1 Kings 12 • Divided to Heal

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  (This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

  We thank our choir for helping us celebrate the Lord's provision with such beauty. It's provision that may be difficult to see in our passage for today, 1 Kings chapter 12, 1 Kings chapter 12, page 293 there in your grace Bibles.

  You wouldn't think it would be hard now.

  David has established the boundaries of the kingdom.

  Solomon built the temple.

  God has promised to send a Messiah. All is well.

  Except the kids are fighting.

  Not in the back seat, but for the top seat.

  Who will be on the throne?

  And in that battle there is great division that grieves God even as He determines to use it.

  Let me ask that you would stand as we would read God's Word, a portion of 1 Kings 12. It's a long passage. We won't cover it all. But you'll get the gist of the problem in verse 4.

  The people come to Solomon's son, his name Rehoboam, and they explain their concern.

  Your father made our yoke heavy.

  Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us and we will serve you.

  That's the request.

  Lighten up.

  Took a lot of taxes to build that temple and the temples to the other gods of your father's wives.

  Help us out now. Be gentle. Verse 13, the king responds, "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 man, 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 Shylenite to Jeroboam the son of Nebath. And when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, What portion do we have with David?

  We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse, to your tents, O Israel. Look now to your own house, David.

  So Israel went to their tents, but Rehoboam reigned over the people of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah.

  Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was taskmaster, over the forced labor.

  And all Israel stoned him to death with stones, and King Rehoboam hurried to mount his chariot to flee to Jerusalem.

  So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.

  We'll end there for now. Pray with me.

  Father, the words are old and in some ways so removed from us.

  But there's no temptation taken us but such as is common.

  In the words of Scripture, we would see ourselves.

  More we would see you. Show us both, we pray, for Christ's sake, in whose name we pray. Amen.

  Please be seated.

  Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news.

  You know the cliche, how we buffer the bad news with some good news, but there's another way to buffer some bad news. An exemplified letter from a first-year college student that Pastor Chuck Swindoll once read to his congregation. Here's the letter, "Dear Mom and Dad, just thought I'd drop you a note to clue you in on my plans.

  I have fallen in love with a guy named Jim.

  He's a great guy who dropped out of high school after 11th grade to get married.

  After a year of that, he got divorced.

  But we've been going steady for two months and plan to get married in the fall.

  Until then, I've decided to step out of school, but I'll go back in the future."

  Next page.

  "Mom and Dad, I just want you to know that everything I wrote on the first page is not true.

  Everything is false. But Mom and Dad, I did get a C in French.

  And I may need some more money for tuition.

  What is one way to buffer bad news with worse news?"

  You know, it's kind of like hitting somebody on the toe with a hammer to make them forget the bee sting. No, I mean, kind of blunt, but it's effective.

  And something similar is happening here.

  I mean, there is really bad news. And the sting is everything that God has been doing for generations appears to be coming undone. There is division in the kingdom. There is God's Messiah planned through the house of Judah that's no longer apparently going to work for the majority of the people of Israel. They are turning away. It's all coming undone. And then you read this amazing sentence in the beginning, in the middle of verse 15, the middle of verse 15, "It was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that He might fulfill His word." Could it really be possible that in all the bad news, God is still working, working His plan, His purpose, so that the divisions are actually in the ultimate purpose of God intended for the healing of His people? You know, we can read about the ancient divisions between north and south and Israel, between Rehoboam and Jeroboam, the new kings, and just kind of go, "Well, isn't that wonderful ancient history?"

  Or we can read with gospel eyes to say if God could take such hatred and such division and use it to bring ultimate healing, then in a nation that is currently being told, undone by polarities that we have trouble facing, or a church whose unity is always more fragile than we think, or look at divisions in our own families, it becomes important to know that the divisions can be worked through and beyond by a God who heals, whose plan is not undone.

  To actually believe that, to not sugarcoat the reality, you have to see the bad news for as bad as it really is.

  The first set of bad news comes from the south where Rehoboam, Solomon's son, is trying to assume the reigns of power in Judah and the whole nation of Israel.

  But there are problems.

  There are problems in his heart, there are problems in the hearts of his people, and if we'll read with good intuition, we will begin to recognize there's nothing being said there that is not part of our present struggle as a nation or as people, as families, and as a church.

  David Brooks is a name that some of you will know. He's a New York Times columnist, former atheist, Jewish heritage, and now says he's actually considering Christianity.

  And the reason he is considering Christianity is he believes it may have some answers for the division in our nation.

  And as he begins to analyze the division in our nation, he says it seems to be sparked by what he will call five key lies, not really fake news, but false assumptions that many, many people carry.

  The first false assumption is in the bad news from the southern kingdom that we just read about. The lie is that career success secures happiness.

  If you can just get to the top of the heap, you will be happy. If there are a few casualties along the way of your principles and people, it won't matter so much. As long as you get success, the losses will be justified and compensated.

  Get the cautionary tales of Jeff Bezos, of Ted Turner, of Martha Stewart, of Rupert Burdock, of Britney Spears, of Patriots owner Robert Kraft, of Bill Cosby, of Bing Crosby, of Elvis, of James McDonald, my friend, of Willow Creek leader Bill Hybels.

  Forget you're the exception.

  If you can just get enough success, it will all compensate out.

  David Brooks, who is a rock star among columnists, now most constantly in our newspapers and on TVs, achieved the rock star status as a columnist at the expense of a marriage and a wife.

  And he says success is not enough.

  And the lie is that it will be. The lie is here. You see it when the people come to Rehoboam saying, "Your father made our yoke heavy. Hey, yeah, wonderful temple. We love it."

  But it was awful expensive.

  And the temples to his wives, gods, more expense. We have been taxed to the max. We are breaking under this burden. Ease up a little.

  David's response you may remember. He follows not the older man who are saying, "Listen to them. Go easy. Listen."

  Instead, he follows the advice of the young man. Verse 10, "The young men who had grown up with him said to him, "Thus shall you speak to this people who said to you, "Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us. Thus shall you say to them, "My little finger is thicker than my father's thighs. 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." You think you had it bad then? You just wait. You need to serve me because I need success.

  Success greater than his father, what will it cost?

  Presentment that will result in division, ultimately isolation from everyone else with terrible aloneness even for a king.

  And he sadly discovers that perhaps career success is not the final answer.

  But he buys it for the time because he's bought into the second lie that David Brooks says is so common among us. The second lie he says that a rich and successful person is worth more than a poor and struggling person. That something deep in us says that the haves are justified in having more.

  And if it costs other people, well that's justified because if you're rich and you're powerful you deserve it and others are there for you.

  If you are religious in Israel, there's even religion to back you up because your assumption is because you are blessed because God is blessing you. And if people are struggling, it's because God is not blessing them.

  So you're worth more than they even in God's eyes as the proof might seem to say.

  You know the example before us of Rehoboam acting so cruelly is so blunt. It is so callous that we just think, "Well, I would never do that. That doesn't apply to me, that I think I'm worth more than other people, that I can take advantage of them for my gain, that it's okay for me to be me even if it costs you. I would never do that."

  And yet over and over again in our culture the unexamined heart does not perceive how we might be willing to take advantage by actually considering ourselves worth more than those who are struggling without power, without wealth.

  I have a pastor friend who just a few weeks ago was asked to come and explain to a high school class his understanding of the biblical position on being pro-life.

  Now he came into the classroom knowing the position of the teacher and what the students had been taught. And so he knew he was going to face many angry faces, faces that are getting angrier by the moment in our culture. Why? We've talked about it before. What's happening right now? Everybody is positioning for what we perceive as a potential sea change on the Supreme Court. And so many laws are being passed in local states and in this state on either side of the pro-life divide as everybody is trying to line up and get ready for the great battle that they perceive ahead. And that's going to amp up the rhetoric. And so in case you have not heard it, the pro-life position in recent months is increasingly being described as one that enslaves women.

  That the position is itself one that is going to put a burden on other persons such as slavery itself. If you have not heard it, the pro-life position is increasingly being identified not just in the media, but by certain politicians as well as forced birth extremism.

  Forced birth extremism.

  My friend the pastor coming into the classroom knowing what had been said did not even try to argue against that position, but began in another place.

  He said, "What if you perceived that every person in this class was made in the image of God and as precious to God as Jesus himself, that the student who gets the D and the student on the honor roll are equally precious to God?"

  And not only those students, but the student who is an outcast or abused or ridiculed or bullied, that student is as worth as much as those who would take advantage that every person has not just equal value, but precious value to God and as a consequence deserves because they are made in the image of God to love and be loved and have the freedom to express their full potential regardless of what has happened in the past.

  And the students of course said, "That would be wonderful." He said, "Now what if not just every person in the classroom, but every person in the womb was of equal value to God, made in his image, and so as precious to God as Jesus himself, and therefore had a right to love and be loved and to reach their full potential, that protecting that person would not be enslaving that person, but giving them maximum freedom for life?"

  The students acknowledge that's not exactly the way they had heard it.

  Now you and I recognize that the key issue is whether or not you determine the personhood of the child in the womb. That's the key issue in our society right now. And we have huge differences as a society, but at least we have the right to say with our understanding of when life begins, the person in the womb is to be set free, to be given the ability to love and be loved, to reach full potential. And that is saying we make that decision recognizing we are not more valuable than that child.

  But there is equal worth for all made in the image of God. It's part of the conversation that we need to enter, but we may not recognize the society has to enter the conversation. And Christians have to enter the conversation at many different levels. What would it really mean if we said, "I am not worth more than you"?

  How would it affect a nation which certainly has a right to protect its borders and its people?

  But do believers ever have liberty to ignore the suffering of other people?

  No.

  Not if we say all are made in the image of God. Are there difficult policy decisions to make? Of course there are. But in the light of all made in the image of God.

  Does a business have a responsibility to maximize shareholder value? Yes. Our society does not function if businesses do not have a right to maximize shareholder value. But do Christian business leaders have a right to ignore the impact of their product or their practices or their people for the sake of greater gain of those in charge? Never. Why? Because whether it's customer or employee or the one affected as a vendor, all are made in the image of God and therefore all have to be considered precious in the way that we are considering how we deal with them. Does a talented, able, responsible person have a right to seek higher status, higher salary, higher position for the sake of themselves and their family? Yes. We are steward of all those things for the sake of God.

  But we have to ask at the same time, do Christian artists, athletes, politicians have a right to compete, to convince, to excel for the sake of their team or their art or their party?

  And the answer is yes.

  But may you do so as a Christian without integrity, without fairness, or without respect even for your enemies?

  The answer is no. Why?

  Because all are made in the image of God. And we are never allowed to say, "I am worth more than you."

  All have to be considered of equal worth before the Lord and how we approach them, how we deal with them, how we treat them. And if we do not, said David Brooks, we are actually buying into lie three, which is I can make myself happy without consideration of others.

  As long as I can have enough money, sex, and power, I can be happy without considering impact upon other people. Have enough money? You certainly see Rehoboam willing to make that argument. I just get enough money no matter your hurt, and I'll be happy, and that's all that counts.

  The sex may be harder to see, but when Rehoboam responds in the language of the young man and says his potency is even greater than that of his father Solomon, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, while it may not be clear in the English that Hebrew is well understood what he had just said, that he has more sexual prowess even than Solomon in remarkable reflection of current politics and pop culture. What proves that I'm powerful, that I can be stronger than others? Well, I'm so potent with so many women.

  To basketball season, so some of you will remember, Wilt Chamberlain, who not only scored more points than any other basketball player in history in a single game, but later, after he'd retired from the game, to prove he was still worth something, made news by saying I have slept with a thousand women.

  Having just scored more points, I've scored more women, which supposedly was making him happy, and yet it sounds like a curious desperation.

  When can I sleep with enough, make enough that you all will respect me? That I can prove that I really am the man that I think I am? And the consequence was just him saying to us, far from being satisfied, as though you could make yourself happy by your own efforts. You seem to be saying you are desperate to be happy.

  Those of you who are in marriages that are not all that you wished or young people considering them, just don't buy the lie that you can make yourself happy at the expense of others.

  A very recent report only out this past week, the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, says this very simply, "Very religious couples enjoy higher quality relationships and more sexual satisfaction than less religious couples."

  Why?

  One of the authors, Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, explained, "For many couples, a shared faith translates into greater exposure to the norms of fidelity and forgiveness."

  Family friendly networks tend to be developed among the religious that lend counsel and support when the going gets rough, as happens in every marriage.

  A religious belief system buffers against the stresses of married life and encourages couples to prioritize their marriage by investing in their relationship the sense that they are doing something transcendent and eternal by their family and their relationship.

  It's interesting, here even secular research is saying we don't have to buy the lie that taking advantage of other people, turning away from what God has designed to make ourselves happy is going to work. In fact, what God has designed is what is going to be the happiness effect that seems to be the greatest for more people. And you recognize the consequence. Obviously, what Raya Bohm is saying ultimately is, "I need more power as long as I have more money and more sex. I will have also more power by controlling more and more people." But the response is, you know, rejection, rebellion, and ultimately terrible isolation. Verse 18 is just a curious picture. "Raya Bohm sent Adorum, who was taskmaster over the forced labor, and all Israel stoned him to death with stones. And King Raya Bohm hurried to mount his chariot to flee to Jerusalem." Here's the picture. "Up until now through Solomon, there have been slaves that were foreigners.

  Now Raya Bohm wants so much power. He sends the taskmaster to his own people, and they know what's about to happen.

  Adorum is about to enslave God's own people. And so they stone him. And Raya Bohm, who has ordered it all, goes running by his lonesome to his chariot saying, "I've got to get to Jerusalem where there's a little bit of safety." The one who had more money, sex, and power than he thought he had is now terribly isolated and almost ridiculously alone.

  He got it all, and ultimately all he had was just himself. Because you recognize the bad news from the south is pretty clear. If it's all about me, then me is all I have.

  I couldn't help but think of that truth in the light of the late Taylor Swift recent song "Me."

  Some of you will know the lyrics. She says, "You'll never find another like me.

  I'm the only one of me.

  Baby, that's the fun of me."

  And she explains her own song.

  It's embracing individuality and really embracing me and owning it.

  And curiously, I mean, if you could even picture the image, it's ultimately about embracing me.

  And there is no greater aloneness than when all you have to embrace is yourself.

  Well, that's the bad news from the south. Are you ready for the benediction?

  Three lies, and we haven't even got to the north yet.

  Quickly through the north, what are the lies that are there that David Brooks sees reflected in our own society? The north is where Jeroboam is going to take over. As the people reject the cruelties of Rehoboam, he says, "I'll be your king." And so 11 of the 12 tribes say, "We'll follow Jeroboam rather than Rehoboam down there in the south." And they ultimately buy lie number four. It's expressed in verse 20 right there at the end, "There was none that followed the house of David but the tribe of Judah only."

  The nation has been expanded all the way from Dan to Bethel. This long and wide expanse of a nation, and now almost all of them go somewhere else and say, "We are just going to follow our own journey. We are going to make our own way." Forget what this Jeroboam has said, regardless of the line of David that he has promised, we are just going to recognize life is an individual journey. We are going to go our own way. And so they say, "We're just going to go to our own tents and go to our own country and have another king."

  We don't need this God anymore. We don't need this line of David anymore. We don't need this law of Moses anymore.

