"Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. [...] 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." (2Ki 16:2a-4 ESV)

It is likely that King Ahaz did not think his kingdom was very much different from all the other nations his eyes could see. What was the point of keeping to a peculiar set of traditions set down when his people did not have a brick to call their own? If we are really no different from those around us, why invite mockery by acting differently?

"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." (2 Ki 16:5-6)

The enemy does claim territory, and does not cede it easily. How much do we value our free will to reject authority, only to find ourselves in deeper bondage to sin.

"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." 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." (2 Ki 16:7-8)

Whose "servant and son" are we all? What do we do when our enemies make a pact with those who are our brothers to destroy us? What precious things do we give away for help?

"And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed Rezin. 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, so Uriah the priest made it, before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus." (2 Ki 16:9-11)

The question is not so much who appears to have power but who we obey. (Rom 6:16).

"(12) And when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar. Then the king drew near to the altar and went up on it
(13) 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.
(14) And the bronze altar that was before the LORD he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the LORD, and put it on the north side of his altar.
(15) And King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, "On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering and the king's burnt offering and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. And throw on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice, but the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by."
(16) Uriah the priest did all this, as King Ahaz commanded.
(17) 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.
(18) 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.
(19) 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?"

(2Ki 16:10-19 ESV)

What idols have we in our lives? What have we set up in our lives as "great" for ourselves? What, which belongs to God, have we cut down, set aside and dishonoured? Do we do as we please but say that God and his "bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by"?

What will be our epitaph? Here is Ahaz's

"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, but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel."
(2Ki 16:2-3a ESV)