Seize the Moment – Day 979

Heed God’s Discipline!

2 Chronicles 36

 

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, November 21.

 

Growing up, my dad would travel for work and my mom would be left at home outnumbered by us boys. We were always pushing one another’s buttons and pressing the limits of our mom’s patience, but there was one warning that we heard again and again, “You wait until your father gets home and hears about this.” Mom warned us of the coming danger…

 

The last chapter of 2 Chronicles walks through the last four kings of Judah – Jehoahaz (or Joahaz, 1-3), Jehoiakim (4-8), Jehoiachin (9-10), and Zedekiah (10-21). But the focus is not on the kings themselves; rather, it’s on God and why He brought justice to His people. As 2 Chronicles 36:21 explains, it was at the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian Empire that Jerusalem was destroyed and Judah was exiled, “to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete” (cf. Leviticus 26:34-35).

 

Jeremiah gave this word in Jeremiah 25:12 and 29:10, but he was not the only prophet to have warned them of God’s coming justice, as 2 Chronicles 36:15-16 states of God’s compassionate efforts to rescue His people from the consequences of their rebellion:

 

The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, until there was no remedy.

 

I get it now that I’m older and a parent myself – I should have listened to my mom’s warnings. In the same way, we need to pay attention to the Spirit as He speaks to us through God’s Word – Jesus is coming and only He can rescue you from the coming wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10; Romans 5:9).

 

Seize the moment and heed God’s discipline (Hebrews 12:7-11)!

 

God bless you!

 

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YOUTUBE:

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Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.

 

 
 

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