Art Toombs Ministries 

Online Bible Commentary

Forsaking God
2 Chronicles 7:17 As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, 18 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, 'You shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.' 19 "But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, and worship them, 20 then I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 21 And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, 'Why has the Lord done thus to this land and this house?' 22 Then they will answer, 'Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this calamity on them.' " (NKJV)

 

In this passage, Solomon has just dedicated the temple in Jerusalem to the Lord. The Lord then appears to Solomon and gives him these instructions. The instructions were directed to Solomon himself, not to the people (vv.17-18). 

The Lord warns Solomon of the consequences if he turns from God and worships idols instead. The Lord says that if Solomon, or his successors (v.18), turns to idolatry that His land will be taken from him and destroyed (vv.19-20). 

Then the people will ask the age old question “why did this happen to us?” (v. 21), and those in the know will answer “Because they forsook the Lord… and embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them” (v 22). In other words, they will have lost their land because they were led into idolatry.

The Lord, as always, was faithful to follow through on His warning. The kings who succeeded Solomon did forsake the Lord and turn to idolatry. The Lord, as warned, then gave Israel over to foreign invaders who destroyed it. 

In our nation today, our leaders “have forsaken the Lord and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them”. Our president, our courts, our corporations and many of our people have turned away from God. They now worship and serve an idol, the god of tolerance. 

God does not tolerate sin. If we sin, and do not turn from our sin, we are punished. But the god of tolerance tolerates all sin and seeks to promote even more. 

The god of tolerance trumps all, even God, through edicts from our “king and his court”, our president and his courts. Just as the kings of Israel led their country astray, so it is today. 

Now, the Supreme Court has stained the purity of God’s marriage bed by redefining marriage to include the sin of homosexuality, in order to appease the god of tolerance. Just as in Israel, this was decided by edict, not by the vote of the people. 

Our country is being led down the same path as was Israel. God does not change. He is the same God that imparted His justice upon Israel and He will impart His justice upon America. Our nation desperately needs new leaders, leaders who will worship God, and not idols.