NEW! Weekly Personal Editorial -- From the Editor:

Can Sin Cause Withholding of Blessings?

By David J. Smith 8/23/08

When King Solomon knew he was to succeed his father, David, to the throne, he was given the opportunity to select for himself riches or anything he wanted. His heart was right to begin with, so he asked for wisdom to rule properly. He wanted justice and compassion for the Israelites, not wealth to satisfy his own greed!

However, something caused him to take his eye off the goal of being the wisest king! He began commerce with other nations. God granted him wealth in addition to wisdom. Solomon’s wealth became the talk of the known world. He was not satisfied with a wife from his own country. He began to accumulate wives from foreign countries, who worshipped other gods – who were no gods at all, rather demons.

Solomon allowed them to set up altars to worship their gods in the very house of the true God – the Temple!!! They polluted God’s Temple with their false gods. The God of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ [I Corinthians 10: 1-4], warned Solomon that this was a sin. Solomon had become so deeply involved with these 1,000 women that he couldn’t turn back to God. He wanted to satisfy his lusts!!!

As a result of this sin, curses came upon Israel! How? God said He would tear the Kingdom away from Solomon’s son. He did! The Ten Northern Tribes wanted relief from Solomon’s heavy taxation. They met with Rehoboam concerning relief. They were met with refusal. That very day the Kingdom of Israel, except for two tribes – Judah and Benjamin, seceded from David, Solomon, and Rehoboam’s line of kings. The Northern Ten Tribes never looked back.

Because of the unrepented sin of one man – a king, Israel suffered the breakup of the Kingdom. This is an example for us today!!! Will God look at secret sins and withhold blessings to our outreach?

After Israel left the line of Davidic kings, they never obeyed God. Jesus Christ sent them prophets year after year, but Israel would not listen and return to His ways. When Jesus walked the earth, He said they persecuted and killed the prophets He had sent to them.

Jesus had inspired what the individual tribes would become “in the Last days” (Genesis 48 & 49 and many other scriptures). He made it clear that Joseph would become a great nation and a company, or commonwealth, of nations in the last days.

The House of Israel became so evil that God said He would sift them through the nations, but not one would go unnoticed. God brought the Assyrian army down and began to conquer Israel, not Judah, in 734-731 B.C. A second invasion came in 721-718 B.C. which saw the sinful House of Israel uprooted and deported out of their land. Foreigners came and settled the cities. All of this was because of sin! God will not be mocked (Galatians 6: 6-8).

Israel thought they could make up their own rules and get away with it!!! Eventually, they found out differently. God promised to bless Israel with untold blessings, but sin caused God to withhold those blessings!

They were withheld seven prophetic “times,” or 2,520 years until 1800-1803 A.D. Sin made a difference as to which generation received the blessings! Has Jesus changed His method of operation? Will He tolerate “willful” sin from nations and not from individuals? NO! He will not tolerate a constant lifestyle of sin from anyone! Repentance must be the hallmark of a Christian.

Going outside of the “Church in the Wilderness” to find wives brought the destruction of the Israelite empire under Solomon. Why? They were not obedient to God’s laws and turned Solomon away. Not one of those wives became converted and obeyed Israel’s God. They wore Solomon down to the point of compromising with God and his salvation!!!

God prophesied of Israel’s greatness in the “last days” by His prophets. Did they listen? NO! They killed His messengers. When the time came to fulfill these promises, Jesus brought about this “nation and company of nations” in spite of their sins. He was faithful to His promise; they were not!

What can we learn from these two historical accounts? Those things were written for US (Romans 15: 4, 8). We can be the cause of the withholding of blessings to the church by continuing in secret sin. God said David was a man after His own heart because he repented of sin! When you repent, you STOP performing the sin.

God loves us and called us to DO His work. He has all power and doesn’t need one of us, but He doesn’t work that way. He works through human instruments. Will we ALL take up the righteousness of God and permanently cement it into our lives? Blessings will flow if we do!!!

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Thank you,

The Editor

David J. Smith

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