Sermon on 2 Chronicles 28–32: The Fear of God
A sermon by James de Costobadie (Costa), Senior Pastor at Latimer Church, on the fear of God as illustrated through the contrasting reigns of Kings Ahaz and Hezekiah.
Summary
Costa opens with the story of Hugh Latimer — the English reformer after whom Latimer Church is named — who famously preached the same sermon twice before King Henry VIII rather than apologise for offending him, driven by his fear of God rather than his fear of the king. This story frames the sermon's central theme: the fear of God as awe and reverence, recognising God for who he is and responding accordingly. Working through 2 Chronicles 28–32, Costa contrasts King Ahaz, whose complete absence of the fear of God led to Judah's destruction, with King Hezekiah, whose deep reverence for God produced repentance, wholehearted worship, obedience, and trust. The sermon concludes with the argument that fearing God is the antidote to every other fear — that those who properly fear God have no need to fear anything else.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: Hugh Latimer and the Fear of God
Good morning, everyone. The sharp among you would have noticed the name of our church, which is Latimer Church. I don't know if you know why it's called Latimer Church, though. We were at Latimer Square originally until we fell down in the earthquakes. And that's not actually the only reason we've called ourselves Latimer Church. It's after Hugh Latimer, the great reformer, a minister in the reign of King Henry VIII. And I actually have a story about Hugh Latimer and what a legend he is.
During his ministry, Reverend Hugh Latimer was invited to preach at Hampton Court before none other than King Henry VIII. During the sermon, some of Latimer's lines offended the historically self-centred king. After the service, Latimer was informed that the king had commanded him to preach again the following Sunday and that the sermon should include an apology. The next week, when Latimer returned, he began his sermon by speaking to himself.
"Hugh Latimer, do you know before whom you are to speak this day? To the high and mighty monarch, the king's most excellent majesty, who can take away your life if you offend. Therefore, take heed that you speak not a word that may displease. But then consider well, Hugh, do you not know from where you come and upon whose message you are sent? Even by the great and mighty God, who is all-present and sees all your ways, and who is able to cast your soul into hell. Therefore, take care that you deliver your message faithfully."
And then, having encouraged his soul to do the job he was sent by God to accomplish, Reverend Hugh Latimer preached the exact same sermon he had preached a week before, this time with even more zeal.
What a man our church is named after. A man who ended up dying for his faithfulness to God. And what was it that gave Hugh Latimer the courage to speak the truth of the message faithfully? It was his fear of God. And that's the topic of today's sermon — the fear of God.
The text is 2 Chronicles 28–32, five chapters, and a theme running through them like a melodic line throughout is the fear of the Lord. It's never mentioned as such, but it's evident everywhere, and it's going to be the topic of what we look at. So let me pray before we do.
Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for the likes of Hugh Latimer who have gone before us and who have faithfully taught the message of the Gospel, even when it's unpopular, even under threat of death. We pray as we look at your word this morning that you would help us. Please give us minds which are sharp and able to focus. Please give us understanding. Please give us hearts which are soft and ready to be challenged and changed, so that we go away knowing you better, loving you more, and fearing you as we should. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Defining the Fear of God
The theme of the fear of God is confusing for most of us, I think, and misunderstood. It's a very important theme. It runs through the whole of the Bible and it's central to our relationship with God, whether you have a good relationship with God or a bad one. And we could simply look at a definition and then try to understand it from that. But we're in 2 Chronicles, and the great thing about historical narrative is that it teaches the same truths the rest of the Bible does, but with so much colour and creativity and effectiveness, because it helps us see what it actually looks like in real life to do these things.
So what does it look like to fear God in real life? We're going to see when we look at these chapters. They build for us steadily an image, an idea of what the fear of God is and what it is not.
A quick definition before we dive in. The fear of God is really an awe and a reverence of God. It is recognising God for who he is — his glory and his greatness — and then responding in awe and reverence. When you look in the New Testament and you see the word for reverence, that's actually the word for fear, phobos. That's what it is. And so we're going to dig in and think about what fear of God looks like.
King Ahaz: A Negative Example — No Fear of God
We start off with a really negative example with King Ahaz. King Ahaz is in chapter 28, and he is a terrible king. He's the son of King Jotham, who we don't get a lot of information about. In chapter 27, verse 2, we are told Jotham did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just like his father Uzziah had done, but unlike him, he did not enter the temple of the Lord. In other words, he was a good king. And when his son Ahaz takes the throne, Judah is powerful and wealthy. They've pushed back the enemies in all directions. They've smashed everybody they've come against in battle. And Judah's flourishing — until Ahaz the terrible takes the throne.
When you look at the introduction the Chronicler gives us to Ahaz in chapter 28, you see what a nightmare he is. It says:
"Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem 16 years. Unlike David, his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and also made idols for worshipping the Baals. He burned sacrifices in the valley of Ben-Hinnom and sacrificed his children in the fire, engaging in the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He offered sacrifices and burned incense at every high place, on the hilltops, and under every spreading tree."
Ahaz is just a wicked disaster. And his wickedness, because he is king, spreads throughout the whole kingdom of Judah. As you read the tale of his reign through the rest of chapter 28, he just goes from bad to worse to worse. God's response is to deliver Judah into the hands of the enemies, and all the progress and the success Judah's had over the last few kings is completely undone. Every enemy they've driven back just takes back everything and more. We're told the Arameans, the Israelites, the Edomites, the Philistines — all of them attack Judah, and they just tear it apart.
And repeatedly we're told why this is. Verse 5: "Therefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Aram. He was also given into the hands of the king of Israel." Why? Verse 6: "Because Judah had forsaken the Lord, the God of their ancestors." And verse 19 tells us this was God's doing — his response to the evil of Ahaz.
It's a pattern we see throughout Chronicles. Blessing when Israel is faithful, curses when they are not. Because that is the nature of the covenant God had with the people of Israel. That's how he set it up. If you look at Deuteronomy 28, Moses outlines it there. He says:
"If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God."
And he lists a whole load of blessings. But then he says:
"However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you. The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him."
And further down: "The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction, but flee from them in seven. And you will become a thing of horror to all the nations on earth."
God was very clear. Obey him and he blesses you. Disobey him and do evil, and he will curse you. Remember that little phrase — a thing of horror — because it's going to come up again.
And yet, instead of recognising this, Ahaz does the opposite. He doesn't repent. He actually doubles down on his evil. Have a look at verse 22:
"In his time of trouble, King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord. He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him. He thought, 'Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I'll sacrifice to them so they will help me.' But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel. Ahaz gathered together all the furnishings from the temple of God and cut them in pieces. He shut the doors of the Lord's temple and set up altars at every street corner in Jerusalem. In every town in Judah he built high places to burn sacrifices to other gods, and aroused the anger of the Lord, the God of his ancestors."
Absolute wickedness without a hint of repentance.
In Ahaz we see what a lack of fear of God really looks like. There is no awe and reverence for God. He has no fear of the consequences of disobeying God. He shows a total disregard for the glory of God, and total disbelief in the power of God. Ahaz's view of God is so small, so dismissive, he doesn't think twice about insulting God. Because there's no fear of God.
In Psalm 36, David says, "I have a message from God in my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked. There is no fear of God before their eyes." Ahaz has no fear of God, and it costs him and Judah almost everything. They're torn apart, they lose their wealth, their independence, and they lose the blessing of God. When Ahaz dies, he's buried in absolute disgrace, not placed in the tombs of the kings, because Judah is brought to ruin.
King Hezekiah: A Positive Example — Deep Fear of God
When Hezekiah takes over the throne, it's a relief when you read the introduction to him. You can read it for yourself in chapter 29, verses 1 and 2:
"Hezekiah was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned in Jerusalem 29 years. His mother's name was Abijah, daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done."
It's an unqualified, positive introduction. He's likened to David, the greatest king of Israel, because as we'll see, in Hezekiah you have the opposite of King Ahaz. You have a king who deeply fears and deeply reveres the Lord. We have our positive example.
He starts so well. Hezekiah knows the covenant God's made with his people. He knows the reason Judah's been ripped apart. Have a look at verses 3 to 11. He assembles the priests and the Levites, he opens up the temple, and he says this:
"Listen to me, Levites. Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. Our parents were unfaithful. They did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord's dwelling place and turned their backs on him. They also shut up the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary of the Lord God of Israel. Therefore the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem. He has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your very own eyes. This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword, why our sons and daughters and wives are in captivity. Now, I intend to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense."
