Ten years after the northern kingdom of Israel/Samaria fell
to one Assyrian king, another Assyrian king, Sennacherib, moved to conquer the
southern kingdom of Judah and took the fortified cities. Hezekiah offered terms, to do whatever the
king imposed on him. Sadly, in order to
pay the demands of the Assyrian king, Hezekiah took the silver from the temple
treasuries and stripped the gold from the doors of the temple, work he had done
in the earliest years of his kingship.
Then, he worked behind the scenes with the Egyptians for protection
against the Assyrian. This came to the
attention of the Assyrian king who sent emissaries to confront this treacherous
alliance though it isn’t certain that they “knew” this had happened. Their message is plain, don’t trust in the
Egyptians, they are no longer the formidable power in the region, and don’t
trust in your God, look at where that has gotten you so far, the temple ruined
and bare. It is a sad moment in history
to hear this message and know it is true.
However, have they trusted in the Lord?
Have we made the way too easy? In making the Christian life about nothing
other than a confession of belief I am concerned that we have made it something
other than what Jesus said it was. He
speaks of few finding and following the way, that fruit matters and that there
will be some who think they are in the kingdom when in fact He never knew them
at all. Jesus never makes the proposal
that if someone gives lip service to following Him that is good enough. He always called for complete commitment to
the way of the Lord. Doing is a key
component of discipleship, not just knowing the will of God. The Great
Commission was simple, we weren’t supposed to just baptize people, we were
given the task of teaching them to “obey” everything He commanded. Sometimes I think we worry too much
theologically about the mechanics of salvation and too little about the life
that is intended to flow from redemption.
Paul’s argument re the eating of food sacrificed to idols is
to agree with those who say that an idol is not a god, it is nothing at
all. There is but one true God and one
lord, there are not other gods who compete for supremacy with Him, they are
simply idols. The problem, however, is
that this knowledge should not lead us to abuse our freedom in knowing this
truth. Some do not understand this
reality and they believe that there are multiple gods and if they see one who
knows the truth eating in the temple of another god, they will presume that
this is an acceptable practice and return to the worship of idols. We have to be careful that we don’t allow our
freedom that comes from knowing the truth to cause another to stumble. Loving our neighbor means sometimes choosing
to have our own freedom circumscribed.
Jesus could have done a great many things that He didn’t do. He did only what the Father showed Him to
do. We need to do the same,
prayerfulness in all things is necessary.
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