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2 Kings 17:37-38. "And the statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment which he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods, but you shall fear the Lord your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies."

 

These words are being delivered to the Jews and others in Samaria. The Assyrians had conquered Israel and brought in foreigners to mix with the Jews left there. Many strange gods and false forms of worship came with those foreigners. God is reminding His people that He alone is their God, and they should remember to follow His statutes. As we know, this reminder will not be heeded, and Samaria will become a place of a very confused Jews following a mishmash of religions.

 

This corruption of the faith did not happen all at once, but began while Israel was still a kingdom (2 Kings 17:7-8), and then picked up pace after it had been conquered and foreigners placed among the Jews (2 Kings 17:29-33). The same thing can happen to us, and I think it has happened to many Christians. Our faith can become corrupted by the beliefs and "gods" of non-Christians so slowly we might not notice. We know what God has said, with the truth is, but we see what seems like everyone around us doing or espousing otherwise. We don't see the consequences of their error (at least not right away), and we want to fit in, so we come up with justifications and excuses for why God did not mean the things that He said. We then build non-Christian, and sometimes quite wicked, beliefs in to our faith, making it a confusing, erroneous mess. We still call ourselves Christians, we're just believing our own version of Christianity, not God's. That's how we got a Catholic former president telling us that it is almost sinful not to let children undergo transgender procedures.

 

God does not let His people go down this path forever. He warns, he sends prophets and signs, and eventually, if the people don't turn back, He allows catastrophe, like the Assyrian conquest of Israel. These are all for our own good, so that we learn not to fear other gods and to obey the statutes and ordinances God wrote for us, and stop trying to write our own.