Day 110: January 19, 2026 – II Kings 21-25 and Proverbs 8

And so the people of God, as the people of God who were governed by God’s emissaries, cease to exist. Judah is conquered by Babylon and taken into captivity, and the story ends. We now have to wait until Jesus comes back to pick the story back up, as far as the people of God are concerned, their time as a nation ends with their slavery to another nation. Today is an anomaly in the history of the people of Israel. The fact that there is a nation that is run autonomously is not the norm for the people of Israel. The history for the people of God is one of hardship, slavery, non-nation, and really nomadic living. I wonder which of the kings would God say is the current one living like: the ones who followed the Lord, or the ones that moved the people away from God.

As we move into other books of the Bible that depict stories that are similar, some even identical, to the ones that we read, it is important to note that we do not live in a context that is at all similar to that which Israel lived. We cannot claim to be a nation that God has established and that is seeking to pursue His purposes. We are a secular nation created by people in a format of government that is strictly secular. Whether God wants that or not is beside the point. The point is that we are not the people of God so what our task is, is to live our lives according to the principles of the Messiah, Jesus, who commands that we follow the laws of righteousness, even if it means that it could potentially go against the best interest of the country in which we find ourselves. Our primary loyalty has to be to God.