Abijam: The Fortunate King (1 Kings 15:1-8)
1 Kings 15:1-8
This morning we are studying a rather unknown King
Admit it, If I were to ask you to name past Kings of Israel or Judah, would anyone have remembered this guy?
He is the great-grandson of David
The grandson of Solomon
The son of Rehoboam
You would think he would be notable, but he most certainly is not.
In fact, this king slips through history
With hardly any recorded information at all.
Even our text this morning seems to be lacking.
• We saw David for the whole book of 2 Samuel.
• Solomon got the first 11 chapters of 1 Kings
• Even Rehoboam and Jeroboam intertwined to get in 4 chapters.
But all Abijam gets is 8 verses.
And aside from a brief description about his character,
His entire reign is summed up in verse 6 like this:
(6) “There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life.”
YOU READ IT RIGHT.
Here we are in the section on Abijam, and when recounting his reign,
It isn’t even him, but his father who is listed.
He is sort of written in as an afterthought in the book.
WHY?
Because he represented nothing that was worthy of history.
He failed to make a mark.
In the New Testament I assume he would be described
Much like the church at Laodicea.
Revelation 3:15-16 “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. ‘So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.”
Abijam was a dud, and he made no difference in the world.
Yet you have noticed I have called him THE FORTUNATE KING.
To see why, we examine our text this morning,
To learn a little bit about this almost forgotten king of Judah.
There are three things we see in our text this morning.
#1 HIS FOLLY
1 Kings 15:1-3
To give just a little informative background on the boy.
He became King “in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam”
So while Jeroboam is worshiping his golden calves in the north,
Abijam now takes the throne in the south.
Since he only “reigned three years in Jerusalem”
JEROBOAM WAS STILL KING WHEN HE DIED.
Another interesting note
He is named differently here than in Chronicles.
Here he is “Abijam” which means “father of the sea”
In Chronicles he is called “Abijah” which means “my father is the LORD”
And so it is possible that he never lived up to a previous name,
And his name was changed.
You will also notice this fact:
“his mother’s name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom”
There are actually two interesting things about this.
1) “Abishalom” is an alternative spelling for Absalom.
Therefore both of Abijam’s grandpa’s were sons of David.
His paternal grandfather was Solomon.
His maternal grandfather was Absalom.
2) The second interesting thing is that Abijam probably only received the throne because of his mother.
2 Chronicles 11:18-22 “Then Rehoboam took as a wife Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David and of Abihail the daughter of Eliab the son of Jesse, and she bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah and Zaham. After her he took Maacah the daughter of Absalom, and she bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza and Shelomith. Rehoboam loved Maacah the daughter of Absalom more than all his other wives and concubines. For he had taken eighteen wives and sixty concubines and fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah as head and leader among his brothers, for he intended to make him king.”
In other words, Abijam was NOT Rehoboam’s oldest son,
But he was the oldest son of Rehoboam’s favorite wife.
HE WAS FORTUNATE TO RECEIVE THE THRONE.
The only problem was that while Abijah did receive the throne,
He most certainly did not act kingly in God’s eyes.
For verse 3 gives us significant insight into his character.
(3) “He walked in all the sins of his father, which he had committed before him; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, like the heart of his father David.”
Abijam was a chip right off of the old block.
He acted just like his father did.
In fact, Abijam practiced “all the sins of his father”
WHAT WERE THE SINS OF REHOBOAM?
1) IDOLATRY
1 Kings 14:21-24 “Now Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put His name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess. Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked Him to jealousy more than all that their fathers had done, with the sins which they committed. For they also built for themselves high places and sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and beneath every luxuriant tree. There were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD dispossessed before the sons of Israel.”
You will remember that this idolatry was so bad
That God eventually appointed Shishak, King of Egypt to wipe him out.
Of course at the last minute Rehoboam humbled himself
And God only permitted Shishak to plunder Judah, not destroy it.
Which of course led to the second sin of Rehoboam.
2) HYPOCRISY
1 Kings 14:25-28 “Now it happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, that Shishak the king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. He took away the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king’s house, and he took everything, even taking all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. So King Rehoboam made shields of bronze in their place, and committed them to the care of the commanders of the guard who guarded the doorway of the king’s house. Then it happened as often as the king entered the house of the LORD, that the guards would carry them and would bring them back into the guards’ room.”
It was the hypocritical display of “POLISHING BRONZE”
3) SELF-SUFFICIENCY
2 Chronicles 12:13-14 “So King Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem and reigned. Now Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen from all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess. He did evil because he did not set his heart to seek the LORD.”
Rehoboam was too proud to seek God.
Idolatry, Hypocrisy, Self-Sufficiency
And it says here that Abijah followed right in line.
He kept the idolatry going, he kept polishing bronze,
And he also saw no need for seeking God.
BUT IN ORDER TO BE FAIR, and to gain more understanding
We need to see the whole story.
