If you have your Bibles with you, would you turn with me please to our text for this morning. It's found in 1 Kings chapter 12. We'll be working our way really through the first 24 verses. And there we are confronted with a terribly dark chapter in the history of the church. The kingdom has been under kingship for about 120 years, Saul, David, Solomon. Now, it's never been smooth sailing. Saul tried to kill David. Absalom tries to usurp David's authority. Adonijah tries to undercut Solomon. But it has been one nation through those years. But Solomon now has slept with his fathers and Rehoboam succeeds him to the crown. A nation united is about to be permanently severed as an act of God's judgment but also as an act of his mercy. Follow as I read, beginning at verse 12 of 1 Kings chapter 12. This portion is printed in your bulletin. So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day as the king said, come to me again the third day. And the king answered the people harshly, and forsaking the counsel that the old men had given him, he spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, my father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions. So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word. which the Lord spoke by Ahijah the Shillonite to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. And when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, what portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse to your tents, oh Israel. Look now to your own house, David. So Israel went away to their tents. but Rehoboam reigned over the people of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah. Would you pray with me, please? Father, lead us, open our ears this morning, that your word would be to us the living word, the word of truth. Grant us grace, Lord, and grant us your spirit to hear, to understand, and to believe, we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. We live in an interesting age. I feel like those words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 are appropriate for us today. The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching and having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. Now, we have taken that to new heights in our own day. You can go online and find not just an individual or two, but whole groups of people who will tell you exactly what you want to hear. No matter how unusual, how radical, how kinky, how mainstream, whatever your niche, your desire, your concern, you can find those who think exactly like you do. And if you don't like somebody's viewpoint or their opinion, their correction, their expression of something, well, you just go out and find someone who supports you wholeheartedly. You don't have to listen to anybody except the people who are just like you and tell you what you want to hear. It's obviously not a new phenomenon. Paul already saw it. He foresaw a day like ours. It's been our sinful addiction long before Paul's day. We've just made it easier to feed the addiction with our technology. We see it actually in our passage today. And what we'll discover is that it is actually part of the means that God uses to accomplish his plans. As I said, this is one of the darkest chapters in the history of the church. In chapter 12, we see the sins of the father about to be visited on the children, on the son. If you've read the chapter ahead, you recognize, you can see immediately there's rebellion in the air. When Rehoboam is to come to the throne, the elders of Israel, the northern tribes, won't come to Jerusalem. They summon him to Shechem. Now, Shechem, is in the territory of Ephraim. It's in those northern kingdoms. It was the place where covenant renewal took place when Israel entered the promised land, just as the Lord spoke to Moses back in Deuteronomy 11, 29 and following that this is what was to happen. And so when you read Joshua 8, 30 through 36, it was actually fulfilled there. So Shechem is an important place in the history of Israel, that's true. But it's not Jerusalem. They won't come to Jerusalem. They won't come to the city of David. They won't come to the capital that God selected, where he has built his temple, the center for his worship, where he has centered the government and the authority of this kingdom, where his king, from which his king would rule. And so this is a slap at Jeroboam. Meanwhile, to make it even worse, I'm sorry, it was a slap at Rehoboam, King Rehoboam. To make it worse, Jeroboam is now coming out of his personal exile. The end of chapter 11, he had been stirring up the tribes and Solomon decides to kill him. Jeroboam flees to Egypt. But now hearing that that Solomon has slept with his fathers, he comes back. And in verse 3 of chapter 12, we read that the people sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, your father made our yoke heavy. Now, therefore, lighten the hard service of your father and the heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you. Promising allegiance on condition. Lighten the load. What's happening is the judgment that God promised is about to take place. And it is a judgment against Solomon in many ways. Solomon had turned his heart from the Lord. He had turned from wisdom. And what had happened in those later years? Did he become harsh in his demands, more interested in his personal gain and the Lord's glory? Were the people who at one time were delighted, joyful, glad in their hearts in the service of Solomon and of their God and King, who had known abundance and bounty and blessing in spite of the work and the hard labor, were they now just working for Solomon's glory? under a harsh hand. It would be judgment against Solomon. But they would be pronouncing, they would ultimately pronounce judgment against themselves, ungrateful for the blessings that they had known. They wanted to be free of their bondage, if you will, the allegiance to the house of David. Now that goes all the way back to David's anointing. If you go back to 2 Samuel 2, as David is being crowned, as he is being proclaimed king in Judah, Ish-bosheth, son of Saul, was trying to separate those northern tribes to make himself king over Israel while David was in Judah. And so that unity of the nation was always fragile. And now the sins of the father have laid the groundwork for the sins of the sons and of the children. King Rehoboam, this new king, seeks counsel. They have come and said, lighten the load, we'll serve you. But like his father, he would reject the wisdom, the wise counsel. Now, seeking counsel, that was a good idea. He's a young man, actually. He's about 40. And I can remember being 40 and thinking, yes, I'm a young man. And looking back now, realizing I wish I knew now. I wish I knew then what I know now. But as I said, here we