Concerns of the Kingdom

This transcript has been automatically generated

Thanks so much, Gerald. Well, if you’re asked to read this week, good luck. That was terrific. Thank you, Gerald, very much indeed. Our subject over the next 6 days is God’s Kingdom.

Kingdoms come and kingdoms go, empires rise and empires fall, government ministers are appointed and government ministers resign. I had determined to start the talk like that, and over breakfast last week George Kay on this Saturday morning, we were talking about governments and this sort of thing and he said, well, William, like you keep banging on about, kingdoms come and kingdoms go. And so anyway, there we go, they get the beginning as it was. But in this ceaselessly changing world, what is it that God, Creator of the universe, is doing? Our study is just one book of the Bible.

1 and 2 Chronicles originally was just one piece. And the book by sort of theme is divided into 4 major parts. And so if you are on page 14, you’ll see the words the book halfway down the page, and what I’ve tried to do is outline the 4 parts for us there. We’ll come back to that in just a moment. This book, 1 and 2 Chronicles, was written between 450 and 400 BC, so around about 2,400 years ago.

We can know something of its date for 2 reasons. First, because of what we just had read there in chapter 36, verse 22 of 2 Chronicles, in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation. And we know the date of that proclamation was 538 BC. But in the list of names that we just had read out in chapters 1 through 9, in chapter 3— we won’t go there now— we are given the name of Zerubbabel, who was a governor of Jerusalem, and then we are given 6, possibly 7, maybe even 8 generations beyond Zerubbabel. And we happen to know the date of Zerubbabel was 520 BC.

And therefore, that forces the date of this material much, much later than Zerubbabel by 4, 5, 6, 7 generations. So we’re talking about 400, 450, some people even say 390 BC that this book was written in. So we’re dealing with a piece of material around about 2,400 years old. That, may I say, in itself is a remarkable thing. That we might have determined to spend a week, having had it advertised in advance here in Ashburnham, to spend studying a 2,400-year-old text.

But the book is written about a period of history prior to when the book was written by about 500 years. And therefore, what we’re dealing with is 3,000-year-old history. And you may be saying to yourself, well, we had a pretty odd reading, but what on earth have I let myself in for? Might I begin by painting just a little bit of a timeline for us so we begin to get our bearings? And what I’ve tried to do is put that under the words up on that first page of the handout.

And I’m going to trace back before 586 BC. From around about the middle of the 11th century BC, 1050 BC, King David and King Solomon came to prominence in Israel. Under their rule, we entered into what is known as the Golden Age, or the ideal kingdom, where all the promises made to Abraham appeared to have been fulfilled. However, following Solomon’s reign, the Kingdom of Israel, the Golden Age, was divided. There was civil war.

We’ll come to that as we go through the history. And then in about 586, well, 587-586 BC, amongst the most cataclysmic events in the history of Israel took place, as God delivered on his promise to overthrow his people and remove from his land his people, destroying Jerusalem and the temple because of their unfaithfulness. We’re now on the chart, 586 BC, the exile.

We’ve just read Cyrus’ edict. Following the exile, Cyrus, king of Persia, a pagan king, gave this edict and had been instructed by God to restore God’s people to the land. The edict was in 538 BC. In 536 BC, with people having gone back up to the land of Israel, the temple foundations were restored. 520 is Zerubbabel, you can see him there on the chart.

And 515, the temple was, the new temple was dedicated. Ezra, Nehemiah writing around about 458, 430. And then there’s the date of our chronicler in 450 to 400 BC.

But at the time of the author’s writing, the people had largely failed. They rebuilt the Temple, but it was a shadow of its former self. They were dispirited, disillusioned, what you might call a remnant rump. And so in 400 to 450 BC, our author writes. Here then is our book, and I hope you’ll keep that chart in mind as we go through, because it’ll help you to have some idea of what’s going on.

The author is looking back over 500 years before the time of writing and he’s asking, you know, what was it that actually made Israel great in the first place? What was it that had been at the heart of Israel’s existence and the promises of God? What had God intended for Israel? And therefore, we, those of us who have returned following the exile, who are we? And what does God want for us and from us?

Now, if you found any of that hard to follow, what I’ve done is, with the help actually of one or two Oompa Loompas in the back office, here we go. Here are the Chronicler’s concerns. We’re going to be looking at those in chapters 1 through— chapter 1 of 1 Chronicles 1 to 9. 1 Chronicles 1:1-9, the Chronicler’s concerns. That’s what we’re going to be looking at this morning.

Then we’re going to be looking, slide 2, at the Golden Age of the Kingdom, 1 Chronicles chapter 10 through to 2 Chronicles chapter 9, the kingdom of David and Solomon, with the king enthroned, the temple built, and the people gathered. And then thirdly, we’re going to look at the Divided Kingdom. What went wrong? And in the period of the Divided Kingdom, Who did right and who did wrong? What should we emulate?

And then, slide 5, I think it is now, we’ll trace through and we’ll see on the last morning the exile of Judah in 586 to Babylon and then the Edict, 6, Cyrus. And then just to remind you that our author, 7, slide 7, is writing in 400 BC, 500 years later. Now, if that didn’t all quite sink in, don’t panic, okay? This is an introductory morning. I know everybody’s just got up and, and all the rest of it.

You didn’t sleep last night and you’re not sure whether you’ve got your children with you or not and slightly wishing you hadn’t and all that sort of stuff. So don’t panic, don’t panic, but that’s roughly where we’re going. What, however, is our author’s method? I think we’re now on the next page. What is our author’s method of doing history?

Now, as we begin to get into the text, and I’m not going to take you through these verses for the sake of time, but the Chronicler regularly reveals his sources. Remember, he’s writing at about a period 500 years before his time. And so, if you were to go to 2 Chronicles, you would see his sources are the Book of the History of the Kings of Israel, or the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Judah, or Isaiah the prophet, or Jehu the seer, or Shemaiah the man of God, or Nathan the prophet, and it goes on and on and on and on. And at the end of most of the king’s reign, what the author says is, by the way, if you want to know more, just go and look at the Annals of the Prophet of so-and-so, or the book of the history of somebody else. And so you’ve got to picture the chronicler writing from his library with a number of different texts at his disposal with pigeonholes all around the room, if you like, saying, oh yeah, I need a bit of material from that one, and then having them all laid out in front of him.

This is the reign of so-and-so and he’s got it all here. We’ll put that bit in, we won’t put that bit in, we’ll leave that out and we’ll include that. He draws on the Book of Psalms, on the Book of Isaiah, on 1 and 2 Samuel, on 1 and 2 Kings, the Book of Jeremiah, on Genesis and other prophets. And because we have much of, some of that material, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, we are able to examine how our chronicler has handled his material, and as we cross-check we see that he has operated as an editor, splicing and slicing in order to make his point. In fact, I’m going to call the Chronicler Ed, if I may, for short.

Editor was his name. Well, we don’t know what his name was. Here he is back in Jerusalem after the exile, 500 years after the glory days, 600 years after the glory days of King David and King Solomon, with a dispirited and disillusioned people, piecing together his work for a purpose. For what purpose?

See, as we look at the material, like with any book of the Bible, we should be asking, well, why? What’s his aim? What’s he wanting to achieve for his original reader in 400 BC? Because it’s only as we begin to understand what he wants to achieve for his original reader, that we will begin to understand as we see it through the lens of its fulfilment in Jesus, what he’s wanting to achieve for us.

And there are a number of things you note when you’re reading 1 and 2 Chronicles, well, you will spot. Firstly, that there’s virtually no reference at all to the Northern Kingdom. Once the division happens in 931 BC and we got the Northern Kingdom and Judah after the civil war, there’s virtually no reference to the Northern Kingdom. There are a couple of references, will touch on them, but virtually none. And so his focus is almost exclusively on the south and on Judah and on Jerusalem.

Next, he is incredibly positive about Judah, David, Solomon, and all the bad bits he seems to leave out. So there’s no Bathsheba. Remember David had an affair with Bathsheba and killed her husband Uriah. There’s no Tamar and Amnon. You remember Tamar seduced Amnon, or actually it was worse than that.

There’s no Absalom. There’s no mention of the battle, civil war between David and Absalom. There’s no long power struggle which goes over 22 chapters between David and Saul. It all happens in just one chapter and there’s not really even a mention of the power struggle. What is our author doing?

