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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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. 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 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, 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
