DANGERS OF DISLOYALTY

Greetings friends! I hope you are doing well and your week has started on a good note. Welcome to another time in God’s presence. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. Thank you for your love, and kindness to everyone here. We ask that as we study your word tonight, you will give us understanding and make us doers of your word. AMEN.

Nnọọ(this means welcome in Igbo- a local Nigerian language)! In this post, we will be concluding the loyalty which we started three weeks ago. Just to recap, we started by understanding what loyalty meant. We established that loyalty means being devoted to God or to a cause/thing. Then we identified a few characters in the Bible that were loyal to God. Next, we discussed what the Bible says about being loyal to people(divine relationships in our lives). Finally, as we end this series in this post, we will understand the consequences of being disloyal and examples of disloyal people. Let’s dive right in!

Memory Verse: 1 Kings 11 v 4: For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been (BST).

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What is Disloyalty?

Disloyalty in simple terms is the opposite of being loyal. A disloyal person is one who is not faithful or trustworthy. In a spiritual setting, we can say that he/she is not committed/devoted/consistent with God or the things of God. There are so many factors that make a person become disloyal and for a child of God, one major factor or cause for disloyalty is sin. Before we continue, I want us to say this prayer to our father God. Dear God, search me and if there is any trait of disloyalty in me, please cleanse and deliver me totally from it. Give me the power to overcome sin and the desires of the flesh that make me disloyal to you. Amen.

Examples of disloyal people in the Bible

As we study the concept of disloyalty, we would explore the character of people who were disloyal to God. The idea is not to imitate their lifestyle but to learn from their mistakes so that we don’t make the same mistakes as well. Some of the characters who became disloyal to God and even to their earthly masters include:

1.King Solomon

2. Children of Israel

3. Gehazi

4. Joab — David’s chief commander of the army

5. A few kings of Judah, Israel

6. Demas- Apostle Paul’s fellow worker

• King Solomon in 1 King 11 v 3–4, 9–11: 3Solomon married seven hundred princesses and also had three hundred concubines. They made him turn away from God, 4, and by the time he was old they had led him into the worship of foreign gods. He was not faithful to the Lord his God, as his father David had been. v9–10Even though the Lord, the God of Israel, had appeared to Solomon twice and had commanded him not to worship foreign gods, Solomon did not obey the Lord but turned away from him. So the Lord was angry with Solomon v11and said to him, “Because you have deliberately broken your covenant with me and disobeyed my commands, I promise that I will take the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your officials(GNT). The cause of Solomon’s disloyalty to God was his love for foreign women which turned his heart from the Almighty God.
• The children of Israel in Psalm 78 v 35–37. 35 They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer. 36 But then they would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with their tongues;37 their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant(NIV). The Children of Israel’s when journeying to the promised land, many times turned their backs on God. The cause of their disloyalty was their inability to endure and trust in God. They easily gave up and sought other gods.
• Gehazi in 2 Kings 5 v 20–27: Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to himself, “My master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what he brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him. 25When he went in and stood before his master, Elisha asked him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?” “Your servant didn’t go anywhere,” Gehazi answered. 26 But Elisha said to him, “Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to take money or to accept clothes — or olive groves and vineyards, or flocks and herds, or male and female slaves? 27 Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever.” Then Gehazi went from Elisha’s presence and his skin was leprous — it had become as white as snow(NIV). Gehazi's cause of disloyalty to his master, Elisha, was his love for money.
• Joab in 1 Kings 1 v 7: Adonijah conferred with Joab son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest, and they gave him their support(NIV). Joab even though was very helpful when serving David as the chief commander of the army, during David’s last days on earth, Joab was disloyal to him by conspiring to set up Adonijah as king instead of Solomon. When Solomon became king, David instructed him to eliminate Joab.
• In the book of 2 Chronicles, we see a list of kings after King David who were disloyal to God. Some of them started well but did not end well while others choose not to follow God faithfully. Examples include King Rehoboam, Jeroboam, Asa, Ahab, Jehoram, Ahaziah of Judah, and many others who did not wholeheartedly follow God. These kings were disloyal as a result of the idols, high places present in the land of Israel and Judah. They choose to serve idols instead of being faithful to the Almighty God.
• Demas: Demas was one of Paul’s “fellow workers” in the gospel ministry along with Mark, Luke, and others (Philemon 1:24). During Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome, Demas was also in Rome (Colossians 4:14) and he was with Paul for a while during Paul’s second imprisonment in Rome. Later on, Demas forsook Paul and abandoned the ways of God. Paul reported this in 2 Timothy 4 v 10: Demas has deserted me because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus has gone to Dalmatia(NLT). The cause of Demas disloyalty was his love for the things of this world.

Consequences of disloyalty

Based on the disloyal characters we have studied, the main consequences of disloyalty are:

1. Separation from God’s presence e.g Israelites, King Solomon, Gehazi..
2. Lose your covenant with God/authority/dominion in Christ e.g Kings of Judah, Joab

3. Lose your calling and destiny e.g Demas

Dear friends, I am grateful to God for teaching us a lot about loyalty and revealing his word to us all. Thank you for reading too and I believe that God has allowed us to dig deep in the loyalty series because he is making us loyal men and women for his glory. We will never be disloyal no matter what situation we find ourselves in. Amen.

Thank you once again!!! Please share the write-up with your friends and stay blessed.

Have a productive week.