Closer Day By Day

Having practically grown up in Church, I have seen many new members added to the fold of the Lord.  But at the same time, many members no longer come to Church for one reason or another.  Some still come - but only very occasionally or on special occasions.

I often wonder why is it that despite receiving such a great grace from God, there are believers who will choose to ignore God and go about their lives without God as Lord of their lives. And yet, there are other believers who remain steadfast and firm in their faith, coming faithfully to Church years after years, worshipping God and serving Him the way they did many years ago.

But reading today’s passage showed me some possible reasons and also serves me a great reminder in my life of faith…

Bible Passage:  2 Kings 16-20

Today’s passage shows 2 contrasting fortunes for the northen and southern kingdom.  In 2 Kings 17 we read that the nation of Israel was swept away in captivity by the Assyrians but at the same time, just a few miles south - the kingdom of Judah under King Hezekiah was leading his people to a different life - a life that is in obedience to God.

The parallels between the northern & southern kingdom in this passage with the two types of believers I mentioned earlier are very strong.

Both sets believe and worship the same Lord God.  Both lived during the same times, faced the same political, military and social pressures.  And yet - one group chose to live a distinct life that followed God (2 Kings 18) while the other chose to live a life of compromises that led them down the road to destruction.

Let’s see what we can learn from this today…

A Life of Compromise

When I read the Kings, I actually marvel at how patient God was to the kingdom of Israel despite their obvious lack of reverence and worship of God.  This is also reflected currently that despite God’s continued mercy and grace on us - we do not fear Him nor give Him the honour that is due to Him.

The kingdom’s demise and exile from their capital in Samaria can be summarised into four different practics that they carried out time and time again. And this is also sometimes quite apparent in our lives as well…

• They chose for themselves leaders without any spiritual character to lead them (2 Kgs 17:21a).
• These leaders turned their hearts away from worshipping God in Spirit and Truth and instead led them to embrace idolatory (2 Kgs 17:21b)
• The people in embracing idolatory and sin so much that any traces of their former history and worship of God has disappeared.  With this godly reverence gone - God allowed them to be gone (2 Kgs 17:22)
• It was not that God did not love them.  God time and time again sent His prophets to warn them of their sin.  But the prophets were ignored.  (2 Kgs 17:23)

When the people of Israel was swept away in exile, that was not the end of the problems.  The King of Assyria hatched a cunning plan to assimilate his people with the people of Israel.  He imported to the cities of Israel his people to “replace the Israelites” (2 Kgs 17:24).

The funny thing was that when these people faced a problem with the pride of lions - the people of Israel recognized that this was the work of God and then the king of Assyria sent a captive Samaritan priest to go back to Samaria and teach them about God’s ways.

What an irony!  The compromising priest of an estranged people who tolerated and practiced idolatory would become the lifeline to a pagan people to teach them how they ought to follow and worship God.

But it is impossible to call on others to follow God if we ourselves do not really follow.  We cannot lead people to God when we ourselves are leading lives of compromises.

So it is no surprise to see that those pagans who settled in Samaria merely added the Lord of Israel to their own cultic practices (2 Kgs 17:29-33).  People are not offended at the Go of Israel as long as all their sinful practices are not made to appear as wrong.

It’s like … “I do not mind to have the God of truth as long as He does not invade into my own practices.”  On occasions I will acknowledge Him but as long as He does not bother about the other times, we can get along fine.

So the major problem that they had serves as a grave warning for us today.

These people knew God and worshipped God.

In the beginning they built a great Temple in Jerusalem and “formalize” their faith into a pattern.  The form was seem as the centre of their walk - not the faith as shown in the careful following of the Word of God.  Because they were following a ‘form’, when the kingdom was divided, the nation of Israel simply moved the ‘worship’ to a new place in Dan.

The songs and hymns were the same.  The words of the prayers were familiar.  The worship pattern was the same.  But something was missing.  They were attempting to know God but they not truly knowing and obeying God’s Words.

So as the generations passed and ignorance towards the Word of God grew, they adopted more and more of the pagan (or worldly) practices into their lives and became thoroughly compromised.  It is like today where many of the ‘accepted’ practices that we do today would have made our grandparents shudder.  We tolerate and compromise on many things and all the while, we keep the form of our worship and we think we are ok.

But that was exactly what the nation of Israel did… and God chose to turn His face away and swept them into obscurity.

A Life of Obedience

Now let’s look at the king of the southern kingdom - King Hezekiah.

He lived in a similar turbulent and dark times.  But he chose to live a life that was different from his predecessors and thise around him.

If you read about his background, you will realize that he had no support in growing up to be a distinct follower of the Lord.  He was brought up in, to put it mildly, a dysfunctional family led by his father Ahaz.  His father was supposed to fear God but he was far from it.

Ahaz worshipped false gods.  He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places.  He gathered all the furnishings of the temple of God and took them away.  He shut the doors of the temple so that the people could not worship God.  He set up altars to other gods at every street corner in Jerusalem.  He even took one of his sons and burned him as a sacrifice to these false gods!

Whew!  What a father!

But Hezekiah’s life was not without any light.  There was a man of God - Isaiah - who regularly met the king and encouraged him with the powerful words of truth about life and God.  And this led Hezekiah to make certain choices that showed his obedience to the Word of God:

• He wanted to do right before God with the heart of David (2 Kgs 18:3)
• He stood up against the spreading of idolatory, immoral behaviour and paganistic practices that ignored God (2 Kgs 18:4)
• He was able to trust God and that made him different from many of the other kings  Assyria was a strong nation and as the vast empire bore down on him, he chose to continue trusting God (2 Kgs 18:5)
• He did God’s Word (2 Kgs 18:6).  For him, the Word of God was not theory but something practical and he knew the word of God and obeyed it.

All this led to the fact that God was with him and God’s presence was obvious (2 Kgs 18:7-8).  Those who afflicted God’s people were driven back.  This was a victory for an obedient life!

What Is The Life We Are Leading Now?

Looking at the two kingdoms, I guess the question is what is the life we are leading now?

Of course we want to be like King Hezekiah.  That is a no brainer.

But let us take time to examine our lives today and see where are the areas that we compromise in our life of faith.  Choose to kick out these compromises and instead, lead a life of obedience to the Word of God.

Let us not keep the form of worship and ignore the real essence of worship.