you Well, good morning to you. Today,
I'd like to encourage you from 2 Chronicles chapter 12. But
before we get there, I want to appeal to a couple of verses
in Psalm 119. Some of these we looked at probably
a couple of weeks ago, and I want to revisit them this morning
because they set the stage for what we're going to see in 2
Chronicles 12. But in Psalm 119, the psalmist
is crying out to the Lord because there's some kind of affliction
going on. He doesn't specify what it is in detail, but it's
clear he's surrounded by that which is, to him, quite oppressive. So, for example, in Psalm 119,
verse 153, He says, consider my affliction
and deliver me. In the previous section of the
psalm, he says in verse 146, verse 145, he says, I cry out
with my whole heart, hear me, O Lord. Verse 46, I cry out to
you, save me, save me. Verse 147, I rise before the
dawning of the morning and cry for help, and crying for help,
In verse 143, he says, trouble and anguish have overtaken me. So he's obviously in a great
deal of affliction. Back in verse 107, he says, I
am afflicted very much. Revive me, O Lord. Revive me
because of this great affliction. Now, in the earlier section,
the Teth section, verses 65 to 72, the psalmist says in verse
67, he says, before I was afflicted, I went astray. And in verse 71
he says, it is good for me that I have been afflicted that I
may learn your statutes. Now, what I want to point out
here with the psalmist is that apparently, as he's dealing with
whatever the affliction is, and it has compelled him to cry out
to the Lord for relief and deliverance from that affliction, he responded
to the relief that came in a very good way. He says, before I was
afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. He says,
it was good that I had been afflicted, that I may learn your statute. So he was afflicted, he cried
out to the Lord, and in that affliction, the Lord turned his
attention to God's word, the psalmist to God's word, and he
listened and paid attention. The Lord delivered him from that
affliction, and he says, now I keep your word. Now the reason
I did all that is because of what we read in 2 Chronicles
12. Solomon has died and after Solomon
died his son Rehoboam took over the throne and his pride and
stubbornness and his desire for power ended up resulting in a
divided kingdom. Remember, Jeroboam came to Rehoboam
and said, please, relieve this tax burden, it's overwhelming,
it's just so burdensome, please give us a break. And Rehoboam
said, nah, I'm not gonna give you a break, I'm gonna make it
even more difficult for you, you come at me like this. And
so Jeroboam and 10 tribes of Israel said, okay, we're outta
here, and they split and divided the kingdom in two. Jeroboam
became the king of the ten tribes and leaving Rehoboam to be the
king over Judah and Benjamin. This was a time of great turmoil
for Rehoboam and he really struggled during that time. Initially,
he tried to force the ten tribes. He was going to go to war against
Jeroboam. God said, don't do it, don't
do it. And so Rehoboam, he didn't do
it. But then finally, we come to verse one of chapter 12. And
it says, it came to pass when Rehoboam had established the
kingdom and had strengthened himself. So you get the sense
in this first half of the verse that the season of affliction,
the crisis, has passed. Now what are you going to do?
How many times have you seen this? Maybe in your life, hope
not, but maybe so. But how many times have you seen
it in the lives of some of other people you know? They're in a
time of great crisis and then what do they do? They turn wholeheartedly
to the church. and give this great sense of
wanting to get right with God, and life is going to be for Christ
now, and all the rest of that kind of stuff as they're going
through that crisis. And then the crisis passes, and
what happens to them? What do they do? I'm afraid far
too often they fall away. They fall away. If they don't
fall completely out of the church and away from God's people and
God's house, then A lot of times they just become complacent and,
you know, like casual attenders to church. And that commitment
that they had when they were going through the time of affliction,
well, the affliction's gone. The crisis is over. They can
take a breath and they can breathe again and just relax. Well, this is what happened to
Rehoboam. The crisis was over. He established the kingdom and
strengthened himself. And then it says, he forsook
the law of the Lord and all Israel with him. He led everybody under
him to forsake the Lord too. So there's a great warning here
and a challenge. If you're in a time of affliction
and you're crying out to the Lord, Crying out to the Lord
is a good thing. Rededicating yourself in a time
of affliction is a good thing. Committing yourself to obedience
and eliminating stuff in your life that you know is wrong and
problematic, that's a good thing. But I trust that the affliction
is teaching you to now live that way. so that when the affliction
passes, you won't just take a heavy, deep breath and say, okay, now
I can go back to doing what I was doing, living the way I was living.
No, be like the psalmist. I was afflicted, but now I keep
your word. Our Father and our God, deliver
us from being like Rehoboam. I pray that we would have an
earnest desire and commitment to living for Christ, obeying
your word, and demonstrating that in our everyday life, we
pray. In Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, listen,
I hope you have a good rest of your day and that our God will
bless you richly in it. Good day.