He knows what's going on, doesn't he? He knows why they're suffering. He knows why they've been carted off into slavery, because he knows Deuteronomy 28. He knows why God has made them a horror, because they turned their backs on him and did not fear him. And Hezekiah is determined to reverse this.
He understands you must not turn your back on God any more than you should turn your back on a lion. He knows what God is like. He knows God must be held in reverence and awe. He knows God deserves to be held in reverence and awe. And it's something you see throughout Hezekiah's reign. He knows God is faithful to keep his word and his covenant. He knows God is more powerful than his enemies that are lined up against him. He knows God is gracious and compassionate and quick to forgive. He knows the glory and greatness of God, and so he fears God. And we see the impact that has throughout his reign.
Four Marks of a Heart That Fears God
We're going to list a whole lot of things we see about a heart that fears God.
The first is that a heart that fears God repents and returns to him.
We see it in the verses we just started to read. He does a complete U-turn from what Ahaz has done. Ahaz closed the temple — he opens it. Ahaz desecrates the temple — Hezekiah purifies it. Ahaz eliminates effectively the priesthood — Hezekiah sets them back in their place. He does everything he can to undo the damage that Ahaz has done.
In chapter 30, we're told he celebrates the Passover and summons all the people in Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel. He says, come, celebrate the Passover for the Lord. In chapter 31, he gives generously to the work of the temple because he wants the temple and the priests to be able to do the job they're supposed to do and focus on doing it. In other words, he does everything he can to return Israel and Judah to the Lord. And we're given three chapters of detail on it — 29, 30, and 31 — which in old school literature is a huge amount, because Hezekiah went to great lengths to return the people of Israel to the Lord. And we're told in chapter 31, verse 21, he does it wholeheartedly.
The immediate impact of Hezekiah's fear of God is to bring Judah back to God. And that is always the first step of those who fear the Lord. It is to return to him.
Pastor John Piper tells of a time he took his six-year-old son, Carsten, to visit a man in their church called Don Teagan. Don had a big dog at the door when they opened it, and the dog was so big he could look Carsten eye to eye. John Piper recalls sending Carsten back to the car to grab something they'd forgotten, and the dog went loping up behind the six-year-old, growling as he went. Carsten was absolutely terrified, as you'd expect. And John Piper recalls Don leaning out the door and shouting to Carsten, "Carsten, maybe you better not run away from him."
God is horrifically dangerous to run away from, and we should be terrified to run from him. The way to be safe with God is to return to him. You are always safe with God. That's what we see expressed in Hosea 11, when Hosea the prophet says to Israel, "They will follow the Lord. He will roar like a lion, and when he roars, his children will come trembling from the west." When God roars, the right response is to return to him. And that is exactly what Hezekiah does. He recognises that the destruction God has brought on Judah is God roaring to his people. And because he fears God, he doesn't respond like Ahaz and walk further away. No, instead he turns and he comes back to God.
If you've turned your back on God, the worst thing you can do is to copy Ahaz and keep walking away. Return to him. Fear the Lord. Because as Hezekiah says to the people in chapter 30, the Lord is gracious and compassionate, and he will not turn his face from you if you return to him.
A heart that fears God repents and returns to him.
The second thing: a heart that fears God worships God wholeheartedly.
The first thing Hezekiah does as he turns back to God is he leads his people in worshipping God. That's why he reopens the temple, why he purifies it, why he sets up the sacrificial system, why he sets up the priests to lead them in glorifying God. He wants everything set up so they can worship the Lord.
And we're given a beautiful image in verses 29 and 30 when all that's been done. It says:
"When the offerings were finished, the king and everyone present with him knelt down and worshipped. King Hezekiah and his officials ordered the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with gladness and bowed down and worshipped."
An awe of God which recognises God for who he is is quick to worship him. And it's not a begrudging and reluctant worship. It's not just doing it to placate a grumpy God. It's doing it with gladness. And throughout the three chapters — 29, 30, 31 — you just see it's like a theme that runs through. They're filled with joy, with gladness, with praise, with generosity, with wholeheartedness. They love to worship the God they fear. They wholeheartedly give God what they know he deserves.
Those who hold God in reverence and awe are well aware of who he is and what he does, and they're only too willing to worship him for it. Your attitude to God — to worshipping him, to speaking to him, serving him, telling others of him — it speaks volumes of what you think of God. It speaks of whether or not you are in awe of the awesome God, or not.
When we drag ourselves to church, mumble our way through singing his praises, distractedly listen to his word, and leave as quickly as we possibly can afterwards, it may speak of being very busy or tired or introverted. But just maybe what it really speaks of is a heart that's not in awe of the awesome God. A heart which does not really know him or fear him as it should. And so a heart that does not want to wholeheartedly worship and serve him.
The third thing we see about a heart that fears God is that it's faithful to him — it obeys him.
A heart that fears God is a heart that hates what offends God. In other words, it hates sin. And so it desires to obey him. And you see it with Hezekiah and the people. Throughout these chapters, they're cleansing the temple, and then they're cleansing Jerusalem, and then they're cleansing Judah, and they even go as far as cleansing some of the northern kingdom. At the start of chapter 31, after they've celebrated the Passover — and they celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread twice, because they got so into it, they were so excited they wanted to do it again — you see what happens. Chapter 31, verse 1:
"When all this had ended, the Israelites who were there went out to the towns of Judah, smashed the sacred stones, and cut down the Asherah poles. They destroyed the high places and the altars throughout Judah and Benjamin and in Ephraim and Manasseh. After they had destroyed all of them, the Israelites returned to their own towns and to their own property."
The people follow Hezekiah's lead, and they reorder their hearts to fear God. And what's the next thing they do? They go on this beautiful holy rampage. They purge the whole country of every single idol and sign of sin that they can find anywhere. They recognise the holiness of God and how offensive sin and idolatry are, and they purge the land of them. Because a heart that fears God hates what offends him, and fear of him is one that makes every effort to get rid of sin.
Jesus spoke about a heart like that in Matthew 5. He says it's a heart that so hates the idea of sin and its consequences it's willing to gouge out the eye and chop off the hand.
One of the great blessings of preaching — one of the reasons I asked to be able to do a few sermons again — is that you get really drenched in the word as you prepare it. And as I've pondered these chapters this week on the fear of God, I've started to notice areas where I flirt with sin. The thing where you do it a little bit and you kind of justify it and think it's okay. You allow yourself to get away with it, and you allow sin to get a foothold. And as I've felt the fear of God, as I've looked at this again, I've felt rebuked and pushed to get rid of those little bits of sin that I just tolerate when I shouldn't. Because that's what the fear of God does in your heart. It starts to show you the wrongness of sin before God and it gives you a desire to purge it, to get rid of it.
The great and glorious God is holy and he hates our sin. And he offered up his own Son to cleanse us from our sin and to take the punishment for it. And so as his people, we must flee from it. A heart which fears and reveres God will seek to get rid of sin everywhere it finds it. Ahaz was a fool. He did not fear God, and he turned his back on God and ran towards his sin. Those who fear God know better. You flee from your sin and into the arms of God. As Proverbs says, the fear of the Lord keeps one away from sin.
The last one: a heart that fears God trusts God.
After all of this, after returning to the Lord and obeying him, there seems to be an odd response from God. The Chronicler kind of points out the oddness, I think, in the way he phrases things in chapter 32. Have a look at chapter 32, verse 1:
"After all that Hezekiah had so faithfully done, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to these fortified cities, thinking to conquer them for himself."
What happened to the blessing when you're faithful? Hezekiah's been so faithful, and then Assyria just sweeps in and starts tearing the place apart. But this is a great test for what is in the heart of Hezekiah. Will he continue to fear God and him alone, or will he start to fear Sennacherib?
And Assyria were fearful. They were the world's superpower at the time. They were brutal. Inscriptions have been uncovered that show during his invasion of Judah, Sennacherib took some 200,000 captives, ransacked 46 towns, and locked Hezekiah up — as he calls it — like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem. He had it completely surrounded. Hezekiah had every reason to fear the might of Assyria.
But Hezekiah teaches us the response of a heart that fears God. It trusts him. He prepares for what's coming. He builds up the defences. He blocks off the water supply for the coming army. He readies the people and arms them. But he doesn't trust in his preparations. He trusts in his God. Have a look at verse 7 and 8:
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him. For there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles."
What a great speech. Fear of God for Hezekiah means he doesn't need to fear anything else. Even the vast army of Assyria that surrounds him. Sennacherib might have an awesome army with him, but Hezekiah has the awesome God with him.
Unfortunately for Sennacherib, he doesn't share Hezekiah's fear of God. He doesn't recognise what a dangerous game he's playing. His army has given him such confidence and pride that he thinks he has nothing to fear from God. Remember what we saw last week? Pride refuses to fear God. That's what it does to us. And so Sennacherib mocks God, and God will not be mocked. You see his foolishness in verses 16 to 19:
"Sennacherib's officers spoke further against the Lord and against his servant Hezekiah. The king also wrote letters ridiculing the Lord, the God of Israel, and saying this against him: 'Just as the gods of the people of the other lands did not rescue their people from my hand, so the God of Hezekiah will not rescue his people from my hand.' Then they called out in Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall to terrify them and make them afraid in order to capture the city. They spoke about the God of Jerusalem as they did about the gods of the other peoples of the world, the work of human hands."
You almost feel like saying to Sennacherib, "Dude, I wouldn't do that. Don't poke the lion. It's not a good idea."
But Hezekiah is not intimidated. All the bragging and boasting by Sennacherib, the size of his army — none of it moves him. Hezekiah, in his heart, continues to fear God alone. And why? Because he stands with the lion that Sennacherib is poking. And his response is to pray to his awesome God. And his awesome God responds awesomely. Have a look at verse 21:
"The Lord sent an angel who annihilated all the fighting men and the commanders and officers in the army of the Assyrian king. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he went into the temple of his God, some of his own sons — his own flesh and blood — cut him down with the sword. So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, and from the hand of all others. He took care of them on every side."
We're told in 2 Kings and in Isaiah that Sennacherib lost 185,000 fighting men in one night. You don't poke the lion. You don't mock God.
The Fear of God as the Antidote to Every Other Fear
And you see here what fearing God produces. For Hezekiah it produced peace. He had confidence. When you fear God, you stop fearing everything else. It's the paradox at the centre of all of this. When you properly fear God, you stop fearing everything else. The fear of God is the vaccine against every other fear.
The problem is most of us have got it the wrong way around. We fear everything except for God. We spend so much time fearing the opinions of other people, fearing what might go wrong, fearing what we might lose. We focus on our fears, the things we're scared of. And then we treat the God of the universe like he's just some supportive friend we can chat with occasionally.
We need to flip it around. We need to remember who God is. Remember his greatness and his glory. Remember his goodness and his compassion, his justice and his holiness. We need to focus on him and put the fear of God back in our hearts. There's no room or need to fear anything else in this world. Because when we fear the Lord, there's nothing else to fear. It's the secret to peace and joy and security in a world filled with worry.
And ours is a very anxious world, isn't it? The statistics are going higher and higher. Our generation is almost paralysed by fear and anxiety. And there are a lot of threats. It's a dangerous place. And when you read the book of Revelation, it doesn't really help, does it? Because you get the beasts and the threats that are lined up against God's people, and they are no joke. But the comfort that echoes all the way through Revelation is the same one that echoes throughout the Bible — that the Lord Jesus, the Lion of Judah, has triumphed. And he sits upon his throne, and no one and nothing can threaten his people. He is the one to fear, and he is the one to draw near to.
Aslan was a stroke of genius from C.S. Lewis, wasn't it? And he got it from the Bible. Because in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when Aslan roars, his friends come running towards him. Because that is the safe place to be. You run away from your enemies and all the other things that can scare you, and you go and stand beside Aslan the Lion, and you're safe. It's the same with God. You don't run away from him. You run towards him.
Fear the Lord. Repent and return to him. Worship him. Obey him. Trust him. Because that is the route to peace and joy in this world.
Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. Thank you because it reveals you to us. We learn what you are like. We learn that you are a gracious and compassionate God who never turns anyone away who comes back to him. We learn that you are a mighty and powerful God before whom all should tremble. We learn that you are a just and holy God who hates sin. Thank you so much for who you are.
Please give us a bigger vision of who you are. Please give us a greater understanding. Please may our noses be in our Bibles. May we spend time on our knees so that we get a better grasp of just how great you are, so that we can fear you the way we should, so that we don't then need to fear anything else. Thank you that with you we are always safe. That's a promise not just for this world but for the world to come. We pray that in our great Saviour's name. Amen.