2 Kings 24 - Negative Faithfulness

Sometimes you need to fear God's faithfulness.

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SINCE WE LAST LEFT OFF... The fall of Israel did not bring repentance to Judah, but served instead as a warning largely ignored. Though a few faithful kings like Hezekiah sought to reform the nation and restore proper worship, the overall trajectory remained downward, culminating in the long and wicked reign of Manasseh, whose sins sealed Judah’s fate. Even later reforms under Josiah could not undo the accumulated guilt of generations. As the years passed, the LORD continued to send prophets to call His people back, but they refused to listen.

2 Kings 24:2–17 (NIV)

² The LORD sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders... to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the LORD proclaimed by his servants the prophets. ³ Surely these things happened to Judah according to the LORD’s command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, ⁴ including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was not willing to forgive.

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¹⁰ At that time the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon advanced on Jerusalem and laid siege to it, ¹¹ and Nebuchadnezzar himself came up to the city while his officers were besieging it. ¹² Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him.

In the eighth year of the reign of the king of Babylon, he took Jehoiachin prisoner. ¹³ As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar removed the treasures from the temple of the LORD and from the royal palace, and cut up the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the temple of the LORD. ¹⁴ He carried all Jerusalem into exile: all the officers and fighting men, and all the skilled workers and artisans—a total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left.

¹⁵ Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. He also took from Jerusalem to Babylon the king’s mother, his wives, his officials and the prominent people of the land. ¹⁶ The king of Babylon also deported to Babylon the entire force of seven thousand fighting men, strong and fit for war, and a thousand skilled workers and artisans. ¹⁷ He made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah.

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²⁰ It was because of the LORD’s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence.

Heidelberg Catechism

Q&A 11

Q. But isn’t God also merciful?

A. God is certainly merciful,

but he is also just.

His justice demands

that sin, committed against his supreme majesty,

be punished with the supreme penalty—

eternal punishment of body and soul.

Summary

Most of the time we speak of God's faithfulness to describe how He provided just what His people needed exactly at the right moment, or how He poured out abundant blessings upon certain people or communities. But here in this final, sad chapter of a once great nation, we see God's faithfulness from a much different perspective... a perspective that commentator Dale Ralph Davis refers to as negative faithfulness.

In other words, what happens to Israel as the best of it is carted off to Babylon happens precisely because God said it would. The overall premise of today's passage is really no different from any of the others we've read so far this year: God is faithful, His people are not. But this time, rather than manifest that faithfulness through salvation, God remains faithful to the promises He's so often repeated: He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:7).

Lest we think that it's the might of the Babylonians that caused Judah to crumble, our narrator pulls the curtain back to show Who is really in control: ² The LORD sent... raiders... to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the LORD proclaimed by his servants the prophets. ³ Surely these things happened to Judah according to the LORD’s command... ¹³ As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar removed the treasures from the temple... ²⁰ It was because of the LORD’s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end He thrust them from his presence.

So it's not at all that God's faithfulness failed. Quite the opposite, in fact. Just as the Commander of the LORD's Army had explained on the front end of the nation of Israel's history, He is neither for us or against us. God is always faithful to Himself; so faithful, in fact, that He would go on to send His one and only Son to fulfill that faithfulness on our behalf.

  Dig Deeper  

Today's passage contains some of the most frightening words of the entire Bible:

⁴ ...the LORD was not willing to forgive

This hits us like a ton of bricks, because we live with an expectation that God is somehow obligated to forgive all the time... that He will forever offer second chances... that He'll always topple the 'bad' guys in order to save the 'good' guys.

But that's not at all how God is. He explained this Himself in no uncertain terms, telling Moses that as the compassionate and gracious God, He is slow to anger... but He certainly does get angry; He's abounding in love, but His love is not limitless (Exodus 34:6). The Bible gives overwhelming evidence of God's faithfulness in compassion and graciousness, so you should not be surprised to occasionally - yet rarely - see God's negative faithfulness to His own holiness.

This is why one of the Bible's most repeated imperatives is for us to fear God. This is why one of the first things Jesus said at the beginning of His public ministry was Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!

The nation of Israel comes to a sad demise here at the end of the books of the Kings. We're going to spend the next couple of weeks reading prophecy (Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who speak God's word in calling His stubborn people back to Him). But after that we'll see that even in His negative faithfulness, God remained faithful to His covenant, preserving a remnant for Himself: the sons and daughters of these exiled officers, skilled workers and artisans who the LORD would bring back to Israel after seventy years in Babylon.

AAA Prayer (About)

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who is perfectly just and perfectly merciful;

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray for the humility to truly fear the LORD and serve Him;

  ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

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