1 Kings 11:14-43

Discussion Questions

1. Do you find it difficult reconcile your acceptance of God’s grace with your understanding of His judgement?
2. What “lesser kings” in your life can be a distraction from your honoring & following God as the true King?
3. What can we practically do to help find our soul’s nourishment in God & in a right relationship with Him?

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel. We do have extra copies, if you didn’t bring one with you and you’d like one to follow along, just raise your hand up real high and somebody will bring one by. I believe up on the screen there you might be able to see the QR code. I think you can find the notes and quotes there, as we wrap up this particular segment of our study of the books we call Kings, one and two Kings. We are going to finish chapter 11 today and then, next week is what we typically call Stir Up Sunday, so we’re going to stir things up next week to prepare us for the advent season.

So, as you can see today, we’re going to finish up First Kings, then we’ll come back around to it again after we turn the year. So great to have you with us here in the room. I also want to give some props to all the people from the Philippines, Australia and from the Republic of India that might be joining us. One of the cameras has got a red dot somewhere. There it is right there. Would everybody wave at that camera right back there? How are you doing? Good to see you guys. Oklahoma is represented as well as North Carolina, I believe. So, so glad to have you all worshiping with us and studying the Bible together with us.

In today’s study, we’ll end up in the year 931 BC. That’s a little ways back there, three millennia back. At the end of this chapter, Solomon who reigned over Israel for a total of 40 years, we see he started really well but ended not so well. Even though he is set up for a great win in so many ways – he was born into royalty and King David’s son. As a young man, as he became king, he asked the Lord for wisdom. God gave it to him in abundance and his name is synonymous with wisdom and, certainly in Israel’s history, with wealth. He had unparalleled amounts of both. His famous achievements included the building of the first Jewish temple. And to this day, his name is still synonymous with the word wisdom and the idea of wisdom.

Let me pray for us and then we’re going to read … I’ll take a step back, pick up just a couple of the verses that Pastor Tommy led us through last week and then we’ll roll right onto the end of the chapter. Heavenly Father, Your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Help us to see with clarity now as we study it, both where we are standing and in which direction You would have us go. You are God, we humble ourselves before You. Lord Jesus Christ in You are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Open our eyes that we may see the wisdom of your Word. Holy Spirit, give us grace that we may gain understanding. Soften and open our hearts that we may receive instruction correction from You and give us the courage then to choose to walk in the ways of your wisdom. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen and amen.

So, I’m going to call this “When All Is Said and Done” and that’s because we’re coming to the end of chapter 11 when all is said and done. Look with me at verse four of chapter 11. “When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away to follow other gods.” You’ll remember from the first part of chapter 11, he had, how many wives? 700. How many concubines? 300. Okay. I would just be such a loser in terms of remembering all of those anniversaries. In his case, happy wife, happy life doesn’t really apply. It’s happy wives, a thousand of them or 700 of them, 300 concubines. We’re not a 100% sure what a concubine was, but we’ve got some ideas. “He was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord,” verse four says, “as his father David had been.” Now watch as we go through, you’re going to see this happen over and over again. All the kings that follow will be compared not to Solomon but to David. And it’s not because David was perfect. As a matter of fact, we know David wasn’t perfect. Here’s what David didn’t do though: he never switched gods, and Solomon does do that, sadly.

Verse six: “Solomon did what was evil in the Lord’s sight and unlike his father David, he did not remain loyal to the Lord.” One of the things the Lord looks for from you and from me is fealty, loyalty, passion for Him and I want to point this out. I grew up always being taught about God in categories that were all about “Don’t make Him mad, don’t do something that might upset Him.” A lot of kind of fear-based stuff. Instead of, look how beautiful He is. Let’s tremble in the presence of this God who loves sinners such as we are, how wonderful, how marvelous He is. Maybe you’re like me in that regard.

We will continue to try to point you to the beauty and the majesty of this Lord, who is yes, white-hot holy, no question, but also quite beautiful and quite wonderful and has set His love on you. What else is said about Solomon toward the end? “He at that time,” verse seven, “built a high place for Chemosh,” the abhorrent God of Moab, Milcom, the abhorrent idol of Ammonites, on the hill. Notice this, “on the hill across from Jerusalem.” Don’t miss this. You could so easily just pass right by that and think, “Oh, it’s just one of the many hills.” We got seven hills down here, just south of Green Hills. No, no. This is the Mount of Olives. This has got to be the Mount of Olives. The hill across from Jerusalem.

