1 Kings 12:25-13:34 - I Don’t Care

Welcome back to the Bible Babels Podcast.

My name is Bryon.

This is Carlos.

It's great to be back with you. And looking forward to today and today's episode, which we have entitled, I Don't Care. Carlos, do you have things that you just don't care about?

Of course.

What would be some of those things that you don't care about?

How many ounces of water I should drink per day.

I just don't care. That is definitely... I need coffee.

Yeah, the coffee water ratio, for me caffeine water ratio, I definitely don't care about as much as I should.

You should definitely drink more water than you do coffee and stuff throughout the day. I have not always cared about that as much as I should. It should definitely be something I do care about.

But in today's passage, we're going over really two people in here that should have cared about something, and they didn't. Last week, we saw that the Kingdom of Israel was split up into two different kingdoms.

The Southern Kingdom, also known as Judah, being headed up by Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. And then up in the north, over 10 tribes of Israel was Jeroboam.

And we'll see here, really just starting off at the end of chapter 12, verses 25 through 33, that Jeroboam, he's now king of this new nation.

God's told him, hey, if you'll just walk with me and you will follow me, I will give you the same thing that I promised to David. I'll give you an everlasting dynasty, you and your family, your son and your son's son, and on and on.

You will have this kingdom that I've given to you, which was a fairly substantial kingdom. It was 10 tribes of Israel compared to just the much smaller, two tribes that Rehoboam got. And so, this was what was promised to Jeroboam.

But this is when we run into the first thing of someone not caring about something that they should have cared about. Jeroboam didn't rely on God for that promise that he had made.

Instead, he was afraid that Israel, every year as they were going to go to the temple to have the different feasts and things that they would have that were outlined for them in the law, as they would go down to the temple every year to do that, they

would see Judah, they would see how great the city of Jerusalem was, how awesome the temple was, and that they would eventually kill Jeroboam and join back up with Judah. That was Jeroboam's fear.

So because he was scared of that, he created two golden calves and proclaimed them as the gods that brought the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Now, I'm not the brightest guy in the world, but I feel like anything that was made during my lifetime, I wouldn't say, oh, this thing that was just made, let's use, what's the newest iPhone out? iPhone 12?

12, yeah.

Yeah, I wouldn't say, oh, the iPhone 12. That's what Alexander Graham Bell made. That doesn't make any sense.

So these calves that he's making, I understand that there was probably a, like, this is the manifestation of the gods that took them out of Egypt.

But it's just the same thing that happened to the children of Israel with Aaron, when Moses and Joshua went up to get the, and talked with God, had the 10 commandments and the law given to them on Mount Sinai.

It's the exact same thing of, again, a golden calf, only this time there's two of them. One he puts in Bethel, which is in kind of the southern area of the kingdom of Israel. And the other he put in Dan, in the northern part of Israel.

So no matter where you were, there was a place that you could go that would be relatively close that you could worship these golden calves. He also set up groves and different high places for people to offer sacrifices on to the gods.

And he made anyone that wanted to be a priest, a priest. Which is not a good practice for a couple of reasons. One, in the Old Testament, only the Levites were supposed to be priests.

The why of this was actually kind of particular for God. That the priests did not have any land, any crops, anything that they themselves worked on and grew.

There were ten cities allotted to the tribe of Levi as a whole, but individual families of the Levites didn't have land and crops and stuff.

The tithes in the Old Testament went to feeding and helping the Levites be able to really live and have all of that.

But because they didn't have land, they didn't have any incentive to, oh, I'm going to make prophecies or say things or say that the law says to do this thing in order to get more, because they wouldn't have had anywhere to put it.

If they're like, oh, the law says you have to bring this, this, this, and this, and then this one, you know, Levite or priest is amassing all of this wealth. They weren't able to do that because they just worked at the temple.

They didn't have their own lands and stuff that they were doing. So it helped to kind of counteract some of that. But this is not what is happening here with Jeroboam.

And he's making these priests out of anyone that wants to be a priest. He's setting up all of these places for idolatry.

And really all of this is happening because of Jeroboam's fear that God wouldn't do what he promised to Jeroboam that he would do.

Carlos, for you, what would you say is kind of the relationship between our fear and how it relates to God, or how sometimes our fear stops us from obeying God?

When someone is living in fear, someone who knows that, someone who knows God and knows that God is love and God cares for them, and God should be on the throne of their life, when we start to fear other things than God, like fearing man or fearing

circumstances, then it kind of takes away, it takes our focus off of God. I mean, God wants us to have a relationship with him, a walk with him, something that's genuine, and fear can become an idol in someone's life, someone who's always worrying,

someone who's always concerned about what people think about them, and then that directly affects our obedience to God. A lot of people, I guess, some simple things that people would fear is sharing the gospel with others, right?

And sharing the gospel with others is a common fear among believers, and one thing that fear is going to stop is the obedience to obey the Great Commission.

And you just put a great emphasis on sharing the gospel with others because as a Christian, we're not supposed to just keep it in and just hog the good news to ourselves.

Just think about the person who told you about the gospel and having that same passion to share to others. So fear is just going to really hinder us and it will just stop our potential that we have for God.

Yeah, that's great.

I love the verse automatically comes to mind, 2nd Timothy 1 of God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind, that when we are afraid, we're going to do things that leave us powerless, unloving, or sometimes even

hate-filled, and not thinking straight. So, kind of the opposite of what God has given to us. He hasn't given us the spirit of fear, but He has given us power, love, and sound mind. That's the spirit He has given to us.

So, when we are relying on fear, we're not going to have power, we're not going to have love, we're not going to be thinking in the way that we should, and all of that happens when we have fear. And we can see all of this happening with Jeroboam.

So then, in the first couple of verses of chapter 13, verses one through 10, a prophet comes from God, specifically from the southern kingdom of Judah, comes up and rebukes Jeroboam and tells him that God is going to judge him for his idolatry.

So, the exact same thing that God took away 10 of those tribes from Judah for, so because of Solomon's idolatry, God took those 10 tribes away. So, now Jeroboam with those 10 tribes is doing the exact same idolatry thing.

And so, a prophet rebukes him for this. Jeroboam, of course, is not happy and tries to tell his men to arrest the prophet, but his hand becomes crippled as he is pointing at the prophet. So, he's like, hey, get this guy.

And as he points at him, it says his hand withers like it literally cripples, and he can't pull it back.

Like, he loses the ability to really use his arm right as he's pointing at the prophet, which I feel like as the prophet, he would be feeling scared right at first when Jeroboam is like, hey, get this guy.

But as soon as that happens, he's gotta be feeling good. Like, man, God's on my side. Nothing's going to attack me.

Nothing can harm me. That there's a little bit of that awesome just confidence and this peace that would come on him at that point that, okay, I don't have to fear the king instead. Like, I can trust God.

Jeroboam, as soon as this happens to his hand, he asks the man to pray to God to heal his hand, which he does, and I love how it's phrased in there.

Jeroboam specifically asks the prophet to pray to the Lord thy God, that the same God that had promised everything to Jeroboam in the chapter previous or two chapters previous is now someone else's God. It's not Jeroboam's God.

And so he specifically mentions that. But the prophet asked God to heal Jeroboam's hand. He does that, then Jeroboam asked the prophet to come back to his palace and to eat with him.

But the prophet told him that God told him not to stop anywhere in the northern kingdom, not to eat or to drink anything, not even to come back to Judah the same way that he came.

So he leaves and this is really an awesome thing for the prophet, but for Jeroboam, really just a bad response in a bunch of different ways. How do you think we should respond when we're told that we're wrong?

Or maybe more realistically, how do we normally respond when we're told you're wrong?

You know, you're always going to be told by someone that doesn't agree with you that you're wrong. And sometimes a lot of they want to do that to stir up strife or get a reaction out of you.

So I think a lot of the time when that happens, if it's someone you don't really know, someone who's like a stranger, then you probably shouldn't even respond at all.

But if it's someone that you do know that you have a friendship with, you're never going to agree on something, on everything with someone. So just respond how Jesus will respond. You know, with grace and truth.

And don't take it too personally. It's not the end of the world that someone tells you you're wrong. You know, you don't have to be right about everybody.

But usually we don't do that. Usually we strike back with some kind of sarcastic comment or something that's hurtful. And then you can't really take back what you just said.

So the best thing you can do when someone tries to criticize you or tell you that you're wrong is respond with the right spirit because especially if it's someone who isn't saved, and you say something that shouldn't be said by a Christian, then you

definitely have just maybe closed that door for that person to ever get saved because they're always going to remember, oh, this one guy, this one girl who responded like that to me claims to be Christian, yet they said this or they did that.

Yeah, definitely.

And as it relates to the passage, God rebuking Jeroboam for his idolatry, and his immediate response is wanting violence, wanting to silence the voice of the person that's rebuking him.

And we saw the same kind of thing with Solomon when he learned that Jeroboam was anointed the next king that he tried to send men to kill Jeroboam.

And I think in both of these men, there's a huge difference in how they responded and even how King Saul responded, you know, when he knew David was going to be the next king, he hunted him for years, as opposed to when David was king and when he was

rebuked for his sin, how he responded. So him with Bathsheba, when Nathan says, Thou art the man, he responds in sorrow of God, I was wrong, I've sinned against you, and I need your mercy.

When Shimei, who I believe tried to help in the rebellion with Adonijah, when Shimei told David that he had been unkind to Saul, and he had done this and that, as he was running from Absalom, David responded with kindness, he didn't immediately kill

the man, even though some of his men wanted to kill Shimei, he said, no, God will prove that I was right, but I'm not going to lay a hand on him. And so David's response to criticism, criticism that he had earned with Bathsheba, he just responded in

grace and saying, God, I was wrong, I need your mercy, I'm sorry. And then when he got criticism that he hadn't earned like with Shimei, it was God's going to prove them wrong.

I just need to do what's right, just like you mentioned with having that spirit of grace and truth, not answering back rudely or harshly or angrily about having that same heart. Well, the last portion of this chapter is kind of nutso.

So this prophet has just come from seeing God do something awesome with rebukeing Jeroboam and protecting him, keeping him safe. And then you have the prophet is not supposed to stop anywhere in Israel. That's the thing you have to remember.

He's coming back to Judah. On the way, there's an old prophet. The old prophet, a couple of his sons had seen everything that had happened with Jeroboam and the withered hand, all of that.

So he hears from his sons about everything that happened. And he goes and finds the other prophet that had prophesied to Jeroboam. And he found him sitting under a tree.

And he invites him to his house. And the younger prophet gives him the same statement that he gave to Jeroboam. He said, God told me I'm not supposed to stop anywhere in Israel and eat and drink with people.

I'm just supposed to go back to Judah. Not the same way that I came, but a different way.

So then the old prophet tells him, Oh, an angel of the Lord told me to tell you to come back to my house, and the angel of the Lord told me to tell you that it's okay. And so the young prophet goes back with the older.

While they're eating, the Lord then prophesies through the older prophet to the younger one, didn't I tell you not to eat or to drink in this country or to come back the same way you came?

Because you've disobeyed the Lord, you will not be buried in the grave of your fathers. So, then the young prophet leaves and is killed by a lion.

And the lion just kills him, doesn't eat him, but then just stands by the donkey that the prophet was riding on and by the prophet that is now dead. The old prophet hears about this.

He goes, he gets the body of the young prophet and puts it in his own family's burial plot. So, they're kind of a fairly fast coming true of the prophecy that the old prophet just said of, you're not going to be buried in the grave of your fathers.

It's kind of crazy. It's kind of crazy. But there's a couple of things in here that we want to look at really quick.

The one is that the old prophet tells the younger prophet that an angel of the Lord brought him the word of the Lord to tell the younger prophet, as opposed to when it's mentioned of the younger prophet saying, God told me not to stop anywhere, that

God had spoken to the younger prophet, and the other person was saying, God told an angel to tell me to tell you. So, there's a lot more steps there.

But as it comes to God's will, how would you say we know what God's will is, or what his instruction is? Do we find out what God's will is through what others tell us, or do we find it out through what we feel? Can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah, so I've heard a lot of messages about finding God's will.

You know, what does God want? What does God want you to do? What does God want me to do with my life?

And through reading some of the stories of the Bible, for one example, it's fresh on my mind, because I just taught it to the kids about Paul on the road to Damascus.

And one of the things that really stuck out to me is that, you know, Paul had no idea what was in store for his life.

And if he did know, he probably would have, like, backed off a little bit, you know, I don't want to get stoned, I don't want to get shipwrecked, all this stuff.

And there's a reason that God doesn't reveal everything he has in store for you in the beginning, because if you know exactly what's going to happen, then you might back out.

So what God did for Paul is, he told him, go into the city, and that's where it started. It just started by him taking that small step of faith to follow God and what he told him right then.

And eventually he told him what to do next, and then so forth. In small steps, God had revealed to Paul what he was going to do, where he was going to go.

So a lot of people who are believers today, they worry about what am I supposed to do, where am I supposed to go, God. But what God really wants for his children is to just have a genuine walk with him, to just seek him, to read his word.

Like Matthew 6.33, seek him first, and all these things shall be added unto you. We just worry too much about what's going to happen more than what we know we should be doing.

Having that walk with God and reading his word and praying with him and all that stuff will just be revealed. And when we worry about that too much, we kind of just get our focus off the things that we should be doing.

And I don't think it's from what our emotions tell us, it's from what God's word tells us and what God will reveal to us as we just continue to walk with him.

Yeah, that's great.

And I think specifically as it relates to this passage that the young prophet should have obeyed what he knew God told him instead of taking someone else's word on what God said that actually ran counter to what he had told the younger prophet.

That God's never going to contradict himself in your life. He's not going to tell you, oh, you know, you should, you should tell the truth. But a little bit later on, oh, now you should tell a lie.

God's not going to contradict himself. And where you can know for sure that you're in the will of God is when you're following the word of God and being sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

That you're not reliant on someone else for your walk with God. So you're not relying on a pastor. You're not relying on a friend.

You're not relying on anyone else to have a walk with God for you. That, okay, if I just do everything Pastor Carlos tells me, then I'll know that I'm in the will of God.

But it's as we're personally walking with God, as we're reading his word, as we're praying, as we're being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, that we'll know what God wants us to do.

Like you said, it doesn't come in a giant blueprint of here's everything you need to know for the next 60 years. It comes in, hey, here's what I want you to do today.

I love the verse, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delights in his way. Though he falls, he will not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.

And just a great promise that as we follow God, step by step, day by day, that there's so much security and peace in that, that I don't have to worry about, okay, I feel like God is telling me to do this. I'm seeing it in my time in the word.

I'm seeing it when I'm praying, when I'm focusing on the Lord. But so-and-so over here says that he thinks that I should do this thing instead. But we have to follow God's word.

We have to follow his leading. And that's where we find God's will. It's in that, not in anything else.

Yeah, I feel like a lot of times when you take a step forward with the Lord and he ends up not wanting that for you, then that door will be closed.

And you don't have to worry about, am I doing the right thing? Am I not? If God's in it, he's gonna leave that door open, let you continue to do what you're doing.

But if he wants you to go another direction, you'll be very evident.

Yes, yes. And the ever present promise for the believer is that that comes with peace. That there's no fear in it, there's no trepidation.

It's, okay, I know God is in this. I can feel the peace that his spirit brings. And just the peace that comes from all that.

Well, that's great. I have any other thoughts on this passage on lions, withered hands, lion prophets?

No, I don't think so.

Okay. Well, I just wanted to read one message that we got. That was encouragement to me.

Said, hey guys, just wanted to share that I've really enjoyed listening to you both on Spotify. It's been a blessing to me and the lessons I've heard have been very timely. And thanks so much for messaging us.

If you guys ever want to do that, you can do so on Instagram. You can do it on Facebook with the Bible Babels Podcast. You can also email us if you want at biblebabelspodcastatgmail.com.

And we'd love to hear from you. Heard some suggestions a little bit earlier today from someone who is talking about some different things that they'd like to hear us talk about. But looking forward to the next couple of weeks.

And we've got our first guest podcast host set for just a couple of weeks from now. So looking forward to that. But thank you for listening.

I'm Bryon.

This is Carlos. Thanks for doing in us.