THE CROWN DIVIDED — Sermon 6

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Sermon 6  |  June 28, 2026

Primary Text: 2 Kings 15-17  |  Isaiah 36-37

Kings in Focus: Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, Hoshea

Closing Song: God of Angel Armies

Opening — Recap and Setup

We are in the home stretch of The Crown Divided.

We began this series with a kingdom splitting in two — ten tribes walking away from the house of David, following a man named Jeroboam into a two-hundred-year experiment in what happens when a nation decides to do things its own way. We have watched king after king take the throne and receive the same verdict. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. He walked in the ways of Jeroboam.

We spent time with Ahab and Jezebel. We watched Elijah stand against the entire prophetic establishment of Baal. We traced the zeal of Jehu — passionate about the purge, indifferent about the covenant. We heard Amos walk into the most prosperous moment in the northern kingdom's history and tell them that God despised their worship.

Today we reach the end. Six kings stand between us and the fall of Samaria. Thirty one years between the death of Jeroboam II and the destruction of everything he built.

And I want to begin with a game.

The Game — King of Israel or Not?

I'm going to show you a name. King of Israel — or not? Raise your hand if you think it's real.

Round 1 — Shallum

REAL — King of Israel

Reigned one month. Assassinated Zechariah to take the throne. Then assassinated by Menahem. One month. One verse. Gone.

Round 2 — Azriel

NOT A KING

Biblical name — appears in Chronicles as a military commander. Sounds right though, doesn't it? That's kind of the point.

Round 3 — Menahem

REAL — King of Israel

Reigned ten years. Brutal even by northern kingdom standards. Bought his throne with Assyrian money and taxed every wealthy man in Israel to pay for it.

Round 4 — Pikachu

DEFINITELY NOT A KING

For those of you with kids or grandkids — you may recognize that one. For everyone else, ask a ten year old after service. But I want you to notice something — several of you had your hand up. Which tells me these names are obscure enough that even a Pokemon can sneak in.

Round 5 — Pekahiah

REAL — King of Israel

Son of Menahem. Reigned two years. Assassinated by his own military officer Pekah along with fifty men from Gilead. The palace was no longer even safe.

Round 6 — Zebadiah

NOT A KING

Several men named Zebadiah in the Old Testament — a Levite, a military officer, a gatekeeper. Never a king. But it sounds like it could be.

Round 7 — Pekah

REAL — King of Israel

Assassinated Pekahiah to take the throne. Lost enormous territory to Assyria. Tiglath-Pileser III invaded, took the northern regions, and deported the population — the first mass deportation of Israelites in history.

Round 8 — Eliphaz

NOT A KING

You may recognize the name — he is one of Job's friends. Sounds ancient, sounds authoritative. Not a king of Israel.

Round 9 — Zechariah

REAL — King of Israel

Son of Jeroboam II. Reigned six months. Assassinated by Shallum in public. The entire dynasty of Jehu — four generations — ends here, exactly as God had promised.

Round 10 — Hoshea

REAL — King of Israel

The last king. Assassinated Pekah to take the throne. Made a fatal miscalculation with Assyria. In 722 BC Samaria fell and the northern kingdom ceased to exist.

How did you do?

Most of us couldn't have named a single one of those kings before this series began. Pikachu aside. These men ruled a nation. They commanded armies. They collected taxes, built cities, made treaties, waged wars. They had whole reigns full of activity and accomplishment.

The biblical author keeps pointing us to the annals — the official royal records — as if to say: there is a lot more to this story. Go read it if you want the details. I am not hiding anything. The record will hold up. But what he chose to preserve — the only thing he decided was worth keeping — was not the military scorecard. Not the economic achievements.

He kept the verdict.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord. He walked in the ways of Jeroboam.

Six months and gone. One month and gone. Two years and gone. Assassinated. Deported. Besieged. Destroyed.

But before we get to the destruction — I want to show you what was coming for them. Because while these kings were tearing each other apart inside the palace, something was rising in the east that would make all their political scheming look like children arguing over a sandcastle.

The Rising Threat — A Shadow From the East

I want to be clear about something before we talk about how these kings responded to Assyria. This was not a theoretical threat. This was not political anxiety or regional uncertainty. This was the most terrifying military machine the ancient world had ever produced — and it had been mowing down nations for decades before it ever turned toward Samaria.

Tiglath-Pileser III had already taken Damascus — the great Syrian capital, Israel's old rival and occasional ally — conquered it, deported its people, and turned it into an Assyrian province. He had already swept through Galilee a full decade before Samaria fell. The tribes of Dan, Naphtali, Asher, Zebulun — gone. Scattered across the empire. Never to return. The people of Israel could look north and see empty cities where their own kinsmen used to live.

And this empire didn't just defeat nations. It unmade them. Their strategy was deliberate and calculated — deport the population, scatter them across the empire, bring in foreign peoples to replace them, so that the conquered nation can never regroup, never remember who it was, never rise again. It worked. Every time. No nation had stopped them. Not one.

By the time our final six kings are scrambling for the throne of Israel, the Assyrian war machine has already consumed Babylon, Hamath, Damascus, and Galilee. Shalmaneser V and then Sargon II are carrying the project westward. The shadow is not on the horizon. It is at the door.

And here is what I want you to sit with — because this matters for how we hear the rest of this sermon. These kings were not cowards facing a minor problem. They were real people facing a real and overwhelming threat. The fear was legitimate. The odds were genuinely impossible. Nobody in Samaria was being irrational when they looked at the Assyrian army and felt their knees go weak.

The threat in your life is real too. I am not going to stand up here and tell you that the diagnosis isn't serious, that the marriage isn't in trouble, that the finances aren't frightening, that the future isn't uncertain. The shadow is real. The pressure is real. The question was never whether the threat existed.

The question has always been — when the shadow falls, where do you run?

Three kings. Three different answers. And every one of them will feel familiar.

The Kings' Response — How Fear Reveals Faith

When the pressure comes — when the shadow rises in the east and the walls feel closer — our instincts reveal everything about where our faith actually lives. Not where we say it lives. Where it actually lives. These three kings show us three of the most common directions people run. And every one of them will feel familiar.

Menahem — Running to Money

2 Kings 15:19-20 (NIV)

"Then Pul king of Assyria invaded the land, and Menahem gave him a thousand talents of silver to gain his support and strengthen his own hold on the power. Menahem exacted this money from Israel. Every wealthy man had to contribute fifty shekels of silver to be given to the king of Assyria."

Menahem is the first king to feel the full weight of that shadow. Tiglath-Pileser III comes calling and Menahem does the calculation — he can't fight this army. So he pays. A thousand talents of silver. He taxes every wealthy man in Israel to raise the money.

He buys his throne from a foreign empire and calls it survival.

We do the same thing. Not with talents of silver — but with the quiet belief that the next financial step is the one that will finally make everything okay. If I just get the raise. If I just land the better job. If I can just get to a certain number in my account — then I will feel secure enough to face what is coming.

The raise comes. And there is a new problem that needs a bigger raise. The better job arrives. And the anxiety arrives with it. Menahem paid the tribute and bought himself a few years — and then the bill came due again. Financial solutions to spiritual problems always come with a next installment. There is always another tribute to pay.

Money is a gift from God. Financial wisdom is a virtue. But the moment we start running to our bank account when the pressure rises — calculating whether we have enough before we even think to pray — we have made the same mistake Menahem made.

The shadow doesn't care how much silver you have.

Pekah — Running to People

2 Kings 15:37 (NIV)

"In those days the Lord began to send Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah against Judah."

Pekah looks at the shadow rising in the east and decides he needs allies. No single nation can face Assyria alone. So he forms a coalition with Rezin king of Aram. Together they are stronger. Together they might have a chance. There is a certain logic to it. United they might stand. Divided they will certainly fall.

But the coalition doesn't just fail against Assyria — it backfires completely. Ahaz of Judah, threatened by Pekah and Rezin, sends messengers and silver from the temple treasury straight to Tiglath-Pileser. Come and save me. And Tiglath-Pileser obliges.

2 Kings 15:29 (NIV)

"In the time of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maakah, Janoah, Kedesh and Hazor. He took Gilead and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and deported the people to Assyria."

Pekah's alliance strategy didn't just fail. It pushed Judah directly into Assyria's arms. The empire he was trying to resist ended up being invited into the region by the very nation he was trying to coerce. The coalition he built to push back the shadow ended up pulling it closer.

We understand Pekah's instinct completely — because we share it. When the pressure comes, our first move is often to reach for our phone. Not to pray. To call someone. To think about who we know, who might have influence, who owes us a favor. If we can just get the right people in our corner — the right connections, the right network, the right allies — then maybe we can handle this.

And we will sometimes befriend people we know are not good for us — not because we value them or share their faith, but because we think their influence or their power will solve our problem. We use people as tools for our own security. We build our coalition one relationship at a time.

Some of us even approach marriage that way. If I can just find the right person — if I can just get married — everything will settle down. The loneliness, the anxiety, the restlessness will finally have an answer. And marriage is a beautiful gift from God. But no spouse was ever designed to carry the weight of what only God can carry. No coalition of the right people can do what only God can do.

And then there is the version of this that lives in our pockets. We don't form coalitions the way Pekah did — we don't send envoys to neighboring kingdoms. But we do something remarkably similar. We craft the post. We wait for the response. A few more likes, a few more favorable comments, someone important sharing what we said — and maybe then we'll feel secure enough to face what's coming. We surround ourselves with the right followers the same way Pekah surrounded himself with the right allies.

