“How Low Can One Go?” – FBC Morning Light (7/5/2024)

Well, a good Friday morning to you. Hope you had a good day yesterday and were able to enjoy the holiday a little bit, get some rest and refreshment, and celebrate our nation's independence and the freedoms that we have enjoyed through the years.

Well, today in our Bible reading, we're in 2 Kings 16 and 2 Chronicles 28, and reading about, in 2

Kings 16, reading about a king by the name of Ahaz, we're told in verse 1 that he was the king over Judah, which tells us a few things, a couple things we can know about the man.

All right. Number one, if he was the king in Judah, then he was in the line of David.

He was the descendant of King David, because only the descendants of King David were allowed to sit on the throne.

So he was a descendant of David, which means that his ancestor

David provided a pretty good template for serving as a king, especially in terms of the king's relationship to God.

All right. So that's one thing we can note about him as the king of Judah. Secondly, we can know that he would claim to have been one of the people of God.

I mean, Israel was chosen by God, it was the chosen nation. The people of Israel would have considered themselves the people of God.

And when there was that civil war and the nation split, and you had

Judah to the south and the rest of the 10 tribes to the north, Judah was the more conservative and more faithful to the

Lord through the years. The kings of Israel were bad from the get -go.

They set up a false form of worship, turned away from the Lord right from the start.

So Ahaz would have considered himself one of the people of God. And the problem is how he ended up serving as a king.

Because what we read is that in verse four, that he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills and under every green tree.

In other words, he wasn't worshipping God as God prescribed to be worshipped.

This was this worship and sacrifice and burning of incense and so forth. This was all that happened at the temple.

And it wasn't his place to do any of it anyway, but he was doing it. Why? How did he learn such practices?

Well, we get some insight in verse two. It says, well, I'm sorry, in verse three, that he walked in the way of the kings of Israel.

Ahaz began his ministry or his reign as king with a choice as to which pattern of royal leadership was he going to follow.

Was he going to follow the pattern established by the kings of Israel, which are consistently evil in the sight of the

Lord? Or is he going to follow the pattern established by his ancestor David, who, as a general description of his reign, did that which was right in the eyes of the

Lord? Which is he going to do? He opted to follow the pattern of the kings of Israel, which means that he chose to follow a corrupt, unscriptural, anti -God pattern of worship, which reflected his view of God, which was deficient.

It reflected his view of the pagan gods, which was distorted, as they were all false gods and no gods, and he looked to them as being something to worship.

And so, you know, he turned his back on all that, turned his back on God, the ways of God, the Word of God.

And here's what I want us to see. When a person does that, even though they claim to be a

Christian, if they turn their back on the clear teaching of God's Word for their own purposes, you know, they want to do something else.

They want to approve something that God disapproves of. When a person comes to that point, there's really no telling how far they'll go.

Now, the reason I say that is what we read in verse 2 and 3.

Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he reigned for 16 years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the sight of the

Lord his God, as his father David had done. Instead, he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. Indeed, as we continue in verse 3, indeed, he made his son pass through the fire according to the abominations of the nations whom the

Lord had cast out from the children of Israel. Do you get that? This man took his child and offered him as a burnt sacrifice, following the pagan abominable practices of the pagan nations around him, in clear violation of the

Word of God. How does a man get to such a place where he thinks it's okay to sacrifice his own kid on a burnt offering?

Well, like I said, when a person who claims to be a Christian turns his back on the

Lord, his back on the ways of God, as distorted views of God, of himself, and of the gods of this world, there's really no telling how far one might go.

Just look around you in this so -called Christian world, the so -called

Christian world, and just look at some of the junk that those who claim to be

Christians are practicing and promoting. How in the world do they get to such a place?

Well, ignore what God has to say, no telling how far you'll go. I don't know that we've seen the end of it yet, but given enough time, we will.

Well, so what does that mean for you and me? What that challenges us to do is, number one, be sure our focus is on the

Lord and his Word. Number two, be sure we're following the right kinds of patterns for life.

To whom are we looking to? Who are our idols? Who are the people that we follow?

Be very careful about that. And then thirdly, let's make much of God's Word, learn it, love it, and live it.

Well, this weekend I hope you'll get to God's house, where God's Word is faithfully and accurately preached and taught, so that you might grow thereby and remain faithful to the

Lord, and never come to such horrible stuff. Father in heaven, we thank you for this sober warning from your

Word, and we pray that from it, we would be encouraged to be faithful to you, faithful to your

Word, and to learn more of it, and to live it faithfully, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, listen, have a good rest of your Friday. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and particularly get together with God's people on the