My Family Prayer Book

 2024-Mar-10: Fourth Sunday in Lent 2 Chronicles 36 This reading tells of Judah’s demise under its last three leaders, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Like most of their predecessors, these leaders embraced evil - relying not on God but on their own judgment, ignoring the repeated warning of prophets like Urijah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel thereby spurring Yahweh and entering into alliances with Egypt to secure their future. This resulted in idolatry and heavy taxation by Egypt who installed puppet Kings they could control.  God then removed His hand of protection and allowed Nebuchadnezzar II to gain control of Judah, plunder and destroy the Temple which had become defiled and send its people into exile for 70 years. The people, including God's prophets, suffered because of the sins of these evil leaders. Finally, God was faithful not to abandon His people in exile.  After 70 years of captivity, He used a Persian king named Cyrus to free His people. God wants you to place...

Liturgical study for Fourth Sunday in Lent   2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23 Abraham was called out of Ur  in the nation of Chaldees, when God made a covenant and sent him forth into Judea; but now his degenerate seed were carried back into that country again as slaves for having broken the covenant with God by the sin of idolatry despite the warning of many prophets including Jeremiah. They mocked the prophets, despised their word and treated them as their enemies. In 597 BC Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple, laid waste the land of Judah including the city of Jerusalem killing many including young and old. The remainder of the people that escaped the sword (about 10,000 wealthy Jews) were carried captives to Babylon for 70 years, impoverished, enslaved, insulted, and exposed to all the miseries meted out by their enemy rulers. Even in exile they didn’t always heed the words of Prophets Ezekiel and Isiah. Their exile ended when Cyrus the Persian conquered Mesopotamia in 538 BC,...