II Kings 11:1 to 17:14

[00:00:00] We come back after a break of a few weeks to these studies on the Book of Kings. [00:00:10] And I might just explain this evening that I, not I don't think that we shall get very much farther than the end of Israel. So we're hoping to get from where, from about Jehu's reign to the end of the kingdom of Israel. If I remember rightly, we ended with Athaliah's reign, Athaliah of Judah, if I remember rightly, when we last broke off the studies. [00:00:46] Now, I'm probably going to move rather quickly this evening through the actual history of the reigns of those kings as they alternate from Judah to Israel and back. [00:01:04] And then at the end, we're going to spend a little while, if the Lord permits, just drawing some lessons and some very vital lessons, I trust, from the history of the divided kingdoms. There are some very important ones, particularly in these days, that are very, very practical and experimental as far as we are concerned. Now, if you turn to two Kings, chapter nine, you remember, we, I believe, finish came to the end of Jehu's reign, might just simply say about Jehu that he was a man who did the will of God through his own zeal. [00:02:02] And if you look at the story of Jehu's reign, you will find that he is a man full of furious energy. [00:02:14] The one thing that stands out about him is the very first thing we read. [00:02:19] You remember when someone said, it is like the driving of Jehu, as the watchman looked out, he said, it is like the driving of Jehu, for he driveth furiously. [00:02:31] And this is a characteristic of Jehu. [00:02:35] He took the Lord's name vain. [00:02:38] His was a fleshly energy and a natural strength that was flung into the service of God. Indeed, at one point in his history, remember, he speaks to another man very much like himself and says, come see my zeal for the Lord. [00:02:58] Now he did much in his zeal for the Lord. He destroyed the whole house Ahab. [00:03:07] He wiped it out. He went far, farther than any of his predecessors had gone. He not only wiped out the house of the royal house of Ahab, but he destroyed all his familiar friends. He destroyed all those who in any way had a remote connection with him. He destroyed all the priests and anyone with any office in the old reign of Ahab's house. And you'll also remember that awful bloodbath when he devised a great scheme, a great trap to bring all the leading BAAL worshipers from every side of the country to one great dedication service at Samaria. Do you remember that in the Middle of it all, a signal was given. And the soldiers that had winged the house of BAAL moved in and massacred every single one of them. Not one got out alive. Now, this man was a man who was doing the will of God. He continually, all the way through his way, and he speaks about the Lord's word. He says, you remember what the Lord said about this? And then he'll say, you remember what the Lord said about that. This is a tremendous lesson to us. Here is a man who is a child of God. Here is a man who has been taken up by God in God's sovereignty. Here is a man who is performing the very purpose of God in the sovereignty of God. And yet he is a man who knows absolutely nothing of the cross in his life. He knows nothing of any brokenness. He knows nothing of any limitation upon himself. He knows nothing of discipline himself. He is a man who has the wrong kind of zeal, zeal that is not according to knowledge. Now, that in itself is very instructive. [00:05:02] There are many who would tackle the present conditions amongst the Lord's people with the zeal of Jehu. They would like to wipe out all that's erroneous. They would like to, as it were, have a spiritual bloodbath and get rid of everything which in any way is not quite pure or not quite in alignment. But the Lord's way is not that way at all. Jehu is condemned by the prophet Hosea later on for his reign of blood. [00:05:42] Then you remember we move on really from Jehu. You remember that his reign marked the beginning of the end. If you look at chapter 10 and verse 32, you will find that it is the Lord. It says the Lord began to cut off Israel from that day. [00:06:01] From that day. [00:06:03] It was, as it were, the last great downward run, the last phase of Israel's history. [00:06:17] The two and a half tribes. You remember these two and a half tribes. We're going to see quite a bit of them in this particular study. This evening. [00:06:29] Their territory is captured in the day of Jehu. The people are not deported. The territory is captured. There's a lesson there, you know why? They were people who settled down rather swiftly on the wrong side of Jordan. They were prepared to go over and fight the battles on the other side, but they rather liked that side of Jordan and they settled there. And we shall find this evening that they are the first to go. So the first inkling of impending doom comes when the territory of the two and a half tribes for the first time is in enemy hands completely Then we came very simply to the reign of Athaliah. [00:07:16] Athaliah, the daughter, the granddaughter. I'm sorry, Athaliah is the daughter of Ahab Jehoshaphat. And we shall see a bit more about him a little later. Jehoshaphat was a godly man, and he was one of the kings of Judah, who was described as a good king in his day. There was a tremendous amount of reformation and a cleaning up of the whole land. But Jehoshaphat had a very, very real weakness. [00:07:49] And it is a weakness that many of us, I'm afraid, are deeply afflicted with. And that is a lack of discernment. [00:07:59] The result was that he longed with all his heart for the unity of God's people. [00:08:06] He longed with all his heart for the unity of God's people. And he did three things to try and somehow wed the two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, together. The first was he went out to war with Ahab against Syria and nearly lost his life. That was a terrible warning to him. He was marked out and they were told of a little crack whore was told by the king of Syria to just not take any notice of anyone else but the king of Israel. And they mistook King Jehoshaphat for the king of Israel. And he nearly lost his life. If it hadn't been that he cried out to the Lord the very last moment the Lord saved him, he would have lost his life. But he lost much of his army and he went back a crippled man. The second thing he did was he combined his navy with the navy of Israel, if you remember that story. And they went down the Red Sea together to bring back, as you know, the gold of Ophir, the peacocks and oats, and all the other things that they wanted to bring in for the rather extravagant and luxurious living of those days. And they thought it would be a very good idea as they were Lord's people. Why shall we combine forces and do this thing together? Get provisions together? Why do does Judah have to be apart? And why should Israel be apart? Let's combine forces like we combine forces in the army to fight common foes. So they sent the navy down together, and the Lord was very much against it. And a terrible squall hit the navy. And the result was that Judah and Israel lost their navy. The whole thing went down in swallow. And you remember, one of the things in the Book of Kings that we're told about Jehoshaphat is simply that he learned his lesson and he refused to allow his navy to combine ever again with the navy of Israel. [00:10:04] But the third thing was far, far more serious and far more subtle. [00:10:11] Jehoshaphat had a son who was going to reign in his place. [00:10:17] Ahab had a very, very remarkable daughter called Athaliah, a very remarkable woman. And he thought it would be an exceedingly good thing if Athaliah of Israel and Jehoram or Joram of Judah should be married. [00:10:39] Well, perhaps most of us now we're very clear about this, we would say, oh, we can see it vile what is wrong. But I wonder when it comes to practical situations today whether we are so clear sighted. [00:10:52] This was a very good thing. They were both the people of God. [00:10:57] Why not bring Israel and Judah together in the best way of all? The way that all nations do in the old days, the best way to somehow make an alliance with one nation of Europe and another was to marry the royal princess or the royal queen of another country. And they thought this would be the best way to end trouble. [00:11:19] Little did they realize that this was Satan's greatest attempt to destroy the Messiah. The Messiah was yet far, far, far off in But Athaliah's introduction into the royal line was the greatest attempt of Satan to wipe out the messianic line. [00:11:46] Joram was a wicked man. Ahavar son was also a wicked king. Both of them were evil. They were under the influence of this woman, the wife of one, the mother of the other. [00:12:00] When Ahaziah was murdered, Athaliah came to the throne. [00:12:07] And the very first thing Athaliah did for the first time in the history of Judah, it has happened many times in the history of Israel. But for the first time in the history of Judah, Athaliah indulged in a bloodbath and she wiped out every single member of the royal house of David. Now this is a tremendously important thing. It meant that of the line of David there was not a single one remaining except for one little baby of a few months of age. [00:12:40] Many people wonder how that baby escaped. But in an oriental harem it probably wouldn't have been quite so difficult. That baby was smuggled out into the high priest's care and hid in the temple where no one could get in and was watched over and looked after by the high priest's wife. [00:13:01] That little baby was to be Joash, who was to be the hope of God. For do you know that in that particular point of history the whole of God's presence purpose was centered and focused in a babe of a few months of age. Wipe out that child and you'd wipe out the royal line of the Messiah. [00:13:27] So we see that Athaliah was the enemy's greatest attempt. First, by wiping out the messianic line, and secondly, by wiping out the true worship of the Lord. She brought in BAAL worship, much else. [00:13:45] Joash, as you know, came to the throne when he was only six years of age. Athaliah was executed at his coronation. [00:13:55] And under the very good government and guidance of Jehoiada, the high priest, Joash proved to be an exceedingly good and faithful man. He restored the temple. He once again bought in the half shekel which Moses said there ought to be for every single man in the land that should pay a half shekel toward the house of God. He reestablished that. He brought in the money, he repaired the house of God, all the breaches in the walls. You know, he got the carpenters and the stonemasons at work, and the whole thing was done. All the gold and silver, dishes and instruments, utensils that had been stolen and desecrated were rededicated and restored. [00:14:40] And everything looked as if it was going to be very, very wonderful. But Jehoiada died. [00:14:49] And when Jehoiada died, Joash turned back. [00:14:55] And the end of Joash is a very sad story. He is mentioned by the Lord Jesus. He was the one who murdered the high priest. Do you remember when the high priest witnessed against him, he had him stoned in the house of God. So the Lord spoke of the righteous blood of Abel. From Abel to Zechariah, the high priest slain at the altar by the people, at the command of the king, Joash was assassinated. [00:15:27] They always reap what we serve. And he was assassinated. [00:15:32] So there's a story which is rather terrible. Then. We come back from Judah. We come back to Israel, to Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu. These two kings, Jehoahaz and Jehoash, if we look at chapter 13 of 2 kings, we find both of them are evil. [00:15:56] In Jehoahaz reign, Israel is in a terrible condition. Her army now is reduced from thousands to just a little tiny group of faithful soldiers. [00:16:11] Yet the Lord promises Jehoahaz, although he's an evil man, the Lord promises Jehoahaz that he will not need. He will carry him through, and he will deliver them. [00:16:21] Jehoahaz dies, Jehoash reigns in his stead. And Jehoash, in Jehoash's reign, Elisha dies. You remember the story of Jehoash weeping at the death of Elisha? He never took any notice of what Elisha said. But. But when he died he wept. [00:16:46] But in his death, you remember, Elisha said that. What? That the Lord was going in grace to use Jehoash to smite Syria three times. Now, at present, we're not drawing too many lessons from this. We're just telling, recounting facts from which a little later, we're going to draw some lessons. Jehoash was going to be used of God. In spite of the fact that he was an evil man, a compromised man, a man in error. [00:17:17] He was one of God's people. [00:17:20] In spite of all that, he was going to be used of the law to smite the Assyrians three times. [00:17:30] Indeed, through Jehoash, much of the territory that was lost in Jehu's reign was restored. It was through Jehoash that that territory was recovered. [00:17:48] Then if you go on to chapter 14, you find that we are taken back again to Amaziah of Judah. [00:17:58] Amaziah, we're told, was a good king, but he left the high places. [00:18:06] Whilst he evidently allowed the worship of the Lord and was himself involved in the worship of the Lord, he permitted the high places to carry on. [00:18:17] And we're told one very interesting thing about Amaziah, from which we shall learn a lesson again a little later, that he deliberately antagonized Israel. [00:18:29] He was on the other side of the extreme. It wasn't that he was seeking to foster good relations. He felt that far from having good relations there, Judah should go to war with Israel. And he wrote it as war was almost a sport in those days. He said, could you come and face us? Let us face each other. It was just a sporting action. In war, we'll see which army is the strongest. [00:18:57] The result was that Amaziah was terribly worsted in that battle, and indeed was so worsted that Israel overran Judah, took Jerusalem, destroyed some of the walls of the temple, and took much of the gold and the silver that was in the house God. As a result, Amaziah was assassinated for his foolishness. The people assassinated him. Then if you look in chapter 14, we go back again to Israel, to the greatest politically the greatest king of Israel. [00:19:42] Strangely enough, the scripture only gives seven verses to Jeroboam ii. Yet Jeroboam II is the greatest king politically in the whole Israel's history. [00:19:57] From St Solomon. His was a reign of great splendor. At the beginning of his reign, he restored all the territory, right to its greatest extent. He got it all back again completely. [00:20:11] And then the rest of his reign, which was quite a long reign, was spent in luxury and extravagance. [00:20:19] The Lord, it says, heard the groaning of Israel, and he therefore decided to give Israel a period of prosperity and peace which they've not had for years and years. [00:20:34] But it did only one thing, and this is very interesting. Circumstances never do anything to us but bring out what is in us. [00:20:44] Let us always remember that we are very apt to blame circumstances, whether they're the circumstances of your childhood, or whether they're the circumstances of your job, or whether they're the circumstances of your home, or whether they're the circumstances of the church. They can only bring out what is in us. They don't initiate anything. They only develop what is inside. [00:21:09] It is very interesting that in the days of evil and compromise and pressure of every kind, Israel just becomes progressively more compromised, more evil. But the moment she is given peace and prosperity and a very real increase, the corruption in the inside just seems to grow by leaps and bounds. Now Jeroboam's reign is the great sphere or time of Amos and Jonah's ministry in the Scripture. The only ministry we have recorded of Jonah the prophet is the little book about his sojourn in Nineveh. But if you look at this map, you will find Nineveh is a long, long way from the promised land. [00:22:08] It expressly tells us in Kings that Jonah the prophet prophesied in the reign of Jeroboam ii. Evidently the word of the Lord came much through Jonah to Jeroboam. And not only that, but we find Amos also in Jeroboam's reign and Hosea. So we have three great prophets who, as it were, come onto the into the Theban in the reign of Jeroboam Amor, Jonah and Hosea. What a wonderful ministry that is when you think of it. When you think of, for instance, of Hosea with all his heart broken cry of love for the backs of restoration, for the one who will only turn back to the Lord of the Lord's everlasting love, his refusal to give up his people. What a ministry exercised in days of extravagance and luxury and every form of vice. Amos brings out the vice more clearly than any other prophet. He underlines heavily, with great emphasis the evil of his days. [00:23:21] Both the prophets Amos and Hosea saw quite clearly that the prosperity of Jeroboam's reign had done nothing but brought out the corruption. [00:23:33] All it had revealed was that Israel was so utterly corrupt, utterly corrupt that only the most terrible purging by fire could ever do anything as far as the purpose of God was concerned. That's why you get those Very somber, dark notes in these prophets when they just simply say that there's no hope, that things got to go into the fire, that things got to be judged with the most terrible judgment. [00:24:03] But in both those prophets, there's a wonderful day star, a morning star that arises at the darkest point of their ministry. And that is as they look right through the gloom and the darkness, they see right through it all. Beyond it all, they see a wonderful day of restoration where the people purged and purified. I'm going to come back to the minute. In actual fact, it was Judah. [00:24:33] But we will have to deal with that when we come to the exile period as to exactly how the prophet's ministry concerning the restoration of the people of God, including Israel, was exactly affected. [00:24:45] But they saw through the darkness for the day of God's purpose fulfilled. [00:24:53] Jeroboam's reign then is a remarkable reign, really. It is remarkable. For one other thing, Scripture doesn't say much about Jeroboam, but it is remarkable for this point that it is the beginning of prophetic literature. Now, up to now, really, through the whole history of the people of God, there has not been any prophetic literature. That is all prophecy has been. By word, men have spoken. [00:25:27] Elijah and Elisha are a wonderful example of men who spoke. They suddenly came upon the scene and they spoke the word of God. Now with Jeroboam's reign, a written ministry begins. Amos, ministry was written. I think some people have found it very hard to believe that something can be prophetic when it's being written. [00:25:53] Yet in some cases, although we cannot be absolutely certain, it may well have been that some of the prophets never actually spoke in public. [00:26:06] That is a remarkable fact. We have no actual evidence for it yet. It may be that some of the prophets did not actually speak in public. Theirs was a written ministry. [00:26:20] Certainly what they said in public, if they spoke public, was later written down by them. So we really, as it were, now move into the period of prophetic literature. For the first time, messages from God committed to writing, put down into black and white by educated and in some cases, cultured men. Of course, you get the whole wave in the prophets. Amos was a country shepherd. Isaiah was a very, very cultured courtier. You get these two, all these differences amongst the prophets, some very highly educated and cultured men, very aristocratic background. Others, they, they ordinary people with a country type of background, all taken up by the Lord and yous of God. [00:27:19] When we go on into chapter 15, we find that we have left Jeroboam, who died Rather remarkably of old age. [00:27:34] We are back in the. In Judah, in the kingdom of Judah. And we have now. [00:27:42] We are now in the reign of the most remarkable man politically in Judah's history. It is interesting that Jeroboam should be the most remarkable man politically in the reign of Israel. And as a liar, his counterpart should be the most remarkable man politically in the reign of Judah. This may be explained by the fact that all the great national powers around Israel were at their weakest point. [00:28:11] So that it just gave time for Israel and Judah to blossom politically without the worry of continual feuding and warning on their frontiers, which so drained them of all their resources. [00:28:26] Azariah Other name is Isaiah, and you all know who Isaiah is. For it was in the year of his death that Isaiah saw that great vision of the Lord. [00:28:38] Isaiah was a remarkable man. [00:28:42] He was undoubtedly the greatest influential king of Judah's reign. Saint Solomon. [00:28:54] The prosperity of Judah was unrivaled since the days of Solomon in Isaiah's day. And so we can imagine Isaiah as a courtier, an aristocratic boy, being brought up in surroundings of sumptuous luxury. [00:29:13] The ladies made up very heavily, they perfumed, they had much beautiful dresses. If you read Isaiah, you find it all. Oh, the whole of the life of the nation now had become very, very sort of pretty and beautiful and luxurious and comfortable. And with it there was a tremendous amount of corruption and sin and evil and hypocrisy. [00:29:43] One of the most interesting things about Isaiah is that he was a good man. [00:29:48] But because of his prosperity he was led into a very foolish way. And many of us are like this. The law doesn't keep up very low at his feet. [00:30:02] Prosperity and increase find us out. [00:30:09] This king Isaiah suddenly decided one day that he would do something that was quite common in the nations round about. He would offer the incense in a censor to the Lord. And so he went into the house of the Lord. And it says something for the priests of Isaiah's day, that they rebuked him to his face. [00:30:34] And he was furious, it says he was rude. [00:30:39] But before he had time to vent his fury upon the priests, a white leprosy broke out in his forest. [00:30:49] And again one admires the courage of the priests who without much more to do, just took hold of him and hurried him out of the house of God. The scripture says rather amusingly that he also was willing to go rather quickly as well, because he was so surprised at the leprosy the spoken of. From that day this great and good king was locked up in his palace A separated, excluded man from the rest of his people as his son Jotham had to reign as co regent. [00:31:29] It is a most interesting fact and one I would like many of you to go away and think about. Why is it that the Lord deals so severely with the kings of Judah when they are good kings and so leniently with the kings of Israel when they're all evil? Go away and think about it. Why does the Lord deal so severely with the good kings of Judah and so leniently with the wicked and evil iniquitous kings? When you think of Ahab, others of Israel, there is one of the deepest and most wonderful lessons that any child of God can learn. Why does the Lord deal so severely and sometimes harshly with us when we're so faithful to him and seemingly so leniently with those who are so compromised and so vague, so abile? [00:32:24] Really, Uzziah's greatest point, the greatest point about Azariah's reign is that two great prophets began to prophesy. One was Uzziah and the other was Micah. [00:32:40] They began to minister in the reign of Azariah. [00:32:46] Then if we go on into chapter 15, verse 8, we leave Azariah and we come back again to Israel. This alternation is very difficult for us when we're reading through kingdoms, to just keep it clearly in our mind who we are reading about. But when we come back to Zechariah, we're back in Israel. Now we deal with a period of 40 years only that is actually 35 and a half years to be precise. And in this 35 and a half years we we have five kings and four changes of dynasty. In other words, now the whole thing has snowballed to such a proportion that nothing can stop it. The whole thing is just confused and chaotic. First of all, Zechariah, who is Jeroboam's son, comes to the throne. He only reigns six months and he is murdered by Charlotte. We don't know anything about Shalom, but he only reigns a month. And he is murdered by Menahem. Menahem reigns a few years, he has a little bit of peace, and in actual fact dies an actual death, strange to say, and is followed by his son Pikahia. Pikahaya is murdered by a cavalry officer, a man called Pica, who takes the throne. And Pekah in turn is murdered by Hushai, who is the last king of Israel. [00:34:19] A very sad, unhappy story, all within 35 and a half years. And so you can just imagine the state that the whole country was in. Politically as well as economically, as this kind of thing went over, the whole thing was a hotbed of intrigue and division and disintegration and disafferion in every way. It was something that we can only describe as tragic. [00:34:46] So you see, those days are the point at which Assyria suddenly revives in power the empire. The Assyrian empire had been for a while latent. It had fallen on very bad days. Things had broken up, its power had decreased, and in many ways it was like a sleeping giant. Then suddenly again, the whole thing is quite modern and contemporary. An Assyrian general called Pull seizes the throne Assyria, and names himself, titles himself, Tigloth, Paliza iii. With him, the whole power of Assyria suddenly brought right back onto the world theme, or the Middle east theme, if you like to put it. [00:35:46] He mobilizes all the forces. [00:35:49] He immediately once again reestablishes the borders of Assyria. And one of the first things that happens is his march. In his onward march to the Mediterranean, he comes up against Menahem. [00:36:10] And the only way that King Menahem can save Israel is by them becoming a battle state of Assyria. And so the gold and the silver of the Lord's house and all the precious vessels of the Lord's house are all sold and given over as tribute to Assyria. And then a 50 shekel fine is imposed upon every citizen of Israel. Now, this is rather amusing because 30 shekels was the price of slave. 50 shekels was the price of an ass. [00:36:49] So really, in many ways, the fine imposed was a very sarcastic move by the Assyrians to discredit and degrade Israel in their own eyes and in the eyes of their neighbors. They paid a 50 shekel fine for every citizen in Israel. That's every wealthy landowner or free man had to pay 50 shekels to the king, who paid it in turn as a fine to develop Palizza. [00:37:23] Then again, in Pekar's reign. You note here that there's a brown star. Those of you who've been in these studies, you remember what these different colors stand for. This is the first deportation in both Judah's history and Israel's history. The captivity of the land was in stages. In Pekah's reign, Assyria came up against them because they stopped paying the tribute. And they took all of Galilee, Naphtali and the whole of the two and a half tribes of Thomas Jordan out of their hands, and they deported the whole population of Transjordan. [00:38:10] Perhaps some of us find it very hard to understand this deportation of people but it happened in many ways in the last war when quite a lot of deportation went on in some places nearly of nations. In the same way. In those days, it was the policy of Assyria and Babylon to deport whole nations, at least all the influential people of a nation, and settle them thousands of miles from their home and then settle in their land people from another part of the empire. In so doing, they were breaking up the national consciousness of the different areas of their empire. And they were hoping, they are hoping by doing that to stop any form of rebellion, by just breaking up the national consciousness and destroying a national senate. [00:39:05] In Pico's reign, then the Trans Jordanic tribe, the two and a half tribe, vanish. They never find them again. They're never mentioned again in scripture. They vanish off the face of history, out of the Bible and from history itself. We do not know what happened to the two and a half tribes, except they were taken away into captivity and are never again mentioned. This is a very, very interesting thing. [00:39:35] It is always wise to go right on with the Lord. [00:39:40] Never to settle down to half measures. Never, never ever to settle down with something which seems to be so near what is the promised land, and yet in actual fact is so insecure. In days of prosperity and triumph, when the whole people of God are moving over to possess God's inheritance. It might seem to you that just to settle down with the little that you've got where you are at present would be a good thing. Everything seems quite secure, everything seems quite stable. But you wait till the storm. You are the first to go. You are the first to break down. You are the first to clap under the strain because you have not gone over into the land. The safest place to be is near Jerusalem. [00:40:25] So let's learn that lesson then from the two and a half times on that side, they were the first to go. [00:40:36] Then another interesting thing. Is that my car. [00:40:40] The prophet Micah begins to prophesy in Peter's reign. You will see that his ministry is also here. In the reign of Joseph and Ahab and Hezekiah, Micah had a prophetic ministry to both Israel and Judah. [00:40:57] Then if you go on in scripture to the 16th chapter, you're back with Jotham of Judah. He was a good king and he repaired the house of God. That's really all that we're told about him, except that he left the high places. He did repair the house of God, but Jotham was followed by Ahaz, who was the most evil of all the kings of Judah. It is interesting that he was so Evil, that he offered his first born son as a burnt offering. [00:41:31] This is the first time in the history of Judah that any king has offered his own son as a burnt offering to a foreign God. [00:41:42] There was nothing more terrible than the sacrifice, human sacrifice. We won't go into it this evening, but it was the most, really the most abominable, most terrible form of so called religious worship. [00:41:58] He not only gave his son as a burnt offering, his firstborn son, but he also encouraged the worship in the high places with all its religious prostitution and depravity and everything else. [00:42:11] He encouraged it. He burned incense himself. He worshipped on those high places himself. He led the nation in that way. He deliberately made Judah a vassal when there was no need to. He made her a vassal state to Assyria. And he did it by giving all the gold and the silver that was left in the house of God. The third terrible thing about this man Ahaz was that he saw, when he went to Damascus, he saw an altar, an Assyrian altar. [00:42:46] And when he saw it, he sent a copy of it back home Jerusalem and asked the high priest to make a copy of it. So a copy of this Assyrian altar was made and it was placed in the house of God. And the brazen altar of the Lord was moved over and put into a more insignificant position. All the offerings and everything else, burnt offerings, sin offerings, trespass offerings, meal offerings and so on, were offered on this Assyrian altar. [00:43:12] And the king used the brazen altar, the Lord as a kind of fortune telling 10 times booth means of divine. Again, that was an Assyrian custom. [00:43:27] Then he changed many other things. He cut, it says he cut the panels off of the base of the labor. No doubt it's been suggested to pay the tribute money that was necessary. But these terrible changes took place inside the house of God. What did it actually imply, putting an Assyrian altar in the house of God? Well, really it meant that Ahaz was obeying the command of the Assyrian king to worship the Assyrian gods with their own gods. [00:44:01] By putting an Assyrian altar, he was really giving his allegiance and the allegiance of Judah to the Assyrian gods as well as their own. [00:44:14] And so lastly, we come back to Hoshea of Israel in chapter 17. [00:44:20] Strangely enough, he is the last of the long line of Israel, yet he is not as evil as the rest. [00:44:28] Here it would seem, attempted a last minute reform, but he got nowhere. And it says at the end, whilst he was prepared to pay tribute, he conspired against Assyria suddenly and tried to ally himself with Egypt. That was his end. Assyria came up against Israel laid siege to Samaria for three years until they died of starvation by the thousands and ate their own children to try and keep themselves alive, as Jeremiah said would happen. And in the end, the whole of Israel ends. Now, the interesting thing is this, that when the end comes for Israel, the whole land is deported. Not the common people, but all the nobility and aristocracy and the artisans of the land, craftsmen of the land, are deported bodily into Assyria. They were people, as far as we know, in Medes, in the cities of the Medes, and also in Mesopotamia. [00:45:40] Come and look at that map afterwards if you want to see where they were. [00:45:44] Then into the land of Israel, into what was originally the kingdom of isra. Assyria planted a whole lot of different nations. [00:45:58] And the result was. And for this you must understand this, because it helps you to understand your New Testament. The result of this was what we know as the Samaritans. [00:46:08] They were a kind of hybrid people. They were half Jewish and half gentile. They were the mixture of the people left the land with the gentile colonizers that were brought in by Assyria. And then this amazingly compromised type of religion grew up in Samaria, whereby they feared the Lord, it says, and worshipped their own God. So that Samaria became a byword with all good Jews. Even in the day of the Lord Jesus, no good Jew would. [00:46:47] He would go right out of his way, a long journey to get out of the way of Samaria, so that he wouldn't have to go through Samaria if he could possibly help it. The Samaritans were hated by the Jews. They were considered to be worse than dogs because of their background. To the Jew, it was the most terrible thing of all. It was caricature. [00:47:06] Here were people who said they worshiped Jehovah and all the messages in actual fact, the whole thing, one awful mixture of truth and error, of what is right and what is right. [00:47:21] So we really find that we have come to the end of Israel's history. Now, what lessons can we draw? We spend the last few moments drawing some pretty, I trust, pretty big lessons. One says, whether you. [00:47:42] I think we can draw just a few lessons from the history of the divided kingdom. That is going right back to Jeroboam and Rehoboam. What are the lessons we can learn? [00:47:58] The first lesson we can learn is this. In 250 years, Israel has had 19 kings, and every one of them has been evil. [00:48:15] And there have been nine different dynasties. [00:48:21] The interesting thing is that Judah has also had 19 kings and one queen. [00:48:28] And all except athaliah who was not a judo anyway, were good. All of them were of one dynasty. They weren't all good, but they were all of one dynasty. [00:48:40] 19 kings. And of those kings, there were nine changes of royal house, nine changes of dynasty. Seven of the 19 only died naturally. [00:48:56] The rest were murdered, assassinated, or died of some terrible judgment of God disease. [00:49:07] Then on top of that, 12 of the 19 reigned for less than 12 years. [00:49:15] In fact, one reigned for seven days, one reigned for one month, and one reigned for six months, and two or three reigned for two years. [00:49:26] Now add that all up. What does that mean? [00:49:30] It speaks of instability. [00:49:33] It speaks of insecurity, doesn't it? It just simply speaks of something which is all the time chopping and changing, restless, frustrated, unhappy. [00:49:47] Something that has no permanence, something that has no essential nature that can go through it is something that all the time is coming up against it and breaking down. And then something else has to come in and that goes. And then that breaks down and something else has to come in and that goes and that breaks down. [00:50:05] We learn that all the way through it. What one man does, he reads. If he doesn't reap it himself, his child reaps it, or his grandson reaps it, but whatever he does, it comes back like a boomerang on his own head. All this speaks of instability. [00:50:24] Now let us draw a very, very big lesson from this. If we start on the wrong ground, we will always reap instability. Always. [00:50:37] Instability and insecurity, disintegration and division are always the sign of wrong ground. Always. [00:50:50] If we start on the ground of division or divisiveness, we shall be divided and divided and divided and divided until there are not two of us left together. [00:51:05] Just let us start together on the wrong ground. [00:51:09] What is the right ground? Now that is a question I want you to ask yourself. Go away and pray about it. Kings is all about right and wrong ground. What is right ground? [00:51:19] I'm not saying that the kings of Judah are good kings, all of them. But I am saying one thing. Even the bad kings of Judah got through. [00:51:29] There was a permanent about. Even the bad kings. [00:51:32] The dynasty never changes once because they're on the right ground. [00:51:38] When you go on the right ground, you go through. If you are on the wrong ground, it ends. [00:51:46] Israel was a division because Israel was a division. It was divided and divided and divided, divided and divided. [00:51:54] Till in the end, in the last 35 to 40 years, the thing just split up into a thousand fragments. Each man murdering the other and trying to take power. [00:52:09] If Only the Lord would teach us in these days, what is the right ground. What is the right ground? Dear brothers and sisters, it's not enough to have Christ. Now, now, think of what I've said. It's a terrific thing to say. It is not enough just to have Christ in the sense of spiritual life. [00:52:32] The children of God were as much the kingdom of Israel as they were the kingdom of Judah. [00:52:41] We must also have the right ground if we would have the right life. [00:52:48] We must not only have the right life and the right kind of nature, we must be on the right ground. [00:52:56] You know, in Scripture, Jerusalem always speaks of ground. [00:53:01] When Israel built Samaria as an opposing capital, center of worship to Jerusalem, that was the day of their undoing. [00:53:15] Even the division of Judah and Israel could have been healed if they had only recognized Jerusalem as the ground of God at the place of the house of God. [00:53:27] But Israel refused to do it. Now, brothers, they are not unsafe people. They're not unbelievers. They're the children of God on the wrong ground. They've got the same life. They, their father was Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. [00:53:41] They had the same law. They're the same covenant people of God. [00:53:45] They have the same life blood in their veins, the same nature. [00:53:52] But they were on the wrong ground. [00:53:55] Because they were on the wrong ground, everything went to pieces. Frustration, restlessness, impermanence. [00:54:04] This is one of the greatest lessons that we can learn. Division, insecurity, instability, all come from being on the wrong ground. We can have the life of God on the wrong ground. [00:54:22] Let us remember that. And then let us also note that the Lord has made all provision for stability and security and increase. This is one of the most wonderful facts of all isn't the Lord never gives up his people. Why do some of the Lord's people? They like to exclude each other and exclude each other and exclude each other until really just one wonders where they're going to get in the end. The Lord never excludes any of his children. This is the most wonderful thing. He embraces all his children, even his children. On wrong words. Some of the people you don't think of the Lord children. The Lord calls his children. [00:54:58] There are some Protestants who dislike Roman Catholics and they refuse to admit that there's a single child of God amongst Roman Catholics. Which is one of the silliest and foolish things that anyone could ever say or express. [00:55:11] God has his people in the most remarkable places and amongst the most remarkable setups. [00:55:21] Here you've got the evidence of it. And furthermore, the Lord has made provision for the stability and security and increase of his children, wherever they are, if they will only come to him on the right ground. [00:55:36] That is all. That is all he requires. If they will come to him on the right ground, they will be brought into the stability and security of God. [00:55:49] God doesn't cut us off from his life, but we are not protected if we're on the wrong ground. [00:55:57] God will give us his life even on the wrong ground, but he will not protect us on the long ground. [00:56:07] Let us remember that idolatry, looseness, compromise are the small things, insignificant at their beginnings, that work out to the breaking up of the people of God. [00:56:28] Everything can be traced from those small beginnings. [00:56:32] When Israel. When Israel set up another center of worship. [00:56:39] That was the day that they ended. [00:56:43] That was the means that Satan used to destroy Israel. Then another lesson I want you to see is this. When Judah falls, there is a certain hope of a returning remnant. [00:56:59] When Israel falls, there is no. [00:57:04] That is one of the most wonderful things in scripture. You see here in Judah you have the people of God. Oh, they're so poor. They haven't got the spiritual, moral character which they must have if they're going to go through. But they're on the right ground. But they haven't got the moral character. Very well. The Lord will put them into a fire. [00:57:30] But out of that fiery furnace will come a remnant and they will come back. And they will repeople the land and from them will be born the Messiah. [00:57:41] Israel goes out and Israel is never heard of again. [00:57:47] Some of us hope that one day those lost tithes will be restored. [00:57:52] But we wonder sometimes whether we're right in hoping that they've gone out. They've vanished. [00:58:00] You can't find them anywhere. This British Israel theory and many other theories that have been made aware of the lost 10 times they're gone, they're vanished. [00:58:13] When Judah falls, a remnant will return. When Israel falls, there's no return. [00:58:23] God will still take care of his people in exile. [00:58:26] Esther tells us that. [00:58:29] But the people who will return will be the house of Judah. [00:58:37] That is very, very wonderful. Something we want to take note of. All that ever remains of Israel is Samaria, the Samaritans, a hopeless, compromised mixture. [00:58:50] And then again. Another lesson we want to learn together is that in the whole history of Israel, God's faithfulness, God's grace and God's love are wonderfully expressed. [00:59:06] I do wish that the Lord's people were narrow where they should be narrow and broad. Broad where they should be broad. We're narrow on the Things they should be narrow on and broad on the things they should be broad on. The trouble with the Lord's people is that they're narrow where they ought not to be narrow and broad where they ought not to be broad. [00:59:28] You see, God's faithfulness, God's love and God's mercy are wonderfully expressed to Israel. Wonderfully expressed. [00:59:39] How are these things expressed? How does God express himself? In three ways. Now just look at these three ways in which God expresses himself. First, His Word. [00:59:51] Now you and I would say if you don't come together on this ground, then you won't hear the word of the Lord. [01:00:01] We can never say that. [01:00:04] Do you remember our brother Egon said here he knew a Roman Catholic priest in Austria who was preaching the Word of God with all his might. [01:00:15] God's word is given because God is sovereign. [01:00:22] And God takes up the most remarkable instruments at times to voice his words. And sometimes many of us, we've been taught about worldly methods. We've been taught about the way that the Lord won't let us do that. And then we see someone who seems to do them all and break all the things we've ever known. The Holy Spirit teach us. And we think, well, why? Because God is sovereign. [01:00:44] You can't say because that evangelist or that great speaker can do that, that and that, and that. And the Lord seems to be with him. I could do that, that, that and that and that. [01:00:57] The point is, on what ground are you that determines it? If you're on that ground, you can do that in God's sovereignty. Many people try to do those and try to use those. They don't get the law. Ascent. Some are raised up of God and he's with them. [01:01:14] We must hush ourselves and be quiet. We must not attack them. We must not say wrong things about them. It's God's sovereignty. They are expressions in the 20th century of the faithfulness and the mercy and the love of God for all his people wherever they are found. [01:01:36] Wherever they are found, no matter where they are found, is the expression of God's love and mercy, His Word. Look at the line of the and look at the great prophets of God that God gives to a gainsaying, contradicting, compromising people. [01:01:59] Elijah, the greatest prophet. Elisha, Hosea, that man of a broken heart. Amos, with his great cry that one day God's going to do something. Do you know these men's names are the most wonderful indication of the Lord's faithfulness in days of decline. Do you know what Jonah means? A Dove. [01:02:22] There he set in days of the most terrible vice and evil and error. And here he is a man who represents the spirit of God, brooding over the chaos, Brooding over the chaos, hovering over longing. And what is Jonah's great message? Even Nineveh the Lord will save if it will repent. How much more strength. [01:02:49] You see what we're getting at and think of Micah. What is his name? Who is like. Who is like the Lord? [01:02:57] What a name. [01:02:59] What a mission. Who is like the Lord? The end. Tragic. Tragic, no. The word of God is the wonderful evidence of the Lord's faithfulness to the hypocrite. [01:03:15] The master tape at this point was turned over and approximately 90 seconds of the message is missing. [01:03:24] We would like to have a God who only thinks as we think and can only see one. Oh, because the Lord blesses. It doesn't mean, you know, necessarily that the Lord is holy with what he blesses. [01:03:39] The Lord blesses evil people at times. [01:03:43] It is an amazing thing in this world and the way that things go and the leniency with which the law treats some evil people, and the severity that he deals with those who are faithful. [01:04:00] So that's the next thing. We find it in Ahab's reign, and Jehoah has his reign, Jehoash his reign. We find it also In Jeroboam, Jeroboam II's reign. The Lord delivering his people all the time, being with them, even though they're evil and the kings are evil, the leadership is evil. And then the third thing I want you to notice is the long suffering and faithfulness, the long suffering faithfulness of God to His Word, to different men. It's an amazing thing that the Lord comes to Jehu, a man so filled with natural energy and so evil in many ways, and he says to him, because you have really honored my name, even though we can't set your methods right, I will see that your son sits on the throne. To the fourth generation. Now, that gives a lot of people a headache. [01:04:56] They feel the Lord shouldn't do that kind of thing. Why did the Lord come to Jeroboam at the very beginning and say to Jeroboam, if you walk in the ways of David, I will bless you, we would say, but the Lord shouldn't do that. It's a division. He should bless the leader of the division. [01:05:13] Why does the Lord bless the leader of a division? [01:05:16] Because they are his people. [01:05:20] The Lord does, in the most remarkable way, express himself, his faithfulness, his love and his grace in these ways again and again, and again, then I also want you to note that the prophets represent the throne of God. Over against days of defeat and decline. This is one of the most wonderful things about the whole book of Kings. What is the key to the book of Kings? Kingship, kingdom, the firm. [01:05:52] What does it teach us? It teaches us this man may fail, but God never fails. [01:05:59] Human kings may fail, but God's king will never fail. Do you know the prophets represent the throne of God? So let the throne collapse, let the human king collapse, but God's king. And God's throne is secure and triumphant. And all the way through you get the prophet coming with the voice of God from his throne. The wonderful thing, that's something we ought also to learn in our day of decline, departure and compromise. The Lord is on the throne and there is no difference to his throne and his king. His king is on his throne. And that's a wonderful thing. And that's the thing that kept the prophets going. They knew the throne of God was secure. The kingdom of God ruleth over all. They knew that it that all this was all right. In the end, God was on the throne. [01:06:56] And then I would also lastly and truly lastly, like you to note that kings does reveal the absolute necessity of distinguishing how to maintain the unity of all the people of God and yet not to become involved in that which is on wrong ground. [01:07:22] I say that again because I want you to study kings in the light of this. Many of you are not clear on this. [01:07:27] The book of King teaches us how to distinguish the absolute necessity of distinguishing how to maintain the unity of all the people of God and yet not become involved in that which is on the wrong ground. [01:07:48] Now that's a very, very wonderful thing. [01:07:52] Somehow or other, you and I are in days of decline, of departure and compromise. Very well, what have we got to do? We have got to know how to maintain the unity of all the people of God without very lifeblood. [01:08:08] And yet at the same time not to become involved with anything which is erroneous, which is compromised, which is on the wrong ground. [01:08:23] How this history of the divided kingdom teaches us this. First of all, the old prophet. Do you remember the old prophet? [01:08:30] He lived in Israel. And do you remember the young man was sent to Bethel with a great message of God. He was told, you're not to sleep, you're not to eat, you're not to live, you're not to stay on that ground, you're to go with that message, deliver that message because they are the people of God, and then come away. And then the old prophet came and he said, now look here. [01:08:51] I also am a prophet of the Lord. The young man said, but the Lord told me I wasn't to stay here. The old prophet said, ah, but the Lord has told me you are to stay here. You are to stay with me tonight. So the young man thought, well, he's an old man. He's a godly man. He's a child of God. He's had a word from the Lord. It can't be wrong. Let's have fellowship. It can't. Can't. Can't harm people. And he stayed the night. Do you know what happened? He lost his life as a result of it. What was this to teach us at the very beginning of the divided kingdom? It was to teach us the nurse necessity of distinguishing how to maintain the unity of all the people of God and yet at the same time, not to become involved with the people of God on the wrong ground. [01:09:41] Now that's one of the. That needs discernment. There are many people without discernment. They cannot see clearly. We need discernment. Then I get there. You think of Elijah. He wasn't allowed to set up an altar with two stones. He had to set up an altar of 12 stones. And although he was living himself, Israel, he had to, you remember, call upon the Lord at the time of the evening oblation. Where was the time of the evening oblation? Right down there in the south, at Jerusalem, in the house of God. [01:10:11] He learned how to maintain the unity of all the people of God and yet not come in bond in that which was decadent and wrong. [01:10:20] Then again, you think of Jehoshaphat. I told you about Jehoshaphat. I don't think I need to spe time upon it. You know what happened to him. He so loved the people of God. He wanted to see them wedded. He wanted to see them brought back. He didn't want to see them any longer. He wanted fellowship with them. He wanted somehow, as it were, to embrace them all. So it's the best thing I can do. Having failed twice with his army and with his navy, he said, the best thing I can do is give my daughter, my son, my. The crown prince, he's a man. [01:10:51] The NHLR's a woman. There can't be any trouble in that. He'll take the lead. [01:10:56] She's bound to fall in with us. He won't go after them. But it was a big mistake. A big mistake. And everything was nearly lost through that simple sentimental move of Jehoshaphat. And so we could go on through many others. Now I will ask you a question and we will close. [01:11:29] If there is such a necessity to distinguish, how to maintain the unity of all the people of God and yet at the same time not to become involved, I want to ask you a question. [01:11:43] Why does Chronicle ignore Israel completely and only bring Israel's kings in when they touch Judah? [01:12:02] Now, why is that? I want to ask why? [01:12:05] Why does Chronicles ignore. [01:12:07] And secondly, why does kings put the kings of Israel first always and give their reigns at greater length and detail than Judah? [01:12:22] Why? [01:12:24] Because Chronicles is dealing with the house of God. [01:12:30] It is dealing with the mystery, the thing called the mystery in the New Testament. [01:12:37] The people of God who are going to bring Christ in Judah. [01:12:46] And because it is dealing with them, it confines itself to the people of God on the right ground. [01:12:57] Kings deals preeminently with the throne of God and God's king. [01:13:06] Therefore, it keeps in view all the people of God, and especially the people of God on the wrong ground, because he's king and his eye is on everyone. [01:13:27] So Kings keeps them in view. [01:13:31] In other words, he's the king and they are all his subjects, his people. [01:13:39] They are all included. [01:13:43] Let us remember that. I don't think myself that the kingdom of God can be equated with the church of God. [01:13:55] The house of God is within the kingdom of God. That is something very, very wonderful. We believe that now. But there we are. [01:14:07] We enter into the kingdom of God by birth, and when we're there, we are the loving subjects of the king's care and sovereignty. [01:14:20] Let's remember that the house of God is something that, oh, needs a deep, deep work of the cross if we're ever going to be incorporated into it and made part of it of the body of our Lord Jesus.