faithful

Obadiah

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hello again! Today we’ll be discussing the book of Obadiah.

obadiah

Obadiah was a prophet–that’s someone who talks to God and then tells the people what God wants them to know. Sometimes it’s good news, sometimes…it’s not.

The people of Israel (God’s people He chose to set apart to show as an example of His love) were made up of twelve tribes, or kind of like big families. Most of them had left and followed a different king and Israel split into two parts. Israel fought many wars and the people of most of the tribes of Israel were overtaken and had to move far away. The last family left was the family of Judah.

But even they eventually were captured by the Babylonians. The capital city of Jerusalem (where the temple was and where the king lived) were taken over too. The people who lived nearby were from a place called Edom. The people of Edom came and took all the people of Judah’s stuff–when the city got taken over they took their cows, their houses, their jewelry, their other animals, their toys and beds. The people of Judah ran away but some of the people from Edom would capture them and give them to the king of Babylon so he could put them in jail or even kill them.

This did NOT make God happy.

So Obadiah told the people God’s words. His message was short, but it has two parts. In the first part, he yells at the people of Edom for being mean to the people of Israel. He tells them they should NOT have taken the peoples’ things, they should not break and destroy their towns and that no matter how far they try to hide, God will find them and punish them for the things they did.

The second part of his message was to tell the people of Israel that even though things seemed terrible, that God still had a plan for them. God would bring them (at least some of them) back to Israel. God would restore their things and the land He promised to them. He would give that land back to them.

God is faithful. That means when He says something, He means it and He sticks by it. God promised that land to His people and He was going to make sure it stayed with them. We know if we make bad choices, that God sees those and wants us to make it right. And then sometimes we might face scary or hard times, but we can remember the promises of God: that He loves us, He has good plans for us, and He is in control.

 

Thanks for joining us again. Love to you all!

King Solomon Disobeys

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hello again! Today’s story is from 1 Kings 11.

choices

For all of King Solomon’s wisdom and good decision-making, he had a big problem. He LOVED the ladies. And he didn’t just love one lady…he got married a whole bunch of times, which God said you’re not supposed to do. The ladies he married also didn’t love the One True God, they worshipped other pretend gods.

After a while, one said, “Solomon, hunny…please build a statue of my god!” And he did. Then another said “What about me?! Please build a place for me to worship MY god.” And he did. He built places for them to worship their pretend gods and he even worshipped them too sometimes. His heart was not faithful to God like King David’s had been. And God was NOT happy. 

So the Lord said to him, “Since you have disobeyed my rules and not been faithful to Me, I am going to tear this kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants. But because of how much your father David loved and served Me, I will not do this while you are still alive. I will take the kingdom away from your son.  And even then, I will not take away the entire kingdom; I will let him be king of one tribe.”

King Solomon’s choices were going to affect a lot of other people. When we make decisions, we need to think about how it might help or hurt others. Especially people in power…like kings, presidents, moms and dad, teachers, pastors…the things you do and say don’t just have good or bad consequences for you, they can help or hurt others. When we try to follow God’s laws and live a life of love (because of how much He loves us), then our choices will have good consequences for others. But Solomon wasn’t thinking about that. He was only thinking about what HE wanted…not what God wanted and not about what might happen to other people.

The funniest part is that King Solomon wrote a whole chapter of the Bible about this exact thing. Proverbs 29 talks all about how children’s actions affect their parents and how parents affect their children. How bosses and kings and neighbors all affect the people around them. But in the end, Solomon did not follow his own advice. He chose to live the way HE wanted, not the way God wanted…and the people of Israel would soon pay a big price for his poor choices.

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  Colossians 3:17 (ESV)

 

Thanks for joining us again, love to you all.