“And hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign with Him on earth.” (Rev. 5:10)
The Old Testament is not a dead book! It is replete with lessons on life and packed full with instructions. Every minute detail recorded for us by God’s Holy Spirit is for us to study and apply. As Paul said in I Cor. 10, whatever happened to those whose lives have been replayed in living color on the Old Testament pages are put into the Word of God for our learning and our admonition.
We have studied David, Solomon, and Rehoboam thus far. It should be noted again that, following the death of King Solomon, the kingdom was rent into a northern division of 10 tribes, most often referred to as Israel, and the southern 2 tribes of Judah and Benjamin, usually referred to simply as Judah. Solomon’s son unwisely chose to follow the counsel of his young peers as to how he should treat his subjects, while rejecting the wisdom of his aged counsellors. This decision resulted in the irreparable split of the northern tribes away from the southern. Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, became the first king of the southern sector; and Jeroboam, nemesis of Solomon, headed up the northern half of the divided kingdom.
It is with Jeroboam’s reign that this installment is concerned. First, one could say that Jeroboam was an enterprising soul. He was called a man of valor, and he proved himself to be industrious and capable of responsibility. In fact, the prophet Ahijah, who appeared to Jeroboam to announce that God was going to give the northern half of the kingdom to him, promised this young man that if he would faithfully keep God’s commandments, “I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.”(I Kings 11:28-40). This was an incredible promise to Jeroboam, son of a widow woman, who was generally considered “suspect” by his peers and was virtually an outcast.
Then, consider the expedience of Jeroboam, as we read of it in I Kings 12:26-30. Jeroboam lacked confidence in himself and in the promises of God. With a jealous heart, fearing his people would return to Jerusalem to worship, he built idolatrous places of “worship” where he had erected two calves, exhorting the people to “behold thy gods,” assuring them that it would be too far for them to return to Jerusalem annually to worship their God, so one calf was set up for worship in Bethel and the other in Dan; and God simply says “this thing became a sin.” Jeroboam did all this because he followed his own devices “in his heart.” (I Kings 12:26) Following one’s own devices most often has a bad outcome, especially when those devices lead us to do what God has forbidden us to do!
Next, note the encounter of Jeroboam at the very place where the young king had built altars to worship false Gods, I Kings 13. The encounter was with a man of God. God’s man, unnamed, prophesied that on this very altar a child who would be born, Josiah, would offer the priests that burn incense, and “men’s bones shall be burned upon thee.” (I Kings 13:2) The encounter continued as the power of God was demonstrated when the king’s hand, having been put forward against the prophet, instantly dried up as the altar was rent and its ashes poured out. Then, when the smitten king begged the prophet to ask God to restore his hand, and the king’s hand was restored, there was an encounter with the power of prayer, I Kings 13:6.
The evil of Jeroboam, whose beginning blossomed beautifully with God’s personal promises to him of greatness, was seen unmasked in I Kings 14, when Jeroboam’s son became sick and the king sent his wife, with cakes, crackers and wine, to ask the prophet Ahijah what the prognosis of his son’s sickness was. When the disguised wife approached the prophet Ahijah, the man of God had an answer ready for her, a message of “heavy tidings.” Because, Ahijah said, God had been so favorable to Jeroboam, giving him half of the kingdom that had been rent from David, and because Jeroboam was “evil above all that were before thee,” (I Kings 14:9) God would take the kingdom from Jeroboam; and when his wife’s feet would enter into the city, the sick child would die. (I Ki.14:12).
Jeroboam’s awful end is recorded in II Chr. 13. Abijah, king of Judah, was raised up to challenge Jeroboam because of his idolatry and gross ingratitude for all that God had blessed him with. Abijah declared that “God Himself is with us,” (II Chr. 13:13) and surely He was—for, after an initial ambush by Jeroboam’s troops, the army of Abijah regathered and re-advanced. When the day was over, 500,000 of Israel’s chosen men had fallen in battle. Jeroboam never recovered. He was under the heel of Abijah and Judah the rest of his days, until finally “the Lord struck him, and he died.” (II Chr. 13:20)
So, the end was piteous for this once-glamorous king of the newly formed federation of the northern half of the kingdom. Jeroboam’s enterprising was promising, but his expedience was dreadful; his encounter with God’s prophet was dramatic but disappointing; his evil was, to its core, godless; his end, juxtaposed against his bright beginning, was tragic and sad.
Learn from the lessons of the life of king Jeroboam. He had so much handed to him, but he allowed it all to slip through his fingers because of his jealous, distrustful, and disobedient heart.
“The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot.” (Provs. 10:7)
YOU and GOD 