1 Kings 14-16 - Nasty, No Good, Bad, Very Bad

Well, welcome back to the Bible Babels Podcast.

I'm your host, Bryon Self.

This is Carlos.

It is great to be back with you. It has been a crazy week on our end getting prepped for our church's 10th anniversary. So we've been working on all sorts of stuff, videos, music, specifically for our choir.

We've been, we've gotten in merch for our church, church merch, and we're very, very excited for all of it. But it's, it's been crazy, but we are happy to be jumping right back into our Bible Babels.

So I discovered something earlier this week, Carlos.

What's that?

I discovered that last week, I was supposed to cover a chapter of scripture that, that I didn't. So we get a bonus chapter this week, but think good thing for our listeners, it's not going to take up that much more time.

Here's, here's what we got going today, guys. The title of today's podcast is Nasty, No Good, Bad, Very Bad.

And it's named that because we're going to look very briefly today at 11 different kings, four from Judah, seven from Israel, and these kings with a few exceptions were just really bad guys.

And there's a consistent habit of bad habits the entire way through. So if you're following along in your Bible, you can do so. First Kings 14, Chapter 14 through about the end of Chapter 16.

And the overarching theme that we see here is that king after king, they're given kingdoms by God. Some of these, the Southern Kingdom of Judah that we learned about, and some of them, the Kingdom of Israel.

But king after king abandons God in order to follow idols instead.

Now, we could go kind of first by verse through these chapters and go into detail on each one of these kings, but really for time's sake, we're just going to give you a little bit of an overview.

You can kind of dive into some of the specifics if you want to on your own time. But we want to look at first, obviously, we know about the King of Judah, Rehoboam, and the King of Israel, Jeroboam.

And Rehoboam, Solomon's son, Jeroboam was one that Solomon had set up as a ruler, as an organizational director over a couple of the tribes of Israel.

And then after Solomon's death, God had him be the first king over the kingdom of Israel, those northern 10 tribes.

And, but what we see, as we saw last week, was that Jeroboam set up a couple golden calves, one in Dan and one down in Bethel, and told Israel that they could worship there.

He didn't want them to go back to Jerusalem to worship, as God had it, because he was scared that the people were going to see how great Jerusalem was, come back and kill him.

And he didn't have faith that God would do what he promised of having an everlasting line, just like he promised to David. And so he started worshiping these idols in that way. And we learned about that.

Now, in Judah, you would think, okay, that all of this stuff has happened to Israel. We've learned about all of the things that were said to Jeroboam about how his family line is now going to end. He's not going to have a lasting kingdom.

And you would think Jeroboam would think about that, right? I mean, he's already lost 10 of the 12 tribes that his father had. He's started off really in a bad way.

But what we see from Jeroboam's life is that he starts following and allowing the people to be worshiping other gods as well. These even included cults with just terrible things that were taking place in Rehoboam's reign.

Now, Rehoboam dies and Jeroboam dies, and both of their sons ascend to the throne after them.

Jeroboam's son is Nadab, and Nadab does all the things that his dad did with the golden calves and setting up whoever wanted to be a priest could be a priest and setting up idols all around Israel.

And Rehoboam's son, Abijam, does the same kind of thing in the southern kingdom of Judah, not with the golden calves, but continuing all of the things that Rehoboam did in the southern kingdom.

And it specifically mentions for the kings of Judah, this is kind of an interesting fact, whenever the kings of Judah are mentioned, and it also mentions who their mother was.

Now, I've heard a lot of speculation over the years over what that could mean, but one kind of consistent thing that I've heard is that the king would be out doing all of the business, he would be leading armies, he would be judging over different

things. You have the ladies that came to Solomon and said, hey, you know, this is my baby, you know, this is my baby, will you rule? So kings were doing that kind of thing, even maybe what a judge or a custody person would do nowadays.

So they were doing all of that, which meant that then the mothers of the princes and things like that, the people that would one day be kings, had a lot of influence on what kind of people the future kings would turn out to be.

And I just think that's a huge encouragement for people nowadays, specifically those that maybe are single moms or even just regular moms, that what you do makes a genuine impact in the lives of your children.

And as we'll see a little bit later, what you do as a mom can make a difference to steer your children towards the right or towards the wrong.

With the bijem, it specifically mentions that he didn't walk with God like David, his, what is it now, great grandfather did. But God still loved him because of what David had done. And so he allowed the kingdom to continue in the south with that.

Now, on the other side of things, Nadab gets killed by Basheh, who was of the tribe of Issachar. But Basheh continues to have golden calves, all the idols, doesn't change anything.

Then his son, Elah, he gets to the throne, he keeps worshiping all of these idols, and then he's killed by Zimri, who also serves all of these idols. And then, Zimri rules for seven days, all of the people try and fight against him.

