[0:00] This is King Solomon's son, Rehoboam, that retained rule over the southern two tribes, but lost the kingdom northern to Israel, to Jeroboam.
[0:21] And so the kingdom splits here immediately when he takes the throne as a 41-year-old man. And we were trying to outline these three chapters, 10, 11, and 12, which give the story of his life and of his reign.
[0:37] And I'll briefly review with you what we studied and covered last Wednesday night, and then carry on forward into chapter number 12. One thing we learned right away was that this guy, he grew up in a tremendous time.
[0:54] He grew up when his father Solomon, the wisest king over Israel, the wealthiest king over Israel, complete prosperity, peace, you name it. He had everything at his disposal.
[1:04] 41 years of his life until he begins to reign. Those first 41 years, he never had an issue. It was all good. And the kingdom was at its peak.
[1:15] And before that, David had fought all the battles of God. And he established this entire region, not just Israel, not just where he lived in Jerusalem, but the entire region. Nobody messed with him. And so Rehoboam grew up in this kind of atmosphere.
[1:29] He didn't have to fight those battles. And he didn't have to beg God to give him the wisdom either that Solomon had and tried to impart to him. And so he reminds me of a kid that grows up in church.
[1:43] That's what he reminds me of. He reminds me of myself in some ways. He reminds me of the second and even the third generation Christian that grows up in church, that grows up in an atmosphere that they didn't have to fight for.
[1:57] They just have it. They just have the blessings. And they have it so much, they take it for granted. And in many cases, you've seen it happen and so have I and I'm guilty. You don't just take it for granted.
[2:09] You don't want it. And you want something else. And this guy made some mistakes. And we saw that last week. We began this outline in chapter 10 with Israel's request for relief.
[2:21] And they came to him and said, Your father made our yoke grievous in verse 4. They begged him, Would you just ease it somewhat? Would you make it a little easier?
[2:31] And he took counsel with the old men that stood before Solomon. I mean, those guys ought to know something, right? They stood before the King Solomon. He took counsel with them. And they said, Do what they're asking.
[2:44] Make it a little easier and they'll be your servants forever. And they were right. That was good advice. But he forsook the counsel. And we were studying his responses to these different things in his life.
[2:56] His response was he refused the counsel of the old men. And he took some real stupid advice from the men that grew up with him.
[3:07] And to reiterate this, here's their advice in verse number 10. Then the young men that were brought up with him spake unto him, saying, Thus shalt thou answer the people that spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but thou shalt make it somewhat lighter for us.
[3:23] Thus shalt thou say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. For as my father put a heavy yoke upon you, I will put more to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips. I will chastise you with scorpions.
[3:34] And I don't know where that's coming from, but I'm assuming that this foolish king is trying to make a name for himself. He's trying to show that he can do the job.
[3:46] I believe it. He's sitting there on the throne following David, following Solomon. And now it's him. And his dad's gone. And these people are coming to him. And he doesn't know how to answer them.
[3:56] He doesn't know how to handle the situation. And so he does something really foolish. He forsakes the good advice and gets some advice from some young fools who had never been in leadership, obviously.
[4:08] And this kid, this young, I should say, this king, refused good advice and sought or answered them with counsel that came probably, that spoke to his own pride and his own personal ambition.
[4:22] And a lesson we saw quickly within that thought was, as parents, you can only take your kids so far. You can train them in what's right. You can give them the truth. You can have all the wisdom, knowledge, and righteousness to put at their disposal.
[4:35] But you can't make them swallow it. You can't make them obey it and heed it. And it comes time and it comes a point in their life where they're going to have to make a choice. Rehoboam had a choice for wisdom and instruction and righteousness and something that possibly could have worked out.
[4:51] But he chose folly. And he rejected the truth and what would have been best for him. And my point I made that your kids and all individuals that are going to be born again have got to make their walk with God personal.
[5:03] If it's not personal, they're just freeloading off of mom and dad. And you know how that's going to crash because that's not going to last when they get outside of the house. They need to learn to seek God, seek him with their heart.
[5:13] So that was Israel's request for relief. Then we saw in verses, his response in verse 5 to 15. Then in verses 16 to 19, we saw Israel rebellion, their rebellion against their ruler.
[5:27] And things got serious fast and the 10 tribes split off. And so his response to this is, okay, I'm going to gather an army in chapter 11, verse 1, and I'm going after them.
