HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 753
2 Chronicles
M A N Y P E O P L E pass through the doors of your church—strangers
who visit for the day and never return, seekers who come to taste and
stay to feast, scoffers who never taste at all, and the faithful who are
there week after week supporting God’s work. New people move into
the community and choose your church as their place of worship, while
others move away and leave your church behind. Today, the church is
something of a revolving door—newcomers moving in, others leaving,
a few staying for a lifetime. Through it all, your church remains intact,
continuing the ministry God intended. The church body, like the human
body, is always in the process of changing, but there is a certain continuity that keeps life going.
But there are churches that don’t make it,
churches where worship and the very life of the
church seem to fade and die. This is what happened to the Temple, God’s house, in the days
portrayed in 2 Chronicles. In one sense, this
book is a history of the kings of Judah and of the
nation itself. But more important, 2 Chronicles is
a history of the Temple of God, the “church” of
that day. It tells the story of bad kings who let
God’s house fall into disrepair and good kings
who worked to restore it by restoring the spiritual vitality of the nation.
But unfortunately, each cycle of decay led the
nation deeper and deeper into the quagmire of
sin. Finally they got in so deep there was no getting out.
Does all of this sound familiar? A nation is honored and preserved through godly people. God’s
house, the church, is honored and preserved
through godly people. The surest way to destroy
a place of worship or a nation is to compromise
the character required of godly people. Ungodly
people promote ungodly agendas, whether in
church, business, or government.
The best way to preserve God’s church is to
What you will be
reading about
1:1– 9:31
Solomon builds the Temple
10:1–13:22
The kingdom of Israel divides
14:1–16:14
The rise and fall of King Asa
17:1– 20:37
The reign of King Jehoshaphat
21:1– 28:27
Joash repairs the Temple,
then abandons the Lord—
and other ups and downs
of Judah’s rulers
29:1– 32:33
Godly King Hezekiah reigns
33:1- 25
The wicked reign of King
Manasseh
34:1– 35:27
King Josiah leads the people
back to God
36:1- 23
Judah falls and Jerusalem is
destroyed
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