Transcription of 20ID3372

1 Chronicles 21-29 “The Reign of (Part 2)” October 21, 2020

Let’s open our tonight to 1 Chronicles 21.

Tonight we’re going to finish this book, the 1 Chronicles. The word “chronicles” really speaks of those things that were omitted in the historical books before them, especially in and Kings. They are really a capitulation of the history of Israel, but from God’s point of view. Most of the Jews believe that Ezra wrote this during the time of the captivity. We can’t prove that to be sure. We do know it is God’s report because He leaves out a lot that you would, maybe, presume you would find here. The northern kingdom, which existed for 209 years, in rebellion against God’s will is really not mentioned at all; , who was a choice of the people, not of the LORD - we read of his death and that was it; and so even David’s sin with Bathsheba is not mentioned here. God forgives and He forgets, and He moves on with us by His grace.

But, as we mentioned to you last week, it does cover the important issues. Number one – it sets up the lineage from through David to Jesus. So, as you read through the , it is important that you can follow that lineage and find the Messiah. You will get through the and say, “Look, if Jesus is not the Messiah, there isn’t one because all of these dots connected for generation after generation until Messiah came.” That’s important. Once that is established, the LORD then turns to the covenants He made with His people – with the agreements that He made. He turns to the Temple and to the worship, in particular, at the Temple, which is totally important because it’s the place where God, a holy God, meets with unholy man through sacrifice, through bloodshed, setting up the case for the Messiah who will give His life and shed His blood for the sins of the world. And then, following the lineage and then the Temple and the worship, ultimately God’s will that the world would come to know who He was through the nation that He had chosen. The lineages, especially the genealogies we mentioned to you I think, continued until the 70 A.D. overthrow of by the Roman’s tenth legion. At that time, everything in the Temple was burned, and the records of genealogy were lost. So we have the Bible records, but once Jesus shows up, we really don’t need them because that was what they were intended to bring us to. So, more than anything else, Chronicles is God’s point of view of the same history that is record politically and correctly in the other books. It is God’s

1 report of the spiritual well-being of His people, or the lack thereof, especially during the time of the national divide.

And so we looked at the first ten chapters which were really genealogically driven, through the end of Saul’s life. We then looked, last week, at the reign of David and his mighty men and the fact that they brought this ark back to Jerusalem and God’s promise to build David a house, promise of a Messiah. And then we finished with some of David’s military conquests.

We’re going to pick up with that tonight in chapter 21. We’re going to finish at chapter 29 tonight with David’s death. We will begin next week in 2 Chronicles with and then beyond. We will spend most of our time in chapters 21 and 22. Chapters 23-27 are a lot of names, and I’ll just overview those for you. You can read them all on your own if you’d like. And then we will read 28 and 29 to kind of bring us to the end. I really see a lot of the Chronicles, especially those names, as almost like reference books like if you use a dictionary or you use a history book; you want to look up a date or a time. I think they’re here so that we can follow along and sometimes find the things that we may not be able to pick up elsewhere.

But we’ll start in chapter 21 tonight, which gives us a graphic picture in the life of David – something that we studied in detail when we went through 2 Samuel 24. It is David being tempted to trust in his own resources. It’s a pretty important lesson for all of us to learn because God has promised to care for us, to go before us, to be our strength and shield. And yet there’s always a temptation to rely on anything and everyone but the Lord and His promises. And that certainly happened to David almost at the zenith of his career. Through it, God would bring David to see that it was only by grace that he was as strong as he was and as successful, and that, by sacrifice, in particular, man could be forgiven of his desire and plans to be prideful and to try to go it alone. In the process of this story, and you probably know it well, the place of the future Temple is established by the LORD. It is the same place where offered Isaac (back in Genesis, early on). It is the place that, one day, the Father would bring His only begotten Son to save man, in his sin, from judgment, which is exactly what we find here. So, grace alone, no human strength, God has to keep us is really the lesson here.

Verse 1 says this, “Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. So David said to and to the leaders of the people, ‘Go, number Israel

2 from Beersheba to Dan, and bring the number of them to me that I may know it.’ ” Moses had taken, in the Bible, to censuses: one at the beginning of the book of Numbers, one at the end of the book of Numbers when they ended their wilderness march; and neither one of them did the LORD call to be sin. Neither one of them was corrected by the LORD or pointed out as being the wrong thing to do. And the question then becomes – so what is the problem here? A couple of things you can pick up here and if you read 2 Samuel 24 as well. Number one – this was a suggestion by Satan. That’s usually not a good sign. Second of all, David wanted to know what the strength of his army was, and so we presume that he wants to now rely upon what God has given him rather than upon the LORD Himself. And so this numbering of the people is just that. You only need numbers when you want to rely on those numbers. Are we strong enough? Are we capable enough? Can we last the way that we’re standing? And so here David fell to Satan’s lying suggestions to measure his strength, not by faith but by number. And so David falls at the height of his spiritual well-being, if you will, in many ways, certainly his success. He falls to pride, and he wants to know, like I said, the size of his army.

Understand, if you’re just following along, if you were reading last week, we finished last week with three or four chapters of these wonderful victories that David was given by the LORD – victories that he couldn’t have been intelligent enough to figure out, he certainly wouldn’t have been strong enough to win. He relied upon God’s strength. He found himself at the top. When things were done, God blessed him. And now you get to this chapter, and it says, “So, Satan was against Israel, and he was able to convince David to number the people.” Now, we don’t read about Satan being the one behind this in Samuel. Because this is God’s report. He just wants you to know this is a spiritual issue. David wanting to number the people was a suggestion of the enemy of our souls. David is not looking at the LORD here, though he had been given great victories. He’s looking at his own might.

When Jeremiah the prophet, in chapter 9, comes to Israel, he says, in verse 23, to them, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me…..’ ” And that really is something David had left behind. Sometimes we do as well. Right? God brings us such great victories, and we, at some point, begin to just presume that’s the way it works out. But it isn’t that way at all. We have to stand in the same faith that brought us to Him.

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So here’s David delighting in his own might, and God is not pleased with David. This act of defiance and unbelief and wrong focus is encouraged by the devil.

So we read, in verse 3, “And Joab” (David’s sister’s boy) “answered, ‘May the LORD make His people a hundred times more than they are. But, my lord the king, are they not all my lord’s servants? Why then does my lord require this thing? Why should he be a cause of guilt in Israel?’ ” (Boy, that’s a pretty smart guy for a guy who didn’t walk with the LORD much.) “Nevertheless the king’s word” (being the king) “prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel and came to Jerusalem. Then Joab gave the sum of the number of the people to David. All Israel had one million one hundred thousand men who drew the sword, and Judah had four hundred and seventy thousand men who drew the sword. But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them, for the king’s word was abominable to Joab.” And we read, in verse 7, “And God was displeased with this thing; therefore He struck Israel.”

Now Joab, David’s little nephew, rarely cared for the things of the LORD. If you were with us through the studies through Kings and all, we recognize that this wasn’t a godly man at all. He was very inconsistent, and yet he thought this was a bad idea. I mean, he realized, “This is not the LORD at all. God has brought us this far.” And so he tries arguing with David. David puts his foot down; he’s the boss. “All right, man, I’ll go do it.” And it took months and months and months to do this, and Joab hated every step of it. He finally cheated a little bit, kept some tribes out, didn’t number everyone; just kind of gave it a half-hearted attempt. He wasn’t for this at all. David had plenty of time during all of those months to say, “Maybe that’s a bad idea.” But he was gonna stick to his guns. And so, after all of those months, the numbers came back here of 1.1 million in Israel that could fight, 470,000 (almost half a million) men in Judah. By the way, that’s a million more than Moses had counted in his census. God had blessed this young shepherd boy a lot. When he fought Goliath, when he was young, he didn’t need a number of an army. In fact, they were volunteering, or Saul was, “Here, wear my stuff. Carry my sword. Good luck.” And David said, “I don’t need your stuff. I just need the LORD. I’m takin’ this guy out. He’s blaspheming our God!” Not the same David here. This is David who is ruling, and he’s the king over a big kingdom, and things couldn’t be going any better. We’ve got to be careful sometimes when we want to start taking inventory of what God has given us and somehow find our strength in them. Or evaluating our strength without considering the Lord. That’s foolish. We start to add up. We’re real good at making a list of what’s for us and against

4 us. But the Bible says, “If the Lord be for you, who can be against you?” (Romans 8:31). And David needed to learn that. Unbelief is thought of as just a little sin. But notice, in verse 7, God would disagree. He is displeased with Israel.

Now I don’t know what took place between verse 7 and verse 8. We do read that the LORD struck Israel. We don’t know in what manner or how severely except to say, in verse 8, David realized he had brought this about. We read, in verse 8, “So David said to God, ‘I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing; but now, I pray, take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have done very foolishly.’ ” Like I said, it took months for him to get the numbers back. He realized at some point, I don’t know how, that this was a very great offense to the LORD. He turns to confess his sin and looks for God’s forgiveness. And at least, in the picture, I say to myself, “Even the great ones fall, even those that we honor.” And I know David’s sin with Bathsheba was certainly far greater in consequence, in many ways, but here’s David at his height, and even David falls. And he tells God about it, and the LORD reveals to us that David, this “man after His own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22), wasn’t so strong. And the LORD will continue to use him, which ought to encourage, I think, some of us. Maybe you’ve had a couple of hiccups in your life or failures. You think maybe God’s done with you. I think the Bible would teach that He’s not done with you. If you’re willing to walk with Him, God is willing to start over with you. The only people in the Old Testament that I know of, without any chinks in their armor, were Daniel and Joseph. I don’t like either one of those guys. They’re there just because it makes the rest of us feel normal, I guess. But the rest failed. Abraham lies, tries to help God out; Elijah hides in a cave; Moses beats the rock in anger. Everyone….you can just go, “Man, these guys were kinda losers!” And yet God used the losers. The list goes on and on. Elijah, we read in James 5:17, was a man just like us, and yet when he got on his knees and began to pray for it not to rain, it didn’t rain for three-and-a-half years. But he was a man just like us. That is the only introduction we have – he’s a guy just like us. I know so often we like to separate ourselves from the heroes in the Bible like, “Well, that’s them, and this is me.” No. You’re the same.

Now David’s life was not one of consistent sin. He sincerely sought the LORD most of the time. In fact, he was usually ready, although the thing with Bathsheba may have taken a year. But in most of the other places, when he realized he did the wrong thing, he’s quick to confess it. Which I think makes him a man after God’s own heart. God responds to that confession of our sin, and David does that more often than not. Here, he confesses his sin of unbelief, his sin of pride. By the

5 way, pride was the same sin that Satan fell by, according to the Scriptures (Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28). David had learned this well. He would later write in Psalm 118:8, “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.” The next verse says, “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.” He wrote, in Psalm 71:1, “In You, O LORD, I put my trust; and if I do that, I will never be ashamed.” He learned that here, maybe. It would be good for us to learn that as well.

So David, he’s way off base. Even his little nephew tries to stop him; can’t do that. Realizes, in verse 8, what he has done; confesses his sin. And the LORD, then, in verse 9, sends him a prophet, a seer. His name is . “Then the LORD said, ‘Go and tell David, saying, “Thus says the LORD: ‘I offer you three things: choose one of them for yourself, that I may do it to you.’ ” ’ So Gad came to David and said to him, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Choose for yourself, either three years of famine, or three months to be defeated by your foes with the sword of your enemies overtaking you, or else for three days the sword of the LORD – the plague in the land, with the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the territory of Israel.” Now consider what answer I should take back to Him who sent me.’ ” (“I’ll give him your answer.”) “And David said to Gad,” (and it didn’t sound like he waited too much to think about it), “ ‘I am in great distress. Please let me fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are very great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man.’ ” So, three choices for punishment. Now remember, David just repented. “Sorry, LORD.” “Okay, but you’re gonna have to learn.” Because even repentance – sin still has consequence, right? And these certainly did. You can certainly cause a lot of people to suffer by your sin. Once God forgives you, it doesn’t mean the consequences go away. So, here were his three choices, and David quickly throws himself onto the mercy of God. “Don’t let man…….man has no mercy. I just want to deal with God. I’ll take it from His hand. I want His hand alone.” David said, in verse 13, “I’m in great distress.” He was repentant, but he still has the consequences to deal with.

“So the LORD” answered David, in verse 14, “sent a plague upon Israel, and” (in one day) “seventy thousand men of Israel fell.” (Imagine that.) “And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was destroying, the LORD looked and relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who was destroying, ‘It is enough; now restrain your hand.’ And the angel of the LORD stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Then David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and heaven, having in his hand a drawn sword stretched out

6 over Jerusalem. So David and the elders,” (put on those clothes of repentance) “clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.” If David wondered how many people he had in his army, he was losing his army pretty quickly. He just lost seventy thousand in one day, dwindling his resources. The LORD allowed David to see the angel marching to Jerusalem - must have been a horrifying thought. But at Mount Moriah, outside the walls, at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, the mercy of God, for the moment, stopped the angel’s movement while David and the spiritual leadership fell on their faces. “God, please, don’t go any further.” This was only day one.

Verse 17, “And David said to God, ‘Was it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? I am the one who has sinned and done evil indeed; but these sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I pray, O LORD my God, be against me and my father’s house, but not against Your people that they should be plagued.’ ” David couldn’t stand it any longer. “Destroy me, LORD. I did it, not these innocent sheep.” You know, sometimes the hardest thing about sin is realizing the consequences of it and being willing to take the blame – whether it’s gossip or a bad example. Nobody lives for themselves. I’ve heard people say, even on drugs – especially people get involved in drugs, they’ll come in for counseling, “Well, I’m just hurting myself.” Yeah, that’s not true. There’s no way to isolate you from your sin or protect us from your sin. Look, David sees the consequences of his decisions, he cries out that he’s responsible, “Please, take me out, not them.” He loved the people for sure.

In response, “the angel of the LORD commanded Gad to say to David that David,” verse 18, “should go and erect an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. So David went up at the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the LORD. Now Ornan turned and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves, but Ornan continued threshing wheat.” (It looked like a pretty scary deal to this farmer, if you will.) “So David came to Ornan, and Ornan looked and saw David. And he went out from the threshing floor, and bowed before David with his face to the ground. Then David said to Ornan, ‘Grant me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar on it to the LORD. You shall grant it to me at the full price, that the plague may be withdrawn from the people.’ But Ornan said to David, ‘Take it to yourself, and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. Look I also give you the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing implements for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering; I give it all.’ Then King David said to Ornan, ‘No, but I will surely buy it for the full price, for I will not

7 take what is yours for the LORD, nor offer burnt offerings with that which costs me nothing.’ ”

So, God’s instruction to stop the plague, and David goes to talk to this poor man who is just terrified, and he sees the king of Israel coming to him, and he wants his land, and he says, “You can have it, man. Just take it. It doesn’t mean anything to me at this point.” But here we learn from David: no true sacrifice if the giver doesn’t pay. In other words, God never looks for surplus or castoffs. Right? If you read through the Bible, the measure of God’s attitude towards our giving – whatever it is – is never valued monetarily. It is always two conditions: one is cost to you, and the other one is the intent of your heart as you give. Those are the only two things God cares about. He doesn’t care about the decimal point because He has everything He needs. He’s certainly not going to depend on you to come through. If you’ve ever heard somebody on the radio say, “Oh, you know it’s Christmas. Would you help us out?” Forget it. Just turn the radio channel to something else. Because that’s not the God of the Bible. God’s not interested in that. But David has to pay. Why? Because David wants God to forgive, and David wants to come to the LORD, and it was going to have to cost him. He couldn’t give to the LORD what someone else gave to him. That’s not sacrifice. That’s not cost. And his heart is now one of repentance. So God’s not interested in raising money this way. He’s interested in raising children with sacrificial hearts.

“So David,” verse 25, “gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.” If you read chapter 24 of 2 Samuel, we read that he paid fifty shekels for the threshing floor alone, and then here we are told he paid six hundred for the entire place. Now, it’s an important place because this will be the place that Solomon will build the Temple – right on this spot. God’s choice for the site was chosen as He stopped the angel in his tracks. And David would follow willingly. It would be the only place in the Old Testament where unholy men could meet with a holy God, once the sacrifices began there. There weren’t ten other places to go; this was the place that you came. Significant because you can only go to the cross now, where Jesus died. You can’t just go to a hundred places. “Well, I’ll go to a mountain in the middle of Saudi Arabia.” Well, you can go to any mountain, but Jesus gave His life at Calvary. He’s the One that you have to turn to. So a place where God was willing to stop the plague of sin that marched through the lives of the people to destroy every life. So David purchases the place, obedient to the LORD. This is only day one, remember. God was so merciful. “And David built there an altar,” verse 26, “to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace

8 offerings, and called on the LORD; and He answered Him from heaven by fire on the altar of burnt offering. So the LORD commanded the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath. At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there. For the of the LORD and the altar of the burnt offering, which Moses had made in the wilderness, were at that time at the high place in Gibeon. But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the LORD.”

Interestingly enough, in David’s day there were still those high places that we’ve mentioned a lot. They are kind of identified with the worship of idols. They got intermixed with Jewish life for a long time, and it never – very rarely – could be separated out. Even in David’s day, God had chosen a place of worship. David would now stay where the LORD had chosen, and they would remove that place of worship and move it to Jerusalem where it belonged.

Interesting story, right? God uses the weak like David. God wants us to be sure our strength is found in Him. Don’t worry about you have to look at your checkbook or your friends or your connections. The Lord’s all you need. He’s been faithful. He’s provided and will continue to do so. But to try to rely on your own strength is to invite judgment, man. You’re going to have a hard time with it, as David did.

From here to chapter 29, the subject is entirely singular. It is the organization and the preparation that David made for building the Temple and then his words to Solomon and the people – why they needed to build it. You might, in reading this – if you’re outlining chapters (I’ve had a chance, three or four times, to outline the whole Bible by chapter; I find it a lot easier to remember than by verses, which there’re a lot of them) you might say, “Well, why so much time and space devoted to it in the Scriptures?” Well, for one thing, following on the heels of what we just read, it’s absolutely vital to the LORD that you find that there’s only one way you can come to Him. It isn’t that God doesn’t want you to come. But at the edge of that sword is man who refuses to come to the place of sacrifice. And so there’s a lot of time and space dedicated to the Temple, to the manufacturing of the place of worship. It is valuable to the LORD. It is the meeting place between God and man. The place of meeting. Remember? We just read about it in chapter 21. “Build it here, the place of meeting.”

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So it is not as detailed here as it is early on in the Scriptures. But understand that, to God, it is valuable because it represents the fact that you can only go to Jesus, His Son, who is represented in every way in that Temple. Right? Where the sacrifice is made and the blood is shed and where man’s not worthy to come, but God allows him to come. So if you follow the progression just in God’s overview, here in the book of Chronicles, it is the genealogy, it is the house of David, it is his experiences with preparing to build the Temple, it’s the Temple – which is the cornerstone of his and Solomon’s life, if you will (David certainly spent most of his later years saving up for, planning, and laying out the Temple). And then, after that, it is God’s will to, through His people, deliver to the world a message of the fact that there’s a God who will make peace with you through sacrifice. The Bible becomes very small then, and the message becomes very linear. It is the first coming and the second coming of Jesus. That’s really what God is interested in. You meet Him through His first coming; you wait for His second coming so that He can be with you, and you can be with Him.

Verse 1 of chapter 22 says, “Then David said, ‘This is the house of the LORD God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel.’ So David commanded to gather the aliens who were in the land of Israel; and he appointed masons to cut hewn stones to build the house of God. And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails of the doors of the gates and for the joints, and bronze in abundance beyond measure, and cedar trees in abundance; for the Sidonians and those from Tyre brought much cedar wood to David. Now David said, ‘Solomon my son is young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for the LORD must be exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious throughout all countries. I will now make preparation for it.’ So David made abundant preparations before his death.”

Now you might remember that the LORD had told David he couldn’t build because he was a man of war, he’d shed a lot of blood. David was never told he couldn’t prepare, though, and so he took full advantage of that. “All right, I can’t build it, but I can do everything but.” And I would say to you, if you read these chapters, David did everything but. He saw his boy as young and weak, inexperienced. “I’ll do everything I can.” They’re such opposites. David was a fighter and a warrior from his youth. His boy, Solomon, was a mama’s boy who was raised inside. They’re really as different as you can possibly have. But that was David’s heart, and that’s now what we read about because God wants that place of meeting to be built, and He wants us to understand what the building itself and the use of it means.

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Verse 6 tells us, “Then he called for his son Solomon, and charged him to build a house for the LORD God of Israel. And David said to Solomon: ‘My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build a house to the name of the LORD my God; but the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “You have shed much blood and have made great wars; you shall not build a house for My name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in My sight. Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies all around. His name shall be Solomon, for I will give peace and quietness to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for My name, and he shall be My son, and I will be his Father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.” Now, my son, may the LORD be with you; and may you prosper, and build the house of the LORD your God, as He has said to you. Only may the LORD give you wisdom and understanding, and give you charge concerning Israel, that you may keep the law of the LORD your God. Then you will prosper, if you take care to fulfill the statutes and judgments with which the LORD charged Moses concerning Israel. Be strong and of good courage; do not fear nor be dismayed. Indeed I have taken much trouble to prepare for the house of the LORD one hundred thousand talents of gold and one million talents of silver, and bronze and iron beyond measure, for it is so abundant. I have prepared timber and stone also, and you may add to them. Moreover there are workmen with you in abundance: woodsmen and stonecutters, and all types of skillful men for every kind of work. Of gold and silver and bronze and iron there is no limit. Arise and begin working, and the LORD be with you.’ ”

David was pretty pushy. Right? He was a terrible father, by the way. And, for the most part, he rarely corrected his children. You can read of one of his kids, that it said he never even raised his voice to correct him (1 Kings 1:6). Solomon would, years later, write much about the discipline of a child. I think he realized his father was not very strong as far as a father. Yet, when it came to this work and his kingdom kind of work, David was phenomenal – really organized, very clear. He shines. Even his counsel to his boy here is phenomenal. “Look, you’re going to prosper when you put the LORD first. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed. God has called you. Build the house of the LORD. He’ll be with you, He’ll give you wisdom. I’ve provided everything you need. Just go do the work, man. Let’s go!” It couldn’t have been better.

He tells him, in verse 13, that prosperity in the LORD is always linked to obedience. I think that’s exactly what Moses said to Joshua when he sent him out. It’s exactly what David wrote in Psalm 1 about obedience brings blessings. So I love

11 verses 14, 15 and 16 where David just kind of says, “Get on it, man! It’s a goal worth accomplishing. It’s a work you should be doing. God has called you to do it. Now get busy! Get busy serving the LORD.” Verse 16, “ ‘Arise and begin working, and the LORD be with you.’ ” And so even before David died, David had already put everything in place. He had hired people, gotten plans, drawn up drawings – an amazing picture, really.

And so we read, in verse 17, “David also commanded all the leaders of Israel to help Solomon his son, saying, ‘Is not the LORD your God with you? And has He not given you rest on every side? For He has given the inhabitants of the land into my hand, and the land is subdued before the LORD and before His people. Now set your heart and your soul to seek the LORD your God. Therefore arise and build the sanctuary of the LORD God, to bring the of the LORD and the holy articles of God into the house that is to be built for the name of the LORD.’ ” “Let’s go!” He got on Solomon, and then he got on everyone around him. I like that. I thought about that today. God is still at work with the church, building His house. Right? You go out and share your faith, someone comes to Jesus, they become a stone in the house of God. We’re to go to the highways and the byways. But notice that the motivation that David sets before his boy and also before the people with him is that they saw God’s blessing. He had given them rest, He had given them victory. In other words, He’d given them everything they needed. “Now come back and serve Me. Take the rest you’ve been given. Set your heart and your soul to seek Me. Put Me first.” And he did. So that was his challenge to his boy…..build it before he dies. And David, understand, he’s dead here pretty quick, but this is his last will and testament for his boy.

From chapter 23 to chapter 27 – gonna help you here – almost impossible to read, at least unless you’re really good at names. I am not. Like I said, it is better used as a reference guide, a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a reference point. But let me give you the big overview, and we’ll look at a couple of verses so that we can understand them.

Verse 1, chapter 23, “So when David was old and full of days, he made his son Solomon king over Israel. And he gathered together all the leaders of Israel, with the priests and the . Now the Levites were numbered from the age of thirty years and above; and the number of individual males was thirty-eight thousand. Of these, twenty-four thousand were to look after the work of the house of the LORD, six thousand were officers and judges, four thousand were

12 gatekeepers, and four thousand praised the LORD with musical instruments, ‘which I made,’ said David, ‘for giving praise.’ Also David separated them into divisions among the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.” So chapter 23, David’s division of the Levites. Like I said, as bad of a father as David was, he was a tremendous overseer and administrator. And notice that he is preparing for the service of the Temple before it’s built. He’s hiring people or putting them in places to serve before there’s ever a place to serve. So David buys the land, he gathers the materials, he hires the laborers, he sets the servants, he has drawings (in a minute, specific), and then he goes, “All right, dude. I gotta go.” In every way except for the final building, this is David’s Temple, not Solomon’s. It is David’s heart that burned.

Here, in chapter 23, he sets the Levites in order. The priests had grown in number from eight thousand at the time of Moses to thirty-eight thousand now. So that’s the growth of the nation, if you will. With the Temple built, he no longer needed a bunch of priests to get up to move the thing, to pack it up, to put it on their shoulders, to cover it up because now God had a permanent place. No more tearing down and setting up, which is why it’s so nice to not be sitting out on the patio all the time. And notice the division. Twenty-four thousand were to work in God’s house to take care of the place; six thousand were officers and judges to oversee it; four thousand watched the gates; four thousand more were on the worship team. David made, by hand, worship instruments. “Here, try to play this thing!” Can you imagine this guy? He was driven, wasn’t he? Has a heart for the LORD. Really all he cared about.

If you skip down to verse 25 – we’re going to skip over all of the names there – verse 25 says, “For David said, ‘The LORD God of Israel has given rest to His people, that they may dwell in Jerusalem forever’; and also to the Levites, ‘They shall no longer carry the tabernacle, or any of the articles for its service.’ ” So, now that they had a permanent place, their roles were to change, and David was reassigning them. Because they had such a great number of priests, and they were only allowed to do certain things, David set them in courses or orders, year by year, that they would have to show up for a certain amount of time each year, when their number was up, to serve as priests, to serve the people. And that set up would continue all the way until the time of Jesus because you might remember of John the Baptist’s father, Zacharias (in chapter 1 of Luke), that, in the days of Zacharias, he was serving, it said, in the order of his division when the angel of the LORD met him in the Temple and talked to him about having a child, which would be

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John the Baptist. But he was there. He didn’t live there, but he lived nearby, and he came to town to serve at the Temple for his allotted time, and then he would go home and serve the local community. But everybody had a chance to come to this place of gathering with the LORD. So David set this up before it ever was built.

In chapter 24 – and we’ll do this one even quicker – there are listed for you twenty-four orders of priests. They were all sons of . They were there to serve at the Temple in their courses. If you read, in verse 19 of chapter 24, it says this, “This was the schedule of their service for coming into the house of the LORD according to their ordinance by the hand of Aaron their father, as the LORD God of Israel had commanded him.” And so this is a list of those who could serve. There were so many, and we find the LORD just assigning each group; which maybe some of them were used to carrying and tearing down and all of the labor. They were now given different jobs.

Chapter 25 – you’re doing well so far – is all about the worship team. In fact, we read, in verse 1, “Moreover David and the captains of the army separated for the service some of the sons of Asaph, of Heman, and of , who should prophesy with harps, stringed instruments, and cymbals. And the number of the skilled men performing this service was:” and then we begin to get a list of the worship team. Here, as with the priests of Aaron, David organized the singers and the orchestra in the same manner. There were twenty-four groups of twelve who would come each year to the Temple and serve for two weeks. In other words, if you were in that place, man, you couldn’t wait. Your two weeks were to go serve the LORD in Jerusalem at the Temple. It’s quite an honor. Right? And you would plan ahead and that would just be your special time, and then you’d go home, and you’d serve in the local community.

Verse 7 says, “So the number of them, with their brethren who were instructed in the songs of the LORD, all who were skillful, was two hundred and eighty-eight. And they cast lots for their duty, the small as well as the great, the teacher with the student.” And so, as the LORD….under his leadership, David’s two hundred and eighty-eight worship leaders playing instruments and all assigned some in major roles, some not-so-major. But interestingly enough, still – and you find it a lot – teacher with student. In other words, if you look at Jesus’ teaching method, you can call it “withness” because the way that the disciples learned was just to hang out with Jesus. Right? It wasn’t book learning as much as it was just watching. Right? Jesus said, “As I have done for you, washing your feet, now you go do for

14 others. You’ve see it in Me. Now you go do it” (John 14:14). “If they hate Me, they’re going to hate you. If they listen to Me, they’re going to listen to you” (John 15:18). And it is the “withness” thing that really, I think, teaches maybe more than anything else. So, the worship team were given leaders, and then there were people who were just hangin’ out with the leaders to learn and just watch. We have a lot of guys in training here, and we take ‘em to funerals and to hospital calls (although there’s been less of those lately, obviously harder to get in). We let them go with us to do whatever we can do, and it’s a great way to learn. “What would you say? How would you handle this? What Scriptures do you find to be applicable here? And why should the church be involved with that?” I find it’s better than sitting in a class, to me, is just to be with those who are doing the work. And you read it here as well. The teacher with the student were assigned to these weeks of service. So the worship team in chapter 25.

Chapter 26 – more names. Here’s the organization of the ushers and of the porters or of the administration, if you will. Verse 1, “Concerning the divisions of the gatekeepers: of the Korahites, Meshelemiah the son of Kore, of the sons of Asaph.” And then here, again, are some of those names. So here’s the organization of the porters, those who watched over the doors; verses 12 and 13, who did the cleaning, if you will. They had duties in the house of the LORD. They watched over and took care of the place. Down in verse 20, some of them were in charge over the treasury, or they did the books, if you will. They also, verse 24, had a leader. There was structure there. Verse 26, there was a guy who was in charge, and then there were guys who were under him. Verse 29, some judges in the land who handled the business affairs for the king. And so it’s just a big responsibility of taking care of the business side of the church and the physical needs of the Temple and of the people. Chapter 26. At the end of verse 32 you read the words, “for every matter pertaining to God and the affairs of the king.” So these were fellows who were running the state, if you will, and all.

Chapter 27 – we’ll just keep moving along at this pace. Verse 1 says, “And the children of Israel, according to their number, the heads of fathers’ houses, the captains of thousands and hundreds and their officers, served the king in every matter of the military divisions. These divisions came in and went out month by month throughout all the months of the year, each division having twenty-four thousand.” And again, there is that organization as David set twelve men, twelve princes – one prince from each of the twelve tribes – over twenty-four thousand servicemen who were each given one month to serve on active duty. So that was

15 the organization of the people under David. One month of active duty every year, with twenty-four thousand people under one leader.

Verse 16 says, “Furthermore, over the tribes of Israel: the officer over the Reubenites was Eliezer the son of Zichri; over the Simeonites, Shephatiah the son of Maachah;” and so there were representatives of every individual tribe. And verse 23, for example, says, “But David did not take the number of those twenty years old and under, because the LORD had said He would multiply Israel like the stars of the heavens. Joab the son of Zeruiah” (that was David’s sister) “began a census, but he did not finish, for wrath came upon Israel because of this census; nor was the number recorded in the account of the chronicles of King David.” So we never got the full number. So, look, if nothin’ else, David learned his lesson. He didn’t start counting people; he didn’t want to number. And notice the explanation in verse 23. The LORD had said, “You’ll have more than you can ever count,” and David didn’t, at the time, believe that. By the way, if you go to Israel amongst the Hasidics, they won’t allow you to number them in line. But they will do this, if you’re having to number yourself off, they will say, “I’m not 1, I am not 2, I am not 3” because they want to avoid this counting up. They see that as an offense to the LORD. So even to this day that is taken literally by some; it is certainly not, I don’t think, God’s intention. But notice in verse 23 and verse 24 that David learned his lesson well. Right? He took it to heart. “I don’t need to number the people.” He did need to number a lot of people for organizational purposes. He didn’t want to get near this to begin to number the leaders and the tribes and some of the military leaders and all the state officials.

Verse 25 tells us about those who were over the storehouses – so those who ruled in the cities and in the villages and in the fortresses. And as you read through to the end of the chapter, you’ll get to agriculture and treasury and just those who were running the affairs of state, if you will. Very organized. David certainly left his son a government that was thriving and worshipping the LORD.

Which brings us to these last two chapters, which have a few more things to say. In these last two chapters, David, first of all, calls together all of the leaders of Israel for a final meeting. Chapter 29 then calls the whole nation together. So his words to his leaders and then to the people, and these are his words with which he will sign off, and he will go to be with the LORD. These are kind of his last words of encouragement before he dies.

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So, verse 1 of chapter 28, “Now David assembled at Jerusalem all the leaders of Israel: the officers of the tribes and the captains of the divisions who served the king, the captains over thousands and captains over hundreds, and the stewards over all the substance and possessions of the king and of his sons, with the officials, the valiant men, and all the mighty men of valor. Then King David rose to his feet and said, ‘Hear me, my brethren and my people: I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and for the footstool of our God, and had made preparations to build it. But God said to me, “You shall not build a house for My name, because you have been a man of war and have shed blood.” However the LORD God of Israel chose me above all the house of my father to be king over Israel forever, for He has chosen Judah to be the ruler. And of the house of Judah, the house of my father, and among the sons of my father, He was pleased with me to make me king over all Israel. And of all my sons (for the LORD has given me many sons) He has chosen my son Solomon to sit on the throne of the kingdom of the LORD over Israel. Now He said to me, “It is your son Solomon who shall build My house and My courts; for I have chosen him to be My son, and I will be his Father. Moreover I will establish his kingdom forever, if he is steadfast to observe My commandments and My judgments, as it is this day.” Now therefore, in the sight of all Israel, the assembly of the LORD, and in the hearing of our God, be careful to seek out all the commandments of the LORD your God, that you may possess this good land, and leave it as an inheritance for your children after you forever.’ ”

So David’s counsel to the people is, “Look, we’ve gotten this far because God chose me to be the king, God’s chosen my son to build the house, He has been faithful to bring us to this point. Everything He said, He’s done. So let me give you some advice, you leaders. Obey the LORD so that you can continue like this for another generation. You can hand this off to your children. The blessings and the mercy of God, who you were walking with, be sure that you stay in a place where you receive what I’ve received.” It’s good advice, isn’t it? We don’t want the church to end this generation, if the Lord tarries. We’ve got to pass it on to our kids so that they might know the God that we know.

He then turns to Solomon, in verse 9, and he says, “ ‘As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.’ ” So, pretty clear advice. “Know the LORD. Be loyal to Him.”

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The word “loyal” there is the word for singular in purpose or united in heart. “Have a mind that is willing.” In other words, don’t be pulled into two different directions, and “be loyal to the calling of God. God knows your motivation. He sees what you respond to and why. If you’re for Him, He’ll be for you. If you forsake Him, He’ll forsake you. There’s no way that you cannot count on Him if you are willing to seek Him and to serve Him.” So, good advice from David to his son. We then read, in verse 10, “ ‘Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary;’ ” (I love this) “ ‘be strong, and do it.’ ” That’s where Nike got it’s thing. “You do it!” Verse 11, “Then David gave his son Solomon the plans” (blueprints). (Gosh, David, you’re kind of controlling.) “Here’s where the vestibule should be, where the houses should go, where the treasury is, the upper chambers, the inner chambers, the place of the mercy seat; here’s all the plans that he had by the Spirit.” (He said, “The LORD has given this to me.”) And here are “the courts of the house of the LORD, of all the chambers all around, and the dedicated things.” And so you go through, and you get to verse 19, and David said, “ ‘All this the LORD made me understand in writing, by His hand upon me, all the works of these plans.’ ” So he gives him the blueprints. “Solomon,” pretty much, “here. Here’s the workers, here’s the money, here’s the stuff, here’s the gift. Do it, man! I gotta go.” Dad really worked it out, didn’t he? I wonder how Solomon felt.

“And David said,” verse 20, “to his son Solomon, ‘Be strong and of good courage, and’ ” (notice the words again) “ ‘do it; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD God – my God – will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you, until you have finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD. Here are the divisions of the priests and the Levites for all the service of the house of God; and every willing craftsman will be with you for all manner of workmanship, for every kind of service; also the leaders and all the people will be completely at your command.’ ” “Just do it!” I like that because it seems to me God puts us in a place where He says, “Just do it,” and then you begin to give your reasons why you can’t, and the Lord goes, “Yeah, I can handle that. I got that covered. I’m all right with that.” “Everything is ready Solomon. All you have to do is do it.” It was like the LORD gave Solomon a silver platter, this work. Right? Solomon was a beneficiary of a godly father who sought to please the LORD. “You be strong, be of good courage. Do it without fear or dismay. Just get to it.” I love the exhortation because it seems to me most all of us have good intentions. I have great intentions to lose weight. Just do it. Right? I have great intentions to get up a little earlier and pray some more. Just do it. I have great intentions to read my Bible through in six months rather than eight. Just do it! It isn’t that we don’t have the

18 capacity or God has given us the open door. But doin’ it, man, that’s hard, isn’t it? I am much greater in my intentions than in my behavior. Are you? I’m a man of great intention and a goof when it comes to doing sometimes. And I think Solomon must have had the same problem. I don’t think David left anything undone. “Here, Solomon, push the button. There you go.” “Oh, look what I’ve built.” “Really? That’s what you’ve done right there? Like that. That’s all you did!” David was not shy. That’s for sure.

Well, then, chapter 29. We get to the end and, like I said, David was obsessed with this Temple, obviously, because God wanted a place where man could meet with God. And so we read, “Furthermore” (final word to the congregation) “King David said to all the assembly:” (so now he gathers the whole nation together) “ ‘My son Solomon, whom alone God has chosen, is young and inexperienced;’ ” (come on, David) “ ‘and the work is great, because the temple is not for man but for the LORD God. Now for the house of my God I have prepared with all my might: gold for things to be made of gold, silver for things of silver, bronze for things of bronze, iron for things of iron, wood for things of wood, onyx stones, stones to be set, glistening stones of various colors, all kinds of precious stones, and marble slabs in abundance. Moreover, because I have set my affection on the house of my God, I have given to the house of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the holy house, my own special treasure of gold and silver: three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the walls of the houses; the gold for things of gold and the silver for things of silver, and for all kinds of work to be done by the hands of craftsmen. Who then is willing to consecrate himself this day to the LORD?’ ”

So David now turns to the congregation, and he says, “What are you willing to sacrificially give to the building of this place of worship?” “Follow my lead” is what he’s saying. To be a good leader, I think you should never say to people, “Do what I tell you.” You should say, “Do what I’m doing.” So David donates personally to the Temple, verses 3 and 4, three thousand talents of gold, seven thousand of silver. A talent, by the way, weighs about 66 pounds. So David gave roughly, at today’s rate, almost $6 billion in gold and about $73 million in silver. So David had a lot of dough, I guess. But he’s not shy. And the reason for his giving was verse 3, and, I think, don’t miss that. “Because I have set my affection on the house of my God. Because I want the LORD to have my best.” Ever wonder how committed your heart is? Sometimes you can see by the way you give. It’s a pretty good barometer because it seems to me love never knows any limits. When I was young,

19 and I wanted to buy my wife a wedding ring (and I think she’s had three now), but the first one came with a magnifying glass. You know those kinds of rings? (Laughing) And I wanted to get her the best I could get her, but, you know, you’re young and broke, and it showed. But that wasn’t because you want didn’t want to. You almost pushed the envelope to be able to give what you……..and love has a way of doing that. That’s what David’s saying here, “I just want to give to God because I love the LORD.” Right? “Don’t lay up for yourselves treasures on the earth where moth and rust and thieves break through and steal. Just store up for yourself treasures in heaven where that can’t happen. Wherever your treasure is, that’s where your heart is.” That’s what Jesus said (Matthew 6:19-21). So, you can usually tell how much you’re in love with the things of God by where you keep your treasure. Earthly treasures always have to be replaced; heavenly treasures are always protected by the Lord. So giving is always, I think, a good indicator of how much your heart is invested by love, which should know no bounds because you can never give enough in love, and it never costs too much. I wonder, reading this, if Solomon was just weeping over the loss of his inheritance. “You gave what???!!! Dad, come on!” But David invested it wisely.

But the key is willingness. Notice verse 5 where we read, “ ‘Who then is willing to consecrate himself this day to the LORD?’ ” That’s where the key is. You read the word “willing” in verse 6. You’ll read the word “willing” again in verse 9 and the word “loyal heart” there as well. “Who wants to help out?” cries David to the people. It was not excess because he had all he needed. It was about genuine love for the Lord that prompts you to give to Him your best.

Well, the response couldn’t have been more favorable. Verse 6 tells us, “Then the leaders of the fathers’ houses, leaders of the tribes of Israel, the captains of thousands and of hundreds, with the officers over the king’s work, offered willingly. They gave for the work of the house of God five thousand talents and ten thousand darics of gold, ten thousand talents of silver, eighteen thousand talents of bronze, and one hundred thousand talents of iron. And whoever had precious stones gave them to the treasury of the house of the LORD, into the hand of Jehiel the Gershonite. Then the people rejoiced, for they had offered willingly, because with a loyal heart they had offered willingly to the LORD; and King David also rejoiced greatly.”

So David was excited. Billions more dollars, value wise, were given to the project. But, again, it’s not about the value because God could care less; it was about the

20 hearts of the people. So the response of the people blew David’s mind. By the way, this is the closest to an offering you will find in the Bible – taking an offering, if you will. And even here the emphasis is on the willingness of the hearts of the people. I have always believed that the church would do better pursuing helping others know the Lord than pursuing offerings. God has always provided for us. We are paying everything we’re doing here in cash. Not borrowing any money. We’re not spending any money we don’t have. I don’t think we’re hittin’ you up, are we? You haven’t heard anything from me, have you? And you better not have heard anything from our staff. God’s good, man. He provides. Right? That’s what we believe in. God provides. If He doesn’t, we should quit serving that God because if He’s broke, what’re you doin’ hangin’ out with Him? He’s more than capable. So, it was a one-time move on David’s part. He wanted the people to be involved. He was leaving it to his boy. It’s a wonderful picture, I think, of what God was doing in the hearts of the people. But it’s about as close to an offering as you read in the Bible, and it was based upon, “Hey, if you’re willing, man, let’s serve the LORD.”

Well, having said all of that, verse 10, “David blessed the LORD before the congregation” in a prayer. And he says this, “ ‘Blessed are You, LORD God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty; for all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and You are exalted as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You reign over all. In Your hand is power and might; in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. Now therefore, our God, we thank You and praise Your glorious name. But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from You, and of Your own we have given You. For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, as were all our fathers; our days on earth are as a shadow, and without hope. O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have prepared to build You a house for Your holy name is from Your hand, and is all Your own. I know also, my God, that You test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of my heart I have willingly offered all these things; and now with joy I have seen Your people, who are present here to offer willingly to You. O LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep this forever in the intent of the thoughts of the heart of Your people, and fix their heart toward You. And give my son Solomon a loyal heart to keep Your commandments and Your testimonies and Your statutes, to do all these things, and to build the temple for which I have made provision.’ Then David said to all the assembly, ‘Now bless the

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LORD your God.’ So all the assembly blessed the LORD God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and prostrated themselves before the LORD and the king.”

I love David’s prayer. “Hey, everything we’re giving You, You gave it to us. It’s on loan anyway. You’re our source.”

Well, with that, David then has a great barbecue, verses 21 and 22. You know, only the sin offerings, when they were offered by the people, were completely burned. You couldn’t eat them. It was completely consumed because that’s how Jesus will give His life – completely for us. But peace offerings and offerings of consecration – when you make dedication to the LORD, burnt offerings - they were shared with you and the LORD. Part of them would be burned on the altar, part of the meat would be cooked and given back to you by the priest, and you would, with your family, sit around in the presence of God to eat with the LORD. It would be that fellowship, that enjoyment in thanksgiving and praise. So, needless to say, verses 21 and 22, they ate and drank, and there was just joy as Solomon sat upon the throne.

Verse 23, “Then Solomon sat on the throne of the LORD as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him. All the leaders and the mighty men, and also all the sons of King David, submitted themselves to King Solomon. So the LORD exalted Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed on him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel.” Really, the LORD raised him up, if you will.

Verse 26, “Thus David the son of reigned over all Israel. And the period that he reigned over Israel was forty years; seven years he reigned in Hebron, and thirty-three years he reigned in Jerusalem. So he died in a good old age,” (he was 80 years old) “full of days and riches and honor; and Solomon his son reigned in his place. Now the acts of King David, first and last, indeed they are written in the book of Samuel the seer,” (which we’ve read), “in the book of the prophet,” (which we don’t have) “and in the book of Gad the seer,” (which we also don’t have) “with all his reign and his might, and the events that happened to him, to Israel, and to all the kingdoms of the lands.” So, the magnificence of David. But it goes to an end. But understand this is all about the Temple. Right? We read so much about David chapter after chapter, great stories, and then the LORD goes, “Well, here’s really what I want you to know – he built a house. I’m going to build a house

22 through him. I’m going to build a house through him, and he’s going to build a house through Me.”

It is our intention over the next five weeks to do 2 Chronicles. I hope that you’ll read ahead. It’ll save me a lot of trouble of keeping you up-to-date. And then we will do, I think, two weeks of topical studies leading into Christmas. Can you imagine, we’re almost at Christmas? We’ve cancelled this year – because of this pandemic – everything: Good Friday, Easter, picnics, baptisms, food giveaways, missions’ trips. My 40th anniversary trip to Thailand, cancelled - supposed to leave tomorrow. We have it scheduled for a year from tomorrow, if the Lord tarries……..if He allows me to live that long. Everything’s been cancelled. Right? So pray with us that the Lord will go before us. We’ve got kids that want to sing at Christmas. There’re just things that we’re not able to do, and you understand that, right? With the meeting restrictions and all. So keep praying. We need to pray for our brothers and sisters that are afraid to get out and go to church and just are…….they’re worried about their health or whatever it is. And we understand that. We’ve got to love them and love each other. So, pray for this next year. We pray this’ll get done, and we’ll get on to doin’ something. Don’t you think? But, in the meantime, let’s share our faith with people, man. They need to hear it. Especially these next two weeks, we’ll pray that the Lord’ll give us not what we deserve but a president we don’t deserve. How about that?

So, next week – seven chapters next week. Read ahead, and we’ll meet here, and then we’ll have communion together as well. All right?

Submitted by Maureen Dickson October 25, 2020

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