Well, we turn now back to our Old Testament overview. We took a week off last week, or the week before last, I think. I don't know. Anyway. I'm not getting enough sleep, y'all. I need to get a little bit more sleep. That's all right. So we are continuing on. Last time was part six. We talked about the conquest of the land, and now we are moving on to part seven and dealing with the monarchy. The monarchy, Israel, is in the land, and now they are about to move on into the monarchical period there. I guess I could pull up my own notes so I know where we're going. There we go. As far as an overview of what we're going to talk about for this session, of course we always have some review and introductions to be made there, but we're going to look at 1st and 2nd Samuel. then we're going to look at first and second kings and then we're going to look at first and second chronicles so a little bit ambitious there but i think we can make it through all of those there is a lot of material but i hope that you will find it all useful this evening But as we talk about where we are going and where we have been, we want to try in our minds to lock it down on some kind of timeline. We want to get some kind of a timetable down. And so last time I mentioned that we are using some very conservative numbers. By the way, if you watch Bible documentaries on, like, say, the History Channel or Discovery or something like that, They're not going to use the same dating that I'm using. They're going to use a very different dating scale because there is doubt that these things happened when the Bible describes them as happening. But I'm using the more conservative dating, which I think does better reflect what the Bible was communicating. And so as far as the timeline here, we have the exodus from Egypt happening all the way back in the 15th century BC with 1446 and then 40 years later 1406 right for 1446 minus 1406 that's 40 years but why is there a 40 year gap between the exodus and the beginning of the conquest Well, because they were wandering around in the wilderness. And so we talked a little bit about that. They were afraid to go into the land. So their children eventually go into the land after the 40 years of wandering. And then fast forward to one thousand and eleven B.C. before Christ. This would be the reign of David. And so this is quite a bit of a jump tonight where we're going and I'm just kind of laid it out here as far as what we have with the patriarchal period in Genesis. We got some dating for that and then their time in Egypt and then the Exodus then the conquests and the judges the time of the judges, which we talked about last time and then today we're moving into the United monarchy and then the divided monarchy. So we're going to cover quite a bit of a time frame as well as you can see on the board there. And then we won't have time obviously to move on to the exile, but we have the exile and the restoration which brings us up to about 400 BC and the intertestinal intertestamental period, which is the time between the Old Testament and New Testament is about 400 years. And that brings us up to the time of Christ. And so hopefully this very, very brief overview gives you a relative timeline of where we are. We've moved now from over 2,000 BC, and we're moving now into the three digits BC. And so we have covered quite a bit of a time frame within our time together in just a few short sessions. Well, let's talk about first Samuel first Samuel and and I give a little bit of a verse here to to set things up first Samuel 16 7, which is definitely one of the key verses here for us to consider God sees not as man sees for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. This is something that Samuel needed to be reminded of as he is looking at a very young and ruddy David. Is this really going to be the next king? Oh, yes. Yes, because the Lord looks at the heart, not at the outward appearance. But we'll get there in just a moment. Originally, when we're talking about 1st and 2nd Samuel, we are talking about a book, not two books, but a book. They were originally one long scroll, and eventually they got broken up into two scrolls because, I don't know, the parchment paper is expensive, and it's just easier to navigate in two scrolls rather than one, so it was eventually divided up. It slows down, in 1st and 2nd Samuel to bridge the judges to the monarchy. In fact, that really happens within 1st Samuel, the bridging of the judges to the monarchy. The Book of Judges deals, remember, with roughly 300 years of history. So do 1st and 2nd Kings when we get to 1st and 2nd Kings, but 1st Samuel deals with Samuel for most of the book. And we then talk about Saul and David. There's only about 150 years span between 1st and 2nd Samuel. So there is a slowing down to focus on this period. And whenever there's a slowing down in the Bible, that means it's a period for us to really pay attention to. It's an important period. The name of it, of course, is Samuel. Originally, it was Samuel, then 1 and 2 Samuel. If you're looking at the Greek translation, the Septuagint, though, it's actually called 1 and 2 Kingdoms. And then 1 and 2 Kings is known as 3rd and 4th Kingdoms, because 1 and 2 Samuel gets us into the Kingdom. into the kingdom, and that's the idea there when the Jews translated it into Greek. That was the idea that they wanted to communicate there. But as far as the theme, since we are dealing with two books, I'll deal with these separately. First, Samuel is dealing with transition. sealing with transition which we just talked about. Second Samuel deals with David's reign and so if you're trying to get the book straight in your mind, first Samuel is transition from judges to kings, second Samuel is just focused on David's reign. And so so that's that's a way to break it down to to remember it in your own minds. Let's talk about first Samuel, and I'll give you a very, very brief overview of what first Samuel is about. We have the first seven chapters focused on the last of the judges. Samuel Samuel was one of the judges. We talked about this last time, right? He was the last of the judges. And so he is He is that bridge between the judges and the monarchy. He himself is that bridge. And so he's the last of the judges, and the first seven chapters deal with him. And then we move on to Saul, chapters 8 through 15. And then finally, David, chapters 15 through 31. And so that's kind of a threefold breakdown of the book there. And so that will help you as you're doing your reading through. First, Samuel. Who is this guy, though, Samuel? Well, his life, interestingly enough, parallels Moses. I don't know if you thought about that, but he had a faithful mother, for instance, and a lot is made of his mother in the text. And then we see him being raised outside of his home again, just like Moses. And really, as we're dealing with Samuel, we are dealing with someone who is almost as great as Moses in the text. He is the greatest of the judges. And so he is very important to us in the text. He is an important person for us to get to know. As I said, Samuel is the last. He is the greatest of the judges. And he brings in the king. Of course, first Saul and then David. But I found it interesting as I was studying this, I thought, you know what? That reminds me of John the Baptist because he was the last and also greatest of the Old Testament prophets, right? And he heralded the king. He heralded Christ. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, John the Baptist said. So we see another parallel in Samuel with John the Baptist. And he founds the school of the prophets. He himself being a prophet, he anoints Saul as king and then later David. And he's dealing throughout the texts in the backdrop of the account. He's dealing with this threat from the coast, a threat known as the Philistines. And so we talked a little bit about that this morning about David dealing with the Philistines. The Philistines remained a threat for a while. They, in fact, oppressed Israel in the Book of Judges for a span of 40 years. And they continue on in First Samuel to oppress Israel and to persecute the people. Of course, in the book of Judges, we see Samson having tactical successes over the Philistines, which keeps them from having full control of Israel. But that doesn't mean that the Philistines weren't still powerful and still exerting a strong influence upon the people. In fact, we read in 1st Samuel 4 that the Ark is lost to them briefly. Now, this is not because the Philistine God was more powerful than the God of Israel. This was in fact because the God of Israel was punishing the Israelites and he wanted them to see that they needed to be faithful. They couldn't just presume upon his grace. And they got the ark back, not because they went and got it back, but because the Lord, through a series of events, just brought it back to them, which is almost an amusing account, as you see the pagan idols falling down before the ark of the Lord. and the people breaking out with boils and different things like that, and rats plaguing the cities, and they're like, OK, we've got to get rid of this thing. It's more powerful than we can handle. But the Philistines continue to be a threat. They would be in fact a major nemesis for Saul as he's the king and dealing with them, but they will ultimately be subdued by David. And we see that starting here. The demand for a king and for Samuel brings the end of the period of the judges. Remember the judges were people who were ruling and reigning in a sense in each city bringing the people back to God and Samuel when they first ask for King this bothers Samuel because he perceives it as a rejection of God as their King. But the truth is that God had always promised that Kings would finally come. He had always promised us. He said it as early as with Abraham. And this is part of what he said during the Abrahamic Covenant. Let's go back to Genesis for a moment and look at that Genesis chapter 17. Because this is no accident. Moses was preparing the people as Moses preparing Genesis and then later the law. He's preparing the people for this very for this very thing. Genesis 17. Verse six, God says to Abraham, I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings will come forth from you. Look down to verse 16. I will bless her, Sarah. changing Sarah to Sarah, of course, changing the name. I will bless her. And indeed, I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her. She will be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples will come from her. So it's not through through the handmaid. It's through hate, not through Hagar, but through Sarah. Right. This is where the kings are going to come. And so he promises this and we could continue on and see this. But why is it that the people want one now? Why is it that they want one in 1 Samuel? And I would say that Samuel was picking up on something from the people being a judge. He understood that there was a spiritual issue with the people. Let's take a look at that 1 Samuel 8. first Samuel chapter 8 where Israel is demanding a king. Of course, they begin to demand one. Verse 6 give us a king to judge us. They had said but let's look down to verse 20. They said that they wanted a king why because They said we also so that we also may be like all the nations that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. I want you to note a couple of things with that. They wanted to be like everyone else. Isn't that what motivates us sometimes, right? To make choices. This is not a right motivation, though, so that we'll be like the other nations. This is not necessarily a right motivation. It is one that God is allowing, but it's not necessarily a right motivation. And then we see something else here. They want someone to fight our battles. God told them to go and fight. They want a king who will go and fight before them. Now, the truth is this point to Christ. He is the king who's going to be coming. He's going to be the king of kings. And he does go and he fights before us. But they're they're not saying this in a spiritual sense. And so so Samuel picks up on this. He's offended. But but the Lord says, Samuel, verse seven, listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you. They have rejected me from being their king over them. And so Samuel was correct in seeing this. And the Lord says that. But he does tell him in verse nine. Listen to their voice. However, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them. And so Saul does tell them, as one person put it, that they are about to invite a harvest of regrets. by having a king over them. What do kings do? They don't just go fight for you. They conscript you into armies. They tell you you have to go fight and they raise taxes and they do other things that is not going to be pleasing to the people. But he does hearken to the Lord. He hearkens to the people and they do get a king. It's interesting because the first king they get, it's like, OK, let's let's show you what a king is all about. So they get King Saul. King Saul actually was someone who had a lot of promise early on, right? He was tall, right? He stood head and shoulders above everyone else. And if you want someone to go fight for you, that's a pretty good application point, right? We want someone who's tall, someone who looks big, who can go fight. Okay, and Not only did he have that striking physical superiority, he was also modest and direct and generous. He seemed like he had a good heart. And so the people said, yeah, this is a good guy. We need to go and follow him. But we do see a later decline in Saul. For instance, he has irreverent presumption. and willful impatience. There's one specific incident that scripture highlights is where Samuel tells him to wait, and then he will come. And Saul refuses to wait for Samuel before the battle. He says, No, we got to go fight this thing. And so Saul makes a sacrifice. Well, kings aren't supposed to make sacrifices. He's not of the right tribe. And in first Samuel 15, we have that recorded there that that that that he is disobedient. And of course, there's further disobedience. He won't he won't destroy the Amalekites, as he was told. In fact, he's even seen with a gag having dinner with him, the man who he is supposed to put to death. There's a good book back there by John MacArthur, if you're ever interested, called Hacking Agag to Pieces. And that would be one I would recommend to you on this topic. It is interesting that when we get to the book of Esther and the people of Israel in exile are having to deal with Haman and his plans. Who is Haman? He's a descendant of the Amalekites. So if Saul had been faithful, the issue in Esther would never have happened. And it just goes to show you how our sins always have consequences down the road. Sometimes we don't see those consequences, but they're there. We see this with Saul. We also see him grow jealous of a young man's success, right? even murderously jealous. He begins to be troubled by a spirit of the Lord. And when Saul, when Samuel, excuse me, finally passes and he is present with the Lord, Saul says, I've got to talk to him. He's the only one I could talk to. I don't know what he was expecting to hear from Samuel by calling him up, but he goes to the witch of Endor to consult this medium. To engage in necromancy, all of which the Lord forbids to try to talk to a deceased Samuel to try to get a word of blessing from Yahweh, who he is disobeying in this very process. It's just incredible to see the kind of decline that Saul engages in. Of course, sin does make us stupid, as we have noted. What about David? Well, David, in the midst of this, he is a young shepherd boy. He's displayed faith in the Lord. He's a man after God's own heart. We read in Scripture and he has defeated, as we read this morning in our morning service, he defeated the giant Goliath, right? And those slings that they used back then, those were pretty powerful instruments. If you've ever seen them in action, don't think of like a traditional slingshot like we have today. This was an instrument where you picked up the rock, put it into this leather-bound pouch with its long cord. You swing it around and you release it. And these things, if you knew what you were doing, you could be deadly accurate. And yes, a young man such as David could certainly sink a stone into the skull of another man. with a sling. Of course, the Lord was helping him with that to make sure that his aim was true. But it is certainly possible, and these things were deadly implements in the army. And he continues to have success in the army. He's inscripted. And there he befriends Jonathan, Saul's son. He marries the king's daughter. And you would think, OK, yeah, this is a young man who's coming up and things are going well for him. But this is what sparks Saul's jealousy of him. He sees this young man coming up. And sometimes you see this where even pastors in churches sometimes get jealous over the success of other people. And I've always thought it was strange, like, why don't you just give God the glory in that? Like, hey, we need more people in the kingdom. The harvest is plentiful. We need as many as we can have, but it's interesting to see that pastors do grow angry and territorial and jealous, and sometimes it happens. He does learn, David learns, dependence upon God and leadership on the run, right? As Saul is chasing him down, he is learning how to depend upon God. Some of the Psalms are written there on the run. And he is learning more about leadership. Of course, being in the army, he was he had gained some of those skills and he had men who he had gathered to himself who helped protect him as as they are fleeing Saul's wrath. Of course, Saul dies in battle. And when that happens, David laments. but he returns and he is anointed king at that moment. The people accept him as the king. And so that's the end of 1 Samuel. For 2 Samuel, we read of David's triumphs. Remember I said that 2 Samuel is about David. And so in 2 Samuel, the first 10 chapters, we read of David's triumphs. But then in chapters 11 and 12, things begin to turn. We read about David's transgressions. And then, those transgressions lead to troubles, which take up the rest of the book. And so, for a nice alliterated outline, you have David's triumphs, transgressions, and troubles there in 2 Samuel. Sin can lead even a heart after God astray. It can. That's why we need to be diligent to watch our own hearts and to be on guard because we can be led astray by things that we think are not a problem. Well, they do become a problem. And we see that with David. The key passage in 2 Samuel that is worth pointing out is 2 Samuel 7. Let's take a quick peek there. We've talked about covenants in the past, how God has cut covenants. And we've talked about the importance of the biblical covenants, such as the Noahic covenant that he that he made with the whole earth, with all the creatures of the earth. And God has not flooded the earth again. Praise God. He could have, but he did not. He also made a covenant with Abraham. And here we see he is making a covenant with David. David plans to build the Lord a temple. The Lord is not going to let him build a temple. However, now David will fund most of the work. He will build a treasury that will fund the work, but his son will end up building it. And the Lord tells him this, that it's actually going to be your son who builds the temple. But the Lord is not just chastening David here. He says, You want to build me a house? Well, guess what? I'm going to build you a house. And so there's this incredible switching here that happens. And they're beginning in verse eight. God tells. To Nathan, his prophet. to go to David and tell him, I took you from the pasture from following the sheep to be a ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make you a great name like the names of the great men who are in the earth. Of course, people today still talk about King David, right? I also appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them and that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again. Nor will the wicked afflict them anymore as formerly now. I just want to pause there for a moment. Oh boy, there's it's always tempting to just dig in too far. This is supposed to be an overview, but I have to say especially with the news right now. Israel is in the land that God has given to them. The Jews are there, but they're being afflicted. And they have been afflicted. In fact, they were taken out of the land, most of them anyway, were taken out of the land for about 1800 years before they came back in, what was it, 1948? I