A Devotional Thought From 2 Kings

Yet the Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers saying, Turn ye 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.     2 Kings 17:3

The LORD testified, made it clear, to Israel the kind of lifestyle He expected to see among the people of Israel. He testified through the prophets and seers. They told the people God’s plan of faith and life. It was simple, basic, clear-cut, straight-forward.

It contained two prongs: 1. Turn from your evil ways. No one argues that Israel, the northern kingdom, was not filled with evil behavior. They are constantly disparaged in the Old Testament for continuing to follow the sin of her first King, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who we are told again and again, caused Israel to sin. In following evil and the wickedness of Jeroboam the people of the northern kingdom added to that the sin of following the Baalim gods, and caused their children to pass through the fire. This meant that they took newborn infants and burned them on the altar to these false gods. False religion always leads to death, not just spiritually, but often physically as well. 2. The second aspect of what God called upon Israel to do was to keep His commandments, to follow His law, to obey His revelation of what faith living in this world should look like. Had they done so, such a turnaround might have saved them from the disaster that eventually fell upon them.

And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Syria and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes: Because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear them, nor do them.     2 Kings 18:11,12

The consequences were hard. The king of Assyria came, conquered the capital city of Samaria and all the northern kingdom, and carried the people of Israel away as captives, and exiled them in a strange land because they would not obey God.

For any nation’s long time prosperity the proper path is to respond positively to the revelation God has given. Modern nations are blessed in that they have God’s clear message for national, familial, and individual living set forth in the Bible, if they desire to know what God wants. If the people who desire their nation’s best future follow God’s teaching, and live it out on a daily basis, their country, families, and personal lives will possibly be kept from great disaster.