begin to see the sins of the father visited upon the children. As Exodus promised, Exodus 34, 7, that the sins of the father would be visited to the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation. All that's saying, all that's picturing is the reality of sin. Because my sin doesn't just affect me. It never does. And by now, folks, those of us who were raised in the 60s, you know, oh, it's just two consenting adults. It doesn't mean anything to anybody. Just leave us alone. We're seeing that that simply isn't true. It has an impact on the generation that was before. It has an impact on my children. It has an impact on my grandchildren, to the children's children, to the third and fourth generation. Solomon's abandonment of the wisdom of God is having its effect. Wisely, Rehoboam goes to the old men who, at verse 7, are pleading for humility on Rehoboam's part. If you will be a servant to this people today and will serve them and speak good words to them when you answer them, they will be your servants forever. That's good advice. Humble yourself. Their good is your good. You must be a servant because the Lord's anointed is a servant. He is the servant of the king, the true king of God himself. He must be a servant at heart. And of course, when Jesus came, he said, even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Their counsel was, you can win them over. But before, it tells us in verse eight, before he even went to his young counselors, his friends, his cohorts, he had already abandoned that counsel. And so he went to the young men. These were the men who grew up in the court with him. These are men who had never suffered anything, who had never struggled anything. And these were men who grew up in the temples of their mothers, serving idols. That's where they were raised. That's where they were taught. And their advice, Ray says to them, what shall we say? In other words, I'm listening, guys. What shall we say? You shall speak to the people who said to you, your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us. And you shall say to them, my little finger is thicker than my father's thighs. That was an insult, by the way. And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions. And that may be thinking literal scorpions, but it's quite likely it was a scourge, like was used on Jesus. Bits of metal, things that are going to tear flesh. It's not just going to sting. I'm going to rip you apart. Instead of heeding the word of his father, In Proverbs 15-1 that a soft answer turns away wrath, a harsh word stirs up anger. He forsakes wisdom just like his father and chooses absolute folly. There's no humility there. He appears to be blind to the judgment that's at hand because of the disobedience like father and son. And he promises cruelty What follows is Israel's folly. And I'm speaking there of the northern kingdoms, not just, not all 12, but those northern kingdoms. Because here their response, verse 16, when they saw that Israel, when all Israel saw that the king didn't listen to them, the people answered the king, what portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel. Look now to your own house, David. Do you hear what they're doing? They are rejecting the covenant promises of God. They are rejecting the covenant God. They are rejecting the house of David and the promise that has been made to him. It is a monumental act. Rejecting the line of David, we separate ourselves, and they will. They will go and put Jerry on the throne. Jeroboam's going to be their new king. He's connected to nobody of that line that the Lord has established. And they are divorcing themselves from the covenant promises of God to have a righteous king to rule over them. We don't need the house of David. We don't even need it to worship, is what Jeroboam will quickly prove. We'll set up our own places. You don't need to go to Jerusalem. You don't need to go to the temple. We'll take care of that right here. And into idolatry they go. What folly. I can hear Frank Sinatra singing, I did it my way. Did he have any idea how far that would be taken? where it would lead. The northern kingdoms would defy the living God. They would deny the living God. They would despise his covenant, his promises, his leadership. You deny the living God and you subject yourself to an eternal judgment you choose death over life. And so they declared their independence. At verse 19, we're told that they lived in rebellion from that day forward. And they took Jeroboam and made him their king. Rehoboam's response? He still doesn't get it. He still doesn't get it. And so he sent Aza Ram, his taskmaster, basically to kind of whip them back into line. Now, that's the crew chief. Likely he took his crew with him, his motivational staff, you might say. And when they showed up there to say, back to work, guys, it didn't go so well because he was stoned. And I have a feeling he was not alone. in that the uprising began. And Rehoboam has to hit the chariots fast and lay the leather on those horses to get himself out of there in order to survive. His first act was absolute foolishness. His second one was deadly. And he attempts a third because when he gets back into Judah, He raises an army of 160, maybe 180,000 men to go after them. Basically to say, you aren't going to be my servants, you're going to be my slaves. He will treat them as a conquered people. But he stopped. He finally listens when Shemaiah the prophet stands up to him in verse 24 and says, thus says the Lord, You shall not go up or fight against your relatives, the people of Israel. Every man returned to his home for this thing is from me. And finally, he listened. And I am surprised that he listened. But you see what we're hearing? His action, His decision in the first place, we read back in verse 15, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that He might fulfill His Word. When we come to the end of this dreadful section, what do we read? That this thing is from me, God said. and the kingdom is divided, judgment has been pronounced, but mercy has been given as well, as we'll see in a moment, for the remnant is preserved and protected. Now, we need to be careful how we go about applying this particular portion of scripture. The temptation is there for me to look at all the young people, all these young people, all these children, and tell you how foolish it is not to seek out wise counsel, to go to your elders. I'll preach 1 Corinthians 10.13, bad company corrupts good morals. You need to surround yourself with good people in terrible dangers of peer pressure. If you only listen to the people who are just like you, what do you think is going to happen to you? Well, this is what's going to happen to you. I'm not preaching that sermon. I can go to other places to preach those sermons. But that's not what this is about. He tells us very clearly, the author is telling us very clearly what this is about. It's about revealing God's judgment. It's about God preserving His remnant, His line, that Davidic line, He's showing mercy. It's about God fulfilling His word through the decisions and the actions of sinful people. We need to emphasize what he's emphasizing. What was Rehoboam doing? He was fulfilling the word of God. God had already declared that the kingdom was going to be divided. That's the word that was spoken to Jeroboam by Habija the prophet. When he tore his robe into 12 pieces, and he gave 10 of those pieces, to Jerry. I'm tearing the kingdom apart. And why? Go back to verse 33 of chapter 11. Why was God doing that? Because they have forsaken me and worshipped Ashtoreth and Chemosh and Milcom and Molech and they have set up their temples to the east of my house, and they have gone after idols, and Solomon has led them, and Israel is judged." Rehoboam and Jeroboam were the instruments that God used. Both could have honored God. Rehoboam could have taken the advice of those godly men and their good advice. And those people would have served him all their days. And he could have led them well, but they did not. Jeroboam, what was the promise that God made to him? And 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 commandments as David, my servant did, I will be with you and will build you a sure house as I built for David. And I will give Israel to you. But instead he took it. It wasn't given to him. You realize both of them just played themselves. Neither were manipulated in any way to act other than that as their own sin and their own desires drove them. Rehoboam's hubris and foolishness was the turn of affairs that God would use to fulfill his word to Jeroboam, to split that, to destroy, to tear the kingdom apart. And Rehoboam steps back from war because this thing is from me. It was God who was at work through those things. You see, the king's heart really is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord that he turns wherever he will. Those were Solomon's words from Proverbs 21. And we see God's judgment. The nations, the nation torn apart and divided because of sin. But we also see his mercy preserving the remnant. Yes, Rehoboam had to jump in the chariot and beat it back to Judah. But there he found, by God's grace, those who would be faithful to the king who were not saying, We don't need David's house. We don't want David's house. And so God's promise made to David is continuing. It is a humbling continuation. As the kingdom is torn asunder, but the line is preserved. The promise is upheld. Judah, along with Benjamin and some faithful ones from Simeon, would stand fast. Even Israel would be shown mercy, those northern tribes. Because for some 200 years, God would continue to come to them, to appeal to them, to repent and to turn, but they never would. They never did. It was God's doing. But they would destroy themselves. And so we find a people, the Lord's people, a divided people. As I began to ponder the implications of that for my world today, boy, we live in a divided world. And we look at the church and we think, well, the church is still bearing the fruit of that in its divisions. I think that's true. The lesson is there. We can't conform to the surrounding culture and still think that we're holding on to God's covenant promises. We may well be at times bringing judgment on ourselves, leading others into judgment. We need to be guarded against that in terms of the wisdom we seek. You know, I'm asking that first question that I said, keep these in mind as we study Kings. What does this passage tell us about us? What does it tell me about God and who he is? How does it point me to Christ? Well, as I look at the church today, and as we look at ourselves, apart from the Spirit of God, we're much better at dividing than we are at uniting, aren't we? Are kingdom divisions that we see today something we ought to be happy with or proud of? And sadly, sometimes we are proud. Of course we have the truth. Of course we're right. And yet those divisions are not something we ought to be proud of. We should be guarding our own lives so that we're not being conformed to the world around us, but to the word of God, to the truth that does not change, to the promises that will not fail, even in a divided world. But as we consider for a moment how God reveals himself in a passage like this, Don't be too discouraged. Yes, we see the divisions and it's frustrating. But if this word is true, then God works through the turn of affairs to divide, to show the pure from the impure, to unite, to divide or to unite for his purposes. He is turning that stream where he Desires it to go and so we can trust in that we can rest in that now. I acknowledge Freely that we can distort that message and truth. We can discourage the people and brothers and sisters in the body of Christ We can do damage to the church. We can bring dishonor to the name of Christ. We can disgrace his people but We can also By God's grace see his hand and trust that his hand is at work for his purposes. I don't want to be the one who brings disgrace. I do not want to be the one who damages the body, who dishonors the name of Christ. Let me walk in his paths, in his ways, in his word. But when you see the struggles in the world around you, and even the struggles in your church, understand that God's still in control. Let me close with this. How does this passage point us to Jesus? How does it point us to the Savior? Well, just think of this. Think on this. If God can bring judgment and mercy, if he can act in righteous justice and anger to divide, to set apart those who reject him and his ways, and yet can preserve that line, the promises that he has made through the actions of sinful men, what can he bring forth through the obedient worship and service of a perfect man? Righteous judgment, abundant mercy, forgiveness, eternal life. What would he bring forth through a man, the actions of a man not bound in any way by sin and death? This is the one who can sit on the throne of David forever in perfect righteousness and justice, a perfect servant who we can joyfully serve together forever. because he has come not to be served, but to serve and give his life as that ransom for many. Father, help us look with eyes open to see your hand, even in the midst of our circumstances. And trust, Lord, that you are at work for your glory And as you have promised in your word for good for those who love you, who have not rejected your king, who have not rejected your promises and covenant. Open our eyes, Lord, and bring us to that great savior and truth, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.