← Cornerstone Chapel - Audio Podcast
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Let's dive right into God's word. First Chronicles, Chapter nine, if you have your Bibles there. First Chronicles, Chapter nine. Let me first pause and have a word of prayer. Lord, we just want to thank you for just being here, Lord, because we're two or more gathered there, you are in our midst. And we just thank you, Lord, for your presence tonight. And we just trust that you've been glorified through our worship and that now you will also be glorified as we study your Word together. And so thank you, Lord, for your word. Speak to our hearts tonight and we just give you praise and thanks together in Jesus name. And everybody said amen. Well, last week we left off just in the first two verses of chapter nine. The first eight chapters of First Chronicles was a lengthy introduction to the genealogical record of the Jewish people. And the reason why this is important for the writer of Chronicles to lay out is because first and Second Chronicles, which was originally and still is in a Jewish Bible, just one book called Devrai Hayamim, and it literally translates words of the day, words of the days, is that this book is basically a handbook for all of those who have been in captivity in Babylon for 70 years, who have now been given permission to return to their homeland. But because 70 years has passed, a lot of the people who were in the land of Israel, taken captive by the Babylonians and deported to ancient Babylon, if they were young, they have very little memory of their homeland. And the majority of those were born in captivity in Babylon, and they've never even seen their homeland. So the writer of Chronicles has given us a history book, a handbook for the Jewish people who are heading back to their homeland to understand their heritage, their roots, their language, their system of worship, their history. So this is a concise history. Book one and two Chronicles, first eight chapters were very lengthy about genealogical records. And we get here to chapter nine and look again, verse one, where we read, so all Israel was recorded by genealogies, and indeed they were inscribed in the book of the kings of Israel. But Judah was carried away, captive to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness. That's the reason why God allowed the Babylonians to come and to besiege Judah was because of their unfaithfulness and idolatry. And it says in verse two, and the first inhabitants who dwelt in their possessions in their cities were Israelites, priests, Levites, and the Nethinim. And so the writer of Chronicles just completely bypasses 70 years, verse one. He says to us, the reason why we ended up in Captivity in Babylon was because we were unfaithful. And so God allowed this. But then in verse two, he says, now we've taken possession again of our homeland. So there's a 70 year gap between verse one and verse two that he doesn't talk about because it's painful for them to recite their history and to realize that they ended up in captivity because of their own unfaithfulness. But yet God is faithful even in our unfaithfulness. And so God determined to put it on the heart of now a Persian king by the name of Cyrus to allow the Jewish people to go back to their homeland. Which is an amazing thing when you think about how a pagan king ruling in a foreign land had compassion on these Jewish people who had been there for 70 years. And now that this Persian king has taken over the Babylonian empire and now it's the Medo Persian empire, this Persian king says to those Jews who had been there for 70 years, you're free to go home. You're free to go home. Now most Jews will actually stay in Babylon. They've become assimilated, they've built homes, they've had families. And again, most of them over 70 years have been born there. So they don't even have any real motivation to go back. But for those who are motivated to go back, they do. And this book is their handbook to understand their heritage. Now, we've been talking, and I'm going to use the screens for this. We've been talking about how Israel really came to be as a nation. You trace their lineage back to Abraham, who was just a gentile, a heathen pagan guy living in what is today modern Iraq. God calls Abraham. Abraham has a son, Isaac. Isaac has a son, Jacob, whose name gets changed to Israel by God. Yaakov means deceiver, but Israel means governed by God. And then Jacob has 12 sons. Here are his 12 sons in chronological order of their birth. And these 12 sons then have children. And this becomes the nucleus for the nation of Israel. The 12 tribes of Israel are so called after the 12 sons of Israel, or the 12 sons of Jacob. Now, among these 12 sons, tonight we're going to focus here in chapter nine on son number three, Levi. He's got good genes, by the way. Okay, it's. Come on, it's late, it's Christmas season.
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Anyway, Levi's who we're going to look at now. And I want you to notice in your Bibles, some of your Bibles might be subtitled a little differently than mine, but we're going to see here in verse three, it talks about dwellers in Jerusalem. How many of your Bibles has that subtitle? Okay, then if you look down to verse 10, it says the priests at Jerusalem. Here's where we get into the family of Levi. And then it says the Levites at Jerusalem in verse 14. And then the subtitle in verse 17 is the Levite gatekeepers. And then in verse 28, the subtitle is other Levite responsibilities. So we're going to spend some time looking at the family of Levi here, but first just glance at verse three where it says this. Now, in Jerusalem, the children of Judah dwelt, and some of the children of Benjamin and of the children of Ephraim and Manasseh. So the writer of Chronicles is saying, here is the basic citizenry of the city of Jerusalem. It was comprised of some of the tribe of Judah, some of Benjamin, some of Ephraim and Manasseh. Those were two sons of Joseph, one of the sons of Jacob. And so then he lists and, and I've, as I've been saying through Chronicles, there's a long list of names that I just don't want to butcher. So he lists in verse four, down through verse nine, all these various people who became the citizens of Jerusalem upon their return. And then he starts here in verse 10 about the priests at Jerusalem and also the Levites at Jerusalem. So let me again refer to the board here and to talk about the family of Levi. Levi has three sons, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. And I'm just going to follow now the center of the, of the genealogical record. Kohath has four sons. And this is in chronological order of their birth. Amram is the oldest. Then he has Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. And then Amran has three children, and the oldest is Miriam, and she has two brothers, Aaron and Moses. Moses is the baby of the family. And so those are siblings, Miriam, Aaron and Moses. And they take center stage. Now, when you look at this geographic, this genealogical list here, all of these people on the screen and their descendants, which obviously we're not going to list everybody here, they're all known as Levites. They're all known as Levites. And all the descendants of Levi were known as Levites. And they performed various duties in the temple. But Levites were different from priests. Every priest was a Levite, but not every Levite was a priest. Here's what I mean. The priestly order follows the center of this.
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Geological, geographical, genealogical. There's the word I'm looking for follows the genealogical record from Levi, Kohath, Amram, and to Aaron. And only the descendants of Aaron were priests who handled the sacred items and performed sacrifices. So again, all the descendants of Levi are known as Levites. But the responsibility for handling the sacred items and for performing sacrifices in the temple was reserved strictly for the descendants of Aaron. So all the descendants of Aaron are also Levites because they're descendant of Levi. But they were entrusted, Aaron and his descendants were entrusted with the sacred responsibility of handling the items and of sacrificing the animals in the temple of the Lord. So when we get here now to this section in verse 10 and it talks about priests and then it starts to talk about Levites, you might get confused, wondering, like, okay, who is who here? Okay, priests are all descendants of Aaron. Levites include the descendants of Aaron, but are everybody else who have come from the line of levi. So verse 10 it says of the priests Jediah, Jehorib and Jachim. Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshilam, the son of Zadok, the son of Marioth, the son of Ahoutub, the officer over the house of God. Again, all their names are listed here, verse 13.
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And their brethren, heads of their fathers houses, 1760. They were very able men for the work of the service of the house of God. And then the Levites of the Levites. And then it lists various names. Again, jump down to verse 17. And the gatekeepers were Shallum, Akub, Talmon, Ahiman, and their brethren. Shallum was the chief until then they had been gatekeepers for the camps of the children of Levi at the king's gate on the east. It's very interesting when you read through some of this stuff, you begin to realize that every responsibility that they had in the temple was honorable, was important, and that they all shared this responsibility of being gatekeepers, being singers, being worship leaders, being priests, to offer the sacrifices. And it was all to be done as unto the Lord, glorifying him, praising him. And they took their roles and responsibilities very, very seriously. The tribe of Levi was the designated tribe among the 12 sons of Jacob who had this awesome sacred responsibility to tend to the house of God and to the sacrifices that were offered there. So keep reading with