1 Kings

The book of 1 Kings.

12. Rehoboam Becomes King; The Kingdom Divided

1 Samuel 12:19 And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.” 20 And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 21 And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. 22 For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. 23 Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. 24 Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you. 25 But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”

Our sin gets us into trouble as individuals. Sin also gets entire countries into trouble. The only way out is repentance and the love of God. In the modern day, the believing church (regardless of their nationality) is the people God has made for himself. If those of us in the church don’t fear God and serve him faithfully with all our heart, we can’t count on anything we do in this life lasting. Instead we’ll just have rotten fruit to be swept away. Don’t set your heart on empty things that lead away from God. Remember the great things God has done for you!

For the Israelites, it was in some ways too late. The first king chosen, Saul, sinned against God and had his blessing taken away.

13. The Man of God and the Idolatry of Jeroboam

1 Sam 13:13 And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”

Here we learn an important principle: the ruler who keeps God’s commands perfectly will win an eternal kingdom.

We should sympathize with Saul here. God, too, has called us to be kings and rulers in some sense. And yet we’ve broken his commandments anyway. Thankfully, our hope doesn’t rest on our own ability to keep those commandments. God has given an eternal kingdom to Christ — he is the ruler who keeps God’s commands perfectly. And he shares that kingdom with us by our faith.

Saul decided that he didn’t want to obey when God commanded him to destroy the good things of the Amalekites. He wanted to keep some things for himself, and figured he could make it up to God with a token sacrifice. That’s uncomfortably close to the sort of deals we try to make up all the time. We think “I can disobey God a little bit here but I’ll make it up to him by doing something else good.” That’s the sort of sin you lose your kingdom over.

15. Reigns of Abijam and Asa in Judah

1 Sam 15:22 And Samuel said,

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,

    as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,

    and to listen than the fat of rams.

23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,

    and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,

    he has also rejected you from being king.”

Don’t presume that you can come up with your own way to please God when you are rebelling against the things he has plainly stated in the scriptures. It’s not wrong to desire some power and authority, since that’s part of what we’re called to as men, but obeying God is the only way we can hope to hold onto it. God has taken away entire kingdoms before from disobedient men—why should you be surprised if he takes something small away from you?

Discussion Questions

Is there anything we see out in the world that unbelievers have that we’re tempted to envy?

When we fail to follow God’s commands, does he always take away our authority like he did with Saul?

(Sin has consequences. A business owner still remains a business owner when he sins; a father still remains a father when he sins… usually. But at a certain point enough unconfessed sin can accumulate that the business is lost, or a family gets broken apart.)

What does it mean for us to be men after God’s own heart?

16. Reigns of the Kings of Israel

We want good leadership from strong, wise men because we want to be part of the winning team. However, sometimes God picks for us the kind of person that we didn’t expect. We have to serve under them with humility regardless.

After God issued the judgment that Saul was no longer worthy to rule his people, he sent the prophet Samuel to Jesse of Bethlehem to choose one of his sons to be the new king.

1 Samuel 16

6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” … 10 And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen these.” 11 Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.” 12 And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.

As in other passages of scripture, here we see that God does not necessarily follow the typical order of the world. Yes, there is a special blessing that goes to the firstborn. But it pleases God sometimes to choose those who are last in the line-up, as with Joseph and his brothers.

It’s fascinating that just after the passage says that God looks on the heart rather than the outward appearance, it still mentions how handsome and lively David was. That can be a valuable part of leadership, and we shouldn’t underestimate it even though it doesn’t always work that way.

David was now chosen by God to rule over all the people. But he was not given the kingship right away. He still had to prove himself through many tests and to constantly humble himself before the persecution of Saul.

We should bear this in mind when we think about God’s promises towards us. God has promised that Christ will reign forever and his saints will reign with him. But, in the process of us of receiving a kingly inheritance, just like David and Jesus, we may still have to face a life full of oppression, humiliation, fugitive wandering, and betrayal all the way there.

We may have to work under people that we don’t respect or who are even malicious towards us. God may have rulers and authorities in place who do things that we don’t like. We still need to serve humbly in these scenarios even if we think deep down, “I could do better.” You can’t be any better of a man or more chosen than David was. But he was still humble towards Saul.