(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

So tonight, chapter number 16 of the book of 2 Kings, we're pretty much just dealing with the reign of one king. We're dealing with the reign of Ahaz. Ahaz was a king of Judah, and just prior to Ahaz, we have kings that were noted as being kings that had done right in the eyes of the Lord. His father was King Jotham, before that was, what was it similar to Ahaz, Ahaziah. There had been a few kings already in Jerusalem that had been noted as they had did right in the sight of the Lord. Nevertheless, the high places were still there. We saw that phrase popping up regularly. Now, we get to a king that's a king of Judah, and kings of Israel by and large were wicked kings. It's rare. I mean, you had Jehu that did right in the eyes of the Lord, and then his sons, they didn't really do right in the eyes of the Lord. I mean, there's a couple that got worse and worse, and then the last one did that which was evil, and he was killed pretty quickly and continued to have wicked kings on the throne of Israel. But Judah, this is the first one who's being noted in a while of someone who lived wickedly. So, let's look here in verse number one. The Bible says, in the 17th year of Pekah, the son of Remaliah, Ahaz, the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. Of course, Pekah, the son of Remaliah, is the king of Israel. 20 years old was Ahaz when he began to reign, and reigned 16 years in Jerusalem, and did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord is God, like David his father. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. Yea, and made his son to pass through the fire according to the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree. This is why God made such a big deal going all the way back to when they were inheriting the promised land. This is why God made the decree that you have to wipe them out completely because the people, the heathen, the Canaanites that lived in the land before they came into the land were extremely wicked, and the gods that they worshiped were satanic and extremely wicked, and they did abominable things, and the way that they worshiped their false gods was by burning their children in fire as a burnt offering unto their false god, their satanic god, and its extreme wickedness. So they were practicing all these things, and God did not want there to be a remnant, these people existing, so that they could taint and add that leaven to the children of Israel who were only supposed to know the Lord, and worship the Lord because he is the God, he's the true God, and they don't need to be deceived with all this other nonsense and Satanism. But what happened? They didn't utterly destroy the inhabitants of the land. They allowed them to stay, and they, you know, they didn't win all their battles because they weren't trusting in God, and then I think what I read when I read that is the first time you see, well, they didn't completely destroy them, but they allowed them to stay, and they became their servants, like they became their slaves, their tributaries, so they're getting money from them, and they're starting to get all this up from them. What I believe happened is that the other tribes started to see, oh wow, you know, having these people around isn't that bad of a thing because we can use them, we could make money off of them, we could use them to do things for, you know, why not have servants? And I think that concept appealed to them even more to let these people live instead of utterly destroy them, like God said, and went against the commandments of God, and now they end up suffering for it generations later because they stay in the land, they continue to populate, and they become a thorn in the side of Israel and Judah just perpetually because they didn't heed God, and God's decree was to wipe it out, get rid of it all together, stamp it out and leave nothing, and it's the same thing with the high places, with the idolatry. God wants them to just get rid of all, that's why it keeps coming up time after time, like they didn't get rid of it, they didn't, and God wants us to just get fully on board, just get in and get rid of all the garbage and junk and sin in your life, get rid of all of it, don't hold on to any last pieces, because while that one last piece may not be your own personal demise, it could be your children's. And we see this happen for the kings, they did right in the sight of the Lord, they did right in the sight of the Lord, they did right in the sight of the Lord, but they didn't get rid of the high places, they didn't get rid of the high places, they didn't get rid of the high places, so for a few generations they're still all right, and now we get to Ahaz. Ahaz was deceived and worshipped in the high places. Ahaz started offering his, passing his children through the fire onto false gods. You let it around long enough and someone's going to be caught up into this stuff, instead of just getting rid of it to begin with, pull off the band-aid, you know, do it all at once, get rid of all of it, and be done with it, but know that is keep these traditions, keep the wickedness, keep the idolatry, just let it linger, and it festers and festers until it destroys somebody. So unfortunately now we have a king that did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord. Let's keep reading here. Now as a result of his wickedness, Ahaz, and considering that Judah was still a pretty good lighthouse for the Lord, right? Samaria, the northern kingdom of Israel, they had gotten backwards all the way back to Jeroboam the son of Nebad, and they never really fully kind of came back to the Lord. They had a couple of good kings and a little bit of sway with some of the people there, but by and large they've been doing wickedly for a long time, and God I think really focused though on Judah and the kingdom of Judah being, you know, still that's where the priests were, that's where they were worshiping the Lord, that's where the house of God was, that's where the temple was, that's where everything was still happening for the Lord. So now as long as the kings are doing good, you know, he's taking care of them, they're screwing up a little bit and he's bringing some some small judgments against them, but overall they're still being protected, things are still going all right for them, but now you've got King Ahaz just doing completely wicked, and getting, you know, we're going to read in this chapter, you already heard it read earlier, but you know, selling off a bunch of stuff, bringing in false gods into the house of God, cutting the brazen, you know, the lake and all the other stuff, you know, all the things that were used to worship the Lord, just destroying them, changing them, and God now is going to bring his judgment, and it's severe, it's