From Deaf to Destruction
by Isaiah
June 21, 2026 · Cornerstone Apostolic Church (Chattanooga, TN)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: 1 Kings 12:4-11

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/isaiah--from-deaf-to-destruction
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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i'm going to be bringing a a scripture to you today out of first kings starting in chapter 12 and verse 4. i'll be reading for a little while, so just bear with me. it says, "thy father made our yolks grievous. now therefore make thou the grievous ser service of thy father and his heavy yoke which he put upon us lighter and we will serve thee. and he said unto them, depart ye yet for three days. then come again to me. and the people departed. and king riaboam consulted the with the old men that stood before solomon his father while he yet lived and said, how do ye advise that i may answer this people?

and they spake unto him, saying, if thou will be a servant unto this people this day, and wil serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants forever. but he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men, which were grown up with him, and which stood before him. and he said unto them, "what counsel give ye that we may answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, make the yoke which thy father did put upon us lighter?" and the young men that were grown up with him, spake unto him, saying, thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us.

thus shalt thou say unto them, my little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. and now, whereas my father did laid you with a heavy yoke, i will add to your yoke. my father hath chastised you with whips, but i will chastise you with scorpions. today, i would like to preach under the topic or the the title from death to destruction. why don't we just put our bibles aside and raise our hands one more time? lord, let us open up our hearts and our minds to your word, god. lord, we open up ourselves that you would speak to us, god. we're here today for a purpose, god. we're here today by design. this is not an accident. god, we want to open up ourselves to receive this word to hear a voice, god, that you would bring down from heaven.

lord, that we would leave changed and transformed, that we would leave different, god. use me as a vessel of your word in jesus name. amen. you may be seated. in this passage that we just read, we're reading about a new king on the scene. this king is named riaboam. he was the son of solomon and the grandson of king david. a lineage, a a family that was known and would be known for generations, uh, even long after the bible is closed and canon. and we still read about king david and king solomon. these men are known and we tell stories about them and and and and uh they're taught in sunday school and taught over and over again these lessons that we read in the bible.

but i don't remember ever recalling a a sunday school message about king riaboam. and so when i began to read this me uh read this passage of scripture, it really was interesting to me that that this this son and this grandson of these great kings, these great men of these great leaders had such a bad problem. he had such a bad um encounter. the first thing that we read about is is these people come unto him asking him for a lighter yoke. and uh just for a little bit of background, he they were speaking to him about uh solomon his father. and they were saying under solomon's leadership, we built such a great and mighty kingdom.

uh if you would look in at history and look into the bible, you would understand that solomon had wealth, extreme wealth, and and david, he built such a kingdom, but solomon in his wisdom built it even better and bigger. and so what they were saying was, "we helped your father build this kingdom to what it was. we helped him build the buildings and we helped him build the wealth and we helped him do everything and now can it be our time to rest and just relax and enjoy what we have built so hard to build." and this young king, he decides to go to the elders, go to the voices of wisdom, the voices that had helped solomon build what he had already built. uh they had built this kingdom with solomon.

they had experience, they had knowledge, they had all these things before. and he, this young king goes to the these these uh elders and he says, "what shall i do?" they came unto me and asked uh that i make their yoke light. and they say, "make it light on them and and let it let it be easy and they will if you are a servant to them, they'll be a servant to you and you'll keep the kingdom intact." uh but he does not listen to the elders. uh he closes off his ears to the voices that would help him. he closes off his ears uh to those who had wisdom and knowledge of what what to do and and knowledge of how to have a kingdom.

and he decides to go to the young men, the men he grew up with, the men he knew they would tell him what he wanted to hear. they wouldn't give him wisdom of what to do, the right choice, uh but they would give him wisdom of what what would be good for him. uh what would be good for themselves. and he turns off the voice of the elders. and it says uh he spake with the young men and they told them that to make the yoke even heavier, not just to keep it the same but to make it harder on them. and because of this situation, because of him listening to the young men, he the men come back to him and say, "well, what is your decision, king? what have you decided? have you decided to make it lighter on us or not?

and he repeats what the young man had said and he says, "you think my father was hard on you, but i will be even harder." he scored you with whips, but i will scourge you with scorpions. and because of what he said, the words that he spoke, uh, it caused a division in the kingdom and 10 of the tribes left and he was left, this king riabom was left with two tribes. the the the kingdom that his grandfather and his father built was split up. all the work and effort uh that david did uh the battles that david fought uh all the things that he laid his blood, sweat and tears into building this kingdom was destroyed with one man with one decision because he would turn off the heirs to the elders.

