We left Judah yesterday in Babylon:

Judah went into exile, orphaned from her land. (2 Kings 25.21, MSG)

Gedaliah is appointed governor, but he is assassinated. There is more detail on this period in Jeremiah, including this command:

This is the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to what was left of the elders among the exiles, to the priests and prophets and all the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon from Jerusalem, including King Jehoiachin, the queen mother, the government leaders, and all the skilled laborers and craftsmen. The letter was carried by Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah had sent to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. The letter said:

This is the Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel’s God, to all the exiles I’ve taken from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and make yourselves at home. Put in gardens and eat what grows in that country. Marry and have children. Encourage your children to marry and have children so that you’ll thrive in that country and not waste away. Make yourselves at home there and work for the country’s welfare. Pray for Babylon’s well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you.” (Jeremiah 29.1 – 7, MSG)

Judah was not scattered like the Northern Kingdom. They were intact in Babylon. And it wasn’t going to be a short stay. This is the present condition, and their instruction on how to live in this condition is simple: be normal:

• Build houses and make yourselves at home
• Put in gardens and eat the produce
• Marry and have children – you and your children
• Work for the country’s welfare and pray for Babylon’s well-being

Say what? But we want to return to Jerusalem now! We’ve learned our lesson. Trust us! Nope. We’ll read about their coming back when we get to Ezra and Nehemiah but that’s 70 years away.

This is GOD’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. (Jeremiah 29.10, 11, MSG)

Many believe the application is for the church today. In the US we used to think we were the leading edge of God’s nation here in North America. If that were ever so, it is certainly not so anymore. The church is in exile. Work for the good of the city where you live. I like the tagline of First Presbyterian Church, Colorado Springs:

Light and Life for the City

firstprescos.org/what-we-believe

The Jews weren’t “home,” and neither are we:

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5.13 – 16, ESV)

Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night. (Philippians 2.15, MSG)

The Northern Kingdom was scattered in 2 Kings 17; the Southern Kingdom, Judah, is carted off to Babylon in 2 Kings 24 and 25. The downfall begins:

Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to rule; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem…In GOD’s opinion he was an evil king, picking up on the evil ways of his ancestors. It was during his reign that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the country. Jehoiakim became his puppet. But after three years he had had enough and revolted. GOD dispatched a succession of raiding bands against him: Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite. The strategy was to destroy Judah. Through the preaching of his servants and prophets, GOD had said he would do this, and now he was doing it. None of this was by chance—it was GOD’s judgment as he turned his back on Judah because of the enormity of the sins of Manasseh—Manasseh, the killer-king, who made the Jerusalem streets flow with the innocent blood of his victims. GOD wasn’t about to overlook such crimes.  (2 Kings 23.36 – 24.4, MSG)

Jehoachin becomes king, and the judgment continues:

And Jehoiachin king of Judah, along with his mother, officers, advisors, and government leaders, surrendered. In the eighth year of his reign Jehoiachin was taken prisoner by the king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar emptied the treasuries of both The Temple of GOD and the royal palace and confiscated all the gold furnishings that Solomon king of Israel had made for The Temple of GOD. This should have been no surprise—GOD had said it would happen. And then he emptied Jerusalem of people—all its leaders and soldiers, all its craftsmen and artisans. He took them into exile, something like ten thousand of them! The only ones he left were the very poor. He took Jehoiachin into exile to Babylon. With him he took the king’s mother, his wives, his chief officers, the community leaders, anyone who was anybody—in round numbers, seven thousand soldiers plus another thousand or so craftsmen and artisans, all herded off into exile in Babylon. (2 Kings 24.12 – 16, MSG)

All according to God’s prediction and plan. Then Jehoachin’s successor Zedekiah is the last:

The Babylonians took Zedekiah prisoner and marched him off to the king of Babylon at Riblah, then tried and sentenced him on the spot. Zedekiah’s sons were executed right before his eyes; the summary murder of his sons was the last thing he saw, for they then blinded him. Securely handcuffed, he was hauled off to Babylon. In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, on the seventh day of the fifth month, Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon’s chief deputy, arrived in Jerusalem. He burned The Temple of GOD to the ground, went on to the royal palace, and then finished off the city—burned the whole place down. He put the Babylonian troops he had with him to work knocking down the city walls. Finally, he rounded up everyone left in the city, including those who had earlier deserted to the king of Babylon, and took them off into exile. He left a few poor dirt farmers behind to tend the vineyards and what was left of the fields. (2 Kings 25.6 – 12, MSG)

Hard to believe this is the same kingdom that the Queen of Sheba visited. But nothing is permanent, especially when God promises exactly this outcome. Moses told them:

All the nations will ask, “Why did GOD do this to this country? What on earth could have made him this angry?” Your children will answer, “Because they abandoned the Covenant of the GOD of their ancestors that he made with them after he got them out of Egypt; they went off and worshiped other gods, submitted to gods they’d never heard of before, gods they had no business dealing with. So GOD’s anger erupted against that land and all the curses written in this book came down on it. GOD, furiously angry, pulled them, roots and all, out of their land and dumped them in another country, as you can see.” (Deuteronomy 29.24 – 28, MSG)

The narrative of 1 Samuel – 2 Kings ends with the people in Babylon. After the same story is told from another perspective in 1 and 2 Chronicles, The books of Ezra and Nehemiah will record their return from exile. What happened during exile? We’ll take a quick look from Jeremiah’s perspective tomorrow. In the meantime, a sad time.

¹  By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
²  On the willows there we hung up our lyres.
³  For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
⁴  How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? (Psalm 137.1 – 4, ESV)

How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave…Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. (Lamentations 1.1 – 3, ESV)

We left Josiah in shock after discovering and reading “the book of the law,” finding his nation under God’s judgment. He leaps into action:

The king acted immediately, assembling all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. Then the king proceeded to The Temple of GOD, bringing everyone in his train—priests and prophets and people ranging from the famous to the unknown. Then he read out publicly everything written in the Book of the Covenant that was found in The Temple of GOD. The king stood by the pillar and before GOD solemnly committed them all to the covenant: to follow GOD believingly and obediently; to follow his instructions, heart and soul, on what to believe and do; to put into practice the entire covenant, all that was written in the book. The people stood in affirmation; their commitment was unanimous. (2 Kings 23.1 – 3, MSG)

The commitment is eerily similar to the one Jehoida and young king Joash made:

Then the priest brought the prince into view, crowned him, handed him the scroll of God’s covenant, and made him king. As they anointed him, everyone applauded and shouted, “Long live the king!” …Jehoiada now made a covenant between GOD and the king and the people: They were GOD’s people. Another covenant was made between the king and the people. (2 Kings 11.12…17, MSG)

• Josiah cleans out the Temple (2 Kings 23.4 – 7)
• He demolishes the shrines to all the false gods in Judah AND Samaria (2 Kings 23.8 – 20)
• He celebrates the Passover (2 Kings 23.21 – 23)

Josiah was a welcome respite from bad kings…BUT it was a short-lived respite. His son Jehoahaz was his successor. Another son, Jehoiakim, was the king after him:

Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to rule…In GOD’s opinion, he was an evil king, reverting to the evil ways of his ancestors…Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to rule; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem…In GOD’s opinion he was an evil king, picking up on the evil ways of his ancestors. (2 Kings 23.31, 32, 36, 37, MSG)

Revival under Joash didn’t last; revival under Hezekiah didn’t last; revival under Josiah didn’t last.

Russell Moore at CT wrote a fantastic column about elections, which ties in beautifully to these lessons from the Kings. Russell’s point was that we keep expecting a once-for-all victory. “We’ll finally put that other party out of business.” No you won’t. They’ll be back. There are people with differing views in this country, and those views are reflected in the two parties, whose positions even change from time to time. It’s exactly the lesson in 2 Kings. The enemy keeps re-arming and coming back. And when the enemy is Satan in the biggest battle of all, he keeps coming back, too.

And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. (Luke 4.13, ESV)

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. (Matthew 26.41, ESV)

PS If you’re following the reading program, you’ve finished 2 Kings. Our next book is Hebrews, which I inserted to give us a little break before we start 1 Chronicles.

We’re moving through 2 Kings toward the Babylonian captivity of Judah. Israel has already been scattered by the Assyrians. It seems that Judah was on the upswing with the reign of Hezekiah who started by demolishing all the idols. But the revival was short-lived:

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. He ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem…In GOD’s judgment he was a bad king—an evil king. He reintroduced all the moral rot and spiritual corruption that had been scoured from the country when GOD dispossessed the pagan nations in favor of the children of Israel. He rebuilt all the sex-and-religion shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down, and he built altars and phallic images for the sex god Baal and sex goddess Asherah, exactly what Ahaz king of Israel had done. He worshiped the cosmic powers, taking orders from the constellations. (2 Kings 21.1 – 3, MSG)

Manasseh leads the nation downhill for 55 years, followed by his son Amon who reigned for only two years (badly) before being assassinated. Josiah takes over at age 8, the last good king of Judah:

Josiah was eight years old when he became king. He ruled for thirty-one years in Jerusalem…He lived the way GOD wanted. He kept straight on the path blazed by his ancestor David, not one step to either left or right. (2 Kings 22.1, 2, MSG)

And under Josiah we find one of the problems. He commands that the temple be refurbished, and in the process:

The high priest Hilkiah reported to Shaphan the royal secretary, “I’ve just found the Book of GOD’s Revelation, instructing us in GOD’s ways. I found it in The Temple!” He gave it to Shaphan and Shaphan read it…Then Shaphan the royal secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest gave me a book.” Shaphan proceeded to read it to the king. When the king heard what was written in the book, God’s Revelation, he ripped his robes in dismay. (2 Kings 22.8 – 11, MSG)

Big oops. “We are in a heap of trouble!” The book – the book that Moses had commanded be with the king so that he could read from it daily, so that he would know how to live and remain humble – that book had been lost! And therein is part of the problem. You can’t read from a book you don’t have! But, of course, losing the book in the first place requires a level of complacency as the prophet Zephaniah pointed out:

The word of the LORD that came to Zephaniah…in the days of Josiah…, king of Judah…At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, “The LORD will not do good, nor will he do ill.” (Zephaniah 1.1, 12, ESV)

We’ll look at Josiah’s whole-hearted response tomorrow, but for now, we should meditate on the implications of this story. Most of us probably know where our Bibles are – we haven’t lost them. But do we read it? And do we pay attention…with intention…to what we read? Are we hearing from God? It takes intention to overcome complacency to which we are all spring-loaded.

A friend of mine, disciple-maker Mike who now lives in Missouri, called me recently to bemoan the fact that he had five men, leaders in his church, that he was trying to help, and none of them could find the time for a short daily time with God. It’s an example of complacency winning over intention. I’m going to revisit this problem in a few days. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, let’s not be those guys:

I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder. (2 Peter 1.13, ESV)

And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death. (Proverbs 8.32 – 36, ESV)

After a good beginning, King Hezekiah has a bit of a hiccup at the end. First, Isaiah tells him he’s going to die:

Some time later Hezekiah became deathly sick. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz paid him a visit and said, “Put your affairs in order; you’re about to die—you haven’t long to live.”

Hezekiah immediately responds in prayer.

Hezekiah turned from Isaiah and faced GOD, praying: Remember, O GOD, who I am, what I’ve done! I’ve lived an honest life before you, My heart’s been true and steady, I’ve lived to please you; lived for your approval. And then the tears flowed. Hezekiah wept.

God hears and answers together with a promise not to let Jerusalem fall to the Assyrians.

Isaiah, leaving, was not halfway across the courtyard when the word of GOD stopped him: “Go back and tell Hezekiah, prince of my people, ‘GOD’s word, Hezekiah! From the God of your ancestor David: I’ve listened to your prayer and I’ve observed your tears. I’m going to heal you. In three days you will walk on your own legs into The Temple of GOD. I’ve just added fifteen years to your life; I’m saving you from the king of Assyria, and I’m covering this city with my shield—for my sake and my servant David’s sake.’ ” (2 Kings 20.1 – 6, MSG)

Back to the prayer. Why was Hezekiah so upset? On what basis was he praying? I think the answer is in the first verse of 2 Kings 21, describing Hezekiah’s son Manasseh succeeding Hezekiah as king.

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king… (2 Kings 21.1, MSG)

If God gave Hezekiah 15 years, and Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king, Hezekiah didn’t have any sons at the beginning of chapter 20 when he was on his deathbed. David’s line would die out, which was contrary to the promise.

