141 At that time Abijah, the son of Jeroboam, became ill. 2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, Now come, put on different clothing so that you may not seem to be the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh; see, Ahijah is there, the prophet who said I would be king over this people. 3 And take with you ten cakes of bread and dry cakes and a pot of honey, and go to him: he will give you word of what is to become of the child. 4 So Jeroboam's wife did so, and got up and went to Shiloh and came to the house of Ahijah. Now Ahijah was unable to see, because he was very old. 5 And the Lord had said to Ahijah, The wife of Jeroboam is coming to get news from you about her son, who is ill; give her such and such an answer; for she will make herself seem to be another woman. 6 Then Ahijah, hearing the sound of her footsteps coming in at the door, said, Come in, O wife of Jeroboam; why do you make yourself seem like another? for I am sent to you with bitter news.
7 Go, say to Jeroboam, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel: Though I took you from among the people, lifting you up to be a ruler over my people Israel, 8 And took the kingdom away by force from the seed of David and gave it to you, you have not been like my servant David, who kept my orders, and was true to me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes. 9 But you have done evil more than any before you, and have made for yourself other gods, and images of metal, moving me to wrath, and turning your back on me. 10 So I will send evil on the line of Jeroboam, cutting off from his family every male child, those who are shut up and those who go free in Israel; the family of Jeroboam will be brushed away like a man brushing away waste till it is all gone. 11 Those of the family of Jeroboam who come to death in the town, will become food for the dogs; and those on whom death comes in the open country, will be food for the birds of the air; for the Lord has said it. 12 Up, then! go back to your house; and in the hour when your feet go into the town, the death of the child will take place. 13 And all Israel will put his body to rest, weeping over him, because he only of the family of Jeroboam will be put into his resting-place in the earth; for of all the family of Jeroboam, in him only has the Lord, the God of Israel, seen some good. 14 And the Lord will put up a king over Israel who will send destruction on the family of Jeroboam in that day; 15 And even now the hand of the Lord has come down on Israel, shaking it like a river-grass in the water; and, uprooting Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers, he will send them this way and that on the other side of the River; because they have made for themselves images, moving the Lord to wrath. 16 And he will give Israel up because of the sins which Jeroboam has done and made Israel do. 17 Then Jeroboam's wife got up and went away and came to Tirzah; and when she came to the doorway of the house, death came to the child. 18 And all Israel put his body to rest, weeping over him, as the Lord had said by his servant Ahijah the prophet. 19 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he became king, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel. 20 And Jeroboam was king for twenty-two years, and was put to rest with his fathers, and Nadab his son became king in his place.
21 And Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, was king in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he was king for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the town which the Lord had made his out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there; his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman. 22 And Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and made him more angry than their fathers had done by their sins. 23 For they made high places and upright stones and wood pillars on every high hill and under every green tree; 24 And more than this, there were those in the land who were used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods, doing the same disgusting crimes as the nations which the Lord had sent out before the children of Israel. 25 Now in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem; 26 And took away all the stored wealth from the house of the Lord, and from the king's house, and all the gold body-covers which Solomon had made. 27 So in their place King Rehoboam had other body-covers made of brass, and gave them into the care of the captains of the armed men who were stationed at the door of the king's house. 28 And whenever the king went into the house of the Lord, the armed men went with him taking the body-covers, and then took them back to their room. 29 Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah? 30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. 31 And Rehoboam went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth with his fathers in the town of David; his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman. And Abijam his son became king in his place.
151 Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah. 2 For three years he was king in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom. 3 And he did the same sins which his father had done before him: his heart was not completely true to the Lord his God, like the heart of David his father. 4 But because of David, the Lord gave him a light in Jerusalem, making his sons king after him, so that Jerusalem might be safe; 5 Because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and never in all his life went against his orders, but only in the question of Uriah the Hittite. 6 ... 7 Now the rest of the acts of Abijam, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. 8 Then Abijam went to rest with his fathers, and they put him into the earth in the town of David: and Asa his son became king in his place.
9 In the twentieth year that Jeroboam was king of Israel, Asa became king over Judah. 10 And he was king for forty-one years in Jerusalem; his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom. 11 Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David his father did. 12 Those used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods he sent out of the country, and he took away all the images which his fathers had made. 13 And he would not let Maacah his mother be queen, because she had made a disgusting image for Asherah; and Asa had the image cut down and burned by the stream Kidron. 14 The high places, however, were not taken away: but still the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his life. 15 He took into the house of the Lord all the things which his father had made holy, and those which he himself had made holy, silver and gold and vessels.
16 Now there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days. 17 And Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah, building Ramah, so that no one was able to go out or in to Asa, king of Judah. 18 Then Asa took all the silver and gold which was still stored in the Lord's house, and in the king's house, and sent them, in the care of his servants, to Ben-hadad, son of Tabrimmon, son of Rezon, king of Aram, at Damascus, saying, 19 Let there be an agreement between me and you as there was between my father and your father: see, I have sent you an offering of silver and gold; go and put an end to your agreement with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he may give up attacking me. 20 So Ben-hadad did as King Asa said, and sent the captains of his armies against the towns of Israel, attacking Ijon and Dan and Abel-beth-maacah, and all Chinneroth as far as all the land of Naphtali. 21 And Baasha, hearing of it, put a stop to the building of Ramah, and was living in Tirzah. 22 Then King Asa got all Judah together, making every man come; and they took away the stones and the wood with which Baasha was building Ramah, and King Asa made use of them for building Geba in the land of Benjamin, and Mizpah. 23 Now the rest of the acts of Asa, and his power, and all he did, and the towns of which he was the builder, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah? But when he was old he had a disease of the feet. 24 So Asa went to rest with his fathers and was put into the earth in the town of David his father: and Jehoshaphat his son became king in his place.
25 Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, became king over Israel in the second year that Asa was king of Judah; and he was king of Israel for two years. 26 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the evil ways of his father, and the sin which he did and made Israel do. 27 And Baasha, the son of Ahijah, of the family of Issachar, made a secret design against him, attacking him at Gibbethon, a town of the Philistines; for Nadab and the armies of Israel were making war on Gibbethon. 28 In the third year of the rule of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha put him to death, and became king in his place. 29 And straight away when he became king, he sent destruction on all the offspring of Jeroboam; there was not one living person of all the family of Jeroboam whom he did not put to death, so the word of the Lord, which he said by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite, came about; 30 Because of the sins which Jeroboam did and made Israel do, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath. 31 Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel? 32 And there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days.
33 In the third year of the rule of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha, the son of Ahijah, became king over all Israel in Tirzah, and was king for twenty-four years. 34 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the evil ways of Jeroboam and the sin which he made Israel do.
31 Simon, Simon, Satan has made a request to have you, so that he may put you to the test as grain is tested: 32 But I have made prayer for you, that your faith may not go from you: and when you are turned again, make your brothers strong. 33 And he said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death. 34 And he said, I say to you, Peter, before the cock's second cry today, you will say three times that you have no knowledge of me.
35 And he said to them, When I sent you out without money or bag or shoes, were you in need of anything? And they said, Nothing. 36 And he said to them, But now, he who has a money-bag, or a bag for food, let him take it: and he who has not, let him give his coat for money and get a sword. 37 For I say to you that these words will be put into effect in me, And he was numbered among the evil-doers: for what has been said in the Writings about me has an end. 38 And they said, Lord, here are two swords. And he said, It is enough.
39 And he came out, and went, as his way was, to the Mountain of Olives, and the disciples went with him. 40 And when he came to the place, he said to them, Make a prayer that you may not be put to the test. 41 And he went a little distance away from them and, falling on his knees in prayer, he said, 42 Father, if it is your pleasure, take this cup from me: but still, let your pleasure, not mine, be done. 43 And an angel from heaven came to him, to give him strength. 44 And being in great trouble of soul, the force of his prayer became stronger, and great drops, like blood, came from him, falling to the earth. 45 And, getting up from prayer, he came to the disciples, and saw that they were sleeping for sorrow. 46 And he said, Why are you sleeping? Get up, and give yourselves to prayer, so that you may not be put to the test.
(Read Luke 22:21-38)
How unbecoming is the worldly ambition of being the greatest, to the character of a follower of Jesus, who took upon him the form of a servant, and humbled himself to the death of the cross! In the way to eternal happiness, we must expect to be assaulted and sifted by Satan. If he cannot destroy, he will try to disgrace or distress us. Nothing more certainly forebodes a fall, in a professed follower of Christ, than self-confidence, with disregard to warnings, and contempt of danger. Unless we watch and pray always, we may be drawn in the course of the day into those sins which we were in the morning most resolved against. If believers were left to themselves, they would fall; but they are kept by the power of God, and the prayer of Christ. Our Lord gave notice of a very great change of circumstances now approaching. The disciples must not expect that their friends would be kind to them as they had been. Therefore, he that has a purse, let him take it, for he may need it. They must now expect that their enemies would be more fierce than they had been, and they would need weapons. At the time the apostles understood Christ to mean real weapons, but he spake only of the weapons of the spiritual warfare. The sword of the Spirit is the sword with which the disciples of Christ must furnish themselves.
(Read Luke 22:39-46)
Every description which the evangelists give of the state of mind in which our Lord entered upon this conflict, proves the tremendous nature of the assault, and the perfect foreknowledge of its terrors possessed by the meek and lowly Jesus. Here are three things not in the other evangelists. 1. When Christ was in his agony, there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. It was a part of his humiliation that he was thus strengthened by a ministering spirit. 2. Being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. Prayer, though never out of season, is in a special manner seasonable when we are in an agony. 3. In this agony his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down. This showed the travail of his soul. We should pray also to be enabled to resist unto the shedding of our blood, striving against sin, if ever called to it. When next you dwell in imagination upon the delights of some favourite sin, think of its effects as you behold them here! See its fearful effects in the garden of Gethsemane, and desire, by the help of God, deeply to hate and to forsake that enemy, to ransom sinners from whom the Redeemer prayed, agonized, and bled.
