Fully Devoted: Israel, Act 2Sample

Division of the Kingdom

The golden years of Israel came about under the rule of King Solomon. Israel was wealthy and prosperous, and their military and influence expanded to the point where foreign kings and queens heard of their success and had to come see for themselves. 

These people were no longer a band of former slaves sneaking into foreign lands to gather intelligence, now the rulers of these foreign lands were sending entourages to verify the incredible reports they were hearing about the children of Abraham. 

Here’s what the Queen of Sheba concluded: 

She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard. How happy your people must be! ...” 1 Kings 10:6-8 NIV

And they were. But in the very next chapter, we discover that Solomon was harboring a willingness to compromise the nation’s covenant with God, and that jeopardized everything.

King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. ... As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done. 1 Kings 11:1-2, 4-6 NIV

God had issued a warning to Solomon—don’t marry women from the pagan nations surrounding you. Not because they’re somehow ethnically inferior to him, but because they were morally different from him. They did not have the same covenant relationship with God as the Israelites. 

But Solomon was willing to compromise. And he chose obedience to his own desires rather than obedience to God. Paul, in the New Testament, reminds us that this decision has large ramifications. 

Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Romans 6:16 NLT

Solomon chose to obey his own desires and ended up becoming a slave to them. For just as God cautioned, Solomon’s heart was turned to other gods—and half-hearted devotion is really not devotion at all. 

So, tragically, Solomon actually started a pattern of resurrecting the very nightmares God had used Joshua and the newly freed Israelites to conquer. The king began to worship “Molek, the detestable god of the Ammonites.” 

If you remember, the Ammonites believed Molek required infant sacrifices. Let that sink in. The king of Israel started following him. The same king who had built the temple for the living God was now building “high places,” places of worship and sacrifice—for Molek. He was leading God’s family astray, and that was not okay. 

So God takes the kingdom from Solomon and his descendants, though not completely, because of the promise He had made to Solomon’s father, David. In the next chapter, an uprising occurs. The kingdom is split, fractured along family and tribal lines. 

Judah and Benjamin become the southern kingdom of Judah, and the 10 other tribes remain as the northern kingdom of Israel.  For years, idolatry and injustice spread like a plague as king after king chooses to do evil in the sight of God. They choose to obey their own desires. God sends prophets to both nations to remind them of the covenant relationship they have with Him, and to challenge them to return to Him. 

You know the only other kind of relationship we refer to as a covenant? Marriage.

The prophets continually use marriage imagery in how they communicate. God’s people are described as “playing the whore.” Literally, they’re cheating on God by violating their covenant with Him and messing around with other gods.

As they repeatedly violate themselves, they lose more and more of their identity as a nation. They become blinded to the difference they’re supposed to make, and blinded to the dignity of others. They start to oppress the last, the least, and the lost just like the Egyptians had done to them.

Through the rest of this week, we’re going to track a couple of those prophets, Elijah and Elisha, as they call their nation to repentance. The beautiful thing we discover is that even though His people are repeatedly unfaithful to Him, God never ceases to be faithful to them. And He will never cease to be faithful to us. 

Journaling Questions  

• Write down a verse (or verses) from today’s reading. What stands out to you about that verse?    
• Sin escalates. Sin consumes. Sin destroys. And part of that destruction process is division. Do you experience the temptation of isolation when you mess up? How can you fight for unity instead of succumbing to division?   
• Reflect on what you would do if the people you loved most treated you the same way that Israel treated God. How would you respond to being cheated on? How does God respond to the Israelites?

Memory Verse

Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Romans 6:16 NLT