1st Kings Solomon then Divided Kingdom

To everyone, good to see you here. And to those who might be watching video, we also would pray the

Lord's blessing on you. Let's just open with a word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father and our

God, we come before your throne this morning as we lift our voices to worship you.

We pray, Heavenly Father, that you might be in all that we say and all that we do.

Be with Pastor John as he brings your word, that you would just go before him and give him liberty and the things you've laid on his heart.

And we look forward to a blessing from your word, Lord. Pray that when we leave this morning that we can each say it's been good to be in the house of the

Lord. And we will thank you for it. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So stand with me as we sing joyful, joyful, we adore thee. Are we joyful this morning as we adore him?

Let's hear that in our voices, okay? ♪♪ ♪

Joyful, joyful, we heart's unfold like flowers before thee.

♪ Opening to the sun above sin and sadness.

♪ Dry the darkness with the light.

Put up the second verse. Then we'll go back to the first one, okay? I just want to give you a little history.

I learned this song in the original song. The first words you see is, He that to the Lord has blessed me.

The original song, you would read the words, Here I raise my Ebenezer.

What's that mean, right? Do you remember when we just had 1

Samuel a couple weeks ago? And when the

Ark of the Covenant was taken by the Philistines, they captured it at Ebenezer.

And they took it away. And then the Philistines then came to Ebenezer and then took it to their temple in another place.

And then we read in 1 Samuel 7 through 10.

And I wanted just to read you, the guy that wrote this song originally had this in mind.

1 Samuel 7 verses 10. Now as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the

Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the

Philistines that day, and so confused them, and they were overcome before Israel.

And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the

Philistines and drove them back as far as Bethkar. Now here's the key.

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Sheon and called the name

Ebenezer. And he says, saying, Thus the

Lord has helped me. So he raised up a stone of blessing. Where they had been defeated, now he says this is going to be remembered as a time of blessing.

So even though we don't sing the songs, I want to sing the songs of Here I Raise My Ebenezer. But mainly because I've learned that when

I was younger. But it gives you a little history. But most people say, what in the world are they talking about,

Here I Raise My Ebenezer? Well, it's a stone of blessing. So let's just remember verse 2 says,

Hitherto the Lord has blessed me. And that's what they're saying. And thou has brought me to this place.

But they were taken to defeat because of their sin. But now with the

Lord's blessing, they were taken and raised up a stone of blessing. So let's sing Come Thou Fountain.

I'll let you go back to verse 1 now. Okay. ♪ Blessing to my heart to sing thy grace

Streams of mercy never ceasing Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet Sung by flaming tongues above Praise His name

I'm fixed upon Him Name of God's redeeming love

Hitherto thy love has blessed me Thou has brought me to this place

And I know He's safely home by thy good grace

Jesus sought me when a stranger Wondering He to rescue me from danger

Bought me with His precious blood O to grace great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be Let thy goodness like a fetter

Here's my heart O take and seal it Seal it for thy courts above Be thou exalted ♪

Will give thanks to thee

O people I will sing praises to thee among the nations

I step as love is great

Is great to the Be exalted

O people

Be exalted

Will sing thanks to thee O people

I will sing praises to thee among the nations

I step as love is great

Is great to the Be exalted

O people

You may be seated.

Gospel reading this morning is from 1 Kings chapter 9 verses 1 through 9.

1 Kings chapter 9 verses 1 through 9.

And it came to pass when Solomon had finished building the house of the

Lord and the king's house and all Solomon's desire which he wanted to do that the

Lord appeared to Solomon the second time as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

And the Lord said to him I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before me.

I have consecrated this house which you have built to put my name there forever and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually.

Now if you walk before me as your father David walked in integrity of heart and in uprightness to do according to all that I have commanded you and if you keep my statutes and my judgments then

I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever as I promised

David your father saying you shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.

But if you or your sons at all turn from following me and do not keep my commandments and my statutes which

I have set before you but go and serve other gods and worship them then

I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them and this house which

I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

And as for this house which is exalted everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss and say why has the

Lord done this to this land and to this house? Then they will answer because they forsook the

Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and have embraced other gods and worshiped and served them therefore the

Lord has brought all this calamity on them. May the Lord bless the reading and hearing of his holy word.

Well, praise the Lord. Great to be here, isn't it? All right, well, let's go to the

Lord in prayer. Father God, how thankful we are that we can come to you. Lord, that we can bow our heart.

We can call out to you, we can cry out to you and know God that you hear us. We don't have to be ashamed because of Jesus Christ.

We can come boldly before your throne of grace, Father and that is a humbling thought that no matter what's going on no matter our history once we have put faith in Jesus Christ his finished work on the cross of Calvary that we can gather together and Father, we can come to you with a clear conscience,

God and with the blood of Jesus Christ that it covers forever all of our sin,

God. Lord, we think of the sins of the United States of America, God. We think of the principle of reaping and sowing so clearly laid out in the word and we as a country,

Father are indeed reaping what we've sown. We see it all around us,

God. We see it, Father God, virtually any news source what's going on and knowing

God because of our blasphemy because of our abominable sins as a country

Father, we indeed deserve what we are getting right now.

We ask you, Father God that Christians might rise up that Christians might band together to pray to pray,

God, for your mercy upon our land to pray for the salvation of our elected officials, God. God, the only king that is going to solve the problems of this world and of our country is

King Jesus. It is the gospel that is going to solve what's going on in our country,

Father. Nothing else. We've tried everything, more laws. You know,

God. You know the things that have gone on in this country that have tried to turn back what's happening and Father, the only thing that will ever do that is

King Jesus. So, Lord, we pray for families that are represented here.

We think of people in our state and around the country that are being so severely impacted as the government again tries to control something,

Father that is so controversial and destroying literally tens of millions of people's lives,

God. Fried chicken restaurants that have been open for 105 years closing.

It's just sobering, God. And we, Father, as Christians, we need to be praying for this country.

We need to be on our knees, God, pleading that you might be graceful and merciful,

God, unto us. We pray for churches around the country, Father, that are struggling with yet another lockdown that you would give them wisdom in how they should respond to this,

God. I'm thankful, so thankful, for the folks that are here this morning. What a blessing to come in and see the light in believers' faces,

God, and to smile, even in some cases to hug. How wonderful that is.

So we're thankful for this day of worship. We're thankful that we can exalt you, that we can praise you, that we can rest in you.

We can trust you through all these things. We commit to now. And, Lord, we think of the Shermanmans and other families,

Father, that in various ways, with health issues and different struggles,

God, that your grace that is sufficient would be poured out upon them, Father, as they bear up under these trials.

And we give you praise, we give you honor, we give you glory, in Jesus' name. Amen? As I drive around, a lot of times

I listen to preachers on the radio, and I was listening to one this week that talked about the phrase, before salvation, you were without hope.

And he went into a very long definition of what it is like to be without hope.

There's no hope of a rescue. There's no hope of being... We think about people in floods and in storms and the men in battle who've been isolated and with no hope of anybody coming to rescue them.

But he was talking about the fact that we, before Christ and before his salvation, were without hope.

But we have hope. If in this life only we have hope, we're most miserable, but we have hope.

So stand together as we sing about the Lord's salvation that gives us that hope.

♪ ♪

Is hidden in the

Lord ♪ He flowers each promise in His Word ♪

Days I know spring will come ♪ For it is my salvation ♪

In times of waiting, times of need ♪ When I am lost, when

I am weak ♪ Days will renew these days ♪

The Lord is my salvation ♪

Is like the Lord ♪ Strong to stay faithful ♪

And be one ♪

My salvation ♪ He will call me home ♪

The Lord is my salvation ♪ Is like the

Lord ♪ Strong to stay faithful ♪

My salvation ♪ Be to God the

Father ♪ Be to God the Son ♪

Glory be to God the Spirit ♪

The Lord is my salvation ♪ Glory be to God the

Father ♪ Be to God the Son ♪

Glory be to God the Spirit ♪ Glory to the free ♪

The Lord is our salvation ♪ The Lord is our salvation

Thank you, and you may be seated. Well, open your Bibles, please, to 1

Kings. 1 Kings 16 is where we're gonna start, and then we'll go back.

So for many, many years, we went to Los Angeles a lot, because that's where a lot of Janet's family, my wife, is from.

And one particular year, we had this big get -together, and they had...

I don't know whether they reserved a bunch of seats, but it was at a buffet, a Chinese buffet.

Now, I've been to a few of those. I'm sure you have, too. But I walked into this place, and about the only thing

I could think of is, this has to be the Disneyland of buffets.

I have never in my life literally seen anything quite like it.

It stretched the entire length of the restaurant, and you could get seafood, you could get...

I mean, at a Chinese buffet, you could get Mexican, you could get fried chicken, you could get... Basically, I have never in my life literally seen anything like it.

I've been to some big buffets. I've never... It was just absolutely amazing. And that's kind of how

I feel, because you're only gonna get one trip to the buffet today. 1

Kings is so rich and has so much going on, and it was all

I could do to fit it into one Sunday, okay? So I just want to give you fair warning that all we're doing, if you read the book, if you're familiar with it all, all we're doing is we're standing at the scenic overlook, and all we're gonna be able to see are the tips of the mountains, okay?

The valleys of the rich, fertile truths, we're gonna have to skip many of them, okay?

So will you forgive me in advance? You pay all this money to go to a buffet, and you only get one trip.

Okay, but that is... Hopefully you have a couple of weeks. Next week, God willing, I'm gonna preach on Thanksgiving.

I haven't picked a text yet. And then the following week, we're out of town, and we have a wonderful man that's been an elder in many churches.

I can't wait to hear his message. He'll be here in my steed. Barb is gonna be playing that Sunday, God willing.

We'll be driving back to start school the next day. So I'm very thankful and very...

You're gonna want to try to read 1 Kings. It's 23 chapters. It's not long chapters, but it's so rich.

So before we go any further, do you have your sermon notes out? There's two sides to it. And I'll pray.

Father God, we come to you now in Jesus' name, and we thank you so much for this opportunity to open the incredible, rich book that is your word, your holy, inspired, infallible word.

And God, we know that it is the Holy Spirit that is ultimately our teacher, that is his ministry, his role in our life is to comfort and to teach and to show us the truths of the gospel and of your word.

