1 Kings 9:1-9

God controls all things. If we follow His commandments our lives will be at peace. Out of His will for us there is chaos and division. He will allow whatever it takes to bring us back into relationship with Him. Be as wise as the world but as gentle in our approach as the Lamb of God!  And the greatest of His commands…Love! We show our love for Him by our obedience to Him.

Without love as our base we are useless noise.

1 Kings 9:1-9

9 And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he wanted to do, 2 that the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 And the Lord said to him: “I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built to put My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. 4 Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, 5 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’ 6 But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, 7 then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 8 And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss, and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 9 Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore the Lord has brought all this calamity on them.’ ”

God responds to the completion of Solomon’s building projects by appearing to him a second time, presumably in a dream. God affirms He has heard Solomon’s prayer, reiterates the Davidic covenant  and its conditions, and warns Israel of the risk of disobedience using vocabulary reminiscent of the book of Deuteronomy. The covenant faithfulness of the king and his people determines the fate of both the throne and the nation. Faithlife Bible.

God had appeared previously to Solomon in Gibeon. The Lord’s warning was a necessary reminder for Solomon, who would come to compromise the conditions required for enjoying God’s blessing. Solomon would have to endure the consequences of disobedience. NKJ Bible.

Deuteronomy 4:26  I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed.

Deuteronomy 29:24  All nations would say, ‘Why has the LORD done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?’

Deuteronomy 29:25  Then people would say: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt;

Deuteronomy 29:26 | for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they did not know and that He had not given to them.