05.07.2014 Old Testament: 1Ki 14.21–24

To read the Bible in a year, read First Kings 14–15 on May 7, In the year of our Lord 2014

By Don Ruhl

By the time Solomon’s son Rehoboam had become king, Israel had been in the Land of Canaan for hundreds of years, and many of those years, they had fallen into idolatry, and suffered for it every time.

Yet, the Bible shows that succeeding generations failed to learn the valuable lessons from their past, even as is true of every nation and every church. The Bible says of the reign of Rehoboam,

And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king. He reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. His mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. Now Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, more than all that their fathers had done. For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. And there were also perverted persons in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel (1 Kings 14.21–24).

Lest we become high-minded and think that we would never do such a thing and that only the Jews could do such, consider your own life, and your sins and temptations. Are you doing things that we can read in the biblical narrative? Have you learned from the biblical narrative? If so, why do you commit the same sins? You see, we are all equally human, and we are weak, needing the Lord constantly that we might avoid temptation and sin.