In Reverse

If you're joining us again for the first time, we've been walking through this book of Kings in the Old Testament, 2 Kings, and we are very close to wrapping things up.

And as you're finding chapter 23, so almost to the end, we'll be in chapter 23 and 24 today, let me recap for us a bit of where we're at.

But northern kingdom has fallen some hundred years earlier, and now we have our southern kingdom of Judah, and they are poised to do the same.

Only along comes a king, last week a king in David's line named Josiah, and we're told that he has a humble heart, a penitent heart, and the Lord tells him that he will not see the disaster himself.

He removes all the idols in the land, he makes these great reforms, and yet, although he will go to his grave in peace, he will have an honorable burial.

After him, that's it. The Lord's provocation has reached its breaking point. And so we're going to pick up reading today in verse 26. If you would look at verse 26, and we'll read on down into chapter 24 to verse 17.

And the house of which I said, my name shall be there.

Now the rest of the Acts of Josiah and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? In his days, Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates.

King Josiah went out to meet him. And Pharaoh Necho killed him at Megiddo as soon as he saw him. And his servants carried him dead in a chariot from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb.

And the people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and anointed him and made him king in his father's place. Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libna. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all his fathers had done.

And Pharaoh Necho put him in bonds at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and laid on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

And Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim the son of Josiah, king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there.

And Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money, according to the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people from the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Necho.

Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zebedah, the daughter of Pediah of Rumah.

And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. In his days, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years.

Then he turned and rebelled against him. And the Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by his servants the prophets.

Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the Lord to remove them out of his sight for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed.

For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord would not pardon. Now the rest of the deeds of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah?

So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place. And the king of Egypt did not come again out of his land, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates.

Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Nehushta, the daughter of El Nathan of Jerusalem.

And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done. At that time, the servants of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.

And Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to the city while his servants were besieging it. And Jehoiachin, king of Judah, gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself and his mother and his servants and his officials and his palace officials.

The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign and carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the Lord, which Solomon, king of Israel, had made as the Lord foretold.

He carried away all Jerusalem and all the officials and all the mighty men of valor, 10,000 captives and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained except the poorest people of the land.

And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, the king's mother, the king's wives, his officials, and the chief men of the land he took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

And the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the men of valor, 7,000, and the craftsmen and the metal workers, 1,000, all of them strong and fit for war.

And the king of Babylon made Madaniah, Jehoiachin's uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah. Let's pray. Father, your word is good.

You tell us that it's a seed for our hearts and souls. And so, Lord, implant that word in us today. Make it flourish for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. A couple things to note, just to kind of set the context here. If you like history, good news for you today, because there's a lot of it we just covered.

This passage covers 22 years and some big changing world events. Five different kings of Judah get named here. That's in addition to three world powers, really two, because one's fading pretty fast.

And I don't know if you noticed, but there were a lot of names, right? A lot of names, and probably only one of them I would recommend as a baby name to you, and that would be Josiah.

I don't know that you want to have a Jehoiachin in your house. But anyway, I thought it might be helpful today if I started out with a family tree slide.

So you'll see that behind me. We've got a family tree here with Josiah at the top. From Josiah to three sons, Jehoahaz, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah.

I thought you would need this because I was as late as Thursday studying this week and still mixing up the names myself. And I have all the materials in front of me.

So we'll keep bouncing back to this on occasion, and hopefully that will help you. Maybe you want to draw it out. So Jehoiachin is a grandson technically.

So just so you know, he fits in there a little differently, but still in the line of Josiah. Josiah. You can also see the kings do not all have the same mother.

And let's not overlook that because oftentimes, I mean, you've heard of this thing called sibling rivalry, and my siblings are all from the same mother, but I've heard that it can be even worse when you're a half-sibling.

So that's a little bit of something to think about here. The other thing to notice is that although the names appear in the order that you see them on the slide, that is not the birth order.

And in fact, the grandson of Josiah, that Jehoiachin fellow, or kid, he's 18, he actually comes to the throne before his uncle, Zedekiah, who is a true son of Josiah.

So there are indeed some strange things going on. So that's kind of the setup for our kings. Now let me talk to you about the two world powers, the three, but really two, Egypt and Babylon.

What we have happening here, again, over the course of 22 years and a few months, are a succession of five kings in Judah. All the while, what's happening in the bigger world stage is this power struggle between Egypt and Babylon.

Starts out at the beginning of the chapter, we see that the Egyptians are pretty strong. Pharaoh Necho's got power, but it's going to be the Babylonians who rule the day at the end of the day.

