SPEAKER_00: It's a privilege to be able to open the Word of God with you again this evening.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we took a brief break and spent a good hour in prayer together for local churches, for gospel advancement, and for our own church as well.
SPEAKER_00: And now we are back in 2 Kings.
SPEAKER_00: Our passage tonight brings us back into the kingdom of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: The northern kingdom of Israel is on the precipice of collapse.
SPEAKER_00: Samaria is about to fall.
SPEAKER_00: The ten tribes are about to be swallowed up by Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: But we haven't tipped over the edge just yet.
SPEAKER_00: We watch on from Judah and wait.
SPEAKER_00: And truly, what is unfolding over in the southern kingdom in Judah is deeply disturbing.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 16 gives us a portrait and not a flattering one.
SPEAKER_00: This is the portrait of King Ahaz, the new king of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: A king who embodies what the Apostle James warned us that friendship with the world is enmity with God.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll trace from our passage this portrait across four features of King Ahaz's reign.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see, first of all, a worldly reign.
SPEAKER_00: The first feature of his reign is that it is a worldly reign.
SPEAKER_00: We see that in verse one down to six.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we see that it is a faithless reign, a faithless reign, and we see that in verse seven to nine.
SPEAKER_00: Third, a pragmatic reign in verse ten down to sixteen.
SPEAKER_00: And fourth, we'll discover that it is ultimately a hollow reign in verse 17 down to the end, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the message of our passage.
SPEAKER_00: This is what 2 Kings 16 teaches us.
SPEAKER_00: Covenant unfaithfulness hollows out the house of God from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: It's really a sobering warning to all of us tonight.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's pray and then open up the word of God together.
SPEAKER_00: Would you join me in a word of prayer?
SPEAKER_00: A gracious Lord God, we gather again this evening to hear from your word.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you will speak to us as we go through 2 Kings 16 together, as we see the warnings therein, as we see how much greater the Lord Jesus Christ is, as we marvel at you and your work throughout history.
SPEAKER_00: And so be with each that are here, help them to listen and to hear your word as it goes out, and help me to be a mouthpiece, an ambassador of your good news this evening.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ's name and for none other than his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the first facet or feature of the king's portrait is this it is a worldly reign.
SPEAKER_00: Have a read of verse one down to verse six with me.
SPEAKER_00: In the seventeenth year of Pecah, the son of Ramaliah, Ahaz, the son of Jotham, King of Judah, began to reign.
SPEAKER_00: Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done.
SPEAKER_00: But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations, whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
SPEAKER_00: Then Rezin, King of Syria, and Pekka, the son of Romaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war, and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him.
SPEAKER_00: At that time Rezan, king of Syria, captured Eath for Syria, and drove the men of Judah from Elath.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Edomites went to Elath and dwell there to this day.
SPEAKER_00: And he reigned as the king of Judah, situated in Jerusalem for about sixteen years.
SPEAKER_00: And what is the assessment of King Ahaz?
SPEAKER_00: Well, tragically, yet unsurprisingly, it is much like the rest of them.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2: He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done.
SPEAKER_00: The northern kingdom of Israel was falling into all manner of perversions.
SPEAKER_00: But the southern kingdom of Judah was following in much the same path.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Israel, under King Jeroboam, back in 1 Kings 12, began a uh a pattern of every subsequent king of Israel, where there would be cultic religious ritual sites that were made for the worship of foreign gods in the northern kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Paganism and syncretism was allowed to flourish among the people whose God was Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: And now here was King Ahaz bringing the same practices into the southern kingdom, across the border, into the kingdom of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: And here we have a king, not motivated by the worship of God, but by the practices of the world.
SPEAKER_00: His is a kingdom marked by worldly thinking.
SPEAKER_00: He abandoned his God, who had called him to be set apart, and instead he went after the ways of the pagan nations, the ways of Molech, the ways of his so-called kinsmen in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And our passage recounts a particular sacrifice that he makes, and this sacrifice really demonstrates the depths of King Ahaz's pagan and worldly worship.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3 says, He made his son pass through the fire according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the English Standard Version puts it clearer.
