Demolishing Unspiritual Foundations

But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin. (2Kings 10:31)

The statement in the verse is repeated throughout the duration of the northern kingdom of Israel. Simply speaking, no king was able to break from the clutches of Jeroboam’s faulty worship.

Yet I want us to appreciate that Jehu was unlike all the other kings. His kingdom came from prophecy. He also sought to serve God beyond eliminating Ahab’s lineage as per his commission.

And he said, Come with me, and see my zeal for the LORD. So they made him ride in his chariot. (2Kings 10:16)

And it came to pass, as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go in, and slay them; let none come forth. And they smote them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the captains cast them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal. And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and burned them. And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day. Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel. (2Kings 10: 25 – 28)

He loved God and was committed to Him. He couldn’t have destroyed Baal worship and all its objects and sites if he was not committed to God.

There was only one problem with His zeal; it was not founded on the scriptures. He therefore was not even aware that the idols Jeroboam had made were idolatrous. He conclusively dealt with Baal yet found nothing wrong with similar worship because it was part of the tradition he grew up in. incidentally, he was not the only one unable to deal with it. All the other kings in Israel had the same problem; despite the fact that it was the main reason God removed Israel from their land.

Jeroboam not only created alternative worship. He eliminated the levitical structures and priesthood and with them went the scriptures since they were the custodians of the same. And he did it by making those calves which were contrary to the scriptures and lowering the priesthood to the lowest denominator; money. The priesthood was opened to the monied. Do we see that in church sometimes?

Of course the priests couldn’t fit there. They had been born into the priesthood and did not need to buy their birthright.

And course they also couldn’t serve idols.

We therefore see them moving to Judah en masse. At least there was a temple and their designated cities there. Their ministry was also needed in Judah.

Israel therefore lost the connection to their historical faith, creating another history; a history of perversion.

The people born after Jeroboam were therefore exposed to depraved worship that as their historic faith. And they knew no better as their historians (Levites) had fled or had been neutralized.

The calves became their worship.

It is not strange that no king saw anything wrong with them. That even Jehu who sought to restore the right worship did not realize that the revival he pursued was flawed.

We see the same thing in Judah.

Kings who seek to live right get limited to historical false worship because they do not have the scriptures.

But look at Josiah.

He seeks to follow after God and rid Judah of all false worship.

Then something happens.

In the 18^th year of his reign, as he was cleaning and cleansing the temple, the scriptures were discovered. Then they were read to him.

He calls on his people to hear the scriptures after he repents. Then they covenant to walk with God in obedience.

That of course results in their dealing with the historical wrong worship that could only be exposed by the reading of the word of God.

You realize that he had been trying to do the same for twelve years before the discovery of the scriptures. But now he had the right foundation for thoroughly cleansing the temple and Jerusalem.

He deals with the horses that had become a tradition since Solomon, but the scriptures exposed as false worship.

And he was finally able to deal with Jeroboam’s abomination; because he had read the scriptures.

Then he has a Passover like no other.

We read that a Passover of that kind had not been celebrated since the time of the judges. We are therefore talking about the time of Joshua before the depravity we see in the book of Judges.

Incidentally, his great grandfather had celebrated a Passover earlier. And it was said to connect to the Passover during Solomon’s time. Hezekiah did a great thing. But he only got so far because he followed written history.

Josiah went that far because he followed the scriptures.

What am I saying?

We can go very far in our obedience when we are reading and following the Bible.

We can break through traditions we may think are Christian if we read the Bible.

And like Josiah we can avert sure judgment when we read and respond to God’s word.

What are some of the ways we are like Jehu? Do we have the scriptural backing for the things we do and the way we do them? Is our zeal all we think God requires?

Incidentally, some of our most treasured traditions and doctrines are things we have inherited from our past. We really do not know why we do them. And the sad thing is that we look for verses to explain them, even becoming violent (in a saved way) to someone who opposes us, even if he uses scripture.

Look at Christian marriage for instance. Do you realize that most of the things we are taught are simply ancient European (possibly Roman) heathen culture with no basis at all in the scriptures? Then we are shocked when the Christian marriages break worse than those of unbelievers!

Treat this as a challenge to study the Biblical marriage structure with open eyes and a prayerful heart.

Let me give a small example lest you accuse me of leaving you stranded.

We were taught (and couples are still taught) that a husband’s call to ministry is subject to the concession of his wife. Simply speaking, God must consult a man’s wife before calling him.

Where is that taught in the Bible?

Did Abraham consult Sarah when he went to offer Isaac as a sacrifice?

What was Adam’s sin (Genesis 3:17)?

Numbers 30 deals with vows conclusively, and I believe a call to ministry is one such.

But we are comfortable with an unbiblical tradition.

I have not even tackled the journey into the marriage, from proposal to engagement to courtship to marriage negotiations to wedding that open doors to discord and sin in the marriage long before it begins.

The second is what makes up probably half (even more) of the Pentecostal/ charismatic tradition and church; deliverance. Closely linked to that is generational curses.

A friend told me that many churches make that a required exercise (not only Pentecostal churches). A couple must investigate to know each line and the generational curses they are bringing to the marriage and seek deliverance from the same. You wonder what Christ’s death means to people pushing that doctrine.

I know there are some things we inherit. I have covered quite a bit on my blog post, ‘The Single Mother and the Bible’. Yet that does not negate or even diminish Christ’s finished work on the cross. It does not reduce Christ’s power to completely overthrow structures when He is given the chance.

Yet they will do deliverance without dealing with foundational issues that should be dealt with first.

Where do we have that in the Bible?

Could we be just reinventing ancient African dread of witchcraft, taboos and curses, only sanitizing the same with a verse here and another there? Don’t we have churches whose major preoccupation is demons and curses?

I am just throwing this stone to challenge us to look at the things we do and the way we do them to see whether we are aligned with the scriptures, not just verses.

Josiah read the scriptures in their entirety several times in the course of those two chapters (2 Kings 22 and 23). That is how he was able to get beyond cosmetic revival that most other kings had attempted.

Incidentally we do not even know how big that book was. It could have been Exodus or Deuteronomy or even portions of the Pentateuch. But it also could have been the whole Pentateuch and a few other books.

What we know is that they read the whole book again and again to be able to demolish all the worship that had become tradition and culture.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. (Joshua 1:8)

And we will never be able to tackle our past mix and match traditions (especially church traditions) unless the complete Bible is our point of reference as opposed to a passage here and another there. We will never be able to handle our sanitized depravity when we look for verses to explain it.

And that is why I am passionate to help people read the Bible, the whole Bible. That is why we make sure there are reading plans for anyone who wants to read the whole Bible. And that is the reason I never tire to help someone who needs a Bible to get it.

We are as good as the kind of word intake we have.

Do you read the Bible in its entirety? How often do you do it? Is it a non-negotiable part of your schedule? Does Bible reading have any allotted special time as you plan your day?