Episode Transcript
All right, it is ten o'clock.
Time for us to begin.
If you'll be sure and set your noise making devices on silent and your phasers on stun.
If you're a Star Trek fan, you'll know what that means.
We're in 2 Kings chapter 24 this morning.
2 Kings chapter 24 is our text.
Before we started, Brother Larry asked me, He said, Would it be out of line for me to Give a praise report, and I said, No, tell me what it is.
And his medication for his hepatitis C comes in on November the 5th, and that's a big deal.
Makes you feel bad.
So thank God for that.
That is an answered prayer.
That's something we specifically were praying about on Wednesday nights, and maybe some of you also throughout the week.
All right, 2 Kings chapter 24 and verse 15.
Last week we watched as King Jehoiakin with an N.
Of Judah gave over his authority, his family, his servants, and all the treasures of the house of the Lord.
To King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
And today we pick up with that series of events beginning here in verse 15.
So let's see what Nebuchadnezzar did with this king who surrendered everything to him.
Verse 15, and he carried away Jehoiakin to Babylon.
Now that was the third step in this captivity.
And you might think, well, what do you mean the third step in the captivity?
This sounds like the first step in the captivity.
He took him captive.
Well, the first step in their captivity was turning away from God.
And that's something that people probably don't consider whenever they've turned away from God.
They don't see themselves in captivity.
They don't think, uh-oh, I have just surrendered myself to something or to someone other than God, which is idolatry.
But turning away from God was his first step in captivity.
The second step was when he turned to Nebuchadnezzar, when he began having dialogue with him and saying, Hey, I'll uh I'll tell you what, I'll send my mother out here.
Boy, if you'll give your mother up to an enemy king, I don't have much use for you.
But that's what he did.
And then the third step was, as we read here, actually being carried away by the one to whom he's turned and to whom he has yielded.
Romans chapter 6, verse 16 Romans 6, verse 16 says Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death?
Or of obedience unto righteousness.
So when the Apostle Paul wrote this to the Romans and therefore to us, He said, if you yield yourself servants to obey someone, then you are his servants.
So in When Jehoiakin yielded himself to Nebuchadnezzar before he was carried away, when he said, Everything I have is yours.
Then it was a guarantee he was going to be carried away.
That was just the first step in being carried away.
Jehoiakin had yielded himself to Nebuchadnezzar rather than repenting and yielding himself to the Lord.
Every time Judah, Israel were taken in captivity, when they turned to the Lord with all their heart, God would deliver them.
He did it every time.
And so I want you to suppose that Jehoiakin had yielded himself to God.
What would that have looked like?
Would in this case, would Nebuchadnezzar still have taken him captive?
Well, the answer is yes.
And it's because God told King Josiah A godly king, that that very thing was going to happen whenever Josiah died.
Judah had gone past the point of no return with God.
God had warned them, and warned them, and warned them.
And given them commands to repent, to turn to him, and that he would give them all those good things, all those blessings that he promised them when he brought them out of Egypt.
But they said no.
And that brings up a really good point.
It's easy to understand why a person would yield to a master if there was a reward attached to it.
Very easy.
In some businesses, the owners know that Most employees will work hard if there is some hope of a reward.
If an employee is the top producer in a year, He may get a bonus on top of his normal salary.
And because of that bonus, or the hope of that bonus. both that employee and others will work harder, hoping to gain that same reward.
Now the company owner would love to think that all the employees work hard because they love the company and they value each other and they're honorable people.
And in some places, that may be more true than others.
But what happens when the boss removes the incentives for hard work?
and pays everyone the same regardless of their performance.
Well, what I have just described is the way most government agencies work.
Brother Fulton and I worked for the same one for many years.
The test of an honorable person is not when there is hope of a special reward.
But when there's not hope of a special reward, and that's the case with Jehoiakin.
Because God had already promised to deliver Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.
That did not take away the responsibility of those Jews to turn to God and repent and to accept.
The punishment that was going to be inflicted on Judah by being delivered as captives.
They still had the obligation.
To obey God.
Instead of saying, Well, God's given us up to the Babylonians, we may as well turn to their gods.
1 Peter chapter 2, verses 18 through 20.
1 Peter 2, verses 18 through 20.
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear.
Now, right here, we have a servant-master relationship.
