When Moral Decline Is Encouraged

 

 

Good day! I’m Duane Matz and this is Today’s Living Word:

 

Isa 14:28 This is the burden which came in the year that King Ahaz died. 29 "Do not rejoice, all you of Philistia, Because the rod that struck you is broken; For out of the serpent's roots will come forth a viper, And its offspring will be a fiery flying serpent.

 

King Ahaz is dead and God uses the opportunity to unload against those thorns in the side of His people…the Philistines. At this point it would do us well to revisit the reign of King Ahaz who came to power at the ripe old age of 20 and  “he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God,”

 

Uh oh, “he didn’t do right!” This poor spiritual leadership of King Ahaz opened the door to military gains by the Philistines as they conquered and occupied several cities in Judah!  2Ch 28:18, tells us:“The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the lowland and of the South of Judah, and had taken Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Sochoh with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and Gimzo with its villages; and they dwelt there.

 

Why were they successful in conquering these cities? Because the Lord used the Philistines to humble Ahaz due to his unfaithfulness to the Lord.

“For the LORD brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had encouraged moral decline in Judah and had been continually unfaithful to the LORD. (2 Chr 28:19)

 

How did he encourage moral decline? 2Ki 16:3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel; indeed he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had cast out from before the children of Israel

 

He gave state approval to child sacrifice! And that should give us reason to pause and consider the state of our own nation. We have given state approval to child sacrifice ever since the 1973 Supreme Court decision known as Roe Vs Wade that legalized the killing of unborn children through the act of abortion.

 

We have given God an invitation to bring us low as a nation. Oh, we haven’t been physically invaded by any nation, but we have suffered losses in the areas of moral decline. Much ground has been lost due to our own unfaithfulness. Divorce, sexual immorality, gender confusion, and more continue to eat away at God’s righteous standards for living.

 

And we are a mess. The morally bankrupt Philistines of our day seem to be gaining every day! It’s a mess that only God can straighten out, and He will if we turn to Him. Moral ground can be retaken by a people who humble themselves, and it starts with you and I….the people who are called by God’s name…. Christians.

 

2Ch 7:14 "if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

 

I’m Duane Matz and that’s Today’s Living Word.