God's Offer to Ahaz

You know, when you're preparing to speak something like this, you want to provide something of benefit. So I thought about what I would talk about, and there's been one thing on my mind for several weeks now. So I thought that I would talk to you about that. But before I get into that, I wanted to talk about the opportunities that God gives us as He grows us into who He wants us to be.

We are all here for one reason, because God has called us because we've committed ourselves to Him, and we have to yield our lives to Him so that His Holy Spirit can grow us, teach us, and we become united in the words we speak, in the truth that we speak, and as we lead God to, you know, let God lead us to mold us into who He wants us to be, that we can serve Him in humanity in the time that He has ahead of us. After the spring Holy Days, I gave a sermon called Opportunities Along the Way, and as we're here now just a month from the Feast of Tabernacles—and this has been kind of like a mini Feast of Tabernacles just a month after the Feast—you know, it's good to be reminded that God does give us opportunities along the way to become who He wants us to become. Mr. New talked to you about trust and having faith in God. God does give us the opportunities along the way in order to develop that trust. We have to be conscious about those opportunities. Back in the spring Holy Days, I looked at the Nation of Israel as they came out of Egypt, and they too, God wanted them to develop trust and faith in Him. And boy, did He give them every opportunity to do that. You know, when you when they crossed the Red Sea, when He provided the food in the middle of the wilderness, you know, daily manna, when He brought water from Iraq, they had every opportunity. And it's a shame that they didn't learn to trust God that no matter what came their way, He would see them through and He would provide. But they didn't. Likewise, God gives us every single opportunity to develop what He wants us to be. But sometimes I'm afraid we might just be blind. And I include myself in this. We might be blind to those opportunities that God gives us to develop faith, to develop trust, the opportunity to overcome some of our weaknesses.

You know, sometimes we just have to pause and stop and think, you know, wait, I can't keep doing these things the same way. I have to stop and ask God, give me your power so that I say no to myself, deny myself, and begin to build into myself. And while He builds it with His Holy Spirit, that I begin to build the character you want me to have. Because if we never do that, if we just allow ourselves to go through life and not seize those opportunities, you know, when the time comes, we're not going to be able to stand against what comes our way. We have to take the time. We have to be always conscious of who we are, who God wants us to be, what we were called to, and what we committed to when we were baptized, that this is the life that we chose, we believe God, and that we will follow Him every step of the way. You know, Mr. Newred from the prophet Jeremiah, as I look at the Old Testament, you know, God gave opportunities to the nation of Israel and to the nation of Judah through the prophets that were sent to them. They could never say, well, you didn't tell us that we were going the wrong way. You never advised us to turn back to you. You never told us what was going to happen if we continued in the same way we were doing. Jeremiah was there, Isaiah was there, Ezekiel was there, all the minor prophets were there. God sent prophets to them over and over.

They had every opportunity to stop and heed and think, yes, what are we doing here? And they just let it all pass by them, and then they suffered the final consequences of losing their land in Israel, losing their land in Judah. You know, we don't want the same thing to happen to us.

There is a king keeping the theme of what Sabbath seems to be here. I want to talk to you about one king today as well. And I guess it's fitting that we're talking about kings, because that's where we're all in training to be, right? Kings. And it's good that we would go back and review the books of Samuel, the 1 and 2 Samuel kings and chronicles, because you see these kings that are there, and God worked with those kings, especially the kings of Judah. You know, if we, in fact, let's just turn to 1 Samuel 10. You know, it's been said that as God worked with those kings that sat on the throne of David, or what we call now the throne of David, He worked with them. And they're examples to us. He wanted them to be righteous kings. After all, it was God who wanted to be Israel's king. They rejected Him and said, no, we want a man over us. So God was interested. He wanted Israel and Israel, the whole house of Israel, to survive and become the nation that He wanted to become. And as Saul was selected as the first king in 1 Samuel 10, verse 6, you see what God did? He was interested in that king becoming a righteous king for him. It says, the Spirit of the Lord, in 1 Samuel 10, and verse 6, the Spirit of the Lord, God says to Saul, will come, or Samuel is telling Saul, the Spirit of the Eternal will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. Isn't that an interesting thing for God to say?

Isn't that what He does with you and me? When we receive, when we repent, when we yield to God, and we receive the Holy Spirit, we become different people. We begin to think differently. We begin to act differently. We begin to react differently. At least we should, and that continues through the rest of our physical lives as God turns us into the people He wants us to become so that at a point in our lives we look back and think, I can't believe I ever was that way. I can't believe I ever would have found that enjoyable or that I would have reacted in the way that I did. That's the progress we want to see. But here in verse 6, you know, God says, Saul, I'm going to put my Spirit upon you and you'll be turned into a different man. And verse 9, it says, so it was when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, that God gave him another heart, and all those signs came to pass that day. There's Saul, who was talking about the Bible, speaking with the prophets of that day, doing things that he didn't do before. So we see what God, perhaps the pattern with the kings of Judah anyway, but we read about David as well.

David, you know, made some heinous sins, if you will. You know, he with Bathsheba and then Uriah, when David was confronted with those sins, he didn't turn from God, he didn't make excuses, he didn't try to justify what he had done. He simply repented and turned to God.

And you remember his prayer of repentance in Psalm 51. One of the things he said is, please God, don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Don't take your Holy Spirit from me. David felt the power of God, and David became a man after God's own heart when he realized who he was, and they didn't want to be that man anymore.

He knew where his life would go if he had just given up or decided to just follow his own natural inclinations, his own wicked heart, as it says in Jeremiah 17.9 that we just heard or read through earlier today. But he became a different man. Solomon yielded to the pressures of having too much money, and after him, Rehoboam took wrong counsel. You have the split of the House of Israel, and you have the House of Judah. And the throne of David continued through the House of Judah. God said, you know, David's throne will never cease to exist as long as there's a moon, as long as there's a moon and a sun, it still exists today, as we know, and probably will become prominent in the year ahead as the world talks about that king, and you hear some of the things that will come out on some of our publications about where that throne is and where and who will take that, or the throne that Christ will take.

But the kings of Judah, you have a mixture. Some of the kings, as you know, were very good, and I use good in the term of a human sense, not good like God. But the Bible will say, you know, they did what was right in God's eyes, and some of them did it with all their mind and all their heart and all their soul, as they could physically.

You know, Josiah would fit into that category. He tore down all the high places. He got rid of all the altars. He wiped out everything that was wrong in Israel and worshiped God as he could. King Hezekiah did the same thing. He opened the book of the law. He had a wicked father, who we're going to talk about here in a minute, but he saw the results of that, and he turned to God.

Others were not so good. They rejected God. Flat out rejected him. And we can learn lessons from every one of those. I hope, as we read through the book of Kings, that we remember everything that God put in the Old Testament and saved for us, they're there for examples to us, and we should never overlook that. They're stories, but there's things we learn from, and part of our challenge is bring us into the world that we live in today, who we are, so that we can look and see, boy, I'm a king in training.

That's what God has called us to. Look what the mistake this king made. I can't make the same mistake, or look what he did. I need to follow in the same way and yield to God. The king that I want to talk about today has been on my mind for so from some time. I didn't even know who he was back a few months ago, but he has been on my mind there's lessons we learned from him, but the most important I've learned and why it's been on my mind is because I learned something about God through the life of this man and the actions that he took.

And ever since I learned that lesson about God from the way this king acted, I have appreciated God more, loved him more, and see how he works with all of his people. And I hope as we talk about this today, you will go home with the same feelings of admiration and that you'll feel closer to God and know how much he loves every single one of us and watches out for every single one of us.

I didn't even learn about this king in Samuel, Kings, or Chronicles. It was in the book of Isaiah. So let's turn over to the book of Isaiah.

Now, we've been doing a Bible study on the book of Isaiah, and this king turns out to be prominent in the early pages of the Bible because of what he does. But you know the book of Isaiah. If you haven't studied the book of Isaiah, it has a little bit of everything. It is so complete, but you cannot just read through it. You have to tear it apart. You have to take some time to understand it. As, you know, before we get to Isaiah 7, where I'm going, you know, let's just look at a few things in Isaiah because as the book opens—and this is the words that God gave Isaiah to record for us—you know, he's talking about his people, and it's in Judah. That's who the book is written to. You see in the first verse there that God records for us the kings under which Isaiah was prophesying—Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. And they were all each unique in their own way of following God. We'll talk about them just very, very briefly in a minute, except for the third one there, Ahaz. But you see, God just opened the book with these prophecies about Judah, and He talks about, you know, I've given you everything, but you don't even have what animals have, right? You don't even have what animals have. You don't even—you're not even grateful to me for what I've given you. You know, probably most people in here have a pet of some kind, right?

And your pet knows you feed him or her, and they're very grateful. You know, the dogs wag their tails, they're happy to see you, and whatever. But here in Isaiah, you know, 1, and verse 2, you know, God opens this book to the people. This is Isaiah talking. He says, "'Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I've nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.'" You know, that's kind of an ugly thing, isn't it?

If you provide something for everyone, and then they turn against you. It's just against nature. There has to be some kind of gratitude that always goes with it. And God compares it to the animal. The ox knows its owner. The donkey, its master's crib. But Israel doesn't know. My people don't consider. They're not even paying attention. They don't—they forget who I am. And you know, we live in such a marvelous world where you and I have so much. I mean, the people have lived in all the 6,000 years before us, wouldn't even believe the comforts and the leisure that we have. They wouldn't believe the variety of food that we have. That we can have things from all over America, down in South America, wherever you want. We can eat anything we want. There's such a variety they would not even know. And yet we take it for granted. How often, I wonder, do we really stop and thank God for the times that we live in? And it's all the very, very many things we have. Well, you know, God begins the book by Israel. Remember, look what I've given you. And something for us all to remember. We go forward to Isaiah 5. And God talks about a vineyard, that He likens His people as a vineyard. It's a very fitting analogy for you and me today, too, because if you understand anything about a vineyard, you know, here in the first four verses, God gives what it takes to have a successful vineyard. But when you see and understand what they did in a vineyard, all the people worked together. They all worked together. You know, you had the watchmen, you had the people who picked the grapes, you had the people who sowed the grapes, you had the people who tread the grapes.

Everyone had a part, and every single part was important. And every part had to work together for it to be successful. It's a picture of what the church should be. We all work together.

Paul says in Ephesians 4, what every joint supplies. Everyone is important. Everyone has a part in God's work. He supplies the talents. He supplies what we all need. And like a vineyard, we work together. And when we work together, we successfully do God's work. He's the watchman. He's the husbandman. He's the one who conducts and coordinates everything. But here in chapter 5, again, he talks about, look, I've given you everything. You were the perfect vineyard, if you will. Verse 1, let me sing to my well beloved, a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard. My well beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up, he cleared out its stones, he planted it with a choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and he made a wine-press in it. So he expected it to bring forth good grapes. Why wouldn't he expect it to? He did every detail right. But what was the result? It brought forth wild grapes. That's not even natural.

That doesn't happen if you do everything right in a vineyard. It produces good grapes. But God did everything for his people, just like he provides everything for us. And he expects it, and it should bring forth good grapes. But we have to make the choices along the way. We have to do the recognition along the way. We have to take the opportunities along the way to become who God wants us to become. To take those opportunities to stop and say, no, I'm not going to do it that way anymore. To stop and ask God, give me the strength to say no to this, or yes to this, this is the way I should do, or whatever it is. And then we come to chapter 6.

After the first five chapters, Isaiah is called. And Isaiah, we read of his calling, and when he's presented before God and in his presence, he just melts like you and I would melt. He recognizes how imperfect and what a sinner he is. And he says to God, you know, I'm not even worthy to be in your presence. The same way we would feel if we understood that we came before God's presence and he's with us every day. And when we go into his throne and pray each morning, night, whenever we pray that we're coming before his presence in his Holy Spirit. But, you know, Isaiah does it. God gives him the commission, and God cleanses him so he can go on his commission. And down in verse 8, you know, God has a commission. Go out and talk to the people. Talk to my people. Tell them the words you want. He says in verse 8, I heard the voice of the Lord saying, well, who will I send?

And who will go for us? I will send my word, my instruction, through prophets, but who will go?

Isaiah said, I'll do it. I'll do it. And God said, go and tell this people.

They're hard-hearted. They're dull of hearing. They don't pay attention to what Isaiah says.

They missed many, many opportunities along the way to listen to God. Verse 11, Isaiah said, well, how long? How long does this message need to be brought to your people? And God answers until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, until the houses are without a man and the land is utterly desolate. That didn't happen in ancient Israel. The message for Isaiah is still for us today. The words that we read in the book of Isaiah, the lessons we learn from Isaiah, the prophecies that have been fulfilled, the prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled, the dual, the concept of the dual prophecies, even the lessons we learn about Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah are there in the book of Isaiah, but not all the lesson. You know, to study the book of Isaiah, you have to go back and you have to use the Bible to fill in some of the blanks, so you get the full picture of what God is saying. So I know when we came upon Isaiah 7, it's a confusing chapter when you read it, but it has an awesome message, very many awesome messages that we want to talk about today. So let's read the first few verses here of chapter 7 and then talk about them. It says, It came to the past in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, the king of Judah, that Resin, king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, the king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but they could not prevail against it. Remember the house of Israel now is separate from the house of Judah. You have Syria and Israel battling against Jerusalem. And you have Ahaz, this king that's there. Ahaz is not a good king. We're going to read that in a minute. But his father was a good king. When you read in 2 Chronicles 20, I guess it's 2 Chronicles 27, you see he was a good king. God made him mighty. Even when God made him mighty, he didn't fall prey to the pride and arrogance that all sometimes comes when everything goes our way. And you see that he remained established in the Lord. He continued to look to God. He did not let himself get enamored with self or the things that he had done or the way that Israel was or Judah was able to prosper during that time. So Ahaz had a wonderful example as the father, but Ahaz didn't follow in his steps. But you have this conflict now. Syria and Israel versus Jerusalem and Judah. And it was told, verse 2, to the house of David. That would be the throne. Ahaz is sitting on the throne of David. It was told to the house of David, saying, serious forces are deployed in Ephraim. Okay. Now that would be similar, I guess, today if we found out that Mexico and China deployed their forces in Mexico. Did I say China? Russia and China deployed their forces in Mexico. We heard that on the news and we knew, oh wow, these guys are against us. There would probably be a little bit of trepidation, right, if we knew that was going to happen. So this is what's going on in Israel. We've got Syria and Israel sitting there against that. And so look what the reaction of the people are. Ahaz's heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind. They were literally shaking in the boots.

What is going to happen to us? How do we stand against these two nations? What is our fate?

It's a time of testing, if you will, when these things that come came upon Judah. A time of testing when we might feel personally some trials that come upon us and feel that weight and think, wow, that scares me to death to have that happen to me. That scares me to death that my boss might say you're fired if you don't come to work that Sabbath. That if you go away to the Feast of Tabernacles all seven days and the eighth day, that you would lose your job. We might feel a little trepidation. We might feel a little trepidation when we get a health diagnosis that we never expected and think, whoa, what am I going to do? It's an opportunity. It's an opportunity to build trust in God. It's an opportunity to follow what God said and to build faith in Him and to pause and not react like Ahaz does. We'll see in a minute and just run off and do something and look somewhere totally different than God for any deliverance. So they're shaking in their boots.

Verse 3, the eternal said to Isaiah, go out now to meet Ahaz. You and your son, Shear Jehoshub, and there's a meaning to that name that I'm not going to get into, but go out with you and your son, meet Ahaz, at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller field and say to him, take heed. Be quiet. Don't fear or be faint-hearted. Now, what does that sound like? Sounds like what God told Moses to tell Israel at the Red Sea, right?

Stand still. Be quiet. Don't fret. Don't jabber about it. Don't run around. Panic-stricken. Be quiet.

Take a step. Take a breath. Take a breath and don't be afraid. Words that Israel didn't heed then, maybe they did after Moses spoke. But as we face those things, stop. Don't be afraid.

Don't fear or be faint-hearted. For these two stubs of smoking firebrands, he's referring to Israel and the kings of Israel and the king of Syria, for the fierce anger of residence in Syria and the son of Ramaliah, because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Ramaliah have plotted evil against you. And God tells him, well, here's what they're saying.

You're kind of fearful, but let me tell you exactly what's going on over there. Let's go up to Judah and trouble it, and let us make a gap in its wall for ourselves and set a king over them, the son of Tabal. You know what? That's what they're saying. Let's go against Jerusalem. Let's take it over. Let's put a king in their place. Let's capture that kingdom.

So God says exactly what you're hearing, that's exactly what's going to happen.

But he says something else to Ahaz. It shall not stand in verse 7. It's not going to happen.

Nor shall it come to pass, for the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is resin.

Within 65 years, Ephraim will be broken. He gives some prophecies here. He's telling Ahaz some things that at first glance you're not sure exactly what's going on, but within 65 years Ephraim will be broken so that it will not be a people. The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remeliah's son. And then he gives a word, a sentence that you and I should always remember.

If you will not believe, surely you will not be established. If you will not believe, Ahaz, I'm telling you what you fear is happening, but I'm also telling you it's not going to happen.

And I'm telling you that within a few short years Syria, resin, Israel, and Pica, the king of Israel, aren't going to be there. In fact, Ephraim, which is often called Israel, isn't going to be a people anymore. God said that, and then he says, if you won't believe, Ahaz, you won't be established.

Now we can read those same words established because God is telling us, if you and I want to be established in God, what we need to do, we must believe, right? We've got to believe.

If God says it's going to happen, it's going to happen. As sure as his word goes out, it will not come back void. We just heard those words into special music. God says them, and it is absolutely sure. Well, let's go back to 2 Chronicles. Nope, before we go back to 2 Chronicles, let's go forward to 1 Peter. 1 Peter. And it would be chapter 5 and verse 10.

Verse Peter 5, 10.

If you will not believe, God said, you won't be established. We all need to be established and firm in the faith and the trust of God. In verse 10, Peter says, may the God, as he's wrapping up his epistle here, he says, may the God of all grace, who called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, there will be trials come. There will be times that you will have your, you know, that you might feel initially a little bit of fear, a little bit of panic.

But we learn through those times. We cannot learn to become, or we cannot become what God wants us to become if all our lives are just perfect. We have everything we want. We never have a trial. We never have anything. God teaches us through the pain, the suffering that we have some time to see how we react and to whom we will look. May the God of all grace, who called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, may he perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. Those are beautiful words that Peter prays for his people, right?

May God watch over you. May God bring you to the point where you are settled, established, and you have complete confidence and faith in him.

When we're that way, when we're that way, we could stand through anything. If we don't take those opportunities along the way, what will happen when times get really tough? What will happen when that time of the mark of the beast occurs and we may be threatened with life or our children's lives if we don't bow down and take that mark? It's too late to develop that faith at that time.

Now is the time. Now is the time to do that. And as God works with Ahaz, we see him giving Ahaz the opportunity, trust me, believe in me. In fact, I'm giving you some specifics.

Syria will not succeed. Israel will not succeed. In fact, they won't even exist after a period of time. Let's go back to 2 Chronicles because in order to fully understand Ahaz a little bit, we need to go back and look and see some of the history of what he's done back in the books of the Kings and Chronicles. I will turn to 2 Kings 16 later, but not right now. Start in 2 Chronicles. First, I want to start off in verse 20 or chapter 20. I'm sorry, 2 Chronicles 20.

Because that's not the first time God has told a king in Israel or in Judah, have to believe in me. If you want to be established, you need to believe in me. He said it here to one of the good kings who did what was right in God's sight, to Jehoshaphat. In 2 Chronicles 20 and verse 20, here they're faced with something, you know, and so they come to God and they ask him, you know what to do. But in chapter 20 verse 20, it says, So they rose early in the morning, they went out into the wilderness of Dechoe, and as they went out Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established. Believe in him, believe in him, and you will be established. Believe his prophets, and you shall prosper.

Believe God. Believe his Word. Know the Word so that what you're hearing is exactly the Word of God so that you're not fooled until you're not led astray, but you know the Word of God so when you hear words, you understand them. That takes time, too. That takes knowing the Bible, studying the Bible, all parts of it, so that you are grounded in the truth, grounded in the faith.

