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Royalty and Ruin
“Which is the great commandment in the law?” He said, “You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and
with all your mind.” This is the first and great commandment. And
the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 22:36-39
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We should receive these plain statements as the voice of God.
We should lose no opportunity to perform deeds of mercy, of tender
regard and Christian courtesy for the burdened and oppressed. If
we can do no more, we may speak words of courage and hope to
those who do not know God. Rich are the promises to those who
bring joy and blessing into the lives of others: “If you extend your
soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall
dawn in the darkness, and your darkness be as the noonday. The
Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought,
and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and
like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
Isaiah 58:10, 11
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Ahaz’s pursuit of idols despite the prophet’s earnest appeals
could have only one result: “The wrath of the Lord fell upon Judah
and Jerusalem, and He has given them up to trouble, to desolation,
and to jeering.”
2 Chronicles 29:8
. The kingdom suffered a rapid
decline, and invading armies soon endangered its very existence.
“Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel,
came up to Jerusalem to make war.”
2 Kings 16:5
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If Ahaz and the people of his realm had been true servants of the
Most High, they would have had no fear of an alliance as unnatural
as this one that had been formed against them. But stricken with
a nameless dread of an offended God’s judgments, the heart of the
king “and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the
woods are moved with the wind.”
Isaiah 7:2
. In this crisis the word
of the Lord came to Isaiah. He was to tell the trembling king, “Do
not fear or be fainthearted. ... Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son
of Remaliah have plotted evil against you, ... thus says the Lord
God: ‘It shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass.’”
Verses 4-7
.
It would have been well for Judah for Ahaz to receive this mes-
sage as from heaven. But choosing to lean on human strength, he
sought help from the heathen. In desperation he sent word to Tiglath-
pileser, king of Assyria: “I am your servant and your son. Come up
and save me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand