Title: How to Prevent the Fall of Life
2 Kings (58) The way to prevent the destruction of life
(2 Kings 25:1-17)
1. You must repent completely
Why was Judah destroyed? The root cause is God's judgment for idolatry and disobedience. In particular, the great famine accompanying Judah's destruction further indicates that the destruction of Judah was due to God's judgment. Just as Ahab's idolatry caused severe famine for three years and six months, famine and warfare are important instruments of God's judgment. Therefore, the first thing we must do when we are faced with famine, war, and famine is repentance.
Whether it is a nation or an individual, the closer the destruction is, the less the words “It’s my fault!” and the more “It’s your fault!” Repentance is necessary to reverse such a phenomenon. You must repent and try to completely depend on God. When we increase our strength, we must also increase our strength within the will of God. If you do not depend on God but only on the power of the world, you will eventually be defeated by the power of the world.
In the Chronicles of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar is described as a great conqueror who conquered many countries and killed many people. How contradictory is it that if you kill many in war, you are praised as a great conqueror, and if you kill one person around you, you are considered a bad murderer? In the end, if you use force to kill a lot of people, God's judgment will surely follow. Human power is inevitably powerless. If you rely on power, you will surely be defeated. Turning to God through repentance and continuing to abide completely in God's will and word is the way to prevent destruction.
2. We must watch and pray
According to the Bible, famine and famine are one of the clearest signs of the last days. In Mark 13:8, Jesus said these things about the end times. “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be earthquakes in many places and famines, which are the beginning of calamities.” In preparation for such last days, Jesus told us to stay awake. No one knows the day and hour of the end. That is why we need to be more faithful today while watching and praying.
When Jesus prayed all night in the Garden of Gethsemane, he told Peter, James, and John to stay awake, but they were all asleep. Then Jesus said (Mark 14:37). “Simon, are you sleeping, could you not stay awake for an hour?” Jesus asked for more than an hour of early morning prayer. ‘An hour of dawn’ is the greatest weapon to win the spiritual warfare and prevent the destruction of the soul. If you think that one hour is a waste, you will have to endure the time of pain several dozen times.
Then Jesus continued to speak. “Watch and pray that you may not fall into temptation” (Mark 14:38). If you do not watch and pray, you will have no choice but to enter the test. That is why we must be busy with prayer more than anything else. It's good to be busy, but the more important thing is to think about why you're here on this earth. You must keep awake, sober, and pray with those thoughts in mind to prevent the destruction of your life.
3. We must practice sharing
Historically, when economic justice is distorted, God often judges it as a famine. After all, human greed is one of the main causes of famine and destruction. Why does the Bible say that famines and famines will become more severe in the last days, when scientific development will solve the problems of famine and famine in the last days? Because people's sins and greed increase that much. Ultimately, there is the best way to overcome famine, famine, and destruction. That is sharing.
If famine and famine cannot be avoided anyway, we must overcome them well. So we need to share. When the Jerusalem church was in trouble due to a great famine, the Macedonian church worked hard to help the Jerusalem church by sending donations. At that time, the Macedonians had a heart in debt to the church in Jerusalem that preached the gospel. And in times of famine, they paid it back with material things. In order to overcome the famine in life like this, we need to make a greater commitment to sharing and practice.
Amos 8:11 says this. “Behold, the days are coming, and I will send a famine on the land, not a hunger for food, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord.” The biggest problem today is not the thirst of the body, but the thirst of the soul caused by not hearing the Word. As science and material civilization develop, the inner world of the soul becomes empty, and the spiritual poverty of the rich is more serious than the material poverty of the poor. So there must be something more important than money. What is that? That's love.
What is the greatest reality of love? It's a secret sharing. The more people share, the richer their inner world becomes. Numerous problems in human society usually stem from hunger problems rather than hunger problems. When you realize that fact and try to solve someone's hunger problem through sharing, your soul's hunger problem will be solved, and such a life will become an iron barrier that prevents the destruction of your life and soul.