And when the Assyrian army arrives — when the real pressure hits — the coalition evaporates. The followers don't show up. The likes don't help. The people we ran to can't do what only God can do.

Pekah had a whole coalition. He still lost half his kingdom.

Hoshea — Running to the Past

2 Kings 17:3-5 (NIV)

"Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up to attack Hoshea, who had been Shalmaneser's vassal and had paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison. The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years."

Hoshea watches Pekah lose half the kingdom and decides he has a better idea. Pay the tribute. Keep Assyria satisfied. Buy time. For a while it works. Then he makes his fatal move — he stops paying and secretly sends messengers to Egypt.

Egypt.

This is the nation God parted the Red Sea to deliver Israel from. The place of four hundred years of slavery. The nation the prophets had been warning against for generations. When the shadow of Assyria fell over the palace and everything else had failed, Hoshea's instinct was to run straight back to the one place that carried more theological baggage than anywhere else in Israel's history.

And here is what makes this so devastating — it wasn't even a new idea. It was a very old idea. One that had already failed. Hoshea wasn't trying something new. He was running back to something he already knew didn't work.

We do this. Under pressure we regress. We reach for the old habit we thought we were done with. We go back to the coping mechanism we already know doesn't help. We return to the relationship that has already hurt us — not because it worked before, but because at least it's familiar, at least we know what it feels like, at least it's something we can reach for when everything else has failed.

We run back to our Egypt. And everyone in this room knows exactly where their Egypt is. It has a very specific address. And under enough pressure — when the money solution failed and the people solution failed — we find ourselves heading straight back there.

Not because we forgot it didn't work. Because we ran out of everything else.

The shadow finally swallowed the light.

Three kings. Three different directions they ran when the pressure came.

Menahem ran to money. Pekah ran to people. Hoshea ran to the past.

Not one of them ran to God.

And that — more than the Assyrian army, more than the political miscalculations, more than the assassinations and the chaos — that is why Samaria fell.

Cut to Jerusalem — One King Who Ran a Different Direction

I want to show you what a whole heart actually looks like when the stakes are highest.

Because this entire series has been full of what it doesn't look like. Nineteen kings who stopped at three strikes and called it enough. Kings who ran to their money and their people and their past. Kings who believed enough to sit on the throne of Israel but never enough to fall on their knees before the God of Israel.

But just across the border — in the southern kingdom of Judah — there was a king who showed us the alternative.

His name was Hezekiah.

When Sennacherib — the heir to everything Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmaneser, and Sargon had built, the king of the most powerful empire the ancient world had ever seen — turned his army south toward Jerusalem after swallowing Samaria, he sent his general to the walls of the city with a message designed to break the people's will before the siege even began. The general stood outside the walls and shouted in Hebrew — deliberately, so everyone on the battlements could hear:

2 Kings 18:33-35 (NIV)

"Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?"

It is a devastating speech. Psychologically brilliant. And every word of it is backed up by history. No nation had stopped Assyria. Not one. Damascus hadn't. Galilee hadn't. Samaria hadn't. All those tribute payments and coalitions and Egyptian alliances hadn't saved anyone.

The people on the wall said nothing. The king had told them not to answer.

Hezekiah received the letter that accompanied the speech. He read every word of it.

He didn't run to his treasury. He didn't reach for his phone to call his most powerful ally. He didn't send a secret messenger to Egypt.

2 Kings 19:14 (NIV)

"Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord."

That is the whole move. No strategy meeting. No coalition building. No tribute payment. A king on his knees with a letter too big for him and a God big enough for it. And then he prayed:

2 Kings 19:15-16,19 (NIV)

"Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God... Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God."

And then the morning came.

2 Kings 19:35-36 (NIV)

"That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning — there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there."

When the people got up the next morning — there were all the dead bodies.

The author doesn't dramatize it. He doesn't describe the scene. He just states it. And that restraint is more devastating than any dramatic description could be. One hundred and eighty five thousand men. Gone. And Sennacherib — the heir to the most unstoppable military machine the ancient world had ever produced — went home and stayed there.

One nation ran to money. Ran to people. Ran to the past. Was destroyed by Assyria.

Another nation ran to God. Was delivered by God.

Same shadow. Same impossible odds. Same Assyrian army that had never been stopped by anyone.

The only difference was the direction the king ran when he ran out of options.

That is what a whole heart looks like when everything is on the line.

A Word About What's Coming at Park Avenue

In a few weeks Park Avenue is going to launch something significant. You have heard Elder David Kirkbride mention it — Vision 2035. A capital campaign. Two and a half million dollars. New facilities. Modern technology. Updated seating. More capacity so more people in the Texoma region can hear the gospel.

