We worked through the first half of 2 Kings 17. Here we see the judgement of God being poured out on the 10 northern tribes for their unfaithfulness. Again and again the point is made how this is happening because of the unfaithfulness of God’s people. They had adopted the customs of the people who were driven out before them. They rejected the one true God who had delivered them from Egypt and slavery and had given them the land. They embraced idolatry with zeal. We spent a good deal of time looking at the idea of customs and how God had given them many things which would have made them a peculiar people. They had the sabbath observance, the feasts of the Lord, the freeing of slaves and resting of land every 7 years and the forgiveness of debts and return of property every 49 years. They clearly had God ordained customs which should have set them apart and been a constant reminder of God and His grace. But they turned their back on these things and did not practice them but instead adopted the customs of the nations around them and the ones which had been driven out of the land. We reflected on how easy it is to cast judgement on the people we are looking at but we should be careful to consider what we are ignoring which God has asked us to do. We reflected on tithing and how the national average for tithing is less than 1%. Are we actively seeking to keep a sabbath to the Lord? Or have the pressures of life and the burdens of bills driven us to ignore these things or push them off to a later time. How are we dealing with the issues we face because the customs God calls us to are no less important before God than the ones Israel faced.