Year 6, Day 311: 2 Chronicles 11

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

The great thing about the books of Chronicles (1 & 2 Samuel and 1&2 Chronicles, too) is that you can turn to almost any chapter and discover a great opportunity to talk about character.  Sometimes the lesson is a great inspirational lesson.  Sometimes the lesson is a sad lesson where we see a poor example.  Human beings are prone to mistakes, our leaders are no different than the commoners.

In this chapter, we have three great examples.  We’ll probably carry this into tomorrow, too.  But for starters today, let’s talk about Rehoboam.  Rehoboam is angry that the northern kingdom has broken away from him.  Of course he goes home to raise up the troops.  Of course he plans to make war and reclaim the territory that he believes is his to govern.  But then the prophet comes and tells Rehoboam to let it go.  Give some credit to the prophet for having the courage to do so!  But also give credit to Rehoboam for being willing to listen.  He hears the logic of God and humbles himself to it.  Yesterday we saw a young brash Rehoboam.  Today we see him take a step towards growing up.

The next picture of character that we see are the Levites from the northern kingdom.  When the kingdom in the north is set up, they are rejected.  Therefore, they choose to give up homeland and pastureland to come and support the worship of God being done in the kingdom of Judah.  Their character is one that chooses God over their own livelihood.  They believe that God can give them livelihood wherever they go.

The third picture of character that we see here is back to Rehoboam.  Do you hear how this chapter ends?  He has a plethora of wives and dozens of concubines.  Earlier, we saw that Rehoboam does have some humbleness within him.  Here we see that the sinfulness of his fathers continues.  His character, like all of ours, has chinks in the armor.  There are flaws preventing the perfection of God from coming forth.

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