{"id":4817,"date":"2023-06-12T20:51:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-13T01:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4817"},"modified":"2023-06-12T20:51:38","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T01:51:38","slug":"devotional-on-2-kings-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-2-kings-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on 2 Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-OAtSi3tm64k\/XoYD0H9Gf-I\/AAAAAAABEe0\/quvhyOEwS8M7H3UMUjzE5-gLLof6RPRMgCKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_6061.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2017 &#8211; Badlands National Park, SD<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nCrushing the serpent<br \/>\n2Kings 18: He pulverized the ancient bronze serpent that Moses had made.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s such a pleasure to meet Hezekiah, king of Judah. After reading the pitiful record of most of the kings of Israel and Judah it\u2019s a breath of fresh air to read, &#8220;In God&#8217;s opinion he was a good king.&#8221; It&#8217;s good to know that it\u2019s possible to do that which is pleasing to the Lord and see that the he isn\u2019t setting impossibly high standards just to make us jump a little higher as we try in vain to reach something that\u2019s forever out of reach. Hezekiah proves that God&#8217;s standard is within our grasp and that it\u2019s made possible by the help of none other than the Lord, Himself. From the beginning Hezekiah gets off on the right foot. For centuries kings of Judah have tolerated the fertility shrines that the people want. Even when there\u2019s a revival of the Jehovah worship these shrines remain. Not so under Hezekiah. He gets rid of them all. Then we see that he gets rid of something else. Generations earlier, during an infestation of poisonous snakes, the Lord directs Moses to make a bronze snake. That snake becomes their salvation, a symbol of the mercy of God. These days, though, that old bronze snake has become just another idol. People are actually making sacrifices to it! Hezekiah does the unthinkable: he destroys this important historical artifact, grinding it to nothing. Of course, there\u2019s nothing wrong with the old bronze serpent. It\u2019s just a statue with historical significance. It\u2019s their use of it that\u2019s objectionable. Better to destroy a bit of their history and serve God in the here and now. I wonder what the &#8220;bronze serpents&#8221; are in my nation, in my church, and in my life. Whatever they are, and no matter what value they were in the past, it\u2019s better to &#8220;pulverize&#8221; them than let them come between God and me.<br \/>\nTake Away: Remember the great movements of the Lord in years gone by but don\u2019t worship them. God is the God of the present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Crushing the serpent 2Kings 18: He pulverized the ancient bronze serpent that Moses had made. It\u2019s such a pleasure to meet Hezekiah, king of Judah. After reading the pitiful record of most of the kings of Israel and Judah it\u2019s a breath of fresh air to read, &#8220;In God&#8217;s opinion he was a good king.&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1479,7],"tags":[117,547,581,912,928],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4817"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14499,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817\/revisions\/14499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}