The End and the Beginning

Introduction

We are continuing our series 365, a year of biblical literacy. Our grand experiment this year is to, as a church, read through the entire Bible, day-by-day, from January 1 to December 31. At Creekside, we believe the Bible is more than a collection of wise sayings or disjointed stories. It’s one unified narrative that leads to Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world. And while the writing of this sacred text spans thousands of years, it is somehow intricately threaded together by core truths and themes. And this is important, because as we seek to know who we are—our core identity as followers of this Jesus, both individually and corporately—we want to be careful to understand our place in the story without merely proof-texting (grabbing 4-5 random verses to defend a position). We do not want to use the Scripture for our own gains, to form God in our own image. We want God to use his words in his ways to form us in his image, to become more like him—in his character and nature—every single day.

We’re officially halfway through the journey! If you’re just joining us—welcome. It’s never too late to jump into the story. And if you’ve fallen behind, today’s a great day to start again.

Today we are wrapping up the book of 2 Chronicles. The author, often called the Chronicler by scholars, is writing about this era of Israel’s history years after Israel has returned from exile in Babylon, with no king, no temple, no power. Chronicles is not a real time account; it is a retrospective, a looking back at Israel’s history in order to see hope going forward. Fun fact: Chronicles is the last book of the Hebrew Scriptures. This is is how the Jewish text ends. And it concludes with an incomplete sentence: “let him go up…” it is a story that does not end; it is a story in search of an ending.

Now, if you’ve been keeping up with the reading this week, then you’ve seen that the story takes a dark and difficult turn. What began as a story of promise and potential—of kings like David and Solomon, of temples and worship, of renewal and reform—ends in collapse.

The kings of Judah, generation after generation, have abandoned God. There are moments of hope—kings like Hezekiah and Josiah who try to turn things around—but ultimately, the people persist in rejecting God’s ways. And God, who has been patient, who has sent prophet after prophet to warn and to plead, finally allows the unthinkable: Jerusalem is destroyed. The temple is burned. The people are taken into exile.

This is one of the lowest moments in the entire biblical story. And it raises questions we’re still asking today:

What happens when people turn their backs on God?

Where is God when everything falls apart?

Is there still hope for redemption when we’ve gone too far?

That’s what we’re going to wrestle with today as we look at the final verses of 2 Chronicles. Because while this passage is sobering, it is also full of surprising grace. God’s judgment is real—but so is His mercy. And in the ashes of Judah’s rebellion, God plants a seed of hope that will one day grow into salvation—not just for Israel, but for the whole world.

Let’s pray, and then we’ll dive into 2 Chronicles 36:15–21.

PRAY:

Father, Thank You for the gift of Your Word—ancient, rich, and still alive. Thank You that even in the hardest, darkest parts of the story, You are present, speaking, calling us back, and offering us hope.

Today, we ask You to open our eyes—to see what is true. Open our ears—to hear Your voice speaking with compassion and conviction. And open our hearts—to receive the love and truth You have for us today.

Lord, we confess that we often treat Your Word like advice instead of activation. We do not want to simply apply a few good ideas today. We want to be changed. We want to be aligned with Your heart, Your character, and Your kingdom. We want our lives to be shaped from the inside out by Your presence and Your promises.

So as we look at this sobering moment in the history of Your people, help us to ask the deeper question: Where are we turning for life, and will we return to You before it’s too late? May Your Spirit meet us in that question with truth, grace, and a holy urgency.

Speak to us, Lord. We are listening. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Context Recap: The Long Decline (2 Chronicles 21–36)

As we wrap up 2 Chronicles, we come to a devastating moment in Israel’s story. After centuries of warnings, idolatry, and repeated rebellion, Judah’s kingdom finally collapses. The temple is destroyed. The people are exiled. It’s the lowest point so far in the story.

But even here—in the ashes of failure—we see something deeper: the relentless compassion of God. He had sent messengers again and again. He had pleaded with His people to return. But they refused.

And that brings us to the question today: What happens when we reject the God who keeps coming for us?

Let’s walk through this passage and see what God’s Word still says to us today.

God’s Compassionate Warnings (v. 15)

2 Chronicles 36:15 CSB

But the Lord, the God of their ancestors sent word against them by the hand of his messengers, sending them time and time again, for he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.

Let’s pause here to recognize the relentless mercy of God.

