I & II Kings

[00:00:00] The recordings you're about to listen to are quite old. There may be some background noises and other distractions throughout the recording. We have done our best to remove these to the two Books of King. [00:00:13] And I'd like to say at the very beginning that I feel wholly unable really to take these particular two books. So we really are going to trust the Lord as we had to for the others. But particularly so in these cases, they present very complex problem in a variety of ways. [00:00:39] Any of you who know anything about the Bible will know how very difficult biblical chronology is, that is the dates of the Bible, but particularly the Book of Kings. There is no book that is more difficult than the Book of Kings as far as chronology goes. And also, as you probably have already found out when you come to the division of Israel into Israel and Judah, it is no easy matter to sort out the two and to really find the continuous line on either side. However, we shall really trust the Lord and seek to find out what really the Lord means by these particular two books. We have already, I think, said that in when we took the first and second book of Samuel, we, if I remember rightly, said that one of two Kings is part of one or two Samuels, one or two Samuel, one or two Kings are all part of one work. They are four sections of a history, a history, a complete history from beginning to end of the kingdom, its inception, its establishment, its disintegration, and its end. [00:02:07] From beginning to end. It is recorded in these four books. Originally, 1 and 2 Samuel were one book, and 1 and 2 Kings were another book. The oldest version, the oldest translation of the Bible, the Septuagint, the old Greek version, translated these four books as one work, calling them the four Books of the King. [00:02:35] So we've got to remember that as we come to 1 and 2 kings, that it is the continuation of what we have already studied in one and two Samuels that will make it at least a little easier. We, I think, have explained quite a few times that these studies at present on Fridays are not so much devotional as informative. And so this evening we come really to some rather a lot of technical data already, I think, understood that 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 kings focus everything upon kingship. [00:03:18] At the beginning of the first book of Samuel, we find the man who is going to bring in the kingdom Samuel. At the end of the second Book of Samuel, we find the kingdom established. [00:03:37] At the beginning of the first book of Kings, we have the zenith reached of Israel's glory and prosperity. The high water mark the greatest point of Israel's glory and wealth and honor has been reached at the beginning of the first book of Kings, the end of the second book of Kings, we have nothing but decline and disintegration and desolation. The whole nation has been carried into captivity. [00:04:15] So when we view this history, we find that one or two Samuel are a long contested line up. [00:04:25] And we find the blood is thrown away step by step. In two books, one we find God taking hold of a man like Samuel and a man like David and bringing in a new era into the Then we find in Kings that Solomon, even though the climax of the whole thing, finds those ways. [00:05:08] Slowly but surely everything starts into which, although the most obsessive revivals, and they are what we call an 80 day revival, although they got extensive revival in two or three ways, they never checked the downward system. So that in the end, first Israel, the northern kingdom, went into captivity in Assyria, completely vanished, completely off the record of history. And then later, 135 years later, Judah also goes into captivity. Jerusalem and the house of God and the promised land are raised to the ground and everything has come. [00:05:57] Such is the history of these four books. It's a bird's eye view of a very large number of years. [00:06:07] It is also a bird's eye view of a whole era in God's economy, what we call the kingdom of God and everything to do with it, both in its inception and in its establishment and then in the decline and disintegration. And it every part has something to teach us and something to reveal to us about this whole question of kingship and the kingdom. [00:06:42] The kind of man that God makes kings, the kind of man who God qualifies and constitutes, not only to come to the throne, but to stay on the throne. And the kind of kingdom which God must have. The moral character of his kingdom, the essential moral character of his people. This really is all that we find in these four books. [00:07:13] I think you will agree with me that we see slowly but surely through history. And I think we shall have to take possibly a whole evening when we've come to the end of these historical books, to draw a diagram and explain it all. I know it gives us a background. [00:07:32] We read it. We how slowly but surely each movement of God is a kind of move forward to a certain point. Often you find to be succeeded by an end, only to be succeeded by an even greater forward movement. And something else is achieved in one purpose again, only to be succeeded and then an even greater move forward to a higher peak. And Something else escape. This is the unfolding revelation of God. First of all, you have a man like Noah. A certain point is reached, a rather general point, in some ways a rather impersonal point. Nevertheless, if a very definite point is reached in God's revelation, then you have a man like Abraham, and something very much more definite and particular comes into view. Then you have a man like Moses and a people at the Passover at the end, and something even more particular comes into view. Then later on, you have the revelation of God's dwelling place and something else comes into view. All these are succeeded, as you know, by faith, by an heir, by a decline, only to be suddenly by the Spirit of God carried forward again to an even greater principle. After that, we find people go right over into the land and chess the land, only to be followed by a period of decline. Then again we suddenly find God unfolds and folds others concerning the king and David. [00:09:13] And David is followed by God. [00:09:16] And the way death or climate of biblical revelation in the Old Testament has been. [00:09:26] Solomon is the full day splendor of the psalm. Everything has reached its fullest point. Most glory, most wealth, most possible point. In biblical history, there was never a day like the day of Solomon. It was always referred back to as Solomon in all his glory, even the Lord of all we call glory and wealth after Solomon is the story, as you know, of decline. [00:10:08] But when we come to the book of Chronicles, the two books of Chronicles, we shall find that suddenly history ends with the last book of Kings. Now, why should it end there? Because after all, scriptural biblical history goes right the way on from there to Nehemiah, to Malachi and on to John the Baptist. [00:10:31] Why does the writer of this history, tracing it all through, stop with the captivity and the baptism? And why does the writing of the two books of Chronicles go right back to Adam and then trace the whole history past parallel with this history again? [00:10:50] Because when we come to Solomon, we have reached the very heart of biblical revelation. [00:10:59] You have absolutely reached the very heart of the matter, the root of the matter. There is nothing more to be revealed as far as the Old Testament is concerned. It is only then a question of restoring what is been revealed and holding to what has been revealed. Now, what is it that Solomon really symbolizes? Solomon you know as well as I do, brings in and he who the whole meaning of his life is the temple of. [00:11:30] When you have got to that point, you have reached the absolute leap of all the redemption of God, all the covenant of God, all the law of God, everything to do with God's design and so on is all summed up in an eternal habitation. [00:11:55] Now, this is what the temple is as over against the tabernacle. The tabernacle represents in some ways the church. Here on the temple represents the church forever in glory. That is why David speaks of Christ here on earth, ascending to the throne of God, there forever to sit. Solomon speaks of Christ as seated at the right hand of God, building the house of God. [00:12:25] So you bring these things together and you come to the very heart of the revelation, the Old Testament. That is why as far as the writer of the two books of Kings goes, it is the end. He doesn't bother to go any further. That is the end, he says. But Chronicles is an altogether different book. It certainly tells the same history. But he goes right back to the beginning, to trace from the beginning, right the way through, and not just to the point where the writer of the two books of Kings finishes, but right on to Malachi. He traces one thing. And you know what the one thing is? It is the house of God. His main object is the house of God and how everything is literally bound up with the house of God. He goes right back to Adam. [00:13:17] He goes right back to Adam. Just to say to us and emphasize to us that from the very beginning this is the prophet. This is deep one. [00:13:27] That is why many scholars believe in Israel and Ishmael. [00:13:35] However, we leave that the point is that here we have two histories that, as it were, overlap. We've got these four books here, and then we have the Chronicles, which run parallel to it and on beyond either side. They run beyond, but they instructive to us to understand we are living in an. In an era which we, as we shall find out a little later and further studies ahead of us is they truly illustrated in the Old Testament in the same way that God is seeking now to build the house of God in an eternal way. So we find here all that set forth for us in Solomon and the house of God and later on in all the town. [00:14:36] The viewpoint of these four books is different from the viewpoint or standpoint of Chronicles. [00:14:46] The standpoint of these coracles is the kingdom and kingship, the throne and the kingdom and God's promises concerning the throne and the kingdom. [00:15:03] Chronicles is to do with an altogether different matter. It is to do with the worship of God and the house of God. Now, this is very instructive if we will only read these books in the light of that simple statement. [00:15:19] Because these four books deal with us, our needs, what really we can be brought to by the grace of God, the increase that we can be brought into, the reward that can be given, the position that can be ours, our inheritance. [00:15:42] Whereas Chronicles deal with the Lord's side, his habitation, his desire, what he wants, his inheritance in us. So we could write. We want to take New Testament phrases. We could write over these four books, our inheritance in Christ, and we could write over Chronicles, his inheritance in the same. [00:16:08] That is the key to these different histories written of the same event. [00:16:17] So let's get that clear. These four books do not deal so much with the worship of God or the service of God as such, or the house of God as such. They deal with the throne of God and the kingdom of God and all God's promise and purpose through circumstance. [00:16:38] Now, what do we know about the authorship of these two books? [00:16:48] We know as little about the authorship of these two books as we know about the two books of Samuel. [00:16:58] It's obviously a compilation of many quite ancient doctrines. If you'd like to look at the facts for that, let's look at them. 1 Kings 11 and verse 41. [00:17:20] Now, the rest of the Acts of Solomon and all that he did and his wisdom, are they not written in the books of the Acts of Solomon? Now this book of the Acts of Solomon is lost. [00:17:32] We do not know. [00:17:34] We have not. We are not in possession of it. Then in chapter 14 and verse 19, we read this and the rest of the Acts of Jeroboam. How he warned and how he reigned. Behold, they are written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel. That is not the book of Chronicles. We have the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel. [00:17:58] Then in chapter 29. I'm sorry, verse 29. Now, the rest of the Acts of Rehoboam and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? [00:18:12] That is something else we're not in possession of. Those are royal annals. Now, if we turn over to Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, chapter 9, verse 29. [00:18:33] Now, the rest of the axles, Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the history of Nathan the Prophet? And in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite? And the visions of Edo or Ido the Seer, concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat? [00:18:53] Now let's look at chapter 12 and verse 15. [00:18:59] Now, the Acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the histories of Shemaiah the prophet and of Ido the Seer, after the manner of genealogists. [00:19:11] And then if we look at 1322 and the rest of the acts of Abijah and his ways and his sayings are written in the commentary of the prophet idol. [00:19:27] So we could go on. [00:19:30] It is quite clear that these histories are a compilation from very ancient authorities. [00:19:41] The fact that 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 kings, not Chronicles, but 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and two kings are included in the Hebrew canon in what is called the former prophets, points to the fact that prophets wrote them. That is, they are legally prophetical writings in the sense that they were probably records kept by prophets at different times contemporary with the events they described, and were then a later date, probably by other prophets compiled into one book. This would be the explanation for slightly varying styles and so on in these books. And yet at the same time, the very real evidence of one author. There's such a unity of treatment from beginning to end of these books, the first and second book of Kings, that it's obvious that one man has come compiled it or edited it. [00:20:50] We have absolutely, really, in some ways, no outward clue as to who wrote it. There are some very interesting theories. [00:21:00] It is believed one of the modern theories is that Isaiah edited quite a part of it that we have no authority for, except that Isaiah was de part in the reign of Hezekiah, when so much in the way of literature was done in the reign of Hezekiah saw tremendous revival, renaissance in Hebrew literature. All kinds of psalms were collected together. We must wait until we come to the Book of Psalms to find Hezekiah's bearing on the Book of Psalms. But in his reign, all kinds of things were collected together or compiled or taken out of dusty pigeonholes and as it were, put into use in the same way that at a period later than Hezekiah, in the period of King Josiah, there was another great period of reform. And the prophet in the period of Josiah was Jeremiah. Now, Jewish tradition tells us, and we must not always respect Jewish tradition, Jewish tradition tells us that Jeremiah was the editor and compiler of the two Books of Kings. [00:22:10] Have we any evidence that Jeremiah may indeed be the editor of these two books? There are two very interesting things, and I'm going to leave it with you. The first is, well, there are three actually very interesting things. The first is this, that there are certain words that occur in the two Books of Kings that occur nowhere else in the Bible except in the prophecies of Jeremiah. [00:22:42] Secondly, why is Jeremiah never mentioned in the two Books of Kings when he played a vital part in the reign of the last four kings recorded now there are some men constituted so by God who can speak of themselves as Paul did, and it not be the least bit distasteful. There are other men of God so constituted of God that they cannot mention themselves. And it is utterly and wholly in keeping with the character and personality of Jeremiah. If you know anything about him from his prophecies or his lamentations, to be a man who would not dream of bringing himself into view in that way. It is interesting that when he played such a big role in the reign of the last four Kings, he's not even mentioned. It seems tremendously so great that critical scholars of the world have suggested that Jeremiah is a forgery altogether. Jeremiah never existed, so they said, a hundred years ago, because if he did, why is he not mentioned in the books of Kings? But it may well be that Jeremiah edited the books of Kings and wrote his own contribution, which would have been the last four reigns in which he lived and was the prophet, and therefore kept himself right out of view in those reigns. And there's a very interesting thing. The third thing is this, that these two books could not have been compiled in their present form before the year 586, because they actually record the deportation into captivity in Babylon, which happened in the year 586. And secondly, they must have been written before the return, because there is no, not so much as a suggestion that there was any thought of ever returning to the land. The return to the land took place, the first part of it took place in 536. [00:24:55] So again, we know from Jeremiah's own prophecies that he was carried into captivity with those that were deported. And it may well have been that Jeremiah wrote this or compiled it together by his faithful scribe Baruch. He got him under his direction to scribe the whole thing, bring it together and scribe it. And so we've got the two books of Kings written actually or compiled in the captivity in Babylon. I think that gives us at least some idea of really the difficulties of authorship. There is no clear indication as to who is an author, except that it is edited. [00:25:44] It is a compilation. [00:25:46] There may be quite a lot of interesting speculation concerning Jeremiah. [00:25:54] It covers a period of 426, 40 years of the United Kingdom, and then something like 300 years of the divided kingdom, and then about 130 years for the kingdom of Judah. That is, this book first of all speaks to us of the Israel's reaching its great high water mark in the reign of Solomon, where its frontiers were never so Great and so extended, its empire so firm and secure, then it carries us right through the terrible division into two nations, utterly antagonistic and at war with each other. And then in 1720, upon approximately when Israel ended forever carried into captivity later, 135 years later, to be followed by Judah into Babylon. [00:27:01] What is the key to the book? The key is, as we have already said, the same as to the two books of Daniel. That is kingship. That is the key simply to the book. It is one work that therefore the key is the same. But we want to investigate this just a little more deeply. [00:27:22] One and two Kings is to one and two Samuels what Judges is to Joshua. Now, can you remember, I expect you can't what Judges was to Joshua. [00:27:35] Can you throw your memory back to the studies we took from Joshua and Judges? Can you remember what Judges did to Joshua? Well, I'll repeat something I believe we said then. Simply we said this. Joshua was the going over of the people of God into the land. In spite of weakness, in spite of failure, in spite of breakdown, they slaved to the Lord. And as they cleaved to the Lord, you remember what happened. The land was possessed and inherited. [00:28:08] And the book of Joshua is a book of conflict and warfare, but of establishment, of inheritance, of inheritance, of overcome. But what is judging? [00:28:20] There are two or three significant little phrases you remember, which we picked out in the book of Joshua, which just simply said that they left such and such in the land they were not able to drive out. [00:28:33] These inhabitants had chariots of iron and were too strong to be dealt with. So they left them. That city was left in its entirety. Forgive your knights by deceitfulness made an alliance with them, and so they left them. Do you remember those things? Now what was Judges? [00:28:51] Judges began on that very note. Of all those particular tribes and peoples that were left alive, they became the source of Israel's misery. So that those that were left small in number grew until they actually overcame the children of God and once again defeated them on their own ground. [00:29:18] Now, what Judges is to Joshua, 1 and 2 Samuel is to 1 and 2 Samuels, 1 and 2 Kings is to 1 and 2 SamuelS. 1 and 2 Samuel speaks to us of the procession of the kingdom. [00:29:36] It speaks to us of the bitter odds that were against God's man ever coming to God's throne. But it speaks to us in spite of his failure, faithfully portrayed, and his breakdown and his weakness, because he clave, he came to the throne of God and the kingdom was established. [00:30:01] One and two Kings takes every Point of weakness and failure only touched upon in one or two Samuels and shows how centuries later they developed and grew into the very things that smashed the people of God. [00:30:21] Now we shall see that in a moment. [00:30:25] This is a warning we have this evening. The study, I'm afraid, is technical. We can't make any apology for it. It is. [00:30:33] But let us learn a lesson or two from this. [00:30:37] The small thing that we leave unconquered, undealt with, unsettled, whatever they are in our lives will be the thing that left will silently, hiddenly grow and grow and grow until before we know where we are, they will be our undoing. [00:31:09] Now, believe me, this can happen in our relationships in every way. It can be a small sin, a besetting sin which is not brought to the cross. But that thing can just quietly and silently provide ground for the devil and can become stronger and greater and greater till it is the complete undo of that child of God. [00:31:35] It can be just simply that you are not going the whole way with the Lord. [00:31:42] We don't call that sin. [00:31:45] We just simply say that we're not going to go the whole way with the Lord. We don't put it even like that. We don't admit that kind of thing, but inwardly we know we're not going to go the whole way with the Lord. Others can go quite a way, but we are not going to go the whole way. We are not going to have all our money the Lord's. We're not going to acknowledge that our body is the Lord's. We're not going to acknowledge that our time is the Lord's. We're going to be Christians, the children of God go on. We think with the Lord, but we're not going to go so far that where we stop, the point at which we stop will be the point of failure. [00:32:28] It might be something we have not seen. [00:32:32] We have not seen it because we don't want to see it. [00:32:35] I heard a very interesting little illustration the other day which is a true one of a Chinese brother who came to this country quite some years ago and was given a microscope. And he was thrilled. I don't know. I'm told it's a true story. I just give it as I read it. [00:32:55] He was thrilled with the microscope and took it back to China. [00:32:59] And everything he could he put under the microscope. So to him one of the greatest gifts that could ever give him. Until one day he put a grain of rice on there and to his and he smashed the night fish there. [00:33:22] And he said, this is like many. [00:33:31] They don't. [00:33:36] They had the water gone. [00:34:08] Whole question of they show to us how small things left unattended. [00:34:21] Solomon did not so much as not do. [00:34:27] He did everything the Lord ever required. That's why he's in the world. [00:34:33] He did everything the Lord ever required him. But it was what Solomon did extra that was his unto. He never left one thing undone. That's why he could see that he worked in the ways of the Lord. He did everything, but it was what he did extra. All the things extra that he had. All the other things that he brought in with the worship of the Lord in his later life, that was his undoing. [00:34:58] And so we have to learn these simple things. [00:35:02] One thing we have to learn in Kings, where principles are vividly illustrated, principles only touched upon in one or two Samuel are vividly illustrated in Kings. One of the things we have to learn is that idolatry was the thing that brought the judgment of God three times in these two books. First of all, it rent the kingdom in two. Because of Solomon's idolatry and because he led the people in idolatry. The kingdom the Lord said was rent from him into two. That was the key to the division. The disintegration of the unity of the children of God was idolatry. And secondly, Israel's going into captivity into Assyria, the northern kingdom was due to the terrible idolatry of the northern kingdom. And the prophets Elijah and Elisha and Hosea and many others labored to point out to the people that their idolatry was going to end in the most terrible judgment. But they would not listen. And although once or twice it looked as though things were going to be restored and checked, no, it just slowly went down until at last the terrible judgment of God fell upon them and they're no more history no more. [00:36:32] And Judah. Whilst there were two or three big revivals in Judah, which there were never any revivals in the north, in Judah there were revivals. Yet in spite of that, still they compromised and had a mixed one. [00:36:47] And in the end that ended in the carrying away into Babylon. So there are three judgments on idolatry in these two books. And idolatry is not so old fashioned a sin as sometimes we think idolatry we can find in our own heart. All idolatry is, is sharing the Lord with others interests. That's what just sharing the laws and other interests, that is idolatry. Covetousness, says the New Testament, which is idolatry. What is covetousness? It is so longing for something, so wanting something, so wishing to possess it, that it is obvious there are divided interests in your heart. [00:37:32] Instead of being so bound up with the law, there are other things you would like with the Lord. That's idolatry. And idolatry is the one thing that the Lord will not abide. We were not built for idolatry. We were built in God's constitution of us to be people of a single eye. And we can only be happy when we are single eyed. When we're one person, one person, we can be happy. People who have these different conflicting royalties are always torn, restless and unhappy people. [00:38:11] So we have to learn that also from this book. There's so much that we learn. [00:38:16] I want you also to notice Deuteronomy, if you will turn to deuteronomy. [00:38:34] Deuteronomy, chapter 17. [00:38:40] Now, this book of Deuteronomy, of course, is mentioned a lot in Kings. Not by name, but it's referred to as the Book of the Law. [00:38:52] And in chapter 17 we have the best commentary on the two books of kings anywhere. Deuteronomy 17:14. [00:39:01] When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, thou shalt say, I will set a king over me. Like all the nations that are round about thee, thou shalt surely set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee. Thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee who is not thy brother only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to the end, that he may multiply horses. Forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away, neither shall he greatly multiply to himself. Silver and gold. And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests, the Levites, and it shall be with him. And he shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them, that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left to the end, that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of all Israel. And then if you turn to 2 Kings, chapter 6, verse 11. I'm sorry. 1 Kings sorry. 1 Kings 6, verse 11 the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying, concerning this house which thou art building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes and execute mine ordinances, and keep all my commandments to walk in them, then will I establish my word with thee, which I spake unto David thy father, and I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel. [00:41:19] And then in chapter nine, verse for the Lord speaking solemnly, and as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me as David thy father walked in integrity of heart and in uprightness to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and will keep my statutes and mine ordinances, then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom over Israel forever, according of thy promise to David thy father, saying, there shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel. But if ye shall turn away from following me, ye or your children, and not keep my commandments and my statutes, which I shall set before you, but shall go and serve, go and serve other gods, and worship them, then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them, and this house which I've had hallowed for my name, while I cast out of my sight. And Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And though this house is so high, yet shall every one that passeth by it be astonished and shall hiss. And they shall say, why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, unto this house? And they shall answer, because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worship them and serve them. Therefore hath the Lord brought all this evil upon them? [00:42:54] Those three passages are themselves the key and commentary on the two Books of Kings. [00:43:03] It is on the one side the Lord preserving the line of the Messiah. He is carefully preserving David's line in faithfulness to his own word and promise. On the other side is the story of decline and departure, as all kinds of evil force their way into the life of God's people, make terrible inroads into the life of God's people. [00:43:35] There is a distance, tasteful thing, that we're going to have to talk about in a moment, but which I'm afraid we've got to face. Since these times have got to be informative and technical, we can't bypass it. It's not a very pleasant subject to talk about, but it's one that underlies the two books of kings. [00:43:57] It is the little word high places. [00:44:01] And unless we understand what that little word signifies and means, we cannot understand not only this book, these two books, but we cannot understand the ministry of the prophets. [00:44:16] 40 times the literal phrase high places is mentioned in these two books. [00:44:25] The kings are judged by their attitude to the high places. After the reign of each king, a little phrase occurs. And he did not deal with the high places, or he set the high places up, always the high places. The end of Solomon's reign, we find these little words about what he did in the high places. [00:44:55] At the end of each king's reign, the Holy Spirit puts his finger upon this little matter seemingly, of the high places. What are the high places? We've got to understand that. Because if we understand that, we shall understand what the real message of these two books are. It is kingship that is true, it is the kingdom that is true. But it is in the light of these high places that kingship and the kingdom is here set forth in Samuel, the two books of Samuel. You never had this word hardly mentioned. Perhaps once or twice hardly mentioned. But in these two books it is mentioned again and again. [00:45:42] Everything is traced, breakdown at the beginning, some simple breakdown. Each king, his breakdown, his failure, his character is traced back to this question of the high places. [00:45:59] Then another thing I just want you to notice is in these two books, the vital functions of the Word of God in counteract, correcting, counteracting, strengthening in this whole conflict over kingship. You know, as children of God, we're all being brought to the throne. That's God's purpose. [00:46:22] And the Word of God is the greatest thing in correcting and counteracting and strengthening us in this conflict over the question of the throne of God. [00:46:37] How often, sometimes we will give up. But for the word of the Lord being found. The word of the Lord just comes to us and either corrects us, brings us back into line, or counteracts some sudden move of the devil or strengthens us inwardly for some big fight or onslaught. It is the word of the Lord. And that is why, through these chapters you will find the ministry of such men brought into view as Elijah and Elisha and others like that, and underlined. These men, these great men, one man seemingly alone, with a whole nation arrayed against him. And yet that one man in the grace of God can turn the tide, at least for a few years, just standing there, absolutely erect and absolutely alone. Yet he can turn the tide. The power of the Word of God in days of departure and decline. That's why we should always be careful of the Word of the Lord, however it comes, particularly the Word here, the written word of God, how we should guard it, how we should be careful of despising it, how we should be careful in the it is the Word of the Lord, and the Word of the Lord can come to us if we'll only search the Word of the Lord and search for the Word of the Lord, we shall find it and it will correct us and it will counteract other influences and it will strengthen us. In the same way, the ministry of the Word, prophetic ministry, can be the same to us. We have a right attitude. It can correct us, it can counteract things, it can strengthen if we are able to discern what is man and what is the Word of the Lord. So we need again to learn that. And then another thing we have to learn about these books is simply that they're not usual history. They're not usual history. This is where many critical scholars of the Bible have gone wrong. They take it that these books are sort of analytical, chronological history. It's not syllable, as we've said again and again. [00:48:48] This is history written as it is related to God's purpose. [00:48:58] That is, it is all that is part of the unfolding revelation of God that is included. [00:49:09] Now, that is the reason why some of you have read the Bible as history and other books like that, modern books, why it will