This evening, if you have your Bibles, we’re going to be taking look out of 2 Kings and also 2 Chronicles, this evening, as we continue our study looking at the Kings of Israel. This evening, we’re going to be looking at 2 Kings 8, and we’re going to be looking at the beginning of verses 16-24, and then the verses that deal with the same time period and the same individuals out of 2 Chronicles. And we’re going to be looking at 2 Chronicles, and it will be chapter 22, I believe, or chapter 21.
Before we begin our study and begin to read these verses tonight, I just want to preface this by saying, what we’re going to be looking at tonight is very interesting. The Apostle Paul’s letter to the church tells us that we are not to be unequally yoked. And by that, he means that we’re not to be spiritually put together with a non-believer like a teen, like for example in marriage.
A believer shouldn’t be married to a non-believer because they’d have two different directions they’d be going in. I remember giving the example before of when you have a team of horses, you want a team of horses that are matched in strength and height and the ability to pull. You don’t put a draft horse with a Shetland pony and expect to get anything done.
Yet that’s oftentimes what people do in life. They don’t think about, do I believe the same as the one that I want to marry? And one of the things that we do in marriage counseling is we go through a number of, I believe it’s about 10 or 12 studies. And one of these studies talks about why is it important for me to believe the same as what my spouse will believe, especially when it comes to God.
And it’s a whole litany of things, how you’re going to raise children, what you want for children, finances. But the most important thing is our perspective and belief in God. I want to give you the background before we read the text tonight about this particular man and his wife.
Joram was the son of Jehoshaphat. Those of you who were here when we were looking at the life of Jehoshaphat, he was a godly king. As a matter of fact, one of the things that he’s known for is when he was being attacked by the enemy, he sent out the singers praising God for the victory before the soldiers went.
He had faith in the Lord. He understood and he sought God after the heart of David, his father. And that’s what the king’s rejection against was David’s wife and his love for the Lord.
Jehoshaphat had that love, but Jehoshaphat had one problem. Jehoshaphat wanted to have a relationship with Ahab, the king of the northern tribe of Israel. Those of you who were here when we looked at the life of Ahab and the prophet Elijah, understand that Ahab was one of the worst, if not the worst king that the northern kingdom had.
He did everything in his power, inspired by his ungodly wife Jezebel, to turn the people’s hearts to Baal and away from the Lord. And yet Jehoshaphat fellowshiped with him, and he spent time with him, and he even went to war with him, which resulted in Jehoshaphat’s death. Well, Jehoshaphat had children, and Ahab had children.
And, did I say Jehoshaphat’s death? I meant Ahab’s death in war. But Jehoshaphat, and one of Jehoshaphat’s sons evidently became enamored with one of Ahab’s daughters because they got married. The only problem is Ahab’s daughter hated God.
She was just like her mother Jezebel, and she did everything in her power to come against the things of the Lord. And she influenced her husband for evil. And so you had the son of a very godly king, Jehoshaphat, marrying the daughter of an ungodly king, Ahab, and these two children having different perspectives and world views than the homes they were raised, and the daughter won out.
And that’s what we’re going to be looking at this evening is the life of Jehoram, the king of Judah. And when you get into reading the Kings, you’ll also see that there’s a cousin of Jehoram, whose name is Jehoram, who was the king of Israel about this same time. But we’re speaking of Jehoram, the king of Judah.
And I want to read first from 2 Kings 8, verse 16.
Then if you would turn with me to 2 Chronicles chapter 21. And we have the same account, but we have some additional information added that we want to look at.
Heavenly Father, as we come before you, Lord, help us to understand how important it is that we seek to follow you, and not the ways of the world.
And not be influenced by those that are enamored with the things of the world. And Father, how important it is to encourage young people to seek a spouse that will love you if they love you. And Father, that they would seek you above all else.
And Father, that they would not be led astray. Lord, speak to us through your words this evening, and help us to understand the wickedness that came into the heart of Jehoram, and how it impacted not only him, but his family as well. This we ask in Jesus’ name.
Amen. When you read the account in 2 Kings, you think, wow, this is pretty bad. But then you read the account in 2 Chronicles, where it adds to it and gives you more of what he actually did, and it’s really bad.
Because you stop and think about this man. This man grew up with a godly father. Definitely a godly father who had his own weaknesses.
And who did not always do what the Lord directed him to do. Especially when he, like I mentioned at the beginning of the message this evening, opened up his home to the influence of Ahab, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Ahab was a man who sought to lead the people of Israel in the worship of all.
He walked after the ways of those kings that had gone before him, except he did even worse. The previous kings did not have a wife like Ahab. And Ahab went and married this woman, and she was a Zidonian.
Zidon is a city that’s up by Tyre and Sidon. You’ve probably been hearing of those in the news. Tyre and Sidon are still cities in Lebanon.
They’re in the southern portion of Lebanon. And that’s where they were when these kings lived. The cities were there.
Zidon was up by them. It was part of that part of the country. And that particular part of the country at the time was ruled by the Phoenicians.
And the Phoenicians were tied together with the Philistines. They all came from the island of Crete originally. They were viewed as invaders because they invaded land and took it over.
The Philistines were the chief enemies of Israel, and the Phoenicians were their cousins. They came from the same stock. They worshipped the same false gods.
They came against everything that God stood for. And Jezebel was a woman who was so wicked, she sought to kill anyone who was of the Lord. She had a number of prophets of the Lord put to death, and she sought to seek Elijah’s wife as well.
And the Lord took her life. But we see that her daughter married Jehoram. Jehoram grew up, as I mentioned, in a home where the Lord was honored, and where the Lord was exalted, and where his father Jehoshaphat had set a tremendous example for the nation of Israel.
And in the moment of distress, when it appeared that they were going to be defeated by their enemies, he cried out to the Lord, and praised the Lord, and looked to the Lord for victory. And God gave the victory without Jehoshaphat initially lifting his sword. And so we see that this is the example that Jehoram grew up with, yet he was greatly influenced by his ungodly wife.
And we need to understand that when you marry, if you’re a believer or have grown up in a believer’s home, and marry someone who’s a non-believer, who grew up in a non-believer’s home, and they want to go the way of their parents in rebellion against open defiance and rebellion against God, there are going to be consequences. And the consequences were severe. And it began very early in Jehoram’s reign.
Jehoram was the eldest of the sons of Jehoshaphat. You saw in the text, when Jehoshaphat died, he had left provisions for all of his sons. He gave them all gold and silver.
He gave them all sent cities. In other words, he gave them significant cities within the land of Judah that were walled and protected so that they would be able to defend themselves against their enemies and would be able to live their lives without worry. But he gave Jehoram the kingdom, because Jehoram was the eldest.
And the kingdom, in the world’s perspective, always goes to the eldest. The greater portion goes to the eldest. Even in the nation of Israel, the eldest would get a double portion.
But we see that God’s plan isn’t always what the world’s plan is, because God looks at the heart, not just merely at the place that you’re born in the family. David was the youngest of the boys of Jesse, yet David had a heart after God where his brothers didn’t have the same heart. And God chose David over his brothers who were older.
You go back to Esau and Jacob. Jacob was the younger, but he had a heart after God. Esau had a heart after the world.
And God chose Jacob over Esau. And so we see that God doesn’t look at the way the world does, but He looks at men’s hearts. Well, Jehoshaphat did not know his sons well as far as their hearts.
And that’s one thing that we need to learn as parents and grandparents. We need to understand the hearts of our children. And we need to help them to turn their heart to the Lord and the things of God.
And if they’re being drawn away, we need to instruct them in the right way. The Bible tells us that if we train up a child in the way he should grow when he’s old, he will not depart from it. What we see in the life of Jehoshaphat is his father evidently hadn’t done proper training because he sure kept on the way of rebellion against God throughout his whole life.
Now one of the things that he did is he did not honor and respect his own family. On Sunday we’re going to be looking a little bit at the house of Herod. And you’ll see that the house of Herod was very much like the house of Jehoram.
Because Jehoram looked at his brothers as a threat to his position and his power. And so what did he do? If I’m going to get rid of a threat, I get rid of those that are threatening me. Elijah gives us the proper perspective of his brothers.
He condemns Jehoram for killing his brethren. Because he says, they were more worthy than you. In other words, they had more of a heart for God than Jehoram ever did.
And yet he killed them out of jealousy. He killed them out of a desire to prevent them from ever being able to come against him and his position of power. And because he wanted the whole kingdom for himself.
And so he killed them all. But he didn’t stop there. It’s what he went on and he killed the princes of Israel.
In other words, if there are any cousins of his brothers in his, he killed them too. He got rid of everybody that could have a potential of taking over his kingdom. He was no different than the kings of the north.
That’s exactly the way they were. Typically the way that the kings of Judah transferred power, is it went from one generation to another, but it went peaceful. And it was passed from father to son.
But the northern kingdom, there was constantly conspiracies, there was intrigue, there was murder. All of that was going on in the northern kingdom, but not the southern kingdom. But Saharan acted like those that were from the north.
He acted like the house of Ahab. Why? Because he was greatly influenced by the house of Ahab. His wife influenced him a lot.
I think that his wife, not only in not being an ungodly woman, she also was the one who ran the home. And the reason I can say that is because later on, probably not next time, but two times from now, we’ll probably be looking at her. And you will see that it was a woman who wanted her way, and it had to be her way, and no other way.
And I’m sure that that’s what she did with her husband. And he had a husband who was not driven by convictions, a principle that was laid down by the truth of God. But I believe he was driven by pressure that was put upon him by his wife and her family and their ungodliness.
And so we see that that is what directed him to do the things. But he didn’t stop with killing his brothers and the other princes of Israel. But it says that he also went on and he did other ungodly things.
And something that was even worse than killing his own brethren. He turned the hearts of the people of Israel to worship the gods of the house of Ahab. You can imagine.
Elijah and Elisha had come against all of the false gods of the northern kingdom of Israel. And yet Jehoram, whose father had exalted the name of the Lord when he was ruling, his son not only despises the god that his father exalted, but he builds high places for these false gods of the house of Ahab. He has the people go and worship there.
And he has them turn their back on the true and living God. He really causes them to commit spiritual death by worshiping gods that are not gods at all, but really demonic spirits. And it’s horrible that he killed his brothers.
It’s even more horrible that he led the whole nation of Judah into false worship. But it doesn’t stop there. I mean, Jehoram and his wife, when he comes against the king of Edom, and you look at what is going on here, the nation of Edom and the Edomites are the descendants of Esau.
The Israelites are the descendants of Japheth. And there’s always contention from these two kingdoms, because the kingdom of Edom would always be rising up against the kingdom of Israel, and then here it’s Judah, when the kingdoms split. One of the things that is interesting, you can go and you can see that later on, when Israel, or when the nation of Judah and Israel are being taken into captivity, first by the Assyrians and then later by the Babylonians, the Edomites do everything in their power to prevent the Israelites from escaping their captors.
And they align themselves with the Assyrians first, and then later on with the Babylonians, and coming against the Assyrians. That is how wicked this nation is. And because they’ve been brought under control by the previous kings, by Esau and Jehoshaphat, where the Edomites were not revolting against them, but when Jehoram comes to power, they rise up and revolt against them, and God allows it.
Why? Well, because of the ungodliness of Jehoram, because he removes the heads of protection from Judah. Not only that, we also see that the Philistines begin to invade, and other enemies of Israel begin to invade Israel, and are at war with Israel. One of the things that you see is oftentimes, when godly kings are reigning, the Lord puts a head of protection to a degree, and if they do invade, they are defeated quickly.
And you see that here, all of these kingdoms are rising up, and he appears to defeat Edom, because he brings all his chariots against them, and he defeats the man that they’ve appointed as king, but it says that the Edomites stayed in rebellion against them until this day. Well, this day, as we’re going to see on Sunday, came all the way to the time of Jesus’ birth, because the Edomites were still in opposition to Israel at the time when Jesus was born. And there’s still Israel thorn in the flesh.
And so we see that it was emphasized again by the ungodly ruling of this man, and his ungodliness. The last thing I want us to just look at about him is when he died. His death was a judgment from God, and that’s exactly what it says here.
People can say, oh, we had this kind of a disease, that kind of a disease, it was a horrible disease, whatever it was. I don’t know if it was some type of a cancer, but it was some type of a, I don’t know what it was, it says his balls fell out. And I mean, it was terrible when he died.
And he suffered a long time with this problem before he finally died. And the Scriptures tell us God judged him for his wickedness, his evil heart. Sometimes you look at the world today and you look at some of the wicked individuals in the world and you think, why doesn’t God judge these men and women sooner? Because they’re so wicked.
But their judgment is coming, and even if it doesn’t appear that it’s in this life, but we don’t know what their lives are like. The Bible opens up and shows us what Joram’s judgment was. But those that walk in opposition to God and open defiance of the Lord will face a judgment that’s even worse than this.
Because they will one day have to hear the words, depart from me for I never knew you, and be cast into the lake of fire for eternity. A place that was only prepared for Satan and his angels and the fallen angels. But rather, those that have openly defied God and refused to repent and return to Him will find themselves there as well.
Just as Joram’s judgment was terrible, that’s even worse. And then the last thing that goes with that judgment is where he was buried and what happened at the time of his death. When he died, the people of Israel
(This file is longer than 30 minutes. Go Unlimited at TurboScribe.ai to transcribe files up to 10 hours long.)
Then spake Elisha unto the woman, whose son he had restored to life, saying, Arise, and go thou and thine household, and sojourn wheresoever thou canst sojourn: for the Lord hath called for a famine; and it shall also come upon the land seven years.
2 And the woman arose, and did after the saying of the man of God: and she went with her household, and sojourned in the land of the Philistines seven years.
3 And it came to pass at the seven years’ end, that the woman returned out of the land of the Philistines: and she went forth to cry unto the king for her house and for her land.
4 And the king talked with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, Tell me, I pray thee, all the great things that Elisha hath done.
5 And it came to pass, as he was telling the king how he had restored a dead body to life, that, behold, the woman, whose son he had restored to life, cried to the king for her house and for her land. And Gehazi said, My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life.
6 And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed unto her a certain officer, saying, Restore all that was hers, and all the fruits of the field since the day that she left the land, even until now.
7 And Elisha came to Damascus; and Benhadad the king of Syria was sick; and it was told him, saying, The man of God is come hither.
8 And the king said unto Hazael, Take a present in thine hand, and go, meet the man of God, and enquire of the Lord by him, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?
9 So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels’ burden, and came and stood before him, and said, Thy son Benhadad king of Syria hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?
10 And Elisha said unto him, Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely die.
11 And he settled his countenance stedfastly, until he was ashamed: and the man of God wept.
12 And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child.
13 And Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? And Elisha answered, The Lord hath shewed me that thou shalt be king over Syria.
14 So he departed from Elisha, and came to his master; who said to him, What said Elisha to thee? And he answered, He told me that thou shouldest surely recover.
15 And it came to pass on the morrow, that he took a thick cloth, and dipped it in water, and spread it on his face, so that he died: and Hazael reigned in his stead.
16 And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Je hoshaphat king of Judah began to reign.
17 Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.
18 And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab: for the daughter of Ahab was his wife: and he did evil in the sight of the Lord.
19 Yet the Lord would not destroy Judah for David his servant’s sake, as he promised him to give him alway a light, and to his children.
20 In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made a king over themselves.
21 So Joram went over to Zair, and all the chariots with him: and he rose by night, and smote the Edomites which compassed him about, and the captains of the chariots: and the people fled into their tents.
22 Yet Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah unto this day. Then Libnah revolted at the same time.
23 And the rest of the acts of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
24 And Joram slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David: and Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead.
25 In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel did Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah begin to reign.
26 Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri king of Israel.
27 And he walked in the way of the house of Ahab, and did evil in the sight of the Lord, as did the house of Ahab: for he was the son in law of the house of Ahab.
28 And he went with Joram the son of Ahab to the war against Hazael king of Syria in Ramothgilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram.
29 And king Joram went back to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which the Syrians had given him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.