Adult Lesson Plan

OPENING

A strange detail opens this week. Hezekiah, one of Judah’s best kings, destroys an object Moses had made by command of God. We read that “he brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it” (2 Kings 18:4). A sacred symbol had become a rival devotion. The problem was not only pagan worship out there somewhere. The problem was corrupted worship among covenant people.

That detail gives us a useful question for the room: How does something good become spiritually dangerous? A tradition, a habit, even a blessing can shift from pointing us to God to replacing trust in God. These chapters are full of that tension. Ahaz trusts Assyria. Israel trusts idols. Judah trusts political maneuvering. Hezekiah and Josiah stand out because they turn the people back toward the Lord when almost everything around them pulls the other way.

You might ask the class, Where do people usually look first when life feels threatened: to the Lord, to institutions, to money, to influence, to distraction? Then let 2 Kings answer.

SCRIPTURE EXPLORATION

Begin with 2 Kings 18:3-6. The writer gives Hezekiah unusual praise:

And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did.

He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.

For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. (2 Kings 18:3-6)

The verbs matter. He trusted. He clave. He departed not. This is not sentimental religion. It is covenant loyalty with muscle in it. Hezekiah removes false worship even when it has history behind it. Ask the class, Why is it sometimes harder to remove a corrupted religious practice than an openly worldly one? Why do familiar distortions survive so long?

Then move to the Assyrian siege in 2 Kings 18:28-35. The spokesman attacks faith by sounding reasonable. He mocks military weakness, questions leadership, and finally questions God. His argument is not crude. It is calculated. He is trying to make trust look naive. That is one reason this chapter feels current. Doubt often presents itself as sophistication. You might ask, What kinds of voices today sound persuasive because they speak in the language of realism? How do they try to redefine trust as foolishness?

Now turn to Hezekiah’s response in 2 Kings 19:14-19. This is one of the great prayers in scripture:

And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord.

And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.

Lord, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, Lord, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.

Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,

And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.

Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only. (2 Kings 19:14-19)

Hezekiah does not deny the facts. “Of a truth” the Assyrians have destroyed nations. Faith does not require pretending the threat is small. He lays the whole matter before the Lord and frames the crisis theologically: this is about the living God. Ask, What do we learn from the way Hezekiah prays? What changes when a person brings the actual letter, the diagnosis, the betrayal, the fear, and spreads it before the Lord?

Then move to Josiah in 2 Kings 22:8-11. The rediscovery of the book of the law is one of the turning points in Judah’s history. When Shaphan reads the book, Josiah rends his clothes. He does not hear scripture as mere information. He hears covenant reality. Pair this with Alma 31:5: “the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just; yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword” (Alma 31:5). Ask, Why does the word of God sometimes reach places that consequences alone do not reach?

Finish the exploration with 2 Kings 23:3:

And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant. (2 Kings 23:3)

“With all their heart and all their soul” gives the class a searching phrase to sit with. Adult discipleship often gets reduced to maintenance. Josiah restores wholeness.

DOCTRINAL DISCUSSION

One doctrine running through these chapters is that trust in God is not vague optimism. Hezekiah trusts by reforming worship, seeking prophetic counsel, and praying in public danger. President Jeffrey R. Holland taught, “Fear not: believe only!” (Apr. 2022, Holland, “Fear Not: Believe Only!”). That counsel fits Hezekiah’s world. Assyria had already conquered cities. Fear had evidence on its side. Faith had the word of the Lord. Which voice governs us when both are in the room? Adults live there often, in marriages under strain, in health scares, in family sorrow, in private questions that do not yield quick answers.

A second doctrine is that scripture does more than inform. It uncovers. Josiah hears the law and recognizes the distance between covenant identity and covenant living. President Spencer W. Kimball called this account “one of the finest stories in all of the scriptures” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball [2006], 62). His point in the Come, Follow Me material is that scripture can “work mightily” in us. That phrase echoes Alma’s language about the word changing hearts. A useful class question here is, What is the difference between reading scripture and being read by scripture? Adults may have read these passages for years. Josiah shows what happens when the word reaches conscience rather than memory alone.

A third doctrine is covenant accountability. The writer of Kings explains national collapse in covenant terms. About Israel we read that they “obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant” (2 Kings 18:12). The Lord says in latter-day revelation, “For of him unto whom much is given much is required” (Doctrine and Covenants 82:3). Covenant is a gift and a claim upon the soul. That can sound severe until we remember what covenant means. God binds Himself to His people, and He asks them to belong to Him in return. How does that change the way we think about commandments? About repentance? About sacrament worship from week to week?

President Russell M. Nelson has urged us to think and live from a covenant perspective. “Every time you make a covenant with God, you increase your access to His power” (Oct. 2022, Nelson, “Overcome the World and Find Rest”). Hezekiah’s trust and Josiah’s reform both make more sense when seen through that lens. They are not isolated good decisions. They are covenant responses to pressure and drift. A final question for discussion could be, Where do you see the difference between a religious habit and a covenant relationship?

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

For adults, this week lands close to home. Many people in class are not facing an Assyrian army, but they are facing deadlines, financial uncertainty, children making painful choices, aging parents, loneliness, and the quiet erosion that comes from spiritual neglect. Hezekiah offers one practice that is almost disarmingly concrete: take the threatening thing to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. That may happen in a temple parking lot, on a morning walk, or at the kitchen table with scriptures open and a phone turned face down for ten minutes.

Josiah offers another practice. Reform begins when neglected scripture is found again. Some adults do not need a more complicated plan. They need to recover the book of the law from under the rubble of busyness. Even a short, steady return to the word can expose false trusts and soften the heart. Alma taught that faith grows when we give place for the word to be planted (Alma 32:27-28). Josiah shows what can happen when that word is allowed to interrupt us.

There is also a sober application. Ahaz and Manasseh show that compromise does not stay contained. Worship bends around trust. If I trust status, comfort, politics, or resentment, my discipleship will eventually rearrange itself around those loyalties. That is worth asking plainly: What altar have I moved to the center?

CLOSING TESTIMONY & INVITATION

These chapters end with loss, fire, exile, and a shattered city. Yet they also preserve two holy scenes: a king spreading a threatening letter before the Lord, and another king weeping when he hears the word of God. Those scenes belong together. One shows trust under assault. The other shows repentance awakened by scripture. Both are forms of turning.

Invite the class to carry one question into the week: What in my life needs reform because I want to trust the Lord with all my heart and all my soul? Then invite them to do one act that matches the answer, whether that means kneeling over a real concern as Hezekiah did, or reopening neglected scripture as Josiah did. The Lord who heard in Jerusalem still hears. The Lord who turned hearts in Josiah’s day still turns hearts now.