In First Chronicles, chapter five, verses twenty-five through twenty-six, the emphasis of disobedience and sin bring judgment and calamity, whereas obedience and faithfulness bring peace and blessing. This spiritual principle, which is in the New Testament, should motivate us to fear the Lord and obey the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
The captivity of the three eastern tribes is in Second Kings seventeen, verses six through eighteen. The Israelites in the Old Testament were faithless and untrue to God. Jehovah was the Lord and Husband of Israel. Apostasy from Him is, in the prophetic language, whoredom. Had they kept close to God and their duty, they would have continued to enjoy their ancient lot and new conquests. However, lying upon the borders and conversing with the neighboring nations, they learned their idolatrous usages and transmitted the infection to the other tribes. And for this, God had a controversy with them.
In these verses, the Israelites fell away faithlessly from the God of their fathers and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God had destroyed before them: the Amorites or Canaanites. Pul is the first as being the first Assyrian king who attacked the land of Israel, as in Second Kings fifteen, verse nineteen. The deportation began, however, only with Tiglath-pileser, who led the East-Jordan tribes into exile, as in Second Kings fifteen, verse twenty-nine.
There are two sets of people living on the earth today: The ungodly and the godly. The first set are unbelievers, and they do not follow the straight and narrow way that leads to the path of righteousness, which is disobedience. The others are the godly ones who do not follow the broad way of life and keep away from the unrighteous ways of the world. However, there is another set of people yet mentioned: there are three sets of people instead of two: the lukewarm ones. They live in between: go back and forth to living godly to ungodly, narrow way to broadway, faithful to faithless, which is the worst kind. Revelation three, verse sixteen, is clear: “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”