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Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
As you and I watch all the bad news coming from around the world, do you sometimes wonder if it’s possible that God would simply run out of patience with a person or a family or a community or even a nation of people?
Yesterday I introduced you to one of the great prophets of God, Isaiah. 66 chapters of his messages from God are in the book which bears his name in our Bible. I’ve included at the end of today’s ‘walking with Jesus’ a chronological chart which may help you understand the timeline of the nation of Israel during the times of the Kings and the Prophets.
As you’ll see, Isaiah began bringing his messages of warning from God in about 740bc, at the end of the long reign of Uzziah, king over the southern kingdom Judah. God also sent the prophets Amos and Hosea to the northern kingdom of Israel during this era. But alas, the hearts of the Jewish people in both kingdoms were hard and not responsive to the strong messages of warning from God through these prophets.
Isaiah 6 is that great call of God to Isaiah which we considered yesterday. Today, let’s look at God’s Commissioning of Isaiah in Isaiah 6:9-13. It may shock you and certainly calls us to consider our current situation all around the world. Isaiah records his commissioning from God this way: “The LORD said, ‘Go and tell this people these things: You will be ever hearing, but never understanding. You will be ever seeing, but never perceiving. The hearts of this people will be calloused, their ears dull, their eyes closed. Oh that they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
The very sad truth was, as you will see if you look at the timeline of Israel’s history, that from the time of the division of the nation of Israel into two kingdoms at king Solomon’s death in 930bc… for almost 200 years, the northern kingdom of the ten tribes of Israel, was led by 20 different ‘kings’ all of whom were wicked and led the people of God far away from worship of God, from honoring God with their laws and their lives, and even into deep immorality and idolatry.
While occasionally they heard the call of God through prophets like Elijah, (1 Kings 18) more often they rejected the prophets and their messages. While they heard the words and even saw the miracles, their hearts were so calloused from so many generations of rejecting God and embracing the wickedness of the evil nations around them, that God’s prediction of the words He spoke to Isaiah were the living reality of the nation of Israel for 200 years! Think about that!
Finally, God’s patience ran out and His justice required that He act, as He had warned and promised. 2 Kings 17 is the remarkable account of the final years of the northern kingdom Israel. Listen to God’s assessment of Israel’s failure and God’s justice response: “The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years…capturing it and deporting the Israelites to Assyria. All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of the Pharaoh of Egypt.
They worshiped other gods and followed the practices of the wicked nations around them…The LORD had warned Israel through His prophets…but they would not listen and were as stiff necked as their ancestors…they rejected His decrees and the covenant God had made with their fathers…They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.” (2 Kings 17:5-15) Take special note of that last line, for it is God’s assessment of the demise of His people.
As Isaiah was hearing God’s commissioning of him and God’s prediction of the hard heartedness of His people, Isaiah’s natural question was “For how long, O LORD?” (Is. 6:11) Isaiah wondered would God send him and other prophets to the people for a week or two, a few months, a few years? Would God send them with one message or many?
God’s response to Isaiah was a prediction of what happened in 722bc, and then believe it or not, it happened again in 586bc to the southern kingdom of Judah. And many people are wondering if God may be preparing to do the same to America and other nations who have claimed to be Christian nations but have turned their backs on God? God’s response to Isaiah’s question was: “Until the cities lie in ruins and are uninhabitable, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, until the LORD has sent the people faraway and the land is utterly forsaken” (Is. 6:11,12) And my friends, as you read through 2 Kings 17 you’ll see the autopsy description of HOW God brought judgement on the northern kingdom Israel.
Please take note of these specific accusations God made against His people: “They forsook all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves idols…they bowed down to the starry hosts, and worshiped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do every kind of evil in the eyes of the LORD… So the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them from His presence… He gave them into the hands of their plunderers…so the people of Israel were taken away from their homeland into exile in Assyria…” (2 Kings 17:16-22)
Now my friends, wherever you live in the world, I’m inviting you… look closely at those words and apply them to our time and our world. Have families and communities and nations which once worshiped God turned away and led their children and grandchildren away from God? Have children been slaughtered by the millions, by their own parents (abortion)? Have adults pursued every form of evil which ensnares and addicts them and the generations which follow them? Have people pursued the occult, divination, sorcery in rejection of God?
Has God faithfully called out to our world over these past decades and centuries, calling us to repentance and return to Him? When repentance has occurred, has God been faithful to forgive and restore those people? But what is your assessment of the moral and spiritual condition of the place where you live in the world now? Has there been a continual decline in morality, spirituality and an increase in evil, wickedness? Have you seen an increase of the rejection of God, God’s Word, God’s truth, God’s ways and worship of Holy God where you live?
And finally, as you look at leadership changes happening in many parts of the world, what do you predict the next year or few years will bring to our world? Should God continue to be patient, or is it possible 2 Kings 17 is soon to repeat itself in our day, in many of the places of the world where you and I live?
May I urge you to look closely at one final thing in 2 Kings 17? It’s called Syncretism. After Assyrian king dragged away thousands of the Israelites into captivity, notice in vs. 24 that he strategically moved thousands of prisoners, his Assyrian army had captured from other lands, into the communities where the Jews had lived in Israel! This mixture of people intermarrying is the beginning of the people called Samaritans in Jesus’ day. (John 4) Notice the king of Assyria allowed each group of people to worship whichever god they chose, or mix them all up and form some new religions… that is syncretism. Do you see this where you live in the world? Look at vs. 33: “They worshiped the LORD but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought… Even while these people were worshiping the LORD, they were also serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as they did…” (2 Kings 17:24-41)
Oh my friends, do you see this is the ultimate objective of the dark kingdom of Satan? He and his demons will do anything and everything to prevent people from engaging in life rescuing, holy relationship with Almighty God, through Jesus Christ. The dark kingdom will develop schemes to draw Christians away from God and into idol worship or the occult or self worship, to their own destruction. That’s what Ephesians 6:10-18 is all about!
I see 2 Kings 17 everywhere in our day, do you? So as difficult as this chapter is to read, I suggest we read it carefully, slowly and take careful assessment of our families, our communities, our nations… and ask God to guide His people to truth, to wisdom, and to taking action in holding back our nations from this judgment.
Click to read today’s chapter: 2 Kings 17; Isaiah 6:9-13. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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