“And when he humbled himself, the wrath of the LORD
turned from him, that he would not destroy him altogether: and also in Judah things went well.” (2Ch
12:12 AV)
Rehoboam, king of Judah, forsook the law once things
settled down from Israel’s bloodless civil war.
When the kingdom began to prosper, Rehoboam went after idols introduced
by his father, Solomon, and his own wives.
In response, the LORD sent Shishak, king of Egypt against Judah and Jerusalem. In the process, Shishak took away all the
precious metals which Judah had amassed.
This included the precious metals of the Temple. Rehoboam was forced to replace all that was
taken with brass. The gold was replaced
with a far less valuable metal and when the king entered the temple, seeing the
severe downgrade, he repented of his wickedness which brought all this on
him. The LORD threatened Rehoboam and
Judah with continued subservience to Egypt because of their sin. It was upon this the leaders repented of
their sin. Their rebellion cost them
what was most precious. Now, they have to
look at the substandard treasures of the house of the LORD and know it was they
who brought this upon Judah and the temple.
Yet, note the underlined phrase.
When repentance came, it went well with Judah. The word means they began to prosper again.
I was of a generation requires to take two years
of a foreign language to graduate from high school. I don’t know what possessed me to take French. I had German and Spanish to choose from. I choose to take the most difficult of all
three foreign languages offered by my high school. After a year of struggling with it, I barely
passed. I think sixty-eight was my final
grade. I still remember my final exam grade. A sixty-two.
The next year, the state dropped the foreign language requirement! Praise be to God. Could I have done better? You bet.
I was not that disciplined of a student.
I didn’t study hard. The more I
studied, the more I got confused. So, I
relied on my comprehension and memory to average and an ‘A’ minus through all
of high school. I failed to do well
enough in French. Something, with a
little bit of sweat, I could probably have managed. Will that grade be forever on my
transcript. Absolutely. But my lack of discipline in one area did not
condemn me in all other areas. To this
day, I have my French teacher and my ninth grade English teacher to thank for
the ability to discern unknown English words with their origin to Latin.
There are consequences to our actions. The short term consequences for Rehoboam’s
sin was the loss of precious metal treasures of both his house and the house of
the LORD. These things could be
replaced. And they were. The consequences of disobedience were short
term. This is not always the case. The good news is, when the correction is over,
we can do well. We may not get back to
the glory we once had, but a new and better condition can be ours. The scars may remain. It may cost us more than we anticipated to
return and grow even further. But, we
can do well. This is the hope of
correction. We know we must endure
it. We know it is often very embarrassing
and difficult to tolerate. The Adversary
wants us to think we are a permanent failure.
This is not the case. We are a
failure only to the degree we want to be.
If we respond to the correction of God, then we will do well! This is the goal. This is the privilege of the saint. This is what we look forward to. We look forward to the chastening of the old
man that the new man may grow. We look
forward to being taken out of the way.
We look forward to the pruning.
We look forward to being re-tied closer to the vine. Even though this adds short term stress, in
the long run, we produce fruit. We will
do well.
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