POLITICAL ISSUES CAUSED THE KING TO POLLUTE THE TRUE WORSHIP OF GOD
Solomon's many foreign wives seduced him into also worshiping pagan gods. Therefore God cursed Israel and tore ten tribes away from the nation. The northern ten known thereafter as Ephraim or Israel would be independent of Judah. This punishment was because of King Solomon's sins in forsaking the true God.
1 Kings 11:34-36 NKJV 34 'However I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, because I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of My servant David, whom I chose because he kept My commandments and My statutes. 35 'But I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand and give it to you-ten tribes. 36 'And to his son I will give one tribe, that My servant David may always have a lamp before Me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for Myself, to put My name there.
Jeroboam was promised ten tribes for him to rule over. A few years later the prophesy came true. Jeroboam received the promised throne of Israel, the northern ten. One day he wondered that if all Israel had just one religion what might happen to him? Most nations in the world at this time, had their individual gods and religious system or at least their variety of Baal and Ashtoreth worship controlled by the king. Jeroboam reasoned that that control was lost to him because the center of religion for ALL Israel, the northern ten and the kingdom of Judah was in Judah. People had to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year to the Temple. He worried over that extra power and influence the King of Judah would have over the people.
1 Kings 12:26-27 NKJV 26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, "Now the kingdom may return to the house of David: 27 "If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn back to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and go back to Rehoboam king of Judah."
One would naturally ask since Jeroboam received the northern ten by divine intervention, why did he not trust that he could keep the throne with God's help? Why did he start to think only politically like a person who had no knowledge of the existence of the real God. Did he soon forget God's part in his success and think it was solely do his shrewdness? Maybe? We need to stay humble.
1 Kings 11:37-38 NKJV 37 'So I will take you, and you shall reign over all your heart desires, and you shall be king over Israel. 38 'Then it shall be, if you heed all that I command you, walk in My ways, and do what is right in My sight, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as My servant David did, then I will be with you and build for you an enduring house, as I built for David, and will give Israel to you.
Jeroboam did not really believe that God would be with him. He choose to do things the human way and not rely upon God.
COUNTERFEIT RELIGION OBSCURES PURE WORSHIP FROM MISGUIDED WORSHIP
Jeroboam decided to create a alternative religion. They would still worship the God that saved Israel from slavery in Egypt. But he would make some strategic changes he believed would give him more control over the people. It was innocent he reasoned. But what does God think of the changes?
1 Kings 12:28-29 NKJV 28 Therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold, and said to the people, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!" 29 And he set up one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.
He wanted the people to be able to worship the God who saved them from Egypt but blocked their going to Jerusalem for the Holy Days and especially the Feast of Tabernacles which is a full eight days under the new enemy's influences as he feared.
1 Kings 12:32-33 NKJV 32 Jeroboam ordained a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did at Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made. And at Bethel he installed the priests of the high places which he had made. 33 So he made offerings on the altar which he had made at Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month which he had devised in his own heart. And he ordained a feast for the children of Israel, and offered sacrifices on the altar and burned incense.
Jeroboam dreamed up his own dates and a priesthood that did not know the Bible. God condemns this counterfeit of the true religion vigorously in the Bible.
1 Kings 15:30 NKJV 30 because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he had sinned and by which he had made Israel sin, because of his provocation with which he had provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger.
Overtime the people of Israel, the northern ten, thought they knew the true God but, were living in a counterfeit religious system. This system was preventing them from getting to know the real God of Israel.
THE PEOPLE WERE TAUGHT BY THOSE WHO DID NOT KNOW GOD
Politically if a king wanted to remove any biblical, legal restrictions upon his counterfeit new religious system he would need to remove those who knew the biblical laws. The Levites were trained in biblical law. Since written Bibles were not yet invented, firing the Levites was the same as removing the Bible.
1 Kings 12:30-31 KJV 30 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. 31 And he made an house of high places, and made the priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.
Jeroboam and his advisers realized that people would like to worship God but use similar methods as their pagan neighbors. The counterfeit system did become established in the minds of the people of the northern ten tribes and obscured the pathway back to the worship of the true God. The new priests would support anything Jeroboam wanted! They were bought and paid for as biblically ignorant tools. Using a golden calf to worship God is decidedly condemned in the Bible. These new priests either did not know or care about the truth. See Exodus 32. A counterfeit deceives one about what is the real truth. The northern ten never repented- they just got worse while Judah had a number of revivals and they were blessed thereby. Jeroboam made going to the Feast easier for many. Is the easy way EVER the best way? These and others deceptions by priest led Israel into a bad attitude toward truth.
Isaiah 30:10-11 NKJV 10 Who say to the seers, "Do not see," And to the prophets, "Do not prophesy to us right things; Speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits. 11 Get out of the way, Turn aside from the path, Cause the Holy One of Israel To cease from before us."
The people could not find God- they blocked the pathway to truth and sound worship. Twenty two times in scripture God condemns the sin of Jeroboam. He probably altered the other holy days to prevent all traffic to Jerusalem as well as instituted idolatrous worship of God. God specifically ordered the Israelites to not use anything to represent God. Idolatry is the number one sin.
1 Corinthians 10:14 NKJV 14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
Why does the Apostle Paul tell us to run from idolatry ?
1 Corinthians 10:20 NKJV 20 Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.
While it is true that idol worshipers worship gods that are not real, there are demonic forces behind idol worship. The counterfeit worship of Israel's God also helped weaken the people spiritually. Jeroboam made it easier for people to compromise with pagan customs in later generations. They were sitting ducks.
1 Kings 22:52-53 NKJV 52 He did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother (Jezebel) and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin; 53 for he served Baal and worshiped him, and provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger, according to all that his father had done.
2Ki 13:6 Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin: they walked therein; and there remained also the Asherah in Samaria.)
It is spiritually dangerous to arbitrarily alter any of God's instructions such as feast days on how to worship Him and deviate from using the Bible. It is hard to repent if one does not know what to repent of and how to define sin. Remember human nature really wants to join the rest of the world in watered down doctrines or full paganism. Even counterfeit idols block our pathway to the true God.
1 Corinthians 10:21 NKJV 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord's table and of the table of demons.
Fear God and worship without daring to attempt to alter things for popularity or politics.
