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ប្រតិចារិក
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The fortunes of Israel turned on the hinge of unfaithfulness. Solomon forsook the God of Israel under the influence of his many foreign wives. He went after their foreign gods who were an abomination to the Lord. And he brought upon himself the judgment of God and upon Israel a curse from God. As it is appointed for everyone to die, and at the death comes judgment, so Solomon's body was committed to the ground and his soul awaits the great day of God's judgment. But in the meantime, Rehoboam, Solomon's son, begins a reign in his place. 1 Kings provides two snapshots of Rehoboam's reign. It's beginning here in chapter 12 and verses 1 through 24, and then a summary overview of his reign in chapter 14. And our thoughts this evening are taken up with these verses from chapter 12, in which I want to draw out three lessons for us. I want us to see, firstly, the folly of an arrogant king. King Rehoboam went to Shechem we're told for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king and it seems but a formality that this should be so after all he is great David's son and we would expect then that he would take up the throne in the place of Solomon. He was in the lineage that God had ordained to rule over his people. How could he not then be king in Israel? But we very quickly learn that not all is well in Israel. In fact, we've had hints of it much earlier on in the story. Even when David himself was anointed as king, you may remember that for the first years of his reign, he wasn't king over all Israel. He was king over Judah, but it took some time before all Israel acknowledged his kingship over them. and that was something of a foretaste of the division that would come about in later years and that division is beginning to show itself here it is a division as we will see that comes from the Lord. But Rehoboam is the man under whom this division takes place and perhaps going to Shechem full of confidence thinking that this will be a great ceremony of coronation for him when the crown will be placed upon his head and all his subjects will bow before him and give him their allegiance. He probably went with this confidence in his heart But when he comes there, he suddenly finds the people of Israel from the ten northern tribes have a different attitude and it's not a foregone conclusion that Rehoboam will reign over them. They want a dialogue about the terms of this reign. They want an agreement from Rehoboam that the yoke that has been upon them will be alleviated, that he will not reign over them as strictly as his father has reigned over them. Now it's very easy for us to take these words and assume that every word spoken is gospel truth. and that the narrative as it's presented to us of the northern tribes saying that Solomon's yoke upon them was heavy was actually the truth about it. But everyone has their perspective, don't they? Everyone has their perspective on the government, even today. Everyone has their view on Is it a good government, a bad government? Is it a government that listens to its people or is it a government that's deaf to its people? Is it a government that watches for the needs of its people and serves them or is it a government that suppresses its people and rules over them with a heavy hand? Well, if you take Israel's attitude and thoughts to be real, then Solomon's reign over them had been a heavy-handed reign. I'm not sure that we are to take that at face value. We're to understand that this is their perspective. They want things easier, however it had been under Solomon. And they appeal to Rehoboam. for an easier task. And so Rehoboam wisely sends the people away while he consults with counsellors. And he does consult. He goes to his father's counsellors. He goes to the old men of Israel. who have stood before Solomon while he was alive. Solomon's reign lasted 40 years, and in those 40 years God had blessed Solomon with great wisdom, specifically to rule over the people with wisdom and with equity and justice. And here were a group of men who had witnessed that reign and rule and justice. He were a group of men who had sat in the presence of Solomon as people had come asking him questions, as people had come seeking his counsel on difficult cases. and they had listened to all of Solomon's wisdom and no doubt at all that that wisdom had seeped into their own veins as it were and affected their own thoughts, affected their own outlook on justice and equity in Israel. It is a good thing that Rehoboam comes to these men and seeks of them their counsel. How do you advise me to answer these people, he asks them. And they give him their considered opinion. They give him the words of Solomon, we could say. Those words that they have heard. over and over and over again through all the years, the counsel that they have witnessed. And I present to him their conclusion. 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. Do this and you will win the people's loyalty. and they will be faithful to you all through your reign, they say. But we find the folly of this arrogant king in his failure to pay attention to this wisdom. We are immediately told by the narrator, who doesn't want us to miss the point at all, he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him. and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him. If the narrator's comment is chronologically accurate, Rehoboam gives up the counsel of the old men before he's even listened to the counsel of the young men. before he even knows what they have to say, it would seem that he doesn't even stop to weigh up one council against the other, and to think carefully about the wisdom of one over against the other. No, he has determined, it would seem in his own mind, that his own peers will be his best counsellors. They understand him. They understand His culture, they understand his desires and they give him their counsel. Oh, you can't lighten up, you can't ease back, you need to show these people whose boss is essentially what they're saying. Your father had a heavy yoke upon them, well, make it heavier. He disciplined them with whips, Well, put some spikes in those whips that they may sting like scorpions. And this is the counsel that they gave. So we see the folly of an arrogant king in that he fails to be a servant leader to his people. He fails to consider their needs and he looks only to himself. And so, Rehoboam speaks to the people after the third day, and he answers them, not in the kind and gentle words that the old men had advised him to use, but in the harsh words of his younger advisors. He spoke to them of a heavier yoke. He spoke to them of a more severe discipline. And so, all Israel forsook this king. What portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! And off they went to their tents, leaving Rehoboam somewhat dumbfounded at this reaction. This isn't how it's supposed to work. This isn't what his young advisors had told him would happen. And he fails to appreciate the rebellion. He sends Adorum, who had been a taskmaster over forced labourers. Well, that wasn't a very good choice, a person to send. to seek the peace of the nation. And Israel stoned him to death with stones. Here is the folly of this arrogant king who thinks he can have things his own way. And so we may move on from this episode of folly and continue to consider the rest of the passage, but if we were to do that we would have failed ourselves to consider the greatest folly of all that is presented to us in this chapter. Have you noticed in all of it, apart from a narrator's comment and a prophet's words, that there is no interaction either Rehoboam or Israel and their God. There's a failure, a complete failure to consult the Lord in this situation and ultimately Rehoboam's folly is not to be found in his youthfulness, after all we saw last time that it was in his old age that Solomon displayed folly and forsook the Lord for foreign gods. No, it's not in his youthfulness that the folly is centered, and neither is it in his, what we might say, political ignorance and inability to negotiate. That's not where his folly rests, ultimately. Ultimately, Rehoboam's folly is of a spiritual nature. spiritual malignancy has set in in Israel under Solomon's reign and it continues now in the reign of his son. He doesn't think at all to consult the Lord and for that matter as one commentator points out, neither does Israel. No one's thinking of the Lord. At this great and momentous point in their history, as one king has passed away and another king is to be appointed, no one consults the Lord. For the people of Israel have been taught to serve a multitude of gods. and to worship a multitude of idols. And the worship of the living God is hidden away in Jerusalem and hardly anyone pays any attention to it anymore. Perhaps a little bit of a formality on the feast days, but beyond that, well, The Lord is absent from their thoughts, he's absent from their lives and so on this occasion he's absent from their deliberations and he is not consulted. And here lies the folly of this arrogant king. But the second thing that I want you to notice from this chapter is the will of a sovereign God. The Lord is absent from Rehoboam's thoughts. The Lord is absent from Israel's consideration. But the Lord is not absent from what is unfolding in this chapter. Indeed, the narrator makes it very plain that the Lord is present and the Lord is active. The Lord is working out his will. The narrator tells us in verse 15, So the king did not listen to the people. Why? For it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfil his word which the Lord spoke to Hahijah the Shillonite, to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. You'll remember from last time. where we were introduced to Jeroboam, a servant of Solomon, who was full himself of wisdom and ability, that this prophet had approached him one day and had told him that because of King Solomon's forsaking of the Lord, the kingdom would be torn and that 10 tribes would be given to Jeroboam. and that he would be their king. We observed last time that in his haste to receive these ten tribes he didn't listen to what the rest of the prophet had said that this wasn't to happen in Solomon's days and so Jeroboam had obviously started an uprising which Solomon quashed and Jeroboam fled to Egypt. From there he has now reappeared in Israel following