I Kings 12:25-33
The instant replay cameras have changed the sports world. With the replay cameras in football the referee and the people in the replay booth can view different angles and slow the action down so they can tell if the knee was down before the fumble. The call can change the very outcome of a football game.
In baseball the instant replay camera can show if the ball was in the mitt before the foot hit the base. This can change a double play call. The call can mean a win or loss. The same is true in basketball. It can answer if the player’s shot got out of his hand before the game clock hit zero. The replay camera has changed the sporting world.
As we read in Kings about the lives of the kings in Israel, we see the same evil replay of mistakes made by the kings over and over again. King Solomon was told by God what he needed to do to keep the throne of Israel. “As for you, if you will follow me with integrity and godliness, as David your father did, obeying all my commands, decrees and regulations then I will establish the throne of your dynasty over Israel forever. For I made this promise to your father David that one of your descendants will always sit on the throne of Israel.” We know Solomon forgot to worship God and lived a lavish life. He built pagan shrines to the gods of his wives and he also worshiped at these pagan shrines.
It cost him ten of the tribes of Israel and God gave these tribes to King Jeroboam. God gave the same decrees and commands to Jeroboam with the same promise he had made to Solomon. Jeroboam replays the same wicked evil in his life that Solomon had done. “Jeroboam then built up the city of Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and it became his capital. Later he went and built up the town of Penial.”
Now we see the replay of evil and lavish living that wrecked the life of Solomon and would wreck the life of Jeroboam. He turned to other gods and forgot the God that had made him king. “Jeroboam thought to himself, ‘Unless I am careful the kingdom will return to the dynasty of David. When these people go to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord, they will again give their allegiance to King Rehoboam of Judah. They will kill me and make him their king instead.’
So on the advice of his counselors the king made two gold calves. He said to the people, ‘It is too much trouble for you to worship in Jerusalem. Look, Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of Egypt.’
He placed these calf idols in Bethel and in Dan – at either end of his kingdom. But this became a great sin, for the people worshiped the idols, traveling as far north as Dan to worship the one there. Jeroboam also erected buildings at the pagan shrines and ordained priests from the common people – those who were not from the priestly tribe of Levi. He instituted a religious festival in Bethel held on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, an imitation of the Annual Festival of Shelters in Judah. There at Bethel he himself offered sacrifices to the calves he had made, and he appointed priests for the pagan shrines he had made. So on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a day that he himself had designated, Jeroboam offered sacrifices on the altar at Bethel. He instituted a religious festival for Israel and he went up to the altars to burn incense.”
We see the sin and evil ways of Jeroboam are just the same replays that broke and destroyed Solomon’s leadership as king. The kings of Israel and Judah, for the most part, would replay the sins Solomon and Jeroboam. They did not remain faithful to God who had had them kings and leaders of Israel and Judah.
The history of the Christian church has the same replays by Popes, Bishops and clergy. This has wrecked the church. In 1505 Martin Luther entered the Augustine order and two years later was ordained priest. He passed through a time of great spiritual conflict and anguish. He was troubled with a sense of unforgiven sin and the deprivation of God’s favor. As Luther was seeking forgiveness for his sins found by faith in God that he was forgiven of his sins. He made this discovery as he read the scriptures. He would write long afterwards about the experiencing of God’s forgiveness, “I felt as if I was born again.” Luther found “the fundamental principle is that man cannot save himself. Acceptance and justification must come from God and cannot be earned by men.” It is what Luther and believers found in the Scriptures that justification by faith is a free gift of God’s love and grace.
About 1510 Luther visited Rome on business of his order and was disillusioned as to the devotion of the Roman Church by what he saw. He found the Cardinals were pagan, the clergy were undevout and the glimpse he had of Pope Julius II was not reassuring. Under the Pope’s orders the church said that you could have forgiveness by paying indulgences fees to the church; in other words, it said that you could buy your salvation. The Pope appointed a Dominican named Tetzel to spread the concept of indulgences. Tetzel said that if a Christian had slept with his mother and placed the sum of money in the Pope’s indulgence chest the Pope had power in Heaven and earth to forgive the sins and if he forgave it God must do so also. Then if they contributed readily, so soon as the coin rang in the chest and the soul for whom it was paid would go straightway to heaven.
Luther’s reformation of the church came from the Biblical word that salvation came by faith in God. On All Saints Eve Luther posted his 95 thesis that said the exercise of indulgences was unlawful. Luther said “the word of God is the common heritage of the whole Christian world and each member of which is competent to explain it. Scripture, then was the final court of appeal, and scriptural as interpreted by the individual.” Luther said “the church, consisted of an invisible body of believers bound together by the tie of common faith.” The bond is found in God’s word.
We have social issues splitting the church today. It is a replay of wicked professors, Bishops and clergy telling us that you can live and believe whatever you wish and still be a Christian. It is the rejection of the scriptures as the true teaching of the church. You will need to decide if you believe the Scriptures of these false and phony leaders. You will face a choice of the kind of church you will belong to. The church will be a church guided by God’s word, or a church guided by humanism, universalism and politically correct ideas is no different than a club where you can live and do what you please. This club has rejected God’s judgment on sin. It is this replay of the church from the age that produced the Reformation. It is time for a new reformation that forms and informs our beliefs that the Biblical word is God’s plan for salvation from sin and death to life.
