EP. 043 The Last Kings of Judah

Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located

in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship

Ministries with 3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism,

discipleship and church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church

and other sermons from throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bickford and I will be your

host for this podcast. I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing

to you and bring you closer to God.

Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House podcast. My name is David Bickford and I'm

the pastor here in Salmon Arm. And today I put together a message called The Last Kings

of Judah, which we are going to look at, The Lone Southern Kingdom. So if you are going

to follow along in your text this morning, it's 2 Kings 18, 1-6 that we will be using

as the jumping off point for our message this morning.

When I was putting this message together, I came across an illustration. It's a World

War II illustration. You know, being a, you know, a member of the United States, Marines

in the States, I tend to gravitate back to a lot of this war stuff. But in World War

II, when it was at its height, the forces were engaged in what was known as the Battle

of the Bulge or the Christmas War of 1944. The fighting was so fierce and in the bitter

and in the cold, the Allied forces bombed and established a control of a strategic area.

The commanding officer turned to several of his men and said, sweep across the field and

kill all German soldiers still entrenched in the snow. I want no prisoners, absolutely

none. One of the American soldiers selected gives his account of what happens next. As

I walked, I immediately shot and killed two wounded and suffering soldiers. He continues,

then suddenly I approached a tall young, young guy with a broad Teutonic forehead. He was

leaning against a tree. He wasn't wounded, simply exhausted. He had no food, no water,

no comrades in sight, no ammunition. Fear, fatigue, defeat and loneliness overwhelmed

him. He spoke English with a beautiful accent. And when I noticed a little black Bible in

his shirt pocket, he reminisces, we started to talk about Jesus and salvation. Wouldn't

you know it? The lanky German soldier turned out to be a born again Christian who deeply

loved the Lord. I gave him water from my canteen. I even gave him a, you know, crackers. Then

we prayed and read God's word together and we wept together too. His voice began to

treble as tears splashed down his cheeks. His face began to reflect anguish. It seems

like only yesterday we stood a foot or so apart as he read a Psalm from his German Bible.

Then I read Romans 12 from my King James translation. He showed me a black and white picture of

his wife and daughter. The soldier took a deep breath. You see, in those days I was

a young man in my early twenties and I had just graduated from a Christian college in

Illinois and hadn't had time to sort out my thoughts on the war. Maybe that's why

I did what I did. I bid my German brother farewell, took several steps away, then returned

to the soldier. Romans 13, the thou shall not kill command, the promise of eternal life,

the Prince of peace, the Sunday school distinction between killing and murder and the irrationality

of war all swirled in my mind. When the German soldier saw me returning, he bowed his head

and closed his eyes in a classic prayer posture. Then it happened. I said three crisp sentences

that I still repeat once or twice a week when I have nightmares about the war. You're a

Christian, I am too. See you later. In less than a second, I transformed that defenseless

Christian soldier into a corpse. The story comes from John Johnson and it was part of

a lengthier story of You Can't Stand Strong in the Face of Fear. It was published in 1990.

This is a pretty horrific story and this is going to be used as kind of the cornerstone

of this message because we see in The Last Kings of Judah this way of rationalizing what

they've done in order to assuage their guilt or their conscience for denying their God

and denying their covenant that they have with their God. So let's look at our text

in 2 Kings 18, 1-6. It says, In the third year of Hoshea, the son of Elah, king of Israel,

Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was 25 years old when he began

to reign and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abbey and the daughter

of Zechariah and he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all that

David his father had done. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut

down the Asherah and he broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made for

until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it. And it was called Nehushtan.

He trusted in the Lord the God of Israel so that there was none like him among all the

kings of Judah after him nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord.

He did not depart from following him but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses.

So as we jump off in our scripture this morning in our text, we see that one of the best kings

of Judah or as this message says, you know, he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart

from following him but kept the commandments of the Lord or that the Lord commanded Moses.

So one of the few good kings as we see is our starting off point. And it's important

that we start off here because it's important that we we make sure that we highlight where

Israel or where Judah was when Hezekiah took the throne and what ends up happening shortly

after he he passes. So our lives can be very difficult at times and not all of us go through

war like was depicted in this illustration. Mostly we go through the typical ups and downs

that are common to all of us. But I find it interesting how often the very normal occurrences

are the ones that can throw us off balance the most. These simple things can cause us

to falter in our faith or in our confidence. It seems one of the most common things in

all of life is also one of the most common things to cause bitterness and breaking down

of our faith. The death of a loved one, sickness, or even just a flat tire could cause many

to stumble. In the soldier's story we see that he had to make a hard choice between

his faith and his duty to his earthly commander. It doesn't matter that it goes against what

he believed or what was right. He was given a choice to obey his early earthly master

or his heavenly Lord. The choice that he made haunted him for the rest of his life. We too

make decisions in our life that can haunt us, decisions that can derail us from our

path and the directions of those who we care for most. The last kings of Judah had to

make critically important decisions for the direction of the kingdom and for the last

remnant of God's people on earth. The northern kingdom had already been destroyed and their

people were scattered and are lost to all time. They were lost to iniquity that they

had let themselves become part of and they are considered the lost tribes today, the

ten lost tribes of Israel. Taken away in idolatry by Jeroboam from the very beginning, that's

what we see from the history of the northern kingdom. And when we look at the southern

kingdom of Judah, this is the story that we're going to continue on with today. But we have

to wonder, we have to wonder what could have happened had Jeroboam not so readily taken

the northern tribes into idolatry from the very beginning of his rule. In 1 Kings 11

31-33 it says, And he said to Jeroboam, Take for yourself ten pieces. For thus says the

Lord the God of Israel, Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon

and will give you ten tribes. But he shall have one tribe for the sake of my servant

David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of

Israel. Because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians

and Chamash the god of Moab and Milcham the god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked

in my ways doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules as David

his father did. Even though God gave the northern tribe, gave northern kingdom, what he did,

Jeroboam, what he did from the start was evil. He set up golden calves in idol worship as

his first act as king. In 1 Kings 12 28-31 it says, So the king took counsel and made

two calves of gold. And he said to the people, You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough,

behold your gods, O Israel, who have brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And he set

one in Bethel and the other he put in Dan. Then this thing became a sin for the people

and went as far as Dan to be before it. He also made temples on high places and appointed

priests from among all the people who were not of the Levites. So it was by the acts

of King Jeroboam that the northern kingdom was put on the path to destruction. The northern

kingdom has the distinction of never having a good king. And the people of the north suffered

greatly because of their wicked kings. The southern kingdom of Judah had many bad or

evil kings, but they had a few kings that were told did right in the eyes of the Lord.

So we're going to look at the last kings of Judah, a couple of them held to the faith.

And because of that, people, the people of Judah were able to continue on even through

their Babylonian exile and eventually be restored back to the lands of Israel. So this brings

me my first point, which is removing the high places. Hezekiah began reigning as his father

Ahaz is vice-regent in 729 BC, and he ruled as such for 14 years. In 715 BC, he begins

his sole rule over Judah, which lasted until 697 BC, 18 years. He then reigned with his

son Manasseh, who served as his vice-regent for 11 more years from 697 to 686. His 29-year

reign was from 715 to 686 BC. So I find this history interesting because it highlights

that the kings of Judah during their period were brought up and trained by their fathers.

They ruled first as regents and then as kings and then with their sons as regent rulers.

It adds a little complexity to the story because the reigns of these kings were so very different

from generation to generation. The author of Kings recorded that only three other kings

did right as David had done. Asa in 1 Kings 1511, Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 17.3, and

Josiah 2 Kings 22.1-2. These were the other three of Judah's four reforming kings. The

only other kings besides Hezekiah that removed the high places was Jehoshaphat. So these

high places must have been rebuilt after Hezekiah removed them. Regarding his faith, Hezekiah

was the greatest of the Judaic kings. He did not depart from serving God later in life

as a lot of the other kings did and consequently God's blessing rested on him. His rebellion

against Sennacherib precipitated Assyria's invasion into Judah and this was a reversal

of his father Ahaz's policy of aligning with Assyria. God gave him consistent victory over

the Philistines and in 2 Kings 18, 9-12 it serves as a double purpose showing that they

relate the Assyrian defeat of Samaria to Hezekiah's reign and they explain again the spiritual

reason for the defeat in 2 Kings 18, 12. Hezekiah's fourth year of king was in 725 BC, the fourth

year of his co-regency with Ahaz. In 2 Kings 18, 12 it says, Because they did not obey

the voice of the Lord their God but transgressed with his covenant, even all that Moses the

servant of the Lord commanded, they neither listened nor obeyed. Hezekiah's example was

not received by the Israelites of the northern kingdom and they were later destroyed. Later

on in his rule he was tested by the Assyrian leader Sennacherib. At first Hezekiah tried

to appease Assyria but eventually Hezekiah turned to the Lord, turning to Yahweh in prayer

and to his prophet for an answer. He sensed his position under God's authority and humbled

himself and sought God's help and God rewarded Hezekiah's attitude and assured him success

because the Assyrians challenged the reputation of God. So later in Hezekiah's life he felt

ill but he again humbled himself and the Lord healed him. Hezekiah was not without fault

entirely. He succumbed to a similar boasting that Solomon did with the queen of Sheba.

Hezekiah let Babylonian visitors into the kingdom and showed them all the wealth and

grandeur of Judah. This led to the prophecy of the Babylonian exile that would come later.

Perhaps Hezekiah's only serious flaw was an inability to prepare Manasseh, his successor,

to be like himself. On the other hand, how can anyone guarantee the quality of their

children's life choices? This is one of the pains of parenting, is that you try to pour

into your children wisdom to do better than yourself, to live more for God than you have

in your life and to try to show them the benefit of living for God or for living a godly life.

But ultimately there is choice that falls on our children. And this brings me to my

next point which is witchcraft, idolatry, and the human sacrifice. Pretty scary ideas.

We're going to leave Hezekiah behind and we're going to come into the next stage of this

story. So between the death of Hezekiah and the final fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians,

there lay precisely one century, 100 years. Seldom has a nation experienced so many dramatically

sudden reversals of fortune in such a short time. Through the first half of the period,

a vassal of Assyria, Judah then knew in rapid succession periods of independence and subjugation,

first to Egypt and to Babylon before finally destroying herself in feudal rebellion against

the latter. So quickly did these phases follow one after another that it was possible for

one man, as Jeremiah did, to have witnessed them all.

Manasseh began reigning as a vice regent with his father Hezekiah when he was 12 years old

in 697 BC and this arrangement continued for those 11 years that we discussed. For a total

of 55 years Manasseh was king of Judah. He reigned longer than any Hebrew king and he

was Judah's worst king spiritually. And 2 Kings 21 verses 1 through 9 it reads,

2 Kings 21:1–9

Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Hefzeba and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord according

to the despicable practices of the nations of whom the Lord drove out before the people

of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed and

he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah as Ahab king of Israel had done and worshiped

all the hosts of heaven and served them. And he built altars in the house of the Lord of

which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem will I put my name. And he built altars for all

the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he burned his son as

an offering and he used fortune telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers.

He did much evil in the sight of the Lord provoking him to anger and the carved image

of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and

to Solomon his son in this house and in Jerusalem which I have chosen out of all the tribes

of Israel I will put my name forever. I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander anymore

out of the land that I gave to their fathers if only they will be careful to do according

to all that I have commanded them and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded

them. But they did not listen and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations

had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel. Manasseh immediately left

the faith becoming an apostate. He is recorded as being as depraved as King Ahab from the

northern kingdom. His murders include those of his own children sacrificed to Baal and

Molech. It's even believed that he murdered the prophet Isaiah. The method of Isaiah's

death was that he was sawn in half and they believe he was sawn in half by Manasseh or

at least by his command. It's agreed upon by both Babylonian the Babylonian Talmud and

the Jerusalem Talmud and is probably alluded to by the writer of the epistle to Hebrews

in 1137. How horribly dramatic is the turn of Judah that was made in this one generation.

The reforms of Hezekiah were overturned just as fast as they were established and this

should be a call to all of us to pray over our children and over our grandchildren. A

covering of prayer that the faith that we hold to so dearly is going to be picked up

by our children and our children's children and our children's children's children all

the way down the line. The only highlight to the reign of Manasseh was that in the end

it seems he did repent but how much damage was done. In 2 Chronicles 33 10-13 it says

the Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people but they paid no attention. Therefore the

Lord brought upon them the commanders of the armies of the king of Assyria who captured

Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains and bronze and brought him to Babylon. And

when he was in distress he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly

before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him and God was moved by his entreaty and

he heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom and then Manasseh

knew that the Lord was God. So we have to be thankful that even as evil as Manasseh

was there was still some room for grace. Many like to think of the Old Testament as a time

when God was angry. The life and example of Manasseh shows us the great and powerful grace

that God has for all of us. How amazing it is that such an evil wicked man would still

be able to pray to God and receive repentance. The fact that you know his that he was able

to tap into the presence of God once again when he humbled himself is such an amazing

thing. It's such an amazing thing for us to remember. They especially as Christians as

we have the blood of Christ to thank for our salvation and to remember that even the most

wicked people when they come to the reality of their own wickedness and repent and turn

from it can receive grace in Jesus name. This brings me to my final point which is Josiah

the reformer the beginning of the end. The earlier example of Manasseh still resonates

with his son. Amon reigned for two years from 642 to 640 rather than continuing to follow

the Lord which his father's repentance encouraged Amon reverted to the politics of Manasseh's

earlier reign and rebelled against God completely. This provoked some of his officials to assassinate

him which we read about in 2 Kings 21-23 and again we see that rebellion against God often

leads to one's premature personal destruction. To their credit the leaders of Judah executed

the king's assassins and so prevented anarchy. Since Josiah was eight years old when his

father died at age 22 he must have been born when Amon was only 14 which was very common

in ancient near east cultures. Josiah began to seek God when he was 16 years old and he

began initiating religious reforms when he was 20 years old. His reforms were more extensive

than those of any of his predecessors. One of them involved the repair of Solomon's

temple and he began that project when he was 26 years old. But the end of the line is Joe

has was the middle of Josiah's three sons all of whom ruled Judah after Josiah. Jehoah

as was the people's choice but he reigned for only three months in 609 BC when Pharaoh

Necho defeated Josiah and Megiddo Judah fell under the Egyptian control. Necho summoned

Josiah's successor Jehoah to meet him at Ribla. This town stood about 65 miles north

of Damascus in central Aramaea and the meeting took place before the battle of Karachemesh

and Necho found Jehoah as obstinate as his father had been so he imprisoned him and sent

him back to Egypt where he died later. Necho also imposed a heavy tax on Judah and installed

Jehoah as his older brother Eliakim on Judah's throne as his puppet. The naming of a person

shows superiority over that person so Necho was declaring his sovereignty over Judah's

king by renaming him Jehoahakim. In 605 BC Prince Nebuchadnezzar led the Babylonian army

of his father Nabo-Polasar against the allied forces of Assyria and Egypt and defeated them

at Karachemesh. This victory as previously explained gave Babylon supremacy in the ancient

Near East. Babylon's victory over Egypt's vassals including Judah came under Babylonian

control. Shortly after that event in the same year Nabo-Polasar died and Nebuchadnezzar

succeeded him and Nebuchadnezzar then moved south and invaded Judah in 605 BC. He took

some captives during this period. They included Daniel during this first group. This was the

first of three deportations that we know about that the Babylonians took from Judah. Jehoahakim

submitted to Nebuchadnezzar for three years but then he rebelled. He appealed to Egypt

for help unsuccessfully. Foreign raiders who sought to take advantage of her weakened condition

besieged Judah. The Babylonians then took Jehoahakim to Babylon. Later they allowed

him to return to Jerusalem where he died. Jehoahakim did little to postpone God's judgment

on Judah for her previous sins. The prophet Jeremiah despised him for his wickedness which

you can read about in Jeremiah 22, 18, 19 and Jeremiah 26, 20, 23 and Jeremiah 36 as

well. Jehoahakim's son Jehoachin whose other name was Jeconiah or Koniah succeeded him

on the throne but only reigned for three months. When Nebuchadnezzar's troops were besieging

Jerusalem the Babylonian king personally visited Judah's capital and Jehoahachin surrendered

to him. In 2 Kings 25, 27-30 we read, And in the 37th year of the exiled Jehoahachin

king of Judah, in the 12th month, on the 27th day of the month, evil Merodach king of Babylon

in the year that he began to reign graciously freed Jehoahachin king of Judah from prison.

And he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the kings who were

with him in Babylon. So Jehoahachin put off his prison garments and every day of his life

he dined regularly at the king's table and for his allowance a regular allowance was

given to him by the king according to his daily needs as long as he lived. So in the

end as we come to a close we know that Judah fell and was carried off into exile into Babylon.

When we look back at our illustration we see that there is a cost to disobedience. The

soldier who obeyed an unrighteous order was haunted by his choice to put man above God.

The reforms of Hezekiah were tremendous especially because of how it was an about face from what

his father had done before him. The tragedy was that his son reversed all of his reforms

and it wasn't until the end of his life that he saw the air of his ways. By the time Manasseh

turned back to the Lord it was too late for him to save his son. His son had been corrupted

and paid a price for it. Thankfully his grandson was able to look back at his repentance and

the example of his great grandfather in Josiah ended up being the last good king of Judah.

At the end of the story though we see God provided us with a small glimpse of his future

plan. We see Jehoiachin survive the line as the line of King David securing it for the

future. Also we can eventually have the reality of our Messiah Jesus Christ arising out of

the ashes of this kingly lineage. We have the best of kings the Lord of lords a perfect

and spotless lamb and that changes the idea of what a king should be and how we should

rule. I've talked about this many times in the past but we serve a God, we serve a king

and King Jesus but his kingdom is an upside down kingdom. It's a kingdom of service. It's

not a kingdom of power, of authoritarianism. Jesus came as a human and he came to serve.

He gives us that example and so we have to decide for ourselves are we going to follow

the example of Christ? Are we going to follow example of our heavenly father? Or are we

going to follow the fallen examples of politicians and kings earthly kings that want to rule

over their fellow man who are willing to sacrifice and even kill their fellow man for power?

Or are you going to be willing to lay your life down like our Lord Jesus did? So with

that if I could have everyone bowed, every eye closed wherever you are just for a quick

moment. I hope this message has resonated with you and I hope that you recognize that

that there is never a time that you can't turn back to Jesus Christ or turn to him if

you haven't in the past. The story of Manasseh is so powerful in the sense that he was the

most wicked of all kings of Judah but he was able to come to his senses and turn back to

God. So maybe this message has resonated with you for that reason or maybe you've recognized

that you were once serving God but you've left your first love of Jesus Christ and you've

gone into the world and you're doing something that you aren't very proud of but you want

to get your heart right. Well I want to give this invitation, this opportunity for you

to get your heart right right now and if that's you, if you've never given your life to Jesus

Christ or you've walked away and you want to come back, I want you to signify that with

a lifted hand wherever you are. I can't see it but God can see your hand and he can see

your heart. So if you rose your hand and you meant that, I want you to just repeat after

me, Dear Lord God, I know that I'm a sinner but I know that you sent your son Jesus Christ

who died for me. I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior and I repent of my sins. In Jesus

name I pray, Amen. I just want to commend you on taking that step because no matter

how you what happens in our lives, there's an opportunity that we're presented with to

turn back to Jesus Christ, to look towards Jesus Christ, to serve our Lord and Savior,

to be like one of the good kings of Judah, to be an example for our children, for even

our parents, for our grandchildren and for our friends and our loved ones besides that.

But we have to be willing to humble ourselves and serve. So with that I want to thank you

for listening to this message today and I want to ask that if this message did impact

you, that you share it, that you would like, save and subscribe to this podcast. Help us

get this message out there but please share this podcast so that we can get this out to

more people. And I want to thank you again for listening and I can't wait for you to

come back next time. God bless.