Divided by Sin or United to Christ

Prayer

1 Kings 12-14 - The Nation of Israel Divided

We’re picking back up in the story of 1 Kings, as we make our way through the reign of kings who ruled over Israel - and as we’ll see, the nation of Judah as well. Last week we saw that at the end of 1 Kings 11, Solomon had died after forty years as king and his son Rehoboam succeeded him.

But before the people anoint Rehoboam king, they have something to say, 1 Kings 12:1-4, Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king. 2 When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from Egypt. 3 So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: 4 “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”

So it turns out that in addition to moving towards idol worship because of the influence of his many wives, Solomon had been conscripting his own people and using them for labor for his vast projects. They didn’t like it so much. Also, Jeroboam is back in town - he’s the former royal official whom God had told would rule over part of the kingdom, and had fled to Egypt out of fear for his life.

So Rehoboam takes some time to consult his advisors - he first goes to the older ones who had served his father. They agree with the people, lighten their load, ease up on them and they’ll embrace you as king, serve you faithfully.

But Rehoboam is young and foolish and wants to make an impression - he rejects their advice and seeks the counsel of his peers. They tell him to lay it on - you think my Dad was tough?! Wait until you see the yoke I put on you. I will scourge you with scorpions!

Needless to say, the people of Israel do not take kindly to this. So they reject Rehoboam as king. Instead they call for Jeroboam and make him king over Israel. Only two tribes - Judah (where the capital, Jerusalem, is) and Benjamin stay with Rehoboam. Rehoboam decides he’s going to take the rest of the nation back by force (civil war!), but the word of the Lord comes to him and tells him not to go fight. So he returns home.

This begins the period of the divided nation, there are now two nations for the Jewish people. Up until this point, we’ve been referring to the nation as Israel. But Israel is now the name for the northern tribes, the ten tribes under the rule of Jeroboam. And the southern kingdom is Judah, taking the name of the larger of its two tribes. As we go through 1 & 2 Kings, we’ll be jumping back and forth between the two nations and the kings who reign over them.

So things do not start well for Israel under the reign of Jeroboam, 1 Kings 12:25-30, Then Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built up Peniel. 26 Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. 27 If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.” 28 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.” 29 One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. 30 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.

Jeroboam is afraid that the temple in Jerusalem will draw all his people - and their allegiance - to Rehoboam (and their gifts, there’s financial interest here). He sets up two alternative spots for them to make offerings - complete with golden calves. Not only that, he sets up shrines in high places (which is code for idol worship), institutes his own festivals (as opposed to the festivals God commanded them to celebrate) and even allows people who weren’t Levites to serve as priests in all these places of worship he sets up.

This move to blatant idolatry will mark Israel from the very beginning - and be its norm until it is destroyed - but that comes later. As we move into 1 Kings 13, we see a man of God who comes to speak a word against Jeroboam while he is the midst of making an offering at the altar he set up in Bethel. Jeroboam does not take to it kindly - as he commands his guards to seize the prophet, he stretches out his hand. As he does so, his hand shrivels up. In addition, the altar where he is making his offering splits in two. You would think that would be enough to spur him to repentance. It isn’t.

There’s more to 1 Kings 13, but it’s a side story, so I want to finish up our look at the text by moving to the events of 1 Kings 14. Jeroboam’s son becomes ill, so he sends his wife, disguised, to go to the prophet, Ahijah. But Ahijah knows that it’s Jeroboam’s wife.

The Lord has a word for them both, 1 Kings 14:7-9, Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I raised you up from among the people and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 8 I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes. 9 You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have aroused my anger and turned your back on me.

Because of this evil, God promises that he will destroy the house of Jeroboam. They will no longer reign in Israel. And the son that is ill will die as soon as the mother returns home. Sure enough, as soon as she crosses over the threshold of their home on her return, the son dies. Jeroboam’s story ends with a brief summary - he reigns for twenty-two years as king over Israel. Another son, Nadab, succeeds him as king.

Meanwhile, it’s not going well in Judah either, where Rehoboam continues to reign, 1 Kings 14:22-24, Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord. By the sins they committed they stirred up his jealous anger more than those who were before them had done. 23 They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. 24 There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

As a result Rehoboam’s unfaithfulness, in the fifth year of his reign, Shishak the king of Egypt attacks Jerusalem and plunders it, carrying off all the vast treasure Solomon had collected, everything in the temple and in the royal palace. Chapter ends with Rehoboam’s death after seventeen years on the throne. He is succeeded by his son, Abijah.

The Exodus Inverted - Idolatry and Slavery

God’s chosen people, his holy nation, is now split into two kingdoms. They almost engage in a civil war! It’s helpful to ask question, how did they get here? What led to this? As we go through this, I have to admit, I’d only seen a bit of this reading through the text, but the video I posted as part of our weekly newsletter revealed how much connection there truly is - it’s the connection between these events and the Exodus, when the Israelites are freed from slavery in Egypt. The events here in 1 Kings 12-14 are a sort of inverted Exodus. Let me walk you through what I mean.

Begins with what the Israelites were complaining to Rehoboam about - the heavy yoke his father, Solomon, had put them under. He had conscripted many of his own people to harsh labor, a slavery of sorts. When they complained, like the Pharaoh did centuries ago in Egypt, Rehoboam hardens his heart and declares to them that he will make their yoke even heavier - he even talks about how he will scourge them! Before the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians, now they are enslaving their own.

A second inversion involved Jeroboam - this one is a little ironic, because when he served as one of Solomon’s officials, he was in charge of one of the labor forces. Now he is the one who leads most of the Israelites out from the rule of Rehoboam. Where does Jeroboam come out from to do this? Egypt. He returns from Egypt, back to Israel to free his people from the heavy yoke of Rehoboam. Here Israel has been the oppressor and the man from Egypt is the liberator.

So the ten tribes that break from Rehoboam and are now under the rule of Jeroboam - and what’s the first thing they do? 1 Kings 12:28, “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.’” Mirrors exactly when the Israelites first made their way out of Egypt under Moses - while he’s up on the mountain, they people under Aaron make a golden calf and worship it as the god who brought them up out of Egypt.

Script flips again, because now Jeroboam becomes much like the Pharaoh in Egypt - if you remember, Moses and Aaron came to him time after time with sign after sign from the Lord, yet he would not repent, he would not let the Israelites go so they could worship Yahweh. When the man of God comes to Jeroboam with the sign of the shriveled hand and the altar splitting in two - again, he refuses to repent and lead his people to worship Yahweh alone - they continue in their idolatrous practices.

Then we have the inversion of the Passover. Passover was the tenth and final plague when the angel of death flew over the land of Egypt, killing the firstborn son of every household - except those households where the blood of the lamb had been spread across the threshold of front door. But here, it is Jeroboam’s son who dies the moment the mother crosses over the threshold of their front door, just as the prophet Ahijah foretold.

Finally, in the southern kingdom of Judah, where Rehoboam has led the people into idolatrous practices as well - who attacks and plunders them? Shishak, the king of Egypt. It’s another inversion - in the story of the Exodus, it is the Israelites who plunder the Egyptians - they are so glad to let the Israelites leave after all the plagues they give them their treasures as they flee Egypt.

What we see in these chapters is the rulers of both kingdoms, Jeroboam and Rehoboam leading their respective nations into idolatry. Instead of escaping Egypt (which represents idolatry) in order to be free to worship and serve the one true God, the situation has flipped. Israel, in a sense has returned to Egypt. Embraced what Egypt was all about. And it is costing them dearly.

As the makers of the Spoken Gospel video make clear, idolatry leads to slavery, loss and death. And I would add, division, separation - from God and from one another. The Israelites chose to do what is right in their own eyes. This really is the basis of idolatry, of sin, doing what is right in our eyes. Rather than surrendering ourselves to the God in whose image we are made, doing what is right in his eyes, we make gods in our own image, gods who serve us, because we want to do what is right in our own eyes.

As we were talking in our Spiritual Formation Group on Wednesday evening, I feel like I keep coming back to this theme over and over again - it seems to me that it’s just so central to following Jesus, to being faithful. It’s this idea of surrender, of submitting our will to God. Doing what is right in his eyes, rather than what is right in our eyes.

One of those “Aha!” moments came for me in reading Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy, because he lays this out so well. This idea that all of us have been given a reign, rule - which is effective range of our will, that which we can control. We were created by God with this reign - but created by him to share in his rule, our wills surrendered to his. Sin, then, is simply refusing to surrender our will to God. And this is the really hard part, because God wants all of us. Everything surrendered to him - we were talking about the story of the rich ruler whom Jesus told to sell everything he had and give it to the poor, and then, come follow me.

Because Jesus knew that man loved his wealth more than he wanted to be with Jesus. Earthly treasure mattered to him more than treasures in heaven. That command exposed his heart. We were wrestling with that question - could we do that? Would we be willing, if Jesus asked us - to sell everything we had and give it to the poor? Or to take a lesser paying job? To befriend someone we didn’t like? Give up “my time” to serve others in sacrificial way? To take a stand for justice?

The arc of being a follower of Jesus is to move more and more into surrendering our will - so that, even though we may not be there yet, we’re becoming more and more people who could readily say “yes” to Jesus, no matter what he asks of us. From hard hearts to soft hearts. From resistance to obedience. Our wills given over to his.

Here’s the beautiful aspect of this that Willard highlights - whereas acting on our own, doing what is right in our own eyes leads to slavery, loss, death, division (as Israel was experiencing), submission leads to freedom. We gain. Life. Unity. The only way life works - for all of us, all of us with our own wills, our own reign - is to together surrender them to Jesus. He brings them together in perfect unity.

Otherwise, we’re always in competition, fighting, trying to assert my will, what I want, what I think is right. Either that or we isolate from one another - break off the relationship, because we can’t resolve our wills. Doesn’t take long to look at the current state of our politics to see this being played out. Always vying for power. Separating into our own little camps. Same thing plays out in our families - our marriage relationships, between parents and children, in churches, in the workplace, in all spheres of human relationships.

It’s so telling that when the apostle Paul talks about how we are to live out relationships with one another, between husband and wife, parent and child, master and slave, the entire section begins with this command, Ephesians 5:21 - Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. In other words, willingly give up your will for the other, be for their good, over and above your own - because you revere Jesus, you’re surrendered to his will.

It transforms the relationship - instead of working to make sure I always get what I want, my way - each person in the relationship is working toward what the other wants. Being for them. It unites, rather than divides. It frees, rather than binds us. Working to make sure I get what I want (or working to keep it!), things suit me, that I get recognition - that’s exhausting.

This mutual submission is basis of our relationship with Jesus. He’s already given himself over fully to us. Surrendered his life for us, having surrendered his will to the Father. More we give ourselves to Jesus, more we surrender our will to him, more we will be united with him, joined together. One. And the more freedom we will experience - obedience to Jesus always leads to greater freedom, not less. We always gain more than we will ever give up. Beautiful paradox of the Christian life.

As we started looking at 1 Kings today, we saw that Solomon - then Rehoboam - put a heavy yoke on their own people, ruled over them, to serve their own desires and follow their false gods. Jesus invites us to take his yoke upon him, which he says is light, burden is easy. Yoke is to follow Jesus, to be his disciple, to obey him.

Spiritual Disciplines - “Discipleship is a lifelong process of deepening surrender to Jesus.” Two ways to start (from John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way):

“You must daily hold before your mind and imagination the beauty and possibility of life in the kingdom of God.” You’ll never want to follow Jesus unless you’re enthralled with him - so every day, spend time with him, reading the Gospels, filling your heart with the wonder, the beauty of Jesus. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Share your heart with him in prayer. Start with being with, knowing Jesus.

As your heart is consumed by a vision of Jesus, wherever you are, start there. Take one small step, immediately to surrender your will to Jesus. Explore a new practice (spiritual discipline). Join the Spiritual Formation Group or Women’s Bible Study. Be present at worship (both in attendance and engagement). Daily prayer of surrender.

Closing Prayer / Time to Reflect