Year 2, Day 24: Romans 1

Personal Confession

Okay, this may be the biggest challenge I will have faced with respect to the blog.  The book of Romans is one of my all-time favorite books of the Bible and I could likely do a blog post on each paragraph, much less each chapter.  So I will endeavor to keep them readable … but I will be letting a few things slip through the cracks in doing so.  So … the comments section is wide open if I don’t address a part of the passage that you get something out of as you read!  It’s just not possible to cover it all for the next 16 days!

Paul, the Slave

“Paul, a ‘doulos’ of God.”  Doulos is a Greek word that literally means “one who becomes the property of another.”  If your Bible says servant, scratch it out and write in the word slave.  It is one thing to be a servant of God; it is entirely another thing to be His slave.

Let me expound.  A servant does something because they feel like they are willingly serving their master.  But this mindset backfires, because there will inevitably be days when I am unwilling because of the task or because of my human “bad mood.”  When I think of myself as a servant, I open myself up to be subject to my own mood and my own attitude.  That is not at all who Paul was! 

Paul was a slave.  Paul gave up his attitude and mood and just did what God called him to do.  That’s precisely what makes Paul such an awesome example for us.  Paul was God’s slave.  God commanded; Paul did.  Yes, there are days where Paul wrestled with God – see the Corinthians as an example.  Paul wasn’t perfect.  But his mindset was slave, not servant.  God demands obedience and contrition, not a person who “decides” to go along with His work.

Paul’s mindset was that he was God’s property.  That’s precisely what the word “doulos” meant.  That is what makes Paul great in my eyes.  He doesn’t need to be anything but God’s property.  He knows that being God’s property is far better than being a person of his own choosing.  Wow.  Now that’s a powerful challenging thought to American culture and the modern (or post-modern) mindset!

Paul, the Apostle

Paul also uses the word “apostolos,” which we often think of as “Apostle.”  We turn it into a title, but it is not a title.  It is a job description.  The word apostolos literally means “one who is sent (to do the bidding of another).”  Paul is a person who was sent to do God’s work.  He is sent by God.  He isn’t out doing his own work.  He isn’t out making his own path.  He is out actively looking for where God is leading.  Again, Paul’s focus is not on his own greatness but on God being the master in charge.

Paul and the Gospel

Paul then begins this awesome section about not being ashamed of the Gospel.  How cool is this?  Here is Paul, who gave approval to the death of Stephen, now saying that he is not ashamed of that which he tried desperately to snuff out!  Awesome!  And why should he be ashamed?

Paul goes on that add that the reason he is not ashamed is because through Christ God has brought salvation to those who don’t deserve it.  That is what the rest of the chapter is about.  Paul talks about how God has been made plain to the world.  God has been declared to the world through words in some cases and through nature in other cases.  God’s fingerprint is all around us! 

Excuses, Excuses

None of us have any excuse.  All of us are guilty of the list of sins that Paul asserts as we close out this chapter:

• Our hearts are darkened by our humanity
• We claim to be wise in our thinking but we show our foolishness when we ignore the pursuit of God
• We glorify things of our own making
• We pursue the lusts of our own hearts
• We exchange the relationship that God desires for unnatural relationships that we desire
• We are filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slander, hatred for God, insolence, haughtiness, boastfulness, disobedience (especially to parents), foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness

So God gives us over to what our hearts desire.  God watches us sink into the sin that our hearts pursue.  God knows the guilt that rests in our heart.  We are guilty, friends.  There is no decree that we deserve except for the decree of our guilt.

Knowing this, do we still desire to think of ourselves as God’s servants and dislike thinking of ourselves as God’s slaves?  No, having deserved death let us become God’s slaves.  Let us become His property, for clearly we do not deserve even that.  Knowing the depth of evil that lay within our individual hearts and our collective communal essence, why would we want anything other than to be God’s slave?  The more we add of ourselves to God’s work, the more we are likely to despoil it.  Rather than force ourselves on God, let’s learn to be content doing what He desires us to do.

Humility before God is righteous.  God desires contrition and a broken heart.  Let’s give Him that today.

<>< 

Year 2, Day 23: 2 Kings 25

Warning

Well, today I am probably going to say a few things that run pretty close to heretical in a few ways.  So let’s be up front about that today.  I’m not going to be heretical, but a few people out there might think that I am.

Zedekiah

But before I get to the heresy, let’s just imagine being Zedekiah for a minute.  I know the Bible says that he did evil in the sight of the Lord.  I know that he wasn’t a great guy from a righteousness perspective.  Yet, Nebuchadnezzar captures him and forces him to watch as his family is slaughtered in front of him.  Nobody deserves that punishment.  That is just plain old cruelty.

To make matters worse, they then put out his eyes.  The point of this is clear.  The last thing Zedekiah would see would be the slaughter of his sons.  That would be the vivid memory that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The Babylonians and God’s Perspective

I know this kind of thing happened often in ancient days.  This was one king’s way of taking another king’s stuff and eliminating the competition.  I understand that thought behind it and I know why they did it.  But from a human decency perspective – from a love your enemy perspective – this is simply inexcusable.  This act alone shows me why the Old Testament prophets struggled with God when He made it clear to them that Babylon was going to be the agent of doom upon Judah.  These Babylonians were nowhere close to respectable, much less righteous!

But God used them anyway.  Let us not forget that God judged them later and punished them by having them be destroyed by the Persians.  Again, from the perspective of God and His righteousness, things work out in the end.  But for Zedekiah, he might beg to differ.  I guess it does show us a little how we need to remember to view the world through God’s perspective rather than our own.  It might not make a great amount of sense, but we cannot fathom God’s ways most of the time.  We are called to trust, not understand.

The Importance of Religious Institutions

So now let’s get to the heresy part.  Let’s set the stage.  God’s holy city was Jerusalem.  God’s temple – His dwelling place on earth – was Jerusalem.  There is no more sacred place to the Jewish faith than Jerusalem.  God allowed the city to be destroyed.  God allowed His temple to be robbed and burned.  God allowed the house of His kings to be burned and destroyed.  God allowed the walls of the city to be pulled down and destroyed.  God allowed His priests to be dragged before Nebuchadnezzar and to be killed in his presence.

Here’s the heretical part for some.  We think our religious institutions are so great that God would never let them fall into disrepair.  We think our paraments and chalices and worship implements bring so much glory and honor to God that He would never let anything happen to them.  We think our religious programs are changing so many lives that they would never stop being in God’s favor.  We think that the “kingdom of God” that we have built for Him is so marvelous that He will love it forever.

But God sends a different message to us in this chapter.  Buildings are nothing to God without faithful people; let them be destroyed.  Our worship implements are nothing to God without faithful people; let them be melted down and used to adorn someone else’s court.  Programs are nothing to God if they are not truly bringing about faithful people; let them pass away.  If the goal of what we do is not to inspire a relationship with God in the people around us, then what we do is meaningful only to us.

That’s a harsh reality, but it is a lesson God teaches the Hebrew people over and over.  I think He’s also taught it to us as Christians before, too.  We need to focus on God’s plan, not our plan.  We need to focus on God’s relationship with us, not our own lives.  We need to be God-centered and God-fearing if we are to accomplish anything that has any kind of meaning.  The size of the building, the beauty of the stuff, the magnificence of the act … all these things are meaningless and worthy of being destroyed if they are not creating and growing a relationship with God in the people around us.

It is a tough way to end a book of the Bible, but it does serve as a good wake-up call to us as followers of God.  And that is the point of 1 & 2 Kings.

<>< 

Year 2, Day 22: 2 Kings 24

The Beginning of the End

Today we hear the preparation for the ultimate fall of Jerusalem.  The fall certainly begins today, but it will end tomorrow.  We hear of Nebuchadnezzar {Also known as Nebuchadrezzar, which I personally prefer because it sounds more menacing!  LOL} coming into Judah and King Jehoiachin gives up the city.  It is inevitable, now.

God Is Faithful

Of course, there is an underlying thread that must not be forgotten as painful as it is to hear.  This end of the story is the fulfillment of God’s promise.  God has warned these Hebrew people about the blessings they would receive if they followed Him and the curses that they would suffer if they rebelled.  This passage – as painful as it is to hear – is proof that God is a God of His Word.  God keeps His promises.

This is significant to remember.  We like the loving God of forgiveness.  We like the loving God who sent Jesus into our hearts so our sins could be forgiven.  We like the loving God who gives us the warm fuzzy Holy Spirit who comes and makes us feel good when we allow ourselves to get spiritual.  And don’t get me wrong, these are all great things!

But we forget that God is just.  In order for God to be just He must be a God who exacts punishment against those who rebel in spite of His love.  He must send His Son to die a bloody death in spite of how much we neither deserved it nor asked for it.  He must send His Holy Spirit to convict us and call us out of sin and cause us the gut-wrenching struggle that tears us apart when we do what we know that we should not do.  In order for God to be just, that is the God we must also recognize.

God begins the process of dragging His people into slavery because they need to learn a lesson.  They need to learn what it means to depend upon God.  They need to learn what it means to follow God.  They need to learn what it means to truly be dominated by the sinfulness that exists in the hearts of mankind.  They need to fall to rock bottom before they can begin to appreciate the ascent into God’s presence.

Bondage

To be honest, so do most of us.  Sure, most of us in America won’t go into human bondage.  But we will go into bondage under our technology.  We will go into bondage by the desires of the people around us.  We will even go under bondage under the free will of our own minds.  We may not know physical bondage, but we will know emotional, psychological, and spiritual bondage.  We will know it, because it is what our humanity cries out to experience.  It is the natural consequence of having a heart and a soul that longs for things other than the humbleness and God-centeredness that is the cure.

I know I’m putting the cart a bit before the horse, but that’s okay today.  When we focus on our lusts and our desires (whether they be physical, emotional, or psychological) we end up in sin.  We either tear down our life or the life of those around us.  Usually it is a fairly slow process until we have sunk so far that we are consumed by it in the end.  This is the message of the nations of Judah and Israel in the books of 1 & 2 Kings. 

This is why it is so important to understand that humbleness and God-centeredness is the cure for the human condition.  When we lust after what we want, we destroy life.  When we humble ourselves, turn to God’s desires, and pursue what He knows is good for us, we build up and support life.  It may seem funny, but the fundamental key to having a life full of peace, happiness, and joy is to stop pursuing what we want and start pursuing God.  This is the message of many of the latter Minor Prophets, and we’ll get to them next year in our study.*

But for today, we begin to see the end.  Judah has crossed over the point of no return.  They have rebelled against God, and now they rebel against Nebuchadnezzar.  There is no more help to come for them until they have experienced a little bondage and are ready for God.  It is a painful process, but it is such an important one to understand.  It began slowly and innocently enough with Solomon.  Now it ends with a quick bang and hardly a whimper from the people.

But even with that said, it is not the end of the story.

<>< 

* I found myself thinking about the Declaration of Independence as I wrote this paragraph.  We want to declare: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  I fundamentally agree that we are endowed with certain rights from our Creator.  But speaking from a theological standpoint I disagree with the conclusion.  As a Christian, my rights are not life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  My rights are humbleness, being a slave to God, and the pursuit of God.

Don’t get me wrong, though.  I think God will allow me to experience life if I see my rights as what I say above.  And don’t hear me trying to start an anti-America war with this point.  For a non-Christian, I think that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are fine goals to establish.  But for the Christian, they just aren’t what God wants us to focus on.  True life, liberty, and happiness will come when God is our focus.

Year 2, Day 21: 2 Kings 23

Josiah’s Bold Reforms

Josiah reforms the land.  I give a tremendous amount of credit to Josiah for what he does here in this chapter. Do you know how many enemies Josiah must have made as he went about this business?  How many people did he make upset, especially those who believed that these foreign gods!  They would be angry at him for tearing down the idols and altars!  I can only imagine the potential backlash against Josiah.

Furthermore, Josiah’s reforms have a direct impact upon the economy.  How many times are we told about the cult priests and prostitutes having their places of worship disrupted?  Each of those places that Josiah overturned was a profit machine, employing all kinds of people for very nefarious jobs.  But Josiah knows that this kind of economy must be sacrificed for morality and spirituality if they are to truly be God’s people.

In all of this, Josiah does it.  In fact, I give Josiah even more credit because he knows that judgment has already been pronounced by God against Judah.  Josiah knows that God is still angry and while the judgment may not come in Josiah’s days, it will certainly still come.  In spite of knowing that this judgment is still coming, Josiah goes about the reforms.  He could have rested on his heels and glorified that at least destruction wouldn’t come in his day.  But Josiah doesn’t.  He makes reforms while looking to the future.

Only after “putting the house in order” can Josiah turn to asserting spiritual growth.  This is a huge lesson, one that I often forget and I need to remember.  Josiah knows that he can’t assert growth in God until the false gods have been put away.  The false gods and their ways must be destroyed so that the whole land can focus on God.  This is the difference between Josiah and the many kings before him of whom it was said “They did right in the eyes of the Lord, but not like David.”  Those other kings made small steps of progress, but Josiah purified the whole land!

Learning Josiah’s Lesson

Spiritually, this is no different than for us.  How many times do Christians stagnate in their spiritual growth because they still have remnants of false gods and ungodly desires in their heart?  Until we purify the whole land (or the whole body – heart, mind, and soul) we cannot really hope to become the spiritual person God wants us to be.  Josiah was remembered as one of the great ones because he was willing to purify it all.

Passover

So we hear about Josiah reinstituting the Passover.  I am surprised when I read that the Passover wasn’t kept since the time of the judges.  That is several hundreds of years of time – more than half a millennium, even!  No wonder God was angry with them.  The Passover is a celebration of remembrance of how God has delivered them and it wasn’t even remembered for about a half of a millennium!

This is another lesson we can learn.  I have often been a person who proclaims that we should embrace the new things that God is doing in our midst, but neither should we throw out the traditions that matter to God.  The Passover (or in Christianity we might say The Lord’s Supper) is vitally important to remembering God’s salvation of His lost.  We should not neglect the remembrance of those times.  Like Josiah, we need to call forth the remembrance of His grace.

However, I do think that we need to be careful and not let the traditional approach stagnate us.  Our relationship with God must remain relevant to the culture around us while retaining the wonderful connection to God.  When our practices mean nothing to anyone but ourselves, evangelism stops.  I am sure that Josiah reinstituted the Passover, but I am likewise sure that the Passover celebration happened slightly differently than when Moses was alive.  No doubt there were culture improvements to cooking methods, serving methods, even changes to speech that were present with Josiah’s Passover that would have been different than with Moses.  The focus should not be on maintaining everything (including methodology) exactly the same.  The focus should be on retaining God’s Spirit and being able to relate it to people’s lives.

The Last of the Chapter

The chapter ends with Josiah’s death in battle and the evil reign of his child and grandchild.  It also mentions that the Pharaoh of Egypt was getting a little too big for his britches.  After all Josiah did, it seems so pointless when we know the people fell into evil as soon as he went away.  But I doubt it was pointless to Josiah, Huldah, and the priests of the temple.  And for Josiah’s contemporaries who found God in those reforms, it was not pointless.  Even though the future may not look bright, we should still be a people of reform.  We may not know what the future holds or how faithful the future will be, but we can change lives in the present.  That’s another lesson that we can learn from Josiah’s life.

<>< 

Year 2, Day 20: 2 Kings 22

The Great Kings

Today we meet Josiah.  Josiah, Hezekiah, and David are all known as the greatest kings of the Hebrew people.  David, of course, is remembered as the best – probably because he came first more than anything else.  Hezekiah is known for his great repentance, his recovery from illness, and his dedication to producing copies of the Law.  Josiah is known for his all-around reformation of the country, reformations which were desperately needed after Manasseh and especially Amon.  Notice that Josiah (along with Hezekiah) is said to have done righteousness in the eyes of the Lord as David did.

Josiah

It is in Josiah that we see this great sense of repentance that we haven’t seen since David.  Yes, Hezekiah repented greatly, but only after he was told that he was going to die.  Josiah repents only after merely hearing the Word of God.  Josiah listens to the Law of Moses and his heart is cut to the quick.  Josiah listens and immediately dispatches a priest to go and inquire from the Lord what is to happen to them because of their disobedience.  This is what puts Josiah on the same pedestal as David.  Josiah hears, assumes guilt, and repents.  Josiah doesn’t try to argue it away.  Josiah doesn’t try to cover it up.  Josiah doesn’t try to rationalize.  Josiah hears, feels convicted, and responds without having to be punished or threatened with punishment.

What makes Josiah great?  It isn’t his wisdom.  It isn’t his wealth.  It isn’t his command over the people.  It is his willingness to hear the Word of the Lord, feel conviction on his own, and humble himself before the Lord.  That is what makes a person great – king or layman.

Huldah

Notice that in those days the priests went to Huldah to inquire from the Lord.  Who is Huldah?  Well, she is a woman for starters.  These men go to a woman to find out what the Lord really has to say.

Hopefully I have telegraphed my writing well enough that you know where I am going with this.  God has no problem speaking through a woman – even unto the leaders of His great reformation!  God has no issue with a woman being seen as a prophetess – and what is a prophetess but a female prophet, or more precisely a female person who brings the Word of God to their contemporaries!  God spoke words of wisdom to Huldah’s contemporaries through Huldah.  This point is hard to refute.  God has no issue with women in positions of leadership.

But I have a second reason for commenting on this.  What is this passage saying about where true faith is to be found in the time of spiritual lacking?  Typically, true faith is found best among the women.  These men – who are supposed to be priests – go to a woman to find true faith and the true voice of God.

It is often that way today.  In most churches that you go to, is the congregation predominantly male or female?  The youth that are involved, are they predominantly male or female?  The people who do the work in the church, are they predominantly male or female?  It is usually the women of a society who typically hold fast to faith and the calling of the Lord. 

I don’t mean this to say that men are incapable of doing it.  Obviously, we do have prophets as well as prophetesses!  But in general, the women are far more likely to hold fast.

So what does this priestess of the Lord say to the men who seek her out?  She says that all the things written in the Law were going to come true.  The Lord will hand them over to foreign nations and let them be driven from the land.  Why?  Because they have forsaken Him.  God is a God of His word.

Consequences, Revisited

This should sound a fair bit like yesterday.  Wouldn’t it have been nice for Josiah’s repentance to have evaporated the need for judgment upon the Hebrew people?  Wouldn’t it have been nice if that genuine repentance could have erased the consequences?  But alas, this is not to be.  Judgment comes, largely because God knows that even if this generation embraces Him that it won’t be too long before we see a generation that does not embrace Him.  Just because there is a repentant generation now does not mean that the sinful nature of humanity is not right around the corner waiting to rear its ugly head again.

Finally, let’s do look at the relief that God does give to Josiah.  Even though the nation will be judged, it won’t be during Josiah’s time as king.  Josiah will be gathered to His people in peace.  Josiah will be allowed to live out his faithfulness in the land.  The full judgment may not be avoidable, but because of Josiah’s reaction to the Lord God grants them a temporary stay of execution.  God is gracious, because Josiah is humble and contrite upon hearing the Word of God that God has given to the people. 

I think God also realizes that the people will fall away again.  So God gives a stay of execution knowing full well that their righteousness as a nation is merely a temporary state.  Isn’t that an interesting thought upon which to end?

<>< 

Year 2, Day 19: 2 Kings 21

Rebellion

From a worldly perspective, how sad it is to see such an evil king come immediately following the godly king Hezekiah.  Yes, Hezekiah made his mistakes; but Hezekiah generally reformed the land.  He was repentant and he genuinely desired his heart to be reformed.

Manasseh, on the other hand, established altars in the temple to other gods.  Manasseh worshipped not just the God of the Hebrews, but all the gods that he knew about.  Manasseh sacrificed his own son as he followed the ways of the Canaanites who dwelled in the land before the Hebrew people.  Jewish tradition says that it was by Manasseh’s order that Isaiah was literally sawn in two (see Hebrews 11:37 for what could be a vague reference to this tradition).

It is sad to see how some rebel against the ways of their parents.  Well, in truth, we all rebel at some point against our parents.  But it is especially sad regarding the lengths that children will go in rebelling against the wisdom and godliness of their parents.  It seems as though some people in this world are simply hard-wired for rebellion.

On the other hand, it is even sadder to see people rebel against God and God’s ways.  And in this case, I think it is fair to say that we are all hard-wired for rebellion against God.  It is by definition what it means to be sinful.  Sin is rebellion against God, and all human beings have fallen short of the glory of God because of our sinfulness.  Human beings by our very nature are hard-wired for rebellion against God.

In this way of thinking, no one of us is actually any better than Mannasseh.  Sure, we may not sacrifice our children to the gods or erect altars to these other gods in the space dedicated to worship God; but we are not without our problems.  We prioritize the things of this world above the calling of the Lord.  We come to worship worried and concerned about the things in this world instead of filled with a desire to worship.  We are not without our false idols – we just don’t make images of them and set them up and pray to them.  We are not without our sacrifices to things other than God’s calling for us – they just don’t involve the shedding of someone’s blood.  From a worldly perspective, our rebellion against God doesn’t have near the magnitude of consequences as the problems of Manasseh.  But on a divine scale, it is still rebellion against God.

Turning to 2 Chronicles 33

But here is where it is so important to read 2 Chronicles 33.  There we not only hear about Manasseh’s idolatry and his leading of Judah into sin, but we also hear about his repentance and contrition.  We hear about how Manasseh is dragged into captivity and falls before the Lord.  Manasseh entreats the Lord for forgiveness and he receives it.  Manasseh goes back home and begins to lead with a different flare.  From the perspective of Chronicles, it would seem that with an eternal view Manasseh finds God.  That is a very good thing.

This is why I have said “from a worldly perspective” twice in the blog.   From a worldly perspective, Manasseh lives a horrible life before God takes over.  But from a divine perspective, Manasseh finds God in the end.  It is sad to see a person choose a life of pain when their choices separate them from God.  But when they find God in the end, the sadness is replaced with joy.

Consequences

However, while Manasseh may find forgiveness and Manasseh may find God – there are consequences that play out regardless of Manasseh’s stand in forgiveness.  Manasseh’s deeds are still remembered as evil in spite of his repentance – although the account in 2 Chronicles does mention that Amon does not repent as Manasseh did.  Amon had learned enough from his father’s life before repentance.  He chooses those ways rather than God’s ways.

This is the hardest part of life for me.  I desperately want forgiveness to imply that the consequences go away, too.  But the truth in life is that while we may find forgiveness from God, the consequences of our actions are still very much real.  That is a very important lesson to learn, and it is why I so often separate the issues into the “worldly side” and the “spiritual side.”  The consequences of our actions may still remain when our actions have proven evil and we have sought God’s repentance, but the consequences are easier to bear when we remember that those who have a contrite and repentant heart have found eternal mercy from their God regardless of the consequences that must be handled. 

<>< 

Year 2, Day 18: 2 Kings 20

Conundrum

In chapter 20 Hezekiah falls prey to an illness, and God sees it fit to send in Isaiah to put the proverbial nail in the coffin.  Isaiah delivers the message to Hezekiah that he will not recover.  Unfortunately this opens up a huge “chicken and the egg” problem for me because we know Hezekiah does indeed recover.  But before I get to the problem let me make a confession: I understand that my issue is because of my humanity and my inability to completely understand the mind of God.  So it’s my issue, not the Lord’s issue.

But here’s the issue.  If God is omniscient (and I believe that He is) then does He not know Hezekiah will repent?  So if God knows that Hezekiah will repent, why send Isaiah the message that Hezekiah will die from this illness when God knows that in the end Hezekiah will actually not die from this illness?  But had God not sent the message of Hezekiah’s imminent death, would Hezekiah have repented as he did? 

The problem for me is that it feels like God is painting an intentionally dark picture to evoke a response from Hezekiah that wouldn’t be evoked if God actually told Hezekiah what was actually going to happen.  So does God “creatively tell the future” in order to bring about the reaction that He actually knows is going to happen anyway?  {In other words, does God lie in order to bring about truth?}  Certainly not!

So now that I have opened this little conundrum, let me attempt to close it a bit – keeping in mind that I have already confessed that it is the lack of my own understanding that has brought about this conundrum.  One could claim that before Hezekiah’s repentance, he was in a state of being guilty should judgment come upon him.  Quite literally, without repentance Hezekiah was guilty and deserved death.  Thus, God gives the legitimate verdict to Hezekiah while Hezekiah is guilty even though He knows that the verdict will benefit from a stay of execution.  Hezekiah hears the verdict, repents, and God grants Hezekiah the stay of execution.  Thus God doesn’t “lie” as much as God speaks truth in the moment.  In Hezekiah’s sin, he deserved condemnation.  In Hezekiah’s repentance, he was granted mercy.  In the end, this is where I must come down on this little conundrum I have opened.

Isaiah

Before moving to the second half of this chapter, let’s lift up the character of Isaiah for a second.  Imagine being a prophet of God and being told to go to some important figure and deliver a hard message.  After mustering up the courage to do so, you barely leave and God tells you to go back and deliver a message that seemingly contradicts what you just said.  Is not the human reaction to be confused – or worried that people might start to think that we don’t actually know what we are doing?  Yet Isaiah delivers the messages without complaint.  Isaiah delivers the messages without an issue.  Isaiah does the will of God.  When his human nature might have lifted up a reason to balk at God’s command, Isaiah proves that he is a follower of God and suppresses his humanity in favor of the character that God has given to him as His follower.

Peace With Babylon

The rest of this chapter shows Hezekiah making a peace pact with Babylon.  Hezekiah’s thought is for peace during his reign.  I’ll admit that it is a bit short-sighted.  It throws the door wide open for the people of Judah to look at Babylon as an ally rather than as the threat to their faith in God that they truly are.  I can’t fault Hezekiah for thinking that peace is a good thing; but I can fault him for receiving the Babylonian envoys and exposing the wealth of the nation without consulting God first.  It seems as though Hezekiah received grace form God and then went out and proved his fallen nature as a human.  And he did.

Yet, let me confirm that although Hezekiah may have made a slight stumble with the Babylonian envoys we know that the additional 15 years that God grants to Hezekiah were extremely fruitful.  Quite literally, the words at the beginning of this chapter that read “set your house in order” literally mean “arrange everything for your successor.”  And Hezekiah does just this.  Had Hezekiah died when God decreed judgment, Hezekiah would have not had an heir.  All of his children were born to him after Hezekiah recovered.  So clearly Hezekiah took seriously his part of God’s promise to ensure that an heir to David would be on the throne.  {Although, Manasseh is cited as one of the most evil kings Judah ever had before he himself repents to God as described in 2 Chronicles 33:1-20.}

Furthermore, we know from many of our copies Hebrew manuscripts that Hezekiah spent these last 15 years of his life paying for the law to be restored, copied, and distributed where appropriate.  We know this because at the end of many of the manuscripts we find the letters HZK in Hebrew, which stands for Hezekiah. 

In the end, Hezekiah falters a bit with the envoys from Babylon.  But he does great things with respect to restoring the faith in God in Judah and the people’s access to the Word of God.  Like all of us, he is a mixed bag of mistakes and successes.  But through it all we see the true thing that God desires: repentance and contrition.

<>< 

Year 2, Day 17: 2 Kings 19

Repentance Staves Off Destruction

2 Kings 19 begins the process of repentance that I spoke of yesterday.  Imagine you were in Hezekiah’s shoes.  You tried to stand up to Assyria, but when the Assyrian king saw your meager refusal to pay tribute he sent his army (or a portion thereof).  The army is massive, but there is a little time to send some messengers with a gift.  So you strip Jerusalem of its wealth and send it to the king of Assyria hoping that it will appease him.  It doesn’t, and the army continues to march upon Jerusalem.  Now you hear the words of these three messengers from the king of Assyria who are so confident in victory that they essentially come to your front door and taunt you.  And you know that you have nothing left in Jerusalem to offer in order to try and sue for peace.

That’s what Hezekiah is now facing.  He tried to show some backbone and stand up, but it brought about a really tough situation.  Now he doesn’t seem to have what it takes to make good on his demonstration of courage.  He fears the inevitable, and he suffers from the tunnel-vision that comes when disaster is imminent.  He needs something to come along and expand his vision beyond that which he can see under his ability to deal with these circumstances.

To make matters worse, Sennacherib (the Assyrian king) sends a threatening letter to Jerusalem reminding him of all the other nations who put their faith in their gods and who were not delivered from the hands of the Assyrian army.  The move is bold, but good politics.  Sennacherib is bent on destroying Jerusalem because of their insolence in not paying a tribute, and he wants to make sure that morale is as low as possible before he arrives to do so.  This is a tactic of war, and it almost works.

Hezekiah takes the letter and does the only thing he can do.  He takes the letter and brings it before the Lord.  Understand what this means.  Not only is Hezekiah repenting and turning to the Lord, but he is doing it in a very humbling context.  Hezekiah has just stripped all the wealth out of Jerusalem – and even out of the temple.  He has just handed all that was God’s over to Sennacherib.  Now he must go before God and worship in a temple that is bare because of his own lack of faith.  He must go to God and humble himself in a place that cries out for vengeance. 

If God were filled with human emotion, there is no way would God listen to Hezekiah.  God would tell Hezekiah that “he has made his own bed and now he has to lie in it.”  God would tell Hezekiah that if he wanted help he should have thought of it before he stripped the temple bare and defaced God’s space by giving what should have been God’s to Sennacherib.  If God were human, this story would end substantially differently than it does.

But Hezekiah says the key words when he humbles himself.  Hezekiah reminds himself in his repentant speech that what is important is that God’s name is praised.  What is important is that the whole world would know that God is righteous.  Hezekiah’s humble repentance is not self-serving, but self-sacrificing.  Hezekiah declares that if God spares Jerusalem, it will be to God’s glory and not to the glory of those humans who put the plan of defense into motion.  This is about God and our relationship with Him; this is not about us and God’s relationship with us.

God Gives Grace

God then takes care of business.  God sends Isaiah to comfort Hezekiah while God sends forth an angel of death to take care of the Assyrian army.  This is really fitting for Hezekiah’s repentance, for the record.  Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem did nothing in defense of the town except to wake up in the morning and count dead bodies.  There is no way that they could take the credit for the defense of Jerusalem.  The town was saved because God was gracious and merciful.  There can be no other justification for this act.

So it is with the Christian.  God is moved by grace and mercy when we are besieged by sin in our life.  When we have stripped his temple {See 1 Corinthians 6:19 as a reminder that our body is the temple of the Lord} and we have defaced His glory and we are besieged by sin in our life, all we need to do is repent.  All we need to do is acknowledge that life is not about us and our glory.  All we need to do is acknowledge that life is about Him, His glory, and His work.  And He will save.  It is His promise.  He is a God of salvation.

<>< 

Year 2, Day 16: 2 Kings 18

Righteousness

2 Kings 18 brings about a fresh perspective to Israel.  I hope that by now your eyes have been trained to pay very close attention to the verse under each king that says “_____ did right/evil in the sight of the Lord as did ______.”  In this case, we have Hezekiah doing right in the eyes of the Lord as David did.  After years of kings who did right – but not completely right – we finally get another king who followed after God with a heart like David.  That doesn’t mean Hezekiah was perfect; certainly we know that David wasn’t!  But it does mean that in those times where Hezekiah wasn’t perfect he was at least humble and repentant.  We have some good stories to which we can look forward!

As I read through this passage (especially the early parts) I was fascinated by the list of Hezekiah’s righteous acts.  He did not depart from God.  He tore down the places of the Canaanite gods.  He beat back against the Philistines.  And he rebelled against Assyria and would not serve them.  {Remember that Assyria was God’s tool against Israel, not Judah.}  Here is a king that is open to being God’s servant rather than serving his own agenda and state popularity.

Hezekiah In the Face of Assyrian Conquest

As we move to the second half of this chapter, it is easy to get confused.  So I will endeavor to retell the story in such a way as to make sure that all the details are presented.  Earlier we heard of Hezekiah’s refusal to serve Assyria.  This brings the Assyrian army into Judah in an attempt to subdue them and convince them to pay a tribute.  Here Hezekiah has a moment of wavering.  He fears the army coming into the land and he capitulates.  He robs the land – even the temple! – of the gold and silver to try and buy relief from the Assyrians.  The Assyrians take the money, but come to invade Judah anyway!  The Assyrian king even sends some leaders to Jerusalem to taunt and threaten the people.

With this, let’s also understand that there were three “political” parties in the land at this time.  The first party believed that in order to survive they needed to capitulate to Assyria and pay them off.  A second party believed that if they sent money to Egypt that the king of Egypt would send troops up to protect them from the Assyrians.  The third group – led primarily by the prophet Isaiah – believed that if they trusted in God that God could deliver them.  As we see, Hezekiah is wavering between these groups.  He wants to believe Isaiah, but he has a hard time pushing aside the group that believes they can buy off Assyria’s wrath.

From this story today I learn that spiritual leaders have a tough time.  It is difficult to always trust in the Lord.  That doesn’t mean that the Lord doesn’t provide; of course He does!  But it is difficult to push aside the cares, concerns, and worries of the world.  Complicating the issue is that often leaders have people under them that fall into various camps who believe things should be done a particular way.  When the leaders feel the need to keep these people happy, it can be quite a difficult task indeed.

As a result, Hezekiah wavers.  He has a moment where he makes a bad decision.  He tries to buy off the Assyrians rather than putting his full trust in God.  He falters; but Hezekiah does not break.  As I said earlier, Hezekiah is not perfect.  But when his imperfections show up, he is humble and falls back into repentance before the Lord.  This we will save for tomorrow.  It is good enough today to be reminded that it is difficult to live spiritually in the world without making mistakes.  And it is good enough to be reminded that we serve a loving and merciful God who genuinely desires a repentant and contrite heart.

<>< 

Year 2, Day 15: 2 Kings 17

The Time of the Last King of Israel

Passages like 2 Kings 17 scare me, and as a result they always bring out my dark and more prophetic side.  But before I get to that, let’s talk a little bit about Hoshea – the last king of Israel.  Hoshea is said to have done evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as badly as his fathers did before him.  However, Hoshea acted treacherously to the up-and-coming power in the land, Assyria.  He didn’t pay tributes as he should.  And for the record, he certainly didn’t rely upon the Lord in place of paying of Assyria.  Rather, Hoshea pleaded for help from Egypt.  Egypt was not powerful enough to save Israel, and as a result Israel is dragged into slavery.

This was God’s plan for the land.  God would teach His rebellious people to loathe the polytheistic gods that their hearts lusted after.  He would teach them through a few centuries of slavery that human masters and their human created gods were far worse than what little God expects of them.  Whereas God could protect them while asking for devotion, their polytheistic Assyrian captors would not be able to save them from Babylon or Persia in spite of their obvious physical power.  God would teach the people through these Assyrians.

Perfect Polytheism

However, God would certainly teach the Assyrians as well.  I love the part of this chapter that speaks about the people that the king of Assyrian sends to settle the land.  They do not respect and love the God of the Hebrew people, so the Lord sends lions among them.  The people of the land attempt to solve the problem using human logic.  They import a “Hebrew” priest to teach the new locals about the God of that land.  We should be clear that the people of the land learn about God, but they certainly do not love Him.  Again, at best we see polytheism at work.  The people may even learn to fear the Lord because of His obvious power, but they do not put their faith in Him.  They respect His power, but not His ways.  They have an empty relationship with God, just like the Israelites that came before them.

This is a sad truth about the world.  There are a fair number of people in this world who have a legitimate healthy fear of what God could do to them.  Some of these people don’t even claim to believe He exists!  Yet, they live their life in a superstitious following of patterns to appease the God they don’t believe in but they fear might be able to make their life miserable.  From a superstitious perspective this makes sense, but logically it makes no sense at all.  If there really is a reason to be afraid, why not honestly follow this God?  If there is no reason to be afraid because as they suspect there is no God, then why live in superstitious fear?  This same dynamic is at work in the Assyrian emigrants to Israel.  God is clearly among their midst, so why not put faith into one so powerful as Him?

What we see here is the perfect polytheistic mindset.  It’s the mindset where “I have my own gods I want to follow, but I’ll buy into this other God just enough to make sure He doesn’t smite me.”  It is a mindset of appeasement, not devotion.  It is a mindset that tries to rationalize the many different directions that the human being gets pulled and rather than devote to one direction we try to appease as many as possible.  Clearly this is not what God desires as He says more than once that He alone is God and His followers should have no other gods before Him. Polytheism is about being pulled in any direction that our human will drifts.  Monotheism is about devoting one’s life to a single-minded pursuit of God’s ways.

Are we free of this dynamic in our western post-polytheistic mindset?  Are we solely devoted to a single purpose, or do we still split our focus and our attention to many angles?  We may not call them gods or set up little shrines in our houses to worship them, but are we any different than these ancient people?  As modern as we have become – have we really been able to shake off the underlying root of polytheism in our life?

The Underlying Cause of Enslavement

As I close this blog post, let me go back and reflect on the dark portion of this passage.  This passage is clear as to why the Israelites become enslaved under Assyria.  They worshipped things in their life that weren’t God.  When they fell away, God sent holy men and His law into their midst but they refused to listen.  When God’s messengers came to them, they wouldn’t listen and turn from the ways of the world that their heart craved.  Rather than listen to God, they sought wisdom in the world around them.  Rather than embrace God’s truth, they looked for truth around them.  Some of them listened enough to be vaguely polytheistic, but certainly not enough to give up their other gods and purposefully follow the ways of the Lord.  They were stubborn enough to force God’s hand and drag them into slavery.

I cannot help but wonder – especially in conjunction with what I have already said about the Assyrian captivity - is America is any different?  Do we pursue God or do we instead appease God while pursuing the true desires of our heart?  Do our hearts truly belong to God or are we asking Him to share time with the other things that occupy our hearts?  Do we listen to His Word and those who bring it into our midst, or do we say that it is our authority but secretly think its lessons are trite and they deserve to rest upon the shelf like an old dusty book?  Do we adopt His ways of loving the orphan and the widow and the sojourner or do we only treat with respect those who present an advantageous relationship for ourselves?  When making decisions, do we pursue God’s Word for sound advice or do we approach those who can teach us the wisdom of the world that we secretly desire to learn it instead?

In the end, I can’t help but worry that we’re not so different from the northern kingdom of Israel or the Assyrians.  It is chapters like this that I remember to thank God for His ever-present grace and mercy.  I know I don’t deserve it any more than the people from a few millennia ago.  And knowing what I know about this grace, love, and mercy I am led to want to do something about it in the world.  We may fall and stumble from time to time, but we cannot let our friends and families – or this world – go into exile without a fight, can we?

<>< 

Year 2, Day 14: 2 Kings 16

Ahaz – The Beginning of the End

Today we meet Ahaz in Judah and we see the beginning of the downward spiral in Judah.  Ahaz does not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.  Ahaz does despicable things – especially with respect to the practices of the Canaanites who were in the land before God brought His people into the land.  In fact, we even hear that Ahaz sacrificed his own son on the altar – a far cry from the father of his people, Abraham, who trusted in God to provide the sacrifice!  As we have seen in Israel, when the leadership falls away, the decline of the people is sure to happen unchecked.

Then we have the story about Syria and Israel coming up to wage war against Ahaz in Judah.  It seems as though Ahaz does the opposite of Pekah in that he goes to Assyria and asks for help.  Yesterday I griped about Pekah going against God’s will, so surely today I should support Ahaz, right?

No.  Doing the opposite of a wrong action does not always make a righteous action.  In fact, I would seldom say that doing the opposite of a wrong action turns out to be a right action.  Yesterday I commented that Pekah is resisting Assyria and that Assyrian was the agent of God’s correction so therefore Pekah is going against God.  One might think that embracing Assyria (as Ahaz appears to be doing) would therefore be right.  Again, though, let me reiterate: no.

Assyria was God’s choice to bring the Israelites into captivity, not Judah.  Assyria was God’s agent against Israel.  Up until now, the kings of Judah had been doing an alright job in leading the people and God’s anger was not burning against the people as was His anger burning against Israel.  So Ahaz is not embracing God’s plan, Ahaz is actually refusing to believe in God by embracing something that is not God’s plan!

Let me explain this a little more fully.  In Isaiah 7:1-9 we hear about a message the Lord gives to Isaiah as Israel and Syria come to battle against Judah.  God tells Isaiah to go before Ahaz and tell him to not fear these two nations.  God tells Ahaz that God will deliver them.  But what does Ahaz do?  Ahaz goes and makes a treaty with Assyria.  Ahaz puts more faith in the help of another nation than he puts in God.  Is there any wonder that between this and the sacrifice of his son that God has an issue with Ahaz?

By struggling against Assyria in the last chapter, Pekah was struggling against God’s plan for Israel.  By embracing Assyria, Ahaz was struggling against God’s plan for Judah.  Now while it might sound like I am talking out of both sides of my mouth, there is a very good reason I have spent all this time unpacking this thought.  It is important that we as human beings do not assume that the opposite of an evil act is good.  As we see in the actions of these kings, the opposite of an evil act my actually be yet another evil act!

We can learn a tremendously important lesson here: the only act that is good is an act that is in line with God’s will.  Let’s look at the prior examples in this light.

• Pekah should have humbled himself to God and asked God what was His will for Israel.  He would have discovered that God desired Israel to learn about polytheism under the thumb of Assyria so that they might appreciate the monotheistic faith of the Hebrew people (of course, among a bunch of other lessons).
• Ahaz should have humbled himself to God and asked God what was His will for Judah.  He would have discovered that God wanted Judah to again see God’s power and specifically God wanted to teach Ahaz the importance of depending on God.

Since neither man humbles himself before God, their actions are unjust.  Their actions are polar opposite from each other, but one is just as evil as the other.  Neither man leads in a way that pursues God’s desires; therefore both men are guilty of doing evil in the eyes of the Lord.  This is a huge lesson for us to learn today.  The only good act is an act that is based upon God’s will.

What is the end of this for Ahaz?  As Ahaz relies upon the strength of other men, he also learns the worship of other men.  He begins to duplicate what he sees in Damascus.  He misses an opportunity to see the greatness of the Lord and He falls further away from God.  So it is with people who step out on their own understanding and don’t stop to check with God’s will.

<>< 

Year 2, Day 13: 2 Kings 15

Azariah’s Long Reign

Today we meet Azariah (whose other name is Uzziah – mentioned in 2 Chronicles).  Azariah means “helper of the Lord” while Uzziah means “strength of the Lord.”  We do know that so long as he pursued the Lord, God made him prosper.  On the other hand, we see here evidence of the sliding scale of performance.  He isn’t compared to David, he is compared to doing what is right as his father did.  We know that Amaziah his father had issues; so we should think that Azariah was not without his troubles as well.

In this passage we are told about Azariah’s leprosy, but in order to understand why he was a leper we need to read 2 Chronicles 26:16.  This passage tells us that Azariah suffered from great pride – thinking himself capable of burning incense as the priests (and especially the high priest) would have done.  Like we saw with David – whose personal vices were passed on to his sons – we also see that Azariah suffers from the same failing of pride that his father did.  We must take generational sin seriously and especially as parents and spiritual leaders we should be careful to avoid passing along the training of our sins as much as possible.

As a complete aside to the story, this is the king that Isaiah 6 mentions at the call of the prophet Isaiah.  Isaiah 6 reports his great vision of the Lord, and it occurs in the year that Uzziah (Azariah) dies.  We’ll talk about that when we read Isaiah – so no worries now.  It is just an interesting historical footnote.

The Short Reign of the Kings of Israel

The next three kings we meet are kings of Israel.  Note that here the family line of the kings is broken.  Political coups lead to assassinations and people grabbing for the seat of power that was left.  All of these kings did evil.  All of these kings did what was unacceptable in the sight of the Lord.  All of these kings lived out the ways of the world.  For the record, 2 out of 3 claimed power through the world’s means and 2 out of 3 lost power through the world’s means.  The fourth king we meet, Pekahiah, also lives and dies by the way of the world, although he assumed power when his father died rather than gaining power through a coup.  In summary, there is nothing redeemable discussed here with these kings.  When we spend our time living according to the world, the results that we reap will also be according to the world.

With respect to Israel, we finally meet Pekah.  This is significant because with Pekah also comes the mention of Tiglath-pileser III, king of Assyria.  Pekah has a strong anti-Assyrian national policy, and to be quite blunt it comes back to bite him on the hind end.  Much of Israel falls into captivity.  As was common among Assyrian and Babylonian kings – the people of those conquered lands were deported and replaced with loyal nationals looking to subdue a new land and make a name for themselves in the new land.  At last we begin the final death spiral of the northern kingdom of Israel.

Pekah is ousted, largely because his anti-Assyrian policy leads to what appears to be evil things in the land.  But I’m going to take an unusual tack in this passage.  As bad as it was for the land to begin to be devoured by the Assyrians, it was God’s plan for redeeming His people.  Pekah resists the Assyrians (who can blame him?) but in the process he is inherently resisting God’s plan for redemption of His people.  I’m not going to say too much more about this topic, because I think it is important that we chew on this for a while and understand exactly what I’m getting at here.   Pekah follows his natural instincts, but that doesn’t mean that he is in line with God.  Pekah rebels against Assyria, but that doesn’t mean he is in the spiritually right place.

Jotham of Judah

We also meet Jotham of Judah.  There isn’t much to say about Jotham other than he is mentioned to do well in the eyes of God – as well as his father Uzziah, at least.  We can see that while the northern kingdom is falling further from God’s presence, there is at least an attempt in the leadership of Judah to hold onto what they can.  I understand that this isn’t perfect, and it will eventually fail them.  But it is good to note that we’ve had a good string of kings who are reported as doing well in the sight of the Lord even while wrestling with their own human failing.

<>< 

Year 2, Day 12: 2 Kings 14

Cliché

I love clichés, but they often get a bad reputation in our culture.  It’s as if we need to apologize for using them when we say something like: “I know it’s cliché, but…”  I don’t think we should apologize for using clichés.  After all, the reason something becomes a cliché is because there is so much truth packed into such an easily remembered statement that it gets repeated over and over! 

Why all the talk about clichés?

I have brought you three clichés today:

1. Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched
2. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence
3. Pride comes before the fall

I will endeavor to use these three clichés to talk about good old Amaziah here. 

A Full Investigation of Amaziah

Let’s begin with the first one: Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.  The story begins with Amaziah being called a good king, one who may not have followed in the footsteps of David but at least followed in the footsteps of his dad, Jehoash.  The high places continued to be places of worship, but Amaziah himself followed the Lord, right? Well, don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.

2 Chronicles 25:14-16 gives us a bit of additional information regarding Amaziah’s conquest of Edom.  It seems as though Amaziah brings back the gods of the Edomites and sets them up for him to worship and give offerings.  Amaziah isn’t quite the follower of God that a cursory reading of 2 Kings 14 seems to indicate.  Now we understand why the author says he was a good king, but not like David.  He does some good things, and probably never does get rid of his faith in God completely.  But at best Amaziah is a polytheist with God being one of several household gods that he revered.

Polytheism vs. Monotheism

This leads us into the grass is always greener cliché.  Amaziah displays this attitude twice in what we know of his life.  I’ve already spoken about the gods of the Edomites, and that makes me wonder why it is that a victorious king would bother to bring home the gods of a conquered people.  If those gods were all that great, wouldn’t they have stopped Amaziah from being victorious?  To a monotheistic mindset, that logic makes sense.

However, we do know that God let the Hebrew people go into slavery more than once – so don’t put too much stock into that logic.  After all, even great gods allow their worshippers to choose disobedience out of free will!  There is none greater than God yet God’s people were seldom if ever considered the greatest kingdom on earth.

My guess is that Amaziah falls into the trap of thinking that “you can’t have too much of a good thing.”  Amaziah likely brings home those gods to make sure that his bases are covered.  If one God is good, the multiple gods from multiple nations are even better, right?  Well, in this case the answer is no.  The grass is not greener on the other side of that fence.  This is the danger of polytheism.

Going Too Far

The second place that Amaziah falls into the trap of this “green grass cliché” is where he marches out against Israel.  Amaziah has already conquered Edom.  Impressed with himself, he challenges Israel.  The king of Israel tries to tell him to stay put and not make enemies, but Amaziah isn’t buying it.  His ego is puffed up and he can only imagine that if conquering Edom is great, then conquering Edom and Israel will be even better.  Unfortunately, the grass isn’t greener on the other side of that fence, either.

Consequences of the Fall

This leads us right into the third cliché: pride comes before the fall.  Amaziah’s pride leads him into disaster.  Not only is Amaziah disgraced, but the holy city of Jerusalem is partially destroyed.  The temple of God is plundered.  All the work of his father in restoring the temple goes to ruin.  Amaziah’s big pride comes before a substantial fall.

Jeroboam II

We also have a story about a king of Israel in this chapter: Jeroboam II.  I don’t have much to say here.  I will simply note that Jeroboam II reigns for 41 years and is evil in the sight of the Lord.  Refer back to yesterday’s post about longevity not being a sign of God’s blessing.  Jeroboam II takes the cake as proof of this concept.  He is evil in his ways, and God sees fit to give him a long rope with which to hang himself.  Jeroboam has a long reign, and he no doubt proves his character again and again to God.

<><