1K4-15: The Price Israel Paid For Embracing Gentile Cultures

“Y’hudah and Israel were as numerous as sand grains on the seashore; they ate, drank, and enjoyed themselves.”-1 Kings 4:20

So there’s a lot to be extracted from verse 20, where it says Judah and Israel were huge in numbers and ate and drank to their hearts’ content.

First, note that Judah and Israel are still being spoken of as separate identities.

They still hadn’t merged into one.

This tells us that despite being under the same king, they outright refused to give up their northern or southern tribal identities.

And, as I mentioned last time, it certainly didn’t help that Solomon gave Judah special treatment when it came to taxes, and probably other matters as well.

Faster than you can say the word “Jerusalem,” Solomon’s kingdom had turned into a pleasure-seeking and carnal entity.

But you wanna know what really accelerated this process?

The influx of freakin’ gentiles into Israel as both temporary visitors or immigrants.

The problem was that Solomon was just too damn accepting of other cultures 

He had developed what we call in our day, a politically correct and multicultural society.

Something your average secular humanist would call intellectual, ethical, and fair.

Unfortunately, this type of lifestyle would soon lead Israel right off a cliff into a valley of sin that they still haven’t recovered from to this very day.

I ain’t joking, man.

This descent into a free-flowing, Cheetos-chomping, beer-drinking lifestyle was the precursor to the 10 northern tribes being scattered by the Assyrians…

And later, would lead to Judah’s exile by Babylon.

There’s a huge takeaway here.

And it’s that there’s a huge price to pay when you let in gentiles into the fold without proper safeguards in place.

Just look at the whole pagan Christian religion if you want evidence of that.

Once the Gentiles began to outnumber the Jewish members in the early church…

The whole movement turned into a pagan holiday-worshipping, trinitarian mess.

There are currently about 20,000 lawless Christian denominations in existence today.

They can’t all be theologically correct.

I’m saying this as a gentile myself.

So don’t get your undies in a bunch about the truth I just pointed out, homie.

There will never be peace in the world until Israel is restored to its rightful place as a light to the nations.

And the Messiah (a son of David, from the tribe of Judah) is sitting on his throne in Jerusalem, ruling the earth according to His Father’s Torah.

I hope you’re feeling me here, man.

Done.

CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

“So I tell you, insist on this,
In the Lord, live differently now.
No longer live as the Gentiles do,
Caught in the futility of their thinking.
Their understanding has grown dark and dim,
Separated from the very life of God.
Ignorance lives deep within their hearts,
Hardened hearts have led them far astray.
All sensitivity within them has been lost,
They gave themselves over to sensuality.
Indulging in every kind of impurity,
Filled completely with insatiable greed.”
-Ephesians 4:17-19

“The Holy Spirit has led our decision.
These are the minimum rules for you (Gentiles).
Stay away from food offered to idols.
Do not eat or drink any blood.
Do not eat anything that was strangled.
Run far away from sexual immorality.
Follow these and you will do well.”
-Acts 15:28-29

NEXT TIME WE BEGIN 1 KINGS CHAPTER 5

P.S. Quick note about Chapter 5.   Depending on which translation you’re using, you might see 15 more verses still in chapter 4. Don’t trip!  Some Bibles just split the chapters in a different spot. Some scholars aren’t in agreement on where the chapter should have ended.   We ain’t gonna be skipping verses or anything.  So again, don’t get bent outta shape over this.   Rest assured, we’re gonna be covering everything, no matter which Bible you are using. I’m using the Complete Jewish Bible, so we begin chapter 5 the next time we meet.