FBC Daily Devotional – January 5, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Wednesday morning to you. Here we are already in the fifth day of the new year,

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January 5th, 2022. Hope your week is going well, and your new year has gotten off to a good start.

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Today we're finishing up the book of 2 Kings in our scripture reading or Bible reading plan, and it really ends on a sad and tragic note, doesn't it?

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What's really startling, I think, is to read the repetitive summary statement of these kings of Judah, so -and -so did evil, did what was evil in the eyes of the

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Lord. For example, in chapter 23, verse 32, we read that Jehoahaz did evil in the sight of the

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Lord. In verse 37, Jehoiakim did evil in the sight of the

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Lord. In chapter 24, verse 9, Jehoiakim, he's also called

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Jeconiah, he did evil in the sight of the Lord. And chapter 24, verse 19,

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Zedekiah did evil in the sight of the Lord. What's tragic is that, especially in the case of Jehoahaz, the first king

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I mentioned, his father was Josiah. You remember Josiah, he was the one we talked about earlier this week, he's the one who had this wonderful attitude toward the house of God, and a great attitude toward the

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Word of God, and he was, really, generally speaking, a good king.

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That was the summary, I believe, of his life. He established, he restored,

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I should say, the true worship at the temple. Back in chapter 22, it says of Josiah, he was eight years old when he began to reign, he did what was right in the sight of the

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Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David. He didn't turn his side from the right hand to the left, and yet his son, the summary of his son's reign, is that he did evil in the sight of the

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Lord. By the way, that tells us a lot, doesn't it? It tells us that there are no guarantees when it comes to how our kids are going to turn out.

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Is there a perfect parent? Absolutely not. Nobody would ever claim such a thing,

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I hope. And does every good parent do everything right all the time?

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No, absolutely not. But when the general character of a parent's life is, you know, they do what's right in the sight of the

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Lord, they want to honor the Lord, they try to shape their children's lives in the ways of the

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Lord, and so on, there's no guarantees that those children, when they reach maturity and they're out on their own and make their own decisions and so forth, are going to do the right thing.

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Josiah was a good king, he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, didn't turn aside one side or the other, he restored worship, he honored

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God, and all the rest of that kind of thing. But his son did what was evil in the sight of the

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Lord, his grandson did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and so on, down through the remaining kings of Judah.

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This is really a startling and sad thing to read. It's also startling to realize that this line of kings is the line through which

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Jesus would come, the Messiah. It's also interesting to read a stark contrast between Jesus, the

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Messiah, and his reign and the reign of these kings. Each one of these had a really relatively short period of time.

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For example, Jehoiakim reigned 11 years. Well, that's not really a very long reign as a king, but their short reigns stand in stark contrast to the eternal reign of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And his reign, of course, would be marked in righteousness and justice in contrast to these kings.

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But what's also sad is, as this book of the Old Testament ends, God's people,

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Judah, are taken into captivity, and they lose their land, they lose their place of worship, all because they turned away from the

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Lord and rejected his word. This is a tragic summary at the end of chapter 25, verse 21, where it says,

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Then the king of Babylon struck them, put to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. Thus Judah was carried away captive from its own land.

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What a sad thing. But this is exactly what God prophesied. This is what he warned his people about.

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Heed his word or you'll go off into captivity. Oh, why are we so hesitant to listen to the warnings of Scripture?

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Oh, that we would heed them. Oh, that we would accept them. Oh, that we would turn away from any sin that is besetting us.

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Lest the ruin that Judah faced come somehow upon us.

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Oh, let's heed God's word. Let's delight ourselves in the word of the Lord.

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Let's do what's right in his sight. Father, I pray, fill us with your spirit.

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Enable us by your spirit to do that very thing, to honor you, to trust you, to do what's right in your sight, to obey your word.

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And this we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Amen. All right.