2 Kings 17:14 Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God.
The 17th chapter of 2 Kings reads like the obituary of Israel, the northern kingdom. Here its capital city was finally sacked and its people taken captive to Assyria. The chapter explains why.
The root of the problem is in verse 14. Israel had been disobedient. They had rebelled. They had served idols. But God is merciful. He sent prophets and seers to turn the people from their evil ways. Problem was they wouldn't hear. They hardened their necks, and according to Proverbs 29:1 He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
And why wouldn't they hear? Why did they harden their necks? Because like their fathers they did not believe in the LORD their God. To me, that's an amazing statement. They did not believe in the Lord their God? The Israelites? God's chosen people? Didn't believe in God?
We have to recognize that knowing and believing are 2 different things. Surely they knew who God was. The prophets made sure of it. And surely they would have claimed to believe in the one true God. But their actions proved otherwise.
All too often, it's the same with us. We know God, and we're His children. But when we ignore what He has to say, it's simply proof that we really don't believe in Him. Not that we don't believe He exists, but that we don't believe He knows what He's talking about. When our lives are lived in disobedience to the word of God, it's testimony to the fact that we don't really believe in and trust in the one true God of the Bible.
For Israel, it meant the end of their existence as a nation. For a Christian, it means the end of your influence for the cause of the Savior in this world. It means the end of a life of righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost. It means entanglement in something God has so graciously delivered you from.
2 Peter 2:18-20 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
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