God’s call to a rebellious nation

Prophets to the Northern Kingdom

When we think of the apostle Paul, we consider him to be the first of the leaders of the early church who did most to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. The majority of his missions were to the gentile world and the letters that he wrote were directed to the churchies in that Gentile world.

It is surprising — although it should not be — when you read these words from his letter to the Christians in Rome.

Romans 9:2–5 “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.”

Had God rejected Israel and turned his favour on to the Gentiles? By no means. Paul goes on to explain in chapter 10

Romans 10:9 “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

He goes on to quote from the prophet Isaiah:

Isaiah 28:16 “So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic.”

Romans 10:12–13 “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.””

God had not rejected Israel, but Paul explains in verse 16 that not all the Israelites accepted the good news.

verse 18: Did they not hear? Of course they did.

verse 19: did Israel not understand?

God was constantly calling to his people. you can feel God’s anguish in verse 21

Romans 10:21 “But concerning Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.””

In the next chapter, eleven, Paul refers to the prophet Elijah

Romans 11:2–4 “God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.””

God was constantly calling his people to be faithful to him and that task of calling on the people to turn from their idols was given, in the main, to his prophets. Hebrews 1:1 “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways,”

In whatever age his people lived, there was always at least one prophet who stood firm and reminded the people of the blessings that would flow if they trusted God, and of the consequences that would follow if they chose to go their own way and reject God.

When I was with you last time, we learned that the young nation Israel had the promise of blessings. Even before they set foot in the promised land they had this message

Deuteronomy 28:1–2 “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:”

If you read in Deuteronomy all the way down to verse 13 you will marvel at the wonderful blessings that God wanted to bestow on them.

Deuteronomy 28:14 “Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.”

However they were told what would happen if they would not obey.

Deuteronomy 28:15 “However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:”

The rest of that chapter does not make for easy reading; in fact it is quite shocking. And towards the end of the chapter we find these words:

You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations from one end of the earth to the other.

We learned it started well for the young nation but it wasn’t long before it went wrong and we discovered in the book of Judges that the various tribes of Israel failed to complete their mission of driving out the enemy tribes. Instead they made agreements with the neighbouring tribes.

Here is what God thought of that:

Judges 2:1–3 “The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.’ ””

I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.

As we followed this young nation we discovered the truth of those words.

It began with corruption among the priesthood. You remember that Eli’s sons were corrupt. So, too, were Samuel’s sons and it led to the demand for a new leader, a king like the neighbouring peoples.

1 Samuel 8:5 “They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.””

How did that work out? Saul could have been the one to lead the Israelites in God’s ways, but

1 Samuel 13:14 “But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.””

That man was David and God’s plan of salvation was revealed to him through Nathan the prophet:

2 Samuel 7:12–16 “When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’ ””

David’s son Solomon succeeded him to the throne, and he began so well, but he lost his way.

1 Kings 11:6 “So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.”

Worse than that:

1 Kings 11:7–8 “On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.”

And God’s response? I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you.

It was the prophet Ahijah who spoke to Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s high officials, and told him that he would be the leader of ten of the tribes of Israel and that this would happen after Solomon had died and his son Rehoboam was king.

That is indeed what happened. The tribes in the north rebelled when Rehoboam refused to lessen the burden of harsh labour that Solomon had put on them. Rather, he intended to make it even harsher. He said this:

1 Kings 12:14 “he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.””

The reaction of the tribes had consequences for the whole nation of Israel that were felt for centuries to come. We come to one of the saddest statements in the whole bible.

1 Kings 12:16 “When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king: “What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse’s son? To your tents, Israel! Look after your own house, David!” So the Israelites went home.”

The tribes in the north appointed Jeroboam as their king and only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the house of David.

We now have two kingdoms, one in the north centred on Sammaria, ruled by Jeroboam, and one in the south, centred on Jerusalem, ruled by Rehoboam. There was continual warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam, and neither of them was a good king.

In the years after that we see two nations in decline. The Northern Kingdom, until their capture by the Assyrians and their exile was ruled by nine different families and it was hard to find a good king among them.

2 Kings 17:22–23 “The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them until the Lord removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.”

The sins of Jeroboam, or the ways of Jeroboam. That phrase can be found over and over again in the two books of Kings. It occurs more than twenty times.

For example:

1 Kings 15:34 “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the ways of Jeroboam and committing the same sin Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit.”

1 Kings 16:2 ““I lifted you up from the dust and appointed you ruler over my people Israel, but you followed the ways of Jeroboam and caused my people Israel to sin and to arouse my anger by their sins.”

1 Kings 16:26 “He followed completely the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat, committing the same sin Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit, so that they aroused the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, by their worthless idols.”

1 Kings 22:52 “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, because he followed the ways of his father and mother and of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin.”

2 Kings 3:3 “Nevertheless he clung to the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit; he did not turn away from them.”

2 Kings 10:29 “However, he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit—the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.”

2 Kings 13:2 “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord by following the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit, and he did not turn away from them.”

What had Jeroboam done that so offended God that he caused his sins to be remembered for such a long time?. He sought to establish in the northern kingdom a system of worship that would be a substitute for the true worship of God in Jerusalem.

1 Kings 12:28–30 “After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other.”

1 Kings 12:31 “Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites.”

What happened to the Levites?

2 Chronicles 11:14 “The Levites even abandoned their pasturelands and property and came to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them as priests of the Lord”

It was probably true that many people who wanted to remain true to God also moved south, but most would not have been able to do so and had to endure this new religion that Jeroboam was trying to establish.

Was the voice of God silent at this time? By no means.

The man of God fromJudah 1 Kings 13

Ahijah 1 Kings 14

Jehu 1 Kings 16

Elijah ch 17,18, 19, 21

Elisha

the ma n of god ch 20

one of the sons of the prophets ch 20

Micaiah ch 22