FBC Morning Light – March 8, 2022

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. Let me ask you this. When was the last time you rode on a roller coaster? I mean a really, really good big roller coaster.

Now for my part, it's been a few years. But I have ridden on a few and they can be quite exciting.

You have that building anticipation as you get up to the top of what's coming, you know, this mountain of a roller coaster.

You're riding up and slowly creeping along and you know that you're going to get up to the top of that thing and the excitement is building and when you reach the top, the excitement reaches a fever pitch and then is the descent.

It's quite an experience. Well, we have a roller coaster in 2 Chronicles 35 and 6.

As this book wraps up, it's really, it's not an exciting roller coaster ride.

It's a sad one. It's a tragic one because chapter 35 records for us the euphoria of the pinnacle, of the peak.

Josiah the king has been leading the people gradually and slowly building up to the restoration of the worship, restoring the temple, calling the people back to God, getting the the priests and the

Levites, the spiritual leaders back on track and it's been gradually building up to this pinnacle of the celebration of the

Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You read about that in chapter 35 and in verses 18 and 19, you read something that's really quite astounding.

It says they kept that Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days and then verse 18 it says this, it says there had been no

Passover kept in Israel like that since the days of Samuel the prophet.

Now think about that for a minute. Think about Israel's history. So going all the way back to King David who established the kingdom in the paths of righteousness after Saul had led into some miserable stuff and disobedient.

He was a good godly king, David was. Then Solomon, his son followed him.

That was like the golden age of the kingdom and yet in the reigns of David and Solomon they kept the

Passover every year but none like this and then there were several years of this up -and -down, this yo -yo, spiritual yo -yo effect of the kings of Judah and of Israel and during that time sometimes the

Passover was kept, sometimes it wasn't. Bad kings never was. And then there was a revival under King Hezekiah and when

Hezekiah was the king there was a stupendous restoration of the Passover and everybody celebrated.

It was great. It was exciting. It was joyful. But that was a few years ago.

Temple had fallen into disrepair again and some of these important festivals and feasts in Israel's calendar were neglected.

Josiah restores it all and then this statement. There hadn't been a

Passover like this in all of Israel's history. None of the kings of Israel had kept such a

Passover as Josiah kept. With the priests and the Levites all Judah and Israel were present in the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

What an exciting week and a half this must have been.

The celebration of the Passover followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Stupendous.

And you can imagine Josiah the king basking in the joy of it all and enjoying the the fruit of his success as as a leader.

Leading the people in the right way. And he was indeed successful. But what goes as you continue reading after this

Passover the the Egyptians led by Pharaoh Necho have come into the land of Israel, but not to attack

Israel. They want to go up to the north of Israel up near the Euphrates River and and they want to battle

Carchemish up there near the Euphrates. And I'm thinking that probably because of his success,

Josiah's success as a king in his own land, he felt like he should go out against Egypt and these invading forces who are no threat to him, remember.

But he should go out and stop them. That you know, they're not gonna come into my land. They're not gonna come through our territory.

No way. So he goes out to do battle. But the the Pharaoh says to Josiah, listen,

God's commanded me to do this. Don't fight against God. He warns him. He warns him.

But we read in verse 22 that nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from the

Pharaoh disguised himself that he might fight with him. Why did he do that? I believe that's because his success had led him to think that he could be successful at anything he put his hand to.

As if he had the Midas touch, if you will. It's not an uncommon thing for a person to know a measure of success and enjoy it and to see

God bless in an area of life and endeavor and then assume that he can venture out any way he wants to and God will bless it.

God will bless it. How much better it would have been if Josiah had gone to the

Lord first and said, God, is this what you would have me to do? Should I fight this battle?

The Lord would have restrained him if he had done so. Another thing

I want to point out in this chapter to get us to the bottom, to the nadir, the bottom of the rollercoaster ride, if you will, is that you know you know that the end is near when apostasy reaches its lowest point.

And that's exactly what you read happening in chapter 36. The king,

King Zedekiah, has departed from the Lord. All of the spiritual leaders have departed from the

Lord. They've turned to the abominations of the nations around them. They've departed from the

Lord. And all the people have departed from the Lord. What a juxtaposition, isn't this?

What a contrast between the pinnacle of chapter 35 at the Passover and the nadir, the bottom that they have scraped here, the apostasy, the depths of apostasy in chapter 36.

And you know what follows? Judgment. The Babylonians come. They take people captive.

They destroy the city of Jerusalem, totally destroy the temple. And you know, you read something like this and you look at our own world, you look at our own nation and it causes us to pause and consider, doesn't it?

What is in store for our world? What's in store for our nation? The apostasy is grievous.

The departure from God and the things of God is remarkable in our own land.

What lies ahead? We don't know the answer to that exactly. But if this

Old Testament passage is any indication and realizing, of course, that the United States of America is not

Israel and the situation, the nations of the world, they don't mirror

Israel. We understand that. We get that. But at the same time, when there has been at least a tipping of the hat to God and to his principles and to his precepts and now that is being abandoned, what does that bode for the future?

I would suggest it doesn't bode well either God will bring revival or God will bring judgment.

Whatever God brings, here's how this book ends, this Second Chronicles ends.

It ends with the message that even in judgment, God remembers mercy. The book ends the way the book of Ezra begins with Cyrus, the king of Persia, who has conquered the

Babylonians by now, issuing a decree, saying that any Jews who want to return to Jerusalem to help rebuild the temple, they're welcome to do so.

Make your way. You're free to go and many go. Even in judgment, the

Lord remembers mercy. Our Father and our God, we thank you for this picturesque rollercoaster ride in Israel's history because we can learn so many lessons from it.

May we be attentive. May we be sensitive. May we be teachable that we might learn and this we pray in Jesus name and for his sake.

Amen. All right. Have a good rest of your Tuesday and may the Lord bless you in it.