Year 6, Day 326: 2 Chronicles 27-28

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Appetite

• Appetite: We all have needs that need to be filled.  When we allow ourselves to be filled with the people and things that God brings into our life, we will be satisfied because our In will be in proper focus.  But when we try to fill ourselves with our own desires we end up frustrated by an insatiable hunger.

Today we move quickly through Jotham, a righteous king who did most of the things right, and straight into Ahaz.  Ahaz is noted for being a despicable king.  What is it that Ahaz does that is so despicable?  The list is reasonably long.

Ahaz does the unthinkable and offers up child sacrifices to foreign gods.  It’s bad enough to worship other gods.  It’s preposterous to think about killing children in an attempt to please divine beings.  But Ahaz is offering up his own children!  Here is a man who desires to slaughter his own children in an attempt to please divine beings who are illegitimate in the first place.

But this is not all that Ahaz does.  Ahaz turns to the king of Assyria to help him against his squabbles with nearby kings.  However, Ahaz bites off more than he can chew.  In inviting Assyria into the region, Ahaz has drawn their attention.  He doesn’t know it at the time, but Ahaz’s appetite is what actually brings Assyria’s eye and invites them not for allegiance but for domination.  Ahaz’s appetite for success actually leads to the doom of the northern kingdom and a great diminishment of the southern kingdom.

This isn’t even the worst of it.  When Ahaz turns to the Assyrians, he is ultimately turning his back upon the Lord.  Ahaz demonstrates that he does not believe that God can protect his people. Ahaz would rather trust in the protection of other human beings than rest in the protection of God.  As I pointed out above, Ahaz is clearly misguided and the Hebrew people will pay for this error in judgment.

Ahaz’s appetite gets him in trouble.  Ahaz’s appetite causes him to make very poor decisions.  Ahaz’s appetite actually invites danger into his life and the life of the people that he is supposed to be leading and protecting!

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