surprise you by telling you that some kings that are just dismissed with a few verses were in actual fact the greatest kings like Omri and kings like Isaiah and kings like Jeroboam II were, or by human standards, the greatest kings. [00:49:38] They were the kings that did the most, and they were the kings that we find more, as it were, in evidence archaeologically. [00:49:48] But we all find on the other hand, that kings that evidently, again from the human standpoint were quite insignificant are given quite a large portion of the space. A man like Ahab is given something like six to seven chapters, and a man like Hezekiah is given four or five chapters. Because these two men were men at points of spiritual crisis, one in the south southern kingdom, one in the Northern Kingdom, men of points of spiritual crisis. And because of that, they, and the ministry of the prophet Elijah in the case of one, and Isaiah in the case of the other, they are given more prominence, more pledge. Do you see? That just simply means that these books are not just usual history, otherwise it would all be inverted. Very largely, it is written from God's standpoint and Everything which is in any way related to the his purpose being realized and secured is given to him. So that's the thing that we have to understand. It is a question of kingship and God's kingship and God's turn is God's kingdom. [00:51:19] Now we must close. But before we do so, I thought this evening we would take a not very pleasant matter, but a matter which I think we ought to take in all faithfulness if we're going to understand these two books. And that is this question of what are the high places? [00:51:40] What really are the high places? Now, I'm not going to say all that could be said on this matter, so don't feel that you're going to be embarrassed, but I will give you some books that you can read. I'm afraid you can't lend them yet, but borrow them yet. But you can read certain things that I think will give you an understanding of what really the high places are. [00:52:06] We have got to understand. And since the Holy Spirit unerringly puts his finger upon this question in every case, in nearly all the reigns recorded, he puts his finger unerringly upon this question of the high place. [00:52:26] Even in so great a man and so great a reign as Solomon at the end and at the beginning, he puts his finger on high places. [00:52:39] Now, these high places would seem to us to be quite insignificant. [00:52:44] Do they just mean high places? [00:52:48] Why all the fuss about high places? [00:52:51] Why does the Holy Spirit put his finger and actually judge a man's reign? Already might have done, socially and culturally and educationally and even politically and religiously. The whole thing is judged by his attitude to hills what his attitude was to those high places. [00:53:19] It is not as insignificant as we think. [00:53:23] We've got to understand the significance of those high places because the Holy Spirit tells us that those high places are the focal point of disintegration, disobedience and division. [00:53:40] In every case, it is the high places that in the end bring about the decline. [00:53:48] Now, what are those high places? [00:53:51] In the Old Testament, the prophet. [00:53:56] Were they fond of bringing all the Canaanite deities, male deities, together under one name, and they called them baal. In very few cases have they bothered to give us the actual name of the deity, such as in the case of Dagon and once or twice in other cases. But generally we are just told baal. Baal. [00:54:21] BAAL was a term that covered all the male nature deities of kings. [00:54:31] And there were a vast number of these nature rods, as we can call them, vast number, but they were all lumped together as far as the prophets of God were concerned under the one term baal. [00:54:48] At one point, it got so bad in the history of Israel that they began to call their children the Lord's people began to call their children a combination with the name baal, so that Gideon was called Jerub, BAAL and Ishbosheth really Ish, BAAL and Mephibosha was Merib. [00:55:17] But the prophets very sarcastically and cleverly just blotted out BAAL and put the Hebrew word for shame in its place so that we called them Ishmael and Mephibosha instead. [00:55:37] That just shows you something of how this whole question of baal, BAAL worship and everything else had an influence upon the people of God. BAAL was the term for all the male deities of Canaan. [00:55:54] Ashtaroth was the name for all the females deities of Canaan. [00:56:03] I have not. This isn't correct here. It should be Ashtore. [00:56:11] BAAL is the single. Balaam is plural. Ash Taure is the singular, and Ashtaroth is the plural. [00:56:24] Asherah that you will often hear mentioned or in your Authorized Version, very incorrectly in some ways translated. Groans that in Hebrew is Asherah is the symbol of Ashtaroth. [00:56:41] The symbol veil was a stone pillar. Always stone pillars carved sometimes into shapes. Always. We cannot describe what shapes. You must find that out your. But always a scryer shaped in certain ways, certain symbols, certain figures. That was the symbol of BAAL or the Bael. [00:57:02] Ashtaroth was always wooden pillars, sometimes carved, sometimes just trees. And that's why the Authorized Version says Grove, because there, under those trees, Ash, ash stolo was worshipped. Now, what exactly is the real basis of this religion? [00:57:27] It was built simply. It was one of the more gross cults of the Middle East. It was built very simply on a very simple principle. The mystery of fertility. The mystery of fertility in man, in beast and in soil. [00:57:50] They saw that there was a cycle, birth, marriage, death. [00:57:57] They saw that this was so in man, it was so in animals, and it was so in the earth. [00:58:06] And a certain one idea became, which was very prevalent, very common in the whole of the Middle east, was that by acting out this marriage, you could keep the cycle of life working and going. [00:58:27] So consequently, they believed in what they called the divine marriage of BAAL and Ashtoreth, the marriage of El, the chief of the deities of BAAL and of Ashdod. [00:58:48] And the way that they celebrated it was simply by acting out the marriage, in fact. [00:58:57] And that necessitated companies of men and women dedicated to BAAL or to Ashta priests and priestesses, many temples, they were not of the age of 12. [00:59:16] In many, many cases in Phoenicia, particularly, all the priests and all the priestesses were under the age of 12. [00:59:25] This is one of the practices, if you read things as they are by Emily Carmichael, that has been carried on to this day in Hinduism, although it's now supposed to be suppressed. [00:59:40] They believe then that by having these priests and priestesses wholly dedicated to these deities, you could actually help the cycle of life keep it going by paying a visit to the shrine or the groves or the high places and acting out something. [01:00:07] In other words, I won't say anything more for the sake of embarrassment, really. It was religious prostitution, both men, male and female, religious prostitution. [01:00:22] It went far, far further than just that. In many cases, it necessitated human sacrifice and particularly child sacrifice, so that parents would take their little newborn babe and actually offer them up to be burnt alive. [01:00:43] It was the most terrible, terrible religion, a cult of sensuality. And the high places were scenes of terrible depravity. [01:00:56] Now, it was that that the prophet spoke so vehemently against. [01:01:04] That's why they called it the abomination. [01:01:09] And the abomination of Moloch, the abomination of these heathens, it was the most terrible practice. [01:01:21] On top of that, by far, the work was when there became a combination of Jehovah and baal. [01:01:33] This is what happened again. Again, Solomon was the man who initiated it. He didn't mean to. He. All he wanted to do was to provide places for his foreign wives so they could carry on their religious devotion. [01:01:49] Payments, by the way, that you paid to the priest or the priestess when you visited the temple were an offering to God looked upon as offerings to God, same way that you could offer people or your child to God. [01:02:05] Solomon began it not in the thought of compromising the life of the people of God, but of just providing for his foreign wives. [01:02:18] But in the popular mind, this very quickly became compromised with the worship of Jehovah. The result was that in particularly in Israel, in the north, the Northern Kingdom, Hosea had to speak again and again against this terrible religion, this awful mixture of Jehovah and baal. Modern archaeology has discovered that many of the high places were dedicated to Jehovah. Many of the high places were dedicated to Jehovah. And the priests and the priestesses there were sacred to Jehovah and that children had been offered in the north, particularly in the name of Jehovah. [01:03:05] This is what the prophets were. [01:03:08] And this was why in the revival unto Hezekiah, and in the revival unto Josiah, Isaiah and Jeremiah both stood aside. They said the revival did not go deep enough. It only cleared away the outside. It didn't get down to the root of the matter. [01:03:26] And that's where we have got to understand what these high places really are. [01:03:32] In this particular instance. They're not so much the ones that belong purely and holy to baal. They are the one dedicated to Jehovah. [01:03:41] And everything enacted in them done there was in the name of Jehovah. [01:03:53] Consequently, I think you can begin to see how this thing is, the thing the Holy Spirit puts his finger on all the way through. Archaeologists have discovered in excavations of some of these high places that Jehovah was never given an idol. [01:04:14] They never made him an idol. [01:04:17] Although BAAL El and the others had idols and so on, they never did. But this will show you how far it got. They gave Jehovah a wife, and they have discovered many little mother goddesses in those places dedicated to Jehovah. So that in the popular mind, in actual fact, Jehovah was just one of the many other nature gods in the nations round about. Only they looked upon Jehovah as their own particular God. And indeed Ahab and Ahab and others. You remember Ahab married Jezebel with a great devotee of baal. [01:04:59] He just looked upon Jehovah as a God, but inferior to the gods round about. [01:05:06] Whenever an alliance was made between two nations, between Assyria and the people of God, or between Babylon and the people of God, it all had to be done in the name of their God. It was looked upon as the God of the people of Israel and the God of the Assyrians making an alliance. And that is why the prophets spoke continually against alliances. Because they were not just political. They meant that the Lord Jehovah was entering into alliance with so called gods. And he was being put on the same level and footing as the other gods in the nations around. [01:05:51] This is the significance of the high pleasure. [01:05:55] And this was the moral cancer in both Israel and Judah. And it was the cancer which was never removed until God operated. When he took them into captivity. When they returned from captivity, there was never again a high place in the land. [01:06:20] That was the only way God could do it. He purposed.