ShewMen

by Michael Frye

I just finished reading through 1st and 2nd Kings this past Sunday. I was amazed by something that I saw in a new way this time as I turned page after page. It revolved around the phrase, “He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord…”.

The phrase led me to a question that I asked myself as I was in study. It was this, “Just how long suffering is God?” He must be very patient based on the occurrences and reoccurrences of evil we find referenced in 1st and 2nd Kings over and over.

1st Kings begins with King David in his old age fulfilling a promise to Bathsheba concerning his son Solomon’s reign and the anointing of King Solomon as ruler over Israel and Judah. Throughout 1st and 2nd Kings we read how king after king did “evil in the sight of the Lord” and how it led to the disintegration and division of these two nations. Israel was essentially disowned by God, because they refused to turn from their evil ways back to Him. 2nd Kings ends with the captivity of Judah by the Babylonians as God had pre-determined they would. Again, because of their wickedness.

Did you know God has graciously given us the benefit of hindsight? Not just any hindsight, but His perfect hindsight. Being able to look back at what has gone dreadfully wrong and perfectly right with people and nations. Throughout the books of the Bible we are offered an opportunity to know in what ways God may react in certain situations.

Take for instance God’s judgment against these two nations consisting of His chosen people found in the books I have described above. God suffered the evil that the kings and people did during this period in Biblical history. Many generations came and passed away. Some followed in the righteous footsteps of those who lived just previous to them. Others fell away from the one true God, but in all cases these generations were led by kings.

In most cases the writer of 1st and 2nd Kings is clear that the kings were instrumental in leading the people away from worshiping God, or led the people in the continuation of their sinful ways. This is not to say that the individual during that time did not have the responsibility to know better, because they did. And still, as it is evident in our time, it is evident in their time that people looking for someone to lead them may not be able to see beyond their own selfish humanized agendas toward what God may have in mind.

Immersion in sin has a funny way of preventing one’s ability to correctly see truth from fiction. Whether that ability exist in a current situation or in hindsight. For our benefit this is made evident and very clear in 1st and 2nd Kings. The king almost always refused to hear or see what God was doing. There were a few exceptions, but they were very few and very far between.

The people always followed with the exception of few who were set aside by God for the specific purpose of warning them against what they were choosing to do. They worshipped gods that did not exist and accomplished great things in producing the altars, figures, and methods by which they served the false deities. The true and living God was always there warning them to turn away from what would be a devastating end.

The kings and the people did not listen until it was too late. You see just one generation prior to the taking of Judah in to captivity, one godly man rose. He was a king and his name was Josiah. The writer of 2nd Kings describes him this way.

“he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.” 2 Kings 22:2 (ESV)

Josiah was presented with the Book of the Law (Deuteronomy) by a priest who had discovered it while the “house of the Lord” was under repair. The priest gave it to one of Josiah’s secretaries to be brought and read to him. After hearing it, Josiah knew that he and for many years his nation had transgressed the law that was read to him. The result was a penitent man who sought to over turn the determination of God to destroy the nation of His chosen people.

Simply put, it was too late. God’s long patience with a people that refused to turn back to Him was gone. I think it is interesting though that Josiah did not give up. He reinstituted the ways of God among the people based on the book that had been read to him even after God told him that there would be no reprieve from destruction. He wiped the country clean of false idols and their worship. He was a righteous man who led people to the righteous ways of God.

I believe there is a hard lesson to be learned in Josiah’s reaction related to that question I asked myself throughout this study and to the benefit of God’s perfect hindsight that I spoke about earlier. It is this; we are given but a moment to live here on earth. How we, the individual, react to what we are shown about God and His ways says a lot about how we will react as a people.

We have had ungodly leaders, the kings of our time if you will, who have led their people in to unholy and sinful circumstances. In recent history we have the seen the literal destruction of said people and their kings, which I can confidently say was God’s judgment on them for the evil that they did in His sight. Let us not be that next nation of people who God has determined to be completely beyond His reprieve and find ourselves destroyed and taken away captive.

Let us be individuals like Josiah. Persons seek God through His holy word and who call upon those around us to the redemptive power of Christ Jesus. Let us return to the ways of the Lord, so that we might be found as those who do “what is right in the eyes of the LORD.”