When you hear the word memorials, what comes to your mind? Funeral speeches? Highways or roads? Plaques on a building, a hospital or a bridge? Maybe a statue? Statues are the memorials that first come to my mind. In each of these cases, the commemoration slowly gathers its copper patina, grime in its corners. The snow will settle on it a melt with the next warmish day.
Those types of things man’s memorials. Some of them, like those erected to Stalin, Lenin or Sadam Hussein, are memorably demolished. In 2 Kings 8:19, we see a different way, a real way in a memorial has been commemorated: grace.
19 Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant David, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants forever. (2 Kings 8:19–NIV)
The word nevertheless is a big one. In fact, if peeled apart one finds three smaller words all jammed up against one another. But, it is also a big word because it gives pause to the narrative. A careful reader stops and peers back at what came before.
In those preceding verses we read of Jehoram. He walked in the counsel of the wicked; he stood in the way of sinners and sat in the seat of scoffers1. His father and he made an unholy alliance. In case you were wondering, that is not the way to be blessed. Jehoram got his memorial as well but not of the kind David did.
David was a sinner as Jehoshaphat and Jehoram were (us too, by the way). Nevertheless, his strongest motivation rose differently than that of these descendant kings. It rose in such a manner back in his day that God gave David that promise we read way back in 2 Kings 8.
God was unwilling to destroy Judah because of a promise he had made to David. God remembers his promises and the memorial to King David would go on forever. It would eventually culminate in that of King Jesus, firstborn of the eternal family he purposed and set out to build. There was a lull from the Babylonian captivity to his resurrection, but lulls are not broken promises.
God’s memorials transcend the times of people. That is because people are eternal; the family he is building is eternal. We do well to remember the guide of our conscience which he left in our hearts and follow it. We do even better to facilitate them by the study of the words he gave to us in the scriptures and the Holy Spirit he sent to indwell those who cast their allegiance with him.
Judah’s Jehoram married a wicked woman tipping his balance badly. We must submit to the leadership of God. That is how to have peace and confidence in the now; that is how to have purpose through the “Oh my’s” of life; know that we can be part of his eternal family, pray for help in its understanding and aim for that perfection.
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