But if you flagrantly do what is bad, you will be swept away, both you and your [human] king.”​—1 Sam. 12:22-25.

If we continue to serve him in truth with all our heart, he will never desert us. We have a warning example against failing to do this. Where? In the case of ten tribes of Israel under kings of their own choice who flagrantly did bad things. Jehovah did desert them and their visible king. This meant disaster nationally for them. Into exile in the land of the world power of Assyria they were carried off, and never again was their ten-tribe kingdom established. Similar disaster befell the kingdom of the two other tribes of Israel. Its capital was at Jerusalem, where their king of David’s royal family sat on what was called “Jehovah’s throne.” (1 Chron. 29:23) In 607 B.C.E., after Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian World Power, they were deported to Babylonia. For 70 years their God-given homeland, the land of Judah, lay desolate according to the decree of the Great Theocrat, Jehovah. The visible theocratic organization seemed to be out of existence.