Missed Opportunity: “The Great Illusion” – 2 Kings 24:6-16, 27-30; 2 Chronicles 36:9-21

In 1993 Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver starred in a movie called “Dave”. The movie was about a man that ran an employment office for people in the Washington DC area that happened to look just like the current President of the US. He did imitations of the President at parties until the men around the President began to use him as a decoy to help the President’s security at certain events. When the President was permanently incapacitated, those close to the seat of power decided to put Dave in as a puppet President. He eventually took the control of the Presidency to do good before being discovered…

For a while, Dave looked and acted the role of the President. For awhile he shared the meals, ceremonies and even legislative moves the President would make. Yet, he wasn’t the President. He didn’t have the powers. He was living in an illusion.

Believers can live in an illusion as well. We can live off our parent’s generational successes in our country, and stand on the freedoms they left us. We can build churches and symbolically look like we are carrying the torch of the Word. All the while, we may not be walking with God at all. We will look the part, but not HAVE the part of the obedient, Spirit-filled, god pleasing believer.

Key Principle: I must evaluate if I am really walking with God. If not, I am walking on a path to my own heartbreak.

Jehoiachin (also called Coniah or Jeconiah in Scripture) succeeded his father Jehoiakim (598/7 BCE) when eighteen years of age, and reigned as King of Judah for one hundred days (2 Chr 36:9). He was the last heir to the Judean crown installed by that kingdom’s own people. His rise is marked by three months (100 days 2 Chron. 36:9) in early December of 598 BCE to March of 597 BCE…

2 Kings 24:6 So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son became king in his place. 7 The king of Egypt did not come out of his land again, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates. 8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old (2 Chronicles 36:9 includes a copyist’s error of eight years old – but 2 Kings 24:15 said he had wives, showing eighteen to be the preferred reading) when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. 9 He did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father had done.

Why did Jehoiachin have confidence? It was not the time of the year when kings make war –it was the rainy season. Nebucadnezzar came from a different place, where farms were watered by rivers, not according to the rules of Judah! The point is that he thought there was TIME to secure his throne and make changes. That illusion of TIME gave him false confidence.

 * If I live like every day may be my last chance to serve my God, I live differently than others.

 * If I don’t assume there is more time for me to wander away or dabble in things He has convicted me of, I live differently than others.

 * If I live like His Lordship over my life matters NOW, and not just when I die, I live differently!

After about 100 days (cp. 2 Chron. 36:9) on the throne, Jerusalem fell on March 16, 597…

2 Kings 24:10 At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon went up to Jerusalem, and the city came under siege. 11 And Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came to the city, while his servants were besieging it. 12 Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he and his mother and his servants and his captains and his officials. So the king of Babylon took him captive in the eighth year of his reign. 13 He carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, just as the LORD had said. 14 Then he led away into exile all Jerusalem and all the captains and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained except the poorest people of the land. 15 So he led Jehoiachin away into exile to Babylon; also the king’s mother and the king’s wives and his officials and the leading men of the land, he led away into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 16 All the men of valor, seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths, one thousand, all strong and fit for war, and these the king of Babylon brought into exile to Babylon.

2 Chronicles 36 offers another window into the events of the years of Jehoiachin’s life and times…let’s pick up reading as he is led away into Babylon in 36:10:

“10 At the turn of the year King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon with the valuable articles of the house of the LORD, and he made his kinsman Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem. 11 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. 12 He did evil in the sight of the LORD his God; he did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet who spoke for the LORD.”

What went wrong with the Kingdom of Judah and its beautiful Solomonic Temple? What happened that God’s people, so often surrounded by God’s rich blessings in the land were carted away in chains as they smelled the ash of their Temple behind them? How did a nation full of prosperity come to be an ash pile in short order? How did people that once had Bible passages as jewelry around their necks suddenly find themselves in a pagan captivitity without free worship, without the symbols they were so used to?

Look at the slow and steady sinking into sin that brought them down as recorded in 2 Chronicles 36:13-16. The words were of a nation, and certainly they fit. Yet, I cannot help but hear them personally as well. How can I tell if I have a real walk or am walking in an illusion? I need to evaluate by some very important indicators:

 1. When I don’t walk with God, I stop trying to be a person of my word (Not people of their word) (36:13a) “He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar who had made him swear allegiance by God.”

It seems like a simple matter, but it truly isn’t. People lie all the time. We have made accommodations in our thinking to allow for “smaller” breaches of our integrity. “Bob Harris, weatherman for NY TV station WPIX-TV and the nationally syndicated independent Network news, had to weather a public storm of his own making in 1979. Though he had studied math, physics and geology at three colleges, he left school without a degree but with a strong desire to be a media weatherman. He phoned WCBS-TV, introducing himself as a Ph.D. in geophysics from Columbia U. The phony degree got him in the door. After a two-month tryout, he was hired as an off-camera forecaster for WCBS. For the next decade his career flourished. He became widely known as “Dr. Bob.” He was also hired by the New York Times as a consulting meteorologist. Forty years of age and living his childhood dream, he found himself in public disgrace and national humiliation when an anonymous letter prompted WCBS management to investigate his academic credentials. Both the station and the New York Times fired him. His story got attention across the land. He was on the Today Show, the Tomorrow Show, and in People Weekly, among others. He thought he’d lose his home and never work in the media again. WNEW-TV gave him a job. He admits it was a dreadful mistake on his part and doubtless played a role in his divorce. “I took a shortcut that turned out to be the long way around, and one day the bill came due. I will be sorry as long as I am alive.” (story from Pastor Jeffrey Richards)

 2. When I don’t walk with God, I trust Him less and less. (Not people who trusted God) (36:13b) “But he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD God of Israel.”

