2 Chronicles 23:16-21
August 4, 2023
And Jehoiada made a covenant between himself and all the people and the king that they should be the Lord's people. Then all the people went to the house of Baal and tore it down; his altars and his images they broke in pieces, and they killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And Jehoiada posted watchmen for the house of the Lord under the direction of the Levitical priests and the Levites whom David had organized to be in charge of the house of the Lord, to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, as it is written in the Law of Moses, with rejoicing and with singing, according to the order of David. He stationed the gatekeepers at the gates of the house of the Lord so that no one should enter who was in any way unclean. And he took the captains, the nobles, the governors of the people, and all the people of the land, and they brought the king down from the house of the Lord, marching through the upper gate to the king's house. And they set the king on the royal throne. So, all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet after Athaliah had been put to death with the sword.
What happens when God’s people have a leader who obeys God’s calling as Jehoiada has done? He leads them away from the little gods of this world back to the King of King and Lord of lords. They become people of action, and they stand for righteousness. I can only imagine what took place as they entered into this covenant with each other. They had allowed the little gods that other pagan nations worship to come not only into their nations but to be worshiped by the leaders of Judah.
Their first action was to repent, then remove all items of worship of pagan gods, and as stated yesterday their child King had been brought up by the priest to put his trust in God alone.
I have no knowledge of what the priest did under the rule of that evil woman and how worship was done, but in that, she was evil and allowed false gods like Baal to be worshiped, it seems clear that things were not according to the laws of Moses or in keeping with what David had ordered.
For the last two days, Jan and I participated in the Global Leadership Summit. As partakers, our job was to listen, learn, and act on what was taught. On the first day, Graig Groescgel kicked things off by telling us the future of leadership was trust, and that a leader must have, transparency, Empathy, and consistency. After Graig, many good speakers, but on the last day the last speaker was Patrick Lencioni, who is the founder and President of The Table Group, and with total transparency, I wonder why was he the person chosen to close the summit.
He began by telling us Wisdom is why we are here, and then he said I’ve never given a talk like this one. He told us about three women of great courage, Queen Esther, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Joan of Arc. He told how at the age of 15 Joan heard God telling her she would lead the army of France to defeat England. And at 17 she led the French Army to defeat the English. She was a poor peasant girl whose family did not believe her and it was not easy and took a lot of courage to get the king to believe God had spoken to this young girl.
Patrick, ask this question: Will I do what God tells me to do? It will take public courage, it will require personal courage, with co-workers, family, friends, and neighbors, This question, and the famous line by Mordecai, “Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.” It will take courage for each of us to act on what God has said to us, but it may be you were put on earth for such a time as this. Leaders are people who have learned to be, transparent, Empathy, and Consistent, who study to show themselves worthy of being Followers of Jesus Christ.
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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