SERIES: Enlightening Epitaphs of the Kings and Prophets
Rehoboam: “He Rejected the Advice the Elders Gave”
Introduction: The Scriptures offer two powerful epitaphs for Rehoboam, and they are closely related to one another. I have chosen the first, from 1 Kings 12:8, as my title today, namely, “He rejected the advice the Elders gave.” But the second, from 2 Chronicles 12:14, is just as important: “He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord.” The first is outward while the second is inward. The first deals with symptoms while the second describes the disease that brought him down. Symptoms are important to understand and treat, but unless we get at the root cause, we may never do anything more than put Band-Aids on cancer.
Historical background
Jeroboam rebels against Solomon. In 1 Kings 11:26 we meet for the first time a very central figure in the OT, a man named Jeroboam. He is mentioned 95 times in seven OT books, and he himself bears one of the saddest epitaphs in the Bible: “He made Israel to sin.” He is introduced this way: “Jeroboam son of Nebat rebelled against the king. He was one of Solomon’s officials.” The passage goes on to tell us that Jeroboam was one of the managers of Solomon’s labor force, and he got Solomon’s attention through the outstanding work he did.
One day Jeroboam was on his way out of the city of Jerusalem when he was confronted by a prophet of God from Shiloh named Ahijah. As they stood alone out in the country, Ahijah took off the new coat he was wearing, tore it into twelve pieces, and told Jeroboam to take ten of the pieces for himself. Ahijah then told him the purpose of this little object lesson: God was going to tear the kingdom of Solomon apart and give ten of the twelve tribes to Jeroboam. The reason for this drastic action was that Israel had forsaken God and worshiped idols. Ahijah also made it clear that this division of the kingdom would not happen as long as Solomon was living, but it would take place soon after his death.1
The very next thing we read is that “Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon’s death.” Now how did Jeroboam go from being a trusted official of Solomon to having a contract put out on his life? Apparently, Jeroboam told someone about the message of the prophet Ahijah, the word got back to Solomon, and immediately he became suspicious. Solomon did his best to interfere with God’s plan by trying to kill Jeroboam, but to no avail. Instead, Solomon himself dies, having reigned over all Israel forty years, and Rehoboam his son succeeds him as king.
Rehoboam is crowned as Solomon’s successor. At the beginning of 1 Kings 12 Rehoboam goes to Shechem to be crowned. The Israelites all come together there for the coronation, but they also make a request of their new king. Sadly, in this, his first major decision as king, he demonstrates serious symptoms of spiritual failure.
Symptom: Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him in lieu of the advice of the young men.
He is approached with a reasonable request and a conditional promise. Look at 1 Kings 12:3-4:
So they sent for Jeroboam (who had returned from Egypt upon hearing of Solomon’s death), and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”
Rehoboam answered, “Go away for three days and then come back to me.” So the people went away.
Solomon, you will recall, was one of the wealthiest monarchs in human history. Unfortunately, all of that wealth was not rightfully gained. Much of it came from excessive taxes and forced labor. I suspect Solomon found so much fulfillment in the accolades he received for building the Temple, that when he finished that project he kept right on building. He built his own palace, then palaces and temples for many of his foreign wives, plus public works projects all over Israel. This required tremendous expenditures from the public treasury, and the only way to replenish the treasury was through higher and higher taxes.
So the people ask Rehoboam to change his father’s policies and to reduce the harsh labor and heavy taxation. They don’t ask for the total cessation of taxes, nor do they make any other unreasonable demands. They simply ask him to lighten the load. And furthermore, they promise to serve him if he will accede to their wishes.
At first. we are encouraged when we see that Rehoboam seeks advice before responding.
He consults with both the elders and the young men but receives starkly conflicting advice. Let’s pick up the account in verse 6:
Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.
They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.”
But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”
The young men who had grown up with him replied, “Tell these people who have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter’—tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. 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.'”
Do you notice something here? He rejects the advice of the elders even before he consults with the younger men. It’s as though the moment he hears the words “servant” and “serve,” he immediately decides against their advice. After all, he is the king and they are the subjects. Kings rule and subjects serve. Sadly, that’s the way a lot of people think when they get into a position of authority. But it’s not how Jesus viewed authority. Do you remember what He said when confronted with the request from James and John to sit at His right and left hand in the kingdom?
