1 & 2 Kings: The King of Redemption History
Pastor Jim Thomas
1 Kings 15 & 16
Judah
Rehoboam
Abijam aka Abijah
Asa
Jehoshaphat
Israel
Jeroboam
Nadab
Baasha
Elah
Zimri
Omri/Tibni
Ahab
1. God is the only one capable of defining good and evil righteously.
“The relativism which is not willing to speak about truth but only about ‘what is true for me’ is an evasion of the serious business of living. It is the mark of a tragic loss of nerve in our contemporary culture. It is a preliminary symptom of death.”
Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
2. There will always be consequences from the spiritual legacy we hand down.
“God has given us this relentless catalogue of human stupidity and failure so that we can comprehend just how big of a mess we are in. God wants us to be so attuned to the rhythms of evil that when we are just going with the flow, sinning effortlessly, when we are ungrateful and stupid, and act like we are immortal, building a legacy which cannot last, ignoring God, all kinds of warning bells will go off in our heads and we run to Christ.”
J. Gary Millar, ESV Expository Commentary
“When God gives human beings responsibility he means it. The choices we make, not only individually but as a species, are choices whose consequences God, alarmingly, allows us to explore. He will warn us; he will give us opportunities to repent and change course; but if we choose idolatry we must expect our humanness, bit by bit to dissolve.”
N. T. Wright
3. Even in the trajectory of a deepening darkness, God ensures that He has a lamp that shines forth His glory and grace.
“But for David’s sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, to raise up his son after him and to establish Jerusalem; because David did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.”
1 Kings 15:4-5
Discussion Questions
- Why do you think this series of historical stories was included in the Bible? If we believe that “all scripture is inspired by God & profitable for teaching …” (2 Timothy 3:16), what can we learn from this passage?
- Is there an example from your life where you repeated Asa’s mistake of forging ahead without even consulting God or looking to Him for wisdom in your decision process? How did that turn out?
- What spiritual legacy are you leaving? Is there someone to whom you are actually the best version of a Christian they know? What can you do, this week, to improve the likely consequences of that legacy?
“Why don’t the kingdom and people of God vanish into the mists of history? Because God will not permit it. He has decided that his kingdom will come. Grace is not only greater but more stubborn than our sins.”
Dale Ralph Davis, 1 Kings: The Wisdom and the Folly
“As long as we think the next election might eliminate crime and establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquility, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith.”
Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction