69. Beginner Bible Course: The Kings of Judah, Pt. 2

EPISDOE 69  The simple Bible overview of…KINGS OF JUDAH, PT 2

...We now returned to the conclusion of Kings of the Hill. South the nation of Judah. We're going to look at eight. Kings more accurately for Kings and for Kings on strings puppet, Kings of Egypt and Babylonia. We'll look at two of Judah's best. Kings in the worst of the worst sandwiched in between first, we start with Hezekiah Hezekiah ruled for 29 years. He comes to power at the time, Israel is being destroyed by a Syria. God viewed Hezekiah as a very good King, partly for his heart. And partly for the actions of his hands has a Chi had a God honoring heart, and that God honoring heart issued in the works of his hands.

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He began to clean house in Judah removing the shrines. The idolatrous worship centers were told. One thing he removed was the bronze serpent Moses made in the book of numbers. Do you remember that over the centuries, it had transformed from a reminder of God's amazing deliverance from this plague to an object of idol worship. So Hezekiah did the only wise thing. He grounded to powder holding fast to his God. He purged the nation of Judah. Meanwhile, having conquered Israel, Syria turns their focus toward Hezekiah's kingdom. Judah at first Hezekiah buys Judah time by paying a Syria tribute of silver and gold.

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Some of which he stripped off the temple. Syria wasn't satisfied. They come back and settle outside the walls of Jerusalem. Sennacherib a serious leader, starts to talk his smack toward Hezekiah and Morrisseau toward Hezekiah's God. Hey, I'll give you 2000 horses. If you can find writers to put on them, he further says in the hearing of all the people of Jerusalem, God sent me to destroy you. Then he adds, look around you. Have you been reading the news? No, God has delivered any nation for my hand. And yours can either. When Hezekiah gets this information, he has a humble conversation with the God of Israel.

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Are you hearing this Lord? You know, he's right with his facts, but are you going to let him say these things about you? Isaiah, the prophet comes and gives Hezekiah God's answer. We'll be studying Isaiah in the next episode, he's going to leave his position and go back home. But before he leaves, he sends another little note to Hezekiah. It contains a bunch of additional Hezekiah in God's smack this time. Hezekiah lays this letter out before the Lord and he prays again. He reminds of the Lord, he's right about us, but are you going to let him talk that way about you? And again, God sends Isaiah with his response.

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Isaiah says, tell snacker, even salted the Holy one of Israel, the God of Israel says Sennacherib. You've just been my pawn. My Erin boy to discipline the nations. After delivering God's response that night, the angel of the Lord visits Sennacherib camp. It's deja VU of the last plague of Egypt. 185,000 troops wake up dead. Sennacherib slouches home in a few days or weeks later worshiping in the house of his God. Two of his sons come in and assassinate him near the end of Hezekiah's life. He becomes sick again. The prophet Isaiah comes to him and says, I'd get your house in order.

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You're going to die. Hezekiah were told in his bed, turns his face to the wall and weeps. Isaiah hasn't even left the palace grounds. When God says, go back and give Hezekiah this message. You're going to be healed and get 15 more years of life. This is one of those times you wish God had answered no to his prayer because what happens in those next 15 years have tragic consequences on the nation of Judah. First of all, shortly thereafter, people from Babylon, a nation that's growing in strength, show up to pay their respects to sick Hezekiah. They schmooze and flatter him. So Hezekiah gives them a tour of Jerusalem.

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His palace in the temple, Isaiah comes to him and says, what's up with those guys who just left? Where are they from? And what were they doing here? They're nice guys. They're from Babylon. And I just showed them around. What did you show them? Isaiah asked, I showed them pretty much everything. Isaiah, the prophet then says that was a bad idea. No, this one day soon, they'll come back to Jerusalem. This time they'll go home with hands full. Everything we have in Jerusalem will be carried off and your kids, they too will be carried off and made Unix in the palace of Babylon. How King has a Kira response to this news is so disappointing.

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Well, at least this won't happen in my lifetime. Ouch. There's one more tragic thing that happens in those 15 years of additional life. He fathers Manasseh. We know this because we're told Manessa became King when he was 12 years old and he ruled 55 years. Manessa is the undisputed worst King of the Southern Hill. Judah when you look at what he did in second Kings and second Chronicles it's as if this teenager sat down and made a bulleted list of all his dad's good accomplishments to honor God in Judah. Then one by one, he checks them off.

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As he reverses those decisions, he reinstalls the sex and religion cults. He rebuilds the pagan altars and puts one in the temple. He has a special image of Asherah carved in places it prominently in the temple. He's in the black magic and say ANSES, any burns his own son in the ovens to the God Moloch, the final verdict. He was an indiscriminate murderer. He filled Jerusalem with the blood of innocent people. He's called the killer King, like the pied Piper. He led the people of Jerusalem and Judah to follow him together. They set new records in evil.

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God is gracious and compassionate, but he cannot, he will not let the guilty go on punished. His only course of action is Judah in Jerusalem. Need to be seriously disciplined. And so in a rerun of Samaria, Jerusalem, and Judah are doomed to be destroyed. God describes what will happen as a woman, dumping scraps off of a plate. Second King says the rest of the acts of Manasseh are written in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Here's one of those places. You just have to go to second Chronicles to read what the rest of those acts are. This is one of my favorite stories and all of scripture.

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Second Chronicles tells us Manessa was hauled off as a hostage to Babel in there in confinement. We're told he humbled himself and deeply repented before God and that God through the King of Babylon and restored him to the throne in Jerusalem. Second Chronicles, chapter 33 tells us for the last five to six years of his life, he did everything he could to set, right for God and his people, all the things that he had set so very wrong in his long reign. As the killer King, I have a sneaking suspicion. One of the strongest things he did was spend those last few years, bouncing his little grandson on his knee.

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His grandson, Josiah we'll get to him in a moment. The third King Manasseh son was Amman. He was 22 when he became King and he ruled for two years, he was evil like his dad Manasseh, and that he totally deserted the God of his ancestors, his servants assassinate him in his own palace. Then we get to our fourth King Ammon son. Josiah. Josiah was only eight when he was made King subtract the two years that AMA and his dad was on the throne. Little Josiah had the opportunity to be on grandpa Manasseh his lab for his first six years. I don't know any other way. This little boy could have a heart for God.

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Like just CYA did Josiah's name means fire of God and fire refines made King when he was only eight, he rules for 31 years. And really he's the last King of the Southern kingdom. Who's not a King on a string, a puppet we're told he had David's heart and he tore down the idols all over Judah. He also had a passion to repair God's house. He set people to work doing that very thing. And during the course of renovation, they found a scroll hidden perhaps behind the wall, the temple workers bring this scroll to King Josiah. When they open it and begin reading it, they realize it is the book of the law of Moses.

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Josiah had never heard of such a book. What was to be their marching orders, their compass, their manifesto in following the God of Israel had been completely lost by this generation. Maybe over time it was lost or maybe during Manasseh, the killer King of Jerusalem. He purposely eradicated it. Maybe the scroll hidden in the temple was hidden from a Manasseh, Josiah. When he hears these words is utterly devastated. He seeks out a local prophetess. Holda asking her for guidance on what was to become of Judah, who hadn't kept the word in this law, hold the reports to Josiah.

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It's not good guides on his way to bring doom judgment on Judah. God says you've deserted me as a nation with idolatry. Judgment is rolling. It's unstoppable, but God sees you Josiah. He sees your heart and he'll delay it until you're dead. Josiah. The fire of God, the refiner gets to work. He assembles the nation of Israel in Jerusalem. There, he reads the entire book of the law out loud to them. He summons pleads with them to follow God's law. He continues by clearing out the temple of any remaining idolatry. He goes through the priests and fires.

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Those who are on authorized, according to the law, he throws the male prostitutes out of God's temple. Yes. You heard that, right? It had come to that. He continues by demolishing that furnace for sacrificing children in the fire to Malek. He smashes the altars Solomon built for his wives outside of Jerusalem. Then he goes to Bethel to Jera Boams altar. Do you remember 300 years earlier, the prophet had approached Jeroboam and said, someday, God will raise up someone named Josiah who will burn the bones of the priests on this very alter.

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Now 300 years later, that person just CYA digs up those bones of the priests and defiles the altar then destroys it. And when Josiah was finished refining Judah, he even goes to the ruins of the nation of Israel and finds idolatrous places and destroys them as well. Back in Jerusalem, Josiah then calls the people to celebrate the Passover we're told in second Kings, the Passover had not been celebrated since the days of the judges. What? This was a bedrock command of God. Keep the Passover every year forever. As a reminder of my saving work in Egypt, here we are perhaps six centuries later and they hadn't kept it once.

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Second Chronicles, chapter 35 tells us about that. Passover. If you're still giving grades over the life of King, Josiah, God said there was no King compared to him either before or after Josiah dies. No Billy honorably and also mercifully for what's about to happen in Jerusalem into the nation of Judah would break this man's heart. Josiah son Jehovah has becomes the new quote King unquote. He only rules three months. And in fact, he doesn't really rule it. All Pharaoh Neco captures him, requires him to pay silver and gold, his tribute, and then carts some off to Egypt.

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In what little time he was hanging around Jerusalem, he was an evil King reverting to the evil of his father's Pharaoh. Neco makes his brother Elia Kim, the next King on a string. He changes his name to Chuhee Kim Gioia Kim. The second King on a string is 25. When he's placed as King by Egypt, he serves for 11 years God's verdict. He's an evil King. He's really a puppet then because of Egypt being routed in the battle of car commish he becomes Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon puppet. During the rest of his reign, God allows rating bands of various nations to nibble away at Judah.

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The third puppet King is Jehovah Ken. He serves for three months as well, and he's declared by God to be evil. During this time, Nebuchadnezzar puts Jerusalem under siege. Jehovah can surrenders in his taken prisoner it's at this time, the word of the prophet to Hezekiah is fulfilled. Everything of value is hauled off to Babylon. Nearly all the people are hauled away as prisoner to rule over the few people of Judah that are left, never can answer puts Matt and I a <inaudible> in his puppet governor and changed his name to Zedekiah. Our fourth King on a string. Zedekiah their puppet rules for 11 years.

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God calls him a carbon copy of the evil King Jehovah. Can, can you believe it? Even after being destroyed as punishment from God, he still holds on to his evil ways. Somewhere near the end of his puppet reign, he revolts against the King of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar comes quickly with an army. He puts Jerusalem under siege for 19 months. Finally, the famine is so extreme set of Kaia, his sons, and some of the army make a break for it in the middle of the night they had in the darkness toward the Jordan, but are caught Zedekiah's sons or put to death before his eyes. And then the Babylonians pluck out his eyes. Can you imagine the last thing you see on this planet are your sons being slain he's then hauled off to, and perhaps as a trophy or an example, then Nebuchadnezzar, his troops returned to Jerusalem.

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What took Solomon years to build the city? The palaces, the temple took the angry Babylonians. Only a few days to destroy the temple was burned. The city was destroyed. The walls were crumbled. All the precious metals left like bronze, gold and silver plating on things like the pillars of the temple were stripped off the people that survived. They took into exile other than just a few farmers to tend the remaining vineyards that hadn't been destroyed as they headed East, there was nothing left of Jerusalem, but a pile of rubble on a Hill. There's one more leader named mentioned in what used to be Judah. His name is Gedaliah.

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He's a puppet governor of Babylon. We're told the few stragglers left back there, murdered him as a trader, along with any Babylonian representatives. And then they escaped of all places to Egypt. We've come full circle ironic. So we get to the end of second Kings. The 10 Northern tribes are no more. The two Southern tribes are now exiled in Babylon. The special land God promised is laid waste. God really didn't have any other choice. He'd done everything he could including sending waves of profits, playground, attendance, to warn these Kings in the people of Judah we've already looked at to Joel and Micah.

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God had saved some extraordinary profits for last Isaiah Stefania Habakkuk, cherry and Zeke. And we'll look at those amazing playground attendants in their sticky note messages in our next word pictures.