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Good evening. Thank you, music team. You can open your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 12. 1 Kings chapter 12. Well, our text is going to begin in verse 25 and go all the way to chapter 13, verse 6. But this is ultimately one passage that talks about the insanity of false worship.

The insanity of false worship. By false worship, I mean the claim to be glorifying God while either, number one, doing absolutely unacceptable things, or number two, doing acceptable things, but towards someone or something that's not God. That's what false worship will be for tonight. And it's appropriate to learn from this text because false worship runs so rampant in our world, it's as if we don't even notice.

False and fraudulent worship is often tolerated and labeled harmless, but that couldn't be further from the truth. This text shows us that there is such thing as worshiping God the wrong way, and there are severe consequences for doing so. And so in our text, I want you to see the heart of Jeroboam so that your allegiance will be totally to the Lord.

Jeroboam's heart is first divided and then discovered. It's first divided and then discovered. This section in chapter 12 will be about his divided heart. Chapter 13 is about his discovered heart. So I'm going to read the whole thing. It's long, but stay focused if you can. Starting in chapter 12, 12 verse 25.

Then Jeroboam built Shechem, in the hill country of Ephraim, and lived there. And he went out from there and built Penuel. And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom will return back to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their Lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah.

And they will kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah. So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, You've gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold, your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

And he set one in Bethel and the other he put in Dan. Then this thing became a sin, for the people went as far as Dan to be before one. He also made temples on high places and appointed priests from among all the people who were not of the Levites.

And Jeroboam appointed a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he made, and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.

He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month in the month that he had devised from his own heart. And he instituted a feast for the people of Israel, and went up to the altar to make offerings.

And behold, the man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel. Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make offerings, and the man cried against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar, thus says the Lord. Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you, the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.

And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign that the Lord has spoken. Behold, the altar shall be torn down, and ashes that are on it shall be poured out. And when the king heard the saying of the man of God, which he cried against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, Seize him.

And his hand, which he stretched out against him, dried up, so that he could not draw it back to himself. The altar also was torn down, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.

And the king said to the man of God, Entreat now the favor of the Lord your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me. And the man of God entreated the Lord, and the king's hand was restored to him and became as it was before.

So that's our text. A brief summary, a brief summary, because you probably didn't wake up and read 1 Kings chapter 12 this morning. The king before Jeroboam was Solomon, who managed to successfully sin himself out of the kingship. So he's our first example of defective leadership, a man with a divided heart.

He knew the Lord, yet prior chapters tell us his downfall came due to his obsession with excessive horses and chariots, stacking up gold and silver for himself, and his love of many women and their gods. And this is the office which immediately comes before him. Jeroboam. So God promises Solomon that the kingdom will be torn away from him and given to another.

And God says he's going to do this by raising up an adversary. So God raises up enemies, adversaries from bordering countries. But then it says, Jeroboam, an Ephraimite from Solomon's own country, an Israelite, also lifted his hand against the king. So we see from the moment Jeroboam steps on the pages of Scripture the disposition of his heart.

How twisted. A messy situation. The one on the throne himself is divided in heart and defecting from allegiance to God, and he's certainly leading others down that path of destruction. And we have this man, Jeroboam, who also seems to have a rebellious heart. You fast forward a little bit, and Solomon dies, and his son, Rehoboam, has taken over as king of Israel.

But he's very harsh, and the people run him out of town. Rehoboam flees to the southern half of the country, known as Judah, and he reigns there. In this region is also Jerusalem, where Israelites go multiple times yearly to offer sacrifices to God and worship him. So once Rehoboam is in the south, the people in the north appoint Jeroboam as their king.

And what's the first thing he does as king? This is where our text picks up. So Jeroboam is appointed in the north, Rehoboam in the south. Verse 25 of chapter 12 says, Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there, and he went out from there.

And built Penuel. So Shechem and Penuel are two cities. Supposedly, he fortified them or built them up. And that's really what we get there. So, starting in verse 26, it says, And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their Lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah.

So, right from the beginning, we see extreme paranoia and trying to force his people into loyalty. And this is what people do when they don't trust God. They try to take control themselves. And this is the first point about Jeroboam's divided heart that I want you to see: it's characterized by a lack of trust in God.