and today on father's day, i i was beginning to think about what i was going to speak to you because i am not a father. i am a young man still. but i was pondering on what i was going to preach about. and it was speaking this uh this passage of scripture spoke to me because it's so impactful that yes maybe you read in you read about uh david and solomon and they were not the greatest fathers but they had great amount of wisdom and what they did was they left their kids an inheritance. the inheritance of their of their children was this kingdom. they put all that they could in this kingdom and building it up so that one day they would pass it on to someone else.

and i read this scripture and it it broke my heart because i you read about all the encounters that david had. you read all the things that david had to had to fight. he had to fight from from not even being anointed, not even wanting to be anointed. uh he had to fight to goliath. he had to fight to the bear and the lion. he had to fight all his life to build something. of course, god helped him, but he began to build this kingdom. and then that's what he passed on to solomon. he said, you know, i may not have been the best of fathers, but all i could pass on to you is this kingdom. and solomon in in his w in his wise way, he asked god for wisdom. and so god granted his granted him wisdom.

and and through his wisdom, uh he built a his kingdom even greater, even more, expanded even more. yes, he made bad bad decisions and bad mistakes that you read about. uh, and all that he could pass on was his kingdom. let me pass it on to the next generation. and he passes it on to king riaboam. and all it took was one decision for him to split up that kingdom. and i i thought to myself uh about my father because uh i i once had the question posed to me and i i hope to tie it up right here.

i once had the question posed to me about i come from a minister's home and so they pose a question, oh well, how do you feel about you know your dad always doing ministry and him kind of be taken away from you because he has to help other families and minister to other families? and um as i posed on that question, there were times where, you know, i wanted to to play a sport and i wanted to have my dad there to to throw the ball or i wanted my dad have there to to take me to a game and let me play, you know, basketball or football or whatever was going on. and and i i couldn't because we had service or i couldn't because he had a meeting or a bible study. and i and i began to think about all the things that i didn't have.

and then i as i posed uh i was thinking about all the things i didn't have, but just god started putting in all the things that i did have, all the things that i was blessed with. and i began to think, you know, my dad may not have passed on some things to me, but what he did pass on was this kingdom. he passed on this truth to me, and it's the best thing that i have. uh and i looked at the cost. sure, there was some things that it cost. uh but it didn't matter to inherit this kingdom. i don't care what the cost is. uh the best thing that i could tell you is pass on this kingdom. uh keep hold of this kingdom. don't let it go. uh you see with riaboom, it took one thing, one decision.

uh that one decision was not to listen to the elders, not to listen to the pastor, not to listen to the voices of truth, to the voices that would give them a word. and with that one decision, uh, he wasn't able. i began to think, what about riaboam's son? uh, all that he could inherit was two tribes, uh, instead of 12. uh, and i began if what do i got to do to hold on to this, uh, so that i could pass it on to the next generation? what do i got to do to hold on to this truth so i could give it to my son? why don't we all stand today? what do you got to do? maybe your maybe your fathers or your grandfathers were not raised in this truth, but there was somewhere along the lines where somebody paid the price to bring forth you this word.

somewhere along the line sat down with you and gave you a bible study and gave you this kingdom. it's in one decision that you could lose it. and one choice uh of turning off your ears to the man of god, to the elders of the church, to those people trying to speak into your life, and you can lose it. and you can't pass it on to your children. you can't pass it on to someone who's lost in this world because you've lost the kingdom yourself. turning off your ears and becoming deaf to the elders will only lead to a path of destruction. but i come to tell you, i come to plead with you. please hold on to this kingdom. hold on to this truth. there's nothing greater that you could pass on to your children.

uh there's nothing greater that you could pass on to this broken and lost world than this kingdom that we've inherited. why don't we just raise our hands for one moment and say, "lord, let us open our ears uh to hold on to these voices uh god that will point us to truth. uh that will point us closer to you, god. lord, let us not lose what we have, god, but let us maintain it, jesus. uh you are holy and you are worthy, god. we praise your name." come on, church. keep that going today. i'm here to deliver a different word, but why don't we just take 30 seconds to allow that word to soak into our spirit today? how many are grateful for the past generations, for our fathers, for the truth that's been passed down? thank you, jesus.

we love you, lord. we thank you, lord jesus, for our fathers, for our grandfathers, for this truth, for the spiritual fathers, for our pastors. lord jesus, we thank you, lord jesus, for this gener the generations you've given us, god. thank you, jesus. thank you, jesus.