Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Has your life arrived at a fork in the road and you're wondering which direction to take? Getting on the right road, next on Hope From the Word.

Bill Luebkemann: There's a lot of people that go to fortune tellers to find out what's going to happen in the future. They could go to the God of the universe and pray, and the future could be changed. They could affect the outcome of what is going to happen in the future because the God of the universe will work in your life if you ask Him to.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us for Hope From the Word. We'll be joining our teacher Pastor Bill Luebkemann in just a moment. If you're able, open your Bible to 1 Kings 14, as we get ready for another great time in God's word.

We're about to see what happens when we ignore God's repeated warnings to not venture down a certain path. I'm sure we've all been there. Hearing and obeying the voice of God is our focus today. Here's Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: We have been following through looking at what happened after Solomon died. We saw that he had a great beginning and a sorry ending. We saw that his son Rehoboam had the kingdom taken away from him, which was promised to Solomon. Solomon was going to keep it through his death. It was promised to David that it was going to be kept through Solomon's death.

Here Rehoboam makes this poor decision, which the Lord is in. He does not lighten up the load on the people, and more than half the kingdom is taken away and given to Jeroboam, who had been promised a part of it previously.

Now even though this guy Jeroboam is not of any kind of royal ascendancy, he doesn't have any kind of royal blood in him. He had been told by a prophet earlier that he's going to be given this large part of the kingdom. God essentially offers to give him the same kind of deal that He gave David. The kingdom is going to come to you, and if you follow me, then forever and ever, your descendants and their descendants are just going to be blessed and we're just going to have a jolly old time. What a great offer this guy Jeroboam has by God, which we read about back in chapter 11.

In spite of that fact, Jeroboam immediately goes off and starts making golden calves and leading Israel astray. We saw that he leads them astray. His whole time of being king, his whole reign is just a mess. We saw in chapter 13 how this man of God comes to prophesy against his kingdom. His reaction is not one of repentance, but his reaction is "Seize that guy."

When he pulls his hand out and points it at the guy and says, "Seize him," his hand that he stretched out shrivels up. So much so that he can't even pull it back. And he still doesn't get the message. The man of God prays for him and his hand is restored, but he still doesn't pray for the man of God. He doesn't ask the man of God "Pray for me to be made right with God." He just goes on and on and on, flaunting his evil ways and walking away from the Lord.

At the end of chapter 13, what a sorry verse. Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest he consecrated for the high places. He just "Come on down, be a priest. Sign up now." No limitation. Who wants to be a priest? He must have put an ad in the paper. "Priests needed, hiring today. Apply in person." No one refused for any reason. No one too tall, short, young, old. No one rejected. Sign up today. What a shame it was. The sin of the house of Jeroboam led to its downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth.

We're going to see that in the coming chapters, which we might get to tonight. Eventually, his house does get destroyed fully. We're going to begin here in 14. At that time Abijah, son of Jeroboam, became ill. Jeroboam said to his wife, "Go, disguise yourself so you won't be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there, the one who told me I would be king over this people. Take ten loaves of bread with you, some cakes and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy."

So Jeroboam's wife did what he said and went to Ahijah's house in Shiloh. Now look, here's the guy that told him he was going to be the king. The prophet back when Solomon was still alive. This prophet told Jeroboam, "Look, you're going to get a large part of the kingdom of Solomon. Ten twelfths of the kingdom. You're going to get it, it's going to be taken away and given to you."

At the time, he tried to speed up God's plan by getting it for himself. He tried a little revolt against Solomon, that didn't work. Solomon tried to kill him, he had to run away to Egypt for safety. When Solomon died, Rehoboam came to power. He came back, and that's when the Lord gave it to him and took it away from Solomon's son Rehoboam and gave it to him.

This prophet is still around. Now you would think, you would think this prophet who had appointed or who had told Jeroboam "This kingdom's going to be given to you." When it actually happened miraculously, divinely, by the power of God and God's sovereign hand was upon it when it came to pass exactly the way this prophet said. You would think that this king would have called this prophet on the telephone and said, "I want you to come over here and be my right-hand man. I want you to be my advisor. I want you to be my chief consultant. I want to lean on you for advice. I want you to help me run my kingdom. You can give me advice."

If he had done that, he wouldn't have made such a mess of things all these years. Now we're going to see a lot of years have passed because this prophet is an old guy. He's blind. He doesn't need to tell his wife to wear a disguise because the prophet can't even see. It doesn't matter if she's disguised or not anyway because he's a prophet. Prophets hear from God. You can't disguise yourself to a prophet. Knock knock, anyone home? You're going to see a prophet, you think he hears from God? Yes. Well then why are you wearing a disguise? Make up your mind. Do you think he hears from God or not?

If you think he hears from God, if you really believe he hears from God, why disguise yourself? If you don't think he hears from God, then why go to see him in the first place? I don't get it. I don't understand what this guy's doing. But I do know what he should have done was he should have asked this prophet to be his advisor a long time ago.

"Give me advice, seek the Lord for me. This came to pass. I'm the king now. What should I do? Ask God, what should I do first? What should I do second? How should I do this?" He was worried that his people would go down to Jerusalem and that they would worship the Lord there. While they were there, Solomon's son Rehoboam would treat them real nice and that they would want Rehoboam to be their king.

He was worried about that. Instead of allowing them to go back down to Jerusalem where they should have been going to worship, he decided to keep them up in the northern part of the kingdom where he was and he set up illegitimate places of worship for them up there. Local places, high places. Illegitimate worship places, vain, profane places. He should have called up this prophet and said, "These people need to go down to worship but I'm worried that Rehoboam will treat them nice and then they won't let me be the king anymore. Ask God how He's going to handle that."

The Lord no doubt would have given him a word. But there's no mention here that he ever consulted this prophet for any kind of a useful purpose. There's no mention that he ever went to him for any kind of a legitimate purpose. I don't see anywhere in here that he ever asked this prophet to pray for him. "Pray for me, I need help. Give me wisdom." He just wants to know the future here.

When they went to Jesus, the synagogue ruler went to Jesus and said, "My daughter is sick, will you heal her please?" He's not even asking to pray for his son. He's just asking what will happen in the future. He wants this prophet to be his personal fortune teller.

There's a lot of people that go to fortune tellers to find out what's going to happen in the future. They could go to the God of the universe and pray and where the future could be changed. Where they could affect the outcome of what is going to happen in the future because the God of the universe will work in your life if you ask Him to. Perhaps his son would have been healed if he had asked for that.

Instead, this guy here, his son became ill and he said to his wife, "Disguise yourself so you won't be recognized as my wife, and then go down and see the prophet, the one who said I'm going to be the king, and bring him all this bread and some cake and this big jar of honey." Butter him up a little bit. Bring him a bunch of gifts here so he'll want to help you.

I guess he's thinking this prophet works like I do. I can be bought with money, so he can be bought with money. I can be bought with things, so he can be bought with things. I can be bought with material possessions, so he can be bought with material possessions. Bring him a bunch of material things and maybe we'll get a good answer that we want out of him.

"He will tell you what will happen to the boy." At least he's right on that. She is going to be told what will happen to the boy. He's got one thing right here. So Jeroboam's wife did what she said and went to Ahijah's house in Shiloh. Maybe he just didn't want her to be recognized on the way while she traveled. I don't think that. We'll see why here in a few verses.

Ahijah could not see, his sight was gone because of his age. So here she wasted her time disguising herself because he was blind anyway. He was an old man here. She went to all the trouble to disguise herself and she got there and the guy was blind anyway.

But the Lord had told Ahijah "Jeroboam's wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else." She's disguised so she won't be recognized. He's blind so he can't see her even if she wasn't disguised. Nevertheless, he knows who she is because God told him.

Now like I said, I don't understand this guy's thinking process. Maybe that's his problem, maybe he just doesn't have a thinking process. When Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps at the door, he said, "Come in, wife of Jeroboam."

She's all got her Halloween costume on. She's got the wig and the big glasses and she's all decked out there and she rings the doorbell, "Ding dong, Avon calling." She's standing out there and he says, "Come in, wife of Jeroboam." "Who told you I was coming? How'd you hear?" Why this pretense? He can't even see her. He knows who she is, he knows she's disguised, he knows she's decked out here looking like somebody else.

Then he tells her something else that's very interesting. I love this. Here she traveled all this way to see him and she's thinking "My husband sent me here." And he says, "No, you haven't been sent here. I was sent to you." She thinks she was sent to the prophet, but the prophet was sent to her because God gave the prophet a message. Anytime God gives someone a message, that's the operative most important thing in the story.

"Why this pretense?" he says. "I have been sent to you with bad news." Who's really doing the sending here is the Lord God. Who's really being sent is the prophet. She's all backwards. She thinks she was sent, she thinks she's disguised, she thinks her husband sent her, she thinks he don't know who she is. She's wrong on every count.

He says, "I've been sent to you. By the way, the news is bad. Go tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord the God of Israel says. I raised you up from among the people and made you a leader over my people Israel. 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. You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal. You have provoked me to anger and thrust me behind your back."

The same word here is used to describe the way the Lord puts your sins behind His back when He forgives them. That's a great thing when God forgives your sins and throws away your sins. But it's not a thing that you want to do with God. You want God to throw away your sins, that's great. You want to throw away God? Bad idea. Good idea, God throws your sins away. Good. You throw God away? Bad. Not recommended.

He says, "This is what I did for you. You go back and tell your husband this. I did all these things for you, everything I promised." You know what else? God even told her husband He was going to do this ahead of time. He told him that through the prophet, the same prophet, ahead of time. "I'm going to give you this kingdom and all you have to do to keep it is follow me."

The Price Is Right, they show you the prize. If you want to keep it, you've got to guess the price. You've got to get closer than anyone else without going over. But this guy, he got the whole kingdom for free. There were no other contestants. He didn't have to guess the price without going over, he didn't have to be closer than anyone else. There were no other contestants. He got the whole thing for free, and all he had to do to keep it was simply follow God.

But the Lord says, "You not only didn't follow me, you were worse than all of your ancestors. All the ones that went before you. Saul, Solomon, David, Rehoboam. All the ones that went before you, whatever mistakes they made, add them all together, you were worse than that. First of all, you're not been like my servant David. He kept my commands and he followed me with all his heart." Sure he sinned, but he repented when he sinned. You sin, you repent. He made right when he went wrong and his heart was right with God.

"You," he said, "you didn't do that." There's no record here, I don't see any place Jeroboam ever repented of anything. Yet he had plenty of opportunities to, and here's one more opportunity when he sent his wife to this prophet. He could have been repenting. He could have said, "Tell the prophet I want to repent." If he didn't know how, he could have asked how.

Not only that, he made idols, other gods out of metal. He provoked the Lord God to anger and basically threw Him out with the trash. Because of this, verse 10, "Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel, slave or free. I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung until it is all gone. Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country. The Lord has spoken."

Your ancestors are going to be eaten by wild animals. They're not even going to get buried, which by the way, was just a form of desecration that was considered to be just terribly, awfully dishonorable. About the worst possible thing that could happen. That's what's going to happen because of your sin. Your descendants are going to be cut off from the land of the living. There's going to be no one left of them upon the earth, and it all comes back to you and what you didn't do in following the Lord your God.

As for you, again this is the prophet speaking to his wife. "As for you, go back home. When you set foot in your city, the boy will die. All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will be buried because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord the God of Israel has found anything good."

This sick boy is going to die, and as bad as that sounds, it's actually good for him because he's the only one that has some good in him. The Lord is actually blessing him by allowing him to die early and be buried and not be one of the ones that's cut off and left to be eaten by the wild animals.

If you look up in chapter 15, if you turn ahead a couple of pages, chapter 15, verse 29, this is talking about Baasha who was king after Jeroboam, maybe two kings after Jeroboam. Verse 29 of chapter 15, "As soon as he began to reign, he killed Jeroboam's whole family. He did not leave Jeroboam anyone that breathed but destroyed them all according to the word of the Lord given through his servant Ahijah the Shilonite, because of the sins Jeroboam had committed and had caused Israel to commit and because he provoked the Lord the God of Israel to anger."

We see here these events actually took place not too far in the future. All because of Jeroboam's sin, he wound up with no descendants. He could have had everything. He could have had what was behind door number one, door number two, and door number three. He could have had the whole kingdom, everything for all his descendants forever. All he had to do was follow the Lord God. Simple command. Everything was his, he gets all the prizes.

But he didn't do it and he winds up with nothing. Figure that out. Why? Why is that? Look around the world today. Why do people today insist they're not going to follow the Lord? Follow some other god. We can get a better deal somewhere else, they say. It's funny, as for all this guy's idols, for all the high places he built and the golden calves and the idols and whatever else this guy did, he didn't ask any of them what was going to happen to his son.

He built the idols, he built the high places, doing all this stuff, but when he wanted to know what was going to happen to his sick son, he went and found the real prophet of God. So apparently he knew where to go when he really needed to know something. But when he did go to the real prophet of God, he didn't go seeking forgiveness or asking for repentance or with a changed heart, but to have a prediction of the future. I don't know why, just because he was curious what the future would hold. I wonder what would have been different if he would have said, "I want to repent of all these things." God can restore the years the locusts have eaten, and He could have done it here if the guy had repented.

"The Lord will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will cut off the family of Jeroboam. This is the day. What? Yes, even now. And the Lord will strike Israel so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that He gave to their forefathers and scatter them beyond the river because they provoked the Lord to anger by making Asherah poles. And He will give Israel up because of the sins Jeroboam has committed and has caused Israel to commit."

Look, the first commandment. "I am the Lord your God. There are no other gods besides me." Have no other gods. Don't worship any other gods. Don't make any other gods. He don't want any other gods in your life. How many other ways do you have to phrase that before it sinks in?

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in the study of First Kings. You can hear this message or more Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. Or if you prefer to listen via podcast, you can find Hope From the Word wherever you find your podcasts.

We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 AM, and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton, or just go to our website for the link: ccmarlton.org.

And if you would, take a moment to write to Pastor Bill. It would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives, and we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. We'll continue our study of First Kings next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.