2 Chronicles 7:19-20 But if ever you turn away and forsake my commandments and statutes which I set before you, and proceed to serve other gods, and bow down to them, I will uproot the people from the land I gave and repudiate the house I have consecrated for my name.
God tells Solomon right here that if the people who have built this temple for Him, these people who promised to serve the Lord, if they turn away from God and chose to do their own truths, He would deny or cast out of sight the house they built and remove the people from the land.
God promised Israel that if they obeyed his commandments, he would fill the temple with his glory and presence. But this promise wasn’t a promise in any circumstance. If the people turned away from God and didn’t seek forgiveness for their sins, he would turn away from them. God’s love for us is everlasting as long as we seek him. We are promised heaven and God’s grace through Jesus’s sacrifice. BUT He doesn’t promise us forever in heaven if we choose to walk away from him and not seek forgiveness. Those who go through baptism but then turn from the Lord without trying to come back are not promised his grace. He clearly tells us here that he will deny us if we choose to follow other gods (earthly desires, desires of the flesh, idols). Jesus repeats this message in Matthew 10:33. Whatever we allow God to be to us while we are on earth, we will be to God when we get to our judgment.
We need to take these warnings to heart. If we choose to deny God’s word, God will deny us. Unless we mean what we say when we pray, and truly mean to confess when we ask for forgiveness, he will not offer us grace. We need to stop thinking we can do whatever we want because God will forgive us. God doesn’t deny his promises. Nor does he go back on his warnings.
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