BASIC BIBLE STUDIES

# 009

 

Humanity's History of Persistent Disobedience to God

(Part 2)

 

In today's Study we continue our survey of humanity's history of persistent disobedience to God, and will continue the numbering sequence from the previous Study.  This lesson begins a little over 1000 years before the birth of Christ following the rule of the nation of Israel by judges.  The nation has become proud and desires to have a king "to be like all the nations" (I Samuel 8:20).  Samuel, the aged prophet of God, is distressed by the people's arrogant request, but God  says to Samuel: "...they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them" (I Samuel 8:7).  (Note: It is distressing today--and an affront to God--when His people desire to follow the standards of the world rather than the will of Lord).

 

9. Saul, the son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, was chosen as the first king of Israel.  His reign began in a splendid fashion, but soon degenerated into willful disobedience to God.  Following his defeat of the Philistines, and while waiting for the arrival of Samuel to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, Saul grew impatient and presumptuously offered the sacrifice himself.  When Samuel finally arrived (had he purposefully delayed his arrival in order to test Saul's commitment to God's will?), he confronted Saul and said: "You have done foolishly.  You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you..." (I Samuel 13:13). 

 

10. Still later, God commanded Saul to utterly destroy the heathen Amalekites for the misery they had caused the children of Israel hundreds of years before during the time of the wilderness wandering (I Samuel 15:2-3).  (Note: God's punishment of wickedness may be delayed--even for many years--but it is never withheld.  See Galatians 6:7).  But Saul again chose not to fully obey the Lord.  He spared the life of Agag, the king of Amalek, as well as the best of the sheep and oxen.  His "rationale" for sparing the animals was to offer them as a "sacrifice to the Lord" (I Samuel 15:13-15).  Samuel again confronts Saul and says: "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams" (I Samuel 15:22).  Modern man needs to learn this lesson today--that God does not accept our rationalization for altering, and thus not obeying, what He has commanded! 

 

11. David succeeded Saul as the second king of Israel.  Though a good man--one after God's own heart (I Samuel 13:14)--he nevertheless was far from perfect.  II Samuel 11 records the story of the sordid affair David had with Bathsheba, a married woman whose husband was away from home fighting in David's army.  When Bathsheba wound up pregnant with David's child, he immediately began efforts to "cover his tracks," but nothing worked.  Eventually, he resorted to having Uriah the husband killed in battle.  Later, David humbly confessed his horrible sins and God in His mercy forgave him (II Samuel 12:1-14). Nevertheless, David had to suffer the earthly consequences  of his sins by the death of the child he had fathered, and by constant turmoil within his own family, including the rape of one of his daughters by one of his sons, and the subsequent murder of that son by the girl's brother! (II Samuel 12:1-14).

 

12. Solomon, a son later born to David and Bathsheba (following his murder of Uriah, David unabashedly took Bathsheba as one of his wives), became the third king of Israel.  But he too soon fell into disobedience to God through the many foreign women he loved (I Kings 11:1).  He assembled a harem of "seven hundred wives...and three hundred concubines (sub-wives)" (I Kings 11:3).  (Note: Once in a Bible class I was teaching, I rhetorically asked, "How many wives too many did Solomon have?"  An exceptionally brave man--sitting next to his wife--answered: "Seven hundred!").  These women proved to be Solomon's downfall.  "For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God...Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord..." (I Kings 11:4-6).

 

13. Following the death of Solomon, the twelve-tribe nation of Israel divided into two kingdoms--ten tribes retaining the name "Israel," and two tribes taking the name "Judah."  The sad history of these respective kingdoms is told in the rest of I Kings, and throughout II Kings and I and II Chronicles.  The upshot of it all is that the kingdom of Israel--with not a single good king to ever reign over them--was taken in Assyrian captivity in 722 B. C., never to return, all because of their  sins of idolatry, immorality, and persistent rebellion against God.  The kingdom of Judah--with a few good kings interspersed among several evil kings--lasted 136 years longer, but eventually was taken into Babylonian captivity in 586 B.C. as punishment for their sins.  Throughout all these years, God had been patient with both Israel and Judah, sending prophet after prophet such as Elijah, Elisha (two great oral prophets), Isaiah, Micah, Amos, Hosea, Nahum, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk to warn the people and urge them to return to Him, but to no avail. 

 

And so the sad history of mankind's disobedience to God continued.  What lessons should you and I learn from the history of God's people in Old Testament times?

 

(To be continued).

 

If this essay has blessed you, feel free to forward it to others who may benefit from it.

 

Hugh Fulford