Truth vs. Error

2 Tim.3:¹⁶ “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right”

Over the next few days, we will be learning how to go forward from the story in Ezra 3 [please read]. A couple of things led to this and we will learn a few lessons from history. After David died, Solomon became king but he did a lot of not so good things. But God was faithful and Israel broke up into two kingdoms after the death of Solomon – the northern and the southern kingdoms. Jerusalem was in the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom was given to idol worship and the Assyrians captured it. Prophets Micah and Isaiah warned the southern kingdom against idol worship but they too began to embrace idol worship and deviated from Jehovah. As a result, they grew weaker and weaker.

The nation was paying tribute to king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Then Joachim decided that because it was God’s nation, they would stop paying tribute. Jeremiah warned him not to make the move because he was not right with God. But kings will be kings; Joachim had other prophets that were telling him everything would be well, even though he was in sin. “You are too blessed to be stressed”. Joachim cut off the tribute he was paying to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar captured Joachim and took a lot of their bright young people into exile.

Nebuchadnezzar set Zedekiah as king over the southern kingdom, and for a while, Zedekiah was paying tribute. But after some time, Zedekiah was pumped with lies from false prophets. Jeremiah came again to warn him because he was not aligned with God but Jeremiah was punished. And at the second conquest, Nebuchadnezzar actually destroyed the temple of Solomon. The people of God remained in exile for seventy years. When the time was up, Daniel went before God and the Persians deposed Nebuchadnezzar. Cyrus became king and he released the Jews to go back and build Jerusalem.

Our first lesson is that any position you take outside God, is harmful. But some are even more dangerous than others.  The second thing is, you cannot continue in sin and expect all to go well for you. This ties in with the first lesson because sin sets you outside God.

Prayer [song]: I will serve no foreign God, nor any other treasure. You are my heart’s desire Holy Spirit without measure; unto Your Name I will bring my sacrifice. Amen