The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

2 Kings 14:1-6, “In the second year of Joash son of Joahaz king of Israel, Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah became king.

2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jehoaddin of Jerusalem.

3 He did right in the sight of the LORD, yet not like David his father; he did according to all that Joash his father had done.

4 Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

5 Now it came about, as soon as the kingdom was firmly in his hand, that he killed his servants who had slain the king his father.

6 But the sons of the slayers he did not put to death, according to what is written in the book of the Law of Moses, as the LORD commanded, saying, ‘The fathers shall not be put to death for the sons, nor the sons be put to death for the fathers; but each shall be put to death for his own sin.’”

King Josiah was killed by the Egyptian King, Pharaoh Neco, and it was then that Joash became King of Judah. From all we know from the Scripture, he “did right in the sight of the LORD, yet not like David, his father.”

I think we’ve all experienced that kind of obedience in our children. They’ve fallen short in some areas where we would have liked to see them achieve; yet, overall, they have done well. (Doubtlessly, our parents had the same attitude about us!) We’ll have to cut Joash a bit of slack, however, because David excelled everyone who had ruled before him.

One great, spiritual oversight of Joash, however, was his failure to destroy the “high places,” where some of the people still sacrificed to pagan gods. I believe we’ll always have people like that among us. They’re good-hearted people, but they still engage in things that measure sub-standardly when laid beside Jesus Christ and the Bible. How are we to treat them? Like brothers and sisters in Christ, I should think, setting a good standard before them, as others have for us.

Heartily in Christ,

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

United States of America

We will never know that Christ is all we need,

Until He becomes all that we have. – Corrie ten Boom