2 Chronicles 28 -- Is This Where WE Are Headed?

Judah’s faith as a nation resembled a pendulum.  Jotham had been following God’s commands, but his son Ahaz went totally in the opposite direction.  Taking the throne at age 20, he began to promote idol worship, even making his children pass through fire.  He built idols to Baal and offered sacrifices to them.

Ahaz’s unfaithfulness led God to send an army from Aram to defeat Judah, and then the Israelite army attacked their own brethren, taking prisoners and the spoils of war.  God warned those soldiers through a prophet and others not to do such a shameful thing.  At least the Israelite army obeyed, despite their own spiritual apostasy!

Edom then attacked Judah, and instead of repenting and calling upon God for help, Ahaz called out to Assyria for help.  This led the Philistines to attack, capturing several cities.  Rather than providing the requested protection, Assyria demanded even more, and Ahaz offered them treasures from the Temple!

Ahaz even offered sacrifices to the gods of the people of Damascus, thinking that since he’d been defeated by those gods, they must be more powerful and would work for him as well!  When that didn’t happen, he seemed to lose it all – gathering everything from the Temple and breaking it into pieces.  He closed the doors of the Temple!  He then made more idols to the gods of other nations and placed them on altars on every street corner in Jerusalem and in every town.  By this time, God should have been so thoroughly disgusted that He’d be ready to wipe Judah off the face of the earth!  Yet Ahaz’s rule continued for sixteen years! 

The people of Judah had tolerated this behavior from their king all this time, rather than removing him from power.  Judah’s downward spiral was speeding up, and it would take an amazing turnaround to stop it.  Yet the people did nothing.

Father, I see too many similarities between Judah in this chapter and our nation today.  We have tolerated actions by our own government that are beyond belief.  Help us to come to our senses and act before we, too, reach the point that Judah did.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford