As I am sure all of you know very well, one of the most useful of life’s little dictums is, “Learn from the mistakes of others.” In our own lifetimes, we have been able to personally witness the foibles of our tiny slice of human history as it unspools in living color in an insane 24-hour repeating cycle. So, with all that saturation, you would think we would actually learn from the mistakes of others, like no other generation before us, and thus become perfected masters of our own behavior.
The guy staring back at me from my mirror this morning testifies that, sadly, our record is as poor as any other people of any other time. Quoting another maxim, “Some people never learn.”
But as Christ followers, we have several advantages over those who have not yet been bonded to the Christian faith: a written record that has chronicled nearly every human mistake, error, bad decision, and sin there is in the catalogue of human idiocy. And that pantheon likewise includes every person in the Word of God, save One – Jesus.
As evidence, I lay before you a particular tale in the Word from 1 Kings 12:6-16. Here we join the story just after Solomon’s successor, his son Rehoboam, was made King over all Israel. This tale brings the often bizarre human condition to vivid life and makes me wince every time I encounter it:
“King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, ‘How do you counsel me to answer this people?’ Then they spoke to him, saying, ‘If you will be a servant to this people today, and will serve them and grant them their petition, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever.’
“But he forsook the counsel which the elders had given him, and consulted with the young men who grew up with him and served him.
“So he said to them, ‘What counsel do you give that we may answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, “Lighten the yoke which your father put on us”?’ The young men who grew up with him spoke to him, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you, saying, “Your father made our yoke heavy, now you make it lighter for us!”
“’But you shall speak to them, “My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins! Whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.”’
“When all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying,
“’What portion do we have in David? Now look after your own house, David! We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse; To your tents, O Israel!’ So, Israel departed to their tents.”
Remember that Israel was, in reality, a set of 12 very independently-minded tribes that occupied the region that was bounded by the Egyptian border in the south to the Euphrates River in the north, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Arabian Desert or beyond in the east. This was the land the Word describes as the land of Canaan or the Promised Land. By an act of God, the people were united at first by His perfect will, but then, by kings, which the people had unwisely demanded.
The most powerful of these kings were the second and third monarchs, David and his son, Solomon. Under Solomon’s rule and supernaturally endowed wisdom — underwritten wholly by God’s direct influence — the Kingdom of Israel became wealthier than all of the kingdoms of Earth combined and was the dominant military power during his reign. (1 Kings 10:23-24)
Just after he was anointed king, YAHWEH (the LORD) came to Solomon in the night and stated, “Ask what you wish Me to give you.” And Solomon replied thus:
“Now, O YAHWEH my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. Your servant is in the midst of Your people which You have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted. So give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?” (1 Kings 3:7-9)
So God granted his request for wisdom and also gave him everything else he didn’t even ask for.
But by Chapter 12, Solomon is dead and his successor, young and spoiled King Rehoboam, was handed the literal jewel of the entire Earth on a golden platter – an empire with all of its attendant fame, wealth, and power. And the idiot son of Solomon ruined it all with just two sentences:
“My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins! Whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.”
With these words, the greatest, most wealthy and famous nation on Earth instantly dissolved with but five well-understood words: “To your tents, O Israel!”
The Israelites began as nomadic desert wanderers, and thus, they would return. And most of them did, except for those who lived in Jerusalem. They went “back to their tents,” meaning 10 of the 12 individual tribes departed to establish their own ruler, with a far better promise of living good lives than living under the despotic terror of Rehoboam’s promise.
The young king, in an astounding flood of just a few words of death encapsulated within a mere two sentences, destroyed an astonishing culture; one built by the historic reigns of David and Solomon. Rehoboam’s action ultimately split the 12 tribes of Israel into two kingdoms of warring tribes in the process – a historic catastrophe that was not corrected until 1948.
What exactly does the guy who stares back at me each morning from the mirror learn from all this?
I have learned that humility always overshadows human power and that sincere love for those entrusted to me by YAHWEH is the foundation of all authentic success in life.
I am not a king, but I am the husband of the most incredible woman God has ever created. Solomon had 1000 wives – but all of them combined are not worth a single Claudia.
I am not a king, but I am a father and a grandfather. I have five of the most precious and extraordinary sons on the planet. I have a daughter who is amazing as well as extraordinary. And I have eight grandchildren who will one day assume some of the the gifts of love that I leave behind for them.
I am not a king, but I am a scientist and an engineer, and I have a responsibility to leave tangible things behind for people I will never meet. Things that can be touched and used by others, the fruits of the surprising gifts that God has bestowed upon me to make lives easier and even ease humanity out of the cradle of this Earth.
And finally, while I am not a king, I am a Templar Officer and Prior. Like the kingdom that Rehoboam received on a golden platter, so have I received each of you in the Priory of The Temple Church. I received what other have built before me and it has been a labor of enduring love.
For each of these – my wife, my children, my grandchildren, my society, and my Priory – I pray to my Abba Father, my King, the words of Solomon:
“So, give Your servant an understanding heart to serve Your people, with wisdom and with a love that covers them like the dew of heaven. Lord, would that when I open my mouth, it would be Your Words that cover them, protect them, and guide them. May I share with them only the words of life You have given to me to pass along to them.”
I’m not anywhere even near perfect, beloved. But I am covered by the love of God, by His Word, and by His Spirit of Grace Who forever lives inside me. And between all that goodness, all that supernatural influence, and a daily offering of His Presence, I have this sure promise as a husband, dad, granddad, engineer, and Prior:
“By his Master, Jesus, your Prior stands or falls;
and he will stand,
for the Lord is able to make him stand.”
(Romans 14:4 – Paraphrased)
And by God’s grace, I am enabled by His love and power to stand for one purpose alone – and that is to serve and bless all those whom He has graced me with to love and to sacrifice for each day.
For has not God promised, “…those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” Isaiah 49:23 – NIV)