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Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Wednesday, 15 October 2025:
2 Kings 16:1-2 — In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as his father David had done,
Ahaz represents a shocking moral collapse in Judah’s royal line. The contrast is deliberate and devastating, David’s faithfulness versus Ahaz’s apostasy. Instead of imitating his ancestor who trusted God through hardship, Ahaz patterned his life after the kings of Israel, who had long abandoned the covenant. His corruption was not merely political or social but spiritual at its core. When leaders abandon the fear of the LORD, morality quickly erodes. Most tragically, Ahaz’s rebellion reached its lowest point when he sacrificed his own son, a grotesque imitation of the pagan worship of Molech. What David offered God in devotion, Ahaz offered his child in destruction.
Sin blinds and desensitizes. When the heart drifts from the worship of the true God, it inevitably creates its own idols, and idols always demand human sacrifice. Today, our culture’s gods, pleasure, success, convenience, still demand the sacrifice of our children, whether through the neglect of discipleship, the abandonment of moral instruction, or the rationalization of abortion. When worship is misplaced, everything sacred becomes expendable.
2 Kings 16:3-4 — …but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
Ahaz’s actions expose the complete collapse of true worship and the horrifying consequences of syncretism — the blending of truth with error, the worship of Yahweh mingled with the idolatry of the nations. The “high places” were not merely convenient sites for worship; they were pagan shrines filled with carved images, altars, and Asherah poles (1 Kings 13:1–5; 14:23; 2 Kings 17:29; 18:4; 23:13–14). These locations had once been tolerated as alternative centers of sacrifice before the temple was built, but over time they became strongholds of idolatry, where people sought to manipulate the divine for personal gain. Ahaz didn’t just worship falsely, he reduced the Holy One of Israel to a tool for his own desires.
The true corruption here was not simply external ritual but theological rebellion. By sacrificing at the high places, Ahaz participated in a system that made man central and God secondary. Syncretism always does this — it dresses rebellion in the garments of religion. It tries to merge God’s holiness with human preference, turning worship from God-centered surrender into self-centered expression. The same spirit of syncretism lives on today when we craft a “god” who fits our lifestyle, beliefs, and convenience, when we treat faith as an accessory instead of absolute allegiance.
At its core, every idol, whether ancient or modern, exists to serve the high place of self. The “I” in idol is the root of all false worship. Ahaz did what seemed right in his own eyes, and so have countless others who confuse sincerity for truth. But sincerity in false worship is still sin. God does not accept worship offered on our terms; He demands worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23–24). Jesus warned that no one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Divided devotion is no devotion at all. When we attempt to worship God while retaining control, we are not worshiping Him but using Him.
Ahaz’s sacrifice of his own son is the ultimate picture of what happens when worship turns inward — innocence is consumed by idolatry. He gave what was most sacred to feed what was most corrupt. God had driven out the Canaanites for such abominations, yet Ahaz resurrected their practices in the very land God had consecrated. His altar of convenience became an altar of cruelty.
Today, “high places” of self-serving false worship remain with altars of comfort, career, pleasure, and pride. These high places may not bear statues, but they shape our loyalties. To tear them down is costly, but to leave them standing is deadly. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). The cross is the only mountain where true worship occurs, the only altar where self dies and God reigns.
Ahaz reminds us that the greatest danger to our worship is not abandonment of God but the attempt to add to Him. But God will not be one option among many. He will be all, or He will be nothing.
Ahaz’s life is a shocking display of double-mindedness and infidelity. Ahaz was a believer who, nonetheless, followed the practices of the world, and the Bible describes the height of his sin to be the equivalent of modern-day abortion.
2 Kings 16:5-7 — Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem, and they besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him. At that time Rezin the king of Syria recovered Elath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Elath, and the Edomites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day. So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.”
When trouble came, instead of turning to God, Ahaz turned to man. Fear replaced faith, and he sought refuge in an empire that would later devour his nation. The irony is thick — Ahaz called the pagan king “father” and himself “son,” language reserved for covenant relationship with the LORD. In seeking security apart from God, he enslaved himself to the very powers God warned against. Psalm 20:7 reminds us, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Whenever we rely on worldly strength to solve spiritual problems, we repeat Ahaz’s folly.
2 Kings 16:8-9 — Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasures of the king’s house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria. The king of Assyria listened to him… and carried the people captive to Kir.
Ahaz robbed God’s house to buy man’s help. What should have been devoted to worship was used for political bargaining. Every time we divert what belongs to God, our time, resources, affections, to secure human approval, we repeat the same desecration. The temple’s treasure was sacred; to plunder it for worldly ends was to declare that God’s glory was expendable. Yet this is what idolatry always does, it reassigns what is holy to what is hollow.
Do you tithe? How much do you give the government and bankers? Compare the average American Christian’s financial support to the church and ministry to the amount they pay in financial debt, though they are far from starving.
2 Kings 16:10-11 — When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details. And Uriah the priest built the altar in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus.
Wow! Ahaz liked the Assyrian alter more than the one God prescribed so he removed God’s alter and replaced it with the Assyrian alter. Ahaz then commanded that the daily offerings of worship to the Lord take place on this new altar. 2 Chronicles 28 gives more details of Ahaz’s incredible offenses before God as well as the consequences. Ahaz worshipped in a way that was right in his own eyes but wholly offensive to God, and Ahaz dragged others with him down the path of destruction. If you had the opportunity to talk with Ahaz, he would have likely told you that he was a godly and very religious person, but he had made himself an enemy of God. How have we defiled holy things and robbed God of his due honor through compromise to the world?
The king of Judah, chosen to defend the faith of Israel, becomes the architect of apostasy. Even more tragic, Uriah the priest complies. Religious leaders often mirror the weakness of their kings rather than the holiness of their God. The silence of Uriah is as damning as the sin of Ahaz. When spiritual authority bends to cultural pressure, truth collapses. God’s ministers must have the courage to say “no” to worldly altars, even when kings command otherwise (Acts 5:29).
How has the secular world influenced the church and its “worship” today? Syncretism is perhaps the greatest threat to the modern-day church.
2 Kings 16:12-16 — And when the king came from Damascus, the king drew near to the altar and went up on it and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar…. And he removed the bronze altar that was before the LORD… and put it on the north side of his altar…. And King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering…”
Ahaz not only built a false altar, he displaced the true one. The bronze altar, ordained by God through Moses and Solomon, was moved aside to make room for a counterfeit. Here we see the full anatomy of spiritual compromise: admiration leads to imitation, imitation to substitution, and substitution to rejection. Every time something other than Christ becomes central in our worship, we repeat Ahaz’s blasphemy. Modern altars may not be made of stone, but when we center worship around experience, celebrity, or comfort, we are moving the true altar aside.
2 Kings 16:17-18 — And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the basin from them, and he took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pedestal. And the covered way for the Sabbath that had been built inside the house, and the outer entrance for the king, he caused to go around the house of the LORD, because of the king of Assyria.
Ahaz’s fear of Assyria led him to redesign the temple to impress his new overlord. He dismantled what God had established to make room for human approval. This is how idolatry finally enslaves — it reshapes our worship, our words, and even our institutions to please the powers of the world. What began as fear ended as desecration.
2 Kings 16:19-20 — Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 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.
Ahaz died as he lived — faithless, fearful, and forgotten. Yet even here God’s grace shines through. His son, Hezekiah, would bring revival and reform, proving again that divine mercy can break generational chains. God’s covenant faithfulness endures even when human kings fail (2 Timothy 2:13).
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 15 October 2025: Examine the altars of your life. Have you, like Ahaz, borrowed patterns of worship or trust from the world? Have you shifted the central place of Christ for something more impressive, convenient, or comfortable? Today, tear down the counterfeit altars, fear, pride, self-reliance, or compromise, and restore the true altar of worship. Remember that the only altar God recognizes now is the cross of Christ (Hebrews 13:10). Return to Him, and let your faith be marked by obedience, not adaptation.
Pray: “Holy God, You alone are worthy of worship. Forgive me when, like Ahaz, I seek safety and approval in worldly powers instead of trusting You. Forgive me for every time I have moved aside Your true altar to make room for lesser things. Purify my heart and renew my worship so that Christ alone stands at the center of my life. Give me courage to resist cultural pressure and faith to depend wholly on You. May my home, my choices, and my service reflect devotion to You alone. I lay down every false altar before the cross of Jesus, where mercy and truth meet. In His name I pray, amen.”
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