by Clay Hall
1 Kings 15:11-13; 1 Kings 22:43; 2 Kings 12:2-3; 2 Kings 14:3-4; 2 Kings 15:3-4; 2 Kings 15:34-35 were recently used by Douglas Wilson in a Bibledingers YouTube channel debate with T Russell Hunter to argue that even if incremental support of heartbeat bills is a tactical mistake, it is not as wrong as abolitionists say it is because we have Scriptural examples of kings who are called good, but did not remove the high places. He specifically referenced King Asa, but there are at least five other such texts that we may consider:
“And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David his father had done. He put away the male cult prostitutes out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. And Asa cut down her image and burned it at the brook Kidron. But the high places were not taken away. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true to the Lord all his days.” (1 Kings 15:11-13) (See also 2 Chronicles 14-16.)
“He [Jehoshaphat] walked in all the way of Asa his father. He did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord. Yet the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.” (1 Kings 22:43)
“And Jehoash [aka. Joash] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him. Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away; the people continued to sacrifice and make offerings on the high places.” (2 Kings 12:2-3)
“And he [Amaziah] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not like David his father. He did in all things as Joash his father had done. But the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.” (2 Kings 14:3-4)
“And he [Azariah, aka. Uzziah] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.” (2 Kings 15:3-4)
“And he [Jotham] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Uzziah had done. Nevertheless, the high places were not removed. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. . . .” (2 Kings 15:34-35)
Is the repetition of the phrase, “the high places were not removed,” etc. written to communicate, “This king was good even though he didn’t do all that he should have”?
I contend that the point of the repetition in these passages is to provide evidence in God’s courtroom of justice against Judah. We should understand these verses as, “Yes, the king did these good things, but God was still just to remove the king from the throne, and eventually to judge the nation as He said He would because they ignored His law as well as the consequences.”
God’s people were specifically commanded the following in Deuteronomy 12:1-4: “These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way.”
And found in the midst of a passage of strong warning to God’s people should they spurn His statutes and do not listen to Him is this verse, “And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you” (Leviticus 26:30).
Considering God’s specific commandments regarding kings in Deuteronomy 17, no king of Judah was without excuse: “And when [the king] sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel” (vv. 14-20).
It seems more likely that the main thrust of the passages regarding the good kings’ failures is to show that God was just in treating both them and the nation as He did.
It is very interesting to hear Pastor Wilson speak this way when we consider that it was he who wrote the following on his blog in 2015 in the aftermath of the release of the #PPsellsbabyparts videos:
“. . . abortion is the bloody sacrament right at the center of secularism’s cathedral. It is their high altar. We are not proposing, for example, to knock a few gargoyles off their cathedral. We are requiring that their high altar come down. We want to raze the whole thing. We want to imitate Josiah at Beth-el; we want to break it down, burn the high place, grind the whole thing to powder, and then burn the grove (2 Kings 23:15).”
Josiah was initially ignorant of the great consequence of the high places remaining in Judah, but as soon as he heard of it, he responded by both grief and, as referenced in Wilson’s 2015 blog post, swift, repentant action (2 Kings 22-23). As a result, the Scriptures say the following of Josiah, “Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him” (2 Kings 23:25).
As a result, the prophecy of Hilkiah the priest came true for Josiah: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the Lord, when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace” (2 Kings 22:18-20).
As God said to Eli,
“. . . those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed,” (1 Samuel 2:30).
What of the good kings who left the high places standing? In order to see the consequences for their actions, we must make note of how their reigns ended.
Asa: “In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe. Yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers, dying in the forty-first year of his reign” (2 Chronicles 16:12-13).
Jehosaphat: “After this Jehoshaphat king of Judah joined with Ahaziah king of Israel, who acted wickedly. He joined him in building ships to go to Tarshish, and they built the ships in Ezion-geber. Then Eliezer the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, ‘Because you have joined with Ahaziah, the Lord will destroy what you have made’” (2 Chronicles 20:35-37).
Jehoash: “His servants arose and made a conspiracy and struck down Joash in the house of Millo, on the way that goes down to Silla” (2 Kings 12:20).
Amaziah: “And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not with a whole heart” (2 Chronicles 25:2). “After Amaziah came from striking down the Edomites, he brought the gods of the men of Seir and set them up as his gods and worshiped them, making offerings to them. Therefore the Lord was angry with Amaziah and sent to him a prophet, who said to him, ‘Why have you sought the gods of a people who did not deliver their own people from your hand?’ But as he was speaking, the king said to him, ‘Have we made you a royal counselor? Stop! Why should you be struck down?’ So the prophet stopped, but said, ‘I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my counsel’” (2 Chronicles 25:14-16). Several years after stubbornly pushing Judah into a losing civil-war battle against Israel, his own people “made a conspiracy against him . . . and put him to death,” (2 Kings 14:19).
