2 Kings 3:1-3 - Homiletics

Half-repentances not accepted by God.

Jehoram was better than his father and his mother, very considerably better than his brother (l Kings 22:52, 53). He "put away the image of Baal that his father had made ," lowered the Baal-worship from the position of the state religion to that of (at the most) a tolerated cult, and professed himself a worshipper of Jehovah. But his heart was not whole with God. He "cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat; and departed not therefrom." At Dan and Bethel the golden calves still received the homage of both king and people; priests, not of the blood of Aaron, offered the sacrifices of unrighteousness before the insensible images; and ritual practices were maintained which had no Divine sanction. Jehoram's reformation stopped half-way. He repented of what Ahab and Jezebel and Ahaziah had done, but not of what Jeroboam had done. His was a half-hearted repentance.

I. HALF - HEARTEDNESS IS FROM FIRST TO LAST CONDEMNED BY SCRIPTURE . "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him" ( 1 Kings 18:21 ); "Oh that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always !" ( Deuteronomy 5:29 ); "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life" ( Deuteronomy 30:19 ); "No man can serve two masters … ye cannot serve God and mammon" ( Matthew 6:24 ); "Whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" ( James 2:10 ); "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would that thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth" ( Revelation 3:15 , Revelation 3:16 ). God's true servants are those whose heart is whole with him ( Psalms 78:37 ), who are "faithful in all his house" ( Numbers 12:7 ), who "fear him, and walk in all his ways, and love him, and serve him with all their heart and all their soul' ( Deuteronomy 10:12 ).

II. HALF - HEARTEDNESS CONTAINS WITHIN ITSELF THE GERMS OF WEAKNESS AND OF FAILURE . "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways" ( James 1:8 ). Changefulness, vacillation, infirmity of purpose, inconsistency, half-repentances, half-resolves, are sure to result in failure and inability to effect anything. No policy is successful unless it is thorough. No character is calculated to impress others, or carry through any important work, or leave its mark on the world, but one that is firm, strong, sincere, consistent, thorough-going. Haft-measures are of little service. Half-resolves are almost worse than absence of all resolve. Half-repentances stand in the way of real change of heart and amendment of life. Haft-hearted rulers are apt to "ordain something good here and there, or abolish something bad, while they perceive still more which their duty would require them to remove, but they cannot bring themselves to do it, from motives of policy which are not pure, or pleasing to God" (Lange). Such halt-heartedness, while it angers God, is not even expedient, with reject to men, in the long run.