I Kings Chapter 14 "Warning
and Punishment from Ahijah to Jeroboam [1-13]." This Bible
Study is written by Roger Christopherson, and it's
transcription is provided with written permission by http://www.theseason.org This fourteenth chapter lays out many of the things that we should stay away from if we are trying to please God, for those things were practices in Jeroboam's kingdom. God made Jeroboam king over the ten tribes, and once the kingdom became his, he open the kingdom up to all sorts of heathen ritual, and even sodomy, which God hates. He made his own idols, his own priests, and completely turned his back to the things of God. So now in this chapter, the troubles are coming back on Jeroboam, as his son fell very ill. Like many people, they don't turn to God until it becomes a life and death situation. This son Abijah was the first born, and would have been the son next in line to the throne of Jeroboam, over the house of Israel. I Kings 14:1 "At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick." I Kings 14:2 "And Jeroboam said to his wife, "Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me that I should be king over this People." It is obvious from this verse that Jeroboam had no faith in all his man-made priests and false prophets. So when the first serious sickness enters into the family, the first thing that Jeroboam does is to send his wife, disguised as another woman to the true prophet Ahijah. Jeroboam knew that it just would not be right for the king to seek help from a true prophet of God, after he had set up this religious order for the rest of the kingdom to worship. After all the wicked and evil things that Jeroboam had done, this wicked king thinks that he can con God and His prophet. He still doesn't realize that God can even read his mind, and even if Ahijah hadn't recognized his wife, even in Ahijah's blinded state God would have known what was going on anyway. God gives his people the unction to be able to spot a phony at a distance. So everything that Jeroboam is doing is under false pretenses with God. So how can he obtain God's advise when everything that he is doing is a lie? He can't. God is not going to bless Jeroboam, or his family. I Kings 14:3 "And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him, he shall tell thee what shall become of the child." " A "cracknel" is a cake. Jeroboam is still thinking that he can put something over on this old prophet, for he thinks that with all this food he can force favorable words and promises from God. He is trying to buy a favor from God. He trusted in Ahijah the prophet's words, and knew that God would back up his promises. When it is so easy to love our Heavenly Father, why was Jeroboam so set of turning away from the things of God, when God promised him so much if he would only follow His commandments and Statutes? He was one of those men that just didn't trust God in anything. I Kings 14:4 "And Jeroboam's wife did so, and arose, and went to shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age." Ahijah was so old by this time that he had become blind. I Kings 14:5 "And the Lord said unto Ahijah, "Behold the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son; for he is sick: thus and thus shalt thou say unto her: for it shall be, when she cometh in, that she shall feign herself to be another woman." " God allowed Ahijah the prophet to know exactly who the woman was that was coming to his house, and that she was coming disguised as someone else. Of course he could not see her, but he knew her identity, and the purpose for her visit. God is telling Ahijah that this woman is going to try to put on an act and present herself as someone else. God has ways of directing those that put their trust in Him, and seeing to it that His will should be carried out. When you follow God's ways, you will have God's blessings. I Kings 14:6 "And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, "Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings." " This old blind prophet Ahijah never let the wife of Jeroboam open her mouth, but before she could say anything, he addressed her as the wife of Jeroboam. He asked her right from the start why she was trying to disguise herself and pretend to be somebody else. He started out the conversation telling her, "I have some very bad news for you". Why shouldn't he, after she and her husband tried to put on this disgraceful act before a prophet of God, to deceive God. Jeroboam really sold our heavenly Father short, thinking that he could put one over on God. Even today people wander and complain against God for those problems that go wrong in their lives and their family. In this earth age of these flesh bodies, these flesh bodies just don't last forever. Sickness and accidents come that cause these old flesh bodies to fall apart. Even in old age, those parts to these old flesh bodies just wear out. It doesn't mean that God is going to make this old servant of God any different that any other person in old age. Sure, Ahijah lost his eye sight, for that was expected considering the reality of old age. However, Ahijah was still a faithful servant of God, striving to do the will of God even though the news was very bad to Jeroboam. As for the child that would die, that life was taken in the infinite wisdom of God; why? Because God ordained it to be that way for His plan and purpose. God placed a condition on Jeroboam before he ever took the throne, and Jeroboam did not live up to God's commandments and statutes. Jeroboam knew from that start that if he violated God's Word, that this would happen, and now he is trying to con a prophet of God into changing God's mind. God expects us to handle those things that are common to all people, especially if you have the blessings of God. This was not a new thing for even David lost the child that he loved when that child was just an infant. God allowed it because of the conditions that he placed on the father, David, and now that Jeroboam was in complete defiance of God, he also lost his first son that he loved. The difference was that David knew and understood why it took place and accepted it, and never lost his faith and trust in God. Jeroboam on the other hand, never did trust God, and never intended to keep God's commandments and laws. I Kings 14:7 "Go, tell Jeroboam, `Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, "Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the People, and made thee prince over My People Israel," What a compliment that Ahijah is making to Jeroboam, that God had selected him to reign over all of God's people. What a gift and what a blessing. So we will now see what our Father thinks and feels about those that miss-use the trust and blessings that he has placed in them, let's see. This gives us a view of the emotions of God. I Kings 14:8 "And rent the kingdom away from the people of David, and gave it to thee: and yet thou hast not been as My servant David, who kept My commandments, and who followed Me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in Mine eyes;" Because of the sins of David's family, his son Solomon, God rent the kingdom of Israel away from David's son, and gave it to you [Jeroboam], and now you didn't even keep the commandments and laws in your heart. David turned his mind completely over to God, even after he made several bad errors in judgment. David sought to please God in all that he did. I Kings 14:9 "But hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke Me to anger, and hast cast Me behind thy back:" But you, Jeroboam, have sought to do evil in all that you have done before me, in your making of molten images, and seeking after other gods. You have sought in every way to provoke Me to anger, and put Me out of your mind. God will not put up with this nonsense, especially when He was the one that put Jeroboam as king over His people, and he has pulled the Israelites into such wickedness from the establishment of the kingdom. He won't; He absolutely will not tolerate such wickedness. I Kings 14:10 "Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone." God is promising that he will kill all the males that are in the house of Jeroboam, and bring evil to his kingdom. This "shut up" means that even those that have fortified themselves in Isreal, God is going to scatter. God is telling Jeroboam that his family is going to be treated like dung, eliminated, and scattered until they are all gone. This prophet is telling this wife of Jeroboam to go back and tell your husband that he has messed around with God, and now God is going to repay him for the insults that he has given to God. God has emotions and Jeroboam has played around with God's emotions to where God is going to put him and his kingdom out of sight. God took this common man and made him a king, only to have the blessings and trust thrown right back into his face. God guaranteed Jeroboam that if he followed God's ways, God would bless him forever, and his kingdom; and this common man simply did not believe God. So God has just told Jeroboam, through His prophet that he is no better than cow dung. I Kings 14:11 "Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat: for the Lord hath spoken it." ' " It was the most insulting thing that could be said to anyone, that they would not have a proper burial. The wild dogs would actually eat the corps of the dead if they were left in the street. Sounds gross. God could not make His disgust for Jeroboam any clearer. God was angry with this one that would take his people, the ten tribes that held the name of Israel, and cause them to fall deep into idolatry. We are living in another generation where there will be another god coming and he is the false messiah. Many that are uneducated in God's Word, will do just as the Israelites of Jeroboam's day did, they will go whoring after another god, a false messiah who is Satan in the role of Antichrist. Many people in ignorance of the order of events of the last days, as laid out in the Scriptures will worship the false Christ, thinking it is Jesus coming to rapture them away. This is what God thinks when his children turn to other people or gods, or religious systems to worship. He holds the in value as less than dung. It is time to stop and think about your value in God's eyes, for your value depends on you, and how you treat His Word, and His ways. Jeroboam is not going to have a proper burial, for God has spoken it. I Kings 14:12 "Arise thou therefore, get thee to thine own house: and when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die." The prophet Ahijah is telling the wife of Jeroboam to get back home and when your feet enter into the threshold of your home, the child will die. I Kings 14:13 "And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam." This young lad is the only one in the family that will have a proper burial because of the entire family, he is the only one that disapproved of what his father was doing. In this case, the child receives a blessing from God, even in death, for the entire nation will mourn over this young lad. God didn't kill the boy, Jeroboam caused