Episode Transcript  

One

Downfall of Solomon

Most people don’t realize God promised David that if his sons were faithful, then his kingdom would never end. But within two generations, that kingdom is divided, and then it is lost. The tragic story of the fall of the Kingdom of Israel is told in two books of the Bible: First and Second Kings.

In Deuteronomy 17, God gave three limits for Israel’s king: He must not multiply horses, meaning he must not build an aggressive military machine. Because trust in power becomes an idol that turns the heart from God. He must not multiply wives, meaning he must not become enslaved to lust or political alliances. Foreign wives would turn his heart toward foreign gods, gods who demanded child sacrifice. And he must not multiply silver and gold, meaning he must not accumulate wealth for himself. Because wealth easily becomes an idol that replaces trust in God. No idolatry of power. No idolatry of pleasure. No idolatry of money.

Solomon broke all three. He created a vast offensive military. He had seven hundred wives andthree hundred concubines. He taxed his own people and exacted financial tribute from the nations he subjugated by his military, bleeding them dry, amassing his wealth. In 1 Kings 11:11-13, therefore, the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is what you want and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son.”

Two

Divided Kingdom

God sends the prophet Ahijah to Jeroboam, telling him he will tear ten tribes away from Solomon and give them to him. After this, Solomon dies, and his son Rehoboam succeeds him. Jeroboam goes to Rehoboam and tries to talk sense into him, asking him to renounce the ways of Solomon and be a good king. If he does, then the kingdom will remain intact. Rehoboam rejects this offer, saying, “My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.”

As a result, the ten northern tribes declare their independence and form the northern kingdom of Israel, making Jeroboam their king, while Rehoboam retains only Judah (and Benjamin), forming the southern kingdom of Judah. From this point on, there are two sets of kingdoms: Israel to the north, comprised of ten tribes, and Judah and Jerusalem to the south, comprised of two tribes. But a house divided cannot stand. 

Three

Downfall of Israel

Jeroboam, now king of the ten northern tribes that formed the new nation of Israel, feared that if his people continued going to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple, their allegiance would return to Rehoboam and the southern kingdom. To prevent this, he established two new centers of worship in Bethel and Dan. There he set up golden calves and said to the people, “Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

From this point forward, both Israel in the north and Judah in the south are spiraling toward self-destruction because of their grave personal and national immorality. So, God begins to send prophet after prophet to call both kingdoms to conversion. To Israel in the north, God sends Elijah, Elisha, Hosea, and Amos. To Judah (and sometimes both), God sends Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Micah, Zephaniah, and Habakuk. But neither will listen, neither will convert.

In 722 BC, God sends Assyria to conquer Israel for their grave sin and refusal to repent. The Ten Northern Tribes are taken captive, then scattered and assimilated among the nations. They are lost forever. The land of Israel is repopulated with people from pagan nations, and they become the Samaritans. Because sin always leads to exile and slavery.

Four

Downfall of Judah

As the kings of Judah in Jerusalem go from bad to worse, we are told that Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray so that they did more evil than the seven nations God had destroyed at the time of Joshua. The only righteous king of Judah, Josiah, tries to reform his people, but he is cut down in battle against Pharaoh Neco of Egypt, and Judah continues to spiral downward morally and spiritually.

Through Jeremiah, God makes clear that Judah’s unrepentant sin has already weakened and divided the kingdom. Their injustice, idolatry, and refusal to convert have hollowed them out from within. As a consequence, Babylon will conquer Jerusalem, destroy the Temple, and carry the people into exile. God does not need to punish his people. He gives us freedom, and when we abuse that freedom in sin, it causes terrible consequences, division, weakness, and self-destruction.

Jeremiah removes the Ark of the Covenant containing the Presence of God and hides it. Then in 587 BC, the Babylonians destroy Jerusalem and the Temple and take the people captive to Babylon. The Kingdom of David is lost. The Temple destroyed. The visible sign of God’s presence in the Ark is removed.

Abraham had come out of Ur of the Chaldeans, out of ancient Babylon. Now his descendants were marching in the opposite direction, and probably on the same road that Abraham walked. All that was previously gained was now washed away as they walked back to Babylon.

Five

The Two Ways 

Before they crossed into the Promised Land, Moses gave the people the most important lesson of the Two Ways, saying to them, “See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster. If you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God that I enjoin on you today, if you love Yahweh your God and follow his ways, if you keep his commandments, his laws, his customs, you will live and increase, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own. 

“But if your heart strays, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn into worshipping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 

“I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live…and on this depends your long stay in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them.”

God offers the same two ways to us. Lent is our time to convert and choose the way of life! Have you kept your Lenten resolutions? Are you becoming a better person?

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