31/03/2014 - BLINDED BY SIN

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So the runners passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, as far as Zebulun; but they laughed at them and mocked them. 2Chronicles 30.10

The worst thing that can happen to anyone who knows the Lord is to lose his love for Him. Those who stop loving God become completely lost in the kingdom of darkness, which only leads to hardship. Some people are so blind by the devil that they no longer feel any desire to come back to the Father, despite knowing very well that in Satan there is only evil. Those who have strayed from the Lord are not able to see that they are responsible for their own suffering.

Because they abandoned their faith, they no longer have spiritual vision, and if there is no repentance, their fate will be terrible. When Jeroboam divided Israel, so that ten tribes got together to make up the Northern Kingdom, which was then called Kingdom of Israel (1Kings 11), he was the hope of thousands of people who could not bear the heavy burdens imposed by King Rehoboam. What followed, though, was the worst thing that could have happened to them—they turned to witchcraft.

But the opposite happened to Judah. Although Judah had a few imprudent kings, most of them did fear the Lord. Hezekiah, for example, son of King Ahaz—who was perverse during his father’s kingdom—saw the Kingdom of Israel being invaded by the Assyrians, with its leaders taken into exile, from where they never returned. When he assumed the Kingdom of Judah, he quickly brought his people to the Lord (2Chronicles 29.1-11).

As a result, the kingdom of Hezekiah—which relied on the help of Isaiah, a prophet of the Lord—was established. Some years later, when Sennacherib tried to invade his territory, Hezekiah proved he was a man of God by resisting the enemy’s invasion. The result of the king of Assyria’s bravery turned into a major tragedy, and he went back to his land after seeing an angel of the Lord kill 185,000 soldiers in a single night (2Kings 19.35).

In its days of apogee, King Hezekiah was more prudent than those who came before him, because he truly sought the Lord. With everything going fine, he decided to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem and felt that he should invite the people of Israel who had escaped the Assyrian exile. So the king told the runners to pass from city to city, inviting people to join him in the celebration. Many of them no longer feared the Lord, so they laughed at and mocked those who invited them (2Chronicles 30).

Today many “doctors and wise people” of our generation have the same attitude when they hear about salvation in Jesus. And because they think they do not need God, they will spend eternity in the lake of fire. But we must never miss an opportunity to share about God’s love, as there will always be people who will listen to our message.

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares