In Deuteronomy 28, before his death Moses told Israel that once they crossed into the Promised Land there would be blessings for obedience to God and curses for disobedience. Following the death of Joshua, Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and worshiped various gods of peoples around them. They provoked the Lord to anger by serving Baal and the Ashtoreths (Judges 2:11-13). For approximately 325 years, over and over Israel turned from the LORD to other gods. GOD would use foreign oppression to chasten his people and then send a deliverer (Judge).
Following the death of King Solomon, God gives ten tribes of Israel to Jeroboam and promised that if Jeroboam walked in His ways and kept God’s statutes and commands, as David did, God would build an enduring dynasty through Jeroboam. However, once Jeroboam became King over the ten tribes of Israel he led the people away from God for fear that they would turn back to Jerusalem to worship God. He set up golden calves at Bethel and Dan, appointed men other than Levites to serve as priests, set up festivals other than what God had instituted, and led the people away from God’s commands and ordinances. Succeeding kinds of Israel led Israel to worship gods other than the LORD. The LORD was longsuffering but Israel persisted in the sins of Jeroboam and would not turn away from them. As given to us in the accounts in 2 Kings 17, finally God became very angry and used Assyria to remove Israel from His presence as he had warned in Deuteronomy 28. Assyria took many of the noble families of Israel to other lands, many of whom would never return.
So, where does that leave us today? We are God’s chosen people; his adopted children bought with the blood of His son, Jesus Christ. God loves us as his children. His grace for the forgiveness of sins is extended to us through Jesus. As with Israel, God also expects us to follow His ways. When we become His children, we take on the responsibility of turning from the ways that we lived previously and the ways that the world would want us to live in the future. Just as God promised Jeroboam that if he followed God he would receive blessings, God promises us the same. God wants to bless our lives but He also wants us to follow Him.
- God is and has always been jealous for men to walk in His ways.
- God is long-suffering and wants us to follow him. He will chasten us when we turn from His ways.
- We should pay strong attention to whom we choose to follow – the ways of God or the ways that men tell us are better or are God’s ways.
- Continuing to not follow God after having been saved, but walk in the ways we (humans) think is best will eventually take us from God’s grace. I don’t know where the line is drawn that God will finally have had enough, but I don’t want to know.
- I sin when I don’t want to and try as I might, sin anyway. However, there is a difference in trying every day to follow God and continually searching for his ways, and living by whatever way I want to or that someone tells me is their opinion of the way. God gave us the Bible to use to find his way, and the Holy Spirit to guide us. These are what we should be using and listen to.