But he did recover and had Manasseh. Then Hezekiah was visited by officials from Babylon, and Hezekiah showed them his wealth, perhaps with a bit of pride. Then the promise changes: Jerusalem won’t fall to the Assyrians, but she will fall to the Babylonians.

Then Isaiah spoke to Hezekiah, “Listen to what GOD has to say about this: The day is coming when everything you own and everything your ancestors have passed down to you, right down to the last cup and saucer, will be cleaned out of here—plundered and packed off to Babylon. GOD’s word! Worse yet, your sons, the progeny of sons you’ve begotten, will end up as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” (2 Kings 20.16 – 18, MSG)

Why? The 2 Chronicles commentary on this incident is clear:

Some time later Hezekiah became deathly sick. He prayed to GOD and was given a reassuring sign. But the sign, instead of making Hezekiah grateful, made him arrogant. This made GOD angry, and his anger spilled over on Judah and Jerusalem. (2 Chronicles 32.24 – 26, MSG)

We have a choice between gratitude and arrogance. I pray Donald Trump chooses well after the attempted assassination. I pray that we choose well.

…although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful… (Romans 1.21, NKJV)

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble. (Daniel 4.37, ESV)

Moving along in the story of Hezekiah, 2 Kings 18 records conflict with the Assyrians even repeating the demise of the Northern Kingdom:

In the fourth year of Hezekiah and the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria attacked Samaria. He threw a siege around it and after three years captured it. It was in the sixth year of Hezekiah and the ninth year of Hoshea that Samaria fell to Assyria. The king of Assyria took Israel into exile and relocated them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River, and in towns of the Medes. All this happened because they wouldn’t listen to the voice of their GOD and treated his covenant with careless contempt. They refused either to listen or do a word of what Moses, the servant of GOD, commanded. (2 Kings 18.9 – 12, MSG)

“They wouldn’t listen to the voice of their God…” So God judged the Northern Kingdom and used Assyria to do it. But of course the king of Assyria thought it was his power and that he was God’s instrument to take out Judah too. He sent a message to the people of Jerusalem:

The third officer, the Rabshakeh, was spokesman. He said, “Tell Hezekiah: A message from The Great King, the king of Assyria: You’re living in a world of make-believe, of pious fantasy. Do you think that mere words are any substitute for military strategy and troops? Now that you’ve revolted against me, who can you expect to help you? You thought Egypt would, but Egypt’s nothing but a paper tiger…Or are you going to tell me, ‘We rely on GOD’? But Hezekiah has just eliminated most of the people’s access to God by getting rid of all the local God-shrines, ordering everyone in Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship at the Jerusalem altar only.’ So be reasonable. Make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria…How long are you going to hold on to that figment of your imagination, these hoped-for Egyptian chariots and horses? Do you think I’ve come up here to destroy this country without the express approval of GOD? The fact is that GOD expressly ordered me, ‘Attack and destroy this country!’…I’ll take you to a land sweeter by far than this one, a land of grain and wine, bread and vineyards, olive orchards and honey. You only live once—so live, really live! No. Don’t listen to Hezekiah. Don’t listen to his lies, telling you ‘GOD will save us.’ Has there ever been a god anywhere who delivered anyone from the king of Assyria? (2 Kings 18.19 – 25, 32, 33, MSG)

Tough talk…with some errors. For example, he incorrectly assumed that Hezekiah had limited people’s access to God when he demolished the local shrines. (See 2 Kings 18.1 – 4) And, of course, God had NOT commanded Assyria to take out Judah.

The threats continue into chapter 19. We have the first mention of “Isaiah, son of Amoz” – the first of the “major prophets.” Isaiah promises relief:

Isaiah answered [Hezekiah’s messengers], “Tell your master, ‘GOD’s word: Don’t be at all concerned about what you’ve heard from the king of Assyria’s bootlicking errand boys—these outrageous blasphemies. Here’s what I’m going to do: Afflict him with self-doubt. He’s going to hear a rumor and, frightened for his life, retreat to his own country. Once there, I’ll see to it that he gets killed.’ ” (2 Kings 19.6, 7, MSG)

The king of Assyria pulled back temporarily, but his messenger wrote a formal letter reiterating the threat, including these boasts:

Don’t let that god that you think so much of keep stringing you along with the line, ‘Jerusalem will never fall to the king of Assyria.’ That’s a barefaced lie. You know the track record of the kings of Assyria—country after country laid waste, devastated. And what makes you think you’ll be an exception? (2 Kings 19.10 – 11, MSG)

I love Hezekiah’s response…one that we could learn from:

Hezekiah took the letter from the envoy and read it. He went to The Temple of GOD and spread it out before GOD. And Hezekiah prayed… (2 Kings 19.14, 15, MSG)

Hezekiah shows God the letter(!) and prays based on the honor of God (see 2 Kings 19.14 – 19). “Look at this letter Sennacherib has sent, a brazen insult to the living God!”

As an answer to the prayer, Isaiah sends a response to Sennacherib (“I will turn you back to where you came from.”) and a promise for Hezekiah:

To sum up, this is what GOD says regarding the king of Assyria: He won’t enter this city, nor shoot so much as a single arrow there; Won’t brandish a shield, won’t even begin to set siege; He’ll go home by the same road he came; he won’t enter this city. GOD’s word! I’ll shield this city, I’ll save this city, for my sake and for David’s sake. (2 Kings 19.32 – 34, MSG)

And it happened:

And it so happened that that very night an angel of GOD came and massacred a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians. When the people of Jerusalem got up next morning, there it was—a whole camp of corpses! Sennacherib king of Assyria got out of there fast, headed straight home for Nineveh, and stayed put. One day when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer murdered him and then escaped to the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon became the next king. (2 Kings 19.35 – 37, MSG)

It’s never a bad idea to pray based on God’s honor:

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. (Matthew 6.9, ESV)

O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. (Daniel 9.18 – 19, ESV)

We continue with 2 Kings after the dispersal of the Northern Kingdom. Hezekiah takes the throne of Judah and is off to a good start, including something I’d forgotten even though I just wrote about it in March!

In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz began his rule over Judah. He was twenty-five years old when he became king and he ruled for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. In GOD’s opinion he was a good king; he kept to the standards of his ancestor David. He got rid of the local fertility shrines, smashed the phallic stone monuments, and cut down the sex-and-religion Asherah groves. As a final stroke he pulverized the ancient bronze serpent that Moses had made; at that time the Israelites had taken up the practice of sacrificing to it—they had even dignified it with a name, Nehushtan (The Old Serpent). Hezekiah put his whole trust in the GOD of Israel. There was no king quite like him, either before or after. (2 Kings 18.1 – 5, MSG)

Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent from Moses’ day. During the wilderness wanderings, the people started complaining, and “the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people…” When they confessed their sin, God gave this instruction:

And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. (Numbers 21.8, 9, ESV)

It was such a significant event that even Jesus used it to explain to Nicodemus what was going to happen:

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (John 3.14, 15, ESV)

So here’s a God-ordained cure: a bronze serpent on a pole. “Look and live!” A lovely picture of the cross. However, by Hezekiah’s time, it had become an idol. Not unlike the Israelites in Eli’s day who wanted the Ark of the Covenant on the battlefield:

“Why has the LORD defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD here from Shiloh, that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.” (1 Samuel 4.2, 3, ESV)

“It” doesn’t save – whether it’s the Ark of the Covenant or the bronze serpent. Sometimes, things that were once a symbol used for good must be destroyed whether it’s a serpent on a pole, a once-beloved church program or tradition, even (gasp!) materials and methods that were once effective but are no longer.

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5.21, ESV)

I’ve been sitting on this story for about six weeks, wondering what to do with it. I wasn’t an Elvis fan although I did appreciate some of the hymns he recorded. The man could sing. At any rate, here’s the official announcement of one of his personal bibles going up for auction:

Elvis Presley’s Personal Holy Bible on His Nightstand the Night He passed W/Underlined and Book Marked Passages (Comes W/Letter From Patsy Presley) – This Holy Bible (World Edition) was personally owned by Elvis Presley, and was on his nightstand in his bedroom at Graceland on the night he passed. The Bible is embossed with “Elvis Aaron Presley” in gold, and contains a large amount of book marked pages and underlined passages that seemingly spoke to Elvis. One of these underlined passages in particular is from the book of Job, 31:24-26, which reads, “If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; If I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand has gotten much; If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness.” This Bible comes with a handwritten letter from Elvis’ cousin Patsy Presley, with whom he was very close. The letter states in part, “Shortly after Elvis’ passing my uncle Vernon (Elvis’ dad) and I went up into Elvis’ bedroom at Graceland to organize and pack many of his personal belongings. This Holy Bible was one of three that Elvis had on his night table. After packing them Uncle Vernon had me take them home for safe keeping and eventually gave them to me.” It is well known that Elvis was an avid reader and a deeply spiritual man. Of all of Elvis’ Bibles sold over the years, this particular book has a truly touching story and fantastic provenance. – Official Notice of Auction, Lot # 2D: Elvis Presley’s Holy Bible on His Nightstand the Night He Passed

Elvis not only read the Bible, he “read and marked,” just like I teach. He realized that God’s creation was “very good” as recorded in Genesis 1, and he knew the dangers of trusting in wealth, from Job 31.

But what’s the lesson for us? My first thought was that for all I talk about making daily Bible reading and meditation part of our lives, more than reading and marking is required. Maybe the warning in 1 Kings 9 applies as does James’ admonition:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1.22, NIV)

And maybe Elvis tried to obey, I don’t know.

The other thought comes on the heels of yesterday’s text, the last half of 2 Kings 17. I wonder if Elvis wanted both.

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…So these nations feared the LORD and also served their carved images… (2 Kings 17.33, 41, ESV)

Here are some snippets from a report from CBN:

“He was a Christian, and most people don’t know that,” Presley’s stepbrother, Billy Stanley told Faithwire. “When I say ‘Christian,’ he was a Bible-carrying Christian…wherever he went, he took the Bible with him.”

Stanley, who worked for Elvis when he was on tour, was tasked with carrying the performer’s Bible and shared that he often observed his stepbrother praying before performances and singing gospel songs afterward.

“He read the Bible almost every day,” he said.

Stanley authored The Faith of Elvis: A Story Only a Brother Can Tell, which reveals other unique details of Elvis’ faith and life.

“Nobody can really imagine the position Elvis was in…here you have a man that really changed culture,” Stanley said. “I always thought…he had the devil on one side, and he’s got God on the other side, and there was a constant battle going on inside of his head.”

Tragically, Elvis died at the age of 42 due to heart failure, but Stanley says that without a shadow of a doubt, Elvis remained connected to God. 

“I would hear people say, ‘You’re the king.’ He said, ‘No, no, I’m sorry. There’s only one true king, and that’s Jesus,'” Stanley told Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, adding, “He was not afraid to show his faith.”

Elvis, a Bible-reading believer in Jesus, dead at 42. Maybe the Apostle Paul’s warning from the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness applies, I don’t know:

The same thing could happen to us. We must be on guard so that we never get caught up in wanting our own way as they did. And we must not turn our religion into a circus as they did—”First the people partied, then they threw a dance.” We must not be sexually promiscuous—they paid for that, remember, with twenty-three thousand deaths in one day! We must never try to get Christ to serve us instead of us serving him; they tried it, and God launched an epidemic of poisonous snakes. We must be careful not to stir up discontent; discontent destroyed them. These are all warning markers—DANGER!—in our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence. (1 Corinthians 10.6 – 12, MSG)

PS The auction was held Memorial Day weekend, and the Bible was sold for $150,000.

Yesterday we saw the end of the Northern Kingdom in 2 Kings 17, ending with:

In the end, GOD spoke a final No to Israel and turned his back on them. He had given them fair warning, and plenty of time, through the preaching of all his servants the prophets. Then he exiled Israel from her land to Assyria. And that’s where they are now. (2 Kings 17.23, MSG)

But that’s not the end of the story! There are 41 verses in 2 Kings 17. Verse 23 begs a question, if the northern tribes were exiled to Assyria, what happened to the people who were already in Assyria? And who is going to live in Israel?

The king of Assyria brought in people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and relocated them in the towns of Samaria, replacing the exiled Israelites. They moved in as if they owned the place and made themselves at home. (2 Kings 17.24, MSG)

And this relocation created a problem:

When the Assyrians first moved in, GOD was just another god to them; they neither honored nor worshiped him. Then GOD sent lions among them and people were mauled and killed. This message was then sent back to the king of Assyria: “The people you brought in to occupy the towns of Samaria don’t know what’s expected of them from the god of the land, and now he’s sent lions and they’re killing people right and left because nobody knows what the god of the land expects of them.” (2 Kings 17.25, 26, MSG)

Oops! What to do?

The king of Assyria ordered, “Send back some priests who were taken into exile from there. They can go back and live there and instruct the people in what the god of the land expects of them.” One of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came back and moved into Bethel. He taught them how to honor and worship GOD. (2 Kings 17.27 – 28, MSG, emphasis mine)

Problem solved, yes? Well, no, actually.

But each people that Assyria had settled went ahead anyway making its own gods and setting them up in the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines that the citizens of Samaria had left behind—a local custom-made god for each people…They honored and worshiped GOD, but they also kept up their devotions to the old gods of the places they had come from. And they’re still doing it, still worshiping any old god that has nostalgic appeal to them. They don’t really worship GOD—they don’t take seriously what he says regarding how to behave and what to believe, what he revealed to the children of Jacob whom he named Israel. (2 Kings 17.29, 33, 34, MSG, emphasis mine)

It’s no wonder the Jews (tribe of Judah) of Jesus’ day had little dealing with the people of Samaria. Good thing we wouldn’t do anything like that: attempt to worship God but “don’t take seriously what he says regarding how to behave and what to believe…”

I have a VERY modern day example. Stay tuned.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6.4, 5, ESV)

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.  And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22.34 – 38, ESV)

After 2 Kings 16, about King Ahaz of Judah, we’re back to the Northern Kingdom…and its end.

In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel. He ruled in Samaria for nine years. As far as GOD was concerned, he lived a bad life, but not nearly as bad as the kings who had preceded him. Then Shalmaneser king of Assyria attacked. Hoshea was already a puppet of the Assyrian king and regularly sent him tribute, but Shalmaneser discovered that Hoshea had been operating traitorously behind his back—having worked out a deal with King So of Egypt. And, adding insult to injury, Hoshea was way behind on his annual payments of tribute to Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested him and threw him in prison, then proceeded to invade the entire country. He attacked Samaria and threw up a siege against it. The siege lasted three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign the king of Assyria captured Samaria and took the people into exile in Assyria. He relocated them in Halah, in Gozan along the Habor River, and in the towns of the Medes. (2 Kings 17.1 – 6, MSG)

Done. Kaput. Unlike the Babylonian captivity of Judah, which we’ll come to shortly and again in 2 Chronicles, there was no return from exile for the northern tribes.

GOD was so thoroughly angry that he got rid of them, got them out of the country for good until only one tribe was left—Judah…In the end, GOD spoke a final No to Israel and turned his back on them. He had given them fair warning, and plenty of time, through the preaching of all his servants the prophets. Then he exiled Israel from her land to Assyria. And that’s where they are now. (2 Kings 18, 23, MSG)

The text makes the WHY clear:

GOD had taken a stand against Israel and Judah, speaking clearly through countless holy prophets and seers time and time again, “Turn away from your evil way of life. Do what I tell you and have been telling you in The Revelation I gave your ancestors and of which I’ve kept reminding you ever since through my servants the prophets.” But they wouldn’t listen… They threw out everything GOD, their God, had told them, and replaced him with two statue-gods shaped like bull-calves and then a phallic pole for the whore goddess Asherah. They worshiped cosmic forces—sky gods and goddesses—and frequented the sex-and-religion shrines of Baal. They even sank so low as to offer their own sons and daughters as sacrificial burnt offerings! They indulged in all the black arts of magic and sorcery. In short, they prostituted themselves to every kind of evil available to them. And GOD had had enough. (2 Kings 17.13, 14, 16, 17, MSG)

There is grace until there’s not, and if anyone thinks the United States gets a special pass, they need to read about the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. (I do not think the US is a fulfillment, or reincarnation, or whatever of God’s chosen people, but there are those who do.) There is no question that the US has been blessed…but the lesson here is that blessings aren’t permanent.

He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing. (Proverbs 29.1, ESV)

See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life… (Deuteronomy 30.15 – 19, ESV)