Solomon's death. And it is because the Lord is fulfilling his word that these events are unfolding in this way. The Lord is at work in compiling the Proverbs In Proverbs 21 and verse 1, Solomon said that the heart of the king is in the Lord's hands and he turns it whichever way he desires. And this is the reality that is unfolding in this passage. The king's heart is in the Lord's hands. Now everything that Rehoboam does here, Rehoboam does here. It's not that he's a puppet being manipulated by strings. It's not that he's a robot and the remote control is in God's hands. And Rehoboam really can't help doing what he's doing because God is forcing him to do what he's doing. No, this isn't the case at all. Every choice that Rehoboam makes in this chapter is Rehoboam's choice. He chooses to take three days to consult other counsellors. He chooses to ask the old men what they would advise. He chooses to reject their advice. He chooses to go to the young men and seek advice from them. He chooses to accept their advice and follow through on it. He chooses to speak to the people of Israel in these harsh terms. He chooses to send Adoram to try and force them into obedience. It is His choice all the way through this chapter, yet God is using all of this in order to fulfill His purposes. This turn of events, the way things are unfolding here, was brought about by the Lord. This is a mystery to us of the responsibility of Rehoboam for all of his actions and yet God's remarkable sovereignty over all of his actions. The Lord is at work as man acts God ultimately is in control of the ebb and flow of history, the rise and fall of nations, and this tearing apart of Israel and Judah that is unfolding in the days of Rehoboam. All through the history of the world this has been the case. It is only possible that the plans of God can be fulfilled to their very letter because God is absolutely sovereign over all events of history. He could not have said to Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent if he was not in control of all the events of history. He could not have promised to Abraham that his descendants would inherit a land and would be blessed by God if he was not in control of all the events of history. He could not have promised David that one of his sons would reign upon his throne eternally if he was not sovereign over all the events of history. He could not have promised a saviour to the world. if he was not in control of all the events of history. He could not have ensured that the sins of his chosen people would be paid for at the great price of his son's own death if he was not in control of history. For though it was by the hands of wicked men that Jesus Christ was killed upon the cross at Jerusalem, It was by the predetermined counsel of God that that event took place. Man's responsibility in crucifying Christ is not eliminated by God's sovereignty over those events. But through man's sin, God still fulfills his purposes for his people. And that is what is going on in 1 Kings chapter 12. God is at work and he's working out his purposes. At the end of the section that we're looking at in verse 24, verses 23 and 24, God sent another prophet to speak to Rehoboam. and to stop him from going with an army of 180,000 chosen warriors to fight against the Israelites in the north. The word of the Lord comes into this situation. The Lord isn't absent at all. Though he is absent from Rehoboam's mind, the Lord comes to him. He's not invited by Rehoboam to offer counsel, but the Lord speaks to him nevertheless. Here is a word from the Lord to this man, Rehoboam, who is intent on going his own way and doing his own will, but the will of a sovereign God overrules, and the word of a sovereign God has power. Now the Lord speaks. And man rebels. The Lord speaks over and over again. The Lord commands over and over again. The Lord calls men and women and boys and girls to holiness. And those same men and women and boys and girls rebel against God. They do not love him even though he's commanded them to. They do not serve him even though he has required this of them. They do not honor and glorify him even though this is their duty and it is their right. Action. Man rebels against God and his word all the time, but then there is another word that comes from God, and it cannot be disobeyed. There is a word that discloses the will of God that must be heard and must be obeyed. And there is no part of a man or a woman or a boy or a girl that can resist this word. Even as Shemaiah, the man of God, came to Rehoboam and said, to him, thus says the Lord, you shall not go up or fight against your relatives, the people of Israel. Every man return to his home for this thing is from me. So they listened and they could do nothing other than listen because the word of God is so powerful that it insists on obedience from time to time. And this is what happens when the gospel word comes into the hearts of God's chosen ones. who though they are dead in their trespasses and sins, they hear his voice commanding them to repent, commanding them to turn. They have heard it so many times before and they refused and they would not come to him, they would not listen to him, but one day His word comes and they cannot resist this