2 Kings 12:2

"And Joash did what was right in the sight of Jehovah all the days of Jehoiada the priest." Yes, but it was more the influence of Jehoiada than faith in the living God. An influence, sooner or later, must fail. The influence of man is not the faith of God's elect.

Joash was brought up in the law of the Lord from his earliest years. Jehoiada and Jehosheba cared for him and guarded him from every outward temptation. He had a flexible character, marked more by his submission than by his energy. He went along with good influences as long as they lasted, but for lack of "virtue" he was in danger of giving way to evil influences. From childhood on, Joash was used to a relationship with God through a go-between, and he never felt the need for direct communion with the Lord. He did not lack initiative, but he lacked the direct guidance of the Spirit of God.

But external influence, however holy, can never change the heart. The heart is like a bent bow. It springs back to its normal position the moment the pressure stops. How often this solemn fact is seen in Christian families! How often a son leaves the godly restraints of his father's house and plunges with greater eagerness into the sinful pleasures of the world!

True to what he had learned in the word of God, he did not hesitate to correct even the high priest if he was careless in carrying it out, for that Word is above all. He owed his uncle a lasting debt of gratitude for saving his infant life. Even so, when the occasion required, he could ask him to do his duty as God's high priest about the necessary repairs of that house over which God had set him. Would to God he had continued in such a mind to the end of his reign.

Their parents' faith guides their first steps, which is right and approved by God. Later they show a genuine faith, but it is not free of its earliest habits. They look to people rather than to God Himself. Their conscience has never been deeply troubled by man's sinful state and his natural distance from God. They believe what they have always believed, yet no one can doubt that they have life... Knowledge and real piety do not make up for the lack of a direct relationship of the soul with the Lord. The Christian must seek this above everything else. Thousands of godly souls stay in a childhood condition. They depend first on their parents and later on their spiritual leaders, instead of depending on God and the Word. Let the leader disappear, and their godliness disappears with him. Let him turn aside, and their soul turns aside after him... Joash obeyed leaders without discernment, whether Jehoiada or the princes — and that was his ruin.

The case of King Joash shows that a faith based only on training vanishes when the supporting influences disappear.

Leaders may change or fail; Christ alone does not change: He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is "the great shepherd of the sheep." It is to Him that we must hold fast. This is one of the solemn lessons that the character and career of Joash offer us.