101 And Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come together to make him king. 2 And when Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, had news of it, (for he was in Egypt where he had gone in flight from King Solomon,) he came back from Egypt. 3 And they sent for him; and Jeroboam and all Israel came to Rehoboam and said, 4 Your father put a hard yoke on us: if you will make the conditions under which your father kept us down less cruel, and the weight of the yoke he put on us less hard, then we will be your servants. 5 And he said to them, Come to me again after three days. So the people went away. 6 Then King Rehoboam took the opinion of the old men who had been with Solomon his father when he was living, and said, In your opinion, what answer am I to give to this people? 7 And they said to him, If you are kind to this people, pleasing them and saying good words to them, then they will be your servants for ever. 8 But he gave no attention to the opinion of the old men, but went to the young men of his generation who were waiting before him. 9 And he said to them, What is your opinion? What answer are we to give to this people who have said to me, Make less the weight of the yoke which your father put on us? 10 And the young men of his generation said to him, This is the answer to give to the people who came to you saying, Your father put a hard yoke on us, but will you make it less; say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's body; 11 If my father put a hard yoke on you, I will make it harder: my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give you blows with snakes.
12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had given orders, saying, Come to me again on the third day. 13 And the king gave them a rough answer. So King Rehoboam gave no attention to the suggestion of the old men, 14 But gave them the answer put forward by the young men, saying, My father made your yoke hard, but I will make it harder; my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give it with snakes. 15 So the king did not give ear to the people; for this came about by the purpose of God, so that the Lord might give effect to his word which he had said by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. 16 And when all Israel saw that the king would give no attention to them, the people in answer said to the king, What part have we in David? what is our heritage in the son of Jesse? every man to your tents, O Israel; now see to your house, David. So all Israel went to their tents. 17 But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah. 18 Then Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the overseer of the forced work; and he was stoned to death by all Israel. And King Rehoboam went quickly and got into his carriage to go in flight to Jerusalem. 19 So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day.
111 And Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, and got together the men of Judah and Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of his best fighting-men, to make war against Israel and get the kingdom back for Rehoboam. 2 But the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, the man of God, saying, 3 Say to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, 4 The Lord has said, You are not to go to war against your brothers: let every man go back to his house, for this thing is my purpose. So they gave ear to the words of the Lord and were turned back from fighting against Jeroboam.
5 Now Rehoboam kept in Jerusalem, building walled towns in Judah. 6 He was the builder of Beth-lehem and Etam and Tekoa 7 And Beth-zur and Soco and Adullam 8 And Gath and Mareshah and Ziph 9 And Adoraim and Lachish and Azekah 10 And Zorah and Aijalon and Hebron, walled towns in Judah and Benjamin. 11 And he made the walled towns strong, and he put captains in them and stores of food, oil, and wine. 12 And in every town he put stores of body-covers and spears, and made them very strong. And Judah and Benjamin were his.
13 And the priests and Levites who were in all Israel came together to him from every part of their country. 14 For the Levites gave up their living-places and their property, and came to Judah and Jerusalem; for Jeroboam and his sons had sent them away, not letting them be priests to the Lord; 15 And he himself made priests for the high places, and for the images of he-goats and oxen which he had made. 16 And after them, from all the tribes of Israel, all those whose hearts were fixed and true to the Lord, the God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to make offerings to the Lord, the God of their fathers. 17 So they went on increasing the power of the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, strong for three years; and for three years they went in the ways of David and Solomon. 18 And Rehoboam took as his wife Mahalath, the daughter of Jerimoth, the son of David and of Abihail, the daughter of Eliab, the son of Jesse; 19 And she had sons by him, Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. 20 And after her he took Maacah, the daughter of Absalom; and she had Abijah and Attai and Ziza and Shelomith by him. 21 Maacah, the daughter of Absalom, was dearer to Rehoboam than all his wives and his servant-wives: (for he had eighteen wives and sixty servant-wives, and was the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.) 22 Rehoboam made Abijah, the son of Maacah, chief and ruler among his brothers, for it was his purpose to make him king. 23 And in his wisdom he had his sons stationed in every walled town through all the lands of Judah and Benjamin; and he gave them a great store of food, and took wives for them.
121 Now when Rehoboam's position as king had been made certain, and he was strong, he gave up the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him. 2 Now in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem, because of their sin against the Lord, 3 With twelve hundred war-carriages and sixty thousand horsemen: and the people who came with him out of Egypt were more than might be numbered: Lubim and Sukkiim and Ethiopians. 4 And he took the walled towns of Judah, and came as far as Jerusalem. 5 Now Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the chiefs of Judah, who had come together in Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, The Lord has said, Because you have given me up, I have given you up into the hands of Shishak. 6 Then the chiefs of Israel and the king made themselves low and said, The Lord is upright. 7 And the Lord, seeing that they had made themselves low, said to Shemaiah, They have made themselves low: I will not send destruction on them, but in a short time I will give them salvation, and will not let loose my wrath on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. 8 But still they will become his servants, so that they may see how different my yoke is from the yoke of the kingdoms of the lands. 9 So Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem and took away all the stored wealth of the house of the Lord and the king's house: he took everything away, and with the rest the gold body-covers which Solomon had made. 10 And 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. 11 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. 12 And when he made himself low, the wrath of the Lord was turned back from him, and complete destruction did not come on him, for there was still some good in Judah.
13 So King Rehoboam made himself strong in Jerusalem and was ruling there. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he was ruling 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; and his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman. 14 And he did evil because his heart was not true to the Lord. 15 Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not recorded in the words of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. 16 And Rehoboam went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David; and Abijah his son became king in his place.
30 Now Jesus had not at this time come into the town, but was still in the place where Martha had seen him. 31 Then the Jews who were with her in the house, comforting her, when they saw Mary get up quickly and go out, went after her in the belief that she was going to the place of the dead and would be weeping there. 32 When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she went down at his feet, saying, Lord, if you had been here my brother would not be dead.
33 And when Jesus saw her weeping, and saw the Jews weeping who came with her, his spirit was moved and he was troubled, 34 And said, Where have you put him? They said, Come and see, Lord. 35 And Jesus himself was weeping. 36 So the Jews said, See how dear he was to him! 37 But some of them said, This man, who made open the eyes of the blind man, was he not able to keep his friend from death?
38 So Jesus, deeply troubled in heart, came to the place of the dead. It was a hole in the rock, and a stone was over the opening. 39 Jesus said, Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said, Lord, by this time the body will be smelling, for he has been dead four days. 40 Jesus said to her, Did I not say to you that if you had faith you would see the glory of God? 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus, looking up to heaven, said, Father, I give praise to you for hearing me. 42 I was certain that your ears are at all times open to me, but I said it because of these who are here, so that they may see that you sent me. 43 Then he said in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out! 44 And he who was dead came out, with linen bands folded tightly about his hands and feet, and a cloth about his face. Jesus said to them, Make him free and let him go.
45 Then a number of the Jews who had come to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did had belief in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees with the news of what Jesus had done. 47 Then the high priests and the Pharisees had a meeting and said, What are we doing? This man is doing a number of signs. 48 If we let him go on in this way, everybody will have belief in him and the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation. 49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, You have no knowledge of anything; 50 You do not see that it is in your interest for one man to be put to death for the people, so that all the nation may not come to destruction. 51 He did not say this of himself, but being the high priest that year he said, as a prophet, that Jesus would be put to death for the nation; 52 And not for that nation only, but for the purpose of uniting in one body the children of God all over the world. 53 And from that day they took thought together how to put him to death. 54 So Jesus no longer went about publicly among the Jews, but went from there into the country near to the waste land, to a town named Ephraim, where he was for some time with the disciples. 55 Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and numbers of people went up from the country to Jerusalem to make themselves clean before the Passover. 56 They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another while they were in the Temple, What is your opinion? Will he not come to the feast? 57 Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone had knowledge where he was, he was to give them word, so that they might take him.
