Don’t Be Gun-Shy

I ought not tell you later how they might possibly relate to our study in Kings. Feel free to just listen to these if you want to. If you’ve already found Kings that’s fine. I’ll just read these passages. The first is found in First Timothy chapter 2 and verse 9. “In like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but what is proper for women professing godliness with good works.” That’s First Timothy 2:9 and 10.

In like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but what is proper for women professing godliness with good works.

I want to read a passage in First Corinthians 14:34. First Corinthians 14:34, “Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for women to speak in church. Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.” That’s First Corinthians 14:34 through 38.

Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for women to speak in church. Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.

And now to our passage in the Book of Kings. First Kings chapter 14. We’re going to begin reading at verse 21. First Kings 14 verse 21, “And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king. 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. his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. Now Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they committed more than all that their fathers had done. For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. And there were also perverted persons in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.”

And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king. 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. his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. Now Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they committed more than all that their fathers had done. For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. And there were also perverted persons in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

Now it happened 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 the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house. He took away everything. He also took away all the gold shields which Solomon had made. Then King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place, and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard, who guarded the doorway of the king’s house. And so it was, whenever the king went into the house of the Lord, that the guards carried them and brought them back into the guard chamber.

Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. So Rehoboam rested with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. Then Abijam his son reigned in his place.

Quite a few years ago when we were still holding our meetings on Inwood Street and still having the Lord’s Supper in the evening, one particular week we’d had a pretty severe snowstorm, somewhat of a rarity around here, but we’d had a bad one. I think we cancelled the morning meeting but we held the Lord’s table. And I remember that I was living in Oak Cliff at the time so I drove over from Oak Cliff on 75. The roads were still a little bit treacherous.

My recollection of that Lord’s Supper meeting was that Miss Dean was there, that was her house, and Lewis was there, I think maybe Ellis was there, but it was a very, very small meeting. And on the way back I was riding in the southbound lane of Central Expressway. I lost control of the car on the slick pavement of the expressway. The car jackknifed and stalled, pointed northward in the southbound lane. As I was sitting there in the exterior of my stalled car I saw two headlights approaching me which turned out to be the headlights of I believe a station wagon. And I remember the thought going through my mind, this can’t be happening, but it was happening. And there was a collision. The car was turned around again. My chin struck the steering column and opened the wound there. The car was totaled. But I’m very grateful to the Lord I wasn’t killed.

And so I got out and was not aware that my chin was bleeding profusely. But when I learned that it was they were easily persuaded me to wait for the MICU unit. And it arrived and I boarded it. I was still feeling pretty good. I wasn’t really feeling any pain. I remember thinking as I boarded the MICU unit I’ve seen this happen on television and now it’s happening to me. And of course they carted me off to the emergency room in Baylor Hospital where I lay for some considerable time while they closed up the wound. And I had, that later did plastic surgery, a very good piece of work because I have to look real close in the mirror to see any scar at all on the bottom of my chin.

My recollection also is that of course with my car totaled I had no way home. And the Lewis’ came over to Baylor and I spent the night at Lewis’s house where he was living on Tremont Street. Now I’m telling you this story to give you the sequel to it. And that is that after I got another car and started driving on the expressway again I was jumpy. I mean I was nervous. And you might say I was now gun-shy. And of course it was in the back of my mind that happened on the expressway, what else can happen on the expressway? And I was on my guard for a long time.

Of course as you all know that eventually wears off and now I’m driving on the expressways like nothing ever happened on them. And a case could be made that I’d be better off if I were jumpy and gun-shy still given the way that Texas drivers drive on the expressway. But I think we probably will all agree that that’s in human nature. If we have a very dramatic, particularly a devastating or traumatic event happen to us, for a period of time at least it is hard for us to fully adjust to that. And we’re nervous when the situation seems to be similar to the situation in which the incident occurred. And gun-shyness is a part of human nature.

And that leads me to the title of my message today. And that is don’t be gun-shy. Now you may never have thought of this but it’s possible to be gun-shy in our relationships with other people. It’s possible for leaders to be gun-shy. It’s possible for parents to be gun-shy. It’s possible for us to be gun-shy in the way we relate to the people round about us. And so I want to suggest to you that there is a lesson in this passage about not being gun-shy.

Another possible title for the passage would be the gun-shy king because I think that is probably an accurate description of Rehoboam. You remember how Rehoboam came on when he took over as king from his father Solomon. He was waited upon by a delegation from the ten tribes who urged him to lighten the burden that Solomon had placed upon them. And of course Rehoboam consulted with the old men who had advised his father. And they all advised him to go easy on these people, to lighten their burden. And they said to him if you do that they’ll be your servants for the entirety of your life.

But then Rehoboam foolishly turned to the young men who had grown up with him. And the young men said in effect hang tough. Now it’s not hard to imagine that the young men thought that if Rehoboam began his kingship by being too lenient and making too many concessions that he would compromise his ability to rule. And foolishly Rehoboam took the advice of the young men and rejected the advice of the old men. And the thing blew up in his face. I mean it blew up in his face. And he lost control of the ten northern tribes and the kingdom was split. And Rehoboam was left only with the tribe of Judah and apparently also with most of the tribe of Benjamin.

So he learned emphatically that there is a way of being too tough. When we look at this description of his reign however the impression that we have is that he wasn’t tough enough. If you noticed as we read the passage in First Kings 14 Rehoboam is not charged by the writer of Kings with any sin directly. There’s nothing here said that Rehoboam did something wrong. Now the writer of Chronicles approaches it a little bit differently. That’s what the writer of Kings is doing. Instead what we find is that his people did wrong. Did you notice verse 22? “Now Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord and they provoked him to jealousy more than all of those who were before them.”

What did they do? Well it says they built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. I want us to pause for a minute to talk about the high places. You may be tempted as I think many readers are tempted to jump to the conclusion that the high places described here were centers of idolatry, that they were designed for the worship of foreign gods. And there’s no reason to doubt that many of them were in fact designed for idol worship of foreign gods that had nothing to do with the God of Israel.

But when we study the text of the book of Kings closely we discover that many high places apparently were dedicated to God. If you remember that at the very beginning of his reign King Solomon went to the high place in Gibeon, offered a thousand animals in sacrifice. And that night was the night that God appeared to him and granted him his request for wisdom. But it was a high place at which he worshiped. Years later, as recorded in the book of Kings, King Hezekiah sets out to tear down the high places. And he goes about the process very effectively. Guess what he discovers up in the high places? He discovers the brazen serpent that Moses had constructed in the desert which God had used to heal His people when they had been bitten by the fiery serpents. And that brazen serpent had all these years been an object of worship and reverence. There was an idolatrous image now and Hezekiah destroyed it.

Now Hezekiah destroyed high places but obviously many of those high places were God’s high places. From this reason that when the Assyrians besieged Jerusalem they said to the defenders of Jerusalem don’t let Hezekiah deceive you into thinking that God will save you from my hand because isn’t that the God whose high places Hezekiah has torn down? Isn’t that the God whose high places he’s torn down? And he has commanded everybody to come in and worship before this altar at Jerusalem.

Let me try to emphasize this because it’s important to the application I’m going to make. That the high places were not in every case a clear black-and-white issue from the standpoint of many of the people of Israel. Not all of them were devoted to idol worship. Many apparently related to God. Why were they wrong? Because the law of God, the law of Moses, commanded the children of Israel not to offer sacrifices any place at all except before the altar of the tabernacle or at the altar of the Jewish temple. And what Hezekiah was doing was obeying the Word of God by commanding his people not to worship at the high places but to worship at this altar in Jerusalem.

But the Assyrians made a case against him. He’s tearing down God’s high places. He’s interfered with the worship of the God that he says is going to protect you from the Assyrians. Do I need to tell you as we will discover when we study this story the Assyrians did not succeed in capturing the city of Jerusalem under Hezekiah. God delivered him in a very striking, remarkable way. But why? Because Hezekiah was diligent to see that his people observed the commandment of the Lord as given in the books of Moses.

Do you see therefore that what Rehoboam is doing about this situation is exactly zip, zero, nada, nothing? He’s letting it go on. I want to suggest to you that the probable reason is that he’s thinking to himself I’ve already been so tough that I lost ten of the tribes. Now if I interfere in this, and some of this is the worship of Jehovah, if I interfere in this I may lose the rest of my kingdom. He could easily have felt that way. Whatever his motivation was he lets it go on. And it is contrary to the command of God.

Now let me suggest that this is a problem that leadership faces in a Christian church. It’s a problem that parents sometimes face in their homes. And that we all face in various kinds of situations where in issues that don’t seem to other people to be entirely black and white we are tempted to be a little gun-shy. We are tempted to back off. We are tempted not to insist that the Word of God be followed for fear of the consequences that may flow as a result of that insistence.

Now you say what are you talking about? Would you like to see a preacher get in trouble? I’m about to get in trouble. We read the passage just a little bit ago in First Corinthians 14 where it says let your women keep silence in the church because it’s not permitted to them to speak. And Paul says it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church. Now we have a great group of women here. And one of the things that I’m very proud about about the women here at Victor Street is that our women are willing to submit to that. However sometimes the men make it hard.

And sometimes we men say to the women go ahead and give us a song. We said what’s wrong with that? We’re singing a song to the Lord. Yeah but in order to get out a song the woman has to speak in church doesn’t she? And in that way we have by the command that the woman should be silent in the church. You’ve heard the story that I tell. Years ago I was in the home of a black couple that I didn’t know very well. They were, I don’t remember how I got in, but they were very cordial to me. I really don’t. They knew somebody that I knew or something like that. And I wasn’t there very long before I found out who was wearing the trousers in the house. It wasn’t the man it was the woman.

And she sat there, I remember it very clear, that she informed me she was a prophetess and that she spoke prophecies and that she spoke them in church. And I said to her well what about First Corinthians 14 that says that the women keep silent in the church? What she said to me, she said oh that was Paul and Paul didn’t like women. Well when I got home, you always think of your best answer to get home, I wished I had quoted to her the first that we also read a couple of verses after that first where Paul says if anyone thinks that they are a prophet or spiritual let them acknowledge that the things that I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. Are you a prophetess? Then Paul’s words are the commandments of the Lord.

Now it would be very easy for us to fudge around the edges here wouldn’t it? And to allow things to begin to happen in the church that are not quite in accordance with the Word of God. So I’m encouraging us as a church to draw the line carefully. And I’m actually exhorting the men to make sure that you don’t give the ladies an opportunity which the Lord doesn’t give to them. I don’t have a problem if a lady leans over to her husband and whispers that she’d like to have such and such a song. I don’t have any problem with that.

And I don’t have a problem with this. If the meeting is over and the last prayer has been prayed and the meeting is adjourned and they’re really over then there’s a woman who wants to say something to the group. I don’t have a problem with that. But while the meeting is going on if we’re going to be observant of the Word of God then the women should be silent. This is not because Paul didn’t like women. And it’s certainly not because God regards women as inferior. God created men and women and He gave them different roles in life. That’s just the fact of the matter.

And if we’re going to be obedient to God if I’m a man I must do the things that God commands a man to do. If I were a woman I would have to do the things that God commands the woman to do. Now if you think I’m already over the cliff I feel like I’m hanging on by one hand and now I’m going to let go entirely. We also read the verse that says, and if you read the context of this in First Timothy 2 you’ll find that he’s discussing the meeting of the church, and it says that the women should adorn themselves in modest apparel in an appropriate way.

Now I’m not thinking of any one person or any one thing. Over the years this has happened more than once. Over the years the question has been raised what is the appropriate attire to be worn at the Lord’s table? I think that’s a good question. I think that what probably needs to be done because we recognize that what is modest attire in one culture may not be modest attire in another culture. I would encourage the women particularly in the women’s group to put their heads together on this and to kind of come up with some sense of what is appropriate attire and kind of communicate that among the women so that this is not a problem.

But if the women don’t do this the problem may bounce into the lap of our board. And I’m sure that our board would be tempted to be a little gun-shy about this. But nevertheless we have to be careful that we observe the commandments of the Lord. Now even though nothing is said about the men it’s obvious that the men should not come in inappropriate attire either. You would not like one of your pastors to come in here with some shorts on and a sweaty t-shirt and a pair of sandals. I don’t think you would. I’m certainly not going to come in here that way.

I don’t think you have to wear a tie like I’m doing this morning. I’m used to wearing a tie in morning meeting. Nobody has to do that. But obviously this is a gathering where we’re in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Where two or three are gathered together in My name there am I in the midst of them. And we’re conscious of His presence. And I think you know if He were here visibly would we want to be dressed the way we’re dressed? I think at this meeting maybe all of us would feel that we’re comfortable with that. But I think we need to consider this because the Word of God considers it.

Now don’t you see how this applies to the high places? You know Rehoboam could have said what’s the difference if a man wishes to worship God on the top of the hill or he worships Him down here at Jerusalem? On the top he’s still worshiping God. Why should I interfere with the way people worship God? Well the reason why he should have interfered is that God said it was to be done in a certain way. That’s the bottom line.

But that wasn’t the only thing that Rehoboam ignored. Not only did he ignore the religious misdemeanors but he also ignored moral disobedience. Notice that in verse 24 it says “and there were also perverted persons in the land. And they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.” Now the Hebrew word that is translated perverted persons here apparently refers to what we would call male temple prostitutes. Or to put it another way homosexuals who were connected with the idolatrous temples.

In other words when pagan people worshiped their idols at their temples many of these idols had these male prostitutes and they offered their services there at the temple as part and parcel of the religious observance. And this is a horrifying thing to realize that in Israel these perverted persons had made their appearance. And what does Rehoboam do about it? Nothing. As if nothing goes on.

Now very fortunately as we shall see in the next chapter his grandson did deal with the issue of the perverted persons but Rehoboam did not. Don’t you see that Rehoboam has become a very tolerant ruler? This guy that started out by attending the ten tribes my little finger is going to be thicker than my father’s thigh. He chastised you with whips and I’m going to chastise you with scorpions. He’s a pussycat now. He’s easy. He’s accommodating. Because along with him he’s gun-shy.

Now this is one of the major problems that Christian churches have to face in our climate and culture. And that is a problem of morality or immorality in the church. Most of you know that some years ago we did have a Christian brother here at the Lord’s table who was engaged in homosexual activity. When this was learned I the pastors counseled with him for a period of time until it became evident that he was unwilling to change his lifestyle. And at that point we exercised the discipline that is commanded. And we excluded him from this meeting.

We did what the Scripture describes in First Corinthians where he talks about delivering such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now those of you who don’t know this story this was an incident that occurred before there was any real knowledge of the AIDS epidemic. And the young gentleman that we excluded from the church gathering was out of the church gathering for several years. And I’ll never forget that he came back one morning to the morning meeting. We did not exclude him from the morning meeting because that meeting is open to everybody. The worst sinner in Dallas can walk into that meeting and hear the Word of God.

And I remember he walked into the meeting, sat down and listened to the message. And he had a very obvious lesion on his face. And I remember wondering at the time I wonder if there’s any possibility that he could have picked up AIDS. Well you know the story. He did pick up AIDS and he died of it. The upside of this is that though he never came back to the Lord’s table I think it was evident to those of us who visited him in his closing days that he had come back into fellowship with God. Of course all through this he knew that he was a Christian but he was unwilling to deal with this until God brought His hand to fall upon him.

Now I feel that the church acted appropriately there. We deeply grieve over the tragic end of this but it would have been inexcusable for us to allow him to continue at the table when it became evident that he was not going to repent of that sin. Now we hope that we will never have that kind of problem again. But it is possible for us to have other kinds of problems that raise similar questions in our mind. I would almost say I’m going to knock on wood but knocking wood has really nothing to do with it.

We as a church have been very, very fortunate that when there have been married couples both partners in the marriage coming regularly over a period of time to the Lord’s table we’ve had as far as I know no divorces among couples like that. Now we have had divorces in the church but to the best of my recollection none of these were cases where both partners attended the Lord’s table. But the Lord has been good to us thus far. But that doesn’t guarantee that we won’t have that kind of a problem in the future.

Now suppose we had a situation where it was discovered that one of the members of a married couple that attended this table was engaged in an immoral affair on the outside of their marriage. That would be an enormous temptation to sweep it under the rug. We hate to think of the disruption that it would cause for the leaders to try to address that. But it would be wrong for the leaders not to address that. It would be wrong for them to tolerate that.

Suppose somebody walked out on their family. They obviously at that point are disobedient to the Scriptures. Again the Word of God has to be applied. Yet we have to expect that those who come to the Lord’s table are dealing with their sins and are confessing their sins to God. So it is possible for the leadership of the church here to confront some very sticky problem. And the temptation is to punt. The temptation is to sidestep a problem.

And it’s easy for me to talk about this out loud. I’m not on the board anymore. And the men who are on the board are all here and I think they agree with this 100 percent. But they would also admit that their fervent hope is that we don’t have this kind of a problem because the consequences of it can be very disruptive. And it’s a very unpleasant type of problem to have. I remember the Lord’s Supper meeting at which we announced the discipline on the young man who was homosexual. And he was a dearly loved brother. And there were women sitting at this table with tears in their eyes.

It was appropriate that we should weep for a brother that we had to take this act of discipline. Again we do not dare to ignore the commands of the Word of God. If we’re in a leadership position in the church we have to be faithful to the commands of God. If we’re in leadership in our home and parents are in leadership in their home and sometimes this is what happens in the home. Maybe your kid brings over a bunch of friends and things go on unnecessarily immoral things or things that you know are wrong. They’re so tempting to look the other way. They’re so tempting to say I don’t need another confrontation with my teenager. Maybe there’s profanity. Who knows? You can create the illustration for yourself.

But the point I’m trying to make is that we must not be gun-shy where the Word of God and the commands of God are at issue. And that’s what was wrong with Rehoboam. Now please understand that because of his passivity because he did nothing about these things that Judah has paid a price. Because in the fifth year of his reign Shishak king of Egypt invaded the land of Judah. We’re not told in this text but we are told in Chronicles that this was a huge force. There were twelve hundred chariots. There were sixty thousand horsemen. It was an army that was composed not only of Egyptians but Libyans and Sukkites and Ethiopians. And it was without number those the author of Chronicles. It was a huge and calamitous invasion.

Now understand that Jerusalem was a rich prize for a king like Shishak. There was that temple that had been decorated with gold and all of these precious things that Solomon had decorated it with. Many expensive offerings were stored in the temple. And what we’re told here is that Shishak took all the treasures of the house of the Lord. And then there was that splendid palace in which Solomon lived in which Rehoboam was living in now. And all of the splendid treasures that were in that. Shishak came, took them all away.

And he even took away the gold shields that Solomon made for the royal honor guard. So that whenever Solomon traveled from his house a short distance to the temple this honor guard would carry the gold shields along with them and kind of give him an escort to the temple of God. But now the gold shields are gone. And poor Rehoboam is so impoverished he can’t replace the gold shields. What does he do? He makes bronze shields. And now the royal guard parades with Rehoboam with bronze shields. What an impoverishment this was.

Now again the writer of Chronicles presents the story from a slightly different perspective. And we do discover in the book of Chronicles that both Rehoboam and his leadership humbled themselves before God as a result of the invasion of Shishak. And God told them through a prophet that He would not pour out all His wrath through Shishak. He spared them the worst. They could have come. This was an army big enough to crush Judah to enter and save it completely. It could have ended as a kingdom right there.

And because of the repentance of Rehoboam and the leadership that didn’t happen. But the writer of Kings wants us to understand that this impoverished the kingdom. It impoverished Rehoboam. And then you will notice in verse 30 that it says there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. What did Rehoboam lose? Two things. He lost treasure and he lost peace. He lost treasure and he lost peace.

I want to suggest to you that when we fail to confront what is wrong in situations where we need to stand for the Word of God that our losses are similar. We lose valuable things. They may not be material things. They may be spiritually valuable things. A church for example can lose its spiritual power and lose its harmony. It can lose its unity. It can lose those sorts of really valuable things as a result of not standing firm for the Word of God.

And neither in our church nor in our homes or in our personal lives do we want to suffer that kind of loss. We don’t want to go from the lofty plateau of the gold shields down to the subterranean level of the bronze shields. We don’t want to lose the blessing, the power and the working of God in our lives, homes or in our churches. But if we’re not going to lose that then we have to stand up for the Word of God. We have to confront the evils that occur.

I close by telling you an incident that happened to me a number of years ago when I was still teaching seminary. A student came to my office. This was quite a few years ago. And he was complaining about a grade that I had given to him. I had given him a B and he thought he deserved an A. And he was not the first person who complained to me about a grade but he did it more vigorously than most. And while he was standing there obviously angry at me he told me that I was going to be responsible for him not making it into grad school because you had to maintain a certain grade point level to get into grad school. And the B was not good enough to maintain that grade point level.

Well he touched the wrong button with me. So after he vented himself for a while I said to him and I said look. I said there are other qualifications that a graduate student needs to have besides grades. And I said one of them is character. And I know these are not my exact words but this is the gist of what I said. I said you’re standing here complaining to me about a grade and you’re demonstrating you don’t have the character to be in graduate school. After all when you get out of graduate school it’s not your grades that help you to serve the Lord. It’s the character that you have.

That stopped him. And he sat in the office unhappy still. But several years later I bumped into him coming out of the chapel. And we were as we were walking together out of the chapel this incident of the office came up. He what he said to me he said I want to thank you for what you said that day. He said you helped me. Well I don’t think I deserved much credit for that because he pushed the wrong button on there. But that was a whole lot better than to ignore his rudeness. That was a whole lot better than to ignore his poor priorities where grades were everything and character was second rate.

And hopefully he did learn something from that that helped him not only in seminary. And I don’t know whether he went to graduate school or not but above all helped him out in the ministry. And I think very frankly that sometimes we are afraid to confront situations simply because we don’t want the bomb to go off. We don’t want all this debris that’s going to blow up around here.

It may help us to remember that the Bible says the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and are safe. We’re not bomb-proof but God is. We’re not bulletproof but God is. And God can handle the consequences when we determine to be faithful to Him and to insist on obedience to His Word. We wish that Rehoboam had done it. Let’s you and I do it by the grace of God.