Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): To those who would trust in their own experience, Pastor Bill Luebkemann asks the following question.

Bill Luebkemann: You see people today who take a little bit of Christianity and a little bit of this and a little bit of that and put it all together and find their religion that works for them. My only question is, does it matter if it’s correct? Does it matter if it’s true? Does it matter if it’s right, or do you just want it to feel good?

Guest (Male): If you make experience the basis for truth, then God's Word is no longer the basis. You can't have it both ways. Jesus said God's Word is true. Keep that in mind as you join us for Hope From the Word with Bill Luebkemann.

Bill is the pastor of Calvary Chapel of Marlton. We continue in 2 Kings with the story of perhaps the most wicked king in the history of Judah. Today, we enter the days of the divided kingdom and things are getting progressively worse. King Ahaz brought the nation to a whole new low. Before we pick up our study in 2 Kings chapter 16 and verse seven, Pastor Bill will turn to Isaiah chapter 7 for God's message to King Ahaz.

Bill Luebkemann: What is the Lord speaking to Ahaz? If we look in Isaiah chapter 7, when Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, marched up to fight against Jerusalem but they could not overpower it. Here’s the same story in Isaiah chapter 7.

Now the house of David—that’s the guy in the south, Ahaz, the guy in Judah—the house of David was told Aram has allied itself with Ephraim. So the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind. When they heard the northern kingdom has allied itself with the people of Ephraim, they were terrified. They were scared. They thought, "Oh boy, we're going to get it now."

Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool on the road to the Washerman's Field. Say this to him: 'Be careful, keep calm, and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood, because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah.'"

Now the guys from the north thought they were something else. They had this big hot army here and all these chariots, and we're going to go down and take care of them. God called them two smoldering stubs of firewood. They’re what’s left in your fireplace at the end of the night when you're getting ready to shovel out the ashes.

And the Lord said to him, "Don’t be afraid of them. Aram, Ephraim, and Remaliah's son have plotted your ruin, saying, 'Let us invade Judah, let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.' Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says: 'It will not take place. It will not happen. For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is only Rezin. Within sixty-five years, Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people. The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah's son. If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.'"

So the Lord told Ahaz before this happened. These people are going to come down and attack you. Don’t worry about it. They’re trying to take you over, but it’s not going to happen. Then He spoke to him again in verse 10. Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: "Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights." But Ahaz said, "I will not ask. I will not put the Lord to the test."

He claims he didn’t want to put the Lord to the test by asking for a sign, but the truth is he didn’t want to trust in God. The Lord told him this isn’t going to happen. These people are not going to be able to come down and take you over. It will not take place. It will not happen. The Lord God telling him directly, "It's not going to happen."

So you’d think that Ahaz—remember we saw Ahaz, he was an evil guy. He did not follow like his father David. He did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He walked in the ways of the king of Israel and all this bad thing that he did. Still, the Lord came to him and said, "Don’t worry about it. Those two smoldering sticks are not going to do anything to you." Amazing that here’s God still giving grace to Ahaz.

What does verse 7 say? Ahaz decided to trust in the Lord and follow Him with all his heart? God spoke to him and he’s going to put his faith and trust in the Lord. No. What a sad verse. Ahaz sent messengers to say to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, "I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Aram and of the king of Israel, who are attacking me."

Here's God Himself saying it’s not going to happen. Those two smoldering sticks are nothing to worry about. What does he do? Does he put his faith in God? No. He goes and tries to recruit an ally from his enemies, the Assyrians. He goes to the Assyrian king. What does he say? "I’m your servant and vassal." In other words, "I'll kneel down in front of you. I'll submit to you. I'll pay protection money, if you will. Just come up here and save me from this other guy because they're attacking me."

He does it the worldly way, not the God way. He could have trusted in God. He could have called a prayer meeting and prayed some great prayer. There are a lot of great prayers in the Bible. He doesn’t do any of that. In spite of the fact that the Lord tells him he’s going to be safe, he goes to his enemy the Assyrian and says, "You’ve got to help me fight these other people here. You’ve got to help me."

Then he did something that might even be worse. He says, "Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Aram and of the king of Israel, who are attacking me." Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria. He took God’s property here. The silver and gold from the temple, from the royal treasury, stuff that had been consecrated to God, given to the Lord for His purposes, and he gave it to these God-hating enemies of his, the Assyrians, as a price, as a gift to encourage them to come and help him fight this battle.

He wasn’t trusting in God at all. We’re looking strictly at the way of a man here. We'll do it the way man does it. We need to recruit some allies. We need to get some other people on our team. We need to have enough people together so that we can't be overcome. We need to apply logic and reason to it and figure it out and see what would be the correct thing to do instead of trusting in God, which doesn’t always add up the way that human logic and reason do.

The king of Assyria complied by attacking Damascus and capturing it. He deported its inhabitants to Kir and put Rezin to death. So the king of Assyria said, "No problem. I'll take your money, you fool, and I'll put them out of their misery." He attacks Damascus and captures it and deports the people and puts the king to death there. King Ahaz really appreciates the help. He was saved by this new-found ally who’s really his enemy.

Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. Previously we saw in verse seven he sent messengers to the guy. Now he actually goes there to meet him. He wants to be his friend, his buddy.

I had a friend that was in the Marines back in the '60s. He told me how he wanted one big, rough, heavy-set, fighting dude that nobody messed with in basic training. He said as soon as he identified that guy, he said to himself, "I’m going to make that guy my best friend. Anything he needs, I’m going to do for him." He said that’s how he got through basic training.

Well, that’s essentially what this guy does here. He goes up to Damascus to meet with the king of Assyria there. While he’s there, look what he does. Verse 10, he saw an altar in Damascus and sent to Uriah the priest a sketch of the altar with detailed plans for its construction. So he sees some pagan altar there. He’s meeting his enemy who just helped him win this battle. They're talking and he sees some altar there. Now it’s not an altar to the Lord God; it’s an altar to some false god.

He sees this altar there, which should have been condemned and destroyed. Instead, he makes a detailed sketch of it. He gets his tape measure out and he measures the height and the width and the building materials and he draws himself up some fancy blueprints here and he sends them on down to the priest in Jerusalem, a sketch of this altar, detailed plans for its construction.

So Uriah the priest built an altar in accordance with all the plans King Ahaz had sent from Damascus and finished it before King Ahaz returned. When the king came back from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and presented offerings on it. He offered up his burnt offerings and grain offering, poured out his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his fellowship offerings on the altar.

The bronze altar that stood before the Lord, he brought from the front of the temple, from between the new altar and the temple of the Lord, and put it on the north side of the new altar. So he replaced the altar in the temple with this pagan altar that he had constructed, following the blueprints he got when he was in Damascus.

Now it’s one thing to worship God in the wrong place. It’s worse to worship some pagan god on some false altar. But this is probably the capstone, the main offense here of all. He actually went out and brought the pagan altar back to Jerusalem—not the exact same one, but he constructed a duplicate of it. And he was so happy with it, he made all his offerings on this altar.

There’s only one problem here, of course. Well, there are a few problems. How can I say there’s only one problem there? Numbers 18:7, just to remind you of some very important rules here. I'll read it; you don't need to turn there. "But only you and your sons"—this is the Lord talking to Aaron now—"But only you and your sons may serve as priests in connection with everything at the altar and inside the curtain. I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift. Anyone else who comes near the sanctuary must be put to death."

Look, the priests made the offering. They were descended from Aaron. He was of the tribe of Levi. The kings were descended from David. He was of the tribe of Judah. One and the twain don't mix. The king’s not allowed to make offerings. And the priests were not allowed to be kings. So the king could bring his offering to the temple, and what did he do with it? He gave it to the priest like everybody else. And what did the priest do? The priest made the offering.

Here we see this guy making his own offering. Not allowed. You can't do that. Furthermore, he’s doing it on the wrong altar. Then to make matters worse, he decides to do a little rearranging here. He moves the altar of the Lord out of the way and puts this new altar in its place and moves the Lord’s altar to a lesser place.

I couldn’t help but think, here’s a guy using worldly techniques to solve his problem. Instead of consulting the Lord, he consults his enemies. He just looks around him and says, "Well, who’s got the strongest force?" Adversity makes for strange bedfellows, they say. Even though this guy’s my enemy, this other guy’s more of an enemy, so maybe we can work together—sort of like the way we were on the same side as Russia during World War II, but we really weren’t on their side before that or after that. Under the right circumstances, it was worth it to work together.

This guy, following a worldly technique that might even seem to possibly even work perhaps. Then coming back here and adjusting his whole religious system to match his technique. You know why he did this? Because these people helped him. So their god must be a powerful god. So let's worship their god, or at least get an altar. They must have something going because I went to them for help and they helped me. So they must know something and their god must have some kind of power or something. So I'll just take some of their religious worship and incorporate it into mine.

You see people today who take a little bit of Christianity and a little bit of this and a little bit of that and put it all together and find their religion that works for them. And my only question is, does it matter if it’s correct? Does it matter if it’s true? Does it matter if it’s right, or do you just want it to feel good?

King Ahaz then gave these orders to Uriah the priest: "On the large new altar, offer the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. Sprinkle on the altar all the blood of the burnt offerings and the sacrifices. But I will use the bronze altar for seeking guidance." And Uriah the priest did just as King Ahaz had ordered.

Look, here’s the priest who has built this altar. It kind of reminds me of when Moses was on the mountain and Aaron built the golden calf. Here’s the priest who built this altar for the king. He should have fought against it. There are other places in the Scriptures where the priests argued with the king and said, "No, that’s not right." He didn’t do that.

He builds it and then the king comes in and rearranges the whole place. And now the king then the king makes his own offering on the wrong altar, even though kings aren't supposed to make offerings on any altars. And then the king tells the priest, "From now on, I want you to use the new altar and I'll just use the old altar myself for seeking guidance." I wonder who he thinks is going to give him guidance. God spoke to him. He didn’t listen. Who’s he trying to get guidance from? Who’s he listening to?

Uriah the priest—it’s a sorry line—Uriah the priest did just as King Ahaz had ordered. King Ahaz took away the side panels and removed the basins from the movable stands. He moved the Sea from the bronze bulls that supported it and set it on a stone base. He took away the Sabbath canopy that had been built at the temple and removed the royal entryway outside the temple of the Lord in deference to the king of Assyria.

Here he made a whole bunch of other changes in the layout of the temple and the furnishings and the equipment of it. He even got rid of the special entryway. There was a special entrance to the temple that the king could enter through. It was like a connection somehow to the palace. And he got rid of that in deference to the king of Assyria to make him happy. He got rid of that.

As for the other events of the reign of Ahaz and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David, and Hezekiah his son succeeded him as king. This guy did just about everything wrong. He could have trusted in the Lord, but he didn’t. He went to his enemies for help.

Then because he was successful, he wanted to please them. In fact, over in 2 Chronicles, there’s a couple interesting verses. In 28:22 it says, "In this time of trouble, King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord. He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him, for he thought"—you're wondering why he did all this stuff that I've been talking about? Here’s the answer: "For he thought, 'Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me.' But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel."

Look what else did he do. If you continue reading in 2 Chronicles, Ahaz gathered together the furnishings from the temple of God and took them away. He shut the doors of the Lord’s temple and set up altars at every street corner in Jerusalem. In every town in Judah, he built high places to burn sacrifices to other gods and provoked the Lord, the God of his fathers, to anger.

Here’s a guy that he took this even further. Rearranging the temple, closing the entrance, and eventually closing down the whole place. He said, "Look, we're going to shut this whole place down just to be more fair to everybody, be more inclusive, let everybody feel a part of what’s going on now. We don't want the prayers to be too Jewish, focused on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We want to be more out there and get more people involved."

So we're going to close down the temple and put the altars all over town. And you can go to the nearest one and we'll put them in other towns and on tops of hills and whatever. And you can offer whatever sacrifice you want to whatever god you believe in. And that’s pretty much what goes on in America today. Yeah, just offer whatever sacrifice you want to whatever god you believe in. And we've lost our footing just like the nation of Israel had.

And here we have this guy here. He is completely confused and mixed up. Kind of a—if you look in Micah again, we read this verse already, but it’s kind of a summary of the whole thing: "Both hands are skilled in doing evil. The ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire. They all conspire together."

Just worship God anywhere. Don’t bother doing it the way He said. Don’t you be troubled coming on down to Jerusalem to make the offering there. Just offer to God whatever you want, wherever you want, whatever God means to you. Whatever God is, whoever it is—Mother Nature, she, offer to God whatever’s in accordance with what God means to you. It was completely a breakdown. Let's not do what God says; let's do what we think is right, what we feel is right, what we feel like doing.

And you can't help but see the parallel to what’s going on in our country and even the world as a whole, where more and more the Christians seem to be in the minority and more and more Christians are marginalized. Even today, where it’s illegal in America to even think certain things. Even America, the laws now are regulating thought in America.

I'll give you an example: hate crimes. If they kill you, they go to jail for a certain number of years. If they kill someone because they're gay, that’s a hate crime, double the penalty. Now we're going to double the penalty because of what somebody was thinking. It’s very scary where this country is going now. If you're thinking something, we're going to give you a greater penalty. If you preach against something and then someone can blame something on you, you're going to see them try to shut down churches here, probably in the not-too-distant future, or at least muzzle preachers. What did they get because of it? What did Israel get because of it? They ran the country into the ground because they knew not, worshiped not, followed not the God of their fathers.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in a study of 2 Kings. You can hear this message and more Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. Or if you prefer to listen via podcast, you can find Hope From the Word wherever you find your podcasts.

We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 a.m. and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org.

And if you'd take a moment to write to Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives, and we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. We'll continue our study in 2 Kings next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.