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Israel had no king, and everyone did as they saw fit. So here's the thing. As we start today, we're actually in the book of Samuel. In fact, we're going to cover, if you're with me, we're going to cover the books of 1st and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1st and 2 Chronicles. Okay, those are the six books that we're going to cover in the next 30 minutes. Alright? Think we can do it? Okay, we're not going to get to cover all the details, obviously, right? Because we'll be here all day long. Okay? But here's the thing. We're going to cover those six books. Um, and what we're going to start with is the story that we find in Samuel, which after we hear this terrible verse that describes where the people were doing what they wanted to because they were depraved, because they were rebellious, God steps in again and he continues to provide leader after leader to call his people back to himself. Well, we we find the book of Samuel actually opening up with a story about this average, normal family and this woman who is unable to have children. Now, I don't know if anyone in this room has ever struggled, uh, if any of you women who are married, uh, if you've ever struggled uh to give birth or to have to conceive a child, um, but I know that for some of our friends who are close to us, this is a big, big deal, okay? Um, and this is a hard circumstance. In fact, we had a small group of people we met with uh when we very first moved to Round Rock back in 2007, and uh and there were five couples in that group who were struggling with infertility. And let me just tell you, as a as a as a husband and wife, Jada and I, in that group, having three kids, uh, we could tell there was some tension. That every time we talked about our children and we talked about them, they weren't trying to be mean, they weren't trying to be bitter, but they were just wrestling because they wanted children for themselves. And what's so cool is now all those families have children. And we've been able to see each one of them come to a place where God's provided children for them. But here's the deal: this lady, Hannah, she is she is just broken, she is distraught, she is so just sad before God as she goes into the tabernacle to worship God that literally she's crying her eyes out. She is just pouring her heart out before God. And the priest of that time, Eli, he looks up and he sees her and he says, Man, why is this woman drunk in here? Why is she acting like that? Why is she coming into the tabernacle to worship drunk? Okay? And so he actually scolds her and he goes over and says, What are you doing, woman? And she says, Listen, it's not what you think it is. I am distraught because I want a child. And what God does is God answers her prayer and he gives her a child. He gives her a child named Samuel. Okay? And here's the wild thing. I mean, again, there's so many pieces to this story, but Hannah says, God, if you give me a child, I'm gonna give that child back to you to serve you all the days of his life. And sure enough, she gets this child, and when he is weaned, she takes him back to Eli and says, He is here to be your servant. Can you imagine? She finally gets the child that she longs for. She weans him and she takes him and she gives them over to the priest and says, He's going to serve God all days of his life here. What amazing faith she had. I know the women in the room are like, how in the world could you ever do that? But that's what she did. And Samuel became a great leader. He's kind of an interesting guy because he's a little bit prophet, a little bit uh judge, and even um in some ways just helps us a little bit priest and kind of brings them through this transition between the judges period and into the period of the king. But here's where we pick up in the story. So if you've got your Bible, 1 Samuel chapter 8, he's coming to the end of his life. He's been ruling with Eli. And by the way, Eli, who was the priest at the time, uh, he's an okay guy. He's mediocre, but he definitely doesn't know how to lead his children. In fact, his sons, two of them, they are some bad dudes. They're there, and when people would come to worship God, they would steal, they would take money, they would take uh some of their sacrifices, they would eat the food they weren't supposed to eat, some of the choice food that was supposed to be sacrificed to God. They would sleep with the women that would show up to worship God. I mean, these guys were bad dudes. And so things are not going well. But then Samuel begins to lead and he begins to call them to uh actually God takes Eli and his two sons out, but but Samuel becomes the leader here, and he comes to the end of his life, and it says this in verse 1 of chapter 8. When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. So he did what he felt like he needed to do, which was to make sure that they had a leader because he knew he wasn't going to last much longer. His firstborn son was named Joel, and his second was Abijah. And they were judges in Beersheba, but however, his sons did not walk in his ways. Once again, a sad story, right? Samuel, a faithful man of God, who's been leading God's people, and then his sons don't follow. Have you seen this pattern before? One generation follows, the next generation abandons. One generation follows, the next generation abandons. Man. You know what that does to me as a dad again? I know it said a little bit this last week. It makes me cry out to God every day for my kids and say, God, unless you change their heart, unless you rescue them, there's no hope. Because if it's up to me, I cannot parent them to love you. I cannot make them follow you and trust you. So, God, I just pray for them every day. What I can do is lay them before you over and over and over again to make sure they know who you are, but to pray, God, that you would grab their heart, that you would change their life, right? So all the elders of Israel gathered together and they went to Samuel at Ramah. And here's what it says. They said to him, this verse 5, look, you are old. Samuel, you're an old man, okay? Things are not looking good for you. You're not looking so good, you're not going to make it much longer. You're old. And your sons do not follow your example. They saw that his sons were not godly. Therefore, appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have. Catch that last sentence? We want a king like what? Like everyone else has. Let me just make a note here. Anytime we as Christians, Christ's followers, people who have put our trust in Christ, when we start longing for what people who don't follow Christ have, man, we are in trouble. Because we have missed the fact that we have everything we already need in Christ. This is why, if you ever hear a preacher stand up and start making appeals to people about, hey, listen, if you'll follow God, you'll have more money. If you follow God, you'll have more comfort. If you'll have follow God, you'll get the right relationship. If you follow God, you'll get this. Listen, God doesn't promise us that. He does promise he'll bless us. He does promise he'll take care of us. He does promise he'll lead us if we'll follow him. But listen, it's a false gospel and it's it's very deceptive. And it is evil and wicked when people stand up and they make claims about things that God has not said. Specifically, that God's gonna make all this life just comfortable and easy and you're gonna have all this abundance. Like, that's not what that's not in the Bible. Okay? And so we've got to be really careful if you hear people, because it sounds good. I mean, who doesn't want who doesn't want more money? Who doesn't want more this or that? Who wants who doesn't want a great you know uh job or whatever they might might claim to send you? Or who doesn't want that that eagle pen that they'll send you if you send in your $50 from the mail, right? Some of you guys know I'm talking about. You watch the the the uh the shows on television and they they're sitting on their thrones and they're saying, hey, you send us your 50 bucks and we'll send you this nice little eagle pin, you know? So don't anybody walk in wearing those eagle pins, right? But here's the thing. They were broken down. And here's the thing that we need to understand in this people still have this issue today thinking that if we get the right leader, that everything will be okay. Now, this might hurt some of your feelings. Some of you may be offended by this, but let me just tell you right now that no matter who is the president of the United States, that is not gonna fix our country's problems. Some people have bought the idea that if we get the right person to lead our country in the White House, that that will take care of all of the depravity and the problems that we have as a country. And the truth of the matter is it won't. Some people have bought the idea that if they just get the right boss in their workplace, that it'll fix all the problems. Some people have thought if I just get the right man in my household, you know, the right husband, the right dad, everything will be fixed. Listen, there is no human being on this planet who can fix the problems that are in the heart of man. That's a God problem. You hear me? Like, we can't fix it with a person. So don't buy that lie and don't think that if we just get the right person, now do we need to pray for our leaders? Absolutely. Women, do you need to pray for your husband? Absolutely. You need to pray for your boss, those of you who work in different workplaces? Absolutely. We should pray for them. But they are not going to be the Messiah. They are not going to be the savior of our lives. We're going to constantly deal with hardship because people are imperfect. So, Samuel goes to God and he says, God, they want a king, and it really hurts my feelings. They're rejecting me. Anybody ever felt rejected before? Anybody ever had that experience? Samuel felt that. And he says to God, God, they're rejecting me, and it's really sad, and I'm just really frustrated about it. And God says to him, Listen, Samuel, they're not really rejecting you. They're ultimately rejecting me. Because what they were rejecting was God's kingship over them, right? And so he goes on to say to Samuel, God says to Samuel, I want you to go and anoint a king. And so Samuel goes to look for a guy. And uh, if he wants a king like the uh the rest of the uh the kingdoms that are going on during that day, the people groups, uh, what you would do is you'd go look for one who's handsome, the one with the rock hard abs, right? The one who's the big, strong dude who can protect us, who's smart, all those things. And so where does he go? He goes and he finds a man named Saul. This man's like a head taller than the rest, it says. That he was he was this guy that stood out in the crowd. Okay? And because they wanted this king, they thought this king is gonna protect us. This king is gonna take care of us. This king is gonna be a king who's gonna, you know, meet our needs. But here's the reality Saul becomes king, and just like God said, immediately the kingdom goes downhill because God says to them, He says, Listen, you're gonna get your king, but he's gonna take your daughters, and he's gonna take your sons, and he's gonna make your sons fight in his army, and you're gonna die, they're gonna die fighting for him, and he's gonna take your daughters, and they're gonna become his wives and his servants, and they're gonna become perfumers, and they're gonna become bakers, and they're gonna become all these different things, and serving the kings, if you read the rest of chapter 8 in Samuel there. And you see that that all these things actually come true, that all the people who wanted and longed for this king, all of a sudden are confronted with the reality that having a king is not such a great thing after all. Okay? Now, um, the first battle comes for Saul. And he is the big guy, and he's gonna fight this battle, and he goes out and he's got 3,000 soldiers, and he's thinking, this is gonna be great, we're gonna go fight, and we're God's, you know, we're God's army. Well, the problem is the Philistines show up, and they don't have just 3,000 in their army, they got 3,000 chariots, and they got a whole lot of other soldiers. And Saul's looking out going, uh oh, we're in trouble. And he knows that he needs to call on God to help. You see, because even though he was the king, he still needed someone greater than himself, didn't he? And so he calls on God, or he wants to call on God, and he asks Samuel to come and do sacrifices before they go into this battle, and Samuel doesn't show up, so now all of a sudden some of his soldiers are like, hey, we're out of here. And it weans his army down to about 600 soldiers. And Saul's finally like, forget this. I'm just gonna go ahead and do the sacrifices. And so he sacrifices and takes the place of Samuel and acts like the priest. And right as he's finishing, Samuel walks up and he's like, What are you doing, Saul? What's going on? Did God tell you that's okay to do that? And from this point forward, we see Saul's reign begin to attaint. You see, here's another great lesson for us this morning. Another great truth is that so many times in our lives, just like Saul, we choose expedience or convenience over obedience. We choose expedience or obedience over convenience. Like Saul wanted it done now, and God wasn't doing it fast enough for him, and so he's gonna figure it out his own on his own. He's gonna do it his own way. Anybody ever done that? I won't make you raise your hand. But my guess is that every one of us in this room have asked God to do something, felt like he said yes, or he said wait, and we went ahead and did it anyway. Has any good ever come out of that? I mean, let's just think for a second, back to our story in Genesis. What happened whenever God told Abraham you're gonna have a son, and him and his wife decided to go another route? A little bit of a hiccup, right? Decided to give his, uh, Sarah decided to give his her maidservant to Abraham. He slept with her, and they had this other son named Ishmael. Not such a good good deal, huh? And it's exactly what Saul does here is he doesn't wait on God. He goes ahead and does this in his life. Um goes ahead and sacrifices. Samuel shows up and he says, Saul, you shouldn't have done that. And we see this to be a pattern from this point forward. Not just in Saul, but other kings that will come after Saul. They choose convenience over obedience. So, at this point, God tells Samuel, I want you to go and anoint another king. I want you to go and go ahead and anoint another king. So he goes to the father of uh this man named Jesse, and uh he has some sons, and he goes and he starts walking and looking at them, and guess what he does? He's looking for the big, tall, strong king again, right? And as he's walking through looking at each of these boys, God says to him, It's not any of these. So he looks at Jesse and he says, Hey, Jesse, you got any more sons? And Jesse's like, Well, I've got this little runt of a son. He's out watching sheep. He's definitely not king material. He's like, Well, bring him. So he brings this little boy named David before Samuel, saying God says, This is the one. And there's a verse in this passage that has been a main verse, a major verse for me throughout my entire life. It's uh 1 Samuel 16, 9, it says this. 16, 7. It says, Man looks at outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. So much of the time in our world we look and we judge people's lives by what's on the outside, but God sees what's going on in here. Right? And he picks David, he anoints David to be the king because God knew David's heart. He didn't look like a king, but God knew that he was king with Tyrell because his heart was soft to him. So we see that in the story. So God anoints David to be king through this process. And after some continual issues of disobedience with Saul, finally Saul finds himself in 1 Samuel 17, and these Philistines are there again. And there's this one big Philistine. You guys know his name? Anyone know? Guy named Goliath. He's a giant, and he is picking on God's people, and God's people are waiting on their king to make a decision. They're king Saul, and King Saul's doing what every great king does, right? He's sitting in his tent thinking, how can I protect myself from this dude? If I go out and fight him, I'm gonna get destroyed. I'm gonna lose my life. Because you see, the same king that these people chose