Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.” So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the LORD. Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places. 2 Kings 17: 27-29, NIV.
Merciful Father, we come before You, willing to learn and practice Your will and Your way. Please help us to do this we pray – in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
In a conversation I had with my son some years ago, I remember telling him that all of God’s commands, and the rules that He has given us, are really for our good. I believe at that time my son did not understand why it was so important to God that we worship Him a certain way. I believe he saw it as a means of God imposing His will upon us, and that as God, he should not have to do this; it should be the natural reaction of His creatures. When I explained some of the things that we are going to be looking at in this series of devotionals, I believe he understood. He said he did.
I would like to begin by saying that God will continue to be sovereign God, omnipotent, omnipresent, everlasting, invincible, and all that He is, which our minds cannot fully comprehend or contain, whether we obey Him or not. Nothing that we do, or, fail to do, is going to change who God is! So why does God do all that He does in order for us to obey Him? Because He is a good God, and He loves us, in spite of ourselves. Because He knows that we were created to be in fellowship with Him, and that our lives are intimately wrapped up with His. He also knows that we will be our best selves, when we are in an intimate relationship, of love and worship, with Him.
In the beginning of our story, prior to our text for meditation, we discover that there is a problem in the land of Canaan. God had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that He would give this land to them and to their descendants for an inheritance. They were to gradually displace the Canaanites, until the land was wholly theirs. For many years I struggled with this thought. I knew that God did not play favorites. I knew that He was no respecter of persons. Why then, could they not all live together in Canaan in harmony? Was not God’s plan that the whole world would be filled with His knowledge? Would not “all the families of the earth be blessed,” in Abraham, the father of the faithful (Genesis 12: 3; 28: 14)? So, “why not just teach them Your way LORD? Why drive them out of the land?”
And then I come upon chapters like 1 Kings 17, and I stop asking God why. And I stop trying to make excuses to justify God’s actions and His decisions. I step back in holy reverence to the God who is the “Alpha and the Omega,” the beginning and the end (Revelation 1: 8). I remain silent before the God of the universe who sees the whole picture, and knows how the story is going to develop, and how it is going to end. I am quieted in the presence of the One who loves His creatures more than any mother could ever love the child of her womb (Isaiah 49: 15)! I realize that I really do not know anything, but that my God knows everything! I was not there when sin entered our world and completely changed the spiritual DNA of every human being, making us willing to choose death over life; or pre-disposing us to worship gods of wood, and stone, in preference to the Creator “God [who] is a spirit,” and who seeks those who will “worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4: 24).
Because of their disobedience, God “sent the Israelites away from His presence” (2 Kings 17: 23), by allowing the king of Assyria to banish them as exiles, and bring in other nations to occupy the land. But the other nations did not acknowledge YHWH as God, so He allowed lions to come into the land and devour them (we will make mention of a similar incident as we advance in our studies). It is at this point that we come upon our Scripture for today. Is it not amazing how God will impress people who are not called by His name, to say and do things that you would expect His people to say and do? “Then the king of Assyria gave this order: ” ‘ “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.” In God’s own way He allows this heathen king to analyze the existing problem and come up with the solution, or at least, what should have been the solution.
Today I have introduced the topic. Tomorrow we will continue.