God can blot out all or part of a sinful life

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Jehoiachin loses ten years of his life

REVELATION 3:5   He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment;

and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life,

If we sin badly God will blot our names out of the book of life. This is a stern warning.

But, at times, it suits God’s bigger purpose to acknowledge a part of a sinner’s life. Thus a sinner can serve God unknowingly. This proves that God has power even over bad sinners who hate God.

Caiaphas, the evil high priest, hated Jesus so much that he tore his clothes in a demonic fit of anger.

MATTHEW 26:65   Then the high priest rent his clothes,

saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.

That broke the Law of Moses.

LEVITICUS 21:10   And he that is the high priest among his brethren, upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head,

nor rend his clothes;

That gave God the reason He needed so that He could tear up the Temple veil and acknowledge that Caiaphas had ended the Law.

MATTHEW 27:50   Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

:51     And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom;

and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

So a bad sinner ended the Law and allowed God to introduce the Gospel of Grace.

Thus, Caiaphas being very evil actually did God a service.

When the brave man Gideon was undecided about attacking the vast enemy forces, God gave two complete heathens a dream and an interpretation. Gideon overheard them and knew that God was speaking to him and telling him to attack.

Hitler hated the Jews and exterminated 6 million as he tried to wipe them out in the Holocaust. Such was the horror of these industrial-scale murders that the nations briefly felt sorry for the Jews and voted them the right to fight for a portion of their Promised Land in 1948. So, Hitler’s evil murders helped to fulfill the prophecies of the Jews returning to Israel after almost two thousand years of exile.

Let us consider the special case of Jehoiachin also known as Jeconiah or Coniah.

He was an exceptionally evil man but he had to play a key role in God’s Big Plan.

Jehoiachin had to make sure that nobody except Jesus could become the King of the Jews.

II KINGS 24:8   Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months.

II CHRONICLES 36:9   Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.

The puzzle is that ten years has been blotted out of Jehoiachin’s life.

What is God trying to tell us?

Seven completes a system. For example, there are 7 days in a week.

Eight is thus the number of a new system. For example, there are 8 men who wrote the New Testament.

By choosing the age of eight for Coniah, God is creating a new system.

By ruling for 3 months, Coniah is the legitimate though evil king of Israel.

God needed him to briefly be the king of Israel so that all his descendants are also of the kingly line. But then God dethrones Coniah and puts a curse on all his descendants so that nobody born in that line can ever become king.

God then blotted out the next ten years of his life which were sinful and not worth recording.

An interesting point. At the age of eight he had not reached puberty yet, so he was unable to have children. God is classifying him as a young king of eight who cannot have children. He was effectively childless. Thus he has no descendants to follow him as king. He actually had eight children and many descendants, but none of them could be king. They were all disqualified by his curse.

So, God was making a statement that by considering his reign to start as king at eight years old, he could have no children while he was king. Because he was only king for 3 months.

The mystery is, why did God recognize the 3 months that he ruled as a very bad king when he reached eighteen. Why were these 3 months also not erased.

Being a particularly bad person, we would expect his entire life to be erased.

God was saying that as a king Jeconiah had no children who could follow him as king.

But by ruling as king for three years he was a legitimate king and his descendants could claim to be the king if they were born from his line. But those born of his line were not allowed to be king.

As a man Jeconiah had 8 sons.

I CHRONICLES 3:17   And the sons of Jeconiah; Assir, Salathiel his son,

:18     Malchiram also, and Pedaiah, and Shenazar, Jecamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah.

Once again the number eight.

God is setting up a new system where a kingly line is established but then blocked by a curse. This had never happened before.

So we need some background.

Who was Jehoiachin? He was the son of king Jehoiakim.

II CHRONICLES 36:8   Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and his abominations which he did, and that which was found in him, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead.

But Jehoiachin was also called Jeconiah.

I CHRONICLES 3:16   And the sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son.

Jeconiah was also known as Coniah.

JEREMIAH 22:24   As I live, saith the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence;

JEREMIAH 22:28   Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?