Now let's go over to 2 Chronicles 28, and let's look at a little bit about Ahaz, because Ahaz is an interesting king, if you will. Remember his father, as you read at the end of chapter 27 there of 2 Chronicles, was a good man in God's eyes. You know, in verse 6 there, it says, He prepared his ways before the Lord is God. If you look back at the Hebrew, that could have, and maybe should have been translated, that he was established before God. He believed God, and he did things God's way. But here in chapter 28, we learn about Ahaz, and we see what a troubled —can I use the word?

Yeah, I'm going to use the word — troubled mess Ahaz was, right? Let's look at him a little bit. Chapter 28, verse 1, Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king. He reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. The time that he reigned in Jerusalem was somewhere from around 732 BC to 716 BC — it would take a year or two either side of that — very notable years, if you think what happened in 720 BC to the nation of Israel. So he was alive at a time that something significant was going to happen, and that's the 16 years that he reigned in Judah. He was 20 years old. He reigned 16 years, and he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord as his father David had done.

For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and he made molded images for the bales. He burned incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, burned his children in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the eternal had cast out before the children of Israel. Not a good man, right? He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree. If God said, don't do it, Ahaz did it, right? Just the opposite of what God would have wanted him to do, and just the opposite of what his father, and even in the early days, what his grandfather had done.

So he was grown up as a church kid, if we can use the vernacular, right? His parents did what was right. They obeyed God. They knew the truth. But then when Ahaz became old, it's like, eh, I don't, you know, I don't want to do any of it.

I want to do something different. I want to be like the nations around me. So I wanted to do their gods. I want to do their way. And you know, as prosperous as Judah has been, we probably could even be more prosperous if we joined the world and looked at what they had to do. This is what Ahaz's attitude is. He was against God, and he consciously made choices to be against God. You would think that God would immediately remove Ahaz when he saw his attitude, but God didn't do that. We're going to see that God didn't do that.

So if we go on here, we see, you know, because he did all these things, because he was so against God in verse 5, it says, therefore the Lord is God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria. Hmm. Syria came in and did conquer him at one time.

They defeated him. They carried away a great multitude of them as captives and brought them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who defeated him with a great slaughter.

For Pica, the son of Ramaliah, killed 120,000 in Judah in one day, all valiant men, because they had forsaken the Lord, God of their fathers. The consequences of his actions were swift. They were dire. And it looked like they had, you know, they had defeated Ahaz, but not quite so fast. In verse 8 says, the children of Israel carried away captive of their brethren, 200,000 women, sons, and daughters, and they also took away much spoil from them and brought the spoil to Samaria.

But Ahaz was still king. He was still king. And then something very unusual happened, almost unheard of in the house of Israel after they were separated from Judah.

Prophet Oded came along and he said, what are you guys doing? Do you know what you're doing to your brother? Haven't you already put yourself in enough peril by the fact that you went against him and now you're carrying away Judah as captives? What are you thinking?

And a miracle occurred. How often did Israel, in those days, ever listen to a prophet?

But this time they did. This time they did. They listened to what Oded said and thought, yes, what have we been doing? We are going to bring the ire of God down on us. So if you go forward here in 2 Chronicles 28, we see in verse 14 says, the armed men left the captives in the spoil before the leaders in all the assembly, and the men who were designated by name rose up and took the captives, and from the spoil they closed all who were naked among them, dressed them and gave them sandals, gave them food and drink, and anointed them, and they let all the feeble ones ride on donkeys. So they brought them to their brethren at Jericho, the city of palm trees, and they returned, then they returned to Samaria. God gave it back. He gave the captives back to Judah. Well, that was a miracle. Ahaz, who would be watching this, who hadn't been replaced, hadn't been killed, was sitting here watching this and saw God do something that would have been unheard of in that day. You're sending the people back. You're going home to Samaria. I'm still king. Boy, you would think that that would have been a wake-up call. I can trust God. He said they wouldn't prevail against me. Now there's the companion, there's companion verses in 2 Kings 16 that fill in some of the blanks as well. You would think that Ahaz would have paid attention to that, and some thought process would have gone on in his head. We see in the next verse it didn't. Didn't have any effect on him at all. At the same time, verse 16, King Hag has sent to the kings of Assyria to help him. Hmm. Now Assyria, if you remember history, was like the original terrorist nation. They were cruel and oppressive. History says they may have been the most cruel people to ever live on earth. They struck fear in the sight of anyone who they would be coming up against. They were just that terrible of a people. And they reigned in terror. And if you were, again, sitting on the border, and Assyria was sitting there looking at you, you would probably tremble. It reminds me of a time back several years ago. Remember when Isis was making its way through the Middle East, and you would hear about these horrible things they would do, beheading people, things that we hadn't heard about, and the torture they would put through people. And I remember reading an article, and it would talk about how they would march, and the people in the cities of Iraq would just run. When they saw Isis coming, we're just out of here. We have nothing to do with them. It always reminded me of what Assyria must have been like back then. Also a picture of how cruel people can be. And the Bible says there's a time coming when worse things than the Assyrians did will come upon a people who depart from God. Trying times. So anyway, Ahaz doesn't turn to God. He doesn't stop, I guess, and say, thank you, God, for delivering and giving me my kingdom back. He goes to Assyria. Okay, you know what? Now they've shown they're going to go to the strongest king on earth and try to make an alliance with him, and that's where I'm going to get my security and my safety. And at the same time, things are breaking down in Judah. Verse 17 says, the Edomites had come. They attacked Judah and carried away captives. Oh, Judah's a little bit weak right now. Look what Israel did. Don't know, understand why they sent everyone back, but we'll go in. We're going to take some of the cities.

