Take a Day Off, Get Mauled by a Lion

Part 1

You can experience the goodness of the Lord, obey the Lord for a time, exercise the wisdom that comes from God, and worship Him. But don’t let pride creep in. Don’t give in to distraction from the world. Don’t forget your desperate need for Jesus.

Don’t take your eyes off Jesus, any of us can fall away.

King Solomon asked God for wisdom. The Lord was pleased and granted him wisdom and riches. It seemed like Solomon was on the right path to follow the Lord as a godly king. But that’s not how the story ends.

“Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places.” (1 Kings 3:3)

He didn’t remain faithful to the Lord. He started by building the Temple for Israel to worship Yahweh. Solomon wrote a lot of songs, married a lot of women, and followed false gods.

In the end, his heart had turned away from the Lord. Don’t quit worshipping Jesus. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Focus on God and His Word and love Him. And surround yourself with others who will speak truth into your life and help keep you on the path you need to be on.

“So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and did not wholly follow the LORD, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods. And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the LORD commanded.” (1 Kings 11:6-10)

References

• 1 Kings 3
• 1 Kings 11

Quotes

“You can see the goodness of the Lord, experience the goodness of the Lord, walk in faithfulness and obedience to the Lord and exercise the wisdom that comes from God. You can worship Him, love Him — even write extensively songs of praise. Others might think, “man that person loves Jesus, that person really loves God”, and in the end how quickly and easily you can take your eyes off Jesus and fall away.”

“I see this a lot, where people start strong, live strong for a season and they fall away…I pray that I stay strong till the end, I pray that for you too, let’s walk with the Lord by fixing our eyes on Jesus and His Word with all the days of our lives. Stay faithful, stay true, and He will keep you. He won’t let you fall away, and the reward will be great, it will be one of faithfulness and peace.”

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Part 2

There are no days off in the Christian life. Every day, when our feet hit the floor, we are engaged in a spiritual war. We’ve got to fight with courage and perseverance. The instinct of our flesh is to drift away from holiness and toward the worship of ourselves and other idols.

Jeroboam became king over the northern kingdom of Israel but didn’t have Jerusalem (and the Temple) within his reign. He created two golden calves that Northern Israel could worship. An entire new religious system was born.

So, God sent a prophet from Judah up to Bethel to prophesy God’s judgment against the false priests (and Jeroboam). The prophet proclaimed God’s words with courage and boldness in the face of King Jeroboam’s anger.

Sadly, the man of God was then deceived by an old prophet while on the way home and didn’t obey the Lord’s command to return straight home.

References

• 1 Kings 12-13

Quotes

“Every day when our feet hit the floor we are at war spiritually and so every day we’ve got to fight.”

“Your relationship with the Lord is so critical, how you view God is so critical you can’t take a break from that. It’s a relationship. God is not just an object of our worship, He is our Lord. He is the lover of our souls, He draws us into a relationship and I’ve got to stay tuned. I can’t afford to take any days off.”

“Be careful, lest you drift away.”

“No one ever drifts toward holiness, that is a constant fight you’ve got to be constantly aware. Take your focus and you stop fixing your eyes on Jesus and you can drift away.”