If you want, open your Bible to the book of 1 Kings 11. 1 Kings 11. I had the opportunity this summer to read through the book of 2 Kings. In so doing, I noticed a couple of names, a couple of men, whose names were repeated in the book of 2 Kings. Most of the references to these men were either good or bad. One man had done a lot of bad, and one man had done a lot of good. Just the simple truth, I think, for us is that today's actions do have influence and consequence that can go on for generations. And just as Brother Holmes referred just a moment ago about how somebody years ago did some things to benefit us here at the seminary, years ago, as we celebrate our 50th anniversary this year, somebody 50 years ago did some things and we have benefited from that. 50 years ago somebody made some choices that were evil choices and somebody somewhere is experiencing the negative consequences of their actions as well. And we need to be careful and considerate of what we do and think about the influence and consequence that could result from our actions. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for your love and your blessings and we pray that you'll be with us here in these few moments today as we look at your word and we look at the examples Lives of a couple of men and father pray that we will learn from their experiences Lord And how we should live and help us to always be concerned about honoring you Indeed let you be our desire Help us to trust you and obey you for your honor and your glory father where I would be tempted to be Arrogant or prideful or sin in any way I pray you'll forgive that and father Satan would have no influence here today and Father, we will honor you by all we do. In the precious name of Jesus, amen. Jeroboam is a man that's mentioned throughout the book of 1 Kings, the latter part, and the book of 2 Kings in a very negative fashion. When you normally see Jeroboam's name come up, it's usually that a certain king had followed in the wicked ways of Jeroboam. And king after king after king of Israel is cited as following after his father, sinful Jeroboam. I don't want to have a reputation like that. I don't want people and generations to come where they say, he followed in the sins of Philip. You know, I don't want that. But Jeroboam had that situation. Now, Jeroboam's story actually begins in 1 Kings 11. We know that King Solomon was the wisest person to ever live, but we know that at the end of his life, Solomon began to make some very poor and unwise choices. Solomon got involved with many, many wives that were from foreign lands. In direct disobedience to the teaching of our Lord, he began to marry people who had a service to other gods. We look and we see that of the many wives that Solomon had, he began to build high places or places of worship for those wives. And they were the high places honoring detestable gods from the nations that surrounded Israel. God was extremely disappointed with this. And He talked with Solomon and said, I'm going to remove the kingdom from you. Because of your father David, I'm going to leave it in your hands. But when your son takes control, there's going to be a major division. And we know that there was. Now, Solomon had noticed Jeroboam. Noticed that he was a good worker. And Solomon put him in charge of the labor force for the house of Joseph, a couple of tribes of Israel. One day, Jeroboam is walking down a road, and a prophet meets him out in the country. They're just by themselves. The prophet is wearing a brand new cloak. And he comes up to Jeroboam, and he starts to rip his brand new cloak. And he tears it into pieces, and he gives ten of those pieces to Jeroboam. And he says, Jeroboam, the Lord has a message for you. He's displeased with Solomon. And he is going to tear the kingdom apart. And you are going to be given ten tribes of Israel. Now, in verse 37 of 1 Kings 11, he says this, However, as for you, I will take you and you will rule over all that your heart desires. You will be king over Israel. If you do whatever I command you and walk in my ways and do what's right in my eyes by keeping my statutes and commands as David, my servant, did, I will be with you. I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David, and I will give Israel to you." Now, what happens is Solomon hears about this, and Jeroboam flees to Egypt, and he stays there until Solomon passes away. This is an incredible prophecy. I mean, here's Jeroboam. He's a good, hard worker, but I have no idea if he ever thought that God would call upon him to be the King of Israel. What a promise! You're going to rule over all that your heart desires. I will be with you. My goodness, wouldn't you like to have that promise? And we do, that God will be with us. What if you had a prophet actually visit you and say, God says He will be with you? You'll have all that your heart desires. You will be the king of Israel, and I will make for you a dynasty that is as enduring as David. What a promise! But there are some conditions to this. You need to serve me as my servant David did. You need to obey my statutes and my commands, and there will be great blessings for you. Well, Solomon passes away. And Jeroboam returns, and Rehoboam, Solomon's son, is now the king of Israel. The people come to Rehoboam, and they talk with him, and they plead to him and say, your father was very hard on us, and if you will lighten the load, we will be in your corner, we will be