All right, if you take your Bibles
now and turn with me to 2 Kings. 2 Kings chapter 18. 2 Kings chapter 18. Hold your place
here. We're going to be studying from
two chapters today. It's very difficult to do this,
but it shows a whole thing here. It's a whole story, a whole gospel
message here. in 2 Kings 17, 18, and 19. Now,
entitle this message, The Vanity of Fenced Cities. The Vanity
of Fenced Cities. Now, here in 2 Kings 17, 18,
19, the Lord presents to us three kingdoms. Three kingdoms. The kingdom of Sennacherib, the
king of Assyria, King Hoshia, king of Israel. Ten tribes of
the Israelites of the north. King Hoshia was the king of that
nation. And the king of Judah, Hezekiah. Now, each of these three kings
represents persons or beings. Now, according to the word of
God, the king of Assyria is represented by the world the flesh, and especially
by Satan. In Isaiah, he describes the fall
of Satan, and he actually calls him by the name of the king of
Assyria. So, and then you have the king
of Israel, Hoshea, he is a type of all false professing religion. The nation of Israel had the
name Israel. But as you're going to see, they
did not worship God. They worshiped false gods. And
so it is with false religion. False religion has a name of
Christianity. But if you see their God, their
God is not the God of Israel. It's a false God. And then we
have what we're going to focus on mostly is this King Hezekiah. He is a picture of every believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ. As we look into the mirror of
the Word of God and you see this king, you as believers should
be able to see yourself. I know I did. I know I did. Look
at 2 Kings 18 and look at verse... Look, let's begin at verse 5. This is speaking of Hezekiah. Let's begin at verse 4. Well, verse 3 looks better. And
he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord according
to all that his father David did. King Hezekiah. And he removed the high places
and break the images and cut down the groves and break in
pieces the brazen serpent that Moses made. For unto those days
the children of Israel did burn incense to it. And he called
it Neheshtah. And he trusted in the Lord God
of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the
kings of Judah, nor any that went before him. For he claimed
to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept
his commandments which the Lord God commended Moses. All who are believers in the
Lord Jesus Christ, You and I, as Hezekiah, trust in the Lord
our God. We trust in the Lord Jesus Christ
in His blood. We trust in His righteousness
alone for all our salvation. We rest completely, trust wholly
upon Jesus Christ. We do not lean to our own understanding. In all our ways we acknowledge
Him. We know that He directs our paths. And we see that our salvation
then is by the grace of God and trust our eternal souls solely
upon the person and work of Christ. This is the testimony of all
true believers and this was the testimony of Hezekiah. He said
he trusted in the Lord. We know this. He was looking
for Christ. He was trusting in the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Anyone who claims to be a Christian
but is somehow resting or trusting in some work or some act of their
will They have not trusted in Christ. They are not trusting
in Christ. And so you who trust in Christ,
the question I ask you, is it possible to trust Him too much? Is it possible to trust the Lord
too much? Is there anything in our lives
that we cannot trust Him with? Scripture says, he that spared
not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall
he not with him freely give us all things? I remember a story
that Don Fortner used to tell when he was lost. He had a friend,
an older man, and this man would encourage him in every sin that
he did. Every sin, this old man, he just
thought it was fun. He said, man, just go live life
to the fullest. Whatever your heart desires to
do, you go do that, Don. Don said, I did. I did. But when
the Lord saved our brother and he came to him and he had a heart
for this man, he came to him to witness to the gospel. And
this is the only, this is what the man had to say. He said,
man, you don't need to, you don't need to get too far into that
stuff. You don't need to, you don't
need to take that too far. Let me ask you, can you take
trusting Christ too far? No. We trust him because he is
worthy of trust. He is worthy of our trust. Therefore,
Hezekiah, he not only trusted him, he cleaved to him. That's
what our text says. He trusted the Lord and he cleaved
to him. The word cleave means to adhere
or to follow hard against someone, to lay All the weight upon that's
what it means to clean We that are see God our Savior
Jesus Christ we buy hope Cleave to him You know what the word
hope is it means confidence all the confidence I have to stand
before God I cleave to Christ I lay all the weight of that
responsibility upon him. I cleave to him. And we are, as the scripture
says, therefore, in union with him. And as the body cleaves
to the head, how does your body cleave to your head? That's how we cleave to Christ.
We who believe on Christ, we cleave to the Lord. We that believe
We cleave to our great God and Savior and have no confidence
in the flesh. We love Him. We long to serve
Him. We that love God do so because
He first loved us. You see, I cleaved to Him for
this simple reason. He put me in Christ. He put me
in Christ. He put me in union with Christ.
And by his grace and power now we are in intimate union with
him so that you cannot separate me from him. You know what the
Lord said? He said no man shall be able
to pluck them out of my hand. I've given to them eternal life.
No one's going to take them from me. And thirdly, Hezekiah says he
followed him. He trusted him. He cleaved to
Him and He followed Him. We that come to the Lord Jesus
Christ, do we not follow Him? Go to John chapter 10. Look what
the Lord says about this, about His people. John chapter 10, look at verse
27. This is the same text I just mentioned a second ago. Look at verse 27. He said this,
my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they do what?
They follow me. They follow me. They believe
on me. That's what it is to follow Christ.
It is to believe on him. Paul, knowing that we are followers
of Jesus Christ, in Ephesians chapter 5, he said, Be ye therefore
followers of God. We who follow Him, listen, everyone
who really follows Christ will always follow Christ. And therefore
we are encouraged to continue to follow Him. To follow Him. We trust the Lord, we follow
Him by faith and love. Why? Because our God is great.
We follow only somebody that's great. Would you follow anybody?
Well, a lot of people follow people that are less, but. We
who believe we follow him because he is great. He is a great God
and he has done great things and he leads us. He rules over
us. He decrees all things for our
good. He is not like the God of false
religion who just desires your good. Our God decrees it. He commands it and it comes to
pass. Therefore, the psalmist said,
the Lord is my shepherd. Notice the personal aspect of
that. The Lord is, he didn't say the
Lord is our shepherd. He said, I don't know about you,
but I know this, the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. Is there anything lacking, you
who believe in Christ? Does He not provide all things?
I shall not want. Why? He provides all things. He leadeth me beside the still
waters, He restoreth my soul, He leadeth me in paths of righteousness
for His namesake. Isn't that wonderful? He gives
us righteousness. He leads us in the paths of righteousness
for His namesake. That even though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Why? I'm
following Him. Did our Lord not go through death? He went to
die. What happened to Him? Well, God
raised Him from the dead. Therefore, we can follow Him
even into death. Because of this confidence, what
happened to him will happen to us. We follow him. And he makes us to lay down in
green pastures and he feeds us. And thirdly, Hezekiah obeyed
the commandments of the Lord. Now look at this in verse 6.
He said, but kept his commandments which the Lord commanded Moses. Now what does this mean? Does
this mean he didn't sin? Is that what it means? We know
that's not true, I'm going to show you in just a minute that
Hezekiah is going to sin. I'm going to show you Hezekiah's
sin, so that's not what it means. It means this, that he honored
and followed God's word by looking to Christ. That's what it means.
How is it that you and I who believe obey the commandments
of God? We've never done it. We have
no experience of it in this flesh. And yet the scriptures are clear
that we who are believers are holy. Whosoever is born of God
sinneth not. Can you figure that one out?
How is that possible? Whosoever is born of God sinneth
not. How is that possible when I know
that I've seen? Simply this. Because we have
been given the righteousness of God that is in Jesus Christ. We've been given his righteousness.
So all of his obedience now is my obedience. All of the obedience
of Christ as Hezekiah was looking to Christ was now given to him
so that God should say this. He kept all the commandments. That the Lord gave Moses. In this what it was true of Abraham.
Scripture says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him
for what? Righteousness. It was counted
to him for righteousness. And so it was with Hezekiah and
so it is with us. We're going to see that Hezekiah
just like us is prone to sin. He did commit sin as every believer
in Christ does. But this child of God was counted
holy and perfect in obedience the same way that every believer
is by the obedience of Jesus Christ. You know how my righteousness
was made? My righteousness was made by
the faithful obedience of Jesus Christ. That's how my righteousness
was made. As a man, Jesus Christ, under
the law, obeyed the law completely and perfectly. And He was doing
that as my representative so that that righteousness should
be mine. Romans chapter 3 and verse 22,
it says, even the righteousness of God, which is by the faith
of Jesus Christ, that was made unto all and upon all them that
believe. So that righteousness is unto
us and upon us. It is counted to us and it is
imparted in us in the new nature. So we are made the righteousness
of God in Christ. Look at Romans 8. Romans 8 tells
us that there's no condemnation. There's therefore now no condemnation. I like that word now. Don't you? I'm glad it didn't say there
was no condemnation yesterday. What about today? No, right now. There's therefore now and now. And now, and now, and now, no
condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the spirit, not obeying the law,
but rather believing on Christ. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus made us free from the law of sin and
death, for what the law could not do, and it was weak through
the flesh. God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful
flesh and for sin, what did he do? Condemn sin. Well, this is
good. My sin has been condemned. Where? In the flesh of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I didn't get away with my sin.
My sin was punished, was condemned. For what purpose? That the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us. In us. who walk not after the flesh,
the merits of the flesh. I don't walk after the merits
of the flesh, do you? We walk by the spirit. The spirit,
what's the purpose of the spirit but to give us life and faith
in Christ? This is what happened to Hezekiah,
so then this is true of Hezekiah. As God says, he obeyed the law
perfect. That's true of every believer.
Because of Christ, we are counted righteous. We are made righteous. So then this this scripture is
fulfilled in those days. Jeremiah 50 verse 20 in those
days. And in that time, saith the Lord,
the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for and there shall
be none. The sins of Judah and they shall
not be found, why? For I will pardon those that
I reserve. Hebrews 10, this is the covenant
that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I
will put my law in their hearts and in their minds will I write
them and will not remember their sins anymore. That's a covenant. You know, God's covenant's a
contract that God made with himself for us and God says, I will not
remember their sins. I will not. I will not do it. I will not remember their sins
anymore. Why? Because Christ really paid
for them. He really paid for them. And
so this statement also shows that not only is Hezekiah made
righteous, but it shows this, that he trusted the word of God. To follow the law of God, he
had to trust the word of God, believe it. Now, the king of Israel, as I
told you, he's a type of all false religion. False religion. We read in the 17th chapter of
2 Kings that he did not trust the Lord, but rather worshiped
the God of the heathens. Now, consider this. Israel and
Judah, two now distinct kingdoms, both professing to follow Jehovah. But the northern kingdom confessing
to follow Jehovah, and yet we know this, that they Followed
the false gods of the heathen in other words. They had little
gods that they carried around with them They had the name of
Israel, but it was only a name As I told you many people have
a name Christian, but they don't worship the same God I Had a
friend I talked to for years years and years about the the
gospel and he professed to be a Christian and I listened to
his profession and I He was trusting in his works the whole time.
