Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Character
- Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person. It is hearing from God and obeying. It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.
The end of 2
Chronicles is a bit of a yoyo effect.
Hezekiah leads us to reform.
Manasseh rebels, but then repents.
Amon rebels and doesn’t repent.
Josiah comes on the scene and leads the people back into reform. The heart of the people and the heart of the
leaders are not consistent. They are
changing and shifting.
To Josiah’s
credit, he does lead the people in reform.
He does have the character within himself to tear down the false idols. He does have the character within to even
burn the false priests upon their own altars!
He does have the character to humble himself before the Word of God and
respond obediently.
However, do
you hear the words of the Lord as He speaks through the priestess Hilkiah? Hilkiah has a peasant message for Josiah and
the people of his generation. They will die in peace. The Assyrians and the Babylonians won’t come
upon them. But that won’t be true in
general. The people are rebellious at
heart. God knows the Hebrew people, and
all of humanity at that. This current
generation might be repentant, but the people are not repentant in general.
Human beings
can be counted on to follow our sinful hearts.
We want to obey the passions within us.
We want to pursue the dreams in our minds and the lusts in our heart. Some find the ability within to temper these
passions and be able to do what is right.
But it cannot be counted on for long.
Throughout all of history we can see that righteousness may reign for a
generation or two, but the general course of human history is that the pursuit
of sins in the form of appetite, ambition, or approval will show itself before
too long. The character of humanity is
that sin is within us, ready to tempt us and take advantage of us whenever opportunity
should rear its head.
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