Blog 016 - Resurrecting the Word of God
Posted on November 09, 2019

Resurrecting the Word of God...

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2 Timothy 3 v 16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

We are nearing the end of another year - AD 2019. Let's go back in time some 2650 years ago to circa 640 - 610 BC when a new young king came to power in Judah in Southern Israel - King Josiah. You can read the account in detail in 2 Kings 22 and also in 2 Chronicles 34-35. The voice of God was silent to Israel in the North; the kingdom ended in circa 720 BC with the deportation of King Hoshea to Assyria (2 Kings 17).

Saul, David and Solomon, the early kings of Israel had lived circa 300 - 400 years earlier in the short lived Golden Age of the Kingdom. The subsequent divided kingdom of Jeroboam of Israel in the North and Rehoboam of Judah in the South had taken its toll in the form of national backsliding on an unprecedented scale.

The transition from the Tabernacle (tent) in the 40 year wilderness wanderings to the magnificent Temple that Solomon had built was not even a distant memory - it was all but forgotten. This is the tragedy of the divided kingdom. 

Israel as a nation had backslid  into a condition of national idolatry. False prophets and corrupted priests abounded in the deterioration. The Book of the Law was forgotten and lay in a corner of the temple gathering dust until it was found by Hilkiah. (2 Kings 22 v 8)

History repeats itself... 

As a result; the Word of the Lord was rare at that time as it was during the time of Samuel some 400 years earlier.

Did you know... 

The last kings in Israel were King Hoshea - King of Israel in the North 720 BC and King Zedekiah - King of Judah in the South 590 BC. The nation of Israel has had no king since that time and will not have a king until the Lord Jesus is crowned King of Kings in Israel in the future Millennial Reign of Christ on this earth.

What about God's Word today?

2 Timothy 4 v 3-4
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

We are living at a time when God's Word is not only forgotten and ignored; it is being rejected and censored at an alarming and accelerating rate!

Recently, in England, the owner of a coffee shop was approached by Police who told him to turn off his TV screen. His audio visual was quoting scripture verses and one customer had complained that this was intolerable. This is shocking and should ring alarm bells for Christians in our efforts to maintain a witness for God and His Word.

I quote Don Carson from his daily devotional - page ref: March 9;
For the love of God - D A Carson - Vol 1
IVP

"The Ten Commandments (Ex 20) were once learned by every child at school in the Western World. They established deeply ingrained principles of right and wrong that contributed to the shaping of Western civilization. They were not viewed as ten recommendations, optional niceties for polite people. Even many of those who did not believe that they were given by God Himself ("God spoke all these words.." Ex 20 v 1) nevertheless viewed them as the highest brief summary of the kind of private and public morality needed for the good ordering of society. Their importance is fast dissipating in the West. Even many church members cannot recite more than three or four of them. It is unthinkable that a thoughtful Christian would not memorize them."

D A Carson's book was first published in GB some twenty years ago in 1998. His words must echo even louder today than they did then. In Josiah's day the Book of the Law was forgotten and disregarded. What are we doing with God's Word today?
 
Questions to consider;
1. How frequently and passionately do I read God's Word?

2. Do I talk about God's Word to people that I work with or meet in public?

3. Will I play my part in resurrecting the Word of God where I live?

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