Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Too Little Too Late? | The Writings | 2 Chronicles 34-35

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

Where is our culture heading? Will the world forget God? Will they forget the Bible? What happens when God's people ignore him? In today's episode, Patrick looks to 2 Chronicles 34-35 to discuss how your faith could impact generations to come. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Chronicles 34-35

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Too little, too late. That's the perfect summary of Second Chronicles 34 to 35. You see, after years of breaking God's covenant, he finally decided to give Israel what it wanted. If they wanted to worship the idols, they could have their idols. If they wanted to be like Babylon, they could go live in Babylon.

It shouldn't have surprised anyone. almost a millennia earlier, God rescued the Israelites from slavery. He brought them to Mount Sinai, and on that mountain he spoke to their representative, a man named Moses, and he gave Moses a set of laws, which included blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience, and those curses included exile. He told them 1,000 years before this that he would allow a foreign nation to carry them off if they carried on worshipping idols. But here's the strange thing. God was slow to anger. For almost 1,000 years, the Israelites failed him. They worshipped Asherah and Moloch and Bail. They sacrificed their children to gods. They stole. They committed adultery. They coveted. They broke his laws. And they broke his heart. But every time God sent them prophets. He warned them to stop. If they didn't stop, he let them suffer for a time until they cried out to him. And when they cried out, he never stayed the course. He always relented. He always rescued them. For 1,000 years, he extended grace after grace, mercy after mercy. He proved that his

steadfast love is for a thousand generations. But his anger over injustice and idolatry is short. But at some point, it's just too little, too late. As we'll see in the coming days, God finally allowed the people to be punished for their injustice and idolatry. He allowed them to be taken off into exile. But before that happened, he relented. one last time. One of the last kings of Judah was also one of its best kings. His name was Josiah. He was the son of Amon and the grandson of Manasseh, and both of them were evil kings. And things had gotten so bad in Israel that by the time of Josiah, they had quite literally lost the Bible. Specifically, no one had heard or read the book of Deuteronomy for decades. Yahweh's word was absent. But then

it was discovered. Can you imagine that? The Bible simply disappearing and then needing to be rediscovered? That's exactly what happened. Someone found it in the treasury under money. And when King Josiah saw it, he knew that it was more valuable than gold. He commanded that the book of Deuteronomy be read to him. And here's what happens next. Second Chronicles 3419. When the king heard the words of the law, he tore his robes. Josiah tears his his robes in grief and anguish. Why? Because when he hears the law of God, he understands that both he and his people have all grievously broken God's law. They've become a society of injustice and idolatry. But he also rips his robes because he reads the curses in Deuteronomy, and he knows that as a result of

their actions, exile is coming. Josiah says in verse 21, great is Yahweh's anger that it is poured out on us because those who have gone before us have not kept the word of Yahweh. They have not acted in accordance with all that is written in his book. Josiah is not a man of inaction. And so later he calls together all the people of Judah and Jerusalem and personally reads the entire book of Deuteronomy to the people in one sitting. We read this in verse 31. The king stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of Yahweh,

to follow Yahweh and keep his command. stands, statutes, decrees, with all his heart and all his soul, and to obey the words of the covenant written in this book. That little verse is referring to Deuteronomy 6-5, which commands Israel to do exactly that, to put God's words, his laws onto our hearts, and to obey him with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole strength, our whole might, and Josiah does it. His heart is in the right place. He shows true repentance for his failure and his father's failure and his grandfather's failure. And as king, he leads the people to do likewise. They all repent. He calls them to turn toward God, toward justice, toward worshiping him. But do you remember what I

said at the beginning of this episode? What's true of this whole chapter? See, this is a chapter that says one thing. Too little, too late. Josiah sends someone to consult with a prophetess named Holda, and she tells him exactly that. She says, yes, what you're doing is right, and she commends him. but she says that in the end God will not relent. Second Chronicles 34 verses 23 to 31. Here we go. She said to them, this is what Yahweh, the God of Israel says.

Tell the man who sent you to me. This is what Yahweh says. I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people. All the curses written in the book that has been read in the presence of the king of Judah. Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and aroused my anger by all that their hands have made. My anger will be poured out on this place and it will not be quenched. Tell the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of Yahweh, this is what Yahweh the God of Israel says concerning the words you heard. Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard

what he spoke against this place and its people. And because you humbled yourself before me and tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares Yahweh. Now, I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place and on those who live here. Do you feel the tragedy of it all? Yes, Josiah won't see exile, but his son's will. There's a stark warning here for all of us, not so much in our individual lives, but more so for our collective history. You see, God is gracious across the span of many individual.

lives. In fact, he's gracious to the individual Josiah. When Josiah turns to him, he says Josiah won't see these terrible things happen. And so the point of the passage is not that any individual can ever be so far gone that God cannot reach him or her. Now, the point of this passage is about us as a whole, us as a collective. When God's people continually go astray, when God's people continually ignore him, when God's people continually disregard him, there are intergenerational consequences. Do you realize that your failures, sins, idolatry, and injustice might impact people in generations to come? Do you know that some of the hardship we are experiencing in the present may be the result of generations before us? We don't tend to think intergenerationally

in the West. We can hardly name anyone in our family beyond our grandparents. But the Bible does think this way, and it wants you to ask a question, will I hand the next generation a church that hardly knows its Bible, that ignores the will of God, that worships greed, gossip, and busyness? Jesus has called us to something greater than this. He calls us to pass on the church better than we found it. Paul said this to his protege Timothy in 2 Timothy 114. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. He's talking to you. He's talking to you. He's talking about the gospel, the good news that Jesus is our rescuing king, and he goes on in 2 Timothy 2-2, what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust to faithful men

who will be able to teach others also. Do you know that's your call to pass on the good news of the kingdom and both word and deed? So let's do that. Let's go forward and do that. Let's live our lives for the sake of King Jesus by living according to the laws of his kingdom. so that future generations might know his goodness, his truth, and his beauty.