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Battle Creek Tabernacle SDA Church

Chris Holland

The Forgotten Principle of Christianity

What is it that you could face in your daily life that could steal that away?

Today God is calling a people who look forward to that day to unload those burdens along the way.

Heavenly Father, we have gathered and now we are going to study your word.

We want to know you and we want to know the power of your word and the power of your truth in our lives.

And so today, dear Father, as we study, I pray that you would move in a mighty way that we would experience transformation.

I would like for us to travel back into the days of the kings of Israel and Judah.

It is very easy often to identify whether they were a king of Judah or Israel.

You'll of course remember that the kingdom had been divided by the poor leadership or under the poor leadership of Rehoboam.

The easiest way to distinguish between the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel is that often the Bible would speak of those kings either doing evil in the sight of the Lord or of those kings doing right in the sight of the Lord.

There are many examples that we could look at today, but I would like to draw our attention to the boy king, Joash, who is also referred to as Jehoash.

When he ascended the throne and when we read about him we often read about him as being 1 of the good kings.

However with his reign began a generational problem that plagued the kingdom of Judah.

It was that generational problem that eventually led to the downfall of Judah and its complete apostasy.

And this generational problem has made its way into Christianity today.

It is the forgotten principle of Christianity.

Maybe even possible the ignored principle of Christianity.

There are 3 words, 3 words in the Old Testament that would have an influence even now.

3 words that will be a key to understanding how we might truly grow and know God and become like Jesus.

There are 3 words that ought to trouble all of us.

Please open your Bibles to 2nd Kings chapter 12 verses 1 through 3.

In 2 Kings chapter 12 verses 1 to 3, the Bible says this, in the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash, or Joash, became king and he reigned 40 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Zibia of Beersheba.

Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him, but the high places were not taken away, the people still sacrificed, and burned incense on the high places.

He did what was right in the sight of the Lord.

So let's read about his son in 2 Kings 14 verses 1-4.

Maybe we'll notice it together as a congregation there.

In the second year of Joash, the son of Jehoaz, King of Israel, and don't let that be confusing to you.

There was a King Joash of Israel and a King Joash of Judah, 2 different people.

Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, became king.

He was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Jehoaddon of Jerusalem and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like his father David, he did everything as his father Joash had done.

However, the high places were not taken away and the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places." Now some of you might be saying right now, preacher what's your point?

He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, but maybe Amaziah's son will make it more plain to us.

And so just turn another chapter to 2 Kings chapter 15, Verses 1 to 4.

In the 27th year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Azariah, the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, became king.

He was 16 years old when he became king, and he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Jechaliah of Jerusalem, and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done, except the high places were not removed and the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

And we might say, once again, he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, So what's your point, Pastor Holland?

Let's look at just 1 more passage and see the son of Azariah and what it might reveal to us.

In the second year of Pekah, the son of Remaliah king of Israel, Jotham the son of Uzziah, just so you're not confused Uzziah and Azariah are the same person.

Uzziah, king of Judah, began to, Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, began to reign.

He was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok.

And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord.

He did according to all that his father Uzziah had done.

However, the high places were not removed.

The people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

3 words that express the ultimate obstacle to knowing God and his will for your life." Those 3 words were not removed or not taken away.

4 generations, Joash, Amaziah, Azariah, and Jotham, all did right in the sight of the Lord, but they did not remove or did not take away." 3 words.

3 words that led to the demise of the kingdom then, and if we ignore these 3 words, we'll lead to your demise and my demise today.

It would seem that these kings were willing to follow up to a point, but not willing to go far enough to be in complete and total surrender to God Almighty.

In each case, it was the high places that were not removed or not taken away.

High places were not necessarily intrinsically bad places.

In fact, some of the high places may have been used for the worship of God.

Yet that in itself is still problematic because utilizing a center of worship away from Jerusalem was against God's expressed instructions.

However, it is more likely that These high places were of religious cult practices.

Pagan worship, idol worship, but even worse, were probably places of what we would call syncretistic worship, which means it was the blending of the holy and the unholy.

We need to ask the question though, what is worship?

The dictionary defines worship as to feel an adoring reverence or regard for any person or thing.

It is where people spent time to adore or revere or hold something in high regard.

What is even more interesting is that the phrase, we're not taken away or we're not removed, is in the passive voice.

It gives us the idea that it just simply happened.

It wasn't that they intentionally didn't take it away, it was that they were simply permissive about it continuing on.

The failure of all of these kings is they allowed these practices to continue in their kingdom and these practices were detrimental to the lives of those in the kingdom and to their own lives as well.

In fact, the king that comes after these 4 generations who were unwilling to take the high places away, no longer did right in the sight of the Lord.

But with that king, the son of Jotham, Ahaz, did what was not right in the sight of the Lord.

These high places served as a distraction from the true worship of the 1 and only true God.

Yet there is actually something even deeper Because the Bible reveals a most sobering reality to what these 3 words really mean.

Just a moment ago we read about Amaziah in 2 Kings 14.

Where in verse 4 it says, however the high places were not taken away.

I would like for you to open your Bibles to 2 Chronicles chapter 25.

2 Chronicles chapter 25 records the same history.

In 2 Chronicles chapter 25 verses 1 and 2, The Bible says this, Amaziah was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Jehoadam of Jerusalem and he did Jerusalem, and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a loyal heart.

The chronicler telling the same story did not say that the high places were not taken away, but rather simply says, not with a loyal heart.

Why is it that the chronicler would have chosen those words?

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The Forgotten Principle of Christianity

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