Secret sins

Now the king of Assyria went throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
For so it was that the children 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 they had feared other gods, and had walked in the statutes of the nations whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. Also the children of Israel secretly did against the Lord their God things that were not right, and they built for themselves high places in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom the Lord had carried away before them; and they did wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger, for they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.” – 2 Kings 17.5-12

It was the end of the line for the ten tribes of Israel. After being delivered out of Egypt and after having been given the land by God and given plenty of chances to sort things out God was going to allow the Assyrians to take them captive and disperse in other regions of the Assyrian Empire.

The Assyrians were known for their violence and for their mistreatment of their captives. They were greatly to be feared. They had besieged Israel for three long years – but now it was the end.

How did this happen? How did they go from watching God bless them and give them great victories to the point where these ten tribes were going to become forgotten peoples scattered through Asia?

Good question – and here is what they did. Here is how the ‘sinned against God.’

They feared other gods
They obeyed the ways of the pagan nations instead of God
They secretly did things God told them not to do
They set up places to worship the pagan gods
They served idols
They provoked God by doing the things that God told them not to

And they thought they were getting away with it Despite all that God had done and all His blessings and warning after warning from the prophets they would turn from their secret sins.

But God is just and righteous and holy. Their sins were bound to be discovered. They couldn’t hide their sin forever. And now was going to take His hand of protection off and let them suffer the consequences of their choices.

And God doesn't change. We still can’t hide our secret sins from God. He still knows when we sin even if nobody else does. And He still hates sin. While our salvation is secure we need to remember that God may have to lovingly chasten us in order to draw us back into fellowship with Him.

That hidden secret sin is not really hidden or secret - let's deal with those so we can walk in the sweet fellowship of God’s blessings.