Because of Him! (Part C)

Amongst individual Christians, somebody sees something that comes from the world, that belongs in the world, not in the faith, but they think it's a good fit in the Lord's work, and they drag it in, and the church starts to imitate the world, and it's no longer spiritual.

It's just rational. Well, Charles Wesley said, watch out for the reasonable devil. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of 2nd Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Book of 2nd Kings chapter 16 as he continues his message because of him. So here you have the Northern Kingdom, which is far more idolatrous than the Southern Kingdom, but they're so compassionate here because that prophet rose up and said, God's going to deal with you for your rage.

And so they treat them very kindly, and they get them back home to their territory and back to their villages. And so this didn't register again with this is that King Ahaz. Verse 16, verse 6, don't you wish? At that time, reason king of Syria captured Elath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Elath. Then the Edomites went to Elath and dwelt there to this day.

So this is in the south by the Red Sea. David had conquered this territory, established trade routes, shipping routes, and it was good for the economy. Well, Ahaz lost it all. The Edomites, the Syrians took it, the Edomites came in and it was theirs now. So Judah is losing territory even before Nebuchadnezzar comes along.

Heavy losses of life and property and all sorts of things because of one fool. Verse 7, So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-beliezer, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel who rise up against me. So now he makes Judah a vassal state of the Assyrian empire. He submits and says, I'll start paying you.

I'll pay you to come help and I'll continue to pay you. And he dismisses the prophecies of Isaiah. Isaiah 7 again, verse 4, Say to the king, Take heed and be quiet. Do not fear or be faint-hearted for those two stubs of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of reason of Syria and the son of Remaliah. So God is saying through the prophet to the king, I'll protect you from these two, not the Assyrians.

I will do this. But he didn't want any of that. Then Isaiah adds, a few verses later, speaking to the king, If you will not believe, surely you will not be established. And he suffered and all of the people suffered with him. All he had to do was side with the prophet and avoid all of this.

But those two kings did come and do much damage, though they did not take again Jerusalem. So we pick it up again in Isaiah 7. I hope you're following me with all of this because Isaiah is giving us the spiritual behind the scenes. Someone was trying to reach this man. He wasn't off on his own.

He had opportunity. The great prophet Isaiah, in chapter 7 again, he says in verse 17, Yahweh will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father's house, days that have not come since the day of Ephraim departed from Judah. So the prophet says fine.

God says this. You won't receive the blessings of the Lord. You won't side with him. You're going to go to Assyria, aren't you? Well, Assyria is going to betray you and you're going to suffer a lot. And so is the kingdom.

And that's what happened. Verse 8, And Ahaz took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of Yahweh and the treasuries of the king's house and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria. He had to pay extra for the gift wrapping. I'm sending it as a present.

Take it out of that box. Anyhow, anyhow. So he's without faith. He's desperate for his life.

He's fully turning to the devil. Again, 2 Chronicles. And Ahaz gathered the articles of the house of God, cut in pieces the articles of the house of God, shut out the doors of the house of Yahweh and made for himself altars in every corner of the land. So he echoes the chronicler, echoes the writer of Kings. Verse 9, So the king of Assyria heeded him and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, carried its people captive to Ker and killed reason. So he kills the Assyrian Tiglath-Pileser, comes and kills the Syrian king because he's paid to do this, but he's still going to forsake Judah and he's going to turn on Judaism and he's going to do great damage himself. And if it was one of these things, you know, don't get the mob to help you.

You're going to be indebted to them and it won't work well for you. And that's a little bit of what's going on here. Verse 10, Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest the design of the altar and its pattern according to all its workmanship. So as a vassal king he summoned up to come see Tiglath-Pileser. And you know, the mountain doesn't come to Moses, Moses goes up to the mountain.

And so he goes there. Proverbs 27-20, Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of a man are never satisfied. He's not satisfied with what God has given Israel. He wants this more, you know, the gaudy altar.

That would have been a good name for this, the gaudy altar. Well, this is something that comes to we Christians, you know, God is meeting our needs, got a pretty good life, and yet we're still not satisfied because we see somebody with something better. And you just have to fight this. It's worth fighting, it's worth resisting. So the devil, he found not only a goofy king, but a silly priest to accommodate and to appease him.

And the significance is huge in the negative column. This picture of him going to the pagans, seeing some religious artifact that he admires so much, he has to renovate God's temple by bringing this one down. He's going to shove the other one out of the way. Anyway, this is a picture of what often happens in Christianity, in Christian ministries, in Christian homes, amongst individual Christians. Somebody sees something that comes from the world that belongs in the world, not in the faith, but they think it's a good fit in the Lord's work, and they drag it in, and the church starts to imitate the world, and it's no longer spiritual.

It's just, you know, rational. Well, Charles Wesley said, watch out for the reasonable devil. The scripture protects us from these things if we abide in it. Colossians 2, beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy. That's all the psychology of the world, how the world goes about it. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. The things that to them is foolish, he uses to beat them. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. I wonder what the Anglican Church does with that, the tradition of men, because you know, they got a whole bunch of traditions, and they're not the only ones. That's not a shot again. Well, maybe it is.

