The End of a Kingdom

All right, good evening. It's good to see you guys. I'm glad you're here. If you guys go ahead and stand with me, we'll pray and we'll get started.

Father, we just thank you for another day and thank you for another opportunity to be in your house this evening, Lord. Let's pray as we come here tonight, Lord, that we would just focus on you, Lord God, and just lift a joyful noise to you, God, and just open our hearts and our minds to the truth of your word. We ask your blessing upon this time in Jesus' name. Amen.

Lord God, I just thank you for that amazing grace, for that amazing unmerited favor, Lord God, that you've given to us. And Lord God, we thank you for all that you do for us, all the ways you take care of us. I just pray that now as Pastor Ryan comes in, Lord, that you would just speak mightily through him, Lord. Give us ears to hear and hearts to receive it. We love you and we

praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. You guys can be seated. Good evening. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of 2 Kings chapter 24. 2 Kings chapter 24. Well, tonight we will finish up the book of 2 Kings. Matter of fact, I've entitled it, The End of a Kingdom. Pretty disheartening end to what's been a pretty fascinating study of the kings of Israel,

the kings of Judah. But again, as we come to this, we come to the very end of the nation of Judah. We've already seen the northern kingdom that was taken into captivity by the Assyrians. Tonight, we'll see the southern kingdom taken into captivity by the Babylonians. So the last time that we were together, we talked about the reign of one of the greatest kings of

Israel had. His name was Josiah. Josiah is a very young man, sparked a revival within the kingdom that was unlike anything that had been seen in the kingdom of Israel before his time and obviously after his time. But as much as we would love to be able to say that this is just like a movie and he sparked this revival and everybody lived happily ever after and life was perfect after that, unfortunately, we are telling a story of human beings and not a story that's a fairy tale.

And so after him, we saw some bad kings come along and there will be no more good kings left in the nation of Judah after him. And just to catch us up, and I had her put these up there, at the end of Josiah's reign, his son Jehoahaz took over for him. This is at the end of chapter 23. We're not in there. We won't go back and look at it, but his son Jehoahaz took over and he only reigned three months

and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, we're told by the commentary in chapter 23. And because he did evil in the sight of the Lord, he ended up being taken prisoner by the king of Israel. And so we're going to talk about that in a little bit. We're told by Pharaoh Necho, at that point in time, who then installed one of Josiah's other sons as king. His name was Eliakim, but Necho changed his name to Jehoiakim. And we're told

in that commentary at the end of chapter 23, that he reigned for 11 years in Judah and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. It is under the reign of Jehoiakim that we now come to chapter 24. In chapter 24, it says this,

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years. And then he turned and rebelled against him. And the Lord sent against him bands of Chaldeans, bands of Arameans, bands of Moabites and of Ammonites. So he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken through his servants, the prophets. Surely at the command of the Lord, it came upon Judah to remove them from his sight

because of the sins of Manasseh. According to all that he had done. And also for the innocent blood which he had shed. For he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood and the Lord would not forgive. And the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Now we're told that in his days, meaning during the reign of Jehoiakim, was the first

invasion of a guy by the name of Nebuchadnezzar. You see, while the Assyrians were the great army that took over the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the northern kingdom, there was a, there was an army that was on the rise. There was a, uh, a nation that was on the rise and it was the Babylonian nation. And it was headed up by this guy named Nebuchadnezzar. And you'll recognize that name because that name is used a lot in one

of the favorite books of the Bible. And that's Daniel. That name is mentioned a lot because in this first invasion that, uh, that Nebuchadnezzar makes is when he takes Daniel and his three friends captive along with some of the other of the, of the noble's sons at that point in time. And this invasion that is sparked by Nebuchadnezzar, uh, um, causes Jehoiakim to go into captivity or to, to become the servant of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians for three years. Essentially, he lives as one who had to give all of his money to, uh, uh, to the Babylonians

for about three years. Now, if you were to start reading some of the other prophets at this point in time, there's two in particular that I would point out to you. Uh, one is the prophet Jeremiah and the other is the prophet Habakkuk. There was lots of others. to prophesy during this time, but I want to point out those two because there's important prophecies

that come about because of Habakkuk and Jeremiah. First of all, Habakkuk asked the Lord a question. He said, Lord, how long until you bring judgment on our nation? Because remember during the reign of, of, uh, Jehoahaz and during the reign of Jehoiakim, there was great evil that was taking place. There was still evil going on in the nation, even though there was great revival taking place in the nation,

there was still, there were still people who were going to be taken away from the kingdom of God. There was still, there were still people who were going to be taken away from the kingdom of God. There were still people who were going to be taken away from the kingdom of God. There were still people who were going to be taken away from the kingdom of God. There were still people who were not buying

into it, so there was evil taking place. And they went right back to their same ways. And so Habakkuk asked the question, how long? When are you going to start dealing with the sin of the nation? And God, God told Habakkuk, he said, listen, I'm going to do something that's going to absolutely freak you out. Matter of fact, I'm not even going to tell you what I'm going to do, because you're not going

to be able to handle it. And Habakkuk goes, come on, tell me what you're going to do. So I'm going to send the Chaldeans against you. And Habakkuk says, whoa, listen, we're bad. They're really bad. Why would you use such a bad nation to bring judgment on us? And essentially, Habakkuk just has to learn to deal with the fact that God's going to use who he's going to use to judge the

nations that he wants to judge. And he's going to use an evil nation to do his work. And reading the book of Habakkuk is kind of an interesting one if you want to understand God's ways a little bit better. So that's the first thing that you'll read. So during this time of Nebuchadnezzar coming on the scene and rising up, you'll find that Habakkuk is prophesying,

and he's getting this message from the Lord. But at the same time, Jeremiah is prophesying. And Jeremiah, of course, is known as the weeping prophet, because he was told from the very beginning, you're not going to have any converts. No one's really going to listen to you, but you need to go anyway, and you need to tell this story. You need to preach the truth, because even though

no one's going to listen to what you have to say, I need to be able to say that I gave them every chance possible to repent before I bring judgment, even though judgment is on its way. And so that was the job of Jeremiah, was to deliver the message. And so that was the job of Jeremiah, to deliver an unpopular message in a very progressive time in his nation. And he suffered the persecution that went along with it. Well, part of the message that he was supposed to declare

to the people is, listen, Babylon's coming. Judgment is coming. The best thing that you can do is submit to God's judgment, because there's no stopping it now. You can fight against it and make it that much harder on yourself, or you can submit to God's disciplining hand in your life and see his blessing. That was essentially Jeremiah's message. Jeremiah's message for the last half of the book to the people. And so those two things are very

important for us to pay attention to as we come into this, because what we're going to find is that they continue to fight against God's hand on them. And because they fight against it, it actually makes it much harder on them. And this is the first time that we see this. Jehoiakim finds himself the vassal state now of Nebuchadnezzar, where he has to pay tribute to him. He essentially has to bribe

him to keep Nebuchadnezzar from absolutely destroying the nation. But after three years, he rebels against him. And because of his rebellion against him, he's not going to be able to fight against him. We're told something very interesting. Look at verse two again.

Now, I find this interesting, because as he's rebelling against God's disciplining hand, God says, listen, if you don't listen the first time, it's going to be harder the second time. And we're going to find it's even going to be harder the third time. As a matter of fact, it's going to be even harder the fourth time, because that's how many times God is going to have to send judgment against the nation of Israel in this particular instance, or the nation of Judah, as it were, in this particular instance. And so God sends all of these raiding bands against them, because they're in a weakened state at this point in time, not only because of sin, but politically and militarily, they're in a weakened state at this point in time.

And so he sends all of these raiding bands against them, because he had to bring judgment, because of everything that Manasseh had done, not the least of which was the shedding of innocent blood throughout Jerusalem. The shedding of innocent blood that came about not only because of him killing the prophets, not only because of him killing the priests, but listen, him allowing the sacrifice of children to take place. Within the land of Israel. I think that we can all understand that if God doesn't eventually deal with America, for the fact that we have allowed the sacrifice of children to take place over however many years it's been now, that quite frankly, he owes a lot of other nations an

apology. Kind of like the fact that if God doesn't judge America, according to Billy Graham, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology. Because that's the state that we're in right now. Is that we have allowed this to take place, which is why anybody that speaks out against it becomes a radical. Which is why anybody that speaks out against it becomes an enemy of the

state. Becomes an enemy of the people. Because after all, you're standing against the social norm of the day. You're standing against the progressive nature of the day. And everyone who's ever stood against the progressive nature of the current culture around them has ended up becoming an enemy of everyone who loves to live in the progressive nature. Because they love to

live in their sin without actually dealing with it. And that's why he's standing against the with the consequences of their sin and this is what this is what's going on in the nation of Israel right now and so he says God had to bring that judgment well okay so we come to the end of Jehoiakim's life we come to verse 6 and it says so Jehoiakim slept with his father's and Jehoiachin his son became king in his place the king of Egypt did not come out of his land again for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates and Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he became king and he reigned three months in Jerusalem and his mother's name was

Nahushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem and he did evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father had done now this guy he's called like three different names in the Bible and this one he's called Jehoiachin now if you were to read in Jeremiah and I think in 2nd Chronicles he's referred to as two other different names Jeconiah or Coniah matter of fact if you were to look at Jeremiah chapter 22 you would find that that's how he's referred to and so so it's kind of an interesting guy because he did evil in the sight of the Lord so much evil that he only reigned for three months and yet if you were to look at Jeremiah chapter 22 verse 30 put that back up there if

you want you might write this in the margin of your Bible Jeremiah 22 30 because in Jeremiah chapter 22 verse 30 Jeremiah makes a prophecy against Jeconiah and he says no one of your descendants will ever sit on the throne again now that creates a little bit of an issue because if you remember Jeconiah is in the line of David and who's the Messiah supposed to come through the line of David and there's a whole study on how God solves that problem through the line of Mary anyway it's the whole other study in and of itself but but God has to God is so angry with Jeconiah he did so much evil in three months that he said no more we're done with you you will not have any more evil in the sight of the Lord

you will never have any next born of you you will have to do anything that he After Jeconiah went through out the tide androck and there were two things that was Unterschied in time then prophet Jeremiah chapter 22 chapter 2 verse 33 the last two things that were said about him it says so many times that the whole history beginning with the life through Ï3d 8e 8e Babylon took him captive in the eighth year of his reign and he carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house and he cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord just as the Lord had said then he led away into exile all Jerusalem and all the captives all the captains

and all the mighty men of valor 10,000 captives and all the craftsmen and the smiths none remained except the poorest people of the land so he led Jehoiachin away into exile to Babylon also the king's mother and the king's wives and his officials and the leading men of the land he led away into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon and all the men of valor 7,000 the craftsmen and the smiths 1,000 all strong and fit for war these the king of Babylon brought into exile to Babylon now it's kind of interesting to take note of how they besieged at that point in time if you don't know very much about it they would literally surround the city and they would cut off any sort of food

or any sort of supplies that could come into the city it was a way to weaken the people so that ultimately they would want to get up give up no one could come into the city but at any point in time that you wanted to if at any point in time that you wanted to surrender you could go out of the city and you could surrender and here you have this fearless man of God who goes out and says I give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just

give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give up you just give

to read what he has to say about him. But he goes out, and he surrenders, and everyone is taken captive, all of the mighty men. Anyone who's anyone in the nation is taken captive, and he starts taking away all of the gold implements that Solomon had built. Again, if you were to go back into 1 Kings, and you were to read all of the wealth that Solomon had amassed, all of the great things that he had amassed, it's now being taken apart piece by piece because of the sin that was in the land. Well, next we come to this guy by the name of Zedekiah. It says in verse 17,

then the king of Babylon made his uncle, meaning Jeconiah's uncle, Mataniah, king in his place, and he changed his name to Zedekiah. Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutel, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libna, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim. had done. For through the anger of the Lord, this came about in Jerusalem and in Judah until he

cast them from his presence, and Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. So Zedekiah comes to power and rules for 11 years, but I find the commentary on him interesting, that he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done, and that he was actually put into power for the express purpose of God bringing judgment upon the nation. of Israel. Let me read verse 20 to you again. For through the anger of the Lord, this came about,

meaning this guy being in power. For the anger of the Lord, this came about in Jerusalem and in Judah until he cast them from his presence, and Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. I think one of the things that we have to understand about leadership, one of the things that you have to understand about those that God puts into power, is that all authority comes from God, and all power comes from God. Sometimes he puts people in power to bless a nation. Sometimes he puts people in power to judge a nation.