I mean, he was he would really lean hard on his works. And I
knew this that we didn't worship the same God. And this this conversation
we had went on for like 10 years. And one day he finally the light
bulb went off. He said, you don't believe I'm
a Christian. I said, you know, I've been trying
to tell you, we don't worship the same God for years. See, my God carries me. You carry your God. Your God is submissive to your
will. My God is submissive to no one. My God rules and reigns. Christ didn't try to save people,
he saved them. See the difference? Their God,
he's trying to save people. Our God saves people. Their God
is trying to call people. Our God calls people. And so Hezekiah, as Hezekiah
trusted the Word of God, so does every true believer. We trust
that this is the infallible Word of God. This is the infallible
Word of God. We say, let God be true and every
man a liar. And we know this, that the sum
and substance of this book is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It is the sum of all God's Word
to man, Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember when the Lord
Jesus rose from the dead and those disciples were on the road
to Emmaus? He was talking with them and
He said, Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and
entered into His glory? And beginning in Moses and all
the prophets, Now who wrote Genesis? Moses. And all the prophets,
all the prophets up to John the Baptist, he expounded unto them in all
the scriptures the things, what? Concerning himself. You see, if you miss Christ,
you're reading this book for some other reason, you missed
the whole point of the book. It is about his son. Men don't
like that, but I don't care. That's that's the purpose of
the book. Jesus Christ. And so we trust this book. Therefore,
we trust to we trust him. We cleave to him. We follow him. We believe him. We trust his
word. And by this, we are we know this,
we are made the righteousness of God in him now that I want
you to see the result of believing in Christ. The fourth thing about
Hezekiah is that he rebelled against Assyria. Look at this
in verse seven. We got the character of Hezekiah
in those verse five and six. Remember, he trusted the Lord.
He cleaved to the Lord. He followed the Lord and he obeyed
the Lord. Now, then the fourth thing is
he rebelled against the king of Assyria. And the Lord was
with him and he prospered with us. So every wind and he rebelled
against the king of Assyria and served him not. Now, this is
not his rebellion against God, but against the Assyrian king.
And I want you to know this is kind of a purpose of these chapters. He's going to show us in 17.
He shows us the rebellion of the king of Israel. Now, listen,
Oh, Shia. He rebelled against the king
of Assyria, and so did Hezekiah. The king of Israel and the king
of Judah both rebelled. Well, what did they rebel from?
They were both paying tribute to this king. This king, he said,
look, you don't pay me money, I'm going to come in and kill
you. And so what did they both do? They said, okay. We'll pay
you money. Neither one of them trusted God.
Either one of them did. They said, okay, we'll pay you.
One day, the king of Judah said, I'm not going to do this anymore.
I'm going to trust in the Lord. I trust the Lord and he'll protect
us and I won't do that. And the king of Israel said the
same thing. I'm not going to do it anymore either. You're
not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. So it is with us by nature, we
by nature pay tribute. We by nature pay tribute to our
sins. Before the Lord saved us, we all paid tribute. We walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience. We all had our conversation in time past, in
the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of our flesh and
of the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, haters of
God, just like everybody else. That's our nature. But one day when the Lord saved
us, we said, I ain't paying tribute no longer. Now Lord Jesus Christ
pictures Satan as a strong man armed, remember? He's a strong
man armed and we by nature are held captive by our sins. And
this is the reason man's will is not free but rather bound. You know, people say the free
will of man is though it's a given thing. It's just that's just
right. They just say they don't have to defend it. They just
say it. OK, we all we all know man's will is free. Wait a second.
You sure about that? Nobody seems to question that
and it seems to think that's that's that's a truth. Jump off
a building and see how that works for you. Will to go back up. Oh, no. See, your will is not
free. It's bound by gravity. Right? So it's not free. We, by nature, are not free. We are bound. A man can only
do that within the confines of his nature, and our nature is
only sin. But when we come by faith to
Jesus Christ and love, trust God, we follow God, we cleave
to God, we are counted righteousness, We therefore rebel against sin. We no longer desire sin. We hate sin. And I'm talking about the sin of
other people. I'm talking about the sin of
my own soul. I despise it. We say we're not
going to pay tribute any longer. We're like we were like a dead
fish floating along the stream. until God gave us life and now
we are swimming up current. We are running against it. The
Apostle tells it like this, that we have two natures within us. The spirit and the flesh. The flesh slushes against the
spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary
one to another so that you can't do what? What you want to. The
spirit can't do what it wants to and the flesh can't. It's
a stalemate constantly. Struggling within the heart of
every believer. So that Paul in Romans 7, he
said like this, To will is present with me. Don't you will to be
without sin? To will is present with me. But
how to perform that which is good I find not. In my flesh, this is the conclusion,
in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. No good thing. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? You see the struggle?
So Hezekiah, when he rebelled against it, you think everything
went okay? You think the king of Assyria went, all right. Okay. I see your strength. I'm just
not going to ask any more of you. I give up. Is that what
happened when you believed? Do you suppose our enemy just
gave up? No. It was a conflict. It was
a conflict. We no longer then serve sin,
but serve God. But I know this, that Israel,
who had a name, did not have a true heart. They rebelled. I want you to see this. The same
thing happens to the true believer as the false believer. The false
believer says he doesn't like sin either. So he rebels. And a true believer rebels. But
what happened to the nation of Israel when they rebelled? Simply
this, Assyria came in and wiped them out. That's what happened
to Israel. That's what happens to all false
professions of faith. I've seen it many times. Somebody
come in, have some big event, some life altering event. They almost died or they was
in the hospital, they're sick. And then they come in, oh Lord
save me. I rebel against the king of Assyria.
I won't do this stuff no more. I'm gonna turn over a new leaf.
I'm gonna get right with God. Oh, the vanity of a cleaned up
life. They stop drinking, they stop smoking, they stop doing
drugs, they stop carousing, they stop going to this place and
start going to this place and join the church and get baptized.
They do a bunch of good things. The Lord had a story about that. He said there was a man who was
possessed with a spirit. And he said, for some reason
that spirit left. And what did the man do when
the spirit left? Well, he cleaned up his life. He got right. He started doing good things.
But when the evil spirit came back and found everything cleaned
up, you know what he did? He took seven more devils and
the last state of the man was worse than the first. You know what's worse than an
irreligious life? is a religious life. I've heard this a thousand times.
Well, at least they're going to church. They go to a false
church, hearing about a false God, and then somebody out of
a sincere, they're trying to be nice. I'm not saying they're
not. They say, well, at least they're going to church. Maybe
they'll hear something. You know what the Lord said about
false religion? He said this to the Jews. He
said, you span land and sea to make one proselyte. You spend all your time, all
your money, all your effort, all your work to make one convert. And when you made him, you've
made him two-fold more a child of hell. See, religion doesn't help. Religion strengthens a man in
his false Beliefs. That's what happened to the king
of Israel and they were conquered. And so it is with false religion. But notice Hezekiah had victory.
This is the difference between him and Hosea. This is the difference between
a true believer and a false believer. Look at verse 8. He, Hezekiah,
smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza. and the borders thereof
from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city." You see,
he trusted in the Lord. We have been freed by the Lord
Jesus Christ. We have been freed from the strong
man armed. So then that all the accusations
of our sins are now removed. Look at what it says about true
believers. In Colossians chapter two. Colossians chapter two. And verse 11, it says, in whom
also are you circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands and putting off the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision
of Christ? You see, we put off the old man
and his deeds. How by the circumcision of Christ,
he did it buried with him in baptism, wherein you are risen
with him through faith of the operation of God. Isn't that
amazing? Faith is an operation of God. Isn't that against religion? False religion says faith is
an operation of man's will. Scripture says that faith is
an operation of God. It's an operation of God. who
hath raised him from the dead, and you, being dead in your sins
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together
with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses, blotting
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, that was
contrary to us, took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. What are all these accusations
of the law? What did God do? He took them out of the way.
He nailed them to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and having
spoiled principalities and made a show of them openly, triumphing
over them in it. Believer, listen, the captain
of your salvation, just like Hezekiah went forth and conquered
all that was before him, your Savior went forth before you
and conquered all your foes. He defeated all your enemies.
You remember that High Priest Joshua High Priest Joshua in
the Old Testament and he's standing there in these filthy rags. He's
standing before God guilty. And there Satan is at his right
hand. The scripture says ready to accuse
him. You know what Satan said? Nothing. He wasn't allowed to. He's not
allowed to accuse us. Isn't that something? Man, I
look in the mirror and I make accusations all day long. Somebody
accused me of something. You're probably right. I probably
did it. But you know what God says to
anyone who tries to accuse me before him? He said, shut up. This is my son. This is a brand
plucked from the burning. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
makes us more than conquerors, just like Hezekiah conquered,
so does every true believer. You that believe on Jesus Christ,
listen, you are saved. You are saved. The king of Assyria
will not conquer you. Why? Christ has conquered him.
Christ has conquered him. I like that. Do you know Satan
is the Lord's devil? He does with him as he pleases.
He does with him as he pleases. And so, seventhly, we see his
victory. Now then, I want you to see his
failure because this is true of every believer, too. We trust
in the Lord. We cleave to the Lord. We follow
the Lord. We're made righteous by the Lord
Jesus Christ. We obey his word. We are now
more than conquerors through him. We have rebelled against
sin. We have rebelled against the flesh. We have turned to
him. We serve him. We obey him. Now then, oftentimes,
we fail him. Look at Hezekiah's failure. When
the king of Assyria conquered the northern tribes for not paying
tribute, he was then emboldened now to turn his sights toward
Judah. Look at verse 13. Now in the 14th year of King
Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against the
fenced cities of Judah. And what do you do? He took them. King Hezekiah enjoyed prosperity
for a long while. He had pushed back his enemies
so far, and now he felt at peace. He had room to breathe. He heard
that expression. Now I got room to breathe. They
did enjoyed it for a long period of 14 years. Good, good, long
time. But what hezekiah did eventually
is what we all do. He began to trust in the defenses
that he had set up. Instead of trusting the Lord,
he trusted his fenced cities. And so it is with every believer.
Sometimes we get so comfortable in our place. We build up fence
cities and assume that they will protect us from harm. And that
friend is only an illusion. I know this. My enemy is defeated,
but he is real. I think one of the greatest tricks
that our enemy has made upon man is to believe he is some
mythological character. He's real. How strong is our enemy? Stronger than you. Stronger than
you. Remember what the Lord said to
Simon, he said, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to sift thee.
as wheat. Now, I'm not a wheat farmer.
I don't know exactly what that was. I wanted to look it up again,
see what it was. You know what it is? These women,
they were on YouTube, looked it up. It was in these baskets
and they're just throwing the wheat up in the air. And then
the wind blows, it would just blow that chaff away. And all
it let in the bottom is the wheat. The sifting part is to throw
it up in the air and let it blow away. That's what Satan desired
to do with you. blow you like a puff of wind.
You see how weak you are? We are weak. Satan, if it were not for the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is mightier than he, he surely would sift
us as wheat. But this is the purpose and will
of God that he has used in this process to burn fenced cities. Now, what are these fenced cities?
Listen to me carefully, it's very important. What are these
fenced cities? They are anything we put above God. A fenced city
is anything we put above God. It is anything that we trust
in for peace or joy. They are anything that we might
perceive to bring us contentment in this life. I've got a couple of them, few
of them here. How about this? The fence city of biblical knowledge. We may well believe the doctrines
of grace. We may well understand great
things that are revealed in God's word, but we are not to trust
in our knowledge of the word of God. We are to trust God. There's a difference. There's
a difference. And so in our knowledge, we say,
surely God will blow away the unbeliever. Surely he won't come
and take me away. What does that mean, pride? Pride
in our knowledge, when our theology becomes the source of pride and
our knowledge becomes a source of contentment so that we become
complacent in what we have learned. It's offensive. Are you complacent
enough? I know enough. It's enough. Preacher,
I know everything you're going to say. Don't you? Everything I've said is not anything
you don't know, believer. Are you complacent in that? Is
that enough? Remember, we as believers must strive continually
to know Christ. We must strive to trust Christ. Do you trust him enough? Do you
know him enough? Paul said, I know whom I have
believed. Yet in Philippians 3, he said
that I may know him. Look, I know him, but man, I
want to know him. Don't be content in what you
know. Seek to know him. Otherwise, your knowledge is
nothing but a fence city ready to be burned. What about the
fence city of our families? We trust in our families to give
us contentment, joy. Our spouse? May be good to us. Our children may be a blessing
to us. We may have peace and no trouble.
I don't know any families like that, but maybe yours is like
that. I don't know. Not mine. But if we trust in our family
to bring us joy, God will destroy our family. God gives us children. He gives
us a spouse. We are to be thankful for these.
These are blessings. But they're not the source of
our joy. Those are not to be trusted in
for our happiness or security. If we lean on our family, they
will fail us. If we set them above God, He
will remove them from us. And by these pains, he will bring
us again to Christ. What about the fence city of
your job and your wealth? We set these up as fence cities. God can and does give us good
jobs and homes, and we're thankful for these good things. We praise
him for them. But like the knowledge and like
our family, they are but gifts. And if we begin to trust in them
for our security and begin to neglect the Lord, He will surely
remove them from us. God has promised that all believers,
that He will come and do this for our good. Listen, you can
turn there later, Hosea chapter 8. Listen, Israel had forgotten
His Maker and built the temples. Now, Israel remembers a picture
of the false believer. They forgot their maker and they
built temples, false religion. But Judah hath multiplied fenced
cities. And God says, But I will send
fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof. So what has God promised you
in your fenced cities? God says, I'm going to destroy
them. Is there anything then that you
hold more dear than God? Is there anything more precious
to you than Christ? Are you trusting in anything, leaning to your
own understanding? Do you hold your children, your
spouse, your job, your home as the source of your joy and contentment?
If so, God will send fire on your cities. Look at Hezekiah's tribute of
fear in verse 14. Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent
to the king of Assyria to Lachish saying, I have offended, return
from me that which thou puttest on me that I will I bear. The
king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300
talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. This is the first reaction
of every believer when our fence cities are burned. Give in. Whatever is going to make peace.
Isn't this our way, the path of least resistance, the easiest
way out of this, what is it? When God burns our fence city,
surely the enemy will come in and cause us to seek to give
in to our flesh, our reason, Our logic. God burns down our troubles,
it's not what happens to us. And the king of Assyrians no
sooner stood at the gates of Hezekiah and says, how much is
it going to cost for peace? One thing the believer has to
learn is that if we pay tribute to the flesh, it'll never stop. The moment we give in and pay
tribute to the flesh, No matter the pain or the sorrow, it will
never cease. It will never cease. Notice what
Hezekiah gave. Look at verse 15. Hezekiah gave
him the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and
all the treasures of the king's house. First he gave his private
wealth, king's house treasures. When a believer begins to offer
tribute to their sins, the first thing that goes is the treasury
of study and prayer. When our fence cities are burned,
what's the first thing to go? Study and prayer. These are treasures,
friend. The study of the word of God
is a treasure. To the believer, it's a treasure. Prayer is a
treasure. And yet these are the first things
to go. It is here that we receive comfort
and joy and peace from the word of God. is the word of God that
brings these things and prayer. What a wonderful gift prayer
is. Prayer is a mysterious thing.
God knows what we need. He knows when we need it. And
yet he says, ask me. Ask me. So have you given up
the spiritual wealth of prayer and study because of your family,
because of your friends, because of your job? What? What have
you given up for it? Notice this in verse 16, he didn't
stop there. Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the
temple and the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid
and gave it to the king of Assyria. He started cutting the gold off
the doors of God's house. When one gives a private store
of treasure of prayer and study, the next thing to go is public
worship. If you stop studying and you
stop praying, the next thing to go is what? public worship. If the believer is not attending
the worship service on a regular basis is a sign of a greater
problem that began before he quit coming. I know this offends
some, but it's the truth. It's the truth. Attending the worship service
does not save But if you have put anything above the worship
of God, then you are paying tribute, either to the flesh or to Satan. Listen carefully. Forsake not
the assembling of yourselves together, as the custom of some
is. But as you see the day approaching,
encourage one another. encourage me and you encourage
everyone else. But the absence from worship
cannot encourage anyone. It is discouraging. Is that not
so? It is. And so what would be the reason?
