Hello my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
I wonder if you’ve given much thought to what your children and grandchildren may do with your personal and family legacy after you are deceased and gone? By “legacy”, yes I mean the tangible/financial estate they may inherit from you, but even more important is your personal reputation which you have built through your lifetime. Our children and grandchildren live in the shadow of our lives, don’t they? Have you given much thought to what your name means and what your family has done and will do with your reputation? Will they embrace it? Will they seek to emulate it and honor it or might they distance themselves from it or even renounce it?
Come with me again to Jerusalem about 845bc. King Jehoshaphat, the remarkable man who sought to lead the people of Jerusalem and Judah in being an honorable people of God, had died and his eldest son Jehoram was installed as king in his father’s place.
Jehoshaphat had left a remarkable legacy to Jehoram as we’ve seen in the past several days as recorded in 2 Chronicles 19&20. Sadly, some adult children intentionally thrust off the honorable legacy they’ve inherited from their parents, and that’s what Jehoram did!
The record says: “When Jehoram established himself firmly over his father Jehoshaphat’s kingdom, he put all his brothers to the sword along with some of the officials of Israel! Jehoram was 32 years old when he became king and he reigned in Jerusalem 8 years. He followed in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did great evil in the eyes of the LORD… Jehoram forsook the LORD, the God of his ancestors. He also led the people of Judah astray…” (2 Chronicles 21:4-11)
Have you ever watched this happen? Have you seen someone trash their honorable family name and reputation by their choices, their words, their attitudes, their actions? Do you know anyone that is living a life totally contrary to the honorable life their parents or grandparents lived? Have you ever been the voice of reason challenging a person with the legacy defamation they are living?
For King Jehoram God raised up a voice to challenge him. An old man near the end of his life, yet a famous man, the old prophet Elijah! 2 Chronicles 21:12 tells us Jehoram received a personal letter of condemnation from Elijah. It was a strong language letter of truth declaring that God was watching and had seen that Jehoram had not followed in the ways of his father Jehoshaphat, but rather he had rejected Jehoshaphat’s legacy and pursued a relationship with the family of wicked king Ahab through marriage.
Elijah also wrote: “You have murdered your own brothers…men who were better than you. So now the LORD God is about to strike your people, your sons, your wives and everything that is yours, with a heavy blow. You yourself will be very ill with a lingering disease…until the disease causes your bowels to come out!” (2 Chronicles 21:12-15)
Wow! What a powerful warning. But amazingly we have no record that King Jehoram was repentant. He evidently made no effort to change his horrible ways. It appears he rejected Elijah’s warning and continued living the same God mocking life, and God did send both Philistine and hostile Arab warriors against Jehoram. They raided his palace and took as prisoners some of his sons and his wives! And then God struck Jehoram with an incurable and very painful abdominal disease.
Even in his agony we have no record he cried out for God’s help nor was he repentant. Toward the end of his life his bowels in fact did penetrate the skin of his stomach and come out and he died in terrible pain and humiliation under God’s judgment!
Two statements in 2 Chronicles 21:19,20 tell us how the people responded to King Jehoram’s death. First the people refused to light a great fire of honor as they had done for his father King Jehoshaphat, and second this little phrase is descriptive of what they felt: “Jehoram passed away to no one’s regret and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.”
Then as now funerals of dignitaries are a big deal, especially kings and presidents and monarchs! Often such funerals are major events of State with visiting dignitaries and great pomp and circumstance. In this case it seems it was quick and without any fanfare! Intentionally the people refused to honor Jehoram’s legacy because of the manner in which he had refused to honor the legacy of his father King Jehoshaphat who had been highly regarded and loved by the people. There are important lessons here my friends, do you see them?
I call us to contemplation today with these important questions:
1. What is the legacy of your parents and grandparents? How have you received and treated their legacy? Why?
2. What is the legacy you are building with your life and what is your expectation of how your legacy will be handled by your children and grandchildren?
3. Both for the legacy you received from your ancestors and the legacy you are passing to your descendants, what is the Spiritual and Moral aspect of these legacies?
I found a song to help us consider the significance of family legacy. Listen carefully to the words, especially of the second verse. What will your children find when they sift through all you’ve left behind? What will our descendants cherish of our life legacies and what will they discard as worthless?
Today’s Scripture: 2 Chronicles 21:1-20.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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