faithful servants for you as long as you're king. Rehoboam says, let me think about it a few days. Rehoboam goes and he speaks with the advisors that his father had had, and they say, yes, you know, your father was hard. And if you will reduce the load that you require from them, they will be on your side, and you're going to have a good thing. He goes over after listening to their advice, and he talks to the guys he'd grown up with. They were young men. And I don't know that this is a slam or an insult to young men, but he listens to these young men. And their idea is this, well if you lower the load from your father's requirements, these people are going to think they can run over you. And so what you need to do is take a tough stand. And you need to go tell them, you thought my father was tough, well I'm the one who was tough. And I don't know how to describe it except just to, I think he comes back to the people and he is extremely disrespectful to his father. He gets up there and he says, I want y'all to know something. My pinky is bigger than my father-in-law's. And you thought my father was tough? Well, I'm tough. He gave you a whipping, but I'm giving you a whipping with scorpions, or I'm going to put barbed wires and whip you with that. And I'm raising it. Well, the ten tribes to the north say, you know what? We don't have to put up with that. And David, your house, you can just take care of yourself. And we're gone in the kingdom of divides. Just as God had promised. Jeroboam becomes the king of the ten tribes of Israel, which is now Israel, and then we've got Judah in the south. Do you know that Israel, the divided Israel, never, ever had a good king? And Jeroboam sees the prophecy of God right before his eyes fulfilled, that here come the ten tribes and you are the king, and he shouldn't have remembered the promises that you can have rule over all your heart desires. I will build for you a dynasty that is equal to that of David, if you'll obey me. See, Jeroboam reaches the position that God had called him to. But Jeroboam is about to fail in accomplishing the mission that God had required of him. Jeroboam begins to look at the situation. He says, you know, I'm in control of all these people up here, but Jerusalem is where that temple is. We were all excited about it when that temple was built, and people are going to go back to that temple in Jerusalem, and they're going to worship there, and they're going to start turning their hearts back toward David, David's house in Jerusalem and to the temple, and they're going to leave me. In fact, they might even kill me. And so what Jeroboam's idea is, well, let's start helping the people to have more convenient worship. I mean, he says this, he says, it's too much for you to go down to Jerusalem and worship, so let's just build an altar right here with golden calves. In fact, those golden calves that brought you out of Egypt, and you can worship here. And they put one of these in Dan as well, which is in far north. Now, I need to research this a little bit more, but I was thinking about this this morning. Bethel is only about 20 miles from Jerusalem. Dan is about 90 miles from Bethel. It's easier for you to go up there. It's too hard for you to go down to Jerusalem. He began to set up high places of worship all around. In fact, what the Bible says was the most detrimental sin that caused the kingdom and dynasty to be ripped from the house of Jeroboam was this, that he began to appoint whoever wanted to be a leader, he appointed them as leaders. Somebody said, I want to be a priest. Well, you know, the Bible, God has said you had to be a Levite. Well, that didn't matter under Jeroboam. If you wanted to, whoever you were, you could be a priest. I tell you what, God has some things about who should serve Him. I just want to touch on one thing real quick. I don't think you can look in the Bible and ever find anywhere where God would permit a homosexual to be a minister. Now, that's not my call, that's God's call. Jeroboam's call was to make the changes, to be relevant to the culture. Now, I think we need to be sensitive toward things like culture. I don't have a problem with that. But when we fail to do what God has called us to do, there is a major problem. And that's what Jeroboam had done. He began to try to reach out to people, to be sensitive to their needs and so forth, but he completely forsakes God. He's building an altar there at Bethel and a prophet comes up to him. They're having the big celebration, dedicatory service of this altar. And out of nowhere comes this prophet and he begins to prophesy against this altar. Altar! Altar! Upon you one day, a descendant of David, whose name is Josiah, he's going to burn the human bodies and the bones of false prophets on you. And this is going to be the sign. This altar is going to crack. Well, I mean, here we are at the great celebration service, and here comes somebody disturbing the service. Jeroboam turns and he points to the man and he says, arrest that man. And as soon as he does, his hand shrivels up. And he can't pull it back. Well, suddenly he begins to yell to the prophet, pray to the Lord your God to heal me. I think one of the saddest points of this is that God had given Jeroboam all this prophecy about him and how he'd be with him and how he would rule over everything his heart desires, but now Jeroboam doesn't even recognize God as his own God. Pray to the Lord, you're God. Well, the prophet prays and Jeroboam's hand is healed. Jeroboam invites the man, the prophet, to come and eat and drink with him. Some people say that maybe that was Jeroboam trying to kind of get one favor back up on the prophet. I mean, if you have prayed and my hands have been healed, I owe you one. If you come eat at my house, maybe I don't owe you as much. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what some scholars think. But the man says, listen, Jeroboam, even if you gave me half of your kingdom, I cannot go and eat anything or drink anything, and I cannot return by the same way I came because God has commanded me not to do those things. So the man is leaving, he's obedient to God, he's doing what God has commanded him to do, but an old prophet lives there in Bethel, and this old prophet sends his sons and they go and they get this man, they get this prophet, and the old prophet invites this younger prophet to come eat and drink with him. The young prophet says, I can't do that. I can't go eat and drink with you or go back the same way I came because God has commanded me not to. You know what this old prophet says? Well, you know, an angel told me to tell you that God has changed His mind and that you should come and eat and drink with me. And the young prophet says, oh, well, if God has changed, then I'll go and I'll eat and drink with you. Of course, you know what happens? I mean, God is displeased with the man who disobeyed Him, and the man ends up losing his life. A lion attacks him on his way home and kills him. To me, it's a harsh story. Why did God take this young man's life, or younger man's life, who did obey God, but this old prophet gives him bad advice. I mean, this is easy. Well, I think it could be this, because the young man at Jeroboam had declared the Word of God, hadn't he? I mean, he hadn't said, God has commanded me not to eat, drink, or return the same way. Everybody knew that the man had said that God had proclaimed this. But now if he goes and he eats and drinks, people are going to see that and say, well, that guy is disobeying God. See, the public Word of God had been made known. I just don't think God goes around changing His public Word. We have a Bible. This is the Word of God. And it's not going to change. God is not going to give us some new or fresh Word that violates the Scriptures. And yet you know, like I do, that there are numerous people, you can see them on TV, you can visit them in our community. People always claim to have a new fresh word from God, even though it violates the Bible, it's from God. Let me tell you what, that's not from God. And you might be the old prophet who's lying about it, but I might be the one, if I listen to you and disobey God, I might be the one to face the consequence. I need to be sure that I'm doing what God says. And I don't care who it is. I mean, you know, if it's a seminary professor, At this school that starts to teach you against the Bible, do not follow that teaching. Now, we don't want that to happen, and we're praying that's not going to happen, and I don't believe it is happening. But that's a concern for us because, see, our actions today affect other people. I think that's when it comes to this new, fresh Word. Some of you have heard me use this illustration before. asking a question, can God cause a garden to grow in the dead of winter? Well, sure He can. But why would He? Why would He violate the very laws of nature that He created? Now, can God cause a church to grow that is not obedient to His Word? Well, sure He can. But why would He? Why would He violate the very commands that are perfect teachings for us to observe? Jesus is obviously the example that we should follow. And Jesus told us in the Great Commission that we should be about the business of making disciples. And you know, most of you have had me for classes, you have, you will, you know that I believe that Jesus says there, not only to teach people what they need to know, but to teach them with a particular method. That's to show them how to do it in real life. You look at Jesus and you see Him doing the work of a pastor. You see Him visiting the synagogue. You see Him attending funerals. You see Him at social events. You see Him teaching. But you always see people with Him. You see His disciples with Him so that He can show them. how to share the gospel. He shows them how to pray by praying with them. Listen, that's how God wants us to grow our churches. It's by discipleship. What we learn and what we know about the spiritual disciplines of prayer and Bible study and evangelism and tithing and worship, those things, I don't need to just teach them to you in a classroom. I need to be worshiping and giving and praying and studying my Bible and sharing the gospel with you. That's what Jesus did. Now, you know, a sin is basically anything that we say or think or do or do not do that displeases God. Now, I doubt that many of us got up this morning and said vile, cursing language. And I doubt that any of us have gotten up and done evil, sinful things like drugs or murder or lying. I doubt that we've done many of those things. But I know that most of us have had sinful thoughts today. There's probably a good chance for that. But the real question is this. In your church, are you doing what you're supposed to be doing? That's the thing. Are you making disciples the way that Jesus made disciples? See, Jesus says this. He mentions two works that he finishes. One work that Jesus finishes is his redemptive work at Calvary. It is finished. The debt had been paid. But before Jesus went to the cross, you see him in his prayer to the Lord, Lord, I have finished the work that you gave me to do. He has finished the work before He has finished the work on the cross. What work was it? It was the work with His disciples. It was the work of training His men. He had finished that work. He did not say, Father, I finished the work. I mean, we had a high attendance of more than 5,000 men in one service, and we had this and we had that. And he doesn't go on through these numbers and how big things were. He was pleased that he had accomplished the work of training these 12 disciples. I could go to conferences and I hear people on church growth and so forth talking about how your church ought to be growing so large and so large. Well, if God chooses, that'll be great. But I know that His commission to me is to make disciples. Now, Jeroboam reached the position of king, but he failed to do the kingship as God required of him. And folks, you may be a pastor, or you may be in some position that God has called you to do. You may reach that position, but you better do it the way that He wants you to do it. You better fulfill the mission that He's called you to. You can say, well, that seems to work, you in the seminary land and your ivory tower over there, but over here in my culture or my place, it won't work. Jesus said this in Matthew 28, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Do you know what that means? That means that all people, all places, and all times are under the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that means He is the God of every culture. And it doesn't matter what you look like, or what you dress like, or what kind of music you listen to, or what they do, where you are, making disciples the way Jesus did is the way to get it done. I've discovered this. that God is much less concerned about my opinions of how to do church than He is about my opinions to His. What has He commanded? What has He commissioned us to do? That's what we must be busy about doing. And when we reach the positions that God has called us to, and you guys, you're studying here to earn degrees and to be in certain ministry positions that you feel God is leading you to. Don't just feel satisfied that when you reach that position that you have arrived, are you busy doing the true things that God has commissioned us to do. And primarily, making of disciples. There's one other man that is mentioned in the book of 2 Kings in a positive light. And this is in chapter 13. I'm really switching gears here. In chapter 13, verse 20, Elisha died and was buried. Now, Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders. So they threw the dead man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet. Now that's a story there. I don't know how long Elisha had been in the grave at this point. And I don't want to stretch this too much. But I want to say this. Whatever is left of me, whether it is my bones, whether it's my books, whether it's my house, whatever is left of me, my prayer is that God would be able to use it to bring honor and glory to His name. That it would bring healing to those who need healing. Now, Elisha Can you imagine the power of God in this man Elisha? That even after he's gone, his bones are still doing miraculous things. Jeroboam over here, king after king after king, following in the sinful footsteps. How do you get such power? that Elisha has, is it available to us today? You know what? I'm certain that it is. I think two things are required. Trusting God and obeying Him. If we trust God and obey Him, then He will bring honor to His name. He will work in us Not only in the days that our bodies breathe, but following us for years and generations to do positive, positive things that bring honor and glory to Him. Listen, as you study, as you minister to your people, you may be in the position that God calls you to now or one day. Have your heart set upon serving Him as David served Him, keeping the statutes, keeping the commandments that He has given to us that applies to us today. When we trust Him, believe that without faith it's impossible to please Him, but when we believe He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, then we will have blessings like Elisha and the reputation of Jeroboam will not be known of us. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your love and your blessings. Thank you for the truth that your Bible provides for us. Father, help us to honor you by trusting you and being obedient. And Father, I know that many times the reason I'm disobedient is because of my own ignorance of your Word and my own distractions, Lord, that lead me away from knowing your Word. Father, Jesus was never distracted. from the ministry of making disciples, even when people wanted to make him king and so forth, he was never distracted from the mission that you called him to do. Father, if that is how you use Jesus, why would you do anything else with us? Father, help us to be obedient to you and to follow our Lord's example. As we study this semester, Father, I pray we'll know your word more and more. that will know things that are true more and more, so that we can serve you faithfully, so you will always receive honor and glory. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Thank you so much. You're dismissed.