You’re being lied to. So am I. We are lied to all the time, yet we frequently fall for the lie for there is something in us that desperately wants the lie to be true. It is not. It never was. It never will be. Let me give you some backstory, but first, some backstory to the backstory. I think I’ve mentioned this before but years ago, back when I was but a youth, I realized that I learned best from my mistakes. Then the real epiphany came: I can also learn from the mistakes other people make. Mistakes are still often the best teacher, but they don’t have to be mine! Learning from the mistakes of others can make my life less difficult—and far less painful!
Now the backstory. Ahaz became the king of Judah when he, too, was still a youth. From the beginning of his reign things did not go well. In 2 Chronicles 28 we’re confronted with the depth of his failures from the moment he was crowned king.
Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. 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. He even made metal images for the Baals, and he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
2 Chronicles 28:1-4 ESV
From the time he became king he worshiped false gods, and even sacrificed his own sons to Molech, the god who “demanded” such evil. Notice he made metal images “for the Baals”—plural. Gotta cover every variation of the storm god! He made sacrifices “under every green tree”. The point is he made idolatry widespread and common among the people he was to lead. Oh, he led them, but he led them down a wicked path.
That same text in 2 Chronicles 28 tells us the Lord responded to his idolatry and allowed the king of Syria to defeat him. “A great number” of his people were taken to Damascus. Then the northern kingdom of Israel attacked, and he was defeated by the king of Israel—their brothers in the north. The one nation had split into two. The northern kingdom attacked the southern kingdom and killed 120,000 men of Judah and captured 200,000 women and children, along with a great deal of wealth.
A prophet told the returning invaders the Lord was angry with them for while he gave Judah into their hand as an act of discipline on Judah, they took it entirely too far and in their bloodlust slaughtered men and were enslaving their own kin. Some of their chiefs took this to heart and insisted they allow the captives to return home. They made sure they were clothed and had food and drink and gave those unable to walk donkeys to ride. They even escorted them as far as Jericho, so as to protect them from others before returning to their own homes.
While this is going on the Edomites attacked Judah and took captives. On the other side of Judah the Philistines attacked and settled into their newly acquired territory, territory now lost by Judah. King Ahaz has lost battles against Syria, against Israel, against Edom, and against Philistia, all because he worshiped false gods who could not answer. Surely the prophets at the time were telling him where he was going wrong. Instead of crying out to the Lord, he cried out to the king of Assyria.
This trouble was clearly from the Lord yet Ahaz did not turn from the very sins causing this distress. He contacted the king of Assyria for help. Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian king, came to him, accepted his payment of tribute, but did not help him. He took treasure from the temple and then left him—and what could Ahaz do but watch him leave with all that gold and silver?
Think of this scene. He becomes king and immediately begins worshiping other gods. Syria defeats him in battle. Israel defeats him in battle. Edom defeats him in battle. Philistia defeats him in battle. Instead of crying out to the God who had led them out of Egypt and had given them the land in the first place, he cried out to Assyria, who plunders him even more. In response to the Lord’s discipline, Ahaz does not cry out to the Lord. Instead, he listened to the lies—the same lies you and I are told.
In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the LORD—this same King Ahaz. For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him and said, “Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me.” But they were the ruin of him and of all Israel.
2 Chronicles 28:22-23 ESV
The gods of Damascus had already defeated him, which suggests these “gods” were opposed to him. Ahaz thought he could rally them to his cause by offering them sacrifices. Remember, the central feature of false religion is transaction: if you give a god what that god wants, that god will give you what you want. False religion is very transactional. False religion—our idols—tells us to do what the idol wants so the idol will do what we want. These are the lies we all believe, and often want them to be true.
He responds to these lies with religious devotion: he sacrificed to them and did all the right things, the very things the gods of Damascus demanded. He was blinded by the thing he desired most. As with many idols, the thing he desired was a good thing: peace, prosperity, and security. This is how the lies work, however. We desire a good thing and we believe the lie that doing whatever it takes for that good thing must therefore also be good. Rather than trust the Lord for that good thing, we grasp for it, doing whatever an idol demands we do in order to attain it.
In this case, Ahaz was willing to do whatever he needed to do to gain the good thing he desired, which centered on worshiping false gods. He was deceived by the lies, however, for he was simply repeating the very things that caused the loss of peace, prosperity, and security in the first place. None of the gods to whom he sacrificed had rescued him. Syria and Assyria came from the north, as did Israel. Edom came from the southeast. Philistia came from the southwest. He was attacked from all sides—and lost. All the sacrifices to that point had given him none of the things promised. They certainly couldn’t give him his sons back!
How many times will he offer sacrifices to all these false gods, gods made out of metal and stone, and how many times he will simply say, “Maybe this time the gods will hear me”? The end result is always the same. The lies remain lies and such gods can never deliver on their promises. Instead, the narrator of 2 Chronicles tell us, “But they were the ruin of him and all Israel”.
The reign of Ahaz was a disastrous reign. In a short time he was defeated by multiple nations, had people taken into captivity by multiple nations, and had land and other treasures confiscated by multiple nations. While he pursued peace, prosperity, and security, he received none of these from the gods he worshiped. He believed the lies and continued pursuing the lies, and it was to his ruin.
His sin did not affect him alone. This is part of the lie, that what I do only affects me. Even so-called “private” sins have an impact on others around us, even if we cannot directly trace the impact. He grasped for something good because the gods around him promised to give it to him. This was all a lie for such things cannot deliver what they promise.
The author of 2 Chronicles gives us a hint of an opportunity given to Ahaz. The text says, “In the time of his distress” he did not pursue the Lord. In verse 5 of 2 Chronicles 28 we read:
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. He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with great force.
2 Chronicles 28:5 ESV
“The time of his distress” was an act of the Lord God whereby he was giving Ahaz opportunity to repent. Remember, these were the golden days of the prophets. The prophet Micah was active during the reign of Ahaz. So was Hosea. In fact, the great prophet Isaiah was sent directly to Ahaz to warn him! In Isaiah 7 we read about this interaction. Israel and Syria had formed an alliance against Judah so the Lord told him to tell Ahaz to not be afraid of them.
And say to him, “Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying, ‘Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,’ thus says the Lord GOD: ‘It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass.’”
Isaiah 7:4-7 ESV
The son of Remaliah was the king of Israel, which was also called Ephraim. The Lord directly tells Ahaz to not fear. Later in that chapter the Lord tells Ahaz to ask for a sign that this will happen, that God will not allow either Syria or Israel to destroy Judah. God offers to give a sign of his faithfulness to Ahaz. He offers to give Ahaz conclusive evidence he will keep Judah safe, but tells Ahaz to ask for the sign. All he has to do is ask for it! Here is Ahaz’s response.
Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz: “Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.”
Isaiah 7:10-12 ESV
Notice how Ahaz wraps his direct defiance of the Lord’s command in a thin veneer of righteousness. He casts his rebellion against God as an act of faithfulness. His self-righteousness is presented as more righteous than God himself! “I would never put God to the test! I’m far too holy and righteous to do such a thing!” The truth is he wanted to trust in the king of Assyria rather than trust in the Lord, but he couldn’t just say this so he disguised his unfaithfulness as an act of faithfulness.
He’s so very concerned about putting the Lord to the test that he refuses to put the Lord to the test…by testing the Lord. Disobedience is never the right response to the Lord! Rather than listen to the direct word of the Lord, Ahaz sought protection by appealing to Assyria after Edom and Philistia invade Judah. When Ahaz refuses to ask for a sign, God offers him one anyway. He tells him a virgin would conceive and give birth to a son and the son would be called “Emmanuel”—God with us.
In chapter 8 a prophetess gave birth to that son, demonstrating God was with his people. Though he brought calamity on them, he would not allow them to be destroyed. Then he says that before the newborn boy learns to speak both Samaria and Damascus would be defeated by Assyria. Ahaz refused to believe this sign and doubled down on his rebellion against the Lord and tried to make a deal with Assyria. As 2 Chronicles says, this was to his ruin and his people’s ruin.
At its core, the lie every idol tells us is the Lord cannot be trusted. If there’s something you really want, the Lord won’t give it, so pursue the idol and the idol will. This is the same lie told in the garden. It is the lie we’ve been told ever since, and the lie we tend to believe. The serpent told Adam and Eve what they really wanted was the fruit from that one, singular tree but God was holding out on them. God was ruining their fun. God was keeping that fruit all to himself, but if they would assert themselves just a bit, they could reach out and take that fruit and enjoy it, regardless of what God said.
Embracing the lies we’re told often causes us to let go of what good remains in a desperate attempt to gain what we do not have. It’s rather like Aesop’s fable of the dog who had a piece of meat but when he saw his reflection in the river let go of the meat to snap at what the “other” dog had, losing his own meat in the process. This is what Ahaz did. God clearly protected Judah by moving the chiefs in Israel to allow the 200,000 people they captured to return home. Rather than respond to God’s grace and mercy in faith and repentance, he doubled down and worshiped the gods of the adversary who had thoroughly defeated him. In the end, it was to his ruin and the ruin of all Israel.
All sin ultimately stems from idolatry, for an idol lies to us and we believe the lie that there is joy and happiness and lasting pleasure apart from the Lord and his good gifts. Idolatry can never be contained. Idolatry’s harm can never be truly contained to just the idolater. It always spreads and that spread carries ruin with it.
This grasping for what God has not given is the path to ruin and destruction. All along the way, however, God is there, warning us against sin and telling us to not be afraid to follow him wherever faithful obedience takes us. Whether Gideon and Abimelech in the book of Judges or Ahaz in 2 Chronicles or you and me right where we are, grasping for what God has not given is a recipe for disaster, for it is not an act of faith.
As we saw last Sunday in 1 Peter, what God desires from us most of all is faith. God desires that we trust him whether we have all the details or not. He wants us to know him and to know him is to know he is trustworthy. Our lives are safely in his hands.
We can learn from the mistakes of others. Ahaz stands as a warning to us what will happen when we refuse to trust the Lord and pursue our idols instead. It can only lead to ruin, both for ourselves and for others. Let’s heed the warning God gives us through stories such as this one. Let’s trust the Lord in all things. We know we can trust him for he has sent Emmanuel—God with us. He has proven, time and time again, that we can trust him. Let’s trust him, New City.
You’re being lied to. So am I. We’re lied to all the time, yet we frequently fall for the lie for there is something in us that desperately wants the lie to be true. It is not. It never was. It never will be. Each one of us is prone to believe it, however. New City, let’s call each other to greater faithfulness to the Lord. When we see a brother or sister beginning to listen to the lie or is being swayed by the lie, let’s speak true to one another and call one another to greater faithfulness to the Lord. Anything less than this will be to that person’s ruin, and the ruin of all around us.