A Downward Tumble

Let me ask you if you would join me in the book that we've been walking through here for several months, 2 Kings, Old Testament book, 2 Kings.

If you've got a Bible, a phone, a device, a scripture journal, which by the way, we have some nice scripture journals. If you've not picked one up, you can get one of those in the back.

And today we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to do a little skipping, but don't worry, we always come back. So today what I would like to do is take the last paragraph of chapter 14.

So that's going to be verses 23 through 29. And then we're going to skip 7 verses in 15 and take chapter 15, verse 8 through 31. And I hope by the time it's all done, you'll understand why.

We're trying to pace ourselves with these two kingdoms. And today I just want to keep our attention on the northern kingdom of Israel, and you'll see why.

So follow along with me. We've got lots of names, lots of places, good Old Testament stuff. And I'll read for us in verse 23.

In the 15th year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, and he reigned 41 years.

And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.

He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the sea of Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-Hepler.

And for the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left bonder free, and there was no one to help Israel.

But the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash.

Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam and all that he did, and his might, and how he fought, and how he restored Damascus and Hamath to Judah and Israel, are they not written about in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel?

And Jeroboam slept with his fathers, the king of Israel, and Zechariah, his son, reigned in his place. And we're going to pause right there and come back for our reading, but let me first just ask you once more if you would pray for our time together.

Father, we come and we submit ourselves to your word. We trust that it is good. Will you, Lord, guide us today as we explore this dark history of Israel?

And help us, Father, to understand why it's here, and what it is that you, by your Spirit, want us to see and want us to learn. And we pray this in the name of the greatest king, our Savior, Jesus.

Amen.

Well, although this kingdom and certainly this king, I'll call him Jeroboam II, because that's who he is, the second Jeroboam, although they probably don't realize that they are coming to what we might call the final countdown of this entire kingdom of northern kingdom of Israel.

Yes, Jeroboam II stands at the brink of what is about to become a very, very rapid slide downward. But first, a little bit about this king, and I think what I would call his strange namesake, Jeroboam II.

I don't know how to say this. Quite frankly, Jeroboam is a bad choice for a name. I'll just maybe put that out there right now for any of you people who might in the future welcome a child home.

Probably don't go with Jeroboam. Well, the reason is, is Jeroboam, the first one, he lived about 150 years prior to Jeroboam II.0. And we know about him that as soon as he came to the throne of Israel in a freshly, newly split kingdom,

the first thing he did was take the kingdom in a very bad direction. I'd like to say although he was the king of the north, he took the kingdom south.

And I mean south in a bad way. Because before anybody could say faithfulness to the Lord means centralized worship in Jerusalem at the temple, this guy, Jeroboam, went off and set up not one but two rival worship sites at Bethel and Dan

and proceeded to adorn them with two golden calves, one for each shrine. For the people to go worship there so they wouldn't have to cross down into the kingdom of Judah because he was afraid he would lose his hold on the kingdom.

Well, talk about a very bad idea. It was very bad. And for this great sin, the Lord prophesied destruction for this kingdom all those years ago.

So whenever you hear, and you're going to hear it a lot today, talk about the sins of Jeroboam, that's what the original sin was. And so the ongoing sins is the fact that the people keep going to these rival worship sites and are basically worshiping golden calves.

So right off the bat, our king's name is not a good sign. And once our Jeroboam 2 comes to power in verse 24, guess what? Surprise, surprise, surprise, we're told that he did evil in the sight of the Lord and not just personal evil himself, no.

That little phrase at the end of verse 24 where it says that he made Israel to sin, what it means is that he led his nation into sin. Bad leadership.

And we know bad leadership leads to bad consequences. The Christian Standard Bible even says that he caused Israel to sin. And hence, prophets like Hosea in the Old Testament, who lived and ministered in Jeroboam's day,

he would go on to paint a bleak picture of this kingdom and the spiritual state of things. Here's what he says in Hosea chapter 4, verse 2. Listen to this.

Hosea 4:2

There is no faithfulness or steadfast love and no knowledge of God in the land. Well, what is there, Hosea? There is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, committing adultery.

They break all bounds and bloodshed follows bloodshed. The prophet Amos ministered during this time too and he would decry many of the same sins of Israel.

He would highlight many of their social injustices, sexual perversion. He would even talk about how they tried to compromise the faithful among them.

But it wasn't just that the kingdom had gone completely secular. You know, you think sometimes that when you abandon the Lord, that means you're now just irreligious.

If only that were the case. The problem was the people were still very religious. They were just religious in all the wrong ways. And again, I want you to hear Hosea's words.

And again, in chapter 4, a little later on, verses 12 and 13, Hosea writes, My people inquire of a piece of wood and their walking staff gives them oracles for a spirit of whoredom has led them astray and they have left their God to play the whore.

They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills under oak, poplar and terebinth because their shade is good. The king does evil.

The people follow his example. And they do evil too. And so God is going to judge this king and this kingdom, right? He's going to judge everybody.

Probably this is going to be a very short reign ending by assassination, right? Wrong. Jeroboam will actually turn out to be the longest reigning king in the northern kingdom of Israel.

Forty-two years. Forty-one, my bad. Forty-one years. Forty-one years. And not just the longevity. Interesting. Our narrator goes on to highlight some of his accomplishments.

What would appear to be the blessings of success. That's what we see noted in verses 25 and 26. Check this out. This guy, this king is able to restore Israel's former borders.

Dating all the way back to the days of the great Solomon when the kingdom was at its height. Now sure, neighboring powers like Egypt are pretty weak at this time and Syria is pretty weak.

They're having trouble with the bigger Assyria. But Jeroboam seems able to take advantage of this power vacuum and essentially flex his military muscles, so to speak, and expand Israel on the map.

So the border to the north is reestablished. It goes all the way up to Damascus and then some. It goes another 45 miles to the north. And then the border to the south goes all the way down to the Sea of Ereba, which is the Dead Sea.

Understand that these were Solomon's borders. And what this means is that the kingdom has never been so large. Yes, the kingdom has all the appearances of blessing.

And yet, and yet, there is a word from a prophet that pops in here too, we might have noticed. And it's none other than the prophet Jonah. You say, is that the same Jonah that was swallowed by the great fish?

Yeah, that hasn't happened yet. It soon will. But it's Jonah, the son of Amittai, who apparently pays a visit to our king, and he prophesies that this is exactly what's going to happen.

The kingdom is going to see the Lord's blessing. But our narrator wants us to be very clear what is motivating this blessing. And he wants us to understand in verse 26 that it's not because the people or because this king are doing anything to deserve this blessing.

This kingdom is not getting what it deserves. As a matter of fact, they're getting quite the opposite. They're getting mercy. God's undeserved mercy for the Lord, we're told, saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter.

You know, that last phrase has actually appeared earlier in the Old Testament. We've seen this before. It was back when the Israelite people were under Egyptian oppression and slavery.

Back then, the people suffered bitterly, and the Lord had compassion on them then. And he's doing it again now, such that he will not blot out the nation, the name of Israel, under heaven, but will even temporarily bless them by the hand of Jeroboam.

Well, Jeroboam lives to an old age and dies a natural death and passes from the scene here at the end of chapter 14. And now I'd like to skip past those first seven verses of chapter 15, because again, we're saving the kings of Judah for next week.

And why don't you pick up the story with me again of this northern kingdom as we begin reading again in verse 8. And we're going to get a lot, and we're going to go fast, so bear with me.

Chapter 15, verse 8. In the 38th year of Azariah, king of Judah, Zechariah, the son of Jeroboam, reigned over Israel in Samaria six months. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his fathers had done.

He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. Shalom, the son of Jabesh, conspired against him and struck him down at Iblium and put him to death and reigned in his place.

Now the rest of the deeds of Zechariah, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. This was the promise of the Lord that he gave to Jehu.

Your son shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. And so it came to pass. Shalom, the son of Jabesh, began to reign in the 39th year of Uzziah, king of Judah.

And he reigned one month in Samaria. Then Menahem, the son of Gad, he came up from Tirzah and came to Samaria. And he struck down Shalom, the son of Jabesh, in Samaria and put him to death and reigned in his place.

Now the rest of the deeds of Shalom and the conspiracy he made, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

At that time, Menahem sacked Tisphah and all who were in it and its territory from Tisra on, because they did not open it to him. Therefore he sacked it and ripped open all the women in it who were pregnant.

In the 39th year of Azariah, king of Judah, Menahem, the son of Gad, he began to reign over Israel. And he reigned 10 years in Samaria. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

He did not depart all his days from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. Pull, the king of Assyria, came against the land.

And Menahem gave pull a thousand talents of silver that he might help him confirm his hold on the royal power. And Menahem exacted the money from Israel, that is, from all the wealthy men, 50 shekels of silver from every man, to give to the king of Assyria.

So the king of Assyria turned back and did not stay there in the land. Now the rest of the deeds of Menahem and all that he did are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

And Menahem slept with his fathers, and Pekahiah, his son, reigned in his place. In the fifteenth year of Azariah, king of Judah, Pekahiah, the son of Menahem, began to reign over Israel in Samaria.

And he reigned two years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.

And Pekah, the son of Remaliah, his captain, conspired against him with 50 men of the people of Gilead, and struck him down in Samaria, in the citadel of the king's house, with Argob and Aria.

He put him to death and reigned in his place. Now the rest of the deeds of Pekahiah and all that he did, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

In the fifteenth year of Azariah, king of Judah, Pekah, the son of Remaliah, began to reign over Israel in Samaria. And he reigned twenty years.

And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.

In the days of Pekah, king of Israel, Tilgath-Pileser, king of Assyria, came up and captured Ijon. Abelbeth-Makkah, Genoa, Kadesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee.

All the land of Naphtali. And he carried the people captive to Assyria. Then Hoshea, the son of Elah, made a conspiracy against Pekah, the son of Remaliah, and struck him down and put him to death and reigned in his place in the twentieth year of Jotham, the son of Uzziah.

Now the rest of the acts of Pekah and all that he did, behold, they are written in the books of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. You ever get that feeling when someone's trying to rush you?

Hurry you, fast forward through some bad stuff? Well, that's essentially what's happening here with our narrator. I didn't just read that fast because I wanted to get through it, although I did.

But also because I wanted you to get the effect. The repetition. The same old, same old. This is not a pretty picture. This kingdom of Israel.

I don't know. It seems like they have more assassins than kings, right? Every time you turn around, somebody's getting killed, knocking off the other guy.

We've got four out of the next five kings who get assassinated. Each one taking out their predecessor. And, you know, call me crazy, but when you have four out of five coups by assassination that happen in no less than 20 years.

If that tells you anything, it tells you that Jeroboam's reign, Jeroboam II, his reign was only a pause. Only a pause before a very quick and rapid descent.

Because we now have a storm breaking over unstable Israel with a revolving door of kings. And it's not by accident. This is not happening by chance.

We have a divine hand behind it all. Because back when that very first Jeroboam, 150 years earlier, first set up idolatry in the land, you know what the Lord did?

He sent a prophet. And this is what that prophet said back in 1 Kings 14, verse 15. And henceforth, he said to the king, The Lord will strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water.

1 Kings 14:15

It's a prediction that this kingdom would be unstable. So first up in our revolving door of kings is Jeroboam's own son, Zechariah. And for Zechariah, there's no change in policy, of course.

He still does what's evil in the sight of the Lord. Verse 9, he still follows in those sins of Jeroboam. Still leads all the people to do the same thing.

And thus, we're told very quickly, a fellow named Shalom shows up one day, makes a conspiracy against the king, and knocks him off. And yet verse 12 is careful and very intentional to remind us that this too is a fulfillment of a prophetic word from the Lord,

a specific prophetic word. Because about four generations back from Zechariah, the Lord had made a certain great-great-grandfather named Jehu a promise.

