Jeroboam

LIFE LESSONS
JEROBOAM
DR. JIM DIXON
1 KINGS 12: 25-31
AUGUST 17, 2003

King Solomon, King of Israel built the Temple on Mt. Moriah. In the city of Jerusalem, King Solomon built his royal palace. Throughout the Holy Land, King Solomon built magnificent chariot cities. He did this through heavy taxation and by forced labor. Of course, the people were very angry because they didn’t like heavy taxation and they didn’t like forced labor. This was particularly true of the people in the northern ten tribes. The northern ten tribes were already jealous of the tribe of Judah, which was the tribe of David and Solomon because the tribe of Judah was huge. It had already absorbed most of the tribe of Benjamin and of course the Levitical priests were loyal to Judah, and the city of Jerusalem was at the very center of Judah.

King Solomon knew that if he was to keep the labor projects going and if he was to keep the ten northern tribes in line, he would need strong leaders. One of his strong leaders was this man named Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. Solomon placed Jeroboam over the labor forces of the tribe of Ephraim. A strange thing happened to Jeroboam as he was walking on a solitary road outside of the city of Jerusalem. Jeroboam encountered the prophet of Shiloh, a man named Ahijah. He came, this prophet, in a brand-new cloak. When he saw Jeroboam, he took off his cloak and he tore his cloak into twelve pieces, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. He gave ten of the pieces to Jeroboam. He said, “Thus sayeth the Lord, behold, I am about the seize the kingdom from the hands of Solomon, and I will give you ten tribes.” The prophet went on to say to Jeroboam, “If you walk in the statutes and in the commandments of the Lord, you will be blessed forever.”

This was an amazing message. I think most of you know that Solomon died, and his son Rehoboam ascended the throne of Israel but he did not lighten the heavy taxation of the people. Indeed, he took bad counsel and he added to the heavy yoke that Solomon had placed upon the people so that the ten northern tribes rebelled and they formed their own kingdom. They summoned Jeroboam who had fled to Egypt where he sought asylum from the Pharaoh Shishak. Jeroboam came back and he became the first King of the Ten Northern Tribes, the first King of the Northern Kingdom, the first King of Israel.

He built his capital in the city of Shechem, and then he moved his capital to Penuel. After that, he moved his capital to the beautiful city of Tirzah. It would have been a beautiful story if it had ended there, but of course it did not end there. The story of Jeroboam ends sadly. In fact, we come to the book of 1 Kings and to the 14th chapter, the 10th verse, and we see the Prophet of Shiloh appearing again. He is old and nearly blind. This prophet whose name is Ahijah makes one final prophesy for Jeroboam. He says, “Thus sayeth the Lord, I will consume the house of Jeroboam as a man burns dung until it is all gone.” What an amazing message. Something had happened. “I will consume the house of Jeroboam like a man burns excrement until it is all gone.” Obviously, Jeroboam had offended God. What had he done? The Bible tells us clearly, Jeroboam had participated in idolatry. Our life lesson this morning concerns the subject of idolatry. This is a subject that is very close to all of us when we understand its meaning.

I have two teachings this morning, and the first teaching concerns genuine worship. We can’t really understand what idolatry is unless we understand what genuine worship is. We can’t understand what false worship is unless we know what true worship is. So, in order to understand genuine worship, I want us to take a look at the four words in the New Testament for worship, the four primary worship words in the Greek. The first word is “proskuneo.” This word means, “to worship,” and it’s found in the Bible. Proskuneo literally means, “to kiss towards.” Proskuneo. To kiss towards. When the word is used theologically, it means to “kiss towards God,” so we should understand that genuine worship involves kissing towards God, 24-7. I mean if we’re really worshipping, we’re kissing towards God all the time.

I read this past week about a study that took place in Germany. The study concluded that when a husband and wife kiss each other every morning, good things happen. The study concluded that husbands and wives who kiss each other every morning live, on the average, five years longer. They have 50% fewer incidents of illness. They even make 20% to 30% more money or income, and have fewer car accidents.

