About this sermon
Matthew’s genealogy names Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, who answered the people’s plea for a lighter yoke with harsh words, so that the kingdom split, with ten tribes following Jeroboam. Even a wise father’s son may go astray, and God’s grace, not family, is the source of faithfulness. The prophets longed for the two kingdoms to be reunited under one king. That promise is fulfilled not in a future political kingdom but in Christ, the one King who gathers one people, Jew and Gentile, into one kingdom.
Sermon transcript
to know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction and wise behavior, righteousness, justice, and equity, to give prudence to the naive, to the youth, knowledge, and discretion. A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel. To understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.”
Just the introduction to Proverbs while you are turning in the Bible. I know I have them backwards. Allow me to read first Kings 12 first, and then we’ll go to our Matthew passage. We’ll read the entirety of 1 Kings chapter 12. Give a careful ear for when someone reads the Word of God. God is speaking to us.
May we reverence it Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. Now when Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, heard of it, he was living in Egypt, for he was yet in Egypt, where he had fled from the presence of King Solomon.
Then they sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying, Your father made our yoke hard. Now, therefore, lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke, which he put on us, and we will serve you.
Then he said to them, depart for three days, then return to me. So the people departed. King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive saying, how do you counsel me to answer this people? Then they spoke to him saying, if you will be a servant to this people today and we’ll serve them and grant them their petition and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever. But he forsook the counsel of the elders which they had given him and consulted with the young men who grew up with him and served him.
So he said to them, what counsel do you give that we may answer this people who have spoken to me saying, lighten the yoke which your father put on us. The young men who grew up with him spoke to him saying, thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you saying, your father made our yoke heavy, now you make it lighter for us.
But you shall speak to them, my little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. Whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’ Then Jeroboam and all the people came to Ravom on the third day, as the king had directed, saying, Return to me on the third day. The king answered the people harshly, for he forsook the advice of the elders which they had given him, and he spoke to them according to the advice 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 events from the Lord that he might establish his word, which the Lord spoke through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. When all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, what portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel. Now look after your own house, O David. So Israel departed to their tents.
But as for the sons of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them. Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the forced labor, and all Israel stoned him to death. And King Rehoboam made haste to mount his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel was seen in rebellion against the house of David to this day. It came about when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, that they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over Israel.
None but the tribe of Judah followed the house of David. Now when Rehoboam had come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, 180,000 chosen men who were warriors to fight against the house of Israel to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. But the word of God came to Shemiah the son of God, saying, Speak 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, saying, Thus says the Lord. You must not go up and fight against your relatives, the sons of Israel. return every man to his house for this thing has come from me.
So they listened to the word of God and returned and went their way according to the word of the Lord. Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there and he went out from there and built Penuel. Jeroboam said in his heart, now the king will return to the house of David. Now the kingdom will return to the house of David.
And this people, if this people go up to offer sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will return to their Lord, even to Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah. So the king consulted and made two golden calves.
And he said to them, it is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold your God, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt. He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. Now this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan, and he made houses on high places, and made priests from among all the people who were not of the sons of Levi.
Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is in Judah. And he went up to the altar, thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed, he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. Then he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. even on the month which he had devised in his own heart. And he instituted a feast for the sons of Israel, and went up to the altar to burn incense.” Now let us turn briefly, very briefly, to first Kings, excuse me, to first chapter of Matthew. We continue reading portions of Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus.
Verse 5, Salomon was the father of Boaz by Rahab. Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David the king. David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba, who had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon was the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam the father of Abijah. and to Abijac, the father of Asah, signs the reading of God’s holy, inspired, inerrant word.
Let us go to the Lord briefly in prayer. Heavenly Father, we are grateful, as we often say, for every word that comes out of the mouth of you, our God. Be with us and this time. Be with us by your spirit. Strengthen us by your word. Help us to know our dependency upon you. We are sinners in need of grace, needing to see the glories of Christ, our Savior. May we see that in the preached gospel this day, even by its hearing. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
I would ask you this morning, Have you benefited from the book of Proverbs? Can you say that you have taken the book of Proverbs to heart and say, as you have read it, I have become wiser. I have begun to understand many things that I would not have known if this portion of God’s word had not been given to me.
I would think that most every Christian who’s been a Christian for just a little bit of time has come to appreciate the Proverbs in great ways. It’s really one of the most beloved portions of God’s Word, certainly of the Old Testament when we think of those portions that are especially useful to the New Testament Christian. We love the Psalms and we love the Proverbs. of people who read one chapter of Proverbs every day. because there are 31 days in most months, and there are 31 chapters in Proverbs. And so they read them, and they work through the book of Proverbs about 12 times a year.
I must confess to you, I don’t do that, but I certainly can understand people’s appreciation for doing that. The Solomons are the The proverbs are proverbs, little pithy sayings inspired by God’s word given by Solomon. Now, while you may have benefited from that book by reading it, don’t you think that if you could sit under Solomon’s teaching that you would be in the catbird seat. Wouldn’t that be wonderful to be right there and getting it first hand? Well, we come this day as we’re working our way through the genealogy of Matthew to our fifth sermon.
We’ve talked about what it means to be, for Jesus to be son of David and son of Abraham, son of Jesse, but to be of the lineage of Rehoboam. Rehoboam is not as well known as some of the major figures in our Bible. It’s not as well known as Moses, David and Solomon and some others. So who is Rehoboam? Rehoboam is the son of Solomon, the grandson of Jesse, excuse me, great, the great grandson of Jesse, the grandson of David. We here, we have Rehoboam, the one who was able to sit under his father’s teaching. He knew the Proverbs surely better than anyone else would have known. There are 3,000 Proverbs that Solomon gave. Not all of them are given to us in God’s Word. Not all of them are preserved. So we come to Rehoboam.
Will he continue the wisdom with which his father, for the most part, had? You see, God has promised to David that there will be a son to sit on the throne. That is especially fulfilled in Solomon, but it’s going to continue. What we have here in this passage is the next chapter of God’s promise to David. It’s an exciting day when we come to the beginning of First Kings chapter 12. It is a day that has a lot of pomp and circumstance and all kinds of excitement because a new king is going to be inaugurated and anointed.
This is the son of Solomon, Rehoboam, But in that crowd that day, there was a man with a name that’s somewhat similar, and his name is Jeroboam. And Jeroboam had made himself to be an enemy of King Solomon. So because of that, he has to go to Egypt. He has to flee from Solomon because he was in trouble with him. Now Solomon is dead. Jeroboam comes back from Egypt because he does not want to miss Rehoboam’s inauguration ceremony. So he causes all the people to ask a question.
Your father was a bit harsh to us. Won’t you show grace and kindness? Won’t you lighten the load for us? You can imagine what it would be. The work may have been too hard. Taxes may have been a bit high. They want some sort of relief And he says Go away for three days and come back to me and then we will talk about it.
I Now Jeroboam, excuse me, Rehoboam, son of Solomon, being the son of Solomon, what do you think that he would do in that time? Wouldn’t it be best to go before the Lord himself and say, just as my father was, so am I. I am unworthy to guide these people, and I need not riches, I need not fame, I need not victory over my enemies, I need wisdom from on high.
He sends them away. He’s not like his father, is he? He’s not like his father who, when two prostitutes come before him, before Solomon and they say, this is my son. No, this is my son. He listens to the story. One of their sons has died and one is left and they’re both claiming him. And Solomon says, well, split the child in half and give one half to both. And that was what allowed Solomon to understand that’s the mother and that’s not. There’s nothing like that with Rehoboam, isn’t there? He goes to the elders.
And he says, what should I do? What ought I to do? And they tell him, if you would be a servant to this people today and serve them and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever. If he had only stopped right there and gone to God and said, is this what you would have me do, Lord? Would you have me come before them and lighten the load and be of service to them and a help to them?
But you see, the wheels are already in motion for the dividing of the kingdom. Or shall I say, the wheels are already beginning to come off. Sin divides, and the sin of Rehoboam is going to divide God’s kingdom and David’s kingdom if you would be a servant to this people today. I don’t think that thought had even entered into his mind, the idea of being a servant to these people.
After all, I’m the king. I’m the leader. They are my servants. Isn’t that right? So he goes to his friends. That was common in that time for a young man to grow up with many friends who, while he is being groomed to be the king, they are his council and they are being groomed to be a part of his kingdom, to have high ranks in that kingdom.
He says, my friends, you’ve known me for all my life. What do you say that I do? They say, you ought to say to them that my little finger is thicker than my father’s thighs. What is he saying? Some people would read into this. There’s a certain innuendo about certain body parts not little fingers. I don’t think that is what’s going on here. I maybe could be convinced of that. What he’s saying is, basically, if you thought my father was bad, just wait till you get a load of me. No way to serve a people.
Well, we can make comments about the way that youth makes great mistakes, can’t we? Some people would say, why is youth wasted on the young? Others would say, elect a teenager while they still know everything. You may have seen bumper stickers and t-shirts that would say things like this.
But youth is no excuse for the foolish ways of Rehoboam. For we need only read just a few chapters later. And his age is given to us, the age in which he begins to reign. 41 years old. His foolishness, we can’t dismiss as the foolishness of youth, seems to be the foolishness of unbelief. Again, so different than his father. His father was so young when he began to reign. There is a change going on from one to the other. How can a man who sits under the proverbs of Solomon like this, like surely no one else has ever sat under them, how can he be so foolish? It certainly ought to give us pause, should it not?
There are some who grow up under the greatest parents they could have ever imagined. And they turn out to be terrible, terrible people. Others would grow up under terrible parents. And God gives them wisdom. from on high. He gives them the Spirit. He gives them Christ that saves.
Certainly ought to cause us to understand that here’s one who surely was not spared the rod. Does not the Proverbs say, spare the rod, spoil the child? Surely it must not have been spared upon him. But what does it happen? He grows up to be a tyrant.
Certainly, certainly that’s the way we ought to raise our kids. We gain wisdom from the way the Proverbs speak to us. But there will always be exceptions. We do not put too much stock in our parents, in the good ways that they led us, though it is good. We ought not to blame our parents for our horrible childhood. We ought to praise God for his grace to us, to draw us out of a wonderful family or to draw us out of a broken family. To God be the glory in all things having to do with our parents. and our upbringing.
So the kingdom is divided. The people say, we have no portion with David. But if they have no portion with David, how can they have the blessings of David? They don’t realize. Rehoboam sends his taskmaster out. He sends out Adoram and he says, He tries to bring order to these people. This is Rehoboam throwing Hail Marys to use football language. He’s trying to keep the kingdom together that he has just torn apart. He sends adorem and they don’t adore him. They stone him. What a tragedy that is. So, another Hail Mary.
He gets together 180,000 men. These 180,000 men are going to bring war upon the northern tribes. What’s going on here is Rehoboam is going to be king of the southern tribes and Jeroboam is going to be anointed king of the northern tribes. The Lord had told him he was going to have 10 tribes. Told Jeroboam that is. So they’re ready for war. Brothers against brothers. A divided kingdom. A civil war.
But a prophet comes and his name is Shemaiah. Which means, the Lord hears. And Shemaiah speaks. But here, it’s not the Lord who hears. It’s the Lord who speaks. And it is the people who hear. They hear the word of Shemaiah. What does he say? There’s no blood shed today. This splitting of the kingdom is of me. It is of the Lord. God has planned to use the sinful and foolish ways of Rehoboam to split this kingdom. And so, the story goes on to tell us of how Jeroboam realizes that he has these 10 kingdoms on his hands.
But worship is what unites people, is it not? And worship would possibly reunite all of Israel, that is, the southern and the northern tribes. So he says, what we must do is not allow the people to go down into Judah to worship there for the feasts. He sets up rival worship places.
He goes to Dan, which incidentally is the tribe by which idolatry is originally entered into the camp of Israel during the time of Moses. And Bethel, which Interestingly is the house of God. So you take those northern tribes and he has one place in the north and one place in the south. He sets up golden calves and he says, Israel, these are the gods that brought you up out of Egypt, the land of bondage.
Certainly very significant. What else does he do? He sets up feast days. Feast days to rival the feast days of the Southern Kingdom. He doesn’t have any Levites. He takes care of that. He just makes some people into priests. You see the way that sin divides and divides and divides. Think about what he’s doing. He points to these golden calves and he says, these are the gods that brought you out of Egypt. It’s one thing to worship a false god. That is sin. But it is equally sin to worship the true God in a false way.
Dr. Gidley mentioned briefly in our morning instruction time why we worship the way that we do at Grace Church. We have other churches around, maybe by some accounts more entertaining, rock bands and things like that. We understand that we want to be very careful in the way that we worship our God. We want to worship Him according to what we believe He has told us, not according to our preferences. It’s very easy to slip into worshiping the true God in a way that is false.
We must be very careful. We must check what we do, our practices against Scripture. Very tragic. Sin divides. So, what do we have? We have two kingdoms, rival kingdoms, with rival worship now. It’s very sad. It begins to set the stage for the rest of, almost the rest of how your Old Testament is going to read. You see, this kingdom is like a plane. that comes apart in the air. And one part begins to fall, and the other part comes up a little bit high, pieces of a plane, before it begins to descend as well.
The Northern tribes continue in the wicked ways of Jeroboam, worshiping false gods. And in the 8th century BC, The Lord brings the dreaded Assyrians against them from the east, and I take them away. The other piece of the broken plain, which is descending as well, enters into much sin. Southern kingdoms last about two centuries longer and then the dreaded Babylonians, who by that time are the major kingdom of the earth, they come and take away the southern kingdoms. It’s very sad. All from the sin of one man tragedy of tragedies. I don’t need to give you examples of the way that sin divides. It can divide churches, divides marriages and families and schools, divides everything. It’s destructive.
The Old Testament prophets were looking for a day when this kingdom would be brought back together. I think of Ezekiel 37. When you think of Ezekiel 37, The portion of that that gets most of the air time is the idea of bones, a valley of bones spread out, Ezekiel prophesying to them and them being raised. A picture of our salvation, a picture of our resurrection. But if you read the other half, it’s very interesting.
The Lord tells Ezekiel, you take a stick And that stick, it represents Judah. You take another stick, and that represents Israel, and you bring these together to a point they become one stick once again. You see, what God is promising Ezekiel, that the kingdom is going to be reunited again. We read just two weeks ago from Isaiah chapter 11, where God is going to gather his people once again. Indeed, there are many places in the prophets where it’s very clear that the prophets are longing for the day when God’s promises will be fulfilled and he will bring those two kingdoms back together. Are you longing for that day? I am not. Neither should you. That day has already come. For the prophecies of the Old Testament are not fulfilled in a future Israel that is still future for us. The prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled for us in Christ’s church.
I would read to you the word from Ephesians chapter 2, where the Apostle writes to Gentiles, and he is speaking of the reuniting of Christ’s kingdom, Christ the son of David. Ephesians 2, 12. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility.” In the Old Testament, there is a wall of hostility between North and South. But as it is so often with God’s fulfilling of His prophecies, the fulfillment is greater than the promise. For the Old Testament prophets were looking for a day when simply this one nation would come together. But in Christ, God gathers from the whole world all types of people and he makes them to be under the one king. He makes them to be a holy nation and a royal priesthood. He causes them to have one land, be one people, and have one King.
Indeed, in Christ, we can say that the Passover is not a past event. For Christ, His blood has been put over our doorposts. We can say that salvation has come upon this house. Those who know Him And it is not simply the gathering of ethnic peoples from one nation that share for the most part a religion and a same heritage.
We read in Revelation chapter 7 that God is gathering people from every tribe and people and nation and language. Do you see the way that the fulfillment is so much greater? because Christ is gathering by His blood. That’s the thing that unites us all. He is gathering black people and white people, Asian people and Arab people, island people, making all of them one holy nation that shall enter into the new Canaan. and the new Jerusalem.
In eternity past, the Father and the Son covenanted together. They decided how they would rescue mankind, humankind. We do not know the language that was used, for God’s thoughts and His ways are higher than ours. But can you see the father saying to the son, if you would be servant to this people and you would serve them, you would die for them and give your precious blood to save them for all eternity. And if you would be a servant to this people, you would wash their feet. you would lower yourself and humble yourself that you might be exalted and that they might be exalted to sit at your right hand. Brothers and sisters, I give you Rehoboam, son of Solomon, grandson of David, uniter excuse me, divider of the kingdom. And I give you the Lord Jesus Christ, the uniter or reuniter of the people and of the kingdom once again.
We, brothers and sisters, are as a pilgrim people, wandering in the wilderness, but we will, just as the people of old, pass through the River Jordan on dry land and enter into Christ’s covenant land, namely the New Jerusalem, which will come down from heaven, the place where it is. Do you understand that David has not crossed into that yet? Moses has not, Joshua has not. Many of them, they went through that land in the Old Testament, but they have not entered into that new Canaan, that new Jerusalem, which is a heavenly land.
They’re waiting. They’re waiting for their resurrection. They’re waiting for the reunion with all of God’s people They are waiting for Christ the Lord to bring that last day. They are waiting for you. They are waiting for all the rest of God’s elect people.
For when the last elect person is saved, sometime after that, Christ will bring the last day, and He will cause us to be in a great way, that one king, that one kingdom entering into that land. And it will be forever one land, not two lands. Forever one people, not two people. And there will forever be one king, not two kings. And we will live in that land, which will be indivisible. with holiness and righteousness for all. Amen. Let us pray.
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