Why did God Inspire the books of Chronicles?

Tammy and I are very happy to be back here in Houston. We do love you all. It's great to be here and see you. I thought I'd just give a basic sermon today. It's one that I find fascinating, a topic that I find fascinating, and hope that you will too. Title of today's sermon, Why Did God Inspire? First and second chronicles. Why did God inspire? First and second chronicles. First and second chronicles often gets overlooked, because it seems to repeat the content of first and second Samuel and first and second Kings and a lot of the Old Testament, actually, because Chronicles goes all the way back to Adam. It starts with Adam, moves forward, but it looks like a repeat. So you just read first and second Samuel, you read Judges, and then Samuel, and then the Kings, and all of a sudden it's like God saying, okay, let's review that one more time. And you're getting a little sleepy, and you don't want to review it one more time. So you skip first and second chronicles, and you move into the prophets and other things. It's the same story, repeated again. What's the point? Why would God do that? This is the question that a lot of people ask. So they skip the books. It actually used to be one book, but they skip it. But that would be a big mistake. Because first and second chronicles are not a repeat of the Samuels and the Kings, not by a longshot. Here are some facts about the book, or books as we call them, first and second chronicles. This is according to BibleCharts.org. The book was written after the return of the Babylonian captivity, possibly written by Ezra. In the Hebrew Bible, first and second chronicles were one book. Although the perspective is different, the time period covered in first and second chronicles is the same period of the Jewish history described in 2 Samuel through 2 Kings. So it seems like a repeat. Second Samuel, first and second Kings, however, give a political history of Israel and Judah and are written from a prophetic and moral viewpoint. Chronicles was not written from that perspective. It has a different point.

Samuel and Kings go through a brief history of every king in the northern country called Israel and the southern country called Judah. They list how the people of God disobeyed God more often than they obeyed him, actually. In first and second Samuel's and first and second Kings, it shows that God is incredibly patient. And you gain that lesson when you read the story from a historical point of view. Wow! God really let them go a long time before punishing them. He is patient. It also shows that God is very just. At some point, God says, enough is enough, and He punishes. And you gain that lesson by reading the history, by reading the Samuels and the Kings.

But first and second Chronicles are different. They give a religious history of the divinic dynasty and are written from a priestly and spiritual perspective. Now, what does that mean? That's what we're going to discuss today. Alright, because that's kind of vague. Written from a priestly and spiritual perspective. Okay, there's your sermon. Go home with that. What good is that going to do? Let's really flush that out. Let me give an example. To show how Chronicles ignores human politics of ancient Israel, one would note, if you read 1st Chronicles, that it only gives one and a half chapters, which is part of chapter 9 and all of chapter 10, devoted to King Saul. That's it. One and a half chapters. Two books. One and a half chapters goes to King Saul only. Most of the rest of 1st Chronicles focuses on one king, King David. What is up with that? Both the books, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, focus on the line of King David and the temple, by the way. And those two focuses run throughout the book, or books as we have them. And sometimes it actually ignores some of the kings of the northern kingdom. They're not even in the book. Why would it do that?

So what's the big difference? Why is 1st and 2nd Chronicles even in the Bible? Let's answer that question by reviewing one of the most important stories in the Bible. In the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God made a promise to a man named Abraham. That through his descendants, all people of the earth would be blessed. Now, this was a promise from God that the descendants of this man Abraham, through him, all nations of the earth would be blessed. All people would be blessed. This was the promise of a Savior, a Messiah, Jesus the Christ. This promise was not subject to the behavior of the descendants of Abraham. Through time, some of those descendants would obey God for sure. But many, in fact, most of them would not. The promise that God made to Abraham would still be carried out no matter what. In fact, in Deuteronomy, just before the children of Israel were about to take the promised land, they had wandered 40 years in the desert. The parents who had crossed through the Red Sea who were 20 and older were all dead and buried in the wilderness. These were the second generation. In Deuteronomy, God makes this side, this comet to the side, oh that they had a heart in them to obey me. Because, you know what they didn't have in them? A heart to obey God. And most of the time, the children of Israel disobeyed God.

But that promise that God made to Abraham would still be carried out no matter what. God would keep his promise, even if they disobeyed, he would still keep his promise to Abraham. Why does that matter? Well, let's walk through history for a moment. The next few books after Genesis tells the story of how Abraham's descendants and the family of, you know, his grandson Jacob, who later was named Israel, moved to Egypt and grew to become this very large nation. In fact, this large nation grew up so large it became a threat to the country that they were guest in, the country of Egypt. So the Egyptians, as you know the story very well, enslaved them, and then God miraculously set them free. But when he did, and just before he was going to take them into the promised land, God gave them a warning through Moses. And Moses wrote in Deuteronomy chapter 30 in verse 15. Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 15. God said, See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, and that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his judgments, that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them—and boy, howdy did they! All the time. Verse 18. I announce to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not prolong the days in the land which cross over the Jordan that you go into possess. Okay, so if they get destroyed, what happens to the promise? And how's God going to fulfill a promise with a people who are destroyed? Verse 19. I call heaven and earth as witness today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life. And that's a beautiful passage in and of itself. God gives us choice. He doesn't force us. But that's another sermon altogether.

Verse 20. That you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey his voice, that you may cling to him. For he is your life and your length of days, that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them. So God promises two different things, and they seem like a contradiction, especially if you are an Israelite of the day. One promise that they're holding on to tightly is that in Abraham's seed all nations will be blessed. And here's another promise. If they disobey him, they're goners. God promised that he's going to kick the descendants of Abraham out of the Promised Land if they didn't obey. Let's notice what God didn't say. When God was warning them in Deuteronomy about all the things that would happen to them—and if you read the blessings and cursings chapter, woof, there are some serious cursings for disobeying God. I mean, it goes from bad to worse to unbelievable tribulation for not obeying God. But one thing God did not say—he didn't say that when the children of Israel disobeyed him, that he would take away his promise to Abraham, that through him all nations would be blessed. Now, you know that already, because we're on the other side of the story. And if you've been baptized, you've accepted the sacrifice of the Messiah. Put yourself in the place of ancient Israel, and put yourself in the place of anybody in the world who hasn't yet understood this story as being true. Most of the world has heard this story, but they despise it. And they do not understand that it is true. And this is where 1 and 2 Chronicles becomes so beautiful. God never says one time that he will break his promise depending on their obedience or disobedience. Therefore, even when the people disobey God, when they leave God, God keeps his word. In other words, God finishes what he starts. God finishes what he starts. After Moses, God led this new nation of Israel back into the land that God promised Abraham. And that land, led by Moses' successor Joshua, God helped them to conquer it. It was called Canaan at the time. But throughout history, most of Abraham's descendants would not obey God. The way Abraham did, at least. Throughout the books of Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and many of the books of prophecy, we find at the end of what we call the Old Testament, what they called the Law and the Prophets back then. They didn't call it the Old Testament. Jesus and the apostles didn't even call it the Old Testament, by the way. When you read the New Testament, when they're referring to Scripture, you never hear them say Old Testament. They call it the Law and the Prophets, and that's just a nickname that they used for the entire Word of God. Old Testament is kind of disrespectful from our perspective, even though we don't mean it as to any disrespect whatsoever. But it's a bit disrespectful because modern-day Christianity disregards it. Therefore, they're labeling the entire Scriptures, the Hebrew Scriptures, as old and irrelevant. So it's almost like saying the Irrelevant Testament. Jesus never called it that. The apostles never called it that. They called it the Law and the Prophets. But for argument's sake, since we all understand what we're talking about and we don't think it's irrelevant, we call it the Old Testament.

So when we read those books in what we call the Old Testament, we see how the people would disobey God and God would send this invading army. The people would be crushed and oppressed, and they would cry out to God. And God would send them a leader, a prophet, a judge, and they would be delivered from the invading army. And everybody would be happy for 20, 30, maybe 40 years at the most. And then boom, right back into idolatry and disobeying God, and God would send another invading army. And this happened over and over and over again, so much so that you get tired of reading it. You know? Well, wouldn't they learn the first time? No, because it's all new people each time. It's the next generation, and they're making the same exact mistakes the generation before made. And guess what? We're still doing it today. We're still the same exact kind of people today.

During this period of ancient Israel, God sent these prophets to always say that the Messiah was coming. And this promise that was given to Abraham was that a Messiah would come. Eventually, that passed down this promise that God gave was passed down from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob, and it went down the line, and it was passed to a man named David, King David. David was the recipient of this promise, from whom there would be an heir who would save and bless the whole world and reign forever. The people of Israel, all of them, knew these prophecies. These prophecies were like their national identity. The people of Israel knew things like Isaiah 2, 9, 11, 60, Zechariah 14.

King David is very important to what we're studying today in the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles. Remember, 1 and 2 Chronicles almost completely ignores most of the kings in northern Israel. It only gives them passing mention when they come into contact with one of King David's descendants. That is very significant. After King David died, and during the reign of his son, King Solomon, Solomon ushered in a kind of religious freedom. He married all these wives, you know, and each one of the wives had him set up a different altar to their God from their nation.

And he allowed that in Israel. Alters to pagan gods were set up all over the promised land. And God was so displeased that after Solomon's death, the nation of Israel split into two nations. It was called Israel to the north and Judah to the south. The northern kingdom immediately turned away from God and never turned back. They never had a righteous king sit on the throne.

And they were eventually completely destroyed, and they were destroyed first, by a world-dominating superpower called the Assyrian Empire. Now, the southern kingdom, this kingdom of Judah, would obey God sometimes. Every once in a while, they would have a righteous king like Josiah or Hezekiah. You know those names. Those all came from the southern kingdom. Not one of the righteous kings ever came from the northern kingdom. Once they split, they were gone away from God. The southern kingdom would obey. Sometimes they kept God's true religion, some of the times, including, and very importantly, maintaining the temple of God. And they kept one of King David's heirs on the throne almost the entire time. There was one time when one of King David's heirs was alive, but not on the throne, because his grandmother was on that throne, not an heir of King David. And she only lived a very short time until that baby boy could grow up and become king, and then she died badly. So King David's heirs ruled over the southern kingdom. And it was to be through one of King David's heirs that God will fulfill this promise. So this line of King David was incredibly important to the promise that God made to Abraham.

But eventually, the southern kingdom, which was called Judah, would become so rebellious to God that God had them conquered and taken out of the promised land. And they were conquered by a nation called Babylon. And Babylon not only destroyed the temple, but they lined up all the king's sons. And they executed each one of the king's sons and destroyed, in the eyes of the people, the line of King David. And they put out the eyes of the king. So the temple was gone, and the line of David was gone, and they were destroyed. And why were they destroyed? Because of their sins. And now, in their eyes, the promise that God made to Abraham could no longer be fulfilled. And why? Because of them. Because they were rotten to the core. And they were. And they knew it. And they, in their eyes and in their opinion, shamed God and made God out to be either a liar or a failure. One of those.

So there could not have been a worse destruction to have happened. But don't worry, God was just getting their attention. There could not have been a worse destruction than destroying the temple, which was their access to God, and destroying the line of King David. Through whom the promise of Abraham, all nations would be blessed, was wiped out. It actually wasn't. But in their eyes it was. The prophet Jeremiah says this about the reason for Judas fall. Jeremiah said in Jeremiah chapter 3 and verse 6, listen to how God describes their rebellion. He's very disgusted with them. And he says in Jeremiah chapter 6 and verse 11, The Lord said also to me in the days of Josiah the king, have you seen the backsliding Israel has done? Now Israel's the northern kingdom, right? Have you seen their backsliding? She has gone up to the high mountains under every green tree and played the harlot. And I said, after she had done all these things, returned to me, but she did not return. And that's absolutely true. Ancient Israel, once they split away, when the two kingdoms split, Israel was never righteous again. They never returned. Not yet, anyway. They will in the future.

Verse 7, and I said, after she had done all these things, returned to me, but she did not return, and her treacherous sister, Judah, saw it. Then I saw that for all the causes for which the backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce. Now that's the Assyrian Empire coming and taking away the northern kingdom. Yet her treacherous sister, Judah, did not fear, but went and played the harlot also. So it came to pass through her casual harlotry that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees, false religion, idols.

And yet for all her treacherous sister, Judah, has not turned to me with her whole heart, but in pretense. Okay, so what is God saying here? The northern kingdom? You know what they did? They just said, nah, to God, and they just walked away. But Judah pretended to follow God, pretended to stay with God, and yet played the harlot. Which one do you think God was displeased with more? Was he displeased with Israel, who just said, I'm out of here? Or was he more displeased with Judah, who stayed with God and played the harlot? This is an important question. This is a very... How did God look at it? Does God measure that? Does he say they're the same? No. He's displeased with one more than the other. Let's read. Verse 11. Then the Lord said to me, backsliding Israel, has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. God preferred Israel over Judah. Judah kept the line of King David. They kept the temple. They pretended to have the name of God and trashed it. God would much rather, if you jump out of the boat, jump out with both feet, he'll bring you back. But don't straddle the line. If you're going to be in the church, be in the church. Follow God. Obey God. Wholeheartedly. 100%. That's interesting, isn't it? God said of Judah that she was less righteous than ancient Israel, who immediately left God. So the southern kingdom that kept one of King David's heirs on the throne ended up being worse in obeying God than the northern kingdom, who God had wiped out first. Everything I just told you, you can find when you read the Bible in chronological order from Genesis to the end of 2 Kings. Israel is a nation. Conquer the land to possess it at the start of the book of Joshua and read all the way through to 2 Kings. And these books are a lesson in how God deals with human behavior, either good or bad. These lessons are true and good and necessary, and that's why those books are in the Bible. They show how merciful God is and how willing he is to forgive, no matter what sin is committed, as long as you repent. These are the first books of what we call the Old Testament.

They also tell us that God will punish those who disobey him, because he loves them too much to let them get away with a horrible life. They're too special to him. They're his kids. We are his kids.

So we're too important just to leave us to our evil deeds, to let them go unpunished. These books, let's say from Joshua to 2 Kings, were written at the time or just after the events occurred. They're often a retelling of eyewitness accounts of the behavior of the descendants of Abraham. Chronicles is not. Chronicles was written much later. Why?

You turn the page from 2 Kings and you go to 1 Chronicles, and all of a sudden it's a repeat.

The same story you just read, right in the middle of your, what you would call the Old Testament, the book of Chronicles, which our Bible, the Christian Bible, splits into. It was originally just one book. Why did God have the story repeated? So the Chronicles start all the way back with Adam. The first half, or half of the first book, is a genealogy of the people that God has worked with throughout history up to King David. And then the chronicler follows the family of David, practically ignoring the northern kingdom, and closely following what happens to that temple. So what's the purpose? This is very important. The book is about the salvation of mankind.

But most of us probably think of it as a repeat, a review of the Old Testament. Sort of a light historical overview to make sure we got the point, like God was a schoolteacher or something. But history, or looking back, has nothing to do with Chronicles, as we will see. The Chronicles actually point to the future in a very dramatic way. Oh, they tell the story in the past, but they lead up to pointing to the future.

So from Joshua to 2 Kings, we're taking a look back, and we're learning a lesson. In the Chronicles, we're looking forward.

I would like to help us have a little bit better understanding of where 1 and 2 Chronicles fits in the Bible by giving us the reason why it's such an important part of the Bible. To understand 1 and 2 Chronicles, consider the time in which it was written. Remember, it was originally one book. Unlike Joshua and Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, Chronicles, they were not written while Israel existed as a nation. They were written long after Israel had been destroyed, long after the temple had been destroyed. Even though God warned Israel that He would remove them from the land if they disobeyed Him, it must have been devastating to the people at the time to actually see Nebuchadnezzar's army come in and just destroy the temple and tear it down. That was their national pride. That was their heritage, their inheritance. That was where when Solomon prayed, literally the presence of God rested within the temple, and it glowed.

And they watched it burn to the ground.

And why did that failure happen? Because of their sins.

There was no temple, therefore there was no access to God. There was no way for the people to have atonement for sin. This was a huge problem. The people were cut off from God's mercy, His salvation. Where was the promise now? The promise was missing, and it was their fault.

Where was the promised king? They were all dead in front of them. From a human perspective, it must have seemed like all was gone. No temple, no heir to the throne, everything was lost. Ever feel that way? This is the setting of when Chronicles was written. The books of 1st and 2nd Chronicles were written about the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. Many scholars believe that Ezra the scribe is actually the one who wrote the book. I don't know, it wasn't there, but it sounds good to me. They're actually really fascinating because Chronicles are not a study of how God interacts with people who obey or disobey Him, like the other books of Joshua through 2nd Kings. In fact, the chronicler skips many events that are famous in the Bible, like David's Great Sin with Bathsheba. It's not in Chronicles. Killing of Uri the Hittite, it's not there. Solomon having many wives and turning away from God, it's not in Chronicles. Chronicles isn't looking back. Chronicles is looking forward. 1. The Temple of God Chronicles focuses tightly on two things. 1. The Temple of God. You read through it, and it's always around the temple. And 2. The Line of King David. To be more specific, it's focusing on the promise that God made to Abraham. The Temple of God is where mankind comes to get forgiveness. David's descendants were put in charge not only of building the temple, but guarding and maintaining it. And it would be through the line of David that the promise of Abraham would be fulfilled. But after the temple was destroyed and David's line was cut off from the throne, all hope of Abraham's promise would have seemed to be lost. The promise of all of mankind would be blessed through the seed of Abraham would have seemed to be a failed prophecy, and it was on them.

Huge, world-ruling empires like Assyria and Babylon and Persia now called the shots on what religions were allowed or not allowed on the earth. It seemed like God had no say anymore. Then the Persian Empire had a king named Cyrus, and he gave a decree that the Temple of God was to be rebuilt. And after this decree happened, a man returned from captivity back to the land that God promised Abraham. This man is likely Ezra, but it's not important who he was. This man was guided by God to go through the records of ancient Israel and ancient Judah and chronicle the story. Not the story of ancient Israel, the story of God's salvation plan for mankind. That is what chronicles is all about. It starts with Adam, and it draws a line through the people of God that God worked through all the way through King David and David's line showing God's awesome plan. I'd like to read a quote from BibleProject.com, an article titled Chronicles, Not Just a Repeat. How Did God View Israel's History? Quote, The chronicler was living in a time when the Jewish people long resettled in Jerusalem after returning from Babylonian exile. Things were okay, read Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi for the flavor of the daily time period, but there was a growing awareness that God's ancient covenant promises to Abraham, Moses, and David, which were reaffirmed by the prophets, had not yet come to pass, and they awaited a messianic king of Isaiah who would rebuild the temple and invite all nations into God's kingdom. But where is the new David? And that is the question, where is the new David? This is, to me, remarkable. I love this part. At the very end of Chronicles, we're left with a message of hope. In chapter 36 of 2 Chronicles, we read of the fall of Judah and the destruction of the temple. Let's go there. We'll pick it up. 2 Chronicles chapter 36 will drop into verse 17.

2 Chronicles 36 and verse 17. Therefore, he brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in their house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on the young man or virgin on the aged or weak, and they gave them all into his hand. He gave them all into his hand. And all the articles of the house of God, great and small, treasures of the house of the Lord, and treasures of the kings and of the leaders, all these he took to Babylon. He raided the temple. He took everything. Then they burned the house of God, broke down the walls of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions. And those who escaped from the sword, he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia. Notice how it skips the entire 70-year captivity in Babylon. It just washes right over it, because this is not a historical review. There is a point to Chronicles, and we're getting to that very point. The whole book, the whole one book, leads up to this one verse. Verse 20. No, I'm sorry. Yeah. Did we read verse 20? Escape the sword, carry it away from Babylon. Yeah. Verse 21. To fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land enjoyed her sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath to fulfill 70 years. You ever wonder if God's had enough? Oh, you'll know. You'll know when he's had enough, because he lets you know. He let them know, brethren. Verse 22.

Now the first year of King Cyrus. Notice the huge skip in history. We go from the destruction of the temple, and we jump ahead 70 years. We skip an entire generation, because that's irrelevant to this story. In the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, the word of the Lord came by the mouth of Jeremiah that might be fulfilled. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, King of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put in writing, saying, verse 23, Thus says King Cyrus, King of Persia, All kingdoms of the earth, the Lord, God of heaven, has given me. That's actually a true statement. He pretty much ruled the known world. I mean, there were some outlying areas that he didn't rule, but he's talking about he was the most powerful man on planet earth, and he wasn't kidding. He was the king of the Persian Empire, and they wouldn't be challenged for generations to come. This was Cyrus. Cyrus And he had commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. So Cyrus is going to go back and build God's temple, and he asked this amazing question. Who is among you of all his people? May the Lord his God be with him and let him go up. Cyrus probably had no idea how big a question that was. Chronicles is a bridge between the destruction of the temple, the removal of the line of David, and the rebuilding of the temple. The Chronicles shows that God finishes what he starts. Even if the people disobey him, and they will disobey him, God will complete his plan. Mankind, you know, we get off track. God never does. He never forgets. He never breaks his word. There's no shadow of turning with him. He never loses focus of his plan. No matter what we do, no matter how we disappoint him, he never breaks his promise, a promise that he has made. And this should give us great hope. But wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What about the line of King David? The chronicler, he doesn't mention its restoration. The book doesn't mention it because King David's line hadn't been restored yet when this book was written. The temple was about to be rebuilt. But God's glory never entered that rebuilt temple, not once. Hmm. It eventually entered a temple, didn't it? But David's line was not on the throne. The other half of the story isn't picked up until the book of Matthew. And in a very similar way to the Chronicles, the book of Matthew starts with a genealogy. The Chronicles starts with a genealogy. Matthew starts with a genealogy. And the genealogy is of a man of all things named Abraham.

Here's the dramatic part in my point of view. The books of 1st and 2nd Chronicles are the last books of the Jewish canon of the Old Testament. That's the last book. In our Bible, it's Malachi. In the Jewish listing of the books of the Bible, Chronicles is at the end. Okay? And in Romans chapter 3 and verse 2, Paul says that the Jews were entrusted with those oracles, the oracles of God. It's the Jews who set them in order. So they have some credibility that Chronicles is the last book. And that question that King Cyrus asked is the very last statement of the Old Testament. Who will go up? Cyrus asked. And that's the last question, the last statement of the Old Testament. So the apostle Paul gave Jews credit for retaining the Old Testament. And if 2 Chronicles is the last book of the Old Testament, and I believe it is, then the Old Testament ends with the question, who is among you of all his people? May the Lord God be with him and let him go up. The last statement in the Old Testament. The answer to that question is found in the very first statement of the New Testament. It fits perfectly. And just like the Chronicles that starts with the genealogy, we read the answer to Cyrus' question in Matthew. So, who is among you of all his people? Matthew chapter 1 verse 1. Who is among you of all his people? Matthew 1-1. The book of the generation of Jesus Christ. The son of David. Tada! The line of David is restored. Matthew answers the question that ends Chronicles.

I may be a nerd. I think that's really neat. I love that stuff. Isn't that cool?

Drop down to verse 17. We're still in Matthew 1. So, all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. From David until the captivity in Babylon are 14 generations. Did you ever connect these before? It's connected. There's a reason God inspired Matthew to write this, and there's a reason why this is the opening of the New Testament. And from captivity to Babylon and to Christ are 14 generations, and the line of David is restored. And guess what else was restored when Jesus Christ was sacrificed and resurrected on the day of Pentecost, and the church received the Holy Spirit?

That's right. The temple of God was restored. Wow. And now the lines are connected. It could be said that Chronicles is actually completed by the first chapter of the book of Matthew. Jesus Christ, the descendant of David, became our Savior at his death, and he now sits at the right hand of God. We know that part of the story, and he's in the process of building the true permanent temple, his church. You are a part of that temple. All of this happened despite the fact that ancient Israel disobeyed and had to be punished and sent into exile and lost the temple, which was their access to God, losing the promised permanent line of King David, at least so they thought.

But God, he finishes what he starts. No matter how we behave, he is faithful. Right in the middle of our Old Testament are these books of 1 and 2 Chronicles. And at first glance, they seem like a simple repetition of the story of Abraham, like, hey, you just read the story, so I want to make you really bored with the Bible.

Go read it again. But when we actually consider when the book was written and what the book focuses on, we start to understand that this book is about the salvation of mankind, and it shows that God finishes what he starts. So 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings show God's patience to a very disobedient people, and it's a warning as we look back that God will intervene and punish those who disobey him because he wants to save them for all eternity.

And that's an awesome message. But 1 and 2 Chronicles take those same events, and instead of looking back, propels our vision forward, looking to the fulfillment of the promise that God made to Abraham in spite of mankind. God finishes what he starts, and no one can ever get in his way. He'll deal with our sins, and he'll correct us as we need to be corrected.

Deuteronomy 8 and verse 5. Deuteronomy 8 and verse 5. You will know in your heart that a man is chastened as a man chastens his son, so the Lord, God, chastens you. You know what the word chastened means? It's a nice old English word for spanking. Whipping. God gives you the strap. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 5. Hebrews 12 verse 5. And you have forgotten the exhortation it speaks to you as sons.

My son do not despise the chastening of the Lord. He's quoting Proverbs 3 here. Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him, for whom the Lord loves, he chastens. Do you remember what chasten means? Yeah. And scourges every son whom he receives. Why does he chasten and scourge? Because he loves. So he holds us personally, personally accountable. We are accountable to God. He punishes oftentimes in the form of trials that we go through.

Why do we go through trials? Why do we get punished? Because he loves us. Because we're special. You are special to God. But sometimes those trials, they can make you feel like God has forgotten you. Kind of like the ancient Israelites felt. Maybe you messed up a little too much this time. You crossed that line, that imaginary line in your mind.

We all entertain that line. You know that God is good, but maybe you're just too bad. Too worthless. We humans tend to despair like that sometimes. We get into this self-loathing and self-pity, I would say. And our sins do not change the nature of God one bit.

He loves us. He's just punishing us out of love. He's not saying, I'm giving you this trial because I've had enough of you. He didn't even say that to Israel. He restored them. He took them back, and he's going to restore them in the future. He's not done with them. He just punished them because he loved them.

And he's not done with you. You don't go through trials because you're worthless, just the opposite. You go through them because you're very special, very loved, a precious son or daughter of God. That's you. James chapter 1 verse 2. I'm going to read this from the English Standard Version. James 1 verse 2, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Let steadfastness have its full effect. Do not give up and say, oh, I'm just worthless to God this time.

Let steadfastness have its full effect. Keep moving, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. What is God doing with a trial? He's perfecting you. He's loving you.

God wants you to lack nothing and to live forever in his family. And when ancient Israel was banished and the temple was destroyed, it must have felt like they were just too disgusting to be loved. That God has changed his mind about them. You know God never does that?

You've probably felt that before, but he never does that. James 1, drop down to verse 17. We're still in James 1 verse 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. He doesn't change his mind. If he's going to punish you, it's not because he hates you. If he chastens you, and you know what that word means, it's because he loves you. God won't change his mind about you. So when you feel that you're being punished, stop feeling sorry for yourself. You're wasting your time. Repent. Humbly turn back to God. Give him a hug, so to speak.

Be sorry for what you did and turn back.

And you'll shorten the punishment. 1 John chapter 1 verse 8. 1 John 1 verse 8. If we say we have no sin, we get punished longer. No, it doesn't say that.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. We heard that in the sermonette. If we confess our sins, listen to this and believe it. He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. All of it. Turn back. 1 John chapter 9. God has started something in you. You are the temple of God. He will finish his work. Philippians 1 verse 6. Philippians 1 verse 6. Being confident of this very thing. He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. If you ever doubt that, read the book of Chronicles. And remember, God always looks forward and keeps his promises. And he always finishes what he starts.