Remember that when the kingdom
of Israel was split into Israel and Judah The Lord gave ten tribes
that continued to be called Israel To Jeroboam who we recently saw
we studied the life story of Jeroboam as it's revealed in
this book first Kings And he was a disaster he was an idolatrous
and Godless King and He was so sinful that the sins of other
great sinners for decades to come are compared to the sins
of Jeroboam in the scripture notoriously Godless and evil Now the other
two tribes Judah and Benjamin were just called Judah and and
were placed under the rule of Rehoboam, who was in the lineage
of David, who we just read about. And as bad as Jeroboam was, under
the reign of Rehoboam, things were even worse. And the first lesson for us in
this is seen in the fact that we're told in verse 21, and I
believe in verse 31 also, at the beginning of this passage
and at the end of it, that his mother, Rehoboam's mother was
an Ammonitess. Now this reminds us of the end
of Solomon's life and how that he took many wives and against
the revelation and commandment of God, he took wives of the
Gentiles. The Lord warned the Israelites
what would happen you'll go after their gods if you If you marry
them you'll go after their gods and Solomon himself was not immune
to that The Ammonites were notoriously
idolatrous And Solomon Rehoboam's Father in the end of his life
At the very least, he allowed idolatry to take place in his
kingdom, and we're told that he did it for the sake of his
wives. We've read that, seen that more than once recently,
so we won't turn there. But because of his wives, he
allowed, at the very least. It's not certain that Solomon
actually worshiped false gods. But how do you define that? You
know, you don't have to go in and bow down in front of a graven
image necessarily to worship false gods. That's something
that happens in here. And so we don't know, but we
know that Solomon was the Lord's. We know that he was, the Lord
loved him. It says from the very start that
the Lord loved him. Even when he was a baby, the
Lord loved him and we know by the word of God that long before
that, he loved him. And so we know he belonged to
the Lord. And so this reminds us of how susceptible all of
us are to great, great sin and even idolatry. But really the
first lesson here, Rehoboam grows up with an idolatrous mother
and a father who did nothing about it. So listen to me tonight, and
this I say from the word of God, not listen to me, listen to the
scriptures, listen to God. Your actions, your priorities,
your words, all of them, your attitude, all of this affects
your children greatly. Every day, every moment. Every incident, every idle word, every mistake. And all of us make mistakes,
but what do you do about it? What do you, how do you deal
with it after it's done? All of that. Train up a child
in the way he should go. When he is old, he will not depart
from it. That's a promise from God Almighty.
And the alternative is obvious. You don't train him up, and nobody
trains their children to be evil. You don't have to do that. It's
just the way it is. By nature, all of us are sinners,
but you do have to train them up in the fear and admonition
of the Lord. And the fear of the Lord is a
very broad subject. Respecting and honoring your
father and mother is fearing the Lord. Valuing the worship of God the
public worship of God is fearing the Lord Turn with me to 1st Samuel chapter
3 let's remember this 1st Samuel 3 10 through 14 This is a familiar passage you'll
recognize. And the Lord came and stood and
called, as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. And then Samuel answered,
speak, for thy servant heareth. And the Lord said to Samuel,
behold, I will do a thing in Israel at which both the ears
of everyone that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform
against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his
house. When I begin, I will also make an end, for I have told
him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which
he knoweth, because his sons made themselves vile, and it's
not just about what his sons did, it's what he didn't do.
And he restrained them not. And therefore I have sworn unto
the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged
with sacrifice nor offering forever. How is it gonna be purged then?
It's not. Reprobation, we talked about
that this morning a little bit. You remember when the Apostle
Paul said, if you trust your works, if you keep the law, if
you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. There it
is right there. No sacrifice for sins. Christ
will profit you nothing. Dear God, what a price to pay
for being a bad father. Not to be taken lightly. And
we're living in a time now where the emerging leaders of this
country all around are the product of the evil and deadly consequential
philosophy that has prevailed, that disciplining your children
is harmful to them. That raising them to respect
and to obey and to honor and to serve is somehow limiting
their potential. And they are a product, as in
our text, of parents that show by their actions that God is
not God. And this simple sin of how we
raise our children has all but ruined this entire nation. You
mark it down. I'm one of the few nations left
in this world that hasn't been completely ruined just yet. And
I'm not talking about the highest of our nation's leaders. They're
old, ancient idiots. They're just old, godless, corrupt
nitwits is what they are. I'm talking about the walking
catastrophes that run our schools and our school boards and our
city councils and state governments in most cases. Thank God that
it is he who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, that all
of the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers to him. Thank
God that it's he who raises up one and puts down another. Thank
God for the one upon whose shoulders the government of this very universe
rests. Thank God for our Lord Jesus
Christ. And notice also in verse 21 that
the Lord chooses to put his name in certain places. What an interesting
insight into God's will. He chooses to put his name in
a specific place and he chooses where to put it. It might seem too good to be
true, but it is undeniably true that out of all the corners of
the earth, God has chosen to put his name in College Grove,
Tennessee. And you and I are in on it. Unbelievable and yet undeniable. Look at verses 22 and 23. Back
in our text. 1 Kings 14, 22. 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.
For they also built them high places and images and groves
on every high hill and under every green tree." In talking about that passage,
I want us to just flip a few pages over to 1 Kings chapter
15 and verse nine. 1st Kings 15 9 and in the 20th
year of Jeroboam king of Israel reigned Asa over Judah Now this
is Rehoboam's grandson and Forty and one years reigned he in Jerusalem
and his mother's name was Maika the daughter of Abisham Abishalom
Abishalom Asa did that Which was right in the eyes of the
Lord as did David his father He took away the sodomites out
of the land and removed all the idols that his father's Had made
Now there's Asa and there's a great contrast The things that make the difference
between someone who is greatly evil. God describes the reign
of Rehoboam as Israel being more evil than any of their fathers
ever were. But as the Lord uses Jeroboam
often to compare, to impress upon the reader the wretchedness
of others as almost a baseline definition of what an evil person
is, Jeroboam. Asa did that which was right
in the sight of the Lord as his father David. David is used as
a, well, we know the Lord said he's a man after my own heart.
He's one that sought the Lord in all
that he did. So what a difference here And
notice what Asa did. It mentions how there were Sodomites
in the land. And there's some different theories, I guess is all they
are, about who these Sodomites were. Of course, the Lord destroyed
Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord called the nation of
Israel Sodom and Gomorrah in Isaiah chapter one. So we don't
know that these were actual descendants of Sodom or of Theloris, again,
using that as an expression of how evil they were, but they
were notoriously evil people. And Asa put them out. He put
them out. Can you imagine in our day, you
know, People that just, all they do is destroy things. And they clearly hate this country. If we just said, all right, you're
out of here. We've got a plane ready. We're
shipping you out. Have a nice life. That's what
they did. He just put them out. He just
said, okay, you're gone. That's it. You're nothing but
a pariah. You're nothing but a shame and
a disgrace to this country and you're gone. And that's what
happened. So, but the things that define,
the things that made the difference was Asa got rid of the idols,
all of them. He put them out and he feared
the Lord. He worshiped the Lord. Look at
verse 24. in our text, and there 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. When the land of Canaan was just
full of godless heathens that hated God and were never
restrained in that, just despised God without any revelation from
God. And this reminds us, of course,
here come the Israelites and many of them, and as the text
said under Rehoboam, all of Israel was more evil than any of their
fathers. And this just simply teaches
us that there is no difference. They did just like the wretches
that God threw out for them. They acted just like them. There's
no difference between Jew or Greek There's no difference except
the difference that God makes. Romans 3, 21 through 24, I don't
believe we'll turn there, but you know what that says. There's no difference between
the Jew and the Greek. The only difference is that God
justifies freely without any cause, without any reason, without
there being any difference in those that he justifies. By his
grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So the
only difference between men, who make a thee to differ from
another, Paul asked him, Corinthians. What hast thou that thou didst
not receive? So we see that here. If the Lord
takes his hand off of us, we're just like the worst wretches
in this world. No difference. of grace. And then look at verse 25, and
it came to pass in the fifth year of King Rehoboam that Shashak,
king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem. And he took away the
treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the
king's house. He even took away all, and he
took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. Now, in order to understand this,
we need to turn back to 2 Chronicles, or over to 2 Chronicles. And
we'll be turning back also, or I'll just mention some things
that we've studied already. 2 Chronicles chapter 12, turn
over there with me. And let's read a different account
of this same event. 2 Chronicles 12. We'll read the first 16 Verses
here And it came to pass when Rehoboam
had established the kingdom and had strengthened himself He forsook
the law of the Lord And all Israel with him now think about this.
This is this is a commentary on the our nature our nature
and He finally, he got settled into the kingdom. He got to where
he felt like he didn't need God anymore. He's established, now
he's strong. He's got everything in place
and settled himself in and feeling confident now. I'm king and everything's
the way I need it to be. Got no use for God anymore. That's
us. That's us. That's something that
we have to always be careful about. We feel like at times
that everything, you know, we've got everything under control.
We don't have anything under control. We need him every hour. But Rehoboam forsook the law
of the Lord and all Israel with him. He was the leader and everybody
just followed along with him. He was the example. And it came
to pass that in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shashak, king
of Egypt came up against Jerusalem because they had transgressed
against the Lord so we see the cause We could have inferred
that from our text in first Kings But we don't have to infer that
the reason that Shoshet comes along and Humiliates the kingdom
of Israel and steals all of their treasures Just because of their
wretchedness before God You forsake the Lord, he'll forsake
you. And that's not God reacting to
you. But I'll tell you this, don't
forsake the Lord. Don't forsake him. Don't, don't
forget. With 1200 chariots and three
score thousand horsemen and the people were without number that
came with him out of Egypt, the Lubams and Sukums and the Ethiopians. And he took the fence cities
which pertain to Judah and came to Jerusalem. Then came Shemaiah
the prophet to Rehoboam and to the princes of Judah that were
gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shashak. Now picture
this, the king and all of the princes, all of his cabinet or
whatever that you want to call. We're gathered together to see
what are we gonna do about this? This king, look at his army,
his army is massive. We're vulnerable, we're in trouble.
What are we gonna do? We need a plan. And God sent
his prophet to him. And here's what the prophet said.
Thus saith the Lord, you have forsaken me, and therefore have
I also left you in the hand of Shasher. You've forsaken me and I've forsaken
you. Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves
and they said, the Lord is righteous. In other words, he has forsaken
us to our enemies and he did the right thing. We deserve it. And look at what it says, this
is so interesting. 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 and my wrath shall not be poured
out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shashak. Nevertheless, they
shall be his servants, that they may know my service and the service
of the kingdoms of the countries So Shashak, 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. He took
all. And I wanna go ahead and read
the rest of this chapter because it pertains to the rest of our
text. So think with me here and get in our minds what's happening
here. He carried away also, the last
part of verse nine, the shields of gold, which Solomon had made.
Instead of which, King Rehoboam made shields of brass and committed
them to the hands of the chief of the guard that kept the entrance
of the king's house. 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. And when he humbled himself,
the wrath of the Lord turned from him that he would not destroy
him altogether. And also in Judah, things went
well. Isn't that interesting? All they did was just admit the
truth. Lord, you're right. We did forsake you, and you have
every right to forsake us. You're righteous, and we're not. And things went well. The Lord
spared him. He didn't destroy him altogether. And so, verse 13, King Rehoboam
strengthened himself in Jerusalem and reigned, for Rehoboam was
one and 40 years old when he began to reign. And 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 and Ammonitess. And he did evil because
he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. Hmm. Now the acts of Rehoboam first
and last are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet
and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies and there were wars
between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually and Rehoboam slept
with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. And Abijah
his son reigned in his stead. Abijah was also evil. But then
Abijah's son Asa is the one who got rid of the idols and kicked
the sodomites out. And he was said to have done
that, which was right as God's servant, David, did. So this is what you do when you're
confronted with your sin, your pride, your evil, your self-righteousness. Are we in that place? Are we
guilty of those things? Are we self-righteous? Are we proud? They humbled themselves before
the Lord. They accepted, they owned it. I sing that song sometimes, by
grace, I take the blame. You're not gonna take the blame
except by grace. They took the blame. The consequences
of their sin, they accepted responsibility for those consequences. And they
accepted the consequences themselves. And they said, the Lord is righteous. It's my fault. I'm the reason. I'm the problem. And whatever
the Lord does with me, he's right to do it. I pray God give us grace to do
this. This is not a history lesson.
We're guilty of self-righteousness. We're guilty of pride. We're
puffed up. We take too much for granted.
We have sinned. God help us. God calls us to
humble ourselves before him and ask for mercy. That's how things
go well. That's how he doesn't destroy
us. That's how the treasure is not taken away. if we do that before it comes
to that. And maybe he won't take the treasure
away. When there are disputes, when there is division, when
there's discontent, when there's discord, by the way, one of the
seven things that God hates is he that soweth discord among
brethren. When there is those things, somebody's
proud. Somebody's self-righteous. Is
it you? Is it me? I believe it's time to take our
place in the dust before God. This is not a game. I don't want everything taken
away. I don't want it to come to that. And look at what a fall here.
Israel was so rich under Solomon, That the reason these shields
were made, and I guess we won't turn over this in First Kings
chapter 10, is when Solomon sent these men out with ships to explore
and to gather treasure and bring it back to the kingdom. They
had so much gold that they just started making everything out
of gold. That's what he made these shields. They just started
making everything out of gold. A gold shield is not very practical. It's almost certain that these
were just decorative shields, at least when Solomon made them,
but they symbolize something. Then there's a reason why this
is mentioned. Why even mention the shields?
