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[0:00] We turn the page out of 2 Kings and we go into 1 Chronicles. So take your Bibles, go into the book of 1 Chronicles. I shared with someone this evening, I was going to be in 1 Chronicles. He said, well, I was wondering.

[0:10] I said, well, the flesh wanted to jump to Ezra because Ezra is really good. But so is 1 and 2 Chronicles. And I know much of it we have already covered. But I'm thankful in hindsight of what has taken place over the past several days in my own personal study.

[0:26] I'm thankful that I put my own feet to the fire and say this is the way that I'm going to preach. 1 Chronicles is a book that in now working in my 19th year in ministry, pastoral ministry.

[0:38] I'm not counting the years that I worked with youth prior to that because I did very much kind of the similar thing that I do as a pastor with the youth. We just looked at the word. But anyway, working on my 19th year of pastoral ministry, I've preached a total of two sermons from the book of 1 Chronicles.

[0:54] And both of them have been from the same passage of scripture. So there's much, much that I have not ever addressed as it applies to this book.

[1:07] Now, much of the events that we see will be repetitive by nature. It will be repetitive in that we have just seen a lot of it in the parallels of 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings.

[1:19] Much of what we find in 1 Chronicles finds its parallels in 1 and 2 Samuel. 2 Chronicles finds its parallels in 1 and 2 Kings.

[1:32] We've kind of already answered the question as to why they are there. But hopefully, we will cover a little bit more of that. We'll get a little bit deeper this evening.

[1:43] We have a lot to cover. If you are familiar with 1 Chronicles, you know that you're opening it up. And there are nine chapters of genealogies. Chapters 1 through 9.

[1:55] I am preaching 1 Chronicles chapters 1 through 9 tonight. But I'm not reading all those names. Okay? So we'll be looking at the first nine chapters.

[2:05] Now, very seldom do I break sections of Scripture up so large. And the reason that I don't is because there are matters that we can pull out.

[2:18] Sure, there are some things we need to see in context. But I think it is very beneficial to us at times to see them in smaller chunks. Admittedly, there are portions of these nine chapters which we could pull out.

[2:32] And we could see them independently. One that you are probably familiar with is tucked within these pages, within those chapters.

[2:43] In chapter 4 is that book that was written so many years ago about the prayer of Jabez. It is in there, one of those little gems where we find a man who is named Payne.

[2:54] And he's set apart from his brothers simply because of a prayer life. We won't take time to look at it independently, though we will see it. Within these genealogies, there is much history.

[3:06] There is much great truths. We find recorded for us the first judge to rule over God's people, Othniel. And we find the last judge, Samuel, to rule over God's people.

[3:18] We find within this genealogy a number of things. Now, I'm going to read sporadically from it until we get to the ninth chapter. And then I will slow down for just a moment because hopefully I will help you understand why we have them.

[3:32] Because as one Jewish scholar said, admittedly, the hardest portion and most confusing portion of the Old Testament to read is 1 Chronicles chapters 1-9.

[3:47] And this is an individual who could pronounce the names. He said it is quite possibly the most difficult for the modern reader to read.

[4:00] Because it is just a listing of names. Now, that Jewish historian did not hold to what I would consider a high view of Scripture.

[4:15] That is, he did not see it as authoritative, inspired. Rather, he just saw it as man-written and had reasonings why he thought that was there.

[4:26] We can kind of glean some of that history. But we look at it with a higher view, knowing that these names are there for a purpose. As like any other portion of Scripture, these are the Word of God ordained by the Lord God himself for our purpose and our benefit.

[4:44] So we want to see why they are there. We want to see the application and the truth. So, stay with me if you will. I will be going through them rather rapidly, but I will not read every name.

[4:56] But we are going to start chapter 1, verse 1. Okay? Get your fingers loose. Hopefully, you have read this portion of Scripture before or at least stumbled through it. So your pages come apart easily. 1 Chronicles 1, verse 1.

[5:09] Adam saith, enosh, kenan, mahalel, jared. Notice that? Start with Adam. Adam saith, enosh, kenan, mahalel, jared.

[5:20] Go down. We go a little bit further. And the sons of Ham were Cush, Mizrim, Put, and Canaan. That's verse 8.

[5:31] Go down just a little bit further. And you see the sons of Shem. You see the sons of Arpashad. And then we get to verse 28. The sons of Abraham were Isaac and Ishmael.

[5:44] Go down to verse 34. Abraham became the father of Isaac. The sons of Isaac were Esau and Israel. Go a little bit further. Going to chapter 2.

[5:54] These are the sons of Israel. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Ishkar, Zebulun, Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. Okay.

[6:05] Stay with me. Going a little bit further. Let's go on. Let's make our way. We're continuing to go through here. Just perusing through our scripture.

[6:18] It tells us in verse 1 of chapter 3. Now these are the sons of David. So now we have went from Adam to Abraham to Israel to David.

[6:31] Now these are the sons of David who were born to him in Hebron. Now in chapter 4. The sons of Judah were Perez, Hezron, Carmiher, and Shobal. Okay.

[6:42] Are you still with me? We go a little bit further. We're going to make it our way. I told you I'm going very quickly. Chapter 6. Verse 1. The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

[6:55] And again, we see that repetitive theme in verse 16. These are the sons of Levi. Verse 31 of that sixth chapter.

[7:05] Now these are those whom David appointed over the service of song in the house of the Lord after the ark rested there. They ministered with song before the tabernacle of the tent of meeting until Solomon had built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.

[7:19] And they served in their office according to their order. These are those who served with their sons. And we have a listing of names. In verse 49.

[7:31] But Aaron and his sons offered 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.

[7:43] Then we get into the settlements of these people. Verse 77 of that sixth chapter. To the rest of the Levite, the sons of Merari were given the tribe of Zebulun.

[7:54] And it gives into more pastorland. Verse 6 of chapter 7. The sons of Benjamin were three. So now we're looking back. Going back over the sons of Benjamin.

[8:05] The sons of Manasseh. The sons of Ephraim are there. We go into chapter 8. Verse 1. And Benjamin became the father of Bela, his firstborn of Ashbel the second of Ahara the third.

[8:18] And we keep going on down. And if we're tracing our lineage through Benjamin, we finally get to verse 33. Nerv became the father of Kish. And Kish became the father of Saul.

[8:29] So now we've made our way to Saul. Now, let's go to chapter 9. Here we'll pause for just a moment. Chapter 9, verse 1. So all Israel was enrolled by genealogies.

[8:41] And behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel. And Judah was carried away into exile to Babylon for their unfaithfulness. Now, the first who lived in their possessions in their cities were Israel.

[8:54] The priests, the Levites, and the temple servants. Some of the sons of Judah and of the sons of Benjamin and of the sons of Ephraim and Manasseh lived in Jerusalem. And then we have a listing of their names.

[9:06] It tells us there at the end of verse 9 of that 9th chapter. All these were heads of fathers' households according to their fathers' house. From the priests were, and we have a listing of them found there in verse 10.

[9:22] It goes in verse 13. And their relatives heads of their fathers' households. 1,760 very able men for the work of the service of the house of God. Of the Levites, it says in verse 14.

[9:34] And again, we have names of Levites. And it tells us there in verse 17. Now, the gatekeepers were Shalom and Aqab and Talman and Ahinnom and their relatives.

[9:45] Shalom, the chief, being stationed until now at the king's gate to the east. These were the gatekeepers for the camp of the sons of Levi. Shalom, the son of Korah, the son of Ebisaph, the son of Korah, and his relatives of his father's house, the Korhites, who were over the work of the service, keepers of the thresholds of the tent.

[10:01] And their fathers had been over the camp of the Lord, keepers of the entrance. Phinehas, remember him? Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, was ruler over them previously, and the Lord was with him.

[10:14] Zechariah, the son of Meshulamia, was gatekeeper at the entrance of the tent of meeting. All these who were chosen to be gatekeepers at the threshold were 212. These were enrolled by genealogy in their villages, whom David and Samuel, the seer, appointed in their office of trust.

[10:31] So they and their sons had charge of the gates of the house of the Lord, even the house of the tent as guards. The gatekeepers were on the four sides to the east, west, north, and south.

[10:42] Their relatives and their villages were to come in every seven days from time to time to be with them. For the four chief gatekeepers, who were Levites, were in an office of trust and were over the chambers and over the treasuries in the house of God.

[10:55] They spent the night around the house of God because the watch was committed to them. And they were in charge of opening it morning by morning. Now some of them had charge of the utensils of service, for they counted them when they brought them in and when they took them out.

[11:11] Some of them were appointed over the furniture and over all the utensils of the sanctuary and over the fine flour and the wine and the oil and the frankincense and the spices. Some of the sons of the priests prepared the mixing of the spices.

[11:23] Mattathiah, one of the Levites, who was the firstborn of Shalom, the Korahite, had the responsibility over the things which were baked in pans. Some of their relatives and the sons of the Korathites were over the showbread to prepare it every Sabbath.

[11:38] Now these are the singers, heads of fathers' households of the Levites, who lived in the chambers of the temple, free from other service. For they were engaged in their work day and night.

[11:50] These were heads of fathers' households of the Levites, according to their generations, chief men who lived in Jerusalem. And following that is a repetition of the genealogy of Saul found in chapter 8 verbatim.

[12:06] Okay, that's our text. You say, what are we going to get from that? This gets us a great introduction of why we are here and what really is recorded for us in 1 and 2 Chronicles.

[12:20] If we would have had time, or if you would have been very patient enough to endure with me as we read through this listing of genealogies, we could have highlighted a number of things. There are a number of things that are there. We meet things that we encounter in the Old Testament.

[12:32] We meet the man who only had five daughters. And it kind of changed what happened during the days of Moses, that the women were also able to inherit land if their father had no son, but that land had to stay within their tribes.

[12:44] Remember that? It took place during the reign of Moses, or during the time of Moses. We also meet a lady who built two cities. And we meet the kings and the judges. And we meet people from other nations.

[12:55] When we find this division, we see how we have kings and rulers in this land long before we have rulers in the land of Israel. We meet a number of interesting things.

[13:06] We meet people like Jabez who pray, and it sets them apart. Just a couple little verses there, though I think it is dangerous to build your theology upon that one or two portions of Scripture there with Jabez.

[13:18] So it is worth noting and saying, wow, his prayer life made a difference, but it's not a good place to build one's theology because it is situated, at least historically, where it's at for a reason.

[13:30] So it is very becoming of us to want to know why it is there. Why all this listing of names? It is unique in that we find names that are of very Jewish descent.

[13:41] That is, they end with the all-familiar El, which tells us that they are of the Lord. But also, comprised in this name, are people who bring with it the Baal, or Babel, Zerubbabel, and all those others who are bringing with them Babylonian names, which is kind of telling because, if you know anything about scriptural writing, post-Babylonian exile, if the name had been changed to a Babylonian name, it would be rechanged back to a Jewish name.

[14:14] They would never acknowledge it, or they would give it kind of this ending that would mean shame. They would never attribute that name to a name to the foreign god, which is exactly what happened when Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they all had their names changed, right?

[14:30] Daniel's name became Belshazzar, and that was a name representing the foreign gods of that land. But Daniel, the ending of it being El, is representative of the Lord God.

[14:43] So they took their holy names and gave them worldly names. But in our genealogy before us, those names are maintained. We see Babylonian names recorded, Jewish people who are carrying with them their Babylonian names.

[14:57] So we ask ourselves, why are they here, and why do we have nine chapters of genealogies? Because it would be very easy to get into chapter 10, and if you were to look ahead in chapter 10, you know that we're introduced to a very familiar portion of Scripture.

[15:12] It is the death of Saul and his sons, right? And that battle that we find going on there at the end of the writings of Samuel. And it is there that we say, okay, we know these accounts.

[15:22] These are things that really matter to us. So let's skip these first nine chapters, and let's get here. But we do ourselves a grand disservice. It really is not of very good, very beneficial to us that we have 1 and 2 Chronicles where we do in Scripture.

[15:39] Now, I'm not saying that we need to change our layout in Scripture. But I'm saying that if we want to take it in its proper context, we need to understand where it was in the Jewish Scripture. 1 and 2 Chronicles was one book, and it was the last book of the Jewish Old Testament.

[15:57] It was the very last book of Jewish Scripture. And the reason it was the last book is because, other than the book of Malachi, it is the last book written in the Old Testament.

[16:14] We open it up, and we just assume, because where it is placed, that it preceded a number of the prophets, when really the only contemporary we have to it is the prophet Malachi.

[16:27] 1 and 2 Chronicles actually did not get their name until 400 A.D. The church father, Jerome, named it the Chronicles of the Land.

[16:38] In those days before that, the Jewish people just referred to it as the lineage or the heritage of their people. It was recorded and written circa 450 B.C.

[16:52] Now, all of a sudden, we ought to start paying attention. God goes silent for about 400 years, right? So we're rapidly ending. This is some of the last things that God said. So many people believe it clearly is penned after at least the second return of exiles from the Babylonian captivity.

[17:11] There are three returns. The one under Zerubbabel, the one under Ezra, and the one under Nehemiah. Ezra came back about 458.

[17:24] Okay? Somewhere in there. Most of these things, because of the genealogy, and this is how we can date it, they're in agreement that it was penned at least 450 or after.

[17:40] Malachi is written for context. Many people believe Malachi is written. Again, we date it by the man Nehemiah. Because Nehemiah was governor of Jerusalem. Remember, Nehemiah is at a definite time, and he had to go back to the king of Assyria and report back to him.

[17:55] And then Nehemiah heard about all the trouble that was going on in Jerusalem. He came back. Nehemiah was gone for like 11 to 12 years. And it is during that time that most people believe Malachi wrote his prophecy.

[18:08] So that would be somewhere around 430 B.C. So only about 20 years separate the writing of 1 and 2 Chronicles and Malachi. And when Malachi writes his final sentence, the Lord goes silent.

[18:24] Until Zechariah is in the temple. So what we have recorded for us, really, when Jesus walked onto the scene in the Jewish world, this is what they were operating by.

[18:38] Right? Because not only is it written coming out of exile, it is written to remind them of who they are.

[18:49] So I want you to see tonight from our text the people of God. The people of God. And just in case you want to dismiss it, it has great application to us, so stay with me.

[18:59] So the writer, we don't know who it is. Some think it's Ezra. Some think it's probably not. Some think it might have been a Levite or a priest. Was writing for an intended purpose. And he's writing for the purpose because the nation is coming out of the 70 years of Babylonian captivity.

[19:16] They're coming back. They're rebuilding. Think about everything that's going on. The first, the issue of King Cyrus has come. And they reconstructed the temple. It's not as big as it used to be. But there's a temple there. Nehemiah probably hasn't quite come yet.

[19:27] But he is coming. He's on his way. Ezra is more than likely there. They're teaching people the word. And we see all this. So if we want to really know what's going on, we kind of have to study Ezra and Nehemiah. And we can kind of put it together.

[19:39] And then we've got to go see what's going on in the book of Malachi. But Nehemiah comes and rebuilds the walls. And the city is repopulated. But it's not a grand number of people that come back. Right? It's not this vast array of people.

[19:51] Some people estimate it's somewhere around 50,000 people that come back. And it's not massive. But yet the people come back to the land. And they're trying to reorganize who they are as the people of God.

[20:04] And so with that purpose. And some, by the way, Bible scholars have kind of proposed that this genealogy was an amendment to the text. That it was kind of added to it later on.

[20:16] I don't think it's that way. I think there's a reason we have it here. And I think there's an intentional reason why we have it here. And hopefully you'll see why. And the reason it starts so abruptly. And the reason that it carries this as it does.

[20:29] And again, if I had time, I would take you through it and show you also. You're just going to have to go back and read it yourself. Right? And by reading it, you'll have to get over your stumbling of the names and really look at the text and see exactly what it's saying.

[20:40] The first thing I want you to notice is that the people of God are an enduring people. They are those who endure. The Assyrians and the Babylonians had the same ambition every time they took over a land.

[20:58] And it was to destroy the national identity of whoever they defeated. Now, the Assyrians did it by assimilating you and dispersing you among other people and kind of repopulating your land.

[21:13] The Babylonians did something similar to that, but they may have let you live together in groups. But all we have to do is go to the first few pages of the book of Daniel. And we can see, again, this reminder that people are given new names.

[21:24] They're given new names. They're casting off the old. They're not going to be recognized about in your Jewish name. We're going to refer to you in your Babylonian name. And it is to redefine who you are.

[21:35] To us, names are names, right? You can call me what you want to, but it doesn't change who I am. But when your name is reflective of your culture, your name is reflective of the God you serve, and when you rename someone in Scripture, you are then redefining who they are.

[21:51] And so the Babylonians would rename you, especially their leaders, and they would give you a Babylonian name. And what they were trying to do was completely dismiss and diminish your heritage, that is, who you were.

[22:04] So coming out of that Babylonian captivity, and this small remnant of people who respond to the decree issued by King Cyrus, which, by the way, is recorded for us in the very last verses of 2 Chronicles and the first verses of the book of Ezra.

[22:20] We read them back to back in our portion of Scripture. But anyway, those who respond to that decree, they needed to know who they were. They needed to be reminded of their heritage.

[22:34] They needed to be reminded that they were a set-apart people. And God, in His grace and His mercy, had preserved His people's identity through their relationships.

[22:45] Again, one thing that we notice in this genealogy is they recognize the intermarrying of people across different cultures. There are Jewish people who have Egyptian wives, and there's no conflict there now.

[22:57] When Nehemiah shows up, they start pulling hair out of their beard and getting mad and dismissing their wives, right, their foreign wives. And now we're refining who we are because now we've already defined who we are.

[23:08] We are a people set apart. But it is the author of this text who is trying to show the people that we are an enduring people, that the Word of God endures, the people of God endure.

[23:22] The Babylonians, the Assyrians, they have tried to wipe us off. The battle has been tough. The captivity has been real. The Assyrians led the northern portion out much earlier than the southern portion was led out by the Babylonians, even though there are two tribes that are not referred to in their genealogies here.

[23:42] And it is the northern, two of the northern tribes are never referred to in their re-coming into the land because all of them did not come back into the land. But still, what we see is that it is a reminder that God's faithfulness has stayed true.

[23:55] Now, to show the people God's enduring faithfulness, the author goes all the way back to Adam. Because if we can trace our lineage all the way back to Adam, then you cannot argue the fact that God has preserved us as the people of God.

[24:15] And he goes back to Adam and he goes through Seth and he eventually brings us down through our genealogies. We go through Noah, we go through the descendants of Noah and we look at some of them and then we kind of narrow down a little bit further and we finally get to Abraham.

[24:28] And then we get to Abraham, we see the descendants of Abraham and then all of a sudden we start narrowing down a little bit further and then we're looking at Isaac and then we go down to look at Isaac's descendants and then we narrow down a little bit further and now we're looking at Israel.

[24:41] And then we look at Israel, we start looking a little bit broader because we're looking at the twelve. And then we go right back down and we narrow down. Once we get done with Israel, we get to a man named Jesse and Jesse had seven sons. and one of those seven sons, the seventh of those seven sons was David.

[24:54] By the way, this is the only portion of scripture that records all seven names of Jesse's seven sons because when Samuel goes to anoint to David, we're only introduced to the oldest three and then there's the youngest, right?

[25:05] But this portion gives us all seven names and David. And then once we get to David, we're like, wow, so now we're narrowed down. Think we went from Adam and now we've traced it all the way back.

[25:16] Now, sure, it is selective genealogies. And that is not everybody's recorded in it, but we went from Adam all the way down to David. And we're tracing that lineage all the way down to David.

[25:26] And once we get to David, we stop. And then we go back and we go back and we pick up one of the tribes of Israel, one of the children of Israel. And who is that? Levi.

[25:37] So we go start looking at the tribes of Levi and we bring the Levites all the way down and we bring it through Aaron and Moses. And we start seeing all the Levitical priests and we bring it all the way down to Phineas.

[25:48] And those who are serving and those who are appointed. And now we're stopped again. And then we go back in our lineage and we go back to the tribe of Benjamin. Because if you really want to know where it starts, you have to come down to Saul.

[26:00] So do you notice what he's done? He is reminding us that though they have been dispersed for a long time, God still knows who they are and they too can know who they are.

[26:11] We go from Adam, trace the lineage all the way through, we get down to David. Then we go back and we go back to Israel and we look at the tribes of Israel and we look at the Levites.

[26:26] I'll get to that in just a moment. And then we go back and we look at the tribe of Benjamin and we get to Saul. And then he starts the historical record of what takes place with these people.

[26:37] So it is a reminder that though the world has tried to destroy them, the faithfulness of God has preserved them. They are an enduring people.

[26:50] Number two, not only are the people of God an enduring people, number two, they are an entrusted people.

[27:02] They are an entrusted people. In our genealogies, in our selected genealogy that we have recorded over nine chapters, there are two people in particular that are given a lot of attention.

[27:14] I've already announced them to you because we see their name repeated a number of times. There are two groupings of people that really get all the attention. Number one is David. We'll get to David in just a minute, okay?

[27:26] So David is given a lot of attention. And by the way, one contrast in 1 and 2 Chronicles as it appears in 1 and 2 Kings is the chronicler, as he's referred to, the author of Chronicles, doesn't record all the negative events of David's life.

[27:46] Okay? Now, some people say, oh, he airbrushed history or he changed history. No, he didn't re-record what history had already recorded for us. We already know all the bad events that happened in David's life.

[27:59] It's already recorded for us in Scripture. We don't need to talk about it again because that does not maintain the faithfulness of God. Right? We don't rejoice and just constantly discuss all our sins.

[28:10] We want to magnify. Again, there's a different purpose behind the author. It's not a different history, but it's a different purpose. He acknowledges the history, but his purpose is not to record the harm that came because of disobedience.

[28:26] Again, his purpose is to record the faithfulness of God and the preservation of his people. So one of the key focuses of the genealogy is David himself. David will play a very, very key role in 1 and 2 Chronicles.

[28:42] The other focus there of the genealogy are the Levites. It is the Levites. Much time is given to the Levites in this genealogy.

[28:53] Actually, more time than just about every other genealogy. It is telling because we have the record of the Levites here. We have the record of the Levites in the book of Ezra. We have the record of the Levites in the book of Nehemiah.

[29:06] All of those are key. Now, you say, well, Pastor, why did you read so much in chapter 9? It's because chapter 9, if you remember, when we just read it just a minute ago, is discussing after the Babylonian captivity.

[29:21] So you understand what you're reading. When you read this genealogy, when you get to chapter 9, these are the people living in Jerusalem after Babylonian captivity.

[29:31] This is who we are. Chapter 10 goes back and starts telling you how they got to captivity. Okay, he goes back. So chapters 1 through 9, I know it's confusing, but stay with me.

[29:42] This is how God got us here. Chapter 9, now we're here. We're no longer in captivity. Do you see what all the focus is in chapter 9? It's about the Levites and the keepers of the temple and the people that are there.

[29:53] Because not only are the people of God enduring, the people of God are entrusted. Why such focus on the Levites? Because one thing that the people of God have been entrusted with is the true worship of the true God.

[30:06] And these are those who had been entrusted with the responsibility of leading the nation in worship. And he shows us that we know who it is that should lead us in worship.

[30:20] If you go to the book of Ezra, you'll find people who show up who cannot prove that they are Levites because their genealogy is lost. And Ezra says that they are told that when they get to Jerusalem, they can't serve in the temple until a priest comes with Urim and Thummim, which is a way of discerning the will of God in that time.

[30:38] And they are not able to serve because they cannot prove their genealogy. Why? Because there were a set-apart people that were designated to lead the nation in worship. And if coming out of captivity, God had not had an author such as this to record for them, then that worship would have been twisted.

[30:56] Do you notice that the standard of worship after the Babylonian captivity is no different than the standard of worship before the Babylonian captivity? That is, God didn't say, well, you couldn't do it in the past.

[31:09] Don't worry about it. Let's just come to me however you want to. No. Because the great charge in the book of Malachi, by the way, is what? That the priests are dealing falsely with me.

[31:20] They're not doing it right. They're cheating me. Your Levites are leading me astray. That's the accusation that we find. And so what we find here is that the author reminds us that these are those who are entrusted with worship.

[31:31] It is in 1 Chronicles that we find, and if we were to read into our genealogy here a little bit further in these nine chapters, not only are they the ones who are entrusted as a tribe, the Levites, they are those that were set apart by David and Samuel for certain occupations.

[31:49] They were the singers and the musicians. It tells us in the book of Chronicles that the musicians were to play the instruments that David himself made. This is the only place, by the way, that we find that David determined the instruments that would be played in the temple.

[32:04] No other portion of scripture. So you see this reminder. Now we not only know who we are as a people, we know how we should worship. And if you're coming out of the world, and maybe you were born in captivity, and you have the opportunity to go be a set-apart people again, you need to be reminded who you are, and you need to be reminded why you are.

[32:33] They were entrusted with worship. And here were the people that could lead them in worship. The Levites were preserved people. They were living in the cities.

[32:45] You see that in chapter 9. They were attending to the doors of the smaller temple. This is no longer the grand temple that was destroyed in the Babylonians, but this is Zechariah's temple that is rebuilt during the prophecy of Zechariah.

[32:59] So it's a much smaller temple. It's a temple that if you go and read in the book of Ezra, that some of the old people, when they saw it, they wept, because it failed in comparison to the magnificent temple of Solomon's day.

[33:10] But some of the younger people were rejoicing, and it tells us in the book of Ezra, so they couldn't tell the difference between those that were weeping and those that were rejoicing. Some were crying because, oh, this temple is so much smaller.

[33:21] Some were rejoicing because this is the first temple I've ever seen. But there's a temple. But what good is a temple if you don't have the people to work in the temple? Well, praise be to the Lord God, we know who the Levites are.

[33:34] So not only do we have a temple, what was the first thing, by the way, when Cyrus issued a decree, what was the first thing that was built in Jerusalem?

[33:46] But before you answer that, what does the very decree of Cyrus dictate that they do? Cyrus issued a decree that whosoever will should return to Jerusalem and build the temple of the Lord with its altar to intercede before the Lord God on his behalf.

[34:11] The whole reason for the decree was the restoration of worship. It was not to rebuild a city. It was to restore worship.

[34:24] And how do you restore worship unless you have the right people in place? To answer the question, what was the first thing built? It was an altar. And that altar was on a raised platform, and then they quit building the temple because they got scared because of all the people that were there.

[34:41] And it was the people of the land that was telling them, oh, quit doing that. So here's this altar that's out in the middle on this hill. It's on Temple Mountain, the altar standing by itself. And then they quit building it, and they're issuing decrees, and all you shouldn't do that.

[34:52] And all the letters start going back and forth to Darius and Cyrus, and you read that in the book of Ezra. And then all of a sudden they find it written according to the decree that they were issued to rebuild the temple. And so the people of the land were told, leave them alone because the king told them to build a temple.

[35:07] That's the whole reason they could build a temple. The decree was to return and build the temple that the worship of the Lord God may be restored. You need to know who the Levites are because they were an entrusted people.

[35:22] Here are those that were entrusted not only to offer the sacrifices, but to maintain the things that were baked in pans, to give an accounting of the utensils.

[35:33] That's why when they came back, Cyrus gave them all the utensils that were taken by the Babylonians, and they numbered them before they left, and when they got to Jerusalem, they counted them again. Who did they give them to?

[35:44] The Levites, right? Who's going to play the musical instruments? What instruments should we even play? Well, we know it because these are those that are entrusted with worship. The people of God are an enduring people.

[35:56] They're an entrusted people. Number three, the people of God are an expectant people. That is, they live in anticipation. They are an expectant people.

[36:08] So we know why the Levites are given so much credit to this genealogy, but we have to go back, and we have to see that there's this one man that keeps coming up, and that is David.

[36:18] And that is because the author of 1 and 2 Chronicles is going to spend much time on the Davidic lineage. Now, there's the repetition of the tribe of Benjamin that brings us down to Saul himself.

[36:31] We find it in chapter 8, and we find it again in chapter 9. And that is because chapter 10 introduces us to Saul, but it introduces us to Saul on the battlefield that will kill him. So we're shown the bad king before we're shown the good king, right?

[36:44] We meet the first king, the people's king, as we referred to him when we were studying it back then, and then we meet the Lord's king. So the one who was head and shoulders and looked the part and fit the part and was the mighty warrior, had the heritage.

[36:56] His grandfather was a warrior. His father was a warrior, and he was the best-looking one of the land. But, you know, Saul's not the king that God had chosen. Rather, the king that God had chosen was the shepherd boy out in the field that was ruddy in appearance and handsome and was a young man.

[37:09] So what we do here is we are focused on the throne. There are two things that the author of Chronicles is really, really focused on, and that is the throne and the altar.

[37:25] Who's on the throne and what's going on in the temple? Because if you're the people of God, there are two things that really matter.

[37:37] Who's on the throne and what's going on in the temple? Now, in retrospect, when Jesus shows up in the Gospels, what's on the mind of all the Jewish people?

[37:54] Who's on the throne and what's going on in the temple? Why? Because the last book of their scripture is this. It is this expectation that there is a king coming according to the lineage of David.

[38:15] There is the preservation of the family of David recorded for us in these pages. There is a continuous reiteration of the standard of David of every king.

[38:27] Again, we don't find many of the things that you would think about as it pertains to David are David's failures. And probably so. He's a man after God's own heart, but he's not a perfect man.

[38:39] So if I was asked you to tell me some things about David, you would probably tell me he killed a lion and a bear by his hands. You'd tell me he killed a giant with a sling and a stone. And then you'd probably start telling me some other things, right?

[38:50] The fact that he feigned insanity and he drooled on the doorposts that he was over there with the king Achan. That's not recorded for us. You would tell us that he fleed in the wilderness and did all these other things. And, you know, that he didn't always do the best things.

[39:03] He wanted to kill Naboth. That's not recorded for us. You would tell us about his sin with Bathsheba and what happened to her husband. That's not recorded for us. You would tell me about the census which he took. That's not recorded for us.

[39:14] None of that's recorded in the book of Chronicles. And the reason is because David is the standard of king that they are expecting. And the author is reminding us that God has already shown us a king after his heart.

[39:30] This is the type of king we need. So, and there's this continuous expectation that since we can prove we are the people of God and go all the way back to the garden and meet Adam himself.

[39:46] Since we can prove that we are the people of God and since we know that we worship the Lord God because we have the Levites here, then we can also rest assured that the promises that God has given David, that the seed of David was set upon the throne eternal, will also come true.

[40:02] So the expectation is we're looking for the seed of David. So if you are the people that have responded to the decree of Cyrus, now you know we are a set-apart people.

[40:20] We have been given the opportunity and the responsibility to worship. And we know someday that the seed of David was set upon the throne.

[40:32] They're living with an expectation. Unfortunately, though the exile had been long and though the trials had been sore, they were still living with this hope.

[40:47] Seventy years had passed. Babylonian captivity was over. Now we need our king. God goes silent for 400 years. And unfortunately, when that seed of David does show up, he is not what they are expecting because he doesn't fit their bill.

[41:06] But see, they were an enduring people. They were an entrusted people. And they were an expectant people. That's who they were coming out of Babylonian captivity.

[41:21] These are the people of God. And you say, wow, that's neat. But wait. That's what the people of God still are today.

[41:35] History has tried to diminish and demolish the people of God. Tried to distort and destroy the church. They've tried to get rid of the authoritative scripture.

[41:46] But throughout the ages, what we have found is that the people of God, the true people of God, endure. The people of God are an enduring people. We can go back and we can trace our genealogy not through man, but through the blood of Christ.

[42:02] We can read Christian history and church history and see how sometimes it seems as if the church is in this Babylonian captivity.

[42:15] We would refer to that in our history books as the dark ages. Where the church seems to go silent, but yet then all of a sudden we see that the word of God prevails and comes out the other side and light begins to shine in the darkness.

[42:29] And all of a sudden, the people of God have endured throughout all these ages. We are reminded that not only do the people of God endure, though the world may wage war against them, we see that the people of God are the entrusted people.

[42:46] It is us who are entrusted with the reality of how to worship. Worship is the natural desire of all mankind. But the only people who can genuinely worship are the people of God.

[43:02] We are entrusted with the responsibility of worshiping the Lord our God, not through temple service and not in the tabernacle, but to be guarders of the gate, if you will, to ensure that worship is done in truth and in spirit, as Jesus said.

[43:18] We are those who can worship with sincerity. We can go before him and praise him today in prayer. I say, Father, I just thank you. I thank you that the greatest need that I have is the need to be able to come into your presence and through the blood of Christ, I get to be there.

[43:33] All my other needs are met there. We are entrusted with the opportunity of worship. We are set apart. We don't need the endurance of the Levitical priesthood because we have a priest who is from another descendant.

[43:48] We have a priest according to the order of Melchizedek in the book of Hebrews. We are entrusted to worship and we are an expectant people. We too are looking for the king to come back, but we already know who the king is, right?

[44:02] We already know the king is on his throne. We're just waiting for him to come and take us to the throne room with him. We people that live with an expectation and may we not be as these people, our expectations not being met when we see him face to face, but may the expectations become a reality.

[44:21] May we live with this longing saying that's who we're looking for and may we know exactly who it is. Not painting a picture of what we think he may be, not painting a picture of the false image of a king, but looking at the king of kings and Lord of lords that's recorded for us in the New Testament and say that's the one, that's the one we expect.

[44:42] We live with an anticipation. See, even after so many hundreds of years of silence, when Jesus shows up on the scene, the Romans are still concerned because the Jewish people were still expecting a king.

[44:54] They knew that Herod wasn't it. They knew that none of them that were around them were it, but they were looking for a king. This is what upset Herod the Great so much is because of this prophecy of a coming king.

[45:06] There was still the expectation. But may we be those who live with the expectation, but knowing that it is a reality because we already know the king. We know who the seed of David is.

[45:19] We've met him. See, the people of God are an enduring people and entrusted people and an expectant people. Sometimes we go through Babylonian seasons, but when we come out on the other side, God has maintained his word and he maintains his people for his glory and his glory alone.

[45:42] This is what we see in 1 Chronicles chapters 1 through 9. No matter what the world throws at them, the people of God endure. People of God are still entrusted with worship and the people of God are still living with a holy expectation of a coming king.

[46:03] No matter what the world throws at us, may we be the same. Thank you, brother. Thank you.

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