2 Kings 17:41
“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.”

Second Kings brings us to a time of struggle for God’s people. They have been stubborn, idolatrous, and unfaithful to the Lord, and because of their disobedience, the Lord has justly pronounced measures of judgment on them, leading to exile, evil kings, political volatility, and vulnerability. It got so bad that it was said of the people that their evil was greater than that of even the pagan nations that Israel despised. There were short times of revival that seemed to die with the reforming king and were gone as quickly as they arrived. There were prophets that faithfully proclaimed the message of the Lord, but they were reviled and their message was generally not heeded by God’s people.

Then we get to this verse about halfway through the book, and it is something that we need to consider as a church and as God’s people. Through all that had happened, it was said of them that God’s people “feared” the Lord but also “served” their carved images. They thought they could have both! They thought they had found a happy medium, a middle ground, where they could have God and the objects of their desires. They would say that they fear the Lord but still worship at the “high places”; they would say they fear the Lord but live according to the flesh.

The next sentence became and had been their reality with an inferred warning: “their children did likewise, and their children’s children - as their fathers did, so they do to this day”. They followed in the footsteps of those who had gone before them, in the footsteps of evil kings. They watched and they learned, they observed and they followed. As their leaders went, so they went. As their fathers went so they went.

This is incredibly sobering for us. I believe it’s a call for us to examine our own hearts, a call for us to repent and reclaim a singular devotion to the Lord. We live in Babylon; we live in a place where all of our fleshly desires can come to fruition nearly immediately. Will we fear the Lord alone, or will we convince ourselves that we can keep some other idols around? Or will we profess with our mouths that we fear the Lord while serving the desires of our flesh? And will we be surprised when our children do the same?

The Lord alone is God! We are his people who have been set apart for holiness, to obey him and follow him. Would we, by the work and help of the Holy Spirit and the power of the gospel, leave a legacy of faithful devotion to Christ and his kingdom alone?

Let us not be like the people in 2 Kings 17:40, where it says of the people: “however, they would not listen, but they did according to their former manner”.

Would we hear and listen! We must take God at his word and set aside the old self, knowing that we are a new creation in Christ. Confessing that the old has passed away and the new has come. Would we not go back to the bondage of the flesh, as if we had not been set free! Would we not go back to our old way of thinking and instead be transformed by the renewing of our minds through His Word!

We need a revival. One that starts with our own devotion to Christ, our own confession of sin, our own love for the things of God in a longing for Him alone.

What would this revival look like in our hearts and in our church? What will repentance look like in our lives? Will we look like a holy people who are set apart for the Lord, or reflect the idols of our nation? Will we worship the one true God alone or give lip service to our fear of him while serving ourselves? What path are we forging ahead for the next generation? Is it one of faithfulness and devotion, or a diluted faith that also accepts the “idols of the nations”?

We serve the true, conquering King and His ways, His law, His precepts, His Word, His rule and His reign are glorious and greater than our imagination. Let us not settle for lesser gods, but rather worship the one true God in spirit and truth with a clean conscience, forsaking all else.