Episode Transcript
It is 10 o'clock and some change. Let's take our Bibles and turn to 2nd Kings 17.
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And we're going to let our cell phones take a moment of silence today, all the way till about 12 o'clock or after, if you don't mind.
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So help me out with that.
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2nd Kings 17 and verse 41 is where we left off and where we will begin this morning.
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While we're finding our place, I'd like you to also find 1 Samuel 8.
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Put you a marker there.
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Or if you're using an electronic device, open up another screen and put it on there.
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So you can be there whenever I refer to it in a few moments.
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1st Samuel chapter 8.
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Just put a marker there and we'll come back to that in just a moment.
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You have to wait till find out 8 what?
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Siri, I've got to have a little bit of the unknown in here.
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Alright, everybody find your places or do you need another moment?
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Last week we learned of a bunch of people who did after their former manor.
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That was the wording in the text.
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And they had constructed a religion that was a mixture of things that looked like Christianity
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and the religions of this world all mixed together.
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And any time you mix something with Christianity, you don't have Christianity anymore at all.
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You have a religion of Cain, whatever form it may take.
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And verse 41 in our text, if you're just joining us on the internet, we're in 2 Kings chapter 17.
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Verse 41 in our text, let's read that again.
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"So these nations feared the Lord and served their graven images, both their children and their children's children,
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as did their fathers, so do they unto this day."
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And it starts off saying, "So these nations feared the Lord and served their graven images."
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Israel's king at this time was in prison, Hosea, if you remember that.
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And the children of Israel were captives of Assyria.
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And the towns of Samaria had been refilled, the vacancies had been occupied by the Assyrian vassals,
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that is, countries that Assyria had conquered, such as Babylon and some of those other smaller nations.
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And if we look at this more closely, there is even a more tragic outcome of fearing the Lord for the lions
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rather than fearing the Lord the right way and serving their graven images.
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Remember, the original reason the Samaritans feared the Lord was that the lions were sent by the Lord to slay many of them
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because they didn't fear the Lord the way the priests taught them to.
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The priests came and taught them to fear the Lord, but they had not done so, and so the lions slew them.
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And when the priests came, all they were looking for is a way to keep from having more of them killed.
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That was their fear of the Lord, and we studied that phrase and that word fear quite a bit.
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So we know there's a difference between being afraid of the lions and a fear or a reverence or respect for the Lord.
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So let's look at this even more tragic outcome in the next part of the text,
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and it says, "Both their children and their children's children, as did their fathers, so do they unto this day."
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And now if you were to interview, let's say, a woman who was in prison and who had a family outside,
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had children, a husband, so forth, but she'd gone to prison for something,
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and you ask her, "Would you like for your children to come here one day?"
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I don't think there's a mother in prison who would say, "Oh, sure, this is a great place."
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They'd say, "No, I don't want them to do after what I did. In fact, I speak to them from this prison cell through my letters,
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through my visitations at the window. Do not do what I did to come here."
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Well, the children of Israel and the Samaritans not only failed to fear the Lord and they served graven images,
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but so did their children and their children's children.
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And that means they taught them to do it.
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They didn't even have the amount of respect and love and compassion for their children to say,
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"Hey, you saw what happened in Samaria when God sent the lions. Don't do what those people did."
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And it said, "They do so unto this day."
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And if you see that in the Bible, that means unto the day that the inspired writer wrote the text.
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It doesn't mean unto today, although it's still true, just not in that region with that particular set of people.
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And so what this phrase teaches us, both their children and their children's children,
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as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.
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What it teaches us is something else about their former manners.
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Their former manners were contagious.
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They were generational because they taught the children a religion that was unbiblical.
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And in fact, their false religion had its foundation in the violation of the first and the second commandments that God gave Israel.
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And what should have been their manner and their former manner,
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and that which the fathers did and which the children and their children did,
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what should have been the case was that those commandments were obeyed.
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That should have been their manner and their former manner.
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In fact, Israel was instructed by the Lord way before the time we're reading about.
