We’ve come to the last King of Israel and the end of the Northern Kingdom (2 Kings 17).
• It ended this way - 2 Kings 17:5-6 5The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. 6In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.
• This happened in 722BC and it ended Israel, the Northern Kingdom.
• The author then launches into an epilogue reflecting on all that has happened and what led to this fateful day.
• From 17:7-23 we have this well-written summary of the history of Israel’s relationship with God (over the past 200 years and 20 Kings). Read 2 Kings 17:7-23.
The author summed it all up right at the start with this line: “All this took place because Israel sinned against God…”
• “They worshipped other gods…” No other reason. Their turning away from God led to the rest. They brought judgment upon their own heads.
• And that goes for Judah too, the author says in 17:19. They were better than the North but did not stay faithful to God and “therefore the Lord rejected ALL the people of Israel” (17:20)
God reveals Himself as the GOD WHO REDEEMS
• It all started with that. God redeemed them by His grace when He “brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt”. (17:7)
• God revealed His will to them when He gave them the commands, decrees and laws, and declaring: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deut 6:4)
• It’s a revelation, not some smart idea copped up by man.
• God is one, and the only, and that they are freed in order to worship Him.
Sadly and slowly we see Israel rejecting God and went after other gods that are not gods at all.
• They did not just deny God (like some atheists or agnostics); they replaced Him!
• “They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.” (17:15b)
• They dumped the one true God for fake and man-made ones.
The author took great pains to tell us what came into and out of Israel.
• 17:8 - they followed the practices of the nations (from without) as well as the practices their own kings had introoduced (from without).
• They set up sacred stones, Asherah poles, idols, bowed down to starry hosts, to Baal, the two calves, practiced divination and sorcery, and burned up children as sacrifices.
Israel’s call was to be the people of God, set apart for God, but her history did not follow her call.
• Instead, they conformed themselves to the nations and blended with them.
Despite Israel’s idolatry and apostasy, God was present throughout their history.
• You might have noticed as we read through the account, the words “the Lord their God”, “the Lord… the Lord…” punctuating the commentary.
• It appears almost at every other line. You cannot ignore Him. He is there. He regarded them as His people but they ignored Him.
God reveals Himself as the GOD WHO WARNS
• 17:13 “The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all His prophets and seers: “Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your ancestors to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.”
• Again in 17:23 “… the LORD removed them from His presence, as He had warned through all his servants the prophets.”
• From the time the Kingdom was divided and King Jeroboam (Israel) introduced the two golden calves, some 200 yrs ago, the Lord continued to speak and warn.
The God who redeems them, the God who warns them, finally judges them.
God reveals Himself as the GOD WHO JUDGES. The true God judges.
• “So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from His presence” (17:18)
• “Therefore the Lord rejected all the people of Israel; He afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until He thrust them from His presence.” (17:20)
• “… the LORD removed them from His presence, as He had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.” (17:23)
Clearly the “removed them from His presence” means exile from their homeland, the Promised Land.
• But the meaning is more than just geography; it is about fellowship with God.
• Israelites cut off their fellowship with God. And away in Assyria, they would have lost all avenues of true worship.
They brought this upon themselves. They rejected the one and only God there is.
-----------------------------
Author went on to tell us what happened to the land when the Israelites were deported. He gave us a rather amusing and ironical commentary about the behaviours of the foreigners who occupied this land.
• Let’s read 2 Kings 17:24-33.
The King of Assyria brought in foreigners from all over.
• That’s their practice of displacing their captives from their homelands and send them all over, so that they would have no chance of recouping.
• There was this incident where lions came out and killed the people. The King was told that the reason could be these new settlers “do not know what the god of the country requires” (17:26).
• So the King ordered that one of the exiled priests be sent back to teach the people some local religious rites to appease the ‘God of Israel’.
Can you sense the irony or sarcasm here? The foreigners behave more correctly than did their predecessors, the Israelites.
• At least they showed some concern about what the god of the land requires; they wanted to pacify Israel’s God, which is more than can be said of Israel.
• But the new settlers did not get very far, as the text revealed. As expected, their real concern is with the lions, not in seeking God.
• They just want to do something to get rid of the lions.
That’s RELIGION. God makes sense only as far as He can ward off troubles.
• “Just tell me what to do to get rid of the problems. If it does not work, then this ‘god’ is quite useless. Go, change another one.”
The question is never Is God true? Look at 17:29:
• 17:29 “Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places.” Thanks to the Israelites.
• 17:30-32 30The men from Babylon made Succoth Benoth, the men from Cuthah made Nergal, and the men from Hamath made Ashima; 31the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
• Notice the “They made… they made… they made…” A made this, B made that, C made another… all piled up one after another.
• We have the ‘making’ of gods here! It’s a do-it-yourself (DIY) thing, a buffet-spread, make your own concoction, according to your taste, pick your favourite.
17:32-33 “32They worshiped the LORD, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. 33They worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.
• We have mixtures of gods, we have mergers of practices (syncretism).
• You just make your own god, with your own hands and in your own mind.
Why is the author telling us all these, when Israel is already gone?
• He is talking about the foreigners, occupying their land, but everything sounds so familiar. It’s like he was talking about Israel.
• That’s right. Israel “followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them…” (17:8a) They were behaving just like the rest of the world.
• You cannot tell them apart. Israel blended in. Israel failed in their call to be set apart for God.
This is a warning to the exile Israelites as well as to us today. Have we blended in with the world today?
-----------------------------
The author needs to return to the source, to the covenant God made with Israel, and that’s what he did.
• To the covenant God made, all the way back to Exodus time - 2 Kings 17:34-39.
There is only one God. He revealed Himself. Worship the Lord your God.
• And lest we miss the point, the author hammers it 3 times:
“Do not worship any other gods” (v.35), “do not worship other gods” (v.37),
“do not worship other gods” (v.38).
The worship of Jehoval God makes the faith of the Israelites unique in the ancient world, because then, the nations all worship a wide variety of gods and goddesses.
• Israel has a unique calling – to point the nations to this God - and they failed.
• Reason? BUT “they would not listen” (17:14 and 17:40).
We listen. We listen to His call and obey Him. We worship Him and Him alone.
• We set ourselves apart so that the world will know there is only one God, and one Mediator in Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Tim 2:5).
HOLY COMMUNION
In his parting prayer in John 17:3, Jesus says to the Father:
Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
• May our lives tell this salvation story and tell it well.
• As we take the cup and bread today, and remember Jesus, let us make this commitment to do so.
• Pray for God’s grace and strength, to stay faithful to this call until the day we see Him.
• We’ll pass the bread and cup down. Take this moment to pray and reflect on what we’ve heard.
