Resistance is Futile?

23 June 2026  2 Kings 19:9-11,14-21,31-36

“…for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.” (2 Kings 19:31:7)

Ancient Israel lay across a trade route connecting Egypt to Mesopotamia (today Iran, Iraq, Syria and part of Turkey). Israel, then as now, lacked abundant natural resources and so was vulnerable to neighboring kingdoms far richer in mineral resources, and more abundant in fertile river valleys. The period of the kings of Israel and Judah, lasting from the time of Saul to the Exile (roughly the 10th to the 6th century B.C.) saw a succession of kings that felt they had to compromise with neighboring powers to protect anything like their unique religious character.

Faithful citizens have to be extremely cautious when the cultures they inhabit become too powerful and pervasive. There hasn’t been a dominant culture yet that has failed to use violence to crush people or groups that oppose, or even just question the culture’s priorities.

It is hard for us to understand how the Israelites in the time of the kings ever came to imagine that toleration and subsidization of pagan religion could be squared with the religion of Moses. What were they thinking? In their own context, however, the Israelites were probably asking, “How can we not do this?”

Their vulnerable situation made it essential, they thought, to make certain unattractive compromises with their neighbors. The alternative was almost certain destruction (which eventually happened anyway). In our time there are churches, even whole Christian denominations, which have made compromises with the ambient culture, opening the door and welcoming gay marriage and transgenderism; one major denomination is even considering polyamory as consistent with God’s plan. They ask, “How can we not do this? How can we expect to be heard by the culture if we don’t open some doors to them?” Their vulnerability seems to make compromise essential.

Compromises on the clear teaching of Jesus and the Gospel are cultural and theological acids that degrade people, even whole institutions to the point where they can no longer stand. The Assyrians who threatened Hezekiah turned Israel and Judah into vassal states, and the Babyonians who came after destroyed them. God promised that only a “remnant,” only “survivors” would finally stand against the pagans (cf. 2 Kings 19:31), but Hezekiah didn’t live to see that. His successors did.

Sometimes the power of the surrounding culture can appear so great that people think resistance is futile. During World War II, the German resistance to the Third Reich was completely ineffective. It did nothing to  hinder or prevent the movement of German troops, and failed completely either to lessen the brutality and cruelty of the Holocaust, or shorten the war. Resistance movements in other countries were only marginally more effective, and none of them slowed the Holocaust, or shortened the war in any significant way. This was even more true during the Cold War (1945-1991), and was the principal reason the Cold War lasted so long. Faithful citizens have to be extremely cautious when the cultures they inhabit become too powerful and pervasive. There hasn’t been a dominant culture yet that has failed to use violence to crush people or groups that oppose, or even just question the culture’s priorities. Compromises may buy time, but never as much as their proponents promise, less still than their proponents hope.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5) sounds radical and idealistic, but it is still our first and most practical course.