David Stockton 3/28/21 David Stockton 3/28/21

The King Who Conquered Sin

1 Kings is where we are at. Today we celebrate the day Jesus announced to the world that he was a peaceful King who had conquered a foe. The event is called The Triumphal Entry. The Sunday that commemorates it is called Palm Sunday. Jesus is thirty-three years old. He knows he’s in his final days, so he sets his face toward the big city and enters Jerusalem the same way a king would after conquering a foe.

Series: A Kingdom Divided
March 28, 2021 - David Stockton

So what was the conquered foe Jesus was declaring victory over? He had not conquered the oppressive Rome. He had not overthrown the evil King Herod. He had not really done much damage or changed much of the arrogant structure that the Pharisees and the Sadducees had set up in the religious system and caste system of that day.

So what did he conquer? What was he declaring as he rode into Jerusalem and basically sent people out ahead of him to announce that he was coming, and to have this parade of disciples cheering, “Hosanna! The Savior has come. He’s saved us. He’s the King. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of David.”

What had he conquered that made him want to go public with being a King for the first time in his life? Well, I think the answer is he had conquered sin.

What’s interesting here is that on the cross we know Jesus conquered a lot. He paid the price for our sin. The resurrection was proof that he had conquered death once and forever. He had become the sacrifice that could take away the sins of the world. But Jesus conquered sin every moment of every day as temptation would come and he would not succumb. He is the only one who has been tempted like humanity is tempted, yet without sin. There was one other who came on the sin who was not sinful, but was tempted, and that was Adam. Yet Adam succumbed and brought great devastation to the world that we’re still living under today.

But Jesus Christ, as he was going around healing people and performing miracles, he was demonstrating to everyone that he had authority to undo all the damage that sin had done. And then, as he was transfigured on the mount of transfiguration, he was glorified. And he was there with Moses and Elijah before the presence of God. Basically that was symbolizing that Jesus had passed the test. He had, at that point, been tempted in every way that you and I are ever tempted, yet without sin.

And in that moment he had a decision to make. He had fulfilled the law of God. He had done what God had asked him to do. And was that enough? Or would he go down that mount of transfiguration and go to the cross? And the only reason that he would go down the mount of transfiguration to the cross is because he had not yet paid the price for you and I. He had fulfilled the law. He had become the sinless King. But we were still guilty of our sin. And because of his great love for us, he walked down that mount of transfiguration and he resolutely set his face toward Jerusalem.

Now he comes into Jerusalem announcing as a King, as a peaceful King — because he rode a donkey, not a horse — as a peaceful King, he was coming to declare that he had conquered sin and was now the King above all kings. The sinless King who was able to provide a sinless sacrifice for the sin debt of humanity.

It’s a day worth celebrating. This Triumphal Entry. That’s why it’s called Triumphal Entry, because he triumphed over the thing that you and I could never and have never been able to triumph over, the foe of sin.

So we spend a moment thinking about that, because, in our series in 1 Kings, we’ve been looking at king after king after king after king after king who, when tempted with sin, succumbed. Not only succumbed, but subtly and in small ways made these little compromises that ultimately led Israel further and further into idolatry and ultimately ruin.

So we look at 1 Kings and we see that, in this time in history, God’s people were becoming numb and blind to idolatry and sin. And we’re doing this because we do not want to become God’s people in our day and age who are becoming blind and numb to idolatry and sin. So we’re taking the word of God and we’re allowing it, like a magnifying glass, to look into our lives. No matter how pretty or how ugly we come out. But we do not want to fall prey to the same things they fell prey to.

It was just a few hundred years between King Saul, King David and King Solomon until Israel was completely destroyed. I do think in our society as Americans — and I don’t say this lightly and I don’t say this judgtngly — but I do think our society is progressing away from the things of God and more into the things of this world, or the things that are incongruent with the lines of God, that he has drawn for our own freedom and flourishing.

Though that is something I see taking place — and I’m praying for a great awakening, because we’ve had awakenings in America before that swept across from sea to shining sea, that turned hearts back to God and his ways. And it’s been beautiful and wonderful. I’m praying for some more of that. Anybody with me? Yeah? I’m not like, Oh, all hope is lost. Down with America. No! Not at all. I’m just trying to say I think I’m seeing these things so I’m praying that I’ll be able to see the opposite happen. And I think we all should be doing that. We should have hope. We should pray. Because God can do it.

At the same time, I’m also trying to give warning to my own soul and to my own household and to us as a church that these things are creeping their way into the household of faith. I’m having conversations with people who are brothers and sisters in Christ and people who have walked with us for a while who are now saying that they don’t think sin is sin, according to what the Bible teaches. It’s creating moments where there’s pressure and it’s causing some divisions.

It’s so important for us to look at God’s word again and say, “Okay, Lord. You get to speak. We’re putting you on the throne to decide what is good and right and wrong. And we’re not going to let our culture be on the throne. We’re not going to let our own desires be on the throne. We’re not going to let our sinful flesh be on the throne. We’re going to watch out for selfishness and we’re going to watch out for the idols of comfort, security and convenience. And we’re going to make sure you are the one on the throne deciding what is right and what is not right.” And it’s been challenging. It’s been tricky. It’s been unpopular. But it’s okay. It’s okay.

