“But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, 18 then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. – Deuteronomy 30:17-18a NLT
Thus says the LORD:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the LORD. – Jeremiah 17:5
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love…
4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. 5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done…
9 And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice 10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded.
11 Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you.”
14 And the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite. He was of the royal house in Edom.
23 God also raised up as an adversary to him, Rezon the son of Eliada…
25 He was an adversary of Israel all the days of Solomon, doing harm as Hadad did. And he loathed Israel and reigned over Syria.
26 Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow, also lifted up his hand against the king.
29 And at that time, when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him on the road. Now Ahijah had dressed himself in a new garment, and the two of them were alone in the open country. 30 Then Ahijah laid hold of the new garment that was on him, and tore it into twelve pieces. 31 And he said to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and will give you ten tribes 32 (but he shall have one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel)…
I remind us that we are a rebellious people since the days of Moses. As Israel turned against the LORD under the leadership of Moses, so too did Israel turn against the LORD under the leadership of Solomon (and more-so under Jeroboam after the Kingdom was torn away).
As the crowds would later desert Christ Jesus when His teachings called for faithfulness in the shadow of the Cross, so has the church fallen away to worship the gods of the flesh and spirits of the age. You with ears to hear, hear the voice of the Lord.
For as God had warned Israel through Moses’ words — as God had warned in the days between the Temple of Solomon and the Temple of Herod — God had also warned Solomon and Israel BEFORE they turned away.
As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the LORD and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build, the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.
And the LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.
And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’
But if you turn aside from following me,
you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them,
then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
Did it not happen, as the LORD said He would do?
And this house will become a heap of ruins.
Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say,
‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’
Then they will say,
‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them.
Therefore the LORD has brought all this disaster on them.’”
‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them.
Do you wail and lament what the LORD has done?
Do you look to only to the salvation promised in the past and not to the redemption which the LORD has done?
Do you pray for a Savior you will not obey?
Do you long for this world and not the next?
What high broken wall of disbelief stands between you and Christ Jesus, the One Lord and Savior of your soul?
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples…
- 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.
- 9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.
- 10 Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.
11 The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say,
‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’
17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?
18 And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’
19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
20 So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.
21 And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it.
22 And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
Christ Jesus IS Lord!
God accepted His Holy Sacrifice for your sins.
…but if,
your heart turns away…
Remember you are dust…
Remember the resurrection to the Judgment of all souls…
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