Seeking Wise Counsel

Welcome to our Women's Bible Study on 1st and 2nd Kings. This is part two, which I've entitled Learning from Leaders. And the subtitle is What We Learned from Kings, Queens, and Prophets. And today what I want to do is I want to do an introduction to this Bible study and then also teach chapters 12, 13, and 14 of 1st Kings, so you can see we've got a big load for today. So as far as the introduction goes, I'm guessing that in the last few months, not a one of you had a friend run up to you and say, Hey, let's do a Bible study on Omri and Zimri and Ahab and Jezebel. That's just not where we go. That's not what we get excited about for a Bible study. There's some parts of scripture that if we're reading through our Bible, even if you read through on the regular, read, you know, like once a year, you kind of speed read through these sections. So for the next nine weeks, what we're going to do is we're going to slow down through these sections. We're going to read very intentionally because there is so much for us to learn here. I'm going to tell you that this will be a story of broken promises, not God's broken promises, but it will be on Israel's part that they break their special covenant with the Lord. It will be a story of loss on their part because they will lose their land. They will lose their temple. They will lose their identity. It is never easy to study the decline of a civilization, but that is what this Bible study will point us to. We're going to go through about 400 years of the history of Israel and 38 of their kings, and these are years of decline, and so in many ways, we might feel like those of us studying in America, we might feel like, hmm, this feels relevant to me. This feels like something a little bit familiar because these stories are going to resonate on a political scale, but they're also going to resonate on a personal scale because there's going to be so much personal application as we go through the bios of each of these people and we're able to observe their temptations, their responses, their pride, their humility, their wins, and their losses, and so we're also going to find in this study the constant shadow of God's sovereign hand in the affairs of his people, and it's going to remind us, too, that even today in our lives, we can see God's sovereign hand through the affairs of our lives if we will but just look for it. So what I want to do is I want to review God's, the big picture here I want, God's unfolding plan of redemption, okay, because this is a particular timeframe in history, so we need to go back. The nation of Israel was actually begins in Genesis chapter 12 with God making himself known to Abraham and giving Abraham both promises and direction, and then God gave those same promises and direction to Abraham's son Isaac and to his son Jacob, who was renamed Israel, who had 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel. They found themselves, as we've gone through our Women of the Word Bible studies, by the end of Genesis, those 12 tribes of Israel had found themselves in the land of Egypt. It had kind of turned sour for them over time, and so they were enslaved in Egypt, and we went through Exodus, the divine deliverance of God's people, and then we went through the wilderness way where God led them all the way into the promised land, which is the story of Joshua, gave them the special land for them to own. We had the years of the judges, which we studied, and then we enter the years of the kings, which we are still in, and we studied the first king, who was Saul, the next king, who was David, and then to Solomon. Now in your study guide on page six, there's a few little fill in the blanks, and I'll just warn you that I'm giving you the answers to those right now, and then there's also a place for you to take notes. But in a loose way, we could say that 1 Samuel tells the story of King Saul. We called that the coming king. 2 Samuel tells about the reign of King David, and we called that the reigning king in our studies. 1 Kings, part one, chapters one through 11, tells the account of Solomon. So we just did that. We called it Solomon and the house of the Lord. So now here we are, finishing out the rest of the kings, 38 kings in this part two, and I called it learning from leaders. It probably should have been called something like the division and discipline of Israel, but no one would have come, because we don't like to study decline, but that's the big picture of what's happening here. There's a lot of decline. Now if I was dividing up the scriptures and making the divisions, because just like Samuel, Samuel is one book. It has been divided into 1 and 2 Samuel for better handling. Kings is one book. It was divided into 1 and 2 Kings for better handling. Pretty evenly divided, and that was kind of an issue of like scrolls and things like that. If I were dividing it and I didn't have those restrictions, I would have started 2 Kings right here. I would have made 1 Kings chapters one through 11, because it's all Solomon, and then I would have started 2 Kings right here, because we have the rest of the 38 kings. So but no one asked me, and that's, we got what we got. All right, like I said, we already studied Solomon and the house of the Lord, and I just want to put up on the screen the very last verse of that Bible study. It's from 1 Kings 11 verse 43, and Solomon slept with his fathers, was buried in the city of David his father, and Rehoboam his son reigned in his place. Today's lesson is very important, because it explains how we got from the united kingdom that Saul, David, and Solomon enjoyed to the divided kingdom that we will now have for the remainder of Kings, okay? The nation was united under Saul, David, and Solomon, now is irreparably divided. For the most part, we're able to pin this fracture on this guy right here, on Rehoboam. Although, if you were with us when we studied Solomon, you know that he planted the seeds of division, which were harvested now in the days of his son. So we're going to go through chapters 12, 13, and 14. So open your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 12. We're going to get started here. We remember that Solomon has now departed this earth, and here is what happens next. You guys, I'm so excited. There are so many good nuggets in here, so, as my husband would say, buckle up, right? Verse 1,

So stop. Both of our important players are given to us at the same time. Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Here's what's crazy about that. It sounds like a mom named twins, doesn't it? Right? Jared and Dustin or something like that. But these men just coincidentally have familiar sounding names to each other. They are of no relation whatsoever. They're completely different family lines. So I wanted to really point that out. We're told here, and it often says, Jeroboam, son of Nabat, to remind us, he's not anything to do with Solomon and with David, okay? And so he comes back from Egypt where he had fled from Solomon. Why had he fled from Solomon? Well, we learned about that at the end of our last session in chapter 11. I'll put that on the screen as well. Verses 9 to 11,

Jeroboam is that servant, okay? What's his backstory? He was a construction worker, okay? He was one of Solomon's workers on the temple, but he was very good at what he did and he was elevated to be a supervisor. And one day the lunch whistle went off and he was going home and this prophet, a hijack, comes up to him who had a brand new robe and he takes his robe and he gets out his scissors and he cuts it into 10 parts. He didn't have a scissor. He had a knife, I'm sure. He cuts it into 12 parts, I'm sorry, and he prophesies, he says to Jeroboam, take 10 of these. And the point was, you are going to have 10 of the tribes of Israel. Well, word got out to Solomon, and he didn't like that at all. And so, but first, before we get to that, the question is, why give away? Why did this prophet come and want to give away 10 of the tribes? Well, again, from chapter 11, 33,

That is why the Lord was cutting apart the kingdom. And so, in a similar way, do you remember when Saul was king and David was given the opportunity to come in and replace the corrupt kingdom that Saul had done? In a very similar way, Jeroboam was given the opportunity to come in and replace Solomon's corrupt leadership and what he had done. And, of course, Solomon caught wind of this, and that's why he wanted to kill Jeroboam, and so he had fled to Egypt. Okay, now we can go to verse three.

And Rehoboam asked for three days to think that over, and he took counsel with the old men who had served his father and asked them what to do. In verse seven,

But he, Rehoboam, abandoned the counsel that the old man gave, and he took counsel with the young men who'd grown up with him and stood before him. And the young men's advice is found in the middle of verse 10.

And that's the advice that stuck. And so Rehoboam took that advice, he told everybody that's the way it was going to be, and they gave them back their answer. In verse 16,

And we'll find out in a minute why he did that. But I want you to jump back up to verse 15, the middle of verse 15, there's a very, very important sentence.

So we're already here learning from leaders in these first 15 verses, because we read about Rehoboam's rejection of the older and wiser council and his acceptance of his peers, which was more immature and misguided. And for our lives, there are things that we can learn from that, okay? One characteristic is that our peers will tend to tell us what they think we want to hear. And this is a truth in life. When you are in need of counsel, important things to decide in life, it's not always the best idea to go to your family and your friends because they do have a tendency to tell you exactly what they think you want to hear. The best course is to go and find some older, wiser, mature, been around the block many more times, might even be able to pinpoint with pretty good accuracy cause and effect of what your decisions will mean. And so it's really good for us to remember that because here now the northern tribes want to have nothing to do with a descendant of David. And so the stage is set in verse 20,

So they were so angry with what Rehoboam had done, they grabbed the construction worker and said, you're going to be our king. Well, see the Lord knew this. The Lord had already known this course of events. So now there we have it. Now the United Kingdom is over. It is irreparably torn into two pieces for the entire rest of kings. And they're never going to really recover from this until post-exile they will recover a little bit. But Rehoboam then tries his best to recover and he gets troops and he wants to go fight against the northern tribes. But God says, verse 24,

So they listened to the word of the Lord, which is always a good choice to do. And right there, the author assures us for the second time that this course of events are being held in his hand. This did not escape his notice. He knew exactly how this was going to go. It is held in his hand. And in the next nine weeks, we're going to see the hand of God in the happenings of people over and over again, just like we can see the hand of God in the happenings of our lives over again. God had promised David that a man would reign on his throne and Rehoboam is reigning on his throne, a much, much, much, much, much smaller throne and kingdom. God had promised that he would judge the kingdom of Solomon and he is doing that right now because God does what he promises. So now this next section is very important to us because it explains what Jeroboam did to make Israel sin and why he did it. Because as we go through our Bible study, we're going to realize what's happening here is such a big deal that almost every bad king to come will be described using the words of Jeroboam. It will be something similar to this. I'm going to put it on the screen. Something like this. It'll say, King So-and-so walked in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, and in the sins that he made Israel to sin, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by his idols. So let's look and see. So what did Jeroboam do that was so bad that set this tone? It starts in verse 25.

Now where have you gone? if we heard that before in our studies. Isn't that almost exactly what Aaron said when Moses was up on the mountain and was delayed in coming back, and he took all their gold, and he formed it, and he made these two gold calves? Behold, Israel, here are your gods that brought you up from the land of Israel. And he set one in Bethel, and he put the other way up in Dan. And then this thing became a sin for the people went as far as Dan to go before one. He also made temples on high places. He appointed priests from among all the people who were not of the Levites. And Jeroboam appointed a feast on the 15th day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah, meaning in Jerusalem, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he made. He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the 15th day of the eighth month in the month that he had, look, devised in his own heart, made up his own festival. And he instituted a feast for the people of Israel, and he went up to the altar to make offerings. So having rejected the God of Israel, what Jeroboam did was he made fashioned other gods, these two calves of gold. He made no requirements for the priests who would serve that. Anybody, if I like you, you can be priest. Completely left the Levites out of this. You know, we have the whole book of Leviticus to instruct what the Levites are to be doing. And then he made up his own festivals, when, where, and how. Now, neither Rehoboam nor Jeroboam were good leaders. Neither of them were good leaders. And I think that there's actually some crumbs here left for us to find. There are some intriguing parallels, I think, to what is happening right now and what did happen back when God delivered Israel out of Exodus. For example, what did Rehoboam say? You know, how did he behave with this whole thing? He sounded so much like Pharaoh when he said, yeah, I'm gonna make your work even harder. I'm gonna, you know, whip you with scorpions. What had Pharaoh said when Moses said, let my people go? No, I'm gonna make your work harder. Bricks without straw now. So Rehoboam echoes the words of Pharaoh. And then also, Jeroboam behaved just like Aaron when Aaron had made those gold calves in that moment. Jeroboam does exactly the same thing. So we see, I think we're left to find these little hints, these little flashbacks almost to that time. But there's one thing that's missing in this story that we had in the Exodus story. There's no Moses in this story. There is no one to intercede now. And they, Israel, will feel the full effect of what is going on all the way into the exile. Interesting. So now with regard to these calves of gold and the temples and the priests, it is important also for us to really understand what's going on because there have always been, we understand from scripture since Genesis chapter three, there have always been malevolent powers and principalities now that have reigned over the earth because of sin. In the Egyptian culture, it was ruled by these powers and principalities that presented themselves as gods. Okay, when we looked at the Exodus, so many of those judgments were coming specifically against the different gods of Egypt. And in the Canaanite culture, the land which God sent the people to live in, and he told them, wipe it out. Why did he say wipe it out? Because the Canaanites, the whole region, also had opened the door to these malevolent powers and principalities who presented themselves as gods, and they worshiped them, and the land was saturated with it. That's why God had said, make a clean break, make a clean start. I am your God. But of course, they did not. They mingled with them. By the time we got to the kings and we had King David, you know, King David wasn't perfect, and he had a few things that went south, but David never opened the door for gods into the nation of Israel. He never opened the door for these principalities to come in. Solomon had his high points, but he did invite the principalities into the nation of Israel. It tells us, again, back in chapter 11, that Solomon had invited in Ashtoreth, Milcom, Chemosh, Molech, which were presented as gods, but they were just demonic principalities. And why did Solomon do that? We were told so that his wives could make offerings and sacrifices to their gods that they were accustomed to. It's important for us to understand the weight of what's going on here. Solomon was the one that had welcomed these malevolent principalities that God had delivered them from. And God had chosen Jeroboam and given him the opportunity to turn the ship back the other way, but he didn't. And so at the end of chapter 12 now, it confirms that this is the way Israel is going. So one thing about God's ways is that he doesn't do anything without telling his prophets. In fact, Amos tells us that, Amos 3, 7, for the Lord does nothing without revealing his secrets to his servants, the prophets, and that's exactly what God does in chapter 13. This is a wild story. Let's get started. And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel. Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make sacrifices. So it sounds like at the moment Jeroboam is getting ready to sacrifice to this golden calf, the man cries out against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, 'O altar, altar,' thus says the Lord, 'behold, a son shall be born 'to the house of David, Josiah by name, 'and he shall sacrifice on you 'the priests of the high places 'who make offerings on you 'and human bodies.' Sorry, I went up too high. 'And human bones shall be burned on you.' Fascinating, a distinctive proper name of an individual, Josiah by name, who will be born almost 300 years later. He says he's gonna come and bring a judgment on this. And verse three, he gave a sign that same day saying, 'This is the sign that the Lord has spoken. 'Behold, the altar shall be torn down, 'the ashes that are on it shall be poured out.' And of course, Jeroboam did not like this word at all. So he reached out his hand, he says he stretched out his hand to say, 'Seize him,' and his hand dried up 'so that he could not drop back. 'The altar also was torn down, 'the ashes poured out from the altar 'according to the sign that the man of God 'had given by the word of the Lord.' And this is an example of dual prophecy, happens often in the Old Testament. Something happens in the moment, which is either a sign or a near fulfillment, but something will happen in the future as well. And so there was a sign of judgment happening right in the moment. It will happen again 290 years later. But this king's hand, this outstretched hand, almost symbolizing his authority is dried up so that the Lord could prove, uh-uh, everything that's happening is gonna be by my outstretched hand. You're gonna have nothing to do with this. But of course, the king was like, ah, can you do something about my hand? And so he says to this man of God, he says, would you pray for me that my hand would be restored? And the man of God did, and his hand was restored, which is probably not only a relief, but then it probably inspired him a little, like maybe God is softening his approach here. So he tested the waters then by inviting this man to come over for lunch. And the man of God says in verse eight, he says, listen, if you gave me half of your house, I would not go with you. I will not eat bread or drink water in this place for so it was commanded me by the word of the Lord saying you shall neither eat bread nor drink water nor return by the way that you came. So he went another way and he did not return by the way that he came to Bethel. And we need to remember that in the Near East, having a meal together meant a very significant sort of fellowship. It meant a participation. That's why when we get to 1 Corinthians and there's all this talk about meat sacrifice to idols, and if somebody invites you over for dinner, what are you gonna do about that? It's because of this mindset of coming together and participating together. And God had told this man from Judah, he said, you go. in, you speak your word, and you get out. That's how I want this to go." And so he obeyed. But now we have a twist. Verse 11. Now an old prophet lived in Bethel, and his sons told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. And the old prophet asked which way he went, and he got on his donkey. Middle of verse 14, he found him sitting under an oak, and he asked, are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am. And then he said, come to my, come home with me and eat bread. And the man of God gave him the same speech that he had given to Jeroboam. He wasn't allowed to do that. But here the story gets weird. The old prophet begins manipulating the younger. Verse 18. He said, oh, but I am also a prophet, as you are. And an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, bring him back with you into your house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied to him. So he went back with him, and he ate bread in his house, and he drank water. Now stop right here, because we're learning from leaders, okay? And so first thing, whenever an angel speaks to someone, we usually end up with a false religion. Is this not true? So beware the person that an angel speaks to, okay? But secondly, I think there's more that we can learn here. The older prophet is from Bethel. Does that ring a bell, even from just this morning? See, this is the apostate center of worship. This is where the Golden Calf is, a new worship center. It doesn't tell us in Kings, but Chronicles tells us that when this all started to happen, the Levites skedaddled out of those northern tribes, and they all went down to Judah, because they knew what was going on. They were Levites. Their whole livelihood was based on temple worship, and they got out of there, and they went down to... But here we have a prophet who didn't skedaddle. He stayed right there. To me, I don't want to read too much into it, but to me, there's shades of want living in Sodom. Like, just kind of comfort, just kind of, I'm just gonna stay. It's like, yeah, this isn't good, but whatever. Now, in our earlier part of our lesson today, I almost led you to believe that young is bad, old is good, right? With Rehoboam, who are you gonna take counsel from? The young give the bad counsel, the old give the good counsel. Well, now that's shot all to pieces, because we got this old guy who's lying. So now what are we gonna do? Well, okay, now what are we left with? Discernment. Because we, generalizations can serve us only so far in life, and, but you know what? Discernment will serve you all the way to the finish line. Yes, there are some generalizations that will tell us that youth has its challenges of immaturity and ego, but old age has its challenges of complacency and compromise. So what we really need is ongoing discernment. I think the biggest takeaway, and maybe for somebody here, the most important takeaway of this entire lesson is what we see happening in right here. This old man claimed new direct revelation from God in order to persuade the younger man to forget his former convictions and instructions from the Lord, and it worked. And in our day, we have no lack of new revelation of how we should live, okay? Rarely is something spiritually dangerous presented to us and it looks evil. That's not how it works. It doesn't look evil, okay? The dangerous temptation usually comes to us when someone suggests new information, new revelation, deconstructing what we previously learned. And the suggestion is planted then that what we once believed was wrong is now the right thing to do. And the attempt is to convince us that our convictions are outdated and that we should come to their side and we should fellowship with them and we should be as they are and we should live where they do and participate in the things that they participate in. And this is what describes what we have termed today progressive Christianity, where it progresses into something it was never meant to be, and in fact, often is very opposite of what it is supposed to be. So I like this story. It is weird, but it gives real foundation to an understanding of what we struggle with, with what your kids, with what your young adults are struggling with, with progressive Christianity. Beware the religious person who, like this prophet from Bethel, has grown content living within and near the borders of apostasy. Okay, now the story gets even twistier, okay? It was twisted. It's gonna get even twistier because God has a tendency to choose to speak through whoever he wants to speak through, like Balaam's donkey, right? Verse 20,

In other words, you're never gonna make it home. Verse 24,

And as the text goes, people found out about it, and the old prophet heard about it, and he went and looked over the situation, and he grabbed up the younger man and took him to his own home, and he gave him a proper burial. And then look, verse 31, in the middle, he tells his sons, Listen, when I die, bury me in that grave in which the man that God has buried. Lay my bones beside his bones, for the saying that he called out by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the high places that are in the cities of Samaria shall surely come to pass. The whole point of this story was that this was a sign for Jeroboam. Okay, word gets out. Jeroboam knows what's happening here. This was to be a sign for Jeroboam. The question is, did it rattle him? Did it change him? Did it shake him? Verse 33,

And we are reminded that God is very favorable to his creation. He gives multiple chances. God gives chance after chance after chance, but there does come a time when he will bring the judgment that he said that he would bring. And here's the final word for Jeroboam in the beginning of chapter 14.

Now this is fascinating because as I observe human nature and and I know when you know when people have kind of turned their back on the Lord for whatever reason, they don't want to communicate with the Lord until their babies are sick. And that that can be a good thing, can be a good thing. Sometimes like when we, that isn't that for women, like maybe one of the most desperate things that we've ever felt is one of our children in crisis. So here in the moment, Jeroboam is completely turned against the God of his fathers until his baby is sick. And then he tells his wife, Go, I want you to go to the prophet of God. Well, first of all, it makes you wonder, so what about your golden calves? Like if you really believed in them, why aren't you going there? That's a one question. And then what's up with the disguise? Well, probably for someone who has turned their back on Jerusalem, it's probably on, you know, the temple, the Lord of Israel, now that's probably not great that the whole nation sees the wife then going back. So a disguise, I don't know, maybe. But he told her to take a bunch of food and in verse 4,

And when she came, she pretended to be another woman. But when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, and she came in at the door, he said, Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why do you pretend to be another? For I am charmed with unbearable news for you. What a sinking feeling. You get in, first of all, your disguise didn't work, and the only thing you hear is, I got some bad news for you. So, the message was very similar to what we just covered in the last chapter from the man of God from Judah, except that that was a little bit bigger, a little bit more political, a little bit more about the nation and the reign. This is personal, all right? And so, there are really four parts. I'm gonna summarize this pretty quickly. There's really four parts of Ahijah's message here, and so I'm gonna put them on the screen for you to follow. Part one is that it was God's doing that Jeroboam had ever become king in the first place, and that's found in verse 7.

The second part of his message was that Jeroboam had been faithless with God's mission.

The third part is God's judgment, that he would bring judgment.

In other words, no one will get a proper honorable burial in your family. And the fourth thing that I just said is when God would bring the judgment.

Fascinating. So the Lord is making an exception for this one child who is ill, and says there's something pleasing to him. He'll die, but he will get a proper burial. Anybody else in your house? Nope. They will not get honorable burials. Verse 17,

And the last two verses that we're going to cover today basically just tell us that Jeroboam reigned 22 years, he died, and his son Nadab reigned in his place. This has been an extremely long session this morning. I did not want you to have to start your Bible study on such a complicated and weird session, but I kind of wanted to tie it up and say, okay, this is the bridge from Solomon to all these other kings. This is how we got here, and so I hope we were able to do that this morning. Now when you begin week two in your study guide, you're actually going to start on verse 21, which is a very odd place to start, but not really so odd, because now you'll be able to start in with the kings of Judah again, everyone who comes after Rehoboam. And I do want to tell you this, next week's lesson is going to be very different, because we're going to focus mostly on Asa. I love the story of Asa, and I think we're going to find like double the application that we even had this morning as we look at the life of Asa. I also want to tell you one more thing of how this nine weeks is going to go, because there's lots of, you can tell I just talked so fast this morning, there's lots of words, there's lots of verses. When you do your study, you will handle the rest of first and second Kings verse by verse. When I present a teaching, I might only focus on a certain section, and that's my privilege to do that, but if you want the verse by verse, you're gonna have to do your study guide to get through the whole thing. I honestly think that you're gonna love it. So there's some questions for discussion now from this lesson, and I'm gonna pray and then let you move on to your groups. Father, I do thank you that we learned so much from Kings, Queens, and Prophets, Lord, and I pray that you would tune our hearts to see what you want each of us to see in your Word throughout this nine weeks, and Lord, particularly in this section, that we see how easily we can be convinced, even as people of God, as women of God, how easily we can be persuaded to think that something is different than what you have revealed to us, and so I just want to pray that we would hold fast, that we would stand fast, as the Scriptures tell us, in what we have learned and in our understanding of you, and I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.