2 Kings 15:8-31 THE WARNING SIGNS ES 17 Jun 18 1665
Warning signs are good. They are meant for our good and can save lives. God warns. God warns before He judges.
• Let’s consider the warning signs from three directions. The upward – warnings from God through the prophets, the inward – corruptions within Israel, and outward – the rising of Assyria against Israel.
This chapter is wrapped by two Kings of JUDAH - AZARIAH (Uzziah) at the start and JOTHAM at the end.
• In between these two JUDAH Kings, the author runs through FIVE Kings of ISRAEL – Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah and Pekah.
• After that we are left with the last King of Israel HOSEA in chapter 17. That signals the end of the Kingdom of Israel.
We are onto the last stretch and the author gave us a quick run of these 5 Kings in just over 20 verses. Let’s read 2 Kings 15:8-31.
These FIVE Kings of Israel came and went while Azariah was King in JUDAH (who reigned 52 years).
• We see this contrast. You have ONE King in Judah and FIVE kings changing hands in Israel. That was how bad the situation was in the North.
• While Uzziah was having a stable, prosperous and successful time in the South, Israel was experiencing chaos and unrest within their nation.
• It wasn’t even the kings changing hands but being assassinated. We have FOUR conspiracies and assassinations in this short span of time.
Zechariah (Jehu’s 4th) 6 months Killed by Shallum
Shallum 1 month Killed by Menahem
Menahem 10 years
Pekahiah (son of Menahem) 2 years Killed by Pekah
Pekah (Gilead 12, Samaria 8) * 8 years Killed by Hoshea
Hoshea 9 years
We have more assassins on the throne than natural successors.
Zechariah succeeded his father Jeroboam II, but only for 6 months.
• Shallum conspired and killed him, taking the throne and ending Jehu’s dynasty.
• As the Lord so said. 15:12 So the word of the LORD spoken to Jehu was fulfilled: "Your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation."
We’ve been watching this countdown of Jehu’s dynasty over the past few sermons.
• God said it first in 10:30 that Jehu would have 4 generations on the throne.
• We traced the successions in the past few chapters and now it came. Jehu’s dynasty ended here with the death of Zechariah.
• You can called it an assassination, a tragedy or a coup; the author says, it is the fulfilment of God’s Word.
The author’s conviction is clear, as he recounts Israel and Judah’s history.
• God will bring His Word to pass. It is certain. There is no other way.
• What God says is true and will come true. For Jehu, as well as for Israel. For Israel as well as for us.
• Whatever the Lord says through the prophets - the warnings given before the judgement – are about to come true. Israel ought to take heed.
Then comes another warning sign of God’s impending judgement – the corruption at the top. We have a recount of quick succession of godless reigns in Israel.
• Four conspiracies almost in a row, four kings being assassinated, and with the killers taking up the thrones.
• Resulting in some very short reigns - 6 months for Zechariah, 1 month for Shallum, 2 years for Pekahiah.
Israel was going from bad to worst. If the people were more discerning, they would have known that something was not right here.
• And we hear the author ‘playing this broken record’, we cannot avoid it:
• “He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, as his fathers had done. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit.”
• It appears for Zechariah (15:9), Menahem (15:18), Pekahiah (15:24) and Pekah (15:28); all the kings except Shallum.
And I think this line did not appear for Shallum because his reign was too short.
• Not that he was good (obviously) but that his appearance in the scene was too brief to comment, only 1 month. He could not even warm his seat!
Imagine, we are still talking about the late Jeroboam in 2 Kings 15 when what he started in 1 Kings 12.
• He made 2 golden calves and declared them as Israel’s gods, telling the people not to return to Jerusalem. “You can worship this new gods in Bethel and Dan.”
• (Such can only be the creations of man, because true God can only come through a revelation. How can God be a creation of our mind and hands?)
• And since then, Israel has been worshipping his idols and we have this tedious repetition of Jeroboam’s name and his influence, generation after generation.
We’re now at the edge of the end of Israel, some 200 years from Jeroboam, and we are still talking about him.
• We are almost at the point of being irritated by this repetition. Nothing has changed.
• And that’s precisely the point. The author says, nothing has changed.
Israel has been heading south ever since, despite all the warnings.
• On this final stretch, we see even more chaos and greater evil, and the people seemed to be oblivious to it.
• The author gave us a glimpse. King Menahem decided to destroy of his own city Tiphsah because the people refused to acknowledge him as king.
• 15:16 At that time Menahem, starting out from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in the city and its vicinity, because they refused to open their gates. He sacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women.
The damage caused by this ‘original’ sin of Jeroboam (1 Kings 12) was devastating. It strangled Israel to death. Israel never recovered.
• Paul says it correctly, “Do not give the devil a foothold.” (Eph 4:27)
Charles Spurgeon has this interesting parable:
When Satan cannot get a great sin in, he will let a little one in. Like the thief who goes and finds shutters all coated with iron and bolted inside. At last he sees a little window in a chamber. He cannot get in, so he puts a little boy in, that he may go round and open the back door.
So the devil has always his little sins to carry about with him to go and open doors for him. And we let one in and say, “Oh, it is only a little one.” Yes, but how that little one becomes the ruin of the entire man!
Finally, God warns them of His impending judgement. We see the rise of ASSYRIA.
• For the FIRST time in the Kings, we see ASSYRIA invading this region.
• 15:19 - during Menahem’s reign, Pul (Tiglath-Pileser III) King of Assyria invaded the land and the king paid a tribute to ward him off.
• 15:29 - then in Pekah’s reign, Tiglath-Pileser III (Pul) returned and took most of Israel’s Eastern territories, leaving King Hoshea with a small area around Samaria.
1 Chron 5 explains why all of these were happening:
• 1 Chron 5:24-26 25But they were unfaithful to the God of their fathers and prostituted themselves to the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them. 26So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria (that is, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria), who took the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh into exile. He took them to Halah, Habor, Hara and the river of Gozan, where they are to this day.
• This was the first deportation of the Israelites (cf.733BC).
And some 11 years later, when the last King Hoshea was in power, ASSYRIA came again and deported the rest of Israel.
• 2 Kings 17:5-6 5The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. 6In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.” (cf.722BC 11 years later.)
All of this was prophesied by Prophet Hosea in Hosea 13:15-16
“An east wind from the LORD will come, blowing in from the desert; his spring will fail and his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures. 16The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.”
It was not that there were no warnings, but that the warnings were ignored.
• The warning signs were there, but Israel refused to heed the warnings of God.
I like to share this story, which I shared before, to illustrate a point.
The captain of the ship looked into the dark night and saw a light in the distance, apparently on collision course. Immediately he told his signalman to send a message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south.”
Promptly a return message was received: “Alter your course 10 degrees north.”
The captain was angered. His command had been ignored. So he sent a second message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south — I am the captain!”
Soon another message was received: Alter your course 10 degrees north — I am seaman third class Jones.”
Immediately the captain sent a third message, knowing the fear it would evoke: “Alter your course 10 degrees south—I am a battleship.”
Then the reply came “Alter your course 10 degrees north — I am a lighthouse.”
That ends the argument. We understand why. You can’t argue with a lighthouse.
• You have to heed the warning, change course, and avoid certain destruction.
• Heed the warnings of God. Be humble, be teachable, and be wise. Heed God’s warnings and we shall live.
“When you argue against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.”
? C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
