Weak Faith of a Good King

In 2nd Chronicles we read about King Joash that Joash was seven years old when he began to reign and he reigned 40 years in Jerusalem and Joash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. So we see friends that King Joash was a good king who ruled a very long time and there is a story about this King Joash that I want to share with us today friends for we can learn much from it. We're going to be in 2nd Kings and chapter 13.

You can turn in your Bibles there now friends. We'll begin reading from verse 14 and following the title of my message today is the weak faith of a good king. This man Joash served a long time as king in Jerusalem 40 years to be exact kind of like Queen Elizabeth's long reign in England but although Joash was a good king who served God faithfully he fell short in an important area of his life and that's what I want us to look at today.

Well let's take a look at a deathbed scene and a conversation between a prophet and a king. We'll pick up the narrative in verse 14. Now Elijah was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died and Joash the king of Israel came down unto him and wept over his face and said oh my father my father the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof and Elijah said unto him take bow and arrows and he took unto him bow and arrows and he said to the king of Israel put thine hand upon the bow and he put his hand upon it and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands and he said open the window eastward and he opened it then Elisha said shoot and he shot and he said the arrow of the Lord's deliverance and the arrow of the Lord's deliverance from Syria for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Apec till thou has consumed them and he said take the arrows and he took them and he said unto the king of Israel smite upon the ground and he smote thrice and stayed and the man of God was wroth with him and said thou shouldest have smitten five or six times then hast thou smitten Syria till thou has consumed it whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice I will stop there friends I believe this striking passage of scripture can speak to us today right now I believe God is sitting on a throne in glory and he's looking for faith but I believe you can be a Christian for a long number of years but still fall short of living up to your potential in the Lord I've run across some old deacons and baptist churches who are never made it to spiritual maturity and if you rub them the wrong way you'll have a fight on your hands because they're just big religious babies and diapers and I believe you can grow in Christ but still fall short of what God really intended for you through a lack of your own faith the prophet Elijah was a foreseeing man who knew his God intimately and God did more miracles through him than he did his predecessor Elijah Elisha loved King Joash like King Joash loved him but he was disappointed in this king as a man of faith for when the time of testing came the king erred on the conservative side so much like we do in our churches today and limit what God can do instead of going out on a limb for God by faith and smiting the ground five or six times he only pounded the arrows three times and in the process he limited the God of Israel I was in a crisis of faith lately and all my hopes were hanging on the promises of God and in his integrity to stand behind his word I needed a miracle or I was sunk and as I sat on my couch with my bible opening my lap and I was praying and tears were streaming down my face I took my fist and pounded the couch six times crying out to almighty God I'm gonna see you move yet I'm gonna see you move yet when you stand out on a spiritual limb there's nothing holding you up but supernatural faith in a thrice holy God whose arm is not too short to save and there's nothing too hard for him but you have to believe and trust him to do what he said he's gonna do but if we play it safe with God I believe we're gonna miss out on God's best for us we're gonna miss out on some pretty big spiritual adventures and conquests God wanted us to strike the ground five or six times but we fell short and we failed to have complete victory over our enemies and if we end our journey with an underdeveloped faith it's gonna cost us for when we stand at Christ's fema seat and he reviews the life we lived on this earth the following lines of this sad poem will haunt us when I stand at the judgment seat of Christ and he shows his plan for me the plan of my life as it might have been had he had his way and I see how I blocked him here and checked him there and I would not yield my will would there be grief in my savior's eyes grief though he loves me still would he have me rich and I stand there poor stripped of all but his grace while memory runs like a haunted thing down the paths I cannot retrace oh lord of the years that are left to me I give them to the hand take me and break me and mold me to the pattern that thou has planned