The Line of the King

we start off in chapter 1, and we start off with the generations of Genesis. I'm just going to read the first handful of verses here to you. It says, So it starts off, of course, in the beginning, which is with Adam, who is the father of all humanity. And interestingly enough, we don't follow either Cain or Abel through this. Obviously, we don't follow Abel because he was murdered,

and we don't follow Cain because he was the murderer. We follow Seth because it's Seth that the promised line would come through. And, of course, we come all the way down to a very fascinating character by the name of Enoch. And we know that Enoch was a man who walked with God and then was not because God took him. And I've always loved the story of Enoch because he's such a fascinating character.

We know so little about him as far as Scripture is concerned, and yet creates for us such a fascinating character. I'll never forget being a little kid and learning about Enoch. And my... My K-5 Bible teacher, I still remember this to this day. I remember her saying that one day God was walking with Enoch, and he told Enoch, And I always thought that was kind of a fascinating thought.

That's always really stuck with me over the years. That's how close of a walk that he had with the Lord. And, of course, when he was taken, Methuselah, his son, who was the oldest living human of all history, was around. And then, of course, we come to Noah. And during the time of Noah, when the flood took over the earth, the earth was judged because of the immorality that had taken place in the earth.

The earth was judged because of the demonic influence that had taken place in the earth. And, again, an important story because we're told in the New Testament that as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. So we want to know a little bit about what things are going to be like when Jesus returned. It would be important to go back and read the state of the earth address that's given to us in Genesis.

Right before God brings the flood upon the earth. It would be kind of an interesting thing for you to go back and read. And then, of course, from Noah, we have these three sons. And these three sons are who we need to pay a little bit of attention to. The first son that's mentioned here is Japheth. Japheth, of course, will be the father of those who will settle in both Europe and Northeast Asia.

Europe and Northern Asia. He's going to be the father of all of those kids. The next one that we read about is we read about Ham. And Ham is the father of those who lived in Africa and the Far East. Interestingly enough, Ham is the one who was cursed by his father because he uncovered his father's nakedness. Again, a story we don't know a whole lot about. But he was the father of those of Africa and the Far East.

But the one that we pay close attention to is a guy by the name of Shem. Because Shem will be the father of many of the Middle Eastern people, not the least of which is the Hebrews. Because the Hebrews were a Shemitic people. Or over the years, the H was dropped. They are a Semitic people. Therefore, they are of the Disciples. They are the descendants of Shem.

As you go down a little bit further, if you were to drop all the way down to verse 18, you would see in the line of Shem that Arphaxad became the father of Shelah. Shelah became the father of Eber. That name Eber is kind of important too because Eber is the root word from which we get the word Hebrew from. And so he, of course, is in that line of the Hebrews.

And of course, if you follow him all the way down, you come to Abraham. And of course, in the beginning of verse 18, verse 28 there, we learn that the sons of Abraham were Isaac and Ishmael. Of course, Isaac was the child of promise. Ishmael was the child of the flesh. And while God still had a plan for Ishmael, because God redeems even the worst mistakes that we have,

Isaac is the one that we follow. Isaac is the line that we follow because he is the child of promise. And of course, from Isaac, if we follow all the way down, we find that there are two descendants of Isaac in verse 34. Abraham became the father of Isaac. The sons of Isaac were Esau. And interestingly enough here, it names him Israel. And if you were of the line of Israel and you're reading this, you go, ah, that's us.

That's where we came from because, of course, it was actually Esau and Jacob, Jacob, the dirty, rotten, sneaky thief, who wrestled with God, and God won. And so he named him Israel, he who God fights for or he who fights for. He fights with God. Either way, he becomes Israel. And of course, while there is the line of Esau, Esau is not the promise line because God chose Jacob,

not Esau, it's a whole study in and of itself. He chose Jacob, and so we follow the line of the patriarchs down through. And so the rest of chapter one gives us all of the descendants of the tribes of Esau. And then in chapter two, we pick up with the sons of Jacob. And so the rest of chapter one gives us all of the descendants of the tribes of Esau. As a matter of fact, we deal with the line of Abraham and Judah in chapter two.

So flip on over to chapter two there. It says, these are the sons of Israel, or Jacob, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. That was one busy man, wasn't he? He really, really did a good job of being fruitful and multiplying. We see those sons of Jacob there, the sons of Israel. Then we focus in on one particular one.

We focus in on a young man by the name of Judah. And in verse three, we read this. The sons of Judah were Ur, not overly creative on the name, Onan, and Shelah. These three were born to him by Bathsheba, the Canaanitess. And Ur, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, so he put him to death. Tamar, his daughter-in-law, bore him, Perez, and Zerah.

Judah had five sons in all. The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamuel. Now, it's interesting to take a look at the sketchy line of Judah, right? Like, Judah is the one who the Messiah is gonna come through, right? He's known as the lion of the tribe of Judah. And Judah eventually sort of redeems himself, as God does work in his heart. But Judah, of course, has a pretty sketchy line,

because it says that his daughter-in-law is who actually bore Perez, who's going to be in the line of the Messiah. Remember, it said one of his sons was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. But there was actually more than one that was put to death. And they were both married to this girl named Tamar. And pretty soon, Judah's kind of going, you know,

the sort of common denominator in this is that both of these boys are married to Tamar. And so they both end up getting put to death. Maybe it's Tamar's fault. So he says, hey, you wait around for my next son to become of age. And he will perpetuate the line for you, because she would need someone to take care of her. But when his son was old enough, he did not keep his promise.

And so Tamar figured out what was going on. And so Tamar put on the clothes of a prostitute, because it just so happened that Judah was on his way up after the shearing of the sheep for a great big celebration to celebrate the fact that the harvest had come in, if you will, of the shearing of the sheep. And on his way up, he saw Tamar. And on his way up there, he sees a prostitute on the side of the road.

And so he propositions her. And so she says, that's great. You give me your signet ring and your staff, which are very specific to one individual, as a pledge so that when you bring me the payment, I will give you these back. And so, of course, Judah and Tamar have their fling. And Judah goes about his life. And he sends his payment to this prostitute, only she's not there.

His servant goes with the family. He sends the payment. And she's not around. He goes, eventually, this became embarrassing for me. I'm not going to keep searching for a prostitute. So I just came on home. Well, Judah didn't think anything about it. He went on with his life until it was reported to him that Tamar was pregnant. And he knew, I can finally be free of this woman.

Let's take her out and let's burn her. And she says, aren't you interested in who the father is? And he says, what does it matter who the father is? And she holds up his signet ring and his staff. And he says, well, I don't know. And she says, because the one that owns these is the father of the child. And he goes, you are more righteous than me. And the twins that were born of that incestuous relationship

were Perez and Hezron. And through Perez will come the line of the Messiah. You know what I love about God? Is that God redeems jacked up families. Isn't that great? Isn't it great that God redeems the worst of families? It doesn't matter what your family history is. It doesn't matter what your family lineage is. God can still bring something beautiful out of that.

And I know that we all bear witness with that because, listen, as my good friend Jerry says, and as I quote all the time, you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your family. And when it comes right down to it, some of us have some messed up family history. And unfortunately, what we can find ourselves doing is we can find ourselves saying, because of my family history, I can never escape that. There is generational sin that I'll never escape.

There is generational sin that I'll never be able to get outside of. There are generational curses that I can't break. There are generational issues that are just a part of who I am because of who my family is. But stories like Judah remind us God's grace is greater than a generational sin because God's grace can use even the most messed up of people to fulfill his will.

And so, we kind of read about this situation with Judah. Well. If we were to continue on, we'll find that in chapter two, we will continue on with this genealogy of David. The most interesting thing for us to pay attention to about chapter two actually comes to us down in verse 51. So, look down to verse 51 of chapter two. It says, Salma, who is in the line of David,

Salma, the father of Bethlehem, and Harath, the father of Beth-gadar, Shobal, the father of Kiriath-jearim and his sons, that name, half of the Manathites, and the families of Kiriath-jearim, the Ithrites, the Puthites, the Shumathites, I have no idea if that's how you say any of those names, the Mishraites, and from these came the Zorahites and the Eshtoites, and the sons of Salma were Bethlehem, and the Netophathites, and Atroth, Beth, Joab, and half of the Mahathites and the Zorites. What's interesting for us to pay attention to there is either the one who founded the city of Bethlehem or the one who Bethlehem was named for is in this line of David, which is interesting because that will be the birthplace of David,

but not only that, it will be the birthplace of the Messiah that will come through the line of David. And so that's what's kind of interesting to pay attention to there. And again, they had no idea how significant that was at the time, other than David, of course, being of that line. And so, when we pick up in chapter 3, we come to what I have just simply entitled the house of David, and it takes us all the way from Solomon down to the time of the exile.

I really would encourage you to go back and read through chapter 3. We'll actually cover a good number of these kings in 1 and 2 Chronicles, but it is kind of interesting to read down through and see there's some different pronunciations and spellings of the names, so it's kind of an interesting read. I promise I did read all of these. I got myself a sweet iced mocha yesterday, and I sat down and I read through this entire section.

Some of it was kind of interesting. But this sort of ends the overview of the life of David. Now, when we get into chapter 4, what we do is we pick up with, once again, the line of Judah, but it goes a little bit deeper into the line of Judah. So chapter 1 was Genesis and all of those. Chapter 2 was really about, chapter 2 and 3 really took us down through the line of David,

and we're gonna go a little bit deeper into the line of Judah. So in verse 1, it says the sons of Judah were Perez, and Hezron, and Carmi, and Hur, and Shobal. And so again, it's gonna follow those lines on down through, not much interesting to pay attention to until we get to verse 9. Look down at verse 9 of chapter 4. It says this, Jabez was more honorable than his brothers,

and his mother named him Jabez, saying, because I bore him with pain. Now, Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, oh, that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm, and that it may not pain me. And God granted him what he requested. Buried in the middle of this genealogy is a guy that, for no good reason, is just thrown in there.

Like, we really don't read it. We don't read anything else about him other than he was just quite a guy. But we learned a couple of interesting things about him. The first thing that we learned is that he was an honorable man. And we know that in the line of Judah, sometimes that could be an issue, right? Because he had a pretty screwed up line. But he was a more honorable man than his brothers,

and we learned why his mother named him Jabez, which, by the way, Jabez simply means sorrow. Can you imagine that being your name? Like, hey, sorrow, why don't you come over for dinner tonight? And you're like, oh, um, all right. Like, it's like, it's like naming your kid Eeyore, right? Like, that's a really sad name. And the reason why she named him that is because I bore him with pain.

Childbirth was a bummer. I'm gonna call you sorrow, right? How are you gonna saddle a kid with that name his entire life? Run that by some junior high kids. See how that goes? But that's what she names him. So here's this guy, he's an honorable man. But listen, there's a dark cloud that hangs over his life. And that dark cloud is a dark cloud of sorrow that he sort of lives with.

And I think that's kind of interesting for us to pay attention to because in the world that we live in today, there's a great deal of sorrow. Can we all agree with that? And sometimes it feels like sorrow can hang its dark cloud over us. And whether it be family circumstances that has brought us to that place of sorrow, or simply circumstances of life that have brought us to that place of sorrow, sometimes that can be our identifying mark.

Sometimes that sadness, sometimes that sorrow, sometimes even breaching into depression can be sort of the mark of our life and the cloud that hangs over us. But we learn that he was an honorable man, a man of God. And so what did he do with that sorrow? He did the one thing with that sorrow that any of the rest of us have to do with any of the sorrow that goes on in our life.

Notice what it says. Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that you might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm, and enlarge my border, and that you might be with me, and that you might be with me, and it may not pain me. The first thing I'll point out to you is that he took his sorrow, and he took it to the Lord. He said, this is the road that I have to travel.

This is the title I've been tagged with. This is sort of the lot in life that I have. It's a great deal of sorrow. And so he took all of that sorrow that he'd bottled up, perhaps all of his life, all of these years of knowing that maybe mom wasn't real fond of him. After all, she named him sorrow because of the childbirth thing. Perhaps everybody else kind of looks at it

the same way. down on him because that was his name and he he took all of that sorrow that was a part of his life and and he cried out to the Lord and when he called on the God of Israel he said Lord would you would you bless me would you enlarge my border would you be with me and would you keep me from a life of pain now back in the early 2000s there was you could get the prayer of Jabez for everything right like you could get the prayer of Jabez book you could get the prayer of Jabez doilies to hang on your wall you could get the prayer of Jabez coffee mug you could get the prayer of Jabez journal you could get the prayer of Jabez toilet paper I made that last part up but what a fantastic idea if anybody

else writes a book right and everything was that if so everybody was like oh the prayer of Jabez is just so dumb I can't believe we talked about this thing all the time but this is a fantastic prayer because the entire reason he goes to the Lord is because of the sorrow that engulfed his life and he said Lord enlarge my borders what does he mean by that God give me an identity outside of the sorrow that I live in all the time God give me something greater than my lot in life right now which seems to be nothing but sorrow and sadness enlarge my borders to make it to where my life means so much more than the history that I've been saddled with and then he prays that God would bless him Lord I just want to see blessing in my life I'm tired of sorrow

being in my life all the time I just want to see your blessing on me help me to see the blessings that are in my life and then he prays the third thing Lord be with me you know why he prays that God would be with him because you at the greatest cure for sorrow in our life is it's the presence of God after all what do we told in scripture that in his presence is what it's the fullness of joy and so he prays that God would be with him and then of course he prays Lord could you just take the pain away from me now I'm here to tell you right now I can appreciate this prayer because live in sorrow. I know what it's like to live in some sadness. And I know what it's like to have to

take all of that, bottle it all up, and say, Lord, you're going to have to take this because I feel like I have a dark cloud hanging over me all the time. Sometimes it just feels like there's just sorrow hanging over my life, whether it be because of things that have gone on in my life or the people that I minister to in my life. And so I have to take that sorrow to the Lord. And I have to pray, Lord, get me outside of the border of the sorrow and let joy be the land that I live in. Lord, bless me with

the knowledge of who you are and the joy that comes with knowing you. And Lord, be with me so that I can know the fullness of joy that comes into your presence. And Lord, if you would, could you just take the pain away? And I can tell you from experience that what it says here, God granted him what he requested is exactly what God's able to do. I don't say it because it says it right here

in the Bible, although that's a pretty good reason to say it. I say it because I've experienced it in my life. Because I've seen what God is able to do when you take the sorrows of your life that you feel saddled with, and you bring them to the Lord, and you say, replace it with joy. I've been watching him do this in my life since I was about 22 years old. So for the past three years of my life, I'm just kidding.

So for the past over 20 years of my life, I've been watching God replace sorrow with joy. Remember what it says in Scripture. He gives this beauty first. Grab your ashes. The oil of joy for morning. The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. It's hard to believe sometimes when you're right in the middle of it. But perhaps Jabez was living right in the middle onto ones that

were on the cross. So he decided the one thing I can do is just keep calling out to God. This isn't the name it and Jordy an it prayer that is often times is shown to us by those who taught it when that book first came out in the early 2000s. This is just the word of God. I think he gave the following two things testimony for Genesis 14-17. He put all of his heart and soul into it.

I think we have to say be excelsis. In direct translation of what Jesus is doing with us, he goes right into the book of Genesis and первo-no. This second thing, I would like to talk about who he really was. this is the prayer of understanding the joy of the Lord that comes from the presence of God. Amen? And so in the midst of all of this line of Judah, we see this wonderful little story about a guy

named Jabez. You know why? Because Ezra knew this was boring, and they needed something to look forward to. So that continues on with the line of Judah until we get to verse 24. And when we get to verse 24, we come to the sons of Simeon. It says, the sons of Simeon were Nimuel and Jamin and Jerib and Zerah and Shaal. It goes on and starts to name all of the sons of Simeon and

tells how they were kind of scattered throughout the land. The story of Simeon is kind of an interesting story because Simeon really didn't have an allotment in the land. They didn't really have any land that was their own. As a matter of fact, they end up sort of getting a assimilated into the tribe of Judah, which is why even here, their genealogy is listed right next to Judah, because they end up getting assimilated into the line of Judah. And you probably think to

yourself, well, that's so sad. Why doesn't Simeon get his own inheritance? Well, it goes all the way back to the book of Genesis with something that we affectionately refer to as the Dinah incident. Perhaps you remember this story. If not, I'll refresh your memory on it. All of the brothers of the sons of Israel, had one sister by the name of Dinah, at least one that we read about. And Dinah went out to see the

people of the land, and she fell in love with a guy by the name of Shechem, with whom a city was named after. And Shechem raped her. And he fell in love with her, which is an odd situation in and of itself, but whatever. You can't explain it. And so he comes to Jacob, and he says, can I marry your daughter Dinah? And Jacob says, let's wait till my boys get back, and we'll discuss it.

And so the boys come back, and they find out what happened, and they are enraged that someone would treat their sister that way. Only rather than handling it in a godly way, they handle it in a deceptive and a brutal sort of way. So they deceive the men of Shechem, and they say, listen, we'll make a treaty with you, okay? Then you can marry our daughters, and our daughters will marry into your city as well, and they will marry your sons. But here's what you have to do. You have to

be ceremonially, you have to be ceremonially, you have to be ceremonially, you have to be ceremonially, you have to be ceremonially, you have to be ceremonially pure. So all of the men of the city need to be circumcised. Now listen, you should always know something. If you come back to the city and say the only way we can marry this group of people is for that to happen, you should ask questions, right? That just feels like the right time to ask a question. Are you sure these guys

mean this? Are you sure this is a good idea? No one asked a question. So they went, and everybody had the surgical procedure done, and on the third day when they were all the most sore, Simeon and Levi showed up, and they slaughtered every man in the city. And so Jacob cursed them, and he said, you guys will be scattered. And so Simeon didn't have any inheritance in the land, and it's really kind of a sad thing because there was really no redemption

in the life of Simeon. We'll deal with Levi in just a minute, but there was really never any repentance or redemption in the life of Simeon, and so they end up getting scattered kind of throughout the land because of the brutality committed against the inhabitants of Shechem. And so the rest of chapter four deals with how they, how they were slaughtered, and they were scattered throughout the land. Then we come to chapter five, and when we come to chapter five, we three, we see the three Transjordan tribes, which are known as Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh.

It says in verse five, or chapter five, verse one, now the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, for he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father's bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel, so that he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright. Though Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came the leader, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph. We come to another interesting story, and a little bit of a sad story in the line of the sons of Israel, and that's Reuben, who was actually, as it says, the firstborn. But we're told in the book of Genesis, and it's this super obscure verse, that really isn't even addressed in the moment. It says that Reuben went into one of his father's

handmaids, if I remember correctly, his Bilhah, and he had relations with her. And in the moment, nothing was said, and nothing was done, but on his deathbed, Jacob said, you're cursed, because you couldn't control yourself, and you will no longer have the birthright. Of course, ultimately, the birthright would belong to Judah, because he would be the one through whom the Messiah would come. But Joseph's sons, ended up taking the place of Reuben in that particular situation. And it's a really good

reminder for us. It's a really good reminder of what sexual immorality does in the life of an individual. Because a moment of pleasure takes away all of our understanding of the inheritance that we have. A moment can take away all of the things that God has prepared for us. And in that moment, he didn't think about the consequences of what would take place. He didn't think about the

consequences of what would take place in his life. All he could think of was fulfilling his lustful desires. And he had no idea that that would rob him of the birthright that he thought so rightfully belonged to him. And it's just like sexual immorality does in the lives of people, is it robs us of what God truly intends for us to have. Now, we have to understand something. There is

