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[0:00] 1 Kings chapter 14, 1 Kings chapter 14, just a number of verses this evening will be in verse 21 and going to the end of the chapter which gets us to verse 31.

[0:13] So 1 Kings 14, 21 through 31 will be our text this evening as we just continue to make our way through Scripture.

[0:24] And we have got to this point. Let's open up with a word of prayer and then we'll get right into our text with one another. Lord, thank you so much. Thank you that we have the opportunity to get together.

[0:37] We thank you for the day you've given us. Thank you for the fellowship that we can enjoy with one another with brothers and sisters in Christ. And we just thank you, God, for the grand privilege of being able to study the word of God with one another.

[0:50] Lord, we pray as we take time and we read the word, we pray that you would speak to our hearts and minds and the truth of it, Lord, would come to the very core of our being, that it would shape and mold us and continue to conform us more and more to your image for your glory and yours alone.

[1:05] As always, we pray for those working in the back. We pray for teenagers and children. We pray for the workers that are with them. We just ask that in every aspect of the events that are going on tonight, that Christ be glorified and you be magnified.

[1:21] We ask it all in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Okay. Let's make sure we get this in the right context. It's always good to put things in Scripture in its proper context.

[1:33] We don't ever want to. We can make any text say anything we want it to unless we have it in context, right? So it's a little bit easier when we get to the historical writings. It's going to be, I say easier because they tend to flow more naturally in the historical writings.

[1:49] When we get to various passages like on Sunday mornings, we're in 2 Corinthians and where we're going to be at. And the Bible says on our passage on our passage this Sunday coming up has a direct reference to some events that are taking place in the book of Acts.

[2:03] So when we set it in that context, it really brings light to the text. But in the Old Testament, a little bit easier when we're making our way through the historical writings. So we know that the kingdom is divided. Now, these matters are important because of what we're going to see in just a moment.

[2:16] So we know the kingdom is divided to the northern kingdom, the ten tribes in the north, which are referred to as Israel from this point on, the two tribes in the south, which is Judah. It's either the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom.

[2:28] After the division of that kingdom, it came when Solomon's son Rehoboam came upon the throne and made that kind of harsh decision that my little finger is thicker than my father's loins. And, you know, he ruled with whips.

[2:41] I'm going to rule with scorpions type of ordeal. He kind of flexed his muscles and then it got flexed back to him. So Jeroboam took him to your tents, O Israel. So the kingdom is divided. And we've spent some time focusing on the northern kingdom.

[2:55] That is, the atrocities that began very quickly after Jeroboam was made king. These events were ordained of the Lord, but then he very quickly turned them to man-centered religion.

[3:08] He set up false worship. He was warned twice. He had a prophet who came from Judah who gave the word of God and then he affirmed it with the signs of God even in his own death.

[3:19] Yet he did not repent of these things. And then we have Hijau, the prophet, who actually declared to him that he would be the king, declares the word of God to him that he's going to suffer because of his consequences.

[3:29] And he refuses. Jeroboam dies when we left him, but there's kind of this overlap. We've got to come back now to the southern kingdom and see what's going on with Rehoboam.

[3:41] Now, I know we get lost in all the names and we get lost in all that, but we want to understand these things are happening at the same time. They're, you know, consecutively happening.

[3:52] These things are going on in the north and they're also going on in the south. You know the historical writings, at least I hope you do. Northern kingdom falls first to the Assyrian empire. Synecrib comes in from the Assyrians and God gives them over.

[4:08] Don't ever lose this in the historical writings of scripture. Don't ever lose this reality because if you do, you kind of get confused about what's going on.

[4:19] And that is that every leader who comes and overpowers God's people does so because God gives them to them. They are instruments of judgment by he who holds the heart of the kings in the palm of his hands.

[4:33] Synecrib comes in and leads the northern kingdom out, disperses them just as much as God says they would there in the beginning of the 14th chapter. And he is God's instrument of judgment upon them.

[4:48] The southern kingdom, northern kingdom falls. I'm trying to go back now, see if I got my Bible history right. Somewhere around 722 B.C. That's close.

[5:00] If it's not the exact date, somewhere in there. I have to go back and check it. We're still some time before we get there. Southern kingdom falls in the 500s B.C. So they last quite a bit longer.

[5:11] So we'll give you, unless you despair, because it's easy. It's like 576 B.C., I think it is. Lest you despair when we read these accounts, the southern kingdom benefits from good kings and great prophets.

[5:30] There are good prophets in the northern kingdom too, but they don't repent nowhere near as much. We coincide these with 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles.

[5:41] Okay. So we're going to go back and focus just a little bit on what's transpiring. Jeroboam's up here with the golden calves. He's got one in Dan, one in Bethel. He's making anybody that wants to be priest.

[5:54] They're really just going south in their worship. They put God behind their backs. So now we come back and we're in verse 21. Now, Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, reigned in Judah.

[6:06] Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king, and he reigned 17 years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put his name there.

[6:17] And his mother's name was Naima, the Ammonitus. Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy more than all their fathers had done with the sins which they committed.

[6:28] For they also built for themselves high places and sacred pillars and ashram on every high hill and beneath every luxuriant tree. There were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel.

[6:44] Now, it happened 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, and he took everything, even taking all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

[6:59] So King Rehoboam made shields of bronze in their place and committed them to the care of the commanders of the guard who guarded the doorway of the king's house. Then it happened, as often as the king entered the house of the Lord, that the guards would carry them and would bring them back into the guards' room.

[7:16] 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? There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually, and Rehoboam slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David.

[7:31] And his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess, and Abisham his son became king in his place. So now we go back, and we're going to look at the southern kingdom for just a little while.

[7:42] We're going to look at Judah. We'll do it going all the way into the 15th chapter until about halfway through, and then we'll go back to the northern kingdom. We'll bounce back and forth for just a little while here. If you remember, as we were kind of introducing 1 Kings, 1 Kings spends more time, 1 and 2 Kings, which would have been one book in the Jewish scripture, the kings spends more time focusing on how the nation got into captivity.

[8:05] So we don't really know for sure who wrote 1 and 2 Kings. Some people think probably the prophet Jeremiah. There are aspects of it that kind of lend towards that, his prophetic writings and things of that nature.

[8:17] There are some wordings. We're not 100% clear, but most people are pretty certain that it was written after the Jewish nation was carried into the Babylonian captivity. That's one of the earmarks in the history of the nation.

[8:30] And it kind of is defining how they got there. If it is Jeremiah, Jeremiah was left behind. He is with the poorest of the poor, right? So he's the prophet that is left behind, and he's there, and he could have said, well, this is how we got here.

[8:41] So 1 and 2 Kings tells us how we got into the condition we're in. 1 and 2 Chronicles is post-exile, which means that it is not written as to how we got here, but it is written to remind the people of God's faithfulness up until the exile, and therefore highlights more the lineage of David.

[9:00] 1 and 2 Chronicles, when you read it, many people believe it was probably written by Ezra or the scribes that were under Ezra, think Ezra and Nehemiah, right?

[9:10] So it's coming out of Babylonian captivity, and it is kind of showing God's faithfulness through the lineage of David. Why is that important coming out of captivity? Well, it's because there's a king in the land, and they need to know that this is the king that God has established and coming out of Babylonian captivity.

[9:24] God does not see them as a divided nation. They're a united nation, and there's one king over all the people. So those matters are important. You need to know why you got where you were, and then you need to know God's faithfulness even though you got to where you were, right?

[9:38] So you need to understand. That's why we have this repetition. 1 and 2 Kings, therefore, spends more time going back and forth between the northern and the southern kingdoms and showing us the really dire straits of everybody involved.

[9:49] 1 and 2 Chronicles does not, does not spend a lot of time talking about the northern kingdom because after the exile, it really doesn't matter. God's faithfulness is traced through the lineage of David, not through the Jeroboam and all of that, not through all the kings up there.

[10:04] It acknowledges them, but we're not going to spend our time talking about it. Now, I know I'm speaking in very human terms of the word of God, but we need to ask ourselves, why is there this repetition of scripture?

[10:14] Why are they here? This is, again, the context. You need to understand it. So we're still looking at what's leading up to Babylonian captivity. That is really, I don't know, we're several years away from that.

[10:26] We're not there yet. Things haven't got that bad. But again, remember, if there's one thing that we see in the Old Testament is that God is gracious, patient, and loving. He doesn't bring judgment the moment people deserve it.

[10:41] But what I want you to see from tonight's text is I want you to see a disciplined malpractice. I want you to see there's the things that are going on in the north. Jeroboam is setting up golden calves.

[10:52] He's got false priests. He's got false festivals. He's got false worship. And we can look at that and go, well, they shouldn't be bowing down to gold calves. The Levites need to be priests, not these other people.

[11:03] And they're supposed to be celebrating in the 15th day of the 7th month, not the 15th day of the 8th month. That is kind of, you know, we can look at that. But it's also happening, this malpractice is also happening in the southern kingdom where they do have the temple.

[11:16] They do have the priests. They do have the prophets. These things are still going on. And so I want you to see here the disciplined malpractice. The first thing that we notice when we read this passage, the thing that we must focus on because I believe it is so central to understanding what's going on.

[11:38] By the way, the parallel to this passage, there are much more parallels to what happens in the south in the Chronicles, by the chroniclers, they would say in Bible study. So the parallel to this passage is 2 Chronicles chapter 12.

[11:52] So there's, it's a little bit more detail there. I'm not going to preach it as much because if we were preaching through the Jewish Bible, we'd have some time before we got to 1 and 2 Chronicles, but we preached from the English Bible so we get to 1 and 2 Chronicles as soon as we finish 2 Kings.

[12:07] So we get to hear these things again. And, you know, we'll see it a little bit more detailed there, but it bears studying when you're reading it here so you can kind of see the whole picture.

[12:20] Much like when we read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we know that the Gospel accounts, there are a number of events that are recorded by all four Gospels. The feeding of the 5,000, recorded by all four.

[12:34] The death of the betrayal, death and burial of Christ and the resurrection of Christ by all four. But when we read them, there's some things that are different.

[12:45] We don't get a three-dimensional view of what's happening. We get a four-dimensional view, right? We begin to see all the different sides and God is moving through different individuals, writing the Word of God with all clarity.

[12:57] So everything that is recorded by all four, they do not contradict one another. They actually support one another. There are no contradictions. So when we read similar accounts in the Old Testament, it is not a contradiction.

[13:08] It is really a support or enhancement of that. And in this case, we see that in 2 Chronicles chapter 12. We see this discipline malpractice and the one thing that we must pay attention to is right at the beginning, we see the favor that was shown.

[13:25] The favor that is shown. And we don't need to lose this because if we lose this, then it looks as if what God does and his discipline seems a little severe for the moment, especially in light of what we get in 2 Chronicles and we'll allude to it in just a minute.

[13:43] But we don't want to lose the favor. It says, Now Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, reigned in Judah. There's testimony enough to the favor of God. Solomon was a man with a divided heart.

[13:56] Solomon was a man to whom the Lord spoke personally two times. You know that, right? At the very beginning of his reign as king, God came to him and said, Ask whatever you want and I'll give it to you.

[14:08] You know the story. Solomon doesn't ask for riches. He doesn't ask for any possessions. He asks for wisdom. And God says, You did good in that you asked for wisdom. I'll give you wisdom. And since you didn't ask for all these other things, I'll give them to you too.

[14:19] Long life and enduring kingdom, riches and all these other possessions that you did not ask for. So he gets that. God speaks to him then. And then at the dedication of the temple, when the temple was built after the 20 years past, 20 years into his reign, so we're 20 years later, he's built the temple, he's built the king's palace, and now he's dedicated the temple.

[14:38] And Solomon prays the prayer of Solomon. You remember the prayers that are directed towards this place and you sit in your throne in heaven here and respond. God speaks to him after that prayer. God, again, just blesses Solomon with his presence and speaks to him audibly.

[14:54] So two times Solomon hears clearly the Lord God Almighty speaking to him. And yet at the end of his life, Solomon not only loved the Lord, but he loved many foreign women.

[15:05] Remember how it's put? And begins to build personal shrines of false worship for his many wives and is led astray by that. So it is deserving of God's punishment.

[15:17] God declares his punishment to Solomon and that the kingdom will be pulled away from the line of David, but not totally because he's going to remain faithful to David, that Solomon's children will not have the authority and the reign that he once had, and all these realities.

[15:37] But the fact alone that Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, is even sitting on a throne is a display of the favor of God. Because Solomon was not walking in faithfulness.

[15:50] Solomon was not walking in godliness. Solomon was not walking in righteousness. And yet God was faithful to his word, and not his word to Solomon, but his word to David, the Davidic covenant, the unconditional Davidic covenant of God.

[16:09] We say that in that the faithfulness of that covenant depended upon the faithfulness of God, not the faithfulness of man. It's one of the studies of covenants that we see in Scripture. By the way, in case you haven't caught it, I think this passage tonight is so rich because we begin to see here, Rehoboam is sitting on the throne even though he doesn't deserve it because God is displaying his favor to his family.

[16:36] And not only that, but notice where he's at because the text tells us that he reigned 17 years, but look at what it says where he reigned.

[16:51] It says that he reigned 17 years in Jerusalem. Well, yeah, that's the city of the king. No, the city of David is not Jerusalem. The city of David is Bethlehem.

[17:04] That's the city of David, right? But he reigns in Jerusalem. And look at how the author of kings defines Jerusalem to us. Don't lose this because we've just looked to the north and we've seen Dan and Beersheba where there are golden calves.

[17:19] There's false temples. There's false altars. There's all these other places. But look how Jerusalem is defined. The city which the Lord had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put his name there.

[17:30] Rehoboam is sitting upon the throne of David in the city, not that Solomon chose, not that David chose, but it's the city that the Lord had chose in all of Jerusalem to put his name there.

[17:50] So in case we get carried away thinking, well, David had this great plan for a temple. Solomon built the temple and then God blessed that place by being there.

[18:01] No, this is the city the Lord had chosen himself to put his name there. And we see here the favor that Rehoboam is reigning amongst.

[18:16] One, the sins of his father have not disqualified him from being upon the throne. Number two, the place where he's reigning is the very place where the Lord God Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth has chosen in all of the universe to put his name.

[18:36] That means to manifest his presence. Okay, the name of God is so much more than just saying, oh, this is the house of Yahweh because that's the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, right?

[18:48] This isn't just Yahweh is there. It's covenant God. It is to put his name there means that he has manifested his presence at this place. Sometimes I think we fail to realize the gravity of that.

[19:03] This is he who said, let there be light and there was light. You know, it was as S.M. Locker said in quoting the book of Job, it was he who created something out of nothing and hung it on nothing and told it to stay there and it did.

[19:17] That's one of my favorite lines of all times, right? Because God created something out of nothing. Now, ex nilo is the right proper term. And so, you know, we talk of creation.

[19:28] When we talk about God Almighty, we're talking about creation from ex nilo. One time I had an individual tell me, he says, I think I'm God. I said, well, that's great. And I said, I think you're crazy, but if you want to think you're God, I can't tell you what to think.

[19:39] He said, no, I'm God. You don't believe me? I said, yes, create something for me. I said, but don't use anything around you because all this has already been claimed. Right? God created from nothing, ex nilo. And he created something out of nothing.

[19:54] The book of Job says he inscribed the circle of the earth and hung it in the heavens and told it to stay there and it did. And then he calls his name to dwell in Jerusalem.

[20:06] Look at the favor of Rehoboam. He gets to reign in the place of God's manifest, Remember when they built the temple and the Shekinah glory fell?

[20:22] And the glory fell to such an extent that no one could enter the temple. They couldn't administer the sacrifices because the glory of God was in that place. Right?

[20:35] This is where he's at. We see the favor shown. Don't lose that. And the reason we don't want to lose that is because in light of the favor, we see the failure displayed.

[20:51] That's where they're at. They're in Jerusalem where the name of the Lord God Almighty has been put. And in Jerusalem, it says, it defines for us what they did.

[21:05] Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord. Now it's one thing for Israel to do evil in the sight of the Lord because we know that God is not confined to space and time and God is not limited in scope and he's omniscient and omnipresent.

[21:20] So wherever you're at, you're in his sight. But Judah did it literally in the very place where he had put his name. It says that Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord and they provoked him to jealousy.

[21:35] What's your pastor's favorite verse? Anybody remember? Deuteronomy 4.24. For the Lord our God is a jealous God. He is a consuming fire.

[21:46] It's my favorite verse. God is a jealous God. He is a consuming fire. That is, he does not share his worship with anything.

[21:56] He doesn't need our worship. He doesn't need it to be completed. He doesn't need it to be fulfilled.

[22:08] But he will not allow his people to worship something else. They provoked him, it says, to jealousy more than all their fathers had done with the sins which they committed.

[22:19] For they also built for themselves high places and sacred pillars and ashram on every high hill and beneath every luxuriant tree. Where did they do this? In Jerusalem where the Lord had put his name in all of Israel.

[22:33] In the very place where God put his name, they started putting the name of other gods. In the very place where God had manifested his presence in all of creation, they began to raise up false idols of worship and false poles, ashram poles and they began to put up all these high places under all these luxuriant trees.

[22:54] Isn't it amazing? And they were building altars under trees that God created. We begin to see that his creation becomes places of idolatry and false worship and we see here their utter failure.

[23:10] In spite of the favor shown them, they failed to walk in obedience. They had the priest. They had the temple. They had the altar. They had the holy of holies where nobody could go.

[23:23] They had all the sacraments. They had everything they needed to do according to the worship which God commanded his people to do in the Pentateuch.

[23:33] That is, the first five books of the scripture. Everything God had commanded them. If you're going through the book of Leviticus, some of us just finished up Leviticus today. All those rules and regulations. The nation of Israel to the north or the ten tribes north.

[23:46] They couldn't do much of that because they didn't have a temple. They didn't have priests. They didn't have altar. But the people in the south did. They had favor. Right? They had it. They could do it.

[23:57] And though the favor of God was there, they failed to walk in obedience because they began to do what they wanted to do. The favor of God was evident and the failure of man was displayed.

[24:11] And they displayed it because though they were in his presence, they began to welcome in the presence of others. And look at what it says that they did. It says, They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel.

[24:29] Isn't it astounding? They had something nobody else had. I mean, in Jerusalem, nobody else in all of creation could say they had that. Oh, there were other temples.

[24:41] Some people think that Solomon's temple was built after models of other temples of ancient times. But nobody else had the temple of the Lord God Almighty. There might have been other temples. There were other magnificent buildings.

[24:52] But nobody else had an altar which was a soothing aroma unto the Lord. Nobody else had a holy of holies. And nobody else had the ark of the covenant. Nobody else had the Shekinah glory. Nobody else in all of creation had what they had.

[25:06] And all they wanted was what everybody else had. They began to do according to that which was done by all the nations which the Lord had dispossessed before them.

[25:16] They had what nobody else had but they wanted what everybody else got. Ecclesiastes, there's nothing new under the sun. Right?

[25:28] Because as believers when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and we come to him in faith all things are made new. We have what nobody else has. We don't have to go to a temple. We don't have to go to an altar.

[25:40] The Bible tells us that God comes and makes his tabernacle within us. He tabernacles within us. Isn't that? That's a beautiful thing. It says the fullness of God dwells in the believer. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit says in John 14, 15, and 16 abides within us.

[25:53] We have what nobody else has. He has made his tabernacle within us. Now we are the temple of the Lord. Stones being built up unto one another and we are connected with one another as Peter would say in 1 Peter.

[26:04] We are becoming a temple of the Lord as he is building his temple with his people for the praise of his glory. But we are inhabitant with the fullness of God. That is he makes his tabernacle within us.

[26:15] And having what nobody else has, too often we live wanting what everybody else has already got. Shown the favor of God's manifest presence, too often believers deny the favor and look for that which is failure.

[26:33] They look around them and say, well, everything they got seems right. Again, it says in the book of Psalms, when I considered the foolish and I saw that their bellies were fat.

[26:45] Now I'm paraphrasing and I can't even tell you where it is. I'm not real good at scripture memorization. I just read it and it sticks, okay? So I'm not real good at number, and someone say, oh, you're so good. No, I'm not. I just read it and it sticks and it's there.

[26:56] But I know the psalmist cries out, says when I considered the wicked and I considered the foolish, their bellies were fat, they were not and it looked as if they lived life in luxury. He says, and yet I was wanting and I was hurting and I could not figure it out.

[27:11] And I love what the psalmist says. He said, but then I considered the end of the matter for they will stand before the Lord, their maker, someday and give an account. He said, I was going to despair.

[27:24] I was going to get down thinking I want what they have. But then I considered the end of the matter and said there will be a day of reckoning where they will stand before the Lord, their God Almighty. It doesn't matter if their belly's full.

[27:34] It doesn't matter if the bank account's full and the pastors are full of their livestock because one day they will stand before the Lord and they will give an account and no matter what they have it will not be enough. He says, what I have in my deficiency is so much better than what they have in their prosperity when I considered the end of the matter.