 3. When I don’t walk with God, I become like the world around me. (Not a distinctive or holy people – became what the world was) (36:14a) “Furthermore, all the officials of the priests and the people were very unfaithful following all the abominations of the nations;”

Many modern Christians are to be admired for their clear excelling in their work; others for their show of great enthusiasm in their productivity. Many attend worship services, attend Bible Studies, listen to Christian songs on their radios, hold offices and serve in the local church; but, a vast majority of them sense a lack in one area when it is mentioned – a sense of real consecration! What is consecration? Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, defines “consecrate” as: “dedicated to a sacred purpose: to devote to a purpose with or as if with deep solemnity or dedication.” In effect, it is being distinctly devoted to serve the pleasures of Almighty God and distinctly different – separated from the world!

 4. When I don’t walk with God, worship and praise become play things. (Didn’t take the place of the Lord and His worship seriously) (36:14b) “and they defiled the house of the LORD which He had sanctified in Jerusalem.”

I am deeply indebted to Pastor Jim Butcher of West Virginia for this insightful list. I share it because it captures some real truths! He called it “Six of the Biggest Lies about Worship” (I adapted only the wording, but not the thoughts – they are all his):

1. Lie #1: Worship is when we talk about God. NO! Worship is when we come into the presence of God (Psalm 22:23; Psalm 50:15; Revelation 4:9-11). Theologian and author Frederick Buechner: “For many years now I have taken to going to church less and less because I find so little there of what I hunger for. It is a sense of the presence of God that I hunger for.”
2. Lie #2: Good worship leaves me feeling pleased. NO! Good worship leaves God feeling pleased. (If you aren’t wa;king right, it’ll leave you miserable! Ephesians 5:10 (NIV) – “. . . find out what pleases the Lord.” Many Christians believe that they are the audience; in truth, God is the audience.
3. Lie #3: In worship, the focus is on the people on stage. NO! In worship, the focus is on God. (Isaiah 6). We must take the focus off the performance and put it on the praise.
4. Lie #4: Good worship happens when the music and sermon are good. NO! Good worship happens when we meet with God and know the truth of Who He is and who we are. (John 4:21-24). We don’t want to lead you poorly, but leading in the end it’s far more important that all our hearts are in tune than that our instruments are in tune.
5. Lie #5: Worship happens in church. NO! Personal worship is an everyday thing. (Psalm 35:28; Psalm 119:164). Worship happens when we are open to the reality and presence of God. “Trying to genuinely worship publicly without having had significant times of private worship is attempting to bring up something that just isn’t there.”
6. Lie #6: I’m willing to worship if this thing takes off. NO! I’m willing to worship if it’s me alone. (John 12:43). Many of us are willing to jump on the bandwagon if a sermon or a service gets going, but we are supposed to have a passion for worship that gives us the desire to be a leader and not a follower when it comes to worship. We are to be yielding ourselves to the Spirit without consideration of others’ actions or motives within a worship service. We came to worship, even if we’re the only one really giving our heart.

 5. When I don’t walk with God, other believers are a joke to me. (Didn’t take those who offered the Word of God seriously, but made light of them) (36:15-16a) “15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; 16 but they continually mocked the messengers of God…”

 6. When I don’t walk with God, what God says is unimportant and even ridiculous to me. (Didn’t take the message of God seriously) (36:16b) “…despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, until there was no remedy. “
God’s response:

 1. I will lose all the illusion of control and protection (God defeated their army) (36:17a) “Therefore He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, “

 2.  I will lose my dreams for a future (God cut down their young) (36:17b) “and had no compassion on young man or virgin,“

 3. I will lose people who link me to my past (God eliminated their old) (36:17b) “old man or infirm; He gave them all into his hand.”

 4. I will lose all the things that helped me feel close to God at points in my life (God stripp
ed them of their symbolic Temple treasures) (36:18) “All the articles of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD..”

 5. I will lose all my accumulated wealth (God took away all of their wealth of the powerful) (36:18b) “and the treasures of the king and of his officers, he brought them all to Babylon.”

 6.  I will lose all great memory places of my life (God crushed all the image of their self dependence) (36:19) “Then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles.”

 7. I will lose the freedom to walk with God and honor Him (Since they wanted to be like the world, He enslaved them to the world) (36:20) “Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia…”

 8.  God gave the land the rest that the people were to have given it (36:21) “…to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete.”

About thirty five years later in March of 561 BCE…

Does God forget about His people when they sin? Does He simply write me off? NO! Even enslaved to the world, I will receive some portion of blessing. I will know He is good. I will feel all the worse because I will know I am not!

If I receive any blessing, it will be in a place of captivity, not in a true place of blessing. God won’t forget about me, but I will suffer loss. It is inevitable…

2 Kings 25: 27 Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he became king, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison; 28 and he spoke kindly to him and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon. 29 Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes and had his meals in the king’s presence regularly all the days of his life; 30 and for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion for each day, all the days of his life.

It is because of the chains I will bind myself with that I must evaluate if I am really walking with God. If not, I am walking on a path to my own heartbreak.