I’m continuing to work my way through the list of Judah’s and Israel’s rulers in 1Kings. Kind of a depressing pattern actually. The people of Israel had asked for a king, “that we also may be like all the nations” (1Sam. 8:20) . . . and that’s exactly what happened . . . they became like the nations around them . . . running after every Tom, Dick, and Baal god they could find or fashion in their own mind. And as I read of ruler after ruler who continues in the sin of the ruler before them, leading the people astray and into idolatrous sin, what hits me, over and over again, is something I learn about God.

“Moreover, the word of the LORD came . . . against Baasha and his house, . . . because of all the evil that he did in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger with the work of his hands . . . Thus Zimri destroyed all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the LORD for all the sins of Baasha and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned and which they made Israel to sin, provoking the LORD God of Israel to anger with their idols. . . . Omri did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did more evil than all who were before him. For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in the sins that he made Israel to sin, provoking the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger by their idols.”   (1Kings 16:7, 12-13, 25-26 ESV)

Man can provoke God to anger. What a sobering thought. Yes, God is a God of love . . . yes, He desires and delights to show grace . . . yes, He has finished the work that He might call us into relationship with Himself . . . but know too that our God can be provoked to anger. He can be vexed . . . the actions of men can grieve Him to the point of holy rage . . . His sorrow over disobedience, at some point, becomes, “Enough!”

And the root cause by which God’s people provoke God to anger seems to be idolatry . . . the seeking after gods which are the work of men’s hands . . . the turning of the heart away from that Him who is living and true to that which is inanimate and false. After the kingdom split, one of the first things that Jeroboam, the king of the northern tribes, did was to make two golden calves and lead his followers to sacrifice to them declaring, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (12:28). Precedent setting . . . the pattern for kings to come . . . and it repeatedly provoked the LORD to anger.

In Judah, the southern kingdom, it wasn’t as blatant . . . rather than “flipping the switch” to pagan worship, they “added idols” to their worship . . . they built high places for idol worship alongside Jerusalem . . . they tried to have it both ways, worship God while doing “according to all the abominations of the nations that the LORD drove out before the people of Israel” (14:21) . . . their hearts not “wholly true to the LORD” (15:3) . . . the result being that “they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins” (14:22).

Provoking God . . . who wants to do that? Not me!

Idol free . . . obedient rich . . . heart set on serving and pleasing Him . . . that, by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit in me, is where I want to be. And not just because I fear the anger of God, but because I so value the love of God . . . because I am so grateful for the grace of God . . . because I so want to please the One who has called me into His marvelous light.

Oh, that there might be no provocation from this saint . . . that my heart my be wholly set on Him . . . that the world’s idols and icons might have no lure for me . . . that I might please my God rather than provoke my God . . . for my blessing . . . and for His glory . . . amen.