God Does Not Give Up On Us

It isn’t very far into 1 Kings 16 that we are reminded that God, in spite of Israel’s evil kings, does not give up on His people. Even though the people of Israel blindly followed the evil practices of their kings, God did not give up on them. And, Israel’s kings were evil.

(By the way, when I use the name “Israel” in reference to this time in history, I’m referring to the 10 northern tribes that broke away from the unified kingdom. Judah remained separate and actually had a few good kings mixed in with some evil ones.)

So, even though God does not give up and He will keep His promises, He will hold each world leader and each individual accountable to adhering to the Scriptures. The people during this time had to rely on their “learned” leaders, those with access to the Holy Scrolls, for their information. They were slowly indoctrinated into the worship of idols. They were told that various practices were in keeping with what God wanted. They had no idea they were worshiping idols. These extra-Biblical practices and rituals led them to believing they were still worshiping Yahweh God. However, they were as I said above,  reliant upon the leaders to tell them what was what. They did not have access to the Holy Scrolls and even if they did, many would not have been able to read them.

There’s a warning to us in this passage. Yes, our governmental leaders and even our church leaders may slowly incorporate non-Biblical concepts, ideas, policies, practices and rituals into our spiritual lives. God will hold them responsible for those sins. However, before we jump too fast into blaming our leaders, let’s look at ourselves. We do not have the excuse of not having the Sacred Scrolls available for us to read and adhere to. We will be held responsible for knowing and following the Scriptures on an individual basis. We will also be held accountable for not objecting to the misuses of power and prestige and the pulpit. We should not be condemning each other since no one is without fault of disobeying some portion of Scripture, but we should hold our leaders and ourselves accountable to the basics – even just to Ten Commandments.

Let’s review the Ten Commandments. My hope is that we will take a serious and thorough inventory of ourselves as we look at these commandments. How are we doing? How are our leaders doing?

1.     You should have no others gods before Me.

2.     You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.

3.     You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

4.     Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

5.     Honor your father and your mother.

6.     You shall not murder.

7.     You shall not commit adultery.

8.     You shall not steal.

9.     You shall not give false testimony.

10.  You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, wife, servants, or animals.

One last word. You cannot know whether you are following God or human leaders unless you are daily and thoroughly reading and studying His Word. Our leaders, religious or political, can be just as wrong as the evil kings of Israel. (In Acts 17:11 the Bereans were upheld as the example for all of us: “Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.”)