Back in the story, God made a promise to David that his descendants would always sit on the throne of Israel. He extended that same promise to Solomon—but with a warning: if the kings abandoned God’s ways and defiled the temple, they would bring ruin upon themselves. That’s fair, right? If you’re the Creator of the universe who promises to protect and provide for a nation, it’s not unreasonable to ask for faithfulness in return.

And yet… they all fail. Some in small ways. Some in devastating ones.

But God still loves His people.

He has compassion. He’s merciful. He forgives again and again—when there’s no good reason to. And to wake them up, He sends prophets—messengers—to call them back.

Here’s just a handful (in order):

Elijah, Elisha, Joel, Jonah,

Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah,

Nahum, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel…

This went on for 350 years. For context: the U.S. has only existed for about 250. Imagine a nation defying God for a hundred years longer than that—and God is still sending messengers of mercy.

Eventually, Ezekiel has a vision. The glory of God—once so thick in Solomon’s temple that priests couldn’t even enter—rises up and leaves. Just as humans were exiled east of Eden, now God Himself is exiled—He departs east of the city. The holy presence of God is gone. The house of God has been vacated.

Give YHWH credit—He tried. Really tried. Prophet after prophet. Warning after warning. He wasn’t looking to destroy them. He was pleading for them to come home.

Our God is not fickle. He is not quick to strike. His love outlasts your loyalty, every time. His patience is otherworldly.

And yet—even with all that mercy—they still walk away. They still trade the Kingdom of God for the more alluring empire of man.

Why?

That’s the question. Why did Israel fail like this? How could they, when God’s presence and voice is so clear?

And then I look at my own life. And I look at the church today.

And I see how easily God is exiled to the margins of our vision for the good life. Where there should be a thick and tangible sense of His glory, we find Him distant. Not because He left us—but because we’ve tuned Him out.

Why does that happen?

Maybe it’s because we take God for granted. See, the people who love us most are often the easiest to ignore. We assume they’ll always be there. Parents of teenagers—you know what I mean. After a while, your voice just becomes noise. The same can happen with God.

Maybe it’s because His warnings make us uncomfortable. They disrupt our comfort. They call for change. And when change is hard, tuning out is easier.

So let’s sit in this for a moment: Why do we tune God out?

Why would anyone ignore relentless compassion? Why would anyone scoff at a God who warns—not to crush us—but to save us?

Maybe… because we can.

Because God is slow to anger and rich in mercy, we assume He’ll always be there. We treat His patience as permission. We begin to confuse grace with indifference.

And deep down, we know something isn’t right—but we keep going. We keep scrolling. We keep running. We keep numbing. We keep doing what’s right in our own eyes because it works—until it doesn’t.

The most effective tool Satan uses to barricade us from God’s good life isn’t an obvious vice. It’s a quiet, creeping apathy. A slow drift that numbs the soul.

You can become so used to the availability of God’s love that you lose our awe for it.

You won’t outright reject Him; you will just gradually replace Him—until His voice becomes one among many, buried beneath notifications, newsfeeds, ambitions, and busyness. And when He does send a messenger—through a friend, a pastor, a Scripture reading, a whispered conviction in prayer—you shrug it off because you don’t want to be disrupted. You don’t want to change course.

And yet…

Somewhere deep down, beneath all the noise, you know there’s something more. You long for presence. You long for peace. You long for a word that speaks into the hollow of our hearts and says, “Come back. You’re not too far gone.”

You want to believe that God still speaks… but you are afraid He might say something we don’t want to hear.

You want to believe that God still loves us… but you wonder how long you can ignore Him before that love runs out.

But it doesn’t.

That’s the ache underneath this moment in Israel’s story—and maybe underneath yours too: the tension between the limitless mercy of God and the limitless capacity of the human heart to harden itself.

And it’s there, in that ache, that you have to ask: What will I do with the warnings of God’s love? Will I keep ridiculing? Or will I repent?

The Tragedy of Rejection (v. 16–20)

2 Chronicles 36:16–20 CSB

But they kept ridiculing God’s messengers, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the Lord’s wrath was so stirred up against his people that there was no remedy. So he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their fit young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He had no pity on young men or young women, elderly or aged; he handed them all over to him. He took everything to Babylon—all the articles of God’s temple, large and small, the treasures of the Lord’s temple, and the treasures of the king and his officials. Then the Chaldeans burned God’s temple. They tore down Jerusalem’s wall, burned all its palaces, and destroyed all its valuable articles. He deported those who escaped from the sword to Babylon, and they became servants to him and his sons until the rise of the Persian kingdom.

350 years of God’s relentless compassion. And this is how Israel responded:

They ridiculed God’s messengers

They despised God’s words

They scoffed at God’s prophets

Despite every effort from YHWH, his people remained stiff-necked and hard-hearted—unwilling to turn, to reorient, to see differently. They were stubborn and unmoved by their God’s advances. And at some point, God says, okay. Have it your way. You mock my mercy, you face the consequences of your actions.

YHWH allows the King of the Chaldeans (that’s Hebrew for Babylonians) to defeat his soldiers, destroy his temple, and deport his people.

That’s the consequence of spiritual hardening. Judgment becomes inevitable. And from a myopic, nearsighted point of view, this judgment seems… harsh. Men are killed, the temple is ransacked and destroyed, people are taken captive. And this is God’s doing? Is YHWH just a cruel, malevolent deity all along?

But as any good parent knows, sometimes the most loving thing you can do is allow your kids to experience real consequences. To know the natural result of their resistance. And like a good parent, God’s judgment is not cruelty. It’s compassion. And sometimes, it’s the only way to get through to a cold and calloused heart.

But this isn't just their story—it's ours too.

What voices do we mock today?

The Israelites mocked their prophets. They laughed off the messengers of God. And I can’t help but wonder: 

What voices do we mock today?

The faithful friend who calls you out when your anger is poisoning your home?

The pastor who challenges your comfort and names our idols?

The inner whisper of the Holy Spirit that tells you: this relationship, this pattern, this compromise—it’s not okay?

We scoff. We scroll. We say, “It’s not that big of a deal.” We assume grace means God will always shield us from the weight of our decisions. But eventually, the scaffolding of self-reliance collapses. And we find ourselves sitting in the ruins.

The ruins of choices we thought would never matter.

Let’s be honest: some of you are already there. You are living in the ruins of choices that you thought would never matter.

Maybe you live with a brokenness you never thought would come. A shattered marriage. A fractured relationship with a child. A bitter heart that’s become a permanent lens. Regret that lingers longer than you ever imagined. You made decisions we thought were minor—harmless, maybe even justified. But they chipped away at your trust in God, and over time, the cracks gave way.

You mocked the messengers. You ignored the warnings. You never thought the house would fall.

And now? Now you sit among the rubble, wondering if restoration is even possible.

And that leads us to the next point in the story. Because the good news of the Bible is not just that God judges with compassion—but that He restores with grace.

The Faithfulness of God (v. 21)

2 Chronicles 36:21 CSB

This fulfilled the word of the Lord through Jeremiah, and the land enjoyed its Sabbath rest all the days of the desolation until seventy years were fulfilled.

Now, after this great, depressing story of exile and judgment, the Chronicler makes this curious statement: the land enjoyed its Sabbath rest all the days of the desolation, for 70 years.

Exile, captivity, deportation, is… Sabbath? It’s Rest?

The Bible has this concept of Sabbath rest that is applied to the land. Every seven years, when it has been used and abused and drained of its resources, the law states that farmers should give the land a break. They don’t sow seeds, they don’t plan vines. They rest for farming. And every Seventh seventh year, there’s a total reset. The land rests. The people rest. Slaves are set free, land is returned, debts are cancelled. Resources are reallocated. Everything gets zeroed out. The people worship, while the land and the body heals.

That’s shabbat. The Spiritual practice of stopping. And Israel had neglected this practice for a long time.

For years, Israel had ceased to be a place where the life-altering, heart changing presence of God could be found. Instead, it was filled with power struggles, and idol worship, and cultic prostitution. The poor and destitute were stomped on, while the religious leaders lined their pockets and tickled ears with positive preaching. Israel the land, Israel the people, was dead and decaying and fruitless.

And then, mercifully, YHWH gives it all a massive reset. A season of Jubilee, 70 years. The land enjoyed its sabbath rest. And this fulfilled the word of YHWH. It was part of his plan to revive and restore his people. Remember, the Chronicler writes this after Israel has been granted a return to the their land. No more king, no more temple, no more quests for power and control, but he sees the bigger picture now. YHWH has been faithful all along. Even in disobedience. Even in exile.

Judgment is never the end of the story. It is always redemption.

That’s what makes this passage so powerful—not just what it says about Israel, but what it points to in Jesus.

Jesus: The Greater Restoration

Jesus enters a world not unlike ancient Judah—a world of broken systems, corrupt leaders, and spiritual exile. A world that had ridiculed the prophets and rejected the voice of God.

But instead of sending another messenger, God sends Himself.

Jesus is the ultimate messenger of compassion, sent not to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:17). He is the true temple, the very presence of God made flesh (John 1:14). And He is the rightful King—but not a king who takes, like the kings of old. He is the King who gives everything.

He carries the full weight of judgment on Himself. The wrath that we stirred up? He absorbs it on the cross. The exile we deserved? He experiences it fully—cut off, betrayed, alone. And why? So we could be brought home.

The Sabbath rest of 2 Chronicles 36 was just a shadow. Jesus is the greater rest (Hebrews 4). Not seventy years of land renewal—but eternal rest for your soul. In Him, the striving stops. The guilt is lifted. The exile ends.

Hebrews 1:3 CSB

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Revelation 1:5–6 CSB

Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has set us free from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father—to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Jesus reigns—even when the world is in ruins. And that means your ruins are not the end.

He is faithful in your exile. He is present in your pain. And He is able to bring restoration in ways you never imagined.

Exile Is Not the End

This is the good news of 2 Chronicles 36:

Your failure is not final. Your rebellion does not put you beyond mercy.

The people of Judah were scattered, broken, exiled—but they were not abandoned. And neither are you. You might feel like you're living in the wreckage of choices you made long ago. You might feel like the presence of God has long since left the building. You might even believe you've gone too far to come back.

But hear this: Jesus brings us back from exile—not to a place, but to a Person. To Himself.

Romans 2:4 says it like this:

Romans 2:4 CSB

Do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

That’s the invitation: not shame, but kindness. Not condemnation, but compassion. He’s not done with you. His kindness is calling you home. And here’s something beautiful: In Hebrew, the idea of repentance isn’t just emotional or internal—it’s embodied. It literally means to turn, especially to turn the neck.

The Hebrew word nephesh—often translated as soul or life—also refers to the neck, where the breath of life flows. So repentance is a kind of reorientation of the whole self—a turning of the neck, a turning of the soul, back to the God who breathes life.

Just a few verses earlier, the people of Judah were described as obstinate—stiff-necked, unable to turn. That’s the tragedy.

But the miracle of grace is that you don’t have to stay that way.

If you’ve been stiff-necked—resisting God’s voice, refusing His grace—now is the moment to turn. Turn your eyes back to Him. Turn your soul toward life. Let Him breathe into you again.

What Do We Do With This?

Let’s get really practical. What does it look like to respond?

Vision:

Picture a life where your heart is soft, responsive to God’s voice, no longer hiding or hardening, but walking in freedom—not fear. A life where the patterns of exile—distance from God, coldness toward others, shame, self-reliance—are replaced with peace, closeness, joy.

Intention:

What warnings or messengers have you ignored? Where have you ridiculed, despised, or scoffed at the slow, persistent call of God in your life? Where has your neck grown stiff—your vision fixed on something other than God’s mercy? Will you turn today? Will you repent—not out of fear, but because His kindness is too beautiful to resist?

Means:

Here are three ways to take a step forward this week:

Sit with 2 Chronicles 36. Read it slowly. Ask: “Where have I resisted God’s mercy?”

Practice confession and silence. Set aside 10 minutes. Name your resistance out loud. Then, be still and listen for the voice of the Spirit.

Ask someone you trust—a mentor, a friend, a house church leader—to walk with you. Say, “I want to stay soft and responsive to God. Will you help me?”

You don’t have to figure this out alone.

Closing

We all have moments when everything falls apart. When the walls cave in. When the consequences of our choices come crashing down. When it feels like exile—like distance from everything we once knew, and everything we hoped for.

The good news of 2 Chronicles 36 is that even then, God is not finished.

What we see as the end, God sees as the beginning.

His compassion doesn’t quit. His mercy doesn’t run dry. He is still sending messengers. He is still calling you back.

Prayer

God of mercy, Open our eyes to see you clearly. Open our ears to hear your voice cutting through the noise. Open our hearts to receive your compassion and respond with surrender.

We don’t want to be people who scoff or dismiss your truth. We want to be people who are shaped by it—transformed from the inside out.

So speak, Lord. Speak through your Word. Let your kindness lead us to repentance. And help us walk forward—not in fear or shame, but in the joy of being fully known and deeply loved by you.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.