The King's Ear: On Borrowed Convictions and Willful Deafness Text: 2 Chronicles 24:17-19
Introduction: The Durability of Faith
There is a kind of religion that is like a greenhouse plant. It is vibrant, green, and appears to be in robust health so long as it is kept in a carefully controlled environment. It needs the constant warmth of encouragement, the steady light of a strong mentor, and the protection of sturdy glass walls from the harsh winds of the world. But what happens when the owner of the greenhouse dies? What happens when the glass is shattered and the cold winds of flattery, ambition, and worldly wisdom begin to blow? The plant that looked so strong shrivels and dies in a single season, revealing that it never had any deep roots of its own.
This is the story of King Joash. His is one of the great tragedies of the Old Testament. Here was a man who began his reign with such promise. Rescued from a murderous grandmother, raised in the temple by the godly high priest Jehoiada, and placed on the throne as a boy, he oversaw a great reformation in Judah. He repaired the house of God, tore down the altars of Baal, and followed the law of Yahweh with diligence. By all external measures, he was a righteous king. But his righteousness was a borrowed garment. It was Jehoiada's righteousness.
The passage before us this morning is the pivot point, the great and terrible "but" in the story of his life. It is the moment the greenhouse glass shatters. Jehoiada dies at the ripe old age of 130, a man so honored that he was buried with the kings. And with his restraining, guiding influence gone, we discover what Joash was really made of. This text is a sober warning to every one of us, particularly to those raised in the covenant community. It forces us to ask the question: Is your faith your own? Or are you simply a well-behaved plant in someone else's greenhouse? Because the day will come for every man when the external supports are removed, and on that day, the true nature of your root system will be revealed to all.
The Text
But after the death of Jehoiada the officials of Judah came and bowed down to the king, and the king listened to them. And they forsook the house of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols; so wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their guilt. Yet He sent prophets to them to bring them back to Yahweh; though they testified against them, they did not give ear.
(2 Chronicles 24:17-19 LSB)
The Fatal Turn (v. 17)
Our text begins with the hinge of the entire narrative.
"But after the death of Jehoiada the officials of Judah came and bowed down to the king, and the king listened to them." (2 Chronicles 24:17)
Notice the sequence. First, the godly restraint is removed. "After the death of Jehoiada." A spiritual vacuum is created. For decades, when Joash needed counsel, he went to the man of God. Now that voice is silent. This is a test. Will the king continue in the paths he was taught, operating now from internal conviction? Or will he seek a new source of guidance?
The world is always ready to fill such a vacuum. "The officials of Judah came." These were the sophisticated, the pragmatic, the men who had chafed under Jehoiada's strict, covenantal rule. They had been biding their time. And how do they approach the king? Not with arguments, but with adulation. "They bowed down to the king." This is the world's great tactic. It does not often come with a frontal assault, but with flattery. It appeals to your pride, your ego, your desire for autonomy. The serpent did not tell Eve she was a fool; he told her she could be like God.
These officials were whispering the sweet poison of autonomy into the king's ear. "You are the king, Joash. You are a grown man. Why should you be bound by the scruples of that old priest? It is time for you to be your own man, to make your own rules. We serve you." And the tragic, fatal phrase follows: "and the king listened to them." He opened his ear to the flattering counsel of men and, in so doing, closed his ear to the commands of God he had known his entire life. This is the catastrophic failure. A man's spiritual state can be accurately measured by determining who has his ear. Joash's piety was entirely dependent on an external voice. When a more appealing voice came along, he followed it straight into apostasy.
The Fruit of Bad Counsel (v. 18)
Verse 18 shows us the immediate and inevitable consequences of listening to the world.
"And they forsook the house of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols; so wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their guilt." (2 Chronicles 24:18 LSB)
The first step away from God is always neglect of the means of grace. "They forsook the house of Yahweh." The very temple that Joash had so zealously repaired now sits neglected. Apostasy begins with what you stop doing. It begins when corporate worship becomes a chore, when prayer becomes a formality, and when the Word of God becomes uninteresting. They abandoned the place where God had put His name, the center of their covenant life.
But men are worshipping creatures. You cannot simply forsake the house of Yahweh and create a spiritual void. If you will not worship the true God, you will worship a false one. "And served the Asherim and the idols." They traded the glory of the invisible God for a block of wood. The Asherim were cult objects, likely carved poles, associated with the Canaanite fertility goddess. This was a return to the primordial pagan ooze. It was a worship of nature, of sex, of the creation rather than the Creator. It was a religion that made no ethical demands, only sensual appeals. They exchanged the difficult path of righteousness for the easy, broad road of self-indulgence.
And God is not mocked. The text is blunt: "so wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their guilt." Sin has consequences. Covenant-breaking invites covenant curses. This is not God being petty; it is God being just. His wrath is His holy, righteous, and settled opposition to all that destroys the good world He has made. Their action incurred guilt, a legal and moral debt before the throne of the universe, and that debt must be paid.
The Grace of Rebuke (v. 19)
In the face of such high-handed rebellion, we might expect immediate, fiery judgment. But look at the astonishing grace of God in verse 19.
"Yet He sent prophets to them to bring them back to Yahweh; though they testified against them, they did not give ear." (2 Chronicles 24:19 LSB)
The first word is "Yet." In the face of their forsaking and their idolatry and their guilt, God's first move is not destruction, but proclamation. "He sent prophets." This is the mercy of God. He does not abandon His people to their sin without a warning, without an appeal, without offering a road back. The task of these prophets was restorative: "to bring them back to Yahweh." The goal of all true preaching is repentance and reconciliation.
But the message they brought was not flattering. It was not affirming. It was a testimony "against them." True preaching is often confrontational. It holds up the mirror of God's law and shows us where we have gone astray. It speaks against our pride, against our idols, against our rebellion. And here we see the bookend to this sorry episode. The passage began with the king giving his ear to flatterers. It ends with the people refusing to give their ear to God's messengers.
"They did not give ear." The Hebrew is stark. They would not listen. They stopped their ears. Having chosen the sweet lies of the court officials, they could no longer tolerate the hard truths of the prophets. One of these prophets, as the subsequent verses tell us, was Zechariah, the son of the very Jehoiada whose memory they had betrayed. And for his faithful testimony, King Joash had him stoned to death in the temple court. The man who once repaired God's house now desecrates it with the blood of God's prophet. This is the final state of the man with a borrowed faith. When confronted, it does not repent; it murders the truth-teller.
Conclusion: Whose Voice Do You Heed?
The story of Joash is a permanent warning etched into the pages of Scripture. It demonstrates that a long track record of good behavior is no guarantee of a genuine heart. A man can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons. He can honor God with his actions while his heart is secretly listening for the flattering whispers of the world.
This is a call for radical self-examination. Is your faith your own, forged in a real encounter with the living God? Or is it a comfortable habit you inherited from your parents or your culture? What voices do you listen to? When the Word of God testifies against your pet sin, your cherished idol, do you give ear and repent? Or do you, like Joash, stop your ears and resent the messenger?
The guilt of Joash and Judah required wrath, and that wrath came in the form of an Aramean army. But that was a temporal judgment, a shadow of the true wrath to come. All of us, like Joash, have listened to the flattering lies of the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have all forsaken the house of the Lord in our hearts and served the idols of our own making. We have all incurred a guilt that demands the wrath of a holy God.
But God, in His infinite mercy, did not only send prophets. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true King who, unlike Joash, had a faith that was entirely His own. When tempted by the ultimate flatterer in the wilderness, He did not give ear but stood fast on the Word of God. He is the ultimate Prophet, who did not just testify against sin but took the full force of God's wrath for our guilt upon Himself. He is the true Temple, which we forsook, but which He has rebuilt in three days.
Because of His death and resurrection, the message to us today is the same one the prophets brought to Judah: "to bring you back to Yahweh." God is still speaking. The question for each of us is the same question that confronted Joash when Jehoiada died. Will you listen? Will you give ear to the gracious, life-giving, soul-saving voice of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Or will you stop your ears, and listen to the world as it flatters you all the way to destruction?