Kings and Prophets 10

[0:00] Father, we do thank you. We thank you today for who and for what you are and for your amazing grace, Father, that you give to us each and every day through your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and when he did it to cross.

[0:13] We can't thank you enough for that, and we just thank you for the new life you've given us through him, and just guide us and help us to live the life that you would want us to live.

[0:23] We thank you for your word, Father, and this morning as we go through it, just enlighten us with it, and we just thank you for your love and for your grace, and for those who are hurting and have medical problems, we pray for them today.

[0:39] We pray for Bruce and Marie and the things that's going on there, and just guide them, and for those who are helping them, and we thank you for Brock and just still pray for him as he goes through.

[0:53] The promise that he has also. So we just thank you this morning and praise you. We ask it in our Lord and Savior's name, Jesus Christ. Amen. All right.

[1:06] Well, last week we had a... We just paused a little bit and just had a thing of questions and answers because we didn't have many people there last week because of the weather.

[1:16] And this morning it looks like it's going to be a little bit better, so we'll continue where we left off. And that was several weeks ago, and I think we were finished up with Jeroboam.

[1:34] So that's where we ended up, and we talked about some of the prophets. We talked about Jonah, and we also talked about Amos, and that they were prophesying during this time, and today we're going to be talking about Hosea, who is another one of the prophets, and he is also prophesied during that time.

[1:57] So these three prophesied during the rest of the kings that we're going to be talking about here for the northern tribes. And Hosea was even prophesying, and he was there during the captivity.

[2:13] So these people were there. The prophets were there, giving the kings and the people the word that God gave to them. But, as we see, they decided not to listen, and that's what we'll be talking about here this morning.

[2:30] So last week we saw how the prophet Amos, how he was called through God to division, and fell a strong compassion to prophesize, and he did that.

[2:42] And today we look at the prophet Hosea. This is the first book in the section of the minor prophets, and when we talk about minor prophets, it's not because they don't have good material or anything like that.

[2:55] It's basically just the fact that they're small writings. It's not like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, who have quite a few chapters in those books.

[3:06] But the minor prophets, they listed them as minor because they just did not have as much material. But the material they do have is important. And so I think it's good that we look at that.

[3:18] And also, as we go to the prophets, I'm just going to kind of summarize these books, because, again, if you just go to the book of Hosea, it would take some time to go through verse by verse to get all the information that's in there.

[3:34] So just kind of get a summary of what's going on with these prophets. And the main idea of that was to see how they fit in with these kings from both tribes, the northern tribes and the southern tribes.

[3:48] So each of them had prophets that were going on at that time that they were in kingship. And we see how that worked out all the way through the captivity of the northern tribes and as they continue prophesying all the way into the captivity of the Judah tribe to Babylon.

[4:06] So the book of Hosea, the prophet wrote approximately 715 BC. The key personalities are Hosea, Gomer, and their children.

[4:18] It was purpose was to illustrate the spiritual adultery of Israel and God's bondless love for his sinful people. Hosea brings God's message to the wicked northern tribe.

[4:29] During this time they are active in oppressing the poor and slavering and worshiping idols. God, because of his grace, sent another opportunity for Israel to repent and to return for him.

[4:42] That's why he sends these prophets to give them the opportunity to come back to him. Certainly thereafter, the northern tribe went into a permanent captivity because they did not listen.

[4:56] So we're going to see in chapters 1 to 3, God gives Hosea instructions to marry an unfaithful woman and he obeys. That kind of seems strange, doesn't it?

[5:08] That God would actually say, hey, go out and marry a harlot. And that, you know, God used that as an opportunity to teach the nation of Israel.

[5:22] It seems like a hard way to do it, but God did that. So Hosea is faithful. He finds her. He redeems her and brings her back to him.

[5:32] So we see that story that he marries the harlot and the harlot goes out like most do. And she sinned against him and went away.

[5:43] But he stays with that idea and he brings her back to him. And that's kind of what the story is. Then I said to her, you shall stay with me for many days.

[5:54] You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man. So I also be towards you. And we see that in verse 3, chapter 3. In chapters 4, Hosea describes how Israel has been unfaithful to God.

[6:11] God wants Israel to repent and turn from their wickedness. He wants to restore Israel. However, they can continue to disobey it and follow their own ways. My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.

[6:25] Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being my priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

[6:37] So Hosea is laying down a principle here for the nation of Israel. And he's saying, you have some knowledge. But it's not the knowledge.

[6:47] They don't have knowledge. They have knowledge of God. Because they still have the priest and still have people that's there. But what is it? It's not that they don't have the knowledge.

[7:00] It's that they reject the knowledge that they do have. And I think we can turn that to what we are today or what's going on today, can't we? You know, we have people today sitting in churches all over today, all over the world, who have knowledge.

[7:18] Have knowledge of God. Have knowledge of Jesus Christ. But not necessarily do they take that knowledge and use it. A lot of times they reject that knowledge.

[7:30] And that's why God, well, we won't have to turn to it, but 2 Corinthians chapter 5 is a very good chapter on God and Jesus Christ and what he did for us and how we are separated from him.

[7:46] But his main goal is to bring us back. To bring us back. 2 Corinthians talks about the judgment seat of Christ. We all must go there and appear there.

[7:58] His absolute love that he died for us, he explains there in chapter 5. And he reconciled us and brought us back in relationship with God through him.

[8:09] What an amazing thing that he has done. What a gift he has given us. 2 Corinthians 5.17 It says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away.

[8:20] Behold, new things have come. When we come to Christ, he gives us a new life. Or spiritually, we have died from that and he's given us a new spirit.

[8:36] And sometimes that's hard to explain and to understand, but that's exactly what he does. And verse 18, Now all things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

[8:49] So he not only saved us, he gave us a new life to go out, but he wants us now to go out and share that information. And he wants us to be involved in the ministry of reconciliation.

[9:02] And what is that? Namely, that God is in Christ Jesus reconciling the world to himself. Not counting their trespasses against them. And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

[9:16] And what is that word? Turn from your sins. Repent. Change your mind. And come back to God. And we have the opportunity to do that today through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one he did on the cross.

[9:34] So verse 20 says, Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as through God we are making an appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

[9:45] And that is our mission. When we're out above and through life as we talk to other people in our neighborhoods and wherever we go. If it comes up, sometimes we even bring it up.

[9:58] It's the fact that there is a new life in Christ. If we just repent and change our mind, we can be reconciled. And my favorite verse is 521.

[10:11] He made him into no sin to be sin for us. And gave us the righteousness of Christ. And boy, that is awful. Hard to understand too, isn't it?

[10:24] That today we can stand here and say we have the righteousness of Christ. And that's what they wanted back then. God wanted his people to come back to him. That's all he wanted.

[10:37] And that's why he sent these prophets. Was to explain to them what was going on. The sin that they were committing with all the idols and everything that was going on. Come back to me.

[10:48] And he was trying that through the prophets. And I guess sometimes, if I've been going through this, I'm wondering, why did God wait so long and go through all these years and all these people to get his people to repent and come back to him?

[11:06] But I guess we can go back to us again today, can't we? Why is God dealing with us now that we know Jesus Christ died on the cross and it's been 2,000 years?

[11:21] Joe? Of course, we know about the mystery in the church that Christ died that we're in now. But in Hosea, you were in the book of Hosea.

[11:31] Yeah. I read that. And if you look at chapter 6, there's something interesting there. I think in chapter 6 of Hosea, it goes down to chapter, or it reads there, it's talking about the chosen people, the Jews.

[11:45] That's what he's dealing with here. Right. The chosen people coming back to him. He says, come, let us return to the Lord, because they've had all this misery and everything, you know, and the life that they've done.

[11:56] He has torn us to pieces. In other words, all the judgments, you could say, were brought on them through the Holocaust. And right now, the things going on over there right now, they're being persecuted.

[12:09] They're wanting to be annihilated. So all that that's going on, he has injured us. But he will, but here, the Lord changes. But he will bind us up from our wounds.

[12:21] And we know with other scriptures where that's going to happen the second coming. He comes a second time. Right. But here's what I found was interesting. You go right on, and what he says next. It says, after two days, he will revive us.

[12:34] Now, what's that? What do you mean, after two days, he will revive us? Then on the third day, he will restore us. So it's going to be after two days.

[12:44] Now, what's this days got to do with it? Well, in the Bible, you think different places. A day to God was as a thousand years. A thousand years. And you just mentioned, it's been 2,000 years, you know, that Christ came on the cross.

[13:01] 2,000 years. And they've been in this denial, this rejection, all this time. They still are today. But it says there, then, on the third day, he will restore us.

[13:12] So all I'm saying is that prophecy, during this century, or this thousand years, that we're in now, that's the third day. See, that's the third day. We're in. Sometimes, in the next thousand years, he's going to restore them.

[13:26] In other words, Christ is going to come that second time, not the rapture, but the second time to his people and restore them. But sometimes, that's kind of what it speaks to me, because of the other scriptures, that a day is as a thousand years.

[13:43] So there are two days that are going by. You're waiting to that third day now. And I just, you know, because then he goes right on, let us acknowledge the Lord and let us press forward.

[13:54] But what was that two-day, three-day thing in there about? Yeah. We've got to realize that God's timing is not our timing. Yeah, exactly. It definitely is not.

[14:05] And we can't imagine all about it, but God knows it, and that's all we've got to faith to understand that and just take it by faith. Okay, we're going to jump into the next king.

[14:18] And this next king is found in 2 Kings chapter 15, if you want to turn to there. This is the reign of Uzziah and Uzziah.

[14:31] Now, why do I say both names? Because they're mentioned. They have the same name. There's two, one person with two different names. And again, I can't understand that either.

[14:44] But in the king's thing, it mentions Azariah. And then when you go to the Chronicles, the same time, the same thing's going on.

[14:57] His name is Uzziah. So, don't know why that is. Also, if you go to one of the prophets, Isaiah, in Isaiah 1-1, he states, The vision of Isaiah which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah.

[15:14] So, both of those names are being used. And it's during the kingship of Jothan, Azos, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah. So, 2 Kings 15-1, the 27th year of Jeroboam II, king of Israel, Ezariah, son of Amaziah, king of Judah, became king.

[15:37] He was 16 years old and he became king and he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem. He did right in the sight of the Lord according to all his father Amaziah had done.

[15:49] Only the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. Again, we must turn to 2 Chronicles to find more information about Uzziah.

[16:03] So, if we turn there, well, we won't even turn there. I'll just read it because there's a lot going back and forth. And this is just a summary of these verses in 2 Chronicles chapter 26.

[16:18] King Uzziah sought the Lord during the days of Zechariah and an unknown prophet. And here's another thing. There's so many people that have the same name as we're going through this.

[16:30] And if I see the name Zechariah, the first thing I think about is the prophet Zechariah. Because we have a book, Zechariah. But that's not who this Zechariah is.

[16:42] This is an unknown prophet who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as Uzziah made a point to seek God, God made him prosperous. Unfortunately, after Zechariah died, Uzziah made some mistakes later in his life.

[16:56] And again, he had a mentor there that he was following and everything was going good. But when that mentor died, as we've seen in some other kingships, King Uzziah was an intelligent and innovative king under whom the state of Judah prospered.

[17:12] He was used by God to defeat the Philistines and the Arabs. He built fortified towers and strengthened the armies of Judah. And he commissioned and skilled men to create devices that could shoot arrows and large stones on enemies from the city walls.

[17:30] He also built up the land and the Bible says he loved the soil. The Ammonites paid tribute to King Uzziah and his fame spread all over the ancient world. Unfortunately, King Uzziah's fame and strength led him to become very proud.

[17:46] And I think that's, again, something we see in a lot of the kings. If they had success, they became very proud. And what happens when we become proud? We just, we fail.

[17:59] There's no way to get around it. When you become proud and think you've got the world by the toes or whatever. You notice on your chart you gave us during the reign of Uzziah, that you don't have any prophets during that period coming to him to talk to him and tell him things.

[18:18] And the timing on here, you have them coming to the kings before and to the people and messages and after. But it's strange there. There's a gap there where we don't have any prophets.

[18:29] I think the prophets were there, it's just not mentioned. Yeah, right. They were there prophesying during this whole time. Speaking up, the ones in the Bible may help you out. Yeah. The ones mentioned in the Bible are this kind of void there in that period.

[18:44] Okay. And by attempting to this himself, Uzziah was basically saying he was above following the law. Now, 80 courageous priests. Oh, I forget.

[18:55] I've got to go back one thing. He committed an unfaithful act by entering the temple of God to burn incense on the altar. Burning incense on the altar was something only who could do.

[19:07] The priest. God set this thing up with the temple and the altar and all these things. And he had all these rules that went with it. And who could do what and who was able to do what.

[19:19] And the priests were the ones that would take care of the table, the incense, the burning. But this king thought that he was good enough that he could go in and do that. By attempting to do it himself, Uzziah was basically saying he was above the following of the law.

[19:36] 80 courageous priests led by a high priest named Azariah tried to stop the king. It is not right for you to do this. And so they tried to stop him. Leaving the sanctuary, if you have been unfaithful, you will not honor the Lord God.

[19:51] Uzziah became angry with a priest who dared to confront him. And while he was raging the priests in their presence before the incense altar, the Lord's temple, leprosy, broke out on his forehead.

[20:04] Uzziah ran from the temple in fear because God had struck him. From that day to the day of his death, King Uzziah was a leopard. He lived in a separate place and was not allowed to enter the temple of the Lord.

[20:16] His son, Jotham, governed a people in his place. And we're going to see now that the next several kings of Israel, are also bad and they don't even have much of a thing going on.

[20:29] They don't last very long at all. Because of the sin that they commit as soon as they take over the kingship. And the first one of those is Zechariah. Zechariah, again, Zechariah.

[20:43] Is that the prophet? No, this is Zechariah, one of the sons, and he's going to be king. So Zechariah, or Zechariah, reigns as the 14th king of Israel.

[20:54] Sadly, in the little information in the Bible, browse about this king. We find that he was simply another evil ruler in the line of wicked kings. In the second Kings 15, verse 8, In the 80th year of Azariah, king of Judah, Zechariah, the son of Jeroboam, became king over Israel in Samaria for six months.

[21:16] Six months. He did evil in the sight of the Lord, verse 9, and his fathers had done. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, the sons of Nabat, which he made Israel sin.

[21:28] King Zechariah's short reign came to an end when he was assassinated by Shalom, the son of Jabez, right in front of the people. And Shalom, the son of Jabez, conspired against him and fought him before the people, slew him, and reigned in his stead.

[21:49] So the next king, as they're killing each other off, Shalom reigns as the 15th king of Israel. And we're going to see in chapter 15, verse 13, Shalom, son of Jabez, became king in the 39th year of Uzziah.

[22:07] In verse 14, Then Menahem, son of Gedi, went up to Teresa and came to Samaria and struck Solomon. Son of Jabez in Samaria and killed him and became in his place.

[22:22] So these kings came in, they last maybe days or months, and another king comes in and takes over. So that's a time that's just, it's hard to imagine that you could go through kings like that, but they were going through them.

[22:38] Menahem reigns the 16th king of Israel in the 39th year of Azariah, king of Judah. So this king of Judah was staying there, was in reign while these other kings in northern Israel were coming and disappearing.

[22:55] And it seems that the prophets were not doing any good at all from what they were giving out because the people just did not listen. So he did evil on the side of the Lord.

[23:07] He did not depart from all the days of his sons of Jeroboam, the son of David. And verse 19, Poole, king of Assyria, came against the land, and Mahem gave Poole a thousand talents of silver so that his hand might be with him to strengthen the kingdom under his rule.

[23:25] Then Menahem extracted money from Israel, even from all the mighty men of wealth, from each man 50 shekels of silver, to pay the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria returned and did not return there in the land.

[23:40] And Mahem slept with his fathers. And we're seeing here that there's more Assyria coming into effect here. And we're going to see as it goes along how they come in and they take over.

[23:52] So the next king is Pekehia. There's another thing. These names are not that easy to get a hold of. So I'm sure I'm mispronouncing them, even though as these names come up, I would go to the internet for pronunciation.

[24:09] It's still very difficult to pronounce some of these names. So Pekehia, the 15th year of Assyria, king of Judah. Pekehia, the son of Mahem, became king in Israel and reign for two years.

[24:23] He also did, verse 24 of chapter 15, he did evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat.

[24:35] Then Pekeh, son of Rimel, his officer conspired against him and struck him in Samaria in the castle of the king's house. Pekeh reigns as the 18th king of Israel.

[24:48] And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam. And I'm not even going to try to pronounce the names of some of these cities.

[24:58] It's in verse 29. But during Pekeh's reign, the king of Assyria came in and captured these cities, the Nephethonians, and carried them captive to Assyria.

