Kings and Prophets 04

[0:00] given us and father for the opportunity to come this morning father and to open your word and get into it and just to uh study it and follow we hopefully we as we get more knowledge we take it and we use it in our life father we just uh pray you'll guide us this morning as we go through the study on kings and father for these young men that we need to pray for this morning we pray for adam and that they'll get his sugar regulated after his surgery and those caring for him and also for jeremy this terrible accent that he had and just guide those here caring for him also and be with the families so this morning we just thank you just most of all for your amazing grace and love that you give to us through your son the lord jesus christ and what he did at the cross for us we thank you and praise you and ask it in our lord and savior's name jesus of christ amen all right well we are in the study of kings and prophets and uh sometimes you're going through these books it kind of puts you to sleep but there's some good information in there also and uh so i we thought it was a good time to to make that study and uh just see how the all these kings worked out and how the prophets intermingled with them and so it's kind of chronology of the kings and so far we've been with what saw and then david solomon and uh last week was there we finished up where solomon died and uh he turned this kingdom over to rehoboam and uh so this morning we're going to be looking at rehoboam but there was also another guy involved with solomon who uh solomon chose at one point to be part of his party but then something happened where he had people that were coming after solomon and so uh jeroboam fleed to egypt but uh now with the reuniting that and the new king coming in place so last week we ended where jeroboam came to the p or the people came to baroboam or not jeroboam this is going to be difficult jeroboam rehoboam i'm probably going to get them mixed up now remember rehoboam is with judah jeroboam is with the other 10 tribes anyway they came to rehoboam and said solomon put some hard things on us we want you to loosen up a little bit not to put so many taxes and all this kind of stuff on us and uh he said oh okay i'll think about it he went to the older guys of his uh group and they gave him information and said yeah you know if you treat these people right they'll come to you and and they won't have any problem with you and you'll have a good reign and uh he took that in consideration but being a younger guy he said nah i'm gonna talk to my younger guys the guys my about my age and he got a group with them and they said oh just sock it to them if solomon did it make the hammer harder and uh guess whose advice he took he took he took the younger's advice and he said went back to the people and he told them if you thought my father solomon put it on you hard well i'll be putting it on you harder and uh he thought that was a good answer didn't he but he's going to come to find out that that was not probably the best answer and uh so that's what we're going to get into this morning so uh uh turn to you first kings chapter 11 and we're going to start in verses 12 through 15 and this is where it says so jeroboam and all the

[4:07] people came to reabom on the third day as the king had directed saying come back to me that third day then the king answered the people roughly and rejected the advice which the older elders had given him and he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men saying my father made your yoke heavy but i will add to your yoke my father chastised you with whips but i will chastise you with scourges so the king did not listen to the people are you sure okay chapter 12 verses 12 and 15 right okay uh and when we think about that any numbers of proverb any number of proverbs apply to robert's foolish response proverbs 18 7 says a fool's mouth is his ruin and his lips are the snare to his soul so we see no matter how confident we are we all need wise counsel and when we don't take that counsel we've got to live with the consequences of it so we see that that turn of events from the lord that he might fulfill his word which the lord had spoken to ahijah the prophet to jeroboam as we read earlier in chapter 7 and that was a place where jeroboam was in egypt and this prophet came along at adijah and he told him you're going to take over there's going to be a division of the kingdom you're going to take over the 10 tribes rehoboam is going to take over or just have the two tribes left which would be judah and benjamin and that's what we saw back there in chapter 11 last week uh and in that verses uh first kings 11 35 i will take the kingdom out of the out of his son's hand and give it to unto thee even 10 tribes and until his son i will give you one tribe that david may serve servant may have a lamp always before me in jerusalem the city which is i has chosen to be a part of my name there so he's given rehoboam judah and benjamin and the capital is going to be in bethlehem or jerusalem only because he's david's son because of who because of david solomon they you know where was this kingdom promised it was promised to david they said david you will have perpetually israel will be our my chosen people and it's going to be through your line and of course that line now that we're getting to the division would be judah and benjamin and we're going to see how they split and all this stuff is going to go on so the king did not listen to the people in this case rehoboam clearly should have listened to the people and he didn't do it and now he's going to suffer the consequences rehoboam was a fool ironically the his father solomon worried about losing all he worked for under a foolish successor and we see that back in ecclesiastes we don't need to turn there ecclesiastes chapter 2 and he says there then i hated all my labor in which i had toiled under the sun because i must leave it to the man who will come after me and who knows whether he will raise to be wise or a fool yet he will rule over my labor in which i told in which i have shown myself wise under the sun this is also vanity and last week we were talking about ecclesiastes that's one of the books that that solomon wrote and in this in that book he was going back and saying

[8:07] vanity vanity all the stuff that i did all these all the wisdom that i had all the building up of this kingdom that i had all the riches that i had for what vanity and vanity and that was the thing that he said back there in ecclesiastes now first kings i guess it's i don't know why i got chapter 11 here but first kings 12 16 through 19 rehoboam is rejected as king over the 10 northern tribes are we right okay verse 11 through 16 when all is or 12 16 when all israel saw that the king did not listen to them the people answered the king saying what portion do we have in david we have no inheritance in the son of jesse to your tents oh israel now looked after your own house david so israel departed to their tents rehoboam's foolishness made israel reject not only rehoboam but also the entire dynasty of david they rejected the descendants of israel's greatest king so rehoboam the first king of the divided nation the king of judah so he was the king of united israel for a very short period and as soon as this division happened now you're going to see that he's going to be the first king and there will be a whole list of kings that we're going to throw through i think there's 19 kings of judah and there's 19 or 20 kings of israel that we're going to be flying through yeah joe oh absolutely yeah absolutely thanks joe so now we see rehoboam's the first king apparently rehoboam did not take the rebellion seriously until this happened when his chief tax collector was murdered he knew that the ten tribes were seriously about their rebellion and that they were serious hey we split we have a king now you take yours and all this so at that point he didn't really realize how troubling it was but when he sent his tax collector and stuff there they were murdered he was murdered and we're going to see how that works out so first kings 12 19 so israel has been in rebellion against the house of david to this day from this point on the history of israel will be referred to the northern tribes while the name judah will refer to the southern tribes benjamin and judah now verses 20 to 24 jeroboam is now the first king of israel first kings 12 20 it came about when all israel heard that jeroboam had returned that they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over israel only judah followed the house of david verse 21 now when rehoboam rehoboam had come to jerusalem he assembled all the house of judah and the tribes of benjamin 180 000 chosen men who were warriors to fight against the house of israel to restore the kingdom to rehoboam the son of solomon so the first thing he does he wants to have a war he wants to get that kingdom back verse 22 but the word of god came to shemaiah who must have been a prophet at that point there's not much said about him the man of god saying speak to rehoboam the son of solomon king of judah and to all the house of judah and benjamin and to the rest of the people saying thus says the lord you must not you must not go up and fight against your relatives the sons of israel

[12:07] return every man to his house where this thing has come from me they listened to the word of god and returned and went their way according to the word of god so this whole thing you know he wanted it back so bad he was ready to go to war from it but god sent a messenger to him saying don't do this this is this is my doing so you're going to have to sit back and just see how this works out and so now we have that split we have the two tribes so a question to consider will there ever be a united israel again yes okay and where do you get that from from the prophecies of the kingdom okay the northern tribes were he's going to bring them all back and once again it will be restored and then jesus is going to sit on that yeah david and revelation the northern tribe or northern ten tribes were conquered and led into captivity by assyria in 721 the southern two tribes were conquered and led into captivity by the babylon babylonians in 597 and then after 70 years of years god moved the heart of a king of persia to allow the jews living in babylon to return to jerusalem and we see that in ezra chapter 1 all of ezra where they come back and they start rebuilding the temple and all those type of things so jews living in babylon returned to jerusalem so what happened to and that basically that's they're the ones that were just conquered judah was the ones that were conquered that went to babylon so now they return back and they start rebuilding the temple along with that but it doesn't say that much about what happened to the ten tribes so what happened to the ten tribes a lot of those people did filter back too a lot of them filtered back okay those people yeah we'll see that a little bit later as we're going through a lot of them stayed up there and married settlers foreigners and that's where we get the samaritans from yeah they married out of they didn't they stayed there yeah so if you if you you know it's still split to this day