his punishment he brings, he's trying to correct them. See there's a difference between God forsaking the land, because he gives him chance after chance after chance, and at the end of it he says fine, nuts to you, you know, now you're really going to be punished, as opposed to, you know, you've been doing good, but you need to get right with me, and this is where, you know, when we get wrong in our lives, when God has to correct us, that we're quick to repent, we're quick to get back, okay sorry God, because the longer it takes, and the more you stray, and the harder your neck becomes, and the harder your heart becomes, the worse, and the worse, and the worse God's punishment is going to get on you, because if he's not getting through to you, he will make sure he gets through to you, and with the kingdoms, with Israel and Judah, they end up being taken captive, and just taken out of their land, and they become the tributaries, they become the ones, the slaves and the servants working for the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, and are just taken hostage and taken captive, and eventually they're brought back, but that was then the severe punishment after everything that was done, but we're not there yet, this is kind of still the beginning of these things coming to pass, so let's keep reading here, verse number five, wherefore the Lord his God delivered him, so because of this, wherefore we just read how he burnt incense in the high places, made his sons to pass through the fire, you know, he did all these things, so because of this, the Lord his God delivered him into the head, excuse me, of the king of Syria, and they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus, and he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter, so now you've got the Syrians coming and attacking, you've got Israel coming and attacking, and they have no defense, they have no help, why? Because they turn their back on God, because they're not listening and obeying and harkening unto the Lord, so God says fine, I'm not going to be your defense then, I'm not going to, you know, protect you from these things that come, and actually we're going to read in other areas that God was actually punishing him, I mean it was of God that these nations, that Syria and Israel came against him, and let's keep reading, verse number six says, for Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah and 120,000 in one day, which were all valiant men, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers, so look at what happens here, first Syria comes and says they took away a great multitude of them captives, they took hostages, prisoners of war, they already took away, it doesn't say on me, but a great multitude, a lot of people were taken captive, were taken hostage by the Syrians, and then Israel comes and it says they killed a hundred, a hundred and twenty thousand men in one day, that's a slaughter, that is a lot of people killed, and not only did they kill 120,000, it says they were all valiant men, so these are like, they're veterans, these are people who were good at war, these were the strength of their defense and their army, but because they had forsaken the Lord, God said it doesn't matter how tough you are, you guys think you're tough, you think you're strong warriors, you know, doesn't matter, because if you're fighting against God, you're going to lose every single time, and God can make, you know, the weak and even the smaller numbers come in and destroy you, because your physical strength means nothing if God's getting involved in the battle, and God did get involved, and that's why it says 120,000 of them died in one day, which are all valiant men, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers, they turned their back on God, now if God's willing to do this, when these people all turn their back on him, what do you think he's going to do in your life? You're a child of God, these are his people, and this is what we need to understand about this, while this isn't regarding salvation, this has nothing to do with their souls being saved and them turning their back on God, it's the same thing with you, it's not, you know, your salvation doesn't depend on whether or not you turn your back on God, you're already saved, you're already one of his people, but if you turn your back on God as a believer as being one of his people, he's going to come down on you, he's going to come down on you hard, and we need to remember that, and when things start going bad in your life, the last thing you need to do is turn your back on God and go to church less, no, you actually need to get in church more, you need to get in your Bible more, you need to pray more, you need to do more to get right with God when bad things happen, when you are facing defeat, when you're facing problems, the last thing you need to do is get away and turn even farther, no, you need to get back and get right and get in and stay in quickly. Verse number seven, and Zechariah mighty man of Ephraim slew Maasiah the king's son, and Azarikum the governor of the house, and Elkanah that was next to the king, so Zechariah is a mighty man of Ephraim, Ephraim is part of the northern kingdom of Israel, on top of these other losses they've sustained, on top of the people being taken captive, on top of the 120,000 being killed just in one day, among those that died it says the king's own son, Maasiah, he died, so a king personally lost one of his sons, Azarikum the governor of the house, so like the chief person like ruling and kind of running his house, he was also killed, and Elkanah that was next to the king, so like his number one guy, he's not only losing a bunch of people of the land of Judah, the warriors, he's also losing those that are real close to him, this is a severe chastening of God when you look at everything that's happening here. In verse number eight says and the children of Israel carried away captain of their brethren 200,000 women, sons and daughters and took also away much spoil from them and brought the spoil to Samarian, so not only did the Syrians take captives, now Israel also took captive women, children, they took their goods away, so now I mean they're really brought low, Judah's brought really low and this is what God does when he needs to get your attention and you start going the wrong way and in this case I mean it's extremely the wrong way, extremely, so he I mean that's why these severe measures were taken against them and there's no doubt God is involved in this, none at all, the Bible says that's why God delivered him, that's why they brought you know these things happened, now keep your place here, oh I can't believe I just did that, I just read completely from second chronicles 28 in my notes, if you're wondering where like where are you going with verse