And we have a lot of scripture cut out for us today. 1 Kings 12, 1:5 is where we'll begin. First Kings 12, 1:5. There's a lot of traffic happening in this room right now. I'll tell you what, This text today reminds me of a quote from Charles Spurgeon where he says that the sins of man, the wickedness of our race, the crimes of nations, the iniquities of kings, the cruelties of wars, the terrific scourge of pestilence, all these things are in some mysterious way working the will of God. And then he says, I cannot explain this. Well, I can. I mean, Chuck's not as good of a theologian as I am. No, no, that's an apt way of describing what we see unfolding in the nation of Israel, and particularly in the monarchy of Israel.
We've been tracing the development of this concept of king in the nation of Israel beginning in 1st Samuel 8, when the people asked the Lord or asked Samuel to give them a king, like all the other nations have. And we have gone through three 40 year periods of time, starting with Saul, who reigned for 40 years, and then David, who reigned for 40 years, and Then Solomon, who reigned for 40 years. And we're just tracing the development of this particular office over Israel because it's going to be so important as we turn to Isaiah beginning next week.
So let me read. This is the first section of Scripture that discusses the post Solomon realities. Solomon has reigned for 40 years, and at the end of his reign some very terrible judgments of God fall on him. And we're going to get into a lot of that today. This is his son, verse 12 or verse 1 of chapter 12, 1 Kings 12, 1 Rehoboam is Solomon's son, and he goes to Shechem, which is in the northern part north of Jerusalem. For all Israel had come to Shechem. Shechem is the place where historically kings had been anointed in the past and where Israel had made the covenant with Joshua. And as soon as Jeroboam, this is another guy. We've got Rehoboam on one side, Jeroboam on the other. And here I am stuck in the middle with you. Jeroboam, the son of Naboth, heard of it, for he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon. So there's a backstory we're going to have to get into. Jeroboam had fled from King Solomon. Solomon's no longer with us. He is gone. Rehoboam, his son, is ruling in his place just beginning to rule. He's in Shechem to be anointed as sort of the agreed upon king by all of the tribes. And they sent him and called him Jeroboam. And Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, Solomon's son, your father made our yoke heavy. Now, therefore, lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you. There's a condition. It's not going to be as easy as it has in the past. There's a condition to the northern tribes, 10 tribes in the north, agreeing to serve under Rehoboam. And that is, you've got to lighten the yoke that you're imposing on us. And Rehoboam says, well, go away for three days, then come again to me. And so the people went away.
Now, let's get into some of the backstory. Why was Solomon trying to kill Jeroboam? What about this sentence? What does it mean when it says, you father made our yoke heavy? Verse 4. What is going on in this story? What's the background of what we're reading here?
Well, we would go back to 1 Kings 10. If you have a physical Bible, you can turn back there first. Kings 10, 14. I'll summarize.
That's the section where Solomon's wealth is described. Let's just start. I've just summarized all this with real world numbers. In one year, we have 666 talents of gold. By the way, just fun fact for you. Plenty of commentators wonder if this is the number that John's referring to in Revelation. We could get into that later. But if you've never heard that, like, that's. Yeah, that's a thing. I thought maybe some of you might be thinking it. That's why I brought it up. 666 talents of gold came to Solomon. A talent was roughly 75 pounds. So that is about 25 tons of gold. And at this morning's price of gold at $4,166 an ounce, that comes to something on the order of $3 billion that comes in every year. Just that one line. In addition to that, it says, besides in that chapter 10 text, what came into him from the explorers? And he had a whole team of merchants, a merchant fleet that came home every three years. And their whole job was to go out there and make more money through trade, through resource acquisition and so forth. He had a standing force of 1400 chariots, 12,000 horsemen, sat in the chariot cities and the king's traders would just go out with some military force and acquire more property, more lands and so forth. In fact, one of the lines in First Kings 10:21 is that everybody in Jerusalem was drinking from silver and gold cups and silver became as common. Now everybody was drinking from gold cups and silver became as common as stone. So the wealth of Solomon is absolutely mind boggling. It's just hard to even get any conceptual grasp on what is actually happening in the acquisition of all this wealth from Solomon.
6 · Reads 1 Kings 11:1-8 to expose Solomon's idolatry
Now turning our bibles to chapter 11, the next section really at the end of 10, we go into 11, verse one. I'm going to read this to you now. Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, you shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn your heart after their gods. Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives who were princesses and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods. And his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David His Father. Verse 5. Solomon went after Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and and did not wholly follow the Lord as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods great wealth, many wives. Kind of how we're tracking so far.
7 · Reads 1 Kings 11:9-14 to show God's judgment on Solomon
Verse 9 of chapter 11. And the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing. So God had already been meeting with and pleading with Solomon to cease this activity. This, the third time is no longer a warning that he should not go after other gods, but he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Verse 11. Then the Lord said to Solomon, saying, since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the Sake of David, your father, I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all of my kingdom, but I will give you one tribe. Give one tribe to your son for the sake of David, my servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen. And then verse 14, we could just read the first half of it and get the whole idea. The Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon. And actually there's multiple adversaries that are listed at the end of chapter 11.
8 · Synthesizes the backstory into a theological indictment: Solomon misused God's gift of wisdom to pursue wealth and wives, ignored repeated warnings, and forfeited the kingdom for his descendants
So Solomon had asked the Lord for wisdom. God gave him a gift. What did he do with the gift that God had given him? Did he steward it well? Nope. He used his wisdom to acquire great riches and eventually great wives, which of course was an extension of statecraft back then. You married foreign wives to connect yourself in terms of industriousness and policy to the other nations. That's what royal marriage was for. Europe practiced that for a very long time. And so he has acquired wealth, he's acquired wisdom, then wealth, and then many wives. And the Lord warns him multiple times, stop, stop. And he won't. And so God says, because you have chosen to walk in this path, I will take the kingdom from your father's house. I will leave you alone because of your dad, David, who I love. But after you pass, this is all coming apart. I will leave one tribe, the tribe of Judah, the tribe of David, intact. Everything else is gonzos.
9 · Explains why Jeroboam was in Egypt: Solomon promoted him, a prophet told him he'd inherit the kingdom, Solomon tried to kill him
And when we get to the list of enemies, guess which one is listed kind of most prominently. Well, Solomon, after receiving this judgment, continues about his business. We don't see any indicator of real repentance. And he continues to seek trade deals all over the place. And he's managing a bunch of forced labor in the north. And he sees this man named Jeroboam in verse 28 of chapter 11, who was very able. When Solomon saw that the young man was industrious, he gave him charge over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph. And chapter 11 goes on to say that Jeroboam is just not going to play Solomon's game. He decides that he is actually told by a prophet that he will be in charge of most of Israel by the time this is all said and done. And so Solomon seeks to kill him. And. And that's why Jeroboam is in Egypt. He's in Egypt hiding from Solomon until Solomon dies.
10 · Summarizes and reconnects to the opening text: Solomon is dead, Rehoboam faces Jeroboam's ultimatum, and asks for three days to decide
Solomon dies. Now we're in chapter 12 at the beginning, where we started. Solomon dies and his son Rehoboam is faced with Jeroboam and this ultimatum is handed down. Hey, if you will lighten the load, the heavy load, the heavy taxation, the heavy force, forced labor, the heavy load that Solomon had on us, your dad had on us. We will follow you, but if you will not, we will not. And where we left the text in chapter 12, verse 5 was Rehoboam says, Young king, he says, give me three days to talk about it, think about it, and I'll get back to you.
11 · Acknowledges the narrative complexity and transitions from exposition to application
Okay, what do we do with all of that biblical data? Like that's a, that's, that's a soap opera. Like there's a lot going on there. And I'm very conscious, very self conscious about whether I did a good job telling that to you. I've been studying this text all week, so some of that was confusing. Put it on me. I tried my best to get all of that in, but that's a lot. What do we do with all this?
12 · States the sermon's controlling thesis: sin wrecks human happiness but cannot stop God's sovereign plan to glorify Jesus
Well, I think what we do with this is we see some basic concept like this. Sin will surely wreck your happiness, but it will not ruin God's plans. And God's plans are to make much of Jesus. I think that's why God gave us this story, to see that sin will surely wreck our happiness. But that sin cannot derail the sovereign purposes of God. And God's ultimate purpose, to use his ability to guide and lead all of history to a point, is to reconcile all things to Jesus Christ and make much of Jesus. And so sin will derail your enjoyment of this life. And that is your choice. It will not derail God's purposes. It will not derail God's purposes.
13 · Signals the beginning of the applicatory section and promises clear takeaways before returning to the narrative
So let's make a few applications from this story early on. Just so if it gets even more confusing, I'll try for it not to. But if it does, let's make sure we have a few things we can grab hold of early on.
