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The Kings of Israel and Judah Session 2: the Kingdom Divides 4-15-20

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The Kings of Israel and Judah Session 2: the Kingdom Divides 4-15-20 THE KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH SESSION 2: THE KINGDOM DIVIDES 4-15-20 (Study covers 1 Kings 11-12 and 2 Chronicles 10-11) Note: The books of Kings and Chronicles cover much of the same Ground, recording the reigns of the Kings of Israel and Judah. Like the Gospels they are accounts written by different authors about the same events. Although Authorship is disputed it is commonly believed by scholars that the books of the I Kings and II Kings were written by Jeremiah or possibly it is a compilation of the writings of a group of prophets that Jeremiah trained. Scholars mostly agree that the author of I Chronicles and II Chronicles is Ezra. In this study today, we are going to examine what happened when the kingdoms of Israel and Judah divided into two nations. But before we discuss this division I want to give you a reference chart that shows the Kings of Judah and Israel During the time of the divided kingdoms beginning with Jeroboam in Israel and Rehoboam in Judah. It shows which ones were recorded as being good and which ones were recorded as being evil. It also shows the years that they reigned and the prophets that God was using to speak to the two nations and specifically to the leaders of the two nations, whether they listened or not. (Display Chart) One of the things you will notice on the chart is that the majority of the kings were evil, especially the Kings of Israel. The only King of Israel that is defined as even partially good is Jehu whose rule started out good with Jehu destroying Baal worship but Jehu did not destroy the worship and system of Idol Worship centered around the Golden Calves that Jeroboam had set up and it says that, “he was not careful to the follow the Law of the Lord the God of Israel, with all his heart”. Jehu traded one form of idol worship for another. On the Kingdom of Judah side there are 4 good Kings that followed God all through their reign. Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah. Manasseh started out as an exceedingly evil King but repented when he was taken captive by the King of Assyria. Scripture says that the King of Assyria put a hook in his nose, bound him with shackles and took him to Babylon where Manasseh in the midst of his distress humbled himself and sought the favor of the Lord His God. (2 Chronicles 33:10-20). God returned Manasseh to Jerusalem where he ended his reign trying to undo the evil that he had done before his captivity by restoring the worship of the true God. (Lesson: Grace of God - No matter how bad our past lives may have been or what we have done if we repent with all of our heart God is willing to forgive. We have a tendency to believe that God’s grace is just something that happens in the New Testament but there are multiple examples of God’s grace being expressed In the Old Testament record.) Many of the Kings we will study are described as evil kings and there are specific actions that made the authors of Kings and Chronicles describe them that way. (Exit Chart) There are some commonalities to the way God defined evil and it would benefit us to be aware of those commonalities today. 1) The worship of false gods. This includes the original sin of Jeroboam setting up a system of the worship of golden calves (a return to the false religion of Egypt), Baal worship (a false god and system of worship originating in Babylon) and the worship of local gods of the Amorite peoples that occupied the “Land of Canaan” before Joshua’s conquest. Although idol worship in the Old Testament took the form of worshipping actual hand-made images, idol worship is actually anything that comes between you and obedience and loyalty to the true God. The false systems of worship’s purpose was to shift dependency/sense of security/ and reverence from the true God to a false god that would allow the rulers of the day to control the people. This is true throughout the ages as men have used religion as a way to control and manipulate people. That is true if the religion practices is a false form of Christianity or if it is one of the other world religions or if it is outright occultism. The Key thing to understand is that true worship frees people to be who God designed them to be. False worship enslaves people and allows those in power to manipulate them for their purposes. Jesus said, “You will know the ​ truth and the truth will set you free”. When we are obedient to or allow our ​ dependence or our sense of security or what we hold in reverence to be anything but God (False religion, money, social status, physical pleasures, political candidates or systems, good looks, athleticism, intelligence etc.) we enslave ourselves to weaker elements, we are guilty of idol worship and we are subject to manipulation by those that have greater power in these false systems. So idol worship is one of the key elements that define evil in the historical books of the Bible and I would contend that it is one of the key components of evil that we wrestle with in our society today. 2) The violent, immoral and Perverted practices that were an integral part of the worship ​ ​ of these false God’s: ie. Sacrificing Children in the fire, temple prostitution (both male and female, cutting oneself and other forms of self-mutilation, other immoral behaviors. These immoral practices always followed immediately after the true worship of God was exchanged for the worship of a god that was not God at all. This was true not only in Old Testament Israel and Judah but Paul speaks of the same process of moral disintegration when speaking to the Romans in the New Testament. Romans 1:21-32 21 For​ although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were 22 23 darkened. Altho​ ugh they claimed to be wise, they became fools and​ exchanged the ​ ​ glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore​ God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity 25 for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They​ exchanged the truth about ​ God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because​ of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged 27 natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In​ the same way the men also ​ abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore,​ just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be 29 done. They​ have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and ​ depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are 30 gossips, slander​ ers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of ​ 31 doing evil; they disobey their parents; they​ have no understanding, no fidelity, no 32 ​ love, no mercy. Although​ they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such ​ things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Once we untether ourselves from God we become subject to the deceptiveness of false gods and the addictiveness (slavery), of destructive behaviors and sin. These sins almost always progress from “not so bad” and attractive (sin is a trap and the bait is usually attractive to our flesh in some form) to evil, to a cycle of entrapment and fear, to outright misery and in the end destruction. 3) Oppression of the poor and powerless. Just as prevalent as sexual immorality in God’s definition of evil is the sin of oppressing the poor and powerless. As we study the time period of the Kings and the words of the prophets spoken to these Kings we see again and again the condemnation of Kings and the ruling class of the nation for oppressing those that are at the bottom of the social structure or the economic structure of that society, for unfair practices that victimize people (Usually defined as the poor or the widowed, fatherless and stranger) rather than help them be lifted out of their desperate situations. Again, when we untether ourselves from God and we begin to worship gods of our own making, we naturally seek to exalt ourselves and seek to gain power at the expense of others. What that means is that the wealthy and powerful get more wealthy and powerful and the poor and powerless become poorer and more powerless. The gap between the two extremes of society becomes greater and the nation becomes progressively weaker. When we read the prophets and the reasons given for judgment on Israel and Judah – this form of evil (the improper use of power and wealth to further oppress the poor) is talked about more than any other.
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