  I recognize there's some justification in their willingness to separate. But what they are willing to do ultimately is to say, "We will determine what is right for us."

  Some of you know that's a very quick idolatry.

  But the reaction of recognizing what has happened is to say, "We will determine what is right."

  Why is there so much heat in our culture now over the issues of sexuality and gender?

  You recognize the issue is hardly ever the moral discussion. What is driving the heat and the vigor is the sense that somebody might limit my freedom to do as I choose. After all, life is an individual journey. There are not external standards to guide me. I just need to do what I think is right for me. Ultimately, what is driving so much of the heat, the polarities that will be so strong in our country, by the way, in our church, in our families, you know how the arguments get hotter and hotter is the deep-seated fear that some persons might not get to follow their own journey as they perceive it in the area particularly of sexuality.

  As a consequence, the lie number five is you have to find your own truth. You have to go on your journey and find your truth, whatever that may be.

  Now again, this is David Brooks. This is not Oprah, but it does sound very familiar. You need to find your own truth. What does that mean for Israel? Verses 28 and 29 of this chapter, "So the king," that is Jeroboam of the north, "took counsel and made two calves of gold.

  And he said to the people, "You've gone long enough to Jerusalem. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." And he set one in Bethel and the other he put in Dan." What did he put in Bethel and Dan? Two idols of what?

  Gold. What kind of gold? Calves of gold. Where did you hear about that before?

  When they came out of Egypt and Aaron, when the people had turned away from Moses, created a calf of gold and said to the people, "This is your God that brought you out of it." We are now hundreds of years later. And the people are still saying, "What's going to free us is our own idol, which will take us by the way back to Egypt's gods."

  As though what is ultimately going to free them is their slavery, going back to the place where they were so oppressed.

  I know it may sound like a reach, but you recognize that when we begin to say, "I'll cut my own course, I'll form my own individual journey, and I'll determine what's true," where that usually ends up. Where is it right now? The addictions of our culture are consuming us.

  For some it's pornography.

  For some it's the social media from which they cannot wing themselves and the comparisons that drive them. For some it's the sexual relationships that they can pursue at will at this point.

  So much that we think will free us, whether it's gaming or sex or money, I'll be free if I cut my own course. The consequence.

  What a great that's highest in our country's history.

  If you are between the ages of 10 and 34, your first most likely cause of death is accident.

  Second most likely cause of death, 10 to 34, is what?

  Suicide.

  I tried it all. I tried all the avenues that the people in this culture were telling me would give me freedom and enjoyment.

  And instead I am enslaved in heart and mind to a world that I don't want to be a part of anymore.

  What will help?

  Well maybe another letter.

  This one from Camp, "Dear Mom and Dad, our camp director told us to write our parents in case you saw the storm on TV and were worried.

  One of us drowned because we were all up on the mountain searching for Chad.

  Oh yeah, please call his mom and dad since he can't write because of the cast.

  Tell them not to worry because the trees broke his fall.

  Our camp director was really mad at Chad for going on a hike to the cliff without telling anyone. Chad said he did tell him but he probably couldn't hear because of the fire.

  Did you know that if you put gas on a campfire the gas can will blow up?

  We were actually happy for the tents burning because the light enabled us to find Chad.

  And tell Chad's parents that we didn't put the cast on until we had stopped the bleeding.

  It was neat that we learned how to use a tourniquet.

  Our camp director said he learned how to do that while he was in prison.

  I'm so glad that he got out in time for camp.

  Well I have to go now, we're hitchhiking into town to mail our letters to our parents and to buy some more bullets.

  But don't worry because we're fine for now.

  Love Carter.

  Well where is the good news in that letter?

  Carter is still alive.

  Carter is still writing.

  Carter is still breathing.

  Where's the good? Are you sure?

  Where's the good news in 1 Kings 12?

  God is still working.

  Christ is still coming.

  Hope is still alive.

  God is still working in quite unusual ways. Verse 21, "When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem," remember he's fleeing in his chariot to get there, "he assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin. One thousand," excuse me, "hundred and eighty thousand chosen warriors to fight against the house of Israel to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon." Anybody remember D-Day, how many troops?

  All allied forces? A hundred and fifty-six thousand.

  There are more now that Rehoboam has to go up against his own relatives in the northern kingdom. A hundred and fifty-thousand gathered up to fight the northern kingdom. But more than that, see what happens. Verse 22, "The Word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God." Verse 23, "Say to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest." Verse 24, "Thus says the Lord, you shall not go up or fight against your relatives, the people of Israel."

  What is God doing? He's still speaking through a prophet.

  He is still preserving his people. And by the way, even those who are in rebellion with calves of gold as their idols, he says they are your relatives. They're still family.

  Incredible. God has every reason to take this group of people and just to stamp them out.

  And yet he is saying, "I protect and preserve and call precious even these who are in rebellion against me."

  Not only is he calling them precious, he is providing for them what he provides for us. There is that unusualness that God establishes when he says at the end of verse 20, "There was none that followed the house of David but the tribe of Judah only."

  From the very beginning of our trek through the Bible here, we began in the book of Genesis. And in the end of that book, chapter 49, God is saying to a people who have already turned away from him, "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, but I will provide the lion of Judah as the rescuer of my people." Now we are hundreds of years later. And what God is saying is, "You have been faithless to me, but I will be faithful to my promise. I will still sin the lion of Judah. I will still maintain the power that I always said would come through Judah." Those 12 sons of Jacob, do you remember, who established the 12 tribes. Now all of them have turned away except one, and that one is the one from which God had said, "I will sin my son."

  It's not just that God is maintaining his work, he is maintaining the Messiah. He is maintaining his provision for his people. And ultimately what that means is, as awful as things are, hope is still alive.

  What God has said is, as dark as the night is, you begin to see even more clearly how precious my forgiveness, how wondrous is my value of you, and ultimately how powerful is my claim upon your hearts, I will not let you go. And for that reason, hope stands.

  It's what you should hear in just one more letter. This one from Paul Trip, the Christian speaker, as he reads from a woman who had lost so much in this life.

  He says, "She was filled with hope, but not for the reasons that you would tend to expect. She was not filled with hope because she had a great marriage, because she'd lost her marriage.

  She was not filled with hope because of her children.

  She had lost her children. She was not filled with hope because she had a great house." You've already guessed.

  She lost her house.

  Her husband's had forsaken her, her husband had betrayed her, but she could still speak in these words, "I'm still standing."

  And for that reason, she wrote, "I think I have more hope now than I ever had. The Lord has held me through everything when everything else failed me. The Lord alone was for me. I'm still standing on the hope that is in Him."

  I hope you recognize that when we come through the Bible, there are so many people who expect us just to tell sugar-coated, nice little moral tales. And we come to the mess of real people's lives with all their heartache and selfishness and division and infighting. And God is saying, "Hope in me."

  Not in what you can accomplish, not in what you have accomplished, but hope still stands because God will not abandon His people. We are strong in the power of His might. We hope in His provision. His purposes have not failed. And therefore we say, "Though the earth may shake and the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea, we will maintain hope because we stand on the rock that is Jesus Christ." My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. The world betray me. The world abandon me. My world crumble. He will not. My hope is built on Jesus Christ on that rock we stand. Though the world come undone, and for that reason we say, "Not I'm still standing." He's still standing. And therefore my hope is still alive even when this world has come undone. My hope built on nothing less than Jesus Christ, His righteousness.

  Other enable us, we pray, to face the realities not just of an ancient time, but of a present world, but not with despair, with the reality of a God who keeps working, of a Jesus who is still for us, and a Jesus who is coming again. He is our solid rock. On Him we stand. On Him our hope is built. Help us, we pray, in a world coming undone to say there is hope and we stand on Him, on Christ the solid rock. We stand in Jesus' name. Amen.