Second Kings chapter 17. Pick up where we left off last Thursday evening, we finished with verse 23, so we'll pick up here in verse 24. We'll read to the end of the chapter, that is verse 41. If you're able, let's stand for this reading of God's word. Second King 17, beginning with verse 24, again, this is the word of the Lord. And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Ava, Hamath and Sepharvaim and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. Therefore, the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So the king of Assyria was told, the nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the God of the land. Therefore, he has sent lions among them and behold, they are killing them because they do not know the law of the God of the land. And the king of Assyria commanded, send. They are one of the priests whom you carried away from there and let him go and dwell there and teach them the law of the God of the land. So one of the priests whom they carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the Lord. But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made. Every nation in the cities in which they lived. The men of Babylon made Sukkoth Benoth. The men of Kuth made Nergal. The men of Hamath made Ashima. And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak. And the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adremalek and to Anemalek, the gods of Sepharvaim. They also feared the Lord and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. So they feared the Lord but also served their own gods after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the Lord and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob who he named Israel. The Lord made a covenant. With them and commanded them, you shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them. But you shall fear the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him and to him you shall sacrifice. And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods and you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods, but you shall fear the Lord, your God. And he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. However, they would not listen, but they did according to their former manner. So these nations feared the Lord. and also serve their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children's children, as their fathers did, so they do to this day. As for the reading of God's holy word, you may be seated. We'll get right to the point this evening. As we saw last week in the first 23 verses of the chapter, the long-anticipated judgment had finally come. Israel, as we saw, had in the first 23 verses, yes, they had been conquered by the Assyrians. And the remaining portion of the chapter here, verses 24 to 41 that we've read, gives us the count of how the Assyrians resettled the land and what happened as a result. Four things I would like to note here from the text. Very simply, in verse 24, we find mixed people, mixed people, not a bad thing in itself, but we see that it led to, verses 25 through 33, mixed religion, mixed religion. Well, then we see in verses 34 to 40, missing the point. And then in verses 39 and 41, What we might call missed opportunity, mixed people, mixed religion, missing the point and missed opportunity. That's how we'll outline the text as we make our way through. So first of all, mixed people in verse 24. This is where we find Israel has become sort of a melting pot. Many of the inhabitants, as we saw last week, were exported out of Israel to the region of Assyria, really from east to west, as far as the borders of Assyria were. We also considered how part of Assyria's program to prevent further uprisings was really to conquer and divide. It is to divide the people away from their own land and in other territories, and then also to resettle the land by putting their own people in the land. And not only Assyrians, but also from the territories that Assyria had conquered. So we read in verse 24 that the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon. Babylon is going to become the dominant world power, but at this point they're under a serious thumb, Kuthah, Avah, Hamath, and Sephar, Vayim, these territories that they had conquered. They're importing them into the land of Israel here. And this was the beginning of the Samaritans. We see that word used in verse 29. But the Samaritans were a mixed people of the Israelites who remained in the land, who intermarried with those pagan peoples who came in and who were put there by the Assyrians and the other nations. And they became the Samaritans. They were that hated race by the Jews. Remember, in Jesus's day, as I think we said last week, the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well was surprised that Jesus, being a Jew, would actually speak to her. And so the Jews considered themselves to have a pure tribal lineage. They hated the Samaritans to the north. But the Lord had made provisions in the past. for foreign peoples to enter the land, whether they were sojourning there for a time or whether they desired to be permanent residents in Israel. And that really would be a wonderful thing because Israel, their purpose was to be a light to the nations. a light to the Gentiles, as Isaiah 42 says that Israel was to be and the Messiah himself would be. Or in Genesis 11, 12, where the Lord calls Abraham to be a blessing to the nation. So this truly would have been a wonderful thing as lighting the nations, demonstrating what worship of the one living and true God is like. That would be a wonderful thing. But this this is not that at all. Of course, this is very different. This is Israel being conquered by a foreign power because of their failure to repent of generation after generation of false worship and covenant infidelity, unfaithfulness to their responsibilities with the Lord had called them to so that their inheritance was taken from them. They're being overrun by the nations. So we have mixed people in verse 24, but of course, with mixed people, as we read, we find what comes with that is mixed religion. We find this in verses 25 through 33. Now, even though Israel had been unfaithful for so many generations, they did maintain some form of the worship of the Lord. But what we find in verse 25 is with this importing of paganism that no longer was the Lord worshipped. Verse 25, and at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. So the pagan peoples come, they worship their own God, and it is to the exclusion of the worship of Yahweh or Jehovah. So what, interestingly enough, what was to be driven out of the Promised Land? Whenever Joshua and the Israelites first entered to conquer Canaan, what was to be driven out had now come full circle, had actually come back in, had not only come back in, but had overtaken it. And so Israel had broken covenant with the Lord. But in another sense, we might say the covenant was not broken because we find here that the Lord continues to require that those who are in this land worship him. that