The Time of the Last King of Israel
Passages
like 2 Kings 17 scare me, and as a result they always bring out my dark and
more prophetic side. But before I get to
that, let’s talk a little bit about Hoshea – the last king of Israel. Hoshea is said to have done evil in the sight
of the Lord, but not as badly as his fathers did before him. However, Hoshea acted treacherously to the
up-and-coming power in the land, Assyria.
He didn’t pay tributes as he should.
And for the record, he certainly didn’t rely upon the Lord in place of
paying of Assyria. Rather, Hoshea
pleaded for help from Egypt. Egypt was
not powerful enough to save Israel, and as a result Israel is dragged into
slavery.
This was
God’s plan for the land. God would teach
His rebellious people to loathe the polytheistic gods that their hearts lusted
after. He would teach them through a few
centuries of slavery that human masters and their human created gods were far worse
than what little God expects of them.
Whereas God could protect them while asking for devotion, their polytheistic
Assyrian captors would not be able to save them from Babylon or Persia in spite
of their obvious physical power. God
would teach the people through these Assyrians.
Perfect Polytheism
However,
God would certainly teach the Assyrians as well. I love the part of this chapter that speaks
about the people that the king of Assyrian sends to settle the land. They do not respect and love the God of the
Hebrew people, so the Lord sends lions among them. The people of the land attempt to solve the
problem using human logic. They import a
“Hebrew” priest to teach the new locals about the God of that land. We should be clear that the people of the
land learn about God, but they certainly do not love Him. Again, at best we see polytheism at
work. The people may even learn to fear
the Lord because of His obvious power, but they do not put their faith in
Him. They respect His power, but not His
ways. They have an empty relationship
with God, just like the Israelites that came before them.
This is a
sad truth about the world. There are a
fair number of people in this world who have a legitimate healthy fear of what
God could do to them. Some of these
people don’t even claim to believe He exists!
Yet, they live their life in a superstitious following of patterns to
appease the God they don’t believe in but they fear might be able to make their
life miserable. From a superstitious
perspective this makes sense, but logically it makes no sense at all. If there really is a reason to be afraid, why
not honestly follow this God? If there
is no reason to be afraid because as they suspect there is no God, then why
live in superstitious fear? This same
dynamic is at work in the Assyrian emigrants to Israel. God is clearly among their midst, so why not
put faith into one so powerful as Him?
What we
see here is the perfect polytheistic mindset.
It’s the mindset where “I have my own gods I want to follow, but I’ll
buy into this other God just enough to make sure He doesn’t smite me.” It is a mindset of appeasement, not
devotion. It is a mindset that tries to
rationalize the many different directions that the human being gets pulled and
rather than devote to one direction we try to appease as many as possible. Clearly this is not what God desires as He
says more than once that He alone is God and His followers should have no other
gods before Him. Polytheism is about being pulled in any direction that our
human will drifts. Monotheism is about
devoting one’s life to a single-minded pursuit of God’s ways.
Are we
free of this dynamic in our western post-polytheistic mindset? Are we solely devoted to a single purpose, or
do we still split our focus and our attention to many angles? We may not call them gods or set up little
shrines in our houses to worship them, but are we any different than these
ancient people? As modern as we have
become – have we really been able to shake off the underlying root of
polytheism in our life?
The Underlying Cause of Enslavement
As I close
this blog post, let me go back and reflect on the dark portion of this
passage. This passage is clear as to why
the Israelites become enslaved under Assyria.
They worshipped things in their life that weren’t God. When they fell away, God sent holy men and
His law into their midst but they refused to listen. When God’s messengers came to them, they
wouldn’t listen and turn from the ways of the world that their heart
craved. Rather than listen to God, they
sought wisdom in the world around them.
Rather than embrace God’s truth, they looked for truth around them. Some of them listened enough to be vaguely
polytheistic, but certainly not enough to give up their other gods and purposefully
follow the ways of the Lord. They were
stubborn enough to force God’s hand and drag them into slavery.
I cannot
help but wonder – especially in conjunction with what I have already said about
the Assyrian captivity - is America is any different? Do we pursue God or do we instead appease God
while pursuing the true desires of our heart?
Do our hearts truly belong to God or are we asking Him to share time
with the other things that occupy our hearts?
Do we listen to His Word and those who bring it into our midst, or do we
say that it is our authority but secretly think its lessons are trite and they
deserve to rest upon the shelf like an old dusty book? Do we adopt His ways of loving the orphan and
the widow and the sojourner or do we only treat with respect those who present
an advantageous relationship for ourselves?
When making decisions, do we pursue God’s Word for sound advice or do we
approach those who can teach us the wisdom of the world that we secretly desire
to learn it instead?
In the
end, I can’t help but worry that we’re not so different from the northern
kingdom of Israel or the Assyrians. It is
chapters like this that I remember to thank God for His ever-present grace and
mercy. I know I don’t deserve it any
more than the people from a few millennia ago.
And knowing what I know about this grace, love, and mercy I am led to
want to do something about it in the world.
We may fall and stumble from time to time, but we cannot let our friends
and families – or this world – go into exile without a fight, can we?
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