YEAR 2, WEEK 51, Day 6, Saturday, 20 December 2025

https://esv.literalword.com/?q=2+Chronicles+28

Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Saturday, 20 December 2025:

2 Chronicles 28:1 — Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done.

The chapter opens with moral clarity. Ahaz’s reign is defined not by ignorance but by rejection. He knew the standard and chose against it. Unlike many kings who drifted gradually, Ahaz’s leadership is marked by willful rebellion from the outset. Scripture measures kings not by effectiveness, popularity, or innovation, but by faithfulness. Ahaz fails that test immediately. Leadership is never neutral; it either aligns with God’s ways or resists them.

2 Chronicles 28:2 — But he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made metal images for the Baals,

Ahaz imports apostasy. Judah begins to mirror Israel’s idolatry, collapsing the distinction God established between covenant faithfulness and compromise. Idolatry is not merely theological error; it is leadership malpractice. When leaders adopt the values of ungodly systems, they institutionalize rebellion. Baal worship represents trust redirected away from God toward human-controlled power, fertility, and security.

Following anyone other than Jesus will lead you to sin and destruction. You cannot walk with the ungodly and walk with Jesus at the same time; they are going in opposite directions. The world, which is in rebellion to God, pursues substitutes for God while your aim in life is Jesus Himself. Conversely, you should be growing closer each day to those who are seeking greater unity with Jesus, like ships headed to the same destination.

2 Chronicles 28:3 — And he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

This is the lowest point of Ahaz’s reign. He does not merely tolerate evil; he sacrifices his own children to it. The Valley of Hinnom becomes a symbol of hell itself in later Scripture. When leaders abandon God, the most vulnerable always suffer first. Idolatry demands blood. Sin always escalates. What begins as compromise ends in destruction.

This ancient sin, this “abomination of the nations,” parallels modern abortion, both involving the destruction of one’s own offspring for perceived self-interest. While Ahaz sacrificed his sons to appease false gods like Molech for political or military security, contemporary society effectively “sacrifices” children on the altars of personal convenience, career advancement, and sexual pleasure (less than 1% for medical “medical necessity”). In both instances, the act is a rejection of the sanctity of life and a replacement of the Creator’s authority with self-serving idolatry — the ancient worship of a literal idol and the modern worship of the “idolatrous self,” literally rejecting humanity as the “image of God” in mankind.

2 Chronicles 28:3 exposes the terminal logic of self-idolatry. When the self becomes god, the innocent always pay the price. Ahaz’s sacrifices were not merely pagan rituals; they were the inevitable outcome of worshiping power, security, control, and self-preservation at all costs. Sin always consumes what it promises to protect. It devours children, dignity, conscience, and future hope. Yet here the gospel explodes into the darkness with holy contrast. Where sinful humanity sacrifices the innocent to save itself, God does the unthinkable: He sacrifices Himself to save the guilty. Jesus Christ, perfectly innocent, willingly offered His life so that sinners, including those guilty of unspeakable evil, might live, fully, now and into eternity. The cross stands as the great reversal of human religion. Trust in self leads to death, always. Trust in Christ leads to life, always. At Calvary, the innocent Son of God bore the judgment earned by the guilty so that even those stained by the blood of children could be cleansed by His blood through repentance and faith. This is not cheap grace; it is costly, crushing, breathtaking grace. Sin shows us what humans do when they rule themselves. The cross shows us what God does when love reigns. One path ends in fire, eternal damnation. The other ends in forgiveness, new birth, and eternal life. Everyone is on one path or the other. Switching paths is a simple as accepting Christ’s lead and turning around (repenting). Immediately you are on the right path if you are truly waking with Him. “Jesus said.., ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6) Do you believe Him? Not just profess to believe Him, but do you really believe Him?

• John 3:36, 14:15, 21, 23-24; 1 John 5:3 – “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him…. If you love me, you will keep my commandments…. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” … Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.” Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

2 Chronicles 28:4 — And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

When worship loses its anchor in God’s revealed will, it becomes spiritual consumerism — fragmented, decentralized, and self-directed. Ahaz promotes a religion that feels accessible but is utterly corrupt. The repetition emphasizes how thoroughly rebellion has spread.

2 Chronicles 28:5 — Therefore the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Syria, who defeated him and took captive a great number of his people and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with great force. Compare this with modern-day “Christian” consumerism. How many people are searching for a church which serves their “needs,” rather than one which is faithfully serving Him in often very inconvenient, unglamorous ways.

The word “therefore” matters. Judgment is not random; it is relational consequence. God removes protection when leaders reject Him. External defeat mirrors internal collapse. Ahaz sought security through idols and foreign alliances and receives vulnerability instead. When God is removed from leadership, instability is inevitable.

2 Chronicles 28:6 — For Pekah the son of Remaliah killed 120,000 in Judah in one day, all of them men of valor, because they had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers.

The loss is catastrophic. These are not weak men but warriors. Strength without obedience is meaningless. Scripture again names the cause plainly: they had forsaken the Lord. National security is ultimately spiritual, not military. Valor cannot substitute for covenant faithfulness.

2 Chronicles 28:7 — And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, killed Maaseiah the king’s son and Azrikam the commander of the palace and Elkanah the next in authority to the king.

Leadership collapses from the inside out. Ahaz’s house disintegrates. When a king dishonors God, his authority structure fractures. God removes false supports one by one. Authority that does not submit to God cannot sustain itself.

2 Chronicles 28:8 — The men of Israel took captive 200,000 of their relatives, women, sons, and daughters. They also took much spoil from them and brought the spoil to Samaria.

Sin dehumanizes. Brothers enslave brothers. Covenant kinship dissolves when God’s law is abandoned. What should have been unthinkable becomes routine. This is what happens when identity rooted in God is replaced by power and pragmatism.

2 Chronicles 28:9 — But a prophet of the Lord was there, whose name was Oded, and he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria and said to them, “Behold, because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he gave them into your hand, but you have killed them in a rage that has reached up to heaven.

God interrupts cruelty with truth. Oded affirms God’s judgment on Judah but condemns Israel’s excess. Discipline is never permission for abuse. God holds all parties accountable. Righteous judgment never excuses unrighteous behavior.

2 Chronicles 28:10 — And now you intend to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem, male and female, as your slaves. But are you not also guilty before the Lord your God?

This is moral confrontation. Victory does not equal innocence. Oded exposes hypocrisy: those who judge others while standing guilty themselves. No one escapes accountability by pointing at someone else’s sin.

This confrontation exposes a sobering truth about how God works in history. God often uses sinful people as instruments of His purposes, but that use never confers moral credit, spiritual legitimacy, or righteousness to the one He uses. The northern leaders are quick to condemn Judah’s sin while standing blind to their own guilt before the same holy God. Scripture consistently warns that visible impact is not the same as divine approval. Jesus Himself said that many will point to mighty works done in His name only to hear the terrifying words, I never knew you. External effectiveness can coexist with internal rebellion. This is why Christ warns against removing specks from another’s eye while ignoring the plank in our own; judgment without self-examination is hypocrisy dressed as zeal. Christians are indeed called to rebuke sin, but always from a posture of humility, love, and shared dependence on grace, not self-righteousness, pride, or personal vindication. True correction flows from an awareness that we stand before God solely by mercy, with the aim not of winning arguments or asserting superiority, but of restoration, reconciliation, and oneness with Him. When rebuke forgets grace, it ceases to reflect Christ and becomes another form of bondage rather than a pathway to freedom.

• John 7:21-23 – “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
• John 7:1-5 — “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
• 1 Peter 5:5 — Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

2 Chronicles 28:11 — Now hear me, and send back the captives from your brothers whom you have taken, for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you.

Repentance is actionable. Oded demands immediate correction, not symbolic remorse. God’s wrath is not merely emotional; it is directional. There is still time to respond, but delay would invite judgment.

God’s people have always been called to serve as the conscience of government and to convict others of sin, call people to repentance, in humility and love (for their benefit, not yours), and warn of God’s looming judgment of sin.

2 Chronicles 28:12 — Certain chiefs also of the men of Ephraim… stood up against those who were coming from the war….

God raises internal resistance. Even in a corrupt system, conscience survives. Leadership begins to reemerge where courage meets conviction. Reform often starts with a remnant willing to speak up.

2 Chronicles 28:13 — And said to them, “You shall not bring the captives in here, for you propose to bring upon us guilt against the Lord in addition to our present sins and guilt, for our guilt is already great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel.”

These leaders recognize cumulative guilt. Sin compounds. Wisdom sees the trajectory and intervenes before disaster accelerates. Awareness of guilt becomes the first step toward restraint.

2 Chronicles 28:14-15 — So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the assembly. And the men who have been mentioned by name rose and took the captives… clothed them… fed them… anointed them… and brought them to their brothers at Jericho….

This is one of the most beautiful scenes of repentance in Scripture. Mercy replaces brutality. Care replaces cruelty. Those once abused are restored with dignity. True repentance repairs what sin destroyed. This moment anticipates Christ’s command to love even enemies.

2 Chronicles 28:16 — At that time King Ahaz sent to the king of Assyria for help.

Ahaz doubles down on dependence. Instead of returning to God, he seeks political salvation. When leaders refuse repentance, they replace it with escalation of sin. External solutions cannot heal spiritual fractures.

2 Chronicles 28:17 — For the Edomites had again invaded and defeated Judah and carried away captives.

Pressure increases. Problems multiply. Disobedience rarely produces a single consequence; it invites a cascade. “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay,”

• Hosea 8:7 — For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

2 Chronicles 28:18 — And the Philistines had made raids… for the Lord humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had made Judah act sinfully and had been very unfaithful to the Lord.

Scripture explicitly ties national humiliation to leadership failure. Ahaz does not merely sin personally; he leads Judah into unfaithfulness. Leaders multiply either obedience or rebellion.

2 Chronicles 28:19-21 — Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came against him and afflicted him instead of strengthening him… though Ahaz took a portion from the house of the Lord….

False saviors always disappoint. What Ahaz thought would rescue him drains him further. Compromise always costs more than promised. Trust placed outside God ultimately extracts everything.

2 Chronicles 28:20 – So Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came against him and afflicted him instead of strengthening him.

Turning to the world for strength rather than God will only hurt you, not help you.

2 Chronicles 28:22 — In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the Lord — this same King Ahaz.

This is tragic consistency. Distress reveals allegiance. Instead of repentance, Ahaz entrenches rebellion. Pain does not soften him; it hardens him. Crisis does not create character; it reveals it.

When you do not repent, you sink deeper into sin.

2 Chronicles 28:23 — For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus… saying, “Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them….”

This is spiritual insanity. Ahaz worships what defeated him. He confuses power with truth. Pragmatism replaces worship. He bows to whatever appears successful, regardless of righteousness.

What seems to work for the world will not work for us. We operate within the spiritual realm with spiritual goals and objectives.

2 Chronicles 28:24 — And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God and cut in pieces the vessels…shut up the doors of the house of the Lord….

This is full apostasy. Worship is not neglected; it is dismantled. When leaders reject God, they eventually silence Him. Closing the temple symbolizes cutting off repentance itself.

2 Chronicles 28:25 — And he made high places in every city of Judah to make offerings to other gods….

Idolatry becomes policy. Rebellion is institutionalized. What begins in the heart ends in legislation. Consider how sin has been institutionalized and legalized today? What sins have you made ‘personal policy.’

2 Chronicles 28:26-27 — Now the rest of his acts… were written…. And Ahaz slept with his fathers… they did not bring him into the tombs of the kings of Israel.

Ahaz leaves a legacy of shame. Even in death, honor is withheld. Scripture closes not with accomplishments but with consequence. A life spent rejecting God ends without peace.

“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) — 20 December 2025: Examine where pressure or desires have pushed you toward substitutes instead of surrender. Identify one area where distress is tempting you to trust something other than God. Repent decisively. Close the doors on what compromise has opened up, and reopen what compromise has closed. Choose obedience over the obliteration.

Pray: “Father, guard my heart in times of pressure and temptation. Keep me from seeking false solutions or satisfactions when You are calling me to repentance, faith and faithfulness. Teach me to trust You when obedience is costly and when distress is intense. Restore what compromise has damaged and anchor my life in faithful dependence on You. Amen.”