So that after Josiah's death, it's really either an Egyptian Pharaoh or a Babylonian king who's pulling all the levers in Judah. So that's a lay of the land for today.

Let me just try to fill in a few of the details as we walk through this material. It starts out with a word from the Lord. We're told, and this is important, that he did not turn from the burning of his great wrath.

Now we just read about all those reforms a week ago. It was a really great chapter with a really great king, the best of them, Josiah. But it's important to remember, as the Lord said, he cannot save this kingdom from destruction.

Still doomed. And honestly, given just how quickly everyone in Judah seems to slide right back into their evil ways after Josiah's gone, as all of his heirs, if you noticed, all of them are described as doing evil in the sight of the Lord, it really makes us wonder

just how much of a heart this kingdom and Josiah's own family had in all of these reforms being made. Maybe it was just a Josiah thing. And as for Josiah himself, today we see how he finishes out.

It was predicted that he would go to his grave in peace. And we thought, well, that means he's going to die with all his loved ones around him, happy, peaceful.

But that's not exactly what that phrase means. We noted that last week. It simply means that he will have an honorable burial. He'll be able to be laid to rest in his own tomb.

And as a matter of fact, we see here today that he dies from battle. It means that he's hit by an arrow from one of Pharaoh Necho's archers.

And let me fill you in on that detail because when we turn over to the parallel account in 2 Chronicles 36, that's where we learn this. Here's how the story's told with a few more details.

2 Chronicles, I'm sorry, chapter 35 in verse 20. We read that after all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho, king of Egypt, went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates and Josiah went out to meet him.

Now don't think by meet him he's coming out to say hi or they had got like a lunch date or something. No, it's meet him in battle. He's come out to fight.

What's happening is that the Assyrian empire is weakening. The Babylonians are rising and Pharaoh Necho is trying to team up with the Assyrians and Josiah is kind of pro-Babylonian.

Remember, he entertained some Babylonians. So he is pro-Babylonian. He doesn't want to see Egypt merging power with the Assyrians and he's trying to intervene and stop this and it's interesting but over in 2 Chronicles we again get a little bit more detail.

We learn that Pharaoh Necho actually tries to stop Josiah from coming. Let me continue on in verse 21. 2 Chronicles 35. But he, this is Pharaoh Necho, sent envoys to Josiah saying, what have we to do with each other king of Judah?

I'm not coming against you this day but against the house with which I'm at war. That would be Babylon. And God has commanded me to hurry. Cease opposing God who is with me lest he destroy you.

This is maybe the one chink in the armor of Josiah is he does not receive what appears to be told to us to be a legit word of God. Now why God's giving a word to the king of Egypt and not to Josiah himself, I have no idea.

Chalk it up to mystery. The problem is Josiah doesn't listen and this is what happens in verse 22. 2 Chronicles 35 verse 22. Nevertheless, Josiah did not turn away from him but disguised himself in order to fight with him.

2 Chronicles 35:22

He did not listen to the words of Necho from the mouth of God but came to fight in the plain of Megiddo and the archers shot King Josiah and the king said to his servants, take me away for I am badly wounded.

So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in his second chariot and brought him to Jerusalem and he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers.

So Josiah gets home dead to be buried in his own tomb as 2 Kings chapter 23 verse 30 says here. And then what do the people of Judah go off and do?

2 Kings 23:30

They choose another son of Josiah and they make a little mistake because they don't consult their overlord who at this time is now Pharaoh Necho.

They do it themselves and they install this Jehoahaz his son as king right away. Now you may not see this in the text but technically by the ages of these boys Jehoahaz is actually not the oldest he's the second oldest meaning the people have passed over Jehoiakim

because we think he is like his father pro Babylon and presumably I'm sorry he is pro Egypt and presumably they want to stay pro Babylon and that's going to be a problem once Pharaoh Necho finds out which of course he does and so immediately what he does within three months of his installation

and we can't feel too bad about this because again he's described as an evil doing king I don't know how much evil you can do in three months but he does but Pharaoh Necho orders him to come to him at Riblah and once there Pharaoh Necho says I've got some nice bonds prepared for you and he bonds him

puts him in chains and deports him off to Egypt where in verse 34 we're told that he dies we never hear anything more about Jehoahaz all of which by the way if you read the book of Jeremiah was prophesied the other thing Necho does

he's a little upset with the people of the land of Judah and so he installs a new king and he orders right away a punishment he is going to exact tribute from Judah to the tune of this hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold which is a lot of annual tribute pretty heavy

and call us crazy if we don't see the irony of what another Egyptian Pharaoh basically enslaving God's people again laying a heavy burden on them because that's what happens once Necho installs his now preferred

vassal slash puppet king Jehoahaz's older half brother Jehoiakim who is again apparently pro-Egyptian that's exactly what Jehoiakim does he decides to raise funds for this tribute by levying taxes on all the people

of the land so that the people of the land feel the heavy burden of their Egyptian overlord well Jehoiakim is king now actually Jehoiakim is a new name given to him by Pharaoh Necho which is a power play to give someone a new name to rename them

and wouldn't you know but he turns out to be just like his brother not like his father just like his brother which makes us wonder is there going to be any son of Josiah who is even half as good as he was and we know our answer the answer is no the prophet Jeremiah talks at length

about Jehoiakim and he actually tells us what a terrible king he was he's noted for his injustice his unrighteousness he is actually at one point in the book of Jeremiah chastised for all of his dishonest gain shedding innocent blood he's an oppressive king he's a violent king

he's a greedy king 2nd Chronicles chapter 38 36 verse 8 talks about all the abominations that he did and just to give you a little snapshot of what this king was like you know the people of the land are suffering enough with tribute to the Egyptians but in Jeremiah chapter 22 we learn

Jeremiah 22 · chapter mention

that he decides it's a great time to build himself a new palace of course only problem is that he enslaves the laborers and he doesn't pay them he makes them do it for free and this is probably why you had many prophets showing up and delivering a word from the Lord against him like Jeremiah

and then there was that one time this is the king Jehoiakim who Jeremiah was afraid to appear in his presence personally because he knew he would kill him and so he wrote his prophecy against him and gave it to his servant who took it on a scroll and that was the king Jehoiakim who sat there by the fire with a stubborn

heart and would have three or four columns read to him of the prophecy and he would cut it off with a knife and throw it into the fire and burn it and he did several times try to kill Jeremiah he successfully killed other prophets like one named Uriah not a good king but as

chapter 24 verse 1 opens we're kind of backing up again to the world stage and we learn that there is now officially a major regime change happening we are told that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up and very quickly Jehoiakim will now serve the

king of Babylon Pharaoh's vassal no more now you will serve me king Nebuchadnezzar now from both the Bible and from Babylonian records we know that this happens in the year 604 we got another slide that's got a bit of a timeline of some events this might help you

keep things straight what's happening on the world scene is that the Babylonians are really taking over fast they beat the Egyptians back in 604 pushed them all the way back to their border and what that means of course for Jehoiakim is that he and Judah have little choice but to turn and accept

their new overlords in the Babylonians and they do that and in fact it's right at this time that there is the very first deportation of some citizens of Jerusalem you might have heard of a few of them one's name is Daniel and then there are three friends that go at this time

well they beat the Egyptians the Egyptians lost that fight but apparently the Egyptians are thinking it's a three game series or something because they're back three years later and it's round two Egyptians versus Babylonians and there's another big showdown

and a battle at Karchemish in 601 now get this here's what happens again the Babylonians win so it's series over right best of three they're done however it's really more of a victory on paper because it depletes both world powers

their armies are both decimated and what that means is that Nebuchadnezzar has to return home to replenish his army and refit and reequip and that is not a short journey and not a short process and it ends up taking three years well this is where we see what happens in verse

one at the very end of verse one king Jehoiakim of Judah learns of this and he thinks this is my moment and our evil stubborn hearted scroll burning prophet killing king does a really really dumb thing it's what we hear at the end of that verse in verse one

that he turned and rebelled against him Nebuchadnezzar and if you think Nebuchadnezzar is going to do something about this then you thought right but with him needing to head back home and replenish his army he cannot do it right away and so this is what he does over the next three

years he basically reaches out to all of his conquered vassals and he sends these raiding bands calls up the vassal states demands that they fulfill their obligations I want you all to start attacking and raiding into Judah and they have to do it because the Babylonians are their

overlords now of course the narrator tells us that there's a divine hand behind this that this is the Lord's doing but all the people of Judah know is here come the Chaldeans here comes a band of Syrians here comes a band of Moabites or here come the Ammonites and if you're familiar with the Old Testament you might

recognize a few of those names because these are basically all the peoples of the land of Canaan these are Canaanites understand that these are the very same people groups whom Israel had to go to war with back at the conquest under Joshua when they fought for

the promised land these were the pagan neighbors of Israel that God had said you're supposed to push them out or if they won't leave exterminate them but they didn't do it did they instead Israel left these Canaanite groups hanging around and now what we

see happening is kind of a reversal a turning of the tables we now have basically Canaanites making conquest into Judah and we're told again in verse 2 that it's the Lord's doing that the Lord himself is behind this and it's for the wickedness of their kings

like Manasseh innocent blood that he shed yes it's all according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by his servants the prophets servants like Jeremiah through whom the Lord said this Jeremiah chapter 25 verse 15 take

Jeremiah 25:15

from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it they shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them verse 17 so I took the cup from the Lord's hand and made all the nations to whom the Lord sent

me to drink it Jerusalem and the cities of Judah its kings and officials to make them a desolation and a waste a hissing and a curse as at this day Jeremiah is basically saying it's happening these were his prophecies and you know what else before it

even happened Jeremiah even named the nations that would be doing this he listed them out and if you read the book of Jeremiah he tells you it's the Chaldeans it's the Edomites it's the Moabites and the Ammonites and the Syrians all of them the Canaanite nations prophesied to drink to the destruction of Judah

and then verse 26 Jeremiah 25 26 after all the kingdoms of the world drink that are on the face of the earth and after them the king of Babylon shall drink and drink our king of Babylon shall certainly do

because come three years later after three years of these bands raiding into Judah lo and behold but who shows up outside the gates of Jerusalem ready to besiege the city with a reequipped refitted army Nebuchadnezzar

I imagine him saying I'll be back and he is but we learn of a very strange turn of events in verse 5 and for some reason not sure why our narrator here in Kings simply tells us in verse 5 that

Jehoiakim dies with Nebuchadnezzar literally at his door our 36 year old king he just dies but again actually Chronicles gives us a little bit more 2nd Chronicles chapter 36

verse 6 we read that against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon who bound him in chains to take him to Babylon so which is it is he bound in chains to go to Babylon Babylon or is it like the prophet Jeremiah predicted in Jeremiah

Jeremiah 22 · chapter mention

chapter 22 is it an ignoble death the burial of a donkey Jeremiah predicted that this king Jehoiakim would be dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem sometimes there's a bit of a dilemma here we know the Bible is inerrant it's true it doesn't contradict itself

and sometimes this is where we have to do a little bit of our own thinking is it possible to put someone in bonds and intend to take them somewhere and for them to die before they get there apparently that's what happens and a couple of scholars have suggested I think a pretty plausible reconstruction of events

it would appear that you've got Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians outside the city setting up for a siege and the city itself perhaps hands over their king and while Nebuchadnezzar had Jehoiakim bound in chains planned to take him away as a POW somehow our

king just died did he have a stroke did he get beaten too hard did he have a heart attack we don't know all we know is that he never got to Babylon because the Babylonian policy was to keep these kings alive and we'll learn about that next week he never got there

he died and apparently his body was dragged and dumped somewhere outside the gates of Jerusalem fulfilling the prophet's word well meanwhile back inside the city the people are like we need a king and so Nebuchadnezzar well he's

still outside the people put Jehoiachin in charge we're not sure if they put him in charge or if Nebuchadnezzar does but all we know is he doesn't last very long it's a measly three months again technically Chronicles says it's three months and ten days so I guess he gets his first hundred days right and then that's it

Nebuchadnezzar for some reason is not happy with Jehoiachin and he wants this 18 year old kid out and we're told in verse 12 that Jehoiachin he is not going to argue and he literally gives himself up to the king of Babylon not only him but his mom too

and all his top officials all the palace officials and they are deported off to Babylon but we also learn that Nebuchadnezzar is going to take more than just Judah's king he's going to take some other stuff too verse 13 tells us that he carried off all the treasures of the city

palace treasures temple treasures in fact what he does is he goes into the temple and he starts to cut up in pieces strip off the gold of the very vessels that Solomon had made and dedicated to the temple but it's even more than just treasure

and royal family he's taking we go on in verse 14 to read that Nebuchadnezzar carries off what is basically the cream of the crop of the society of Jerusalem all the best officials all the mighty men of valor the craftsmen the smiths metal workers 10,000 of the very

best if you're high up the chain if you're an elite soldier if you're a highly skilled craftsman or tradesman he's taking you the very best and brightest of the land back to Babylon because the beauty and abundance of this

once great city's very best of their shiniest and brightest treasures and shiniest and brightest people they're all going to call Babylon home now where they will be put to work to enhance the beauty and prestige of a city of

Babylon making features like its hanging gardens which will become one of the seven wonders of the ancient world so that as the whole world once did for the great Solomon and his gilded kingdom everyone coming to Solomon to marvel at

the splendor and magnificent of his kingdom and all of his gold and treasure now it will be the splendor and magnificence of the kingdom of Babylon that everyone comes to see Nebuchadnezzar does leave behind one royal though and it's the last

brother you could say it's the overlooked brother the third born Madaniah Jehoiachin's uncle he installs him as a puppet in his place and true to form renames him Zedekiah so that with a couple of

deportations of people and a whole lot of plunder taken we finish our reading today with the stage set for the moment of final destruction for this city of Jerusalem which is only about a decade away

our kingdom of Judah as we have watched it over the last several weeks I think we could say it has been down shifting pretty fast right with wicked king after wicked king you could say it's been coming out

of gear completely and today after maybe just a brief lurch forward under Josiah the good king today I think we can agree that with four bad kings in just 22 years with Judah trading one overlord for another

this kingdom is not moving forward at all in fact this looks like a kingdom in reverse but as a prophet of the day tried to warn them this is what happens when you stubbornly do your own thing instead of God's

Jeremiah chapter 7 verse 24 check this out talking about the people of Judah but they he writes did not obey or incline their ear but they walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts and went backward and not forward

Jeremiah 7:24

yeah just about everything that happens here went backward or you could say it's in reverse got the exodus in reverse the conquest in reverse the heights of everything

at the peak of Solomon all in reverse because what does Solomon do he orders everything overlaid in gold Solomon has gold pouring into his kingdom Nebuchadnezzar does the exact opposite he strips all the gold off and he carries it

out reverse and then there's Joshua and the people back in the book of Joshua pushing out the Canaanites out of the land claiming God's promised land and what's happening now now all those same Canaanite peoples are raiding and taking it

back reverse even Moses do you remember the story when Moses secured the release of God's people from under Pharaoh so that the people of Israel even plundered their Egyptian captors on their way out

today it's Pharaoh once again becoming the people's overlord and he is once again imposing heavy burdens on God's people reverse even in the renaming remember

the patriarch Jacob the night he wrestled with the Lord and what did the Lord do he renamed him Israel and what's happening to three of our four kings here today they get renamed by their pagan overlords

reverse and why how did this happen what is the cause of this great and sad reversal verse 26 just told us very first verse that we read the burning of God's great wrath

his anger kindled against Judah because of all the provocations listen when you go backward when we live our lives in reverse of what God wants and calls for scripture tells us that it provokes the judgment of God

because the judgment and disaster God's people experience is a reversal of his blessing and deliverance God withdraws his favor and for ancient Judah it means he withdraws his protection so that nothing is preventing

their rapid advancement into those covenant curses we read about in Deuteronomy and when you're a kingdom on a world scene where there are enemies all around local world powers disaster is going to come upon you real fast

this morning as we reflect on these events and think about our own world today our own lives I can't help but think that there are some things here for us to watch as we reflect on these bad

leaders and their hearts and the bad circumstances that result I think there are some things to watch and keep our eyes fixed on so I'm going to give you three things to watch number one number one is this watch your heart's inclination your heart's

inclination last week we got a good look at a good king and that was Josiah and this is what we saw remember this 2nd Kings 23 verse 25 before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart he had a

heart that was inclined to the Lord to turn to the Lord but that was then and this is now and today it's his sons and his grandson and given that they all did evil in the Lord's sight I think it's pretty safe to conclude that their

hearts were inclined differently and as for the hearts of all the people of Judah well again after a brief pause under Josiah it seems like it's right back to business as usual as in the business of idolatry

but you know what none of this was a surprise to the Lord in fact here's what he once predicted about his people back in the book of Deuteronomy this is before they even came into the land or had a kingdom this is what he says in Deuteronomy chapter 31

Deuteronomy 31:21

verse 21 he says for I know what they my people are inclined to do even today before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give I know what their hearts are like God says even before I bring them into the promised land I know what kind of hearts they have

I know their inclination and he does doesn't he God knows the inclination of every human heart including yours and mine Romans 8 27 says that he searches hearts so where

is your heart inclined where does he find you what does he find inside you a heart turn to the Lord like Josiah or is it a heart with inclinations towards something else

even as believers we must watch our hearts and their inclinations and you know a good prayer to pray every day is Lord have my heart again today let the inclination of my heart be pleasing to you maybe you could even pray words like this from the psalmist

Psalm 19 verse 14 let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart the inclination of my heart be acceptable in your sight oh Lord my rock and my redeemer so that's the first thing to watch today but it's not the only thing here's the second one

Psalms 19:14

number two watch the reversals of blessing the reversals of blessings we've seen a lot of them here in these two chapters but honestly

we should understand that ever since the garden of Eden in Genesis 3 our whole world has been in a state of reverse the reversal of blessings that God had originally planned we live in what we call a post fall

world the fall of Adam and Eve we live pre glory we look ahead to the glory that we will one day know and as Jesus himself once told us in this reverse world we will often have many troubles won't we

so really I would suggest to you there are two ways to watch the reversals of blessings in our world two ways to view all the troubles that come at you in your life all the hardship and it really depends on whether you're a Christian or you're not

so let me start with you if you're a Christian if you're a believer God tells you to watch the reversals of blessings in your life and see them as things that though

they can actually work for your good Hebrews the book of Hebrews talks about how we endure struggles hostilities suffering and it tells us this Hebrews chapter 12 verse 7 it says it's for discipline that you have to endure God is treating you as sons

Hebrews 12:7

for what son is there whom his father does not discipline endure hardship endure yes even when there are reversals of blessings in your life because we're told to experience that as loving discipline from a God who really does love us like a

father he goes on in this chapter the writer does Hebrews 12 verses 10 and 11 he says this but he the Lord disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant but later it yields

Hebrews 12:10

the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it watching and enduring the reversals of blessing in your life can be a source of goodness to you in fact the apostle Paul was so convinced of that he

got real crazy he said rejoice in them didn't he Romans 5 verses 3 and 4 not only that Paul writes but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces

Romans 5:3

character and character produces hope and he goes on to say hope is not going to disappoint us because the hardships of this world the reversal of blessings we experience in this world is not all that we will experience and in fact compared with an eternity it will be

but a blink this is one way to watch the reversals of blessings and troubles in your life if you're a Christian if you're not a believer then I have to tell you that the reversals of blessings all around you in your life are only a

precursor to ultimate destruction and disaster up ahead I have to tell you that as hard as this life is now it's as good as it gets for you like those kings of Judah these reversals will keep coming in a

series of hardships and trouble in your life and then you die and then it's final judgment for you but I'm not going to leave you on that grim note no not without pointing you to a third and last thing for all of us believer or unbeliever

to watch and that's this number three you need to watch the one who reversed the reversal watch the one who reversed the reversal and who was that wasn't it a king

in the line of David yes it was but it wasn't any of the kings in ancient Judah not even king Josiah as good as he was it was king Jesus because this king reversed the reversal he reversed the curse and he did it

by taking all of that judgment and all of our deserved disaster and he took it upon himself on the cross again back to one of Israel's prophets Isaiah this time listen to what the Lord said to his people listen to

what he says to his people who are as Isaiah writes living in the midst of reversals of blessing living in the midst of hardship and curses here's what he says in Isaiah 54 verses 7 and 8 he says for a brief moment I deserted you but with great compassion

Isaiah 54:7

I will gather you in overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you says the Lord your redeemer the Lord

could say this listen the Lord could say this to a very sinful disobedient people because of the great king and redeemer who was coming he knew he was coming the Lord did because he was going to be the one who sent him and he knew that when he came the son

that the father would no longer have to hide his face the father could show his everlasting love and compassion because he is a God who reversed the reversal so that even though the world around you

the world around me might very much be in reverse we have the great reverser the great redeemer if you come to him if you humble your heart and repent and take hold of his work

would you bow your heads with me and stand as the team comes Jesus we pause for a moment to think about your work this incredible work of reversal only you Lord Jesus could take

what we tied up in knots and twisted and broke and perfected into something new and beautiful and straight and wonderful Jesus thank you for going to the cross for us thank you for giving your life to be the atonement for our sins thank you for loving

us for telling us while you walk this earth that whoever will come to you Lord and put their trust in you can be your son or daughter Lord you will take upon yourself the disaster that they deserve but Lord we do ask you to convict our hearts for those of us who know you

Lord convict our hearts when their inclinations turn south when we incline toward evil and Lord for those of us who might be here today who might be listening to this wherever we are who don't yet know you who have not yet bowed the knee to you Jesus draw us

by your love because we need you we need you and we pray this in your name the mighty name of Jesus in all God's people said amen so we we have be an other diyor we have diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor beat changes she diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor

diyor diyor diyor י diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor diyor matter season diyor diyor diyor ido