Transcript
Thank you, Arch. And it’s always a pleasure to be back here in the pulpit at Coast Bible Church.
The message that I will be giving you this morning is the first in a series of four that I’ve been assigned to do during the course of the week. Judging from that heavy schedule I have the impression that the people around here think I’m getting younger rather than older. But my body informs me it just ain’t so.
So if I make it through the week we hopefully will come back another time. But next time we may try to negotiate a lighter schedule.
Let me invite your attention this morning to the word of God as found in the book of Second Kings chapter 11. Second Kings chapter 11 and beginning to read at verse 1.
When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead she arose and destroyed all the royal heirs. But Jehosheba the daughter of King Joram sister of Ahaziah took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were being murdered. And they hid him and his nurse in the bedroom from Athaliah so that he was not killed. So he was hidden with her in the house of the Lord for six years while Athaliah reigned over the land.
In the seventh year Jehoiada sent and brought the captains of hundreds of the bodyguards and the escorts and brought them into the house of the Lord to him. And he made a covenant with them and took an oath from them in the house of the Lord and showed them the king’s son. Then he commanded them saying This is what you shall do. One third of you who come on duty on the Sabbath shall be keeping watch over the king’s house. One third shall be at the gate of Sur and one third at the gate behind the escorts. You shall keep watch of the house that is to be broken down. The two contingents of you who go off duty on the Sabbath shall keep the watch of the house of the Lord for the king. But you shall surround the king on all sides every man with his weapons in his hand. And whoever comes within range let him be put to death. You are to be with the king as he goes in and as he comes out.
So the captains of hundreds did according to all that Jehoiada the priest commanded. Each of them took his men who were to be on duty on the Sabbath with those who were going off duty on the Sabbath and came to Jehoiada the priest. And the priest gave the captains of hundreds the spears and shields which had belonged to King David. They were in the temple of the Lord. Then the escorts stood every man with his weapons in his hand all around the king from the right side of the temple to the left side of the temple by the altar and the temple. And he brought out the king’s son put the crown on him gave him the testimony they made him king and anointed him. And they clapped their hands and said Long live the king. Or as we might translate it May the king live.
Now when Athaliah heard the noise of the escorts and the people she came to the people into the temple of the Lord. When she looked there was the king standing by a pillar according to custom and the leaders and the trumpeters were by the king. All the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets. And Athaliah tore her clothes and cried out Treason treason.
Then Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of hundreds the officers of the army and said to them Take her outside under guard and slay with the sword whoever follows her. For the priest had said Do not let her be killed in the house of the Lord. So they seized her and she went by way of the horses’ entrance to the king’s house and there she was killed.
Power. It’s a magical word for many people. Human beings have been known to spend years of their life in the pursuit of power.
Carolyn Raver of Covington Louisiana had power. It didn’t seem like very much. It didn’t seem very important. But it was. In 1998 she was working as a babysitter and she had in her charge a little two-year-old boy named Jared Sternberg. Now the Sternbergs were medical professionals and they had moved from Atlanta to New Orleans in 1996. They had examined references very carefully before hiring Terry Lynn Raver to take care of their newly born son.
She worked for them until April of 1998. On that day she took little Jared Sternberg who was suffering from a virus and she put him in the van and she drove to Bridge City a suburb of New Orleans in order to gamble. When she arrived at Bridge City she parked the van went inside leaving sick little Jared Sternberg strapped in the hot van. She was inside the gambling establishment for four hours playing video poker.
Apparently someone noticed the little boy in the van and when he was removed he was dehydrated and he was running a temperature of 107 degrees. The following day Jared Sternberg died.
Terry Lynn Raver pleaded guilty to manslaughter a crime that could have sent her to prison for 40 years. Her lawyer argued that in view of the guilty plea the judge should limit the sentence to 20 years. But the Sternbergs objected and the judge refused to limit the sentence.
When this story appeared in the Dallas Morning News in 1998 Terry Lynn Raver was still waiting for her sentencing. And regardless of how long the sentence turned out to be she was looking forward to some very miserable and unhappy years. All because she had abused her power.
Power. The abuse of power the seizure of power has caused an enormous amount of human suffering and tragedy in the history of mankind. And because it cannot be kept outside the walls of the Christian church I want to ask you to consider with me this morning for a few moments a topic which I have phrased in the form of a question. And the question is Have you stolen power?
Now maybe you’ve never been asked a question like that. In fact maybe you’ve never even considered the possibility that you have. But because this can be an extremely serious problem at many levels of human experience I want us to think about it a little bit this morning. And to be sure that you have the question in mind which is also the title of my message today I’m going to repeat the question. My question my title is Have you stolen power?
Let me introduce you this morning to a woman who did exactly that. Her name of course was Athaliah. We read about her a few moments ago. And Athaliah was the daughter of the weak and wicked king Ahab of Israel. Now we cannot prove this from the Bible but there is also a strong possibility that Athaliah was the daughter also of Ahab’s primary wife Queen Jezebel.
And as I’m sure you’re aware the notorious Queen Jezebel wears the undisputed crown of the most wicked woman in the entire Bible. And if Athaliah was her daughter she ran her mother a very close second. You see Athaliah had been married off as part of the political interests of Ahab. She had been married off to Jehoram the son of the godly king Jehoshaphat who reigned in the land of Judah.
When Jehoshaphat died Jehoram became the king of Judah and Athaliah became the mother of his successor a man named Ahaziah. And when Jehoram died her son Ahaziah ascended the throne. And now the throne of Judah was occupied by a descendant of King David through his father and a descendant of King Ahab through his mother.
And needless to say Ahaziah had very cordial relationships with his mother’s side of the family that ruled in the northern kingdom of Israel. And after the death of Ahaziah when his son also named Jehoram took the throne on one occasion Jehoram had suffered a wound in battle and he was recuperating in the city of Jezreel. So Ahaziah went up to visit him in his convalescence.
Not a good move. Because in the process Ahaziah got caught up in the very vigorous rebellion led by Jehu the son of Nimshi. And in very short order Jehu had executed Jehoram the king of Israel and he executed Ahaziah the king of Judah. And soon after that he executed 42 of the male relatives of Ahaziah.
And I am sure that when word of these events got back to the city of Jerusalem it must have seemed like an enormous tragedy for the country. The king was dead. 42 of his relatives were dead. And Athaliah had lost her son.
But instead of the death of Ahaziah moving Athaliah to go into mourning it moved her to move into swift and brutal action. And the Bible tells us that when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead she arose and she killed the royal heirs.
You see she saw a golden opportunity to seize power. The king had suddenly died. There was no designated successor but there were plenty of royal descendants male descendants of David around. And to make sure that none of them could challenge her she moved swiftly to see that all of them were executed. And she herself becomes the first queen and the only queen in the history of Judah. And in fact there never was a queen in the northern kingdom. She has seized power.
Now we might wonder how in the world does she get away with this. I mean she’s a woman. She’s not in the line of descent. And maybe it is helpful for us to remember that in Judah apparently the position of the queen mother was a very important position.
You remember when Adonijah the rebellious son of King David wanted to ask a favor of Solomon instead of going directly to Solomon himself he went to Solomon’s mother Bathsheba. And she went to Solomon. And when Solomon saw her he arose bowed to her had a throne seated next to his so that she could sit on the throne and ask for her favor.
Later on in the reign of the godly king Asa he is commended by the Bible because he removed Maacah from being queen mother since she had made an obscene idolatrous image of the goddess Asherah. And obviously Athaliah had become used to the perks the privileges the honor and the prestige that went with being the queen mother.
And now suddenly she sees an opportunity to have more power than any woman had ever had in Israel. And she reaches out and grabs it. And don’t you see Athaliah has stolen power. She has stolen the power that belonged rightfully to the sons of David.
And the theft of power my friends is a very common and widespread human sin. Does it happen in the Christian church? Does it? You better believe it. It happens in the Christian church.
Many years ago I was scheduled to speak up in Indiana at a church pastored by one of my graduates. And on my first day there I was sitting in his living room and he was telling me an extremely remarkable story. He said when he had come to that church to candidate as a potential pastor they were having a breakfast for him. And while he was seated at the breakfast a woman in the church came and sat down at the breakfast table with him.
And she said to him it’s hard to believe that anyone would say this but she said to him I eat young pastors for breakfast. Can you believe it? I eat young pastors for breakfast. And what she really meant was I get my way around here especially with young pastors. I know how to push them and if they resist me I know how to drive them off.
And my former student said to me that after he accepted the pastorate I’m not sure I would have accepted it after that but after he accepted the pastorate that this woman and another woman in the church caused him an enormous amount of trouble. Evidently however the breakfast was too much for them to digest and my former student resisted them. And instead of him leaving the church the two women wound up leaving the church.
Because a woman wanted to exercise power that did not belong to her.
Now men I hope you are not settling back in your seats and saying good Zane is preaching to the ladies this morning I can relax. Don’t. Because I think experience shows and even the history of the kingship in Israel and Judah shows that for every woman who steals power there are probably a half dozen men who do the same.
And did you know that it is possible to steal power in many areas of human life? You can try to steal power inside the home by running everybody’s life even though you don’t have the right to do it. You can try to steal power in relationships by trying to control the relationship and make sure that it goes your way. You can steal power in the workplace by trying to get everybody to do what you want them to do even though you’re not the boss.
And as I’ve already indicated it is tragically and frequently true that both men and women try to steal power in the church. Over the years I have talked to many of my former students who have gone out into the ministry. And I have heard tales of woe from their lips because someone on their board one man or two men was determined to run the church. It didn’t matter what the other people thought. It didn’t matter what the pastor wanted. They were to be in charge and they expected things to be done their way.
Make no mistake about it my friends. Make no mistake about it. Human beings frequently steal power.
But take heart ladies. Take heart. There’s another lady in this passage of Scripture and her name was Jehosheba. She was a daughter of Jehoram and a sister maybe a half sister of King Ahaziah.
And in striking contrast to Athaliah who was driven by a greedy and brutal desire for power Jehosheba was driven by one of the most lovely of all feminine characteristics. She was driven by compassion for a little baby boy. And even though Jehosheba when she saw what was going on couldn’t do anything to prevent it she could do one thing. And she saw to it that a recently born little baby boy named Joash who was still being nursed she saw to it that he got away.
And she spirited him and his nurse out of the palace nursery. And the Bible says that she put them in the bedroom. And it has been suggested that the bedroom here is a reference to the dormitory inside the temple precincts where the Jewish priests stayed overnight while they were performing their duties in the temple and before they went back to their regular home.
And therefore it happened that the one surviving son of David was hidden in the house of God while Athaliah reigned over the land.
So what had Jehosheba done? Well she’d saved a little boy’s life which is wonderful. But she had also saved the only surviving male heir of the Davidic line which is equally wonderful. And apparently Athaliah didn’t know this had happened. Even if she knew that Joash had been born and she might not have known that Joash had obviously disappeared. And maybe she assumed he had been killed in the process of wiping out the rest of the royal heirs.
And little did Athaliah know that her theft of power had been subverted and doomed by the compassionate and merciful action of another woman.
And from one point of view my friends the passage of Scripture that we are looking at this morning is the story of a clash between a greedy and brutal woman and a compassionate and merciful woman. And it was Jesus who said Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. And beyond question Jehosheba obtained mercy and Athaliah received the judgment of God.
Now we’re not told this in the book of Second Kings although we might draw the conclusion. But in the book of Second Chronicles we are told clearly that Jehosheba was married to the priest named Jehoiada. And quite clearly Jehosheba’s husband approved of what Jehosheba had done. And they worked together to conceal the infant Joash in the house of the Lord. And they successfully did it right under the nose of Athaliah for six whole years.
And in the seventh year since it was not the role of Jehosheba to lead a rebellion against Athaliah Jehoiada steps forward. He was a priest of God. His position and his authority came directly from God. And he represents God to the Jewish people. And he summons the captains and the commanders of the palace guard. He swears them to an oath of secrecy and loyalty. And then he brings out the little boy Joash who is now seven years old and shows them the royal heir.
Then Jehoiada lays out before the military commanders a very carefully worked out plan. On the Sabbath day that is to be designated the palace guard that comes on duty is to be stationed in three units at strategic locations for what was about to take place. And the palace guard that was coming off duty on the Sabbath day was to be in the temple courts. They were to protect the king and surround him. Anyone tried to get through their ranks they were to execute that person. And everything was laid out in this way.
And then the Bible tells us a very remarkable thing. It says so the captains of hundreds did all that Jehoiada had commanded them. Think about that for a moment. Jehoiada was a priest not a military man. And the captains of hundreds treat him as if he were their commander-in-chief. And they do everything that Jehoiada instructs them to do.
And don’t you see when men act with the authority of God behind them God is able to make the people who need to recognize their authority bow to that authority and carry it out.
So the time came for the coup. And Jehoiada takes out the spears and the shields that David had put in the temple and he gives them to the commanders. Symbols that they were serving the house of David and the oath that God had sworn to David that his sons would sit upon David’s throne.
And all of the soldiers take their appointed positions. And then Jehoiada brings the young boy Joash out into the middle of the court puts him in a position which was apparently traditional and customary for new kings to stand in when they were anointed. He puts a crown on Joash’s head. He gives him the testimony a reference to the law of Moses. He anoints him as king. And all of the people in the courts of the temple and all of the soldiers begin to shout May the king live. May the king live. May the king live.
And it’s only then folks that Athaliah got wind that something was going on. So apparently she rushes out of the palace accompanied by her retinue and goes to the temple which was very close by. And when she comes into the temple what does she see? She sees the young king standing there surrounded by the guards. She sees the trumpeters standing there and the people shouting and rejoicing and blowing their trumpets and crying out to the king.
And guess what Athaliah says? She cries out Treason treason. Or as we might translate it A conspiracy a conspiracy.
How ironic my friends. If anybody had committed treason it was Athaliah. If anyone had engaged in a conspiracy it was Athaliah. But don’t you see that when people steal power and get used to it that when people challenge their power they think that those people are disloyal unfaithful and treasonous.
But there was nothing that Athaliah could do. Jehoiada gives instructions that she should not be executed in the house of the Lord. He’s careful for the sanctity of God’s house to the very end. And apparently as she was trying to get back into the palace through a gate used by horses probably a very smelly entrance indeed she is overtaken by the soldiers and she is killed.
And now my friends she has been stripped of the power that she stole. And in the process she has been stripped of her very life. And rest assured of this that when we seek to appropriate power of any kind that does not belong to us the day is coming when that power will be stripped from our hands. And then we will be confronting the judgment of God.
We can be thankful that when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the free gift of eternal life that gift can never be lost. It is ours forever. But when we take power that doesn’t belong to us that power is sure to be lost. And we must give an account at the judgment seat of Christ.
As far as I know Henry Ford’s famous mansion Fair Lane still stands in Dearborn Michigan a tribute to masterful human workmanship. For its location Henry Ford chose the beauty of a sloping hill that overlooked the Rouge River. When the house was finished there were 500 rooms in the house spread over three stories in an area of 31,000 square feet. There were eight fireplaces in the house that warmed the inhabitants including a 13-foot-high fireplace made of marble. There were 550 switches that could bring light instantly at the flick of a finger.
The general impression given by the house is one of magnificent design exquisite taste and perfect workmanship. And when it was built in 1917 it cost 1 million 57 thousand dollars a very enormous price in the days before rampant inflation.
Henry Ford’s ingenuity even reached the power supply. He was not willing to rely upon the utilities to furnish power to his estate. And so he built his own power plant at the cost of two hundred thousand dollars. Finely machined turbines fed electricity to the entire estate. And there was enough power left over that he could sell to the utilities in time of emergency.
But in April of 1947 when Detroit was lashed by torrential rains the Rouge River went on a rampage. Its water crept into the furnace and underneath the boilers and put out the fire. And the steam pressure failed and the electricity failed for the very first time in 40 years.
And here is something very ironic. On the night that that was happening Henry Ford lay dying in his own bedroom. He left this world in exactly the way that he had entered it not surrounded by the engineering marvel functioning properly that he had constructed but he left the world at the age of 87 in a cold room guided by candles. He had lost all power.
And know this my friends that all human power is eventually lost. And the only power that matters is the power that can be brought to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
It was Jesus who said to him who overcomes and keeps My works to the end to him I will give power over the nations and he will rule them as a rod of iron as I have received from My Father. And I will give to him the morning star. And then He added these very solemn words He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Shall we pray? Father as sinners we acknowledge to thee that there is a part of our being that craves power and craves it sometimes Father when we are not entitled to it when we don’t deserve it when we shouldn’t have it. Deliver us from this part of our sinful nature. And if we desire power may we focus upon the power which You and Your Son alone can give. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.