2 CHRONICLES 12 PREPARE YOUR HEART TO SEEK THE LORD2015 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: 2 Chronicles 12 Prepare Your Heart To Seek The Lord

As we look at 2 Chronicles chapter 12 this morning, I would like to begin by asking you to consider whether or not you will be walking with the Lord five years from now. This day, five years later, will you be walking with Jesus at that time? And I would like you to consider whether or not you will be walking with the Lord five years from now.

And if you believe that that is the case, that you will be walking with God five years from now, I would ask you then to consider what are you doing right now to make sure that it is the case, that five years from now you will be strong in your relationship with God and healthy in a spiritual walk with him. What are you doing now so that five years from now you will be walking with him?

The reality is, as I look at this passage and as I've been meditating on it this week, it's been reminding me that I have the potential to walk away from the Lord. And so do you. Every one of us have the potential. There's no guarantee, in a sense, five years from now that I will be faithful to the Lord at that time or you will be faithful to the Lord at that time. There's, of course, you know,

The reality or the idea that we would say, well, I would never walk away from God, right? But no matter how confidently and how certainly we say that, the reality is you still could. I still could. We still have the potential to

to not be walking with the Lord five years from now. And of course, we can know that by experience because, well, we've all known believers who have been right with the Lord and walking with the Lord, but then, you know, five years later, maybe even this day, are not where they should be and are not where they once were. And so there is this danger. There is this potential that is there. And the only safety that we really have is,

is in pursuing the Lord continually. And that's what we see unfold here in 2 Chronicles 12. Would you look with me real quick at verse 14 here in this chapter? It's not part of what we read, but it gives us some insight into what was happening in Rehoboam's heart. In verse 14, it says, "'And he,' that's Rehoboam, "'did evil because he did not prepare his heart "'to seek the Lord.'"

And we have an explanation here of why things went south for Rehoboam and the nation of Judah. Now, as we look at this passage and talk about Rehoboam, this is the son of Solomon, the grandson of King David.

Now, King David was known for being a man after God's own heart. He was a man who sought to know the heart of God. He was a man who pursued to know what God wanted for him and for the kingdom.

As David passed on the kingdom then to Solomon, Solomon started out well as well as his father David did. But you know from the past couple of weeks, we've been looking at these chapters and seeing that Solomon's heart turned away from the Lord in his later years. And so now Solomon's son, Rehoboam, continues really in the trend of his father, where he's not been walking faithful to the Lord, and he doesn't do anything to change that.

In verse 14, it tells us the reason why he did evil and the reason why he turned away from the Lord was because he didn't prepare his heart. There was no preparation for him. There was no preparation to help him stay faithful to God. There was no preparation for his heart to be able to be like his grandfather, David, who inquired of the Lord and sought the Lord. Rehoboam failed to prepare himself.

The word prepare here in verse 14, it means to establish, to firm up, to fix, or to direct towards. And there is no firming up. There is no establishing of his heart in a relationship with God.

He had loose connections with God. He had, you know, he was around the things of God. He had the temple there and he was involved in worship, you know, in the temple sacrifices and everything that kind of he was supposed to be doing and culturally that they practiced. But at the same time, there was no real firmness within. He wasn't established within his heart in a relationship with God. I like the way that one scholar defined this word prepare, prayer.

He said the main idea is to bring something into an incontrovertible existence. And I like that idea, an incontrovertible existence. It can't be disputed. It can't be debated. It's a reality. That's the idea of this word. And so he didn't have a relationship with God that was incontrovertible, that was without question, that was without any type of skepticism. It

He didn't have that kind of relationship. He could have. And that's the kind of relationship with God that we're supposed to have, that God desires to have with us. One that is incontrovertible. One that everybody knows. It's without question. Yes, you have a relationship with God. Yes, you are seeking the Lord and desiring to know him.

It's like that old saying, if you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Is it incontrovertible that you are seeking the Lord, that your heart is inclined to that, that you have set yourself up and you have prepared yourself in such a way that without question, you are pursuing the things of God?

And that's what I would encourage you to do. That's the way that we ought to be. And so the title of the message this morning here in 2 Chronicles chapter 12 is prepare your heart to seek the Lord. And we're going to learn from the example of Rehoboam. Sometimes Rehoboam

good and mostly bad examples that he sets for us. But we're going to learn from this account the importance of preparing our hearts and preparing ourselves so that five years from now, we can rest assured we will be walking with the Lord because we've been established and our relationship with God is incontrovertible.

So there's three points I'd like to walk you through here in this passage. The first one is found in verses one through four. And here, point number one is obey God when you don't think you need to.

Obey God when you don't think that you need to. Now, this one can be a challenging thing for us because, well, when I don't think I need to obey, then it's likely that I'm not going to obey. But what we need to do is establish and settle our hearts now that we will be obedient so that when the opportunity comes later on where we think we have a choice, we've already determined ahead of time, I am going to be obedient. Check out verse one.

It says,

He had a relationship with God. He had, you know, some type of involvement and commitment to God. But then he forsook the law of the Lord at this time. And all Israel went along with him. And so him being the king, of course, it's natural for the rest of the kingdom to follow along. And now the whole nation of Judah is in disobedience to God.

But the thing I'd like to point out and highlight for us is the timing here. Again, in verse one, it says, it came to pass when Rehoboam had established the kingdom and strengthened himself. Notice when he turned away from the Lord. When did it happen? When did it take place that he forsook the law of the Lord? It happened when the kingdom had been established and when he had strengthened himself. And this is a very common pattern here.

for the people of God. There is a common tendency for the people of God to turn away from God when things are safe and secure. We all know how that is. During times of trouble, of course, we're crying out to God. We're seeking Him. We're praying. We're wanting to know His will. We're asking for Him to work, to show His power, to show His strength. We want God to work for

And we call out to him, but then when things get settled, there is a common pattern that the people of God will often at that time turn away from God. There's not the need, there's not the urgency that there once was, and so we're not seeking the Lord like we once were.

Matthew Henry describes it this way. He says,

When people are desperate, they're much engaged, he says. They're seeking the Lord. And wow, look at how they're turning to the Lord and seeking him and calling out to him and trusting in him. Wow, isn't that so amazing? But once they've received a merciful deliverance, he says, they've been settled. They've been more secure now that they turn from the seeking of the Lord. They turn from calling out to God. And we begin to think to ourselves, hey, I'm set.

you know, things are going well, things are strong, what could happen? What could go wrong? Things are really secure. And we get comfortable in that and we stop crying out to God and calling out to God. Rehoboam did not think it was necessary to obey God because he didn't prepare his heart to seek the Lord. And so when the opportunity came, when things were secure and safe, the calling out to God, the seeking God, the relying upon God, it kind of just faded away.

And I'm sure it didn't happen overnight. He didn't just wake up one day and then run into all-out rebellion. But at this time, the nation is in all-out rebellion. In 1 Kings 4, it describes the things that they were into. And it was full-on idolatry. They'd gone back to the practices of the people that were in the land of Canaan before Israel. Just complete wickedness. It's where they ended up as a result of not preparing their hearts to seek the Lord.

Because they weren't prepared, when the opportunity presented itself, they had to choose whether or not they were going to obey God. They thought, you know, it's not that big of a deal if we don't obey God. I don't think we need to. We're safe. We're secure. It's okay. We're fine as we are, and we can do what we want to do.

In verse 2, it tells us, Notice again the timing here. It happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam. This is very early in his reign. He's only been king for five years.

And in his fifth year as king, they've already rebelled to the point that now Egypt is coming against them, bringing an attack. Now, I would suggest to you that if we would have talked to Rehoboam in year one of his reign, he would have said, I will never forsake the Lord. But five years into his reign, he has forsaken the Lord.

And again, that's why I'm asking you and I'm asking me, will you be walking with the Lord in five years? Because there are people, there are people that you know today, there are people that I know today, that five years ago had said, I will never walk away from the Lord. I will always have this relationship with God. I will always seek the Lord in this way. I will always put God first in my life. But five years later, that's not the reality and they're not where they once were. Will you walk

Be walking with the Lord. Will you be pursuing the Lord and seeking the Lord in five years from now? Now, why did Shishak come up against Jerusalem?

Well, there's lots of outward reasons that you could consider, like the wealth of the nation. There had just been the division. The nation of Israel was divided in two in Rehoboam's reign. Very early on, in the beginning of his reign, they split and Jeroboam became king of Israel and Rehoboam had the smaller kingdom called Judah.

And so, you know, strategically for a nation to attack, that's a good time to attack when the people you want to attack are divided. So that makes sense outwardly. But here we have a more in-depth reason in verse 2. It says that it's because they had transgressed against the Lord. The reason why this attack is happening, the reason why this is unfolding this way is because of their transgression against the Lord, because of their sin against God, because

They forsook the Lord. And so because of that, this attack is taking place. This is a spiritual law that we need to grasp hold of and understand. Paul describes it as well in Galatians chapter six. He says, do not be deceived. And he says, do not be deceived because this is something that we are easily deceived about.

