2 Kings 21:19-26

HOMILETICS OF 2 Kings 21:19

THE CRIME OF ASSASSINATION

I. Is but lightly regarded where religions principle is demoralized (2 Kings 21:20). When the bonds of religious obligations are relaxed, the way is opened for the commission of the worst crimes. Every sin blunts the moral sense and makes it easier to sin again, until the lowest grade of crime is reached. The peace, safety, and prosperity of a nation are more indebted to the prevalence of true religion than the majority are inclined to admit. Religion is the curb that holds in check the fierce monster of crime, that would otherwise stalk through the land and work irreparable mischief.

II. Is unjustifiable, notwithstanding the wickedness of its victim. We stand aghast at the wickedness of those in power, and are apt to think any means justifiable that will put an end to it. Even the unjust detest the injustice of others. A hatred of evil may tempt one into hasty and excessive punishment of wrong, forgetting that “when our hatred is violent it sinks us even boneath those we hate.” It is difficult to restrain the national thirst for revenge when in the midst of injustice and suffering. “If the wicked flourish,” says Fuller, “and thou suffer, be not discouraged; they are fatted for destruction, thou art dieted for health.” We may safely leave the wicked in the hands of God. We may create greater evils by the way in which we strive to redress one single offence.

III. Is aggravated when committed by those whose duty it is to guard and protect (2 Kings 21:23). Amon was slain by his court attendants, who took advantage of the confidence and trust reposed in them. In the most unguarded moment, and when least suspecting treachery, he was slain in the privacy of his palace; his servants, towards whom he had shown kindness and honour, became traitors and murderers.

Is there a crime

Beneath the roof of heaven that staius the soul
With more infernal hue than damned
Assassination!

Cibber.

And it certainly adds to the heinousness of the crime when the fatal blow is prompted by a false heart.

IV. Sooner or later meets with terrible punishment (2 Kings 21:24). The conspirators and assassins met with a similar fate to their victim. Sin carries within it its own punishment. The most cleverly devised mischief is sure to return in some shape or other to plague the inventors.

This even-handed justice

Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips.

In the history of the kings we are now studying, there is nothing more frequently and impressively revealed than the operation of the inexorable law of retribution. The triumph of the wicked is brief. The gains of sin are not worth the ingenuity and toil. The wages of sin is death.

LESSONS:—

1. Assassination is not only a savage, but a useless, policy.

2. A wrong is never rectified by inflicting a greater wrong.

3. True religion teaches the sacredness of human life.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES.

2 Kings 21:19. How wretchedly a king appears of whom history has nothing more to record than godleesness! As ithe king, so are his officers; as is the governor, so are the citizens. A depraved king ruins his country. Unfaithfulness is punished by unfaithfulness. Amon was not faithful to God: unfaithfulness was his punishment. He was murdered by his own servants, and these in their turn were punished by their own sin—they also were murdered (Matthew 26:52; Luke 6:28). Tumult and murder, perpetrated now by the authorities, now by the people—those are the natural fruits which are produced in a land which has abandoned God, and in which His word is no longer respected.—Lange.

2 Kings 21:20. Amon himself seems to have been popular; but, from whatever cause, he roused the enmity of the court party. It could not be laid to his charge that he refused to comply with the established heathenism, for it is expressly said that he walked in his father’s steps, and served and worshipped the idols he had set up, multiplying his trespasses, and showing some of the penitent humility of Manasseh’s late years. It may be, however, that signs of a serious thoughtfulness, not as yet carried into outward act, alarmed the dominant faction, for within two years he was cut off by a palace conspiracy, like that by which his ancestor, king Joash, perished.—Geikie.

2 Kings 21:23. Conspiracy and murder.

1. Reveal a melancholy picture of national demoralization.
2. May occasion a worse state of misrule than that which is sought to be removed.
3. Recoil in terrible vengeance on the actors themselves.