Song: Psalms 69

The Rock that God has chosen is also the King of Kings.

“Hear this word, people of Israel, the word the Lord has spoken against you—against the whole family I brought out of Egypt: You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore, I will punish you for all your sins.” (Amos 3:1-2)

“ (and) when I  shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:13-14) 

Israel rejects God as their King.

The first book of Kings begins at a time when Israel rejected the God of Israel as their king and leader and chose for themselves humans as their leaders. They also chose to put their faith in whatever their chosen leaders trusted for protection and guidance. (1 Samuel 8:10-18) 

Israel was given a promise by God to Abraham that God would be the God of people like Abraham, who have faith in him, and would bless all people of the earth who believe (Romans 4:1-25). Christians as the heirs of the new covenant through Jesus are also the people of God and heirs to God’s promises, like the people of Israel. 

Reflecting on this time in history when Israel rejects God as their king and leader, can give Christians, especially Christian leaders insight on what consequences follow rejecting the God who has chosen them. Christians are not under the old covenant law that requires sacrifices of rams and goats. The sacrifice that Jesus as the new covenant promise of God requires is faith, belief in him as the king of kings and says to all who believe in him like David said, “Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven (through belief in Jesus) and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them (Psalms 32:1-2).” David calls people who have faith in God’s word, Jesus, ‘blessed’ because they have access to God. The two books of Kings helps all believers understand who God is and what people who have faith in this God have access to when they believe. The two books of Kings also helps us to understand what it means to be among those who are against God. 

The four-hundred-year history of the kings of Israel rejecting God as their king exposes believers to the character of God, that he is a God whose heart can be broken and can become angry enough to refuse to help, his people, Israel, generation after generation throughout all of the rulers and kings of Israel who reject him. However angry God is, God is also reminded of another part of his character that he is a God who is able to save and the only one who can save, not only Israel from their rebellious ways, but also all people of the earth, as was promised to Abraham in Genesis 15:5. 

God knew that centuries of kings of Israel would rebel against him, and as leaders, lead people away from God and convince them to put their faith in the wealth and strength of their kingdoms. When this history in the books of Kings shares that the kings of Israel do have faith in a God it is not the God of their ancestors but the gods of the nations around them.God’s law requires that God’s people will love God with all of their heart and all of their soul and with all of their strength (Deut. 6:5). Their decision to rebel against their God, a type of irreverence to God as the only God has the consequence of God not helping, of removing his protection from his people, the people of Israel, so that they would be able to understand, through experience, if their wealth or their strength or their gods could save, help and provide for them like he could. 

When God says to Israel, and to Christians, heirs of the same promise, ‘I have chosen you’, he is saying that he is giving himself the task of taking care of people who believe that he is in fact God, the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth and the ruler over all kings and people able: 

• To lead rulers away stripped and make fools of judges. 
• To take off the shackles put on by kings and tie a loincloth around their waist
• To lead priests away stripped and overthrow officials long established
• To silence the lips of trusted advisors and take away the discernment of elders
• To pour contempt on nobles and disarm the mighty
• To reveal deep things of darkness and bring utter darkness into the light 
• To make nations great and destroy them
• To enlarge nations and disperse them
• To deprive leaders of the earth of their reason
• To make them wander in a trackless waste (Job 12:17-24)

“The Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of people.” (Daniel 4:17) 

The books of first and second Kings is a record of how God orchestrated wars and disasters as discipline and punishment for Israel’s rebellion. God allowed kings to become powerful and oppress and terrorize the Israelites, but not destroy them with the belief that in their suffering they would remember their God and look to him for help, that they would remember that he is merciful and desires to bring his people back to him and bless them through his word. 

God speaks from his heart in Isaiah to the leaders of Israelites and to all leaders who have used their authority to scatter his people among ideologies that do not reverence who God is, that “all day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—a people who continually provoke me to my very face, such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day. See, it stands written before me; I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will pay it back into their laps—both your sins and the sins of your ancestors,” says the Lord, I will measure into their laps the full payment for their former deeds.” (Isaiah 65:2-7)

Israel chooses kings for themselves.

The first book of Kings chapters 10 through 16 (1 Kings 10 – 16) is a record of the succession of rulers of Israel and Judah and how they rebelled against God, all of them, in some way, either by outright refusal to acknowledge God by creating institutions for the worship of other gods and/or by leading the people of Israel to put their faith in whatever they had chosen and trusted for protection and guidance.

Throughout each reign, God uses his prophets to tell the kings of Israel in advance how they will be defeated, which nations will defeat them and that if they stop rebelling and have faith in him that he, Emmanuel, would be with them and make their kingdoms everlasting like he promised King David (1 Kings 11:38). 

None of the kings listened to the prophets. 

Prayer: Lord God, there is no one like you, you alone are God and your love is everlasting. Have mercy on us and teach your people how to live, show us how to have faith in your word and in your son Jesus the King of kings. Your word says that people who have faith in Jesus are blessed. Help us to have faith in you to help us and to bless us. Teach us to trust in you as our loving God who is our deliverer, our shield and to take refuge in you alone. You alone are righteous and perfect; we look to our faith in you to be our righteousness. Your word also says that you would turn the hearts of your people back to you; and gather your people from all the places where we have been driven and will bring us back to you our shepherd. Free us from being held captive by disbelief and hopelessness and turn us back to you with all of our hearts and with all of our soul.