2 Kings 17
- V23, ...So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.
- V25, ...it was...they feared not the Lord: (so He) sent lions among them, which slew of them.
- V27, ...Then the king of Assyria commanded, (send them a priest) and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land.
Lord, in Thy wrath You remembered mercy for Thy people (Hab 3.2).
So it is in the Christian walk. No matter how far one strays or resists the Lord, He never forgets His own in mercy.
The people had been given kings, some good, some evil. The people had practiced so much evil living that God, being the Holy One and Just, had to rend "Israel from the house of David;" (2 Ki 17.21).
Let us never forget that sin has a price.
- ....the wages of sin is death (Rom 6.23)
- ...God is holy (Ps. 99.9)
- Be ye holy for I am holy (I Pet 1.16)
- ...whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap (Gal 6.7)
While we understand that we are not perfect we are indeed to "strive to enter in" (Lk. 13.4).
Yet, the thought that compels my heart the most in this passage, is that the Lord moved on the heart of the enemy king to make sure this captive people had what they needed for worship.
"Cast down but not destroyed." (2 Cor 4.9)
ET us note
that Christ delights to think upon His Church, and to look upon her
beauty. As the bird returneth often to its nest, and as the wayfarer
hastens to his home, so doth the mind continually pursue the object of
its choice. We cannot look too often upon that face which we love; we
desire always to have our precious things in our sight. It is even so
with our Lord Jesus. From all eternity "His delights were with the sons
of men"; His thoughts rolled onward to the time when His elect should be
born into the world; He viewed them in the mirror of His foreknowledge.
"In Thy book," He says, "all my members were written, which in
continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them" (Ps.
139:16). When the world was set upon its pillars, He was there, and He
set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of
Israel. Many a time before His incarnation, He descended to this lower
earth in the similitude of a man; on the plains of Mamre (Gen. 18), by
the brook of Jabbok (Gen. 32:24-30), beneath the walls of Jericho (Josh.
5:13), and in the fiery furnace of Babylon (Dan. 3:19, 25), the Son of
Man visited His people. Because His soul delighted in them, He could not
rest away from them, for His heart longed after them. Never were they
absent from His heart, for He had written their names upon His hands,
and graven them upon His side. As the breastplate containing the names
of the tribes of Israel was the most brilliant ornament worn by the high
priest, so the names of Christ's elect were His most precious jewels,
and glittered on His heart. We may often forget to meditate upon the
perfections of our Lord, but He never ceases to remember us. Let us
chide ourselves for past forgetfulness, and pray for grace ever to bear
Him in fondest remembrance. Lord, paint upon the eyeballs of my soul the
image of Thy Son.
