that God is telling Solomon, I have kicked you out of the kingdom forever. We might question whether Solomon's actually saved or not, but that's not the point. The point here is that Solomon is no longer qualified to be king over God's people, and therefore God will tear it from him. Now, we expect this. God had told Solomon, if you don't obey me, I'm gonna take the kingdom away from you. But we're actually sort of shocked what God does in this chapter, at least I was. Three people, that's where we are. In verse 14, God raises up a man named Hadad. He raises him up to be an adversary of his people. Now, Hadad is an Edomite. Edomites are descended from Esau. And Hadad is in the royal line of Esau. It is not an accident that the writer uses the word adversary. The Hebrew word for adversary is Satan. Hadad was not Satan, just a human king. But the writer wants you to see that it is Satan who hates God's people and is an adversary of God's people. But he also wants you to see that who raises Hadad up? The Lord raises him up. So even in your life, you fight against adversaries, you're struggling against adversaries. The Lord is in control of them. He is sovereign over them. And I think that's comforting for us to know. It also tells us that the path to overcoming your adversary is not to be stronger than your adversary. This is a very important concept. The path to overcoming your adversary is not to be stronger than your adversary. What is the path? brokenness, humility, and repentance to your Lord, and faith in Him. In the larger story, the Edomites are like a fly that gets flicked away, a stink bug that you flick away. They're not a threat to God's eternal purposes. Read the book of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Obadiah, Malachi, and they all tell you Edom is done. They will be judged eternally. Edom is not the enemy. I mean, they're their adversary, but God's raised them up for a purpose. Hadad is a pawn God uses for his eternal purposes. It is God who's raising him up, even preserving him in this passage, protecting him. He's actually protecting an enemy of the people of God. And what is more, the Edomites are not just someone that God's raising up, they are an already defeated enemy. David has already wiped them out. Even when God brings an adversary against his own people, he is ruling over that adversary. We are not to fear our enemies. We are to fear our sovereign God, who alone loves us with his eternal love. This is what Solomon should be understanding. My enemy is God because I have turned away from him, and my response should be to turn back to God. We'll see if he does that later in this story. The second adversary is Rezon. That's found in verses 23 to 25. Not told a whole lot about Rezon. He's a servant in the kingdom of Assyria. He's not really of a royal lineage. He also was defeated. The Syrians were defeated by David. He actually fled for his life. And then he becomes a leader of a guerrilla band. And he actually eventually takes the throne. It's interesting, the text tells us that he was an adversary of Solomon all his days, doing harm as Hadad did. That's a little bit hard to reckon with. Solomon had peace all his days. But I'm assuming that it's just one of those things where he was a little small, marauding band on the outskirts of Israel, and he really wasn't a problem until late in life. Like a latent virus you have in you. Not really affecting you much. You're going on as long as your immune system is healthy. You're fine But once you get weakened then BAM there it is and I would again say this is what God is doing Satan or I mean I should say Rezon is said to loathe Israel and that is very much like Satan hates God's people Hadad and resin adversaries of God's chosen people. They've been raised up by God against his own people, and they will both be judged for their hatred of Israel. These enemies will make life for Israelites difficult. Rather than a life of rest and peace, they will experience turmoil and strife. These enemies are God's discipline, yes, but also God's grace is working through them as well. Hardships often bring us to our knees before God. So you're just kind of seeing that God is doing this. It's not just, oh, he's killing his people. He's raising up these adversaries for a very distinct purpose. That brings us to Jeroboam. At first, when I read this, I thought Jeroboam was just another adversary that God had raised up. And then I realized that Jeroboam deserves his own category. Jeroboam will actually become the main character, so you're going to have to get used to him for the next several chapters. And he actually sets the stage for the rest of the Book of Kings as the man who is most to be hated. So he deserves our attention. So I'll take a little bit of time here. He is not an adversary that is outside of God's people. He is a member of Israel. He is of the tribe of Joseph. He is a capable servant of Solomon. He was industrious and he was trusted by Solomon. At some point he kind of gets upset at Solomon for building the Melo and I'm not exactly sure all that goes into that. Somebody else can think about that more than me. But he has personal reasons for not liking Solomon. But he really doesn't rebel until God sends to him a prophet. In many ways, you are supposed to, as you read this, and I realize this is a lot of hermeneutical stuff, like trying to figure out what the text is saying, but you are supposed to, as God sends Ahijah to Jeroboam, you are to see a parallel to God sending Samuel to David. Saul has failed, God raises up David. Now Solomon has failed, God is gonna raise up Jeroboam. There's a parallel going on here. He gets a new garment, he comes and he confronts, or not confronts, but he meets with Jeroboam on the road, and he gets to Jeroboam and he starts tearing up his brand new garment. And he tears it up into 12 pieces. And then the rest of this passage is him trying to explain what he's doing here. And then he does. And this is where you need to pay attention to the details on this or you will miss it. The first thing that God does is he reaffirms that he is the God of Israel. That's important. God has not abandoned Israel because of Solomon's rebellion. He continues to be the God of his people. Nothing that God is doing in raising up adversaries or even in giving the majority of the kingdom of Jeroboam should be viewed as God abandoning his people or his promises to them. In fact, everything that God is doing is for the benefit of his people. And again, I said at the beginning, just because you've been taken through trials does not mean that God has left you. Elijah tells Jeroboam that he's about to tear the kingdom away from Solomon and that Jeroboam is to receive this kingdom. Now, you have to understand. The promise given to David was that one of his sons would rule on the throne forever. And here God is sending a prophet to a man who is not one of David's sons. And he says, I'm going to give you the kingdom. He says very clearly, well, Solomon loved all these false gods. If he wants to do that, I'm taking the kingdom away from him. This should be a warning to Jeroboam. If God was willing to tear the kingdom away from Solomon, then he would be willing to tear the kingdom away from Jeroboam, too. We're gonna see that Jeroboam doesn't care. But it does bring to point this one thing. We can wonder about kingdoms and outward things, but really the only thing that really matters is the condition of your heart. That's the primary problem. We like to worship other gods besides the true God. We like to trust in ourselves. And it is for this reason that we need a king who is truly righteous, who can overcome our rebellion. Now, Jeroboam explains, I'm only gonna take 10 of the 12 tribes and give them to you. Now God might have said, I'm gonna take all 12 from you. That's what he did with Saul. Saul rebelled, God took all 12, gave them to David. Why in the world does he only take 10 and give them to Jeroboam? Verse 34 he tells us. I'm not gonna take all 12 for the sake of David. I'm not going to take all 12 because of my promise to David. I'm not going to take all 12 because I chose David. And because David kept my commands and statutes. Now David wasn't perfect. But relatively speaking, he was faithful to God. A man after God's own heart, the text tells us. And because of this, God sets up David as the imperfect foreshadow of the perfect Messiah. God knows that his people need some model of who the Messiah would be. And even with his imperfections, which the Bible doesn't hide David's imperfections, David becomes that model. And for you today, when you hear, for the sake of David, you should say, for the sake of Jesus. That's what you should conclude. Because of God's promise to Jesus, because God chose Jesus before the foundation of the world, because Jesus kept all of God's commands and statutes, He is not going to rip all the kingdom away from Solomon. I believe at this point, even though God is tearing the kingdom away from Solomon, I believe that Solomon becomes like every other Israelite. He too must yearn for a good and righteous king. Rather than he being the promised king who would rule over the eternal kingdom, Solomon needs a better king. And Solomon must learn to trust God's grace as he hears the words, for the sake of David, He should hear, in God's mercy, promise to David. Now, the inheritance that Solomon could have through faith in God's promise is imperishable, which means it cannot be lost. It is undefiled, which means it cannot be tarnished by our sins. It is unfading, it will never lose its luster and beauty. This is the inheritance of the eternal kingdom in Christ, and it is being kept for you by Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, the message of Solomon is not, be better than Solomon so you can earn your kingdom. It is that you have a better king in Jesus Christ and your inheritance cannot be tarnished or fade or be defiled in any way. Kept in heaven for you, as we read in 1 Peter 1. So, I think that brings us, in verse 37, to be rather shocked. Once you understand that the kingdom rests on David or on Christ, You are very shocked when you hear again in verse 7, God promises to give it to Jeroboam. Now put yourself in the place of Jeroboam. Basically he tells Jeroboam, I'm going to give Israel to you. Like he's won the lottery. He basically says, you are gonna reign over all that your soul desires. You're gonna be king over Israel. Now how would you feel if God promised to you to give you everything that your soul desires? How would you feel? Think about the things that you want in life. You know God knows all that you want, everything that you could possibly imagine to make you happy. He says, I'll give it all to you, all yours. I asked one person about this and they said, my desires aren't good enough to have that. When he says, I will give Israel to you, Jeroboam's got to be thinking, is this the end of your promises to David? Are you giving them all to me? But then in verse 38, he says, if you will listen to all that I command you and will walk in my ways and do what is right in my eyes. By keeping my statutes and my commands as my servant David did. See, the promise to Jeroboam is not an unconditional promise. It is a promise that is conditional upon his obedience. But think about it just for a moment if Jeroboam had not failed. If he had kept the promise, we would all be calling Jeroboam king today. Shocking. Now God, I believe, is setting up a quandary. He's giving to Jeroboam the same promise that he gave to David's sons. He knows that Jeroboam will fail, but he's not afraid to give him the conditional promise anyway. And then this is what struck me in verse 39. I will afflict the offspring of David because of this, because of their rebellion. Three words, but not forever. You can anger God by your disobedience. You're a true Christian. You can anger him. He can discipline you. He can take away things in this life. He can do all kinds of stuff. But if you belong to Jesus Christ and you are trusting in Jesus Christ, his anger cannot remain forever. Why? There's nothing in this text that says, oh, by the way, if you will do this and do this, then somehow the anger will be lifted and everything will be fine. It just says, no, it will not last forever. If there is an unconditional promise in this passage, it is right here in verse 39. God cannot be angry with his people forever. Why not? Because Jesus has taken God's anger for your sin upon himself. So really the passage comes down to this. Do you want to accept Jeroboam's deal? The deal that God gave Jeroboam? If you obey me perfectly, you can have it all. That's one deal. We call that works righteousness. Or you can have the deal that he gives to David. Which is because of David, I will bring blessing on my people, period. So which promises do you rely upon? Are you bearing the weight of thinking that your blessing, your ability to receive God's eternal blessing, somehow depends upon you and your ability to perfectly obey? Because if you are, you're under Jeroboam's deal. Or are you relying upon Christ alone to give you all the blessings of his eternal kingdom? See, it's possible to be a Christian, to profess faith in Jesus Christ, and to still place yourself under the law. I know because I do it myself. I struggle. I have a bad day, and I think, oh, God, I'm going to lose everything. instead of casting myself upon God's mercy in Christ. Now it's interesting, and this gives me encouragement as well, because I'm a slow learner to trusting God's grace, but then again, so were God's people. Jeroboam, he's gonna be terrible, he's not really of God's, he's walking away, we'll get to that. But I tend to think from the book of Ecclesiastes that Solomon finally gets it worked out. And that Solomon is a true believer and he's experiencing the joys of glory even now. But look at verse 40. He doesn't get it worked out right away. Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam. And Jeroboam arose and fled to Egypt. So there's this idea that Solomon's like, he could just say, Lord, I just need to repent, okay, you're gonna give the kingdom to Jeroboam, I'm just gonna trust in you, you're gonna give me the kingdom when you want, or the future kingdom, I've lost this one, that's fine. But no, what does he say? I'm gonna take this kingdom by force. You're not trusting God. You're not trusting in God's promises. Solomon ought to have humbled himself before the Lord and turned back to God. And in an ironic way, God is taking Jeroboam and he preserves him in Egypt. I think there's a common theme there that all the enemies are preserved down in Egypt. How many of us, and this gets more to the personal, I know there's been a lot to work through in this passage. How many of us are clinging to our crumbling kingdoms in this life? We're trying to make the kingdom of God right here, right now in our life. Instead of waiting upon God to give us every spiritual blessing in Christ when he returns. That's that thing here, that first hymn. Danny chose this a few weeks back. Ye who have sold for naught your heritage above. And I still don't know that first part. But receive it back unbought, the gift of Jesus' love. The entire kingdom belongs to you in Jesus Christ. You've not lost any of it. So here's my conclusions. Your place in God's eternal kingdom rests only on the perfection of Jesus Christ. It does not rest on your obedience. We are called to live in this world by faith in Jesus Christ, resting upon his obedience. and not our own. The blessings of your human kingdoms in this life can be taken from you. God can often use the trials of this life to discipline you. All that can happen. But you cannot ever lose eternal blessing. And sometimes God's not even disciplining you in this world. He's just bringing hardship upon you so that it will loosen the grip you have on this life. You see, in order to enjoy the eternal kingdom, we have to let go of this one. Now, where does obedience come in? Because obedience is a part of this whole equation. Obedience is always the fruit of God's blessing. It is not its cause. God, by his grace, is working to produce obedience in his children. He does not make that obedience the condition of his salvation. Your obedience is the fruit of his salvation. So, brothers and sisters, I want you to read passages like 1 Kings and not turn it into, if I don't do everything perfect, then God's going to judge me and I'm going to lose my internal inheritance. I want you to see these passages as driving you to faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.