Christ In 1st & 2nd Kings
Christ in 1 & 2 Kings
Bro Edward Low | 1 Kings 9:3–9 | 12 July 2026
"Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness… then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever." — 1 Kings 9:4–5
More Than History
You could read 1 and 2 Kings as pure history — a long, sometimes painful record of Israel's united kingdom splitting in two and, eventually, both halves collapsing into exile. But these books are not merely a chronicle. They are a mirror held up to you.
Yes, you see kings and dynasties. But you also see a foreign general named Naaman washing seven times in the Jordan and coming up clean as a boy. You see a Shunammite woman receiving a son she had long given up hoping for, and later holding that same son when the prophet Elisha called him back from death. You see God intervene in the middle of ordinary lives with extraordinary tenderness. These are not history lessons. They are proof that the same God who ordered the affairs of kingdoms cares enough to walk into your home too. The big story of a nation's kingship, and the intimate story of how you are meant to live under God's kingship yourself.
The Choice Israel Made — And the Choice Behind It
Set the scene first. Israel was a small nation surrounded by hostile kingdoms — Edom to the south, Moab across the Jordan, Ammon, the Arameans of Damascus, the Phoenician city-states along the coast, and other tribes pressing in from every side. Every one of these nations had a king. Any of them could wipe you out. And so it is deeply, sadly human that the elders of Israel came to Samuel with a demand:
"Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations." (1 Samuel 8:5)
Notice what they said. Like all the nations. They wanted to look like everyone around them. They wanted the security everyone else had. They wanted a visible ruler they could point to and say — see, we have one too.
And listen to God's response to Samuel:
"Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them." (1 Samuel 8:7)
Look carefully at what God saw. He did not see a political preference. He saw a rejection. Every time His people chose to look like the world, they were choosing not to be led by Him. And every time you make the same choice today — when you want the acceptance the world gives more than the leadership God offers — you are stepping into the same moment.
The Warning — What a Human King Will Cost You
God did not silently allow the request. He warned them first, through Samuel, in one of the most sobering passages in Scripture. Read 1 Samuel 8:10–18 slowly and count how many times one word appears. Take.
"He will take your sons… he will take your daughters… he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves… he will take a tenth of your grain… he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants." (1 Samuel 8:11–17)
Notice the pattern. A worldly kingdom is a system of consumption. It takes from those at the bottom to feed those at the top. It uses you as a resource, not a person. That is what human kingship, cut off from God, looks like. And God finishes the warning: "you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the LORD will not hear you in that day." (1 Samuel 8:18)
Now hold that word "take" beside the God who gives — who gave manna in the wilderness, water from a rock, and finally His only Son. You will always know what kind of king you are following by whether he takes from you or gives to you.
God Let Them Have It
Israel refused to listen. "No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations." (1 Samuel 8:19–20)
And God said to Samuel — "Heed their voice, and make them a king." (1 Samuel 8:22)
Sometimes the hardest form of God's judgment is Him letting you have what you insisted on. He did not stop them. He warned them, then He let them go. Sit with that today: God will not force you to keep Him as your King. If you want something else on that throne — a career, a person, a comfort, an image, a system — He will often let you have it. And you will discover, sometimes too late, how much it takes.
The Promise — With a Condition
Fast-forward to Solomon. The temple is built. God appears to him and gives the promise that anchors the entire book:
"Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever." (1 Kings 9:4–5)
Notice the if. God's promises are not vending machines. They come with a walk attached. And then comes the warning that will echo across the rest of the two books:
"But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me… then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples." (1 Kings 9:6–7)
The Failure — Jeroboam's Convenient Religion
Look at how quickly it went wrong. When the kingdom split, the northern king Jeroboam feared his people would return to Jerusalem to worship — and he might lose them. His solution?
"Therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold, and said to the people, 'It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!'… He made shrines on the high places, and made priests from every class of people, who were not of the sons of Levi." (1 Kings 12:28–31)
Read those verses again and see yourself in them. Jeroboam invented a religion that was convenient. Closer to home. Less demanding. With priests he hand-picked from anywhere, ordained not by God but by expedience. He gave the people permission to worship whatever kept the peace of his kingdom.
Do not miss this — the temptation is exactly the same today. Whenever you shape your faith to fit your comfort, whenever you install spiritual authorities in your life who tell you only what you want to hear, whenever you build shrines in the high places of your own preferences and call it worship — you are following Jeroboam.
The Warnings Came True
Everything God warned about in 1 Kings 9 came true.
722 BC — the Assyrian empire took the northern kingdom of Israel into exile (2 Kings 17:22–23).
586 BC — the Babylonian empire took the southern kingdom of Judah, burned the temple, and dragged the people away (2 Kings 25:8–10, 21).
Not one word God spoke fell to the ground. He is a serious God. He keeps His warnings as faithfully as He keeps His promises.
But God Had Already Prepared Another King
Here is where the whole story turns. God foreknew every failure. He knew human kings — even Solomon in all his wisdom — could not carry the weight of that gold standard forever. And so, long before Israel fell into exile, He was already speaking through His prophets of a King who would not fail.
"For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder… Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever." (Isaiah 9:6–7)
"'Behold, the days are coming,' says the LORD, 'that I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; a King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.'" (Jeremiah 23:5)
Before any exile ever came, God had already spoken the name of the true King you are following today. Christ was in the plan the whole time.
The Gold Standard — What God Meant by "Walk As David Walked"
Come back one more time to 1 Kings 9:4 - the three parts of God's gold standard for kingship — and it is worth seeing them like a tree.
The Roots — obedience and dependence on God. "To do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments." This is your relationship with God. Everything else grows from here. If your roots are shallow, the tree falls in the first storm.
The Trunk — integrity of heart and uprightness. This is the inner man — honesty, honour, moral principle. What you are when nobody is looking. A king can dress in gold and still be rotten inside; that is a hollow trunk that snaps under pressure.
The Fruit and Crown — a walk that reflects God's rule. "As your father David walked." This is what people see — your courage, your leadership, your justice, your humility, the way you treat others, your dependence on God. The outward expression of a life ordered from the inside out.
The Israelite kings largely failed on all three. But you know Someone who did not.
The Perfect King in Christ
Every part of that gold standard finds its perfect fulfilment in Jesus. Read John 14:31 and see all three in one verse:
"But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here." (John 14:31)
"As the Father gave Me commandment, so I do." — The Roots. Obedience and dependence on His Father.
"That the world may know that I love the Father." — The Trunk. An inner life so aligned with God the whole world could see it.
"Arise, let us go from here." — The Fruit and Crown. A life and a leadership that carried Him straight to Gethsemane and to the cross for you.
Solomon failed the standard. Jesus fulfilled it. And every promise God ever made about a throne established forever comes true in Him.
The King Who Was Always the Point
The kingship story of 1 and 2 Kings was never really about Saul or David or Solomon or Jeroboam. It was never really about the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, or the year 722 or the year 586. Every crown that rose and fell in these two books was pointing forward to a greater King — one whose government would never end, one whose throne would never be shaken, one who would meet God's gold standard on every count where every other king had failed.
Christ is the point of 1 and 2 Kings. The whole tragedy of Israel's kings is the setup for the good news that a better King is coming. The aching failure of Solomon is the shadow that makes the perfect obedience of Jesus shine. And the whole cycle of taking, and taking, and taking is what makes it so tender when the true King walks into the world and, instead of taking your life, gives His own for you.
The Question Comes to You
So Israel's story becomes your question.
Every day, some king sits on the throne of your life. Whom will you crown today? Will you keep bowing to the small kings — the career that takes your time, the comfort that takes your worship, the image that takes your peace, the systems that take from you and leave you crying out with no answer? Or will you receive the King who gave everything for you?
Will you let Him be your Root — the God you obey and depend on?
Will you let Him shape your Trunk — an inner life aligned with His Father's heart?
Will you let His life become your Fruit — a walk the world can see, one that says without a word, I follow the true King?
Israel wanted a king like all the nations. They ended in exile. You do not have to make the same choice. The true King has come. His name is Jesus. His throne is not shakeable. And He is ready to be received.
Choose the King who gives, not the king who takes. Choose Him today. And every day after.
