There is no such thing as (1) an optional command, (2)
sinning in moderation, (3) it ever being necessary to sin, (4) an
insignificant
sin or (5) a right way to do wrong. However, the Bible gives us example
after
example of people who tried the best they
knew how to behave in an “acceptable”
sinful manner. This is painfully
apparent in the account of Solomon, his son Rehoboam and Jeroboam. God
has told
us repeatedly this cannot not be
done and remain pleasing to Him.
The Bible says when Solomon was old and his many wives
turned his heart after other gods, his heart was not loyal to God.
“Solomon did
evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as
did his
father David. So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart
had
turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and
had
commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other
gods,
but he did not keep what the Lord had commanded” (1 Kings
11:6, 9-10).
Because of his continued rebellion and disobedience, God
told Solomon that He would tear the kingdom away from him and give it
to his
servant, but not while he was alive; however, He would tear it out of
the hand
of his son. God told him, “However, I will not tear away the
whole kingdom, but
I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David, and
for the
sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen” (1 Kings 11:13).
God chastised Solomon for his rebellion and
disobedience in following after foreign gods by raising up several
adversaries
against him, one of those being Jeroboam. First Kings 11:26-28 reads,
“Then
Solomon’s servant, Jeroboam the son of Nebat…also
rebelled against the king. And
this is what caused him to rebel against the king; Solomon had built
the Millo
and repaired the damages to the City of David
his father. The man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor; and Solomon,
seeing
that the young man was industrious, made him the officer over all the
labor
force of the house of Joseph.” First Kings 11:29-39 is the
account of how
Jeroboam rebelled against Solomon.
At that time, Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem and
God’s prophet Ahijah met him;
he had clothed himself with a new garment and he and Jeroboam were
alone in the
field outside the city. Ahijah took hold of the new garment and tore it
into
twelve pieces. “And he said to Jeroboam, ‘Take for
yourself ten pieces, for
thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will tear
the kingdom out of
the hand of Solomon and will give ten tribes to
you’” (1 Kings 11:31).
God further told Jeroboam through Ahijah the reason for
this was because Solomon had forsaken Him, and worshiped the goddess of
the
Sidonians, the god of the Moabites, and the god of the people of Ammon;
and
Solomon had not walked in the Lord’s ways to do what was
right in His eyes to
keep His statutes and judgments as his father David. (I Kings 11:32-33)
The promise God made to Jeroboam for obedience to Him is
astounding! God had said, “Then it shall be, if you heed all
that I command
you, walk in My ways, and do what is right in My sight, to keep My
statutes and
My commandments, as My servant David did, then I will be with you and
build for
you an enduring house, as I built for David, and will give Israel to
you. And I
will afflict the descendants of David because of this, but not
forever” (1
Kings 11:38-39).
God’s declaration of Jeroboam’s pending position of
power and honor was most displeasing to Solomon. First Kings 11:40
says,
“Solomon therefore sought to kill Jeroboam. But Jeroboam
arose and fled to Egypt,
to Shishak king of Egypt,
and was in Egypt
until the death of Solomon.”
Solomon reigned for forty years and died, and then
Rehoboam his son reigned in his place. First Kings 12:1-3 says;
“Now Rehoboam
went to Shechem, for all Israel
had gone to Shechem to make him king. So it was, when Jeroboam the son
of Nebat
heard it he was still in Egypt,
for he had fled from the presence of King Solomon and had been dwelling
in Egypt,
that they sent and called him. Then Jeroboam and the whole congregation
of Israel
came and spoke to Rehoboam.”
The people spoke to Rehoboam requesting that
Solomon’s
yoke of heavy, burdensome service be lightened, and they would serve
him. Rehoboam
told them to come back in three days for his answer; this would give
him time
to consult with the elders who had stood before his father Solomon.
“And they
spoke to him saying, ‘If you will be a servant to these
people today, and serve
them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be
your
servants forever’” (1 Kings 12:7). The wisdom of
age and experience in the ways
of God is priceless!
Rehoboam then made a costly, tragic mistake! First
Kings 12:8 says, “But he rejected the advice which the elders
had given him,
and consulted the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before
him.” They
told him, “Thus you shall speak to this people who have
spoken to you, saying,
‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you make it lighter on
us’— thus you
shall say to them: ‘My little finger shall be thicker than my
father’s waist!’”
Rehoboam took the advice of his peers and answered the
people roughly, and rejected the advice that the elders had given him.
When all
Israel
saw that the king did not listen to them, they departed to their own
tents and
left Rehoboam to figure out how he would maintain the kingdom. Where
were his
peers at this crucial turning point of events in which they had been
central in
masterminding?
All Israel
heard that Jeroboam had come back, so they sent for him and made him
king over
all the congregation. The kingdom was now divided. Ten of the tribes
were now
under Jeroboam’s rule. Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin
remained in Jerusalem
under Rehoboam’s
rule (1 Kings 12:16-21).
Rehoboam had assembled his warriors for battle to
restore the kingdom to himself. The man of God spoke to him; and what
Rehoboam
had sown he began to reap as Shemaiah told him: “Thus says
the Lord: ‘You shall
not go up nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel.
Let every man return to his
house, for this thing is from Me.’
Therefore they obeyed
the word of the Lord, and turned back, according to the word of the
Lord” (1
Kings 12:24). Earlier, the prophet Ahijah had already told Jeroboam
this would
happen to Rehoboam because of his father Solomon’s spiritual
infidelity.
After Jeroboam began his reign, he made one of the
biggest blunders possible—he began listening
to himself rather than trusting what God had already told
him! “And
Jeroboam said in his heart, ‘Now the kingdom may return to
the house of David. If
these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the LORD at
Jerusalem,
then the heart of this people will turn back to their lord, Rehoboam
king of
Judah, and they will kill me and go back to Rehoboam king of
Judah.’” In light
of the promise God had made to him, where did these thoughts come from?
God had
not told him anything remotely akin to that!
Jeroboam’s rebellion and disobedience began by perverting
the command of God when he set up idols for the people to worship. He
then designated
Bethel and Dan to be
the places of worship rather
than Jerusalem.
“Therefore the king took counsel and made two calves of gold,
and said to the
people, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem.
Here are your gods, O Israel,
which brought you up from the land of Egypt! And
he set up
one in Bethel,
and the other he put in Dan” (1 Kings 12:28-29). Verse 30
makes clear what a
mistake this was. “Now this thing became a sin, for the
people went to worship
before the one as far as Dan.”
Jeroboam’s rebellion continued. First,
“He made shrines on the high places, and made priests from
every class of people, who were not of the sons of Levi” (1
Kings 12:31). God
had commanded Moses that all priests were to be from the tribe of Levi
(Numbers
8). Second, he introduced
idolatrous
counterfeits of the feasts. “Jeroboam ordained a feast on the
fifteenth day of
the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah,
and offered sacrifices on
the altar. So he did at Bethel,
sacrificing to the calves that he had made. And at Bethel
he installed the priests of the high
places which he had made” (1 Kings 12:32). In Exodus 23:14-17, God had
commanded Moses to institute three feasts
that the Israelites were to observe once a year. The feast of the
Passover was
to be observed on the fourteenth day of the first month. The Feast of
Unleavened Bread was to be observed on the fifteenth day of the same
month
(Leviticus 23:4-8). Thousands of Israelites had been destroyed for
worshiping a
golden calf that Aaron, God’s first high priest, had made at
their urging (Exodus
32)!
Jeroboam’s abominable disobedience continued in 1 Kings 12:33:
“So he made offerings on the altar
which he had made at Bethel
on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month which he had
devised in
his own heart. And he ordained a feast for the children of Israel,
and offered sacrifices on
the altar and burned incense.” All of this sin and evil was
Jeroboam’s idea!
Jeroboam ignored the warning by a man of God who spoke
the word of the Lord to him. However, then this prophet disobeyed God
and he was
killed (1 Kings 13:1-32)! This downward spiral of treachery grew worse
and is
summed up in 1 Kings 12:33-34.
“After
this event Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but again he made
priests
from every class of people for the high places; whoever wished, he
consecrated
him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. And this
thing was
the sin of the house of Jeroboam, so as to exterminate and destroy it
from the
face of the earth.”
Extermination of Jeroboam’s immediate family and any
future descendants is exactly what happens. First Kings 14:1-6 tells us
how
Jeroboam’s son became sick, and he had his wife to disguise
herself and go to
the prophet Ahijah so he would tell Jeroboam what was to become of
their child.
Ahijah said to her; “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why do you
pretend to be
another person? For I have been sent to you with bad news” (1
Kings 14:6b).
Ahijah had the most devastating bad news from God for
Jeroboam’s wife. He told her, “Go tell Jeroboam,
‘Thus says the Lord God of
Israel: ‘Because I exalted you from among the people, and
made you ruler over
My people Israel, and tore the kingdom away from the house of David,
and gave
it to you; and yet you have not been as My servant David…but
you have done more
evil than all who were before you, for you have gone and made for
yourself
other gods and molded images to provoke Me
to anger, and have cast Me
behind
your back – therefore behold! I will bring disaster on the
house of Jeroboam,
and will cut off from Jeroboam every male in Israel,
bond and free; I will take
away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as one takes away refuse
until it is
all gone. The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Jeroboam and dies in
the city,
and the birds of the air shall eat whoever dies in the field; for the
LORD has
spoken! Arise therefore, go to your own house. When your feet enter the
city,
the child shall die” (1 Kings 14:7-12).
This one son of Jeroboam’s is the only one who went to
the grave. First Kings 14:13 says, “And all Israel shall
mourn for him and bury
him, for he is the only one of Jeroboam who shall come to the grave,
because in
him there is found something good toward the LORD God of Israel in the
house of
Jeroboam.” Is God finding something good in all of us who
claim to be His
children?
The sin of Jeroboam was catastrophic! His spiritual
decline and depravity is one of the most obscene abominations in the
history of
God’s people. The prophet Ahijah declared their doom.
“For the Lord shall
strike Israel, as a reed shaken in the water…And He will
give Israel up because
of the sins of Jeroboam, who sinned and who made Israel sin”
(1 Kings 14:15a, 16).
All
of these deplorable acts and events had their
genesis in Solomon’s rebellion and disobedience! Sin has a
rippling effect, and
we suffer because of our sins or somebody else’s sins. There is no right way to do wrong; it
always leads to our own
confusion, vexation and shame! It accomplishes nothing but to multiply
our
transgressions! The perfection of God’s Word cannot be
improved upon by sinful
man. Any attempt to change a statute, precept or commandment of God
only
corrupts, because the way of the Lord is perfect converting the soul.
This
biblical truth is final and irrevocable (Psalm 19:7-11)!
