ANOTHER OFFERING TO MOLECH

Hezekiah’s Failure in Modern Evangelicalism

Introduction:

“And Ahaz slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.” That is how 2 Kings, chapter 16 concludes. Ahaz had reigned 16 years over Judah and no more. And the change of guard could not have come sooner. Ahaz was not a good King. He had done what was evil in the sight of God, to the point of throwing his sons in the pagan fires provided by the current day Planned Parenthood. And so the coming of Hezekiah was a sweet relief. As were the reforms that came with this new ruler. He, unlike his father, did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He removed the high places, broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah (1 Kings. 18:3-4).

All in all, his reign and ministry was a faithful one. He trusted in the Lord, and, the Lord was with him.

The Blemish:

However, for all his praiseworthy reforms, it was the sacrifice to Moloch that remains the blemish on Hezekiah’s record. A blemish that the evangelical church seems to cherish as her prized inheritance.

“But Hezekiah never sacrificed to Moloch,” you might say. To which I reply, “There’s more than one way to slaughter our children.” I’ll explain.

With barbarians at the gates, Hezekiah is told that the judgment of God would not in fact fall in his day, but in the days of his children. Hezekiah’s response, “The word of the Lord is good, for there will be peace and security in my days,” Isaiah 39:8. What was he saying? Was it not, that it is ok for the barbarians to break down the ramparts and haul away my children, so long as there remains an armistice in my time.

If this sounds a bit snaky, you are tracking. When good kings go down it’s often in order to protect their own skin and blame or saddle someone else with the consequences. In this, Adam was a second snake in the garden, “The woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit and I ate.”

What Adam ought to have done is what Hezekiah ought to have done. “Lord God, take me, whatever happens, spare the woman and her seed.”

Hezekiah took the devil’s bargain, trading relative peace with the worldly hordes in his day, in exchange for the destruction of those who would come after. But what does that matter, they will come after, and he’ll be long gone.

So where is the point of intersection? The crossroads in our day is this: We too have an enemy, and his barbarian seed is storming the gates, demanding our women and children. These barbarians, like their forefathers, all speak in funny ways, using too many consonants and making no sense. LGBTQIA, DEI, CRT, BLM. You get the point if you say the letters and do not try to sound them out.

Many of our evangelical leaders stand at the crossroads. These barbarians are demanding that we make peace with them, and in exchange, they have promised gold, silver, jewels, publishing deals, mega-churches, and even the applause of the drooling Norsemen out in front of the castle, at least for a time.

All they demand of these evangelical leaders is for the definitions to be slightly altered so as to remove the stigmas attached to terms like barbarian, horde, bloodlust, child sacrifice, lesbian, gay, tranny, and sodomite. If the current leaders of the church will just agree to the compact, then the raging nations promise to shake their fists in a different direction for the next five minutes. And they promise not to come back with reinforcements until it is our children who are manning the gates.

To which, our evangelical leaders have answered in resounding unison, “We’ll take the bargain, for there will be peace and security in our day.”

What is not said out loud is the quiet part. “That’s quite the raw deal for our children and children’s children who will be left to defend the bloodthirsty with nothing but a few limp bible verses, taken in isolation, and defined by the Danes who are not so politely knocking at the front gate. Along with the few banners left by their fathers which read, ‘Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors.’ ‘God is love, so why all the hate, be nice.’ ‘Love is love, seems right to me.’”

The Bottom Line:

Too many leaders in the church today are unwilling to take on the dragons of our day. Instead of taking up the sword of the Spirit and charging into battle, where yes, there will be conflict. Yes, you will be accused of being mean (to the nice serpents who only want a little of your kids’ flesh to snack on). Yes, there will be bruises taken and heads crushed, and very few of your opponents will applaud your courage, and they will most certainly cancel your book deals… leaders have surrendered the center and left the sheep and lambs with no clear standard. 

But what might be the result if we do so? It just may be that there will be a bit less peace and security in our days, but we might just secure a little more peace for our children’s grandchildren. Not to mention, leave them with a fear of God, a stable church at the center of the city, and a Christlike courage as their inheritance. 

Moloch wants our kids, as he did Hezekiah’s, only the Dragon didn’t go by that name explicitly in Hezekiah’s day and dilemma. And it’s true that only one of the snake-toothed out front goes by that name today. But all who are attacking, and before whom many pastors are cowering, they all want our kids.

So the compromise is plain before us. Fear man, relinquish the words of life, put down the sword and the truth, and you will have peace, at least for a while. Do so, and guarantee the devastation of your children. Or get back in the fight, take your lumps, if need be, suffer even for the honor of Christ, and leave your children, not only a more fortified defense but something more precious by far… an example of their fathers dying for them, in order to take more ground for Christ and His kingdom.

Personal peace and affluence? Or sacrifice, glory, and honor for the name of Christ and the joy of our children’s children? That seems to be the simple question before us. I choose the fight over an empty peace and the slaughter of my sons and daughters.

A Not So Brief Conclusion:

Many evangelical pastors and leaders are taking Hezekiah’s bargain – compromise, and relative peace now, and destruction later. Many, who are downstream of faltered fathers and brothers, have the hard decision, one that I face on a regular basis: float with the current, or do the hard and exhausting work of swimming upstream. The current kerfuffle around Alistair Begg’s answer to a grandmother regarding the attendance of a granddaughter’s wedding to a transgender [man or woman] is a great example. The compromise upstream was to allow the pagan world to define terms such as love, compassion, good, true, beauty, care, etc. Not to mention marriage, ceremony, dignity, and identity. 

The compromise was in allowing the world to define the only options, and according to Begg, there were only two. Either, attend the “wedding ceremony” and perhaps “surprise them with your love.” Or two, not attend, and prove that you are what they believe you are, “judgmental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything…” But that is the problem with allowing the world to claim or maintain editorial control of the dictionary. Because that scenario is a great example of the fallacy of the false dichotomy.

There are many more options than presented. The options are not limited to: Attend, publicly and implicitly endorsing the atrocity or the abomination. Or, don’t go, and confirm some kind of hatred for your granddaughter. I can think of at least 43 alternatives off the top of my head that would not lead to the further confusion of the glory and gift and gospel picture that is marriage, which is in Begg’s own wise words, “between one man and one woman, in a covenant for life, under God.” 

Loving the ministry of Begg, and benefitting, in God’s kindness, from him immensely, let me leave him and conclude.

Whether Begg sees it or not, what I see is that subtle exchange, the devil’s bargain at play. To tell the grandmother (or any comparable illustration) not to attend the “wedding” would have caused some ire, some rage, some hatred, and bruises would have been taken. And then he could have turned the cheek and taken more in the process of telling the hypothetical grandmother that she can and ought to invite her granddaughter and “spouse” (at this point we don’t even know what the sex of the other person is), over to dinner next month, expressing her love for her granddaughter, feeding her, giving her something to drink, and telling her about the love of God in Christ. That would be one of the 43 other options outside of the false dichotomy. 

And a response like that, black eyes and all, would have passed something down to his sons and grandsons that will be dearly needed in their day… a family legacy of the fear of God, not the fear of the world. A father and grandfather who were willing to be hated by the world, and doing so joyfully. For Christ has said, “If the world hates you, know that it had hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

As pastors and leaders, we must be willing to be bruised, ridiculed, hated even, and we must do so, for God’s glory and for the legacy it leaves our children and children’s children.

Is it any wonder that the son that followed Hezekiah, after the days of peace in Hezekiah’s day, was described thus, “And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah… And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.”

Turns out, the barbarians returned, and the nation was far worse than it had been before the days of peace.

What is the legacy you will leave your sons and daughters?

by Jefff Rodland