SPEAKER_00: It says, He burned his son as an offering.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's going on there.
SPEAKER_00: The king of Judah sacrificed his son on the altar.
SPEAKER_00: And for what reason?
SPEAKER_00: As a simple offering.
SPEAKER_00: This king of Judah, a descendant from the Davidic line, carrying out the work of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Truly, this man was of the serpent's offspring.
SPEAKER_00: Sacrificing one's child was, of course, outlawed by the law of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 18 21 says, You shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God.
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Or Deuteronomy 18 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire.
SPEAKER_00: And so, two places in the law of God.
SPEAKER_00: This King Ahaz ought to have known much better.
SPEAKER_00: And so under King Ahaz we have the southern kingdom of Judah, and the truth is they don't look all that different from the other nations.
SPEAKER_00: They, like them, now sacrifice their children on the altar of pagan gods.
SPEAKER_00: How far the people who were called to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation in Exodus 19 have fallen from their calling, embracing it really, a priesthood not in service to the Lord God alone, but to the pagan gods and graven images.
SPEAKER_00: And the king himself, King Ahaz, was at the forefront of the false worship.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz himself, verse 4, goes to the high places and makes sacrifices and offerings there.
SPEAKER_00: And whereas before King Solomon in his covenant faithfulness spread the glory of God's kingdom across the earth, such that as 1 Kings 4 says, Judah and Israel dwelt safely, each man under his vine, under his fig tree.
SPEAKER_00: Now King Ahaz in covenant unfaithfulness spreads pagan worship across the kingdom, as verse 4 says, under every green tree.
SPEAKER_00: There's a sort of inversion there of King Solomon's reign, the worship of Yahweh under every fig tree, and the King Ahaz here under every green tree.
SPEAKER_00: Well, isn't it isn't long before conflict comes knocking on King Ahaz's door.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you love that?
SPEAKER_00: The these pagan kings, it's not long before God sends somebody their way.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 5, we see Rezin and Pekka, the kings of Syria and Israel, respectively, and they form a coalition and they march on Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And this was part of a greater war against the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_00: The Assyrian superpower was rising.
SPEAKER_00: And it was really the Lord God who was raising up the Assyrians to chasten Israel and Judah for their idolatry, dispossessing them from the land and sending them into a time of exile.
SPEAKER_00: And so Syria and Israel wanted Judah to join into their coalition, pulling their armies and resources together to resist the Assyrian threat.
SPEAKER_00: But Ahaz refused.
SPEAKER_00: And our passage here it doesn't tell us the whole story.
SPEAKER_00: And so turn for a moment in your Bibles over to Isaiah 7.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 7, you see, really runs in direct parallel with 2 Kings 16, recording the same events yet filling in a crucial gap.
SPEAKER_00: The king of Syria and Israel conspire together, they will besiege Jerusalem, they will remove Ahaz, and they will install, as Isaiah 7, chapter chapter 7, verse 6 says, the son of Tabil.
SPEAKER_00: They'll install somebody else in his place as a puppet king to consolidate Judah's army into their own.
SPEAKER_00: And so Rezin and Pekka, they lay siege to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz is terrified.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 7 2 says, His heart and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.
SPEAKER_00: And so here is a terrified king.
SPEAKER_00: And God, in his great kindness, sends the prophet Isaiah to meet King Ahaz with a message.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we see there in verse three.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and Shear Jashob, your son, at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool on the highway to the fullest field, and say to him, Take heed, and be quiet, do not fear or be faint-hearted, for these two stubs of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezen and Syria and the sons of Romalia.
SPEAKER_00: That's the message from Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, these are no raging infernos, these forces coming against you, nor unstoppable armies before the Lord, they are mere stubs already burning out.
SPEAKER_00: And God declares that their plan is over before it even begins.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, it says, It shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, resin will be defeated.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord says, verse 9, If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.
SPEAKER_00: And so here is really the mercy of God, an opportunity for Ahaz to repent, to turn, and to trust in the Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord God he even goes further in verse eleven Ask a sign yourself from the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: Ask it either in the depth or in the heights above a gracious offer of divine confirmation.
SPEAKER_00: And so King Ahaz has an opportunity now to repent of his pagan idolatry and trust in the Lord God for salvation from this conflict.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the Lord so graciously even says to Ahaz, verse 11, Ask a sign for yourself, I will do it.
SPEAKER_00: To which Ahaz replies, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord, twisting the law of Moses in order to avoid the God of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Stubborn Ahaz knew the law of God, and yet he has made up his mind, he will not heed the help of the Lord, and instead he will go to the mighty Assyrians for help.
SPEAKER_00: The same Assyrians that Isaiah prophesies before Ahaz verse 17 The Lord will bring the King of Assyria upon you and your people and your father's house.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Assyria will be the Lord's instrument to chasten rebellious Judah.
SPEAKER_00: And yet tragically and ironically, King Ahaz would rather entrust himself to the Assyrians than to the Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: He trusts in the wisdom of this world.
SPEAKER_00: He trusts in his his friends of the world rather than the Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz's reign is a worldly reign, one that trusts in horses and chariots rather than the prophetic word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Keep reading verse seven to nine and see with me a second feature of King Ahaz's reign.
SPEAKER_00: It is a faithless reign.
SPEAKER_00: A faithless reign.
SPEAKER_00: Have a read of verse seven down to nine.
SPEAKER_00: And so Ahaz sent messages to Tiglath Pilisar, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son.
SPEAKER_00: Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Syria, and from the hand of the king of Israel who rise up against me.
SPEAKER_00: And Ahaz took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasuries of the king's house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: So the king of Assyria heeded him, for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, carried his people captive to Kerr, and killed Rezin.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz has the king of Syria and Israel knocking on his door, asking for help in their war with Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: Either Ahaz can join them, or they will overthrow him and take his army for their own.
SPEAKER_00: And what's worse, the strategic port of Elath, previously restored to Judah, just two chapters ago, had come under the control of Rezin, the king of Syria.
SPEAKER_00: There was a sort of advancement in this attack.
SPEAKER_00: And now after the prophet Isaiah came to Ahaz, and having rejected the help of the Lord God, Ahaz now turns to the king of Assyria, seeking his help in time of great distress, seeking to pay the king of Assyria to fight off his attackers.
SPEAKER_00: And Ahaz, he collects the money.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, he plunders the house of God, just like King Joash in two Kings twelve had done before him.
SPEAKER_00: And the wealth of God's temple, along with the treasuries of the king's house, are given over to the pagan king of Assyria, and anticipating King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who will in time plunder the house of the Lord God again.
SPEAKER_00: And the plunder was enough.
SPEAKER_00: The Assyrian king agreed to the terms in this particular instance, and he made war at Damascus according to historical records for two years, seizing the city, killing Rezin, and taking the captives from Damascus to the city of Kerr, which is now an unknown location.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz had curbed the conflict for now.
SPEAKER_00: But at what cost?
SPEAKER_00: The outcome was the same.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord did indeed deliver Judah, but Ahaz neglected the Lord God and turned to a pagan king for deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: A king who would one day turn against Ahaz.
SPEAKER_00: And notice something here in these verses.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz's faithlessness really is typified in that one line that he says to the king of Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: This is that line of faithlessness.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, he says to the king of Assyria, I am your servant and your son.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's covenant language.
SPEAKER_00: That's covenantal language.
SPEAKER_00: But hang on a moment.
SPEAKER_00: With whom was King Ahaz and Judah in covenant with?
SPEAKER_00: With the Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: And yet rather than clinging to his great and mighty covenant God, Ahaz turns to friendship with the world.
SPEAKER_00: He submits himself under the king of Assyria, becoming his vassal, becoming a servant, a sort of son, an inferior that was required to pay homage to his superior.
SPEAKER_00: Ahaz, rather than trusting his covenant God, had covenanted himself to the pagan king of Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: Ahaz had failed to realize that the king of Assyria was God's instrument and not God's not Ahaz's solution.
SPEAKER_00: This was an act of utter faithlessness.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder, can can we be tempted to acts of faithlessness rather than turning to our covenant God who gives us the greatest sign in his holy word?
SPEAKER_00: Instead, can we be tempted to turn in the midst of distress to worldly, secular, and pagan sources of security and comfort and convenience?
SPEAKER_00: Scrolling anxiously on our phones for hours, but neglecting to pray for five minutes, struggling in marriage and turning to podcasts for help rather than the Lord, his word and his people.
SPEAKER_00: Conflict at work that we manage and massage and maneuver into our favor without humbly submitting to the Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps facing financial pressures that drive us to frantically plan and scheme before trusting in the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and clothes the lilies of the field.
SPEAKER_00: How quick we can be to forget our covenant God in times of testing, or worse, like Ahaz, having the promises of God yet turning to worldly wisdom instead.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas before, when God invited King Solomon to ask anything of him, Solomon in covenant faithfulness asked for wisdom, wisdom above all else, and he walked therefore in the fear of the Lord, says 1 Kings 3.
SPEAKER_00: But now, when God invites King Ah, Ahaz to ask any sign from him to confirm his judgment, King Ahaz in covenant unfaithfulness refuses, and instead asks the King of Assyria for aid, walking in the fear of man.
SPEAKER_00: There is again an inversion of King Solomon's reign here the one who fears God and the one who fears man.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we've seen how King Ahaz's reign was a worldly reign.
SPEAKER_00: In response to conflict, it it proved to be a faithless reign, but now the conflict is over, and we will see another feature of his tenure.
SPEAKER_00: Keep reading verse ten to sixteen and see third the third feature, a pragmatic reign.
SPEAKER_00: Have a read of verse ten down to sixteen.
SPEAKER_00: Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tigalath Pilasa, king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: And King Ahaz sent to Eurijah the priest the design of the altar and its pattern according to all its workmanship.
SPEAKER_00: Then Eurija the priest built an altar according to all that King Ahaz Ahaz had sent from Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: So Eurijah the priest made it before King Ahaz came back from Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: And when the king came back from Damascus, the king saw the altar, and the king approached the altar and made offerings on it.
SPEAKER_00: So he burnt his burnt offerings and his grain offerings, and he poured out his drink offerings and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.
SPEAKER_00: He also brought the bronze altar which was before the Lord, and from the front of the temple, from between the new altar and the house of the Lord, and put it on the north side of the new altar.
SPEAKER_00: Then King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, On the great new altar burn the morning burnt offerings, the evening grain offerings, the king's burnt offerings, and his grain offerings, with the burnt offerings of all the people of the land, their grain offering, their drink offerings, sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offerings and all the blood of the sacrifice, and the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.
SPEAKER_00: Thus Eurijah the priest according to all did all according to all that King Ahaz commanded.
SPEAKER_00: Now King Ahaz travels to Damascus to beat to visit and meet his new suzerain, his new master, the king of Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: This is a visit of tribute, giving thanks for the victory over Israel and Syria.
SPEAKER_00: And while he's in Damascus, something captures his eye.
SPEAKER_00: A pagan altar.
SPEAKER_00: A Syrian, not Assyrian, but Syrian altar left in the city of Damascus, probably assigned to the Syrian god Hadad.
SPEAKER_00: According to 2 Chronicles 28 23, King Ahaz said, Because the gods of the of Syria help them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me.
SPEAKER_00: Even though ironically it is the Syrian king who had just been defeated and executed by the Assyrian king.
SPEAKER_00: And Ahaz, he carefully takes the design, he takes the measurements of the pagan altar, he sends them to Eurijah the priest to replicate, and the work is completed before Ahaz even returns to Jerusalem, and there the king marvelled at the altar and made offerings upon it burnt offerings, grain offerings, drink offerings, peace offerings, and this new altar was dedicated with a sacrifice by the king himself.
SPEAKER_00: Many of these sacrifices were made by Solomon at the dedication of the temple originally.
SPEAKER_00: And so now as Ahaz carries this out, he sees this new altar to Hed to Hadad as a crucial element to his kingdom reign.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, Ahaz instructed the priest to regularly carry out the same offerings of all the people of Jerusalem to the same Syrian God.
SPEAKER_00: And notice where this altar was placed.
SPEAKER_00: That great bronze altar, divinely instructed by the Lord God to feature at the front of the temple, and that altar to the true and living God of Israel is pushed to the north side of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Still present, but sidelined by this new altar to the new Syrian God in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, notice that verse 10, Ahaz sent to the priest the design of the altar and its pattern, according to all its workmanship.
SPEAKER_00: There is actually here an echo and an ironic twisting of Exodus 25, as the Lord instructs Moses, let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them, according to all that I show you, that is the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make me that temple.
SPEAKER_00: And so rather than fashioning the tabernacle in the pattern of the heavenly courts, as God instructed to Moses, Ahaz is fashioning the tabernacle in the pattern of pagan and idolatrous worship.
SPEAKER_00: And really, the king's decision here it reeks of pragmatism.
SPEAKER_00: Pragmatism, after all, was the choice that he had already made.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than submitting to the Lord's will, he took matters into his own hands, accomplishing a solution, but disobeying God in the process.
SPEAKER_00: But to Ahaz, the ends justified the means.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's no surprise that is exactly how he thinks as he sets up this new altar.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this God, this God was victorious for that nation, so surely I'd do well to make a copy of their altar and make sacrifices all the same.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, but he sets this new altar probably to the Syrian god Hadad.
SPEAKER_00: He sets it in a primary position, yet still alongside the altar to the Lord God, as if to say, I've got my bases covered.
SPEAKER_00: Hadad is the new god in town, but I'll keep Yahweh around just in case, just in case, for my other matters.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the continued desecration of God's temple.
SPEAKER_00: The bronze altar to Yahweh becomes a place of personal divination for King Ahaz.
SPEAKER_00: Verse fifteen, it says, And the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by, says Ahaz.
SPEAKER_00: This is that evil and prohibited practice called divination.
SPEAKER_00: A practice dating back in the ancient Near East to even 2000 BC, whereby a priest would carefully examine the entrails of a sacrificed animal in order that they may discern omens, discovering what will unfold in the future.
SPEAKER_00: It's a sort of fortune telling.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, ironically, when Ahaz was confronted by the only true and living God who not only knows the future, but personally authors it, he rejects him.
SPEAKER_00: How foolish to reject the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: After all, it is the word of God that Ahaz has violated in two clear ways already.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 18 10 it said, There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens.
SPEAKER_00: Or verse fourteen, For these nations which you will dispossess, listened to soothsayers and diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.
SPEAKER_00: And so once again, we have King Ahaz looking more like the nations, and less like the God who delivered his people from the nations.
SPEAKER_00: And so here is Ahaz, the King of Judah, echoing the actions of the wicked King Jeroboam, the King of Israel, instituting pagan worship among the people of God, constructing an unauthorized altar at a place of his own choice, personally dedicating the altar with a sacrifice to the pagan God, corrupting the priesthood by appointing them to serve the royal agenda rather than what the Lord God had instructed instructed, and doing all of this in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem, the city of David, the city of God's temple, bringing into the very heart of the southern kingdom of Judah what had destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder do you find yourself falling into pragmatic thinking?
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, in some matters, we do just need to make the straightforward decision that is time-tested and works.
SPEAKER_00: You can look at the Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: But what about matters that concern what the Word of God says?
SPEAKER_00: When we stay silent about the gospel with someone that we know, because logically we may lose that relationship.
SPEAKER_00: When we compromise on sexual ethics, on financial generosity, on resting on the Lord's day, because we think that they aren't workable in my life circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: When we choose a comfortable church according to our own preferences rather than where God is calling me to serve.
SPEAKER_00: When we complain about our government rather than praying for their repentance and petitioning them to uphold righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And as long as I get the result in the end, then it was worth it all along.
SPEAKER_00: But dear friend, that is the lie of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: The devil that erodes our trust in the sovereign Lord God who wills all things as he pleases.
SPEAKER_00: And so we ought to trust in him to sustain that friendship, should he will.
SPEAKER_00: To trust in him to supply where there is lack in your circumstances to uphold his word.
SPEAKER_00: Trusting in him to use and grow you in a church you're maybe not as comfortable in.
SPEAKER_00: To trust in him to change the hearts of our nation's leaders for the spread of righteousness and the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And so, simply put, would you trust in him, the sovereign Lord God, instead of our pragmatic thinking and the wisdom of this world?
SPEAKER_00: And whereas before King Solomon in covenant faithfulness, he built the bronze altar and the temple according to the divine pattern revealed to his father David, trusting what God said over what he could divide himself, and consecrating the priesthood to serve the Lord God alone, now King Ahaz, in covenant unfaithfulness, builds a pagan altar according to the pattern that he saw in Damascus, reasoning that the God of Syria must be worth it for his own ends to worship, and conscripting the priesthood to serve his own royal agenda, another inversion of King Solomon's reign.
SPEAKER_00: Keep reading verse seventeen down to twenty.
SPEAKER_00: And King Ahaz cut off the panels of the carts, and removed the latter from them, and he took down the sea from the bronze oxen that were under it, and put it on a pavement of stones.
SPEAKER_00: Also he removed the Sabbath pavilion which they built in the temple, and he removed the king's outer entrance from the house of the Lord, on account of the king of Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19 Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz, which he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah?
SPEAKER_00: So Ahaz rested with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, then Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz hollows out the temple of God, tearing off different components of the furniture, removing architectural features, desecrating the holy temple of the one true and living God.
SPEAKER_00: And this is his motivation.
SPEAKER_00: He did this on account of the King of Assyria, so as to not offend his new suzerain, his new master, perhaps to accommodate the worship of foreign gods, or perhaps even paying tribute with the bronze of the oxen to the king of Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: But whatever the case, the point is clear.
SPEAKER_00: Here is a king who exemplifies friendship with the world and enmity with God, even going so far as to hollow out the house of God.
SPEAKER_00: Why does our passage go into such detail of this hollowing out of the house of God?
SPEAKER_00: It does describe it, the different items that he takes off.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's another point being made here beyond mere description.
SPEAKER_00: Because great attention and time is given to the desecration of the temple of God by King Ahaz, as if to say, King Ahaz hollows out the temple of God as he himself is hollowed out, and as he has already hollowed out the people of Judah with pagan and idolatrous worship.
SPEAKER_00: Here is the southern kingdom of Judah, situated in Jerusalem, stewarded by a king, succeeding in battle, yet totally and comprehensively hollowed out a husk of its former glory.
SPEAKER_00: And why?
SPEAKER_00: Because of their covenant unfaithfulness to the Lord their God.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas before King Solomon in covenant faithfulness set the great molten sea upon twelve bronze oxen at the heart of the temple, he built up to the glory of the Lord God, and leading his kingdom into the worship of the true and living God, now King Ahaz, in covenant unfaithfulness, tears that sea from those oxen and strips down the temple of all of its furnishings, leading his kingdom into submission to Assyria and worship of their foreign gods, and leaving the house of God a hollow shell, the last inversion of King Solomon's reign by King Ahaz.
SPEAKER_00: A hollow reign.
SPEAKER_00: We've traced in our passage the decline of the southern kingdom of Judah under the reign of King Ahaz, a reign that is marked by worldliness, by faithlessness, by pragmatism, and by hollowness.
SPEAKER_00: Truly, covenant unfaithfulness hollows out the house of God from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz he stands as an inversion of King Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: King Solomon stands over this entire passage as the positive type that the faithful King of Ahaz inverts at every chance and every opportunity of his reign.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we know how King Solomon's story ends, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: That the king who rivals in faithfulness to his father David, both he and his father counted the best of the kings of God's people, and yet 1 Kings 11 tells us that the great King Solomon himself turns after foreign gods, he takes pagan wives, and he builds high places on the hills of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And so the question becomes this Is there a king who finally faithfully and fully succeeded where both Ahaz and Solomon, the great King Solomon, failed?
SPEAKER_00: Is there a king who will not hollow out the house of God, but will fill it and adorn it gloriously?
SPEAKER_00: And relief is found in a resounding yes, it is King Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You see, where Ahaz's reign was worldly, Jesus is the perfectly holy king.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz he borrows from the wisdom of this world, trusting in the world's way, and is concerned most with his worldly influence.
SPEAKER_00: But King Jesus walks the way of wisdom from God, trusting in his way.
SPEAKER_00: He seeks first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Where King Ahaz's reign was faithless.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is perfectly faithful, the perfectly faithful son and servant of God.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz he calls the King of Assyria my Lord and my father, and faithlessly fashions an idol after the Syrian God.
SPEAKER_00: He abandons confidence in the covenant promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: But King Jesus called God my Father, and faithfully glorifies him in service to him alone, even to the point of death, death on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: He clings confidently to the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: Where Ahaz's reign was pragmatic, Jesus refused every pragmatic shortcut.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz, he reshapes worship in order to preserve his throne and gain approval from the nations.
SPEAKER_00: He treated obedience to God as changeable and negotiable when pressure mounts.
SPEAKER_00: But King Jesus resists every compromise and shortcut from the devil.
SPEAKER_00: He treats obedience to God as essential and non-negotiable when the greatest pressure mounts, even in the face of the wilderness, even in temptation, suffering, rejection, and the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Where Ahaz's reign was hollow, Jesus' reign is filling.
SPEAKER_00: King Ahaz strips the house of God and leaves it bare, empty of its glory, empty of its splendor, empty of any true worship.
SPEAKER_00: He turns the sanctuary into an empty shell, and the kingdom into a husk.
SPEAKER_00: But King Jesus fills the house of God with his own glory and presence.
SPEAKER_00: He is the true temple, the true priest, and the true sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Under him God's people are being built up into a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and in him God's people are brought into the fullness of fellowship with.
SPEAKER_00: With God and the everlasting worship of Him.
SPEAKER_00: The great hope of our passage is that we belong to a King whose faithfulness never ends.
SPEAKER_00: He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, faithful and just to complete the good work that He has already begun and will see through to the very end, where we will behold our great and glorious King like a man face to face, where we will marvel at the kindness of his covenant love and his fidelity towards us, where we will glorify him and enjoy him in perfect fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Have you been unfaithful to God?
SPEAKER_00: Then gaze upon the one who is ever faithful, ever faithful to the Father and ever faithful to his people.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Almighty Heavenly Father, we see the kingdoms of this world fail, and yet Christ is so much greater.
SPEAKER_00: Oh let us gaze at the Lord Jesus Christ and see the faithfulness of his reign, his fidelity to you, fulfilling all righteousness, and obeying you despite the brutal attacks of the devil, despite the injustice of the cross, and yet he is ever faithful, faithful to you and faithful to us.
SPEAKER_00: Oh he will not hollow out the house of God, but he fills it and he is building it up, and we have the joy of being a part of this mission and effort.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for this privilege.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the glory of our King, and O Lord, may He come again soon and consummate his kingdom, where we will behold our faithful King face to face.
SPEAKER_00: To the glory of his name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.