2 Chronicles 25 – 28
Verse 25:2 kind of sums up the state of many in the church:
And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart.
How many of us have done this before? I know many times in my walk with God I was with Him and did what was right, just was not all on board. Heck I think even the great leaders today can say the same thing. It’s easy to get this way, especially when things are going as YOU planned them.
King Amaziah had things going his way, God was blessing him and he was winning in life. He followed God and did what was right sending the men from Israel back and fought only with men from Judah. But the spoils of war won him over and he set up the captured gods and worshiped them.
Today our gods take the form of cars, clothing, fine wine, houses, and status. The idols that Amaziah was chasing were just big fancy trinkets that took his attention away from God. Funny thing is we all say we would not do this, but most tend to drift to the trinket and not God. More often than not I am praying for “financial peace” so I can get what I want, add another distraction to life. I pray this time the trinkets don’t steal my attention away from God.
Verse 26:19 has God punishing pride:
Then Uzziah was angry. Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the LORD, by the altar of incense.
Uzziah seems to have taken the same path as Amaziah did. He followed God early on, but as success happened instead of thanking God he started to take the credit. In this case his pride was his downfall and worshiping himself more than God. Ironically his pride was punished by a disease of the skin that made one ugly. He was quickly “put in his place” and punished.
Amaziah and Uzziah both were showing the downfalls of 2 of the 7 deadly sins. Greed was Amaziah’s downfall and pride as Uzziah’s. These 7 sins are listed in Proverbs 6 expands on the 7 deadly sins and Paul expands on them in Galatians 5. My only concern is they are called “deadly” and Paul explicitly says in Galatians 5:21 that we “will not inherit the kingdom of God” because of them.
Do these supersede salvation? The “once saved, always saved” mantra seems to get blown away here. I can take “lust” alone and see the potential eternal damage it may be doing to the church. If Paul is right and these are “mortal” sins and not “capital” sins than Satan has won with internet porn. I know many “Godly” men who are trapped in the clutches of this addiction. Maybe if everyone took Paul serious, that market would be crushed, we would stop ordering “biggie” fry’s, we wouldn’t care about the 1% or we wouldn’t elevate ourselves above God.
Are we ready for judgment day? I wonder just looking in the mirror how my standing is with God. I can look at my life and see where each of these 7 “deadly” sins have taken control of my life. Lust, desiring sex over relationship, gluttony, not stopping on the treats, greed, desiring more money, sloth, spending more time surfing than working, wrath, blowing up at minor things, envy, seeing the car I want driven by some punk kid or pride, thinking I am worthy of a higher position within the company than I have all have crept into my life this week. How are you doing?