2 Kings 17: Israel’s Rebellion against God SEPTEMBER 27, 2026 Pastor Steven L. Anderson

Man second Kings chapter number 17 this chapter kind of gives an overview of

the northern kingdom of Israel capital city Samaria and

Just sort of everything that led up to them going into captivity because this is when it finally comes to an end for them

Now the kingdom of Judah in the south is going to remain for a little bit longer until eventually

They're going to go into captivity to with the Babylonians the difference is that they after 70 years of captivity

End up coming back from Babylon and they end up reestablishing things in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah

They rebuild the temple they rebuild the wall and ultimately at the time of Christ. They're still there

They've got the temple they're worshiping God etc.

Whereas the northern kingdom of the Samaritans or the Israelites as they were called at that time

You know, they end up going into captivity and for the most part by and large they never really come back

They never come back and become the nation of Israel that they once were and they become known as the ten lost tribes

Of the northern kingdom at the time of Christ

There are still little bits of remnants from each of those tribes

But nowadays of course, they're completely gone. They no longer exist and so forth

They're just scattered among the heathen as God said they would be so in chapter 17 here

it starts out with you know, just

Continuing the story where we laughed off in

Second King 16, but then it's gonna end up giving just kind of these big

Overviews of their whole history and about all the sins that they did that caused them to go into captivity and so forth

It starts on verse number one in the 12th year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hosea

the son of Ela to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years and he did that which was evil in the side of the Lord

But not as the kings of Israel that were before him

And so it seems to indicate that this guy is bad

But he's not as bad as some of the other worse just total

Satan worshipping bail worshipping kings that came before him and yet the end comes during this guy's reign

Because at the end of the day as I've brought up repeatedly in the series

It's kind of a pass fail in

Second Kings they either did right in the side of the Lord or they did evil in the side of the Lord

Some are worse than others better than others

But at the end of the day God tends to be gracious with those who in general do what's right

Even if they do wrong even if they have problems

But once you're over the line of just doing evil in the side of the Lord

You know you might get smoked and just because someone worse than you looks like they're getting away with something at any time

Judgment can come down upon the wicked and so Hosea. Yeah, he's not as bad as someone else

And that's how a lot of people judge themselves like well, I'm not as bad as that guy or I'm not as bad as these people over here

Well, here's the thing if you're not right with God

The judgment's always looming and so God is totally justified in bringing the end during Hosea's reign

So against him came up shall Menezer king of Assyria

Hosea became his servant and gave him presents

So at first when Assyria comes up Hosea just decides to play ball with the king of Assyria

pay taxes to him become

subservient or

Tributary to the greater Assyrian Empire

But then ultimately he gets tired of doing that and he kind of goes behind the king of Assyria's back as we read a moment ago

And he tries to deal with the king of Egypt and see if maybe he can get a better deal and get out from under the

Thumb of Assyria

So this is where the Assyrians just come in and just

Completely destroy the nation of Israel and the way that they do that is by taking them into captivity

What does this mean taking them into captivity? Well, it means just literally

Taking the people who live there the citizens and just deporting them to another country

And then what they do is they replace those people with other people from other parts of the Empire who want to settle

And basically just live in houses that they didn't have to build and just take over fields and vineyards and all of yards

That they didn't have to plant and so it's a win-win for the Assyrians because the enemies that were given them problems

The rebellious refractory Israelites they get rid of them and then they reward other people and benefit other people from other parts

Of their Empire by bringing them in and then the people that they bring in kind of owe everything to the Assyrians

And so they're gonna have allegiance and loyalty to the Assyrians

so this is a pattern that you're gonna see in the Bible of

Removing one group of people and putting in another now. Here's the thing about this though

Obviously, they're not just deporting like every single last person

It's important to understand this that the people that they're removing are probably the most important people

The most intelligent people the most wealthy people and the people that are on the lower end of society

They're gonna tend to be left behind and stay in the land because obviously it's just not practical to deport every single person

So they're getting rid of all of the governing class all of the educated class all of the

Artisans and people that are kind of on the higher echelons of society and then all the more menial

unskilled type workers get left behind in the land and so that's what happens here

And so they bring in all these different foreigners from other parts of the Empire and then that population is gonna mix with

The Israelites that are left behind and then this is gonna form a new group of people that by the time we get to the New

Testament are going to be known as the Samaritans, okay, because

Samaria is the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel

And so even though most of the ten tribes are getting deported

Some people are left behind tons of foreigners are brought in

They're assimilating they're mixing and this group is ultimately going to be the Samaritans

There's going to be a province in the Roman Empire

That's going to be you know Judea and then you've got obviously the Samaritans that are totally separate from the

Judeans or Jews and we're going to talk about that a little bit later

So that's kind of what's going on in this chapter and it goes and explains

You know why God is so mad at them

Why God allowed the Assyrians to defeat them because at the end of the day if the Israelites would have had the Lord on their side

No one could have ever defeated them, you know

There are other times when powerful empires come up against them whether it's the Assyrians the Babylonians the Egyptians

The Ethiopians, you know send up at one point millions of people just coming up and trying to invade that Levant region

And the thing is that God can always protect his people

But when they turn away from the Lord and do all these horrible sins

Then God removes his hand of protection and they end up being destroyed by the Assyrians

One of the things that always tends to come up in these discussions is he says well

They're doing exactly what the nations did that lived here before the Israelites got there

