The Stubbornness of State Religion Text: 1 Kings 13:33-34
Introduction: The Unteachable Tyrant
We live in an age that prides itself on being open-minded, but in reality, it is an age of the most profound and stubborn closed-mindedness. It is an age of unteachable tyrants, both petty and great. When God sends a clear and unmistakable sign, when He withers a hand and then restores it, when He splits an altar and pours out the ashes, a reasonable man might conclude that it is time to reconsider his path. But Jeroboam was not a reasonable man. He was a political man, which is to say, he was a man wholly committed to his own project, his own power, and his own religion.
The story of Jeroboam is the story of statecraft as idolatry. He tore the kingdom in two, not for high theological principle, but for raw political expediency. He set up golden calves in Dan and Bethel, not because he had a deep devotion to bovine deities, but because he feared losing his grip on the people. If the people went to Jerusalem to worship, their hearts might follow their feet, and his new kingdom would collapse. So, he offered them a convenient, state-sanctioned, alternative religion. It was a religion of political calculation, a worship designed by a committee of one, with the sole purpose of propping up the regime.
In the preceding verses, God sent a man of God from Judah to confront Jeroboam right in the middle of his ersatz worship service. A direct prophecy was given against his altar. The king's hand was withered and then healed. The altar itself was torn apart as a sign. You would think this combination of prophetic word, personal judgment, and miraculous power would be enough to get a man's attention. But as our text shows, Jeroboam was spiritually tone-deaf. He heard the notes of God's power, but he refused to hear the music. He saw the sign, but he refused to read the writing. Why? Because repentance would have meant dismantling his entire political project. Repentance would have cost him his kingdom. And so, like all tyrants who love their power more than God, he doubled down on his rebellion.
This passage is a stark warning about the nature of hardened hearts and the inevitable consequences of institutionalized false worship. Jeroboam's sin was not a personal peccadillo; it was a foundational, constitutional sin that he wove into the very fabric of his kingdom. And when sin is institutionalized, it sets the whole nation on a collision course with the judgment of God.
The Text
After this event Jeroboam did not return from his evil way, but he returned and made priests of the high places from among all the people; any who delighted to be so, he ordained. So they became priests of the high places.
And this event became sin to the house of Jeroboam, even to blot it out and destroy it from off the face of the earth.
(1 Kings 13:33-34 LSB)
The Unrepentant Innovator (v. 33)
We begin with Jeroboam's resolute rebellion:
"After this event Jeroboam did not return from his evil way, but he returned and made priests of the high places from among all the people; any who delighted to be so, he ordained. So they became priests of the high places." (1 Kings 13:33)
The phrase "After this event" is crucial. This is not Jeroboam acting in ignorance. This is him acting in defiance of a direct, miraculous, and personal intervention from God. He saw the power of Yahweh, and his response was to turn his back and walk further down the path he had chosen. He did not "return from his evil way." The Hebrew implies a deliberate refusal to repent, to turn back. Instead, he "returned" to his project. He went back to the work of building his false religion.
And what was the heart of this project? He "made priests of the high places from among all the people." This was the core of his rebellion. God had already established a priesthood. He had set apart the tribe of Levi and the house of Aaron for this specific, holy task. This was not an arbitrary choice; it was a foundational element of the covenant order. God alone determines how He is to be worshiped, and He alone appoints the mediators of that worship. This is the regulative principle of worship in its starkest form. We do not get to invent our own methods for approaching a holy God.
But Jeroboam disagreed. He instituted a democratic, come-as-you-are priesthood. His criteria for ordination were not divine calling or covenant lineage, but rather popular desire. "Any who delighted to be so, he ordained." If you wanted to be a priest, if you had a hankering for the job, Jeroboam would lay hands on you. This is the essence of man-made religion. It replaces God's objective standard with man's subjective enthusiasm. It is the Oprah-fication of the priesthood: "You get to be a priest! And you get to be a priest!"
This is a profound violation of the Creator/creature distinction. Jeroboam, the creature, presumes to tell God, the Creator, who is qualified to serve Him. He tears up God's application and substitutes his own. He wanted a priesthood that served him, that owed its allegiance to his throne, not to the God in heaven. By making priests from any tribe, he ensured their loyalty would be to the state that created them, not to the Word that forbade them. This is what all state religions do. They neuter the priesthood, making it a department of the government, a chaplaincy to the regime. The qualifications are not holiness and faithfulness to Scripture, but rather political reliability and a willingness to say what the king wants to hear.
The Inevitable Consequence (v. 34)
Verse 34 lays out the grim and certain result of Jeroboam's policy.
"And this event became sin to the house of Jeroboam, even to blot it out and destroy it from off the face of the earth." (1 Kings 13:34)
The text is emphatic. "This event," this specific policy of creating a counterfeit priesthood, "became sin." Of course, it was sin all along, but here the Bible is telling us that this act crystallized the rebellion. It became the defining, foundational sin of his dynasty. It was not just a mistake; it was a trajectory. It was a constitutional provision of the kingdom of Israel that guaranteed its eventual destruction.
Notice the target of the judgment: "the house of Jeroboam." When a leader institutes wickedness as a matter of public policy, he does not just bring judgment upon himself. He implicates his entire house, his dynasty, his legacy. The consequences of public sin are public. This sin was designed to secure his dynasty, but it was the very thing that guaranteed its annihilation. This is the profound irony of rebellion. The thing we grasp in defiance of God is the very thing that God will pry from our cold, dead hands.
The language used is one of utter finality. The goal was "to blot it out and destroy it from off the face of the earth." This is the language of holy war, the language of total judgment. God does not grade on a curve. He does not compromise with idolatry. When men set up rival systems of worship, they are declaring war on heaven, and God will not be mocked. He will not allow a counterfeit kingdom to stand in His land. The house of Jeroboam was built on the sand of political expediency and false worship, and the storm of God's judgment was coming to wash it all away.
This is a fixed principle. We become like what we worship. When Israel worshiped the true and living God according to His Word, they were strong and secure. When they worshiped a convenient, man-made, politically expedient idol, they became weak, compromised, and ripe for destruction. By creating a priesthood of "anybody who wants to," Jeroboam was creating a nation of spiritual amateurs, led by illegitimate leaders, worshiping a false god. Such a nation has no foundation. It has no anchor. It is destined for the dustbin of history.
Conclusion: Your Priesthood and Your King
It is easy for us to read this and cluck our tongues at that silly man Jeroboam. But we are surrounded by the sin of Jeroboam. Our entire secular project is an attempt to build a kingdom with a do-it-yourself religion at its center. The high places today are not on hills; they are in our legislatures, our universities, and our courts. And the priesthood is open to anyone who wants it. The high priests of our culture are those who tell us what we want to hear, who ordain what we already desire, who bless our chosen sins and call it progress.
The state wants to be god. It wants to define reality. It wants to ordain its own priests, whether they are called "educators" or "therapists" or "diversity officers." It wants to establish its own worship, its own calendar, and its own ethics. And it demands our absolute allegiance. The sin of Jeroboam is the official religion of the modern secular state. It is a religion of convenience, of political calculation, and of radical autonomy.
The lesson for us is twofold. First, we must see that worship is a political act. How you worship, who you worship, and by what authority you worship are the most fundamental political questions you can answer. When we gather on the Lord's Day to worship the Triune God according to His Word, we are making a radical political statement. We are declaring that Jesus is King, and Caesar is not. We are declaring that God's Word, not the Supreme Court, is the final authority. We are recognizing God's appointed priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, and rejecting all counterfeits.
Second, we must understand that God has not changed. The principles of worship and judgment are fixed. A nation that institutionalizes false worship is a nation marked for destruction. A church that ordains priests based on popular appeal or cultural trends rather than biblical qualification is a church that has become a synagogue of Satan. The house of Jeroboam was blotted out. And every house, every nation, every institution built on the same rebellious foundation will eventually share the same fate.
But there is good news. God has not left us with an illegitimate priesthood. He has given us a Great High Priest, one who was not self-appointed, but was called by God Himself. Jesus Christ, of the order of Melchizedek, is our one, true priest. He is not from the tribe of Levi, but He is the one to whom the entire Levitical system pointed. He is the only authorized mediator between God and man. To try and approach God through any other means, through any other priest, through any other system, is to commit the sin of Jeroboam. It is to build an altar of our own devising, an altar that God has promised to destroy. Let us therefore abandon our high places, reject the democratic priesthood of the age, and flee to the one true Priest and King, Jesus Christ our Lord.