I don’t fully understand that. I’m not sure what’s going on there, but I do know this. It’s important for husbands and wives to love each other. It’s important that we love each other. And yet more important still, far more important, is that we love God. If our supreme kiss is for our spouse, then we’ve turned our spouse into an idol. If our supreme kiss is for our children, we are worshipping our children. If our supreme kiss is for our boss at work or for the corporation for which we work, then we’ve turned our business into a god. Our supreme kiss is to be for God. We are to kiss towards God every moment of every day. He is to have our deepest and our greatest love. This is at the core of the meaning of worship.

The second New Testament word for worship is the word, “gonupeteo.” Gonupeteo is a word which literally means, “to bow down.” It means, “to kneel.” Of course, just as love is a key component in worship, so is submission, so is obeisance. If we are to worship God, we must bend the knee. If we are to worship God, we must kneel.

This word gonupeteo is a word that oftentimes means “prayer,” because when we pray, we sometimes are in a posture of kneeling or bowing down. But we should understand that, unless in our hearts we are submissive, unless we bow in our heart, unless we kneel before God in our soul, we really don’t pray. If you read in Luke, chapter 18, the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, Jesus makes it very clear that some prayers never get past the ceiling. Some prayers never transcend the ceiling because something’s wrong in the person’s heart. They’re not really kneeling before God. They’re not really humbled before God. They’re not really bowing before God.

I heard a story recently about a man who was promoted at work. He was promoted to a management position. He was really pleased and proud of himself. He was given a brand-new office. He went into this new office and it was awesome. He reclined in his overstuffed chair. He looked back and he just felt so good about himself. He looked around at his new office and he was very pleased. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. He wanted to look busy in his new office, and so, he decided to pretend he was on the phone. He picked up the phone, put it to his ear, and then he said to the person at the door, “Come in.” A man came in. He said, “I’m having a very important phone conversation if you would wait just a second.” Then he said, “Yes, Sir. I know this is the largest account that our company has ever had. I appreciate your trusting it to me. You have not made a mistake. I’ll do a great job. Thank you, Sir.” And then he hung up the phone. Then he smiled and looked at the man who came in the door and said, “Now, what can I do for you?” The man said, “I’m here to install your phone.”

Of course, you know, some prayers are kind of like that. Some prayers are just feigned conversations. The phone is not even connected. Some people, when they think they are praying, are not praying at all. The phone isn’t even connected. They’re just feigning conversation. It’s pretense because the heart does not worship God. The heart does not bow. The heart does not kneel. Genuine worship is rooted in love. We kiss towards God. Genuine worship is expressed in submission. We kneel before God.

Now, there are two other Greek words for worship, two other New Testament words for worship. These words are “latreia” and “threskeia.” The interesting thing is if you look in, for instance, Colin Brown’s Theological Dictionary for Greek New Testament Words, a huge 3-volume work, if you look for latreia and threskeia or even proskuneo and gonupeteo, you won’t find any of them in the category of worship. In fact, if you look up the word “worship,” you won’t find a single Greek word that means worship because there’s no Greek word that the primary meaning of which is worship. There are many Greek worship words but they all have other primary meanings. If you’re looking up proskuneo or gonnupeteo, you will find them under prayer, not worship. If you look up latreia and threskeia, you will find them under the subject of “service” because their primary meaning is “to serve.” We should understand that to worship God means to serve God. Latreia, threskeia are worship words but they mean, “to serve.” You’ll never understand what it means to worship until we understand it’s all about serving God, serving His kingdom, serving Him. That’s what worship is.

You see this throughout the Bible. You come to Exodus, chapter 20, and you see the Decalogue. You see the Ten Commandments. You see the first two commandments which have to do with worship. “You shall have no other gods before Me.” “You shall not make for yourself any graven image.” Then we have this explanation. “You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” Worship has to do with service.

When you come to Matthew’s Gospel, the 4th chapter, and we see these words from Christ. Jesus says, “It is written. You shall worship the Lord your God and Him alone shall you serve.” Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy, chapter 6, but he wants us to understand that worship has to do with service. “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him alone shall you serve.” If we worship God, we give our lives in the service of God. When you come to Romans, chapter 1, and the Apostle Paul warns us of people who worship and serve “the creature rather than worshipping and serving the Creator.” But again, worship is joined with service. You come to Romans, chapter 12, and the Bible tells us that as Christians we are to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. In some translations it says, “is our spiritual service,” and then in other translations says, “which is our spiritual worship.” It doesn’t matter because the same Greek word is there, latreia, and it means, “worship or service.” The concepts are synonymous, so we understand that worship has to do with love, kissing towards God. Worship has to do with submission, bowing before God, and then worship has to do with service. Anything we do that is done in order to serve God.

In a sense, it’s all about service because one of the ways we kiss towards God is when we serve Him. One of the ways we bow before God is when we serve Him. It’s about service. Don’t think of worship as something you do just on Sunday mornings. Or even something primarily associated with Sunday morning. It’s true when we sing our songs, we kiss towards God. Hopefully when the Word is preached, you’ve bent the knee, but the reality is that in the sense of service, very little worship takes place on Sunday mornings. Perhaps the most worshipful moment in a church assembly on a Sunday morning is the offering because that’s when you give in order to serve the cause of the kingdom of Christ. It’s all about service. Therefore, worship is something we do every day. Every day we wake up and we say, “Lord, I live to serve You. I breathe to serve You.” That’s worship. So, we understand genuine worship.

Now, let’s take a look at false worship. Let’s take a look at idolatry. We have this second teaching. This second teaching is this: that idolatry is the service of anyone or anything other than God. That’s what idolatry is. It’s the service of anyone or anything other than God, the supreme service, I should say—the supreme service of anyone or anything other than God.

Let’s take a look at Jeroboam. We look at Jeroboam and he’s ascended the throne in the Northern Kingdom. That kingdom is called Israel to distinguish it from Judah. When the kingdoms were united in the monarchy, it was all called Israel, but after the division, only the Northern Kingdom was called Israel. Jeroboam was the first king. He ascended the throne by the hand of God. God gave him those ten pieces of cloth. God gave him those ten northern tribes. God put him on the throne, and God promised that if he would walk in the statutes and the commandments of the Lord, he would be blessed forever. But he did a strange thing that caused God to view him as dung. He did a strange thing. He built, he made, golden calves. He placed one in the southern city of Bethel, and he placed the other in the northern city of Dan. He said to the people, “Behold, your gods oh Israel. You have gone up to the city of Jerusalem long enough.” He commanded that they worship these golden calves placed in the city of Bethel and the city of Dan.

Why in the world would he have done this? Why did he do this? Well, theologians and Bible scholars have debated that. Of course, they’ve taken a look at this word for “calf” and it’s the Hebrew word, “egel.” They’ve come to understand that that word refers to any member of the bovine family under the age of three, so any bovine under three years of age was described by this word egel.

Most Bible scholars believe that these golden calves were actually young bulls, golden images of young bulls. A light kind of went off because then Bible scholars began to realize that Jeroboam had gone to Egypt where he had fled the wrath of Solomon and received amnesty from Shishak, the Pharaoh of Egypt, and there in Egypt he had encountered a worship cult centered in the city of Memphis. It was the worship of Serapis or the worship of Apis. Apis and Serapis were two names given to the same Egyptian deity. The symbol of that deity was a young golden bull.

So, they understand that in all likelihood when Jeroboam fled to Egypt, he fell into the worship of Serapis whose image was this young golden bull. In fact, they think that even the golden calf that was created by Aaron in the days of Moses during the exodus was really a young bull and it was also associated with a worship of Serapis. That’s probably not particularly convicting for most of you. You can’t remember the last time you worshipped a bovine image. Although it is true that Ralphie and the Colorado Buffaloes are going to be playing soon… We need to take a deeper look at Jeroboam’s idolatry. Most Bible scholars believe that he probably didn’t really worship Serapis, this Egyptian deity. He probably just took that image and decided to apply it to the worship of Yahweh. But, you see, the Bible makes it clear that something was wrong in his heart because he was guilty of full-scale idolatry and he had become like excrement in the sight of God. So, we take a deeper look and we see what was going on.

Everything Jeroboam did was all about himself. That’s what you see. When you examine 1 Kings, chapter 12, it was all about himself. He was afraid that he might not sustain the throne. He was afraid that his people in the ten northern tribes might go down to the city of Jerusalem and worship because it was the center of worship for the Jews. He was thinking, “Well maybe when they go to Jerusalem to worship, they’ll return to Rehoboam, the King of Judah, and they’ll kill me. So, it was in order to protect himself that he established a false religious system, creating worship centers at Bethel and at Dan, and he created his own priesthood because the Levitical priesthood did not serve him. They served Judah, so he created a whole new category of priesthood and he took priests from amongst all the people. He created his own religious system, but it was all about himself. Everything he did, he did to protect himself. Everything he did, he did to serve himself. Bible scholars agree, his real worship was the worship of self. He lived to give himself supreme service. He literally kissed towards himself. He bent the knee towards every desire he had. He worshipped himself.

Do you understand this is offensive to God, and it is the great idolatry of our age? It is the great idol of our time. It is the great idol of the western world. The Bible prophesies in 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verses 1 and 2 that “in the last days, there will comes times of stress and people will be lovers of self.” The Greek word, “philautos.” They will love themselves supremely. There’s nothing wrong with loving yourself. If you don’t love yourself, you need to get some counseling. But if you love yourself supremely, that’s idolatry, and it is demonstrated by this. Are you living to serve yourself or are you living to serve God? You know the answer. When you wake up in the morning, what’s it all about? Are all your thoughts centered on how you can serve yourself or are they actually centered on how you can serve the Lord?

I heard a joke some time ago about Samurai. Of course, the Samurai were people who lived in Japan and in East Asia. They were brave in battle and they were strict in discipline. Most of all they were skilled with the sword, Samurai warriors. This joke was told about a ruler, an emperor of an Asian nation. His chief Samurai had died, so he was looking for a new chief Samurai. He didn’t have many candidates because the job was dangerous and not many people wanted to be chief Samurai. There were three candidates. One was a Japanese Samurai. The other was a Chinese Samurai. The third was a Jewish Samurai. Jewish Samurai are real rare I understand. This test was conducted, and the Japanese Samurai came in before the emperor. He opened a little box and a fly flew out. He drew his sword and with one swoosh the fly was cut in two. The emperor said, “Impressive.” Then the Chinese Samurai stood before the emperor. He, too, opened a box and a fly flew out. He took his sword. He had two swooshes of the sword in kind of an “X” pattern and the fly was cut into four pieces. The emperor said, “Very impressive.”

The Jewish Samurai came before the emperor. He opened his box and a fly flew out. He drew his sword and very smoothly and quickly he swooshed it twice and then twice more and then a fifth time in very smooth action, but the fly remained airborne. The emperor was disappointed and he was kind of angry. He said, “How is it that you drew your sword and you swooshed your sword five times and the fly is still alive. Why is the fly not dead?” The Jewish Samurai said, “With circumcision it is not necessary to kill.”

Now, believe it or not, that actually relates to something. It is true that circumcision does not require death. We all know that. Circumcision does not require death. Circumcision was a sign and a seal of the Old Covenant, which expressed the relationship of Yahweh which expressed the relationship of God with the Jewish people. It was a sign and seal of the Covenant and it equates to baptism in the New Covenant. It equates to baptism in the New Testament which is a sign and a seal of the Gospel of the relationship between Christ and His Church. But know this about baptism. Baptism does require death. When you read Romans, chapter 6, and I think it is so strange that so many of us as Christians do not understand baptism. If you read Romans, chapter 6, it’s all about death and resurrection. When you go under the water in adult-believer baptism, when you go under the water, that means you’re dying to self. That’s what Paul says in Romans 6. When you come out of the water, you’re living to Christ. Death and resurrection. It’s all about dying to self.

There’s a sense in which our baptism continues throughout our Christian life as we learn what it means to die to self. Every day when we get up, we have to learn that all over again, what it means to die to self. Jesus said, “He who would come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me. He who would save his life will lose it but he who would lose his life for My sake and the sake of the Gospel will surely find it.” So, Jesus is saying this mysterious truth—we must die to live. We must die to self in order to find the life of Christ. As we die to self and we cease to live supremely for self, we begin to experience joy. We begin to experience life. We begin to experience purpose and fulfillment when we live supremely for God. That’s what the Gospel is about and that’s the process that we’re in—dying to self and living to Christ. If we don’t engage this process, we are participating in idolatry. If we live to serve ourselves supremely, it’s false worship. It’s idolatry and God is ticked.

In Daniel, chapter 3, you read about Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Babylonian Empire. We’re told in Daniel, chapter 3, that this Babylonian king built a great giant image 90 feet tall and he put it out in the Plain of Dura, outside the city of Babylon, his royal city. The Bible doesn’t tell us what that image was but most historians believe it was an image of Nebuchadnezzar himself. He actually had the audacity to make an image of himself 90 feet tall and erect it on the Plain of Dura for the people to come and worship. Of course, it fits what the Bible says of Nebuchadnezzar for he looked out over his royal city and the hanging gardens of Babylon and he said, “Is this not mighty Babylon which I have built by my power for the manifestation of my glory.” The Bible says the judgement of God fell from heaven upon him. He was not even a Jew. He wasn’t even part of the Covenant, but his arrogance offended God and the judgement of God fell from heaven.

I wonder how God feels when He looks down on us, the way we live and what we live for and whether we really are seeking to serve Him or seeking to serve ourselves. When you come to Jeremiah 18 and 19… Have you ever read those chapters? The Prophet Jeremiah is called by God and God says to Jeremiah, “Take a clay pot, a pottery pot, and take it down to the Hinnom Valley outside of Jerusalem before the people of Israel.” And so, this Prophet Jeremiah takes this pot. You need to understand that clay pottery, pottery Jars in the Bible, oftentimes represented the people of God. He molds us like clay and He was indwelling us as His vessels. The image of a piece of pottery, a clay jar was the image of God’s people. And so, God said to the Prophet Jeremiah, “Take this clay pot. Take this piece of pottery and take it down into the Hinnom Valley outside of Jerusalem to a temple that is erected to Baal worship there. Stand before the people and with the people assembled, shatter the pot on the ground. Shatter it. The judgement of God is about to fall.” You read that passage and you know what it’s about. It’s all about idolatry. The judgement of God fell on Israel because of its idolatry.

I think of the Church of Jesus Christ and the New Covenant and the relationship we have with Christ that we’ve not kept pure. The fact that so often we’ve worshipped ourselves or given ourselves supremely to the service of other things. Now, is the time to change. It’s time for us to change individually. It’s time for us to change corporately. It’s time for us to change as a church where we’ll begin to live supremely for the service of God, that we will kiss every day to Christ, that we’ll bend the knee, that we will worship. I tell you this. If we do that, both individually and corporately, we will be blessed. We will experience joy like we’ve never had before. Life will have meaning and fulfillment and purpose like never before, and this church will be so anointed by God that it will shake the foundations of our culture. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.