2 Chronicles 36: 15 – 21

People may not want to hear a message about the judgment of God, but if you discard this truth you disembowel the Bible. God is a God of love, but He is also a God of justice. So note in today’s reading:

  • Judgment can be delayed (15). It regularly is because God is so gracious and merciful to sinful people. Peter tells us that The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9). The again and again in 2 Chron. 36:15 emphasises God’s relentless love for His people and His determination to pursue them and give them every opportunity to repent. In His love and mercy God gives people time (2 Peter 3:15). GOD, the God of their ancestors, repeatedly sent warning messages to them. Out of compassion for both his people and his Temple he wanted to give them every chance possible. The Message.
  • Judgment will eventually fall (16). Even though it may be a long time coming, it will arrive, if there is no repentance.  But they wouldn’t listen; they poked fun at God’s messengers, despised the message itself, and in general treated the prophets like idiots. GOD became more and more angry until there was no turning back… The Message. The door of the ‘ark’ may remain open for a long, long time; but eventually the Lord will close it and it will be too late to change minds and mend ways.
  • Judgment is terrible (17-20). Its reality is almost too awful to consider, but face it we must. The judgment Jesus died to save us from is far worse than that depicted here. This is just a pale foreshadowing of the ultimate judgment, in Hell, when people find themselves eternally separated from God. …GOD called in Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who came and killed indiscriminately – and right in the Temple itself; it was a ruthless massacre: young men and virgins, the elderly and weak – they were all the same to him. The Message.

Remember that God’s Word always comes true. Jeremiah was probably the most prominent of those rejected prophets (16). Despised as he was, his inspired words came to pass (21). This is exactly the message of GOD that Jeremiah had preached: the desolate land put to an extended sabbath rest, a seventy-year Sabbath rest making up for all the unkept Sabbaths. The Message.

Prayer: Dear God, keep us from diluting your Word to suit our own tastes.