It's not a big shot, but I'm a big shot. Verse 11, then Uriah the priest, this is noodle head number two, Uriah the priest built an altar according to all that the King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. So Uriah the priest made it before King Ahaz came back to Damascus. Oh, we have to hurry up and get this done.

Well, you know, the carriage will turn into a pumpkin. He's rushing to get this done to make the king happy. The priest did not know who he was working for.

He's supposed to be working for y'all. Again, this happens in Christianity. Somebody serving in the church thinks that they're helping the church. No, that may be true on a practical level, but you're supposed to be serving God. He is the one that is the source of your inspiration.

And even though, you know, there are human relationships, we admire people, we want to help them, there's nothing wrong with that. As long as we understand, we serve the king. In Isaiah 2, we read this.

Same time period. And I will take for myself faithful witnesses to record Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of that hard Jewish name there. So Isaiah, God sends Isaiah to make a covenant, and he says, I want you to take these two witnesses. They are faithful witnesses. But is it the same Uriah the priest?

Because if it is, does that mean that he was at one point good, and then became bad, or you know, the chronology all over the place, what is going on? Maybe it's a different guy. Or, maybe God is saying, he's a faithful witness in the eyes of the people.

And that's the one they'll respect. Sort of like, you know, you can't have your spouse testify for you, or your mom. Your mom goes to court and says, he's a good boy.

What are you people doing? Take those chains off him. Maybe it was, and I think that's where I lean a little bit, it's either a different guy, it was before he was corrupted, or what is meant by that, these are faithful witnesses in the sense that the people will trust their witness, and not, you know, be suspect. Well, anyway, this priest Uriah, the flame of the Lord, that's what his name means, the flame of Yahweh.

And he's burnt out when it comes to doing the good. So Uriah the priest made it before the king, before King Ahaz came back to Damascus. Other priests were ready to die with standing kings.

You're not coming in here burning incense, you know, as Uriah and the 80 priests with him. This altar of the Lord, God's people were to adhere to the pattern given. We have no reason to doubt that this altar, that is, of Solomon, is the one being replaced. And even if it isn't, it's the one according to Moses.

Exodus 25. And see to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain. And there, prior to that, that itemizes many of the tools for the tabernacle in the wilderness, the lampstands and all the table, everything. You saw the pattern, I showed it to you in heaven, Moses.

I want you to, that was your prototype, make it on earth. David comes along for Solomon's temple and David says this, because David gave the plans to the temple as well as the funding of it. All this, said David, Yahweh made me understand in writing by his hand upon me all the works of these plans. So the altar, that is, in Jerusalem, is given by God. It's patterned.

It's not supposed to be improved upon. Especially by pagans. This is again the world coming into the church saying we can do better than this. Have you seen those acrylic pulpits? I'm just saying, I mean this is probably not exactly it, but it's just something I've been wanting to say for about 20 years and just never get to say acrylic in the pulpit.

But who would want to see? I mean, the pulpit is a shield. It covers stuff. You know, if something's not zipped up or something, you can't see it. And you're happy about that. So don't go messy with things.

They built a platform for Ezra and for him to stand and speak. Anyhow, I might be pushing a little bit much, but I feel better for getting this out. It's been in there a long time. Acrylic pulpits are anathema. What makes you think people want to see? Anyway, Isaiah 8 again. No, I'm not going to read that.

Where are we? So Uriah the priest made it before he came back, and I read those two verses. And you know, again, the altar in this attempt to reform God and his provisions, that altar spoke of redemption. Nothing in the temple mattered if that altar wasn't properly addressed. If your sacrifice wasn't proper, then you didn't benefit from anything that God had to offer in the holiest of holies.

You're disqualified. So the first thing that you'd noticed about the altar was the smell of meat cooking. And you could get that not being anywhere in eyesight.

You'd be in your tent, and you could smell it cooking. So to come and tamper with this is a heavy crime. So big is the altar that in Hebrews, Paul points to it. He says, but into the second part, the high priests went alone once a year. This is the Holy of Holies on the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

And he says, not without blood. That's the altar. Not the incense altar, the golden altar where the prayers are offered up, but the blood sacrifice to us, it is the cross of Christ. So you imagine somebody say, well, you know, I saw the pagans. They have another symbol. And we're going to start using that instead of the cross.

You see, that's how serious this is. Because to Ahaz, God's plan was in the way of who he wanted to be. And so he had to move it out of the way.

And that's what he's going to do. Cain tried to bring a bloodless sacrifice. And we read in Genesis, he did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

That's a polite way of saying he was really angry. Well, Paul said, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance. You know what the first profession is?

Tailoring. Adam and Eve were naked, and God clothed them. And somebody had to learn how to start stitching stuff. And so it's just an interesting thought because they were covering sin. Sin had to be covered. It had to be put in its place until it could be removed.

The penalty thereof. Verse 12, we're almost done. I don't know how. But if you don't believe in miracles, and I finish, you will tonight. And when the king came back from Damascus, he saw the altar.

The king approached the altar and made offerings on it. Oh, man. I don't have time to pick this apart, but do we need to? He comes back and says, oh, it's glorious, Uriah. It's more than I thought.

I could just hug you. Please, not with my vestments on. And the king approached the altar and made offerings on it. Second Chronicles chapter 28 just gives us so much more detail about this. Anyway, verse 16, so he burned, so he burned his burnt offering and his grain offering, and he poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offering on the altar. Noticed his burnt offering, his grain, his drink.

It's all about him. I don't think that's a mistake. The Holy Spirit doesn't make those kind of mistakes.

When something glares out at you and says, wait a minute, this guy is wrong, and everything is in a personal pronoun, the spotlight is being pushed on him. Samuel said, has the Lord great delight in burnt offerings? And sacrifices? Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than to sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is the iniquity and idolatry. Isaiah will go on to say, these people draw near me with their mouths, but their hearts are far from me. Verse 14, and he also brought the bronze altar, which was before the Lord, from in front of the temple, from between the new altar and the house of Yahweh, and put it on the north side of the new altar. So he moved the altar of Solomon, the bronze altar for the blood sacrifices, and put this one in its place. Now this was center stage at the temple. When you come into a church that preaches the word, you come into the sanctuary, you see the pulpit right away. In other so-called churches, you'll see an altar, because the word is secondary to the emotions, and that's a big disconnect.

Anyhow, some may be on the side, some of it is for acoustics, various reasons why, but coming back to this, I did read verse 14. He also brought the bronze altar, which was before the Lord, from in front of the temple, from between the new altar and the house of Yahweh, and put it on the north side of the new altar. First, Romans chapter 1, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and there it is illustrated right here. You want to see an illustration of what Paul was talking about?

Here it is. He's exchanging the true altar for the fake one. God's plan of salvation was in his way, and it needed to be moved out of the way, and we know people like this. Verse 15, Then King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, Oh, the great new altar burned the morning burnt offerings, and the evening grain offering, and the king's burnt sacrifice, and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all that the people of the land, their grain offering, their drink offerings, and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice, and the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by. So it looks like he's reduced God's bronze altar to a Ouija board.

He'll just go there when he needs some inside information. Isaiah wrote this in the first chapter, likely with Ahaz in mind, or certainly people like him. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear you. Your hands are full of blood, and his hands were. He caused so much death. Verse 16, Thus did Uriah the priest according to all that King Ahaz commanded. That is not a compliment.

It is not a virtue. Verse 17, And King Ahaz cut off the panels of the carts and removed the livers from them, and he took down the sea from the bronze oxen that were under it, and put it on a pavement of stones. Also, verse 18, he removed the Sabbath pavilion which he had built in the temple, and he removed the king's outer entrance from the house of Yahweh on account of the king of Assyria. So he turns the temple ground into a chop shop, and he is just getting rid of everything, remodeling in the image of paganism. Second chronicle says, So Ahaz gathered the articles of the house of God, cut in pieces the articles of the house of God, shut up the doors of the house of Yahweh, and made for himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. So he's stripping the temple from its magnificence, that Solomon's temple. He got rid of the livers and the sea for cleansing, because cleansing was that to him. He rendered it despicable, and then he harvests the brass, pay off Assyrians and to also spread around, you know, because to pay off these kings, you need a lot of money, they had a lot of troops they had to take care of. This was vandalism to the house of God, systematically dismantling Israel's divine heritage. We see that today with people in America. No matter what country they were born in, they would hate the country they were born in, they're just those type of people.

But anyway, they're trying to remove history. Oh, well, he had slaves. Well, who didn't?

Who didn't? You would have them if you could. They'd tell by way you comb your hair. They'd tell these people, you know, are you crazy? Yeah, nobody's applauding slavery, but what are you going to do?

It's done. I mean, there are other things that came out of it. What if you found out the guy that made, you know, painkillers had slaves?

Will you stop taking painkillers? Anyway, verse 19. Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

They are. Verse 20, he's asking a question. I can get that one. And Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, then Hezekiah, his son, reigned in his place. He's not buried in the tombs of the kings. Second Chronicles 28 says this about this commentary on him. For Yahweh brought Judah low because of Ahaz.

This is that Ahaz, because of him. I would not want to be in his place at death. I would not want to die with a testimony like this. Anyway, let's pray. Now Father, thank you for the lessons as always.

Where else can man find such things, such truth? And then to top it off is the glorious salvation that awaits us. The heaven, the heavens, the beauty of your salvation, the glorification that awaits us, that makes all this worth it. We thank you for these things.

We ask you to get us all home safely tonight. In Jesus' name, Amen. Thanks for joining us for today's edition on Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the book of 2 Kings has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. Once more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. Our time is about up, but we hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue on in the book of 2 Kings. We look forward to that time with you, so make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick as he teaches from the Bible right here on Cross Reference Radio.