2 Chronicles 21

CHAPTERS 21 AND 22THEME: Lapse into apostasy and sinWe come now to a section of the Word of God that in many senses is complicated. Sin is the reason for its complication because sin is always complicated. Let me illustrate this. If I say to you that I am holding in my hand a stick that is absolutely straight, you will know exactly how it looks because it can be straight in only one way. But suppose I say that I am holding a stick that is crooked. You would have no idea how it looks because a thing can be crooked in a million different ways. In just such a way, sin allures a great many folk because it is devious. It is enticing because it seems to be unusual and strange and it is complicated. We will see this in the life of Jehoram, who comes to the throne after the death of Jehoshaphat.

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JEHORAM’S EVIL REIGNJehoram happened to be the son who had married into the family of Ahab and Jezebel, and he learned to do evil from them. I think he was a very apt pupil, by the way.

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He eliminated all the competition by the most dastardly means imaginable. He slew all his brothers and others of the royal family. Why did he do this?

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God does not bless mixed marriages, my friend.

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This man was so wicked that God would have been justified in exterminating the line. But, you see, God is faithful to His promises. He would not destroy the line of David because He had made a covenant with David. Now we find that judgment immediately begins to come upon him.

2 Chronicles 21:8

God makes it very clear why this judgment came upon Jehoram. The Word says that this judgment was from the hand of God. He can’t have peace because he has forsaken the Lord God of his fathers. I get just a little impatient with people who say the Bible doesn’t teach God’s judgment on sin. What they really mean is that they don’t believe the Bible. If they would say that, I would not find fault with them. What they believe is their business. But when they try to tell me that the Bible doesn’t teach God’s judgment, when it is as clear as it possibly can be, I object. God says He judges sin, and a great many of us can testify to the fact in our own lives.

2 Chronicles 21:11

He actually pushed the people back into the idolatry from which his father, Jehoshaphat, had delivered them.

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THE MESSAGE OF ELIJAHNow God calls in an old friend whom you may have forgotten about. This is the man whom God always called in to deliver the difficult message. He was a troubleshooter, and he is the right man for the job. The man is Elijah. There are many people who speak of Elijah as one of the prophets who did not write. He is called one of the nonwriting prophets. Of course, this means that there is no book in the Bible named for him or written by him. Although he didn’t write a book, he did write a message. And when this man Elijah wrote a message, it singed the paper! He began by citing the reason for this harsh message: “Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah …” Now let’s read the message.

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Elijah would be the prophet who could deliver a message like this. It is a harsh message but one that God wanted delivered to this man Jehoram. The contents of the message are not unusual. This is the kind of message you would expect Elijah to deliver. However, the circumstances are extraordinary. It raises three questions: who? when? where? Let’s first consider the “who?“who is Elijah? This message is directed to Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat.

The record in Kings tells us that Elijah was translated in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat. He was not on earth during the reign of Jehoram, and the assumption is that he could not write this prophecy. Some Bible students conclude that this is another Elijah, that he is not Elijah the Tishbite. That reminds me of the argument as to whether or not Shakespeare wrote the works of Shakespeare. As you know, some believe the author was Francis Bacon or someone else. I like Mark Twain’s comment.

He said, “Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare, but it was written by another man by the same name!” I consider that a conclusive answer in Elijah’s case also. If this had not been Elijah the Tishbite, God would have made that clear. There is no impossible barrier, unless you reject the supernatural. If you do that, you will reject not only this but a great deal of the Bible. Our old friend, Elijah the prophet, is the one who wrote the message. Now the second question is “when?“when did Elijah write it? Did he write it after his translation? Grotius maintains that the postmark was Paradise. Well, we can dismiss that as pure speculation. There is a very simple explanation: he wrote it before his translation. You may say, “But that’s supernatural.” Exactly. That is the point I am trying to make. Prophecy is supernatural. A prediction projects into the future; that’s what makes it prophecy. We have many incidents of this. Isaiah spoke of Cyrus of Persia two centuries before he was even born. Daniel wrote of Alexander the Great. Elisha predicted the reign of Hazael over Syria. Micah named the town of Bethlehem as being the place where the Messiah would be born. Only God can prophesy with such accuracy. The final question is “where?“where did Elijah write this prophecy? Elijah was a prophet to the northern kingdom. This is the only reference to Elijah in Chronicles, because Chronicles is giving God’s viewpoint. Didn’t God take delight in Elijah? Of course He did. Then why isn’t Elijah mentioned in this book in more detail?

It is not that God omitted Elijah and his work; God omits the whole history of the northern kingdom. Elijah was the prophet to the northern kingdom, and this is the only time Elijah spoke to a king in the south. He never spoke to Jehoshaphat for the simple reason that Jehoshaphat was a good king and did not need one of the scorching messages from Elijah. Now when Jehoram, his son, comes to the throne, there is a message waiting for him. Elijah had written it before he was translated. Elijah not only left his mantle with Elisha, he left this message for Jehoram.

He said, “You’ll be seeing him; I won’t.” This would suggest that when Elijah was translated, his message was not finished. It makes me believe that this man Elijah is one of the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation, chapter 11. He is going to deliver a harsh message again in a day when men have turned from God. I think this makes for a very intriguing passage of Scripture, with an unusual message delivered at this time. What we find here is that when Jehoram came to the throne, he found a message on the front steps of the palace. It was thrown there by God’s paperboy.

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JUDGMENT FALLS ON JEHORAMNow we’ll see the accuracy of Elijah’s prediction. All of these had been at peace with both Asa and Jehoshaphat. Now their spirit is stirred up. War is coming. Why? War is the result of sin. We sometimes think of war as being made out on the battlefield. War takes place right at home, friends. It begins in the sinfulness of the human heart.

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It was good riddance of bad rubbish when he died. The place in which they buried him and the lack of respect at his burial show how this man was hated. We will see in the next chapters that his wife was one of the most hated women who ever reigned.