Judgment Always Comes - 2 Kings 16-20

 Judgment Always Comes

2 Kings 17:6-8 (ESV)

In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.

The nation of Israel is taken captive by the Assyrians around 721 B.C.   After three years of a siege, the nation would be eliminated and only the southern tribe of Judah would survive ... but, only for a few more years before they, too, are taken captive.   The judgment of Israel/Judah is reminder that God disciplines those He loves and corrects those who are His children. 

Hebrews 12:3-7 (ESV)
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

We cannot expect to sin without God discipline in our lives.   We think that because God is love He will look past our sin, but that is a false belief.  God is highly engaged in our lives and our need for correction.   As the writer of Hebrews writes, “For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”   God is a Heavenly Father who cares for His children.   This being taken captive and put into bondage was that discipline for Israel.   Once Judah, as well, goes into captivity, it will be 70 years before they are released to return to the land.   They will return to the land, not longer separated as two nations, but as one.   God will use this discipline to bring in His plan for the Messiah, His Son.   God disciplines those He loves.   Judgment always comes, because God always loves His children!