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.