>> Jen: Well, good morning, friends and faithful listeners. My name is Jen. I am the host of this podcast. So excited that you're here with me this morning to share a cup of coffee with me. So stay tuned as we read First Kings chapter 12 today. I hope you all have had a very great weekend. I had a pretty good weekend, but it was extremely busy. And so, um, I'm excited to get into this week because I think it's going to be a little bit less
busy for me. Sometimes it's nice to just sit back and relax and not do too many activities. So that'll hopefully be my week this week. And I hope you guys also are staying busy, but not too busy. So contact me and tell me what you did over the weekend and also what the weather is like where you are. The weather here has been very nice, but I heard we're supposed to get some snow. The first real snowfall
of the year is supposed to be this week. So I am, um, both looking forward to it and also not looking forward to it because I like how pretty snow is, but I also don't like how cold snow is. All right, let's read 1 Kings 12, 1 through 15 today. I'll be reading from the web. Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. When Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it, for he was yet in Egypt, where he
had fled from the presence of King Solomon. And Jeroboam lived in Egypt, and they sent and called him Jeroboam. And all the assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying, your father made our yoke difficult. Now therefore, make the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us lighter, and we will serve you. He said to them, depart for three days, then come back to me.
So the people departed. King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men who had stood before Solomon, his father, while he yet lived, saying, what counsel do you give me to answer these people? They replied, if you will be a servant to this people today and will serve them and will answer them with good words, then they will be your servants forever. But he abandoned the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before
him. He said to them, what counsel do you give that we should answer these people who have spoken to me, saying, make the yoke that your father put on us. Later, the young men who had grown up with him said, tell these people who spoke to you, saying, your father made your yoke heavy, but make it lighter to us. Tell them, my little finger is thicker than my father's waist. Now my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips,
but I will chastise you with scorpions. So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king asked, saying, come to me again the third day. The king answered the people roughly and abandoned the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, my father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.
So the king didn't listen to the people, for it was a thing brought about from Yahweh that he might establish his word, which he always spoke by Ahijah the Shilanite to Jeroboam, the son of Nabat. So I'm sorry I didn't really mention this in the last episode. We did, but Solomon died in the last chapter, and it was kind of an afterthought. I did briefly talk about it and mention it, but we didn't really discuss Solomon's death. And that's because in scripture,
it wasn't really talked about. It just kind of said Solomon did all these things and then died. So the last chapter talked mostly about Jeroboam, who is going to be coming up a lot because he is a key figure moving into the next few chapters. And Jeroboam, if you recall, was anointed by God. He was supposed to become the next king of Israel, and God was taking the kingdom away from Solomon and Solomon's sons and giving them a little portion of the
kingdom, one tribe to be exact. But then Jeroboam was supposed to get the rest of the tribes and was supposed to be the next king of Israel. So that was what the last chapter talked about. And then, of course, when Solomon found out about all of this, he tried to kill Jeroboam. But Jeroboam heard about the king's plot and
fled to Egypt. Now, granted Jeroboam, according to Josephus, who was a historian, he said that Jeroboam tried to turn Israel against King Solomon, and that was why Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam. And then Jeroboam fled after that, which is very Likely, actually, based upon what we read today. So Jeroboam is living in Egypt and Solomon dies. So now, of course, the kingdom is going to be passed down to Solomon's
son. And even though Solomon had a thousand women in his, uh, repertoire, he only has one son that is ever mentioned in scripture, and that is Rehoboam. It is pretty much impossible that this was the only son Solomon had. He probably had hundreds of children. But Rehoboam is the only son ever mentioned in scripture of Solomon. Now, the next thing I should mention, though, before we continue, is that, uh, it's going to be kind of difficult distinguishing between the two names,
Rehoboam and Jeroboam. You're just going to have to remember them. M. Rehoboam was Solomon's kid. Jeroboam was the other guy that God anointed. So now after Solomon dies, Rehoboam is supposed to be anointed as the next king of Israel. It says Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all of Israel had come to Shechem to make him the king. So Shechem was in the northern part of Israel. And it's kind of bizarre that Rehoboam wasn't anointed king
in Jerusalem. This kind of shows that Jeroboam was already losing some power in Israel. In fact, we saw evidence of the kings losing power in Israel way back with David, actually, because all the tribes other than the tribe of Judah kind of rejected King David on multiple occasions. So the disunity was already starting back with King David. And now Rehoboam is dealing with a very divided Israel. So he has to travel to Shechem, which is one of the northern cities for all of Israel, had gone
to Shechem to make him the king. So now Jeroboam, who was in Egypt at this point because he almost died at the hands of King Solomon. Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, heard of it, for he was in Egypt, where he had fled from the presence of King Solomon. And Jeroboam lived in Egypt, and they sent and called for him. So this shows that Israel had a lot of respect for Jeroboam, that they were calling for him to come back home now that King Solomon was dead. So Jeroboam had quite a lot of influence.
In fact, he did, because Solomon put him in charge of all of the Ephraimites, the forced labor of the Ephraimites. So Jeroboam did have a lot of power. And it's actually very possible Based upon this first paragraph here, that Jeroboam actually used his position to make King Solomon look bad. Because here's what happens. Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came to Shechem, and they spoke to Rehoboam, saying, your father made our
yoke difficult. Now, therefore, make the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke, which he put on us lighter, and we will serve you. So Jeroboam comes to Shechem and talks to Rehoboam. He tells Rehoboam, look, your father Solomon was just a hard man. He was hard to work for. He put a huge burden on our backs, and we just want that burden lightened. That's it. So it's very clear that Jeroboam was using his position as the head of the forced labor of the entire tribe of Joseph.
He's using that to his advantage, acting as if he cares very deeply about the people who were, uh, troubled under this forced labor, yet he was the one in charge of it. And he's putting all the blame on Solomon. So he tells Rehoboam, you know, your father, he worked us down to the bone, and all we want is some compensation for that. So Rehoboam, um, answers these people, he says, okay, I'll think about it. So depart for three days and then come back to me, and I will give you
my answer. So the people departed. So then King Rehoboam takes counsel with the old men, meaning Solomon's old counselors. And these counselors were probably very good because first and foremost, Solomon had them. And Solomon is considered to be pretty much the wisest person on the planet. And, uh, Solomon would have chosen very wise counselors for himself. So these men were probably very wise in order to be working with Solomon as a counselor to him. So
Rehoboam decides to see what they have to say. So he says, what counsel do you give to me to answer these people? And they replied, if you will be a servant to these people today and will serve them and answer them with good words, then they will be your servants forever. So they basically tell rehabilitation, be kind to them. Give them what they want. Be their servant, and if you are their servant, they will serve you. They will be loyal to you forever. You have to give
them what they're asking for. And what's really funny is Rehoboam immediately rejects this. He's like, nah, I don't really want to do that. He rejects the older counselors, possibly just because they were older, and he didn't really want anything to do with the advice from his father. Just as many young people don't want to listen to the advice of their parents, they don't want to do it because they think there's a better way to do things. They don't like
the way they saw their parents doing things. So they're going to do something totally different. But in actuality, what these older counselors are telling to Rehoboam is very good. It's extremely good advice, because a king is supposed to be a servant to the people. He's supposed to be basically like the head servant who protects the people, leads the people, helps the people. But of course, because kings have a lot of power, that is
not what we see throughout history. We see kings who are very cruel and authoritarian. And apparently, Rehoboam wanted to be that type of king because he immediately rejects this advice from the older men. He's like, nah, I'm not gonna do that. That sounds stupid. I want to be a king, Like, a real powerful king. So he goes and finds his friends who grew up with him and who were his age, and he asks for their advice. He says, all right, what do you guys advise me to do? And they say, threaten the
people. Tell them you are stronger than your father. Tell them that you're going to place a bigger burden on their back than Solomon already gave them. And of course, this is exactly what Rehoboam wanted to hear, because power sounded appealing to Rehoboam. So he hears this advice from his friends and takes it. He's like, yes, this is great advice. This is exactly what I want to do. But notice that Rehoboam had already rejected the advice
from the older men. He already rejected it because it wasn't what he wanted to hear. This is also something, uh, that a lot of people do is they will go to different people for advice, but only take the advice that they want to take. They find somebody who will give them exactly what they want to hear and reject all of the other advice. And there's a lot of people who do things like that. That's a very common human behavior. We just want to
hear what we want to hear. There's a verse in the New Testament that eventually people in the church are going to reject sound doctrine in order to bring in an ideology that tickles their itching ears. In other words, gives them exactly what they want to hear. That is what Rehoboam does. And as people, we need to avoid doing that. We need to take good advice. And how do we know if Something is good advice
by reading the Bible. That is the best way to know if somebody is giving you good advice, because the Bible contains truth. The Bible is truth. But if somebody is following the guidelines of Scripture and they give you advice based upon that, then it will probably be very good advice. And also, if that advice isn't telling us to do something wrong, it's also probably good advice. The young men with Rehoboam were telling him to do
something wrong. They were telling him to be unkind to his people, to not be a servant to them, but to force them to serve him. That is what Rehoboam wanted to hear. He didn't want to be a servant. What king wants to be a servant. That's why he didn't like the advice from the older men. But the older men actually gave him sound advice. The advice that Rehoboam should humble himself and be kind to the people. So that's how you know when something is good advice
or bad advice. Is it causing you to do something wrong or to mistreat somebody? Or is that advice telling you to humble yourself? If that's the case, then it's probably very good advice. But anyway, Rehoboam, he goes to people who eventually give him the advice he wants to hear. And then in three days, when all of Israel comes back to talk to him, Rehoboam tells them this. He says, my father made your yoke heavy. I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips,
but I will chastise you with scorpions. And he tells them basically that he is going to be a dictator. And if they don't shut up and stop complaining, then he is going to be even more cruel to them than Solomon was. But was Solomon really that cruel to his people? And I would say no, because there's no evidence in Scripture that the people were particularly not well off under
Solomon. Now, granted, yes, Solomon did have a lot of slave labor, and that could be part of all of this, that, uh, Solomon forced a lot of people to work for him. And slavery, as we know, based upon the Bible, is a sin. So, yes, Solomon did have slave labor, but when it came to the ordinary Israelite people that it seems like Rehoboam, uh, is talking to here, were they really that bad off?
And I would say, for the most part, no. However, Solomon did put a lot of taxes in place, and he did have a lot of projects that he needed people to work for him with. So it could be that the people were just tired, didn't want to pay their taxes, or at least as high taxes anymore, didn't want to work for as many hours as they were working, even if they got compensated very well. And, uh, they just were unhappy with some of the things
that Solomon was doing. Now, we know in these days Israel did have a tendency to complain a lot about various things. So it could be that some of these are just, you know, unfounded, um, complaints that the people have, or they're just hearing hearsay and they think things are really bad and it's not as bad as they thought it was under Solomon. But regardless, it kind of seems like the people here just wanted a better work to life ratio. Is that what it's called? Work to life
balance? And we're hoping that Rehoboam would give it to them. And Rehoboam does not. He says, nope, I'm going to make your work even harder. Now, of course, you can imagine how this makes the people feel. They get pretty irritated. And we'll talk more about that on Wednesday. But the last thing I want to discuss here is in verse 15, the king didn't listen to the people. For it was a thing brought about from Yahweh that he might establish his word, which Yahweh spoke by Ahijah the Shilanite to
Jeroboam the son of Nabat. This is referring to the last chapter where Ahijah the prophet from Shiloh, goes and finds Jeroboam and rips up a coat and hands Jeroboam 10 pieces of the coat and tells Jeroboam that he is going to be the ruler, the king of these ten tribes of Israel. But God is going to keep one of those tribes for Rehoboam. So because God promised Israel to Jeroboam, he was going to make sure that it ends up
happening. Now, did God cause Rehoboam to sin by taking bad advice and being cruel to the people of Israel? No, of course not. God never causes anybody to sin. god does not tempt us is what it says, nor does he cause us to sin. But one thing that God does do is he allows stupidity to play out without intervening. And He'll do that quite often in scripture is if He's trying to punish somebody, he will just let them do what they're going to do and take his hand of blessing off
of those people. That's what it means when God hardens somebody's heart and He just lets their wickedness play out. And because they're already wicked, they just keep getting more and more and more wicked and more stubborn. Sounds like God kind of did the same thing here with Rehoboam in order to make Rehoboam divide the people even further so that Jeroboam does in fact become the next King of Israel.
Well, faithful listeners, I hope you have a really great rest of your Monday and that of course you are blessed. I'm going to let you all go with a happy listening and God bless.