to protect them is now calling them to protect him. It's a little backwards, isn't it? But yet that's the way that it works. When you want a king like everyone else, you get a king like everyone else, but you miss on what God has for you as the king who's the true king. And so in the story, there's Saul, and to cut through all the details here, David shows up on the scene, and he's like, Why are you guys scared of this guy? Now, partially, this is a teenage boy, and teenage boys just say stuff that, you know, sometimes they just say stuff that you're like, what? You know, seriously, you know, you're not thinking right. Something's going on. But here's David. He says, no, he says, listen, you don't have to fear this guy. We're the people of Israel. We're the we're Yahweh is our our king. Yahweh is our God. He'll take care of us. And so, sure enough, the famous story where David, he he uh he won't accept Saul's armor, and he he just takes this little sling, and he goes and gets five smooth stones from a brook, and he runs out to this battle against the Philistine Goliath. Not just walks, but runs towards this giant, this little dinky shepherd boy, running with a sling in his hand, saying, This. 1 Samuel 17, verse 45. David said to the Philistine, You come against me with dagger and spear and sword, but I come against you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel's armies, that you have defied him. Today the Lord will hand you over to me, and today I'll strike you down, I'll cut your head off, and I'll give the corpses of the Philistines' camp to the birds of the sky and the creatures of the earth. And then all the world will know what? That Israel has a God. Man, this guy, he's got some boldness, doesn't he? I mean, he's like, I can, we can do this. But is he saying that because he thinks he's great? Or because he has faith in a great God? Because he has faith in a great God. And he understands that the God of Israel will take care of him, the God of Israel will save him, and sure enough, he slings that stone, he hits Goliath in the head, Goliath falls over, he chops his head off, and he does exactly what he said he was going to do. Now, in this story, it takes a turn here because they go back after they defeat the Philistines and they go back to town. And what happens? All the women are back in town, and they're singing these songs. They're singing these songs of celebration because when they come back, the men of war would come back and the women would celebrate them. And they're singing this song, and it said it goes something like this. It says, I won't sing it because I don't know what it sounded like that way, but I'd say what it said. It said that Saul has slaved his thousands, and David has slawed slayed his ten thousands. That didn't sit well with Saul. Women, don't do that. Okay? Um don't compare your man uh to something to some other man because that that will not go well with them, okay? There's something in this man that this doesn't work well, okay? Like if you're ever driving down the road, don't ever tell your husband, hey, if you could only drive like them, or you need to get some driving skills like them, you know, like that's not gonna go well for you, okay? Just let me tell you. Point being is this is they're singing this song, and it just goes all over Saul. He just wigs out. He is flipping out and he is he is mad, he is angry. In fact, he even says later on in the story we see he tries to kill David. And David just so happens to be the best friend of his son, who would have rightfully taken the throne as far as like in the family lineage, but God had already anointed David to be king, right? Checking with me? So he anointed him. But so but Jonathan sees that. And Jonathan's not afraid to trust God in that. He's not worried about being king. In fact, he loves David, he protects David. And for seven years, Saul tries to track David down and kill him. But guess what? When David, when God is anointing somebody and he protects somebody, there's nothing that God that anybody else can do to that person because God's protecting them. And so he can't get David. And David refuses, refuses to kill Saul. You know why? Because David's heart said, He's the king, and I'm gonna obey, I'm gonna respond, I'm gonna respect that authority, even though he's a bad authority. There's a lesson there, right? How many of us have to respect an authority in our lives that's a bad authority? And trust God with the results. Trust God even in those hard times. That's difficult, isn't it? And so that's what he does. But after those seven years, a growing number of people want to follow David. And Saul ultimately dies in battle along with his son Jonathan, and David, at the age of 30 years old, becomes the king of Israel. And he reigns for 40 years. Okay? So 40 years, David is the king. And the storyline that really overarches these six books is this idea that David, if you got your guide there and you're filling this in, David, the greatest king in the monarchy, is followed by a succession of mostly unrighteous kings, and that God eventually judges Israel for her sin, sending her into exile. So here's David, and now he's this heroic. King, but what we know to be true is that even though he was a great king, the people of Israel still struggled to worship God. In fact, in the story, David, the first thing he does is he goes and he captures the city, a Jebusite city called Jerusalem. And he says, I'm going to set the city aside, and it's going to be a place of worship. Have you