Special Series #10: Jahoiada - Bible Characters and How they Finished

Jehoiada & Jehoshabeath: Faithful to the End

The story of Jehoiada ("Joe") and Jehoshabeath ("Beth") demonstrates how elderly believers can have tremendous impact even in their final decades.

Age 83

When evil Queen Athaliah destroyed the royal offspring to take the throne, "Joe" (about 83 years old) and "Beth" (around 80) rescued little Joash and hid him in the house of God.

Age 90

After protecting Joash for 7 years, "Joe" orchestrated his coronation as king at age 7, confronted the wicked queen Athaliah, and helped restore proper worship.

Age 90-130

For the next 40 years, "Joe" served as a mentor and spiritual guide to King Joash, helping him reign righteously.

Age 130

"Joe" died at the remarkable age of 130, having served God faithfully for 47 years from age 83-130.

Tragically, after Jehoiada's death, Joash turned away from God and even had Jehoiada's son Zechariah executed when he prophesied against the king's unfaithfulness. This reminds us that while we can have tremendous influence, each person must ultimately make their own choices before God.

Transcript

Dr Hal Habecker: 0:26

You know, I love this series on finishing well. As you may know, we have a ministry called finishing well, Ministries which focuses on mobilizing and encouraging and exhorting aging people to capture and recapture anew, afresh, what God's purposes are for us in our aging years. This series that we're doing right now, focusing on characters in the Bible and how they finished, is an important part or a byproduct of that ministry. Parenthetically, I just want to say it's important to learn the stories and people out of the Old Testament and the New Testament, as well, as Paul said, they're here for our examples and learning. We want to learn from them. We want to learn the scriptures inside and out on how people lived, how people finished, how they dealt with the people in their lives, etc, etc. It's important. So how did characters in the Bible finish in the end of their lives? Like Crawford laurit says, they're in your screen, Don't let me drown in shallow water. And again, the poem by Robert Browning all on Aging, grow old along with me, what the best is yet to be. My prayer for you and me is that these years that God has entrusted to us will be our best. So we have another person I want to look at today, actually two people. They are jehoida and jehoshabeth. They better known. We could name them as Joe and Beth. You can see their stories there in Second Chronicles and Second Kings. And I must say, I'm indebted to a good friend of mine, Bruce Pepin, who wrote a book called The best is yet to be. And he's the one who helped me understand these two characters. So we you read widely in life, you learn from every way you can. And these people are here, but like so often we skip through the scriptures and we never remember what we read sometimes. So I love these two, two characters, and you will love them too. So let's follow their story. In Second Chronicles, good King Jehoshaphat died. Remember his faithfulness and his prayer in Second Chronicles, 20 it's one of the great prayers of the Bible. Interestingly, Jehoram, his son, is evil, and he kills all of his siblings. Is that crazy. He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab did for Ahab's daughter was his wife, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. I don't get it. I mean, the kings are corrupt, generally speaking. So Jehoram, this wicked king dies, but God doesn't let the evil go unpunished. By the way, chapter 21 verse 20 has one of the saddest epitaphs or phrases in the Bible. It says, of Jehoram, he died, or he departed with no one's regret. How tragic is that? How sad he died with no one's regret. He was that evil. Now, Ahaziah, his son, ruled for one year again. He is put to death by others because of his evil. Now, watch closely. This is fascinating. Athaliah. Ahaziah is evil mother, destroys all the royal offspring and takes the throne for herself. In a sense, she wants to become the first queen ever in Israel. So Jehoiada. Here he is, Joe. He's about 83 or 84 years of age, as best we can tell. And jehosha bayth or Beth his wife, let's say she's around 80 years of age. They take one of those little men that was not executed, and they hide him. They take little Joash and. And hide him from the evil of his grandmother in the house of God. That's crazy. You remember, the temple was a big structure. You had the holy place and the holy of holies in the very center. But around the temple, there were built various levels and rooms of all sorts. So Joe and Beth, jehoida and jehosha bayth, they take little Joash from his infancy, or his earliest year months, maybe a couple months old, and they take him into one of these rooms around the temple, and they rear him. Now, this is fascinating to me. Jehovah has a vision from God about he needs to jump into this little guy's life and protect him, because he had a sense that God wanted him to be king. So he and his wife in their early 80s, they give themselves as maybe great, great or great grandparents to rear this little guy for the Lord, and they keep him quiet for years. Watch this story. First, I want to say how well, how do we know how old Joe and Beth were? We know that, let's roll ahead here. We know that he died at 130 years of age. We know that Joash reigned 40 years. So that would have made Joe approximately 90 at the beginning of Joash is kingship, and he had him for that, they brought Joash out at age seven, as we'll see. So that goes back to, let's say, 83 if Joash was hidden in temple for six years before his kingship, that would make Joe 83 ish when our stories begin. The Scriptures do not give us an exact timeline for Beth, so we just arbitrarily make her a tad younger. So Joe a priest and Beth the daughter of wicked king, Jehoram. It's interesting how God raises up strong men or women of faith, out of an evil background or out of an evil family, they carry a vision of God for seven years until Joash becomes king. That means Joe is approximately 90 when Joash becomes king. I mean, here his ministry started. You might want to say, in terms of what's recorded in the Scripture starts when he's 83 but now he's 90, when little Joash is brought out before the king, and they present little Joash, seven year old. Joash is king. The text says, Then they brought out the king's son and put the crown on him and gave him the testimony and made him king, and Jehovah and his sons anoint him and said, long live the king. So here's this little guy who they have raised. They also confront Joash, is wicked grandmother Athaliah, and they execute her. Remember that Athaliah mother was wicked king Ahab's daughter. Now let's pay this story forward. Joash reigns for 40 years as a king, and having served faithfully with a vision for God, Joe dies at age 130 near the end of Joe Ash's reign. So from age 83 to 130 or 47 years, he served God faithfully. Now just think about that. Will I serve God faithfully the last decade of my life? Will I serve him faith for the last two decades of my life? Well, here's Joe jehoida serving God faithfully along with his wife for 47 years. Is that amazing? That's That's a gift of God. That's something we all press for in our lives. But there's more tragic events ahead after Joe's death when he was at 130 it seems that Joash lived another year during which he turned his back on God and even Jehovah's family, the family that brought him to his kingship. Now let me just say something I want to finish. Well, Joash lost something in that last year, or maybe multiple years, maybe in Joe's last few years, but something happened to him. When Joe dies, he goes, let's say, off the rails, and he forgets the value of Joy's impact in his life and what they meant to him. Let me show you. So then the Spirit of God came a. Upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest. So Jehovah dies, job dies, and his son, Zachariah, is now the priest. He took his stand above the people and said to them, Thus, God has said, Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord and do not prosper because you have forsaken the LORD, He has forsaken you. So Zechariah is continuing his father's impact. And that's another lesson, Father Son, and they roll on. So they and he confronts the people of Israel and Joash as well. So the people conspired against him and at the command of the king, Joash, who's zachariahs Father, brought to the kingdom and prepared at the command of the king, they stoned him to death in the court of the house of the Lord. So right there in the temple, where the temple courts where Joash was reared and served, they stoned jehoid Son, Zechariah. Thus Joash the king, did not remember the kindness which his father Jehovah had shown him, but he murdered his son. And as Zechariah was dying, he says, May the Lord see you, Joash, and revenge happens now. It happened the next verse now. It happened at the turn of the year that the army of aramians came up against him. They came to Judah and Jerusalem, destroyed all the officials of the people, sent their spoil to the king of Damascus. Indeed, the army of the aramas came with a small number of men, yet the Lord delivered a very great army into their hands because they had forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers. Thus they executed judgment on Joash. Watch this when they had departed from him, for they left him very sick, speaking of Joash, his own servants conspired against him because of the blood of the son of Jehoiada, the priest, and they murdered him on his bed. So he died, and they buried him in the city of David, but they did not bury him in the tombs of the kings. You know, he wasn't, he wasn't worth burying with the Kings, you might say. So here's this little guy, Joash who gets his start from Jehoiada and jehoshabe, and he serves the Lord faithfully, but in the end of his life, he goes off the rails. He forgets who reared him. He didn't honor joy to and he murdered joy to His Son. Zachariah, how tragic. Think with me. What do you learn from this story? I want to say you you learn the importance of finishing life through the last year, the last two years, the last three years of your life. You want to finish well, you don't want to go off the rails. You know, I want to think about Joe and Beth. How do you think they developed their vision of God and what they want, what he wanted them to do for those last 47 years of life. You know, Joe started thinking about this when he was 83 somehow God communicated him the importance of Little Joe ash, and he and his wife took them in and for their last season of life, a last third of their life, they spent their lives serving God reminds me of a simple question, what's your vision of God, of what he wants you to do the last third of your life? And let's take it to heart and live it out. Do we find ourselves living with a clear and compelling vision for the work of God at this stage in our life. You know, there's so much to learn from Jehoiada and jehoshabeth as a husband and wife as we live out our years. Let's live them skillfully. For him, I need to add one more thought to this. In his initial kingship years, I'm sure Joash listened well to his mentor, joy to over the years. However, I believe Joash distanced himself from jehoiadas influence. Ultimately, Joash himself executes the son of his mentor, Zechariah. How tragic is that, you know, just reminds me of the verse I always close with in this series, Psalm 90, verse 12, written by Moses. So Teach us to number our days through the very end that we might present to you, oh God, a heart of wisdom. Joash. Do that his final year, or his final few years, and sadly, he ends his life by being murdered by those around him, and he executes Zechariah, the son of his mentor, as well. How tragic. Let's learn from him, and let's press on to finish. Well, will you? Will? I, let's do it together.

Unknown: 15:36

You.