Overview of Genesis – 2 Chronicles, Adult Discipleship Class

was obviously that God is, that God exists. Romans 1, no one’s impartial to this truth. Everyone knows that God exists and those who deny it suppress the truth in unrighteousness. We also came to the text with the assumption that the text was inspired by God. That it was without error. It was perfect. It reflected his nature. As he is true and cannot lie, so is his word perfect. And as was mentioned today, he’s omnipotent. God is all-powerful and has the ability to communicate effectively.

And so whenever we come to the text of like the Old Testament or wherever we are in the scripture, if something seems like some sort of contradiction, the problem is not with the text. The problem is always with us. We just need to keep on digging. And that was our approach to the Old Testament. But the third assumption that we had with the Old Testament, and one that is going to inform the rest of our study as we go through all the way to the end, is who is the main character of the Old Testament? And I’ll give you a hint. It’s not Adam. It’s not Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. It’s not Moses. It’s not Joshua. It’s not any of the judges, or Samuel, or David, or Solomon.

Who is the main character of the Old Testament? Yes, absolutely. God. God is the main character. And because he is the main character, our study is going to look a little different. Rather than having a man-centered view of the Old Testament, we want to have a God-centered view of the Old Testament. And because of that, we approach each book with a summary that describes something about the character of God. And so, each time we did study an Old Testament book, and remind you, we went through Genesis all the way through 2 Chronicles, We had a general theme of, and please excuse my terrible handwriting, the God who, right? Since he is the main character of the Old Testament, each one of our studies of the Old Testament books will be centered around this theme.

I’m not taking this theme, drawing it out of thin air. I get this from wonderful books and some of the professors that taught me. faithful men who have studied God’s Word for many years, and I think that these summaries will help us understand. And my hope today is just to review over what we have learned. For those of you who have been here before, and those of you who haven’t, my hope is to kind of give you a little sense of the lay of the land, of where we’ve gone. From creation all the way to exile, it’s a massive chunk of text, but I believe that we can cover a good and sufficient review in the limited time that we have.

The very first book of the Bible is Genesis, good job, good job. And in Genesis, we learn about the God who creates. The God who creates. Remember, Genesis can be split up into two different sections. Chapters 1 through 11 about the history of the whole world as we know it. Where we come from, our origins, primeval history. And chapters 12 through 50 are the history of the patriarchs. of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We find at the very beginning that unlike all of the pagan gods and the polytheistic religions of Egypt and also into Canaan where Israel would go, the true God is the only God who has created everything, who is sovereign, and at His word things come into existence.

It’s totally different and totally other. He created everything, including us as human beings, and created us in His own image so that as we were fruitful, multiply, filled the earth and subdued it, that we would represent His sovereign reign and rule over the whole earth. But, shortly after in Genesis 3, we saw what?

That was man perfect? No, man sinned, right? Man sinned, and with man’s sin came the introduction of sin and death into the world. God pronounced curses upon the ground and spoke of pain and childbirth and such, but he gave a great hope to Adam and Eve and to all who would hear of this promise that one of Eve’s descendants, the seed of the woman, would come to crush the head of the serpent. And the serpent’s who?

Satan, right? Absolutely. So, there’s this great focus on this search for the seed. An amazing hope that someone’s going to come who’s going to reverse the curse forever. It’s going to destroy Satan. And the people of the Old Testament continually looked for this seed. Was this seed Cain?

It’s not a trick question. Was it yes or no? No? Okay, okay. No, it wasn’t. Cain kills his brother Abel. Sin has affected humanity. There’s a downward spiral until the flood where God looks down on the earth and notices that the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil continually. So he sends a global judgment by flood and preserves Noah. And then the question is, is Noah the seed? Was Noah the seed? Noah, right? No. Noah was not the seed.

And after that we have his descendants in the Tower of Babel where they sought to rebel against God by instead of filling the earth, settling in a place east of Eden, building this structure that was an act of rebellion against God. God confused the languages and that’s how we have nations. So, we have from the very beginning of our study of the Old Testament, answers to the questions of who we are as humans were created in God’s image. Our problem, why we see evil in the world, though God created everything good, is because man sinned. But there’s also hope that one would come to reverse the curse forever, and that God preserves a remnant, always preserves a remnant.

We saw that in Noah, and we’ll continually see it through the patriarchs. That’s Genesis 1 through 11. Then we studied Genesis 12-50, where God called a man named Abram and gave him the Abrahamic covenant, a sort of treaty, promise to Abram, then Abraham, and it involved three components.

Oh, you didn’t think I was going to ask you, did you, about what they are? What are they? What? Land. Seed. Blessing. Great work. Everyone raise your hands if you can. Flip them. Pat yourselves on the back. Thank you for the four people who participated in that.

So you have Abram, and then eventually becomes Abraham, who’s given this promise that his descendants would have a certain land. They would be a great nation, which then involves descendants, seed. And that whoever blessed his descendants would be blessed, whoever cursed them would be cursed, and in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. This promise is then given also to Abram and then Abraham’s son Isaac, and then to Jacob as well. who has many sons. Jacob’s name is changed to Israel from where we get the term for the nation of Israel, descendants of Jacob. And towards the end, he has this son, Joseph. And Joseph’s brothers loved him, right? He never bragged at all. I mean, everyone loves a bragging sibling, right? None of my siblings are here, right? OK, sweet. Right? No, they didn’t.

And so they sold him into Egyptian slavery. And God worked through that, and even though there were many trials that came upon Joseph… we see that God preserved his remnant. And God used Joseph to become the second most powerful man in Egypt. And when there was a famine in the land, God worked through Joseph to preserve a certain amount of food for Egypt and also the other peoples around.

And his brothers came. You remember, they were worried that he was going to retaliate. And what did he say in Genesis 50, 20? He said, what you meant for evil, God meant for good, right? And at the end of Genesis, we’re forced with this sort of statement. It’s a sort of a repetitive narrative.

We see Joseph’s brothers already had spoken to him about their fears of him retaliating. The second one sort of puts this question at all of us, and that question is, Are you able to champion the goodness of God despite the evil you see in the world? I mean, all of us in this room experience evil on a daily basis. Sin and death and the results of the fall, we experience this. But there’s hope. Even though man sinned and sin and death entered into the world, God’s plan is not thwarted and he’s still working even the evil things for his good purposes. That’s the amazing hope.

We also saw in Genesis 49.10, of Jacob, then Israel’s sons, one would have a perpetual dynasty of ruling. The scepter would not depart from this tribe. Do any of you remember which tribe? Judah, good job.

Genesis 49.10, the scepter would not depart from Judah, which is going to be incredibly important for our continuing understanding of the rest of the narrative.

So the first book’s Genesis, and the second book is Exodus. Good job. Second book is Exodus, where we learned about the God who delivers The God who delivers, right? That question that we ended Genesis with about championing the goodness of God in spite of the evil we see is vividly shown at the beginning of the Israelites, then Hebrews, slavery and Egyptian bondage.

God had promised Abraham land, seed, and blessing, right? And it didn’t seem like he was, in the moment, they might question his faithfulness, but God is faithful. And the narrative shows that he continues to build the population of the Hebrews, contributing to that seed element of the Abrahamic covenant promise. God is faithful and raises up a deliverer by the name of?

Moses, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it Moses right and we think of the the plagues narrative the ten plagues and then the Red Sea it’s amazing what God has done to deliver and Deliver the Hebrews so that they would be a people which I’m kind of getting a little ahead of myself eventually the Hebrews go to Sinai and where God in Exodus 19 gives them one role and sort of two titles that they will play as the nation among the nations. Does anyone remember what that is? A kingdom of priests, good job, and a holy nation. Great work. So it’s two different titles but one specific role.

And we talked about the difference between a priest and a prophet, right? A priest brings who to who? People to God, right? And the prophet brings who to who? God to the people through revelation. The priest brings the people to God through sacrifice, through worship, and administering these things. The prophet brings God to the people by delivering his word to the people. So Israel was essentially to be a corporate people that brought the peoples, the nations, to God. And how did they do so? And being a kingdom of priests, how did they bring the people to God?

By being a holy people. By being a holy nation, set apart, other, different, as Pastor Ron talked about today, God is holy. And there’s two components to that. There’s being set apart from the rest, being one component, and also being pure. Holy meaning without sin or becoming sinless. So, we saw that Israel was given that role to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

And how’d they do in Exodus? They didn’t do very good, right? They didn’t. No. Shortly after, Moses goes up for 40 days, 40 nights. He comes down, hears sounds of shouting in the camp. It almost sounds like music. What does he see? A golden calf. And then Aaron, of course, I love his response. Oh, it just jumped out of the fire. I don’t know, God. It’s kind of like what Adam said. It’s the woman you gave me, you know? It’s not my fault. And what we saw there, it’s problematic. Israel is unfaithful to God, even though God has been faithful to Israel.

And at the end of Exodus, we talked about how there are stipulations for the building of the tabernacle where God would dwell with the people in this tent. And the question that we have at the end of Exodus is how can a holy God dwell in the midst of a sinful people, right? How can a holy God dwell in the midst of a sinful people? And the answer is found in what book? What book comes next?

Yes, good job. And then Leviticus, we learned about the God who is holy. Many of these titles are coming from Paul House’s Old Testament theology, as well as my professor, Brian Bedebach, very helpful. These themes that summarize the book. And in Leviticus, Israel was given two sort of components of what it means to be holy. First of all, is the way to God, which is through sacrifice, through the sacrificial system, as instituted in the Levitical priesthood. but also the walk with God. The walk with God through obedience. You know, you remember reading in your Bible sometimes you just kind of maybe you’re praying that your morning devotional doesn’t go to Leviticus.

No, none of us have ever done that, right? And there’s something about how you’re not supposed to eat crustaceans, or you’re not allowed to eat pork, or the no mixing of the fabrics, or no consuming blood. People often have speculated and wondered why that was. Are they random? Is this some sort of prehistoric religion where it’s very ancient and they are uneducated? Well, no, of course not. Like I said, we come to the text with the assumption that this is the inerrant Word of God. Some have also said that, well, it was for health reasons.

And of course, I mean, God wouldn’t command His people to do things that would be inherently unhealthy for them if they were to be a nation among the nations. But most importantly, those commands aren’t random. Those commands were to contribute towards Israel becoming holy like the God whom they worshipped, to be a good testimony to the rest of the nations. because all of those practices, eating pork, mixing fabrics, eating those crustaceans that we all love, unless you’re sick, you get sick with them. No, those are all what the nations were doing.

And so if Israel is to be holy, they must not adopt the same practices of the nations so that there still is a distinction between Israel and the peoples of the land in which they would go, Moabite, Canaanite, etc. They were to be holy and to live differently. And God promises in Leviticus 26 that if they are obedient in this Mosaic covenant, this treaty, if they are obedient as the nation of Israel to follow God through the way to God through sacrifice and the walk with God through obedience, He will bless them for obedience.

But if they will disobey, they’re promised what? Curses! Good job! Obedience is promised, blessings are promised for obedience and curses for disobedience. And, as we find in the next book, was Israel faithful? No, no. What’s the next book? Anyone know? Numbers, right? Absolutely. And in Numbers we learned about the God who expects faithfulness. The God who expects faithfulness, right?

The first generation of Israel continually tested God with their complainings. Complainings against Moses and complainings against God. They didn’t trust God. They acted in unbelief. And because of that, God said that the first generation of Israel would not enter into the promised land. Was Moses exempt from that? No. Right? Remember the striking of the rock? Moses too was told that he would not enter into the promised land.

And so what we end up seeing is that this people continually struggles and is tempted towards idolatry and towards complaining and God is serious about sin and is holy. And Israel is kind of, it’s in its beginnings and they’re not quite to the promised land yet, but God is still faithful.

And do you remember the crazy prophet and the donkey that talks? What’s the name of the prophet who had his donkey talk? Balaam, right? Remember Balaam? Balaam’s important, and for many reasons, but the one that I want to draw to our attention today, since this is just a review, is in Numbers 24, Balaam keeps on, he’s hired out to prophesy evil against Israel, or to curse Israel. And he ends up blessing them instead. He can only say what God has commanded him to say. Even though he’s a false prophet, God still works through him, showing that God is sovereign over everything, and even though not the author of evil, is still sovereign. And Balaam connects two promises in Numbers 24 that have previously been revealed in Genesis. Do any of you know what those two promises are?

Genesis 3.15, which was, the seed of the woman would what? Crush the head of the serpent, absolutely.

And Genesis 49.10, when Jacob’s blessing his sons, the scepter would not depart from who?

Judah. So now the narrative continues to narrow its focus on who this coming ruler will be. The one with kingly language will crush the head of the serpent though bruised on the heel. He will come from the tribe of Judah. He pairs both of those together. He will crush through the forehead of Moab or God’s representative enemies. We saw in our fifth book, the last one that Moses wrote, which was Deuteronomy. We saw that God renewed the covenant with Israel. And God told them, he told them that he promised them blessing for what?

Obedience. And curses for what? Disobedience, and mind you, again, this is a corporate element. Sometimes when you’re in the Old Testament and you’re wondering about why it seems like people who obey are blessed, oftentimes that’s just referring to Israel corporately as a nation under the Mosaic Covenant, not giving some sort of retributive theology or this idea that if I’m only doing the right things, then maybe I’ll be blessed, or if I’m not, if I’m under trial, maybe I did something wrong. Job is a great example to go into to study that further. But Israel corporately as a nation was promised blessings for their obedience and curses for disobedience. But in Deuteronomy, as is found earlier as well, Israel was also commanded when they went into the land to do what with the people? Were they to leave the people in the land? No, they weren’t. And was this some sort of racist perspective? Was this some sort of ancient tribal thought that’s uneducated? Well, of course not. Again, we evaluated it and saw that there was a two-fold purpose for Israel to drive the peoples out of the land.

First of all, the peoples of the land, were they without sin? No, I mean you can read about these ancient pagan polytheistic practices like sacrificing children to Molech and of course we see they’re sinners, right? And so God is using Israel, His nation among the nations, to be an instrument of His judgment on them. But also it’s for Israel’s good. Why? What would happen if the peoples were left in the land? Israel would be tempted to do what? to worship idols, towards their polytheism. The very reason why they’re supposed to be holy, because he is holy, God is holy. Why they have all these laws that they’re supposed to follow is so that they’re different and they aren’t ensnared by these practices of the nations, and in those practices then worship false gods. And so at the very end, we saw after a summary of what God has done, what God expects, what God will do in Moses’ death, we come to our sixth book of the Old Testament, which is what?

You can sing the song too, it’s okay. Joshua, good job. Joshua, which is the God who conquers and divides. So Moses is dead, and we saw that even though Moses, and you think about it, Israel, since they came from Egypt, had Moses as their leader. It was a big deal to lose Moses. And so God established Joshua as their leader, not only through Moses’ example, and Moses making that clear, but also in Israel crossing the Jordan. They’re going westward rather than eastward, an Old Testament narrative that’s usually significant in a good way, towards the promised land. They cross the Jordan, and then we think the Battle of Jericho, right? Is that the normal way we normally should fight a fortified city?

I don’t know about you. I kind of think like the French peas and veggie tales. Like you can keep walking around our wall, but I don’t really think anything’s going to happen. Don’t think they had slushies back then, but that’s besides the point. No, they walked around six times in six days and then on the seventh day seven times and at the very end let out a loud shout and Jericho was destroyed. Jericho was destroyed.

It’s really amazing. It goes to show that not only is God holy, Not only is Israel called to be holy, but the way God works in this conquest is in a holy way, not in a natural way. It’s not supposed to be. Yeah, it is weird. It’s just as weird as the Jordan party. I mean, that’s the way God works and shows that he is the one who is blessing Israel because of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But Joshua’s limited, right? He can’t go and do all the conquests by himself. And so each tribe is apportioned out specific lots of land. And when the tribes are apportioned out those lots of land, are they faithful in driving out all the peoples or not?

Not! Uh-oh. We’re kind of on the edge of our seat at the end of Joshua. And that brings us to the seventh book of the Old Testament, which is? Judges, right? Where we learn about the God who disciplines. The God who disciplines. Remember, Mosaic Covenant, blessings are promised for what? Obedience. Good job. And curses are promised for what? disobedience.

There’s a summary in the couple of prologues at the beginning of the book of Judges that Israel wasn’t faithful to drive all the peoples out of the land like God had commanded them to. They did not act as his instrument of judgment faithfully and they also were unfaithful in their worship towards God. They were not holy as he is holy and they adopted the practices of the nations of the lands in which they went. And as a result, God put them into temporary foreign oppression.

We see 12 different judges in the book of Judges, and seven cycles of those judges, some of them overlapping. And there sort of is this perpetual downward spiral, starting with Othniel, nephew of Caleb, and ending, in Judges at least, with Samson. Right? Israel is in a pretty, not in a good spot. And there’s a continuing theme in the book of Judges that at that point there was no what in Israel. king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in what? Their own eyes, right?

So rather than following God, rather than following His word because He is holy, Israel is now doing what’s right in their own eyes. And at the very end of Judges, this leaves Israel in a worse state than the nations that they even were called to dispossess the land from. You remember the civil war about the Levite and his concubine, and the civil war because of the Benjaminites’ wickedness, which is just as bad, and the narrative itself uses the same language of Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s saying Israel now is just as bad, if not worse, than the nations around them. And that same theme comes up again and again, that at that point there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. But does that mean that God wasn’t sovereign? No, of course not. As we learned today in the sermon, God is sovereign, always is. This wasn’t, this didn’t thwart his plan. This was part of his plan.

And we see this play out really vividly in the next book of the Bible. What’s the next book? Ruth. Where we learn about the God who redeems. The God who redeems. And there’s so much, I mean, if you want a biblical love story, that’s a great place to go. But more than that, Ruth takes place in the time of the judges. The text itself says that. So during this crazy chaos, God still has a plan.

And at the very end of the book of Ruth, we see the genealogy of a certain king of Israel. And which king is that? David, good job. The genealogy is of David. God has redeemed a terrible situation for his greater purposes, for the ultimate good of his people. And that Ruth and Boaz end up becoming the ancestors of David.

Another question for you. Who was Boaz’s mother? Anyone know? I don’t know if I mentioned this. His mother was Rahab. Do you remember Rahab? Rahab and how God redeemed her in the conquest of Jericho. Amazing. To show God can save anyone. He saved Paul. He saved Rahab. He can save anyone. And it’s just amazing to think about.

And then if you go all the way up from Judah, the mother of a great great whatever, grandmother of Boaz was also Tamar. From the account of Judah and Tamar, I believe that’s Genesis 38, but you’ll have to fact check me on that one, about another situation where God redeemed the situation. Which then sets us up for the next book. The next book, the ninth book, sorry, I should probably start moving over here so you can actually see this. The ninth book of the Old Testament, which is what? First Samuel, right? First Samuel, this is totally random. I remember one time in L.A. County Prison Ministry, we were going in at the security checkpoint, and this guy, he point blank asked me after, why are you here?

I’m with a Protestant chaplain, da da da da da. He said, what comes after Ruth? It was so random, and I was like, oh, Samuel, of course. He’s like, good. And he said, the person in front of you had no idea what they were talking about, didn’t know that Samuel came after Ruth. And that was actually my friend from seminary, but I didn’t tell my friend that after that. I figured he wouldn’t be too happy about that. But so I know Samuel comes after Ruth.

I have a little bit of previous traumatic history about that. Just kidding. Not really. So we have 1 Samuel where we learn about the God who protects. The God who protects. And the narrative changes focus. It begins with the final judge of Israel. Who is who? It’s not in Judges. Who is the final judge of Israel? Samuel, yes. Samuel is the final judge of Israel. And eventually, the people want a king. And the problem isn’t that they want a king.

