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Message
2 Kings 25:1-30
“In The End There Is Hope”
For some months now we have been making our way through the book of Kings and we have learnt so much.
Today we get to the end of the book.
So much happen is happening at the end of the book that it will help to have a bit of a chart with some dates and times.
Key dates and verses
Jehoiachin becomes king late 598BC – early 597BC. (2 Kings 24:8-17)
Jehoiachin is taken into exile to Babylon (read 2 Kings 24:15-17)
Mattaniah becomes Zedekiah … he rebels against Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar starts his campaign (read 2 Kings 25:1-3)
This is January 589BC.
The King knows all is lost so he makes a run for it … he isn’t very successful.
(read 2 Kings 4-7)
The people hold out against the siege for almost 2½ years. But the city falls (Read 2 Kings 25:8)
This is August 587BC.
Why mention the dates?
It makes it real.
EG … when did you get married?
Sometime … that doesn’t really have an impact.
20th January 1990 … has a much greater impact.
So young.
It was summer.
You have nearly been married 24 years!!
These dates are reminder of specific history, specific events, and they raise up specific emotions.
Let’s read about some of those emotions.
2 Kings 25:8-12
YHWH is dismantling all of his promises
Temple (priesthood) … took 7 years to build – gone. But the bigger issue is that the place of reconciliation is no longer present. Physically there is no way to seek reconciliation with God.
Palace (kingship) … took 14 years to build – gone. But the bigger issue is the promised kingship. Who will lead? Where will the true Davidic king come from?
All important buildings … records, library, government – gone. Protective Wall – gone. Everyone except the poorest people – gone.
They no longer have a land or a city or anywhere to go.
The people have chosen
read Deuteronomy 30:15-18
God gave them everything, they only have themselves to blame.
It could have been so different.
The road could have been one full of blessing and hope.
Choices!
Talk freely about the fact that God honours our choices.
God’s sovereignty does not mean we are on this rigid path.
God knows the future … He knows a 1000 futures … but we are given choice.
Expand
Consequences!
The choices we make do have consequences.
Some are short-term and some are long-term.
They can bring grief.
Read 2 Kings 25:13-17
It is just being devastated
– expand on the grief as the heart of the city, the heart of their relationship with God is dismantled.
There is this emotional impression that is being left, like a cyclone that has devastated everything.
Expand – and talk about the cyclone as a physical destruction.
The consequences of our choices can feel like that
A cyclone in our lives.
The grief that is left.
The sense of hopelessness.
Can we move forward?
What happens when everything just falls apart in our lives?
What if the consequences are so great that we just loss hope?
That is where the very last date and event in Kings comes to the foreground.
2 Kings 25:27-30
This is the 12th of March 560BC
The book does not end in hopelessness. It ends with hope. In fact the whole book of Kings has been a continual reminder of hope.
Hope
God’s continued forgiveness
Right through Kings we kept reading about the sin of the kings and the sin of the nations.
And God did bring about punishment whether the one involved was a King, a Prophet or an ordinary citizen. But even when He was punishing the people God was still constantly finding ways to be gracious.
One example of this was Hezekiah. God had told Hezekiah that he was going to die because he had acted in an ungodly way. Hezekiah repented and God added 15 years to his life. Another example is Ahab. Despite all the evil of Ahab God in the end delayed the punishment until the next generation of people had come.
God was always being gracious. But God was also helping the people move forward by continuing to raise up faithful kings. The evil rule of Ahab was soon followed by the rule of Jehu – and a dynasty that lasted 100 years. Manasseh, who lead Judah to do “more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites” is soon followed by Josiah who reverses every sin of Manasseh. God is in the business of bringing about restoration and hope. And now, at the end of the book, we find a small message of forgiveness and hope still being available.
God preserves His spiritual relationship with the people
The fact that the people were in Babylon was a real problem. The people were meant to be living in the land formerly inhabited by the “Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites” (Gen 15:19-21).
Being in this land was a reminder of God’s favour.
Being taken from the land meant God was angry with the people.
In many ways the land is a reflection of the spiritual state of the people of Israel.
Being in Babylon was a reminder of the sin of the people – they had no land.
But, even without the land, they were still God’s people.
As a result of two deportations the Judahites in Babylon count in their number, the royal family and nobles and officials from the palace, officers, 7000 fighting men, 1000 craftsmen and artisans and the rest of the populace of Jerusalem except the poorest. That is a lot of people. They were still very much a nation.
And because they were still God’s people they could trust that God would bring them back to the land. He had done it once before … when they came from Egypt to Canaan … He could do it again.
And because of the way history had unfolded the temple may be in ruins, burnt to the ground, but all the items used in the temple for service to God, are also in Babylon. Everything that God needs to rebuild the nation has been preserved. The spiritual relationship is still very much alive.
God preserves the kingly line
If Israel was to have any hope in the future of a real king who would save, then the kingly line of David needed to be preserved.
Evil-Merodach comes to Jehoiachin and speaks kindly to him.
Jehoiachin begins to dines regularly with world’s greatest king in the seat above other seats thus giving him dignity and honour.
It is an activity which was happening at the time when the book of kings was being written.
It isn’t much, but it is something. There is some hope that God is continuing to persevere with His chosen king even though this king seems to have no power.
Forgiveness, a spiritual relationship, and a king.
These truths of the passage that we have explored today are the same truths which give us all that we need to move forward in hope. Even when we find ourselves in the middle of the cyclone which is the consequences of our choices and actions which have not been in line with God.
You see, just like it was for the Israelites, we have a king.
He is in the line of King David (see Matthew 1:11ff)
But unlike all the kings before Him King Jesus never failed.
Expand on his complete obedience to God the Father.
And Jesus has come to bring forgiveness and a spiritual relationship
Forgiveness and a spiritual relationship.
You see it in the way Jesus mixes with the tax-collectors and sinners
Those who were considered to be so far from God.
So that he can show the way to repentance.
He is still doing that for us.
Showing his acceptance and love despite our backgrounds.
Forgiveness and a spiritual relationship.
You see it in the parables Jesus taught … especially the ones that make it clear that those who are lost can be found again.
He is still doing this for us.
Showing us the spiritually dead can be made alive.
Reminding us that when we stumble he is willing to catch us.
Having the hope that when we fall we have an unfading inheritance in heaven.
Forgiveness and spiritual relationship
It comes through the King who gave His life the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).
When we go through the cyclone of grief that comes as a result of sin we can have hope.
For our place in the kingdom is not defined by a series of rules and laws.
Nor do we lose our place because we have messed up.
Our place in the kingdom is defined by our relationship with the King … the true King.
That’s the only place where hope is found.
Everything else will fail.
May each one of us be defined by our trust in Jesus … and Jesus alone.
Prayer
