Thursday, January 16, 2020

Shebna's Retirement

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Thursday, January 16, 2020

This is what the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, said to me:  “Confront Shebna, the palace administrator, and give him this message:  “Who do you think you are, and what are you doing here, building a beautiful tomb for yourself—a monument high up in the rock?  For the Lord is about to hurl you away, mighty man.  He is going to grab you, crumple you into a ball, and toss you away into a distant, barren land.  There you will die, and your glorious chariots will be broken and useless.  You are a disgrace to your master!  “Yes, I will drive you out of office,” says the Lord.  “I will pull you down from your high position.  And then I will call my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah to replace you.  I will dress him in your royal robes and will give him your title and your authority.  And he will be a father to the people of Jerusalem and Judah.  I will give him the key to the house of David—the highest position in the royal court.  When he opens doors, no one will be able to close them; when he closes doors, no one will be able to open them.  He will bring honor to his family name, for I will drive him firmly in place like a nail in the wall.  They will give him great responsibility, and he will bring honor to even the lowliest members of his family.”  But the Lord of Heaven’s Armies also says: “The time will come when I will pull out the nail that seemed so firm.  It will come out and fall to the ground. Everything it supports will fall with it. I, the Lord, have spoken!”                Isaiah 22: 15-22

Shebna was palace administrator in the most powerful kingdom on earth.  The next moment he was retired…to the garbage dump!  Hero to zero in nothing flat!  Horatio Alger wrote novels in the so-called Gilded Age of U.S. history, always the rags-to-riches of young, impoverished boys who grew up to be rich and admirable.  Shebna is the downside of this theme.  He had it all, but was unfaithful, and God was going to toss him into Hell’s wastebasket!  Shebna’s seat of power would belong to Hilkiah’s son, Eliakim, who would do well for a while, but even his legacy would resemble a loose nail in a wobbly table.
When I read passages that show God’s displeasure with unfaithful servants, I get a case of the night sweats.  After all, I am a pastor, charged with leadership in God’s house, and, whether the membership is a dozen or thousands, it is a holy calling, and not to be a trifling thing.  An unfaithful servant is just as wicked in a small place as having charge over Jerusalem’s palace.
For You Today
We are all servants in God’s kingdom, and we are all, in some way, called to be at work in His vineyard.  As you ponder that thought about how you are involved as a vineyard servant, ask this question also – is my service for Him, or for me?
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

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