Meet me in Second Kings chapter 24.
I hope you have a copy of God's Word with you.
I want to let you know in advance that there will be many
scriptures that will be visiting this Bible study.
This will be more of a teaching than anything else.
Sometimes studies like this can lean more on the preaching, but
this time we'll be heavy on teaching.
So it's going to require your faculties to be focused, a Bible
in your hands, and a willingness to turn to different pages if
you're going to make the most of this time.
We are now entering the final two chapters of the Book of
Second Kings. This is fascinating because we
are now being brought to the concluding moments of this
powerful historical account. And what we're going to discover
in these last two chapters are the reigns of the last three
kings of the Kingdom of Judah, the final three rulers.
The name of the first one is pronounced Yahuah Kim, spelled
Jehoiakim. The second is Yahuah Hin.
And the last and final ruler of this Kingdom will be Zedekiah, a
little bit different than the first two.
Now, as we come to these kings, we're going to learn a lot.
But the first thing I want to ask you is, who was the
conscience of this nation at this time?
In other words, who was the main prophetic voice that confronted
and challenged and reminded these rulers and the people of
Judah at this time? Does anybody have an idea?
You can answer if you know Jeremiah is the main voice.
And the reason I bring that up is because we studied Josiah at
great length and we learned that in the 13th year of Josiah's
reign, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.
But that is not the only thing that is highlighted about
Jeremiah's ministry. So I told you to turn to the
Second Kings 24, but we're already going to go to a
different passage. Look with me at Jeremiah chapter
one verse 3 and highlight this and maybe put it in one of the
margins of Second Kings 24. Here's what we read in Jeremiah
one verse 3. It came also.
What is the IT the word of the Lord.
It came also in the days of Yahuah Kim the son of Josiah
King of Judah, and until the end of the 11th year of Zedekiah the
son of Josiah King of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem
in the 5th month. So I I bring this up at the
outset of the study to inform you that in order for us to know
greater depth and color to these historical facts and 2nd Kings,
we must heavily rely on Jeremiah's writings, which we
will do. But Jeremiah was not the only
instrument that God raised up in this period.
While we will witness the rapid decline of the Davidic dynasty,
we will simultaneously see the rise of another dominant power,
Babylon. In fact, Babylon will be the
agent that the Lord permits to bring Judah to its knees and to
ultimately bring them into captivity by way of exile.
But this will not happen all at once.
When people hear about the Babylonian exile, they think it
just happens in one episode. It doesn't.
It will actually take place by way of three deportations,
separate exiles over the span of some years.
And what every single wave will under score is the profound
stubbornness of God's people who will refuse to repent despite
the mounting judgement and the frequent prophetic warnings.
It's really staggering, as you will see.
And that's just the overarching truth of these events.
As we will do tonight, we'll pull out our magnifying glasses
and investigate these verses more carefully, and the Lord
will surely speak to us in deeper ways.
And I think it will be helpful to actually begin in Second
Kings 23, verse 36, because this is where we are introduced to
the first of the last three kings.
And we'll read into Second Kings 24 until verse 2 of that new
chapter. Shall we do that beginning in
Second Kings 23, verse 36? Yehoyakim was 25 years old when
he began to reign, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem.
His mother's name was Zebeda, the daughter of Padaya of Ruma.
And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to
all that his father's had done in his days.
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Yehoyakim became
his servant for three years. Then he turned and rebelled
against him. And the Lord sent against him
bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands
of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites, and sent them
against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the
Lord that he spoke by his servants, the prophets.
Father, we ask, like Samuel, that You would speak, for Your
servants are listening. We want to be more than just
students of these scriptures. We want to be obedient to them.
And we ask, Lord, that You would grant us greater insight and
revelation into these wonderful truths so that we would be
conformed to the image of your beloved Son.
Lord, we pray that there would be true unction, true power,
true clarity in a way that will benefit your people.
We ask, Lord, that You would supply that grace because we're
desperate for your voice. We ask these things in the
precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen and Amen.
We're meeting the first of the last three kings right here in
the beginning of this chapter, Yo Hoya Kim.
And when you read about Yo Hoya Kim in the book of Jeremiah, it
doesn't take very long for you to learn that this man was
wicked to the core. Yo Hoya Kim haunted down the
true prophets of God and ruthlessly killed them.