He says,

And if you sow transgression, if you sow forsaking the Lord, then you will reap accordingly, that is, the judgment that results. You will reap judgment for disobeying God. You will reap destruction for sinning against God. That is a law. And don't be deceived. You can't get around that. God is not mocked. If you sin, it will bring destruction. It will. That's what sin does.

And so here they've invested, they've sown to the flesh, and now they're reaping what they've sown. They're reaping the destruction that comes along with it. And Shishak comes with a massive army. Check out verse 3. It says,

Now, here it describes this massive army, all these chariots, which in those days would have been like tanks today. I mean, that was, you know, massive artillery power in those days. 60,000 horsemen, again, and then people without numbers. So all these infantry, and it was people who came out of Egypt, people who came out of Africa, and people who came out of the Ethiopian area. And so there's this army that comes against them.

that they are defenseless against. They are helpless against an army of this size. And you can see that in verse 4. It says, and he took the fortified cities of Judah and came to Jerusalem. Now, verse 4 is kind of short. Just kind of, you know, says it. Took the fortified cities of Judah, came to Jerusalem. But you got to understand, there's a lot going on there. Because in the previous chapter, in 2 Chronicles 11,

You can see that Rehoboam invested a lot of time and effort and resources into building the fortified cities of Judah. In 2 Chronicles 11, verses 5-12, it lists all of the cities. There's 15 fortified cities. And it tells us there that he fortified these cities and made them very strong cities.

In verse 12 of 2 Chronicles chapter 11, it says,

And you can see there in that passage the idea here that he's invested in them. He's done everything he can to build them up. He's fortified them. He's supplied them with resources. There's food there and oil and wine and everything that they might need to withstand a siege. And so there's all these cities, 15 fortified cities that he established and made very strong.

And then you consider verse one again of chapter 12 here. Rehoboam had established the kingdom and strengthened himself. So he has completed this project and there's all these strongholds. There's 15 of these fortified cities, well-stocked, prepared, ready for any attack. But then in verse four, they're all knocked down in one fell swoop. It says he took the fortified cities of Judah and came to Jerusalem. So all those cities that he set up,

They've already been defeated. They've already been beaten. And now Shishak is knocking on Jerusalem's gates saying, all right, Jerusalem, you're next. I'm going to take you out. The nation of Judah has already suffered greatly. They've already, you know, experienced a huge loss because these 15 cities fell. Now, these are the cities that gave him great comfort and security.

Because he'd invested much time and fortified these strongholds and made them very strong. And so now he'd strengthened the kingdom and it was established. He trusted in these cities for their defense. He thought this will be sufficient to protect us. This is going to take care of us. But because they transgressed against the Lord, those cities were all beaten, all conquered. We don't know how much time it took, but here the author records it in one little short sentence. They all fell.

He took them all. They're all beaten. They're all conquered. This is the way that life works, guys. Here's what we need to remember. Here's what we need to understand from this. Whatever you trust in instead of God will be taken away. You can invest all kinds of time and energy and thought and wisdom and counsel and build yourself what you consider to be an awesome, strong life. And you can make it very strong and fortify yourself.

But whatever you trust in instead of God will not last. Isaiah tells us that every high and exalted thing will be cast down before God. He's the only one who can be high and exalted. And if we trust in our bank accounts instead of God, guess what? That can all be taken away in one fell swoop. Before you even realize it, before you even know what's going on, all those accounts or resources that you were trusting in, just gone.

If you're trusting in your family or trusting in your relationships instead of God, I'm not saying that we can't, you know, enjoy these things and have safety in these things, but if they've taken God's place, we think we're secure because we have this relationship. We have these resources. We have this plan. We have this job. We have these things. And if we're trusting in those things instead of God, it will be taken away. God will not let you

Continue to rely upon those things. He loves you too much. He needs you to know those things don't last and they don't satisfy. He's the only one that's worthy of your dependence. He's the only one that's worthy of your reliance. We need to be trusting in God and relying upon God and keeping him first in our hearts. And again, that's why we need to prepare our hearts to seek the Lord. Because when there are times of security, we begin to fade in our faithfulness.

And we need to maintain that same kind of dependence that we once had, even when things are good. So that we obey God, even when you have enough money in the bank and don't have to worry about it. So that you obey God, even when you have a good job and things are going well in the workplace. So that you obey God, even when your family is healthy and well and things are doing well.

so that you continue to obey God even when your cars are running. Because so many times when things are going well, that's when our faithfulness to God begins to fade away. David Guzik puts it this way, Rehoboam trusted in God so long as he felt he needed him, but he grew independent of God instead of more dependent on him. I think that's an important way to look at that. Rehoboam grew independent of God.

He built up all these resources, and so he was thinking, I don't need God as much. He was more dependent from God, because I've got this. We've got this. Look, we've got these strong cities. We've got 15 of them, God. That's a lot. I mean, that can withstand any attack. We're good. And he was dependent. But our relationship with God needs to develop more dependence on God, not independence from God. And so that's what it means to prepare your heart to seek the Lord.

That is to maintain that dependence on God, to maintain that need for God, to maintain that trust in God, recognizing that whatever I trust in instead of God will be taken away. I'd like you to consider, again, verse 14 of 2 Chronicles 12. It says, he did evil because he did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord. But then as you look at verse 1, it says, it came to pass when Rehoboam had established the kingdom.

That word establish in verse 1 and the word prepare in verse 14 is the same word. It's the same word. Establish. It means to establish, to accomplish, to make firm. Rehoboam prepared the kingdom. He established the kingdom, but he didn't prepare or establish his heart. And that is really the choice that you and I have to make. We can choose one or the other. To establish our kingdom or

or to establish our hearts. We can prepare our kingdom, and we can do all kinds of things to invest in this life, and try to make things strong, and make things comfortable, and create an independence from God, or we can invest ourselves primarily in a dependence upon God, and invest ourselves, and prepare our hearts to seek God, to continue to call out to Him, to maintain that dependence upon Him. And so which are you preparing? Which are you establishing?

this life, this kingdom that you have, or your heart, setting yourself up to maintain a relationship with the Lord. And so we need to obey God even when we don't think that we need to. And in order for that to take place, there's some preparation that must go ahead of time. There's some preparation that must be done, putting our hearts into a dependence upon God. Well, going on into verse five through seven, we have point number two. And here we have a good example from the

Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah. Point number two is humble yourself when you disobey. And so here they set a good example. When they hear about what's taking place, they humble themselves before God. Check out verse five. It says, then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah who were gathered together in Jerusalem because of Shishak and said to them, thus says the Lord, you have forsaken me and therefore I also have left you in the hand of Shishak.

And so here we see the leaders of Judah are gathered together at Jerusalem. Now, they could be gathered together just because, well, they were in all those fortified cities, and so now they've fled, and they've gathered together in Jerusalem. Or they could be gathered together in Jerusalem, you know, strategizing, trying to figure out, okay, how are we going to counterattack? How are we going to defend ourselves? Either way, they're all together in Jerusalem. And so they're a captive audience, and God sends the prophet Shemaiah, and he has an announcement for them. Here's what the Lord says.

You have forsaken me, and therefore I also have left you in the hand of Shishak. I think it's interesting the way God words it there. I have left you in the hand of Shishak. The idea here is that there was this protection that they had once experienced, but God had removed that protection because they had forsaken the Lord. Shishak would have still had his eyes on the treasures of Judah, whether or not Judah was walking with the Lord or not.

Whether or not they were faithful to the Lord or not, there was still a prime target. There was still the division of the land. There was still, you know, those things that he would have thought outwardly, hey, this is a good idea. Let's go do this. And who knows what would have happened? Who knows how God would have let that play out had they been faithful to the Lord. But in their forsaking of the Lord, God says, I'm going to leave you in their hand. I would have protected you. I could have protected you, but I'm letting this happen.

I'm letting you experience the, you reap what you sow. David Guzik puts it this way. He says, the great danger of telling God, leave me alone, is that someday he may answer that prayer. It's something to consider. We tell God, leave me alone. Stop bothering me. I don't want to do that. I don't want to listen to that. And he says, the danger is God may answer that prayer. As we push God away, push God away, push God away. And then God says, well,

Okay, I'll stay away. And that protection is gone. What we really want is, okay, God bless me and God protect me, but never require anything of me. That's what we want. Yeah. Give me the life and the blessings and the abundance of faithfulness, but don't require me to be faithful. That would be ideal. Could you do that, please, God? And God says, no, no, you've forsaken me. And so I've left you in the hand of Shishak, he says to them.

You're experiencing this judgment. You're experiencing this trouble, this difficulty, this attack because of your disobedience. It's a direct result of your disobedience to me. Now, as we consider this unfolding in their life, we consider their forsaking the Lord and now the attack from Shishak. I like to take a moment and I do this often, but let's remember to learn the lesson of Job's friends. Learn the lesson of Job's friends.

As you see this judgment come directly attributed to their sin against God, sometimes there can be a tendency for us as believers, and I've seen this done badly so many times, that's why I bring it up often, that when something bad is happening to somebody, they're experiencing a trial or difficulty or affliction, that we then also jump to the conclusion, well, there must be some type of sin, and this trial, this difficulty is a direct result of that.

But that's why I say learn the lesson of Job's friends. Because although Job's friends tried for 40 chapters to...

convinced Job that there must be some sin in his life because of all this difficulty that he's experiencing, we know from God's perspective on the book of Job that that was not the case at all. That God saw Job as a righteous man, that there was no one righteous like him in all the earth. And when God had opportunity to correct Job, he corrected him, but not about the things that Job's friends were thinking about, but he corrected Job and said, hey, why are you questioning me?

When you're going through all these afflictions and difficulties and things, why are you questioning me in this? Why aren't you trusting me in this? And so we need to learn the lesson of Job's friends and not accuse people of being in sin simply because, well, there's trouble in their life and there's difficulty that's happening. But how can you tell then if the affliction and difficulty is God's judgment or not? And the simple answer to that is God tells you when it's his judgment. Here, Shemaiah announces to them, this is the judgment of God.

And when judgment happened to the nation of Judah later on, God was going to be sending prophets like Jeremiah and say, this judgment right here, this trouble, this affliction, this attack, this is because of your sin against God. And God is very clear when he brings judgment. He announces it beforehand sometimes, sometimes during, sometimes afterwards, but he makes it clear. And so we can't tell on the outside whether or not

an affliction, a difficulty, a trial, some type of attack or something is a judgment of God unless he tells us. However, I would say this. If you're experiencing trial or affliction or judgment or some type of difficulty and you know of some sin in your life, well,

Whether that's one is the direct result of the other, maybe we can't prove that completely, concretely. But if you know of some sin in your life and you're experiencing judgment, listen, that's a good opportunity for you to follow the example of the nation of Israel. Check out verse 6. So the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and they said, the Lord is righteous. Righteous.

So they hear this report. They hear this that, hey, this is a direct result of your sin. God's allowing this as a form of judgment for you. And so the leaders humble themselves. Actually, they do two things. Number one, they humble themselves. And number two, they declare God's righteousness. They declare the righteousness of God. Now, to be humbled means to be brought down low, to be brought down low, to be brought into subjection.

The problem that brought all this on was that they weren't humbled. They weren't brought down low before the Lord. They had a choice to obey God or disobey, and they thought, you know, we're pretty secure, and we've got things covered, and things are going pretty well, and so we don't think we have to listen to God. We don't think we have to do what God says here. We think we can kind of put that aside, and we can do what we think is best. They weren't humbled before God, but now they're humbled.

As this rebuke comes, as this announcement comes, they humble themselves before God and they declare the righteousness of God. They say the Lord is righteous. And you know what this means? This means that they are declaring, they are saying, they're testifying that they understand what we are experiencing now is the direct result of our sin against God. And not only that, but God is right in allowing this to take place.

God is right in bringing this judgment upon us. They, well, they do what we would call today confession. They confess before God. They don't stand there and say what maybe you and I might often do.

Well, maybe we did, you know, not such good things, but we don't deserve this. I mean, this isn't right. It's not fair. You should be protecting us from these. They're not trying to explain away. They're not trying to justify. What they say is, God, you are right. You did the right thing here. We are sinful. We've forsaken you, and you've brought judgment, and you've done the right thing. They're confessing their sin before the Lord.

Consider what the Apostle John says about confession in 1 John 1. It says in verse 9, Here John, talking about confession, says, look, if you confess your sins, if you humble yourself and declare that God is righteous, guess what?

He's faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from your sin. But if you try to debate with God, if you try to debate and say, well, no, no, it's not really sin because I've got good intentions, I've got good reasons, and this is why I did what I did. If we're debating with God and wrestling with God and trying to say we're not wrong, we're right, well, then we are calling God a liar. We put ourselves, we place ourselves in opposition to God. But when you have disobeyed,

When you have disregarded God's word, when you have sinned against God, that's not the right thing to do. The right thing to do is to confess your sins. And that word confess, it could also be translated to agree with God. Confess your sins to God means to agree with God, saying, God, you're right, this is wrong. And you're right in doing what you have done. We agree with God. And that's what the leaders of Israel did, the leaders of Judah did.

They agreed with God. They humbled themselves. They brought themselves low before God and said, you're righteous. You're right. You're doing the right thing. We have done wrong.

Well, going on into verse 7 here of 2 Chronicles 12, it says, And so when they humble themselves and declare that God is right, what does God do? He sends the prophet back. He says, hey, God saw your humility.

Look, they humbled themselves, Shemaiah. God's blessed as they humbled themselves. He says, look what they did. They humbled themselves. And so let them know, I'm not going to destroy them. This is not going to be the end. I'm going to grant them some deliverance. And notice that he says that though, some deliverance. God had the right to destroy Judah completely. He had the absolute right because they had rebelled against God.

Not only had they rebelled against God, but again, I mentioned earlier, 1 Kings chapter 14 gets into some of the details about what they did, how they went into full-blown idolatry. And it tells us in 1 Kings 14, 24, that they did according to the abominations of the nations, which the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. And you remember what those nations were involved in was bad, wicked, horrible stuff.

And Israel or Judah has brought themselves to the point now where they're doing those same things, which was the cause for why God brought Israel in in the first place and drove out the inhabitants of the land. God had the right to destroy them completely because they were practicing all-out wickedness. But he chose not to exercise that right because God loves humility. When they humbled themselves before him, he says, okay, I'm not going to bring full destruction to

I'm going to grant them some deliverance. There's still going to be a cost. There's still consequences to their sinfulness, to their rebellion against God. But God says, I'm going to deliver you. I'm going to bring some deliverance. I'm not going to let this be the end. I'm going to show you mercy and grace. And so we need to humble ourselves when we disobey. This isn't like a hypothetical, maybe, you know, perhaps one day if you disobey,

This is the reality where all of us live. We all disobey God. And our response needs to be that of humility. We all disobey God. And we all deserve the judgment of God. Many times we're disobedient to God without even being aware of it. But then as we're walking with the Lord, God kind of uncovers that aspect of our heart. And then all of a sudden we realize, whoa, I didn't realize my heart was wicked in that. I thought I was good. I thought everything was fine.

And that's going to be an ongoing process for the rest of our lives. And so when God exposes those things and reveals those things, we need to humble ourself, to bring ourselves low, to declare that God is right, to confess our sin. And when we do, he's faithful and just to cleanse us.

But even when it's not that kind of condition where it's like it was accidental, you didn't even realize you were being disobedient, but you were, even when it's the outright rebellion against God, listen, it's still the same course of action. And you still have the same option, the same opportunity. It's still the best thing to do is to humble yourself when you've been disobedient, when you've rebelled against God, when you've pursued things that you know are not of God. The best thing to do, the right thing to do is to humble yourself before God and

And God shows mercy. He shows graciousness. There's still a cost. Like here, the other 15 fortified cities were still destroyed, but Jerusalem was preserved. They lost some of the wealth, as we'll see in a couple of verses, but the people, the city was preserved. God showed mercy. He held back destruction when they responded with humility. And so again, this morning, I encourage you to prepare your heart to seek the Lord.

Will you be walking with God five years from now? Listen, between now and five years from now, there's going to be a lot of disobedience that happens. You're going to be disobedient accidentally, and you're going to be disobedient on purpose. You need to prepare right now to establish yourself right now in a relationship with God to teach yourself and train yourself how to respond when that happens so that every time God exposes sin, that you respond with humility.

so that God can show you mercy and bring grace and deliverance into your life. There will still always be costs to sin. You will still reap what you sow in that regard, but God can give you deliverance with great mercy and grace. Well, finally, verses 8 through 12, point number three, learn the cost of disobedience. They had already experienced some loss, but that wasn't the full cost of their disobedience yet.

Verse 8, it says, nevertheless, this is God still talking to Shemaiah, nevertheless, they will be his servants, that they may distinguish my service from the service of the kingdoms of the nations. And so God tells Shemaiah, I'm going to grant them some deliverance because they've humbled themselves, but I'm also going to leave, I'm going to leave them in Shishak's hands. They're going to be his servants. Why would God do that? Is it because he's angry and he wants them to suffer? No.

No. Notice what God says here. God wants to train them. He's teaching them. He's letting them learn this lesson. And that's the way that God works. He wants them to learn how to distinguish between serving God and serving anything else.

And the reality is, the point that he's making in teaching them this lesson is, it's far better to serve God, even though you might complain about it or think that it's terrible or think that it's really hard or think that I have high requirements and it's a great burden. You might say all those kinds of things and complain and grumble until you experience service to anything else, to anyone else.

And then you'll learn that serving God is far better, it's far easier, and it gives life instead of bringing death. Can you distinguish between serving God and serving anything else? Do you know the difference? There are many people who would describe serving God as hard and difficult. And at this point, that's probably how Rehoboam would have described it. And so God says, I need to let you see what it's really like to serve something else.

Matthew Henry puts it this way. He says, the service of God is perfect liberty. The service of our lusts is complete slavery. And that's the choice that we get to make. We get to choose perfect liberty or complete slavery. Now, either way, the reality is we're going to be slaves. I know that's not really exciting for us to think about. That may not be our favorite topic. But Romans chapter 6, Paul says, look, you've been set free from slavery to sin. So now present yourself as

As slaves of righteousness. Another way to think about it is you get to choose your master. You get to choose your master. Who are you going to serve? And you could think, ah, it's too hard to serve God. Until you learn what it's like to serve anything else. Sin has great appeal. It's fun for a season, but you know how it is. It enslaves.

And this thing that we once dabbled with, we once played with, we thought, hey, it's just a good time. We're just having fun. Everything's under control. Then we suddenly find ourselves in the grip of that sin. And it becomes an absolutely cruel master. And it destroys our life. And it sucks the life out of us. It sucks out the joy and the peace. And there's no life in that. God says, I want you to learn the difference between

And so sometimes he will allow us to pursue a life of sin. He will allow us to make those decisions. He will allow us to experience those things so that we can learn the difference. Not because he's trying to get back at us or even make us suffer, but so that next time we have a choice and we're evaluating, well, should I disregard God? Should I disobey God? Should I follow this path? Or should I not follow this path? So that we're better informed that we can think back and think, I remember last time I disregarded God.

I remember the last time I pursued a lifestyle that he advised against. And he said, don't go that way. And what it brought in my life was destruction and misery. And it was horrible. And so now I'm better equipped to make the choice to pursue God. Because I remember I've got some experience. And I can distinguish between serving God and serving the nations. There's a big difference. Being enslaved to sin is not enjoyable. It's not desirable.

There's no rest. There's no hope. There's no peace. But serving God is entirely different. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 11? He said, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He said, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. That's the contrast. A life of misery and

suffering, difficulty in pursuit of sin and disregard of God, or a life of rest. Jesus says, if you're heavy laden, you're burdened, come to me. But notice what he says. He says, take my yoke upon you. The yoke was essentially the harness that they would place around the oxen or the animal in order to put the animal to work. And so again, I'll make the point, you're gonna be a slave to someone. Jesus says, take my yoke on you.

Let's share this together, and you'll learn, yes, you're going to serve me, and you're going to be required to be obedient to me. Yes, it's a requirement that you walk with me. It's a requirement that you listen to me and do everything that I say. It's a requirement that you don't do the things that I forbid you to do. It's a requirement. I'm the master. You're the slave. But you'll find, as you submit to that, as you take my yoke upon you, I'm gentle, and I'm lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your soul. You put on any other yoke,

And you will not find rest. You will never find rest with any other yoke. But if you put on the yoke of Christ, you bow down low and you submit yourself to him, you will find rest for your soul. Let's finish up our passage this morning looking at verse 9 now. It says,

Shishak takes everything, all the treasures. Remember, we talked about all the treasures that David had amassed and collected. And then Solomon collected all these treasures as well. And silver was like nothing in Solomon's reign. I don't want silver. Get that out of here. Because gold was so abundant. It was so wealthy. There was so much gold that he didn't care about silver. And now that kingdom is handed off to Rehoboam. And within five years, he's

It's all gone. All that gold. Now, in the Egyptian records, you have the records of Shishak, and he says that he contributed over 200 tons of gold to the temples of his gods. You wonder where that gold came from? It came from Jerusalem. All the wealth, all this abundance that they had been given, now just washed away, completely gone.

Because they had forsaken the Lord. Again, they lost so much. There was great cost to this disobedience. Learn the difference between serving God and serving anything else. Verse 10, then King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard who guarded the doorway of the king's house. And whenever the king entered the house of the Lord, the guard would go and bring them out and then they would take them back into the guard room.

This presents an interesting contrast for us. Under the reign of Solomon, there were shields of gold. They were proudly displayed. There was such safety and peace and security. They didn't have to be protected. They were just on display, these shields of gold worth great amounts of money. But now all of that's gone. And Rehoboam replaces those gold shields with bronze, bronze shields.