You know because when the Israelites came in and took over the land

They ended up wiping out a lot of the indigenous population

Because God said they were so gross and so evil and so wicked that the land itself was just vomiting them out

They were super perverted and evil and so that comes up a lot. And then the other thing that comes up a lot is

The fact that they practice infanticide, you know today we call it abortion

but it's the same phenomenon of

Infanticide in these days they're passing the children through the fire unto some false God

But it's just a way of just eliminating

Unwanted children or just practicing a satanic ritual or what have you and so that's another thing that they're guilty of shedding all that innocent blood

God does not pardon the shedding of innocent blood

And so that's part of the reason why they're facing this judgment another thing that's brought up is just idolatry in general

It says in verse number nine the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God

And they built them high places in their cities from the Tower of the Watchmen to the Fence City

And they set them up images and groves and every high hill and under every green tree

So on the one hand they're publicly doing idolatry and false religion just out in the open and then secretly

They're just committing all kinds of ungodly sins behind closed doors

It's a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret the Bible says and so God is

Warning them in verse 13 the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by all the prophets and by all the seers saying

Turn ye from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes

According to all the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets now withstanding

They would not hear but harden their necks like to the neck of their fathers that did not believe in the Lord their God

And so of course he that being often reproved hardened with his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy

And that's what happens in this chapter

Israel is permanently

vanquished from being what we would know as Israel and I'm hurrying through a lot of this because it's a very long chapter

I want to just get to some of the more interesting parts because we've already

Seen a lot of these patterns playing out in second Kings already up to this point

So some of this just review like you know verse 17

They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire and used divination and

Enchantments and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger

Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight

There was none left, but the tribe of Judah only and of course, you know

Yeah, they're a little remnants of Levi Benjamin and even some of the ten northern tribes that hang around

But in general the only tribe that really remains in a big way

Numerically is the tribe of Judah and so that southern kingdom of course is known as Judah and in the New Testament

It's gonna be the Roman province of Judea the people that live there are called Judeans also known as Jews

Okay, and that is what the word Jew means do not mix up the word Jew

With Israelite or Israeli right in the Bible when the Bible is using the word Jew

we are talking about people who live in the southern kingdom of Judah or

people who

subscribe to the God of Judah and are following that religion in the Old Testament and

When Christ comes on the scene those people in Judea or people in the diaspora that are following the religion of Judea and

Jerusalem and the temple those people are called in the Bible

Jews, okay, why do I make such a big deal about this because today?

There's a false religion called Judaism and those people call themselves Jews. These are not the same Jews

Okay, and so you'll have this garbage where people will say something like oh, well, Jesus was Jewish

Jesus is a Jew and the problem with this logic is that they're using two words that mean two totally different things

To try to convince you that Jesus was a member of a false religion

That's it's foolish because here's the thing in

2026 a Jew is a person who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ. They reject him as the Messiah

They do not believe that he's the son of God. They follow things like the Babylonian Talmud

They follow all kinds of traditions and things of the Pharisees that Jesus hated and rebuked

Okay, they reject the God of the Bible because Jesus told them, you know, look if you believed Moses you'd believe me

The Bible says if you don't have the son you don't have the father and so modern-day

Judaism and its Jews

Reject the son. They reject God the father. They reject the word of God. They are not saved

They don't have the son therefore

They don't have the father and so therefore to say Jesus is a Jew and to imply that somehow he belongs to this wicked

ungodly

rebellious perverse group of people known as the Jews is

Wrong and anachronistic

Okay, so let me give you an illustration

Okay, it'd be like if I said well Pastor Shelley hates Indian food and then somehow

Somebody saw him eating a Navajo taco and said that it's somehow proof that he doesn't hate Indian food

Now this is two totally different kinds of Indians right because one of them is talking about India and

One of them is talking about Native Americans living in Arizona

But here's the thing Native Americans living in Arizona are also called Indians and this goes back of course to a mistake

And a confusion that when Columbus showed up here

He thought that the world was a lot smaller than it really was so he thought that he had sailed like all the way around

The world and had reached India and so he shows up and he's just like this is India

You know because he just doesn't know his natives or it's just brown people and he's just like look like Indians to me

So then it becomes basically well

This is like it's sort of like our own little India the West Indies or you know that the East it was like what?

so because of this mistake of thinking that this is India then

Basically the natives become known as Indians and then name just kind of stuck

And here's the thing you can fight against these things and not like them and say they're politically incorrect

But the other day people are gonna kind of say what they're gonna say and if you actually go to the rest

They call themselves Indians like they'll have churches that are called like so-and-so Indian church and Indian this and Indian that you know

They like to use that word and then white people are scolded for using that word sometimes

But at the end of the day the point is that this is a misuse of a word or a

Misunderstanding of a word to think that a Navajo taco is what we mean by Indian food

when we're talking about something like

You know Tikka Masala or something okay, and it's the exact same thing with this thing of Jew

Jesus was a Jew in the sense that he's living in Judea and

following the religion of

Jerusalem of the Old Testament

Jerusalem temple the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob yeah, he's a Jew in the sense that that's his ethnic

nationality at that time and

That the religion of the Old Testament is what he's following, but that is not what they're doing today

I mean look at the time of Christ, you know what his religion consisted of going to the temple and offering a burnt sacrifice

I mean Jesus tells people that he heals go to the temple and

Offered the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto them

I mean when Jesus Christ is circumcised and his mom offers a burnt offering

For her purification Luke chapter 2, you know, she's gonna offer the turtle doves the poor person's offering

Luke 2 · chapter mention

But these are animal sacrifices at the temple. This is following

Exodus Leviticus numbers deuteronomy. That's what Jesus believed in not this new

Modernized Judaism. That's not a burnt sacrifice. That's not an animal sacrifice

That is just a bunch of prayers and rituals and rocking back and forth and whatever

It's a totally different thing. And so it is super evil and misleading

I mean look if you're gonna label Jesus as a Jew, it's like saying Jesus a Hindu

Jesus a Muslim and you know what Muslims do say Jesus was a Muslim

Jesus was a Muslim. I mean I could just say Jesus is Buddhist

It's like no, he's not because if we're talking about the modern religions here. No, Jesus Christ is

Following the teachings of what we know as Christianity and that's what he taught and that's what he believed because I like well

Jesus isn't a Christian

It's like what does that even mean Jesus Christ isn't a Christian?

Christianity just literally means that you're following what Jesus Christ believed and lived and taught

So yeah, Christianity is Jesus Christ and then it's like Jesus Christ isn't Christian

Did you know he was actually a Jew like oh wow really?

Whoa, he's actually a Jew. He actually rejects himself

He actually believes that he's not the Son of God. He's actually still looking for a different Messiah to come in the future

I mean it's just stupid, but this is the kind of garbage that goes on social media for everybody's little 30 second

45 second little attention span and then you have that Indian

Catholic Bozo. What's his name?

Who's this guy?

He's this commentator. He's this Republican kind of conservative like and he tries to talk about God and it's just like bro

Shut up. The adults are talking, you know, what's this guy's name? He's this Catholic

He's an East Indian guy

Help me out he's a he made a movie against Obama

No

Dinesh D'Souza, that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, Dinesh D'Souza is always posting all this weird like

Judeaizing weird like Zionist Judeaizing kind of content and the guy clearly doesn't know his Bible

He's clearly unsaved

Not going to heaven not a believer in Jesus Christ part of his pagan idolatrous Catholic cold

Newsflash Catholics don't understand the Bible because they're not saved and you have to have the Holy Spirit inside you to understand the

Word of God because the natural man receive it not the things of the Spirit of God

They're foolishness on him neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned so the unregenerate unsaved Dinesh D'Souza

It's like did you know that Jesus was a Jew? Did you know he's Jewish? Did you know he's not Christian?

It's like bro. You're going to the same hell as Hindus you phony idolatrous pagan

Other than that. He's a great guy

and

So what we see here is that the tribe of Judah only is left according to verse 18

That's kind of simplifying maybe a little bit of an oversimplification

But that's how God's just giving you the synopsis in general

You know Judea's the tribe that's left which makes sense when we think of the New Testament being all about you know

Judea and Jews when Christ comes on the scene, so let's keep going here

It says in verse 19 also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God

But walked in the statutes of Israel which they made and so the idea here is that the southern kingdom of Judah

Even though they're better than the northern kingdom

They ended up going astray and being influenced wrongly by the northern kingdom of Israel at times

And then it says in verse 20 the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel and afflicted them and

Delivered them into the hand of spoilers until he had cast them out of his sight because of course the author of second Kings

Already knows that eventually the same thing is gonna happen to Judah in chapter 17

It's happening to Israel and in chapter 25. It's gonna be happening to Judah. You know, they're on that same path

They're on that same trajectory of going into captivity and so forth. So let's skip ahead for sake of time here

But it says in verse 24 the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Kuta and from Ava and from

Hamath and from Seafar Vam and placed them in the cities of Samaria

Instead of the children of Israel and they possessed Samaria and dwelt in the cities thereof and again

This is what I was saying earlier that when we talk about the captivity or the replacement of people

We're mainly talking about, you know, the urbanites. We're talking about leaders

Governors we're talking about, you know, richer people more educated people more of the kind of countryside

Simple people peasants a lot of those people are staying. It's really the city populations and the ruling class that are being replaced

With a subservient group of people that are going to be loyal to the king of Assyria

And so they dwelt in the cities thereof obviously the countryside by and large

it's still gonna be a lot of the original Israelites and so it was

At the beginning of their dwelling there that they feared not the Lord

Therefore the Lord sent lions among them which slew some of them

So when these new people show up, they don't give a rip about whatever the religion of Israel is

They just show up and they just bring all their false gods from home

And then God punishes them by sending lions among them and they end up killing some people

So they think to themselves. Hey, you know, God's punishing us

And so forth it says in verse number 26

Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria saying the nations was house removed and placed in the cities of Samaria

Know not the manner of the God of the land

Therefore he had sent lions among them and behold they slay them because they know not the manner of the God of the land

So this is the polytheistic

Pagan idea that somehow different geographies have a different God

So if you travel to a different place, you're out of his jurisdiction, you know

And it's like this God is for this area and obviously this is wrong

We obviously know that there's only one God. He's the God of the whole earth

But from a pagan polytheistic mindset, this makes sense to them. Oh something bad happened to these people who showed up

It must be because they've moved in to Jehovah's turf and they don't know how to worship Jehovah

so

The king of Assyria has the idea. Well, let's get somebody to teach them how to worship Jehovah

And so it says in verse 27 then the king of Assyria commanded saying carry thither

One of the priests whom he brought from then and let them go and dwell there and let him teach them

The manner of the God of the land then one of the priests whom they'd carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel and

Taught them how they should fear the Lord now remember

This is not a godly preacher that they're bringing in because remember the northern kingdom of Israel was already inundated with false religion and

their religion even on the best of times is

Quote the sin of Jeroboam, which is worshiping a golden calf and having all kinds of other

Errors and false religion and remember the Bible says that Jeroboam made of the lowest of the people priests of the land

And so this is one of those guys one of those lowest of the people

Apostate priests of Jeroboam's northern cult that is brought back to represent, you know

Christianity be like if we said hey, we need to teach these heathen

Christianity so let's get a Roman Catholic priest in here to teach them how to be Christians or whatever

We would look at that and say this is just out of the frying pan and into the fire

This is just one form of false religion to another okay, you know

And again since we're talking about Indians you think back to the history of the state of Arizona

You know and there's a time when the US government was concerned about the Indians and you know

Some of them were causing problems and they were failing to assimilate into the population of the US

So the United States government had this idea of hey

let's have the churches go in and

Christianize and evangelize the Indians and then that's going to help them become

American and they had a motto and you know obviously this is a weird motto and it's it's offensive as well and in a lot of ways

But their motto was kill the Indians save the man

Kill the Indians save the man. That was the the US government

You know was saying hey

We got to get these Indians and get them assimilated so the idea was well if we can get him saved if we can

Make him Christian, but the problem is the US government doesn't really have sound doctrine and good theology

And they're not necessarily going to know what real Christianity is

So what they ended up doing was they carved up

Arizona and other parts of the US and just sort of like carved it up among denominations

So parts of Arizona are like assigned to the Roman Catholic Church and they're like all right Roman Catholic Church

Evangelize these Indians and so the US government is like supporting them and motivating them and helping them

And then also certain parts are assigned to the Baptist or the Presbyterians or whatever

And so that's why when you're traveling around Arizona

You'll notice that some of the Indian tribes are very Catholic and just super Catholic and then you'll notice that other places

It's just lots of Presbyterians and then other places lots of Baptist and everything and it's different in different parts

part of that goes back historically to the US government

Assigning denominations to these different areas to evangelize them

So, you know hey, it's not too bad if you're being assigned a Baptist or at least a Presbyterian or something

But you know if you're assigned to the Roman Catholic section

It's kind of like well you're gonna have to rely on faithful word or somebody else to come along and actually get to the

Real gospel one of these days and actually show up and do some real soul inning at some point

Because you know we go into these tribes that are very Catholic and we end up getting a bunch of them saved

But guess what? They're not saved. They don't know the gospel. They don't know they're going to heaven

They are just going from one kind of paganism to another

And so again, that's what I'm saying the government just thinks like yeah, let's make you Christian

Here's a Catholic priest. Hey, let's just throw a Methodist at you Presbyterian

You know they don't know the difference right so the king of Assyria is just like yeah

Let's grab one of these priests and send them down there and and he'll teach them what's up

But this is not like a Levitical

Priest who's actually got the Bible and the word of God and the truth so they're getting a false version of

Worship of the Lord is what they're getting because they're getting this like government

FEMA pastor sent in there

To teach them. They're not really getting the real thing

Okay, so he comes in and he teaches them how to fear the Lord just to avoid like natural disasters and plagues and

Lion attacks and things like that. That's the idea. Okay

So it says one of the priests verse 28

Whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the Lord

How be it every nation made gods of their own so so they're basically just adding

The worship of the Lord to their existing pantheon and this is what you will still find among the Native Americans sometimes today as well

Where they'll kind of do both where they'll have

We were just soul winning a few weeks ago on the res and you know, they said hey at our church

We do both we do Christianity we read from the Bible

But we also do our Native American traditions and the great spirit and great grandfather

You know, it's I guess they're trying to one up God the father

So they're like great-grandfather or whatever instead, but they're mixing and this is sometimes known as religious

Syncretism where you have kind of the old indigenous religion

mixing with the new religion coming in and

Forming like a hybrid and of course, this is not God's will. This is not true biblical Christianity

Because here's the thing Jesus says I'm the way the truth in the life

No man coming thunder the father, but by me and the Bible says, you know in Acts chapter 8 when the Ethiopian

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Unique is going to be baptized. He says well, what does Henry be baptized?

What does Philip say to him if thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest and he said

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and so the Ethiopian Unique is told you got to believe with all your heart

It's not like well

Yeah, I believe in Jesus and Buddha and

Krishna and I believe in Mohammed and no no no it's got to be Jesus alone

Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved

Okay, and here's the thing when it comes to salvation

Here's the role that repentance plays in salvation is you have to turn to God

From idols to serve the living and true God

Now a lot of people have this wrong idea that salvation is oh turn from your sins

Repent of your sins turn over a new leaf. No my friend salvation is not a 12-step program

It's not turning over a new leaf. It's not cleaning up your life

It is faith alone in the finished work of Jesus Christ

The Bible says that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life

We're saved by grace through faith not of works less any man should boast and so salvation is by faith alone and

So people come along and say well, it's by faith

But you also have to turn from your sins folks turning from your sins as works

The Bible says in Jonah 310 God saw their works

comma that they turned from their evil way and

God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he did not notice that Jonah 310

Classifies turning from your evil way as works and that should be common sense anyway

Because the works of the law according to Galatians chapter 2 3 4 the works of the law don't save us

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

Right the works of the law

You know anybody who tries to be saved by the works of the law is under the curse

Curse it be that because it be everyone that continued not in all the words of this law to do them

You go back to Deuteronomy 27 and look up that quote and you'll see it's a list of negative commands

Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this that shot not that shot not

That's the not and cursed be he they continued not in all the words of this book of law to do them

So, you know what Paul saying is that following all those thou shot knots can't save you

So we're not saved by good things that we do

We're not saved by good works or good deeds that we do, but we're also not saved by what we don't do

We're not saved because we stopped stealing stopped killing stopped committing adultery stopped drinking. No, that's just a different kind of works

There's good works and there's works of the law

Neither one of them is going to save you

Everyone knows it's hard work

To follow the bible and to follow the commandments

And yeah, we should do that once we're saved because god has saved us on two good works

But we're not saved by our works

Okay, so people will try to say that when it comes to salvation we have to repent of our sins

No, we do not have to repent of our sins to be saved

We have to believe in jesus to be saved

But here's the thing the bible does use the word repentance with respect to salvation

But it's not about repenting of your sins about repenting of false religion

You know, so here's the thing you got to repent and believe the gospel

Okay, in fact, let's just stop because this is such an important doctrine

Let's just go to matthew 21 and see this in the bible

We're going to come right back to uh second kings here

But let's just go to matthew 21 and see this important doctrine

Of what repentance is with respect to salvation

Because when people see the word repent in the bible a lot of times they add

Of your sins when it's not there

And that's not what repent means because repentance is just a change of mind

And it could be repenting of sins or it could be repenting of wrong beliefs

It could be repenting of good things. It could be repenting of bad things

Just any kind of a of a change or turning

You know, so repentance is a broad word and has to be understood by context

So let's see what it means to repent and believe the gospel look at matthew chapter 21

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

Uh verse number

32 it says for john came unto you in the way of righteousness and you believed him not

But the publicans in the harlots believed him

And ye when you had seen it

Repented not afterward that you might believe him. So what is repentance in that verse right there? He's saying look

You didn't believe in him

You saw these other people that did believe in him the publicans and harlots

And then when you saw that you didn't repent and believe meaning you didn't change your mind and say

Hey, maybe I should have believed in that. Maybe it was stupid when I didn't believe in that. I'm gonna now

Believe in christ. That's I mean

This verse makes it crystal clear what repentance is

It's like you used to not believe in him and then you switched to believing in him

You're repenting from unbelief to belief

Okay, but also if you're a member of a false religion

You have to repent of that false religion

In order to believe in christ alone because how can I trust christ for my salvation if i'm still trusting

Islam if i'm still trusting buddha if i'm still trusting hinduism or whatever

And so that's why the bible says in uh second thessalonians chapter one

Verse 10 I think he says how you turn to god from idols to serve to serve the living and true god

And to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead

Even jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come and so the bible is saying you turned to god from idols

So what's the repentance with regard to salvation? Well, you don't believe in jesus well

You need to repent and start believing in him. You need to change your mind start believing in him

Okay, you used to think that god is this little statue that you pour honey and throw flowers at him and pour milk on his head

And now you realize that no this idol is not god

The true god is the creator of heaven and earth. He's the god of the bible is the god of abraham isek and jacob

Okay, so you repent and you turn to god from idols

Meaning that you have the wrong god and you get the right god because your little monkey idol or golden calf idol

Was not the correct god. You got to turn to god from idols. That's what we're talking about so

Adding jesus to a pantheon of polytheistic gods isn't going to save you

So if you're a hindu and you're worshiping this monkey god over here and you're worshiping goro from mortal combat

And you have all these false gods. You can't just add jesus and say well, I'll just worship jesus too

You know, I remember there's a there's a book that I read years ago called the life of pi

And in that book, that's what the the main character basically he's like, oh, i'm a christian and i'm a muslim and i'm a hindu

No, that's not possible because you have to be a christian at the exclusion of other religions

So these people are not getting salvation

These people are not actually saved. They're not actually going to heaven. They're not actually worshiping god in his sight

Because they're still worshiping their false god. They're just trying to add

jesus

And that's what I'm going to tell you about the god you don't know about the real god the true god the only god

But imagine how foolish it would be to think well, they were already saved because they're already worshiping him

That'd be silly, wouldn't it?

No, because you can't sit there and believe in zoos and all these other false gods without and be saved because you have to only believe in

Just the god of the bible to be saved just jesus christ

Christ alone faith alone. That's how you get to heaven. Okay, so in second kings chapter number 17. Let's go back there now

It says in verse number 29 how be it every nation made gods of their own

And put them in the houses of the high places which the samaritans had made now look the samaritans

Already have an infrastructure of idolatry. That's already set up

They already have all the little shrines

To put all the little mary statues and all the little saints and it's it's like if you were

hindu

Moving into a catholic's house or something and you just kind of rip out mary

And stick in your own hindu god or whatever and it like it fits like a glove

You're just replacing one statue with another

You know, you got one female deity with another one little baby deity male deity whatever, you know

These kind of false religions are interchangeable

You know, that's why when the romans took over

Uh a lot of the greek empire and defeated the greeks and everything

They ended up just adopting a lot of the greek gods as their own and they just said well, it's the same thing, you know

Zeus is jupiter say, you know, you know neptune is like perside and what's the difference water god water god

And they just adopt it and then they just mix them and nobody cares

And then it's the same thing with the roman catholics the roman catholics come along and they just

You know take over pagan areas and say oh well, you guys have a virgin and a son and we have a virgin too

It's a virgin mary. I mean look mary worship is not in the bible

Praying to mary is not in the bible venerating mary is not in the bible statues of mary. That is not in the bible

But you know who worships?

Uh female virgin goddesses the greeks and the romans

Okay, because guess what the most famous building in athens is called it's called the parthenon and parthenos is greek for virgin

It's their virgin that's their virgin so it doesn't matter the virgin athena or the virgin mary

So what it is is that they're converting the pagan greeks and the pagan romans to christianity

And so they kind of just give them the old switcheroo like hey instead of this virgin goddess

You're just going to worship a different version instead of praying to athena

You're going to pray to mary still a virgin still a parthenos

Hey, no harm no foul

That is not evangelism

When we go out and preach the gospel to people

We are preaching that they need to abandon their false religion and believe only in christ

We're not saying hey, you can still be a muslim

But you just need to be a born again muslim born again hindu

Born again roman catholic born again mormon. No, we're telling them

You've got to turn from that and turn to the true gospel of christ as

It's

As the saint the lord right here. That's what we're showing them

So but the samaritans because they're already pagan idolaters

It's just a little swaperoo. They're just installing

Their false gods in the high places that the samaritans have already made

They've already got all the stands and the holders

And the little display cases and all the little shrines

That are just ready to roll to just switch out one statue for another sometimes

You could probably even just leave the same statue and just call it a different name

And so they already have all the idolatry

infrastructure in place

And every nation in the cities where in their dwell are making these it says in verse 30

The men of babelon made

Sukkath benath i mean talk about a god that's sukkath right

The men of babelon made sukkath benath and the men of kath made nergal

And the men of haymath made ashima you say i've never heard of these yeah because they don't matter

Because in the long run everybody abandoned them and forgot about them because the grass withers and the flower fades

But the word of god endures forever

False religion is but for a season

It's temporary god's word prevails and is always there

And the avites made nibhaz and tartak and the seafarvites burnt their children in the fire to a dramelech and enamelech the gods of seafarvam so

It's like okay

So yeah, we're gonna start worshiping the lord now

Along with a dramelech and enamelech and nergal and we're still committing infanticide and human sacrifices to our false gods

And then it says in this this in verse 32

So they feared the lord and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places

Which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places?

Well sounds exactly like what jeroboam was already doing

And so this is an easy transition

From northern kingdom israel to these foreigners coming in with false gods because it's just one false religion to another

Still the same elements

It says they feared the lord

verse 33

And served their own gods

Okay after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from that under this day they do after

The former manners they fear not the lord neither do they

After their statutes or after their ordinances or after the law and commandment

Which the lord commanded the children of jacob whom he named israel so notice

That in one breath it says they feared the lord

And then in verse 34 it says they feared not the lord some people would look at that and say it's contradiction

You know the idea is that if you're fearing the lord along with a false god, that's not fearing the lord

From their perspective. Yeah, we're fearing the lord and a dramalek and an amalek

But god looks down and says you guys aren't fearing the lord. That's not fearing the lord

So somebody could say oh, I believe in jesus

But it's like well unless you're believing only in jesus you don't believe in jesus

You can say you believe in jesus, but from god's perspective. It's got to be christ alone

In order to count as really believing in jesus. That's what the bible teaches

And so it says in verse 35

With whom the lord had made a covenant and charged them saying

Ye shall not fear other gods nor bow yourselves to them nor serve them nor sacrifice to them

But the lord who brought you up out of the land of egypt with great power and a stretched out arm

Him shall you fear and him shall you worship and him shall you do sacrifice and notice now

There's another seeming contradiction because it seemed like we were talking about foreigners

Worse being false gods, but now all of a sudden we're talking about the people of the northern kingdom as if they are

the descendants of

isreal

Jacob and the reason why is what i explained earlier that it's a mix because

Some of the people have been removed and replaced and then some of the indigenous people are still there

They're going to mix they're going to hybridize and they have this false

Syncretic religion that mixes pagan idolatry from all over the world

With the worship of the lord from a phony northern kingdom bozo priest who's not even saved anyway

Now

Here's what the bible says at the end here and i'm going to tie this in with the new testament

And then we'll be done because it says in verse number 41

So these nations feared the lord and and served their graven images. So it's like yeah, they quote unquote feared the lord

But they're still serving graven images both their children and their children's children

As did their fathers. So do they unto this day now. What does unto this day mean?

It doesn't mean until 2026

It doesn't mean until the time of christ

It means until the time that this book second kings was written

Okay, and we don't know exactly when second kings was written

But all of the evidence seems to indicate that second kings is written or at least finished being written

Sometime toward the end of the Babylonian captivity. So we're talking, you know, approximately

500 years before the time of christ is when this is being written and saying hey, this is how they are man

That's how that northern kingdom is they have this mixed

idolatrous sort of

Saying that they worship the lord in name, but it's a bunch of idolatry and messed up paganism

Now here's the question though 500 years later

After second kings is already written 500 years later when christ comes on the scene

What are the samaritans like when christ comes on the scene? Okay, we'll go to john chapter 4

John 4 · chapter mention

We're just going to spend a little bit of time on this

But what is the samaritan religion like or what are the people like in

The time of christ well the first thing i want to point out

Is that although these people are a mixture

Of these, you know poor of the land that are left behind from the israelites mixed with these foreigners that have been brought in to replace them

In the eyes of the lord jesus christ, they're not these people are not considered israel

They've lost their identity as israel. So just the fact that they

Technically have israeli blood and their great great great great grandfather was an israelite

Doesn't matter because they've lost that identity at this point

And so jesus in matthew chapter 10 when he's sending out the disciples to go evangelize

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

He says go not into the way of the gentiles and into any city of the samaritans enter ye not

But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of israel

So jesus he looks at

The the the nation of juda

Judea the southern kingdom and he says these are the lost sheep of the house of israel

That's who we're going to evangelize he says we're not going to the samaritans

So notice he doesn't consider the samaritans israel

He says we're we're not going to the samaritans because we're only going to the lost sheep of the house of israel

See how he's not considering the samaritans israel because they've been

mixed

And religiously they're wrong and even ethnically they no longer have their identity as the ten tribes

Because they're mainly foreigners mixed in now and so they're just considered now a new ethnic group known as the samaritans

Okay, but what is their religion like? Okay?

Well, there's no evidence that they're worshiping idols that they're so they're no longer doing that religion that we saw in second king 17

They have gotten to a point where they're just worshiping jahovah god at this point

You know by the time we fast forward to the time of christ. They're just worshiping the lord

But however, they're still not saved

It's a false version of the lord's worship and jesus rebukes it in john chapter four

In john chapter four jesus ends up speaking with the woman at the well

And it says in verse number four of chapter four. He must needs go through samaria

Because here's the thing jesus is trying to just go from judaea into galilee

And he's not on a mission to samaria

But he has to go through samaria. It'd be like, hey, i'm going from arizona to texas. I got to go through new mexico

So he doesn't want to make some big giant loop to go around it. So he's not

Setting out on a mission to the samaritans because remember he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of israel

In the book of act after the resurrection

The disciples are sent into all nations to teach all nations and that's going to include the samaritans

But this point jesus is only going through there because geographically it's necessary. He must needs go through samaria

In verse four. So he ends up talking to the woman at the well

And you know, they end up talking about religion and it says in verse number 19

The woman saith on him sir. I perceive that thou art a prophet

She's like, hey, you're obviously a prophet

So here let me ask you a bible question

Our fathers worshiped in this mountain and ye say that in jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship

notice that she

thinks of

abraham isaac and jacob as our fathers

So she sees herself

As a descendant of israel even though the israelites

In the southern kingdom of juda, they don't see her as an israel. Jesus doesn't see her as israel

Jesus is like you're a samaritan. You're not israel. Okay, but she sees herself as like, oh our father's worship god in this mountain

She's talking about jacob. She's talking about israel

Our father's worship god in this mountain

And ye say that in jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship

Jesus saith under her woman believe me the hour cometh

When ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at jerusalem worship the father. He's like, you know, you're asking the wrong question

You're hung up on geography. Geography isn't the issue. It's not about mount garreism versus jerusalem. He says

Ye worship, you know, not what?

in verse number 22

We know what we worship for watch this salvation is of the jews

Sound like jesus is saying that the samaritans are saved or that their religion is a legitimate pathway to god

No, it's a false religion. That's why he says, you know, you worship, you know, not what you don't even you guys don't even know

What you're talking about

The bible spiritually discerned

You're not saved you guys are blinded

You're part of a false religion and he says salvation on the other hand is of the jews

This is another verse that would be taken out of context and taller. Oh, salvation's of the jews like salvation's of a guy in a funny hat

Who's gonna like?

You know and do it all this rocking back and forth

And hating christ and rejecting christ and spitting on the ground three times when he hears about jesus

Is he saying oh salvation's of that guy?

Salvation's of this yiddish speaking hawk phlegm guy from germany or poland or hunger. That's not what he's saying

What he's saying is salvation's of the jews because under them were committed the oracles of god

And it is the jews judeans those of juda of the southern kingdom who have the true word of god

They have the right bible

Now what kind of a bible do the samaritans have?

Well, the samaritans bible consisted only of the first five books

So, you know, we have of course 39 books of the old testament

The jews have the identical old testament that we have

You know the jews bible they have 24 books, but it's our exact same 39 books

It's just they're lumping the 12 minor prophets

They call that one book the book of the 12 and then they combine ezra and nehemiah and stuff

But at the end of the day the exact bible

Of the jews of today is the exact christian old testament as far as

Genesis to malachi. They just put the books in a different order and lump them together and so forth. Okay

So that's what he means we salvatans of the jews is that they actually have the right word of god

They're actually worshiping the true god

In general, okay, whereas the samaritans on the other hand, they had a wrong bible

Now what's wrong with the samaritan bible is that it's only the first five books

So it's not the whole 39 book old testament like the jews had it's only the first five books

And not only that they changed parts of the first five books

To basically make it clear that you worship god in mount durizam, you know, because she says hey

We worship in this mountain you guys are saying it's jerusalem

It's sort of like when you knock on the door of a seventh day avanis

And that's all they want to talk about is the seventh day saturday sabbath

That's all they want. They just want to talk about that

You talk to jahovah's witness and you talk about some totally different and they're just like

Turn in your bible to soul madey three, you know, because they just want to show you how his name alone is jahovah or something

You know, these cults will obsess over one issue. Don't they they're obsessed with saturday. They're obsessed with the name jahovah

They're obsessed with whatever

Quirk that they believe in well the samaritans are obsessed with it's not jerusalem

It's horizon because remember jeroboam's whole religion was founded on the fact of don't go to jerusalem

Do it in bethel do it in den whatever you do don't go to jerusalem. So the samaritans

