7) Amaziah - the king who was double-minded

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(2 Chronicles 25)

After the assassination of Joash, his son Amaziah was crowned king:

Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan; she was from Jerusalem. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not wholeheartedly. (2 Chronicles 25:1-2)

He followed the well-trod path of beginning positively in his reign, displaying actions which showed he planned to obey the Lord.

compromise

However, it wasn’t long before he lost his way. He was double-minded about his faith and began to turn to pragmatic solutions rather than having his trust in God:

He then mustered those twenty years old or more and found that there were three hundred thousand men fit for military service, able to handle the spear and shield. He also hired a hundred thousand fighting men from Israel for a hundred talents of silver.
(2 Chronicles 25:5-6)

In effect he was relying on unbelievers, to fulfil divine purposes. But the Lord in his grace spoke directly to him to restore his first faith:

 But a man of God came to him and said, ‘Your Majesty, these troops from Israel must not march with you, for the Lord is not with Israel – not with any of the people of Ephraim. Even if you go and fight courageously in battle, God will overthrow you before the enemy, for God has the power to help or to overthrow.’ Amaziah asked the man of God, ‘But what about the hundred talents I paid for these Israelite troops?’ The man of God replied, ‘The Lord can give you much more than that.’ So Amaziah dismissed the troops who had come to him from Ephraim and sent them home. They were furious with Judah and left for home in a great rage. (2 Chronicles 25:7-10)

unstable

A person who is double-mindedness wavers between doing the right thing in God’s eyes, and seeing things in earthly and practical terms. This is a sign of trusting in one’s own wisdom and abilities rather than acting as someone who believes that God will bless those who trust Him and obey his commandments. We see this in his next major act:

When Amaziah returned from slaughtering the Edomites, he brought back the gods of the people of Seir. He set them up as his own gods, bowed down to them and burned sacrifices to them. The anger of the Lord burned against Amaziah, and he sent a prophet to him, who said, ‘Why do you consult this people’s gods, which could not save their own people from your hand?’ While he was still speaking, the king said to him, ‘Have we appointed you an advisor to the king? Stop! Why be struck down?’ So the prophet stopped but said, ‘I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my counsel.’ (2 Chronicles 25:14-16)

Amaziah was threatening the prophet sent to him in the same way that his own father had threatened and then executed Zechariah the prophet. Amaziah had lost his fear of the Lord and was trusting in his own wisdom. He knew it was wrong to worship other gods. He knew that his father had been judged for rejecting the prophet’s word; but he pressed on anyway.

When a leader moves away from acting in trust then one result is arrogance. Amaziah, having achieved such a victory, was deceived into ignoring the prophet:

God so worked that he might deliver them into the hands of Jehoash, because they sought the gods of Edom. So Jehoash king of Israel attacked. He and Amaziah king of Judah faced each other at Beth Shemesh in Judah. Judah was routed by Israel, and every man fled to his home. (2 Chronicles 25:20-22)

Jehoash was the king of Israel. Judah was the realm of David and his descendants. God’s blessing would always be on Judah if they obeyed Him. But here, due to the egotism of Amaziah, they did not have God on their side.

robbed

The kingdom paid a terrible price for this awful leadership:

Then Jehoash brought him to Jerusalem and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate – a section about four hundred cubits long. He took all the gold and silver and all the articles found in the temple of God that had been in the care of Obed-Edom, together with the palace treasures and the hostages, and returned to Samaria. (2 Chronicles 25:23-24)

The Temple was robbed under Amaziah's leadership. The treasures of God’s blessing became spoil for unbelievers. The protective wall of Jerusalem was compromised. Hostages (believers) were taken away from the place of God’s blessing and lost to the world of unbelief.

This culminated in the complete loss of Amaziah's faith. Those around him realised that he was now totally compromised and a liability. The fate of his father became his too: he did not learn the lessons or heed the warnings which were so plain:

From the time that Amaziah turned away from following the Lord, they conspired against him in Jerusalem and he fled to Lachish, but they sent men after him to Lachish and killed him there. He was brought back by horse and was buried with his ancestors in the City of Judah. (2 Chronicles 25:27-28)

ask believe receive

We can learn two lessons from his leadership. Firstly, the trap of double-mindedness about which James writes:

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1:5-8)

God is always ready to dispense wisdom. But if we give in to unbelief and trust in our own abilities, then we behave in an unstable way. Leadership becomes unpredictable. The people become restless thinking they are vulnerable to spiritual attack.

Secondly, when we have moved out of the protective shield of the fear of the Lord, then he may decide to give us over to the consequences of our unwise actions:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts (Romans 1:21-24)

Which, of course, was exactly what happened to Amaziah: he became futile in his arrogant thinking; and thought idols and all the sensual goings-on associated with them were perfectly fine.

Throughout church history there is a trail of failed leaders whom God gave over to their sinful ideas because they no longer feared Him, having become double-minded. In their minds, the Word of God could be ignored and so they led their people into spiritual poverty and defeat. It is a salutary lesson; one which should focus our minds on the need to ‘ask, believe and receive’ God’s wisdom and blessing in single-minded devotion.

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