Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): God is so very patient, not wanting anyone to perish. But there will come a point in time when judgment day will arrive. Pastor Bill Luebkemann says get right with the Lord now before it’s too late.

Bill Luebkemann: Who can ever say the Lord is fast when he gets angry? He is slow and patient, longsuffering. We should never confuse God’s longsuffering with what’s right or with judgment. Judgment is going to come when we’re not following the Lord.

There are people today that say we’re doing just fine without God. We don’t need this God. We got two cars and plenty of money and a boat and a vacation home, and we are just doing great. What’s this God stuff? Nothing’s going wrong in our life. Well, just wait. Judgment Day is coming.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Hope From the Word from Calvary Chapel of Marlton where we’re getting back to our study in 2 Kings 17 with our teacher, Pastor Bill Luebkemann. 2 Kings takes us through some tumultuous times in the nation of Israel. In our message today, we’ll see more of the events that took place during the reign of King Ahaz and King Hoshea. Here’s Pastor Bill with the details. Verse 14.

Bill Luebkemann: "But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who did not trust in the Lord their God." So he says these prophets came, the seers came, they repeated over and over again all the things of God. But the people were stiff-necked. In other words, they wouldn’t turn around, they wouldn’t change their ways. They were just like their fathers. Their fathers didn’t trust in the Lord; they don’t trust in the Lord.

"They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their fathers and the warnings he had given them." This covenant was a two-way deal. God said, "I’ll do this if you do that." They said, "Yes, we agree," as the mountain was smoking and Moses was talking with them there. "We agree, we’ll do that, and we understand." God said, "When you don’t do it, all these things are going to happen." "Oh yes, we understand that." And these people rejected all that outright.

God’s word says to us today, if you follow me and do it my way, I’m going to forgive your sins and you’ll be able to spend all of eternity in heaven with me. People still say, "No, we reject that. We want to do it our own way." But there is no other way. They rejected it. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.

I think the original language there says something like this: they worshipped emptiness and became empty. Isn't that amazing? They just, "Oh, let’s all get together and become empty here. Let’s worship emptiness. Let’s try to be nothing." It’s kind of like meditating on your navel and chanting "om" and trying to empty your mind so there’s nothing left inside of it. Some people, it doesn’t take them very long to empty their mind, by the way.

Some of them you see in the news, they shouldn’t have to chant too long and their mind would be empty. There’s not much in there to begin with. But these people here followed worthless idols, becoming worthless, worshipping emptiness and becoming empty. They imitated the nations around them, although the Lord had ordered them, "Do not do as they do."

And they did the things the Lord had forbidden them to do. This is one of the sorriest passages of scripture, I think, that there is. There are plenty of other sorry ones, but this is pretty sorry. Every single thing they did wrong. They didn’t miss anything. I mean, Moses broke all 10 commandments at the same exact time. These people were breaking them all over some period of time, a long period of time.

They looked around at all the other nations. "Let’s see what we can do. Their god, let’s worship their god. Oh, you worship that god? Let’s try out that god." Hey, how about the people that worshipped Dagon? Back when they brought the Ark into the Temple of Dagon and they came in the next day and the Dagon statue had fallen down.

And they set it back up again. This was the Philistines. The next night it fell down again. They came in and now the statue had fallen down and the arms and I think it was the head and arms had fallen off and were laying on the entryway. They figured out they needed to get rid of that Ark of the Covenant, but I’m not sure the Philistines ever thought to themselves, "Maybe we should worship this God instead of our own useless god."

God said, "Don’t do as they do," and they never found anybody that they didn’t want to imitate. This nation of Israel, they wanted to imitate everyone. And how about this, verse 16: "They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts and they worshipped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking him to anger."

It’s almost like if you took every single bad thing in the Bible and every single thing God said not to do and compacted it into one paragraph, that’s what they’re doing here. It’s hard to think of anything that they didn’t do. It says they forsook all the commands of the Lord their God, not just a few, but they forsook everything the Lord said.

They did the exact opposite of what God said in every possible way. And one way was in making idols and an Asherah pole and bowing down to the stars and the moon and the planets and whatever, and worshipping Baal, which was another idol. And even sacrificing their sons and daughters in flames to these false gods and practicing divination, trying to talk to the dead, and sorcery, magic, and selling themselves to do evil things to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking him to anger.

