{"id":3465,"date":"2019-06-07T20:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-08T03:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=3465"},"modified":"2019-06-02T00:48:04","modified_gmt":"2019-06-02T07:48:04","slug":"2kings_21_1-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/2kings_21_1-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Even When You’ve Lost Everything, There Is Still Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 Kings 21:1-26 \u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today’s passage is 2 Kings 21:1-26.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

2 Kings 21:11-12 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n11\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0“Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols.
\n12\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0Therefore this is what the\u00a0LORD, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-18:\u00a0 Manasseh replaces his father Hezekiah as the king of Judah.\u00a0 But rather than following the Lord like his father Hezekiah did, Manasseh goes headlong into worshiping idols, committing violent crimes and even sacrificing his own son in the fire as part of idol worship.\u00a0 Manasseh leads the rest of Judah to commit the same sins such that the nation of Judah ends up committing more evil than any nation that had previously occupied their land.\u00a0 God’s response to Manasseh’s sins and Judah’s sins is clear and stern:\u00a0 Judah would be looted, plundered and handed over to their enemies, thereby following in the footsteps of Samaria and the house of Ahab, who had also persistently sinned against Him.<\/p>\n

But there’s an important part to King Manasseh’s story which is not found in 2 Kings 21 and which you can read about in 2 Chronicles 33:12-16.\u00a0 That part goes like this:\u00a0 Just as 2 Kings\u00a021:14\u00a0predicted, the nation of Judah is indeed looted, plundered and handed over to Assyria because of Manasseh’s and Judah’s sins.\u00a0 Manasseh is also taken captive by Assyria.\u00a0 But while imprisoned in Assyria, Manasseh repents of his sin and mercifully God restores Manasseh’s kingdom to him.\u00a0 Manasseh then gets rid of the idols and sinful practices that got him and his nation of Judah into so much trouble in the first place.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?<\/p>\n

1. God takes sin and idolatry very seriously.\u00a0\u00a0If we persist in sinning and worshiping idols, we will lose much of the inheritance God has planned for us.<\/strong>\u00a0 Sin always comes at a high cost.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0Even when you’ve lost everything, there is still hope.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>God showed amazing grace and mercy to Manasseh: when Manasseh lost everything — his faith, his kingdom, his identity — all because of sin, God restored it all to Manasseh when Manasseh humbled himself.\u00a0 Likewise, God has shown us amazing mercy and grace when He sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins.\u00a0 At the cross where Jesus died,\u00a0God showed that He is stern and clear about punishing our sin.\u00a0 Yet at that same cross, God showed that He is merciful when we confess our sins and repent.\u00a0 Just as God restored Manasseh’s kingdom to Manasseh, through the cross God restored us to Himself.\u00a0 And even today God is able to restore to us that which we have lost when we humbly turn to Him.<\/strong>\u00a0 So if you are suffering because of sin, know that because of the cross of Jesus Christ there is still hope.\u00a0 God is eager to show compassion to and restore those who turn back to Him.<\/p>\n

2 Kings\u00a021:20\u00a0(NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n20\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0He did evil in the eyes of the\u00a0LORD, as his father Manasseh had done.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 19-26:\u00a0 Amon replaces his father Manasseh as king of Judah.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Amon chose to imitate the evil that his father did, rather than the good that his father did.\u00a0 As verse 21 says, “He walked in all the ways of his father; he worshiped the idols his father had worshiped, and bowed down to them.” Eventually, Amon is assassinated by his own officials and is replaced on the throne by his son Josiah.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0 The Bible calls us to love and honour our parents.\u00a0 But\u00a0we must be wise and discerning about what we learn from our parents<\/strong>.\u00a0 No parent is perfect.\u00a0 Every parent is a collection of strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures.\u00a0 May God give you wisdom to learn the positive qualities, habits, values and attributes that your parents and others before you have demonstrated, and to avoid the flaws and negative traits that your parents and others before you may have exhibited.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, thank You that You are holy, righteous and just, and at the same time you are merciful, compassionate and forgiving.\u00a0 We see both these sides of You at the cross, where our sins were both punished and forgiven, and where Christ was condemned and separated from Your presence so that we could be justified and brought back to You.\u00a0 Thank You for being willing to restore me no matter how many times I fail.\u00a0 Thank You that the amazing grace that You showed at the cross gives me hope every moment of my life.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today’s passage is 2 Kings 21:1-26.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

2 Kings 21:11-12 (NIV)\u00a0
\n11\u00a0\u00a0“Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols.\u00a0
\n12\u00a0\u00a0Therefore this is what the\u00a0LORD, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On verses 1-18:\u00a0 Manasseh replaces his father Hezekiah as the king of Judah.\u00a0 But rather than following the Lord like his father Hezekiah did, Manasseh goes headlong into worshiping idols, committing violent crimes and even sacrificing his own son in the fire as part of idol worship.\u00a0 Manasseh leads the rest of Judah to commit the same sins such that the nation of Judah ends up committing more evil than any nation that had previously occupied their land.\u00a0 God’s response to Manasseh’s sins and Judah’s sins is clear and stern:\u00a0 Judah would be looted, plundered and handed over to their enemies, thereby following in the footsteps of Samaria and the house of Ahab, who had also persistently sinned against Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3467,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3465\/revisions\/3467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}