redemption in the Lord, because he is still a member of the tribes of Israel. He is still someone who God will use in a powerful way. But those consequences that go along with that should always be a warning to us of what sin can do in our lives. And so, so we follow the line of Reuben down through verse 10. And then in verse 11, it says this, now the sons of Gad lived opposite them

in the land of Bashan. And this is all on the east side of the Jordan River. The sons of Gad lived opposite them in the land of Bashan as far as Silead. And so we follow the descendants of Gad. And there's another interesting story for us to pay attention to in verse 17. It says, all these were enrolled in the genealogies in the days of Jotham, king of Judah, and then in the days of Jeroboam, king of Israel. The sons of Reuben and the Gadites

and half tribe of Manasseh consisting of valiant men who bore shield and sword and shot with bow and were skillful in battle. Were 44,760 who went to war. And they made war against the Hagrites, those names right there. And they were helped against them. And the Hagrites and all who were with them were given into their hand. For they cried out to God in battle. And he answered their prayers because they trusted in him.

And they took away their cattle, their 50,000 camels, 250,000 sheep, 2,000 donkeys, and 100,000 men. For many fell slain because the war was of God. And they settled in their place until the exile. Anybody notice the difference in army there between the 44,760 and the 100,000 that they took captive of the men? It's pretty fascinating, right? Why did God give them such a great battle?

Well, the answer is, or give them such a great victory. Well, the answer is given to us right in the middle of verse 20. For they cried out to God in battle, and he answered their prayers. Why? Because they trusted in him. It's a beautiful testimony of these Transjordan tribes who, for one moment, trusted in God. And in the heat of the battle in which they were

massively outnumbered, massively outgunned, massively underprepared for the battle that they faced, they knew they had one hope and one hope only, and that was in God. And so they cried out to God, and they trusted in him. And so God answered and gave them a victory that was completely beyond their power. And so they cried out to God, and they trusted in him. And so God

answered and gave them a victory that was completely beyond their power. And so God answered their understanding, because they trusted in God, and because they cried out to him. I'll remind us again of something that I continue to remind myself of, and hopefully you have as well. You can never underestimate the power of prayer. So we had a fantastic event last Wednesday night.

Just tons and tons of people showed up. Tons of kids showed up. And it was a beautiful thing, but I'm going to tell you the same thing I told you last year after this. The reason it went as well as it did had nothing to do with any of the planning that we did except for one thing, and that was prayer. Last Sunday night, not three days ago, but the Sunday before,

I got a message from my FCA leader at Arc City, and she said, hey, we're going to have a prayer meeting at six o'clock over at the football field. We're going to gather with the student leaders, and we're going to pray over there. And so I can't make it to that one. And she said, okay, no problem, because a bunch of others can as well. So we're going to have a second one at eight o'clock.

So a group of kids, along with one of the teachers, a couple of other adult sponsors, they show up at six o'clock, and they walk the track, and they pray over the football field. I show up about 730, and there's a couple there that are some adult leaders that have helped out with me in the past. We sit, and we pray over the football field. But then about a half hour later, right around eight o'clock, just a little after, about six kids show up.

Six more of the leaders show up, and I say, all right, guys, shall we just go walk the track, and we'll pray together? They said, sure. So I gave them a list of things, and I prayed, and then I would say, okay, now you pray for this, and you pray for this. And we walked four times around the track. I guess we should have done seven. That'd be the Jericho thing, right? We did

four. It seemed to work pretty good. So we walked four times around the track, and all those kids took turns praying. I love listening to kids pray, because kids haven't learned Christianese yet. They don't know how to do it. They don't know how to do it. The proper way, they do it the real way. And I think God really listens to that. And I remember as I'm walking around with these six kids, as I'm walking around the track, I'm just kind of

looking over at them, just being blessed, hearing their prayers, because I just love it. I love listening to kids pray. I remember thinking, this is a done deal, because these kids are crying out to the Lord, and God listens to the prayers of kids. I'm not saying He doesn't listen to your prayers. He does. But I think God answers the prayers of kids in a powerful way.