the death, and God gave the lad respect, even in death. Jeroboam was off in the woods chasing after his sexual fertility rights of Ishtar, and building of his altars to the golden calves. Every wicked thing that was going on in Israel was started and promoted by Jeroboam. Many of these rights have even worked themselves into the Christian worship traditions, and God does not like it. Jeroboam was a very religious person, for he had his places of worship on every corner. The only problem was that they were not set up to worship the name of the Lord. I Kings 14:14 "Moreover the Lord shall raise Him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now." Even as Ahijah was talking to Jeroboam's wife that day, God was in the process of raising another king that would rule over the house of Israel. I Kings 14:15 "For the Lord shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and He shall root up Israel out of this good land, which He gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the Lord to anger." Remember that this prophecy is directed to the "house of Israel", for Israel and Judah are two separate nations. God is addressing the ten tribes here, and not Judah. God will not put up with their grove worship, which was worshipping some object or entity through their sexual orgies, instead of the Lord God Himself. "A reed shaken in the water" is an idiom meaning, "shaken to and fro in the water by the wind." It is shaken to the point of being uprooted and washed away. I Kings 14:16 "And He shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin." " The cause of the scattering was, "because of the sins of Jeroboam". Those sins were the building of the two calves, the bringing in of grove worship, and all the other heathen religions and ritual forms of the heathen. Jeroboam was the king of that nation of the the house of Israel, and he had the idols made and set in place. He appointed his kingdoms own priest from the Kenite heathen outside his nation, and he was the one forcing his people to commit those sins. Jeroboam caused the system to be set up, and the people in ignorance willing followed. Stop now and take inventory in your own church; how many of these heathen religious practices and rituals have you allowed to come into your church house and into your worship? If you do not know, you are not familiar with God's Word. Some of those things you do and take for granted are very serious, in our Christian nation. The come by way of traditions, and when you see with understanding one of those things that God hates, then make a change at least in your life and mind. You and I are accountable for those things we know to be true, and do nothing about it in our lives. That is the time that we plant the seeds of truth, and not start a riot in the church. I Kings 14:17 "And Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died;" God's Word is true and you can count on it coming to pass exactly as it is written. "Tirzah" was where the home of Jeroboam was, it was the capitol city of the house of Israel at this time, until Samaria would be built later by king Omri. This child died, the lad died in Jeroboam's place. I Kings 14:18 "And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which He spake by the hand of His servant Ahijah the prophet." This great mourning is to show that this child was the heir to Jeroboam's throne. God said that all Israel would mourn for the child and that is exactly as Ahijah the prophet said it would. I Kings 14:19 "And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred, and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel." Those deeds and acts of Jeroboam are recorded in II Kings 13: 2 and continuing on in that chapter. I Kings 14:20 "And the days which Jeroboam reigned wee two and twenty years: and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his stead." Nadab's reign will also come to an end exactly as Ahijah's prophecy was written. The point to this entire chapter is that even if you have sinned a great sin, don't be so silly that you would try to con God, and dress yourself up to be something that you are not. Before you approach God for help, get right with the Father in earnest, for after all He knows all your thoughts and desires, and He loves you even in your fallen state. Don't try to deceive him, for when the you think your life is so shattered, God will reach down, pick you up, and put your life back together again. Friend, if you have sunk so low that you think you have to disguise yourself before God, the only sensible thing would be to repent of those sins in Jesus name, and put those things behind you. Sure Father gets mad when you play around in those wicked religious games, but when you see what you have done, He would rather have you be honest with Him. The Father knows exactly how to tell you about your errors, and make those corrections in your life. Many times the corrections are hard to take, however He will make those hard corrections that will reshape your life. Every thing that Jeroboam received for his wickedness he deserved. God would have taken him back if there was true repentance, however Jeroboam showed God nothing but contempt. Jeroboam thought he was greater than God, and could anoint his own priest and God forbid it. Then he thought he could lie to God about his wickedness and cover it over. God was only being fair and just in carrying out this judgment on Jeroboam. We will see over and over that one king after another steps into his office, and then violates the very oath that he has sworn to uphold. The