Cease to be existent

"Cease to be existent" – 2 Kings 17:41 God comes into our lives; we serve Him, or our flesh becomes more passionate. Our actions lead us to reap what we have and look forward to it for our old age. The nation of God, the chosen man Moses, with power and grace fought and conquered.

I. The reason why God was displeased with His people.

A. Leaving God, someone, or something will make you a prisoner of your own circumstances (situations that come from abandoning God).

1. They raised high places for strange gods.

2. They feared other gods... high places were built, their idolatry multiplied, and "their hearts were filled with vanity".

3. They refuse to listen to God's prophets, stiffened their necks, and refused to believe the word of Jehovah their God.

4. They turned their backs on God's "commandments" and adopted the religion of "their neighbors".

5. They were zealous in seeking evil, "passing through" their sons and daughters through the fire and offering them to false gods.

6. Beware of your flesh, which is the one that betrays!

7. (14-25) The king of Assyria (Mesopotamia, Iraq, Syria, and part of Turkey) took the ten northern tribes of Israel into Mesopotamia.

8. He also brought people from other nations he had conquered and "put them in the land of Israel".

9. Earlier the Lord, when Israel obeyed Him, drove out the heathen nations from among them and established His people in Canaan by the hand of Joshua.

10. When they would no longer listen to Jehovah, He drove them out of the land "and brought back the nations by the hand of the king of Assyria."

11. These pagan peoples worshipped their own deities and so displeased God, especially now that they were living in the land of Immanuel (God with us).

12. The Lord's wrath was soon seen "sending lions against them" that roamed the earth, killing some of them.

13. (2 Kings 17:26-28) Someone notifies the king of Assyria that the plague of lions was caused by the presence of these foreigners who "did not know the law of the God of Israel".

14. Then "the king of Assyria" ordered an Israelite priest to return from captivity for the purpose of instructing the pagan settlers about how they were to fear Jehovah.

15. The priest sent was much like the idolatrous priests who were from Samaria, who were idolaters and was not a true priest of Jehovah.

16. That God be with you is that you serve Him and give Him first place, if you are not like that you are someone else like the idolaters.

17. He went to Bethel, the seat of the worship of the golden calf (although the calf was no longer there) and taught the new inhabitants the polluted religion of Jerusalem, which included the worship of Jehovah, although it was not limited (you put a limit to something) on it.

18. These foreign settlers (emigrants) intermarried with the few remaining Israelites on earth, thus giving rise to the people known as Samaritans (Arabs and Hebrew-language), an ethnic group (racial, self-characteristic, Gentile, pagan) mixed with their own religion and customs.

19. (2 Kings 17:29-34) These verses describe foreign settlers.

20. Each nationality had "its own gods and made priests" from among them.

21. They also adopted the worship of Jehovah, and the result was a hybrid religion (crossed, mixed) that became worse than the most obstinate, incorrigible paganism (does not change its mind or proceed, despite the reasons to the contrary): Beware that you are going to lose what you have from God and do not seek to blame others.

22. (2 Kings 17:39b-40) Neither do they fear Jehovah (34b-40) describes the Israelites who remained in the land, (Samaria).

23. They gave no heed to the Lord's repeated warnings against idolatry and continued to worship the golden calves.

24. (2 Kings 17:41) This passage refers once again to foreign settlers.

25. They appear to be less guilty than the people God chose.

26. With what little light they had, (41) they "feared Jehovah"; they did not fear Jehovah. (34b).

27. As far as we can tell, the ten tribes never returned to the land.

28. They were scattered all over the world.

29. The danger of rebelling against God. (It is manifest that which was previously hidden, in secret, or that most people do not know.) Amen.