2 Kings 10

Sincerity makes our duties acceptable, like musk among linen, that perfumes it. As Jehu said to Jehonadab (2 Kings 10:15). Is your heart right with me? And he said it is: if it be (says he) give me your hand; and he took him up into the chariot.

Jeroboam thought to have established the kingdom by idolatrous worship, but it brought ruin upon him and all his posterity (1 Kings 14:10). Ahab's idolatry wronged his posterity, they lost the kingdom and were all beheaded (2 Kings 10:7). They took the king's sons, and slew seve…

2. Branch. It reproves those who do not God's Will in a right acceptable manner. (1.) They do not God's will entirely; all God's will; they will obey God in some things, but not in others; as if a servant should do some of your work you set him about, but not the rest: Jehu dest…

Fifthly, if it be for the getting, or increasing of any good learning, and lawful knowledge, especially divine knowledge for matter of religion. Thus the Queen of Sheba went out of the inmost parts of Africa, to Jerusalem in Asia, to see and hear Solomon: 2 Kings 10. and for tha…

2. The sincerity of our profession much depends upon the care and conscience we have in keeping our hearts; for it is most certain that a man is but a hypocrite in his profession, however meticulous he be in the externals of religion, if he is heedless and careless of the frame…

He speaks of the first and principal part of the life of a Christian man, the life of his justification that springs from pardon of sin; let a man forsake those sins and lusts that he has been most carried captive with; let a wicked man forgo his thoughts and ways, both his secr…

And the Prophet plainly mentions their external profession of piety, when they shall make it appear to all, that they have renounced idols, and all idolatry. For seeing images are instruments of idolatry and superstition; therefore those who are truly converted to God, must need…

So of spiritual Joy, as in the stony-ground Hearers, Matthew 13:20, and particularly many of John the Baptist's Hearers, John 5:35. So of Zeal, as in Jehu, 2 Kings 10:16, and in Paul before his Conversion, Galatians 1:14, Philippians 3:6, and the unbelieving Jews, Acts 22:3, Rom…

2. That love to Christ, and zeal for him, holds believers stirring, and makes them send forth a sweet and savory smell. This smell is preferred to all spices, not to one or two, but to all: spices were either used as gifts, because they were precious and costly; so the Queen of…

Brethren, did our hearts stand where our faces do, this would be a day of blushing, we should be ashamed to look one upon another; remember God hath a key for the heart. When we come to these solemn duties, God asks that question as Jehu did Jehonadab, 2 Kings 10. 15. he saluted…

Before they pretended to worship the true God by these images, the calves of Jeroboam; but now Ahab introduced gross idolatry, and the direct worship of false gods in the room of the true God; and soon after the worship of Baal was introduced into the kingdom of Judah, namely in…

Thus does the Lord extend the reward of righteous parents to their children to show his great good liking, and high approbation of righteousness. Read for this purpose, (1 Kings 11:34; 2 Kings 10:30). 1. Objection. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself.

Cast salt into the spring. As Jehu said to Jonadab, so does God say to us (2 Kings 10:15), Is your heart right as my heart is with your heart? We should answer, it is.

Pharaoh thought to go wisely to work (Exodus 1:10), but that wisdom costs dear, when it tends to suppress God's interest. Ahab, when God threatened to cut off his posterity, begets seventy sons, bestowed them in fenced cities (2 Kings 10:1), but those seventy sons were slain. He…

Oh then labor after, and pray for a thorough work of conversion, beg of God that he would make a saving change in your souls, that you may be altogether Christians, all other changes below this saving change, this heart-change, make us but almost Christians. 11. A man may be ver…

Then they that cared not for his words and counsels, crave his prayers, Oh pray for us (say they) for we have sinned, and to all our other sins have added this, in asking for a King. Samuel to prevent the deadly symptom of desperate discouragement, which would drive them from th…

Or do I go in the round of duties, taking no heed to my heart in them? If so, compare this symptom of your hypocrisy with that in 2 Kings 10:31 and Ezekiel 33:31-32. Question 2.

What is external conformity, but an artificial imitation of that which only lives in the souls of good men? Thus was Jehu deceived; he did many acts of external obedience to God's command, but Jehu took no heed to walk in the way of the Lord God of Israel with his heart (2 Kings…

Thirdly, when self-ends and designs are accommodated and promoted by these things. This was the case of Jehu (2 Kings 10:16): 'Come, see my zeal' — for what? For a base self-interest, not for God.

Eli was a good man, and yet the threatening of God took hold on him, and his house; and David though a godly man, yet the sword never departed from his house; so that the threatenings belong to God's people, and we must so account them; else we shall read the word in vain, when…