Sabbath School Lesson Begins
The Book of Jeremiah
Lesson 8 November 14-20
Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week's Study: 2 Chronicles 33:1-25, Hab. 1:2-4, 2 Kings 22, Phil. 2:3-8, 2 Kings 23:1-28, 1 Cor. 5:7.
Memory Text: Now
before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all
his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all
the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him
(2 Kings 23:25, NKJV).
Parents know just how hard it is to see their
children, especially when they are older and out of the parents'
control, make choices that they know will hurt them. Of course, this
heartache doesn't apply only to parents and children: Who hasn't at
some point seen friends or relatives or anyone make choices that you
knew would be detrimental to them? This is an unfortunate aspect of
what it means to have free will. Free will, especially moral free will,
means nothing if we don't have the freedom to make wrong choices. A free
being who can choose only the right is not truly free, or even truly moral.
Thus, much of Scripture is the story of God warning His people about not making wrong choices. This has been a major part of what the book of Jeremiah is about, too: the pleadings of God, who respects free choice and free will, to His chosen nation.
And though, unfortunately, most of the stories are not good, this
week we will get to see a glimmer of hope; that is, we see one of the
few kings who, using free will, chose to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
Study this week's lesson to prepare for Sabbath, November 21.
However much we like to talk about objectivity, about viewing things as they really are, as human beings we are hopelessly subjective. We see the world not so much as the world really is, but as we really are. And because we are fallen and corrupted beings, this corruption is going to impact our perceptions and interpretation of the world around us. How else, for instance, can we explain someone like King Manasseh of Judah (about 686-643 bc), especially those early years of his terrible apostasy? One can hardly imagine how he justified in his own mind the horrific abominations he allowed to flourish in Judah.
Read 2 Chronicles 33:1-25. What does this story tell us about just how corrupt a king Manasseh was? More important, what does this teach us about the willingness of God to forgive?
No question, being hauled off to Babylon with hooks and bronze fetters was certain to get a man to rethink his life. Nevertheless, the text is clear: Manasseh truly repented of his ways and, when restored to the throne, sought to repair the damage that he had done. Unfortunately, the damage was greater than he might have imagined.
But this repentance, remarkable though it was, came too late to
save the kingdom from the corrupting influence of years of idolatrous
practices. Many had stumbled and fallen, never again to rise.
-Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 383.
And, even more unfortunately, among those who had been terribly
impacted by Manasseh's apostasy was his son, Amon, who took the throne
after his father died and who did evil in the sight of the Lord, as
his father Manasseh had done; for Amon sacrificed to all the carved
images which his father Manasseh had made, and served them
(2 Chron. 33:22, NKJV). Worse, unlike his father, Amon never repented of his ways.
Who doesn't know personally the terrible consequences that can come even from sin that has been forgiven? What promises can you claim for the victory over sin? Why not claim them now before the sin brings its doleful consequences?
A preacher once said, Be careful what you pray for. You just might get it.
Israel had asked for and longed for a king, just like the nations
around them. They got what they asked for, and so much of Israelite
history after the era of the judges was the story of how these kings
corrupted themselves on the throne and, as a result, corrupted the
nation as well.
Nevertheless, there were always exceptions, such as King Josiah, who ascended the throne in 639 b.c. and ruled until 608 b.c.
What was the context in which the new king had come to the throne? (See 2 Chron. 33:25.)
Though democracy is supposed to be rulership by the people, it
generally wasn't conceived of functioning as it did in this case.
Nevertheless, the people made their will known, and it was done
according to their will. The young king came to the throne at a time of
great turmoil, apostasy, and violence, even at the highest levels of
government. Seeing what was going on, many faithful in the land had
wondered whether God's promises to ancient Israel could ever be
fulfilled. From a human point of view the divine purpose for the chosen nation seemed almost impossible of accomplishment.
-Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 384.
The anxiety of the faithful ones was expressed in the words of the prophet Habakkuk. Read Habakkuk 1:2-4. What is the prophet saying?
Unfortunately, the answer to the problems of iniquity, violence, strife, and lawlessness would come, but from the north, from the Babylonians, whom God would use to bring judgment upon His wayward people. As we have seen all along, it didn't have to be that way; however, because of their refusal to repent, they faced the punishment that their sins brought upon them.
