2 Kings 5:18–7:41

0:01 Okay, raise your hand if you like, well no, let me ask a different question. Raise your hand if you have ever been on a roller coaster and leave it up. Okay, that's most of you. Keep your, no, keep them up, keep them up, keep them up. Keep your hand up if you like roller coasters. Alright, good, okay, you can put them down now. I would say probably 80% of you say you like roller coasters. I like them too. I think they're amazing. I've been to a whole lot of amusement parks that have roller coasters, and I have my favorites that are scattered throughout the nation.

0:35 To me, the thing that makes a roller coaster interesting is the sense of buildup and excitement before the thing tips over the edge and throws you into all of the curves and hills and loops and all the rest of it, right? I mean, I don't like roller coasters that sort of have a soft start. I like roller coasters to begin with tension, like, you know, the chain, clicking up the mountain, and then the pause at the top, and then the plunge over the top. There's a roller coaster in, when I was a kid, at Six Flags in Dallas, Texas, that was called the Judge Royce Scream.

1:10 It was a wooden roller coaster. For a long time, it was the tallest wooden roller coaster in the United States, something like that. I don't remember exactly. But it began with one of those huge hills. You'd get on the little clickety-clackety train of cars, and you'd roll out of the shed, and the chain would grab the cars, and you'd begin to go up, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. And it just went on forever. Just click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, slowly, slowly. And as it got toward the top, the chain somehow, I guess it would switch chains or something, the car would actually slow down as you got to the point of no return.

1:43 And right above the thing, you've got to remember this is a judge-themed roller coaster, Judge Roy Scream. There was a sign right at the top of the hill that said, appeal denied. And that was the last thing you saw as you tipped over the edge and down into the abyss. I love that roller coaster. I have no idea if it's still rolling, but I hope so. That sense of anticipation, that, as one literary character called it, that deep breath before the plunge.

2:15 Anybody know that reference? Yeah, okay. Anyway, that's the sense that we have today as we look at our section of 2 Kings. So take a Bible if you've got one, turn over to 2 Kings. We're going to be looking at chapters 15, 16, and 17 today. If you're looking at one of these Red Pew Bibles, we are on, at least we're going to begin, on page 321. You'll be able to find 2 Kings chapter 15 right there. If you're new to all of this this morning, maybe you're new to 3rd Avenue, Maybe you're new to Christianity and church, the whole deal.

2:50 A little bit of an apology here because you are dropping into the middle of a story that we've been looking at for a whole lot of weeks. And it's a story that goes back not even 15 chapters to the beginning of 2 Kings. It actually goes back all the way to the beginning of 1 Kings. And you can even argue it goes back all the way to the beginning of the Bible, Genesis. And we're coming toward the end, really, of the story of the whole Old Testament. I mean, obviously, you've got a whole lot of Old Testament left to come. But really, what the rest of these books are doing is just kind of sprinkling into the story that's told from Genesis to the end of 2 Kings.

3:24 That's kind of all the rest of the books are doing. By the time we finish this study in 2 Kings, you'll be familiar, if you've been here for several years, with the whole story, the whole historical unfolding of the history of the nation of Israel. The book of Kings, 1 and 2 Kings are really one book. they only divided them probably because they couldn't fit on one single scroll back in the ancient days before they had books like this. This is called a codex. The ancient Israelites didn't have this. What they had were scrolls and they just couldn't fit the whole thing on one scroll so they divided it into first and second kings. That's the only reason it's divided. It's something, this book of kings is something like 2,500 years old. We think it was written 550 years or so before the birth of Jesus Christ. It tells about events that run from a thousand years before the birth of Jesus right up to about 600 years or so before the birth of Jesus. So a span of something like 400 years. Okay now to even begin to keep your footing in

4:29 this book and kind of know where you are you have to keep one gigantic historical event in mind. I mean it's got to be like at the forefront of your mind as you're reading this book because it is relevant on every single page. And that is that there were at this time, these events are taking place about, oh, 720 years before the birth of Jesus or so, 700 BC, something like that. And at that time, there were two Jewish kingdoms and two Jewish kings because the nation of Israel, which had been unified under David and Solomon, had had a civil war and broken apart. And they had broken apart into two different kingdoms so the north broke away and the south remained so you had you had the northern kingdom which takes on the name Israel because they had 10 of the tribes and then you have the kingdom of Judah in the south that was just called Judah so what you've got here in this book is really two different stories one story about the northern kingdom

5:30 and one story about the southern kingdom but they're being woven together throughout this book right so it'll flip back and forth and tell you the story of a king of the north and then it'll tell you the story of a king in the south, and then the north, and then the north again, and then the north, and then the south, and then the south, and then the south. And it's all kind of interlocking chronologically. So I'll just show you this because it's so important. If you look at chapter 15, you don't even have to look at the words of the chapter. Just look at the headings. You've got Azariah reigns in Judah, Zechariah reigns in Israel, Shalom reigns in Israel, Minahem reigns in Israel, Pekahiah reigns in Israel, Pekah reigns in Israel, Jotham reigns in Judah, right? So you can see those two kingdoms there. So Azariah right there at the beginning, Azariah reigns in Judah, so that's the south. Then you've got Israel, north, Shalom, north, Minahem, north, Pegahiah, north, Pika, north, Jotham, south, right? You see how that's, you see how that's working? And the reason you have so many north, north, north, north, north, I'll tell you in a minute. Here's the thing, for the vast, so keep that in mind, it's going to be really important,

6:34 But here's the thing, for the vast majority of 2 Kings so far, the camera of the movie, so to speak, has been pretty squarely focused on the story of the northern kingdom. And you don't get very much about the south at all in 2 Kings so far. You get a whole lot about the north, and the reason you get a whole lot about the north is because the north has been stumbling along for like 80 years now under a promise from God that he's going to destroy the dynasty of this guy named Ahab, who is like one of the wickedest kings that exist in the Bible and who dragged the northern kingdom, worse than anybody else in its history, into idolatry and paganism and sin.

7:15 So the first half of 2 Kings or so is taken up almost entirely with how God kept his promise to destroy that dynasty of wicked Ahab. But even once that happens, the problem, it happens, right, in chapters 9 and 10. You have this guy named Jehu, this bloody guy who puts an absolutely brutal end to the wicked house of Ahab. That's the story of chapters 9 and 10. But the problem is that even after that happens, the north isn't out of the woods yet because underneath the promise to destroy this one dynasty of the north, there's another promise all the way back in 1 Kings to destroy not just that one dynasty but to destroy the entire northern kingdom entirely.

8:04 God swears that he's going to curse the north and destroy it. Not just one house of it, but the whole thing entirely. Well, today we're looking at three chapters where the story reaches the peak and moves at breakneck speed toward the fulfillment of that curse. So this is it. This is when the roller coaster, right here, 15 to 17, this is when the roller coaster finally tips over the peak of the hill. The sign is there, appeal denied, and it rushes down to the bottom where the northern kingdom is fully and finally destroyed. The main idea of these chapters, I think, is this.

8:36 To reject God's law and to reject God's grace is to reject God himself. To reject God's law and to reject God's grace is to reject God himself. And to reject God is to embrace destruction. To embrace, to reject God is to embrace destruction. I'll say it one more time. I think that's the message of these chapters. To reject God's law and God's grace is to reject God himself. And to reject God himself is to embrace destruction.

9:13 Now, we're not going to read the whole thing. That would just take too long. We're just going to read pieces of it as we go. But I do want to just let our eyes kind of run over these three chapters to get a sense of what's happening in them. So we've already kind of looked at chapter 15. Chapter 15 is really the moment that the coaster tips over the peak and we start to pick up speed, right? And the structure of it is that you've got two southern kings talked about, right? One at the beginning, one at the end, and then five northern kings in the middle. And what's interesting about those five in the middle is that three of them have ridiculously short reigns. There's a guy who reigns for two years.

9:44 There's another guy who reigns for six months. And then there's another guy who only gets a month. So just ridiculously short reigns where the two southern kings on either end have, you know, respectably long reigns. To make it worse, of the five in the middle, four of them are murdered in insurrections. So what you're supposed to see in that chapter is that where the south is relatively calm, relatively stable, the north is just an absolute bloodbath. It is careening toward the end.

10:15 That's what's happening in chapter 15. Chapter 16, you get this kind of long pause to focus on one particularly wicked king in the south. This guy named Ahaz, who is as bad as any king of the north has ever been, if not worse. He does some things that no king of the north, that we know of anyway by name, ever did. He's horrible. And the point of chapter 16 is for you to not get complacent in thinking that the south is okay. You're supposed to think, uh-oh, things are going bad in the north, obviously, but it may be that the south is not really doing much better.

10:53 Well, then in chapter 17, the camera swings back to the north and the hammer drops swiftly. The empire of Assyria invades. The northern kingdom is wiped off the map, never to be heard from again. And you really have this long section. I mean, that all happens in six verses. There's not a lot of detail about it. Six verses, Israel's wiped off the map. You can see it there right before six, the fall of Israel. And then starting in verse 7, you get this long section. This exile happened because. You see that in the heading? exile because of idolatry. And the author of Kings gives us really the longest, most sustained section of theological explanation that he has ever given. So that's the story. That's where it's going. There are three points to the sermon this morning, just looking at each of those three chapters. And really what they amount to are three warnings. So here they are. Number one, looking at chapter 15, the danger of rejecting God's law. Number two, looking at chapter 16, the danger of rejecting God's covenant and number three looking at chapter 17 the danger of rejecting

11:56 God so that's where we're going let's start to look at it number one looking at chapter 15 the danger of rejecting God's law last time we were in in the book of second kings which is which is two weeks ago I kind of made the observation that you know you may or may not agree with That with the exception of the death of Elisha, the prophet, there's not really a whole lot that happens in chapters 11 through 14. Now, you may not agree with me on that. You may come and argue with me at the door and say, no, those are the greatest chapters in the Bible.

12:31 And you're entitled to that opinion, but you're also entitled to wrong opinions. There is not a lot that happens in 11 through 14. You've just got this succession of kings in both kingdoms. You know, it's bouncing back and forth. The thing is, all of them are bad in the north. And you kind of have an unhappy mix of not good, but just sort of okay, like relatively good in the south, but also bad in the south. Well, in 15, you get the same thing, this bouncing of back and forth between kings in the north, kings in the south. But they're all kind of lumped together.

13:04 So here in 15, there's seven kings, first and last from the south, and five in the middle are from the north. And for the most part, just to be honest with you, what is said about these seven kings is really not very noteworthy. I mean, there's just not a lot about them. Each of them gets a paragraph of, you know, three to five verses, something like that. And with very few exceptions, each one of them is just, it's the same thing. You have this kind of formulaic statement that they took the throne at a certain time and they reigned for a certain number of years.

13:34 Then you get a judgment on them, whether they followed God or not. The southern ones do here in chapter 15. The northern ones absolutely do not to a man. Then maybe after that judgment on their whole life, you get perhaps a detail or two, usually about how they died. Because almost all of them died in these horribly violent ways. And then at the end, you get a statement of their death. And this thing that the author of Kings does all the time where he says he doesn't really care about the historical events. He's more interested in whether these people obeyed God, right?

14:04 As for all of the wars that they fought and the cities that they captured and built and all the rest of it, you can go read about that in another book. And he tells, you know, that this guy, this wicked king died or whatever it was. It's interesting. Even the kings here that are given more detail later on in the Bible are pretty much rushed through here. So you look at the first guy, Azariah, in verses 1 through 7. Azariah reigns in Judah. You know who that is, actually? It's a different name. But this is Uzziah, this is King Uzziah, like the one that Isaiah mentions when he has this great vision of the throne room of God.

14:40 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, right? He's kind of a big deal. And in Chronicles, he actually has a pretty fascinating story, but none of that is talked about here. In fact, it seems like the main thing you're supposed to see from this is just the unraveling of the northern kingdom. Especially against the backdrop of the relatively stable south. You're just supposed to have this sense of chaos in the north as one evil king after another is murdered or besieged or deposed.

15:11 And by the end of this chapter, the sense you're supposed to have is that whoever the sucker is who winds up sitting on the throne of the north is sitting on a really bloody throne. And probably he won't be sitting there for long because somebody's going to kill him. But there are reasons for this. And to get at that reason, those reasons, I want to look at the entry for one, just one, of these northern kings in particular. Because it's in his entry that you really get the theological punch of this chapter.

15:43 So look with me at the entry for King Zechariah of Israel. He starts in verse 8. Let's read it. In the 38th year of Azariah, that's Uzziah, king of Judah down in the south, in his 38th year, And Zechariah, the son of Jeroboam, reigned over Israel in Samaria for six months. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord as his fathers had done. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. That's not his father.

16:14 His father was Jeroboam II. This Jeroboam that he walked in the ways of is much earlier, right? So he didn't depart from the sins of that other Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. Shalom, the son of Jabesh, conspired against him and struck him down at Iblayam and put him to death and reigned in his place. Iblayam there probably is not a place name. It probably means actually in the face of the people. He was put to death in the face of the people. So he was executed publicly is probably what that means.

16:46 Put him to death and reigned in his place. Now the rest of the deeds of Zechariah, behold, they are written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel. This was the promise of the Lord that he gave to Jehu. Your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. And so it came to pass. Okay, now for the most part, this entry for Zechariah is pretty much just like all the rest. You've got a statement of his reign and how long it was, right? In this case, it was an embarrassing six months, though it gets worse with the next one.

17:17 This guy, Shalom, who succeeds him, only gets one month before he gets killed. Then you've got a judgment on his reign. He did what was evil. He walked in the ways of, you know, that ancient Jeroboam king, the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Then you've got a little note on how he was assassinated there publicly at Ablaam or in the face of the people. And then you've just got this kind of wrap-up statement, you know, in verse 11. The rest of the stuff he did, all of that's written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel. What's interesting and different about this entry from any of the others in this chapter is that parenthetical statement in verse 12.

17:54 This was the promise of the Lord that he gave to Jehu. Your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. And so it came to pass. Okay, so what does that mean? Why is that parenthetical there? Well, it's there because it's a statement that a certain promise that God had given to Jehu. You remember who Jehu was? Jehu was the bloody guy who took out the house of Ahab finally. Absolutely destroyed the house of Ahab. Destroyed the pagan priests. everything. There's bloody chapters, chapters 9 and 10. But at the end of it, God makes this guy Jehu a promise and says, because you've done this judgment for me on the house of Ahab, because you've done that and you've done it well, I'm going to let your sons reign on the throne of the northern kingdom for four generations. And this is saying, it's noting right here in 1512 that that promise has been signed sealed and delivered so after Jehu you had you had four guys Jehoahaz