ever heard of the city of Jerusalem? Absolutely, right? All of us in here. Dumb question. Because the truth is, we know Jerusalem. Jerusalem's a place where God is worshiped, and the people of Israel, that's a place where it's highly important to them. And David says, God, I want to build you a temple here. I want to build you a house that people can come to worship you forever. And God says to him, No. You can't build the temple because you're a man of war. You've killed so many people. You're a bloody king. And so he does not give him that responsibility, that opportunity, but he does say to him, he says, I'm going to let your son build it. I'm going to let your son build me a temple. And so David begins in his rule, in his reign, collecting all of the necessary pieces to build this temple. Now, as great as a king David as David was, he was still a man, wasn't he? Even though the Bible says that David was a man after God's own heart, he was still a man. And one of the most famous passages on the negative for David is one where it starts like this: In the spring, when the men would go off to war, when kings would go off to fight battles, where was David? Back at his palace, and he was just hanging out. And it says there that he was out one day looking around. He looks across and he sees this woman bathing. And her name is Bathsheba. Anybody else think that's kind of funny or kind of weird that her name's Bathsheba, and she was taking a bath? Okay, maybe I'm just weird like that, but I've always thought, why don't this is funny to me that they named her that. So anyway, but her name's Bathsheba. And he sees her, and because he's the king, he says, bring her to me. And do they reject the king's instruction? No. They bring Bathsheba to him, and he sleeps with her, and she gets pregnant. And her husband was off fighting a battle like he was supposed to. And David now all of a sudden realizes, oh man. She's pregnant. I've done this evil thing. I'm going to have to deal with this. And so, just like most sin in our life, it just starts to domino. You see, usually when we sin once, it doesn't typically just stay stay confined to one sin, does it? Usually there's a cover-up and there's lying, there's deception, there's other sins that come. And so ultimately he has her husband killed by putting him at the front of the battle lines. And then he brings her in to be his wife. But because of this, David loses the boy that she has in her womb. He actually dies because God said, I'm not going to let him live because of your sin. But God does give David another son through Bathsheba, and his name was Solomon. And Solomon actually took the throne after David passed on. There's a lot of dysfunction in David's family because of his humanity. Absalom story there. I mean, again, if you've got time, go read some of these stories. We continue to see the brokenness and the dysfunction. But Solomon comes out of this and he becomes the next king. And he is one of the greatest kings to ever be on the planet because when he was young as the king, God comes to him and says, Solomon, what do you want? Anybody in here want God to come and ask you that question? I mean, he's there and God says, What do you want? And Solomon, instead of saying riches or fame, any of those things, he says, God, I know that I'm not as wise as my father was. I want your wisdom. I want wisdom. And because he asked for wisdom, God not only gives him wisdom, but he gives him wealth and he gives him fame and influence, and he makes him into an amazing, amazing man. He was an architectural genius, in fact, the temple, if we could see what it was like, one of the most amazing buildings ever to be built on the planet. I mean, there is no telling what it would cost to build the temple, the amount of gold and jewels and things that they put into that building. And he was an amazing man. He was also incredible with economics. He developed all these trade routes all over that part of the world. And he really made Israel this leading country on the map of the known world at that time. And so he did all these incredible things because he asked for wisdom and God gave it to him. In fact, we know that his reputation and his fame spread throughout the whole world. So much so that he became a hot-ticket item for people to come and visit and see. But he wasn't just a hot ticket item with the leaders, but he was also a hot ticket item with the women. And this man who had wisdom, I guess somehow he lost it because he then took on 700 wives. Yes, 700 wives, and 300 concubines, which were just basically sex slaves in many ways. They were part of his harem. He's just good to look at. So he had thousand women, many men during that day, uh that were leaders, rulers. They knew that the way to get peace was to have their daughter marry that particular uh leader in power, and so they would give their daughters in marriage to Solomon. And he just kept taking them. And they were from these uh backgrounds that they hadn't worshipped Yahweh. They had worshipped all these other idols and all these other false gods. And so that's what's going on in the story. It says this in uh 1 Kings chapter 11, verse 1. King Solomon loved many foreign women, in addition to Pharaoh's daughter, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women from the nations that the Lord had told the Israelites about. Now listen, this is interesting, right? What did God tell them to do when they went into the promised land? And we talked about that last week, Conquest and Judges. He told them to wipe all these people groups out, right? And he said, don't intermarry with them. And now the king, their leader, he's intermarrying with all these different groups of people who worship Yahweh. So it says, sadly, in verse 4, that same chapter, that when Solomon was old, his wives seduced him to follow other gods. He was not completely devoted to Yahweh, his God, as his father David had been. Solomon followed Ashreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the Lord's sight. And unlike his father David, he did not completely follow Yahweh. Isn't that sad? Again, I just feel like it's gut-wrenching to see these leaders fall into sin and into temptation. In fact, there's even a uh a picture we have to show you on the screen. This is an archaeological dig in this particular area where they've found these altars and these areas where they've worshipped these false gods. This is one modern-day picture of one of those altars. And this is actually, from what I understand, uh, the altar that was designated to the God, dedicated to the God Kamash. And what they would do is they would literally take infant babies and they would take them and they would put them in the fire on this altar to burn them and worship to this God. This is Solomon, the one who asked for wisdom. This is David's son, the one who built the temple for the worship of Yahweh, and in the end of his life, he ends up worshiping these false gods. Let me tell you something. As you get older, as you get older and life begins to move along for you, you are not done growing spiritually. Can I say it again? Do not get complacent in your walk with God as you get older, a believer. Because you are still capable of being tempted and lured away from the things of God. And here's Solomon, this great man, he's lured away from the things of God. What a sad story to see and to hear that. And so he did. Walk away from God. He was not devoted. And here's the other thing that you've got to note here is that whenever David was confronted with his sin, what did David do? Did he repent? Yeah, he did. He was broken and he repented. Psalm 51, scratch that out. Scratch it on the side of your paper there and go read that sometime. As David confesses his broken heart before God when he is called out by the prophet Nathan. But what does Solomon do when he is confronted with his sin? Does he repent? No, he continues right along his way. He doesn't listen and he continues to walk in disobedience to God. So, Solomon's son, we'll wrap this up. Solomon's son, Rehobam, takes the throne at this point. Solomon's son, Rehoboam, takes the throne. And people begin to complain to Rehoboam because they're like, hey, listen, your dad, he was being hard on us. I mean, he was he was hurting us by taking away our sons and daughters. He was presenting our kids to these false gods. I mean, he was messed up in the end of his life. You've got to lighten up the load. I mean, you've got to quit doing this. And so Rehobam, he first goes and he listens to his father's advisors, and his father's advisors, older and wiser counsel, say, listen, the people are right. Some things have got to change. But then, catch this. Rehoboam, he's young, and so instead of listening to his father's wiser and older counsel, you know what he does? He pulls some of his friends in. Some of his friends that are his age, some of his peers, and he says, Hey, listen, here's what they're telling me. What do you think? What do you think his friend said? His friend said, Rehoboam, who's the king? Do whatever you want. You're the king. Now there's a great lesson here, isn't there? Because listen, young people in the room, and for that matter, any of us, we need people in our lives who are older and wiser who will speak the truth. And if you choose to let people speak into your life that are fools, guess what's going to happen? You're going to head down the path of destruction. We see this over and over. And that's exactly what happened with Rehoboam. He listened to his friends instead of wise counsel, and they determined the direction of his kingdom. And at that point, the kingdom divides. Northern and southern. Northern and southern. So there were ten northern tribes, and there were two southern tribes. In fact, we've got this on the map for you here, just so you can kind of see it. There's the divided kingdom. Now it looks like the kingdoms are actually the same, similar size, but uh that blue part, a lot of that is desert. Okay? Um, but what you end up with is these ten northern kingdoms and these two southern, and within the southern is Jerusalem, which is the place of worship, right? Where the temple was. So Rehoboam does something very um, he thought probably again wise in his own eyes, but what he does, he decides that he doesn't want people to worship God in Jerusalem, because if they go down there, they're gonna start saying things like, hey, like we should, we should get back together with them. We are all the same group of people here. Let's let's all let's reunite this thing. So instead, what he does is he actually introduces all of these false gods and idols in all of the northern kingdom. And so the northern kingdom basically becomes defined as the unrighteous kingdom. There's 20 kings over 200 years, and those 20 kings, every single one of them follow false gods, idols, and they worship, and they do all these evil, wicked things, just like the people groups that were there before they came in and wiped them out. Last week we talked about the conquest. Is it