The Story - Chapter 14

This is the Advent season for the church, for churches, Christian community. I know that it's a season, Christmas season for a lot of people because this is the season of buying gifts. So in the commercial world, Christmas season starts Thanksgiving and ends with Christmas Day. But for the Christian community, this is the time of Advent or looking forward to the coming of Christ. And what Christians often have done through the years is celebrate the weeks coming up to the day of Christmas in anticipation of what takes place and talking about why is it that Christ did come into the world. So I lit one candle last week to remind us that the great power of sin to destroy the lives of people, even the most wise person in the world, Solomon, his own life was destroyed because of the power of sin. Christ comes into the world because of our great sinful nature and the power that it holds over us. And today I want to light this second candle to remind us that not only does sin have the power to destroy the life of a person, even the most wise person who's ever lived, but sin has the power to be passed on from one generation to another. Sin is infectious. It not only infects our own lives, it infects the lives of people that are around us. And so even though one man sins in Adam, all the world has been infected with this rebellious nature against God is what accounts for the crime, what accounts for the terrible things you see around us in our world. And we live in this world anticipating the day will come whenever Christ comes back and we'll be in a world where the infectious nature of sin is eradicated. That's what our hope is. This week you've been reading in the 14th chapter of your book, The Story, about one of these examples, a great example of the infectious nature of sin and its power to change the course of the lives of families and even of nations. There's two passages of scripture that I want to read this morning. One of them is in Numbers chapter 14, verse 18, and the other is in Deuteronomy chapter 24, verse 16, and these seem to be sort of contradictory scriptures. But I think the story that we're reading today will help us understand that they're really not contradictions. They're just two ways by which God shows us the same things that take place in the lives of a person. In Numbers chapter 14, Moses is talking to the people, verse 18, and he says, The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love, and forgiving sin and rebellion, yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. That's kind of scary, isn't it? He punishes the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. It sounds like when you read that right off that God says, Okay, your father has sinned, and now I'm going to bring his sin and punishment to you. It sounds like he's saying that the punishment for sin will be given not only to the father but the children of succeeding generations. But then in Deuteronomy chapter 24, again this is Moses talking, tells us this. Chapter 24, verse 16, Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers. He reaches to die for his own sin. Here Moses counterbalances that. What does he mean by all this? He's saying that the impact of our parents on us is real. It influences us. And so when we're raised in a family or a home where there is sin that's a perpetual part of the lifestyle of that family, that pattern of sin gets passed on to the children. And it seems to take not only a generation or two or three generations. It seems to stretch out. But it also means that it's not that the father's sin is passed on to the child and the child is punished for the father's sin. It means that each person, even though they've been influenced by their parents, is responsible for their own life. Now the story we're talking about today I think is a good example of exactly what this means for us. In this story Solomon, the wise king that God had established on the throne and David's throne, Solomon was the son of David. And he had asked David, asked Solomon what he wanted. And Solomon said he wanted wisdom to be able to govern his nation. And God said I'm not only going to give you wisdom, I'm going to also give you wealth and I'm going to give you honor. And it would seem like receiving the kingdom from David would have been a great thing and Solomon would have been proud of it and he would want to be responsible for it. But from the very beginning Solomon set himself as an enemy of God. There were four things that happened in Solomon's life that made God unable to bless him but instead to bring judgment on him. Whenever the people of Israel started into the land of Canaan that God gave them, before they entered God said I want to give you some rules that you must live by. We're going to make this covenant. I promise to be your God and I will help you with the choices you make. I will provide you with the things that you need to live. I will protect you from your enemies and I will make sure that you become a great nation. All I ask of you is to do exactly what I tell you and then I will fulfill my part. So then he began to tell them through Moses the things that they should do. One of the things he said to them was you depend on no one but me for your protection. That's our covenant. I will protect you. As soon as Solomon took his position as king he made a contract with the king of Egypt. If someone attacks me you come and help me. He was saying to God I don't trust your protection for me. And to seal that contract off it was necessary for Solomon to marry the daughter of the king of Egypt. One of the things that God said to his people is when you enter this land never marry outside of your own faith. Because if you do the people will lead you to worship other gods besides me. So the second thing Solomon did in conflict with what God told him was the right thing to do. He married someone of a different faith. And that woman did lead Solomon to abandon his faithfulness to God. The third thing that Solomon did was he also participated in pagan worship. Before they entered the land of Canaan God said destroy every one of these pagan places of worship and you are never to take part in it. Solomon worshipped at the pagan temples. Took his own offerings and offered them not to Yahweh God but to pagan gods. And then the final thing was Solomon became greedy and lustful. Controlled by it. Scripture says that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines or 1000 wives really. And I have no idea what it would take to take care of a wife that didn't live in your house. I'd have another house for her. And I don't know what it takes to take care of a queen. I don't know what that kind of cost is but I'm just going to say that if you had a wife and she lived apart from you in another place it might take you $30,000 to give her a good place to live and clothes that she'd want to wear. For Solomon this was in our money $30,000,000. Now this wasn't money that he spent to improve the country or to build up the army or to build roads or to build schools. It was just for his hobby of marrying women. Solomon's greed became a burden to the nation of Israel. The taxes were raised. And also Solomon wanted to build elaborate palaces and he wanted to build big public buildings with his name on them so everyone would know that Solomon was a great man. And at one time he drafted or conscripted 50,000 of his own people to work. Took them out of their homes, left their families to work on his projects. When Solomon's life was over people were burdened by the king's lifestyle and his rule. So they were ready for something that was different. God came at the end of Solomon's life and said Solomon all these things you've done are not acceptable to me. Even though I promised David that I'd give you his kingdom I'm going to rip it out of your hands. And as soon as you're dead I'll let you stay here until you die out of respect for David your father that I gave this promise to but as soon as you die it's gone. I'm going to take it away from you. And I'm going to give it to someone else, ten of the tribes and you keep your own plus another tribe and whoever your descendant is will have that for this benefit that I've given to David. Solomon's sin killed the nation of Israel but it's not over there. God said I'm going to take this kingdom and I'm going to give it to someone else. He sent a prophet of his to talk to Jeroboam who was on the staff of Solomon, one of his young men who was up and coming and widely respected and very capable and this message he brought to Jeroboam was a message of a new start. In first Kings chapter 11 I want to read this passage beginning at 29 through 40. God is now saying okay Solomon the punishment for your sin is over. I'm going to start from scratch with a new bunch of people to follow my leadership and what I want to do. Verse 29 about that time after God had said these things to Solomon Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem and Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh met him on the way wearing a new cloak. The two of them were alone out in the country and Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. Then he said to Jeroboam take ten pieces for yourself and for this is what the Lord the God of Israel says. See I'm going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon's hand and give you ten tribes but for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem where I have chosen of all the tribes of Israel he will have one tribe. I will do this because they have forsaken me and worshipped Ashtaroth the goddess of the Sidonians and Chemosh the God of the Moabites and Molech the God of the Ammonites and have not walked in my ways nor done what is right in my eyes nor keep my statutes and laws as David Solomon's father did. But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon's hand. I made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant whom I chose and who observed my commandments and statutes. I will take the kingdom from his son's hands and give you ten tribes. I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant will always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem the city where I chose to put my name. However as for you I will take you and you will rule over all that your heart desires and you will be king over Israel. If you do whatever I command you and walk in my ways and do what is right in my eyes by keeping my statutes and commands as David my servant did I will be with you. I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and I will give Israel to you. I will humble David's descendants because of this but not forever. Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam but Jeroboam fled to Egypt to Shishak the king and stayed there till Solomon's death. The final word for Solomon God said I'm going to take the kingdom I'm going to give ten tribes to Jeroboam. If God was the Lord the ruler of everything Solomon should have said Lord I don't like this I don't want to see the kingdom divided but you are God and you're in charge. Whatever you tell me I will accept but instead he said I don't want God to do this. So I am going to kill Jeroboam so that God's plan will not be carried out. When you see the spirit in Solomon that would not allow God to bless him his spirit of rebellion and resistance to what God wanted to do. All of this you see is lived out before both Jeroboam and the son of Solomon who is Rehoboam. Jeroboam flees to Egypt and then Solomon dies Rehoboam his son is going to be taking the throne of the kingdom now he thinks all of it Jeroboam comes back from Egypt and comes with the people of Israel before Rehoboam and says your father has done some things that have really hurt our nation we need some changes here you need to back off of the taxes and the forced labor and allow people to be able to take care of themselves and prosper. Rehoboam grew up with his father he was young enough that he didn't grow up in the wise years of his father but he grew up in the last years of his father filled with greed and self-centeredness. He gets advice but he already knew what he wanted to do he was just looking for someone to tell him that what he wanted to do was okay he came back and he said no I'm not going to slack up I demand more from you than my father did you see when you have somebody who starts out in their life and they start out in a hut with a dirt floor and they grow up they say my great dream is to have a floor that has wood on it when you have someone that grows up in a little house with a wood floor they say I really hope that when I grow up I can have a house with a wood floor and two rooms everybody wants to do better than what was in the past. Rehoboam's idea was whatever my father had was the beginning point I'm going to have more and better than even he did. You see what happened to Rehoboam was the greed of his father was passed on to him. He saw what his father did and he learned from his father the principles that he lived by and they were wrong. So he came back and he said no what my father did was just the beginning you ain't seen nothing yet wait till you see what I'm going to demand of you. Rehoboam then took the ten tribes and he left and went to the north and established his own kingdom and Rehoboam was left with the two. Now these words Rehoboam and Jeroboam sound kind of like they're together and they are they mean the same thing words in the Bible people's names mean things. Rehoboam's name means may the people expand you know like you eat more food and you expand may the people expand Jeroboam's name means may the people get more numerous that means like having children so there'd be more of you. Both of them had names that indicated we're all for you guys we want you to get more and we want more people in our nation but in the end they were for themselves. Their names didn't mean anything really for their lives were filled with something that was far more powerful than just their names. They had learned from Solomon how to sin and so Rehoboam left with his only two tribes from the time he started his kingship he was constantly fighting with Jeroboam to get those ten tribes back. He could not accept the little place that God had given him. His greed forced him time after again to try to by war conquer the northern tribes and he never ever succeeded. He had a son. His son was just as greedy as his father but then in the third generation a child was born named Asa. His mother had been a pagan and she was now the queen mother of the nation of Israel. Asa took his mother his grandmother off the throne restored the nation to its commitment to live in obedience to God and God blessed Asa with a great kingship all of his life. Three generations two of them three of them Solomon, Rehoboam, and Rehoboam's son abandoned God. In the fourth generation Asa turned to God. But you see the influence of Solomon didn't stop right there. Jeroboam was in his administration. He was a rising star in his administration. You know whenever you're in an organization whatever it is and you see how it operates and you have dreams for yourself and so when he got his own kingdom he said I'm going to run mine just like I think I should. I want to hold on to it and he began to think if my people go from the northern kingdom to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices you know what they're going to do? They're going to say well maybe we should just move down there near the temple. So contrary to what God commanded all my people are to worship in Jerusalem in the temple. He said we're no longer going to go there. I'm going to build our own temples here in the northern kingdom Israel. I'm going to build altars here. Now there's the holy of holies down there so I'll make you some gods and he made two statues out of gold. They're shaped like bulls for the people to worship at instead of the temple where they were to worship in Jerusalem. And then he appointed priests. They had no Levites so he just took anybody who wanted to be a priest and appointed them contrary to the law of God. In opposite of what God asked he moved the worship place from Jerusalem to his place. He built idols which God told him he shouldn't do. He appointed priests as God told him he shouldn't do. All of these things to build his kingdom. God said to him now I want you to understand that this division is merely temporary it's not forever. My plan for Israel is to join them back together but if you'll be faithful to me I'll build you a great dynasty just like I did David. But he did not believe and trust God just like Solomon didn't. You see the sin of Solomon had a great influence on his descendants not only his physical descendants but on those who worked with him. And so Jeroboam set out to live a different life than God wanted just like Solomon did. There are six kings listed in Jeroboam's reign in this passage that you read for chapter 14 this week. Every single one of them ended in disaster. Every single one of them ended in disaster. The Bible describes what took place in first Kings chapter 13 verse 33 and 34. It describes what took place. Even after this Jeroboam did not change his evil ways but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest he consecrated for high places. This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to its downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth. Jeroboam's ministry his kingship his life was transformed by the sin that Solomon himself committed. In chapter 14 verses 22 and 24 the scripture says Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord by the sins they committed they stirred up jealous anger more than their fathers had done. They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones, asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land. The people engaged in all kinds of detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. Both Jeroboam, Rehoboam and their descendants turned out to be just like Solomon but worse. Here's the warning for us what you do has an effect. The power of sin not only will destroy your life that is living in disobedience to what God says is the right way to live. It will not only destroy your life as it did the kings here but it also has an impact on your children, their children and their children. So the influence of our lives both for good and for bad is powerful and sin has an infectious nature. It's more infectious than holiness and righteousness. For example whenever you saw something that whenever you sinned you were not allowed because you had done something wrong to touch anything that was holy because it would make what was holy unholy. Sin is infectious. Holiness on the other hand if you touch something in the Bible that was considered holy it didn't make you holy. Holiness is a choice sin is an infection. It spreads from one person to another by the example and the lifestyle that influences people. We look forward to the coming of Christ because the only remedy on the face of the world for sin is the forgiveness of God. We can't find any way to get rid of sin in our lives except for God to say I forgive you. So we look in this season of Advent to the coming of Christ because it reminds us of the fact that no one even though they're infected with sin must be controlled by it. For there is for us the opportunity to make a choice and all these kings that we talk about there are eight or ten of them in this story. Only one of them came to the place where they said I want to serve God. And even though he was surrounded by sin before him after him and around him he found in his devotion to God forgiveness for himself and the guidance of God to turn his back on the influences that caused him to be surrounded by this infectious nature. We have that choice. All of us come from families infected with sin. You can look at your parents and you understand the things about them that are wrong. And they sometimes influence us and we see that in our own nature. But it does not have to control us for we're given the opportunity to say to God here in me are habits and patterns and ways of thinking that I know are contrary to what you want. I acknowledge it. I admit it. I ask you to come into my life and transform me and what Jesus shows us is the very simple way we do it. It's to say God I know that I live controlled by forces that I don't like. I admit it. I ask you to come inside of me and teach me how to think differently about life and teach me how to make the right choices when I've been taught all my life to make the wrong ones. And when you do that the power of God enters your life. He begins to help you see things from a different perspective. He helps you begin to have power to say no to the things you should say no to the ability to say yes to the things you should say yes to. None of us are predetermined by what happened to us in the past before we were even born. We can be controlled by sin but we don't have to be. This tragic story that you've been reading this week makes you wonder sometimes if there's any way in the world to avoid the things that can destroy us. There is. God's power destroys the strength of sin. Jeroboam was made a promise. Solomon was made a promise. You live in obedience to me and I will give you a full life. I'll give you not only wisdom but I'll give you wealth and I'll give you honor. But they said no to God. They chose instead to do the things that were opposite of what God wanted. And their lives were destroyed. Their children's lives were destroyed. Their grandchildren's lives were destroyed. This is the tragic situation. It caused God to say these people need something they do not have. And so he said I will send my son. He will come. He will be born of human nature and live in the world with no sin of his mother in his life. No sin of his father in his life. He will live in obedience to me. And now we have in this Advent season the expectation has come to pass. Jesus Christ has come. He's showing us how to live free from the grip and the power of sin. And he says to us if you will come to me and say I don't want to be my parents over again. I don't want to be the person I've been in the past. I want my future to be different. I will do that for you. Just say to me take my life, control my mind, my will, my language, my lifestyle and I will. I will shape your life to be like myself and you will begin a whole new generation for your family. The influence on your children will change and on your grandchildren will change and on your great grandchildren will change. For the power of God's righteousness can never be defeated by the power of sin. You see we have a choice. We can be influenced by the sinful nature of the world around us or we can be free from it. Free not by our own power or ability but by the power and strength of God. I will do for you what you cannot do. Not a one of these stories you read about this week had to happen. Not a one of them. And your life does not have to be disastrous. It doesn't matter how bad it's now, how disastrous it's become. In the middle of all those circumstances God changes everything. All he needs is for you to say I want you to rule my life. The power of sin infects us all but the power of God cleanses us of all unrighteousness. Would you bow your heads for a moment? I want to ask you to reflect on your own life, the influence that the people around you have had. How does it affect the things you do? Do you find yourself sometimes wishing that you could be different? That's what God wants for you. God's plan for Jeroboam was for good but he didn't follow it so it ended in disaster. His plan for you is good but you have a choice. You can follow it or ignore it. I'm going to ask you this morning if you want something different in your life simply say in the quietness of your own time right here in your mind God I want you to forgive me for what I have been and for what I have done. I want you to make me in something that's different to be like yourself. Here's the promise you have to make to God and from this moment on I will make it the priority of my life to do what you tell me I should do. The church is a place where we help people learn that, where all of us are trying to do the same thing and we encourage and support each other in this journey. So if you make that promise to God you need to come and say I want to become a part of the family of church of believers here who are all trying to do the same thing. We'll support and encourage you and pray for you and you'll have a community support, you'll not be out there by yourself. In a moment I'm going to ask the pianist to play and if you're aware of something God wants you to make, a promise that God wants you to make and you feel like it's important for you to come here and share that promise with us this is your opportunity to do it. If you want to become a part of the church make openly and publicly your promise to God this is the time God has for it. You will know this because in your mind you'll think I should get up out of my seat, walk down there and tell this person what it is God wants me to do and that today I promise to do it. As God talks to you, you do what he tells you. Alan Crane came this morning to say that he's going through a difficult time with his business, his farming business and he's got some problems facing him that have been overwhelming and he gets information that's going to be threatening to him and it's caused him to have a lot of fear and God's helped him through a lot of different things and he came and said I want to be able to trust God enough so no matter what happens in the future I won't be disturbed by it. I'll have confidence that God is going to take care of me and provide for me. Then he said also that his language has not been good and he's afraid that his language has been detrimental to the people around him and so he wants to promise openly and publicly that he's asking God to help him control that so that his language does not be a negative influence but would reflect the character of Christ himself. Ronnie Lewis comes this morning saying that he wants to ask God to help him live his life, to help him make the choices he needs to make and to live a life that would please God. Ronnie, would you come stand up here just a minute with me? Did I reflect exactly what you wanted to say to people or was there something else you wanted to say? Absolutely. I wanted to say. Okay. Have you ever asked God to come in and take control of your life before? I tried. You did? Do you feel like today you're ready to make that promise to him to say you'll allow him to control your mind and your choices and your lifestyle? Is that the promise you want to make to him? We want to talk to you about how to help grow that and I think Mike and Denise in your class and Butch in your class will all help you learn how to put into practice the things God wants in your own lifestyle. I'd like you to stand with me just a moment outside and let people say they'll pray for you and would you stand please for a moment of prayer? You have an announcement to make? This is an announcement. It's actually a prayer request that I just didn't get during the prayer request time. Next week the children are going to be presenting a short dramatization of the Christmas story and we're not doing this because we want to entertain you or because we want to show the children off even though they are really cute. Two reasons we're doing it. One having a visual dramatization is another way to impress upon the children the story of Jesus's birth. They will remember it for a long time. Also I have no idea which it's not something that we have a lot of parts and they're memorizing parts and things. It's who is here is who is going to be in this program. I just pray and ask you to pray with me for the children that God knows needs to hear this that they will be able to be here and the other reason is for their parents. We have a lot of parents and grandparents that aren't here and that's another reason we're doing this to try and reach out to them. So if you would please pray for God to bring next Sunday those that he wants to hear this story and impress upon them in a special way that he loves them. I ask that you would do that please. Thank you. So Father we do thank you for this season of the year that reminds us of the great gift you've given us. We're thankful for our children who participate in this that allows us to see sort of a dramatization of this story, the story of your son coming into this world. We ask that you would excite them about being a part of this and we ask that their parents and grandparents would come to see them but more than that they would come to hear the message of the story of your gift. We pray for Alan and we ask for self-control for him. We ask in times of trial and difficulty that he trust you and not his own emotions and feelings. We pray for Ronnie and ask Lord that you take control of his life, help him to live as you want him to live, give him the peace of knowing that when he gives himself to you, you take charge of him and his life will become different. We ask Father that you would keep us safe by trusting you that our lives might be lived for the purpose that you have for us to achieve the things you want for us and not for destruction. In the name of Christ, we ask this, amen. Okay, come on. Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free. From our fears and sins, release us. Let us find our rest in thee. Israel, strength and consolation, hope of all. We heard thou art, dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.