Latest / Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms / #139. Godliness... or god-likeness? What the God of the Bible Asks of You and The Captivity of Israel 2 Chronicles 28, 2 Kings 16-17, and Isaiah 13-14

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#139. Godliness... or god-likeness? What the God of the Bible Asks of You and The Captivity of Israel 2 Chronicles 28, 2 Kings 16-17, and Isaiah 13-14 · Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms

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  Speaker 16: This is The Dwelling Place from Entrusted Ministries.
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  Speaker 16: I'm Stephanie Hickox, and as we read 2 Chronicles 28, 2 Kings 16 and 17, and Isaiah 13 and 14, we'll uncover what some would consider the lowest point in all of Kings As the judgment that the Lord had
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  Speaker 16: warned would finally come.
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  Speaker 16: And we'll be reminded, as Sally Lloyd-Jones writes No matter what, in spite of everything, God would love his children with a never-stopping, never-giving-up, unbreaking, always and forever love As we consider the wickedness of this nation, you and I
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  Speaker 16: may think about the lowest points in our own lives, the ones we're ashamed to look back at The moments that tempt us to think we've been disqualified from the grace of the cross but we'll be reminded that this
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  Speaker 16: God that still pursued the nation of Israel and brought them to the end of themselves is the same God that faithfully pursues you and I.
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  Speaker 16: He conquered our sin on the cross, and He loves us too much to allow us to stray from Him.
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  Speaker 16: He's a God that continually seeks to dwell with you, And he delights that you're looking to him We'll start out with 2 Chronicles 28 with a truly wicked king, Ahaz.
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  Speaker 16: We've studied Ahab before, but now this is Ahaz, and just to make it easy, you can remember that they were both terrible.
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  Speaker 16: Ahaz is in the southern kingdom, but his kingship looked more like he was reigning in the north Beginning in verse one Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem.
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  Speaker 16: And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord as his father David had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel.
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  Speaker 16: He even made metal images for the Baals, and he made offerings in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before
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  Speaker 16: the people of Israel.
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  Speaker 16: And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
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  Speaker 16: Therefore the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Syria, who defeated him and took captive a great number of his people and brought them to Damascus.
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  Speaker 16: He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with great force.
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  Speaker 16: For Pekah the son of Remaliah killed one hundred and twenty thousand from Judah in one day, all of them men of valor, because they had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers Next we learn That Israel took
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  Speaker 16: 200,000 captives from Judah And brought them home But the Lord sent Oded, a prophet, To meet them and to warn them that although God gave Judah into their hands, The way they were treating them was unacceptable in the
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  Speaker 16: Lord's eyes.
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  Speaker 16: They ignored Oded's warning.
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  Speaker 16: But as they continued to bring home these captives, certain chiefs stood up against them You shall not bring the captives in here, for you propose to bring upon us guilt against the Lord in addition to our present sins
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  Speaker 16: and guilt, for our guilt is already great.
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  Speaker 16: And there is fierce wrath against Israel.
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  Speaker 16: So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the assembly.
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  Speaker 16: And the men who have been mentioned by name rose and took the captives, and with the spoil they clothed all who were naked among them.
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  Speaker 16: They clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them.
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  Speaker 16: And carrying all the feeble among them on donkeys, they brought them to their kinsfolk at Jericho, the city of palm trees.
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  Speaker 16: Then they returned to Samaria.
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  Speaker 16: It's fascinating that they're going back to Samaria because their example of compassion reminds me of Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, Who went above and beyond to restore We would hope that after God delivered these two blows to
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  Speaker 16: the nation of Judah, that King Ahaz would be humbled.
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  Speaker 16: but just the opposite happens.
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  Speaker 16: He reaches out to the king of Assyria for help.
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  Speaker 16: Then the Edomites and the Philistines invade and defeat Judah For the Lord humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had made Judah act sinfully and had been very unfaithful to the Lord.
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  Speaker 16: And the alliance that he attended to make with Assyria to strengthen him Their king actually comes against him and afflicts him how about now?
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  Speaker 16: Is Ahaz humbled After suffering blows from five surrounding nations verse 22 tells us, In the time of his distress, he became yet more faithless to the Lord.
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  Speaker 16: The same Ahaz, for he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him.
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  Speaker 16: But they were the ruin of him and all Israel."
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  Speaker 16: Next, he destroys some of the furniture from the house of the Lord, shutting the temple doors so no one is allowed to worship Yahweh he builds altars to the pagan gods of other nations, and his heart is hardened
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  Speaker 16: beyond humbling.
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  Speaker 16: Let's go over to 2 Kings sixteen and seventeen to fill in any details that the chronicler left out.
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  Speaker 16: Well, chapter sixteen tells us that Ahaz was taking the silver and the gold from the house of the Lord and sending them to the king of Assyria.
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  Speaker 16: It's disgusting, isn't it?
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  Speaker 16: He is robbing from the Lord to bless a pagan king Then in an effort for diplomacy, King Ahaz goes to meet with the king of Assyria.
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  Speaker 16: He sees a pagan altar in Damascus and comes back asking Uriah the priest to build an altar just like it.
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  Speaker 16: And he uses this new altar to sacrifice to these foreign gods the sacrifices that the God of the Bible had commanded do you remember when we were walking through some of those earlier books of scripture and God put
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  Speaker 16: so much detail into the temple and into the sacrifices and the ways He wanted to be worshiped?
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  Speaker 16: Paying attention to those details is important, but Ahaz completely abandoned the commandments of the Lord Now in 2 Kings 17, we'll go to the Northern Kingdom to see who was reigning there during the end of Ahaz's reign.
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  Speaker 16: it's Hoshea, the son of Elah, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
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  Speaker 16: Yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him At that time, he had this deal where he was sending money to the king of Assyria Kind of saying, I understand how big and powerful you are.
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  Speaker 16: Just leave us alone, okay?"
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  Speaker 16: But after a while, he decided, This is a lot of money.
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  Speaker 16: I'm done with this."
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  Speaker 16: He even consulted the king of Egypt.
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  Speaker 16: The king of Assyria finds out and puts him in prison and next is the moment that the prophets have been warning about.
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  Speaker 16: In 17:5, "Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it.
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  Speaker 16: In the ninth year of Hoshea- The king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria.
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  Speaker 16: This is a pivotal moment in the history of Israel.
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  Speaker 16: This is one of the two dates I encouraged you to memorize before.
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  Speaker 16: it occurred in 722 BC And scripture is clear about why it happened.
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  Speaker 16: And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and
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  Speaker 16: walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.
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  Speaker 16: And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right.
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  Speaker 16: They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city.
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  Speaker 16: They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree.
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  Speaker 16: And there they made offerings on all the high places as the nations did, whom the Lord carried out before them.
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  Speaker 16: And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger.
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  Speaker 16: And they served idols of which the Lord had said to them, you shall not do this.'
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  Speaker 16: But they would not listen."
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  Speaker 16: but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God.
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  Speaker 16: They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them.
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  Speaker 16: They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them.
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  Speaker 16: And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves metal images of two calves, and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.
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  Speaker 16: And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings, and used divination and omens, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
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  Speaker 16: Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: none was left but the tribe of Judah only.
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  Speaker 16: Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced.
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  Speaker 16: Did you hear how many times it said, For they did not fear the Lord their God, but they feared other gods If we look back on that monumental moment in Deuteronomy 28 when Moses said before departing, I set
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  Speaker 16: before you life and death, blessing and curse.
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  Speaker 16: Fear the Lord, honor His ways, and be blessed."
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  Speaker 16: And in verse 47, he delivered a warning from the Lord, Because you did not serve the Lord your God with the joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies
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  Speaker 16: whom the Lord will send against you in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything.
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  Speaker 16: and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.
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  Speaker 16: The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or
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  Speaker 16: show mercy to the young.
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  Speaker 16: Israel has ignored all of God's warnings, and though it may not outwardly appear this way, it's His faithfulness and His kindness that disciplines them to bring them to the end of themselves We'll turn now to the Book of
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  Speaker 16: Isaiah.
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  Speaker 16: In chapters thirteen and fourteen, we have a lengthy oracle against Babylon, and then fourteen concludes with an oracle against the Philistines We'll read a portion written to the nation of Babylon.
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  Speaker 16: Beginning in Isaiah 14:12, How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!
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  Speaker 16: How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
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  Speaker 16: You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend
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  Speaker 16: above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'
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  Speaker 16: Some believe that this also applies to Satan and his fall from heaven Luke 10 and Revelation 12 also tell us of Satan's fall, but it is up for debate.
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  Speaker 16: Did you notice the five I will statements?
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  Speaker 16: The final one was, "I will make myself like the Most High."
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  Speaker 16: Although I've consistently pointed you towards godliness and righteousness, this is a powerful conviction against pursuing God likeness.
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  Speaker 16: Godliness acknowledges holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
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  Speaker 16: As Micah said, "Who is like you, O Lord?"
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  Speaker 16: The answer obviously is no one, and any effort to become like Him in power or perfection is pure wickedness, and certainly that was found in Satan.
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  Speaker 16: I can remember coming across this passage early in my motherhood.
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  Speaker 16: when I was in that early stages of trying to do everything right and just so I wouldn't have said it But I had certainly hoped to be the ideal mom, maybe even as perfect of a mother as I
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  Speaker 16: could be, and to be everything my kids needed.
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  Speaker 16: And when I read these verses, I remember repenting and saying, Lord, help me to be a mom that leads in humility and models my desperation for you, and that helps my kids see their need for you.
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  Speaker 16: The atmosphere around motherhood has changed a little bit, I think, because authenticity is valued much more now than the pursuit of being a supermom.
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  Speaker 16: However, I still think there's a lot of pressure on mom's shoulders to get it just right, to figure out the root of every symptom, to cut out every character flaw, to carefully evaluate every food on every plate and
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  Speaker 16: we need prayer to maintain a life of reliance delighting in and acknowledging our need for a perfect God rather than striving to be like him Heavenly Father, we come before you reminded of the times that we have strayed
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  Speaker 16: so far from what you've called us to.
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  Speaker 16: I pray for every mom listening that is struggling to believe that your forgiveness and your mercy have covered a particular sin she's done I pray that she could trust you at this very moment, that you no longer count
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  Speaker 16: this sin against her, but through the power of your blood, you have defeated every sin she's committed and that you love her dearly We also acknowledge that there are times we're not convicted of our sin, and we're shrouded
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  Speaker 16: in self-righteousness and in finding solutions on our own.
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  Speaker 16: Would you teach us how to hold both reliance and wisdom, pursuing answers to the problems of life But being surrendered to you through it all That we would be able to say with Paul in Philippians, My every hope
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  Speaker 16: and expectation is that Christ be glorified."
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  Speaker 16: Lord Jesus, we pray you would be exalted in the hearts of our children, and that any shred of them that longs to elevate themselves through their talents or their careers or their dreams That they would rather choose to
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  Speaker 16: point to you in all that they accomplish may they lay down their own fame and lift You high.
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  Speaker 16: Jesus, Your name is above every name, and we delight to pray in it now.
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  Speaker 16: Amen.