Israel’s Sin and Punishment - The Book of 2 Kings

In this Bible Story, we learn about the tragic downfall of Israel. Fully immersed in evil, they find themselves captive to the dark nations they swore allegiance to. Captives, stolen away from their country, they still fail to cry out to God for help. This story is inspired by 2 Kings 17. Go to BibleinaYear.com and learn the Bible in a Year.

Today's Bible verse is 2 Kings 17:39 from the King James Version.

Episode 148: King Hezekiah bore the burden of having Ahaz as his father, but he was nothing like him. Hezekiah held fast to God and encouraged the people to do the same. He led the people in restoring the temple of God. He restored the priests to the temple. And he led the people in true repentance and trust in God.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let us pray, but the Lord your God, ye shall fear.
Then he shall deliver you out of the hand of
all your enemies. Second King seventeen thirty nine. Lord, because
you have created me to live in freedom, I will
not hand the keys of my life over to ungodly

(00:23):
relationships and traditions so that I remain captive to their
harmful and manipulative tactics. I will not be immersed in
evil like the children of Israel. I will not go
into a cycle of unfaithfulness because of a false promise
of abundance. Even if I fall, I will be quick

(00:45):
to call on your name to deliver me and bring
me to a place of rest and restoration. No matter
what the situation looks like. I will remind myself that
you are never too far. I will remind myself that
you are just to forgive and to forget my shortcomings

(01:07):
when others seek to take advantage of my vulnerable moments
and mistakes. I thank you Lord for sending people in
my life like the lions of Second King seventeen who
will roar and fight on my behalf. Today I confess
that the hooks of the enemy are being removed from

(01:28):
my mouth and that I will speak your praises for
the rest of my life. Lord in Jesus' name. Amen,
Thanks for making prayer a priority in your life to
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(01:49):
a Year dot Com.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Israel's sin and punishment. In our last story, we learned
about the wicked King AHAs. He ruled Judah with idolatry
and evil. His twisted practices and unstable mind made Judah
vulnerable to attack. Now we learn about the tragedy of Israel.
Its walls would crumble, its cities would burn, and its

(02:23):
people would suffer. We witnessed the downfall of Israel as
people are cartered away like cattle to the slaughter. Naked, afflicted,
and alone. Israel still clings to its idolatry. Inspired by
the Book of Second Kings.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Thank you for joining us for today's episode of the
Bible in a Year podcast. This is Jack Graham. In
our previous episode, we heard about King AHAs and his
complete rebellion against God. He did despicable things, killing his
own children to sacrifice to pagan gods. A has suffered
God's judgment. As Syria and Israel both went to war

(03:01):
against Judah and took land, devastated Judah's army and plundered
its cities. Still A Has refused to humble himself and
turned to God. He bowed to more and more foreign
idols until he finally died, never experiencing peace or salvation.
Today will turn north once again to the Kingdom of Israel.

(03:23):
They too are plunged into deep darkness, and God's anger
will burn against them, leaving devastated cities, suffering people and
citizens taking as slaves of the enemy. Yet, just as
A Has did, they will not release their idols or
turn from their evil because these foreign gods griped their hearts.
Let's listen now to today's reading of God's word.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Violence and bloodshed marked the beginning of King Hoshiah's reign.
He led a coup against King Pica of Israel and
seized the throne. Because blood cried out in condemnation against Hoshia.
He was a cowardly an evil man, although not an
idle worshiper like his forefathers. Rather than degrade the God
of Israel idolatry and false sacrifice, Hoshia sinned politically, he

(04:13):
compromised the safety and integrity of Israel by pledging allegiance
to Shalmanisa, king of Assyria. Every year, Hoshia would give
a tribute to Shalmanesa in exchange for safety.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
In favor.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
To Hoshia, it seemed like he was protecting his people
an actuality, he was sending them into their doom. One night,
Hoshia sent his servants with an important message. The message
was for so King of Egypt. In It was a
lengthy plea to wage war against Syria in exchange for
Israel's loyalty. After hundreds of years of freedom, Hoshia was

(04:47):
about to make Israel's slaves to Egypt once again. The
messengers rode fast under the cover of midnight. Their horses
huffed under the darkness, and only the moon lit their way.
As the riders drew closer to eat whip, they were
interrupted by a band of Assyrian spies that surrounded the
messengers inch by inch. They drew closer, then with one

(05:09):
scoop of their spear, they killed them. The message was
received by Chalamagne Sea livid. He mounted his chariot and
began his journey to Israel. Hoshia was walking in his gardens.
He paced among the rose bushes, hoping to hear word
back from the King of Egypt. He could hear footsteps
behind him, perhaps his messengers had returned. Hoshia turned around

(05:32):
to the blunt side of a blade against his temple.
Hoshia fell to the ground unconscious. When he awoke, he
was in an Assyrian prison. Chains choked at his throat,
and the darkness of the cell was broken by only
one torchlight. Hoshia would never see his kingdom again. The
king of Assyria unleashed a tidal wave of hate and fury.

(05:54):
Under Samaria, the people of Israel were taken captive. They
were stripped of their clothes, featen, and then taken away
towards Assyria. Thousands of Israelites winced in pain as the
Assyrians put fish hooks through their lower lips and tied
them to strings attached to the horses. Tied by fish hooks,
the Israelites marched through the wilderness, naked and helpless. They

(06:17):
were dispersed around Assyria to Halal, Habor, Gozan, and Medis.
In all their sufferings, so many people refused to cry
out to God. Their idolatry was impeded. Deep in their hearts,
they feared other gods and had forgotten the God that
saved them from the fist of Pharaoh in Egypt. In

(06:38):
the last two hundred years since King Solomon, they had
erected pillars for other gods. They had condoned human sacrifice.
They even gave their own children as burnt offerings. They
had forsaken charity, kindness towards foreigners, and humility. They served
idols and themselves. The Lord had sent countless prophets to

(06:58):
warn them. He warned them of how unstable they were becoming.
He warned them that their might as a nation was
only as strong as their relationship with him. But they
would not listen. They were stiff necked. They hated the
law of the Lord. They adopted the practices of other nations.
As a result, they were captured like other nations. So

(07:19):
the Israelites were given to their own desires. Now they
were truly like other nations. They faced the demise and
humiliation of kingdoms that lived in a chaotic world. All
but Judah were carted off like cattle to Assyria. Their
pain filled moans echoed across the canyons, as did the
screams of fish hooks being ripped off of children's lips.

(07:42):
The sight filled God with sorrow, and he waited for
them to cry out to him, but they did not.
As the people were being taken away, the city of
Samaria was destroyed. Its walls were crushed, and its homes
were burnt. All that remained were palaces and buildings that
the Assyrian people are. However, the Assyrians were unaware that

(08:03):
the city belonged to God. As they drunkenly laughed in
the temple halls, a roar could be heard from the
city streets. God sent a pride of lions from the
wilderness to drive out the Assyrians. King chulaman Seer was
a brutal man, but wise and inquisitive. He appointed some
priests to teach him and his men about the ways

(08:25):
of God, yet this did not sway him.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
We opened today's passage to find a bloody coup as
Hosheia overthrew Israel's king Peka. Hoshea was a faithless king,
though as we learned, his idols were not carved images,
like so many of the kings worshiped before him. No
king Hosheia worshiped at a different altar, that of political
alliance with a foreign nation. Rather than trust God for

(08:56):
provision and protection, Hosheia turned to the King of as,
submitting himself and his nation's security to him to Hoshia.
This seemed like a wise choice. Assyria was, after all,
a mighty nation, But as Shamaneser, king of Assyria, soon discovered,
Hoshea's loyalty was not to him but to his own interests.

(09:19):
But even as he pledged loyalty to Assyria, Hosheia engaged
in treachery. He sent messengers to the King of Egypt,
pledging loyalty to Egypt if they would attack and conquer Assyria.
As you might imagine, Shamanisha was not too pleased when
he discovered this plan. For this, Hosheia and all of

(09:39):
Israel paid dearly. Hoshea was bound in chains and thrown
into prison, and for three years, Israel was besieged by Assyria.
In the ninth year of Hosheia's reign, Samaria fell to
the Assyrians and the people were captured and enslaved. It's obvious,
isn't it when a nation and its leader turn from God.

(10:01):
There is judgment that follows always, and people suffer. The
very idols that people turn to today can ultimately enslave
and torture us. Our idols are not made with stones
or political alliances, but often those things that we love,
or serve or worship more than God. After so many

(10:23):
years of unfaithfulness and idolatry, Israel faced the consequences of
their great sin. This was not the result of one
sin or even one generation of evil. Since they had
left Egypt, Israel had lived in a pattern of rejecting God,
desiring to be like other nations, rather than being set

(10:44):
apart and holy as God's people were designed to be.
Time and time again, God has sent prophets and leaders
to warn them and call them back into a relationship
with him. We see this in Second King seventeen, verse thirteen.
Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet
and every seer, saying, turn from your evil ways and

(11:05):
keep my commandments and my statutes in accordance with my
law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent
to you by my servants the prophets, but rebellious people
continued to go further and further away from God, embracing
the cultures, the customs, and the carved enemies of the world.

(11:26):
So Israel's people were dispersed as slaves to cities throughout Assyria.
The very thing that Hoshea had hoped to avoid with
his dishonest dealings and foolish allegiances was now a reality. Ultimately,
God gave his children what they wanted to be. Just
like the other nations, they exchanged what was truly good,

(11:46):
a covenant relationship with their Maker, for a lie, the
lie that they could have a better life apart from
God and his ways. In reality, it's the same lie
that the devil told Adam even the garden, questioning the
word of God and suggesting that God is holding his
perfect good away from his children. But even in their

(12:10):
rejection and in the midst of exile and humiliation, God
never stopped loving his own. He still had a plan
for Israel to one day break the change, and not
only theirs, but the change of all the world and
the terrible grip of sin. He would do this through
the Savior Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear God, thank

(12:33):
you that the promise is still true, that it is
always good to trust in you, to not rely upon
the way of this world, but to always trust in
your ways. Thank you that you never stop loving us
or giving us an opportunity to repent and return to you.
May we never exchange truth for lies. May we never

(12:54):
listen to the enemy, but always listen to you in
Jesus's name. Amen. Thank you for listening to today's Bible
in a Year podcast. I'm pastor Jack Graham from Dallas, Texas.
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(13:17):
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