Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Thy Will Be Done | Historical Books | 2 Kings 17:6-23

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Do you want God's will or your own? Are you hiding your sin? Do you take credit for God's gifts? In today's episode, Keith shares how 2 Kings 17:6-23 encourages us to say to Jesus, "thy will be done." If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Kings 17:6-23

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. C.S. Lewis wrote, there are only two kinds of people in the end. Those who say to God, thy will be done, and those to whom God says in the end, thy will be done. It's a sobering line. Now, I think when Lewis wrote that line, he was thinking about eternity. And yet it's a choice that we make every single day.

Do I do God's will or do I do my will? That's exactly what we're talking about in 2nd King's Chapter 17. After generations of warning, God finally gives Israel what they've effectively been asking for, a life without him. He says to Israel, if you don't want to do my will, you can do your own will and live without me. The Assyrian army captured the capital of Israel, a city called Samaria. the people are exiled, their homes are emptied, their identity is lost. And the writer doesn't leave us guessing why it happened.

In 2 Kings 17, it says, 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, and feared other gods. See, this was God's judgment for their idolatry. This was God's judgment for their rebellion against him. It wasn't an accident. it wasn't politics, it wasn't bad luck, it wasn't poor military performance. No, it was God's judgment. And that judgment should be a wake-up call for you and me. Before we dive further into the passage,

let's pray. Father, these are heavy words. We don't always want to hear them, but we need to hear them. So help us listen to your word with open hearts. Show us where we've wandered. Show us where we're blind and where we need to repent. speak clearly to us today Lord give us courage to respond in jesus name amen today i want to look at three things we can learn from israel's exile and second king 17 and the first thing we can learn is this judgment is coming verse nine says the people of israel did secretly against the lord their god things that were not right but it did not stay secret for long and by verse 10 they're building altars on every high hill and under every green tree. Sin always spreads like that. It's quiet at first, then it gets normalized, and then we start doing it publicly and don't care. But eventually, God's judgment comes against

our sin. It reminds me of that moment during the Coldplay concert when the kiss cam panned the crowd and caught a couple snuggling. But immediately, you could tell something was wrong. The guy's face looked panic. The woman tried to hide her face. A moment later, they both slipped out of the camera frame as fast as they could. Later, fans online put the pieces together. That man wasn't with his wife and she wasn't with her husband. In fact, he was a CEO and the woman was the head of the company's HR department. They were both married to other people.

Them being at that concert together wasn't innocent. No, they had been exposed. That's how judgment works. It always catches us by surprise. It's God's Jumbotron and you never expect to be on it. until you are, which makes it worth asking, are there sins in your life that you're hiding or excusing or justifying? Are there parts of your heart you're protecting from conviction?

God's jumbotron is real. Jesus says that one day, everything that is done in secret will be made public. One day, every human heart will be put on God's jumbotron. Are you ready for that? Lord, I pray that you had opened my eyes to the places that I'm hiding sin and exposed what needs to be revealed before it's too late. Give me the courage to repent, and not just the fear of being caught.

Let me live honestly before you, because you already see it all, Jesus. Amen. The second thing we learned from Israel's exile is that ingratitude is the beginning of the end. In verse 7, it says that Israel sinned against the Lord their God who brought them up out of the land of Egypt. In other words, they had forgotten who had rescued them from slavery.

When you forget God's grace, when you forget all that he's done in your life, you stop giving thanks. And when you stop giving thanks, you start to look for other gods to worship. Verse 16 shows how far Israel fell. It says they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord and made for themselves metal images of two calves and worshipped all the host of heaven and served bail. They didn't start there. They slid there. This is exactly what Paul talks about in Romans 1 when he says,

the people knew God, they didn't honor him as God or give thanks to him. They exchanged the glory of the immoral God for images. See, it's not just Israel's story to slide into idolatry. It's humanity's story. It's your story and my story. When you take credit for your life, when you take credit for your wins and your comfort, you stop seeing God as the giver. You start thinking that you earned this or that you deserve this. And when you stop seeing God as the giver, you start thinking that you earned this. And when you stop seeing God as the giver, the one who has graciously blessed you, your heart goes looking for something else to give you identity, to give you control, to give your life meaning, or to bring peace to your life? What are those areas in which you tend to take credit? What's something you've thanked God for

lately? Has your refusal to give thanks become an open door to envy or comparison or idolatry? See, ingratitude is more dangerous than we think. Father, I forget so easy. I forget that you've rescued me again and again. I act like somehow I've accomplished my life on my own. I pray that you would forgive my pride, forgive my sense of entitlement. Teach me to give thanks, not just in words, but in how I live. Let gratitude shape my heart, protect me from idols. In Jesus' name, amen.

The third thing we can learn from Israel's exile is that there's still time to repent. See, this chapter is about Israel, it was written for Judah. Verse 18 tells us, therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only. Verse 19 adds,

Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. In other words, Judah read the story like you and I do. It was a warning to them and to us. They had front row seats. They saw what an unrepentant attitude looked like where it led.

They saw their neighbors fall apart, morally, spiritually, nationally, every way. And God allowed Judah to remain for a while because he was giving them time to repent. He was giving them time to turn from their sin, to surrender to God, to look to his grace, to ask him to change them, to go down a different path in life. But tragically, Judah didn't listen. They repeated the same sins, the same mistakes. stakes. They too were eventually judged. They were sent into exile into Babylon. Yet even in Judah's rebellion, God still wasn't done writing the story. Because out of Judah, out of that

fragile remnant, came Jesus. And Jesus didn't come just to warn us of judgment. He came to take judgment on himself. Where Israel was unfaithful, Jesus was faithful. Where Judah turned to idols, Jesus turned to the Father. Where the kings led their people into sin, Jesus the King of Kings leads us into life. And at that moment of greatest pressure, alone in the Garden of Gassimony, staring down the full weight of God's wrath, Jesus prayed the one sentence that rewrites everything. He said, not my will, but yours be done. He said to the Father what Israel never said, what Judah wouldn't say, what we often can't say, he surrendered completely and unreservedly, and then he carried our sin to the cross. The sin that should,

have put us on the jumbotron well jesus took it the sin of ours that's been exposed in embarrassing ways just like the cold play couple jesus took it on himself the exile that we deserve well he endured it the silence of being cast out from god's presence jesus cried my god my god why have for you forsaken me see jesus endured god forsaking him so that we would never have to so that we could be close to God. And now because Jesus was exiled in our place, we are welcomed in, we are forgiven, we are restored, we are made new, we are given the spirit of God, not just beside us, but within us. So what do we do with that? Well, we respond, not with fear, but with surrender, not with pride, but with gratitude, not with delay, but with urgency. Today, right now, you can say what Israel didn't.

You can look at Jesus and say, thy will be done. Thigh will be done in my life. will be done in my family. Thy will be done with my money. Thy will be done with my thoughts. Thy will be done with every part of my life. And when you say that, you say it as a joyful act of trust. God, I trust you. That's why I surrender my life to you.

Jesus, we thank you that you have stood in our place. You absorbed our judgment. You bore our shame. You brought us back from exile. Father, we don't want to live like Israel. forgetting your grace and chasing after empty things. We want to live like you, surrendered, faithful, full of love. So today we say, thy will be done in our life.

See, the story of Second Kings isn't just ancient history. It's a mirror. It asks us, are we listening? Are we grateful? Are we surrendering? Because if we won't say thy will be done, God may eventually say to us, thy will be done.

And give us over to the sin that we cherish more than Him. But thanks be to Jesus. We don't have to fear the jumbo-tron. We can walk in light. We can live in gratitude. Today we can say with confidence and surrender, Lord, thy will be done. Amen.