- We have a similar story with Uzziah’s son, but with a different ending.
- We’re told that he became mighty and we’re told why.
- It’s because, as 2 Chronicles 27 says, he ordered his ways before the Lord.
- What does that mean? What does that look like?
- It means that you go to the Lord and ask Him to order your steps. You seek His will.
- You don’t go ahead and ask God to follow along with His blessing.
- You ask God what He wants you to do and you walk in God’s ways as He shows you.
- It means you study God’s word and get to know Him and His ways, so you can walk in them as you understand, as He teaches you more and more.
- It means you ask for the Holy Spirit to instruct you and empower you to walk in those ways.
- It means you wait on His direction when there is a fork in the road instead of leaning on your own understanding or following after the desires of the flesh.
- His father reigned maybe over forty years before things went wrong.
- Jotham only reigns sixteen years.
- What can we make of that?
- It doesn’t have to mean something bad. There is a line about how Jotham didn’t enter the house of the Lord. I don’t know what that’s referring to. Does that just mean he didn’t sin like his father?
- Or, does it mean he was scared to go into the house of the Lord because of what happened to his father and avoided it. That would certainly cut down on closeness with God and longevity on the throne.
- But it doesn’t have to mean that. God is only good and always good. Jotham could have died to spare him.
- We are also told that the people followed corrupt practices. God was going to discipline the people. God needed to. Maybe He didn’t want to do that to Jotham, who did walk in His ways.
- Isaiah 57:1 says that when they godly die it may be that God is sparing them from the evil to come.