Well, may I say, you might be saying, oh well, it’s just a bit of subterfuge. He’s just painting a glossy picture as he feels he wants to. No, it’s not subterfuge. This is not Hollywood, you know, America won the Battle of Hastings. No, it’s not that.

No, he gives us his sources. So he’s totally open about what he’s doing. He’s not playing fast and loose. Well, I wonder if there is a clue, and I’m only gonna put it like this, a clue. I wonder if there is a clue just in that closing passage that we had read.

We have a full, or as full as available to us, copy of Cyrus’ edict in Ezra chapter 1. Don’t go there now, it happens to be the next book of the Bible, don’t bother. What the author does, what Ed does, is he cuts Ezra’s edict from Cyrus in half. He finishes halfway through. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him.

Up, arise! Picture then the first readers as they read about their great-great-great-great times 13 grandparents, Solomon and David, and those who lived with them, and the glory days. Picture the first readers as they read about those who first went back the return of the exile following Cyrus’ edict, their great-grandparents. Picture the author. This is God’s project, His glorious kingdom.

This is when we saw all the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob fulfilled in Jerusalem in an earthly way. This is God’s great concern, His kingdom, His presence. These are the aspects of God’s enduring plan. Kingdoms come, kingdoms go, empires rise, empires fall, ministers are appointed and ministers resign, but the Word of God’s promise stands forever up.

Now, on its own you might say, well, that’s a bit like us looking back to Victoriana and trying to have a kind of rousing— was it Michael Gove who made us all read This Island’s Great Storey or whatever it is to try and restore a sense of of, yeah, nationalism and all the rest of it. Or present-day Chinese people casting back to the Tang Dynasty. But this is different, isn’t it? Because this has to do with the promise of God, with God our Creator and his eternal plan.

And so just on the surface, I can see 3 very straightforward benefits in studying 1 and 2 Chronicles, and I hope you will really enjoy studying it over the next 6 days. First, chronologically, because it’s chronologically the last book that was written in the Old Testament times, 390-400 BC, what is helpful, I think, for us is to see, if you like, the Bible’s understanding of the key themes that we should be focused on as we anticipate the coming of the Christ. So what the Chronicler has done is he’s, if you like, distilled the key things for us So we know exactly what to be looking for when the Christ comes. So many Bible overviews, we kind of trace through the overview and decide, oh well, we’ll do a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of that, that seems to be important and that seems to be important. Well, how about taking the Bible’s own emphasis at this point in history and say, well, what did the Chronicler think?

And what was it that Anna and Simeon were waiting for as they sat in the temple waiting for the redemption of Israel? The Chronicler, if you like, has distilled for us the key things. It should actually, for those of you who think theologically, play a great part in us deciding what we really emphasise.

But above all, surely, it will help us to understand the Lord Jesus better. And my hope and prayer is that over these few days we will gain a much bigger view of Jesus. I’ll say something about teaching Jesus from the Old Testament in 2 or 3 days’ time. But in short, what should happen when we go to the Old Testament is not that we find something that reminds us of something in the Gospels and then basically go to the Gospels. What should happen when we handle the Old Testament is we should come to the Old Testament, treat the text as the text, and see something profoundly kind of enriching about the Lord Jesus so that when we come to that theme in the Gospels, we suddenly realise it’s much bigger and grander than we ever thought it was.

And too much of our preaching, I would suggest, on the Old Testament is of the former rather than the latter. Well, let’s get into the text. You may have noticed, and I do feel we were a little cruel to ask you to read 9 chapters. My mother has been reading along with us down in Cornwall, aged 83. She had, I mentioned this last night, she said, oh darling, I’ve been reading the first 9 chapters, I must say I did dip in and out slightly, that is, of the text rather than consciousness.

What do you normally do? I know some of you read through the Bible. I try and read the Bible every year. Some of you do. What do you normally do, in all honesty, when you get to the list of these names?

I mean, is there a little bit of dipping in and out, darling? I think, Vex, there may well be. Let’s begin at the beginning, chapter 1. And if you look down the page there, we’re now over the page again, and you look to point 2, rather confusingly what I’ve done at point 2 is to give you something of the shape of the opening 9 chapters. And so this first point, God’s people are a connected people, draws on that first part of the scheme for the first 9 chapters.