first duty of any king is the protector of the faith. The judge of the land; and the defender of the moral matters of the people. Even with all of Solomon's wisdom; when God poured all the wisdom and blessings on to him and Israel, it went to his head in time and he let his guard down. He not only got down to worship with the heathen, but he brought the heathen right into his home, and the Temple. Man can't seem to get it all together, without messing around with the heathen, and mixing their rituals with God's ways. Now with verse 21 we are going back to the king of the house of Judah. Remember that these two houses are two separate nations. God will treat this nation separately than he does the house of Israel. Set your mind to accept these two houses as two different nations and not tied in any fashion to each other any more. To this day they are even identified by two different names, for the house of Israel will be called "Caucasians", while the house of Judah will be called "Jews". The term "Jew" is not attached to the house of Judah though until after the bondage in Babylon, so four hundred years from this time. The term "Caucasian" was given to those tribes of the house of Israel that migrated through the Caucasus mountains after their scattering by the Assyrians, about 745 to 722 B.C. It identifies the offspring of those people that took part in that event of those migrations. Sure there are many other names they are also known by, such as Brits, Saxons, Gaul's, and so on, but all of them were called "Caucasians". Though the Jews to this day know exactly who they are, most Caucasians have no idea in the world who they really are, or where they came from. However it is written, and God knows who each person is, and where they are. I Kings 14:21 "And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess." The Ammonites were the children of Lot, the nephew of Abraham. They were the kin to Jacob, and to the Israelites. I Kings 14:22 "And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked Him to Jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. " The morals of the house of Israel grew worse from the day that Solomon died, and they came to a state of moral decay that provoked God, just as Jeroboam did. I Kings 14:23 "For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree." These "high places" were not places to worship God, but to take part in their sexual orgies and the worship of other rituals pertaining to grove worship. The images of Ashtoreth, Baal, and Chemosh led to their religious sex orgies, and their god became the heathen fertility goddess and their rituals. Judah picked up right where Solomon ended and sunk deeper than even Jeroboam. Every heathenistic practice that they could latch on to, the took part in and used it in their worship. When you build a church over many years, and get the heathen to come into the church, many of those heathen customs and practices were picked up and adopted into the church to please the heathen and make them feel at home. This is what happened in the case of the Passover, the time of Communion that has since been renamed after the feast of Ishtar. Today most Christians call the Passover, "Easter", in complete ignorance, and all because one scribed changed the name of "Pasha" or Passover in the Greek, to Easter, after the feast of Ishtar. All of the customs and traditions that came out of the heathen Easter religion, the Christian church has adopted into ritual forms, and renamed as Christian. The Easter bonnet, the Easter egg, the bunny, the sunrise service, and so on are all part of that heathen ritual, and because it has been accepted for so many generation that it has become a tradition, a man made heathen tradition. Because the pastor of most Christian churches accept it as being of God, in their ignorance, so do the people of their flock. Do you think God is pleased when He looks down and sees his people chasing around in all these heathen rituals, during the most precious moment of the year. This is when His only Begotten Son died on that cross, and all these Christians think of is the good times of the sex orgies of Baal, mixed into His most holy time. The Communion is when we are to stop and take the cup and the broken unleavened bread to remember the blood of our Lord and Savior that was shed on the cross. His body that took the stripes for our sins that our body can be healed. Can you start to see the emotions that our heavenly Father has, when He sees all this taking place? So as you become critical of these two nations of old, consider what is done today in the name of our Father. In the beginning the heathen practices were accepted as a form of bringing the people into the church. The only problem is that when the heathen came and became part of the church, their heathen practices also stayed. Remember how Jeroboam tried to con God, and put one over on him? Do you really think that it is any different than what is going on today? I Kings 14:24 "And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel." Sodomites have been in our land also, however they are coming out of their closets. God calls all sodomy "an abomination" to Him, and if you think that you can call yourself a Christian and remain in that filthy practice, you are no better than Jeroboam. God cleansed two nations of sodomy, and those nations were Sodom and Gomorrah. He cleansed them with fire and brimstone to the point of turning the entire land to salt. Now this same filth that God tried to do away with, these Jews of the House of Judah are allowing back into their land. The word for "sodomites" as used here is the Hebrew word for "prostitutes", both male and female, male with male and female with female, and the act is just as filthy today as it was back then. In the Hebrew text this "prostitute" was a very religious prostitute for he did the act in the name of religion and claimed that to be his religious right. In the Strong's Hebrew dictionary it is # 6945; "qadesh, kaw-dashe'; from the prime root 6942, a quasi sacred person, i.e. a male devotee (by prostitution) to licentious idolatry:soldomy." This man is doing his sodomy for a religious experience, a spiritual high; it was prostitution in the name of religion. Now you can better understand where these fertility rights came from; Those things like "egg rolling" and "quick like a bunny" and other traditions still remains a deceiving form. What in the world do you think the terms "under the green trees", and "in the groves" were expressing? after all, sex orgies were the religion of the day back then. Today the preachers are trying to get the people out of the trees and into the church, and thus in many denominations sodomy is being accepted for the sake of making them religious. However in the process, the entire worship will become nothing but an abomination to God. This is not given as an insult to anyone, but to better understand what went on back then, and try to see why God looked on these two nations as such an abomination. To see that people will do anything in the name of religion. I Kings 14:25 "(And it came to pass in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem:" This was the Pharaoh of the northern kingdom of Egypt that raided Jerusalem. I Kings 14:26 "And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made." All of Solomon's treasures were stored in the "king's house". God allow the Egyptians to take all those blessings that He gave to Solomon, and haul all that wealth back to Egypt. Remember all that gold, and precious stones, by the ship loads they were hauled into Jerusalem, and now they sit in Egypt. Even all those golden shields and chains, the swords and vessels. He took it all. It is good to have God's blessings, but when God's love is betrayed, the blessings went also. God will give only what you can take care of, and it is obvious that these Jews of the house of Judah could not take care of Solomon's wealth and blessings, because they were ripped off. I Kings 14:27 "And king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king's house." The Egyptian Pharaoh took it all but left Rehoboam as king of this poor kingdom. In the place of all those golden shields, Rehoboam had shields make of cheaper brass to replace those things that were taken. I Kings 14:28 "And it was so, when the king went into the house of the Lord, that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard chamber.)" When Rehoboam left his house and went to the Temple, he now saw the importance of God's things and started to take care of what he had left. He did not give the gold a second thought, nor any of the things of God until they were taken from him. Now after the horse is out of the barn and the gold is off in Egypt, Rehoboam is starting to see the things of God as having value. I Kings 14:29 "Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are thy not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?" Even these acts of Rehoboam are recorded in the acts of the kings in Chronicles. These are two separate kings, Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and these two are over two separate nation, the house of Israel and the house of Judah. You must be able to distinguish between the two, or there is no way that you can start to understand the prophecies of our day. The house of Israel displeased God and He treated them like dung on the street, however so also did the house of Judah, only for David's sake, God did not throw them away. They are both acting as heathen nation, and they both displeased God. I Kings 14:30 "And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days." The war that went on did not claim lives, because it was a war of words and threats. That conflict went on until the Assyrians finally up-rooted Israel and hauled them into captivity, whereby the house of Israel divided into many smaller groups, and scattered all over the world. The only life that was lost between Rehoboam and Jeroboam was when the tax collector of Rehoboam stepped forward as recorded in I Kings 12:18, and the men of Israel stoned him on the spot. I Kings 14:31 "And Rehoboam slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead." When Rehoboam died, his son "Abijam" which in the Hebrew tongue means "my father is God [Ya]", too over to rule in his place. Will there be a change? Well we will see in the future chapters. There are many important lessons that we are learning in this book of king, and even though they are written in a time three thousand years ago, they still apply today. Our Heavenly Father is the same yesterday as He is Today, and He will be that way throughout all eternity. It is important that we learn the emotions of our Heavenly Father for to be blessed by him, requires that we understand what pleases Him, from those things that do not. It is easier to see what pleases God from the Old Testament than from the New Testament. It is spelled out there what God demands from His people, and what His feelings are. You have to get to know Him, and this is how we do it, by studying His Word.
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