“But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss, and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore the Lord has brought all this calamity on them.’ ””
I Kings 9:6-9 NKJV
a. But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me… then I will cut off Israel from the land: The positive promise of 1 Kings 9:1-5 was followed by a negative promise. If Solomon or his descendants were to turn from following the LORD, God promised to correct a disobedient Israel.
b. And this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight: God answered Solomon’s prayer in 1 Kings 8, but it was not an unqualified promise to bless the temple in any circumstance. God blessed the temple and filled it with the glory of His presence, but he would cast it out of His sight if the kings of Israel forsook the LORD.
i. With such a glorious temple, Israel would be tempted to forsake the God of the temple and make an idol of the temple of God. Here the LORD made them know that He could never bless this error.
c. Israel will become a proverb… everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss: Under the Old Covenant, God promised to use Israel to exalt Himself among the nations one way or another. If Israel obeyed, He would bless them so much that others had to recognize the hand of God upon Israel. If Israel disobeyed, He would chastise them so severely that the nations would be astonished at the hard work of God among His disobedient people, and they would know that the LORD has brought all this calamity on them.
i. The Living Bible has a vivid wording of 1 Kings 9:7: “Israel will become a joke to the nations and an example and proverb of sudden disaster.”
WARNING!
I remember a television program called Lost In Space with a mechanical robot that always would say, “warning, danger, Will Robinson”!
But in these verses God is warning Solomon and the Israelites what He will do if they turn from Him and worship other gods!
In our busy world, we can make idols or gods out of all kinds of things, electronics, social media, television, politics, etc. Basically anything that distracts us from God.
Do you value anything more than God?
Blessings
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