word. It is an irresistible call upon their hearts, upon their souls, upon their minds. It plays hold of them and they cannot escape it. They cannot turn away from it. They must obey it. Sometimes this word comes to a person softly, wooingly, entreatingly but it comes with such a force of love that it grips them and draws them to the Lord in humility and in obedience. At other times this word comes with commanding power and it invades their thoughts and with force of love turns them around so that they they cannot wriggle out of it and they cannot turn away from it. The Lord speaks and he must be obeyed for the will of the Lord must come to pass. There's an absolute certainty to it and we must understand you see that In this episode there is a working in history towards a goal, God's purpose in these unfolding events, God's purpose in this division in Israel, but sparing Judah and David's line is for the salvation of his chosen people through his beloved son who must come into the world at the right time. And so the will of the sovereign God must unfold according to his plans and purposes and no one can stand in his way. The folly of an arrogant king cannot stand in its way. The rebellion of the tribes of the people of God cannot stand in his way. All the forces of darkness at work in this world cannot stand in his way. This thing must be done. The Son of God must be born of a virgin. He must live a holy life in the midst of a wicked world. He must die a sacrificial death upon a cross. He must bear his people's sins, that they might be forgiven and reconciled to God. This must be done. And so it must be done that Jesus Christ will come again at the right time. And on that day, there will be a great separation of the peoples of this world. Those who have turned and bowed the knee to Jesus and accepted his reign over them, and received his gift of salvation and all the rest of rebellious humanity. A separation of the one to life and a separation of the other to death and condemnation. This is the will of a sovereign God and it must come to pass. But the third thing I want you to observe in this chapter is the word of a faithful prophet. The word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, the man of God. Now I ask you, who is this Shemaiah? Where does he come from? You cannot know. We are not told. Here he is, he's a man of God. A man called by God. a man with a word from God, and he faithfully communicates this word from God to the King Rehoboam, and the house of Judah, and the tribe of Benjamin, and the rest of the people who are gathered there. He's a faithful man of God. That's all we know about him. He will appear again, not in 1 Kings, but in the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles, and then he disappears off the scene. He's not a celebrity. He doesn't have a YouTube channel. He's not asked to speak at lots of conferences as far as we're aware. One little glimpse, one little appearance upon the stage of history, one word, powerfully applied by the spirit of God to fulfill the will of God in the life of an arrogant king. The word of a faithful prophet accomplishes God's purposes. And so it is with faithful preachers of God's word. They accomplish God's purposes, whoever they are. Some unknown man, preaching week by week faithfully from an unknown pulpit to a small gathering of people. No biography will ever be written about him. He'll never be asked to speak at a conference to which thousands will gather. But as he is faithful in speaking the word of God, so that word will powerfully accomplish the purposes of God. and boys and girls will be saved through it, and men and women will be called to Christ by it, and they will bow their knee to the only saviour that God has given to mankind, and through his ministry an eternal work of good will be accomplished according to the sovereign will of God. and this will of the Lord is not fatalistic. Yes, you make your choices, you live your life, and the word of God comes to pass. His purposes never fail, whatever you do, but every action and every word of yours is your action and your word, and you will be held to account for it on the great day of judgment, when you will stand alongside Solomon and Rehoboam and Shemaiah, the man of God, and give an answer for how you have spent your life in this world. God is calling you today to submit to his will. He's calling you today to participate purposefully in his plans, agreeable to them, desiring his glory in them. He is calling you today to be a co-worker in his kingdom and a joint heir with his son. How will you answer this call? The call of God to come to Christ the Saviour of sinners. Let's pray. Our Father God, help us, help us by your Spirit to come, to come to Jesus in faith and hope, to come to Jesus in humility and repentance, to come to Jesus as his subjects, to come to Jesus that he may reign over us. Lord, help us to be co-workers with him in his kingdom, that we may be joint heirs with him of his glory. Be merciful and cause your word to penetrate our hearts and our minds. and turn us in your ways for our good and your glory forevermore. Amen.
The will of the Lord
ស៊េរី Kingdom's rise & fall (1Kings)
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