interesting? The southern kingdom, however, has 20 kings as well, and in those 20 kings, eight of the kings are good kings, and 12 of those kings are the not-so-good kings. So what you end up with is that the defining kind of idea for the southern kingdom is one of inconsistency. And I'm talking about kings. Some of them came to be kings, came to the throne when they were eight years old, some came to be the throne when they were at twelve years old, and some followed God and some didn't follow God. And some of them followed God for part of their life, and then the last part of their life didn't follow God. And you can read through all that story yourself. But here's what you see is that because Rehboam turned away from God, because he listened to poor counsel, he divided the kingdom, and from this point forward, 200 years of rebellion to God ultimately led all of God's people back into exile. Where had God brought them from? Into the promised land? Brought them from Egypt, right? When they were under the heavy hand of Pharaoh, where they were having to do all this slave labor. God brings them there. And these people, after this period of time of having a king because they wanted a king like everybody else had, where are they going back to? Back into slavery, back into exile. Isn't that fascinating that they got what they wanted and that that led them back into slavery? Here's why. There's four takeaways I want us to get today. And the first one speaks to this. Actually, I think it's the second one here. It speaks to this. First one is this. Convenience cannot trump obedience. I said this earlier, right? Convenience cannot trump obedience. In your life, there are going to be times when obeying God is not going to be convenient. You're going to choose comfort. I was meeting with one of my friends not long ago, and he was talking about how he really needed to grow in leading his family. How he wants to lead his family to follow God, how he wants to lead his family to do things that matter. He doesn't want to waste his life and he doesn't want his kids to be graduated and off and gone, and then all of a sudden he looks up and he's like, Well, what did I invest in my kids? And just say, I guess I just worked really hard and I missed out on the opportunity to pour into them the things that matter. And you know what I felt like God was telling me in that moment as we sat at a restaurant and talked about that? I said, listen, here's the thing. If that's true, if you really want to invest in your kids and you really want them to live for something that's going to matter in the long term, then you have got to make a decision now. You're going to do whatever he asks you, even when it's hard. Because it's a battle. It is a fight to be obedient to God. You know there's an enemy who wants to keep us from obeying God? Because obedience brings blessing. So we tell our kids all the time: obedience brings blessing, and disobedience brings conflict. Okay? Because that's the way it works. And so in our lives, if you think you can disobey God and get away with it and nothing's going to happen, you are fooling yourself. So convenience cannot trump obedience. But the second thing is this: that freedom that we long for, that freedom that we hope for, that freedom that we are, man, if we could just get out from underneath that authority, if we could just get out away from under God's authority, that is a mirage. Because ultimate freedom, true freedom, is found under God's authority. Real freedom is found under God's authority. Here's why. Because when you obey God, when you follow God, you get to experience life the way that He intended it to be lived. I try to teach my kids this over and over and over as I'm trying to remind myself of this daily. That if I will listen to God, I don't have to be fearful of the consequences. But when I do what I want to do and I'm God of my life, guess what? There's all kinds of terrible consequences that come out of that. Let me say it's a little bit different. How many of you like to brush your teeth? Okay? Probably a few of you in here that like to brush your teeth. For some reason, my kids don't like brushing their teeth. Okay? And every night it's like, come on, brush your teeth, you know? But here's the thing. If you're going to have a choice to make, you either brush your teeth and avoid cavities, or you get cavities because you don't brush your teeth, right? And in our lives, all of us know how this works. We get this, even though we don't like this, is that all of us have to choose to be a slave to something in order to protect us from something else. So I have to be a slave to my toothbrush to avoid cavities, right? So that I don't get those. But if I don't become a slave to my toothbrush, I know it sounds bad, you're like a slave. I don't want to be a slave. Slave to my toothbrush, guess what? I'm gonna be a slave to cavities. I'm gonna be at the dentist all the time. I'm not gonna have any teeth. Because that's the reality, these are connected. And here's the thing about human beings, myself included, right here, okay? We want control over not just the decisions, but the consequences. And you can't have both because you're human. We want control over what we want to do with our time and our energy and our resources and everything else, but there's always a price to pay for what you do with that. Are you with me? So if you choose to live in your, quote, freedom to do whatever you want to do, there will be consequences to that. But if you will get under God's authority