Okay, we're gonna start a new event today. Before we do that, we always give an opportunity to get in fellowship with the Lord, 1 John 1, 9. This is a passage that's written to believers where John writes, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So it's basically like housekeeping in the Christian life. We've talked about it with David in Psalm 51 and how he confessed his sin. It's an opportunity for believers And it's not talking about how to get eternal life or how to be saved. It's talking about how to those who are saved can get back in fellowship with the Lord. So you just confess. And that means to say the same thing, to acknowledge your sin to God, because it's against him and him only that we've sinned. And so this is an opportunity in the privacy of your soul as a believer priest to confess any known thing. And at that moment, he'll put you right back in fellowship. So let's bow for a word of prayer. Dear Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the scriptures. We thank you that you opened your mouth and you spoke to mankind so we could know your mind, so we could learn to think your thoughts after you, so we could understand that there's a whole plan for history that began with Adam and Eve in the garden in which you wanted them to be good stewards of the kingdom and to expand it over the whole earth. And now that it's fallen, it's corrupted, there's chaos, there's sin, there's suffering, there's pride, there's arrogance, there's all these things. And we're fallen creatures in desperate need of your grace. And you did, by grace, supply all of our needs in the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who was crucified for us who paid the penalty in full and by grace through faith alone in him, you give us everlasting life. And one day you'll restore us to our original dominion and a kingdom in which your righteousness and justice will flourish. And we look forward to that time. We pray that now we are training. so that one day we will be reigning with the Lord Jesus Christ. We look forward to all that you have in store for us. Teach us today through the kingship of Israel and the decline and division of the kingdom and all this period of history about discipline, the disciplinary truths that we need to learn from this period of the Bible. And we ask all this in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Okay, so we have been reviewing, right? We just kind of went through Creation, Fall, Flood, the Noahic Covenant, Call of Abraham, Exodus, Mount Sinai, the Conquest and Settlement, the Rise and Reign of King David, and the Golden Era of Solomon. Now we come to the period that follows the Golden Era. And what's going to happen is the Kingdom is going to divide following Solomon's reign. The doctrine that's going to come out of the division of the kingdom is going to be disciplinary truths. We're going to learn about how the Lord disciplines his people. And that, of course, applies to us because we're the church, we're his people, and so he disciplines us, right? Hebrews 12 says, if any of you is without discipline, you're not a son, right? But what father who loveth his son does not discipline, right? Discipline is designed to correct and restore And through the nation Israel and the kings of this period following Solomon, we learn how the Lord disciplines. So those are going to be our key truths are going to be related to discipline. And that's all a part of sanctification. It's all a part of our spiritual growth, right? So we want to get some background of how the kingdom divided. And we'll do that by going back to David and Solomon and come to the end of Solomon's reign and see what happened there with Solomon. And then we'll look at the new king on the block. and what happened with him. It's a tragic story, okay, and these people really had to live this tragic story, so you might want to try to place your feet in their shoes, right, or sandals, let's say. Going back to David, turn to 2 Samuel 7, 2 Samuel 7, David was one of the greatest believers in scripture. He's often looked down upon as being unspiritual because of what happened with Bathsheba. But when he was convicted of his sin, he confessed his sin. He was restored to fellowship. He got back up on his spiritual feet, so to speak, and he started walking with the Lord. He kept walking with the Lord. And that's why God's evaluation of David is that he is a believer after my own heart and that he followed the Lord fully. He also is the one in 2 Samuel 7 here whom God made an eternal covenant with called the Davidic covenant. and he therefore becomes the model of the Messiah, okay, in that David is something of what the Messiah would be like, in that he was a king, but he also here and there dabbles in the priesthood, which is interesting, so the Messiah would be a prophet, a priest, and a king. And David pictures several of those things. So David, in the story of the Bible, David is where the movement toward the Messiah really gets moving forward. And as such, he becomes the model for the later kings to be compared against. He's like a reflector. And all the other kings are measured against David, okay? So Solomon was the next king after David. He's, of course, the son of David and through Bathsheba, which shows you what God can do. Right. He is the one that God confirmed the Davidic covenant with here. Second Samuel 7, 12 to 14. God said to David, when your days are complete, that's David's days. When you're when you're done on this earth, you lie down with your fathers. I will raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you and I will establish his kingdom. Well, that's going to be Solomon, right? It's the one that came from David. He shall build a house for my name. OK, so who's going to build the temple? Solomon. Now, David wanted to build the temple, right? In fact, he got all the preparations. He basically had all the building materials sitting there on the site. But it would be Solomon who actually built it. And I will establish, verse 13, I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. That's David's kingdom through Solomon. So Solomon's kingdom or throne would be established forever. Verse 14, and notice this last part because this is the disciplinary part. In this covenant was embedded discipline. I will be a father to him, to Solomon, and Solomon will be a son to me. And when he commits iniquity, I will correct him And here's how we will correct him. With the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men. So there's gonna be discipline and chastisement for the kings who are in the kingly line of David who sin, starting, of course, here with Solomon, okay? Now, we've looked at the story of Solomon. We've really boasted in Solomon and how great Solomon was because he started so well. From the very get-go, he's the king who, when the Lord offered him whatever he wanted, he asked for what? He asked for wisdom. And the Lord gave him wisdom, such as the world has never seen, according to 1 Kings 3. But turn to 1 Kings 11. This is a key chapter concerning the disciplinary truths of the kingdom. This great event, when the kingdom divides. In 1 Kings 11, in verse 1, We read, Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, you shall not associate with them, neither shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods. Solomon held fast to these in love. What had happened is Solomon had married all these foreign women. But what did he also marry in addition to just marrying the women? He married the culture and values of those women. Now, in marriage, you need to share a common ground at the base level in what you believe. The question is, what are the values that form a common ground for a strong marriage? A lot of times, young people today, they don't even think about this. They just fall in love with someone, they run off, they get married, and then, you know, Oh, gee, what have I got myself into? Here I am, I'm a Christian, and I'm married a non-Christian, you know, and things like that. Somebody in the relationship starts running off with their emotions, and there's a big argument, and there's this fighting all the time, and they wind up in a big mess. And the reason is it's because it's a mixed marriage on the most fundamental level. They don't have a common ground of values and beliefs that they share. They married an unbeliever. What does the Bible say? Do not be unequally yoked. That's one application of that. You shouldn't marry, obviously, an unbeliever if you're a believer. Now Solomon compromised. He married lots of unbelieving girls. The wisest man on earth did this. One of the women he married worshipped the god of the Moabites. Another one worshipped the god of the Edomites. And another woman he married, they worshipped the god of something else. And so he becomes a compromised believer. Solomon is compromised. Now why was he doing this anyway? Why was he marrying all these women? Why did he have this harem? Well, it was for political reasons. The customary way that kings acted in that time was if they wanted to make a political treaty with some other king, to secure the treaty, they would marry the daughter of the king of the foreign nation. Now Solomon thought that he could make these treaties with these other nations and that could give him peace. and stability. So he formed these marriages and these women sort of basically served as sort of what we might call political hostages. So if Pharaoh wanted to make sure that Solomon didn't come invade his kingdom or vice versa, then he would give Solomon his daughter. And of course, now she, this Egyptian woman, is living with Solomon, so she's probably going to provide a little intelligence for her father back home. And so Solomon has actually, you know, compromised his kingdom in some ways. The second thing, of course, is that since she acted as a hostage, if Solomon decided that, you know, Pharaoh, you're acting out of line, you're not paying enough tribute or whatever, then, you know, hey, I've got your daughter, what are you going to do about it, Pharaoh? So you can see how these things work on a human level, okay? This is all human viewpoint wisdom, okay? It's the way men run kings and kingdoms, okay? And Solomon was doing this because it was the so-called wise thing to do, but it was really only human viewpoint wisdom. The problem, of course, with this is, is that the way that the kings of Israel were supposed to operate? Well, no. They were not to be like all the other nations. They weren't supposed to use human viewpoint. Here's a nation, the nation Israel, which is a nation, by the way, that God created. But He created it obviously for a purpose because He's God. He operates according to purpose. And He sets them apart from all the other nations. The purpose of this nation is to be different from all the other nations. As far as national security, homeland security is concerned in Israel, does that rely upon Solomon in Israel? Is he the one who's supposed to supply all their peace and stability? No, that's the job of the Lord, okay? But Solomon thought, I can make the security, I can do this. So he did just like all the kings of the other nations did, and the entire nation of Israel, by the way, is still following in his tracks today, okay? 30 centuries later. They're doing essentially the same thing. So from now on, what we're going to see, starting with Solomon at the end of his reign, is we're going to see one human gimmick after another used by the kings, many of them brilliant. okay, in order to try to make their nation secure by following these human gimmicks, this human viewpoint wisdom. And by the end of it, it's just one big mess in the Old Testament. And this is a story of basically what we try to do as humans when we get it in mind that, you know, I can do this myself. I can provide all my needs. That's what Solomon did, and this is a trap that we can slip into. So this has lessons written all over it, okay? Now in 1 Kings 11, nine, you can see the Lord is intensely angry about this. It says, now the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Now why do you suppose the last clause there at the end of verse nine, who had appeared to him twice? I mean, what's the effect of this? It's because God is saying hey look Solomon for goodness sake I mean you and I had a face-to-face. I mean you saw a theophany. I mean come on man get with it I mean how many people have I appeared to not not many people have has God appeared to in history and God saying hey look buddy of All the people on the planet who shouldn't turn away from me. It should be you you saw me twice Okay, so get with the program bozo And verse 10, the Lord had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods, but he did not observe what the Lord had commanded. And what do we read in 2 Samuel 7, verse 13 or 14 there, about what would happen if Solomon disobeyed the Lord? What's the Lord gonna do? Here's where we get into, you know, God is a spanker. God spanks, okay. I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, okay. In verse 11, and this is the key verse because this is the event we're studying, this is where it happened. So the Lord said to Solomon, because you have done this and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. The kingdom will be torn from him. The kingdom is going to be divided and that's why we call this event that we're studying now, the kingdom divided. The kingdom divided. So this is the discipline. And because of this discipline, of course, I mean thousands of people are going to die. I mean thousands of people's lives are going to be thrown into chaos because of this. If this had been you and I living there, remember I said get yourself in their shoes, realize the consequences of trying to follow human gimmicks. What it causes in people's lives is a horror, okay? And that's what they're gonna have to face because Solomon disobeyed the Lord. In the rest of chapter 11, now we see there are three enemies of Solomon, okay? Verse 14, enemy number one. Verse 23, enemy number two. And verse 26, enemy number three. So let's walk through these three enemies. Okay, now the prophets are writing this, by the way, right? The prophets selectively wrote history. They didn't write down everything. We'll see a clause today that states they didn't do that. They didn't do that on purpose. They're only trying to write down the parts where God intended to show something very important in history, okay? So we don't have a full, you know, history of Solomon, but we have everything that we need, the key points, okay? What the prophets saw, and the Lord said, this is what you write down. This is what you're supposed to learn. So verse 14, here's the first enemy. Then the Lord raised up an adversary to Solomon, Hadad the Edomite. He's of the royal line in Edom, okay? Edom, they came from Esau, they descended from Esau, back in the story of Genesis, right? It's right across the border from Israel on the east side in modern-day Jordan today, okay? So this guy is raised up as an adversary. Verse 17 says that he fled to Egypt, he and certain Edomites of his father's servants with him, while Hadad was a young boy. And they arose from Midian and came to Paran, etc, etc, etc. And down in, you see them in verse 19, down in Egypt, it says, Hadad found great favor before Pharaoh, so that Pharaoh gave him in marriage the sister of his own wife, the sister of Taphenes, the queen. So, Hadad is now, you know, politically allied with Pharaoh. In verse 20, the sister of Taphenes bore his son. In verse 21, when Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his father, so David has now passed away, and Joab the commander of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, send me away that I may go to my own country. And so he returned to Edom. But now, We have a hostile power, Hadad in Edom, and he's right on the border of Israel. OK, and he's against Solomon. He's an adversary. That's the first adversary, Hadad. The second man who's an adversary is verse 23. God also raised up another adversary to him, Rezan, the son of Eliadah, who had fled from his lord, Hadadidzer, king of Zobah. If you can say all that really fast, like 20 times, you'll get a dollar. Verse 25, so he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, along with the evil that Hadad did. So now we've got two enemies, right? Rezan and Hadad, and he abhorred Israel and reigned over Aram. It's what we call today Syria. Israel from this point forward in history has always had a problem with Syria. They still have a problem with Syria. Even today, Syria still claims and wants what is known as the Golan Heights in the northeast of Israel. Because if they can have the Golan Heights, they have the elevation point and they can just rain down rockets on Israel day and night whenever they want to. And of course, Israel's smart enough. They know we don't give that territory back. They took that territory back in the Six Days War, 1967. So it's a strategic point there with Syria, here known as Aram. So this conflict that Israel has with Syria that we see today, it's been going on for thousands of years. And we go over there, and America, we think we're gonna solve something or whatever. We just came along in history. They've been doing this for 3000 years, folks. I don't think we're going to solve it. OK, just leave them alone. Verse 26. So there's two two enemies. Here's the third one. And he's the one we want to center on. Then Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zerada, Solomon's servant, whose mother was named Zeruah, a widow, also rebelled against the king. There's a third rebel against the king. Now, before we go on, we have these three men who raised up these three adversaries to Solomon. God did. You look back at verse 14, the Lord. You look at verse 23, God also raised up. See, the Lord is the one who's raising up these adversaries. History is not just a series of marbles banging around, okay, on one another. God is purposely raising up these three men, and why is He doing this? Why is He making adversaries to Solomon? Because Solomon said, Lord, I'm rebelling against you. I'm your adversary. I've married all these pagan women. I go worship these pagan gods. Solomon was being an adversary to God. So what did God do? God raised up adversaries to him. It's a disciplinary move on the part of God. As I said before, God spanks. Now people don't like that today because we just set people on their little time out or whatever. Because they're so smart. God created the gluteus maximus for several purposes. One of which is to sit on. And another of which is to for the rod to swat the gluteus maximus. Now, the Bible is very specific about the instrument that's used. We say, well, it says rod, you know, he who spares the rod spools the child, right? The rod was actually a very thin piece of wood that was used to swat the behind. It wasn't like a brick. It wasn't like a big giant staff or something like that. It swats to sting the behind, the gluteus maximus. That's one of the purposes of the gluteus maximus, if you didn't know. Now another one, like we said, is to sit. But imagine someone coming along and saying, now you're sitting on the wrong part of your body. You're supposed to be sitting on your elbows. Now you say, what's wrong with you? Well, that's what's wrong with people saying you shouldn't swat the gluteus maximus. It's like saying, well, we shouldn't do that. That doesn't make sense to swat the gluteus maximus. Well, that's like saying it doesn't make sense to sit on your gluteus maximus. You should sit on your elbows. It's a silly idea that we shouldn't swat the gluteus maximus. God swatted the gluteus maximus of Solomon, and he's teaching us how he did that by raising up these three enemies to him. Okay? So, of the three men, the key one is Jeroboam in verse 26. Okay, this guy and one other guy that we're about to learn about are going to dominate the period right after Solomon. In the north, it's going to be this guy, Jeroboam. In the south, it's going to be a guy named Rehoboam. Now, you can always remember these guys because their names, they rhyme. Jeroboam and Rehoboam. So we're going to study these two clowns. Let's read about the first clown, verse 27. Now this was the reason why he, Jeroboam, rebelled against the king. Now what he says next is not going to sound like an answer as to why he rebelled, but let's just read it anyway. It says Solomon built the Milo and closed up the breach of the city of his father David. You say, Now what exactly did Jeroboam do? What does that have to do with anything? Solomon, okay. Okay, well it's just the first piece of a puzzle, okay. Verse 28 is the second piece of the puzzle. So you have to visualize these verses like pieces to a puzzle, okay. Verse 28, now the man Jeroboam was a valiant warrior. When Solomon saw that the young man was industrious, he appointed him over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph. By the way, if you're industrious today and you're a young person, you'll pretty much be guaranteed any kind of job because people don't work anymore. So you've got it easy now. Just show a little effort. Just show up, practically. Alright, so this guy was industrious, this Jeroboam, and he is appointed by Solomon over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph. That's the phrase, the forced labor of the house of Joseph that we have to unwind. Now Joseph, he in this context represents 11 of the tribes. Every tribe he represents except Judah, okay? And Solomon was of the tribe of Judah, right? The house of David. So Solomon brought Jeroboam in, and Jeroboam's job is to go to the other 11 tribes and collect taxes, okay? They, you know, taxes were collected through forced labor, through, you know, all sorts of various means, okay? He collected the taxes only from 11 of the tribes. He didn't collect it from the tribe of Judah. Now, let me ask you a question. If you're living in Israel at this time and Solomon is the king and he collects tribute from your tribe and your tribe and your tribe and your tribe, but not his own tribe, are you going to get a little bent? I mean, imagine, you know. We are one of the states that has to pay taxes, but let's just say Illinois didn't have to pay taxes. Well, we're all going to be bent out of shape because Illinois didn't have to pay taxes. This isn't fair. This isn't just. So that was the situation. Every month, Jeroboam goes and he collects taxes from one of these 11 tribes, but he never goes back and collects any taxes from the tribe of Judah. That's why it's called forced. It's crucial for what is going to happen. Now, verse 29. It came about at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem that the prophet Ahijah, the Shilohite, found him on the road. So here comes the prophet. Now, it says Ahijah had clothed himself with a new cloak and both of them were alone in the field. Then Ahijah took hold of the new cloak, which was on him, and he tore it into 12 pieces. Now, I don't know if you've read about some of these prophets, but they have some very interesting sermon illustrations. The guy just went to, you know, I don't know, American Eagle or The Gap or wherever he gets his clothes, and he gets a brand new cloak, and then he comes out in the field and he rips it up. Very interesting, okay? And he said to Jeroboam, okay, take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and give you ten tribes. But he will have one tribe, verse 32, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel. So what is Ahijah prophesying? What's the prophecy? The division of the kingdom, right? The very event we're studying, the kingdom's gonna be divided. Solomon's kingdom is going to divide so that there are 10 tribes that are split off into a new kingdom, and then Solomon will have his own two tribes, okay? And why did he need to keep one tribe there in verse 32? What was the reason? Whose name do you see in verse 32? David, because of my servant David, and of course Jerusalem. Jerusalem was in the area of the tribe of Judah. So then he goes on in verse 33, giving the reason, he says, So he's talking about Solomon, right? Solomon married all these women. Solomon and the whole people began to go after all these other gods. But notice the very end of verse 33. they didn't do what was right as his father David did. David's mentioned again. Remember, David is the reflector. Every king after David in the Judean line is measured against David. Okay. Verse 36. Oh, verse 34. Okay. Some limits there. Not the whole kingdom, but most of it. Why? Again, because of David. So they're going to get to keep one tribe. Verse 36. Here's the one side tribe. But to his son, I will give one tribe. Why? that my servant David may have a lamp always before me in Jerusalem, the city where I've chosen for myself to put my name. And I will take you, that's Jeroboam, and you shall reign over whatever you desire. You shall be king over Israel. Okay. Israel, at this point in history, does not really refer to the 12 tribes anymore, does it? It just refers to the 10 tribes in the north. Some of your maps in the Bible after this period, after the Solomonic period, will depict that. In the north, around the Galilee, it will have a big label, Israel. In the south, it will say Judah. It's because the kingdom had divided and now the north was just Israel and the south was Judah. Now look at verse 38 and watch the language, okay? There's a two-letter word here that's very important. Two-letter words can be very, very important. Then it will be that if, there's the two-letter word, if you, Jeroboam, if you listen to all that I command you and you walk in my ways and you do what is right in my sight by observing my statutes and my commandments, as my servant David did, then I will be with you and build you an enduring house as I built for David." That is a very interesting promise. He's basically saying to Jeroboam, hey look, if you'll walk with me like David did, I'll make an eternal covenant with you just like I made with David. That's a very interesting promise. An everlasting house, an everlasting dynasty for Jeroboam. If, it's very important, if, right, if he listens, if he walks, if he obeys the Lord. So what is Jeroboam going to have to do? Well, he's going to, first of all, listen to the word of God, okay, study the scripture every day. When he sets up his administration, they're going to have to follow the principles that are outlined in the word of God and the law of Moses. And then if he does all that, Then the Lord is going to give him an enduring house just as he built for David. And he says, I will give Israel to you. That's the 10 tribes in the north. So that'll be its own eternal kingdom. Verse 39. Thus I will, by this way, in this manner, I will afflict the descendants of David for this, but not always. And that's sort of mysterious, but not always. Okay, verse 40. And Solomon sought therefore to put Jeroboam to death, look at that, but Jeroboam arose and fled to Egypt, to Shishak, the king of Egypt, and he stayed, or was in Egypt until the death of Solomon. Okay, so, look at that. Solomon, look at what he's doing here. He heard, You know, with the prophet Ahijah prophesied, you know, he goes out there with his brand new clothes and he tears them into shreds and then says, Jeroboam, take ten of these. And he does, and he explains to him what it means. And Solomon obviously knows what's going on, but let me ask you a question. Does Solomon respect the prophet Ahijah and what the Lord said through the prophet? No, not at all. Solomon says, you know, I've been doing what I'm going to do for so long by now. that I don't even respect the prophets of God, I'm still gonna do my own thing. I'm not gonna let this happen. See, once you get in the habit as a Christian of solving problems your own way with your big brain, okay, or my big brain, right, then it just becomes natural that you operate in a way that, you know, you don't even care about the Lord. You're just gonna do it your way anyway, until the Lord finally comes around and he knocks you flat on your face. And that's what it takes, and that's what he's going to do here to Solomon and his house. So that little verse, verse 40 there, shows you that Solomon, by this time, he is so far out of fellowship, it's not even funny. Now, this is, I think, one of the reasons that the Old Testament is so neat. I mean, these stories, they basically illustrate ourselves. I mean, let's be honest, okay? They show it in such a graphic way that we can easily identify with these types of procedures, okay? In verse 41, we see, now, it's one of those verses that you see repeated Every time you come to the end of one of the king's administrations, it'll say something like this. Now the rest of the Acts of Solomon and whatever he did and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the Acts of Solomon? We don't have these books. We don't have the book of the Acts of Solomon, okay? So we don't know the rest of Solomon's history. They used to. They used to have this. But all we have here is the first, you know, ten or so chapters in 1 Kings. That's all we have. And that's why I say, okay, don't think that, you know, when you read Kings or you read Samuel that you're reading the entire history of Israel. Nobody's ever written the entire history of Israel because we just don't know it all. What we're getting is an abbreviated history of Israel that was written down by the prophets. And the prophets picked and chose the most important highlights of each of these kings because those highlights are where God was at work to do something very critical for history. That's why the main book you need for history is this book right here. There's lots of things that happened in history and history is very important and interesting. But what are the most important milestones in history? the things that are in this book. You say the Constitution in 1789 wasn't that important? It wasn't important enough to make it in the Bible, okay? As important as it was, it's not in the Bible. So it's not as important as anything in the Bible. Does that make sense? Is that logical? If it was, God would have put it in the Bible, okay? So this just teaches us to rearrange our thinking about what's important and what's not. Because look what he says about the rest of Solomon's act. Whatever he did, and whatever he did, you know, it's really that important, okay? But everything that is here then must be really important. And that's why we're supposed to find these points and understand them. In verse 43, Solomon dies and here is the guy who comes to reign in his place. Here he is. Who is he? What's his name? Rehoboam, the guy whose name rhymes with Jeroboam. And Jeroboam has been promised if he listens, if he studies the scripture, if he obeys the Lord, he's going to get an eternal dynasty just like David over the ten northern tribes. And here's the other guy who comes to reign over Judah. And it says his son, Solomon's son, Rehoboam, reigned in his place. And Rehoboam is going to go down in history as probably one of the most idiot kings who ever reigned on the throne of David. This man probably made a stupid decision every day of his life. All it took was three days and this guy destroyed everything that his father and grandfather had built. It is utterly amazing how bad you could blow it. 1 Kings 12. Verse 1, Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. Now Shechem is not Jerusalem, right? But it's like 40 miles north of Jerusalem. So it's up in the northern territory, what we call Israel today, not in Judah's territory. And this is where they're going to crown him king, right? Verse 2, Now it came about when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard about it, for he was yet in Egypt where he had fled from the presence of King Solomon while he was living in Egypt. You'll notice Egypt is Egypt, Egypt, Egypt all the time. It's like Israel never could get away from Egypt. They always wanted to go back to Egypt. That story just kind of continues through the Old Testament. So take note of that. We'll see more about that next week. Verse three. Then they sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came. So he comes all the way up from Egypt. When it says all Israel, again, we're not talking about the 12 tribes, we're talking about the 10 tribes now. 10 tribes of the northern kingdom. They came to make a complaint, okay? So Rehoboam's being crowned, but they say, oh, this is a good opportunity, he's in our territory, let's go up there, we'll make our complaint, okay? Verse four is the complaint. Your father, Solomon, he made our yoke hard. Remember the taxes? That's what they're talking about. You tax every tribe except your own tribe. You made our life a mess, okay? You've been pushing us around. Therefore, lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us, and we will serve you." They're kind of bargaining here, right? Like, hey, look, we'll serve you, but you got to lighten the load. I mean, we can't pay these kind of taxes forever. We're sick and tired of this, right, Inslee? Okay, we're sick and tired of this. You know, we want to serve you, but hey, you know, chill. Give us a break. So in verse five, Rehoboam says, okay, I'm going to take three days. I got to think about this. In verse six, King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, how do you counsel me to answer this people? So he's going to, he's going to the old guys, right? These guys have been around the block. They know, they know what's been going on for decades in Solomon's kingdom, they're wise, okay? And then they spoke to him in verse seven and they said, if you will be a servant to the people today, if you will serve them, if you will grant them their petition, you will speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever, okay? But what happened in verse eight? Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the elders which they had given him, and he consulted with the young men who grew up with him and served with him." His frat buddies or something, I don't know. So here you see something that we have seen in our country again and again and again, okay? People get elected, someone, the new president comes into office and what's the first thing they do? They get rid of all the old fogeys in the previous administration and they put their new guys in the administration. It's kind of understandable, right? There's a trust and bond between them, so that's what they're doing, but at the same time, the new guys may not really understand the field and they may not have much experience about what's been going on. Rehoboam's going to get rid of all the old guys that have the wisdom and he's going to bring in the new hotshots. That's what this is a picture of. So let's see how it works out. In verse 9. So he said to the hotshots, what counsel do you give me or give that we may answer this people who have spoken to me saying, lighten the yoke which your father put on us. And the young men who grew up with him spoke to him saying, thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you saying, your father made our yoke heavy, now you make it lighter for us, but you shall speak to them, my little finger is thicker than my father's loins. Whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips. I will discipline you with scorpions." What a great plan. Here's a nation that is hurting under oppression, economic taxation. They're exhausted and its friends tell him this is what he should say. Now, Hebrew scholars debate the end of verse 10, the meaning of that phrase. Nobody really knows how to translate that, but it probably is a very obscene remark. My little finger is bigger than my father's loins. I'll leave it up to you as possibly what that could refer to. In verse 12, the people come out on the third day. Rehoboam's going to give his answer, right? Verses 13 and 14 are his answer. This was his answer to the people who were suffering. See, it's not only insolent and stupid, but it's obviously hateful and shows that Rehoboam had a total lack of fellowship with the Lord, a total lack of sensitivity to people. And he's, frankly, he's just obnoxious. So verse 15 is the prophet, and the prophet explains now. He's giving an analysis of history. He's saying, this is why this happened. It says, so the king did not listen to the people. And then what does it say? Here's the prophet's analysis. Why didn't they listen? Why didn't the king listen to the people? Because it was a turn of events from the Lord. Literally, in other words, who is sovereign over the situation? The Lord. It's very interesting. This guy tried to go in and manhandle a situation, and he obviously knows exactly what he's doing, and he's doing exactly what he wants to do, okay? Yet the whole thing is viewed as a turn of events from the Lord, and then it explains why, that he might establish his word, which the Lord spoke through the prophet Ahijah, the Shilonite, to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. That's the day he went out with his brand new duds, and he ripped them to shreds, and said, here's 10, and you take them. See, the Lord is going to uphold His word. They were already compromised. They were already worshiping idols. The Moabites, the Edomites, they're worshiping all these other gods. And the discipline had already been proclaimed. And the word of the Lord is, sure, it's going to happen. So whose word controls history, see? The word of Rehoboam, the word of Jeroboam, the word of Solomon? No, the word of the Lord, see? God says, I'm gonna use your little obnoxious decision to establish my word, okay? And that's what the prophet was interested in, that's why he wrote it. He's interested in how does the Lord fulfill his word? And he says, ah, I see. I see that the Lord used this decision by Rehoboam to actually bring about what he said he was going to do, okay? Of course, then idiots can come and go in political offices. And God can even use idiot policies of the idiots to fulfill his word. Isn't that what this means? Now, are you a little bit, like, satisfied? A little more satisfied that the Lord's in control, see, of everything? This is how sovereign He is. This is just, this is actually one of those just little jewels that just peaks up in the text. It reminds us, hey, the Word of God is in control of history. It's not these apes that run around and try to control the world. They're not in control. They're not. They just think they are. In verse 16 then, we see the 10 tribes of Israel. They've just heard what the king said to them. They weren't very happy about it, okay? But they are intelligent enough to respond with poetry. Okay, do you see how it's poetic? What portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse to your tents, O Israel. Now look after your own house, David. And that, is the break between the north and the southern kingdom. There's no longer going to be one kingdom with one ruler from the tribe of Judah, from David's house, but there's going to be two kingdoms. It's at this point that the ten northern kingdoms says, we don't want David's house over us. So now we're going to have 10 tribes in the north, known as Israel. Two tribes in the south, Judah and Benjamin, right? Benjamin was a pretty small tribe because of some events in their former history. So the whole thing is just known as Judah because Benjamin's really small. Two kingdoms. You'll notice another confrontation. Look at verse 18. Verse 18. Adoram, who was over the forced labor, they stoned him to death. What did I say? There's going to be a lot of chaos. A lot of people are going to get hurt over this. It's not a good situation. So now we have a murder. An official of the government is murdered. So violence on the part of the North is taking place. It's an act of war. That's what this is. They're trying to start a war. So in verse 21, what does Rehoboam do? Now when Rehoboam had come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, 180,000 chosen men who are warriors to fight against the house of Israel to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. He's mobilizing the army. It's going to be a civil war. He's saying, if you're not going to come the easy way, well, I'm going to have to do it by force. That's the way Rehoboam always operated. He's a by force player. Verse 22. Here's another jewel in the text. But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God." Well, here's another prophet saying, "'Speak to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, and say this. Thus says the Lord, you must not go up and fight against your relatives, the son of Israel. Return every man to his house, for this thing has come from me.'" Who did this? Who divided the kingdom? Who tore it apart? Who's the ultimate cause of it all? God, he's the one who's in control of history. And he did it because Solomon said, I'm gonna marry all these girls and I'm gonna worship all these idols. And he got compromised. And God said, hey, if you do that, I'm gonna discipline you. The Lord is a disciplinarian, see? And you know, we're his children. He's a disciplinarian. He's not gonna let us just go off and do whatever we want. Okay, he's got a plan. And the plan isn't to do what you wanna do. The plan is you to do what he wants you to do. It's just like he told them. Okay, so let's see what happens. The big thing here to see, we'll see in the coming weeks of course, is that the kingdom just divided. And you see this, after all the glories of Solomon, I mean, silver was nothing, everything was gold, right? The richest kingdom in the world. After all the spirituality of David and his generation, just think of that generation of men, those two generations. And then it took three days for Rehoboam and his hotshot idiots to come along and destroy it all. So the event is known as the division of the kingdom. And since that day, by the way, in history, since that day, the 12 tribes of Israel have never, ever been united under a single monarch. Ever. It's been 2,900 years and not ever. And the truth we see out of this is that God disciplines the nation. It's his discipline that ultimately caused the division of the nation because Solomon wanted to go after all these women and all these Idolatry. And Rehoboam, the guy's such a spiritual moron, he has a chance to go positive to the Lord. He has a chance to help the people, right? But the die was cast because God had spoken. See, it was over. It was over. And they would have to face the discipline issued through the prophets. And we're going to see them stumble over and over and over. Both kingdoms are going to basically just catapult away from God. It's a spellbinding story, really. And along the way, guess who we see all the time who is faithful? God. Guess who we see all along who is sovereign? God. Guess who we see all along who is holy? God. Guess who we see all along is loving? God. He remains all these things. He changes not. Right? If you can, in your mind's eye, see, put yourself back there, think about these kings, look at the mess, how they destroyed thousands and thousands and thousands of people's lives, yet whose plan was working through it all? God's, see? God was setting up the context for sending the answer to the problem that we all have by sending one who is the greater than David, by sending the Messiah. He's the one who can take those two kingdoms and he can make them one again. But he only does it. through the penalty being paid, through his finished work. That's why Messiah came. He came to restore the house of David with the house of Israel, to make the two one. Ezekiel 36, Ezekiel 37, Jeremiah 31, it's all through the Bible. This is why the Messiah came. It says he came to the house of Israel, right? But they said, we don't want him. We don't want him. We have no Caesar except Rome, the King of Rome. They didn't want Jesus to be their Caesar. So what happens? All the benefits of the cross are now available to anyone who believes. What are those benefits? Those benefits are you have eternal life, you are justified, you are adopted into his family, you are reconciled, you are now friends with God. How do we acquire all these benefits and many, many more? One thing, faith in Jesus Christ. He paid the penalty in full. There's nothing for us, we can't pay it. We've all sinned, right, and fallen short of the glory of God. What are we gonna do? We can't do anything. He paid it all. So what do we do? Believe in Him. Jesus said, He who believes in me has everlasting life. And you've crossed out of death and into life. See, we're all sinners, dark, blind, lost, naked, until the moment we believe. And then we're clothed in the light, righteous in His sight. It's a free gift for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God not of works as any man should boast. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ today and you shall be saved. The future is set. Israel Judah they'll all be restored. The kingdom is coming. Do you want to be a part of it. That's the Lord's offer to you today. Let's close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you that he did come, a greater than David. We'll get to see all the mess in the kingdom, but he's the answer. He's the one who's going to solve it all, and we thank you that we as Gentiles get to be a part. In the light of their rejection, the die was cast, and now the floodgates of salvation came to us as Gentiles. What a great story that you show mercy to Israel, you show mercy to Gentiles, so that none are without mercy. What a gracious and merciful God you are. To you all, glory is to be given. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.