five verse say you can say something you don't gotta you don't gotta sit there quiet, second chronicles 28 which is funny because in in my notes we had just done verse four now on verse five but I forgot that the the passage had changed, so I all those verses I just read for you about Syria and you know taking them captive everything those were found in second chronicles 28 so keep a finger there because we're gonna go back and forth that's the parallel passage it's the same story we're going in order like I always do I keep the events happening in line in chronological order so as we go back and forth between second king 16 we're also going through second chronicles 28 so pardon me for that all those verses five six seven eight that is read from second chronicles 28 because we're going to continue reading in second chronicles 28 we'll look at verse number nine we're going to see here which we don't get this from second kings obviously that's why I go back and forth there's extra insights that we gain from these other chapters that Israel even though Israel is wicked they learn a very important lesson because remember they took they took 200,000 women sons daughters and they're spoiled everything else these are their brethren you know children of Israel you know they're all children of Israel they're just divided into two kingdoms but they're all still brethren the Lord considers them so brethren and that's why he sends a prophet in verse number nine to Israel and he says the Bible says but a prophet of the Lord was there whose name was Oded and he went out before the host that came to Samaria and said unto them behold because the Lord God of your fathers was wroth with Judah he hath delivered them into your hand and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up unto heaven so he's saying that you know God delivered Judah in your hand because he was angry with him God was mad at Judah and that's why you won but he says you killed them you you've slain them in a rage that's reached up to heaven you went a little bit too far in you know destroying your brother you know it's one thing to go out there and to beat them in battle and got you know and God's bringing his judgment on them but you went you went too far verse number 10 and now so even on top of that that rage where they killed so many people now ye purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem for bond men and bond women unto you but are there not with you even with you sins against the Lord your God so you're saying now you want to keep them as your slaves now you want to bring them into bondage your own brethren you're bringing your own brethren into bondage now the admittedly there is a difference between the heathen that were supposed to be destroyed being brought into bondage and how God looked at that versus their brethren being brought into bondage there are two different things and this definitely is not supposed to be done and they're doing this so that the the prophet comes to him and he says and who do you think you are don't you have sins against the Lord you know God was angry with them and look what you did to them you slayed them with the rage that goes to heaven but now it's time to look at yourselves because don't think that this won't happen to you now the way you know with what judgment you meet it shall be measured to you again that's what matthew seven is talking about it says judge not lest ye be judged okay now you're going this far with your brethren well guess what that's going to come to you now you better examine yourself and that's what he's saying don't you have sins against the Lord your God verse 11 now hear me therefore and deliver the captives again which you have taken captive of your brethren for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you then certain of the heads of the children of ephraim asariah the son of johannan barakiah the son of michelemoth and jehezakiah the son of shalom and emesa the son of headline stood up against them that came from the war so the prophet is saying you know now God's angry with you you better do something about this so some of the elders and some of the the the heads of the people they took heed and they listened to the prophet and now they go out to confront the warriors the you know the people that came the army that comes back from the defeat with all of these people taking captive and stuff and verse 13 says and said unto them you shall not bring in the captives hither you're not bringing those captives here for whereas we have offended against the Lord already ye intend to add more to our sins and to our trespass for our trespass is great and there is fierce wrath against israel they had some sense they said you're not bringing them here because you're going to make things even worse so you bring those captives here get rid of them god's already angry with us don't make them even more angry it's a good attitude to have verse 14 so the armed men left the captives and the spoiled before the princes and all the congregations so they just let them there say fine you deal with it right they left them before the princes they dispersed verse 15 and the men which were expressed by name so the ones we just read about in verse 12 rose up and took the captives and with the spoil clothed all that were naked among them so they had taken these captives out and some of them were even naked they just just leading them out leading them up to samaria from jerusalem or from wherever from juda and and some of them were just naked you know in shame just just dragging them across the desert or whatever up to samaria these guys take them they clothe them and it says it shod them so they put shoes i mean they're walking barefoot they're walking naked and it says and gave them to eat and to drink and anointed them so they washed them up they cleaned them up and carried all the feeble of them upon asses and brought them to jericho the city of palm trees to their brethren then they returned to samaria so they did that which was right they did what they were supposed to do they took care of them and this is how you're supposed to treat you know in the bible find in other places too that's how you're supposed to treat prisoners of war when you go to battle and you have a war and god hasn't said just to destroy them all and you're actually taking the prisoner of war that you give them food you give them something to eat you don't torture them you you you make sure they're cared for as a person and that's how you deal with them it's the right thing to do and then it says in verse 16 at that time did king a has send unto the kings of asyria to help them so after he's been hurt by the syrians after he's been hurt by israel now he goes and sends unto the kings of asyria to help so just keep this in mind remember in case you didn't know is syria and a syria are two different nations and sometimes it's hard to keep that straight sometimes as you're reading a syria is different from syria it's important to just remember that because they're they're completely different from one another let's go back to second kings 16 now now we're going to read verse five and second king 16 so i apologize for that but keep your place in second chronicle 28 we are going to go back to that second kings chapter five two second king 16 verse five then reason king of syria and pika son of remaliah king of israel came up to jerusalem to war and they besieged a has but could not overcome him at that time reason king of syria recovered elath to syria and drove the jews from elath and the syrians came to elath and dwelt there unto this day so a has sent messengers to tiglath-pileser king of asyria so this is where we're kind of catching back up to the story which what we read in the other chapter so a has sent messengers to take that police or king of asyria saying i am thy servant and thy son come up and save me out of the hand of the king of syria and out of the hand of the king of israel which rise up against me and a has took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the lord and in the treasures of the king's house and sent it for a present to the king of asyria and the king of asyria hearkened unto him for the king of asyria went up against damascus and took it and carried the people of it captive to cur and slew reason and king a has went to damascus to meet tiglath-pileser king of isyria and saw an altar that was at damascus and king a has sent to urijah the priest the fashion of the altar and the pattern of it according to all the workmanship thereof and urijah the priest built an altar according to all that king a has had sent from damascus so urijah the priest made it against king a has came from damascus now so obviously what happens here he hires tiglath-pileser the king of isyria to go and fight a battle say hey you know i'm getting destroyed here he says i'm your servant i'm your son you know just giving obeisance to isyria and saying you know you're my boss you're in charge but come and help me out here's a bunch of money so he takes silver and gold out of the temple of the lord and out of his own treasures and just sends him a bunch of money so king of isyria goes okay so he goes up and gets involved in the battle and he fights against the syrians and he takes damascus so he just takes over damascus takes a bunch of captives for himself and then he's done and while he's still there in damascus a has goes up to meet him you know to go to talk to him then he won his victory so a has goes up to talk to him and while he's there he sees this altar in damascus and he decides wow look at that altar i want one of those so he gets the measurements of it describes it all and sends it back to your eye to the priest and says hey build me one of these this is what we need build this for me and he does it your eyes of the priest built an altar according to all that king a has had sent he replaces the altar that they now the altar that they had in jerusalem was the altar that was built after the heavenly altar right remember when when even when moses and the tabernacle was made it was made after those things that were patterned in heaven and then after that they built the temple right and they still had his altar and these are things that were given to them from god that this is the way that needs to be done and he trades the good right godly altar for some wicked heathen satanic altar thinking that that's somehow better this just shows how backwards he was and and he changes he replaces the altar pattern of heavenly things with an altar of the wicked let's keep reading i'm going to get into this a little bit more in just a minute verse 12 and when the king was come from damascus the king saw the altar and the king approached to the altar and offered thereon so he had sent ahead of time to have it created he gets back and he sees it and he's like oh great my altar is ready for me to use and uh he he off makes he makes an offering on that altar verse 13 and he burnt his burnt offering and his meat offering and poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings upon the altar now doesn't that sound familiar peace offerings pour out his drink offering offer his burnt offering his meat offering what's he doing he's retaining certain aspects of the way that god told them to worship and the offerings god told him to make and he's merging that in with this wicked heathen altar so he's completely mixing these two religions and coming up with his own he's taking well i like this out of my religion and i like this i like their altar and i'm just going to come up with my own thing and unfortunately people are doing this all the time they like to pick and choose they say well i like this part out of god's word i think we'll keep that i like this part of god's word but i'm just going to reject all the rest of this stuff and what you do with that is you come up with your own god you're making up your own god in your own mind because i'll tell you what the same god that that gave us genesis and exodus and leviticus you know the law and numbers and deuteronomy and all these books that a lot of people don't want to read at all they don't want to hear that at all it's the same god that gave us matthew and mark and luke and john the gospels and the good news it's the same god we need to accept all of it jesus christ is the word of god made flesh when you start changing and picking and choosing the aspects that you want or you don't want you're changing jesus it's a different god it's a different jesus we need to take it all you can't just pick and choose what you like and what you don't like it happens all the time verse 14 says he brought also the brazen altar which was before the lord from the forefront of the house from between the altar and the house of lord and put it on the north side of the altar and king a has commanded your eye to the priest saying upon the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening meat offering and the king's burnt sacrifice and his meat offering with the burnt offering of all the people of land and their meat offering and their drink offerings and sprinkle upon it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice and the brazen altar shall be for me to inquire by so there's so many things he kept the same now part of that maybe and again i don't know it could just be completely all out of his own mind that he wants to do things this way or it could be a way to get people to just accept this stuff because it's not all different he's keeping all this stuff the same and remember that's the same thing that Jeroboam the son of Nebat did he was worried about them going down to Jerusalem and worshiping there the right way the way that God said to go to the place where God put his name there and he didn't want them to do that so he made these two golden calves and set them up and said okay these be your gods this is where you're going to worship but he didn't change all the feasts he didn't change all the offerings he just said well this is where you're going to do it and these are your gods and this is what you worship but everything else you can still do the same because you don't want to make this great departure into something completely different because the people aren't going to go for that but when you change a little bit they say well we're still worshiping the lord we're still bringing our sacrifice it's not that big of a deal we know that these yeah i know he said these things we know these things aren't our gods but we'll just do this anyway the king said so and they compromised and it doesn't take very long before their children and their children they're just worshiping these idols now and that is their gods and this is what he does here he changes a religion and you know this type of thing has happened quite a bit too for getting people to to change religions instead of doing it the right way the right way is you give them the truth and they repent they change their belief and you say no you've got it all wrong you've got it all backwards your religion's false it's wrong so if you're trying to convince someone who believes in hinduism no you've got it all wrong your religion is just false you need to just stop believing in that stuff and put your faith in christ that's the way that's a true way you get someone to convert to just the true religion they have to change their mind say yeah i don't accept this stuff anymore i'm just going to believe in jesus but other people might come along and say well we need to make this jesus thing a little bit more palatable to them so we can teach that well yeah there is reincarnation you know i mean because the resurrection's like a reincarnation you know and you can start doing all these things that try to merge the religions and say this will make it easier for them to accept if we tell them you know there's there's more than one god or we tell them you know and it's you're just lying and you're not even going to get your coverage because now you've just made up your own god in your own religion this is actually what happened also even in within christianity you think about there's during the the early parts of the history in the united states as there were many slaves brought over from africa well most of the people in africa had a wicked heathen you know voodoo type of religion and now even to this day down south there's many you know this is where a lot of the charismatic stuff came from and the it's very i'm not going to go into all the details but when you start lining up some of the some of the things that some of these charismatic churches do in the south it's so lines up with the voodoo religions and the weird wicked heathen religions of africa because they merged because people as christ as you know christianity being the main religion in the united states and the acceptable religion people look down upon really i mean factually if you're not christian i'm sure you know for for a long time especially when it was way more dominant i mean now people are losing their religion and losing christianity don't care about it anymore but for a long time i mean it was pretty solid so to mingle in and to join in they kind of took well we like this about christianity we could call ourselves christian and then retain all this other witchcraft and wickedness in our religion so what they do in the voodoo religion oftentimes when they want to speak with the spirit world and stuff like that they play their music they get themselves kind of hyped up a little bit in a frenzy and they use the music and sometimes they use the drugs or whatever to then communicate and they have their own you know possession demon possession of things that go on and they think they're dealing with the spirit world well that's not that far removed from the pentecostals that they start playing their music and they play it loud they get over and you got someone hyping up the crowd and getting them into the same type of state that where they're demon possessed and they're rolling on the ground and they're speaking all kind of jibber jabber and everything else and communicating essentially with the spirit world they call it the holy spirit but it's the spirit of the devil and when you start looking at him side by side you say wow they really did just kind of merge so much of those religions together and they just came up with their own and it's not of god they've made their own god and they've made their own jesus a jesus that doesn't really save because you don't get eternal life through their religion you get temporary life and you have to be possessed to show that you're saved in their religion let's keep reading here verse number 16 so he sees the altar he commands every okay we're going to be doing all the all the sacrifices all of our numbers everything is going to be on this altar now verse 16 thus did your eye to the priest according to all that king a has command now shame on your eye to the priest for if anyone should know better it's the priest remember when aziah thought he was something special and he wanted to go in and offer up his incense and the priest said to tell him no aziah you've gone too far get out of the house of the lord and god smote him with leprosy well now you've got your eye just saying sure i'll build a different altar for you no integrity no backbone do whatever you say king and look i don't care if the king would have killed him for not listening he needs to say i am not going to build a false an altar under some false god we're not going to change the altar of the lord we're not going to do it or i'm not going to do it if you want to do it you find someone else to do it just like shadrach mishak abednego daniel you know i'm they're not going to bow down to the golden image i don't care what you do to me it's something i'm not going to do it's a line i'm not going to cross shame on your eye to the priest verse 17 and king a has cut off the borders of the bases and removed the labor from off them and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it and put it upon a pavement of stones and the covert for the sabbath that they had built in the house and the king's entry without turned he from the house of the lord for the king of asyria now the rest of the acts of a has which he did are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of juda and a has slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of david and hezekiah his son rainon has said and