1 Kings 15:1-24

[0:00] So we're in 1 Corinthians 15. We're still visiting the divided nation. We're going to spend a little bit more time here in the southern kingdom.

[0:10] We'll see two more kings pass by us really quick in the southern kingdom. And we'll put it in context. We know that the king, which has just passed off the scene, has walked in unfaithfulness with the Lord.

[0:23] We're not focusing on Jeroboam. Jeroboam is still reigning in the northern kingdom. He's still there. Rehoboam, Jeroboam. So Jeroboam's still there. Rehoboam is passed off the scene because Rehoboam really, in spite of everything that he had available to him, misled the nation into idolatrous worship.

[0:43] And now he has died. His son will ascend to the throne. We're going to pick that up in chapter 15. But I want you to see verses 1 through 24 this evening. And then we'll get right into our text together.

[0:55] Now in the 18th year of King Jeroboam. King Jeroboam's nation, Israel, the northern kingdom. We're looking into Judah, the southern kingdom of Judah. Now in the 18th year of King Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Abisham became king over Judah.

[1:10] He reigned three years in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Micah, the daughter of Abishalom. He walked in all the sins of his father, which he had committed before him, and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, like the heart of his father David.

[1:23] But for David's sake, the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem to raise up his son after him and to establish Jerusalem. Because David did what was right in the sight of the Lord and had not turned aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.

[1:44] There was a war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. Now the rest of the acts of Abisham and all that he did are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the King of Judah.

[1:54] And there was war between Abisham and Jeroboam. And Abisham slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David. And as Asa, his son, became king in his place. So in the 20th year of Jeroboam, the king of Israel, Asa began to reign as king of Judah.

[2:10] He reigned 41 years in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Micah, the daughter of Abishalom. Asa did what was right in the sight of the Lord, like David, his father. He also put away the male cult prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols which his fathers had made.

[2:25] He also removed Micah, his mother, from being queen mother because she had made a horrid image as an Asherah, and Asa cut down her horrid image and burned it at the brook Kidron.

[2:36] But the high places were not taken away. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly devoted to the Lord all his days. He brought into the house of the Lord the dedicated things of his father and his own dedicated things, silver and gold and utensils.

[2:52] Now there was war between Asa and Basha, king of Israel, all their days. Basha, king of Israel, went up against Judah and fortified Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to Asa, king of Judah.

[3:05] Then Asa took all the silver and the gold which were left in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the treasuries of the king's house and delivered them into the hand of his servants. And king Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad, the son of Tebermon, the son of Hezion, king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, saying, Let there be a treaty between you and me as between my father and your father.

[3:26] Behold, I have sent you a present of silver and gold. Go break your treaty with Basha, king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me. So Ben-Hadad listened to king Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel and conquered Isjah, Dan, Abel, Bath, Maka, and all Chenaroth besides all the land of Naphtali.

[3:46] When Basha heard of it, he ceased fortifying Ramah and remained in Terza. King Asa made a proclamation to all Judah. None was exempt, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timbers with which Basha had built.

[3:59] And king Asa built with them Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah. Now the rest of all the acts of Asa and all his might and all that he did and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah?

[4:12] But in the time of his old age, he was diseased in his feet, and Asa slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, his father. And Jehoshaphat, his son, reigned in his place.

[4:25] We'll stop right there. 1 Kings 15, verses 1 through 24. And we kind of get lost in some of these names, so hopefully we'll make a little bit of sense of it as we make our way through. I want you to see this evening the ongoing history of God's people.

[4:39] Not just what's happening here in this one historical period, but the ongoing history, and it kind of gives us a weight of what we will see for the rest and the remainder of 1 Kings, 2 Kings, even 1 and 2 Chronicles.

[4:51] So it's just this ongoing history of God's people. And this isn't something that we confine to that time. Really, the similarities we see between what is happening then and even what is happening now transcends times and seasons of God's interactions with his people.

[5:08] When we have Scripture, we open up the Bible, we are not reading an exhaustive history of all of mankind. We are reading the history of God's interactions with mankind, and in particular, especially in these writings, the history of God's people and how he is interacting with them.

[5:26] And not that he is forsaking the rest of the world, but there's a special calling upon the people of Israel, that is to be priests of the world or to the world so that they would represent who a holy God is to the rest of humanity.

[5:38] But we see how God is interacting with his people, and even if we were to take these applications and look throughout church history, we will see that this is an ongoing event, that it's not something that is just confined to the period of the kings.

[5:52] The first thing that we notice in the passage before us is the cause of man's rebellion. It is the cause of man's rebellion. We're not surprised that Jeroboam, Basha, and all the kings of the north rebel because they're not of the right lineage.

[6:12] We'll get to that in just a moment, but they don't have the temple, they don't have the priests, they don't have the sacrificial system, they don't have any of those things. God was using the division of the nation.

[6:23] Don't ever lose this. The nation was divided because Solomon had a divided heart, right? He loved the Lord his God, and he loved many foreign women.

[6:34] So the division of Solomon's heart led to the division of the kingdom. That division did not take place during the reign of Solomon for the sake of David, but rather it took place during the reign of Solomon's son, Rehoboam, right at the beginning of it.

[6:50] That division is God's instrument of discipline towards his people for their unfaithfulness. We have to be careful not to say that it was all Solomon's fault because the results that happen or what results from that division really display the hearts of every individual.

[7:10] Jeroboam was foretold by the prophet that he would be the leader of the northern kingdom because God was disciplining the household of David, that is Solomon, and that if he would walk faithfully, God would establish his name and God would establish his kingdom, not in the same realm as the Davidic covenant, but God would be faithful to him as well.

[7:31] God was really moving to discipline one family, but then it became really just this atmosphere where everybody did, almost like in the period of the book of Judges, every man did what was right in his own eyes.

[7:44] Jeroboam leads the northern kingdom, but everybody else follows with him. So again, we can't point and blame and say, oh, well, it was that king's fault. No man dies for the sins of another man. Every man dies for his own sin.

[7:55] So don't ever lose that because we have the tendency to say, oh, well, it was the king's fault or if they just had the right king, all these things wouldn't have taken place. But yet what we see is the turmoil and the chaos that is going on is really shining a light on really the cause of man's rebellion.

[8:14] We meet now Abijam. Now you need to know that more than likely, most Bible scholars agree that Abijam's name was really Abijah, ending with J-A-H.

[8:29] And the scribes refused to record his name as Abijah, but rather translated Abijam because they did not want to ascribe to him the holy name of Jah.

[8:44] They didn't want to attach God's name to the end of his name because of his rampant unfaithfulness. As they're going back and recording the history of the nation of Israel, looking back at what each king did, J-A-H, Jehovah, Jah, is a part of the name of God that would have been at the end of this man's name and they did not want them to be blended together because they did not think he was a representative of the Lord God and he is not.

[9:19] The Bible tells us that he reigned three years. More than likely, it was the better part of two years and then a part of another year, which just like the reckoning of any day, any part of a year or any part of a day in Jewish reckoning counts as the whole year or the whole day.

[9:33] So that's a very brief frame. It tells us that he did what was wicked. He did not do what was right inside the Lord's eyes. He walked in the sins of his father. He did exactly what Rehoboam had done.

[9:45] He continued to go along with these cult prostitutes, these male cult prostitutes, with all this false worship, with all these matters. It tells us that he walked in wickedness, but it tells us why he did it.

[9:57] It says in verse 3, he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had committed before him, and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God. So we come back to this matter of the heart because, see, the cause of man's problem is not geographical.

[10:16] That is, Abisham lived in the right region. Same thing we looked at with Rehoboam. He could not say, well, I couldn't get to the temple. He reigned in Jerusalem. So the problem's not geographical.

[10:29] We like to look at man sometimes, and I know it's a question that we ask, and it's a question that makes our brains kind of smoke a little bit, and we like to give this defense, and Paul reminds us in the book of Romans, we'll get to it in just a minute, that man's problem is not geographical.

[10:47] We say, well, what about those people who've never heard the gospel? Is God just in condemning them to a Christless eternity? So people say, God is unfair because some people, there are over 3,000 people groups right now that have never heard the gospel.

[10:59] It's like 3,200 and something people groups that the International Mission Board has identified around the world that have never heard the gospel. So what we would say is what their main problem is a geographical problem.

[11:11] They live in a region which they cannot and they have not heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. Is God fair because they have this geographical hindrance?

[11:22] That is, they can't be near a church. Paul answers that question in the book of Romans and says that man is without excuse because what may be known of God has been revealed by God to the heart of every man.

[11:36] That there is enough revelation through creation to testify to the reality of a creator. And it says that he has set it in the heart of every man.

[11:47] Man's problem is not a geographical problem. Much like Abisham's problem was not geographical because if it was a geographical issue, then everybody that lives within the sound of the gospel would accept Jesus Christ.

[12:01] It's not a geographical problem. Man's problem is not a physical problem. That is, they just belong to the wrong people group because Abisham was of the lineage of David.

[12:20] He was there. He was of the right family. He had the right resources. He could literally walk into the temple. He could handle the, he could see the sacrifices.

[12:33] He could smell the incense burning. He could, all these things. This is not a physical problem. It's not a spiritual problem. He had the resources there to do it, but he chose not to do it.

[12:45] It's none of these problems that we'd like to say because the grand problem was the problem of the heart. Someone had once said, and I can't remember who said it, or I would quote them, the heart of the issue is really the issue of the heart.

[12:59] It says, for his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God. The cause of all man's rebellion throughout history is the desperate wickedness of the heart.

[13:17] It's a heart problem because we can change geographical locations. And sure, we ought to go with the gospel. And I know the mandate, how would they believe unless they hear, and how would they hear unless someone preached, and how would they preach unless they be sent.

[13:28] I understand that. It's in the book of Romans as well. And we don't want to say that we shouldn't go and we shouldn't change the geographical region. We shouldn't do all those things. We ought to push back into that. We ought to be on the offensive, absolutely.

[13:40] We ought to be pushing forward with the gospel so that we can remove those hindrances which Satan has. But I want you to understand that the greatest problem that man has is not geographical, it's not physical, it's not spiritual.

[13:51] The greatest problem that man has is the problem of the heart. For in their hearts, Paul reminds us, they serve the creation rather than the creator.

[14:04] And they give themselves over to debase things. See, the matter of all man is really what is happening in his heart. Solomon's heart was divided.

[14:17] Rehoboam's heart was hardened. Abisham's heart is not wholly committed. And we read, the next one when we get to Asa, it says that he did love the Lord his God with his whole heart.

[14:30] He was wholly devoted to the Lord his God. By the way, when we look at this in a heart issue, it's not a matter of is the Lord God have a piece of our heart?

[14:42] Notice the repetition. It is the whole heart. His heart was not wholly devoted to. We notice this, too, because this grand problem, and we need to pay attention to this, it refers to the Lord God as his Lord God.

[15:01] That is, Abisham at least acknowledged the covenant God of the people of Israel and went through the motions of worship.

[15:17] But his heart was not wholly devoted. It was not wholly devoted. And so on the other hand, it says, 41 years in his reign, and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, for his heart was wholly devoted to the Lord his God all of his life.

[15:34] See, it is not just a matter of do we have it in our heart, but is our heart wholly devoted? Christ would say it this way, you're neither hot nor cold, but you are lukewarm.

[15:48] It says in the book of Revelation, it says, I wish you were hot or cold. Let your heart be wholly devoted to something. Rather, since you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth.

[15:59] See, it's really a heart issue. And we need to understand this. We've said this before. God doesn't want, the Lord God, the creator of everything, doesn't want some of our heart.

[16:12] He doesn't want some of our lives. He wants all of it. And when we fail to live with a wholly devoted heart, then we are setting ourselves up for full rebellion.

[16:25] The cause of all man's rebellion is a heart issue. And we see it continuing on. The second thing that we notice from this passage, when we're looking at the ongoing history of God's people, is the conflicts which continue.

[16:45] The conflicts which continue. It tells us in the 15th chapter in the first few verses, kind of seems out of place when we're looking at Abisham.

[16:57] It tells us in verse 6 that there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. So it goes back and looks at Abisham's dad. And then it comes forward a little bit and it tells us there, the end of verse 7, and there was war between Abisham and Jeroboam.

[17:11] So that is, the wars or the conflicts which began with Rehoboam were continued with Abisham. You say, well, it wasn't but about two and a half years or three years worth of reign. Right. But again, Jeroboam had cause for conflict with Rehoboam.

[17:26] He had no cause for conflict with Abisham, but it continued on. Because we see that in a divided world, there really is no peace. They continued to have conflict with one another and then we enter into the reign of Asa.

[17:41] He reigns 41 years, so he clearly outreigns Jeroboam. And the kings to the north change and Basha becomes king in the north during the reign of Asa in the south.

[17:54] And Asa had a number of years that was what we would consider peaceful. He had peaceful reign, really wasn't doing anything. He's walking in faithfulness. I mean, 41 years is a long reign. He's doing some wonderful things.

[18:05] For the people of God, we get a little bit more of that in 2 Chronicles 15 and 16 where he restores the worship. He calls the nation to solemn assembly. They all come together and they worship. It's an amazing thing. Right there in the midst of all this restoration, right there when he's doing what is right in the sight of the Lord his God and he's walking with a heart wholly devoted to the Lord his God, all of a sudden, the king to the north, Basha, begins to fortify Ramah.

[18:28] Ramah is right there on a border. It's between Bethel and Jerusalem. So it's really about five miles outside of Jerusalem. I believe it is. So it's right there on the border of the two kingdoms. And he's fortifying it.

[18:38] And it tells us so that nobody could get to Asa. So he was further hindering the worship. What we see is now Asa, who wasn't seeking conflict, all of a sudden ends up in conflict. Why? Because there's this continuous conflict that is going on between mankind.

[18:54] And he's battling here. And he sins. We'll get to that. Asa's one great sin is that he goes to the king outside. He goes to the king of Samaria and has him come in and defend him.

[19:05] We get a little bit more. This is really the cause. God's discipline is the cause for the problem that he has with his feet when he gets old. It's because God sends a prophet and tells him, you shouldn't have went to the king. You shouldn't have sent the silver from the temple.

[19:15] He robbed God, took it out of the temple, and gave it to Ben-Hadad, the foreign king, to come deliver him. Where God says, you're supposed to trust in me. Right?

[19:25] You're supposed to trust in me. So much like David, there's this cause for Paul who's at the end of his reign going, man, I wish he wouldn't have done that. Why does that keep happening?

[19:39] And the reason it keeps happening is because we're still looking for a king that doesn't do that. Right? We're still looking for the perfect king. We're still looking for the full king. We're still looking for the king who's faithful to the end. And we find the king who's faithful to the end, who went to the cross, who died on the cross for our sins, and came out of the tomb, and he's living again, and is still faithful to the end.

[19:57] We're still, we were looking, we continue to look for a king according to the lineage of David who's faithful to the end, and we find him in Jesus Christ. But we're a little bit aside of ourselves. But Asa still has this conflict here that is going because we see this continuation of conflict that man cannot live peaceably with one another on their own accord.

[20:18] And the conflict that Asa battles is not just that externally. That is, he has this king up here who's fortifying this town and he decides to form an alliance with a foreign power and he goes and gets all the stones and timbers.

[20:29] That's resourceful, by the way. He takes all the stones and timbers that somebody else hewn and somebody else cut and somebody else built with and he goes and gets them and builds his own towns with them. That's pretty resourceful. He didn't waste it. I had nothing wrong with that.

[20:40] That's wisdom. He said, they did all the work. They brought it within five miles of Jerusalem. Let's go get it and let's put it back to our use. Right? I mean, it makes sense. So anyway, he doesn't have to fight there but look at the greatest battle that he fights.

[20:52] He fights an internal battle. Because when Asa decides that he's going to do what is right and decide to the Lord his God and he restores worship. We get this again, 2 Chronicles 15.

[21:04] And he calls this solemn assembly. He calls all the nation of Israel to get together, or the nation of Judah to get together. And of course, it's not the multitude of all 12 tribes but the two tribes come together and there's really just this time of repentance.

[21:17] There's this time of mourning. There's this time of worship. And it's wonderful and it's a grand thing. But the greatest conflict he has to do, Scripture tells us, and I want you to call attention to this.

[21:28] I hope you saw it. That Abisham's mother's name was Mecca, the daughter of Abishalom. Now, Abishalom is another rendering of the name Absalom.

[21:43] Ah. Absalom. So, what we find is you have this dual lineage to the throne of David. Okay. So, that's Abisham's mom.

[21:54] But if you go back and you read Absalom's account before Absalom dies because, you know, he wants to usurp the throne and all this other stuff. Absalom has but one daughter and Absalom names his daughter Tamar. Names it after his sister who was defiled.

[22:08] And Tamar moved, evidently, after Absalom's death moved out. We can read in Scripture who Tamar married. She has a daughter. So, this is more than likely Absalom's granddaughter. You need to know any rendering of a male in your family is always referred to as your father and any rendering of a female in your family is always referred to as your mother.

[22:26] It just is. So, this is Absalom's granddaughter who is also Abisham's mother. But Abisham is a direct descendant on the father's side of David as well.

[22:41] So now, Mecca takes on what is called kind of the queen role, right? She takes on this prominent seat at least in the government of the southern tribe, the queen mother.

[22:55] But then we're told that when Asa becomes king that his mother is also named Mecca. It's the same lady. It's his grandmother. So his grandmother is on the seat of the queen mother out of Abisham's reign and into Asa's reign which means she probably is a pretty important person.

[23:11] She's got direct connections all the way back to David as well so she's there. But look at the conflict. When Asa restores worship the one person he has to remove from office is his grandmother.

[23:27] He took grandmother off the throne because she built a horrid image and was worshiping wrong things. So the greatest battles he fought were internal not external.

[23:40] Sometimes the conflicts that we have to fight are those from within not necessarily those without. He had to deal with the issues of his own house in order to get things right in order to rightfully worship the Lord his God and to set his whole heart to the Lord his God.

[23:59] You imagine how hard that was? We can look at a bijam and say well okay not only was his dad going down this road but his mom was going down this road as well. His dad dies so that's fine. His mom is on the queen mother's seat throne there and she's kind of leading this direction as well.

[24:14] She's building really the phrase for a horrid image is just this ugly place of defilement within the nation and just building this kind of this grove of wickedness around and they're worshiping there and so that's what his mom's doing right?

[24:27] So we look at pedigree it's like he's not really apple wasn't falling too far away from the tree but then all of a sudden we have Asa comes in and queen mother's still there his grandmother's still there and has all this lineage we don't really know who his mother is but we know he's got lineage through his father's side of Bisham he's got lineage to David there but what we notice is that when he fights the battles he has to deal with things internally.

[24:50] If he's going to give a heart holy to the Lord his God these conflicts cannot be avoided that is he has to deal with these matters even in his own home and it probably was a very public event I mean she's the queen mother and when you remove grandmother from the seat everybody knows it and he took and he cut this hard image down and he took it to the Kidron Valley and he burned it that's a public spectacle as well by the way there's a lot of things that get burned in the Old Testament in the Kidron Valley it's one of the foreshadowing types of torment and Hades and all the others that we see throughout the Old Testament but there's a lot of false idols to get burned there too more than likely the reason he took it to the Kidron Valley if you're looking at the city of Jerusalem there's a valley on either side of it and he took it to the valley so that the ashes would not even pollute the holy city of Jerusalem he really was committed to restoring worship conflicts cannot be avoided they continue because man cannot lift peaceably one another when they're not at peace with the Lord

[25:55] God as long as wickedness reigns as long as wickedness is present there's going to be conflict and those conflicts are both external and internal third and finally I want you to look this is the real thing that I want you to see because we see man's cause of rebellion it's a hard issue we see the conflicts that continue on but in spite of all this when we're looking at the ongoing history of God's people look at the consistency of God we have to stop and be amazed at the consistency of God the northern kingdom the kingdom of Israel exists for approximately 250 years after their division so once they're split it's 250 years before the northern kingdom is carried into exile by the Assyrian empire during that 250 years the northern kingdom had I believe it was right around nine dynasties none of them were enduring Jeroboam dies and every male of the family of Jeroboam dies because of Jeroboam's wickedness there are nine different dynasties that reign in the kingdom of

[27:02] Israel the northern kingdom over the course of 250 years in contrast the southern kingdom lasts 350 years a full century beyond the northern kingdom due in large part because of kings like Asa that reigned 41 years and Hezekiah later we'll read of those these kings that walked in faithfulness those kings that repented those kings who restored worship the prophets of God that are there but 350 years in 350 years there is never a change of ruling families 350 years mankind cannot be that consistent on their own I mean we can't for 350 years when they go into captivity it is still a king it's Conaniah or Jeconiah depending on where you're reading it

[28:06] Jeconiah is the king of the deportation into Babylon he's king during the deportation of Babylon Matthew counts him twice and he's in that reckoning of four teens because he was king when they were taken in he was king during that time and he is of the lineage of David it's unbroken we cannot say it's because that was a powerful family we cannot say it's because they all did what was right because they didn't look at Rehoboam look at Abijam look at the others there's a multitude that follow after that this one does what is right this one does what is wicked it is not because of their faithfulness as a matter of fact what is so striking is that when we read the history we will see a number of these kings who do just as bad as the kings to the north now we're going to spend some time moving forward focusing on the kings of north other than just a few verses at the end of first kings the remainder of the book of first kings deals with the northern tribes we're going to see that we'll get into the prophecies of Elijah and Elisha all to the northern tribes we're going to see the showdown of Elijah on Mount

[29:14] Carmel which I love by the way these prophets of Baal they're up there praying for half a day dancing and all this other stuff and then Elijah prays for like five minutes and God answers by fire it's awesome he's a God who answers by fire and he made it impossible for him to do it but anyway it's getting ahead of myself because it said Elijah prayed at the hour of prayer that is he did the right thing at the right time in the right place at the right location in the right way and God answered it's a whole other sermon but I got to get off of that but anyway so we'll spend the bulk of our time looking to the north but God's faithfulness look at what it says Abisham walks in unfaithfulness but look at what it says verse 4 but for David's sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem but for David's sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem to raise up his son after him and to establish Jerusalem so what we see is the Davidic lineage exists what the word of God tells us for David's sake now surely there are blessings that follow faithfulness

[30:16] David was faithful he was committed to the Lord his God with his whole heart except for in the case of Uriah the Hittite which is his sin with Bathsheba how does God respond to that well God responds with mercy and forgiveness and grace and all these things because we read Psalm 51 if you notice this great penitent Psalm where David names his sin to God and David confesses it and he's sinned in retail and he confesses in retail right he doesn't just say God forgive me for all the bad things I did he starts naming them and he says he's unworthy of this stuff by the way we never see that with the northern kings we never see a single king write a penitent Psalm begging God for his mercy and restoration and forgiveness we don't see it but we do see David doing it and surely there are blessings that follow faithfulness but not that many blessings okay what we see is the consistency of God because we're not naming it and claiming it here and saying hey if you're faithful if you serve the Lord your God with your whole heart God will be faithful to your family for generations and generations and generations and generations and generations on end we don't want to do that

[31:20] God sure pronounces blessings to the generations that follow the faithful it tells us in the book of Psalm that the faithful will sit down with the generations around them and he'll pronounce his blessings upon them I'm sure we get that but what we see is that God made a covenant with David this Davidic covenant don't forget that because without the Davidic covenant the rest of this doesn't matter God made a covenant an unconditional covenant that he would cause the family of David the lineage of David to have an enduring throne in Jerusalem that he would raise up the seed of David singular that would sit upon the throne eternally that he would be called his son and God would be called his father and that he would walk in faithfulness and obedience it would be he who would raise up a temple unto the Lord all these promises right all these promises that find their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ are promises that David didn't ask for but that God gave him God looked at his heart God gave him his promises but I want you to understand something the consistency of God bears our worship and adoration and our enjoyment but it also bears our caution because God is so consistent

[32:24] God does not change he is the same yesterday today and tomorrow but when God made that promise to David God was making that promise in real time and by in real time I mean God was making the promise knowing everybody in David's family that would fail God was making the promise knowing every sin that would come into Jerusalem God was making the promise knowing that Solomon would have a divided heart God was making the promise knowing that Abisham would walk in wickedness God was making the promise and every king that follows God was making a promise not based upon the faithfulness of everybody's walk in David's family but based upon himself I will I will I will I will I love when I get to the scriptures and I see what God promises God rest his promises as the scripture tells us that nothing is still without an oath and when God has nothing greater to promise than he promises on himself right I will it says in the book of Hebrews he says I will do this right God declares it is my promise it is my faithfulness it is my goodness it is my consistency that is what God has declared is not changed because of the world's circumstances and is not changed because of man's unfaithfulness

[33:31] God makes these promises and these declarations the word of God endures because the God of the word endures he is unchanging in the old days they called it the immutability of God he is the ever unchanging one we worship that but we also stand in awe of that because just as it says in the book of Leviticus be holy as I am holy we don't get to the gospel and find forgiveness at the cross and say I'm glad I don't have to be holy anymore he is immutable he is unchanging so it repeats in the New Testament be holy as I am holy says the Lord right the standard that God sets once is the standard that God continues throughout all eternity the expectation that God raises up once is the expectation he sets for all eternity the promises that God makes once are the promises that endure through all eternity and what we see here is just this ever consistency of

[34:38] God the seed of David will set up on the throne no matter what happens in the history of his people we know the ultimate fulfillment of it we've said it over and over again and we stand in awe of it that Jesus Christ comes he sets up on the throne the rod of judgment is placed upon his shoulders he fulfills every prophecy why because God is consistent he's unchanging we find great comfort in that we find comfort in that because when we look at the ongoing history of God's people including us so much is ever changing we have good seasons we have bad seasons we have good days we have bad days but with God he is always unchanging and we rest in his promises not in our own faithfulness and we see it in 1st Kings 15 verses 1 through 24 thank you my brothers thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

[39:08] thank you thank you thank you