The Repeating of History

Revelation 16:1

When the word wrath comes into my mind, my first thought is, it’s pay back time, I messed up and my actions have brought about the anger, the rage, the fury of someone, who has the ability to punish my actions; but my thinking never transfers to God as someone who is angry.  Chapter 16, begins this way; “Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.”  My dad loved history, he loved to read about things that had transpired at other times, and often he made the statement; “ man has learned nothing from history, and because of that we are destined to repeat it.”

In 2Kings 22:1, we have this insight from history; “Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.”  This young king came on the scene of Judah after a very wicked and evil king Manasseh had reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.  The Bible gives this account of Manasseh’s actions in 2Kings 21:2, “And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.  Verse 9 tells more of why God was angry with Manasseh and the people of Judah; “But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.”  This young king came on the scene of Judah at a very dark time in history, it had many degenerate rulers and the people were very sinful.  They had not worshiped the God of their fathers; in fact the temple was in great need of repair, so Josiah ordered the high priest to count out the money that was needed to pay the workmen so they could rebuild the temple.  This nation, the people who God calls His chosen people, have stopped reading the Scriptures, in fact it is worse than that, they misplaced the Scriptures.  In 2Kings 22:8, “And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.”  Josiah is one wise young king, and when the book of the Law was read to him, he tore his clothes; this was a sign in that time of repentance and humbling yourself before God.  These were the king’s orders; “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all of Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found.  For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.” Are we the enlightened people of 2009, repeating history?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice