24
Ears That Won't Hear
Pat McFallScripture: 2 Chronicles 24:19 NLT
“Yet the Lord sent prophets to bring them back to him. The prophets warned them, but still the people would not listen.”
Observations:
This is one powerfully sad story in a long history of sad stories when it came to the kings of Israel and Judah. The strong prophetic voice of the chief priest Jehoiada is silenced in death and his son rises up as a voice of correction to the king that was mentored and loved by his (Zechariah’s) father. The result is Joash’s distain and command to have him stoned to death. This event is even more intense when we consider that Jehoiada helped to reestablish the rule of Joash from a deadly family power struggle. He was born at a time of blood and power grabbing and hidden for safety. At 7 years old he becomes king and Jehoiada the priest mentors him and helps him along. Joash initiates the repair of the temple of God, he seems to be walking the way of his father David, but when his mentor dies he takes a different path. When a prophetic leader’s voice is gone there is a vacuum of influence that will be filled in one way or another and so Joash takes the path of his father Ahaziah and Jehoram and did not follow the way of God. But God doesn’t leave His people alone. He sends prophets to bring them back to God not just back to God’s laws but back to God’s heart, to a place of safety and promise. But as the king goes, so goes the people and their hearts were as hard as that of Joash. They had ears but they refused to hear what God was saying and instead of covenant and a legacy of honor, Joash’s life ends in shame. Wounded in battle and assassinated by his own officials because he murdered Zechariah, the son of their beloved chief priest. Incredible how sowing into one wicked action lead to Joash reaping it’s consequence at the very end of his life.
Application:
I wonder when Joash stopped listening? If he changed so drastically after Jehoiada’s death was he even listening to begin with? After all his time with the Chief Priest of God’s people did he learn nothing that would help him live out his covenant with God once Jehoiada was gone? I have to ask these questions because the answers directly affect how I live my life. I have to ask myself, “Am I listening to the prophetic voices of wisdom and leadership around me?” “Am I not only obeying those voices but am I learning from that wisdom and building my life around it in such a way that if those voices or people are gone I will still walk in a way that’s pleasing to God?” I don’t ever want to be so hardened in my heart that I stop listening to the people in my life that are telling me to correct my ways and pursue Jesus. God is so faithful to send people in my life that have done exactly that. When I have not been listening as a husband or as loving as I should be as a father, God corrects me as I draw near to Him in prayer and in devotions. He also brings friends and mentors around me at just the right times to remind me, gently but sternly, of who I am in Christ and how I should live in light of that truth. While I always must remain open to voices of correction I never want to be so dependent on friends, leaders or mentors in my life that once they are gone I fall into old patterns of sin and wrong thinking. I want to live in such a way that when I encounter God’s truth and presence that I am changed, that I am consistently putting on the new man that I am in Christ and leaving behind the old man of sin and death.
Father, I am desperate to hear your voice of love, guidance and correction. Make me so aware of how desperate I am for you that to think about turing away would seem like insanity. Help me to remain humble when I am corrected so that I respond in obedience and in a fundamental change in how I live. Give me ears that never tire of hearing from You.
