eagerness that would have been ludicrous if it had not been tragical.
The more he multiplied his gods the more he multiplied his sorrows,
and the more he multiplied his sorrows the more he multiplied his
gods.

From all sides the invaders came. From north, northeast, east,
south-east, south, they swarmed in upon him. They tore away the
fringes of his kingdom; and hostile armies flaunted their banners
beneath the very walls of Jerusalem.

And then, in his despair, like a scorpion in a circle of fire, he
inflicted a deadly wound on himself by calling in the fatal help of
Assyria. Nothing loth, that warlike power responded, scattered his
less formidable foes, and then swallowed the prey which it had dragged
from between the teeth of the Israelites and Syrians. The result of
Ahaz's frantic appeals to false gods and faithless men may still be
read on the cuneiform inscriptions, where, amidst a long list of
unknown tributary kings, stands, with a Philistine on one side of him
and an Ammonite on the other, the shameful record, 'Ahaz of Judah.'

That was what came of forsaking the God of his fathers. It is a type
of what always has come, and always must come, of a godless life. That
is the point of view from which I wish to look at the story, and at
these words of my text which gather the whole spirit of it into one
sentence.

I. First, then, let me ask you to notice how this narrative
illustrates for us the crowd of vain helpers to which a man has to
take when he turns his back upon God.