So we're still going to be thinking
about the book of Kings, 1 Kings, but here's a few verses in Daniel
chapter 4 that I just wanted to leave with you. And it's in
verse 34, and it's at a time in the experience of a man called
King Nebuchadnezzar. He was king of Babylon. He was one of the mightiest kings
of the mightiest empires that ever existed. And he became very
much aware of the hand of God in his life. This is what he
says in Daniel chapter 4 verse 34. At the end of the days, I,
Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding
returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised
and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is everlasting
dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation.
and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing
and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and
among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand
or say unto him what doest thou. We're going to be thinking again
about the lives of the kings in the early chapters of 1 Kings
and with respect to the nation of Judah and Israel. And today's lesson covers a time
period of about 45 years in the timescale of these two nations,
Israel and Judah. And I'm going to be speaking
today about the kings that reigned in Judah and Israel up until
the time of Elijah the prophet. And we're going to be introduced
to Elijah next week, God willing. And in a sense, that brings us
to a new period in the history of Israel, the period of the
speaking prophets, the declarative prophets. It really means Elijah
and Elisha. and it distinguishes them from
the prophets who wrote their books. There were prophets who
spoke and there were prophets who wrote. But that's for another
day. I want to lead us into the period
of Elijah by making reference to a number of kings and we're
kind of going to gather them all together today. Elijah will
come next week, God willing. But here again, we remind ourselves
that after the breakup of David's kingdom, when his son Solomon
died, Rehoboam, Solomon's son, reigned in Judah. He reigned
in Jerusalem over the tribe of Judah. And that was called the
Southern Kingdom. And another man, Jeroboam, he
ruled over Israel, or the northern tribes. So the children of Israel
divided into different tribal groups. And Jeroboam was over
the northern tribes. Rehoboam was over the tribe of
Judah. a few portions of some smaller
tribes as well. Now, of course, the history then
of these two kingdoms diverged. Different kings came to power. Different alliances were made
with the nations around about. Some kings ruled for a while. Then they died or they were slain
by rivals and they were replaced. So in a sense, it becomes a little
bit more difficult when we begin to come into this section of
the history of Israel because there's two different stories
then begin to unfold. The history of the kings of Judah
and the history of the kings of the northern tribes, the kings
of Israel. As we go on in the Old Testament
scriptures, we will discover that the history of these two
nations do indeed diverge, even to the point where one nation
is overcome by an enemy and taken into exile, and the other continues
on for a period. We find that Jerusalem and Samaria
begin to be mentioned as the two capital cities of these respective
places. So there's two histories now
running side by side as it were. And over these 45 years that
we are going to be thinking about today, the south, Judah, had
two kings. Israel, in the north, had six
different kings. Now, I don't expect you to remember
these names. I'm going to mention them, but
they're not really very useful to you unless you're doing a
Bible word search or looking for answers for a Bible quiz,
and then they're the kind of facts that you might want to
know. But in truth, most of these men
are not at all memorable. Their reigns were often brief.
The men themselves were often wicked and invariably violent. The exception is King Asa of
Judah. So let's look at Judah first
of all. Judah was I'm sure you'll remember,
the house of David and Solomon. And over the years, the nation
was often blessed by the Lord with good kings for David's sake. So not exclusively, but in the
main, the southern tribes, the kingdom of Judah, tended to have
better kings and the reason for that is that God honoured David's
memory by giving them good kings. That said, it didn't actually
get off to a very good start, as you may remember, because
Rehoboam, Solomon's son, was a poor king, as was the first
king after Rehoboam. This was a man called Abijah,
and he was Rehoboam's son. He reigned for only three years,
and we read that he walked in all the sins of his father. Despite his wickedness, however,
the Lord did not take the kingdom from his family. Although he
only reigned three years, the Lord allowed his son, Asa, to
reign after him. And actually, Asa was a good
king, and he reigned for 41 years. So he is the longest serving
of these kings by a good distance. And we're told that Asa did that
which was right in the eyes of the Lord. King Asa took the temple
worship of the Lord seriously. Remember, he was reigning in
Jerusalem, where the Temple of Solomon was. And during his reign,
he tried to remove the idols that had become established since
the time of Solomon. Solomon introduced, or at least
Solomon's wives introduced these idols. Rehoboam and Abijah had
allowed them to stay. Asa tried to remove them as much
as he could and he tried to rid the land of the idols even up
to the palace where he destroyed his mother's idols and he banished
or put to death the immoral sodomites who inhabited the groves and
the high places where idolatry was practiced. And Asa has gone
down in history as a good king. He was zealous in maintaining
the true worship of God and Judah was blessed to have him rule
and benefited, the people of Judah benefited from the reforms
that he instituted. The Lord gave him and his people
prosperity. His son, Jehoshaphat, ruled in
his place when he died following his long reign. But we'll come
to him another time. Over that same period in the
north, in Israel, it was much different. The nation's independence
from the House of David and Solomon had started badly when Jeroboam
instituted idolatry as the state religion in order to discourage
people from travelling to Jerusalem to worship God at the temple.
On Jeroboam's death, Nadab, his son, became king, but it was
a short reign. Like his father, Nadab too did
evil in the sight of the Lord. He led the army of Israel to
besiege a Philistine town. But a conspiracy broke out in
his army and he was slain by a man called Basha after only
two years. The assassination of Nadab was
followed by the murder of his whole house. And so that great
Ephraimite family became extinct. Basha reigned for 24 years, and
we're told he did evil in the sight of the Lord. He actually
waged war with Asa in the south, in the house of David in Judah. He waged war with Asa in Judah,
but he was defeated when Asa formed an alliance with Syria. And when Basha died, Aela, his
son, became king. But he was no better behaved
than his father. And Elah's reign was also cut
short after two years by a man called Zimri, who was one of
his soldiers who killed him while he was drunk in his palace at
Tirzah. These kings of Israel were poor
examples to their people indeed. And also we find that Zimri's
family was slain, I'm sorry, Ella's family was slain with
him by this man called Zimri. If Zimri hoped to be king, he
was in for a shock. He reigned for only seven days
and the army refused to follow him and instead elected its general,
a man called Omri, as king instead. And Omri attacked Tirza, the
royal city where Zimri had now established himself. And Zimri
knew that all was lost, so he set fire to the palace there
in Tirza, and he died in the flames and in the ruins of that
palace. However, not everyone agreed
that Omri should be king now. And a period of civil war broke
out in the northern tribes when another man called Tibni claimed
the throne as well. And Omri was only able to reign
in his own right after four years of war with Tibni. Omri went
on to reign 11 years in all and he made his capital Samaria. which was where he died. And
we read that Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the Lord and did
worse than all that were before him, which was really quite an
epitaph to have on anyone's tomb. All of the bad kings that Israel
had had, Omri was the worst of them all. He was succeeded. Maybe he was worst only until
his son, but he was succeeded by his son Ahab, who was king
with his queen Jezebel during the time when Elijah was the
prophet in Israel. So we're going to be thinking
about this man Ahab and Jezebel and Elijah in the weeks to come. But these were then the kings
of Judah and Israel. And it was about this time when
Ahab came to the throne that Esau died in Judah as well. Do you remember him? He was the
one we spoke about right at the beginning. And Jehoshaphat, his
son, came to the throne in Jerusalem. So what can we learn about all
of these names and all of these men and what happened in these
two countries at this time? Well, here's one lesson at least.
Where the Lord was honoured, the people prospered. And in
fact, that was true throughout the history of the Old Testament
times. When God's way was rejected,
when idolatry was practised, then the people suffered and
judgment came upon the nation. The Lord had told Eli, Eli was
the high priest, many years before at the time of Samuel. The Lord
had told Eli, And that principle had been repeated to Solomon,
you may remember, But the witness of Scripture
and the testimony of experience is that man's evil nature always
runs to idolatrous behaviour. We always forget God. We trust
in our own strength. We do not, we will not honour
God. Mankind in his natural condition,
in his natural state. And many people today think that
if we can change society, if we can enforce reformation of
morals, then we can make our nations better. And there might
be some short term benefits that can come from this way of doing
things. Some people even think that if
we can restore Old Testament laws, we can make our country
great again. No, it won't. It won't because
men and women, boys and girls, will not honour God with their
deeds. They will not because they cannot. Only with hearts, only by faith
is God honoured. It is regeneration, not reformation,
that is needed. And it's not the job of the church
to enforce conformity to Bible law. That just won't do. It won't
work. It won't achieve what we might
hope it will. Rather, it is the job of the
church to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and ask the Lord
to convert sinners. Only changed hearts produce changed
lives. Only those born again from above
will ever truly please God. And that which is born of the
flesh is flesh. You must be born again from above
with spiritual life in Jesus Christ. Here's another lesson
that we might learn. There was relative prosperity
in Judah for a few decades, and there was, at the same time,
disruption in Israel. Nevertheless, the Lord had his
people in both places. The Lord had his people who were
true believers and stayed faithful to his word in both places. So when there was a good king
like Asa on the throne under Yusulam and he was trying to
get rid of the idols in the land, there were the Lord's people
in Judah. And while there was open wickedness
and idolatry, In Israel, still the Lord had his people there
who stayed faithful to his word. I sometimes worry what the world
is going to be like when some of you young people grow up. And yet it is enough for us to
trust the Lord. The Lord's people live through
wars. The Lord's people live through
plagues. The Lord's people live through
poverty and distress. And they continue to trust their
Saviour despite their hardships, despite their troubles. They
did in Israel during these 45 years of wicked kings. They continued to trust the Lord.
And we're going to be thinking about this a little later. Nothing,
no one can separate us from the love of God, even the worst rulers,
even the worst governors. Through it all, the Lord protects
and provides and does his church and does his people good. He
always has his faithful few in every place. There will be those who do not
bend the knee, who he keeps faithful. Kingdoms rise, kingdoms fall. Nations prosper, nations diminish. There really is only one kingdom
worth being part of, and that is the kingdom of God by faith
in Jesus Christ. And Christ's kingdom will prosper
forever and it will outlast all the kingdoms of men. Here's the
third point that I want to leave with you and then I'm done. Maybe
you wonder why are these Old Testament accounts useful at
all? Well I think they're useful for
this reason. They teach us that ultimately
It's not what kings do or what generals do or what governments
do that matters. Most of these men whose names
I've mentioned today were just self-serving fools. What is important is what will
you do and what will I do with my life. and especially what
will we do with the Lord Jesus Christ. If you wish your life
to matter in this world, to mean something, then you must trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Very few people know the difference
between King Asa and King Basha. And I don't think that you will
remember very much very soon either. Most people don't know
the difference between Asa and Basha. But one of those men is
in heaven today and the other one is in hell. They have been
in their respective places for 3,000 years and they will be
there. forevermore. Asa trusted God
through the Lord Jesus Christ and Basha provoked the Lord to
anger. Asa approached God by a blood
sacrifice with an eye to Christ. Basha couldn't care less about
properly worshipping God. Asa is in heaven, Basha is in
hell. May the Lord give us grace to
trust him like Asa did and not to die in our sins as did Basha. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us all today. Amen.