I invite you to take your Bibles tonight. Turn to 1 Kings chapter number 12 for our Bible study. 1 Kings chapter number 12. Tonight we're going to see the man of God with a message from God. We could add for the people of God to that. So we've seen that Solomon has died and his son Rehoboam reigned in his stead upon the throne of all Israel, but not for long. Rehoboam's dad, Solomon, we know that he was the wisest man who ever lived. Yet, there toward the end of his life, he became one of the biggest fools. And when we look in the book of Proverbs, we can see his wisdom. And if we look in the book of Ecclesiastes, we see both his wisdom and his foolishness at times. Sad to say, but Solomon's foolishness affected his son more than his wisdom did. We hope that our kids pick up the good things out of our lives, but sadly, they seem to pick up the things where we mess up at, don't they? Why is that? Well, it has to do with the fallen nature that each of us are born with. Both our children and our grandchildren will pick up on our ways, and so it behooves us to watch our walk and watch our talk before them. The Old Testament books of Chronicles and Kings basically cover the same events. Only with one big difference, Kings looks at the events mostly from man's point of view, and the book of Chronicles looks at the events mostly from God's point of view. For this reason, the sins of David and Solomon are not focused upon in the book of Chronicles. Books of Chronicles because God forgave and blotted out their sin. Amen. Praise God for that. Aren't you glad God forgives? The Book of Kings, though, just kind of tells the story like it is and doesn't leave any parts out. Split as a consequence of Solomon's sin. We've seen that. And turning from the Lord to idolatry. And we saw last time that this split came by the word of the Lord just as it was prophesied by a man of God. It came during the reign of Solomon's son Rehoboam. We saw how it transpired when Rehoboam decided he was going to tighten the grip. Tighter than daddy. He was going to show that he was a bigger man than his daddy was when the people asked him to loosen the grip, but Rehoboam rejected the counsel of the old men for the counsel of his peers, the ones I call the wise guys, and he clamped down even tighter than his dad did, and consequently the people of the Northern Ten Tribes rebelled and the kingdom was split, and that's where we left off at last week. We said that Rehoboam wasn't very bright and that he didn't realize that the kingdom is split until he sent his tax collector to try to collect taxes. They wound up stoning him. Basically, all the tribes other than Judah and Benjamin broke off from him. And unfortunately, Rehoboam committed an error that could not be repaired. And we will see that what unfolds next here is the beginning of tragedy upon tragedy for Israel. It's going to be a time of declension, I guess you could say. I mean, they're just going downhill. Their long downhill path to ruin, defeat, and destruction is recorded in scripture for us. And these beginning steps to ruin should be kind of like red flashing lights when you're about to go over a railroad track and the lights are flashing. You better know there might be a train coming, right? The things in scripture, when we see some warnings here to people, they ought to be like those red flashing lights to us on what not to do and what not to believe. That's why they're recorded here. The Bible is written, we know, with God's purposes for us. And even in these historical books of the Old Testament, that's why we've taken time to go through here, there's plenty of things that God wants us to seek. One of the purposes is to warn us with the example of others. First Corinthians 10, verse 11 and 12 says, now all these things happen unto them for in samples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall. So there's things to learn. positive things to learn by their example and there's negative things to show us by example also. Another one of God's purposes is to give us hope. Romans 15 verse 4, whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have So for these reasons, we should read and study the word of God so that we can be what God wants us to be, do what God wants us to do, and avoid the things that are detrimental to our lives and the lives of those that we love. So tonight, as the story further unfolds in this chapter, we're gonna see as the kingdom splits, Jeroboam becomes the king of the northern 10 tribes. Let's pick up in verse number 19. We're going to read down to verse 24. Verse 19, so Israel rebelled against the house of David until this day. It came to pass when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again that they sent and called him unto the congregation and made him king over all Israel. Remember how we saw that he had come up out of Egypt, somebody sent for him, and they used him as kind of like an emissary to Rehoboam to try to talk some sense into Rehoboam, and it didn't work. Well, here they decide they want to make Jeroboam king. Read on in verse 20, it says, There was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only. Now understand the tribe of Judah and tribe of Benjamin are mentioned together. They normally do not separate out Benjamin, but they were anytime the tribe of Judah is talked about, the area of Judah included Benjamin, okay. Verse 21, and when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah with the tribe of Benjamin, and a hundred and four score thousand chosen men, which were warriors to fight against the house of Israel. In other words, the ten tribes that broke off to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. But the word of God came unto Shimei, the man of God, saying, Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord, ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren, the children of Israel, and return every man to his house, for this thing is from me. They hearkened therefore to the word of the Lord and returned to depart according to the word of the Lord. So we see, first of all, the coronation of Jeroboam there in verse 19 and 20. Rehoboam was rejected by the northern tribes while Jeroboam was accepted and we see he was exalted here as their king. And we see the roots of Jeroboam's reign are founded in rebellion by the ten tribes and the fruit of his reign will be the fruit of rebellion too and we're going to see that as we get later in the chapter next week. We're going to see these things. The laws of sowing and reaping we're going to see come into play in a great way on both sides of the fence. I'm talking about Rehoboam's kingdom and Judah, and we're going to see it in the northern ten tribes. Who were they rebelling against primarily? God. All of this came from really the whole shebang of them. and Solomon who led them turning to idolatry. They rebelled against God, the ten tribes up the north and two tribes to the south. They did the same thing. what Solomon reaped, he sowed in his son, and what Israel sows here, I'm talking about the northern 10 and the southern two, what they sow, they will reap. And we might protest that the laws of sowing and reaping should not apply here since this rending of the kingdom was of the Lord. However, we need to understand that though God's will is accomplished in our lives through our attitudes or actions, whether good or bad, God still holds us responsible for those attitudes and actions. God can use our attitudes and actions, but He can hold us responsible for them also. Now I just want to give you a clear example. One of the clearest examples in Scripture is that of later in Scripture. Remember how Jeremiah prophesied that God was going to bring Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, whichever way you want to call them. Both names mean the same people. They were going to bring him against his people as chastisement. They had sinned against God, and he said, I'm going to bring the king in, and you're going to be taken away into captivity. And Daniel 1 warns, we see Nebuchadnezzar doing that, and the Babylonians being used by God to take the Lord's people into captivity just as the prophet Jeremiah had prophesied would happen. Nevertheless, God held Nebuchadnezzar and his people responsible for having invaded Israel, his people, and how they treated them. Both how they treated them when they invaded and how they treated them when they got them back in captivity. You say, that hardly seems fair. God just lifted his hedge of protection and he allowed things to happen. We're not God. We're not always going to understand his ways. But he's righteous in what he does, amen. And we see here that even though he said that Jeroboam was going to take those ten tribes, Jeroboam's still responsible. And with the rebellion that took place, we see that there's some responsibility that's there. We also see the congregation of warriors there in verse number 21. It says, when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah with the tribe of Benjamin, and they're mentioned together, okay, and a hundred and four score thousand chosen men which were warriors to fight against the house of Israel to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. You talk about one family fight, you know, family feud. This was a family feud, amen, in the house of Israel. The kingdom slipped through the fingers of Rehoboam, and he desperately tried to regain power and control by mustering this army of 180,000 men. Pretty good army, huh? And he had it all planned out, but I want you to notice the very next word down in verse number 22. But. There it is. But the word of God. And he got the word of God, came unto Shimeiah, the man of God, saying, Speak unto Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord, ye shall not go up. nor fight against your brethren, the children of Israel. Return every man to his house, for this thing is from me. And so we see the command of the Lord here. Rehoboam had not considered where God fit into his plans. We don't see him going to consult a man of God, do we? He's not going to a prophet and say, David, his grandfather. would go and consult a prophet. Should we go and fight this or should we not fight? Here he does not consult a man of God as to what he should do like his grandfather David was known to do. We see him determining his own response to the rebellion of the ten tribes. Isn't that the way we mostly do? Well, I'll show them. I mean, that was kind of the attitude that he had there. And, you know, we figure out how we're going to show them, and then we make the big old mess even bigger than it was. And he was about to make a big old mess bigger. And we see that the Lord has a way of intervening when we least expect it. The word of God was the message, and a fellow by the name of Shemaiah was the messenger. And Shemaiah was a prophet of God. And a great compliment is given to him here in the scriptures. He's called the man of God. He's the man of God. And you know, God's still looking for men today. who will be men of God. Men of God who are committed to the Word of God and its authority, that's still a great need for our day to day. We've got too many that are their own man. They've got their, doing their own thing. Shimei was a prophet, but listen, You don't have to be a preacher to be a man or woman of God. Now he was a prophet, but didn't have to be. It's a matter of listening to God's voice and obeying God's word. And notice the message that this man of God, it was the message of the Lord. It was a message of restraint. The Lord commanded them not to go up and fight their brethren, but to return to their houses. I mean, that just makes sense. Brethren ought not to be fighting brethren, just ought not to be. And it was a message of recognition. God wanted them to realize that the breakup was from him. The Lord said, this thing is from me. This thing is from me. As we said, the breakup was part of God's judgment upon both the house of Solomon and the nation of Israel for their turning from the Lord into idolatry. And God sent this trial upon the house of Israel. And no doubt this was difficult for them to accept because all of them were God's chosen people. And now they're split. I mean, as a whole, they were God's chosen people. They were supposed to be a nation unto God. And here they are, split up. Now listen, sometimes the Lord may allow intense trials into our lives that can also be difficult for us to accept. Sometimes trials come and you say, Why is the Lord allowing this to happen to me? Why am I going through so much bad stuff? We get like Job. Job didn't understand why he was going through the difficult times. He was in an intense trial. He was having a hard time accepting it until God showed up. God never did answer his question of why is this happening. All God did was to reveal himself in a joke, told him who. He was asking why, and God showed him who. Sometimes, when the Lord allows intense trials into our lives, sometimes it's to correct us, sometimes it's to strengthen us, sometimes it's to develop us. But it's always for the Lord's purposes in our lives, too. It's for our good and for His glory if we know Him. Amen? Romans 8, 28. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. All things are not good, but they work together for our good, so it's for our good and it's for His glory. There's a legend concerning an old violin maker who was much envied for his fellow artisans because of the superior quality of the instruments that he produced. Finally, he revealed the secret of his success. While the others went into protected valleys to cut wood to make their violins, this master climbed the rugged cliffs of a nearby mountain in order to secure trees which had become severely twisted and gnarled by the storms. From these weather-beaten trees, he fabricated his violins that were famous for their tone and beauty. The mountain storms caused these trees to strengthen and toughen their fibers, and the dense grain of the wood produced deep and colorful tones when the instrument was played. You know, the Lord, too, allows difficulties in our lives that we may be drawn closer to Him and bring forth the music of His love and grace in our lives. Trials are sent, so we'll trust the Lord, even though we might not be able to trace Him. And when you can't trace the Lord, make sure that you still trust Him. Amen. Now, the message that Shimei delivered from the Lord took courage to deliver. Because there was an unpopular message being delivered to an angry king and really an upset people. And the same thing holds true for us. Sometimes it takes courage to deliver what thus saith the Lord, what God says, but it still needs to be done. There are a lot of people that back off, a lot of fellows who are in the pulpit that call themselves preachers that are afraid to preach it like it is, afraid to preach what thus saith the Lord. But we still need it in our day. In fact, we need it more than ever now for people to stand up and proclaim the truth. Now we see their reaction to the word of the Lord there in the latter part of verse 24. Right after it says, for this thing is from me, notice what it says, so they hearkened therefore to the word of the Lord and returned to depart according to the word of the Lord. So they hearkened to the word of the Lord, even though they may not have liked what they heard, Sometimes you're going to come to church and the preacher is going to be preaching a message and you're not going to like it. But if he's preaching the Word of God, It's tough, right? We may not like it. It might not be something that we like to hear. It may not be something we wanted to hear. But it's important for us that we hearken unto what the Lord says. And that's important when things are going well or even when things are not going so well. We need the word of God in the good times and the bad times. When things seem to be coming apart at the seams, we need to flee to the Lord and get our counsel from Him. That's what was happening here. It just seemed like the whole nation was just coming apart at the seams and trying to grab hold of whatever He can. They can't treat us this way. We'll just go make them come back and be a part of us. It wasn't of the Lord for it to be that way. When we're tempted to take matters into our own hands and get what we want or to do things according to our own will or our own timetable, we need to pause and hear from God and trust and obey Him. Amen. Trust and obey Him. Well, next week we are going to look at some idolatry set up by Jeroboam. there in verse 25. Here's, here's the scenario. Where was Israel supposed to worship the Lord? Jerusalem, right? Jerusalem. That's where they were supposed to worship the Lord. Well, what's the problem with the ten tribes going to Jerusalem to worship the Lord? Well, Jeroboam figured this thing out, and he figured out, well, If I let them go to Jerusalem to worship the Lord, then they're going to want to join back together again." And he didn't like that. other places for them to sacrifice unto the Lord. He sets up a couple of different places. The sad part about it is, it seems like he learned from Solomon some wrong things. He's got the people sacrificing to that which is not the Lord. And we're going to see the results of that. Here he's got the promise of God, just like Solomon had. God promised to be with Solomon and to give him his blessings if he would just follow him. And we saw how Jeroboam has received this same word from God. You follow me, and you'll have my blessings. But if you don't, well, you know what? God's true to his word. And we're gonna see that just as it was bad for Solomon, it's bad for Jeroboam too. And as I say, we're fixing to watch these, the northern tribes, begin to rebel against God. They sowed rebellion against the Lord, and they're gonna reap rebellion in their lives. They continue to rebel against the Lord now, and things are not gonna go well. And so we'll take a look at those things, Lord willing, next time we come back to study here, okay? Well, let's take and pull back our prayer list. And we'll pray for the needs tonight, and we'll be dismissed.