Title: Ex 15:11, "Who is like Thee among the gods, O LORD
Author: Theodore S. Enke
Last saved by: Theodore Enke
Company: Conejo Koinonia Church

Sunday, August 23, 2026

1 Kings 12:24, 'Thus says the Lord, "You must not go up and fight against your relatives the sons of Israel; return every man to his house, for this thing has come from Me."' "So they listened to the word of the Lord, and returned and went their way according to the word of the Lord. 
	In this morning’s reading we have the very sad accounting of how the nation of Israel split asunder when King Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, ascended the throne of his grandfather, David, and his father, Solomon. It was under Solomon, that the nation of Israel was at its zenith in terms of the amount of land that was occupied and governed. This was the strongest and largest that the ancient country of Israel would attain. The Tribes of Israel were then wrested from the control of the House of David by the working power of God in the divine judgment against the harlotry and idolatry that was practiced under the domain of Solomon. 
This man, the wisest of human history, was too foolish in the manners of how to remain steadfast and vibrant to the commitment that was made before The Only True and Living Lord God Almighty. As much as he had been faithful and sincere in his dedication to Jehovah at the beginning of his reign over the nation, so fully had he chosen the ways of the world. He was turned away from Jehovah by his acceptance of the idolatrous beliefs of his wives and concubines. He had committed the gravest of sins by allowing the worship of their gods to take precedence to that dedication and pledge to reverence and adore Jehovah, Alone!
As a result, when his son ascended the throne, the response to the people’s plea for a more lenient leadership was met with such intense and deliberate hostility that the people of Israel rebelled and thus the nation was split asunder. Rehoboam was left with but a small fraction of the nation, amounting to just the tribe of Judah, the tiny tribe of Benjamin, and a few other people who were true in their hearts to the Lord God of Israel. 
The rest of the people followed Jeroboam and became the Northern tribes called Israel. The remainder, led by Rehoboam became the nation that was to be called Judah, with the two never to reconcile. Eventually both would become engulfed by the nation of Babylon. The remnant population of Judah was eventually returned to Jerusalem and the surrounding land, but never to be the powerful witness of Jehovah as under King David. 
	The passage that we have read is what was being dealt with when King Rehoboam gathered what warriors he had and was planning to attack the tribes to the North. He conceived a vain attempt to reunite the entire people under his kingship. 
This was not the plan of God to take place. It had been the working might of God which had wrested the nation from under the hand of Rehoboam in the first place. 
What was being planned by Rehoboam was a fruitless and useless attempt to try to undo that which God had wrought. That would never take place! The gathered warriors heard the word of The Lord spoken against this action. Each one then went home, leaving none to go forth in this vain attempt to reestablish that which Jehovah had broken asunder.
	This time, at least, the people listened to the word of the Lord that was spoken against this futile action. That was not the case when that first group of the Tribes of Israel was on the border of the Promised Land. They had come to the land of milk and honey, but had rebelled when Joshua and Caleb, those two faithful spies in the Promised Land, had strongly urged them to follow the Lord and trust Him and go into the land and conquer it under the banner of Jehovah. The people had listened to the words of the other spies who were afraid of the giants in the land. They forsook their faith and trust in God to go before them. Therefore they were doomed to die in the wilderness. Their children would be the ones to enter the land of God’s promise to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 
	However, the next morning, after forsaking God’s promise, those faithless parents decided that they would try to do it with their feeble human effort. They gathered themselves together, thinking that they could do, in their own power, that which only God could accomplish. Moses warned them sternly, as recorded in Num 14:40-45, that it was a useless endeavor that would not bring them to a successful conclusion. Stubbornly, and with awful consequences, they refused to listen to the word of the Lord that was spoken to them.
	Num 14:40-45, In the morning, however, they rose up early and went up to the ridge of the hill country, saying, "Here we are; we have indeed sinned, but we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised." But Moses said, "Why then are you transgressing the commandment of the Lord, when it will not succeed? "Do not go up, lest you be struck down before your enemies, for the Lord is not among you. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword, inasmuch as you have turned back from following the Lord. And the Lord will not be with you." But they went up heedlessly to the ridge of the hill country; neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses left the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down, and struck them and beat them down as far as Hormah. 
	Any time that we try to do something on our own, apart from the guidance and the direction of God, we are doomed! We will fail miserably because we will not be going in the power and with presence of God. We forsake the reality that He is the One Who goes before us and that the victory is His to perform and for which He is to be honored and adored and praised. 
We may have some limited success, in terms of human calculation and acclaim, but we will have lost the greatest treasure of eternity in the working might and dominion of God. Our meager human success will breed only further necessity for God to blow against all that we have put into place by the feeble and inferior and fleeting efforts of our humanity. 
What God does, lasts forever! What we may be able to accomplish through our power and might will crumble swiftly into the dustbin of eternity.
	Later in the history of the nation of Judah, King Amaziah had great plans of conquest. He did listen to the voice of God pronounced through a godly prophet in the matter of attacking the Edomites. We have this recounted for us in 2 Chron 25:5-10. He had tried to bolster the ranks of his army by paying for the services of 100,000 soldiers from the estranged nation of Israel. However, when warned not to use them, since they were no longer part of a faithful people of God, Amaziah sent them away.
	2 Chron 25:5-10, Moreover, Amaziah assembled Judah and appointed them according to their fathers' households under commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds throughout Judah and Benjamin; and he took a census of those from twenty years old and upward, and found them to be 300,000 choice men, able to go to war and handle spear and shield. He hired also 100,000 valiant warriors out of Israel for one hundred talents of silver. But a man of God came to him saying, "O king, do not let the army of Israel go with you, for the Lord is not with Israel nor with any of the sons of Ephraim. But if you do go, do it, be strong for the battle; yet God will bring you down before the enemy, for God has power to help and to bring down." And Amaziah said to the man of God, "But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the troops of Israel?" And the man of God answered, "The Lord has much more to give you than this." Then Amaziah dismissed them, the troops which came to him from Ephraim, to go home; so their anger burned against Judah and they returned home in fierce anger. 
	Those dismissed warriors of the northern tribes of Israel began to attack some of the cities of Judah as they went home in their anger. Amaziah was successful in his attack on Edom, however this proved to be his downfall. He was so enamored with this accomplishment; he forgot that it was The Lord Who went before him. He took to himself the gods of the Edomites and began to worship them. 
In his prideful arrogance, he then decided to try to restore the full kingdom and to attack Israel to the north. Amaziah refused to listen to the word of God against all that he began to do, just as Solomon had become vain and turned away from The Lord God Jehovah.
Amaziah wanted to bring all the nation together under his sovereignty as the king on the seat of the throne of David. He felt he could do that which was not so ordained by God. He was warned against this folly. At that point, however, he refused to listen to the word of The Lord, and he was soundly defeated in battle. 
	This is recounted for us in 2 Chron 25:17-24. 2 Chron 25:17-24, Then Amaziah king of Judah took counsel and sent to Joash the son of Jehoahaz the son of Jehu, the king of Israel, saying, "Come, let us face each other." And Joash the king of Israel sent to Amaziah king of Judah, saying, "The thorn bush which was in Lebanon sent to the cedar which was in Lebanon, saying, 'Give your daughter to my son in marriage.' But there passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trampled the thorn bush. You said, 'Behold, you have defeated Edom.' And your heart has become proud in boasting. Now stay at home; for why should you provoke trouble that you, even you, should fall and Judah with you?" But Amaziah would not listen, for it was from God, that He might deliver them into the hand of Joash because they had sought the gods of Edom. So Joash king of Israel went up, and he and Amaziah king of Judah faced each other at Beth-shemesh, which belonged to Judah. And Judah was defeated by Israel, and they fled each to his tent. Then Joash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash the son of Jehoahaz, at Beth-shemesh, and brought him to Jerusalem, and tore down the wall of Jerusalem from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate, 400 cubits. And he took all the gold and silver, and all the utensils which were found in the house of God with Obed-edom, and the treasures of the king's house, the hostages also, and returned to Samaria. 
	The consequences of this disregard for the spoken Word of God by Amaziah resulted in a great tragedy for the nation of Judah. Not only were they completely defeated, but the treasury of the House of The Lord was looted and the many of the people were brought captive to Samaria. This utter disregard and effort of human endeavor brought complete destruction, not just upon Amaziah, but upon so many of the people over who he had so subjugated into this sinful action.
	That is something that we have to always recognize with our walk on this earth. It is never only about us. Our actions and reactions involve numbers of peoples far beyond our immediate consideration. So many watch and are affected by and in the manner in which we live on this earth. 
	When we disobey, we bring down the judgment of God upon ourselves and upon those who are so entwined in our places of influence and who are swayed by the course of our decisions. It is never about just us. Our lives are filled with all manner of interactions and connections of weighty authority beyond that which we see or recognize. We must ever show those who are watching that we will obey God no matter what the road, no matter what the cost, no matter what! So be it.
'Thus says the Lord, "You must not go up and fight against your relatives the sons of Israel; return every man to his house, for this thing has come from Me."' "So they listened to the word of the Lord, and returned and went their way according to the word of the Lord. Amen. 

This morning’s benediction is Acts 13:32+33. "And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm,' Thou art My Son; today I have begotten Thee.' Amen.