Yoho Akim was also notoriously known for taking Jeremiah's
scroll containing his prophecies and ripping them piece by piece
and throwing it into the fire that's found in Jeremiah chapter
36. In fact, I encourage you to read
that chapter at a separate time because it provides a wonderful
illustration of how God preserves His Word despite the
attempts of man to destroy it. This man was evil, but the most
notable fact about him in this chapter is 1 main thing, how
during his reign Babylon emerged on the world scene.
Babylon became the world power. Babylon was the instrument that
God would use to subdue Judah into a vassal state.
And actually Judah is not the only target of Babylon's
conquest. Scroll down quickly to verse 7
and notice this little anecdote. Second Kings 24/7 reads.
And the king of Egypt did not come out again out of his land,
Rather, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to
the king of Egypt from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates.
So even Egypt felt the force of Babylon as it bulldozed in the
nations. So the geopolitical scene here
is drastically changing. Things are shifting and remember
God is orchestrating all of it. Judah now is in a different
place. And rather than this king
humbling himself because of the dominance of this new nation, he
tries to shake his way out. He tries to struggle in his own
strength to be free again while trying to also hold on to his
sin. And I have no doubt in my mind
that this king serves as a cautionary example of what will
take place and what will follow. Anybody who is outside of the
will of God and chooses to remain there despite being
disciplined for it. What should anyone expect if
they consciously defy the word of God, ignore it, choose to
cling to their human wisdom when they should know better?
I want to give you 2 thoughts. The first thing is this.
When a person follows in the steps of Yahoo Hakim, stubbornly
turning their backs on God, being warned over and over, and
still choosing to hold on to their sin, maintain their
autonomy, try to figure out life without God's rule, the things
they once conquered will find a way to gain victory over them
again. Look at verse 2 of this chapter
once more. And the Lord sent against him
bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands
of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites, and sent them
against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the
Lord that he spoke by his servants, the prophets.
Do these foreign people groups sound familiar to us?
They should because we've been studying the Old Testament
carefully, and we learned that over the centuries, it is these
very same groups that God allowed the people of Israel to
overcome, to keep at Bay, to dominate.
And now, because of Yo Hoya Kim's continual defiance, these
same people groups are harassing him with the goal of devastating
him and the people of Judah. Here's the lesson.
When we choose to walk independently of the Lord, we
open the door for all kinds of sin to wreak havoc in our lives,
all kinds of iniquity, the same pestering things that we knew
victory over will somehow overpower us.
Because, you see, only closeness to Jesus Christ guarantees the
sensitivity, the conviction, the guidance, and the contentment to
overcome the mastery of the flesh and the temptations that
surround us and are always ready to pounce.
Yahoo Kim is nowhere near God's presence.
He's actually rejecting it. He's running headlong in the
opposite direction. And here's the rule.
You run away from God. You open doors for other things
in your life, things that will in fact torment you, destroy you
in the end. You know, at Maranatha
Conference, somebody approached me and asked are we going to
speak about Psalm 91 at any point and that we didn't have a
chance to explore that wonderful Psalm.
I don't blame them for asking. If you've never read Psalm 91,
read it before you go to bed tonight.
It is packed with God's glorious promises.
There's actually room for nothing else.
Verse by verse, all you're reading is 1 glorious thing
after the other. But people tend to forget as
they quote that wonderful chapter of the condition.
It begins with a very practical condition.
In fact, so important is it that I had to memorize it.
Psalm 91, verse 1. He who dwells in the shelter of
the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
Why memorize that one out of all the things?
Because everything that you read in verse 2 onward depends on
verse one. And what is he saying there in
Psalm 91.1? You want to experience these
treasures. You want to sit under this
waterfall of wonder. You have to stay close to God.
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the
shadow of the Almighty. I've said this before, it's
worth repeating. How close do you need to be to
somebody for their shadow to be cast upon you?
Pretty close. This isn't going to work.
Almost shoulder to shoulder. And that is what the psalmist is
saying. You want to know all these
things. Live in his shadow day by day.
Let his presence be your home. Walk in communion with God and
everything that you read. And the rest of that Psalm is
yours is you already came in the shadow of the Almighty.
No, he's living beneath his thrown all the things that he
ignored with Jeremiah's prophecies, all the things that
he warned with the that he ignored with the warnings that
came his way. But there's a second thing that
befalls the spiritually stubborn, as exemplified by this
man. Yes, we learned here that we not
only invite defeat the longer we stay away from the Lord, but we
also forfeit treasures that only humble obedience can guarantee.
That truth is not entirely clear from this passage, but it is in
another book. Does anyone remember how Daniel
one one starts? You can go to the book to find
it. Look how Daniel 11 starts.
The very first words of this awesome text.
Daniel 11 in the third year of the reign of Yohoiakim, king of
Judah. Stop.
Don't ignore these time stamps in your Bible.
In the third year of the reign of Yohoiakim king of Judah, that
very same king that we're reading about in Second Kings
24, what happened? Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
came to Jerusalem and besieged it, and the Lord gave Yohoiakim,
king of Judah, into his hand with some of the vessels of the
House of God, and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to
the House of his God, and placed the vessels in the treasury of
his God. Then the king commanded Aspinas,
his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of
the royal family and of the nobility.
And we read past that, that it's Daniel and his friends that were
part of what this is the first deportation, by the way, the
first wave during the reign of Yahoo Kim, King Nebuchadnezzar,
Cain, he besieged it. He made Judas surrender.
And with that, he took some of the vessels from the temple and
some of the royal nobility. And he took some of the young
people, says I'm going to train you, make you like my nation,
like my people to serve my gods. You know this very well.
Unrepentant sin robs us. It will steal your peace.
It will steal your joy. It will stifle your fellowship
with Christ. It will bar you and I from the
warmth of godly community. It will rot meaningful and
beautiful relationships even in the church.
It will spoil your resources. It will devour your time and it
will tarnish your testimony and mind.
I don't know if this has ever happened to you.
Have you ever had somebody, more specifically a friend at any
point in your life, steal from you?
If you have, then you know the sense of betrayal that fills
your heart upon discovering that no matter how small the item.
And with that sense of betrayal, there's this instinct to set up
boundaries so it never happens again.
And I think it would be extremely helpful for you and I,
followers of Christ, to train ourselves to view sin as a
thief, because the more we believe that, the less likely we
are to welcome it into our lives.
See if you even have a hint of understanding that sin, the
false idea that it can profit you in any way, even in a small
way. You'll never know the strength
to reject it. You'll never know the ability to
persist in your resistance against its temptation.
But if you understand the nature of sin and the history of sin,
then no matter where it goes, it robs, it steals.
Then when it knocks on the door of your heart, will you open it?
You and I would be foolish to open it, in the same way that we
would be fools to entertain the presence of a thief in our home.
View sin as a thief. And thieves are clever, right?
What makes a thief successful? It doesn't.
It doesn't come off as a thief. They come off trusting.
And sin is no different. It masquerades as a friend.
It comes trying to promise some kind of a bargain.
You invest in this and I'll, I'll give you this, this, here's
the ROI. Here's the return on investment.
If you, if you actually take this, digest this, apply this,
but it's a thief, it's a scam con artist.
Every time, no matter what the sin is, Nebuchadnezzar came and
that all not only reintroduced these ammonites and all these
other things that he controlled and allowed to ransack Judah,
but he also took from Judah. Sin is no different.
We invite things that we once knew victory over because we
were close to Christ, and we also forfeit things that can
only be maintained when we stay close to Christ.
There is no doubt that Yo Hoya Kim played a major part in
hastening the final judgement of this Kingdom.
However, interestingly, he doesn't receive the main blame.
There's somebody else that actually receives greater
accountability apart from your Hoya Kim.
Go back to chapter 24, Second Kings.
He's found in verse 3. Surely this came upon Judah at
the command of the Lord to remove them out of His sight for
the sins of Manasseh according to all that he had done, and
also for the innocent blood that he had shed, for he filled
Jerusalem with innocent blood. And the Lord would not pardon.
I can't think of any more depressing and dreadful words in
these the last few verses, words of verse 4.
The Lord would not pardon. It's one thing for my dad to
never forgive me, my mom to never forgive me, my friends, my
pastor, church members to never pardon me, but it's a whole
entire different thing if God chooses not to pardon.
Now, just taking this at face value is challenging enough, but
it comes more difficult when we try to reconcile it with the
glorious truth of the abundance of God's pardon and how he is
rich in mercy. Does not God forgive all sin,
even the sin of shedding innocent blood?
So why is he not willing to forgive here?
Well, here's what we have to establish.
Did God forgive Manessa for his sin?
We studied this in the past, right?
He did, did he not? We rejoiced in that study
together. He did forgive this man.
So this is not a case of God not willing to forgive certain sins
or arbitrarily choosing not to pardon other individual
individuals. That's not the case at all.
So then what does this mean here?
That the Lord would not pardon in verse 4?
Here's what it means. It refers to the Lord's
unwillingness to reverse the consequences of Manessa's sins.
There's a big difference. So what you find here is because
Manessa's actions were so pervasive, so impactful, that
they corrupted the nation to the degree that the effects of it
were still evident to this point.
In other words, what Manessa had done, though he was personally
forgiven by God, his actions on the nation required justice to
be served, especially because his practices were still being
imitated. Here during the reign of Yoho
Akim we see Meneses practices still being repeated.
So again, the main prophetic voice of this time was Jeremiah.
And you can't even get past chapter 2 before Jeremiah
rebukes the people for this one crime among many crimes.
And Jeremiah 2. Listen to these words in verse
34. Also on your skirts is found the
lifeblood of the guiltless poor. You did not find them breaking
in. Yet in spite of all these things
you say I am innocent. Surely his anger has turned from
me. Behold, I will bring you to
judgement for saying I have not sinned.
So the people, the common people had blood stained on their robes
and Jeremiah highlights You didn't kill these people out of
self-defense. Did you notice that verse 34?
You did not find them breaking in.
Why would he mention that? Because in Exodus there was a
law permitting those who are in their homes.
If an intruder came in at night and you defend yourself to the
degree that you killed the person, there's no guilt on you.
But the prophet highlights, you're not doing this out of
self-defense, out of selflessness, out of cruelty.
You're actually killing the guiltless poor out of
convenience, out of irritation. And on top of that, you say I'm
innocent. And when you continue in
Jeremiah, you realize that Yahoyakim was not the best
example. In fact, there were contemporary
prophets in Jeremiah's day, one of them not very known by the
name of Uriah, Uriah the prophet.
Uriah the prophet really echoed Jeremiah's message.
And one day he's preaching. The word gets to Yoho Kim.
Yoho Kim's like he's a dead man. Uriah finds out.
He flees to Egypt. Yoho Kim was not satisfied.
He takes a couple of his officials.
He says you go to Egypt, you're not coming back till you find
him. They find Uriah.
He comes into his presence. He slays him, and he dumps him
outside the city like garbage. So the spirit of Manessa is very
much still alive at this point. The people are killing each
other. The king is killing the true
prophets and said, Lord says I'm not pardoning, You've crossed
the line. Enough is enough.
Manessa repented, you're forgiven.
But I got to deal with the consequences of this sin and
exiles the answer. So that's what we find here.
And Yohoiken was such a wicked man.
You have to turn there in Jeremiah 36 to see what the
prophet pronounces on top of all the other judgment he warned
about. He gives us harrowing prophetic
word. Jeremiah 36 verse 30.
I'll wait for you to get there. This is something that you got
to put a star beside or something because it goes way
beyond this context. Jeremiah 36 verse 30 Therefore
thus says the Lord concerning Yahoo a Kim, king of Judah, he
shall have none to sit on the throne of David, and his dead
body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by
night. You threw my profits out in the
day to rot out there without any honour.
The same is coming for you. But before that, notice what he
says. He shall have none to sit on the
throne of David. That's massive and a face value
presents at least 2 problems. The immediate issue is what we
find back in our main text. Come back to Second Kings 24 and
look at the concluding comments of the reign of Yahoo Akim in
verse 5. Now the rest of the deeds of
Yahoo Akim and all that he did, are they not written in the book
of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
So Yahoo Akim slept with his father's and Yahuah hen his son
reigned in his place. How Jeremiah prophesied that
there would be no more who would sit on the throne of David
following Yahoo A Kim. And here we realize that his son
actually does contradiction. Now a call for careful study.
I think the answer is in the very same passage of Second
Kings 24. Look down at verse 8.
Yahoo a hen was 18 years old when he became king, and he
reigned 3 months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Nahushta,
the daughter of Al Nathan of Jerusalem, and he did what was
evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father
had done. Raining for three months isn't
much of A rain, is it? You barely were able to warm the
seat before the king of Babylon comes and removes you from that
position of authority. So this is a really a legitimate
governance. Essentially, the moment he
enters in, he was taken out. So that satisfies that potential
issue. But the second and more
important implication of Jeremiah's prophecy is where we
need to spend more time. So Jeremiah 3630, he says he
shall not have anyone sit on David Stone.
Nobody following you, none of your direct descendants are
actually going to occupy this position of power again.
We think that that's not the case because you heard him sits
on the seat. When we learn.
Actually, no, He is besieged. He's taken over.
He is removed, brought to Babylon and dies there.
He never returns. What does this imply about God's
promise to David, though? Do you understand?
What did God promise David? That you will have your sons
occupying this throne forever. One of your descendants will
have an eternal reign. And clearly that didn't happen.
And what we find here as we approach the total decimation of
this administration of this Kingdom altogether is a
reversal, seemingly, of this promise.
Did God break his promise? Did God change his mind?
And if you think, well maybe that's what the Lord is really
saying about Yahoo Kim's descendants, go to Jeremiah and
look here chapter 22 and verse 24.
This is a lengthy portion of Scripture.
Why am I reading this to you? Why do you need to know this?
Because you will have anti missionary Jews and you'll have
other people of different cults and faiths who want to try to
discredit the messiahship of Jesus.
And they'll say here, well, what do you do with this curse?
Here's what I'm saying. Look at Jeremiah 22, verse 24.
Are you there with me as I live? Declares the Lord.
Though Kanaya the son of Yehoyakim, King of Judah, Kanaya
is the same person as Yehoyakin. Though Kanaya the son of
Yehoyakin King of Judah, were the signet ring on my right
hand, yet I would tear you off and give you into the hand of
those who seek your life, into the hand of those whom you are
afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,
and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another
country where you were not born, and there you shall die.
But to the land to which they will long to return, they shall
not return. This is the main part.
Look at verse 28. Down is this man Kanaya
despised? Broken pot, a vessel no one
cares for. Why are he and his children
hurled and cast into a land that they do not know?
Oh land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord.
Thus says the Lord. Write this man down as
childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of
his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David
and ruling again in Judah. Oh, none, none of his
offsprings. It's over the final straw, and
we should gulp a little bit because we've been studying this
text since the days of Genesis and we've been clinging to this
promise that there's a king who will arrive, who will emerge and
fulfill that promise that God made to David in Second Samuel
7. And it seems like it's not going
to happen. How do we answer this?
I'm actually going to open it up.
You don't have to give a lengthy answer, but if you have a brief
idea how we can solve this, I'd love to hear it.
Any idea of how we can figure this out?
There are three possible answers.
There are three ways of solving this, and these are worth
remembering and noting down. The first answer that we can
give is that this prophecy speaks of Yahoo Kim's immediate
descendants, his own children, not speaking about the dynasty
as a whole, but speaking about his own offspring.
Look again at Jeremiah 22, verse 30.
It says here. Thus says the Lord, write this
man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days.
Now you read Chronicles and you learned that there's actually
more than one child that this king has.
So what he's saying here, though, is write him down as
childless. Not that he will never have
children, but that he will never have any of his children
reigning on the throne. Write this man down as
childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days.
So it seems to enforce here the reality of his lifetime, not an
indefinite period of time. And all you have to do listen.
Listen, this is the end of chapter 22 of Jeremiah.
All you have to do is go to Jeremiah 23 to realize that the
Lord wasn't speaking about the entire dynasty.
Go to chapter 23. Look at verse 5 of Jeremiah.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will
raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as
king and deal wisely. He shall execute justice and
righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved
and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which
you will be called. The Lord is our righteousness.
Well, hold on. You just told us a few verses
ago that none of his offspring will rule, reign.
And in just the same breath almost, he says, actually,
remember I told you that David was going to have his son.
He's still coming. So that should pretty much end
this debate, right? He's not speaking about his
children. And I told you that we're
studying the last three kings, right?
Of the king of Judah, Yahoya Kim, Yahuah Hin.
And who's the last one? Zedekiah.
Yes, that will be a very important thing to remember if
we ever hypothetically have a quiz on 2nd kings.
By the way, who's the last reigning king of the Kingdom of
Judah? Zedekiah.
Zedekiah is not the son of Yahuah Hin in Second Kings 2417
says here in the king of Babylon made Matania Yahuah Hin's uncle
king in this place and change his name to Zedekiah.
You see that so the word was fulfilled.
None of this King's children would reign and when it came to
his successor was actually his uncle.
Case closed right? Full stop.
Well, people are going to press, People are going to press, and
you should expect that pushback from those who will try to
disqualify Christ as being the promised Son of David and be
prepared to be taken to the genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth
in the New Testament. For what reason?
Because people want to show you how Jesus's lineage based on
this prophecy is a cursed 1 Matthew 111.
What do we find here? Matthew 111 and Josiah, the
father of Yoho Kanaya and his brothers at the time of the
deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to
Babylon, Jack Kunaya was the father of Shout Out.
Shout Out was the father of Zero Bubble.
You see that name there, Jack Kunaya?
And people will press and they'll say you claim that Jesus
is a descendant of this royal line.
But did you forget what Jeremiah said about this very man?
That none would reign from his offspring.
And so they'll go on to say you Christians invented the virgin
birth to try to wiggle your way out of this.
And so the first answer that you can use and trying to solve this
apparent dilemma is that the prophecy does not deal with the
King's immediate children or the his his his latter children.
Rather it deals with his immediate children.
But second to that, we can say that even if that line remain
cursed, that the virgin birth delivers Christ from that curse.
It's not an excuse, it's actually divine strategy.
Think about it this way. Just as the curse of sin did not
transfer to the Lord because of his miraculous conception, is it
really so hard to believe that the curse of Kanaya didn't
transfer either? Was Christ infected with Adam's
fault? Please say no No.
So are we limiting the implication of his virgin birth
to that curse alone and not any other curse?
No. You can say that the virgin
birth rescues, in a sense, Christ from this judgement.
He's separate from it though, attached to this heritage.
But I don't even go there. I don't, I don't even speak
about the virgin birth and get into all these kind of
hermeneutic gymnastics. I don't do that.
You know why this is the third and most important point and try
to answer this dilemma. The curse was reversed.
Look back at Matthew 111. Did you see a few names there?
Look at the end of verse 12. Jack and I was a father of shell
tell and shell Tell the father of Zerubbabel.
Zerubbel was one of the leaders who'd returned from Babylon to
the land of Jerusalem to rebuild everything, and he was a
governor for the people of Judah, and he appears in a
couple of different prophetic books.
But notice what Haggai says about Zerubbabel in Haggai
chapter 2. I, I already warned you that
we're going to go to different passages, but this is going to
be worth it. Haggai chapter 2, verse 23.
Now as you're turning there, do you remember the symbolic
imagery that the Lord gave in his denunciation and his curse?
Though you be like a signet ring on my hand, I will tear you off.
A signet ring is a symbol of power and authority for for
royalty. And the Lord says it doesn't
matter if you're on my hand. It doesn't matter how valuable
this ring may be, because of your sin, I will RIP you off and
throw you away. And notice what he says here to
Zerubbabel, who's the descendant of that very same king Haggai
223 on that day declares the Lord of hosts.
I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shall
tell, declares the Lord. And make you like a signet ring,
for I've chosen you, declares the Lord of hosts.
Is it coincidental that the Lord is using the same imagery back
when he spoke through Jeremiah to curse this line, to restore
this line? It's not coincidence, it's
intentional. Yeah, I might have thrown you
away, but now I am bringing you back.
So way before Jesus Christ of Nazareth even appears on the
scene, the curse was reversed and we find it right here.
Hold on, although it was reversed, it was not totally
restored because Zerubbabel was not a king, was he?
No, he's a governor. You read that in the prophetic
writings. So the the beginning of the
restoration happened in Zerubbabel's day, but when's the
full realization of it going to be known?
Do you remember what the Angel said to Mary and Luke?
One, let me read it to you in verse 32.
The latter portion says and the Lord God will give to him the
throne of his father David. The full restoration would not
be known in Zerubbabel. It will be known in Christ.
So if you can just remember this reference, Haggai 223 If anybody
approaches you and says you're supposed a Messiah actually
belongs to a cursed line, and you say, well, yeah, well, the
curse was reversed. And here's where Jews, Jews will
get in trouble because you'll hear this mainly from them.
If you look at their own tradition and their own ancient
writings, many of their beloved scholars and rabbis believe that
the curse was reversed, not because they're trying to make a
defense for the messiahship of Jesus.
Just because it's plain. It's here.
So I was going to provide you quote after quote.
This is all accessible in these days.
You can find this stuff anywhere, the click of a few
buttons. But resource after resource
confirms that even Jews who don't believe in Jesus of
Nazareth as their savior confirm that the curse was indeed
changed back and the promise remained.
Choose any one of those answers and you'll be more than OK God's
Word never fails, and we should rejoice in that.
And so we find here the end of Yoho A Kim's reign.
But let's come now to the final verses of our study.
We read about a little bit about Yoho Akin.
Let's continue to read about him in Second Kings 24 verse 10.