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave–just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)
Jesus says that the way up is down. How do you lead the people God has put under you? Maybe the only people you are leading are your children. Maybe it’s a small group. On the other hand, perhaps you are the leader of hundreds or thousands. It doesn’t matter. All godly leadership is servant leadership. But Rehoboam has never seen that modeled and he isn’t about to start now.
So he turns to the young men. Please understand that the young men mentioned here are not teenagers. They are Rehoboam’s peers–guys he grew up with–and he is 41 years old when he becomes king! Some of you are delighted to hear that at 40 the Bible still considers you young! These forty-somethings are undoubtedly tired of the fact that Solomon and his peers–probably guys my age–have been calling the shots for a long time. The younger men view Solomon’s peers as geezers who don’t understand how times have changed. Now it’s their turn. They have lots of ideas they wish to see fulfilled that can only be fulfilled through power and influence and money. Centralize the power! Raise the taxes! The government knows best. I will resist the temptation to draw any modern parallels this morning.
So Rehoboam makes a momentous decision that results in the loss of most of his kingdom. When the people returned three days later for his answer, Rehoboam …
… followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.” (Scorpions refers to whips with bits of metal imbedded in the cords). So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfill the word the LORD had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite. (1 Kings 12:14, 15)
Let me stop there for just a moment. There’s an important principle here in these verses. We are told that “The King did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord.” Did Rehoboam choose to answer this way? Certainly! Was Rehoboam responsible for the brutal way he responded? Absolutely! Was God behind the scenes ensuring that His prophetic word to Jeroboam would be fulfilled? Yes. Very often in Scripture we find human mistakes playing into the overall plan of God. We must not excuse those mistakes just because God uses them for His purposes, but at the same time, we must not panic when we see similar mistakes, because we can be sure that God is ultimately in control, working out all things after the counsel of His own will.2
Now the result of Rehoboam’s decision to reject the advice the elders gave was the permanent dissolution of the United Monarchy:
When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king: “What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse’s son? To your tents, O Israel! Look after your own house, O David!”
King Rehoboam barely manages to escape from Shechem back to Jerusalem. Then the northern ten tribes call Jeroboam and make him their king, with only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remaining loyal to the house of David.
Now I want us to apply what we find here to our own hearts and lives. You see, there is a reason why certain stories like this are included in the Scriptures. Obviously, volumes could have been written about the life of Rehoboam. Why is this particular story preserved? I suspect it is because God knows that refusing to listen to elders is a common problem most of us struggle with at one point or another. So, I would like to offer this application:
Application: Following the advice of elders is one of the key protections God offers His people.
Please understand that the term “elders,” as I am using it here, is not synonymous to an elected office in the church. My point is not to issue a defense of Elder power and authority in the church. I did a word study on the term “elder” in the Bible and discovered that it is used 188 times in the plural and six more times in the singular. It is very rarely used of an office but rather refers most often to an informal group of older men who, by virtue of their years and experience, are viewed as having wisdom worth listening to. Every city and town in ancient times had its group of elders, but they are clearly distinguished in many passages from other kinds of leaders, like judges, officials, heads of tribes, nobles, chiefs of families, princes, priests, and prophets.
As best I can tell elders generally had no official authority, but they enjoyed strong moral authority. People knew who they were and ignored them only to their own detriment. Perhaps Ezek 7:26 gives us the greatest insight into the task of these elders. In this judgment passage we are told, “Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor upon rumor. They will try to get a vision from the prophet; the teaching of the law by the priest will be lost, as will the counsel of the elders.” In other words, vision comes from the prophet, teaching from the priest, and counsel from the elders.
With that information as background, I would like to suggest first that we should recognize the moral authority of . . .
Elders in the home. I’m speaking of parents, of course. You know something? Parents are not automatically smarter than children, and “old” doesn’t always mean “right.” But God knows that parents are right most of the time, and He has decided that it is better for children to be the victims of an unwise decision by their parents once in a while than it is for every decision to be decided by a knock-down drag-out between kids and parents. So God says to children in the home, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” I don’t think that means “because the parents are always right,” but rather “it is always right for children to respect and listen to their parents.”
The same Scripture text, Ephesians 6:1-3, goes on to say, “‘Honor your father and mother’–which is the first commandment with a promise–‘that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’” At the very least this verse offers a general promise that–all other things being equal–an obedient child is going to be happier and is going to live longer than a disobedient one. Now that’s just the opposite the way a disobedient child thinks. He thinks his disobedience is going to make him happier and gain him an advantage. Not so.
Second, let’s consider …
Elders in society. I believe the Scriptures make the assumption that the elders in society are to be respected and listened to. This is the point of literally scores of OT passages. Again and again when Moses had something important to decide, he would bring together all the elders of Israel. He used them as sounding boards and as counselors. He took them with him when he had important tasks to perform. The elders were also very involved in the application of the Mosaic Law to the lives of the people–kind of like informal judges so the courts weren’t overwhelmed by the caseload. Jeremiah laments the tragedy that has come upon Judah at the time of the Babylonian captivity with these words:
Princes have been hung up by their hands;
elders are shown no respect.
Young men toil at the millstones;
Boys stagger under loads of wood.
The elders are gone from the city gate. (Lamentations 5:12-14)
Clearly the prophet Jeremiah sees the absence of the elders as a sad day for the nation.
I said earlier that the term “elders” is not limited to an office; but neither should the office of elder be excluded from this discussion.
Elders in the church. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5:17, “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor.” Of course, to be worthy of double honor they must also be worthy servants. In 1 Peter 5:1-4 the expectations are spelled out pretty clearly:
To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers–not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.
From time to time I hear someone at First Free complain about the Elder Board as though it were a faceless group of authority figures who sit off by themselves and render decisions in a vacuum that everyone else then has to live with. That’s really not how it works. These are a loving, caring group of godly men who pray earnestly for the congregation, who seek God’s face constantly, and who make decisions with fear and trembling. I believe they are approachable, reasonable, and humble–not perfect, however. They have made mistakes and have acknowledged that to individuals and to the congregation. But I urge our congregation to recognize that following the advice of our Elders is one of the key protections God offers His people.3
Let me ask you this morning, do you specifically make time to seek God’s wisdom and wait for His reply concerning whatever crisis you may be facing? Where do you go when you need advice? Do you go to people who will tell you what you want to hear? Or do you seek advice from those experienced in the knowledge of God and His Word, who will tell you the truth?
So far this morning we have examined a key symptom of spiritual illness in Rehoboam’s life: “He rejected the advice the elders gave.” But why did this happen? What was the root problem that caused this man, who inherited the most powerful kingdom of his day, to crash and burn?
Disease: Rehoboam did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord.
When we consult the account in 2 Chronicles 11, we learn some additional facts about Rehoboam. First. we learn that …
Rehoboam started off fairly well. Aside from that initial foolish decision to raise taxes and treat the people harshly, with the resultant loss of over 80% of his kingdom, Rehoboam actually had a fairly good beginning to his reign. He built up the towns, fortified the cities, and strengthened their defenses. Even more importantly, when Jeroboam became King of the Northern tribes, many of the godly people abandoned the north, headed to Judah, and thus came under Rehoboam’s rule. Here’s what we read in 2 Chron 11:
The priests and Levites from all their districts throughout Israel sided with Rehoboam. The Levites even abandoned their pasturelands and property, and came to Judah and Jerusalem because Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them as priests of the LORD. And he appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat and calf idols he had made. Those from every tribe of Israel who set their hearts on seeking the LORD, the God of Israel, followed the Levites to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to the LORD, the God of their fathers. They strengthened the kingdom of Judah and supported Rehoboam son of Solomon three years, walking in the ways of David and Solomon during this time. (2 Chronicles 11:13-17)
That’s really encouraging! Not only priests but also lay people were willing to give up their land and all their possessions to support Rehoboam. You know, there may come a time when God will call us to put our money where our mouth is, to forsake position and possessions to strengthen a minority who are faithful to God. We can be sure of one thing–when we seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness, God has ways of adding to us all we need–and not just for three years but for good!
Unfortunately, Rehoboam did not follow through on his good beginning.
He made the same mistakes his father made. First and foremost, among his errors was a casual attitude toward the institution of marriage. In the very next paragraph in 2 Chronicles 11 we read that Rehoboam first married Mahalath, then Maacah, and eventually 18 wives and sixty concubines in all. Now that’s not in the same league as his father Solomon, but clearly he was heading in the same dangerous direction. Furthermore. in the last verse of the chapter, we learn that he took many wives for his sons. Second,…
He replaced the gold shields with bronze ones, pretending that nothing had changed. I want you to turn to a very interesting account in 2 Chronicles 12.
After Rehoboam’s position as king was established and he had become strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the LORD. Because they had been unfaithful to the LORD, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem in the fifth year of King Rehoboam. With twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen and the innumerable troops of Libyans, Sukkites and Cushites that came with him from Egypt, he captured the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem. Then the prophet Shemaiah came to Rehoboam and to the leaders of Judah who had assembled in Jerusalem for fear of Shishak, and he said to them, “This is what the LORD says, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak.'” (2 Chron 12:1-5)
Friends, when the Lord says, “I will abandon you,” you’re in trouble. Fortunately, He only says that to those who have already abandoned Him. Rehoboam and his leaders recognize the dangerous situation they are in, so they humble themselves before the Lord. And when the Lord sees that, He informs the prophet that He will not allow Shishak to destroy Jerusalem after all, but He will allow the Israelites to become subjects of the Egyptian monarch for a very specific purpose: “so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands.” (2 Chron 12:8)
Archaeologists have verified the key points of this account. In Karnak in Egypt they found a temple which records the campaign of this powerful Pharaoh and a list of the cities he destroyed in Judah–150 of them. He came right up to the gates of Jerusalem and it was only by allowing him to clean out the treasury that Rehoboam was able to survive.
He took everything, including the gold shields Solomon had made. So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace. Whenever the king went to the Lord’s temple, the guards went with him, bearing the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom. (2 Chronicles 12:9-11)
If you were here last Sunday, you remember the mention of the incredible gold furnishings that were in the temple. Among them were 500 golden shields which Solomon had made. They were intended to be symbols of the glory of God and His protection over His people. Shishak took them back to Egypt.
But the most interesting part of the story is that Rehoboam apparently tried to cover up this disastrous loss so that the common people would not realize how devastating his defeat really was. So he fabricated bronze shields to look like gold shields. One writer observes convincingly,
On state occasions they were brought out and used in the royal parade when he went up to the temple to worship. Then they were taken back and hidden in the guards’ rooms. Solomon had displayed his shields openly in his house and in the Lord’s house. Rehoboam hid these shields in the guardhouse. Do you know why? Because bronze tarnishes. They would start to turn green, and anyone who would look at them would think, “What has happened to the gold shields?” Then the cat would be out of the bag and they would realize that Rehoboam had sold out, and that the glory of Israel was gone.4
Immediately following this account, the author of 2 Chronicles damns Rehoboam with faint praise: “Because Rehoboam humbled himself, the Lord’s anger turned from him, and he was not totally destroyed. Indeed, there was some good in Judah.” That’s really sad when all God can say is that there was some good among His chosen people. They weren’t totally corrupt, so they would not be totally destroyed. Then just a few verses later King Rehoboam’s life is summed up as follows: “He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord.” What does that mean? At the very least it means he had other priorities. The affairs of state took precedence over spiritual pursuits. You never find Rehoboam praying, and very rarely consulting the Lord through the prophets. He was obsessed with political alliances and protecting his northern flank from Jeroboam.
I close with application concerning the disease of Rehoboam.
Application: Anytime we fail to set our hearts on seeking the Lord, we are well on our way to spiritual failure.
I want to try to apply this truth to our hearts by responding to each of the points we made a few moments ago about Rehoboam. We observed first that he started off fairly well.
God is not impressed with good beginnings. There are many in Scripture who started off well but did not end well. The spiritual life, friends, is for the long haul. That’s why the true heroes of the Bible are people like Abraham, Caleb, Deborah, David, John Mark, Priscilla, and Paul. None of them ran the race perfectly. In fact, nearly all of them committed grievous sins. But they didn’t quit; they didn’t allow their failures to be final. They pressed on to the end.
In contrast, there were also many who started out in a blaze of glory but crashed and burned when the going got tough. The paradigm example is Demas, of whom Paul wrote in 2 Tim 4:10, “Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.” We need to pay attention to Psalm 119:112: “My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.”
The second point we made about Rehoboam is that “He made the same mistakes his father made.”
Our children will rarely surpass us spiritually. That’s a scary thought, but there’s a lot of evidence for it. There’s something in the book of Kings and Chronicles that stands out like a sore thumb. It’s sometimes called the Second Generation Syndrome. With rare exception, children seem to minimize the spiritual commitment of their parents and maximize their mistakes. That puts a tremendous responsibility on us as parents to live authentic Christian lives in the home. Nothing destroys the faith of a child faster or more thoroughly than seeing a huge gap between what a parent professes and what he or she practices. It is incumbent upon us to make sure we pass on a living faith, not just a set of doctrines.
The third point we made is that he replaced the gold shields with bronze ones, pretending nothing had changed.
The glory always fades when we live inauthentic lives, fake lives. Pastor David Roper asks,
What happens when for some reason or other we turn our back on the Lord and that relationship is marred? Well, he doesn’t leave …. But the glory begins to fade. We begin to feel ourselves becoming irritable and irresponsible and hard to live with. We start yelling at the kids and at our spouses, and we get anxious and troubled and worried and negative and frustrated. We rub people the wrong way.
It occurs to us that we ought not to be that way, and we certainly don’t want to give that impression. So we fabricate the righteousness of God. We make a cheap imitation. We try by self-effort to be patient and kind and loving. We drag out our bronze shields. But do you know what happens to bronze shields? They tarnish. They corrode,… because we can’t sustain by self-effort the righteousness of God.5
Is there any sense in which you are faking it today? Attending worship, mouthing the right words, but you know in your heart you’re just going through the motions. There’s no time like right now, friend, to be honest with yourself and with God. Come clean with Him; tell Him you’ve had enough of just going through religious rites and rituals; ask the Holy Spirit to come in and clean house.
End well, pass on the faith to your children, live authentic lives. Those are truths God wants us to learn from the sad life of Rehoboam, King of Judah.
Conclusion: One last thought. How differently would the life of both Rehoboam and the whole nation of Israel have turned out if there were just a couple of words changed in his epitaphs, if it said, “He listened to the advice the elders gave,” and “He did right because he set his heart on seeking the Lord.” How will your epitaph read?
DATE: April 21, 2002
Tags:
Elders
Arrogance
Second Generation Syndrome
1. God also made some promises to Jeroboam:
“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 will give Israel to you. I will humble David’s descendants because of this, but not forever.” (1 Kings 11:38-39)
Notice what God does not say. He does not tell Jeroboam, “If you are smart and pursue good public policy, or if you use your talents wisely, or if you make political alliances with the right nations, or if you choose your advisors carefully, I will be with you.” Rather, it is “if you are obedient to me, as David was, I will be with you.” Frankly, I think that’s the same message God gives us today. He is not ultimately concerned about our leadership style or our programs or our facilities or even our vision–he’s concerned about our hearts and our obedience.
2. Thomas Pinckney, The Sin of Jeroboam, sermon preached at Community Bible Church in Williamstown MA on 11/5/00.
3. There are, of course, exceptions to the principle that the advice of elders should be followed. Parents sometimes abuse their children, old men in society can be as corrupt as young men, and even elders in the church are sometimes abusive. The only absolutely sure guide for our lives is the Word of God. However, there should be a presumption in favor of the counsel of our elders. We should follow it unless we have strong biblical reasons for rejecting it. Rehoboam certainly did not have godly reasons.
4. David Roper, Rehoboam, sermon preached on November 11, 1973, 5. See website of Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, CA.