THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

The Books Of Kings: The Kings Of Israel And Judah From Solomon To The Babylonian Captivity

III. The Latter Era Of The Divided Kingdom, 2 Kings 2:1-27:41

CC. God's Multigenerational Call That We Trust Him Above Ourselves

(2 Kings 18:13-37)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

The increase in ungodly Marxist ideology is so great today, it can seem too great for us to be able to handle:

(1) We have before noted that Marxist ideology is grossly evil, promoting coveting in violation of Exodus 20:17 so as to have the government seize what the "haves" have to give to the "have nots" in violation of Exodus 20:15 that forbids stealing. However, Marxist ideology permeates much of today's world: where Marx and Engel's "Communist Manifesto" of 1848 called for a heavy graduated income tax, the elimination of the middle-class property owner and the abolition of the family, nationalities, religion and morality, we witness such themes daily in the mainstream media's reports! (learn-usa.com; "Goals, 'Communist Manifesto'")

(2) In evangelical circles, Brannon S. Howse's book, Marxianity, 2018, p. 251 reports, "(T)oday within evangelicalism . . . thousands of churches and pastors are fully immersed in the agenda of . . . communists and cultural Marxists" who "have co-opted countless pastors and once biblically sound evangelical organizations" so that "it can become confusing for people" at the grassroots level in local churches "to know what to think or believe."

Need: So we ask, "What does God want us to do about the increase in godless ideologies that makes it seemingly too confusing for us to know what to think or believe?!"

I. When Judah's king Hezekiah faced the threat of Assyria's advancing, humanly overpowering army, he only made matters worse by trying to deal with the crisis in his own unbiblica effort, 2 Kings 18:13-17a:

A. We know from the Assyrian official's words to Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18:21 that Hezekiah had made an alliance with Egypt to counter the threat of Assyria, a failure in trust in God in violation of Deuteronomy 17:16.

B. Hezekiah then offered to pay Assyria not to invade Jerusalem, so he ended up giving Assyria all the silver in his palace and the temple and the gold from off of the temple doors and doorposts, 2 Kings 18:13-16 ESV.

C. However, Assyria's king was still not satisfied, so he sent his commander with a great army to threaten Hezekiah and Jerusalem to surrender to him without a fight, 2 Kings 18:17a; Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 574.

II. The Assyrians then directly, gravely threatened Hezekiah and Jerusalem, 2 Kings 18:17b-37 ESV:

A. The Assyrian army field commander mocked Hezekiah's words to encourage his people, 2 Kings 18:17b-20.

B. This official also mocked Hezekiah's reliance on Egypt as being a futile effort, 2 Kings 18:21.

C. The Assyrian army field commander, ignorant of Deuteronomy 12:1-8, mocked Hezekiah's trust in Judah's God, asserting that since Hezekiah had destroyed all the high places of worshiping God throughout the nation except at the Jerusalem temple, God was angry at him and would not help him against Assyria, 2 Kings 18:22.

D. The Assyrian army field commander mocked Judah's effort to fight his great army, 2 Kings 18:23-24.

E. The Assyrian official even claimed God had sent his Assyrian army to defeat Judah, 2 Kings 18:25.

F. When Judah's officials on the city wall asked the Assyrian official to speak in Aramaic and not in Hebrew lest his words trouble the Hebrews on the wall, the Assyrian spoke in Hebrew loudly, trying to intimidate the people of Jerusalem into surrendering to him, 2 Kings 18:26-29. The official even blasphemously mocked the ability of Judah's God to deliver her from Assyria, basing his argument on the fact that the gods of all the other nations Assyria had defeated had not been able to deliver their people from Assyria, 2 Kings 18:30-35.

G. This conversation so troubled Hezekiah's officials, they returned to Hezekiah with torn clothes, v. 36-37.

III. However, God had signaled IN this event ITSELF His readiness to help Hezekiah were he to trust in the Lord like He had promised a PREVIOUS GENERATION'S king Ahaz of Judah, 2 Kings 18:17a et al.:

A. The Assyrian army official spoke to Hezekiah's royal officials on the city wall while he stood by the aqueduct "that extended from the spring Gihon" just outside the northeastern section of the city wall "to the field where people washed their clothes" (Ibid.; 2 Kings 18:17a). A "reservoir that held water from the Gihon Spring" existed at the other end of the aqueduct to equip people to wash their clothes in the field there, Ibid., p. 1047.

B. Very significantly, at that same location 33 years before as recorded in Isaiah 7:3-9, God had sent His prophet Isaiah to speak to Judah's king Ahaz. (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to 2 Kings 18:17)

C. Ahaz had gone outside of the city wall to inspect the city's Gihon spring water supply to prepare for an invasion by the coalition of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and of Aramea, Ibid., p. 1046-1047. God had sent Isaiah to tell Ahaz to trust in Him for deliverance, for though the coalition forces were intent on attacking Jerusalem and replacing Ahaz with their own puppet king, their effort would fail, Isaiah 7:3-9.

D. This prophecy had since been fulfilled, with Israel and Aramea falling to Assyria; Ibid., ftn. to Isaiah 7:14-16.

IV. Significantly, the Lord wanted HEZEKIAH to RELY on GOD ABOVE his OWN human efforts:

A. Unlike Ahaz who had gone outside the city wall just to inspect his water supply in view of an anticipated siege by the Israel-Aramea coalition, Hezekiah had taken ACTION to DIVERT the FLOW of the Gihon spring to counter Assyria: he had stopped up the spring from outside the wall to keep Assyria from access to its water and also dug an underground aqueduct tunnel from the spring beneath the hill on which the city sat over to the pool of Siloam in the southwestern part of the city, 2 Chron. 32:1-4; Ibid., B. K. C., O. T., p. 645. This effort was meant not only to keep Assyria from having access to the Gihon spring's water supply, but to equip Jerusalem to withstand an extended siege by sending the spring's water to a pool inside Jerusalem's wall.

B. Yet, the location of the Assyrian army and its official's speech to those on the wall from the Gihon spring aqueduct should have reminded Hezekiah of Isaiah's message to Ahaz from that very spot 33 years before, the message that Hezekiah, like Ahaz in an earlier generation, should trust in the Lord ABOVE handling his water crisis HIMSELF! Whether the matter involved the threat Ahaz faced or the threat Hezekiah faced, both kings in both GENERATIONS needed to TRUST GOD ABOVE THEMSELVES regarding the Gihon spring water supply issue in light of the threat of an invasion!

Lesson: God used the event of Isaiah's address to Ahaz by the aqueduct leading from the Gihon Spring along with the Assyrian official's address to Hezekiah's men at that same location 33 years later to teach both kings in their respective generations to trust God ABOVE relying on their own efforts to handle the threat of enemy invasion.

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ for salvation from sin. (2) May we handle what overwhelming evil we face in OUR era by recalling how God has helped PAST generations as they trust in God ABOVE THEMSELVES.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

The lesson of this message was clearly illustrated for us by an old document that was recently discovered:

The document was formed in the late 1930s by believers in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, and it reads as follows: "We, the members of the local Baptist Church, have come to believe that the Northern Baptist Convention has departed from the faith of our fathers . . . They interfere with the liberty of the local church in calling a pastor. They have substituted the social gospel for the gospel of the grace of God . . . We declare ourselves independent of the Northern Baptist Convention and claim the faith delivered to the saints and will so proclaim it . . . (W)e are a distinct people obeying God rather than man, loving God rather than bricks, mortar, and wood . . ." (emphases ours)

To explain, (a) The "social gospel" these believers opposed was fathered by Walter Rauschenbusch, a Fabian socialist with Marxist ideology who held "people" should "set aside their own individual convictions, and come to group consensus" to "heal the world" by "'social action movements,'" Ibid., Howse, p. 24, 46. (b) The document's reference to "bricks, mortar and wood" alludes to the Northern Baptist Convention's ownership of the buildings of its local churches, so if people in a local church of the convention left the convention, they had to leave their church building! These believers in the Great Depression chose to love and trust God above their building, so they left it!

The document was signed by the pastor of the church, who was my wife's paternal grandfather, and it was also signed by her maternal grandmother, her maternal aunt, her mother, and others. Thus, 80 years ago, believers in the Baptist Church of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, like many other believers in this nation, left their convention-owned church building to acquire other property by faith in a God they trusted would financially provide for them even in the Great Depression as they held to the Biblical faith in opposition to the "social gospel" of Marxist ideology! Today, the church they founded in Wisconsin Rapids, a Bible church, still stands and ministers for the Lord!

However, I once met and spoke with the pastor of this church, and he did NOT know about the MARXIST basis of the "social gospel" he had faced! What he and other fundamentalists in the mainline Protestant denominations of their age DID know was that Galatians 1:8-9 put an "anathema" on anyone who preached a gospel OTHER THAN the gospel of the GRACE of GOD. When they faced a DIFFERENT gospel in the "social gospel," they knew ENOUGH from GOD'S WORD to OPPOSE it RESOLUTELY! By heeding God's Word, my wife's grandfather was led of God to oppose Marxism though he did not know it at the time!

As God met the needs of this body in Wisconsin when they trusted God above their own ability to discern and counter the Marxist ideology they faced, we must trust God to help us handle Marxism as we hold to His Bible truth!

May we trust in Christ for salvation. May we trust God above ourselves, God's multigenerational call!