We have Jehoiakim.
Who has yielded himself as a servant to his master, King Nebuchadnezzar?
Be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but to the froward, that's the crooked.
For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.
So, it's a good thing that even though you may be delivered into captivity, even though you may be in the fires of affliction, whatever they are, if you obey that master.
Because you love God.
You may not think much of that, Master, but because you love God, for what glory is it?
If when ye be buffeted, that means struck or hit for your faults, ye shall take it patiently.
But if when ye do well and suffer for it, You take it patiently.
This is acceptable with God.
So, what God expected out of Jehoiakim was to be a godly man, even though he was going through This chastening, this national chastening with Judah.
I remember as a young highway patrol trooper, I loved to go out every shift and see how much work I could get done.
I wanted to have the most traffic stops, tickets, warnings, arrests, whatever it was.
I wanted to be number one.
That was just my competitive spirit.
I wanted to win in all the trials that I testified in.
I didn't want to lose any cases.
I wanted to know the traffic laws better than my fellow troopers.
And I didn't make any more money doing that than I would have if I'd have worked like some of the others.
In every district, every highway patrol district in the state, there was a small handful of troopers who were lazy.
But they got paid the same amount that I did for going out and working and being excited about the job.
And as angry as it made me to see some of those troopers dodging accident calls and continuously slacking off at work.
I refused to let that affect my work because I was raised differently.
My parents taught me from an early age to always work hard and do your best, no matter what anyone else around you is doing.
And I taught my children the same thing.
Jehoiakim chose his master, Nebuchadnezzar, who was a froward master, as 2 Peter says.
He was a crooked master.
Now, what if Jehoiakin had chosen God as his master, as his Lord?
Well, it would have made a big difference in how he viewed his new earthly master, Nebuchadnezzar.
I love what we learned about Daniel.
His master was the Lord God.
However, that did not keep Daniel from being taken into captivity.
He still went into captivity.
He still suffered with the rest of the children of Israel in Judah.
His master was the Lord God, but he also, just like Jehoiakim, had a new earthly master, King Nebuchadnezzar, who even changed Daniel's name to Beltashazzar.
And as godly as Daniel was, the Lord had already determined to send the children of Israel from Judah into captivity.
The children of Israel from Samaria, the northern kingdom, had already been taken into captivity long ago by the Assyrians and now the Babylonians.
And although Daniel worshiped the Lord, he still showed proper respect to his new master in Babylon.
When and we studied this passage already in our study of Daniel during the 11 o'clock hour.
And when Daniel was explaining King Nebuchadnezzar's dream to him, he still showed him great respect.
Without disrespecting the Lord.
And that's the key here.
He showed great respect without disrespecting the Lord.
And I'm going to read a part of that.
It's from Daniel chapter 2 and verse 37.
Daniel 2, 37.
So this is Daniel talking to Nebuchadnezzar about the dream.
He said, Thou, O king, art a king of kings.
For the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.
So, Daniel did two things right there.
He recognized Nebuchadnezzar's authority over all the earth.
He said, You are.
You're the top dog.
No doubt about that.
But the way you got there is that the God of heaven gave you this authority because he sets up kings and he pulls them down.
So he didn't just stop with, you are a king of kings, because Nebuchadnezzar could have taken that to mean, oh, well, Daniel thinks I'm more powerful than his God.
And Daniel did not, and in a very respectful way he let him know, sir, the way you got your power.
Because you are powerful, and you're all powerful over the kingdoms of this earth.
But the way you got your power is from my heavenly Father, who is my master, and he's really yours, too.
Daniel was in Nebuchadnezzar's prison, and so was King Jehoiakin, our king, in our text.
One was a believer, the other was not.
And I want to show you a similarity and a difference between Daniel and Jehoiakim when it came to their masters.
So first, let's look at what Daniel's new earthly master did when Daniel was his captive.
It's in Daniel chapter 1, verse 5.
And the king appointed them.
Now, it's talking about Nebuchadnezzar appointing Daniel and the three Hebrew men who we know as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
They were They had different names at that time.
It says, and the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat. and of the wine which he drank, so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king.
Now let's look at what Jehoiakim's new earthly master did when Jehoiakim was his captive.
It's found in 2 Kings 25.
Verses 27 through 30.
And we haven't gotten there yet in our study, but I'm going to look ahead a minute.
2 Kings 25, verses 27 through 30.
And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiakim king of Judah in the twelfth month on the seventh and twentieth day of the month that evil Merodach king of Babylon In the year that he began to reign, did lift up the head of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, out of prison.
And he spake kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon, and changed his prison garments.
And listen to this And he, that's Jehoiakin, did eat bread continually before him all the days of his life.
And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day all the days of his life.
So as you can see, the similarity between Daniel and Jehoiakin Was that their earthly masters provided them the king's meat while they were in Babylonian captivity?
Now let's look at differences between the two.
Let's look at their responses to receiving this king's meat.
First, Jehoiakim.
It said, He did eat bread continually before him, before the king, all the days of his life, and his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king.
A daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.
So, for the rest of Jehoiakin's life, when he was lifted up out of prison, he no longer ate prison gruel or whatever they were feeding him to keep him alive.
He ate the king's meat.
He got the best.
Now look at Daniel's response to that same food, the same offering of that food in Daniel 1:8.
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank.
Therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
So whereas Jehoiakin said, Oh, I'll take it.
Put it all out there for me.
I'll eat it every day, if it keeps me out of prison.
Daniel said, I'm not doing it.
I don't want to eat it.
It will defile me.
And then in verse 12.
Daniel 1:12, Daniel said to the eunuch who proposed to feed them the king's meat, he said, Prove thy servants.
That means test.
Test thy servants.
I beseech thee ten days, and let them give us pulse, that's vegetables, to eat and water to drink.
Now you see the difference between Jehoiakim and Daniel.
Jehoiakim depended on his new earthly master to sustain him.
Daniel depended on his heavenly father to sustain him.
He said, We'll eat vegetables and water, and we'll be just fine.
Jehoiakin was afraid to suffer.
So he gave up.
Daniel was not afraid to suffer because his God was the Lord.
And what's the worst thing that can happen to a person whose God is the Lord, to a Christian, is that you die.
That's the worst earthly thing that can happen to you is that you die.
And that's the best thing that can happen to you because you go be with the Lord.
Now we're not in a hurry to get there, whatever the Lord's timing is.
We don't want to hasten our departure.
By doing foolish things.
Sometimes people do.
But we're not, if you're a Christian, I'm going to tell you: if you're afraid of what happens when you die.
I'm going to recommend you go back through the Genesis to Jesus class.
I really am.
It's not a punishment, it's to help you have victory over that, because if you're still afraid.
I'm just not sure.
I mean, I know Jesus died for my sins, but I just feel like I could lose it if I do this or that.
You need to go back through the class because you didn't get The crux of it, and that is that Jesus died for your sins.
You don't have to pay for them.
You say, Well, the other day I had a dirty thought, or I, you know, I said a cuss word, or I.
Did something I shouldn't have done.
Okay?
Jesus died for your sins.
That doesn't give you a free pass to sin.
And if you're a Christian, you won't want to.
You'll say, I don't want to sin.
Daniel was not afraid to suffer, and in his actions, Daniel lived out what we learn in Colossians chapter 3, verses 22 through 24.
Colossians 3, 22 through 24.
I bet Nelda still has that whole chapter memorized.
We memorized it a few years ago as a church, and that was wonderful.
It says, Servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers. but in singleness of heart, fearing God.
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, and not unto men.
Knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ.
So, obey the king unless it means disobeying the Lord, but in most cases it doesn't.
If somebody says, well, The speed limit's not in the Bible.
Well, I'll tell you what is in the Bible, and that is that you read Romans chapter 13, and all of us are subject to the earthly authorities.
And the setting of the speed limit does not violate any scripture.
You don't have the freedom to be reckless with your car and put other people in danger, including your own passengers and your own hard-headed self, if you like to speed.
But that is our principle right there.
You serve the Lord Christ, so whatever you're doing, do it for Him.
So, when I go to work, or when Brother Doug goes to work, and the environment around us may be toxic, and some of the people may be hard to get along with, hard to be around.
You remember that you work for the Lord.
Say, Lord, if nobody around here appreciates what I'm doing, I know you're watching.
And I'm doing this because I serve the Lord Christ.
You're just claiming scripture is all you're doing.
And that's why Daniel did what he did.
It's why he spoke to the king the way he did, and he was obedient in all things until the king's edict would have caused Daniel to disobey God.
And he said, I'm not doing it.
Look back in your text now.
If you've just joined us, we're in 2 Kings 24, verse 15.
It says, And the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers.
And the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.
So not only did Jehoiakim's yielding to Nebuchadnezzar affect his own life.
But it affected the lives of his family and his servants, including these mighty men of Judah.
These would have been his fighting force.
So the captivity here is nearing its completion.
They've yielded themselves servants to obey Nebuchadnezzar.
And now Judah is the servant to Nebuchadnezzar whom they obeyed.
They've yielded themselves.
And that's what we read in Romans 6:16 earlier.
Now, look in verse 16 in our chapter, and all the men of might.
Even 7,000, we'll stop right there.
We'll see, they'll also be carried away.
It's clear that this was a military surrender as well.
This wasn't just the king running away.
This was a military surrender.
It would have made no sense for Nebuchadnezzar to leave even a remnant of a Jewish army in Judah.
That would have been foolish in a military strategy.
They had trained themselves and had children and raised up more soldiers and one day become an enemy to Babylon again.
So taking them captive ensured.
At least in Nebuchadnezzar's view, that Judah could not rally a fighting force with a remnant of soldiers.
Now, this also tells us how Nebuchadnezzar viewed the strength of Judah.
When he looked at a country or when he looked at a man, The way he viewed that man, the way he appraised his strength or that country's strength is indicated here by what he did.
He thought he could take away their king.
And their mighty men.
And look further here in the text, it says, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand.
Now, those were their manufacturers.
The craftsmen and smiths not only made furniture and carts and all that, but they made instruments for daily living.
The threatening part is they could also make swords and spears and shields and daggers and arrows, and a wise king who captured them.
Would take them away from being able to do that in their homeland and probably put them to work doing it for his army.
That would be the wise thing to do.
And he continues in verse 16 about those he carried away, all that were strong and apt for war, even them.
The king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.
So, in his mind, he didn't leave any stone unturned.
He checked all the boxes that were important to him.
I've got the king, I've got his mother, I've got his officers, his servants, his mighty men, all the people who can make weapons of war.
I think I've got it, and I've left just a few of the poor in the land to keep the vines and do the gardening and all that.
Nebuchadnezzar took the king so that neither he nor his son could rise up and lead Judah to rebel.
He took the king's family and his servants, so there would be none remaining in Jerusalem who were loyal.
To Jehoiakim.
He took the military men and all who were strong enough to fight, so there would be no rising army to one day trouble Babylon.
And Nebuchadnezzar took the craftsmen and the smith, so there would be none left in Jerusalem or Judah to make weapons of war.
He'd already taken their silver and their gold, because Jehoiakin yielded those up to him as well.
All he has left in the land of Judah were what the Bible calls certain of the poor.
What harm could they do?
After all, someone had to keep the vines in the gardens.
But Nebuchadnezzar's underestimating of the presence of the poor Was equivalent to underestimating their God.
Their God who is able to make them rise again.
Look in verse 17.
And the king of Babylon made Mataniah, his father's brother, king in his stead.
Now, the pronouns here make this a little bit confusing.
So, what that means is Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiakin's uncle the king of Judah.
And that uncle's name was Madaniah, which means gift of Jehovah.
And says in the verse, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
Which is a name that means Jehovah is righteous.
Now, this is the second time Nebuchadnezzar has changed the name of a Jewish king.
And rather than changing the name, this is what's interesting to me.
Rather than changing the name to something that glorified Nebuchadnezzar, like he did with Daniel and the other three Hebrew men.
He changed the name from one that glorified God to another one that glorified God.
And if you know the end of this story, then you'll understand why I'm saying God is at work in this Gentile king's heart.
If you don't know the end of the story, well, that's okay too.
Just hang on and we'll Brother Fulton will get us there.
And a lot of times, he and I will run side by side because we are talking about the same time in history from different books.
It's wonderful.
Verse 18, Zedekiah was 20 and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem.
So what we learn there is that the king, the new king, was sent back to the old country.
And he's a puppet king, another one.
Once again, in his mother's name Was the same as Jehoahaz's mother.
They were both King Josiah's sons.
Now look in verse 19 about Zedekiah.
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
You know, I bet Josiah was glad to go be with the Lord when he died.
Whenever he was.
Whenever he had that mortal wound in battle at the hand of the king of Assyria and was passing away, I bet he was ready to go.
And of course he was glad because he was a believer.
But I believe he was probably also glad because he had two sons who were evil.
Man, he knew it.
If I were him and had lived, it would be heartbreaking.
To watch not one but two evil sons live out their wicked lives before my eyes.
And Josiah, surely as a believer, labored in prayer many days and nights over his sons.
But instead of that, they made their choices to disregard Their father's example, and to disregard the fact that he honored the word of God.
We saw that as an eight-year-old new king, a boy, he honored God's word.
And God could have left Josiah to see all those evil days of his sons, but God was merciful and took him home.
And you know, when somebody dies, and we often say, oh, they died so young.
Or what a tragedy.
And it is in our eyes, and we grieve their loss.
What we don't know is what did God spare them from?
What if That person who died, that loved one, that friend, that coworker, had they stayed alive, would have had something really tragic happen to them, or they would have done something horrible.
And God, in his perfect foreknowledge, said, I'm not letting that happen.
I'm taking them to be with me.
It's hard for us to understand that because we don't always know why God takes somebody, he takes them for his glory.
And that's what we have to rest in.
So he took Josiah and left his evil sons.
And they did their work.
Verse 20: For through the anger of the Lord, it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah until he had cast them out from his presence.
That is, God cast Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, and Judah, the people of the southern kingdom, out of his presence because he was angry with them.
And in spite of having a few godly kings like King Asa, like King Josiah on the throne, the majority of the kings who ruled over Judah and over Israel were evil.
The people were evil for the most part.
There was always a remnant of believers.
And there was a remnant of good kings and good people.
But as a whole, Judah, Jerusalem, the city where God's name was supposed to be, rebelled against God.
They despised his salvation.
Like most people do today.
They despised his provision, his protection over him.
And to top it off, look back in your text.
That Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
Now we have an evil Jewish king.
Who has rebelled against both his heavenly master and his earthly master?
At least, Jehoiakim Had sense enough, if you will, to submit himself to Nebuchadnezzar, though I don't believe he did it in honor of God's choice to use Nebuchadnezzar.
As a servant to punish Israel.
I don't think Jehoiak can, I mean, based on what we've read, that he said, you know what, Lord, I'm going to go to prison because.
You said this is what was going to happen to Judah.
You're punishing us, and I understand that.
He didn't have the heart that Daniel had.
He had an earthly, carnal heart.
And Zedekiah had enjoyed 11 years in Jerusalem.
He wasn't in a dungeon, a prison in Babylon.
He was back in Jerusalem.
His brother spent all that time, his brother Jehoiakin spent all that time in the prison in Babylon.
But Zedekiah got to go home and be the king in his land.
And he got too big for his breeches and rebelled against the powerful Babylonian Empire.
And he tried to do it in his own strength.
Chapter 25, verse 1.
And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and they built forts against it round about.
Now before this, Nebuchadnezzar showed a certain amount of trust in Zedekiah.
Because Babylon had not besieged Jerusalem during about nine of those 11 years.
They'd drawn their forces back.
They'd taken all the captives with them and the treasures of the house of the Lord, left certain of the poor of the land.
And Zedekiah should have just lived out his days.
As a compliant puppet king under the Babylonian king.
But he was foolish.
Verse two: And the city was besieged Unto the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
So Babylon surrounded Jerusalem for over a year.
They could have broken down the walls and marched in, but they chose a more calculated strategy.
Let nobody in, let nobody out.
And eventually, because of the way their economy was structured, the people would run out of food and water.
So, all these crops that they would have tended outside the city, out in the country, they couldn't get to them.
And that's exactly what happened.
Look in verse 3.
And on the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land.
The strategy worked.
At this time in their history, the people of Judah and Jerusalem surely longed for peace and prosperity.
And they had neither.
And this Babylonian army did not bring peace to them.
That's their new master.
This Babylonian army did not bring prosperity to them, but the opposite, famine.
They surrounded Jerusalem in forced.
The Jews into a fast.
They forced them into a fast.
And Judah was about to be extinct.
And as we pause here, Let's look at the hope they have in the Lord because Babylon is offering them no hope.
I'm going to read to you from a couple of passages in Zechariah, so if you want to write those down.
Zechariah chapter 8.
First, I'll read verses 13 through 15.
God speaking to Zechariah the prophet.
And it shall come to pass that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you.
And ye shall be a blessing.
Fear not, but let your hands be strong.
For thus saith the Lord of hosts: As I thought to punish you, that's what he's doing right now.
When your fathers provoked me to wrath, saith the Lord of hosts, and I repented not, so again have I thought in these days to do well unto Jerusalem.
And to the house of Judah, fear ye not.
So, what is God telling them?
There is hope.
Now, listen to what God requires of them, He's told them what He's going to do.
Down in verses 16 through 17, Zechariah 8, 16 through 17.
These are the things that ye shall do.
Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbor.
Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour, and love no false oath.
For all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord.
Now, those were things Judah had not been doing.
When you reject God's word, you reject truth.
So, how can you speak truth to your neighbor when you reject God's word?
When you speak to your neighbor things that are contrary to God's word, you're not speaking truth.
And when you imagine things.
Against your neighbor that are contrary to God's word, you're imagining evil in your heart.
When you swear to your neighbor to do right.
And you do wrong.
You love false oaths.
And God said for Judah to put all that away because he hates it.
And also in this same Zechariah passage, God addresses the fast.
Now, I just showed you, we just learned where when Babylon besieged Jerusalem.
There came famine because they ran out of bread.
What is that?
When you don't eat, it's a fast, isn't it?
Famine or fast, it's the same.
Same thing, a fast is more of a temporary thing, and a famine is more, it's a longer period of time.
But the thing they both have in common is you don't eat.
And so God addresses this fast.
Right now the Jews are fasting by force of the enemy.
There's no joy.
And God tells Judah they will one day fast and they will have great joy.
Zechariah 8, verses 18 through 19.
Verses 18 through 19.
And the word of the Lord of hosts came unto me, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy.
And gladness and cheerful feasts.
Therefore, love the truth and peace.
Now in our text in 2 Kings, this fast is taking place when?
In the fourth month.
Did y'all see that?
In the fourth month, but it's a fast of sorrow.
The one described by Zechariah in the fourth month will be a fast of joy.
Now, let's see what else will happen in the day that God saves and blesses Judah and Israel.
Zechariah 8, verses 20 through 23.
Zechariah 8, 20 through 23.
Thus saith the LORD of hosts: It shall yet come to pass that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities, and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another. saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts.
I will go also.
Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem.
And to pray before the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts: In those days it shall come to pass. that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you.
For we have heard that God is with you.
Now, what a difference the Lord makes.
Under the siege of Nebuchadnezzar.
The inhabitants of one city do not go into another.
None say they want to go speedily and pray before the Lord or to seek the Lord.
Babylon has not come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and they certainly have not taken a Jew by the skirt and said, We will go with thee, because we have heard the Lord is with thee.
The Judah and Israel we now see in the Bible is at its lowest point in biblical history.
But God is merciful.
And he loves his people, and he will save them by his mighty power.
And I'm thankful for the hope that he gives to Judah and Israel through the prophet Zechariah, even when they see no hope.
For their condition, because that is our hope as well.
It's the same kind of hope we have.
Verse 4, and the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king's garden.
The soldiers couldn't withstand the famine.
They chose to flee.
They abandoned the oath that they had made to protect and defend Jerusalem and the king.
And this is what happens when carnal men are tested.
They fail.
Their hope is not in God, it's in themselves.
And we'll close here.
It says, Now the Chaldees were against the city round about, and the king went the way toward the plain.
And that reminds us that the Chaldees, which are the same as the Babylonians.
Their language was Chaldean, that they had surrounded Jerusalem.
And it was easier to escape at night than it was during the day, right?
Most of the watchmen were sleeping, and just a very few may have remained.
And then next week we will look at how the army of the Chaldees responded to this.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you so much for those who came.
It's been wonderful to teach people who are hungry for your word.
Thank you for every person who tuned in online.
They're important to us just as if they were sitting here.
And we know that your word can feed them whether they're here or watching from another country.
We so thank you for the truth that we've heard.
And now, Father, may we put it to work in our own lives as your Spirit enables us.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
