The Religion that Serves a Politician
When the Northern nation of Israel is deported into Assyria, the king of Assyria repopulates the land with exiles of other nations. This was a strategic practice of ancient kings to remove people from their land and resettle it with strangers. Why? Because gods of the ancient world were considered territorial deities. An ancient king would, therefore, consider the captive people totally powerless to rise up if he displaced them from their land.
When this happens, the resettled immigrants are oblivious to Israel's laws and they suffer immediately at the hand of the Lord for their pagan ways.
2 Kings 17:25 (ESV) And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the LORD. Therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
The king of Assyria decides to remedy this problem by sending a priest from Israel back to teach them how to worship the God of Israel so as to keep peace in the land. The result of this is a religiously mixed group of people who worship both the God of Israel and their pagan deities from their former life.
2 Kings 17:29 (ESV) But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived.
2 Kings 17:32–33 (ESV) They also feared the LORD and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. 33 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.
Now let us consider what this is. It is a picture of religion for the sake of civil peace. The king of Assyria is interested in one thing - ruling the land and having no issues with its people. If a sprinkling of the old religion of Israel will fix things, so be it. He's not really interested in the faith or the reality of this God. He simply wants religion to keep the people quiet.
This is why Christians need to be wary of politicians getting involved in any religious presentations. There's always a superficial motivation for this hideous marriage. Politicians seek to rule others and remain in control. The Christian faith believes in a Savior who surrendered His control and served others. There is no fellowship with these values.
Perhaps that is why the writer of 2 Kings immediately turns attention to remind us who Israel really is... they are the precious people of God. They were called to be holy and distinct from the nations around them. Instead, they emulated and evolved into them.
2 Kings 17:34–36 (ESV) 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. 35 The LORD made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, 36 but you shall fear the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice.
The faith of a Christian is not in the politician. It is in the God who made the world and called them to Himself and His service. Religion that becomes comfy with any political enterprise is both disconnected from heaven and culturally impotent.
Now, these people Assyria resettles in the land become a famous group in the New Testament. They are the Samaritans. They will go on to establish their own set of religious documents, their own temple and their own story.
Yet we see Jesus coming to one of their daughters one day on a hot afternoon by a well. He shows her the love of God and tells her of the offer He has to give. She is transformed and becomes a powerful evangelist in the city of Samaria. Then there's a city-wide revival. What happened? The Lord of Glory reached down into the midst of a religious mishmash and saved. He does that still today.
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