If you’ve been to the holy land, if you’ve ever seen a picture of the holy land, often, it’s from the Mount of Olives looking across the Kidron Valley, Jerusalem. The Mount of Olives, where at the base of the Mount of Olives sits the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus, the one greater than Solomon, King David’s greater son, Jesus would go on the night He was betrayed and literally sweat drops of blood and tears, agonizing over the fact that he was about to be arrested and put on the cross to pay the price for my sins and for yours. In other words, right there, Solomon builds an idol, a high place to Chemosh and Milcom. Man, it makes it so much more of a violation. It’s so much the reverse. It’s the opposite of fealty to the Lord.

He did the same for his foreign wives, who were burning incense and offering sacrifices to Gods. So, where that happened, that same place from that Mount of Olives where Jesus ascended back into heaven, where Jesus will return, we’re told. That’s where Solomon literally did this. “The Lord was angry,” verse nine, “because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel who had appeared to him twice.” The Lord wasn’t angry with Solomon because he smoked or because he danced or because he chewed tobacco, not because he was a Democrat, not because he was a Republican, but because his heart turned away from the Lord.

That’s what upset the Lord he is seeking. So, the Lord spoke to Solomon verse 11, told us, that’s the third time. The Lord has appeared to him twice. Now, He’s speaking to him: “Since you’ve done this and did not keep my covenant, my statutes, which I commanded you, I will tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your,” not your son, but who? “Servant. However, I will not do it during your lifetime for the sake of your father, David. I will tear it out of your son’s hands. Yet, I will not tear the entire kingdom.” So not now and not all. That’s interesting. God’s righteous wrath towards Solomon was regulated by God, not now, not all, because of My promises. God said to David, your father, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem that I chose.

Verse 14, “So the Lord raised up Hadad, the Edomite as an enemy against Solomon.” He was in the royal family of Edom. Edom was that place to the south and to the east, a little bit of Israel. Earlier when David was in Edom … so this is before the time of Solomon, Joab, the commander of the army had gone to bury the dead and had struck down every male in the Edom. Literally wiped out all of Edom except for this Hadad. For Joab and all Israel had remained there six months until he had killed every male in Edom. Quite a violent time. Is the Bible endorsing violence and all this kind of stuff? No. This is just the reality of a broken world run amuck and inconsistent people.

People struggling to see God in all of His beauty and majesty and holiness but not able to see Him that way all the time just like us. So here the Israelites are under Joab, quite a violent man, and under David, also a man of war. One of the reasons that God didn’t let David build the temple was because he was such a man of war. Joab and all Israel had remained there six months until he killed every male in Edom, but Hadad fled to Egypt, quite a young man at the time, along with some Edomites from his father’s servants at the time. Hadad was a small boy. Hadad and his men set out from Midian and went to Paran. So, you can see they’re making their way to Egypt. They took men with them from Paran and went to Egypt to Pharaoh, king of Egypt who gave Hadad a house, ordered that he be given food and gave him land.

Why would Pharaoh do that? Because Pharaoh liked Hadad so much. Verse 19 tells us, and he gave him a wife, as he grew older. He gave him a wife, the sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes. Tahpenes’ sister gave birth to Hadad’s son, Genubath. Okay, so evidently Hadad is there quite a number of years. He’s gone from being a small boy to being able to have kids now, and he’s married and he’s in the household of Pharaoh. Why is Pharaoh doing that? Probably for political reasons, probably wanted to have a friend up in that region there in case he ever decided to go up there and try to take some other land or some other country, right?

So Pharaoh gives him his sister-in-law and Tahpenes herself weaned Genubath in Pharaoh’s palace and Genubath lived there along with Pharaoh’s sons. When Hadad heard in Egypt that David rested with his ancestors, in other words, David was dead and that Joab, the commander of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me leave so I may go back to my country.” Pharaoh said to him, “What do you lack here with me, that you want to go back to your own country?” “Nothing,” he replied to that, “But please let me leave.” Now that’s interesting because it kind of stops right there. We don’t really have a whole lot more of what goes on.

We just know the Lord raised up Hadad as an adversary to Solomon, as Solomon’s reign comes to an end. That’s what we’re told. God did it. God raised Hadad up as an adversary to Solomon. God also raised up … Verse 23, Rezon, son of Eliada. You go ahead and say that any way you want. I’m just from Nashville so that’s the way we’re going to say it, as an enemy against Solomon. Rezon had fled from his master, King Hadadezer of Zobah and gathered men to himself. This would be north, this would be sort of what we might call Syria, up in that area, okay? He went to Damascus, lived there and became king in Damascus. This guy was like a vigilante and sort of a marauder, and he literally ends up becoming king just by violence up in Damascus there.

Rezon was Israel’s enemy throughout Solomon’s reign, adding to the trouble Hadad had caused, he reigned over Aram or Syria and loathed Israel, hated Israel. So, this idea that Israel is surrounded by enemies all the time is not new. This is the way it’s been for a long, long time. Solomon’s servant, Jeroboam … complete change of scene now. We’ve talked about Hadad, we’ve talked about this Rezon. Now Solomon’s servant that you should now reflect back to the fact that the Lord had said, “I’m going to tear this kingdom from you and I’m going to give it to your servant, not your son but your servant.”

Jeroboam, son of Nebat was an Ephraimite from Zeredah. His widowed mother’s name was Zeruah. Jeroboam rebelled against Solomon, and this is the reason he rebelled against the king. Okay, so he reaches back a little bit, the narrator does. Solomon had built the supporting terraces and repaired the opening in the wall of the city of his father David. Now, the man Jeroboam was capable, and Solomon noticed the young man because he was getting things done. Don’t you love somebody that gets things done? Do you know somebody that gets things done? I like people that get things done. I’m not the best at that myself, but I really like that trait in people. So, he pointed him over the entire labor force of the house of Joseph.

During that time … and that would be Ephraim and Benjamin, by the way, the sons of Joseph, would be another way of saying that same thing. During that time the prophet, Ahijah, the Shilonite met Jeroboam, on the road with Jeroboam, as Jeroboam came out of Jerusalem. Remember he hasn’t rebelled yet, but he’s working for Solomon and he’s doing a good job and he’s getting stuff done. Now Ahijah wrapped himself with a new cloak and the two of them were alone in the open field. Then Ahijah took hold of the new cloak, he had on, tore it into 12 pieces and said to Jeroboam, “Take 10 pieces for yourself for this is what the Lord God of Israel says.”

And here, a prophet is speaking. We haven’t had a prophet speaking since Nathan, all the way back to when Solomon became King, king for 40 years. And here a king, Nathan ushers Solomon in, or a prophet rather, ushers Solomon in and now, a prophet will usher Solomon out. And Ahijah says, “Take 10 pieces for himself,” to Jeroboam. This is what the Lord says, “I’m about to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand. I will give you 10 tribes, but one tribe will remain his for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city I chose out of all the tribes of Israel for they have abandoned me. They have bowed down to Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and to Chemosh, the god of Moab, to Milcom, the god of the Ammonites.”

These are horrible human-created deities that called for the sacrifice of children, that called for all kinds of licentious activities according to their own priests. They would have all kinds of wild orgies at their temples, they’d have all kinds of things, attempting to appease these nature gods that had certain focus, each and every one of them. “They had not walked in my ways,” the Lord speaking through Ahijah says to Jeroboam, “to do what is right in my sight and carry out my statutes and my judgments as his father David did.” So, the Israelites under Solomon had strayed spiritually. “However, I will not take the whole kingdom from him but will let him be ruler all the days of his life for the sake of my servant David, whom I chose and who kept my commandments and my statutes.”

Again, David, his heart was toward the Lord. Was he a perfect man? No, adulterer, arranged for the murder of Uriah the Hittite, lots of things wrong with David, but he never switched gods. He always repented, remorsefully so. He was a good repenter. We read his Psalm 51 because we look for models of repentance. What is that like? How do we do that? So, we reach for his psalms of repentance all the time. And yet, what happened here is that Solomon did not follow in the footsteps of his father, David. So, the Lord speaking through Ahijah, says to Jeroboam, I’ll take 10 tribes of the kingdom from his son, David’s son and give them to you. I’ll give one tribe to his son so that my servant David will always have a lamp before me in Israel, the city I chose for myself and put my name there.

I will appoint you and you will reign as king over all you want and you will be king over Israel after that, if … circle that if even in the pew Bible, underline it in your Bible, highlight it in your Bible. Here’s a conditional clause to this promise that God is making. I love when God makes it really clear. The whole kingdom has gone down the toilet, but if … Okay, this is great, this is Jeroboam. “If you obey all I command you, walk in my ways and do what is right in my sight in order to keep my statutes and my commands as my servant David did,” not as Solomon, but as my servant David did, “I will be with you.” What’s the promise? The presence, proximity. Do you ever feel God seems far away and you heard some preacher say: Guess who moved?

It’s always us. We’re the ones that moved. It’s true. It’s trite kind of sounding, but it’s true. This is a God that promises to be with us. I will build you a lasting dynasty just as I built for David, and I’ll give you Israel, the nation will be yours. I will humble David’s descendants because of their unfaithfulness, but not forever. Not all, not now and not forever. Again, God regulating His righteous judgment. Therefore, Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but he, Jeroboam, fled to Egypt to King Shishak of Egypt. This is likely the Pharaoh that followed the Pharaoh that Hadad had run to, where he remained until Solomon’s death. And we have the closing paragraph of this chapter and of our study in First Kings here for this part of this year.

The rest of the events of Solomon’s reign, along with all his accomplishments and his wisdom are written in the Book of Solomon’s events in the parallel account in, I believe it’s Second Chronicles. You can find a couple of other titles of some other books as well. One of them is by Ahijah, the Prophet and the Annals of Edo, another writer. These are all books that we have no copies of. They’ve been lost in history and time, that sort of thing. So, we don’t know where the book of Solomon’s events might be. Love to find that one day. Wouldn’t that be awesome? The length of Solomon’s reign in Jerusalem overall, Israel totaled 40 years.

Some commentators will say that’s just a number that sort of represents a generation or represents a certain number, a full reign if you will. I’m okay with it being 40 years because that’s what it says, but I’m also okay with it representing a full reign. Solomon rested with his ancestors and was buried in the city of his father David, his son, Rehoboam, not to be confused with Jeroboam but Rehoboam became king in his place. Thus ends our reading of First Kings Chapter 11. What in the world do we learn here when all is said and done? That’s where we’re at now at the end of chapter 11. I think it was a sixth and seventh century BC, a man named Aesop had the fables. Raise your hand if you remember The Tortoise and the Hare. Raise your hand. Okay, good. There’s a bunch of different versions of the same thing.

Somewhere in the context of that fable is this saying, “After all is said and done, more is said than done.” Boy that resonates. That seems like timeless truth to me. After all is said and done, more is said than done, and it could be said of every kind of leader that has ever lived – every king, not just Solomon, not just the emperor during the time of Aesop or during the Roman Empire that followed, not the Greek empire or not the Roman Empire. Every king, every politician, every pope, every priest, every pastor has said and claimed more than they’ve actually been able to do. Every husband, every wife, every mother, every father, every child, every employer, and every employee has claimed they will do more than they do and that includes you and me as well.

The consequences of doing that are difficult, especially for others who are around us or who might be following us. In the case here with Solomon, an entire nation follows him, and as his heart strays from the Lord, the entire nation strays from the Lord. In a world frustrated by disappointment, bored by disenchantment and drowning in despair, are we finally able to see clearly how we really need a better king? And if we could recognize that problem, where should we turn to find the king as it is today, so it was 3000 years ago, Solomon’s reign began with a wholehearted commitment to the Lord. He was an eager learner. I love that about him. When he was given one wish and we’re all thinking, “Okay, my one wish, I’m going to wish for 10 more wishes.” We’re clever little people, aren’t we? We think we are anyway.

Now, he wanted wisdom to know how to lead, and the Lord gave him that wisdom in abundance. He was an eager learner, a man of fervent prayer. We read and studied that prayer. We know he wrote 3000 proverbs. We know he wrote a thousand songs or Psalms. I mean this guy was creative; he was wise; he was handsome; he had every advantage and he started really well, but he serves as a reminder that you can start really well and end really poorly. He is both an inspiration and a warning, isn’t he? When you think back on Solomon’s life, he failed to keep the main thing, and that’s what I think we can all learn here. What we need … I think it’s very simple.

When all is said and done, we need a better king. We can’t look to Solomon. We can’t look to David. David failed as well. We can’t look to anybody on the earth, any human person. Why did God judge or discipline Solomon? Verses four, six, eight through 11 and verse 33 really remind us in very clear terms: “…because they abandoned me,” the Lord said, “and worshiped other gods. They’ve not walked in my way as to do what is right in my sight and to carry out my statutes and my judgments as David had done.” Okay, so those … and I’ll put it in modern terms as J.I. Packer does, “Those who decline to respond to God’s goodness by repentance, and faith, and trust, and submission to His will, cannot wonder or complain if sooner or later the tokens of His goodness are withdrawn, the opportunity of benefiting from them ends and retribution supervenes.”

While Solomon started well, he finished poorly, but God’s plan for redemption history is not only about Solomon. Now, Solomon points us forward in time to another son of David, the one who would come later, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the promise of David’s throne and David’s kingdom and all of that, that David’s throne would be established forever, that isn’t fulfilled in Solomon. That’s fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus, also known as the son of David. In Matthew chapter one, the genealogy of Jesus reminds us of that. When all is said and done, we need a better king than Solomon.

We’re fast approaching advent season, which will remind us that although the darkness all around us is so very strong, our souls are longing for more, for reconciliation with God, for the kind of peace, the kind of shalom, that isn’t just a cessation of evil or the cessation of war, but it’s actually that deep soul flourishing peace of a soul that lives in right relationship with our God, with our Father who art in heaven. Jesus himself claimed in Matthew chapter 12 that he was a king greater than Solomon. If that was a false claim, then Jesus was a megalomaniac and a liar, and we should destroy everything He ever said and not pay attention to Him.

If that was a true claim that He really was greater than Solomon like He claimed, then we ought to sit up straight and pay attention to Him at least as much as we have to the Proverbs. Raise your hand if you’ve ever read through the Book of Proverbs according to the calendar day of the month, you’ve ever done that chapter a day thing. Raise your hand. A few of us have. This is a great practice by the way, and Solomon didn’t write all of the book of Proverbs. I think he wrote a bunch of it though, and that’s a great practice because during the time he wrote those, they’re very inspired and wonderful to read and helpful on a very, very practical level.

But Jesus is the one we should turn to. Our redeemer has come even in this present darkness, we can lift our voices to rejoice in our redeemer who is greater than Solomon. The angel would appear to Mary, and we’ll study some of this during the advent season, and say, “You’ll conceive in your womb and bring forth the Son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He’ll be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he’ll reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom, there shall be no end.” Jesus is the fulfillment of all of the Davidic covenant and the Abrahamic covenant before that.

Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises through Scripture. So, we look to Jesus. We needed a better king, but we also need to know that the God of the Bible is sovereign over all human history and faithful to all his promises. Do you see how he kept nudging? The Lord nudges His way into these scenarios, as we’ve read chapter one through chapter 11. God keeps showing up and interjecting Himself into situations that kind of look like all hope is lost. I mean, when the kingdom and Solomon’s heart have gotten to the place where they’re putting altars up to Chemosh, Milcom and those kinds of gods on the Mount of Olives, it really looks like this is over.

I mean darkness has overtaken. There’s no hope at all for light, and yet into that kind of darkness comes the Light of the World. See, He is always involved. He’s always busy. He’s never late. He’s never in a hurry and He’s always right on time because He’s in charge. See, so you don’t have to worry. You and I don’t have to worry. Even though we hear it all day long, we’re programmed for fear all day long, we’re programmed for despair all day long, we’re sort of meant to be sort of on a back foot, worried about what might happen in our lives or in the lives of the people around us and the lives of people overseas or whatever. Instead, my suggestion is we need a better king than the news.

We need a better king than the political party. We need a better king than that person you hate from the other political party. We need a better king and we’re not going to find that king on this planet. We’re going to find that king busy on this planet, but we need to look to our heavenly father. We need to look to Jesus – King Jesus who is much greater than Solomon. God was involved. He set up Hadad. He raised them up, why? To be adversaries to Solomon whose heart had gone dark, whose nation had gone dark, and God uses Hadad and Rezon like a megaphone to wake them up. They needed it. We need it too from time to time. I’m not the one who determines when I need that. God does that.

God did that then, and even though Hadad had no interest whatsoever in Yahweh, nor did Rezon, I’m sure they did not. God still raised them up and used them because He can use whomever he wants to use to accomplish whatever he wants to accomplish. He is sovereign over all of human history and faithful to all of His promises, and one of His promises was, “Hey Solomon, if you fail in your fealty to me, if you don’t obey all my commands, I’ll tear the kingdom from you.” And he even goes to Jeroboam and says, “You want 10 shreds from Ahijah’s robe here?” And his Johnson and Murphy robe gets ripped up and shredded and handed over and then, there’s just one left.

And one of our sweet accountants here in the church said, “Hey, 10 plus one is not 12.” What’s going on there? “I don’t know is the real answer.” Suggestions. Okay. Sometimes Benjamin is tucked in with Judah and seen that way. They’re seen as kind of one, together. That could be one. Okay, how about this one? If that one isn’t good for you, the Levites didn’t actually have any land, so maybe the shreds represent the land, portions of land, because Levites were scattered all over the place. Is that satisfactory to you? I don’t know. I don’t know. When we get home, we can find out the answer to this, okay? This is not a salvific issue.

This is not something germane to our salvation, and I’m curious about it too, but we don’t know. Here’s what I do know. We want to turn to the Lord. He’s the one that tears kingdoms down and sets them up as the Book of Daniel tells us. “And it is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men, and knowledge to men of understanding. It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with Him.” I love to promise, those last two lines are awesome. He can see you, whatever darkness you’re going through, He can see you in that.

He knows what you’re going through and the light dwells with him. Do you know the end of the book? At the end of the Bible, all the 66 books in this library we call the Bible, at the end it says, there’ll be no need for the sun and the moon, why? Because He Himself is the light that we need. So, he is light. Jesus, the light of the world has come into our darkness. We can look back. We have so much more clarity than the folks on the ground that first read this after their precious country had been torn apart, after Jerusalem had been destroyed, in the exile in 586 as they were carried off to Babylon. And the people that read these stories, whoever wrote all of this and recorded all of this, they are despondent.

They’re hoping and praying and longing for Messiah to come. We can look back and go, “Messiah has come.” And now Messiah has promised to return again, and we look forward to that as well. In the meantime, He is with us. He will never leave us nor forsake us. The one who actually set it all up controls it and is sovereign over all of human history and faithful to all of His promises. Carl Trueman said, “A time of social upheaval and chaos such as ours is likely to send even the most devout Christians into despair unless they can place the terrifying flux of life in the earthly city against the unchanging reality of the sovereign God Himself.”

So, take that unchanging or that terrifying flux of life in this earthly setting. Take that and put it up against you. A God who sovereignly has guided human history down through the ages like He has and look back to Jesus who died and rose again and put your hope, your faith, and your confidence in Him. I’m actually getting ahead of myself. I better not do that. What we need when we’re talking about God being trustworthy, that He’s sovereign over all human history and faithful to His promises that we need to see, as Spurgeon did, that when you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.

Think about that. That’s a beautiful image. I just love that. Can’t sleep at night, anxious, worried that God might not get it right? Angry? Upset that God, you think, God got it wrong? Frustrated because of the way the world is? Frustrated because of the way some family member is or some person is treating you? Rest in the sovereignty of God. These folks, man, their whole world upended turned inside out and yet God is busy still. Third, God’s judgment and discipline do not negate God’s promises. That’s why I wanted to point out in the middle of all of this, the “not now, the not all, and the not forever” part. God is regulating His own righteous wrath and His righteous anger.

We see that even in the midst of His anger towards Solomon. Solomon turning his back on God, we still see God being gracious to him. He’s not going to pull the kingdom apart while Solomon is still alive. Solomon will close his eyes with there still being a unified nation. Yet, God promised that because of what happened, God would indeed tear the nation in two, and when we pick up next year in chapter 12, we’ll begin with a divided kingdom, the north and the south, commonly referred to as Israel and Judah. And we’ll have 36 more kings, some of them we’ll look at very briefly, most of them not following in the footsteps of David and not loyal to the Lord at all.

So, I love “not now and not all” that His discipline and His judgment do not negate his promises. He’s faithful to His promises and here, a thousand years after this. Approximately a thousand years after this all happens, Jesus comes and into the world of all the darkness and of the silence of heaven after 400 years, no prophet speaking, that’s where Jesus decides it’s time. God the Father decides it’s time, and He comes and it’s amazing. He came to bring us God’s salvation. The Bible teaches us that God has put eternity in our hearts and eternity is more than any temporal thing can provide. As Augustine famously said, “He created this for Himself and our souls, our hearts will be restless until we put our rest in Him.”

He has to be our king. He has to be our God. Paul Tripp. “Corporate worship is designed to humble you by pointing out the depth of your need and enthrall you by pointing to the glory of God’s promises.” So, when we come together here or for the folks that are watching online, when you dial in here, our goal is to remind us all of the sovereignty of God and of His faithfulness to His promises and together to remind ourselves of the things that really matter, not the latest little breaking news. Have you noticed that everything is breaking news, which means nothing is breaking news? No, it’s amazing and everything is kind of a hot take on social media, which means nothing is a hot thing.

And we’re just going to get bored with all that stuff is what’s going to happen, and the bad news is some people will simply fall asleep when they should be caring about a few things that God cares about. So, we will stir ourselves up next week especially and continue on through the advent season to see our redeemer, to watch for our redeemer. Jesus Christ is the King of redemption history. This is where I want to end. Over and over again the Bible reminds us that all of these people, especially the 39 named kings that we’ll study; Saul, David, Solomon, and then the other 36, especially the prophets, Elijah and Elisha, et cetera. Elijah who struggled with depression, if you’re here today and you struggle with depression.

I can’t wait until we get to Elijah. He struggled with depression. Yeah. They were human beings. They wrestled with pride. They wrestled with ambition, self-image, irrepressible lust for money, sex and power. They failed God. They failed their families. They failed the people they should have served. They acted foolishly and recklessly, but through their stories as we see their need, we also see our need for God’s grace, mercy and love. More than that, we see God’s generosity to offer grace to sinners such as they were and we are. That’s inexhaustible grace, that’s long-suffering patience of a God who is in pursuit of a people He can call His own.

And yes, we see His righteous wrath against sin because God takes sin so seriously. Why? Because it ruins you and me. We are part of His creation. He loves us. He doesn’t want us self-destructing by sinful activity and actions. Throughout the Bible, the sovereignty of God over human history is set against the inability of human efforts to self-govern. Our tendency is toward tyranny. Our propensity is toward delusion and pretentiousness. God is sovereign and transcendent over all creation. In short, history is His story. But make no mistake, the Lord will brook no rivals – not only for His glorious sake, but also for your good.

He knows that if you go after Milcom or Milcom cast, He knows that it will let you down. He knows that if you go after Baal or Chemosh, the modern-day versions of whatever those might be, and there might be good things, but if you put all your hope in those things, they will let you down at some point. The only thing that can bear the weight of our worship is God, who is worthy of our worship. He alone is worthy of our worship. So, we want to point out the beauty of our God, the holiness, the majesty of our God, not just tell you what shameful sinners you are. We are that indeed, but that just makes His grace so much more amazing, doesn’t it?

Some of you aren’t getting that. Yeah, the more I’m confronted with my sin, the more I go … how in the world could He possibly love me? And yet He does. Somehow, He does. Sometimes, I don’t take the grace of God seriously because I actually don’t take my sin seriously. And that’s the reason. “God’s forgiving love to me in Christ,” said Newbigin, “is a sheer marvel that passes all comprehension. Only where we understand His wrath, do we understand the might of His love. It is as we understand His love that we know that His wrath is just.” This is from Signs Amid the Rubble – great read. And this is why sometimes I’ll say something that sounds off to some of you, like I love God’s justice. Most of us would say we love justice.

Most people, “Oh yeah, that’s a good thing. Justice. Yeah, that’s a good thing,” but do we know what we’re really saying? Do we know what we mean by that? Because a lot of people say, “I love freedom too,” and they think that means freedom to do whatever we want. That’s not true. That’s not real freedom. Freedom to do whatever I want includes me eating a whole lot of chocolate, man, so much that I’d die with that smile on my face. That’s not good for me. I want a whole lot of things that aren’t good for me. So, my “wanter” is broken. Your wanter is broken in many categories, and I use chocolate, as a trivial example on purpose, because yeah, I know each and every one of us struggles with a variety of things. Pride, lust, anger and unbelief is at the root of all of my sin. I just don’t think He’s got it figured out. So, I’m mad; I just don’t think He can handle it. I need to help Him. So, I try to control other people or the situation itself, and I step out of bounds so often.

But God’s forgiving love to us is a sheer marvel that He still loves me in spite of my tendency to think I got it figured out. That is mind-blowing. I love the Newbigin quotes, like my favorite. Then, I’ll close with this: Scott Redd is a good friend of ours, from up in DC. He’s the president of a reformed theological seminary. He says, “Christ is everywhere throughout the Old Testament,” and we’re seeing it right here in First Kings 11, pointing forward, finding its fulfillment in Jesus. “Christ is everywhere throughout the Old Testament. It speaks of Him explicitly and implicitly, in promises, patterns, types, hints and images. Through these various ways, the Old Testament reveals and anticipates the richness of His character, His work, His life, His glory, His hope, His might, His love, His suffering, His wisdom and so much more and does this all before the historical event of His incarnation.”

I cannot wait to start focusing our attention on the incarnation here in the coming weeks. Really looking forward to it. Not because it’s just one of those sweet little romantic stories. I’m not opposed to Hallmark movies. Do you want to confess … how many of you watch … do you like a good Hallmark movie? I was talking to some friends earlier. I was going, “Man, what if Hallmark came up with a series of horror movies, like Hallmark Horror Movies.” They’d all be standing around the fireplace with their little sweaters on like this, until all of a sudden somebody comes along, whatever. That’s just … if the nature come back from your ruined job, your ruined life to your small town and there’s your old girlfriend and all that sort of thing and then, everything goes off the rails. That would be a horror Hallmark movie to be sure.

Why did I get off on that? So terrible, the one thing that’s true is we know how all of those Hallmark movies end, don’t we? Because it’s just the one storyline, isn’t it? It’s right there. Here’s what we know from the Bible. We know how this ends. We know how reality, not just fictional stuff, we know how reality ends, why? Because we’ve read to the end of the book. We know that He, Himself will be the light. So much so that we will find in Him the answer, the antidote, to everything our hearts are longing for. That’s the Jesus we want to point you to. All through the advent season. That’s what we want to do. He’s the light of the world. He’s the door. He’s the way, the truth and the life. He’s the king we have always wanted because He’s the king we have always needed. Amen. Amen.

Let’s pray: Lord, thank You for this passage, showing us the history of kings that failed, the history of nations that failed, the history of politics that failed. And reminding us, Lord, that You’re the only one we can ultimately trust in. You’re the only one we can place all of our confidence in. You’re the only one that can actually satisfy our souls, longing, the deepest longing of our hearts. Lord, I pray that You would turn our hearts toward You, especially this coming season. No matter what’s going on in the world around us, or in this city, or in our own personal lives, realizing that so many of us in this room are actually going through some difficulty, some trials, Lord. Be the light of our little worlds as well as the whole world. Lord, please and draw us to Yourself, Lord, that like the branch we might abide in the vine. That we might find our life, our soul’s nourishment in You and in a right relationship with You that You’ve made possible through Your death on the cross and Your glorious resurrection. We pray this in the beautiful matchless, wonderful name of Jesus. Amen and amen.