you see here how but it says he turned it says the king's entry without like on the outside of the of the house he turned turned he from the house of the lord for the king of asyria why because he became the king of asyria's son not god's son he is relying in man and relying in this king instead of relying in the lord for his for his strength and for his deliverance and for his security and what did that get him nothing way worse actually a huge punishment a huge chastening flip back if you were to second chronicles 28 now because that finishes off chapter 16 here in second kings second chronicles 28 we'll get verse number 22 the bible says in the in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the lord this is that king a has for he sacrificed unto the gods of damascus which smote him and he said because the gods of the kings of syria helped them therefore will i sacrifice to them that they may help me but they were the ruin of him and of all israel and a has gathered together the vessels of the house of god and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of god and shut up the doors of the house of the lord and he made him altars in every corner of jerusalem and in every several city of juda he made high places to burn incense unto other gods and provoked to anger the lord god of his fathers now what is another stupid mindset that he had just like i forget who the other king was that did this he goes to the gods that can't save when he went to damascus the king of asyria had just defeated the syrians he sees an altar in damascus that was an altar for the syrian people not the asyrian people they were defeated now they the syrians had defeated him right they had done bad they had defeated him in battle so he's saying oh well their gods helped them to beat me so now i'm gonna go worship and serve them so that they can help me too well they didn't help them against the king of asyria did they dummy why are you gonna go worship some false god that couldn't even save them from this other king it's just so deluded what a dumb dumb mindset to have it makes no sense whatsoever and then you know and people have this attitude too of looking at their immediate circumstances of things going right or things going wrong and applying that to what's going on in their life spiritually especially someone you know maybe they're trying to find a good church or right church or something and say oh well i went to this church and everything was going good you know i was i went every time as long as i went to the catholic church everything was going good and as soon as i went to that baptist church man everything went bad so now i'm just going to go back to that catholic church because that just must be the right church instead of saying no you've got it backwards maybe there's a reason why everything's going bad is because someone doesn't want you in the right place they're fine when you're in the wrong place and in this case it was you look at the the the gods did not help the syrians because it's a false god and you the reason why everything's going so bad for you is not because you have the wrong god it's because you're going against the right god that's the whole point it just it just doesn't even occur to him but he goes up there to meet with the king of asyria he sees the altar that the syrians use and decided to worship their god makes no sense turn if you would now to isaiah chapter 7 we've got a little bit of time i was going to cover this if we had enough time and we do because this is we're in a time now in the book of second king is getting you know pretty close to the end of the book we've got like you know nine chapters left or something like that and this is a time where it's pretty much ramping up to them being taken captive going into captivity and this is also a time when there's a lot of scripture being revealed it's a pretty exciting time you look at just the history of god's word being revealed and you have you know the books of moses which obviously happened during um right you know during their captivity right before the you know moses is going to lead them out or actually right after those leaves them out you know during that time frame and then you've got the time of the judges and um you know of course joshua going into the promised land and we get these records of the kings you have first and second samuel first you know first and second kings first and chronicles you got all these things that are just kind of giving us the information but the prophets of god really coming out and you know you had elijah and elisha there's but there's a a long time frame you know a time the judges about 400 years times the kings you have 400 you know you've got you've got a really long time frame where all of these events are taking place and not a lot of profits overall within that whole time frame but now you have getting real close right before their captivity and literally in this time frame you have isaiah you've got hosiah you've got mica and you have amos all definitively preaching during this then when i say this time frame it may or may not include ahas specifically but it's this this time frame we're getting into okay and it's getting near with with ahas and hezekiah and you know in some with jotham and aziah so like this is the getting near the end and you've got all these prophets now coming and the reason why is because god is warning god's warning them he's giving them ample opportunity to repent and to get right that's the whole purpose that he sends his prophets he's saying look judgment's coming destruction's coming you'll be taken captive get right get right you know and and had the people listened they could have gotten right and avoided the captivity until it got to the point where it gotten too far but what's interesting is that you see all the many of the the major prophets you have isaiah jeremiah ezekiel all are within pretty much the same time frame between right before with isaiah them being taken captive with jeremiah and ezekiel them being taken captive and in the captivity and then coming out of captivity with ezra and nehemiah and then you have all the minor prophets and you know like after those books which many of them were speaking in the time while the kings were still in the rain and many of them are during the captivity and just after the captivity so like all of these books of the bible wrapping up kind of the old testament are almost all being done in a relatively short period of time it's kind of interesting right because then you have a really long period of time between malachi and jesus christ before with with pretty much nothing being revealed by god until the new testament and now with revelation of course everything has been revealed as far as scripture goes so anyhow it's kind of interesting so anyhow i just kind of wanted to point that out it's it's it's it's good to know these things to get it in context of the overview of the bible so when you are doing your personal reading and now you maybe you get into the minor prophets you get into all these these sections you're in a different part of the bible than we are on wednesday night keep that in mind that a lot of the judgments that you're going to see them you know you read the burden of whoever the burden of moab and all these places are taking place during the time that we're in right now in the book of second kings during these reigns so you could you can put the events together and they'll make a little bit more sense and be a little bit more clear to you about everything that's going on in the world of israel you know during this time frame and it also helps to give you a little bit better understanding of why god does these things he does and and just understanding it also keep that in mind it's really good to do these types of studies to to to know when in time all these prophets are given their prophecies even if they're giving a lot of prophecies like isaiah does of future events he's still speaking to them at that time much of it is future prophecy but much of it is also short-term joel the same thing much of that is future end times prophecy but but a lot of it's still applied to the time as well they're they're giving these dual prophecies because they're for the people at the time as well as for us and for the future so um you're in isaiah chapter 7 this is during a time and we're going to get through as much of this chapter as i think we can with the time that we have this is all during the days of ahas as verse number one says bob says and it came to pass in the days of ahas the son of jotham the son of aziah king of judah right exactly where we're at that reason the king of syria and pika the son of remeliah king of israel went up toward jerusalem to war against it but could not prevail against it and it was told the house of david saying syria is confederate with ephraim and his heart was moved and the heart of his people as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind so what does that mean they got scared their hearts move just like you know you see the trees swaying in the wind you know wind blows they are really uncomfortable because they find out hey syria and israel have hooked up they've joined up and they're coming after you they get wind of this they're confederate together so they get tossed about with the wind instead of relying on the rock verse number three then said the lord unto isaiah go forth now to meet ahas thou and sheer jashub thy son at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field now we don't get any of this information from reading second kings or second chronicles the prophet isaiah goes to meet with ahas god sends isaiah before they come and attack he gives them a warning so now you know having already read the judgment of god against ahas isn't it even more justified knowing that god had sent isaiah to go already to talk to ahas when when he's already moved and he already is unsure he doesn't know what to do that god literally sends a prophet to him because god's trying to get through to him god wants him to trust in him so he gives them he gives him a messenger to tell him what's going on verse number four and say unto him take heed and be quiet fear not neither be faint-hearted for the two tales of these smoking firebrands for the fierce anger of reason with syria and of the son of remeliah so he says you don't have to be afraid he gives him an opportunity for god to fight for him for god to defend him you don't have to fear i know you're worried right now but don't fear and he names them don't worry about these two verse five because syria ephraim and the son of remeliah have taken evil counsel against these saying let us go up against judah and vex it and let us make a breach therein for us and set a king in the midst of it even the son of tabio thus saith the lord god it shall not stand neither shall it come to pass the word of god came to him saying it's not going to happen it's not going to and if you remember from the other chapters that we read too when they came against them yeah they defeated them yeah they had taken captives and stuff but they still didn't completely you know set up a king and completely take them over they devastated them but it didn't they didn't actually succeed because the word of the word of god still stands but had he listened and trusted in him it wouldn't have been nearly as bad they would have gotten the victory instead of suffering a loss but not a total loss verse number eight for the head of syria is damascus and the head of damascus is reason and within three score and five years shall ephraim be broken that it be not a people so he's giving him and judah the king of judah the inside intel on what's going to happen to israel he's saying 65 years ephraim is going to be broken they're not going to be people anymore because they're going to be taken because god's already got judgment coming against them because of how wicked they've been verse nine and the head of ephraim is samaria and the head of samaria is remeliah's son if you will not believe surely you shall not be established and isn't that the truth if you will not believe you will not be established god wants our faith because you put your faith in god you are established you are on a rock you are firm and and the winds and the threats and anything that comes against you you can stand solid but you have to have faith and when you don't have faith you get scared and when you get scared you make the wrong decisions and you run and try to find help anywhere you could find it instead of having faith in the the truck in the rock and the defense of the lord verse 10 moreover the lord's spade and you know this reminds me because i wanted to bring this up with from second chronicles 28 it says because the gods of the kings of syria help them therefore i will sacrifice to them that they may help me but they were the ruin of him and of all israel they ruined they literally ruined him by him going and relying on some other false gods he hears from the prophet of the lord he hears from isaiah he decides not to trust in him but goes after these other gods and it ruined them it destroyed him it completely ruined his entire life and the lives of many many many other people they were the false gods of the ruin of him false religion will be the ruin of you that's why i'm going through my series and exposing all these various cults because it's ruining so many lives so many people get deceived by this stuff and they end up throwing away an entire life to some false god to some merger of a heathen god with a christian god or whatever the case may be just