Joash’s son learned from his father to do ”what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not wholeheartedly.” This is yet one more lesson from so many of these kings’ lives: a child follows the example of his parent’s divided heart. It frightens me to think that my half-hearted devotion may teach my children to be content with the same, possibly jeopardizing their intimate knowledge of God. Let’s not miss the reminders in these history readings; let us use them as opportunities to re-evaluate our own hearts and lives, to renew commitments to God as needed, to seek God’s help as needed to live according to our commitment. The lessons here may seem repetitious, but that is because their lives reveal the need for such repetition. That is one of the reasons we need to be in God’s word daily, year after year, reading the same Bible over and over again. The assaults of life that work to wear us down are too unrelenting, and the enemy is too active, to allow us to remain faithful without constant reminders, and the stakes are too high. Peter told his readers in II Peter 1:12-15, “So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory…, and I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.”
Notice that the text equates Amaziah’s choice to worship the gods of Edom with his turning away from following the Lord. A choice to sin is always that, a choice to turn away from following the Lord. Our enemy doesn’t want us to see our choice from that perspective, and we may give in to his deception and refuse to see our choices as turning away from following God; however, God’s assessment of that situation is true whether or not we acknowledge it.
Amaziah’s choice to worship the gods of Edom after defeating Edom is astonishing. Any of us are capable of such incredible choices if we are not fully devoted to God. This is another reminder of how critical wholehearted devotion is, and why half-hearted devotion is no devotion at all. Even a fully devoted follower of God is vulnerable to such choices if he is not on guard. Sometimes the good times are more treacherous to our faithfulness to God than times of suffering. It may be tempting to think poorly of Amaziah, but we must appreciate that we are all capable of such stupidity. We are in the greatest danger of that when we least think we are.
Once Amaziah gave in to temptation, God so worked that he would not listen to reason, but made more poor choices in pursuit of the route by which God brought his judgment for his sin. Let us not miss the fact that sin’s consequences are most often unforeseeable, and worse than we can imagine. May these examples from other lives reinforce in us a hatred for sin that keeps us clinging to our Savior and faithfully doing all we know to do to guard ourselves from giving way to temptation!