me. In verse 19 it says, Shallum, the son of Kor, the son of Abiasaph, the son of Korah, and his brethren from his father's house. The Korahites were in charge of the work of the service, gatekeepers of the tabernacle. Their Fathers had been keepers of the entrance to the camp of the Lord. And Phinehas the son of Eleazar, had been the officer over them in time past. The Lord was with him. Zechariah, the son of Meshelemiah, was keeper of the door of the tabernacle of meeting. All those chosen as gatekeepers were 212. They were recorded by their genealogy in their villages. David and Samuel the Seer had appointed them to their trusted office. So they and their children were in charge of the gates of the house of the Lord, the house of the tabernacle. By assignment. The gatekeepers were assigned to the four directions, the east, west, north, and south. And their brethren in the villages had to come with them from time to time for seven days. For in this trusted office were four chief gatekeepers. They were Levites, and they had charge over the chambers and treasuries of the house of God. And they lodged all around the house of God because they had the responsibility and they were in charge of opening it every morning. It's very interesting when you see just all the detail here and how. How God was very detailed about where people served and how they served and why they served, the responsibility that they had in tending to the house of the Lord. Verse 28. Now, some of them were in charge of the serving vessels, for they brought them in and took them out by count. Some of them were appointed over the furnishings and over all the implements of the sanctuary and over the fine flour and the wine and the oil and the incense and the spices. And some of the sons of the priests made the ointment of the spices. Mattathiah of the Levites, the firstborn of Shallum, the Korahite had the trusted office over the things that were baked in the pans. And some of their brethren of the sons of the Kohathites were in charge of preparing the showbread for every Sabbath. These are the singers, heads of the fathers houses of the Levites who lodged in the chambers and were free from other duties, for they were employed in that work day and night. These heads of the fathers, houses of the Levites were heads throughout their generations. They dwelt at Jerusalem. So look, just pause for a moment. All of this to say. The duties and responsibilities were sacred rights and privileges that were assigned to the family of Levi. These were Levites. These were priests within the tribe of Levi. And all of this is very detailed to us because God is a God of detail. He's a God of order. When you think about what Satan is about, he's a God of. He's a God. He's a small g. He's a demonic principality of disorder and of chaos. God is a God of order. God is a God of structure. He designs things. He's detailed about these things. But at the end of the day, all these things were pointing to the ultimate sacrifice. All of these things and all of the details of the upkeep of the temple and the sacrificial system. It was all ultimately pointing to the one ultimate plan of God for the redemption of the whole world. And so this is a good reminder to us here from First Chronicles 9. There we go. Sorry, if you guys can turn the monitors back on, because I don't have those either. But this is a good reminder to us that the sacrificial system has been replaced by Jesus, who serves to be our sacrificial lamb and our high priest. He's both. This is 1 Corinthians 5:7, where Paul writes, for indeed Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. And then Hebrews 4:14, 16 says, seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Can you imagine how tedious it was back in that day to have to drag your lamb to the temple? And there was only one place you could go was the Temple of Jerusalem. That's where the sacrifices would be offered, the whole priestly system, where priests would be the intermediary between man and God. And they would represent man to God, they would represent God to man, and they would help in the sacrifice of these animals and then make atonement for the sins of the people. Very tedious. Very. And not to use British slang, but to be very literal to very bloody. It was a very bloody thing for them to engage in these kind of sacrifices. The Kidron Valley would flow black with the blood of these animals. Kidron in Hebrew means black. And the valley was named so because of the blood that would flow down the valley. So imagine the stench and the sounds of lambs bleating as they were being sacrificed. And all of this was pointing to the ultimate sacrifice, where Jesus would die on a cross for our sins. He was the lamb that takes away the sins of the world. And by his stripes we are Healed. He is our lamb, and he is also our high priest. Because now Jesus makes intercession. He is the intermediary between us and. And God. We don't need man in between us and God. Jesus is the God man. He is our high priest. He died for the sins of the world. He is our sacrificial lamb. And it's a fulfillment of all of this.
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So keep reading with me. So in verse 35, it. It talks about the family of King Saul. King Saul, of course, the first king of Israel. It just lists him among all the names here at the end of chapter nine. And then we move into chapter ten where we jump right to the end of Saul's life. And so again, Chronicles is intended to be a summary. It isn't giving us all the details, but it's an important summary of events. So when we get into chapter 10, it tells us the tragic end of Saul and his sons at the end of his reign. Verse 1. Now, the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell slain on Mount Gilboa. And then the Philistines followed hard after Saul and his sons. And the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malkishua, Saul's sons. The battle became fierce against Saul. The archers hit him, and he was wounded by the archers. And then Saul said to his armor bearer, draw your sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised men come and abuse me. But his armor bearer would not, for he was greatly afraid. And therefore Saul took a sword and fell on it. And so what we have here is we jump from the introduction of Saul to the end of his reign. And the Philistines have hit him with an arrow that wounded him but didn't kill him. But Saul knows he's dying, and he doesn't want the Philistines to finish him off because he knows that they're going to mutilate his body in some way. They're going to torture him. And so he asks his armor bearer, finish me off? The armor bearer says, I can't do that. And so Saul falls on his sword. And verse five says, and when his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword and died. And so Saul and his three sons died, and all his house died together. Now, what that means is all his house that was fighting in battle because Saul has another son who's not in battle. His name is Ish Bosheth, and for whatever reason, he wasn't with Them fighting, perhaps because they even understood that they might end up falling in battle. So they kept one of Saul's sons in the palace to succeed him. And that's what Ish Bosheth does. Ish Bosheth will become king of Israel for two years. He is often an unrecognized king because he's not a legitimate king. And so when David is mentioned as the. The next king of Israel, he is mentioned as the second king of Israel, because Ish Bosheth in many ways doesn't really count. He was not God. God's ordained successor to Saul. David was God's ordained successor to Saul. We know that because David had been anointed by the prophet Samuel when David was somewhere between 10 and 15 years of age. And this is now about 15 years later. And so we know who the next king of Israel is. It's David. But because Saul has died, Ish Bosheth asserts himself to the throne. He becomes recognized by the people as king for two years. But Saul and his three sons who were with him in battle, they all died. And it says in verse seven. And when all the men of Israel who were in the valley saw that they had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook their cities and fled. And then the Philistines came and dwelt in them. And so it happened the next day, this is verse eight, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. And they stripped him and took his head and his armor. Now, notice they are going to mutilate his body.
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They took his head. They cut his head off and they took his armor. And they sent word throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among the people. And then they put his armor in the temple of their gods and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon. Now, Dagon was the principal God of the Philistines. And Dagon was a.
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A, a God that they. It's not a mermaid. A mermaid is like a female half woman, half fish. But he was like a, a merman, okay? Because the God Dagon was half man and half fish. He had the head and the arms of a man. He had the body of a fish. And they have found archeological ruins that show a descript, a picture of this, of this God that they had created, that this God that they had fashioned with their hands. He was half man, half fish. His name is Dagon. They're like Dagon. What a weird God. And, and there he is. And they, they put, of all things, they fastened the head of Saul in the temple of their God. Now the Bible says in 1st Samuel, chapter 31 that they hung the corpse of Saul. It's a headless corpse now. They hung his body on the walls of Beit Shan, a city of Beit Shan. Those of you go with me to Israel. It's one of the places we stop. And Beit Sean in the Bible is recorded as that place where they hung Saul's body on the wall. Why did they do that? Because the Philistines saw that as a way of like putting a trophy on the wall. They had defeated King Saul, they had killed him and, and they wanted others to see their trophy. But notice what it says here in verse 11. And when all Jabesh, Gilead, these are the Jews, heard all that the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons and they brought them to Jabesh and buried their bones under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh and fasted seven days. They fasted seven days as a sign of mourning for their king who had died in battle. So these very valiant men, probably under the COVID of darkness, go and remove Saul's body and his son's bodies that have been hanging on the wall of Beitian. And they were valiant to recover their bodies in order to give them a proper burial, a respectful burial, not to have them as hanging like trophies of war because the Philistines had hung their bodies there. So these valiant Jewish men from Jabesh, Gilead, they go, they retrieve the bodies and the end of 1st Samuel 31 actually says that they cremated their bodies. It's one of the passages that I refer to when people ask me that age old question, is it okay for Christians to be cremated? Look, you see, Saul and his sons were cremated. The fact of the matter is from dust we were created and to dust we shall return. Cremation is a personal choice, but there's nothing in the Bible that prohibits you from being cremated. Because the fact is you're going to go back to dust. It's a matter of 30 minutes at about 1600 degrees Fahrenheit or 30 years by natural decomposition. Take your pick, you're going back to dust everybody. So they bury Saul and they give him a proper burial here. But I want you to notice the sad commentary on Saul's life here. It's verse 13.