[27:53] Martin Lloyd-Jones when he was dying echoed what Charles Chalmers said also as he was dying. Christians spend too long thinking about how they live and they don't spend long enough thinking about how they die.

[28:09] The one thing that is inevitable the one thing that is certain is the one thing we try to avoid and this life as Paul says is but a fleeting vapor and we spend more time being concerned about what's happening here than we do what's happening on the other side and that's exactly what the psalmist says.

[28:26] But when I considered the end. See, failure often happens in spite of the favor that was shown which gets us to the last thing. We see this is the favor shown we see the failure displayed and it brings us to the third and final thing the forfeiture of blessings.

[28:43] Every time we fail in light of favor we forfeit something. God sent his disciplinary agent to the nation of Judah and he came by the way of the king of Egypt named Shishak.

[28:58] Now, this shouldn't surprise us because if we read it historically by the way this is also attested in the historical records of the Egyptians of Shishak's cities that he came and he captured.

[29:15] If we read in 2nd Chronicles chapter 12 you see a listing of those cities. In the Egyptian hieroglyphs when they found it it says that Shishak came up unto the king of Judah.

[29:28] So this is what we have recorded here. You remember where Jeroboam went after the prophet told him that he would be king because of Solomon's disobedience, right? Jeroboam knew all of a sudden that if Solomon found out he knew he was going to be king then he would see there would be a problem so as long as Solomon was alive Jeroboam went to Egypt and the king of Egypt at that time was Shishak and Shishak took Jeroboam in.

[29:55] Jeroboam went back when he heard that Solomon was dead and Shishak said why are you leaving? What have you lacked when you're here? I gave you my sister-in-law as a wife I've taken care of you here what have you lacked?

[30:09] He said nothing I'm just going back so he goes back so there's an alliance between Shishak and Jeroboam now between the northern kingdom and the Egyptian kingdom is the southern kingdom it's a trade route called King's Highway that runs right up that coast so it shouldn't surprise you any but the southern kingdom lives under the favor of the Lord God Almighty it's really a testimony that rings throughout history even today that the two kingdoms to the south existed as long as they did it was not by might nor by strength nor by numbers but by the favor of the Lord God Almighty much like when you look at Israel today you begin to see this is just a small group of people that are in the midst of people that don't like them that's what was going on so they walk in failure and God's going to discipline them so Shishak comes it says that he came in verse 25 now it happened in the fifth year

[31:15] King Rehoboam so it took four years for him to mess up it happened in the fifth year King Rehoboam by the way up to this point for the first four years we have to read it in chronicles Rehoboam had fortified cities he knew this was something that was inevitable he kind of saw the writing on the wall it's not that he was a bad king they just spiritually were doing things wrong so it happened in the fifth year King Rehoboam the king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house and he took everything even taking all the shields of gold which Solomon had made we'll stop right there for just a moment now you need to understand I'm not going to preach it but you need to understand when you read the chronicle accounts that when this battle starts he doesn't come straight to Jerusalem he gets on the fringe of some of those cities that Rehoboam have fortified and those cities begin to fall the walled cities kind of stand the cities on the outskirts that were not walled they were falling really quick some of the cities which Rehoboam occupied the southern kingdom occupied were cities that were located in the north of Israel Shishak went up there and kind of took those over and they went over to Jeroboam and this is kind of how we see it happening so there's time it's not like the king of

[32:23] Egypt came straight and went straight to Jerusalem Rehoboam sees what's going on it tells! Again the grace and mercy of God and God hears that cry this is why Jerusalem doesn't fall because of the repentance of Rehoboam and the leaders in Jerusalem because without it they couldn't stand they're not strong enough to stand before the king of Egypt they don't have the numbers they don't have the might they don't have the military capability everything that Solomon had built up is now gone away but they repent but even in light of their repentance it's not like they repented and got away with it right because that's what we would like to say we say we sin and retell and we repent and wholesale that is we sin specifically and then we say Lord forgive me for all the bad things

[33:24] I did so a truth in that right we don't want to go before him and name those things Rehoboam and the people of Israel had sinned in retail they had built these high places they had built all these altars and they built all this false worship so God still deals justly with them he spares them but God says since they would not live under my reign I'm going to allow them to see what it's like to live under the reign of another so he brings Shishak in to kind of lord it over them no man is his own captain of his own ship in spite of what the poem says no man really controls his own destiny we're going to be ruled by something or someone and so God brings this instrument of judgment in and he says in kings that he carried away all the treasures he carried away the treasures of the house he carried away the treasures of the king's house he even took in light of the favor they lived in they failed and they paid dearly they forfeited the blessings that

[34:41] God had rained upon them but much like man today Rehoboam says I have a solution so it says he made shields of bronze too often believers are content to live with a cheap replacement of a precious blessing I don't have a shield of gold but I have some of bronze you remember in the days of Solomon they didn't even count the silver or the bronze because there was too much of it bronze was immeasurable!

[35:22] Gold was abundant and yet now here we have just one generation we're replacing gold with bronze why because there's always a price for sins of failure and light of favor scripture says to whom he has entrusted much he expects much these were in the city of Jerusalem the very place where God had put his name so they forfeited the gold shields and took up the bronze and they had a cheap replacement for something that was precious but the cheap replacement really was even guarded too because he kept them in the guard house remember Solomon was so favored of the Lord that he hung those shields of gold for everybody to see he had gold everywhere he had gold lines on his statue he had everything on his throne there it was just gold they were drinking!

[36:17] from gold cups! the guards would go get the bronze shields and carry them out but when he left the temple they would bring them back to the guard house we can't even trust that we can keep the bronze shields up this is what it looks like to live under the reign of another God said if you live in faithfulness under me you can take your precious jewels and display them and not be afraid but if you spite that favor and you live how you want to live then you will guard even the valueless replacements!

[37:03] The very first verse I read when I came to Christ I don't even know! The night I gave my life to Christ I was by myself I was in our room 201 Canova Drive Shelbyville Tennessee I can't remember the date but I remember the setting for months on in I had not been able to sleep for months on in God was where you know conviction was in this heart of stone that I had and I didn't really want to surrender and give everything up and finally Lord put me on my knees and I gave my life to Christ and I don't know how I got there opened up my Bible to the book of Psalms I still have that Bible in the office back there and opened it up and that was probably the first night I ever underlined anything in the Bible the psalmist cries out and the sleep of the righteous will be sweet I went to bed that night best sleep I ever had from then on I hadn't had a problem I hadn't had to lock up my cheap replacements!

[38:10] Because I could trust my precious jewels I didn't need guards carrying it out before me I didn't need somebody locking it up behind me because I knew I had surrendered it and entrusted it to the keeper of heaven and earth too often we forget the favor that we live in and we fail to walk in faithfulness but it always comes at a cost we're going to forfeit something God spared them yes but look at what they gave up in light of that sparing never again will they hang!

[38:49] have to worry about locking up when you read the Old Testament we're leading somewhere right we're leading to the cross we're leading to the cross and what we find notice it we see it in the book of Exodus God brought them out of Egypt in order to bring them into the promised land and we I know that's been a couple years ago we were there several years ago!

[39:20] But you remember there's this pattern we see in the book of Exodus every time God's people fell he put another requirement on them after when they came out of the nation of Egypt they were to be a nation of!

[39:38] By the time they went into the promised land they were a nation with priests and rules and regulations and laws every time they failed God put another requirement upon them every time they revoked every time they sin every time man stumbles then God doesn't make it easier the holiness of God is not lowered the standard is raised because in the garden man lived in the cool of the day having fellowship with the Lord God never been easier to get into the presence of God and in the garden and man failed there and from that point on man fails man fails man fails man fails and God does not make it easier to come into his presence he does not lower his standards rather there is a greater expectation put half until we get to

[40:39] Calvary where God became flesh and dwelt among men we call him Emmanuel who is Jesus Christ and he bore our sins upon the cross he took the weight of the glory there could be no mercy without suffering there could be no forgiveness without justice there could be no restoration without payments every great requirement that is ever laid out in the Old Testament every great forfeiture that is ever given up in the Old Testament is fully paid on Calvary's cross and in the favor of the resurrection brings down the Holy Spirit to live among us we live in a time of favor like no other the days are bad but we live in a time of favor like no other the fullness of scripture the testimony of church history more access to more great teaching and more opportunities than we could ever do but in this great time of favor so many people cast it aside and we give up a lot of number of things we still hang in shields of bronze where there used to be shields of gold and we see it recorded for us the disciplined malpractice in 1 Kings 14 21 through 31 thank you my brothers so

[42:24] Thank you.

[42:54] Thank you.