In 2 Kings 17 we read about the moral and national fall of the children of Israel. These things were written for our admonition. Note that it was a loss of the fear of God that caused them to sin against their Lord, and in so doing caused the ruin of their nation, their families and, above all, their fellowship with God. The downward spiral began because they walked in the statutes of the heathen. How different was David, the man after God’s own heart, who said: “I did not put away His statutes from me.”
Another reason for their spiritual decline was that they secretly did things that were not right in the sight of God. It’s so easy to put on a “public face”. The question that we need to ask ourselves is what do we do, say, watch, read, listen to when we are all alone? Of course we cannot hide anything from God, so how much better it would be for each of us if our “secret” lives were wrapped up as God’s “secret agents”.
Once again we find that the children of Israel served idols instead of God. Paul’s definition in Colossians as to what constitutes real idolatry should be a warning to us. How sad to see it written that God’s people would not hear Him nor believe Him, but instead they believed the vanity of the heathen rather than the truth about God. They literally gave themselves and their children over to do evil. Rather than trust and obey, they compromised and fell.
Saints, reject your old pagan ways & follow after God, lest history repeat itself.
