Bible Survey - 1 & 2 Chronicles
Vern Peterman · Apr 20, 2014
Bible Survey, No. 16
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926424366590

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

we're going through the Bible and we're not going at an even pace. We spent one whole Sunday on the book of Ruth, which is only four chapters, and now we're going to do dozens of chapters in a day. I do have a question. This is 1st and 2nd Chronicles we're looking at here, and if you look on the last page of your handout here, page 6 I think it is, this is something that we distributed early on in our study. And what this does is it shows the periods of time during which the different books were written. So some of the books written very quickly, briefly. Others of them, like the Book of Psalms, collected over a thousand year period of time. So you end up having real differences from one book to the next as to how long the book took to write in terms of what was collected.

You'll want a handout here, okay? You'll want to make sure you grab that. Good to see you. So anyhow, this is, I think, key because as we look at this, there's a lot of difference from one Old Testament book to the next as to what period of time it took to write this and to collect it and what period of time it covers.

I'd like to take a look here because this is 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. And it's that 1 and 2 Chronicles we're looking at today. This is the pattern that you have. 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings is now reproduced time-wise, covering the same period of time and a little bit farther beyond that, the same period of time as 1 and 2 Chronicles.

Now, why would God have a book written that covers the same period of time as the prior books. Why would 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings be written and 1st and 2nd Chronicles if 1st and 2nd Chronicles covers the same period of time as 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings? Why would that be? Because that gets into a bigger question. Actually, there are several different reasons. What are some of those reasons why we would have what appears to be redundancies in the Bible?

Different perspectives? Okay. And when you say different perspectives, what do you mean by that? Different outlooks on the same event. Different outlooks on the same event, different things observed. Okay, good. What else? A different author. For example, you brought up the Gospels. You've got four different authors talking about the life of Christ. So different authors are going to have different things that they want to bring out. When we get to the Gospels, we'll be taking a look at that very issue.

Okay. Now, so there are some differences from one book to the next, even though they cover supposedly the same period of time, right? So differences, is that helpful to have differences? Different perspectives on the same thing, different observations, right? Because of the different points of emphasis, you get struck by different things.

So in one case, you might be struck by the fact of God's faithfulness through all the ups and downs. Another one might emphasize all the conquests and wars, like you have on your handout here. I think it also speaks to the transparency of the curriculum. Because different authors, like Randy said, also lead. All these different things that you have to be supportive of. It's the same story line.

There may be numerically numbers and stuff that may be a little bit different, but still, it's the opposite. When you look at these several books and they're covering some of the same periods of time, one of the advantages of having things that appear to be, at the surface, redundant is that you're able to get confirmation and connection with different things.

Let's take, for example, the resurrection accounts. You've got all four of the Gospels telling about the resurrection accounts. We'll be taking a look at that here this morning. But as we look at something like the resurrection accounts, you'll have different ones providing different parts of the picture, which when put together gives you the whole story. The other thing you get is confirmation.

Let's take, for instance, what would happen in the book of Acts if that were taken out of the New Testament, if we didn't have that? Without a sermon, you wouldn't know anything about how you suddenly had a church show up. Yeah, what's a church, right? And by the way, who's Paul? And who's Timothy? You'd have no idea. But why am I suddenly going from Jerusalem to Ephesus? Why am I suddenly going from Jerusalem to Rome? You'd have no answers to any of those questions. So getting what appears to be redundant information is actually helpful, and it is why God helps fill in some gaps, give you continuity as well as, as has been mentioned, different perspectives and that kind of thing.

So as we look at 1 and 2 Chronicles, at first glance you might say, well that's just repeating something else I've already seen. But it comes from a different perspective. It gives us confirmation in some cases, but also additional insights and information in other cases. Oh, one other thing, last week I told you about, there was a discovery of this citadel that's mentioned here just earlier this month. On April 2nd it was announced that they had discovered this citadel that is described in 2 Samuel. 1 Chronicles also reports the same event. It doesn't have some of the information that the 2 Samuel reference does, but it has some other additional information that the other reference does not have.

But anyway, that citadel, here's the city of David, this is the area that this is talking about. It was held by a Canaanite group called the Jebusites. And David went in and took that. Here is the city of David, the excavation area. Here is a kind of a model of that Jerusalem as it was about a thousand BC during David's time.

Here is the spring that was behind the citadel. In other words, they were protecting the water supply. And this is also the spring where Solomon was anointed as king. And so anyway, this citadel, they had been doing excavations, but they didn't announce it because they didn't want, they wanted to make sure first what they had, and also they didn't, until they had it ready for the public to see, they didn't want a bunch of people coming into the area.

Okay. Let's take a look here on your handout. The first chart we have there compares 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings with Chronicles. And I know Morgan, you brought up the different perspective. And that's the first thing that's on the chart. 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings have more of a prophetic perspective. And one of the things we saw in 1 and 2 Kings, you have Elijah and Elisha. prominent in those books, whereas not in First and Second Chronicles.

You have a priestly perspective because there's a lot more focus on the temple. There's Solomon's temple, its construction, how the priests operate, what they do, the different categories and classes of priests. Then you have in First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, more of a political history. And then in Chronicles, because of the priestly focus, religious history, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, wars are prominent, whereas the temple is the prominent feature in 1 and 2 Chronicles.

And we'll be taking a look at that shortly. 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings has the record of both nations. Which nations are we talking about? Israel, the northern kingdom, the other tribes, and then now the record of Judah is what is focused on in 1 and 2 Chronicles. And we'll take a look at that here shortly. The continuing history of the nation of the people of Israel in 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and the continuity of David's line in Chronicles, because the focus is on Judah.

By the way, was Judah the only tribe in the Southern Kingdom? Benjamin was the other major tribe, and one of the things we mentioned last week is that at different times, people from all the tribes up in the North would move down into the Southern Kingdom, especially when things got really bad. And so there was a pattern of essentially all the tribes then being present in the Southern Kingdom. Especially since they would come to Jerusalem to worship at feast times, like Passover. Yes, yes. They would come there and they'd of course be more local. So you'd get a mixture of all the tribes in the Southern Kingdom.

The last thing you see, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, a focus on man's failure, because actually some of it is some dismal reading. And then 1 and 2 Chronicles, more about God's faithfulness. Alright, now here's something else to look at. 1 and 2 Samuel, the likely authors are Samuel, Nathan, Nathan being the prophet who was a court prophet under David. and Gad. So those three names.

First and Second Kings, it doesn't actually say who wrote it. The Jewish tradition, and it makes some sense, is that Jeremiah wrote First and Second Kings. And then First and Second Chronicles, we're looking at today, again, it doesn't say who wrote it. The Jewish tradition, and it makes sense when you look at it, is that Ezra was the author of First and Second Chronicles. Yes? Gad is a, let's see, I think the term is a seer, so somewhat like a prophet. Nathan was a court prophet. Gad appears to have been not so much active in the court. So now we have 1st and 2nd Chronicles at a glance. On the bottom part of page 1, this is kind of a graphical outline.

And what we see there, actually the first several chapters of 1st Chronicles, is genealogies. Some people look at the genealogies and they go, oh, you know, put me to sleep. Why spend several chapters on genealogies? Why would that be of any use or interest? Well, it's a purification of who Jesus was for one day. And it also extends all the way to the Millennial Kingdom. And it's also a great tracking of the tribes. Yeah, the genealogies start with Adam. They go down through Abraham, and then once you get into the people of Israel, why does the genealogy matter? What are the distinctives with a particular genealogical line? Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph, who we see are descended from David, both of them, right?

So, and why is that important? Because that fulfills the promise of the Messiah. That's right. So it shows, it demonstrates fulfillment of the promise given to David. But Stan said earlier too, we're talking about real people and real time. Yes. And real land issues and so on. Yeah.

As opposed to fairytale, once upon a time in the forest there lived a little girl named Little Red Hydrant or something. You know, it's interesting, there was a Wycliffe Bible translator who was translating for a tribe over in the Orient. And at first they were just kind of going to cut to the chase and just translate the book of Matthew, but leave off the genealogies. And so they produced this translation for the people, but they cut off the genealogies because they figured that wouldn't be interesting. And so the people looked at it and they weren't terribly interested. Then they completed the work and included the genealogies, and the people said, oh, you mean these are real people? So there was a significant message to these people, oh, this is a real person because you've got the genealogy. And that made a huge difference.

Also, when you do, and I'm sure, I don't know what this word is, but when you really get into Scripture and you look at words and first occurrence, and a lot of these other different rules and understanding scripture and language. I mean, it's all, not hidden, but it's all, I don't know what the word would be, but it's all here in these different books and stuff. And so when you look at that, each and every one of these books adds insight as far as interpretation is concerned.

One of the things that comes out here in 1 and 2 Chronicles that actually showed up earlier, and it ends up being a fairly long-standing pattern, is that you'll have these kings descended from David, and that's all recorded as to who that was, and at what time, and who begat whom. And then you'll have, in 1 and 2 Chronicles, you'll also have the genealogy of the priestly line.

And one of the things that shows up several times in the Old Testament is someone who is not of the priestly line, that steps in and tries to act as a priest, and then bad things happen. Bad things happen. One of them, who was actually generally a good king, but King Uzziah during the time of Isaiah, and I'm not mixing those up, King Uzziah was a good king in general, but he went in and tried to act like a priest, and that ended his kingship. So what line you're from matters. Let's also take another look here. We've got 1 Chronicles looks particularly at the reign of David. A lot of focus on the life of David. One of the things that it focuses on we haven't seen before is David's preparation for the temple. David was not allowed to build the temple. Why? He said that he killed too many people. Yeah, too much blood on his hands. You've been fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting your life long. Too much blood on your hands, you can't do it. One of the other points we brought out was the ten generation issue. that also Solomon would have been the last one qualified because he was out from underneath the cloud of the illegitimacy. So we brought that up previously.

So here's David, he's preparing for the temple in what ways? He got timbers from Lebanon. Yeah, he's starting to collect raw materials, right? To bring in timbers and things of that sort. The precious metals. He collected all sorts of stuff. Yeah, he's collecting materials and that's basically, it's actually a an extensive effort, not just a local effort, because he's bringing in materials.

He's also arranging to have laborers come in. So he's doing that, making plans for the construction of the temple, but he's not allowed to build it. So he's doing everything to get things prepared. He worked to get the various priestly courses organized, including setting up a meeting with 24 of the priests at a time, and they would rotate through those chairs, so he'd meet personally with ultimately all of the priests, but 24 at a time.

Then we have in 2 Chronicles, we find the reign of Solomon takes up roughly a third here of this Second Chronicles, and he completes the temple, pulls in all the raw materials that David had put in there, and then it talks towards the end about the glory of Solomon's reign. Now, let's take a look here. Here's the construction of Solomon's temple, and it's on the same ground as the second temple that was present during Jesus' ministry. And that same ground is now the place where the Dome of the Rock is located and the Mosque of Omar, that same temple mount. Here would be kind of the inside, cutaway construction of the inside. This was quite some temple, and especially on the inside. which is what most folks would not see.

One of the other things that we looked at last week, I mentioned this is the actual seal of Jezebel. This is her personal seal out of the first Kings. We pointed out, here's another one out of second Kings. This is the seal of Shema, the servant of Jeroboam II. Here's the seal impression of Ahaz son of Jotham from Second Kings. And then one of them we pointed out too, this is the actual signet ring, the seal ring for Manasseh. And so it's amazing.

And actually there are dozens and dozens of these seals or seal impressions of the various ones. Hezekiah actually has well over a hundred different seal impressions that have been found from his time. Here's one of those, over a hundred, from Hezekiah. Hezekiah is also brought out in 1 and 2 Chronicles, and my reason for pointing that out is at one point in time, the Assyrians are attacking Jerusalem, and they're coming up against them.

This guy is making threats. He's an ambassador for the Assyrians. But Isaiah tells Hezekiah, don't listen to his threats, continue to resist them, even though their army is overwhelming. The army is overwhelming. So what happens is the Lord comes in and kills 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. They go instantly from being threatening to non-threatening. just overnight. 185,000 soldiers died.

What's interesting is Isaiah and 1 and 2 Kings, actually 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, all three Bible books describe this event. And there is reference to it on this prism, which is Sennacherib's record. of his attack on Judah. And what he says is he says that he shut up Hezekiah like a bird in a cage in his royal city. But that's a way of saying I didn't beat him. because they were prone to do a lot of bragging, but he couldn't say that he defeated them, he just said he shut up Hezekiah and his royal city. There is also record of the same event by the Greek historian Herodotus, and Herodotus has a very interesting explanation for why the Assyrians lost. He said a bunch of mice came and ate up their bowstrings.

And in addition to that, the Egyptians also have their side of the account. So the Bible has three different records, and there's also three different sets of historical records out there among the secular realm as well. So lots of record of this event. Real interesting. This is in the British Museum, the Taylor Prism there.

Next we have the Babylonians coming in and attacking and and they went in ultimately wiping out the city of Jerusalem knocking down the Solomon's Temple and Knocking down all the walls of Jerusalem. Just making the whole city of rubble and Then they carry the Jews off into into exile over to Babylon Okay back to Let's take a look.

Here you've got page 2. Here you've got the divided kingdom. And one of the things we pointed out last week, 1 and 2 Kings is shown here. And then where we have a parallel, we have 2 Chronicles, shown there on the divided kingdom. And that carries up to the point where Babylon conquers Judah. Now, what we also have, and we looked at this last week, is a summary of the divided kingdom, but 1 and 2 Chronicles focuses on which one of these kingdoms? 1 and 2 Chronicles focuses on which one of these kingdoms? Ultimately, 1 and 2 Chronicles focuses on Judah, the southern kingdom, right? That's the perspective that it comes from. Why would there be all this focus on the Temple? Why would this 1st and 2nd Chronicles put so much focus on the Temple?

Because that's where their focus was. That's where their place of worship was, and that's what is ultimately destroyed. I mean, that's a very big, significant place for both Israel and Judah. And it's beautiful, and it's destroyed. Yeah, think about why would we be given so much focus on the temple? Is the temple all that important to you and me? They say no, yeah. Why?

Well, Jesus means God with us. And in the Old Testament, this is one of the places, this is the permanent location of where God was with them. I mean, prior to this, it was in the tent, feeding, and pillar of fire, and all these other different things. But when you get to the temple, that's where God is. I mean, that's huge.

Yeah, when Solomon eventually got to build the temple, and the glory of the Lord came down, and God told Solomon, I am pleased with this place, I will dwell here. And Solomon offered this prayer, and God said, my people who are called by my name will pray and ask for forgiveness. If they misbehave, I will So, as Dan said, the very presence of God was the symbol. Whereas in the church age, Paul writes to know you not, that you are the temple of God. Take care of your bodies, and you are the temple. Let's take a look here, and come back to this.

The first indication of a temple that we have with the Jews is this tabernacle out in the wilderness. And that's actually, very interestingly, the book of Hebrews never mentions the temple as a fixed structure. The book of Hebrews, not once does it bring up the temple. It always refers to the tabernacle. Real interesting. But this was the first place where you had something like a temple, but it was actually a glorified tent. Actually a glorified tent.

Then, here is David, after several centuries now, here is David who comes along and starts pulling together plans and parts and hardware to build this temple. So here's Solomon's temple. Solomon is the one who actually takes all the pieces and orchestrates putting that in place as a temple.

Then you have the Reconstructed Temple, which actually, it was rebuilt, you see that on your divided kingdom chart there, it was rebuilt, finally completed in 515, the Second Temple. Herod, starting in 20 BC, begins upgrading the Temple, big time. Upgrading the Second Temple. Big time, he starts 20 BC and it isn't finished until about 63 AD. So for over 80 years, they're upgrading the temple. So when Jesus and the disciples were walking around the temple, it was a temple under constant reconstruction. Constant reconstruction.

When they stopped building the temple, they laid off 18,000 people. And that caused a riot, of course. So finally, I mean, Herod was long gone by the time that thing was constructed, and it was only about a half dozen years later, and the temple was completely ruined after all the upgrades. Okay, now, where's the temple?

It's us, right? It's us. 1 Corinthians chapter 3 is corporately, together as a body, we're a temple. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 says individually we each are a temple. Why would that be? Why would we be called a temple? Because God is within us. God is within us. God indwells us. who are believers corporately, together as a church body, and individually are temples.

Interesting, aside about the Hebrews talking about the tabernacle and never talking about the temple. The temple was a matter of pride. The temple was one of these things you showed the visiting relatives from Macedonia. Look at this beautiful structure. God wanted the emphasis to be on his presence and not on the structure. And the disciples and Jesus. Went by and the disciples say is this a magnificent building?

Yes, all of this. Yes, and and Jesus said That's just temporary. Yeah, all of this is earthly in this. Yeah, this is all this is all going to be torn down Just as you pointed out. Yeah, the sermon series on Hebrews all of this points to that which is permanent Which is fixed. Yeah, that's not the temporal earthly things. It's the heavenly and These are all a shadow. Yeah, this is all shadow and illustration.

You get so proud of your stained glass windows and your beautiful architecture. At some point, the Lord's going to take us all home. One way or another, the Lord's going to take us all home. Is that the end of temples? That's the real temple. Okay. We've still got more to go, don't we?

Here is what's called the Western Wall, sometimes called the Wailing Wall, although they don't prefer that term. This is the Western Wall. In other words, this is the temple mount wall that was put in during Herod's time. It goes like about 60 feet down. Below what you see, they're down to solid rock. Is that where the Jews go to pray? Yeah, they go up there and put their prayers in between the stones, and some of those stones are like 50 tons. Huge, huge stones.

And by the way, the place where Jesus was crucified was in the middle of this quarry, and it was an area of poor quality rock, so they didn't quarry it, which is why you end up having a hill. called Golgotha in the middle of this quarry and off to the edge of the quarry is where the tomb was located. It always amazes me because putting your prayers in the wall and going up there and praying at the wall, is that not idolatry? Well, it could be looked at that way in a sense, because, yeah, everything is about the building, right? That's kind of like holding a crucifix and feeling that you can't pray to God unless you have your crucifix.

Is there going to be another temple built here? Yes. Tribulation. Tribulation temple will be built here, okay? On this mount. All of the hardware for the inside of that is sitting in a museum in Jerusalem. So they will build the tribulation period temple, which will get used for how long? Remember, in the middle of it is where the Antichrist breaks the treaty that stops the temple use. During the millennium, Ezekiel describes the temple, and this is what it looks like. It's an artist rendition of the temple. Much, much larger. Much, much larger. And so, Ezekiel's temple.

Are we done with temples? No. New Heavens and New Earth? Where's the temple? New Heavens and New Earth? New Jerusalem coming down, it says the Lord is the temple. The Lord is the temple. So this temple idea is one that started back during the time of Moses out there in the desert, and it keeps being carried on, and it will continue to be carried on all the way into the new heavens, new earth, and new Jerusalem. All the way into the new heavens, new earth, and new Jerusalem. And right now, there is no physical temple there in Jerusalem. All they've got is the Temple Mount. And you and I, as believers, are the temple. Until that tribulation temple was built and we're out of here.

OK, let's look at one other thing. In this summary, on page 2, the summary of the divided kingdom, you have 8 godly and 12 ungodly kings in the line of David. Less than half are godly kings. Is that a problem? Jesus is descended from the ungodly ones too. Jesus is descended from the ungodly kings. So, is that a problem?

Well, you think of God can make, we quote Romans 8.28 quite a bit, things that don't seem to fit into a pattern, but God is able to make the end result according to his will, regardless of the bumps in the road along the way from the human standpoint.

So, did God condone David's relationship with Bathsheba? Of course not. Did he carry out his ultimate purposes through the line of David? And the answer is yes. So if we judge from the outside, We get into all kinds of intellectual difficulty. And I always have to go back to Isaiah 55 myself and be reminded that God's ways are not my ways, His thoughts are not my thoughts. That God knows what He's doing and I just know little bits and pieces. God can take situations that look ugly, really bad. Manasseh, you know the one where I showed you a signet ring? Manasseh was the one that had Isaiah sawn in half. And yet, the Lord used Manasseh to be in the line of Jesus. God can take really ugly things, it doesn't have to be humanly perfect, that doesn't thwart God's plan.

One other thing as we look at these kings, most of whom, even in Judah, right-line, really ugly things that they did. As we look at these kings, do they seem to have any sense of what importance that they have? Do they have any sense of what importance they have? I don't think so. If you look at it, we have 8 godly kings and 12 ungodly kings.

We've got another issue that comes up, and that is, did they understand how important it was to pass on what they had spiritually? Here's Hezekiah, generally we would say he is a godly king, and his son Manasseh, was terrible. There is a principle for parents here, and that is that you see these eight godly kings and frequently Frequently, the godly king did not pass on the spiritual importance of what they were doing on to the next generation. They would do things that were honorable and good and godly, but they didn't pass it on to the next generation. And as a parenting principle, thinking through, what am I passing on to who? It seemed like they had rebellious children.

Yeah, what's with that? What's with that? Why is it that you'll have some godly king and then the next generation is a mess? What's going on with that? Well, I think part of it has to do with... Well, you know, they talk about, I know Randy's here, but they talk about creature's kids. And they talk about people who are in higher monetary situations and they have less struggles in life and things seem to go easier so they don't have to learn the lessons, the hard lessons of life because, you know, of their position. And I think that makes a lot of difference. And if you're a king's son, I mean, you've got it easy. You don't have to struggle. You don't have to make it work. You don't have to have a relationship with the Lord because you really aren't depending on Him. Think about that. How do we go about passing on to the next generation what really matters?

You have to live a consistent life yourself and not just talk about it. I like an expression that unfortunately I don't follow too well. It says, always preach the gospel, use words as necessary. One of the keys is that you're intentional about passing that on. You don't just hope that your children come across it and or see it or you hope that they don't see what you're not doing right or something. You're very intentional about teaching the gospel. One is you're very intentional about it.

Is it possible that your kids see your life, is it possible that you talk about it, but it still doesn't come across? Can that happen? In other words, it is possible that you live in such a way that people say, Dad, Mom, they're good people. and certainly they're Christians, and maybe even mom and dad talk about it, but it still doesn't come across. What's the difference?

Relationship. Relationship is key. I think it also goes back to the parable of the soils. I mean, he went out there and he sowed the seed and some of it landed on a good heart and some of it didn't. Is it possible for parents to do everything right and still have the kid head off? It can be, right? It can be. So there is individual responsibility. There isn't any way to have a guarantee, per se.

But I think it's key to really think about how we intentionally pass along to the next generation and give some real thought to how we pass that along to the next generation. In great part, Christianity is slipping and fading, even here in our own country. Slipping and fading.

And just having a going-to-church custom doesn't fix it. Randy saw some of that with being down in Texas in the so-called Bible Belt. People go to church and live like the devil right afterwards. So it's possible to have a habits and talk and a culture that's churched and still be way off whack.

I think an important part of that too is that parents have to not not be Mr. Goody Two-Shoes or Mr. and Mrs. Goody Two-Shoes, that they make mistakes, but that doesn't mean that they're out of God's fellowship, that they can confess, and they can repent, and they can get back on the right track, and that they're not by any means perfect. And I think that sometimes is maybe what pastors' children see, or somebody that's deeply involved in religious activities, that they pass on to their children. that they are, many times, spend way too much time at the church and not enough time at home. And that they perfection, and that's not how I see it. Where none of us only have to confess and own up to guilt. Because they shouldn't.

And along with that, I think what Deb's saying, if you really look at pride, I mean, what was the thing that Jesus came and confronted most frequently? And that was pride. What's the thing that Paul talks about so often? And that's boasting. And pride goes before the fall.

So however that pride gets in your heart or in your mind or whatever, it seems to be only removed through struggle and through understanding that self is not the most important thing. And to get to that place, it takes struggle and it takes pain and it takes A lot of things we don't like to have to go through.

Yeah, Al? I know when I first ran across training a child and the way he should go when he's older, not depart from it. I had the wrong interpretation. I thought that was a guarantee. And I was heartbroken when my children didn't. seem to be following that. It took me a lot of time to figure that my job was to plant the seed and try to be consistent and not just talking about but living my daily life that way. But the children don't depart from it in the sense that they know they've had that and God's still working in each of their hearts and minds even though they may not be regular church attenders or some other outwardly showing thing. My job is to be faithful in being obedient and planting the seed.

I think it's something to look at because most of these kings in Judah, most of these kings were ungodly and what we see is there was not an intentional and intentionality about the way they passed on to the next generation. Very frequently you'd have a godly king and then the next generation was all out the window and everything slid back. But being very intentional as a parent and thinking things through, how am I going to get across what is important and pass that on? That's a key thing.

And I think even passing along from older generation on to others in terms of encouraging, you know, what worked, what didn't. And even some honesty there is key. I know when Randy was not quite 12, I pulled all three of my kids aside, this is after talking to Nancy, and apologized to them that I had not done things. So even some honesty can be pivotal. I apologized to them that I had not been the father to them that I ought to have been. So even some honesty about those kinds of things. I know one time Nancy asked our kids, can you tell when I'm walking in the spirit and when I'm not? Yep. So some spiritual reality there can be key as well. Okay, let's call our time to a close here.

Lord, thank you for the lessons here out of 1 and 2 Chronicles, and we've certainly taken a sweeping look, but yet as we look at it, some really pivotal things and things that hit home in a very real way, things about parenting principles and what we have to pass on to the next generation.

And we thank you for the examples here, examples of good, examples of bad. We also thank you that as we look at this temple construction, ultimately, we are the temple. We in the body of Christ are the temple that you have on earth right now. And we just thank you for these lessons. We thank you for the truth that you brought out before us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.