you're not, humble yourself before him. Recognize your great need for his grace and mercy. And if you do, you'll surely find it as you seek him for it.
Had only the people heeded this warning, the people of Judah, perhaps they would not have done what they were about to do, which brings us to our next and final point. Point number two, the sobering promise.
And here we look at our last two verses, verses 21, 22. And we read, but they conspired against him and by command of the king, they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash, the king, did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah's father, had shown him but killed his son.
And when he was dying, he said, may the Lord see and avenge. So truth exposed their sin. But rather than turning away from it, rather than turning away from their sin, they turned away from and against the one who was bringing it to light.
The one who was bringing the message to them. Verse 21 says, but they conspired against him. And really this presents a pattern which appears all throughout the scripture. Ahab, for instance, King Ahab, who I mentioned at the beginning, wicked king in Israel.
When confronted by Elijah, the prophet Elijah, whom the Lord had sent, he would refer to Elijah as the troubler of Israel. It was a turning away. I don't want to hear that. I want to do what I want to do.
Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah, he was in prison for proclaiming judgment. Amos was told to leave the land. John the Baptist was beheaded for challenging Herod. Stephen stoned after exposing Israel's resistance to the Holy Spirit.
Their persistent resistance. And of course, Jesus, the Lord himself, was crucified, the faithful witness crucified, bearing perfect witness to the truth. It was he himself who said to Nicodemus in John chapter three, verse 19 and 20, and this is the judgment, that light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed. Evil doesn't like the light. It shuns it. It runs away from it and is willing to do anything to block it out.
When people refuse to crucify their sin, they often attempt to silence the voice that calls it out, that brings it to account. Perhaps you've experienced this in your own walk, maybe more often than you can count.
Perhaps you're experiencing it now, to which my encouragement would be like David, to trust in the strength of the Lord, right? Of them, he writes in Psalm 21, verse 11 to 13, though they plan evildoers, though they plan evil against you, though they devise mischief, they will not succeed, for you will put them to flight.
You will aim at their faces with your bows. Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength. We will sing and praise your, sing your praise forever. All right, David's trusting. He has enemies and adversaries, even in his own household, but he's trusting in the strength of the Lord to see him through and to know that he's going to recompense.
However, we're looking at it one side from like how people may be towards us when we bring the gospel. What about us? Perhaps we've been sometimes the ones at fault. Maybe, just maybe, we're the ones that have conspired against others or have not received reproof and correction and rebuke, even from a brother or sister who's doing it in love.
Well, to which my challenge would be, we need to examine our responses and we need to see whether there's truth in what is being said to us, right? We need to humble ourselves. Whenever scripture confronts us, we need to bow to scripture.
And do we humble ourselves or do we become defensive? You know, sometimes we receive criticism and the walls go up immediately, immediately, you know, and we have to constantly, you know, humble ourselves and just remember that, you know, this may be the Lord.
The Lord may be using this person to speak something that I would otherwise not hear. Do we examine our conduct when we're confronted or do we erect walls in our hearts and attack those who may reprove us?
Are we inclined to repent or do we search for reasons to dismiss the warning of others? Oh, that's not true. She doesn't know me. Oh, but what about what they do, you know? Are we quick to listen and slow to speak or is it the other way around?
You know, the angers we sometimes feel towards correction may reveal, like Judah, the idols that we're attempting to protect and that we don't want to give up. Verse 21 goes on to say that what happened, happened by command of the king.
Though Zechariah stood above the people, his murder wasn't some spontaneous act of mob violence. King Joash, his own cousin, again, personally authorized his execution, his stoning and this makes the crime especially heinous whereas the king, right, the king was supposed to be responsible to uphold justice in the land.
He used his authority here to destroy a righteous man. Unjustly, he assumed and wrongfully so that his position as king placed him above the word of God and the authority of God but it didn't. Greater authority begins, brings with it greater accountability.
Kings may command, courts may approve, crowds may consent and stones may be thrown but general consensus, just because, you know, everyone agrees that this is the right thing doesn't magically transform evil into righteousness.
Where do we see this today? Abortion, right? The law of the land, championed, encouraged, celebrated. It's not okay just because a nation permits it. Lying, stealing, cheating, it's not sanctioned simply because, you know, everyone else is doing it.
That's just the way it has to go. Even if our superiors are approving some of these things, that doesn't make it right. It's still evil in God's sight. Ultimately, every authority is delegated authority.
What does that mean? All of it comes from God, all authority, right? Whether it's civil authority, parental authority, church authority or vocational authority, what you do at work. No leader has the right to use their authority, right?
For personal gain, for revenge, for self-preservation, for silencing truth. The reason being leaders aren't less accountable to God but more. Another thing that made this so wrong was the location of the murder.
The word says that, quote, they stone him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord and that's something that Jesus, again, as was read earlier by Nick, was brought out between the altar and the sanctuary.
The crime occurred in a sacred place. It was a place where God said his holy name, right? The place where his presence could be sought in a special way. Even his court, which should have been a place of worship.
It should have been a place of prayer, sacrifice, instruction but it came the scene of an unjust murder and when you think about it, this is the sort of the peak of Joe Ash's hypocrisy. Remember, going back to sort of the background of his life, right, the man who had invested so much in restoring the temple was now defiling it with innocent blood.
That's one. But also the very place that he had been hidden as a young child from his murderous grandmother for six years of his life, a place of refuge, a sanctuary, and a place of anointing when he had become king had now become a place of betrayal and treachery.
Moreover, as you recall when he was a boy newly crowned and his grandmother, that wicked woman to use his own language came to the temple in a vain attempt to label him a traitor. We read in chapter 23 that they would not dare take her life in that sanctuary.
They took her out. They took her out to the king's gate, the horse gate where she was cut down there. And so the people's irreverence here only further confirms the injustice of their actions. And what this shows us is that religious settings don't automatically restrain wickedness.
In fact, sin committed beneath religious covering is especially offensive because it uses sacred appearances, sacred things to conceal rebellion. This people's presence in the temple, it didn't make them any more holy than the possession of a Bible makes a person obedient or then church attendance or church membership makes a person converted.
David says in Psalm 51 verse six, behold, you delight in truth in the inward being and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. So may our prayer be like his even from Psalm 19, 14, let the words of my mouth and the meditation even of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
And ultimately what the chronicle emphasizes is the ingratitude of Joash. We read in verse 22a, thus Joash, the king did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah's father had shown. And the word kindness carries this idea of goodness and faithfulness and mercy, especially.
The first time it appears in scripture, Lot, Abraham's nephew, is using it to express gratitude to these two angels that had just rescued him from Sodom and Gomorrah, fire and brimstone, Genesis 19, 19.
And Jehoiada had been no less than all of these things, kind, good, merciful, faithful to Joash, which makes Joash's conduct not only wicked but also profoundly ungrateful. And when we think of ungratefulness, though we know it as wrong and we know it's not a good way to be and not a good disposition of the heart, certainly uncharacteristic of the born-again believer, but I don't think we consider just how much of a problem and an evil it really is.
But scripture makes it clear, and gratitude is a sin with severe repercussions. Going back to Romans 1, the latter half of that chapter from 18 to the end basically details the description of a downfall of a person.
God gives them over. They exchange the truth about God for a lie. They suppress the truth and unrighteousness. And alongside idolatry, the likes of idolatry and homosexuality and every kind of rebellion is also unthankfulness.
Romans 121, right? Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor what? Gave thanks to him. And what this tells us is that God takes gratefulness, thankfulness, and conversely ungratefulness very seriously.
As long as a person or culture remains thankful to God, generally speaking, they usually retain a sort of a sensitivity to his presence. But when we refuse to be thankful to him, we just think that we're the captain of our own ship.
God didn't do anything for me. I did it all myself, right? We grow hard-hearted. We grow proud. And we begin to take for granted all that God has actually given us, which is everything, right? Effectively becoming our own gods.
I did it. Jehoiada had saved Joash from death, but Joash repaid that kindness by murdering Jehoiada's son. And there's a parallel that we can see even to us, right? God's mercy and his kindness overflows to all men, even those that despise him.
What did Jesus say? Matthew 5, 45. For he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good. He sends his reign on the just and on the unjust. Your very life and mine, our very breath, our very heartbeat is evidence of God's kindness.
Paul says in Romans 2, 4 that that kindness is meant to lead to repentance. Moreover, if you've been born again, then God's kindness has overflowed to you, has extended even to eternal life. And so remembering God's kindness is essential to persevering in our walks with him.
You need to remember the pit from which God rescued you. Where were you when God saved you? You need to remember the people who God used to reach you, the prayers that he answered on your behalf, maybe even prayers that were prayed for years, the warnings that preserved your testimony, the sins he forgave, and above all else, remember Jesus, right?
The savior who gave himself for you. And understand that while gratitude doesn't save a person, you're not saved just by being thankful. Saving grace inevitably produces gratitude. Why? Because God, you did something for me that I could never do for myself.
Sadly, this quality was lacking in Zechariah's executioners. And as the verse says, when he was dying, as our passage concludes, he said, may the Lord see and avenge. More than merely wishful thinking, Zechariah's final words revealed to us a big part of who God is.
God is, among other things, the seeing avenger, right? And the word translated avenge here, derash, may carry the idea of seeking out, investigation, requiring, or calling to account. These are legal terms, legal terminology.
Zechariah is appealing to the courtroom of heaven right now. Lord, see what has happened. Investigate this matter and call this blood guilt to account. Are you not a just God? Execute justice. Now, a question we may have concerning this, and as we read this and reflecting on this, is this a right way to sort of think, right?
If we are to love our enemies, bless those who persecute us, pray for them even, is it appropriate to seek God for justice in this way? And the answer is, it depends, right? Whether a plea for justice is viewed as healthy or not depends largely on the motivation, the motivation of the heart behind that plea.
It's healthy when seeking justice is about protecting the oppressed, right? About correcting wrongs, about restoring order, which God is a God of order. Throughout the Bible, such as in the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18, a parable often used that, you know, if we pray persistently, we'll get anything we want.
Well, the context of that is actually justice, right? Believers are encouraged to cry out to God for deliverance, but deliverance primarily in the area of justice. It acknowledges God as the ultimate unbiased judge, right?
If you have this wicked judge that, you know, with the persistence of this widow is willing to just give her what she wants, how much more the righteous judge of all the earth? And so when such a plea can become unhealthy or problematic is when the prayer shifts from now, it's not just about justice and fairness and equity, but malicious punishment, harm, a sort of a personal vendetta that I have against this person.
The justice is perverted into a vendetta. And while many of the Psalms include what theologians call an imprecatory prayers, which are pleadings with God to often stop corrupt leaders or to halt wickedness, even put them to death.
What we got to understand is that these were used to process intense grief and pour out sort of the soul to God. You know, people that had gone through real hardship and were just pouring out their souls to God.
It wasn't them using prayer as a weapon to demand suffering, but to cast their burdens before him. Ultimately, as we know, bringing our feelings, even our anger, our frustrations, and our desire for justice before the Lord, it actually helps us.
And it helps us to prevent bitterness in cynicism. Oftentimes in those prayers, we're frustrated about something we're praying. I know what's happened to me. Lord will correct my framework in that moment.
I start thinking on the gospel and thinking about, wow, how much have I perverted God's justice and how merciful has he been to me? Maybe I should bring this indignation down a notch. And so it helps.
It's a way to surrender the heavy burden of settling the score to God's divine authority. And so what we see here isn't Zechariah taking vengeance through his own hands. It's precisely the opposite. He puts the case into the hands of the premier prosecuting attorney.
He doesn't command his supporters to retaliate. He doesn't attempt to seize the throne for himself in order to start a rebellion and take it back. He certainly doesn't curse God or blame him for his circumstance.
Why am I being persecuted for preaching your word? But instead, he entrusts himself to the judge of all the earth who sees and who will always do what is just. The apostle Paul, Romans 12, 19, expresses the same principle for us.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. And that's the thing, right? God sees what others don't. He sees what others can't and the things that others overlook.
The princes, they conspired. The people rebelled. The king consented and the crowd threw stones. But God saw it all. He saw it all. He knew it was coming from a mile away. And the blood of Zechariah became a testimony in heaven's courtroom.
And while like Abel, those stones may have silenced Zechariah's earthly voice, they could not silence his blood and the cry of that blood before God. But in conclusion, God did repay. It's beyond the scope of our text, but the rest of the chapter records God's vengeance.
The Syrian army returns. They march down once again with a relatively small force against Judah's larger force and still defeats Judah. Why? Because God's judgment. He gave them over to them. The Chronicle repeats that this was because they had forsaken God.
And because they had forsaken God, God had forsaken them. In that way, he took away his protection, his blessing. And Joash, severely wounded in this conflict, proceeded to experience the same treachery that he had dealt to Zechariah, being betrayed and assassinated by his own servants.
Thus, the Lord saw and remembered and he also required. Psalm 116 .15 says,. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. He sees, he knows, right? He values and will recompense all the wickedness done towards you, all the injustice, all the grievances that you have suffered for his namesake.
And he can relate to us even in that suffering because he would one day experience it himself. Jesus, a distant descendant of Joash, would come as a man to save his people from their sins. How would he do this?
Would he just wave their sins away? No. He would do so at the cost of his own life. His own life. He even mentions this exact event in the Gospels, again, as we've read, to show how those seeking to kill him were actually working in tandem with their forefathers.
They were doing the same things that the people who killed Zechariah were doing. They had consistently resisted the Holy Spirit and frequently persecuted the prophets of the Lord from Abel to Zechariah and even to Jesus.
And like Zechariah, Jesus came to his covenant people. He came to his people. He came empowered by the Spirit to speak the word of God. He exposed their religious hypocrisy. He was condemned through conspiracy.
He was killed under the authority of wicked rulers. Nevertheless, he entrusted himself fully to the righteous judge of all the earth. However, Jesus was more than just another murdered prophet. He is the risen lamb.
He is the son of God, the savior of sinners. At the cross, we see most clearly that God does not overlook sin. If his own son would not be spared, that means God does not overlook sin. He is just. Calvary demonstrates that divine justice must be satisfied.
Yet, it also reveals that God's incredible mercy in that Christ willingly bore our judgment, the judgment deserved by his people. And in this great exchange for our sin, his perfect righteousness, right, for our sin, he's both able to be the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
We're just saying that. We praise his righteousness for that, right? The God who sees is also the God who provides, right? And he's provided a savior for sinner. Now, for those of us this day who trust in Christ, there is good news, right?
The good news is that judgment for your sins and the judgment that your sins deserved has already been avenged. It's already been avenged in Jesus, our substitute. The reason you can live in the joy of your salvation have joy in your salvation is because Jesus bore the wrath of your guilt in your place.
However, for the unrepentant, for those who here have not yet believed upon Christ, who are not trusting in him, walking with him, have not repented of their sins, and do not live for him, this passage is primarily a warning.
It's a warning that God sees. He sees everything. He remembers everything too. And he will require justice on your account. And that's a scary prospect. Is that a price that you're willing to pay? Because it is eternal.
It's an eternal price, and it's extremely costly. Why not instead of forsaking the Lord, continuing to forsake the Lord, who has been so good to even you, why not forsake your sin and find mercy in the savior that he's provided?
Hebrews 12, 24, which Nick read earlier, says that the blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Whereas Abel's blood cried for justice, Zechariah's cried for vengeance, Christ's blood announces forgiveness to everyone who believes.
Amen? Let's pray. Oh, Father God, we praise your righteousness, oh Lord. Lord, even marvel at your justice, oh God. And we are amazed, oh God, by your love, that your justice has not fallen upon us, who rightly deserve it, but upon your son, oh God.
Lord, and yet over those who have not believed in your son, there is still condemnation, oh Father God, as they have not believed in the only son of God, oh Lord. And I pray that, Lord, for one, your people would appreciate your mercy, oh Father God, would remember that you see and that you avenged, that it would be both an encouragement to us, but also a means of sobering us to turn away from sin, oh Lord, and for those who are not your people, oh Father God, that they would be brought to repentance, oh God, that they would recognize that, Lord, you will avenge, oh Lord.
Lord, avenge not your wrath on them, oh Lord, but may it be placed on your son, oh God. And we pray all of this in his name, amen.