Gods

2 Chronicles 12:16-13:9 – Rehoboam rested with his ancestors and was buried in the City of David. And Abijah his son succeeded him as king. In the eighteenth year of the reign of Jeroboam, Abijah became king of Judah, and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother’s name was Maakah, a daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. There was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. Abijah went into battle with an army of four hundred thousand able fighting men, and Jeroboam drew up a battle line against him with eight hundred thousand able troops. Abijah stood on Mount Zemaraim, in the hill country of Ephraim, and said, “Jeroboam and all Israel, listen to me! Don’t you know that the Lord, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt? Yet Jeroboam son of Nebat, an official of Solomon son of David, rebelled against his master. Some worthless scoundrels gathered around him and opposed Rehoboam son of Solomon when he was young and indecisive and not strong enough to resist them. “And now you plan to resist the kingdom of the Lord, which is in the hands of David’s descendants. You are indeed a vast army and have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made to be your gods. But didn’t you drive out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and make priests of your own as the peoples of other lands do? Whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams may become a priest of what are not gods.

1 Kings 15:3 – He committed all the sins his father had done before him; his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been.

2 Chronicles 28:5 – Therefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated him and took many of his people as prisoners and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hands of the king of Israel, who inflicted heavy casualties on him.

Jeremiah 2:11 – Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.

1 Kings 12:30 – And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other.

Application:

• ·         Although David fell into grievous sin, his heart was never divided between serving the Lord and serving the nature deities of the Canaanites.
• ·         According to the Chronicler’s view on immediate retribution, defeat in war is one of the results of disobedience.
• ·         “Has a nation ever changed its gods?” was a rhetorical question, clearly expecting a negative answer and emphasizing how incredible is Judah’s practice of substituting idolatry for the worship of the Lord.
• ·         Jeroboam foolishly abandoned religious principle for political expediency and in so doing forfeited the promise given him by the prophet Ahijah.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV