II Chronicles 11-12
Dear RTB’ers,
Two chapters today, completely opposite in content – obedience, faithfulness and security in chapter 11, then pride, apostacy, and subjection in chapter 12. It was great to see that priests and Levites had come from Israel to Jerusalem to worship the true God. I would hope that some “common folk” were included in those groups of people. It reminds me a bit of our beginnings at St. Andrew’s when people came from all over – Richmond, Danville, Lawrenceburg, Frankfort, Georgetown, Paris, Winchester – to be with Pastor David Brannen and the leadership at St. Andrew’s who were seeking the Lord by following traditional, historical Biblical teaching.
It only took five years to go from the strength and security that Rehoboam had inherited to the Egyptian plunder of Jerusalem and the temple. Two telling sentences today: So they listened to the word of the Lord… (v. 11:4b) and … he abandoned the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him… (v. 12:1b). Carol said it well yesterday; “It is a cautionary tale. What gods are we following? Whose advice? What rhetoric is “tickling our ears”? ”
To Whom are we listening?
Blessings!
Fred