While Kings doesn’t really tell us much about Abijam,
2 Chronicles does record one incident in his short reign.
TURN TO: 2 CHRONICLES 13:1-12
Abijam’s argument even makes good sense.
Now, if you keep reading, you will find that Jeroboam plotted an ambush behind Abijam and trapped him in the middle of the battle.
(READ: 2 Chronicles 13:13-17)
There we have a day in which Abijah really appears to get things right.
By that story, he sounds like a warrior for God.
His theology sounds good, and he appears to be a man of faith.
Yet the writer of Kings acted like he never really did anything good.
That is admittedly confusing.
It is almost like we are not talking about the same guy.
Or maybe the writer of Kings didn’t like him and the writer of Chronicles did,
After all, they did call him by different names.
But that is not really the case.
Later in 2 Chronicles, while dealing with the next King: Asa,
Here is what the prophet says:
2 Chronicles 15:1-7 “Now the Spirit of God came on Azariah the son of Oded, and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: the LORD is with you when you are with Him. And if you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you. “For many days Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law. “But in their distress they turned to the LORD God of Israel, and they sought Him, and He let them find Him. “In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for many disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. “Nation was crushed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every kind of distress. “But you, be strong and do not lose courage, for there is reward for your work.”
There the prophet is speaking to Abijam’s son and he is recounting
What life was like when he father and grandfather were kings.
LOOK AT SOME OF THE DESCRIPTION.
“For many days Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law.”
That means that while Abijam gave Rehoboam this great speech
About having the true temple worship
And all the Levites and real devotion to God,
HIS DEVOTION WASN’T AS SINCERE AS HE MADE IT OUT TO BE.
Abijam really didn’t worship God any more than Jeroboam did,
It just sounded good before the armies.
“But in their distress they turned to the LORD God of Israel, and they sought Him, and He let them find Him.”
It is apparent that the only time Abijam truly sought God
Was when his tail was in a pinch.
And the only reason God came to their aid is not because Abijam was sincere, but because God was merciful.
“In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for many disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. “Nation was crushed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every kind of distress.”
So when the writer of Kings said that (6) “There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life.” He was correct.
PUTTING THE WHOLE PUZZLE TOGETHER WE LEARN THIS
Abijam certainly knew all about God,
And that He was a God with power who could deliver.
But he never sought God on a personal level.
Personally he was an idolatrous, self-sufficient hypocrite,
Who only sought God when he was in over his head.
And now you know exactly what the writer of Kings means in
Verse 3, “his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, like the heart of his father David.”
ABIJAM WAS A HALF-HEARTED FOLLOWER OF GOD.
He certainly had head-knowledge of God,
For he knew where to turn in times of danger,
He just didn’t have any true commitment to Him.
There is a great picture of what Abijam was in the New Testament.
Luke 8:14 “The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity.”
That is Abijam to a “T”.
And God has never accepted that type of commitment from people.
Jeremiah 4:1-4 “If you will return, O Israel,” declares the LORD, “Then you should return to Me. And if you will put away your detested things from My presence, And will not waver, And you will swear, ‘As the LORD lives,’ In truth, in justice and in righteousness; Then the nations will bless themselves in Him, And in Him they will glory.” For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, “Break up your fallow ground, And do not sow among thorns. “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD And remove the foreskins of your heart, Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Or else My wrath will go forth like fire And burn with none to quench it, Because of the evil of your deeds.”
God has always demanded more than lip service.
God has always demanded more than half-hearted commitment.
Jesus said, we must be willing to leave everything to follow Him.
You cannot serve God and mammon.
Yet that is precisely what Abijam tried to do.
He called on God when he needed God, otherwise God was not a priority.
In a lot of ways, he is not that different from Jeroboam.
Jeroboam didn’t need God, until his hand was withered,
And then he was ready for God to heal him.
And as soon as God did, Jeroboam returned to his sinful ways.
And we know what happened to Jeroboam.
God promised to completely remove his line from the face of the earth.
You and I would expect that to happen to Abijam now as well.
But I told you that Abijam was “The Fortunate King”
First – His Folly
#2 HIS FORTUNE
1 Kings 15:4-5
By all accounts God should have done the same to Abijam’s house
That He promised to do to Jeroboam’s house.
But God didn’t. – WHY?
“But for David’s sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, to raise up his son after him and to establish Jerusalem;”
The only reason God didn’t role Abijam up into a tight little ball
And fling him off the planet
Is because God had high regard for Abijam’s great-grandfather.
God made a promise to David.
DO YOU REMEMBER IT?
Psalms 89:19-37 “Once You spoke in vision to Your godly ones, And said, “I have given help to one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from the people. “I have found David My servant; With My holy oil I have anointed him, With whom My hand will be established; My arm also will strengthen him.”The enemy will not deceive him, Nor the son of wickedness afflict him. “But I shall crush his adversaries before him, And strike those who hate him.”My faithfulness and My lovingkindness will be with him, And in My name his horn will be exalted. “I shall also set his hand on the sea And his right hand on the rivers. “He will cry to Me, ‘You are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’ “I also shall make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth.”My lovingkindness I will keep for him forever, And My covenant shall be confirmed to him. “So I will establish his descendants forever And his throne as the days of heaven. “If his sons forsake My law And do not walk in My judgments, If they violate My statutes And do not keep My commandments, Then I will punish their transgression with the rod And their iniquity with stripes. “But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him, Nor deal falsely in My faithfulness.”My covenant I will not violate, Nor will I alter the utterance of My lips.”Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David. “His descendants shall endure forever And his throne as the sun before Me.”It shall be established forever like the moon, And the witness in the sky is faithful.” Selah.”
That is why we call Abijam the fortunate king.
By all accounts he should have been blotted out,
And yet he was not, only because God is faithful to His word.
Abijam’s life is a testimony
To God’s unfailing commitment to keep His word.
This covenant with David will never be broken,
And God proved it by not forsaking David here.
This promise saw it’s fulfillment in the birth of Jesus Christ,
And some day Jesus will return and reign upon the throne forever.
God made a promise to David & even Abijam couldn’t mess it up.
Don’t you rejoice in the faithfulness of God
To know that nothing and no one
Can thwart the predetermined plan of Almighty God!
God made a promise, and He keeps His promises.
Now, it is fitting to ask, why David was so special,
For the writer does tell us why God was so pleased with him.
Verse 5 tells us THREE REASONS why God made this promise to David.
In the LORD’S SIGHT, David was COMMENDABLE
(5) “because David did what was right in the sight of the LORD”
David was a man who generally lived in a way that pleased God.
In the LORD’S SERVICE, David was DEPENDABLE
(5b) “and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life,”
David was a man that God could count on to obey His word.
He wasn’t just a fair-weather Christian,
Or one who only wanted God when he needed out of a jam.
In the LORD’S SCORN, David was CORRECTABLE
(5c) “except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.”
But even in that case, when God chastised David, he repented, accepted the consequences and even praised God in the midst of the punishment.
From that repentance we get the beloved Psalms 51.
But you can see why God loved David so much.
David loved God with all his heart.
In fact, listen to a couple of David’s prayers
Psalms 86:11 “Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name.”
Psalms 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.”
The point is that David was wholly committed to God, and that, coupled with God’s faithfulness, are the only reasons
Abijam was not totally destroyed.
We have heard the promise before.
Exodus 20:4-6 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.”You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
And we see here that Abijam ought to fall to his knees and praise God
For a faithful great-grandfather who caused his family to be so blessed.
He was fortunate that David was his great-grandpa.
His Folly His Fortune
#3 HIS FUTILITY
1 Kings 15:6-8
Abijam’s life is not summed up by great devotion.
Abijam’s life is not remembered by some great revival.
Abijam’s life is remembered by the fact that
There was never any peace at any time when he reigned.
“There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. Now the rest of the acts of Abijam and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam.”
We have a word for reign’s like his. FUTILITY
WHILE HIS LINEAGE CONTINUED,
HIS LEGACY WAS FORGETTABLE.
There would be nothing to show for the reign of Abijam.
He goes down as the King who existed, and that is about all.
The only good thing we can say about him is that
At least he was David’s great-grandson.
WHAT A PITIFUL LEGACY!
NOW IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
The writer of Kings was on a mission in these 8 verses.
He wanted you and I to compare the legacy of two men.
He spelled it out in verse 3 “He walked in all the sins of his father which he had committed before him; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, like the heart of his father David.”
AND THEN THE QUESTION OBVIOUSLY COMES TO US.
WHAT KIND OF LEGACY DO YOU INTEND TO LEAVE?
I think we can all honestly agree
That none of us desire to be like Abijam.
And yet many people are.
The only source of blessing in their life
Is because of the obedience of others around them.
• They are disobedient kids, who benefit from their parents obedience.
• They are disobedient parents, who benefit from their kids obedience.
• They are disobedient husbands or wives, who benefit from their spouses obedience.
• They are disobedient church members, who benefit from their fellow members obedience.
There is actually a picture of this in Scripture. (in regard to marriage)
1 Corinthians 7:13-14 “And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.”
And their only legacy is that they were blessed
Because someone else was obedient.
Instead, determine to leave a legacy like David.
He loved God so much, and he was so obedient
That God would never let his lamp go out.
That is the kind you and I desire to leave.
We desire to leave our mark upon this world.
THAT LEGACY IS DETERMINED BY A CONTINUAL DECISION
TO BE WHOLLY DEVOTED TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
Not some sort of Sunday only devotion…
But a devotion that never fades.
That is the type of devotion David had, and 3,000 years later,
God still hasn’t forgotten about his devotion.
The lesson is this:
DON’T BE FORTUNATE, BE FAITHFUL
It makes all the difference.
Luke 8:14-15 “The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity. “But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.”
