Turn in your Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 17. 2 Kings chapter 17. We've come to the fall of the northern kingdom. We saw this begin in 1 Kings chapter 12 at the division of the kingdom. Immediately Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, institutionalizes idolatry.
So just over 200 years later, the measure of their guilt had been filled up, and God uses Assyria to bring judgment upon the northern tribes. So we'll just take up the first half of the chapter this evening, verses 1 to 23, so I'll begin reading in verse 1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz, king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah became king of Israel in Samaria. and he reigned nine years. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against him, and Hosea became his vassal and paid him tribute money. And the king of Assyria uncovered a conspiracy by Hosea, for he had sent messengers to sow king of Egypt and brought no tribute to the king of Assyria as he had done year by year. Therefore, the king of Assyria shot him up and bound him in prison. Now the king of Assyria went throughout all the land and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years.
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria and placed them in Hela and by the Hebor, the river of Gozen, and in the cities of the Medes. For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And they had feared other gods, and had walked in the statutes of the nations whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel which they had made. Also, the children of Israel secretly did against the Lord, their God, things that were not right, and they built for themselves high places in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city.
They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom the Lord had carried away before them. And they did wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger, for they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, You shall not do this thing. Yet the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by all of his prophets, every seer saying, turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by my servants, the prophets.
Nevertheless, they would not hear, but stiffened their necks like the necks of their fathers who did not believe in the Lord their God. And they rejected his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he had testified against them. They followed idols, became idolaters, and went after the nations who were all around them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like them. So they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, made for themselves a molded image and two calves, made a wooden image and worshipped all the hosts of heaven, and served Baal.
And they caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and soothsaying, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. Therefore, the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from His sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah alone. Also, Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.
And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of plunderers until He had cast them from His sight. For he tore Israel from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. Then Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord, and made them commit a great sin. For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did.
They did not depart from them until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria as it is to this day. Amen.
Introduction: Summary of 2 Kings
In many respects, this section summarizes the bulk of the book. In other words, if somebody were to say to you, what is 2 Kings all about, this would be a great summary statement to give them. It does explain the totality of the Northern Kingdom, and it does explain, or at least foreshadows rather, what's going to happen in terms of the Southern Kingdom. So it's a good sort of overview or summary statement of the entire book.
It functions very similarly to Judges 2. Judges 2 is thematic. It kind of sets forth the cycles that will be involved, and then the various chapters then give the judges in detail the specifics that are set forth. But here, as we have noted on many occasions, it's almost like we're on the top of a building.
We see a car heading to an intersection about to crash. Well, tonight is the crash, the fall of the North, 2 Kings 17, 1 to 23.
The Instrument of God's Judgment
We'll look at, first of all, the instrument of God's judgment in verses 1 to 6. Secondly, the reason for God's judgment in verses 7 to 17. And then finally, the effect or rather the result of God's judgment in verses 18 to 23.
Hoshea's Accession and Character
But notice this king called Hosea, and we've already met Hosea. Hosea seized the throne or went to the throne by virtue of his own conspiracy and murder of Pekah. If you go back to chapter 15, Specifically in verse 30, it says, then Hoshea, the son of Elah, led a conspiracy against Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, and struck and killed him. So he reigned in his place in the 20th year of Jotham, the son of Uzziah.
So that is his accession to the throne. Notice in verse 2, it speaks concerning his religious condition. Now, having just mentioned that, that he was a conspiratorial murder who engaged in regicide, which is the murder of a king, in order that he may indeed take the throne, it's very intriguing to learn that he wasn't one of the worst in Israel. I mean, notice that statement in verse 2.
He did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel who were before him. Now, that, on the one hand, is a bit of a commendation for Hosea. On the other hand, it's a terrible indictment of kingship in the northern kingdom. I mean, that a conspiratorial murder was bested in wickedness by other kings is a sad commentary on the state of the kingdom in the northern tribes.
Now, I think this also suggests to us that the fall of the north does not occur because of the particular sins of Hosea, rather it is cumulative. They had indeed filled up the measure of guilt and God would bring his judgment to bear upon them. Remember way back in 1 Kings chapter 14, Ahijah the Shilonite had spoken to the wife of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and told her that the northern kingdom would fall. And again, that's about 200 years previous to this.
So it's a cumulative effect. All of the sins that are going to be detailed in verses 7 to 17 specifically will give the rationale for the judgment that has befallen them. Now, I should suggest as well that it's not all the sins. These are first table sins that are dealt with in this particular chapter.
If you read the prophets that prophesied at this particular time, say for instance, Hosea the prophet, and Amos the prophet, and Isaiah the prophet, and Micah the prophet. You will know that there were also second table violations. In other words, those prophets upbraided the northern kingdom for their sins against one another. But when it comes to consider the fall of Israel, the highlight is their idolatry.
And we know from other places in the scripture, in fact, a consistent testimony of scripture is that if we reject God vis-a-vis the first table commandments, we will naturally and inevitably treat one another miserably. So when there is an absence of the fear of God in society, there will be a whole host of societal evil. There will be all manner of sexual immorality. murder and abuse and the sorts of things that you see those prophets speak to in their particular prophecy or in their particular books. Now they also treated and dealt with first table offenses as well, but here specifically with reference to the fall of Samaria or the Northern Kingdom, we see it is those first table things.
Hoshea's Foreign Policy
Now note his foreign policy in verses 3 and 4. Remember that Assyria now is the encroaching empire, and Shalmaneser is the king of Assyria. He reigned from 727 to 722. When we get to verses 5 and 6, Most likely we're dealing with Shalmaneser first and then Sargon the second in 722-705.
There's some question as to the specifics involved, but most commentators suggest it's Shalmaneser and then Sargon. But as Assyria is mounting up and sort of gobbling up various territories and provinces, there were those who would pay tribute. And basically what that meant was that they would submit themselves to that power. In fact, Menahem did this already in chapter 15 with Assyria.
You can see that in chapter 15. 9 Paul, king of Assyria, came against the land, and Menahem gave Paul a thousand talons of silver, that his hand might be with him to strengthen the kingdom, under his control. So that is essentially what Hosea does with Shalmaneser. Specifies in verse 3, he became his vassal and paid him tribute money. Now we don't know why, the text does not explain, but Hosea gets a bee in his bonnet and seeks to make an alliance with Egypt.
And in so doing, the king of Assyria finds out about that. Notice in verse four, the king of Assyria uncovered a conspiracy by Hosea, for he had sent messengers to sow king of Egypt and brought no tribute to the king of Assyria as he had done year by year. So of course, the king of Assyria doesn't like that. He doesn't like when his gobbled up territories and provinces don't pay him tribute money, so he then imprisons Hoshea and shut him up and bound him in prison.
Now, some wonder if this happened prior to the siege of Samaria or if it happened after. I'll leave that with you, you can figure it out. But essentially, what we have is an imprisoned king and ultimately a destroyed Northern Kingdom.
The Assyrian Invasion and Exile
Notice the invasion by Assyria in verses 5 and 6. Now the king of Assyria went throughout all the land and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years. It was quite a long time involved in taking Samaria, which was the capital of the northern kingdom. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria.
This is one of the means by which or the manner in which Assyria did this. They had a quite advanced policy in terms of conquering peoples. they would take them out of their land, take them in this instance to their own land, and then they would resettle these conquered lands with people from other territories or regions. We'll see that, God willing, next week in verses 24 to 41. So what Assyria does is take the bulk, probably not every single Israelite, out of their land, put them in places where they are put off kilter, where they're at a position of disadvantage, where they won't regroup and then mount an attack or a counter-offensive against Assyria.
I mean, they had this down. And one other thing they would do is capture the gods or the idols of these persons and they would take them back to their own country with the idea or the impression being and they would communicate to those conquered peoples, your God is already with us and he's already paying homage to us so you might as well jump on board kind of a thing. So they had this developed in the way that they would seize, deport or exile and they would repopulate those particular conquered lands so that they could never again sort of form up and oppose the Assyrians. So that is essentially what has happened here.
So it is a terrible thing. We see the Kingdom of the North is no more. The date here is 722. Very significant.
You need to understand or you need to know that particular date. When you're considering the history of Israel, there's a few dates that are crucial to understand. The division of the kingdom takes place in 931. This end of the Northern Kingdom takes place in 722.
The end of the Southern Kingdom takes place in 586. Roughly, give or take, you know, some months or a year on either hand. But those are some very significant dates. I've always thought if you have those dates, you're able to at least give a brief sketch of the history of Israel.
You might wonder, why would I want to give a brief sketch of the history of Israel? Because that's what the Old Testament is. It is a historical report of what God is doing. Now, it's history, it's theological history, and it's an interpretation of that history with a theological point of view.
The Reason for God's Judgment
And that brings us to consider, secondly, the reason for God's judgment. Notice verse 7, for so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God. There's the theology, there's the interpretation, there's what the author wants us to understand. It did not happen that Shalmaneser or Sargon was able to besiege Samaria because of their superiority in military battle.
The issue wasn't necessarily the defective military of Israel in the Northern Kingdom. Rather, it was the judgment of God. That's what the author conveys here in verse 7, and then again in verse 18. He wants to make sure that we read this as history, but we read it as theological history.
This occurred because they had violated the will and the rule of God. And, as well, when we look at verse 7, for so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God. Notice what he goes on to say, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Now, I suspect that the author does this to highlight the gravity of their sin. to exacerbate or to aggravate the abject wickedness involved in their sin.
They are sinning against their redeemer. They are sinning against their liberator. They are sinning against the one who freed them from the bondage of Egypt and brought them into the land of Israel. They are sinning against grace, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
Instead of them praising, worshiping, honoring, and being faithful to the Lord in the land that He had granted to them. They abandon him, they fear other gods, and they go a-whoring from the true and living God. John Gill makes the comment, the highlighting of the fact that he redeemed them from Egypt. He says, which he observed to show their ingratitude and to aggravate their sin of idolatry.
Davis makes a similar observation. He said, amazing grace is met with massive apostasy. Now, it shouldn't be difficult for us to sort of leap into the New Testament armed with verse 7 and make some parallel sort of application. after him, not resisting or rejecting or denouncing him as these Israelites did. So, Davis says amazing grace is met with massive apostasy.
He also says amazing grace should have been met with lasting gratitude. Remember that God in those curses in Deuteronomy 28 had told them that they would go into the land and one of the means by or the reasons for the judgment that would come their way is if they were not thankful to Him. What does God know about us? If we're not thankful to Him, we're going to be going astray from Him.
Grace received ought to result in gratitude toward God. And then Davis makes this observation that I think is beautiful. He says, the nations, quote-unquote, cannot lure us when grace clamps us in the bonds of gratitude. That's a beautiful sentiment.
The nations cannot lure us when grace clamps us in the bonds of gratitude. They had received and benefited from His grace, but instead of responding with gratitude, worship, praise, and honor, they respond by defecting, by apostatizing, by fearing other gods, and running headlong into idolatry. So, we need to learn the lesson of verse 7. Those who have tasted the amazing grace of God ought to be those who respond with gratitude toward God, not the idolatry that characterized these people.
Israel's Idolatry and Imitation of the Nations
Now, note their idolatry in verses 7b to 12. The fear of other gods, in verse 7b, says, and they had feared other gods. This is absolutely contrary to the commandments of the Lord. I am the Lord your God.
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall have no other gods besides me. It is God who is a consuming fire. It is Yahweh of Israel that demands fear from and commands fear from his people.
And these people, these Israelites, turned from him and embraced other deities. Notice in verse 8, they imitated the nations around them. Now this is always a dangerous practice for the people of God. to imitate the nations around them. Notice in verse 8, "...and had walked in the statutes of the nations whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel and of the kings of Israel which they had made." Now, those of you who have been here for the last I don't know how many years we've been going now in the study in the Old Testament, but we started in Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges.
What was one of the things that we observed in Judges? We saw the gradual canonization of the children of Israel. In other words, Joshua portrays a very favorable view of the conquest. God commands the children of Israel to go in and dispossess the land of the Canaanites.
Joshua presents a favorable view, not a perfect view, but a very positive view. We get to the book of Judges and we get a very negative view. They not only not dispossess the land of the Canaanites, but they end up bowing down to the gods of the Canaanites. So it's an increasing Canaanization of the children of Israel.
You see it progressively, where you see it come to full, sort of full expression in this instance. Notice in Deuteronomy 7, Deuteronomy 7, God foresaw this, obviously God sees all things, God predestines all things, God knows all things. But notice in Deuteronomy 7, this was their marching orders in terms of holy war. Deuteronomy 7.1, when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you.
We're going to end at about five minutes early tonight, and we're going to give a quiz, and you've got to be able to rehearse those ites, just so you know. And when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them, notice, and utterly destroy them. Now, some would suggest that, oh, you know, this is God commanding genocide. This is God, you know, the big deity telling his people to go in and show this utter savagery.
Remember that the Canaanites were wicked. They were sinners. They deserved judgment. You know, we approach the Old Testament and we think, those poor little innocent Canaanites were just minding their own business, and Israel's God told them to go in and utterly destroy that.
God raised up Israel to be a means of chastisement and judgment upon these Canaanite wicked pagans. Now, when Israel apes the Canaanites, guess what God does? He raises up Shalmaneser and Sargon and sends them in as his instrument of judgment. God is not arbitrary.
God is not capricious. God is just. And the specifics here is that they go in and utterly destroy. Notice, you shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them.
Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods. So the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.
But thus you shall deal with them. You shall destroy their altars, break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire. You're to have no political, social, or religious alliance with these people in the land. See, we have this zany idea that our holiness is going to positively affect other people.
It's actually the other way around. The unholiness of pagans affects the Christian more often than not in a negative way. And God knew this, so he tells Israel to go in and utterly dispossess the land of the Canaanites. God says that if you do not do this, you are going to ape them.
You are going to imitate them. You are going to bow with them before Baal. It won't be long before you're passing your children through the fires to Moloch. And that is precisely what we see here in verse 8.
In this report, in this idolatry, or in this reason for God's judgment, it is the idolatry of the Israelites. So back to 2 Kings chapter 17, notice their practice in verses 9 to 12. Also, the children of Israel secretly did against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city." So it's all their cities.
Watchtower to fortified city means basically every nook and cranny. Wherever there were Israelites, they were hankering after other gods. Verse 10, they set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. Now those of you who haven't been with us for several years, but for several weeks, none of this is a shock, is it?
You're not going, wow, I can't believe this. We have seen this in report after report after report concerning the kings in the north. This is just a summation or a summary statement of why God brought Shalmaneser and Sargon upon Hosea and Israel. And then notice, there they burned incense on all the high places like the nations whom the Lord had carried away before them. and they did wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger, for they served idols." You've heard me quote either Matthew Henry, I think John Gill says the same thing.
You see it in the Puritans. They refer to them as dunghill deities. Could be a reference to Baal, the lord of the flies. Flies tend to gravitate toward dunghills.
But the word idols translated here is also translated in other places as dung. And so the author is telling us what he really believes about idolatry and what we should really believe about idolatry. There are several words that are translated idol into English, but this one in particular, they serve dung, of which the Lord had said to them, you shall not do this things. Remember, it's theological history.
It's theological commentary. The author is telling us how we should view these idols of the land. So we see, with reference to the reason for God's judgment, the wickedness of Israel, the idolatry of Israel.
Israel's Rejection of Yahweh
Now notice, under the reasons, the rejection of Yahweh, specifically in verses 13 to 17. Now those things always go hand in hand. I mean, this is the sin that God opposes. I mean, He opposes all sin to be sure.
But when you search the Scriptures and you ask the question, what sin does God really seem to get angry about? It's the sin of idolatry. Again, don't go commit adultery tonight and say, you know, this one's just not as bad. No, that's bad.
But more often than not, and in this summation concerning the fall of Israel, it is idolatry that is targeted. Now, the antithesis to idolatry is the worship of the living and true God. So we conclude or infer that when persons go a-whoring after other gods, When they do that, they are leaving the true and living God. And you see their rejection of Yahweh in three particulars.
First, the rejection of the prophets, verse 13. Second, the rejection of the covenant, verses 14 and 15. And then thirdly, the rejection of the law of God. It's mentioned a few times, but sort of summarized in verses 16 and 17.
But
Rejection of the Prophets
note the rejection of the prophets. Verse 13, yet the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by all of his prophets, every seer saying, turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by my servants, the prophets. Now, this is the purpose. You know, just because there were some lads that needed a good dose of she-bear execution that Elisha came on the scene.
It wasn't just for him being taken up by a whirlwind into heaven that Elijah came on the scene. These men came to rebuke the nation. These men came to indict the nation for their idolatry. And in this, verse 13, we see the patience of God.
I've already said that between Jeroboam the son of Nebat in 1 Kings 12 to this particular time, we're looking at about 200, 209 years. Some people say, well, I don't think God's very patient. I don't think God's very long-suffering. I don't know why it is when I read that Old Testament, it's all wrath and fury and judgment.
Brethren, God could have wiped out Jeroboam the son of Nebat and everybody in the north who was in an alliance with him right then on the spot. but he sends prophets to warn them, he sends prophets to rebuke them, he sends prophets to call them to repentance and faith. This is an act of mercy, and they resisted it, they rejected God, they rejected his prophets. Men like Ahijah, the Shilonite, Elijah, Elisha, I've already mentioned Hosea, and Amos, and Isaiah, and Micah, they all prophesied at this particular time. In fact, last time in 2 Kings chapter 16, we see the parallel passages in Isaiah chapter 7, dealing with that Syro-Ephraimite war.
You see, when you read those prophets, there is a historical background, and more often than not, it's right here before your eyes. So that's why you've got to connect the dots, so you'll know what Isaiah and Amos and Hosea are talking about, and you can see it very specifically here in 2 Kings. And then, before we move on to the rejection of the covenant, Paul House makes this observation. A long time has passed since the prophet Ahijah told the wife of Jeroboam I that idolatry would lead to Israel's exile.
That was in 1 Kings 14. Over these 200 years, Israel has seemed determined to make this prophecy come to pass. He's right. They were determined to make this prophecy come to pass.
The Shilohite tells Jeroboam I, the first wife, Israel is going to be destroyed. What happens? They busy themselves to make sure that this occurs. He goes on to say, no reform occurs.
No real repentance emerges. No leader calls a halt to pagan worship. No profit is taken seriously. It's a really sad commentary or testimony on just how bad man is.
I mean, here they had received the grace of God, being redeemed from the house of bondage in Egypt, brought into a land that was graciously given to them, and instead of responding with gratitude, praise, worship, and obedience, all they do is hasten their demise by sinning against God. Now,
Rejection of the Covenant
note the rejection of the covenant in verses 14 and 15. Nevertheless, they would not hear but stiffen their necks like the necks of their fathers who did not believe in the Lord their God. And they rejected his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers. Remember at Sinai? ratified it in the plains of Moab, or renewed, rather, in the plains of Moab.
They rejected his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he had testified against them. They followed idols, became idolaters, and went after the nations who were all around them." Now, here's another word, English word idols, but the actual word is worthlessness. In fact, you can turn to Jeremiah 2. Worthlessness or vanity.
Worthlessness or vanity. You see the same thing in Jeremiah the prophet. Chapter 2, verse 5, thus says the Lord, what injustice have your fathers found in me that they have gone far from me, have followed idols, and have become idolaters? Well, the marginal reading has it right.
They have followed vanities, or they have followed futilities, or they have followed worthlessness, and they have become worthless. The same meaning here in 2 Kings 17 15. They rejected his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he had testified against them, they followed worthlessness, became worthless and went after the nations who were all around them concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like them. So the rejection of the covenant is specified there specifically in verse 15.
But just by way of an interesting aside, something we ought to appreciate, I don't know if that's the word, we ought to observe with reference to idolatry. The psalmist says that those who make idols become like them. Now, some of you have probably heard me quote G.K. Beale before on this very theme, but he has a book called We Become What We Worship, and it's a biblical theology of idolatry.
You think, wow, that's going to make the top 10 Christian book list. No. Who wants to read a book about idolatry? I guess weirdos that struggle or want to stay away from it, but he makes this observation.
In fact, he sort of encapsulates it this way. What you revere, you resemble, either for ruin or for restoration. In other words, what you worship, you become like. So when we worship, serve, and glorify the living and the true God, guess what one of the blessed benefits is?
We become godly. not ever like we'd like, but it happens, right? We become conformed unto the image of his son. Contact with the living and the true God has a positive effect upon the worshiper of God. Now, those who worship idols become like them.
And there's two illustrations in this very passage. The first is the reference in verse 14 to their stiff necks. I preached one time from Act 17. This was way, way, way back.
First, one of the first times I ever preached in Palmdale. And I said, stiff-neckedness and Frank Sanchez just started cracking up. I don't know why that was, but I thought it was a legitimate use of stiff-neckedness. And, nevertheless, that was from Acts 7.
But notice, nevertheless, they would not hear, but stiffened their necks like the necks of their fathers. This, like the necks of their fathers, most likely points back to Exodus 32. This is one of the first places where God indicts the nation for being stiff-necked. And it is intriguing.
What's the context in Exodus 32? They're worshiping a calf. Subsequent to this particular time, many instances, in many places, the nation of Israel is called stiff-necked. Now Beal makes the observation, they've become like that which they worship.
Why do you put a yoke upon a calf or a bull or a or an ox. It's because they're obstinate. It's because they're stubborn. It's because they're stiff-necked.
So you put that yoke on them to break them and to shape them and to mold them and to direct them. So what we see here is that Israel has become like that which they worship. There are instances elsewhere in the Old Testament where Israel's indicted for having eyes, but they didn't see. They had ears, but they didn't hear.
Isn't that how the psalmist in Psalm 115 describes the idols? They have eyes, but they can't see. They have ears, but they can't hear. They have mouths, but they can't speak.
It's in that context, in 115a, the psalmist says, those who worship, or those who make them, are like them, so is everyone who trusts in them. So we see something of the real-life practical sort of outflow of idolatry. Israel's obstinance, Israel's stubbornness, Israel's reluctance to follow the true and living God reflects those beasts of burden that must have yokes placed upon them and they must be broken and directed in order to pursue the goal that they have before them. But the second thing I've already alluded to is in verse 15.
The worthlessness they followed resulted in their own worthlessness. It says they followed worthlessness and they became worthless. You see, contact with the living God brings godliness. Contact with the idols brings worthlessness.
Davis says, idols here translates a Hebrew word which is a play on words. The noun referring to what is worthless, useless, or futile. Matthew Henry makes this very perceptive observation. They followed vanity.
Idols are called so because they could do neither good nor evil, but were the most insignificant things that could be. Those that worshiped them were like unto them, and so they became vain and good for nothing. Vain in their devotions, which were brutish and ridiculous, and so became vain in their whole conversation. You see, those who worship idols become like idols, and that indictment is flashed out in this particular instance.
They're stiff-necked like the bulls they worship, and they are worthless like those dunghill deities that they worship. And as well, the rejection of the covenant is seen in their unbelief. Notice. They have this idea, the Old Testament, they just obey, and if they obey, good, if they don't, bad.
But God looked for faith, or God demanded faith then as well. Notice in verse 14, nevertheless they would not hear, but stiffened their necks like the necks of their fathers who did not believe in the Lord their God. You see, at the root of all idolatry is ultimately an unbelief in the living and the true God. It is rejection of who God is.
You know, Hebrews 11.6 says that we must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. So unbelief is the root sin in this particular instance manifesting itself in this idolatry and in this rejection of the true and living God. So the rejection of God is seen in the rejection of His prophets, His covenant, and His law.
Rejection of God's Law
Notice in verses 16 and 17, they left all the commandments of the Lord. Again, that's inclusive. Not only first table violations, but second table violations. Brethren, if you're an idolater, you're certainly not going to care about your neighbor's wife.
You're not going to care about your neighbor's ox. You're not going to care about your neighbor's goods. It's all free for the taking. If you reject God, it becomes most easy to reject human beings.
It becomes very easy to engage in lawlessness of a second-table sort when we've engaged in lawlessness of a first-table sort. They made for themselves molded images, calves, wooden images, the host of heaven, and Baal. equal opportunity employers, they would bow before anything. And again, this isn't surprising to us as we've worked our way through second kings. We have seen report after report after report, summary after summary after summary, every single king in the north to a man was wretched.
There were some high spots and will be some high spots in Judah, but for Israel, the northern kingdom, it was all bad. And this is a culmination of that, the cumulative effect of that. The author is citing this or leveling this as the reasons for the judgment of God. It's not that Assyria was great, it's that Israel was unfaithful.
It wasn't that Shalmaneser was superior, it's that Israel rejected their God. It wasn't that, you know, things just sort of aligned and the balance of power and Israel was ripe for the taking. No, they went a-whoring from Yahweh and Yahweh delivered them up into the hands of Shalmaneser and Sargon. It's because of God that these things have transpired, because He is a righteous and just God.
They engaged in child sacrifice. We see that in verse 17. They caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire. They practiced witchcraft and soothsaying.
You see, He's giving us a who's who of all the commandments that they have violated. All these things are given to them in the Pentateuch, in the first five books of Moses, specifically the law that prohibited this, that forbade this. They sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. You know, that's a phrase we still use today.
He sold himself to do evil or wickedness. He sold himself to put his sweat and labor into building that business. It's originally used of Ahab. in 1 Kings chapter 20. So Israel is following Ahab very closely in this regard.
I mean, this is the kind of language that they were abandoned unto it. They sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger. So that's the reason for God's judgment. If anybody ever says, wow, it's too bad those poor Jews got cast out of their land.
No, it's not too bad those poor Jews got cast out of their land. It's too bad those wretched Jews continued to reject the living and the true God and reap the covenant curses that he promised would be their portion in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. None of this was a surprise. As much as it's not a surprise for us, it certainly wasn't a surprise for them either.
In other words, they couldn't have said, wow, I can't believe God is doing this to us. I mean, I'm sure they still would have done that because we are that bad. God gives us manifold warnings, gives us all the description of the consequences that we'll reap. We end up in dire straits.
We say, I can't believe this is happening. What do you mean you can't believe this is happening? Open your eyes, open the scriptures, and look at what God says. There's not a man that could have said, well, I just can't understand.
Well, if he were to express that, it would further evidence and demonstrate the hardness of his own wicked heart, because he had been taught these things, he had been trained in these things, he should have availed himself of these things. So as much as it's unsurprising to us, it should have been unsurprising to them. You do this, you will be cast out of the land. And very specifically in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, those covenant curses include exile, it includes deportation to other lands, includes sieges upon their cities, includes all the things that fell upon them at this particular time.
Now the text just kind of passes over this three years. Brethren, I'm sure the besieging of three years was not a pleasant experience. And it's there in that all the stuff specified by God in Deuteronomy 28, Leviticus 26 came to fruition. I mean, when we saw, you know, a siege of Samaria previously in the book of Kings, there was famine.
People were selling donkey heads and, you know, looking for anything they could to eat. We learn of the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70. Unpleasant time, famine, disease, all manner of horrible things. Well, that's how you need to, you know, assume this three years went when Shalmaneser Sargod descends upon Samaria.
They weren't making pies. They were destroying Israelites and destroying property and casting them out and deporting them into hostile lands. So you see, everything specified by God in the Old Testament Scriptures came to pass in this. So the reason was the wickedness of Israel.
The Result of God's Judgment
Now let's look finally at the result of God's judgment. Verses 18 to 23. The writer tells us in verse 17 to provoke him to anger. Then verse 18 tells us, therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel. and remove them from his sight.
Now, we'll notice in just a moment, this is the issue. I mean, this is repeated three times. Notice in verse 18, verse 20, verse 23. And, you know, a lot of people say, well, it's because, you know, they got cast out of the land.
The land was the deed, the land was the gift, the land was the grant, the land was the gracious provision of God. Based on His promise to Abraham, given to the nation of Israel, this was the benefit. And now that Assyria has come, deported these people off to foreign lands, distant lands, and Judah's demise is going to come, they're going to be carted off to Babylon. The issue was they lost the land.
The land was simply the arena where they enjoyed God. This removal from his sight, the real tragedy is removal from his sight. It's not the loss of land, it's the loss of God himself. That's the problem that's in view here.
Therefore, the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his sight. Gil says, not out of the reach of his all-seeing eye, but from all tokens of his favor, from the good land he had given them and all the benefits and privileges of it. Now notice, there is this theological foreshadowing, which again, ought not to surprise us, especially coming off the heels of 2 Kings 16. Ahaz, king of Judah in 2 Kings 16, acts just as bad as any of the miscreants from the northern kingdom.
So in verse 18, it tells us at the end, there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone. Verse 19, also Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. So for the time being, God preserved Judah, but this again is some theological foreshadowing. That doesn't mean everything is well with Judah, especially those of you who have just read and studied 2 Kings 16.
You'll know things aren't well because Ahaz caused his sons to pass through the fire. Certainly Judah is not acting much better than the Northern Kingdom. And so that's why the author tells us that. In many respects, he's setting us up for the rest of the book of 2 Kings.
This is, you know, on top of the building again. Don't forget that car marked Judah. It's heading on a collision course as well. And so that's what's going to carry the rest of the book after the end of chapter 17.
But I would take this as parenthetical. It's a statement concerning Judah, so that when we read in verse 20, and the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel, that's northern tribe. It's not inclusive or all-encompassing north and south. We know what's going to happen to the south, but that's sort of put on the back burner for the time being.
So 20 to 23 details the specifics concerning the northern kingdom. Proven makes this observation with reference to Judah. Its determination to act like Israel will at last earn it the distinction of being treated like Israel. They're going to act like Israel.
They're going to be treated like Israel. Again, it's going to be a little bit further along. It's going to be delayed. It's going to be a different power.
It's going to be Babylon and not Assyria, but it's going to happen. That's the sort of take-home message of verse 19. It's telling us. It's alerting us.
It's causing us to reflect. If we were to say, well, what about Judah? Oh, yeah, we're going to return to Judah. We're certainly going to return to Judah.
Judah's going to still have some high points, but all in all, they're going to ape the northern kingdom, and they're going to reap the same consequences from the vengeance of God.
God's Rejection of Israel
And then notice the manifestation of that anger. God afflicted Israel, verse 20. The Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel. Look at that.
You reject God, God rejects you. You reject his law, you reject his covenant, you reject him, and he will ultimately reject you. He rejected all the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of plunderers until he had cast them from his sight. For he tore Israel from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king.
In many respects, it all happened as an act of judgment. The division of the kingdom occurred as an act of God's judgment. But what the Israelites did was pick the worst guy they could have picked. Imagine that for a kingly race.
Yeah, I'm Jeroboam the son of Nebat, I'm going to make some golden calves, I'm going to institutionalize idolatry, and I'm going to bring the nation to a ruin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're our guy. That's who we want. That's precisely what happened.
They hasten the judgment of God by their own conduct. And this is what we see. Then Jeroboam, in the middle of verse 21, drove Israel from following the Lord and made them commit a great sin.
The Influence of Wicked Leadership
Now, brethren, every Israelite maintains personal responsibility. Every Israelite maintains personal accountability. But we should glean from this, in a study of the kings as a whole, how wicked leaders can perversely affect a nation. Righteousness does exalt a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
We are such that we gravitate or we respond toward example. This is why Paul tells Timothy to be an example within the context of the local church. People gravitate toward examples. People not only learn from precept, but they learn from pattern.
They learn from observation. They learn from scoping out and seeing people who model or display godly traits or characteristics. Well, if that's true in the ecclesiastical realm, it's certainly true at the state level or in the political realm. When you have a king like Jeroboam, you ought not to be surprised when everybody acts like a Jeroboam.
When you have kings that are pro-murder and pro-abortion and pro-wickedness and pro-evil and pro-godlessness, it does trickle down. Again, persons are responsible. Thankfully, there's a remnant that aren't going to be done in by the Jeroboam's son of Nebat. You know, we need to remember that.
Elijah despaired, he was despondent, and God said, I have 7,000 knees that haven't bowed the knee to Baal. or 7,000 that haven't bowed the knee to Baal. So there was a remnant. There were faithful ones. But on the whole, bad leadership, more often than not, promotes bad followership.
We see it very readily in the church. We see it very readily in the state. We really should see it in the home as well. I mean, if you're the king of your home and you're a Jeroboam the son of Nebat, don't expect model citizens to swell from your loins.
It's just not going to happen. I mean, it could happen. God's good. I mean, even after Ahaz, you do get a Hezekiah.
And then you get Manasseh, right? Manasseh comes after Hezekiah. So it's not always an absolute formulaic response. But by and large, if you're a Jeroboam the son of Nebat, Junior, most likely, is going to ape that and become a Jeroboam, the son of Nebat III.
Now, notice the historical reflection, verses 21. Well, we see verse 21, the reference to Jeroboam. Verse 22, for the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam, which he did. They did not depart from them until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight.
As he had said, by all his servants, the prophets, so Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria. as it is to this day." Notice that it's sort of bracketed, verse 13 and then again in verse 23. As he had said by all of his prophets, again, if somebody says, well, I can't understand why those poor Jews got kicked out of their land. Those poor Jews kept rejecting every prophet that came to them in the name of Yahweh and told them to stop, to repent, to desist, to return to living in the true God. So that's the reason for the fall of Samaria, specifically the northern kingdom of Israel.
We see their wickedness in the rejection of the prophets, the covenant, and the law of God. We see their wickedness in the imitation of the nations surrounding them. Remember, they were to be a holy people. They were to be a city set on a hill.
They were to sort of mediate the blessings of Yahweh to the nations around them. They were to let their light so shine that men would see their good works and give glory to God. That was the purpose for this body politic. It was to reflect the glory of God among the nations.
But instead, they opted for the nations, they opted for the gods of the nations, and they became worthless like the worthlessness they worship. As well, the degradation of idolatry. If you just look at this and you follow that thesis that I think is rightly proposed by Beale, well, it's not proposed by Beale, he just comments on Psalm 115.8. It's the reality.
You make an idol, you become like the idol. but this stiff-neckedness and this worthlessness, that's what idolatry brings. It doesn't bring wholeness, it doesn't bring happiness, it doesn't bring completion. Do you want to be characterized as a stiff-necked individual? As a stubborn, obstinate, incorrigible individual?
Do you want to be looked at as vanity or futility or as worthless? That's what idolatry yields. There is a degradation that occurs in the creature when he worships the creature. We need to worship the creator to have that restoration.
We need to worship the creator to have that rejuvenation. We need to worship the creator in order to become not like God in terms of you know, essential deity, but like God in terms of holiness and righteousness and godliness. And as well, the bad influence or the influence of bad leadership. And I think this is an important lesson.
If there is a Jeroboam the son of Nebat on the throne, we need to resist that. We need to be faithful, even when everybody else around us may be faithless. And as the church increasingly gets more wacky, weird, and zany, I mean, there's just a whole lot of things going on, you know, at least in the broader evangelical world. Thankfully, the reformed churches are still somewhat tame.
But boy, there's just some strange things going on. We have the encroaching state trying to force, you know, whatever the letters are now that we're supposed to you know, except the LGB, whatever, XYZ, you know, more and more churches are being pressed and forced on that. I don't know if you saw it. You know, the prime minister said that any church that would hire an intern over the summer had to sign something that they would support a woman's reproductive rights.
In other words, they had to be pro-abortion in order to get government checks for their internship. Guess who spoke out against this? Do you see this? The NDP.
They said it was outlandish and it was not barbaric. I'm probably going a little bit too far there. But someone said, if the NDP says your policy is out to lunch, you got big problems. So all of that is encroaching upon the churches.
And you see churches, unfortunately, doing these kinds of things, complying with the government in order to get a grant. complying with the government in order to get a pass? No, we need to resist that tendency. If Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, is going to institutionalize idolatry, the faithful people of God are not going to bow the knee to Baal. It's just not going to happen.
We're not supposed to do that. And then we see in this passage the goodness of God. His redemptive power is underscored in verse 7. His revelation is underscored in both verses 13 and 23.
The fact that he sends prophets, the fact that he warns the nation, this is a revealing God, a God who reveals himself through the prophets to the people. We see his goodness in his patience, the 200 plus years from Jeroboam I to the fall, and then the warnings provided by God. This is something I think we ought to take heed to. The Lord had told Israel why the Canaanites were being dispossessed from the land.
Leviticus 18, go all the way back to Leviticus 18. God, especially in Leviticus 18, has to do with sexual immorality. And he says, you need to resist the sorts of things that are going on among the Canaanites. It is for this cause that the Lord is dispossessing the land of the Canaanites.
So they knew this. They understood this. The Lord warned Israel that their Canaanization would result in being dispossessed from the land. Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28, God gave them clear clear commands on holy war.
You're not to go in and have tea with them and join them in their unity service. You're not supposed to do that. You're not to have any social interaction, you're not to have any political interaction, and you are certainly not supposed to have any religious interaction. Because if you do that, you're going to be bowing to Baal.
That's just the way it is. The Lord testified against Israel by his prophets. Now, I've got this under warnings as an expression of God's goodness. So we need to understand that when God warns, that's a good thing.
See, the idea is that we heed the warning and stop doing the foolishness. We heed the warning and we return to God. The Lord used the example of the Northern Kingdom to warn Judah. Isn't this what happens in the prophets Jeremiah and in Ezekiel?
Well, by the time we get to Ezekiel, the judgments already come upon Judah, and he gives the story of the two sisters, Aholah and Aholabah. And Aholabah should have learned from big sister Aholah, because she rejected God and ended up in Assyria. Judah didn't learn the lesson. The same thing in Jeremiah chapter 3.
The prophet says, you are worse than the Northern Kingdom. They're not virtuous, but they're better than you are. You see, they fail to heed the warnings. Now, we can see that very clearly when we get, say, to a Judah.
Say, why didn't they see what happened to Israel and they end up doing the very same thing? But what about us? We have all those warnings given throughout all the Old Testament. We have New Testament warnings given to us, very specifically Hebrews 12, that couldn't be any clearer See that you do not refuse him who speaks, for if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven.
We have warning after warning after warning after warning after warning. We have John the Apostle saying, little children, keep yourselves from idols. And what do we do? We go out and act like Israelites.
We need to take heed to the word of God. We need to give ear to his warning. And then I already referred to this, the tragedy of the judgment of God. The tragedy is seen in verse 18, remove them from his sight.
Verse 20, until he had cast them from his sight. Verse 23, the Lord removed Israel out of his sight. It certainly means cast out of the land, but it means a whole lot more. Davis said, I think we must understand that being removed or thrown away from Yahweh's presence is not only a matter of geography, but of fellowship.
It is not simply location, but rejection, and nothing is sadder. That's the tragedy here. That's the problem here. That is the issue here.
Closing Prayer
Well, let us close in a word of prayer. Our Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for its clarity, no question whatsoever as to why the Northern Kingdom fell. There'll be no question concerning Judah also. God, we thank you that you give us these things for our admonition, you give us these things for our encouragement, We pray, God, that you'd help us to learn these lessons, to heed John's warning, to keep ourselves from idols.
We know it's subtle at times. We know it's not Baal or Molech or Asherah. Those aren't the prevailing idols of our day. It's worldliness, it's money, it's selfishness, it's a whole host of things that we need to guard our hearts against.
Father, help us in this. Fill us with the Holy Spirit. Grant us grace to worship You and to resemble You, to be restored, to be conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. Go with us now, we pray, in His most blessed name.
Amen.