Enjoying whose blessings?

Reading 1 kings 12 this morning of course was not the most encouraging passage. This is the fall of Solomon - turning his heart after women and then through the women having his heart turned to other gods.

Twice God spoke to him personally, he had the history of all God had done through his father David in establishing the kingdom and he had greater wisdom and riches than any individual who has walked the earth (except the wisdom of Christ of course).

Here he is going to the absolute bottom of wickedness in idolatry and abominations - the extent of the ritual worship practices of these gods is named elsewhere and is sickening.

I noticed 2 things this morning beside this though

1) Despite Solomons fall - God still chose to use, document and preserve the words of wisdom that were given to him through the Holy Spirit and preserved them for us today.

• The precedent is that clearly we are not following the carrier of the message but the message they are giving while being directed by the Lord
• The messenger can be a great king of Israel, a shepherd, a fisherman or an ass (literally) but it clearly is the message that we are to get and to remember that the man carrying the message may fall but the God of whom the message speaks is still matchless in holiness and purity.
• We are plagued with seeing people fall that we have come to love, appreciate and respect - yet we have the precedent that although discouraging - none is more disappointed than God about it and the message that God used them to deliver has not become any less true because they as a messenger faltered.

2) The kingdom was not taken away fully. Solomon did not lose the kingdom at all because of God's promise to David and of course the line of David remained for the 2 fold purpose of blessing the faithfulness of David and out of promise of the coming Messiah Jesus Christ through that line. Yet much of the kingdom was lost and only the portion of Judah remained for this line after Solomon.

That any portion remained was not for Solomon's sake. One thought.

How many blessings might we and others be enjoying because of the faithfulness of our fathers?

How much greater a part of the kingdom might God intend to have us be a part of but we are limiting through our faithlessness or lack of complete submission to His will?

I see here that people could be enjoying the blessings of the investment, service and faithfulness of their predecessors even though they themselves may not be in the will of God. So many of these kings reigned because of God's faithfulness to David and His promise to bring Christ through this line.

We must remember that a) God is faithful to His servants and will bless their faithfulness for generations to come and b) that it is not about us and whether we are deserving (none are) but it is about His glory and for His reputation and His light being shone forth that will He maintain a people, a remnant, a church etc in order to be a testimony to others. God is jealous for His glory and as Moses recognized when He plead for Israel - not for their sake or their righteousness but for His glory and reputation will God preserve that light.

We talk of how America is blessed because of our forefathers and the way the country was established. Is this not a model very similar to the line of kings - down to the civil war, enemies being raised up all around and well, a mix of leaders that led in varying degrees of righteousness or wickedness and eventually losing the land... how close are we - fearfully close I believe

Individually though we must be careful that we are not riding the wave of blessings that are resultant of the faith of our fathers but rather removing the high places, standing for holiness and developing a godly heritage of our own for our children.