they worship him in the land that he's given to his people. And so in verse 25, therefore, the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So the worship of false gods incurs God's wrath. He employs, not now as he has in the past, a foreign nation, but another of his creatures. He employs these beasts, lions, who come in and actually kill some of the people as an agent of his judgment. It was so dangerous to go out, perhaps to gather crops or to hunt. The hunters became the hunted. And the peoples, verse 26 tells us, they understood why. It was because the law, the king of Assyria was told this, that the nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the God of the land. That's why he has sent lions among them to kill them. The law of the God of the land is not being obeyed. They thought this God, this tribal deity, I just wanted a piece of the pie that he wanted to be worshipped along with the other gods. They didn't understand that. Yeah, it was true that he is the god of the land. He's not being worshipped, but he's not just another tribal deity. He is the true and living God that he they didn't know how that he demanded exclusive worship. So what did they do? We see in verse 27, the king of Assyria commanded one of the priests. to be sent back. One of the priests who was taken away, taken out of Israel from Samaria to Assyria, it's commanded that he be sent back. Send a priest back so that he can teach the people who are now inhabiting the land how they should fear the Lord. And this was a relatively good measure. It's a step in the right direction, but at the same time, it's not all that helpful. Because if you remember, the priests of the north were not of the tribe of Levi. They were not the ordained priests that the Lord had sanctioned. They didn't sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem. In fact, where does this priest go? He lives here, we find, at Bethel in verse 28. He taught them there. Bethel is one of the places where you find, remember, one of Jeroboam's golden calves. And so what was gained from this? that appears like a step in the right direction. What was gained from this is what we might call a pragmatic syncretism. Pragmatic syncretism. Pragmatism, of course, is when the chief concern is what works. Not what is right. Not what is true, but what works. It's not that they were concerned with the fear of the Lord. But it was that they were concerned with the fear of lions. That's why they sent a priest to teach them how to fear the Lord. It's the question of what can we do to help ourselves? What can we do to remove this plague or this problem? That's a question that's not unfit to ask, of course, but it shouldn't be the chief concern. That's what pragmatism is concerned with. What works? What alleviates? How do we make this better? But with it comes syncretism as well. We've used that term before. That is the putting together of things that don't, that shouldn't be together. It is as one pastor describes it, blender religion. Blenders are wonderful for some things. Children, does your mom ever make you a fruit smoothie? You ever had one of those? You put some strawberries, bananas, maybe some blueberries, and some yogurt. Put that in there with some ice cubes, and it's delicious. It's smooth, as the name indicates. Delicious, smooth, all sorts of fruit in there. Tastes good, can be relatively healthy. You can also put a lot in there to make it not so healthy. But a blender is great for those things, right? A blender is not so great when it comes to religion. That's what we have taking place here. In Israel, we find that the customs, the practices of the pagan nations, along with the worship of the Lord, are all being thrown into a blender, as it were. And so this is syncretism. We throw in a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of what's true, a little bit of what's false, and we mix it all together. And so in verse 29, we find that even though this priest had come, yet in verse 29, every nation still made gods of its own. They still put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made. Every nation in the cities in which they lived. I think it's six times that we find in these verses the word made is used, that this is man made religion. They made their images, they made their shrines again and again. And so they still worshiped the gods from the lands from where they had come. They even, as we find, as we've seen twice now in recent chapters, they even sacrifice their children. as offerings to false gods. And so when pragmatism is the chief concern, what works, then we become all the more susceptible to syncretism. We ask, if we're concerned with just what works, we ask, well, what has worked for others? Maybe it's something that we should try. And it may look different, of course, in the modern world than the explicit making of images to worship. But it's still the same base temptation. And so from a corporate perspective, we might ask as a church, what what works? What do people want? What are they after? What can we do to to give them what they want? What business models can we follow? Or as individuals. We might, if it's our chief concern to alleviate our problems or really symptoms. And we might approach religion in this way, just just sort of, you know, we're doing some things right, but maybe we need to add a little more. Maybe I can I can draw some inspiration from a pastor. Maybe I can can feel sort of a sense of belonging. If I'm a part of a community. Maybe I can have a sense of purpose if I if I volunteer. In the grocer forms. There are the promises of health and wealth. So if we add a little religion to what we're already doing, maybe we can get on the Lord's good side. Maybe our problems won't be as bad. Maybe we can alleviate things. Maybe we can have success. Things will generally go better for us. That's that's the idea. Their chief concern was not the fear of the Lord. It was the fear of lions. And so they're using, as it were, they're using the true and living God to worship of him as a means to an end. But, of course, they miss the point. And that's what we see in verses 34 through 40. We've seen mixed people, mixed religion, but now we see missing the point. Verse 34 says, to this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the Lord and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob when he named Israel. So this comes after this priest is sent back and the people of the land are taught to fear the Lord. Verse 34 says they don't fear the Lord, but it seems to contradict verse 33, which comes, of course, right before it, because verse 33 says they feared the Lord, but they also served their own gods after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. So what gives here? How can they be fearing the Lord and not fearing the Lord? Well, verse 33 refers to what they were taught, what the priests came and taught them. In other words, it's the forms, it's the external rights, it's the practice. But verse 34, when it says they did not fear the Lord, that is the true fear of the Lord. They cannot be limited to external rights and forms. The fear of the Lord that was present was a form of religion, but the fear of the Lord that was absent was a supreme love and devotion to him. And so the true fear of the Lord can't be syncretistic. The true fear of the Lord is exclusive because in verses 34 to 39, we find that the very law the priest should have taught them is summed up here. Where again and again, as we read, that law says you shall not fear other gods. You shall not worship them. But rather, you shall fear the Lord. And so it's exclusive. According to the Lord's covenant that he made with his people, he alone was to be worshipped. He alone was to be feared. He alone was to be obeyed. So it did them little good. Apparently, it did some good to bring the priest back. Apparently, the lions were removed. But it did them little good overall and in the long run to add the religious form of worship of the true God, to make a blender or to throw it all in the blender. Because in order to keep his law, in order to worship him, they would need to exclude and eliminate the worship of all false gods. The devotion that the Lord himself requires excludes devotion to all others. So again, they merely added something to the blender, but what they missed was that this ingredient doesn't work with all the others. It explicitly forbids the other ingredients. Well, the concern again is pragmatism. What works? It makes sense that they were They were attempting to appease the God of the land to remove the lions. And so they were seeking benefits. And there certainly are benefits to be mentioned here. If you look at verse 39 in this summary here that we find of the covenant God had made with them, he said, you shall fear the Lord your God and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. So the Lord had promised his help to his people. But just as sure as he had promised to deliver them from their enemies, if they had worshipped him, right, they would not be in this predicament. He had also just as surely promised that if they worshipped other gods, if they were unfaithful, that he would deliver them over to their enemies. But again, the benefits. The deliverance from the enemies is not to be the chief concern. The Lord himself is to be the chief concern. What matters is what is true. What matters is what is right. What has the Lord said? What has he commanded? And so in bringing back a priest, they missed the point. Something else is missed here. We find that in the last verse of the chapter we saw, verse 39, they certainly did. miss out on the Lord's blessing and his protection to deliver them from their enemies. But look at verse 41. So these nations feared the Lord and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise and their children's children. As their fathers did, so they do to this day. It's not just missing the point, but There's a missed opportunity, and that missed opportunity is to deliver to their future generations the fear of the Lord, the true worship of God, true devotion to him, and really true blessings for their children and their grandchildren. I often hear people speak of and wonder what type of world their children and their grandchildren are going to live in. What kind of world are we leaving for them? What will they inherit? And that is, of course, a legitimate concern. We find an even more important concern in verse 41 there. And that is how will our children, how will our offspring, how will those subsequent generations, how will they worship the Lord? Because verse 41 is a fulfillment of what the second commandment promises regarding the Lord's judgment, his curse upon false worshipers, generations of them to the third and fourth generation, he says. And that's what we find here. Their children did likewise and their children's children as their fathers did, so they do to this day. If we don't teach our children how to fear the Lord, not just the forms, not just the external rights like the priest who was brought back, but the true fear of the Lord, the supreme exclusive devotion, love, faith, obedience to him. And we can't expect, barring some discovery by God's grace, we can't expect that they will worship him in accordance with his word. Why would we expect anything different? then they will too miss the point. They will seek for themselves what seems best to them, what works, what helps, what seems to alleviate problems. And there's all sorts of religious places where they can find that sort of help offered. And who knows for how many generations that will continue. So verse 41 is a very sad epitaph. If we compare it and contrast it with how their forefathers were brought into the land, they came out of Egypt in order to inherit this land, to drive out the Canaanites. Delivered from slavery to worship the Lord, to live freely before him, and now here they are in a different type of bondage, a generational bondage to syncretistic, pragmatic, False worship. Well, we might say of this passage that in our reading of Kings, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Again, many of the inhabitants of the land who previously lived there were no longer there. They'd been exported. There are a lot of people, peoples living in the land now who weren't there before. Much of the population are recent immigrants. So there's been a lot of change in that regard. And yet there remains a lot of the same false worship, forsaking the Lord's covenant and his commands. But there's something else that hasn't changed here in all of this. So we might say someone who hasn't changed, of course, and that is the Lord himself. What he demands stays the same. It was the same before Israel left and it was the same after they were conquered. What he desires from the inhabitants of the land has not changed. He wants them to worship him and to worship him alone in the way he has prescribed. He wants them to obey his commandments. And so his demands have not changed. His rewards and threatenings and promises have not changed either. And so he is to be our chief concern. And yet with him comes everything. With him comes the promised blessing like we find of these old covenant saints in verse 39. Things that are helpful, things that are wonderful. The Lord's protection, delivering them out of the hand of their enemies. That is wonderful. But their chief concern, again, was to be worship and trusting him in accordance with his word, with a wholehearted devotion. And he is the same God today. He is the Lord who, as Malachi says, does not change. We find Paul stating in the New Testament, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever. He is merciful. He is compassionate. He is righteous. He is true. He is holy. He fulfills his promises. Both to judge and to redeem. He does as He said He would do. So as we consider this chapter, let us chiefly, above all, let us fear the Lord and Him alone, not as one among many, not as a means to an end, but for His own sake, for He Himself is our reward. Now let us bow for prayer.