The city of Dan! 1 Kings 12 (Day 3 of my Holy Land trip).
To gain the perspective for today, the Holy Ghost thinks that it is important for us to understand that so far Israel had three kings: King Saul, King David, and King Solomon. These kings ruled for 120 years. Therefore, the Israelites have been in the promised land for 120 years Before king Jeroboam came in to play.
God gave Jeroboam a promise! This promise is recorded in 1 kings chapter 11:35-36!
“35 But I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes. 36 And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there.”
Pretty much,
God promised to restore Israel back to himself. You see, David, throughout his life, sinned, repented, and God for forgave him. However, King Solomon was his son. He started out as a great king, following God, but took his sin and lack of repentance took him from God.
Now, God raised up Jeroboam from an entirely different family. King Jeroboam is the son Joseph. Joseph was a son of Jacob. King Jeroboam therefore came from the territory Manasseh. Manasseh was located about middle ways in Israel.
Jeroboam worked for King Solomon. King Solomon felt that Jeroboam had a lot of energy and a lot of potential. King Solomon gave him a raise and put him in charge of part of his workforce.
Rehoboam is king Solomons’ son. After his fathers’ death, he was about 40 years old, and the people came to him, and asked for their yoke to be lightened, which, they requested a tax break. In 1 Kings 12: 4-11 King Rehoboam did not listen to his elders, and took the advice of the younger generation. And he messed up! This is what scripture reports:
1 Kings 12:11 (New International Version) “11 My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’”
Next, we see Israel, (the land of Canaan) divided further. Rehoboam received one district and Jeroboam received 12 tribal territories.
This is a Civil War, that Israel never really recovers from. Under Jeroboam‘s rule the country is under sin for 200 years. Then, God sends the Syrians to capture them.
What causes Jeroboam to pick the world up over God? Well, we are still answering that question today! After reading this scripture, God has pointed out four reasons why Jeroboam and people of today still reject Him.
First, let’s consider verse 26- 27!
1 Kings 12:26-27 (New International Version) “26 Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. 27 If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.”
- The number one reason why Jeroboam rejected from us is that he had fear and lost in his heart.
He wanted power and wealth. This has always been seen, by God, as a weakness, not a strength. Power and wealth have stirred up trouble from the beginning. It fosters jealousy, envy, pride, famine, and war. Even today, we have a last for personal power.
Jeroboam was very insecure leader. He had a fear that led him into panic mode. He thinks oh no, the people are going to go to Jerusalem and return to God. They’re gonna spend all their money there and might even live there. He thinks to himself: I will lose my kingdom! Ultimately, there worship would take them away from his wealth and his power.
You see, whenever, you have the fear of losing your power, you forgot, who gave it to you in the first place. It was God!
Power comes from the Lord. Your spear of impact comes from the Lord. Our power comes from the power of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost melts the hearts of others and helps us find favor in their site. It is nothing that I have done, but all of what Christ.
Romans 13:1 says the following:
Romans 13:1 (New International) “13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
Psalm 62: 11 states the following:
Psalm 62:11 (New King James Version) “11 God has spoken once, Twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God.
We can infer from this scripture that Jeroboam, was a control freak! He was trying to manipulate the situation to get a certain outcome. What we need is to be able to control our outlook, but let God control the outcome.
We need to be in tune with his will. We need to be able to say no matter what happens I’m going to decide how I react. I’m gonna put my life in gods hands and except the outcome he has for me. Why do this? Because God’s ways are higher than our ways, and gods thoughts are higher than our thoughts is for us.
- The second reason why Jeroboam and world today rejects Jesus Christ, because they don’t trust him.
If you stop and consider the first two cities mentioned here in Scripture, Jeroboam wants to fortify those, because this would establish a trade route. The trade route would guarantee him more power, more wealth, and even more control.
Now, if you would go back to 1 Kings 11:35,
“35 But I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes. 36 And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there.”
Here we found the promise of God. Because of the words recorded in this verse you would agree that he did not trust God, because in this promise, God told him that he would give him the kingdom. God said that he would give him the land. In a way, God gave him a blank check! What a tremendous promise! Do you have all that David had? I think I could be content with that.
God promised Jeroboam an endearing kingdom, but he failed to cash, the check!
- The third way that Jeroboam rejected God is because he followed his own heart.
According to verse 26 Jeroboam said in his own heart. This means he is thinking and processing this all on his own. Then, verse 28 tells us what he did next.
According to scripture, 1 Kings 12:28 states the following:
1 Kings 12:28 (New International Version) “28 After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
So, we see that Jeroboam did not get the best advice again, because he goes and creates to Golden cows. So, he takes the land that he had planted in his head and carries out the action. We do this to! When was the last time you plotted out something? And, looking back on it you realize that it wasn’t the best idea. It wasn’t the best idea because you forgot to ask God what to do.
Scripture says that he devised in his home. Listen, he was doing what he thought was best. He was doing his own thing. He wasn’t walking in the spirit. He wasn’t sanctified. He wasn’t sold out to God! He was walking by the flesh.
I can’t count how many times I’ve been told: follow your own heart! Well, scripture tells us that’s what’s wrong with the world. Listen to this scripture:
Jeremiah 17:9 (King James Version) “9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
One person wants this and one person wants that! So there’s conflict! But when we are unified in Jesus Christ, we have peace and everlasting love.
The Holy Spirit wants to give us some very important advice! We have all heard it, some of us have read it, and we know it. But let’s read it again.
Proverbs 3:5-6 “5
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight”
This proverb is even important for worship, because Jeroboam changed the whole entire way of worship for Israel.
- The 4th Way, Jeroboam and humanity messes up with God is the fact that they forsake, the word of God.
The word of God is full of instructions. God set up laws for the benefit of his people. He Established His tabernacle and gave instructions on exactly how he wanted to be worshiped. In addition, the people understood that they are failure to obey God result of the in consequences. For example, just 120 years earlier a whole generation didn’t get to enter the promised land.
Jeroboam went from Gods’ revelation to human imagination. He makes it all up and in verse 28 he changes the object of warship. Let’s review what it says:
This sounds very familiar! Have you heard that before? Sounds like Exodus 32. It sounds like Aaron. He got tired of waiting on Moses to come down off the mountain and he began to question and to fear. So, Aaron gathered gold from the people made a calf. He lied to the people! He told the people that this golden cow was the one who deliver them out of Egypt.
Jeroboam , Aaron, and many cults today; do the same thing. They trick people to move from the invisible God to a tangible one. Jeroboam where is the golden calves strategically yen. One he placed in the middle of the country and the other place in the city of Dan. (Which is a place that I will get to visit in the hole. Praise God!)
Most of you know me and I did I ask the Holy Spirit a lot of questions. This time, I asked the Holy Spirit: why did Aaron and jeroboam choose the cow for them as a graven image? This relates back to Egypt! In Egypt, they worshiped a god named Apis; which was a bull. Apis the bull, was a symbol of strength.
So, in my little mind, I thought about the hobby farm God blessed us with, and we have had bulls in the past. Out of all the animals on the farm I would say that the bull has had great strength and its horns could kill you!
So, when we look at a calf, we think of splendor and strength. So, the next question is what is wrong with that. When I look upon this golden calf I see lender, and strength. I question, why is this a bad thing? This is a bad thing, because it only allows us to worship two aspects of God. The two aspects of his power and splendor.
But how about his ability to forgive?
How about his ability to love unconditionally?
How about his mercy? How about his acceptance? How about all his other lawyer moral attributes? No artist the love that can capture all of God’s attributes at one time. For this reason, the Bible says there can be no graven image. Isaiah 40 says to whom will you like in God to or who can you compare him to? And the answer is: no one.
So, Jeroboam and Aaron changed the object of warship. Instead of worshiping, the one true God, they worshiped a cow. Then, Jeroboam changed the place of warship. Instead of God’s children going to Jerusalem they had two choices. The children of God could worship the cow in Bethel or they could worship the cow and Dan.
Why does he do it? Because it’s more convenient. Because he keeps his citizens at home. It’s less likely that he will lose his kingdom. It’s interesting, that Jeroboam, presented this to his people, as being more convenient and easier; instead of questioning what is wrong with it.
Now, let’s further consider the place of worship.
29 And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.
30 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.
Bethel may have been chosen because this is where Jake up lay down and slept. You may recall the dream that he had. He seen a ladder that went up to heaven with all the angels. Jeroboam presents to his people that they don’t need to go to Jerusalem, because we have the house of the Lord right here. We have Bethel. See the government politics has always been spinning things to meet their needs.
Now let’s consider verse 31. He changes the object of worship, he changes the place of worship, he changes the worship leaders. Let’s continue and find out what he’s going to do.
31 And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.
This is still the fourth thing that he does wrong, because it goes bad words and God’s instructions.
God said there is only one tribe that the priest shall come from, and that was the tribe of Levi. if you can change that authority, you can change the system. For example, God gave me a masters degree in education. In the classroom, the teacher only has so much authority and can’t leave lose control of the classroom. There is only a certain amount of strategies and punishments you can give to who miss behave. In West Virginia a lot of the disruptive students are sent to military school. Why is the military school so effective? It is effective because it is a change and authority.
Finally, Jeroboam went against God‘s word, because he changed the date and the hour of the feast. Not to mention, it still in the wrong location. Whenever we’re doing something for the Lord, we are to give him our best and not halfway do it. Let’s read earths 32 together.
32 And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.
Jeroboam was competing with the feast the feast down south. It was one month early! In our human minds, we may think I don’t want it a month earlier it’s OK, but God said he wanted it that much. So if he gave us the vision for Bible in October, and we did our revival in September;. In addition, if we were told to go to worship on the seventh day And only come to Easter and Christmas; then, we’re being disobedient to God.
Jesus said that God is seeking a certain kind of worshiper. Jesus said that God wants us to be worshiping him in spirit and truth.
John 4:24 (New King James Version) “24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
This means he wants us to be led by the spirit, not by our own heart desires.
If you read the Bible at all, there’s a certain phrase that Jesus especially uses. This phrase is as follows: it is written. I have some of those highlighted in my Bible. I challenge you to go home and read the book of John and underline “it is written.” I found 30 times.
We are about to close now, but we might as well read the last verse in this chapter. It explains it further explains Jeroboam‘s wrong actions. Here it is:
33 So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.
Jeroboam rejected the plan of God at least four times and as a result the entire kingdom went into idolatry. We would be naïve to believe that this is an old testament idea only.
The problem in every generation, because the 10 Commandments say, we will not have any idols before God. The little the book of John also tells us little children do not have idols.
Adultery, things that you play something in the place of God.
I can put it this way: this is allowing one or something, tangible to be lord of your life over you, or to rule over you.
Listen to Paul Colossians, chapter 3 verse five.
English Standard Version
“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”
If you want a person or a thing more than God; then you are engaging in idolatry. It could be a girlfriend, it could be a boyfriend, or a hobby, but it begins in the heart and gradually exposes itself outwardly.
Let’s close with a few question from Holy Spirit…
first, let’s consider a personal question:
What do you think about in your moments?
Does your mind naturally gravitate to in those moments?
Finally, let’s consider me a a spiritual question:
God says that you can’t straddle the fence and you can’t serve two masters. Will you choose God today? If you do not choose God, then you are choosing the devil! There’s only one of two.
Choose this day, whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the lord.
Some of you are thirsty today! I don’t mean: Pastor, hurry up! I want lunch! But, you have a inward, spiritual thirst. You keep filling your thirst with things of this world and you continue to be thirsty. The Holy Spirit wants me to let you know That you will always be thirsty!
There is nothing that you can buy,
there is nowhere that you can go,
there is no one you can be around,
there is no place that you can hide ,
and there is nothing that you can take in order to fill this void.
Only the Holy Ghost can fill your heart and fill your void for spiritual, thirst and hunger. Won’t you surrender today?
Chapter 12 Discussion Questions:
1. Question: So, Jeroboam was a bad king?
A. 1 Kings 12:31-33 = Yes.
2. Question: Who was King Rehoboam?
3. Question: Jeroboam was God’s choice to take over ten of the tribes of Israel — in the northern kingdom. Yet he would blow it. — God foresaw it too. What does this teach us?
A. 1 Kings 13:5 = God gives us every opportunity to be successful, but the choice to do it His way is our own. Jeroboam was no more fit to be king as Saul was, but somehow, he is significant in the plan of God for mankind.
4. Question: What kind of temptation did this prophet fall into? A. 1 Kings 13:18 = The devil provided a peer for him. The man had the same credentials he did and told him God wanted him to eat at his house.
5. Question: What ways did King Jeroboam mess up with God?
6. Question: Where did you fell God? How would you tell someone else to make it right?
About the Author
Jessica has a tremendous passion for God’s word coupled with a love for God’s people. She has a contagious and charismatic spirit that flows through every facet of her personality and ministry.
Pastor Jessica and Kevin Linhart have been married for 26 years. They reside on a small hobby farm with their now semi-grown children: Elainna 22, Juliana 21, and Hayden 18.
Pastor Jessica is a Christian Author, she has released 10 Bible Study books, selling over 10,000 copies, as well as audiobooks: (https://www.amazon.com/author/jessicalinhart)
She continues her presence on You Tube: (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbLPBPs78sbZtgQoStIE69A) teaching the lessons from her published manuscripts. When she is not writing books you can find her weekly sermons and studies on www.Biblical-Bookmarks.blog.
Before God called her to be a Christian author and Pastor, she was a special education teacher. She graduated from West Virginia State University with a BA Elementary Education. Then, she continued school at Marshall graduate college for her MA in Special Education. Finishing up her pastoral credentials at
WV South District Church of the Nazarene Center for Ministry Formation.
Pastor Jessica is also a disaster spiritual care provider (Chaplain) in good standing with the American Red Cross organization. Having received her mandate from God, Pastor Jessica obediently fulfills her calling as Pastor at Hissom Tabernacle Church of the Nazarene.
Pastor Jessica has seen the fulfillment of Ephesians 3:20 in her life -“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”
https://www.facebook.com/jessica.linhart?mibextid=LQQJ4d
This lesson appears in the book: The Holy Land Companion Guide Biblical Sermons & Lessons to guide you through the Holy Land and Egypt. By: Pastor and Christian Author Jessica Linhart available @ Amazon.com: Jessica Linhart: books, biography, latest update