people making up their own jesus making up their god man who's not really a god and and worshiping people and following after a man and not after the lord and it's going to be their ruin isaiah 7 look at verse number 10 moreover the lord spake again unto ahas saying ask the assign of the lord thy god ask it either in the depth or in the height above now how much more can you ask for he's saying look just believe and then he says what sign do you want what sign do you want to prove that this is going to happen the king the the gods of syria of damascus weren't offering that especially after they got defeated by the assyrians he's confronted with isaiah saying look what sign do you want you could ask whatever you want and look what his response is but ahas said i will not ask neither will i tempt the lord he didn't want to know what's right and look he says well i'm not going to tempt the lord the lord is the one that said get you'll ask the one that said get you'll ask me a sign you're not tempting god when he asks you when he you know if he's asking you then he's asking you it's not he's not doing it for no reason you know it's oh i'm not going to tempt god i'm not going to tempt the lord you know i'm not going to test him yeah you're not going to test him and you're not going to believe him either because you don't believe him now you ought to test things he already decided not to believe the lord but here he has his opportunity and he says no and this makes god angry verse number 13 and he said hear ye now oh house of david is it a small thing for you to weary men but will you weary my god also say who do you think you are you're gonna you're gonna wear out god you're gonna make him weary or tired by asking something of god you know you're already wearying men now you think you're gonna wear make god weary therefore the lord himself shall give you a sign behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name emmanuel now what a great sign that is what a great prophecy and again he wasn't a believer and he's telling him a prophecy about a savior he has didn't believe he didn't want to hear it from the lord he wasn't even willing to see a sign he says well here's a sign there's going to be a savior born born of a virgin another opportunity to believe i mean he basically got the gospel butter and honey shall eat that you may that he may know to refuse evil and choose a good for before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings and basically before christ is born you know this is the the land is going to be forsaken you know those that you hate you hate israel you hate um syria they're already going to be destroyed they're going to be gone that was his sign but he chose not to believe it verse 17 the lord shall bring upon thee and upon thy people and upon thy father's house days that have not come from the day that ephraim departed from juda even the king of asyria and it shall come to pass in that day that the lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of egypt and for the bee that is in the land of asyria and they shall come and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys and in the holes of the rocks and upon all thorns and upon all bushes in the same day shall the lord shave with a razor that is hired namely by them beyond the river by the king of asyria the head and the hair of the feet and it shall also consume the beard now what is he talking about here he's talking about um the you know the razor coming upon them and basically what he's saying when it's gonna get their hair and their beard and you know off their feet it's bringing them to shame that when they get all their hair cut off like that he said the whole reference is they're going to be brought to shame by the king of asyria asyria is going to destroy them verse 21 and it shall come to pass in that day that a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep and it shall come to pass for the abundance of milk that they shall um that they shall give he shall eat butter for butter and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the land and it shall come to pass in that day that every place shall be where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings it shall even be for briars and thorns with arrows and with bows shall men come thither because all the land shall become briars and thorns and on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock there shall not come thither the fear of briars and thorns but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen for the training of lesser cow now we're going to stop there we've done enough tonight we're kind of out of time but you can keep reading in chapters eight and chapters nine and chapter 10 all the way through chapter 14 in isaiah and a lot of it's going to be prophetic but a lot of it is still this is the time frame of a has going all the way until chapter 14 is when chapter 14 and isaiah is when he dies so keep that in mind it's just you'll get some more stuff out of it and you'll see a little bit more information like you know if we didn't read here in isaiah you wouldn't have even known that god sent isaiah to king ahas to give them more warning and to ask a sign and all of these opportunities that he had to get right with god and just believe him and he chose not to so utter destruction came against him i mean he got chasing hard of the lord for his stiff neck and just refusing to believe and your life is going to if you just if you choose to just work against god and not listen to god your life is going to be difficult like it was for a has let's bow our heads have a word of prayer dear heavenly father lord we thank you so much for all of your long suffering and mercy and the chances that you give us dear lord and for you sending i believe prophets into our own lives that we could hear your word preached and expounded to us dear lord help us to hearken unto your words and to take them seriously and and not to um not to backslide not to to refuse to hear and not want to listen lord but help us to have the right spirit that we be motivated to to do more to listen more and to to change whatever needs to be changed in our lives to be more conformed unto your words and to have the obedience god help us to get all the whatever the traditions and the high places and the things that maybe aren't even bothering us that much but they still are there help us to make a big purge in our own lives to to get cleaned up god especially for the sake not just for our own sake but for the sake of our children and for their children that we don't just let things that are wicked remain that they confester and just be a cancer spiritually in our lives here lord help us to identify these things and remove them and that we can have a full integrity with your word in jesus name we pray amen