From a human point of view, how often does the divine purpose
seem from a human point of view to be impossible to accomplish? What
does this tell us about how we need to reach out in faith beyond what
we see or fully understand?
Josiah was eight years old when he
began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And
his mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath. And
he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all
the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or
to the left
(2 Kings 22:1-2).
Considering the context of Josiah coming to the throne, what is so remarkable about these texts?
The Bible doesn't give us any explanation for this remarkable young man who, considering the circumstances, was most likely destined to be as corrupt and wicked as his father before him. That, however, wasn't the case. For whatever reasons, he chose a different course, and that was to have a positive, though ultimately limited, impact on the nation.
Second Kings 22:1-20 mentions what Josiah did in regard to the temple. From the dedication of the temple by Solomon, long centuries had passed until Josiah's reforms (622 b.c.). The kings had not really taken care of the temple. Time had eroded the building, which had once been beautiful. The young king saw that the temple was no longer suitable for worship due to long years of neglect.
What did Josiah do when he discovered the temple was in such disrepair? 2 Kings 22:3-7.
Today we would say that the king sent his minister of finance to the high priest and asked him to plan and oversee the materials and labor required to renovate the temple. They did not have to account for the money with which they were entrusted because they were acting faithfully. For whatever reasons, Josiah showed trust in them, and as far as the record shows, that trust was honored.
Refurbishing the temple is fine, but in the end, what really is crucial for a true revival and reformation? (See Phil. 2:3-8.)
The renovation of the sanctuary, long the center of Israelite
worship, was important, but renovation of a building wasn't all that
was needed. The most beautiful and elaborate structure, though designed
to help worshipers sense something of the power and grandeur of the
Lord, in and of itself isn't enough to evoke piety among the people.
History is replete with the sad stories of people who one minute were worshiping
in some beautiful church somewhere, and the next minute were walking
out and committing an atrocity, which was perhaps even instigated by
what they learned inside that beautiful structure.
What happened during the renovation of the temple? What is the powerful significance of Josiah's reaction to those events? 2 Kings 22:8-11.
They found the Book of the Law.
The Bible doesn't specify
which of Moses' writings were found. It was probably found buried in
the walls somewhere in the temple.
Read 2 Kings 22:12-20. What was Huldah's message from God to the people and to King Josiah? What should these words say to us?
Huldah transmitted the same message Jeremiah had already prophesied several times. The people who had turned away from God had dug their own grave through their deeds, and they were going to reap the consequences. Josiah never would see the trouble and die in peace.
Through Huldah the Lord sent Josiah word that Jerusalem's ruin
could not be averted. Even should the people now humble themselves
before God, they could not escape their punishment. So long had their
senses been deadened by wrongdoing that, if judgment should not come
upon them, they would soon return to the same sinful course. 'Tell the
man that sent you to me,' the prophetess declared, 'Thus saith the
Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the
inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of
Judah hath read: because they have forsaken Me, and have burned incense
unto other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works
of their hands; therefore My wrath shall be kindled against this place,
and shall not be quenched.' Verses 15-17.
-Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 399.
Despite the forewarning of doom, Josiah was still determined to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
Maybe disaster couldn't be averted, but
in announcing the retributive judgments of Heaven, the Lord had not
withdrawn opportunity for repentance and reformation; and Josiah,
discerning in this a willingness on the part of God to temper His
judgments with mercy, determined to do all in his power to bring about
decided reforms.
-Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 400.
Read 2 Kings 23:1-28. What was the essence of the reform that the faithful king sought to bring to his corrupted nation? What do these acts tell us about just how bad things had become in the chosen nation?
Josiah gathered all the people in Jerusalem in order to renew their covenant with God. The recently found Book of the Law was read, and then they made the vow to follow the God of Israel.
The king did not execute this work by himself, but asked those who had spiritual responsibilities to do what was needed. As an example, throughout the centuries, different objects-statues and symbols that popularized foreign worship in Israel-had been gathered into the temple. Sometimes they had been part of the conditions of peace, imposed upon the nation; sometimes kings had exhibited them in order to signify their pacification, a sign of surrender. Whatever the reasons, they did not belong there, and Josiah ordered them removed and destroyed.
Also, the Passover celebration during Josiah's reform did not take place only within the family households, as had been the custom before, but now the whole nation celebrated it together. Its symbolic message for the people was that they had left the old era behind them, and that they had now entered a new time in which they vowed to serve the true God, who led them out of Egypt, who provided a home for the tribes as He had promised, and who was with them in their everyday lives.
The significance in celebrating the national Passover was to start something new because (ideally, anyway) all the old things had come to an end. What should the symbolism of the Passover mean to us now, as Seventh-day Adventists? (See 1 Cor. 5:7.)
Further Thought: As the lesson stated, the depth of corruption that had befallen Israel can be seen in the kind of reforms that Josiah had to undertake. How, though, could the nation have fallen so far? In one sense, the answer is easy: it's because humanity has fallen so far. Just how far humanity has degraded was revealed in a famous experiment conducted at Yale University in the 1960s.Participants were brought in arbitrarily through newspaper ads and
told that they were to administer electric shocks to people tied down
to chairs in another room. The switches that administered the shocks
were marked from Slight Shock
to Danger: Severe Shock,
including two more ominously marked XXX.
Participants were told to administer the shocks according to the orders
of the scientist leading the experiment. As they did, the participants
would hear the people in the other room scream and plead for mercy. In
reality, the people in the other room were just acting: they were not
getting shocked at all. The point of the study was to see how far these
normal
participants would go in inflicting what they thought was
pain on those whom they didn't know, simply because they had been
ordered to do it. The results were frightening. Though many
participants got anxious, distraught, and even angry, that didn't stop a stunning 65 percent from administering the severest shocks
to these people, believing that they were truly hurting them. Ordinary people,
wrote the scientist who conducted the experiment, simply
doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part,
can become agents in a terrible destructive process.
How many ordinary
people have done terrible things through history, or even today? Too
many have, for sure. Why? Christians know the answer. We are sinners,
plain and simple.
Wesley Banda pastored several villages in Malawi. The family lived in a two-room house. Because the area had no electricity, Mrs. Banda prepared the family meals outside over an open fire.
One evening after dinner Mrs. Banda returned to her fire to prepare the morning meal of sadza (a thick porridge of cornmeal). Her husband sat in the family’s front room, working on some papers. The children sat quietly in the room waiting for family devotions, but 5-year-old Joshua had fallen asleep on the mat at his father’s feet.
As Pastor Banda lit the paraffin lamp, their only source of light, the flame sputtered, and he noticed the lamp was running low on fuel. He fetched the paraffin and began refilling the tank. But unknown to him, the paraffin was contaminated with a small amount of gasoline. As he poured the fuel into the lamp’s reservoir the fumes caught fire, and the lamp exploded in his hands.
Instinctively Pastor Banda threw the lamp across the room, but his clothes had caught fire. Mrs. Banda heard the explosion and looked up to see her husband run out the door, his clothes aflame. She immediately threw a pan of water onto his burning clothes while he rolled on the ground. Soon the fire was out.
The children ran out of the house, screaming, Fire! Fire!
The burning fuel had set the front room ablaze. In the excitement,
nobody noticed that little Joshua was missing. Moments later Mrs. Banda
looked at the doorway and saw Joshua crawling out of the house; his
clothes were burning. She shrieked and grabbed her youngest child and
dropped him into a pan of water. The fire hissed and went out, but
Joshua was terribly burned.
The neighbors dashed out of their houses to see what had happened. They rushed to put out the fire, but most of the family’s belongings were destroyed.
Their village had no clinic or hospital, so a neighbor ran to the house of a farmer who had a car. They banged on his door and begged for his immediate help. He rushed over to drive the Bandas to the nearest hospital. Even so, it was nearly midnight when the family entered the hospital emergency room. It had been more than four hours since the explosion.
The doctors shook their heads as they looked at the burns that the pastor and his son had suffered. Pastor Banda’s burns were serious, but little Joshua was even more seriously injured. Terrible burns covered his legs, stomach, and chest. Every movement brought screams of pain from the little boy. Even while they worked to save father and son some of the doctors tried to prepare the family for the likelihood that Joshua wouldn’t survive.
We’re doing everything we can for your son,
the doctor said gently. But he is so badly burned that it would be a blessing if he died.
No!
Mrs. Banda said firmly. God has saved his life. Do what you must, but God will save my son.
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