What reason would you place upon scraping the doors of gold off
the house of God. What? Family? Jobs? What? Are the education of your
children more important than the worship of God? Because that's
what you're teaching. If you neglect this, you're teaching
them that's more important than this. Is that not right? It's
just so. It's just so what are you saying
to everyone else around you? When you neglect the worship
of God. This is the purpose of the enemy.
Not only he cannot, cannot destroy our souls, but he sure can ruin
our witness. He can. Hezekiah was not well
in paying tribute, but notice this that Hezekiah eventually
repented. Chapter 19. Look over there. Now Hezekiah, he's surrounded
now. It's that tribute. That tribute didn't stop him
from coming all the way to the door. And so now the king of
Assyria is banging at the door. And what does Hezekiah do? And
it came to pass when King Hezekiah heard it, he ran his clothes,
he covered himself in sackcloth, and he went to the house of the
Lord. What did he do? He rent His clothes. This shows a picture of His nakedness
before God. He's exposed. He's exposed. Not before men. Who cares what
man thinks? He is exposed before God. And then in sackcloth, that shows
His humility. He bows Himself before God. And then what does He do? He
goes to the house of the Lord. He went to where the prophet
was. In verse 2 and 3, he sent over to Isaiah. In verse 3, he
said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble
and rebuke and blasphemy. The children have come to the
birth, and there's no strength. There's no strength. When a man's
in repentance, what does he find out? He don't have any strength.
All his fence cities are gone. He's got nothing to trust in,
nothing to hope in, except what? God, see the reason God destroys
your fence cities. He destroys them so that you
should come to him. And Hezekiah notice in verse
14, what he did, he came to the Lord, he heard the word of the
Lord. And listen, what's the word of the Lord to you when
you come in repentance? What is the Lord? It's his words,
the same as Isaiah. Don't be afraid. Thus saith the
Lord. Don't be afraid. Yes, but I really
messed up. Yeah, so what? Your salvation
is not dependent on you. It's on Christ. So the Lord says,
fear not. And notice what he did in verse
14. Hezekiah received the letter at the hand of the messenger.
He read it. Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and
he spread it out. What do you do? Spread it out. You sin? Spread it out before
the Lord. Here it is. You're in trouble? Spread it out. Confused? Spread it out. Don't understand? Spread it out. We take all of our troubles before
God and spread them out. You know what happened next?
The scripture says in verse 34, I will defend this city and save
it. You know what God says about your soul? I'll defend it and
save it. Why? For my own sake and for David,
my servant's sake, for Christ's sake, I'll save it. This is our
hope to all that repented. You know what happened the next
day? 185,000 men dead. Lord killed 185,000 men in one
night. Our enemy is stronger than we
are, but our God surely is greater than our enemy. Therefore, you who have sinned,
you whose fence cities have been burned. Here's the message of
the Lord to you. Repent. Come to me. It's what God's saying.
When I say repent, I don't mean turn from one action, turn to
this action, turn to turn from this, start doing this. No, go
to him. Turn to him, lay it out before
him. And this is his promise. I'll
save you. I'll deliver you. Who? Those who like I Hezekiah trust
in the Lord. You trust in the Lord Jesus Christ?
Leave on him alone. You cleave to him all the weight
of your soul on him. You obey him, believe his word. I know this. Oftentimes we have
fenced cities. Promise is God's going to destroy
him. Good. They were of no value anyway.
They were just illusions. And what is God going to do to
his people to bring him to himself? They'll repent and they'll trust
him and God will save. God will deliver. This is a message
of hope. I do pray God blesses to your
hearts.