The Levites even abandoned their pasturelands and property and came to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them as priests of the LORD when he appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat and calf idols he had made. – 2 Chronicles 11:14-15

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 11, 2016): 2 Chronicles 11

In 1917, the Russian monarchy fell. It would take a few months for the dust to settle, but when it did, Vladimir Lenin was left in charge of the largest country in the world. Lenin was a proponent of what his biographer Louis Fischer described as “radical change and maximum upheaval.” He was an all or nothing, black or white type of person. As a result, he was both loved and hated by the people of Russia and the world. And his change in Russia would affect the entire planet.

One of the radical changes he authored was the attempted demolition of religion within Russia – and later the Soviet Union. Lenin and his communist party were responsible for an aggressive anti-religious campaign that resulted in the mass arrest and execution of priests and religious adherents, the closure of churches, and the prohibition of religious activities outside of the remaining churches in the nation. Lenin had proposed this radical change more than a decade earlier when he wrote that "... Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man..."   

But the fundamental problem was not religion itself. It was the connection of the existing religion with the non-communists states that existed outside of Russia. What Lenin was essentially proposing was not the elimination of worship, but the change of a religion based on a belief in a supernatural God to one based on atheism and the elevation of the State and Communist leaders into the place of God. The new god would reside only in Mother Russia. The people would continue to worship, but now they praised Lenin and the Soviet Union. It is an essential feature of any revolt with “radical change and maximum upheaval” as the ultimate goal. In breaking with the old, all the old has to go, and something new has to be created to be put in its place.

So as Jeroboam rejects the house of David and commits himself to his own plan of “radical change and maximum upheaval,” and one of the features of that change is the rejection of the Levites and religion of the Jews. To not do that would mean that the people would continue to have a direct tie to the regime of the past – the House of David. And that meant that a counter-revolt would always be a distinct possibility.

As a result of the change, Jeroboam ejects the priests and sets up his religion. And, of course, his religion, just as the elevation of leader and state to a godlike status in Russia, was designed to be the real and proper one. In fact, Jeroboam would point at his new idols and declare “Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28). Those outside of the rebellion are wrong; your gods are right here with us.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 12