The Philistines, who had been subdued by Israel for years, all of a sudden they're acting up, and you've got all this stuff going on in Judah. The Philistines had invaded the cities of the low land and in the south of Judah. They've taken these cities that are listed there.

In verse 19, God says, why? For the eternal brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had encouraged moral decline in Judah and had been continually unfaithful to the eternal.

He was the leader. He had been warned. God had given him, it's not going to happen.

They're plotting against you. They've already got it set up that the son of Tabal will come in and he was going to replace you as king. It's not going to happen. It didn't happen in the most unusual way. And yet Ahaz still was out looking at the world. What can I do? Who can I ally myself with? How can I bring security and safety for myself? Now we go on, you know, and see what happens here in verse 20. I mean, even with the king of Assyria, Tiglath, Polizer, king of Assyria, verse 20, came to him and distressed him. He didn't assist him. And yet you go on, you see that they opened, they opened the treasuries and sent all this to Assyria. And yet, oh, double cross, I'll take it.

Then where, you know, what do you trust? If you're Ahaz, what are you thinking at this point? Wow, maybe I need to turn to God. Maybe if I, all these other avenues are drying up, I turn to God, but not Ahaz. Now remember that everything that God writes and records for us and preserves for us are examples for us upon whom the ends of the age have come, right? 2 Corinthians 10.4. So when we read these things, it's an interesting story of what happened to Ahaz. But when we read these things, we have to think about, wow, what are we learning from this king? What is he doing? Why is he doing that? What should we learn? What happens if we find ourselves in that same situation? Maybe we find ourselves caught up and think, oh man, I didn't, that didn't work, and so I have to try something else. And pretty soon we find ourselves in this little cycle of, I'll try this and I'll try that, and I'm going to win this back, or I'm going to do that, or that's will work, or that'll work. And everyone's, of my friends at work are saying, do this, do that, and whatever. And pretty soon I've lost it all. You know, there are times coming ahead. These were tough times in Judah. If we lived in Judah and all of a sudden, you know, the Edomites are coming in, and the Philistines, who have been subdued for years, are coming in and they're taking over cities, and you've already had Israel and Syria come in and, you know, relent and get all the people back, those are tough times.

I don't think anyone in here knows there's not tough times ahead, right? We've been through some tough times, very mild by comparison of what will be, you know, in the years, in the years ahead of us before Christ returns. No one likes to talk about those things, but we have to remind ourselves that this is a preparation time. God has given us time to get ready for those times, and if we just waste the time, if we aren't making ourselves ready, if we're not letting God get ourselves ready, we're going to be no different, perhaps, than A has. When the pressure comes on, when the government says, you can't do this, or you must do this, and you don't want to do it, and know it's not right, what do we do? Who do we bow down to? Who's the God we worship?

When, you know, prophesied things come and economies fall, now we can see the writing on the wall. I don't think any of us are naive enough to see that the times we live in are completely different than what we lived in even three and four years ago. You can hear things said, and you can see directives that are out there. Any one of us can get censored and canceled anytime, right?

At some point, you know, God will—or not the God—the government will say, get all those things off of YouTube. You know, it wasn't just not too long ago, it wasn't a religious figure, but someone of notoriety with a huge mailing list who has been pretty much proclaiming what's going on in America had every single one of his YouTubes, YouTube videos, taken down.

Just gone. No advance warning, just gone. And he wrote in his newsletter that there's no getting them back. And we know, we know, we've looked at our YouTube agreements, and YouTube has complete ownership of everything we do at any given point in time where they don't like something we say or what the church is saying. All they've got to do is wipe it off, and it's gone. So we need to have some backup so that we can do some of those things, right? But we know, we know the age we live in. That wouldn't have happened five years ago, it wouldn't have happened 10 years ago, 20 years ago. America protected those type of things. It doesn't happen anymore.

We've got, you know, when you talk about moral decline, when it talks about A-HAS and moral decline, if we don't see the moral decline in America today, I mean, we are blinded, right? We are blinded. I mean, you know, I made a comment earlier this week to someone, I've said it before, there was a time in my life when I would read the Bible and it would talk about Sodom and Gomorrah and Christ would say, as it was in the days of Sodom, and I thought America could never become like Sodom and Gomorrah. Just couldn't be, right? I just thought my mind just couldn't go there. Now I say, wow, we're worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. The time must be close because I don't know if I even think that the things that are championed in the world today or in the United States today could have happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. It's just a strange, strange world we live in and getting stranger every day.

So A-HAS just ran here and there in every place. What are we going to do? What are we going to do if a bank fails? What are we going to do if someone threatens us? I get that question every once in a while and not just now back when, you know, as a treasurer as well. When the government does that, what will the church do? And I said, well, it's crystal clear what the church will do. We're going to keep preaching the same gospel. If they want to strip us of our 501c3, which they have absolutely no effect on us today, we will just let go of it. We'll lose some tax advantages. That's all we'll live, but we will keep preaching the gospel, the truth of God. Government's not going to change what we preach. We may not be able to go out on Google or YouTube, but we will find ways and God will provide the ways. It's His church. It's His will, and He says it will be done.

We may not know how, but it will be done. And so we have to believe. We must believe, because if we don't believe, we'll never be established. And God wants us all to be established. He wanted Ahaz to be established. That's why He told them these things. Ahaz, if you would just believe, you'll be established. Things will be okay. I'll be with you. I'll be standing there by you. I'll see you through these things. But Ahaz didn't listen. You know, as you read on through here, as you read on through here... Sorry. It's going to be a little while, so.

As you read on through here, you see just even the demented thinking that Ahaz has, right?

In verse 22, it says, in the time of his distress, King Ahaz became increasingly unfaithful to the Lord. This is that King Ahaz. He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which had defeated him.

So what did he start doing? Turn to God? Oh, you know what? I'm going to turn to the gods of Damascus. They may be pretty powerful because, you know what? Their gods led me to be defeated here and whatever. Just demented thinking. Things that don't make any sense. Wisdom disappears when you don't believe God, when you let other things take over for you and you begin to trust in self. Well, we could go on and you might want to take some time to read through 2 Chronicles 28.

Well, let's do turn back to 2 Kings here for a second. 2 Kings 16.

2 Kings 16 verse 7. You know, as you read through, God said, Assyria is not going to defeat you. There was a time when Assyria came really close to the walls of Jerusalem, but God said, Assyria is not going to defeat you, even though they huffed and puffed and threatened and, you know, offended God and there's no God on earth that can defeat us. God didn't allow it to happen. In 2 Kings 16 verse 7, we see that, you know, Assyria did Assyria did at least go to Assyria. He has paid them some money. In verse 9 it says, the king of Assyria, he did him and he went up against Damascus, took it, carried its people, captive to Kher, and he killed Rezin. Now, you read through some of the commentaries. They suggest that that was what Assyria was going to do anyway. I don't know if that's what they were going to do, but he killed Rezin. But, you know, if we go on to 17, 2 Kings 17, we see that Israel falls to Assyria. Judah never does. 2 Kings 17. I'm going to give you verses 1 through 6, but I'm going to just read verse 6. It says, In the ninth year of Hoshiah, who was the king of Israel at that time, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria and placed them in Hala and by the harbor of the River of Gozan and in the cities of the Mede. For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the eternal their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and they feared other gods. They walked in the statutes of those nations and not in the statutes of God. So here in Ahaz's lifetime, Syria is defeated. Here in Ahaz's lifetime in 720 B.C. or 721 B.C., whatever the year is within that year or two, Israel is gone. Exactly what God had said. Now, I'm not going to take the time today, but maybe at another time we'll talk about, you know, where it says, within 65 years, Ephraim will no longer be a people. It happened quicker than that. Ahaz saw what God did. Israel was gone. Your enemies are gone, Ahaz. You don't deserve what I've done for you, but I'm telling you, and I told you, it won't. They won't stand against you. Ahaz never turned to God. Even when he saw, even when he saw those nations fall, he never turned to God. Now, I do want to go back to Isaiah here for a little bit. In Isaiah 8, maybe I can whet your appetite to look at some of these things and put it all together because we're building to what we learn. Well, we've learned a lot about Ahaz. We've learned a lot about the things that we need to do, and we see Ahaz's example that God continued to be with Ahaz. He continued to tell him, I'll do this. I'll do this. And in verses 1 through 4 of chapter 8, it says, you know, Isaiah writes, the Eternal said to me, take a large scroll, write on it with a man's pen concerning Mahar Sha'alel Hashabaz. This was a child that Isaiah would have, has a meaning that is particular to the times that he was in, and I will take for myself faithful witnesses to record. I want this written down. I want people to look at it and say, this is what I said before it ever occurred, that you write other priests, Zachariah will write these things down, and I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son.

And God said to me, call his name, you know, the name that we just read, for before the child shall have knowledge to cry my father and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be taken away before the king of Assyria. So Isaiah goes and says exactly what God said.

There's going to be a child. It's going to be conceived. This is what his name will be, and before he can cry, my father and my mother, Syria and Israel will be gone.

It happened exactly that way. Isaiah's child was born before whatever time that would be, two, three years. Some commentaries say six years. Both those nations are gone. Every detail God gave Ahaz.

And it happened exactly the way that God had said. He never turned back to take the opportunities, listen closely, believe God. Let's go back to chapter 7, and I'll try to wrap this up so I don't keep you here too long. So God gives these, all these signs to Ahaz. He sees them happen. God says if you would just believe, you'll be established. God keeps warning Ahaz, and he sees he's not listening. He's still just turning to the world. And in verse 10, it says, moreover, the eternal spoke again to Ahaz, saying, ask a sign for yourself from the atoll Lord, your God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above. Basically, you tell me anything that I can do for you, Ahaz, that you will believe me. You name the sign, because I want you to know I'm here. I want you to know that I want Judah to survive. I want you to know that I am the God, your God. I want you to trust in me and believe in me. You name the sign, anything you want.

How merciful and how patient is God being with Ahaz. Did he have to be that way?