And they did all these things for 200 years. 200 years before judgment comes upon them. Who can ever say the Lord is fast when he gets angry? He is slow and patient, longsuffering. We should never confuse God’s longsuffering with what’s right or with judgment. Judgment is going to come when we’re not following the Lord.

There are people today that say we’re doing just fine without God. We don’t need this God. We got two cars and plenty of money and a boat and a vacation home, and we are just doing great. What’s this God stuff? Nothing’s going wrong in our life. Well, just wait. Judgment Day is coming. And for the Israelites here, it was 200 years in coming. It ain’t going to be that long in coming for any of us who are alive today.

Someone out there who’s not following the Lord, judgment day is coming. It’s going to be a lot sooner than 200 years for you. So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Listen, they were living in the land of Israel, but in his very presence they were represented somehow. He was living among them and they among him.

In some way, his presence was there in a special way, but he didn’t want to be around them anymore. "Only the tribe of Judah was left and even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced. Therefore, the Lord rejected all the people of Israel. He afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers until he thrust them from his presence."

These afflictions happened over a period of time. There were lesser things that happened over this 200-year period. There were calls to judgment and there were prophecies given and seers that spoke and there was affliction that came and numerous things were given to bump them around a little bit and get them to turn to the Lord.

But they rejected everything until he rejected them. And then he afflicted them and he gave them into the hands of others and he put them out of his presence. Verse 21: "When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the Lord and caused them to commit a great sin."

Jeroboam was the one that led the revolt. Solomon’s son was Rehoboam, and the people said to Rehoboam when Solomon died, "Your father was a hard taskmaster. Look, if you’ll just give us a break, we’ll serve you forever." But Rehoboam, his heart was hard. He said, "I ain’t going to give you any break." And he talked to his hotheaded advisors.

He talked to his father’s advisors and they said, "Do what they say, give them a break and they’ll be your loyal subjects forever." But his hotheaded young advisors said, "No, don’t give them a break. Bust their chops, man. Just get more out of them, squeeze them more, make them work harder." And guess what? They revolted and Jeroboam led this revolt here.

Jeroboam became king of the other kingdom. And like I said before, then he set up a place of worship in the northern kingdom to make it more convenient for them. Really because he didn’t want them going down and being won over by the south and becoming traders. So he’s got to keep them in the north, give them a place to worship up here.

Well, that was strictly against the rules. And that was just the beginning of what he did. He enticed Israel away from following the Lord and caused them to commit a great sin. Following another god is a great sin. Worshipping the Lord God and other gods is a great sin. Just worshipping the Lord God the wrong way was a great sin. It had to be done the way he wanted it done, exactly the way he wanted it done.

The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them until the Lord removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants, the prophets. The people should have known this was coming because they were warned about it over and over again.

So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there. They were living there even in the time of Christ. The Samaritans were the half-breed people that were descended from those that were carried off into captivity and intermarrying with those that were already in Assyria. That’s why the Jews of Jesus' time hated them.

There’s all kinds of stories about the lost tribes and all that stuff. "Oh, the lost tribes are somewhere else in the world, discovered the lost tribes of Israel." These tribes weren’t lost; they were carried off to Assyria. They were dispersed. They didn’t stick together and move to Great Britain like some people say, or China or anywhere else. They were just dispersed everywhere and they intermarried.

But you know what? If you turn back a few hundred years, there were many people who wanted to worship the Lord God for real that moved down to the south. So the southern kingdom, Judah, had representatives of all the tribes probably. And some representatives of all the tribes were living in all different places, intermarried and intermingled all around the world.

The King of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim. And by the way, I make no claim at all to know how to pronounce these words. The King of Assyria brought all these people and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites.

So he did kind of a swap here. Took the Israelites out, moved them all around, brought other people in, settled them down there, mix and match, like put them all in a blender, mix them all up, see where they land. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns.

There’s some ancient writings that have been discovered from this King of Assyria who talks about having conquered this land and rebuilding the city, he said, even greater than it had been before. I read that somewhere, but it’s in a secular ancient writing that this King of Assyria said he conquered Samaria and made it bigger than it was before and better.

They took over Samaria, lived in its towns. When they first lived there, they did not worship the Lord. So he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people. It was reported to the King of Assyria: "The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off because the people do not know what he requires."

See, these people, they thought that every land had a different god. "We live over here, we have to worship that god. We live over here, we have to worship that god. We live over there, every land had its own god." And when they had a war, they’d say, "Well, our land has a god, your land has a god, our god’s bigger than your god, so that’s why we’re going to beat you in the war."

And whoever won the war, they said, "Well, our god beat your god." And those gods were all fake. But there was one real God and you did have a place set aside called the Holy Land, the land of Israel, and the Lord apparently had a love for the people but also for the land.

So here’s one case where there was a God who was looking after a particular land. And when the King of Assyria moved people in here, the Lord God sent lions there and started killing off some of the people. And that really shook them up. And they reported back to the King of Assyria, "This must be the God of this land because we don’t even know who he is."

"So how are we going to worship him? We don’t even know who he is. But he sent lions here to kill us all off." These people were actually somewhat spiritually astute. They could figure out something. "We must be doing something wrong here. God’s got something against us. These lions are attacking us. We better find out what’s going on."

It’s amazing people today are not even at that level. Then the King of Assyria gave this order: "Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land required." So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the Lord.

So the king says, "Well, I’ll tell you what, we’ll get a guy who knows how to worship the God of that country and we’ll send him down there." Now let’s remember this: the real priests who really wanted to worship God had left Samaria 200 years earlier and were living down in Judah near where the Temple was. They didn’t want to be part of this kingdom.

And after 200 years, the religion, the system in Samaria was very corrupt. And so this priest that they found who was in Samaria was probably corrupt to begin with. He was probably part of the problem, not part of the solution. He was probably part of the reason why the people got deported to begin with.

He may have known something about worshipping God, but probably not all of it. Or maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he knew what the rules were, but he just didn’t follow them. You can almost count on this guy not teaching these people everything about how to worship the Lord.

Nevertheless, it says in verse 29: "Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled." Now we saw the national groups earlier, the Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim back in verse 24. And these various national groups settled in different towns and each group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places.

So the shrines that the Jews had used previously, now when the land was resettled, the new people, they took their idols and put them in the shrines that the Israelites had left and they were worshipping their gods in those places. The men from Babylon made Sukkoth-benoth, the men from Cuthah made Nergal, and the men from Hamath made Ashima, the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

They worshipped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. So the people in each of these people groups made the gods that they wanted to make that they followed and they set them up in the shrines that were there and they were worshipping them even to the point of burning their own children.

This priest who taught them how to worship the Lord, well, they worshipped him also. Well, great, he’s the Lord of this land, he’s the God of this land, super. We’ll worship him too. But we’re going to worship our god who we’ve always had, but we’ll just add your God to the list and we’ll get all of our bases covered.

And then they appointed different people to be priests in their shrines and they worshipped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought. So they did everything. They never met a god they didn’t want to worship. They’d worship everybody.

"You got a god? We got a god. Great, let’s have a party and worship them. Bring some sacrifices, we’ll worship them all." I guess it never occurred to them to figure out, well, which one is the right God? It’s like people today say, "Well, you know, we should all be free to believe whatever we want to believe."

Well, I agree with that, but do you think you should give some consideration to whether it’s right or not? It’s like someone says if you plug your finger in the outlet, you’re going to get electrocuted. "Well, I don’t think that’ll happen. I just don’t believe that. I think putting my finger in the outlet will be quite an exhilarating experience."

Well, it doesn’t matter what you believe. The fact is you’re going to get electrocuted, and when you stick your finger in there, you’ll find out. And what you believe doesn’t matter. But somehow with religion, everybody wants to believe whatever they want and everything’s supposed to be just as good as the next thing, which makes them all worthless.

If all religions are equal, then they’re all equally worthless because they’re all different and they cannot all be right. Don’t you think we should think about which one is right? Which one is correct? Which one is proper? Which one really truly is related to the real, true, and only God?

Are there really 50 gods fighting with each other over little small pieces of land? "I’m the god of New Jersey. I’m going to kick out the god of Pennsylvania. He better stay on the other side of the river." Or is there one God who made it all?

You know, if there was really different gods in different places, you’d think there’d be a lot of differences in the landscape, even in the air. Maybe this air over here wouldn’t have oxygen because that god didn’t like oxygen. And this air over here would have too much oxygen. How anybody can believe there’s all these gods fighting over little square acres of land, just sheer foolishness.

Verse 34: "To this day, they persist in their former practices." Continued to do it even until the time of Christ, even until today, I might add in various forms. "They neither worship the Lord nor adhere to the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob, whom he named Israel."

Look, the very name they had was given them by God, but they didn’t worship him and they didn’t follow any of his rules either. When the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites, he commanded them: "Do not worship any other gods or bow down to them, serve them, or sacrifice to them."

Don’t do any of those things. Don’t worship any other gods, don’t bow down to any other gods, don’t serve any other gods, don’t sacrifice to any other gods. In America, there’s lots of other gods that people worship and bow down to. They may not be gods of gold and silver and bronze like they were in these times. There are all different gods of career and money and stuff and lots of other things.

"But the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt with mighty power and outstretched arm is the one you must worship." Look, this is what the guy did. This God brought you out of Egypt with mighty power, all the plagues that he sent to the Egyptians, even to the point of killing the firstborn of every household in Egypt.

This Lord God, he had mighty power and his arm was outstretched against Egypt. And he’s the one you got to worship. To him you shall bow down and to him offer sacrifices, and only to him, and to no other. He does not share his accommodations.

"You must always be careful to keep the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands he wrote for you. Do not worship other gods. Do not forget the covenant I have made with you, and do not worship other gods." Look, just in case anybody’s hard of hearing or slow of reading, he repeats it even here a few other times.

Don’t do this, don’t bow down to other gods, don’t worship other gods. Always be careful. Don’t say, "Oh, I didn’t know, officer, the speed limit was only 55. I didn’t know that. I’ve only been driving on this road for 20 years, but I didn’t know that. I thought the sign that says 295 was really the speed limit."

You must always be careful. You know, the officer says, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" "Yes, sir, because you didn’t have anything else to do." He says here: "You must always be careful to keep the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands he wrote for you." You have to be careful about that. Ignorance is no excuse. You have to know what they are and you have to keep them.

"Do not worship other gods. Do not forget the covenant I made with you and do not worship other gods." Why does he repeat it here? Well, could it be that he really wants us to understand this? They made a covenant. "Don’t forget the covenant," he said, "and don’t worship any other gods. Rather, instead of that, don’t do that, but instead of that, rather worship the Lord your God. It is he who will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies."

See, they would rather get carried away into captivity from worshipping other gods than to sit there and enjoy every man his own fig tree and his own grapevine and the blessings of God that they could enjoy just by only worshipping him. That doesn’t make any sense.

You know, the Bible says sin is pleasurable for a season, but these people, I can’t even see that their sin is pleasurable or was pleasurable. They got hauled away for nothing, and they could have had everything. The Lord gave them so much and they threw it all out the window.

"They would not listen, however, but persisted in their former practices." These are some of the saddest verses in here. "Even while these people were worshipping the Lord, they were serving their idols. To this day, their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did."

Guest (Male): You’ve been listening to Hope From the Word from Calvary Chapel of Marlton. We’re currently in Pastor Bill Luebkemann’s study of 2 Kings. If you’d like to hear this message again, you have several options. Visit our website at ccmarlton.org, download the Hope FM app to your smartphone or tablet, or look for us wherever you find your podcasts.

If you’ve been thinking about visiting Calvary Chapel of Marlton where Bill serves as pastor, we’d love to have you. Our service times are on Sunday mornings at 10:00. We also meet midweek on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. You can also livestream from home whenever you visit our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. For more information, go to ccmarlton.org. We hope to see you soon.

Before the day is done, we’d like to connect with you. Share a praise report, prayer request, or what you’re learning from this series. You can easily email us from our website, ccmarlton.org, or just call us at 856-983-1662. There’s more to come from Bill’s study of 2 Kings and we’ll have that for you next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.