1 Kings 14:25

REHOBOAM MADE SHIELDS OF BRASS TO REPLACE THE LOST SHIELDS OF GOLD

"And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; and he took away the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold that Solomon had made. And king Rehoboam made in their place shields of brass, and committed them to the hands of the captain of the guard, who kept the door of the king's house. And it was so, that, as off as the king went into the house of Jehovah, the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard chamber."

This tragic loss of the golden shields of Solomon was a physical disaster that was, in a sense, an eloquent parable of what had already happened spiritually in Israel. Their golden shields of trust in God and faithfulness to his word they had exchanged for high places and their Asherim and their pillars with their vulgar and licentious ceremonies.

AMERICA TODAY SHOULD KEEP OUR SHIELDS OF GOLD WHILE WE STILL HAVE THEM

These golden shields are our faith in God, our Christian value judgments, the sanctity of marriage, the dignity of honest labor, the faithful worship of God, Biblical morality, honesty, sobriety, chastity, truthfulness, individual responsibility, and faith in the Bible. Like the golden shields of Rehoboam, we did not create these wonderful blessings. We inherited them from our ancestors who came to America, primarily to find a place to worship God after the manner of their own convictions in the light of the Word of God. When the forty-eight contiguous states of our country were founded, forty-seven of them, according to Dean Clarence Manion, Head of the College of Law at Notre Dame University, incorporated the Decalogue into their state constitutions.

Like poor, wicked Rehoboam, we have our own Shishaks determined to take away our shields of gold - all of them. In place of the sacredness of our homes, they would give us endless divorces, homosexual debauchery as an "alternate" lifestyle, immoral cohabitation of the unwed, abandoned and abused children, and pitiful teenage parents. In place of our faith in God, they would give us faith in nothing, mistrust, hopelessness and despair. In place of the Biblical morality they would give us the degenerate shame of vulgar licentiousness. In place of the sanctity of human life, they would give us the aborted fetuses of millions of unborn human beings. In place of the worship of God, they offer us the worthless entertainment of all kinds of bowls, stadiums, domes and fields! In place of our faith in the Bible, we are offered the speculative nonsense of critics who do not believe it.

We may be certain that if we are foolish enough to trade in our inheritance for what is offered us instead, that we shall find in it no more satisfaction than the Israelites found in their shields of brass! May God open the eyes of America! For further comments regarding the Golden Shield which Americans know as "our government," see Vol. 6 (Romans) of our N.T. commentaries, pp. 435,436.