Lynn is feeling better, and she's
hooked up to antibiotics right now, and she'll be here, Lord
willing, for the morning service, but she is feeling better, so
I'm very thankful for that. Would you turn to 1 Kings chapter 14? I'd like to begin
reading in verse 21. And Rehoboam, the son of Solomon,
reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was 40 and one years
old when he 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. And his mother's name was Namath
and Ammonitus. Now, the reason that's pointed
out is you'll remember Rehoboam had made the worship leave Jerusalem
in order to help himself, not Rehoboam, Jeroboam. And so it's
pointed out that this is Rehoboam staying in Jerusalem. Verse 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. And there were also sodomites
in the land, temple prostitutes. They had degenerated to the religion
of all the other nations. And they did according to all
the abominations of the nations, which the Lord cast out before
the children of Israel. And it came to pass in the fifth
year of King Rehoboam that Shishak, the 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, he took away all the shields of gold, which Solomon had made. And King Rehoboam made in their
stead brazen shields and committed them into the hands of the chief
of the guard, which kept the door of the king's house. And
it was so when the king went into the house of the Lord that
the guard bared them and brought them back into the guard chamber,
these brazen shields. Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam
and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the
Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And there was war between Rehoboam
and Jeroboam all their days. And Rehoboam slept with his fathers
and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his
mother's name was Namath the Ammonitess and Abijam His son
reigned in his stead. Let's pray. Lord, we come into your presence
in Christ's name, and we ask that you would be pleased to
meet with us and to speak in power to our hearts from your
word. Lord, may Christ be preached. May we be enabled to see him,
believe on him, look to him, rejoice in him, and glorify him. Lord, we pray for your presence
and your spirit, and we ask that our sins might be forgiven for
his name's sake. Now bless us for Christ's sake,
in his name we pray, amen. Now, if I were going to give
a title to this lesson, I would call it From Gold to Bronze. These gold shields were substituted
with bronze shields. Now, would you turn back to 1
Kings 7. Verse 2. He built also the house of the
forest of Lebanon. And then the dimensions are given,
but this house that was built was not his personal home. This
was not the temple. This is the place where his throne
was. Look in verse seven of this same chapter. Then he made a
porch for the throne where he might judge even the porch of
judgment, and it was covered with cedar from one side of the
floor to the other. We read of three buildings, the
temple, his own house, and the house of Lebanon. Now look in
chapter 10. This is before chapter 10, verse 16. And Solomon made 200 targets
of beaten gold. 600 shekels of gold went to one
target, which was a spear. And he made 300 shields of beaten
gold. And three pounds of gold went
to one shield. And the king put them in the
house of the forest of Lebanon." Now, what good would a gold shield
be? It could not help you. It's a soft metal. The spears
would go through it. but these were given to symbolize
something. And they were decorative, they
were put up in the house, and they symbolized something. And
you can be sure that King Solomon had read the writings of Moses,
and the first time the word shield is used is when God says to Moses,
I mean, Abraham, in Genesis 15, one, I am thy shield and thy
exceeding great reward. Now you wouldn't have taken a
shield of gold out to battle. It wouldn't do you any good,
but gold represents what? Deity. deity, the deity of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And more often than not, when
the word shield is used, it's with a reference to the Lord
himself. How many times did David say in the writings of the Psalms,
thou art my shield, be thou my shield and my hiding place. That's
the purpose of this shield. It was to symbolize something.
And Solomon understood that. He knew that this gold shield
represented how Christ The God-man is our shield. He's the one that
takes the blows and that's exactly what happened on Calvary's tree.
He took the blows of God's wrath as my substitute that they might
not come upon me. Now that's the point of these
gold shields that he made. Pure gold. Now our shield is
God himself in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Solomon
knew that, and I have no doubt that that's what he was thinking.
Now, in verse 21, we read of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon,
and he was a bad king. Now, he witnessed, Rehoboam witnessed
the idolatry that his father fell into. Now, when he made
these golds of shields, it's before chapter 11, when all the
idolatry took place and Solomon's heart was moved. When he made
these gold shields, that was before that, but Rehoboam, his
son, watched him marry these different women. As a matter
of fact, Rehoboam's mom was an Ammonitess of the children of
Ammon, a very idolatrous people, and no doubt she practiced her
idolatry. And Rehoboam watched this. He
watched Solomon allow it. He watched all this. Now, as
we go on reading, Israel became lower at this time than even,
I mean, Judah became lower than even Israel did. They sinned
so greatly under the influence of Rehoboam. He saw the idolatry
of his father and he took it to another level. Now, don't
think for a second that we don't affect our children. Don't think
that for a second. because he saw his dad allow
this idolatry? He took it to another level. And Judah became lower under
his reign than they ever had. And in five years, they'd lose
all their wealth. And you remember all the wealth
that Solomon had procured for Israel. I mean, it became the
most powerful nation in the world and the richest nation in the
world. And within five years after Rehoboam's reign, they
lost everything. Shyshak, we read about him, came
in and took everything from them. And Chronicles account says that
he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. Rehoboam didn't.
He believed in the Lord. And as a matter of fact, we're
going to see that he believed in the Lord, but he prepared not his
heart to seek the Lord. And he was let the land fall
into idolatry in such a horrible way. Look in verse 22, now under
his reign, verse 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 built them high places and images and groves on every
high hill and under every green tree." Now this was Judah, this
was not Israel. Under Jeroboam, this was under Rehoboam. Judah
became worse than Israel. And there were also Sodomites
in the land. Now, I've read everything I could
about what is a sodomite, because some people think, well, they
must be homosexuals because of what happened in Sodom. Everything
I can read says they're temple prostitutes, men and women, and
they were used in pagan fertility rites, and in most pagan religions,
sex was involved. You have temple prostitutes there
to work on this, and that's what these people were, and just anything
goes. So there were sodomites in the
land, and I think it's interesting, whenever a good king comes, you
can read this in the Kings, they'd get rid of the sodomites. But
when a bad king was there, they would have sodomites because
all this false, wicked religion was practiced with these temple
prostitutes. And there were also sodomites
in the land, and they did according to all the abominations of the
nations, which the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
Things had never been worse. Verse 25, and it came to pass
in the fifth year of King Rehoboam that Shishak, the king of Egypt,
came up against Jerusalem. God raised him up for this purpose.
And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and
the treasures of the king's house. He took even away all. And he
took away all the shields of gold, which Solomon had made. Now that's the one thing that's
pointed out. He took away these shields of
gold. He took everything else, but
he took away the shield of gold. Now, would you turn with me for
a moment to second Chronicles chapter 12. We're given some
details about this that were not given in the King's account. Verse one, 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. And it came to pass that in the
fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, came
up against Jerusalem because they had transgressed against
the Lord. The Lord sent this man. with 1,200 chariots and
three score thousand horsemen, 60,000 horsemen, and the people
were without number that came with them out of Egypt, the Lubyans,
the Succoms, and the Ethiopians. And he took the fence cities,
which pertain to Judah, and came to Jerusalem. He took everything
around Jerusalem, and here he is. Then came Shemaiah. The prophet to Rehoboam and to
the princes of Judah that were gathered together in Jerusalem
because of Shishak, they were all scared to death. And he said
unto them, thus saith the Lord, you've forsaken me, and therefore
have I also left you in the hand of Shishak. Now look at this
verse of scripture, whereupon the princes of Israel and the
king humbled themselves. And they said, the Lord is righteous. I don't care how wicked a man
is, as wicked as me, as wicked as you, if you humble yourself
before the Lord, he will hear you. Hear this man, as wicked
as he was and his princes, they humbled themselves before the
Lord saying, the Lord is righteous. If He lets us all be killed,
He is righteous. This is all our fault. Our sin
is all our fault. He is righteous. These wicked men humbled themselves.
Now, it didn't end up keeping, but because of this, at this
time, let's go on reading. Verse seven, and when the Lord
saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to
Shammai, the prophet, saying, they've 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 Shishak. Nevertheless, they
shall be his servants. That they may know, in other
words, I'm not going to let them get killed, there's just going to be servants
to Shishak, that they may know my service and the service of
the kingdoms of these countries. They're going to learn something
from this. So Shishak, king of Egypt, came upon Jerusalem and
took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, just like
King said, and the treasures of the king's house, he took
all. And he carried away also the shields of gold, which Solomon
had made, instead of which, King Rehoboam made shields of brass. Now, brass is an alloy. It's
made of copper and tin. It's two things brought together,
melted, and that's what it's talking about. In brass, it's
the same thing that the brazen serpent was made of. But there's
so much symbolism in this. They lost the shields of gold. and they replaced them with shields
of brass, compound elements, two or more things brought together,
an alloy. Now, pure gold represents God only. Remember how the mercy seat was
made of pure gold? Nothing mixed with it. It represents
the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God. It represents his
onlyness. Nothing is mixed with it. These
shields, like I said, these shields were not to go out to battle
with. They represented something. The Lord is our shield. He is
our protection. He is our exceeding great reward. The Lord is our shield. Well,
these shields were removed. But what does this gold shield
represent? It represents the simplicity
of Christ, the singleness of Christ. Remember in second Corinthians
11, when Paul said, I fear less by any means as Satan corrupted
Eve through his deceitfulness, your minds would be corrupted
from the simplicity. The singleness of Christ. These
shields were made of one thing. Now, think about this. These
shields were not for battle. They represented something. I
have a single salvation. Christ only. I have a single source of revelation. The word of God only. You believe
that I have a single righteousness. He is. I have a single sin payment,
his precious blood, nothing else. He is precious blood. I have a single object to faith. Christ only. Now what does that
mean when I say Christ only? It means the only way I'm going
to be saved is by what Christ did. I look to him only, not
to what I do, not to what I feel, not to what I think, not to what
I intend to do. It's Christ only. He's the only
object of faith. We could go on and on with the
singleness of our salvation and that's what that Golden shield
represents the singleness of our salvation. It's a gold shield
put up. Some people thought, well, Saul
was trying to show off his wealth. Well, maybe he was, but still,
he read the same thing you read in Genesis 15. The first time
the word shield is mentioned, I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward. Now when idolatry is tolerated,
and it actually becomes the main religion there, you see where
they went further than anybody had ever gone. They even had
temple prostitutes, sodomites, to help in their perverted religion,
the things that they were doing. They had allowed all kinds of
different idolatry. Rehoboam had seen his father
do it, and he took it to another level. And so what does the Lord
do? He sends Shishak, the king of
Egypt, with this great multitude, 60,000 horsemen, and a multitude
no one can number as far as the size of the army. They come around
Judah. Well, they humble themselves
at that time. You know, when Manasseh humbles
himself, at that time, the worst king to ever be, the Lord hears. Anytime someone humbles themselves
before the Lord and says, he's righteous, That's not a promise. I'm going to do better. I'm going
to turn things around. He's righteous in whatever he
does. I'm guilty. I'm wrong. And he's
right. That's what it means to humble
yourself. I'm wrong. He's right. He's righteous. He
humbled himself and the Lord didn't have the Egyptians kill
them, but what was taken away, their gold shield. Now what does
Rehoboam, this wicked man, do? Perhaps he was just trying to
keep up appearances. He wanted these 300 shields up in his house,
and he didn't have any gold anymore. It was all taken away. So he
made shields of brass, an alloy, something made of two different
substances. Now, what this represents at
this time is The scriptures and the word of man. Two different things. Put together. And all of religion accepts that.
Scriptures and human tradition. Scriptures and our thoughts. Christ and what we do to make
what he did work for us. Christ and, not Christ alone,
Christ and. The blood of Christ and our acceptance
of it. Christ's righteousness and our
own, a proper balance to keep it up. Now, any salvation, any aspect
of salvation, that cannot be completed unless we do our part
is salvation by works. Anyway, look at it. And so through
this idolatry that was allowed at this time, look what happened
to Israel in only five years. It went from the greatest nation
in the world to servants to Egypt. And that gold shield that represented
nobody less than Christ, my shield, my exceeding great reward, that
gold shield is taken away and now they're shields of bronze,
a human alloy. Keeping up with appearances,
I suppose, but look how far and how quickly things went down
under Rehoboam. Now, thank God. His grandson, Asa, his son's
gonna be just as bad, but his grandson, Asa, is gonna bring
things back. The Lord's merciful. He always
leaves, he's never left himself without a witness. But you look
through the history, and I said, this is church history. If you
wanna know what church history is, read 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and
2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles. It gives us a picture of church
history. And here, Through Solomon tolerating
idolatry, look how far things went down through Rehoboam. And what symbolism there is in
these gold shields being taken away. And bronze, a human alloy,
putting things together, takes their place. May the Lord deliver
us from that. May the Lord preserve us from
idolatry. You and I will be idolaters if
the Lord doesn't keep us from it. May he keep our hearts tender
toward himself.