This morning I was meditating on 2 Kings 17. What an interesting chapter this is! Have you read it lately? It’s just as relevant for our day as it was when it was written. The people of Israel worshiped other gods, so they got kicked out, exiled from their land. God allowed the Assyrians to conquer them and they were taken into exile. People from other lands were brought in, total pagans, idolaters. They didn’t know Yahweh, didn’t fear or worship Him. So it says He sent lions among them to kill them. (2 Kings 17:25)
Now, first of all, did Yahweh really send the lions, or were there just lions there because the land lay desolate for a while due to Israel’s idolatry? Could it be that even though it says God sent them, what actually happened was they just multiplied in the sinful land? Adam and Eve sinned, so the earth has been cursed, and all sorts of dangers and difficulties abound on earth because of that. We understand this. So in 2 Kings, should we think of this as active voice or passive voice? Does that matter? Often the Hebrew Bible attributes to God what actually was the result of man’s wrong choices or even Satan’s interference.
Then we have the fact that these people attributed the problems with lions to their not knowing “the god of the land.” Even pagans have spiritual awareness and believe there are spiritual forces which influence life. They believed you have to figure out how to navigate life with these forces in mind. They wanted to know how to appease the god. That was how people thought and lived back then.
We laugh at that today, because we think only in terms of science. We don’t believe there are gods or spirits or supernatural forces. But the fact is, most of the world for most of history (and still today) has believed in such, and they’re probably more right than we are, even if they have a somewhat distorted view. We have it distorted too! We’re way too material, not taking into consideration the spiritual.
So the people ask for help, and the king of Assyria sends them an Israelite priest to teach them how to worship the god of the land. The Hebrew says how to “fear” the god, not worship. Some people don’t like the term “God-fearing.” They think it conveys a negative view of God. I think the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom! I think even these pagans knew better than that. They recognized the spiritual, supernatural dimension of life and wanted to learn what “the god” required.
Now today, we don’t think there are gods over all the different aspects of life; gods of the sky, land, and sea, gods of fire, wind, storms, etc. But the Bible says there are principalities and powers (Eph. 6), there was a prince assigned to Persia and one to Greece (Dan. 10), and there is one God who is over all gods, one King who is over all kings, one Lord who is over all lords. How many modern people recognize that? How many recognize His authority over the earth and over their lives? How many want to know what He requires? How many want to learn to fear Him and worship Him? How many realize how important that is for life?
Now a priest came and began to teach them the fear of the Lord and proper worship. I wonder how he set about doing that? They weren’t Jews. They didn’t have a Temple, an ordained priesthood, a system of law and sacrifice. So what did he teach them? Moral things? You shouldn’t commit adultery or fornication? You shouldn’t steal from people, murder people? How did a people without God’s Law, His Word, His ordinances, how did they fear and worship Him?
In our modern times, we know all people are welcomed into the presence of God, if they will come through the “door” which He has given us, the Lord Jesus Christ. We can tell people how to draw near to God through repentance and faith, and through submitting their lives to the Lord through His Son. We can teach them to receive the Spirit and begin to live a life by His power and His leading. We really are blessed in these New Testament days! I really wonder how that priest taught those people to fear and worship God.
Of course, the interesting thing is, even when he taught them, they never did get things right. They began to “worship” or “fear” Yahweh in some ways, but they clung to their other gods at the same time. They continued to practice idolatry. Well, that’s certainly not surprising! Even God’s own people, the Jews, who’d experienced His supernatural deliverance from Egypt and had His written commandments and ordinances, and had His prophets speak His words directly to them did that! Even they had idols!
What is it about us human beings? Why must we always turn to idols? Even believers, who know there is one supreme God who is all sufficient, even we constantly struggle to this day with idols. Even in the New Testament, the apostle John ended one of his epistles saying, “little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:21)
That’s a subject for another blog, or a series of teachings. But I think it’s something we should really ponder. Why did the Israelites always mix the worship of God with their worship of idols? Why did these people the king of Assyria brought in do that?
What are idols anyway? Sure, in that day, they were actual statues and gods with names like Nergal, Baal, and Adrammelek, but those gods represented something. They were what the people looked to for help in business or agriculture or with fertility or family life or war.
I often ask myself, what do we look to besides God? What do I look to? Do we trust more in money than God? Do we trust more in our own abilities to make it in life than in God? Do we look more to alcohol to get us by? Is it our work? Our relationships? Do we glory more in our intelligence or our beauty or our strength than we do in God? (Jer. 9:23-24) Do we know He’s there, but think of Him as sort of a theory, something we all agree is great, but for “real,” practical, down-to-earth help in life, we turn more to other things?
God’s people have always had a problem with idols. We want something we can see or feel right here and now, and we have a hard time trusting in the God who is invisible, but is always with us. These pagan people, they recognized there was a God, and seemingly tried to please or appease Him, but they just couldn’t let go of their gods from their previous lives. Not hard to understand, when we realize that even the Israelites, who’d been chosen and blessed mightily by God as no other nation, couldn’t seem to keep themselves from idols.
The really strange and sad thing about this reality is that the idols never really satisfy, and our worship of them always leads to our downfall! Adam and Eve wanted to be like gods, so they lost Paradise. Israel wanted to have its idols, so they were kicked out of the Promised Land. One of the kings who really led them into idolatry was Jeroboam. God Himself promised him the kingdom, but he was afraid he’d lose it if his people kept going to Judah to worship. So he gave them false gods as a “protection” for himself and his kingdom. He thought that would protect his position. So he created idols as a way of prolonging his reign, yet that was the one thing that caused him to lose his kingdom! It’s like what Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will preserve it.” (Matt. 10:39)
The idols we cling to for meaning, for security, for protection, for joy, for help in life, are the very things that rob us of those things! Oh Lord, give us an undivided heart, that seeks only you and gets all its fulfillment only from you! Teach us to fear you and worship only you, because you alone are God, and there is no other! God help us to break free from the grip of our idols!