and you will listen to what God has to say to you in your life, there will be amazing blessing that comes in that and freedom that comes in that. Oh, so much we can say about this. Third, who informs you will define you. Said this a while ago. Who informs you will define you. If you let fools speak into your life and tell you what to do, you are headed down a path of destruction. In fact, the Bible even says this it says that he who walks with the wise will grow wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. That's what the Bible tells us. And so if you let fools be the ones who speak into you, as in, if you let the culture determine what you value and where you're going, if you let people around you who are not followers of Jesus define your life and tell you what to do, if you let them speak into you about decisions that you're making, then you can guarantee there's going to be destruction coming, there's going to be hardship coming. And lastly, this if you're a leader, our success as leaders is not determined by our authority over people, but our submission to God's authority. Our success as leaders is not determined by our authority over people, but our submission to God's authority. How many of us as leaders, maybe even as a parent, have said things like, well, if they would just mind me, if they would just listen to me, they would just follow me, everything would be great. But here's the problem: it doesn't work that way. Right? Ultimately, we can't control people. But we can make a decision that we're going to submit to God. I want to close out with this thought before we worship some more and we celebrate communion together. I want you to hear this this morning with fresh ears, okay? 2 Samuel 7 is the Davidic covenant, the place where, as I said earlier, David was not given the right to build the temple, but God did say to David, you are going to have the opportunity to continue to see that happen through the lineage of your family. So Solomon ends up building a temple, but he says something that's even greater. He says to David, he says, There's going to be someone who is from your line, who sits on the throne, and will reign forever. Forever. You hear that? You think he was talking about one of his sons? You think he was talking about one of his grandsons? Or great-grandsons? Try this. What God was telling David in that covenant was that David's line was going to ultimately produce the Messiah. The Savior of the world, but not just the Savior, the King of all kings. You ever heard God call that before? And he was saying in 2 Samuel 7 that there is a king that's coming, and his reign will not be temporary, and he won't just be another man who's going to do good sometimes and then mess up. He's not going to be inconsistent, he's not going to be unrighteous. He's going to be a holy, righteous king. And just as we've been seeing through the whole Bible, in Genesis, we see God, he is both the firstborn. Adam was there. Adam was an insufficient, broken firstborn. Jesus is a perfect firstborn. We saw Abraham as the father of his people. Abraham was an imperfect father to his people, but Jesus, God will be a perfect father to his people. We see in the Exodus that Moses was a rescuer and a deliverer, but he was still broken. He still murdered. He still struggled and he still died and he still didn't even get to go into the promised land. But God will be a perfect deliverer, a perfect rescuer, right? To bring them out of slavery. We look at the book of Judges and we look at the book of Joshua. Great men, but guess what? They're dead, they're gone. They couldn't deliver people out of their sin. They still went back to it when they were gone. They weren't the perfect judge, but Jesus is the perfect judge. We look at today and we see these kings, and we see David as a great king, and we see Solomon as a wise king until he gets late into his life. But guess what? They were imperfect kings, but Jesus is the perfect king. Everything we need is in Jesus. And the Bible, as I told you the first week and will tell you every single week, is pointing us to the reality, just like John 5 says, is that there is life in Jesus. And so if we tell the story and we talk through all these random stories that maybe you heard as a kid growing up, or maybe you haven't ever heard before, know this that the hero is not any of these human beings. And the hero's not us, the hero is Jesus. The rescuer, the savior of our soul. And so we worship him today. We rest in him today. And if you've never put your trust in him, if you've never rested in him for your salvation, if you've never asked Jesus to come into your life and to change you, he is saying to you today, I want to be your king. But here's what's beautiful: he doesn't just want to be our king. He wants to save us. He wants to invite us into his family. We get to be his sons and daughters, not just his servants and slaves. We get to be his sons and daughters. In all history, we see consistently the king protects himself from hardship by letting the peasants deal with the pain. But in the Bible, we see that completely slipped on its head, don't we? Because the king of all kings puts himself through the most excruciating, immense pain I've known to ever have happened at the cross, so that the peasant could have life. The peasants had to be protected and be rescued. That's us. So if you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus, if you've never trusted in him what he's done for you as the king, I encourage you to do that today.