History Does Repeat Itself

Yesterday I talked about King Jehoshaphat and how he brought the people together to pray for victory in the battle with the enemy. 2 Chronicles 20- Well the story does not end there. Once the enemy was defeated and all was well in their world, Jehoshaphat decided to lean on his own understanding. Even after the fear of God came upon the surrounding kingdoms- King Jehoshaphat put God on the back burner. He made a pact with King Ahaziah of Israel whose ways were wicked. (2 Chronicles 20:21) Together they agreed to build a fleet of trading ships. When it was done, Jehoshaphat was told by Eliezer that because he had made this pact – the ships would never sail. They were destroyed by God. Shortly after that he died and his son Jehoram became King of Judah. 2 Chronicles 21. “When Jehoram established himself firmly over his’s father’s kingdom, he put all of his brothers to the sword along with some of the offcials of Israel. Jehoram was thirty- two years old when he becme king and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.”
There are always consequences for any decision that we make. One of these consequnces is that our decisions become generational. What our children and grandchildren see is the example they will follow. In today’s world, the toxic enviorment we live in will become the footprint of the future. Our grandchildren and greatgrandchildren will behave worse than this untoward generation. Brother will turn on brother,sister will turn on sister, mother will turn on child and father will turn on all of them. We are teaching the future generation that it is okay to do evil in the site of God. That there are no lasting consequences for those decisions. That the behavior is condoned, the actions are condoned and that no one cares for the future footprint. As God has shown us time and time again in the Bible, history does repeat itself both in action, word, thought and deed.
Because Jehoram did evil in the sight of the Lord he received a letter from Elijah a prophet of God and the letter stated this, 2 Chronicles 21:12- 16 ” This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: “You have not followed the ways of your father Jehoshphat or of Asa, King of Judah.But, you have followed the ways of the Kings of Israel, and you have led Judah and the people of Jerusalem to protitute themselves, just as the house of Ahab did. You have also murdered your own brothers, members of your own family,men who were better than you. So now the Lord is about to strike your people, your sons, your wives and everything that is yours, with a heavy blow.You yourself will be very ill with a lingering disease of the bowels, until the disease causes you bowels to come out.” In verses 16-20 that is exactly what God did. He rose up the hated enemy, the Philistines who attacked Judah, invaded and carried off all the goods, found in the king’s palace, his sons and his wives. The only son left was the son by the name of Ahaziah, who was the youngest. And after all of this God kept the next promise he had made Jehoram, he struck him with the disease of the bowels. He struggled with this disease for two years, in extreme pain and finally his bowels came out of his body and he died while in pain from which there was no relief. There was no state funeral in his honor. The point of this piece of history is this. God allows people to make their own decisions good or bad or indifferent, he has given us all free will. However, with that free will comes consequences and God’s message never changes. Translate that into what is going on today. Everyone of you has the free will to riot, destroy, divide, hate, kill, hurt, ,maim you name it. You can do that. God has said, make your own decisions. However, there is a price to be paid. Part of the price is that your descendants will pay for those decisions due to the consequences of your actions, second if you do not pay the price now you will later. Sure one can take history out of the history books, one can refuse to treach history, one can destroy all of the visuals that pretain to said history, but understand this, God still has that history, God still knows what is going to happen and God’s message is still the same. It never changes. God see all, knows all and understands all. God knew that the one son ofJehoram who was left after the invasion would only reign for one year. That he would do evil in the sight of God and that he would be influenced by his mother who was of the house of Ahab. God knew the house of Ahab would become his advisors and that those decisions would be his downfall. Ahaziah had the choice to take a different path, and yet he didn’t. His path didn’t change but the message stayed the same -God is in charge. The consequnces of decisions are generational. We can choose to break the cycle or not. We can choose to learn from history or we can hide it – try to rewrite it or try to destory it- but it will come back upon us.God’s message never changes. #godsmessage,#learningfromhistory, #standup