Introduction: She was the queen, but not even she could overcome her son’s illness. When she sought a message from a prophet of the LORD, she received news that shook her to her core.
(Full disclosure: Sermon Central has previously accepted a message based on this text, called “The Message This Mother Didn’t Want to Hear”. This written message is different, based on a sermon I preached at a later time to a different congregation; definitely not a copy and paste of the message already available
(This message is based on a sermon I preached at New Hope Baptist Church near Fulton, MO on Sunday evening, May 11, 2025; but is not an exact transcription).
1 The Malady
Text: 1 Kings 14:1-3, KJV: 1 At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick. 2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me that I should be king over this people. 3 And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him: he shall tell thee what shall become of the child.
The story of Jeroboam, king of the Ten Northern Tribes (Israel, for the rest of this message), should make us all think and do carefully. He was one of the few men whom God called, specifically, for a special purpose; in this case, he was God’s choice to lead Israel after the failure (and it was a big one) of Solomon. 1 Kings 11 has that sad story, how that Solomon’s rebellion against God led to the northern tribes rebelling against Solomon’s son, Rehoboam.
Jeroboam, king of Israel, could have had all of the LORD’s blessings but as 1 Kings 12-13 reveal, he blew it! The idols he helped build, the priests who were never born of the tribe of Levi, and the feasts he invented, all showed he had rejected the God of all Israel.
I’ve thought, often, that had what happened to him had happened to me (example, seeing my arm dry up or wither to a fraction of its normal size), that would be warning enough to get right. Jeroboam indeed had that very thing happen to him. Oddly enough, he had enough respect for the LORD and the true prophet who came to Bethel to ask prayer for his arm to be healed. He knew that golden calf he had built was powerless to do anything except stand in the sun and rain and reflect rays of sunshine.
But once his arm was healed, Jeroboam went on his merry way, we could say, with leading the North into greater and greater sin.
And now, the LORD was about to get Jeroboam’s attention in a very direct way. Let me hasten to add that first, this was not an act of vengeance by God against Jeroboam. No, Jeroboam had gone his own way and built altars, as all Israel had done before (just look at the Book of Judges) and this was a “last chance” experience. We sometimes forget: God owes us nothing. I have to confess some irritation when I read or hear someone say something along the lines of, “God should let me live as I please, and if I find myself in Hell, then God owes me another chance.”
How many chances do we get, every day? More than we deserve, I’d say!
And it’s also true that children can and do become sick; sometimes sick to the point of death. God is not punishing Abijah, the son; rather, God is using this illness to once again get Jeroboam’s attention! It goes without saying that, excepting Enoch and Elijah, every person will experience death (not counting the saints who are alive when the Rapture comes).
So now, the son, the crown prince, is ill, and it seems Jeroboam had tried everything he could to get his son well. Nothing worked. Again, we’re never told what sickness was affecting Abijah nor how he had come down with it. We do know that father Jeroboam was concerned about this malady (we have to give credit for at least being concerned) and that he had a plan to find out what was going to happen to his son.
That plan, however, didn’t involve Jeroboam himself. Rather, he decided to send his wife on a mission to get the word of the LORD from Ahijah the prophet.
2 The Mission
Text, 1 Kings 14:4-5, KJV: 4 And Jeroboam's wife did so, and arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age. 5 And the LORD said unto Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son; for he is sick: thus and thus shalt thou say unto her: for it shall be, when she cometh in, that she shall feign herself to be another woman.
Jeroboam was (take your pick) astute, wise, shrewd, or maybe hopeful, that his wife, wearing a disguise and bearing some food would get good news about their son. This proved people for many years have tried to bribe a preacher by using food as a weapon! What parent wouldn’t want to have some encouraging words about their children, whether from a doctor or even a prophet?
I can’t help but feel Mrs. Jeroboam (we’re never given her name) was none too anxious to go on this mission or journey as directed by her husband. For one thing, Jeroboam was reigning in Tirzah (proof, v. 17), and that was a good ways away from Ahijah’s residence in Shiloh. According to https://bibleatlas.org/full/tappuah_2.htm, the town of Tappuah was about halfway between these two cities. Estimates vary between 20-30 miles, and that’s a long walk given the relatively hilly terrain. Further, there is no record Jeroboam gave her any kind of escort or protection for the journey. Even if nobody recognized her as queen, or at least wife of the king, going alone on a, say, 25 mile one-way journey through sparsely populated hill country seems to be less than exciting to me!
And yet, even with the disguise, she didn’t fool God and, in turn, God wasn’t going to let her fool Ahijah the prophet either. The LORD told him, long before Jeroboam’s wife arrived, that she was coming in disguise and that she wanted to know what was going to happen to her son. The LORD also said, “Here’s what you’re going to say to her”, and that message was going to be spoken before Mrs. Jeroboam even knew what hit her.
She, then, continued on her way to Shiloh, to Ahijah’s house, hoping to get a good word from Ahijah. But she was about to get a big surprise.
3 The Message
Text, 1 Kings 14: 6-17, KJV: 6 And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. 7 Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel, 8 And rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it thee: and yet thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes; 9 But hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back: 10 Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone. 11 Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat: for the LORD hath spoken it. 12 Arise thou therefore, get thee to thine own house: and when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die. 13 And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam. 14 Moreover the LORD shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now. 15 For the LORD shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the LORD to anger. 16 And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.
We can only imagine what Jeroboam’s wife was thinking as she approached Ahijah’s house. It’s just a guess but maybe she was rehearsing a speech of some kind, trying to find out about her son without showing herself to be the boy’s mother. That usually takes some talent, to not announce “Here I am!” when one desires the message from one of God’s prophets.
All of that was for nothing, though, because Ahijah knew, exactly as the LORD had told him, just who she was and why she had come. Even though he was blind, Ahijah could see through the disguise and into Mrs. Jeroboam’s heart.
Now for the first part of Ahijah’s message. He may not have wanted to give this message to Jeroboam’s wife; after all, he may have been fond of Jeroboam back in the days when Jeroboam was the “unit chief”, as we might say, over all the workers of Ephraim and Manasseh (1 Kings 11:26-40). My opinion is that Ahijah was very grieved when Jeroboam went down the pathway of wrong by displaying the two golden calves and attempting to force the Northerners to worship these idols.
The first part of the message was a reminder to Jeroboam, by his wife that the LORD had chosen him and had given him the kingdom. Then, as the second part of the message, the LORD exclaimed, “You threw Me behind your back (i.e., tossed aside like a piece of trash); now, I’m going to do away with your whole family.” There is a precedent for this; remember that Achan’s family died with him after he was convicted of stealing, basically, a number of items from Jericho (Joshua 7). Had they been innocent, they would not have died, is the general opinion. Since they had joined in the rebellion, (except for this one son), they would suffer the same fate as Jeroboam himself.
Ahijah concluded the message from the LORD by saying, “Your son will die as soon as your feet enter the city, but he will have one privilege: he, and he alone, will receive a burial. That’s because there’s some good thing towards the LORD God of Israel”. We’re never told what that was but my opinion (and it’s only that) is this son may have remained faithful to the LORD God of Israel. If that were true, he would have had to see his father, likely his mother, and even the rest of his brothers and sisters abandon the LORD in order to worship those golden calves.
There’s more to the message but that was enough for Jeroboam’s wife. Now she would face a dilemma nobody, let alone a mother, would ever want to deal with: whether she left Jeroboam and lived somewhere else, she’d never see her family again and yet, if she returned to Tirzah, her son would die as soon as she reached city limits, so to speak.
She made her choice, and paid for it, as we’ll see.
Conclusion, 1 Kings 14:17-18, KJV: 17 And Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died; 18 And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.
Well, we’ve seen how Jeroboam sent his wife on a strange mission, namely, to disguise herself and somehow find out what would happen to their (probably) oldest son; most likely the crown prince to reign after his father. Didn’t matter, though, as the LORD clearly told Ahijah that she was coming in disguise and the LORD also gave Ahijah a stern message for Jeroboam and his wife. It wasn’t good news: in a word, the son was going to die and Jeroboam’s entire family would eventually be put to death.
Now, this is something that’s troubled me for a long time. Jeroboam knew Ahijah was God’s prophet—after all, he had prophesied Jeroboam would become king of the Ten Northern Tribes and that’s exactly what happened. Why Jeroboam never took this word of warning seriously, or why his wife didn’t take it to heart herself, I’ll never understand.
Maybe, if she had repented, something might have changed. Maybe, if Jeroboam had repented, and said something like, “Folks, I was wrong, we need to get back to worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; destroy these idols”, the story might have changed.
Radically.
But she didn’t repent, and he didn’t repent, and the following chapters of 1 Kings tell how the prophecy of Ahijah was fulfilled to the letter. God doesn’t lie, and when He says something is going to happen, it will happen, unless there is genuine repentance displayed. Look at Nineveh in the Book of Jonah, for instance.
And yet, when judgment is pronounced, that judgment is sure when the warning is ignored. Jeroboam and his family found that out, the hard way.
So then, when the LORD speaks to us, and shows us where we’ve gone wrong or what we’re doing wrong, we’ll face the same dilemma Jeroboam’s wife had to deal with. Shall we continue to do wrong, or shall we repent and get right with God?
When the LORD speaks, then, please make the right choice!
Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)
