(1 Kings 14)
It is not infrequent to find in Scripture that God takes up the most unlikely for His blessing. Men would never have chosen Jacob in preference to Esau, nor would they have expected God to take up for blessing such as Rahab the harlot, the thief on the cross, or the persecuting Saul of Tarsus. Yet God has told us that this is not exceptional with Him, for "God hath chosen the foolish … the weak … and base things of the world, and things which are despised … to bring to naught things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence" (1 Cor. 1:27-29).
We should never have looked within the house of Jeroboam to find anything that was pleasurable to God. Yet there was one there, of whom the prophet Ahijah could say, "in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam" (1 Kings 14:13).
Jeroboam had been favoured of God in having the ten tribes of Israel committed to his trust. God in His goodness had said to him, "I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel" (1 Kings 11:37). There was abundance of liberty of action for a good and wise king, but there was also the divine demand for obedience to the statutes and commandments of God. With obedience, God said, "I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee" (verse 38).
Alas! whenever Jeroboam came to the throne, he says in his heart, "Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem … they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam" (1 Kings 12:26-27). The thoughts of his heart clearly proved that he was not resting on the word of God. God's word should have been enough for him, and if he had difficulties, surely he should have again consulted the Lord through the prophet Ahijah by whom God's word had first come to him.
Instead of seeking Jehovah's mind, he took other counsel, "and made two calves of gold, and said … It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan" (verses 28, 29). Did not this act of the king, and of those from whom he sought counsel, betray a most lamentable ignorance of the ways of God with His people? They acted as Israel did at the foot of Sinai, when they made the golden calf, and the words of the king were almost identical to those of Aaron as recorded in Exodus 32:4.
There was no surer way of bringing upon himself the displeasure and judgment of God than that of introducing afresh the idolatry that caused three thousand souls to perish at the foot of mount Sinai. Indeed, it brought about the extirpation of his house, as foretold by Ahijah (1 Kings 14:9-11), and as recorded in 1 Kings 15:29. Jeroboam had not only sinned against the commandments of the Lord, he had also neglected the solemn warnings of God, given by the man of God from Judah, when his arm was withered, then, in the goodness of God, had been restored by intercession.
Moreover, what Jeroboam introduced, was a perpetual dishonour to Jehovah until he removed Israel from the land. There were eighteen kings on Israel's throne after Jeroboam, and of almost every one it is recorded that he followed, or departed not from, the ways of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin.
Who then would have looked for anything for Jehovah in the house of Jeroboam? Yet there was one there in whom there was something good, something that gave pleasure to the heart of the God of Israel. The very darkness of the background of the idolatrous household brought into relief this little bit of goodness of which God could take account.
We are not told much of Abijah. He is not presented as a powerful witness to the true God, as one who protested strongly against what was going on in Israel. He seems to have been quite young, only "a lad" or "a child," yet God had marked him out for Himself, and He had begun His good work within him, the only work in which God can find His pleasure. Nor can we think that this good in Abijah would not be manifest, probably in a meek and patient spirit becoming to one so young, and who loved the true and living God.
It was not God's purpose that Abijah should reign in his father's stead on the throne of Israel, but, that having manifested the good work of God, he should be "taken away from the evil to come" (Isaiah 57:1), and so "Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick."
Jeroboam did not consult the gods of gold that he had made, but rather sent to Ahijah the prophet who had told him that God had chosen him to reign over Israel. It took the sickness of the child to stir up the king to send to God's prophet, an action that should have marked him at the beginning of his reign. Then when compelled to enquire of the prophet, there is not the slightest indication that he is aware that Ahijah is the prophet of the Lord, for he vainly imagines that the prophet can be deceived as to the real identity of his wife. Does not this clearly show that God is not in all his thoughts? In his house there is a child in whom there is the work of God, and there is the prophet to whom he sends, who is the servant of the God of Israel, but there is neither knowledge of God nor the sense that he has to do with God in the heart or conscience of the idolatrous king.
Although the aged prophet cannot see, the God whom he served knew all that was transpiring, and He tells His servant that the king's wife was coming, and that she would feign to be another. How very sad for the poor mother to be sent on such an errand, to be compelled to "feign herself to be another," and to be exposed by the prophet before she says a word, and to hear the hard tiding from his lips, both concerning the child and the house of her wicked husband. Still, there must also have been mingled comfort in hearing that God had taken account of "the good thing toward the Lord God of Israel" in her child.
God would not allow the child to pass through the awful judgment to be poured out upon his father's house; He would take him from among those who had proved themselves to be unfit to bear rule among His people on earth. If it was God's judgment upon the king and his house, the removal of the child was the manifestation of God's goodness towards the child who thought of Him. Nor was there further room left for repentance. The king had already the opportunity to repent, but had neglected both the warning of the man of God, and had despised the mercy of God in healing his withered hand. The child would be taken; and the word of the Lord carried out before either child or king heard of it.
We might have thought that the king would have even now taken heed to his ways, and cried to God for mercy; but there is not the slightest evidence that he was in the least moved towards the God who had spoken of His judgments, or of the good in the child that had spared him the impending judgment on his house.
The God who claimed one for Himself from the house of Jeroboam is still the same. How often we find one from a whole house in whom there is some good thing found towards the Lord Jesus and His God and Father. If, in Scripture, we have the judgment of God falling upon the sons of good men, as in the case of the sons of Aaron, and the sons of Eli, because of their evil ways; how wonderful that God, in His goodness, also selects from an evil house those in whom He manifests His goodness. Are we not reminded by such cases of the Scripture, "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but towards thee, goodness" (Rom. 11:22). Every one who is blessed of God will ascribe his blessing to the goodness of God, for we have learned in very truth that "the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance" (Rom. 2:4).