[5:38] And they're going to be subdued to me. And the prophet shows up and thank God for verse number 2 of chapter 11. But the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah.
[5:49] The Lord God said, okay, this is going the wrong direction pretty fast. This fool has made one bad decision. Now he's going to react and make another bad decision. And I'm going to have to put the brakes on. And we read in this chapter last week, chapter 10 and 11, that this was of God.
[6:04] Something that he had in the works. And Rehoboam was foolish to try to go against it. He was ignorant, I'm sure, of what God was doing. Go figure. And he was off to responding in rage, responding in haste.
[6:17] And something we learned from that is that often our first response and often our first reaction is wrong. And it takes prayer. It takes patience. It takes a patient approach to seek the Lord, to understanding what the will of God is.
[6:32] I don't doubt for a minute that God would have revealed to him or sent a prophet to him before he gathered the army. If he would have said, they left, they're rebelling against me, what should I do? And seek to the man of God or seek counsel and say, what should I do?
[6:45] I bet he would have got the advice, don't go to fight him. But he didn't. He reacted wrong. And then, thank God, God intervened. And the next thing on chapter 11, verses 2 through 4 was God's rebuke of his reaction.
[6:59] And God said, ye shall not go. And he told him to return in verse number 4. And then he obeyed the words of the Lord. Rehoboam returned from going against Jeroboam, which no doubt would have been the death of him.
[7:12] And so he came back to Jerusalem. And his response to this rebuke was a good one. His response turned out to be the best decision he had made to date.
[7:24] What he ended up doing here in obeying the voice of the Lord, it strengthened his kingdom. He built, fortified, where is it at, verse 5, he dwelt in Jerusalem, built cities.
[7:35] In verse 11, he fortified the strongholds and put captains in them. And so the results of his responding right to the rebuke was that his kingdom got stronger.
[7:46] Not only that, we also saw in verses 13 down to about verse 17 of the 11th chapter, that priests and Levites, these men of God, holy men, consecrated men of God, that are upscattered as they were supposed to be throughout all those northern tribes, that the stuff that Jeroboam's doing with these idols, and he put one in Bethel and Dan, and he's telling Israel, these be thy gods, and you come and worship here, don't go to Jerusalem.
[8:11] And that whole thing was an incredible sin, a sin that carried through king after king all through the history, and it kept pointing it back to Jeroboam. That thing was a huge blot on Jeroboam.
[8:24] And these men said, we're not standing for this. And so they left and migrated south to Jerusalem, and we read that in those chapters. They left their suburbs and their possession and came to Judah and Jerusalem.
[8:37] And so they set up things, and I think that must have changed the climate a little bit. And I found it interesting that when powerful and popular men are separating from Rehoboam and doing their own thing, the holy and the spiritual men of God are flocking to him.
[8:54] And now he's being surrounded by priests and by teaching priests and holy men that had set their hearts to the Lord. It says that in verse number 16, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers.
[9:12] That had to transform the temperature of the land to have these men down there, to have them resorting to him. Now all of that was because he responded to the word of God, and he didn't give in to the pressure to fight a battle that wasn't right.
[9:29] And so let me pick it up at this point here and kind of learn some lessons from this thing. This is where Rehoboam responds correctly for the first time, and God then blesses that he puts his efforts into his kingdom and to doing what he can with what God did tell him to reign over.
[9:47] When he finally got focused on doing those things, the blessings of God started coming upon him. All right, so let's take a lesson from that because I believe God will bless our efforts, mine and your efforts, when we're faithful in what he has entrusted us with.
[10:06] If Rehoboam would have went and fought the battle over a kingdom that didn't belong to him anymore, though he thought it did, but according to God it didn't, you think God was going to bless those efforts of his fight? Not at all.
[10:17] That's why he stopped him dead in his tracks. But as he turned his attention to what was placed in his control, it pleased the Lord greatly, and things started really coming together for him.
[10:29] I believe it's just the truth with you and me. If we'll focus on what God has placed within our circle, what he has put in our laps. The Bible says, what's that, in Colossians 4, Say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry that thou hast received of the Lord, that thou fulfill it.
[10:49] To the ministry that thou hast received of the Lord. That's an individual thing for Archippus. And he needed to take heed to it and to focus on it and to not worry about other people's ministries and other things around him.
[11:03] But when we're not content to just stay faithful with what God's entrusted us with, then we'll start meddling in other affairs. And then we'll start engaging in other matters, in other kingdoms, as it were.
[11:18] And not our business. Things that are our responsibilities and it's going to cause problems that shouldn't exist. Let me just make some application here. Big and small. Did God call you to make America great again?
[11:34] Think about it if you need to for a minute. Did God call you to make America great again? Did he call you? Because that's something that God has called you to in your Bible reading, in prayer.
[11:47] He put it on your heart. This is my duty and my goal in life, is to fix this land. Think about it. I think something like what's going on with Rehoboam is of the Lord.
[12:02] And what's going on... Dr. Uckman used to say this. He used to say that Every nation will eventually get the government that they deserve. Every nation will eventually get the government that they deserve.
[12:17] Case in point. Here we are. I wonder, did God call you to make America great again? If it's of the Lord... You know, it's hard. I know it's hard to let it go.
[12:29] And don't you think it was hard for Rehoboam to let ten tribes go? When the prophet said, Hey, this is of the Lord. This is my work. So you back off, and you just focus on what I gave you to do.
[12:42] Here's another question. This is not any personal thing here, but did God call you to pastor this church? If not, then don't meddle with it.
[12:54] Or don't try to do it on your own, or through text, or through, you know, chatter. And I'm not accusing anybody, believe me. I don't know of anything happening right now, so I'm not trying to do that.
[13:05] But I'm just saying, if that's not your role and your job, then don't try to fix things, or don't try to mend things. If they're not, it could be of the Lord. And I know it's hard, just like it is for Rehoboam, because for some of you who've been here for a long time, you feel like you've lost ten tribes, and there's only two left.
[13:23] And that can be pretty hard to swallow, isn't it? And then you feel like, I've got to fix it. I've got to do something. Listen, maybe you shouldn't. Maybe it's of the Lord. And I'm not trying to point fingers and take, you know, any individual circumstance, and I'm not trying to say anything except, what did God put in your heart, or in your lap to do?
[13:44] That's where you should be focused. Here's something God's given you to do. He's given you the job to guard your heart. Your heart. Like, fortify it.
[13:55] Build cities for defense in your heart. And then, watch God work in your heart. You know, as far as a church goes, as far as a land goes, one of the best things that this church could use, or this nation could use, is men and women that believe the word of God, and are faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, and are sold out, and are right.
[14:17] They're fighting sin. They're living for Jesus Christ. You know, there's a saying that if you're not going to be, or rather, don't be part of the problem, be part of the solution. You know what a solution would be?
[14:28] Is for every one of us to get our hearts right. To focus on our Christian life. To look closely in the mirror at what we're doing for Jesus Christ, and is it right?
[14:39] And is it enough? That's something God has placed in your control. Your heart. What about your home? In your home, God's placed that in your control, for you adults.
[14:52] Fortify your home. Fortify your relationship with your spouse. Build a defense around your children. What about witnessing to your neighbors? What about witnessing to your family?
[15:03] I think we all have plenty to do, that we could do like Rehoboam did, and learn a lesson, that when we focus on what God has given us to do, God will bless it, and it will please Him greatly.
[15:15] But when we get our eyes on some other battles, or other kingdoms that aren't, He says, let them go. Let it go, and just focus on what's yours to do.
[15:26] Now, moving into this, forward into this outline, we'll get into chapter 12 here tonight. Now that Rehoboam is finally experiencing blessings, and this is for himself now.
[15:38] It's not the scale of Solomon, but what he's experiencing is some good stuff. In verse 23 to end the chapter of 11, he said he dealt wisely, and dispersed his children.
[15:48] I mean, he is making some good moves. And so spiritually, the place is better. Politically, the place is better. Militarily, all of these things have strengthened. The cities are safe.
[15:59] The kingdom that he has his hand on is established. The results are great. So how will he respond to this prosperity, or to this blessing? How will the king respond?
[16:12] Well, sadly, here's his response, and I'll call it this. This is Rehoboam's renunciation of righteousness. Look at chapter 12, and verse number 1. And it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord.
[16:30] And all Israel with him. Rehoboam's renunciation of righteousness, just like that. All those good moves, all that stuff leading up, and then the blessings come.
[16:44] And when the blessings came, something else came back. An old familiar feeling came back inside of his heart. His heart was lifted up in pride.
[16:55] He decided, I don't need the law of the Lord. I don't need that anymore. anymore. Those good moves he was making, that was him. And now I'm where I want to be, I'm going to start doing things my way.
[17:10] You know, when he lost 10 tribes, he was humbled. And he was even, I believe, embarrassed, when he couldn't go out to fight the battle, and win the battle, and win the 10 back. He probably went home with his tail between his legs.
[17:23] That was the best place for him, because in that humility, it was, it was the right ingredient, for God to take him, and lift him up, and show him what he could be doing, and how he could work on his own kingdom.
[17:35] And that humility kept him in check. Let's learn a quick lesson though, before we move on. Learn this, just like here with Rehoboam, the sins of your heart, the sins that are in your heart, they don't go away easily.
[17:51] They stick around. They remain so close. At times, it's like they're dormant. They're not affecting you. But let me warn you, Christian, they're still there.
[18:03] And the sins that are in your heart, the things you've struggled with, maybe in your past, maybe even near in your present, it's not going anywhere. It's like a snake that's just waiting, for the right time, to strike.
[18:17] Learn, to repent of your sin, and learn to enjoy the victory of repentance. But listen, always, always, fear, your sin.
[18:31] Fear it. Know what you're prone to. If you've got some sins in your past, you better recognize them. And if you've, if not fooled with certain things, be afraid of it.
[18:43] That's the healthiest thing for you. Learn to fear it. I could tell you some stories here, and some examples, but I don't have the time tonight, of how healthy it is to be afraid of sin.
[18:55] And I don't mean just a story about a pet and a dog, or something. I mean like, personal sin, or people I know that have fallen into sin, or gotten victory, and then decided that things are okay. There's some things that have, that have scared the tar out of me, because I know what I've done.
[19:11] I know what's inside of me. I know in my mind, it's just right there. It's so close. But for the grace of God. And so, be afraid of sin.
[19:21] I'm afraid. And I want to stay afraid. All right, turn to, keep your place, but turn to 1 Kings chapter 14. I want to pick up another account of this same story here, the same spot.
[19:35] 1 Kings 14. Now that Rehoboam is ruling the kingdom, and now he decided he didn't need the law of the Lord, I want you to realize something.
[19:53] When somebody walks away from the word of God, and when they put the Lord out of their thought, didn't like to retain him in their thoughts, you know, something else fills that gap, that void.
[20:06] It's, you don't just, it's not like you just put the Bible down and stop reading it. It's that you're, just your nature is, you start to follow another law.
[20:19] If you're not going to follow the law of the Lord, you're going to say yes to another law. It's going to be something else that comes. And check out what it was for this man. In 1 Kings 14, it gives us some info that we don't see in the Chronicles.
[20:33] And look at verses 21 to 24. And Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was 41 years old and began to reign. And he reigned 17 years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there.
[20:47] And his mother's name was Naamah and Ammonitus. And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord. And they provoked him to jealousy with their sins, which they had committed above all that their fathers had done.
[21:01] This is under Rehoboam. He's taken them places. Look at verse 23. For they also built them high places and images and groves on every high hill and under every green tree.
[21:14] And they were also sodomites in the land. And they did according to all the abominations of the nations, which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. Now, he didn't merely just stop reading his Bible when he forsook the law of the Lord.
[21:30] He replaced the ways of God with some just pure heathen filthiness. And just introduced it and brought it into the land.
[21:40] And it was acceptable. The sodomites are in the land. I mean, where did he get, where is that acceptable with his dad or his grandfather? Where do you see that even with Saul?
[21:52] Where is that coming from? I'm showing you, this guy has really dropped off pretty hard. He didn't just stop reading his Bible when he forsook the law of the Lord. No, he, he walked away from God and some things came in his place.
[22:06] And unfortunately, his story, Rehoboam's story here is it's, he's not the first, his dad, Solomon, he fell off at the end of his reign. And he's not even the last.
[22:17] There's a long list of Kings that their hearts were lifted up in them when they got prosperous. And when they had peace and the kingdom was still, that they got their eyes and their heart on other things.
[22:29] And I'll bet you that it didn't happen overnight. I'm quite sure that Rehoboam didn't just say, you know what? Tomorrow, no more will all of God bring the sodomites in and let's just start worshiping every heathen thing.
[22:43] Somewhere along the way, he started slipping. And when he started slipping, the devil showed up with a sled and said, let's just fly right down into debauchery. And off it went.
[22:55] Now, unfortunately, this is the story. Here's a lesson we can get out of this. You can't simply walk away from the Lord and still be a good person like you think you might be.
[23:06] You can't turn your back on God and think, I could still, I just, just, you know, I'm saved. And I'm, I'm just going to live right. And, but I'm just not going to go to church. I'm just not going to be part of that anymore.
[23:17] I'm just going to, I'm going to do my own thing. You're not, it doesn't work that way. Understand your heart is a deceitful, desperately wicked heart. It'll take, it'll tell your mind that you're fine.
[23:29] You can just go away from it a little bit. You can put the word of God down. You don't have to do right all the time. You can listen to that. You can watch these things. It's not going to affect you. You're still saved. You're still a Christian.
[23:39] You still go to church. You still have tracks in your car and your heart will try to pull that. It'll try to put the word of God. It will righteousness out of the way as much as it can. You know what?
[23:50] The Bible says, neither give place to the devil because the devil's looking for a place. And when you forsake the law of the Lord, you just opened up a big place and he will fill it.
[24:01] He'll fill it with more than you ever anticipated him doing. That's his business there. Now, I need to keep moving here. Moving on with the outline.
[24:14] In chapter 12, let's pick up verse number two. I want to show you here the repercussions for his rebellion. In verse number two, it came to pass that in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shyshek, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem because they had transgressed against the Lord with 1200 chariots and three score thousand horsemen.
[24:33] And the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt, the Lubims and the Sikims and the Ethiopians. And he took the fenced cities, remember them, which pertained to Judah and came to Jerusalem.
[24:49] Now I'm going to rush here and try to get you done here. Notice this threat came from the South. It came from the South. This isn't Jeroboam. This is a brand new enemy, one that he had never encountered a day in his life.
[25:04] They didn't even, Solomon, to my knowledge, didn't have to deal with this enemy. David subdued him. And yet there's a brand new enemy that pops up when this man forsakes the law of the Lord.
[25:14] He's the king of Egypt and he's coming up against him and he's taken away things that he had worked for and things that he himself has succeeded in building up in his life.
[25:27] My, my, there's some horrible words in verse number five. Look at verse five. Then came Shemaiah, the prophet to Rehoboam and to the princes of Judah that were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishik and said unto him, them, thus saith the Lord, ye have forsaken me.
[25:43] And therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishik. There's some scary words. I have left you in the hand of the king of Egypt.
[25:55] They're no longer being protected by God. God's not looking out for him anymore. The blessings of God done. You know who you get now? You get the king of Egypt and whatever he wants to do with you, you forsook me.
[26:09] So you're going to get him. And while you think in your heart and we think this way, we can walk away from God just a little bit. It's not going to hurt me because I can get back. Don't be so foolish to think that you can't, you can take a step onto ice and not slip and fall.
[26:25] Don't think that you can because he'll just say, you want to forsake me? There's a, you know what Egypt is, a type of the world. You know, the king of Egypt is in the Bible, a prince of the world is the devil.
[26:38] And God says, you don't want me. I know somebody who wants you. I know somebody who wants you real bad. And if you don't want me, I'll just step out of the way and let you have what you think you want.
[26:54] And here's a, there's a bad spot. God leave you in the hand of the devil. And if he can get a place, he's going to take some things from you.
[27:05] And he took from Rehoboam, those things that he had worked for, the things that were his staple that he had been successful at. And now they're wiped out and gone. What loss? The Bible says in third John, look to yourselves that you lose not those things which you have wrought.
[27:22] Now, what's his response going to be? He's just been humbled. He just had a king come up against him and defeat him and take things from him. What's he going to do? And we'll see it in verse number six.
[27:34] His response is repentance. In verse six, whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves and they said, the Lord is righteous. Now I got to say that is some response for him to declare.
[27:48] Yep. Yep. I deserve this. I should never have lifted up my heart. I should have never forsaken God. I've been living in sin. And this is what I got.
[28:00] Yep. That's right. That's what I deserve. The Lord, he's righteous. Some people, why God or, or throw a fit? No, this kid, what I see in this, sorry for saying kid all the time, this, this king had some things put into him for him to respond to the affliction of God and saying, the Lord is righteous.
[28:22] Where does he get that from? I said this last week, I want to repeat it. A lesson we can get off of this. That is instilling the truth in your children. Children or grandchildren is the best thing you can do for them.
[28:36] Because it can keep them from trouble and from bad choices, but it can even deliver them when they fail to do right. It can help them to respond right when God deals with them.
[28:47] That's what's happening right here. This guy learned the truth, forsook it. He messed up. But because the truth was put in him at a young age, because his father spent time with him and gave him the word of God, when that thing hit him in the face, he knew how to respond.
[29:03] He didn't fight God. He didn't forsake the Lord anymore. He said, the Lord's righteous. And when the Lord saw that they'd humbled themselves, the Lord sends a preacher again. And so look at the next thing here is God's recognition of the king's remorse and accompanied with the reduction of God's wrath.
[29:21] That's both in verse seven. Let's read it. When the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah saying, they have humbled themselves. Therefore, I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance.
[29:33] And my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. Learn this lesson quickly. God is merciful and God is long suffering.
[29:45] He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God delights in mercy. When you mess up, whether you're alive today and think you're established and doing right, or whether you're younger and just coming up, or whether you have kids, when you mess up, never forget how good God is.
[30:05] Don't ever forget it. When you're living in sin, don't ever forget how good God is. When things don't work out in life, don't ever forget God is still good because he will always show mercy.
[30:18] His mercy endureth how long? Thank you. The devil's going to tell you, you've messed up. It's too bad. It's over. You might as well forget about it.
[30:28] You can't fix it now. It's such a mess. Where are you going to go from here? Don't ever forget how good God is. The devil won't tell you how good God is.
[30:39] He'll just tell you, you can never fix this. It'll never get better. He won't tell you that God's always ready to receive a sinner that'll call on him, that'll repent, and that will humble themselves.
[30:54] And that's something you should get deep inside of you. If it's not already, God is always good. He's always ready. He's that prodigal son's father that was on the porch, just waiting for him to come back.
[31:07] He wants him to get right. So along with the repercussions for his rebellion, we saw that earlier, he didn't just lose some cities. He lost some pretty nice stuff.
[31:19] Come all the way down to verse number nine. So Shisha king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house.
[31:31] He took all. He carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made. Now, along with losing those cities and what he's worked for, he's also lost some other things, some extremely valuable things, not just personally, but these are pieces of national history.
[31:52] They're extremely valuable treasures, the shields of gold which Solomon had made. And this king just comes up and takes it away from him. He took all.
[32:03] He took stuff out of the house of the Lord. He took stuff out of the king's house. He didn't care. If it was valuable, it's his. And off he went with it. Now, that's what took place.
[32:14] And this is another portion of this repercussions for his rebellion. They're all gone. The wealth, the peace, the stability, the security, it's all gone now. And so what does he have left?
[32:25] Look at verse 10. Instead of which, King Rehoboam made shields of brass and committed them to the hands of the chief guard that kept the entrance of the king's house.
[32:37] And when the king entered into the house of the Lord, the guard came and fetched them and brought them again into the guard chamber. You know what he's got left? He's got brass. The king came and took all the valuables, just wiped them clean, even took cities and all just, he's got, he doesn't have the 10 tribes.
[32:56] He doesn't even have much left around him. He's just wiped. So what does he have left? Apparently he has some brass left in verse 10. That king of Egypt must have despised the brass and said, I'm not loading that up.
[33:10] We'll take everything that's gold, everything that's silver, everything that's good looking, let's take that. But this brass, just leave it. We don't need it. And so how's this king going to respond to having, to all these repercussions?
[33:24] We already saw that he humbled himself, but what about this little situation here? In verse 10, he made shields of brass and he committed them to the hands of the chief of the guard.
[33:38] And what he told him was, if that king enters into the house of the Lord, then you take those shields and you hide them into the guard chamber. He's not getting them. That's the last thing I have and he is not touching it.
[33:51] I'm going to protect it. I'm going to do everything I can to keep it. It's just brass. But it's the last thing he had. I think when those golden shields were gone, it really reveals something, I guess it's indicative of just how low he had been made, how low he had been taken.
[34:15] He has no wealth. He has no prosperity. Again, the stability and security is gone. But this move, this response is incredible. It reveals something we saw earlier in him that grew to his success.
[34:28] And it began with his humility, is that when he turned his focus onto what he does have and says, I'm going to do what I can with what God gave me, he starts to succeed.
[34:39] As a matter of fact, verse number 12, read this with me. And when he humbled himself, the wrath of the Lord turned from him that he would not destroy them altogether. And also in Judah, things went well.
[34:52] So all of that, and then things are going okay again because the king humbles himself because he makes shields of brass and he decides, I'm not fighting against God's judgment, but rather I'm going to turn my focus to that what remained and I'm going to work toward recovery.
[35:11] And because he responded, things went well. Now we're going to conclude here. And the last couple of verses here, let's read them together. So King Rehoboam, verse 13, strengthened himself in Jerusalem and reigned.
[35:23] For Rehoboam was one in 40 years old when he began to reign. He reigned 17 years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naamah of Anamonitis.
[35:34] And he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of Shimea, the prophet, and Ido the seer concerning genealogies?
[35:47] And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually. And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, was buried in the city of David, and Abijah's son reigned in his stead. Now the life of Rehoboam that we've read and studied these last two Wednesdays, there's been ups and downs.
[36:04] There's mistakes, poor judgment, battles, but there's also been humility, and there's also been obedience, and there was also these moments of strength.
[36:17] He reminds me, like I said, of a church kid, a second or third generation, somebody raised around the truth that ends up trying to go his own way, and it's just constantly struggling between good and evil.
[36:28] And it's just being played out in his life. And in the end, here's the summary of his life. Verse 14 again, it says, and he did evil. When we think of Rehoboam, we rarely think of anything good.
[36:43] We just think, what a bust. What an incredible line to come out of, and then just nothing. Just struggle, spinning his wheels, could never get it going.
[36:56] And here's the reason, this is the closing remarks here, the reason for his ruin. In verse 14, he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord.
[37:07] He prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. He had a good upbringing. He was trained in the word of God, in the law, in the ways of God. He was prepped for ruling over men.
[37:20] But he was missing one major thing. This man never prepared his own heart to seek the Lord on his own.
[37:31] It wasn't personal. And that's the life, up, down. The upward swings are because the truth was put in him. He messed up, but he knows how to respond.
[37:43] Every time the preacher shows up, he humbles himself and responds right. Isn't that interesting? There's something put in that guy. But he never prepared his own personal heart to seek the Lord for himself.
[38:00] Other kings did. Other kings prepared their heart. You can read about them in these chronicles. They prepared their heart to seek the Lord. And some of them did it without having the good examples that Rehoboam had.
[38:15] It shows us that it's the personal responsibility of each individual to seek the Lord. Let that be what we take away from all these little lessons and truths and thoughts.
[38:26] It is the personal responsibility of every man, woman, and child that claims the name of Jesus Christ. It's your personal responsibility to seek the Lord. To seek him with your own heart.
[38:38] To desire his truth. To repent of your sin. To call upon his name. And to walk with him. That's your job. Well, if I could do it with my kids, boy, they'd be wonderful.
[38:50] And they're all right. Some of them. And if I could do it for you and you could do it for me, boy, wouldn't it be something. But we can't. It's your job.
[39:01] And if there's a problem in your life, whose fault is it? If Rehoboam had a problem, we just saw it. It's his fault every time. It was what his... He didn't put his heart toward God.
[39:13] So, we're going to close the night and let this settle down and sink in and conclude that we all are going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
[39:27] And we're not going to be out of point at the king of Egypt. We're not going to be out of point at mom and dad, Solomon and David and anybody down that line. We're not going to say, well, Jeroboam came with me to this ultimatum and he put...
[39:41] We're going to stand and say, God's going to say, you never sought me. You never wanted me in your life to start with. And you ran away from me.
[39:54] And so, Christian, it's a real thing. It's your life. Don't be a Rehoboam. Learn those lessons from his life and from his foolishness. And realize along the way the goodness of God and the forgiveness of God is available to you.
[40:08] And it's the best thing you can do is humble yourself. If you need to get right, humble yourself and let God's mercy flow and feel how good it is. Let's pray and be dismissed.
[40:19] God, we love you tonight. We're thankful for this example in this Bible. And Lord, I realize that in a man's life of that length, there could have been so many more things you retained and told us.
[40:33] But of these things and of this attempt to outline and study and understand his life, of these things, Lord, may we take heed. They're the ones you wanted us to know and remember.
[40:43] God, I pray that we'll humble ourselves when we sin. I pray that we'll take it serious. I pray that we'll stay, Lord, keeping our nose in our own business and seeking to please you, striving to seek you with our own hearts.
[41:00] God, bless as we go and keep us safe. Bring us back Sunday. Help us to rejoice in the Lord. Help us to walk above reproach and shine as lights in this crooked world. We pray in Jesus' name.
[41:12] Amen. Amen. You're dismissed.