5/26/2011 9:38:54 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Political compromise
Bible Reading
& Meditation Reference:
2Kings
16:1-9; 2Chronicles 28:1-21
Message of the verses: “1 ¶
In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of
Jotham, king of Judah, became king. 2
Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen
years in Jerusalem; and he
did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, as his father David had done.
3 But he walked in the way of the kings
of Israel, and even made his son pass through the fire, according to the
abominations of the nations whom the LORD had driven out from before the sons
of Israel. 4 He sacrificed and burned
incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
“ 5 ¶ Then Rezin king of Aram and
Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war; and
they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. 6 At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered
Elath for Aram, and cleared the Judeans out of Elath entirely; and the Arameans
came to Elath and have lived there to this day. 7 So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser
king of Assyria, saying, "I am your servant and your son; come up and
deliver me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of
Israel, who are rising up against me." 8
Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD
and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent a present to the king of
Assyria. 9 So the king of Assyria
listened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and captured
it, and carried the people of it away into exile to Kir, and put Rezin to
death.”
“1
¶ Ahaz was twenty years old when he
became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do right in the sight
of the LORD as David his father had done. 2 But he walked in the ways of the kings of
Israel; he also made molten images for the Baals. 3 Moreover, he burned incense in the valley of
Ben-hinnom and burned his sons in fire, according to the abominations of the
nations whom the LORD had driven out before the sons of Israel. 4 He sacrificed and burned incense on the high
places, on the hills and under every green tree. 5 Wherefore, the LORD his God delivered him
into the hand of the king of Aram; and they defeated him and carried away from
him a great number of captives and brought them to Damascus. And he was also
delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who inflicted him with heavy
casualties.
“ 6 ¶ For Pekah the son of
Remaliah slew in Judah 120,000 in one day, all valiant men, because they had forsaken the
LORD God of their fathers. 7 And
Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew Maaseiah the king’s son and Azrikam the
ruler of the house and Elkanah the second to the king. 8 The sons of Israel carried away captive of
their brethren 200,000 women, sons and daughters; and they took also a great
deal of spoil from them, and brought the spoil to Samaria. 9 But a prophet of the LORD was there, whose
name was Oded; and he went out to meet the army which came to Samaria and said
to them, "Behold, because the LORD, the God of your fathers, was angry with
Judah, He has delivered them into your hand, and you have slain them in a rage
which has even reached heaven. 10
"Now you are proposing to subjugate for yourselves the people of
Judah and Jerusalem for male and female slaves. Surely, do you not have transgressions
of your own against the LORD your God? 11
"Now therefore, listen to me and return the captives whom you
captured from your brothers, for the burning anger of the LORD is against
you." 12 Then some of the heads of
the sons of Ephraim-Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth,
Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai-arose against those
who were coming from the battle, 13 and
said to them, "You must not bring the captives in here, for you are
proposing to bring upon us guilt against the LORD adding to our sins and our
guilt; for our guilt is great so that His burning anger is against
Israel." 14 So the armed men left
the captives and the spoil before the officers and all the assembly. 15 Then the men who were designated by name
arose, took the captives, and they clothed all their naked ones from the spoil;
and they gave them clothes and sandals, fed them and gave them drink, anointed
them with oil, led all their feeble ones on donkeys, and brought them to
Jericho, the city of palm trees, to their brothers; then they returned to
Samaria.
“ 16 ¶ At that time King Ahaz
sent to the kings of Assyria for help. 17
For again the Edomites had come and attacked Judah and carried away
captives. 18 The Philistines also had
invaded the cities of the lowland and of the Negev of Judah, and had taken
Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, and Soco with its villages, Timnah with its
villages, and Gimzo with its villages, and they settled there. 19 For the LORD humbled Judah because of Ahaz
king of Israel, for he had brought about a lack of restraint in Judah and was
very unfaithful to the LORD. 20 So
Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria came against him and afflicted him instead of
strengthening him. 21 Although Ahaz took
a portion out of the house of the LORD and out of the palace of the king and of
the princes, and gave it to the king of Assyria, it did not help him.”
I
was very upset yesterday because when I was doing this devotion my computer
made it all disappear. This is not the
first time that this has happened to me, but when it happened yesterday I had
almost finished the first part of my devotions.
I decided not to finish yesterday because of being so upset and that is
why I am doing the finishing work today on this section of Scripture.
Ahaz
was a very cruel and wicked man and yet if one reads Isaiah chapters six
through eight it will be clear that the Lord, through the prophet Isaiah spoke
to Ahaz and ask him to seek a miracle from the Lord. Ahaz did not want any sign from the Lord so
the Lord gave him a sign, and that sign was that a virgin would have a
child. Now the word for virgin in the
Hebrew does not mean that the woman did not ever have sexual intercourse, but
when the OT was translated into the Greek language the word virgin did mean
that the woman who was a virgin never did have intercourse. At any rate this sign was speaking of the
birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah and the Lord revealed this to the ungodly
king Ahaz.
Ahaz
had aligned himself with the king of Assyria and the king of Syria and the king
of the northern kingdom of Israel did not like this and so they attacked Judah
and did much damage to them. If the king
of the northern part of Israel would have won a total victory over Judah this
could have caused the nation to be one nation under the awful rulers of the
northern kingdom and so the Lord did not allow this to happen even though Ahaz
was a very ungodly king, and the reason was that God had made a promise to
David that the Messiah would come from his line and even thought Babylon did
eventually defeat Judah the line of David did not stop as his line was
protected by the Lord and Jesus Christ was born into the line of David.
In
his commentary on this section Warren Wiersbe asks a question that is surely
prevalent in our day, and that is “Does the Lord still chasten nations today as
He did in ancient days?’’ He gives the
answer in the following statement, “The prophet Amos makes it clear that God
knows the sins of the Gentile nations and holds them accountable (Amos
1-2).
Spiritual meaning for my life today: As I look back over the history of Judah and
in particular the line of David I can see how it is that the Lord took care of
David’s line even though from time to time it seems that this was an impossible
task that by doing it the Lord would not go against His character and against
His attributes. One of the attributes of
the God is wisdom and God has the greatest wisdom of anyone and can look down
the tunnels of time and know how it is that He will keep His plan working. I am glad for this wonderful attribute of
wisdom that the Lord has, for God has a plan for my life and I believe that
because of His wisdom He will see to it that that plan will come to
fruition. For this I am so very
thankful, and I am also very thankful that I can serve and worship the Lord
because of the grace that He has bestowed upon me. I believe that all of God’s
attributes were involved in my salvation as they were all present at the cross
in order to make my salvation complete and again for this I am thankful.
My Steps of
Faith for Today:
1.
Give myself
to the Lord for worship and service.
2.
Continue to seek to learn contentment even though by
doing so makes my life difficult at times.
3.
Remember Psalm 101:3, “I will set no worthless thing
before my eyes.”
4.
Remember the spiritual battle that I am in and be
protected by the spiritual armor.
5.
Psalm 139:23-24.
5/27/2011 9:26:42 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment