Listening to God

2nd Chronicles 11

It is interesting that sometimes your parents can tell you something and you do not listen to them but maybe an older, wiser friend tells you the same thing and for some reason the light comes on. You think man that is so true, why am I doing this or did that. That happens a lot as I will have parents asking me what I told their son or daughter and it turns out it will be the same exact thing. I wonder if Rehoboam had a friend who spoke in wisdom, if he would have listened?

Yesterday we looked at Rehoboam who listened to the advice of his friends than the old wise men. The result of his decision was rebellion of the nation. Jeroboam decided to take matters into his own hands and now the nation was split. 

Things are a little different though today, Rehoboam has decided to make war against all Jeroboam and the rebelling army. Instead of going on and finishing out his plan, God spoke through Shemaiah for Rehoboam to not go to war against his brothers and relatives. The interesting thing is he listened. When God speaks we need to listen.

Listen to God

We can look throughout the different parts of the Bible where people did not listen to God. We can see the regret that they may have faced as well as the warning they did not listen too. The nation of Israel did not listen to the warning that God sent through the prophets. Here the king actually listened. Sometimes God speaks to us through circumstances, allowing certain things to happen to grab our attention. Sometimes God speaks to us through other Christians. God speaks to us through his word. I believe which is the clearest of any of those. In order for us to listen from God we need to be in his word daily. We need to desire and eat up the word.

We sometimes may think that God is not telling us anything but do you read the Bible?

Persecution in the Land (13-17) 

We read that the Priests and Levites of Israel all fled from Jeroboam and went to live in Jerusalem. The reason was that Jeroboam started to worship his goat idols and calves that he made. The priests and Levites as well as all the people that served God left their lands in order to be able to worship God at the temple and not do idol worship. Right away we see Jeroboam leading the people in the wrong direction and this is just to show what will happen until the Assyrians destroy the northern kingdom. None of the kings from this point on of the northern kingdom worship God. They all serve false idols that they made.  

I asked myself, “Would I be willing to leave my homeland because of what was going on?” Would I be bold enough to speak up against the rulers of the nation?