Week of 2/10-2/16: Scattered - The Rise and Fall of the Northern Kingdom

Day Two: 2 Kings 17:6-11 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria. He deported the Israelites to Assyria and settled them in Halah and by the Habor, Gozan’s river, and in the cities of the Medes.[This disaster] happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt and because they had worshiped [a] other gods. They had lived according to the customs of the nations that the LORD had dispossessed before the Israelites and the customs the kings of Israel had introduced. The Israelites secretly did what was not right against the LORD their God. They built high places in all their towns from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. They burned incense on all the high places just like those nations that the LORD had driven out before them. They did evil things, provoking the LORD. They served idols, although the LORD had told them, “You must not do this.”

WE ARE USUALLY REALLY GOOD at spotting other people’s flaws. In fact, we’re often a lot better spotting others’ flaws than our own. We can see so clearly the problems, quirks, and bad decisions of others, but in our own lives we are often blind. One of the things we can often see others doing, to our astonishment, is abandoning a good thing in order to embrace a lesser thing.

An example I have personally seen is a husband abandoning

his wife and family to embrace somebody else. Everyone around him can see the damage he is causing to his children, his wife, his friends, and himself, but he seems oblivious to it. The abandonment of his family is fueled by a desire to embrace another person.

Before we shake our heads in disappointment, we must recognize our propensity to do similar things in our own lives. Many of us, without realizing we are doing it, abandon God’s Word and embrace our idols. We abandon the clear commands of Scripture that should govern not only how we act or behave, but how we think and what we know is true. Anytime we choose to abandon Scripture’s clear teaching about something for the sake of our own way or our own wants, we are embracing our idols.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷Why is it easier to see the flaws in others than to see the flaws in ourselves?

▷▷What can we do to uncover our own flaws?

▷▷How do we go about correcting our flaws?