Because I think He wants to prove Himself faithful to them, so that it builds that faith in their life, right? And so I just remember thinking, I think we're going to be good. I think this is going to be a great event. I think God's going to move very powerfully through this event, because a whole bunch of kids just prayed. And God is going to move on behalf of these kids,

because they have cried out to God, and because they trust in Him. And that's what we saw happen. We saw God move incredibly powerfully last Sunday night, or excuse me, last Wednesday night. And it was all because we cried out to the Lord, and we trusted in Him. And that's what God's able to do every single time we try. Every single time we do that, every single time we pour out our hearts to Him, and we trust in Him, God moves in incredibly

powerful ways. When we don't do that, we see the next section about the tribes of Manasseh. It says in verse 23,

And they were numerous, and these were the heads of their fathers. Thou is a bunch of names. Verse 25,

And they played the harlot after the other gods of the peoples of the land, whom God destroyed before them. So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pol, king of Assyria, even the spirit of Tiglath-Paneser, king of Assyria, and the spirit of Assyria, and the spirit of Assyria, even the spirit of Assyria, and the spirit of Assyria, and the spirit of Assyria, of Assyria. And he carried them away into exile, namely the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh. And he brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and to the river Gozon to this day.

You see, when we cry out to the Lord and we trust in him, God brings victories that we can't even explain. But when we stop trusting in God, when we stop crying out to God, and we start finding our hope in everything else, in the foreign gods of this world, and all the things the world tells us that we are to trust in, God eventually has to show that those things will never work. He has to give us over to that which we pursue. And that's what he does here. And interestingly

enough, these three tribes, known as the Transjordan tribes, they're on the other side of the river from the promised land. They're like, this is really good land. In other words, they were the farthest from the congregation. They were the farthest from the tabernacle. They were the farthest from the other tribes of Israel. And we all know what happens with isolation.

When we isolate ourselves, it's a lot easier for us to lose the fire. When we isolate ourselves, it's a lot easier for us to fall into sin because we don't have iron sharpening iron. That's why watching online is a wonderful thing. And it's great that it's there for when you're traveling or for when you're sick or things like that come up. But that should not be the thing that you do

all the time. You have to be involved in church. Not because I need to fill up all the seats in this church. We seem to be doing that just fine. But because you need it. Because I need it. Because I need to stick close to the fire. Otherwise, if I isolate myself, the flame goes out. And this is what happens to them because the first ones to be taken captive by the Assyrians were those farthest away. Those who were

isolated. And so we see those tribes of Reuben and Gad and Manasseh. In chapter 6, we see the descendants of Levi. And of course, it's going to go all the way down through and give us all of these descendants of Levi. There's two things that I'm going to point out to you. The first thing I'm going to point out to you is the story of redemption of Levi. Remember, the Dinah

incident involved two brothers, Simeon, who ended up being scattered throughout the land, and Levi, who ended up being scattered throughout the land. One was a story of sadness because they were scattered sort of with no hope. The other was a story of sadness because they were scattered sort of of redemption because they were scattered with purpose. You see, Levi found themselves in a place where they were told you'll be scattered throughout the land because of the brutality done in the incident against the inhabitants of Shechem. But there was a moment where they were able to redeem

themselves through obedience. You see, when Moses came down the mountain with all of the, or with the law, and the children of Israel were down there dancing around a golden calf, and Moses threw the law down in anger because he was scared. He was scared. He was scared. He was scared. He was scared. He was scared. He was scared. He was scared. Because the law had been broken, and he broke it

symbolically because of what had taken place. Moses said, who is on God's side? And you know who joined him? The tribe of Levi. And the tribe of Levi joined him as an arm of judgment of God against all of the disobedient Israelites. And they were told, because of your obedience, because of your heart that was true to the things of God, you will be scattered throughout the land. And they were

told, because of your obedience, because of your heart that was true to the things of God against all of the overlords of the People of Israel, they would become the priestly tribe. And while you're still going to be scattered throughout the land, you will be scattered throughout the land in cities of refuge because you will be the representatives of God throughout the land of the safety and security that comes from the presence of the Lord. And so they get scattered throughout the land and they become that high priestly tribe. But if it's a beautiful story of redemption, once you pay attention to one other thing in chapter six, look at verse Thirty-one. It says, now these are all things of Rely.

These are those of 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 Lord, or before the tabernacle of the tent of meeting, until Solomon had built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they served in their office according to their order. These are those who served with their sons, from the sons of the Kohathites, where Heman, the singer, not always what you think of for the name of a singer, but it's a great name, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel, the son of Elkanah, the son of Jehoram, the son of Eliel, the son of Toa, and it goes on with a whole bunch of other sons. But I want to point something out to you.

A part of that tribe of Levi were the worship leaders. Worship was such an incredibly important part of the nation of Israel, and such an incredibly important part of the ministry of the tabernacle, that there was an entire group whose one job was to worship the Lord. And I find it interesting because David Guzik pointed this out in his commentary, and I thought it was great. He said that means three things.

Number one, it means that worship is important. Important enough to set aside an entire group of the tribe of Levi for the worship of the Lord. Worship was important. Number two, worship is a ministry. Worship is a ministry. It is a service unto the Lord. And I think we have to keep that in mind, especially in the current culture that we have, where worship leaders are becoming celebrities,

is that worship is not about entertaining people. Worship is about ministering. Not only to people, but to the Lord. Because worship is a ministry, not an entertainment industry. Number three, worship should be organized. There should be a plan in the way that it's carried out. It should be done decently and in order, because there is an order to the way things that were to take place.

And so from there, you find the family of Aaron, the common lands of the Levites, and then you come to chapter seven. We're going to breeze through this, because I'm almost out of time anyway. I've simply entitled chapter seven, The Other Tribes. Listen, I don't mean to not give them their due, but it's just all of the other tribes that come into play. But then we come to chapter eight,

and chapter eight is where we start paying a little bit more attention. Because in chapter eight, we come to the tribe of Benjamin. And this is where Ezra pays attention. And he gives more time to the tribe of Benjamin than all of the other tribes besides Judah, because Benjamin would be the one through whom Saul, the first king of Israel, would come. So we look down at verse 33 of chapter eight,

and this is what it says. Ner, almost as bad as er, but at least he gets an extra letter. Ner became the father of Kish. Kish became the father of Saul. And Saul became the father of Jonathan, Malchishua, Abinadab, and Eshbaal. The sons of Jonathan were Meribbaal, and Meribbaal became the father of Micah. And the sons of Micah were Pithon, Melek, Teriah, and Ahaz.

Ahaz became the father of Jehoiada. And Jehoiada became the father of Alameth, and Asmaveth, and Zimri. And Zimri became the father of Moza, and so on, and so forth. And so next week when we get into chapter nine, or the next time when we get into chapter nine, we won't have it next week because of our kalala, but the next time we get into chapter nine, we'll begin looking at Saul, his rise to power, and his quick defeat because of disobedience.

Well, I don't know, how'd I do with my task? It's not bad, right? I was, I'm happy with it. Come on, that's right. So we cover those first eight chapters, a whole lot of names. I would encourage you at some point in time, especially if you can't sleep tonight, go back and read through those. You're gonna find it incredibly fascinating through the back of your eyelids.

But I always find it beautiful how God brings redemption through the hardest of stories. Because when, you look at the genealogy of the nation of Israel, when you look at the genealogy that leads up to the line of David, and then when you continue and you look at the genealogy that leads up to the line of Jesus, you find that it's full of broken people, broken people that God redeems, broken people that God redeems and uses for his glorious purposes. Praise God for his amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing grace. Amen.

Father, we come before you and I just thank you for the time that we've had in your word. Lord, I thank you that you gave us nuggets of goodness in the midst of a bunch of boring. And Lord, I thank you that no matter what, it's beautiful to know that you know all of our names. And so Lord, be with us as we go throughout the rest of this week. Move in our hearts, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen. Be blessed.