And I want to be honest with you about something. The money matters. The technology matters. The building matters. But none of that is why Jerusalem didn't fall.

Jerusalem didn't fall because a king walked into the temple and spread the letter on the floor.

So before we ask you to give — before we talk about pledge cards and square footage and sound systems — we are going to do something that Menahem never did. That Pekah never did. That Hoshea never did.

We are not going to run to the money first. We are not going to run to the right people first. We are not going to run to what has worked before and assume it will work again.

We are going to spend forty days in prayer. Beginning August 24th, every one of us signing up for at least one day — covering every day of those forty days together as a congregation. And then on October 2nd we are going to gather for a twenty four hour prayer vigil. Six in the evening to six the next evening. Every hour covered. The whole congregation taking shifts.

And what we are going to do in that vigil is exactly what Hezekiah did. We are going to spread the plans out before God. We are going to say: Lord, this is what we believe you are calling us to. This is the vision. These are the numbers. These are the needs. Deliver us — not so that we can have a nicer building, but so that 700 voices can lift your name in the Texoma region and beyond.

We are not trusting in the campaign. We are not trusting in the money. We are not trusting in the technology. We are not trusting in the right people being in the room.

We are trusting in the God of angel armies. And we are going to pray like it before we do anything else.

Vision 2035 | Campaign Launch: August 23 | 40 Days of Prayer: August 24 – October 2 | 24-Hour Prayer Vigil: October 2-3 | More information coming soon

Who Will You Run To?

Let's go back to those three kings for a moment.

Menahem ran to money. When the shadow came he did the calculation — how much will it cost to make this go away? He taxed every wealthy man in Israel to pay the tribute. He bought his security with silver. And it didn't save him.

Pekah ran to people. When the shadow came he looked around for allies — who is strong enough, who has enough influence, who can I bring into my corner? He built the coalition. He marched on Jerusalem. He sent his envoys. And it didn't save him. It made things worse.

Hoshea ran to the past. When the money solution failed and the people solution failed, when he was out of options and out of time, he reached back for Egypt — the one place God had already delivered Israel from, the one option everyone already knew didn't work. And it didn't save him. It sealed his fate.

And then there was Hezekiah.

Same shadow. Same Assyrian army. Same impossible odds. Hezekiah received the letter. Read every word of it. And walked into the temple.

He didn't calculate. He didn't call his allies. He didn't reach for the past. He spread the letter on the floor before God and said — you see this. You alone are God. Deliver us.

And the morning came.

So here is the question this sermon has been building toward — and I want you to sit with it honestly before you answer it.

When the shadow falls in your life — where do you run?

When the diagnosis arrives — do you run to your bank account, or do you walk into the temple?

When the marriage is struggling — do you run to the right people, build your coalition of supporters and advisors, or do you walk into the temple?

When the anxiety rises at 3am and the future feels uncertain — do you reach for your phone, scroll for something to make you feel better, count your likes, or do you walk into the temple?

When everything else has failed and you feel the pull toward the old habit, the old place, the old Egypt — do you run back there, or do you walk into the temple?

And Park Avenue — in a few weeks we are going to have a choice about which direction we run as a church. We could trust in the campaign. We could trust in the money. We could trust in the plan and the right people being in the room. All of those things matter. None of them are enough.

Or we could do what Hezekiah did. Spread it all out before God. Forty days. Twenty four hours. Every shift covered. Every hour prayed over. And trust that the God who put to death a hundred and eighty five thousand Assyrian soldiers overnight is more than able to build something in Sherman, Texas that will outlast us all.

The annals of your life — the career, the finances, the accomplishments, the things you spend your best years building — may not outlast you. Most of them won't. The annals of the kings of Israel are gone. What survived was the verdict.

What you do with God — how fully you surrender, whether you spread the letter on the temple floor or send another messenger to Egypt — that is what survives.

That is what the northern kingdom never figured out.

Don't let that be your story.

And don't let that be ours.

Transition to Closing Song

In a moment we are going to sing together. And I want you to mean every word of it.

Because we just spent this morning watching kings who ran to their money, their people, and their past — and were swallowed by the most powerful army the ancient world had ever produced. And we watched one king who spread the letter on the temple floor and trusted the God of angel armies.

That is who we are singing to. That is who we are trusting with Vision 2035. That is who we are trusting with our marriages, our finances, our futures, our fears. That is who we are trusting with everything we cannot control and everything we are afraid of.

The God of angel armies. Always by our side.

Closing Song: God of Angel Armies — Chris Tomlin

I know who goes before me, I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side.

Park Avenue Church of Christ  |  The Crown Divided  |  Sermon 6  |  June 28, 2026