How do you relieve stress? These days, many people relieve stress by mindlessly eating sugary and delicious foods. This is called emotional binge eating, and its part of a self-sabotaging syndrome that feels good in the moment but ends up making you angry. Even King Amasha, the protagonist of todays story, loses his temper when he should have stopped. Today, lets consider what we can do to avoid staying angry.
First, honesty without repentance.
The background of our text is the story of Amaziah, the son of King Joash, who traveled to southern Judah to repair the temple. Thanks to a mother of faith, Amaziah was able to grow up to be a king who walked uprightly in the eyes of the Lord. However, he was 'not like David,' because South Judah did not remove the altar of burnt offerings out of convenience after the temple was built. For the kings of Judah, the altar was so familiar that it was hard to recognize it as evil. Evil committed in the midst of ordinary life is called 'the banality of evil,' and for the kings of Judah, this was the case. From Amashas point of view, she could be proud that she could not do what her ancestors and father could not do, and that she had done what her father had done, but this compromise with sin is the beginning of the end of her anger. The way of David is to repent and turn back. There is a big difference between 'honesty' and 'repentance. The best legacy we can give to our children is to walk in repentance. Honesty in the worship of the shrine without repentance is the path to anger. Unrepentant people are disgraceful. If God tells you to remove a shrine, you should remove it. If you compromise with reality for one reason or another and do not stop the sin of shrine worship, you will eventually become angry.
Second, we should follow the Word over vengeance.
Amasha cemented his kingship by walking honestly before the Lord in the beginning of his reign, but instead of following Jehoiada, who stood on Gods side, he took revenge on his fathers advisors for killing his father. Amasha could have killed his advisors as king, but how nice it would have been if his father had sent the holy relics to Aram and realized, 'This is the conclusion that dishonored God! The advisors were right!' This is redemption. Thats the redemption, and thats the limit of honesty, to be all about getting even with your enemies while claiming to be honest.
In verse 7, Amaziah kills 10,000 Edomites and wages another war, taking Selah and changing its name to Jabesh. Edom, a vassal state of Judah, had betrayed Judah and become independent under King Jehoram of Judah, and Amaziah was the first to set out to conquer Edom. He mobilized an army of 300,000 men from southern Judah and bought 100,000 mercenaries for money from northern Israel, and then a man of God came and said, 'Send back the 100,000 mercenaries because God is not with the northern Israelites.' Amasha does as he is told, at great cost to himself. Obedience to the word is honesty, and it led to victory in the war against Edom. But killing 10,000 men was good, until 'the children of Judah captured another 10,000 men, and they went up to the top of the rock and threw them down, so that their whole body was broken' (2 Chron. 25:12). They crushed the Edomites in a roaring fury of vengeance that would surely be repaid. The best revenge is forgiveness. You will never have victory unless God opens the door. If you want to win without provoking anger, you must follow Gods Word, not vengeance.
Third, we should stop being 'you dare' arrogant.
When Amasha listens to the man of God and sends back the 100,000 mercenaries from Northern Israel, the mercenaries, out of a job, sack the city and kill three thousand people. So Amasha wants to confront Joash, the king of Northern Israel, about this, so he says, 'Lets have a face-to-face!' But Joash refuses his request and says, 'Youve become proud because youve been defeated by Edom, so why dont you keep your anger to yourself!' Amasha doesnt listen, though, and leads his army to the border fortress of Bethshemesh. As well see next week, the battle ends in a crushing defeat for Amasha. Amaziahs biggest problem was not listening, which was caused by God, because after the conquest of Edom, he brought their gods and set them up as his gods, worshipping and burning incense to them (2 Chron. 25:14). God would deliver Judah into the hands of the enemy.
Southern Judah is so accustomed to the pagodas that they dont even think of them as evil, and they dont see idolatry as a sin. Amaziah and the entire people of Judah are blind and deaf, seeing and hearing only what they want to see and hearing only what they want to hear, and they speak and act rashly, trapped in their own thoughts. This attitude is pride. The characteristic of a proud person is that they dont listen no matter how good you say something, they plug their ears and say, 'How dare you!' and go down in anger to their destruction. They dont say, 'Youre right!' they say, 'Im right!' Listening to the good and the harsh words of the elders on the community is the best recipe for opening our ears to the prideful.
Community Confession is a sharing from a SG Senior elder who shows us the way of David. I apologized to my son for my sin after a few days of QT marks because my son was so mean to me. I said, 'Dad is a bastard, so I didnt think he would be mean to you, but when I saw that you were mean to me, I realized that you are my son, and I thank you for being mean to me.' He burst into tears. Since then, he swallows hard when he gets angry and tries to be mean to me. 'God has refined my language,' he said,' and a repentant confession of sin that can convince others saves children. Hes been nursing his ALS wife for ten years, his son is acting out, his oldest daughter is not getting married, but hes so good at leading the ranch.
Its honesty without repentance that keeps me angry, and to keep me from being angry, I need to follow the Word over vengeance, and stop the pride by saying 'how dare you'. Knowing that anger is the conclusion of my life, may you choose honesty with repentance and follow the Word over revenge. May you stop saying, 'How dare you!'. May say 'You are more righteous than I am,' in any situations.