No. Would any of us have been that way? No. You know, we have a lot of mercy to develop in our lives. Ahaz, you would think, I don't know, what would you do if you would do what Ahaz? I know what I would do. I hope I would never have had, even before being called that I would have a hard heart, that I would hear God say something and say, you know, I'm not going to ask. I'm going to be insolent. I'm not going to ask and kind of use a verse against him. And he never did. It's, I'm not even going to, I'm not even, there's nothing. There's basically nothing you can do, or I'm going to choose you, is in effect what Ahaz is saying here. And so, Isaiah in verse 13 is understandably a little frustrated. He said, well, here now, Ahaz of David, is it a small thing for you to weary men?

But you will, you weary my God also? Do you know what you're saying by the actions that you're doing? Do you get what you said to God? That's one thing that we need to keep in mind. What do we say to God when we do some things? None of us would consciously make the, I hope, insolent remark that Ahaz did, but we do speak to God by some of the choices that we make. When he sees us, he thinks, really? Really, Rick? Did you choose that? You didn't stop and think before you said that, did that, chose that? You couldn't have stopped and thought, you know, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be being called by God. I'm supposed to be choosing His way every step of the way because He can never perfect me if I don't stop and choose the right way and learn to deny self so that'd be no longer a part of me. But He didn't do it. And then God gives this sign, okay? You don't want a sign, Ahaz, but here's the sign I give. Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and will call His name Emmanuel.

Isn't it interesting that in the face of this with Ahaz, God gives the prophecy of the Messiah. And in the next four chapters, He talks about the Messiah, the birth of the Messiah, details of the Messiah, where He'll be born. The conditions that He's at. Some things about His first coming, some things about His second coming. Ahaz wouldn't listen, but God gave a sign, I will be with my people. I will be there. Ahaz, you may not listen, but I am there. There is a sign that God is always with you. There He is the Savior. He will. His will is that people will.

His will is that none would perish, but that everyone would come to repentance.

His will is that everyone would be able to come to eternal life. Repentance is the first step toward that. Without repentance, true repentance, it just doesn't happen. I say that I will be with you. I will see you through. I will give you the strength.

Follow me. If you believe me, you'll be established. That's what He said.

And He gives this sign. It didn't happen. That sign didn't happen during Ahaz's lifetime, but Jesus Christ was born. We know He is the Savior, but He did give that other sign of the child of within those years. By the time He says, My father, My mother, Israel's gone. Your enemies are gone. So Ahaz did see it. So we can learn many, many lessons about Ahaz, and we should. When you read the Kings, just like we heard in the Sermonet, there's lessons we learn.

But what struck me most about this is what we learn about God.

How merciful. How patient. How loving is He. That He was there with Ahaz, and that He would give Him everything He needs. That He would give Him the patience, because He just wanted Ahaz to turn to Him. Only a really, really loving God would do that. He would do the same thing for us, because He doesn't want anyone to perish. He doesn't want anyone to lose the salvation that Jesus Christ died for, for you and me, for every man, woman, and child who ever lived.

That's what He wants. He will do it, just we have to believe. We have to do the things that He asks us to do. We have to learn to obey. We don't earn salvation. We know that. But if we claim it, and if we believe that Jesus Christ is a Savior, we want to be like Him. If the Holy Spirit is in us, then we want to be common. God leads us to think like Him, to become like Him. He gives us the mind of Christ. He leads us into truth. He leads us into understanding. He leads us into the oneness that He wants us all to have, so that when we become the bride of Christ, we're one. We see things the same way. He's molded us into the body He wants us to be.

What we learn, what we learn, which I hope is exciting to you is how patient and how loving God is. Why would He do that? You know, there's some foundational verses back in Exodus 34, that that story of Ahaz and more the story of what God did and what He was doing, and in the face of Ahaz's rejection of God, God still gave a sign. You are my people. I will lead you. I will guide you. I will provide for you. I will be your salvation if you turn to me. In Exodus 34, in verse 6, we have the occasion where Moses is there on Mount Sinai. He's receiving the Ten Commandments. And one of the foundational verses of the Bible we find in verse, well, let's begin in verse 5, and just read through those, and I'll close with these verses. It says, The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with Moses there, and he proclaimed the name of the LORD, or Y-H-W-H. Here's who I am. Here's what I stand for. The eternal past before him and proclaimed, the LORD, the LORD God, merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth. That's who He is. That's who He is. That's what He gives us. He is imminently merciful. He is imminently, or is that the right word? Imminently. He is always gracious to us.

He always provides for us. He will provide truth, but we have to have the truth and come to understand and live by the truth, as the New Testament tells us over and over again. Abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity. He understands we're frail. He will forgive our sins when we repent, truly repent, needs to be met with a determination, I won't do that again, and ask God for the strength to do that. Moses, verse 8, it says, in verse 8 says, Moses made haste, he bowed his head toward the earth, and he worshipped, and he said, if now I found grace in your sight, O LORD, let my LORD I pray go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.

And God said, Behold, I make a covenant, before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation, and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the eternal. It's an awesome thing that I will do with you. And he says, do what I command. Follow those principles. It was an awesome work that God did with Israel back then. It is an awesome work that God will do with you and me and his church, his body, all over the world. If we will just follow, if we will just believe, if we will just yield and be led by his Holy Spirit, if we believe, he will establish us, so we will be there together as part of his family when Jesus Christ returns.