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"FAITHFUL TO THE END" "So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him.And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon." (2 Kings 25:6-7)Following Josiah's reign of 31 years, there was never again a godly king in Judah. Each successive king paid tribute to Egypt, and the last king, Zedekiah, paid tribute to Babylon, but later rebelled. He was captured and his sons were murdered before his eyes. After that, Zedekiah's own eyes were gouged out.When the army from Babylon invaded Jerusalem, they burned and demolished the buildings of the city. The temple was completely looted before it was torn down. 2 Kings 24:3-4 tells us that God was unwilling to forgive the land because of the idolatry and murders committed by Manasseh, the 14th king of Judah. Manasseh's wicked reign lasted for 55 years. He had infected the nation to the point where even the reforms of Josiah could not purge it. If you were to read the rest of this 25th chapter, you would learn of the final destruction of what was left in Jerusalem.As Christians, we have that Holy calling upon our lives to live according to the Truth found in God's Word, and our life is to be a faithful witness of that Truth to those we come in contact with at every turn. Many times, we're tempted along the trail we all trod to bail out on God, like many of those bad kings did, and look to other things around us instead of the Lord within us for direction. Sometimes, we are like David, Hezekiah, and Josiah, the good kings in our worship of the Lord. At other times we are enticed to go the way of wickedness like Manasseh and Zedekiah.Like those people back then, we make choices every day that effect our devotion to God. We can be as stubborn as all get out like some of them were by making up our minds to rebel and go our own way, or we can be content with what comes into our lives and continue on living by faith and rejoicing evermore because we are on the Lord's side.Friends, the biggest choice that any Christian will ever make is that they will choose to live by faith in God's Word instead of the foolishness of the World. Therefore, as God's own, let's choose to be faithful to the Lord in that which He has called us to do, and may that choice be a shining testimony of a life that's trusting in the Lord for those who will follow after we're gone as an encouragement on being faithful to the end.