The reason for Israel’s eviction was not really political; it was theological. Israel cheated on their covenant God and paid the price. Israel thought they could get away with their sins because they carried them out in secret, as though God couldn’t see what they did in private. As though it didn’t matter that they worshiped other gods in their homes as long as they praised God in public. But they soon learnt the hard way that when it comes to God, there is no such thing as a secret sin. God sees everything we do and everything we do matters to Him. As with Adam in Eden, God expressly told Israel how to live in His land but they blatantly rejected His authority in favour of their own. Yet they foolishly thought they could hide this rebellion from God’s all-seeing gaze. God lovingly sent Israel prophets to warn them and warn them and warn them about what would happen if they continued to scorn His love. But apart from a few revivals, Israel refused to listen; they persisted in their sin and resisted their God. Instead of worshiping God and becoming holy like Him, Israel chose to worship false gods and soon became like their idols; blind, deaf and hard-hearted toward God. God’s stomach can only tolerate so much sin. After finally reaching the end of His patience, God vomited Israel out of the Promised Land and away from His holy presence. Israel didn’t want God to see their sin so God gave them exactly what they wanted; He cast them out of His sight. Israel learnt the hard way that you can’t eat from both the Tree of Life and the forbidden fruit. You can’t sin and escape punishment. You can’t sin and continue to live in God’s paradise. So God brought swift judgment on the corrupt and rotten entity that Israel had become. Israel’s kings had failed to love God with all their heart and Israel failed to remain faithful to Him. We are just as guilty as Israel. Like Israel, God created us and sustains us. God has told us how we are to live. Yet like Israel, we reject God’s way and live our own way instead. Like Israel, we refuse to worship God and whore after gods made in our image. For this, we will suffer exile from God’s presence for eternity. But thankfully, God has done what we cannot do for ourselves; He has made a way for us to live forever in His Paradise. Because we can never obey our way to God’s presence, God sent a King who obeyed God perfectly on our behalf. This King suffered on a cross the exile from Paradise that we deserve. And because this King obeyed God fully, He was raised up to God’s presence. For those who are united to this heavenly King through faith, we go where He goes. That means like our King, God’s Paradise is our true home and we are welcomed into God’s presence. Don’t be fooled into thinking God doesn’t care what you do in private. Don’t be tricked into thinking that God will just look the other way when you sin. He sees everything you do and this should fill you with dread. God hasn’t punished you yet because He is patiently giving us the chance to repent. Don’t wait until it’s too late. One day soon, God’s patience will finally run out and every sinner will be thrown into the Lake of Fire away from God’s presence. Because we are all sinners, trusting in Jesus is the only way to be spared from this punishment and to be brought safely into God’s presence: In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria. And Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. And this occurred because the people 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 had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger, and they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, You shall not do this. Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets. But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only...And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them eand gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight. When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord hand made them commit great sin. The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them, until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets (2 Kings 17:1-23 ESV).
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 01:55:45 +0000
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