He seems to trust himself more than the promises of God. Just a few chapters before, that we didn't read in chapter 11, a prophet promised the kingdom to Jeroboam forever if he would just obey. But Jeroboam's lack of trust in God to deliver on this promise provoked him to come up with a plan to keep control over the people.

He exercised no faith in God. When Jeroboam thought about the people under his own jurisdiction going to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices in obedience in Rehoboam's territory, he wants to thwart their plans. Does this sound like someone who has the people's best interest in mind, or his own best interest in mind?

Does it sound like someone who cares deeply about the purity of the people and their devotion to the Lord? No, clearly not. Jeroboam is seeking the approval of God. Of man over all else, not Yahweh's approval. And so, being terrified at the prospect of losing his kingship, his position of authority, Jeroboam devises an evil plan to sabotage the true worship of God.

What was one role of the king of Israel? There was a lot of roles. Maybe it could be summarized something like this: to lead the nation to God. It's very simplistic, but to lead the nation to God, to lead a covenant people and covenant faithfulness to the covenant God, Yahweh.

Jeroboam did the exact opposite. If he trusted the Lord, he would have led people to be faithful to the Lord, but he trusted himself and wanted people to be faithful to himself. He wasn't encouraging allegiance to God, but allegiance to himself. This is false worship. And all we've even read about is a thought.

He hasn't even had an action. This is what he thought. But that's all it takes. A lack of trust in God, false worship. Another part of the king's duties to lead a nation to God would require knowing God's law, or you think of the first five books of the Bible, for learning, instruction, personal holiness.

And now, as a leader of this nation, Jeroboam, what's a big lesson he should have learned from reading the first five books? Well, a lot to learn there. But maybe one that would stick out to you all today is: don't make a golden calf. So, what does he do?

Verse 28. So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold, your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And he set one in Bethel and the other he put in Dan.

Then this thing became a sin, for the people went as far as Dan to be before one. So a part of us probably wants to shame the people for falling for this again. They themselves were responsible for worshiping the Lord only, but this is about the premeditated sin of Jeroboam.

The law screams, worship God only. He should have known, don't make a golden calf. But he promptly builds and erects two golden calves for Israel to worship. And this is the second point about Jeroboam's divided heart that you need to see: it has utterly disregarded God's commandments. Utter disregard for God's commands.

He knows what is right. He himself is from the tribe of Ephraim. He was brought up, being taught about his fathers, familiar with the scriptures, and surely he's read them since he's now on the throne in Israel. And what does he do with the truth that's before him?

He tramples it, he perverts it, throws it aside. At best, he puts it in the back seat to his own preferences. At worst, he sins against God and drags a whole bunch of other people down with him. Repeating the same destructive sin of Aaron. Why does he do this?

Well, a man cannot serve two masters. Jeroboam cannot elevate God's commands to the highest standard and be devoted to them while all. Also, elevating his own preferences to the highest standard and being devoted to them. Jeroboam's theology consists of a low view of God and a low view of his word.

And that's why he builds the golden calves, and that's why this becomes a sin for the people. A low view of God and a low view of his word led a people to sin. A heart that's divided between God and anything else is a heart that's not wholly devoted to the Lord.

So now the calves are in Bethel and Dan, both in the northern half of the country, so Jeroboam's territory. Bethel is toward the southern part of that territory. Dan is in the northern part. And in case you've been giving Jeroboam the benefit of the doubt so far, he does what starts in verse 31.

He also made temples on high places and appointed priests from among all the people who were not of the Levites. And Jeroboam appointed a feast on the 15th day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made.

And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he made. He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the 15th day of the eighth month, in the month that he had devised from his own heart. And he instituted a feast for the people of Israel and went up to the altar to make offerings.

So he makes temples without order, appoints priests without credentials, sets feasts that aren't holy and offers sacrifices that aren't acceptable. He's really outdone himself in the worst way. We may think the solution is: if he would have just done the right thing, don't build those temples, don't appoint those priests, don't set those feasts, don't make those sacrifices, just do it the right way.

Well, that probably would have kept others from following him towards destruction, but Jeroboam would have had the same problem. His heart was not totally devoted to God. He devised these things from his own heart. He sinned and caused others to sin. This is more than just an action problem.

This is a heart problem. One commentator says, Jeroboam clearly rejected God's design for Israel's worship. He was using the wrong place, the wrong personnel, and the wrong periods. He had temples in the wrong place. He had priests that were the wrong people. He used the wrong periods, the wrong feast dates.

And this is what a divided heart does: it disregards God's commands. Let this never be true of us. As one who's often tempted to appeal to my own preferences, let it never be done so at the expense of God's truth and his word. We should pray that we'd be trusting and obeying God long before our physical bodies do anything, before our mouths speak or our feet are set in motion, that we would be trusting the Lord, taking him at his word, loving him, turning him from our own ways, so we won't leave behind a wake of destruction, like Jeroboam did.

So, do you see a divided heart in Jeroboam? An Israelite appointed by God to be king, to lead a nation, yet caring about his own power. Than things of heaven. You see this in Jeroboam? I ask, but do you have a divided heart? Do your cares or worries or unholy passions dominate your life?

Do you, in some ways, relate to Jeroboam? Me too. Well, our text tells us what happens to a man with a divided heart. It gets discovered. It gets discovered. And I love the detail that the scriptures give. They really take us into the moment of a man who's outwardly doing really well.

He's in a place of authority, but inwardly he can't contain his sin. He can't hide it, and neither can we. So we'll look at this passage about Jeroboam's heart being revealed and then make some personal applications. But chapter 12 ends with Jeroboam in Bethel, this town where he set up a calf and an altar, and he's making offerings.

Chapter 13, verse 1 picks up with, And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel. Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make offerings. So, same setting in Bethel, and a man of God, unnamed, comes out of the southern kingdom to Bethel.

It's clear that the word of the Lord demanded his presence before Jeroboam. It doesn't say what the reason is, but he went. And it would have been a long journey by our standards of foot traffic, but the distance from Jerusalem to Bethel is about 14 miles. So he could have been around there, maybe a little bit further trip, maybe shorter.

Besides the point, that's a half a day, half a day's journey. Journey on foot, maybe a full day. But you get the picture: the man of God shows up on the scene, and Jeroboam is presumably in the middle of a fraudulent church service, making sacrifices at the altar.

If that isn't getting caught red-handed, I don't know what it is. Have you ever walked in the kitchen and your bottom cabinet is flung open and it's empty because all its contents are on the kitchen floor, and your kids are just sitting there staring at you with a blank face?

I don't know what I did. This is a way more serious version of that. And this is the first point that you need to see about God discovering Jeroboam's heart. It's that God is the one doing the revealing. God is the one doing the revealing. It's God who discovers hearts.

Jeroboam didn't come asking God to show him his heart or make him better, but God is the one seeking out the heart of Jeroboam. And this is always true. He sends the man, the man of God, to confront him. For anyone who's ever come to an understanding of their own sin, it's because God sought him first.

And isn't that a joy for us to know that God seeks out the heart of man? This passage is about a single person's heart being uncovered, but the scriptures tell us that God ultimately does this to everyone. Jeremiah 17:10 says, I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.

Ecclesiastes 12, 13 says, For God will be. Bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. Revelation 2, 23 says, And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.

This is reality. So we shouldn't fight it or run away from it. We won't win. But give God your heart. It pleases him when we come to him with a repentant attitude, acknowledging our sins and wanting to be changed. And even if it's humiliating, it is worth it.

It's worth it. So now with Jeroboam about to have his heart uncovered, we have the setting, we have the scene. This is what the man does in verse 2. And the man cried against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, O altar, altar, thus says the Lord, Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.

So this is the second point about God's revealing hearts that I want you to see: is what the world sees as defeat is often God's great mercy. And let me explain. With Jeroboam's great setup of golden calves, altars, people, and sacrifices, the man of God cuts it down with a graphic prophecy.

This is defeat. The whole thing is wiped out. But when a man like Jeroboam is committed to perverted worship of God and someone Intrudes to stop him in his tracks. Is that not a mercy of God? It certainly is God's mercy, that even in the midst of a crooked heart, revealing a crooked heart, he abounds in mercy.

God doesn't meet sinners with an angry slap in the face and abandonment, but he confronts us in the middle of our sin. And if we're willing to repent, he gathers us like a hen gathers her brood under her wings. Additionally, this prophecy is about, it's not against Jeroboam himself, but it's against the altar.

This is unique because we see throughout history, think of the days of Noah, for example, when every thought and intent of the man's heart was only evil continually. They were judged. The people were the objects of God's judgment. You think of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, the sinful people became the objects of God's judgment.

You think of the city of Nineveh, mentioned this morning, written about in the book of Nahum. Read two verses from Nahum really quickly. Chapter 1, verse 3 says, The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. And the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. Chapter 1, verse 8 says, But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of his adversaries and will pursue his enemies into the darkness.

This is judgment on people. Yet here in 1 Kings, we have God expressing wonderful mercy on Jeroboam by prophesying against the altar. Not the man himself. Even when the world sees defeat, God is often extending mercy when we deserve it the least. The man of God follows up the prophecy in verse 3 with saying, And he gave a sign the same day.

So the sign is supposed to be a supernatural indicator that what he just said is going to come true. He says, This is the sign that the Lord has spoken. Behold, the altar shall be torn down, and the ashes that are on it shall be poured out. So the altar being torn down, the very work of Jeroboam's hands will be humiliating, especially with him standing there.

But what does this symbolize? It symbolizes defeat or defilement. And I think this is important. So connect this with me. You can turn back a couple pages to chapter 11. 1 Kings chapter 11. This is before Jeroboam is king. Solomon is still king of the nation. We talked earlier about a prophet telling Jeroboam that he's going to be king.

And here it is explained, starting in verse 29 of chapter 11. It says, And at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him on the road. Now Ahijah had dressed him in the new garment, and two of them were alone in the open country.

Then Ahijah laid hold of the new garment that was on him and tore it into 12 pieces. And he said to Jeroboam, Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon, and will give you ten tribes.

But he shall have one tribe for the sake of my king. Servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel. So he goes to Jeroboam, tears his garment into 12 pieces, and says, You're going to get your share, someone else is going to get his share.

But either way, the kingdom is torn from Solomon. Why is the kingdom have to be torn? Verse 33 of chapter 11: Because they have forsaken me and worshiped Astoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, Kimosh, the God of Moab, and Milcom, the God of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules, as David his father did.

So you see what Solomon did. Don't make the same mistake. You can turn back to chapter 13, and you see where our text has taken us. Jeroboam has done the very same thing as Solomon, worshiping that which is not God. A torn cloak in chapter 11 meant a torn kingdom and a kingdom under judgment.

And in our text, a torn altar meant a torn religion and a religion under judgment. This is false worship. It's not from God. It's not about God. And it offers empty promises. It's insane. The ashes also being poured out, signifies being in an unauthorized place. Ceremonial uncleanness, procedure nullified, religion rejected.

And this is the sign. That the man of God cave. And there's really two ways we can react when God reveals our sin. We can agree with him about our sin, or we can disagree with him about our sin. So, how do you think Jeroboam is going to react after being confronted in this way?

Verse 4. And when the king heard the saying of the man of God, and he cried against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam reached out his hand from the altar, saying, Seize him. And his hand, which he stretched out against him, dried up, so he could not draw it back to himself.

So do you see a hard-hearted reaction? He reaches out his hand, seize him. Do you see a heart that's worshiping God or fighting against him? A humble heart or a heart that thinks very highly of itself? A repentant person or an ungodly inner lawyer springing into action to clear his name?

Surely being confronted with spiritual deadness or false worship is no fun, but how we react is very telling of our spiritual state. And Jeroboam's reaction shows his spiritual deadness, callous to God, lacking sensitivity to the Lord and his commands, even wanting to do evil to the Lord's spokesman.

How would we handle such a confrontation? With humility and contemplation of the issue at hand, or with burning anger? It's for you to answer, but Jeroboam. Jeroboam's reaction resulted in his hand being dried up. I don't know exactly what that means, but it doesn't sound good. And this is true.

This is always true, that it never goes well for the unrepentant person. Maybe it goes well for a little while. Maybe you can mask it a little longer, but in the end, it doesn't go well. Verses five and six say this. The altar also was torn down, and ash was poured out from the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.

And the king said to the man of God, Entreat now the favor of the Lord your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me. And the man of God entreated the Lord, and the king's hand was restored to him and became as it was before.

So the sign that the man of God said was going to happen happens, showing that the prophecy in verse 2 will also come to pass. And with this sign being done, we'd hope Jeroboam would just fold, acknowledge his wrongdoing, come to God, make amends, reconciliation. Well, all he really does is ask a favor from God, that his hand would be restored, which again points to the wonderful mercy of God and healing him.

What is this repentance now that his heart has been discovered? Well, we'll just skip ahead to the end of this chapter to verse 33. You can just glance at it. I'll read it. It says, After this thing, Jeroboam. Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the people.

Any who would, he ordained to be the priests of the high places. And this thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and destroy it from the face of the earth. So the answer is no. Jeroboam did not repent after his heart was discovered.

In fact, he doubled down in his idolatry. It says he made priests for the high places again. And the effect of false worship is, of course, at the end of verse 33, a downfall of a people, cut off and destroyed. This is the only place that false worship can lead.

There is no other end. And this is the consequence of turning our back on God and sinning against him, who created us, once a relationship with us. Our text ends with Jeroboam being physically restored. But what about the prophecy from verse 2 about Josiah, the son of David, and burning bones?

Well, I'll read its fulfillment. This is the last place we'll flip. 2 Kings 23. 2 Kings 23, starting in verse 15. It says, Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam, the son of Nabot, who made Israel to sin, that altar with the high place, he pulled down and burned, reducing it to dust.

He also burned the Asherah. And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were on the mount, and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the Lord that the man of God proclaimed, who had predicted these things.

Then he said, What is that monument I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel. And he said, Let him be. Let no man have his bones.

So they let his bones alone with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria. And Josiah removed all the shrines also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the Lord to anger. He did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel.

And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were there on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem. The time gap between our text in 1 Kings 12 and 13 to this Josiah is about 300 years. 300 years after Jeroboam and the man of God.

Do you see God's mercy in waiting to pour out judgment? He waited so long, gave them chance after chance to turn to him, but they didn't. So to conclude, if you know you're in sin and you refuse to repent because it seems like God's not going to do anything about it, or at least not.

Right now, you know your end. God will punish sin. Are you being confronted about anything right now? Is there false worship going on in your life? I doubt most of you, if any of you, have a golden calf in your house to worship. But let's be honest, we all have a golden calf, we all have idols in our lives that we bow down to.

We are all prone to sin. But when I think of false religion or false worship, it relies heavily on subtlety. Can even use words like redemptive or reconciling or atoning, of course, out of their biblical context. False religion always wants to appear justifiable. Jeroboam probably pulled the golden calves idea from Exodus 32, maybe pitching it as historical tradition or something like that.

But we ought to weigh this in our own lives: that a little covenant breaking here, a little deviation from God's commands there, a little allegiance to tradition here, and we leave behind a trail that leads to ruins. So think about this. Is your thought life dominated by sinful, covetous thoughts?

Just a little more money, recognition, status, clothes, power, knowledge, respect? I'll ask it this way. Romans 2:4 says, Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? If you're hearing this and not a believer, you need to see the futility of opposing God and going down the path of Jeroboam, the unsatisfying result of going your own way.

What promises so much and finding freedom in yourself actually results in slavery to sin and the punishment that comes along with it. Agree with God about your sin and turn from it and be forgiven. If you're hearing this and you profess faith in Christ, but your life shows indifference toward God and His Word, hear this: God wants your whole heart.

If a husband tells his wife he loves her and then never does anything to show he loves her, is that love? If there's division in your heart between God and unholy things, don't just sweep them under the rug, deal with them. Let this be a warning. Come to God and He forgives.

And enough about a bad king. Let me tell you about a good king. There is a good king who doesn't coerce his people into loyalty. There is no defection or division in his heart. He loves what is right, and in fact, he is what is right. And he demands that we have a high view of God and a high view of his word.

This king himself searches hearts, and he himself dispenses mercy. He actually makes our hearts love him with a genuine love, and he forgives quickly when we ask. This king is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who bore our sins in his life. Body on the tree, that we would die to sin and live to righteousness.

He is good and faithful. He comes to us when we are in our sin to take it away, and we ought to belong entirely to him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and how you teach us. Thank you that your word is an unending well of knowledge and wisdom.

I pray for our hearts to be humbled before it as we go forward this week to continue to learn from it, be changed by it, that we would have undivided hearts wholly devoted to you. Thank you for your son, whom you sent to be the good king, to die for our sins, and make us clean.

Pray we would all have allegiance to him. Thank you again for tonight. Pray you be with us this week. Amen.