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Topic: Wasted Inheritance
[DCLM Daily Manna 28 August 2019 Daily Devotional by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi]
Text: 1 Kings 14:21-31 (KJV)
21 And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess.
22 And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done.
23 For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.
24 And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
25 And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem:
26 And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
27 And king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king’s house.
28 And it was so, when the king went into the house of the LORD, that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard chamber.
29 Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.
31 And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.
Key Verse: “And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made” (1 Kings 14:26).
MESSAGE:
Rehoboam missed it as soon as he ascended the throne of the mighty kingdom he inherited from his father and grandfather by rejecting the God-guided counsel of the old men concerning the request of the people of Israel. He had lived with Solomon a man of wisdom all his life but he could not discern the old men’s counsel as a godly one.
Following Rehoboam’s insensitivity towards national issues, Israel was divided into two kingdoms. The two tribes over which he then reigned went into sin and they became spiritually and morally corrupt. Consequently, just five years into the reign of Rehoboam, all the treasures, both of the house of God and of the king’s house including the shields of gold made by Solomon disappeared. God permitted Shishak, the king of Egypt to invade the land of Judah and soon, all the glamour and glory faded. The gold turned into brass.
When people forfeit real goals for wrong ones, such as temporary power, position, popularity, prestige and wealth, they end up chasing shadows without substance, thereby becoming perpetual slaves to Satan and his cohorts. Some Christians have carelessly wasted and exchanged their eternal inheritance for modern-day idolatry. They forget that they that want to be rich at all cost often fall into temptation.
As heaven-bound believers, we must not lose sight of the great inheritance God has given to us through His Son. We should jealously watch over it and graciously develop and grow into greater spiritual heights until our great King comes to take us into our eternal inheritance. Always remember that when a man removes God from his life, everything else becomes useless, no matter how valuable it may seem.
Thought For The Day: Setting goals without God leads to irrecoverable loss.
- The Bible In One Year: Psalm 44–50