Point 1, you’ll notice that our author begins with Adam, that he moves very swiftly through to Abram, in verse 27 Abraham, and then as quickly on to Jacob, who is known as Israel by the Chronicler, and his 12 sons. So Jacob is also known as Israel. In Genesis. And then in chapter 2, he moves to the sons of Jacob. What’s his point?

Well, first, we are connected to Adam. We haven’t got time for a crash course in Genesis 1 to 11, but they’re all there in the first few verses. That is, we’re human. We have the privilege and responsibility of being made in the image of God. And we’re profoundly flawed, like Adam, fallen creatures.

And just as the sons of Noah were equally rebellious to his, to Adam their forefather, so also are we. And from the sons of Noah came all the nations of the world, and you’ll see them listed there, both in Genesis and here in these verses, the known nations, that is, of the world to the author at the time. Now, we haven’t got time, as I say, for a crash course in Genesis. But anybody picking up this would realise what’s going on as far as the Chronicler is concerned, as he charts through, basically, in the opening chapter, the Book of Genesis by names. And having outlined the nations, then he goes straight to Abraham.

And of course Abraham in Genesis 12, from a picture that is unutterably bleak following the Fall, God saw that the thoughts of man were only evil continually, Abraham comes as a blast of cool icy air in the midsummer torpor. God says to Abraham, remember, I will make a name for you, the sons of Noah having said, come, let us make a name for ourselves, and I will bless you. And the nations will be blessed through you. And from you will come a people, and from you will come his place, and I will be your God. And so by connecting the reader to Adam and to Abraham, the author is showing us that we are connected to the rest of the human race and connected to God’s purposes in Abraham.

As God promises that he will make a people and bring them to his place and bless them with his presence. And connected to Jacob and connected to the 12 tribes of Jacob. So chapter 2, verse— chapter 1, verse 34, Abraham fathered Isaac. The sons of Isaac, Esau and Israel. Chapter 2, verse 1, these are the sons of Israel.

And there are the 12 tribes of Israel.

You can imagine the original reader. In recent history they’d been subject— subjugated in Babylon, and prior to that they had been tyrannised by Assyria, and after the Babylonians they had been vassals to the Medes, the Persians, and then to Cyrus. But there is one people, one family, one nation. Out of all the peoples of this world, there is one group to whom the work— the Father and Creator of the universe has committed himself through his promise in his word. Kingdoms come and kingdoms go, empires rise and empires fall, CEOs are appointed and CEOs are sacked.

There was once a bank called Lehman’s, you may remember, and an individual called Dick Fuld who was feared and admired. And there was an airline called Monarch. And indeed there was an airline called Pan Am, I believe, once upon a time. And some of you probably sat in their grand terminal. And it’s all gone.

And overnight the wall came down. Do you remember the Soviet Union? Whoever is among you, of all his people, May the Lord his God be with him; let him go up. If you’re connected to Abraham, to Israel, the tribes of Israel, one of the people of God, you’re part of his special people scattered amongst the nations. Here is a summons to remember who you are.

And in a sense, we’re all used to that. You know, your firm has probably got some sort of motto. Mine used to be, Keller et Audax, swift and bold. That’s what we thought we were. It’s decrepit and past it now.

But, Keller et al., I don’t know what the Latin is for that, but that’s what it was. We’re all used to that, but this is different because this is the living God. Part of the human race, part of Abram’s people with God’s promise, part of the people of Israel, the 12 tribes of his own possession. It’s actually a brilliant opening. It should be beginning to stir something.

Arise.

But very quickly the author gets down to business. You could say, well, so what? After chapter 1, what are the chief concerns of God’s people after the exile going to be? And as I say, it’s immensely important because this is the last book chronologically in the Old Testament, and the next item on the agenda is the coming of Jesus. What are the categories of expectation that we should be looking forward to?

How should we sum that up? And if you look at the way in the first 3 verses of chapter 2 the author moves from 12 tribes to just one, you can see that the author is immediately honing in, zoning in on one particular individual. So you’ve got the 12 tribes in verses 1 and 2, now verse 3, the sons of Judah. Er, Onan, Shelah, great name for a boy. And then verse 4, his daughter-in-law Tamar also bore him Perez and Zerah.

And verse 5, the sons of Perez, Hezron and Hamul. And verse 9, the sons of Hezron. Verse 10, Ram fathered Aminadab, and Aminadab fathered Nahshon, the prince of the sons of Judah, and Nahshon fathered Salmon. Another great name for a boy. And Salmon fathered Boaz, and Boaz fathered Obed, and Obed fathered Jesse.

Do you know when the BBC is wanting us to zone in on a particular part of Afghanistan, you’ll have the whole of the Middle East and then zoom, the camera comes down, you’ve just got Afghanistan, and zoom, you’ve just got the Helmand Province, and then whoomp, you’re into one little village and there’s one tracked vehicle with a couple of guys fighting it out for their life. You know how it does that? That’s exactly what’s going on here. Verbally or literally speaking. It’s a visual exercise, if you like, but it’s done in writing, brilliant writing.

And then chapter 3, you can just see it from the headline there, is given over entirely to David. And chapter 4 to other children of Judah, in particular those who helped David Verse 14, the craftsmen. Verse 23, the potters. In other words, you want to know what God’s on about? Well, yes, the whole human race.

Oh, and yes, Abram, and now Judah, and Jesse, and David, his king.

Give me your telescope for a moment. You see a vast crowd over there? Focus in a touch. You see a slightly smaller group? Focus in a little bit more and you can see just 5 or 6 people and now zoom right on in.

I can see Simon Dowdy through my telescope, but zoom right on in and there is David. That’s the one. It’s brilliant writing, highly selective. You could say he’s got a one-track mind. There’s one family.

And chapter 3, verses 10 to 23 traces that family right up to Zerubbabel and beyond, as many as 6, 7, possibly even 8 generations.

Now look back at the diagram under point, under that second point. We’re on the second point now, I’m sorry, we’ve slipped down to the second point. Look back at the diagram again under the second point and you’ll see at the back end that the author gives a whole chapter to Benjamin. Why does he give a whole chapter to Benjamin? Because Benjamin was the one tribe that remained loyal to David.

And so what the author has done is he has, first of all, gone to the distant past and shown us that we’re connected. And then he’s immediately got down to business and said, we’re interested in the royal tribe. This is going to be about the kingdom of God. And before he comes to the immediate past, at the back end of the piece, he focuses in on Benjamin because Benjamin had been loyal to David when the tribes divided.

So we are connected. And, that’s the second point, we have certain key concerns. And the first of those key concerns is royalty. The chosen governance of God’s people. This is about the kingdom of God.

Kingdoms come and kingdoms go, empires rise and empires fall, government ministers are appointed and government ministers resign. There’s a ceaseless merry-go-round amongst the children of Adam, but when you come through the children of Abraham and Israel, yes, there is one nation, one kingdom. One people who really matter— royalty.

The second key concern under point 2 is divinity. See, the remarkable thing about 1 and 2 Chronicles as a whole is its focus not only on royalty but also on the temple, and in particular on the temple servants, the priestly line, both those who make sacrifices such that God can dwell amongst us and those who speak. And again, we discover this upfront in the first 9 chapters. So in the first 9 chapters, Judah and Benjamin are given chapters 2 to 4 and chapter 8. Chapter 2, 3, 4, and 8.

That’s 4 chapters, around about 140 verses. In the first 9 chapters, the other tribes, are given at most 22 verses. One tribe only gets one verse. Not quite sure what they did wrong. Somebody thinks possibly the bit was lost.

Maybe they just, the chronicler didn’t like them, I don’t know. But anyway, he only gets one verse. But there is one tribe slap bang in the middle under point 2. You see the way I’ve done out the, the kind of sandwich there, the tribe of Levi. And Levi get 81 verses.

Why would that be? Oh, because Levi is at the head of one tribe set apart by God to ensure that God, in his holy purity, could dwell amongst his people through the sacrificial system. And we will deal with this on Monday. So we’re going to deal with royalty tomorrow, King David and the kingdom of God, and on Monday we’re going to deal with God’s presence dwelling amongst his people, which distinguishes this kingdom from all other kingdoms.

And the Levites were responsible for the sacrificial system and for speaking and teaching God’s praises. Do you know, by the time of David’s reign, there were 38,000 men over 30 serving at the temple, and there were 4,000 musicians alone. Now we’ve got some great musicians here, and I don’t want to upset any of the muses, but let me tell you, we ain’t got a patch on David’s temple. 4,000 of them, can you imagine it? And their primary purpose was to, to speak and to declare.

And I want to say this up front because a lot of people when they go through 1 and 2 Chronicles see all the musicians and say, ah, we’ve got to have a great worship band, and the whole thing is about worship services and all the rest of it. No, actually in the temple the primary purpose of the Levites Levites was to declare the praises of God. And when we come through to our age, it equates to people like you and me speaking clearly of Jesus. But let’s go to chapter 6, shall we, briefly. Chapter 6, verse 1.

The sons of Levi: Kohath, Gershon, Merari. The sons of Kohath: Amram. Of Amram: Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. Of Aaron traces it through Zadok, verse 7, and then through from Zadok to Jehozadak, and then from Jehozadak all the way through to Joshua, who was High Priest when Zerubbabel returned in 520 BC. And what is it that Aaron did?

Well, Aaron’s responsibility, verse 49 of chapter 6, and his sons made offerings on the altar of burnt offering and on the altar of incense for all the work of the Most Holy Place, to make atonement for Israel according to all that Moses the servant of God had commanded. So then we have the king and the kingdom, and then we have one family of all God’s people, the Levites. And what is it that the family of Levi is concerned with? The forgiveness of sins. Sacrificial system.

God dwelling amongst his people. So, yet we are children of Adam, we are part of this fallen, broken, sinful human race, but we have the promises of Abraham— God’s people, God’s place, God’s presence— and we are a royal nation. And the thing that distinguishes us from all other visions of humanity is that we have God dwelling amongst us. One of the things that begins to wear, isn’t it, when you get to your— well, most of you aren’t— but when you get to your 50s and and so forth, is this repeated claim of whoever comes next in the great kind of merry-go-round of emperors and empires, that they will do it right this time. Things can only get better.

Well, actually, I don’t think he was American, that one. It was Tony Blair, wasn’t it? Time for a change. We’re gonna make America great again. Well, is Ed any different?

Is this vision any different? Yes, it is, because at the heart of it, chapter 6, is this issue of God dwelling amongst his people. So who are we and what are our concerns? Royalty, divinity. And on Monday morning we’re going to be dealing with the temple, 1 Chronicles 16 through to 2 Chronicles 9.

In and through the sacrifices of the temple, God’s people were made right with God. God dwelt amongst his people. And God’s presence was there at the heart of his kingdom.

One final concern that the Chronicler has. We haven’t yet touched on chapter 4, verse 24 through to chapter 5, verse 26. And we haven’t yet touched on chapter 7 at all. And in these chapters we get a very brief history of the other tribes that might easily be forgotten about. So we’ve had royalty, Judah, David, those loyal to Judah and David, Benjamin.

We’ve had divinity, that is those who are concerned for God dwelling amongst his people at the heart of his kingdom, chapter 6, the second major concern of the Chronicler. And now, sandwiched in between those ideas and those themes, we have all the other tribes. Actually, there’s no mention of Dan. I’m not quite sure why there isn’t a mention of Dan. If anybody can think of a reason, you come and talk to me.

And there’s no mention that I can find of Zebulun, though he is mentioned elsewhere in the books. But that aside, we’re given a list of the other tribes who might easily be forgotten, either because it would be easy just to leave them out and forget about them, or because there’s some dastardly thing in their track record that you might easily leave out.

And so the final great theme of this magnificent book of the Chronicles, royalty, divinity, unity, all the people of God. And as we go through, you will notice again and again and again, all the people, All of Israel, all the tribes, the whole people of God, a great concern of the Chronicler. It’s there in the very last verse, whoever is amongst you of all his people, let him go up. Nobody missed out.

Included in this list, beautifully, chapter 2, verse 34, an Egyptian slave. Who’d have thought an Egyptian slave would get into the list of God’s people? Included in the list, chapter 2, verse 46, Caleb’s concubine. Who’d have thought, Ephrath, 3,000 years ago, as she was in the maternity ward of whatever hospital it was, giving birth to Caleb’s child, Caleb’s concubine only, would be being talked about 3,000 years later as one of the people of God. Who’d have thought it?

And included in the list, chapter 5, verse 25, is this sort of desperately dark moment in the half-tribe of Manasseh when they break— broke faith with the God of their fathers and whored after the gods of the peoples of the land whom God had destroyed before them. A dark moment, a black sheep in the family. And yet you find as the book goes on, come in, Manasseh, come in, Manasseh, come back.

Well, I guess all of us will have dark sheep in the family of that sort. In fact, I’m told that one of my ancestors was the King of Prussia, which you might think is quite a an accolade until you realise that the King of Prussia was the lead pirate at Prussia Cove. And, you know, we’ve all got people like that in our family, haven’t we? And the Cronquer is appealing. Well, maybe you haven’t.

I bet you have. If you go back far enough, you’ll have somebody like the King of Prussia. Pirates in Cornwall were very well thought of, it has to be said. But, but even the people from Manasseh are being encouraged to come back in. Even the people of Manasseh.

Tribes of the north, tribes of the south, tribes loyal in the civil war, tribes east of the Jordan, tribes west of the Jordan, those who belonged by birth, those who didn’t. Whoever is among you of his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Arise. Remember the Falklands War? Brian Hanrahan.

I counted them in, I counted them back in again, I counted them out, I counted them back in again. Connected, concerned for royalty, divinity, and the unity of God’s people, and committed. Chapter 9, these are the people.

Chapter 9, verse 1, verse 2, sorry. Now the first to dwell again in their possessions, in their cities, were Israel. The priests, the Levites, and the temple servants committed to the re-establishing of God’s kingdom. Well, I can think of one immediate application. What we’re going to be doing over the next few days is, first of all, spending 2 days, if you like, on the positive establishing of the kingdom of God in the Golden Age.

We’ll look at royalty tomorrow as we look at chapters 10 of of 1 Chronicles. And then we’ll look at divinity on Monday as we go right the way through to chapter 2, verse 9, 2 Chronicles chapter 9 rather, divinity. And then we’ll look at the divided kingdom. So we’re going to, I hope, get a much bigger picture of the Golden Age and of the Lord Jesus. But one, here is one immediate application.

Who are we?

I think we live in an age of identity crisis and what you might call isolated connectivity.

And certainly as you look out on the children, they are growing up in an age where no one knows what it is to be human anymore and where the internet and social media leaves them more connected and more isolated than ever they have been.

St. Vincent is an American rock musician who operates on the cutting edge of the sexual revolution. She says this: I think so much of sexuality is fluid, so much of gender is fluid, so much of identity is construct, So much of identity is arbitrary anyway. Now is a really exciting time as we get to broaden the idea of what human beings get to be. It’s fascinating. Go and read— I mean, she’s not my sort of first choice of music at all, or clothing, it has to be said, but— She is a philosopher of her time and she’s speaking what so many people think they’re doing.

You know, the sexual revolution of the 1960s, they were breaking free, I can’t get no satisfaction. This is the new revolution. We get to decide or broaden the idea of what humans get to be. Who am I?

Well, the chronicler begins to give us some bearings, if you like. Some foundation.

No longer radically connected but fundamentally isolated, but radically connected and tied in to the eternal purposes of God. Something beyond the kingdom of Adam. God is doing it. He’s doing it with his royal ruler, his holy presence. And every one of his people matters.

No matter what their digital history or their ancestral DNA or their professional or non-professional background or their academic qualifications or otherwise, if we’re connected to the royal King and have benefited from his high priestly ministry, we are part of his eternal purposes.

Arise. Allow me to lead us in prayer.

Father, we thank you so much that there is something worth getting out of the— out of bed for each day. We thank you for this extraordinary part of Scripture. That shows us your key concerns as your people looked forward to the coming of your King. We thank you for your promise of a King. We thank you for your eternal promise of a kingdom that stands forever.

We thank you, Father, for your promise to dwell amongst your people. We thank you for your offer of a sacrifice to take away sin. Such that you could dwell in our midst. And we thank you, our Father in heaven, for the inclusion of all who look to you in faith. We pray that you would use this book to strengthen and encourage us and cause us in our day to arise.

In Jesus’ name, amen.