And you'll only know which one that person is until you see the fruits of their labor, until you see the fruits of the things that they do. You see, this guy Zedekiah was very patriotic in nature, but he wasn't surrendered to the Lord. He wasn't surrendered to what God wanted. You know how I know that? Because if we were to jump into the book of Jeremiah, you would find that Jeremiah,

was advising him, dude, don't rebel against Babylon. The worst thing in the world you can do right now is rebel against Babylon. The best thing you can do is submit to what God has done through the nation of Babylon. That's what it says over and over and over again in the last half of the book of Jeremiah. But he won't listen, because he's not surrendered to the Lord.

He loves his country, but he's not surrendered to Jesus. He's not surrendered to the truth of God's word. And so because of that, he rebels against Babylon. And now for the third time, we see an invasion. Look at chapter 25, verse 1.

And then the city was broken into. And notice what happens with the men of war. The men of war fled by night, by the way of the gate between the two walls beside the king's garden. Though the Chaldeans were all around the city, and they went out by the way of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho,

and all his army was scattered from him. And then they captured him, and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and he passed sentence on him. And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah, Zedekiah before his eyes. And then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with bronze fetters, and brought him to Babylon. Boy, this paints a pretty unfortunate picture for what

happens when you don't submit to the Lord. Can we all agree with that? Zedekiah rebels against the king of Babylon, and thinks he's going to do something against one of the greatest armies that the world has seen at that point in time, and up to that point in time. And so he rebels against, and Nebuchadnezzar once again besieges the city. You have to think the people of the

city are like, are we really doing this again? Are we really back in this place again? And so all of the army escapes, and I find this interesting because one of the people that escapes along with the army is the king himself. Listen, sometimes God gives you leaders to bless you, and sometimes God gives you leaders to judge you. You can know that they're a leader that's given to judge when

you find that they won't stand in the heat of the battle. That's a really good way to know what kind of a leader they are. And this is what Zedekiah does. He runs away, and he tries to escape. Listen, even though the Chaldean army was surrounding them. Did anybody take note of that in the scripture? They all try to escape, even though the Chaldean army was surrounding them. Remember, all of the best warriors had

been taken the last go-round. We only have the B team left, right? I mean, we just have to be honest about that. All of the B teams in there, maybe even the C team, nobody's winning this battle. And so they run away, and Zedekiah is captured. And one of the most horrific things I can ever imagine happens to him. They stand him in front of his sons, and they kill his sons right in front of them. And then as soon as they're done with

that, they pluck out his eyes so that the last image he has in his brain is the destruction of his sons. Friends, if you don't think sin is serious, then you're not paying attention. Friends, if we don't think that sin is an ugly, disgusting thing that ultimately, brings destruction, then you're just plain not paying attention to what the Bible has to say. And he's led to Babylon, blinded and broken over the things that have taken place.

And so now we find in verse 8, it says this, Now on the seventh day of the fifth month, which was the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, the captain of the guard, a servant of the king, the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. And he burned the house of the Lord, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire. And so all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem and the rest of the people who were left in the city. And the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon and the rest of the people, Nebuchadnezzar, the captain of the

guard, carried away into exile. But the captain of the guard left some of the people who were left in the city, the poorest of the land, to be vinedressers and plowmen. Up to this point in time, Jeremiah had even been left behind. He had been left behind with all of the poorest of the people. But in this siege and in this captivity, even Jeremiah, I think Ezekiel was taken captive in the second go-round.

Even Jeremiah was taken captive this particular go-round as a member of the prophetic realm at that point in time. It's interesting in verse 8, that this is the first time in the all of the messages of the kings, all of the books of the kings, that you find that time is not labeled according to how long a king had reigned, but time is labeled based on how long the invading king had reigned. It's kind of interesting because Nebuchadnezzar, as evil as he was, was God's man at that point in time that he was using to bring judgment. And so everything is based on him at this point. And so they're taken captive.

And then in verse 12, it says, but the captors, excuse me, verse 13, it says, the bronze pillars which were in the house of the Lord and the stands and the bronze sea which were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces and they carried the bronze to Babylon. And they took away the pots and the shovels, the snuffers, the spoons, and all the bronze vessels which were used in temple service. The captain of the guard also took away the fire pans and the basins that was fine gold and what was fine silver. And the two pillars of one sea and the stands which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weight.

The height of one pillar was 18 cubits and a bronze capital was on it. And the height of the capital was three cubits with a network of pomegranates on the capital all around of bronze. The second pillar was like these with a network. Then the captain of the guard took Sariah, the chief priest, and Zephaniah, the second priest, with the three officers of the temple. And from

the city he took one official who was overseer of the men of war and five of the king's advisors who were found in the army. He mustered the people of the land, 60 men of the people who were found in the city. The captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. And then the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was led away

into exile from its land. Now this is something I thought about today. Daniel and all of his friends went in the very first group, the very beginning of chapter 24, they went in that very first group into the land. They went into Babylon. And if you remember from the book of Daniel, those four young men were put into positions of leadership because of their leadership skills that they showed. As very young

men they were put into leadership. And I always wonder, I've never thought about it from this perspective before, but this is what I thought about today. I don't have an answer for you on this. It's just something that I thought about. I'm just letting you into the brain of Ryan for a minute. I wonder what it was like for Daniel to watch these waves of exiles come in. Because you

know, Daniel went with a wave of exiles that were the best and the brightest. Like Daniel was at the top of his class at Harvard, right? I mean, he was the best and the brightest at that point in time. And probably somehow of royal lineage. And all of his friends that were with him were the exact same way. And so it was a group of men that were very gifted and everything. But every wave

that he saw, not only was it like, man, that's a different group of people than I've seen before, but they were probably more battle tested than they'd seen before. Remember, it was a siege that led them to the place of being taken captive. Meaning that by the time that they came along, they were somewhat wasting away from hunger because that's what led to them ultimately surrendering themselves. And I wonder how much it broke the heart of Daniel as he's in this position of leadership in the Babylonian government to see his fellow countrymen coming into the land of Babylon and seeing what sin had done in their lives. And seeing the fact that their failure to

submit to God had made their lives so much harder. I often wonder, is that part of what made Daniel as strong as he was in his faith? Is that he saw the consequences of sin around him and he said, I will not let that affect me. I'm going to continue to live for God even in this land because I know what sin will do in my life. I'm going to take heed to the warning that I see around me. Again, I have

no answer for you on that. But it's certainly something I thought about today as I was studying this. And so we see this last wave of exiles come to the land. And now I want you to think about what the land of Israel is like at this point in time, okay? But I want you to go all the way back in time. I know some of you are not imaginative and that's okay. Go back in your mind to when Solomon

dedicated the temple, right? Like the temple was beautiful. Apparently when the sun shone on it, it was like a light of its own because of all the gold in the temple and all the gold around the temple. You think about that giant brass sea that was there where they would wash before they would go into the temple. All of these amazing things. And you think about what

that temple would have looked like. And then you fast forward to this point in time. When now not only is the temple on fire, meaning all of that cedar wood that was brought in from Lebanon, all of the beautiful carvings that were all over the temple are now just nothing but charcoal. They're just charred and black because it had all been burned up. And now everything that

had been a part of that temple, they'd taken a sawzall to and just cut in pieces so that they could haul it off in pieces that were small enough to be carried. And you're watching as there's, you know, smoke still kind of billowing from the temple, smoke billowing from the temple, from every beautiful home that is throughout Jerusalem. And you're watching all this take place. And then you're watching all the implements of the temple that were used for worship being carried out and thinking to yourself, how did we end up here? How did we end up here?