At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon
came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while
his servants were besieging it. And Yahuah Kin, the king of
Judah, gave himself up to the king of Babylon himself and his
mother and his servants and his officials and his palace
officials. The king of Babylon took him
prisoner in the eighth year of his reign and carried off all
the treasures of the House of the Lord and the treasures of
the King's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold
in the temple of the Lord, which Solomon king of Israel had made,
as the Lord had foretold. So what's happening here?
Now the second deportation, The first one is described in Daniel
one. The second one now appears here.
Yehoya Kim, Daniel was taken. Yehoya Kin.
The second wave of deportation much more severe than the first
one. In the first one, he took some
of the vessels and brought it to the House of his God.
Now he's stripping the gold off of the temple.
And more than that, look at verse 14.
He carried away all Jerusalem and all the officials and all
the mighty men of valor. 10,000 captives and all the Craftsman
and The Smiths, none remained except the poorest of the land,
and he carried away Yoho akin to Babylon, the King's mother, the
King's wives, his officials, and a chief man of the land.
He took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon, and the
king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the Men of Valor,
7000, and the Craftsman and the Metal Workers, 1000, all of them
strong and fit for war. And the king of Babylon made
Metanaya, Yehoyakin's uncle, king, in his place and changed
his name to Zedekiah. 2nd deportation.
We're going to look at the last one next week.
So many details, so many facts, so many important things to
touch on for the sake of not overwhelming us.
I want to look at verse 14 and I want to ask this question out of
the thousands that were taken into captivity.
And if you were there a couple nights ago at prayer meeting,
you can't answer this question for those who are not there.
Is there anyone who is a notable figure in the Bible that was
taken during the second wave of exile that we find here?
And if you know the answer, you're free to share it.
Oh, you hear the the chirping, real chirping.
Somebody said it good. Ezekiel go to Ezekiel chapter 1.
Look at Ezekiel one verse one, in the 30th year, in the fourth
month, on the 5th day of the month, as I was among the Exiles
by the Kebar canal, the heavens were open and I saw visions of
God on the 5th day of the month. It was the fifth year of the
exile of King Yehoyahin. The word of the Lord came to
Ezekiel the priest, the son of Boozy in the land of the
Chaldeans by the Hembar canal, and the hand of the Lord was
upon him there. Do you see that in the middle
there, the last part of verse two, It was the fifth year of
the exile of King Yehoyahin. So Daniel was taken in the first
wave. Ezekiel was brought out in the
second. And this is me earlier today
being reminded of the truth in the study, sitting back and
meditating. And I thought, this is, I think
this is a good place to end. I think there are at least two
wonderful truths to learn with Ezekiel as it connects to this
wider story. The first one is this.
Look at this detail in verse one in the 30th year, in the fourth
month, on the 5th day of the month.
What year is he referring to? What time stamp?
The common view, His own age. In other words, he's saying when
I was 30, when I was 30 years old, the 4th month, the 5th day
of the month, in the 30th year. Now why would Ezekiel want to
tell us that he was 30 when he was exiled?
Any idea? Very good.
Read on here and what do you discover?
Look at verse 3. The word of the Lord came to
Ezekiel. The what the priest Numbers 4
tells us that a priest would begin his ministry in the temple
at the age of 30. Ezekiel clearly didn't get the
chance to do that, did he? So this is a milestone in his
personal life, but it says something about really the
nation. In the 30th year, he is now
allowed to technically enter into the temple and serve as a
mediator between God's people and God himself.
The temple is destroyed. Well, it's about to be soon.
Not during this deportation. In the next one, the temple is
surrounded. It's stripped of its glory.
It's later going to be brought down to rubble.
And so now instead of Ezekiel being called into the
priesthood, he's being called into what office prophethood.
So this is this is a major change in many ways, but I
couldn't help but meditate on how this made Ezekiel
potentially feel and how it can teach us some wonderful things.
Here's the first thing that we can learn.
Be mindful that your life may not fit the mold or follow the
common trajectory that others expect of you or experience
themselves. Ezekiel, at the 30th year of his
life looked nothing like the average Levite did it?
He came from a lineage of others who studied their whole young
lives. And we're being prepared to
enter into this wonderful office of the priesthood.
Now he's next in line. And what happens?
He's taken, not just taken from his office, he's he's taken from
his home. And I wonder what it made him
feel like at first, as he was chained perhaps, and LED into
the wilderness and ultimately into a brand new Pagan land,
thinking I was supposed to be a priest.
I was supposed to serve my God. I was supposed to come close to
the things of God and serve the people of God.
And I don't know about you, but I know many who feel the same
way when they contemplate where they are at life, and more than
that, compare themselves to others and wonder.
I don't fit the common script for life.
I thought I would be somewhere else at this point in my life.
I thought I'd be doing something else by this time in my life.
I did not see any of this coming, even if that looks like
delay. I thought I would be somewhere
else. I thought I'd be doing something
else. Ezekiel was supposed to serve
God. It was actually inscribed in the
Scriptures how he was supposed to serve God, and it didn't
happen. But the most important thing
about Ezekiel is not if he served in the temple, is not if
he fulfilled his lifelong training to be a priest.
It's not if he even if he even raised his family in the Holy
Land and trained his children to love God.
The most important thing about Ezekiel is what we read in the
introductory verses of his book. The hand of the Lord was upon
him. That's the most important thing.
You see, Ezekiel is an anomaly. Ezekiel doesn't fit the mold,
but that doesn't mean that Ezekiel is outside of God's
will. I can't tell you the amount of
people who are frustrated because they look at themselves,
they look at the time stamp of their lives, they look at others
and they think, I didn't think this would happen to me.
I didn't think that this would be my portion and worsen that.
They think maybe God doesn't cherish me.
Have a plan like He does for others, for me.
You're dead wrong as long as you serve the Lord.
This man loved God, He was waiting to serve God.
God just had a different plan for him.
The most important thing is that God's hand was on him, not what
he was doing. Precisely who he's with, where
he lived. The 2nd and final thing I'd love
to learn about Ezekiel, There are many other things that we
can meditate on is how God is very able to turn tragedy into
ministry. Exile is no easy thing, as you
can imagine. But this exile was not the end
for Ezekiel. It was actually the beginning of
a very challenging yet thrilling chapter in his life.
God sends the people away in judgement, but you know you know
who He also sends with them? A prophet, and more than just
one. To me, those are droplets of
God's grace and the fiercest demonstration of His wrath
towards His people. I'm kicking you out of the
promised land, but all my heart wants to send with you voices
that will represent me. I'm going to send Daniel in the
first wave. The second wave, I'm going to
send Ezekiel. Don't you see God's mercy in
this? I see it.
But let's, let's just zoom in on Ezekiel.
God is going to put his hand on him, and God is going to speak
through him to a dejected people who are at the lowest point in
their nation's history. But you know what it required
for Ezekiel, for him to be an effective minister.
He had to suffer alongside them. In fact, if you read Ezekiel's
prophecies, they're some of the strangest.
You know why? Because so many of them demanded
physical display and physical acts, some of them hard to
imagine. Ezekiel, for X amount of days, I
want you to lay on one side. Once you're done doing that, lay
on the next side. Like, can't you just have me
preach it? Do I have to actually lay here?
Ezekiel, I want you to make this kind of food with this kind of
material and all these unthinkable things for a Jew.
Do you know why God did that for Ezekiel?
Because he wanted Ezekiel to feel the message before he
preached the message. And in many cases, when God
ordained suffering in our lives, it does many things, including
adding authority to your ministry.
The the greatest men of God suffered in one way or another,
or whenever they suffered, it took their ministry to a whole
new level. Ezekiel, I'm going to make you a
prophet. You thought you were going to be
a priest. I have something else in store
for you, but it's going to require you to go into exile,
and you need to suffer alongside these people.
Though it may seem unfair, though it may seem like it
ruined your dreams to be a priest in Jerusalem, trust me.
And if you serve God, let's end this Bible study here.
Trust that every ounce of difficulty that is permitted in
your life has a redemptive purpose.
All you need to do is remain close, close to your sovereign
Father, and eventually you'll see it.
Let me give you the last few verses of Second Kings 24 and
we'll close this study. Verse 18 of chapter 24.
Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he reigned
11 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamut al,
the daughter of Jeremiah of Libna.
And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to
all that Yahoo Akim had done. For because of the anger of the
Lord, it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast
them out from his presence, and Zedekiah rebelled against the
king of Babylon. Father, we thank You for this
study. We thank You for every cross
reference. We thank You that even the
weakness of delivering the study, Your word prevails, Your
truth pierces. And we yet again behold the
brilliance of the Scriptures and the author behind these truths.
Lord, we ask that these things would not be easily forgotten.
Etch them on our hearts, tie them in our memory, and use them
as means to fan into flame our adoration for who you are.
Lord, who knew that time stamps can touch us so deeply and for
this we rejoice together as your church.
In Jesus name we pray, Amen and Amen.
Let's stand, let's give God thanks for the study.