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Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Thursday, 16 October 2025:
2 Kings 17:1-6 — In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
In 2 Kings 15:30, Hoshea led the conspiracy against the king of Israel, Pekah. After Pekah’s assassination, Hoshea took over.
The northern kingdom finally falls. After two centuries of rebellion, idolatry, and prophetic warnings, Israel’s judgment arrives. Hoshea’s brief reign ends not with repentance but with imprisonment. The people who had once been delivered from Egypt now find themselves exiled again, proof that sin always brings us back into bondage. The same pattern repeats whenever we reject God’s rule: freedom forfeited, blessing lost, and spiritual slavery regained (Romans 6:16). Hoshea’s “lesser evil” compared to his predecessors did not save him, for partial obedience still invites full judgment. The siege of Samaria is a sobering reminder that God’s patience, though long, is not limitless.
“Two hundred years and 19 kings after the time of Solomon (the last king over a united Israel), the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell. It was not because the God of Israel was unable to help them, but because they had so forsaken God and ignored His guidance and correction that He finally stopped actively protecting them and let them rot and degrade according to their desire…. As they carried Israel away to Assyria, they followed their typical custom. When the Assyrians depopulated and exiled a conquered community, they led the captives away on journeys of hundreds of miles, with the captives naked and attached together with a system of strings and fishhooks pierced through their lower lips. God would make sure they were led in this humiliating manner through the broken walls of their conquered cities (Amos 4:2-3). This shows another principle of God’s judgment: When it comes, it is often humiliating and degrading.” (David Guzik)
2 Kings 17:7-12 — And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the LORD carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger, and they served idols, of which the LORD had said to them, “You shall not do this.”
The cause of their downfall is clear: sin and syncretism. Israel’s collapse was not political but spiritual. They feared other gods and conformed to the nations instead of transforming them. Note the subtlety of sin’s language — “they did secretly against the LORD.” What begins in secret will always surface in shame (Numbers 32:23; Luke 12:2-3). Their “high places” were everywhere, symbols of an internal rebellion that no longer needed hiding. The land that had been purified under Joshua was now polluted by the same abominations God had once expelled. The people forgot that privilege without purity leads to punishment.
2 Kings 17:13-18 — Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only.
This passage lays bare the tragic cycle: warning, stubbornness, and wrath. God’s mercy is seen in His repeated appeals, “every prophet and every seer.” But mercy rejected becomes judgment deserved. The phrase “they went after false idols and became false” is especially revealing; we become what we worship (Psalm 115:8). The more we chase lies, the more we lose the ability to recognize truth. Spiritual idolatry deforms the worshiper. It is not that God’s people were ignorant, they were willfully obstinate. They “sold themselves” to evil, trading covenant relationship for corruption, and thus God “removed them from His sight.” To live outside God’s presence is the essence of exile.
2 Kings 17:24-33 — And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel…. So they feared the LORD but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.
Here we see the birth of the Samaritan people and the enduring temptation of divided devotion. The new inhabitants “feared the LORD but also served their own gods.” This is religion without repentance, a dangerous mixture of reverence and rebellion. It mirrors much of modern Christianity, where God is acknowledged but not obeyed, where we fear His judgment yet serve our own desires. But the Lord has never accepted mixed worship. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). Syncretism is not faithfulness, it is faithlessness disguised as tolerance.
“Are you sure this is not a true description of your own position? You pay an outward deference to God by attending his house, and acknowledging his day, whilst you are really prostrating yourself before other shrines.” (Meyer)
2 Kings 17:34-41 — To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the LORD, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel…. So these nations feared the LORD and also served their carved images; their children did likewise, and their children’s children, as their fathers did, so they do to this day.
The final verses describe the generational persistence of compromise. The sins of the fathers became the inheritance of the children. What one generation tolerates, the next embraces. Their “fear” of God was cultural, not covenantal. God was one god among many, not the only true God. The chapter closes not with redemption but with repetition, “so they do to this day.” It is a haunting refrain reminding us that compromise, left unchecked, outlives us.
Again, 2 Kings 17 recounts the fall of Israel, explaining why Israel fell – “this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God… and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.” (2 Kings 17:7, 8) “Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced.” (2 Kings 17:19)
For political and civic reasons, the kings of Assyria attempted to sponsor renewed worship of God, redeploying priests to teach the law of God in the land. However, what resulted was the same polluted religion and idolatry that God rejected in the first place – the blending of beliefs or syncretism. Essentially, the people sought to worship God and also the idols of their society. “To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the Lord….” (2 Kings 17:34)
– Romans 15:4 — For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction….
Unfortunately, the compromise of syncretism (the blending of different religions and cultures) impacts the church today too, rendering our Old Testament readings very relevant to today:
When the church or God’s people adopt the beliefs, ways, practices, customs, and rules of the world, the salt loses is saltiness and the light is dimmed, allowing darkness to grow. A compromised church destroys nations more than corrupt political leaders. Compromise starts when God’s people place self before God and seek to build for themselves little kingdoms rather than seeking the Kingdom of God, living by the motto “My will be done..,” rather than, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Then, they partner with other would-be kings around them in order to get along. They build metaphorical towers of Babel and celebrate their unity in self-fulfillment and self-made prosperity. Before long, agreeing with man becomes more important than agreeing with God, and further compromise ensues. When the fear of man replaces the fear of God individually and corporately, destruction is inevitable.
If the world is growing darker, it is because the light is growing dimmer. The problem is not “them,” it is “us.” As the church goes, so goes the nation. Rather than cursing the darkness, turn up the light. Pray for corporate repentance and revival within the church. Corporate repentance starts with individual repentance. Where might you have compromised your faith? Have you dimmed your light in order to get along with those who prefer the darkness?
– Matthew 6:24 — “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
– Luke 11:23 — “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
– Revelation 3:16 — “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
“…and they served idols….” (2 Kings 17:12) Idols are not just little statues representing fake gods. An idol is anything that takes priority in a person’s life over God. Few people in America today worship statues, but nonetheless this generation is just as idolatrous as previous generations. 1 Samuel 15:23 and Colossians 3:5 add to our understanding of idolatry – “For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.” (1 Samuel 15:23) “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” (Colossians 3:5)
Many Christians are blind to their idolatry which is primarily a worship of self — putting self ahead of God and above others, rejecting the Great Commandment of love. Jesus said that the first step to truly following Him is denying self, putting God and others above self, regardless the personal cost (taking up the Cross), and following Him. “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Corinthians 13:5)
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 16 October 2025: Today’s call is to identify and destroy the “high places” that still remain, those areas of divided loyalty where we fear the LORD but also serve ourselves. Ask: Where do I mix devotion with disobedience? Where have I excused sin in the name of comfort or culture? Then actively replace that idol with obedience. Worship is not what we feel but what we joyfully give. God seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). If we want revival, we must begin by renouncing our inner syncretism — the subtle ways we make God one among many in our hearts. True worship demands total surrender.
Pray: “Heavenly Father, You are the one true God, the Maker of heaven and earth, and there is none besides You. Forgive us for the high places we have allowed to stand — those hidden altars of pride, comfort, and compromise. Teach us to fear You alone, not in word but in deed. Purify our hearts from divided worship and fill us with holy zeal for Your name. As You warned Israel through Your prophets, warn and awaken us today, that we may turn fully back to You. Let Your Spirit tear down every false god within us until You alone are enthroned in our hearts. In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.”
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