Okay. We're going to cover the majority of chapter 12 today, God willing. And if you remember where we left off, Solomon was dead. He still is. All the way dead. Sleeping with his fathers. And naturally, the kingdom is going to pass to his son. And, uh, but we know based on the prophecy that God gave Solomon and that Ahijah gave Jeroboam that that kingdom was going to be ripped from his hands. Uh, and then he would be left with two tribes while 10 tribes, uh, were separate. And so this just, uh, is the prophecy being fulfilled, uh, as we start out. So Solomon's death leaves a gaping hole in Israel's leadership structure, which I think is oftentimes the case. When great leaders pass away, a lot of times they're very hard to replace. I'm a sports guy, so you see it in sports programs sometimes. When a legend retires, you really don't want to be that next guy to step in. It's really hard to live up to that same level that was there. Even if you're pretty good, it's hard to live up to, you know, it's hard to follow a John Wooden at UCLA or, you know, a Bill Jackson in Chicago or something like that. So that's kind of what we've got here. David Son, this is the man who gave Israel political stability. Uh, wealth like they had never seen. Remember all the gold and silver that we talked about? Prestige, uh, religious unity. He built a temple where all of Israel came to worship. That's the first time that's happened since the tabernacle out in the wilderness. Uh, and he is dead. And so the question is, who is going to be able to fill his shoes? And, well, the answer is nobody's going to be able to fill his shoes, but there are going to be some people that try. So they've already told us what's going to occur. God's going to continue to honor the covenant with David. Because he chose David and because he chose Jerusalem, that's going to go on. But Solomon's son is only going to have a two-tribe kingdom. Because of Solomon's idolatry, Jeroboam will rule the other ten tribes. So we already know the identity of the other king, as God already told us through Ahijah. And the Lord has sent these infallible promises through Ahijah the prophet. So the predictions must come true. Remember, that's the whole idea with a prophet. Prophets don't tell things that don't come true. If you do, you're not a prophet, and you are summarily stoned to death. So anytime you see these guys, hacks on TV, that are prophets so-and-so, and they're making predictions, and it doesn't come true, They're not really prophets. And if they were in the Old Testament, they would have been dragged down the street and stoned to death. I'm not saying we need to do that now, but I'm just saying, they're not prophets. So we know it's going to come true, but the question is, how will all this fall out? And then God is going to orchestrate this whole thing. So let's look at our text. So Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. And as soon as Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it, for he was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon, remember that from last chapter, then Jeroboam returned from Egypt. And they sent and called him. And Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, your father made our yoke heavy. Now, therefore, lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you. If you just take it easy on us, we will serve you. And he said to them, Go away from me for three days, and then come again to me. So the people went away. Then King Rambam took counsel with the old men who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, How do you advise me to answer this people? So he goes to the older men first. And they said to him, If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever. But he abandoned that counsel that the old man gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him. And he said to them, what do you advise that we answer this people who have said to him? Lighten the yoke that your father put on us. And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, Thus shall you speak to this people who said to you, your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us. Thus shall you say to them, my little finger is thicker than my father's thighs. And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions. So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day. As the king said, come to me again the third day. And the king answered the people harshly and forsaking the counsel that the old man had given him. He spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, my father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions. So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word, which the Lord spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. So not a great decision on Rehoboam's part. So just to give you a picture here, it doesn't seem that there's anybody rivaling Rehoboam for the throne. There's no other son that's trying to get it or any kind of outsider. It passes to Rehoboam. There doesn't seem to be any controversy with it. But it seems that the relationship with the northern tribes is a little bit shaky. And it was with Solomon towards the last 10 years, and now it's kind of shaky. So notice Rehoboam actually goes into northern territory for this meeting. I think that's important. It shows you that he knows he needs to go up there and make peace with him because there's some tension. So he goes up to Shechem. Shechem's about 30 miles north of Jerusalem. It was kind of the original that's where Abraham was That's where he kind of settled in when he when he came into the promised land the first time he sacrificed for the Lord there So Shechem is a pretty important city as far as the northern kingdom goes and overall with Israel And so he goes up there to consolidate the control kind of remember when David consolidated everything they came to him at Hebron and Rehoboam goes to their home turf to try to figure this out. So whatever his mindset is, we don't really know. Is this a gesture of goodwill? Is it just political scheming? It's kind of hard to see Rehoboam's heart before this. We know he kind of goes with the young men after the advice, but for some reason he heads north because he thinks that's what he needs to do to get this piece going. At the same time, Jeroboam is coming back from Egypt. Remember, he fled to Egypt before because Solomon was trying to kill him. And that would make most people leave town. So he heads out. And so the assembly is occurring on his home turf. It's just north of Ephraim, so that's his place. And he doesn't fear Rehoboam. He feared Solomon. So think about that as far as the respect and you know, fear level that Jeroboam has for Rehoboam. He stayed out of the whole country when Solomon was king. When Rehoboam becomes king, he waltzes right back in and goes up and talks to him. So I think that tells you a little bit about how Jeroboam feels about him. And plus, again, he's got the word from the Lord that you're going to be the king of the northern tribe. So that would broker a little bit of confidence in me to make that meeting happen. All right, so once home, he's chosen to approach Rehoboam. They say, Jeroboam's back. All right, well, he's our representative. Go talk to Rehoboam and talk to him. And so he goes and says the yoke was heavy. The big thing here is conscripted labor. Because remember, what was Solomon using the people to work on? Major projects all over the place. Major projects, we've got the temple, we've got his palace, we've got a wall, we've got cities all over, Megiddo, Gezer, Hazor, sending them all over creation, you know, in a sense, to make them build things for Solomon. And so they're saying that's too much. Cut back on the labor. Stop forcing us to build all your projects, and we'll serve you. That's really the sticking point in this negotiation. And so if we look at some of this stuff, remember, when Solomon came to power, this was all there was of the city of David, right here. He rebuilt this down here. He built this entire wall system. He built the temple and the temple mount. He built his palace right here in the al-Fayl. So all this is new construction. Remember, it triples the size of the city of Jerusalem. And that's just the Jerusalem building projects. We're not even talking about the stuff that's in other places, in the walled cities and the gated cities and things that are going on. So it has been a long 40 years of building under Solomon. And the northern kingdoms want a break. We're far from home. We need a break. Because remember, to build this temple mount, it's a knob. Remember, we kind of talked about that. Mount Moriah is kind of a knob. So you don't just stick a temple on top of the knob. You have to build a platform. And that's filled dirt. And that's everything you can imagine dragging down. Remember, Solomon had no chiseling done on site, because it was a holy site. So we're bringing rocks and boulders and stones and cedars and everything else down from the north to build this temple mount, not to mention wall systems and everything else, and his own palace, and a palace for Pharaoh's daughter, and a palace full of cedars, and you know, this guy had a lot of stuff. So the people are tired of that. So they're asked to lighten the load. So he goes to two people, young Clint Eastwood and old Clint Eastwood. I thought it would work well. I have good visualization, right? So he asked for three days. Give me three days. Let me consider it. Then you come back and I'll give you the answer. So he's going to go to his two groups of people, his elders and his peers, those guys that he grew up with. And I think we can all agree with maybe a lot of times we took advice of people we grew up with when we shouldn't have taken the advice of the people that we grew up with and should have listened to those elders a little bit more. So, the elders come in, okay? The reason why we got Kenny Rogers there is because the elders know when to hold them, and they know when to fold them. And they know when to walk away, and they know when to run. Childhood's just rushing back to me. That's pretty good, you got it. So, they tell them to give the people good words, you know? acquiesce a little bit. Tell them what they want to hear. And if you'll serve the people, they'll serve you. Imagine that. If you're a king, you serve the people, they're going to serve you. You have their best interests in mind, they'll serve you. So they're savvy. They're political veterans. They know exactly what the young king is facing. They see, all right, this is bad. This is potential for everything to fall apart. So rev on. Do the right thing. Listen to the people. Listen to the crowd. But not today. He's not going to do that. So Solomon is going to reject the elder's advice. And he's going to listen to his peers. And the peers are basically saying, you've got to be a bully. Okay? Just like Johnny and the Karate Kid. You have to be a bully. They're not going to respect you if you don't put your foot down. If you don't stand up to them, if you don't kind of be the big guy on the block, you're going to get pushed around. And you're the king, and you don't deserve to be pushed around. So stand up to them. They're young, they're ambitious, they're proud. Maybe they're even a little bit insecure. You know, a lot of times bullies tend to get their braggadocio from insecurity. Whatever it is, they say, you can't put up, you're the king. And we're finally in power with you. Stand up there and make more stuff for us. Let's get some advantages here. And so servant leadership is not going to work. That's what the elders said. The other guys say, you've got to be a bully. You've got a large kingdom. It's a diverse kingdom. You've got to make them respect you. So make them bow down to you. So that's the two sides of advice. So I don't know if anybody's ever seen Bull Durham. It's a baseball movie, and there's this young pitcher, Duke Lelouch there on the left, and he's kind of a young, wild pitcher, and they bring in Kevin Costner's character, Crash Davis, to come in and mentor this young, wild talent that's a one-in-a-million prospect. And so he's finally making an influence on him. He's giving him some good advice. And the pitcher's pitching a shutout one game. And they're down towards the last inning, and he gives them a sign for a fastball, and the pitcher shakes them off. And he even makes a mention to the batter. He's like, you know, this guy's pitching a two-hit shutout, and he's waving me off here in the last inning. And so he goes out to talk to him, and he says, you know, why are you waving me off? And he said, well, I want to throw heat. I want to throw the fastball. He said, this guy's a first-ball fastball hitter. You know, you can't throw the heat. And he says, well, I want to announce my presence with authority. What does that even mean? You want to announce your presence with authority. And he says, fine, throw the heat. And he goes back behind the plate, and he tells the guy, fastball's coming. And the guy hits it out of the park. You know, it's, you know, don't, listen to the advice of the elders. It's been working very well for you so far. When you try to go off on your own and do the young, wild, braggadocio thing, it doesn't work real well for you, okay? You know, he says, throw some ground balls. Strikeouts are fascist, and ground balls are more democratic. So just, you know, you don't have to strike everybody out. You don't have to announce your presence with authority every time you come in. They will respect you if you do the other things right. Alright, so, I know I'm in a lot of pictures this week, but my little finger is thicker than my father's thighs. So he comes up with this little slogan, this little proverbial sort of thing, and you know, it's one of those things where you know guys think they're funny and they'll say something and they want like the high five and nobody's there to give them a high five because the people don't like his little witty thing here. Solomon promises greater force, greater taxation. Anytime I get Tom Brady, it's always fun too. We'd get him a Coke, but they're already flat. But Solomon promises greater force, more taxation, more oppression. He says, you think Solomon was bad. You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait till I'm in power. I'm the big man on campus. And this is going to end the whole kingdom. So again, God orchestrates this whole thing. But Rehoboam doesn't make a very good decision. One of the commentators I read said, Rarebone chooses slogans over wisdom, machismo over servitude. He wants to be the politician. He wants to kind of have the cool last word, one-liner kind of thing, and it's going to totally blow up in his face. He tries to be cool, and it's not so cool. So it's ultimately going to cost him this United Kingdom that David and Solomon took 80 years to build is going to go away in three days' time. It's just going to totally fall apart. Yeah, so Revlon delivers the harsh message. The text tells us that the king did not listen to the people. His lack of judgment resulted in this turn of affairs, which at the same time was brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word. So this falls apart very quickly. Now, let's see what the people do in response. And when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, what portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel. Look now to your own house, David. So Israel went to their tents, but Rehoboam reigned over the people of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah. Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, or Adoniram, who was taskmaster over the forced labor, and all Israel stoned him to death with stones. And King Rehoboam hurried to mount his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. That didn't go well. So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day. And when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. There was none that followed the house of David but the tribe of Judah only. When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, 180,000 chosen warriors to fight against the house of Israel to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. But the word of God came to Shemiah, the man of God, another prophet, Say 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 Thus says the Lord you shall not go up or fight against your relatives the people of Israel Every man returned to his home for this thing is from me So they listened to the word of the Lord and went home again according to the word of the Lord So the people obviously reject Rehoboam. They deny any responsibility to David's dynasty. Remember, again, there was a problem when David came to power of them submitting to David's dynasty. They finally do after seven years of David and Hebron, and they're under David for 33 years. They're under Solomon for 40 years. And now they're saying, we're not part of you anymore. Let David deal with David. And when they say David, they mean Judah. You southern guys, it's north and south. We've kind of got a bit of a civil war going on here. We've got Yankees and Rebs kind of thing. You have your way of life down there. We have our way of life up here. We're going to stay separate from you. And it really is like that. If you look at the way lifestyle would be in Judah and in Israel and northern Israel, terrain's different. The style of what they would do is different. A lot more agriculture, easier agriculture in the north, difficult agriculture in the south. You're living on a mountain ridge route in the south and down in towards desert and wilderness. It's just a different climate. It's like comparing Florida and Massachusetts. They're just very different. Sure, we're all Americans, but those are very different places to live. And so they have different ways of life, different ways of doing things. So in just a few days, one incredibly poor decision tears down what it took David Solomon 80 years to build. Another one of my commentators said, how much easier it is to break up what belongs together than it is to restore what is broken. I thought that was pretty. Pretty deep stuff there, because I think you could apply that to a lot of things. You could throw marriage into that equation, throw family into that equation. Once you've broken something, it's a lot harder to put it back together again. And that's what we see now from here on out. Now that this has been broken, you can't just go and put a Band-Aid on it. This has been torn apart. It's going to take major surgery to get this thing back together again, to restore it. And it's not going to go well for either kingdom in the long run. So look at what the Israelites know their scripture. Because in 1 Kings 12, this is what they say, what portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel. Look now to your own house, David. Remember back in 2 Samuel 20, it says, now there happened to be there a worthless man whose name was Sheba, the son of Vickery of Benjamite. And he blew the trumpet and said, we have no portion in David. We have no inheritance of the son of Jesse, every man to his tent, so Israel." That was a guy that rebelled against David during his reign. So, just like he said, to your tent, so Israel, they quote the exact same thing up in the Northern Kingdom, and the kingdom is split. Okay, so, Rehoboam probably sees to the error of his ways in the sense that, okay, this is not good. I want to rule the entire kingdom. I don't want this kingdom to be split. So he makes a last ditch effort. He sends a dorm or Adoniram, depending on what translation that you have. And he's been the head of the forced labor program. So this is interesting. The reason why they're rebelling, the main reason why they're upset, is because of the forced labor. So who's the guy I'm going to send to talk some sense to them? The guy that's in charge of that program that's been forcing them to work for Solomon. Probably the last guy they want to see. Again, not a great choice. And of course, we don't know if this was an attempt at compromise. We don't know if he sent Adoram in there to say, you guys better get in line or we're going to come down here and crack the whip. What's he sending? We don't know what Adoram says to him. But whatever he says to him, they respond with a stoning. So they stone the representative to death. And Rehoboam says, I think it's time to head back to Jerusalem. I don't need to hang out here anymore. The people are obviously upset, and it has escalated quickly. So whatever it was that he was sending Adoram in there for, it backfires because the people do not respond well, and they kill his representative, and Adonai or Jeroboam is forced to flee for his life. So now Jeroboam is made king over Israel. And remember what happens here is Rehoboam goes back home, and he goes, I'm going to get this kingdom back. He's not ready to give up yet. He heads back home, and he gets an army together. And he's going to take his troops back up north, and he plans to take back the northern kingdom by force. So he believes it's rightfully his. He has no reason to think that it's not. Remember, he hasn't gotten the, I don't know, I wonder if Solomon told him of the prophecy or not. We don't really know how much information he has, but he seems to be intent on keeping this whole kingdom, and that's why he builds his army. And at this point, we've got a new prophetic voice. This guy is Shemaiah, the man of God. Anytime you hear the man of God here for the rest of the way in Kings, it's talking about a prophet. It's kind of the general way they're gonna refer to a prophet. And he tells the king, you need to stay home. You don't need to go do this. In the meantime, Jeroboam is elected or appointed king in the north. and they are united behind him. Since God orchestrated this split, to attack would be to oppose God himself. Because that's the reason that Shemaiah says is, don't attack your brothers and sisters in the north, because God says he did this. This was his plan. It's from him. So if you go attack, you are attacking God himself. It's the same reason why when you, you'll hear conversations about revolutions and things like that. The reason why there weren't more revolutions throughout the years in like Western Europe is because if you remember your, you know, your world history classes and stuff, they believed in the divine right of kings. And that, anyhow, they took that idea that God appoints leaders. Well, obviously, we believe that. But the divine right of kings was they were pretty much second to God. They were right up there with God. And if you oppose the king, therefore, you're opposing God. And so if the church is that main part of society, which it was, the last thing I would ever want to be is to be excommunicated. If I'm outside of that church, not only do I lose eternal stuff, I lose social stuff and everything else. And so I have to be very careful about opposing a king who has a divine right. Does that make sense? So that's why I think you don't see as many revolutions through the 15th, 16th, 1700s, because people are very wary about opposing what God has established. And it's why sometimes you'll hear, we did a podcast a while back on it, but a discussion on the biblical nature of revolutions. Can you defend revolutions from a biblical perspective? And I'll tell you, it becomes very difficult. Even in the United States, where we all are very happy that we had that revolution against Great Britain, it's hard to find a biblical mandate for that revolution. I don't know if anybody has any thoughts on that. But we did it. I think we did it the best that it could have come out because we had a Judeo-Christian framework that we wanted to put in place. You want to see what happens when you don't have a biblical framework in place? Look at France. And France rebels 13 years after us, and people are getting their heads chopped off in the streets. It's just murderous rampage for 10 years in France. Because they were the existentialists. They were the ones without gods. And what happens when you do a revolution without God? Well, you've got everybody wanting their own power, and you get the reign of terror. And we didn't have that here because we actually had some spiritual backing to it. And I'm not saying every one of those guys were born-again Christians, but they at least had a framework of biblical morality in establishing the government. Well, their perspective was you can't trust anybody. Because all men are sinners, as opposed to the French Enlightenment, which was that we're basically good. Yeah, I think that's the key. We understood that men were fallen and sinners, and the French believed that man is basically good. And getting better. Yeah, and that probably became very apparent, but that's not the case after the guillotine started falling and all that. You know, the guillotine was still legal in France until 1977. It really is. I mean, it's ugly, but it is a humane way to kill somebody. It ends pretty quickly for you. I don't know how many times I used it, but it was legal until 1977. That's kind of weird when you think about it. The only book I've ever read that really tries to make this great argument about why revolution had to happen and was not erected was The Light and the Glory. Peter Marshall's book. That makes a really good argument. The whole book is centered on we had to do this. We just got our day. Yeah, well, certainly God ordains splits and rebellions. So yeah, yeah, uses ungodly people to accomplish godly things. So why is it big deal is what we're talking about. He says for this thing is from me. So we are now in 930 BC. Remember, David comes into power about 1010, Solomon's about 970, we're now at about 930. The exodus was back in the 1400s, so to kind of give you a framework of how this is moving along. And so we'll have 930 until 722, when Assyria comes in and takes the northern kingdom. And then 586, ultimately, between 605 and 586, when the southern kingdom goes. So we're down to the last 350 years or so of Israel's existence as they know it, until Babylon comes along, Assyria and Babylon, and takes them out. So, one little note, nerdy note for the day at the end. The tribe of Benjamin. The tribe of Benjamin is included here where he gets 180,000 men from Benjamin. Apparently, Benjamin had kind of a split loyalty. It's kind of a border state, you know, if we're thinking Civil War kind of stuff. It's Kentucky. It's West Virginia. There's some slave people and some free people. There's a little bit of a mix going on there. And so the ones that were closer to the north tended to be more northern. The ones that were closer to the south tended to be more southern. So some were loyal to Judah, some were loyal to the north. And most notably is the city of Bethel, which will become important later in the chapter. Bethel is in the country or the tribe allotment of Benjamin, which is supposed to be allied with the South. Well, Bethel is going to become one of the two major centers of idolatry for the North. So Benjamin is certainly not totally loyal to Judah. And so it's just an interesting sort of thing with that. And like I said, Bethel will become more important next chapter when Jeroboam starts putting up idols left and right and building new temples and everything else in the north because he doesn't want competition from Jerusalem. I'm almost out. Okay. So any final thoughts on that? We're going to end a few minutes early. Yeah, it usually doesn't. But I couldn't start the golden calves of Jeroboam. We need more time to talk about the golden calves of Jeroboam. Because I went to the site of one of them. And you can kind of see where they sat. So I'll bring pictures next week. So it'll be really exciting. So if you want to see pictures of Tell Dan and all that, come back next week. And you'll be super excited. But I really like the high place of Dan in that sense. It was a really cool place to look at. All right. So anything else? We good? All right. Well, let's close in prayer. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for this time and this important lesson, maybe, for who we take advice from and who we listen to and who we consider to be the wise people in our lives. And as we move towards next week and see the fallout of all this, we'll see how destructive disunity is within the kingdom. Maybe there's an application there for the church at large, how important unity is in your mind for your body. Help us to understand why that is an important thing. Be with the 10 45 service. Lord, be with us as we go. This week helps to be effective. Help us to be disciplined in our in our time with you and our prayer time and all those things that we need to do for your glory on. We thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen. All right.