Kings of Judah: Josiah and his Successors

2 Chronicles 34:1-36:23

Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. (Eph. 6:18)

The last days of the kingdom of Judah were filled with glorious triumphs (under Josiah) and ignominious defeats (under everyone else). But through it all, we can learn how to pray.

1. Pray for godly leaders, like Josiah, who can lead and influence and stay godly for a long time.  Never underestimate how much good can be accomplished by doing the right thing day after day.

2. Pray that God would reveal the hidden sins of our hearts and smash our idols.

3. Pray for many faithful servants with abilities and zeal. The kingdom was not a one man show and neither is the church.

4. Pray that our hearts would be good soil for the word of God.

5. Pray for a commitment to obedience. We want disciples in our churches, not attenders.

6. Pray that we would party hearty and lament loudly. Let us celebrate God’s goodness unashamed and mourn when our sins and sufferings overtake us.

7. Pray for soft heats when we sin. Unlike Zedekiah, let us be quick to repentant. From superpower to exiles to resettlement, God was teaching his people two very simple lessons: (1) being disobedient doesn’t pay; (2) but when you are, humble yourself and I will lift you up once more.

 

Kings of Judah: Hezekiah’s Heroic God

2 Chronicles 32:1-32:33

So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem…he provided for them on every side. (32:22)

One of the most interesting books I’ve read in recent years is entitled What If? The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been. It’s a book of counterfactual history where scholars suggest how history would be different if key conflicts–the Battle of Brooklyn, Midway, D-Day, etc.–had gone differently.

The first chapter, by William McNeill, is about the plague that saved Jerusalem in 701 B.C. Assyria was threatening to destroy Jerusalem and wipe Judah off the map. This was no idle threat. Nation after nation had fallen to this superpower from the north. But God would not abandon his people. “Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria,” the Lord reassured King Hezekiah, “I will defend this city and save it.” Overnight the entire army was wiped out and the city spared without one drop of Israelite blood.

These events confirmed for the Jews the implausible and world changing belief that their God was the only true God, making the failed siege of Jerusalem the most fateful might-have-been of history. “Never before or since,” writes McNeill, “has so much depended on so few, believing so wholly in their one true god, and in such bold defiance of common sense.”