In this riveting episode of ‘Born to Win,’ Ronald L. Dart delves into the narrative of Jeroboam, a biblical figure who let fear govern his decisions, despite being chosen by God to lead. Learn how Jeroboam’s fear-driven choices led to catastrophic sins that marred his reign and influenced the fate of the ten northern tribes of Israel. Discover the striking parallels between Jeroboam’s political maneuvering to secure power and the eternal consequences of straying from faithful worship.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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Never take counsel of your fears. It’s said that Andrew Jackson was the one who said that. It may have come earlier than that. He also plainly read his Bible. It’s fascinating how often fear strips a man of victories already won. This was the case with one Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. After the death of Solomon, God handed him the largest portion of Israel, ten out of the ten tribes. He was a good man, an energetic leader. But he was afraid that after having made the break with Solomon’s son Rehoboam, the people would eventually return to the unity of the temple. And indeed, it was not an unreasonable fear. For one thing, year after year, the commandment of God said, three times in a year shall all your males come to appear before God in the place that he shall choose. And it lays out the annual holy days they had to observe. And of course, that place was Jerusalem at the temple that Solomon built. Rehoboam thought this over, and he thought, you know, every year come Feast of Tabernacles time, these people are going to get nostalgic for Jerusalem, and they’re going to go wandering back down there, and that nostalgia will cause them eventually to return to the rulership of Rehoboam, and they’ll kill me, and I’ll lose the kingdom. Now, never mind that God had given him the kingdom and stood surety for it. It was his promise and would have stood by him come what may. But he was afraid, and his fear led him to a decision with disastrous long-term consequences. You’ll find this story in 1 Kings 12. The king took advice and made two calves of gold, and he said to the people, ìIt’s too much for you to go to Jerusalem. This is just too big a deal. Behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.î He set one of them in Bethel in the southern end of his kingdom. The other he put in Dan in the north. And the thing became a sin. The people went to worship before the one even to Dan. They even went all the way up there if they had to, rather than go to Jerusalem. Now, this incident is uncannily similar to what Aaron did while Moses was up the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments. He made a calf of a god, and he said, These be your gods, O Israel, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. It’s astonishing. Jeroboam had to know that, and yet he still did it. The seduction to idolatry in that world must have been extremely powerful. And since a lot of it was based on sex, that probably has something to do with it as well. Now what Jeroboam does here is to substitute a political religion for the real thing. The lesson learned from David and Solomon is so easily lost. David, if you read the story of David’s life, you know that David was a sinful man. He did a lot of things bad. He made a lot of serious moral errors. He committed adultery with another man’s wife and had the man killed in combat. All these things he did that were wrong, but he never, ever went to another god. There is no taint of idolatry in David’s kingdom or the history thereof. Now when Solomon comes on the scene, he marries 700 wives, some of them from pagan societies, and he begins to build shrines to these other gods. And the Israelite, the Judaic people, begin to worship these gods. It cost his son the kingdom. Now Jeroboam is about to make the same mistake. Now, the important thing to understand from this is that in spite of all the errors that David did, the fact that he never went after an idol left the way back to God open to him. He always had an avenue to repent. But once you leave God, once you go after an idol, once you begin to worship a false god, the way back is gone. It’s lost. The temple and its rites were designed to centralize the worship of Jehovah. It was the major unifying symbol to the nation. And it was more than that. It also pointed the way back to God any time he became lost. Well, Jeroboam went further. He made a house of the high places. He made priests of the lowest of the people who were not of the sons of Levi. He didn’t want strong people in the priestly office because he knew well enough the priestly office was an office of power. He didn’t want any conflicting power. And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. He did it in Bethel. He sacrificed to the calves he had made. He placed in Bethel the priests of the high places he had made. And so he offered upon the altar he made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month. Even in the month he had devised out of his own heart And he ordained a feast to the children of Israel and offered upon the altar in burnt incense. He did this out of his own heart without any authority to do so. God had given him a kingdom, not a new priestly authority. This whole story is a series of bad decisions by people who had every reason to know better. Jeroboam had every reason to know better than what he had done, and he did it anyway. Of course, one lesson is, whenever you feel, when you really feel God has told you something, it’s a good idea to trust him enough to do as you are told. There are some of us who operate our lives on a different rule. When all else fails, then do as you were told. But first, we have to find out for ourselves, and sometimes we find out at great cost to ourselves and to people we love. Now the scene is set, and the first steps in the tragedy begin to unfold. In 1 Kings 13… There came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel. Jeroboam was standing right there by the altar to burn incense. Now, here is the king violating the priestly office, burning incense to an Egyptian god. And here comes this little Jew down the road from Judah, whom God spoke to down there and says, Now, here’s what I want you to do. You get up there and you tell Jeroboam this. So he came up there and he cried against the altar and the word of the Lord and said, Oh, altar, altar. Didn’t even speak to Jeroboam. Thus saith the Lord, behold, a child shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name. Upon you shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon you, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon you. The time would come when King Josiah would defile this altar totally and put an end to this. He gave a sign the same day. He said, This is the sign which the Lord has spoken. Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes upon it shall be poured out. Now, what happened at this point? If you can visualize the scene, here’s the king, who’s taken upon himself priestly garb, I suppose, standing before an altar carrying out a rite of his own devising and at a time of his own devising. And this little Jew comes up and tells him, no, no, this altar is going to be destroyed and be defiled. Jeroboam turns, sticks out his arm and points at the man and says, lay hold on that man. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up like a stick, so he couldn’t pull it in again. And here’s the king, in a fit of anger, with his arm outstretched, frozen solid, where he can’t move. And at that moment, the altar tore in the middle, and ashes poured out of the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. Well, by this time Jeroboam’s attention has been obtained. The king answered and said to the man of God, Oh, please, please, entreat now the face of the Lord your God. Pray for me that my hand may be restored to me again. And the man of God besought the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored to him again. It became just like it had been before. And the king said to the man of God, Come home with me and refresh yourself, and I’ll give you a reward. Now, this is really interesting because one minute he’s ready to arrest the man and take off with his head. Now he wants him to come home with him. He wants to pay him for having restored his arm to him. But what follows on this is of singular interest. The man of God said to the king… If you would give me half your house, I will not go in with you, 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 way you came. This kingdom has become so vile that this man of God was told, don’t you stay there. Don’t stay overnight. Don’t sit and eat a meal. Don’t drink any water while you’re there. You go in one way and you come out another way, which in itself is a testimony to the fact that things were becoming more and more violent in this new kingdom. Go in, get your job done, and get out. So he went another way and did not go that way. Now, there was an old prophet in Bethel. His sons came and told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. The words he’d spoken to the king, they told their father that. And their father asked them, which way did he go? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went. And so he said to his sons, saddle me an animal. They saddled him his animal, and he rode thereon. He went after the man of God, and he found him sitting under an oak. And he said to them, are you the man of God that came from Judah? He said, I am. Then he said, come home with me and eat bread. He said, I’m sorry, I can’t go with you. I can’t eat bread or drink water in this place because God told me, don’t do that and don’t go back by the way you came. But then the old prophet said this, I’m a prophet like you. And an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord saying, bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied to him. Why would he do this? It’s hard to say. Loneliness? Because a man like him probably didn’t have that many people he could really talk to. He was a prophet. And to find another prophet that he can sit down and eat bread with was a rare thing. The man of God made a fatal mistake. He went back with him, ate bread in his house, and drank water. What follows is a sobering lesson and one we must not miss. First, grab a pencil and a pad. I want to give you a phone number, and we’ll come back.
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As you read along in this story, you have this impending sense that something bad is about to happen. And it’s hard initially to understand why or what’s going on here. Well, it came to pass as they were sitting at table eating that the word of the Lord came to the old prophet that brought it back, the man of God. And he cried to the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Oh, no, for as much as you have disobeyed the mouth of the Lord and have not kept the commandment which he gave you, but you came back and you ate bread and drank water in this place, of which the Lord had said to you, Don’t do that. Your carcass shall not come to the sepulcher of your fathers. You’re not going to ever go home. Well, it came to pass, after they’d eaten bread and had their drink, He saddled him the donkey for the profit that he had brought back. And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way and killed him. His carket was cast down in the road, and the donkey stood by it, and the lion also stood by it. So you have a body, a lion, and a donkey, which normally would have fled in great fear from the lion, standing stock still next to this body. remarkable occurrence. Some men passed by, and they saw this tableau, and they saw the lion, and they came and they told it in the city where the old prophet had dwelt. And when he heard it, he said, I know who that is. It’s the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the Lord. And the Lord has delivered him to the lion, which has torn him and slain him according to the word of the Lord that he spoke to him. And you know, it’s interesting. As you read through, you have to realize that that this has to be established that it is not just an accident, that he just went the wrong place and got caught by accident. And the way that’s done, the lion kills him, then stands by the carcass, and the animal he was riding on stands there too, which is something that never would happen if there were not some form of divine intervention. So the old prophet told his sons, Saddle me the mule. And they saddled him. And he went and found the body and the animal and the lion standing by the carcass. The lion had not eaten the carcass nor torn the donkey. So he took up the carcass of the man of God. He laid it upon the donkey and brought it back. And the old prophet came to the city to mourn and bury him. He laid his carcass in his own grave, and they mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother! It came to pass, after he had buried him, he said to his sons, When I am dead, then bury me in the sepulcher where the man of God is buried. Lay my bones beside his bones. For the saying which he cried by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the high places in the cities of Samaria, it shall all come to pass. Now the story of this strange incident is here for a reason. One lesson to take from it is that God is not capricious. He doesn’t tell you one thing today and another thing tomorrow. And the man of God from Judah should have known that when that prophet told him, oh, well, I had a vision since your vision, and my vision is that you’re supposed to come home and eat bread with me. Why did he go? Why didn’t he know better? The answer, he did know better. He was tired. He was hungry, he was thirsty, and he grasped at the false message because it gave him something he wanted. He should have known God does not tell you one thing today and something else tomorrow. I’ve heard preachers speak of something they call progressive revelation. That is, God reveals new things to subsequent generations that were not revealed before this time. Well, God might well do that, but there’s one thing we must never forget. God doesn’t change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And no subsequent revelation from God will ever contradict what has gone before. Take the prophet Muhammad as a case in point. His earliest motivations were to put an end to the rampant idolatry in Arabia at the time. He saw visions about getting rid of all the idols. But in the process of time, he claimed revelations that were in clear contradiction of both the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the message of Jesus. To whatever extent the Koran is inconsistent with the revelation of Old and New Testaments, it’s false. The Book of Mormon has to be given the same test. Is it consistent with what came before? God does reveal things progressively over time, but he doesn’t lie, and he doesn’t contradict himself, and he doesn’t give one prophet a message that contradicts the message of another prophet. And this man of God who was sent to cry against Jeroboam’s altar may in the end have undermined his mission that he was sent there. For no doubt Jeroboam heard what happened to him. And somehow in Jeroboam’s mind, the death of the old prophet must have made his prophecy of no value to Jeroboam. Because it tells us right at the end of chapter 13 of 1 Kings. After this thing, Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people, the priests of the high places. Whoever would, would. He consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. And this thing became a sin to the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off and destroy it from the face of the earth. What a shame. And what a terrible loss. All the man had to do was just listen to God, trust God, be faithful to the commission he’d been given, take care of his people, take care of the nation, govern justly, and insist that all the people remained in their loyalty to Almighty God, and his kingdom would have been established for God only knows how long. But he just couldn’t do it. Why? Why? It can’t be just a matter of the desire for power. He had the power. God handed him the power. The only thing I can conclude it came about was as a result of fear. He just couldn’t bring himself to trust God. The results for himself, for his family, and for the 200-some-odd-year history of the ten northern tribes of Israel is a story in tragedy. I’ll be right back with more of this story. But first, be sure and get the phone number and the address so you can get a copy of this program.
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For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled, Kings No.
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8.
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Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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Now, I know how easy it is for you to sit there and say to yourself, well, if God had spoken to me and told me what to do, I’d have done it. Well, you know, I think Jeroboam would have said the same thing. I think the old Judean prophet would have said the same thing. Then why didn’t they? Well, in the case of Jeroboam, it was fear. He took counsel of his fears and tried to take his own steps to protect his own hide. In the case of the Judean prophet that came to testify against his altar, it might have been fatigue. He was just worn out. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He was tired of the road. And he grasped at the lie of the other prophet for his comfort’s sake. Some lessons that are worth carrying with you. 1 Kings 14. At that time, Abijah, who was the son of Jeroboam, fell sick. And Jeroboam said to his wife, Get up and disguise yourself so that you won’t be known to be my wife. Get to Shiloh. Behold, there is there Ahijah the prophet who told me I should be king over this people. Take some presents, take ten loaves, some cracknels, a cruz of honey, and go to him and and he will tell you what shall become of the child. This woman had to go right past Bethel. She had to keep on trucking south to Shiloh, because Shiloh is not very far north of Jerusalem. So she did what he said and arose and went to Shiloh and came to the house of Ahijah. Now poor old Ahijah could no longer see. He was blind as a bat. His eyes were set by reason of his age. And the Lord said to him, The wife of Jeroboam is coming to ask a thing of you for her son, for he is sick. What I want you to tell her is, it shall be, when she comes in, she’s going to pretend to be a different woman, and I want you to tell her something. It was so when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came in at the door, he said, Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why are you pretending to be someone else? For I’m sent to you with heavy tidings. Poor woman must have stood there in shock. Go tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, For as much as I exalted you from among the people and made you a prince over my people Israel, I tore the kingdom away from the house of David, and I gave it to you. And yet you have not been like David, who kept my commandments, who followed me with all of his heart to do only what was right in my eyes. I’ll just remind you, it wasn’t that David didn’t do some stupid things, some sins and make serious mistakes. The point was he never went after another God. And so he always repented. And so he was always forgiven. You didn’t do that, he said. You have done evil above all that were before you. You have gone and made other gods, molten images to provoke me to anger and have cast me behind your back. Therefore I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam like a man takes away dung until it’s all gone. Him that dies of Jeroboam in the city, the dogs will eat. Him that dies in the field, the fowls of the air will eat. The Lord has spoken it. So arise, wife of Jeroboam, get on back to your house, and when your feet enter into the city, the child shall die. What a thing to tell a mother, and what an agony must have been her heart, as she might even have wandered all over the landscape not wanting to go home, because when she went home, the child would die. He went on to say, All Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he is going to be the only descendant of Jeroboam that comes to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam. That child is the only good thing there. We’ll bury him, and that’ll be the end of the people of Jeroboam who get an honorable burial. Moreover, the Lord shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day. But what? Even now. For the Lord shall smite Israel like a reed is shaken in the water. He will root up Israel out of this good land he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves and have provoked the Lord to anger. And he shall give Israel up. Because of the sins of Jeroboam who did sin and who made Israel to sin. You might remember that phrase because we will hit it again and again through this history. Jeroboam who did sin and who made all Israel to sin. And Jeroboam’s wife arose and departed and came home. And when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died also. They buried him, and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, that he spoke by the hand of his servant, Ahijah the prophet. And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. And the days which Jeroboam reigned were two and twenty years, and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his stead. And I guess probably the most important lesson that we in a modern world could take away from this is that warning about how Jeroboam had caused Israel to cast God behind their backs. Because I look around me today in our society, and I find a leadership in this country who seem absolutely bound and determined to get God behind us. And when we do, where will we be then? The time of the kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam lasted about the time of the history of this country.
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I’m Ronald Dart. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560 White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
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