Can you imagine what all else was going on in that kingdom
during this time when Shashak is attacking and taking everything
away? There was a lot of stuff taken away, but it mentions those
shields particularly, why? I believe it's clear. What they
symbolized is what God took away from them spiritually. He took
away his protection from them. They forsook the Lord, Rehoboam
forsook the Lord. and all Israel with him. And
he forsook them, he took the shield away. The house of the forest of Lebanon,
if you read it in First Kings chapter 10, there were three
houses really, or four even, that Solomon built, the temple
of course, and then Solomon's house where he lived. And then
it says he built a house for his wife too. And then there
was what's called the house of the forest of Lebanon. That was
where Solomon's throne was. That was where the throne, and
I read again the description of the throne and what a majestic
thing. It says there was none like it
in the earth. There were lions on either side
of that throne. It was so, So majestic, but this
is the house of the forest of Lebanon. That's where those gold
shields, long after or sometime after he built that house, these
shields were made because they just had so much gold, they didn't
know what to do with it. And as I said, they were likely
just ornamental, but that was the throne house of Solomon,
not the armory. And they signify something. Look
what had happened in this kingdom. And what's interesting is often
you may have heard of the rule of first mention when studying
the scriptures. Some of you will have. What is
a shield? What does it signify? Why mention
these shields at all in this story? Again, the very first
time the word shield is used in the scriptures in Genesis
15 one, After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram
in a vision, saying, fear not, Abram, I'm your shield. I'm your shield. And thy exceeding
great reward. Isn't that beautiful? I'm your
shield. Do you need a shield? And that's
what these signified. I think it said Solomon made
300 of them, I believe that's right, of these gold shields.
And so they lined the walls, I'm sure, and they were very
beautiful and ornate. And God had protected Israel
from their enemies under the reign of Solomon. Solomon's reign
is characterized by what? Peace. David was a man of war,
but not Solomon. There was great peace in the
land during the reign of Solomon, and that's why. Because the Lord
was their shield. He protected them from their
enemies. But then because Rehoboam prepared not his heart to seek
the Lord, and he forsook the Lord, it says, God took away
that protection. And so the stealing of those
shields signifies what happened reality The God took away He forsook
them to their enemies. He did not protect them any longer
And what a terrible thing to forfeit The protection of God
And when those shields were stolen there was not even enough gold
left in the land to replace them They had to make shields of brass
counterfeits. They looked close to the same,
but they weren't the same. So this sad legacy was Rehoboam's,
that that which represented the protection of Christ, by the
way, that was the Lord Jesus Christ that appeared to Abraham
and said, I'm your shield. I'm your shield. Hmm. and the protection of Christ
signified in these shields, gold representing his deity and his
holiness. All through the scriptures, gold
represents that the mercy seat was made out of pure gold. The mercy seat is Christ and his people. What's the description
of how we're gonna turn out? When we're just like Christ,
they shall shine forth as gold. But these shields of brass, what
a sad legacy that is. And this one thing is mentioned in symbolism of what had happened
to the whole country because they had no use for the Lord. Gold represents the deity and
the holiness of pure metal. Brass is a compound metal. It's a mixture of things. And this being the defense of
God's people in Christ was taken away by God and that which replaced
it represented Rehoboam's failure. Everybody that saw one of those
shields of gold, Solomon would sit there on his throne and he
saw those shields of gold and he thought, how great has God
been to protect us, how gracious. and how safe we are with his
protection, knowing that he's edged us about. But everybody
that saw one of those shields of brass thought about how that
in five short years, Rehoboam had taken the kingdom from having
so much gold, they made everything out of it, to being so poor that
they had to replace it with brass. It was a symbol of his failure. His failure in things pertaining
to the earthly kingdom of Israel was a reflection of
his failure with regard to the kingdom of God. He forsook the
Lord, he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek
the Lord. And so our prayer, as Lord calls
us to prepare our hearts to seek you, Don't let us forsake you. Don't let us, don't let our pride and our self-righteousness
cause us to forsake you and bring us down. May we humble ourselves before
the Lord now, before he takes the treasure Before the gold is gone and all
that's left is brass. May he not take away his presence
and his protection from us. And we know who it is, most of
all, that he's protecting us from. Yeah. Christ is our shield, and our
exceeding great reward. If we can just learn that today, and may he keep us always looking
to him. Let's pray together.