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2 Kings 20:1-23:3

2 Kings

20:1-21:18 -  ‘Carried off to Babylon’ (20:17) - There’s a real sadness about these words. In Revelation 18:2, Babylon is described as ‘a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit’. In today’s world, it seems like things are going the same way. ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’ (Revelation 14:8; 18:2) - Everything seems to be falling round about us. We hear so much bad news. We wonder, ‘What does God think about all this?’. God is looking for people who will stand when everyone else is falling, people who will stand up for Him - ‘Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues’ (Revelation 18:4). Even ‘in Babylon’, there were ‘the chosen’ - people who belonged to the Lord (1 Peter 5:13). Let us be such people - ‘in the world’ but ‘not of the world’ (John 17:11,16).
21:19-23:3 -  You never know what’s going to happen next! There was repair work going on at the House of God (5-6). It seemed so mundane. What happened next was certainly not mundane. Revival broke out! A book was found. It was ‘the Book of the Law’ (8). The rediscovery of God’s Word brought transformation. Everything changed when the Word of God took its rightful place among the people. King Josiah wanted to find out what was in ‘this book that has been found’ (13). He read its ‘words’ to ‘all the people’ (23:2). The words were not only read.They were acted upon: ‘The king… made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord and to keep His commandments… with all his heart and all his soul… and all the people joined in the covenant’ (23:3). They returned to ‘the ancient paths’, to ‘the good way’ (Jeremiah 6:16) - and so must we!
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