2 Chronicles 10:1-19 - Homiletics

A notable and very mournful instance of lacking wisdom through not asking of God.

The compiler of the Chronicles, in the pursuit of the special objects which he had in view, feels that he need lose no time in details, or in parts of the whole history, which were to be found elsewhere, but which were less important to his own object. The fifteenth verse of this chapter supplies us with an instance of this, its reference to Ahijah the Shilonite finding full explanation in the fuller parallel ( 1 Kings 11:29-40 ). Our own familiarity with the mournful history and mournful needlessness of the schism, and the method in which it was brought about, which is the subject of this chapter, seems to lose for us nothing of that same mournfulness. Men may make use of the contents of this portion of the history of Israel (as of other portions of Holy Scripture, which seem to trench on the unfathomable depth of the doctrine of God's election and fore-ordination) to find their (ever very easily found) theoretic difficulties, as unconcealedly suggested by the words of the above-quoted fifteenth verse. But it remains the same, that the election and the fore-ordaining of One who foreknows, and whose word of prophecy is as sure as the word of any other being after the event, are altogether different phenomena, different facts from what they otherwise should seem to be. Still, the central mystery must needs remain, before which we wonder, exercise faith, and silently adore, or we should not be creatures in the presence of the Creator. The history of this crisis of the nation highly favoured reminds us—

I. OF THE SURE WORD OF GOD . The forewarning, "Thou shalt surely die," was not more truly fulfilled than the forewarning made now, not a century and a quarter ago, that the nation that would have an earthly king would come to find, not its gain therein, but its loss. The dicta of revealed religion are great, simple, and eternal for man. And from instances on a universal scale, and then on a national scale, are we, as individuals, mercifully, most forcibly, and most graciously admonished.

II. THE ERRING UNCERTAINTY FIRST , AND THEN THE CERTAIN ERRINGNESS OF THE MAN WHO FAILS TO MAKE GOD AND RIGHT , DUTY AND TRUTH , HIS SWORN GUIDE . High place, high office, high responsibility,— these give the prominence which is needed to enforce the example of such truth. The deviation is not more real than in the humblest, lowliest life, but it is more conspicuous. Let us note, as circumstances bearing on the case, what follows.

1 . Rehoboam must have had some forewarning of the place to which he was to come. Solomon's was not a sudden death, nor his son's a sudden, unexpected accession.

2 . Rehoboam must have had some acquaintance with the severity of the oppression and servitude of the people as a whole, and probably some anticipation of the likelihood of the representations, which in fact they made to him, of their experiences.

3 . These representations, and the manner in which they were brought before Rehoboam, were far from unreasonable.

4 . Rehoboam, to all appearance, is disposed to begin by acting wisely. He will wait three days before replying. He will utilize that interval by asking the advice of the experienced. He asks it; it is given, and given rightly.

5 . There can be little doubt that it was at this point that self and self-will showed themselves in Rehoboam. Perhaps he had already heard, already knew, the feeling and the reckless bias of the younger men—for it is significantly said they were of those who had been brought up with him, and who were his chief associates now—or otherwise, if his own inclination and will were strong enough of themselves, he did not lean to the judgment of the old men, and hoped for different advice from the younger men, though it were but the merest prop to his own wish. He asks their advice, and is flattered and is glad that it leaps with the thought of his own brave and bravado spirit! In this show of right-doing, in this superficial wisdom, so different from that special wisdom noted in his father, one fatal defect existed. He asked the advice of the old. That it might not be said he asked the advice of one class alone, he asked the advice of the young also. But he did not ask the advice of God, he did not pray for the direction of God. And his foot slipped; he stumbled and fell, and that fall was great. Two things were wrong with even his earthly wisdom. To ask the advice of the young at all was a mistake, and to a great extent even a contradiction in terms. For inevitably they were wanting in the experience which was necessary to draw upon for advice. To ask the advice of the young, after having asked and received that of the aged, was a greater mistake. It looked like a sham and a delusion, and a self-deception, and a craving after serf-deception; and such it was. It was an affront to common sense, an insult to his own conscience, and a sop thrown to self— that enemy which is often, very often, a man's worst, very worst enemy! Rehoboam asked advice of those persons who he knew wouldn't be above giving the advice which he wanted. So be, indeed, easily got what he wanted. So it may be said again God permitted him to have what he saw he was bent on having, as he permitted the people and nation to have, some hundred and twenty years before, the king they were bent on having. But he lived to rue the day, and rueing it still ever, he died. An unreasonable, a cruel, and a brutally insolent answer alienated once and for ever the hearts, service, and lives of the larger part of the people from their king; but a king who had disentitled himself. A very few days and he was a fugitive ( 2 Chronicles 10:18 ), though to his own capital—that capital one lamentably dismembered in its provinces. So stumble and. so fall, sooner or later, those who set at naught kindness, justice, God, to serve self, folly, and time present.

III. THE INFINITE RISK OF MISCHIEF IRREPARABLE THAT LURKS IN THE INTEMPERATE SIN , THE INTEMPERATE TEMPER , OR , PUT GENERALLY , THE INTEMPERATE ACTION , OF MEN IN AUTHORITY , BY REASON OF THE EASY EXCUSE FOR SCHISM , THE FACILE THOUGH SUPERFICIAL DEFENCE OF IT , THEREBY OFFERED TO THE VERY LIPS OF THOSE WHO ARE , OR OUGHT TO BE , UNDER THEIR AUTHORITY , AND WHO OTHERWISE WOULD HAVE REMAINED IN HAPPY UNQUESTIONING SUBORDINATION TO THAT AUTHORITY . The illustration and instance of this here is patent and glaring. The disaster was enormous. The long-trailed consequences were mournful, melancholy, miserable. The fault and sin of the ten tribes or their representatives are undeniable. Their sweet reasonableness of yesterday and three days ago is, unfortunately, not simply blown to the winds or evaporated into thin air—worse by far, it is converted into a determined breaking loose from some of the holiest bonds wherewith it is the mercy of Heaven to bind on earth. The kingdom of God is one; the Church of God is one; the people of God are one. Disguise it as laxity of creed may, disguise it as laxity of practice may, disguise it as the great ancient or even greater modern cleavages of apostasy may, the calamity is of the nature of an avalanche alike of faith and of good works, and ever buries beneath its disastrous debris , not bodies but souls innumerable, and of immeasurable worth. Hence the golden calves, instead of the One only Object of worship, without image or likeness. Hence Bethel and Dan, instead of Jerusalem without compare. Hence priests of the lowest life, i.e. without the credentials of devotion, love, Divine call and appointment. Hence, instead of the one altar, many, but these rended, their ashes poured out to the ground, and incense a rejected abomination, and all the long-drawn sequel of woe untraceable by human eye, irremediable by human power. Does not the world take more loss from the dissensions of the Church than all the Church takes from the united enmities of the world?