He goes into the palace, burns down the palace on top of himself, killing himself and burning down the palace. So as you can tell, things are not going well in Israel.

Jeroboam's descendants are already completely off of the throne, they've been wiped out. Then the person that wiped out all of Jeroboam's descendants, his family is wiped out by Zimri.

And then another person ascends to the throne, Omri, and he fights a guy named Tibne for the throne, and his people win. And the Bible specifically mentions that he did more evil than any king had before him in Israel.

So in Israel, there's just this long line of, you know, a guy becomes king, maybe he lasts, maybe his son becomes king, but then someone comes, destroys their entire family, takes the throne, and then that person, their entire family is destroyed,

and another person takes the throne. It's just this consistent thing of people that are following after every other god, but not the god of their ancestors. They are continually just seeing this terribleness happen to them.

But, in between all of this comes now Rehoboam's grandson Asa. Now, we said Rehoboam, not a great king, lost a bunch of the tribes, started kind of allowing people to serve idols.

His son Abijam, he was serving idols as well, but then there comes the king Asa. And it, again, mentions specifically Asa's mother, and it says that his heart was holy true, was holy right before the Lord all the days of his life.

It says he was righteous, that he took away the idols that his father had made. He began purging the land of a lot of the idolatry and a lot of the terrible things that were taking place.

And I think it's great for him specifically that it does mention his mother and kind of the role that she played in his life. Carlos, what are some ways that family can help us follow God?

Well, especially talking about now in modern time, a family that a mom and dad who really, or just as anybody, a single parent, a grandparent, someone who puts first the priority of having a relationship with God.

And a lot of the times, you know, you can tell someone to do something, but if they don't see you living it or practicing that, then it's not going to be anything to them.

So a lot of the ways that a family member can help someone follow the Lord is simply them doing it themselves.

And that's going to be the most effective way to help people around you, your loved ones, to have a relationship with God, because especially if they see you day in and day out, obviously they're going to know that you're not perfect, but they're

going to know that you're putting a priority and a focus on following the Lord and having a relationship with Him. And some of the things that come to my mind is when family can be a hindrance or slow you down to following God.

One of the stories that comes to my mind is Joseph.

Joseph, a young man who really had a heart for God and his own brothers, who sold him to slavery and basically put a whole burden of everything on his life by selling him to slavery and Joseph was hindered by his own family.

And that could happen in today's world where you're the only Christian in your family and your family ridicules you, insults you because of your faith and family can do that to you. They can hinder you without them even knowing it.

And you just got to be strong and just trust in God that you'll be able to reach them. But today that happens a lot of people, especially from other religions, who convert over, which is really looked down upon.

And like Hinduism and all kinds of other things like that, even Catholicism. And when people first find out about that in your own family, they really just don't want anything to do with you. And that's how it is at first.

And that's how family can help or hurt you.

Yeah, definitely. I can think even back in my high school, there were some people that specifically wanted to follow God, wanted to be involved in church and in serving and in getting with other believers.

And their family a lot of times was so focused on other things, whether it was sports or even academics or things like that, that it really came to the detriment of their kids.

And so if you're a family member, if you have any family, what you can do is exactly what Carlos said. You be the one that lives out real Christianity in front of them and encourage them to love and follow the Lord. It's great.

When it comes to a lot of the things that we're talking about, idols, you know, sometimes we can think, okay, well, how does this apply to us nowadays? You know, I don't have a little thing set up of Buddha in my house.

I don't have, you know, maybe some Catholic saints. I don't have some of their things set up in my house.

But what are some idols that we can kind of set up in our lives with the thought that, you know, in the ancient world, idols were things that were supposed to control or give good luck to your finances, your crops, your health, your children,

romance, war. These were things that were supposed to control or give good luck to those things. What are some kind of practical idols that we can have today?

Yeah, the easiest way to define an idol nowadays is something that just takes the place of God in your life. We know as a believer, as a born-again Christian, that God the Father should be on the throne of your life.

He should be the main focus of your life, that everything that you do should revolve around Him and His Word. So we know that whatever actions you're doing that are against His Word are not of Him.

So some practical things, you know, we may not have those statutes or anything, like Bryon just mentioned, but we have them in our living room, you know, TVs, and we have our devices, our phones, anything really like, I know there's a lot of kids who

focus on, and I have to get good grades, I need to study 24-7 to get into this college, I need to do everything in my power and my being in my will to get this scholarship to this school. And just like that, they're putting 110% effort into secular

activities, school, which is not bad to want to be in a good college. But a lot of times we leave that passion and that drive, and we don't leave it, we don't give it to our walk with God.

And anything that takes up that time with God, whether it's sports, whether it's a hobby, and things that aren't bad necessarily.

But when something gets too much focus on your life before God, like you're starting to miss church because of sporting events or family time, like you're always going to have time for that stuff, then you know you should prioritize things, because

wherever you prioritize, it's important to you. So I just think that a lot of times people are like, yeah, I don't worship statues, I don't bow down to false gods, yet you could look at, you know that screen time you get on your iPhone?

That is a pretty convicting thing that Apple has designed in their OS. You know, you look at your screen time and it says, you were on your phone for four hours and 26 minutes a day.

And just having that as a reminder is, how much time did I spend with God compared to these things that are just temporal and you know, not necessarily bad things, but just having too much time on those devices and what not.

I think that's great.

Yeah, I think of, you know, all of these things that people wanted to control back in the old days, their finances, their health, being able to have children, victory in war, you know, none of those things were bad things to want.

It's not a bad thing to want to have good health. It's not a bad thing to want your finances or, you know, your crops back in those days, the ability to feed your family. That's not a bad thing.

But anything that we give more thought to, more energy to, more finances to than we do to God, Jesus told us, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So we can decide, okay, what's gonna be the focus, like the goal of my life?

Is everything in my life going to burn for sports? Is everything in my life going to burn for just my family? Is everything in my life going to burn for God?

Like what's my passion? What gets me up? What drives me?

What do I think about? And I think that's great.

Yeah, and a lot of times, you know, when people are going towards a specific goal, like sports or college, you know, they're doing it for something that they can attain, something that's tangible.

When you're just living for God, when you're focusing on just doing things because you're doing it out of love, there's just so much more satisfaction in that. And a lot of times, you know, I go to church, I do all this so I can have time for myself.

I can do what I want to do now throughout the week. You know, being a Christian isn't just going to church on Sunday morning and going to church once a week.

There's a lot of people who just the only time their Bible is open is on that Sunday, which is sad. But, you know, a lot of people just have that mindset of, I have my checklist Christianity, so now it's time for what I want to do.

And that definitely isn't how God designed us to have a relationship with him.

Yep. That's so great. And yeah, I think that's all I have for that thing.

Okay, very last thing for today. For all of these guys, especially in Israel, there's some pretty heavy consequences that happen for Jeroboam's family. They're completely wiped out.

For Basha's family, they're completely wiped out. For Zimri, he is completely wiped out. For some people, they would look at that and go, man, that's really harsh.

That's really tough. But we do need to realize that sin has very real consequences. And for these people, the consequences came quickly and they came in a big way.

But I think I had a question here, but I'll make it kind of brief for time's sake. A lot of times, we can think that our sins are not that bad, and they don't deserve punishment. There shouldn't be a consequence for our sins.

But always remember two things. One, sin is real and it has real consequences. We can see that clearest with Jesus on the cross, that God himself turned his back on his son and he bore the entire weight of the sin of the world.

He cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from me? And in this, we realize that there is a deep punishment for sin.

But Jesus took the punishment for our sin. And so, in our lives, we don't have to go around with this, oh man, God's going to really hurt me if I mess up at all.

Instead, realize that because Jesus took the punishment for our sin, that heavy punishment for our sin, we should not want to sin, not because God's gonna zap us, but because of the cost that it exacted on Jesus and because of our love for him, we

don't want to glory, we don't want to continue in our sin. That's all I have for today. Today's a little bit of a briefer thing. Next week, we've got a very special guest with us.

It's gonna be my brother Samuel Self, and looking forward to having him as we look at the story of Elijah and Ahab, and one of my favorite Bible passages, Bible stories. It's amazing, and I'm looking forward to it. Carlos, any thoughts before we go?

Just one more about the, you know, thinking about having to do with our sin.

A lot of times people think that it doesn't have like a consequence, and sure, it might not be like a human, human consequence, but just think about like when David had, you know, had committed adultery with Bathsheba, that does something to his

mind, to where the consequence of that is now he's not going to view women the same as he did before. And just with anything, like you're not going to view something the same if you keep doing that.

It might not be a, you're getting in trouble consequence, but it's actually like attacking your mental, like your psyche.

Yep. That's so good. It goes in more ways than just, you know, for these people, like their families were attacked by other kings and usurpers of the throne and all of that.

But for us, it definitely will attack our mind. It'll attack our spiritual state, and there are real consequences for it.

If you have something that you're struggling with, just know Jesus absolutely has the power to overcome that sin, and he wants you to be able to do that through the power of his Spirit.

It doesn't come from our own self-willing, oh man, I just gotta try harder. It comes from relying on Jesus.

As always, if you want to DM us or, you know, comment on one of our Facebook posts, you can do so with Bible Babels Podcast or the handle at Bible Babels Podcast. And I look forward to hearing from you and being with you again next week.

Thank you so much for listening. I'm Bryon.

This is Carlos, thanks for joining us.