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But even since then, they were instructed by the Lord to teach their children the commandments and statutes of the Lord,
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to walk in them and not depart from them, to keep them on their lips,
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to bind them about their neck and instruct their children in them.
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Do you know one of the quickest ways to ruin your Christian testimony before others,
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and that is to do after your former manner?
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In your home, your children or whoever else lives there with you,
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but we're talking about the children right now, they will see your inconsistent manner.
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The Bart Linkletter used to have that show on kids say the darndest things.
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Don't you ever think that a kid's not listening to what you say in the home?
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It makes you nervous, doesn't it?
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When somebody else gets to ask your kid, "What's going on in your house?"
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Well, they're going to tell them.
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And so they see your inconsistent behavior.
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They saw you smile at church and say, "Amen!" and shake the pastor's hand.
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But when you got home, they saw you lose your temper and curse.
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They see you open your Bible at church, but they never see you open it at home.
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The Christian life, as you know, is the most difficult life to live,
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but we don't do it alone.
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In fact, we don't do it at all.
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Jesus does it through us.
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Because if living the Christian life, it depended on our own efforts,
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then we'd fail it miserably just like we failed to become Christians at all by our own efforts.
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That's why we had to put our trust in the one who did that for us, Jesus.
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But God, so that we can live the Christian life, God brings His Word to our inner man.
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We read it.
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We've accepted that it's His Word.
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We say, "As the children of Israel did, all that the Lord has said, this will we do."
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And He brings that Word to our inner man.
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He does that by His Spirit, that we might know and do His will.
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He brings His admonition to our inner man to let no filthy communication come out of our mouths.
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So we restrain our lips from profanity.
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He reminds us that to look upon another woman, to lust after her is adultery.
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So we reserve that look for our own wives or our own husbands if you're a lady.
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And do you ever wonder what your children think about the way you live your life?
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If they were being honest, would they describe you as holy or as a hypocrite?
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Because they know.
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And as the fathers do and teach their children today, so will the children and their children do.
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They'll do after that manner.
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You don't have to teach a child to sin. You know that.
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They do that naturally, just like you and I.
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You have to teach them to do right.
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Because doing right is not in the flesh.
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The flesh doesn't want to do right.
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The flesh is selfish, which is the main problem.
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The flesh is prideful.
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The flesh wants to hide the bad and put the brag worthy out there.
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The flesh doesn't want anything negative.
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The flesh doesn't want responsibility.
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The flesh doesn't...here's a good example.
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If you drive up and down 175 out here, you'll see what the flesh does.
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The flesh doesn't want to hold on to its trash until it gets to a trash can.
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It wants to get it out of the car so it's somebody else's problem.
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Israel was a stumbling block to its own children.
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And by God's grace, let us not be.
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Now let's go to chapter 18 and verse 1.
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"Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshiah son of Elah king of Israel,
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that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign."
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So now we're moving from the nation of Israel, which is the northern kingdom.
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And we're moving back to the southern kingdom, Judah,
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which consists of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin largely.
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And Jerusalem is their capital.
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It says in the third year of Hoshiah.
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So looking at the beginning of Hezekiah's reign,
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we do that in context in terms of Hoshiah's reign.
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And so it looks like as you look back at the beginning of Hoshiah's reign
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and what it says about that in the prior chapter,
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that about the time Assyria besieged Samaria, which was three years,
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the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, that was Samaria,
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that that's about the time Hezekiah became king over Judah.
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And meanwhile, Hezekiah saw his father Ahaz
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and the king of Israel, Hoshiah, doing things that were not right
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in the sight of the Lord.
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And Hezekiah must have heard about that evil
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that befell his kinsmen in Israel because they had disobeyed the Lord,
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the very things we read about in Chapter 17.
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Now, I want to pause for a moment and just remind you
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how evil the kings were before Hezekiah.
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And you might say, well, how is it then that Hezekiah,
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as we're going to find out, was a very good king, unrivaled in fact.
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How did that happen?
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His dad didn't do right.
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His granddad.
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But how is it that Hezekiah is a good king?
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That's the grace of God.
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How is it that I'm a Christian?
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The grace of God.
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I didn't inherit my Christianity from my father or his father or anybody else.
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I didn't get past to me at the supper table.
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I became a Christian by the grace of God.
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And so that's how you have to look at Hezekiah's reign.
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This is going to be a very bright spot in a dark time in Judah's history.
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And it says he began to reign there in verse 18.
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The word reign means to rule as a king does.
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And to be the ruler of a nation or a state or a church or a family
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carries much responsibility with it.
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And whether by constraint or willingly,
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the people over whom a ruler reigns have to submit themselves to his reign.
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Now in our country, we have two primary political parties.
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And one side, one party, does not want any members of the other party to be in office.
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They don't want them to reign over them in any way.
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However, when that other party wins or is handed the election, yes, both ways,
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then those in the other party have to submit to that authority in some way.
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Even though it's grudgingly, even though it is with perhaps great animosity,
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we have to do that.
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And the reason we have to do that is because God in his providence
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has elected that that person be on the throne or that person be in the Oval Office,
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or that person be a wicked dictator over a country.
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Now God doesn't make them wicked, they make themselves wicked.
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But for example, let's just take the United States,
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and you may say, "I don't understand how God could let a wicked person,
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a person who is dead set against him, rule this country that he's blessed."
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Well, this country hadn't blessed him back, have we?
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We don't give blessings to God per se, we don't give him any benefits that he doesn't already have,
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but we bless by praising his name.
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We speak well about the Lord.
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That's what David did when he said, "Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits."
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He praised him.
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And so if God puts a wicked king over a country,
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or perhaps the people say, "Well, we'd like to have this wicked king serve us as our president
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or our dictator," then he'll let it happen.
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He'll set him up.
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And we have to submit to that.
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When Israel was in Babylon as prisoners for those years, so 70 years,
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God told them, "Don't fight against them, do what they say."
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And so that's something we need to begin, or to understand about, rulers.
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And in fact, the fact that any king ever reigned over Israel or Judah or a Gentile nation,
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for that matter, is contradictory to what should have taken place.
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When God led the children of Israel out of Egypt, did he ever say,
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"Now, I want you guys to find a king, I want you to appoint a king over yourselves
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to handle all this business."
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No, he didn't.
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In fact, Moses was their judge when they were in the wilderness,
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and the tasks became too burdensome for him.
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So his father-in-law said, "Hey, you need to appoint some helpers out here,
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some people to judge the smaller matters, and then let them bring the big ones to you."
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But he never said, "You know what you guys need? You need your own king."
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And so the fact that a king ever reigned over Israel or Judah,
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which is what we're focused on here, is an abomination.
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Israel's only ruler, the only one who should have reigned over them, was God.
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That's it. And then everything else would have been fine.
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Why do you think the subject of separation of church and state ever had to be addressed in the United States?
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Because even though this nation was founded upon the Christian principles,
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the world at large had decided we need kings.
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We need presidents.
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We need rulers over us besides the Lord God.
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There was no separation between church and state under God's rule, under His reign.
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It was all one.
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And had mankind embraced the Lord alone to be their ruler,
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then man would not have been kicked out of the garden.
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The earth would not have been flooded.
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Sodom and Gomorrah would not have had brimstone, hail upon it.
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And the children of Israel would not have been in bondage for 400-plus years, and so on and so on.
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God told Israel what it would be like to have a king reign over them, rather than having the Lord reign over them.
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And Samuel was a judge. He was a man of God. He wasn't a king.
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He was a judge very much like Moses.
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God spoke through him and he told the people what God said to do.
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And if you'll go ahead, you've certainly marked 1 Samuel chapter 8 by now.
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Go ahead and flip over there.
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And in 1 Samuel chapter 8, Samuel made his own sons as judges over Israel.
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He was about ready to pass off the scene.
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But his sons were crooked.
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They took bribes and they perverted judgment.
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And I want you to listen to what the elders of Israel demanded of Samuel there in 1 Samuel chapter 8.
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Alright, Sherri, I'll spill the beans. It's verse 5.
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So the elders of Israel in verse 4 had gathered themselves together and came to Samuel and Rhema in verse 5,
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and said unto him, Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways.
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Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
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And then in verses 6 through 7,
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But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us.
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And Samuel prayed unto the Lord.
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And the Lord said unto Samuel, Harken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee.
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For they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
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That's the phrase I want you to look at, that I should not reign over them.
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So it's very clear to us in this passage in 1 Samuel 8, that to require a king, to desire a king is to reject God.
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Let me tell you, I know who I am. Well, I've already cast my vote for our presidential candidate and senators and representatives and city council and everyone who was on this primary.
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I voted on the propositions, yea or nay.
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But I wish I didn't have to vote on any of those.
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I wish we didn't have a vote. I wish we didn't have a presidency or an executive or judicial branch or a legislative branch.
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:38,000
I wish we were as Israel when God brought them out of Egypt, that we were under him.
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:45,000
And well, things would be so much better, but that's not where we are.
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:49,000
So I have to honor our judicial, our executive, our legislative branch.
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:54,000
I have to honor our elections process and all of the laws, some of the silliest laws, some of the laws that seem to go against the Bible when they should not.
00:21:54,000 --> 00:22:07,000
Because that's who man has chosen to reign over him.
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:13,000
Samuel was a prophet and he was a judge and the words he spoke were God's words.
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:21,000
He didn't live in a palace. He didn't have his own private bodyguards and chariots, horsemen.
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In fact, he was raised in the temple under Eli. His mother, Hannah, delivered him there to be raised.
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But Israel, instead of being grateful that God gave them a prophet and judge named Samuel who never led them astray,
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Israel thought too much of Samuel because they thought his sons would be just like him and they weren't. They were crooked.
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:55,000
And so because of that, rather than saying, "Hey, Samuel, what are we going to do? Pray to the Lord for us. Your sons are wicked. We can't have them."
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We know the Lord's not speaking through them like he spoke through you.
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Pray to the Lord for us that he would give us another prophet, another judge just like you, that he may lead Israel and Judah in the way that they should go.
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:21,000
But they said, "We'll take a king instead. We're going to try somebody else. We're going to try it our way."
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And Israel saw all these Gentile nations around them.
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And I'm sure they were impressed with their kings and their armies and the palaces and all the worldly stuff that goes with it.
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And they coveted the kings and what they did for their people. And they coveted their things as well.
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:52,000
If you're still in 1 Samuel 8, go down to verse 8, and I'm going to read from verse 8 through the end of the passage.
00:23:52,000 --> 00:24:04,000
We studied this a few years ago when we were in 1 Samuel.
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:09,000
"According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day,"
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:16,000
Now this is God speaking to Samuel, "Wherewith they have forsaken me and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:23,000
Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them."
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:33,000
So this is where God says, "Okay, I want you to tell them before they even get a king, this is how they're going to be done by this king."
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This is what the king is going to do to them. Verse 10, "And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king.
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And he said, 'This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots and to be his horsemen.
00:24:49,000 --> 00:25:01,000
And some shall run before his chariots."
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,000
Every time you see the word "take," underline it or make a note.
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:07,000
"And he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war and instruments of his chariots.
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:20,000
And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and to be bakers.
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:26,000
And he will take your fields and your vineyards and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:34,000
And he will take the tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants.
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:41,000
And he will take your men's servants and your maid servants and your goodliest young men and your asses and put them to his work.
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:47,000
And he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants.
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:52,000
And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king, which ye shall have chosen you."
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:58,000
God didn't choose that they would have a king.
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:03,000
"And the Lord will not hear you in that day.
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:06,000
Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, 'Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations.'"
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:16,000
Do you hear what they said?
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:18,000
They want to be like everyone else.
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,000
Not a peculiar people unto the Lord, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:28,000
"And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord.
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:32,000
And the Lord said to Samuel, 'Harken unto their voice and make them a king.'
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:36,000
And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, 'Go ye every man unto his city.'"
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:42,000
Now, we read that a few years ago.
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:50,000
Today, we have the benefit of having studied about the kings of Israel and Judah,
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:58,000
both the few good ones and the many, many bad ones.
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:03,000
And we've seen that what God said would happen was true.
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,000
And in fact, it began to happen with the very first king, Saul.
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:10,000
It began to happen just like God said it would.
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:14,000
And there are two things I'd like you to notice here before we leave 1 Samuel chapter 8.
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:20,000
One, I mentioned to you a moment ago, the word "take."
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How many times did you see the phrase, "He will take"?
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:30,000
Several times, wasn't it? Around five or six.
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:34,000
The kings whom the people wanted would take from them.
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:40,000
And not only that, what they took from Israel, they would give to others.
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:49,000
What they took from Israel would be the fruit of their labors,
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:54,000
the fruit of their loins, and their servants as well.
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:59,000
The children of Israel would work for that and would produce that,
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:04,000
both in the form of offspring and of goods, cattle,
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:09,000
cheap crops, everything else.
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:14,000
They would produce all of that, and it would be taken from them by their king
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:19,000
and given to someone who did not work for them.
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,000
Does that sound awfully familiar?
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:27,000
You notice, number two, what they wanted their king to do for them.
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:33,000
We saw what he'd take from them, but notice what they wanted their king to do for them.
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:40,000
You'll see it back in verse 20 if you're underlining, if you're just taking notes,
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:45,000
just reference verse 20 here.
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,000
They wanted their king to do three things for them,
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:51,000
to judge them, to go out before them, and to fight their battles.
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:56,000
Those three things.
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,000
Now let's take those three things and see whether they are things that God would do for them
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:05,000
or whether he had already done them for Israel and Judah.
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:11,000
First of all, it says that our king may judge us, which means to plead their cause.
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:18,000
Deuteronomy 32, verse 36, write this down.
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:22,000
Deuteronomy 32, verse 36, says, "For the Lord shall judge his people
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:28,000
and repent himself for his servants when he seeth that their power is gone
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:32,000
and there is none shut up or left."
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:34,000
Did you hear that?
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:35,000
"For the Lord shall judge his people."
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:42,000
Yes, God will judge his people.
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,000
A king is not needed to judge the people.
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:48,000
Number two, our text says, "Go out before us."
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:51,000
That is, what they wanted their king to do is go out before them.
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:56,000
And in Exodus 13, verse 21, it said about the children of Israel,
00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:06,000
"And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them the way,
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:15,000
and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day and night."
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:21,000
They wanted a king to go out before them, and yet the Lord had already led his people
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:26,000
and provided that pillar of fire in that cloud specifically to lead them the way.
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:35,000
So yes, God will go before his people, and he has.
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:39,000
And the third thing the children of Israel and Judah wanted,
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:44,000
well the children of Israel wanted was that the king would fight their battles.
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:50,000
He said, "And fight our battles."
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,000
Deuteronomy chapter 1, verse 30.
00:30:53,000 --> 00:31:01,000
"The Lord your God, which goeth before you, he shall fight for you,
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:06,000
according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes."
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:11,000
So God said, or Moses said, "God's going to fight for us,
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:16,000
and in fact he's already done it.
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,000
You saw him fight for us.
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,000
He slayed all the firstborn in the land that did not have the blood over the doorpost.
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:26,000
He safely guided you to the Red Sea, parted it, dried the ground up,
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:31,000
brought you across, closed the waters over the enemy, and killed him.
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:37,000
He fought for you, he's going to do it again."
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:42,000
So not only did God's Word tell Israel that God would judge them,
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:47,000
go out before them and fight for them, but that he had already done so
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:52,000
because the texts that I gave you all came in time
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:58,000
well before the texts we're reading in 1 Samuel
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:02,000
and before what we're reading in 2 Kings.
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:07,000
And these hard-hearted Israelites in Ahaz's day and Hosea's day
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:14,000
rejected God's promise.
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,000
They didn't believe God would do what he said he would,
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:19,000
just like the people in Samuel's day.
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,000
But rather they trusted in an earthly king
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:26,000
to do that which they thought either God could not or would not.
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:32,000
So the question is, who reigns over you?
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:38,000
Will you have an earthly king, or will you have the king of kings reign over you?
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:44,000
It's the same question Israel and Judah had to answer in their day.
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:47,000
Who will you have reign over you?
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:51,000
Listen, we're going to have kings and presidents and dictators until Jesus comes
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:56,000
and sets his government up on a new earth.
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,000
It's going to happen. We asked for that.
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,000
We brought that upon ourselves.
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:04,000
Adam and Eve rejected God's government in the garden.
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:08,000
The children of Israel rejected God's government in the wilderness.
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:14,000
The children of Israel rejected God's government in Samuel's day.
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:19,000
And people still do today.
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:24,000
Verse 2 in our text, we're back in 2 Kings chapter 18 and verse 2.
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaking of Hezekiah, 20 and 5 years old was he when he began to reign.
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:38,000
And he reigned 20 and 9 years in Jerusalem.
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:41,000
His mother's name also was Abbe, the daughter of Zechariah.
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:48,000
Now we don't see anything else about Abbe in the Bible.
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:54,000
And here we don't see, well we see Zechariah mentioned,
00:33:54,000 --> 00:34:00,000
and that's Hezekiah's grandfather's name, which would be Abbe's mother.
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:06,000
And Zechariah is a very common Jewish name.
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:09,000
In fact, I think there are 20, well maybe 30 different uses of it in the Old Testament.
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:20,000
Look in verse 3 now.
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaking of Hezekiah, and he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that David, his father did.
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:35,000
Now that statement right there put Hezekiah in a very small group of kings who've ever lived.
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:42,000
In fact, it was so small that the only other ones in it besides David were Asa and Josiah.
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:50,000
Even Solomon's reign was not in that category because he left the high places up and he burned incense and took many wives and concubines.
00:34:50,000 --> 00:35:01,000
So what a bright and shining light Hezekiah is in this dark period of Judah and Israel's history.
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:08,000
In verse 4, he removed the high places and break the images and cut down the groves and break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made.
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:18,000
I hope we get to that.
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:19,000
For unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it, and he called it Nehustan.
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:30,000
He removed the high places.
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:32,000
You know that takes great boldness for a leader to do.
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:36,000
It really does, especially knowing that his father had allowed those high places and perhaps even worship there.
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:46,000
He didn't say, "Well, you know, if it was good enough for my father, it's good enough for me."
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:53,000
He said, "It displeases the Lord." And I'm sorry my father did it, but I'm not going to do it.
00:35:53,000 --> 00:36:00,000
I'm not leaving him there.
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:02,000
Those high places, as we've learned in several previous lessons, become entrenched in a society and they're very difficult to remove.
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:11,000
They don't fall down overnight.
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:14,000
And those high places aren't just physically tall structures or places of worship that are situated on a mountain or a hillside in a high elevation.
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:24,000
Those high places, whether physical or figurative, are anything that competes with or takes the place of the true, undefiled religion that the Lord established.
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:39,000
And when a king removes the high places, he will often meet resistance from the people who benefited from them and who put them there.
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:50,000
It said he'd break the image. Now this is a very personal thing to do.
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:54,000
The high places were a location. The images were tangible objects, no matter how big they were.
00:36:54,000 --> 00:37:01,000
They were graven images. And the worshippers of those images considered those images to be sacred.
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:11,000
That's why if you went to a Buddhist temple, particularly in another country, and you walked into that temple and you just pulled that Buddhist statue down,
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:21,000
the people in there would be horrified. You might not be able to leave in one piece because they hold that.
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:28,000
The least they could have done is put a guy up there with a six-pack.
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:32,000
He is way overweight, and I don't know why they think that that's okay.
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:37,000
But anyway, that's just random thought that came through my head. I've been in the gym too long.
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:46,000
But you know that breaking down the images, or breaking the images, that's something even Solomon wouldn't do.
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:54,000
In fact, he had them made for his wives, even though he had the power to do it.
00:37:54,000 --> 00:38:01,000
And then Hezekiah also cut down the groves so the people wouldn't have that place to go anymore as places of worship.
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:10,000
Now here's what I wanted to get to. It said in verse 4, "And he break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made.
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:19,000
For unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it, and he called it Nahushtan."
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:25,000
Now let's spend some time on this one. You may not have known this happened.
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:29,000
I mean, you probably know the brazen serpent story in Numbers 21, verses 6 through 9. I'm going to read it again.
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:38,000
Where it said, and this was in Moses' day, the people of course were sinning,
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:43,000
"And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died.
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:51,000
Therefore the people came to Moses and said, 'We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee.
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:57,000
Pray unto the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.' And Moses prayed for the people.
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:03,000
And the Lord said unto Moses, 'Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole.
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:09,000
And it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.'
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:15,000
And Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole.
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,000
And it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld or looked upon the serpent of brass, he lived."
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:25,000
I couldn't help but notice about the middle of that passage right there, where it says, "And Moses prayed for the people.
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:33,000
And if praying to be saved was enough, there shouldn't have been a brass serpent on a pole, should there?"
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:39,000
The person says, "Well, I'm going to pray and ask Jesus into my heart."
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:43,000
Then you're missing the serpent on the pole. You're not looking upon it, which is a type of Jesus, as we'll get to here in just a moment.
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:51,000
And Judas had taken that serpent, and they burned incense to it.
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:59,000
Exodus 20, verses 4-5, "God commanded the children of Israel, 'Thou shalt not make unto thee,'" remember studying that emphasis?
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:08,000
"'Unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water unto the earth.
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:17,000
Thou shalt not bow thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord God, am a jealous God,
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:25,000
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.'"
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:32,000
The serpent Moses made was not made unto thee. It was made for a specific purpose, one time, one place, one event, and then that was it.
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:44,000
God didn't tell him, "Now take that serpent and put it in a good, safe place, because you might need it again."
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:49,000
One time, one place, one event.
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:54,000
Those children of Israel were to look upon it, to be saved from those fiery serpents.
00:40:54,000 --> 00:41:03,000
He didn't tell them to pray toward it, did he?
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,000
He didn't tell them to burn incense to it, or to sacrifice animals to it. He said, "Look upon it."
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:13,000
In John chapter 3 verses 14 through 15, Jesus very clearly teaches that the lifting up of that serpent on a pole was a type of him being lifted up as he was on the cross.
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:26,000
And that looking upon that serpent to be saved from the death of those venomous snakes, I almost said poisonous, but I said venomous,
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:37,000
was the same, was a type of people looking unto Jesus to be saved.
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:48,000
It was a type of believing on him. That's how you look unto him. You can't see him with your eyes.
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:55,000
And just as the children of Israel were not to burn incense to the serpent, pray to the serpent, or sacrifice animals to the serpent,
00:41:55,000 --> 00:42:04,000
sinners aren't to burn incense to Jesus to be saved.
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:08,000
We're not to pray to Jesus to be saved. We're not to sacrifice animals to Jesus to be saved.
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:16,000
We're to believe on him to be saved.
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:20,000
And through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 45, 22, we'll close with this, Isaiah 45, 22, God said,
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:29,000
"Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else."
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:38,000
So that helps us before we ever get to Jesus' time on earth, before the teaching in John 3, Isaiah already said, "Look unto me."
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:48,000
The people were to look unto the pole. God said, "Look unto me and be ye saved."
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:53,000
And Jesus taught us what that serpent meant.
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:57,000
Next week we'll continue studying that they had worshiped, had burned incense to that serpent, and why the name Nahushtan is significant.
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:12,000
Let's pray.
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,000
Father, thank you so much for your word. And Lord, there's so much in here in these passages.
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:21,000
Because of the frailty and weakness of our flesh, we can't hope to mine everything that's in there, but by your spirit you've taught us today.
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:29,000
And we're so glad we've been here to study your word together and help us to meditate upon it now, to not forget it, and to live by its precepts.
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:40,000
We ask for this same grace in the next hour as we pray and sing and worship you, as we're taught by your word, as we encourage one another and pray for one another.
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:52,000
Help us to do all those things in a way that's pleasing to you. In Jesus' name, amen.
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:57,000
