Throughout the bible there is a common theme about God which is: He is unchanging. You see that in His various commandments and in His dealings with men. What God says always comes to pass, what He requires is always the same. For a being that is unfathomable and impossible to grasp, He sure is very simple in what He requires of us. If anything, the more we read the bible, the more we realize we are people that are prone to wander, prone to change our minds but God is trustworthy and His methods of operations point to the same objective: receiving glory by making His will come to pass. As our creator, God requires that we imitate Him in all that we do that is why He has set commandments that we ought to obey.
In the book of Kings, we read the different stories of Israelites kings and how they reigned over the people; how they acted towards God and whether or not Israel prospered through them. When King Solomon died, the nation of Israel was divided into two kingdoms: the northern kingdom consisting of ten tribes of Israel and the southern one consisting of two tribes. These two kingdoms were always at war with each other but one thing they had in common was their sin and rebellion towards Jehovah their God. Indeed, idolatry was rampant in those nations, many people bowed down to other gods, offered sacrifices to them and worshipped them. This sin was a great offense to God and one that He does not tolerate because it stands in direct confrontation to His glory which He will not share with anyone. The consequence of such sin brought calamity on the people of Israel as God had declared in Deuteronomy 28. The people of Israel who were supposed to be God’s people, prosperous and a reference became a laughingstock. Israel’s enemies were subduing them instead of the contrary happening. They became the tail instead of being the head, they toiled for food, etc. Unfortunately the sin was so entrenched in the land starting from the kings that it became difficult to recognize what was true and what was not. When God gives His instructions, He expects them to be followed exactly as He has laid them out. The same goes for His commandments. We are not to be questioning any of God’s commandments nor are we to question His instructions. We are simply to obey them. One of the commandments of God was that none of His words be altered (Deuteronomy 4:2). In reading the story of king Jeroboam, I understood the depth of this command. Jeroboam was a king that God himself instituted over the northern kingdom of Israel (1 Kings 11:29-31). He was an enemy of Solomon and therefore wanted nothing to do with the house of David. Jeroboam, throughout the book of Kings in contrast to David is a bad reference of someone disobeying God and leading the people astray. The subtlety of Jeroboam’s sin was in making everything seem like the original but with a slight mix. For example, Jeroboam established his own priests who were supposed to carry the same functions the Levites carried; he also built altars and shrines in his city to deter the people of the northern kingdom to go worship God in Jerusalem where the temple of God was located; he further set new dates for feasts that were the equivalent of the feasts God had already told the Israelites to celebrate. You see, Jeroboam did not change much of the habits of the northern Israelites, he did not institute anything outrageous, rather he modified things a bit, he changed locations for worship, and he made golden calves and called them God. These changes on the outset did not seem dramatic yet their effects on the people of Israel were long-lasting and the cure to recover from such new way of life was high. Jeroboam built an idolatrous mindset among the people of the northern kingdom which permeated even the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah. Changing few things here and there changed the focus of the worship away from God and the consequences were disastrous. I believe idolatry is very deadly because by the time you realize you are sinning you have gone too far. Moreover, idolatry is also such a mindset that controls your habits that to remove it and deconstruct it seems almost impossible. It requires a lot of effort and work. This might be one of the reasons God requires that we simply obey His commands or His instructions to the letter. When Noah was told to build the ark, he was given specific instructions on how to build it and he built it accordingly. Noah did not get creative, he did not decide to use a material that God had not instructed because it would look prettier, no, he simply obeyed. Moses also did the same thing when it came time to build the Ark of the Covenant. The instructions were given to Moses by God and Moses followed them to the letter. Moreover, Salomon, when he was building the temple of God ensured it was built according to the dimensions, design and instructions given by God. There is a time to be creative, a time to showcase your talent but not in obedience or in following instructions. In fact, rationality and logic are not required when God has issued a command, only obedience is.
Therefore let us be careful to obey God’s commandments. As we follow Him, let us ensure we follow His way and not our way. Our reference must always be the word of God, we are not smarter than God and quite frankly we do not understand Him so what we can do at our level is to simply follow His lead. I pray we get to saturate ourselves with studying the characters in the bible whose heart were totally devoted to God and imitate their lives. May we be spirit-led people who rely on the Spirit of God to do what they are limited to do in the body.
A Word Aptly Spoken 