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Living Hope SDA Church

Chris Holland

Three Words That Kill the Christian

So what would you say if I said there are 3 words that kill every Christian?

Would you want to know what those words were?

More importantly, would You like to know how to overcome them?

Heavenly Father, we are about to study Your Word.

And we know that Your Word is the discerner of the thoughts and intentions of our heart.

But we also know, Lord, that we cannot understand any of it without the power of your Holy Spirit working in our life.

We believe the Spirit has been here, and now, Lord, we pray that the Spirit would be poured out in even more supply.

And please don't let us leave this place the same way in which we came in.

Specifically, back to the time where the kingdom had been divided under the poor leadership of Rehoboam.

We'll pick up the story with the boy king Joash in 2 Kings, also referred to as Jehoash.

We refer to him as 1 of the good kings of Judah.

But his reign began with something that I had not noticed until a study of these kings that began a generational problem that plagued the kings of Israel for several generations.

This generational problem led Judah down a path of apostasy.

From this generational apostasy, we find 3 words.

3 words that will be guaranteed to kill every Christian.

3 words that are a key to understanding how to grow to be truly like Jesus.

3 words that teach us about the issue of surrender.

3 words that should trouble you, they should startle you, and they should move us to action.

Let's look at a series of passages that will help us understand this generational problem.

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to open to 2 Kings 12.

We're going to be moving fairly quickly through the Scriptures.

I want you to take note of the Bible and what its counsel is.

In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash, also Joash, became king and he reigned 40 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Zibiah 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." All seems well and right.

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

But did you notice something else about the passage?

If you didn't notice, maybe you'll notice with his son.

Now, I don't want you to be confused because this is where Israel and Judah became very confusing because you had a Joash in Israel and a Joash in Judah.

So in the second year of Joash, the son of Jehoaz, king of Israel, Amaziah, the son of Joash, that's a different Joash, that's the Joash of Judah, became king of Judah.

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 to me, preacher, why are you getting so excited here?

Maybe His Son will help us see what the problem is.

Just turn probably just 1 page in your Bible to 2 Kings 15.

In the 27th year of Jeroboam, this is beginning in verse 1.

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

This is a series of kings that all began at very young ages.

Could you imagine your daughter becoming president of the United States?

I won't ask you to answer that question publicly.

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, the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places." Once again, you might be saying to yourself, what's the big deal?

Maybe his son might help us to see it clearly.

Same chapter, 2 Kings 15, beginning in verse 32.

In the second year of Pecah, the son of Ramaliah, king of Israel, Jotham, the son of Uzziah, and let me just hit a pause here, Uzziah and Amaziah are the same individuals, 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.

He built the upper gate of the house of the Lord.

3 words which were the death knell of a society in the times of the kings of Judah, and they are the death knell for Christians today.

So maybe you're saying, what are you talking about?

3 words that led to the demise then and will lead to yours and mine demise today.

In layman's terms, these kings were willing to follow far enough to an extent, but not willing to go the complete distance.

If you read in the commentaries, it's not necessarily a bad place.

High places were built to offer offerings to God.

Because they were not supposed to worship in high places, they were supposed to come to the center in Jerusalem.

It was a partial obedience, not complete obedience.

However, these high places very well may have been places of religious cult practices, or using a technical term, syncretistic religion.

It is where you attempt to reconcile or put together 2 different opposing principles, as in philosophy and religion.

What's an example of syncretistic religion?

You'll remember when the children of Israel came out of Egypt.

What did they do while they were waiting upon Moses when He was on the mountain?

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Three Words That Kill the Christian

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