18:55 these names won't mean anything to you because they're part of that wasteland of 11 to 14 but you had Jehoahaz Jehoash Jeroboam the second and now Zechariah now notice how long Zechariah gets to reign he's he's the last guy we don't have to he's the last guy the fourth generation the promise is fulfilled it's over we don't have to wait on any sons to grow up we don't have to wait on anything, and how long does he get? Six months, not even a whole year. So you've got almost this sense of impatience when we get to Zechariah, right? It's almost as if God says, look, enough of this. I've done it. We had three kings. They were legitimate. I had to wait on their sons to grow up, but now that we've got this fourth one, we'll give him just enough time to sort of establish himself as an actual king, and then bam, it's over. I'm out. There's this sense of impatience to get rid of Zechariah so that promise can get fulfilled. But don't miss the point of this. The point of this and what the author is trying to point your attention to is the fact that God made a promise

19:58 and God kept that promise even though it was to a wicked, wicked king. He made a promise and he kept it even though it was to a wicked, wicked king. Do you see what that means? What that's telling you as a reader and what that's telling me is that God is so determined to keep his promises that he'll keep them even when those to whom he has promised it betray him.

20:31 That's what it's telling us. I mean, look at that little phrase at the end of verse 12 there. And so it came to pass. I think when we run across that phrase, it's littered throughout the Old Testament. It's just everywhere. And I think that we can read it for whatever set of reasons as kind of more highly literary than it actually is. You know, we read a phrase like that. Your son shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. And so it came to pass. You read it like that in your head?

21:02 I do. But it's not that. It is not that. I mean, in the English, it's one, two, three, four, five. It's six words in the English. In Hebrew, it's just two little words. And they just mean, and it was so. And it was like that. And that was that. And that's how it happened. I mean, it's a very simple phrase. It's just, and it was so. Maybe think about it.

21:35 That's a really wonderful little phrase. Because most of the time that it's used in the Bible, it is used after God has said he's going to do something. God promises, and then you get that phrase, and it happened, just like that. God speaks, and then that's how it happens. I mean, it's wonderful, because when you think about it, how could it be any other way?

22:06 When the God of the universe speaks, when the God who flung the stars into the heaven speaks, when he says he's going to do something, there's no nuance, there's no fine print, there's no wishy-washy conditionals. It's just God said it, and that's how it happened. In fact, you look through the Bible, it seems like that's kind of God's favorite way of putting a stamp on his promises once they're fulfilled. It's like a wax seal on a scroll, right? You've got these promises that are still open, these kind of promises from God that are open. And when one of them gets fulfilled, it gets rolled up and there's a wax seal that's put on it. And it was so. And it was so. And throughout the Bible, all of God's promises are fulfilled in that way. It's good to think about because for us as Christians, there are still a lot of the promises of God without that stamp on them yet, aren't there? There's the promise of the new heavens and new earth. There's a promise that we're going to be glorified with Christ one day. There's the promise of seeing God's face. There's the promise that God will wipe away every

23:08 tear. There's the promise that God is working all things together for the good of those who love them. None of those have the wax and it was so stamped on them yet. But brothers and sisters here's what we can stake our lives on. God has never yet made a promise that he failed to put that stamp on, even to wicked Jehu. He put the stamp on it. I mean, think about it. Think about it. Even Jehu, even this promise to this bloody guy that he was going to let his sons reign for four generations, even a promise that by the end of it, he actually seems a little impatient to be done with. There's the stamp right there in verse 12. And it was so. And that's how it happened. And that was that. From what promise in Scripture? What promise by Jesus? What promise by God? Are you most looking forward to him finally keeping

24:13 to you? It's a good thing to do, isn't it? Just kind of walk around in the promises that God has made in Scripture and think about how good it's going to be when he finally brings them to pass. I mean, what is it for you? Is it Jesus' promise that he's gone to prepare a place for us? Maybe the promise that we're going to dwell with him forever. Maybe it's the promise to wipe away every tear and to wipe out all disease and all suffering, to fill us up with joy in the end.

24:46 I mean, maybe for you it's the promise that in the end, sin and all its guilt are going to be completely healed and forgiven and washed away and thrown away from you as far as the east is from the west and sunk in the ocean of God's forgiveness so deep nobody could ever dredge it up. Maybe that's the promise. You're looking forward to God fulfilling. Look, I know, I know it can seem like a long road to get from here when those promises are still open to there when they're going to be closed and signed and sealed and delivered.

25:18 We can be tempted in a thousand different ways to think that God isn't going to do what he says he's going to do. But I want you to think about it. I want you to think about it. God made this promise to Jehu, this bloody, wicked king of the north, and he kept it. And that was that, because God keeps his promises. So all the promises of the gospel, who are they made to?

25:50 Are they made to you? I mean, yes. But if that's all there is to it, then you might be thinking, well, okay, God made a promise to Jehu, and that dude's a wicked guy, and God kept that promise, that's great. But I imagine that if I went way down into my heart, I would find that I'm just as bad as Jehu. I'd find that I'm just as wicked as he is. Maybe I even have some motives now that are worse than Jehu, so why would it give me all that much confidence that God promised to wicked Jehu and kept it, and God promised some things to wicked me, and we'll keep it.

26:23 That's not all that strong, preacher. You know what's stronger? What's stronger is that God doesn't make all those promises of the gospel just to you. He makes them to his son, Jesus Christ. He makes them to Jesus. John chapter 6, this, Jesus said, is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it all up at the last day. This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

27:00 Christian, if you are in Jesus, then you can be sure that God will keep every single one of the promises of the gospel. to you because he will keep them to his son. Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea. And so long as he sits on that throne at the right hand of God, nobody, nobody can bid me thence depart. God's promises are made to him, not just to you. Well, if there's a reminder of God's promises here in chapter 15, I want you to see that there's also a reminder of the corrosiveness of sin.

27:37 I want you to see something else here in 15. Look at that phrase in verse 9. I mentioned it. We didn't look at it in any detail. This is kind of the judgment on Zechariah. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord as his fathers had done. Then look at this phrase. He didn't depart from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. Now, what is that talking about? That's talking about the very first king of the northern kingdom. Way back at the beginning of 1 Kings when there was a civil war and the north broke away from the dynasty of David and installed their own king.

28:08 And the king that they installed, once they broke away, was this dude named Jeroboam who promptly led the people away into paganism and idolatry and toward worshiping pagan gods. He even made a couple of golden calves, believe it or not, and set them up in big cities of his kingdom so that the people could go worship the golden calves. Had never read Exodus before, I guess. Okay, do you know at this point in 2 Kings how far we are from Jeroboam and his golden calves? How far are we from Jeroboam and his golden calves?

28:42 We are almost 200 years removed from Jeroboam and his golden calves. 200 years from that foolishness, and yet here we are in 2 Kings 15 still talking about it. And in fact, you read these books of Kings and you see Jeroboam's name and Jeroboam's sin running like a drumbeat through almost all, in fact, of the northern kings. Here, Jeroboam and his sin are mentioned in four out of the five that are here in chapter 15.

29:14 The only one that doesn't get any mention is this guy Shalom, but that's just because he reigned for a month and probably didn't have a whole lot of time to be wicked. So he doesn't get mentioned there. Why is it there? Why is this mention of Jeroboam there over and over and over and over? The reason is because sin and rebellion against God are not small things. They have deep and long-running corrosive effects in people's lives. Sin is not a small thing. It is deeply corrosive.

29:46 And it will affect not just you, but those around you and those who come after you. I mean, some of you know this deeply. Because in various ways, you're still suffering under the consequences of sin you committed decades ago. Some of you are suffering because of sins your parents committed, or even your grandparents committed. Look, I'm not saying that to try to make you feel bad, much less to feel hopeless or despairing.

30:17 That's not the point. God forgives sin. In the end, he's promised even to wipe out the effects of sin, all of its consequences, to redeem everything and bring it under the rule and reign of Jesus. But this little phrase, running through these books like a drumbeat, Jeroboam and his sin, it is meant to warn us of the danger and deeply corrosive effects of sin. Friends, don't trifle with sin. Don't play with sin.

30:50 You'll find yourself one minute playing with it like a snake and the next minute you'll find yourself venomized for the rest of your life. Not to say that God doesn't forgive, but it is to say that sin has deeply corrosive effects. Don't play with it. Here's the second point. Not just the danger of rejecting God's law, as the northern kings did, but the danger of rejecting God's covenant. We're going to look at chapter 16 now.

31:22 The danger of rejecting God's covenant. So by the end of chapter 15, there's no doubt about it. The northern kingdom, you can just tell, is doomed. You had a promise that was kind of in place to let Jehu and his sons reign for four generations. So that's fulfilled. Signs, sealed, and delivered, stamped, and it was so. And the only promise left now to the northern kingdom is really this curse way back in 1 Kings to utterly destroy them. That's all that's left for them. And already, in several places of chapter 15, we didn't look at them, but in several places of 15, you can see already the shadow of the Assyrian Empire starting to loom and starting to make its way across the land of Israel.

32:02 But then in 16, there's a pause. The camera shifts down south to the kingdom of Judah, where this guy named Ahaz has just taken the throne. Now, what does the name Ahaz sound like to you? Don't think too deeply. It's not that deep. It sounds like Ahab, right? That's how you can kind of remember. The two wickedest kings in the history of the two kingdoms of Israel were both named Ahaz something, right?

32:33 So it's Haz in the south and Hab in the north. I don't know how you remember that, but anybody named Ahab, don't name your kids Ahab anything. Not a good idea. Yeah, Ahaz reminds you of Ahab, the toad king of the north. And just like Ahab, Ahaz is awful. So let's take a look at him. We're going to read his story in chapter 16. Verse 1. In the 17th year of Pekah, the son of Remaliah, Ahaz, the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. Ahaz was 20 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem.

33:06 And he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done. But he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering. According to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree. Then Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem. And they besieged Ahaz, but could not conquer him. At that time, Rezin, the king of Syria, recovered Eloth, that's a city for Syria.

33:40 drove the men of Judah from Eloth, and the Edomites came to Eloth, where they dwelt to this day. Eloth is an important city, and it's just telling you that it fell to the Syrians. So Ahaz, in the wake of this fall of this important city, sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me. Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria.

34:12 And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed Rezin. When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar and its pattern exact in all its details. And Uriah the priest built the altar. In accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, So Uriah the priest made it before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus. When the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar, and then the king drew near to the altar and went up on it and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.

34:52 Look how many times in that verse it says his. Not the Lord's. His, his, his, his. He's making it up as he goes. Let's keep going. And the bronze altar that was before the Lord, he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the Lord, put it on the north side of the altar. So in other words, he's taken the altar of Yahweh of God and moved it out of the sinner. He's pushed it over to the side so that his pagan altar that he had Uriah build for him can sit in the sinner where the altar of Yahweh belongs. So verse 15, King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest saying, on the great altar, burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering and the king's burnt offering and his grain offering with the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their grain offering and their drink offering and throw on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice but the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.

35:40 So, okay, listen to what he's doing here. He's taking all the sacrifices from the law of God, from Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, right? He's taking all of those sacrifices that are commanded of the people of God and saying, I want you to do those sacrifices on my brand new pagan altar. Do it on the pagan altar. That other altar over there, the one we're supposed to do it on, the altar of Yahweh, I'm gonna use that to inquire by, which means to do sorcery and divination. He completely and utterly corrupts the worship of God.

36:13 But look at verse 16. Uriah the priest did all this as King Ahaz commanded. King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands, removed the basin from them. It goes on and on. But what he's doing there is just systematically dismantling the worship of God and all of its implements in Jerusalem. In many ways, I think just looking at this and noting that he sacrificed his son to Molech in the fire, it's easy to say that Ahaz might be the worst king of them all in the entire Bible.

36:52 Now, he doesn't get as much press as Ahab, but even Ahab, at least as far as we know, didn't sacrifice his own children to pagan gods. Ahaz did that. I want to look at a couple of details, though. First, given what we read here, I want you to think about a certain pattern that we've seen in this story. With wicked kings in the south, these are the Davidic kings, remember? These are the legit kings, not the ones that broke off, the legit throne of David kings.

37:23 When we get a wicked king in the south, what do we also normally get in those sections? some reference to the covenant with David. Almost always you get a wicked king in the south, you also get some reference to the covenant with David. Do you get that here? Well, look with me at verse 7.

37:57 Chapter 16, verse 7. Now verse 7 is in the middle of this story where Ahaz's kingdom is being threatened by these two kings. You've got actually the king of the northern kingdom, Israel, who's allied with the king of Syria, and they're attacking Judah. And so Ahaz gets scared after this one city, Elah, falls, and he sends messengers to this guy named Tiglath-Pileser. He's the king of Assyria and asks him for help. Now, at first glance, you think about that. You've got two kingdoms invading you, right?

38:28 You appeal to the king of this empire who's up in the north. You can come down and whack both of those people and save you. You send them some money. This is just what you do, right? If you're a king, you do diplomacy. You do statecraft, right? You make alliances. You get friends. You play people off one another in order to get your way. That's what Ahaz was doing at first glance, and it works. I mean, verse 9, look at verse 9, how well it works. The king of Assyria, listen, the king of Assyria marched up against Damascus. That's the capital of Syria.

39:00 And took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed the king, Rezan. It works. Couldn't have been better. But the author of Kings doesn't exactly see it that way. Look at verse 7. Look at what he says to Tiglath-Pileser. So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel who are attacking me. Now, this is a Davidic king, a descendant of David.

39:32 Does anything about what he says there to Tiglath-Pileser bother you? Well, there should be several things. I mean, look in verse 7. I am, O Tiglath-Pileser, your servant. But at other places in the Bible, God says, My servant David and his descendants shall be king over them.

40:04 What about the next phrase? O Tiglath-Pileser, I am your servant and I am your son. But in 2 Samuel chapter 7, God had said to David and his descendants, I will be to him a father. And he will be to me a son. Do you see what Ahaz is doing here? He's taking the promises of God. He's taking the covenant of God and wadding it up and throwing it away and saying it is of no value to me that I have been said to be God's servant and God's son.

40:40 Oh Tiglath, Pileser, those things belong to you. My faith is in you. You come rescue me and save me. See the point? It's not a coincidence. It's not a coincidence. In every other passage where you have a wicked southern king, you get some reference to the covenant of David. Here you also have a wicked southern king, and you get some reference to the covenant of David. But that reference is Ahad wadding it up and throwing it away and putting his faith in Tiglath-Pileser.

41:13 One preacher made fun of Ahaz like this. He said he sang a hymn that we often sing here, My Jesus, I love thee. But he rewrote it. He said that in Ahaz's mouth, it sounds more like this. I'm not going to sing it, but I'll do it in sort of verse. My Tiglath, I bribe thee. You know I'm your man. For thee, Yahweh's promises, I view as mere sand. O mighty oppressor, my savior art thou. If ever I needed you, dear Tiglath, tis now.

41:47 I mean, that's gross. But it is exactly what Ahaz was doing. He was taking his faith, which should have been in God and God's promises to him and his descendants. And instead, he was putting that faith in Tiglath-Pileser. He was going for a solution that was right in front of his eyes instead of trusting in God's promises. And that's not at all an unusual thing for people in the Bible to do, is it? I mean, you think about the story. Abraham did that with Hagar when he didn't think God was keeping his promise fast enough to give him his son.

42:19 Moses did it when he struck the rock instead of speaking to it. The people of Israel did it when they refused to go into the land out of fear of the giants that they thought were in the land. And in fact, it seems like this thing right here, removing our faith from the promises of God and going after what we think will solve the problem right now, is kind of the paradigmatic struggle that God's people are put to again and again in the Bible. Will you trust God or will you abandon him and take matters into your own hands.

42:51 Now be careful because that doesn't mean that what we're called to do as Christians is just sit on our hands and do nothing. What this means is that when push comes to shove, when you're faced with doing what's right and trusting God and suffering the consequences by doing what's right or doing what's wrong and sailing through scot-free even maybe, which do you choose? Well, the story of Ahaz here gives you the answer. You trust God, even when it's hard, even when it looks like.

43:25 You see a better solution. I want you to see one more thing here. We read most of the story. And I want you to see that Ahaz had help in abandoning the Lord his God. Do you see who helped him with that? I mean, obviously, Tiglath-Pileser did. Who else? The priest, Uriah, he's mentioned five times in this chapter and every single time he's mentioned, he is just slavishly doing whatever Ahaz tells him to do.

44:00 Do you know that you can aid and abet your brothers and sisters in pursuing death by sin simply by saying nothing? Simply by going along to get along? Simply by avoiding conflict, you can help your brothers and sisters in their pursuit of death by sin. Simply by saying nothing. Brothers and sisters, if you're a member of Third Avenue, one of the promises we make to one another in our covenant is that we will correct, rebuke, and admonish one another as the occasion requires.

44:32 It's one of the things we do. Because following God is hard. And we need brothers and sisters around us who will do that for us. And keep us on the narrow path to heaven. That's point number two. Here's three, the danger of rejecting God, the danger of ultimately rejecting God. So at the beginning of 17, the camera shifts from the south, and Ahaz and his wickedness shifts back to the north, and the fall of the northern kingdom is swift. You only get, you get the notice of the last king, Hosea, there in the first five verses, and then you get verse 6.

45:07 In the ninth year of Hosea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites to way to Assyria and place them in Hala and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. Now that is about as bare bones a statement of the destruction of an entire kingdom that you could, the destruction of most of a people, in fact, most of a nation that you could ever imagine. It's brief, there's not much to it, but we know actually from other historical sources that the Assyrians were brutal when they conquered a people. They were very much, if you remember your history classes that were very much unlike the Romans, who would conquer a people and then say, hey, you guys can keep your culture. You can keep your marriages. You can keep everything. We're not going to mess with any of that stuff as long as you'll just pay us tribute and honor the emperor.

45:55 That's how the Romans did it. Not the Assyrians. When the Assyrians conquered a people or a nation, they wanted to wipe that nation off the face of the earth. They wanted to do everything they could to eradicate them, to assimilate that people so completely into their own Assyrian culture that their very memory would be wiped off the planet and therefore there would not be anybody left who would think, hey, you know what, I'm actually an ancient, I come from this ancient stock of Israelites, so it's time for Israel to have its independence back. Nobody would ever do that with the Assyrians because Israelite culture didn't exist after a generation or two. So that's why in verse 24, you see that they moved new people into the conquered land. They took the native people out, scattered them around in their own cities, and then they moved their own people in. The idea was to eradicate the very notion of Israel. And that's what they did to them. Starting in verse 7 there, the author gives the longest comment yet on why this

46:56 happened to the northern kingdom. I just want to read a little bit of it. We're not going to do the whole thing, but a little bit of it. Verse 7. This is what the author of Kings said. All this occurred, he says, because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. And the people of Israel did secretly against their Lord, against the Lord their God, things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves pillars and asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, and they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger, and they served idols of which the Lord had said to them, you shall not do this. Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes in accordance with

47:58 all the law that I commanded your fathers and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets but they would not listen but were stubborn as their fathers had been who did not believe in the Lord their God you keep reading that statement of why all this happened and it's it's it's just heartbreaking it's just heartbreaking because through it all God's grace was extended to this people again and again and again. In fact, it didn't even have to be extended. It was always there. I mean, look at verse 7. This occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Does that language sound familiar to you? It's the opening lines of the Ten Commandments. I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of slavery in Egypt with a mighty hand.

48:55 And therefore, because I am that God, because I showed you that grace, you shall have no other gods before me. What the author of Kings here is saying is that that grace was always there. The hand of God was always extended in grace. And again and again and again, they slapped it away and slapped it away and slapped it away. And the result, verse 20, he cast them out of his sight. Cast them out of his sight. What a horrible image to be cast out of the sight of the fountain of all goodness in the entire universe.

49:35 My friend, don't take that for granted. Don't take that for granted. All the good that you know in this life is because you still stand in the sight of God. The fountain of all goodness in the universe can still see you now. like sunshine out there, that's because you stand in the sight of the fountain of all goodness in the universe. The money that you have, the food that you eat, the fact that your heart is still beating, the joy that you have in relationships, all of it is because you still stand in the sight of the fountain of all good in the universe. But the Bible says that there's coming a day if you don't put your faith in Jesus Christ when you will be cast out of his sight and all good for you will be snuffed out.

50:20 Don't take it for granted that you now stand in sight of the God of the universe. Because so did the northern kingdom for a time. But they disobeyed and they slapped away the hand of grace again and again and again. And they were cast out. I want you to see one more thing before we conclude. I want you to look at the last section of this chapter. It's the whole thing from 24 to 41.

50:51 I'm not going to read it. You can read it later if you haven't already. But basically what it is is an illustration of what Israel did wrong. It's very specific about what the northern kingdom did wrong. And it uses these new settlers in the land that Assyria sent in. It uses those new settlers to give an example of what Israel had done wrong. So what it's doing is telling the story of how Assyria moved these new people in and they, basically because they were getting attacked by lions, they decide that they're going to start worshiping the God of Israel along with all their other gods.

51:24 So they set the God of Israel up as the God of the land and they begin to worship him and the lion attacks stop and they worship their own other gods as well. That's the story that it tells. This section, though, especially 24 to 33, 24 to 33 has baffled readers of the Bible for millennia because it seems to be okay with that arrangement. In 24 to 33, there's really no judgment made against that.

51:54 The author just kind of seems fine with it. He's just like, yep, they got attacked by lions. They sent somebody to Tiglath-Pileser who sent them this priest, and the priest taught them the ways of God, and they began to worship the God of the land right next to their own gods. And he even uses the word feared the Lord, feared the Lord, feared the Lord, right? They worshiped him, worshiped him, worshiped him. Look at 33. You can kind of see what happens here, the change in this whole thing. 33. So, this is the sum up. So, they feared the Lord, but also served their own gods after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.

52:28 They just did it all. but look what happens in 34 to this day they do according to the former manner they do not fear the lord and they do not follow the statutes of the rules or the law or the commandment that the lord commanded the children of jacob whom he named israel you see the change in voice there he goes in 33 in that whole section from being just fine with this arrangement to 34 not being fine with it at all so what's going on there well i think i think what's going on is the author of kings we've seen it a hundred times he's got this biting wit about him and i think what's meant to happen is that you're supposed to, by 33, you're supposed to be thinking, what in the world? Like he's treating God just as this provincial little deity who gets worshipped at certain times, but then we can worship other gods beside him, and the author seems fine with that. And just when you're being lulled to sleep into thinking that you can worship other gods besides God, he slaps you in the face with verse 34 and says, no, enough of that. That is not fearing the Lord. You read 24 to 33 and put quotation marks around scare quotes, around fear every time you see it, and you'll get the

53:28 sense of it and in 34 he takes the irony away and says no that is that is not fear that's junk you can't put the god of the universe in a lineup of other local deities and think he's going to be okay with that you will worship the lord your god and him alone shall you serve look here's the thing some some of you today are trying to put god in a lineup you're trying to put the god of the universe in a line up because there are other things you want to pursue in this life. There are other things you want to serve. I don't know what that is for you, but it'd be a good idea this afternoon to think about it. Maybe it's career, maybe it's influence, maybe it's some grievance or another. So you come here to church on Sunday mornings, you sing, you listen to the sermon, and for the most part you worship God as this little local deity who basically owns Sunday morning.

54:27 But as soon as the amen is said, you turn to do your service to other deities. Maybe the God of grievance who owns Sunday afternoon. Or the God of money who owns 8 to 5 on Monday through Friday. Or the God of lust who owns the night. Or the God of selfishness who owns the weekend. But brothers and sisters, stop serving other gods. Stop pursuing other deities.

54:59 Stop trying to put the God of the universe in a lineup. Don't wind up like this northern kingdom of Israel cast out of God's sight. That's the warning that these chapters give. But listen to me. The day of destruction is not here yet. There's still time. As long as it's called today, there is still time for you to repent. For you to come to the God of the universe and take mercy and grace from his hands.

55:35 To say, God, I can't save myself. I've already messed that up. But I know your son Jesus can. I know that the true Davidic king, David's greater son, he can save me by standing in my place, living for me, dying for me, rising again for me. And I'm embracing him with everything I've got in faith and serving him and him alone for the rest of my life. And he'll save you. He'll save you because that's who he is. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you and we praise you that your hand of grace is extended.

56:16 That today is not the day of destruction. That today is the day of salvation. and that anybody who puts their faith in you who reaches out to take grace and mercy from your hands you will absolutely save and forgive and redeem for all eternity our Lord Jesus we pray that today there wouldn't be a single person who's who's listening to this sermon who would walk away from this place not knowing you oh God do the work of salvation today among us we pray that in Jesus name amen