Sermon Bible Jotham was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Jerushah, the daughter of Zadok. 2 Chronicles 27:6 This text takes us behind the scenes, and admits us into those privacies of the king's mind and habit where the real clues of every one's character are to be found. We arrive at the secret of all strength, "preparation" and that preparation made "before the Lord his God." I. God Himself is a God of preparations. All that God does He does measuredly and deliberately, and, as it seems to us, often slowly. There are intervals of hush before the bringing in of His great designs, and most frequently some heralding note to announce their approach. II. The life of Christ is a remarkable series of preparations. There were those strange thirty years—ten-elevenths even of such a life as that—passed in the quietness and seclusion of preparation for three years' work; and all that time, we have reason to believe, Christ grew. III. Preparing times are never lost times. They suit the majesty of all that is true. We all have had to regret precipitancy, but very few of us in the retrospect of life will say that we ever acted too deliberately. IV. Preparation "before God" lies in that general recognition of God which gives to whatever we are going to do a religious character, and invests it with religious influences. "Before the Lord." Sovereignty. Here is the acknowledgment of God's supreme power, and authority, and right, and lordship. "His God." There is the loving appropriation, the sense of interest and sonship. The consciousness of sympathy, and help, and affection is in the acknowledgment, for if He is mine, I am His. V. When a man prepares his ways before the Lord his God, the consequence is sure: he will grow mighty. He will do what he does strongly. And both his work and his own soul are sure to grow. This is just what we all want; we ought never to rest till we reach it—to be mighty in prayer, mighty in influence, mighty in good works, mighty in grace. J. Vaughan, Sermons, 10th series, p. 13. References: 2 Chronicles 28:9.—R. Glover, Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 563. 2 Chronicles 28:10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 294. 2 Chronicles 28:23.—Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 106. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah did: howbeit he entered not into the temple of the LORD. And the people did yet corruptly.
He built the high gate of the house of the LORD, and on the wall of Ophel he built much.
Moreover he built cities in the mountains of Judah, and in the forests he built castles and towers.
He fought also with the king of the Ammonites, and prevailed against them. And the children of Ammon gave him the same year an hundred talents of silver, and ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of barley. So much did the children of Ammon pay unto him, both the second year, and the third.
So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the LORD his God.
Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all his wars, and his ways, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.
He was five and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem.
And Jotham slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David: and Ahaz his son reigned in his stead. William Robertson Nicoll's Sermon Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission. Bible Hub |
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