This is what God said in 2 Kings 10, verse 30. And the Lord said to Jehu, Because you have done well in carrying out all that was right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.

2 Kings 10:30

But it would only be to the fourth generation and no more. Because although Jehu may have obeyed God's instructions and cleaned house with Ahab, he did not, he did not turn from idolatry.

And so, just like that, here it is, the great-great-grandson of Jehu, Zechariah, literally the fourth generation from Jehu, and how long does he reign?

Six months. And our narrator is very sober in how he puts it in verse 12. He says, and so, at the end of verse 12, And so it was. And so it came to pass.

You know what? That's actually a Hebrew phrase that we see in the very first chapter of the Bible repeatedly. In Genesis chapter 1, With each of the successive days of creation, the Lord speaks, and then we read, And so it was.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

That's how it is with Jehu's line. As the Lord spoke, Four generations and done, And so it was. Four generations and done. All right. Well, next up we've got our new king, who happens to be an assassin.

His name is Shalom. And Shalom is, you could call him shallow, because he only reigns one month. So like four weeks. Not even enough time, if you've noticed, not even enough time to mention his sins.

Although I'm pretty confident he continues in the pattern. Our narrator does mention, he uses that formula that he uses. He says the rest of his deeds in verse 15.

And we all think like, What are you talking about? What a joke. One month? What deeds did he do? But no matter, because he's put down by another assassin.

This guy's name is Menahem. Menahem. And we get a little more info about this guy. But we don't like what we get. This is pretty gruesome stuff.

He turns out to be a very violent king. Downright barbaric, in fact. He's taking his cues for how to perform his duties in the military. He's taking his cues from the surrounding pagan nations of Israel.

Doing the very wicked barbaric things that they do. So he marches up to this city called Tisphah. And when they refuse to open their gates and surrender to him, he decides to take the city by storm, sacks the place entirely, and he brutally kills even the pregnant women.

This is monstrous behavior, obviously. And it's worth noting that no king of Israel, no king of Israel has ever done anything this barbaric before.

But now they do, apparently. Because why not, when you're taking your cues from all the surrounding nations in every other way? Well, given that Shalom only lasts one month, and Zechariah before him only about six months,

it's really not until Menahem kind of settles into his reign that we begin to realize that the regional political scene is starting to change in terms of world powers.

And that's because we have a new deadly threat on the horizon, and you're going to have to keep these straight. The new threat is Assyria. So don't confuse that with Syria.

Syria is a smaller kingdom to Israel's north. Assyria will be an empire. And we're introduced in verse 19 to this gentleman with a nickname, Pull.

Pull, king of Assyria. It's a shortened nickname for his official title that we hear later, Tiglath-Pileser III. This gentleman, Pull, storms his way into Israel, crashes their borders, and he manages to put a pretty good scare into King Menahem of Israel.

Because what does Menahem do? Verse 20. He buys them off to the tune of a thousand talents of silver, which he basically taxes all the wealthy men for.

About 6,000 men have to pay 50 shekels each. And so they give this to Pull. And Pull, true to his name, pulls the Assyrian army out. And Israel is basically left as a vassal state now.

But we're also told by the narrator that this is a pretty good deal for Menahem because, you know, every time you turn around in Israel, you're looking over your shoulder for a knife or a sword.

And he thinks this is good because it's going to confirm my hold on the throne. I mean, what better way to secure your throne and stave off any ideas about assassination, which are getting pretty popular in Israel, than by paying a big bully for protection.

And that's what he's done. It works. He is the only king out of a series of five who is not assassinated. So Menahem rules another 10 years, we read.

Presumably dies of natural causes in verse 22. And now the kingdom passes to his son, Pekahiah, a new dynasty. And is Pekahiah going to be any different?

Of course not. He does the same old evil in the Lord's sight. It's a new king, same old bad behavior. Leadership is poor. He leads Israel into the same, sends a Jeroboam.

And he continues with the pro-Assyria policy as their vassal. At least until a certain Israelite captain named Pekah, Pekah the son of Remaliah, decides that two years is enough with this guy.

And he goes and gets 50 of his fellow Gileadites, and they invade the palace complex, and they find Pekahiah in the citadel of the king's house.

Sounds like he's hiding. And they assassinate him. So again, if we're trying to keep up, I put a few names on the screen. Jeroboam 2. We go to Zechariah, his son.

Killed. We go to Shalom. Killed. Menahem. Dies naturally. Now Pekahiah. Killed. And now we're down to this guy named Pekah. And how's Pekah's reign going to be?

Well, about the only thing different about Pekah, who's just as evil and just as idolatrous, and just as bad of a leader for the people spiritually, is that he has a very different attitude toward Assyria.

It turns from a pro-Assyria policy now. With Pekah, it's an anti-Assyria policy.

In fact, there's a little glimpse into the history that we get from the book of Isaiah, actually. We learn that what Pekah thinks will be a good idea is, let's form a local coalition of the three of us.

So he goes to this guy, the king of Syria, Rezin is his name, and he gets him to join up. And then the two of them say, hey, let's go get Judah, the southern kingdom, to join us as well.

And the problem is, Judah says, no thanks. We actually don't mind vassal status with big Assyria. And here's what Pekah and Rezin decide to do in Isaiah 7, verse 6.

Isaiah 7:6

They say, let's go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves. I guess terrorism's pretty old. Terrify our own fellow Israelites.

And that's exactly what happens. We read about it over in 2 Chronicles 28. We hear how Pekah and his ally Rezin together managed to kill over 120,000 men of Judah.

Israelite on Israelite violence. Not meant to be. Not good. And it certainly does no good in the long run, because as verse 29 shows us, take a look at verse 29.

Old King Pol, Tiglath-Pileser, as he's officially known. He does not like revolt. And so what he does is he decides to march his vast Assyrian army in, and he now invades Israel.

In fact, he kind of walks through most of Israel from Gilead to Galilee to Naphtali,

so that if you study the geography, all that King Pekah of Israel has left is just a pitiful little island of a city-state around the city of Samaria.

A spot in the hill country of Ephraim that's not on any trade route. Nobody would think much of it. Nobody really cares. Not really much of a kingdom anymore, is it?

And we also read that here is when the deportations begin. Because Tiglath-Pileser and his Assyrians, they had this nice little policy of mixing up their conquered people.

What they would do, they'd take some from over here and displace them and settle them over there, and then take these people and put them over here, and just mix everybody up.

Get you away from your homeland. Get you completely dependent upon their government. That way, there is much less chance that you're going to have any nationalistic feelings and revolt.

And so here, the year is 732 BC. It's just about a year after Syria's capital, Damascus, has fallen. We read that the Assyrian bullies carry off thousands of Israelites, verse 29, captive to Assyria.

Well, certainly not surprising by now. But after a few years of this, somebody thinks that King Pekah and his new anti-Assyrian policy, it ain't working out so well.

And so this fellow named Hosea, the son of Elah, he decides that it's high time for another palace coup by means of another assassination. And he's got secret backing from the Assyrians to do it.

You say, well, that's not in the text. No, it's not. It's from an extra biblical source. It's from Assyrian records. They talk about how they backed this assassination.

Hosea strikes down King Pekah in verse 30, puts him to death, and we're told that he reigned in his place. Now, King number 7 today. And Hosea, as we will soon see, he will represent a sharp swing back to a pro-Assyrian policy

as he now tries to hang on to his tiny little piece of a kingdom, his little city-state around Samaria in the hill country of Ephraim, helping us to see that the once great kingdom of northern Israel is all but reduced to a joke,

so much so that Assyria will basically just take their tribute from Hosea, leave the little city-state alone, until our new king, Hosea, gets another idea, which he will.

But we'll save that for another time. How about all this? In the span of what, in all total, will be about a 60-year period, we have seven different kings reigning, four of them being assassinated,

some reigning as little as one month. Talk about an unstable kingdom. But again, as we pointed out, after Jeroboam, the Lord said it would be a revolving door of kings.

I like the way one scholar puts it, Victor Hamilton says that the kings were supposed to be the foundational persons in a society, and yet they've become literally revolving doors.

But you know, the prophet Hosea, whom we heard from before, he actually was prophesying during this time, and he prophesied these events. Listen to what he writes in chapter 13 of his book.

Hosea chapter 13, verse 10. He says, Where now is your king to save you in all your cities? Where are all your rulers, those of whom you said, Give me a king and princes?

Hosea 13:10

I gave you a king in my anger, and I took him away in my wrath. The Lord gave, and the Lord took away. Kings came, and kings quickly went, taken away in the Lord's judgment.

That is what's happening here. And sadly, even though time after time, the Lord seemed to be giving them another chance. You say, Why does the Lord let this go on?

Because he's merciful. Even though he gave them chance after chance under each of these kings, the Lord would conclude this again, speaking through Hosea chapter 7, verse 7.

Hosea 7:7

He would say, All of them, all of these kings are hot as an oven. I like that. They're a hot mess. Hot as an oven. And they devour their rulers, meaning, yeah, they kill each other.

They assassinate one another. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me.

Fellow prophet Amos, also a contemporary at the time, he adds this prophetic word too. Amos 4, 11. I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning, yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord.

And honestly, it was the contemporary prophets, yes, but honestly, this was predicted many, many generations before that this would happen. Did you know that back in Deuteronomy chapter 31, at the end of Moses' life,

Deuteronomy 31 · chapter mention

as he's wrapping up his ministry, leading Israel, did you know that the Lord would tell him to actually write a song about the future disobedience of the Israelites?

You know, sometimes I think about our worship music, and it's a good thing that we sing about our sin. Not to elevate it and think it's wonderful, but to remember what we're like.

And it's biblical. Deuteronomy 31, the Lord instructed Moses, he said, write a song about the future failures of this people, and then Moses, what I want you to do is force all the people to memorize it.

Don't lock it up in the Ark of the Covenant. No. Everybody gets a copy. All the kids memorize it so that you can sing it for generations. The Lord commands, put it in their mouths that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.

Deuteronomy chapter 31, verses 21 and 22, and when many evils and troubles have come upon them, and boy have they, this song shall confront them as a witness, for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring, for I know what they're inclined to do even today,

Deuteronomy 31:21

before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give them. So Moses did it. Moses wrote this song the same day and taught it to the people of Israel.

We don't have very uplifting material today, guys. Newsflash. But still, I think there are some lessons for us to take away from this, to see, to learn from.

I think there are lessons here this morning about the nature of sin. I think there are also lessons about the Lord and what He can manifest.

And maybe at the end, just a little lesson about appearances and how they can't always be trusted. So let me draw out four of them, and I'll start with this one.

First lesson is this. Number one, sin manifests in a natural tumble downward. A natural tumble downward.

That is what's happening in this kingdom with its succession of bad kings. One after another, from Jeroboam all the way down to Hosea, from the end of Jehu's promised four-generation dynasty to the end of Menahem's quick two-generation dynasty,

all do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. All continue to lead the people astray into more and more idolatry.

Of course, the narrator of Kings here doesn't get into any of the specifics, does he? But we do have several books of the Bible that do. Books of the Old Testament, like, again, Hosea chapter 4, calling out, what was it, the swearing, lying, murder, stealing, adultery, bloodshed.

Hosea 4 · chapter mention

One future leader, assassinating his predecessor. Kings of Israel, actually sacking innocent cities and doing the unthinkable to the vulnerable population.

That is the downward tumble of a kingdom. That's the downward tumble of this kingdom, and I'm telling you, it's the story of the downward tumble of sin.

And it's not new to the world right here, at this point. It started off that way almost at the beginning. Sin enters the world in Genesis 3.

Murder follows in Genesis 4. And by Genesis chapter 6, things have tumbled so far that the Lord is what? regretting? He's grieved that he made man on the earth?

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

And he puts in place a plan to essentially start over with Noah?

Sin tumbles people downward, especially when there are leaders leading the way. So what's the lesson mean for you and I? I think it means we need to be awake to the power of sin.

We need to not take sin casually. We need to remember that the nature of sin is that it tumbles things. It tumbles us downward. It's designed to take us down.

That's exactly what the enemy, the roaring lion, wants to do. Take us down. And so if you're someone that has influence over another person, if you're here or if you're listening and you're someone who leads others, who is an example to someone else

in your home, in your workplace, here in our church, we must watch how we lead. Watch our example and show ourselves a people who name our sin and who renounce our sin and say it's bad and who confess it and rebuke it

and repent of it and turn from it. All in the grace that is offered to us in Jesus. That's our first lesson on the nature of sin. The next two that I have for us are going to go to the nature of something or really someone much better.

So lesson number two is this. Number two, the Lord can manifest incredible patience, incredible patience through sin's downward tumble. The Lord can manifest incredible patience

through sin's downward tumble. You know, speaking of Genesis 6 and Noah just a second ago, did you realize that in the New Testament, the apostle Peter in his letter, chapter 3, he talks about that moment and what he says is that the Lord, and I quote Peter,

waited patiently in the days of Noah. Patiently waited while the ark was being built. There's a debate about how many years. Some say it took 100 years.

Some say, oh no, only 75. It's a long time. The Lord waited patiently. And even here in Kings this morning, we've covered a period of what? About 60 years.

And what's the Lord doing? Showing incredible patience.

It's not the first time that the Lord waited before bringing down the consequences of judgment. Did you realize that when he first made his promises to Abraham, Genesis 15, do you know what he told Abraham?

He said, I've got promised land I'm going to give you. You're going to have a big nation of descendants. I'm going to give you the promised land.

But not yet. We've got to wait a few generations because the quote unquote sin of the Amorites, there's some of the Canaanites there, the sin of the Amorites has not reached its full measure.

And he would wait a few generations before giving the descendants of Abraham that promised land. He waited with incredible patience. And remember, here's another thing today.

We are dealing with one of the two kingdoms of Israel and the one we're dealing with is the northern kingdom. And let me remind you, the northern kingdom did not have a Davidic heir on the throne to protect.

This side of the kingdom doesn't have an heir of David on the throne. Remember, because the southern kingdom of Judah had that. The promise that the line of David would always be protected until Christ came, who's of the tribe of Judah.

The northern kingdom didn't have that. The northern tribes had no such promise. And yet, and yet, he manifests this incredible patience all through this downward tumble.

And so, if you're listening to this right now, and you yourself are in a bad pattern, in a tumbling pattern, this is good news for you. This is merciful news for you.

The fact that you are still here, that you're able to listen to these words right now, is yet another demonstration of the Lord's incredible patience.

So let me ask you, is he calling you? Is he giving you a chance? Or maybe someone you love and you care about, is he calling them?

Seek the Lord while he may be found. Next up, number three, lesson number three. Here's something else the Lord can manifest. The Lord can manifest inexplicable faithfulness, inexplicable faithfulness in the midst of great faithlessness.

Faithfulness, that's God. Faithlessness, that's us. The Lord can manifest inexplicable, you can't explain it, faithfulness in the midst of our great faithlessness.

this.

Jeroboam 2, the first of our kings here, the first of the seven. What's happening all around him? What does the Lord allow providentially to happen to this floundering kingdom of Israel?

Remember, when Jeroboam 2 takes the throne from Jehoash, they're not doing so well. And then all of a sudden the borders are expanding. All of a sudden Israel is remarkably somehow able to retake the extensive borders that go back to the days of Solomon?

The Lord shows, the Lord manifests inexplicable faithfulness even in the midst of great faithlessness.

And why? Let's read it again. 2 Kings 14, verse 26. For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel, but the Lord had said that he would, he had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven

2 Kings 14:26

and so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Jehoash. It goes to his character when we say that he's faithful. The Lord. He is faithful.

He's full of compassion. He is faithful to his side of the covenant even when his people are not and he won't blot them out under heaven. That means he won't permanently give up on them.

And you know there's a bigger picture here and the bigger picture is that we're a race of sinful people and in the midst of our great faithlessness as a race the Lord not only could but did manifest inexplicable faithfulness by sending to us his one and only son

Jesus into our world sent by God sent to save sinners. This is why the apostle Paul can write what he writes to a young Timothy. 2 Timothy 2 verse 13 he writes and if we are faithless he remains faithful

2 Timothy 2:13

for he cannot deny himself. Let that encourage you. Let that encourage your heart to know that he remains faithful.

So lessons number one sin manifests in a natural downward tumble number two the Lord can manifest incredible patience and third he can manifest even an inexplicable faithfulness through this downward tumble of sin and finally I want to throw in a last lesson here number four number four

is this it's to know that appearances can be deceiving appearances can be deceiving you know the thing about the Bible when we study it we have to remember this is that as we have read chapter 14 and we're like you know the kingdom looks really bad but they're actually

doing quite well the people living at that time did not have access to chapter 15 right they did not yet know what was coming so we know that evil continues in this land and that it's going to be ongoing and the idolatry is never ending and there's going to be these shady dealings

with oppressors and pro-Assyria and anti-Assyria and assassinations galore we know that but all the folks living in jeroboam tuesday uh-uh they did not did not know what was coming all they knew think about this all they knew is that

they were enjoying a long peaceful relatively peaceful 41 year reign of a king who seemed to have the Midas touch can you imagine Israel our borders are back it's the golden age of Israel all over again

guys we're back our kingdom is as big as it ever was a lot of us are prospering which actually when you read the prophets you learn that some were prospering and many were suffering and yet beneath it all we know beneath all the appearances

in jeroboam 2's seemingly successful kingdom there was a deep deep rot wasn't there a moral and religious rot a rot of idolatry as these people were just following and doing exactly what their wicked

kings were doing who were following and doing exactly what their wicked pagan neighbors were doing and this rot would eventually lead to a revolving door of kings very soon but for the moment the appearances appearances of fruit

and success God must be blessing us under jeroboam ladies and gentlemen let me tell you that appearances can be deceiving and just as our northern kingdom was rotting underneath an otherwise pragmatic appearance of success

you know what the same thing can happen in our churches and in our own lives appearances can be deceiving Jason are you suggesting it's possible for a church to have an appearance of fruitfulness and success big nice buildings and budgets

and programs coming out everywhere and a great reputation in the community is the place to be and that maybe it could be a deceiving appearance hiding moral or theological rot yes and is it

possible for a professing Christian a person that to me I look at them and by all outward appearances they appear to be fruitful and successful they look the right way they sound the right way they have all the outward marks of Christian success and that could be a deceiving appearance

yeah so let's heed the warning of Israel's decline let's learn the lessons from an ancient kingdom that was tumbling tumbling downward and let's you and I

approach the throne of grace made available to us and the crucified resurrected ascended one who now sits on it while we still have breath and let's take full advantage of the redemption that's available to all of us that's there

because sin does tumble us downward and appearances can be deceiving but our God is a God of great patience and incredible faithfulness even for an otherwise faithless

people like we often are would you pray with me let me ask you if you'd stand as the team comes and let's pray heavenly father today we are we're sobered by the things that we read about ancient Israel these ancestors

to the faith that we now have we're sobered lord by the reality that appearances can be deceiving lord we are aware that with the burden of leadership the responsibility of leadership we need to lead rightly and so lord we pray for ourselves right now help us lord everyone

in this place everyone listening to this right now wherever we have influence and we lead we pray father that you would help us to do it well that we would not cause someone else to sin that we would not be a stumbling block father and jesus for the person right now who's feeling like wow man

nobody knows but i'm tumbling down inside i just pray that your throne of grace would shine brightly into their hearts your holy spirit i pray that he would come and he would speak words lord of conviction that he would draw and that every individual

every person listening lord today would know that you welcome every sinner who comes home and so we pray father that you would purify us as a people make us like your son and we will give you the great glory that you deserve for the patient and compassionate

and merciful and faithful god that you are we pray this in jesus name amen