Are we not here, as a nation? His church?
II Kings 17
v. 7 ". . . had sinned against the Lord their God. . . feared other gods"
v. 8 ". . . walked in the statutes of the heath, whom the Lord cast out from before them"
v. 9 ". . . did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord, built high places"
v. 10 ". . . set them up images and groves in every high hill, & under every green tree"
v. 11 ". . . burnt incense as the heathen did. . . wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger"
v. 12 ". . . for they served idols, when the Lord said, YE shall not do this thing"
v. 13 " the Lord sent His prophets to warn, but they would not hear"
v. 14 "Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks. . . did not believe in the Lord"
v.
15 "and they rejected His statutes. . .and they followed vanity, and
became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them,
concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like
them."
v. 16 "And they left all the commandments of the Lord, and made idols and worshipped them"
v. 17 "Affected their children with their sin, and provoked the Lord to anger"
v. 21, and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin"
Throughout this chapter, it is the sorrowful outline of why God was getting ready to remove Israel. Chapter after chapter through I Kings and through II Kings shows the kings of Judah and Israel. As we read of the kings that followed King David, we see them all in comparison to him and his relationship with the Lord. We go from Solomon, David's son, through almost 250 years of history of those kings that did not walk with the Lord as David. This continued process of evil, leadership of evil, leads us to this moment in II Kings, where God says, 'and the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight."
It is needful for us to see, wherein their sin was. The dual comparison between them and our nation and the church today is closely parallel. And if God is the same yesterday as He is today, then we are on the same path of the Lord rejecting us. All of this is due to the response of man that produces the response of God. The Lord rejected His people, Israel, only because they had rejected Him. And if our nation and the church continues to reject the Lord, then will receive the same response. If there was ever a time to wake up and take notice it is now, in this late hour.
Are we not here?
Israel had rejected the word of God and place of God. From the time of Jeroboam as king they had not had one good king, but all did evil in the sight of the Lord. Our years and decades are now continuing to show our plight that we are failing in major ways before the Lord. Our elected officials demonstrate that God gives us what we deserve, men of self, greed and power. Our laws reflect this, as we have legalized just about every abomination in the Scriptures. And our courts and judicial edicts are consistent in their reflection of these same follies that go against God and for men's devious choices. Are we not here? Have we not learned anything from Israel?
And so we see the contrast of these two nations, Israel and the US; we see it in the spiritual comparison as well between the children of God, Abraham's seed and the church today in North America of disobeying the Word of the Lord. the church has been impacted due to two things:
1. Christian priority of holiness and perfection in Christ has been rejected for casual, worldly and selfish choices that are not pleasing to the Lord.
2. Much of the church population are not truly regenerated Christians, yet they bear the name of Christian and reflect the church as a witness. And their witness, being lost souls, is sinful and vile and much like the world, for they are still of the world.
Started: January 17, 2018
Continued: 1/24;
Finished:
No comments:
Post a Comment