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Pride Before the Fall: The Rise and Ruin of Rehoboam · Wetumpka Church of Christ Online

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All right. Good morning, everybody.
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So we're having a few technical difficulties.
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I think it's probably user error on my part, so I apologize for
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that. But we're going to look at the
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story of Ribboam today. And I guess you know, the the
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predictable lesson we're going to get from him is pride goes
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before fall. So Proverbs 1618 is kind of the
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theme of our Bible class this morning.
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But there's a couple of places where his story appears.
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Of course, you guys know already probably that Chronicles does a
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lot of the covers a lot of the same ground as Samuel and Kings,
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but it does add some things as well.
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And so if you're ever reading through Samuel or Chronicles or
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something like that or Samuel or Kings and you want to see
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there's just a little bit more, go to Chronicles.
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And it usually has, you know, maybe something you're here
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there that will supplement what the other biblical writers are
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talking about. And, and so if you want to go to
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1st Kings 1211, that's where we're going to be spending a lot
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of our time this morning. I'm sorry, First Kings 12, how
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to write the first time. So first Kings 12, first Kings
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12 and talking about Reboam. So, yes, so Reboam is he for a
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very brief time, seems like just a matter of just maybe just days
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is one of the kings of the United monarchy.
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We usually don't include him, though, because it's so short.
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He splits the Kingdom. So, you know, I don't really get
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any credit for that. But but he he is very foolish,
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right? Which is sort of is sort of out
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of character because David seems to be fairly wise.
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Solomon seems to be wise, even though he doesn't really use it
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always. Riobomb seems to be very foolish
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and so is his son. So, so you see that sort of
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taking over in the in the, in the kings of Judah from this
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point on. And of course, there's our verse
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there. Pride goes before destruction
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and the haughty spirit before a fall.
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And there's actually two things. There's actually two stories
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that we're going to talk about with Riobomb, because the one
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with him splitting the Kingdom, probably most of us know that
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one pretty well. But then there's the other one
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where where the Egyptian pharaoh Shishak invades and plunders the
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country. And that was really interesting.
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I mentioned that one last week and I said that there was
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evidence of Solomon's wealth in the archaeological record.
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And we're going to talk a little bit about that because when
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Shishak invades and it gets a little convoluted, we'll kind of
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like work our way through that. But when he invades, he actually
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plunders the Kingdom, takes it back to Egypt and records how
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much he gives to the Egyptian temples.
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That seems to be loot that he stole mainly from the nation of
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Israel and maybe some some other outlying places, but mainly from
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Israel. And so it indirectly tells us
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how much wealth Solomon really had because the Bible is very
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clear. He's very wealthy.
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And and then where Israel was situated, you got trade routes
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going from Egypt to Asia Minor over to Mesopotamia.
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And so they're at a crossroads of trade routes.
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And so it would have been very wealthy Kingdom.
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We've actually got evidence of that can almost we'll see that
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closer toward the end of end of class.
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But here we've got our example of Rhea Boehm.
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And when you start out with the story, he starts out wanting to
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do something kind of like Saul, right?
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Saul started decently. He seems to be humble.
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He's worried about the burden of kingship.
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So he's right. He's hiding when everybody goes
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and gets him and he's he's made king.
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And and then it says that he goes and when he finds talented
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people, he brings them into his administration.
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OK, So he's a he's a good administrator.
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And then like he totally goes off the rails after that.
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But he starts out OK and Rehoboam, his beginning is it
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starts out sort of OK, but it goes off the rails a lot faster,
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right? So, so that is not an
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improvement. You know, as as far as you know,
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we're what we're looking at with the kings here.
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So they go to Shechem, everybody goes to Shechem to make him king
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as soon as Jeroboam. This is chapter 12, verse two of
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First Kings. As soon as Jeroboam, the son of
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Nevat heard it, for he was still in Egypt where he had fled from
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King Solomon, and Jeroboam returned from Egypt, right?
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So Jeroboam's already been told he's got a bright future, right?
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So he's going to be involved in all these proceedings.
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They sent called him Jeroboam, and all the assembly of Israel
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came to Reboam. Your father made our yoke heavy.
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Now, therefore, lighten the hard service of your father and his
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heavy yoke on us and we will serve you.
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He said to them, go away for three days and come again to me.
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So the people went away and now he's going to go get advice,
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right? So hey, that's good, right?
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You want good advice. Every leader, wise leader has
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advisors. So it's like, OK, well, this is
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maybe not so bad. The only thing is though, when
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it says your father made our yoke heavy, we're already
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starting to see in Solomon. We actually see a little bit of
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it with David is that Samuel warned everybody in First Samuel
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8. He warns everybody, if you want
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a king, this is what's going to happen, right?
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And So what he says is why don't we, why don't we go over there
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and look at that. So First Samuel chapter 8, Now
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Samuel's hot, right? He is, he's pretty upset about
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this. And God asked to remind him, hey
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man, you just simmer down. They've actually rejected me,
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not you. And so so first Samuel 8
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starting in verse 11, he said these will be the ways of the
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king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and
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appoint them to his Chariots and to be his horsemen and to run
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before his Chariots. And he will appoint for himself
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commanders of thousands and commanders of 50s, and some to
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plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his
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implements of war and the equipment of his Chariots.
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He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and
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bakers. He will take the best of your
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fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his
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servants. He will take a tenth of your
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grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to
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his servants. He will take your male servants
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and female servants and the best of your young men and your
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donkeys and put them to his work.
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He will take the 10th of your flocks and you shall be his
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slaves. And in that day you will cry out
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because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves.
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But the Lord will not answer you in that day.
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So you will get what you asked for.
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So, and that is exactly what happens, right?
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Because now with David, you know, and, and I think we see
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parallel. I'll, I'll make a couple of
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parallels with American history. So, you know, wherever and I
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think government sort of works like this in history, wherever
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government will take something, it will, right?
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Wherever government has room to grow, it will.
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And that's exactly what you see here.
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And that's exactly what the Israelite king monarchy does,
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right? So David starts out, it's not or
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Saul starts out, it's not so bad, you know, like he's got his
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guys. He doesn't seem to have a big
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palace. He doesn't seem to have a huge
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administration, right? He kind of, there's one place in
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his, in his reign, he holds court at Gibeah like under a
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tree like this. This is not like the fanciest
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place in the world. And so things haven't blown up,
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right? He doesn't have this big
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bureaucracy yet. David gets a little bit more
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right because things are kind of starting to become more like all
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the kings around them who had all these things, right?
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And then you get to Solomon and I don't remember if I mentioned
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this last time, but when you look at there's three different
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places, and I want to say it's Second Samuel and Kings, where
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when you see lists of government officials, the list gets bigger
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every time. So government is growing, right?
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And so that's that's what it does.
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And so you look at our nation's history and things seem to be
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very simple at 1st. And then, you know, get the
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income tax added. And now it's like oppressive in
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a lot of places and taxes and more government and more
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officers and more people and more overhead and more
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bureaucracy. And that's what you get is
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Solomon, I'm sorry, Samuel is warning them about this.
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He's warning them about all of this stuff.
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This is what's going to happen. You know, you're going to have
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his, he's going to take your people.
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He's going to take your children.
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He's going to put them into domestic works and he's going to
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use them for military. You can use all this stuff's
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going to happen because this is what you see.
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All the kings and all the governments around Israel, you
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know this, this is how it works. And the people are like the
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people refuse to obey the voice of Samuel.
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They said no, but there shall be a king over this, that we may
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also be like all the nation. That's what you know.
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So we have this king and they probably have in mind all the
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good things that the king does. Why he's going to leave us out
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in the battle and he's going to do, you know, these things We
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get we need somebody who's important.
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You need to be the face of the country.
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People rarely think about all the negative things that come
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along with this stuff. They're like, oh, here's all the
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good things about this idea. And they kind of short sell all
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the bad stuff, but it doesn't go away.
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Like it's still there and it and it and it always comes up.
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And so you've got this with the government in Israel.
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So Solomon starts growing things, the bureaucracy gets
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bigger and bigger, and eventually you get to Rehoboam
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and it's kind of blossomed a little bit.
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And so when we get to this guy, the people come to him.
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They say your father made our yoke heavy.
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Now, therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his
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heavy yoke on us and we will serve you.
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OK, So Solomon did exactly what Samuel predicted they would do,
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right? And so now he says, OK, give me
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3 days. I want to ask my guys here and
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then we'll, we'll sort of figure all this stuff out.
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And so he goes and he asks this one group and, and the, the
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elderly, it says the old men. I, I don't think that's a,
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that's a negative thing. That's just saying that, you
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know, the older you get, the wiser you get.
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I mean, ideally, right, the older you get, the wiser you
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get. If you're if you're incredibly
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foolish person, you don't always make it to old age.
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And so the it's like I think I mentioned it in here that this
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meme that goes around on Facebook, you know, the leading
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cause of death in old men is thinking that they're young men,
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right. So, you know, yeah, that tends
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to weed some of us out, I guess. But he's.
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But the old guys, the, I'm sorry, the wise, the wise guys,
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that's not even better. So the elderly guys who have
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wisdom say that if you will be all right, if you will be a
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servant to this people at today and serve them and speak good
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words to them when you answer them, they will be your servant
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forever, right. And, and this kind of gets into
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like this idea of servant leadership.
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So you see it maybe like a, a something similar to that here.
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You see that a lot, I think with Jesus.
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I think, I think you see that in Jesus.
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And you know, the corporate world seems to at least in the
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last maybe decade or two, really seems to have that have taken up
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the idea of servant leadership and like helping your employees,
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you know, helping them make the most out of their talents and
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stuff. And it's like, it's like, oh,
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yeah, this, this is really a great leadership style.
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I'm like, yeah, Jesus did it like 2000 years ago.
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This is not a surprise to us. But but you see, it's sort of
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like, you know, just, hey, you know, if you just ease up a
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little bit, just give them a little bit of breathing room,
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hey, they'll be yours, right? Well, he says very next verse.
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But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and
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took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and
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stood before him. OK, does anybody see a problem
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already? Anticipate a problem here.
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Well, you still got the old guys.
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Now you're adding new guys. So the government is growing.
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That's part of. The OK tons of advisors, yeah.
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Well, he went to. Another group because he didn't
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get the answer that he really wanted.
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I mean, if you if you really, if they need a counsel and you're
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like, well, that's good counseling.
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Well, good. Can you do that?
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He went to his buds because he wanted.
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He wanted. Them to say what he wanted.
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Yeah, yeah. In fact, it says he he he didn't
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weigh it. He abandoned it or rejected it
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like depending on what your translation says in verse 8.
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He in ESV says he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave
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him. Right.
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So this is like, OK, this sounds OK.
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I'm going to go talk to my my friends over here and see what
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they have to say. And for them, of course they say
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thus you shall speak to this people who said to you, your
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father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us.
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These guys, you just need to show them who's boss, right?
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So you shall say to them, my little finger is thicker than my
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father's thighs. And now whereas my father laid
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on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke.
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My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you
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with scorpions. I think literally it's and I, I
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think the King James is, is more literal here.
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I, my father whipped you with whips, but I will whip you with
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scorpions, right? And so he doesn't mean this
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literally. Like he's going to go like go to
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a scorpion nest and go, you know, get stuff.
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This is he's going to double down on them.
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He's really going to show them who's boss.
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He's going to tighten the screws.
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And that sounds very good to a maybe younger, reckless, foolish
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person. He's just starting his
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administration. He wants his his signature style
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to be front and center. And so he says, I'm not a person
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that you mess with, right? I'm the guys that that's in
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charge. How dare you come to me and ask
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me to, you know, lighten things up for you, you bunch of, you
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know, lazy people. I'm going to let you have it.
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And and so that's his that's his advice to them.
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Or that's that's the advice that his his younger friends give
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him, right. That sounds, that sounds maybe
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like someone who hasn't had a lot of lived life experience,
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right. Maybe not a lot of wisdom
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because one of the things that often is, is so, and I, and I
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think it's part of the genius of Christianity is when you are
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good to people, it is empowering to them and it inspires loyalty
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in others, right? And I, and I think that this
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isn't, this isn't the reason or the only reason why Christianity
16:36
is like this, but Christianity is, it's a very other centered
16:41
religion more so than anything else I think on earth.
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And I, and I think that's one of the distinguishing
16:45
characteristics of Christianity is it is other centered.
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It is other because again, you guys have heard me probably say
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this before. Look at all the beatitudes.
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Look at all of the fruit of the spirit, right?
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You look at the virtues of Christianity and you have to
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pray. They, they, they cannot be
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practiced for yourself. The highest and noblest way to
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put those qualities into practice is for somebody else's
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benefits, right? And that's, that's, that's very
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inspiring. And it's, it's loyal loyalty
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building when you when we do that.
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Well, Jeroboam comes along, says he answered that people harshly
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forsook the counsel the old men had given him, spoke to them,
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according to the counsel of the young men and basically repeats
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what he what these guys told him.
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And then there's this curious little note that we're going to
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find later on at the very end of of a lot of this.
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And that is that he has a wife, he has a mother who is an
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Ammonite Princess, right? So it reminds me of another
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foreign born Princess by the name of Jezebel.
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So, so if you remember, if you remember the story, right,
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you've got Ahabi Watts, they bought Vineyard and we'll talk
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about this in a few weeks. He wants an A boss vineyard,
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right? He wants it for a vegetable
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garden and a boss like, hey, man, I can't sell it.
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It's family property. Actually, you know, the law
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actually says that I'm not, I'm not really even permitted to
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sell it. It has to stay in my family.
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This is this is important. This is part of who we are as
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Israelites. And to his credits, partially
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Ahab, he doesn't like do anything, you know, he just go
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homes and pounce, right? So like you got this like man,
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baby, who goes home and he hasn't got his way, but Jezebel
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comes in, she's like, oh, this is not how we do things back
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home. And so she sets up a couple of
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guys to frame Naboth, get him killed.
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And all of a sudden Ahab's got his vegetable garden.
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So, so you've got another, another foreign born Princess
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who knows nothing of the ways of the law of Moses, who knows
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nothing about apparently the God of Israel, you know, and
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Ammonite would not worship God. Ammonite would worship Ammon.
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That was the national God of the Ammonites.
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And so this is how this is how things are done in other
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countries. This is the influence that we've
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got here with this guy. You know, I'm going to let you
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know who's in charge. I'm going to let you know that
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I'm the boss. OK.
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Now the Kingdom, of course, is going to be divided after this
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and the next few verses. Tell us, tell us about that.
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The response is what portion do we have in David?
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This is gun verse 16. We have no inheritance in the
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son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel.
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Look now to your own house, David.
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So Israel went to their tent. So they've got the fracture of
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the northern Kingdom. The problem is Rhea Bohm should
19:57
have seen this coming. Rhea Bohm is not just foolish,
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he's also not maybe not very bright either.
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Because. And I realize maybe he'd, you
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know, we have a benefit here. And I know this is a lot of
20:11
texts. If you guys want me to send you
20:12
this information, like in an e-mail or something, let me know
20:14
because this is a lot of stuff to like to write down.
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But there's all kinds of signs that there are problems in
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Israel, political problems. All right, so Joshua, 17 sons of
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Joseph complaining about their portion.
20:32
Judges 8 People from the tribe of Ephraim criticize Gideon for
20:36
not inviting them to the battle. Verse 12 Ephraim again getting
20:41
upset this time with Jephthah they actually actually fight
20:44
this time. Judges 19 civil war against the
20:49
tribe of Benjamin. Judges 5 criticizes song of
20:55
Deborah criticizes tribes that stayed home didn't come to
20:58
battle. I didn't come to help out, you
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know, get sister in the in the and his crew.
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Second Samuel 19 men of Israel and men of Judah argue over
21:08
bringing David back and putting him on the throne.
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Second Samuel 2 conflict between the Saul House of Saul and the
21:15
House of David again, get violence out of that.
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Second Samuel 20 Sheba's rebellion.
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So you've got, so you've got evidence that things politically
21:30
or not, everything's not harmonious, right?
21:33
So you've got all these things and it's like you should have
21:36
been able to see this coming, right?
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Solomon has enacted some very heavy-handed policies, taxation,
21:44
labor, getting you doing stuff that nobody's, you know, getting
21:48
you more involved. He's taking easy.
21:49
He's he's limiting your autonomy, right?
21:55
And you have the option of kind of letting that go a little bit,
21:57
relaxing things a little bit or you're going to double down on
21:59
it. Well, if you're very smart, you
22:02
know, this is not going to sit well.
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And if you've got all these problems that have already
22:06
happened, there could be consequences to that.
22:09
It's kind of like, kind of like in America prior to the Civil
22:13
War, you know, states rights was big.
22:16
You know, I, I think a lot of people today don't, don't quite
22:18
understand states rights and federal government and, and what
22:21
a what a debate it was at times in our, in our own nation's
22:26
history. So you've got three states of
22:31
the original 13 colonies have language in their state
22:38
constitution. That's if that has been
22:43
interpreted as if we want to secede, we can secede if we want
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to. And that goes back to their
22:50
original constitutions, right? So New York, Rhode Island and
22:53
Virginia are those 3. You had other debates that took
22:56
place in 1970, I'm sorry, 191797 and 1799 that talked about
23:03
states rights and all this stuff.
23:05
And there was a crisis called the nullification crisis in the
23:08
time of Andrew Jackson, where I want to say it was South
23:11
Carolina was saying they, they could actually nullify certain
23:16
federal laws and, and Jackson really got worked up over it,
23:21
right? So you've got these these issues
23:22
that are already taking place and foreign observers coming to
23:26
America are like, yeah, people in the North and people in the
23:28
South are kind of different. They're not exactly the same.
23:31
It's almost like, I want to say it was that Alexander the
23:36
Tocqueville said, it's almost like you've got two countries
23:38
here. OK.
23:40
Well, I mean, if you were a knowledgeable, intelligent
23:42
person, you could see this. And so when the Civil War comes,
23:48
it's not a surprise, right? It's it's, it's not a shock that
23:52
this would happen. And so for ancient Israel, it's
23:55
the same way you see all these now I realize Rehoboam does not
24:00
have his personal copy of the book of Judges to to carefully
24:03
read at this time. He probably has stories though,
24:07
right? Stories about what happened in
24:08
the nation's history, even if it's not maybe written down yet.
24:12
And so this is not a surprise to us that the 10 northern tribes,
24:16
despite the fact that we already know, right, Because Shamia told
24:20
Jeroboam, hey, you know, there's going to be a division coming.
24:24
You're going to take ten tries. Wait, we already know that story
24:26
as the reader. But people should have been able
24:29
to sort of anticipate this a little bit.
24:31
So Reebohm is kind of a dummy, to be honest with you.
24:35
But, I mean, I mean, OK, yeah, you kind of.
24:40
So. So this is not, you know, this
24:43
weird twist of fate. It's not a big surprise.
24:46
It's a consequence. Sometimes you see things coming,
24:49
right? If we if we pay attention to
24:50
signs and evidence, we see things coming.
24:53
And this was one of those things.
24:55
Now, what Riebaum does is he chooses to basically be deaf to
25:08
good wisdom when he hears it, right?
25:10
And pride does that. Pride makes you deaf to wisdom,
25:14
blind to consequences. OK.
25:17
And I think that this is something for us today as well
25:22
because when we kind of do what Rhea Balm did, there are there
25:28
are things that we participate in that do exactly the same
25:31
thing as he did, maybe unwittingly, right?
25:37
So when you get on Facebook, right, you get on social media,
25:43
one of the things about the algorithm is whatever you like,
25:47
whatever you look at, if you see an ad and you kind of hover over
25:50
it for a second, it registers that, right?
25:53
And it shows you more of what you want.
25:55
And so it's not really going to show you competing voices very
25:58
much. It's going to show you things
25:59
that agree with you. And one of the things that I
26:03
think makes us socially very divided as Americans today is
26:08
you get on Facebook and you hear all this stuff that agrees with
26:11
you. You're on your own little echo
26:12
chamber and you hear what you want to hear from all the people
26:15
that you already like, right? And so you, you hear this all
26:19
the time. And when somebody has a
26:21
different opinion, it's like, well, you're a weirdo.
26:23
Nobody says these things. Well, and you look at their,
26:26
their point of view and they're saying exactly what you're
26:28
saying. They hear all the stuff from
26:30
their side and all the people who agree with them.
26:31
And you have a different opinion.
26:33
And they're like, no, you're the weirdo.
26:35
You're the one that's saying things nobody says, right?
26:38
That's the problem with only listening to one side.
26:41
It's the problem with never listening to somebody who has a
26:43
difference of opinion. And I think of all people on
26:46
earth, Christians should be the best at this, of listening and
26:50
giving at least at least a hearing to people who don't
26:54
agree with us without blowing our top over it, right?
26:57
Or without losing control or losing, you know, our patience
27:00
with people simply because they disagree with us, right?
27:06
What we've sort of turned into is a society where if we if
27:09
somebody disagrees with us, we think that they hate us.
27:13
I had a friend where we where we came from in Texas, we had a
27:17
young lady in our congregation who she was a millennial, right?
27:21
And she said she's seen a poll that said people who were
27:25
millennial age and younger, there was a substantial number,
27:31
I want to say like 20 to 30%, that said of all the people who
27:37
responded that if you disagree, you cannot disagree with someone
27:42
without hating them. You cannot express disagreement
27:46
with someone without hating them.
27:48
And that, to me, was bizarre. I mean, if you go back 50 years,
27:52
100 years, you know, we didn't really have that.
27:56
You know, there's a quote that's usually attributed to Voltaire,
27:59
although I doubt he really said it.
28:01
It's usually attributed to him is that I disagree with what you
28:05
say, but I will defend to the death.
28:11
You're right to say it. Right?
28:13
I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death.
28:16
You're right to say it. Well, you know, we don't really
28:20
do that so much anymore. We have our own little echo
28:22
chambers. And I'm afraid that what led
28:26
Riboem to do his thing unwittingly and maybe even
28:30
unconsciously, we have something very similar today for us as
28:34
well. Yeah, Keith.
28:36
Example of that is I had to experience with when I was
28:38
looking in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War and there were
28:43
people back home burning the flash.
28:49
And I wanted to tell you my thoughts on that, OK?
28:50
And a lot of people may not agree with what I'm about to
28:54
say, but I had a young airman that was getting back to the
28:57
school. I just looked at him.
28:59
I said, listen, I don't necessarily agree with them
29:02
burning the flag, but I sure will defend their right to do
29:07
because that's what part of this.
29:10
And I said, I didn't. I said I wouldn't burn the flag.
29:13
I don't agree with them burning the flag, but they want to burn
29:16
the flag. Now they have to pay for the
29:18
consequences of burning that flag, whatever outcome that
29:21
comes from. But those are things that that
29:24
sometimes you have to look at this.
29:25
Sometimes people are going to do things that you just don't agree
29:29
with, but they have that right. And it may bother you to miss
29:35
it. There's a lot of things people
29:38
do that I just don't agree with. But God says they have the right
29:42
to do that. Now they're going to pay for the
29:44
constants. And sometimes their right is
29:47
descended and you know, but the OE million, you know they have
29:51
the right but they will have to pay for that constant.
29:54
Just like I will have to, I will.
29:56
Tell them to do it wrong, but if they.
29:58
Choose to do it. Yeah.
30:03
And I think you've really touched on something that's very
30:05
important. And that is, you know, we get to
30:07
control our response to things like that, Right?
30:09
Are you going to get upset about something?
30:11
Or is what that person doing a a sign of sinfulness on their
30:16
part? Because if that's the case,
30:17
their soul is in jeopardy. And instead of getting upset,
30:21
should we really actually be concerned about that individual?
30:26
Right. Yeah.
30:28
So I always go back to nothing new under the sun that these
30:33
things happen to have happened obviously from the beginning of
30:36
time and where people disagree about things.
30:39
The thing is, is that as Christians, we, we have been
30:44
saying a lot hate to say and love the Sinner.
30:47
And even though people disagree and say, OK, we can't, you know,
30:53
we can't be friends, we can't be coworkers.
30:55
We can't be whatever it is, whatever that relationship is
30:59
because we disagree politically, we disagree religiously, we, you
31:03
know, whatever the issue is. But I always go back and say, I
31:09
disagree with you and I have the scripture and if you will study
31:16
the scripture with me, then we will have an intellectual
31:21
conversation. And it's hard to do with some
31:24
people because they they just don't want to accept that.
31:28
But I think if we always keep in mind that we have Scripture, we
31:31
have our faith, then we can we can give them the truth and the
31:38
true way no matter what other disagreements we may have.
31:44
Yeah. And it's, it's unfortunately
31:46
disagreement sometimes turned into a contest of egos, which
31:49
for Christians should, should not, should not be the case
31:52
because in Christianity you never say, well, I believe this
31:55
or I believe that. No, Scripture says this.
31:57
And I'm under the authority of Scripture.
31:59
Scripture says this. So your disagreement really is
32:01
not so much with me as it is with, it's kind of like your
32:04
maker, right? So.
32:06
So, yeah, yes, yeah. Humility it it, it never forces
32:24
us to reconsider. Do I actually have the right to
32:27
think? Do I actually?
32:30
Understand. Things correctly, that's that's
32:33
the to me, the. Biggest thing there is that.
32:35
It just reinforces what you already think and it doesn't
32:38
give you the opportunity to grow.
32:43
Oh, that's, that's, that's actually a very, very important
32:46
byproduct of this kind of thing is you actually don't grow if
32:49
your, if your opinion is always being reinforced by something.
32:52
You know what happens if you and people like minded are not
32:56
correct about something, You you never, you never hear anything
33:00
else. You never get an opportunity to,
33:03
to sort of, yeah, to to, to grow or mature in that way.
33:06
I mean, this is called groupmate, I mean.
33:08
This is literally what led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, where
33:12
he almost launched a nuclear weapon because they insulated
33:15
themselves and they were only talking to each other.
33:17
It wasn't until they broke out of their group and started
33:20
getting outside information that they decided to chill out a
33:23
little bit. And the same thing happened in
33:24
the Soviet Union, every group thing and then they broke out.
33:27
So when you're in that group and it it, it goes to a place and we
33:30
see that with Rio Boa, he got his buds surrounded and he
33:34
didn't want real good information.
33:36
He wanted. People to just be his posse who
33:38
would kind of just, yeah, yeah, man, you're you're the boss.
33:40
And that's what he got. And we see the result.
33:42
Yeah, yeah, absolutely right. Yeah.
33:47
And we got one more, one more thing here that I'll mentioned.
33:52
We've got a slide that we already kind of talked about.
33:56
I think we're yeah, we're still OK.
34:03
OK, there we go. Thank you.
34:07
Yeah. One of the differences between
34:08
human rulers and Jesus is very, very quickly.
34:11
Rebohm says, basically, I will make your yoke even heavier.
34:14
Jesus says my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
34:17
Because Jesus had to deal with these kind of guys too, right.
34:19
Pharisees who had the oral law, they'd really sort of compounded
34:25
the amount of legal material people had to obey in order to
34:28
have a root, you know, being right, standing with the Lord.
34:31
And so he had to deal with this stuff to just as much as as
34:36
anybody else does. Now, one of the problems is
34:41
defeat, right? Defeat is going to be a huge
34:44
issue here. And I'll need to kind of move a
34:46
little quickly through some of these things.
34:49
But God already tells them, you know, if you are faithful, then
34:57
you will be blessed. If you are not faithful, here
35:01
are the consequences. And he lays them out very
35:03
clearly for, for the people. There was no guesswork.
35:07
You didn't have to do like any like interpretation or anything
35:09
like that. It was, it was there in print.
35:13
Well, you know, whatever, whatever it was.
35:16
So if you are not faithful and, and this is, this is what you
35:20
get. And this in First Chronicles 12,
35:26
I'm sorry, Second Chronicles 12, when the rule of Rehoboam was
35:31
established and he was strong, he abandoned the law of the Lord
35:34
and all Israel with him. Pride brings defeat, right?
35:39
You get secure in yourself. You don't need anything else.
35:41
You don't need any support. You don't need any help.
35:45
Maybe you don't need God. And one of the, one of the most
35:50
chilling quotes I've ever heard is so my family and I work.
35:55
We're all like like kind of comic book people and we like
35:57
watching comic book movies and all that and and TV shows.
36:01
We're you know, we were watching one called Smallville.
36:03
That was that came on in the early, you know, 2000s about,
36:06
you know, Clark Cannon. He was growing up and becoming
36:08
Superman and all this stuff. And they had Christopher Reeves
36:11
on there plank. They they brought a lot of the
36:14
old characters from some of the old movies and and shows back
36:17
into this one show. And Christopher Reeves played a
36:20
character and of course, this was after his accident where he
36:22
was he was at an equestrian events.
36:25
And so he was jumping the horse was jumping over one of the
36:29
hurdles and he kind of froze and it and it kind of stumbled and
36:32
he froze and it he kind of went forward and he had a spinal cord
36:36
injury that made him a quadriplegic.
36:39
And so in the show, it was after this had already happened and he
36:44
Christopher Reeves, you know, great actor, you know, very
36:48
handsome fellow had, you know, so you know, well to do had so
36:52
much going for him and then now to suffer this accident and
36:56
have, you know, be be so limited now.
36:59
He was asked one time about his view of of God.
37:06
And apparently he was he was an atheist.
37:08
And he said after his accident, he said, I've never needed God
37:11
before. Why would I need him now, right.
37:14
So when you're when you are that confident in yourself and you're
37:17
that autonomous, you don't need God.
37:21
That's where that's where Ria Bohm is right now.
37:22
And so when he was strong, he abandoned the law of the Lord
37:26
and all Israel with him. And So what happens?
37:30
Exactly what God is talking about, right?
37:32
So he says here, Deuteronomy 2825, Lord will cause you to be
37:36
defeated before your enemies. You should go out one way
37:39
against them and flee seven ways before them.
37:41
Now, this is just a very concrete way of saying you will
37:44
be completely broken, right? Whatever, whatever army that
37:48
you've got, it's going to be in complete chaos by the time your
37:51
enemies are done with you. OK, another something here,
37:56
Leviticus 26, we won't read the whole thing because it has
37:58
something very similar. It has what I call the big three
38:01
punishments. So plague, famine and war are
38:04
kind of the big, you know, three sort of sort of ultimate
38:08
punishments for Israel if they disobey.
38:11
Exile is like the nuclear option.
38:13
OK, so exile is like the big one, but then you get the big
38:16
three, plague, famine and war. And you will get this if you
38:20
look at the third line from the bottom, I will break the pride
38:24
of your power. Pride and power are connected.
38:29
Rebo him. He's in a very wealthy country.
38:32
He's in a fairly powerful, secure place.
38:36
So he's very arrogant. He rejects God.
38:39
All right, so what's going to happen is Shishak's going to
38:42
come pay him to visit. And very quickly we'll get into
38:47
what I've been promising you guys for like 2 weeks now.
38:52
A little bit of a sign of Solomon's wealth.
38:54
All right, so Shishak comes to invade, says people were without
39:00
number who came with him from Egypt.
39:02
So all these different, different people, I took
39:04
fortified cities. It went as far as Jerusalem.
39:08
And then he plunders everything, rebel and basically pays him
39:13
off. And it says down in verse 9,
39:16
Second Chronicles 12/9, Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against
39:21
Jerusalem. He took away the treasures of
39:23
the House of the Lord, the treasures of the King's house.
39:25
He took away everything. He also took away the Shields of
39:29
gold that Solomon had made and King Rehoboam made in their
39:32
place, Shields of bronze. OK, Bronze is still not easy to
39:37
produce. Now you got to manufacture that,
39:39
all right? So it's it's it's not
39:41
inexpensive. It's also not gold.
39:45
OK, so Shishak plunders everything, takes everything
39:49
off, and then he leaves us a record of it.
39:52
OK, so if you go to Egypt, to a place called Karnak Karnak
39:55
Temple, it's a temple complex. And the picture on the left is
40:00
an aerial view taken from, I want to say it's early 1900s,
40:05
but it's the but it's the biggest picture I could find it
40:06
to include everything. The picture on the right, the
40:10
smaller one. Gives you a sense of how big
40:13
this is, because the one on the left, I mean, you know, you
40:15
don't know how big this is. The one on the right though,
40:18
gives you a couple little. And if you look at the 2 little
40:21
figures, I mean they're tiny right there in the middle.
40:23
It gives you a sense of the size of this place.
40:26
OK, so those pylons are about 150 feet tall.
40:31
That's so that kind of gives you a sense of perspective, like how
40:34
massive this place. Pharaohs would go here and build
40:36
temples to gods and, you know, celebrate their victories and
40:39
all that kind of stuff. And one of the things, one of
40:42
the places at this complex and its massive and there's another
40:48
one called Luxor. And if you've ever heard of
40:50
Luxor, Luxor, Egypt, there were these two massive temple
40:55
complexes. They were joined by a a road
40:59
that was a mile and a half long and it was covered with
41:02
sphinxes. And these are very, very
41:04
important places. OK, so this temple, there's
41:07
another one a mile and a half away, and there's a road that
41:10
goes, and the Sphinx is probably are about this tall and they're
41:15
about 15 feet long, and you've got one about every 10 feet for
41:20
a mile and a half, OK, on both sides.
41:23
So it is absolutely impressive to see in person.
41:28
But Shishak goes here and he records the victory that's
41:33
mentioned in scripture of this event.
41:36
So he goes and he goes and plunders everything during the
41:39
time of Rehoboam, and this is a record of that.
41:43
So you've got a picture of a God there and some other little, you
41:46
know, other little cartouches and things.
41:48
Here's another, here's another shot of it.
41:50
And if you notice, so he's got like a sword in one hand and in
41:54
the other hand he's got, if you can notice, if you notice it,
41:57
you may not be able to see it. He's got these little strings,
42:00
OK, that are ropes. They're all attached to all
42:02
these little cartouches. So all around him are little
42:05
cartouches with the names of towns that he's plundered, and
42:10
all of them have a little person on the top.
42:11
He's got his hands tied behind his back, right?
42:13
Because he's been defeated, right?
42:15
So hundreds, you know, dozens and dozens and dozens of these
42:18
things. And so he's defeated all these
42:20
places. He's brought all this stuff
42:22
back. We actually see his name on a
42:25
monument that was at the city of Megiddo.
42:27
So he leaves a monument behind in a foreign country just to
42:31
remind them that that he came in and like, took things out,
42:33
right? And so that's his name on the
42:37
right hand side. And I'll kind of give you a
42:39
little hieroglyph lesson really quickly in our last like minute
42:42
and 1/2 that we've got. So Shawshank is his Egyptian
42:46
name. Shishak is his name.
42:48
In the Bible, when you go from one language to the other,
42:50
sometimes letters change a little bit, but that's it.
42:54
So he left this at the city of Megiddo just to remind them that
42:58
he came in and took all their gold.
43:01
All right, So what you've got is he goes back to Egypt and he
43:08
dies like about a year later. But his son, his son's name,
43:13
Osorka, on the first, he makes a donation to the temples of Egypt
43:18
and it's 383 tons of gold and silver, a 383 tons of gold and
43:25
silver. It is the largest single
43:27
donation that was ever made in the history of Egypt.
43:31
And it was all stuff that Shishak got from Rehoboam and
43:37
the Kingdom that was ruled by Solomon.
43:40
So if you want to know where Solomon's wealth went, I'll show
43:42
you a picture where some of it went.
43:45
I think right there you want to know where we're we're some of
43:50
some of Solomon's silver is. It's in this sarcophagus because
43:57
they brought, so they brought back so much loot, so much gold,
44:00
so much silver. Silver was actually more
44:03
valuable than gold in Egypt at times because it was so rare.
44:07
Egypt had gold mines. They didn't have any silver
44:09
mines. So what Shishak's either his son
44:14
or grandson does to show off how much wealth that he's got, he
44:19
makes a sarcophagus out of solid silver.
44:22
This would be like, you know, if you, you know, in your Funeral
44:25
arrangements, you go and have a, you know, a coffin made out of
44:28
platinum or something, right. And so if you want to know where
44:33
some of Solomon's wealth went, I think some of it could very well
44:37
be in this sarcophagus right here.
44:40
Why? All because of Rebohm's pride,
44:45
right? All because of Rebohm's pride.
44:46
You've got an extremely wealthy well to do secure with God's,
44:51
with God's provision in undefeatable country and pride
44:58
is the downfall of everything. And so if you want to know where
45:00
Solomon's wealth went, this is where some of it is.