God already gave stipulations in Deuteronomy about not multiplying wives for… The king was not to multiply wives for himself, or gold for himself, horses for himself. He was supposed to depend completely on the Lord. And judges, the problem was, at that point, there was no wedding in Israel.

King. And everyone did what was right in their own eyes. So the problem wasn’t that Israel asked for a king necessarily. The problem is the way they asked for it. And they asked for a king like what? The rest of the nations. Are they supposed to be like the rest of the nations? No, no, no, no. Moi malo, right? Not good. They’re supposed to be holy, like God is holy. And so, do you know what God does as an act of discipline on Israel?

He gives them a king like the rest of the nations, and Saul. The text itself says that Saul was shoulders and head above everyone else. I mean, if anyone from the outer appearances is going to be the best kingly candidate, it would be Saul, right? But we see in the narrative Saul continually disobeys God and demonstrates that he’s doing maybe some of the right outward actions, but God, though man looks on the outer appearance, God looks at the heart.

And to obey is better than sacrifice. God rejected him as king of Israel, pointing to the king that he had been planning for in Ruth. Who is who? David, right? And so the narrative itself goes from a focus on Samuel to Saul and then to David. And Saul really is enthused about the concept of David as king, right? No, no, no, no. Yeah, tried to pin him to a wall a couple times. That didn’t work out for him.

Showing that God protected David. God protected David. Which then leads to the 10th book of the Old Testament, which this should be an easy one, is what? 2 Samuel. Good job. 2 Samuel, which is about the God who blesses David. The God who blesses David. We see the narrative is looking good at the beginning. David now has changed the headquarters from Hebron now to Jerusalem, and all the tribes are rallying around David now.

And in 2 Samuel 7, we have one of the most important chapters in all of the Old Testament, which is another covenant. We’ve already talked about the Abrahamic covenant. We’ve talked about the Mosaic covenant. What’s the other main covenant in the Old Testament? the Davidic Covenant, right? I mean, we could talk about like Noahic Covenant, right?

And some might even say the Adamic Covenant, depending on what your doctrinal beliefs are on that, but we find the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel chapter seven, where God promises to David and his descendants that sort of similar to the Mosaic Covenant, that if they obey him, he’ll bless their reign, and if they disobey, he will curse them or judge them, discipline them, and that there’s a hint of a ruler coming from David who will reign forever.

David wants to build the temple. God says no. David ends up shortly after, I believe 2 Samuel chapter 12, but you’d have to fact check me on that. We see his sin with Bathsheba, then the narrative itself kind of goes down, showing David’s decline because of his unfaithfulness to God, and God’s faithfulness to his word in 2 Samuel chapter 7, which leads us to David’s successor in the 11th book of the Old Testament. And the 11th book is what? First Kings, where we learn about the God who divides.

Who is David’s long-term successor after him? Well, Jesus, ultimately. I said long-term just because of none of the uprisings immediately after. Solomon, right? Solomon is a king who rules after David. And God blesses Solomon. Solomon asks for wisdom, and God also promises him riches and peace. And Solomon, since he is not a man of bloodshed, as his father David was, is the one who builds the temple. It’s an amazing thing, and I think there’s sort of some Edenic flavor to that about why God chose Solomon and not David to build the temple. Israel’s peak as a kingdom of priests and holy nation is found in the narrative of the Queen of Sheba, where the Queen of Sheba from one of the nations comes to Solomon and sees the way God has blessed the nation, praises God, the God who gave Israel such a wise king, But shortly after that, when we think about the Deuteronomy commands of the king to not multiply wives for himself, multiply horses, and multiply gold for himself, is Solomon faithful in that?

No, he’s not. Solomon is not faithful, and because of that, though God is still faithful to David, and He doesn’t expel Solomon immediately, but after Solomon, we see his foolish son Rehoboam reign. And Rehoboam doesn’t take the advice of the counselors to his father, and as a result, the people, all but Judah, decide to rebel and go with Jeroboam. There eventually is some Benjamin there with Judah too, but we see now there is a split kingdom. Rather than being a nation among the nations, now there are nations among the nations, which is setting Israel up for failure because they disobeyed. Jeroboam, because it’s not politically convenient to have his people go down to the southern kingdom to worship in Jerusalem where they’re commanded to worship, institutes two different locations in the northern kingdom to worship. Both have golden calves in them, which the narrative is intentionally trying to show. Israel is reverting back to their unfaithfulness.

We see the history of the kings of the North and the South in the next book of the Bible, which is… It’s so close. Second Kings, right? We’re almost there. First Chronicles is the next one. Second Kings, right? Where we see more of a history of the kings of the north and the south. And which one goes into exile first? The northern does. Why? Do they have any good kings? No. No, they do not have any good kings.

So they go into exile first and are taken into exile by Assyria. And then we see later in the narrative that Judah, because of their disobedience, and once again, curses were promised for disobedience to the nation as a whole, they are taken into exile by the Babylonians. Which comes to our next book of the Old Testament, which is what?

First Chronicles, good job, absolutely. Where we learn about the God who chooses. And you know, we talked about why have 1st and 2nd Chronicles when we have 1st and 2nd Kings, right? I mean, in some ways, when you look at the genealogy at the beginning, you’re kind of like, if I’m going to choose one to go through my morning devotions on, I want to probably rather go with the Kings.

Well, no, they both have different purposes. And once we understand that, we want to study all of them. It’s intentional. All Scripture is inspired. And it’s important that Chronicles is in the Scripture because, think about it, the audience is different. The audience of 1st and 2nd Kings is to Israel that’s in exile or out of exile. In exile. Right? Israel disobeyed. Israel disobeyed the Mosaic Covenant. And because of that, that’s why we’re here.

When we come to 1 and 2 Chronicles, which I guess I kind of spoiled the next one, it’s all about being back in the land post-exile and about God’s faithfulness, about the importance of worship. We see some instances of like David’s sin with Bathsheba and others that are omitted because the narrative is a little more optimistic. because now they’re back in the land and now they’re trying to give, presumably Ezra, is giving a priestly account rather than a prophetic account of the kings of Israel’s history where it ends again in exile but ends with hope that Israel would come back into the land And that even though they had disobeyed, God was still faithful to his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Two things that I just want to emphasize at the end here.

Abrahamic covenant, incredibly important. Land seed and blessing. God’s faithful through all of this, even though Israel, Abraham’s descendants, is unfaithful. It’s an everlasting covenant. It’s one that is based upon God’s nature himself, and he doesn’t change. Therefore, his promises don’t change. And it’s the same today. But we also see another theme, and it’s about the seed of the woman. The seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent. There still is great hope.

We see in Genesis 49.10 that ruler will come from Judah. And we learn in 2 Samuel 7 that it will be one of David’s descendants, which we know is fulfilled in whom?

Jesus Christ. Let’s pray. Lord, thank you so much for your word. Your word, Lord, is firmly fixed in the heavens. The grass withers, the flower fades, but it stands forever. And we thank you, Lord, that even though we are not Old Testament Israel, that we have much to learn about your character in your word, that these examples were given to us, Lord, for us to notice and to see, Lord, not that they were crazy and that even though they saw all these amazing things, it’s unbelievable that they disobeyed, but Lord, that we’re no better.

Lord, we’re sinners too, in need of your salvation. And so we thank you, Lord, for coming and being born of a woman, as the seed of the woman, to crush the head of the serpent, for paying the price for our sins and being raised on the third day for our justification. And I pray, Lord, that as we go about this week, even with the sermon as well, heard earlier today, that we would have more of a you-centered view than a man-centered view. And that instead of looking at our trials and looking at our temptations and looking at ourselves in those times, that we wouldn’t look to ourselves and be in despair, but instead that we would look to you and find hope. We love you and praise you and we thank you for this time. It’s in your name we pray these things. Amen.