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And so Saul died. Why? For his unfaithfulness which he had committed against the Lord because. And then it lists a few examples. Why was he unfaithful? Number one, he did not keep the word of the Lord. What was that about? There was a time early in Saul's reign when God commanded through the prophet Samuel that Saul needed to take all the Amalekites and kill them. They were a ruthless, idolatrous, pagan people. And God said to Saul, I want you to wipe them all out. Everything about the Amalekites, Saul decided instead, he would spare Agag, the king of the Amalekites, and he would take the plunder and he would preserve the best of the livestock. When Samuel confronts Saul.
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And asks him, why did he not destroy everything of the Amalekites? Saul says, but I did. And Samuel has this response that continues to ring through the pages of the Bible. Samuel says to Saul, well, if you wiped out everything, what is this bleating of the sheep and lowing of the cattle that I hear? And Saul's like, oh, that? Well, that's no big deal. I mean, I just thought, you know, we needed a few good livestock. And so Saul was disobedient because he did not follow the instructions of the Lord. And also it adds because he consulted a medium for guidance. This was the witch of Endor. This is also something that is a mark on Saul's reign against him. He consults this witch, the witch of Endor. She tapped into the demonic because he wanted wisdom. He wanted discernment about war. Instead of seeking God, he sought out a witch who practiced divination and sorcery. And then in verse 14, it says, and. But he did not inquire of the Lord. Therefore he, that's the Lord, killed him and turned the kingdom over to David, the son of Jesse. A couple of points here from Saul's life. Number one, please note this, everybody. 90% obedience is 100% disobedience. Saul was a 90% guy. It was very sad about his life because the Bible says he didn't even want to be king. He was reluctant. He even hid when the people were trying to select who they thought should be the first king, and they chose Saul. And Saul was hiding among baskets because he didn't even want to be seen. That's how humble he was. He didn't want this role as king, and yet he was selected. And so he became king. But quickly his humility turned to pride, and he started doing things in his own strength and his own power for his own glory. And he was otherwise a faithful guy. But he was only 90% faithful, and that's 100% unfaithfulness. 90% obedience is 100% disobedience. I don't think anybody here would say, if you're married, I want a spouse who's 90% faithful to me.
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Well, God doesn't want 90% faithfulness from us. He wants 100% faithfulness. And Saul was a 90% guy. And the other thing about Saul's life that I think is worth noting here is that even though this chapter ends, and it's pretty harsh here, it specifically says God killed him. So God allowed the Philistines to take him out. But what I want you to note with me is that from the time of Saul's first act of disobedience against the Lord of. Until the time that God took him out, it was about 15 years.
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15 years. What it says to me is another takeaway from this chapter, is God's mercy is in the waiting. I sincerely believe that 15 years. At any point during that time, if Saul had honestly turned to the Lord, the Lord would have had mercy on him. God is patient with us, and God gives us time to come clean with him. He is a merciful God, and his mercy is in the waiting. I think God could have taken him out the first time that Saul disobeyed him. But what God often does is he corrects us, and then he gives us a chance to get right with him. And he gave Saul 15 years to humble himself and to get right with the Lord. So taking him out wasn't God's first action. It was his last resort. Because Saul was a stubborn man and he was a proud man, and therefore God decided to kill him. So much to learn, because this is a clean break here before we go into chapter 11. I think for tonight, this is where we're going to park it. Let me close with a word of prayer. Father, we just thank you for this time in your word and from lessons we can learn, especially here from the life of Saul, how he was so humble at the beginning, but then he became so proud and so unwilling to humble himself and to repent, and so he suffered the consequences for it. We pray God that we would not be 90% people. We would be all in with you, that we would be 100% following after you with all our hearts, obedient Lord. And when we fail, when we sin, that we cry out to you and humble ourselves because you were so merciful to forgive us.
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And we just pray God that we would see your mercy in the waiting.
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That we would be quick to to repent before time runs out. Thank you for being such a merciful loving Father and we give you praise and glory in Jesus name. Amen and amen.