God is casting out Coniah (or Jeconiah) and his seed (his descendants).

God then puts a curse on Coniah and his descendants. Not one of them shall ever be a king of Israel.

As far as being a king of Israel is concerned, Coniah is effectively childless because the kingly line ends with him due to that curse.

JEREMIAH 22:30   Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.

That is why ten years is wiped out of his early life to make him effectively a king at eight. An age that is too young for him to have children. As far as being a king is concerned, Coniah is childless. He will never have a descendant who will be king of Israel.

This was a mystery for the Jews.

The kingly line of David through Solomon was cut off by Coniah. So how can Messiah be king because He must come from the kingly line which has been cut off?

Any other person from the time of Jesus who also claimed to be Messiah would have to be in the kingly line which had been cut off. That would immediately disqualify the person.

Jesus had to bypass the curse of Coniah to be King

So how could Jesus bypass the curse that Coniah put on the kingly line?

Joseph, the husband of Mary, was in that line. He was of the kingly line but could not become king because of the curse.

Luke Chapter 3 then has a different lineage for Mary.

Matthew Chapter 1 goes from David to Solomon, the king.

Luke goes from David to Nathan, another of David’s sons. Then follows a totally different lineage.

In Luke: 56 names from Abraham to Jesus.

In Matthew: 43 names from Abraham to Jesus.

13 names have been wiped out in Matthew.   13 is the number of rebellion.

A chilling warning. They thought they were Abraham’s seed because they were Jews. But they rebelled against God’s Word and were blotted out of God’s kingdom. Being of the kingly line did not save them.

GENESIS 14:4   Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled.

Luke follows Mary’s line which is free from Coniah’s curse.

Mary gets married only when 3 months pregnant thus showing that Joseph is not the father of Jesus.

Joseph then adopts Jesus as his son.

An adopted son has the same rights as a born son.

So Jesus becomes part of the kingly line by adoption but is free from Coniah’s curse by being born from the separate line of Nathan that produced Mary.

The parents of his wife influenced Ahaziah

Consider 3 names of kings that Matthew blots out.

Between David and Jeconiah (Coniah) when we look up the list of Jewish kings in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, we find that Matthew has left out SIX kings.

This is a scary thought. Six men's lives just blotted out of Matthew's record as if they never existed.

After King Joram (or Jehoram) we see three men wiped out: Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah.

The fourth-person came back in, Uzziah in Hebrew (or Ozias in Greek). Also called Azariah.

Having married a bad wife (joined a church that is run by a man instead of being strictly Scriptural) Joram produced a bad son, Ahaziah. A son who also had no desire to be Scriptural.

II KINGS 8:27   And he [Ahaziah] walked in the way of the house of Ahab, and did evil in the sight of the LORD, as did the house of Ahab: for he was the son in law of the house of Ahab.

What do we learn from Ahaziah?

Children are all too easily influenced by their parents and parents-in-law and simply follow the errors of the parents’ generation.

So Ahaziah got wiped out of the Book of Life.

So be careful of what your parents and in-laws believe. Truth marches on. Parents usually believe in yesterday’s truth and have failed to grasp where God is today.

They tend to drive through life by looking through the rearview mirror at what is past.

Joash was too influenced by others

Joash could not think for himself because others influenced him.

The next generation was Joash.

This is a scary example of how people who start well still manage to lose out with God.

Joash, as a young person, did very well and cleaned up the mess of his grandmother Athaliah.

So, all seemed well. But that was an illusion.

Joash only stayed on the right track while Jehoiada the priest was alive.

II CHRONICLES 24:2   And Joash did that which was right in the sight of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest.

Once Jehoiada died, Joash allowed other people to influence him and he started down the wrong path.

Lesson 1:  It is not how you start. It is how you finish.

Lesson 2:  You have to think for yourself. If you are influenced by a good man, that does not really help if you are just repeating what he says. One day he is gone, and then someone else will guide your thinking and you will repeat what that different man says. That makes you a parrot. You are only capable of repeating what somebody else has said. Parrots are not mentioned in the Bible.

You have to believe in the truth of the Bible for yourself. Not because somebody else said so.

You must take what brother Branham said and then prove his revelation by following it through the Bible verses. Then you believe it because the Bible says so, not because brother Branham said so.

1965-0725  THE  ANOINTED  ONES  AT  THE  END  TIME

So we'll know, to prove this, back and forth, by the Word; not by some man's idea, some theory.

I don't care who he is; any other man, myself or anybody else, "If he speaks not according to the law and the prophets, there is no Light in him." See? That's what the Bible said. "Let every man's word be a lie, and Mine be true," regardless who it is.

When a great man leaves the scene then there are many pretenders to fill that gap.

II CHRONICLES 24:17   Now after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and made obeisance to the king. Then the king hearkened unto them.

Joash had never learned to think for himself. He just parroted what Jehoiada told him. Repeating the truth like a parrot because a great man of God had taught him, did not make Joash a believer.

Joash never had a personal conviction about these beliefs and thus he would quickly fall away from them when Jehoiada died.

Jehoiada died and Joash was like a ship without a rudder.

That is why churches have a rooster on the unscriptural steeple as a weathervane. It just points in whichever way the wind blows.

The rooster represents the rooster that crowed when Peter denied Jesus.

The rooster symbolizes the church that is denying the revealed Word today.

The church steeple is an imitation of the pagan tower of Babel.

Joash just went whichever way the winds of opinion blew. Eventually, he had the prophet Zechariah, who was Jehoida’s son, stoned to death.

II CHRONICLES 24:20   And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the LORD, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you.

:21     And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD.

"In the Temple court" is right there, close to where the Word of God was kept in the Temple.

Such was their dislike of anyone who tried to remind them of the written Word of God.

The name Joash sounded good. His name meant “Given by Jehovah”. But money was his downfall. He collected the wealth of the Temple, just like modern-day pastors collect all the tithes.

But Joash did not use the money for spreading the truth.

It all went to the enemy.

II KINGS 12:18   And Jehoash [“Jehovah-given” another name for Joash] king of Judah took all the hallowed things that Jehoshaphat, and Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own hallowed things, and all the gold that was found in the treasures of the house of the LORD, and in the king's house, and sent it to Hazael king of Syria: and he went away from Jerusalem.

Then a few of the enemies came and conquered many Jews.

II CHRONICLES 24:24   For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men, and the LORD delivered a very great host into their hand, because they had forsaken the LORD God of their fathers. So they executed judgment against Joash.

Amaziah did much right but kept certain errors

Then there is a third type of person who got blotted out of the Book of Life.

Amaziah. The son of Joash.

Despite doing much good he was scared to change certain wrong beliefs.

Like modern-day church-goers.

They do many things right but then are scared to disagree with the pastor when he preaches unscriptural things.

So, they get saved and do good works but accept Trinity, God the Son, Christmas, and hero-worship the pastor as the head of the church.

II KINGS 14:3   And he [Amaziah] did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, yet not like David his father: he did according to all things as Joash his father did.

:4     Howbeit the high places were not taken away: as yet the people did sacrifice and burnt incense on the high places.

Amaziah did not fully clean up his act. He served God but left the high places where idolatry was practiced.

We ignore errors in order to be accepted by the church. We cling to the idols of sex, money, and fame which easily replace God in our hearts.

High places. The real errors of the church that everybody is scared to speak against.

Like woman's dress.

We condone things that are wrong in order to remain popular and acceptable.

Worse still. We condemn things that are right just to remain popular with the church.

We condemn and avoid those who try to correct us from Scripture.

Joram, as the father, married Athaliah, and her unbelief infected the next three generations.

EXODUS 34:7   Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

Three generations disappear after Joram before Uzziah was mentioned. A warning to us.

Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah got wiped out.

If we want to serve God we must clean up our act.

If we serve God we must endure to the end.

We must not rely on some man. When that man is no longer around then we collapse.

And the human leader that we follow is actually stopping us from thinking for ourselves.

PSALM 118:8    It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.