So maybe you’ve heard it said, ‘read your bible’ so you tried and failed. Our hope as leaders is that all of us will pick up God’s word and come to understand the true nature of God. After all, the bible is God’s Word curated over centuries detailing His nature, His will, the meaning of life and humanity’s historical interactions with Him. The Bible details the hidden keys to the Kingdom. Hence, the reason we are reviewing a new book each week.
This week we move to the book of Kings. For those keeping count - 47 chapters, The authorship of the book is attributed to Jeremiah but we don’t know for sure. We do know the book was written to show the necessity of taking God’s commands and promises seriously. As you heard, the Kings era was fraught with unfaithful kings and unfaithful people. It covers roughly 400 years of history and takes place roughly between 960 BC to 540 BC before Jesus' arrival.
We pick up the story after the north separates from the south. It’s a tumultuous time as the Northern Kingdom gets attacked by a rival nation. Everyone was wondering, why? Why would God allow war to break out? Why us? Why now? Where is our great God? All of which is answered beginning in 2 kings 17:12. Take a listen
12 They worshiped idols, though the Lord had said, “You shall not do this.”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.”
14 But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who did not trust in the Lord their God. 15 They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes he had warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the Lord had ordered them, “Do not do as they do.”
16 They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. 17 They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.
18 So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence.
Why did God allow the Assyrians to overthrow the Northern Kingdom, they:
Built and Worship idols
Ignored the Law and rejected the decrees (religious ideas)
Ignored the messengers sent by God and imitated/adopted the non-Jewish customs
Didn’t trust the lord but trusted astrology and other theologies to the point of sacrificing their own kids. The sacredness of life would be ignored.
Now it’s easy to say, how could they do this?
However, ca we really judge them? History shows that in less than 300 years, America has gone from a puritan nation to a nation of anything goes. The American church has gone from representative of Jesus, an exhorter of sacredness scriptures and witness to all things good and right, to just another corporate institution willing to sacrifice people, tradition and even truth for money, power and prestige.
We are more like the nation forsaken, than the one favored. We…
<we> Build and worship idols too. A wide definition of an idol is anything that we come to rely on for some blessing, or help, or guidance, in the place of wholehearted reliance on the true and living God. If we come to crave, love, depend upon, and trust for a blessing people’s praise to enhance our self-exaltation, or money, or power, or sex, or family, or productivity, or anything else besides God himself for the greatest blessing, help, guidance, and satisfaction, then in essence we are doing what idolatry has always done.
I heard a story of a church who bought a $80,000 statue of Joseph for the lobby and put a $20,000 one in a closet so they can say a certain artist created it. We also must admit the idol of buildings. Having a place of worship is a gift. Does a church need to spend millions to have a kiddie land inside the Sunday school area?
<we> ignore religious disciplines. A discipline is defined as "training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior." A spiritual discipline is on of those behaviors that augment our spiritual growth and enable us to grow to spiritual maturity While not a law, we all ignore spiritual disciplines that have the ability to bring ourselves into God's presence - solitude, silence, scripture reading, prayer, meditation, fasting, journaling, generosity, fellowship, etc.
<we> ignore messengers of God. Make no mistake there are messengers anointed to proclaim the gospel. However, we don’t like the conviction they bring to our lives so we prefer to attend or watch or join groups a little more “mainstream”. We justify our choice to adhere to the culture’s latest idea as enlightened, but soon wondering where the impact of the experience of the Holy Spirit has gone.
<we> fail to trust God in every aspect of life. We fail to trust Him by living by our own power.
To trust is to believe in the reliability, truth, ability or strength of something. So, when it comes to trusting God, that means believing in His reliability, His Word, His ability and His strength. Trusting God is more than a feeling; it’s a choice to have faith in what He says even when your feelings or circumstances would have you believe something different. Trusting God requires being like Jesus when life is not going as planned.Jesus Himself felt overwhelmed by what was before Him, and He went straight to His Father. We need to admit our lack of trust, surrender our will and wait in anticipation He has our back,
So what are we to do about this:
Let’s write down one of the idols that we have given more time to than the Lord this week.
Let’s ask for God’s forgiveness together for worshiping something other than Him with our time and resources.
Let’s agree to limit our interaction with our idol until Easter. Just let it go. Every time you want to worship that idol, practice a discipline - do something physical, mental or spiritual that improves your life.
Be prepared to deposit it in the basket as your offering to God as Frankie comes around.
Finally, to signify our commitment, let’s invite Christ in for help through renewing our covenant with Him through sharing the elements of communion.
Creative:https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/kings/ 8:50 MINUTES
References: Quest Bible Overviews, Warren Wiersbe Commentary pg. 563-569
https://www.cru.org/us/en/train-and-grow/spiritual-growth/trust-god.html