Azariah: “. . . the Lord touched the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death, and he lived in a separate house. And Jotham the king’s son was over the household, governing the people of the land” (2 Kings 15:5).
Of the six passages describing the negligent kings’ reigns, only Jotham’s final summary is the outlier. 2 Chronicles 27:6 says, “Jotham became mighty, because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.” However, because he left the high places standing, “the people still followed corrupt practices” (2 Chronicles 27:2).
In all six cases, the king’s failure caused the people to continue in idolatry, ushering in God’s eventual judgment, and in five of the six cases, the king’s reign ended horribly, usually because of the king’s pride. With Jotham’s possible exception, it certainly does not seem like God’s final word to these kings is “Well done, good and faithful servant,” as Pastor Wilson concludes.
Make no mistake: the abortion running rampant in our blood-soaked land is due to the refusal of our rulers and judges to tear down the modern day “high places” of child sacrifice. Considering our circumstances, what prophetic message should God’s people speak to our legislators and judges? Should we encourage our legislators to remember that just like Judah’s kings, they can be called good, even if they leave the high places of abortion remaining? And in doing so, should we, as Wilson says, “go home whistling with a clean conscience” because even if we’re “tactically mistaken,” we can join our negligent, but good legislators in at least scoring a B-?
I believe Scripture would have us learn a different lesson from the prideful kings who are called good. If we are to emulate a king of Judah, why not Josiah, as Wilson suggested in 2015? As Josiah did, let us repent of our negligence and the negligence of our fathers by doing all that is in our power to tear down the altars of child sacrifice. And if our legislators and judges refuse to listen, let us not be negligent in our duty to speak the truth to the powers that be and trust God with the results.
Other noteworthy examples are those of Jehoiada and Zechariah. Jehoida was a priest during the reign of king Jehoash’s and he is also Jehoash’s uncle. Under Jehoash’s leadership, while King Jehoash was still a child, “all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and tore it down; his altars and his images they broke in pieces, and they killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars” (2 Kings 11:18). Considering Jehoiada’s resolute, idol-smashing spirit, it should not surprise us that “Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him.” The Scriptures later clarifies that, “Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest” (2 Chronicles 24:2), but after Jehoiada died, things changed: “after the death of Jehoiada the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king. Then the king listened to them. And they abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs. Yet He sent prophets among them to bring them back to the Lord. These testified against them, but they would not pay attention” (2 Chronicles 24:19). One of these prophets was Jehoash’s own cousin Zechariah, Jehoiada’s son, who “stood above the people, and said to them, ‘Thus says God, “Why do you break the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you.”’ But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him, but killed his son. And when he was dying, he said, ‘May the Lord see and avenge!’” (2 Chronicles 24:20-22). Apparently, God has little patience with rulers who worship idols and pridefully ignore the messengers He sends to warn them. Before the end of the year, a small Syrian army defeated Jehoash’s large army of Judah and wounded Jehoash “because Judah had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers. Thus they executed judgment on Joash” (2 Chronicles 24:24). As the king lay wounded in bed, his servants killed him in answer to Zechariah’s last prayer and then refused to honor the dead king with a burial among the kings (2 Chronicles 24:25).
Christian, do not be persuaded to settle for half-measures by Wilson’s interpretation of the good, but negligent kings of Judah. The King of kings has told us not to be slothful in zeal (Romans 12:11) and we have seen by these kings’ slothful examples that it does not bode well for the people or for the rulers when the high places of child sacrifice are tolerated. If you are in the position of a legislator or a judge, be a Josiah, and turn to the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Repent, honor God’s Word, and smash the idols in the land, tearing down the high places of child sacrifice that you have inherited from your fathers.
If you do not sit in the seat of a legislator or a judge, but you do have considerable influence with those who do, fear the Lord instead of men as Jehoida did. Do all that is in your power to remove the idols of abortion from the land. Influence the rulers who would prefer to listen to lesser men and call on them to honor God above all.
And lastly, if your voice seems to go unheeded by those in power, remember, God hears. Use the prophetic voice God has given you, as Zechariah did, and trust God with the results -even if it means you must suffer great harm.
In his bestselling book A Christian Manifesto, theologian and apologist Francis Schaeffer famously wrote, “Every abortion clinic should have a sign in front of it saying, ‘Open by permission of the church.’” Would to God that we would see a generation of Josiahs, Jehoiadas, and Zechariahs so that we may rejoice at the day when we flip this quote saying to the high places of child sacrifice in our land, “Closed by rejection of the church.”
Southern Baptists for Abolishing Abortion 