Servitude Or Service–Which?
(No. 2306)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, APRIL 30, 1893.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, APRIL
14, 1889.
"Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know My
service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries." 2
Chronicles 12:8.
THE people of God had left their God and He had left them, so that
Shishak, the king of Egypt, came against them, and though the Lord had
respect to their humble prayer and would not suffer Shishak to destroy
Jerusalem, yet He brought them into subjection to the Egyptian king.
Our text tells us the reason for this servitude–"They shall be his
servants; that they may know My service, and the service of the
kingdoms of the countries."
Beloved Friends, the children of Israel were bound to the service of
God. Jehovah had chosen them out of all the nations of the world to be
His people. He had committed the Holy Oracles to the seed of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob–they were, from before the foundation of the world,
set apart in the eternal purpose to be the Lord's. That highly
honorable and gracious choice ought to have bound them to His service.
In addition to this, they were called out by His own voice. Their
father, Abraham, was fetched out from Ur of the Chaldees where he
served other gods, and he was led to know Jehovah and to follow Him. He
walked with God and God was very familiar with him, so that He spoke
with him as a man speaks with his friend. All along the ages God called
His people out from the world. Especially did He call them out of
Egypt, delivering them out of the house of bondage with a high hand and
with an outstretched arm. He led them through the wilderness, fed them
with manna and instructed them and, in this way, He separated them to
be His own peculiar portion beyond all the sons of men. By their
calling, then, as well as by their election, they were bound to keep
close to the one living and true God.
And above this, as if to make them doubly His own, He entered into a
Covenant with them. It was first made with Abraham, then it was renewed
with Isaac and with Jacob. The Covenant was still further ratified in
the wilderness where the Lord promised that when they came into Canaan,
He would be their God and He would bless them. But He stipulated that
they must obey His voice, cling to Him and have Him, only, to be their
God. Also His Word and His Law were to be the rule and guide of their
life. This Covenant, God always kept, but the people broke it very
soon, so that Moses shattered the tablets of stone, a fit symbol of the
way in which Israel broke the Law of God!
Is it not very sad to think that the great God, who made the heavens
and the earth, should have but one nation out of all the inhabitants of
the world–and these His by choice, by calling and by Covenant–and yet
that they should continually grow weary of Him? Other peoples did not
change their gods. It was a rare thing for a nation to cast away its
idols in those days. But Israel, which alone had the true God, while
the rest had gods that were only idols, quit the living and true God to
set up in His place the gods of the heathen which could do them no
good!
Now, this phenomenon of human nature, this going after idols and
leaving the true God, is constantly being renewed. We have the same
thing, even, in the Church of God, which never seems to be satisfied
with chaste love for Christ, but continually goes after one strange
lover and another. Thus Christ's pure Truth is left for some brilliant
error! And His simple worship is deserted for some invention of man!
Even when God spoke by His servant, Shemaiah, the Prophet, the men of
Judah were itching to be after their idols and panting to get away from
God! And the Lord said, "Inasmuch as they have forsaken Me, I have left
them in the hand of Shishak, and they shall be his servants; that they
may know My service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries."
I. In considering these words, tonight, I shall say, first, that THERE
ARE SOME WHO HAVE ALREADY CHOSEN THE SERVICE OF THE KINGDOMS OF THE
COUNTRIES.
We have many round about us who have deliberately chosen not to serve
God, but to serve other masters. O Beloved, if you have chosen to serve
God, it is because God has chosen you! If I am speaking, tonight, to
any of you whose one objective in life is God's Glory, who can truly
say that you live as in the fear of God, and before Him, endeavoring to
please Him–that is evidence of a work of Grace within your heart. You
are very grateful that such a work of Grace has been worked upon you,
but how many there are of our follow men who have chosen some other god
and some other way of living!
Some choose to be the slaves of open sin. Hardly, I think, would they
choose such slavery if they really knew all that it included, but they
have chosen it practically. How many there are who are the devotees of
drunkenness! Ah, me, what can they see in Bacchus that they should
worship him? Others are the slaves of licentiousness. I need not
mention the forms of uncleanness in which so many wallow in this foul
city of ours, where the temptation to sin is in every street. The forms
of evil are many–I need not mention them, for, if I did, I might omit
one and then, perhaps, the person who is under its influence might
fancy that I did not think it to be a sin! But if you choose to live
for sinful pleasure, let me tell you that you have entered upon a
servitude compared with which the service of God is light and pleasant,
indeed. Whatever the strictest form of religion may require of you, it
will never demand of you so much as vicious pleasures will. I could
stand here and tell of cases that have come under my own notice, of men
and women who, in pursuit of sin, have brought themselves to beggary.
Have I not seen the son of honest and godly parents clothed in rags and
covered with vermin, so that when I spoke to him, I could not, with the
utmost sympathy, dare to come within an arm's length of him?
Have I not seen the same sort of person, through drunkenness, full of
disease, bloated and surely soon to die? And when other sins have been
added to these, have we not, sometimes, been in a hospital where,
talking with a wretched man upon his bed, who brought upon himself the
whole of his disease, we could not but feel that a martyr, when he died
at the stake, did not endure for God such awful agony as this poor fool
endured in the pursuit of his lusts? I tell you, and I defy the world
to doubt the statement, that the service of sin is the most horrible of
slaveries and, that, when men give themselves to it, and their passions
become dominant, the worse serfdom that there ever was upon the face of
the earth is freedom compared with the bondage of a man's own passions!
If you want to know the truth about this matter, I would not advise you
to learn it by experience, but I would recommend you to go to someone
who has run his evil course and has come to the end of it–and ask him
if it is not true that the wages of sin is death! Then go to the dying
Christian, like one of our Brethren who has passed away this week, a
man who spent his Sabbaths preaching the Word and earned his bread in
the week-days. When he came to die, with an internal cancer, those who
saw him said that nobody could be happier, nobody could be more full of
triumph than he in the prospect of soon being with his Savior! Oh, let
me serve God! Let me not serve my lusts! Young men, young women, God
help you, by His Grace, to make that wise and happy choice at once!
There are many persons who are not the worshippers of vice, but they
are the votaries of making money. They are the slaves of the thirst for
wealth. This is a very common evil and I invite you to look upon those
who have made gain the one objective of life. Some have carried it out
very resolutely. The miser lives poor that he may die rich. He scrapes
money together that his heir may fling it away. I think that his god is
a very poor one and that the service he renders to his god is a very
wretched business, for when he succeeds in gathering money, then there
is the care of keeping it–and with some it is a very great care,
indeed! I will not mention the name of one of the richest men of this
period, but I believe it is true that when one congratulated him upon
his great wealth, he said, "Oh, do not talk in that way! Here is a
fellow who has just written to me, saying that I must give him L200 or
else he will blow my brains out! And, wherever I am, I am always being
persecuted for money. Money brings no happiness to people who possess
it." He is one who ought to know, for he has more than most men. You
will find that persons who rise in what are called the ranks of
society, do not have more happiness–they only have a heavier load to
carry.
I find one stick to be a great help to me when I go out walking, but if
I had a bundle of 20 sticks, I suppose I should find it quite a load to
carry. And those who accumulate so much wealth often have to confess
that the game is not worth the candle–they have only acquired that
which they cannot enjoy. A man cannot wear more than one suit of
clothes at a time, after all, and let him do what he likes, he cannot
eat seven dinners in a day, and he cannot enjoy ten times more than
anyone else. While the poor man always has a stomach for his meat and
his only trouble is to get meat for his stomach, this poor rich man can
find no appetite to enjoy his dainties. Ah, the advocate of making
money is employed in a hard service! I have seen him, even when he is
getting old, and when he has made sufficient wealth, with his nose
still on the grindstone! He must always be at the office. He must be
always sticking to his post like the worst paid clerk in the place–and
he is still as stingy as ever. He has buried himself beneath a hill of
gold. Live for God, my dear Sir–He will give you the things of this
life–He will show you how to get as much as shall be truly useful to
you! But if you make gold your god, you will serve a hard master!
There are some others who do not try to get much money, but they are
lovers offashion, lovers of society, admirers of the world. I will not
say much about these ladies and gentlemen. I do not think that I have
enough respect for them to speak about their special form of slavery.
They must go away from London when "society" goes. They would be
ashamed to stay at home when fashionable people go out of town. They
must go to such-and-such a place, not because they care to go there,
but because it is the fashion! They have to do just this much and they
must not do that much. Poor slaves, I should like to snap every link of
their chains! It does seem such a dreadful piece of slavery for men and
women that they dare not do what is right, and what they would like to
do, but must do what other people do! Etiquette binds them hand and
foot. Oh, that they had but the will and the strength to break these
fetters! The man who dresses for fashion and lives for fashion, ceases
to be a man! I know what they call such creatures, but I will not
repeat the term of contempt which is applied to them. The woman who
lives only to be fashionable ceases to be a woman. I will say no more
about her. This idol of fashion is a hard and silly god, for it
requires its devotees to make themselves into fools, if not into
something worse.
Then there is another cult that has lately come up which some have
chosen, so that they have become the devotees of "culture." Many have
forsaken the simple Gospel and turned away from the belief in their
Bible which their mother had, and in which their father died, because
they want to be considered very thoughtful and clever and superior
persons! Now, I have noticed that whenever a person gives up his belief
in the Word of God because it requires that he should believe a good
deal, his unbelief requires him to believe a great deal more. If there
are any difficulties in the faith of Christ, they are not one-tenth as
great as the absurdities in any system of unbelief which seeks to take
its place! I do not hesitate to say that the whole doctrine of
Evolution, with which many men are fascinated today, is ten thousand
times more absurd than the most ridiculous travesty of what is taught
in the Word of God and, it requires more faith, and also far greater
gullibility than to believe any doctrine which is deduced from Holy
Scripture!
You will find great demands made upon your faith by Shishak, if you
become his servants. He will tax you and take all you have, whereas, to
believe what God has said is, after all, but a reasonable service. The
man who goes in for the new ideas in religion–the man of "progress,"
who is so wise and learned–must confess that he loses that sweet rest
of heart that he has seen in Christian people, which was enjoyed by the
godly woman described by Cowper–
"Who knows, and knows no more, her Bible true, A truth the brilliant
Frenchman never knew." There is safe anchorage for us, here, but there
is no anchorage in the sea ofpersonal infallibility. "Oh!" says one, "I
never claimed that." No, my dear Sir, but there must be infallibility
somewhere–and if you are the judge of the Word of God, you have
shifted the infallibility from the Word to yourself–and you are really
the claimant of it. In your own heart of hearts, you think so! Where
will you ever get rest with such a delusion as that? He who rests on
himself, rests on a very frail foundation, indeed!
I believe this night that upon which I can pray, that upon which I can
live, that upon which I can die! My faith is fixed in the revealed Word
of God and I find that it sustains me in the hour of bitter bodily
pain, with which I am too well acquainted–and in the hour of deep
depression of spirit, with which I am all too familiar–and in the time
of cruel desertion, for I have had some of the best friends fail me.
And in the time of slander, for who has had anything worse spoken of
him than they have uttered against me? I can fall back upon the eternal
Truths of God–they are the hills from which my help comes–and they
never fail me. Can any man say the same of his "culture" and
"progress," and of his "advanced thought"? Can he live or die on such
stuff as that? Why, he cannot even live on it, for, by his own
admission, he cannot write out his creed because he believes one thing,
today, but he may believe quite another thing tomorrow–and
the next day he will, in all probability, have shifted his ground,
again. Oh, this Shishak, this new god, lately come up– his service is
unspeakably harder than the service of the eternal Truth of God–and
there is no wage to be won from it!
I will only refer to one more class of those who have chosen the
service of the kingdoms–these are the seekers of self-righteousness.
This is an old-fashioned and very respectable deity whom many still
worship. They are seeking to be saved by their own works, by their
charitableness, by their religiousness, by sacraments, by priests, by
their own feelings, by something of their own! It is a hard way in
which a man never has any rest or assurance. It is a way in which he
runs because of the crack of the whip behind him–"Do this and you
shall live! Do not do this and you shall perish!" How infinitely
superior is the way of simply trusting Christ and then obeying Him out
of gratitude–not working for life, but from life! Not seeking to serve
Christ in order to be saved, but because you are saved, and wish to
work out that which God has worked in you, to will and to do of His own
good pleasure!
Surveying these different masters, I venture to say, once and for all,
and then I leave this part of my subject, that those who have chosen
the service of the kingdoms have made a very foolish and evil
choice–and that those who have chosen the service of God may forever
bless the Lord with all their hearts!
II. Here is our second point. SOME SEEM TO BE PINING TO GIVE UP THE
SERVICE OF GOD AND TO GO TO THE SERVICE OF THE KINGDOMS.
It is a strange thing, but this evil is always breaking out even among
the people of God. Some want to change out of sheer love of change.
That you should want to change ministers, I do not at all wonder–my
voice must have become very monotonous to some of you–but that you
should want to change gospels, that does distress me! That there should
be any man who grows weary of the everlasting chimes of the glorious
notes of Free Grace and dying love appalls me. No, no! Let me hear the
voice of God through eternity, for it has a perpetual freshness and
novelty about it! I can bear with the monotony of the preacher, if the
monotone is still full of Jesus and His love. But there are some people
who cannot be constant to anything. They are like the moon. You could
not measure the moon for a suit of clothes with the hope of ever
fitting it and, so, you cannot tell what these men are or where they
are, for they are always changing.
Some want to be off to their idols because of the outward aspect of the
new thing. It looks grand to them to go in for the "culture" ideas, and
it seems a fine thing to live for the world. Men of the world seem so
grand as they roll along in their carriages–why should we not be as
great as they? Then there is something very tangible about minding the
main chance, for, after all, if you do not get the pounds and pence,
where are you? The world will not think much of you! "Oh!" says one, "I
like the thought of this following after Christ, but He is a root out
of a dry ground, and His people are generally poor, common sort of
folk. I should like to get in among the uppermost people." When men
begin to run down the people of God, I always find that they are not
worth much, themselves. When any man is ashamed of a child of God
because he is poor, he must be a very poor creature, himself. But that
is often a reason for turning away from the service of God to the
service of the kingdoms.
Sometimes men turn aside because of their loss ofjoy in the service of
God. They are not serving the Lord as they used to do. They are doing
but little for Him. Now, a little religion is a very bitter thing. If
you have only a little of it, you will find that there is no sweetness
in it. It is like the boys that go to bathe in the river in the early
morning. One just dips his foot in the water. "Ugh!" he cries. It
shivers him right through, but he who takes a header and plunges in,
glows all over in a moment! I wish that some religious people would
just take a header. If they did, they would feel the joy of the Lord
thrill through them and there would be no fear that they would ever
want to leave His service. Beware of a little godliness! To say, "I
want just as much religion as will take me into Heaven, just as much
godliness as will save my bacon," is dishonoring to Christ and
essentially evil. When the joy is gone out of religion, we do not
wonder that men want to get away from it.
Then, there are many who are led to want a change from the service of
God by the flagging of others. They meet with many who say, "Well,
really, you are not going to keep to that old style of things, are
you?" Another says, "I have found something very brilliant and fresh."
They listen to these tempting voices and they think to themselves, "One
cannot always go against the stream." If they would really think, they
would remember that live fish swim against the stream–it is the dead
fish that go floating down with the tide. I like the man who says, "I
am not going to take my religion from my companions. If they do not
intend to go to Heaven, I am sorry for them. But as for myself, I know
what I am doing. My heart is fixed, almighty God, fixed on You,
believing in Your dear Son, resting in His precious blood! I am
resolved,
come fair or foul, to keep my face towards the Celestial City till I
behold the King in His beauty and reign with Him forever and ever." God
give you that fixed and firm resolution! Many cannot do anything
contrary to their surroundings– they must do as other people do, poor
creatures that they are.
There are some who turn aside because religion has brought them to a
point where it entails some extra self-sacrifice. I have known some who
have said, "Well, I am prepared for many things in the cause of God,
but we must draw a line, somewhere. One may buy gold too dearly. I
could not, for instance, give up my employment. If my employer
commanded me to do a wrong thing, I think that I should stretch my
conscience a little and do it. I could not lose my job." Another says,
"Well, I could not enter a protest against such-and-such an error. If I
did, I should have all my friends down upon me and they would call me
bigoted and narrow-minded." And that would break your heart, would it?
It would be a very soft heart if it would. "Oh, but really, I am not
the man to stand out by myself!" Are you not? Remember that text, "The
fearful"–that is, the cowardly–"and unbelieving shall have their part
in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone." God grant that you
may not have that for your portion! Oh, that you may follow Christ at
all hazards! Be this your word–
"Through floods and flames, if Jesus leads, I'll follow where He goes!
'Hinder me not,' shall be my cry, Though earth and Hell oppose."
III. I am going to finish with this point. THERE IS A GREAT CONTRAST
BETWEEN THE SERVICE OF GOD
AND ANY OTHER SERVICE.
The service of God is delightful. Remember, young man, if you are about
to engage in the service of God, there is nothing demanded of you that
will harm you. There is no Commandment of God which, if you keep it,
will injure either your body or your soul. There is nothing asked of
you but what will be for your benefit–nothing that will really be to
your loss. If it should seem to involve a present loss, yet it shall be
turned to future gain, for God will overrule it for your permanent
good.
Next, notice, that there is nothing denied you in the service of God
that would be a blessing to you. The promise is, "No good thing will He
withhold from them that walk uprightly." You shall neither have less
pleasure, nor less strength, nor less real honor if you obey the
Commands of God. You may seem, sometimes, to give up what appears to be
pleasant to you, but God denies His children nothing that would be
really for their advantage. The service of God is, after all, such a
service that if we lived selfishly, we might wish to live as God bids
us live. If a man were infinitely wise and could fashion a life which,
upon the whole, would be best for himself, he could not do better than
to fashion it according to the Commands of God and the example of
Christ–and you cannot say that of any of the servitudes of which I
have spoken.
Once more, observe, that in the service of God strength will always be
given according to your day. When you serve the Lord, if He sends you
out upon a tough piece of work, He will give you extra Grace. And if He
calls you to great suffering, He will give you greater patience. He
does not require of you more than He is prepared to give you. He will
do for you exceeding abundantly above what you ask or even think! What
a service is this in which we are never sent to warfare at our own
charges? Shishak, the king of Egypt, and all the Egyptian kings built
pyramids and dug canals. You have often wondered how they made them. In
the reign of one of them, nearly a third of a million of people were
forced to go and dig a canal–and they were not only never paid a
penny, but they never had even a piece of bread given to them, nor were
they even furnished with tools. The bulk of them had to dig out the
canals with their own fingers and they perished by the thousands. That
is your Shishak, king of Egypt! That is the devil's service all over!
There is no reward given and no help whatever. You are left to do the
best you can–and that best brings you no reward, either in this life
or in that which is to come.
Here, again, is a further beauty about the service of God, that there
is no threat made to hang upon it. You are saved if you are a believer
in Christ–that matter is done with–Christ has saved you! You do not
go out to work for God with any idea of winning Heaven, or of escaping
Hell by what you do. You are saved and you serve the Lord with a
higher, purer, grander motive, namely, that of unselfish gratitude,
loving Him because He first loved you! You serve God after a very
different fashion from the servitude of sin. The servitude of a slave
is bitter, but the service of a son is sweet– and to that we are
called!
And all the while that you are the servant of God, you have a sweet
peace in reflecting upon what you have done. Did you ever go out for a
day, or for an evening, with friends, spending a merry time in gaiety,
perhaps not altogether censurable, but still, not entirely commendable?
When you have gone upstairs to bed, have you not thought, "Well,
somehow, I do not feel quite happy"? When you went to pray, did you not
feel as if you had broken your knees? And when you awoke in the night
and thought over what seemed so very nice at the time, was it not honey
in your mouth, but gall in your stomach? Did you ever spend a whole day
in the service of God? When you have gone to bed at night, how have you
felt? Very tired, perhaps, but oh, so thankful that you could look upon
it all without regret! You could chew the cud of that service! There
was something in the remembrance that soothed you in the night. As
George Herbert said, when he helped a poor woman with her load–and men
wondered that the parson of the parish should carry a poor woman's
basket for her–"The memory of this will make the bells ring in my
heart at night," so the service of God makes the bells ring in our
hearts!
Lastly, there is above all this, a hope of the eternal reward which is
so soon to come. I spoke, the other day, on board ship with a Brother
in Christ, and as we talked together, I said, "Well, you know, I may be
in Heaven in a quarter of an hour. If the ship went down, I do not
believe that it would make any difference to me." And he said, "Nor to
me." I believe that we were the happiest men on board that steamer! How
sweet it is to feel that you are not your own, but that you belong to
God! If you really belong to God, He will not lose you. He has never,
yet, lost anything that was truly His. He puts the broad arrow or the
bleeding heart on you to show that you belong to the King! The devil,
himself, dares not run away with you. God will call for you in that day
when the inventory of the Divine possessions shall be read. You shall
be known as marked by the King–and you shall be His forever and ever!
Oh, let us try to live so that we can die in the same style as we are
living!
It is well to be walking in such a way that you can walk right straight
on though a grave should be in your way– and walk right straight
through it–and out at the other side. Young man, are you going the way
that you would like to keep on going forever and ever? The train is
starting. You are taking your seat. Which way do you want to go, to the
realm of brightness, or the land of eternal darkness? Take your seat in
that carriage which will go right through to the better land and,
taking your seat, feel, "Now the train may go right onto the terminus.
For this purpose did I enter it, that I might go to the end of the
journey." Many want to go as far as they can down the dark valley and
then they hope that they will get out at some station or other and
change their track. Be not so unwise, but, tonight, enter the right
train! Lay hold on eternal life! Put your trust in Jesus and may we
meet in Heaven without having had to know by bitter experience the
awful difference between the service of God and the service of the
kingdom of darkness!
God bless you, dear Friends, for Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITIONS BY C. H. SPURGEON. 1 KINGS 14:21-24; 2 CHRONICLES 12.
1 Kings 14:21. And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. After
great mountains often come low valleys. Solomon was a wise
man–Rehoboam was otherwise.
21. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when be began to reign, and he
reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD did
choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. Rehoboam
ought to have been a good king. Jerusalem was the holy city, the chosen
city. God put His own name there. It is a sad thing that this king
should try to put away God's name from the chosen city.
21. And his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. There was bad
blood in him. How often do we find that the good king has a good
mother's name mentioned with his own! Bad kings generally come from
some stranger, some heathen princess. It was so with Rehoboam.
22. And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked Him
to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that
their fathers had done. Their fathers had been great sinners, but, in
the days of David, they had not set up false gods. In the days of
Solomon, after the Temple had been built, they began to go astray. It
is a curious thing that a high ritualistic service, even if it is
right, is usually attended with a coming down in spirituality. When the
Temple
service was instituted, it was the beginning of a decline, but in
Reboboam's day that decline became more apparent, the "down-grade"
became more visible.
23. For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on
every high hill, and under every green tree. They could not have enough
of it. When men go wrong, they generally go wrong very greedily–they
cannot have too much of evil.
24. And there were also Sodomites in the land: and they did according
to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before
the children of Israel. When men once turn aside from the living God to
follow inventions of their own, there is no telling where they will go.
Nothing is too foul, nothing is too filthy for them. Now read the same
story as you find it in
2 Chronicles 12. Verse 1. And it came to pass, when Rehoboam had
established the kingdom. and had strengthened himself, he forsook the
Law of the LORD, and all Israel with him. They prospered, at first, by
adhering to Jehovah. The good people out of the neighboring land of
Israel emigrated to them, strengthening them, but, as soon as they grew
strong, they forsook the Law of Jehovah.
2. And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of King Rehoboam,
Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem because they had
transgressed against the LORD. Shishak did not know that fact, nor did
he care about Jehovah. God so ruled in Providence that when His people
cast Him off, He soon found a rod with which to chasten them. The King
of Egypt determined to conquer them. You do not know, my Friends, how
God will strike you, but if you err from His statutes, He will never be
long without a rod. You will bring chastisement on yourself if you
depart from the living God. You will have yourself to blame if some
dire affliction happens to you.
3. With twelve hundred chariots, and threescore thousand horsemen: and
the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt; the
Lubims, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians. This vast crowd ate up
everything! The rule was to quarter on the enemy. They would devour
every eatable thing throughout the whole country!
4. And he took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah, and came to
Jerusalem. When God means to chasten a people, He does not take long to
do it and neither can their weakened strength successfully oppose their
enemy.
5. Then came Shemaiah the Prophet to Rehoboam, and to the princes of
Judah, that were gathered together at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and
said unto them, Thus says the LORD, You have forsaken Me, and therefore
have I also left you in the hand of Shishak. The Prophet gave them no
invitation to repentance, but just an explanation of the sorrow which
had come upon them.
6. Whereupon the princes of Israel and the King humbled themselves; and
they said, The LORD is righteous. That was well done. They had not yet
become so confirmed in their rebellion as to reject the Prophet of God
and to turn in willful, wanton, resolute disobedience against him.
7. And when the LORD saw that they humbled themselves. Though it was
not in a spiritual way, yet
7. The Word of the LORD came to Shemaiah saying, They have humbled
themselves: therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them
some deliverance; and My wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem
by the hand of Shishak. He shall not storm the city! He shall not
destroy it.
8. Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know My
service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries. The Lord's
people were to know the difference between the service of God and the
service of the kings of the countries round about them. It would be a
very sharp contrast and a very bitter one.
9. So Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem, and took away
the treasures of the house of the LORD. The Temple was always very
rich. Shishak came and stripped it. Everything there that was really
valuable was taken away.
9. And the treasures of the king's house; he took all. He could not
very well take any more. That is generally the way with the devil. God
is satisfied with tithes, but Shishak and Satan take all.
9-11. He carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
Instead of which king Rehoboam, made shields of brass, and committed
them to the hands of the chief of the guard, that kept the entrance of
the king's house. And when the king entered into the house of the LORD,
the guard came and fetched them, and brought them again into the guard
chamber. That was a come-down, indeed, from shield's of gold to shields
of copper! That is, I suppose, what is meant here by the brass. This is
what the king suffered at the hands of Shishak and it was an emblem of
the condition of his people. The golden kingdom had became a bronze
one.
12. 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. Or, some behaved well. Even a measure of humiliation is
acceptable with God. And though He did not save the nation from being
plundered, yet He did rescue it from being altogether struck. Alas for
Rehoboam, he did a bad day's work when he turned away from God!
13, 14. So King Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and
reigned: for Rehoboam, was one and forty years old when he began to
reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the
LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there.
And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And he did evil because
he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD. He was one of that fickle
sort, neither here nor there–a compromising gentleman–not very
definite in anything. He would go right if he were driven that way, and
he would go wrong if he were led in that direction. Oh, how many there
are who never prepare their hearts to seek the Lord! They are not
determinately bad–they have not enough backbone in them to be leaders
in evil–but they are never good for much because they have never made
up their minds to do the right at all costs. They have never had their
heart prepared by the Holy Spirit to seek the Lord.
15, 16. Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written
in the book of Shemaiah the Prophet, and of Iddo the Seer concerning
genealogies? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam
continually. And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried in the
city of David: and Abijah, his son, reigned in his stead. So they pass
away. One generation dies and another follows. God grant that when we
fall asleep it may not be with the sin of Rehoboam lying upon us,
neither may we be succeeded by evil sons, but may we serve God in our
day and be followed by those who shall serve Him still better! The Lord
grant it! Amen.