“The Lord…will uproot the people of Israel from this good land that he gave their ancestors and will scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, for they have angered the Lord…He will abandon Israel because Jeroboam sinned and made Israel sin along with him.”
1 Kings 14:15-16
I am sure that God did not want to abandon Israel, His special possession. But, King Jeroboam had already begun the separation—when he chose to set up idols and led Israel in worshiping them, Jeroboam abandoned relationship with God.
However, God did not abandon Israel the day those idols were set up, or not even the next month, the next year, or after twenty years. Eventually, 2 Kings 17:21-23 tells us, “The people persisted in all the evil ways of Jeroboam…until the Lord finally swept them away from his presence.” That exile took place 200 years after King Jeroboam’s choice! It makes me I wonder if God was giving Israel opportunity to come back to Him. After all, relationship IS His highest priority!
All choices have consequences of some kind. The choice to follow God’s Word results in the joys of relationship, while the choice to go my own way results in separation from relationship. It may take years to realize how abandoned I feel, but there is no escaping the consequence of turning away from relationship.
I am so thankful my loving God did not want me to be abandoned forever, so He sent Jesus to reverse the consequences of my sinful choices.
Repentance is now the wisest choice I can make,
and its consequence is relationship with God forever!
