Episode Transcript
It is 10 o'clock and we're in second Kings chapter 21 second Kings chapter 21.
We made a clean break with verse 10 last week.
So that allows us to begin verse 11 this morning.
We learned that God used his prophets to speak to Judah the nation and also to Israel as a whole.
Israel would have consisted of all the 12 tribes, but here they're still divided.
As they have been since Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
Then they Judah we learned did not need signs and wonders that their eyes could behold.
They needed to listen to what the prophets said.
And we spent a lot of time looking at the sufficiency of God's word when it's spoken by a prophet or a pastor or a teacher or apostle, whoever it might be in Luke chapter 16.
We looked at the requests of a rich man who had died and gone to hell and he asked Abraham to perform two miracles.
He was speaking to Abraham who was also dead, but was in the presence of the Lord and he wanted Abraham to perform two miracles.
One of those was to send Lazarus from heaven to hell with some water.
And he said, that's not going to happen.
There's a great goal fixed.
He wanted Abraham to send Lazarus to talk to his brothers who were still living on the earth to so they wouldn't come to hell.
And Abraham said, that's not going to happen.
They have Moses and the prophets let them hear them.
And so God's word spoken through God's prophets, apostles, pastors, teachers, or you as a witness, when you're telling somebody about the gospel has always been enough and it always will be enough.
So if somebody says, well, I'm looking for a sign or a wonder, listen, God gave signs and wonders for specific reasons, but we're not required.
To see a sign or a wonder to believe what God's word says.
I'm reminded here about what Jesus told the unbelieving Jews in John chapter five.
And I'll read verses 46 through 47, John five 46 through 47.
Jesus said this to these unbelieving Jews for had ye believed Moses, you would have believed me.
For he wrote of me, but if you believe not his writings, how shall you believe my words?
So Jesus essentially told these Jews, why don't you just believe what's been written?
Why are you looking for something else?
And friend, if you're one, who's looking for signs and wonders, listen, they're going to come.
The book of the revelation tells us exactly what those will be, but stop looking for signs and wonders.
They're going to come soon enough.
Believe what God's word says, because that's what testifies of Jesus.
Now let's look at the result of King Manassas and Judah's disobedience.
We're in second Kings 21 verse 11, because Manassas King of Judah has done these abominations and have done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him and have made Judah also.
To sin with his idols.
Now the sentence continues there in verse 12, but let's look at the first part of this long sentence.
And that is verse 11, because Manassas King of Judah has done these abominations and has done wickedly.
Manassas wickedness is the primary cause of the sentence that the Lord is about to pronounce on Judah.
Not only did Manassas seduce people to do evil, but he also did it himself.
And he didn't just commit what would be called sins of ignorance.
He committed abominations and he led the people to do so.
And to remind you, the word abomination means something that's disgusting.
The first list of abominations God addressed and prohibited are found in Leviticus chapter 18.
And that's a long list.
So what I'm going to do is summarize them.
But if you want a reference for the abominations, then there they are.
They are incest, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality.
Now that's just the general grouping of the abominations listed in chapter 18 of Leviticus.
Now God did not call these alternative lifestyles.
He called them abominations and he forbade the children of Israel from doing them.
Now he didn't forbid them from doing them so they wouldn't enjoy life.
He did it so they would be protected.
And he called them abominations because to him in his holy attribute of perfection, in his design for creation, anything outside of that was disgusting to God.
Now in this world, those abominations have run rampant for generations.
Yes, they were present in the Bible.
You read about them.
But they have continued and now they've just run rampant for generations.
They're out of the closet and in your face.
And regardless of whether the world endorses those abominations or embraces them, or if the church endorses and embraces them, they're still abominations to the one who is our creator.
Now listen, if you want to know, "Well, what's the church supposed to do about this?
Are we supposed to go out and stand across the street from these people and holler and shout at them and throw bricks at them?"
No, we're not.
Here's how the church is to deal with an abomination.
I'm going to give you an example.
It's found in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 1 through 6.
1 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 1 through 6.
"It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
And ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned, and here it is, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
For I verily, as absent in body but present in spirit, have judged already as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together in my spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such in one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Your glorying is not good.
Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth a whole lot."
Now listen, the Apostle Paul is not telling us that we kick anyone out of church who's committed a sin.
Otherwise, none of us would be in here right now, would we?
The problem with this church that was-- that Paul was addressing, the church in Corinth-- and by the way, that church included that incestuous man who was committing this sin-- was that they had the wrong response to the sin.
This man should have repented and he didn't.
The church should have mourned but they didn't.
There was pride.
They were puffed up, which means proud but in a bad sense.
Now we may-- our child comes home with straight A's on a report card.
We may say, "I'm so proud of you.
You really worked hard this semester at your studies.
Awesome."
Or if you're homeschooled, you're already home, so you already came home with your report card, right?
But we say, "I'm so proud of you.
Good job."
But this pride is in a bad sense.
This is the pride that goeth before destruction, before a fall.
And the church should have mourned.
Paul was the only New Testament writer who used this word for "puffed up" and he used it six times in his letters to the Corinthian church and one time to the Colossians.
And that was it.
But people like Manasseh who-- and those who commit those abominations even today are puffed up if they don't repent.
They're proud rather than repentant.
In fact, our text in 2 Kings 21 11 said that Manasseh had not only done these abominations-- look back in the text-- but also it says, "and hath done wickedly or hath done evil."
Abominations are evil.
And that's something that many don't want to accept.
Not only are abominations disgusting to God, but they're also evil.
You know, that's the way I feel about my sin as a whole.
I don't ever think of any of my sins as being not that bad.
I think, "Boy, God, I'm so glad when you see my sin, you see Jesus."
Because if you just looked at me, I'd just be a walking, disgusting mess to you.
Both then and now.
And that's the way that a person ought to see their sin, whether it's called one of these abominations or otherwise.
But these abominations are evil.
They are a rejection of the way God made his creation.
He formed man and the woman and he put them together.
Now we're looking at the designer, the creator.
And how he did things is a clue for how things are supposed to be done.
He formed the man and woman and put them together.
The Bible says, "male and female created he them."
He did not join man with man.
He did not join woman with woman.
He didn't join beast with man or woman.
And I want to show you something in Genesis chapter 6.
As we take a deeper look at this whole thing about the abominations.
Genesis chapter 6, in that chapter, God was giving Noah instructions on the animals he was to bring into the ark.
And as you may remember, he brought them in by twos.
And then there were some clean animals who were brought in by sevens.
But it says in verse 19, this is Genesis 6, 19, God's speaking to Noah and of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark to keep them alive with thee.
They shall be male and female.
Okay.
So God created them male and female.
And now he's, and that's how man multiplied.
He told them to be fruitful in the multiply to replenish the earth.
That's exactly what would happen after the flood.
You only had so many creatures on the ark and whenever the ark found dry ground and the door was open and they all went forth, the only way they could have been kept alive is if they procreated.
And just as God had Adam male and female, he had the animals male and female.
He said to keep them alive.
That is key right here.
So notice the connection between keeping the animals alive and the requirement that they be male and female.
Let's put our thinking caps on.
Let's assume that Noah had brought only one animal of each kind on the ark.
Maybe God said, uh, bring them in two by two there.
And I want male and female.
And perhaps Noah thought, you know, I want to lighten the load.
I'm not sure that art can stay above water.
So I'm just going to bring one of a kind.
God will understand.
Well, what would have happened to those animals?
They'd have died.
They would have died in the species would have become extinct.
Well, let's play another scenario.
What if Noah would have said, you know, those male oxen are stronger than the females.
I think what I'm going to do, the two I'm going to bring on are going to be males.
That way, when we get off the ark, I'll have two strong male oxen to help me with my plowing.
And so he brings two males on or just two females onto the ark.
Well, those oxen would have lived and died and the species would be extinct.
No more oxen.
Because Noah didn't do it the way God said to do it.
So whether it be with an animal or a human, to keep them alive, that's what God said, to keep them alive, they had to be male and female.
There had to be a bull and a cow, a rooster and a hen, a man and a woman.
There can only be one groom and one bride.
And for a man to lie with a man, there's no possibility of life from that union.
For a woman to lie with a woman, there's no possibility of life from that union.
And the same may be said for man lying with beast.
There's no possibility of life for either, only death.
So any arrangement outside of the one that God gave to Adam and Eve, that God gave to Noah, leads to death.
And you can come up with whatever combination you want if it's outside of the one God gave, it leads to death.
Now, hold on to that thought and let's make the spiritual application here.
The Bible often refers to the church, that is the called-out body, the believers of all time, not just the building of Central Baptist or the building of some other church, the church, the Ecclesia.
The Bible often refers to the church as the bride or the wife of Jesus Christ. 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 verse 2. 2nd Corinthians 11 verse 2.
The Apostle Paul wrote this to the church using that analogy.
He said, "For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you," now who's he talking to?
The church, that's the bride.
"I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."
Who is the husband?
Who's the groom in this relationship?
It's Christ.
Who's the virgin bride?
The one who's been made clean and pure by his blood?
It's the church.
God made man male and female.
The female was created from the rib of the man.
And so from the body of the male, from the body of the groom, God gave the bride life.
And Jesus, the Son of God, yes, he was a male in the flesh, but even greater than that, he is the groom.
The only groom in his relationship with the church.
There's only one way that we may have eternal life, and that's with Jesus as the only groom and we as the bride.
That's it.
This is what happened.
I want to show you what happens when man tries to make this arrangement a little bit differently.
Because anything outside of what I just said there, that Jesus is the groom and the church is his bride, anything outside of that is an abomination to God.
So let's look at some examples so we can understand more fully how wicked Manasseh was when doing these abominations.
What the spiritual implications were.
When an unbeliever says, I am my own God.
Then he's placed himself in a relationship in which he is both the groom and the bride.
He's the church and he's over the church.
I am my own God.
Now had Noah entered the Ark all alone.
All the living would have drowned, wouldn't they?
Everyone, everything and everyone would be outside the Ark and they would have drowned and then he would die one day and there would be nothing saved alive.
And this is what happens when man decides to be his own spiritual boss and deny the Lord Jesus Christ.
When a cult leader proclaims himself as Christ, he tries to take the role of groom from the Lord.
And put it on himself.
And most of those cult leaders and I've studied a bunch of them.
I've been alive when a bunch of them were doing their thing.
The Jim Jones cult and the, the David Koresh cult in Waco and the Moonies.
And yes, I can even go back that far.
You can look it up and we get home.
Those all have something in common.
Those cult leaders are often involved in gross sexual sin with the members of their cult, sometimes even the children.
And they may even cause some of their female members to become pregnant.
Which brings newborn babies into the world.
But that spiritual groom as he's taken that name upon himself cannot give eternal life to his bride.
He can't do it because he's a sinner.
Perhaps you're seeing that the way to keep us alive is a narrow way.
It does not involve keeping these sinful bodies going or spawning new generations of humans who will live in sin.
It's the narrow way of the groom, Jesus, and the bride, the church.
And it's a principle that God gave in the Garden of Eden.
And that he continued in the days of Noah.
And which has not changed unto this day.
Abominations, on the other hand, are the way of death.
Both physically, as we demonstrated in the case of the animals and the humans.
And also spiritually.
When any relationship is outside of the one God design, Jesus as the groom, the church is his bride.
Now, let me say, since we have been on the abominations for a while, I thank God for every sinner who has repented of his sin and placed his trust in Jesus Christ for salvation.
And I don't care what his background is.
I don't care how evil the stories are or how embarrassing or shameful they are.
I thank God for every single one.
Who's put his trust in Jesus.
But here I want to say I am so thankful.
That there are people in this world who have repented of the abominations of perverted sexual lifestyles, whether it be the homosexual, the adulterer, the one who committed incest or bestiality or an offense against the child.
But that they have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sin.
God loves you and you can be thankful that he sent his son to die for you too.
Just like he did for me.
And I hope you understand that if you're in that group, the one who preached Jesus to you did so out of love, not out of hate.
Often the ones who do abominations will say, well, these Christians are hateful.
And I know some church members who are hateful.
I'll just tell you that some of the meanest people I've ever met have been in the building of a church.
Now, whether they were Christians or not, that's up to them and God, but I have, and I certainly don't want to ever be one of those.
And I don't want any of our people to be one of those.
That's not how we witnessed to people.
But Christian, I want you to remember that when you tell others about the love of God and about what God's word says about their sin, do it in love.
Do it because you love them.
You don't compromise what the Bible says, but you also don't storm down the mountain and anger and slam the tables of stone on the ground because you heard about the sin of the people below you.
That's what Moses did.
Now, just how bad were Manassas abominations.
Look back in your text.
It says there in verse 11, they were above all that the Amorites did, which were before him.
Now here, God names a specific group of Gentile people, wicked Gentile people, the Amorites.
Now, where did they originate?
Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
As the son of man, the Lord Jesus Christ came from the line of Shem.
You'll find that in Luke 336.
If you didn't already know that.
The Amorites came from Canaan, who was the son of Ham.
Genesis 10 verses 15 through 16.
Genesis 10 verses 15 through 16.
And Canaan begat Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Gergesite.
In Exodus chapter 3 and also Exodus chapter 13, God promised to bring the children of Israel out of bondage and into a land that was occupied by several people groups, including the Amorites.
And the Amorites, along with these others that we just mentioned, would be a constant foe of the children of Israel throughout the Old Testament.
First Kings chapter 21 verse 26.
This is first Kings chapter 21 verse 26.
Speaking of King Ahab, and he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things, as did the Amorites whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.
So we learned here that another of the abominations, the ones I read you aren't all there are, they were just listed in Leviticus chapter 18.
But it clearly says that another of the abominations is idolatry, following idols, and in these abominations of following idols, Judah exceeded their longtime foe, the Amorites.
Now that's not anything worth bragging about.
And look back in your text about Manasseh in verse 11, it said, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols.
In God's eyes, Manasseh bears a great responsibility here.
And yes, it's true that every man is responsible for his own sin.
That is true.
Yet many people think that they're not accountable for other people's sins as well.
And that's not true.
Let's, if that is something you think that it doesn't matter what I do.
If you're, if you've been a parent or you are a parent, you know, that's not true.
Your little children imitate you.
And I mean, sometimes it's embarrassing.
You'll hear him say something or see him do something.
You'll think, where'd you get that from?
Well, that's you dad.
That's you 2.0 right there.
My daughter, Lauren is me 2.0 and her daughter, Ren is the newest update of both of us.
So we can't say no, that's whatever they do is not my problem.
My sin is my sin and their sin is their sin.
And yes, we're all accountable for our own sin.
But I want to give you a practical example here about how we are responsible for the actions of others as well.
In many cases, I'll use my middle daughter, Lauren.
She has a swimming pool in her backyard.
And she and my son-in-law also have two of my sweet granddaughters who are two years old and five months old.
Now the two-year-old, that's Ren, just last week learned how to unlock the back door and open it.
That's a scary thing to see.
The problem is that open door leads to the swimming pool.
And my daughter saw her unlock that door and open it and she was terrified.
So she immediately installed some child-proof locks on that door so that wouldn't happen again.
Now why did she do that?
After all, when she's taken my granddaughter out in the backyard, she and my son-in-law have taught her not to get near the swimming pool.
You know, toddlers are top-heavy and especially this one.
She's in the 99th percentile of skull size, just in case you wanted to know that.
A lot of brains in there.
But they're top-heavy and they lean over the pool to pick something up and they just topple right in and they don't know how to get out.
So, but she's been taught, don't go near that swimming pool.
It's dangerous.
Don't get in there unless mom or daddy are with you.
What my daughter knows is that her actions or her inactions will have a cause-effect relationship on my granddaughter's safety.
Suppose my daughter failed to act after seeing my granddaughter open that back door and have access to the pool.
Suppose my daughter had just left the door unsecured.
If my granddaughter were to go outside and fall into the pool, nobody in their right mind would say, "Well, the little toddler shouldn't have strayed away and disobeyed her parent."
A reasonable person would have looked at the parents and wondered, "How could you let that happen?
You knew she could open that door.
How could you not secure it?"
The child disobeyed, but the parent is also responsible.
Here's our scripture.
Leviticus 19 verse 14, "Thou shalt not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shalt fear thy God.
I am the Lord."
He said, "Do not put a stumbling block before the blind."
And just as a blind man cannot see where he's walking, a toddler is blind to the danger of the deep swimming pool or the electrical outlet in the wall or the hot stove, and a sinner is blind to the gospel.
So many so-called preachers have laid stumbling blocks in the way of the spiritually blind.
You know, the Pharisees told the Christians that they had to be circumcised after the manner of Moses to be saved.
The average so-called soul winner today puts the stumbling block of the sinner's prayer in front of a lost person who's seeking salvation.
They direct them to the steps of a church rather than to the cross where Jesus died.
And Manasseh, rather than holding up the truth of God's word to Judah, put a stumbling block in their way because he led them to sin with idols that he had made.
Now let's look in verse 12, 2 Kings 21, 12.
"Therefore," that is because of everything we read in verse 11, "Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, 'Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.'"
He said, "Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, 'Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah.'"
First, we see here that God's sentence upon Judah is responsive, not random.
Now I say that because if you are a student of history, particularly international history, you'll know that there are some nations that worship idols, worship the planets, the sun, the what they call the God of the thunder and the God of the rain and the God of this and the God of that.
And so if a flash flood comes, I'll use China as an example.
If a flash flood comes upon China, there was a time in their history where they would blame that on the actions of a person bringing them bad luck or an emperor who was evil when it had nothing to do with that.
The earth was cursed long time before that emperor was ever born because of sin.
And so what those sentences upon their land are seen as are random acts by an angry God.
So they'll do something foolish to try to appease their so-called God, sacrifice an animal or a person or have a blood ritual or wave a bunch of banners around, put incense sticks in the vase and set them on fire.
That's random.
God's judgment is responsive.
God doesn't take pleasure in the death of the wicked.
God doesn't take pleasure and he doesn't try to make our lives miserable.
And we sin there's consequence.
And in this case, God didn't just decide he's going to get rid of some pent up anger toward Judah.
They earned every bit of this that he's about to bring upon them.
The sin of Manasseh and of Judah in idolatry and Baal worship was the trigger for God's judgment that he's about to pronounce.
They couldn't say, well, God didn't warn us because he had given them explicit instructions about how to worship him and they disregarded it and worship titles along with their King.
You know, when I was a speaking of disregarding and explicit instructions when I was a young father, I had the privilege of putting together all of the many, many toys my children received on their birthdays or Christmas or whenever the notion struck someone to buy them something.
And of course those toys came in many pieces and with several pages of instruction in English, Spanish, French, Japanese, and there was no excuse for not being able to read them.
And I often made the mistake of thinking by looking at the box, I could tell how those pieces were supposed to fit together.
Now, Billy's back there going, Oh, Andy, I know Billy, but that's what I did.
And so I just dive in and start putting things together.
Now this is by the way, if you do this with your car, this will keep brother Billy's business going.
Okay.
And brother Fulton, when he had his, his auto mechanic shop there, uh, we're a real blessing to those people when we try this on our cars, but the defect in my workmanship became apparent as I got closer to completing the project.
And of course there'd be parts left over and the handlebars would be on backwards or the wheels wouldn't turn on the tricycle.
But once I realized that I'd messed up to continue ignoring those instructions would have caused me to made a worse mess than I'd already made.
So in the spirit of grudging humility, I took the toy apart.
I read the instructions and assembled it the right way.
At first I ignored the explicit instructions of the manufacturer.
Judah ignore the explicit instructions that God gave them about idols, about the tabernacle, which was now the temple about how to worship him.
And rather than doing his Hezekiah did when he cleared out the temple, when he made the priest go back to the instruction manual, rather than doing that Manasseh and Judah continued on with their defective product, which was a false religion.
And because of it, God said, looking in your text, verse 12, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah.
Now, perhaps it troubles you to read that God brought evil upon Judah.
After all, God is good.
God hates sin.
He hates evil.
So what does this mean?
Well, let's go back as we often do to the book of Genesis and remember that in the garden of Eden, God made every tree.
And among those trees, as we studied last week was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And God did not want Adam and Eve to eat of that tree.
So he told them not to do it and he told them what would happen if they did, but he also gave them a choice.
Just like he gives us a choice and what did they choose?
They chose evil.
They already had good.
They chose to eat of a tree that would give them the knowledge of good and evil.
And because of that choice, they died.
They were separated from God.
They were evicted from the garden.
Now fast forward from that moment to Genesis chapter 6 and verse 5 in the days of Noah, when God was about to destroy the earth with water.
It says, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
So evil is man's choice, not God's choice.
Evil actions beget or give birth to evil consequences.
So when man chooses evil, it's just like a math formula, isn't it?
One plus one equals two every single time.
When man chooses to do evil, he can expect evil in return.
And just so we understand the word evil, it's also translated as the word affliction, the word trouble, the word adversity.
So it doesn't necessarily mean the person doing it is doing badly, although it can mean that and does in some places, but it has a broader application than you might imagine.
And if we apply this to our texts, these other words into which it's translated in the Bible, then we can conclude that God would bring affliction upon Judah adversity upon Jerusalem and Judah because of their sin.
It does not mean God did wrong when he brought evil upon them.
He simply brought them the consequences they chose.
That's all that is.
They chose evil.
God said, okay, well, along with evil come these evil consequences and I'm bringing it.
It's what you wanted and that's what I'm going to bring you.
There are times when God restrains evil.
Jeremiah chapter 18 verse eight, Jeremiah 18 verse eight.
And when God restrains this evil, it's evil that he could have brought upon these people simply as a natural consequence of their choice.
Jeremiah 18, eight, he said, if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do under them.
Now, when God repents, that means he is comforted.
In fact, the Hebrew word translated, repented is more often translated as the word comfort than it is the word repent.
Just so you understand what it means when applied to God.
God isn't changing his mind as we think of it because he knows all things from the beginning.
He's never wrong about something like we are.
And remember this, whenever you read that God repents of something, he delights in doing good, but he is just when he brings evil upon sinful man who has chosen to do evil and how severe will this evil be when he brings it on Jerusalem and Judah tune in next week and you'll find out.
Let's pray father.
Thank you so much for the people who've come, the ones who have joined us on online, the ones who may watch this at a later time and father, we're thankful for your word.
That's what we're leaning on today.
And we covet your spirit as you teach us not only now, but in the hour to come and ask you to build up your church to draw the centers unto you through the gospel of Jesus Christ and Lord to give us hearts that are humble hearts that will accept your word rather than being puffed up or rejecting it.
And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
