1 Kings chapter 9, as we begin our
study of the Word this evening.
At the beginning of Solomon's reign, the Lord
appeared to him while he was in Gibeah,
there offering sacrifices unto God.
And the Lord basically said to Solomon, ask
me whatever you want.
And so Solomon asked that the Lord would
give him wisdom and understanding that he might
govern over this glorious people of God.
And God was pleased with the request that
Solomon made because he didn't ask for riches,
for the life of his enemies, or for
fame.
The Lord said, because you have asked that
you might just have wisdom and understanding, I'm
going to give you what you have asked.
But I'm going to give you even more
than that.
I'm going to give you honor and fame
and riches and all in abundance.
So, as we get to the ninth chapter,
we find the Lord appearing to Solomon the
second time.
Solomon has now completed the temple, which took
him seven years to build.
And he has also completed his own palace,
which took him 13 years to build.
So, the 20-year building project is over.
And the Lord now is appearing to Solomon,
who has, of course, gained in fame and
stature and notoriety through the world for his
marvelous wisdom and the glories of the kingdom
that he has established.
And so, when he was finished the building,
the Lord came to him the second time,
even as he appeared to him in Gibeon.
And the Lord said unto him, I have
heard thy prayer and thy supplication which you
have made before me.
And I have hallowed this house which you
have built to put my name there forever,
and my eyes and my heart shall be
there perpetually.
Now, the Lord is referring to the prayer
of dedication of Solomon that we studied last
week in the eighth chapter.
After he finished the temple, he prayed this
glorious prayer of dedication as he asked the
Lord to keep his eye upon this house
continually.
And if the people would get into trouble,
if there would be plagues in the land,
if there would be a war, if they
were taken captive, whatever, and if the people
would pray and seek the Lord in this
house, that the Lord would hear and answer
and meet their needs.
And so, the Lord answers Solomon concerning the
prayer of dedication, and he acknowledges the fact
that he has heard his prayer.
And the Lord said, if you will walk
before me as David your father walked in
the integrity of heart and uprightness, to do
according to all that I have commanded thee,
and you will keep my statutes and my
judgments, then I will establish the throne of
your kingdom upon Israel forever, as I promised
to David your father, saying, there shall not
fail thee a man upon the throne of
Israel.
Again, I would like to point out the
fact that it is a conditional promise.
If thou wilt walk before me as David
your father did, then I will establish the
throne forever.
It was a conditional promise of God, which
they failed to keep the condition.
Thus, God was not obligated to keep the
promise.
Now, as I pointed out, the group known
as British Israelites, those who tried to identify
the Anglo-Saxon races as the ten lost
tribes of Israel, they make a big point
that God made a perpetual covenant with David,
that there would never cease one from his
family sitting upon the throne.
And it is their premise that the Queen
of England today is a direct descendant of
David, because God kept his promise, and that
Jeremiah had slipped out of Israel at the
time of the Babylonian captivity, took one of
the princes to Egypt, and then later went
to England and established a colony there in
England, and that the Anglo-Saxon people are
in reality a part of the ten lost
tribes of Israel.
And they have a lot of, you know,
things that they go through to try to
prove their points.
But God's promise to Solomon was a conditional
promise, the conditions which, of course, Solomon failed
to keep.
The Lord said, but if, and here again,
if ye shall turn from following me, or
your children, and will not keep my commandments
and my statutes which I have set before
you, but go and serve other gods and
worship them, then will I cut off Israel
out of the land which I have given
them, and this house which I have hallowed
for my name, will I cast out of
my sight, and Israel shall be a proverb
and a byword among the people, and at
this house which is high, everyone that passeth
by it shall be astonished and shall hiss,
and they'll say, why has the Lord done
this unto the land and to this house?
And they shall answer, because they forsook the
Lord their God, who brought forth their fathers
out of the land of Egypt, and they
have worshipped them and served them.
Therefore hath the Lord brought upon them this
evil."
So the conditional promise, if you'll obey me,
if you'll follow me, then it'll never cease.
One from your family sitting upon the throne.
But if you or your children forsake me,
then Israel will be actually cut out of
the land.
So because they did forsake the Lord, they
were cut out of the land, and God
kept his word that he gave to Solomon.
Now I would like to just point out
one thing at this point, and that is
a lot of times there come warnings from
the Lord to us by various means.
And quite often when God speaks to us,
we think, oh that's not necessary to talk
to me about that, Lord.
You know, that's one area where I just
don't have any problems.
But let me suggest whenever God speaks to
you about any area of your life, you
listen carefully, because God doesn't waste words.
And if he talks to you about some
issue in your life, you can be sure
that's the issue where you're going to be
facing problems down the road.
Now I'm sure that here is Solomon.
He has just dedicated the temple.
It's been a very moving experience.
They've had all kinds of sacrifices.
Everybody is rejoicing and worshiping the Lord, praising
Jehovah, and just it's a glorious time of
worship and exaltation.
And now the Lord comes as Solomon is
there and has prayed, and now the Lord
is speaking, and the Lord says, Solomon, if
you will follow me and all, then I
will establish your throne.
But if you forsake me and you start
to worship other gods, and I'm sure at
this point Solomon is saying, oh Lord, that's,
you don't need to tell me about that.
Oh Lord, how could I ever do that,
you know.
And yet is the very thing, and all
the way through the scripture it is interesting
how that the Lord always seems to warn
people in those areas where they are going
to be tested and tried further down the
road.
So pay attention when God speaks to you,
no matter how remote it may seem at
that minute that you would ever be tempted
or have problems that area, no matter how
confident you may be in that particular area,
if God starts to talk to you about
some particular area of your life, you be
careful and listen.
The Bible says, take heed when you think
you stand, lest you fall.
For you see, where I am confident, and
I think, well I've got that wired, I
don't have to worry about this area, is
an area where I'm prone to trust in
myself.
I'm prone to be self-reliant in those
areas, because I think, well that's something that
I really am strong in that area.
Paul said, when I am strong, then I
am weak.
And I will glory in my weaknesses if
the power of God might be revealed in
me.
So usually Satan will not trip us up
in our weak points, because in those points,
we know that we have to depend upon
the Lord.
It's quite often a person falls in that
area where he has great confidence.
He feels very strong and very confident in
this particular area, and that is the area
where Satan so often trips us up.
So listen when God talks to you, no
matter how it may seem unnecessary to you
at the particular moment.
The Lord knows what he's talking about.
Now it came to pass, after the time
that he had built all of the house
and so forth, that Hiram the king of
Tyre had furnished him with all of the
cedar trees and with gold according to all
of his desire.
And so Solomon gave to him 20 cities
of the area of the upper Galilee and
around the sea of Galilee.
He gave to, as just sort of a
gift, 20 cities in that beautiful area of
the Galilee, in the upper Galilee.
And Hiram came and looked at the cities,
and he was displeased with them.
Now I don't understand why it's such a
beautiful area, and yet Hiram was displeased with
the cities that Solomon gave to him.
And he says, what are these cities that
you've given to me my brother?
And he called them Kabul or displeasing.
It's Kabul, it's not pleasing.
So Hiram sent to the king 60 talents
of gold.
And this is the reason of the levy
which King Solomon raised, to build the house
of the Lord in his own house, the
wall of Jerusalem.
He built the cities of Hazor, Millo, Megiddo,
Gezer, for his father-in-law actually to
give him a present.
Sent his troops up, captured Gezer, and then
gave it to Solomon as a present.
And it tells of the cities that Solomon
established and built.
The cities to store all of his goods,
the horses, the chariots, and all.
Remember he had 40,000 horses.
And so he made slaves of all of
the remnant of the people who lived in
the land before the children of Israel came
in.
But of the Israelites he did not make
slaves.
And so Solomon then built the Pharaoh's daughter
a special city.
She evidently didn't care too much for Jerusalem,
so he built a city for her, the
city of Millo.
And three times in the year, that would
be the great feast days Solomon offered, burnt
offerings and peace offerings on the altar which
he built before the Lord.
And Solomon made or developed a navy.
And he sort of based the navy down
in the area of Eilat.
And the navy would head on down to
Africa where they would collect gold and bring
it back.
And Solomon made gold as just everything around
Israel.
It became just the golden capital of the
world.
Silver it says was as common as rocks.
He didn't really put much value into silver.
He really had a thing for gold.
And so he gathered gold from all over
and brought it into the land.
Now the queen of Sheba heard of the
fame of Solomon.
And so she came to Jerusalem with a
very great company of people, camels, spices, a
lot of gold and precious stones.
And as she came to Solomon, she communed
everything that was in her heart.
And Solomon told her all of the questions
that she asked.
Not anything he had from the king that
he did not tell her.
And the queen of Sheba had seen all
of Solomon's wisdom, the house that he had
built, the meat at his table.
And we remember the meat of his table.
It's fantastic how much food it took for
every day to feed Solomon's household and all.
One day's provision, 300 bushels of fine flour,
600 bushels of meal, 10 fat oxen, 20
oxen out of the pastures or 10 choice
grade and 20 commercial grade beef, 100 sheep
beside the hearts, robux, fallow deer, and fatted
fowl.
That was every day.
And so when the queen of Sheba saw
this whole thing, the servants, the sitting of
his table, no doubt everything of gold on
his table, gold plates, gold cups.
And she saw the whole thing, you know,
and the way they would bear his cup
to him, the way he would ascend to
the house of God and the whole thing.
Man, she was just wiped out.
And it said that there was no more
spirit in her.
She just, wow.
And she said to the king, it was
a true report that I heard in my
own land of your acts and your wisdom.
However, I did not believe the words until
I came and I saw it with my
own eyes.
And behold, they didn't tell me half of
all that is here of your wisdom and
prosperity.
It exceeds even the fame, which I heard.
Happy are your men.
Happy are these thy servants, which stand continually
before thee and hear thy wisdom.
Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted
in thee to set thee on the throne
of Israel, because the Lord loved Israel forever.
Therefore, he made the king to do judgment
and justice.
So interesting.
She sees the whole thing and she says,
hey, they didn't tell me.
I didn't believe it when they told me
of all that was here.
Hey, they didn't even tell me half the
story.
It's fantastic.
Oh, blessed and happy are the people who
can just sit here and listen to your
wisdom and all.
And then blessed be the Lord thy God.
Now, no doubt at this point in his
life, Solomon was still walking with the Lord
and honoring God because she saw the way
he ascended into the place of worship and
all.
And he was still right on.
Jesus said, let your light so shine before
men that when they see your good works,
they will glorify your father, which is in
heaven.
And evidently Solomon was doing it because as
she sees the whole thing, she actually praises
God.
Blessed be God.
He was just really at this point in
his life, right on.
But unfortunately, his disobedience to God caused a
lapse in his worship and in his dedication
to God later on.
Now, he also developed another Navy to ply
the waters of the Mediterranean.
The first Navy was down in the area
of the Persian Gulf and all, and would
go down to Africa on the east coast
of Africa, the Ivory Coast.
And the other Navy went out to the
Mediterranean and covered the area of the Mediterranean,
going as far as England and bringing back
peacocks and gold and rare trees and so
forth.
And so Solomon actually just had all of
this glory and wealth and all that was
coming in.
Now, the weight of gold that came to
Solomon in one year was 666 talents of
gold.
Interesting number.
Beside that, he had all of the spices
that the merchants brought from the Kings of
Arabia.
And he made 200 targets of beaten gold,
600 shekels of gold went into one target.
He made 300 shields of beaten gold, three
pounds of gold went into each shield.
Can you imagine that?
300 shields of gold, three pounds each.
Boy, today's market prices.
Then he made this fantastic throne, six steps
leading up to the throne.
He made it of ivory and overlaid it
with gold, with two lions that were carved
there beside it.
His drinking vessels were all of gold, nothing
was silver, for silver was accounted as nothing
in Solomon's days.
The King had the Navy for Tarshish, and
the other one for Africa, and great riches,
and it tells of all the glory and
so forth of Solomon.
Verse 28, and Solomon had horses brought out
of Egypt, linen yarn.
The King's merchants received yarn for a price.
Chapter 11, but King Solomon loved many strange
women together with the daughters of Pharaoh, women
of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonites, and Hittites.
Now, turn back for a moment to Deuteronomy
chapter 17, beginning with verse 14.
Here under the law, 400 years before the
time of David, before the time of Solomon,
God foresaw that the day would come when
the people would demand a king.
And so, even in the law, God gave
certain commandments for the kings.
When you are come into the land which
the Lord thy God gives you, thou shalt
possess it, and you're dwelling there, and you
will say, I will set a king over
me like all the nations that are about
me.
Thou shalt in any wise set him king
over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall
choose.
One from among your brothers shall you set
as the king, that you may not set
a stranger over thee.
But he shall not multiply horses to himself,
nor cause the people to return to Egypt,
to the end that he should multiply horses.
For as much as the Lord has said
unto you, ye shall henceforth return no more
that way.
Neither shall he multiply wives to himself.
Why?
That his heart turn not away, neither shall
he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
And it shall be when he sits on
the throne of his kingdom, that he shall
write a copy of the law of the
book, which is before the priest of the
Levites.
And it shall be that he shall read
therein all the days of his life, that
he may learn the fear of the Lord
his God, to keep the words of the
Lord and his statutes.
Now Solomon, you know, just disobeyed in all
cases.
First of all, he multiplied horses.
He had 40,000 horses.
He began to go down to Egypt.
Verse 28, had horses brought out of Egypt.
And then chapter 11, he loved many strange
women.
And we are told that he had 700
wives and 300 concubines.
And we've been reading how he multiplied gold
and silver around Jerusalem.
He did exactly those things that God said
he should not do.
Now, the reason why the Lord said the
Kings shouldn't do these things, lest their hearts
be turned away from the Lord.
And what happened to Solomon?
His heart was turned away from the Lord.
There is an old saying that declares the
dice of the gods are loaded, by which
they are saying you cannot go against God's
word and win.
God has established his word and you cannot,
you cannot violate the word of God and
win.
Anytime you violate God's word, you are a
loser.
And Solomon, with all of his wisdom, all
of his blessings, disobeyed the commandment of the
Lord.
And just as God said, it happened.
His heart was turned away from the Lord.
Verse 3, and he had 700 wives, princesses
and 300 concubines.
And his wives turned away his heart.
And it came to pass when Solomon was
old, that his wives turned away his heart
after other gods.
And his heart was not completely towards Jehovah,
his God, as was the heart of David,
his father.
Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the
Sidonians, and Melchom, the abomination of the Ammonites.
He did evil in the sight of the
Lord, did not go fully after the Lord
as David, his father.
And then Solomon built a high place for
Shemash, the abomination of Moab, in the hill
that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the
abomination of the children of Ammon.
Likewise did he for all of his strange
wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed their gods.
So for each of his wives, he built
a little shrine, a worship shrine, that they
might worship the gods that were native to
their own ethnic groups.
And his heart wasn't fully towards Jehovah, his
God.
And his wives turned him away from the
Lord.
So the Lord was angry with Solomon, because
his heart was turned from the Lord, the
God of Israel, that it appeared to him
twice.
And he commanded him concerning this thing, that
he should not go after other gods, but
he kept not that which the Lord commanded.
Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as
this is done of thee, and you have
not kept the covenant in my statutes, which
I have commanded thee, I will surely rend
the kingdom from thee, and give it to
thy servant.
However, it will not happen in your days,
but it will happen in the days of
your son.
So the Lord stirred up, began to stir
up adversaries against Solomon.
The first adversary was Hadad, who was an
Edomite.
Now David had just about exterminated all of
the males in Edom.
In fact, Joab stayed down there for six
months to make sure that they killed all
of the men.
But one of the princes of Edom, whose
name was Hadad, escaped down to Egypt.
And there he married the daughter of the
pharaoh in Egypt, and he became a very
powerful man.
When he heard that David and Joab were
dead, then he requested the pharaoh that he
might be able to go back to Edom.
And the pharaoh said, what's the matter?
You know, you've got everything here.
Why would you want to go back there?
But Hadad assisted and came back to Edom,
gathered a company of men, and he began
to make excursions against the southern borders of
Israel and harassment against Solomon.
The other one who began to harass Solomon
was up in the area of Damascus.
And he also began to harass Solomon in
the northern borders of their land.
Now, beginning with verse 26, we find that
Jeroboam lifted up his hand against the king.
And Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor.
And when Solomon saw that he was industrious,
he made him ruler over all of the
charge of the house of Joseph, which would
be the northern part.
It came to pass at that time when
Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem that the prophet
Ahijah from Shiloh found him there in the
way.
And he had just bought him a new
robe.
And Ahijah grabbed hold of the robe and
he ripped the thing.
And then he ripped it into 12 pieces.
And he gave unto Jeroboam 10 pieces.
And he said, thus, the Lord is going
to tear the kingdom away from Solomon and
from the house of David.
And the Lord is going to give you
10 tribes to rule over.
And he's going to just leave one tribe
for the house of David.
That is one tribe outside of Judah.
And so the southern kingdom was Judah and
Benjamin.
And the northern kingdom, of course, were the
other 10 tribes.
They comprised the kingdom that became known as
Israel.
And the southern two became known as Judah.
So here is the prophecy of Ahijah to
Jeroboam.
The fact that he is going to become
the ruler and the king over 10 of
the tribes of Israel.
And so the rest of the Acts of
Solomon, all that he did, his wisdom, are
they not written in the book of the
Acts of Solomon.
Now here is a book of the Bible
that we do not have.
There are many books that are mentioned that
we do not have.
They would add perhaps somewhat to the color
and the life history of Solomon if we
could only find one of these books, the
Acts of Solomon, the wisdom of this man.
We do have the book of Proverbs.
We do have the Song of Solomon.
He wrote a thousand and five songs.
We have one in the Bible, the Song
of Solomon.
I've never counted the number of Proverbs that
we have in the book of Proverbs, but
he actually wrote 3,000 Proverbs.
We do have the book of the Proverbs,
but there is also another book, the Acts
of Solomon, that we do not have that
records much of his wisdom and all.
It would be very interesting to have, but
we really don't need it for God's revelation
to us of his purposes and all.
So Solomon slept with his fathers, was buried
in the city of David, his father in
Rehoboam, his son Ray in his stead.
Now Rehoboam came to Shechem, and all Israel
gathered to Shechem, which is just about the
center of the land, just about the heart
of the country, and they gathered to make
him king.
And Jeroboam, who was in Egypt, heard of
the death of Solomon, for he had fled
to Egypt from Solomon, and they sent and
called Jeroboam.
And all of the congregation of Israel came
to Rehoboam, and they said, Now look, when
your dad was alive, he overtaxed us, and
we are just tired of this heavy taxation,
and we want some tax relief.
And so Rehoboam said, Give me three days
to think about it.
And they said, All right.
So he went to his older counselors, those
men that had counseled his father Solomon, and
he said, What shall I do?
And they said, You better listen to them
and give them some tax relief.
What they are saying is correct.
The taxes are a burden.
They're too high.
The people are going to revolt if you
don't give them some tax relief.
And so he went to his young counselors,
the young guys that he grew up with,
and he said, Look, these guys are wanting
tax relief.
What shall we do?
And they said, Don't give in to their
request.
If you do, they're going to only come
back for more later.
So you got to be firm, and you
just go out and tell them that they
haven't seen anything yet, that you're going to
even be more severe than your father Solomon.
That actually what they saw under your dad
was nothing compared with what's coming.
So he went out and spoke roughly to
them.
He said, My father chastised you with whips.
I'm going to chastise you with scorpions and
just went on and spoke very roughly to
them.
And the people said, What have we to
do with you, House of David?
And they said, To your tents, Israel.
And so the tribes of Israel at that
point revolted, and Rehoboam headed down to Jerusalem,
to the safety of Jerusalem, when he heard
that the people were in uproar.
And so he gathered together an army, and
the Lord spoke to them and told them
not to start a war at that time.
And so the kingdom was divided.
And this is an important point in the
history of the nation.
The northern kingdom, as I said, was called
Israel.
Unfortunately, they did not have one decent king.
Israel was plagued with idolatry from the beginning.
Judah had some good kings, some excellent kings,
and some bad kings.
Israel never had any good kings at all.
They went from bad to worse.
But at least in Judah, they did have
some decent kings who did bring reforms there
in Judah.
But the kingdoms were never united again.
The northern kingdom fell first because of its
idolatry and all.
It fell first to Assyria.
Later on, about 500 BC, the southern kingdom
fell to Babylon.
Later, there was a regathering, of course, after
the Babylonian captivity.
But the people of Judah never fully accepted
the people of Samaria as true full brothers,
because the Samaritans could not really bring out
their genealogy to prove that they were Jews
all the way back.
And so there came, and even at the
time of Christ, there was sharp division between
the Jews and the Samaritans.
And they were both claiming that they had
the right place to worship God.
In Samaria is where Abraham first built the
altar there at Shechem unto the Lord.
And they claimed that Mount Gerizim was the
only mountain on which to worship God, whereas
the Jews were saying, no, God should be
worshipped on Mount Moriah there in Jerusalem.
And there was this big conflict between them,
even at the time of Christ.
Now, the prophecy of Ezekiel, when he prophesied
the rebirth of the nation Israel, which we
have been privileged to observe, when he prophesied
that God was going to take these bones
that were dry and scattered and bring them
together and put them in the land again
and make a nation of them, he said
that he saw one stick for Joseph and
one stick for Judah, and that actually they
would be no longer two but one.
And so what God was prophesying there in
Ezekiel is that when the children of Israel
became a nation again, which they did in
1948, that they would no longer be a
divided kingdom.
There would no longer be the northern kingdom
and the southern kingdom, but they would be
just one nation, one king over them all.
And thus, of course, is the case today.
Israel is a united nation and one ruler
ruling over the whole nation, but they don't
have the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom,
and that won't exist again.
That is over.
That's a part of the past history that
won't be repeated because God promised that there
would be just one nation in the land.
Of course, Joseph Smith said that one stick
for Joseph was actually, his name is in
the Bible, and that one stick was the
Book of the Mormon that Joseph Smith was
going to bring to all the people.
If you can believe that, you can believe
anything.
No, read it in its context.
I'm surprised that people would go for that.
And so Jeroboam became the king over Israel,
and he built Shechem.
Now, Shechem was already there.
It means that he built a wall around
Shechem, and actually the wall of the city
of Shechem, remnants of it are still there
today.
And he built Penuel.
But he said to himself, the people are
apt to be drawn back to the king
of Judah, especially if they go down to
Jerusalem for the holy days.
They go down for the Passover and so
forth.
Their hearts are going to be drawn back
after Rehoboam, and I'm going to be in
trouble.
So he made two golden calves, and he
built altars, one in Dan, which is way
up at the othermost northern part of the
kingdom.
It's where the Jordan River comes right out
of the ground.
Beautiful area of Dan.
And he set up one of these golden
calves in Dan.
The other he set up in the southern
part there at Bethel, which is, of course,
just 15-20 miles out of Jerusalem, close
by Jerusalem.
So in both ends of the kingdom, the
southern and the northern part of the kingdom
of Israel, he set up these idols with
these golden calves.
And he said, these are the gods which
brought you out of Egypt.
Now, the worship of the calf was something
that came from Egypt.
You remember when the children of Israel were
in the wilderness, and Moses had stayed in
the mount for such a long time, the
people thought that he wasn't coming back.
And they came to Aaron, and they said,
make us a god that we might serve
it, for as what's happened to this Moses,
we don't know.
And so he had them bring all their
golden earrings and all of their gold, and
they molded this golden calf.
And, of course, Moses came down from the
mountain with the two tables of the law,
and he heard the dancing and the singing,
and he saw all these people in their
wild orgies as they were worshiping this golden
calf.
And he took the two tables of stone
upon which God had inscribed the Ten Commandments.
The first one, thou shalt have no other
gods before me.
The second one, thou shalt not make into
thee any graven image to bow down and
worship and all.
And here they were, in violation of the
first two commandments.
They'd already broken the before they even had
it.
And he threw the stones on the ground,
and they broke.
And he then took this golden calf, and
he ground it into powder, mixed it with
water, and he made all the people drink
it.
But he dealt with it very harshly.
But now here is Jeroboam making two golden
calves, setting them up with altars, and saying,
these are the gods that brought you out
of Egypt.
And he turned the hearts of the people
away from the Lord.
And so there came a young man out
of Judah, by the word of the Lord,
to Bethel, where Jeroboam was standing by the
altar ready to burn incense.
And he cried against the altar in the
word of the Lord, and said, O altar,
altar, thus saith the Lord.
There is that character in Los Angeles that
has the golden altar, and I've been tempted
to go up and cry against his altar.
O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord, behold,
a child shall be born unto the house
of David, Josiah by name.
And upon thee shall he offer the priest
of the high places that burn incense upon
thee, and men's bones will be burnt upon
thee.
And he gave a sign the same day,
saying, this is the sign by which you
know that the Lord has spoken.
Behold, the altar shall be torn, and the
ashes that are on it shall be poured
out.
Now, he prophesied that there's going to be
a king raised up, a descendant of David,
Josiah by name.
Now, this is long before Josiah was ever
born.
But he prophesied exactly what Josiah is going
to do in the offering of the priest
there upon the high places that burn incense
on this altar.
And in order that you might know that
God has really spoken, this altar is going
to be torn in two, and the ashes
are going to be spilled out.
So it came to pass when King Jeroboam
heard the saying of the man of God,
which cried against the altar there at Bethel,
that he said, lay hold on him.
He put forth his hand and said, lay
hold on that man.
And his hand, he just lost its use.
It just dropped, and he had no use
for that hand or arm.
He couldn't pull it back to him again.
He just lost use of it.
And the altar was torn, or rent, and
the ashes poured out from the altar according
to the sign of the man of God
that he had given by the word of
the Lord.
And the king answered and said unto the
man of God, pray now to the face
of Jehovah thy God, pray for me that
my hand may be restored again.
And the man of God besought the Lord,
and the king's hand was restored him again,
and it became as it was before.
And the king said unto the man of
God, come home with me and refresh thyself,
and I will give you a reward.
And the man of God said unto the
king, if you will give me half your
house, I will not go in with thee,
neither will I eat bread nor drink water
in this place.
For so it was charged me by the
word of the Lord, saying, eat no bread,
nor drink water, nor turn again by the
same way that you came.
So he went home another way, other than
what he had come, to Bethel.
Now there was an old prophet there in
Bethel, and his sons came home, and they
told him all of the things that happened,
how this young prophet came from Judah, and
prophesied, and how the king's arm lost its
use and was restored, how the whole prophecy,
and the old man said, what way did
he go?
And so the sons told him, and he
said, saddle my donkey, and he got on
his donkey, and he pursued after this young
prophet, and he came to him and found
him under an oak, and he was just
sitting there, and he said, are you the
prophet that came from Judah?
And he said, I am.
And he said, come on home with me
and eat bread.
And he said, I may not return with
you, nor go in with you, neither will
I eat bread nor drink water in this
place.
For it was said to me by the
word of the Lord, thou shalt eat no
bread, nor drink water there, nor turn again
to go by the way that you came.
And he said unto him, I am a
prophet myself, and an angel spake unto me
by the word of the Lord, saying, bring
him back with thee into your house, that
he may eat bread and drink water.
But he lied unto him.
So he went back with him, and did
eat bread in his house, and drank water.
And it came to pass, as they were
sitting at the table, the word of the
Lord came to the old prophet that had
brought him back.
And he cried unto the man of God
that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the
Lord, for as much as you have disobeyed
the mouth of the Lord, and you have
not kept the commandment which the Lord thy
God commanded thee, but you came back, and
you have eaten bread and drunk water in
this place, of which the Lord did say
unto thee, eat no bread, drink no water,
thy carcass will not come into the sepulcher
of thy fathers.
And so it came to pass, after he
had eaten bread, and he had drunk, that
he saddled for him the donkey.
And when he was gone, a lion met
him by the way, and slew him.
And his carcass was cast in the way,
and the donkey stood by it, and the
lion also stood by the carcass.
So men came into town, and they said,
We saw an interesting sight.
A young man out there, he was killed
by the lion, and the lion and the
donkey are standing by his carcass.
And the old man said, That truly must
be the young prophet.
He said, Saddle my donkey.
And he went out, and he found the
young man lying there, and the lion and
the donkey standing by.
And he brought him back, and he buried
him in his own sepulcher.
And he said to his boys, he said,
When I die, he said, I want you
to bury me next to the bones of
this young prophet.
Now, it's an interesting story that surely has
an important lesson for us.
And that is, we better pay attention to
what the Lord has to say to us,
and not what man has to say to
us.
There is a movement afoot within the United
States that is called the shepherding doctrine.
And in this, you are to submit yourself
unto a shepherd who is responsible to lead
you and to guide you in your spiritual
development and growth.
So you take an older person in the
Lord, one with more maturity, an older man,
and you submit yourself to him.
He becomes your shepherd.
He tells you when you can buy a
house, when you can sell a house, when
you can buy a car, and just what
job you should take, and so forth.
I mean, you bring all of your decisions
to him, and he shepherds over you, and
he watches over you and your spiritual growth.
He tells you when to do things, and
what to do, and so forth.
And you are to submit totally to your
shepherd.
You are to pay all your tithes to
that shepherd, and you commit totally your decisions
in your life to him.
It's really sort of a pyramid thing.
Some guys at the top started it.
They're the head shepherds, and all of these
other shepherds are under them.
And it's sort of like those pyramid sales
games where, you know, you get so many
reps under you, and then you get a
certain percentage of all what your reps sell,
and they get reps under them, and you
get a certain percentage of what their reps
sell, and, you know, you get this pyramid
thing going.
And the guys at the top really make
out great.
And so these shepherds that are at the
top, you know, all of the shepherds pay
their tithes, of course, on up the line,
they ultimately get up here to the top
shepherds.
And they've got this whole thing going, and
many people have gone for it.
Now, they say that if your shepherd tells
you to do something, you've got to submit
to him and do it, even if it
is wrong.
And if it is wrong, your shepherd is
responsible and will have to answer to God.
You are right because you submitted and obeyed
your shepherd.
So you're free, even though what you've done
is wrong.
You'll be free because you were, you obeyed
your shepherd and you were submitting to him,
and thus, he will be the one that
will be responsible to God for the wrong
things that you have done because he told
you to do them.
If they would only read this account, they
would find out that God holds each man
responsible for what God has told him to
do.
Now, this young prophet, the Lord said, when
you get there, don't eat any bread, don't
drink any water in that place, and when
you come back, don't even come back by
the same route you went.
So the old man, an old prophet, finds
him and he says, come on home with
me, eat bread and drink water.
And he said, no, I can't.
The Lord commanded me not to.
Well, I'm also a prophet, you see, I'm
an older man.
And an angel came and spoke to me
and said, come and bring him and invite
him back.
The old man was lying to him, told
him to do something that was not according
to the word of the Lord to him
directly.
And as the result, the young man disobeyed
the Lord's command that the Lord had given
to him.
You are responsible to listen to God and
to follow the Lord and the Lord's command.
And God will hold you responsible for that.
And of course, he's back there eating bread
and drinking water.
And the true prophecy then came from the
old man that he was not going to
get back home, that the Lord would take
him before he could get home, which, of
course, did happen.
Now, after this experience that Jeroboam had where
God was giving to him a warning, verse
33, Jeroboam did not turn away from his
evil doings, but he made the lowest people
priests there in the high places.
And whoever he would, he consecrated.
And he became one of the priests of
the high places.
This thing became a sin to the house
of Jeroboam, even to cut it off and
to destroy it from off the face of
the earth.
So at that time, his son Abijah became
sick.
And Jeroboam said to his wife, arise, I
pray thee, and disguise yourself that you might,
that they won't know you as the wife
of Jeroboam.
And go to Shiloh, for there is a
prophet there whose name is Ahijah.
And he is the one that told me
that I was going to become the king
over these people.
Take 10 loaves of bread, some crackles and
a cruise of honey and go to him,
and he will tell you what's going to
happen to our child.
So Jeroboam's wife did so.
She arose, went to Shiloh, and she came
to the house of Ahijah.
But Ahijah could not see, for his eyes
were set by reason of his age.
He was so old that he had gone
blind.
But the Lord said to Ahijah, behold, the
wife of Jeroboam is coming to ask something
of you for her son, for he is
sick.
So this is what you're to say.
Thus and thus shall you say unto her.
For it shall be when she comes in
that she's going to feign herself or be
disguised so that she'll look like another woman.
And so it was when Ahijah heard the
sound of her feet, she came up to
the door.
When she knocked on the door, he said,
come on in, thou wife of Jeroboam.
Why are you feigning yourself to be someone
else?
Why have you got this disguise on?
For I am sent to thee with heavy
tidings.
It is humorous that a person would think
that he could disguise the truth about himself
from God.
And yet so often people find themselves in
that position of trying to deceive God.
Men are often in a disguise when they
come to the house of the Lord.
They seek to appear to be something they
really aren't.
But God can see through each disguise.
We remember in the birth of the church
in the New Testament when there was such
great fervor and zeal that people were going
out and selling their houses and possessions and
bringing the money in and laying it at
the apostles feet.
And they all were just sharing everything together.
There were a certain couple, Ananias and Sapphira,
who sold a possession, but they conspired to
hold back a part of it for themselves
and bring in just a part of what
they made, which was perfectly all right, except
that they were feigning to give everything.
They were pretending that they were bringing it
all in.
And so Ananias came in first and he
laid this money before Peter.
And Peter said, did you sell your house
for so much?
Yep.
He said, why have you conspired in your
heart to lie against God, to lie against
the Holy Spirit?
You've not lied unto man, you've lied unto
God.
Now, while the house was in your name,
wasn't it yours?
Yep.
Did anyone require you to sell it?
Nope.
Did anyone require that you bring everything?
Nope.
But yet you're putting on this big front.
You're trying to deceive God.
And then Ananias fell over dead and they
carried him out.
His wife didn't hear about it and she
came in pretty soon with her part and
laid it there at Peter's feet.
He said, is that what you sold your
house for?
Yep.
Why is it that you and your husband
would conspire together to deceive God?
Behold, the feet of those that carried your
husband out are going to carry you out
too.
And she fell over dead.
We can be thankful, I guess, that that
same power doesn't exist in the church today.
I wonder how many of us would last
through a service.
We surely wouldn't last through some of the
songs that we sing.
Take my life and let it be consecrated,
Lord, to thee.
Take my hands, my feet, my moments, my
days.
Take my silver and my gold, not a
mite would I withhold.
Everybody drops over dead.
So, it is wrong to think that you
can deceive God.
Here she comes, all disguised.
And while she's knocking on the door, the
old blind prophet, foolish, anyhow, the old blind
prophet's blind, anyhow, he couldn't see all of
this gear that she put on and, you
know, tried to disguise himself.
He couldn't see it anyhow.
He was blind.
And yet he says, come on in, thou
wife of Jeroboam.
How come you put on that weird disguise?
I have heavy tidings for you.
They were heavy tidings indeed.
Go tell Jeroboam, thus saith the Lord God
of Israel, for as much as I exalted
thee from among the people and made thee
prince over my people Israel, and I tore
the kingdom away from the house of David
and gave it to you, yet you have
not been as my servant David who kept
my commandments and who followed me with all
of his heart to do that only which
was right in my eyes.
But you have done evil above all that
were before thee, for you've gone and made
other gods, molten images to provoke me to
anger, and you have cast me behind thy
back.
Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the
house of Jeroboam and will cut off all
of the house of Jeroboam.
Now the Lord declares that I have given
to you all of these things.
I've blessed you.
I made you the prince and the king
over my people, and yet you have given
nothing back.
You've turned me, you've turned your back on
me.
You've cast me behind your back, and therefore,
because of your wickedness, you're to be cut
off from all of your house.
And those that die from your family in
the city, the dogs are going to eat,
and those that die in the fields, the
vultures will eat.
Now go on home, and when your feet
enter into the city, your child is going
to die.
And all Israel will mourn for him and
bury him, but he only of Jeroboam shall
come to the grave because in him there
is found some good thing toward the Lord
God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.
Moreover, the Lord shall raise him up a
king over Israel, who shall cut off the
house of Jeroboam that day.
For the Lord shall smite Israel as a
reed is shaken in the water, and he
shall root up Israel out of the good
land which he gave to their fathers, and
shall scatter them beyond the river because they
have made groves, provoking the Lord to anger.
And so already at the beginning of the
history of the nation of Israel, God is
already predicting the judgment that is going to
fall some 450 years later upon the nation.
Because they turned against God, because they began
to worship these other gods, they're going to
be scattered, they're going to be driven out
of the land that God has given to
them.
And he shall give Israel up because of
the sins of Jeroboam, who made Israel to
sin.
So his wife arose, and when she came
to the threshold of her house, her child
died.
And they buried him, and all Israel mourned
according to the word of the Lord, which
he had spoken by Ahijah the prophet.
Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam,
how he warred, how he reigned, behold they
are written in the book of the chronicles
of the kings of Israel.
Now we do have the chronicles of the
kings of Judah.
They are known in the Old Testament as
first and second chronicles.
However we do not have the chronicles of
the kings of Israel.
So first and second chronicles really deal with
the chronicles of they are actually sort of
court records of the kings of Judah.
The kings of Israel are mentioned in chronicles
only in passing, as they are co-reigning
about the same time as the kings of
Judah.
But basically first and second chronicles deal with
the kings of Judah.
These chronicles of the kings of Israel are
other books that we do not have at
the present time.
Jeroboam reigned then over Israel for 22 years,
and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab
his son reigned in his stead.
And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in
Judah.
He was 41 years old when he began
to reign.
He reigned for 17 years in Jerusalem.
So now we are going to start bouncing
back and forth from the northern kingdom to
the southern kingdom.
So you are going to have to watch
and I will try to bring the changes
for you so that you know when you
are in the north and you know when
you are in the south.
So meanwhile back at the ranch in Judah
in Jerusalem, the descendant of Solomon, Rehoboam in
the southern kingdom.
He was 41 years old, he reigned for
17 years.
And Judah did evil in the sight of
the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy
with their sins which they committed above all
that their fathers had done.
For they began to build high places and
images and groves on every high hill under
every green tree.
And there were also sodomites in the land,
and they did according to all of the
abomination of the nations which the Lord cast
out before the children of Israel.
Now there are those today that are trying
to have us accept homosexuality as a, you
know, just as a common thing.
Tremendous pressure that they might be accepted and
be totally accepted in our society that there
not be any laws that would restrain them
from any kind of a position that they
might want to hold.
If they want to teach your children in
the public school, they should have every right
in the world to teach your children in
the public school, though they have a perverted
lifestyle and all.
And there's tremendous pressure to accept them.
In fact, they have probably one of the
strongest and most well-organized and financed lobbying
groups in the country today.
And it's a rare politician that really doesn't
bow unto them because of the tremendous political
power that they are able to wield.
They also, of course, have created their own
churches, and they try to make what they
are doing as biblically acceptable and scripturally acceptable.
That it is just another way of life
and another form of living that, as Christians,
we should love everybody and love everything, and
we should accept them and all.
There was a church in San Francisco, an
Orthodox Presbyterian church, who had hired an organist
who, when he was found to be a
homosexual, the church fired him.
And he turned around and sued the church
for $100,000 because of the laws in
San Francisco that do not allow any discrimination
for a man's sexual preferences.
Fortunately, the courts dismissed his suit, for which
we praise the Lord.
Actually, Calvary Chapel had sent some money to
the Presbyterian church in order that they might
defend themselves in this suit.
And we are glad for the outcome of
the suit this last week when the judge
dismissed the suit and granted the church the
immunity from that particular law on the basic
constitutional rights of the freedom of religion.
But if this was such an accepted thing
and God would have us to accept it,
then surely God would not make reference to
it as one of the evils that was
existing in the land.
The fact that they had allowed these people,
and no doubt to practice openly, and this
is one of the evils that is mentioned
in the land.
And later on in a spiritual reform, we
find that King Asa got rid of all
of the sodomites out of the land.
That was listed as a part of the
reform in the land.
When the morals of a nation sink so
low that the people
have such bravado in their sin that they
begin to publicly flout their perversion and sin,
that nation is ripening for judgment even as
was Sodom and Gomorrah.
I fear for our nation and we need
to pray.
I do feel that we as a church
should not hate these people who have chosen
this lifestyle.
But as a church we cannot accept them
either.
We pray for them that they might have
a true conversion and be born again and
turn from that wickedness and follow and serve
the Lord.
But we surely can have no real fellowship
with them lest we be partakers of their
unrighteous deeds.
So still now in Judah, Rehoboam the son
of Solomon, in the fifth year of his
reign, Shishak, who was the king of Egypt,
invaded the land and he took away the
treasures of the house of the Lord and
the treasures of the king's house.
So all of this tremendous loot that Solomon
had had brought together was now ripped off
by the king of Egypt.
That's one of the tough things about having
a lot is that there's always someone out
to rip you off.
I have a friend who is involved with
the mafia and he was sharing with
me how that there is sort of a
big roll of money that just moves around
the circles.
He said, we all know where it is.
He said, every once in a while I
get hold of it.
And he said, when I have it, he
says, man, I just, you know, just loaded.
And he says, but whenever I have it,
he said, all of the guys out there
are figuring some scam or some way to
get it away from me.
And he said, ultimately I fall to one
of their scams and they rip it off
and then they have it for a while.
And then we're all figuring out some scam
to rip it off from them.
And he said, this big wad of money
just keeps moving around in the circle and
we each get to hold it every once
in a while.
But he said, it's just all of us
ripping off each other constantly that we might
hold this money for a time.
And while I was talking to him, it
happened to be the time that he had
and he opened his safe and showed me
this tremendous amount of money.
And he said, but I won't have it
for long.
He said, sooner or later you're going to
get to me with some scam.
And he said, they'll take it from me.
Now, here was all of this treasure that
Solomon amasses.
So all of the greedy Kings around me,
wow, you know, you become the prime target.
And so he gets ripped off and they
take it down to Egypt.
So then everybody knows it's in Egypt.
So they're going to start, you know, ripping
off the Egyptians then.
So Rehoboam made brass shields.
Remember Solomon made these gold shields, three pounds
of gold per shield, but he replaced them.
Rehoboam replaced the shields with brass shields.
Now brass is always a symbol of judgment.
And it really is, is the beginning of
God's judgment because of their turning away from
the Lord.
And so it came to pass when the
King went into the house of the Lord
that the guard bear them and brought them
back to the guard's chamber.
And the rest of the acts of Rehoboam,
all that he did are written in the
chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
So we'll get those when we get to
chronicles or the Kings of Judah rather.
And we do have the chronicles of the
Kings of Judah.
Now there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam
all their days.
Rehoboam slept with his fathers.
He was buried in the city of David
and his Abijah, his son reigned in his
stead.
Now it is interesting that they both men
named their sons the same thing.
However, Abijah or Abijah and Abijam, they're, they're
close to the same thing.
They mean this, this, the same.
He's called Abijah later on.
So, but the King of Jeroboam died.
The King of Rehoboam, Abijah or Abijam became
the King in his father's stead.
And he reigned for three years in Jerusalem.
And he walked in the sins, which his
father had done before him.
His heart was not completely towards the Lord,
his God, as the heart of David, his
father.
Nevertheless, for David's sake, the Lord gave him
the lamp in Jerusalem to set his son
after him and establish Jerusalem because David did
that which was right in the eyes of
the Lord and turn out aside from anything
that he commanded in all the days of
his life, except in the case of Bathsheba,
the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
That's the place where David stumbled and fell
badly.
Now there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam
all the days of his life.
The rest of the acts of Abijam and
all that he did, they all saw in
the book of the Chronicles of the Kings
of Judah.
So we'll get more on Abijam later.
And Abijam slept with his fathers.
They buried him in the city of David
and Asa, his son, reigned in his stead.
Now in the 20th year of Jeroboam, so
Abijam had a very short reign and still
in Judah.
Asa now reigned over Judah.
41 years he reigned in Judah.
And Asa did that which was right in
the eyes of the Lord as David, his
father.
And he took away the Sodomites out of
the land in part of his reformation.
He removed all of the idols which his
father had made.
He also got rid of his mother from
being the queen because she had made an
idol in a grove and he destroyed her
idol and burned it there near the Brook
Kidron.
And the high places, however, were not removed.
However, Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord
all of his days.
And he brought in the things which his
father had dedicated and the things which he
himself had dedicated into the house of the
Lord, silver gold vessels.
Now there was war between Asa and Basha,
the king of Israel, all of their days.
So at the time of Asa, remember he
reigned for 41 days.
And so Basha became the king over Israel
up in the northern tribes.
And Basha, the king of Israel, came against
Judah and he started building the city of
Ramah, which is the present day city of
Ramallah, which he intended to be a fortified
city.
And he was going to cut off all
of the supplies that were coming in to
Jerusalem.
So Asa took the silver and gold out
of the temple and he sent it up
to Syria to Ben-Hadad, who at this
time was ruling over Syria.
And he said, we have a mutual defense
pact and I'm asking you now to honor
it.
Take this silver and gold and I want
you to attack Basha, the king of Israel.
And so the Syrians attacked up in the
north part, the city of Dan, up around
the Golan, began to take the cities.
They actually invaded all the way down to
Sinaroth, which is Galilee or the Sea of
Galilee, the area of Naphtali and all.
And when Basha heard that they had been
invaded from the north, he took his troops
from the building of this fortified city of
Ramah and they went to face the Syrians.
And of course, then Asa came out with
his men and they took all of the
materials that had brought for this fortified city
and they built a couple of cities with
it, but Basha did not return.
Now it seemed like brilliant strategy and yet
as we get into Chronicles, we find that
God rebuked Asa for this.
And Chronicles does expand upon Asa's reign so
much more and we'll find some very fascinating
and interesting lessons concerning King Asa when we
get to the Chronicles.
Now in his later years, he became diseased
in his feet and he died of this
foot disease.
In Chronicles, there is an intimation that because
he sought the aid of the physicians and
inquired not of the Lord, he died of
the disease.
In other words, the intimation is that had
he really just prayed and asked God, God
would have healed him.
But his heart was turned from the Lord
in the later years.
So Asa slept with his father and Jehoshaphat,
his son, reigned in his place.
Now, shift gears, go back to Israel.
Northern tribe again.
Now we leave the southern tribe.
We've had a succession of kings, Rehoboam and
then Abijam, his son, reigning for three years.
Basha taking over, I mean not Basha, but
Asa taking over, and then Jehoshaphat, the son
of Asa.
Now back in the northern kingdom, Nadab, the
son of Jeroboam, and Jeroboam was the one
that God prophesied against, began to reign over
Israel in the second year of Asa, the
king of Judah, and he reigned for only
two years.
He did evil in the sight of the
Lord.
He walked in the way of his father
and in the sins wherein his father caused
Israel to sin.
And Basha, the son of Ahijah of the
house of Ishkar, conspired against him.
So here's the third Ahijah we have here.
And Basha smote him at Givathon in the
third year of Asa, the king of Judah,
did Basha slay him and he reigned in
his stead.
And it came to pass when he reigned
that he smote all of the house of
Jeroboam.
He did not leave any that breathed until
he had destroyed the entire descendants, even as
the word of the Lord had come to
him by Ahijah, the prophet from Shiloh.
Because of the sins of Jeroboam, whereby he
sinned, made Israel to sin, and the provocation
whereby he provoked the Lord to anger.
Now the rest of the acts of Nadab
are in the books that we don't have,
the books of Chronicles of Israel.
And there was war between Asa and Basha,
the king of Israel, all their days.
And in the third year of Asa, Basha
began to reign over Israel and he reigned
for 24 years.
He did evil in the sight of the
Lord and walked in the way of Jeroboam
and his sin wherein he made Israel to
sin.
So the word of the Lord came to
Jehu, the prophet, unto Basha, saying, for as
much as I exalted thee out of the
dust, made thee prince over my people Israel,
and you have walked in the way of
Jeroboam, and you have made my people to
sin and provoke me to anger with their
sins, behold, I will take away the posterity
of Basha and the posterity of house, and
I'll make his house like the house of
Jeroboam.
So Basha's house is to be utterly wiped
out.
Those that die in the city eaten by
dogs, those that die in the fields eaten
by vultures, and the rest of the acts
of Basha, those that he did are in
the books of the Chronicles of the kings
of Israel.
Again, books that we don't have.
And Elah, his son, reigned in his stead.
And in the 26th year, when Asa was
down in Judah, Elah began to reign over
Israel, and he only reigned for two years.
And his servant Zimri, the captain of half
of his chariots, conspired against him as he
was there at Terzah, and he was drinking
himself drunk in the house of Arzah, the
steward of the house of Terzah.
And Zimri went in and smote him and
killed him in the 27th year of the
reign of Asa, the king of Judah.
And Zimri reigned over Israel, and as soon
as he sat upon the throne, he wiped
out all of the house of Basha, did
not leave a single one from all of
the family or relatives.
And thus did Zimri destroy the house of
Basha according to the word of the Lord
for all of the sins of Basha.
Now, the rest of the acts of Elah
and all that he did, they are written
in the book of the Chronicles of the
kings of Israel.
In the 27th year of Asa, the king
of Judah, Zimri, remember Asa reigned for 41
years.
After he had reigned 27 years, Zimri began
to reign in Terzah.
The people were against, camped against Gibethon, and
the people that were encamped heard Zimri hath
conspired and has slain the king, and all
Israel made Omri the captain of the host
king over Israel that day in the camp.
And Omri went from Gibethon and all Israel
with him, and he besieged Terzah, came to
pass from Zimri, saw the city was taken,
that he went into the palace of the
king's house, and he burnt the house down
on himself.
So he committed suicide, having reigned for just
a few days.
And Omri, the captain of the host, began
to reign for the sins which he sinned
in doing evil in the sight of the
Lord.
And the rest of it is all written
in Chronicles of Israel, which we do not
have.
Then the people of Israel divided into two
parts, and so there came a civil war
in the northern kingdom.
They'd already divided from the southern kingdom, and
now there's a civil war going on up
there.
And there were those that followed Timni, and
they sought to make him king, and half
the people followed Omri.
And the people that followed Omri prevailed against
the people that followed Timni.
And so Timni died, and Omri reigned.
And as he began to reign over Israel
for twelve years, he reigned for six years
in Terzah.
And then he bought the hill Samaria from
Shemar for two talents of silver, and he
built on the hill and called the name
of the city which he built after the
name of Shemar, the owner of the hill,
Samaria.
But Omri wrought evil in the eyes of
the Lord, did worse than all that were
before him.
He walked in the ways of Jeroboam, and
he sinned against the Lord.
And the rest of the acts of Omri
are written in the books of the Chronicles
of the Kings of Israel.
So Omri slept with his fathers.
He was buried in Samaria, and Ahab his
son reigned in his stead.
And in the thirty-eighth year of Asa
the king of Judah began Ahab, and he
was worse than all the rest.
Honestly, the poor people, they didn't have a
decent king.
And Ahab the son of Omri reigned over
Israel and Samaria for twenty-two years.
And he did evil in the sight of
the Lord more than all that were before
him.
And it came to pass, if this weren't
enough, to walk in the sins of Jeroboam,
he took as his wife Jezebel, that wicked
daughter of Ithbal, the king of the Sidonians.
And he went and served Baal and worshipped
him.
And he reared up an altar for Baal
in the house of Baal, which he built
at Samaria.
And Ahab made a grove, and Ahab did
more to provoke the Lord God of Israel
to anger than all the kings of Israel
that were before him.
And in his days did the Bethlehem build
Jericho.
And he laid the foundation thereof in Ibarim,
his firstborn, set up the gates thereof in
his youngest son, Segub, according to the word
of the Lord.
Now turn back to Joshua chapter six, verse
twenty-six.
After Joshua destroyed the city of Jericho, the
first city to fall as they were conquering
the land.
And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying,
Cursed be the man before the Lord that
rises up and builds this city Jericho.
He shall lay the foundation thereof in his
firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he
set up the gates of it.
So Joshua said, Cursed is the man who
rebuilds this city.
He will lay the foundation at the time
of his firstborn son, but he will set
up the gates when his youngest son is
born.
So the prophecy of, of Joshua was fulfilled
some five hundred years later.
Joshua made that prophecy about 1451 B.C.
And about 925 B.C. did Hael from
Bethel rebuild the city of Jericho.
And he laid the foundation at the birth
of his son, Abiram.
And he set up the gates when his
youngest son, Segub, was born.
And thus God's word, again, amazing prophecies fulfilled.
Now Omri built Samaria, and he died, and
his son Ahab took over the wicked king,
who made Samaria the capital of the northern
kingdom.
The ruins of Samaria are very fascinating ruins
to see.
You can go up on the hill that
was once the city of Samaria, and you
can see the ruins of Omri's palace.
They are still there.
And of Ahab's palace also.
You can also see many of the ruins
that were built by the Romans, who of
course later made that one of the Roman
cities.
But the ruins of the city of Samaria
go clear on back to the time of
Omri and Ahab.
And you can see the ruins of their
palaces still there in Samaria.
When you are there, it gives you sort
of a awesome feeling when you realize all
of the wickedness, and all of the treachery,
and all of the bloodshed because of the
wickedness and treachery there in Samaria.
You think of the sieges that took place
there in Samaria.
And we'll be getting into some of those
as we move on into 2 Kings, when
Samaria was besieged by the Assyrians, and the
horrible things that happened during the times of
these sieges.
But it is interesting that the ruins of
those areas are still in existence today.
In fact some of the most well-preserved
ruins in the Holy Land, going back to
the Old Testament period, are there in the
city and in the site of Samaria.
Now may the Lord be with you, and
watch over you, and keep you through the
week.
May you be strengthened by His Spirit in
your inner man.
And may you, through the understanding of the
Spirit, begin to comprehend how much He really
loves you.
The full depth of God's love for you.
May He watch over you, and may you
find your strength and your health in Him.