believe it was. And they became a nation again. But God protected them. God provided for them. God protected them in the Babylonian exile as well. They came back to the land. God says, this is a land that I am appointing to you. But he says, I'm going to put you there, and you're not going to be afflicted anymore. That means that part of the Davidic covenant has not yet come to pass. And we are still expecting this on the horizon. And so there are some important eschatological or in times implications for this. We are still looking for the kingdom where Israel is going to have this land where they're not going to be troubled anymore. And he continues on and he says that this is a house for you, David, in verse 11. When your days are complete, verse 12, and you lie down with your fathers, I'll raise up your descendant after you. In this translation, it's a lowercase d, because we're talking about Solomon. Solomon, who will come forth from you and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name. Solomon does end up building the temple and I will establish a throne of his kingdom forever. Wait a minute. Solomon doesn't live forever. So we are talking about a different descendant, ultimately. A capital D descendant. This is ultimately going to talk about Jesus Christ, who's going to sit on the throne. But of course, to Solomon, I will be a father to him, he will be a son to me. But that also does speak of Jesus, right? Who is the son of God. But here when Solomon commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the son of men. But of course, Jesus took this on the sin of us all, and it pleased the Lord to smite him. So in a sense, it also applies to Jesus. But my loving kindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, which, or whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever. Your throne shall be established forever. And so we are still looking forward to what ultimately becomes the messianic kingdom. This is something that does get fulfilled partially in Solomon, but then it will be fulfilled in Christ. And so there's divine confirmation of the throne in Israel here, there's the perpetual or perpetuity of the Davidic dynasty and kingdom, and then the messianic implications. Matthew one begins, as I've noted before, with Jesus being identified as the son of David and the son of Abraham. He is going to be the fulfillment of both. of those covenants, the covenant with David and the covenant with Abraham. And so these covenants do direct our understanding of scripture later on in Revelation. And we've read from this this morning during communion, Revelation five. He's the lion of the tribe of Judah. He's the root of David. And this Davidic covenant is unconditional, and it is for ever. It is forever. And so this is an important covenant, and I thought it would be worth going into that. Now, God makes this covenant with him. This is a good promise for David because he's about to enter into a time of sin. And he's probably going to be looking back on these promises when he finally repents, when he finally says, Oh, what have I done? What was me? He's going to need these promises later on, just like like us. Sometimes we see David's decline primarily through Bathsheba. Bathsheba. And she's not named that because she's taking a bath on the roof. That was a common thing for people to do, but it is an easy way to remember her name, I suppose. She was taking a bath and David is walking around at this time and perhaps there was a sense that he knew that women might be out at this time of the evening. And from his palace, he could look down and see into bathtubs. And so there's a little bit of an implication of lust here. And he does decide to commit adultery with her. Why adultery? Well, he's married already. She's married already to his friend, in fact, which makes it even more despicable. Some have made the case that this is not adultery. It's actually rape. But a couple of chapters later, we do read of a case of rape, and the language is slightly different there. We could say, OK, she couldn't say no to the king. But there is a sense in which there doesn't seem to be a resistance here. She does seem to have engaged in the act somewhat willingly, at least. David murders her husband eventually to cover up his sin. He does marry her. And this, of course, is just just a violation of all kinds of commandments, right? God says don't commit adultery. God tells the kings don't accumulate wives to yourselves. You know, so there's all kinds of violations here. Of course, he murders it. David engages in acts in which any faithful Israelite or any Israelite under the Mosaic law would have been put to death for. He could have been stoned, understand this. He could have rightfully been stoned for the deeds that he engaged in. He deserved death. And I don't think we could say that too strongly. David did deserve to die for what he did. He abused his office. He used his power to murder someone. To take the wife of someone else unto himself, he did have the greater sin here, and he did so much sin in this time period. And of course, this was probably over a bit of a time period here. He did eventually repent though, and in places like Psalm 51, we do read of his repentance. where he actually asked the Lord, please, Lord, don't don't take your spirit from me, because the kings had the spirit temporarily. He didn't want the Lord to take the Holy Spirit from him. Thankfully, today we have the Holy Spirit permanently dwelling us. But but he prayed that because he didn't want to lose the Lord's blessing. Yes. Lord, cleanse me with this up. We don't see that kind of reaction from Saul. So this does show us a little bit of a difference between David and Saul. When David repented, he really repented. He tried to do what he could. And so because he's the king and because of the repentance, the Lord apparently allows him to live and remain there. But he also tells him that the sword will now no longer or the sword will not depart from your house. And there are going to be lasting consequences for this. period of sinfulness. And we see these consequences. There's incest in the next chapter, as I said. Really, it's rape. Then there's fratricide, where one brother kills another. There's intrigues, which then lead to rebellion and then lead to civil war. And so this is quite a bit for David to handle. And the man who subdued Israel's enemies is now finding the sword within his own house. And he has to deal with that. It is interesting, it's been pointed out that Bathsheba is the granddaughter of Ahithophel. Well, who's that guy? Well, he's the guy who later counsels Absalom to betray David. Yeah. Yeah. So David's sin has consequences. And it's a lasting consequence within his household. Well, that brings us to 1st and 2nd Kings. He does eventually survive Absalom's plot. He returns home. 1st and 2nd Kings. and this isn't necessarily the key verse of these books, but I thought it was an interesting one, so I'm putting it up here. 1 Kings 18.21, Elijah came near to all the people and said, how long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Baal, follow him. But the people did not answer him a word. It's interesting to see how divided the people become in first Kings and how they almost couldn't decide whether they wanted to serve God or serve other. Both titles, but let's give a little bit of an overview, like like we've been doing. First, we have the name of the book first and second Kings here. And as I said in the Greek it's known as 3rd and 4th kingdoms because 1st and 2nd Samuel are known as 1st and 2nd kingdoms. It contains the story of the monarchy. which is why it continues on in this way. And for the dating of events, we talked about this at the beginning, but just as a refresher, from the death of David, that's already into the three digits here. That's 970 BC to the release of Jehoiakim in 561 BC. What is the theme of these two books? The United and then the divided kingdoms, because the kingdom is united under Saul. The kingdom is united under David. The kingdom is united under Solomon, David's son. But then it's becomes divided. How does that happen? Well, first, let's talk about Solomon. He acceded to the throne. I didn't realize this. Josephus points this out when he was 15 years old. So he's a pretty young man going to the throne. Of course, David was a pretty young man when he defeated Goliath. What does Solomon do? He asks for wisdom and the Lord grants him that but David on his deathbed also gives him some advice. He instructs Solomon to basically clean house with some overdue punishments and he deals with Joab for Abner. And then he deals with Shammai and others. Then he seeks wisdom from the Lord to lead God's people. God grants him that. And this is something for us to see that even even though Solomon had his own period of decline, spiritual decline and backsliding, if we classify it as that, he Still gets wisdom from the Lord and of course James 1 tells us that if anyone lacks wisdom Let him ask of the Lord, right? We should continually ask of the Lord in salt Solomon demonstrates that and he becomes The wisest king in in history. He builds the temple And he makes some of the greatest land and wealth gains. He is unrivaled in power and in peace. And you can see how far he expands the kingdom there. The purple there is Saul's kingdom. Then we have the green, which is David's kingdom. You can see how much David just went out north and south and east and west. But then Solomon went even further. And so Solomon is is has this grand area of influence here. But then he stops using that wisdom, doesn't he? At least with his own personal life. How does he gain control of all of this land? Well, part of it is through the obtaining of brides. And this was something that some ancient kings did. You would take maybe a princess, you would marry her, and that would then ensure security between you and this other land. And he became self-indulgent. He gathers many wives and concubines. So remember, God forbade this. But the number is just astounding. 