Video Transcript: The Divided Kingdom

We concluded our look at Israel's golden years by mentioning God's warning to  Solomon at the location of the dedication of the temple. It was that he and his  people must never turn away and serve other gods, or else Israel would be cut  off from the land and even the magnificent temple would become a heap of  rubble. Solomon's wisdom gave him a good start heeding this morning, but over  time, it seems he got preoccupied with his projects. He kept building and  accumulating and gradually his attention was diverted from the original object of  his devotion, the Lord God, to his possessions, his building projects and his  wives. By secular standards, Solomon was the best possible ruler. Yes, taxes  were high, but Israel had a world class economy. And yet one thing Solomon did not do very well over the long haul was take time to worship in the temple he  had built for God. He did not take the time to read the scriptures and look over  the commandments and review the warnings that God has given His people.  Solomon took care of many things, but he neglected his heart, his soul.  Proverbs 24:30, and following describes what happened to the vineyard of  someone who has no sense. It became infested with thorns and other weeds  and the stone walls fell into ruin. This was obviously a picture of what would  happen to physically lazy and negligent farmers. But it's also a picture actually,  as it turns out of what happened to Solomon, he neglected his heart as the  sluggard did his vineyard. As a result, his spirit became infested with spiritual  thorns, and his life became impoverished. The problems began right at the start  of Solomon's reign when he began to accumulate horses and wealth and wives.  of foreign birth, this and Solomon's neglect of God's word was contrary to what  God had commanded in Deuteronomy 17:16-20. Let me read that it says, The  King, moreover, must not acquire large numbers of horses for himself or make  the people return to Egypt to get more of them. For the Lord has told you, you  are not to go back that way again. He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray, he must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. When  he takes the throne in his kingdom, he has to write for himself on a scroll, look, a copy of this law taken from that of the priests who are Levites. It is to be with  him and he has to read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to revere the  Lord his God, and follow carefully all the words of this law, and these decrees  and not consider himself better than his brothers, and turn from the law to the  right or the left, then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his  kingdom in Israel. Very clear instructions from God. But compare this to what  happened. I Kings 10:26, tells us that Solomon accumulated chariots and  horses. He had 1400 chariots and 12,000 Horses, which he kept in the chariot  cities and also with him in Jerusalem. And besides that, early on in his reign,  Solomon had married the daughter of Egypt's Pharaoh. This was a political  decision not unusual for his time, but the problem was, it violated God's  command against intermarriage with the heathen peoples. And this was by no  means Solomon, Solomon's only disobedient marriage. Look at I Kings 11 the 

first verses of that chapter, King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women  besides Pharaoh's daughter, and then list a bunch Moabites, Ammonites,  Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites. They were from nations about which the Lord  had told the Israelites you must not intermarry with them, because they will  surely turn your hearts after their gods. Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines and his wives led  him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods in  his heart is not as fully not fully devoted to the Lord his God as the heart of his  father David had been. He followed Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians and Molech, that detestable god of the Ammonites, so Solomon did evil in the eyes  of the Lord. He did not follow the Lord completely as David his father had done  on a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the  detestable god of Moab. And for Mowat, Molech, the detestable god of the  Ammonites, he did the same for all his foreign wives who burned incense and  offered sacrifices to their gods. Materially, the nation looked healthy, but  spiritually, it and its King were sickened as the horses and wealth and wives  accumulated. And Solomon apparently didn't even notice that he had become  spiritually lazy and careless. He probably had good intentions, perhaps he knew  he was too busy for his own good, but thought he had lots of time, he would  finish this or that important project and then devote more time to the Lord. But it  didn't happen. In fact, we don't know if Solomon ever regained his wisdom. If he  did repent, it was at least too late to avoid all the consequences of his sin and  neglect. Nearly the last word that we have on the subject is of Solomon's Latter  Day troubles, which began in earnest after this message from the Lord in I Kings 11:9-13 says the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had  turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.  Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods. Solomon did not keep  the Lord's command. So the Lord said to Solomon, since this is your attitude,  and you have not kept my covenants and my decrees which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your  subordinates. By God's grace, however, he did offer this important concession.  He said, nevertheless, for the sake of David, your father, I will not do it during  your lifetime, I will tear it out of the hand of your son, yet I will not tear the whole  kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe, for the sake of David my servant  and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen. After this, the Lord raised  up adversaries against Solomon. When upon his death, he was succeeded by  his son Rehoboam. The adversary that proved most formidable was one named  Jeroboam, one of Solomon's former officials. Rehoboam might have eased the  discontent in Israel if he had been a little wiser about how he answered their  complaints about the heavy taxation and other burdens they had endured under  Solomon. Instead, he pledged to increase their burdens. Shortly afterward, all  the tribes of Israel except for Rehoboam's own rebelled against the king, leaving

him that prophesied one tribe of Judah to rule. Judah is sometimes called the  southern kingdom with Jeroboam over the other tribes, which is called the  northern kingdom. And this split, resulting in a divided kingdom was a disaster  from which the nation never recovered. The two realms were frequently at one  another's throats, both were all, both were descendants of Abraham. But the  history of the chosen people became one of turmoil, dynastic double dealing,  murder, plot and counter plot, strife at home and abroad, and concern to retain  and extend boundaries. Jeroboam the king of the north, had a significant  problem from the start because his people were used to going to Jerusalem,  which was in the south, to sacrifice at the temple. That was the only place the  Lord had authorized sacrifices to be made. I Kings 12:26-27 tells us Jeroboam  thought to himself, the Kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David to  Judah. If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in  Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to the to their Lord Rehoboam  king of Judah, they will kill me and return to King Rehoboam. And so Jeroboam  decided to have golden calves made and set up in two northern towns Bethel  and Dan, which he designated as official alternates to the temple in Jerusalem.  Besides this, he appointed non Levites as priests. And then he himself took the  lead in offering sacrifices on these new altars, all things contrary to God, God,  God sent a prophet to announce God's judgment for this, but Jeroboam would  not change his mind. Even though the hand he raised against the Prophet  miraculously shriveled up and was not healed, until the Prophet prayed for him.  Thereafter, Jeroboam's provisions for false worship became known as the sins  of Jeroboam. And this would be referenced in God's final verdict for each  subsequent king of the northern kingdom. He did not hate or he did evil,  something like this formulaic expression, he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and  did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat which he had  caused Israel to commit, he continued in them. Judah's kings would have their  problems too, but at least they would not, they would escape this verdict.  Nevertheless, the Lord had patience with the kings and tribes who were  unfaithful to his law. And he not only warned them continually by His prophets,  and disciplined them by threats of punishment, and by the fulfillment of those  threats on the kings and all the people. But he repeatedly showed his grace  toward them for the sake of His covenant that he had made so long before with  Abraham. The prophets were particularly active during the time of the divided  kingdom from this time on, they did their work in the conviction that God had  sent them to speak to God's people. Their utterances usually began with the  says the Lord, and they concluded with says, the Lord or the Oracle of the Lord.  Today, one popular belief about prophets is that their essential role is to predict  future events. The prophets of Israel did do this at times, but their main concern  was to speak to the Israelites about their condition before God, then in there, if  they made predictions these mostly had to do with Israel's immediate future, 

rather than the more distant future. The word commonly used in Hebrew for a  prophet describes one who calls, speak, names, and proclaims, the prophet is  Therefore one who acts as a spokesman for another one who makes known the  divine will. And helpful insight occurs in Exodus 4:16, where, remember, God  told Moses about Aaron, he said of Aaron, He will speak to the people for you,  and it will be as if he were your mouth. And as if you were God to him, in other  words, what meant for Aaron to be Moses Prophet, what it was that it would be  as if he were Moses mouth, is already clear here that a prophet did not have to  be creative, but only faithful to proclaim the message he or she received. If a  prophet of God was faithful, then the truth of what was said would be proved by  events to follow. In fact, the only way prophets of God ever got into trouble. I  mean, as regard as prophecies that did not come true, was if they deviated from God's script, even today, the test of a true prophet is whether his or her words  are true. Whatever a true prophet says about the present must be in line with  what God has said in his word. And whatever a true prophet predicts about the  future must happen, or else he is not a true prophet of God. The prophets of  Israel were always calling God's people back, they weren't challenging them to  take up some new and unknown task largely at least, but simply to return to the  memory of what God did for them and the Exodus from Egypt, and the entrance  into the promised land, and to live according to the commands God had given at that time. It's an illustration of this and of how God's message was typically  received in the northern kingdom. Let's take a look at one of the major  interactions in the in the Scripture between the prophet Elijah and King Ahab of  Israel. In a political history of Israel as the NIV Study Bible makes clear in its  introduction to the books of Kings, Ahab would not have received as much  attention as many of other many other of Israel's kings, including his father Omri, who was remembered by the surrounding kingdoms long after he had died. But  Scripture is more interested in covenant history rather than political history, and  Ahab's actions and inactions posed a more significant than usual threat to  Israel's faithfulness to their covenant with the Lord. Ahab is said to have done  more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of the kings who preceded him. As a confirmation of this, the Bible says that He allowed Jericho to be rebuilt as a  walled city. But the moment he did this, he unleashed a curse the Lord had put  on Jericho and its rebuilder centuries earlier. Joshua 6:26, says this, cursed  before the Lord be the man that rises up and rebuilds the city Jericho at the cost of his firstborn will he lay its foundations at the cost of his youngest will he set up is gates. Jericho's ruins had been preserved all these years to proclaim God's  judgment against the Canaanites, and His grace to Israel and providing them  homeland. But Ahab was deaf to this twofold message. In fact, by rebuilding  Jericho, Ahab gave another message. This is my city and devoted to my glory. I  Kings 16:31 gives further specifics of Ahab's sinfulness says he not only  considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam, but he also married an 

unbelieving woman, Jezebel, daughter of the Sidonian King,  Canaanite,Sidonians was one of the Canaanite branches, and he began to  serve and worship her gods. The main gods of Jezebel in the Canaanites were  to Baal and Asherah. These male and female gods were worshiped and  sacrificed to so that they in turn, would ensure reproductive success, good  harvests from Israel's fields and many healthy children in their households. And  Ahab not only tolerated the worship of his pagan wife, he took an active role in  leading Israel in that false religion. So the sins of Jeroboam violated the second  commandment, the one about making images of the Lord God, and the worship  of the Canaanite gods violated the First against worshiping gods besides the  one true God. The beginning of God's answer to Ahab's presumption was seen  in the death of the sons of Ahab's architect and rebuilder of Jericho. And more of his response, more of God's response is seen in the message he sent the  prophet Elijah to deliver the message that God was going to withhold rain from  Israel. Until further notice. There's a good reason God chose drought as a way  to press his claim with Israel, he was cutting off the possibility of life and growth  that the idol gods were supposed to produce. And furthermore, this was just  what God had earlier said would be among the curses for disobedience.  Deuteronomy 28:18, 23 says, the fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the  crops of your land in the case of disobedience, and the calves of your herds, in  the lambs of your flocks, the sky over your head will be bronze, the ground  beneath you iron. And of course, these were the very things that would happen  in the drought. Without Rain, the sky had become like bronze, and the earth as  hard as iron. Now, even though Ahab knew Elijah to be a prophet of God, we  may understand if the king was sub not somewhat skeptical of his  pronouncement about the lack of rain, he may even have dismissed Elijah as  being mentally deranged. In fact, Ahab would only come to see the truth of  Elijah's words over time, in the months and years of drought that would come.  Scripture doesn't say very much directly about the next few years without rain,  except to say that the famine was severe. The king had people out searching for Elijah, but nobody could find him. He had disappeared, not out of fear of Ahab,  but out of obedience to what the Lord had commanded him. He withdrew to  allow the effects of the Lord's judgment to become fully apparent. And then  when they have a when Elijah finally reappeared it was to summon Ahab and  other representatives from all of Israel to Mount Carmel for a showdown  between the Lord and the gods of the Canaanites, once there to the assembled  multitude, Elijah put this question to them. How long? Will you waver between  two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal is God, follow him.  Scripture tells us that the people said nothing in response is probably because  their faith was so weak that they couldn't decide. But more than this, the words  of Psalm 135:15-18, had come true for Israel. Psalm says, This Psalm says, The idols of the nations are silver and gold made by the hands of men, they have 

mouths but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see, they have ears but cannot hear, nor is their breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them. And  so we'll all who trust in them. That's what had happened. Israel had become  deaf, blind, or dumb, blind and deaf, like her idols. So it was then that Elijah  proposed a contest to give the people some help. In brief, it was that each side,  build an altar and prepare a sacrifice to their respective God. And then  whichever God was able to light the fire to consume, the sacrifice would clearly  be the most powerful. It was no contest. Of course, even when Elijah poured  water over the Lord's altar to compound the difficulty. That's because Baal and  Asherah were only fictions of people's imaginations. Yahweh alone was real.  And he answered Elijah's prayers and proved himself to be worthy of the  people's worship. This they enthusiastically gave and further demonstrated their  allegiance by participating in the Lord's judgment against the false prophets. And after further prayer, the Lord finally brought an end to the drought of rain on the  land, and also the drought of his spiritual blessings. But the people would soon  relax under the continuing disobedient leadership of Ahab and his successors.  And the decline of at least the northern half of the divided kingdom of Israel  would continue