14 · Applies the narrative arc from 1 Samuel 8 to 1 Kings 12 to personal discipleship: grumbling and discontentment are seeds that bear rotten fruit over time
First, one would be point number one. The seeds of discontentment bear rotten fruit. The seeds of discontentment bear rotten fruit. We started in 1st Samuel 13 for a very particular reason, or, sorry, we started in 1 Samuel 8 for a very particular reason. And that is all of this stuff with these kings got started because the people of God were discontent and grumbling. They sowed seeds of grumbling and discontentment and comparison. And man did those seeds bloom into a whole orchard of rotten fruit. The monarchy itself in Israel began as a seed of grumbling and discontentment. And 120 years after those seeds have been planted, they are just filling the nation with rotten fruit. Here's what I want you to understand. Grumbling and discontent are seeds. They seem small in the moment. They contain a lot of potential. And the more you go throwing those seeds in your own mind, your own heart, your own home, the more rotten fruit you're going to wind up with in the end. On the alternative, gratitude and rehearsing contentedness are also seeds, and they seem small and inconsequential. As if, what's going to be the big difference? If today I. I really fought against grumbling and instead really chose to be grateful? Like, what really is the big difference? Well, it's not. It's a seed. It becomes something. These seeds took 120 years to fully emerge, but they are really bad. The fruit is really bad. So I just want to encourage you to understand that. Grumbling, discontentment, those are things you're sowing into the ground. They will eventually bear rotten fruit. And likewise, gratitude and thankfulness and contentment that will do the same. And you will see down the road the results of either one of those choices, those planting choices.
15 · Introduces the second point (Scripture directs our paths) and frames Rehoboam's dilemma sympathetically to set up the exposition of his counselors
Okay, so the second point would be this. The Scriptures are given to direct our paths. The Scriptures are given to direct our paths. Now, imagine Rehoboam and. And let's paint him in as sympathetic a light as we can. He's kind of new to the job. He's obviously filling in some very big shoes. Any insult against his father is in some ways, like, is that dishonor to me? He's in a very complicated situation, and we'll see in a moment that he has two sets of counselors that he can turn to. He has people that are mostly associated with his father's household. And then he has a younger set of counselors.
16 · Reads and explains 1 Kings 12:6-11
So let's read this together in chapter 12, verse 6. Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men who had stood before Solomon, his father, while he was yet alive, saying, how do you advise me to answer this people? And they said to him, if you will be a servant to this people today and serve them and speak good words to them, and you answer them, they will be your servants forever. Verse 8. But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him. And he said to them, what do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, lighten the yoke that your father put on us. And the young men who had grown up with him said to him. Thus shall you speak to this people who said to you, your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us. Thus you shall say to them, my little finger is thicker than my father's thighs. You might sense that that is a very polite way of talking about something else. And that would be true. The Hebrew idiom for thigh is more than thigh, or, like, a lot less than thigh. Anyway, point being, it's talking about something else. It's crude, it's garish. It's like, whew, okay, and now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplines you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions. And it's generally believed that scorpions means like the cat of nine tails, like a whip with additional tails that have iron and stuff in them. So he's like, my dad used a whip. I'm going to use tin whips, you know, with metal in them. And so I'm going to use a barbed wire whip or something like that. So that's the counsel he received from the young men.
17 · Defends Rehoboam's dilemma: both sets of counsel sound plausible from a purely human standpoint
Can you understand that when you're in the position of Rehoboam, it's really not all that clear what you should do. Jeroboam obviously is an ambitious guy. You've heard bad things about him, and he could just be trying to expose your weakness, and maybe you should respond with strength. On the other hand, the old guys are saying that if you will do what he asks, he will stay your servant. It's not altogether clear. That's true. It might be. You can just understand that Jeroboam's actually not really able to decide based on these two sets of counsel who he should listen to.
18 · Reads 1 Kings 12:12-15
So verse 12 says, so Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king said, come to me again the third day. And the king answered the people harshly. And forsaking the counsel the old men had given him, he 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 disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions. So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs. This is important for our thesis statement. It was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word, which the Lord had spoken to Ahijah the Silanite, to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
19 · Identifies the missing third source of counsel: God's word
I told you A bit ago that a prophet had come to Jeroboam in chapter 11 and said, you're going to be in charge. So I think the main idea here that I want to point out is that God had a source of counsel for Rehoboam this whole time that he neglected. One of the most frustrating things you'll find when you read through 1 Kings and 2 Kings and even like 1st Samuel and 2 Samuel is how there's this dusty Bibles you could picture in your mind. They're in their little room making decisions and there's this dusty, all too dusty Bibles sitting on a shelf behind them. And you're like, look at that. Go check that out.
20 · Personal story about his father's literal comment about a rebellious teen's Bible in the lost and found
I remember when I was a teenager, my dad was a deacon at a large Baptist church and there was some rebellious young man in our church who was causing problems. I forget the deal. Exactly. And my dad said, you know, he needs to get his Bible out of the lost and found. And I was like, well, that's pretty deep. Like, you know, you know, needs to get his Bible out of lost and found. I was like, that's pretty impressive. And he's like, no, like, his Bible is in the lost and found that I manage as a deacon. And like, he just needs to get his Bible out of lost and found. I don't, I didn't hear what the rest of you were talking about. I just, I heard his name and I was reminded. It's like, well, it kind of all fits together actually.
21 · Turns to Deuteronomy 17:18-20 to show God had already given clear instruction for kings: copy the law, read it daily, fear God, don't acquire many wives or possessions
Rehoboam had a source of counsel available to him that would have made this issue perfectly clear. He could have simply turned to God's word in Deuteronomy 17. And he could have simply asked this, where in the Bible do we learn about the appropriate behavior of kings? Just ask a question like, what would the Bible have me do? And he would have had a text laid up for him by the Lord God to give him wisdom and light. That text is in Deuteronomy 17, 18, I think it would be worth looking at. All Rehoboam had to do was remember that before the kings were ever established, God had kindly in his Word provided clear instruction about what a king should do and what a king should not do. Verse 18, Deuteronomy 17. And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him. And he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel. Well, we're told very clearly that what a king should do is look to the word of God. Does that passage also tell us what a king should not do? It absolutely does. Right before that section, it says, he shall not acquire many wives for himself, or many possessions, or many horses, or many chariots.
22 · Imagines the alternate history: if Rehoboam had consulted Deuteronomy 17, he would have reduced the yoke not to appease Jeroboam, but to obey God
And so all Rehoboam had to do was go back and say, well, where does the Bible talk about this? And he would have landed in Deuteronomy 17. He could have asked people who knew the Bible better than him, and he would have landed in Deuteronomy 17. And he would know that actually his dad wasn't acting the way he should have, and that without worrying about how he would be viewed or any of that stuff, he was just going to trust God's word. He would say, jeroboam, I don't know whether you intend your request for good or for bad. I do know that what you have brought up is actually against God's word. And like, I need to reduce expectations on the surrounding kingdom to supply this kingdom with gold and silver and forced labor and horses and everything else. So, yeah, I'm turning down government size. Your yoke will be lighter. Not because you asked even necessarily, but just because we have been in violation of God's word
23 · Applies the Rehoboam narrative directly: you face similar dilemmas with conflicting counsel, and Scripture is your path forward
And friends. The reality is, is that in some area of your life, you are on the throne and you are forced in a similar situation where there is counsel on the left and counsel on the right. And all of it sounds reasonable to some degree or another. And let me just remind you that God gave you the Scriptures to be a light to your path. And not knowing where it is in the Bible is no excuse because many of us would be happy to tell you where it is in the Bible. And what you need to do is you need to say, you know what, whatever it says, I want to make sure I understand it and obey it. And that's the path I want to walk. I want to do this God's way. I want to do this according to God's word.
24 · Reads 1 Kings 12:16-17
But of course, the king did not do that. And so he turned the way that he did and he makes this really harsh announcement. Now look at verse 16, 1st Kings 12. And when all of Israel and one thing we need to set out here for our minds is that we're going to start seeing the word Israel, and it's not going to mean the whole country anymore. It's just going to mean the north, and we're going to start seeing Judah. I'll remind you this next week we're going to see Judah. And that's referring to the south Jerusalem, the one tribe, basically, that stays intact after all of these terrible things happen. And then Israel starts not to become the name for the whole nation. It's the name for the northern kingdom. And I think this is maybe the first occurrence of that in the Bible. But I could definitely be wrong about that. Verse 16. And when all Israel saw the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, what portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel. Look now to your own house, David. They all leave. They're done. Civil war, Secession. Fort Sumter Moment like whatever you want to call this, it just happened. Boom. Kingdom's divided. Everything about Isaiah is rooted in this problem of a divided kingdom. And we'll start getting into that next week. Go to your own house, David. David, meaning the south. So Israel went to their tents, but Rehoboam reigned over the people of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah.
25 · Reads 1 Kings 12:18-24
Then King Rehoboam set Adaram, who was taskmaster over the forced labor. We still have forced labor. And all Israel stoned him to death with stones. So Rehoboam is like, no, you're going to listen to me. I'm sure you'll listen to me. That was just a moment. He sends his taskmaster into the camps of the Israel people who are discontent, and they stone his messenger instantly. Rehoboam actually barely escapes with his own life, and he flees back to Jerusalem. And then in Jerusalem, he at first. Look at verse 21. He at first raises 180,000 chosen warriors to fight against the house of Israel and restore the kingdom of rehoboam. But verse 22 of chapter 12. But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God, say to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin and to the rest of the people. Thus says the Lord, you shall not go up or fight against your relatives, the people of Israel. Every man returned to his home, for this thing is from me. So they listened to the word of the Lord and went home again. According to the word of the Lord, don't pull your country don't pull an Abraham Lincoln here. Rehoboam, let him go. This thing is from me.
26 · Interprets 'this thing is from me': God is fulfilling his prophetic word to Solomon
What does he mean when he says, this thing is from me? What is he saying? Well, remember what we started at the beginning. He told Solomon, since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. And so God has fulfilled his purposes, his sovereign purposes. He told Solomon, you're done. After you pass, the kingdom's going to break into pieces and one of your servants, Jeroboam, is going to get the majority of the kingdom. That's exactly what happened.
27 · Summarizes the first three points and introduces the fourth: God's sovereignty is driving toward the display of the Son of God
So, three points so far. The seeds of discontentment bear rotten fruit. The whole existence of the monarchy is the byproduct of seeds of discontent and grumbling sown in First Samuel. Chapter 8. Number 2. The Scriptures exist to direct our path. There was a way forward. For Rehoboam, it was simply to go back and ask, what does God's word say about this? Number three, the sovereignty of God drives onward. There is no deterring God's perfect will. Sin cannot do anything to deter God's perfect will. And point four, in that sovereignty, the Son of God will be displayed.
28 · Declares the redemptive-historical telos: God is narrowing Israel down to one man, Jesus, over a thousand-year arc
Now all of this is driving to this radical concept that I would say takes about a thousand years to come to fruition. And that is God strips Israel down to a single human being named Jesus Christ from the house of Judah, the branch of David. And what God is doing over the next thousand years is he is showing that all of his covenant purposes are contained now in Jesus Christ, not a race, not a nation, but in the God man, Jesus Christ. And if you count from Solomon's failures all the way to 70 A.D. the destruction of Jerusalem, that's a thousand years. God is moving progressively through history to show the world that Jesus Christ is the only thing we can hope in, is the only king we can really trust, and is the only hope for the future.
29 · Signals a shift from theological claim to Christological exposition — how Jesus contrasts with the failed kings
Now let me show you some ways that Jesus Christ stands out in this story.
30 · Contrasts the taking kings of Israel with the giving King, Jesus
The first one is that I would say that all these other kings in this whole chain of events took. But Jesus gave the vast majority of Israel's kings hoarded earthly wealth. When Samuel warned the people about the kind of king they were going to get back in chapter eight of First Samuel, he listed all of these consequences with the word take. He says, the king will take your sons for his chariots and horsemen. He will take your daughters as perfumers and cooks and Bakers, he'll take the best of your fields, he'll take the 10th of your grain and your flocks. And in the end, you will be his slaves. That's the warning. How does Jesus shine in that moment? Because Jesus, the king of kings, they, all the other kings take from you. Jesus gives.
31 · Evangelistic application: stop worrying about what you give up to follow Jesus
I want to be clear, if some of you are kind of flirting around the edges of finally giving your life to Jesus, you are just totally doing the math wrong if you think that means giving up. He is saying, come here. And you're like, but what about. You have no idea what I'm going to give you. If you just follow me, I'm going to give you myself. I'm going to give you things that can't be gotten any other way. And you're like, I don't know if I want to follow him or not. I don't know. I have to give this up. I'm worried about stop. Every other system in this world, including the one you've cooked up in your own head, is going to take from you. It's going to leave you poorer. It's going to leave you worse off. But there's one king who gives. Every other king got wealthier when he took under the commission of the Lord. But the Bible says that while Jesus was rich in heaven, he became poor for your sake so that by his poverty, you might become rich. Philippians 2 says that while every other king is out there trying to make much of himself, Jesus took the form of a servant. Every other king in Samuel's warning will turn you into slaves. Jesus turned himself into a slave.
32 · Second Christological contrast: the kings ignored Scripture to their hurt; Jesus obeyed Scripture to His own hurt — all the way to the cross
That's one of the ways we see Jesus in this text. The second one is that all these other kings ignored the scriptures to their own hurt. Like there was always that dusty Bible in my dad's lost and found that if they had just grabbed it and read it, they would have been blessed. They would have received good things. They would have avoided terrible mistakes. Do you realize that Jesus followed God's law all the way to the cross? That he obeyed God's word to his own hurt. Not simply to his own help, but to his own hurt.
33 · Third Christological contrast: God's sovereignty works through all the chaos to deliver Jesus
Number three. The sovereignty of God displays Jesus. We see when we think about the revelation of Jesus Christ over the next thousand years as it unfolds from this moment, we see that God has worked through, through countless variables to bring the God man to earth, to be a person, to live a perfect life, to die a substitutionary death for you and for me. And then he worked through countless families, countless Jerry Springer moments in the Old Testament, countless genocidal kings, countless agendas and failures and so forth. And he did all of that to deliver you the treasure of the ages. Jesus Christ.
34 · Applies the sovereignty of God to anxiety: yes, complex systems are overwhelming, but God navigates all variables to accomplish His will
Friends, if you are a worrier, if you have anxious things, I want to tell you that fundamentally it actually makes sense to worry in some sense. And let me just argue for that for a moment. If you're worrying, you're probably in what is known as a complex system. And that system has so many variables that you can't control. And so you're just observing the reality. There's a thousand things that could happen that I can't influence or affect. And it's like, yeah, that's exactly right, man. Welcome. I have an ulcer named named Variables. It's my pet ulcer named Variables. No, it's exactly right. But look at what we see in this text and in the Bible in general, and that is that those complex variables are checkers, not even checkers to the Lord God. And he has navigated through incalculable variables to deliver his perfect will on time, every time, and ultimately in Christ.
35 · Cites Piper and Romans 8:28 to comfort believers: all the perplexing turns in your life are going somewhere good
John Piper writes in his really good book on Ruth, he says, all the perplexing turns in our lives are going somewhere good. And if you're in Christ, this is what Romans 8:28 means. All the perplexing turns in our lives are going somewhere good. They do not lead off a cliff. In all of the setbacks of our lives as believers, God is plotting our joy.
36 · Fourth Christological contrast: Solomon receives mercy 'for the sake of David
And finally, let me leave you one final reason that this text points us to Jesus. And that is we see some evidence, some light evidence, what you might call gospel headship on display. Look back at this sentence, this statement that God said to Solomon, he's judging Solomon. He's like, I'm going to really take away your legacy. But look at the kindness too. Look at verse 11. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Look at verse 12. Yet for the sake of David, your father, I will not do it. In your days, I will tear it out of your hand, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. Verse 13. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son. For the sake of David, my servant, for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen.
37 · Explicates the typology: if David's merit bought Solomon one generation of mercy, Christ's merit secures eternal mercy for you
So Solomon's just absolutely a shipwreck. He is just an absolute mess. He is using God's creation. He's trotting over people. He's using God's gift of wisdom. He's just a train wreck, but he still gets a little bit of mercy because of who he's related to. David's his dad, so at least he's got that going for him, which is nice. Do you see the little hint of your entire hope in life and death? And that is, is that you are connected to the one in whom God finds full favor. Jesus Christ. Listen, friends, if David had some merit that postponed the tearing of his kingdom by one generation, Christ's merit will keep you from being torn from God and from everything else. Like if David bought Solomon a little mercy, how much more mercy does Christ buy you?
38 · Reiterates the thesis and closes with doxological application: sin wrecks happiness but cannot stop God's plan to glorify Jesus
So as we've started in the beginning, sin will surely wreck our happiness. And not just our sin, sometimes other people's sin. And sometimes just the effects of sin in the world, the curse. But none of those things will ruin God's plan. And God's plan is to make much of Jesus. And I want to submit to you that if all he gave you in this life was Christ, he would have given you everything. You would be wealthy as a result of what he gave you. So as we partake of the table today, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, come and feel blessed to know Jesus Christ and to have been given his righteousness through his perfect life, death and resurrection.