Can I tell you, I've never watched this happen with a home, but I've watched this happen with lives. Where people find that the life that they built has now been destroyed because of the fire. And I think that's what's going to happen. And I think that's what's going to happen And I think that's what's going to happen. And I think that's what's going to happen. And they find

themselves asking the question, what happened here? One of the things that we talked about at that leadership conference that I, or that training camp that I went to last week is they talk about the minister's self-protection, right? Like keeping a watch over your own heart. That you have to pay attention to yourself and your life or else sin will end up invading. And of course,

everybody can get up and they can talk about it. And I think that's what's going to happen. And I think that's what's going to happen. And I think that's what's going to happen. And I think that's what's going to happen. And I think that's what's going to happen. And I think that's what's going to happen. They tell a story and they, they do such a fantastic job of putting a picture up. And this is the first

training camp that I went to. And, and there's, there's, you know, this many people there and, and I want you to know, and they can name them off by name. These 10 people, they're not walking with the Lord anymore because they found that their house got burned down and the implements of the temple got carried away. All because they found themselves sitting back at one point in time saying, how did we end up here?

And the way that it happens is when you don't submit to God in the small areas, they turn into the big areas. When revival is only something that you talk about and not something that radically changes your life, then you can find yourself saying this. This is how we ended up here. Well, so now the land is just completely decimated. There's just a handful of the poorest of the people of the land left.

And notice verse 22. We now read about a governor over the land named Gedaliah. Gedaliah? Anyway. Now as for the people who were left in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, verse 22 of chapter 25, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had left, he appointed Gedaliah, the son of Ahicham, the son of Shaphan, over them. When all the captains of the forces, they and their men,

heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah governor, they came to him at Mizpah, namely Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan, the son of Korea, and Sariah, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of that guy, and that guy, and Jehozaniah, the son of, some of these names are hard, I'm sorry, they and their men. Gedaliah swore to them and their men and said to them, do not be afraid of the servants of the Chaldeans. Live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well with you. Finally, a guy that gets it.

Again, if you read the book of Jeremiah, you'll find how much Jeremiah loved this guy. They were friends. He and Jeremiah were buddies. And he knew how to, how to rule properly. And the way to rule properly is to listen to what God's servants are saying and to pay attention to what God's word is saying. And he says, listen, if we'll just do what God says, listen, for this one time,

if we will just get our business together and do what God says, then I promise you it's going to be okay. Jeremiah's like, finally, I've got a guy on my side. And he tries as hard as he can to get the people to understand. This all happened because you wouldn't listen to God. This go around, let's listen to God. But the people weren't willing to listen to God.

Notice what it says in verse 25. But it came about in the seventh month that Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishamah, of the royal family, came with ten men and struck down Gedaliah so that he died along with the Jews and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah. And then all the people, both small and great, and the captains of the forces, arose and they went to Egypt for they were afraid of the Chaldeans. And my friends, this is where the history of the nation of Judah ends.

With one more plot of death. With one more governor who urged the people to just simply listen to the Lord being put to death. It's a tragic end, isn't it? Don't you wish the Bible was always happy? Don't you wish the Bible only told really fun stories of victory and good things? Unfortunately, one of the ways that we know that the Bible is true is that it not only tells us the really good parts

of the history of the nation of Israel, it not only tells us the good parts of the men and women that God uses, but it tells us all of the really ugly parts too. It tells us all of the parts that are really hard to pay attention to and all of the parts that are really hard to read so that we know this is real history of real people. Because no matter how great a nation is, no matter how great a leader is, there will always be one problem. And that one problem is sin.

And if sin isn't dealt with, it will ultimately destroy. And I gotta tell you, if I was the writer of 2 Kings, I would be like, man, this is a really hard way to end the book. Because he knew it was a really hard way to end the book, he gave us one glimmer of hope to end the book of 2 Kings. Look at verse 27. Now it came about in the 37th year of the exile of Jehoiachin, king of Judah,

in the 12th month, on the 27th day of the month, that evil Merodach, king of Babylon, in the year that he became king, released Jehoiachin, king of Judah, from prison. And he spoke kindly to him, and he set his throne above the throne of the kings, who were with him in Babylon. And Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes and had his meals in the king's presence regularly all the days of his life. And for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion for each day, all the days of the king's life.

We end with a little bit of a happy note. Now I want you to think about something. Here this guy Jehoiachin, remember we said he was so evil that in three months, God said, none of your kids get to sit on the throne. Like that's how bad of a king you are. And he finds himself in exile in Babylon, sitting in prison in Babylon, 27 years. And one day there's a new king.

And the new king comes down to visit him in prison. And he says, you know what? I'm going to show you a little bit of mercy. Now I read a couple of commentaries on this to find out why. This is what I want to know. What on earth, why on earth was he like, well, I'm just going to let this guy go. I'm going to, no, I'm going to let him go. I'm going to let him eat at my table every single day.

And I'm going to give him an allowance, just like he's my 10-year-old son, right? That's what I, this is my brain. I picture him showing up to the king of Babylon every day and the king of Babylon pulls his wallet out. And he's like, all right, son, there's $5 for you. Squeezes his cheek and sends him on his way so that he can go get a new Hot Wheel. So that's how my brain works with these things, okay?

I don't know what his allowance was. It probably wasn't that, but that's how I pictured that situation going down. Why did he do this? Well, there's a couple of explanations that I've seen. One is that this evil Merodach has spent time in prison himself. And so he had a little bit of mercy on the king. That's one potential option. Another option that I saw is that perhaps Jehoiachin,

kind of like Manasseh, came to a place where he repented. And so God said, because you've repented, I'm going to show you a little bit of mercy and grace. The only problem with that is we don't read about that in Scripture. And we really don't even read about that in any extra biblical history that I'm aware of. And so if those two things aren't the case, why at this point in time

does this king show some sort of mercy and grace to Jehoiachin? I think there's only one reason. God was giving them a picture of the fact that God was not done with the nation of Israel. He was simply showing grace. Because what is grace? It is undeserved favor. I actually just think this is a beautiful picture of God's grace in the Old Testament. It's a guy who doesn't deserve any grace being given to him.

But after all, if you deserved it, it wouldn't be grace. Because that's unmerited favor. I just think this is God's way of saying, I'm not done with them yet. I'm not done with them yet. I am going to continue to show some grace and some mercy. I have to show judgment right now because judgment has to be meted out. It's interesting to look at the different prophetic accounts

and find out why God judged the nation of Israel. Partly it was because of their idolatry. Partly it was because of their immorality. Partly it was because of the bloodshed that had taken place with the sacrifice of children and things along those lines. Partly it was because of just blatant disobedience. Partly it was because of the bloodshed that had taken place

According to Jeremiah and I think even 2 Chronicles, we learned it was because they never gave the land the rest that it deserved. They were supposed to give the land a rest every 70 years and they didn't do it, which is why they were in captivity in Babylon for 70 years because they'd been in there for 490 years and never gave the land its rest. And so they had 70 years worth of it to catch up on. There's a lot of reasons why God brought judgment.

But it's always amazing that in the midst of judgment, and you'll find this every time, in the middle of all of the judgment that God brings, there's always a red thread of grace. There's always a red thread of mercy that flows through it because though God is righteous and just, He is also merciful in the way that He handles things. And so this guy Jehoiachin, who doesn't deserve it, he gets brought out of prison. Can you imagine the day he comes and gets him?

Opens up the prison door and he goes, Jehoiachin, come here. And he's like, this is it. This is the day I've been waiting for. This is the day they're going to put me to death. I just know it. My days are done. Boys, it was good knowing you, but I'm pretty sure my head will be dismembered from my body. And he walks out and they said, come with us. And he walks down the hall and he gets down the hall

and they lead him into some sort of a room. And they're like, there's a shower and there's a place where you can shave and here's a brand new set of clothes for you. Get cleaned up. You're going to see the king. Why on earth would he have me clean up? To kill me? I don't know. Gets cleaned up, goes to see the king. The king says, you're going to hang out with me from now on.

See that seat down there? That's yours every single day. And I got a big $5 bill waiting in my wallet for you every single day too. New Hot Wheels for you every day. Well, why are you doing this to me? I don't know. It just felt like the right thing to do. You stick with me. What a great way to end. What would otherwise be a tragic, couple of chapters. Amen.

So there's three things I want us to take away. Not only from 2 Kings, but from these chapters that we've looked at tonight. Three things that I think are important for us to pay attention to. Number one, sin brings destruction. Sin brings destruction. I found this quote fascinating from David Guzik's commentary. He said, this was the land that God gave to his people,

the tribes of Israel. They had possessed this land for 860 years. They took it by force. They took the land by faith and obedience, but they lost it through idolatry and sin. They took the land by faith and obedience. It was theirs, but they lost it through idolatry and sin. Because sin brings destruction. I had somebody ask me this week about a particular sin,

and they said, wow, that's really disgusting. I said, here's what you have to know about sin. Sin is disgusting. We can dress it up as much as we want, we can make it look as good as we want to, we can put as many excuses on it as we want to, we can call it a different word if we want to, but at the end of the day, sin is disgusting because sin brings destruction.

We like to think that there's some simple sins out there that, you know, they're just sort of benign, that, yeah, they're a problem, but they're benign. They're not eventually going to take my life. They're not eventually going to destroy me, but the fact of the matter is, spirit fingers to show it's true, sin brings destruction, which is why we can't play with it in our lives. Which is why we can't entertain it in our lives.

Which is why when God brings that conviction, we have to get rid of it because ultimately it will lean us down a path of destruction. I mean, after all, we're told the wages of sin is death. It's kind of the ultimate destruction. Can we all agree with that? Sin brings destruction. Number two, you have to humble yourself. You have to humble yourself. I always wonder, at some point in time,

if any of these kings would have said, okay, I'll just humble myself before the Lord if God would have healed them. And you know what the answer to that is? Yes. You know how I know that? Because of a guy named Manasseh. Over and over again throughout Scripture, any time someone comes to a place where they humble themselves before the Lord, God always brings healing.

Now, sometimes humbling yourself before the Lord means allowing him to put you on the shelf so that you can deal with your business and then you can get back to doing what God has called for you to do. Sometimes humbling yourself is admitting what your sin is to the person that you have offended with that sin. Sometimes humbling yourself before the Lord is admitting to yourself what that sin is. Sometimes humbling yourself before the Lord means you just simply sit before him and weep over the fact that you have allowed that to come between you and him.

But at the end of the day, the greatest thing that we can do is we can humble ourselves before the Lord and admit that I am a great sinner. But thank God that he's a great sinner. But thank God that he's a great Savior. One of the greatest issues that we have in the political realm right now is that people won't do this. Because they won't do this, God can't lift them up.

We have to humble ourselves before the Lord. But then number three, we'll end on a happy note here. Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning. I always love that verse. Weeping may last for the night, but joy always comes in the morning. Listen, it's hard to come to a place in our life where we go, you know what, sin is destructive and this is what's going on in my life.

It's always a hard place for us to come to when we have to admit to someone else or to ourselves that we have sinned in the way that we have sinned. And it causes us to weep. And it causes us to be broken. And I don't know about you, but I've had some sleepless nights because of sin in my life. I've had some nights that I do not ever want to relive because of sin.

But I'm here to tell you right now, there's nothing quite like the sun coming up in the morning. There's nothing quite like knowing that his mercies are new with every morning. Because weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning. But that joy won't come until you humble yourself before the Lord. It's what we see here. God's always faithful to his word

and he's always faithful to do in our lives. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we come before you and I just thank you so much for your word. Lord, it's hard to read sections like this, because, man, they're just a bummer. Just wish we could change the ending and say, and then they all lived happily ever after. But Lord, we know that that won't happen until you take us home.

Until you come back and you rule and reign as a righteous God. In the meantime, Lord, may we take sin seriously. May we take humility as our personal responsibility. And may we begin to experience the joy that comes after the weeping. Lord, may we experience the joy that comes with repentance. The joy that comes with transparency. The joy that comes with knowing

that our sins have been forgiven because they've all been laid on Jesus at the cross and they're no longer mine to carry. And so, Lord, do your work in our hearts and lives and may we become the men and women of God that you've created for us to be. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.