“No Substitutes!”
1/5/25
2 Chronicles 9:15-16 “King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; fifteen pounds of hammered gold went into each shield. 16 He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold, with seven and a half pounds of gold in each shield. The king put them in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.”
2 Chronicles 12:9-11 “When Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, he carried off the treasures of the temple of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including the gold shields Solomon had made. 10 So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace. 11 Whenever the king went to the Lord’s temple, the guards went with him, bearing the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom.” (NIV)
___________
At the height of Solomon’s reign as king of Israel, God had blessed him in all things.
The Bible records that he received a quarter of a billion dollars worth of gold each year from the kings of Arabia and many other lands that paid annual tribute to him.
In OT times, this kind of wealth was a sign of God’s blessing and favor over His people.
But now in NT times the sign of God’s favor is more spiritual in nature with things like peace, joy, love, victory over Satan, forgiveness off sins, salvation, and so on.
—Under our New Covenant, faith is not measured by material possessions, but by spiritual victory, maturity, and Christ-likeness.
_______________
So when Solomon made these shields of gold, they were testimonies of God’s blessing and favor.
I did the math: Each large shield was worth around $100,000, and each small shield around $50,000.
So the large shields were worth 20 million, and the small shields 15 million, totaling 35 million dollars!
_______________
And the Bible says that Solomon placed these golden shields in the palace.
And when he went to the temple to worship God, his bodyguards would hold up the golden shields—glistening in the sun as he passed by—as a testimony of God’s favor and blessing on them as a nation.
Now, Solomon died and his son Rehoboam took his place.
The Bible records that Rehoboam did not walk with God…it says “he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him” (2 Chr. 12:1 NKJV).
When he did this, God turned Israel over to an enemy invader—Shishak, king of Egypt.
And one day Shishak, with his great army, invaded Jerusalem.
The Bible says he went straight for the house of God—the temple of the Lord—and stole the golden shields.
Catch that: He went straight for Israel’s testimony of God’s presence and favor.
In this way he is like Satan, who is always out to rob God’s people of their testimony!
______________
Now, Rehoboam’s response is very telling:
“So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them…”
Why does that matter?
Because he was more concerned with appearances than authenticity.
No longer would there be shields of gold lining the pathway as the king walked up to the Temple.
Instead they were replaced with a phony substitute.
But as long as the people didn’t know the difference, Rehoboam was good with that!
So he was more about perception than truth,
How things LOOKED over how things really WERE.
_______________
We see no righteous anger in Rehoboam that an enemy had invaded and stolen away the testimony of God’s blessing.
In comparison: When his grandfather David was robbed by the Amalekites at the city of Ziklag, he gathered his men, chased them down, and it says “David recovered all.”
Rehoboam had no desire to recover anything of what God had given Israel.
He was fine with replacing GOLD with BRASS, as long as the brass looked like the real thing enough to fool people.
______________
Now, here’s where I’m going with this.
The Bible says that:
“All these things happened to them (OT characters) as examples—as object lessons to us—to warn us against doing the same things; they were written down so that we could read about them and learn from them in these last days as the world nears its end” (1 Cor. 10:11 LB).
So what is the 21st century lesson God put in this story for us?
The GOLDEN SHIELDS serve to illustrate the gifts and blessings God has given to the church!
The true spiritual gold like:
salvation,
the Holy Spirit,
the precious Word of God,
and most valuable of all, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself!
While Solomon’s shields were worth 35 million dollars, there is NO price tag on the golden shields God has given to His blood bought church!
______________
For us today the BRASS SHIELDS Rehoboam made represent the cheap substitutes the church often replaces the genuine article with:
For instance:
*We’ve all seen the BRASS of Empty Religion chosen over the gold of real relationship with God through Christ
*The BRASS of Showmanship and Entertainment and Hype over the gold of the true Anointing and power of God moving in the services.
*And there is the the BRASS of the applause and acceptance of men over the gold of the applause of heaven!
_________________
Paul the Apostle prophesied that in the Last Days there would be churches that “will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly” (2 Tim. 3:5 NLT).
They have the appearance of godliness, but do not possess the true gold of the Holy Spirit living in their hearts.
These churches, says Paul, will be just like Rehoboam—they will have a “form” of godliness that looks like the real thing.
But behind the form is nothing…it’s only a SHOW.
_____________
Now, it’s no secret that many churches and even whole denominations have done just what Rehoboam did.
In order to be accepted by the world, they have caved in to what the world places its approval on, and like Rehoboam, have “forsaken the law of the Lord.”
As a result, the devil has gotten a foothold and stolen the real GOLD from them.
It can be said of many of them what Jesus said to the church at Sardis in Rev. 3:1, “You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”
There is no anointing of power, or Presence of God, moving of the Holy Spirit, or testimony of Jesus.
It’s all noise, and entertainment, and show.
As Paul put it, “Noisy chimes and clanging cymbals.”—1 Cor. 13:1
______________
And so…I believe God’s word to Turning Point, not just in 2025 but for life, is this—fight for and protect the GOLD at all costs!
Let me give you 3 golden shields we must fight for and protect:
I. The testimony of Jesus
Jesus says to the church at Philadelphia in Rev. 3:7, “I know your works…you have kept my Word and have not denied My name.” (NKJV)
The NAME OF JESUS and all that it stands for is a GOLDEN SHIELD in the house of God.
We must ever and always declare the name of Jesus,
brag on His goodness,
trumpet His grace,
glory in His beauty,
declare His salvation,
worship His awesomeness,
and stand for His truth!
___________________
And a second golden shield is…
II. The shield of prayer
We can never allow the brass of fleshly efforts to replace what only prayer can do!
What takes a year for our own efforts to achieve, God can do overnight in answer to prayer!
John Wesley wrote, “God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.”
He also said, “Prayer is where the action is.”
And listen to this quote by R.A. Torrey:
“When the devil sees a man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to pray, and who really does pray, and, above all, when he sees a whole church on its face before God in prayer, he trembles as much as he ever did, for he knows that his day in that church or community is at an end.”
______________
And finally, a third golden shield we must never let go of is…
III. The shield of God’s Word
I want it said of Turning Point—If you cut them, they bleed Scripture!
Jesus told the church in Philadelphia, “I know your works…that you have kept my word…”
Likewise, we can never substitute the Word of God with anything!
I believe the reason our society is collapsing before our eyes is because we’ve thrown the Bible away.
And with all my heart I believe this is one of the reasons God has raised up TPC!
We’re called to preach and teach the Bible without apology, compromise,
watering it down,
diluting it,
polluting it,
twisting it,
or bending it to please the world.
I so agree with the great preacher Charles Spurgeon,
“The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself.”
_______________
SUMMARY: In 2025 if we hang tight to the 3 golden shields of,
1. The testimony of Jesus,
2. The power of prayer,
3. The uncompromised Word…
I believe we will have a supernatural year where God does “exceeding, abundantly, above all we can ask for or even imagine!”