2 Kings 16:10-24 – How’s your heart today?

For engaging the service of  Tiglath-Pileser and the Assyrians, Ahaz had to pay an enormous price. He had virtually made Judah a vassal state to Assyria. We already saw how much he had paid. Second Kings 16:8 said that “Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria.” Prior to engaging Assyria in his conflict with the kings of Israel and Aram, he was already leading a life of compromise. He was said to follow the idolatrous lifestyle of the kings of Israel and even committed the abominable act of making his son pass through the fire. He also “sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.”       

Now in 2 Kings 16:10-14, we will see the heavier price he had to pay for engaging the service of Assyria. He went to meet the king of Assyria in Damascus after the latter had conquered Aram and put King Rezin to death. Ahaz was probably summoned there by Tiglath-Pileser. While there he was impressed and charmed by an altar, so he sent a sketch of the altar to Urijah the priest, and ordered him to construct one like it.  And the priest did. When he returned from Damascus verse 12 said, “…the king saw the altar; then the king approached the altar and went up to it.  Verses 13  went on to say that he “burned his burnt offering and his meal offering, and poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.” All this we shall see later that he did it to accommodate Tiglath-Pileser. That was the price he had to pay for not fully trusting the LORD.  

 

Just think of what happened to King Uzziah for just making a sacrifice to the Lord on the right altar. He tried to function in what he was not called and was smitten with leprosy. But Ahaz was smitten with a far worse condition, the hardening of the heart. A hardened heart makes it difficult for one to be willing to please God. What is the condition of our hearts today? The condition of our hearts will determine how receptive we are to God. The Parable of the Sower tells us so. Let's be sure that our hearts are “good soil” that can accommodate the word of God to bring about our incremental growth in the Lord. First a thirty-fold, then a sixty-fold, and ultimately a hundredfold.