After our break for All Saints Day, let’s return to Joash and the kings. We left Joash after a successful renovation of the Temple. A good thing. But we’ve already had this teaser:

Taught and trained by Jehoiada the priest, Joash did what pleased GOD throughout Jehoiada’s lifetime. (2 Chronicles 24.2, MSG)

Sure enough, Jehoiada dies…

But after the death of Jehoiada things fell apart. The leaders of Judah made a formal presentation to the king and he went along with them. Things went from bad to worse; they deserted The Temple of GOD and took up with the cult of sex goddesses. An angry cloud hovered over Judah and Jerusalem because of this sin. GOD sent prophets to straighten them out, warning of judgment. But nobody paid attention. Then the Spirit of God moved Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest to speak up: “God’s word: Why have you deliberately walked away from GOD’s commandments? You can’t live this way! If you walk out on GOD, he’ll walk out on you.”

Joash immediately walks out on God, and when Jehoiada’s son Zechariah attempts to rebuke him, Joash has him murdered.

We get the same story a couple of kings later:

Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king and reigned for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother was Jecoliah from Jerusalem. He behaved well in the eyes of GOD, following in the footsteps of his father Amaziah. He was a loyal seeker of God. He was well trained by his pastor and teacher Zechariah to live in reverent obedience before God, and for as long as Zechariah lived, Uzziah lived a godly life. And God prospered him. (2 Chronicles 26.3 – 5, MSG)

Uzziah was very successful: he won battles, constructed defense towers, raised cattle and planted vineyards. He also equipped the army well. (2 Chronicles 26.9 – 15) I was going to tell you that the famous Israeli weapon, the Uzi, was named for King Uzziah, but I would have been wrong!

The Uzi is a family of Iraeli open-bolt, blowback-operated submachine guns and pistols first designed by Major Uziel “Uzi” Gal in the late 1940s, shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel.  – Wikipedia

Anyway, as forecast, Uzziah doesn’t finish well:

But then the strength and success went to his head. Arrogant and proud, he fell. One day, contemptuous of GOD, he walked into The Temple of GOD like he owned it and took over, burning incense on the Incense Altar. The priest Azariah, backed up by eighty brave priests of GOD, tried to prevent him. They confronted Uzziah: “You must not, you cannot do this, Uzziah—only the Aaronite priests, especially consecrated for the work, are permitted to burn incense. Get out of God’s Temple; you are unfaithful and a disgrace!” But Uzziah, censer in hand, was already in the middle of doing it and angrily rebuffed the priests. He lost his temper; angry words were exchanged—and then, even as they quarreled, a skin disease appeared on his forehead. As soon as they saw it, the chief priest Azariah and the other priests got him out of there as fast as they could. He hurried out—he knew that GOD then and there had given him the disease. Uzziah had his skin disease for the rest of his life and had to live in quarantine; he was not permitted to set foot in The Temple of GOD. (2 Chronicles 26.16 – 20, MSG)

“Arrogant and proud, he fell.” That’s two kings, mentored well, but the lessons didn’t stick. I mentored a man in Alabama in the early 2000s, and when I reconnected with him a few years after we had returned to Colorado, he wrote something like, “I wish you hadn’t left. I’ve lost my way.”

Happens. Jesus had twelve men and lost Judas. Paul had Demas who had a good start…

Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas. (Colossians 4.14, ESV)

…but a bad finish:

Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. (2 Timothy 4.10, ESV)

So what’s the solution? These texts don’t say, but I think we just keep sowing seed.

And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. (Mark 4.18 – 20, ESV)