582
T H E
K I N G ’ S
B U S I N E S S
September 1924
are in His will, there can be no ground for fear (Psa. 46: 2; 5 6 :4 ). How sad it is that Christians so often fail to commit their ways unto the Lord and trust in Him to bring it to pass (Psa. 3 7 :5 ). (b) A Religious Sacrilege, vs. 28-31. The king devised a way of his own for the worship of the Lord. He imitated Aaron (Ex. 32 :2 -5 ). There is nothing new in false wor ship. All false cults are simply a change in design or color. That’s all. Jeroboam had been in Egypt where sacred calves were worshipped. He violated the express command of God (Ex. 20:3, 4; Deut. 12 :3 2 ). He became a rebel in God’s sight (2 Chron. 1 3 :6 ). Idolatry is devilish (Zech. 13 :2 ; 1 Cor. 10 :20 ). We are warned against it (2 Cor. 6 :16 ; 1 John 5 :2 1 ). There is one temple now where God manifests His glory (Heb. 1 :3 ) ; one place of meeting (Matt. 1 8 :2 0 ); one fes tival for His saints (1 Cor. 1 1 :23 -26 ); one order of minis try (Eph. 4 :1 1 -1 3 ); one admonition for His people (Psa». 9 6 :6 ). (4) RETRIBUTION FOR SIN, 15:26 to 16:28. Jeroboam ordered a new feast, a new season for it, a new order of priests. God testified against him by paralyzing his hand; by rending the altar in twain (1 3 :5 ); by predict ing evil for him and his house (1 4 :1 1 ); making his name a synonym for evil doing (1 5 :3 0 ). He was a faithless man, far-sighted, but not faith-sighted. Topics for Study (1) Do men often fail to open the door when opportun ity knocks? (Can you give some examples?) (2) If we allow God to plan our place and position, will He also provide the necessary wisdom? (3) Does dominion without wisdom lead to despotism? (4) Did Israel suffer the rule of a sinful king because she sought' for a king? (5) May a far-sighted man fail because he is not faith- sighted? (6) Was Jeroboam’s organization original or Satanic? (7) May a vivid imagination be a vain one? (8) Did Jeroboam have to drink the dregs of his sin in providing two calves of gold for worship? (9) In altering God’s altar did he profane the priest hood? (10) Why did his feast find no favor with God? Sept. 28, 1924 12:2-4 Note the reason of the protest, which was not Solomon’s idolatry and the heathenism he introduced, but their pecuniary burdens, their civil oppression, rather than their religious wrongs. It is still so, and political reform looks only on the surface and never COMMENTS takes into account the root of difficult- FROM THE ies. Had Solomon kept true to God the COMMENTARIES people would not have been oppressed; V. V. Morgan but the latter were blinded as to this because they had become partakers of his sins. They, too, loved the heathen worship and only murmured at its cost.— Gray. 12:7 He overlooked a universal law. Consequences, resulting from choices made, are inevitable. Effects follow causes. Louis the Fourteenth made his autocratic boast, “ I am the state,” and prepared the way for the French Revo lution. Rehoboam haughtily announced, “ I will add to your yoke” (v. 14), and paved the way for a divided king dom and the “ ten lost tribes.” The opportunity to illus trate the great law of Christian service, “Whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all” was lost. He deliberately chose to sow to the wind and reaped the whirl wind. Choice for you is fraught with as grave responsibil ity as for Rehoboam.— Pract. Com. Rehoboam’s lost oppor
tunity never came to him again. He was forbidden to recover by force what he had sacrificed by folly. He suf fered the shame of rejection and desertion. He was defeated in his assertion of authority. He was forced to escape for his own life.mArnold. 12:28-30 There were two images, but they each repre sented God. The intention was to worship the same God, Jehovah, whom they had always worshipped. The new worship was to be a continuance of the old under new forms and in new places. These “ calves” were not meant to be substitutes for God, but emblems, symbols, visible expressions of God. Why should you go a long distance among those who have oppressed you, in order to worship? Be loyal to your own kingdom. He persuaded them the more easily because the most religious of the people had already left the northern kingdom. The second command ment was broken rather than the first. Jeroboam’s argu ment was that the new worship was only a continuance of the old. He used almost the exact words of Aaron when he made the golden calf. (Ex. 32:4) but without any remembrance of that event and its disastrous outcome.—Sf Peloubet. 12:30 Of Jeroboam it is said twenty-three times that he “made Israel to sin.”ffif-Pract. Com. Jeroboam’s policy perpetuated and multiplied in Israel the evils of which the rending of the kingdom had at first been the penalty. The ordained and fully deserved penalty of Solomon’s trans gression was the placement of another than his son upon the throne. Jeroboam was face to face with the opportunity of his life. It was a decisive hour in the young ruler’s career. His future and the fate of a kingdom hung in the balance. With his great opportunity before him Jeroboam failed. Lawless ambition became his ruin.— Arnold. 14:7-9 Whatever idolatries the Israelites had be'en guilty of previously, whether in the earlier or the later times, by their worship of Baal and Ashtoreth, of the groves, of the gods of Syria, Moab, and Ammon (Judg. 2 :1 3 ; 3 :7 ; 6 :2 5 ; 1 0 ;6 ; 1 Kgs. 11 :3 3 ), yet hitherto none of their rulers had set up the idolatrous worship of ephods, teraphim, and the like (Judg. 18 :1 7 ), as a substitute for the true religion, or sought to impose an idolatrous system on the nation. Gideon’s ephod “ became a snare contrarily to his intentions (Judg. 8 :2 7 ).” Solomon’s high places were private-built for the use of his wives, and not designed to attract the people.— Horn. Com. 14:8 The Lord’s commendation of David as contrasted with Jeroboam (v. 8) is to be considered in the light of the pure worship the former maintained in accordance with the divine law. It does not mean that David never sinned, although, of course, even in that he differed from Jeroboam because he repented of his sin. 14:10-14 They suffer the horrible punishment threatened in the law to the impious transgressor (Deut. 28:26) and the foulest indignity that a conquered and slaughtered foe could be exposed to (cf. vs. 11, with 1 Sam. 17 :4 6 ). He who transmits sin to his descendants involves them in the punishment connected with its continued commission. — Horn. Com. 14:15, 16 Here is the first positive announcement of the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles as a punishment of Israel’s sins. Already, in earlier times, had a rooting up and scattering of the people been threatened in cases of disobedience (Deut. 28:63; 2 9 :27 ; Josh. 2 3 :1 6 ), but Ahl- jah is the first of that long line of prophets that holds up exile beyond the river Euphrates as a certainly coming woe. The people that share in a monarch’s sin will inevit ably share in its punishment.B-Hom. Com. 14:29 We should not misunderstand “ the book of the chronicles” (vs. 29) as meaning the book of the Old Testa ment bearihjg that name, but only one of the customary records of the kings. Neither should we imagine verse 30 to be a contradiction of chapter 12:21-24* as the former (vs. 30) may refer to skirmishes in contrast with an aggres sive war of conquest.— Gray. 14:30 Idolatry is a fruitful source of fraternal enmity. Of all quarrels, those between people of near kindred are the most bitter and disastrous. Where true religion is ignored, the bond of unity and brotherhood is destroyed. — Horn. Com.
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter