Shall we now turn once again to the second book of Chronicles chapter 12. Second book of Chronicles chapter 12 and we shall read verse 14. Verse 14. and he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. This is about Rehoboam, the king of Judah. He did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. in the title this morning is Prepare Your Heart and Mind to Seek the Lord. Prepare Your Heart and Mind to Seek the Lord. Now whom is the Word of God talking about? Here in 2 Chronicles 12 verse 14 it is talking about Rehoboam. Rehoboam was the king and the son of King Solomon. He was the grandson of the great King David. Now after Solomon died, Rehoboam became the next king. And our text says, and he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. Is there something like this? that you have to do? Are you to prepare your heart to seek the Lord God and his Son, Jesus Christ? In everything in life that we seek, we have to prepare. We have to prepare. There was an endurance race held yesterday in Excel, London called Hyrops, a fitness race, and thousand upon thousand, young and old, joined in. Surely, you can't go for such a race, very tiring, very challenging. race, where you have to do many different things, pulling and pushing weights and so on. You can't just go there and do. No, you've got to prepare yourself. You have to undergo rigorous preparation. And my son, like many others, prepared himself for three months with total dedication. So you got to prepare. When do we use the term seek or search? Now we use the term seek when we don't have it. We don't have it. Or when we lose something. These men prepared for that day, for yesterday, which they were seeking, that they may find themself fulfillment. by completing this race. And so we use this term and act in this manner when we don't know something or we have not found something or someone. And the word research, as you know, is so commonly used today by all of us. It simply means investigating, examining, searching, seeking, seeking. Now why should God tell a Jew like King Rehoboam, to whom was given, to the whole people, the Jewish nation, to them was given the oracles of God? to whom was given the revelation of God. God chose prophets so that they could speak his word. Why should God tell someone that was born in a family where the word of God was read, where the word of God was taught, where the temple was just next to his headquarters, where the promises and the prophecies of God was given? Why should such a person be told to seek the Lord? You are perhaps born in a Christian home, and you are reading the Bible and praying perhaps, and you were taught to do so, you were taken to church from the time that you were born, you went through Sunday school, and different camps where you were once again taught about the Lord and yet God could be saying to you, a person such as you, seek, seek me, my child, my son, my daughter, you are not seeking, you are not seeking, but you are doing your own will. Can it be that the Lord is saying this to you? Can this be the kind of person you are at this moment? Could you be doing evil because you are not preparing to seek the Lord? Not preparing your heart and your mind fully, dedicatedly? being focused to seek Him? Is it not the Lord that has created you and formed you? You are not your own, the Bible says. It is I who have made you and not you yourself. Are you depending on your own self? Is not the Lord God that has made you, sustains you? And the truth is that after you die, you will face him, face him personally, personally. Dear friends, the message all throughout the ages from God, from the time Adam and Eve sinned and lost that relationship with God and were separated and cut off from God, The Lord's message has been, seek me, seek me. The father and his son Jesus Christ never stops asking the people of the earth to seek him and to find him. The Lord God says to the people of the world in Isaiah chapter 55 verses 6 to 8, seek ye the Lord while you may be found. Call upon his name while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord. And he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon And then the Lord goes on to say, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways. Therefore we got to seek his ways. We are told about Rehoboam, he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. Now here is a man brought up, as I said, where God is believed and God's knowledge is taught. The temple of God was in Jerusalem. The headquarters of the king was in Jerusalem. When he became the king, you know, he was zealous for God. He was zealous for God. And Jeroboam, the other king of the ten tribes in the north, He and the people of that 10th tribe had departed from the faith in the Lord God and actually Jeroboam the king was responsible for this. He did not want his people to go to Jerusalem to worship the Lord, thinking that his people would depart from his tribes, the ten tribes that were given to him. They would depart and go and join Rehoboam, the king of Judah. So what did he do? Instead of worshipping the Lord, he made two carves, two carves of gold, and he placed them in two different parts of his kingdom. And he told the people, here is your God. Here is your God, worship, worship. And it is this God that has delivered you from the hands of Pharaoh. It is this God that has delivered you from the bondage of the Egyptians. Rehoboam, the king of Judah, the son of Solomon, was very angry for what Jeroboam had done and he gathered his warriors and he wanted to make war against Jeroboam and the ten tribes of Israel. You see the zeal for the Lord that he showed He was ready to fight and die in order that the other king and the people worship the Lord. But the Lord sent his prophet and told him that he should not go to war against his own people. And the people obeyed. Well, I want to bring to your notice how a person can be very religious and full of zeal, even ready to die for his religion. But we are told by God that Rehoboam did evil because he prepared not to seek the Lord. He did not, with his whole heart and mind, seek the Lord. And this goes to show he had a form of religion. He kept the outward show of religion. He was committed to his religion, but he truly did not know the Lord God Almighty personally. He did not know him. He did not have a personal relationship with God. He did not have the spirit of God in him. He did not depart from his sin, even though he was religious. Could this be you? Very religious, doing a lot of things, joining a lot of committees and work groups. going perhaps to prison, to give the gospel, doing social work that the church are engaged in, but you personally don't love the Lord as God wants you to love Him. You personally don't obey the word of God as God wants you to obey Him and to be of one heart and mind. with God. Look at the words of the Lord in Isaiah chapter 55 as we read, Seek ye the Lord while ye may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord for he will have mercy, have mercy on him. To whom is God talking to? He is talking to very religious people, the people of Israel, who has the word of God with them, the prophecies and all the great works that God showed to them in Egypt and during the 40 years of their travel. He is talking to them. God is asking the very nation that he has formed for himself and given his word, his laws, his prophecies and promises. He is telling them, seek the Lord while you may be found. Return unto the Lord. Forsake your wickedness and evil ways. You see dear friends, Although we may be brought up in a religious family and we go to church or to the mosque or to the temple, we do not give much attention to our evil ways. We think with our own thoughts and the way that we should walk and with our own convictions We can enter into the kingdom of God. We can enter into heaven. We don't want to learn the thoughts of the Lord. We don't want to see and know his path as he has shown to us, as it is written to us. So the Lord says, let him return to the Lord. Return from what? From where? From your ignorance. from your sinful and rebellious ways. Let him repent, meaning turn from your ways, turn from your ideologies, turn from the way that what you do and what you think and what you feel and come to understand my ways, my thoughts. We are told that for three years After Rehoboam became the king, the king and the people walked in the way of David and Solomon. They actually walked according to the way of David and Solomon. 2 Chronicles chapter 11 verse 17, during this time the king and the people built cities put captains in them, formed a strong army to defend themselves and built storehouses to store in grain, oil and wine. They walked in the way of David and his grandfather, his grandfather and Solomon, his father. This would mean They did the exterior things of what David and Solomon did. David was a man after the heart of God. He was a very godly man. He loved God and had a very great deep relationship with Him. He confessed his sins, he admitted his guilt and rebellion against God and he truly walked humbly with a contrite heart before the Lord God Almighty. And God revealed himself to David. God spoke to David and prophesied through him and promised that the Messiah would come through his seed. But Rehoboam had no deep repentance and relationship with God. He was not a converted person. And so we are told in chapter 12, verse 1, when it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord. You see that? And all Israel with him. All Israel with him. This is where his real desire and heart was. This was his treasure. The moment he and the people got richer, established a strong army, progressed in development, he and the people forsook the law of the Lord. Jesus says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be. Rehoboam's very nature His very heart was not after to seek God and find Him, love Him, honour Him, obey Him and find fulfilment in God, but his heart was fixed on the material prosperity, on defence, on fame, on establishment, on development, on security and the like. So the moment Rehoboam had established the kingdom and strengthened himself. Like Solomon, he forsook the law, forsook the law, the doctrines of the Lord. What about you? Where are you at this moment of your life? and perhaps you will keep seeking till your old age, never ever giving serious thought to seek after the eternal things of life and confirm yourself to the calling that God has given to you. Even after you have got what you got, you will seek for more and for more. The Bible constantly tells us that the Lord looks down to find if there is any that seek Him. He looks down from above to see if there is any If there is any that wants to know him, to come under his sovereignty, to come under his guidance, to love his ways and to love his commands and his justice and his love, and the answer the Lord gives is no. No, there is none. In Psalm 14 verse 2, we are told the Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. And the answer is no. We go after the knowledge that will give us good jobs, good salary, good position, unlimited comfort, luxury cars and houses. We want to know and relate with men and women of high degree, with lofty thoughts and imitate them in our outlook, copy their views and make their opinions our own so that we be acceptable in the society. The Lord says, there is none righteous, not one. All have gone astray. All have gone astray. Therefore, God in his loving kindness sent his prophets to tell the people to seek the Lord and to return to the Lord. Return to me, he said. And then ultimately at the appointed time, God sent his only son to tell us that we are lost. and God has sent him to find us and bring us back to him, to the Father. Jesus says, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. I have not come to seek the righteous, the Lord Jesus says, but sinners to repentance. I have come to find the lost sheep That's you and me, dear friends. You and me. Dear friends, remember, we are lost and cut off from the holy and righteous God. Today the Lord is asking you to return to him. Return to him. He's asking you to speak to him. being brought up with the word of God in his house, with the temple worshipped next to his place, yet he did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord. A person who wants to seek the Lord says, as it is stated in Psalm 27 verse 8, Lord, when thou Say, seek ye my face. My heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. You see, when you hear the Lord telling you, seek me first, your heart should say, Lord, I want to seek you with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, with all my strength. Has that happened to you? And are you really seeking Him with everything that you have? When a person understands what it means to seek the Lord, this person cannot but hold on to this mission in life. Why? Because when you seek the Lord and find Him, you begin to live. You begin to live. God is the life giver. He is the source of life, eternal life. Without him it is death, eternal death, hell fires. Prophet Amos reminds us saying in chapter 5 verse 6, Seek the Lord and he shall live. Seek the Lord and you shall live, lest he break out like fire upon you and devour you and there be none to quench it. A very serious warning, dear friends. Nobody likes to be told and to be warned. But God is a surgeon, is a doctor, a healer of our soul. And he knows that our soul is sick, is depraved, is corrupt, is dead. And therefore he wants to awaken it. Therefore he wants to give us life. And so he says, seek it. because at the end the consequence of it is terrible. You know the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us to ask for example in Matthew chapter 7 verse 7, ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you for everyone that seeketh receive it and he that seeketh find it and to him that knocketh it shall be opened What is the Lord Jesus Christ asking us to ask of the Father? Most of the time we ask for all the material things that we need, comfort, strength, good health, good jobs, good houses and more and more. But what is the best thing that the Lord God is asking us to ask? because at the end of this teaching Jesus says, will he not give you that which is good? Will not the father give you that which is good? So what is that good thing? In God's estimate, what is the best thing? What is the best gift that he wants to give you and me? It is the everlasting thing, the heavenly thing, to inherit the kingdom of God. It is to inherit the wealth of Christ himself. So what is this inheritance? What's a good gift? It is the Holy Spirit. The very Spirit of the Risen Lord. What can be better, in God's estimate, better than the Holy Spirit? What can be better? His own Spirit, which gives life and the Kingdom itself. It is in this context that the Saviour commands us to ask that we receive the best gift, the Holy Spirit, which is the very life of Christ Jesus. It is to give this gift, the Holy Spirit, the heavenly inheritance, that the Son of God came and laid his life for our salvation. Jesus, the Son of God, became man and shed his blood so that he could make us right with God. Right with God, Jesus, the son of God, sacrificed his life in our place. He alone, the only pure and prophet man that was sent down to walk on this earth and destroy the works of Satan, overcome sin, he alone could satisfy God's righteousness. He alone could turn away the wrath of God that was upon us because of our sin. So Jesus took our place, dear friends, your place and my place, and suffered and died so that we would be spared of eternal damnation in hell. Our search for peace, love and hope ends when we understand and accept the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. He performed for us this great sacrifice for our salvation. Our search for God is made complete when we put our faith in Christ Jesus and make him our Lord and God. Jesus makes us righteous when we agree with what Christ has done for us. and say, Lord, we are sinners, we are cut off from you, we don't have this life, we don't have this righteousness, we don't have this holiness, give us thy Holy Spirit, Lord. Give us, that we may be able to obey you and love you. And in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit that he gives us, we understand ourselves. Our sinfulness, our rebellion, our weakness, our total depravity and inability to please God. We come to realise that with Christ Jesus we can overcome Satan's sin and we will be raised from the dead as Jesus rose from the dead. What a marvellous plan the Lord has for us. What a glorious hope he has given to mankind. We come to understand that there is a time, dear friend, and this is so very important to know and understand and to remember that there is a time given to each of us to seek the Lord, to forsake our sin, to put our faith in Christ Jesus and build a strong relationship with him. There is a time given to each of us and the time is always Now, it doesn't matter whether you are a 3-year-old or 10-year-old or 20-year-old or 16-year-old or 30, 40, 90, the time is now. Now, while we still have life, we cannot ask God to save us after we are dead and we are at the throne of God for judgement. No, we cannot bang on the door of heaven after our death and plead to the Lord God, please make me enter in, make me enter in. Look what the Lord Jesus says in Luke chapter 13 verse 25, when once the master of the house has risen up and has shut the door and you begin to stand outside and you keep on knocking at the door. The Lord will not open, but you keep knocking and knocking and say, Lord open the door for me and he will answer and say, look I don't know you, I don't know you, who you are, what a slap on the face, what a slap on the face. Think about it. Examine yourself, dear friends. Do you hear the Lord saying to you, I don't know you? Who are you? Well, I'm only saying what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying and warning us. You know, there are many who claim to be Christians. In these days, all of a sudden, film stars, pop singers, famous boxes. and wrestlers and athletes and businessmen are saying that they follow Jesus and they love Jesus and they talk about the love of Jesus and how we must love all and while they tell us to love all and accept all they are enjoying their lives in the things of the world and they tell us to accept all manner of sins that God hates Even pastors and many church leaders, like the Pope, say the same thing. We must love all and accept all. There cannot be any separation. But God is holy. Why should he say to us, repent? Why should he say to us, seek the Lord and return to me? but they do not understand these basic things because they are not truly born of the Holy Spirit. And now you could be saying, when these great men are telling they love God and that God loves all and accepts all, whether they be living in sin or not, who are you to tell us that we must seek Christ Jesus and we must repent of our sinful ways in order to be accepted by God. Well, there are many that will come in my name, Jesus says. There are many that will deceive the people. Besides, Jesus says, all those that say, Lord, Lord, are not his followers. and they will not enter into the kingdom of God. They are a pretend. Wolves instinctually clone and they will perish. Actually Jesus told his disciples Yet a little while is the light with you. The light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness comes upon you. For he that walketh in darkness knoweth not where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may be the children of light. These things Jesus spoke and departed. Dear friends, the light of the risen Lord Jesus Christ is still on this earth by which he enlightens the world through the Holy Spirit. But very soon, God will take away his Spirit from the earth as he took it away during the time of Noah. What is the Spirit of God? It is his word. It is his word. Jesus says my words are spirit and they are life-giving words. They are life-giving words. You know the word of God, the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament are the two witnesses that God has given for the people. The Old Testament as a witness when the commandments were put into the Ark and what was it called? Witness. They stood as a witness and that Word of God was read to the people and the Word of God stood as a witness and so it is with the New Testament. The Word of God stands as a witness to the old and to the new. And a time will come when man will totally live by the fleshes in the days of Noah and people will be totally ignorant. There will be no knowledge of the word of God. People will be under total delusion and will be under the spell of Satan. Everything spoken and believed will be opposite to the teachings of the Bible. That is why there is so much of suppression. of the Word of God. Don't preach. You are hurting and insulting people. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, wherever it went with the colonizers, they never gave the Word of God, whether it be China, whether it be India, whether it be down in South America or wherever. They never translated the Word of God and gave it to the people in their own language. Why? That's a question that every Roman Catholic must ask. Why? The word of God is the light of the nations. Is it not? It brings salvation. It brings total change and destroys the darkness. that the people lived in, but they would not give the word of God to the people, rather they gave the crucifix and the idols and beads of the rosary and so on. If you get an opportunity to watch this film called Silence, watch it and you will know what the Roman Catholic Church offered these Chinese people. Nothing, no word of God, but mass and prayers, the rosary, and the beads, and the idols. How sad, dear friends. So, now is the time. These are fearful days. Now is the time to seek the Lord God and His Son Jesus Christ. Do not neglect your salvation. It is far more precious than gold and rubies and far more valuable than anything of this world. When you die, you will leave everything behind, but take your soul before Him. And Jesus would say, if you are not born of the Spirit, Who are you? I don't know you. Depart from me. The Lord warns us that we should not harden our hearts. The Lord desires that we seek Him and find Him. Look what King Rehoboam did. He began to establish himself. He began to strengthen himself. He began to make himself secure and self-sufficient. He made storehouses and houses to store wine and oil and grains. And we make every effort to save, perhaps in the bank and to become secure. And the Word of God tells us that we should encourage and warn one another daily that we should not harden our hearts to the calling of the Lord God Almighty. Let me end these words from the scripture with the words from the scripture, but seek first the kingdom of God and the rest will be added to you. Whatever is your necessity, The Lord will provide, I can guarantee you, for he has done that to me and he does everyone that put their trust in him and seek first God's kingdom. But let me read this for you and finish. Hebrews chapter 3 verse 13, the scriptures that we read in our second reading. But exhort one another daily while it is called today. lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Let us pray. How great art thou, O Lord our God, How loving and compassionate art Thou, O Lord, and how patient art Thou, that Thou should, O Lord, day in and day out remind us our primary goal, that we are to seek Thee, that Thou, that we make Thee our treasure. O gracious Saviour, Help us, O Lord, our God, that we love Thee with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength. And, O Lord, if we have not found Thee as yet, that we may seek Thee with everything that we have in our system. O God, our Father, bless us now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.