Mon.’s Devo - The Rise and Fall of the Kings

Read: 2 Kings 15:1-16:20; Acts 19:13-41; Psalm 147:1-20; Proverbs 18:4-5 Finally a good king! Azariah was a good king in Judah but died a leper after ruling 38 years. When he died Jotham his son ruled over Judah. *** Jeroboam 2.0 was ruling in Israel and he did evil. He only ruled 6 months because he was assassinated by Shallum who reigned in his place. Jeroboam was Jehu’s fourth generation to rule just as God had promised. Shallum was not of his kin. *** Shallum was assassinated by Menahem. Menahem was a merciless warrior who sacked the city of Tiphsah because they refused to let him in their city. He reigned over Israel for 10 years and was an evil king. When Pul the king of Assyria came against Israel, Menahem gave him 1,000 talents of silver to pay for peace. Menahem took the money from all the wealthy men of Israel. When he died, Pekahiah his son ruled Israel. *** Pekahiah was also evil and only reigned for 2 years. His own brother Pekah assassinated him and reigned in his place. Pekah ruled for 20 years in Israel and was also evil. *** During Pekah’s rule, Tiglath-pileser of Assyria came and captured many cities in the land of Naphtali and carried their people as captives to Assyria. Hosea killed Pekah and ruled in his place. *** At this time, Jotham began to rule in Judah. He ruled in Jerusalem for 16 years and did what was right in the eyes of the Lord like his father Uziah (Azariah) had done. But the people still worshipped idols and God began to send Rezin king of Syria and Pekah of Israel against Judah. When Jotham died, his son Ahaz ruled in his place. *** Ahaz ruled over Judah for 16 years and walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He sacrificed his own son to false gods and worshiped idols, leading Judah deeper into sin. *** Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Israel came against Jerusalem and besieged it. The king of Syria recovered some of the cities they had lost in other battles. Ahaz appealed to the king of Assyria to come and rescue him from the king of Syria and Israel. He bribed him with the silver and gold from the house of the Lord and his own house. The king of Assyria agreed to come and help. He took the city of Damascus and took its people captive and killed King Rezin. *** When Ahaz went to Damascus to meet with Tiglath-pileser the king of Assyria he took note of the altar there. He had a blueprint made of their altar and had it sent back to Jerusalem for the priest to duplicate. *** The altar was built to replace the bronze altar in the house of the Lord. He also did major changes in the Lord’s house to make it look like the temples of other gods. When he died, his son Hezekiah ruled in his place. *** In Acts, Paul was staying in Ephesus. Seven of the Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of Jesus to cast out the demons from a man. The evil spirits in the man told these priest that he knew who Jesus was and who Paul was, but they didn’t recognize these men. Then the man overpowered all seven of them. He beat them up and stripped them of their clothes and sent them running from the house. *** When news of this got around, the fear of the Lord fell on the people. Many repented and brought their books of sorcery to the disciples to burn. The word of the Lord grew mightily. *** Paul left and went to Macedonia and Achaia on his way to Jerusalem. His plan was to then go to Rome. Paul stayed with Timothy and Erastus in Asia for a while first. *** They met a man named Demetrius who was a silversmith who had become wealthy making silver shrines to false gods and Paul’s teaching had hurt his business. He formed a union of the other silversmiths to fight against Paul. They started a riot saying that Paul was belittling the great goddess of Artemis who they worshipped and the whole city fell into confusion. They gathered at the theater and dragged in Paul’s companions Gaius and Aristarchus. Paul wanted to go into the theater to help his friends but those with him wouldn’t let him. *** The town clerk finally got the crowd to be quiet and spoke to them. He explained that Paul and his men had not done anything sacrilegious nor had they blasphemed their goddess. So if Demetrius and the other craftsmen had a grievance against them they needed to do it orderly in court. He told the crowd that they needed to go home or be incited with causing a riot. The people went home peacefully. *** Satan does not like his kingdom being disrupted. God is so much more powerful than him and when we as God’s people recognize that and walk it out, all the kingdoms of Satan will fall. We are watching that happen in the world around us. Men of God are rising up and taking back the kingdom of the world from Satan and using it for God’s purposes. That is our commission. *** Lord, you said in Revelation that the kingdoms of the world will become your kingdoms. May we do what we are called to do to see that happen in our section of influence. May we not be afraid of what Satan can do because you have taken his power from him on the cross and defeated him. All glory to your name!