So we commit this now to you, the Holy Spirit's care over this message, and that you'd give us the faith and the grace,

Father, to hear what you might have us to hear today, that we might truly live it out as we leave this place.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen? Now, I think we would all agree that 2020 has been a difficult and a challenging year for many people.

And when I see the kinds of things that are going on, it's just sometimes overwhelming.

The growth in evil and immorality that we're experiencing as a country.

Innocent people being knocked over, hit from behind, and kicked on the ground. And if we were an

Israelite living in the years towards the end of Solomon's reign and the kings that follow him, we might say the same kind of thing about the kind of spiritual darkness that existed in a country that was set apart for God.

See, we live in a mixed race country, right? We have believers, we have Christians, we have

Mormons, we have everything, don't we? We have unbelievers, we have atheists. But we're talking about an area in the world, and sometimes we lose this perspective when we're in the

Old Testament. We're talking about an area of the world that would be like a church set apart, a whole country.

We had the period of judges, right? And then we move into the period of Samuel the prophet, the last judge, the first of many prophets.

And then you have King Saul. Then you have King David. Then you have his son

Solomon. Then you have his son Rehoboam. And you have the church, you have the nation of Israel, the people of God that love him with their whole heart, with all their mind, with all their strength, literally fractured in half, and split apart, ten tribes to the north, two tribes to the south, under Rehoboam's leadership.

A united kingdom, and if you look at your notes, this is the two parts of 1 Kings, a united kingdom and a divided kingdom.

So in the history of God's chosen people, remember, we're talking about not an eclectic group of people.

We're talking about people that were Abraham's descendants. Are you tracking with me?

We're talking about people that would say, I am a Christian, I'm a believer, okay?

And you have King Saul as the first king over this group, when

God was saying, I want to be your king, right? But give us this king.

Then you have David, a man after God's own heart. And then just as he dies, he anoints and calls

Solomon to be king. Then Solomon dies, and his son

Rehoboam becomes king. And under the rule of Rehoboam, so three monarchies, the kingdom, these special God's people that love one another and love the

Lord and live in such a way that is so different from everybody else that everybody looks at them and says, I want to be like that,

I want that God. I don't want this pagan God anymore. They split apart, 10 tribes to the north, two tribes to the south,

Benjamin and Judah. And once the kingdom divides, it's all downhill from there even faster and more.

You can look on the back of your notes and see the list of kings. And progressively, those kings get worse and worse.

Israel, the northern 10 tribes, never have a good king. Never. They are as idolatrous as they come, and they get worse and worse and worse.

And then you come to 1 Kings 16, verse 30.

You come to King Ahab. He's about in the middle of the list of the northern kings. And verse 30 says,

Now Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the

Lord more than all who were before him.

Are you like me? Are you asking yourself, can it get any worse?

Anybody saying that? When they passed the legalization of men marrying men and women marrying women, did you say to yourself, could it get any worse?

And then the governor recently signed in a law that's of this state where men who engage in horrific acts with children can no longer be called pedophiles and be put on a sex registry.

I mean, what's next? You get to Ahab and you say, what? You get to Rehoboam, right?

And you say, well, what could happen? Solomon starts great, ends bad.

And you go, well, how could it get any worse? And it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. Look at verse 33.

Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to provoke the

Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. And wait till we get to the later kings.

Because as you read through the book, it gets worse. So if you look at your notes, you'll see that 1

Kings is divided into two parts. The first half mainly deals with the reign of Solomon. The kingdom is still united.

He's David's son. And then the second half records the history of the subsequent breakup and shattering of this special people.

So, the division. So, division. Division of the most privileged people on the planet for some 2 ,000 years of human history.

Division between a race of people specifically and specially chosen by God to show forth the light of His goodness and love and mercy to the rest of world.

And instead of light themselves, instead of being light, they were descending into ever -increasing darkness.

And not the kind of darkness that engulfs us when we go down into a cave. Right? When you go down into caves and there's no light and it gets darker and darker and you're looking up.

We're not talking about that. We're talking about spiritual darkness that was literally suffocating the spiritual life out of Israel that eventually split them apart at the seams.

So, we have Saul, then David, then Solomon. Solomon ends up with a divided heart.

He's half -hearted in his devotion to the Lord, eventually winding up. I don't get this at all.

Some, you know, I mean, I don't get this at all. I don't think any of us can get it.

700 wives? How are you going to do that? 300 concubines?

I mean that's 1 ,000 ladies to take care of. Come on. And riches, riches that people can only dream about.

Now, you remember the message of Judges? Imperfect Judges pointing to what?

The perfect Judge. 1 Samuel. God should be king, and men, you love me, right?

God should be king and men should lead, right? 2

Samuel. Know the value of a broken and contrite heart. 1

Kings. Declining kings pointing to the perfect king.

Remember that when you read through this book. Declining kings pointing to the perfect king.

1 Kings. God's people in decline, with ever -increasing darkness and ever -increasing disobedience, with the record of imperfect kings beginning with Solomon, and those imperfect kings getting worse and worse and more and more disobedient to God.

And this account, this record of decline and imperfect kings is given us in order to point us to the perfect king who will never let anyone down, who will never serve

God with half of a heart. And that king is who? King Jesus.

So we're in a river, we're in a kayak, the rapids are fast, and they're all pointing, and we're all headed towards King Jesus.

That's where this is all going. Okay? In the same way that Israel's kings were imperfect and failed to lead

God's people as they were instructed, all of these things, in the same way that the sacrifices never could make full payment for people's sin.

Right? All of this is pointing to the perfect lamb, the perfect king that would take away the sins of the world.

So back in chapter 2. As I said, there's so much. We're just at the scenic overlook.

I'm going to take you and point out the mountaintops that we see. 1

Kings is a two -part book. It's set during Israel's last years as a united kingdom.

And part 1, chapters 1 through 11, Israel united, Israel united. So chapters 1 and 2 is a record of David's final days.

King David, a man after God's own heart. It records his selection of Solomon to succeed him as king.

It chronicles his death. And then it gives this record beginning in chapter 1, verse 10.

It gives this record of Solomon's rise to power.

Verse 10 says... I'm sorry, chapter 2, verse 10. So David rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David.

The period that David reigned over Israel was 40 years. Seven years he reigned in Hebron.

Remember that? We talked about that. The tabernacle was there. And in Jerusalem he reigned 33 years.

Then Solomon sat on the throne of his father David, and his kingdom was firmly established.

And by the way, what's interesting is you find out that his kingdom becomes firmly established by his killing any of his detractors.

His dad, you know, David said, well, this one was trouble, this one was trouble. So you know what Solomon does. Solomon goes out and has him killed.

All right, so his power is solidified. So second, in the first chapters of the book, you read about the very positive aspects of Solomon's character.

And there is a verse you might want to mark in your Bibles because it is really sort of the on -ramp to a huge lesson in this book.

And that's in chapter 3, verse 3. Look carefully at this verse. Solomon loved the

Lord. That's what we should do, right? Come on, church, right?

Right, love the Lord. Walking in the statutes of his father

David, which would be what? The law, God's ways, right? Shouldn't we all be doing that?

Oops. Except, your translation might have the word but, that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places.

Any problems? Come on, he loved the Lord, right? Amen, let's do it.

He walked in the statutes of his father David. That's what we want to do, right? Oops. Oops.

But we dissipate in this one area by sacrificing and offering pagan worship.

In a word, what is that word? If you want to make a mental note, the word is called compromise. The word is called being half -hearted.

The word is not loving the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your strength, just what suits you.

But on the positive side of the ledger, you come to verse 5. At Gibeon, the

Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask, what shall

I give you? Now, I don't know about you, I cannot read that verse ever in however many years it's been.

Can you imagine God visiting you right here? Because Gibeon was where he worshipped. Can you imagine

God visiting you right here this morning and saying, Ask anything you want of me, and I'll give it to you.

What's the first thing that comes to your mind? Well, some of you say a new body. This one's starting to hurt.

Some of you might say, man, I could really use 10, 15 grand. Well, since it's anything, how about a million?

Right? Why not? What does Solomon say? He doesn't ask for riches.

He doesn't ask for a beautiful wife. He doesn't ask for a house. He asks for wisdom to rule over God's people.

By the way, to give you a perspective, Solomon is probably in his late teens when he takes the throne.

So this is early in his life. So in Chapter 4, we learn a little bit about Solomon's reputation he had gained with the people of Israel and those outside of Israel.

You can look at Chapter 5. When you read that, you come to this incredible record of Solomon as a builder.

Remember, Solomon, not David, was chosen by God to build Israel's first temple. He also built palaces.

He built homes for his wives. I guess so, 700. And he built storehouses for his riches.

So the first half of 1 Kings records this story of Solomon's rise to power and then his drifting away from the

Lord. By the way, which started back where? In Chapter 3, where he loved the

Lord, he obeyed the commands, but he also, what? On the side was offering sacrifices over here, right?

Compromise. So in Chapter 9 is where this descent, this drift away from God, where Solomon's love for God begins to grow colder and colder and colder.

He drifts further and further away from the Lord. And there's a very hard but helpful lesson to consider when we're trying to think, okay, how do

I apply what happened to Solomon, how he started so good, how he actually had such a heart for God that when

God says, ask me for anything, the one thing he asked for is wisdom to rule his people, God's people, right?

How does he get from there to 700 wives, 300 concubines, and the wealthiest man probably that ever lived, makes

Bill Gates look like a pauper. Here it is.

I don't know if I put it in your notes. I don't think I had room. Declining devotion to God doesn't happen overnight.

It's a process. Declining devotion to God doesn't happen overnight.

It is a process. Like when we explore a cave and we slowly work our way down into the depths of the cave, descending into spiritual darkness is a process.

Solomon did not wake up one day with 700 wives and 300 concubines. Okay, do you understand that?

You don't just go to bed one night and wake up the next day with 700 wives and 300 concubines.

He didn't go out to his horse stables one day and find thousands of horses.

Oh, wow, look at this. Santa was good. By the way, all of this, in Deuteronomy, kings were not to do.

Kings were to be monogamous. One wife from Israel, not from Egypt.

These things take time. Solomon did not wake up one day in grievous disobedience to the

Lord. It was a process. And what we need to understand is that God's people today, unfortunately, we are prone to the very same process.

Solomon drifted further and further away from this wholehearted devotion of the Lord incrementally, a little at a time, step by step.

His disobedience and the consequence of that disobedience was this ongoing process, in spite of the profound ways in which

God warned him. And if you look at chapter 9, where Dave, so actually very well read, you have this incredible warning.

I've heard your prayer, verse 3, that you have made before me. I have consecrated this house.

Then verse 4, if you walk before me as your father David walked, in the integrity of heart and in uprightness to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and my judgments, then this is what

I'm going to do. Verse 6, but if you or your sons at all turning from following me and do not keep my commandments and my statutes, which

I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them.

By the way, he was already doing that. Did you hear what I just said? He was already doing that with the high places.

He was already doing that with all the wives. See, we always think of idols as little wooden statutes, and we come to church and we go,

I'm not idolatrous. Well, let me tell you something. Idols today are not little statues.

They could be a job, they could be a car, they could be a bank account, they could be a 401K, they could be a lot of things.

I know somebody once, their idol was lots of children. I mean,

I'm all for it. Right? My kids are like, I wish we had brothers, like four or five of them.

Yeah, four or five. No more. I will, verse 7, cut off Israel from the land which

I have given them, and this house which I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight.

Israel will be a proverb and a byword among the peoples. Can you imagine getting a warning like that from God personally?

You just did. Right? This is the

Word of God, living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword, able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of our heart, even down to the dividing of the marrow.

This is for us. God isn't talking to us audibly today. He talks to us here.

Got it? Are we amen and amen? Verse 24.

Look at this. Look at this. Just what? Ten verses later? But Pharaoh's daughter came up from the city of David to her house which

Solomon had built for her. Whoops. A foreign wife?

In addition to multiple wives, a foreign wife was specifically prohibited by God. And it wasn't because God didn't want the king to be happy, because God told in Deuteronomy this all -knowing

God, he knew what a foreign wife, a wife not an Israelite, could and would do to a man.

Over time, Solomon actually breaks every single command given in Deuteronomy 17 for kings.

How about that? Why does

God want Christians to be equally yoked? Marry a

Christian. Marry a solid Christian. Amen? Now, you're not going to find a perfect wife or husband, because as soon as you find them, right?

Come on. You're not going to find a perfect church, because as soon as you find it, guess what?

You're there. You like that? Compromise, material prosperity, horses, gold, silver, 700 wives, 300 concubines, all of this toxic mixture turned

Solomon's heart away from his devotion to God to a devotion to idols and other gods.

And you come to chapter 11, verse 41. And you come to the end of Solomon's life.

Now, the rest of the Acts of Solomon, all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the

Acts of Solomon? And the period that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all of Israel was 40 years.

Then Solomon rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his David. And Rehoboam, his son, reigned in his place.

So that's the first half of 1 Kings. One king, Solomon. Remember, under his leadership,

Israel's spiritual temperature declines further on its way down to its fall.

And when we get to 2 Kings, which I'm not sure when, because we've got Christmas coming, and I have the elder's blessing to do a couple of messages on the virgin birth of Christ, which

I'm looking forward to, doing some Christmas messages. I mean, we need to be celebrating the birth of Christ.

We need to be celebrating the Gospel. Every time I study for one of these messages, what a downer this book is.

Man, beat myself up some more. 2

Kings is worse. Decline, ever -increasing darkness, until the

United Kingdom rips apart and divides ten tribes to the north and two tribes to the south. And that's where chapter 12 picks up.

The second half is devoted to the divided kingdom. The nation of Israel, and I can't emphasize this enough, because you get a disconnect.

You think, oh, this country, these people, they are God's covenant chosen people like the church is today.

So you have to relate the Old Testament in the context of the church, how we are as believers in order to get traction in the

Old Testament, you've got to make that connection. You have to. They're not

Christians in the sense that we are, because they are looking forward to Christ. Abraham is looking forward to Christ, by faith looking forward to Christ.

They were always looking forward to, the true believers in Israel were always looking forward to Christ, to the

Messiah by faith, and God saved them that way, the same way He saves us. But to get the traction of what in the world is going on here, you've got to understand

He's dealing with this set -apart covenant people that we are to be. We are to be light and salt like they were to be light and salt.

Do you understand that? That's what Jesus is talking about in the Sermon on the Mount. So we have this special chosen people.

They're intended to be light in a dark world. They're split apart at the seams. And it's right here, as we wade into the streams, in terms of trying to understand the

Bible, that things all of a sudden, people just get confused.

I can deal with Solomon, I get it. But now, when we get to Chapter 12, and you start looking at all the kings, look at your notes.

Look at all the kings, underneath Rehoboam for Judah. And look at all the kings.

For the northern 10 tribes, Israel. Look at all those kings. And you start reading into this section, you get into 2

Kings, and you're like, who's what? Jeroboam this? Zechariah? I thought he was a prophet.

And pretty soon, you just get so confused. And all of a sudden, the country of Israel is now just the northern 10 tribes called

Israel. You can get confused. One moment, when you read 12 through the end of this book, and you get to 2

Kings, one minute, God is referring to Judah the tribe, the tribe, one of the 12 tribes.

And literally, three verses later, he might be referring to Judah, the southern kingdom. And you're just sitting there shaking your head, going, what in the world is going on?

So, there is a good way to think about this, okay? There's four key parts, four key figures, in this latter part of Israel's history.

The first one is King Rehoboam. King Rehoboam. He is the first ruler of the southern kingdom, and he's dealt with in chapter 12 through chapter 15.

And one of the key events in Rehoboam's reign is a political decision that he makes almost soon as he becomes king.

He basically ignores the advice and counsel of the elders of Israel that lived during Solomon's reign.

Regarding the effects of Solomon's heavy tax burden on the people, and instead, he listens to the advice of his young friends, and he taxes them even more than his father taxed them.

And in response to this, the ten northern tribes reject Rehoboam's authority over them.

Verse 12, chapter 12. So, Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day as the king had directed, saying, come back to me the third day.

Then the king answered the people roughly and rejected the advice which the elders had given him. That's not a very smart thing for a ruler to do, by the way.

Sound familiar? And he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, saying, my father made your yoke heavy, but I'm going to 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.

Pay attention to that verse, verse 15. The king did not listen to the people, for the turn of events was from the

Lord, that he might fulfill his word which the Lord had spoken by Ahijah the

Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Do you have that verse marked in your

Bible? This happened. These events were from the

Lord that he might fulfill his word. Now, is that not the price of admission today?

Come on. You know, whether we know it or not, whether we see it or not,

I remember a recent presidential election not too many years past where a certain individual was elected to the

White House and we had the United States of America in a total uproar.

We're still here. I'm not talking about the current president. I'm talking years ago. The whole country thought that it was the end of the world.

Beloved, you want a biblical perspective on 2020 and the presidential election and everything else that's going on?

What's it say? The turn of events was from the Lord. And I'm going to tell you,

God's not worried about the country of the United States of America. It doesn't matter whether it's

China, Taiwan, North Korea. Do you understand? What is God concerned about?

People getting saved and His people. I want to encourage you this morning.

It doesn't matter who's in that Oval Office, and it doesn't matter what happens. Please, listen to me.

God is at work, and we can read it over and over. And it's working for our good.

As bad as it might get, it's for our good. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?

Do you believe it? Don't listen to John. Listen to God.

These events were from the Lord. Verse 16,

Now when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, What share have we in David?

We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel, speaking of the ten tribes to the north.

Now see to your own house, O David, Judah, and Benjamin. So Israel departed to their tents.

They packed up the ten tribes. But Rehoboam reigned over the children of Israel who dwelt in the cities of Judah, the southern kingdom.

Then King Rehoboam sent Adaron, who was in charge of the revenue. But all Israel stoned him with stones, and he died.

Hey, the IRS showed up at the door, and they killed him. Therefore King Rehoboam mounted his chariot in haste to flee to Jerusalem.

So Israel, not the entire nation, the ten northern tribes, that's most of the time when you see the word

Israel from here on, it's going to be referring to the ten northern tribes, has been a rebellion against the house of David, the tribe of Judah, from which

Jesus the Messiah would come to this day. One incredibly poor decision to increase

Israel's tax burden in just a few days tears down what it took Saul, David, and Solomon 120 years to build.

Rehoboam ruled over the southern kingdom called Judah for 17 years, and then he dies. So you have four players.

I'm going to hit on them really quick because basically the last part of 1 Kings kind of hinges off these.

The next one is Jeroboam. Jeroboam. He is the first ruler of the northern kingdom.

If you look at your little chart, his name is at the top. Jeroboam.

Okay? Remember the northern kingdom from here on into 2 Kings very often is going to be referred to most of the time when you see the word

Israel. It's not talking about all the people. It's talking about the ten northern tribes. Okay? And the record of Jeroboam picks up here in chapter 12, goes all the way through verse 15.

There's two outstanding events that set the course for Jeroboam's life and the direction of the northern kingdom.

It's the only two I have time to get through. Okay? Because I went on a couple of rabbit trails. Number one,

Jeroboam embraces idolatry. So under point B on the divided kingdom, the first thing

Jeroboam does is he embraces idolatry. So one of the first things that Rehoboam does is what?

Increase taxes. Right? One of, so that's the material realm. Jeroboam, on the other hand, his first major failure is in the spiritual realm.

He establishes an idolatrous system of worship so that the people of the northern kingdom, listen, will not have to travel south to Jerusalem in order to worship.

Verse 25. Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim and dwelt there.

Also he went out from there and he built Penuel. And Jeroboam said in his heart, now the kingdom of David, now the kingdom may return to the house of David.

If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn back to their

Lord, Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they will kill me and go back to Rehoboam, king of Judah.

Therefore the king asked advice. He made two calves of gold and said to the people, is it too much for you to go up Jerusalem?

It's such a long walk. So here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.

And he set up one in Bethel and the other he put in Dan. Now this thing became a sin.

For the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan. He made shrines on the high places and made priests from every class of people who are not the sons of Israel.

Now, you know that old saying, there's nothing new under the sun? Okay. What's going on?

I don't have time to develop this. But one of the things that's going on in the church today has its roots right here.

You ready for this? This is kind of cool. There's at least two characteristics of the false system of worship that provide just a lot of insight into what's been going on in the church throughout church history.

For one, listen to me. Jeroboam's system of worship was based on convenience.

Hey, I don't want to have to make that long trip down to Jerusalem. Right? So, it was a system that was based on convenience.

Verse 28 says, "...therefore the king asked advice. He said to the people, is it too much for you to take that long trip over there?

Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt." So, what's interesting here is even though what

Jeroboam did was condemned by God, it was clearly idolatrous. This fact was overshadowed by the reality that the people wouldn't have to travel so far to worship.

I'm really looking for the final fallout for COVID on the church, because I just wonder how many people, now that they know they can somehow worship watching a live stream, will ever go back to church again.

We know at least one family, that's my guess for sure, that's what they're going to do. It's so, to get up,

I mean we even joked about it in our home the first time when the first lockdown first happened and we turned it on.

We stayed in our pajamas and we had coffee. And I'm not going to tell you who, but somebody said, this is kind of cool.

I got my slippers on. I got my blankie. I mean seriously, right?

But you know what? I said, I'm the dad, right? No, we're going to sing like they're singing. Come on, let's sing.

So we're standing in the living room, you know, and then it only took a few weeks where, why stand? We can just sit on the sofa.

I'm serious. Where is this going? In order, listen, in order to keep from drifting, in order to guard our first love, it requires that God's word always, always, always, always, always, always, always takes precedence over convenience.

God's word always takes precedent over convenience. Second, not only was

Jeroboam's false and idolatrous system of worship, a system of convenience, it was also a system based on compromise.

Compromised. It was a merger of false and idolatrous Baal worship with Israel's worship of Jehovah.

I don't even have time to develop this. I can't even believe this. He started his own priesthood.

I got to figure out how to cut this part. All I can tell you is when you read chapters 13 and 14,

God said, enough is enough. And he executes judgment. And that's all of 13 and 14.

So a strong warning against idolatry, against decline, against turning from the light of God's word to the darkness of paganism.

I don't know if you saw recently. I have to say this. Recently a video went viral of a woman pastor praying for the election.

It was right out of the playbook of a demonic worship service. Did you hear what

I just said? A woman pastor. It went viral. It's right out of a demon worship service.

You see it. What you're seeing is what happens in Hindu worship and demonic, satanic worship.

Compromise, convenience. So you have in chapters 13, 14, you have the

Jeroboam's judgment. Then you go this further decline in the northern kingdom, 15 and 16, this long line.

If you look at your list that followed Rehoboam and Jeroboam, Menelik, Abijam, Asa, Nadab, Ela, Zimri, and so on.

And then we get to chapter 17, which is just an amazing high point in this book. 17 through 22, if you want to look at them quickly, we're dealing with the prophet

Elijah. A lot of people, when they're first studying this book, they're confused.

Elijah and Elisha. Elijah and Elisha. They're two different prophets.

Okay. Darkness and wickedness had become rampant in Israel. And God meets this wickedness with extraordinary measures by means of an extraordinary prophet by the name of Elijah.

And you come in chapter 17 to God's judgment on Ahab. So we're dealing now with the northern kingdom, and God is going to judge.

Okay. Elijah appears on the scene. He just shows up. It's not like he's born in Bethlehem, and raised by godly parents.

One moment he's there, and one moment he's not there, and the next moment there he is. Okay. And he strides into the wicked king

Ahab. You don't do what he did. You don't go walking into the palace, and pronouncing a drought on the land.

Look what he does in verse 1. Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the

Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be no dew, nor rain these years, except at my word.

Now what's interesting, and this is all the stuff that you, it's so much fun to unpack this stuff.

But what's interesting is Ahab, along with his wife Jezebel, were responsible for increasing the worship of Baal in the northern kingdom.

So it started with Jeroboam, but they ramped it up. Okay. Jeroboam started it.

It got worse. Ahab, under Ahab, it gets even worse. And do you know what

Baal was the god, little god, over? Fertility in the fields.

So when you needed more crops or more vibrant copse, you know who you prayed to? Crops. Did I say copse?

Yeah. Crops, you prayed to Baal. Okay. He was the god of fertility that made things grow.

So the drought showed God's power over Baal and other gods with a little g.

And when you get to chapter 18, you have this incredible spiritual darkness begin to fall. It's detailed.

Look at that. The whole chapter 18 deal -tills with that long chapter, 46 verses, right?

So imperfect kings failing to love God and obey Him, declining and getting worse, all 42 of the kings pointing to the perfect king.

Jezebel, King Ahab's wife, had killed all the true prophets of God. You'll read about that.

Listen, that were left in the northern kingdom. Only Elijah and 100 other prophets and an official in Ahab's court named

Obadiah, they all hid. And then you come to chapter 18, verse 20.

You come to this incredible event that takes place on Mount Carmel between the false prophets of Baal and Elijah, the true prophet of Jehovah.

Elijah gathers all the people of Israel to Mount Carmel and he forces them to make a decision, verse 20.

So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel at Elijah's insistence.

And Elijah came to all the people and said, how long will you falter between two opinions? If the

Lord is God, follow Him, but if Baal, follow him. But the people answered him not a word.

Didn't that happen when we're confronted by sin? Of our sin? Which way are you going to go?

Are you going to keep going that way or are you going to go this way? Things get real quiet. They must either choose for Baal or for Jehovah.

They cannot continue to hold on to both. And Elijah is willing to put God to the test publicly.

He gives the prophets of Baal an opportunity. I don't have time to read it all, to make their God known. When their

God fails to answer in the crisis, Elijah calls on God to reveal himself by fire. The fire falls down from heaven, consumes the sacrifice.

The prophets of Baal are slain. The rain comes, signifying the end of the drop. So it's hard to imagine.

Listen, this is big. The spiritual decline of the northern kingdom had taken a toll.

And in the northern kingdom, by count in God's word, there's only 7 ,000 true worshipers left.

Chapter 19, verse 18. Yet God is talking.

I have reserved 7 ,000 in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.

I want you to understand something and try to have a perspective here that's very helpful. We're talking about a million -plus

Israelites. A million -plus.

How many true believers are left? 7 ,000. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7...

Beloved, please listen to me. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7, Many will say to me on that day,

Lord, Lord, didn't I cast out demons? Didn't I do this? Didn't I go to church?

Didn't I usher? Didn't I run the sound? Didn't I mow the lawn?

And Jesus is going to say, Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. You never knew me. 7 ,000.

So first kings, Solomon, Rehoboam, Jeroboam, Elijah, and the book pretty much closes out with King Ahab and the rest of his story.

Go to Luke 18 as we close. Luke 18. Luke 18.

Hebrews 10 .4 says, It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

So we're in the New Testament, right? In Hebrews chapter 10. And it says, it is not possible, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

You see, the Old Testament sacrifices under the law were ineffective apart from faith.

Okay? Number one. And number two, they were not permanent in nature.

They had to be done over and over every single time you got mad at your kids, you had to go get a lamb, speaking from personal experience, go out, get a lamb, perfect lamb or goat, and you had to take it in to the priest.

Every time a child disobeyed, a true child, a true Israelite disobeyed a parent, they had to go back out.

Okay, I gotta go get one of these lambs. Come up and show up at the tabernacle or the temple and do the sacrifice, cut it yourself, spill the blood every single time.

Right? But in Christ, that is now ongoing. All we do now is confess our sins.

He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us, purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1 .9, okay?

So the lesson and message of 1 King. Imperfect kings declining, getting worse and worse, all 42 of them pointing to the perfect king, the perfect lamb of God that came to take away the sins of the world.

Do you know this king? Do you know this king personally in a real way by faith?

You see, one of the common denominators when you take the time to read all of the Old Testament, you should do it every year.

Really, it just doesn't take that long. I mean, they estimate 60 to 70 hours to read through the

Bible. It doesn't take that long. When the lockdown first happened in March, we're gonna say, okay, let's, you know,

I'm the man, you know, I'm the dad. Okay, let's sit down, let's set a goal. We're gonna read through all of the

Old Testament during the lockdown. Everybody looked at me.

And I looked at me and said, what kind of nutcase are you? We're gonna do these great things, you know, because we can't go anywhere, right?

You remember that first In -N -Out Burger you had after the lockdown? I do, I'll never forget it.

So the common denominator running through the whole Old Testament is the incredible danger that compromise and partial obedience opposes to the child of God.

From Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, to the wicked king of Ahab, it was a time span of less than 80 years.

And we're talking, we don't know for sure, over a million people in the ten tribes that went to the north.

And God says there's only 7 ,000 of that million that did not bow their knee to Baal.

Now, Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, 1, but know this, in the last days, perilous times will come.

For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self -control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.

Does that sound like the days in which we live? In Matthew 24, talking about the last days,

Jesus warned that because lawlessness is increased, the love of many will wax cold.

Beloved, would you look with me at Luke 18, verse 6. The Lord said, this is a parable, hear what the unjust judge said, and shall

God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him though he bears long with them?

I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the

Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on earth?

Will he find 7 ,000? Friends, what happened to Israel? God's people in the

Old Testament is a warning about what has been happening to and is happening to the church. It's a warning to what's happening to people like you and me.

May we, by God's grace, purpose to daily take up our cross and follow

Christ. Amen? Let's pray. Would you join me in quietly in your own heart before Victor comes to close us in a great closing song?

Would you go to the Lord in prayer and ask God how you might apply the truth of his word today that you heard to your life?

As scary as it might be, as scary as it might be to ask him,

God, what are the idols in my life? What am I worshiping and serving above you?

What are the high places in my life? I say I love you, but I've got these high places where I burn incense.

Take a few moments to ask the Lord about these things. Father, we thank you that you're a loving

God, merciful, grace upon grace. Help us,

Father God, to meditate and feed upon the truths of your word that we heard today,

God. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen? This last song is a good song to remind us who's really in charge.

So stand together with me as we sing Rejoice!

The Lord is King. piano plays

Rejoice! The Lord is King Your Lord and King adore

Rejoice! Give thanks and sing And triumph ever

Lift up your voice, rejoice

Again I say rejoice The Lord our

Savior reigns The God of truth and love

Our saints He took His seat I say rejoice

His kingdom cannot fail He rules our earth and heaven

The keys of death and hell Are to our Savior's ears

Again I say rejoice Rejoice!

The glorious hope Our Lord the Judge shall come

His servants up to Him Rejoice!

I say rejoice

And what do we say, rejoice? Because we know who's in charge, right? You are dismissed.