(Read John 11:17-32)
Here was a house where the fear of God was, and on which his blessing rested; yet it was made a house of mourning. Grace will keep sorrow from the heart, but not from the house. When God, by his grace and providence, is coming towards us in ways of mercy and comfort, we should, like Martha, go forth by faith, hope, and prayer, to meet him. When Martha went to meet Jesus, Mary sat still in the house; this temper formerly had been an advantage to her, when it put her at Christ's feet to hear his word; but in the day of affliction, the same temper disposed her to melancholy. It is our wisdom to watch against the temptations, and to make use of the advantages of our natural tempers. When we know not what in particular to ask or expect, let us refer ourselves to God; let him do as seemeth him good. To enlarge Martha's expectations, our Lord declared himself to be the Resurrection and the Life. In every sense he is the Resurrection; the source, the substance, the first-fruits, the cause of it. The redeemed soul lives after death in happiness; and after the resurrection, both body and soul are kept from all evil for ever. When we have read or heard the word of Christ, about the great things of the other world, we should put it to ourselves, Do we believe this truth? The crosses and comforts of this present time would not make such a deep impression upon us as they do, if we believed the things of eternity as we ought. When Christ our Master comes, he calls for us. He comes in his word and ordinances, and calls us to them, calls us by them, calls us to himself. Those who, in a day of peace, set themselves at Christ's feet to be taught by him, may with comfort, in a day of trouble, cast themselves at his feet, to find favour with him.
(Read John 11:33-46)
Christ's tender sympathy with these afflicted friends, appeared by the troubles of his spirit. In all the afflictions of believers he is afflicted. His concern for them was shown by his kind inquiry after the remains of his deceased friend. Being found in fashion as a man, he acts in the way and manner of the sons of men. It was shown by his tears. He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Tears of compassion resemble those of Christ. But Christ never approved that sensibility of which many are proud, while they weep at mere tales of distress, but are hardened to real woe. He sets us an example to withdraw from scenes of giddy mirth, that we may comfort the afflicted. And we have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. It is a good step toward raising a soul to spiritual life, when the stone is taken away, when prejudices are removed, and got over, and way is made for the word to enter the heart. If we take Christ's word, and rely on his power and faithfulness, we shall see the glory of God, and be happy in the sight. Our Lord Jesus has taught us, by his own example, to call God Father, in prayer, and to draw nigh to him as children to a father, with humble reverence, yet with holy boldness. He openly made this address to God, with uplifted eyes and loud voice, that they might be convinced the Father had sent him as his beloved Son into the world. He could have raised Lazarus by the silent exertion of his power and will, and the unseen working of the Spirit of life; but he did it by a loud call. This was a figure of the gospel call, by which dead souls are brought out of the grave of sin: and of the sound of the archangel's trumpet at the last day, with which all that sleep in the dust shall be awakened, and summoned before the great tribunal. The grave of sin and this world, is no place for those whom Christ has quickened; they must come forth. Lazarus was thoroughly revived, and returned not only to life, but to health. The sinner cannot quicken his own soul, but he is to use the means of grace; the believer cannot sanctify himself, but he is to lay aside every weight and hinderance. We cannot convert our relatives and friends, but we should instruct, warn, and invite them.
(Read John 11:47-53)
There can hardly be a more clear discovery of the madness that is in man's heart, and of its desperate enmity against God, than what is here recorded. Words of prophecy in the mouth, are not clear evidence of a principle of grace in the heart. The calamity we seek to escape by sin, we take the most effectual course to bring upon our own heads; as those do who think by opposing Christ's kingdom, to advance their own worldly interest. The fear of the wicked shall come upon them. The conversion of souls is the gathering of them to Christ as their ruler and refuge; and he died to effect this. By dying he purchased them to himself, and the gift of the Holy Ghost for them: his love in dying for believers should unite them closely together.
(Read John 11:54-57)
Before our gospel passover we must renew our repentance. Thus by a voluntary purification, and by religious exercises, many, more devout than their neighbours, spent some time before the passover at Jerusalem. When we expect to meet God, we must solemnly prepare. No devices of man can alter the purposes of God: and while hypocrites amuse themselves with forms and disputes, and worldly men pursue their own plans, Jesus still orders all things for his own glory and the salvation of his people.