Bronze, oftentimes in the scriptures, represents the idea of judgment. They're experiencing the judgment of God. And now with this judgment, now they're not able to have these shields on display. They have them protected in the guard room. And they only bring them out on special occasions. Their safety, their security, it's all been washed away. They thought they were established. They thought they were secure. They thought they had arrived and achieved the life that, you know, they had always wanted. But

But they found that the end result was they had no safety, no security, and all of their treasures were now gone. Verse 12, when he humbled himself, the wrath of the Lord turned from him so as not to destroy him completely. And things also went well in Judah. I think this brings such balance and it's important to highlight these things. When he humbled himself, the wrath of God turned from him so he didn't destroy him completely. There was still consequences, but

There was still effects from the choices he made in rebelling against God, but God was merciful and he didn't destroy him completely. Now, I've been there. I've ran from God. I've wandered from God and I've experienced that and the deliverance and it's wonderful. But I also remember in those times thinking that I've done so much wrong. I've been so bad. I've disregarded God so much and I knew better. Like I'm just going to be suffering for the rest of my life.

It's kind of depressing, really, to just think about what I knew and then what I did. How could I let that happen? And there's a little bit of encouragement here at the end of verse 12. It says, and things also went well in Judah. You know those times where it feels like nothing good will ever happen again? Hey, God is merciful. And even when you've been in outright rebellion like Rehoboam, yes, there's consequences. And yes, you've lost stuff. But don't think that it's over. Things can still go well.

There's good things that God still has in store. Now, it's connected to the beginning of verse 12, when he humbled himself. When we humble ourselves, it doesn't mean everything goes back the way it was before we rebelled. It doesn't mean that everything, you know, it's like nothing ever happened, and we get all the blessings and all the abundance. No, no, there's still consequences. There's still a cost, but it also doesn't mean that things will always be bad. There will be good days ahead if you humble yourself before God.

He is merciful and he can restore and do great things. And so again, we see the importance of preparing your heart to seek the Lord. And one of the ways you do that is in these times you learn the cost of obedience so that in the coming days, five years from now, will you be walking with the Lord? You're going to have an opportunity over the next five years to make some decisions, to disobey or obey. And you need to learn the difference, distinguish the difference between serving God and

and serving anything else. And you'll find that God gives you life and peace. He must be your master and you must be submitted to him. But what he brings you is far superior to any other master that you could submit to, including your own self. If you just say, I'm not anybody's master, I'm the master, you'll bring the same destruction on your life as any other master, except for God.

And so we need to humble ourselves before God and prepare our hearts to seek the Lord, to put him first and to pursue his ways. Well, this morning to close our service, we get to partake of communion together. And I'll invite Kim up to get ready and the ushers can make ready. And as we partake of communion, we get the opportunity here to remember what Christ has done for us. We get the opportunity to consider the cost of disobedience.

as we think about Jesus upon the cross and the price that he paid for you and I to have forgiveness and for you and I to have the promise of everlasting life. I would encourage you this morning to prepare your heart to seek the Lord as you partake of communion. Jesus gave us these elements, the bread and the cup, to remind us. And he says, do this often in remembrance of me. He gave us the bread, which represents his body that was broken.

He gave us the cup, which represents his blood that was shed to remind us of the cross, to remind us of the cost, to remind us that he loved us so much that he took our place and received our punishment, our judgment, so that we don't have to receive any. But by faith in Jesus Christ, we can have complete forgiveness and not only good things in this life as we turn to him and humble ourselves before him, but good things for all of eternity. It's a good opportunity for us. We need to.

Prepare our hearts to seek the Lord. Let your relationship with God be established in such a way that it's incontrovertible. There's no question. It's absolutely certain they're seeking the Lord. They know Jesus. They're walking with him and they're hearing from him. And I don't know where you're at today, but this day can be the beginning of that. If you need to go back to that, you need to continue in that, or you need to start having that kind of relationship with God. Let this be the beginning.

And even if you think, hey, I don't really need to partake of communion today. Hey, obey even when you don't think you need to. Humble yourself and let's remember the cross and let the Lord draw us near to him. She's going to lead us in a worship song. And as she does, the worship or the ushers are going to pass out the bread and the cup. And you can partake on your own between you and the Lord at any time during this song.

And she'll give you an opportunity to partake at the end if you haven't partaken. But just you do business with God and prepare your heart to seek the Lord. And when you're ready, you go ahead and partake. And you begin that walk with Him, that relationship with God that's incontrovertible. Let's worship Him. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.