In the time of christ, they still have a little bit of that jeroboam in them

Of don't go to jerusalem. So what they there's the thing the first five books of the bible don't mention jerusalem

But that wasn't good enough for the samaritans

They go in and change a few bible verses

Instead of saying you're going to worship god in the place which he shall choose future tense

Which is ultimately going to be jerusalem. They change it to you're going to worship in the place that he already chose

So they just change a few verses and then they put in some verses that explicitly tell you you got to worship god in mount garrison

So it's like 99 percent

You know true to the word of god except for the fact they just make a few strategic changes

To corrupt it and then they eliminate of course

Most of the old testament so they only have five books and then they mutilate those a little bit

And so they have a wrong bible. They're interpreting it wrong

Their religion is wrong. It's false. And that's why jesus says salvation's of the jews. So here's the thing

Yes, the samaritans

From the time of second king 17

500 bc or whatever whenever that book's being written

Until the time of christ yet their religion had evolved and and gone through changes over 500 years

To the point where they're no longer idolatrous and they're no longer polytheistic

They've become monotheistic and they've kind of leaned more into the israel jehovah identity

More than the hodgepodge of gods that they had brought in from other places

But that doesn't make them saved you see switching to believing in only one god doesn't make you saved

Right being monotheistic doesn't make you safe. I mean look obviously a lot of societies

Over time evolve from being polytheistic to monotheistic

Just because let's face it polytheistic religion is kind of an ugabuga religion

That it's not really taken seriously by intelligent people in the modern world. Is it

How many modern intelligent people are really?

following

Pagan idolatry and polytheism

you know over time obviously common sense dictates and just as people progress and things

You know eventually you get away from the ugabuga pouring milk on a statue's head kind of polytheism

But here's the thing that doesn't make you saved because in order to be saved

You got to call upon the name of the lord

You got to trust in the lord with all your heart. You got to put your faith and trust in the son of god

Jesus christ to be saved

So it's not enough that the samaritans became

Monotheistic no they need to get the right bible the right salvation

So they can actually get to know the real true god

Okay, and that's what ends up happening because in the book of acts philip ends up going to samaria and just getting bokew people saved

In samaria preaching the gospel of jesus christ to the samaritans

And so today what about today 2026 today?

There are actually still a few people in this samaritan cult. Believe it or not. It's virtually no one

It's like a handful of a few hundred or a few thousand. I don't remember the exact number

Don't quote me on it, but it's it's somewhere on the order of like a few hundred or a few thousand people

Because actually it's in west bank palestine

And I actually went to mount garaisum and I went there and there's a little settlement of people that are like

They're like we're still samaritans, you know

We're still doing and they still believe in just the first five books and there's still my it's just like

Come on guys like

Let's get with the program here. It's been a couple thousand years

Virtually everybody has abandoned this

You know because you know philip and others went in and preached the gospel and got upset

So all that to say this I know I know that was kind of like a lot of information

The sermon was a little bit of an information dump

But that's kind of how this chapter is the chapter is kind of an overview chapter

explaining a big picture of how the northern kingdom came to an end and I just wanted to kind of

Also bring it into the new testament as far as you know, how the samaritans ended up

And how the sins of jeroboam persisted all the way into the time of christ

But what are the lessons we can learn today? The lessons we can learn today is that we we doesn't mix

biblical christianity with a false religion and think that somehow

You know, we're covering all our bases or something

No when we're out preaching the gospel if people are part of a false religion

There needs to be repentance

From the false religion to the gospel not just hey

Just pray this prayer and accept christ as your savior on top of

The substratum of this false religion that you're in, you know

If someone's a member of a false religion that needs to be addressed

Like you know typically and typically here's i'll just give you a super quick soul winning tip and then i'll be done

But you know typically if i'm talking to roman catholics, for example

Because we we we give the gospel to a lot of roman catholics

That's a lot of who we evangelize both here and abroad, you know, and when we talk to them

Typically what i'll do is i'll get through my whole plan of salvation

Just give them the standard plan of salvation get through the gospel

But then when i get to the end i say to them hey, you mentioned that you were catholic

Well, the roman catholic church actually believes something different than what i showed you

They actually believe that in order to go to heaven you have to go to church

You have to confess to the priest you have to do the sacraments you have to keep the commandments

Whereas what i showed you here from the bible is that salvation is by faith in christ alone

You know, so which one do you believe do you believe what i showed you here from the bible?

Or are you believing what the catholic church is teaching you?

Right and i kind of just let them know these are two different things

Which one is it which way? Oh catholic man, you know

Are you going to stick with the roman catholic church or are you going to repent and believe the gospel?

And here's the thing a lot of times they'll say no no no i'm going to go with what the bible says

I believe what the bible says then it's like okay now i'm ready to lead that person in prayer to call upon the name of the lord

But if they say like well, you know, i still take the catholic church, but then it's just like okay apparently

You know today is not their day

You know or maybe i need to preach at them a little more show them some more scripture or whatever

But they clearly didn't get it if they're still defending

false religion

But if they're ready to discard the false religion

And confess christ as their only way to heaven, you know, that's salvation. Let's bards and have water prayer father

We thank you so much for your word lord. Thank you for this chapter and what we can learn from it lord help us

to

Fear you only

And lord help us to make sure when we're evangelizing

To preach a clear message of salvation through christ alone by faith alone

Not of works and not as a mixture with some other faith lord bless us now as we go our separate ways in jesus name we pray amen