The Merciful God (2 Kings 14:23-29)
The Merciful God
2 Kings 14:23-29
Ordinarily when we have studied a particular king the sermon title
Has bore his name, along with a description of what type of king he was.
Since we are on a new king, one would expect that to be the case again.
This morning we study the great-grandson of Jehu
His name is Jeroboam
(Commonly referred to as Jeroboam II, to keep from
Confusing him with the previous Jeroboam)
But when you read the account of his life,
We quickly understand that what the author of kings has to say
Is not all that much about him.
In this account it gives hardly any specifics about what he did,
And the writer even tells us that those specifics are not why he wrote.
(28-29) “Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam and all that he did and his might, how he fought and how he recovered for Israel, Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Judah, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? And Jeroboam slept with his fathers, even with the kings of Israel, and Zechariah his son became king in his place.”
The writer didn’t tell us “how he fought” or “how he recovered”
He only told us that if we want to read about “all that he did”,
Then we have to go read somewhere else.
And so we understand that this portion of Scripture is not at all about Jeroboam, but is all about what God did through Him.
And even more accurately, what God did in spite of him.
This story is about God.
And to be specific, this story is about the great mercy of God.
Psalms 103:8-14 “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.”
God knows where we came from, and God knows what we deserve.
And yet, God is still merciful.
Psalms 86:15 “But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, Slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth.”
Psalms 36:5 “Your lovingkindness, O LORD, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.”
Micah 7:18 “Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in unchanging love.”
And we could go on and on with verses that speak of God’s great mercy.
The point is that God is merciful.
But sometimes simply hearing it is not enough to convince us.
Sometimes we need an example of His mercy.
JEROBOAM IS SUCH AN EXAMPLE
So this morning through Jeroboam we see again
Just how merciful God actually is.
There are two main points to the sermon this morning.
#1 A KING WHO SINNED
2 Kings 14:23-24
And this morning not only do I want you to see this king,
But I also want to help you see what Israel was like at the time of his reign.
You already know the king we are dealing with.
“Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel”
Joash was the skeptical king.
The one that God promised deliverance to through Elisha.
Remember that Elisha told him to strike the ground with the arrows,
And he only did it 3 times and Elisha was angry at his skepticism.
That was Joash.
Now his son Jeroboam is on the throne.
And the writer gives an appraisal of his life.
(24) “He did evil in the sight of the LORD”
I am going to give you some more detail in a moment,
But honestly this appraisal should suffice to make the point.
We are not dealing with a righteous king, or a good king, or a faithful king. We are dealing with a wicked one.
This is not a king who deserves anything from God.
He is an evil king.
And next we see why.
Only one sin in his life is mentioned, (doubtless there were more)
But the big one is mentioned here.
“he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin.”
And there is yet another king
Clinging to those calves that Jeroboam made.
And because of this sin, he is appraised as an evil king.
But this morning we have access to even more information.
(Not necessarily about him, but certainly about the nation of Israel)
For during the reign of Jeroboam II
There were three prophets who performed their ministries.
Jonah, Hosea, and Amos all prophesied during Jeroboam’s reign.
Jonah is obvious, for he is mentioned in verse 25.
Hosea 1:1 “The word of the LORD which came to Hosea the son of Beeri, during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.”
Amos 1:1 “The words of Amos, who was among the sheepherders from Tekoa, which he envisioned in visions concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.”
Furthermore we can see that
Amos was a special bur under Jeroboam’s saddle.
Amos 7:10-13 “Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is unable to endure all his words. “For thus Amos says, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword and Israel will certainly go from its land into exile.'” Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go, you seer, flee away to the land of Judah and there eat bread and there do your prophesying! “But no longer prophesy at Bethel, for it is a sanctuary of the king and a royal residence.”
And so we have at our disposal two independent books of the Bible
That will give us much added insight into
Exactly what Israel was like during the time that Jeroboam reigned.
And I hope you will allow me to paint a picture of Israel for you.
(If we want to see the extent of God’s mercy,
We first have to see the extent of Israel’s sin)
And if you were to read both of those books of prophecy
You could easily categorize Israel’s sin into three distinct problems.
1) Spiritual Idolatry
2) Scriptural Heresy
3) Social Cruelty
1) SPIRITUAL IDOLATRY
This should be the most obvious, since we are extremely aware
Of Israel’s love affair with Jeroboam’s calves.
Hosea 8:1-7 “Put the trumpet to your lips! Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of the LORD, Because they have transgressed My covenant And rebelled against My law. They cry out to Me, “My God, we of Israel know You!” Israel has rejected the good; The enemy will pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by Me; They have appointed princes, but I did not know it. With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves, That they might be cut off. He has rejected your calf, O Samaria, saying, “My anger burns against them!” How long will they be incapable of innocence? For from Israel is even this! A craftsman made it, so it is not God; Surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces. For they sow the wind And they reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; It yields no grain. Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.”
It is apparent that God is not amused with the calves that Israel prizes.
But they love it anyway.
Hosea 13:2 “And now they sin more and more, And make for themselves molten images, Idols skillfully made from their silver, All of them the work of craftsmen. They say of them, “Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!”
Amos commented on the same problem.
Amos 4:4-5 “Enter Bethel and transgress; In Gilgal multiply transgression! Bring your sacrifices every morning, Your tithes every three days. “Offer a thank offering also from that which is leavened, And proclaim freewill offerings, make them known. For so you love to do, you sons of Israel,” Declares the Lord GOD.”
God didn’t love the worship that went on at Bethel, but Israel did.
Israel had become a harlot.
What an abomination!
2) SCRIPTURAL HERESY
What I mean by this is not only did they worship other gods,
But they greatly maligned the worship of the true God.
Their pulpits were filled with liberal theologians,
And the people were led astray into all sorts of ungodliness.
Listen to God’s estimation of their preachers and priests:
Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.”
The priests had so corrupted the word of God
That His people weren’t even hearing what He had to say.
Listen to what Amos said about the liberal priests
Amos 6:4-6 “Those who recline on beds of ivory And sprawl on their couches, And eat lambs from the flock And calves from the midst of the stall, Who improvise to the sound of the harp, And like David have composed songs for themselves, Who drink wine from sacrificial bowls While they anoint themselves with the finest of oils, Yet they have not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.
We have heard many times about those false prophets
Who tell people what their itching ears want to hear,
And Israel had no shortage of them.
The result of their maligning of God’s word was a moral dilapidation.
Amos 2:11-12 “Then I raised up some of your sons to be prophets And some of your young men to be Nazirites. Is this not so, O sons of Israel?” declares the LORD.”But you made the Nazirites drink wine, And you commanded the prophets saying, ‘You shall not prophesy!’”
The people grew into a state of extreme corruption.
One that grew to loathe the word of God
And one that grew to love the deeds of darkness.
They were not only idolatrous, but they were also immoral.
Spiritual Idolatry
Scriptural Heresy
3) SOCIAL CRUELTY
This is also clearly seen throughout the prophets of Jeroboam’s day.
Amos 2:6-8 “Thus says the LORD, “For three transgressions of Israel and for four I will not revoke its punishment, Because they sell the righteous for money And the needy for a pair of sandals. “These who pant after the very dust of the earth on the head of the helpless Also turn aside the way of the humble; And a man and his father resort to the same girl In order to profane My holy name. “On garments taken as pledges they stretch out beside every altar, And in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.”
Amos 5:10-13 “They hate him who reproves in the gate, And they abhor him who speaks with integrity. Therefore because you impose heavy rent on the poor And exact a tribute of grain from them, Though you have built houses of well-hewn stone, Yet you will not live in them; You have planted pleasant vineyards, yet you will not drink their wine. For I know your transgressions are many and your sins are great, You who distress the righteous and accept bribes And turn aside the poor in the gate. Therefore at such a time the prudent person keeps silent, for it is an evil time.”
Amos 8:4-6 “Hear this, you who trample the needy, to do away with the humble of the land, saying, “When will the new moon be over, So that we may sell grain, And the sabbath, that we may open the wheat market, To make the bushel smaller and the shekel bigger, And to cheat with dishonest scales, So as to buy the helpless for money And the needy for a pair of sandals, And that we may sell the refuse of the wheat?”
They were not a people who were concerned about God.
They were a people who were consumed with greed.
• They exploited the poor
• They cheated the less fortunate
• They disdained the word of God
• They rejected love of the brethren
And this was Israel during the reign of Jeroboam.
And I point that out to you
So you will understand what type of people we are dealing with.
We have here before us an evil king and an evil nation.
They are a wicked people who do not care about God,
Nor His righteous standard.
They love themselves, they love their money, they love their idolatry,
And they hate anyone who tries to correct them.
We are dealing with a foul and depraved lot of people.
Now let me show you the truly amazing part of the story
First, A King who Sinned
#2 A GOD WHO SAVED
2 Kings 14:25-27
After studying some of the background of Israel at the time,
It makes these three verses even more impressive.
There are three things we see here.
1) THE LORD SPOKE (25)
What we see is that at a time when Israel was diminishing
And literally watching chunks of their land be seized by foreign nations,
That God stepped in with a spoken word through His prophet.
“Jonah the son of Amittai” (the same Jonah who went to Nineveh)
Was used of God to prophesy a great deliverance.
God promised that He would restore “the border of Israel from the intrance of Hamath as far as the Sea of Arabah”
And just to put that in perspective,
The only other time Israel was that big was when Solomon was king.
So even when Israel was at an all time low spiritually and morally,
God still promised deliverance through His prophet.
WHY WOULD GOD DO THAT?
2) THE LORD SAW (26)
• It wasn’t that Israel was repenting…
• It wasn’t that Israel was even asking for help…
The reason God stepped in to help Israel
Is because they were hurting.
No doubt their trials were the result of their bad decisions,
But regardless of their reasoning, they were hurting.
Even though they didn’t deserve it, the mercy of God was overwhelming.
It was more than He could do to watch Israel
Continue to suffer under the hands of their oppressors.
He saw their pitiful state and His mercy rose to the occasion.
3) THE LORD SAVED (27)
And here we learn that “He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.”
• Even though he was a wicked king…
• Even though Israel didn’t deserve it…
• Even though Israel wasn’t interested in God…
He was still motivated by mercy and He stepped in and saved the day.
He used Jeroboam as a sort of deliverer,
And through Him restored the original borders of Israel.
No doubt it was UNDESERVED, but as the writer points out,
It was even UNEXPECTED.
Notice the fact that the writer included:
“The LORD did not say that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven…”
This was obviously the assumption of the people.
• They saw God as a mean-spirited God who was out to get them.
• They saw God as a cruel judge who wanted to crush them.
• They saw God as a tyrant with a sick sense of humor.
And none of those assessments were true of God.
God was not a Tyrant who desired to crush them,
God is a Savior who desired to save them.
God was not against them, God was for them.
It was they who were against God.
And please understand this is a fundamental truth.
Satan would have you think that God is a mean-spirited spiritual tyrant
Who delights in flexing His muscle and crushing those
Who don’t tickle His every fancy.
But that is not God.
God is a Savior who continually shows mercy
By warning us against the things that will harm us
And delivering us when we go the wrong way anyway.
And that is what He did for Israel
• They had Spiritual Idolatry
• They had Scriptural Heresy
• They had Social Cruelty
And yet verse 27 says, “but He saved them”
Why in the world would God do such a thing?
And the answer is MERCY
God is merciful.
He does not give us what our sins deserve.
CONSIDER WHAT JONAH LEARNED FROM THIS ENCOUNTER
Remember God sent Jonah to Nineveh, and Jonah wasn’t happy, remember why?
Jonah 4:2 “He prayed to the LORD and said, “Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.”
To which God responded:
Jonah 4:10-11 “Then the LORD said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”
If Jonah learned nothing during his reign as a prophet,
He knew that God was merciful. He had seen it too many times.
Not only does Scripture continually promise it,
But time and time again we see God prove it.
What God did for Israel, He continues to do today.
John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”
Romans 5:6-8 “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ ( by grace you have been saved),”
In fact Paul introduces God to us in this way:
2 Corinthians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,”
The point is that the God who was merciful to unbelieving Israel
Is still God today.
AND HIS MERCIES NEVER CHANGE.
TURN TO: Lamentations 3:19-40
God delights in mercy.
That is who He is.
BUT I WOULD ALSO TELL YOU THIS
God’s mercy comes with an intention.
There is a reason why God offers mercy.
Romans 2:4 “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”
God offers mercy…
God offers 2nd chances…
God offers them with the expectation that you will take it.
Beginning in the garden it has always been sin
That wrecks the life that God has given us.
But God is merciful.
He sent His son as an offering for sin that we might be free from it.
The only expectation of God
Is that you will take full advantage of His merciful offer.
• Let His mercy lead you to repentance.
• Let His mercy guide you to truth.
• Let His mercy take you from a life of sin into a life of righteousness.
I don’t know where you have been or what you have done in life.
The Ninevites were a pagan group of rogues that oppressed God’s people, and yet God was merciful…
The Israelites were an idolatrous, heretical, cruel people who claimed to follow God but did not, and yet God was merciful…
One was carnal, one was religious, both were an abomination
And yet God was merciful.
And because of that we have great confidence
That God will be merciful to us as well.
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
This morning I encourage you to take advantage of that offer.
To run to Jesus Christ, the Savior from sin, confess your sin to Him
And be a partaker of the salvation that He came to offer.
And if you will, God will save.
Romans 10:13 “for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.”
God delights in mercy and He will gladly give it to you.
Psalms 103:8-14 “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.”
