1 Kings, Chapter 14 - God Sees The Heart | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] Shalom friends and welcome to the prophets of Israel daily. This is the first book of kings chapter [music] 14. I'm Jeremy Gimpel here with my dear friend and kut arry bramwitz. And this series is brought to you by the land of Israel network at the land of Isisrael.com. All right friends, a little bit of background. The kingdom has split. In the north, Yuravam rules the 10 tribes. He's built golden calves from Dan to Bethl. in the south rules Judah from Jerusalem. Chapter 14, it's not an easy chapter. It's really a chapter of consequences. Both kingdoms beginning to reap what their kings swed and it opens inside a father's grief. Verses 1 and two, Yuravam's sons Ayah falls deathly ill. and Yavan, the king who abandoned the God of Israel for golden calfs in his moment of crisis knows exactly where to turn. He tells his wife, "Disguise yourself so no one knows you're the queen. Go to Shilo to Akya the prophet, the man who told me I would be king." He'll tell us what will happen with the boy. Jeremy, I I want to stop there for a second because there's something that's so revealing and so human in this opening. And I I think it's easy to miss it. Look at what Yurovam does the moment his child is dying. This is the man who built two golden calves. This is the man who told all of Israel, "Here are your gods who brought you out of Egypt. He manufactured an entire false religion so his people wouldn't go to Jerusalem to consolidate his political power in the north. And now in the hour of his deepest fear when his son is dying, does he pray to a golden calf? Does he go to bait l to the altar that he built? No. He goes straight to a true prophet of the true God of Israel. He goes running back to the very god he publicly abandoned. And friends, that exposes the lie at the heart of Yurvam's whole project. Deep down, he knew. He knew. He knew the whole golden calf thing was a political invention, not a real god. When it was about holding on to power, the convenient religion was not good enough. But when it was about life and death, about his own child, suddenly only the real God and the true prophet were relevant to him in any way. And again, maybe on a smaller scale, it does seem relatable, at least to me. You know, I mean, people will build all kinds of comfortable, convenient substitutes for God. And when life is easy, money, status, fame, social media clicks, whatever, whatever golden calf we've made, but in the moment of genuine crisis, the soul knows where to run. Eurovvam's disguise says it all. He doesn't even have the courage to come to God's prophet as himself. He wants the truth without being seen wanting it. He wants God's help while still clinging to his idols. And that half-heartedness is exactly what Elijah has shown up to confront. >> You know, that's really just a piercing insight. And the confrontation, it's really challenging cuz Aya, the prophet, now think about it. He's old. He's blind. He can't even see the disguise. So why is she getting disguised? But God sees right through it all. verses five and six, Hashem tells Akya in advance to know that Yuravam's wife is coming disguised and to ask about her son. And so before she even enters, the blind prophet calls out, "Boy, Yuravam, come in and wife of Yuravam, why do you pretend to be another? For I am sent to you with heavy tidings." It's such a cool story. I mean, the blind prophet who can't see it all sees through it all. I mean, it's just so awesome. And you know, the disguise is obviously useless. And Ayah delivers just this crushing prophecy saying, "Listen, because youram did the evil above all who came before him, made other gods and molded images, and cast God behind his back, the entire house of Yeravam will be cut off and destroyed. And the boy, the sick child, he's going to die the moment his father's his mother's feet enter the city. >> Right. And Jeremy, in the middle of this whole devastating prophecy that's playing out there, there's one line about the dying child that's um it's really it'll touch a heart especially of a of a parent and I think it's one of the most difficult and mysterious verses in the whole chapter. So, Akya says that the boy will die. But then he says something that really catches your attention. He says that this child alone of all of Yuravam's house will be brought to a grave and mourned will receive an honorable burial because in him alone there was found something good towards Hashem. Right? In the whole house of Yuravam, only in this boy there was something good towards Hashem. In the entire wicked dynasty, in this whole corrupt royal house, there was one soul, a child in whom God found something good. And the the mercy, if we could call it that, is that this pure child will die now young before the horror comes on the rest of the family and he alone will be mourned and buried with dignity. And there are two things that I want to say about that. First, Hashem sees the individual. Sometimes it can feel like we get lost in the multitudes and in the national. Even inside a condemned house, God does not paint with one brush. He searches each heart and where he finds even a spark of good, he sees it and he names it and he honors it. Not one good soul is lost in the crowd. And second, there's a profound and difficult comfort in this that it seems that we're seeing Tanakh itself show us that what may look like the crulest tragedy, a child taken young, the text frames it as a kind of mercy. This pure soul is spared the devastation of what's coming and it is the only one that's granted an actual honorable end. Hashem should spare us all from ever having to contend with such a thing. But the point is that we need to have the humility to understand that we can't fully comprehend Hashem's ways in life and death. And this verse certainly shows us that even in the darkest judgment, there's precision and justice. And there is a God who cherishes the one good heart in a house full of corruption. You know, when I think about the story, it's really heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time. And it happens exactly as the prophet says. Verse 17, the woman gets up, returns home, and as she steps over the threshold of the house, the child dies. All Israel mourns him, and the chapter tells us, "You of Am's reign ends, and his son Nadav reigns after him." A dynasty already under a death sentence. And then Ari the chapter just takes a turn for the worse to Judah to and here is the sobering thing. We might expect that at least Judah, at least the southern kingdom that kept the house of David that guarded the temple in Jerusalem, they would be faithful. But listen, verses 22- 24 say the exact opposite. A nashem and Judea Judah did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. So Judah too built high places and sacred pillars and asherim on every high hill and under every green tree. There was even cult prostitution in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations God had driven out. both kingdoms, north and south, sink into idolatry. >> And Jeremy, that verse about Judah should really um it should touch us to our core because it it it destroys this sort of comfortable assumption that I always had in my head growing up reading the Tanakh, you know, the idea that Judah were the good guys and the North were the bad guys. We just watched the northern kingdom fall into idolatry with golden calves. And it would be so easy to sit in Judah and to feel righteous. At least we kept the temple. At least we kept Jerusalem. At least we kept the house of David. But the Tanakh refuses to let Judah off the hook. It says plainly, Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They had the real temple, the real Jerusalem, the real Davidic king, and they still built high places and idols under every green tree. Like having the holy things wasn't enough. Proximity to holiness didn't make them holy. And in some ways it made the stakes even higher and their sins even greater. And that my friends is is a warning that really should touch our own hearts because it's so easy to think that being near holiness makes us holy. That belonging to the right group, living in the right place, having the right heritage, standing in the right building somehow makes us righteous by association. Judah had the temple itself again. And it didn't save them from idolatry because holiness was never about the building. It was about the heart. Exactly as God told Solomon when the temple was dedicated. You can stand in the holiest place on earth with an idol in your heart. And God is not fooled by our proximity to holy things. He looks as always at what we actually worship. Judah's tragedy is the tragedy of people who had every advantage and squandered it. making they would they would mistake access to true holiness as faithfulness to true holiness. And now with our return back to the promised land after 2,000 years of the exile here in Judea, that is not a mistake that we can afford to make. And it's a mistake that we could make if we don't really stay vigilant about it. Because where is a holier place than where we're broadcasting from right now? You know that's really like the hard mirror that we need to look at through this chapter. And you know the consequence comes swiftly. Verses 25 and 26. In the fifth year of Ravam, Shishak, king of Egypt, marches up against Jerusalem and strips the treasures of the house of the Lord in the king's palace. He takes everything, the golden shields Solomon had made. And in one of the saddest little images in the book, verse 27, Rickam replaces the stolen golden shields with shields of bronze, the gold of Solomon's glory was just plundered by Egypt. And in place, they put like these kind of like weaklooking cheap bronze shields. And really, that's the perfect picture of a kingdom that's really on its way out. It's already in decline. you know, putting on a brave face. But everyone knows the gold is gone. And really for me, friends, that's what Kings 14 is speaking to us in Israel right now today. This chapter, it's a sobering word for a people who've been given great things. Judah had the temple, the holy city, the Davidic throne, every spiritual advantage. And the text says they still did evil because they mistook having the holy things for being holy. And that's a warning for our generation. We have got to hear this. We've been through so much. We've been brought home to this land, to Jerusalem, to the very hills where the prophets walked. But this chapter is telling us, listen, the land and the heritage, it's not enough on their own. You can't just be a Zionist. God gave them to us for a purpose to build a nation that actually walks in Hashem's ways, not just another Hebrew speakaking Canada. And you know, you can't just possess the holy places without really working on trying to develop a holy heart. And so may we be the generation that holds this sacred ground but lives up to it. Not just um physically but spiritually. We don't bring the bronze, we want to bring the gold. And it's not going to be a disguise but a whole and faithful heart. So my friends, we'll see you again tomorrow as Ari takes on chapter 15. But before we go, I would love to ask that all of you help us power this [music] institution called the Prophets of Israel Daily and become a sponsor. Help us bring these [music] words to the prophets to every language in every nation around the world. 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