We’re looking at 1 Kings because they were going through a lot of similar things. We have Jeremiah, who wrote this book — according to tradition — and he’s writing this to help people wake up from their stupor, wake up to the reality of the decline that’s taking place all around them. And we really did make sure that, even though he’s kind of a weeping prophet and he’s moaning and groaning, he’s not a bullfrog. Jeremiah is not a bullfrog. He was a weeping prophet. We had to clear that u p earlier on in this series.

But he’s basically speaking about how the people of God slowly but surely kind of give in to these things. He’s talking to us about a lot of different things. Just to sum up, I’m going to read some real quick summarizations from Jeremiah about these kings and what they did.

Under Rehoboam, in 1 Kings 14:22-24

Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord. By the sins they committed they stirred up his jealous anger more than those who were before them had done. They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

Israel was a consecrated people, set apart as God’s people. They continued to want to more and more be like the nations around them. It was more and more bringing in their idolatry, more and more bringing in their thoughts, more and more bringing all these things in, until, eventually they were a people that God was angry at. His jealous anger was enraged. It’s true that God is slow to anger, but God is angry at sin and those who are walking in it. That’s the most loving thing he can do at that point, to be angry against the those who were leading people into idolatry and sinfulness and ruin.

And God was angry at them. Right there, this is talking about God’s people. “There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land.” Solomon had set up worship to all these other gods and some of those gods required you to have sex to worship them. And so you would go and it just so happened to have male prostitutes, so if you were male or female, you would go have sex with these people to worship these gods. It was a way that you would honor them. It wasn’t just stupid, but it was that you would get the reward. You would get the blessing of fertility of your land or your family by doing this. This was going on in the nation of God, that God had blessed and led out of captivity, giving them their land.

1 Kings 15:30

Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him.

So he was setting up Baal worship. Baal worship, at this point in Israel, it was like worship of Yahweh. They never really stopped worshipping Yahweh, but at this point in Israel’s history, definitely Baal was the main god of the Israelites, and Yahweh was the “side God,” which was very upsetting to the Lord.

And under Ahaz (2 Kings 16:3-

…he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, engaging in the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree.

Now, I don’t know what a spreading tree in this regard, but I’m sure you can look in commentaries and they’ll talk about it for a long, long time — which is fun about commentaries and also so boring sometimes. But anyway…

He’s offering his own son as a sacrifice in the fire, which was a practice of the god Molek, again to get fertility and prosperity. And we look at these things and we think these people are crazy, for them to be so bizarre in their sexual immorality and to be so bizarre in what they’re willing to sacrifice and kill — even of their own families — for these gods. And yet, I think if we’re honest, in our society we see some very similar type things.

That’s the scary thing about sin. The sin that we commit, we don’t get to decide what the consequence is or who suffers the consequence. As we see it in the story of Solomon, Solomon was very sexually immoral. Yet he didn’t suffer the consequence. His son did, and all of the people of Israel, ultimately.

When we choose the idolatry of greed, of money, or we choose the idolatry of sex, power, position, so oftentimes it’s our kids that get sacrificed at those altars. In some ways I bet every one in this room or listening online could tell a story of something that they experienced because of the idolatry of their parents, or maybe something their kids have experienced because of their idolatry and sin. It’s very heavy stuff. These kings were people just like you and me.

But then, just before we get too bummed out, we keep going. There are some other kings. Now I read about three kings who did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And then I’m going to read three kings that did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Don’t for a second think that it was kind of an even spread. Basically, you’ve got about three, maybe five, if you really want to stretch you’ve got about eight out of fifty kings did any good at all. The rest were horrible.

Here’s some good news. Asa. 1 Kings 15:11-14

Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done. He expelled the male shrine prostitutes from the land and got rid of all the idols his ancestors had made. He even deposed his grandmother Maakah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive image for the worship of Asherah. Asa cut it down and burned it in the Kidron Valley. Although he did not remove the high places, Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life.

So here’s good news. It is funny to read in the Bible about a guy getting rid of his grandmother in this way. But it’s not funny what many of us are going through in our own families, as we navigate the differences and the challenges that are presented there when loved ones make decisions that are not in line with the scriptures or the lines that God has given us and we’re trying to uphold those lines, and at the same time love them. It’s tricky. This is where the love of God is so much deeper than the love that we have and the Hallmark channel teaches us about.

Love is patient, love is kind, but it rejoices in the truth at the same time. It is deep and it is rich and it is challenging for people like us . Sometimes we have to draw those lines. Jesus taught us that there are times in our following of him where we’re going to have to hate our brother and hate our sister. He’s not actually saying we should hate them. He’s saying that they’re going to perceive what you’re doing as hate, when really, all you’re doing is try to follow them and love them. And those become very difficult times, good times to pray and good times to sing about a God who chases down people on their prodigal roads. A good time to think about a God who wants to come into our lives and restore our broken lives. A good time to sing about a God who, there’s no mountain he won’t climb, right? There’s no wall he won’t break down. It’s good to think about God in those times and to pray.

