Hey, Bible readers. I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today, we covered a lot of the same territory as yesterday, but Chronicles did provide us a few new details, so I'm going to focus mainly on those. During the time of the Divided Kingdom, the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom reject the Levites as priests. So not only do the Levites get fired from their jobs, but they're also evicted from their homes. So all the Levites leave the tribal lands they've been appointed to serve, and they move to Judah in the Southern Kingdom. These priests have served under the relatively good leadership of David and Solomon, and that sticks with them for a while. They have set their heart to seek God, and for three years, they help keep the Southern Kingdom on the straight and narrow. But it eventually starts to fall apart, as we saw yesterday. It's unclear whether the hearts of the Levites also turn away from God, or whether King Ray just stops caring and disregards God's laws and purposes for the Levites. King Ray has a lot of wives and concubines, and as his family grows, he distributes his sons throughout the regions, making sure to provide for them and find them wives.

They seem to serve like governors in the region, helping to make sure His power and influence take root in every part of the Southern Kingdom. But as his power grows, his heart turns away from God. Weakness has a way of reminding us of our needs, whereas strength has a way of prompting us to lean into autonomy and foolish forgetfulness. And as the King goes, so goes the Kingdom. The people follow Ray's lead and turn away from God. Then the armies of Egypt come after the Southern Kingdom. The text doesn't attribute this act to God here, but it leaves it open to interpretation. 12:2 says, Because they had been unfaithful to the Lord, Shashak, King of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem. So there seems to be a direct correlation between Judah's unfaithfulness and Egypt's attack. Given how God has worked in the past when his people rebel, we probably wouldn't be far off to conclude that God has intentionally raised up Egypt to oppressed the Southern Kingdom and prompt them to repent. Egypt takes a lot of land, but they don't capture Jerusalem. Shemaya, the prophet, lets King Ray know that God is granting Egypt success in their efforts against the Southern Kingdom.

And finally, the people repent. But God doesn't just immediately turn and drive out Egypt. Instead, he says he's going to use the Egyptian armies to teach Judah something about himself. Then Egypt invades Jerusalem and takes away some of their most valuable possessions from the temple and from the king's house. They had gold shields, which, by the way, is just a terrible idea. Gold is so soft that it doesn't make for a resilient piece of armor. King Ray replaces the gold shields with bronze shields because that's all they can afford. But honestly, it's probably better armor anyway. Ray has to keep his people armed at all times, which really highlights the fact that the peace his father Solomon had known during his reign is is gone. This feels a lot more like David's reign, where there was continual war, except at least David was winning, Ray is losing. But in the same way that his strength made him arrogant, his losses make him humble. And when he's humbled, God relents. Nevertheless, history records him as a wicked king. Meanwhile, King Jerry in the Northern Kingdom is appointing his own priest from among whatever tribe he wants to serve in the high places he built and worship the idol he created.

Jerry is like a cult leader, inventing his own religion pieced together with bits of truth and bits of heresy. And we even see in 11:15 that Jerry has his people sacrificing to goats to goats as well. Leviticus 17 refers to these type of goats as demons. False religions worship demons, regardless whether they take the shape of animals or mythical gods or even other humanlike deities, they're ultimately demonic. They're created beings who have either set themselves up against their creator or who are being worshiped instead of their creator. Today, my Godshot came from something we did read yesterday, but I noticed something new when we read it today. It was when King Jerry took all the people away from King Ray and Ray wanted to attack him. But then God spoke to Ray in 11:4 and said, You shall not go up or fight against your relatives. Return every man to his home, for this thing is from me. How hard do you think that was for Ray to hear that God had taken all these people from him, and he wasn't allowed to retaliate. He just had to trust God and obey him. God told him to send all the soldiers back to their homes, and he did.

It reminded me of a much more significant event from the New Testament. In John 18, when the soldiers show up to arrest Jesus before his crucifixion, Peter pulls out his sword to attack them, and Jesus tells him to put it away because this is all part of God's plan. The Son submits and surrenders to the Father's will. God's plan isn't always easy. Sometimes he takes things from us or gives us tough assignments that we'd rather avoid. But Christ has modeled for us, and even the evil King Ray has modeled for us, how to respond to God's plans. We gain things in surrendering to God that we would never have otherwise. He can be trusted, and he's where the joy is. It's weekly check-in time, Bible readers. Here's something I think is important to point out. You don't have to remember all this stuff. We aren't getting seminary credit for this. At some point, probably very soon, you're going to forget which one of these guys was king over which kingdom. And someone is going to reference Gideon, and you're going to think, Wait, who was he again? You're going to confuse Amnon and Absalom and the Ammonites.

And you know what? It's not going to matter. But you know what will matter? What you learn about God. That is shaping your heart and your life every single day that we read and recap. What you learn about God will stick with you. What you remember about his character will impact how you interact with him for the rest of your life. So don't be too hard on yourself if you get some of these details confused. I do, too, and I've read this at least 10 times. Keep looking for God. Keep finding your God shot each day, because when all the other details have faded or blurred together, that will last.