Episode Transcript
Second Kings chapter 18 verse 32 is our text and 10 o'clock is our time.
So let's get through our study While you're turning there or after you turn there because you can't do two things at once I also want you to turn to Zechariah chapter 4 Zechariah chapter 4 and just mark it because we'll come back to that in a little bit Yes, ma'am second Kings 18 and then Zechariah chapter 4 Zechariah is the second to the last book in the Old Testament in case you're singing the song in your head We've got a good crowd this morning glad for those who joined us on the internet as well All Right, we ended last week by studying a particular promise the Assyrian military leader Rabshika made to Judah Assyria is threatening Judah specifically Jerusalem and we've been looking at that scene for quite some time now and learned a lot and last week Rabshika promised Judah that he would take them to a land and That that land would be called a land of bread.
It's called several things, but it would be a land of bread and We saw how deceitful that saying was and we learned that the bread offered by Rabshika and his king the king of Assyria and acrob or The bread offered by any other of Satan's missionaries is a bread that cannot give life That's what we took away.
It's a bread that cannot give life and the general description of Assyria that Rabshika had given was that it's a land like your own land and Now let's look at another thing Assyria had in store for Judah and our text is 2nd Kings 18 verse 32 if you're just joining us and he said to Judah until I come and take you away to a land like your own land a land of corn and wine a land of bread and vineyards a Land of oil olive and of honey and we'll stop right there and look at The word vineyards.
It's a land of bread and a land of Vineyards and that is Assyria was a land of bread and vineyards according to Rabshika I remember in verse 31 Rabshika acknowledged that Judah had vineyards in its own land Because he said while you're here you can eat of your own Fig trees and drink from your own vineyards all of that drink from your own cisterns But I'm gonna take you away and you're gonna have everything that you have here in the new land But as is the case with the corn and the wine and the bread that we studied the Assyrian vineyards Were implied to be better than the ones in Judah Now that's the deceit right there.
That's what Satan does He tries to tell you life is better on the other side And much is taught about vineyards in the Bible you could spend quite a few months talking about vineyards and I'm going to read to you a passage from Isaiah chapter 5 verses 1 through 7 if you'll write that down in your notes Isaiah 5 verses 1 through 7 It says now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard my well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill and he fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted it with the choicest vine and built a tower in the midst of it and also made a winepress therein and He looked that it should bring forth grapes and it brought forth wild grapes.
Oh Now and now Oh inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah Judge I pray you betwixt me and my vineyard What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it Wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild grapes and Now go to I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard.
I will take away the hedge thereof It shall not be pruned nor digged But there shall come up briars and thorns.
I'm sorry.
I skipped a little bit And now go to I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard That's what happens when old people look up from what they're reading I will take away the heads thereof and it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof now That's important for our text and it shall be trodden down and I will lay it waste It shall not be pruned nor digged, but there shall come up briars and thorns I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel In case you're wondering what it was God tells us and the men of Judah his pleasant plant and He looked for judgment, but behold oppression For righteousness, but behold a cry now there is a lot to expound in that passage And we're not going to try to do that today, but I wanted to touch on a few things there That will help us understand how wicked it would be for Judah To long for these Assyrian vineyards to take the bait that Rabs Sheikah had offered them First of all as the text told us there in Isaiah chapter 5 this well-beloved Or his his vineyard is Israel, but the well beloved is the Lord Jesus Christ now that makes perfect sense there And a serious says their vineyard is the one to be desired Rather than the Lord's vineyard Secondly the Isaiah text tells us that the Lord of that vineyard had gathered stones Out of it now those stones were the unbelieving nations.
He removed them That's why he told his people you cast out those nations you get rid of them Don't you live with them?
Don't you marry with them?
Don't give your sons or daughters to them?
Don't do as they do don't worship their idols get rid of them of course Israel didn't do that and Assyrians were some of those stones that the Lord of the vineyard gathered out of his vineyard Now why would Judah?
Want to go to a vineyard made of stones that the Lord cast out That's a great question and then third we saw in that passage from Isaiah that Judah was the pleasant plant in that vineyard and yet she and Israel in general Have longed for another vineyard and in longing for another vineyard They have polluted the vineyard In which they were plants By failing to drive out their enemies and then of course doing as their enemies did They lived among them.
They married their sons and daughters and they adopted their false religions Now for Judah to be content with what the Lord gave them and Where the Lord put them?
was to reject all the other vineyards out of hand and the masters of those vineyards In fact, they shouldn't even want to hear about other vineyards What good is that when you're in the Lord's vineyard and this brings us back to a truth that we've learned before But we're going to bring it to remembrance again because people still struggle with it And This is inside the church and outside the church now That's not in the Lord's true church, but inside the so-called churches and also outside of the churches So everybody should listen to this Man was created to serve God Not the other way around and What you have in so many religions probably most is That you have a God who is made to serve man and that's not the way things went down God was not made.
He has always been he made man to serve him and a foundational truth that Christians accept is That God created man and A foundational truth that unbelievers accept is that man created God and it's not true But that's the truth that they base their religion on and they don't say it outwardly now we've seen that literally in the Bible in the practice of making idols and images and Calling them gods and then doing all sorts of sacrifices to those false gods Those are man created gods Now spiritually Those who believe man created God won't say it outwardly You Couldn't go to most churches that meet on a Sunday churches who that don't believe God's Word That do something to alter it and change it leave things out add things to it Those churches won't tell you.
Oh, we've made our own God.
They're not going to say that out loud, but they have Because even though they don't say it outwardly their religious practices shout it loudly and Because they have fashioned a God according to their own lusts Then they declare that God as the Lord of their vineyard.
That's what the Assyrians have done Now why do they serve him?
Why do they serve these false gods?
Well man was created to serve Man in his nature is going to serve somebody you don't ever see the choice in the Bible Where man just doesn't serve anyone or any God?
Jesus said you can't serve God and mammon or the world You're gonna serve one or you're gonna serve the other you'll hate the one and cling to the other you'll hold to the one In the spies the other but he doesn't say now there's a special group of people who just don't serve anybody That's not how man was created man was created to serve God and so one of the many mistakes That people make unbelievers make when they say no God didn't make us We're we're we came from this amoeba that jumped up on a log became a frog a dog and then all of that And that's what we are So they have denied that they were made by God therefore They have denied that they have to serve the God who created them It just goes off the rails pretty quickly doesn't it when you don't believe that God?
Created man and God created man to serve him now in the case of Judah Their desire should have been To not just serve but to serve the God who made them But other than a remnant of those people Who did?
serve God The majority rejected him But when they rejected the Lord Then That God-given desire to serve had to be put somewhere didn't it had to be directed somewhere and so it was directed toward these false gods toward the Lord of another vineyard and When they rejected God They still served a being that they considered greater than themselves But isn't that funny how that being who?
They viewed as greater than themselves was one they made with their own hands That means if you make something you are greater than that something because you have the power to not make it You can say I'm not gonna make one.
There's a piece of wood.
I will not carve an idol out of it and if you do carve the idol you have The ability to cut the idols head off to burn it to splinter it to turn it into something else You can make a baseball bat out of it if you want to But in every way you're greater than that thing that you made And when you boil all of this down this desire to serve other gods man-made gods and their religious writings The religious writings of people who make them because the gods are dead aren't they the man-made gods are dead.
They can't write anything When you do that when you boil it all down.
Do you know what all of these?
Idol worshippers are really worshiping They're worshiping their own will And I'm going to show you that these really are the only two choices a person has and That's to worship God or worship their own will Romans chapter 8 verses 6 through 8 Romans chapter 8 verses 6 through 8 You'll write that down Paul wrote for to be carnally minded is death But to be spiritually minded is life and peace Because the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
All right, the word carnal in that text is normally translated as the word flesh and It can mean the physical body that you're looking at It can mean the whole of mankind all flesh shall if you see that in the Bible or it can be the physical desires of man the desires that man has to Do things that he wants to do things that make him feel good and in that passage, I just read you the word flesh is differentiated from the word spirit and that word spirit is a capital s so it's referring to God the Spirit Paul is teaching that the carnal mind that fleshly mind Which consists of a person's desires and emotions and will That that very Construct that very part of man and we all have it.
We all have a mind will and emotions We all have a flesh a carnal nature.
Everybody has that you're born with that but that That itself is in Métis against God so What is in Métis?
Well, it's also translated as the word hatred The idea of in Métis is opposition and It's not just opposition that may be overcome.
It's opposition that cannot be overcome There is no way to twist the carnal mind Into a way that pleases God Anymore, then you can make the positive poles of two magnets join together.
You can't do it Now I know this From experience, but then later learned it in theory when I was a little boy little boys are Great at discovering things the hard way and so if I had two little magnets we had all kinds of things that have magnets in them try to push them together and They do just like that If you put the positive pole in the positive pole together and try to push them together You can try as hard as you want.
You cannot make them join themselves You turn that magnet around to the negative pole and you don't have to exert any effort at all Get them close enough together and they stick don't they?
So the idea of in Métis is taking the positive pole of a magnet and the positive pole of another magnet and trying to push Them together.
They're not going to go Now as a little boy, I thought this little magnet is not going to overpower me So I would hold one in and take that positive in and I would make them touch and guess what happened when you let go That the other magnet shoots away from it forcefully Because they cannot be in agreement.
That is then I later learned.
That's a law of science But I learned it in practice as a little boy.
So think about that the carnal mind Now Paul doesn't say the carnal mind can please God as long as it just doesn't serve another master Why is that the carnal mind is already serving another master?
In fact that other master is itself and yes Satan directs us to serve the flesh He does what did he do to Eve in the garden?
He appealed to her flesh didn't he?
He said huh?
You're not gonna die if you eat that God knows that your eyes will be open and you'll be like God's What did the Bible say it what that happened when she looked at that fruit of the tree the knowledge of good and evil?
She saw that it was pleasant to the eyes In other words it appealed to her flesh It appealed to what she thought looked good and maybe tasted good and to the knowledge it would give her if she would just Abide by her own will and that was to listen to what Satan said the serpent rather than what God had already Told them so the carnal mind is already serving another master and when you boil it down It's your own will because these false gods are really not gods at all.
Are they it's not like you have all these gods on a shelf And then you have our God over here.
Even if you put him above all these other gods, these are not gods There is no hierarchy There's no chain of command structure there with these other gods.
They don't exist they're man-made And Satan has to do nothing other than persuade the carnal mind That he's fine.
Just like he is you do what you want sister.
You follow your heart brother.
That's what the that's what Satan tells you It's not so dark sounding is it it sounds kind of fun to the flesh.
It sounds appealing.
Well good I'll just go my own way.
You're serving your own will when you do that and All the carnally minded person had to believe is he's just fine like he is And that's what people will tell you I talked to some of you who?
Testified a people at work or you try to and and it gets frustrating you get frustrated and you say man.
They just won't listen That's right.
You know why?
Because their mind is carnal That's why you say well, I've got a family member and I've been trying to talk to him or her about the Lord for all this Time they don't want to listen because they have a carnal mind they're not spiritually minded and You're not going to get a carnally minded person to agree with the spiritual truth That is a work that only the Holy Spirit can do when that person says I am lost and I am undone The way my magnets head is never going to be pleasing to God and we'll have to turn around what does that mean?
That's repentance in it Repent toward God faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, but the carnal mind is happy to live in an Assyrian vineyard Acts chapter 5 verse 29 Acts chapter 5 verse 29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said we ought to obey God rather than men Now why didn't he say we ought to obey God rather than Molech?
Or Baal or Astarith those false gods in the Bible Because those gods are not really gods The two choices their inventions of men and obey the rules of the religion of any of them is to obey men Because men created those religions men wrote the religious texts that accompany those religions To obey Buddhism is to obey Buddha who was a man to obey the Tenants of Confucianism is to obey Confucius who was a man Because not only did those men make their own gods But they also made up the words of their own gods and That's the way the vineyard of Assyria rolls, isn't it?
It's a man-made vineyard met with a man-made God and A king who serves that man-made God his brother Fulton taught us in one of our prior lessons Now the vineyard of the Lord on the other hand is made of those whom he created and The word by which those pleasant plants that's Judah That's us the words by which those pleasant plants of that vineyard are supposed to abide Are the words the Lord of the vineyard wrote?
And yes, he used 40 men to put those words down on paper But those 40 men were not the originators of those words They were not the lawmakers Their God made them their God gave them his word and They wrote it down and we abide by that word and that's how the vineyard of the Lord rolls It's totally different Now you have to know that So you'll understand this offer being made by Rabschika is Not just an offer to go vacation in another place He wants to take the people who are in the the Lord's vineyard nationally speaking and some of them spiritually speaking and Convinced them that it's better to come over here But you can't stay here because we're about to destroy this city Rabschika believes that he can successfully Sell the attractiveness of the earthly Assyrian vineyard So Judah would reject the one the Lord gave them and desire to go to another Now to be able to be successful at this Because if you think about it Judah had vineyards they had fig trees they had cisterns they had a wall They were doing fine Physically they weren't in famine at this time But to be successful Rabschika has to scare Judah or make them discontented with their own situation and back in verse 25 He tried to scare Judah by claiming that the Lord sent him to destroy Judah.
He said The Lord sent me I didn't come up here without his permission.
He sent me here to destroy Judah.
We know that wasn't true now He's trying to make Judah discontent in their own vineyard By painting a rosy picture of Assyria He wants Judah to covet Assyria Did you know the root of covetousness is a lack of contentment?
Exodus chapter 20 verse 17 Says thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife Nor his man servant nor his maidservant nor his ox nor his ass nor anything that is thy neighbors If a Jew Anybody but here when that those commandments were written as to the children of Israel immediately and then to us as well But if a one of the children of Israel was not content with the house the Lord gave them Then he would covet the house of another if he were content With the house the Lord gave him even if it was a one-room shack Then no matter what anyone else offered no matter what his neighbor had even if his neighbor lived in a two-story high-rise With a three chariot garage He would not covet that house so contentment is The key to avoid covetousness and lack of it is the gateway Into covetousness if you're not content with your the wife you have then you'll covet someone else's wife and So on it goes with a lack of contentment for all of your possessions Now the key to not violating this commandment is not going around saying Oh, I hope I don't covet something today.
Oh, I hope I don't covet this or that.
That's not the key You're already too late The key to not violating this commandment is to be content with what you have Rabshika and all of the devil's representatives will try to convince you They'll try to capitalize on your lack of commitment or excuse me contentment and commitment by the way But on your lack of contentment is Try to give you reasons not to be content with what you have and When they do it will be easy for you to be drawn into covetousness Contentment in the Lord's vineyard is a matter of perspective.
It really is And because members of the Lord's Church continue to make poor decisions with their finances and Many other parts of their life their relationships their their work habits and you could go on and on but because They continue to make those poor decisions.
It's worth repeating this lesson Philippians chapter 4 verses 10 through 14 Philippians 4 10 through 14 Now, you know the author here the Apostle Paul Has a story to tell he's got quite a history He said but I rejoiced in the Lord greatly That now at the last your care of me had flourished again In other words, the church was taking care of his earthly needs again because they hadn't been before Where in you were also careful, but you lacked opportunity not that I speak in respect of want For I have learned and whatsoever state I am Therewith to be content.
I Know both how to be a based that means brought low to have nothing and To abound that's to be brought to be exalted to have a lot of whatever it is Everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry Both to abound and to suffer need I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me Now there's no use printing that last verse 13 on your t-shirt if you don't know what it means because That has been verse 13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me has been one of the most misused misunderstood verses People just put it out there Whatever they're trying to do whatever they're trying to go to they're trying to buy a new house I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.
They don't really understand what this means Some people think it gives them power to do a physically demanding task Some just use it as a motivational quote, but Paul was teaching us about being content And we learned that By looking at that passage in its context that verse in its context Just like Judah Paul was a pleasant plant in the Lord's vineyard Just like you are if you're a believer He was a former Pharisee That means he was well educated in the law and he persecuted Christians He held the clothes of the men who stone Stephen to death in the book of Acts But he was converted he became a Christian and He preached the gospel that he once despised and For that he was imprisoned He was beaten He was persecuted.
He was cast out For all of that sometimes he ate and sometimes he went hungry But he was content In all of these things he was content and His contentment was not measured by whether he was free or imprisoned It wasn't measured by whether he was healthy or sick Whether he had enough food on the table or not in Fact his contentment was not based on any earthly state that he was in any earthly condition he was in But it was based upon the vineyard he was in And because Paul's strength was from the Lord Jesus Christ He said I can do all things through Christ with strength inth me Because his strength was in the Lord Jesus Christ he could endure all of those terrible things that happened to him Not only could he endure them but he could be content in spite of them It's all a matter of perspective In verse 13 in that passage taught us that those Who are abased in prison?
hungry beaten persecuted for the cause of Christ made fun of among Coworkers schoolmates family that happens too by the way.
That's the most painful That all of that When all of that happens to you you can still be content in the Lord of the vineyard Because all of this down here is temporary Let's see what else was attractive about Assyria back in our text in second Kings 18 verse 32 Rabshekah said they're in the middle of the verse It's a land of oil olive And we would say olive oil.
It's the same thing Oil in this text in the Hebrew Language means a fresh oil even a shining oil and Olive is the type of tree from which it comes there are two different words On one occasion the Hebrew word for oil is translated as anointed and that wonderful anointed and That is found in Zechariah chapter 4 And so you should already have that place marked.
Just turn right to it Zechariah chapter 4 And go down to verse 14 and then I'll go back and give you a little bit of an explanation of how it gets to verse 14 Now this is the Lord this is an angel talking to Zechariah in a vision Then said he that is the angel these are the two anointed ones now that word anointed right there Everywhere else is translated as oil These are the two anointed ones that stand by the Lord of the whole earth now look back up in verses 1 through 5 and let me read that so we can get some context and the angel that talked with me came again and waked me as a man that is wakened out of his sleep and said unto me What seest thou and I said I have looked and behold a candlestick all of gold with a bowl upon the top of it and his seven lamps there on and seven pipes to the seven lamps Which are upon the top thereof and two olive trees by it One on the right side of the bowl and the other upon the left side thereof So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me saying what are these my Lord?
Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me knowest thou not what these be and I said no my lord I skipped down to verse 11 That answered I and said unto him What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?
And I answered again and said unto him what be these two olive branches?
Which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves?
and He answered me and said noest thou not what these be and I said no my lord Then said he these are the two anointed ones That stand by the Lord of the whole earth now in this vision Zechariah saw a candlestick Just like the one in the tabernacle This described back in Leviticus I believe chapter 25 and on each side of this candlestick in his vision is an olive tree Which is what oil olive comes from?
So that's two olive trees now.
What does the number two mean in the Bible?
the number of witness number of witness At least two witnesses were required to verify a matter at the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established Now in Leviticus chapter 24 we read that the children of Israel were supposed to bring pure olive oil as fuel for those lamps those candles lamps and candles are the same in in the Old Testament They didn't have the light bulbs so it's fire and what keeps it lit is that olive oil?
And they were commanded to bring pure olive oil For those candles so those candles would burn continuously That light was never supposed to go out.
It was supposed to be maintained and sustained and The reason for that is That those lamps the continual burning of those lamps Pointed to the light of the world Jesus Christ The oil is a representation of the Holy Spirit Jesus the Bible says in Hebrews 1 verse 9 said that Jesus was Anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows And the all the olive oil itself was not the Holy Spirit Anymore than the light given off by the candle was actually Jesus Christ These were types they taught us Olive oil in the light from the candles were simply types of the real persons Now write down Revelation chapter 11 verses 3 through 4 Revelation 11 verses 3 through 4 This passage shows us that there is also a prophetic truth.
That's Embodied by these two trees Zechariah sees in his vision and Those verses say and I will give power unto my two witnesses and they shall prophesy 1,000 203 score days clothed in sackcloth these are the two olive trees and the two candlestick standing before the God of the earth and In the Zechariah text we read the word anointed was used in place of the word oil Even though it's from the same Hebrew word Here we go Now let's see how there is a huge difference between the oil olive in the Assyrian vineyard and the oil olive in the Lord's vineyard Second Corinthians 1 verse 21 we may not finish this today, but we'll get a run at it second Corinthians 1 21 Now he which established establish us with you is Christ and hath anointed us is God Now Christ is from the Greek word Christos.
Do you know what that means?
It means anointed and The word hath anointed or words hath anointed is from The same root.
It's Creole you have Christos and you have Creole and Creole means to anoint so Christ anointed Christos and Anoint Creole, it's the same Hebrew or same Greek root word There is one anointed one whose light never burns out Now there are several interpretations of the passage in Zechariah that I read you Concerning who those two olive trees are But I think a very plausible interpretation is that one of them Represents the Lord Jesus Christ who is God the Son and he is the anointed one Now there's a second olive tree in that vision That we read in Zechariah In Luke chapter 4 verse 18 Let's see who that second olive tree might be in Luke chapter 4 verse 18 Jesus said the Spirit of the Lord with a capital S That's the Holy Spirit the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me To preach the gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted to preach deliverance to the captives and Recovering of sight to the blind to set at Liberty them that are bruised What did the Spirit of the Lord do he anointed Jesus and?
That word anointed there is also Creole The Holy Spirit anointed Jesus and Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit and both proceed from the Father and they are one One God three persons Now the Holy Spirit in my estimation is represented by that other olive tree remember in the vision Where did those lamps get their oil through pipes?
That those two olive trees Emptied oil into that's where it came from It's wonderful and The Holy Spirit well here's a scripture that'll kind of bring this home remember - is the number of witness here First John chapter 5 verse 7 first John 5 verse 7 For there are three that bear record in heaven now when you bear record of something you're bearing witness to it You're saying yes, that's true.
There are three that bear record in heaven the Father the word with a capital W and that's Jesus and the Holy Ghost and These three are one now.
Who is the word?
It's the Lord Jesus Christ John told us that with that capitalized W in front of word He said the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.
That's John 1 14 So in my estimation, there's your other witness you have the word and you have the Holy Ghost you have Jesus you have the Holy Spirit Now what about the candlestick between the two olive trees?
There's so much represented by the candlestick and the light and the gold and the oil and all that's in it And we touched on it a little by reminding ourselves that Jesus is the light of the world And we also know that God created light.
He said let there be light and there was light and We know these candlesticks don't burn by themselves.
They have to be lit and continually maintained But did you know the earthly tabernacle the children of Israel built at God's command That had these golden lamps this golden lampstand with these candlesticks and was supposed to be continually maintained The children of Israel fell down on the job They did They didn't keep the light burning all the time like the Lord said for them to do They Failed to keep God's commandments they failed at everything and they failed we failed We're just like But the light that those candles represented never went out It's a good thing it wasn't up to man to create a religion That had a light that would go out Man couldn't ever sustain a religion with a light that would never go out.
We just can't do it And we haven't done it and we won't but we don't have to it's already been done for us Now we'll tie this up next week and keep moving But what a wonderful truth God showed me in my study.
So I'm thankful I got to share it with you.
Let's pray Father it just seems like the time slips away so fast in here But you're gracious to give us a little time to share with these precious people the truth of your word And I pray that you would open the eyes of our understanding That we'd not just call it another Sunday school class But Lord we'd realize that when we hear from the Word of God we hear from heaven Whether we read it or somebody reads it to us.
We're so thankful that we have a Bible And I pray we'd be guided to all truth We'd pay more attention to it We ask you give our pastor and the congregation the same grace the next hour as you've given us today in Jesus name.
Amen