700 wives. You say, I thought it was 1,000. Well, add to the 700, 300 concubines. I mean, they're only 365 days in a year. He's obviously not visiting all these women. There's no way he can be. But obviously, there is there is lust, and there are there are a lot of different motivations in play, including a consolidation of power. Because these are foreign wives, which the Lord has warned them against, he did exactly what the Lord said would happen. He built them high places for their idolatry. Oh, you're a ball worshiper. Oh, we don't have any ball worship here. Let me build you some. It's amazing that he would do this, but it's amazing what some young men will do for a pretty girl. Especially when they are not using the wisdom of the Lord, he had the wisdom, he just wasn't using it. That's why when we get to Proverbs, it's so important for us to see some of those lessons. Some of those lessons are hard earned lessons from Solomon. In the end. He would turn away from all of this, he would be sad, he would be sick of it all. Ecclesiastes, he actually writes all is vanity, vanity of vanities, right? And so that's that's ultimately where he comes with all of this. But his divided heart leads to a divided nation because it wasn't just his wives, his foreign wives who are worshiping at these altars. Some of the Israelites are saying, oh, OK, well, let's let's go see this new thing here. Oh, yeah, I would like to pass our children to the fire, which I can't even imagine why you would want to do that. But there you go. They did it to try to get some extra blessing, I guess, on their land, because they thought that they're getting blessing from more gods than just the one. Because of the divided nation there, the divided heart of the nation, following the divided heart of the king, the nation itself would then become divided. And so Rehoboam, Solomon's son, he engaged in this ill-advised effort to expand his father's excessive taxation. Samuel, remember, had warned, there's gonna be taxes. And Solomon, in all of his power, he really taxed the people. Rehoboam said, I'm going to tax you even more. The people start complaining, and he said, oh, if you find that to be hard, let me let me tell you something. I'm going to whip you with scorpions. I'm going to do this and do that. He was coming in with all this headstrong power, and he thought he could just just just kind of bully the people in the submission. The people said, no, we're just not going to follow you. And there was a split. The idolaters said, you know what? We're done with the South. We're going to move north. Some of the godly did move south. That's why we say there are no 10 lost tribes, by the way, because you have some of the tribes who are in the north who migrated south, just as you had some Judaites who moved north. But you had idolatry in the south or excuse me in the north. And then you had the godly moving south. And then you had at the northernmost point Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, building a competing sanctuary for those who didn't want to travel all the way south to Jerusalem. And then he built another. Rehoboam remained as king in Jerusalem, and he became the first king of the southern kingdom of Judah. It is interesting that as we see the division of the people, the hardness of the people, yes, Rehoboam had made a serious error as a leader, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't God's king. The people decided that they were going to abandon God's ways and move north and form this new nation known as Israel you say wait a minute. That's the same name that was there. This is the same thing We see in denominations sometimes that go astray like for instance the the Presbyterian see you the Presbyterian Church USA they they decided to go astray and the people said no we want to remain dedicated to the Bible and Guess what the people who wanted to remain dedicated to the Bible did? They had to eventually leave and start a new denomination, a new name. And that eventually became the Presbyterian Church of America. And that was led by Machen and others like him. But oftentimes when we see, for instance, these theological liberals taking over a denomination, they want to keep all of the grounds and money and the denomination name. And what do the faithful do? They have to go and they have to start a whole new work. And so all the all the idolaters move north and they keep the name Israel. And then what did the godly in the south do? Well, let's let's call this Judah, OK? And so they have a whole new name now. And that's that's how we get in first and second Kings, these two nations. You have Israel to the north and then you have Judah to the south. You have if it helps you to remember it, the ungodly Yankees to the north and then the godly God fearing southerners there in Judah. And so there you go. But this starts a line of competing kings in North and South. The godly kings in the South will be compared to David. The ungodly kings in the North will be compared to Jeroboam. You didn't want to be compared to Jeroboam because he began leading the people in all kinds of idolatry. And so the ungodly kings in the north, God keeps comparing them to Jeroboam. The godly kings in the south keep getting compared to David. And you certainly want to be compared to David. So this is the Civil War that happens, and of course we have tons of history that gets covered here. Sometimes as you're reading it, you might not realize, okay, all these people, these are actual kings who lived, and you have some to the north, some to the south. And sometimes we see that the North and South even kept a slightly different way of numbering the kings. And so sometimes reconciling the numbers is a little difficult. But once you realize the pattern that the North is using a different pattern than the South, it does help. And here's just an overview of what they are. Of course, we're not going to have time to discuss all of them. I went to a Bible college once. years, years ago, right out of high school. They wanted us to memorize all of these. I never pulled it off. They wanted us to memorize not only all the names, but the years as well. I was like, oh, no. I just began reading. I was a young Christian myself. I just began reading. I had never read 1st and 2nd Kings before. And I'm like, OK, all these foreign sounding names, I don't know how I'm going to pull that off. But if you do pull it off, this would be an interesting one to pull off. It would certainly help you as you're going through 1st and 2nd Kings to keep track of where you are in the period of time. And God, of course, raised up prophets to both kingdoms. Elijah, for instance, to the north. He's remembered as one of the premier prophets. He faced the wicked King Ahaz and the Queen Jezebel. And he faced the false prophets of all on Mount Carmel. And that is certainly one of the most stirring accounts in all of Scripture. Then we have Elisha, literally takes up the mantle of Elijah and he had prayed for a double portion. And guess what? He performs twice as many miracles recorded in scripture. Elijah performs eight miracles. Elisha performs 16 miracles. Well, he prayed for a double portion. He got it. And so we see some fascinating interactions with these with these men and with the people. I didn't really give an outline yet, so I'll give that. First Kings, we have the kingdom united under Solomon in the first 11 chapters. And then we have the kingdom divided in the remaining chapters, chapters 12 through 22. So the kingdom united and then the kingdom divided. For Second Kings, of course, the kingdom is divided. We see the fall of Israel to the north in the first 17 chapters, and Israel falls and it falls completely. This is what leads that false notion of the twelve or the ten lost tribes, because the ten tribes to the north, they all do eventually fall to Assyria. That doesn't mean all the people of those tribes fell, because as I said, the godly move south. And so. The people aren't completely lost. The Lord knows them. We still see them named in the New Testament. Judah falls, though, as well, eventually, because the same degradation that affects all of us eventually claims Judah to the south. And so chapters 18 through 25, you see that Judah eventually falls, and they don't fall to Assyria. They fall to who? Babylon. That's right. They go off to the Babylonian captivity. Now they do return from that because of their because of the covenant that is there. But that brings us to first and second Chronicles. We won't spend much time with this first Chronicles 1711. When your days are fulfilled, you must go up to be with your fathers. And I will set up one of your descendants after you who will be one of your sons. And I will establish his kingdom. That sounds familiar. What is that from? We just read that, didn't we? The Davidic Covenant, that's right. So it's repeated in 1 Chronicles. This is an important covenant, and 1 Chronicles repeats that. What is 1 Chronicles? Well, the name in Hebrew, it translates the words of the days. In the Greek, though, it's translated first and second, things omitted. Things omitted, things that haven't been talked about yet. What kinds of things? Well, things that affect the entire Old Testament. In fact, Dr. Keith Essex, as he goes through this, he calls it a mini Old Testament. First and Second Chronicles covers the whole Old Testament. We typically think of it as repeating the things that happened in 1st and 2nd Kings, but it actually repeats the whole Old Testament. And it's interesting that in the Jewish books, book order, it's actually considered part of the writings. It's part of the writings. The chief features that distinguish Kings from Chronicles are these. Kings gives a political history of Israel and Judah. written from a prophetic and moral viewpoint. However, Chronicles gives a religious history of the Davidic Dynasty of Judah only written from a priestly and spiritual perspective. And I think I've heard it put this way Chronicles is God's view on Israel or Judah specifically. It's God's view on the events there that happens. The date of events, it goes all the way from Adam to the grandsons of Zerubbabel in roughly the year 500. What's the theme? Well, in 1 Chronicles, it's God's view of David. In 2 Chronicles, it's God's view of the kings of Judah. And so that's it. And the timing is perfect because we are out of time. But let's talk or let's think about what we're going to talk about next time. We're going to get into the poetic books, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs. We're making our way through