The purpose of the Bible is to show God’s love and mercy for His people Israel and to the world. God’s Word tells us He created Adam and Eve in His image and created a beautiful garden for them to enjoy. They fell into sin which had devastating effects on all mankind, but God provided a plan of redemption through His Son Jesus.
We can summarize the Bible by saying, it’s a redemption story of God’s love for humanity, and the sacrifice He was willing to make for all of mankind. Most of all, it’s the unshakeable and infallible Word of God. Or you could be more concise and say, It’s God speaking us you. You could also say, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
The OT is very important to us. Jesus quoted the OT many, many times. If it was important to Jesus, it is should be important to us. The OT gave us prophecies that were fulfilled in the NT (Luke 24:13-49) and is being fulfilled today.
Romans 15:4 tells us the importance of studying the OT. “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
Isaiah 5:1-7 describes God’s relationship with Israel. He had richly blessed His chosen people Israel. He gave them everything they needed, but instead they rebelled and had to be punished just as wild grapes have to be radically pruned.
Isaiah 41:8-9 – Israel is reminded they are God’s servants, chosen by Him. They were His friends because of their family relationship to Abraham and because of this relationship Abraham’s descendants also had a special place before God.
In Acts 7 Stephen recalled the history of the nation of Israel from the beginning. He told the people why they refused to believe. He called them a stiff-necked people. He was trying to wake them up and stop rebelling and be thankful for God and all He had done for them. They even killed the Son of God.
In Corinthians 10:1-13 Paul told us that we should learn from Israel’s story of successes and failures. Their examples should keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Instead we are just like Israel and do the same things. We worship idols, commit sexual immorality, we test the Lord, we grumble and are never satisfied.
In this study we see Israel’s story at the end of the reign of King Solomon. Solomon ignored God’s warnings so God brought judgment upon his kingdom. After Solomon’s death, Israel divided into 2 kingdoms, the north kingdom called Israel and the southern kingdom called Judah. This is the period we will be focusing on this year.
God’s nation of Israel was a United Kingdom under her first three kings – Saul, David and Solomon, but the kingdom never really had good kings. God sent many prophets to steer them back to Him, but they still rejected him. Eventually God punished them by allowing them to be taken away into captivity.
We begin with 1 Kings 11. We see in 1 Kings 11:29-39 prophecy is revealed – Israel will be torn out of King Solomon’s hands and 10 tribes will be given to Jeroboam. But for the sake of David, God will leave one tribe. He will do this because they had forsaken Him, worshipped foreign gods, did not walk in His ways, nor done what was right or kept His statues and laws.
We should learn many lessons from Israel’s history. Solomon was wise and very wealthy. He enjoyed God’s favor, but as time went on he relied on his fortune, his military might and his political alliances instead of God who gave him all those blessings. He focused on the gifts not the Giver. Both Solomon and Israel had God’s blessings, but they turned from Him and went their own way worshipping false gods. We are like that today. We focus on the same things, ignoring God’s commands. We reject God and worship false gods. This should be a warning to us. God won’t stand for our actions much longer. There will be judgment to come.
How are you ignoring God?
Principle: Israel’s history exposes an unfaithful people, but always reveals a faithful God.
This week’s attribute of God is He is Faithful.
Next time we will continue our study of Kingdom Divided starting with 1 Kings 11. Hope to see you here. -- I encourage you to trust in Jesus.
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