The next king. Hezekiah. 2 Kings 18:3-

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.

Here’s the story of even something that was done in memory of God and what God had done, they had made an idol of that and were worshiping that instead of the Creator. And then we get on to Josiah. And we’re going to spend a little more time talking about Josiah. I’ve chopped up the full portion of the story about Josiah. You can read it later, if you want, but I’m giving us some little highlights. I’ve been watching a a lot of March Madness highlights and it’s just all highlights. I love highlights. It’s like I don’t have to watch freethrows and all the boring stuff. Jus watching the highlights and Baylor’s still in it, so my bracket’s still alive. Yeah!

2 Kings 22 Josiah…

2…did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left..
11 When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. 12 He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest,… 13 “Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.

It’s a fascinating moment in the history of Israel, because we’re in 2 Kings now when we get to Josiah. We’ve gone through a lot of kings asa we’re toward the end of the time of the kings before they actually go into exile in Babylon and Judah, before they get taken over by the Assyrians in Israel up north.

Here Josiah becomes king and wants to do what’s right int he eyes of the Lord. So he starts to try and figure out what that is. He knows the high places are evil, so he starts working on those things. But one of the things he wants to do is get the temple of Yahweh back in action. And he starts cleaning it out and doing all these things, and in the process of doing that, a guy finds a scroll and he doesn’t know what the scroll is. So then he takes it to some different people. They finally get to a priest and they’re like, “What is this thing?” And the priest is like, “That’s the Torah! That’s the law of God. That’s the thing that God gave Moses as they were on that Mount Sinai in Egypt. That’s the thing that teaches us God’s ways.”

So he brought it to the king and he says, “King, I want to show you something we found.” They didn’t know where it was. It had been buried. It had been forgotten. It had been totally rendered unimportant for long enough to where now they didn’t even know where it was. And he starts to read it to King Josiah. And Josiah… the reason I’m having trouble is because I’ve been praying for Josiahs to show up in our day.

Josiah gets hit in the face with this stuff. He gets his heart chopped up by the word of God and he repents. He falls on his knees. He tears his clothes and he says, “God, I’m sorry. But thank you so much for your word. Thank you so much for letting it come to the surface. Thank you so much for helping us awake to the reality of what’s going on.”

And he tells his guys, “Go and figure out every single thing in this book that we’re doing wrong, and let’s make it right.” It was such a beautiful, beautiful response. So he finds some things that they’re doing wrong.

2 Kings 23:
4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. 5 He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem.… 6 He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord…

We’re talking about this stuff in the temple of the Lord.

… to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people.

Again, common people? What? Where did that come from? He’s fired up.

7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord…

Did you hear what I just said? In the temple of the Lord that Solomon built for Yahweh, there was a portion that was used to house the male shrine prostitutes. Josiah kicked some booty that day. And that was also…

…the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.

I don’t know what that’s about.

12 He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. 13 The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. 14 Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.

It’s serious. Very serious.

24 Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the Lord. 25 Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

Hallelujah. And just in case you think he was a big jerk and didn’t know how to have fun…

21 The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” 22 Neither in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah had any such Passover been observed.

He threw a huge party across the whole land to celebrate what God had done for the Passover. And there was great rejoicing in God’s heart. His anger was stayed as he looked down and he saw Josiah whose heart was a fully his.

But Josiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and he did all of these other things. He was proactive in that. He knew that, as the word of God came to him, he was supposed to respond by doing that boundary maintenance we talked about early on, for not only his own soul, but his household and the institutions that he was a part of. Just so happens he was the king of the whole nation.

The zeal of the Lord consumed him. He was hungry and thirsty for righteousness. And as he walked that out, he was filled. He chose to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness above everything else. This is what it looked like for him in his time. And it pleased the Lord. It was a beautiful thing in his eyes.

So what does it look like for us to do this in our day with our own souls and households and institutions? I don’t know. That’s why you’ve got the Spirit of God living inside of you.

But what I love about this is, when the line of God came and basically dissected Josiah and his people, when the line of God came and cut his heart in half, helping him to realize that he was outside the lines of God, he was outside where God needed to be, they were so far off. He did not respond thinking that God doesn’t love him or want him. He actually, by the grace of God, was able to respond to say, “Actually God has helped me see the lines because he loves me that much and doesn’t want me to head off into decay and depravity and destruction. He actually has drawn these lines to help me know, like a roadmap, how to get back in. Also, he’s drawn these lines to help me become aware of how badly I need him.”

Each and every time we’ve been in one of these messes, and each and every time you hear the word of God taught, or you read it for yourselves, and one of those lines that God has drawn is coming to you and making you feel like you are not right, you are incongruent, there is something in your life that is outside the boundaries of God, the devil wants to come in that moment and say, “See? You don’t belong. See? They don’t love you or want you. See? God doesn’t love you or want you.” And that is the devil talking and he is very faithful to do that.

At the same time, when that line hits you, when your heart is pricked as the Bible describes it, like Josiah was, what God wants you to hear is that he loves you and he wants to see you get into the fullness of what he has for you and that he can rescue you and he can heal you and he can make you whole.

That’s the message that Jesus came to bring. That’s the message that Jesus was declaring as he rode that donkey into Jerusalem all those years later. That’s the message that he cried on the cross as he gave up his last breath and said, “It is finished.” And as his blood flowed, basically, what he was saying to you and me was, when you find yourself outside the lines that God has drawn, when you find yourself with your heart pricked, when you find yourself in trouble, outside, alone, apart from God, you’re supposed to look up at that cross and see his arms stretched wide, ready to receive you. You’re supposed to see his blood and know that blood was a sacrifice that can wash you clean. No matter what heinous sin you’ve committed or you’re in right now, his blood is way more powerful. Always has been and always will be.

Then you’re also supposed to see him as that resurrected Lord offering freely his Spirit to empower us, to win our battles against sin. To find victory from time to time over the sin that’s inside of us, that’s lying at the door waiting to devour us. That’s what Jesus came to declare to each one of us.

I’m praying, whether you’re online or in person, if these messages, if the word of God has come and has hit you, or it has cut you, that you would realize that that is what the word is supposed to do. Actually, the New Testament says that the law of God is the schoolmaster that leads us to Christ; basically like that angry, mean teacher that was always telling you when you were doing something wrong, so that you would know you need a rescuer, you need a savior, so that you would come to Christ and you would find out that he’s been there all along, only one step away.

What’s cool is that the Lord has been raising up some Josiahs in our fellowship. We have a guy that I know told me the story of him basically just hearing these words recently and saying, “That’s it.” And he put away all of his sexually immoral paraphernalia that he’d been practicing and playing with and he’s distancing himself — not because of Covid — he’s distancing himself from people that he knows were leading him in the wrong way. What he told me was the result was he’s never been able to hear from the Lord so often.

That’s why Jesus wants us to get in these lines because he wants to talk to us, wants to love us. Out there we can’t hear him.

We had a guy just show up on the lawn out here about a month ago. He just dumped a bunch of cocaine and other drugs on the lawn and said, “I’m sick of it.” And we were like, “Should we call the police?” And the guys who handled him said, “No.” They said, “Let’s go flush this down the toilet.” And they actually got some other people to make sure nobody thought they snuck it out the back door. They flushed it down the toilet. Then we connected that guy with Kurt to try to help him figure out what Jesus is doing. Because he was walking around out there in the darkness and he just got so sick of it. And he looked over and he thought, “Maybe they have some light.”

We’ve got some people that have decided that they weren’t going to worship at the altar of convenience, comfort and security. But instead, they have aging parents and they’ve decided to bring those aging parents back home with them to give them honor and dignity as they finish their days — at great inconvenience to them, for sure.

And another guy actually, he and his wife just moved away from us and everything that they loved and all the goodness they were experiencing to go do the same thing, to make sure his parents were getting loved and cared for.

I’ll tell you what, that’s something that God is really pleased with. I could go on and on. It might just seem little to you, but it’s not little to the Lord. Actually, my wife went to a birthday party yesterday for a kid who’s been quarantined his whole life because of autoimmune diseases. Instead of birthdays, he asked if everybody could donate to the food pantry here. He’s like ten years old! He’s a little Josiah.

So it falls to us. We have a great, great history. Ever since Jesus rode that donkey into Jerusalem declaring that victory over sin, there’s been a long line of parade, a great cloud of witnesses that have been following his lead and gaining victory over sin and doing away with high places and idolatry in their lives and in their families and in the institutions they’re a part of, many different ways. What are we going to do? What is the Lord asking you to do?

I know someone in our fellowship that they have been together for along time as boyfriend and girlfriend and they’ve got kids and all of that. They’re saying, “We’re ready to get married before the Lord.”

There are a lot of things that we can do to follow him. Some people built an underground railroad. Some people built a hiding place. Some missionaries have gone and it’s cost them their life, but then their family went to the same people and saw them get saved.

Lots of ways that we can serve the Lord.

Let’s pray:

Wow, Lord. You just keep it coming. Lord, I pray that you really would help us to not fall prey to our desires for sex, money, self, individualism, convenience, security, comfort or even idealogical popular or significance. Instead, Lord, we would just have your word hidden in our hearts, that we might not sin against you. That your word would be a light unto our path and we would walk in it, Lord. I pray that we, as a church, Lord, I pray for the whole church, but I really pray for us, Living Streams, right now in Phoenix in 2021, I pray that we would be the salt and light that you want us to be. Lord, where we’ve lost any salt in this, please forgive us and heal us. We know, Lord, you want us to stand against the decay in our society, but at the same time bring healing. We know. You want us to be a city set on a hill so that those who are walking in darkness and finally get sick of it can look and find someplace to run. Please help us, Lord, to not be like the older brother who rejects people who come home, but instead to be just like you, Father, and receive them and robe them. We thank you, Jesus, that you found us, that we were once lost and blind, but now we’re found and we see. Thank you, Lord.

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Mark Buckley 3/21/21 Mark Buckley 3/21/21

What I Learned from the Kings

Well, good morning, Living Streams. It’s a joy for me to be with you guys today. I want to say a special hello to the Grand Canyon students, because it’s a big weekend, you guys having your team at the big dance. We’re proud of you. It was a little difficult yesterday but to get into the dance is one thing. But actually, dancing is a whole different ball game, right?

Series: A Kingdom Divided
March 21, 2021 - Mark Buckley

I also want to say hi to the online community. I’ve been part of the online community for the past year. My wife had a heart transplant and we had to keep a big social distance. But there’s nothing like being back in live church! It’s a whole different ball game.

I was literally weeping this morning as we prayed before the first service. The Holy Spirit was ministering in a powerful way. We’ve got an awesome team of people in this church. If you don’t know the pastors personally, Veronica Morrison, Faith Cummings, Kurt Cotter, Arthur Le, some of these guys and gals are wonderful. And our elders are wonderful men of God. If you have a chance to get to know them, you’re going to find even more of God’s kingdom in this place than you’ve ever experienced before.

I’m going to be talking today about What I Learned from the Kings. At the end of the service we’re going to have communion. If you’re online, go get your bread, go get your cup. If it’s too early for wine, get some juice, whatever. We’re going to take communion. It’ll be good.

I’m going to give you lessons from three different righteous kings—things that have stuck with me over the years. Even the righteous kings were flawed. The first part of this message is going to be a little bit dark at times, a little bit politically incorrect at times; but if you stick with it, it’ll be worth it in the end,

First lesson from the kings:

1. Immorality has consequences for everyone.

Looking at the life of Solomon. Solomon was a king who pleased God from the time he began. He was a young guy. He knew that he needed wisdom. He asked God for wisdom and the Lord said, “I’m going to give you wisdom. And because you weren’t asking for much more than that, I’m going to give you wealth, I’m going to give you power, I’m going to give you more than you ever anticipated.”

Then it says in 1 Kings 11,

King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter…

which was his first wife.

Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

Let’s pray:

Father, I ask that you’d help me speak this word with clarity and power and that your grace will minister and that your kingdom will come more fully in our lives than ever before. In Jesus’ name.

So Solomon went from being this wonderful young guy with a heart for God, who gained wisdom, who gained understanding, who understand how flowers worked and plants grew, and how cities should be built, and aqueducts, and how an army should be formed, and his palace had such great order that people came and were amazed at what God did through Solomon. He built this magnificent temple and overlaid it with gold. It was a phenomenal place.

But as he wanted, in the lust of his heart, more and more women—it wasn’t just one wife that was beautiful, it wasn’t just two, it became seven hundred wives, three hundred concubines, which were basically sex slaves. There’s no other way to put it. It occupied his heart. His heart became dark. And his latter years he did not leave the legacy of blessing. The kingdom got divided because his heart was dark, and his son followed his dark ways and took unwise counsel.

I have a deep concern for our society today. I watched my own dad’s life turn dark because of immorality. I watched my pastor’s life become dark because of immorality. I saw the consequences in our family. I saw the consequences in the ministry I was part of when I was a young guy. It grieved my heart.

And today we’re having an explosion of immorality that is like none other. Now, in the sixties, we had free love, sex, peace, rock ’n roll and partying, basically. But the media, for the most part, was trying to warn people that it wasn’t going to end well. If you go to Height Ashbury and see the fruit of the hippie movement, you’ll see the burned out skeletons of people, those who are still alive. You see the bad fruit of that lifestyle.

But today, Kristina and I were watching Netflix the other day. And, a quick aside, thank you for those who have prayed for my dear wife. She’s doing much better. She’s getting stronger. Her transplant is working really good and we really appreciate your love.

So we were watching Netflix and it says in the upper corner “Language and Smoking,” you know, so keep your eyes out. If somebody smokes, that could really infiltrate your heart and make you want to go smoke or something like that, or you might say a bad word too. It says absolutely nothing about the fact that one guy after another in this show is sleeping with whatever woman he can get his hands on. And women are in bed with other women. The whole thing is rampant immorality. That’s normal. It’s being promoted in our society.

And then people act shocked when a guy down in Atlanta goes and kills eight people. Now that is tragic. And you know, if you do the back story on the guy, he was part of a bible-believing church. And he took a very Old Testament approach to try to get rid of his sin. You know? He was enslaved by his sin. He called himself a sex addict. Well, Jesus said that those who sin become slaves to sin. There is an addiction factor, because it doesn’t provide fulfillment. It provides degradation. So he took an Old Testament approach, kills eight people, which spreads fear and grief and pain.

Whether you try to gain a political solution through violence, a moral solution through violence, or you’re just being an angry person, that does not produce the righteousness of God. We’re here to proclaim the kingdom and to invite people into the kingdom. And we all have urges. We all have temptations. We all have desires that we have to say no to. The New Testament is about saying no to that which corrupts so you can say yes to the kingdom. There is something better that God has for each and every one of us that we don’t want to miss out on.

In 2 Kings 18, another king that you might not know as well as Solomon, his name is Hezekiah:

In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. … Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.

He was pleasing to God. He did what was right. He believed God. Yet we’re going to see in a moment that Hezekiah had all kinds of trials. Some people erroneously believe that, if you love God, if you do everything right, then you’re going to have a shield of protection, a hedge of protection, some kind of invisible bubble that’s going to prevent any bad news from actually affecting you, either from the outside or any kind of personal crisis. But that’s not the story of the Bible. That’s not the truth, folks.

What I would really urge you all to do is study, not just the New Testament, but the Old Testament, because you’ll get a more full picture of who God really is. So let’s look at what happens.

2. Even the righteous face crises.

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me.”

So here is this righteous king and he still gets attacked. Major army of Assyria. Hundreds of thousands of people marching against Judah, capturing the outlying cities. And it says:

…the king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents[c] of silver and thirty talents[d] of gold. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace. At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the Lord, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

He made two false assumptions. One assumption was that it was because he did something wrong that he got attacked. He didn’t get attacked because he had done something wrong. He got attacked because there is evil in the world, and evil has a tendency to want to destroy those who are trying to do right. It says in the New Testament that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. It goes with the territory. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be sons of God.” We need peacemakers because there’s conflict. There’s conflict because men have fallen.

So another false assumption he made is that, if he goes into a treaty with the king of Assyria, that the king of Assyria is going to honor his word. It’s like trying to make a pact with the devil. You try and make a pact with the devil for your success or for your protection or whatever, and it’s a temporary deception that leads to further bondage.

Neville Chamberlain, in the late 1930’s, tried to make a pact with Adolph Hitler. The pact was this: we will let you have Austria, we will let you have part of Czechoslovakia, but that’s as far as you go. And Hitler goes, “Yeah. That’s as far as I want to go. We just want to reclaim the German-held territories from these other places and we’ll be good to go.”

Well, Chamberlain comes back to Great Britain, claims to the world, “We have a peace treaty. Hitler’s going to be fine.” And what happens? Within months Hitler’s invading Poland and then he goes after Russia and the whole world is inflamed in war. Why? Because he had an intent from the beginning to dominate and control and make the Aryan race the predominate force on the world.

So, what happens to Hezekiah if you get into the story is that, after he gives the gold, after he gives the silver, the king of Assyria still attacks. He’s got the gold but now he wants complete and utter control. He’s a picture of Satan in the Old Testament.

Now, by the grace of God, Hezekiah and the people of the Lord are delivered from that. But that’s not the end of Hezekiah’s challenges. In 2 Kings 20, it says this:

In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”

Now we don’t know what his problem was. We don’t know if it was some kind of cancer, some kind of an infection. All we know is that sickness was a sickness unto death and Isaiah the prophet recognized it and said, “Buddy, make sure your will is good. Make sure you kiss your wife goodbye and say what you want to your kids, because this is the end.”

Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

I know a little bit of what this feels like. In 1979 I was a young pastor. I had a wife and two kids and a growing church in Northern California. We had a day of fasting and prayer. I’m fasting on my own, in my office, kneeling before the couch in my office, and I heard a voice in my heart. The voice said, “I’m going to take you home.”

It totally caught me off guard. You’re going to take me home? This is God speaking? I’m going to die? What the heck is going on?

I literally got up off my knees, sat down on my couch, a few minutes later I left my office. I’m walking around, I’m jumpy. I’m irritated. Am I going to die? Was that God? Was that the devil? What happened,

Well, four days later my wife, Kristina, and I left on a trip. We borrowed a Volkswagen camper van. We left our boys with my brother and his wife. We were up in Northern California to go trout fishing, The Volkswagen camper dies and we have to push-start it. I had to gather a bunch of campers together to help me push-start it. Kristina’s in the driver’s seat. We push it to get it going and and it doesn’t start. Then it turns out she had the key off, which was a little embarrassing. So we push it again. There were about five of us. We push it as hard as we can. She pops the clutch and it doesn’t start, because she had it in reverse.

Now, my wife is usually very mechanical and very responsible. It was very irritating. And four of the guys helping me push the van walked away in disgust. So they leave and it’s just me and one other guy. Now we’re pushing with all our might. We push and she pops the clutch. It starts. And I’m hit with this massive headache. I mean, massive. And within a moment or two I’m literally laying in the dirt, throwing up. It was a bad scene. Kristina gets out of the van, says, “What’s happening?” I said, “I think I’m going to die, and you’d better get me to a hospital.”

She takes me to the hospital, where they do a spinal tap when they see the mess I’m in. They say, “You’ve got a brain bleed” They fly me in a private air evac down to Marin County, and basically said, “We don’t know if you’re going to live or die, but 90% of people that have this kind of brain bleed die.” Obviously, you know how that part of the story ends. I don’t die, by the grace of God.

But I had been in my office praying, I had been in my office crying after hearing that word that I was going to die. What comforted me is what happened to Hezekiah. This is what I want to say in my third point:

3. The mercy of God is amazing.

Isaiah said in verse 4:

Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: “Go back and tell Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the Lord. I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.’”

In other words, what God is saying is, “I have a plan bigger than you, Hezekiah. The way you were living your life, you might have ended in death. But I have heard your plea for mercy and I’m adding fifteen years to your life.”

So when I had remembered that story, it really encouraged me. And when you’re twenty-nine years old, fifteen years sounds like a long, long time.

Let’s go to our final king. In 2 Kings 22, it says this:

Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.

So Josiah, at eight years old he becomes king. As he grows up, turns a teenager and into his twenties, he is the most dedicated king in the history of Israel. He tells them to rebuild the temple. The temple had fallen into disrepair. He finds the law of God in the temple and they begin to practice the law of God. They have it read to all the people. They begin to humble themselves. They reinstitute the Passover. They reinstitute the festivals. They reinstitute obedience to God. They finally rebuild the army. They rebuild the cities around Judah. And he has done a phenomenal job. Great guy. There’s about four pages of the Old Testament written about him. Then something happens.

4. Getting overextended has serious consequences.

2 Kings 23:

While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Necho faced him and killed him at Megiddo.

What’s happening? Josiah finds out that the arch enemy of Israel, which is Assyria, is going to be helped by Necho, King of Egypt. Josiah says, “I don’t want anybody helping Assyria. We hate those guys. They took the gold out of our temple years ago and we hate those guys.”

So he marches out in battle. He gets into a battle that God had not called him into. He gets overextended. I deal all the time with guys who are believers who get overextended and it’s not pretty.

So, 1994, Kristina and I are in a cabin in northern Washington. Kurt Cotter and I had flown up there because a young man in our church was in a coma. He had rolled his car over at a Christian camp. It had settled to the bottom of a pond. He was almost brain dead. He had been in a coma for several days. We went up there to pray for him, to ask God to heal him.

Two years before that, our oldest son had drown. Now, this kid, Daniel Murrow, we had helped raise for three and half years while his dad was in prison. So he was really close to our family. He was the oldest of six kids who lived next door to us. They were in and out of our house all the time. We loved these guys. We were praying over Daniel, asking God to heal him.

On the way up there, I had told Kurt, “I’m in trouble.” I had been in Alaska, trying to minister to some pastors whose kids were killed in a car wreck. I had been in California at a missions conference, where the churches were having a battle with each other. I had been on a bunch of trips that left me very drained, one right after another. I had nothing left in the tank. Now I had an emergency. I was living my life right on the edge, trying to please God by serving him with all my strength all the time, every day, and leaving nothing behind. Now an emergency comes and I’ve got nothing to give. I’m so wound up I couldn’t even sleep.

When the elders found out about that, they literally had me sent to a mental hospital for two weeks. Then to a treatment for another two weeks. I want to just tell you, if you’re the senior pastor of a church and you get sent to a mental hospital, it does not look good on a resume. Do you know what I mean? It’s not something you want to brag about to your friends or put in your newsletter. You’re hoping nobody’s going to find out. Yeah. Good luck with that.

“Where’s Mark? I haven’t seen him for a few weeks.”

“Well, you know how those things go, don’t you?”

Nobody ever gossips or anything. Nevertheless, I was out of the pulpit for four months. And our church held together. Living Streams held together because of love and because of mercy. They loved us. We loved them. And the fruit of the church has been better than ever. But I had to learn a really painful lesson.

I want to tell you how I ended up in that mental institution. I ended up there because, one night when we were at that Christian camp after we had prayed for Daniel all day long, I was trying to go to sleep. David Stockton’s parents were sharing this bungalow with us They were asleep. Kristina was asleep. My son, Phil, was in there. He was asleep. And I feel like my heart is starting to race and beat so fast that I’m having a heart attack. I’m thinking maybe I’m dying or something like that. I hear fireworks going off in the distance and I realize it’s Fourth of July and there’s fireworks. It’s 1994. And, oh, by the way, 1994, the last time I thought I was going to die was 1979, that’s fifteen years ago, and that happened to have been on the Fourth of July weekend. My fifteen years is up! I’m not paranoid. I’m about to die. Literally, that’s what I thought. That’s what flipped me out.

So the mercy of God is amazing. I did not die. But…but the reason I had the mercy of God is because I am part of a really loving, supportive community. Not everybody has that benefit. A lot of people, when they have a breakdown, which is what I had, it takes years and years to recover from. And some people have a hard time ever recovering.

The Body of Christ is a healing place. Don’t ever let people tell you, “I don’t really need church because I’ve got all I need from God.” Well, you’ve got all you need from God until you have a crisis. And if you’re a believer, you’re going to have a crisis, believe me. You’re going to get attacked. There’s going to be health issues. There’s going to be stuff happen. There is no magic protection that’s going to guarantee that your family is always going to escape through the trials of life. You’re going to need your brothers and sisters, and they’re going to need you, too.