[14:36] Israel is still in dispersion their people Jews are spread around all over the world now in 1948 that was the start of Israel coming back and since that time the millions of Jews that came back to Israel as we can see the prosperity of Israel now that all came about when they were allowed to become a state again so they they are coming back but there's still thousands and thousands of Jews and millions probably that have not gone back to Israel so today we cannot say that there's united Israel can we by no by no means can we say that Nehemiah chapter 11 talks about some Jews from the northern tribes that were in the cities of Judah and this is at the time that they came back so some of those people came back with them and I got a feeling they also went with them because we're going to see here in a little bit that when Jeremiah started doing all this stuff he started coming up with his own religion he started coming up building his own not temple but he had big altars for sacrifices and all that stuff and they seen what was happening there was some

[15:58] Levites and some other Jews from the northern tribes that said whoa this is just too much we cannot stay here with Jeroboam and they came back into Judah to be with those people did that change their tribing by no means if they were a different tribe they're still part of that tribe so those people came in to back to Judah to be with them and they lived with them and they multiplied and then where they were taken captive they were taken captive also with Judah and them so when they came back they were also with them yeah Joe Jeroboam was trying to use religion for his own gain he was creating his own religion you know places to worship at rather than God's place you know the temple and he was trying to separate it from David's line and so that he would be the king and he was trying to set that up by setting up you might say a new religion so to speak and that's exactly what he was trying to do he was coming up with a new religion and it was all about Jeremiah or Jeremiah

[17:10] Jeroboam so Ezekiel also prophesizes and says I will make them one nation no longer two nations or divided so there it's talking about the second coming also in Revelation it talks about God will seal 12,000 Jews from each of the 12 tribes so yeah there's going to be a unified nation of Israel again but it's not here not here today and it's not going to be matter of fact it's been what close to 3,000 years that this nation the unified nation has been separated and a lot of things going on over those 3,000 years so Jeroboam now establishes a new capital and I guess that's the first thing any king has to do he has to have a place where he's known and he sets up some place and of course Rehoboam he already had his which would have been Jerusalem so in verse 12 25 then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there and he went out from there and built

[18:21] Penuel Jeroboam needed a capital city because Jerusalem was a territory of Judah and Benjamin the city of Shechem became capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel it seems that Jeroboam's reign began with energy and opportunity God had promised him through their prophet Ahijah that if you heed all that I command you walk in my ways and do what is right in my sight to keep the statutes of my commandments and my servant David did then I will be with you and build with you an enduring house it was all laid out for him when the prophet came to him and said hey I'm going to give you these ten tribes if you want this to work all you have to do is follow God and his commandment and things will be good for you so in 1st Kings 1226-29 Jeremiah makes a religion to serve the state and 1225 then Jeroboam built Shechem to a hill country of Ephraim he went out of there and he built other cities but Jeroboam said in his heart now this kingdom will return to the house of David 1st Kings 1226 if this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord of Jerusalem then the heart of these people will return to the Lord even to Rehoboam king of Judah and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah so he's thinking hey there's got to be something different

[19:59] I got to have my own or these people are going to go back to Rehoboam and it's all going to be over verse 28 so the king consulted and made two golden calves and he said to them it is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem behold your your gods oh Israel that brought you up from the land of Egypt so we see that there's things going on here Jeroboam is going to be completely opposite of what this prophet wanted and by saying lead this nation lead it the way God would want to have it led but he did not so in verse 29 1 Kings 12 29 he sent one of the golden calves to Bethel and the other one he put in Dan now this thing became a sin for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan 31 verse 31 and he made houses on high places and then made priests from among all the people who were not with the sons of Levi Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month like the feast which is in

[21:05] Judah and he went up to the altar thus he did in Bethel sacrifice into the calves which he made and he stationed them in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made verse 33 then he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month and he worshipped there with incense so Jeroboam seems to forget and ignore the promises God made to him through the prophet Elijah in first kings eleven Joe okay chapter 3 verse 10 okay yeah but Jeroboam didn't pay any attention to that because this was going to be about him he wanted something new Roger yeah yeah right right yes it was yeah he was completely faulty all over the place so he seems to forget what

[22:30] God had done for him what he set up there back in chapter 11 so Jeroboam appealed to their natural desire and that was natural hey people I'm the new king this is the new religion it's easy worship these idols worship these calves all these and they'd fell for this before didn't they years ago yeah so Jeroboam he appealed to their natural desire for convenience which was they could go either place and usually take the easy way out when they can therefore it was thought to be a good to be good if an idol in Bethel and Dan could replace the trip all the way to Jerusalem so he gave them this great opportunities come and worship here you don't have to go to Jerusalem and all these type of things so Jeroboam became an example or of a political leader who shapes religion for his own purposes the issue of true religion was unimportant to Jeroboam he was interested in a useful religion useful to him 1st Kings 12 30 33 the establishment of Jeroboam's religion it was a sin when Jeroboam suggested it but it was more of a sin when the people followed it the people were so attracted to the religion to Jeroboam that they went as far as

[24:03] Dan to worship the shrine of these golden calves so he made these things in the high places he made different places that they could go and worship in 2nd Chronicles you don't have to turn there probably chapter 11 verse 13 through 16 it states the legitimate priest and Levites who lived in the northern 10 tribes did not like this so you got when you're into kings 1st and 2nd kings you're going to have to think about 2nd Chronicles because 2nd Chronicles is also a story of the same things that's going on in 1st Kings and 2nd Kings it's just from a different offer and from a different time span the 1st Kings of course was done before the captivity Chronicles was written from history it was written after they came back and they're going through their history here so there's going to be a lot of things in 1st and 2nd

[25:03] Kings that might have more detail if you go into 2nd Chronicles so once in a while I'm going to throw in some of the things from Chronicles because it just kind of ties up the things that's in 1st and 2nd Kings Joe yeah through this dealing with the Kings it's interesting sinful Kings they were 99% 98% sinful but it's interesting every now and then they would turn to the Lord for some reason the real God the real Lord and he showed mercy he showed mercy to them he took care of whatever they asked for that time even though they were like they were a lot of them he did he is a merciful God but those

[26:13] Kings as we get into them we're going to see some of them did not get treated submersively and a lot of this there's going to be some bad bad things we're going to see this king takes over and the other king they go and wipe out the whole family of the previous king and there's all that kind of stuff that's going to be happening so and I guess it all comes down to the fact humans are involved God gave us a religion we turn to sin and we just can't help ourselves so we see the people now they're worshiping upon all these idols and their sacrifices again and well I was in second chronicles the gentlemen priests and Levites who lived in northern ten tribes did not like this they along with others who set their hearts to seek God of Israel moved through the northern kingdom of Israel to the southern kingdom of Judah during this time frame so here you see these are some of the people that's coming back to Judah from these different tribes and we can see that's how it works out with the division when they came back they're still with them so there's a mixture of both all the tribes as we go through the dispersion priests and Levites come to

[27:39] Jerusalem second chronicles 11 14 for the Levites left their pastured lands and their property and came to Judah of Jerusalem for Jeroboam and his sons had excluded them from serving as the priests of the Lord they came up with their own priest because I'm sure they said hey priest you've been a priest all these times take over and do this and they said no we can't do this idol false idols and all this type stuff so they just ignored him and they came up with their own priest new priest that would fall in line with what he wanted second chronicles 11 15 and he set up priests of his own for the high places for the calves and all the idols that they reached to worship them verse 16 these from the tribes of Israel who set their hearts on seeking the Lord God of Israel followed them to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord God of their hearts they strengthened the kingdom of Judah and supported

[28:40] Rehoboam the son of Solomon for three years for they walked in the way of David and Solomon for three years so he was starting to give back some of the priests and some of the other people who believed still believed in the true God and they were coming back to Judah so Jeroboam thought that he could afford to let the priests and worshippers whose standards have higher abandoned their possessions and go south to Judah we see that again in Chronicles it's not there in Kings moreover the priests and the Levites who were in all Israel stood with him for all their districts for the Levites left their pasture lands and their property and came to Judah and Jerusalem so in the month which he had devised in his own heart and this is a good summary of Jeroboam's religion it was devised in his own heart this is something that he wanted for him and it was an abomination he created his own religion according to his own taste how about today for the most part the world embraces the religion of Jeroboam not necessarily his particular expression of golden calves and high places but a religion created according to taste

[30:00] Jeroboam did this created all this stuff for his taste and I think if we look at the news today and America our religion our Christianity today it's all about what do I want we're all good we're all good many Americans experience the views of religion they say I believe in God though I'm not a religious fanatic I can't remember the last time I went to church and my faith has carried me a long long way this pick and choose as I go along approach as a modern version of Jeroboam's religion in opposition to the revealed religion of the Bible and I think that's a sad story for America today that we have drifted that far away from

[31:00] God and that's just the way it's always been and we're going to keep seeing it too but it'll get worse turn to chapter 13 in 1 Kings verses 1 and 2 the coming destruction of the altar in Bethel in Kings 13 tells the story of a man of God from Judah who was sent to Bethel by the word of the Lord apparently were no other qualified messengers within the northern kingdom although Ahijah the prophet was still around but anyway God used this man this is a sad commentary on the spiritual state of Jeroboam's kingman at the time this anonymous man of God was used in an important way he demonstrates that one does not need to be famous to be significantly used by God God sent this man God spoke to him and said go tell

[32:00] Jeroboam then then he prophesied against the altar and cried out that a child named Joshua would be born to the house of David and would sacrifice the priests of the high places who would burn incenses on it this prophecy of course was not filled at this point but maybe 300 years later it would be fulfilled and we'll see that in 2nd Kings but Jeroboam didn't know that in advance he went judgment on Jeroboam the chapter also describes how Jeroboam king of Israel tried to arrest a man and God put his hand but God arrested a man but God put his hand with withered his hand and the altar split apart as a sign from God so when he tried to arrest him this man well God used him as a miracle he withered the king's hand and he also split the altars there to six he healed his hand because he asked for it he went to the real

[33:35] God he said God heal my hand and God did it for you that's that mercy I was showing you mentioned about the prophet didn't become famous or didn't become known even though he did great things followed God so forth we have another prophet Elijah who's famous his name is used over and over in the Bible New Testament everywhere more than anybody else but he was totally unsuccessful in what God had him to do God told him to do he was totally unsuccessful but God still blessed him and blessed his heart because he's the one that went up without even dying and took him up and so we don't have to feel that we have to win every person that we contact to the Lord if we're not successful we don't have to take that personal it's our tempt our tribe our life that we're living that counts to the Lord not necessary where we're successful that's what that tells me I know that's coming up later but it also points out the thing about not being famous and everybody at the conference okay very good thank you

[34:41] Joe verse let's go to chapter 14 verses 1 through 3 at that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam became sick and Jeroboam said to his wife please arise and excise yourself that they may not recognize you as the wife of Jeroboam and go to Shiloh indeed Elijah the prophet is there who told me that I would be king over this people also take with you ten loaves of bread and cakes and jars so what happened here his son got sick and now he thinks it's okay okay I need to turn back to God I need to go back to the prophet and now became personal didn't it and a lot of times when things became personal that's sometimes that's when things change in our life also we can be living in life doing all kinds of different things not with the Lord sometimes when personal tragedy happens that's when our life will change and that's when we go and seek God but he didn't seek God he was seeking

[35:53] Elijah the prophet Abijah the prophet because he thought hey if I go to him he will heal my son so as we get into chapter 14 she did this this was a familiar pattern for Jeroboam in his time of need he turned to the true God a man of God he knew that idols could not help him in any true crisis yet he also knew that he had rejected God and his prophets and so he told his wife to wear a disguise this guy had been doing all these things and Abijah told him follow God we've laid all this out for you Jeroboam it's yours so now we're to the place where he needs to seek the help from him Jeroboam did not tell his wife to pray for their son or to ask the prophet to pray he wanted to use Abijah and the prophet as a fortune teller instead of seeking him as a man of

[36:58] God so Jeroboam's wife meets with Ahijah the prophet and Jeroboam's wife did so she arose and went to Shiloh and came to the house of Ahijah but Ahijah could not see for his eyes were glazed by reasons of his age now the Lord had said to Ahijah here is the wife of Jeroboam coming to ask you something about her son for he is sick thus and thus you shall say to her for it will be when she comes in that she will pretend to be another woman and so it was when Ahijah heard the sound of her foot steps as he came through the door he said come in wife of Jeroboam why do you pretend to be another person so she came in but it didn't fool him because he was a man of God and he had already had what he was going to do here for this the wife of Jeroboam learned two things first that the news was bad he already knew that it was her second that she thought he was sent by her husband the truth

[38:07] Ahijah was already sent by God a message to her for Jeroboam so they were going to Abijah to get to help but God had already told Abijah this is what you're going to do so it kind of backfired and went the opposite way so Ahijah declares God's judgment on the house of Jeroboam in verses 7-11 God tell Jeroboam thus says the Lord God of Israel because I exalted you from among the people and made you ruler over my people Israel and tore their kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you and yet you have not seen been as my servant David who kept my commandments who followed me with all his heart to do what was right in my eyes but you have done more evil than all who were before you for you have gone and made for yourself other gods molded images to provoke me to anger and have cast me behind your back therefore behold I will bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam and will cut off from Jeroboam any male in Israel bond and free

[39:15] I will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam as one takes away the refuge until it is all done the dog shall eat whatever belongs to Jeroboam and dies in the city and the birds of the air shall eat whatever dies in the field for the Lord has spoken so Saul was a bad man and a bad king he became the measuring line for the bad kings of Israel but he's saying here you were even worse Jeroboam you were even worse than the first king Saul this was a powerful description of intense contempt towards God as we see in Ezekiel because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back therefore you shall bear the penalty of your lawless and your idolatry the last reason implies a neglect as a scorning of God this is the same figure of speech used to describe

[40:19] God's forgiveness of our sins he puts them behind his back in other words he forgets them but God puts this judgment now upon Jeroboam arise therefore and go home he told the wife when your feet enter the city the child shall die and all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him for this he is the only one of Jeroboam who shall come to the grave because in him there is found something good towards the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam so wherever the Lord rises up for himself a king of Israel who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam this is this day and that's exactly what's going to happen Jeroboam is going to die and the next king will be set up and there will be this line of kings that we're going to see that will come from the nation for the ten tribes of Israel and also next week we'll get in and we'll talk more about Rehoboam and his failure and how that kings will be established there for the land of Judah and it's fascinating

[41:31] I think I gave you charts when we first started maybe I should have waited and did that yeah I got another chart I don't think I'll give it to you today but this is a good chart it's in color and it also has all the kings oh you got one of those two anyway it gives all the kings the dates that they're in office how many years they were in office and even when the prophets was there so you can look at you got Israel on one side you got Judah on the other side you're going to see how some of these kings reigned at the same time and some of the kings only reigned I think one only reigned for seven days some for three years others for 45 years and you see how this all matches together with the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah and the time spans and all the prophets that come in and as we get to those we'll talk about the prophets and the minor prophets and the major prophets and we'll also be talking about

[42:38] Elijah and Elisha and so any questions before we stop here today comments if not have a good day see you again then and to end and and that it could be