Worship the Living God

The book of 2 Kings 17 gives the account of how the people of Israel were taken captive into Assyria by King Shalmaneser of Assyria. God allowed this to happen because the people of Israel provoked Him to anger by serving idols and gods of other cultures which He had warned them not to serve. He sent His prophet to them to make them turn from their evil way but they did not listen and stayed stiff-necked like their ancestors.

After deporting the Israelites to Assyria, Shalmanesa brought in foreigners to replace the Israelites. The foreigners came with their idols and started to worship them in Samaria (isreal land). This provoked God, and he sent lions into their camp which killed some of them. The foreigners knew this and told Shalmanesa, King of Assyria, that they were being killed because they did not know the rituals of the God of Samaria (Israel). This prompted Shalmanesa to order one of the Israeli priests who was carried away from Samaria to come and dwell with them so that he could teach the foreigners how to fear the Lord and serve Him.

This story reveals an important dynamic between God, his people, and others. For one, we see that there are things God expects his people to do, one of which is to worship Him. Their failure to obey the commandments of the Lord led to them to be overcome by their enemies. We also see how those who were not followers of God received his wrath for worshiping idols on holy land. As believers in Christ, we must learn from this. We must never emulate the people of Israel in idol worship. Rather, we need to stay obedient to God's words and serve him faithfully. Here are things that God expects from his people that we can pick out from this story.

Things That God Expects from His People

1. They should not fear other gods.
2. They should not bow down (worship) to other gods.
3. They should not serve other gods.
4. They should fear Him (in reverence)
5. They should worship Him.
6. They should serve Him alone, the only living God.

The God we serve is not a difficult God. We simply need to choose his will and ways over those of the world. If we refuse to do His will and follow in the footsteps of the people of Israel by worshiping other gods, we will be overcome by the evil one because our God is a consuming fire and He will give us up to our foes for destruction.