But anyway, open your Bibles if you haven't yet and let me find my spot here and we'll get ready. Here we go, all right. I have become over the years more of a movie connoisseur. It's funny, we watch movies and then sometimes somebody will ask us if we've seen such and such a movie. I'm not so into movies that I remember them very well so I always have to ask Dia, have I seen this movie before? And she'll usually say yes or no. But we've watched quite a few movies over the years and I personally like movies. Me, I like comedies and I like movies with a happy ending. But I've seen a few movies with a really sad or tragic ending and you know, I don't know how you get, you know, touched by that but for me when I watch one of those I usually leave the movie with a bad feeling or sad inside thinking man I wish that movie would have had a better ending, a different ending or a happy ending. Now some movies are just pretend obviously or fiction. Other movies are based upon fact or true stories. Well, this evening, unfortunately, we come to one of those, it's not a movie, but it's a factual story. It's a true story before us this evening. And it's not a movie, like I said, but it's a picture book, it's not a picture book ending. You can picture what's going on in your mind. But here in chapter 25, it really is a very sad story with a sad ending to this book, the book of 2 Kings. And so it's a very tragic ending, like I said. So this evening, as we come to the end of this story, this tragic story, it's one though, I think it's even more tragic as it could have been avoided. That's what's even more tragic about it. It's tragic because of men's bad choices, because of men's sinful disobedience. Calamity comes upon the southern kingdom of Judah now, not because God desired for that to happen, If anything, what we learn from the scripture is the total opposite. God gave the southern kingdom and the northern kingdom as well lots and lots of chances, lots and lots of warnings, giving them the opportunity to repent. In fact, we sort of hear the heart of God from the prophet Ezekiel as God spoke through Ezekiel and he said this, and it's a truth that I believe still holds true today. God says, son of man, Now that's pretty heavy. that the Lord tells the prophet if you don't say what I tell you to say or you don't bring the warning that I want you to bring and they don't repent because you didn't tell them to repent and they die in their sin the Lord says to the prophet I'm going to hold you accountable for their blood but he says but if you warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so he will die for his sin But you have saved yourself. As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And that's one of the standout truths that we learn about the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament, which are the same God, by the way. That God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He says, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. And so God pleads with his people through the prophet, turn, turn from your evil ways. Why will you die, O house of Israel? So we see God's calling. But we also see that men have a choice to respond or not respond to that call. So the heart of God in this tragedy is that God desired for them to repent. God loved Israel. God loved Judah. And he sent prophet after prophet with the same message. a call for the people to turn from their evil ways, their wicked ways. God tried over and over to dissuade them from their sin, to turn them from their evil ways. And he says, why will you die, O house of Israel? It's like he's saying, look, you're heading off a cliff and I'm trying to warn you to turn before you perish. And that was the warning that was sent to the Northern Kingdom for a long time and then the Southern Kingdom. So Jesus himself, interesting, when he looks back over the history of the nation of Israel, he spoke about it. In fact, turn over with me to the Gospel of Mark. And so we'll look at the Gospel of Mark, and we're gonna look at chapter 12. So if you wanna turn there with me to the Gospel of Mark chapter 12. And in Mark chapter 12, listen to what Jesus says. He gives us sort of this history lesson of the nation of Israel and talks to us about what they had done in the past and what they were about to do in the present. Mark chapter 12 beginning at verse 1 and we'll read down to verse 12. Then he began to speak to them in parables. A man planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a place for the wine vat, and built a tower. And he leased it to the vinedressers and went into a far country. Now at vintage time, he sent a servant to the vinedressers that he might receive some of the fruit of the vineyard. Now this is a parable, but it's speaking of the nation of Israel. That is God's vineyard, and God put people in charge of that vineyard, mainly the religious leaders. And so he says that he sent his servant to the vinedressers to receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vinedressers. Verse 3. Again, he sent them another servant. And at him they threw stones, wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully treated. And again he sent another, and him they killed, and many others, beating some and killing some. So Jesus is speaking this parable against the nation of Israel and against their history and what they had done throughout history in ignoring God or killing God's messengers. Verse six, therefore, still having one son, now Jesus brings himself into the picture. Therefore, still having one son, his beloved, he also sent him to them last, saying, they will respond to my son. But those vinedressers said among themselves, this is the heir, come, let us kill him. and the inheritance will be ours. So they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard. Therefore, what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vinedressers and give the vineyard to others. Have you not even read the scripture, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone? This was the Lord's doing. and it is marvelous in our eyes. And they sought to lay hands on him, but feared the multitude, for they knew he had spoken the parable against them, so they left him and went away. So this pretty much, this parable pretty much summarizes the history of Israel and how they treated the messengers of God. They mistreated some, they treated some shamefully, they beat others, they stoned others. And then to epitomize all of it, In God's mercy, God finally sends his only son. And they rejected God's only son, Jesus, and they killed him, they murdered him also. And that's why, you know, when you look at Jesus coming into Jerusalem on that final weekend before he went to the cross, we call it Palm Sunday, we're told that he wept. And they were, because he knew they were about to reject him, his own people, the nation of Israel. He came to that which is his own, yet his own did not receive him, John chapter one tells us. So they were about to reject him and crucify him. And yet all those times God tried to get through to them, but he says they were not willing. Once more, rejecting the love of God, and so Jesus weeps. because he knew what they were going to do to him and also he knew what it was going to cost them temporarily and eternally. See, rejection of God's love carries with it heavy consequences physically and eventually spiritually. So Jesus could see their tragic end And here's what he says, when he comes into Jerusalem that final time, he says, if you, even you, had only known on this day what brings you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes, the days will come upon you, and Jesus is speaking prophetically now. He's about to go to the cross, he's about to be rejected by Israel but it's going to cost them dearly. So he says prophetically, the days are going to come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, and you and your children within your walls, and they will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not recognize... This is amazing. People say, did Jesus ever say He was God? Yes, He did. Because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you. So he ends and he says, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets, stone those sent to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. And then these sad, tragic words, but you were not willing. And then he says this. Look, your house is left to you desolate. Some of the saddest words that Jesus ever spoke were right here. He says, you were not willing and your house is left to you desolate. And so throughout the history of Israel, This is what they did time and time again. God and his love longing to bless them, to love them, to protect them, to honor them, but they were not willing. And I want to say this because we can look at them and maybe even go, How dumb, you know? But I want to say this, we need to be careful because I think it's sad how stubborn, and I wanted to use this word, I wanted to ask one of you guys to speak good Spanish. I hope it's not a bad word, okay? But they used to say it in my town. It's sad and how stubborn and how tonto. Okay, is that a bad word, Spanish speakers, no? No, this means stupid, right? Okay, tonto, stupid. Okay, how tonto the people can be toward God and his offer and love of grace even today, even today. And thus they ended up desolate. The word's interesting, the word desolate, he said your house has left you desolate. It literally means lonesome, laid waste, Or in, to, oh I can't read my own writing. Anyway, like I think it's solitary, to leave solitary. So the idea here is that the Lord is weeping because they were bringing this, even when He came, upon themselves. But now, as we're looking at this portion of scripture tonight here in 2 Kings, what we're learning is this had happened before, and it kept happening over and over again with the nation of Israel. And so we come now this evening to the third wave of captivity to the Babylonians, and a culmination of that captivity is now completed as we come to this chapter. Jerusalem, and the temple is going to be burned to the ground, destroyed, and many lives are gonna be lost and taken captive to their enemies. And it's, like I said, this is a horrible, tragic ending to the book that we've been studying now for quite a while. Now, remember there are simple reasons that this happened. Once more, it happened all because they refused to listen to God. They refused to respond to His grace. They refused to respond to His love. And there is a spiritual principle in all of this. And here's the spiritual principle. If you will not have God's grace and mercy in your life, then you will finally get God's justice and judgment in your life. And so the question always comes back to us, what will it be? Which do you want? Now, the same choice lies before us as lies before these folks in this book and the choice that they made was wrong. But we're faced with the same kinds of choices that we have to make. And it's a choice that all of us as individuals have. It's a choice even as nations have. Will we turn from our evil ways and live? be forgiven and be saved and reconciled to God, or will we close our ears, stiffen our necks, harden our hearts, and die in our own sin? And those are the choices, and choices, remember, have consequences. Now, hopefully we'll heed the warnings of God, we'll respond to His love and His grace, And hopefully we don't shun or spurn the warnings of God and reject God's love and grace. And those are the choices that all of us have as individuals in the New Testament. And so the $100 million question is, what will we choose? It always comes down to that. What will it be for you? And you know what? Only you can answer that question. No one can answer it for you. Now let's go ahead and end this sad book, this sad story, tragic story, and see how their choice to reject God's love and grace ended up playing out for them. And it's a good lesson for us of what not to do, pretty much. Look at chapter 25, verses one through three. Now it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the 10th month, on the 10th day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all his army came against Jerusalem, and encamped against it, and they built a siege wall against it all around. So the city was besieged until the 11th year of King Zedekiah. By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Let's stop there for a little bit. For context sake, let's look back at chapter 24, the last verse, verse 20. Notice what it says. For because of the anger of the Lord, this happened in Jerusalem and Judah. that he finally cast them out from his presence. Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. So it was their unrepentance, their rejection of God's prophets, that finally brings this to a culmination. And we see here that God was angered. And God finally said, you know what, enough. And he casts him out of his presence. which then causes a flood of wrath to come upon them. He removes his blessing, he removes his protection, and gives him over to the destroyers or to their enemies. So like I've been saying, this is a sad and a tragic story. It's not pretty. In fact, the latter chapters of Jeremiah, if you read through the book of Jeremiah, the latter chapters of Jeremiah coincide with this story right here. They're parallel in time frame. Along with the book of Lamentations, which we've gone through, you can read how Jeremiah wept because the people rejected God's love and suffered the bitter consequences for their sin. They were reaping what they had sown. And once more God, we know this, we just read it, God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone or even of the wicked. Rather he would have that they would turn from their ways and live. So God says to them, live, don't die, why would you die? And that once more we were faced with those same kinds of choices in this life that we live as well. Except here's the thing for us, the choice that we have set before us is eternal life or eternal death. you know, eternal punishment. There's a literal place called hell, and then hell gets thrown into the lake of fire eventually. All the occupants that are in hell now get thrown into the lake of fire eventually that have rejected the Lord. And the Bible lays out two choices or two doors before us, and we have this spiritual promise or principle given to us, and it's not in Scripture, but this is a principle that you find in Scripture. If you're born once, you will die twice. If you're born twice, you will only die once. Now let me explain that. Remember Jesus said, I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He said, if you wanna go to heaven, you wanna be part of the kingdom, you must be born again. That's the idea of being born twice. Jesus says, flesh gives birth to flesh. but the spirit gives birth to the spirit. We are born into this world from water, from our mother's wombs, but then we must be born spiritually in order to enter the kingdom. So if you're born twice, you'll only die once. You'll die maybe a physical death, but you'll never die a spiritual death. But if you are only born once, then you will die twice. You will die a second death that the book of Revelation speaks of about four times. So the neat thing is, is if you're saved, you're never gonna experience the second death. Now, notice in verse one, it says, it came to pass. It came to pass, there had been 490 years of time that came to pass, 490 years of God's love and grace that had been extended to the nation of Israel, and now it comes to pass that the day of God's grace and mercy passes, and now because of their sins, payday is here. God finally said enough and he became angry. And remember, payday for sin is what? The wages of sin is? Yeah. You guys know that. Now, God, here's the thing. Only God knows how long before grace rejected or grace extended will come to an end and pass away. When it's no longer available. That's what happens here. When a person continually rejects the Lord's love and mercy and grace, and then finally God says, you know what? I'm done with you. A little pastoral free advice, don't reject God's love, whatever you do. And, you know, if you do, and you reject the love of God, instead of being faced with God's grace and mercy at your judgment, you'll be faced with God's justice and God's judgment when you stand before him. And so, you know, when you look at the beautiful message of the gospel, the Bible says today is the day of salvation. None of us have a guarantee for tomorrow. That's why it says today is a day of salvation. And I tell people this all the time, you know, get your life right with the Lord. Don't say mañana. Mañana is the devil's favorite word. Never procrastinate the Holy Spirit's conviction in your life. If the Holy Spirit's convicting you about something, fix it right then. Take care of it right then. Get right with the Lord right then. How many of you are glad for the Holy Spirit's conviction in your life? I am because I'm a knucklehead sometimes, a lot of times. But the Holy Spirit's conviction helps me get back on course, helps me to realize, man, I need to repent or ask for forgiveness or go to my wife or whatever. And so we learn that God's Holy Spirit is our helper. but he convicts us, but we need to respond when he does. Now Nebuchadnezzar, he's the king of Babylon at this time. His army now comes against Jerusalem. God basically removes his protection from the southern kingdom, allows Nebuchadnezzar, probably even brings Nebuchadnezzar as a form of discipline. He encamps around Jerusalem, and he builds a siege wall around it. That's how they fought back then. So Jerusalem already had a wall built around it, but then they basically made a wall around the wall and no one could go in or no one could go out, no food, nothing, no one could enter in. This lasted a year and a half, it lasted 18 months. And so basically they're starving them to death. And we're told that it lasted until the 11th year of King Zedekiah's reign, which comes out to 18 months total. Imagine Silver City, if you will, encircled by an enemy for 18 months. And you could not leave. You could not go in or out. Pretty soon, all the stores would be desolate, right? There'd be nothing to buy. Nothing coming in, nothing going out, no gas, nothing. Imagine being encircled by an enemy like that. And what was sad about this story is the loss of life by starvation. Women and children and parents and grandparents dying of starvation. History tells us that food became so scarce during this siege that they were actually eating their own children. and they turned to cannibalism. I can't imagine that. We're also told that they began to eat dung, excrement, anything. The book of Lamentations tells us, you know, now Lamentations, what is Lamentations? They're basically death poems, death dirges. as Jeremiah sat in a cave and he watched the prophecy come true. And he watched the people starve and suffer and die needlessly. That's why he's called the weeping prophet. They didn't listen. And then he had to see it happen. So he wept. Now, we know that it broke his heart. a prophet of God, but it also broke the heart of God to see his people have to go through this. Yet so many people do the same kind of dumb things. The Bible says, wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter therein. But only a few make it into heaven, because only a few decide or submit to follow the Lord. So there's a wide, broad road that leads to destruction. Even today, it's no different. Why does that happen? Well, I'll say a couple of words. Volition or free will. Because they refuse to respond to His love and choose rather their own will over God's will. And that's the big mistake that humans make. We choose our will over God's will. I would ask you tonight, what are you choosing today or this evening? Are you choosing your will over God's will or God's will over your will? Have you submitted your will to God? Your choices to God, your life to God? And yet there's many, many people that make the bad choice or the dumb choice. And so, you know, it's a scary kind of a thing. We ask the question then is God rejoicing or lamenting over what he saw there? Obviously God was not happy. It had to pain his heart to see what was going on. Just like it pains his heart today when people turn their backs on him and run from him and rebel against him. Now in the final analysis of all this, what happens here? A third of them died of starvation. They literally starved to death. What a horrible way to die. You ever seen some of those pictures in Africa when these kids are literally or people are literally starving to death? They're just bones. It's a horrible, slow death. A third of the people in Jerusalem died of starvation. One third died by their enemies coming in and killing them with the sword. And then another third ended up being taken captive and made slaves. All of it was bleak. Look at verse 3. It says, By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Then look at verse 4. Then the city wall was broken through, and all the men of war fled at night by way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden, even though the Chaldeans were still encamped all around against the city, and their king went by way of the plain. So finally, the soldiers, they break the wall down, and the soldiers at night make a run for it and escape under the cover of darkness, or at least some of them, they try to escape, along with Zedekiah. Now, once their will was broken, they had no food left, their defenses were over with, their protection from God was removed. You know what's crazy? If you think about it, when we rely upon ourselves, it's a big, big mistake. But if you rely upon yourself instead of upon God for your protection or your provisions, eventually something might happen in your life where you have no protection or provisions, and even our highest, biggest walls or our self-erected sources of security will come crashing down someday because without God they're worthless. Psalm 121 says, unless the Lord builds the house, you labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. Look at verse five and verse six as we continue. It says, but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and they overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and his army was scattered from him. So they took the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they pronounced judgment on him. Now King Zedekiah gets caught, gets captured. Now you can be sure by now King Nebuchadnezzar was not a happy camper because when he came he basically set up this siege around them and gave them the opportunity to surrender but they would not do it. And so for a year and a half they messed with him and messed with him and messed with him. And now this is the third time he had to deal with this rebellious people. There had been two waves already of captivity. This is the third one. And now there's not going to be a fourth one. Jeremiah prophesied to Zedekiah the king that he was going to be captured in Jeremiah 32.4 and 34.3. that he was gonna be captured and made a prisoner as a result of him trying to, well, as a result of Babylon coming against him. So Nebuchadnezzar, then he pronounces a death sentence, only, here's the crazy part, he pronounces a death sentence not on the king himself, but on his children or on his sons. Now I was thinking about this. What would be worse? You dying for your own sin and your own stupidity, or for you to have to watch your own children suffer and die for your sins and your stupidity, right? Imagine that. I think that the second would be way worse, to watch your own children die in front of you for what you deserved or what you had coming. And so, you know, that would tear, I don't know about you guys, that would tear my heart out. So they sentenced his sons to die and to be executed in front of his very own eyes to hear their screams, to see their faces. So look at verse seven. Then they killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Now this is crazy because he sees this happen to his own sons. I can't imagine the pain, right? So they killed his sons before his eyes, put out the eyes of Zedekiah, bound him with bronze fetters, and took him to Babylon. So he had to see the horror and the torture of his own sons being killed. And then the very last thing that he ever sees in this world was that because they brutally treated his sons and then they gouge his eyes out. The last thing that he ever saw on earth was his sons being tortured to death, being executed. Now personally, I think it would have been much better just to be executed yourself, right? But now his eyes are gouged out and he lives the rest of his life blind as a broken prisoner, incapacitated. Remember, he was rebellious against God personally as the king. He was a wicked king. And we see what happens here. This is kind of like what happened to Samson. Remember what happened to Samson? horrible story that happened to Samson because Samson was supposed to be one of the judges of Israel and he was supposed to be representing Israel and he started messing around with sin and messing around with sin and compromising and it ended up costing him his eyes and eventually it cost him his life. He ended up getting his eyes gouged out because of Delilah. They cut his hair off and they blinded him. And you know, you look at what caused his downfall, it was sin, the sin of sexual desire and pleasure that got his eyes gouged out. And so, sin, what's scary about sin is it has bitter consequences and when it catches up with you, it's always a bitter thing. because it destroys, it blinds, it imprisons, it incapacitates. And I've seen it so many times in different people's lives where sin's consequences catch up to people and they start. Now they're sorrowing, they're crying because their sin caught up with them. And people are sitting behind prison bars because their sin caught up with them. Marriages are besieged or destroyed or broken. because their sins have caught up, the children are wounded in the process of divorces, and you see all of these things where sin comes home to roost in people's lives. And it's just a sad, sad thing. So you know, one of the things you learn about sin when you start seeing all these things happen in the Bible, is you see sin is never worth it. It's never worth it. If you're a young person, sin is never worth it. If you're a middle-aged person, sin is never worth it. If you're an old person, sin is never worth it, right? It's never worth it, and in the end, it always leads to heartache and regret and loss and sorrow and slavery and becoming incapacitated and broken, and maybe you'd be carried off by the enemy and no longer be free because you've been enslaved or imprisoned by sin. It's interesting that Jesus makes this statement. He says, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Interesting. So they bound him in fetters. They took him to Babylon. And so the bottom line of all this is that in the end, sin will bind you. It'll burn you, it'll gouge you, it'll torch you. It's just all the things that happen to all these people. They died in so many horrible ways because of the Babylonians coming. and besieging the city and then destroying them and killing by the sword and burning the temple, all the stuff that they did. Look at verse eight down to verse 10. And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which was the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, it's a different name, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard. I practiced these names today, so I'm gonna see if I can impress you. Probably won't, but I'll mess them up for sure. What'd you say, Mike? I already know I was trying my best. Anyways, the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. Notice what he does. He burned the house of the Lord and the king's house, all the houses of Jerusalem, that is all the houses of the great, he burned with fire. And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem all around. So they just finished just destroying the walls. And so there's total destruction. The temple's burned. The king's palace is burned. The houses of the wealthy, of the great are burned to the ground. Everything is destroyed. Jerusalem is destroyed. If you want to know what that looks like, watch the news and see what's happening in L.A. Look at verse 11 and verse 12. And so it says in verse 11 and verse 12, it says, Then Nebazaradan, the captain of the guard, carried away captive the rest of the people who remained in the city, that's the other one third, and the defectors who had deserted to the king of Babylon with the rest of the multitude. So now they're taken captive. But the captain of the guard left some of the poor of the land as vinedressers and farmers. So during this third wave now, the finding of captivity is completed, and the only ones left are the poor of the land. This is one time being poor pays off, right? They had nothing. They had no wealth. Most of them just were field workers. They worked in the fields. They were vine dressers. And so it probably would have been more of a burden and a liability to take them back to Babylon. It would be easier just to leave them there and they could tend the land and then give the king of Babylon the stuff that they grew. So it's interesting, though, that one commentator made a comparison to when God was gonna give the land to the children of Israel, and he told Joshua, he said, I'm not gonna give you all the land at once. You're gonna take the land incrementally. You're gonna defeat the enemies and take the land incrementally. He says, because if I give you the whole land all at once and wipe out all the people of the land, then the wild animals will overtake you. So it's interesting that there was this, and Adon would probably like this, but God had his own kind of game management program set in place, having people in the land to keep the wild animals down. So it's interesting that God did that. So some people believe that's one of the reasons that they left people there so that the wild animals would not overtake the whole of the land. It's happened as God said it would happen if he pulled everybody out. Look at verse 13 down to verse 17. Then it says, and he carried out, oops, I'm in the wrong chapter, sorry. Verse 13, the bronze pillars that were in the house of the Lord and the carts and the bronze sea that were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces and carried their bronze to Babylon. So bronze had some value. They took it, they took all the stuff out of the temple, they broke it in pieces so they could carry it back, probably to remelt it and reuse it again. Verse 14. They also took away the pots, the shovels, the trimmers, the spoons, and all the bronze utensils with which the priests ministered, the fire pans and the basins, the things of solid gold and solid silver. The captain of the guard took away the two pillars. One sea and the carts which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the bronze of all the articles was beyond measure. The height of one pillar was 18 cubits, and the capital on it was of bronze. The height of the capital was three cubits, and the network and pomegranates all around the capital were all of bronze. Remember everything Solomon built was incredibly beautiful. The temple was beautiful at one time and now they're just destroying it and taking everything out of it. The second pillar was the same with the network. Verse 18, and the captain of the guard took Okay, I practice this. Saria, the chief priest, Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three doorkeepers. He also took out of the city an officer who had charge of the men of war. five men of the king's close associates who were found in the city, the chief recruiting officer of the army who mustered the people of the land, and 60 men of the people of the land who were found in the city. So there were still some people hiding out in the city, and they all get captured now. So this is all taking place. Now verse 20 says, so Nebazardan, captain of the guard, took these and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. Then the king of Babylon struck them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. Thus Judah was carried away captive from its own land. So those other people he brought with him, the king just says kill them. And so he kills all of them. He had no mercy. And so this whole thing, it's a sad, sad story, what we see going on here. And so all of it's a sad and a tragic end. Now what's interesting, there's a parallel to all of this that happens in the book of Daniel. After these articles end up there, and they start to, there's a new king that comes, and they still have all the articles from the temple, something interesting happens. In Daniel chapter five, we're told that King Belshazzar, He decides to throw a party. And him and his buddies start to drink their wine using the sacred gold and silver goblets that they took from the holy temple of God and brought back to Babylon. So they're partying, they're getting drunk. And then something crazy happens. God sends a hand in the middle of their party to interrupt their drunken fest, and it wrote on the wall, many, many teckle parson. And when the king saw it, we're told he freaked out and became pale, and his knees knocked together in fear, not because of the alcohol, but because of seeing a hand appear and write on the wall, probably in his palace. So the king freaks out, his knees knock together. Talk about getting sober quick. And when the interpretation was given, interesting, by Daniel, Daniel said this. God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. You have been weighed and found wanting. Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians. So there was bad news in the writing on the wall. You ever heard that saying, the writing is on the wall? That's probably where it came from. The writing is on the wall and now your kingdom is taken from you. And so, God had numbered the days of your reign, brings it to an end, you have been weighed and found wanting, your kingdom is divided and given over to the means of the Persians. And we're told that that very night, Belshazzar was slain, he was axed to death. God judged him. In an instant, he fell because he used the sacred for the secular or for profane use. and he instantly reaped the bitter consequences of his sin. So God was still dealing with the enemies of Israel as well. So let's start at verse 20, 22 and kind of finish this off now. And it says, then he made Gedaliah, the son of Hicham, the son of Shaphan, governor over the people who remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had left. Now, when all the captains of the armies, they and their men heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah governor, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, Johanan, the son, and I practice these, I'm not doing any good, am I? Kara, the son of, don't name your kids this, please. Tanhumeth, the Netaphithite, and I like this one, Jazaniah. Name your kid that, that's cool. Hey, Jazaniah, you know, that's a cool name. Anyway, the son of the, whatever that guy is, they and their men. And Geraliah took an oath before them and their men and said to them, do not be afraid of the servants of the Chaldeans. dwell in the land and serve the king of Babylon and it shall be well with you. But it happened in the seventh month that Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, the son of, oh Lord, that guy, and the royal family came with 10 men and struck and killed Gedaliah, the Jews as well as the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah. So there's this coup that takes place. And all the people, small and great, And the captains of the armies arose and went to Egypt, for they were afraid of the Chaldeans. So they do this dirty deed and then they flee, they run to Egypt. Now it came to pass in the 27th year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, in the 12th month of the 27th day of the month that Don't name your kid this for sure. Evil Merodach, king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, released Jehoiachin, king of Judah, from prison. He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prominent seat than those of the kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin, changed from his present garments, and he ate bread regularly before the king all the days of his life. And as for his provisions, there was regular ration given him by the king, a portion for each day, all the days of his life. So it kinda ends on a high note for Jehoiachin, but for everybody else, they were toast, they were history. Now, I want to kind of read to you something that I found in a commentary, kind of encapsulating, is that a word? Encapsulating. Wow, I've been really studying that dictionary lately. Anyways, it says, First Kings opens with David's death, and Second Kings closes with Judah's destruction. The nation had failed under Moses, had failed under the judges, and now had failed under the kings. The people refused to listen to God and His word. They refused to be moved by the tears of the prophets God sent to them. They hardened their hearts and stiffened their necks until God appointed the Assyrians and then the Babylonians to teach them that the wages of sin is death. The captivity did serve its purpose. It served its purpose well. It purged the heart of God's chosen people of idolatry. Remember, they end up coming back to the land eventually. And there were some righteous guys in Babylon, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. There was some righteous guys there. And so they still ended up serving the Lord and being a godly witness there in captivity. But kind of in closing, as we look at this book and ending 15 minutes early and miraculously, in closing, there's some lessons here that a life governed and ruled by God equals blessing. A life not governed and ruled by God equals curses. There are the two different kind of choices with two different destinies or destinations in the end. And we learned in this book that choices that we make in life have consequences. We also learned that those choices are choices that we also have. And so it's important that we learn from these things. And so we don't just read the Bible just to go, ah, nice story. No, we learn hopefully the lessons from it, good lessons and the bad, the good and the bad, learn what to do and what not to do. And we see how God deals with people who do what is right and what is righteous. Psalm 23 says he leads us in paths of righteousness for his namesake. Thankfully, right? But if we choose to rebel and go on paths of unrighteousness, there are consequences. There are consequences. And so, you know, it happens for people, it happens for nations. We need to be praying for the United States. Who knows what's gonna happen, but we need to be praying that we'll turn in a good way, that God will have mercy on this country and that we'll turn to him. I don't know if that's gonna happen, but we'll be praying for that at least, right? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time tonight. We thank you for your word. We thank you for all that you teach us. We thank you for the lessons that we can learn from your word that we can apply to our lives in 2025. We thank you that we learn in your word that you're the same yesterday, today, and forever. We learn that a man reaps what he sows. If we sow to please the flesh, we'll reap destruction. If we sow to please the spirit, we'll reap eternal life. The same principles apply to us as apply to them. So help us, Lord, to live our lives in your honor and for your glory. Help us to be conscious of you in everything that we do. Help us to be conscious of you in our marriages as husbands. and fulfilling our roles as husbands and as wives, wives fulfilling their roles to their husbands and in their marriage and to their children. And Lord, and help us to be witnesses and salt and light in the community where we work amongst the people that we meet. May they see Jesus living in us. May we truly be shining the light of Jesus wherever we go. And Lord, help us to be salt, a preservative, to bring flavor that would cause people to thirst after you. We ask all these things and we pray for your help and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to do it. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you guys. Oh, wait, let's sing a song. The Aaronic Blessing. Let's sing a song to end. You guys know it, right? I'll start, you guys follow. ♪ The Lord bless thee ♪ ♪ The Lord bless thee ♪ ♪ And keep thee ♪ ♪ And keep thee ♪ ♪ The Lord make his face to shine upon thee ♪ ♪ And be gracious unto thee ♪ ♪ And be gracious unto thee ♪ ♪ The Lord lift up ♪ His countenance upon thee and give thee peace. God bless you guys.