PROCLAMATION
“When The Lord made a covenant with the Israelites, He
commanded them: ‘Do not worship any other gods or bow down to them, serve them
or sacrifice to them.’” 2 Kings 17:35
(NIV)
EXPLANATION
When Ahaz son of Jotham was king of Judah and Hoshea
son of Elah was king of Israel, and Judah had joined Israel in doing evil in
the eyes of The Lord, He allowed Shalmaneser king of Assyria to attack and
enslave the people of Israel and Judah. (2 Kings 17:5-6) This happened because the Israelites had
sinned against The Lord God. (2 Kings 17:7-17)
He had warned them through the prophets not to do this, and to turn from
their evil ways but they would not listen. (2 Kings 17:12-14) This was why The Lord rejected all of the
people of Israel. (2 Kings 17:20) He
allowed them to be captured and taken away from their homes. Then He let the king of Assyria bring in
other people to live in the cities to replace the Israelites. (2 Kings 17:23-24) The Lord God had commanded them not to
worship, bow down to, serve, or offer sacrifices to any other god but they were
stubborn and would not listen to Him. They
persisted in their sinful practices. (2 Kings 17:38-40)
APPLICATION
It is sad to admit that after all of the things that
The Lord has brought us through, and the things that He has blessed us with, we
still do not thank Him, praise Him, or obey Him as we should. We only worship Him for a couple of hours,
one day of the week. The rest of the
time we go on about our sinful, world-like, activities. We put so many things ahead of Him. While we do not call these things our gods,
we “worship” them and give them the majority of our time, talent, and treasure. If we count up the time that we spend giving
The Lord God prayer, praise, and worship, and studying His Holy Word, we would
be embarrassed by how little time we give Him.
Let us plan to give The Lord more of our time and let us stop worshiping
the “gods” that we have placed before Him.
It is not possible to truly serve two masters. (Matthew 6:24)
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