Golden Text.—“No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Ps. 84: 11.
1. The Chief Places.—Note the interesting places brought out in our studies of the Ten Tribes: Jerusalem, the capital of the United Kingdom, the center of worship; Shechem, the place where the kingdom was divided; Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of the Ten Tribes; Jezreel, another royal residence; Gilead, whence came Elijah, the prophet; the brook Chereth and Zarephath, his hiding-places from the wrath of Ahab; Carmel, where the great test came between the false gods and the True; Horeb, the mount of God, to which Elijah fled, and where he had his vision; Bethel, where Amos delivered his message; Damascus and Assyria, and their connections with the history; Dothan, where an army was sent to apprehend Elijah; and so with other places. What lessons are found in connection with these localities?
2. The Chief Characters.—Note the chief characters of the history,—Rehoboam, weak, conceited, irreligious; Jeroboam, the first monarch of the northern kingdom, strong, quick, intelligent, yet unprincipled; he might have served Israel well, but instead led them into idolatry; Omri, the second king; Ahab, his son, and the husband of the notorious Jezebel; Elijah, the prophet of God; Elisha, his successor; Jehu, the rash and worldly reformer; Naaman, the Syrian leper; Jeroboam II., etc., to the end of the kingdom, under Hoshea. The dissolved state of the kingdom may be shown in the fact that during the 250 years or thereabouts which the kingdom existed, it had nine different dynasties, and nineteen different kings. Idolatry of the people does not establish a nation.
3. The First Religious Revolution.—The worship of the true God had been greatly weakened, and the people familiarized with idolatry, by the backsliding and idolatry of Solomon. Religion had become to a great extent a form, a superstition. It was a grand opportunity for Jeroboam I., when God gave him the Ten Tribes, to have restored, so far as was in his power, the true worship of Jehovah, but his ambitions were not so much for the glory of God as for the building up of his own kingdom. He knew that the people must worship, and therefore set up the two calves, one at Bethel, where an altar had been erected to the Lord by Jacob, the name meaning “House of God,” and one at Dan. These were doubtless considered as symbols of the true God; but they were patterns of the Egyptian sun-god, Apis. Against this worship God sent his prophet to warn the people; but with little effect. There were the remnant who were faithful, but the greater part of Israel departed from God.
4. The Second Religious Revolution.—The next great religious revolution was under the weak Ahab. To become popular he took for his wife Jezebel, a Zidonian princess, the daughter of Ethbaal. Her father was a sun-worshiper, and she herself seems to have been a most faithful devotee of the ancient cult. With Jezebel came the priests of the sun, and the terrible licentiousness of ancient nature-worship. The prophets of Baal numbered 450, and the prophets of “the groves” (Asherim) numbered 400, representatives of the worship of Astarte, the female principle of nature-worship. Israel was overspread with the abominations, and the whole land reeked with iniquity. Against this overflowing poison came Elijah in the strength of the Lord. As no message would move the ruler or the people, Elijah prayed for famine, that the people might learn the inefficacy of their sun-god. God heard his prayer. The rain was withheld. The land became parched, thirsty, weary. At the end of forty-two months came the great test for rain, between the faithful Elijah and the true God on the one hand, and the devotees of sun-worship on the other. The people nominally accepted the result that Jehovah was God, but the prophet knew that their hearts were not right. Jezebel, instead of being convinced, determined to slay the prophet, who fled for his life. Yet, amid all this idolatry, unknown to the prophet, God had his faithful remnant of 7,000 who had not bowed to Baal.
5. The Third Revolution.—This came under the fiery and ambitious Jehu. It was not a true reformation. Ahab’s seed were killed, and so were many Baal-worshipers, but Jehu led the people back to the worship of the golden calf. From this time to the end, idolatry of all kinds seems to have been prevalent.
6. The lessons are many. The time especially of Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah, and also the persons, are types of our own time. Ahab is a type of civil power. Jezebel is the type of the apostate church in the Christian dispensation. Rev. 2: 20. The union of Ahab, the civil power of Judah, with the unscrupulous queen, who stood for idolatry above all things else, is a fitting type of the union of Church and State in all ages, always resulting in weakening and corrupting the State, and in the persecution of the true people of God. Elijah is a type of the people who will give the last message of the Gospel to the world, a warning against all corruptions of the true worship, against the spurious legal Sunday sabbath, a remnant of Baal-worship, against all union of Church and State. The history is worthy of study. False reformations are well typified by Jehu, who liberated the land from outward Baal-worship, but led the people to the worship of the golden calf. Is not this duplicated to-day? There are many other lessons worthy of note. Study them.
