Amaziah & Failure to Be Separate

     There were three kinds of kings in Israel and Judah's history, a king who did what was right in the Lords eyes, a King who did not do what was right in God's eyes, but rather did what was evil, and then there was a King like Amaziah in 2 Chronicles 25, who: "…did what was right in the sight of the LORD, but not with a loyal heart." As a young man of 25 Amaziah came to the kingship after his father. The Scripture says that he followed after the book of the law of Moses and he did what was right before the Lord.

     My verse six through eight tells us that, because of his divided heart, Amaziah entered into an ill-advised agreement with the Northern Kingdom. He hired 100,000 "mighty men of valor" from Israel for 100 talents of silver. You'll remember, of course, that it was well known that the Northern Kingdom was a wicked kingdom. This truth was not hidden and was well-known to all of those in the Southern Kingdom. But yet, because of what Amaziah wanted to accomplish, he thought that "in this one instance", because of what he wanted to accomplish, it would be okay. The enemy of my enemy is my friend after all!

     But in verse seven, God in his mercy and his patients, warns of Isaiah. He sends a profit, I may have got to warn him he comes and he tells them to not let the army of Israel go with him because God is not with Israel. He is not with any of the children of Ephraim. He warns him that if he does go that God will cause him "...to fall before the enemy for God has power to help and to overthrow." (v8)

     As a result, undesired discharges the troops that he had hired from Israel, and he goes with his own troops and he attacks Mount Seir. His men killed 10,000 of the people of Edom. But the Word of God tells us, in verse 12, that they also took captive 10,000 more alive, and brought them to the top of the rock and cast them down from the top of the rock so that they were all "dashed to pieces." This was a mode of execution that was common among pagan nations, but was not common among Israelites. Likewise we are told, in verse 13 that the soldiers of the army which Amaziah had discharged, so they wouldn't go with him and battle also raided the cities of Judah from Samaria to Beth Horon and killed 3000 in them and took a lot of spoil as they went. All because Amaziah entered into that ill-advised accord with them. He failed to be separate as God desired him to be.

     Further, we find that sin, as always, has a way of "snowballing". Because he had failed to be separate and had allow sin a foot-hold his life, we find in verse 14 that "after our desire came from the slaughter of the Edomites that he brought the gods of the people of Seir, set them up to be his gods and bowed down before them and burned incense to them." One failing later to another, which led to another, which led to another!

     So it is often in your life and mine, though hopefully with much smaller matters than we find in Amaziah's life! But when we think about it, idolatry is idolatry. Amaziah committed idolatry in its' most blatant form. But what is idolatry, really, except the placing of something else, other than the Lord God, the one true and living God, in the place where He belongs? Anything, no matter how minute, that we allow to usurp His position in our lives can rightly and justly be called idolatry! I don't think it unfair or sensational to say that.

     The lesson that we can learn, at least one of them from this passage is that we need to take care that we not commit the kind of sin that Amaziah commits here.

     Further, we need to understand and see that this is yet another illustration that large "sins" begin with small concessions. Amaziah's idolatry did not begin with a leap directly into bringing foreign gods back to Judah. It began with his desire to gain a "victory" for God over an "enemy", Edom. It began with a failure to keep Judah and himself separate from sinful Israel. Small concessions lead to larger sin. We need to keep eyes and our attention on what the Word of God tells us. We need to mind the small things in life and see to it that we maintain our righteous and holy life and see to it that we walk with God in those small areas of life and the larger areas of life will, by and large care for themselves.