“The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” So said Will Rogers. The subject of taxes comes up in our study this morning about King Solomon’s son, King Rehoboam.
King Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, was a “tax and spend liberal.” He did not have the diplomatic success that his dad had. It was difficult for Rehoboam to keep the alliances which his father had formed. He wanted to maintain the same appearances of success and prosperity that was evident during the reign of King Solomon. But he could not do it based solely on his foreign trade.
We want to draw our text from the author of 2 Chronicles 10-12. King Rehoboam draws a great deal of attention of this historian because out of the 36 chapters in this book, King Rehoboam gets three of those chapters dedicated to him.
Jeroboam, from the northern tribes of Israel, has a contingency of tribal leaders who come to King Rehoboam and ask for a tax cut (2 Chro. 10:4). The text says that King Rehoboam sought the advice of his own Cabinet, the ones he had put into place and, observe the text here in 2 Chro. 10:8: these advisors “served him.” You know what they are going to say! They are going to tell their boss, the king, what they think the king wants to hear.
Let’s read 10:10-11… Rehoboam gave a harsh answer to the people. Notice verse 15: it was a “turn of events from God.” There’s the point where Rehoboam is fitting into God’s plan. God is going to do some surgery on the nation of Israel. He’s going to cut off ten out of the twelve tribes and eventually focus on those two tribes, subsumed under a single designation: Judah, the family of David.
So when the people hear that King Rehoboam is going to increase taxes – to make them even heavier and higher than his father, King Solomon, they break off and form their own nation: the nation of Israel with its capital eventually in Samaria with Jeroboam as their king.
Rehoboam’s Good Years – 2 Chronicles 11. In the immediately ensuing years, King Rehoboam was faithful to God. The priests left the northern tribes of Israel as Jeroboam builds two golden calves for the northern people to worship, in Dan and Bethel (11:16). Verse 17 tells us that King Rehoboam walked in the ways of David and Solomon. He pretty-much followed God’s law – the law of Moses – for three years.
Rehoboam’s Bad Years – 2 Chronicles 12. But as with so many people, with King Saul and King Solomon and the United States of America in the 21st century, in the midst of prosperity comes an intense secularism. Religious matters, spiritual matters, get pushed aside. That’s the story of 2 Chronicles 12. Observe verse 1.
Consequently, to punish Judah, God raised up the King of Egypt, Shishak, who formed an alliance with four other kings, an “axis of evil,” and they fought against King Rehoboam and Judah. But notice the word “humble” occurs four times between 12:6 and 12:12.
God eased up on His wrath, on what Shishak of Egypt was able to do to Judah. They did not conquer, subjugate, or destroy Jerusalem. They only took away the precious golden treasures that King Solomon had put into the temple of God.
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Rehoboam’s Problem – 2 Chronicles 12:14.
They built high places where they worshiped false gods, specifically the Asherim (1 Kings 14:23). They also tolerated and endorsed the use of male cult prostitutes in their worship. In fact, they acted just like the pagan worshipers of the very nations which God had expelled from the land for the sake of Israel!
What we have learned from this lesson:
1. High and exorbitant taxes have a way of destroying nations and, ironically, creating new nations.
2. Sometimes, God uses the ordinary to accomplish some extraordinarily useful spiritual purposes.
3. God can even use evil men to accomplish His work: Rehoboam, Nebuchadnezzar, Judas Iscariot, and Pontius Pilate.
4. God expects faithful and humble obedience – then as now.
5. Even if the nation divides because of high taxes, God is still at work and He’ll be faithful to the remnant who choose to remain faithful to Him.
Paul Holland
