So, just finished 2 Kings. It brings out the student in me, marking in different colored pens the two different nations, taking notes, and literally yesterday I read more than required because it is so fast and easy. And also because we are "iced in" and there are no time constraints on us!
The chart above pretty much summarizes what I did in a better scale. Indeed, all the kings of Israel were bad - bad - bad!! Judah had a little bit of fighting chance, because some of them truly tried to be good, but those Asherah poles in the high places got them EVERY TIME!! Hezekiah finally got rid of them, but then Mannasah right behind him built them right back up as fast as he could.
Takeaways:
1. In 2:8 we find the LORD dividing the waters in half again. This was the third time so far. Wonder why Moses gets the main attention for this happening and not Joshua and Elijah?
2. In 4:38-41, what is up with the Death in the Pot?
3. In 4:42 we find the LORD feeding 100!! A precursor for the New Testament?
4. In 6:1-7, what is up with the floating axehead?
5. In 12:15 I love how they so completely trusted the people "they gave the money to" and did not require an accounting of how it was used.
6. Then comes chapter 17 that I read today in which the LORD may or may not have been speaking to me. I might need to think and pray about this some more. After the Israelites were exiled to Babylon, the Babylonian king had other peoples come to the land the Israelites left. They did not follow the commands of the LORD and the land was ruined. So the King sent a priest from Israel back to the land to teach them how to worship the LORD.
29 Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places.
That didn't work out so well, but apparenlty they tried.
32 They worshiped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. 33 They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.
So that got me to thinking, I do worship the LORD, but do I also serve my own gods in accordance to the custom. Is my obsessive use of my iPhone an idol in accordance to the custom? Is my desire and constantly giving in to sweets an idol in accordance to the custom? I don't like those thoughts, but they are certainly ones to pray about.
7. And finally in 23:26 we have the beginning of the end. Even though Josiah had done all he could to fix what Manasseh and Amon broke
26 Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to arouse his anger.
That kind of made we wonder ... why even try? Is HIS anger going to burn anyway?
All through this I just kept thinking about America and ISIS and other terrorist groups. Is this what America has brought on itself? Is there any hope for us?
Come, sweet Jesus.
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