2 Chronicles 12: 9-10,  "He (Shishak) took the gold shields.....Rehoboam made bronze shields..." 

Rehoboam had been stripped of his gold shields that Solomon had made (years earlier) after Shishak of Egypt had taken them.  These gold shields had been a signature emblem of the affluence and blessing under Solomon's reign, and  for the majority of Solomon's reign he had followed the Lord. However Rehoboam had determined to do evil and not good and thus God's discipline followed.  The stripping of the gold shields no doubt was humiliating but instead of repenting and turning to God with a whole heart he instead, made replacement shields of a vastly inferior metal.  He replaced the shields but he did not return to God and this lack of inauthentic obedience was as clear as the difference in bronze and gold.

His actions remind me of the assessment made of the Sardis Church, "...you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead!" Do we have genuine repentance toward God or have we sought to replace His glory with our clever ideas, innovative programming, "right" music, and progressive teaching; and yet all the while it keeps looking like bronze and NOT gold? May our worship, our obedience, our service not be a cheap replacement for what ought to be SOLID GOLD!

In Christ,
Tommy Middleton

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