[25:10] So this is the start of the northern Israel falling into captivity. And in verse 1530, And Hosea, the son of Eli, made a conspiracy against Pekeh, the son of Rimel, and struck him and put him to death and became king in his place in the 25th year of Jotham, the son of Uzziah.

[25:34] For the next king, we're going to go back to Judah again in 2 Kings 1532. And Jotham reigns as the 11th king of Judah. He was 25 years old, and he became king and reigned 16 years in Jerusalem.

[25:51] And verse 34, he did right in the sight of the Lord, and he did according to all the fathers Uzziah had done. Only the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and burnt there.

[26:05] In those days, the Lord began to send a risen king of Aram and Pekeh, the son of Rimel, against Judah. And now turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 27.

[26:18] He built the upper gate of the house of the Lord, and he built extensively the wall of Bopel. Moreover, he built cities in the hill country of Judah, and he built fortresses and towers on the woodland hills.

[26:35] He fought also with the king of the Anamites and prevailed over them. So the Anamites gave him, during that year, 100 talents of silver, 10,000 cores of wheat, and 10,000 of barley.

[26:47] The Amorites also paid him this amount in the second and in the third year. So Jotham became mighty because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God. And Jotham slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David.

[27:02] His son reigned in his stead, Azazah, king, the 12th king of Judah. And you see that, he's got some things there in 2 Kings 16, but I think it's better just to turn to 2 Corinthians chapter, Corinthians, Chronicles 28.

[27:25] And in chapter 28, we're going to have a better history of Azazah, who was 20 years old when he became king. He walked in the ways of the king of Israel. He also made molten images of the Baals.

[27:39] Moreover, he burnt incenses in the valley of Aham. He sacrificed, in verse 4, sacrificed and burnt incense on the high places. Verse 5, wherever the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Aram, and they defeated him and carried away from him a great number of captives.

[27:58] The sons of Israel carried away a captive of their brethren 200,000 women, sons, and daughters, and he took also a great deal of spoil. In verse 9, but the prophet of the Lord was there, whose name was Oded, and he went out to meet the army which came to Samaria and said to them, again, here's another prophet that's being mentioned who's not in the Bible, and that's not unusual.

[28:23] God had all kinds of prophets that's there, that's just, none of them got put in the Bible. And he said, Behold, because the Lord the God of your fathers has slain you with Judah, he has delivered them into your hand, and you have slain them in a rage which has even reached the heavens.

[28:40] Now you are proposing to subjugate for yourselves the people of Judah and Jerusalem for male and female slaves. Verse 11, Now, therefore, listen to me and return the captives whom you have captured from your brothers, for the burning anger of the Lord is against you.

[28:57] Then the men who were designated by name arose, took the captives, and they clothed them, and they took them back. When King Isaiah met the victorious king of Assyria, Demacchus, he saw a pagan altar there he wanted to copy for his own use in Jerusalem.

[29:15] So he sent plans to his priest Uriah who finished the altar before Ahaz came back from to Damascus. If we turn to 2 Kings again now, in verse 16, it says, Now that King Isaiah saw the altar which was not at Damascus, and King Esau sent to Uriah the priest the pattern of the altar and its mold molded according to all its worship.

[29:42] And Isaiah built the altar, and Isaiah's desecration did not end there. to impress the king of Assyria, he removed the royal entry of the temple as well as the Sabbath canopy, and he cut the temple furnishings into pieces.

[30:00] So we see here that he was taken, came back when he was captive, he saw the things that the captors were doing, and he said, Oh, some of those things look real nice.

[30:10] I'm going to take those back and put those into effect when I get back to Jerusalem. And he did, and he had the people desecrate the temple, and he removed stuff from it. So Isaiah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of Jerusalem, but they did not put him into the tombs of the kings of Israel.

[30:28] And Hezekiah, his son, reigned in his place. Fortunately, King Heziah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and he reversed everything that his father had done.

[30:39] And we'll see that as we go on. The next king we're going to talk about is in chapter 19. The king of Israel, and his name is Hosea. In the twelfth year of Azah, king of Judah, Hosea, the son of Elah, became king over Israel and Samaria and reigned nine years.

[30:58] He did evil in the sight of the Lord, not only as the kings of Israel who were before him. Hosea was the last king of Israel before the nation was taken, captive by Assyria.

[31:12] The king of Assyria came up against him, and Hosea became his servant and paid him tribute. The previous king, Pekah, had fought with the Assyrians and lost much of the territory to the Assyrians, and now they came back and they're going to take the whole thing.

[31:28] So when Hosea took the throne from Pekah, he was nothing but a vassal king to the king of Assyria and was required to pay heavy tribute. In a bid for freedom and independence, Hosea rebelled against Assyria and stopped paying the tributes, appealing to Egypt for help, but this did not happen.

[31:49] This move was a failure when the king of Assyria discovered the king of Hosea's treachery. He threw Hosea into a prison. In verse 4, the Assyrians' army then invaded all of Hosea's land.

[32:01] The capital, Samaria, was besieged for three years and eventually was captured. Second Kings 17, verse 6, In the ninth year of Hosea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria and placed them in Holo on the border of the river of Gazad and the city of Medes.

[32:24] As most of the northern tribes of the kingdom of Israel had already been conquered, this deportation effectively destroyed the entire kingdom.

[32:36] Verse 17, 15, They rejected his statutes and his covenants which he made with their fathers and his warnings which he had warned them and they followed vainly and became vain and went after the nations which surrounded them becoming which the Lord had commanded them not to take.

[32:55] And we see that all this has finally taken a toll on the northern tribes. they've gone through all the prophets came and warned them.

[33:05] They had the knowledge but they rejected the knowledge and God finally said okay northern Israel it is time for you to go into captivity and that's what's happening here with the final king Hosea.

[33:19] God sent prophets including Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, Amos, and Hosea to warn the Israelites but the people presented in their idolatry and stiffness like their fathers.

[33:31] So God meant for Israel to be sent apart as a holy people we see that in Leviticus 20, 26 thus you are to be holy to me for I am the Lord and holy and I have set you apart for the for the peoples to be mine.

[33:48] God's intent was to make the nation of Israel his and he wanted them but instead they had took on the idolatrous practices of the societies that they had conquered back when they came into the land and now it is finally catching up to them.

[34:06] Because of the rebellion the Lord removed them from his presence in fulfillment of Moses' warning in Deuteronomy chapter 13. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them I declare to you that you shall surely perish.

[34:25] You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing a Jordan to enter and possess it. So what did Israel do after they resettled in Assyria? We see this nation taken because of their disobedience and what do they do once they leave?

[34:41] 2 Corinthians chapter 17 verse 34 and it says to this day they do according to their earlier customs they do not fear the Lord nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances or the law or their commandments which the Lord commanded the sons of Jacob when he named in Israel.

[35:01] And verse 35 with whom the Lord had made a covenant and commanded them saying you shall not fear other gods nor bore down yourself to them nor sacrifice to them.

[35:14] And 2 Corinthians 1741 So while these nations feared the Lord they also served their idols their children likewise and their grandchildren as their fathers did so they do to this day.

[35:28] So what happened to the northern tribes after captivity? The Assyrians deported them and mixed them with other captives and they just kind of mixed them with the countries.

[35:39] There's no scripture that says the northern tribes were ever returned to Israel. We don't see that in the scriptures anywhere. So some people think well that's their lost tribe.

[35:51] And we've talked about this before earlier that these tribes were really not lost. They just got mixed in with the other people and some of them eventually came back and some of them stayed.

[36:04] And James 1 says that the letter was sent to the 12 tribes of Israel. That is none of them were lost even at that time of Christ. They were there and they're going to be there when we get into the second coming and what God does for the whole nation of Israel.

[36:20] He's going to bring them all back. That includes the northern tribes also. So that's pretty much to take care of the northern tribes of Israel with this division that we had after Solomon.

[36:34] These kings and we see what happened to the northern tribes. And for the rest of the study we're going to be seeing what's going to finish up with the nation of Judah. And Judah they have their own problems also.

[36:47] They have good kings and they've had bad kings. And they just happen to have more good kings than the northern tribes did. So the next king we're going to be talking about is found in 2 Kings 18.

[37:07] 2. Hezekiah reigns as the 13th king of Judah. Good times and bad times. Hezekiah's name means God has strengthened.

[37:18] He is mentioned in many biblical passages. His story unfolds in 2 Kings. It also unfolds in 2 Chronicles. And again Isaiah he talks about Hezekiah the king.

[37:33] He is mentioned throughout the Old Testament in Proverbs. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and Micah. So this king was known by all these and these prophets were there during this kingship.

[37:46] And so he's mentioned a lot of the prophets. During his reign the prophets Isaiah and Micah ministered in Judah. 18.1 Now it came about about the third year of Hosea, the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Judah, became king.

[38:05] He was 25 years old and he became king and reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. He did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all his father had done. After his wicked father reigned, Hezekiah committed himself to set things right again in Judah.

[38:21] King Ezzi had nailed Jerusalem's temple doors shut as Hezekiah reopened the temple and cleaned it. He destroyed Judah's idols, pagan temples in altars.

[38:32] And we've seen this throughout Judah. When we had a good king or we had a bad king, they went back and brought in the idols and all that stuff back in. And as the years went on, we got a new king, the good king, he comes and he takes all that stuff back out.

[38:47] And Roger, you have some. There's no mention of the mothers of these kids that become kings. I just wonder if they had an influence where the dad didn't, the bad dad.

[38:59] Well, it doesn't know, not as far as that goes. It does mention the mothers as it, in the, in the paragraphs where it describes the king as he started.

[39:09] It talks about the king and it also talks the mother of, I didn't get into that. And I don't know what good it would do because it does, it does go back.

[39:23] Yeah, Joe. I was going to say, in Hezekiah 20 here, Hezekiah was told by Isaiah that the end was coming and that they would be carried off into battle.

[39:35] Yeah. And some kings later, some of his sons became king and so forth. They're not going to make it. Well, eventually, you know, because of the sins.

[39:45] So he knew that well ahead. It was a prophecy, really, given to Hezekiah. Yep. You're exactly right. So Hezekiah is a good king.

[39:57] And in 2nd Chronicles, chapter 29, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the Lord and repaired them.

[40:08] He brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them into the square on the east. Then he said to them, listen to me, O Levites, consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and carry the uncleanness out of the holy place.

[40:24] He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the azure poles. He also broke the pieces of the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the son of Israel burned incense to it, and it was called Nebuchadnezzar.

[40:42] And that goes all the way back to Numbers 21, where they were talking, they had the serpents.

[40:55] the serpents came and were abiding them and all this stuff for going against God and God finally came to God and God said, make this pole of this serpent and it will go away.

[41:11] And they followed that and they did that, but we don't see any place where God said, worship that now and continue worshiping it all the way through, and they did that all these years. And so at this point, he said, take that pole down, and that's exactly what they did.

[41:28] Yeah, Joe? That's exactly.

[41:48] And if you turn to 2 Chronicles 29, 15, it talks about that, exactly what you're saying. they assembled their brothers, consecrated themselves, and went in to cleanse the house of the Lord according to the commandment of the king by the words of the Lord.

[42:03] Hezekiah led Judah through several crisis situations. He threw off the Assyrian yoke and defeated the Philistines. And the Lord was with him wherever he went and he prospered.

[42:14] He defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza and the territory from Watchtar to fortified cities. Let's see. During his reign, the ruthless Assyrians empire conquered many nations.

[42:28] With foresight, Hezekiah decided to fortify Jerusalem against siege. He fortified the city walls, expanded the military, and built a 17-foot-long tunnel to provide a secret water supply.

[42:43] He decided in 2 Chronicles 32.3, He decided with his officers and his warriors to cut off the supply of water from the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him.

[42:56] Verse 4, So many people assembled and stopped up the springs with the stream which flowed through the region, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find abundant water?

[43:08] And until this day, that tunnel is still under Jerusalem because architects have gone in and they found the remnants of this tunnel that runs underneath Jerusalem.

[43:21] So, I guess we just about ran out of time. So, that is King Hezekiah, and, well, I guess we better do a little bit more of him next week because he is a good king, but in the end, he's going to fail a little bit himself, and this is the time that Isaiah is going to come in and start prophesying to him about what's going to happen to Judah if they don't change the ways that they're going.

[43:49] So, it's an ongoing story, and it's about the end because we only have several more kings, and we're going to see what happens to Judah, and then what happens to all of them once they are captives.

[44:01] So, any questions or comments before we close today? All right, we'll see you again next week.