Who are you listening to?

First Kings, chapter number 12.First Kings, chapter number 12. This evening we're going to look at this Old Testament narrative.

So we're going to read just a couple verses to open up with, and then we'll pray and we'll jump into this story tonight. But first kings, chapter 12, we're going to start in verse number one.

The Bible says, and Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king.

And it came to pass when Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, heard of it, for he was fled from the presence of King Solomon and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt. We're going to pray and then we're going to jump right into this passage tonight. Let's pray.

Dear Lord, thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. Lord, I pray that you'd be with pastor as he's with the church in Nakona. Lord, I pray that you would be with that church.

Lord, I pray you'd be with pastors. They have service tonight. Lord, I pray that you'd be with the service here. Lord, I pray that you would hide behind the cross.

Lord, I pray that you would allow me to say only the words that you want me to say. And God, I pray that you would help me to say something that was of help to someone tonight, Lord. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Men, every decision we make is shaped by the voices that we allow to speak into our lives.

I've seen this over and over again as a young man myself, the people that I allow to influence me, change my thoughts and change my opinions because I allow them to have influence in my life. Tonight I've entitled the message, who are you listening to? Who are you listening to?

You see, everybody has voices that we allow in our lives, influences that we allow people that we allow to maybe even sometimes unnecessarily have influence in our life. You see, godly counsel will build up our futures, but foolish counsel will break it apart. My grandpa is an avid. Was an avid gun enthusiast.

He had probably the biggest collection of guns out of anybody that I know. And I know some of you in here have a lot of guns. So, like, that's a bold claim. But he had a lot of guns.

And he took me out shooting from a very, very young age. And I was pretty comfortable with guns. By the time I was six or seven, I was around the shooting range. My grandpa shot cowboy shooting competitions.

And you have two revolvers and you have a rifle and what you would do is you would shoot six, shoot the rifle and then shoot six. It was a timed accuracy speed competition. And so he would go and compete in that, and I would sit by and watch.

And that was one of my favorite pastimes, was going to the gun range with grandpa, watching him shoot. Right. But many times he allowed me to shoot and kind of taught me the basics of how to hold a rifle and how to shoot a handgun.

I'm not a good shot, but it's something that I enjoy doing.

Well, when my grandma died, I was probably 8 or 9 years old, my grandpa decided to sell everything, buy an rv, buy an atv, buy more guns, and start snowboarding. Snow. What's called snowbirding. Snowbirding, not snowboarding. He was a little old for that. Snowbirding. For the seasons.

He would go up north in Utah, way up north for the summer months where it was nice and cool. And then he would head south into Arizona, just north of the Grand Canyon, for the winters where it was still relatively nice and warm.

Well, as you may guess, that happened for, I don't know, maybe three, four seasons. It wasn't long before the RV broke down. The ATV became too much to load up. You know, all the usual suspects.

So my grandpa kind of landed there in northern Arizona for the remainder of his life. And I visited him many times in that area. He had just had an rv, so it wasn't like the most fun thing in the world.

But some of my favorite memories of my grandpa are in the last few years of his life, going to visit him, and we would go out and we would go shooting. And so there's a lot of BLM land up there, government owned land, and that is all free game to go and shoot. You just find a spot and shoot.

There's Nothing in like 1,000 miles any direction, so you're just good to go for it. Well, this one particular time, and the more I thought about it and I thought about the story for tonight, I. I don't know exactly how old I was.

I think I was a little bit older. I may have been like 13 or 14, but it's a little embarrassing, so I'm gonna say I was like 10 or 11. All right.

Well, my grandpa decided I was finally big enough to shoot some of his bigger guns. And I was excited for this. He had a.44 Dirty Harry edition revolver that was really cool and I thought that was awesome.

He had some big rifles and stuff like that. And I was like, man, this is awesome. He's gonna let Me shoot the big dogs today.

And so we got in his truck and we drove out into the BLM land and we found some like, old bottles and pieces of wood and stuff. We were gonna shoot, or he was gonna shoot, I was gonna shoot at.

And I shot a few of the bigger handguns and a few of the bigger rifles and we were having a fun time. And then my grandpa goes to his truck. He pulls out something from under the seat that he didn't let me see, he put in there.

And he had an M1 Garand, standard issue from World War II, big gun. And he's like, do you want to shoot this? Yeah. So he got up and he loaded it and cleaned it, made sure it was all good.

And he, you know, he shot a few rounds and hit everything and he's like, your turn. Yes, sir. And at this point, I'm fairly familiar with how to shoot a rifle. I'm not a novice in that.

So I grab the rifle and I stand up and I have it right up against my shoulder here and I'm like, alright, I'm ready to go. And I lean in and I start to get the motion to pull the trigger. And grandpa leans in and he starts talking to me about, hey, this is a bigger gun.

There's going to be a significant kick compared to what you're used to. You need to be aware of it. Here's how to. And I remember. I remember clear as day. Grandpa, I'm good. I got this.

So about as soon as I pulled the trigger, I'm staring at the sky and he leans over and in the most grandfatherly way you can, he goes, should have listened, huh? Yeah.

I can't help but think about that passage when I think about this story here with Rehoboam and think about how often in our lives we brush off godly counsel, we brush off good counsel, or even sometimes just plain old good advice in lieu of. Nah, I got this. You see, Rehoboam here was the grandson of David, son of Solomon.

If you are savvy with your Bible, you're probably aware that Solomon is known as the wisest man to have ever lived. You see, Rehoboam had all the wisdom in the world at his fingertips, didn't he? Just across the hall. Got to go talk to dad.

He's the wisest man who ever lived. And yet here in this passage, Solomon has died. And this is the first real test of Rehoboam's leadership and his character in his life.

You see, the reality is this is a Tragic story. And tonight we're going to look at a four part tragic progression through the life of Rehoboam. How he failed his first test.

I would like you for notice first of all tonight, the request of the people.

Look at verse number three that they sent and called him and Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came and spake unto Rehoboam, saying, thy father made our yoke grievous. Now therefore, make thou the grievous service of thy father and his heavy yoke which he put on us lighter, and we will serve thee.

And he said unto them, depart yet for three days and then come again to me. And the people departed. You see, this people came to him and they came with a request. And I want you to notice about this request.

It was a reasonable request. This wasn't something that was crazy or even rebellious, but this was a reasonable request well within the bounds of people to ask of their new king.

They said, hey, Rehoboam, your dad Solomon was really hard on us. The taxation and the labor, it really has worn us down. But if you take it and you ease up on it, if you go lighter on us, we will serve you.

It's a reasonable request. When you start thinking about all that Solomon did in his kingdom, in his time as king, of course, we think of King David as the war maker, right?

He's the one. He kind of drove out the remainder and he kind of solidified the kingdom and the borders. Well, Solomon built on that. He expanded it.

In fact, under Solomon, you have the greatest extent of the Hebrew nation. I almost called it an empire. It's certainly not an empire, but you have the greatest extent of the Hebrew nation there under King Solomon.

And at the same time, Solomon's building the temple, Solomon's Temple was known as one of the ancient wonders of the world.

If you do some research into the temple, people over in Israel, forget what they're called, but if you get, if you do some research into them, they think they can build the temple in about three and a half or four years using modern methods and modern tools and modern workers. So think about how much manual labor it must have been without excavators and cranes and everything else.

You know, sometimes I think we forget about all the labor that goes into a building. And then like you look at this giant pad of dirt out front and you're like, can you imagine doing that with shovels?

That's actually not all that far off from the size of the temple. I mean, it's a little Bit over, but like, it's a lot of work. And all these demands were on the people of Israel under King Solomon.

And so when King Solomon dies, they come to Rehoboam and they say, hey, this was really heavy. If you go lighter on us, we will serve you. We're going to give our hearts to you. This was a reasonable plea, but secondly, it was a revealing test.

You see, this was a test placed early on the leadership of King Rehoboam to see how are you going to react and how are you going to respond to your people. Are you going to be a servant leader or are you going to just be a prideful leader?

I find it interesting that many times in the Bible, when you see these stories, when you see these people rise to power, it seems like there's almost defining moments or defining stories or decisions to be made almost immediately in the rain, right? It's like Rehoboam took the throne. And the very next verse, he had the defining decision of his entire reign immediately.

It's a revealing test of his character.

As I was thinking about character, I was reminded of a time in Bible college when a very irresponsible dorm soup left us alone for Thanksgiving break. And I was sleeping at Friday night at 9 o' clock, because that's what happens if you leave Bible college students alone. I went to bed at 9 o' clock.

There was no lights out. That doesn't mean I stay up. That means I go to bed early. And this kid comes up to me, he worked in solar. And he woke me up one by turning off my fan.

I had a little clip on fan. He turned it off, very rude. And he turned off and he woke me up at 9:00 at night.

And at that time it was called the solar boom there in Southern California. And these kids had way too much money. Like, there was Bible college kids who worked four and five hours a day making six figures.

And he had a gas card that was given to him by his company that they didn't check. And he had $500 put on it every single month, every single month. If he didn't use it, he lost it. Just refreshed every month.

And so he comes and wakes me up, it's like November 28th, and he's like, Hey, I still have $400 on this. You want to go to Vegas, huh? You know what? He's like, yeah, I'll pay for everything. He's like, we'll go to the buffets.

He's like, it's going to be awesome. He's like, we'll just go. We'll go right? No, turn my fan back on. Right in the moment. I was thinking with my head.

But little moments like that test your character throughout your life. What kind of decisions are you going to make? You see this plea that the people had for Rehoboam. It was reasonable.

Proverbs 15:1 says, A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. And then we see this revealing test. Proverbs 29:2 says, when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.

But when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn. You see, there is these revealing tests given to King Rehoboam. And so we see the first part of this progression was the request of the people.

But the second part here is the response of the counselors. Look at verse number six.

And King Rehoboam consulted with the old men that stood before Solomon his father, while he yet lived, and said, how do ye advise that I may answer the people?

And they spake unto him, saying, if thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, and speak good words unto them, they will be thy servants forever.

But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and consulted with the young men which were grown up with him, and which stood before him. And he said unto them, what counsel give ye that we may answer this?

The people who have spoken to me saying, make the yoke which thy father did put upon his lighter.

And the young men which were grown up with him spake unto him, saying, thou shalt speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, thy father made our yoke heavy, but make it thou lighter unto us. Thus shalt thou say unto them, my little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins.

And now, whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. Time out.

This is one of those, like, times in the Bible where you're like. You're reading it and you're like, wait, what? Like, there's no way this guy actually said this out loud and thought this was a good idea. Right?

Is that just me? Yeah, you know, he chastised you with whips. But, buddy, you better watch out, because the scorpions are coming. What do you mean?

What do you mean the scorpions are coming? Is that actually a thing like Is that actually a thing that we do to people? It's crazy. So we see the response of the counselors.

I want you to notice the wisdom of the old men. The wisdom of the old men. You see these old men here in this passage, they had served Solomon. They were alive. They had seen the transition.

They knew the yoke of the people under King Solomon, and they were aware of the situations of the people and how they had lived. And yet they had seen the cost of harsh leadership. And their advice that they gave King Rehoboam was stabilizing, balanced, if you would.

It was, hey, yeah, you know what? Solomon was awfully harsh. Hey, you know what?

If you do what, what the people are requesting, they're going to give you their hearts and they're going to serve you forever. Good advice. Proverbs 11:1 says, where no counsel is, the people fall. But in the multitude of counselors, there is safety.

What I find so interesting about this passage is when you read it down narrative style, like we have here, King Rehoboam goes to the old men for advice, and he goes, hey, what do you think I should do? And they say, oh, thanks for asking. I think you should do this. And he literally goes, cool. Hey, young men, so what do you think I should do?

Like, and there's no doubt in my mind. He probably in his mind was like, well, there's safety in a multitude of counselors, so I should go to everybody, right?

But he didn't even wait to hear both opinions. The Bible says he completely disregarded the old men before he even heard the opinion of the young men.

It's funny, because he had already made his decision before he even sought out advice. He wasn't looking for advice. He was looking for validation. And many times when we seek out advice, we're not really looking for advice, are we?

We're looking for validation. We're looking for someone to look at me and tell me that I'm right, because I like being right. I don't know about you.

When me and my wife, we do have arguments, by the way, but when we, me and my wife argue, I like being the one that's right. Right is right. All right, we'll stop there. So we see the wisdom of the old men, but then we see the arrogance of the young men.

The arrogance of the young men. Rehoboam's peers appealed to his ego, not wisdom. They encouraged him to prove his power, not capture the people's hearts.

And what I find so interesting about this is in a moment of transparency, with you guys. You know what? Men like power. I like to be in charge.

The best conversation about a decision is one where I say what the decision is and then we're done. Unless it's where we're going to eat, which case, I don't want anything to do with it. You tell me where we're going, right?

But men like to be in charge. It's an ego thing, right? We like to be the rah, rah, rah. We're the men, we're in charge. We're the rulers.

And I can only imagine how many times King Rehoboam sat there, maybe in the courtroom of his father Solomon. And Solomon would make a decision. Wisest man on earth, by the way, gifted knowledge from God.

And Rehoboam would sit there and be like, well, when I'm king, let me tell you what, right? And then I just can't wait to be keen from Lion King started playing and it was like a whole thing.

We laugh, but I think that's probably the attitude he had, right? No one's saying, do this. No one's saying, see here? No one's saying, stop that. I know the whole song, but we won't go the whole thing.

Who are the voices that you allow to speak into your life? Young people, not so, younger people. Who are you allowing to speak into your life? In what ways do you allow them to have influence over you?

You see, the first part of this progression was a reasonable request, really reasonable. And then we see a response from the counselors. But I want you to notice thirdly tonight, the results of his pride. Look at verse number 12.

The Bible says, so Jeroboam. This is an important little side note. Just mark that name. Jeroboam.

So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day as the king had appointed, saying, come to me again the third day.

And the king answered the people roughly and forsook the old men's counsel that they gave him, and spake to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, my father hath made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke. My father also chastise you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. There it is.

The guy thought about it and then actually said it to people. Wherefore the king hearkened unto me in verse 15 unto the people.

For the cause was from the Lord that he might perform his saying, which the Lord spake by Ahagi the Shilonite, unto Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. You see, the result of his pride was letter A that Rehoboam rejected their counsel.

He just completely rejected the wise, godly counsel that he had been given. He didn't even weigh both options.

He just completely disregarded the elder's advice, and his pride made the decision before his mind did, before he ever had a chance to sit down and think about it. His pride and his ego made the decision for him.

Proverbs 1:7 says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Do you ever make quick decisions just to prove a point? Instead of seeking God first?

I could literally fill the rest of our time, every Sunday night, forever, with times I've made quick decisions just to move, just to prove a point, just because I'm right. And that's all there is to say about it, only to find out later on that I was very much so. Certainly not right.

But Rehoboam rejected the counsel, and as a result, rebellion was the consequence. Look at verse. Look at verse number 16.

So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, what portion have we in David? Neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel. Now see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto their tents.

But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.

I think often when we look at these stories, the period of the Israelite kings is not super well known after, like, Saul, Keenan or Saul, David and Solomon, because that's really easy to remember. And then once it splits up, it's like a bunch of really difficult names that no one really bothers to learn. And it all kind of overlaps.

And for some reason, Jeroboam was so popular that they named every king ever after him pretty much.

But I think whenever we hear this story in Sunday school, or sometimes when we at least think back on it, at least me, we think of King Jeroboam as the bad guy, a relatively young guy. We think of him as the bad guy in the story. But if there is a bad guy in the story, it's King Rehoboam.

You see, King Rehoboam, he forsook the godly counsel he was given. He spoke after his pride instead of seeking the people's hearts.

And all while throughout the story, you see that King Jeroboam had the hearts of the people. I marked it out in verse number, verse number 12, but it says it a few more times in the passage before we even get there.

It says, Jeroboam and all the people. Jeroboam and all the people. Jeroboam and all the people. He already had the hearts of the people. We're talking about two men who are similarly aged.

But one of them hearkened unto counsel, one of them understood, it's more important that the people are behind me. Then I be right. It's more important. It's more important. Matthew. Henry says pride is the armor of the wicked. It protects him from repentance.

You see, we see a reasonable request. We see the counselor's response. We see the results of the pride. But I want you to notice lastly tonight, the ripple of Rehoboam's reign.

This one decision is not something that just affected the next five, ten years in Israel. It's something that they never recovered from, ever. But not just the nation. Turn over a few pages to 1st Kings 15.

This is another really interesting passage. 1st Kings 15. Look at verse number one. Now. In the 18th year of King Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Jeroboam's been ruling up north without any problems.

For 18 years reigned Abijim over Judah. Three years reigned he in Jerusalem, and his mother name was, and the daughter.

And he walked in all the sins of his father, Verse three, which he had done before him. And his heart was not perfect. With the Lord his God, as the heart of David, as the father heart, as the heart of David his father.

Nevertheless, for David's sake, did the Lord his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him and to establish in Jerusalem?

Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from anything which he had commanded all the days of his life, save only the matter of Uriah the Hittite. And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life.

Now the acts of Abijim and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the king in Judah? And Abijim verse 8 slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David. And Asa, his son, ruled in Hesed. Verse 9.

And in the 20th year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, reigned Asa over Judah. And 40 and 1 years he reigned he in Jerusalem. Verse 11. And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David, his father.

You see, the ripple of King Rehoboam's rule was not just him. It wasn't just his kingdom split forever, never to be rejoined, never to be reconnected. But his sin moved on to the next generation.

His son was a mess. His son allowed all sorts of sin and everything in his life. His son followed his compromise.

Now, in 2 Chronicles 13, he did have one high point in his life. But he learned real quickly that one battle doesn't fix a broken pattern. This pattern of pride and arrogance continued on in the kings of Judah.

Compromised legacy reproduces itself over and over and over again. See, now nowadays they call it generational curses, right?

The things that fathers do, the things that mothers and fathers do that the kids tend to pick up on and go for it. The Bible says that the sins of the father go to the third and to the fourth generation.

And here we see Rehoboam completely wrecking his family's legacy over pride. Over pride. The choices that we make, they don't just affect our life. They affect everyone's life around us.

It's been said that what one generation allows, the next generation embraces. You see, David had his low point with Uriah the Hittite in that whole situation. So much so it even got a shout out here in this, this passage.

And what he allowed there with that whole situation with Bathsheba and Uriah, Solomon took it a way step further, didn't he, Mr. A Thousand Wives. He took it way beyond further. And Solomon in all of his wisdom, was a prideful man. And what he had kin.

Rehoboam was like, cool, I'm gonna go all in on this pride and ego thing. Bring out the scorpions. And all of a sudden, Abidjin was looking at this. I don't know how you say his name. Just gotta say it confidently.

Abidjin was watching dad and Grandpa and going, hmm, well, it's working out pretty well for them. Solomon was the rich grandpa. Solomon was the Richest man who ever lived works well for me. So what I'm going to do.

And then all the way down, then you have Kinesa. Kinesa wasn't perfect, by the way. But the nation did see revival under him. And he was the start of seeing some good kings in Judah again.

But he allowed the Lord to use him because of it. You may have noticed something I've done on purpose here is that all the passages I've read tonight are from the book of Proverbs.

The book of Proverbs is written from Solomon to Rehoboam. Rehoboam had all of this wisdom at his fingertips and he chose to ignore it. Some commentators think he even memorized it.

But it's interesting when we think about this, because when we see the request of the people, we see that it was a reasonable plea. And we see in Proverbs 15 that soft answer turneth away wrath. If only he had hearkened, we see the test of his character.

When he saw the arrogance of the young men, he could have looked at Proverbs 13 and said, Only pride cometh by pretension, but with the well advised is wisdom.

When he rejected their counsel and gave into the pride, he could have known from Proverbs 1:7 that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and instruction.

When he saw the rebellion and all the consequences of his sin, he could have known that pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. All of this wisdom at his fingertips, the instructions on how to live life, how to rule the kingdom. Some people think he memorized it.

Had the book of Proverbs memorized yet. Zero application, zero thought about it. The problem isn't access, it's attitude. You see, we have access as modern day Christians.

We have access to every word of God recorded for us. The problem isn't that we can't know the answer to our problems. The problem isn't that it's a giant mystery that's unfigureoutable to us.

It's that we don't care to look. So I ask you again, who are you listening to? What voices do you allow in your life? Are you disregarding the old men?

Are you listening to the young arrogant egomaniacs telling you to give into your pride and your ego? Are you looking in the book, the book of wisdom that our heavenly Father hath given us with every head bow and every eye closed.

As musicians make their way to the front. I have just a couple questions for you after we pray. Dear Lord, thank you for this day. And Lord, thank you for this passage.

Lord, thank you for this story. Lord, thank you for this lesson from King Rehoboam.

Lord, I can't imagine that this was something that he enjoyed living through, but I'm thankful that we have this lesson, this warning for us today. Lord, I pray that you would help me curb my own pride.

Lord, I pray that you would help me to hearken to the wisdom that you have given us in this book.

Lord, I pray that if there's someone here tonight, Lord, who is hiding behind the armor of their pride, Lord, I pray that they would give it up today. Lord, I pray that they would repent. Lord, I pray that we would begin to seek the wisdom that you've given us in the book. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

As the musicians begin playing.