In 2 Chronicles 28, amidst the familiar but irregular back-and-forth rhythm of ‘good king, bad king’ in this part of the Bible, we are introduced to King Ahaz. He did not do what is right.

Bad king.

One of the familiar refrains of this part of biblical history has to do with burning incense to, building altars to, or not removing the high places to foreign gods. The original readers or hearers of these stories would have known the practical detail of the idolatry that is summarised by such words. But we modern readers don’t.

Early in the chapter (28:2-4) we get a list of his idolatrous practices (the Baal images, the child sacrifice, the incence at the high places, hilltops and trees), but later (28:22-23) we are given a window into his idolatrous mindset. Here’s how the text puts it.

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; for he thought, “Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me.”

Here is the implicit idolatrous ideology we are invited to consider: if you want help in a particular area, you sacrifice particular things to particular gods. If you have food insecurity or drought, you sacrifice grain to get more from the gods. If childbirth and reproduction isn’t going so well, you might sacrifice your child to get help with having more children.

By contrast, the faithful leaders and prophets understood that the Lord doesn’t require dead children, or even rams or bulls, to bless his people. They knew how inhumane and anti-life such practices and ideology were.

In our modern world, we don’t literally make these same kinds of sacrifices, but we still can fall into idolatrous thinking that leads to idolatrous living. We see other people who seem to be enjoying certain things, so we sacrifice to get in on the action. We might think: “Their holiday photos looked amazing. I’m going to work extra and save so we can go.” or “That newest smartphone model has amazing features, instead of using my money for other purposes, I’ll shell out for one.”

Those are just some easy examples. Idolatry can be much more subtle. Even church leaders can be tempted: “Their church services look amazing, let’s invest in all of their tech so we can have that too.”

Then and now, the contrast is grateful obedience to the Lord and not enslaving ourselves to a false god, even if the offer looks enticing. The things we really need, oxygen, grace, meaning, purpose, are free of charge and not in short supply.