Now I want to close this message by talking about the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and a little contrast between the limitations of the righteous king and what Jesus does in our life.

In Revelation 19:11 & 16, it says:

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: king of kings and lord of lords.

King of kings and Lord of lords. Heaven was open and the apostle saw Jesus, the Word of God, alive and well and true. The Eternal Word through which all things are formed, all things are made, that which established the universe, literally became flesh and dwelt among us, he said, “And I got to touch him. I got to feel him.”

A couple of weeks ago, maybe a little less than that, I was over at a golf course, and I run into a guy who is a judge, who I’ve known for a long time, who was part of our church. And I said, “How’s it going?” And he said, “Well, did you know my golf clubs got stolen?” And I said, “No, I didn’t know that. Did you get any new ones?” And he goes, “No, no, as a matter of fact, one of the detectives caught the guy. He was fencing my golf clubs. And because he was fencing my golf clubs and they’re worth so much money, he’s got a class 4 felony. He’s going to prison.”

And then I’m like, “Oh, really?”

And he goes, “Yeah, but my driver, he gave away to somebody. So he’s making restitution. He’s paying me $17 a month for my driver.”

Now under normal circumstances, I’d say, “Yeah, they got the bad guy!” You know what I mean? We can’t let people steal golf clubs. What would become of people like me that like to play golf, if you just let them take golf clubs? You’ve got to send them to prison.

But that very day, I had heard about a lady taking a very different approach. We had a memorial service for Celia Clifton, the mom of Adriana Gruber, who is part of our staff. Celia Clifton heard from Adriana, when Adriana was a teenager, that when Adriana went on a particular day to get her car washed, somebody at the car wash stole a bunch of stuff out of her car. So she goes home and tells her mom right away, “Mom, I realized that somebody stole my stuff.”

Her mom says, “Which car wash?” She goes right down there. She marches down there. She’s this fiery little Mexican lady who loves Jesus. She tells the manager of the car wash, “I want to talk to all of your guys!”

“All of my guys/]?”

“Yeah. Someobody stole stuff out of my daughter’s car. I want to talk to all your guys.”

The guy literally shuts down the car wash, gathers twenty employees all together. And Celia begins to preach the gospel. She tells them that she knows that they’re sinners because we’re all sinners. She knows somebody’s a thief, but Jesus Christ came to die on the cross so thieves could be forgiven, so immoral people can be transformed, so people can enter the kingdom of God.

During the course of her message, one of the guys starts weeping and he confesses that he had stolen the stuff out of the car. And she leads him to the Lord and twenty of those guys pray to receive Christ. Then she goes to the manager of the car wash and says, “I do not want you to fire him. I want you promote him. You hear me? I do not want you to fire him. I want you to promote him because he’s honest and he’s going to be a man of God.”

So I wanted to say to my friend, the judge, “Hold on a second. There’s a better way than just sending the bad guys who steal your golf clubs to prison. There’s a better way. There’s a more powerful way.”

He can take those of us who have fallen and make us new. Jesus said, “there’s somebody more powerful than Solomon here.”

Solomon had people come from all over the world to hear his wisdom. And Jesus said what he could do was better. You know why? Because Solomon in his wisdom could find out which of the women is lying. But Jesus, in his power, can turn the liar into a truth teller.

Moses with his authority could have the adulterer put to death. But Jesus, with his authority, can turn the adulterer into a covenant keeper. There’s somebody more powerful than Moses here.

And here’s what Jesus had to say. Last point here.

5. The King of kings makes simple great.

Matthew 11:11

Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Greater than John the Baptist. Greater than Moses. Greater than Solomon. Who? Whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven. You may be least in the kingdom of heaven. You are aware that you don’t think right sometimes. You don’t act right sometimes. But you’re not to be disqualified because you weren’t qualified. None of us are qualified because we’re always thinking right we’re always acting right. We’re qualified by what Jesus has done for us, by his gift for us. And if you’re least in the kingdom, you’ve got an awesome gift. An awesome gift.

My sister is visiting from California this weekend. The last time she came here was over thirty years ago. Living Streams had about fifteen people. I was going door to door. I was doing everything I could to try and reach people. I was going to the parks. I reached a few people and brought them to church.

She came when she was having trouble. She stayed in our house with our four kids. She invited a friend to our church. And her friend brought her boyfriend, Ben. Robin brought Ben. Ben brought J.B.. J.B. brought his parents, Ewell and Betsy. Ewell and Betsy brought George and Mary Ellen. George was the head of surgery at Good Sam Hospital. Ewell was the head of the Shearson Leemon Hutton brokerage. Ben brought Steve Ontiveros, a pitcher for the Oakland A’s.

I had been exhausting myself, trying to do whatever I could. Katey shows up, starts inviting somebody and the whole church starts to grow. She had a gift from God. I don’t even know if she knew she had a gift from God.

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