Latest / Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms / #136. When God Disciplines the People He Loves | Finding Hope in Isaiah 1–2, 2 Chronicles 26, 2 Kings 15

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#136. When God Disciplines the People He Loves | Finding Hope in Isaiah 1–2, 2 Chronicles 26, 2 Kings 15 · Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms

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  Speaker 3: This is The Dwelling Place from Entrusted Ministries.
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  Speaker 3: I'm Stephanie Hickox.
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  Speaker 3: As we discuss II Kings fifteen, II Chronicles twenty-six, and begin the book of Isaiah, we'll learn that regardless of how bad our circumstances get, we can still look to the God who comes to our rescue.
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  Speaker 3: And often that rescue involves His loving discipline.
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  Speaker 3: II Chronicles twenty-six gives us the moral foundation for King Uzziah's reign.
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  Speaker 3: In the southern kingdom of Judah, Uzziah becomes king at sixteen years old, and he reigns fifty-two years.
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  Speaker 3: And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done.
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  Speaker 3: He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God.
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  Speaker 3: And as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.
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  Speaker 3: His reign is characteristic of Solomon's, as he has victories over the Philistines and many surrounding nations, and his fame spreads.
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  Speaker 3: He restores the gates and builds towers, herds sheep, and plants vineyards and gardens as he loves the soil.
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  Speaker 3: He also strengthens Judah's military.
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  Speaker 3: Verse fifteen tells us, In Jerusalem, he made machines invented by skillful men to be on the towers and the corners to shoot arrows and great stones, and his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped till he was
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  Speaker 3: strong."
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  Speaker 3: Even Wikipedia, which I don't generally look to as my first source of information, records Uzziah as being the possible inventor of the catapult.
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  Speaker 3: This description sounds like he used trebuchets and catapults, and that's pretty fun to imagine.
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  Speaker 3: But unfortunately, next we're told, But when he was strong, he grew proud to his destruction, for he was unfaithful to the Lord his God."
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  Speaker 3: And what he does next is utterly astounding.
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  Speaker 3: He entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense, but Azariah the priest went in after him with eighty priests of the Lord who were men of valor.
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  Speaker 3: And they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron who are consecrated to burn incense.
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  Speaker 3: Go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the Lord God Instead of humbly repenting, Uzziah was angry.
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  Speaker 3: Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead, in the presence of the priests in the house of the Lord, by the altar
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  Speaker 3: of incense.
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  Speaker 3: And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead.
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  Speaker 3: And they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out, because the Lord had struck him.
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  Speaker 3: And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Lord.
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  Speaker 3: And because of his leper state, he wasn't even allowed to be buried with the kings, but instead in a field nearby Due to his shocking and egregious sin, He's no longer even allowed to enter the temple He was
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  Speaker 3: thriving in many different arenas of life, but it wasn't enough for him he also wanted the role of priest.
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  Speaker 3: God is a God of order, and Scripture takes it seriously when we overstep our authority.
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  Speaker 3: One interesting fact I discovered was that there was a severe earthquake during Uzziah's reign.
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  Speaker 3: Even secular scientists concur that it occurred in the latter days that he ruled.
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  Speaker 3: And Josephus, the famed historian, recorded that this earthquake occurred At the very moment that Uzziah attempted to offer incense in the temple.
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  Speaker 3: It's an extra-biblical account, so we can't be certain, but this was the most dramatic earthquake of that era.
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  Speaker 3: Can you imagine the terror if that were the moment it occurred?
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  Speaker 3: Amos refers to this earthquake saying that people were fleeing for their lives while the earth was still shaking.
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  Speaker 3: Imagine being the priest watching, feeling the ground shake underneath you As your king was punished for his pride by becoming leprous.
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  Speaker 3: I'll link to Armstrong's notes on that event.
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  Speaker 3: Even though God's hand is upon the nation of Judah, because He is holy and just, He has to punish sin But once again, we see God's mercy and grace in the description of Uzziah at the beginning of the
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  Speaker 3: chapter That he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
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  Speaker 3: And as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper But it's such a caution for us to not become complacent.
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  Speaker 3: Jotham his son becomes co-regent before completely taking over the reign.
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  Speaker 3: 2 Kings 15 gives us more detail about what was going on in the Northern Kingdom.
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  Speaker 3: One thing that's confusing is that Uzziah is referred to as Azariah there.
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  Speaker 3: Also confusing, we're gonna have five kings in quick succession in the Northern Kingdom.
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  Speaker 3: First, Zachariah rules for six months, then Shallum for one month, then Menahem for 10 years, then Pekahiah for two years, and eventually, Pekah for 20 years.
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  Speaker 3: And a moment God has warned over and over has finally arrived In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria came and captured the nation of Israel and carried them captive to Assyria For centuries,
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  Speaker 3: the Lord has given an opportunity for them to repent They've had countless signs and miracles But they do not change their ways.
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  Speaker 3: So the Lord in His faithfulness allows them to be humbled in this way We've seen a lot of judgment and discipline of the Lord in the last six months It's always interesting to me when believers think that God
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  Speaker 3: only calls us to offer grace to our children.
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  Speaker 3: It seems to me that you can only arrive at that conclusion if you cherry-pick verses the God that created us and understands us knows we often need to come to the end of ourselves to allow Him to rule
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  Speaker 3: and reign in our lives.
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  Speaker 3: This is God's goal for our children, and that should be our goal as well.
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  Speaker 3: At the end of the chapter, we learn that God begins to send Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, against Judah.
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  Speaker 3: you'll hear those names in the Book of Isaiah So let's talk about this book that I have turned to for encouragement in so many trials.
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  Speaker 3: Isaiah's name means the Lord is salvation or God to the rescue.
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  Speaker 3: He was likely of royal blood, being born in Jerusalem and having access to the kings.
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  Speaker 3: Some scholars believe that his cousin was King Uzziah.
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  Speaker 3: He ministered for about fifty years in the nation of Judah, but spoke to both kingdoms.
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  Speaker 3: Scholars debate about whether or not this book was written entirely by Isaiah, but what is most probable is that Isaiah wrote everything down, and there were portions of the book that were compiled after his death Tradition tells us
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  Speaker 3: that evil King Manasseh found Isaiah hidden in a cedar tree and killed him by cutting the tree and the prophet in half It's about the same time that Homer wrote The Odyssey and The Iliad.
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  Speaker 3: And in The Mystery of History, Linda Lacour Hobar says, As Shakespeare is to theater and Beethoven is to music, so Isaiah is said to be to prophecy.
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  Speaker 3: His writings stand above all the other prophets in their grandeur and excellence."
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  Speaker 3: She explains that Isaiah is almost a mini Bible.
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  Speaker 3: If you divide it into two main sections, the first 39 chapters are similar to the first 39 books of the Bible.
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  Speaker 3: They describe what was happening in Israel and were to warn Judah.
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  Speaker 3: But the final 27 chapters, like the 27 chapters of the New Testament, tell mostly about the coming of Jesus.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, many people call the Book of Isaiah the Fifth Gospel because it tells us so much about the Savior Isaiah spoke about the judgment that was occurring and would occur, and the compassionate God that would restore them
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  Speaker 3: it's quoted directly over 65 times in the New Testament.
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  Speaker 3: The MacArthur commentary says of him, Isaiah's writing style has no rival in its versatility of expression, brilliance of imagery, and richness of vocabulary."
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  Speaker 3: He utilized 2,186 different words, while Ezekiel and Jeremiah each used about 1,500 Isaiah's words were at times terrifying, yet there was hope through it all.
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  Speaker 3: Isaiah begins prophesying during Uzziah's reign, where Judah had prosperity.
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  Speaker 3: Its territory was expanding And on the outside, it may have seemed that they were thriving, but spiritually, the high places remained, the nation had a divided heart, and they continued to seek and sacrifice to pagan gods God had
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  Speaker 3: patiently waited for his children to repent, and whether they were in wilderness or suffering or prosperity, their hearts consistently strayed and sought other gods The Lord knew that the best way to bring them back to Him was to
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  Speaker 3: allow them to be taken captive by another nation Perhaps you've heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered in 1947 by a little boy throwing a stone into a cave Inside, they found numerous clay pots preserving scrolls.
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  Speaker 3: Men and women hid these books of the Bible from the Romans so the precious Word of God wouldn't be destroyed.
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  Speaker 3: The entire scroll of Isaiah was found in one pot measuring twenty-one feet long.
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  Speaker 3: And God has preserved His Word so much that the Book of Isaiah that you and I now have translates the same down to the letter Much of what Isaiah will prophesy about will be Jesus' coming reign.
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  Speaker 3: Some will be about his first appearance on earth and some about his second, The prophet focuses heavily on God's holiness and uses the term Lord God of hosts 60 times He says that the holiness of God should transform
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  Speaker 3: us in the way we live in relation to Him, and also in the way we relate to others There's a call to social justice and to care for the poor and needy.
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  Speaker 3: He reminds them and us to be faithful to God And Michael Rydelnik and James Spencer write Isaiah continues to remind the faithful to trust in God and to follow him even when it appears to be irrational, inconvenient, or
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  Speaker 3: dangerous."
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  Speaker 3: Some of my sweetest memories with my kids were reading the Jesus Storybook Bible And I'm gonna include a portion that Sally Lloyd-Jones writes to summarize the beautiful words of Isaiah as a letter from God.
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  Speaker 3: Dear little flock, you're all wandering away from me like sheep in an open field.
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  Speaker 3: You have always been running away from me, and now you're lost.
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  Speaker 3: You can't find your way back, but I can't stop loving you.
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  Speaker 3: I will come to find you, so I'm sending you a shepherd to look after you and love you, to carry you home to me.
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  Speaker 3: Let's look to this fifth gospel to better understand the Holy One of Israel, the Lord God of hosts, and how walking with Him transforms our lives.
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  Speaker 3: The book begins The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
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  Speaker 3: Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.
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  Speaker 3: Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.
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  Speaker 3: The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know.
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  Speaker 3: My people do not understand."
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  Speaker 3: Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly.
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  Speaker 3: They have forsaken the Lord.
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  Speaker 3: They have despised the Holy One of Israel.
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  Speaker 3: They are utterly estranged.
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  Speaker 3: You hear the heartbreak of the father, and as mothers, we can imagine that if after decades of sacrificing for our children, if they chose to forsake us, how painful it would be Next, he tells them, Your sacrifices mean
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  Speaker 3: nothing to me if your heart isn't right."
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  Speaker 3: Beginning in verse eleven: What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
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  Speaker 3: Says the Lord.
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  Speaker 3: I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts.
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  Speaker 3: I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats.
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  Speaker 3: When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts?
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  Speaker 3: Bring no more vain offerings.
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  Speaker 3: Incense is an abomination to me.
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  Speaker 3: New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations, I cannot endure iniquity in solemn assembly.
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  Speaker 3: Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates.
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  Speaker 3: They have become a burden to me.
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  Speaker 3: I am weary of bearing them.
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  Speaker 3: When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you.
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  Speaker 3: Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.
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  Speaker 3: Your hands are full of blood.
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  Speaker 3: Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean.
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  Speaker 3: Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes.
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  Speaker 3: Cease to do evil.
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  Speaker 3: Learn to do good.
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  Speaker 3: Seek justice.
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  Speaker 3: Correct oppression.
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  Speaker 3: Bring justice to the fatherless.
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  Speaker 3: Plead the widow's cause.
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  Speaker 3: Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.
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  Speaker 3: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
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  Speaker 3: Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
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  Speaker 3: If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.
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  Speaker 3: But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken In verse twenty-six, he gives a future hope.
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  Speaker 3: Afterward you shall be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City.
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  Speaker 3: Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent by righteousness."
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  Speaker 3: This hope continues in chapter two, verse two It shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up
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  Speaker 3: above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it.
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  Speaker 3: And many peoples shall come and say, Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths."
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  Speaker 3: For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
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  Speaker 3: He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples.
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  Speaker 3: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.
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  Speaker 3: Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.
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  Speaker 3: There will be a day when Christ brings peace on earth.
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  Speaker 3: War and fighting will cease.
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  Speaker 3: And the chapter ends powerfully.
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  Speaker 3: Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath.
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  Speaker 3: For of what account is he?
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  Speaker 3: The creator God says, "Do not fear man.
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  Speaker 3: I put breath in his lungs."
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  Speaker 3: We're to fear God and fear Him alone.
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  Speaker 3: Even when the consequences of following Him seem inevitable, we will not be eternally ashamed for trusting in our holy God And we can teach our kids that whether it's friendship or dating or marriage Or athletes or celebrities that
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  Speaker 3: they admire that our focus is to be fixed on Christ to sustain, save, and satisfy us Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are just that.
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  Speaker 3: You are near and loving and care for us deeply as a father does, but you also faithfully discipline us.
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  Speaker 3: when our hearts are far from you, you do what is required to regain your rightful place And we know that you are heavenly.
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  Speaker 3: You are holy and seated on the throne above.
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  Speaker 3: We pray we would rightly understand this and that it would transform the way we relate to you and the way that we seek to bring justice on this earth.
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  Speaker 3: Give us your heart for the widows and the fatherless and the poor and the broken.
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  Speaker 3: May we be your hands and feet, Jesus, on this earth, reconciling others to you And Lord, protect us from becoming comfortable and complacent like Uzziah.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you, Jesus, for the many words Isaiah wrote that point us to your perfection.
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  Speaker 3: We look forward to the day that you will rule those from every tribe, nation, and tongue And bring peace on this earth.
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  Speaker 3: It's in your name we pray.
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  Speaker 3: Amen