03/03/2011 - The same sentence for the same sin!

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“Inasmuch as I lifted you out of the dust and made you ruler over My people Israel, and you have walked in the way of Jeroboam, and have made My people Israel sin, to provoke Me to anger with their sins,” (I Kings 16:2).

It’s sad to see so many people who let themselves be overwhelmed by power and they forget God! Chosen people by the Lord to do a special work are being carried away by the tricks of sin and then they fall. That happened to Jeroboam whom prophet Ahijah had given ten out of the twelve pieces of his new but now torn robe to show the Most High would split the kingdom of Israel into regions and that He’d give him ten tribes (I Kings 11: 29-31). Jeroboam was warned that he shouldn’t behave like Solomon who got involved with worshiping other gods, so his kingdom ended up being divided in two regions. The wise Solomon thought he could fool around with the holiness of God; yet, he was wrong!

Jeroboam despises the warning of the Lord to give himself to the devil in a mad way (I Kings 12: 26 – 33). On top of that, Abijah, one of his children got sick (I Kings 14: 1) and passed away as Ahijah had said. It seemed that God had forgotten the wickedness Jeroboam, that ruler, had committed because Nadabe, another one of his sons, began reigning. Yet, Baasha, an ordinary man among the people conspired against him and murdered him two years later. As soon as Baasha took over the kingdom, he also murdered all the other children of Jeroboam to fulfil the Word of the Lord. Yet, Baasha committed the same sins Jeroboam did so the sentence came over him likewise (I Kings 15). The same sentence for the same sin!

Baasha reigned for twenty four years, so he had enough time to repent of his wicked ways; yet, that didn’t happen, he was carried away by the same mistakes of Jeroboam. So, Prophet Jehu was used by God to tell him that his family and he would have the same end Jeroboam had because though he had been raised out of dust to become King, he didn’t listen to the divine instruction not to behave like Jeroboam.

Baasha died and, again, it seemed that the Most High had forgotten what had happened because Elah, his son, reigned in his instead. Yet, while Elah was getting drunk in Tirzah, his servant Zimri murdered him. So, he took over the kingdom and soon afterwards he wounded all of Baasha’s descendents and no male was spared among his relatives and friends (I Kings 16). The same sentence for the same sin!

Though there are so many biblical examples of people who committed a sin, there are still some today among the people of God who think they’re special, so they wrongly think they can transgress the divine commandments. Then, tragedies occur; young people’s lives are exterminated; unhealed diseases appear to devastate a whole family and marriages are undone – All that because some of the “saints” of the Lord believe they can drift apart from Him. Yet, nobody’s entitled to make an agreement with our enemy. Our God’s holy so we’ve got to be holy as well. (I Peter 1: 16). Those who decide to walk on the wrong path will pay too high a price. I hope that won’t happen to you!

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares