Zedekiah: The Fall of Jerusalem & Babylonian Captivity

 “The Fall of Jerusalem”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Sept 1, 2019

Text: 2 Kings 24-25 // Series: 2 Kings: Faith in Faithlessness  

Hello.  Welcome, friends.  I’m going to invite you back in with your beverage as we continue in our teaching time together this morning.

Today we are wrapping up a massively long story arc that we started several summers ago in our march through the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures.  The books of 1&2 Samuel and 1&2 Kings tell the complex and convoluted history of the ancient nation states of Judah and Israel.   So let me try and give you a quick summary. They go through the kingship of Saul, David, and Solomon as a united kingdom but then in 931 BC, the Kingdom splits into two – Israel in the north and Judah in the south.  And in the northern kingdom, we have 19 kings and 9 dynasties – ALL of them bad kings - over the course of 210 years.  The Northern Kingdom is ultimately conquered and the people are taken off to Assyria in 722 BC. 

The southern Kingdom, named Judah, continues to exist. They have a total of 20 kings, all of them with the exception of 1 are descendants of David, over the course of 345 years. And during this time we have multiple prophets, named and unnamed.  We have whole or part of 8 books of the Hebrew Scriptures written… So if you feel a bit lost or out of the loop with what in the world is or has been going on, join the club!  This part of the Bible can be very confusing because there is just so much going on! 

But fear not, in order to clear up confusion, someone, somewhere looked at look at 2 Kings and thought to themselves, “you know what this would make? A great VIDEO GAME.  Have a look at this clip for an actual, available for purchase board and video game called “Kings of Israel”

[VIDEO – clip: Kings of Israel] 30 sec

This is from the actual promotional material for this game: “Overwhelmed by hordes of invading nations – and a series of corrupt kings – the fate of Israel is balanced on a knife’s edge! The Northern Kingdom’s only hope is that a band of prophets can cleanse it of evil and idolatry before the wrath of God does so – permanently…. The player must use their team of prophets to fight evil growing within Israel, while trying to build the altars needed to win the game. Life will not be easy for the team of prophets! Each turn evil grows within Israel, idols may be built, and chaos continues every turn a bad king leads Israel. But if the player plans well, and uses their actions and resources carefully, they will prevail and go on to new, and more difficult, battles!”  Um, OK. 

My actual favorite action card is this one “each prophet may immediately move into any location that contains either sin clouds or an idol”. 

Oh, mercy!  There are some things about Christian sub-culture that I will never understand!  But one thing this game highlights is the complex set of people and choices that eventually leads us to where we are at today: the end of the line for Judah.  Today we are going to talk an event that shapes and defines and marks the people of ancient Israel so significantly, that it still has resonance and impact to this day: The Babylonian Exile.

Turn with me in your Bibles or on your devices to 2 Kings 24 and we’ll see how this happened and what lessons we can draw for our lives today from the book of 2 Kings.  We’ll move quickly though a succession of bad kings following and I want you to see the pattern that is repeated throughout the book of 2 Kings.

Last week we explored the life of Josiah, who became king at age 8 and who was a good king who led the nation in massive reforms and who followed God with his whole heart, soul, mind and strength.  At the end of his life, he makes a rash decision and gets involved in a major political conflict that is not his and Josiah - Dies in battle with Pharaoh (2 Kg 23)

His son Jehoahaz becomes king.  Jehohaz is kings for a grand total of 3 months, then Pharaoh imprisons him and installs his brother as king.  But look at 2 Kings 23:31 and its assessment of his leadership: “Jehohaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months… He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as his ancestors had done”

The next to last king is Jehoakim.  Pharaoh installs him as ruler and during his reign, Babylon comes to prominence as a world power and invades Judah and captures the entire area formerly claimed by Egypt. Jehoiakim – Josiah’s son rebels against Babylon and when his rule is reflected on in 2 kings 23:36-37 it says “Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years… He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as his ancestors had done.”

The next to last king of Judah is Jehoakim’s son, Jehaoichin.  You see why this gets confusing, right.  Some of these people are changing their names and some of the names sound almost exactly the same to us!  Babylon is coming to prominence as a world superpower and they don’t take lightly to this rebellion.  So they come and attack Jerusalem and

Jehoiachin – Jehoiakim’s son exiled to Babylon. 

Again, the assessment repeats… in 2 Kings 24:8-9: “Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months…  Jehoiachin did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as his father had done.”

The final king of Judah was named “J…” (just kidding). – you thought it was going to be a J name, didn’t you?!  His name was Zedekiah – Jehoiakim’s uncle, exiled to Babylon.  Zedekiah rebelled against Babylon and for two years, the city was under siege.  Finally, the famine in the city was so severe that people decide to break out through the city wall and escape ad night but eventually there were all captured & sent away. 

And just to make sure that this troublesome city didn’t rebel against him for a third time, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon instructed his soldiers to set fire to the temple of the Lord, to the royal palace and to all the houses of Jerusalem.  Every important building was burned down.  The walls were broken apart and the people were led away into exile.  Only the poorest people remained behind to work the fields. It was finally over.    

This is the low point in the history of the ancient Israel.  In Psalm 137

is written during this period.  Listen to how it laments the lost of country, loss of community and loss culture…. Beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept as we thought of Jerusalem. We put away our harps, hanging them on the branches of poplar trees. For our captors demanded a song from us. Our tormentors insisted on a joyful hymn: “Sing us one of those songs of Jerusalem!” But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan land?” The implication: we can’t. 

One thing that is helpful to keep in mind is that the author of 2 Kings, we don’t know who it was, is writing this during the period of the Exile.  So this is a retrospective look at a turbulent and dark period of history for these people.  But the book is not written in accordance with the modern conventions of writing history. It’s not just about politics or how long kings were in power or what the economics were like. This is a theological assessment their actions.  Because the driving questions behind the book of 2 Kings is WHY did this happen to us.  As the exiled Jews and their descendants are sitting in Babylon years later and asking “why are we here?” or their Babylonian neighbours are asking them “if your God is so powerful, why did you end up in exile?”  It’s a potent & legitimate question. 

God has been merciful– for hundreds and hundreds of years.  But eventually, “These things happened because of the Lord’s anger against the people of Jerusalem and Judah, until he finally banished them from his presence and sent them into exile.”

So there are 4 main lessons for us to take away from the book of 2 Kings.  The first one is around the WHY question….

1) This is about (in)fidelity to the Covenant, not arbitrary emotional outbursts by God 

We can read 2 Kings 24 and when it says “God was angry” we associate that with emotion. But what the writer is saying is not that God is unstable and suddenly caught wind of somebody doing something wrong and then zapped them with a lightning bolt.  No.  2 Kings is written to link back to Deuteronomy and the Covenant that the people of Israel made with God. 

A covenant is an ancient version of a binding contract.  I was at the bank this week and I was having a dispute with them over some charges on my account.  And they pulled out the paperwork and they read over the terms of the contract and they said “is this your signature?  Beside the line that says “I am responsible for all charges on the account?”  Then you are responsible for what happens! You signed it.  You knew what it would cost.

The same thing is true with ancient Israel.  The contract was very clear.  The terms of the covenant were fair and well-understood and Israel signed it.  They just chose not to honour it.  The people chose to follow the practices of their pagan neighbours and pursue horrible activities like child sacrifice amongst other heinous crimes. 

In this covenant, which was renewed under Josiah in 2 Kings 23, there are Blessings for Covenant Obedience:“If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.”  (Deuteronomy 28:9-10).

But there are also consequences for Disobedience:

“If you refuse to obey all the words of instruction that are written in this book... the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone!  There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair.”  (Deuteronomy 28:64-65)

So God, far from being mean and angry and arbitrary, is simply upholding God’s end of the bargain by saying “Oh, if you want to act in that way, I cannot permit that.  It’s off side.  It is horribly destructive to you and my vision for human flourishing.  This needs to stop!”  And when, for hundreds of years, the people persisted in the face of warnings by the prophets and some progress made by some good kings but significant relapses back into significant sin, God finally says as an act of loving restraint: “enough is enough.  I cannot continue to allow you to destroy yourselves & others through these patterns of living.”  When looked at through the lens of love, Exile is a reasonable response to extreme apostasy.

• God is not being capricious or angry; God acts JUSTLY to bring about known consequences

So the lesson here is really about how we think about God and how we think about Scripture. We sometimes attribute things to God that are more the reasonability of humans and God simply responding both in mercy and in justice to their actions.  There is a lot more that could be said about that and we’ll tackle some of that this fall in our series in the book of  Galatians.   

The second lesson we see repeated time & time again in the book is a little axiom or saying that goes “Speed of the Leader, Speed of the Team”

What I mean by this is that those are the top are responsible for setting tone, pace and culture and policy in an organization or country. 

• Leaders set the tone for what is acceptable & will be held to a higher standard (James 3:1)

James 3:1 is the name of David McFarland’s podcast and it says “not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly.”  If you know what is right and good and you are in charge and you intentionally lead people away and astray from that, your accountability is higher.  Here are Jericho, we hold people who are in public leadership to a higher standard.  And we make no apologies for that.  Now, does it mean those of us who are pastors or elders or worship team members or Kids at the Ridge teachers or youth sponsors are prefect?  Of course not!  But it does mean that we expect those who are leading others to set an example by their lives for God-honouring conduct. 

In the case of the ancient Kings of Israel and Judah, this simply did not happen.  Oh they were providing leadership all right, but 2 Chronicles 36:14 says that “Likewise, all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful. They followed all the pagan practices of the surrounding nations, desecrating the Temple of the Lord that had been consecrated in Jerusalem.”

ALL the leaders – religious and civic – were leading people away from God and into compromise, into syncretism, and away from worshiping God. 

You might say “well, Brad, I like that! If leaders are responsible, then it means I don’t have to be responsible.”  Not quite.   

• BUT this does not absolve you and I of individual responsibility before God.

It’s more like “everyone is responsible, leaders are more responsible because of the depth of their knowledge and the scope of their influence” This is true not only in the church, but teachers, it is true in your classroom.  Parents, this is true in your home.  When it comes to faith development and passion for God, speed of the parents, speed of the child. So let me challenge you to reflect today. “What is the example am I setting for those around me?”  If the followed me, would I lead them to Jesus? 

The third lesson from the book of 2 Kings and from our 2 chapters and 4 kings we have looked at today is that It’s Never Too Late to Repent… (Until It’s too Late to Repent)

Reflecting on the story of the people of Israel, the writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews says “Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God… “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.”

The theme of hardened hearts comes up a lot in the Bible.  It’s the notion that if I have a soft heart, I can still hear and respond to God. But if my heart is hardened by unbelief or by repeatedly turning away from God, then I can easily live in a place of deception and I won’t feel things. 

It’s like this. Many years ago, I decided I would try to learn to play the guitar.  So I picked up my mom’s guitar and I figured out the fingering for C chord and G7.  So I could play a grand total of 1 song – [pick up guitar and play] “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands / He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands / He’s Got the whole world, in His hands / He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands”.

After doing this for a bit, the tips of my fingers ached.  They were tender and sore and I complained to my mom.  And she said “oh, you need to keep playing and your ringers will tougher right up.  You’ll develop callouses and so you won’t notice the metal biting into your skin anymore”.

I gave up guitar. I wasn’t willing to put the time in to get the callouses.  Here’s the principle: when you do something repeatedly, you become numb to it.  Whether it is playing the guitar OR whether it is harbouring a secret sin in your life or, in the case of the ancient Israelites, multiple public and prolific sins like oppressing the poor, sacrificing their own children, or refusing to trust in God.  Do those things over and over and over again and you develop callouses.  After a while, you do it and you don’t even notice it anymore.  The same is true with sin in your life and mine.  We can become so accustomed to behaving in a certain way, we are numb to how that impacts our walk with God and our relationships with other people. 

So today, I want to ask you to consider ““How soft or how calloused is my heart?”   Are there areas of your life that you need to repent in?  The good news is that if you are listening to this, then there is still time.  God is being gracious to you and has given you today.  One of the explicit reasons the book of 2 Kings was written was for our benefit. So that we could se what it looks like when people harden their hearts and turn away from God.  And it is a warning to us not to follow them down that pathway. 

The final lesson is one we have talked about before and it comes to us from the very last 2 verses of 2 kings.  After all of the horrors of the city being burned, the wall torn down, the people being dragged off into exile, we get a glimmer of God’s mercy.  Our fourth lesson from 2 Kings is that Even in darkest times, there is always hope. 

You remember Jehoiachin.  Well 37 years after he is taken into exile, a new king comes to power in Babylon.  And this new king instead of killing Jehoiachin, speaks kindly to him, released him from prison and gives him a seat of honour.  In the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, there is a stone tablet discovered by archaeologists excavations of Babylon.  And it gives a list of a generous ration provided to Jehoiachin, king of Judah.  

Remember, God still promised to bring about the salvation of the world through the line of David.  And so even in exile, God is still committed to God’s people and God’s promise of redemption and rescue.  That part of the story we’ll pick up next summer but for now, I want to ask Ruth Ellen and the team to come and we’re going to move into a time of communion.  One of the most beautiful things I can think of is even when we fall down

• When we fail, God is still merciful and kind

The message of the cross is that while you & I were still sinners, far from God, God loved us so much Jesus came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Jesus might be saved.  Communion is the time when we remember and celebrate God’s mercy and grace to us.  {invite those serving to come – Kwons & Carpenters & Prayer teams}