Sermon Manuscript | Nathan Good | 2 Chronicles 10-12

Nathan Good shares with us a sermon from a recent sermon series. This one looks to King Rehoboam. Read, and take inspiration as you need.

This was the second sermon in a series titled “Stories for Seeking God” based on 2 Chronicles 8-36. It was part of a larger sermon series where the congregation worked their way through 1-2 Chronicles, taking breaks to also preach through Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. The structure of the overall series was: 1 Chronicles 1-9 (9 sermons), Galatians (13 sermons), 1 Chronicles 10-21 (15 sermons), Ephesians (12 sermons), 1 Chronicles 22 - 2 Chronicles 7 (7 sermons), Philippians (6 sermons), 2 Chronicles 8-36 (8 sermons), Colossians (5 sermons).  

Sermon Series: Stories for Seeking God (2 Chronicles 8-36) 

Sermon Title: Necessary Humility (2 Chronicles 10-12)

How many of you know what Hogwarts is? (raise of hands) 

How many of you have at least heard of it, even if you don’t know what it is? (raise of hands) 

All I know is that it’s a Harry Potter thing – and that’s about all I care to know. I grew up in the era when the books were coming out, but I never really got into them. 

I have friends who are into it, though. They have a whole lingo that they use. They’ll talk about the different houses of Hogwarts, relate it to their lives, and talk about which house people would be in. 

My eyes glaze over. I have no idea what they're talking about, and I don't really care to know. 

I imagine for some of you, that’s how it feels when I talk about the Old Testament kings. It is a bunch of names and places you are unfamiliar with, a world apart from your own that feels odd and inaccessible. My goal in this series is to retell these stories in a way that you can enter in. 

If I really wanted to learn about Harry Potter, the best way wouldn’t be for someone to explain all the houses and characters – it would be to read the books or watch the movies, to hear the story. 

That’s what the Chronicler was doing. Most of the stories in Chronicles are also in 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings. After God’s people returned from exile, the Chronicler retold them in a way that made sense for his audience. 

That’s what I’m going to do today. This might not feel like a sermon at first, but I promise it is. In fact, I’ve spent more time preparing this than usual – because I’m not just taking seriously the message of Scripture, but also the method of Scripture. 

Rather than explaining the story, I’m going to tell the story of Rehoboam from the perspective of one of the warhorses Solomon brought from Egypt. Obviously, in order to do that, I’m going to add in some fictional elements, but the plot comes directly from Scripture, and the points I make or draw out through the story are the result of my study of the passage. 

Story 

Light glinted off their glistening coats, their manes flowing in the wind. The younger horse kept tossing his head towards his father, watching intently. His father’s eyes moved back and forth across the landscape, searching for something. 

Suddenly, he slid to a halt, dust flying around them. His nose high in the air: smelling, testing, considering. 

His ears went back and his teeth came out, as he spun around, racing back the way they came, with Imara, his son, close behind. It was the last they saw each other. 

Imara remembers it like it was yesterday, even though ten years have passed since. 

But the memory is shaken from his mind as his master, Rehoboam, comes into the stall with his servants. Imara can feel the tension between them as the muscles in Rehoboam’s neck and arms bulge. 

With practiced precision, the servants slide the bridle and harness around Imara’s taut muscles. His heart races as he realizes what is happening.  
It’s a chariot day. 

Israel has been at war for several months. Initially, Imara would pull Rehoboam’s chariot across the countryside as he gave orders, met with captains, and encouraged the troops. But as it became clear that the enemy was too powerful, Rehoboam had returned to Jerusalem with his leaders, for the protection its walls provided. 

As Imara feels the reigns sliding along his back and the weight of the chariot being attached behind him, his mind goes back to the first time he felt that weight. 

After that last run with his father across the Egyptian sand, he had been separated into a different stall. Soon he was marched, with thousands of other young warhorses, over 100 miles, before they were loaded onto trading ships and taken to Israel. 

There were strange sights, strange smells, and strange languages. But in this foreign land, Imara had found what felt like home. 

Each Egyptian horse had been given to an Israelite prince. With 300 wives and 700 concubines, King Solomon had plenty of princes to go around. Imara had heard of Solomon before, back in Egypt. He was known to be the wisest man on earth. He had served as a great peacemaker, building the unity of the nation of Israel by building a temple to their God, Yahweh, and building unity with the nations of the earth by marrying their princesses. 

But he was also a complicated man. 

By the time Imara arrived, Solomon was in conflict with almost everyone. His foreign wives worshipped gods of war and power, and over time, Solomon began to worship them too. 

Then the nations around started to turn on him. There were Hadad of Edom and Rezon of Aram. Both had narrowly escaped the sword of David and then returned, leading their people as Solomon’s adversaries.  

Then, Solomon’s own people started to turn against him. They complained about all the hard work they were doing to build the palaces for all of his wives. They complained about the taxes they were paying, as Solomon built up more and more defenses in the cities, especially in the south. 

Imara had seen Jeroboam rising in power. He was responsible for organizing the workers, as the people built the temple and palaces. He was a man of the people. He understood them. But as he spent more time out of Jerusalem, building up the cities, and as Solomon required more and more of the people in work and taxes, Imara watched their relationship grow tense. It came to a head when a prophet told Jeroboam that God would tear ten tribes away from Solomon’s son and give them to him.  

Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon’s death. 

And so, as Solomon’s kingdom was crumbling around him, he sent to Egypt for warhorses. Imara was one of them. Bred and born in Egypt of the finest stock, he was trained to pull a chariot by Rehoboam himself. 

There was a glint in Rehoboam’s eye, that matched the unbridled energy in Imara’s young muscles. Rehoboam wasn’t a bad man, per se. He was well liked and well known, especially by his friends. He was strong and confident. But behind that surface, it felt like he had something to prove. Imara could feel it, and he was there to prove it with him. 

He was there when Rehoboam first went to Shechem, to be made king. 

For all of Solomon’s wisdom and all of his sons, he didn’t have the forethought to name one of them as his successor. Imara still wasn’t sure how Rehoboam was chosen, other than that he did it his grandfather’s way, he was chosen by the people. 

Imara pulled the chariot the 40 miles from Jerusalem to Shechem, where all Israel had gone out to make Rehoboam king. But Jeroboam, the old director of labor who had turned into a rebel, got wind of it and returned from Egypt. By the time Imara got Rehoboam to Shechem, the northern tribes had appointed Jeroboam as their spokesman. 

He said to Rehoboam, “Your father drove us hard, but now lighten the harsh labor and heavy tax burden he put on us, and we will serve you.” 

It was bribery, short and simple, but from Imara’s perspective, there wasn’t much choice. Most of the tribes were aligned behind Jeroboam, who had a prophecy comparable to King David’s to stand behind. Here was an opportunity for Rehoboam to move beyond the conflicts of Solomon his father and unify a disintegrating nation. 

Rehoboam wanted time to think about it, though. He told Jeroboam and the people to come back in three days for an answer. 

As Imara and Rehoboam made the long trek back to Jerusalem, Rehoboam contemplated his options in the chariot. He talked about the legacy of his father and grandfather, about the pressure he felt to hold the nation together. What he seemed to forget was what it was that allowed King David to bring the nation together in the first place. 

David, his grandfather, would have gone off alone in the wilderness to ask for Yahweh’s direction, or he would have sought out a priest or a prophet for a word from the Lord. 

Solomon would have consulted his God given wisdom, analyzing the situation from multiple perspectives. 

As Imara pulled the chariot into Jerusalem, though, Rehoboam did not turn him towards the temple, instead they headed to the palace. 

Rehoboam assembled his father’s advisors, the elders of the people who had made political decisions in service of the nation for decades. They told him, “If you will be kind to these people and please them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.” 

Rehoboam came out of the palace fuming, calling down curses from the gods. Imara was tired from two days of travel, but at Rehoboam’s persistence, he pulled him further into the city, past the royal palaces to the places where the women were desirable and the alcohol flowed freely. 

His friends, seeing him coming through the streets, started hailing him as the new king. They expected he was returning from his coronation, but as they saw his fallen face, their shouts turned into questions. 

Soon Rehoboam has a crowd of his friends, who he had grown up with, surrounding him. He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?” 

The young men around him were rowdy and worked up. They shouted obscenities. “The people are complaining to you because they think you are weak.” They said. 

“Tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist.’” 

Some in the crowd snickered. It’s a phrase the kids are using these days. Let’s just say, they were referring to something around his father’s waist, not the whole waist itself. Tell the people, “My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist.” This was the kind of advice he was getting. 

They finished, “Say to those lazy northerners, ‘My father drove you hard, I’ll drive you harder. My father used whips, I’ll add metal shards to the ends of the whips.’” 

Imara and Rehoboam rested in Jerusalem for a day, before making the long trek back up to Shechem. There Jeroboam and all the people had returned to hear what the king would say. 

Rejecting the advice of the elders, he followed the advice of the young men, responding to the people harshly. When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they shouted together: 

“What share do we have in David, 
    what part in Jesse’s son? 
To your tents, Israel! 
    Look after your own house, David!” 

The thought of it, the tribes of Israel rejecting their king. Imara shuddered. This never would have happened in Egypt, where the king was seen as a god himself. But things were different, here in Israel, as he had learned. Here, the king wasn’t a god, instead the king was responsible to rule and reign as God’s representative. He was supposed to be submitted to God, who used him to carry out God’s wishes for justice and righteousness in the world. 

What Imara couldn’t figure out, then, as Rehoboam turned him back towards Jerusalem, was that the king never stopped to consult this God he claimed to represent. Instead, the glint in his eye grew stronger. 

Assembling some officials, he returned to the northern tribes to try to reassert control. The people rose up in a fury, stoning one of his officials. Rehoboam jumped back into the chariot, and Imara ran for all his life. 

Back in Jerusalem, Rehoboam was fuming again. He assembled 180,000 young men, along with all of the Egyptian warhorses in his stables, to go to war against Israel, to get back the taxes and labor that he had lost. 

Rehoboam came to the stable that night, pacing back and forth in front of Imara’s stall. Imara could see the glint in his eye, the desire to prove himself growing. This was no longer about his father’s legacy. It wasn’t about his grandfather’s throne. It wasn’t about the glory of Yahweh or defending the temple and the worship of the people. It wasn’t even about wealth, or money, or power. 

Rehoboam was going to war for himself. To prove himself. To regain the kingdom for himself. That is what he was seeking. 

But the next morning, he was stopped in his tracks. 

Imara was there, at the front of the chariot. Despite all of his training, it was the first time he was actually riding into battle. The whip glanced his side, as Rehoboam tried to reign in his energetic prancing. They were both ready for battle, to prove themselves, to show what they were made of. 

Then a shout rang out from the crowd. People parted as a poor man walked through, Shemaiah from the company of the prophets. He got right in the king’s face and said, “Hear the word of the Lord, do not go up to fight your northern brothers. Go home, every one of you, for this is the Lord’s doing.” 

Imara watched Rehoboam’s shoulders slump. The week’s activities caught up to him. This was one thing too much. The people rejected him as king, his general manager in charge of forced labor had been killed, and now a prophet was declaring that it all was God’s will. 

Imara could see the fight was still in Rehoboam’s eye, but he was also looking this way and that, surveying the crowd, searching for something. He didn’t find it. The people slowly left, heading back to their own homes, and Rehoboam too, begrudgingly obeyed the word of the Lord and went back to his palace. 

But he didn’t go back to the temple. Instead, he worked even harder to pull together the resources necessary to build up defenses in Judah and Benjamin, the tribes that he had left to rule. 

Imara pulled his chariot back and forth across the countryside for three years as they put shields and spears in all the cities, making them very strong. 

Rehoboam might have lost the kingdom, but Judah and Benjamin were his. 

Jeroboam, ruling in the north, had built golden calves for the people to worship at, appointing his own priests. Even though he didn’t visit it much, Rehoboam still had the temple in Jerusalem, so all of the priests and Levites from the north, those who led the people in worship, fled and joined the kingdom of Rehoboam, strengthening it spiritually and morally, while Rehoboam worked tirelessly to strengthen it politically and militarily. 

He didn’t want to make the mistakes of his father, so he appointed one of his sons, from his favorite wife, as crown prince, to take the throne one day. 

Even though his kingdom was smaller, it was established and strong.  

And then the real war broke out.  

Solomon had gone to Egypt to get King Shishak’s warhorses, now Shishak had come to Israel to get Solomon’s gold. 

At first, Imara carried Rehoboam across the countryside, commanding troops. But as it became clear that King Shishak, with his twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen, was too powerful, Rehoboam retreated back to Jerusalem. 

The Egyptian forces had plowed through all of the defense cities that Rehoboam had built as if they were block towers, built by a child. Now he was advancing against Jerusalem, and it was time for Imara to ride into a real battle. 

The other leaders of Israel were gathering, as he felt the bridle sliding over his face and the harness on his back. In the bustle of the stable, there was a familiar voice, that sent shivers down Imara’s spine. He wasn’t as loud in the stable as he had been in the street those five years before. But his voice was just as firm and steady, as the prophet Shemaiah walked up to King Rehoboam and said, “Hear the word of the Lord, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak.’” 

The stable went quiet. Even the servants stopped their preparations. All eyes were glued on King Rehoboam. Imara turned and was surprised at what he saw. The glint was gone. There was no more fight in Rehoboam’s eyes. He quietly, with his eyes to the ground, turned to the prophet and said, “The Lord is just.” 

That was it. No more fighting. No more proving himself. No more building the nation that he had fought for these past five years. 

The prophet looked as surprised as Imara felt. But quickly, regaining his composure, he said, “God has revealed to me that because you have humbled yourself, He will not destroy you but will instead deliver you. You will still serve Shishak, so that you learn how good of a king God is, but you will not be totally destroyed.” 

And just like that, preparations continued. The king and his leaders burst out of the stables, as their horses pulled their chariots through the streets. The sounds of the battle could be heard all around the walls of the city. Grunts and groans, metal and stone, the voices of horses indistinguishable, as to whether they were from Egypt or Israel. The smell of death was in the air as the sons of Israel gave their lives defending their king and the sons of Egypt gave their lives defending theirs. 

Imara felt like he was flying, his feet barely touching the ground, as they rushed through the streets towards the front of the battle. The soldiers had already breeched the walls in some places, the fighting spilling into the city. Some were looting the palaces, others the temple, but Imara knew there was only one person that mattered. The kingdom stood or fell on the breath, the life, of one person, and that person was in his chariot. 

Rehoboam directed him through the city streets, in search of something, but Imara was unsure of what. And then, he saw him. It wasn’t Shishak, the king of Egypt, riding in the chariot coming towards him that caught Imara’s eye. It was the horse, coat glistening, mane flying, pulling that chariot towards him that took his breath away. 

Father and son, in an instant, both slid to a stop. King Rehoboam and King Shishak, one hundred yards apart, both urged their horses on. They were enemies. The battle hinged on this, on which king was able to defeat the other, claiming victory for his people. But their horses wouldn’t budge. 

Imara looked his father in the eye. He wondered what his father saw in him. What it was that caused his father to recognize him, after all these years? And then they both whinnied, turned around, and led their kings back home. 

2 Chronicles 12:12-14, “Because Rehoboam humbled himself, the Lord’s anger turned from him, and he was not totally destroyed. Indeed, there was some good in Judah. 

King Rehoboam established himself firmly in Jerusalem and continued as king. He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord.” 

What is your heart set on? What is it that you are seeking? 

Author bio

Nathan Good is a bi-vocational pastor and entrepreneur. He is Lead Pastor at Swamp Mennonite Church, operates Customized Coaching as a leadership coach and transition advisor, and is President of the Board of Directors for a missional nonprofit - Free Fall Action Sports.