Setting the Record Straight – 1 Kings 9:1-9

Security Infowatch, a tech security business, recently had an online article titled, Cybersecurity pros set the record straight on hacker myths. The misconception, the record that needed to be set straight, was that hacking is not some guy in a basement somewhere but a high stakes business run by organized crime or nation-states with vast resources. That sets the record straight.

God needed to set the record straight with Solomon and Israel about the temple Solomon had just completed, had dedicated to the Lord, and had asked God to answer prayers when directed toward it.

As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the LORD and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build, the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. And the LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’

But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’ Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the LORD has brought all this disaster on them.’” (1 Kings 9:1–9, ESV)

Would you say that when God appears to you it’s a pretty big deal? And this is the second time God has appeared to Solomon, the first time (1 Kings 3) to grant him a wish and test his heart for leadership, and this time to make sure he understood the nature of the covenant He made with David and the exact nature of the temple.

God will do as Solomon has requested of Him, answering Israel’s prayers when directed to Him as Solomon described (chapter 8) and establish his dynasty. But there is a condition. He and his offspring must keep God’s commandments and not succumb to idolatry. If they fail to keep covenant, God will cast Israel out of her land and the Davidic dynasty as well, and God will allow this temple to be destroyed. It is a sacred place where God’s name is placed forever, as well as His eyes and heart. But He will not allow Israel to remain in idolatry and continue to use this temple and be in their land.

Of course, this is a repetition of what Yahweh told Israel when He gave Moses the Law. And He required a ceremony where all the blessings for obedience were recited and all the curses for disobedience were recited out loud in front of the whole nation (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 27,28). Israel needed to know the consequences of disobedience. They didn’t need to blame misfortune to their nation on anything other than their own unfaithfulness to God. And they didn’t need to view this new and glorious temple in which God’s glory poured out as a guarantee that Yahweh would never let them suffer at the hands of their enemies. Even the pagan nations around them would know that if something happened to Israel and her temple it was because they had abandoned Yahweh and worshiped other gods besides Him.

How does God need to set the record straight with you and me? What are we looking toward to guarantee that we won’t suffer ills? How are we avoiding the truth that our own unfaithfulness to God could be the reason we are suffering?